It will get much worse in Afghanistan

In the Asia Times, Syed Saleem Shahzad's latest article "Taliban will let guns do their talking" contains a warning that should strike fear in the hearts of anyone who knows a US or NATO soldier currently in Afghanistan:

In the process of running from pillar to post, though, the militants sought each other's help and established new lines of cooperation and coordination - and Mullah Omar once again became active.  A grand shura (council) was convened in the southwest, bringing together big and small commanders, including Abdullah Saeed, al-Qaeda's commander-in-chief for Afghanistan.  Mullah Omar, a source from the al-Qaeda camp told Asia Times Online, emphasized that each group should set up a coherent fighting strategy, and their preference should be Afghanistan. 
Significantly, a major role was envisaged for al-Qaeda and the Afghan war will now be its prime goal. Al-Qaeda will continue to shift its manpower from the Middle East to the South Asian war theater, especially from Iraq. These men bring with them vast experience, especially in the field of improvised explosive devices and ambush techniques. 

Ms. Alexandrovna, you are my favorite

On her blog at-Largely, Raw Story editor Larisa Alexandrovna has just explained the recent CIA assassination ring story perfectly.  You should read the whole post, but here is the final section.

A former Vice President (really President) - we will call him Mr. Smith - gets wind that a reporter will soon be coming out with a book in which it is alleged that Smith ran a death squad, which operated in several countries, including our own. Smith knows that he will have to admit to some of this, because the reporter has managed to get some incriminating information. Smith decides that he will get ahead of this story by controlling it. Smith's version will be that he had initiated a program to assassinate ONLY the really bad guys plotting to kill us. But, he decided against activating the program because it was illegal and he was having second thoughts. In Smith's version of the story, it will be admitted that Smith did in fact mislead Congress and ordered others to do so, but ONLY because the program was never activated.

Smith will then have a few loyal pals still active in government launder this version of events by planting the story in the press. Smith won't comment for the story, but Smith's daughter will do the TV rounds and point to the article(s) and say see, it never operated and if it had it would have only gone after the really evil guys who tried to blow up America. 

Also, everyone should listen to Alexandrovna's interviews on Antiwar Radio, especially concerning PlameGate (something else that Dick Cheney has recently been found culpable for).

The lighter side of life

"A Lawsuit Against a Genie"

Keeping up with Africom

As AFRICOM--the Pentagon's African Command Center--rarely breaks into the news, its worth posting any update on it that is found.  So far, AFRICOM's most prominent actions have been against Joseph Kony's Lord's Resistance Army in Congo.  In late 2008, AFRICOM helped the Ugandan government with the failed operation "Lightning Thunder," and it appears that recently the U.S. Congress has been pushing for more military help.

"In a little-noticed piece of bipartisan legislation introduced this spring — the LRA Disarmament and Northern Uganda Recovery Act — a group of U.S. lawmakers is urging the Obama administration to form a strategy for taking out one of the most dangerous rebel leaders roaming the jungles of Africa: Joseph Kony, the leader of the Lord’s Resistance Army."

Al-Jazeera English Comes to the U.S.

"Al Jazeera's "alternative" world view reaches US"

"The deal with MHZ, a Washington-based educational broadcaster, will beam AJE to 2.3 million North American viewers."

I wonder if this means that the U.S. military will end its practice of bombing al Jazeera offices.  I also wonder when Comcast will put AJE on its cable package (my guess is never).

CIA Secrets

"CIA has Secret al-Qaeda Plan"

Adding to the deluge of Bush era CIA programs that are now coming under intense Washington scrutiny, Siobhan Gorman of the Wall Street Journal has broken a story specifying the secret CIA program that DCI Leon Panetta terminated in June.  

So far, the story goes that Panetta was first told of the program by subordinates on June 23rd. Immediately following, "he ordered the program ended, requested the review of briefing practices and arranged to meet the Senate and House Intelligence Committees in closed-door sessions June 24 to inform them of the program."

According to Gorman, in the 45 minute sessions, Panetta informed the committee of a secret program that:

"Was an attempt to carry out a 2001 presidential authorization to capture or kill al Qaeda operatives... One former senior intelligence official said the program was an attempt "to achieve a capacity to carry out something that was directed in the finding," meaning it was looking for ways to capture or kill al Qaeda chieftains...Some officials who advocated the approach were seeking to build teams of CIA and military Special Forces commandos to emulate what the Israelis did after the Munich Olympics terrorist attacks, said another former intelligence official.....Eventually Mr. Bush issued the finding that authorized the capturing of several top al Qaeda leaders, and allowed officers to kill the targets if capturing proved too dangerous or risky. 

Panetta also told the two Intelligence Committees that Dick Cheney had "directly ordered" the CIA to conceal the program from Congress over the past eight years.

Following the briefing, members on both committees were very upset.  Diane Fienstien (D-CA) who chairs the Senate Intelligence Committee, stated that "this is a big problem, because the law is very clear. ...And I understand the need of the day...— but this — I think you weaken your case when you go outside of the law."

In the Blogosphere, Laura Rozen speculates that the Presidential finding may have allowed Americans to assassinate people in friendly countries without consulting the allied government.  Congress already knows that the CIA captures and kills targets in foreign countries, either through drone strikes or elite commandos.  It does not matter if the foreign government approves the murder in a place like Pakistan (where the practice infuriates the puppet government) but if the country was Britain or Germany, the Democratic Congress would definitely go apeshit.  This may also be the "executive assassination ring" story that Seymour Hersh has been sitting on for a couple months now.

Mindfuck of a Video

This is an advertisement for an Israeli cellphone company.  It features Israeli soldiers playing soccer with Palestinians over the Israeli built concrete wall that runs roughly along (and sometimes exceeds) the pre-1967 border of Israel.  Considering that Israel just imprisoned a former U.S. congresswoman for trying to bring toys into Palestine, the commercial, while a nice dream, seems further from reality than ever before.

Propaganda

Did anyone else notice this paragraph, tucked into the middle of the New York Time's current attempt at propaganda, "A Call to Jihad, Answered in America:"

The story of the Twin Cities men does not lend itself to facile categorizations. They make up a minuscule percentage of their Somali-American community, and it is unclear whether their transformation reflects any broader trend. Nor are they especially representative of the wider Muslim immigrant population, which has enjoyed a stable and largely middle-class existence.

I just wonder why a report detailing a "miniscule percentage" that is "not especially representative" warrants a front page, above the fold placement in the Sunday Edition, complete with two page spread inside, including around 5 color photographs.  I'm just saying.

The Federal Reserve

A nice report on the Federal Reserve and Congressman Ron Paul's legislation to audit the private bank.

Colonialism in Iraq

The newest Tomdispatch, "Colonizing Iraq: The Obama Doctrine?" by Michael Schwartz, released on Thursday, was conveniently timed to follow up on a drunken argument i had on Wednesday night.  I was trying to talk about the Iraq War with a bunch of hipsters (some of them remarkably eloquent), and one in particular couldn't conceive of the application of new-age imperialism, whether it be called neocolonialism, neoliberal colonialism, or anything else.  Thankfully Dr. Schwartz and Mr. Englehardt come around the next day to arm me with an abundance of evidence.

Schwartz's point is fairly succinct:

"Traditional colonialism was characterized by three features: ultimate decision-making rested with the occupying power instead of the indigenous client government; the personnel of the colonial administration were governed by different laws and institutions than the colonial population; and the local political economy was shaped to serve the interests of the occupying power. All the features of classic colonialism took shape in the Bush years in Iraq and are now, as far as we can tell, being continued, in some cases even strengthened, in the early months of the Obama era."

Following this is a detailed point by point breakdown of how Americans still control Iraq in matters military and economic.  I think that the scariest point the author makes is how the occupation of Iraq is beginning to resemble the occupation of Palestine.  (However, i would argue that the authors phrase "may have been borrowed" does not come close to indicating the level of collusion between Israel and America in Iraq):

"Recently, the occupation has also been appropriating various streets and roads for its exclusive use (an idea that may have been borrowed from Israel's 40-year-old occupation of the West Bank). This innovation has made unconvoyed transportation safer for embassy officials, contractors, and military personnel, while degrading further the Iraqi road system, already in a state of disrepair, by closing useable thoroughfares."

Once Again, thank you Tomdispatch.com for not fearing the truth.