Dr Thomas Barnett ..."The Pentagons New map"

Webster Tarpley WCR 26/12/09..8 parts...

Webster Tarpley WCR 19/12/09....8 parts...

Webster Tarpley Podcast vault :

http://gcnlive.com/podcast/world_crisis/pcast.php

The CRU...

Sunday, 20 December 2009
The CRU ....

Saturday, 19 December 2009
climate change and peak oil

Thanks to anynoymous for the tip on this one.

James Dellingpole is a good writer, a fine stand in for the irreplacable Mark Steyn



http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/



This is a guest post by contributor Andrew30 (whose full name I’ll give you when he reminds me via email). He put it up in comments but it’s so interesting it really deserves a blog all to itself).

Why would a Middle Eastern kingdom be funding a British Climate research business?

Oman has just completed a massive investment in LNG, and developed and installed new CO2 removal technology in their process; this lowers the carbon footprint of their gas. So using their gas to drive electricity generation will be less costly once CO2 is taxed.
They have no problem with this whole thing.

Saudi Arabia, who have oil and not so much gas, are in a different position, they have a problem with this whole thing.

Just an observation; a 4 degree rise in temperature in the Sultanate of Oman or Saudi
Arabia would change it from really hot to really hot.

Maybe it is just good business.

http://www.omanlng.com/

Oman LNG L.L.C
Formed: Set up by Royal Decree in February 1994.
Location: Head office: Muscat; Plant: Qalhat near Sur (approx 340 km from Muscat)
Products: Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG).
Shareholders: Government of Oman 51 %, Royal Dutch/Shell Group 30%, Total Elf Fina 5.54%, KOLNG 5%, Partex 2% Mitsubishi 2.77%, Mitsui 2.77%, ltochu 0.92%.

The Climate Research Unit (CRU) in the UK was set up in 1971 with funding from Shell and BP as is described in the book: “The history of the University of East Anglia, Norwich; Page 285)” By Michael Sanderson. The CRU was still being funded in 2008 by Shell, BP, the Nuclear Installations Inspectorate and UK Nirex LTD (the nuclear waste people in the UK)

This is important to know, for two reasons.
Firstly, the key institution providing support for Global Warming theories and the basis for the IPCC findings receives funding from “Big Oil” and the nuclear power industry.

Secondly, the research from the institution which is perceived to be independent publicly funded research, is actually beholden to soft money, CRU is in fact a business.

The funders of the CRU are on the bottom of this page from their website:
http://web.archive.org/web/20080627194858/http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/about/history/

So, there a business set up in the early 1970’s, so what?

I thought that this might explain a bit about how we got to where we are. I am not a conspiracy theorist but to me it looks like this may have been a very, very long term plan. Of course it could all just be coincidental, but it does seem to fit the observable information.

A few weeks ago I explained the apparent CRU fraud to a friend of mine, a believer in AGW; he said ‘Why would they do it?’ I indicated the Jones had received 22 million, etc, but he countered, ‘For a fraud this large, going on for this long, there would have to be billions of dollars to be made, not millions’. That made sense.

So I looked into it a bit. First this is no short term thing, it covers two or three decades, involves many countries and government on both sides of the isle, the US alone has had 4 different presidents and the UK a similar number of prime ministers, Canada the same. So is it not political in the partisan sense of the word.

If, and this is a big if, you make the assumption that the objectives were:

1. Provide a smooth replacement of the use of oil in power generation and transportation, so as to avoid a panic over Peak Oil.
2. Get people to buy into Nuclear Power so that base load electrical power generation would not consume the available fossil fuel supply.
3. Get the people to really want to pay for it all.

Note: The IEA put a date on peak oil production THIS WEEK, so if the CO2 scare does not pan out they are already starting to put the ‘Peak Oil’ story into play. It is also the 2020 date, why am I not surprised.

http://www.economist.com/businessfinance/displaystory.cfm?story_id=15065719

Then the following is not unbelievable.

The newer scrubber technology for coal fired plants was moving along well back then, and in fact today their scrubbers can remove pretty much everything except CO2. However there is really not much money in coal, it is abundant, easy to handle, local in most instance to the base load demand for electricity, and a coal fired power plant is not much more complicated, or expensive, then a good steam engine.

Since there was not enough money in coal it would not be financially rewarding to simply try to promote coal as a replacement for oil.

So they looked at the situation and realized that the difference between the different technologies to replace base load power generation was the amount of CO2 per kilowatt/hour.

At that point CO2 became the target. That happened sometime between 1985 and 1988.

Now, the environmental movement is comprised mostly of followers, you can look up ‘dihydrogen monoxide’ (water), on many occasions at environmental conferences comedians and light news organizations have managed to get lots of environmentalists to sign a petition to ban dihydrogen monoxide. So apparently they do not do a lot of independent analysis before making a conclusion, they are mostly followers.

So if you need a large number of followers, there is a ready supply, but you need people, a few leaders, to tell the followers what to think. The followers do not need to, or perhaps even want to, know the reason or the facts; they just need something or someone to follow.

Now you gain control of a climate research business, and begin the task of demonizing CO2, you realize that it will take years but that is OK, there are billions of dollars waiting at the end. Slowly over time you manage to get control of the worlds climate data and begin adjusting it, you use what you have been told by the marketing people to present the information needed in as clear and scary manager as is possible. Remember the two biggest motivators are fear and greed, and in this case, because of the number of followers greed will not work. There are simply too many followers to pay them all off.

So there we have it, a campaign of fear, based on non-science emanating from a few leaders that ultimately drive the followers to do something that would just not have been possible after Three Mile Island.

They are marching in the streets of Copenhagen in support of nuclear power. They do not know this of course, but that is what the plan on the table says. Check it out, look at exactly what are the big technologies being pushed at the summit. I will give you a hint, it is not windmills.

They are also marching in Copenhagen against big business, while supporting one of the biggest businesses possible, the World Bank. Is it not strange that the Dutch Text looks to have the World Bank control the trillions being put on the table? So they are marching against exactly what they are supporting, they are simply followers.

Perhaps you can fill in the blanks between the possible objectives I mentioned earlier and where we find ourselves today. Fill in the blanks, connect the dots and follow the money. Look at the funders, how many are involved in delivery, support, financing and maintenance of the movement of liquid energy and the generation of nuclear power.

I do not think this was ever about the environment.

There are lots of other things that may tie into this, like GE buying and now selling a
TV network, they needed then but do not need it now, a bit of a stretch perhaps but GE is a big player in gas and nuclear power generation. Look around, there are others.

That said; I do believe that the world does need to move to nuclear power for base load power generation, and I do believe that the Peak Oil problem is a real threat to stability.

So I agree with the objectives and encourage the outcome, I just do not like them messing with the science and trying, nay succeeding, in conning the masses to agree to it all.

Perhaps there was someone inside the CRU that felt the same way; the means were wrong regardless of the merits of the objectives, so they let slip the package in the hope that someone could figure out what they could not just come out and say publicly.

This thing would not need thousands of scientists to be involved. All that was need was for one or two people in perhaps five or six countries to adjust the raw data. Anyone using the data when making a comparison to CO2 would find the results that had been seeded into the data. The scientists would not be aware that they were being played. They would honestly think that their conclusions were correct. Only none of their predictions would ever be confirmed.

All the papers that used the data, and all the papers that used those papers for support, would therefore be invalid. In the vast majority of the cases I would expect that the authors are without blame, they made no mistake. The mistake was encoded into the base data before they even started.

Only the ones that actually were in control of the raw data and making the ‘adjustments’ needed to know of the exact requirements of the adjustment needed to seed the outcome into the data. When a scientist begins to say things like “the data must be wrong”, or “our monitoring is deficient”, perhaps they might not have been in on the ‘adjustments’ and they are likely frustrated because their model ‘works’ for the past and recent past. Think “We can’t explain the lack of warming”, perhaps the author of that email could not, but perhaps someone else could.

It would only have taken a dozen people in just the right places, and remember it took years to pull this off.

So who might have put these people in just the right place all those years ago, and why?

Central Asian Energy corridor

Sunday, 20 December 2009
The Energy Corridor in Central Asia

About 25 countries have promised to send more troops to Afghanistan in response to President Obama's call for extra support from Nato members. But France and Germany, the two European powers who could make a real difference, remain as hesitant as ever.

French and German leaders now face a painful choice. Should they finally embrace Nato's efforts in Afghanistan more wholeheartedly – which would mean accepting significantly more human and material sacrifices? Or should they or conclude that the war has already been lost, or that "success" does not merit the cost, and abandon the mission altogether?

For their own good, they should choose the first option. They should remember that unlike the war in Iraq, which they strongly opposed from the outset, all Nato member states, including themselves, unanimously and unambiguously sanctioned the war effort in Afghanistan in 2001. But aside from the need to fulfil their alliance duties – and in fact even more important – they have clear national interests at stake in this strategically located central Asian state.

This is not about just about pre-empting future terrorist attacks on European capitals by stopping the Taliban from retaking the country. At stake in Afghanistan is the survival of the transatlantic alliance, Europe's energy security and independence, and whether the deepening ties between Europe – especially Germany – and Russia, will eventually lead to the western integration of Russia, or instead, to it gaining a stranglehold over European energy security. In Afghanistan all three issues are interlinked. This fact remains largely ignored.

Let me explain: Afghanistan is a crucial energy transit corridor in central Asia, potentially connecting the energy-rich central Asian republics with the Arabian Sea and/or the Indian Ocean. Stabilising Afghanistan – not just temporarily to justify withdrawal, but for good – is crucial for the anticipated Trans-Afghanistan pipeline from Turkmenistan to India (known as Tapi) to be built and its security to be guaranteed.

The construction of Tapi is essential for Europe to diversify its energy supplies and reduce its dependence on oil and gas imports from the Gulf and Russia. Failure in Afghanistan, and by extension in Pakistan, would mean abandoning the construction of Tapi and in turn, pave the way for Russia to reassert its former hegemony in the region.

Should this transpire, European dependence on Russian-controlled energy supplies would increase hugely, giving Russia unprecedented leverage over Europe, both economically and politically. A Russia-dependent Europe would damage the transatlantic relationship beyond repair, wean the Europeans away from their former American partner, and split the west into two.

On the other hand, should the mission in Afghanistan succeed and Tapi be built, Europe could continue to deepen its economic and political ties with Russia without running the risk of falling hostage to Russia's geostrategic ambitions (which are still very much alive); it would allow Europe to progressively integrate Russia into a united west.

Despite the emphasis in public on the need for more military assistance, the US knows that France and Germany will not be able to raise troop levels to any meaningful level. President Obama's plea should rather be understood as a more general call for Europeans to do more – namely, to significantly increase their financial support and to bring their technical knowhow and nation-building expertise to bear. But most importantly, the US wants Europe to unmistakably embrace the US and Nato mission in Afghanistan publicly, in order to demonstrate revived western unity and strength.

Maybe the time has now come for French and German leaders to realise that the interests at stake in Afghanistan far outweigh the costs involved in pursuing them, and ensure that in a few years down the line the newspaper headlines will read "Mission accomplished" rather than "Afghanistan: where the west went to die – and did

Webster Tarpley Interviewed ..Bristol UK tour ..7 parts...

Blair preaching globalisation....Yale 10/12/09

Webster Tarpley WCR 12/12/09...8 parts...

Afghanistan....Escalate to Exit

Ahead of his address to the nation on December 1, The New York Times broke the news in an Eric Schmitt article titled, "Obama Issues Order for More Troops in Afghanistan," saying:

During a late November 29 Oval Office meeting with top Pentagon brass, "Obama issued orders to send about 30,000 additional American troops to Afghanistan (over the next six months in) what may be one of the most defining decisions of his presidency." Compounding months of public betrayal, it's perhaps another outrage that will make him a one-term president, the way Vietnam ended Lyndon Johnson's hope for a second term.

An additional 30,000+ will raise US forces to about 100,000 plus whatever additional numbers NATO countries provide that at best will be small and come grudgingly for a war no one believes can be won, and some feel never should have been waged.

To these numbers, add a shadow footprint consisting of tens of thousands of private contractors - 73,968 according to a September 21, 2009 Congressional Research Service (CRS) Report as of June 2009. Included are familiar names like Kellogg, Brown and Root, Fluor Corp, Lockheed Martin and hired guns like DynCorp and Xe (formerly Blackwater USA) costing tens of billions of dollars in Iraq and Afghanistan for lack of oversight so scandalous that rampant waste, fraud, and abuse go unmonitored and will worsen with more troops.

In addition, CRS reports that supporting each soldier costs $1 million a year, partly because private contractors replaced US troops at a far higher expense plus no oversight giving them license to steal for over eight years and do it as well in Iraq. Yet policy going forward will worsen things and greatly increase costs, already over-stretched by America's largest ever military budget at a time the country has no enemies.

Worse still, besides earlier in the year reinforcements, more buildup "represents a high-stakes gamble by a new commander in chief that he can turn....an eight-year old" quagmire into victory, a possibility many in the Pentagon think unlikely to impossible and other experts agree.

According to Schmitt, Obama will test "his ability to rally an American public that according to polls has grown sour on the war, as well as (vice president Joe Biden and) his fellow Democracts in Congress" - like Senator Carl Levin, Armed Services Committee chairman, as well as Colin Powell, and his Afghan ambassador, Karl Eikenberry.

On condition of anonymity, a senior Defense Department official told The Times that "the first additional troops would be thousands of Marines sent to opium-rich Helmand Province, a Taliban stronghold in the south....(They'll begin arriving) in January (to be) followed by a steady flow of tens of thousands."

A November 25 Washington Post Scott Wilson article titled, "War speech to outline escalation and exit" strategies will "outline plans for ending it. (He'll) outline a modest endgame (to) allow US forces to leave and set a general time frame" in 2011, according to some, and after what's announced, beginning in July 2011, over a decade after American forces arrived.

Timelines are always flexible, and Obama hedged by saying withdrawal depends on "conditions on the ground," with further interventions likely because "The struggle against violent extremism will not be finished quickly. (It) extends well beyond Afghanistan and Pakistan," meaning Iran, Somalia, and perhaps Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador and/or Cuba, given the Pentagon's growing presence in Colombia as a regional garrison for waging hemispheric conflicts.

Yet he said America can't afford and shouldn't shoulder an open-ended commitment - which, among others, begs these questions:

-- besides the situation in Iraq, why are we in Afghanistan at all; and

-- why for an unwinnable, illegal war over-stretching the federal budget toward bankruptcy while ignoring vital homeland needs.

Also, opposition is increasing, including among congressional Democrats. The situation is unstable and much depends on uncontrollable factors and a growing conviction that after eight years, the war is lost and withdrawal, not escalation is advised.

Others fear imperial madness, perpetual wars, the illusion of Pax Americana, and the nation transitioning toward tyranny, already entrenched with a strong foothold, but who'll tell the public when the media won't, and everyone knows politicians lie, especially the president and others with power.

Nonetheless, Obama told West Point cadets he'll "bring this war to a successful conclusion," and added:

"America, we are passing through a time of great trial. And the message that we send in the midst of these storms must be clear: that our cause is just, our resolve unwavering....If I did not think that the security of the United States and the safety of the American people were at stake in Afghanistan, I would gladly order every single one of our troops home tomorrow" - while telling foreign allies: "This is not just America's war."

Fact Check

Planned a year or more in advance, America willfully, maliciously, illegally, and preemptively attacked a non-belligerent nation (four weeks after 9/11 on October 7) in violation of international and US laws. Those responsible are war criminals. Those continuing it, including congressional members funding it, are as well. Those claiming America's security was threatened lied. It wasn't then. It's not now, and international and US laws are clear.

The UN Charter's Article 51 allows the "right of individual or collective self-defense if an armed attack occurs against a Member....until the Security Council has taken measures to maintain international peace and security."

In other words, justifiable self-defense is permissible. In addition, Charter Articles 2(3), 2(4), and 33 absolutely prohibit any unilateral threat or use of force not specifically allowed under Article 51 or authorized by the Security Council.

Three General Assembly resolutions concur, absolutely prohibiting "non-consensual military intervention:"

-- the 1965 Declaration on the Inadmissibility of Intervention in the Domestic Affairs of States and the Protection of Their Independence and Sovereignty;

-- the 1970 Declaration on Principles of International Law Concerning Friendly Relations and Cooperation among States in Accordance with the Charter of the United Nations; and

-- the 1974 Definition of Aggression, drawing largely on the UN Charter's Article II, paragraph 4 stating:

"All members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state, or in any other manner inconsistent with the Purposes of the United Nations."

Aggression was defined:

-- a "crime against peace;"

-- the "Invasion of a State by the armed forces of another State, with or without occupation of the territory; (and)

-- attacks on marine fleets."

The UN Charter's Article 39 provides for the Security Council to determine the existence of any act of aggression and "shall make recommendations, or decide what measures shall be taken in accordance with Articles 41 and 42, to maintain or restore international peace and security."

The Rome Statute of the International Court of Justice calls the crime of aggression one of the "most serious crimes of concern to the international community," and provides for it to fall under the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court (ICC) after state parties agree on a definition and define the conditions under which guilty parties may be prosecuted.

The Nuremberg Tribunal said:

"To initiate a war of aggression....is not only an international crime; it is the supreme international crime (against peace) differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole."

Under the Constitution's Supremacy Clause (Article VI, paragraph 20), the Constitution, federal statutes, and US treaties are "the supreme law of the land," including international laws (like Geneva) to which America is a signatory. The paragraph reads:

"This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any state to the Contrary notwithstanding."

US law is also clear and unequivocal. Under the Constitution's Article I, Section 8, only Congress may:

-- "....provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States....

-- ....declare war, grant letters of marque and reprisal, and make rules concerning captures on land and water;

-- "....provide and maintain a navy;

-- ....make rules for the government and regulation of the land and naval forces;

-- ....provide for calling forth the militia to execute the laws of the union, suppress insurrections and repel invasions; (and)

--....provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the militia, and for governing such part of them as may be employed in the service of the United States...."

Nowhere does it authorize a preemptive, imperial, aggressive attack on a non-belligerent nation.

The Founders considered declaring and waging wars so important that no single person, including the president, should decide it alone.

Congress last obeyed the law on December 8, 1941, the day after Pearl Harbor. Thereafter, every US war was illegal, according to the Constitution of the United States. By continuing such wars, President Obama stands guilty of war crimes and is fully accountable under US and international laws.

Further, under Article I, Section 7, only Congress may fund wars as:

"All bills for raising revenue shall originate in the House of Representatives; but the Senate may propose or concur with amendments as on other Bills."

Either body may originate appropriation bills, although the House claims sole responsibility for it. Either one may amend bills, including revenue and appropriation measures. Congress may resist defunding, but it's empowered to withhold future amounts without which wars and occupations aren't possible so the current ones would end.

Congressional appropriation power is key under Article I, Section 9, Clause 7 saying:

"No money shall be drawn from the treasury; and a regular statement and account of receipts and expenditures of all public money shall be published from time to time."

It means Congress alone has constitutional power over the federal budget, including the funding of wars. Cut it off and wars and occupations end, with or without presidential concurrence.

After years of congressional inaction, the 1972 Church-Clifford amendment, attached to foreign aid legislation, tried to end Southeast Asian war funding, but it was defeated in the House. However, the June 1973 Church-Case amendment succeeded after earlier attempts failed, and ended America's involvement in Vietnam. In the same year, over Richard Nixon's veto, Congress passed the War Powers Act (still the law) requiring the president to consult with Congress before authorizing troop deployments for extended periods.

Without congressional collusion, wars can't be fought or continued. The 111th Congress and most previous ones have been complicit in America's aggressive wars and share equal guilt with the president and top Pentagon brass. Ending wars politically are daunting, but doing so financially is as simple as cutting off funding.

Afghanistan's Tragic History: Ravaged by Wars Without End

For centuries, Afghanistan has been war-torn and ravaged by invaders, yet endured by repeatedly repelling them - more recently against Britain in the 19th and early 20th centuries and the Soviets in the 1980s. Today imperial America risks the same fate after eight failed years, yet those in power won't act because of Afghanistan's strategic importance and fear of strong repercussions from an opposition looking for reasons to criticize.

As a result, Afghans keep suffering the way John Pilger poignantly described under conditions there in his 2006 book, "Freedom Next Time, saying:"

"Throughout all the humanitarian crises in living memory, no country has been abused and suffered more, and none helped less than Afghanistan." He described Kabul like many parts of the country today, plagued by "contours of rubble rather than streets, where people live in collapsed buildings, like earthquake victims waiting for rescue (with) no light....heat," or relief from perpetual wars and human misery, the result of imperial invasions and internal conflicts.

Over time, the toll has been horrific:

-- unemployment is around 50%;

-- impoverishment is among the highest in the world affecting nearly two-thirds of the country;

-- in October 2008, spokesman for the UN mission in Kabul, Adrian Edwards, told the BBC that:

"The human conditions in Afghanistan are very serious. Continuous insecurity, drought and booming food prices on the world level are the main cause for the emergence of this situation but the condition in the future months is not tangible. There is no doubt that people are in dire need of food."

-- conditions today are no better and perhaps worse;

-- those with jobs don't earn enough to meet minimal needs;

-- life expectancy at 44 years is one of the lowest in the world;

-- the infant mortality rate is the world's highest with 20% of children dying before age five;

-- an Afghan woman dies in childbirth every 30 minutes;

-- 75% of the population has no access to safe drinking water;

-- homelessness is epidemic forcing many to live under deplorable conditions;

-- only one doctor is available per 6,000 people and one nurse per 2,500 people;

-- unexploded ordnance kills or wounds hundreds each month, a situation worsening as conflict persists;

-- children are kidnapped and sold into slavery or murdered for their organs;

-- less than 6% of Afghans have access to electricity, available only sporadically;

-- women's literacy is about 19%, and many have to beg on streets or turn to prostitution to survive.

In addition, no part of the country is safe. Internal conflict rages. Life for most Afghans is intolerable, and accounting for around 60% of its economy, Afghanistan is the world's largest opium producer.

On September 2, 2009, the UN Office on Drugs and Crime reported that opium cultivation dropped to 123,000 hectares, down from the 2007 193,000 hectare peak. However, production fell only 10% to 6,900 tons from 2008 because farmers get more yield per bulb. At the same time, world demand is stable at around 5,000 tons, much less than Afghanistan supplies. In contrast, prior to America's invasion, the Taliban eradicated 94% of opium production, reducing it to 185 tons according to UN figures.

Under eight years of occupation, it again flourishes, mostly benefitting organized crime, the CIA, and powerful Western business and financial interests, in America most of all.

Also, in its latest 2009 report, Transparency International ranks Afghanistan the world's second most corrupt country after Somalia under its US-backed Transitional Federal Government and African Union paramilitary peacekeepers. Occupied Iraq ranks fifth, further testimony to imperialism's exploitive failure and its harm to targeted countries.

Meanwhile, since Afghan commander, Gen. Stanley McChrystal, took charge of US and NATO forces last June, he's favored more troops for a wider war he can't win using similar tactics he was infamous for as head of the Pentagon's Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) - established in 1980 and comprised of the Army's Delta Force and Navy seals, de facto death squads writer Seymour Hersh once described as an "executive assassination wing" operating out of Dick Cheney's office.

While escalating the Afghan war, he's also destabilizing Pakistan to balkanize both countries, weakening them by design to control the Caspian Sea's oil and gas riches and their energy routes to secured ports for export. The strategy includes encircling Russia, China, and Iran, obstructing their solidarity and cohesion, toppling the Iranian government, perhaps attacking its nuclear sites, eliminating Israel's main regional rival, defusing a feared geopolitical alliance, and securing the ultimate goal of unchallenged Eurasian dominance in a part of the world rich in oil, gas and other vital minerals.

It's a huge task for any commander, let alone a man James Petras calls a "notorious psychopath" who's perhaps the right man to pin failure on if things go sour or if popular discontent reaches critical mass, forcing withdrawal like from Vietnam. Blame it on the general, not the commander-in-chief who appointed him who may not get off easily, nor should he given an ill-chosen strategy cooler heads want to avoid, but not vocal hawks who demand he press on no matter the long odds or overstretched the budget, threatening bankruptcy because of its unaffordability combined with bailing out Wall Street and other obligations.

The die is cast. Escalation is now fact by a man promising change, delivering betrayal, and seeing his approval rating fall from a 68% late January high to 47% according to the December 1 Rasmussen Report, a number steadily falling because growing numbers of supporters are losing faith. Heading into 2010, the combination of economic hardship, eroding civil liberties, and wasted billions on futile wars promises to raise public discontent and disapproval of a president and Congress they no longer trust. What's disturbing is why they did in the first place.

Webster Tarpley WCR 5/12/09...8 parts....

Webster Tarpley WCR 28/11/09...8parts...

Depleted Uranium

In September this year, say campaigners, 170 children were born at Fallujah General Hospital, 24 per cent of whom died within seven days. Three-quarters of these exhibited deformities, including "children born with two heads, no heads, a single eye in their foreheads, or missing limbs". The comparable data for August 2002 -- before the invasion -- records 530 births, of whom six died and only one of whom was deformed.



The data -- contained in a letter sent by a group of British and Iraqi doctors and campaigners to the United Nations last month -- presaged claims made in a report in The Guardian yesterday that there has been a sharp rise in birth defects in the city. The paper quoted Fallujah General's director and senior specialist, Dr Ayman Qais, as saying: "We are seeing a very significant increase in central nervous system anomalies... There is also a very marked increase in the number of cases of brain tumours." Earlier this year Sky News reported a Fallujah grave-digger saying that, of the four or five new-born babies he buries every day, most have deformities. [right: Iraqi boys play with remains of US rocket.]



The campaigners' letter to the UN calls for an independent investigation to be set up, "the cleaning up of toxic materials used by the occupying forces, including depleted uranium and white phosphorus", and an inquiry launched to discover if any war crimes have been committed.



The campaigners believe that either white phosphorus or depleted uranium is a major, if not only, cause of the birth defects. White phosphorus, which US military has admitted firing on insurgents in heavily populated Fallujah, has a long history of military use, dating back to the First World War.



And although no scientific study has ever proved a causal link between depleted uranium and serious medical problems Ð and several studies seem to have proved the opposite -- it is by no means in the clear. Ever since the first Gulf War, its use has been linked to cancers among returning troops.



WHAT IS DEPLETED URANIUM?



Depleted Uranium, or DU, is a waste material left over from the nuclear industry. A vast amount of this waste DU is produced when natural uranium is enriched for use in nuclear reactors and nuclear weapons. Only the uranium isotope U-235 can be used in nuclear processes, such as reactors and weapons. As most of this isotope is removed from naturally occurring uranium, the remaining uranium product comprises U-238 and smaller amounts of the more highly radioactive U-235 and U-234. DU is both chemically toxic and radioactive. It is this latter product, the left over uranium, comprising mainly U-238, which has been used to make 'depleted' uranium weapons. It is used for weapons because this heavy, dense metal is judged by the army to be an excellent penetrator of enemy armour, tanks, and even buildings.



A large amount of DU in the stockpiles held in the United States has been contaminated with recycled spent nuclear fuel from nuclear reactors. For example trace amounts of U-236 and highly radioactive substances such as plutonium, neptunium and technetium were found in a DU anti-tank shell used in Kosovo. Hundreds of thousands of tons of this contaminated stock was exported to the UK, France and other countries in the 1990s. The extent to which this DU has been contaminated with recycled spent fuel is still unknown and undisclosed.



Governments have largely ignored the serious dangers this recycled fuel represents. A common defence used by the British and US governments and their militaries is to claim that depleted uranium is less radioactive than natural uranium and therefore does not constitute a risk to human health. This statement is, however, misleading. In its natural form uranium is present in our environment in very small quantities as an ore, for example in rocks and soil. Conversely, the DU used by the military has been concentrated relative to background amounts, and is therefore many times more radioactive than uranium ore.



In May 2003 Scott Peterson, a writer with the US newspaper CSM, examined radioactivity levels next to DU bullets in Baghdad and found Geiger-counter readings were 1900 times greater than background radiation levels next to DU bullets. When natural uranium is concentrated in a similar form to 'depleted' uranium it emits about 40% more alpha radiation, 15% more gamma radiation and around the same level of beta radiation. The chemical toxicity of uranium does not depend on the isotope, therefore enriched, 'normal', and depleted uranium are equally toxic chemically.



It is extremely difficult and expensive for the nuclear industry to store DU. It is thought that the US currently has 1 billion tonnes of depleted uranium radioactive waste, while the UK has at least 50,000 tonnes. This waste is stored in cylinders at many sites across the US and UK and is vulnerable to corrosion and leaks owing to ageing cylinders and outside storage. It is stored mainly in the form of depleted uranium hexafluoride (DUF6) which can leak if the corroding cylinders are breached. At least 10 cylinders are known to have breached during the past 10 years.



Turning this DU waste into weapons solves some of the problem faced by the Government and nuclear industry, concerning what to do with these large stockpiles. Not only is DU practically free of charge for the arms manufacturers, but it no longer has to be stored and monitored indefinitely.



THE HEALTH EFFECTS OF DEPLETED URANIUM



Depleted uranium is a risk to health both as a toxic heavy metal and as a radioactive substance. The UK and US Governments have long sought to play down these risks. While, as late as 2003, the UK Government was claiming that DU presented no harm to soldiers or civilians, yet accumulating and alarming evidence from scientists, soldiers and activists has forced them to back down and recognise the risks posed.(1) However what is clear from reading all major studies is that more research urgently needs to be done. There exists very little research on the effects of uranium contamination in humans and accurate tests to understand exposure doses from military uses of DU have never been done.



There are three main routes through which DU exposure on the battlefield takes place: inhalation, ingestion and wounding.(2) As a DU penetrator hits its target some of the DU from the weapon reacts with the air in the ensuing fire and becomes a fine dust (often called an 'aerosol') that makes inhalation and ingestion a possibility for those in the area. Even after the dust has settled, the danger remains that it may be resuspended in the future by further activity or the wind, and again pose a threat to civilians and others for many years into the future. DU particles have been reported as travelling twenty-five miles on air currents.(3) Open wounds also allow a gateway for DU into the body and some veterans have also been left with DU fragments in their bodies, remaining after combat.



Inhaled DU dust will settle in the nose, mouth, lung, airways and guts. As a DU penetrator hits its target, the high temperatures caused by the impact ensure the DU dust particles become ceramic and therefore water insoluble. This means that, unlike other more soluble forms of uranium, DU will stay in the body for much longer periods of time. This aspect of uranium toxicology has often been ignored in studies of the health effects of DU, which base their excretion rates on soluble uranium. DU dust can remain in the sticky tissues of the lung and other organs such as the kidneys for many years. It is also deposited in the bones where it can remain for up to 25 years.(4) This helps explain why studies of Gulf War veterans have found that soldiers are still excreting DU in their urine over 12 years after the 1991 conflict (5) . Ingested DU can be incorporated into bone and from there will irradiate the bone marrow, increasing the risk of leukaemia and an impaired immune system. (6)



External exposure to DU entails exposure to alpha, beta and gamma radiation. Although the skin will block alpha particles, beta and gamma radiation can penetrate beyond the dead outer skin layers and damage living tissue. Beta particles can penetrate to a depth of 2 cm, while gamma radiation (through a process called 'the Compton effect') generates beta particle radiation along its trajectory through the body. Neither is all external exposure to alpha radiation harmless. Cataracts, for example, can be caused by exposure to alpha radiation.(7)



Inside the body, DU poses a health risk in a variety of ways to different organs. The kidneys are the first organ to be dfamaged by DU. At a high dose kidney uranium levels can lead to kidney failure within a few days of exposure.8 Lower doses lead to kidney dysfunction, and can lead to an increased risk of kidney disease later in life.



As a radioactive emitter, DU also presents a risk to the lungs. Traditionally, radiation dosimetry measures the extent of harm by calculating the external radiation absorbed by the tissues; the so-called 'absorbed' dose.(9)However because DU dust is inhaled or ingested, it can remain in the body tissues and emit intensive radiation over a longer period. This way it can cause a large amount of damage over a relatively small area, changing a person's genetic codes and causing cancers. For these reasons soldiers and civilians exposed to DU risk developing lung cancers, particularly if they are smokers because their lungs will already have been irritated.



There is much new evidence emerging about the risks from so-called 'low level' radiation and the damage it can do to DNA. Considerable evidence has been accumulated recently about the 'by-stander' effect, which shows that irradiated cells pass on damage to surrounding healthy cells. In this way it is thought low-level radiation can cause much greater damage than would otherwise be expected.(10) Studies have also shown that irradiated cells pass on chromosomal aberrations to their progeny so that non-irradiated cells several generations, or cell divisions later, will exhibit this radiation-induced genomic instability (RIGI).(11)



New evidence is also suggesting that the chemical toxicity of DU and its radioactivity reinforce each other in a so-called 'synergistic effect', which means it 'punches above its own weight' in terms of the damage it can do to cells. Alexandra Miller of the US Armed Forces Radiobiology Research Institute in the USA found in a study in 2003 that when human bone cells are exposed to DU, fragments break away from the chromosomes and form tiny rings of genetic material. This damage was seen in new cells more than a month after removal of the DU, leading to an eight-fold increase in genetic damage relative to that expected.


It's not just in terms of increased risk of cancer that DU DNA damage can affect health. It is also implicated in causing a depressed immune system, reproductive problems, and birth defects. For example, a study of US Gulf War veterans has found that they are up to three times as likely to have children with birth deformities than fathers who had not served; and that pregnancies result in significantly higher rates of miscarriage.(12) A major 2004 Ministry of Defence-funded survey study from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine has found that babies whose fathers served in the first Gulf War are 50 per cent more likely to have physical abnormalities. They also found a 40 per cent increased risk of miscarriage among women whose partners served in the Gulf.



In Basra, in southern Iraq, there have been striking reports for a number of years about the rise in local childhood cancers and birth deformities seen there. The findings of a leading Iraqi epidemiologist, Dr Alim Yacoub,13 were presented in New York in June 2003 and suggest there has been a more than five fold increase in congenital malformations and a quadrupling of the incidence rates of malignant diseases in Basra.(14)



The Dutch Journal of Medical Science reported the findings of the Flemish eye doctor, Edward De Sutter. He found 20 cases out of 4000 births in Iraq of babies with the phenomenon anophthalmos: babies who have been born with only one eye or who are missing both eyes. The very rare condition usually only affects 1 out of 50 million births.



The damaging effects to health that DU weapons present are of particular concern because of the likelihood of civilians becoming exposed after conflicts have ended. Children especially are at risk because of playing in and ingesting contaminated soil and most of the health risks discussed are of particular danger to younger children.



ENVIRONMENTAL CONTAMINATION FROM DU



The release of DU into the environment can pollute land and water for decades to come. Its danger is not limited to battlefield releases but will expose present and future generations of civilians to contaminated food and water supplies. Environmental releases of this sort can also be expected to have negative effects on plant and animal life although little is known about this.



DU dust in the environment can become resuspended through weather conditions and human activity, such as farming. Of particular worry is that children are especially vulnerable to receiving significant exposures through playing on sites and ingestion of contaminated soil by way of typical hand-to-mouth activity.



DU can also contaminate soil through corrosion from the original penetrator. It is believed that 70-80% of all DU penetrators used in the Gulf and the Balkans remain buried in the soil. A United Nations Environment Programme study in Spring 2002 found that recovered penetrators had decreased in mass by 10-15%. Corrosion can feed uranium into groundwater, where it can travel into local water supplies. DU in soil can also enter the food chain since it is taken up by plants grown in it and by animals used for food. A UNEP post- conflict report on Bosnia and Herzegovina has indeed found that DU had also leached into local groundwater. The same study found that radioactive hotspots persisted at some of the sites studied. Klaus Toepfer, the Executive Director of UNEP, said at the time, "Seven years after the conflict, DU still remains an environmental concern and, therefore, it is vital that we have the scientific facts, based upon which we can give clear recommendations on how to minimise any risk".



The British and US militaries have demonstrated extreme irresponsibility in releasing DU into the environment, using it without proper monitoring or information about the risks it poses even in their own countries. In January 2003, the US Navy admitted routinely firing DU from its Phalanx guns in prime fishing waters off the coast of Washington state since 1977. At the Dundrennan testsite in Scotland around 30 tonnes of DU rounds have been fired into the Solway Firth. Only one has ever been retrieved, when it was found in a fisherman's net.



Both governments have been equally callous in their disregard concerning the long term risk to civilians in countries where they have used DU.



DU AND THE MILITARY



DU is used in a variety of military applications. It is attractive to the military, governments and the nuclear industry for three main reasons. Firstly, as mentioned earlier, it is in cheap and plentiful supply and solves the problem of storage and monitoring. Secondly, it is a very effective battlefield weapon because its high density and self-sharpening qualities enable it to penetrate hard targets with ease. Thirdly, DU is pyrophoric, which means it burns on impact, enhancing its ability to destroy enemy targets. The UK test firing of DU began at the Eskmeals range in Cumbria in the early 1960s. Testing continues today at Dundrennan, in Southern Scotland, most recently before the 2003 attack on Iraq. DU is now used in two types of ammunition in the British armed forces: the 120 mm anti-tank rounds (CHARM 3), which is fired by the Army's Challenger tanks and 20mm rounds used by the Royal Navy's Phalanx Close-In Weapon System (a missile defence system). The Phalanx system was developed by the US Navy and is used by both the Australian and British Navies. In 1993, a leaked Pentagon report revealed how the use of DU could lead to increased cancer risks: this leak caused the US manufacturers to switch to tungsten alternatives. Because of this the Royal Navy has been forced to convert its replacement ammunition to tungsten too, although it still has stockpiles of DU.



The US military uses DU mainly for its Abrahams tanks and A10 warplanes, although it is also used in its Bradley fighting vehicles, AV-8B Harrier aircraft, Super Cobra helicopter and its Navy Phalanx system. It is also used by the US military for a variety of other applications including bombshells, tank armour plating, aircraft ballast and anti-personnel mines. Although the US and UK militaries are the only countries who have been properly documented as using DU weapons, they are known to be held by at least seventeen other countries including: Australia, Bahrain, France, Greece, Israel, Jordan, Kuwait, Pakistan, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, Turkey, and the United Arab Emirates.



The testing of DU weapons has caused considerable contamination at test sites across the world. At Dundrennan, in Scotland, for example, a 2004 Ministry of Defence report revealed how, since 1982 over 90 shells had either been misfired or had malfunctioned and scattered fragments of DU across the ground. Despite searches, some of these fragments have never been recovered. Contamination levels were high in these areas, which have had to be fenced off. At Okinawa in Japan, and Vieques, an island of Puerto Rico, the US military used DU weapons without the appropriate licences and without informing their respective governments or local populations. In the US, the Army is attempting to walk away from its responsibilities to decontaminate former test sites, such as Picatinny Arsenal in New Jersey and Jefferson Proving Ground in Indiana.



It is now clear that the military have known the risks of depleted uranium but failed to provide safety instructions to soldiers in both the 1991 Gulf Wars and the Balkan conflicts. A study prepared for the US Army in July 1990, a month before Iraq invaded Kuwait, says: "The health risks associated with internal & external DU exposure during combat conditions are certainly far less than other combat-related risks. Following combat, however, the condition of the battlefield and the long-term health risks to natives & combat veterans may become issues in the acceptability of the continued use of DU."



Furthermore, a leaked 1993 document from the US Army Surgeon General's office said, "When soldiers inhale or ingest DU dust they incur a potential increase in cancer risk ... that increase can be quantified in terms of projected days of life loss."



DU IN IRAQ



The 1991 Gulf War saw the first verified use of DU weapons. Around 320 tonnes of DU in weapons were used in the war, of which about 1 tonne was used by the UK military. According to data from the US Department of Defense, tens or hundreds of thousands of US military personnel could have been exposed to DU. Both the US and UK Governments refused any responsibility for decontamination and both refused to study the exposure rates or after-effects of this DU use. After a few years, evidence began to emerge from Iraq about the increasing incidence of cancer and birth deformities in the south of the country. After heavy US lobbying in November 2001 the UN General Assembly voted down an Iraqi proposal that the UN study the effects of the DU used there.



In the 2003 attack on Iraq, the US and UK militaries used DU again despite the lack of reliable data on the effects of using it in Iraq 12 years previously. The British Government has admitted using 1.9 tonnes of DU. Even though this is only a tiny proportion of all DU used in Iraq, it is double the amount used in 1991. The US authorities have still not said how much has been used, although an initial Pentagon source revealed 75 tons of DU may remain in Iraq from A-10 planes alone.



The implications for Iraqi civilians are very alarming. Unlike the first Gulf War, which was largely confined to desert areas, much of the DU use has been in built-up, heavily populated areas. The US Government has refused any cleanup of DU in Iraq, clinging to the statement that it has no link with ill health, while the British Government has for the first time admitted it does have a responsibility but says it is low on their list of priorities.



OTHER COUNTRIES CONTAMINATED BY DU



BOSNIA 1994-1995



DU rounds were used in Bosnia by US A-20 warplanes under the auspices of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO). Around 10,800 DU rounds, or 3 tonnes, were used in Bosnia. However NATO always denied DU had been used until 2000, 6 years after the attacks, when media reports began to emerge. For all this time no cleanups or public awareness campaigns could be run, leading to unnecessary civilian exposures. The UNEP report,1 mentioned earlier, and released in March 2003, found DU contamination of drinking water and radioactive 'hotspots'. UNEP recommended ongoing monitoring of drinking water, cleanup of DU sites, cleaning of contaminated buildings and the release by NATO of all DU-attack coordinates.



KOSOVO, YUGOSLAVIA - 1999



US A-10 aircraft fired around 31,300 rounds of DU, or 9 tons of DU in areas of Kosovo, Serbia and Montenegro during NATO action there in 1999. Partial information about the use of DU was released a year after the war when UN Secretary General KofiAnnan sent a letter requesting the information to NATO Secretary General Lord George Robertson. An analysis in a UNEP Post-Conflict field study of recovered DU shells, published in March 2001, found that some of the shells were made with recycled uranium (that is, with uranium that had been through a nuclear reactor) and were contaminated with plutonium. The study did not find widespread contamination but did find evidence of airborne movement of DU dust. It also found localised points of concentrated contamination showing U-238 at 10,000 times normal background levels. The study recommended decontamination, removal of penetrators and drinking water monitoring. A separate report published by UNEP on DU contamination in Serbia and Montenegro found "widespread, but low-level DU contamination, airborne DU particles" and that "DU dust was widely dispersed into the environment."



As well as official reports there has been widespread anecdotal evidence of so-called 'Balkans syndrome' among both soldiers deployed in the region and civilian populations. Symptoms are similar sounding to "Gulf War Syndrome" with heightened levels of leukaemia, respiratory and immune system illnesses. By mid-2004 twenty-seven Italian soldiers have died of symptoms thought to be linked to DU exposure. A court in Rome ordered the Italian Ministry of Defence to compensate the family of Stefano Melone, a soldier who died of a malignant vascular tumour. According to the court, Mr Melone's death was "due to exposure to radioactive and carcinogen substances" on missions in the Balkans.



Tension was caused within NATO as member countries were not warned that their soldiers would be entering DU contaminated zones.



AFGHANISTAN 2001- 2004



There is some evidence that DU has been used in Afghanistan, although this has never been confirmed officially. For example, US A-10s and Harrier aircraft, which both use DU ammunition, are known to have been active in the region. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has said that the US has found radioactivity indicating DU use by the Taliban or Al-Qaeda.




Geneva Convention Rules (to which US and UK are signees)



- The limitation of unnecessary human suffering [Art.35.2]
- The limitation of damage to the environment [Art. 35.3 and 55.1]
- It is prohibited to employ weapons, projectiles and material and methods of warfare of a nature to cause superfluous injury or unnecessary suffering [Art. 35.3]
- It is prohibited to employ methods or means of warfare which are intended, or may be expected, to cause widespread, long-term and severe damage to the natural environment. [Art. 35.2]
- In order to ensure respect for and protection of the civilian population and civilian objects, the Parties to the conflict shall at all times distinguish between the civilian population and combatants and between civilian objects and military objectives and accordingly shall direct their operations only against military objectives. [Art. 48]
- Indiscriminate attacks are prohibited. Indiscriminate attacks are:
(a) those which are not directed at a specific military objective;
(b) those which employ a method or means of combat which cannot be directed at a specific military objective; or
(c) those which employ a method or means of combat the effects of which cannot be limited as required by this Protocol; and consequently, in each such case, are of a nature to strike military objectives and civilians or civilian objects without distinction. [Art.51.4]
- Care shall be taken in warfare to protect the natural environment against widespread, long-term and severe damage. This protection includes a prohibition of the use of methods or means of warfare which are intended or may be expected to cause such damage to the natural environment and thereby to prejudice the health or survival of the population. [Art. 55.1]

Webster Tarpley WCR...14/11/09...8 parts....

Webster tarpley WCR..7/11/09...8 parts....

Afghanistan..the great game........

Why is Afghanistan so important?

A glance at a map and a little knowledge of the region suggest that the real reasons for Western military involvement may be largely hidden.

Afghanistan is adjacent to Middle Eastern countries that are rich in oil and natural gas. And though Afghanistan may have little petroleum itself, it borders both Iran and Turkmenistan, countries with the second and third largest natural gas reserves in the world. (Russia is first.)

Turkmenistan is the country nobody talks about. Its huge reserves of natural gas can only get to market through pipelines. Until 1991, it was part of the Soviet Union and its gas flowed only north through Soviet pipelines. Now the Russians plan a new pipeline north. The Chinese are building a new pipeline east. The U.S. is pushing for "multiple oil and gas export routes." High-level Russian, Chinese and American delegations visit Turkmenistan frequently to discuss energy. The U.S. even has a special envoy for Eurasian energy diplomacy.

Rivalry for pipeline routes and energy resources reflects competition for power and control in the region. Pipelines are important today in the same way that railway building was important in the 19th century. They connect trading partners and influence the regional balance of power. Afghanistan is a strategic piece of real estate in the geopolitical struggle for power and dominance in the region.

Since the 1990s, Washington has promoted a natural gas pipeline south through Afghanistan. The route would pass through Kandahar province. In 2007, Richard Boucher, U.S. assistant secretary of state, said: "One of our goals is to stabilize Afghanistan," and to link South and Central Asia "so that energy can flow to the south." Oil and gas have motivated U.S. involvement in the Middle East for decades. Unwittingly or willingly, Canadian forces are supporting American goals.

The proposed pipeline is called TAPI, after the initials of the four participating countries (Turkmenistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan and India). Eleven high-level planning meetings have been held during the past seven years, with Asian Development Bank sponsorship and multilateral support (including Canada's). Construction is planned to start next year.

The pipeline project was documented at three donor conferences on Afghanistan in the past three years and is referenced in the 2008 Afghan Development Plan. Canada was represented at these conferences at the ministerial level. Thus, our leaders must know. Yet they avoid discussion of the planned pipeline through Afghanistan.

The 2008 Manley Report, a foundation for extending the Canadian mission to 2011, ignored energy issues. It talked about Afghanistan as if it were an island, albeit with a porous Pakistani border. Prime Minister Stephen Harper says he "will withdraw the bulk of the military forces" in 2011. The remaining troops will focus mostly on "reconstruction and development." Does that include the pipeline?

Pipeline rivalry is slightly more visible in Europe. Ukraine is the main gateway for gas from Russia to Europe. The United States has pushed for alternate pipelines and encouraged European countries to diversify their sources of supply. Recently built pipelines for oil and gas originate in Azerbaijan and extend through Georgia to Turkey. They are the jewels in the crown of U.S. strategy to bypass Russia and Iran.

The rivalry continues with plans for new gas pipelines to Europe from Russia and the Caspian region. The Russians plan South Stream – a pipeline under the Black Sea to Bulgaria. The European Union and U.S. are backing a pipeline called Nabucco that would supply gas to Europe via Turkey. Nabucco would get some gas from Azerbaijan, but that country doesn't have enough. Additional supply could come from Turkmenistan, but Russia is blocking a link across the Caspian Sea. Iran offers another source, but the U.S. is blocking the use of Iranian gas.

Meanwhile, Iran is planning a pipeline to deliver gas east to Pakistan and India. Pakistan has agreed in principle, but India has yet to do so. It's an alternative to the long-planned, U.S.-supported pipeline from Turkmenistan through Afghanistan to Pakistan and India.

A very big game is underway, with geopolitics intruding everywhere. U.S. journalist Steven LeVine describes American policy in the region as "pipeline-driven." Other countries are pushing for pipeline routes, too. The energy game remains largely hidden; the focus is on humanitarian, development and national security concerns.

Webster Tarpley WCR ..31/10/09...8 parts...

Afghanistan,Oil & Gas......

Is there anything dumber than a journalist who writes for the Times.

Take Bronwen Maddox and her article here ;

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/bronwen_maddox/article6739302.ece

Usually when a journalist idiot wants us to become entangled in another war / social work action using the British army / policing role / Oil Imperialism escapade then they either use the usual 'Think of the children' routine or now the 'what about the women' routine.

I cannot believe that such people are allowed to write for The Times, unless the Times is still 'seeding public opinion with lies' as Carol Quigley stated in his books was its main role.

We are not in Afghanistan for any of the following reasons ;

1) Helping the children
2) Helping the women
3) Stopping the heroin
4) Fighting terrorism
5) Stopping terrorism in the UK

It is total hypocrisy to say the UK and US are in Afghanistan to 'fight islamic extremism and Al Qaeda' when Osama Bin Laden, Al Qaeda and the Taliban were all creations of the CIA during the Afghan War against the Russians.

The US created the Taliban and sponsored its growth, long enough for it to grow to such a size that it then gave the US the opportunity to invade Afghanistan and take control of the country under the pretext of 'fighting Islamic terrorism'.

If it wasnt for the US there would be no Islamic extremists undertaking terrorism - as the US built up those terrorist groups, funded and armed them.

There is in fact two reasons why we are in Afghanistan, and why British soldiers are dying, and that is for ;

1) Oil

2) Gas

This war was started in 1999 with the passing of the Silk Road Strategy Act in the US.

Note the contents of the act here ;

http://www.eurasianet.org/resource/regional/silkroad.html

Note section 6 of the act ;

(6) The region of the South Caucasus and Central Asia could produce oil and gas in sufficient quantities to reduce the dependence of the United States on energy from the volatile Persian Gulf region.

and further ;

`(c) ACTIVITIES SUPPORTED- Activities that may be supported by programs under subsection (b) include promoting actively the participation of United States companies and investors in the planning, financing, and construction of infrastructure for communications, transportation, including air transportation, and energy and trade including highways, railroads, port facilities, shipping, banking, insurance, telecommunications networks, and gas and oil pipelines.


The act was revised in 2006 to include the energy interests of the US as one of the primary reasons for the US to be in Afghanistan - note no reference to Osama Bin Laden or Al Qaeda ;

http://www.theorator.com/bills109/s2749.html


(b) Findings- Congress makes the following findings:

(3) The liberation of Afghanistan from Taliban misrule and the new course in Afghanistan toward political and economic openness make possible the country's reintegration into Central Asia.

(4) The ouster of the Taliban from Afghanistan has diminished threats to that country's neighbors in Central Asia, allowing for accelerated progress toward democracy, open economies, and the rule of law across the region. Afghanistan's embrace of popular sovereignty and political pluralism demonstrates the universal applicability of these values.

(5) The Governments of Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan, which have contributed to United States military deployments in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Kosovo, are key United States partners in diversification of energy sources and transportation routes, enhancing and contributing to United States energy and security interests.

(6) In recognition of global and regional threats to stability, prosperity, and democracy in Afghanistan, including terrorism, political-religious extremism, and production and trafficking of narcotics, and in recognition of Afghanistan's geographic location and cultural and historical identity, Afghanistan should be considered to be among the countries of Central Asia, and not separate from them.

(7) In recognition of security cooperation from the Government of Kazakhstan, including deployment of the Kazakhstan contingent in Iraq, progress toward a market economy, United States business participation in energy and infrastructure development in Kazakhstan, and an ongoing Government of Kazakhstan policy of ethnic and religious tolerance, a relationship with Kazakhstan is of high importance to the United States. "


The maps above show you the proposed Oil pipe line and gas pipe line planned for Afghanistan - The Eurasian Corridor.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trans-Afghanistan_Pipeline


http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/2608713.stm

An agreement has been signed in the Turkmen capital, Ashgabat, paving the way for construction of a gas pipeline from the Central Asian republic through Afghanistan to Pakistan.



The Global research Group states that ;

The Eurasian Corridor

Since the 2001 invasion and occupation of Afghanistan, the US has a military presence on China's Western frontier, in Afghanistan and Pakistan. The U.S. is intent upon establishing permanent military bases in Afghanistan, which occupies a strategic position bordering on the former Soviet republics, China and Iran.

Moreover, the US and NATO have also established since 1996, military ties with several former Soviet republics under GUUAM (Georgia, Ukraine, Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan and Moldava). In the post 9/11 era, Washington has used the pretext of the "global war against terrorism" to further develop a U.S. military presence in GUUAM countries. Uzbekistan withdrew from GUUAM in 2002.(The organization is now referred to as GUAM).

China has oil interests in Eurasia as well as in sub-Saharan Africa, which encroach upon Anglo-American oil interests.

What is at stake is the geopolitical control over the Eurasian corridor.

In March 1999, the U.S. Congress adopted the Silk Road Strategy Act, which defined America’s broad economic and strategic interests in a region extending from the Eastern Mediterranean to Central Asia. The Silk Road Strategy (SRS) outlines a framework for the development of America’s business empire along an extensive geographical corridor.

The successful implementation of the SRS requires the concurrent "militarization" of the entire Eurasian corridor as a means to securing control over extensive oil and gas reserves, as well as "protecting" pipeline routes and trading corridors. This militarization is largely directed against China, Russia and Iran.

Take a look at the maps above - then note how the army bases are in prime positions to protect the oil and gas pipelines.

That is what this 'war' is about.

The Afghanistan war is about securing the territory through which the oil and gas pipelines will have to pass through in order to ensure Russia, China and Iran are outmanouvered in the last great wars for the last of the global oil supplies on the planet.

Only yesterday the Independent reported that the Peak Oil process is even close than the 'experts' have been so far admitting.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/warning-oil-supplies-are-running-out-fast-1766585.html

The world is heading for a catastrophic energy crunch that could cripple a global economic recovery because most of the major oil fields in the world have passed their peak production, a leading energy economist has warned.


Higher oil prices brought on by a rapid increase in demand and a stagnation, or even decline, in supply could blow any recovery off course, said Dr Fatih Birol, the chief economist at the respected International Energy Agency (IEA) in Paris, which is charged with the task of assessing future energy supplies by OECD countries.



This is what the Iraq War and Afghanistan War are about.

This is also why China is exporting millions of its people into Africa in order to colonise the African continent as Lebensraum for the Chinese state - and to steal its oil and resources from the indigenous African people.


British troops are being slaughtered in Afghanistan for gas and oil pipelines.

That is the truth behind the lies the government spin.

They lied to get us into Iraq and they are lieing now about why we went into Afghanistan.

The Taliban are not Al Qaeda.

The Taliban are mainly local Afghans who do not want to be occupied by any invading army, local Afghan nationalists resisting occupation, ISI pakistani agents fighting a proxy war against the US, drug smugglers and opium growers protecting their drug territories, foreign jihadists working with the pakistani ISI and the angry relatives of Afghans killed by coalition forces getting revenge.

The Taliban are not a threat to us - the fact we are over there means Islamists will attack us over there and over here.

We should withdraw our troops from Afghanistan, return them to the UK and deploy them at British ports in order to properly manage our own national borders and assist in the implementation of the long term most important issue of all... the creation of a 100 % national energy production system that means we do not have to depend on any imports of energy from the Middle East oil, Russian gas or Eurasian oil and gas supplies.

We are fanning the flames by increasing the risk of Islamic terrorism here in Britain, because we are over there in Islamic nations securing their gas and oil, or occupying their land to allow us to pump the gas and oil of other nations for western markets.

Webster Tarpley .WCR...24/10/09...8 parts....

NPT, Iran & The west.

America’s perennial need for bogeymen is now focused on Iran. A recent example was the Sept. 25 announcement by President Obama that Iran is building a nuclear facility near the holy city of Qom. This revelation was orchestrated by a few Western leaders for maximum propaganda value. However, this Iranian project is not nearly as menacing or beyond the pale as Obama and company would have us believe.

First, let us remember that Iran has actually signed the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty (NPT) and therefore is subject to its terms, such as submitting to inspections of its nuclear facilities by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). In compliance with its treaty obligations, Iran allowed IAEA inspectors to visit its nuclear reactor near the city of Arak in August and it also agreed to changes that will ease monitoring of its uranium-enrichment facility at Natanz. In addition, Iran has already agreed to allow the IAEA to examine the recently disclosed site at Qom, of which it had informed the IAEA four days before Obama’s announcement.

All of this is in stark contrast to the three nations which have never signed the NPT — Israel, India and Pakistan — which also have dismal records of little or no cooperation with IAEA inspections. Operating in secrecy over decades, Israel, India and Pakistan have now amassed nuclear arsenals estimated to range in size from 60 to 120 in the cases of India and Pakistan to about 200 in the case of Israel.

So when Obama declares, as he did Sept. 25, that “Iran is breaking rules that all nations must follow,” he is conveniently ignoring the fact that Israel, India and Pakistan have been operating outside the rules for a long time. When it comes to nuclear weapons, somehow these countries have always been exempt from the rules that “all nations must follow.” Iran obviously chafes under this gross and hypocritical double standard; hence it is understandable that it has not always been inclined to bend to the West’s will.

Second, let’s also be clear that the NPT expressly permits all signatory nations to develop nuclear energy. According to Article IV of the treaty, “Nothing in this Treaty shall be interpreted as affecting the inalienable right of all Parties to the Treaty to develop research, production and use of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes.” This is what Iran says it is doing. All 16 US intelligence agencies effectively agreed with Iran when they reached a consensus in December 2007 that the Iranians had halted their nuclear weapons program in 2003. The West’s obsession with and questionable interpretation of Iran’s nuclear power aspirations — while other nations such as India and China aggressively pursue theirs — again represents an unjust and untenable double standard.

Thirdly, while Obama is to be congratulated for his recent success in obtaining a UN Security Council resolution that supports the goal of eventually eliminating all nuclear weapons, until this actually happens, the US, Russia, China, Britain and France are all in violation of the NPT. This treaty, which entered into force in 1970, obligates these nations and other signatories with nuclear arsenals to “pursue negotiations in good faith on a Treaty on general and complete disarmament under strict and effective international control.” At this point we are nearly 40 years late in fulfilling our NPT obligations.

Our failure to achieve general and complete nuclear disarmament is another example of the double standards which impede the goals of the NPT and the quest for a world free of nuclear weapons. India has long maintained, with some justification, that it cannot abide a discriminatory system which has never resolved the harsh dilemma most recently expressed by former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev: “…if it is acceptable for five or 10 countries to have nuclear weapons as their ‘ultimate security guarantee,’ why should it not be the case for 20 or 30 others?”

As long as the US and other nuclear powers hypocritically uphold a double standard in which we claim nuclear weapons are essential for our national security, but other nations such as Iran are not allowed to make this claim, we are probably in a losing struggle for the cause of disarmament.

Webster tarpley WCR 17/10/09....8 parts....

Excellent article on the Afganistan / Pakistan theatre

Gen. David Petraeus’ aura of success resulting from reduced violence in Iraq has blinded normally sensible observers to his far greater failure in Afghanistan and Pakistan. His ill-conceived effort to deny al-Qaida and the Taliban “safe havens” in Pakistan—through drone aircraft bombing, special-forces assassination and perhaps torture (by way of association with Gen. Stanley McChrystal, his new Afghanistan military commander)—has backfired, driving the Taliban east into Pakistan, where they have joined local allies to weaken the Pakistani government. It has also strengthened, not weakened, al-Qaida and alienated growing numbers of Pakistanis. The Petraeus strategy has thus dramatically strengthened America’s enemies and helped destabilize a nuclear-armed nation of 170 million whose importance dwarfs Iraq and Afghanistan combined. More alarmingly, he now intends to escalate his failed strategy, which could cause unimaginable catastrophes in coming months and years.

President Obama—who may well regret his call as a candidate for attacking Taliban safe havens in Pakistan, given the debacle those attacks have produced—should replace Petraeus, and McChrystal’s nomination should be blocked. However, Obama is unlikely to take such an action absent significant public pressure. Petraeus has enormous leverage over the president. The general is extremely popular because of the perceived success of the Iraqi surge. The Obama administration could be capsized by a combination of likely losses in the “Af-Pak”¬ theater and the popular Petraeus resigning and blaming Obama, one imagines, for “not listening to his military commanders.” Obama could even be defeated in 2012 by Petraeus himself on those grounds, should persistent Washington rumors about a nascent “Petraeus for President” campaign prove true.

Obama’s best political defense if his Middle East policy fails, as appears likely, would be to claim he was following the military’s lead. This may explain why he has reversed himself and adopted such Bush policies as military tribunals and preventive detention.


It is critical now for Congress, the media, opinion makers and the public to undertake an objective analysis of the basic question: Has the Petraeus strategy worked in the Afghanistan-Pakistan theater?

The general’s “Iraqi surge” strategy is irrelevant to this question. Past military victories do not guarantee future success. Petraeus has been no more successful in “Af-Pak” than the creators of the Maginot Line were in World War II, generals who had succeeded in World War I.


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When Petraeus became head of CENTCOM (the U.S. Central Command) in October 2008, he became America’s chief military strategist for the theater, overseeing Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, the Middle East and Central Asia.

Petraeus clearly sees himself as the central player in the region. When a New York Post interviewer stated on May 19, “As the commander of the US Central Command, you’re the big-picture `strategy guy,’ ” Petraeus did not demur. Instead he referred to his “strong” team of generals—McChrystal, David Rodriguez and Karl Eikenberry (the new U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan)—and added that “I’m privileged to have Ambassador Richard Holbrooke as my `diplomatic wingman.’ ” The perceived success of the surge in Iraq had given Petraeus tremendous power, allowing him to extend the strategy to the Afghanistan-Pakistan theater.

The most important mission of the general, as overall theater commander, has been to design a strategy to ensure that fighting in Afghanistan does not destabilize its nuclear-armed neighbor Pakistan. He has failed in this mission.

David Kilcullen, Petraeus’ own counterinsurgency adviser in Iraq, has characterized U.S. policy as a fundamental “strategic error ... our insistence on personalizing this conflict with Al Qaeda and the Taliban, devoting time and resources toward killing or capturing ‘high-value’ targets ... distracts us from larger problems.”

As Kilcullen had noted earlier, these “larger problems” include the potential “collapse of the Pakistani state,” which he called a calamity that in light of the country’s size, strategic location and nuclear stockpile would “dwarf” all other dangers in the region. While Petraeus obviously does not bear sole responsibility for all problems in the Af-Pak theater, his many “strategic errors” have played a major role in weakening the U.S. and strengthening its enemies, as I will outline below.

Petraeus has driven the Taliban east into Pakistan, where they have joined with local jihadi forces and gained increasing amounts of territory.

On Feb. 16, The New York Times reported from Pakistan, “Analysts are now suggesting that the drone strikes may be pushing the Taliban, and even some Qaeda elements, out of the tribal belt and into Swat, making the valley more important to the Taliban.” The Swat Valley is part of Pakistan proper, and the consolidation of Taliban forces there represented a major setback to U.S. and Pakistani interests. Pakistani government weakness there forced Islamabad to hand over effective control of the valley to its enemies and accept the imposition of sharia law there. A month and a half later, the Times followed up, saying, “American policy has arguably made the situation even worse, for the Predator-drone attacks along the border, though effective, drive the Taliban eastward, deeper into Pakistan. And the strategy has been only reinforcing hostility to the United States among ordinary Pakistanis.”

With Swat as a base, Taliban forces then took over the Buner district in late April.

And, most ominously, the Taliban and local extremists have been making inroads into the Punjab, Pakistan’s heartland, as the Times documented: “Taliban insurgents are teaming up with local militant groups to make inroads in Punjab, the province that is home to more than half of Pakistanis, reinvigorating an alliance that Pakistani and American authorities say poses a serious risk to the stability of the country. ... As American drone attacks disrupt strongholds of the Taliban and Al Qaeda in the tribal areas, the insurgents are striking deeper into Pakistan—both in retaliation and in search of new havens. … Bruce Riedel, who led the Obama administration’s recently completed strategy review of Pakistan and Afghanistan, said the Taliban now had ‘extensive links into the Punjab.’ ”

On April 20, The Washington Post reported that “a suspected U.S. missile strike killed three people at a Taliban compound in the South Waziristan tribal region; such attacks have become a powerful recruitment tool for extremist groups in Pakistan as anti-American sentiment builds.” Extremist success has worked to “create an arc of radical religious energy between the turbulent, Taliban-plagued northwest region and the increasingly vulnerable federal capital, less than 100 miles to the east. They [extremists] also appeared to pose a direct, unprecedented religious challenge to modern state authority in the Muslim nation of 176 million.”

Post columnist David Ignatius reported on an April meeting between regional envoy Richard Holbrooke and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Adm. Michael Mullen with Waziristan tribal leaders: “ `We are all Taliban,’ ” one young man said—meaning that people in his region support the cause, if not the terrorist tactics. He explained that the insurgency is spreading in Pakistan, not because of proselytizing by leaders such as Baitullah Mehsud but because of popular anger. For every militant killed by a U.S. Predator drone, he says, 10 more will join the insurgent cause. ... `You can’t come see the people because they hate you,’ he warned.”

Counterinsurgency adviser Kilcullen has warned that the drone war “has created a siege mentality among Pakistani civilians ... [is] now exciting visceral opposition across a broad spectrum of Pakistani opinion in Punjab and Sindh, the nation’s two most populous provinces. ... ”


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The Petraeus strategy has also strengthened al-Qaida.

Al-Qaida’s success in Pakistan—including attracting recruits and joining forces with local extremists—makes it unclear whether the terror network would even bother to return to Afghanistan should the Taliban regain power there. A senior intelligence official told The New York Times that “recent successes by the Taliban in extending territorial gains could foreshadow the creation of `mini-Afghanistans’ around Pakistan that would allow militants even more freedom to plot attacks.” Al-Qaida would presumably be as welcome in such new “mini-Afghanistans” as it is presently in Pakistan’s Northwest Frontier, and even safer.

Petraeus’ strategy is increasing support for a “Pashtunistan,” threatening Pakistan and Afghanistan’s survival.

By attacking Pashtuns in both Afghanistan and Pakistan, Petraeus is increasing local support for a radical Islamic entity combining the 13 million Afghan and 28 million Pakistani Pashtuns on either side of the artificial Durand Line dividing the two countries. As Selig Harrison wrote in The Washington Post on May 11: “It is equally plausible that the result could be what Pakistani ambassador to Washington Husain Haqqani has called an `Islamic Pashtunistan.’ On March 1, 2007, Haqqani’s Pashtun predecessor as ambassador, the retired Maj. Gen. Mahmud Ali Durrani, said at a seminar at the Pakistan Embassy, `I hope the Taliban and Pashtun nationalism don’t merge. If that happens, we’ve had it, and we’re on the verge of that.’ ”

Petraeus’ strategy helped push the Pakistani military into a disastrous military operation that is strengthening the government’s enemies over the long term.

As Kilcullen has noted,“Al Qaeda and its Taliban allies must be defeated by indigenous forces—not from the United States, and not even from Punjab, but from the parts of Pakistan in which they now hide. Drone strikes make this harder, not easier.” All observers agree that if Pakistan is to be stabilized, the Pakistani military will need to shift its priorities from defending against India and learn to wage an effective counterinsurgency war within Pakistan.

Petraeus’ blunders and U.S. threats to withhold military and economic aid have helped force the clearly unprepared Pakistani military into premature fighting in the Swat Valley, creating 2 million refugees in the process—what the United Nations, quoted in the Guardian, dubbed “the world’s most dramatic displacement crisis since the Rwandan genocide of 1994.” Even if the Pakistani military succeeds in retaking Swat, it has alienated much of the local population with heavy bombardment. And it is unlikely to defeat the Taliban in the long run, as the Post explained on May 24: “Highlighting the difficulty, some extremists are simply melting back into the civilian population so they can fight another day, as they have during previous clashes over the past 18 months in Swat.”

A “senior [Obama] administration official who is closely following the Pakistani military operations in Swat, and who spoke on condition of anonymity to avoid offending the visiting Pakistani leaders,” was even more blunt, telling the Times on May 6 that the Pakistan military is “fundamentally not organized, trained or equipped for what they’ve been asked to do. ... They will displace the Taliban for a while. But there will also be a lot of displaced persons and a lot of collateral damage. And they won’t be able to sustain those effects or extend the gains geographically.”

There is also growing concern that the military’s mismanaged offensive will actually strengthen extremist forces, reports the Post: “Concern is growing that this latest wave of displacement will create a fresh crop of Pakistanis with grievances against the government and loyalty to groups that seek to undermine the state through violent insurgency. ... Outside the camps, groups with radical Islamist agendas are rushing to fill the void left by the paucity of government services.”

The most alarming aspect of the present situation is not only that Gen. Petraeus has shown no awareness of his “Af-Pak” strategy’s failure but is clearly intending to expand it, beginning this summer when U.S. troop strength reaches 58,000. Petraeus and McChrystal are planning for an increase in attacks upon Taliban strongholds, which will inevitably lead to greater U.S. efforts to deny the Taliban a haven in Pakistan.

Petraeus told the N.Y. Post on May 19: “Expect tough fighting. As we and our allies launch operations to improve security, the enemy will fight back. When we launched the `surge of offensives’ in Iraq, al Qaeda-Iraq elements sought to retain their sanctuaries and safe havens. We experienced tough combat. We’ll see the same in Afghanistan.”

Ignatius reported a few days earlier that “Petraeus’s plan in Afghanistan is to hit the enemy very hard this year with the additional 21,000 troops President Obama has approved—and then see if the Taliban coalition begins to crack. Much greater violence is ahead initially, as the United States attacks Taliban sanctuaries in the south.”

There are also indications that Petraeus is planning deeper incursions into Pakistan in support of these efforts. The New York Times ran a story in March saying: “In separate reports, groups led by both Gen. David H. Petraeus, commander of American forces in the region, and Lt. Gen. Douglas E. Lute, a top White House official on Afghanistan, have recommended expanding American operations outside the tribal areas if Pakistan cannot root out the strengthening insurgency.” These operations would “strike at a different center of Taliban power in Baluchistan, where top Taliban leaders are orchestrating attacks into southern Afghanistan.”

Thus, as Petraeus aggressively seeks to destroy the Taliban, he is likely to wind up going after Taliban “sanctuaries and safe havens” in Pakistan, and we can expect a vast expansion of the U.S. special operations that have already done so much to help jihadi forces.


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The clearest indication of what Petraeus has in mind is the appointment of his protégé, Gen. McChrystal, to command U.S. forces in Afghanistan. McChrystal ran the top-secret JSOC (Joint Special Operations Command) in Iraq from 2003 to 2008.

McChrystal’s appointment, according to the Times, was explicitly designed to help expand U.S. operations into Pakistan: “Until now, the successive American generals in charge of the war in Afghanistan have argued that their responsibilities ended at the border with Pakistan. But the choice of a new and very different breed of general to take over the seven-year-old fight may mean the old mind-set has begun to change. ... General McChrystal, with his commando background, is ideally suited to carry out a White House strategy that regards Afghanistan and Pakistan as part of a single, urgent problem. `For him to be successful, he’s going to have [to] fight the war on both sides of the border,’ said Robert Richer, a retired C.I.A. officer who worked with General McChrystal when Mr. Richer was the agency’s head of Middle East operations and assistant director of clandestine operations.”

Bob Woodward wrote in his book “The War Within”: “Beginning in about May 2006, the U.S. military and the U.S. intelligence agencies launched a series of top secret operations that enabled them to locate, target and kill key individuals in extremist groups such as al Qaeda, the Sunni insurgency and renegade Shia militias, or so-called special groups. ... A number of authoritative sources say these covert activities had a far-reaching effect on the violence and were very possibly the biggest factor in reducing it. … ” The book goes on to quote praise directed at “Lieutenant General Stanley McChrystal, the commander of the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) responsible for hunting al-Qaida in Iraq. … ”

Placing McChrystal in charge of U.S. Afghanistan forces indicates that Petraeus agrees with Woodward’s report on the success of McChrystal’s tactics, and that they might be applied on a far larger scale in the Af-Pak theater. Reminiscent of the Phoenix assassination program in Vietnam, a program that set weekly quotas on the number of civilians to be killed for supposedly supporting the Viet Cong, McChrystal is known for applying constant pressure on his officers to produce greater numbers of kills, and promoting them on that basis. As former Special Forces officer Roger Carstens noted: “McChrystal kills people. Has he ever worked in the counterinsurgency environment? Not really.”

McChrystal was also known for running the worst torture chambers in Iraq at his “Camp Nama,” (“Nasty Ass Military Area”), and forbidding the Red Cross access to them in violation of the Geneva Conventions. The Times fills in the details of the general’s résumé: “An elite Special Operations forces unit converted one of Saddam Hussein’s former military bases near Baghdad into a top-secret detention center. There, American soldiers made one of the former Iraqi government’s torture chambers into their own interrogation cell. ... According to Pentagon specialists who worked with the unit, prisoners at Camp Nama often disappeared into a detention black hole, barred from access to lawyers or relatives, and confined for weeks without charges. `The reality is, there were no rules there,’ another Pentagon official said. ... The C.I.A. was concerned enough to bar its personnel from Camp Nama that August. ... Since 2003, 34 task force members have been disciplined in some form for mistreating prisoners. ... ” In May of 2006, Esquire interviewed a former Camp Nama interrogator named Jeff: “By his reckoning, at least half of the prisoners were innocent, just random Iraqis who got picked up for one reason or another. Sometimes the evidence against them was so slight, Jeff would go into the interrogation without even knowing their names.”

If McChrystal had little evidence against those he was imprisoning and torturing, it stands to reason he had no more solid grounds to judge those he was assassinating. And it was his teams that were responsible for on-the-ground targeting of the drones that have killed so many civilians. Kilcullen has estimated based on press reports that “over the last three years drone strikes have killed about 14 terrorist leaders. But, according to Pakistani sources, they have also killed some 700 civilians.” McChrystal bears much of the responsibility for this.

However, there has been no outside oversight whatsoever of Gen. McChrystal’s activities in Iraq. He killed, assassinated and tortured countless Iraqis for five years with total impunity. Were international law applied to his activities, he might well be investigated for war crimes rather than rewarded for them. Placing him in charge of 58,000 U.S. troops will ensure that such practices will not only continue but be greatly increased.

His tactics are militarily self-defeating as well as morally questionable. As discussed above, numerous U.S. and Pakistani observers blame such tactics for the growing strength of America’s enemies. The evidence clearly indicates that if Petraeus and McChrystal continue their policies in the Afghanistan-Pakistan theater, the United States could find itself facing its worst crisis since World War II.

Over the longer term, the nightmare scenarios that could ensue include: the Pakistan government falling and one or more of its 60 to100 nuclear weapons landing in extremists’ hands; rogue elements within the Pakistani military or foreign infiltrators getting control of said weapons; instability leading to limited or greater fighting between Pakistan and India, another nuclear power; civil war within Pakistan leading to tens of millions of refugees and casualties, of which the Swat Valley fiasco would be only a foretaste.


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Observers have suggested that the U.S. attempt to gain control of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons and remove them from the country, should the government be threatened. According to the Times, “As the insurgency of the Taliban and Al Qaeda spreads in Pakistan, senior American officials say they are increasingly concerned about new vulnerabilities for Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal, including the potential for militants to snatch a weapon in transport or to insert sympathizers into laboratories or fuel-production facilities.”

Unfortunately, the U.S. is unable to gain control of the weapons, for the inconvenient reason that “the United States does not know where all of Pakistan’s nuclear sites are located. ... American officials have never been permitted to see how much of the [American] money [for nuclear safeguards] was spent, the facilities where the weapons are kept or even a tally of how many Pakistan has produced.”

In the event of the imminent collapse of the Pakistani government and nuclear weapons falling into extremist hands, what would the U.S. do? Invade and occupy Pakistan with hundreds of thousands of troops? That would probably require a reinstatement of the draft and possibly ignite an even wider war. Would we threaten an extremist government with our own nukes?

Preventing such nightmare scenarios should be America’s top priority, and reining in Gens. Petraeus and McChrystal is clearly necessary to doing so. Petraeus should be replaced and McChrystal’s nomination defeated if America is to have any serious hope of avoiding disaster in the Afghanistan-Pakistan theater.

Fred Branfman has covered the CIA and irregular wars since the clandestine bombing of Laos.