THE POSTS MOSTLY BY GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION

THE POSTS MOSTLY BY GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION

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Boston artist Steve Mills - realistic painting

Sunday, July 4, 2010

Why West Lost Afghan War

Why West Lost Afghan War

By Michael Scheuer

20-20taliban.jpg
The former head of the CIA's bin Laden unit says the US-led coalition has already lost the war in Afghanistan. A shake-up in military leadership won't change that.

July 1, 2010

Recent events surrounding Afghanistan shouldn’t confuse anyone, as the reality of the situation still lies in one simple statement: The US-NATO coalition has lost a war its political leaders never meant, or knew how, to win.

'Winning’ in Afghanistan was never anything more than killing Osama bin Laden, Ayman al-Zawahiri, Mullah Omar, as many of their fighters and civilian supporters as possible and then getting out immediately with the full knowledge that—as Mao said long ago—insurgencies always rebuild and the process might need to be repeated.

The best and most appropriate response to al-Qaeda’s September 11 raid, then, would have been a unilateral US punitive expedition that inflicted massive death and destruction on the enemy and delivered a clear warning to Islamists not to pick fights with the United States. Indeed, many Islamists expected this response, which is why they poured vitriol on bin Laden and expected the US military to set back their movement a decade, if it did not destroy it completely.

Faced with this criticism, bin Laden simply said 'wait,’ adding (in paraphrase) that the Americans and their allies can’t stomach casualties, that they won’t use their full military power and will unite Afghans by trying to Westernize them via popular elections, installing women’s rights, dismantling tribalism, introducing secularism and establishing NGO-backed bars and whorehouses in Kabul. Bin Laden was right; it seems he is, among other things, a keen student of the West’s past nation-building operations.

Since June 1, the parade of incompetents crossing the Afghan stage is stunning: Gen. Stanley McChrystal, US President Barack Obama, Gen. David Petraeus, Afghan President Hamid Karzai—the list is long. McChrystal, saddled with a dead-end strategy devised by David Kilcullen, John Nagl and other counterinsurgency 'experts,’ gave access to himself and his staff to Rolling Stone, long among the most anti-military US journals.

For his trouble and indiscreet words, McChrystal was fired by Obama—who, with his senior advisers, merit all the negative things said about them—and replaced by that purveyor of military snake oil, Gen. Petraeus. Even as the transitory success of the Iraq 'surge’ is unravelling, Petraeus takes the Afghan command saying everything is okay (within a week the Pentagon’s media machine was telling Congress and Western publics that the 'Afghan war is on track.’)

While this has played out, Hamid Karzai reportedly met with Sirajuddin Haqqani—a major Afghan insurgent leader—and prepared to surrender under the guise of creating a coalition regime. For all his failures and fabulously corrupt relatives, Karzai can easily solve the dilemma the West can’t even frame accurately: Question: What does the Taliban and its allies want? Answer: Power. So Karzai is talking to Haqqani, and probably Taliban leaders, to see if there’s a governing arrangement that will give him a role in post-NATO Afghanistan and doesn’t lead to his execution after the last NATO trooper leaves. The chance of this is near nil, however, and so Karzai and his family will have to step up the pace of their alleged thievery and get ready for an early exit that leaves the West holding the bag.

And as these parties circle the Afghan drain, Lindsay Graham, a much but inexplicably respected Republican senator from South Carolina, said: 'This is a chance to start over completely [in Afghanistan].’ At the start of the US Civil War it was said South Carolina’s fatal flaw was that it’s too small to be a nation and too big to be an insane asylum. Sen. Graham has reconfirmed this truism.

After nine years, it is utterly impossible to restart Western policy in Afghanistan. Too many Afghans are dead; too many Afghans and non-Afghan Muslims have joined the Taliban-led insurgency; too much pro-Taliban money is pouring into Afghanistan from wealthy donors on the Arabian Peninsula and across the Muslim world; too much Western funding has been stolen and sent abroad by Karzai’s cronies; too much popular support for the war in the West has been squandered; too many U.S.-NATO troops are dead or maimed; too much has been done by the West to push Pakistan toward the abyss by demanding its military do Western dirty work; and too much time has been wasted on counterinsurgency theories and policies that avoid killing the enemy and his civilian supporters. The one thing the West 'can start over completely’ is a revision of the plans for withdrawal that moves up the departure date.

The bottom line is that the United States and NATO stand defeated in Afghanistan. Under McChrystal, Petraeus, or Obama himself the counterinsurgency strategy now being flogged has been intellectually bankrupt from its inception. No better proof of this can be found than the fact that the part of the policy meant to address the Afghans’ 'quality of life’ has been a substantial success.

There are 3 million-plus more Afghan children in school today than in 2001; more electricity and potable water are available; many roads and irrigation systems have been rebuilt; and more primary health care is being delivered. Kilcullen, Nagl and their colleagues argued that such success would prompt the Afghans to turn away from the Taliban’s religiosity and nationalism and isolate that purportedly small force from a population swelling with delight and loyalty to Karzai because of material improvements. In short, a social science-powered, mini-New Deal in Afghanistan would win with minimal use of US-NATO military power because Afghans would joyfully jettison God and country for better teeth and smoother roads.

Well, no such thing occurred. As the trend line for these accomplishments rose, the positive trend line for the Taliban-led insurgency rose faster. The once southern-Afghanistan-based insurgency spread across the nation; the Taliban and its allies struck in Kabul at their pleasure; and the large military/social-work operation to clear insurgents from Marjah District in Helmand Province—framed as the test case to validate US-NATO strategy—became, in McChrystal’s words, an endless, 'bleeding ulcer’ as the Taliban has gradually reasserted control there.

The enraging and unifying impact on Afghans of the US-NATO occupation of the country; Western support for the unrepresentative and corrupt Kabul regime; and the secularizing campaign by Western governmental agencies and NGOs has not and will never be negated by purer water and more refrigeration. The Afghans will appreciate and pocket the material improvements even as more of them take up arms to drive out occupiers they perceive as the enemies of God and Afghanistan. Western leaders should have recalled they’re not fighting Westerners, for whom more ice cubes and tetanus shots might have been enough to give up their faith.

A year after Obama outlined this new strategy at West Point it lay in shreds and tatters: the Taliban, et. al are more powerful and geographically dispersed, and the Afghan people are no less Islamic or nationalistic. The ever-present avenging angel of history ignored is exacting its pound of flesh and is still hungry. And the bin Laden-inspired Islamists are nearing victory over the world’s last superpower, a win that will have a galvanizing anti-US impact in the Islamic world by showing Muslims the impossible is possible.

The tragedy of this reality is that it would have taken no highly classified intelligence data or deeply penetrating brain power to predict its occurrence. A week’s reading at the local library about the occupations of Afghanistan by Alexander the Great, the British Empire and the Soviet Union shows each empire was sooner or later defeated and evicted—Alexander lasted longest because he built Greek colonies—by the most basic Afghan trait which has been transparently and overwhelmingly dominant since the 4th century B.C.: Afghans refuse to tolerate foreign occupation and rule.

Reading history’s lessons also would have shown that the one foreigner who had the most successful strategy for Afghanistan was Genghis Khan. He killed all the Afghan fighters and their families he encountered, built mountains of their skulls to remind Afghans that Mongols are not to be trifled with and then got his army out of the country to India as quickly as possible. George W. Bush had the chance to play Genghis for about a year but didn’t. Instead, he and his clone Obama defied history to try to win the love of Afghans and international applause. In the end, both men earned and richly merited what we see today—abject Western defeat.

Michael Scheuer is the author of 'Imperial Hubris’ and former chief of the CIA’s Bin Laden Issue Station.

Layla Anwar-"Falluja Worse Than Hiroshima "


"Falluja Worse Than Hiroshima "


Layla Anwar




July 2, 2010

The information is too important not to jot down...this is a rushed post.

I just finished watching a re-run of Ahmad Mansour's Al-Jazeera Arabic - interview with Prof.Chris Busby. Prof Busby is a Scientist and Director of Green Audit, and scientific secretary of the European Committee on Radiation Risks. To find out more on Prof Chris Busby and his work -- Google -- Chris Busby Uranium.

Prof Busby has published many articles on radiation, uranium and contamination in countries such as Lebanon, Kosovo, Gaza and of course Iraq.

His latest findings - which were the subject of the program aired on Al-Jazeera are what I will focus on here.

As some of you know, Falluja is a forbidden city. It was subjected to intense bombardments in 2004, with DU bombs and White phosphorus, and since it has become a no go zone - meaning that both the Iraqi puppet authorities and the U.S invading/occupying forces do not allow anyone to conduct any real study in Falluja. Falluja is basically under siege.

Obviously both the Americans and the Iraqis know something and are hiding it from the public. And this is where Prof. C.Busby comes in the picture. He was/is adamant to get to the bottom of what took place in Falluja in 2004.

Being a top scientist in his field, he set out to conduct a survey/research in Falluja whose preliminary results will be published in 2 weeks - hopefully.

Prof Busby found many obstacles while undertaking this project. Neither he nor any member of his team were allowed access to Falluja to conduct interviews. He said when the main door closes, one has to find other doors to open. And this is what he did. He managed to gather a team of Iraqis from Falluja to conduct the surveys for him.

The research project was based on 721 families from Falluja with 4'500 participants - living in both high level and lower level radiation zones. Results were compared to a control group - a sample of the same number of families living in a non radioactive zone in another Arab country. For the purpose of the study he chose three other countries for comparison - Kuwait, Egypt and Jordan.

Before getting into the preliminary results I must note the following :

- the Iraqi authorities threatened all the participants of this survey with arrest and detention should they cooperate with the "terrorists" who were interviewing them. In other words, they were threatened under the anti-terrorism act.

- The U.S forces prohibited Dr.Busby for gathering any data, arguing that Falluja is an insurgency zone.

- The doctors from Falluja turned down the request to be aired live on the Ahmad Mansour program because they had received several death threats and feared for their lives.

In other words, the study was conducted under very difficult and life threatening conditions. But it was conducting nonetheless.

As the program has not been uploaded on youtube, I can't give a word for word transcription. I took short hand notes and memorized the rest. But I will do my best to present all the facts I heard today.


So what is it that the US and its Iraqi puppets do not want the public to learn ? And why are they are not allowing any measurements of the levels of radiation in Falluja, and why did they even forbid the IAEA to enter Falluja ?

What exactly happened in Falluja ? What were the kinds of bombs used ? Was it just DU or more ?

1) One thing that is very peculiar to Falluja is that the rates of cancer have risen dramatically in a very short space of time i.e since 2004. Examples given by Dr.Busby :

- rate of Child Leukemia is 40 X (times) higher since 2004 than during previous years. And compared to Jordan for instance it is 38 X times higher.
- rate of breast cancer is 10 X higher since 2004
- rate of lymphatic cancer is also 10 x higher since 2004.

2) Another peculiarity to Falluja is the dramatic rise in infant mortality rates. Compared to 2 other Arab countries like Kuwait and Egypt who are not contaminated by radiation these are the figures :

- infant mortality rates for Falluja is 80 infants out of 1'000 births in comparison to Kuwait with 9 infants out of 1'000, and to Egypt with 19 infants out of 1'000. (so Iraqi infant mortality rate is 4 times higher than Egypt and 9 times higher than Kuwait)

3) the third peculiarity to Falluja is the number of genetic deformities that has suddenly exploded since 2004. This is a subject I've already covered in the past. But this is not the whole story, today I learned something else. The radiation of whatever agent that was used by the "liberating forces", not only causes massive genetic deformities but also and this is very important :

- it causes structural changes at the cellular level.

- which in turns means due to the genetic make up of male infants (lack of X chromosome), male infants are more likely to die at birth, and female infants are more likely to survive birth with strong deformities. And here another example is given by Dr.Busby : prior to 2003 the birth rates in Falluja were as follows : 1050 male infants to 1000 female infants. In 2005, there has been only 350 male infants born - meaning that male infants do not survive.

- as for the female infants and this is where the tragedy lies...radiation causes change at the DNA level, which means that these same female if they do survive, and if they do reproduce will give birth to genetically disfigured females and dead male infants.

- the above findings are backed by other studies conducted on the children and grandchildren of Hiroshima survivors (in 2007) and which show that even the third generation exhibits genetic malformations including disease(cancer, heart, etc...)by a rate of 50 X times. In Chernobyl on the other hand, studies on animals in the same area have shown that the effects of radiation have genetically modified 22 generations. In sum radiation is transmitted from gene to gene and has a cumulative effect with time. (won't go into how - with cells accumulation/ memory and the working of the immune system - here. You can read more details about that once Prof Busby's paper is published)

- Some of the infant deformities are so grotesque that both Al-Jazeera and the BBC who produced a documentary on the same subject - refused to air pictures to their viewers. Examples of deformities which Ahmad Mansour has pictures of are :
* children born without eyes
* children with two and three heads
* children born with no orifices
* children born with brain and eye/retina malignant tumors
* children born with vital organs lacking
* children born with missing limbs or extra ones
* children born with no genitals
* children born with severe cardiac malformation

and more...

- on that same point, doctors in Falluja were asked for the purpose of the study to note the rates of birth defects in the space of one month and compare to a previous month and this is the result : in the space of one month alone births with defects rose from 1 x day (previous month) to 3 x day (current month designated for the study which was February 2010)

- Uranium is fed into the blood stream through ingestion and inhalation. The massive levels of Uranium the people of Falluja were subjected to also accounts for the vertiginous rise in lung, lymph nodes and breast cancers in adults.

Already with these preliminary findings, Prof. Busby and his team concluded that in comparison to Hiroshima and Nagazaki - Falluja was worse. And I quote from Dr.Busby : " The situation in Falluja is scary and horrendous, it is more dangerous and worse than Hiroshima..."

On a side but very related note :

I mentioned these are preliminary results - why so ?

Because Prof. Busby has been harassed and has had his research funds slashed, doors closed in his face, threatened, (alongside other scientists who tried conducting similar studies in the 90's in Iraq), abandoned by the scientific community, mobbed --because of the nature of his work on Iraq. The political implications are enormous and dangerous for the US and its cronies. It means that the scientific evidence for War Crimes is right here at our fingertips...

Hence Prof. Busby's life has been made very difficult. The research paper that he took great pains in conducting and producing was sent to the Lancet for reviewing at the Scientific committee level, the Lancet turned it down saying it did not have the time to review it. Labs who cooperated in the past to test samples - turned him down when they found out that the samples were from Iraq. Only 2 labs are willing to test the samples for the EXACT MATERIAL/AGENT USED IN FALLUJA - and they are willing to do so only at a very exorbitant price - again due to the sensitive nature of the study. Also due to lack of funds, Prof Busby has about 20 samples from Falluja for testing -- that he is carefully safeguarding -- is awaiting the necessary funds to do so.

When asked by Ahmad Mansour what makes him persevere seeing all the formidable obstacles that he has been facing - his reply was :

" All my life, I sought the Truth, I am a hunter of the Truth in a jungle of lies. I also have children. Children are not only our future, they are the carriers of future generations. For 50 years we have been contaminating the planet (with radiation) and we pass this legacy onto our children and grandchildren. We owe it to the people of Falluja to find out the Truth "

When asked how he manages with no funds and doors closing in his face - his reply was :

" I rely on the goodwill of people who send little amounts here and there, and am also a firm believer if the main door closes, open other ones. When there's a will, there's a way."

Hats off to you Prof. Busby.

I urge all the people reading this post, all people of conscience, I urge all the Iraqis (get a move on for God's sake!) and all Arabs to contact Prof. Busby and to donate so the samples from Falluja can be tested and the Truth can be uncovered. And I shall end this post with a final quote from this great dedicated man

" The Truth has wings that can't be clipped "

I have to end here. It's early morning, I have not slept yet. I wanted to get this out to the world...the question I shall take with me to bed -- if I can ever close my eyes -- is the same question I have been asking since 2003 - Why ? What have the Iraqi people, what have the Iraqi children done to you to deserve all that ?

The implications are harrowing....

P.S: Paola Pisi, Editor of Uruknet found the youtube video, it has just been uploaded. I don't know how she does these things because I've been searching for it for hours. Thank you Paola. Here's another dedicated person to theTruth. If anyone can translate it fully into English I'd appreciate that. Am really too exhausted to review it now and compare it to my notes, above. Again I repeat my plea - IRAQIS GET OFF YOUR ASSES. "Foreigners" care more about your country and the Truth than you do. Shameful lot !