...veral as jy jou hardloop twee-en-dertig jaar gelede in die Suid-Angolese bos verloor het:
Joerie, joerie, botter en brood,
as ek jou kry, slaat ek jou dood
Sunday, May 29, 2011
Saturday, May 28, 2011
DON'T FOLLOW THE MONEY, VOLG DIE GETUIENIS
The cluster bombing of Misrata: The case against the USA
Posted on May 25, 2011 by HRI Mark
The ongoing HRI investigation of the cluster bombing of Misrata in April 2011 has found convincing evidence the bombing was committed by US naval forces.
The bombing of Misrata
On the 15th April 2011, during the day, sub-munitions of a MAT-120 cluster bomb were shown to Human Rights Watch (HRW) and C.J. Chivers, a journalist for the New York Times, in Misrata. On that evening, during ongoing clashes between rebel and loyalist forces, Human Rights Watch workers witnessed 3 or 4 cluster munitions landing in residential areas of Misrata. HRW attest to further subsequent such bombings.
Civilians were killed in these attacks and the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navi Pillay, condemned:
“The reported repeated use of cluster munitions and heavy weaponry by Libyan government forces in their attempt to regain control of the besieged city of Misrata.”
She noted that one cluster bomb had reportedly exploded a few hundred metres from a hospital in Misrata while another two clinics were apparently hit by mortar or sniper fire.
“Using imprecise weaponry such as cluster munitions, multiple rocket launchers and mortars, and other forms of heavy weaponry, in crowded urban areas will inevitably lead to civilian casualties.”
The rush to judgement
Both HRW and C.J. Chivers immediately blamed these attacks on the Gaddafi regime and the news has been a front page and first item on the television news around the world.
Here are the relevant HRW and NYT reports:
In response to the question of why he assumed the munitions, which form part of NATO’s arsenal, were fired by Libyan rather than NATO forces, Fred Abrahams said,
“Because the MAT-120 is mortar-fired and NATO has no troops on the ground.” Link
When initially confronted with the information that cluster bombs had been found in Misrata, Hillary Clinton’s reaction was:
“That is worrying information. And it is one of the reasons the fight in Misrata is so difficult, because it’s at close quarters, it’s in amongst urban areas and it poses a lot of challenges to both NATO and to the opposition.”
The MAT-120 cluster bomb can be fired by naval forces
The MAT-120 ammunition is indeed mortar-fired, but it is a heavy weapon of a specific type which can be used in specific weapons systems, mounted in a turret.
Here is the AMOS system on a CB-90 in action:
Weapon of choice for Special Operations
The combination of the MAT-120 ammunition and the Combat Boat 90H has been described as ideal for fire support in urban environments and is one of the only weapons systems in the coalition armoury that can be used for this task.
As Captain Evin H. Thompson, Commander of US Naval Special Warfare Group Four, said in June 2007, in relation to a specific question about US Navy use of the CB90-H and AMOS system (which fires the MAT-120):
“The Amos or something like that – tied into my reduced signature boat gives special operation and our Navy the ability to clandestinely be someplace with the capability to act if circumstances allow.”
US Naval Special Group Special Warfare Combatant-craft Crewmen are specifically trained in night-time raids and close support of SEALS units in coastal waters and have possession of a flotilla of CB-90s.
NATO admit bombing inside Misrata
During the period that these munitions were used there was fierce fighting between rebel and loyalist forces with coalition forces providing firing support and special services support to the rebels in order to prevent loyalist forces retaking the town, which would have seen an end to the rebel’s last foothold in western Libya.
Our update on the bombing of Misrata shows that NATO admit to bombing using “certain weapons” within the city of Misrata.
The reports that Spain sold the MAT-120 to Libya.
We have found the reports that Instalaza, the Spanish manufacturer of the MAT-120, has admitted selling these weapons to Libya turn out to be baseless. In fact Instalaza have denied selling these weapons to Libya.
The munitions found in Misrata were dated 2007 (batches 02/07 and 03/07) and the Spanish government ceased issuing any export licences on 11 June 2008.
The reports that these munitions were sold to Libya appear to rest on a misreading of the Spanish Government’s National Reports export data for arms exports – and this is a misreading which has been contained in media reports since a 15 September 2008 article in Solidaridad. It seems likely that the organisers of the bombing of Misrata read these reports and assumed that Libya possessed the MAT-120.
The Spanish government reports show licenses were issued by Spain for exports to Libya in category 4, which includes bombs and missiles, in 2007 and an export was made in 2008 in this category. The amounts were for 3 licenses in 2007 valued at a total of 3,823,500 Euros and actual exports under 2 licences of 3,839,21 Euros in 2008. There is no detail in the reports on these shipments and what they consisted of or who the companies were (although detail is separately given on dual-use equipment in 2008 – radars and lab equipment).
Of the countries to whom Spain sold category 4 munitions in 2007 and 2008 only three countries are involved in the Libyan conflict and have not signed up to the cluster munitions treaty – and those countries are Libya, Qatar and the USA. But everyone has rushed to blame Libya based on a misreading of this report.
However, analysis of official Spanish government documents indicates Spanish company Instalaza didn’t export cluster weapons to Libya in 2007/08.
In fact the MAT-120, as a mortar round, is a category 3 munition (ammunition), not a category 4 one (bomb), and Spain didn’t export any category 3 munitions to Libya in 2007 or 2008. So the bombs Spain exported to Libya in 2008 were not the MAT-120 but something else. Spain did export category 3 munitions to the USA.
Below is an extract from the Spanish National Report on Exports of 2007 showing the way different items are categorised:
DESCRIPTION OF THE 22 ARTICLES FIGURING ON THE LIST OF DEFENCE MATERIAL (ROYAL DECREE 1782/2004 OF 30 JULY)
DESCRIPTION OF THE 22 ARTICLES FIGURING ON THE LIST OF DEFENCE MATERIAL (ROYAL DECREE 1782/2004 OF 30 JULY)
2 Smooth-bore weapons with a calibre of 20 mm or more:
Firearms (including pieces of artillery), rifles, howitzers, cannons, mortars, anti-tank weapons, projectile launchers, flame throwers, recoilless rifles, signature reduction devices, military smoke, gas and pyrotechnic projectors or generators and weapons sights.
Firearms (including pieces of artillery), rifles, howitzers, cannons, mortars, anti-tank weapons, projectile launchers, flame throwers, recoilless rifles, signature reduction devices, military smoke, gas and pyrotechnic projectors or generators and weapons sights.
3 Ammunition, devices and components
Ammunition for the weapons subject to control by articles 1, 2 or 12. Fusesetting devices including cases, links, bands, power supplies with high operational output, sensors, submunitions
Ammunition for the weapons subject to control by articles 1, 2 or 12. Fusesetting devices including cases, links, bands, power supplies with high operational output, sensors, submunitions
4 Bombs, torpedoes, rockets, missiles
Bombs, torpedoes, grenades, smoke canisters, rockets, mines, missiles, depth charges, demolition charges, “pyrotechnic” devices, cartridges and simulators, smoke grenades, incendiary bombs, missile rocket nozzles and re-entry vehicle nosetips.
Bombs, torpedoes, grenades, smoke canisters, rockets, mines, missiles, depth charges, demolition charges, “pyrotechnic” devices, cartridges and simulators, smoke grenades, incendiary bombs, missile rocket nozzles and re-entry vehicle nosetips.
These categories, used in the Spanish Report, are in line with those of the Common Military List of the European Union.
This means that the contention that the MAT-120, the mortar fired ammunition was exported to Libya from Spain is based on a misreading of the report. In fact, according to the Report, Libya could not have been supplied with the MAT-120.
Of the countries to which category 3 exports were actually made in 2007 and 2008 (after the date of manufacture of the bombs found in Misrata and before the Spanish government banned their export) only the following country has not signed the Convention against Cluster Munitions and is involved in the conflict in Libya: The USA
The weapons systems trail.
A limited number of weapons systems can be used to fire the MAT-120 and these include the Combat Boat 90H (CB-90) with the AMOS system on board which is manufactured under licence in the USA by AAI Corp.
The United States leadership fully approve of cluster munitions
The USA has refused to sign the Convention against Cluster Munitions and these weapons are normal parts of their arsenal with the USA possessing a very large stockpile of cluster munitions.
US Defence Secretary Robert Gates has said cluster munitions are regarded by the US as:
“Legitimate weapons with clear military utility.”
In fact, Secretary Gates signed the policy on July 9 2008 that all cluster bombs in the US armoury should be of a similar type to the M-120 by 2018.
As Richard Kidd, Director of the Office of Weapons Removal and Abatement, U.S. Department of State, wrote in “Is There a Strategy for Responsible U.S. Engagement on Cluster Munitions?” April 28, 2008:
“Cluster munitions are available for use by every combat aircraft in the U.S. inventory, they are integral to every Army or Marine maneuver element and in some cases constitute up to 50 percent of tactical indirect fire support.”
Yet, the alleged war crime of bombing Misrata is also being used by US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and other authorities to justify an escalation of the conflict in Libya.
The coalition operation in Misrata
On the 14th of April, NATO Secretary-General Rasmussen confirmed that Admiral Stavridis had briefed foreign ministers that Gadaffi’s forces were now in populated areas and that “to avoid civilian casualties we need very sophisticated equipment.”
The US Combat Boat 90 or similar can be transported using a transport aircraft to anywhere in the world in short order or transported to the immediate region using a naval support vessel.
The main ships involved from the United States Navy – ie “supporting Operation Unified Protector, off the coast of Libya” on the 14th and 15th April are attached to the Kearsarge Amphibious Group – Kearsarge (LHD-3) itself was in port in Augusta Bay, Sicily during the nights on which Misrata was cluster bombed.
The first ship is the USS Barry (DG-52) which is a destroyer and probably the destroyer spotted by CJ Chivers off the coast of Misrata.
Here is USS Barry earlier in the Libyan operation firing Tomahawk missiles into Libya:
Interestingly, the commanding Officer of USS Barry used to be Admiral James G Stavridis, the Admiral who is particularly keen on information wars and controlling the internet.
USS Barry participated in an exercise (FLEETEX 2-94) which involved covert SEAL team extraction in shallow water off the Carolina coast. USS Barry is based at Naval Station Norfolk, Virginia, also the base of Eva H. Thompson – the commander of Special Warfare Unit Four, who we have quoted before, praising the usefulness of the Combat Boat 90 and AMOS system.
The second ship of interest is the USS Ponce (LPD-15), an Austin-class amphibious transport dock. An amphibious transport dock is a warship that embarks, transports and lands elements of a landing force for expeditionary warfare missions. This ship had something of the order of 851 enlisted servicemen and 72 officers on board.
Interestingly shortly after the Misrata operation, both the skipper and executive officer of USS Ponce, Commander Etta Jones and Lt. Cmdr. Kurt Boenisch, were relieved of their commands.
The third ship, of interest, is the USS Carter Hall (LSD-50) which is a dock landing ship and travelled through the Suez canal to join the others on April 13th, the day before the cluster bombing of Misrata. A dock landing ship is a form of amphibious warship designed to support amphibious operations. These amphibious assault ships transport and launch amphibious craft and vehicles with their crews and embarked personnel. usually these forces would be marines and/or special forces.
Embarked on these ships were certain units, including the 26th Marine Expeditionary Unit (Special Operations Capable) (26MEU) and Naval Beach Group Two (NBG2), TACRON 21, Four and Helicopter Sea Combat Squadron TWO TWO (HSC-22).
The commander of the task force was Captain Dan Shaffer – who doubled up as Commander Task Force 65 (CTF-65) and Commander Destroyer Squadron 60 (DESRON60). He is under the command of Admiral Stavridis.
Operating from an amphibious transport dock ship, the forces involved, operating at night, could have been confident that they would not be discovered using these weapons.
The forces would also have been confident the use of these weapons would be blamed on the Gaddafi regime, as the operation organiser’s research would have shown that the MAT-120 was a a weapon possessed by Libya.
Human Rights Investigations calls for:
1). A full investigation into the possession and use of cluster munitions by all forces in the Libyan conflict with no impunity.
2). The suspension of military personnel found to be involved pending investigation and prosecution for war crimes.
3). A full investigation by the US authorities.
4). There should be investigations by the United Nations and by each of the nations participating in the coalition as the use of these munitions in a residential area is a clear violation of UN Resolution 1973, and
“those responsible for or complicit in attacks targeting the civilian population, including aerial and naval attacks, must be held to account.”
5). All members of the coalition, including the USA, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates to declare their use of cluster munitions and to sign the Convention on Cluster Munitions.
6). An end to the ‘information war’ and military distortion of the public debate.
7). An end to the ongoing bombing of Libya which is against the spirit and intent of UN Resolution 1973 which was intended to protect civilians, not justify bombing of civilian areas, never mind justify war crimes and the cluster bombing of Libyan cities.
ONWEERLEGBAAR
Friday, 27 May 2011 17:01(ID)
MR SMILEY, SMILEY, HOPE AND CHANGE ...
Obama bin Lying is a man of war claiming to stand for peace; a man of lies talking about standing for integrity. The dream-world is on public display. Boy Bush was a deeply unpleasant character; grossly arrogant in a ‘my daddy is bigger than your daddy’ sort of way; and an empathy-deficient idiot. But Obama is far beyond that. This man is dark, real dark. Behind the painted smile lies a cold, calculating, ruthless, narcissistic, psychopath/sociopath.
Sociopath: ‘A person whose behaviour is antisocial and who lacks a sense of moral responsibility or social conscience.’ Narcissist: ‘Inordinate fascination with oneself; excessive self-love; vanity. Erotic gratification derived from admiration of one's own physical or mental attributes, being a normal condition at the infantile level of personality development.’Psychopath: ‘A person afflicted with a personality disorder characterised by a tendency to commit antisocial and sometimes violent acts and a failure to feel guilt for such acts.’
In other words, a lack of empathy with those who suffer the consequences of your actions. The same as Blair, Cameron, Bush, Cheney, ad infinitum. This is the blueprint for place-people in government. How could it be anything else when empathy would stop you slaughtering the innocent? What use is a conscience to a tyranny?
Obama and Cameron are blueprint ‘leaders’ and the blueprint is Blair. For a decade, former British Prime Minister, Tony Blair, perfected the mould which was used to clone this pair of professional liars and hypocrites. Its basic software program is to constantly smile in public to hide the darkness of your eyes which betray the darkness of your soul; and to speak of peace, justice, integrity and ‘values’ while you bomb vast numbers of people unjustly under the cover of lies and deceit, because you ‘value’ only power and to follow the orders of your hidden masters.
Isn’t that right, Mr Anglo-American?
Blair sent British forces to war five times in his first six years in office – more than any other prime minister in history – and yet claimed to stand for peace and integrity, as do Obama and Cameron today, as they currently engage their troops in open wars and many others if you include the dark arts of covert manipulation and, in Obama’s case, the gathering war with Pakistan. But, of course, in line with the Blair Blueprint, they have to hide what they really are behind carefully-designed fake personas called ‘nice chap, man of the people, one of us, pretty straight kind of guy.’
Friday, May 27, 2011
IN DIE NWO
The New Face Of War
“We don’t need no stinkin’ badges”
By Conn Hallinan
May 27, 2011 "Information Clearing House" -- The assassination of al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden did more than knock off America’s Public Enemy Number One, it formalized a new kind of warfare, where sovereignty is irrelevant, armies tangential, and decisions are secret. It is, in the words of counterinsurgency expert John Nagl, “an astounding change in the nature of warfare.”
It is also one that requires a vast intelligence apparatus, one that now constitute almost a fourth arm of government that most Americans are almost completely unaware of. Yet, according to the Washington Post, this empire includes some 1, 271 government agencies and 1,931 private companies in more than 10, 000 locations across the country, with a budget last year of at least $80.1 billion.
“At the heart of this new warfare,” notes the Financial Times,” is high-tech cooperation between intelligence agencies and the military” that blurs the traditional borders between civilians and the armed forces. And it fits with the U.S.’s penchant for waging war with robots and covert Special Forces.
But, by definition, the secrecy at the core of the “new warfare” removes decisions about war and peace from the public realm and relegates them to secure rooms in the White House or clandestine bases in the Hindu Kush. When the Blackhawk helicopters slipped through Pakistani airspace, they did more than execute one of America’s greatest bugbears, they essentially said another country’s sovereignty was no longer relevant and consigned Congress to the role of spectator.
Over the past several decades U.S. military theorists have clashed over how to use the armed forces, though it is a debate that gets distorted by the requirements of industry: the U.S, does not really need 11 immense Nimitz class aircraft carriers, but the Newport News Shipbuilding Company—and the aerospace giants that fill the flattops with fighter bombers—do.
The arguments have revolved around three different approaches, the Powell Doctrine, the Rumsfeld Doctrine, and the Petraeus Doctrine.
The Powell Doctrine is essentially conventional warfare a-la-World War II: massive firepower, lots of soldiers, clear goals. This was the formula for the first Gulf War, which, after a month of bombing, lasted only four days. But it is a very expensive way to wage war.
The Rumsfeld Doctrine merged high tech firepower and Special Forces with a minimal use of Army and Marine units. It also relies on private contractors to do much of what was formerly done by the military. The doctrine routed the Taliban in Afghanistan in 2001 and quickly knocked out the Iraqi Army in the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Once the shock and awe wore off, however, the Doctrine’s weaknesses became obvious. It simply didn’t have the manpower to hold the ground against a guerilla insurgency. The 2007 “surge” of troops in Iraq, like last year’s surge in Afghanistan, was an admission that the doctrine was fundamentally flawed if the locals decided to keep fighting.
The Petraeus Doctrine is old wine in a new bottle: counterinsurgency. In theory, it is boots on the ground to win hearts and minds. It draws heavily on intelligence—what Gen. David Petraeus calls “bandwidth”—to isolate and eliminate any insurgents—and attempts to establish trust with the locals. It is cheaper than the Powell and Rumsfeld doctrines, but it also almost never works. Eventually the locals get tried of being occupied, and then counterinsurgency turns nasty. Building schools and digging wells give way to night raids and targeted assassinations that alienate the local population. According to U.S. intelligence, the current counterinsurgency program in Afghanistan is failing.
So, what is this “astounding change” that Nagl speaks of? If you want to put a name to it, “counter-terrorism” is probably the most descriptive, although with a new twist. Like counterinsurgency, counter-terrorism has been around a long time. The Phoenix Program that killed some 40,000 South Vietnamese was a variety of the doctrine. Phoenix, too, paid no attention to sovereignty. During the Vietnam War, Long Range Reconnaissance Patrols secretly went into Cambodia and Laos.
In recent years, the U.S. clandestinely sent Special Forces into Syria and Pakistan in a sort of shadow war against “insurgents.” A number of other countries have done the same.
But the Obama administration openly admits to sending a Special Forces Seal team into Pakistan to assassinate bin Laden, and it was prepared to fight Pakistan’s armed forces if they tried to intervene. And when Pakistan asked the U.S. to curb its use of armed drones in Pakistani airspace, the Central Intelligence Agency said it would do nothing of the kind.
It is as if counter-terrorism reconfigured that classic line from the movie “Treasure of the Sierra Madre”: “We don’t need no stinkin’ badges, we got drones and Seals.”
The principle behind counter-terrorism is eliminating people you don’t like. There is no patina of “hearts and minds,” and the new strategy makes no effort to practice the subterfuge of “plausible deniability” that has deflected the ire of target countries in the past.
While clandestine warfare is not new, the boldness of the bin Laden hit is. Certainly the people who planned the attack wanted to make a statement: we can get you anywhere you are, and impediments like international law, the Geneva Conventions and the United Nations Charter be damned.
“Targeted assassinations violate well-established principles of international law,” says law professor Marjorie Cohn. “Extrajudicial executions are unlawful, even in armed conflict.”
From the U.S.’s point of view, the doctrine has a number of advantages. It is cheaper, and its expenses are generally hidden away in a labyrinth of bureaucracy. For instance, the $80.1 billion figure is only an estimate and does not include the cost of the CIA’s drone war in Pakistan, or Homeland Security.
Recent moves by the White House suggest the administration is putting this new strategy in place. “Petraeus’s appointment to head the CIA is an important indication that the U.S. wants to fuse intelligence and military operations,” a “senior figure” at the British Defense Ministry told the Financial Times.
In the past the division between military and civilian intelligence agencies allowed for a range of opinions. While the U.S. military continues to put a rosy spin on the Afghan War, civilian intelligence agencies have been much more somber about the success of the current surge. That division is likely to vanish under the new regime, where intelligence becomes less about analysis and more about targeting.
The new warfare opens up a Pandora’s box, the implications of which are only beginning to be considered. What would be the reaction if Cuban armed forces had landed in Florida and assassinated Luis Posada and Orlando Bosch, two anti-Castro militants who were credibly charged with setting bombs in Havana and downing a Cuban airliner? Washington would treat it as an act of war. The problem with a foreign policy based on claw and fang is that, if one country claims the right to act independently of international law and the UN Charter, all countries can so claim.
In the end, however, the biggest victims for this “new” warfare will probably be the American people. Once an enormous intelligence bureaucracy is created—there are some 854,000 people with top-secrecy security clearance—it will be damned hard to dismantle it. And, since the very nature of the endeavor removes it from public oversight, it is a formula for a massive and uncontrolled expansion of the national security state.
Conn M. Hallinan is a columnist for Foreign Policy In Focus, “A Think Tank Without Walls, and an independent journalist. He holds a PhD in Anthropology from the University of California, Berkeley. He oversaw the journalism program at the University of California at Santa Cruz for 23 years, and won the UCSC Alumni Association’s Distinguished Teaching Award, as well as UCSC’s Innovations in Teaching Award, and Excellence in Teaching Award. He was also a college provost at UCSC, and retired in 2004. He is a winner of a Project Censored “Real News Award,” and lives in Berkeley, California.
“We don’t need no stinkin’ badges”
By Conn Hallinan
May 27, 2011 "Information Clearing House" -- The assassination of al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden did more than knock off America’s Public Enemy Number One, it formalized a new kind of warfare, where sovereignty is irrelevant, armies tangential, and decisions are secret. It is, in the words of counterinsurgency expert John Nagl, “an astounding change in the nature of warfare.”
It is also one that requires a vast intelligence apparatus, one that now constitute almost a fourth arm of government that most Americans are almost completely unaware of. Yet, according to the Washington Post, this empire includes some 1, 271 government agencies and 1,931 private companies in more than 10, 000 locations across the country, with a budget last year of at least $80.1 billion.
“At the heart of this new warfare,” notes the Financial Times,” is high-tech cooperation between intelligence agencies and the military” that blurs the traditional borders between civilians and the armed forces. And it fits with the U.S.’s penchant for waging war with robots and covert Special Forces.
But, by definition, the secrecy at the core of the “new warfare” removes decisions about war and peace from the public realm and relegates them to secure rooms in the White House or clandestine bases in the Hindu Kush. When the Blackhawk helicopters slipped through Pakistani airspace, they did more than execute one of America’s greatest bugbears, they essentially said another country’s sovereignty was no longer relevant and consigned Congress to the role of spectator.
Over the past several decades U.S. military theorists have clashed over how to use the armed forces, though it is a debate that gets distorted by the requirements of industry: the U.S, does not really need 11 immense Nimitz class aircraft carriers, but the Newport News Shipbuilding Company—and the aerospace giants that fill the flattops with fighter bombers—do.
The arguments have revolved around three different approaches, the Powell Doctrine, the Rumsfeld Doctrine, and the Petraeus Doctrine.
The Powell Doctrine is essentially conventional warfare a-la-World War II: massive firepower, lots of soldiers, clear goals. This was the formula for the first Gulf War, which, after a month of bombing, lasted only four days. But it is a very expensive way to wage war.
The Rumsfeld Doctrine merged high tech firepower and Special Forces with a minimal use of Army and Marine units. It also relies on private contractors to do much of what was formerly done by the military. The doctrine routed the Taliban in Afghanistan in 2001 and quickly knocked out the Iraqi Army in the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Once the shock and awe wore off, however, the Doctrine’s weaknesses became obvious. It simply didn’t have the manpower to hold the ground against a guerilla insurgency. The 2007 “surge” of troops in Iraq, like last year’s surge in Afghanistan, was an admission that the doctrine was fundamentally flawed if the locals decided to keep fighting.
The Petraeus Doctrine is old wine in a new bottle: counterinsurgency. In theory, it is boots on the ground to win hearts and minds. It draws heavily on intelligence—what Gen. David Petraeus calls “bandwidth”—to isolate and eliminate any insurgents—and attempts to establish trust with the locals. It is cheaper than the Powell and Rumsfeld doctrines, but it also almost never works. Eventually the locals get tried of being occupied, and then counterinsurgency turns nasty. Building schools and digging wells give way to night raids and targeted assassinations that alienate the local population. According to U.S. intelligence, the current counterinsurgency program in Afghanistan is failing.
So, what is this “astounding change” that Nagl speaks of? If you want to put a name to it, “counter-terrorism” is probably the most descriptive, although with a new twist. Like counterinsurgency, counter-terrorism has been around a long time. The Phoenix Program that killed some 40,000 South Vietnamese was a variety of the doctrine. Phoenix, too, paid no attention to sovereignty. During the Vietnam War, Long Range Reconnaissance Patrols secretly went into Cambodia and Laos.
In recent years, the U.S. clandestinely sent Special Forces into Syria and Pakistan in a sort of shadow war against “insurgents.” A number of other countries have done the same.
But the Obama administration openly admits to sending a Special Forces Seal team into Pakistan to assassinate bin Laden, and it was prepared to fight Pakistan’s armed forces if they tried to intervene. And when Pakistan asked the U.S. to curb its use of armed drones in Pakistani airspace, the Central Intelligence Agency said it would do nothing of the kind.
It is as if counter-terrorism reconfigured that classic line from the movie “Treasure of the Sierra Madre”: “We don’t need no stinkin’ badges, we got drones and Seals.”
The principle behind counter-terrorism is eliminating people you don’t like. There is no patina of “hearts and minds,” and the new strategy makes no effort to practice the subterfuge of “plausible deniability” that has deflected the ire of target countries in the past.
While clandestine warfare is not new, the boldness of the bin Laden hit is. Certainly the people who planned the attack wanted to make a statement: we can get you anywhere you are, and impediments like international law, the Geneva Conventions and the United Nations Charter be damned.
“Targeted assassinations violate well-established principles of international law,” says law professor Marjorie Cohn. “Extrajudicial executions are unlawful, even in armed conflict.”
From the U.S.’s point of view, the doctrine has a number of advantages. It is cheaper, and its expenses are generally hidden away in a labyrinth of bureaucracy. For instance, the $80.1 billion figure is only an estimate and does not include the cost of the CIA’s drone war in Pakistan, or Homeland Security.
Recent moves by the White House suggest the administration is putting this new strategy in place. “Petraeus’s appointment to head the CIA is an important indication that the U.S. wants to fuse intelligence and military operations,” a “senior figure” at the British Defense Ministry told the Financial Times.
In the past the division between military and civilian intelligence agencies allowed for a range of opinions. While the U.S. military continues to put a rosy spin on the Afghan War, civilian intelligence agencies have been much more somber about the success of the current surge. That division is likely to vanish under the new regime, where intelligence becomes less about analysis and more about targeting.
The new warfare opens up a Pandora’s box, the implications of which are only beginning to be considered. What would be the reaction if Cuban armed forces had landed in Florida and assassinated Luis Posada and Orlando Bosch, two anti-Castro militants who were credibly charged with setting bombs in Havana and downing a Cuban airliner? Washington would treat it as an act of war. The problem with a foreign policy based on claw and fang is that, if one country claims the right to act independently of international law and the UN Charter, all countries can so claim.
In the end, however, the biggest victims for this “new” warfare will probably be the American people. Once an enormous intelligence bureaucracy is created—there are some 854,000 people with top-secrecy security clearance—it will be damned hard to dismantle it. And, since the very nature of the endeavor removes it from public oversight, it is a formula for a massive and uncontrolled expansion of the national security state.
Conn M. Hallinan is a columnist for Foreign Policy In Focus, “A Think Tank Without Walls, and an independent journalist. He holds a PhD in Anthropology from the University of California, Berkeley. He oversaw the journalism program at the University of California at Santa Cruz for 23 years, and won the UCSC Alumni Association’s Distinguished Teaching Award, as well as UCSC’s Innovations in Teaching Award, and Excellence in Teaching Award. He was also a college provost at UCSC, and retired in 2004. He is a winner of a Project Censored “Real News Award,” and lives in Berkeley, California.
MEER SENSUUR/MORE CENSORSHIP
My fellow-blogger, Hermes MSafiri, is being blocked from writing on his blog
The world as seen by Hermes Msafiri, a traveller. A non politcal business man with an opinion...
Since his last (re)post (infra) he's unable to access his blog other than by the comments facility - see the highlighted comments following the article.
This is an absolute disgrace which should be made known as far and wide as possible.
BANHAU!*
*BLOGGERS AGAINST NATO HYPOCRISY, ATROCITIES UNITE!
Monday, May 23, 2011
Libya Turmoil 144
New York Times confirms NATO is supplying and aiding to supply weapons to Misurata.
Sealift Extends Lifeline to a Rebel City in Libya
New York Times confirms NATO is supplying and aiding to supply weapons to Misurata.
By C. J. CHIVERS
Published: May 22, 2011
ABOARD AL IRADAH 6 — Near midnight, in the darkness of the deliberately unlit Misurata harbor, the tugboat’s crew loosened its lines from the pier and pulled them aboard.The helmsman engaged Al Iradah 6’s dual engines and it spun into the basin, gathered speed and headed for the gap in the jetties. A few miles beyond, outside the range of Col.Muammar el-Qaddafi’s artillery, was the safety of the open sea.There, the helmsman turned the round bow eastward, toward Benghazi, the Libyan rebel capital about 300 miles away. The latest leg for an unlikely smuggling vessel was complete. In a little more than 24 hours, Al Iradah 6 would reach rebel-controlled territory and line up for a fresh cargo of medicine, food and guns — fuel for a city besieged.There have been many reasons for the rebels’ success in Misurata, where they recently drove the Qaddafi forces out of the city and seized the airport. One of them is this: a determined and surreptitious sealift by a small fleet of Libyan boats.Combining the talents of those who procure a city’s wartime needs with those of merchant mariners and fishermen, rebels have organized about two dozen fishing vessels and former Qaddafi-controlled tugboats into an impromptu fleet that has provided Misurata with a lifeline of supplies. The fleet sails with NATO’s approval and support. (Rebels and organizers in both Benghazi and Misurata spoke openly of the smuggling effort, but asked that certain locations and shipping schedules not be disclosed.)At a basic level, it has assumed missions of both mercy and war. The mixed cargo — baby formula and medicine beside crates of ammunition — has helped civilians survive and equipped Misurata for its fight.The strategic significance of Misurata has not been lost on the crew of Al Iradah 6. For months, rebels trapped in the city, 130 miles from Tripoli, provided Libya’s opposition movement with a powerful argument against any discussion of the war’s end that called for national partition.As long as Misurata’s armed men held on to their city, the nation’s third largest, the Qaddafi government could never credibly say that the war was a contest between east and west, and propose that the country, divided by history and tribal allegiances, be split.These were among the political and human motivations for many sailors who chose to join the rebels’ war effort. Outside the harbor, the captain of Al Iradah 6, Saif Nasser, said something else propelled him, too — the sense of self-respect and self-determination that came with rising up.“Qaddafi thought the people are not strong,” the captain said. “For more than 40 years we were his prisoners, and he thought we are like animals. But now he has found that we are very strong people.”The scenes aboard Al Iradah 6, which completed a round-trip voyage earlier this month, captured the mix of planning, security, passion and energy that has characterized the effort.Al Iradah 6, an 85-foot vessel assembled in Libya with Damen Shipyards of the Netherlands, is yet another of the Qaddafi government’s procurements that rebels have put to use to try to push Colonel Qaddafi from power. In excellent condition and equipped with modern marine electronics and safety gear — the sort of harbor vessel an oil state could afford — it has been in rebel service since March.After its arrival late in the afternoon, its wartime cargo was unloaded by rebels who materialized from Misurata.Working quickly, sometimes chanting and singing, they carried off medicine, baby formula, food, recoilless-rifle ammunition, machine-gun cartridges and Kalashnikov and Belgian-made FN FAL rifles. Spare machine-gun barrels were visible, too.The captain disappeared briefly to confer with the harbor authorities. The tug had entered the harbor unchallenged. But Misurata’s port had been shelled repeatedly in previous weeks and mined at least twice. He opted to wait for nightfall to slip back to sea.By now, the Qaddafi forces arrayed to Misurata’s southeast almost certainly knew that the tug was in the harbor, and their artillery observers might be waiting for Captain Nasser to leave. Better to head back at night, running lights switched off.After darkness, a second tug, the Saladin, steamed into port. Its cargo was stacked high on its aft deck and under tarps. Al Iradah’s crew stood at the rails and called out into the night. “You are here! Welcome!” they shouted. “God is great!” The Saladin tied off nearby. A fresh scrum of pickup trucks full of rebels arrived at the pier. The unloading began.Soon Al Iradah 6 returned to sea. As it left the harbor it radioed ahead to NATO warships beyond the horizon, to request permission to pass through their blockade.“The sea and sky?” Captain Nasser said. “Nothing crosses without permission from NATO.”8 comments:
Capo said...- Hermes,
I thought I posted here, or on my site, but I have read interviews of fighters going to Misurata by sea to reinforce the insurgents. No awareness or recognition by the reporter of the the significance of what the fighters were saying.
- Anonymous said...
- In addition The Times last week wrote a story quoting a rebel leader as saying he had 'over 200 men'. Misrata is the third largest city in Libya with a population of 550,000 in 2006. This clearly shows that far from being a popular uprising,civilians may be being held hostage and terrorised in a lawless city. CAM
- Levantine said...
- The mainstream media seem entirely controlled by globalist interests.
Also, the mainstream media reveal to us the hypocrisy of it all, day by day.
How are these two facts to be squared, exactly, it would be nice if someone could tell.
- Anonymous said...
- For light relief: Kirill reports the Qatar Ministry of Justice has been hacked; this site is now called "Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb
http://kir-svetitskiy.livejournal.com/2011/05/18/
he has some screen shots as it has probably been sorted by now. CAM
- Anonymous said...
- My blog is blocked again, I cannot post anymore.
I am going to open an alternative blog.
I will let you know here.
The behind the scenes news is not bad for the moment although it doesn't look like it.
One or 2 days patience please.
his is the only way I could come on comments.
Hermes MSafiri
- Anonymous said...
- Blog article with facts claiming cluster bombs in Misrata were from USA Navy
http://humanrightsinvestigations.org/2011/05/25/the-cluster-bombing-of-misrata-the-case-against-the-usa/
Hermes MSafiri
- Anonymous said...
- Spanish Petition to stop the war on Libya by Nato
http://www.firmasonline.com/peticion/contra-la-agresion-de-usa-y-otan-a-libia-no-a-la-invasion/369/60c2b555650b71cd65b66afd3e15caf5
CAM
- Anonymous said...
- Dennis Kucinich congressman speaks against war in congress and unconstitionality. Excellent speech!
Petition also
http://kucinich.us/
CAM
ABOARD AL IRADAH 6 — Near midnight, in the darkness of the deliberately unlit Misurata harbor, the tugboat’s crew loosened its lines from the pier and pulled them aboard.
The helmsman engaged Al Iradah 6’s dual engines and it spun into the basin, gathered speed and headed for the gap in the jetties. A few miles beyond, outside the range of Col.Muammar el-Qaddafi’s artillery, was the safety of the open sea.
There, the helmsman turned the round bow eastward, toward Benghazi, the Libyan rebel capital about 300 miles away. The latest leg for an unlikely smuggling vessel was complete. In a little more than 24 hours, Al Iradah 6 would reach rebel-controlled territory and line up for a fresh cargo of medicine, food and guns — fuel for a city besieged.
There have been many reasons for the rebels’ success in Misurata, where they recently drove the Qaddafi forces out of the city and seized the airport. One of them is this: a determined and surreptitious sealift by a small fleet of Libyan boats.
Combining the talents of those who procure a city’s wartime needs with those of merchant mariners and fishermen, rebels have organized about two dozen fishing vessels and former Qaddafi-controlled tugboats into an impromptu fleet that has provided Misurata with a lifeline of supplies. The fleet sails with NATO’s approval and support. (Rebels and organizers in both Benghazi and Misurata spoke openly of the smuggling effort, but asked that certain locations and shipping schedules not be disclosed.)
At a basic level, it has assumed missions of both mercy and war. The mixed cargo — baby formula and medicine beside crates of ammunition — has helped civilians survive and equipped Misurata for its fight.
The strategic significance of Misurata has not been lost on the crew of Al Iradah 6. For months, rebels trapped in the city, 130 miles from Tripoli, provided Libya’s opposition movement with a powerful argument against any discussion of the war’s end that called for national partition.
As long as Misurata’s armed men held on to their city, the nation’s third largest, the Qaddafi government could never credibly say that the war was a contest between east and west, and propose that the country, divided by history and tribal allegiances, be split.
These were among the political and human motivations for many sailors who chose to join the rebels’ war effort. Outside the harbor, the captain of Al Iradah 6, Saif Nasser, said something else propelled him, too — the sense of self-respect and self-determination that came with rising up.
“Qaddafi thought the people are not strong,” the captain said. “For more than 40 years we were his prisoners, and he thought we are like animals. But now he has found that we are very strong people.”
The scenes aboard Al Iradah 6, which completed a round-trip voyage earlier this month, captured the mix of planning, security, passion and energy that has characterized the effort.
Al Iradah 6, an 85-foot vessel assembled in Libya with Damen Shipyards of the Netherlands, is yet another of the Qaddafi government’s procurements that rebels have put to use to try to push Colonel Qaddafi from power. In excellent condition and equipped with modern marine electronics and safety gear — the sort of harbor vessel an oil state could afford — it has been in rebel service since March.
After its arrival late in the afternoon, its wartime cargo was unloaded by rebels who materialized from Misurata.
Working quickly, sometimes chanting and singing, they carried off medicine, baby formula, food, recoilless-rifle ammunition, machine-gun cartridges and Kalashnikov and Belgian-made FN FAL rifles. Spare machine-gun barrels were visible, too.
The captain disappeared briefly to confer with the harbor authorities. The tug had entered the harbor unchallenged. But Misurata’s port had been shelled repeatedly in previous weeks and mined at least twice. He opted to wait for nightfall to slip back to sea.
By now, the Qaddafi forces arrayed to Misurata’s southeast almost certainly knew that the tug was in the harbor, and their artillery observers might be waiting for Captain Nasser to leave. Better to head back at night, running lights switched off.
After darkness, a second tug, the Saladin, steamed into port. Its cargo was stacked high on its aft deck and under tarps. Al Iradah’s crew stood at the rails and called out into the night. “You are here! Welcome!” they shouted. “God is great!” The Saladin tied off nearby. A fresh scrum of pickup trucks full of rebels arrived at the pier. The unloading began.
Soon Al Iradah 6 returned to sea. As it left the harbor it radioed ahead to NATO warships beyond the horizon, to request permission to pass through their blockade.
“The sea and sky?” Captain Nasser said. “Nothing crosses without permission from NATO.”
8 comments:
- Capo said...
- Hermes, I thought I posted here, or on my site, but I have read interviews of fighters going to Misurata by sea to reinforce the insurgents. No awareness or recognition by the reporter of the the significance of what the fighters were saying.
- Anonymous said...
- In addition The Times last week wrote a story quoting a rebel leader as saying he had 'over 200 men'. Misrata is the third largest city in Libya with a population of 550,000 in 2006. This clearly shows that far from being a popular uprising,civilians may be being held hostage and terrorised in a lawless city. CAM
- Levantine said...
- The mainstream media seem entirely controlled by globalist interests. Also, the mainstream media reveal to us the hypocrisy of it all, day by day. How are these two facts to be squared, exactly, it would be nice if someone could tell.
- Anonymous said...
- For light relief: Kirill reports the Qatar Ministry of Justice has been hacked; this site is now called "Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb http://kir-svetitskiy.livejournal.com/2011/05/18/ he has some screen shots as it has probably been sorted by now. CAM
- Anonymous said...
- My blog is blocked again, I cannot post anymore. I am going to open an alternative blog. I will let you know here. The behind the scenes news is not bad for the moment although it doesn't look like it. One or 2 days patience please. his is the only way I could come on comments. Hermes MSafiri
- Anonymous said...
- Blog article with facts claiming cluster bombs in Misrata were from USA Navy http://humanrightsinvestigations.org/2011/05/25/the-cluster-bombing-of-misrata-the-case-against-the-usa/ Hermes MSafiri
- Anonymous said...
- Spanish Petition to stop the war on Libya by Nato http://www.firmasonline.com/peticion/contra-la-agresion-de-usa-y-otan-a-libia-no-a-la-invasion/369/60c2b555650b71cd65b66afd3e15caf5 CAM
- Anonymous said...
- Dennis Kucinich congressman speaks against war in congress and unconstitionality. Excellent speech! Petition also http://kucinich.us/ CAM
WIE IS DIE EIENAARS VAN ANGLO-AMERICAN?
Welcome to the Violent World of Mr. Hopey Changey
By John Pilger
May 26, 2011 -- When Britain lost control of Egypt in 1956, Prime Minister Anthony Eden said he wanted the nationalist president Gamal Abdel Nasser "destroyed … murdered … I don’t give a damn if there’s anarchy and chaos in Egypt". Those insolent Arabs, Winston Churchill had urged in 1951, should be driven "into the gutter from which they should never have emerged". The language of colonialism may have been modified; the spirit and the hypocrisy are unchanged. A new imperial phase is unfolding in direct response to the Arab uprising that began in January and has shocked Washington and Europe, causing an Eden-style panic. The loss of the Egyptian tyrant Mubarak was grievous, though not irretrievable; an American-backed counter-revolution is under way as the military regime in Cairo is seduced with new bribes and power shifting from the street to political groups that did not initiate the revolution. The western aim, as ever, is to stop authentic democracy and reclaim control. Libya is the immediate opportunity. The Nato attack on Libya, with the UN Security Council assigned to mandate a bogus "no fly zone" to "protect civilians", is strikingly similar to the final destruction of Yugoslavia in 1999. There was no UN cover for the bombing of Serbia and the "rescue" of Kosovo, yet the propaganda echoes today. Like Slobodan Milosevic, Muammar Gaddafi is a "new Hitler", plotting "genocide" against his people. There is no evidence of this, as there was no genocide in Kosovo. In Libya there is a tribal civil war; and the armed uprising against Gaddafi has long been appropriated by the Americans, French and British, their planes attacking residential Tripoli with uranium-tipped missiles and the submarine HMS Triumph firing Tomahawk missiles, a repeat of the "shock and awe" in Iraq that left thousands of civilians dead and maimed. As in Iraq, the victims, which include countless incinerated Libyan army conscripts, are media unpeople. In the "rebel" east, the terrorising and killing of black African immigrants is not news. On 22 May, a rare piece in the Washington Post described the repression, lawlessness and death squads in the "liberated zones" just as visiting EU foreign policy chief, Catherine Ashton, declared she had found only "great aspirations" and "leadership qualities". In demonstrating these qualities, Mustafa Abdel Jalil, the "rebel leader" and Gaddafi’s justice minister until February, pledged, "Our friends … will have the best opportunity in future contracts with Libya." The east holds most of Libya’s oil, the greatest reserves in Africa. In March the rebels, with expert foreign guidance, "transferred" to Benghazi the Libyan Central Bank, a wholly owned state institution. This is unprecedented. Meanwhile, the US and the EU "froze" almost US$100 billion in Libyan funds, "the largest sum ever blocked", according to official statements. It is the biggest bank robbery in history. The French elite are enthusiastic robbers and bombers. Nicholas Sarkozy’s imperial design is for a French-dominated Mediterranean Union (UM), which would allow France to "return" to its former colonies in North Africa and profit from privileged investment and cheap labour. Gaddafi described the Sarkozy plan as "an insult" that was "taking us for fools". The Merkel government in Berlin agreed, fearing its old foe would diminish Germany in the EU, and abstained in the Security Council vote on Libya. Like the attack on Yugoslavia and the charade of Milosevic’s trial, the International Criminal Court is being used by the US, France and Britain to prosecute Gaddafi while his repeated offers of a ceasefire are ignored. Gaddafi is a Bad Arab. David Cameron’s government and its verbose top general want to eliminate this Bad Arab, like the Obama administration killed a famously Bad Arab in Pakistan recently. The crown prince of Bahrain, on the other hand, is a Good Arab. On 19 May, he was warmly welcomed to Britain by Cameron with a photo-call on the steps of 10 Downing Street. In March, the same crown prince slaughtered unarmed protestors and allowed Saudi forces to crush his country’s democracy movement. The Obama administration has rewarded Saudi Arabia, one of the most repressive regimes on earth, with a $US60 billion arms deal, the biggest in US history. The Saudis have the most oil. They are the Best Arabs. The assault on Libya, a crime under the Nuremberg standard, is Britain’s 46th military "intervention" in the Middle East since 1945. Like its imperial partners, Britain’s goal is to control Africa’s oil. Cameron is not Anthony Eden, but almost. Same school. Same values. In the media-pack, the words colonialism and imperialism are no longer used, so that the cynical and the credulous can celebrate state violence in its more palatable form. And as "Mr. Hopey Changey" (the name that Ted Rall, the great American cartoonist, gives Barack Obama), is fawned upon by the British elite and launches another insufferable presidential campaign, the Anglo-American reign of terror proceeds in Afghanistan and elsewhere, with the murder of people by unmanned drones – a US/Israel innovation, embraced by Obama. For the record, on a scorecard of imposed misery, from secret trials and prisons and the hounding of whistleblowers and the criminalising of dissent to the incarceration and impoverishment of his own people, mostly black people, Obama is as bad as George W. Bush. The Palestinians understand all this. As their young people courageously face the violence of Israel’s blood-racism, carrying the keys of their grandparents’ stolen homes, they are not even included in Mr. Hopey Changey’s list of peoples in the Middle East whose liberation is long overdue. What the oppressed need, he said on 19 May, is a dose of "America’s interests [that] are essential to them". He insults us all. www.johnpilger.com |
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