Afghanistan

9/11 Analysis: From Ronald Reagan and the Soviet-Afghan War to GW Bush and September 11, 2001

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=20958

 9/11 ANALYSIS: From Ronald Reagan and the Soviet-Afghan War to George W Bush and September 11, 2001

This article summarizes earlier writings by the author on 9/11 and the role of Al Qaeda in US foreign policy. For further details see Michel Chossudovsky, America's "War on Terrorism", Global Research, 2005  

"The United States spent millions of dollars to supply Afghan schoolchildren with textbooks filled with violent images and militant Islamic teachings....The primers, which were filled with talk of jihad and featured drawings of guns, bullets, soldiers and mines, have served since then as the Afghan school system's core curriculum. Even the Taliban used the American-produced books,..", (Washington Post, 23 March 2002)

"Advertisements, paid for from CIA funds, were placed in newspapers and newsletters around the world offering inducements and motivations to join the [Islamic] Jihad." (Pervez  Hoodbhoy, Peace Research, 1 May 2005)

So please tell me again: What's the war about? By William Blum

Source: http://killinghope.org/bblum6/aer84.html

The Anti-Empire Report
August 4th, 2010
by William Blum
www.killinghope.org

So please tell me again: What's the war about?

When facts are inconvenient, when international law, human rights and history get in the way, when war crimes can't easily be justified or explained away, when logic doesn't help much, the current crop of American political leaders turns to what is now the old reliable: 9/11. We have to fight in Afghanistan because ... somehow ... it's tied into what happened on September 11, 2001. Here's Vice-President Joe Biden: "We know that it was from the space that joins Afghanistan and Pakistan that the attacks of 9/11 occurred." 1

Here's Sen. Lindsay Graham (R-SC): "This is the place [Afghanistan] we were attacked from 9/11." 2

Rep. Mike Pence, the third-ranking House Republican, asserted that the revelations in the Wikileaks documents do not change his view of the Afghan conflict, nor does he expect a shift in public opinion. "Back home in Indiana, people still remember where the attacks on 9/11 came from." 3

Poll: Waning support for Obama on wars

Poll: Waning support for Obama on wars

WASHINGTON — Public support for President Obama's Afghanistan war policy has plummeted amid a rising U.S. death toll and the unauthorized release of classified military documents, a USA TODAY/Gallup Poll shows.

Support for Obama's management of the war fell to 36%, down from 48% in a February poll. Now, a record 43% also say it was a mistake to go to war there after the terrorist attacks in 2001.

The decline in support contributed to the lowest approval ratings of Obama's presidency. Amid a lengthy recession, more Americans support his handling of the economy (39%) than the war.

Even Obama's handling of the war in Iraq received record-low approval, despite a drawdown of 90,000 troops and the planned, on-schedule end of U.S. combat operations there this month.

Only 41% of those surveyed Tuesday through Sunday approved of the way Obama is handling his job, his lowest rating in the USA TODAY/Gallup Poll since he took office in January 2009. In Gallup's separate daily tracking poll, his approval was at 45% Monday.

Chris Floyd Skewers Wikileaks

By Michael Collins

"So once again, and for the last time, we ask the question: How does this alter the prevailing conventional wisdom about the war?" Chris Floyd, Leaky Vessels: Wikileaks "Revelations" Will Comfort Warmongers, Confirm Conventional Wisdom, Empire Burlesque, July 26, 27

Wikileaks head honcho Julian Assange may be annoyed with the 911 Truth movement and all those conspiracy theories. But he may be appalled when he reads that one of the leading authors and researchers on imperialism and the Iraq war, Chris Floyd, has taken him to task for making much ado about nothing.

Floyd makes his case early on in the article, with maximum effect:

Is the latest Wikileaks release serving the military industrial complex?

The latest wikileaks release appears to be directly targeted at Pakistan - at least that is the way it is being spun in the news.

Specifically they are saying that Pakistan is colluding with the Taliban.

The Pakistan connection was the top story on the BBC World News yesterday. Extraordinarily, the news presenter admitted that the US military may indeed welcome the release of this information!

The Pakistan Government is vehemently rejecting the accusations of supporting the Taliban. On the BBC the Pakistani government spokesperson said that the whole affair was an attempt to sabotage the US/Pakistan relationship. This comes at a time when the US is stepping up predator drone attacks against targets in Pakistan.

Leaks provide ground-level account of Afghan war

Source: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/07/25/AR2010072502092.html

WikiLeaks page: http://www.wikileaks.org/wiki/Afghan_War_Diary,_2004-2010

By KIMBERLY DOZIER
The Associated Press
Sunday, July 25, 2010; 7:44 PM

WASHINGTON -- Some 90,000 leaked U.S. military records posted online Sunday amount to a blow-by-blow account of six years of the Afghanistan war, including unreported incidents of Afghan civilian killings as well as covert operations against Taliban figures.

The online whistle-blower WikiLeaks posted the documents on its website Sunday. The New York Times, London's Guardian newspaper and the German weekly Der Spiegel were given early access to the documents.

The White House condemned the document disclosure, saying it "put the lives of Americans and our partners at risk."

In a statement, White House national security adviser Gen. Jim Jones took pains to point out that the documents describe a period from January 2004 to December 2009, during the administration of President George W. Bush.

Michael Steele under fire over Afghanistan remarks

Source: http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-rnc-steele-20100703,0,44924.story

". . . Michael Steele would do well to remember that we are not in Afghanistan by our own choosing — that we were attacked," Democratic National Committee spokesman Brad Woodhouse said in a statement.

Michael Steele under fire over Afghanistan remarks

The Republican National Committee chairman is caught on video saying the conflict is a 'war of Obama's choosing' and implying that the U.S. effort is doomed. Conservatives call for his resignation.

By Michael Memoli, Tribune Washington Bureau

July 2, 2010 | 3:45 p.m.

Reporting from Washington — Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele is facing a new test of his leadership over comments he made that appear to question America's military effort in Afghanistan.

Video footage that emerged Friday shows Steele referring to the conflict as "a war of Obama's choosing" and implying that the effort is doomed to fail.

Prof. Anthony J. Hall exposes Sebastian Junger's "War" pitch as Obama-era Propaganda for the anti-Semitic 9/11 Terror Wars

   
   
Sebastian Junger as a Propagandist for Aggressive Warfare in the Era of Barack Obama's Presidency by Anthony J. Hall   
             

Has Sebastian Junger been cast as a front-line propagandist in the ongoing psychological operation of poisoning public consciousness so that citizens will support the Obama regime’s unconscionable extension and escalation of the 9/11 wars? It certainly seemed to me during my recent trip to California that the telegenic Junger is busily engaged in pumping out a potent mix of strategic disinformation on behalf of the world’s most lethal and unbridled war machine. These days one of the main imperatives of this war machine’s media manipulations must be to assuage the constituency that voted for Obama so that aroused public opinion in the so-called Homeland will not get in the way of the military superpower’s most recent rounds of Eurasian invasion.

WE ARE CHANGE Ottawa April 11th,2010 9/11 Truth Action ( Rideau Center )

Members of WE ARE CHANGE OTTAWA went to Rideau Center for our 11th of Every Month campaign.

This is a place we frequent often due to the large amount of pedestrian traffic.

The war on WikiLeaks and why it matters by Glenn Greenwald

posted in full for posterity; hyperlinks, images and video at source - loose nuke:

http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/03/27/wikileaks/index.html
The war on WikiLeaks and why it matters
BY GLENN GREENWALD

A newly leaked CIA report prepared earlier this month (.pdf) analyzes how the U.S. Government can best manipulate public opinion in Germany and France -- in order to ensure that those countries continue to fight in Afghanistan. The Report celebrates the fact that the governments of those two nations continue to fight the war in defiance of overwhelming public opinion which opposes it -- so much for all the recent veneration of "consent of the governed" -- and it notes that this is possible due to lack of interest among their citizenry: "Public Apathy Enables Leaders to Ignore Voters," proclaims the title of one section.

US killed Afghan civilians, lied, got caught, attacked reporter. US military: refuse unlawful wars

hyperlinks live at source: http://www.examiner.com/examiner/x-18425-LA-County-Nonpartisan-Examiner~y2010m3d27-US-killed-Afghan-civilians-lied-got-cau...

US-led forces added the murders of pregnant women to the recent murders of school children in Afghanistan. US military officials were forced to admit they lied in their report that Afghan “bad guys” murdered five civilians when Timesonline reporter Jerome Starkey went to the scene and documented that all evidence and witness testimony was that US-led forces murdered innocent civilians in a night raid. Unanimous testimony included Afghan government officials, police chiefs and survivors of the attack. The United Nations and New York Times investigated and corroborated Mr. Starkey’s reporting.

Note the NY Times misleading headline: "U.S. Is Reining In Special Operations Forces in Afghanistan" that is common is distract from the central facts of War Crimes on top of the lie of omission that the US armed attack and invasion of Afghanistan disobeyed two UN Security Council Resolutions and is an unlawful War of Aggression.

March 20, 2010 National March on Washington, D.C.

Passionate discussions often appear on this blog stressing the importance of the Peace Movement actively embracing/supporting 911 Truth Movement. I made the assumption that the converse was also true.

As a result, I have been surprised not to see even one 911 Truth or WAC group listed as an endorsee of the March 20, 2010 National March on Washington, D.C. at the site link below:

http://www.pephost.org/site/PageServer?pagename=M20_homepage

Very possibly, 911Truth and WAC groups are listed as part of the "& more" at the very bottom of the list, which can't be seen. I hope so. If your group (or you as an individual) has not yet endorsed it, I hope that you will give serious consideration to doing so, as well as going to DC.

I had not intended to go to Washington on 3/20 due to the distance but after receiving the email below today from ANSWER.org, I've made the decision to join the March. In tandem with marching for peace, it's critical to REemphasize the wars' connections to 9/11 (Truth)

---------> Note: I have not yet been able to verify any of the info in the email below.
---------> ---------> However, none of it, if true, would shock me.

Kucinich orders Afghan War debate, vote: “Trillions for war, no money for Americans!”

hyperlinks and video live at source: http://www.examiner.com/x-18425-LA-County-Nonpartisan-Examiner~y2010m3d5-Kucinich-orders-Afghan-War-debate-vote-Trillions-...

Congressman Dennis Kucinich invoked a procedural rule to help protect Americans from endless war to compel members of Congress to debate and vote whether to continue US war in Afghanistan.

The war in Afghanistan is unlawful in Orwellian degree; tragic-comic in its violations of US war laws (useful analogy to well-understood laws for individual self-defense here). Although the laws of war are crystal-clear, complicit corporate media lies by omission and commission to explain what these laws have meant for 65 years and how they apply to unlawful US invasion of Afghanistan:

The US is the principle author of the UN Charter, a treaty that under the US Constitution has equal power with all US law that requires all nations to eliminate wars of choice.
The only lawful uses of war are self-defense upon armed attack by a nation’s government (or imminent threat of such) and/or authorization of the UN Security Council (UNSC).

Congressman Who Backed Afghan Fighters Against the Soviets Dies

Source: http://www1.voanews.com/english/news/usa/Congressman-Who-Backed-Afghan-Fighters-Against-the-Soviets-Dies-84102437.html

Congressman Who Backed Afghan Fighters Against the Soviets Dies

Jeff Seldin | Washington, DC 11 February 2010

Texas Congressman Charlie Wilson

A former U.S. lawmaker who played a key role in the ouster of Soviet forces from Afghanistan has died.

Texas Congressman Charlie Wilson helped funnel millions of dollars to fund Afghan fighters during the 1980s.

He was known around Washington as "Good Time Charlie" for his love of drinks and women, and his life story became a Hollywood movie starring famed actor Tom Hanks.

The 2007 film "Charlie Wilson's War" introduced a new generation to the exploits of Texas Congressman Charlie Wilson and his role in shaping the future of Afghanistan.

Wilson was a member of the Appropriations Committee in the U.S. House of Representatives, and used his position to help buy Afghan fighters weapons, including Stinger missiles, that inflicted heavy damage on Soviet gunships.

March 6 & 7, 2010, Valley Forge Convention Center - "Treason in America: 911, the Wars & Our Broken Constitution" Conference

http://www.treasoninamericaconference.com/

March 6 & 7, 2010, Valley Forge Convention Center - "Treason in America: 911, the Wars & Our Broken Constitution" Conference

Who:
The Speakers . . .

Master of Ceremonies (MC) - Jon Gold

Cindy Sheehan, Mother & Activist
Richard Gage, AIA (Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth)
Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer (Able Danger)
Coleen Rowley, Former FBI Agent & Whistleblower, Time Magazine Person of the Year, 2002
Jack Blood, Radio Host (Deadline Live, American Freedom Radio)
Jon Gold, 9/11 Researcher & Writer
Dylan Avery, Filmmaker (Loose Change series)
Korey Rowe, Filmmaker (Loose Change series)
Daniel Sunjata, Actor (F/X, Rescue Me)
Sander Hicks, Writer & Activist
Jonathan Elinoff, Filmmaker (Core of Corruption series)
Manny Badillo, 9/11 Family Member
Bob McIlvaine, 9/11 Family Member
Kyle Hence - Filmmaker & Activist [TENTATIVE]
Possibly others . . .

Movies . . .
(Tentative showings of entire films; may be reduced to movie clips depending upon time limitations and speaker events.)

9/11: Press for Truth (2006, 86 minutes)
America: Freedom to Fascism (2005, 105 minutes)
Loose Change 9/11: An American Coup (2009, 99 minutes)

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