WikiLeaks Docs Show Futility of Illegal Afghanistan War

The WikiLeaks war diaries are hard to read, and full of boring details written in a half-ass fashion, but the larger picture that it reveals is fascinating, and politically explosive when put into historical context. Essentially, the U.S. is fighting a runaway political war in Afghanistan. American troops are tasked by their treasonous political leaders with many things; shelter heroin, defend the sites of oil pipelines, and patrol Afghan villages like cops. Notice that defeating America's fabricated military enemy is not one of the military's task. U.S. forces could have dealt with Bin Laden, and his entourage in 2001 at Tora Bora, but Donald Rumsfeld let them escape:

(The Guardian, November 29, 2009): Donald Rumsfeld had the chance when he was US defence secretary in December 2001 to make sure Osama bin Laden was killed or captured, but let him slip through his hands, a Senate report has found.

The report by the Senate foreign relations committee is damning of the way George Bush's administration conducted the aftermath of its bombing campaign in Afghanistan, saying it amounted to a "lost opportunity". It states that as a result of allowing the al-Qaida leader to flee from his Tora Bora stronghold into Pakistan, Americans were left more vulnerable to terrorism, and the foundations were laid for today's protracted Afghan insurgency. It also lays blame for the July 2005 London bombings on a failure to kill the al-Qaida leaders at Tora Bora.

The blame ultimately lies on U.S. political leaders for the catastrophic damage that the people of Afghanistan have suffered in the last nine years. Meanwhile, public support is at the cut-throat stage, as in, there is no going back to September 12, 2001, when the majority of Americans were unaware of the traitors who controlled their government, and merely wanted the bastards dead. Simply dead, they said. The objective wasn't hard: Find Bin Laden, and kill him. But the poster of "Bin Laden Wanted: Dead or Alive"that Bush drew for the world was a total fiction. The Bush administration didn't want Bin Laden dead, because a dead Bin Laden is a dead enemy, and a dead enemy means no war.

The U.S. government was never interested in capturing Bin Laden, or in liberating the Afghan people from the Taliban, their former Cold War pals. Bush, and Obama are not in the pursuit of ending international terrorism, but of crushing human freedom, and political self-determination by the Afghan people, the American people, the people of the Middle East, and the people of the world.

As Juan Cole pointed out last month, more than half of the American people believe the war in Afghanistan is lost, and not worth the cost:

"This Rasmussen poll shows a mood even more pessimistic than another recent sounding by ABC & the Washington Post, which found that 53% of Americans think the war is not worth its cost.

Nearly half in the Rasmussen poll also say that they think Afghanistan is very important to US security and over 80% think it is at least somewhat important. It is hard to understand how the fifth poorest country in the world, a virtual failed state, can pose a security threat to the United States."

The painful truth about Afghanistan is that it is not a war of necessity. Afghanistan, like Iraq, is not a defensive war, but a war of aggression. As Prof. David Ray Griffin wrote in the article, "Did 9/11 Justify the War in Afghanistan?," the September 11 terrorist attacks do not justify U.S. presence in Afghanistan, or anywhere else in the Middle East. America's national security interest is not served in the long run by fighting the Taliban in Afghanistan. And in what can only be described as an act of grave betrayal, the current American government, and the mainstream media are kicking the can of truth down the road of national ruin.

In the over 90,000 leaked documents that was published by WikiLeaks last Sunday, July 25, there are zero historical revelations, but that does not make the docs any less significant. They are a timely reminder of the daily horror of war, and in a society that has been desensitized by brutal acts of violence, it is encouraging to see the success of an organization that pulls back the curtain, and forces us to see the lies, the murder, the treason, and the brutality. The work of Assange and WikiLeaks is beyond monumental. It is heaven sent. It is a much needed breath of fresh air in a room full of lies, and spies.

Spencer Ackerman of Wired writes that the WikiLeaks docs are "a real-time account of how the U.S. let Afghanistan rot." Perhaps, what's most surprising about the leaked docs is what they don't show, such as the breakdown of troop morale. Last year saw the highest suicide rate in the army's history, and much of the suffering by American soldiers has been suppressed by the 24/7 cycle of bullshit on television news.

I've tried reading the documents, but they're so boring to read. The traces of Siegfried Sassoon's ghost are not in any of these war diaries, that's for sure. Just one glance at some of the nitty-gritty details and you can tell that the greatest fact about the Afghanistan war is how boring, and futile it is. American soldiers were trained to do battle with giants, but they're forced to play hide-and-seek with rats.

If you want to know what war is like, read Homer, Thucydides, or Tolstoy, don't read the WikiLeaks docs. All they reveal is that the Afghanistan war is not a war, and Obama is not Pericles. War is not nation-building; it is nation-destroying. War does not liberate people, it enslaves them. War is not executed based on a timetable; it is anything goes, whatever comes its way, and whenever it does. A real war is not classified by an incompetent military bureaucracy into fifty different categories, it is fought by guys who are good at killing people, you know, at literally taking their hearts, and minds. Like the Taliban. They're fighting a real war. America is fighting a pretend war. And you can't win a pretend war, it's like a bad movie that you can't wait to end, and then walk out of the theatre to ask for your money back.

What angers me is that we have sit through it all. Let's roll the credits to this nightmarish movie. We know how it ends. It ends with mass death, and mass suffering. It ends with the heads of traitors in the gutter, limbless children, and crying widows. So what are we waiting for? D-Day? There won't ever be a D-Day in the War on Terrorism because it is not a real war. That needs to be repeated two thousand and one times. It is a war based on lies and deception for endless profits, and conquest. It is purely a money-making enterprise for the National Security State, and a corporate sludge fund for politically connected war profiteers, and pentagon bureaucrats. They want a century of warfare. And only they are yielding profits from this war, America itself has been ruined because of it. The only country that is reaping any benefit from the war on terror is Israel because the entire West has jumped on the bandwagon against the exaggerated threat of Islamic extremism, which has allowed Israel to demonize its Palestinian subjects without criticism from the world for the past nine years. A billion people of the human race have essentially been accused of being "terrorists" and there seems to be no end to their suffering.

We are living the deformed dream of monsters, and sociopaths. We are not living according to the truth. The whole world has been manipulated by dark magicians. This whole era is play-acting. U.S. soldiers are pretend liberators, U.S. politicians are pretend statesmen, and the U.S. president is a pretend Commander-in-Chief. And the press is a pretend press. And the people are a pretend people.

At the Oslo Freedom Forum this year, Julian Assange spoke about the world of lies that we have been living in since 9/11, and what we can do to change it. He said that we must dismiss the illusion that the West is free. It is not. Censorship exists in the West, and it is not justified by concerns for national security. Assange:

"Censorship in the West is used to legitimise censorship in other countries, and abuses in the West of Enlightenment ideals, which we should all hold dear, and the corrosion of those ideals not only impoverishes Western countries, it is also used as an excuse for terrible abuses in other countries."

The mission of WikiLeaks is to lift the veil of state secrecy, and promote human rights, freedom of speech, and public debate around the world, but most importantly in the West because if the West is lost, then the World is also lost. Assange is a freedom information fighter, and a crusader for public knowledge. His presence in the world at this critical hour is a hopeful sign that humanity may get out the woods of the tyranny of state secrecy. At the end of his address at Oslo, Assange said that we must stop state abuses in their infancy, or else they may become too large to fix later on:

"So, in this broader framework of what we do, it is to try and build a historical record, an intellectual record, of how civilization actually works in practice, now, from the inside, everywhere, in every country around the World. Because all our decisions, individual decisions, our political decisions, are based upon what we know. Humanity is nothing but what we know and what we have. And what we have can be replaced, and degrades quickly. And what we know is everything, and it is our limit of what we can be. So before we embark on any particular political stratagem, we first have to know where we are because, if we do not know where we are, it is impossible for us to know where we are going. Likewise, it is impossible to correct abuses unless we know that they are going on. So I ask you to think about the words of Machiavelli; think about them in their negative, when he said,

“Thus it happens in matters of state, for knowing a far-off, which is only given a prudent man to do, the evils that are brewing, they are easily cured, but when, for want of such knowledge, they are allowed to grow until everyone can recognize them, there is no longer any remedy to be found.”

So secret planning is secret, usually, for a reason: because, if it is abusive, it is opposed. So it is our task to find secret abusive plans and expose them where they can be opposed before they are implemented. Because if they are exposed by the implementation, by people suffering from that abuse, then the abuse has already occurred and it is too late."

Assange's words are admirable, and timely. He is a great spokesman for the truth, and is heroically spreading the importance of public knowledge of state deeds to everywhere in the West. Defense Secretary Robert Gates's comment that Assange has "blood on his hands" reveals the U.S. government for what it truly is; a lying, treasonous, terrorist state.

Arthur Silber has written some of the best stuff on WikiLeaks. In his essay, "Wikileaks, Resistance, Genuine Heroes, and Breaking the Goddamned Rules (II)," Silber writes:

"Consider what the United States government stands for at the moment. I will summarize very briefly. The U.S. government is engaged in the occupation of Iraq, while it wages a war in Afghanistan. The U.S. intentionally seeks to broaden the war into Pakistan (and has already done so to a significant extent), and it continues to threaten Iran militarily. Simultaneously, the U.S. has launched operations in at least 75 countries, and made "[p]lans ... for preemptive or retaliatory strikes in numerous places around the world."

The U.S. government also continues and even expands the Bush administration's policies with regard to torture as a "legitimate" State instrument, as it continues and even expands the Bush administration's comprehensive assault on civil liberties at home. And the U.S. government ceaselessly works to impoverish and brutalize the majority of Americans in countless other ways, as it forcibly transfers countless billions of dollars from "ordinary" Americans to the already massively wealthy ruling elite.

The United States government does all of this "legally." All of this monstrous behavior is approved by the "sanctity" of "the law" and by "the rules." Some of us argue that most or all of these actions are in fact criminal; indeed, under legal provisions that the U.S. government employs to condemn others, certain of these actions are criminal. But that is not the story told by our rulers. They consistently maintain that all of these actions are legal, moral, and entirely just.

That isn't all. The State seeks to protect itself from all criticism and challenge by surrounding itself with an intricate and almost impenetrable web of laws, rules and regulations. The State arrives at its decisions on the basis of alleged "secret" information, which is not to be shared with the likes of us. It fashions and implements its policies on the basis of special, superior expertise, which "ordinary" Americans cannot hope to share or understand. All of this is a lie, of course; see the second part of this recent article, concerning "The Claim to 'Special' Knowledge and Expertise."

If you seek to challenge the death grip of the authoritarian-corporatist-militarist State in a serious way, you will necessarily have to break the goddamned rules. As I have argued, the point of "the law" and "the rules" is to protect the ruling class and to restrict your range of action so severely that it approaches the vanishing point. If we challenge the State only within the bounds of what is permitted by the State itself, the challenge will be trivial and utterly insignificant. The State allows such challenges so that "the people" can delude themselves, again, that their "voices" are being heard.

This is not the route followed by Wikileaks. Wikileaks steps outside the boundaries established by the State altogether: it dispenses with the restrictions of "secrecy" and access limited to the already powerful. Wikileaks' approach is the embodiment of justice. It takes the repeated proclamations that the United States is a "representative democracy" and that its government is "our" government, and says in effect: You contend that you act in the name of the people. Then the people surely have the right to know what you're doing. This is what you're doing."

The recent success of WikiLeaks has made me more hopeful about the future of the West, and all of humanity. But knowledge isn't everything, what matters more is what we do with the knowledge that we have. I hope we can change the world with the truth, and put the terrorist traitors to bed.

Julian Assange - Oslo Freedom Forum 2010

Julian Assange - Oslo Freedom Forum 2010 - Part 1


Part 2

Is WikiLeaks the antidote to the Washington K Street Kool-Aid?

Is WikiLeaks the antidote to the Washington K Street Kool-Aid?

By Paul Fitzgerald and Elizabeth Gould
Sibel Edmonds' Boiling Frogs Post

Since the end of the cold war, the U.S. had been looking for an enemy to match the Soviet Union and came up empty handed until 9/11. Refocusing the efforts of the world’s largest and most expensive military empire on Al Qaeda would provide the incentive for a massive re-armament, just the way the Soviet “invasion” of Afghanistan had done two decades before. According to a Washington Post report within nine years of America’s invasion of Afghanistan, hunting Al Qaeda had become the raison d’être of the American national security bureaucracy employing 854,000 military personnel, civil servants and private contractors with more than 263 organizations transformed or created including the Office of Homeland Security. The sheer scope of the growth and the extensive privatization of intelligence and security was so profound that it represented “an alternative geography of the United States, a Top Secret America hidden from public view and lacking in oversight.”

But the report admitted that after nine years of unprecedented spending and growth, the labyrinth of secret bureaucracy put in place after 9/11 was so massive and convoluted that its ability to perform its stated function to keep America safe was impossible to determine. Even worse, it was becoming clear that the bureaucratic monster had taken on a life of its own with the U.S. lost in a maze of its own creation, trapped in an expanding web of spies and counter spies that far surpassed the worst paranoia of its old nemesis, the Soviet Union. The logic train of the war on terror and its fundamental rooting in Afghanistan had finally become clear. The perpetual Taliban/Al Qaeda threat fueled a perpetual war that could never be won, justifying an endless string of restrictions on civil liberties and governmental transparency, which then prevented Americans from seeing how their money was spent. Locked out of this “alternative geography of the United States,” Americans have become helpless to stop their democracy and their economy from being lifted right out from under them.

Continued. . .

Documentary: "The Kingdom of Survival"

Drag The Dog

by Stuart Carlson, July 22, 2010

Insurance Companies Steal Money From Fallen Soldiers

It is the most criminal kind of war profiteering: Insurance companies profiting from dead soldiers, and their families' grief. The "life insurance industry" is scamming the people who make the biggest sacrifices for their country. It is so outrageous, and shameful, and criminal. You have to read the Bloomberg article below in full. And all of this corporate trickery has been missed by public regulators. They are letting thieves drink the blood of patriots.

Bloomberg: Fallen Soldiers' Families Denied Cash as Insurers Profit

By David Evans

The package arrived at Cindy Lohman’s home in Great Mills, Maryland, just two weeks after she learned that her son, Ryan, a 24-year-old Army sergeant, had been killed by a bomb in Afghanistan. It was a thick, 9-inch-by- 12-inch envelope from Prudential Financial Inc., which handles life insurance for the Department of Veterans Affairs.

Inside was a letter from Prudential about Ryan’s $400,000 policy. And there was something else, which looked like a checkbook. The letter told Lohman that the full amount of her payout would be placed in a convenient interest-bearing account, allowing her time to decide how to use the benefit.

“You can hold the money in the account for safekeeping for as long as you like,” the letter said. In tiny print, in a disclaimer that Lohman says she didn’t notice, Prudential disclosed that what it called its Alliance Account was not guaranteed by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., Bloomberg Markets magazine reports in its September issue.

Lohman, 52, left the money untouched for six months after her son’s August 2008 death.

“It’s like you’re paying me off because my child was killed,” she says. “It was a consolation prize that I didn’t want.”

As time went on, she says, she tried to use one of the “checks” to buy a bed, and the salesman rejected it. That happened again this year, she says, when she went to a Target store to purchase a camera on Armed Forces Day, May 15.

‘I’m Shocked’

Lohman, a public health nurse who helps special-needs children, says she had always believed that her son’s life insurance funds were in a bank insured by the FDIC. That money -- like $28 billion in 1 million death-benefit accounts managed by insurers -- wasn’t actually sitting in a bank.

It was being held in Prudential’s general corporate account, earning investment income for the insurer. Prudential paid survivors like Lohman 1 percent interest in 2008 on their Alliance Accounts, while it earned a 4.8 percent return on its corporate funds, according to regulatory filings.

“I’m shocked,” says Lohman, breaking into tears as she learns how the Alliance Account works. “It’s a betrayal. It saddens me as an American that a company would stoop so low as to make a profit on the death of a soldier. Is there anything lower than that?”

Millions of bereaved Americans have unwittingly been placed in the same position by their insurance companies. The practice of issuing what they call “checkbooks” to survivors, instead of paying them lump sums, extends well beyond the military.

Continued. . .

WikiLeaks Saves Lives

On Sunday, July 25, the transnational whistleblowing organization WikiLeaks released over 90,000 classified intelligence reports from the ongoing U.S. military conflict in Afghanistan. Called the "Afghan War Diary," the reports are the biggest leak in U.S. history. They span six years, and two administrations. Although they don't include new details about America's mission in Afghanistan, there is evidence that shows criminal disregard for the Afghan people by the U.S. military, and NATO forces.

The political ramifications of the historical disclosure are hard to predict, but already we know that the American public is getting increasingly skeptical about the Obama administration's claims that it is fighting the war on terrorism to liberate Afghanistan, and protect America.

Congress railed against WikiLeaks, and its founder, Julian Assange, for overstepping the authority of the United States government by publishing the secret government documents online. Republican Mike Pence said; "The fact that thousands of classified documents were leaked in a clear violation of law is an outrage.” The White House also took a harsh stance, declaring that the exposure of secret government information by WikiLeaks damages America's national security, and puts the lives of Afghan informants in critical danger. In a statement issued on Thursday, July 29, Adm. Mike Mullen said:

“Mr. Assange can say whatever he likes about the greater good he thinks he and his source are doing, but the truth is they might already have on their hands the blood of some young soldier or that of an Afghan family."

On Friday, July 30, US Defense Secretary Robert Gates echoed the criticism of Adm. Mullen, and other White House officials, saying that WikiLeaks should be held responsible if there are deaths of Afghan informants at the hands of the Taliban in the days, and months ahead:

"The battlefield consequences are potentially severe and dangerous for our troops, our allies and Afghan partners, and may well damage our relationships and reputation in that key part of the world."

Assange defended himself against the comments made by Gates on CNN in an admirably written statement. Assange says that the U.S. government is guilty for the miles of blood that has been needlessly shed by the innocent people of Afghanistan:

"Secretary Gates could have used his time, as other nations have done, to announce a broad inquiry into these killings," the statement said. "He could have announced specific criminal investigations into the deaths we have exposed. He could have announced a panel to hear the heartfelt dissent of U.S. soldiers, who know this war from the ground. He could have apologized to the Afghani people.

But he did none of these things. He decided to treat these issues and the countries affected by them with contempt. Instead of explaining how he would address these issues, he decided to announce how he would suppress them.

This behavior is unacceptable. We will not be suppressed. We will continue to expose abuses by this administration and others."

Assange has repeatedly addressed the claim by the U.S. government that Afghan informants have been put in jeopardy because of WikiLeaks. He told NBC's Today show that WikiLeaks cautiously inspected the leaked documents for the names of Afghans working with U.S. forces before publishing them, and that it has withheld 15,000 documents to review mores names of Afghans so that the Taliban, and other rebels don't gain information from the reports that they could use against Afghan informants, and their family members.

The whole debate has become a farce. Instead of concentrating on U.S. war crimes, the media is targeting WikiLeaks, and standing up for the "little guy" in this fight, the U.S. government. Members of the mainstream media know no shame. For years they have sanitized the bodies of the dead, and now, with the disclosure of military documents that reveal the precise actions of the U.S. military on the ground in Afghanistan, they run away from the truth, and hide behind "national security." What a bunch of sad little idiots.

In an interview with Press TV, Assange said that the reports don't hold relevance for current military operations, rather, its record of U.S. military abuse in the past six years is what makes it a significant historical document, and one that many believe could be used to support war crimes charges against U.S. leaders in the future:

"Whenever we expose the abuses of an organization we always seem to distract away from the important message, which is the abuses being exposed. But in this case, all the material is at least seven months old. There is six years worth of material but it ends at the beginning of 2010. So there's nothing in there on immediate tactical significance."

Perhaps, the biggest "find" in the leaked reports is the clear evidence of Pakistani meddling in the war. Even more bizarre is the fact that Pakistani meddling is funded by the U.S. political establishment to the tune of billions of dollars a year. In a moment that has so far slipped by mainstream attention, Jon Stewart told Newsweek editor, and CNN host Fareed Zakaria that it was a revelation to him that America is essentially funding its own demise in the Middle East. He said that it is another indication that America's mission in Afghanistan is ludicrous:

“We give them billions of dollars of aid!. Pakistan is funneling that money to the Taliban? One of the chief financial contributors to our enemy is us? We have ostensibly put a hit out on ourselves. This is insanity.”

The sad response by the U.S. media to the leaked documents reflects its complicit role in many of the crimes that have been committed in Afghanistan, and Iraq by the United States. Throughout the past nine years, the corporate media has silenced criticism of the war on terrorism, and channeled government propaganda about the success of US military operations into American homes. Clearly, the CIA, the national security establishment, and the corporate media are the same beast.

In March, WikiLeaks released a CIA document that focused on how to build public support in Western Europe for the Afghanistan war. Much of the recommendations were directed towards the people of Germany and France, where political opposition to the NATO mission in Afghanistan, and the overall war on terrorism, has yet to be tapped by any credible political leader. From the CIA document:

"Focusing on a message that ISAF benefits Afghan civilians and citing examples of concrete gains could limit and perhaps even reverse opposition to the mission. Such tailored messages could tap into acute French concern for civilians and refugees."

Despite CIA propaganda, there are very few people in the West who still believe in the fable that the U.S. and NATO are in Afghanistan to house refugees, and clothe orphans. The political awakening of the West about the fraudulent, and criminal war on terrorism has been gradual, but it is now a reality that must be faced by Western governments. For example, no one is going to take Germany's Brigadier General Josef Blotz, who declared that WikiLeaks committed a crime, seriously. Such remarks by government authorities reveal the trap that Western governments are in. If they admit to crimes then they will be punished; if they don't admit anything, and silence everything, then their image will decline to the point where Western populations will realize how authoritarian their governments really are, and change them.

WikiLeaks could have the biggest role in the public defacement of U.S. and Western leaders who have continued to support a criminal war against the people of Afghanistan, and Iraq. Information is power, and since WikiLeaks traffics in secret information that could very well transform public opinion about any government or organization in the world, WikiLeaks has tremendous power. It has the potential to be a mighty force for good in the world if it fulfills its role as a safe vessel for hidden information. Its work could save thousands, if not millions of lives, billions of dollars, and years of wasted government resources.

With the potential to destabilize corrupt regimes, and put high-level government criminals behind bars, WikiLeaks can gain supremacy over a world of powerful secrets, and big lies. If government leaders don't police themselves, WikiLeaks will, and that type of pressure on leaders could create a world in which political reforms don't come around every century, but whenever its necessary.

In a Time magazine interview, Assange said that the work WikiLeaks has done over the last few years has resulted in the removal of the Kenyan government, and the disruption of the government of Tanzania:

Do you feel comfortable that no one's security will be threatened by the publication of this material?

We feel confident; the material is seven months old, we reviewed it extensively; we held back 15,000 documents that we felt needed further review because the type of classifications they had. We've been publishing for four years a range of material that has caused the changing of constitutions and the removal of governments but there's never been a case that we are aware of that has resulted in the personal injury of anyone.

Removal of governments?
The Kenyan government. The suspension of the prime minister of Tanzania.

Tanzania?
We published a corruption report.

WikiLeaks could be the beacon of freedom in the 21st century. It puts revelatory fire to the hidden feet of tyranny, and corruption.

Establishing free and open governments by promoting the free access of all information is the most important legacy of the Internet. That is why all governments fear the Internet. Professor Peter Dale Scott says "Internet politics" will transform public debate, and influence public elections around the world. And it already has, in America, and elsewhere.

Kenya's government has already seen the overwhelming public power of the Internet, and its beautiful child, WikiLeaks. Could WikiLeaks also help remove the U.S. secret government from power? The answer is yes.

America is not Kenya, of course, it is a highly advanced deep state, but information is power everywhere around the world, and if a few high-level Whistleblowers in the U.S. government inform WikiLeaks of explosive information that could seriously damage the image of current U.S. political leaders, and government policies, then watch out. A revolution could happen overnight. And governments don't have a fighting chance to restricting the internet because people have tasted the freedoms of the Internet, and the transformative knowledge it supplies, and they can't live without it. It is truly a new age of democratic openness. We are seeing the extinction of government lies, and government cover-ups. Power can't do anything it wants any longer. It must subject itself to the rule of law.

Speaking about the failings of the old, corrupt, and dying media to Press TV, Assange said:

"It seems to be that they're too close to the existing power structures of their country . . . As a sort of transnational organization, with people in many different countries, we're [WikiLeaks] able to step above that."

Thanks to WikiLeaks, the 21st century's gatecrashers, the 20th century's gatekeepers are obsolete. Bye bye cowardly New York Times. Bye bye cowardly CNN. Bye bye old media. You don't matter anymore. We don't need your kind. You lied, and lied, and because of your lies, people died, and died. We've seen, and heard enough bullshit from you. And we're tired of it. So goodbye Cowards! Liars! Filth!

Julian Assange: Why the world needs WikiLeaks

Is WikiLeaks More Than Just a High-Tech Brown Envelope? Yes

By Mathew Ingram

WikiLeaks, the crusading anti-secrecy organization that just published 90,000 pages of secret government documents about the war in Afghanistan, has gotten a lot of attention for its campaign to become the world’s repository of whistle-blowing and embargo-busting information, and leader Julian Assange has become the star of the political talk show circuit. But the most interesting thing about WikiLeaks and the release of the secret Afghan documents isn’t the details of the U.S. campaign — it’s what the incident says about the evolution of a truly distributed and dis-aggregated new media ecosystem.

Shadowy sources have been disclosing secret information of all kinds to newspapers and magazines for decades, ever since Watergate made it seem like a public service to do so. But in this case, there was a middleman in the process, and one with a considerable amount of power — far more than any other source in a similar situation. WikiLeaks didn’t get the documents directly, but was given them by another unnamed source (possibly Bradley Manning, who was the source of an earlier secret video of a U.S. military attack on civilians in Iraq). The site then proceeded to broker a deal with the New York Times, The Guardian and Germany’s Der Spiegel, whereby the media outlets could have access to the documents and publish stories based on them simultaneously. Columbia Journalism Review has a detailed step-by-step account of how it happened.

Not everyone thinks WikiLeaks represents a fundamental transformation of journalism in the Internet age, mind you. Doug Saunders, the European bureau chief for the Globe and Mail newspaper, said on Twitter that “Wikileaks gave us the War Logs scoop in same way the brown-envelope industry gave us Pentagon Papers or parking garages uncovered Watergate” (although he later conceded that WikiLeaks was “a useful vehicle”). But comparing WikiLeaks and what it was able to accomplish to a source with a brown envelope in a parking garage — as Deep Throat was for the Washington Post reporters who broke the Watergate scandal in the 1970s — misses the larger point.

As New York University journalism professor Jay Rosen has noted, even after it provided the documents to the media outlets, WikiLeaks still maintained the ultimate control over them — including the ability to publish all 90,000 of them at the same time that the stories based on them appeared in the NYT, Guardian and Der Spiegel. This, Rosen says, provided an almost unprecedented check on the traditional media, since any gaps or omissions from their stories would become obvious. Typically, sources cut exclusive deals with a single outlet, and that entity has the final say over what appears — but WikiLeaks has altered that traditional balance of power.

Continued. . .

Inside Story - Iraq's missing billions

Newt Gingrich Commits Act of Treason Against Humanity

Why are pathological liars like Gingrich so arrogant? Don't they realize what's in store for them? Do they think Saddam was the last tyrant of this century to get hanged? Think again, bastards. Your time is coming. Your day in court will be brief. Attack Iran, and you are finished.

National Insecurity Complex

This article by Dave Lindorff nails it.

National Insecurity Complex

By Dave Lindorff
CounterPunch.com

The White House’s initial response to the release of 92,000 pages of raw reports from the field by US forces in Afghanistan for a period from 2004-2009--that it was a threat to national security and to the lives of American troops--was as predictable as it was farcical.

These documents didn’t reveal anything new to America’s enemies in Afghanistan or Pakistan. The Taliban fighters knew full well that their heat-seeking missiles had successfully downed American helicopters. They didn’t reveal anything new to Pakistan’s intelligence service, the ISI. The Pakistanis knew that they were assisting the Taliban with intelligence, strategic planning and weapons in their fight against US forces and the current puppet regime in Kabul. They didn’t reveal anything to the long-suffering civilian population in Afghanistan either. Afghans know that US forces have been targeting them at checkpoints, wantonly bombing their houses and villages in attempts to hit suspected Taliban or Al Qaeda leaders or fighters, and covering up those atrocities when innocent men, women and children are the victims.

No, what the release of these documents threaten is the huge almost decade-long lie that both the last administration of President George W. Bush, and the current administration of Barack Obama have been putting out, that the US is engaged in a “good war,” trying to defeat “terrorists” and establish a democratic government in Afghanistan.

This is what makes the WikiLeaks release of these documents so much like Daniel Ellsberg’s and Tony Russo’s release of the Pentagon Papers. It’s not so much that there was explosive new information in these documents, though there is some. It’s that they expose to the American public the depth and breadth of government and Pentagon lying about the wars in question--Afghanistan in the WikiLeaks case, and Indochina in the Pentagon Papers case.

The WikiLeaks documents show the US to be engaged in a brutal war in which the local civilians are of no consequence, or in which they are even seen as the enemy. The only reason there is any concern at all about their welfare is a recognition that when they are killed, it strengthens support for the Taliban. There is no objective concern for their welfare.

The danger of the WikiLeaks papers is that they expose America as a classic imperialist or neo-colonialist oppressor, not some kind of virtuous purveyor and defender of freedom and democratic principles.

Continued . . .

The Real Aim of Israel’s Bomb Iran Campaign

The Real Aim of Israel’s Bomb Iran Campaign

By Gareth Porter

Reuel Marc Gerecht's screed justifying an Israeli bombing attack on Iran coincides with the opening of the new Israel lobby campaign marked by the introduction of House Resolution 1553 expressing full support for such an Israeli attack.

What is important to understand about this campaign is that the aim of Gerecht and of the right-wing government of Benjamin Netanyahu is to support an attack by Israel so that the United States can be drawn into direct, full-scale war with Iran.

That has long been the Israeli strategy for Iran, because Israel cannot fight a war with Iran without full U.S. involvement. Israel needs to know that the United States will finish the war that Israel wants to start.

Gerecht openly expresses the hope that any Iranian response to the Israeli attack would trigger full-scale U.S. war against Iran. "If Khamenei has a death-wish, he'll let the Revolutionary Guards mine the strait, the entrance to the Persian Gulf," writes Gerecht. "It might be the only thing that would push President Obama to strike Iran militarily...." Gerecht suggest that the same logic would apply to any Iranian "terrorism against the United States after an Israeli strike," by which we really means any attack on a U.S. target in the Middle East. Gerecht writes that Obama might be "obliged" to threaten major retaliation "immediately after an Israeli surprise attack."

That's the key sentence in this very long Gerecht argument. Obama is not going to be "obliged" to join Israeli aggression against Iran unless he feels that domestic political pressures to do so are too strong to resist. That's why the Israelis are determined to line up a strong majority in Congress and public opinion for war to foreclose Obama's options.

In the absence of confidence that Obama would be ready to come into the war fully behind Israel, there cannot be an Israeli strike.

Gerecht's argument for war relies on a fanciful nightmare scenario of Iran doling out nuclear weapons to Islamic extremists all over the Middle East. But the real concern of the Israelis and their lobbyists, as Gerecht's past writing has explicitly stated, is to destroy Iran's Islamic regime in a paroxysm of U.S. military violence.

Gerecht first revealed this Israeli-neocon fantasy as early as 2000, before the Iranian nuclear program was even taken seriously, in an essay written for a book published by the Project for a New American Century. Gerecht argued that, if Iran could be caught in a "terrorist act," the U.S. Navy should "retaliate with fury". The purpose of such a military response, he wrote, should be to "strike with truly devastating effect against the ruling mullahs and the repressive institutions that maintain them."

And lest anyone fail to understand what he meant by that, Gerecht was more explicit: "That is, no cruise missiles at midnight to minimize the body count. The clerics will almost certainly strike back unless Washington uses overwhelming, paralyzing force."

In 2006-07, the Israeli war party had reason to believed that it could hijack U.S. policy long enough to get the war it wanted, because it had placed one of its most militant agents, David Wurmser, in a strategic position to influence that policy.

We now know that Wurmser, formerly a close adviser to Benjamin Netanyahu and during that period Vice President Dick Cheney's main adviser on the Middle East, urged a policy of overwhelming U.S. military force against Iran. After leaving the administration in 2007, Wurmser revealed that he had advocated a U.S. war on Iran, not to set back the nuclear program but to achieve regime change.

"Only if what we do is placed in the framework of a fundamental assault on the survival of the regime will it have a pick-up among ordinary Iranians," Wurmser told The Telegraph. The U.S. attack was not to be limited to nuclear targets but was to be quite thorough and massively destructive. "If we start shooting, we must be prepared to fire the last shot. Don't shoot a bear if you're not going to kill it."

Of course, that kind of war could not be launched out of the blue. It would have required a casus belli to justify a limited initial attack that would then allow a rapid escalation of U.S. military force. In 2007, Cheney acted on Wurmser's advice and tried to get Bush to provoke a war with Iran over Iraq, but it was foiled by the Pentagon.

Continued. . .

Congress Funds More War, Rejects Health Care For 9/11 Heroes

Do members of Congress have any shame? Are these assholes actually baiting the American people to revolt against them?

Congress Approves Supplemental War-Funding Bill

By Lisa Daniel
American Forces Press Service

WASHINGTON, July 28, 2010 – The U.S. House of Representatives yesterday approved passage of the Defense Department’s supplemental war-funding bill, most of which will be used to pay for operations in Afghanistan and Iraq.

President Barack Obama and Pentagon officials said passage of the nearly $59 billion supplemental was critical for supporting overseas-deployed troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. The bill now awaits the president’s signature.

Continued. . .

NY Daily News: Congress rejects Zadroga 9/11 Health and Compensation Act as GOP members balk at bill

BY Michael Mcauliff
DAILY NEWS WASHINGTON BUREAU

WASHINGTON - Congress turned thumbs down on the Zadroga 9/11 Health and Compensation Act on Thursday night, raising doubts it will ever pass.

Most Republicans refused to back the measure, calling it a "slush fund," and saying it was another example of Democratic overreach and an "insatiable" appetite for taxpayers' money.

The bill would spend $3.2 billion on health care over the next 10 years for people sickened from their exposure to the toxic smoke and debris of the shattered World Trade Center. It would spend another $4.2 billion to compensate victims over that span, and make another $4.2 billion in compensation available for the next 11 years.

Continued. . .

The Year America Recovered

Inspired by the article by Dr. Paul Craig Roberts called, "The Year America Dissolved."

It is 2017. There are no more fusion centers. There are no more "top secret" clearances. There are no more wars. And there is no need for them.

There was never any need for them. But a lot of people had mistakenly believed so, until a few years ago, when high-level government whistleblowers disclosed top secret documents through the journalist organization WikiLeaks that revealed how a criminal cabal in charge of the United States government misled the whole world about the September 11 terrorist attacks.

According to the documents, which includes transcripts of secret conversations, members of the Bush administration, in connection with Israeli leaders, had bamboozled America into a mysterious, empty, and evil black hole by pushing a fraudulent, and never-ending war on terrorism.

As the story goes, the treasonous cabal conspired to commit acts of terrorism against the people of America, and then falsely accuse Islamic extremists for the crimes, in order to speed-up a corrupt agenda that was long in the making.

People are still shaking their heads about the whole thing. It was a strange time. An Orwellian time. And it still troubles Americans, and the rest of the world that America was temporarily conquered by a phantom menace. Osama who?

Nobody should be hard on themselves for not seeing through the lies earlier than they should have. We are all human. And the American government's hysteria post-9/11 was unlike anything in history, plus it was amplified by the major media. It is tough to admit it at first, but we are all the victims of the deception about 9/11. There is no shame in being fooled.

Tragically, the American government's lies caused the death of millions of innocent people, and the destruction of innocent countries in the Middle East.

Instead of facing down, and overcoming our fears, all of our emotions were manipulated by our governmental enemies around the world, who claimed to be our leaders, and defenders. Grief is necessary to move on from the damage that was caused. Pain must be expressed, or else we will never let go of the past. But, a lot of good did come from the horror, too, so there are reasons to be grateful. The battle with evil wasn't totally misguided because radical evil does exist in the world, however, it is the combination of evil and government power that should most concern us.

But we must move on. It is a new world now. We've must say our goodbyes to this passing age, and to the tyrants it produced. Maybe in the future, when all the wounds have healed, people will thank them for what they did, for I firmly believe that the agents of evil do a service to God, and to humanity. Evil attracts good, and vice versa. They serve a greater purpose that we often fail to see. Although they can never be forgiven for causing harm to the world, we can take solace in the understanding that men were not designed to be angels. We are not flawless beings. And no country is perfect.

In this new world, America is a republic again. In 2013, the year America revolted, the National Security State was fully dismantled, after its list of crimes were revealed to the general public for the very first time, and put into a historical context. Constitutional barriers are now in place, and the power of the Executive has been drastically reduced. Along with the NSS, the Federal Reserve Bank was also abolished, and replaced by federal and state banks whose operations are not restricted by the criminal logic of a private banking system. As a result of the political, and monetary reforms, the state of the economy has turned around in the last three years, and is flourishing beyond all expectations.

It wasn't long ago that economic recovery was viewed by top economists, and policy makers as a silly delusion. Many people had given up on the inventiveness, and resourcefulness of the American spirit. They dropped the faith, and forgot what America is made of. They forgot that when it is mandated with a true task, defeat is not an option for America. When it is presented with a challenge, it does not give up. As the writer Albert Camus wrote; "There is so much stubborn hope in the human heart."

The mad men who predicted, and promoted an American Century were not all wrong. It still remains an American century, but America is not defined by its military power alone; it is defined, most of all, by its ideas. And ideas tend to be revolutionary.

America is still the most powerful voice in the world, but no longer is it led by evil, and stupid men. As time goes on, America will further embed into its national consciousness Thomas Jefferson words; " I hope our wisdom will grow with our power, and teach us, that the less we use our power the greater it will be."

Two weeks ago, the President began his State of the Union Address with a reality check. He said:

We have all struggled through a time of great deception, and have been made to witness haunting immorality by our leaders and system of government. The unforgivable crimes that were committed in the name of liberty and the American people will never be forgotten. We will do future generations of the world a great service by examining where we went wrong as a nation, and how we the people failed most of all. The popular notion that we did not know is a lackluster excuse. Self-deception played a decisive role, one that we cannot evade simply because our institutions and leaders repeatedly lied to us.

There were very few critics of the speech, but, support for the President has not been automatic. People are a little more skeptical about speeches these days.

The new administration has made many promises that it seeks to keep, including a joint space mission with India, Brazil, Russia, and China. Each country's resources are being combined to create a universal space program that will be represented by all the nations in the world. The dream of mankind traveling the stars in peace could come true after all.

None of this would have happened if it were not for the sacrifices made by the individuals who desired to free America from the globalist takeover. Their lives will never be forgotten.

Arcade Fire - "Sprawl II (Mountains Beyond Mountains)"

Arcade Fire - Sprawl II (Mountains Beyond Mountains)


They heard me singing and they told me to stop
Quit these pretentious things and just punch the clock
These days my life, I feel it has no purpose
But late at night the feelings swim to the surface

'Cause on the surface the city lights shine
They're calling at me, come and find your kind
Sometimes I wonder if the world's so small
That we can never get away from the sprawl
Living in the sprawl
Dead shopping malls rise like mountains beyond mountains
And there's no end in sight
I need the darkness, someone please cut the lights

We rode our bikes to the nearest park
Sat under the swings and kissed in the dark
We shielded our eyes from the police lights
We run away, but we don't know why

On the black river, the city lights shine
They're screaming at us, we don't need your kind
Sometimes I wonder if the world's so small
That we can never get away from the sprawl
Living in the sprawl
Dead shopping malls rise like mountains beyond mountains
And there's no end in sight
I need the darkness, someone please cut the lights

They heard me singing and they told me to stop
Quit these pretentious things and just punch the clock
Sometimes I wonder if the world's so small
Can we ever get away from the sprawl?
Living in the sprawl
Dead shopping malls rise like mountains beyond mountains
And there's no end in sight
I need the darkness, someone please cut the lights
I need the darkness, someone please cut the lights

Friendly Fire: The American Empire, Before the Fall (Featuring Bruce Fein)

Friendly Fire: The American Empire, Before the Fall (Featuring Bruce Fein) - Part One


Part Two

Americans Protested Washington In The Last Great Depression

From Wikipedia:

The self-named Bonus Expeditionary Force was an assemblage of some 43,000 marchers—17,000 World War I veterans, their families, and affiliated groups - who protested in Washington, D.C., in spring and summer of 1932. Called the Bonus March by the news media, the Bonus Marchers were more popularly known as the Bonus Army. It was led by Walter W. Waters, a former Army sergeant. The veterans were encouraged in their demand for immediate cash-payment redemption of their service certificates by retired U.S.M.C. Maj. Gen. Smedley Butler, one of the most popular military figures of the time

Bonus Army marches on Washington D.C. 1932


Could something like this happen today? Yes, and more. Millions will probably gather in Washington, and kick the crooks out. Or maybe I'm speaking nonsense, and something like that could never happen. Who knows. We'll see.

What is there to lose? What's so scary about marching on the doorstep of cowards and traitors? What will they do? Use the military and the police against the people? Oh yeah, that's it. Damn them.

Antiwar.com's Scott Horton Interview with Julian Assange

These are all must-listen interviews.

Antiwar.com's Scott Horton interview with Julian Assange.

Horton: Is it true that – I guess there was a CNN report that said that WikiLeaks has received, I guess especially since the “Collateral Murder” video was published, a deluge of new high-level leaks from people inside the U.S. government?

Assange: Yes, that is true. And we are, as an organization, suffering, if you like, under this enormous backlog of material we’re trying to get through. It will cause substantial reform when that material is released. Bar a catastrophe, that’s going to go ahead, not just from the U.S. – we have a six months’ backlog to go through because we were busy fundraising and reengineering for this period of intense public interest. So it’ll be interesting days ahead.

Horton's interview with Daniel Ellsberg.

Horton's interview with Ray McGovern.

McQuaig: Police, bankers exempt from austerity

The Toronto Star: Police, bankers exempt from austerity

By Linda McQuaig

The violence of the mob was considerable, with hooligans smashing windows, looting stores and setting police cars ablaze.

I'm referring, of course, to the hockey riots in Montreal in April 2008, after the Montreal Canadiens' playoff victory over the Boston Bruins.

If you don't remember this thuggery — or similar Montreal riots last month following another hockey victory — it's probably because that violence wasn't used as an excuse to justify a massive police clampdown on a city.

What went on in Toronto last weekend — as this usually vibrant city was put under virtual police lockdown — went far beyond any necessary measures to preserve public order and protect world leaders at the G20 summit.

Continued. . .

Conversations with History: Daniel Ellsberg

The Preservation Generation: Military Resistance In Our Time

In Gallup's 2010 Confidence in Institutions poll, the U.S. military once again received the highest level of confidence from the American people, with three out of four respondents saying that it believes in its leadership, more than any other institution in the country. The military's high popularity stands in stark contrast to the thirty-six percent who have trust in the Commander-in-Chief, and the mere eleven percent who believe that Congress is performing its task well. Canada's military is also the beneficiary of widespread public support, as indicated by a 2009 Globe and Mail article called, "Canada's military: Invisible no more."

It is an understandable, and even encouraging view that the men and women in uniform in North America are viewed as giants compared to political leaders. People lionize soldiers because many "public" officials are corrupt, self-serving demagogues with zero integrity, who have the audacity to fear-monger about national enemies, and vote for immoral wars that soldiers fight, and die in.

But does the Canadian and American military deserve such high praise? Shouldn't support be earned? At the very least, the military's grandeur should be questioned because of the mass suffering they have caused in Afghanistan, and Iraq. Any respectable institution would have seen through these fraudulent, and evil wars by now, and terminated their role in them. Men of righteous conduct do not submit their souls to military orders that result in the daily slaughter of innocent people. "Heroes," writes William J. Astore, "don’t commit atrocities." They try to stop them.

In modern history, wars have not made heroes. Most wars have been indefensible bloodbaths, and purely money-making enterprises that produced mass death. Unknown soldiers have given their lives for the unknown profits of unknown rulers, and for unknown ends.

The heroes of this era are not obedient soldiers, but war resisters, revolutionaries, truth-tellers, whistleblowers, and soldiers with conscience who refuse to be used as pawns in immoral wars. Philosopher Alexander Moseley writes in his essay, 'The Ethical Warrior' that soldiers can not excuse their participation in immoral actions by simply claiming that they were just following orders. He also says that the hierarchical model of the current military, where life and death decisions are made at the very top, should be replaced by a system that teaches every single soldier to discern between right and wrong, and allow him or her to decide on the righteousness of a particular act, or war in question. Moseley:

"Hierarchical organization works on the principle of top-down control systems, so that soldiers' jurisdictions or degrees of freedom in action in the lower strata become increasingly restrictive. Characteristically for military thinking, Sun Tzu noted that the 'management of a large force is the same as management of a few men. It is a matter of organization' (Tzu 1993). Accordingly, the possibility for philosophical examination of war is supposed to diminish in the lower ranks. But why should this be so? Ethically, the renunciation of responsibility in civilian life is traditionally (legally, customarily) a highly questionable act: it barely amounts to an excuse should I burden guilt on other people to whom I defer (with or without their knowledge). Analogously, we can say the same of those who refuse to raise their minds to a more philosophical outlook, preferring others to think for them. Indeed, when an individual renounces his or her understanding and capacity to judge, he or she abdicates not only philosophical but also ethical being -- that is, an existence of authentically initiated and sincerely, independently motivated action, which is the hallmark of morality. In effect the unthinking agent becomes a proverbial robot and putatively amoral, which some may desire to avoid personal responsibility but, ontologically, morality cannot be separated from choice, even if the individual declares a personal absolution.

The hierarchical model of the modern army effects a diminishing sphere of morality that would, in civilian conduct, be unacceptable: the plea of 'just following orders' is, moreover, in light of twentieth century exegesis of culpability, sufficiently tenuous to warrant a thorough critical revision of military preconceptions of the good soldier. So, contrary to hierarchical notions of virtue and responsibility, a more egalitarian vision of responsibility should be encouraged, even if the choice is to agree to obeying a superior. Authenticity demands nothing less, and while ethical accountability is easily understood, so too should philosophical accountability: each soldier is responsible for his or her role in the wars or actions in which he or she is employed to fight," (From the book Ethics Education For Irregular Warfare, edited by Don Carrick, James Connelly, and Paul Robinson).

The ethical warrior acts according to the commands of his own conscience, the safety of his country that he swore to protect, and God; the true authorities of this world. Government is not a close fourth, it is not even on the list. By contrast, the robotic killing machine mindlessly follows orders, and buys into government propaganda, falsely believing that he is always in the right irregardless of the destruction he authors.

The security of civilized values, and the blessings of liberty depend on whether or not men decide to be ethical warriors, or robotic killing machines.

Sometimes, wars must be fought. The warrior spirit can't be dismissed solely as a legacy of mankind's barbaric age, it has to be preserved, and dedicated to the defense of freedom, and other civilized values. If a war is to be fought, definitive evidence of the enemy's danger must be established, and a clear outline for victory must be thought out, otherwise, it is not a war, and it must not be waged.

Paraphrasing Socrates, Moseley says, "the unexamined war is not worth fighting." This maxim should be printed on the cover of every army field manual, and taught in every military establishment. Soldiers should be armed with knowledge before they are given guns. Teaching the real history of war in military training schools is mandatory if we as a society want to be blessed with honorable soldiers. And all soldiers must see themselves as individuals, and secondarily as members of a group. As Moseley says, every warrior is born with a free will; every man and woman is responsible for his or her own actions in this life. Moseley:

"The ethical warrior is one who is taught to be mindful of his or her agency in military action and to be aware of choices that may present themselves and to choose an appropriate justifiable path. Easier said than done, of course, which is why it becomes so critical to raise minds to a higher plane to provide the individual with a better intellectual tool-kit to question, to examine and analyse, and to draw his or her own conclusions: he or she is presumed to be a free agent who joins the armed services to defend the morally defensible. So if the teachers take the solider out of his or her comfortable realm of thinking, a better solider may be produced -- or one who sees his country's role as incompatible with civil values and rightfully resigns."

The ethical elevation of soldiers has trailed behind their physical elevation. In modern warfare, soldiers are entrusted with the ability to kill off entire villages through the use of highly-advanced war planes, but they are denied critical thinking skills in military training, so they can't see through the political propaganda that they are immersed in. They are taught to justify the slaughter of innocent human beings, and told to cover-up their bloody mistakes.

Using war planes to destroy the homes of innocent people does not make you a warrior, but a murderer, and not even a regular murderer, but the worst kind; the kind of murderer that literally can't feel the blood of his victims on his hands. The men who employ such weapons are weaklings and cowards. Tom Engelhardt has more to say about drone warfare, and the blood-soaked bureaucrats that operate them in his essay, "Gods and Monsters: Fighting American Wars From On High":

"Whether in the skies or patrolling on the ground, Americans know next to nothing of the worlds they are passing above or through. This is, of course, even more true of the “pilots” who fly our latest wonder weapons, the Predators, Reapers, and other unmanned drones over American battle zones, while sitting at consoles somewhere in the United States. They are clearly engaged in the most literal of video-game wars, while living the most prosaic of god-like lives. A sign at Creech Air Force Base in Nevada warns such a drone pilot to "drive carefully" on leaving the base after a work shift “in” Afghanistan or Iraq. This, it says, is “the most dangerous part of your day."

One instructor of drone pilots has described this form of warfare vividly: "Flying a Predator is like a chess game... Because you have a God's-eye perspective, you need to think a few moves ahead." However much you may “think ahead,” though, the tiny, barely distinguishable creatures you’re deciding whether to eradicate certainly don’t inhabit the same universe as you, with your looming needs, troubles, and concerns."

Such monsters can't tell the difference between Iraqis, Afghans, and yes, even Americans. All they know are "civilian," and "military." And the predator drones that cause carnage and mass trauma in the Middle East may soon be used on American citizens if they decide to resist the new world order. That is the present danger that all freedom fighters face. We are dealing with arrogant monsters who only know how to follow the orders of their military superiors. They are spiritually deformed men. The good men in the military, the ones who have retained their conscience, and understand the historical situation, must rise up now. The mass slaughter in the Middle East must end, and mankind's God-given liberties must be defended. The time for meekness has come to an end. I will do everything in my power, short of violence, to achieve these two objectives.

Seven years ago, Jacob Hornberger said that "the time to stop tyranny is at its inception, not later. Just ask any German. " We have failed to do that. We have allowed the new world order to blossom, and now it will take personal sacrifices to end this tyranny. Luckily, the public has begun to doubt all the political propaganda, mythology, and deceptions of this age. The situation is critical, but not hopeless. But, the American military must be on the side of the American people, of the Constitution, and of righteousness if there is to be a free world in this new century. And the same applies to the Canadian military, the British military, and every other military threatened by the power of the new world order.

The reason why Germany came under the power of the Nazis is because many members of the German military bended their will for Hitler's deigns, and surrendered their moral judgment. In the book, "The Germans," historian Gordon A. Craig gives a great account of how the military leadership lost track of the welfare of the German people, and restricted its role to sheepishly carrying out the will of the dictator:

"In the first weeks of 1933, when it became clear that Hitler was at the gates, there were many people in Germany who believed that the army would not tolerate the accession to power of this dangerous political adventurer. But, after all of their frenetic and misguided political meddling, the army chiefs now adopted an elaborate pose of neutrality, and by doing so assumed a significant share of the responsibility for having delivered Germany into the hands of National Socialism.

Nor did their responsibility end there. It can be fairly said that the army was culpable for much of the horror that followed. It was in a real sense an accomplice of Hitler's in the bloody events of June 30, 1934, in which the SS, using army equipment, killed dissident elements in the SA and, at the same time, deliberately murdered some old enemies of the Fuhrer, and its participation in this operation--and its willingness to pledge its fealty to Adolf Hitler in a public oath a few weeks later, despite the fact that two prominent officers, Generals Kurt von Schleicher and Kurt von Bredow, were victims of that Night of the Long Knives--marked the beginning of a total capitulation to the will of the dictator. This had a shameful culmination in February 1938, when the officer corps stood mutely by while Hitler contemptuously dismissed their highest commander, after bringing spurious charges of sexual misconduct against him, and assumed personal command of the Wehrmacht.

There were soldiers who regarded this lack of resistance as a disgrace and who sought to remind their fellows of an older tradition of honor and responsibility to their country. In 1938, when it became apparent that Hitler's course was bent on war, a group of officers led by General Ludwig Beck, the chief of the General Staff, sought to organize opposition to a policy that, in their view, was tantamount to national suicide. Beck believed that precisely because the German people had always had a kind of pietas for the army, it was the soldiers' responsibility now to protect it from destruction. "History," he wrote, "will burden these leaders with blood-guilt if they do not act in accordance with their professional and political knowledge and conscience. . . . It shows a lack of greatness and of understanding of his task when a soldier of the highest rank in times like these sees his duty and task only in the restricted area of his military assignment, without taking note of his overriding responsibility to his whole people," (Craig, The Germans, pg. 241).

For America to survive as a nation, with its full liberties intact, then it will require heroic action by individuals in the military. They cannot make the same mistakes as the German military in Hitler's time. Officers need to voice their real opinion of the fraudulent War on Terrorism, and the corrupt agenda for a new world government. They must help preserve America by standing beside the Constitution, and the American people. America is too precious a country to walk away from at this painful moment in history. It still represents the last, best hope for mankind, because its founders established a good legal foundation. As I wrote in a previous blog post, "A Generation of George Washingtons":

"The skills, expertise, and prestige of the brave men and women who are currently serving in Iraq and Afghanistan are needed in the United States, where liberty is in dire straits. These war veterans are proven patriotic fighters, but they also have a responsibility to be citizens and being an American citizen today means withdrawing your support from the tyrannical federal government in Washington D.C.

The U.S. military, unlike the Congress and the White House, has retained the kind of authority in the minds of the people that still commands respect, and that authority should be used wisely and conservatively in a period of national crisis. At the end of the day, the government must fall under the weight of the people, and civilian authority, but the military has a role to play in any national crisis. It is its job to assist Americans, and keep the country free from danger and despotism. That of course will not be possible unless a sufficient amount of soldiers wake up to the reality of the present situation, and withdraw their support from the totalitarian police state.

Unlike politicians, soldiers don't need to be reminded whose interests they serve, they have fought, bled, and died for their country, and its liberties. Whether or not America's present wars are international crimes does not apply to the commitment that the Armed Forces made to protecting the Constitution and the country, because American soldiers have fought under the assumption that United States was attacked by Arab terrorists. Of course, that assumption is not true, and is no longer believed in by millions of people in America and in the world. A great number of people have accurately identified the real perpetrators of 9/11, and America's enemies, and most of them are still in control of the United States government, media and economy, a fact that has not went unnoticed by some intelligent military minds.

But just in case American soldiers do need a reminder of their allegiance, the Oath Keepers organization is providing a good platform for active and former soldiers, as well as police officers, to retake their oath to the Constitution. Citizens should also take the oath, because Americans must be united to defeat tyranny. And it is an oath that must be kept. The "Preservation Generation" can not let down humanity and history."

Resisting the corrupt, and arrogant rulers of America sounds romantic, but that is not my intent. Any form of resistance will require heavy sacrifices, and I don't view myself as a revolutionary, and never will, but I don't want to live under a dictatorial world state, so what choice do I, or do any of us have? The fact that women and children are being killed in Iraq and Afghanistan is reflective of the current rulers' respect for human life, and human dignity. They are bloody monsters, and I don't want this world to be poisoned and controlled by them any longer. And do you honesty think that they will be reserved towards us in the West? Will they show us mercy? I think not. To them, everything is permitted. They are committed revolutionary, power-hungry psychopaths. They are not motivated by the eternal good. The truth means nothing to them. Justice is not in their vocabulary. Peace is not in their plans. They are destroyers.

And their time has run out. It is our turn to show them the other side of the universe, the side that aims for the preservation of the rights of man, that does not destroy the Earth's environment, and that treats every human being with respect. Will you resist? Will you emulate the spirit of the founding fathers of the United States of America, and the spirit of all great men? I pray that you do; pray that I do as well.

A Student Rises Against The Iranian President

A student protests against Iranian President Ahmadinejad before a speech in Tehran. The sign reads “Fascist President, Polytechnics [University] Is Not Your Place”

Hip Hop Break: Reef The Lost Cauze - I Wonder

"To refuse to wonder is the mark of the beast." - Nicolás Gómez Dávila

Reef The Lost Cauze - I Wonder

The Gatecrashers: Can WikiLeaks Bring Down The U.S. Secret Government?

WikiLeaks's Julian Assange says all the right things. He's described U.S. Special Forces units who leave behind the dead remains of innocent victims as "bastards" on Anderson Cooper's show last night. And he said it very bluntly. So it's tough not to like the guy, and respect him. But not everybody believes that he's a freedom information fighter. Some people are suspicious that he is not what he appears to be, like Cryptome's John Young. I don't have the background that Young has to make a judgment like that, and I don't like speculating about people's character, and motives who are not obviously evil like Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, or Netanyahu. I take the line: Ye shall know them by their fruits. And I certainly hope that Assange is a freedom information fighter, because the world needs FIFs to win the modern battle for freedom, truth, peace, and justice.

Assange spoke to Time Magazine about the importance of governments sharing information liberally with citizens, even if it is highly-sensitive:

"It is the communication of information that regulates politics and the legislature, the judiciary and the behavior of the police. It's quite important to have the default assumption that the free exchange of information should not be regulated except in specific and clear circumstances."

WikiLeaks's purpose is noble, and heroic. Any organization that seeks to pull back the curtain on illegal government policies, and projects, and enlighten citizens about what their tax money is being used for is doing good work. But how committed is WikiLeaks to the truth? Assange told the Belfast Telegraph that he is annoyed by talk of 9/11 truth. Maybe his annoyance is a reflection of his personality, and not his research into 9/11. But he is very bright, so what's stopping him from rocking the 9/11 boat? What more information does he need? Is the work of Steven Jones, Niels Harrit, and Richard Gage not enough to convince him to take a second look at 9/11? Are the words of ground-zero eyewitnesses not enough? Anybody who seriously reflects on the official 9/11 story should be suspicious.

The fact that Assange is not questioning the official story is troubling. Maybe he's too busy with other things. That could be it. Or maybe he's too politically shrewd to publicly state his suspicious about 9/11, because then the media would cast him as a total conspiracy theorist who doesn't deserve any attention, and that would be tragic because the work that WikiLeaks is doing is very valuable. So it could be a political calculation on his part. Or I could be just talking bullshit, and he actually believes in the official government story for some reason. I don't know. It's a confusing world, and it's hard not to be suspicious about everybody since the U.S. government is a PSYOPS state. With all their secrecy, and illegality, it is hard to trust anybody except a few trusted sources and organizations. Who can we trust? The fact that question even needs to be asked is reflective of the dark and tyrannical times that were living in. But I don't like being paranoid. And I want to believe that WikiLeaks is an honorable, and sincere organization - so I'll take the leap of faith, and put my trust in it. Plus, I think they deserve it because they have continually released valuable information to the public.

Information is power, and WikiLeaks traffics in secret information, so it has great power. And, as they say, with great power comes great responsibility, and also, great corruption. WikiLeaks has the potential to be a mighty force for good in the world if it fulfills its role as a safe vessel for hidden information. It has the power to destabilize corrupt regimes, and put high-level criminals behind bars. In the Time magazine interview, Assange said that the work WikiLeaks has done over the years has resulted in the removal of the Kenyan government, and the disruption of the government of Tanzania:

Do you feel comfortable that no one's security will be threatened by the publication of this material?

We feel confident; the material is seven months old, we reviewed it extensively; we held back 15,000 documents that we felt needed further review because the type of classifications they had. We've been publishing for four years a range of material that has caused the changing of constitutions and the removal of governments but there's never been a case that we are aware of that has resulted in the personal injury of anyone.

Removal of governments?
The Kenyan government. The suspension of the prime minister of Tanzania.

Tanzania?
We published a corruption report.

WikiLeaks is really in uncharted territory. Its success is amazing. It could be the beacon of freedom in the 21st century. Reestablishing freedom is the lasting legacy of the Internet, and the free access of information. Not porn or free download of music, but the removal of corrupt and illegitimate governments, and the reestablishment of free and open governments.

All governments rightly fear the Internet. Professor Peter Dale Scott has written about "Internet politics," and its potential to transform public debate, and influence public elections. Kenya's government has already seen the power of the Internet, and its child, WikiLeaks. Could WikiLeaks also help remove the U.S. secret government from power?

America is not Kenya, of course, it is a highly advanced deep state, but information is power everywhere around the world, and if a few Whistleblowers in the U.S. government approach WikiLeaks with explosive information that could seriously damage the image of current U.S. political leaders, and government policies, then watch out. A revolution could happen overnight. It is too hard to suppress knowledge in this new age.

Democracy Now: "WikiLeaks Is Not One Person...We Are All the Threat"–Hacker Magazine Editor Says WikiLeaks Is Bigger Than Julian Assange


Update: Arthur Silber's comments on WikiLeaks and Julian Assange are worth reading. He says:

With regard to the particular role he seeks for Wikileaks and, relatedly, in connection with the mechanics of how that role can be made to function with astonishing effectiveness, Assange is nothing less than brilliant. This is a man who understands the system he's up against, and he knows how to jam the gears of that system.