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Experts doubt Al Qaeda link in Mumbai attacks
Philip
Dru comments
for New World Truth: “Global terrorism experts said Thursday they
had never heard of the group [Deccan Mujahideen]. And based on its tactics,
they said, it was probably not a cell or group linked to Al Qaeda.
‘It’s
even unclear whether it’s a real group or not,’ said Bruce Hoffman, a professor
at the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University and the author of the
book ‘Inside Terrorism.’ ‘It could be a cover name for another group, or a name
adopted just for this particular incident.’
Christine Fair, senior political scientist and a South Asia
expert at the RAND Corporation, was careful to say that the identity of the
terrorists could not yet be known. But she insisted the style of the attacks
and the targets in Mumbai suggested that the militants were likely to be Indian
Muslims - and not linked to Al Qaeda or the violent South Asian terrorist group
Lashkar-e-Taiba.
‘There’s
absolutely nothing Al Qaeda-like about it,’ she said of the attack. ‘Did you
see any suicide bombers? And there are no fingerprints of Lashkar. They don’t
do hostage taking, and they don’t do grenades.’
Hoffman
agreed that the assault was ‘not exactly Al Qaeda’s modus operandi, which is
suicide attacks.’ But he said the timed attacks, which he called ‘tactical,
sophisticated and coordinated,’ perhaps pointed to a broader organization behind
the perpetrators. Fair also noted that the fact the group had not proclaimed
its ideology in a manifesto was ‘not at all unusual.’
‘You
don’t see these types of terrorist operations very often, if at all,’ Hoffman
said. ‘These aren’t just a bunch of radical guys coming together to cause
mayhem. This takes a different skill set. It doesn’t take much skill to make a
bomb. This is not just pressing a button as a suicide bomber and dying. You
don’t learn this over the Internet.’”
·
Claims emerge of British terrorists in Mumbai - The Guardian
(London)
·
Evidence Mumbai Attackers were Anglo-American Intel Operatives
Just Ten Trained Terrorists Caused Mumbai Carnage
The Gujarat Pogrom: The Mumbai “Terrorist” Attack in Perspective
Ian
McDonald comments
for THE (UK): “The systematic slaughter of Muslims by Hindus
across the Indian state of Gujarat three weeks ago was a ferocious and barbaric
revenge for the arson attack by a Muslim "mob" on a train carrying
Hindu "activists".
The horrific fate of nearly 60 Hindus on February 27
cannot compare to the subsequent pogrom waged against the minority Muslim
community, in which whole families, including children, were dragged out of
their homes to be beaten and burnt alive. The death toll is estimated to be
above 1,000.
Contrary to many reports on the subject, the Hindus
travelling on the Sabarmati Express were not pilgrims making their way to
Ayodhya to pray in peace. They were ramsevaks , members of the
politico-religious VHP (World Hindu Council) for whom the construction of a
temple where once the Babri Masjid (mosque) stood is but the first step towards
a fundamentalist Hindu state.
It was the VHP that planted the seed of the terrorist
destruction of the Babri Masjid by Hindu fanatics in 1992, claiming that it was
built on the birthplace of the Hindu god Rama. This resulted in riots targeted
at Muslims that left 3,000 dead. The plan to build a temple on the disputed
site continued to simmer until the most recent clashes.”
IRAQ
The Cost of Washington’s
Militarism and Occupation
HARDWARE
|
SOFTWARE
(Click on picture)
“There is
nothing more difficult to plan, more doubtful of success, nor more dangerous
to manage, than a creation of a new order of things.” Niccolo Machiavelli The
Prince – 1513 |
The Lancet: Iraqi Civilian Deaths March, 2003—September, 2004 (100,000 “Excess” Iraqi
Deaths)
March, 2003—July, 2006 (654,965 “Excess” Iraqi Deaths)
Summary
Background: An excess mortality of nearly 100,000 deaths was
reported in Iraq for the period March, 2003—September, 2004,
attributed to the invasion of Iraq. Our aim was to update this estimate.
Methods: Between May and
July, 2006, we did a national cross-sectional cluster sample survey of
mortality in Iraq. 50 clusters were randomly selected from 16 Governorates,
with every cluster consisting of 40 households. Information on deaths from
these households was gathered.
Findings: Three misattributed
clusters were excluded from the final analysis; data from 1849 households
that contained 12,801 individuals in 47 clusters was gathered. 1474 births
and 629 deaths were reported during the observation period. Pre-invasion mortality
rates were 5·5 per 1000 people per year (95% CI 4·3—7·1), compared with 13·3
per 1000 people per year (10·9—16·1) in the 40 months post-invasion. We estimate that as of July, 2006, there have been
654,965 (392,979—942,636) excess Iraqi deaths as a consequence of the war,
which corresponds to 2·5% of the population in the study area. Of post-invasion
deaths, 601,027 (426,369—793,663) were due to violence, the most common cause
being gunfire.
Interpretation: The number of people dying in
Iraq has continued to escalate. The proportion of deaths ascribed to
coalition forces has diminished in 2006, although the actual numbers have
increased every year. Gunfire remains the most common cause of death,
although deaths from car bombing have increased. PERSPECTIVE
·
BBC: Comment on Lancet Study ·
New Statesman: Shock, Lancet was right ·
Johns-Hopkins: Updated Iraqi Casualties Survey Affirms
Earlier Lancet Mortality Findings |
Despite Agreement US Future in Iraq Unclear
Maya Schenwar, Truthout: “Iraq’s Parliament
passed the US-Iraq security pact by a slim majority on Wednesday, requiring
that US troops withdraw from Iraq by 2011, unless the Iraqi people vote for a
quicker withdrawal next year. The agreement is a muddle of triumphs and
disappointments. The pact - termed a status of forces agreement (SOFA) - has
seen considerable revision since its early stages. To the rejoicing of
activists on both sides, it now sets a timetable for withdrawal, a provision
the Bush administration previously refused to consider. However, as some in
Parliament have pointed out, a three-year timetable is twice as long as the one
suggested by President-elect Obama, and under the pact, either side needs to
give a one-year warning before canceling it. So, when Obama takes office, he
couldn't nix the SOFA by command.”
Wary Iraqis Weigh Deal That Shapes Their Future
War
in Iraq Ending for International Forces
12
George Bush's Last Days: The Lamest Duck
Joe
Klein, Time Magazine: "In the end, though, it will not be the creative paralysis
that defines Bush. It will be his intellectual laziness, at home and
abroad."
A Delusional Bush Wants History to See Him as a
“Liberator” of Millions
“War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength.”
~ George Orwell
A man sleeps inside the
ruins of a Mogadishu building. The decimated and
depopulated Somali capital
is awash in threats, intimidation and political
assassinations. (Tribune photo by Kuni Takahashi / October 7, 2007)
SOMALIA: Washington’s Hidden Proxy War
It is a standoff war in which the Pentagon lobs
million-dollar cruise missiles into a famine-haunted African wasteland the size
of Texas, hoping to kill lone terror suspects who might be dozing in candlelit
huts. (The raids' success or failure is almost impossible to verify.) It is a
covert war in which the CIA has recruited gangs of unsavory warlords to hunt
down and kidnap Islamic militants and—according to Isse and civil rights
activists—secretly imprison them offshore, aboard U.S. warships.
Mostly, though, it is a policy time bomb that will be inherited by the incoming
Obama administration: a little-known front in the global war on terrorism that
Washington appears to be losing, if it hasn't already been lost.
’Somalia is one of the great unrecognized U.S. policy failures since 9/11,’
said Ken Menkhaus, a leading Somalia scholar at Davidson College in North
Carolina. ‘By any rational metric, what we've ended up with there today is the
opposite of what we wanted.’
What the Bush administration wanted, when it tacitly backed Ethiopia's invasion
of Somalia in late 2006, was clear enough: to help a close African ally in the
war on terror crush the Islamic Courts Union, or ICU. The Taliban-like movement
emerged from the ashes of more than 15 years of anarchy and lawlessness in
Africa's most infamous failed state, Somalia.
At first, the invasion seemed an easy victory. By early 2007, the ICU had been
routed, a pro-Western transitional government installed, and hundreds of
Islamic militants in Somalia either captured or killed.
But over the last 18 months, Somalia's Islamists—now more radical than
ever—have regrouped and roared back.
On a single day last month, they flexed their muscles by killing nearly 30
people in a spate of bloody car-bomb attacks that recalled the darkest days of
Iraq. And their brutal militia, the Shabab or ‘Youth,’ today controls much of
the destitute nation, a shattered but strategic country that overlooks the
vital oil-shipping lanes of the Gulf of Aden.
Even worse, in recent days Shabab's fighters have moved to within miles of the
Somalian capital of Mogadishu, threatening to topple the weak interim government
supported by the U.S. and Ethiopia.
At the same time, according to the UN, the explosion of violence is inflaming
what probably is the worst humanitarian tragedy in the world.”
'Mummy, can I phone the pirates?'
BBC reports: “One of the biggest frustrations
facing journalists is being unable to get through to people on the phone. But as
Mary Harper discovered, contacting the Somali pirates on the Sirius Star turned
out to be child's play.”
"They create a wasteland and call it peace."
~Tacitus
No Mas! Meles Zenawi, Washington’s Ethiopian “Cat’s Paw”
In Somalia Has Had Enough
Associated Press
reports: “MOGADISHU,
Somalia (AP) — Ethiopia announced Friday that it will withdraw its forces from
Somalia by the end of the year, leaving this country's weak and fractured
government to face an increasingly powerful Islamic insurgency. Ethiopia — the
region's military powerhouse — has sent thousands of troops to support
Somalia's U.N.-backed government, which has failed to assert control over the
country. The decision adds urgency to the Somali government's long-standing
request for international peacekeepers to deploy here. ‘Regardless of what
happens, we have decided to withdraw our troops from Somalia at the end of
year,’ Ethiopian Foreign Ministry spokesman Wahide Bellay said Friday in a
telephone interview from Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.”
Afghan Leader Demands Plan for NATO Withdrawal
Candace Rondeaux, The
Washington Post:
"Afghan President Hamid Karzai has sharply criticized the United States
and NATO, demanding a timeline for the withdrawal of foreign forces. Karzai's
comments came late Tuesday in a speech to a U.N. Security Council delegation
visiting Kabul, the capital, this week. He accused the international community
of failing 'to fight the Taliban properly' since the U.S.-led war in the
country began in 2001."
Afghans Riot in Kabul After
Civilian Killed
Yousuf Azimy reports for Reuters from Kabul:
“Dozens of angry Afghans pelted police with stones after a convoy of foreign
contractors rammed a minivan off a road and one civilian was killed and three
more wounded in the Afghan capital on Friday, witnesses said. Seething
resentment against the presence of some 65,000 foreign troops is growing in Afghanistan
after scores of Afghan civilians have been killed in a series of mistaken air
strikes this year.”
Taliban
Kill 13 Afghan Troops, Capture 16
Heed Russia's Warnings About Further NATO Expansion
“Ultimately,
if it came down to sacrificing US cities in a nuclear war with Russia to save
these two non-strategic countries [Georgia and Ukraine], the United States
would most assuredly balk. The Ukrainian public has apparently faced this
reality – souring on NATO membership – and the tottering Ukrainian government
can hardly push through Ukraine's entry into the alliance even if the United
States manages to bludgeon the reluctant Germany, Italy, France, Spain and
other NATO allies to agree to admit both nations.” |
Ivan Eland comments
for AntiWar.com: “Upon Barack Obama's election, the Russians made threats to US
allies over their acceptance of a US missile defense system. Also, Russia
recently sent its first large military force to Latin America since the end of
the Cold War to participate in naval exercises off the Venezuelan coast. Is
this a flagrant test of a new and inexperienced president, much as Nikita
Khrushchev tested the neophyte John F. Kennedy when he first took office in
1961?
More
likely, Russian behavior is merely putting the new president on notice that
Russia is stronger now and cannot be kicked around anymore – as it was during
the Clinton and George W. Bush administrations.
Meanwhile,
the lame duck Bush crowd is still polishing its boots to take another whack.
Despite
investigations by human rights groups indicating that Georgia started the
recent Russian-Georgian war and parliamentary testimony by Erosi
Kitsmarishvili, a former Georgian ambassador to Moscow and confidant of
Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili, that Georgia initiated the conflict,
the Bush administration had the chutzpah to demand that its NATO allies admit
Georgia and the Ukraine into the alliance without meeting the usual
requirements of defense reform and improved military capabilities. The main
reason that Georgia started the war by attacking the breakaway region of South
Ossetia, according to Kitsmarishvili, was that Saakashvili thought he had US
backing for this aggressive tack. If given a NATO security shield, the belligerent
Saakashvili might become even more reckless and involve the United States in a
confrontation with a nuclear-armed power.
The
Russian-Georgian war, however, should have made both Ukraine and Georgia leery
of depending entirely on a faraway nation for security, given the reality of
Russia's local conventional military superiority and nuclear deterrent.”
Russia
Seeks New Missiles Due to US Shield Plans
Conor
Sweeney reports for Reuters from Moscow: “Russia's
military said on Friday it had intensified efforts to develop new ballistic
missiles in response to U.S. plans to deploy an anti-missile system in Europe
and Russia's navy test fired a new generation rocket. … Kremlin officials say
the U.S. has failed to listen to their concerns about the missile shield, which
Washington says is needed to protect against ‘rogue states’ such as Iran.
Russia's missile forces commander said the first of a new generation of Russian
RS-24 intercontinental ballistic missiles would enter service in December 2009,
Interfax reported. Russian generals say the RS-24 can pierce any anti-missile
system. It can be armed with up to 10 different warheads and is intended to
replace Russia's earlier generation intercontinental missiles such as the RS-18
and RS-20.”
Oleysa Vartanyan and Ellen Barry report
for the New York Times from Tbilisi, Georgia: “A parliamentary
hearing on the origins of the war between Georgia and Russia
in August ended in a furor on Tuesday after a former Georgian diplomat
testified that Georgian authorities were responsible for starting the conflict.
Erosi Kitsmarishvili, Tbilisi’s former ambassador to Moscow, testified for
three hours before he was shouted down by members of Parliament.
A
former confidant of President Mikheil Saakashvili, Mr. Kitsmarishvili said
Georgian officials told him in April that they planned to start a war in
Abkhazia, one of two breakaway regions at issue in the war, and had received a
green light from the United States government to do so. He said the Georgian
government later decided to start the war in South Ossetia, the other region,
and continue into Abkhazia.
He
would not name the officials who he said had told him about planned actions in
Abkhazia, saying that identifying them would endanger their lives. … Mr.
Kitsmarishvili walked out amid the furor on Tuesday. ‘They don’t want to listen
to the truth,’ he told reporters.”
HAITI: On America’s Doorstep - Washington’s tragically
failed “Nation Building” adventure
Noted Russian professor predicts economic meltdown will
shatter U.S. into six parts
A widely regarded professor at the diplomatic academy of Russia's
Ministry of Foreign Affairs said the U.S. will break into six parts because of
the nation's financial crisis. “The dollar isn't secured by anything," Igor
Panarin said in an interview transcribed by Russian
newspaper Izvestia Monday.
"The country's foreign debt has grown like an avalanche; this
is a pyramid, which has to collapse."
Panarin said the financial crisis will worsen, unemployment will
rise and people will lose their savings -- factors that will cause the
country's breakup.
"Dissatisfaction is growing, and it is only being held back
at the moment by the elections, and the hope that president-elect Barack Obama
"can work miracles," he said. "But when spring comes, it will be
clear that there are no miracles."
The U.S. will fracture into six parts: the Pacific coast; the
South; Texas; the Atlantic coast, central states and the northern states.
"Now we will see a change to the regulatory system on a
global financial scale: America will cease to be the world's regulator,"
to be replaced by China and Russia, he said.
·
Four new reports reveal battered U.S. economy...
·
The Times (UK): California bigger bankruptcy risk
than Slovakia...
·
U.S. Consumer Spending Posts Biggest Drop Since 9/11...
“The armies of a littler folk
Shall pass you under the victor's yoke,
So-beit a nation that trains her sons
To ride their horses and point their guns."
A Message to America, 1915
Conversations With Chavez and Castro
by Sean Penn
The Nation
(An
extremely informative read ~ Owen)
Sean Penn writes: “Hitchens [Christopher Hitchens] asks [President Hugo Chavez], ‘What's the difference
between you and Fidel?’ Chávez says, ‘Fidel is a communist. I am not. I am a
social democrat. Fidel is a Marxist-Leninist. I am not. Fidel is an atheist. I
am not. One day we discussed God and Christ. I told Castro, I am a Christian. I
believe in the Social Gospels of Christ. He doesn't. Just doesn't. More than
once, Castro told me that Venezuela is not Cuba, and we are not in the 1960s.’
‘You see,’ Chávez says, ‘Venezuela must have democratic
socialism. Castro has been a teacher for me. A master. Not on ideology but on
strategy.’ Perhaps ironically, John F. Kennedy is Chávez's favorite US
president. ‘I was a boy,’ he says. ‘Kennedy was the driving force of reform in
America.’ Surprised by Chávez's affinity for Kennedy, Hitch chimes in,
referring to Kennedy's counter-Cuba economic plan for Latin America: ‘The
Alliance for Progress was a good thing?’ ‘Yes,’ says Chávez. ‘The Alliance for
Progress was a political proposal to improve conditions. It was aimed at
lowering the social difference between cultures.’”
Top UN Official: Israel's Policies Are Like Apartheid of
Bygone Era
Shlomo Shamir, correspondent for Haaretz
(Tel Aviv, Israel) reports: “United Nations General Assembly President
Miguel D'Escoto Brockmann on Monday likened Israel's policies toward the
Palestinians to South Africa's treatment of blacks under apartheid.
Israel's actions in the West Bank and Gaza Strip were like ‘the apartheid of an earlier era,’ said Brockmann, of Nicaragua,
speaking at the annual debate marking the International Day of Solidarity with
the Palestinian People.
He added: ‘We must not be afraid to call something what it is.’
Brockmann
stressed that it was important for the United Nations to use the
heavily-charged term since it was the institution itself that had passed the
International Convention against the crime of apartheid.”
Nobel laureate Maguire says UN should suspend Israel membership
Haaretz (Tel Aviv, Israel): “Nobel Peace Prize laureate Mairead
Maguire said Thursday the United Nations should suspend or
revoke Israel's membership. Maguire said Israel should be punished for ignoring
a series of United Nations resolutions over the years.
Maguire won the 1976 peace prize for her work
with Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland. She is visiting the
Palestinian territories to protest Israel's blockade of the Gaza Strip. In
October this year she arrived on a boat that sailed into the Gaza Strip
carrying international protesters who wanted to bring attention to Israel's
blockade of the Hamas-controlled territory.
Israel virtually sealed off the territories after the Islamic
militant Hamas took over there in 2007. The closure tightened two weeks ago in
response to Hamas rocket fire on Israeli border communities.
Maguire told a news conference Thursday that it's time for the
international community to take action against Israel.
The collective punishment of Gaza's civilian
population
Andrea Becker comments for the Guardian (UK): “Israel's official explanation for
blocking even minimal humanitarian aid, according to IDF spokesperson Major
Peter Lerner, was ‘continued rocket fire and security threats at the
crossings’. Israel's blockade, in force since Hamas seized control of Gaza in
mid-2007, can be described as an intensification of policies designed to
isolate the population of Gaza, cripple its economy, and incentivise the
population against Hamas by harsh – and illegal – measures of collective
punishment. However, these actions are not all new: the
blockade is but the terminal end of Israel's closure policy, in place since
1991, which in turn builds on Israel's policies as occupier since 1967.”
2008. Photo: Libyan
workers loading a Libyan ship at Zuwara port with food and
medicine to be delivered
to Palestinians starved by Israeli blockade for months,
25 November
Libyan Aid Boat Heads to Gaza, the First Ever Coming from
Arab World
The Tripoli Post reports: “A boat loaded with humanitarian aid has left Zuwara
harbor 160km west of Tripoli, Libya on Wednesday heading toward Gaza to deliver
much needed food staff despite an Israeli naval blockade. Palestinian
legislator Jamal Khoudary said the ship was carrying 3,000 tons of food,
medicine, blankets and powdered milk. The ship which is owned by a Libyan
businessman and hired by the government would arrive in Gaza early this week
and may lead to a confrontation between the first ever Arab ship heads to Gaza
and Israeli warships imposing naval blockade that is starving over 1.5 million
people.”
Paul J. Balles considers the
“irony of Jews ... denying food to hundreds of thousands of children [in Gaza]
in order, allegedly, to insure their own security”, with Washington and
Europe’s connivance.”
“Political language ... is designed to make lies sound
truthful and murder respectable, and to give an
appearance of solidity to pure wind.”
~George Orwell
|
A classic
and extremely trenchant video comment by General Norman Schwarzkopf and Robert
Gates - Deputy National Security Advisor to Presidents Bush, Jr. and Sr.
Why Invading Iraq Was An Incredibly Stupid Idea
(Click on blinking dot above for
video)
Foreign Policy & Civil Liberties
(NOTE: Upon launch,
this multi-segment video presentation plays
automatically with a brief
loading pause between segments.)
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