Death By A Thousand Cuts

Today’s Observer adds weight to my belief that the British and Americans have no clear mandate for their roles in Afghanistan.

They have gone from trying to neutralise the threat of Osama Bin Laden and ‘The Taliban’ to helping the Afghans rebuild their country (that we bombarded to smithereens…eight years on and it still hasn’t happened). Next came introducing democracy helping to put in the stooge government of Karzai in Kabul, and of course by now the naughty Talibans had resurfaced, so they had to be fought again.

Then came the threat of the naughty Talibans from Pakistan, so we had to tell the Pakistanis to launch a full scale war on its NWF populace, making two and a half million civilians homeless in the process.

Now the political aim of Gordon Brown is to promote “an emerging democracy” as its election time yet again in Afghanistan.

Everything concerning the West and Afghanistan has been ill conceived, naive, cack handed and above all handled with supreme levels of arrogance and stupidity.

Gen Stanley McChrystal, the top US general in Afghanistan has called for a revised military strategy, meaning the current one has failed, yet again. He went on to add that ‘while the Afghan situation was serious, success was still achievable.‘

McChrystal now sees protecting the Afghan people against the Taliban as the top priority.

Perhaps he needs to consult his ‘Chrystal’ ball to tell him what to do next…he might as well, they’ve tried everything else.

To give further strength to an earlier piece I wrote, Legitimising Afganistans Elections The Independent Electoral Complaints Commission, which is monitoring the Afghan elections says that of more than 2,100 allegations of wrongdoing during voting and vote-counting, 618 have been deemed serious enough to affect the election’s outcome.

Without realising it, the World’s forces are being bogged down into a long standing, drawn out war of attrition in Afghanistan, one that none of its leaders wanted, or now wish to admit that they have been suckered into.

The Afghan Mujahideen that fought the Soviets in the 1980’s attested to the fact, that they were in a war where they would defeat their Soviet enemy by ‘Death of a thousand cuts’.

Mark Twain once said that history does not repeat itself, but it rhymes.

I see the ‘rhyme’ he describes, the similarities are that we are talking about discretionary wars that are not of great intrinsic value to national security.

Be it Afghanistan or Iraq, these are wars of choice.

The US cannot summon the political will and military strategy for outright victory, however that is defined.

In both cases the ‘enemy’ knows that their job is not to defeat the great superpowers to their every last man, but merely to prolong the war and to break the will of their oppressors.

Legitimising Afganistans Elections

The colonisers never lose.

They occupy a country, and then set up bogus elections to legitimise (in their own eyes) the selection of their own collaborationist puppets.

When the people participate in the voting, they say that this proves that the colonial project has been a success.

When people don’t vote (less than 10% in some provinces in Afghanistan), they say that they were intimidated by the terrorists.

If they were to have voted in large numbers, they would have said: they were able to ignore the intimidation of terrorists.

And despite the Americans’ presence, Afghan officials said 290 people voted here last week at what is the only polling place in a region the size of London.

The Beeb reported that special envoy US neocon Richard Holbrooke met with American Stooge President Karzai where concerns were raised about ballot-stuffing and fraud, with a second-round run-off in the air to make the election process more credible….straight out of W.Bush’s playbook the first time he got elected.

According to the Guardian, Holbrooke also met with Abdullah Abdullah (so good they named him twice…a bit like reggae reggae sauce I guess) on the same day.

Are the US looking to replace one puppet with another?

Still…Karzai can always go back home to Helmand…no, not Helmand in Afghanistan, Helmand the restaurant in Baltimore, USA where he and his family were all holed up for many a year before the American led war in Afghanistan….making Kebabs and the like.

His restaurants in Baltimore are said to be doing a flourishing trade in feeding rotund Americans…getting the morbidly obese yanks to chow down, what a real challenge that is….oh stupid me, running those restaurants must have equipped him with the skillset you need to lead and rebuild a country.

….how the hell do you go from being a restaurateur to President?

Answers on a postcard please.

The Lockerbie Bomber & American Hypocrisy

Typically the Americans are claiming the moral high ground after Lockerbie ‘bomber’ Al-Megrahi was released on grounds of ill health.

Lets remember that Al-Megrahi was convicted of the Lockerbie tragedy on flawed evidence, the West needed someone to blame for the crime, and Ghaddafi’s Libya, the 1980’s terrorist safe haven of the world, fitted the bill perfectly.

I can draw parallels between the welcome Al-Megrahi was given and the welcomes given to the Bulgarian nurses and Palestinian physician convicted of the murder of Libyan babies on their return to Sofia.

I didn’t see any condemnations and accusations from the British government or the US administration against the Bulgarian government for welcoming home those individuals who were convicted of infecting hundreds of Libyan children with HIV.

Neither the West, nor the Libyan governing party can claim any sort of moral superiority over the other, as the release in both cases was done in exchange for promises of lucrative contracts, and the exploitation of Libya’s wealth of oil and natural resources.

This is of course a fact denied by the foreign office, but the two faced duplicity of the unspeak used by politicians should let you draw your own conclusions.

While we are on the subject, the Americans can lecture no-one on the early release of convicted mass murderers.

Lieutenant William Calley of the US army, was tried and convicted for his involvement in the My Lai massacre in Vietnam where more than 500 village civilians were butchered in cold blood, Calley was subsequently sentenced to life in prison with hard labour.

He was released after three days, spent three years under house arrest, his sentence was reduced to 10 years and was then paroled and freed because he had served a third of his sentence.

This should come as no shock to any of us.

The US is the world’s self appointed police man, but when it comes to dishing out justice to its own, it is always found wanting.

How many individuals have been found guilty and served REAL time for their atrocities committed in Haditha, Fallujha, Abu Ghraib?

The list is endless.

And you want to lecture me about justice being served?

‘I Am Wrong’ Israeli Mother Realises Zionism Ideology Is Based on Ignorance

Its taken over sixty years, the ethnic cleansing and physical ejections of millions of the indigenous populace, but the message is beginning to get through people’s heads.

The corrupt ideology of Zionism which has been used to enslave millions, start wars of aggressions and murder those who dare oppose tyranny is being questioned more than ever, and as the clip illustrates, its former die hard proponents are seeing it laid out for all that it is.

A corrupt and morally bankrupt way of life.

MC

Would You Live in a Country That…..

…..Physically attacks people for protesting?

…..Murders those who do protest and then tries to cover it up?

…..Puts fear in to would-be activists and those who question government policy?

…..Does not allow free media coverage of protests and police brutality?

…..Tortures people and then lies to the world that “we don’t do this kind og thing”?

…..Tells the rest of the world about how they must change, yet is in complete denial about its own human rights abuses?

This is no tinpot banana republic.

Welcome to “Great Britain 2009”

Pilger on Obama’s ‘Chump Politics’

One of the only true investigative journalists, in every real sense of the word that the world has left, John Pilger speaks on Obama and blows apart the rebranding efforts of American imperialism.

Chris Hedges the author of Empire of Illusion, states;

Obama does one thing and Brand Obama gets you to believe in another, this is the essence of successful advertising, you buy or do what the advertiser wants, because of how they make you feel.

And so you are kept in a perpetual state of childishness.

This is chump politics.

Carlos Latuff illustrates it perfectly for us;

Akh

Any Criticism of Israel & You’re Fired!

You can make cartoons that show Muslims in a bad light or make fun of the Prophet and your newspaper will be lauded as a defender of free speech by other Zionist fronts and see a surge in ad revenue.

But as soon as you depict a cartoon that shows the horrible suffering that goes on everyday in Occupied Palestine and you’re sure to be standing in the unemployment line.

Unbelievably this cartoon got Malcolm Evans fired from his job as editorial cartoonist for the New Zealand Herald.

Shame on you.

MC

The Curious Case of Glen Jenvey

You really couldn’t make this stuff up.

In case you don’t know who Glenn Jenvey is:

Glenn Jenvey

He claims to have devoted much of his time to infiltrating, undermining and exposing radical Islamic groups. He also claims to have infiltrated the Tamil Tigers, working for them in London.

Jenvey further claims to have used the internet to infiltrate terrorist organizations, and to have developed a relationship with Abu Hamza al-Masri through these means (via Jenvey’s ‘Islamic News’ website, which posed as a genuine extremist site).

Recorded film footage with James Ujaama was, he claims, obtained through similar means. Jenvey claimed that his tapes, in which Hamza called for Jihad, were responsible for Hamza’s arrest and trial.

In the event, Hamza was convicted only of charges related to possession of the Encyclopedia of Afghan Jihad.

Jenvey appeared in the film Obsession: Radical Islam’s War Against the West.

He was interviewed by BBC Newsnight on 17th April 2008 in his Whiteparish, Wiltshire home about his internet monitoring activities. He had previously appeared on the program in 2006.

His devious tactics were laid bare earlier this year when he got exposed for pretending to be a Muslim on a internet forum and posting a ‘hit list’ on Britians leading Jews, all done during the izzies slaughter of Muslims in Gaza.

He then contacted ‘the scum’ to say that radical Muslim terrorists were planning to kill the likes of Alan Sugar.

You can read more about that excellent detective work that exposed him here.

And now here he is now taking Shahada, as Omar Hamza Jenvey (see where he took the name from? Omar Bakri & Abu Hamza)

Here’s a bit of background as to why he became a Muslim

And here is Jenvey’s attempt to legitimise his conversion to Islam, by pretending to be his own daughter on another forum.

Something is not right…and you would have to be a fool not to see this.

Perhaps one can question the people the stooges of HT/AM who accepted him into their ranks….one stooge joining another bunch of stooges perhaps?

They even openly state that no-one should question his conversion to Islam and go as far as comparing him with the great Sahaba Khalid Bin Waleed (May Allah be pleased with him), these people are seriously deluded.

Whilst the call to Islam is essential, one should act with extreme caution with dealing with people who have a history like Jenvey does.

This reminds me of the following:

Surah-Al-Baqarah. Verse 14

When they meet those who believe they say: “We believe” but when they are alone with their devils they say: “We are really with you we (were) only jesting.

Meaning:

A deeper phase of insincerity is actual duplicity.

But it never pays in the end.

If we compare such a man to a trader, he loses in the bargain.

Perhaps he’s on an undercover mission, to expose HT/AM.

Maybe he’s working on an undercover documentary.

Only time well tell.

BNP Get Found Out

A classic clip from the ‘Real McCoy’

Why don’t the beeb make programmes like this anymore?

SM

British Soldiers Dying In America’s Illegal Wars

“It is my primary concern that the courage and tenacity of my fellow soldiers has become a tool of American foreign policy. I believe this unethical short-changing of such proud men and women has caused immeasurable suffering not only to families of British service personnel who have been killed and injured, but also to the noble people of Afghanistan.

I have seen qualities in the Afghan people which have also been for so long apparent and admired in the British soldier. Qualities of robustness, humour, utter determination and unwillingness to take a step backwards.”

These are the words of Joe Glenton Lance/Corporal, Royal Logistics Corps who yesterday delivered a letter to Downing Street, telling the Prime Minister precisely why he won’t be returning to Afghanistan.

Afghanistan has been the graveyard of many an empire, The armies of Alexander the Great, Genghis Khan, The British in the 19th century and the Soviets in the 20th have all tasted defeat at the hands of the Afghans.

For America, Afghanistan was a twisted war obsessed with revenge, for Britain and many European allies it is less vital, a war of solidarity with America, a war of choice. Britain’s ambition to be a global “force for good” comes at a cost. As America’s best friend, with privileged access to intelligence, it feels compelled to take part in America’s wars.

Any military planner that knows their history should realise that a military campaign can only be successful if it is used to reach a political aim, and the political aims have ebbed and flowed like the tides of the sea.

Firstly, we were told that the threat of Osama Bin Laden and The Taliban had to be neutralised. Then we were there to help the Afghans rebuild their country (still hasn’t happened). Next came helping to instil the stooge government of Karzai in Kabul, by now the Taliban V.2.0 had resurfaced, so they had to be fought again. Then came the threat that Pakistan posed, and now the political aim of Gordon Brown is to promote “an emerging democracy” as its election time again in Afghanistan.

All these operations quickly turned unpopular when they go badly, and not one single one of them can be deemed an outright success, but from the way Britain pontificates about the war in Afghanistan, you’d never know that most British people want troops withdrawn by the end of the year and only a minority have supported the US-led campaign.

With the launch of “Operation Panthers Claw”, sections of the media seem to have almost entirely abandoned any attempt at neutral reporting of what is actually going on. Instead, its newsreaders and presenters sternly warn that “Britain’s resolve is being put to the test” and speculate, surreally, about what might happen if public “support” for the war “were to weaken” (last Friday’s 10 o’clock TV news and Newsnight programmes).

In the circumstances, it would hardly be surprising if public opinion had been turned after what has been a barrage of state war propaganda, as embedded Kiplingesque reporting from the Helmand frontline, military parades and a new Armed Services Day have been used to try and translate sympathy for British troops into support for foreign wars.

But it hasn’t happened. A recent ICM poll for the Guardian and the BBC’s Newsnight showed 56% want all British troops out of Afghanistan by the end of the year, and 60% by 2011, against 36% who want them to stay until “they are no longer needed”.

Given the media’s increasingly intense emotional focus on British soldiers deaths during the current offensive – the Daily Mirror leads on last Friday’s fallen “band of brothers” and the Sun on Gordon Brown’s “this war is our patriotic duty” – with this I would have expected a greater support for the war. In fact, the only time there was majority support in Britain for the Iraq war was during the initial months of attack and occupation, when British troops were seen to be in action and in greatest danger.

Even if support for withdrawal is slightly down from last November’s 68%, 62% still believe British forces are either making no difference in Afghanistan worse or making it worse – and 47%, against 46%, say they oppose the “British military operation” outright. And interestingly, given what New Labour used to claim about social attitudes to the Iraq war, some of the strongest opposition to the war comes from working class people.

British public hostility towards the Afghanistan occupation is mirrored in most countries in the world (in the US it is pretty evenly divided). Even in Afghanistan itself, where polling under conditions of foreign military occupation would be expected to be skewed towards the occupier, a recent BBC-sponsored poll in February found a majority saying they want foreign troops withdrawn within one to two years and negotiations with the Taliban.

While the debate rages on unabated over British troops having the necessary equipment, we need to remind our Government that the debate ought not to be over helicopters, but over the justification for Britain’s participation in America’s Afghan war, try listening to the words of your own soldiers instead of prosecuting them.

Never has Rudyard Kipling’s poem “The Young British Soldier” rang louder and truer;

“When you’re wounded and left on Afghanistan’s plains,
And the women come out to cut up what remains,
Jest roll to your rifle and blow out your brains
An’ go to your Gawd like a soldier.”

The Government has to set a final date for total withdrawal regardless of America’s feelings…..the sooner, the better.

Akh