U.S. Ambassador: Al Qaeda Could Plan Other 9/11 From Afghanistan Unless We Keep Fighting

April 2, 2012

Activist Post

By Madison Ruppert

“The US Ambassador is lying.” –KTRN

According to Ryan Crocker, the American ambassador to Kabul, if the United States does not continue to occupy Afghanistan, al Qaeda would be able to plan and carry out another September 11, 2001-style attack.

Of course, this is hindered by the fact that in reality, neither al Qaeda nor Afghanistan can be held responsible for the tragic events of that day, based on the fact that there is clear evidence of a long-term cover-up and the official story is nothing short of farcical.

Setting aside the fact that the official story we have been sold by our government is full of more holes than Swiss cheese, it is still clear that Crocker is putting forth the same ludicrous fear mongering and disinformation as so many other current and former government officials have.

I have attempted to make it clear to my readers that the supposed date when coalition troops will leave Afghanistan is completely fictitious.

This was first made clear to me last year during the Afghan Loya Jirga and reinforced by decisions to deploy a cutting edge new drone and spend $35 million to expand a prison complex they were supposed to close.

Now Crocker is simply attempting to justify the inevitable sustained presence in Afghanistan by claiming that if we leave it will become a base for terrorists to operate from and strike Western targets.

Click here for the full report.

Why Is It Hard to Believe President Obama Would Want a Journalist in Prison?

March 20, 2012

FAIR Blog

By Peter Hart

Jeremy Scahill’s piece at the Nation website (“Why Is President Obama Keeping a Journalist in Prison in Yemen?,”3/13/12) about imprisoned Yemeni journalist Abdulelah Haider Shaye is riveting and deeply reported. But to Mother Jones blogger Kevin Drum, the story doesn’t quite add up…because Barack Obama seems like a decent guy.

As Scahill reports, Shaye has “risked his life to travel to areas controlled by Al-Qaeda and to interview its leaders.” He argues that this reporting has not exactly won him friends in the U.S. or Yemeni governments:

His collision course with the U.S. government appears to have been set in December 2009. On December 17, the Yemeni government announced that it had conducted a series of strikes against an Al-Qaeda training camp in the village of al Majala in Yemen’s southern Abyan province, killing a number of Al-Qaeda militants. As the story spread across the world, Shaye traveled to al Majala. What he discovered were the remnants of Tomahawk cruise missiles and cluster bombs, neither of which are in the Yemeni military’s arsenal. He photographed the missile parts, some of them bearing the label “Made in the USA,” and distributed the photos to international media outlets. He revealed that among the victims of the strike were women, children and the elderly. To be exact, 14 women and 21 children were killed.

Shaye was subsequently arrested and likely tortured by Yemeni authorities, who charged and convicted him on terrorism charges. The case has drawn international attention, with media and human rights groups denouncing the trial. Pressure inside Yemen seemed to be working, and a pardon was ready for then-president Ali Abdullah Saleh to sign.
Enter Barack Obama, who “expressed concern” over Shaye’s release. The pardon was shelved; as Scahill reports:

Yemeni journalists, human rights activists and lawyers have said he remains in jail at the request of the White House.

Salon’s Glenn Greenwald weighed in (3/14/12), reminding readers that the initial media accounts of the attacks in Majala were wildly misleading–the strikes were carried out by Yemen, those killed were “militants,” and so on. As Greenwald puts it, the world knows the truth about this attack–which was a U.S. strike using cruise missiles and cluster bombs–because of Shaye’s reporting.

Seems pretty straightforward. But not to everyone. Mother Jones blogger Kevin Drum wrote a response headlined, “Is Barack Obama a Murderous Sociopath?” The crux of Drum’s argument is that Shaye’s reporting isn’t all that important. “I wonder what’s really going on,” writes Drum. “Because here’s the thing: the attack on al Majala was no secret.”
Drum points out that “within a few hours of the strike it was common knowledge that U.S. cruise missiles had done most of the damage and that there were local reports of many civilian casualties.” He adds that

everything that Shaye reported in 2010 had long since been common knowledge. Obama has suffered, as near as I can tell, literally zero embarrassment from this episode. The al Majala attack got a small bit of media attention when it happened and has been completely forgotten since.

Click here for the full report.

Syrian Rebels Are Foreign-Backed Terrorists

March 19, 2012

Activist Post

By Tony Cartalucci

A twin terrorist bombing in the Syrian capital of Damascus, allegedly targeting government buildings, ripped through a Christian neighborhood killing an estimated 27, mostly civilians. A third bomb exploded, killing only the driver of the car it was placed in, in what was apparently an attempted triple suicide bombing.

CBS News reports (1) that after other similar attacks, U.S. officials suggest Al Qaeda terrorists “may be” amongst the Syrian rebels. However, while the West attempts to portray this as an unexpected development, we shall see that it not only was likely, but in fact the premeditated modus operandi of Western-backed destabilization efforts directed at upturning not only Syria, but the entire Arab World.

Pentagon’s Premeditated Arab World Blitzkrieg

From the beginning, the United States has been directly behind the unrest in Syria. In fact, America’s involvement in destabilizing Syria began years before the admittedly US-engineered Arab Spring (2) even unfolded in a premeditated plot to upturn the entire Arab World and reorder it according to their own corporate-financier and hegemonic geopolitical interests.

In a 2007 speech given to the Commonwealth Club of California (3), US Army General Wesley Clark would state that in 1991, then Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Paul Wolfowitz said the US had 5-10 years to clean up the old Soviet “client regimes” before the next super power rose up and challenged western hegemony. Clark claimed that this, along with the aftermath of 9/11 constituted a policy coup where Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, and the other members of the of Project for a New American Century had hijacked US foreign policy to destabilize and turn the nations of the Middle East upside down — much the way they are now.

Click here for the full report.

Why Is The US And NATO Backing Extremist Muslim Terrorists?

March 13, 2012

Info Wars

By Paul Joseph Watson

A shocking video appears to show Libyan rebels desecrating Christian and Jewish graves at a cemetery, further evidence that the same forces who helped NATO overthrow Gaddafi and are now carrying out attacks in Syria are extremist Muslims who care little for ‘freedom’ or ‘democracy’.

The clip shows Libyan rebels breaking apart headstones while shouting “Allahu Akbar”. The men later try to smash up a large Christian cross statue with sledgehammers.

This kind of behavior is par for the course given the fact that the western-backed regime change in Libya was achieved with the aid of Al-Qaeda terrorists who had previously fought against U.S. troops in Iraq.

Rebel forces in Libya were directed by Abdulhakim Belhadj, former leader of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG), which is designated as a terrorist organization by the US State Department. Libyan rebel leader Abdel-Hakim al-Hasidi admitted that Belhadj’s LIFG fighters were the second-largest cohort of foreign fighters in Iraq, responsible for killing U.S. troops.

Once the terrorist-led rebels executed Colonel Gaddafi, they proudly flew the distinctive black Al-Qaeda flag over courthouses in Benghazi and other centers of power. On the orders of Belhadj, the puppet National Transitional Council then announced that Sharia law would be reinstated.

Libyan rebels have since imposed a reign of terror over the country, incarcerating and torturing blacks and anyone suspected of supporting Gaddafi in concentration camps and cages.

These same terrorists were subsequently airlifted into Syria to fight NATO’s proxy war against President Bashar Al-Assad. Hillary Clinton admitted in a BBC News interview that the US and Al-Qaeda were on the same side in Syria.

Click here for the full report.

Attorney General Holder Says Murder Of US Citizens Is Legal

March 6, 2012

Activist Post

By David Swanson

“Oh this is nice.  Thanks for being such an outstanding American, Holder.  You’re doing great work.”  –KTRN

Attorney General Eric Holder on Monday explained why it’s legal to murder people — not to execute prisoners convicted of capital crimes, not to shoot someone in self-defense, not to fight on a battlefield in a war that is somehow legalized, but to target and kill an individual sitting on his sofa, with no charges, no arrest, no trial, no approval from a court, no approval from a legislature, no approval from we the people, and in fact no sharing of information with any institutions that are not the president. Holder’s speech approached his topic in a round about manner:

Since this country’s earliest days, the American people have risen to this challenge – and all that it demands. But, as we have seen – and as President John F. Kennedy may have described best – ‘In the long history of the world, only a few generations have been granted the role of defending freedom in its hour of maximum danger.’

Holder quotes that and then immediately rejects it, claiming that our generation too should act as if it is in such a moment, even if it isn’t, a moment that Holder’s position suggests may last forever:

Half a century has passed since those words were spoken, but our nation today confronts grave national security threats that demand our constant attention and steadfast commitment. It is clear that, once again, we have reached an ‘hour of danger.’

We are a nation at war. And, in this war, we face a nimble and determined enemy that cannot be underestimated.

So, if I were to estimate that Al Qaeda barely exists and is no serious threat to the Homeland formerly known as the United States, I would not be underestimating it? If I were to point out that no member of that horrifying outfit has been killed in Afghanistan this year, that fact would not contribute to an unacceptable underestimation? What fun it is to fight the most glorious of wars in the hour of maximum danger against an enemy so pitiful that it literally cannot be underestimated.

Click here for the full report.

Big Sis and DHS Move On Campus

March 6, 2012

Info Wars

By Kurt Nimmo

“More brainwashing from the DHS.  They want to indoctrinate college students into the idea that they are not safe.  One thing is for sure, they aren’t safe from their own university and government.”  –KTRN

The Department of Homeland Security has moved its surveillance operations on campus.

On Thursday of last week, DHS boss Janet Napolitano appointed University of Montana President Royce Engstrom to a newly formed council, the Homeland Security Advisory Council.

It is made up of 19 university and college heads from around the country and will “advise the department on a wide range of issues from how the DHS can better recruit from campuses to emergency preparedness,” according to The Kaimin, a University of Montana campus newspaper.

The new council will meet quarterly, according to the Federal Register, and appointees will serve for two, three or four years.

“It is an opportunity to have a conversation about how education can be involved in national security,” UM Vice President Jim Foley said.

The DHS insisted the new council is not about monitoring students and professors, but is about “making the academic community aware of their surroundings.”

Napolitano’s DHS has promoted a wide-ranging snitch culture over the last few years. The DHS’ “If You See Something, Say Something” program was designed to foster an atmosphere of paranoia and encourage citizens to surveil and snitch on each other. The DHS has “partnered” with Walmart, national hotels, and even the NFL and the NHL to push its Stasi-like operation.

In addition, the DHS has produced a number of soap-opera like PSA videos portraying white Americans as terrorists.

Recent activity by the mega-agency set-up after September 11, 2001, reveals its true agenda. The DHS is more interested in surveilling antiwar and OWS activists than bearded al-Qaeda miscreants.

Click here for the full report.

The New Cold War In The Middle East

February 29, 2012

The Independent

By Robert Fisk

If Iran obtains nuclear weapons capability, “I think other nations across the Middle East will want to develop nuclear weapons”.

Thus thundered our beloved Foreign Secretary, William Hague, in one of the silliest pronouncements he has ever made. Hague seems to spend much of his time impersonating himself, so I’m not really certain which of Mr Hague-Hague’s personas made this statement.

Flaw number one, of course, is Hague-Hague’s failure to point out that there already is another Middle East “nation” that has, in fact, several hundred nuclear weapons along with the missiles to fire them. It’s called Israel. But blow me down, Hague-Hague didn’t mention the fact. Didn’t he know? Of course, he did. What he was trying to say, you see, was that if Iran persisted in producing a nuclear weapon, Arab states – Muslim states – would want to acquire one. And that would never do. The idea, of course, that Iran might be pursuing nuclear weapons because Israel already possesses them, did not occur to him.

Now as a nation that sells billions of pounds worth of military hardware to Gulf Arab nations – on the basis that they can then defend themselves from Iran’s non-existent plans to invade them – Britain is really not in a position to warn anyone of arms proliferation in the region. I’ve been to the Gulf arms fairs where the Brits show alarming films of an “enemy” nation threatening the Arabs – Iran, of course – and the need for these Arab chappies to buy even more kit from British Aerospace and the rest of our merchants of death.

Then comes the historical killer in Hague-Hague’s peroration. He warns of “the most serious round of nuclear proliferation since nuclear weapons were invented” which could produce “the threat of a new Cold War in the Middle East” that would be “a disaster in world affairs”. Now, I know that Hague-Hague sits in the throne room of Balfour and Eden – both pseudo-experts on the Middle East – but does he really have to mess up history so badly? Surely the most serious round of nuclear proliferation occurred when India and Pakistan acquired the bomb, the latter a nation which is awash with al-Qa’ida chaps, home-grown Talibans and dodgy intelligence men.

Still, it was good to be reassured that “we are not favouring the idea of anybody attacking Iran at the moment”. Maybe later, then. Or maybe after President Assad eventually falls, thus depriving Iran of its only – and valuable – ally in the Middle East. Which is, I suspect, what a lot of the roaring and raging against Assad is all about. Get rid of Assad and you cut out part of Iran’s heart – though whether that will induce the crackpot Ahmadinejad to turn his nuclear plants into baby-milk factories is another matter. For here’s the rub. The mighty voices calling for Assad’s departure grow louder every time they refuse to involve themselves militarily in the overthrow of the same man. The more they promise not to “do a Nato” on Syria – every time they claim there can be no “no-fly” zones over Syria – they get angrier and angrier at Assad. Why doesn’t he just go off to retirement in Turkey, end the theatre once and for all, and stop embarrassing us all by bludgeoning his country with shells and sniper fire, killings thousands – journalists among them – while we rage on innocently from the stalls?

Click here for the full report from the Independent.

Silencing the Critics

February 20, 2012

Activist Post

By Paul Craig Roberts

“Speak against the government and you’re ostracized.  Speak for the government and you’re an idiot.”  –KTRN

In 2010 the FBI invaded the homes of peace activists in several states and seized personal possessions in what the FBI — the lead orchestrator of fake “terrorist plots” — called an investigation of “activities concerning the material support of terrorism.”

Subpoenas were issued to compel antiwar protestors to testify before grand juries as prosecutors set about building their case that opposing Washington’s wars of aggression constitutes giving aid and comfort to terrorists. The purpose of the raids and grand jury subpoenas was to chill the anti-war movement into inaction.

Last week in one fell swoop the last two remaining critics of Washington/Tel Aviv imperialism were removed from the mainstream media. Judge Napolitano’s popular program, Freedom Watch, was cancelled by Fox TV, and Pat Buchanan was fired by MSNBC. Both pundits had wide followings and were appreciated for speaking frankly.

Many suspect that the Israel Lobby used its clout with TV advertisers to silence critics of the Israeli government’s efforts to lead Washington to war with Iran. Regardless, the point before us is that the voice of the mainstream media is now uniform. Americans hear one voice, one message, and the message is propaganda.

Dissent is tolerated only on such issues as to whether employer-paid health benefits should pay for contraceptive devices. Constitutional rights have been replaced with rights to free condoms.

The Western media demonizes those at whom Washington points a finger. The lies pour forth to justify Washington’s naked aggression: the Taliban are conflated with al Qaeda, Saddam Hussein has weapons of mass destruction, Gaddafi is a terrorist and, even worse, fortified his troops with Viagra in order to commit mass rape against Libyan women.

Click here for the full report.

US Thinks It Can Use Al-Qaeda Temporarily In Syria

February 20, 2012

RT

By RT

“Imagine the US is a person. Now imagine they are your friend.  Be careful, they will stab you in the back, then apologize and use you for their own good.  Sounds like a jelous little baby doesn’t it?”  –KTRN

The US and Al-Qaeda are using each other to topple President Assad, believes Camille Otrakji, editor of online magazine Syria Comment.

­US Director of National Intelligence James Clapper has said Al-Qaeda is working alongside Syria’s armed opposition, while Washington considers extending support to the rebels.

Otrakji told RT that both sides think they are using the other, hoping to control them later.

“For example, the Islamists and Al-Qaeda think, ‘We can have an alliance with the Americans or with any secular opposition forces, but later we will be in power,’ and the Americans think they can use Al-Qaeda temporarily, if they have to, to get rid of the Syrian regime, and they will somehow manage to get rid of them. So, unfortunately they are apparently working together.”

The journalist added that it is important to understand how decision-making takes place in Washington D.C.

“Some people really do not care about what will happen in Syria after. For example, there are factions that just want to punish the Syrian regime – I’ve heard this from someone in Washington – for their help in 1982, when Hezbollah attacked US troops in Lebanon.”

And others, Otrakji said, are optimistic, thinking that there will be elections and that Syria is secular enough that Al-Qaeda factions or other Islamists will not win.

“So, they just want to be hopeful for now, all they want to focus on now is to get rid of the regime – then, they think, they will manage somehow.”

And journalist and peace activist Don Debar said the US have already become some allies with Al-Qaeda in Libya.

“First of all, the US is bedfellows with Al-Qaeda in Libya already. Secondly, if you look at the history of al-Qaeda, actually they are a successive group to the allies the US had in Afghanistan when it was fighting the Soviet Union in the late 1970s and early 1980s.”

Debar also remembered a recent comment by Al-Qaeda that they were backing the Syrian rebels, which he said is “the same group the US is not only backing, but has been arming and training.”

“So it’s not whether it will happen or not – it’s really been happening,” the activist concluded.

Click here for the full report.

Buying Bulk Quantities Of Food Labeled Possible Terrorist Activity

February 8, 2012

InfoWars

By Paul Joseph Watson

As part of its effort to encourage business owners to spy on their customers, the FBI has labeled the bulk purchase of food as a potential indication of terrorist activity, despite the fact that FEMA itself last year purchased $1 billion dollars worth of storable food.

A flyer aimed at Military Surplus stores produced under the auspices of the FBI’s Communities Against Terrorism project, encourages owners to report people who “make bulk purchases of items to include….meals ready to eat”.

According to the flyer, the FBI advises store owners to demand ID’s from all new customers, as well as asking them questions about their purchase and being aware of “suspicious statements”.

The flyer also characterizes paying with cash or “demanding identity privacy” as an indication of terrorism.

The characterization by the feds of those who choose to protect themselves against rising food prices or a potential interruption in the food supply by purchasing storable food as potential terrorists is not only chilling – it is also completely hypocritical.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) itself ordered $1 billion dollars worth of dehydrated food in just one instance last year, purchasing a total of 420 million meals.

Are we to follow the FBI’s advice and treat this as a suspicious activity? Should FEMA be reported to other law enforcement agencies as a potential terrorist threat?

Indeed, the Department of Homeland Security is also busy stockpiling storable food and seed varieties in underground bunkers as part of preparations for domestic emergencies. Under its Resolve to be Ready program, the DHS even encouraged Americans to store food as part of a “basic emergency supply kit”.

Should we all be reporting Janet Napolitano to the See Something, Say Something hotline as a potential Al-Qaeda radical?

Click here for the full report from InfoWars.

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