Can't help quoting Left I on the News's very good, always on target blog. (Although I'm not quite as disillusioned with Obama as he is, but I'm getting there. This weekend I cut out the NYT reprint of a cartoon showing Obama running for Bush's first term as opposed to McCain for B's 3rd term.)
Left I's blog is on the latest US massacre in Afghanistan which was mentioned on Democracy Now's headlines.
The quibble I have with Left I is that he doesn't seem to acknowledge that the US is purposefully behind virtually all the major violence, either themselves or through their support of the Taliban through the Pakistani ISI.
Unlike Left I, Paul Joseph Watson, from Prison Planet, in the 2nd blog I'm highlighting today, cites the terrible bombing in Kabul this week and indicates that the signs point to the hand of the US via the ISI via the Taliban in another false flag attack. It was David Ray Griffin, the guru of the 911 Truth movement, in the still very important The New Pearl Harbor, who clued me into the US/ISI/Taliban connection.
Now why would the Cheney Bush administration want more chaos, anarchy, war in Afghanistan where their own soldiers are dying (and killing Afghanis)? Here's Paul Watson's theory.
Paul Watson wrote:
Could the Kabul bombing be a joint ISI-CIA false flag for the purposes of creating a pretext for the continued presence of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan, control of the booming opium drugs trade and the construction of permanent military bases?
Ronald
***
Afghanistan: Another day, another 23 dead
by Left I on the News.
http://lefti.blogspot.com/
Left I wrote:
This one another wedding party (this report says 27 dead). There are rather conflicting reports of the incident, to put it mildly.
From the U.S. military:
"We have had no reports of any non-combatants killed or injured in this incident," said 1st Lt. Nathan Perry. "This may just be normal, typical militant propaganda."
The U.S. military issued a statement, saying "intelligence revealed a large group of militants operating in Deh Bala district. Coalition forces identified the militants in a mountainous region and used precision air strikes to kill them."
And from the local governor:
Haji Amishah Gul, governor of Deh Bala, told the Times just two of the dead were men. The rest, he said, were women and children.
"The bride is among the dead," he said.
Gosh, who to believe? Other than relying on decades of lies from the U.S. military to guide you as to their credibility, it's unlikely you'll be able to decide by reading the U.S. corporate press, since after tomorrow, your chances of reading about the story, beyond yet another story about Afghan President Karzai "ordering an investigation" into the incident, are slim to none. Partly that's because the chance that the Democrats will seek to turn it into a political issue are also slim to none, since their own criticism of U.S. policy in Afghanistan is that we should have been doing it sooner.
Paul Joseph Watson
Afghanistan Accuses “Foreign Intelligence Agency” Of Deadly Embassy Bombing
Prison Planet | July 7, 2008
http://www.truthnews.us/?p=2241
Paul Watson wrote:
Afghanistan’s interior ministry has accused a “foreign intelligence agency” of being behind today’s deadly suicide bombing that ripped apart the country’s Indian embassy in Kabul, killing 41 people. Could the event represent another “false flag” run by American intelligence as a means of maintaining a military presence in Afghanistan and control of the country’s lucrative opium trade?
A further 141 were injured when the bomber rammed a car packed with explosives into two diplomatic vehicles entering the embassy and the blast also devastated nearby shops and buildings.
“The interior ministry believes this attack was carried out in coordination and consultation with an active intelligence service in the region,” the ministry said in a statement.
“Afghanistan has previously accused Pakistani agents of being behind a number of attacks on its soil,” according to a London Guardian report, referring to the notorious Pakistani ISI intelligence agency.
As Jane’s Information Group notes, “The CIA has well-established links with the ISI, having trained it in the 1980s to ‘run’ Afghan mujahideen (holy Muslim warriors), Islamic fundamentalists from Pakistan as well as Arab volunteers by providing them with arms and logistic support to evict the Soviet occupation of Kabul.”
“Opium cultivation and heroin production in Pakistan’s northern tribal belt and neighbouring Afghanistan was also a vital offshoot of the ISI-CIA co-operation. It succeeded not only in turning Soviet troops into addicts, but also in boosting heroin sales in Europe and the US through an elaborate web of well-documented deceptions, transport networks, couriers and payoffs. This, in turn, offset the cost of the decade-long anti-Soviet ‘unholy war’ in Afghanistan.”
Could the Kabul bombing be a joint ISI-CIA false flag for the purposes of creating a pretext for the continued presence of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan, control of the booming opium drugs trade and the construction of permanent military bases?
As we reported last month, Middle East sources indicated that U.S. forces gave the green light for the Taliban to attack a government prison in Kandahar on June 13th, and stood idly by while Taliban fighters violently freed more than 1000 inmates.
According to some observers, the recent apparent resurgence of the Taliban has been encouraged by NATO and the U.S. as a bulwark against political pressure and calls for troops to leave the country.
Without an enemy to fight, there would be no justification for a continued U.S. and NATO presence in Afghanistan. There would be no more weapons sales contracts and no more rebuilding contracts for Halliburton. Opium cultivation would fall back into the hands of warlords and the Taliban, who banned production before the U.S. invasion in 2001, after which heroin flooded the streets of the U.S. and UK in record numbers as cultivation soared 50 per cent year on year. Afghanistan now exports upwards of 92 per cent of the world’s supply of opium, which is used to make heroin.
As Professor Michel Chossudovsky writes, “U.S. military presence has served to restore rather than eradicate the drug trade.”
“Implemented in 2000-2001, the Taliban’s drug eradication program led to a 94 percent decline in opium cultivation. In 2001, according to UN figures, opium production had fallen to 185 tons. Immediately following the October 2001 US led invasion, production increased dramatically, regaining its historical levels.”
“Based on wholesale and retail prices in Western markets, the earnings generated by the Afghan drug trade are colossal. In July 2006, street prices in Britain for heroin were of the order of Pound Sterling 54, or $102 a gram,” Chossudovsky notes.
The necessity for continued violence in Afghanistan exists just like it does in Iraq, for the pretext of justifying an endless military occupation and the opportunity to build military bases that will be used as launch pads for future wars, as is now being discussed for Iraq.
As we have highlighted in the past, links between Taliban leadership and the U.S. military-industrial complex are documented.
As Seymour Hersh reported in January 2002, at the height of the war in Afghanistan, hundreds of Taliban fighters “accidentally” ended up on U.S. organized special safety corridor airlifts right before the fall of Kunduz.
The Taliban itself was a creation of the CIA having been set up and bankrolled by the U.S. in tandem with Pakistan’s ISI.
“In the 1980s, the CIA provided some $5 billion in military aid for Islamic fundamentalist rebels fighting the Soviet occupation in Afghanistan, but scaled down operations after Moscow pulled out in 1989. However, Selig Harrison of the DC-based Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars recently told a conference in London that the CIA created the Taliban “monster” by providing some $3 billion for the ultra-fundamentalist militia in their 1994-6 drive to power,” reported the Times of India.
Showing posts with label permanent war. Show all posts
Showing posts with label permanent war. Show all posts
Tuesday, July 08, 2008
Monday, December 10, 2007
Xymphora: No Iran Attack???!!! Neocons, Zionists Furious
I haven't been distributing Xymphora much lately, in part because he seems to have gotten so shrill on the Jewish/Zionist issue. So much depends on the red wheelbarrow and on the tone of the thing. However his shrillness, if that's what it is, seems very well suited to the subject at hand: the Bush-Cheney, and the Zionist reaction to pulling the rug out of the main justification for enlarging the war to Iran. (I haven't exhaled yet. There's more than a year to go and Pakistan is flaming, and Lebanon is that close to civil war. Who knows what brilliancy Elliott Abrams will come up with?)
Ronald
***
http://xymphora.blogspot.com/
(check out Xymphora's site for some excellent links)
Saturday, December 08, 2007
Proof of the war between the Establishments
by Xymphora
The new Zionist meme is that all 16 (!) of the American intelligence agencies that burst the Zionist war bubble by putting an end to all the ‘Iran talk’ are part of an anti-Semitic plot to attack the Jewish people through protecting the enemies of Zionism. Following up on Podhoretz’s ‘darker suspicions’ theory (‘darker’ is the code word to mean that it is actually a theory about anti-Semitism, but I note with amusement that it is not possible to point that out in polite society, and all discussions of Podhoretz claim he was just making the baffling theory that it was an intelligence agency attack on Bush), Gerald Posner is resurrecting his old Zionist propaganda that the CIA had, and is repressing, absolute proof that the Saudis and Pakistanis were behind September 11. It is not a coincidence that this theory is brought up at this time.
There is a lite Zionist theory circling that the leaking of the NIE was a Bush Administration plot to prove how powerful Bush Administration diplomacy has been in dissuading the Iranians from their nuclear program. This theory is obvious nonsense, disproved immediately by the disarray of Bush Administration officials in dealing with it (Cheney was completely surprised at the release of the NIE, although, of course, he was aware of its content, and had lied about Iran throughout), the complete shock from Israel (this story about Gates and Barak looks like Zionist mythologizing in order to minimize the rift, proven by the fact that Israel in fact was not ready for the NIE release) and the agents of World Jewry (who would have been informed if it was a Bush Administration move), the lack of foreknowledge in the American media (Blitzer’s Zionist operatives at CNN had to do a last-minute cancellation of their smear-job on Iran), and the utter horror and sputtering from the neocons (note Ledeen in particular: no women were involved in the NIE!). Even more conclusive proof is that the NIE not only destroyed the prospect of war on Iran, it completely undermined the entire stated basis of the Bush Administration for the placing of American missile sites in Eastern Europe.
I don’t buy the ‘scientific’ anti-Semitic theories that much of world history consists of a surreptitious war of the Jews against the Gentiles. However, there is simply too much evidence to ignore that current American politics does actually involve a war between the Jewish Establishment and the Old American Establishment (note that doctrinaire Noamian lite Zionism holds that no such war is possible, as the Old American Establishment runs everything). Annapolis was the last straw (can’t you just hear James Baker saying ‘Fucking Jews’?!). The NIE, which only weeks before was never going to be released, according to Mike McConnell, suddenly appears, and at a time when a coherent Zionist counterattack was difficult because of the Jewish Holidays (candle lighting interfered with propaganda!). Since everything is supposed to be about control of oil, which is achieved, according to lite Zionism, by attacks just like the one on Iraq, isn’t it odd that the intelligence agencies (all 16 of them!) of the American Establishment decided to throw a wrench in the works of such a war?
Ronald
***
http://xymphora.blogspot.com/
(check out Xymphora's site for some excellent links)
Saturday, December 08, 2007
Proof of the war between the Establishments
by Xymphora
The new Zionist meme is that all 16 (!) of the American intelligence agencies that burst the Zionist war bubble by putting an end to all the ‘Iran talk’ are part of an anti-Semitic plot to attack the Jewish people through protecting the enemies of Zionism. Following up on Podhoretz’s ‘darker suspicions’ theory (‘darker’ is the code word to mean that it is actually a theory about anti-Semitism, but I note with amusement that it is not possible to point that out in polite society, and all discussions of Podhoretz claim he was just making the baffling theory that it was an intelligence agency attack on Bush), Gerald Posner is resurrecting his old Zionist propaganda that the CIA had, and is repressing, absolute proof that the Saudis and Pakistanis were behind September 11. It is not a coincidence that this theory is brought up at this time.
There is a lite Zionist theory circling that the leaking of the NIE was a Bush Administration plot to prove how powerful Bush Administration diplomacy has been in dissuading the Iranians from their nuclear program. This theory is obvious nonsense, disproved immediately by the disarray of Bush Administration officials in dealing with it (Cheney was completely surprised at the release of the NIE, although, of course, he was aware of its content, and had lied about Iran throughout), the complete shock from Israel (this story about Gates and Barak looks like Zionist mythologizing in order to minimize the rift, proven by the fact that Israel in fact was not ready for the NIE release) and the agents of World Jewry (who would have been informed if it was a Bush Administration move), the lack of foreknowledge in the American media (Blitzer’s Zionist operatives at CNN had to do a last-minute cancellation of their smear-job on Iran), and the utter horror and sputtering from the neocons (note Ledeen in particular: no women were involved in the NIE!). Even more conclusive proof is that the NIE not only destroyed the prospect of war on Iran, it completely undermined the entire stated basis of the Bush Administration for the placing of American missile sites in Eastern Europe.
I don’t buy the ‘scientific’ anti-Semitic theories that much of world history consists of a surreptitious war of the Jews against the Gentiles. However, there is simply too much evidence to ignore that current American politics does actually involve a war between the Jewish Establishment and the Old American Establishment (note that doctrinaire Noamian lite Zionism holds that no such war is possible, as the Old American Establishment runs everything). Annapolis was the last straw (can’t you just hear James Baker saying ‘Fucking Jews’?!). The NIE, which only weeks before was never going to be released, according to Mike McConnell, suddenly appears, and at a time when a coherent Zionist counterattack was difficult because of the Jewish Holidays (candle lighting interfered with propaganda!). Since everything is supposed to be about control of oil, which is achieved, according to lite Zionism, by attacks just like the one on Iraq, isn’t it odd that the intelligence agencies (all 16 of them!) of the American Establishment decided to throw a wrench in the works of such a war?
Sunday, December 02, 2007
Glen Greenwald and Josh Marshall: Podhoretz, Bush and Hitler
Josh Marshall and Glenn Greenwald take up the Podhoretz-Zakaria debate which was broadcast on 10.29.07 on PBS's Leherer News Hour regarding Bush's threatened war against Iran. Both liberal bloggers decried Podhoretz's wolf cry of Hitler Hitler Hitler at every opportunity despite Iran's evident military defenselessness in the face of US and Israeli military power.
But neither Marshall nor Greenwald -- among the most popular bloggers -- can bring himself to mention that it is Bush who has waged two of the most destructive wars in history, both very similar to Hitler's unprovoked aggression of 65+ years ago. The scariest similarity to Hitler, is the Bush-Cheney desire for destruction and endless war.
Marshall begins well by naming correctly Bush's desire to attack Iran as the most important issue we are facing by far. However he seems to stop there, not going on to make the critical point that Bush's evident agenda is to destroy civilization everywhere just as he has done to Iraq. The threatened bombing of Iran is so obviously catastrophic and can serve no possible advantage to Empire or even simple financial gain -- indeed quite the opposite, not to mention the disruption and destruction of oil supplies -- that the Bush-Cheney agenda of self destruction should be clear.
Ronald
***
Josh Marshall
Podhoretz v. Zakaria
10.29.07
By Josh Marshall
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/057323.php
As I've argued in other contexts today, Iran is the issue facing the country today. Some readers have warned me off this formulation, claiming I'm buying into the right-wing 'frame' by doing so. Nonsense. As long as George Bush is commander-in-chief of the US military and he and his advisers are intent on getting the US into a shooting war with Iran, Iran is the issue.
Tonight on The Newshour, Rudy Giuliani's foreign policy advisor and godfather of neoconservatism, Norman Podhoretz debated Newsweek's Fareed Zakaria on the question of whether or not to go to war with Iran. It's perhaps an apt commentary on the rightward, lunatic turn of this country's foreign policy that Fareed is taking what I guess must be called the left (?) in this debate. In any case, I really urge you to give this a look. And note a few things: one is the denigrating tone Podhoretz takes toward Zakaria. It's curdled and bitter. It jumped out at me and I wonder if it does for you as well. Second are the constant references to Hitler and the Munich agreement. Hitler has become such a throwaway reference or comparison for whatever penny-ante dictator we're up in arms about at the moment that the reference has been drained of much of its meaning and horror. But with the Munich agreement and how 'time is not on our side' and so forth, this is beyond nonsense.
It's almost an insult to what the world faced in the late 1930s. Germany, industrial powerhouse, with arguably the most powerful army in the world, at the forefront of technology, overawing and invading neighboring countries. Iran, minor economic power, second or third-rate military power, which may get a couple of small nuclear-weapons compared to the couple hundred high-end nuclear warheads in Israel's arsenal (plus, a robust second strike capacity, as Fareed notes) and the many thousands we have -- and our blue water navy, satellites, air force. Please. Time's running out for us? We're going to look back on this fifty years from now and see the non-podhoretz-loons as the Chamberlains of the day? I don't know what to say. Just watch ...
Glenn Greenwald
Tuesday October 30, 2007
Hitlers, Hitlers and more Hitlers
http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/index.html
Norman Podhoretz -- Senior Foreign Policy Aide to Rudy Giuliani and leading advocate of a war with Iran -- was on PBS' Online News Hour last night with Newsweek's Fareed Zakaria (the author of an excellent article this week on the complete irrationality of warmongers like Podhoretz). Podhoretz's argument: "So that leaves us with only one terrible choice, which is either to bomb those facilities and retard [Iran's] program or even cut it off altogether or allow them to go nuclear. And I agree with what Senator McCain has said in the past: The only thing worse than bombing Iran is to allow Iran to get the bomb."
In order to justify bombing Iran, Podhoretz, in response to Zakaria, talked about Hitler and how Zakaria didn't want to fight Hitler:
NORMAN PODHORETZ: Well, I'll tell you why. First, I want to say that I think the attitude expressed by Fareed Zakaria represents an irresponsible complacency that I think is comparable to the denial in the early '30s of the intentions of Hitler that led to what Churchill called an unnecessary war involving millions and millions of deaths that might have been averted if the West had acted early enough.
The next time he spoke, Podhoretz talked about Hitler and how Zakaria didn't want to fight Hitler:
Yes, let me respond to that. You know, similar arguments were made about Hitler in the early '30s, and it appalls me that this kind of attitude can still prevail after what we should have learned from the words of despots.
The next time Podhoretz spoke, he talked about Hitler and how Bush promised to fight Hitler:
JUDY WOODRUFF: I do want to ask you both, because I think it's important. Mr. Podhoretz, do you think that, as you wrote a few months ago, this administration, this president intends before he leaves office to strike Iran?
NORMAN PODHORETZ: Yes, I do believe he will, because he has said many times -- or at least two times that I know of in public -- that, if we allow Iran to get the bomb, people 50 years from now will look back at us the way we look back at the men who made the Munich pact with Hitler in 1938 and say, "How could they have let this happen?"
Then the show ended on this note:
FAREED ZAKARIA: I believe in just the way that we have deterred the Soviet Union, Mao's China, Kim Jong Il, history will prove that we can use deterrence and containment to contain the problem of Iran and that we do not need to launch a third unilateral invasion just to do that.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Fareed Zakaria and Norman Podhoretz...
NORMAN PODHORETZ: God help us if we follow that counsel.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Norman Podhoretz, we thank you. Fareed Zakaria, gentlemen, we thank you both very much.
That about covers the full set of arguments and knowledge of our nation's leading neoconservative war cheerleaders.
Whoever is next on the War List is always The New Hitler and the country they lead is always The New Nazi Germany. Anyone who wants the new war is the brave and glorious Churchill. Everyone who opposes the new war is the cowardly appeaser Chamberlain, willing to allow Hitler to Take Over the World and impose Caliphate and burquas and humiliation on everyone. That's the level of advice which both George Bush, the current President, and Rudy Giuliani, the leading GOP presidential candidate, have chosen to receive and -- by all appearances -- follow.
* * * * *
Josh Marshall has more on this, including video of the debate
But neither Marshall nor Greenwald -- among the most popular bloggers -- can bring himself to mention that it is Bush who has waged two of the most destructive wars in history, both very similar to Hitler's unprovoked aggression of 65+ years ago. The scariest similarity to Hitler, is the Bush-Cheney desire for destruction and endless war.
Marshall begins well by naming correctly Bush's desire to attack Iran as the most important issue we are facing by far. However he seems to stop there, not going on to make the critical point that Bush's evident agenda is to destroy civilization everywhere just as he has done to Iraq. The threatened bombing of Iran is so obviously catastrophic and can serve no possible advantage to Empire or even simple financial gain -- indeed quite the opposite, not to mention the disruption and destruction of oil supplies -- that the Bush-Cheney agenda of self destruction should be clear.
Ronald
***
Josh Marshall
Podhoretz v. Zakaria
10.29.07
By Josh Marshall
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/057323.php
As I've argued in other contexts today, Iran is the issue facing the country today. Some readers have warned me off this formulation, claiming I'm buying into the right-wing 'frame' by doing so. Nonsense. As long as George Bush is commander-in-chief of the US military and he and his advisers are intent on getting the US into a shooting war with Iran, Iran is the issue.
Tonight on The Newshour, Rudy Giuliani's foreign policy advisor and godfather of neoconservatism, Norman Podhoretz debated Newsweek's Fareed Zakaria on the question of whether or not to go to war with Iran. It's perhaps an apt commentary on the rightward, lunatic turn of this country's foreign policy that Fareed is taking what I guess must be called the left (?) in this debate. In any case, I really urge you to give this a look. And note a few things: one is the denigrating tone Podhoretz takes toward Zakaria. It's curdled and bitter. It jumped out at me and I wonder if it does for you as well. Second are the constant references to Hitler and the Munich agreement. Hitler has become such a throwaway reference or comparison for whatever penny-ante dictator we're up in arms about at the moment that the reference has been drained of much of its meaning and horror. But with the Munich agreement and how 'time is not on our side' and so forth, this is beyond nonsense.
It's almost an insult to what the world faced in the late 1930s. Germany, industrial powerhouse, with arguably the most powerful army in the world, at the forefront of technology, overawing and invading neighboring countries. Iran, minor economic power, second or third-rate military power, which may get a couple of small nuclear-weapons compared to the couple hundred high-end nuclear warheads in Israel's arsenal (plus, a robust second strike capacity, as Fareed notes) and the many thousands we have -- and our blue water navy, satellites, air force. Please. Time's running out for us? We're going to look back on this fifty years from now and see the non-podhoretz-loons as the Chamberlains of the day? I don't know what to say. Just watch ...
Glenn Greenwald
Tuesday October 30, 2007
Hitlers, Hitlers and more Hitlers
http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/index.html
Norman Podhoretz -- Senior Foreign Policy Aide to Rudy Giuliani and leading advocate of a war with Iran -- was on PBS' Online News Hour last night with Newsweek's Fareed Zakaria (the author of an excellent article this week on the complete irrationality of warmongers like Podhoretz). Podhoretz's argument: "So that leaves us with only one terrible choice, which is either to bomb those facilities and retard [Iran's] program or even cut it off altogether or allow them to go nuclear. And I agree with what Senator McCain has said in the past: The only thing worse than bombing Iran is to allow Iran to get the bomb."
In order to justify bombing Iran, Podhoretz, in response to Zakaria, talked about Hitler and how Zakaria didn't want to fight Hitler:
NORMAN PODHORETZ: Well, I'll tell you why. First, I want to say that I think the attitude expressed by Fareed Zakaria represents an irresponsible complacency that I think is comparable to the denial in the early '30s of the intentions of Hitler that led to what Churchill called an unnecessary war involving millions and millions of deaths that might have been averted if the West had acted early enough.
The next time he spoke, Podhoretz talked about Hitler and how Zakaria didn't want to fight Hitler:
Yes, let me respond to that. You know, similar arguments were made about Hitler in the early '30s, and it appalls me that this kind of attitude can still prevail after what we should have learned from the words of despots.
The next time Podhoretz spoke, he talked about Hitler and how Bush promised to fight Hitler:
JUDY WOODRUFF: I do want to ask you both, because I think it's important. Mr. Podhoretz, do you think that, as you wrote a few months ago, this administration, this president intends before he leaves office to strike Iran?
NORMAN PODHORETZ: Yes, I do believe he will, because he has said many times -- or at least two times that I know of in public -- that, if we allow Iran to get the bomb, people 50 years from now will look back at us the way we look back at the men who made the Munich pact with Hitler in 1938 and say, "How could they have let this happen?"
Then the show ended on this note:
FAREED ZAKARIA: I believe in just the way that we have deterred the Soviet Union, Mao's China, Kim Jong Il, history will prove that we can use deterrence and containment to contain the problem of Iran and that we do not need to launch a third unilateral invasion just to do that.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Fareed Zakaria and Norman Podhoretz...
NORMAN PODHORETZ: God help us if we follow that counsel.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Norman Podhoretz, we thank you. Fareed Zakaria, gentlemen, we thank you both very much.
That about covers the full set of arguments and knowledge of our nation's leading neoconservative war cheerleaders.
Whoever is next on the War List is always The New Hitler and the country they lead is always The New Nazi Germany. Anyone who wants the new war is the brave and glorious Churchill. Everyone who opposes the new war is the cowardly appeaser Chamberlain, willing to allow Hitler to Take Over the World and impose Caliphate and burquas and humiliation on everyone. That's the level of advice which both George Bush, the current President, and Rudy Giuliani, the leading GOP presidential candidate, have chosen to receive and -- by all appearances -- follow.
* * * * *
Josh Marshall has more on this, including video of the debate
Thursday, November 22, 2007
Pat Shannon: August 2007 Nuke Incident: Was it really an accident
The unanswered questions relating to the Aug 29-30 “bent spear” incident suggest that one possible explanation is that it was the result of a sinister U.S. operation that was somehow halted before the nukes could leave the U.S. The term 'bent spear' refers to a nuclear-weapons incident that is serious but does not include the threat of detonation.
The following is a summary of an article, “Official Air Force Version of Nuke ‘Mishandling’ Full of Gaping Holes, Unanswered Questions,” by Pat Shannon, in the American Free Press (11.19.07). Other media accounts I’ve seen don’t mention the anomalies detailed below. --RB
Summary of “Official Air Force Version of Nuke ‘Mishandling’ Full of Gaping Holes, Unanswered Questions,” by Pat Shannon, AFP, 11.19.07
The official report on the bent spear incident in which six nuclear weapons were mounted on six Advanced Cruise Missiles and improperly removed from a nuclear weapons storage bunker at Minot Air Force Base in North Dakota, then were improperly loaded on a B-52, and improperly flown to Barksdale AFB in Louisiana attributed the whole thing to a “mistake.”
The problem with the official explanation is that such weapons are supposedly protected against unauthorized transport or removal from bunkers by electronic anti-theft systems. This means that not one but two people had to be involved in deliberately disabling those alarms.
Since the Air Force report doesn’t explain how this anti-theft hurdle could have been surmounted by “mistake,” the report has to be considered a whitewash or a cover up.
The loading of nuclear-armed missiles or bombs onto an American bomber has been barred since 1991, even for practice or training purposes. The carrying of nuclear weapons by bombers flying over U.S. airspace has been banned for 40 years.
The evidence suggests that in addition to the intentional and authorized removal of the nukes from the bunker in Minot the loading of the nukes onto the plane and their flight to Barksdale must also have been authorized.
The Air Force maintains that some low ranking ground crew personnel at Minot AFB simply walked out of a nuclear bunker with six nuclear armed Advanced Cruise Missiles, not knowing what they were carrying, and labored for eight hours to mount those missiles and their launch pylon on the wing of a B-52 strategic bomber without ever noticing that they were armed with nuclear weapons. Moreover not one of the electronic alarm and motion sensors built into the system went off during the whole process.
Strangely there have been no demands for public hearings into this incident. No one in authority seems to want to know who authorized this clumsy operation, or who disabled the alarm systems on those weapons and on the bunker itself; and who mounted six nuclear weapons on the noses of six cruise missiles and put those missiles onto a B-52 launch platform?
[Pat Shannon might also have asked who approved the flight plan? Besides the pilot(s) were there any other officers in Minot or Barksdale who had knowledge of the particulars of the fight?]
And why, asks Shannon, were the nukes being moved to Barksdale, the main staging base for B-52s flying to the Middle East?
The following is a summary of an article, “Official Air Force Version of Nuke ‘Mishandling’ Full of Gaping Holes, Unanswered Questions,” by Pat Shannon, in the American Free Press (11.19.07). Other media accounts I’ve seen don’t mention the anomalies detailed below. --RB
Summary of “Official Air Force Version of Nuke ‘Mishandling’ Full of Gaping Holes, Unanswered Questions,” by Pat Shannon, AFP, 11.19.07
The official report on the bent spear incident in which six nuclear weapons were mounted on six Advanced Cruise Missiles and improperly removed from a nuclear weapons storage bunker at Minot Air Force Base in North Dakota, then were improperly loaded on a B-52, and improperly flown to Barksdale AFB in Louisiana attributed the whole thing to a “mistake.”
The problem with the official explanation is that such weapons are supposedly protected against unauthorized transport or removal from bunkers by electronic anti-theft systems. This means that not one but two people had to be involved in deliberately disabling those alarms.
Since the Air Force report doesn’t explain how this anti-theft hurdle could have been surmounted by “mistake,” the report has to be considered a whitewash or a cover up.
The loading of nuclear-armed missiles or bombs onto an American bomber has been barred since 1991, even for practice or training purposes. The carrying of nuclear weapons by bombers flying over U.S. airspace has been banned for 40 years.
The evidence suggests that in addition to the intentional and authorized removal of the nukes from the bunker in Minot the loading of the nukes onto the plane and their flight to Barksdale must also have been authorized.
The Air Force maintains that some low ranking ground crew personnel at Minot AFB simply walked out of a nuclear bunker with six nuclear armed Advanced Cruise Missiles, not knowing what they were carrying, and labored for eight hours to mount those missiles and their launch pylon on the wing of a B-52 strategic bomber without ever noticing that they were armed with nuclear weapons. Moreover not one of the electronic alarm and motion sensors built into the system went off during the whole process.
Strangely there have been no demands for public hearings into this incident. No one in authority seems to want to know who authorized this clumsy operation, or who disabled the alarm systems on those weapons and on the bunker itself; and who mounted six nuclear weapons on the noses of six cruise missiles and put those missiles onto a B-52 launch platform?
[Pat Shannon might also have asked who approved the flight plan? Besides the pilot(s) were there any other officers in Minot or Barksdale who had knowledge of the particulars of the fight?]
And why, asks Shannon, were the nukes being moved to Barksdale, the main staging base for B-52s flying to the Middle East?
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