Gearing Up for the Next Invasion

Connecting the dots really isn't all that difficult if you just pay attention:

• U.S. fighters pound Sa'ada, Yemen, kill 120
  
  
• U.S. denies military role in Yemen
  
  
• Obama ordered U.S. military strike on Yemen terrorists
  
  
• Investigators: Northwest bomb plot planned by al Qaeda in Yemen
  
  
• Lieberman: Yemen will be 'tomorrow's war' if pre-emptive action not taken
  
  
• Attempted bombing spotlights al Qaeda growth in Yemen
  
  
• Nigerian suspect in U.S. airline attack spent 2 periods of time in Yemen

Veterans Day Observation

The War to End All Wars (a.k.a. World War I) didn't end anything. It merely set the stage for one of the bloodiest, most violent centuries in the history of mankind. That's probably why Congress, on the heels of the Korean War, decided to change the traditional November 11 celebration of Armistice Day to Veterans Day in 1954.

War has become a way of life for our country. Today, rather than commemorate the end of one major hostility, we celebrate all subsequent and ongoing hostilities with little or no concern for their moral justification. As long as those involved are esteemed as heroes, nothing else seems to matter.

The Spin Begins

The Fort Hood tragedy is already being considered a terrorist attack. Walid Phares, Ph.D, writing for Fox News, had this to say:

What happened at Ft. Hood is not about being frustrated by America's foreign policy or exacting revenge for racial slurs. Nor is it about simply being a Muslim-American serving in the military or about being a member of any faith. The murders at Ft. Hood are about the radicalization of individuals by an extremist ideology -- jihadism -- which fuels acts of terror. The main question we should be asking is when did Hasan become radicalized and who indoctrinated him? Everything else will fall in place once we have these answers. Moreover, this would allow us to detect other potential terror acts that may be in the making.

"Who indoctrinated him?" Dr. Phares realizes the shooter, Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, was trained and employed by the most deadly and efficient killing machine in the world, right?

No matter. For the next few weeks the talking heads will be focusing on the terror angle, especially because of reports like this:

Soldiers who witnessed the shooting rampage at Fort Hood that left 13 people dead reported that the gunman shouted "Allahu Akbar!" -- an Arabic phrase for "God is great!" -- before opening fire, the base commander said today.

Lt. Gen. Robert Cone said officials had not yet confirmed that the suspected shooter, Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, made the comment before the rampage Thursday.

In the end, it won't really matter why this psycho shrink went on a shooting spree. That this might have been yet another example of "spontaneous jihad syndrome" is a seed that has already been planted. The intent is to shift the public's attention away from the horrors of war and their effects on those directly involved. Instead, look for this to be used as an excuse to intensify the "war on terror" both at home and abroad.

A Brief Observation Regarding the Fort Hood Shootings

Fort Hood shooter Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan was a psychiatrist, but he went through basic training just like every other soldier, so he would have been taught to kill. Also, someone in his position would have been expected to encourage killing by counseling other soldiers in a way that would not have interfered with that aspect of their jobs.

So what puzzles me most about this tragedy is that people would be so shocked to see a member of the military doing exactly what he had been trained to do. Perhaps it's because this particular act of violence was committed against Americans here in the U.S. and not against foreign strangers in some backwards country in the Middle East.

"A Global Force for Good"?

The U.S. Navy unveils its new slogan -- and no longer tries to conceal its true mission:

Anyone still want to argue that the U.S. is not imperialistic?

Bombs and Bribes

Ron Paul nails it once again:

What if tomorrow morning you woke up to headlines that yet another Chinese drone bombing on U.S. soil killed several dozen ranchers in a rural community while they were sleeping? That a drone aircraft had come across the Canadian border in the middle of the night and carried out the latest of many attacks? What if it was claimed that many of the victims harbored anti-Chinese sentiments, but most of the dead were innocent women and children? And what if the Chinese administration, in an effort to improve its public image in the U.S., had approved an aid package to send funds to help with American roads and schools and promote Chinese values here?

Most Americans would not stand for it. Yet the above hypothetical events are similar to what our government is doing in Pakistan.

The U.S. Government Is Lying About Iran

It's warmongering, pure and simple. We saw it before with Iraq, and we're seeing it now with Iran.

Memo Reveals U.S. Plan to Provoke an Invasion of Iraq

The Observer has the story:

The memo, written on 31 January 2003, almost two months before the invasion and seen by the Observer, confirms that as the two men became increasingly aware U.N. inspectors would fail to find weapons of mass destruction (WMD) they had to contemplate alternative scenarios that might trigger a second resolution legitimising military action.

Bush told Blair the U.S. had drawn up a provocative plan "to fly U2 reconnaissance aircraft painted in U.N. colours over Iraq with fighter cover". Bush said that if Saddam fired at the planes this would put the Iraqi leader in breach of U.N. resolutions.

A Fair and Balanced Approach to the Release of Torture Photos

My latest on Examiner.com.

War with Pakistan and Mexico?

The U.S. military has its eye on Pakistan and Mexico as countries considered to be on the brink of collapse. The Joint Operating Environment (JOE) 2008 Report (PDF) states:

Some forms of collapse in Pakistan would carry with it the likelihood of a sustained violent and bloody civil and sectarian war, an even bigger haven for violent extremists, and the question of what would happen to its nuclear weapons. That "perfect storm" of uncertainty alone might require the engagement of U.S. and coalition forces into a situation of immense complexity and danger with no guarantee they could gain control of the weapons and with the real possibility that a nuclear weapon might be used.

The Mexican possibility may seem less likely, but the government, its politicians, police and judicial infrastructure are all under sustained assault and press by criminal gangs and drug cartels. How that internal conflict turns out over the next several years will have a major impact on the stability of the Mexican state. Any descent by Mexico into chaos would demand an American response based on the serious implications for homeland security alone.

How is this any different from the U.S. government's justification for war with Iraq?

The Christmas Truce of 1914

The most noteworthy aspect of the Christmas Truce of 1914 is that, were it not for the bloodthirsty commanders on both sides, it just may have brought World War I to an end. Read more about the Christmas Truce of 1914 here.

4,000 Americans "Had to Die"

Frank Gaffney of the Center for Security Policy believes that it was necessary to send 4,000 Americans to their deaths in Iraq: "My position is it is regrettable that any Americans died. It is regrettable that they had to die, but I believe they did have to die."



(HT: Chris Knight)

FDR's Day of Infamy

Srdja Trifkovic, in his latest essay, gives a timeline of one of the most infamous conspiracies in American History. He concludes:

The late Murray Rothbard is said to have often argued that, far from being evidence of a "paranoid" strain in the American mind, belief in conspiracies as a factor in American history was usually not taken far enough. The truth behind most conspiracies, he alleged, was far more heinous and diabolical than even the most diehard conspiracy theorist suspected. The events leading up to the Day of Infamy in 1941 prove him right, no less than those preceding U.S. wars against Mexico, the Confederacy, Spain (1898), Serbia (1999), or Iraq (2003). In all of those cases diplomacy did not "fail" because it was not used to avert war, but to make certain its coming.

U.S. Torture Policy Kills Americans

That's what one interrogator found out:

I learned in Iraq that the No. 1 reason foreign fighters flocked there to fight were the abuses carried out at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo. Our policy of torture was directly and swiftly recruiting fighters for al-Qaeda in Iraq. The large majority of suicide bombings in Iraq are still carried out by these foreigners. They are also involved in most of the attacks on U.S. and coalition forces in Iraq. It's no exaggeration to say that at least half of our losses and casualties in that country have come at the hands of foreigners who joined the fray because of our program of detainee abuse. The number of U.S. soldiers who have died because of our torture policy will never be definitively known, but it is fair to say that it is close to the number of lives lost on Sept. 11, 2001. How anyone can say that torture keeps Americans safe is beyond me -- unless you don't count American soldiers as Americans.

Bush the Liberator

It took about 600,000 lives or so for Abraham Lincoln to earn the title of "Great Emancipator." When all is said and done, George W. Bush will be responsible for at least twice that, so I'm sure he'll get his wish of being remembered as a liberator.

Finally!

Yep, it's unofficially official:

By every measure, The United States and coalition forces have conclusively defeated all enemies in Iraq, pacified the country, deposed the previous regime, successfully helped to establish a new functioning democratic government, and suppressed any lingering insurgencies. The war has come to an end. And we won.

And here I thought we won when President Bush said we won...

Which Veterans Should Be Honored?

Today is set aside to honor those who have served and are serving in our nation's military. But does this mean that we should honor all veterans?

In every conflict throughout our nation's history we have been told to "support the troops," and the veterans of each of those conflicts are praised as heroes. Are we to believe that every soldier in every operation has contributed to our freedom? What about those who take part in wars that have absolutely nothing to do with defending these United States? For example, I have yet to hear it argued that those who were sent to bomb Bosnian Serbs in the mid-1990s were safeguarding the safety and freedom of Americans.

So, I ask again, in all seriousness: Should we honor all veterans, or just those who have actually defended our freedom? Someone please help me out here. I really want to know.

Honoring the Senseless Waste of Human Life

Today used to be known as Armistice Day in commemoration of the formal ending of hostilities in World War I at the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month of 1918. But for the last 54 years it has been known as Veterans Day. As a result, we have forgotten the harsh lessons of November 11, 1918.

Joseph E. Persico, in an article that appeared in the Winter 2005 edition of Military History Quarterly, writes of the proud and stubborn commanders and politicians that led thousands of men to their deaths on a day that should not have seen any fighting. He also relates the story of Henry N. Gunther, the last American to die in the war...at 10:59 a.m. Read the full article here.

More War Lies

First, the chicken hawks in Washington used erroneous intelligence reports, false testimonies, and forged documents to lie us into war with Iraq -- and they're apparently at it again. From The Raw Story:

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has obtained evidence suggesting that documents which have been described as technical studies for a secret Iranian nuclear weapons-related research program may have been fabricated.

The documents in question were acquired by U.S. intelligence in 2004 from a still unknown source -- most of them in the form of electronic files allegedly stolen from a laptop computer belonging to an Iranian researcher. The US has based much of its push for sanctions against Iran on these documents.

The new evidence of possible fraud has increased pressure within the IAEA secretariat to distance the agency from the laptop documents, according to a Vienna-based diplomatic source close to the IAEA, who spoke to RAW STORY on condition of anonymity.

Folks, don't expect things to change simply because America elected a new president. You can put lipstick on a pig...

Obama Already Showing His Pro-War Colors

Barack Obama has picked Rahm Emanuel, an influential pro-Israel, pro-war congressman, as his new chief of staff:

Think Obama is going to change directions in the Middle East? Think again.