Sanitizing the War on Terror

Here, in a nice neat summary, is the true point of the endless "war on terror"(c) being foisted on the citizens of the US. Joe Quinn has got the number of the psychos in charge. Feast yourself on the political insight found at SOTT.

Blue Ibis
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Sanitizing The War On Terror

Joe Quinn
Sott.net
Thu, 03 Apr 2008 16:23 EDT

Michael Hayden - loves a good conspiracy

For years "conspiracy theorists" have suffered the ignominy of exile on the fringe of political debate, not to mention social acceptance. "Conspiracy" was not necessarily a 'dirty word', but form the phrase "conspiracy theory" and you could almost hear the shutters coming down on already closed minds. Stories of the lies and secret machinations of the political military and corporate elite were ridiculed as fantasy and a virtual impossibility. Indeed, the very existence of a political, military and corporate elite was widely disavowed. Changes are afoot however - big changes. The lies and abuses of the directors of the American empire project and their associates in collective Western government over the past few years have become so egregious, so flagrant, that it is now virtually impossible for the average citizen to accept the official version of reality and still lay claim to their own sanity.

Got Sanity? If so, you have "soundness of judgment or reason".

Tell me then, what's your judgment on the "war on terror"? What does your reason say about the mythical yet somehow ubiquitous "al-Qaeda"? You have, after all, had almost 7 years to get comfortable, in one way or another, with these ideas. By now your sanity, if you possess it, should have told you some very specific things about those two hot topics. If however you are insane, take heart because you don't even need to be compos mentis to grasp this truth, just your eyes and ears. Got those? Then let's begin.

For many years now millions of people around the world, including former members of the US and other governments, academics and professionals have known and spoken about the fact that "al-Qaeda", far from being a modern Islamic terror group was the name given to a small grouping of extremist and deluded nut-jobs that the US and British governments hired and trained to fight the Russians in Afghanistan in the late 70's and early 80's. Also widely accepted is the fact that, after that particular conflict, Pakistani intelligence, in league with the CIA, continued to handle and groom these extremists and stage-manage their sporadic attacks around the world in order to conjure up the modern "Islamic terror threat".

Several mainstream media outlets and US government officials have stated that Osama bin laden was a CIA asset who was used to funnel money to these extremists and oversee the establishment of militant training camps, all under the control of Western agents.

A French intelligence report, carried by the mainstream press, stated that Osama Bin Laden met with a CIA agent in the American hospital in Dubai two months before the 9/11 attacks.

Everyone knows, (or should) that the Bush government escorted members of Bin Laden's family out of the US on September 11th 2001. We have all even been treated to a well-researched movie about the long standing ties between Bush senior and the US oil cartels and the bin laden family.

And finally, several mainstream media outlets, quoting official government sources, have reported that Osama bin Laden probably died many years ago.

Given just these basic facts, the tip of the iceberg of the evidence, how can anyone still believe that the US is actually fighting a "war on terror" to "safeguard our freedoms" rather than a war of conquest and empire expansion, and still lay claim to their sanity? I mean, is the proposition so hard to digest? Remember history class? It's not like this is the first time a group of power mad Westerners got together and tried to conquer as much of the world as possible. Really, the only way the "war on terror" as described by the Bush government et al could appear any more ridiculous is if Ronald McDonald were to start giving White House press briefings. Then again, if a Mr Magoo look alike has sufficed over the past 8 years to convince many people of the reality of a "worldwide Islamic terror threat", then maybe Ronald isn't such a bad idea, at least from the Bush government's perspective.

Speaking of Mr Magoo, his ideological (and possibly body) double in the CIA Director Michael Hayden, seems to have understood that the US government's Islamic terror threat fable is beginning to wear a little thin. To forestall the social unpleasantries that might accompany any further break down in belief, Hayden, citing no evidence whatsoever, recently warned that the American people faced a new and unprecedented threat - "Western-looking" Islamic terrorists. Yes indeed, the once simple check-list for IDing a "terrorist" - medium dark skin, fuzzy beard, speaking funny, white thing on head and sandals - has become infinitely more complex. Look around you. Do you see a white male or female of European descent? Better contact the FBI, your freedoms may be in danger.

You see, there is no limit to the nonsense that these "reality creators" will attempt to pass off on the general public. If they think you'll buy it, they're gonna try and sell it to you, and with the tripe that you've swallowed for the past 8 years, who can blame them? Still, while we await the debut of the "Western-looking Arab terrorists", we can continue to tune our reality reading instruments on the "Arab-looking" ones, like Mr. Magoo for example. Recently, BBSC (British BS Corporation), along with their ideological counterparts throughout the bordello that is the mainstream media, treated us to one of several missives from the much loved cartoon character:

Al-Qaeda deputy calls for attacks

An audio message attributed to al-Qaeda's deputy leader, Ayman Zawahiri, has called for attacks on American and Israeli interests.

The voice, not confirmed as Zawahiri's, urged retaliation for Israeli raids on the Gaza Strip. [...]

No specific targets are mentioned, but the voice accuses Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Jordan for forming a "satanic alliance" with Israel and the US to blockade the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip.

So let's break this one down. The title attempts to get us all worked up: "Al-Qaeda deputy calls for attacks". That's pretty categoric. Then we read a little further and realise that the "al-Qaeda deputy" could not spare his entire body for this latest transmission, just a small part of him, only his voice to be precise. But wait, did we say it was Ayman Zawahiri's voice? What we meant to say was that it was a voice that has been attributed, by parties unknown, to Ayman Zawahiri (who himself has never been confirmed).

Even the BBSC appears less than committed on this one, and ends up referring only to "the voice". Maybe Zawahiri should take his cue from the BBSC here and officially change his name to "The Voice". He would definitely garner more respect (even from me) if all future transmissions were described as coming from "The Voice". "The Voice today threatened to smite the infidels...", that kind of thing. Anyway, even if their report was a little weak, the BBSC made sure to add a nice picture of the person to whom "the voice" is attributed, yet not confirmed (and never will be) just in case anyone starts to suspect this particular voice doesn't have a face. It does, it's just that the voice and the face have never been attributed to each other, and neither have been confirmed as existing independently of each other. That's just the way it is in the crazy world of Islamic terrorism. So what we have here, despite the categoric title, is a disembodied voice that someone has attributed to a person called Ayman Zawahiri and which says things that, strangely enough, dovetail nicely with the claims of the war on terror mongers in the US, Israeli and British governments, and that's the main point anyway. Now, your sanity should be telling your something here, but hold off on the judgment just yet.

The problem is that this is but one example of the repeated "core evidence" presented to you over the past 8 years for the reality of a "world wide Islamic terror network" that is determined to attack all infidels. Of course, no one can deny the reality of the murderous attacks of 9/11, Madrid in 2004 and London in 2005, but what is very clearly in question here is the identity of the authors of those attacks, because evidence presented by "a voice" (or a clearly faked video tape) on the internet is no evidence at all.

In fact, when you look at it, the people who proclaim the reality of the "Islamic terror threat" have presented very little in the way of verifiable evidence to back up their claims. Ever. The main body of their evidence takes the form of the "terror attacks" that have and continue to be carried out on civilians in Western and Middle Eastern countries, attacks that are however never fully or impartially investigated and invariably leave many troubling questions.

"No-one has claimed to have carried out the attack, but Iraqi and US security officials are blaming al-Qaeda in Iraq."

Assuming you listen to or read the mainstream news, how often have you heard or read this phrase over the past 7 years? And how often did you accept it as fact? This and other mysterious attributions of blame have come to define and underpin the entire war on terror, not merely in Iraq but in the other US and Israeli dominated "theaters of conflict" such as Afghanistan and Israel/Palestine.

On the 8th March 2008, yet another bomb exploded in a crowded market place in Baghdad killing 68 civilians and wounding many more, and yet again we were told that "al-Qaeda in Iraq" was to blame. As in every other "al-Qaeda" attack, no evidence was provided for this claim, and the US military itself has stated that the foreign fighters of which "al-Qaeda in Iraq" is allegedly comprised do not exist.

You see, even the US government and military realise that the bombings and murders in Iraq that have claimed the lives of more than 1 million Iraqis over the past 4 years cannot reasonably be ascribed to any real Iraqi insurgency, because the real Iraqi insurgency is made up of the very civilians that are being murdered in the bombings! Hence the need for a shadowy group called "al-Qaeda in Iraq" on which to pin the blame, a group that never speaks except in the form of anonymous internet postings or crassly faked video tapes. So if "al-Qaeda in Iraq" does not in fact exist, who is carrying out the bombings?

Before we get to that, allow me to get a little personal.

Ask any intellectually challenged Western citizen (of which there are many, particularly in America) what the capital of Greece is and they are likely to say "France", but ask him for the name of the war being fought by the US and its allies and he will give you the correct answer - "the war on terror". This is due to the knowledge, or lack thereof, that the capital of Greece is not and never has been understood as necessary to the average Joe's survival or honor, despite the fact that he may well have come across it many times in his life. Such information is not processed by or held in that part of the brain that deals with simplistic black and white, fear-based fight or flight responses. The "war on terror" and what it means to the average Joe infidel however is.

The phrase is useful to our warmongering psychopathic leaders because it provokes a knee-jerk response from Joe, and also extracts his "permission" to pursue a no holds barred war on a concept - terrorism. The political elite are sure that the average Joe is too stupid to consider the concepts behind a war on terrorism. The political elite manipulate him into accepting the simplistic, false reality and Joe unwittingly accepts the more deviant reality.

When he is threatened (or is made to be believe so), Joe's response is predictable, "If Bin Laden were here I'd kick his ass and bury him at ground Zero and go every day to take a piss on his grave," as one New Yorker quipped.

Joe does not like the idea that he is being screwed over in any way, by anyone. That state of mind is certainly useful to the agenda of the Empire builders to present the current threat as being posed by foreigners, and as a 'reaction machine' Joe will vent his spleen in an uncompromising way at anyone he believes to be a threat to all he holds dear. For Joe, being told that someone is stealing his beer and being told that some foreign country is threatening his way of life provokes the same reaction (possibly because a large part of Joe's way of life is beer).

This predictable fear-based reaction from ordinary people is the substance that has driven America's imperial expansion for many years. The architects of empire have milked it mercilessly.

Yet this tendency of the man in the street (and I include here all levels of Western society regardless of whether or not they know that the capital of Greece is in fact Germany) to get all Pavlovian can work both ways and is therefore a dangerous game for the psychopathic elite to play.

The day that the average Joe realises that he has been lied to, that, horror of horrors, his own government has lied to him, stolen his liberties and cynically squandered the lives of his fellow countrymen and women, Joe's basic fear-based reaction will be redirected, the lack of fuzzy beards and sandals will be irrelevant. All that is needed is for someone to explain to Joe, in simple black and white terms, the facts of the matter. This time no deceit or withholding of information will be necessary. The Truth is always best served pure and simple.

So, let's get pure and simple...

Part II tomorrow.

[Can't wait!!]

More on the "Most Ethical Army in the World"

Don't say you didn't know. Without news services like SOTT and Haartz we never would. They shine the light on the darkness most want to avoid.

Blue Ibis
Warning: descriptions of graphic violence against women and children follow.

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Israel shaken by psychopathic troops' tales of brutality against Palestinian civilians

Conal Urquhart
The Guardian
Sun, 21 Oct 2007 07:26 EDT

The soldiers described dozens of incidents of extreme violence. One recalled an incident when a Palestinian was shot for no reason and left on the street. 'We were in a weapons carrier when this guy, around 25, passed by in the street and, just like that, for no reason - he didn't throw a stone, did nothing - bang, a bullet in the stomach, he shot him in the stomach and the guy is dying on the pavement and we keep going, apathetic. No one gave him a second look,' he said.

One soldier recalled: 'After two months in Rafah, a [new] commanding officer arrived... So we do a first patrol with him. It's 6am, Rafah is under curfew, there isn't so much as a dog in the streets. Only a little boy of four playing in the sand. He is building a castle in his yard. He [the officer] suddenly starts running and we all run with him. He was from the combat engineers.

'He grabbed the boy. I am a degenerate if I am not telling you the truth. He broke his hand here at the wrist, broke his leg here. And started to stomp on his stomach, three times, and left. We are all there, jaws dropping, looking at him in shock...

'The next day I go out with him on another patrol, and the soldiers are already starting to do the same thing."

A study by an Israeli psychologist into the violent behaviour of the country's soldiers is provoking bitter controversy and has awakened urgent questions about the way the army conducts itself in the Gaza Strip and West Bank.

Nufar Yishai-Karin, a clinical psychologist at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, interviewed 21 Israeli soldiers and heard confessions of frequent brutal assaults against Palestinians, aggravated by poor training and discipline. In her recently published report, co-authored by Professor Yoel Elizur, Yishai-Karin details a series of violent incidents, including the beating of a four-year-old boy by an officer.

The report, although dealing with the experience of soldiers in the 1990s, has triggered an impassioned debate in Israel, where it was published in an abbreviated form in the newspaper Haaretz last month. According to Yishai Karin: 'At one point or another of their service, the majority of the interviewees enjoyed violence. They enjoyed the violence because it broke the routine and they liked the destruction and the chaos. They also enjoyed the feeling of power in the violence and the sense of danger.'

In the words of one soldier:'The truth? When there is chaos, I like it. That's when I enjoy it. It's like a drug. If I don't go into Rafah, and if there isn't some kind of riot once in some weeks, I go nuts.'

Another explained: 'The most important thing is that it removes the burden of the law from you. You feel that you are the law. You are the law. You are the one who decides... As though from the moment you leave the place that is called Eretz Yisrael [the Land of Israel] and go through the Erez checkpoint into the Gaza Strip, you are the law. You are God.'

The soldiers described dozens of incidents of extreme violence. One recalled an incident when a Palestinian was shot for no reason and left on the street. 'We were in a weapons carrier when this guy, around 25, passed by in the street and, just like that, for no reason - he didn't throw a stone, did nothing - bang, a bullet in the stomach, he shot him in the stomach and the guy is dying on the pavement and we keep going, apathetic. No one gave him a second look,' he said.

The soldiers developed a mentality in which they would use physical violence to deter Palestinians from abusing them. One described beating women. 'With women I have no problem. With women, one threw a clog at me and I kicked her here [pointing to the crotch], I broke everything there. She can't have children. Next time she won't throw clogs at me. When one of them [a woman] spat at me, I gave her the rifle butt in the face. She doesn't have what to spit with any more.'

Yishai-Karin found that the soldiers were exposed to violence against Palestinians from as early as their first weeks of basic training. On one occasion, the soldiers were escorting some arrested Palestinians. The arrested men were made to sit on the floor of the bus. They had been taken from their beds and were barely clothed, even though the temperature was below zero. The new recruits trampled on the Palestinians and then proceeded to beat them for the whole of the journey. They opened the bus windows and poured water on the arrested men.

The disclosure of the report in the Israeli media has occasioned a remarkable response. In letters responding to the recollections, writers have focused on both the present and past experience of Israeli soldiers to ask troubling questions that have probed the legitimacy of the actions of the Israeli Defence Forces.

The study and the reactions to it have marked a sharp change in the way Israelis regard their period of military service - particularly in the occupied territories - which has been reflected in the increasing levels of conscientious objection and draft-dodging.

The debate has contrasted sharply with an Israeli army where new recruits are taught that they are joining 'the most ethical army in the world' - a refrain that is echoed throughout Israeli society. In its doctrine, published on its website, the Israeli army emphasises human dignity. 'The Israeli army and its soldiers are obligated to protect human dignity. Every human being is of value regardless of his or her origin, religion, nationality, gender, status or position.'

However, the Israeli army, like other armies, has found it difficult to maintain these values beyond the classroom. The first intifada, which began in 1987, before the wave of suicide bombings, was markedly different to the violence of the second intifada, and its main events were popular demonstrations with stone-throwing.

Yishai-Karin, in an interview with Haaretz, described how her research came out of her own experience as a soldier at an army base in Rafah in the Gaza Strip. She interviewed 18 ordinary soldiers and three officers whom she had served with in Gaza. The soldiers described how the violence was encouraged by some commanders. One soldier recalled: 'After two months in Rafah, a [new] commanding officer arrived... So we do a first patrol with him. It's 6am, Rafah is under curfew, there isn't so much as a dog in the streets. Only a little boy of four playing in the sand. He is building a castle in his yard. He [the officer] suddenly starts running and we all run with him. He was from the combat engineers.

'He grabbed the boy. I am a degenerate if I am not telling you the truth. He broke his hand here at the wrist, broke his leg here. And started to stomp on his stomach, three times, and left. We are all there, jaws dropping, looking at him in shock...

'The next day I go out with him on another patrol, and the soldiers are already starting to do the same thing."

Yishai-Karin concluded that the main reason for the soldiers' violence was a lack of training. She found that the soldiers did not know what was expected of them and therefore were free to develop their own way of behaviour. The longer a unit was left in the field, the more violent it became. The Israeli soldiers, she concluded, had a level of violence which is universal across all nations and cultures. If they are allowed to operate in difficult circumstances, such as in Gaza and the West Bank, without training and proper supervision, the violence is bound to come out.

Comment: Spare us these patronizing apologetics. One doesn't break the wrists and legs of 4 year-olds or kick a woman in the crotch for "lack of training". The soldiers and the leaders who sent them into these positions are psychopathic monsters.

A spokeswoman for the Israeli army said that, if a soldier deviates from the army's norms, they could be investigated by the military police or face criminal investigation.

Comment: Where they will be duly exonerated.

She said: 'It should be noted that since the events described in Nufar Yishai-Karin's research the number of ethical violations by IDF soldiers involving the Palestinian population has consistently dropped. This trend has continued in the last few years.'

Comment: It should be noted that the examples given above are but a drop in the ocean of humiliation, abuse and murder that the Palestinian people have been subjected to before, during and since the illegal foundation of the corrupt state of Israel and the Zionist regime that occupies Palestinian land.

The addition of "Palestinian suicide bombings" in the second Intifada is used to excuse such inhuman behavior by Israeli troops and their commanding officers. The truth of the matter however is that "Palestinian suicide bombings" are very probably Israeli false flag operations, designed to provide justification to Israel for its continued murder of Palestinian civilians and the theft of what is left of their land.