The memorandum “Collateral Damage: U.S. Covert Operations and the Terrorist Attacks on September 11, 2001” has been circulating for years on the Internet, studiously ignored by most. It was previously posted as a journal item on this website. Since then, the public has learned a great deal more about both gold and greed, and the memorandum is once again circulating.
This is by no means the complete story, and there are some leaps of imagination and speculation that must be deeply investigated or discounted. Central to appreciating the magnitude of the government cover-up is the FACT that MONTHS before 9/11 Dick Cheney set in motion the national counter-terrorism exercise that gave him complete control on “the day” of 9/11.
What is clear is that there is a great deal more investigation to be done, and that a truth and reconciliation commission should be created in time to put Dick Cheney and the others on the stand before they either die a natural death or are assassinated by foreign governments righteously angry over what has been done to them by American children playing with fire.
Here are a few extracts that today have a greater likelihood of being appreciated for their substance.
The interplay of chance with necessity means that no one can predict the future evolutionary pathway in Libya or the US role in Libya, but Ted Galen Carpenter of the libertarian CATO Inst. provides a thoughtful lens for thinking about potential ramifications of NATO's precipitate intervention in Libya.
Key issues discussed:
De facto or de jure partition vs a unification that sows the seeds of future conflict?
How to replenish empty Libyan treasury and repair infrastructure (including restoring oil production capability)?
Will US get sucked into another NATO stabilization, peacekeeping, nation-building mission?
After weeks of very little movement either militarily or diplomatically in Libya, there are apparent developments on both fronts in recent days. Rebel forces, aided by NATO’s air support, finally appear to be advancing into western Libya and cutting off supply lines to Tripoli, the long-time stronghold of support for Muammar Qaddafi. And reports are swirling about secret negotiations that might provide a peaceful exit from the country for the aging dictator.
Those developments underscore that U.S. and NATO officials urgently need to consider what strategy they intend to pursue if Qaddafi’s more-than-four-decade hold on power finally comes to an end. That is more crucial for the leaders of the European members of the alliance, since Libya is located on Europe’s Mediterranean flank, but because the Obama administration unwisely chose to involve the United States in Libya’s internecine conflict by launching air strikes, it has become a pertinent issue for Washington as well.
The outlook for a post-Qaddafi Libya is midpoint between sobering and depressing. It is possible that the warring parties will accept a de facto division of the country between the eastern and western tribes, although a formal agreement to that effect is unlikely. Even an informal partition would more accurately reflect the demographics, politics, and history of that territory than an insistence on keeping Libya intact.
Phi Beta Iota: A serious world power would heed the wisdom of Ambassador Mark Palmer, and have Undersecretaries for Peace at both foreign affairs and defense, with two strategies: one for dictators that agree to a five year non-violent exit strategy, and another for those that do not. What is happening in the Middle East today is a direct representation of the fact that there are no serious world powers in being today.
(Susan Lindauer) Here’s breaking News from a confidential source inside Tripoli. And it’s nothing like what CNN is broadcasting… Pay attention to live reports from Zawia.
First, today the power went out in all of Tripoli today. As a gift to the Muslim community for their 17th day of Ramadan, NATO bombed a power plant and six high voltage sub stations. Apparently they believed the Libyans would have no ability to repair this, and so, in their “humanitarian effort to protect civilians,” they tried to cut power to 2 million innocent people during the holy month of Ramadan and the hottest month of the year in this desert country. Well, NATO sorely underestimated these resilient people. They had the power back in 6 hours! You know, there is NO fighting in Tripoli, never has been, no fighting on the outskirts never has been. So, NATO has been continually bombing a peaceful city, destroying the infrastructure, killing and constantly terrorizing civilians.
Second, the media outside is trying to win this war by completely flipping the truth upside down. Ghadafi is stronger than ever. Today, people gathered in two areas of Tripoli where people said NATO was planning on bombing. Hundreds of thousands of people waving green flags, chanted (Allah, Muammar, Libya, Wah bes) (God and Muammar makes Libya complete). Dancing and daring NATO to come and hit them.
These people are so pissed at NATO that they would all lay down their lives before they let “The NATO” win as they say. A young woman from the Foreign Minister’s office named Sana spoke with us tonight. She said the people are so used to NATO now that they are beginning to name their worthless pets after NATO.
Sana said that the Western news media is showing old pictures of Zawia in an attempt to show bunches of rebels there. So a few people went and waved a green flag at the over pass that the media was showing on the news. And guess what? The group was never on camera, because it was not a live shot.
She also told us that the Libyans are now in complete solidarity behind the legitimate government and Ghadafi. She said all the Libyan people have offered to have Ghadafi come and sleep at their homes, he should switch homes every night, all Libyans are prepared to die for Ghadafi. She said, Ghadafi should run for president in the US, because the US is so divided and people are so disgusted with their government there. The unity of Libya behind Ghadafi is unmatched for any leader world wide, she thinks the American people need someone to unite them, not to divide them.
Spoke with the Electronic army, they say there are small pockets of rebels they liken to gangs in Misurata and the Libyan army is the middle of the city cleaning them out. Most of them are running away.
Dr Moussa Ibrahim stated yesterday that Oil Companies of the aggressor nations are trying frantically to open avenues of communication with any and every minister trying to garner favor and regain their once lucrative contracts. You won’t see that in the Western news, even though this release was given to all the journalists here in Tripoli.
That is all for now.
Phi Beta Iota: NATO attacks against Tripoli are an atrocity–commanders and pilots should be held accountable for obeying blatantly illegal orders.
For more information contact:
Peter Kornbluh – 202/374-7281 or by email
EXTRACT
In perhaps the most important revelation of the entire official history, the CIA task force in charge of the paramilitary assault did not believe it could succeed without becoming an open invasion supported by the U.S. military. On page 149 of Volume III, Pfeiffer quotes still-secret minutes of the Task Force meeting held on November 15, 1960, to prepare a briefing for the new President-elect, John F. Kennedy: “Our original concept is now seen to be unachievable in the face of the controls Castro has instituted,” the document states. “Our second concept (1,500-3000 man force to secure a beach with airstrip) is also now seen to be unachievable, except as a joint Agency/DOD action.”
This candid assessment was not shared with the President-elect then, nor later after the inauguration. As Pfeiffer points out, “what was being denied in confidence in mid-November 1960 became the fact of the Zapata Plan and the Bay of Pigs Operation in March 1961”—run only by the CIA, and with a force of 1,200 men.
Despite budget woes, the military is preparing for a conflict with our biggest rival — and we should be worried
This summer, despite America’s continuing financial crisis, the Pentagon is effectively considering trading two military quagmires for the possibility of a third. Reducing its commitments in Iraq and Afghanistan as it refocuses on Asia, Washington is not so much withdrawing forces from the Persian Gulf as it is redeploying them for a prospective war with its largest creditor, China.
. . . . .
AirSea Battle, developed in the early 1990s and most recently codified in a 2009 Navy-Air Force classified memo, is a vehicle for conforming U.S. military power to address asymmetrical threats in the Western Pacific and the Persian Gulf — code for China and Iran. (This alone raises a crucial point: If the U.S. has had nothing but trouble with asymmetrical warfare for the last 45 years, why should a war with China, or Iran for that matter, be any different?) It complements the 1992 Defense Planning Guidance, a government white paper that precluded the rise of any “peer competitor” that might challenge U.S. dominance worldwide.
. . . . . . .
For the first time since the end of the Cold War, the U.S. government has encountered the practical limits of the 1992 Defense Planning Guidance.
. . . . . .
Here is a noble appeal for Washington to match its commitments with the resources needed to sustain them, the absence of which has fueled the debt crisis that nearly reduced the United States to a mendicant state. Such are the crippling costs of a defense policy that makes global hegemony a mindless imperative.
I got hold of a few truths, and could not help remembering the Phi Beta Iota quote:
Fedor Dostoevsky:A man who lies to himself, and believes his own lies, becomes unable to recognize truth, either in himself or in anyone else.
Here are some facts:
1) Saydabad is one of the worst districts in Wardak
2) Chinook loss should be attributed to American hubris.
3) July reporting shows US patrols increasingly timid.
4) Current rate for Afghan Army defectors is 30,000 rupees, around US$650, which appears to include their bringing over their weapon and other gear.
5) Crash killed 38, including 22 members of the elite SEAL Team 6 and their support element. Seven were Afghans so we are at 29, there was a crew of three. So, did we send in 22 SEALS and a crew of three, plus the Afghans to rescue six Rangers? The numbers on the Chinook do not add up. There is something seriously fishy about the government story.
6) Sure feels like Viet-Nam deja vu, where the public could not trust the government or the media to report accurately on anything having to do with our presence therer.
Three Good Reasons to Liquidate Our Empire and Ten Steps to Take to Do So
1. We Can No Longer Afford Our Postwar Expansionism
2. We Are Going to Lose the War in Afghanistan and It Will Help Bankrupt Us
3. We Need to End the Secret Shame of Our Empire of Bases
. . . . . . . .
Chalmers Johnson
10 Steps Toward Liquidating the Empire (Abridged)
Dismantling the American empire would, of course, involve many steps. Here are ten key places to begin:
1. We need to put a halt to the serious environmental damage done by our bases planet-wide. We also need to stop writing SOFAs that exempt us from any responsibility for cleaning up after ourselves.
2. Liquidating the empire will end the burden of carrying our empire of bases and so of the “opportunity costs” that go with them — the things we might otherwise do with our talents and resources but can't or won't.
3. As we already know (but often forget), imperialism breeds the use of torture. Dismantling the empire would potentially mean a real end to the modern American record of using torture abroad.
4. We need to cut the ever-lengthening train of camp followers, dependents, civilian employees of the Department of Defense, and hucksters — along with their expensive medical facilities, housing requirements, swimming pools, clubs, golf courses, and so forth — that follow our military enclaves around the world.
5. We need to discredit the myth promoted by the military-industrial complex that our military establishment is valuable to us in terms of jobs, scientific research, and defense. These alleged advantages have long been discredited by serious economic research. Ending empire would make this happen.
6. As a self-respecting democratic nation, we need to stop being the world's largest exporter of arms and munitions and quit educating Third World militaries in the techniques of torture, military coups, and service as proxies for our imperialism.
7. Given the growing constraints on the federal budget, we should abolish the Reserve Officers' Training Corps and other long-standing programs that promote militarism in our schools.
8. We need to restore discipline and accountability in our armed forces by radically scaling back our reliance on civilian contractors, private military companies, and agents working for the military outside the chain of command and the Uniform Code of Military Justice. Ending empire would make this possible.
9. We need to reduce, not increase, the size of our standing army and deal much more effectively with the wounds our soldiers receive and combat stress they undergo.
10. To repeat the main message of this essay, we must give up our inappropriate reliance on military force as the chief means of attempting to achieve foreign policy objectives.
Phi Beta Iota: The second article is a stunning review of the intellectual life of Chalmers Johnson, who was among many things a net assessments analyst for Allen Dulles. He pioneered the study of “State Capitalism” and considered the US to be a greatly under-performing economy for its failure to move away from military unilateralism and toward sustainable development.
The memorandum “Collateral Damage: U.S. Covert Operations and the Terrorist Attacks on September 11, 2001” has been circulating for years on the Internet, studiously ignored by most. It was previously posted as a journal item on this website. Since then, the public has learned a great deal more about both gold and greed, and the memorandum is once again circulating.
