Response To Donald Trump's Racism

Interesting point: Representative Ayanna Pressley begged the press not to let President Trump and his racist comments distract from the real issues. But one of the very first questions went to Representative Ilhan Omar, asking her to address “rumors” that she was a communist associated with Al-Qaeda.

Omar, to her credit, kept incredibly cool in the face of this very Islamaphobic question, and rightfully pointed out that almost all Americans who are Muslim have had questions of this ilk directed at them at some point in their lives. She said she would not dignify the question with answer.

Julia Carrie Wong  from the Guardian

Our senior tech correspondent, Julia Carrie Wong, weighs in on President Trump and his racist tweets:

Whenever Donald Trump achieves a new low on his Twitter feed, critics cry out for the social media company to take action against the account-in-chief. We saw this when Trump tweeted a threat at North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, when he tweeted a video encouraging violence against CNN, and when he retweeted racist misinformation by a British hate figure.

Throughout it all, Twitter has declined to take any actions against Trump’s account, recognizing that censoring the president of the United States is not necessarily something that a private company wants to do – or that citizens of a democracy should want a private company to be able to do.

Just last month, Twitter announced a new policy that would allow it to split the baby when it comes to violations of Twitter’s rules by Trump and other world leaders: a special label that would be affixed to tweets by major political figures if they violated Twitter’s rules, but deleting them would not be in the public’s interest.

But don’t hold your breath waiting for Twitter to add such a label to Trump’s racist rant against four progressive congresswomen. A Twitter spokeswoman said the tweets did not violate any of the company’s rules.

Which means that those looking for a way to combat Trump and his racism will be forced to rely on the institution designed to counterbalance the power of the US presidency: Congress.

Did the US occupation create ISIL? Interview With Paul Bremer (video)

Paul Bremer is the former Bush administration official appointed to be the Administrator of Iraq following Americas invasion in March of 2003. In May of 2003 he ordered the disbanding of the Iraqi army and the de-Baathification of the government. All this led to chaos in the country with a breakdown of the political and security systems as the U.S. military didn't have a enough forces on the ground to fill the ensuing power vacuum. Many critics blame the implementation of these policies for the rise of Al Qaida which until the removal of Saddam Hussein didn't have a foothold in the country. Even with the so called degrading of Al Qaida terrorism continued and evolved into what today is ISIL. Given all this failure one might think Paul Bremer shouldn't be given a platform to expause his policy opinions or have them taken seriously.

Yet, here he is advocating for President Obama to deploy 10,000 American soldiers to fight ISIL in Iraq. He must assume that with this deployment the disaster created by the Bush administration will magically be cleaned up.

Pakistan Is It's Own Worst Enemy Where The Taliban Are Concerned

Following the withdrawal of Soviet Forces from Afghanistan in 1988 a political and military vacuum was created Pakistan which shares a long border with that country saw opportunity to influence and perhaps control (from the background) any future government in Afghanistan.  Pakistan's Inter Service Intelligence (ISI) sought to create a proxy movement which could, with ISI's  oversight, funding and training achieve a political and military victory in a country torn apart by war.  Further assistance was provided by Nasrullah Barbar the Pakistan's Minister of the Interior under Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto.

Pakistan founded the Taliban.  

  "In 1994, with the failure of [Gulbuddin Hekmatyar's alliance] attempt to oust [the Afghan] Rabbani [administration], Pakistan found itself in an awkward position. Hekmatyar had proved incapable of seizing and controlling defended territory: in this respect he was a bitter disappointment to his patrons. ... In October 1994, [Pakistani interior minister] Babar [took] a group of Western ambassadors (including the US Ambassador to Pakistan John C. Monjo) to Kandahar, without even bothering to inform the Kabul government, even though it manned an embassy in Islamabad. ... On 29 October 1994, a convoy of trucks, including a notorious ISI officer, Sultan Amir ... and two figures who were later to become prominent Taliban leaders, entered Afghanistan."^[9]    

Following the attacks of 11 September 2001 Pakistan's government claimed they were no longer providing logistical, military training or funding to the Taliban.  It just wasn't true.

It's believed that Pakistan during the rule of General Pervez Musharraf was complicit in providing safe harbor for Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden.  General Musharraf at one point signed a peace treaty with the Taliban which they promptly broke with attacks in the Swat valley.  

Thus when stories spread of Pakistani military barbarity in the campaign against the Taliban in Pakistan – reports which included the execution of Taliban prisoners in Waziristan, whose bodies were left to lie upon the roads to be eaten by animals – the more certain became the revenge of the Taliban. The children of the military officers, educated at the army school just down the road from the famous Edwardes College in Peshawar – were the softest and most obvious of targets. For many years, the ISI and the Pakistani army helped to fund and arm the mujahedin and then the Taliban in Afghanistan. 

For years, the Pakistani authorities have insisted that the old loyalties of individual military and security police officers to the Taliban have been broken – and that the Pakistani military forces are now fully dedicated to what the Americans used to call the “war on terror”.

Who's to blame for Iraq crisis

Why don't you ask Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki a shite who's governd Iraq like a dictator since his installation in said office with the backing of the Bush administration.  al-Maliki has created the current crisis in Iraq through his lust for power and his willingness to marginilize Iraq's Sunni minority who could have helped him maintain control over the whole of Iraq instead he chose to create an enemy where none need exist.

The politicization of the Iraqi military

For more than five years, Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki and his ministers have presided over the packing of the Iraqi military and police with Shiite loyalists -- in both the general officer ranks and the rank and file -- while sidelining many effective commanders who led Iraqi troops in the battlefield gains of 2007-2010, a period during which al Qaeda in Iraq (the forerunner of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria) was brought to the brink of extinction.

Al-Maliki's "Shiafication" of the Iraqi security forces has been less about the security of Iraq than the security of Baghdad and his regime.

Like the deBaaification of Iraq's civil servants which completley backed fired on the Bush administration.  Iraqi government has caused the Sunni minority to join forces with militants whom they see as conduant for the removeal of the al-Maliki government.

The dismantling of the 'Awakening'

It's no accident that there exists today virtually no Sunni popular resistance to ISIS, but rather the result of a conscious al-Maliki government policy to marginalize theSunni tribal "Awakening" that deployed more than 90,000 Sunni fighters against al Qaeda in 2007-2008.

These 90,000 "Sons of Iraq" made a significant contribution to the reported 90% drop in sectarian violence in 2007-2008, assisting the Iraqi security forces and the United States in securing territory from Mosul to the Sunni enclaves of Baghdad and the surrounding Baghdad "belts." As the situation stabilized, the Iraqi government agreed to a plan to integrate vetted Sunni members of the Sons of Iraq into the Iraqi army and police to make those forces more representative of the overall Iraqi population.

al-Maliki only interested in his own surrivial never intergarted any Sunni military or police offiers into the countries security apperatous.  

Given that the Iraqi government is allied with Iran what happens when the government in Terhran concludes that the situation in that country has become untenable and deploies troops across the border in an effort to shore up the Maliki government?

Could that lead to a wider conflict in the region? Perhaps given that the other countries bordering Iraq are majority Sunni.

Iraq Descends Into Chaos Thanks To An Invasion

After the attacks of September 11, 2001 the Bush administration went into overdrive  in its quest to achieve a new American Century a neo-conservative wet dream born out of book written by Francis Fukuyama titled The End of History and the Last Man.

William Kristol along with  a Robert Kagan  formed a foundation called Project For a New American Century PNAC.  One of the core beliefs of PNAC was that through regime change in Iraq, the removal of Saddam Hussein from power Iraq would be transformed into a western style democracy. From a country created French diplomat   François Georges-Picot   and Briton  Sir Mark Sykes by drawing lines on a map of Asia Minor creating sphere's of influence for their perspective governments following the collapse of the Ottoman empire at the end of World War I.  The agreement is known as Sykes–Picot Agreement .   They drew straight lines which are recognised as the borders of Lebanon, Iraq, Syria and Jordan giving little consideration to the ethnic and religious differences which existed in the territories they now controlled.  Iraq is divided in three parts, Shite's in the south, Sunni's in the west and Kurds in the north all with competing interests.  Fast forward to March 2003 and the American invasion of Iraq which the Bush administration confidently predicted would be a cake walk and that Iraq's citizens would welcome the Americans with open arms and flowers which they did for all of 5 metaphorical minutes before the insurgency began.   On May 23, 2003 L Paul Bremer issued Coalition Provisional Authority Order 2 which disbanded the Iraqi army perhaps the one institution that could have helped prevent the insurgency to come.   That bit of hubris was followed by the  De-Baathification of Iraqi civil service.  Anyone who worked for Saddam's as a civil servant had to be a recognized member of the Baath party.  Of course never believing that one might need these people to help stabilize the country you just invaded they were all fired.

These policy decisions helped propel Iraq  into the chaos you see today along with the U.S 's backing of Nouri al-Maliki the current Prime Minister of Iraq whose ruled the country like he was a dictator marginalizing, imprisoning or forcing into exile leaders of Iraq's Sunni community.  

So, what happened?

Monday night into Tuesday, militants seized Mosul's airport, its TV stations and the governor's office. They freed up to 1,000 prisoners.

Police and soldiers ran from their posts rather than put up a fight, abandoning their weapons as they went. The militants took their place in the city's boulevards and buildings.

"There was no presence of any government forces on the streets, the majority of their posts destroyed and manned by (Islamist militants)," resident Firas al-Maslawi told CNN.

Why is this significant?

Mosul is the nation's second-largest city. What's happening here doesn't bode well for Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's administration. It calls into question whether he has a handle on the country.

The devastating militant advance, which had been building for some time, is proving an object lesson of much that is wrong in Iraq and the region -- growing sectarian tensions at home and a festering civil war over the border in Syria.

 

      

Iraq PM urges Fallujah to expel al-Qaeda

Modern day Iraq was carved out of the Ottoman empire following its defeat in World War I.  Two people are responsible for not only creating Iraq, but Syria, Jordan, Lebanon what would become the state of Israel.   Its known as the Sykes-Picot Agreement

Briton Sir Mark Sykes and French Diplomat Francois Georges-Picot were the architects of this secret agreement which divided the lands of the former Ottoman Empire into British and French spheres of influence. Russia gave its assent to the agreements reached but with the successful Russian revolution the new Communist government exposed the deal to the public.

Look at any post World War I map of the Middle East and what stands out?  Straight lines.  Sykes and Picot drew straight lines on a map without giving any thought to the unintended consequences  those lines might create.  They divided whole ethnic and religious groups placing them into countries with other peoples who might not share their same religious and ethnic background.  Iraq is a perfect example.

    
 




English: Major ethno-religious groups in Iraq

   Sunni Arabs

   Shiite Arabs

   Muslim Kurds

   Assyrians

   Yazidi Kurds

   Turkmen

Iraq's creation and ethnic make up are important when considering not only events in the last several days but both Gulf War's.   Remember in the first Gulf War former President George H.W. Bush and his military commanders choose not to pursue Iraqi forces upon their retreat across the boarder.  As they felt the consequences of such actions would cause a wider war within the Middle East and divide Iraq along ethnic and religious lines leading to the countries  ultimate break up.  That didn't stop George W. Bush.  Damn the consequences we must invade.  Look at Iraq today and one can view in all its horror what  that invasion has brought .

Iraq's prime minister has urged residents and tribes in Fallujah to drive out al-Qaeda-linked fighters to avoid an all-out battle in the besieged city, a sign that the government could be paving the way for an imminent military offensive.
In a message broadcast over state television on Monday, Nouri al-Maliki said tribal leaders should help push fighters of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), who last week seized key towns in Anbar province, out of Fallujah.
"The prime minister appeals to the tribes and people of Fallujah to expel the terrorists from the city in order to spare themselves the risk of armed clashes," the statement read.
The fighters' seizure of Fallujah and parts of the provincial capital, Ramadi, has marked the most direct challenge to Maliki's government since the departure of American forces two years ago.
The army has surrounded Fallujah, which is just 65km west of the Iraqi capital, Baghdad. It is located in the vast Sunni-dominated and largely desert province of Anbar, which borders Syria, where ISIL fighters are also battling to topple President Bashar al-Assad

Al-Qaeda leader in Syria speaks to Al Jazeera

In his first-ever media interview, Abu Mohammed al-Joulani, leader of Jabhat al-Nusra, says conflict is nearing end.



The leader of al-Qaeda’s branch in Syria, one of the most powerful groups in the war-torn country, has told Al Jazeera that that the conflict is nearing an end and that his fighters hold the upper hand.

In his first-ever televised interview, Abu Mohammed al-Joulani, the leader of Jabhat al-Nusra, ruled out peace talks with President Bashar al-Assad and warned that Arab states should be cautious of the recent improvement of Iran-US ties.

“The battle is almost over, we have covered about 70 percent of it, and what's left is small. We will achieve victory soon. We pray to God to culminate these efforts with victory. It's only a matter of days,” he said in an exclusive interview with Al Jazeera’s Tayseer Allouni from an undisclosed location in Syria.

Al-Joulani added that al-Nusra - designated by the UN, the US and other western countries as a terrorist organisation - would not accept the outcome of the upcoming international conference in Geneva scheduled for January.

The War In Afghanistan To Go On and On and On

It appears that the Afghan and U.S. governments have reached an agreement which would could American ground forces in that country for the foreseeable future and not some short term commitment either.  It would seem to be forever.

 While many Americans have been led to believe the war in Afghanistan will soon be over, a draft of a key U.S.-Afghan security deal obtained by NBC News shows the United States is prepared to maintain military outposts in Afghanistan for many years to come, and pay to support hundreds of thousands of Afghan security forces.The wide-ranging document, still unsigned by the United States and Afghanistan, has the potential to commit thousands of American troops to Afghanistan and spend billions of U.S. taxpayer dollars.
The document outlines what appears to be the start of a new, open-ended military commitment in Afghanistan in the name of training and continuing to fight al-Qaeda. The war in Afghanistan doesn’t seem to be ending, but renewed under new, scaled-down U.S.-Afghan terms

The copy of the draft -- the full text is available here --  is dated July 25, 2013.

“No detention or arrest shall be carried out by the United States forces. The United States forces shall not search any homes or other real estate properties,” it says.
“[The contradiction] was a matter of serious consternation at the highest levels” of the Obama administration over the weekend, according to one senior defense official. “It is the one remaining issue that could ultimately kill the deal." However, US officials believe that in a more recent draft, which was circulated among key Pentagon officials and US lawmakers on Monday, the US has won its position on this point.

The document doesn’t specifically say how many U.S. and NATO troops would remain in Afghanistan beyond 2014. Afghan officials tell NBC News they hope it will be 10 to 15 thousand. U.S. officials tell NBC News the number is closer to seven to eight thousand, with an additional contribution from NATO. Factoring in troop rotations, home leave, and breaks between deployments, the service of tens of thousands of American troops would be required to maintain a force of seven to eight thousand for a decade or longer. The anticipated costs would likely run into the billions quickly.

I'm sure the American public along with the rest of the world are just "so happy to hear that the war in Afghanistan will go on forever."  It's like 1984 we've always been at war with Al Qaida even when we  aren't.  For the worlds arms dealers this a dream fulfilled as they can continue to enrich themselves while killing hundreds if not thousands of people with their weapons.  They will even use some of those profits to create new and better ways to kill people, I mean the enemy.

U.S. Closes Consulate in Lahore Pakistan

While the U.S. has ordered its consular staff out of Lahore here's the question:  Why was that necessary?

Let's begin with the Taliban and their creation by Pakistan's Inter Service Intelligence (ISI) the equivalent to America's C.I.A.

On Pakistan's western border with Afghanistan, the ISI supported the Taliban up to September 11, 2001, though Pakistani officials deny any current support for the group. Pakistan's government was also one of three countries, along with the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia, that recognized the Taliban government in Afghanistan. The ISI's first major involvement in Afghanistan came after the Soviet invasion in 1979, when it partnered with the CIA to provide weapons, money, intelligence, and training to the mujahadeen fighting the Red Army. At the time, some voices within the United States questioned the degree to which Pakistani intelligence favored extremist and anti-American fighters. Following the Soviet withdrawal, the ISI continued its involvement in Afghanistan, first supporting resistance fighters opposed to Moscow's puppet government, and later the Taliban.

The evidence supports the ISI's assistance in the creation of the Taliban once the Soviet Union withdrew its forces in 1988.  1994 is the pivotal year both for the emergence of the Taliban and the suspecting Pakistani government involvement through the ISI in money, training and weapons.

While to many the origins of the Taliban still appeared mysterious, by the end of year, some sources were "concerned that the GOP [Government of Pakistan] (ISI) is deeply involved in the Taliban takeover in Kandahar and Qalat."[10] The same source also expressed concern that the influence of the unpopular Pakistanis in the south could further destabilise the country and sooner or later lead to an Afghan-Pakistani conflict. Meanwhile, the Taliban continued their conquest of Afghanistan and marched north.
Pakistan was still putting its eggs into two baskets: On the one hand there were the Taliban, who had contributed to the opening of smuggling routes in the south, and on the other hand there was Hekmatyar and his Hizb-i Islami, who were exerting pressure on the government in Kabul. 

Now for the contradiction.  Following the attacks by Al Qaida on America in September of 2001 Pakistan became a "vital member" in America's war on terror yet both the Taliban and Al Qaida were never sidelined perhaps marginalized but ever eradicated.

Pakistan's participation in america's so called war on terror was predicated on financial backing from the U.S. government.   Ok a bribe.

 

Major developments[edit source | editbeta]

The
The Saudi born Zayn al-Abidn Muhammed Hasayn Abu Zubaydah, was arrested by Pakistani officials during a series of joint U.S. and Pakistan raids during the week of 23 March 2002. During the raid, the suspect was shot three times while trying to escape capture by military personnel. Zubaydah is said to be a high-ranking al-Qaeda official with the title of operations chief and in charge of running al-Qaeda training camps.^[9]Later that year on 11 September 2002, Ramzi bin al-Shibh was arrested in Pakistan after a three-hour gunfight with police forces. Bin al-Shibh is known to have shared a room withMohamed Atta in Hamburg, Germany and to be a financial backer of al-Qaeda operations.
It is said bin al-Shibh was supposed to be another hijacker, however the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services rejected his visa application three times, leaving him to the role of financier. The trail of money transferred by bin al-Shibh from Germany to the United States links both Mohammad Atta and Zacarias Moussaoui.^[10]On 1 March 2003, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed was arrested during CIA-led raids on the suburb of Rawalpindi, nine miles outside of the Pakistani capital of Islamabad. Mohammed at the time of his capture was the third highest-ranking official in al-Qaeda and had been directly in charge of the planning for the 11 September attacks.^[11][12]Mohammed having escaped capture the week before during a previous raid, the Pakistani government was able to use information gathered from other suspects captured to locate and detain him. Mohammed was indicted in 1996 by the United States government for links to the Oplan Bojinka, a plot to bomb a series of U.S. civilian airliners.^[13]Other events Mohammed has been linked to include: ordering the killing of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl, the USS Cole bombing, Richard Reid's attempt to blow up a civilian airliner with a shoe bomb, and the terrorist attack at the El Ghriba synagogue in Djerba, Tunisia. Khalid Shaikh Mohammed has described himself as the head of the al-Qaeda military committee.^[14]

Pakistan continued to play both sides of the street.  Receiving billions of dollars in aid from to fight its so called war on terror but doing nothing to curb the growing militancy within its borders.  Several times the Pakistani government negotiated terms of ceasefire with the Taliban and Al Qaida only to have them break the agreements and restart their efforts at overthrowing the government.  The Swat valley in 2010 is a perfect example of this.   Once the ceasefire was broken the Pakistani Taliban took control of large portions of the Swat valley until a major military offensive was undertaken.

Malala Yousafzai is from the Swat valley and wrote a blog for the BBC about her experiences of living under Taliban rule.

The Pakistani army ordered residents to flee the Swat Valley during a lull in fighting , triggering a further exodus of frightened people and raising expectations of a significant ground offensive against the Taliban.
Miles of traffic jams snaked out of the war-torn valley as tens of thousands of people fled using all available means, from donkey-drawn carts to rickshaws.
In the battlezone the army said it had killed another 200 militants, most of them in a strike on a training camp in Shangla district and 55 in Swat. The fight is being closely watched from the US.
General David Petraeus, head of the US central command, ,warned that the Taliban posed a threat "to the very existence of the Pakistani state".
Petraeus said al-Qaida's central leadership had moved to Pakistan but he denied that generous military aid was linked to a possible US deployment. "This is not about us putting combat boots on the ground," he told Fox News.

Cash For Crooks And The Corrupt

Following the September 11 2001 attacks on New York and Washington D.C. the U.S. sought out those responsible.  After Al Qaida took credit the American government demanded that the Taliban government turn over those accused of the crime to the U.S. so that they could face justice. The Taliban refused.  Setting in motion the American war in Afghanistan which is on going to this day.  Casting about for a leader they could work with: an acceptable allie that would follow American political doctrine Hamid Karzai was their choice.  Having a western education they assumed that he would aqueous to policies seen as preferable to American interests.  All for a little incentive, good old American green backs.         

Just a few problems have arisen seen all of these wonderful events have taken place.  The Afghani government is one of the most corrupt in the world with ties to drug dealing and embezzlement aid funds ment for the rebuilding of the country.  

So, why should come as any surprise that the C.I.A has been delivering large sums of money to the office of the president all in cash.   After all the C.I.A has done this before all in the name of American interests just ask the people of Iran how well it has all worked out.

Today's New York Times has  a front page story about?  The C.I.A.  handing over large amounts of cash to office of the President of Afghanistan: How surprising!

 For more than a decade, wads of American dollars packed into suitcases, backpacks and, on occasion, plastic shopping bags have been dropped off every month or so at the offices of Afghanistan’s president — courtesy of the Central Intelligence Agency.
 All told, tens of millions of dollars have flowed from the C.I.A. to the office of President Hamid Karzai, according to current and former advisers to the Afghan leader.“We called it ‘ghost money,’ ” said Khalil Roman, who served as Mr. Karzai’s deputy chief of staff from 2002 until 2005. “It came in secret, and it left in secret.”

Ghost money. What a wonderful euphemism "Ghost Money" as elusive as a real ghost perhaps the Ghost Busters should be envolved?

Moreover, there is little evidence that the payments bought the influence the C.I.A. sought. Instead, some American officials said, the cash has fueled corruption and empowered warlords, undermining Washington’s exit strategy from Afghanistan.
“The biggest source of corruption in Afghanistan,” one American official said, “was the United States.”

Imagine that the money helped foster corruption in an overtly corrupt nation how surprising.