Welcome to the post-Osama world By Pepe Escobar

THE ROVING EYE
Welcome to the post-Osama world
By Pepe Escobar

To follow Pepe's articles on the Great Arab Revolt, please click here.

United States President Barack Obama, riding high in the polls, his re-election virtually assured, is now free to bask in the glow of his all-American victory in the global "war on terror", which his administration had rechristened "overseas contingency operations" (OCO). The Osama Bin Laden hit on Monday was indeed an OCO - a swift, overseas "kinetic military action" surmounting innumerable contingencies such as the violation of the aerial space of a theoretically sovereign nation.

Yet US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's first reaction was to stress the "war on terror" in fact goes on forever, true to the spirit of the Pentagon's own slogan, "The Long War". That applies especially to the ultra-strategic AfPak theater. It's as if commander-in-chief Obama could not but be a regal prisoner in a labyrinth not of his own making.

The White House's move to break out of the labyrinth was to paradoxically go ballistic and seal the death of the 9/11 trauma, capitalized by the George W Bush administration as a license to kill evil - be it in itself or in the form of an axis - and thus affirm Jeffersonian freedom. From 2001 to 2008, those were the years when the hyperpower - on a mission from God and focused as a laser on a Hegel/Fukuyama "end of history" - simply trampled over international law.

The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq were supposed to be only the first two stops on the way to redemption (then there would be the road to Damascus, Tehran and even Tripoli ...) What was christened as The Greater Middle East project was supposed to smash "terror" and the regimes that sheltered it; the Taliban Afghanistan and - in the neo-con vision - Saddamist Iraq. Others would inevitably fall like dominoes.

Almost a decade after 9/11 - and with the Bush "dead or alive" promise finally fulfilled Terminator-style - where does the former hyperpower goes next?

The strategic chessboard has completely changed. It's hard to exercise hyperpower hegemony when you know China will overtake you as the world's number one economy, possibly as soon as 2016 - and when you're drowning in debt to, who else, strategic competitor China. Yet you're still overextended military, and your never-ending "war on terror", not to mention two-and-a-half wars, are costing trillions of dollars, paid up by, who else, your top banker China.

Your soft power is not as seductive as it used to be - although your hi-tech creativity is still matchless; and most of all nobody in the developing world, starting with the BRICS group, gives any credence to your Washington Consensus anymore.

And the winner is ... China
So for now the winner of the "war on terror" is China, which for a number of reasons, paramount among them the Deng Xiaoping motto "to get rich is glorious", is now close to the point where it was for 18 of the past 20 centuries, that is, on top.

Obama may be accused of many things - including of being a Nobel Peace Prize warmonger. But he's also a smart intellectual. The president has surveyed the landscape and has seen how America's Paul Kennedy-diagnosed imperial overextension has accelerated its decline. And he also has seen how in the process the US was totally corroded by the specter of "Islamic terror".

And that may lead us to the answer of the magic bullet question about the timing of the Bin Laden hit.

When 9/11 happened, music genius Karlheinz Stockhausen said - to the outrage of millions of Americans - that "this was the greatest work of art the world has ever seen." He had a point as 9/11 - in terms of its impact upon the collective unconscious of mankind, almost to the point of paralysis - reduced Albert Speer's and Leni Riefenstahl's specials to child's play.

So to symbolically kill the "war on terror" - which was invented because of 9/11 - Obama had to (literally) kill the (alleged) perpetrator, be it real or not, guilty or not, a clone or not. Thus the hit, the swift disposal of the body, no photos, end of the movie, no credits rolling; a tight cinematic narrative. The obvious holes in the plot, as in any Hollywood blockbuster, are deemed irrelevant; what matters is success at the box-office - and we move on.

Like a basketball-playing Freudian, Obama went for the kill, the reason of the whole trauma. He identified it as the only way to start anew - as in trying to end the wars in both Afghanistan and Iraq and start concentrating on what really matters for the US; investments in education and infrastructure, the dire state of the economy.

There's no guarantee Obama's "cure" will work. Millions of Americans may - and are - feeling the boost, as if the whole country ingested a tsunami of Red Bull. The key question is whether jihadism will disappear for good from the current geopolitical landscape.

In fact even before the Bin Laden hit it had already been defeated by history - as in the great 2011 Arab revolt affirming, unequivocally, the Arab world's will to welcome democracy, not suicide bombers.

Obama's "cure" will face monstrous contradictions. Drones kill civilians in the Pakistani tribal areas while the North Atlantic Treaty Organization's "humanitarian" war kills civilians in Libya. Humanitarian warmongers silent in the face of the appalling repression in Bahrain and the House of Saud getting away with conducting an anti-democracy counter-revolution all across the Persian Gulf.

If Bin Laden - and Muammar Gaddafi - may be selected for diplomacy by targeted assassination, why not the ghastly dictatorship in Myanmar, or Islam Karimov in Uzbekistan? Moreover, the Pentagon will keep fighting with all its might to keep its Long War going on forever.

Obama the psychoanalyst has just baptized a new, post-Osama world. Let's see how America reacts, or if it's soon back to the couch.

Pepe Escobar is the author of Globalistan: How the Globalized World is Dissolving into Liquid War (Nimble Books, 2007) and Red Zone Blues: a snapshot of Baghdad during the surge. His new book, just out, is Obama does Globalistan (Nimble Books, 2009).

He may be reached at pepeasia@yahoo.com.

SPECIAL REPORT. You only live twice -- The fakery of the deaths of America's "Most Wanted"

President Obama has said that he will not authorize the release of photographs purporting to show the body of Osama bin Laden. Obama claims that he does not want the photos to "inflame tensions" in the Muslim world.

The United States has not always been so reticent to release photos of its dead quarry of "most wanted" men. On July 22, 2003, the Pentagon reported that a US Special Operations team, not unlike the one that allegedly killed Osama Bin Laden in Abbottabad, Pakistan, engaged in a firefight with Saddam Hussein's two sons, Uday and Qusay Hussein, at a safehouse in Mosul. After a four-hour battle, the Pentagon reported that Uday and Qusay, along with Qusay's 14-year old son, Mustapha, were killed while resisting apprehension. The Pentagon propaganda machine claimed that dental records proved that it was Uday and Qusay who the Special Operations team had killed. And to prove their case, the U.S. military released gruesome photos of the bodies of Uday and Qusay.


Left to right: Post-autopsy photos of Qusay and Uday Hussein. Upper row, Uday Hussein alive and dead. Lower row: Qusay Hussein alive and dead.
Then-Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld defended his decision to release the Uday and Qusay photos. He said, ""This is an unusual situation. This regime has been in power for decades. These two individuals were particularly vicious individuals. ... They are now dead. ... The Iraqi people have been waiting for confirmation of that and they in my view deserve having confirmation of that . . . It was not a close call for me."

On December 30, 2006, Uday and Qusay's father, former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, was executed by hanging. A camera phone video showed Saddam being led to the gallows and a rope being put around his neck. However, the video never showed Saddam's actual hanging. On December 13, 2003, Saddam was supposedly captured in a "spider hole" in ad-Dawr, near his hometown of Tikrit, in a mission code-named "Operation Red Dawn," named after an anti-Soviet right-wing propaganda movie from the 1980s.

But why did President Bush land on the USS Abraham Lincolnon May 1, 2003 under a banner that stated "Mission Accomplished?"  Coincidentally, it was the same day eight years later that President Obama would declare that U.S. forces killed Osama Bin Laden. Bush was well aware that the Husseins died on April 7, 2003 at the Mansour restaurant. All that was left was to come up with a series of cover stories to cover up the violation of previous presidential orders prohibiting the assassination of foreign leaders.


Left to right: "Saddam" being pulled from spider hole, "Saddam" with noose around his neck, a photo of the dead "Saddam."
The Pentagon had no problem allowing photos of the dead Husseins to be transmitted worldwide. There was no U.S. angst over the "propaganda" value some people might have attached to the photos or anti-American retaliation. There was a simple reason for the United States government to permit the release of the photos of the Husseins: the circumstances under which they supposedly died was a fabrication.

The Bush administration and the complicit corporate media conspired to sell the deaths of the Husseins to cover-up for the fact that the three Husseins actually died on April 7, 2003 after a B-1 bomber dropped four Joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM) bombs on the Al Sa-ah Restaurant in the Mansour District of Baghdad.

Rumsfeld, who was Secretary of Defense on February 18, 1976, when President Gerald Ford signed Executive Order 11905, prohibiting the assassination of foreign leaders. Rumsfeld knew he was on legal thin ice in permitting the Air Force to take out Saddam Hussein, the legal head of state of Iraq. The anti-assassination order was renewed by President Jimmy Carter's Executive Order 12036 and reaffirmed by President Ronald Reagan's Executive Order 12333. Rumsfeld knew he had to cover his tracks legally for the events of April 7, 2003 in the skies over Baghdad.

The B-1 had been issued orders to drop its payload on a weapons station north of Baghdad. However, the plane's pilot received orders to return back to Baghdad. "This is the big one," is what the pilot, Air Force Captain Chris Wachter, heard over his headphones. Wachter's mother told WMR about the series of events that occurred on April 7, 2003, and compared them to the fakery of the killing of "Osama Bin Laden."

What changed the mission for the B-1, code-named "Swede 72," was intelligence that had been received by a joint team of CIA, Delta Force, and Grey Fox units operating in Baghdad. Through the interception of the Racal Jaguar cell phones used by the three Husseins, the U.S. intelligence teams were able to pinpoint the location of the Husseins at the Al-Sa-ah restaurant. Swede-72 was to drop its payload on the restaurant. Saddam had acquired the supposedly secure phones from the British firm Racal after the first Gulf War. However, unknown to Saddam, the Racal phones had a security backdoor that permitted Britain's Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) and its allies at the U.S. National security Agency to track the phones. The Husseins were sitting ducks after using their phones at the restaurant.

In fact, after US Central Command (CENTCOM) commander General Tommy Franks personally heard the Husseins talking on their phones, he issued orders for Swede-72 to turn around and hit the Baghdad restaurant.  Franks ordered Swede-72's pilot to check his coordinates with a specific order, "Don't miss."

In killing Saddam Hussein, the Bush administration violated the Executive Order 12333 prohibiting political assassinations of foreign leaders. The Order states "no employee of the United States government shall engage in or conspire to engage in political assassinations."

After Swede-72 dropped its JDAM payload, the three ongoing communications on the Husseins' cell phones simultaneously ceased. The cell phones were as dead as their owners. After Swede-72 returned to its home base, reportedly in Oman, a live feed television link-up was established with their command. The crew of Swede-72 was told by their commander, "You got him. You got Saddam and his two boys!"

Later, the crew of Swede-72 was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross by Air Force Cbief of Staff General T. Michael Moseley. The citation read that the crew received the award for "completely destroying one of the principle targets of the campaign."

The firefight that "killed" Uday and Qusay in Mosul and the subsequent capture of Saddam, his internment at Camp Cropper in Baghdad, and his trial and "execution" were cheaply-made Hollywood-like productions to cover up what occurred on April 7. The man who argued during the trial with a virtually unknown judge and the man who was defiant to his "hanging" was one of Saddam's many doubles. According to Pravda, after meeting the prisoner "Saddam" in Qatar, Saddam's wife, Sajida Heiralla Tuffah, revealed that the man she met was not her husband. Saddam's reputed mistress for some 30 years, Parisoula Lampsos, told ABC News that the man who was captured in the spider hole was not Saddam Hussein.
One such double, a man who calls himself Mikhael Ramadan, which may be a CIA cover name to bolster his federal witness protection program status in northern Virginia, wrote a book called, "In the Shadow of Saddam." On the back cover of the book sits Ramadan, very much a Saddam doppelganger. Ramadan, who may have really been Makhluf Ramadhan, defected to the United States in 1999.

The "Wanted" photo of Saddam circulated by the US Army in Iraq differed greatly from the man pulled from the spider hole outside of Tikrit. The Saddam "double" had an underbite and front teeth that clearly showed decay while the real Saddam had an overbite and immaculate teeth, courtesy of the best dental work his wealth could buy.

WMR has learned from informed sources that the December 2003 newspaper photograph of Iraqi National Congress leader Ahmed Chalabi meeting Saddam Hussein in a jail cell was also a disinformation event. Chalabi met with one of Saddan's doubles. The newspaper that published the Chalabi-Saddam photo, Al-Moutamar, is owned by Chalabi. Chalabi's nephew Salem Chalabi, a lawyer colleague of arch-neocon and Zionist Douglas Feith, was involved in the prosecution of "Saddam," and the judge who sentenced "Saddam" to death, Munir Haddad, was a hand-picked crony of Chalabi. Chalabi, no stranger to disinformation campaigns, was the person who shopped the fraudster "Curveball" to U.S. intelligence to push bogus claims that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction.

The killing of Saddam Hussein and his sons at the outset of the Iraq War was no secret. On May 7, 2003, the Baltimore Sun reported on a speech given by Vice President Dick Cheney. The Sunreported, "'I think we did get Saddam Hussein,' Cheney told a capacity crowd at McFarlane Auditorium at Southern Methodist University. 'He was seen beinbg dug out of the rubble and wasn't able to breathe.'" White House chief of staff Andy Card told a radio audience, "I believe he [Saddam] is dead." General Franks stated that they had positively identified by DNA and "forensic tests" the Saddam pulled from the rubble of the Baghdad restaurant. It is the same claim now being offered by the Obama White House as proof that Bin Laden was killed in Pakistan.

Other media reports on Saddam's death came from UPI, which, on April 13, 2003, reported: "Last Wednesday we went out on a limb in UPI analysis and concluded the evidence was overwhelming that Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein was already dead, his foul body obliterated last Monday by the four 2,000 pound bunker-busting bombs unloaded on him courtesy of the U.S. Air Force. The 'wicked witch' is indeed dead." The same day as the UPI article, Al Jazeera reported: "Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein has been killed during the night of April 7-8 as a result of a bombing raid on the Al-Mansour District of Baghdad." And from Fox News, a virtual echo chamber for the Bush administration, came the following: "U.S. officials told Fox News there's a chance they could know as soon as Tuesday whether Saddam is dead. They said some early indications are positive but they are very preliminary. There's a strong chance we got Saddam and probably both sons, senior U.S. officials told Fox News. The official said the CIA provided the intelligence that led to the strike."

The fakery does not end with Saddam and his sons. On April 12, 2003, the Sydney Morning Herald, among other media sources, reported that Saddam’s half-brother Barzan al-Tikriti was killed as a result of military action. However, the media later reported that Barzan had been hanged after a guilty conviction in January 2007. Headlines read "Witness: Executed man’s ‘head just snapped off.'" The only problem is that Barzan was already dead. There was no trial and there was no hanging. It was all made up.

The story on Saddam began to change when the always dubious Time magazine reported: "The U.S. isn't known to have any DNA on Saddam." The story was changing fast and the corporate media and its professional stenographers began to alter reality as they have done so many times in the past and currently, as witnessed in just the past few days.

After a U.S. bomb reportedly killed Muammar Qaddafi's son and three grandsons in Tripoli, the Obama administration claimed that showing the blown-to-pieces corpses of Qaddafi's family members was insufficient proof to confirm that the Obama administration, like its predecessor, violated the law by targeting the residence of Qaddafi's son, where the Libyan leader and his wife were present just prior to the U.S. attack. Yet Obama and his advisers want the world to believe that Osama Bin Laden was killed without photographic evidence. Bin Laden's body was said to have been dumped at sea and the story about Bin Laden's "killing" has changed as fast as the original reports about the death of Saddam Hussein and his two sons in Baghdad.

The Pakistani Urdu-language newspaper Ausafis quoting a neighbor of the so-called "mansion" where Bin Laden was allegedly killed that the house was owned by a Pakistani of Pashtun descent. was built in 2005, and was the home to a number of the owner's family members. The neighbor said neither he nor his neighbors ever saw or heard any inkling that Bin Laden was in the house. Senior Pakistani officials echoed the claim made in November 2007 by the late Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto that Bin Laden had died or been killed elsewhere and years before the alleged Abbottabad killing, for which the Obama administration has provided no credible evidence other than their "word," which in the history of recent administrations, is not worth very much in the credibility market.

On January 19, 2002, Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf told CNN that he believed Bin Laden had died from kidney failure. Musharraf said, "We know that he [Bin Laden] donated two dialysis machines to Afghanistan. One was specifically for his own personal use." Musharraf added, "And the photographs that have been shown of him on television show him extremely weak. . . . I would give the first priority that he is dead." One of the dialysis machines was delivered to Bin Laden's base in Kandahar. Current Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari said in 2009 that Bin Laden was dead.

General Franks, the chief of CENTCOM, did not dismiss Musharraff's comments out-of-hand. Franks said none of his intelligence reports could confirm or deny that Bin Laden had died from kidney failure. Franks said, "Bin Laden could be alive, dead, or in Afghanistan or not . . . right now, I honestly don't know where he is."

In 2008, former CIA officer Robert Baer said of Bin Laden's status, "Of course he's dead." In 2002, FBI counterterrorism chief Dale Watson said Bin Laden was "probably dead."

This editor previously reported that Bin Laden had been spirited away from Pakistan in December 2001 to his native Hadhramaut homeland of South Yemen where he died attended by members of his family and tribe. In a purpiorted video tape made in early December 2001, Bin Laden was frail and ashen. Bin Laden's left arm appeared to be immobilized in a manner that indicated he may have had a stroke.

In a February 1999, article in The Guardian, former CIA counter-terrorism chief Vince Cannistraro asserted that Bin Laden's kidney failure resulted from a Saudi poisining attempt in 1998. Cannistraro said, "The Saudis hired someone among his followers to poison him, probably in November [1998]. He suffered kidney failure but recovered, at least partially." That report was followed up by a February 15, 1999, story in the Saudi-owned newspaper Al Hayat that Bin Laden was suffering kidney pain.

French media reported that Bin Laden received kidney treatment from the urology department of the American Hospital in Dubai on July 4, 2001. Bin Laden was visited in his hospital room by the Dubai CIA station chief, Larry Mitchell, a report the CIA later vehemently denied. Bin Laden had arrived from Quetta, Pakistan with his personal physician and nurse, as well as four security guards. In January 2002, CBS News reported that on September 10, 2001, the night before the attacks, for which Bin Laden was never charged by the FBI, the leader of "Al Qaeda" received kidney dialysis in Rawalpindi, Pakistan.

On December 26, 2001, the Egyptian newspaper al-Wafd published the following obituary notice for Bin Laden: "News of Bin Laden's Death and Funeral 10 days ago. Islamabad -A prominent official in the Afghan Taleban movement announced yesterday the death of Osama bin Laden, the chief of al-Qa'da organization, stating that bin Laden suffered serious complications in the lungs and died a natural and quiet death. The official, who asked to remain anonymous, stated to The Observer of Pakistan that he had himself attended the funeral of bin Laden and saw his face prior to burial in Tora Bora 10 days ago. He mentioned that 30 of al-Qa'da fighters attended the burial as well as members of his family and some friends from the Taleban. In the farewell ceremony to his final rest guns were fired in the air. The official stated that it is difficult to pinpoint the burial location of bin Laden because according to the Wahhabi tradition no mark is left by the grave. He stressed that it is unlikely that the American forces would ever uncover any traces of bin Laden."

Just as with Saddam and his sons, the United States saw fit to disclose the death of Bin Laden in order to gain political and intelligence advantage. In the case of Bin Laden, the U.S. is now applying maximum pressure on Pakistan, which is being accused by many circles of being complicit with Bin Laden and "Al Qaeda."

And, as with Saddam, the United States may have decided to kill one of Bin Laden's doubles. Many people were thought to be Bin Laden in the months after 9/11. The Halifax (NS) Daily News of May 24, 2002, reported that excited villagers in eastern Uganda seized a tall and bearded man and turned him into local authorities believing him to be Bin Laden. The man was, in fact, a Ugandan look-alike. Apparently, the Ugandans were hoping to snare the $25 million bounty offered up by the United States as a reward for capturing the Al Qaeda leader.

There is strong evdience that Bin Laden may have died before or shortly after 9/11 and that he has been used by the U.S. intelligence community and the neo-conservative cabal that has infected, like a cancer, the American body politic. Bin Laden became "Public Enemy Number One," pulled right out of central casting, and developed into the main enemy by corporate news media "journalists", who have acted merely as cast "extras" in a series of stage-managed productions for television.

In the late 1990s, before the total corruption of television news, there were clues reported about Bin Laden's imminent demise from a number of ailments, including hepatitis-C, renal failure, liver cancer, diabetes, extremely low blood pressure, and Marfan Syndrome, a connective tissue disease that affects taller people and drastically shortens an individual's life span. Bin Laden was 6 foot, four inches tall. The Pentagon and CIA refused to disclose details of Bin Laden's health, citing their medical summaries of Bin Laden's health status as classified.

On June 17, 1999, ABC News' John McWethy reported, "officials say there is growing evidence that he [Bin Laden] suffers from a degenerative condition known as Marfan Syndrome, which limits his mobility and may put him at high risk of heart attack or stroke."

On February 27, 2000, the New York Post reported that Bin Laden was in a poor physical condition and that two doctors from the United Arab Emirates were smuggled into Jalalabad, Afghanistan to treat his worsening kidney condition. Arab newspapers reported that Bin Laden was going to hand over control of Al Qaeda ro his deputies. After 9/11, reports of Bin Laden's ill-health were suddenly dropped by the media. The stock footage from the 1990s of a healthy Bin Laden emerging from a cave with a satellite phone was shown over and over again. However, after the Russian assassination of Chechen President Dzhokar Dudayev in 1996, after coordinates of the Chechen leader's satellite phone were passed to Russian Air Force planes who launched an air-to-ground missile, Bin Laden ditched his own satellite phone with the number 00873682505331, instead resorting to the use of couriers, one of which was identified by U.S. intelligence, a nugget that ultimately led to Bin Laden in Abbottabad, or so we are led to believe.

When it comes to blatant propaganda and lying on a grand scale, there's not a dime's worth of difference between George W. Bush and Barack Obama, Jr. However, what is galling is that U.S. servicemen who served in Swede-7 and Navy SEAL Team 6 have permitted themselves to be used as movie extras in bad Hollywood-inspired dramas. At least they should request Screen Actor's Guild wages in return for selling out the American people and the U.S. Constitution they swore to defend.

Show us the shooter By Pepe Escobar

THE ROVING EYE
Show us the shooter
By Pepe Escobar

To follow Pepe's articles on the Great Arab Revolt, please click here.

Show us the Navy SEALs hero who did the double-tapping on Osama bin Laden - the one-two in the head to make sure the target of a hit job is out - after a "firefight" the signs of which are virtually absent in that squalid "mansion" in Abbottabad.

Show us the greatest hero of modern American history, the man who shot America's public enemy number one, the most evil terrorist in the history of the Universe who masterminded the most spectacular attack of all time against the US.

Parade him on Ground Zero and in downtown Manhattan, give him

 
a row of Purple and rainbow-colored Hearts, make him a partner of Goldman Sachs, get him on Oprah, Rush and Anderson Cooper, induct him into the Rock'n Roll Hall of Fame.

If you're Republican, make him run for president; unlike Donald "that fox on his head" Trump or Sarah "I can see Pakistan from my house" Palin, he would actually turn President Barack Obama into collateral damage. Or at least crown him secretary of defense - supreme purveyor of the targeted assassination as the paramount tool of international diplomacy.

Take two
Rewind to the cliffhanger scene in all its Hi-Def glory - broadcast live to the situation room in Washington.

The hero, fully equipped, pumped up, is face to face with the real Osama bin Laden, unarmed, just out of bed, trapped in a drab room. There's no possible escape; the whole compound is "secured". This is it - the moment America has been dreaming about since September 11, 2001.

The rehearsal took place hundreds of times before during the everlasting "war on terror". The procedure was to immobilize the suspect, put a bag over his head, transfer him to a helicopter (there were three outside, one had already crashed), then to a military base, and then, in an orange jumpsuit, straight to Gitmo.

Now the hero is face to face with the man who caused the "war on terror" itself to exist. And what does he do? Not a shot in the arm, leg or knee. Not even a casually tossed stun grenade. No extraordinary rendition - what is this good for anyway if it does not apply to public enemy number one?

The hero double-taps the fugitive - codename "Geronimo" (a native who defied the Empire; talk about defiling native-Americans once again). This is the way the biggest, costliest manhunt ever ends; not with a prolonged bang, but with two golden bullets. Good guy snuffs bad guy. Dirty Harry snuffs the punk.

So no one in the world will ever know. How "Geronimo" became a Central Intelligence Agency asset - and how the "friendship" developed during the 1980s. How he escaped from Tora Bora - or how the Pentagon let him escape. How he lived in Pakistan all these years, undisturbed. Why did he "hate us".

And most of all how he "masterminded" 9/11. Which branch - or branches, or individuals - of the US intelligence network knew about it in advance, and let it happen. How a bunch of Arabs with box-cutters and crappy flying skills turned jets into missiles and destroyed the Twin Towers (plus building 7) and a chunk of the mighty Pentagon.

Who in the world would dare not to be glued for months to the most stirring trial of all time?

There are reasons to believe the entities - the system - that arranged the hit would not be very pleased. So the verdict is guilty as (not) charged - and termination by a bullet in the head. It's never been so easy to create a wasteland and call it "justice".

As for the rest of us, we'll spend the rest of our lives in the dark.

Pepe Escobar is the author of Globalistan: How the Globalized World is Dissolving into Liquid War (Nimble Books, 2007) and Red Zone Blues: a snapshot of Baghdad during the surge. His new book, just out, is Obama does Globalistan (Nimble Books, 2009).

Bin Laden: Body buried at sea, shoddy proof of death -- another "Made in Hollywood" performance from "Ari Gold"

Years after Public Enemy Number One, Osama Bin Laden, was reportedly killed in the mountains of the Afghan-Pakistani border region or died from kidney failure in his native Hadhramaut region of Yemen, President Obama pulled the Bin Laden rabbit out of his political hat during a Sunday late-night television address, when many Americans were already watching the tube, thus increasing Obama's market share for his "surprise announcement." After all, Obama, who has close links to Oprah Winfrey and Rahm Emanuel's super-Hollywood agent brother, Ari Emanuel, depicted as the vile "Ari Gold" in fiction, is well-aware of TV Sunday prime time ratings.

So, in a few words, Obama announced that Bin Laden had been killed by a U.S. team that caught the wily Saudi Arabian terrorist mastermind by surprise. Bin Laden was not caught in a cave or some other underground facility in Waziristan but in a $1 million walled-off estate in Abbottabad, a military cantonment where a number of active and retired members of Pakistan's military and intelligence community lived. Abbottabad is also home to Pakistan's version of West Point, the Kakul Military Academy, where the firefight between U.S. Navy SEALS and Bin Laden's security guards allegedly took place a mere 800 meters away. 

Up until the 1980s, the mountains around Abbottabad were dotted with small U.S. National Security Agency (NSA)/U.K. Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) listening posts in places like Bada Bier and Parachinar were used to eavesdrop on signals from the Soviet Union and China. It was a time period when Bin Laden was operating his mujaheddin forces in Afghanistan under the aegis of Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency and its CIA overseers.
Abbottabad is also very familiar to the CIA and U.S. Special Forces, which operated from the nearby Kalabagh air force base, which has reportedly been used in the past by U.S. Special Operations forces, including U.S. Marines. Why Bin Laden would want to locate a massive safe house in the heart of Pakistani and American counter-insurgency and intelligence activity is curious.

Bin Laden's body was reported by the Pentagon to have been buried somewhere in the north Arabian Sea from the aircraft carrier, USS Carl Vinson. The Pentagon has assured the public that they confirmed Bin Laden's identity through DNA sampling and are "100 percent" certain that the body they buried in the sea was that of Bin Laden. The question remains as to where Bin Laden's comparative DNA samples were obtained over the past several years when the terrorist mastermind was supposedly a phantom-like fugitive.

However, the word from WMR sources at NSA is that no signals intercepts, from Pakistan or U.S. military sources, indicate that the man shot to death in Abbottabad was Osama Bin Laden. After the so-called killing of Bin Laden, operators were deluged with intercepted chatter about Bin Laden having been killed. However, not once did signals intercept operators, linguists and intelligence analysts based in Pakistan, Afghanistan, NSA headquarters at Fort Meade, Maryland, or on ships offshore -- who would have been cleared for and involved with the top secret mission to kill Bin Laden -- pick up any intelligence about Bin Laden prior to his reported assassination by the U.S. Special Forces "kill" team acting on the direct orders of President Obama. 

George W. Bush and other neo-con leaders, like Obama, have often pulled the Bin Laden rabbit out of their hat, years after reports of the Al Qaeda leader's death in either thr Afghanistan-Pakistan border region or Yemen. On September 7, 2007, WMR reported: "'Osama bin Laden' supposedly appears in a new videotape with a dyed and trimmed beard and talking about Democratic control of Congress and the coming to power of Nicolas Sarkozy in France and Gordon Brown in Britain. 'Bin Laden' also refers to George W. Bush as the 'leader of Texas.' He also talks of the Democrats' failure to 'stop the war.' "Bin Laden,' who once recommended William Blum' s book 'Rogue State,' is back in the Book-of-the-Month Club business in plugging Noam Chomsky and ex-CIA 'Bin Laden Unit' chief Michael Scheuer. 'Bin Laden' also mentions 'neoconservatives' like Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, and Richard Pearl [sic], meaning Richard Perle. He also refers to Colin Powell and Richard Armitage and 'their blood history of murdering humans.' Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair also gets honorable mention. 'Bin Laden' also states that President John Kennedy was killed and 'corporations were the primary beneficiary of his killing.' Days before a huge anti-war march in Washington, on September 15, Bin Laden states that carrying 'anti-war placards' in the streets is of no use. As if expecting that many people will view the tape as a fake, the neocon media and their usual 'sources' and 'experts' are already claiming that it is quite common for Arab mean to dye their beards to make themselves look younger."

On September 9, 2007, WMR reported on how "Al Qaeda" video and audiotapes are transmitted to the news media as authentic: "The so-called 'Osama Bin Laden tape' was not only transmitted via the auspices of the Search for International Terrorist Entities (SITE) Institute, a Washington, DC-based research institute with links to Israeli right-wing Likud elements, but U.S. intelligence officials are now claiming that large portions of the 'Bin Laden' speech were written by Los Angeles native Adam Gadahn, born Adam Pearlman, (aka Azzam the American), the number three man in charge of Al Qaeda, whose grandfather, Carl K. Pearlman, was a member of the board of the Anti Defamation League (ADL), an important component of the Israeli Lobby in the United States. Carl Pearlman, a prominent California urologist, was the chairman of the Orange County Bonds for Israel campaign and the United Jewish Welfare Fund. SITE and an Israeli intelligence front operation in Washington, MEMRI (the Middle East Media Research Institute), are closely linked. MEMRI has been responsible for mis-translating several speeches made by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. SITE's director is Rita Katz, an Iraq-born Jew who moved to Israel after her father was executed by Saddam Hussein's government for spying for the Mossad. She emigrated to the United States from Israel in 1997. Katz worked for the U.S. Treasury Department in its pursuit of Muslim charity funds in the United States in Operation Green Quest and as a consultant for the FBI. The main coordinator for Green Quest was the then-head of the Justice Department's Criminal Division, Michael Chertoff. 

Not surprisingly, the Zawahiri tape ridiculing Obama was made available by the SITE Intelligence Group in Washington. 
Our September 9, 2007 report continued: "The delivery of the latest 'Bin Laden' video was reported by the Associated Press as follows: 'the 30-minute video was obtained by the SITE Institute, a Washington-based group that monitors terrorist messages, and provided to the Associated Press.' In the past, Bin Laden videos were sent to Al Jazeera and other Arab media sources directly. The first news of the video's release came on the al-Sahab web site, where 'Al Qaeda' has previously posted messages. Last year, a leaked French intelligence report stated that Bin Laden died of typhoid fever in Pakistan. There are other reports that after the US attack on Afghanistan, Bin Laden was spirited out of Afghanistan to his native Hadhramaut region of Yemen, where he later died of kidney failure surrounded by his close and extended family members. Bin Laden's post-9/11 presence in Hadhramaut was hinted to by reputable Israeli intelligence sources in discussions with this editor in 2002. The speed at which the corporate media accepted the obviously bogus 'Bin Laden makeover' tape is amazing. However, considering the links between the neocon disinformation machinery in Washington, DC and the corporate media, it may not be so surprising when put into context."
 
After years of lies from the U.S. government about Saddam Hussein's non-existent weapons of mass destruction, including "intelligence" about mobile biological weapons trailers from a known fraudster code named "Curveball"; bogus Niger documents on Iraq's possession of yellow cake uranium; bogus Iraq Oil Ministry documents on Iraqi payoffs to Western political leaders under the UN's Oil-for-Food program; and, more recently, false charges from Obama's ambassador to the UN that Muammar Qaddafi's troops in Libya were ingesting Viagra tablets before raping women, the public should be wary of a president who shows every tendency to lie as much as his three immediate predecessors: Bush II, Clinton, and Bush I. The White House is, perhaps, the greatest source of lies and disinformation in the world today, topping anything similar that may emanate from Pyongyang or Tripoli. There is no reason for any sane person to believe that anything Mr. Obama says is true. But Obama's supporters wasted no time in proclaiming that Bin Laden's killing ensures Obama's re-election next year.

World intelligence agencies: Obama's long form birth certificate a rank forger

World intelligence agencies: Obama's long form birth certificate a rank forger

From intelligence agencies around the world, the verdict on President Obama's newly-released certificate of live birth from Hawaii is in: the certificate is a rank forgery on the same level as the Niger "yellow cake" uranium and Iraq Oil Ministry forged documents. Intelligence and law enforcement services are experts on fake documents since they have to deal with large numbers of counterfeit documents, such as birth certificates, passports, identity cards and driver's licenses, as well as currency. Intelligence agencies are also experts at forging their own documents for their clandestine agents.

Within 24-hours of the release of the long form Certificate of Live Birth on April 27, intelligence agencies from Britain and China to Germany and Russia examined the document and concluded it was a forgery based on the fact that Barack H. Obama Sr.'s race, listed as "African," was a monumental error, considering that not only the United States, but other English-speaking nations described Africans and those of African descent as either "Negroes" or "blacks" in 1961.


Intelligence experts point out that "African" is a major clue indicating a forgery.
In 1961, the  U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare classified non-Whites, who were not Asian, Eskimo, Aleut, Hawaiian, part-Hawaiian, or other "non-White," as "Negro." The U.S. Census Bureau also used the term "Asian and other Pacific Islander" in 1961, which included Filipino, Hawaiian, and part-Hawaiian. The Census Bureau, like HEW, used the term "Negro" to describe blacks and those of black descent. The term "mulatto," used to describe those of mixed white and black ancestry, ceased being used by the U.S. Census Bureau in 1918.

1961 Vital Statistics of the United States;
U. S. Dept. of Health Education, and Welfare;
Public Health Service;
National Center for Health Statistics;
National Vital Statistics Division;

Race and color

Births in the United States in 1961 are classified for vital statistics into white, Negro, American Indian, Chinese, Japanese, Aleut, Eskimo, Hawaiian and Part-Hawaiian (combined), and "other nonwhite."

The category "white" includes, in addition to persons reported as "white," those reported as Mexican or Puerto Rican. With one exception, a reported mixture of Negro with any other race is included in the Negro group; other mixed parentage is classified according to the race of the nonwhite parent and mixtures of nonwhite races to the race of the father. The exception refers to a mixture of Hawaiian and any other race, which is classified as Part-Hawaiian. In most tables a less detailed classification of "white" and "nonwhite" is used.

In the United Kingdom, the terms "black" and "Asian" were used in the 1961 census to describe those who were "non-white British" nationals. Barack Obama, Sr., as a citizen of the British Colony of Kenya, would have known that his British racial designation was "black" in 1961. The term "African" was not used as a racial designation in either the colony of Kenya or on the British mainland. In South Africa and other British colonies in Africa, "Coloured" was used to describe those of mixed white-black descent.

The consensus among intelligence agency experts is that the Obama long form Certificate of Live Birth was hastily manufactured by an amateur who never thought of using the standard race designation of Negro in Barack Obama, Sr.'s racial designation block on the form either due to ignorance or an attempt to be politically correct in 2011 by refusing to use an accepted term from 1961.

The past decade has seen the use of crude forgeries to propel the United States into a war in Iraq (the bogus Niger "yellow cake" uranium documents) and to try to indict various U.S. and foreign politicians and businessmen (the fake Iraq Oil Ministry "Oil-for-Food" documents). The Obama forged Certificate of Live Birth represents yet another attempt to perpetuate a fraud on a grand scale.

Arab revolts, cable leaks point to close Mossad links to Arab dictatorships

For good reason, many Israeli leaders looked with trepidation on the popular revolts throughout the Arab world that have seen Tunisia's and Egypt's dictators ousted and are forcing other regimes against the wall. It has emerged in the aftermath of the popular uprisings and from a few leaked US State Department cables that Israel's Mossad has enjoyed a close relationship with the top leaders, including the intelligence chiefs, of the former regimes of Tunisia and Egypt, as well as the monarchy in Bahrain.

According to North African press reports, the former personal bodyguard for ousted Tunisian President Zin El Abedin Ben Ali claims that Ben Ali and former first lady, Laila el Trabolsi, are fervent supporters of Israel and that Trabolsi was a Mossad agent who helped Israeli intelligence assassinate a number of Palestinian leaders exiled in Tunisia. The former bodyguard, Abdel Rahman Sobeir, made the revelations on Facebook.

After the ouster of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, it was announced that his number two, former head of the Egyptian General Intelligence Directorate Omar Suleiman, had a close relationship with Mossad. Suleiman even enjoyed open door access into Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's office in Jerusalem. The revelations about Suleiman partly came from leaked State Department cables. Suleiman is now under investigation by Egypt's transitional military government. Suleiman, whoi assisted the CIA in its kidnapping and torture program, was so infamous as a torturer, he was called "Sheikh al Torture" by Egyptians.

Leaked State Department cables also confirmed that a close link exists between Mossad and Bahrain's King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa and his intelligence service. Another leaked cable pointed to Israel's close covert links to Qatar, Oman and the United Arab Emirates.The United States has been supportive of the bloody crackdown by the Gulf states against domestic opposition forces, particularly by Bahrain and Oman.
Mossad's links to Saudi intelligence are also known to be close, with the two intelligence services sharing common goals vis a vis Iran, Lebanese Hezbollah, pro-Iranian elements in Hamas, and Syria. As opposition to the Saudi regime has grown, more information has been leaked out about the long-time Saudi-Israeli intelligence and security links. The Saudis sent troops to Bahrain to help its pro-Israeli king out down an opposition uprising.
WMR has previously reported on Mossad's close ties with the Moroccan government and its intelligence services and the fact that a series of U.S. ambassadors to Rabat have also been strong supporters of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). Anti-government demonstrations have also taken place throughout Morocco.

Former Israeli National Security Council chairman Uzi Arad, a one-time top Mossad agent at the Israeli embassy in Washington, was also known to have maintained close contacts with Jordanian intelligence during hnis 20-year career as a Mossad officer. Arad also maintained close ties to Egyptian intelligence during Mubarak's rule.

Lebanese military intelligence has rounded up scores of Mossad agents in Lebanon. The agents had penetrated Lebanon's military, intelligence, and telecommunications companies. Mossad also reportedly has in place a number of agents among top Syrian opposition groups. Mossad agents have also operated in force in Iraqi Kurdistan and are known to have links to top Kurdistan Regional Government officials. Iraqi Kurdistan has also been the scene of a number of anti-government demonstrations and riots.

The Israeli securtiy firm Global CST, considered to be a virtual private arm of Mossad, has reportedly been active in Libya, Algeria, and Sudan's Darfur province.

PUTTING OUT FIRE WITH GASOLINE IN LIBYA

By Susan Lindauer, former U.S. Intelligence Asset covering Libya and Iraq at the United Nations 

War doesn’t work, does it? Best case scenario, NATO's war against Libya will run 18 to 24 months unless decisive action is taken right now—this day—to end the military confrontation.

Moussa Koussa, Libya's Foreign Minister who defected to Britain on March 30, warns Libya is in danger of becoming the "New Somalia."


Violence is erupting from both sides. The ugly truth is that with every missile strike, NATO kills more and more Libyan people.


NATO cares nothing for the Saudi invasion of Bahrain, which has resulted in wide-scale disappearances of democracy activists. NATO cares nothing for the uprisings in Yemen, peppered with government snipers. Only Libya has been singled out for violent retribution. Of course, this is an oil grab. Gadhaffi challenged U.S. (and probably British) oil companies to reimburse Libya for the economic damage caused by U.N. sanctions tied to the Lockerbie bombing, which Libya had nothing to do with. The U.N. Security Council forced Libya to submit to the Lockerbie Trial and pay $2.7 billion in damages to the families of Pan Am 103, only for the U.S. to bribe witnesses with $4 million payments to testify against Libya's men at Trial.


The judicial corruption at The Hague underscored the absence of evidence against Abdelbassett Megrahi and Al-Amin Fhaima. Under the circumstances, it's hard to blame Gadhaffi for wanting to take something back for his people. The United Nations was grossly in error to apply sanctions to Libya in the first place.


But other than holding power for 42 years against a tide of popular support for fresh voices, is Gadhaffi really so bad? The Libyan people receive a cash distribution of oil revenues every year, houses, education and free health care under Gadhaffi's regime. They enjoy one of the lowest poverty rates in the world—an enviable 5 percent, an 82 percent literacy rate, and a life expectancy of 75 years, 10 percent above the world average. Yet suddenly NATO is determined to break Gadhaffi's hold on power, as if they've recently uncovered some great evil.


The facts are that an alarming number of Libyan rebels are returning from conflicts in Iraq, Chechnya, the Balkans and Afghanistan. Warfare is what they know, and they've brought it home with them. They have articulated no vision for the future. Instead, they have demonstrated an insatiable hunger for violence. No bombing is ever enough. Like tyrants they shout for more NATO bombs. They are guaranteed to destroy Libya if NATO doesn't pull the plug.


NATO has only itself to blame. By rushing to take sides, NATO has lost the ability to apply its influence to both parties, and press for a non-violent transition to power-sharing. By adopting the role of arms supplier to the rebels, NATO has ratcheted up the internal power struggle in Tripoli, which should have exhausted its objectives in a couple of weeks, if not for outside meddling.


THINK PEACE:


It doesn't have to go this way.


Thankfully, the African Union has applied its influence in Tripoli to push for a ceasefire and immediate access to humanitarian assistance for Libya's people. The Presidents of South Africa, Mali, the Congo and Mauritania achieved this victory in diplomatic sessions with Libyan leader Moammar Gadhaffi over the weekend, joined by the Chair of the African Union Commission and the Peace and Security Division.


The international community should demand that NATO accept the African Union platform immediately, whether Libya's rebels approve or not. It's NATO's responsibility to deliver the message that for the sake of the world community, there must be a truce so that political talks can resume.

International oil corporations should likewise take an honest look at their bottom line, and acknowledge that a prolonged war in Libya is guaranteed to damage oil structures and distribution mechanisms upon which oil trading depends. Any protracted Oil War will hurt their profits, too. Most unforgivably, War in Libya will harm the global economy, driving up energy and freight transportation costs at a most difficult moment.


The African Union gets NATO out of this trap. It achieves the most pressing goals of the United Nations mandate in Libya, upon which NATO has claimed authority for its air strikes.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iy7sbagRV-A&feature=player_embedded
 

Doctors Without Borders and the Red Crimson would be ideal to lead humanitarian efforts. Doctors Without Borders won a Nobel Peace Prize for its commitment to high quality medical care and triage in conflict zones, while staying clear of political entanglements. For its part, the Red Crimson is the Islamic version of the Red Cross, and would be ideally sensitized to Libya's cultural lines.


It's an excellent first stage. What remains to be seen is whether a second stage will be necessary to secure the peace—That would deploy a small Peace Keeping force, probably from Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia and Egypt in North Africa—who share Libya's Islamic  heritage and aversion to European Occupation. North African peace keepers would have the advantage of neutrality, which NATO has sacrificed by taking sides in the conflict.


As much as it would rankle Libya's sense of sovereignty, given the rebels' history of violence, there's going to have to be some temporary peace-keeping force to divide these groups. The question is whether we do that today--- or in 18 to 24 months when the world finally acknowledges the stupidity and waste of this unnecessary war. There's going to have to be a solution at some point.


But NATO has to face up to some hard truth, too.


If elections in Libya are inevitable, then one more thing is also inevitable. It is strictly up to the Libyan people to choose their future leadership, including whether or not they want Gadhaffi or his sons to continue any role in the government. Genuine democracy demands that all comers have a right to throw their hat in the ring. Nobody has the right to stop them. The rebel forces have a very poor understanding of democracy indeed, if they expect to dictate which candidates participate in future elections.


For that matter, Britain, France and Italy are poor servants of democracy, if they are encouraging such misguided philosophies. That's colonialist thinking, and there's no place for it in a modern age.

If European powers are deeply persuaded of the Libyan rebels' cause, then they should not be afraid to present a full slate of policy ideas and candidates before the Libyan people for their final decision. However European powers must accept that there are no guarantees Libya's rebel forces would win a national election.


Quite the opposite is probably true. The longer the rebels fight, the more likely they are to antagonize the Libyan people who are going to cast those ballots. That's one more excellent reason for NATO to exit this conflict as quickly as possible.


If this War goes on much longer, there's strong probability NATO will win the battle—and lose the War. The world has only to look at Iraq to see what that would mean.


For the humanitarian welfare of the Libyan people and the goal of democracy itself, we must stop this War against Libya right now.
                                                           #####
Susan Lindauer is the author of "Extreme Prejudice: The Terrifying Story of the Patriot Act and the Cover Ups of 9/11 and Iraq," which describes her work as an Asset covering Iraq and Libya, and her arrest on the Patriot Act shortly after requesting to testify before Congress about the CIA's advance warnings about 9/11 and a peace option in Iraq.

Comentários sobre a Síria

Por Lejeune Mirhan 

 

Já estava mais do que na hora tecermos alguns comentários sobre o que vem acontecendo na República Árabe Síria, onde presenciamos as primeiras manifestações de rua contra o presidente, Dr. Bashar El Assad. Publicamos agora esses primeiros comentários.

Síria, um país milenar

Não tenho pretensões aqui em contar a história da Síria. No entanto, um breve resumo se faz necessário. Esse é um país milenar. A cidade de Damasco, sua capital indivisível, tem mais de cinco mil anos de existência contínua. Disputa com a cidade palestina de Jericó, o aglomerado urbano mais antigo de vida continuada. Tem raízes no cristianismo muito forte. Lá um dos apóstolos de Jesus teria tido uma visão e se converteu a essa religião.

Os atuais sírios, descendem dos antigos arameus e assírios (meus antepassados são assírios da região noroeste do país). Na antiguidade clássica, essa região foi ocupada pelos Persas, de Alexandre e posteriormente virou província do Império Romano. Em 660, sob o califado omíada, a Síria é ocupada pelo império árabe e islâmico. Os cruzados cristãos europeus passam por lá por breve período tempo e organizam algumas fortalezas e constituem algumas cidades. Os turcos otomanos tomam o país em 1516, lá ficando até o fim do Império em 1918. Sua independência vem da tentativa de 1936 e depois de 1944, sendo só reconhecida em 17 de abril de 1946, considerada a data nacional mais importante do país.

Interessante registrar a forte influência que a antiga URSS teve sobre esse país, que no passado mais recente tinha o nome de República Socialista Árabe Síria. A palavra “socialista” caiu do nome do país, mas o slogan oficial do país continua sendo “unidade, liberdade, socialismo”. A França foi a potência europeia que colonizou o país, hoje com cerca de 20 milhões de habitantes.

Onda de protestos atinge o país

As ruas sírias, como as ruas árabes em geral, também clamam por mudanças. Mas, a situação desse país e do governo do presidente Dr. Bashar Al Assad tem particularidades que as distingue de outros países árabes do Oriente Médio. Aqui não se trata de defender o governo. Sabemos bem do tempo que Bashar encontra-se no poder – 11 anos! – e que suas sucessivas reeleições atingem elevadíssimos percentuais, sendo praticamente simbólicas e homologatórias. A Síria é regime de Partido único, no caso o Partido Socialista Árabe Sírio – Baath. Governam esse país desde 1963. O pai de Bashar ficou no poder de 1970 até a sua morte em 2000, quando o filho o sucedeu.

Não estou entre os que endeusam a democracia, concedendo-lhe valores universais. Cada país deve saber como encaminhar a sua democracia, a sua forma de escolha de seus governantes. Pregar hoje de forma indistinta a “derrubada de todos os ditadores” e colocar no mesmo saco o governo da Síria, de meu ponto de vista, é fazer completamente o jogo do imperialismo estadunidense.

Aliás, é bom que se registre, em uma mesma região – o Oriente Médio árabe – temos três posições completamente distintas. Na ampla maioria dos casos, trata-se de pedir mesmo a derrubada de todos os governantes monarquistas reacionários e pseudos presidentes “republicanos”. Há uma segunda posição, sobre a Líbia que não é de apoio nem a Kadafi nem aos tais “rebeldes” pró-americanos. E a terceira, é esta sobre a Síria, em defesa do governo.

O que dá o caráter de um estado, se ele é mais ou menos progressista, avançado, é o seu compromisso, sua plataforma de ação, as suas alianças internas – inclusive de classes sociais – para ver contra quem e a favor de quem age a sua estrutura governamental. Poderíamos citar aqui dezenas de governantes nos últimos dois séculos que não receberam voto nenhum de seus povos, mas foram extremamente populares. Nasser foi um deles. Nunca recebeu voto algum no tempo que governou o Egito, entre 1954 e 1970 quando morreu (ou foi morto, não se sabe ao certo). Mas, no seu enterro, pelo menos um milhão de pessoas estiveram presentes (seria hoje coisa equivalente a três milhões de pessoas, o triplo da maior manifestação reunida na Praça da Liberdade no Cairo).


Sírios comemoram o Dia da Independência, 17 de abril, com uma visita à fronteira das colinas de Golã, capturadas por Israel na Guerra dos Seis Dias, em 1967

Conheço de perto – como estudioso do mundo árabe – e muito bem, os compromissos do governo da Síria. Tem conteúdo e caráter antiimperialista nítido, bastante claro. Não conheço governo árabe nenhum em todo o OM, que dê guarida para qualquer grupo revolucionário que lute pela libertação de seus povos, como o sírio, do Partido Baath. Por fim, desconheço qual país árabe tenha dado tanta ajuda ao povo palestino e à sua luta pela libertação do jugo israelense quanto a Síria.

A Síria e seu governo têm inimigos antigos e poderosos no OM e no mundo. Entre eles estão os Estados Unidos, o Iraque (ocupado) e governado por uma maioria xiita, a Arábia Saudita, Israel e o atual e renunciante governo do Líbano, nas mãos ainda do demissionário Said Hariri, pró-EUA e amigo de Israel. Nesse sentido, é bastante possível e até provável que por trás dos que lideram protestos em algumas cidades sírias, podem estar o longo braço das agências e serviços secretos tanto de Israel quanto dos EUA.

Entendo como justas as reivindicações por reformas políticas. E tenho a convicção de que elas virão. Nunca nos esqueçamos que, tecnicamente falando, a Síria esta em guerra contra Israel desde 5 de junho de 1967, na chamada Guerra dos Seis Dias, quando os judeus tomaram-lhe as estratégicas colinas de Golãn.

A Síria forma hoje com o Irã e a Turquia, uma poderosa aliança que apoia a luta pela libertação da Palestina (com o Hamas e o Fatah) e a Independência do Líbano (com o Hezbolláh). A quem interessa quebrar essa unidade política e revolucionária? Independente de suas confissões religiosas, se cristãos, muçulmanos (xiitas e sunitas, bem como alawitas que governam a Síria), bem como comunistas e outras correntes, estão unidos tanto na Síria quanto no Líbano. Esperemos que tais forças e partidos coligados, possam se unir também no conjunto dos outros países árabes para levar adiante e até o fim, a derrota dos governos reacionários de direita aliados dos Estados Unidos e de Israel e anti-árabes.

A eventual queda do atual governo sírio e a entrada de Damasco no campo ocidental será uma imensa e significativa vitória estadunidense e imperialista. Praticamente enterra a revolução e a primavera árabe. Na verdade, podemos dizer que esse projeto já é parte de um plano de uma contra-revolução em curso que possui algumas características que vem sendo observadas na prática: 1. A invasão do Bahrein pela Arábia Saudita, com apoio americano para proteger a sede da 5ª Frota e o massacre do povo bareinita; 2. A intervenção imperial direta na Líbia para instaurar um governo aliado e subserviente aos EUA; 3. A tentativa de manipulação e o controle da revolução no Egito e na Tunísia; 4. A corrupção na revolução do Iêmen; correm tentativas de trocar o ditador Ali Saleh, há 32 anos no poder, por algum amigo dos EUA.

Não tem grau de comparação entre a importância estratégica que tem a Líbia e a Síria no cenário do OM. Derrubar hoje Kadafi e colocar um aliado americano na líbia quase nada mudaria na região. A Líbia já era aliada americana e da Europa desde 2002. Derrubar o governo sírio poderá sim significar um profundo retrocesso nas lutas de libertação e emancipacionistas árabes.

Nunca nos esqueçamos que nosso inimigo principal continua sendo os Estados Unidos e sua política unilateral de controle de todo o mundo. Quebrar a sua hegemonia – tarefa essa em curso exatamente com a força da Revolução Árabe – deve ser parte de todos os democratas, patriotas, nacionalistas, socialistas, comunistas e religiosos daquele mundo e de todos os países.

__________



Sociólogo, Professor, Escritor e Arabista. Membro da Academia de Altos Estudos Ibero-Árabe de Lisboa e Diretor do Instituto Jerusalém do Brasil. Colunista de Oriente Médio do Portal da Fundação Maurício Grabois – FMG. Colaborador da Revista Sociologia da Editora Escala. E-mail: lejeunemgxc@uol.com.br

The CIA's "Plan B" for Peru

The CIA not only wanted to deny the presidency to Peruvian nationalist Ollanta Humala, wo was defeated in the presidential election five years ago by Wall Street favorite Alan Garcia, but wanted to ensure that dual U.S-Peruvian citizen Pedro Pablo Kuczynski, a former World Bank official, former Peruvian Finance Minister, and executive with arch-vulture capitalist Felix Rohatyn's Rohatyn Group investment fund in New York, beat out Keiko Fujimori, the daughter of the jailed former president and CIA cypher, Alberto Fujimori. The Rohatyn Group was formed in 2003 by former JP Morgan executives.


With 80 percent of the vote counted, Fujimori held a 3 point lead over Kuczynski. The run-off election between Humala and Fujimori is scheduled for June 5.

Although he has moderated his tone since the last presidential election in 2006, Humala can be counted in the progressive Latin American leadership camp, his policies now between those of Brazilian President Dilma Roussef and Venezuela's Hugo Chavez. However much he has moderated his tone and policies, Humala remains a worry to the Obama administration, which has gone beyond the Bush administration in engaging in political chicanery south-of-the-border. Obama's early support for a CIA- and Pentagon-led coup against Honduran President Manuel Zelaya and an attempted coup against Ecuador's Rafael Correa are hallmarks of Obama's hostile Nixonian attitude toward nationalist and progressive elected governments in Latin America.

The darling of the international elites, former presidential candidate and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Mario Vargas Llosa, was quick to state that a choice between Humala, who he accuses of being "another Chavez," and Fujimori is like a choice between AIDS and terminal cancer. Kuczynski, who also served with the International Monetary Fund in Washington and Kuhn Loeb Investment Bank in New York, is the kind of candidate favored by Nobel Peace Prize-laden elitists like Vargas Llosa.


However, the CIA clearly will support "terminal cancer" over "AIDS" as it seeks to protect the interests of Wall Street and the global oligarchs. The CIA enjoyed a long history with Fujimori's father and his chief of intelligence, Vladimoro Montesinos. Both Alberto Fujimori and Montesinos are serving prison sentences in Peru for human rights violations and other crimes.

On November 8, 2005, WMR reported: "Montesinos was code named 'The Doctor' by the CIA and was well known as a facilitator for U.S. weapons smuggling and drug deals involving the Bush crime family. The CIA paid Montesinos at least $10 million between 1990 and 2000. The payments began just after the elder Bush launched his  1990 "Andean Initiative" to counter 'drug proliferation' in the region.  The Andean Initiative actually saw an expansion of coca growing fields in the region. Montesinos deposited $264 million in bank accounts in Switzerland, the Cayman Islands, the United States, and Panama." On September 8, 2010, WMR reported: "During his ten-year rule, Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori and his intelligence chief, Vladimiro Montesinos, thought to be a CIA asset, reportedly received USAID funds to put down the Shining Path and Tupac Amaru guerrilla movements."

Like Chavez, Correa, and Bolivia's President Evo Morales, Humala's main strength comes from Peru's long-disenfranchised and impoverished indigenous community. The business elite of mainly European roots, has historically opposed the rise to power of indigenous leaders in Latin America and they have received the firm backing of Western corporations and their CIA enforcers. Although former President Alejandro Toledo is of indigenous descent, he only placed fourth in the first-round because native Peruvians understand that he sold out while president to the World Bank and other capitalist contrivances. Humala edged out Toledo among the native electorate in the Peruvian highlands. Toledo only managed to garner 15 percent of the vote in the first round. 

Humala is an outspoken critic of the policies of Chile's right-wing billionaire President Sebastian Pinera, who Obama lauded in Santiago during a recent trip to Latin America.

Rather than see another progressive leader take the helm in Latin America, the CIA and its cyphers, USAID and the Soros non-governmental organizations (NGOs), will begin to pump money and other support into the campaign of right-winger Keiko Fujimori. Plan A was Kuczynski but since he was barely edged out for second place by Fujimori, Langley's money will be put on the daughter of their one-time top agent-of-influence in Peru.

BDS Blossoms Across U.S. on Palestinian Land Day!

Congratulations to us! Last week's Palestinian Land Day marked the largest global boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) Day of Action to date. According to the fantastic new global BDS movement web site, the United States hosted the most actions of any country in the world. Great job to all those who participated!

Want to be inspired? Here is a tiny taste of the more than 25 fantastic events across the U.S.:

 In San Francisco, activists demonstrated and delivered a letter to the IRS to protest the tax-exempt status of the Jewish National Fund, which re-appropriated the land of Palestinian refugees whom Israel exiled in 1948 and which continues to restrict land use for Jewish Israelis only.

 There were BDS flash mobs by member groups in Chicago and New York City! The latter was taken down in what appears to be a pattern of YouTube censorship.

 The Minnesota Break the Bonds Campaign held an advocacy training at the state capitol. More than 110 activists from around the state gathered to urge their legislators to divest state funds from Israeli bonds.

 Activists delivered a letter with over 2,500 signatures to the management at 15 Bed, Bath & Beyond stores along the West Coast, asking the retail chain to discontinue sales of Ahava cosmetics and SodaStream home carbonation systems, both manufactured in illegal Israeli settlements.

 Students at the University of Arizona constructed a mock Apartheid wall to symbolize the walls in Palestine and on the U.S./Mexico border.

White House threats must be taken seriously

In yet another indication that America's democratic experiment is a thing of the past, this editor has received word from a source in a foreign intelligence agency allied with the United States that there has been talk by some within the Obama White House that this editor is under threat. What particular stories have inflamed the White House are not known but the warning conveyed by the source, who has connections within the White House, was stark in its directness: "They want to kill you."

It was perfectly clear that the phrase was not being used as a figure of speech.

That this development is being reported on April 4 is even more ironic. On April 4, 1968, Dr. Martin Luther King, Kr. was assassinated in Memphis during his mission to support striking sanitation workers in the city. Now, we have our first African-American president and a threat to kill a journalist who is most definitely not one of their favorites has been seriously discussed. 

Of course, muckraking journalists have been under threat before in America. In 1972, columnist and investigative journalist Jack Anderson had ended up very high on President Richard Nixon's infamous "enemies list." Anderson had long been a burr under the political saddle of Nixon and the president blamed Anderson for exposing a number of Nixon's corrupt activities, including the exposure in 1956 by Anderson and his boss, Drew Pearson, of a loan from Howard Hughes to Nixon's brother Donald.

In the years before the Watergate scandal broke but at a time when other various scandals in the Nixon administration began to receive the bulldog-like attention of Anderson, who succeeded Pearson as editor of the "Washington Merry-Go-Round column in 1969, there were serious discussions among Nixon aides Charles Colson and G. Gordon Liddy, as well as the CIA's Dr. Edward Gunn, an expert on poisons, about assassinating the troublesome Anderson.

Scenarios included the use of LSD or poison but Anderson's Mormon religion and the fact that he did not drink ruled out the use of poisons or LSD in his drink. Staging an automobile accident in which Anderson would be incinerated was also an option. Another scenario considered was one which would have appeared to be a random Washington, DC street mugging in which Anderson would be stabbed or have his throat slit. The plot to assassinate Anderson came to an abrupt halt as Liddy, Colson, and E. Howard Hunt, who had also been involved in the action against Anderson, were exposed in the May 1972 break-in at the Watergate headquarters of the Democratic National Committee.

Although I have attempted to pattern WMR after Anderson's and Pearson's "Merry-Go-Round" column, I do not have the luxury of newspaper syndicators or a Pulitzer Prize, all of which Anderson could rely on as firewalls between him and those in the White House who wanted to kill him.
I ran the information about the warning from the foreign intelligence source by some African-Americans in Washington who have worked with Obama White House officials. Their response was less than encouraging. The bottom line is that the White House engages in the type of "gangster politics" for which their home base of Chicago has become infamous.

Although I have taken precautions in covering post-genocide Rwanda, child trafficking in Thailand and Cambodia, the "loss" of nuclear weapons at Minot Air Force Base in North Dakota, the gunning down by police of CIA asset Tony Carnaby in Houston, the story of "Washington Madam" Deborah Jeane Palfrey, and BP's activities on the Gulf Coast in the wake of the Deepwater Horizon disaster, and President Obama's and incoming Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel's past activities in Chicago, those measures were temporary and lasted for as long as I was in the field.

However, I have absolutely no desire to constantly be in fear of the type of a White House-directed or -tolerated hit like that discussed by Nixon aides on Anderson who had the benefit of a degree of support from his syndicate and the newspapers who carried his column, which included The Washington Post.

Preliminary plans are being made to continue the investigative journalism of this website from a safer vantage point abroad and in an environment that provides basic protection for press freedom. 
Unfortunately, the United States is no longer a safe place for independent journalists. Today, President Obama kicked off his 2012 presidential campaign in a web video message. Without a Democratic primary challenger, it can be safely assumed that the White House will pull out every arrow in its quiver to suppress negative information about Obama. The mere fact that the announcement of Obama's re-election came on the anniversary of the assassination of Dr. King shows that Obama will shamelessly attach himself to the legacy of the much-revered African-American leader with whom he shares no cultural legacy of historical African-Americans with their family histories of slavery in the South and sharecropping. Nor would King, if alive today, approve of any of Obama's pro-war and pro-corporate policies.

With a second Obama term a likelihood, iIt only makes sense, therefore, that the reporting on the "new America" be conducted from a more secure location.

There is an interesting postscript to this story. Not once, during the eight years of the Bush administration, did I ever receive such a credible and direct threat. In fact, after WMR's stories about marital friction between Bush and First Lady Laura Bush received national media attention, there was a communication from a close friend of Mrs. Bush that if I laid off her marital situation, I would be given a major scoop. Knowing that no one should ever cut a deal with the Bush family or their friends, I kindly declined the offer. But whereas the Bush White House was prepared to offer a carrot, the Obama administration appears to favor the stick or another lethal weapon of choice.

Exposed: The US-Saudi Libya deal

THE ROVING EYE
Exposed: The US-Saudi Libya deal
By Pepe Escobar

To follow Pepe's articles on the Great Arab Revolt, please click here.

You invade Bahrain. We take out Muammar Gaddafi in Libya. This, in short, is the essence of a deal struck between the Barack Obama administration and the House of Saud. Two diplomatic sources at the United Nations independently confirmed that Washington, via Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, gave the go-ahead for Saudi Arabia to invade Bahrain and crush the pro-democracy movement in their neighbor in exchange for a "yes" vote by the Arab League for a no-fly zone over Libya - the main rationale that led to United Nations Security Council resolution 1973.

The revelation came from two different diplomats, a European and a member of the BRIC group, and was made separately to a US scholar and Asia Times Online. According to diplomatic protocol, their names cannot be disclosed. One of the diplomats said, "This is the reason why we could not support resolution 1973. We were arguing that Libya, Bahrain and Yemen were similar cases, and calling for a fact-finding mission. We maintain our official position that the resolution is not clear, and may be interpreted in a belligerent manner."

As Asia Times Online has reported, a full Arab League endorsement of a no-fly zone is a myth. Of the 22 full members, only 11 were present at the voting. Six of them were Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) members, the US-supported club of Gulf kingdoms/sheikhdoms, of which Saudi Arabia is the top dog. Syria and Algeria were against it. Saudi Arabia only had to "seduce" three other members to get the vote.

Translation: only nine out of 22 members of the Arab League voted for the no-fly zone. The vote was essentially a House of Saud-led operation, with Arab League secretary general Amr Moussa keen to polish his CV with Washington with an eye to become the next Egyptian President.

Thus, in the beginning, there was the great 2011 Arab revolt. Then, inexorably, came the US-Saudi counter-revolution.

Profiteers rejoice
Humanitarian imperialists will spin en masse this is a "conspiracy", as they have been spinning the bombing of Libya prevented a hypothetical massacre in Benghazi. They will be defending the House of Saud - saying it acted to squash Iranian subversion in the Gulf; obviously R2P - "responsibility to protect" does not apply to people in Bahrain. They will be heavily promoting post-Gaddafi Libya as a new - oily - human rights Mecca, complete with US intelligence assets, black ops, special forces and dodgy contractors.

Whatever they say won't alter the facts on the ground - the graphic results of the US-Saudi dirty dancing. Asia Times Online has already reported on who profits from the foreign intervention in Libya (see There's no business like war business, March 30). Players include the Pentagon (via Africom), the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), Saudi Arabia, the Arab League's Moussa, and Qatar. Add to the list the al-Khalifa dynasty in Bahrain, assorted weapons contractors, and the usual neo-liberal suspects eager to privatize everything in sight in the new Libya - even the water. And we're not even talking about the Western vultures hovering over the Libyan oil and gas industry.

Exposed, above all, is the astonishing hypocrisy of the Obama administration, selling a crass geopolitical coup involving northern Africa and the Persian Gulf as a humanitarian operation. As for the fact of another US war on a Muslim nation, that's just a "kinetic military action".

There's been wide speculation in both the US and across the Middle East that considering the military stalemate - and short of the "coalition of the willing" bombing the Gaddafi family to oblivion - Washington, London and Paris might settle for the control of eastern Libya; a northern African version of an oil-rich Gulf Emirate. Gaddafi would be left with a starving North Korea-style Tripolitania.

But considering the latest high-value defections from the regime, plus the desired endgame ("Gaddafi must go", in President Obama's own words), Washington, London, Paris and Riyadh won't settle for nothing but the whole kebab. Including a strategic base for both Africom and NATO.

Round up the unusual suspects
One of the side effects of the dirty US-Saudi deal is that the White House is doing all it can to make sure the Bahrain drama is buried by US media. BBC America news anchor Katty Kay at least had the decency to stress, "they would like that one [Bahrain] to go away because there's no real upside for them in supporting the rebellion by the Shi'ites."

For his part the emir of Qatar, Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al Thani, showed up on al-Jazeera and said that action was needed because the Libyan people were attacked by Gaddafi. The otherwise excellent al-Jazeera journalists could have politely asked the emir whether he would send his Mirages to protect the people of Palestine from Israel, or his neighbors in Bahrain from Saudi Arabia.

The al-Khalifa dynasty in Bahrain is essentially a bunch of Sunni settlers who took over 230 years ago. For a great deal of the 20th century they were obliging slaves of the British empire. Modern Bahrain does not live under the specter of a push from Iran; that's an al-Khalifa (and House of Saud) myth.

Bahrainis, historically, have always rejected being part of a sort of Shi'ite nation led by Iran. The protests come a long way, and are part of a true national movement - way beyond sectarianism. No wonder the slogan in the iconic Pearl roundabout - smashed by the fearful al-Khalifa police state - was "neither Sunni nor Shi'ite; Bahraini".

What the protesters wanted was essentially a constitutional monarchy; a legitimate parliament; free and fair elections; and no more corruption. What they got instead was "bullet-friendly Bahrain" replacing "business-friendly Bahrain", and an invasion sponsored by the House of Saud.

And the repression goes on - invisible to US corporate media. Tweeters scream that everybody and his neighbor are being arrested. According to Nabeel Rajab, president of the Bahrain Center for Human Rights, over 400 people are either missing or in custody, some of them "arrested at checkpoints controlled by thugs brought in from other Arab and Asian countries - they wear black masks in the streets." Even blogger Mahmood Al Yousif was arrested at 3 am, leading to fears that the same will happen to any Bahraini who has blogged, tweeted, or posted Facebook messages in favor of reform.

Globocop is on a roll
Odyssey Dawn is now over. Enter Unified Protector - led by Canadian Charles Bouchard. Translation: the Pentagon (as in Africom) transfers the "kinetic military action " to itself (as in NATO, which is nothing but the Pentagon ruling over Europe). Africom and NATO are now one.

The NATO show will include air and cruise missile strikes; a naval blockade of Libyia; and shady, unspecified ground operations to help the "rebels". Hardcore helicopter gunship raids a la AfPak - with attached "collateral damage" - should be expected.

A curious development is already visible. NATO is deliberately allowing Gaddafi forces to advance along the Mediterranean coast and repel the "rebels". There have been no surgical air strikes for quite a while.

The objective is possibly to extract political and economic concessions from the defector and Libyan exile-infested Interim National Council (INC) - a dodgy cast of characters including former Justice minister Mustafa Abdel Jalil, US-educated former secretary of planning Mahmoud Jibril, and former Virginia resident, new "military commander" and CIA asset Khalifa Hifter. The laudable, indigenous February 17 Youth movement - which was in the forefront of the Benghazi uprising - has been completely sidelined.

This is NATO's first African war, as Afghanistan is NATO's first Central/South Asian war. Now firmly configured as the UN's weaponized arm, Globocop NATO is on a roll implementing its "strategic concept" approved at the Lisbon summit last November (see Welcome to NATOstan, Asia Times Online, November 20, 2010).

Gaddafi's Libya must be taken out so the Mediterranean - the mare nostrum of ancient Rome - becomes a NATO lake. Libya is the only nation in northern Africa not subordinated to Africom or Centcom or any one of the myriad NATO "partnerships". The other non-NATO-related African nations are Eritrea, Sawahiri Arab Democratic Republic, Sudan and Zimbabwe.

Moreover, two members of NATO's "Istanbul Cooperation Initiative" - Qatar and the United Arab Emirates - are now fighting alongside Africom/NATO for the fist time. Translation: NATO and Persian Gulf partners are fighting a war in Africa. Europe? That's too provincial. Globocop is the way to go.

According to the Obama administration's own official doublespeak, dictators who are eligible for "US outreach" - such as in Bahrain and Yemen - may relax, and get away with virtually anything. As for those eligible for "regime alteration", from Africa to the Middle East and Asia, watch out. Globocop NATO is coming to get you. With or without dirty deals.

Pepe Escobar is the author of Globalistan: How the Globalized World is Dissolving into Liquid War (Nimble Books, 2007) and Red Zone Blues: a snapshot of Baghdad during the surge. His new book, just out, is Obama does Globalistan (Nimble Books, 2009).

He may be reached at pepeasia@yahoo.com.