The report that the CIA regularly hands over sacks of cash to Afghanistan’s President Karzai is only the latest episode in Afghanistan’s long and tragic encounter with US imperialism.
The multi-million-dollar payoffs go back to the late 1970s, when the Democratic administration of President Jimmy Carter adopted a strategy of ensnaring the Soviet Union in “its own Vietnam” by fomenting and financing an Islamist insurgency against a Soviet-backed government in Kabul.
Working on the CIA payroll at the time was a young Hamid Karzai, who served as a go-between for the American intelligence agency, the Pakistani ISI and the mujahideen. At the time, he no doubt rubbed shoulders with Osama bin Laden, who was serving in a similar capacity.
In the wake of the Soviet withdrawal, the forces backed by the CIA carried out a protracted civil war that ended with the coming to power of the Pakistani-backed Taliban in 1996. This war was resumed under CIA auspices when Washington used the September 11, 2001 attacks as the pretext for invading and occupying Afghanistan. The agency began handing out suitcases full of cash once again to the Afghan warlords to contract their services as proxy troops in the US war for regime change.
Traveling in northern Europe on another money-gathering trip, Karzai made the improbable claim that the CIA cash wasn’t really that much and was being spent on “providing assistance to the wounded, the sick.”
In reality, whatever doesn’t go into the pockets and off-shore accounts of the Karzai family and its immediate periphery is still being used to pay off the warlords, including war criminals like Abdul Rashid Dostum, who, while on the CIA payroll, organized the massacre of thousands of Taliban prisoners near Mazar-i-Sharif in 2001. According to some reports, he alone has received up to $100,000 a month… [In Full @ WSWS]
It appears Afghanistan’s financial wealth is being systematically looted by the U.S. backed/empowered kleptocracy and U.S. funds are alleged to have been diverted from aid programs.
Much of it seems to be flowing to (or should I say ‘through’) Dubai… [In Full]
Local officials in Afghanistan’s Ghazni Province are reporting that at least four civilians have been killed in a NATO airstrike against the Andar District overnight, including two small children.
The initial statement on the strike from District Chief Mohammed Desiwal claimed that only ten people were killed, all Taliban. Later reports confirmed that the attack also hit a civilian house. They raised the toll to 14, with the additional victims the civilian bystanders in the house. Police say a number of other civilians were wounded.
Taliban statements also confirmed a number of civilian deaths, claiming seven in their accounts while likewise denying that they had lost 10 fighters in the incident. NATO has refused to comment at all on the situation.
Indeed, NATO operational updates for Thursday night and Friday completely ignored Ghazni Province, not mentioning any battles at all even though it appears to be well documented that a strike did indeed take place.
The Talib claim none of the people killed were their fighters. When you got nuthin’ else… The IMplausible Denial of silence
9/11 Family Portraits… The Haqqani clan posing with Ronald Reagan’s point man for our continuing war on South Asia and Audie Murphy-like legend of Hollywood movies Charlie Wilson
"Ambassador to Afghanistan Ryan Crocker spoke to Candy (Crowley) while his embassy in Kabul was on lockdown. He said that the attacks showed that the US still needed a military presence in Afghanistan."
“All The News You Never Knew You Needed To Know …Until Now.”
March 27 2012 Travus T. Hipp Morning News & Commentary: If So… Why? Will The US Supreme Court Force Us To Pay Commercial Interests For Our Health Insurance?
A Synopsis Of This Morning’s News… H/t to ChrisM my MP3Angel for supplying the audio files.
[After the commentary the Austin Lounge Lizards, with a plug for one of RazerRay’s favorite meds! Courtesy of the respective artists andf KPIG Radio Freedom California Earth.]
«o»Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta has assured us that the killing of our soldiers by the Afghanis we are ‘training’ (See this for more on that joke) will not deter us from “our” goal of building an independent and capable Afghan military to protect an installed government that isn’t survivable after the ISAF’s departure. As if they aren’t ‘independent and capable’. The ones we supplied in the 90s… The TALIBAN seem to be doing a pretty good job of driving the West out of the country. Three more Westerners… Two British troops and an American were killed yesterday.
«o»The Iraqi government in Baghdad will not offer a resolution asking for Syria’s Bashar al-Assad to step down at the upcoming Arab League meeting. They want a dramatic change in government (done) but they will not lead an Arab League Jihad against Syria.
«o»Today is the day the US Supreme Court will discuss the constitutionality of the US government’s requiring Americans to purchase health insurance from for-profit commercial insurance companies. Decisions will most likely come down from the bench in late June… Just in time to become a ‘hot button’ in the upcoming presidential elections.
«o»NASA has launched five rockets from Virginia that are to explode in the atmosphere for the purpose of observing the Gulf Stream storm patterns.
«o»President Obama is taking a strong stand at the nuclear disarmament conference in Seoul Korea with a request for the reprocessing of enriched nuclear material stockpiles into nuclear power plant fuel rods.
In OTHER News:
Killer of Florida teen told police he was attacked first
SANFORD, Florida (Reuters) - The man who shot and killed an unarmed Florida teenager in a case that has sparked widespread public outrage told police the victim had punched him, knocked him down and slammed his head into the pavement repeatedly before he fired the fatal gunshot. [Reuters]
Which totally contradicts EVERYTHING on the 911 tape or witness testimony. Zimmerman LIED TO THE POLICE IN A MURDER INVESTIGATION!
It is day 27 since he killed Trayvon Martin, and George Zimmerman is still free.
We live in quite a country. A celebrity with zero talent is flour bombed and the person throwing the flour is arrested immediately as if they just shot the president.
Flour!
“I think ‘What if that was some other substance? What if that person had a dangerous weapon?;
Kardashian told US.
“And so we are definitely changing things up a little bit, amping up security, taking some measures, and… I’m gonna definitely deal with it because it is not acceptable.”
A Synopsis Of This Morning’s News… H/t to ChrisM my MP3Angel for supplying the audio files.
[After the commentary, in relation to the finishing news story, a Native American invocation that speaks to the hands of greed, followed by John Trudell (John’s site is here). Courtesy of the respective artists.]
«o»Consider that the West has lost the war on Afghanistan… President Obama is insisting there should be no rush to the exit even as things entirely fall apart in Afghanistan the soldier who massacred sixteen Afghan civilians, with a majority being children has been transported to Kuwait, not Guantanamo, but that’s only backgrounder.
There was an assassination by carbomb/firebombing attempt targeting Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta on the runway of the airport as he was arriving for the meet and greet with the Marines who were, as reported yesterday, required to leave their weapons outside the meeting hall.
Panetta’s VERY TENSE meeting with president Hamid Karzai ended with the Afghan leader demanding that the night raids cease immediately (he’s demanded that before and has been ignored) and further requiring that all NATO/US forces should be pulled from the hinterlands of the country and garrisoned in larger towns and cities, even as the Taliban announce that they have suspended any and all peace talks… leaving those garrisoned troops looking more like sitting ducks. More at Foreign Policy Magazine AfPak Channel.
«o»The senate Republicans have surrendered - The Republican’s stall forcing a filibuster over the confirmation hearings of more than 160 federal judges has been called off and they have claimed they would sign onto the Transportation bill by the end of the month IF the riders and amendments get cleared up… a big IF.
«o»The ceasefire brokered by Egypt between the Palestinians of Gaza and Israel has fallen apart. Rocket fire from Gaza continues and an Israeli air strike took out a whole block in the Gaza Strip where the Israelis claim a bomb factory was located.
«o»Local News… The San Lorenzo river is threatening the Landed Gentry-owned beach boardwalk amusement park at the river mouth due to high water levels and continuing light rains of the sort that saturated the ground in the Santa Cruz mountains during the winter of 1882-83… before the heavy rains came, flooding much of downtown. One can only hope.
More below the fold.
In OTHER News:
The Santa Cruz Sentinel (affectionately known as the ‘senile’) is featuring an article on the front page about how erosion and rising ‘uncontrolled’ water at the mouth of the San Lorenzo river is ‘scaring’ the people who ‘own’ the boardwalk. At the side of that river mouth is a lot used as a parking lot for the boardwalk that was ‘given’ to them by the city in, I believe, the 1930s.
What the SENILE is NOT mentioning is the fact that the area they’re ‘scared’ about is ALL below the traditional high water mark, which mean’s that parking lot IS ON INDIAN LAND according to federal law, if the natives want it.
At the time of the allotment act, due to the fact that the California coastal tribes were typically small bands, they were cut out of the ‘deals’ made by the federal government for tribal ‘benefits’, including some small piece of land to call their own. Somewhere along the line that tribal size issue was redacted from Indian Affairs requirements, and now days the very few Ohlones left (I do not believe the Nisquits and the other bands survived) MAY want that riverfront land.
Snigger.
SANTA CRUZ - The rapidly flowing San Lorenzo River, instead of heading straight to sea, has taken a sharp right turn onto the beach and delivered the Boardwalk a scare.
River water, running parallel to the amusement park, has crept precariously close to the concrete retaining wall that separates the beach and Boardwalk.
Early Wednesday, a wooden staircase to the beach, was ripped apart by the meandering river water and washed into the ocean, [In Full @ ‘The Senile’ (owned by Rupert Murdoch’s NewsCorp… Don’t expect a lot)]
—30—
This is Razer Raygun saying ‘Happy Motoring America…’. Remember:
Capitalism has a gun at your head every moment you’re alive:
A good example of agitprop aimed at US and NATO military commanders using mostly unverified information such as a 12 year old boy allegedly spotted ‘planting a bomb’ by a helicopter gunship crew who picks up a baby and holds it when he sees the helicopter.
Do you suppose it was the same gunship crew responsible for seeing imaginary ‘armed insurgents’ in the “Collateral Murder” video?
A Synopsis Of This Morning’s News… H/t to ChrisM my MP3Angel for supplying the audio files.
«o»There are primaries and caucuses in Alabama, Mississippi, the Virgin Islands and Guam today. If Mitt Romney doesn’t carry Alabama and Mississippi he’ll have a hard time with his Southern strategy.
«o»The fight is already on as to where the trial for the Army sergeant who just massacred sixteen Afghan civilians will be held. The Pentagon is claiming the trial will be held under Court Martial rules using the Uniform Code of Military Justice but the Afghan government is saying they expect a civilian trial under Afghanistan’s laws. Lets see… Not military action… Kills civilians as an ‘independent actor’… The latter seems to be the appropriate route, but YOU BET that’s not what’s going to happen with the Pentagon saying the soldier will be out of the country within 48 hours.
You can hear the clamor and cries in the halls and chambers of US government to speed EVERYONE’S exit from the country while president Obama says “We shouldn’t rush to the exits” out one side of his two faces as he apologizes for atrocities committed by our soldiers from the other ‘face’.
Meanwhile, let it be said without denying this tragedy in a war that is NOTHING BUT a continuing tragedy for the people of Afghanistan, that American soldiers ARE victims themselves, of a deceptive lying (Osama bin-Laden spent most of his hiding time in Pakistan NOT Afghanistan) government… OUR GOVERNMENT, that put them in harms way, and in this case recycled the soldier FOUR TIMES into a combat zone… Because the US government DEPENDS on a small army, lest there be a military draft for our Imperial wars, which means EVERYONE in America gets to meet troopers who have been destroyed in any number of ways by war, or lost a friend, relative, or lover to a war. Not a pleasant proposition for a nation raised on bloodless video game violence.
The protests in regard to that civilian massacre are just… getting…started in Kandahar, Kabul, and other larger towns. Expect those protests to spread and get more violent in light of the Taliban’s statement that they’ve ordered their fighters to begin attacking everyone and anyone in the employ of the US or NATO, and their facilities throughout the country.
«o»Egypt has managed to monger together a truce between Israel and the Palestinians in Gaza after four days of tit-for-tat rocket attacks and air bombardments.
«o»The House of Representatives has gone home to hustle their constituents for re-election and the senate will break later today or tomorrow after they figure out how to gut the Transportation bill. More.
«o»There will be protests in Oakland and elsewhere in California today over a provision in the new state budget that would cut animal shelter funding and reduce the ‘wait-time till destruction’ for errant pets to three days. Details.
In OTHER News:
Let it be noted that your government is SCARED OF YOU… So what do we do?
“The world’s leaders flee from us … so what do we do? Maybe we just laugh at them?”
ADBUSTERS: TACTICAL BRIEFING #27 – #LAUGHRIOT
Alright you wild cats, nimble dreamers and jammer tacticians,
In a sudden about-face, the United States has conceded a victory to Occupy and moved May’s G8 summit to Camp David, an impenetrable military base in rural Maryland.
Wow! Looks like the specter of 50,000 occupiers ready to swarm with a list of demands has turned the climactic Showdown in Chicago into a humiliating G8 Backdown. Bravo! Splitting the G8 and NATO summits was a deft move… but now we’ve got a major tactical rethink on our hands.
The big question is do we follow Mao’s advice (“when the enemy retreats, we pursue”) or Sun Tzu’s (“Do not pursue an enemy who simulates flight”)?
We’ve heard persuasive arguments on all sides. Some occupiers say the movement should lay chase and go for #OCCUPYCAMPDAVID against all odds … a month of tree-sits, lockdowns and nomadic encampments in the woods and nearby Thurmont. Others believe it’s best to up the ante with #OCCUPYCHICAGO: an even bigger mobilization beginning with the May Day General Strike. Still others advocate an unpredictable everywhere-at-once global insurgency of anarchic swarms throughout the month of May….
When Ben Ali first attacked then tried to hide from his people, he was toppled. When Mubarak refused to negotiate and tried to beat his people back into line, he was deposed. Now the White House and the G8 are repeating the mistakes of last year’s autocrats … first they try to scare us with tough talk of repressive anti-Occupy ordinances, crowd suppression technologies and paramilitary policing, then they make a hasty retreat to the safety of Camp David.
The world’s leaders flee from us … so what do we do? Maybe we just laugh at them?
On May 18, the day the G8 leaders meet in Camp David, why don’t we, the people of the world have a #LAUGHRIOT.
Let roars of laughter rise up from towns and cities everywhere at the spectacle of the world’s leaders trying to crisis manage the economy from behind closed doors and razor wire fences…
In full @ Adbusters… The Journal Of The Mental Environment
—30—
This is Razer Raygun saying ‘Happy Motoring America…’. Remember:
Capitalism has a gun at your head every moment you’re alive
A Synopsis Of This Morning’s News… H/t to ChrisM my MP3Angel for supplying the audio files.
«o»Something is cooking in the talks between the Taliban and the Afghani government. The president teleconferenced yesterday with the Karzai ‘government’ and requested they keep the president informed as to the progress in negotiations. Meanwhile it has been announced that the US will transfer three thousand detainees to the Afghan government within three months. Expect many of them to be released simply for lack of evidence.
«o»The solar storm billed as an F3 major event turned out to be simply a good day for earthlings to get a suntan. There was no noticeable effect on the communications infrastructure or power grid on the planet, but there ARE a few days left in this solar event.
«o»It’s illegal, but HEY, it ‘gets the goods’… The Drone Wars in South Waziristan continue with fourteen SUSPECTED militants killed and the top al-Qaeda officer in the region confirmed killed last month.
«o»Another week of doing almost nothing - Congress has returned home for a week-long election year break after passing a minuscule small business and jobs bill as proof of the fact that the Republicans are still vertical and breathing to vote on bills at all.
«o»Alabama and Mississippi are seen as the key states in next week’s Republican primaries with no one campaigning in Kansas at all.
In OTHER News:
AuntieImperial: @ggreenwald @alphaleah @BarrettBrownLOL It’s hard being a ‘lightning rod’ ALL the time. Aren’t those the first words I ever typed at you BB?
“Have been meeting with lawyers and replacing computers, modem, phone, front door of my apartment. It looks like they want to indict me.”
Barrett Brown, Anonymous ‘spokesman’ has had his apartment (and his mother’s place) raided yesterday as part of a continuing effort to staunch the flow of typically NON-SECRET information leaked from various government and private security firms across the globe (Interpol was hacked recently) by that shadowy collective of Hacktivists known as Anonymous, LulzSec, AntiSec, and other witty names. They didn’t arrest him. They’re ‘looking for laptops’.
(wonder what kind of bait they use when on fishing expeditions for those?)
More from Barrett’s hometown newspaper:
Barrett Brown Raided by Feds Posted on March 7th, 2012 1:18pm
by Tim Rogers Filed under Local News
I’ve wondered in this space whether the Zetas would get Barrett Brown before the feds did. Well, the former unofficial not-spokesman for Anonymous was raided yesterday by the feds, who are stepping up their efforts to deprive the group of lulz. Yesterday a hacker going by the handle Sabu was arrested — and it turned out he’d been cooperating with the government for some time. From Barrett’s statement on the raid (the language of which required me to dash out a few letters) [In Full @ Dallas Magazine]
Some more on the the raid, and the lead-up to it, from Bloomberg.
There is nothing wrong with your television set.
Do not attempt to adjust the picture. We are controlling transmission. If we wish to make it louder, we will bring up the volume. If we wish to make it softer, we will tune it to a whisper. We will control the horizontal. We will control the vertical. We can roll the image, make it flutter. We can change the focus to a soft blur or sharpen it to crystal clarity. For the next hour, sit quietly and we will control all that you see and hear. We repeat: there is nothing wrong with your television set. You are about to participate in a great adventure. You are about to experience the awe and mystery which reaches from the inner mind to —
A fundamental flaw in geo-strategic judgment is the erroneous belief that Taliban and al-Qaida are one and the same; they aren’t.
Right… The Taliban USED TO work for us, and al-Qaeda STILL DOES.
As represented recently by the LIFG’s (the Libyans most likely to be shooting at Western troops in Iraq and by far the most numerous foreign fighters captured in the country) consorting with NATO to murder Libya’s Muammar al-Gadaffi brutally in a media televised fashion as a warning to other nations that would resist having their leaders overthrown, like Syria, where the new Libyan ‘government’ (if you can call it a government, but we CAN call them al-Qaeda) is assisting NATO country’s interests and arming the Syrian CIA army fronted by the Syrian National Congress, currently residing in Turkey, who are refusing to participate in Syria’s new constitution…
A Message To #Occupiers Everywhere: "Ignore the loyalists, ignore the cynics, keep fighting ...... Shut them down. Shut the entire god damn system down. No one can stop this. I love you all." ~~Redditor Aniadrift
March 27 2012 Travus T. Hipp Morning News & Commentary: If So… Why? Will The US Supreme Court Force Us To Pay Commercial Interests For Our Health Insurance?
Creative Commons Copyright
Wow! Looks like the specter of 50,000 occupiers ready to swarm with a list of demands has turned the climactic Showdown in Chicago into a humiliating G8 Backdown. Bravo! Splitting the G8 and NATO summits was a deft move… but now we’ve got a major tactical rethink on our hands.
