Perhaps the American Wehrmacht has been influenced by the high school science experiment in which you beat a magnet with a hammer which causes it to demagnetize, to be failed, so to speak. But if it it is totally demagnetized, the beating will restore a little magnetism to it. Or maybe not, it’s hard to follow.
But if you have known loved ones or friends who have died of cancer, you may have seen the phenomenon first hand in which cancer treatment, chemotherapy or radiotherapy, indeed kills cancer cells but also selects for the most hardy so that, eventually, the cancer doesn’t respond at all to treatment. And the patient dies.
And unlike the US military, often doctors stop treatment because it does no good, making even worse the time the patient has left.
The Pentagon’s treatment of terrorism in foreign countries is never halted, no matter the consequences for the patient.
Ashton Carter is just another high-button apparatchik whose career was in buying weapons systems and writing pamphlets about the MX missile and communications systems for thermonuclear war before becoming Sec’y of Defnse so perhaps another medical definition for the war on terror is in order.
By this time the US military, like the HIV, is off working over another country, perhaps a close neighbor, someone with which it normally had relations.
In America today, HIV is a very serious disease but manageable through the use of effective anti-viral drugs and medications to stop secondary infections. However, there is nothing that can be used to make a country survivable once the US military has been turned loose in and on it.
Justice, not escalations or state-sanctioned atrocities rationalized as helping an ally. Piecemeal WWIII isn’t a strategy. It’s a description, worth thinking about as in how to undo. Either that or continue to reap the whirlwind.
Fourteen years ago Osama bin Laden showed the world the United States had a glass jaw. After one very hard hit, the world superpower would appear to rise up, united only to see its people and leaders fail in spectacular fashion as they abandoned all principles they thought they stood for.
Fourteen years later, we’re subdued and fearful owners of a combination corporate dictatorship national security state equipped with an armored car-driving paramilitary police force and surveillance apparatus designed for the suppression of civilian participation. Add to that an embedded racial apartheid, one that puts African Americans and the poor in prison for profits, targets of extortion in the way of organized heists disguised as fines for petty infractions and legitimately resentful of their terrible officials.
The largest military and national security complex in world history was erected. And it’s only strategy, with the only exception being the recent agreement with Iran , is attacking much poorer nations with overwhelming force, selectively bombing impoverished regions of misery and lawlessness, launching pinprick military raids/assassinations and creating or exacerbating failed states.
A small example, yesterday, from Fox News and overseas sources (delivered by mercenaries probably on the US payroll, yet), reasonable evidence that ISIS can manufacture small amounts of mustard gas in Syria, for use in mortar shells and improvised bombs aimed at local militias opposed to them.
And who brought it about? We did when an illegitimate war was launched, one that destroyed Iraq and destabilized the entire region, a place where we’re still bombing people, making things worse, stirring the pot, training lousy local fighters who desert, and arming the same with weapons that eventually get turned over to even worse people.
One Kurdish soldier said that of 52 mortars ISIS launched at his team during one attack, three released yellow smoke that caused their skin to immediately water, discharge liquids, blister and create large wounds. Soldiers exposed to the gas vomited and experienced extreme abdominal pain and severe burning and itching eyes. Other mortars discharged a silver glittery substance that stuck to their skin like glue. The Kurdish soldiers said the Iraqi military also said ISIS used these chemical weapons on their forces.
The attached photos, if genuine, show wounds that appear to be caused by a blistering agent.
The nature of the story appears to show that only small amounts, militarily insignificant, are being produced and put into mortar shells, in and of itself a hazardous undertaking. The primary aim would appear to be to cause an additional measure of terror and demoralization.
The incident also appears to describe a failed improvised weapon, I’m guessing — something sticky and flammable — styrofoam or styrene dissolved in an organic solvent until thickened, to adhere. In this case, there was no ignition.
And what are we looking forward to in 2016?
More of the same, almost certainly.
Why, here’s the alleged leading candidate of the Democratic Party, being distasteful and awful, as it turned out, in making what she thinks is an off-camera joke about the killing of Moe Gadaffi.
Hilarious. Failed states and refugee crises.
Still the best song that applies. Shoulda been a contender.
Incidentally, it’s the only rock video to show anthrax mailer Bruce Ivins entertaining in a Maryland bar AND his vanity-pressing white label single, “Pass Me By.”
Ivins’ anthrax mailings touched off the biggest investment in bioterror defense in world history (we’re always number one in these dubious achievements), all to counter a threat, the predicted scope of which has never materialized.
The best and only bioterrorist minted during the war on terror? Our man! Paid for by the US taxpayer.
Also eyeball the video for the “puffer machine.” (We’ll check you now, for purity!) Designed for the detection of explosives at airports, many were bought. None of them worked and it was subsequently canned.
He praised the intelligence professionals for their work even as he reflected on the costs. “This self-reflection, this willingness to examine ourselves, to make corrections, to do better, that’s part of what makes us Americans,??? Mr. Obama told them. “It’s part of what sets us apart from other nations. It’s part of what keeps us not only safe but also strong and free.???
Leon E. Panetta, who served Mr. Obama as C.I.A. director and then as defense secretary, said the president was especially engaged in counterterrorism operations and wanted regular briefings, always asking about civilian casualties. “You hit some of these targets, and you get a lot of people in a shot, and what you wind up doing is asking yourself, ‘Is every one of those guys you get a bad guy?’ ??? Mr. Panetta said.
I bet. Bad guys. Always with the good guys and bad guys thing.
“We came, we saw, he died,” Hillary Clinton joked about Mo Ghaddafi after B-2 bomber strikes took out the rivets holding his military together.
Now Libya is a failed state with a local chapter of ISIS. But we bombed the paupers and got the bad guy.
The mighty US war on terror machine grinds on. Big news, big news, an allegedly important al Qaeda man, nabbed by US special forces in the failed state formerly known as Libya. Hate to rain on the parade. (Well, no, not really.)
Anas al Libi was a retiree from the Afghan war against the Soviets.
The picture now all over the news is misleading. Anas al Libi most probably does not look like that now.
Reads the New York Times today (no link):
American commandos carried out raids on Saturday in two far-flung African countries in a powerful flex of military muscle aimed at capturing fugitive terrorist suspects
[Anas al Libi’s] brother, Nabih, told The Associated Press that just after dawn prayers, three vehicles full of armed men had approached [his] home and surrounded him as he parked his car. The men smashed his window, seized his gun and sped away with him, the brother said.
Military muscle.
In 2000 al Libi was living in England when the British took the “Manual of Afghan Jihad” off him and gave it to the FBI. Al Libi was not arrested and later faded from sight, apparently leaving the country.
After 9/11, the US government started calling this book the “al Qaeda manual.” It’s what you used to see quoted from when authorities wanted to produce some evidence of the methods of mayhem used by al Qaeda. Photocopies were published, various edits of it have been posted around the web, by the GWB White House and, of course, here.
British authorities tried to use it in a famous ricin trial to establish that an “al Qaeda poison cell” was linked to al Qaeda in Afghanistan. The US government also used the alleged “al Qaeda poison cell” as evidence in Colin Powell’s discredited UN Security Council exposition on the Saddam Hussein regime’s WMD programs and its connection with al Qaeda.
The British jury for the London ricin trial did not agree there was a poison cell (and the defense proved a ricin recipe seized in an anti-terror raid in England was not the same as that in al Libi’s “Manual of Afghan Jihad”) and found all of the Muslims rounded up as part of the alleged plot not guilty, except for one man.
Every regular knows I wrote about it extensively years ago.
It was the British prosecution’s aim to link the “UK poison cell” to al Qaida by associating its ricin and poisons recipes with documents of Afghan — read al Qaida — origin. It cited three documents of interest: the “Manual of Afghan Jihad” seized in an information gathering raid in Manchester in 2000, notes found in English and Russian in Kabul in 2001 and notes found in Kabul, written in Arabic, also in 2001.
In a mini-trial within the trial, the prosecution’s claims became unconvincing for a number of reasons. The “Manual of Afghan Jihad” was obtained in Manchester in April 2000 by British anti-terrorism agents and subsequently turned over to the FBI’s Nanette Schumaker later that month and contains sections on poisons. Its ricin recipe is clearly taken from Hutchkinson and Saxon and although it is of similar nature to the recipe in the Bourgas trial, it is not identical.
In the manner of details, the “Manual of Afghan Jihad” calls for the use of lye in the treatment of castor seeds. The use of lye was subsequently dropped for many methods found in terrorist literature and it also does not appear in the Bourgass recipe. Other portions of the “Jihad” recipe straighforwardly descend from Hutchkinson, including the reference to DMSO. And still other fine details separate it from the Kamel Bourgass formulation.
A further knock on the “Manual of Afghan Jihad” as an al Qaida source comes from its apparent origin in the first jihad against the Communist occupation of Afghanistan, prior to al Qaida. The “Manual of Afghan Jihad” was the property of Nazib al Raghie, also known as Anas Al Liby to the US government. At the time the manual was taken off al Raghie in Britain, UK authorities were not interested in him. Neither, apparently, was the FBI and he was not arrested. These days, al Raghie, as Al Liby, is on the FBI’s list of most wanted terrorists.
The “Manual of Afghan Jihad’s” ricin recipe was fairly obviously not the same as the one presented as evidence in the trial and a representative of the defense added that its appellation as an “al Qaida manual” was and is an invention of the United States government. More to the point, it was the work of the Department of Justice because nowhere in the manual is the word “al Qaida” mentioned although one could find it entitled as such on the DoJ website copy.
Summary: Anas al Libi (or Anas al Liby) was once, perhaps accurately, described privately by an expert for the defense in the London ricin trial as a pensioner from the Afghan wars.
He owned the copy of the so-called “al Qaeda manual” that used to be famous.
Anas al Libi has probably not been doing much of anything for years. He finally returned home, his capture partly the result of the turning of Libya into a failed state.
Go team. We expect nothing less than the description of great victories and legerdemain in the removal of poverty-stricken fly dirt.
The capture of Anas al Libi illustrates the working policy of the US government in open-ended military operations.
American special forces can roam the world, easily finding permission to snatch or kill any relative nobody as long as they are deemed problematical, in any failed or failing state, almost always those with warring tribes of Muslims.
Flatten the area of Tripoli where it is believed he is holed up with a human shield surrounding him. Kill all those people and get it over with. Implement total war for a week, and cockroach Gadhafi will be entombed in a pile of rubble …
As of right now, no one knows what will be the result of the Mideast rebellions. No one knows – or is telling us – if Iran or the Muslim Brotherhood is behind the scenes bankrolling or fanning the flames of the Mideast rebellions to re-establish the Islamic caliphate …
The Obama administration is backing all of the Mideast rebellions. From Egypt to Libya, there’s not a word of caution from the Obama administration about these rebellions; not a word of caution about what the new political environment will be if the rebellions succeed. The president’s radical America-hating chums obviously continue to influence their community organizer.
Obama administration types are not just throwing caution to the wind by backing these rebellions. They are throwing the world into a potential hotbed of life-threatening extremism …
It would be wise to be very cautious and suspicious of the rebellions in the Mideast. Too many violent rebellions in that part of the world have led to brutal regimes who maintain power through genocide, societal destruction …
Wrong about everything. And stupidly so.
Worth reprinting because the GOP is the party of Ted Nugent. And it’s silent today, unable to react to Libyan news because it means the president’s policy, despite how much it hates the guy, didn’t hurt the situation.
The GOP hated the Libyan conflict because it was its leaders didn’t start and had no power over. And while it loves war in the Middle East, it’s internal logic and hatred of the president prevented it from having any view of events which made sense.
We continue with our quality programming in a moment.
DD blog needs your help. I’m not too proud to beg.
The economic crash of 2008 has been as hard here as everywhere else.
Since stepping into cyberspace in the early Nineties everything written has been provided largely pro bono. And this is the first fundraiser of any kind that I’ve held.
Originally, I went under the rubric of the old electronic Crypt Newsletter, an e-zine devoted to hacker culture, specifically that centered on the worldwide network of young computer virus-writers.
Much of the work published through it was aimed at increasing public understanding of issues in cybersecurity and the hype-laden subjects of cyberterrorism and cyberwar. That continues to this day.
In 1994 some of the earliest published content was used in The Virus Creation Labs, a book on the old computer virus underground published by American Eagle. Interesting side fact: While the book is now technically out of print, the publisher decamped to Central America before 2000, convinced the country would overturn or that hyperinflation would come about as the result of the Millennium Bug.
By 2004 I had moved to a slightly different place at GlobalSecurity.Org, still doing pro bono public research on various security topics.
This work moved into the domain of poison recipes, specifically those for ricin and alleged home-made chemical and biological weapons, which had originated in the American survivalist extremist fringe during the Eighties. By the Nineties these tracts had been migrated to the Internet and simultaneously translated into Arabic.
In terms of practical things, this was one of the first places you could see at least one of the claims made by the US government, delivered by Colin Powell in his address to the UN Security Council, on reasons for war in Iraq, shot to pieces.
The London ricin ring as a link between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda had been part of Powell’s presentation and the material published at Globalsecurity destroyed it.
At the time, the US news media largely ignored this but the work could not be erased. History had its way. (Examples of the news on the ricin trial in the US news media are here, at the Washington Post; and from Newsweek.)
Around 2006, the public work was formally moved to Dick Destiny blog.
Material published through here pushed back against mainstream and government claims that al Qaeda had capability in biological chemical weapons and that documents found on the Internet conferred equal capabilities to any jihadis interested in them.
While unpublicized that effort has been a success.
With the help of others the official public position was modified. One example was the grudging concession in the 2008 report from the US Commission on the Prevention of WMD Proliferation and Terrorism: “We accept the validity of intelligence estimates about the current rudimentary nature of terrorist capabilities in the area of biological weapons … ” (Page 39.) Those intelligence estimates were not furnished by the US government’s analytical apparatus. They came from the work of outsiders, from here and analysis provided by colleagues.
Other proof is the anecdotal evidence that mainstream news is no longer littered with scare pieces insisting that al Qaeda men in some broken down hideout can make WMDs because of global access to terror capabilities granted by the Internet. Still, occasionally I have to issue burn notices on retired CIA men who resist getting the message. One example of such, from last year, is here.
Not bad for a blog.
Since then regular readers know I’ve kept up the fight while expanding into system domestic problems of economy and inequality which threaten the nation’s security in ways foreign threats during the war on terror never could.
This short history touches upon why the work has mattered. And so I ask for your help in keeping it moving forward and vital. Please help spread the word.
Donations are taken through PayPal. And you can still contribute without a designated PayPal account. Just page down to “Don’t have a PayPal account?” and click “continue.”
[The] Administration defines hostilities – an interpretation concocted over the objections of two top Pentagon lawyers – as a condition that exists only when U.S. troops are in a position to be fired upon …
With the libertarian-leaning GOP freshmen and progressive doves up in arms over the “war,” Boehner has little choice but to address the issue. But he wasn’t about to allow his conference to pass an extreme measure defunding all U.S. action in Libya, which would freak out the European allies who are leading the mission.
The only change would be a ban on attacks by drones or manned aircraft.
Sales of smart bombs and cruise missiles to Little Tommy Atkins and the rest of the toadies and pantywaists to remain bullish. Raytheon and Lockheed Martin CEO’s continue to report good quarterly results.
No real concern over terrible trade imbalance with China due to deindustrialization of almost everything but arms manufacturing.
The Senate Armed Services Committee urged China to let investigators travel unfettered to the Chinese mainland to probe reports that Chinese-made counterfeit parts are making their way into U.S. weapons and other electronics …
A range of U.S. companies interviewed by the committee, from military contractors to consumer electronics makers, have pointed “almost totally and exclusively” to China, and more specifically to Shenzhen, in Guangdong province, as a source of counterfeit electronic parts, Levin said.
Ultimately, he said, what was at stake is the U.S. ability “to have reliable weapons for bombing paupers and selling to panytwaists worldwide” “to defend itself with weapons systems that we can rely on.”
The country is weary of war, but the story Rubio tells, with eloquence and passion, is still tremendously appealing — the story of a great republic armed and righteous, with no limits on what it can accomplish in the world.
This is a story that many conservatives — and many Americans — want to believe. Once, I believed it myself.
But that was many years and many wars ago, and now I think Rand Paul is right.
This just in time to merge with Congressional House reluctance to go along with the President on regarding Bombing Moe as “not war.”
It’s not war, is the reasoning, if it’s by remote control.
Anyway, it’s not that they’re suddenly pacifists, it’s that they’re for any way to mess with Obama.
However, Moe stubbornly refuses to die or go away and Little Tommy Atkins and Co. have to keep re-ordering American smart bombs.
So the only difference taking the President out of the equation with some invocation of Congressional war powers is that it will only slightly slow down drone manufacturing and sales at General Atomics.
At this point the strategy of bombing paupers is not changeable. In fact, if the President were to suddenly advocate a draw down in the pauper-bombing mission planner, the Republican Party would quickly adopt a position for restoring the primacy of bombing the world’s beggars and pantywaists, or as Ross Douthat writes:
Rubio is the great neoconservative hope, the champion of a foreign policy that boldly goes abroad in search of monsters to destroy … His maiden Senate speech was a paean to national greatness, whose peroration invoked John F. Kennedy and insisted that America remain the “watchman on the wall of world freedom.???
Defense Secretary Bob Gates complains about NATO pantywaists:
In Libya, Gates said, “the mightiest military alliance in history is only 11 weeks into an operation against a poorly armed regime in a sparsely populated country, yet many allies are beginning to run short of munitions, requiring the U.S., once more, to make up the difference.???
He had me on the floor with that one. Bombing Moe is the “mightiest military alliance in history?” In his mind. WWII conveniently thrown in a black hole.
The thrust of it: European nations aren’t spending enough on their militaries. And they are reluctant warriors perhaps being tired of being hectored to fight in Afghanistan.
This will not be popular with Little Tommy Atkins or the friendlies on our northern border. Who have had to reorder smart bombs and missiles from our weapons shops.
“Europe’s patchwork of small countries leads to a jumble of small military forces that are not particularly effective if they actually need to go to war, critics say,” reads the piece.
Well, there’s also the fact that their democracies are substantially more representative than ours. And that their civilian populations and politicians and industries are not totally wedded to arms production and continually being on war footing.
Nope, can’t complain much about the Euro-pantywaists here. From this standpoint, it’s good they don’t follow the American way.
And for the sales pitch, trying to keep at least some air pumped into the balance of trade:
“Gates repeated the criticism on Friday, saying that the $300 billion that non-U.S. NATO members spend annually on defense ‘could buy a significant amount of usable military capability.’ Instead, the results are significantly less than the sum of the parts.???
Obey Uncle Sam! Don’t make him angry! Buy more F-16s, attack helicopters and smart bombs, pantywaists!
