Mike is more connected than the mob - 2cpu.com
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Wikileaks revelations are deeply embarrassing to the US
THE RELEASE by Wikileaks of more than 70,000 military files from the Afghanistan war has revealed alarming problems with the invasion, not least that the war is being lost.
On one hand US ally Pakistan appears to be supporting the Taliban and providing them with safe havens from which to launch raids into Afghanistan, and on the other hand there is evidence hinting that US and NATO troops have been labeling civilian casualties as 'Taliban fighters'.
In one incident western troops reported killing 30 Taliban fighters, but a UN investigation found 90 civilian deaths including 60 children.
Generally the files are the sorts of things that the US government in particular does not want people to see. About 200,000 pages have been published by Wikileaks including reports of some key incidents that conflict with previous official statistics in what appears to be the biggest breach of military security in US history.
According to Wikileaks, on 21 August 2008 a field report was filed where a task force reported receiving small arms fire from five Afghan insurgents, 13 kilometers south east of Shindand Airfield. This is the village of Azizabad.
Close air support was requested by allied troops on the ground. An AC-130 close air support gunship arrived and opened fire on the insurgents.
The report goes on to say that friendly forces recovered at the scene of the battle five chest rigs for ammunition, one machine gun, eight AK-47 guns, 1,000 rounds of 7.62 milimeter bullets, 3,000 rounds of 7.62 milimeter loose bullets, $3,000, one body-armour carrier with ceramic plates, two digital cameras and improvised explosive device making materials.
The report adds that 30 insurgents were killed in the action and one US soldier was wounded.
All fairly straight-forward, except that the UN sent an investigation team from the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA), who concluded that some 90 civilians were killed during the AC-130 engagement. The military failed to mention that of the 90 civilians killed, around 60 were kids, plus 15 women and 15 men. It concluded that another 15 villagers were wounded.
Another Battlefield Damage Assessment shows 181 enemies killed in action and fails to mention 31 civilians were also killed, including 20 people from the same extended family.
After this action a NATO spokesman was quoted as saying, "The single thing that we have done wrong, and we are striving hard to improve on next year, is killing innocent civilians." Well, on that evidence NATO forces would be hard pressed to improve on killing innocent civilians.
Other files show that that the US had formed assassination squads to kill al-Qaida operatives. These activities led to civilian casualties, including children.
The Wikileaks secret files also claim that an intelligence officer from Pakistan's Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) attempted to assassinate Afghanistan's president Karzai.
The US Special Forces unit tasked with carrying out assassinations was called Task Force 373 and it was supposed to kill the al-Qaida leader Abu Laith al-Libi. Al-Libi was believed to have been a training camp leader for al-Qaida and the Taliban and appeared in a number of videos with al-Qaida's second in command Ayman al-Zawahiri. The files show that the raid resulted in the deaths of seven children. Al-Zawahiri was not there, but apparently they failed to check that first.
TF 373 was also responsible for another botched raid on an Afghan Village that left seven Afghan National Police (ANP) officers dead. The unit appeared to be armed with 'Himar' missiles which are hardly a stiletto dagger for an assassination squad. If the hit team that shot US President Kennedy had used a Himar to take out JFK they would have destroyed everything within a hundred yards radius of the Dallas Textbook Depository.
Wikileaks founder Julian Assange also published the hit list for the TF 373 which seems to have been made up by Afghan governors, local warlords, and people who might have been unhappy with a competitor.
Assange told Channel Four that Task Force 373 got out of control with no accountablity.
He also said that US forces tended to call in an air strike at the slightest hint of trouble. A soldier would see a bit of unexploded ordinance and instead of ignoring it, or shooting it, they called in an airstrike, and then a village was hit and 17 people were taken to hospital.
Also alarming for the the region are Pakistan ISI links to al-Qaida. In one incident Wikileaks shows ISI agents and five al-Qaida operatives are working together on a mission, crossing into Afghanistan from Pakistan to carry out an attack.
One project was an attempt by an ISI officer to assassinate Afghan president Hamid Karzai, through a Taliban contact.
It does lead to the question of whether the Pakistan intelligence community uses its al-Qaida contacts to do its dirty work. The assassination of Benazir Bhutto might be a case in point.
It is not surprising that the US government thinks that Wikileaks is a menace. But really the materials released by Wikileads show that the US is unable to successfully wage war in a region that rightly has been called 'the graveyard of empires', and that the Taliban are winning. µ
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Assange has guts! Something few people nowadays have. He stirred the pot. It is about time the truth's are told. The useful citizens are the ones that are paying the useless politicians for them to tell us lies? This is a wake up call for true democracy which has become more and more distant in so called first world countries. What are governments so concerned about? If they knew the game was clean they wouldn't worry, would they?
All politicians abuse power and citizens shouldn't and cannot tolerate this!!!
Assange is not only inconvenient he is also the inconvenient truth. That is the reason why they created the story to throw him into prison. We are in the hands of Demons so dare not know more or reveal more than what they decide is acceptable.
The relevance is that the INQ and all other internet publishers fear that external corporate (and state) censorship and internet laws could manifest from this.
The relevance is that WikiLeaks is not shaping, nor concocting a propaganda piece, rather dumping this information, raw.
The relevance is that WikiLeaks is being dismantled and vilified in the "mainstream" media, from Wired to FOX.
The relevance is that the truth stands out above these lies and deceptions.
The relevance is that the powers-that-be know this, but relish that you are too lazy, too conditioned and too indifferent of "those others" to care.
Doesn't INQ have an editor anymore?
I thought this was an I.T. news board, and this article isn't about I.T. (it's politics) and it isn't news (war is bad - everyone knows that).
The link to your website is four clicks away from the recycle bin. Keep this up and that is where you will be.
Isn't in your interest when information alights that is important to everyone?
I'm still not sure what each of these corresponding US-based wars are about...
Is Iraq about * retaliation for al-quaida on 9/11 * harbouring terrorists * removing an 'evil dictator' (put in by the US) * oil
Is Afghanistan about * removing the Taliban (supported by the US) * boosting the opium trade * getting that gas pipe that the afghani's have been opposed to up until the point of 'salvation' by the US?
I dunno. I've yet to get a straight answer...
In reality, most not only will not tell the truth but most actually do not want the truth. They mostly want Fame, Fortune & Immortality – except when there is trouble, most then demand the truth and the kicker is, they will take any patsy – so long it is “evil”, the more evil, the better. Behavioural inconsistency, that’s what the problem is and no wonder. When you lack the ability to know how you became human other than some knowledge like “evolution”, oka others’ experience, should it be that and not 2nd/3rd hand knowledge, you won’t have much interest in anything other than Fame, Fortune & Immortality. Yes, Gandma is a faffing, parotting, mindless, nag.
Now, should there be Perfection, oka the Omnipotent, Omnipresent & Omniscient, and we not only know it but are able to prove it without a single doubt, will we still desire the truth? You sure? Cocksure? Or perhaps fear-cum-greed will then be running amok within most. That is how distant most people are from The Truth which is why Truth comes as Love, not Control-cum-Abandonment, the religious favourite pastime. Truth is not the reality when Love is lacking. Then, Stupidity-cum-Dumbness is the reality. All the mickey-mousing we see all around is the norm. What is sub-cum-abnormal is the desire for purity, as in the purity of others, cars, carpets, houses, bathrooms, yachts, food, health, bodies, ad infinitum, oka Fame, Fortune & Immortality.
Every Lunatic-cum-Idiotic wants to have a say and be responsible for others except themselves. What is normal/real, is the Desire of Purity, and not for Purity. Then you have become part of Reality and not the desire for Reality which will never be attained because you cannot own Reality/Infinity – not when you have not even mastered your immediate reality. And which human have you heard that one from before. Sure? Cocksure? Not even one, perhaps, and yet they all have the democratic right to vote for perfection in everything they desire? Flow/detachment is the reality, not accumulations/attachments. Most know nothing in reality/Realtiy. Even less have the experience of the knowledge they so desired to possess. Why? Because knowledge is just another word for wanting to possess/master that which you have been denied. Repeatedly, which then sets up addiction. The addiction for perfection, which is not merely illusional, it is delusional. And that goes for CEOs, CFOs, Presidents, PMs, Popes and more, infintely more. The joke then is, prison/the-zoo, is when you’d stepped outside of your abode.
Churchill's grandchildren would probably die from old age before the war ends.
Nice try at diversion with the old "not conservative news sources" ploy. -- WHO CARES? They're ESTABLISHMENT, "Main Stream Media". When they tell The Truth, The Whole Truth, and Nothing But The Truth, that's the *only* time CBS and Time or the site that you plug have *any* credibility. Truth doesn't depend on its source, it stands alone.
But here's a site for those who wish more:
http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/
@ well it's me isn't it?: Don't mean to be rude -- taking you at face value as more than a "oh, let's not *think* about bad things" method for stifling discussion -- but I bet that you're not required to read or participate, and the author of the piece set the topic, we're not hijacking the thread.
How does this article pertain to tech or IT in any way, shape, or form? Leave the politics to CNN or Huffington Post please. I don't come to The Inquirer for your uninformed political opinions.
Here's an interesting article. Note the quotations from CBS and Time, which are certainly not conservative news sources.
http://www.captainsjournal.com/category/rules-of-engagement/
Dear Nice Folks, like the inquirer site a lot, used it for years. TRY TO KEEP POLITICS OUT OF IT!!!!!
for God's sake, sigh.
If it's true that US troops "are hardly allowed to shoot the enemy", then you've proven that it's by intent a meat grinder for profits: victory is *not* an option.
Why don't *you* learn the parallel lessons of Vietnam? -- Phony "Gulf of Tonkin" incident for pretext, years of troop deployments even before that effectively kept secret, an intractable "quagmire" with no clear friends or foes, atrocities as a matter of policy (My Lai only the best known), endless bombing from airplanes with indiscriminate slaughter of the populace, more bombs dropped on Vietnam than in all of WW2, chemical warfare in Agent Orange, the CIA running drugs -- and after 56,000 US soldiers dead, the US simply left, millions of Vietnamese dead and maimed for no visible result, no "domino effect" occurred.
And to forget the horrors veterans still having a conscience turn to drink, drugs, and frequently suicide.
But the war machine made profits.
Am I alone in when I watch the news reports showing the Afghan army in training (nearly 10 years and counting..how long does it take exactly??) that once the UK and USA pull out and hand control over that 99% of the Afghan army will straight away defect to the Taliban?
It wouldnt surprise me at all that we are training the Taliban to have a new army.
You can't spell, and are sadly misinformed. US troops are not focused on killing women and children. Do you know anything about their ridiculously restrictive rules on engagement? They are hardly allowed to shoot the enemy. Why don't you read a little before you run your drooling mouth.
First I have some quibbles with the piece:
"In one incident Wikileaks shows ISI agents and five al-Qaida operatives are working together on a mission" -- No, *Wikileaks* doesn't; it's presumed to be US field reports. But since the US "at the highest levels" knowingly lied about WMD in Iraq, it's no big leap to assume that in this report ground is being laid for the *next* illegal invasion, of Pakistan, and / or Iran.
"It does lead to the question of whether the Pakistan intelligence community uses its al-Qaida contacts to do its dirty work." -- Maybe, but don't stop there. The US / UK intelligence communities at the very least use "al-Qaida" as the pretext for a police / surveillance state. Tyranny is built by staging "false flag" terrorism, then its mere "shadowy" presence is used to justify suppressing all liberties.
Ghastly as the incidents are, ask *why* they occur. Atrocities aren't merely incidental to unjustified, illegal WARS OF EMPIRE such as the US in Afghanistan and Iraq, they're a primary goal. Soldiers become desensitized to violence, even to committing atrocities, and are then more useful tools for enforcing tyranny in the "homeland". Make no mistake: US soldiers are *not* promoting or protecting anyone's liberty, and especially not those of US citizens. US soldiers are already being merged into domestic police, by those returning from war zones becoming police, and more blatantly by soldiers running check points, and "helping" security at sports stadiums. This is all patient incremental installation of a total police state.
Another major goal of the war machine is of course *profits*. It costs about a million dollars to kill just *one* person in the war zone. Doesn't matter whether the dead person is civilian or "insurgent" or "combatant" or "heroic defender of democracy": the war machine *profits* from each. Costs of Afghan and Iraq wars are over a trillion dollars -- and no end in sight, have already gone on far longer than WW2, *because* they're not *intended* to be won, only for more people to be put through the meat grinder for profits.
Profits fuel the increasing domestic police state in which those who rule us will become more than merely rich, but able to dispose of lives at a whim, just like kings and queens and other savages. This isn't the first time in history when EVIL people are trying to literally take over the world.
I support the war on terror , but focusing on killing kids and women does not really feel that good does it?
No wonder we are loosing the war in afghanistan if we put all efforts in to killing as much kids and women as possible :(
I know most of you sickos are fine with that, but I feel a bit sad about it.
this guy thinks the afghan war is about terrorism!!
hahahaha
emptyhead
... Give in to the terrorists.
If Churchill had been a wimp like you, you'd all be speaking German now. No matter, you'll be speaking Arabic or Pashto soon.