9/11 a big lie, pretext to occupy Afghanistan: Ahmadinejad
Mar 7, 2010 News & Events
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad insists the capitalist system, established by Israelis, is on verge of collapse, adding that the 9/11 was a set-up to occupy Afghanistan and wage a so-called ‘war on terror.’
The president described the September 11, 2001 destruction of the twin World Trade Center buildings in New York as a preconceived “scenario and a sophisticated intelligence measure” and emphasized that the 9/11 incident was a “big lie intended to serve as a pretext for fighting terrorism and setting the grounds for sending troops to Afghanistan.”
“Depredation, bullying and killing the reality of humanity are the outcomes of the capitalist way of thinking,” Ahmadinejad said on Saturday.
He deplored crimes by arrogant powers, saying, “They carry out heinous killings and acts of terror in the world under the guise of [defending] human rights.”
“The US attack and NATO expedition into the region were merely aimed at saving liberal democracy and the capitalist thought,” said the president.
Ahmadinejad said the September 11, 2001 attacks were part of a “scenario and a complicated intelligence move” and added, “The September 11 incident was a big lie aimed at finding the pretext to fight terrorism but it prepared the ground for adventurism in Afghanistan.”
The Iranian president pointed to the arrest of the leader of the Jundallah terrorist group, Abdolmalek Rigi, and said his capture was a disgrace for the intelligence services of the US and Israel.
Rigi was captured by Iranian security forces on February 23. He was aboard a passenger jet flying to Kyrgyzstan from the UAE when his plane was grounded in the Iranian port city of Bandar Abbas.
A few hours after Rigi’s arrest, Iranian Intelligence Minister Heidar Moslehi said that the notorious villain was at a US base 24 hours prior to being captured by Iranian forces, adding that the Americans had issued an Afghan passport for him.
In his confessions, Rigi revealed details about his ties with some intelligence agencies such as the CIA and said that he had closely cooperated with the security services of Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Tags: 9/11, afghanistan, Israelis, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
Bin Laden was within the grasp of US troops in 2001: Senate report
Dec 1, 2009 News & Events
WASHINGTON: Osama bin Laden was unquestionably within reach of U.S. troops in the mountains of Tora Bora when American military leaders made the crucial and costly decision not to pursue the terrorist leader with massive force, a Senate report says.
The report asserts that the failure to kill or capture bin Laden at his most vulnerable in December 2001 has had lasting consequences beyond the fate of one man. Bin Laden’s escape laid the foundation for today’s reinvigorated Afghan insurgency and inflamed the internal strife now endangering Pakistan, it says.
Staff members for the Senate Foreign Relations Committee’s Democratic majority prepared the report at the request of the chairman, Sen. John Kerry, as President Barack Obama prepares to boost U.S. troops in Afghanistan.
Kerry, the 2004 Democratic presidential candidate, has long argued the Bush administration missed a chance to get the al-Qaida leader and top deputies when they were holed up in the forbidding mountainous area of eastern Afghanistan only three months after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
Although limited to a review of military operations eight years old, the report could also be read as a cautionary note for those resisting an increased troop presence there now.
More pointedly, it seeks to affix a measure of blame for the state of the war today on military leaders under former president George W. Bush, specifically Donald H. Rumsfeld as defense secretary and his top military commander, Tommy Franks.
‘Removing the al-Qaida leader from the battlefield eight years ago would not have eliminated the worldwide extremist threat,’ the report says. ‘But the decisions that opened the door for his escape to Pakistan allowed bin Laden to emerge as a potent symbolic figure who continues to attract a steady flow of money and inspire fanatics worldwide. The failure to finish the job represents a lost opportunity that forever altered the course of the conflict in Afghanistan and the future of international terrorism.’
The report states categorically that bin Laden was hiding in Tora Bora when the U.S. had the means to mount a rapid assault with several thousand troops at least. It says that a review of existing literature, unclassified government records and interviews with central participants ‘removes any lingering doubts and makes it clear that Osama bin Laden was within our grasp at Tora Bora.’
On or about Dec. 16, 2001, bin Laden and bodyguards ‘walked unmolested out of Tora Bora and disappeared into Pakistan’s unregulated tribal area,’ where he is still believed to be based, the report says.
Instead of a massive attack, fewer than 100 U.S. commandos, working with Afghan militias, tried to capitalize on air strikes and track down their prey.
‘The vast array of American military power, from sniper teams to the most mobile divisions of the Marine Corps and the Army, was kept on the sidelines,’ the report said.
At the time, Rumsfeld expressed concern that a large U.S. troop presence might fuel a backlash and he and some others said the evidence was not conclusive about bin Laden’s location. – AP
Tags: 2001, 9/11, Bin Laden, Senate report, US troops, war on terror
Immortal Technique on Obama, 9/11 Truth & Corporate America
Nov 13, 2009 News & Events
The U.S. government uses foreign wars to distract people’s attention from internal problems. That’s according to rapper and political activist ‘Immortal Technique’. In an exclusive interview with RT’s Marina Portnaya he says America’s bad decisions are covered up with lame excuses.
Tags: 9/11, America, Corporate, obama, war on terror
US split: Collapse of ’shattered union’ to begin with Texas?
Nov 10, 2009 News & Events, Videos
Russian economist and academic Igor Panarin says that there is a strong possibility that the United States will break into six pieces by June 2010, which he says will be the result of a second economic crisis in late November. After Texas Governor Rick Perry mentioned the possibility of his state seceding from the union, Americans started to take Panarin’s predictions much more seriously and now the video game ‘Shattered Union’ is being developed into a major Hollywood motion picture.
Tags: 2010, 9/11, Alabama, America, Argentina, Arizona, Arkansas, Atlantic America, Barack Obama, Brazil, California, Carolina, china, Collapse, economic collapse, economic crisis, economic decline, economic meltdown, economic recession, European Union, financial crisis, financial meltdown, Florida, Forecast, Georgia, global recession, Hawaii, Idaho, Igor Panarin, Japan, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mikhail Gorbachev, Mississippi, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, obama, Oklahoma, Oregon, predictions, Project 2012, Robert Gates, Shattered Union, Tennessee, terrorism, Texas, The Crash of America, United Kingdom, United States, US collapse, US dollars, US population, USA, Utah, Video, Videos, war, war on terror, Washington, Wyoming
Taliban Still Working for the CIA?
Nov 9, 2009 News & Events, afghan war, war on terror
Henry Makow Ph.D.
November 09 2009
As President Obama ponders whether to send more troops to Afghanistan, there is mounting evidence the Taliban is supported by the CIA. If correct, the Afghan war is a charade with a hidden agenda.
First, we have many reports that unmarked helicopters are ferrying the Taliban to targets, and relieving them when cornered.
“Just when the police and army managed to surround the Taliban in a village of Qala-e-Zaal district, we saw helicopters land with support teams,” an Afghan soldier said. “They managed to rescue their friends from our encirclement, and even to inflict defeat on the Afghan National Army.”
This story, in one form or another, is being repeated throughout northern Afghanistan. Dozens of people claim to have seen Taliban fighters disembark from foreign helicopters in several provinces.
“I saw the helicopters with my own eyes,” said Sayed Rafiq from Baghlan-e-Markazi.
“They landed near the foothills and offloaded dozens of Taliban with turbans, and wrapped in patus (a blanket-type shawl).”
“Our fight against the Taliban is nonsense,” said the first soldier. “Our foreigner ‘friends’ are friendlier to the opposition.”
CIA AIR BASES IN PAKISTAN
Last February, there were reports of CIA airbases within Pakistan used for drones. If this is true, Pakistanis are being attacked by drones based in their own country. Obviously, the Taliban helicopters could also come from these CIA bases.
In May, Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari, told NBC News that the CIA and the (U.S.-Funded) Pakistani ISI intelligence service “has created the Taliban.”
Zardari said that the CIA and the ISI are still supporting the Taliban.
On Oct 29, 2009, Hillary Clinton infuriated Pakistani officials by saying she found it “hard to believe” the ISI didn’t know where Al Qaeda leaders were hiding. Her role is to maintain the fiction that Al Qaeda and the Taliban are not CIA creations.
Just the day before, (Oct. 18) four American citizens were caught photographing sensitive buildings in Islamabad. All four were dressed in traditional Afghan outfits and were found to be in possession of illegal weapons and explosives.
Their vehicles contained 2 M-16A1 rifles, 2 handguns and 2 hand-grenades. The police held the American citizens in custody for an hour before the Interior Ministry interfered and had them released without charge even as preliminary investigation was being carried out.
The CIA could be involved in the recent “Taliban” attacks on Pakistani institutions. Who knows? In some cases, the Afghan “Taliban” could be CIA mercenaries.
In Feb. 2008, the British were caught planning a training camp for the Taliban in Southern Afghanistan supposedly to make them “change sides.” Karzai expelled two top British “diplomats.”
THE HIDDEN AGENDA
All wars are charades. This is true of the world wars, the Cold War, Korea, Vietnam, 9-11 and the current war on terror. The human race is caught in a hologram controlled by the Illuminati Rothschild central bankers.
Wars are necessary to divide, distract and dehumanize us. Otherwise, we might focus on the small network of Masonic families, based in London, who control government credit. Therefore, the central banking cartel uses pawns like Bush and Obama, and intelligence agencies like the CIA, Mossad, MI-6 and ISI to foment war. They finance these wars by issuing debt repayable to them by the taxpayer.
As I have said, the ultimate goal is to translate their monopoly over government credit into a worldwide monopoly over power, wealth and culture; in other words, to disinherit and enslave the human race. This is called world government.
I’m not an expert on the politics of the Asian subcontinent. But it appears that the Afghanistan war should be seen in a larger regional context. Zbigniew Brzezinski advocated a “global-zone of percolating violence,” that included Central Asia, Turkey, southern Russia, and the western borders of China. It also included the entire Middle East, the Persian Gulf (Iran), Afghanistan and Pakistan.
The plan to destabilize this vast area was outlined in Brzezinski’s book, “The Grand Chessboard” (1997) . Ostensibly, the purpose was to prevent Russia from becoming an imperial power again. But that doesn’t make sense.
What do these countries have in common? They are Muslim. Islam is the last redoubt of faith in God. The Illuminati are Satanists. Put two and two together.
The Afghan war has some immediate “benefits” to the bankers: perpetual war, arms spending, drugs, pipelines etc. But it is part of a larger “war of civilizations” designed to degrade and destroy Islam. Look for it to expand and go on forever.
———————–
On a related note, citing current and former U.S. officials, The New York Times reported Oct. 28, 2009 that the brother of Afghan President Hamid Karzai has been getting regular payments from the Central Intelligence Agency.
“Ahmed Wali Karzai is a suspected player in Afghanistan’s opium trade and has been paid by the CIA over the past eight years for services that included helping to recruit an Afghan paramilitary force that operates at the CIA’s direction in and around the southern city of Kandahar,” the newspaper reported.
Tags: 9/11, afghanistan, Air Bases, cia, CIA Bases, obama, Pakistan, Pakistan Bases, taliban, war on terror
First US official resigns in protest at Afghan war
Oct 27, 2009 News & Events, afghan war
The US-led war in Afghanistan has forced the first American official to resign his post, questioning the reason behind Washington’s military presence in the country.
The senior State Department official in Afghanistan’s Zabul province Matthew Hoh had stepped down in September, The Washington Post reported on Tuesday.
“I have lost understanding of and confidence in the strategic purposes of the United States’ presence in Afghanistan,” Hoh wrote in his resignation letter to the State Department’s personnel chief.
“I have doubts and reservations about our current strategy and planned future strategy, but my resignation is based not upon how we are pursuing this war, but why and to what end,” he added.
The former Marine Corps captain was offered a senior staff-level job at the US embassy in Kabul, which he also turned down.
US President Barack Obama is mulling to send tens of thousands of more troops to the war-ravaged country, saying on Monday that he would not rush a decision.
US and NATO commander in Afghanistan General Stanley McChrystal has asked at least 40,000 additional troops. Currently there are 100,000 international troops in the country.
Hoh, who had also served in uniform at the Pentagon and as a civilian in Iraq, said he decided to speak out to influence public opinion.
“I’m not some peacenik, pot-smoking hippie who wants everyone to be in love,” he said after his resignation became final on Wednesday.
“I want people in Iowa, people in Arkansas, people in Arizona, to call their congressman and say, ‘Listen, I don’t think this is right.’”
Tags: 9/11, Matthew Hoh, taliban, US official, war on terror
U.S. Attacks Iran Via CIA-Funded Jundullah Terror Group
Oct 20, 2009 News & Events
Bankrolling and arming Al-Qaeda offshoot part of 2007 White House directive to destabilize Iranian government
Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet.com
Monday, October 19, 2009
The U.S. government effectively attacked Iran yesterday after its proxy terror group Jundullah launched a suicide bomb attack against the Iranian Revolutionary Guard at their headquarters in Pishin, near the border with Pakistan.
Leaders of the Al-Qaeda affiliated Sunni terrorist group Jundullah have claimed responsibility for a suicide bombing in Iran that killed over 40 people yesterday. The group is funded and trained by the CIA and is being used to destabilize the government of Iran, according to reports out of the London Telegraph and ABC News.
In the aftermath of the attack, which killed at least five commanders of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard along with scores of others, media reports have swung between Iranian accusations of US and British involvement and blanket denials on behalf of the U.S. State Department.
However, the fact that Jundullah, who have since claimed responsibility for the attack and named the bomber as Abdol Vahed Mohammadi Saravani, are openly financed and run by the CIA and Mossad is not up for debate, it has been widely reported for years.
“President George W Bush has given the CIA approval to launch covert “black” operations to achieve regime change in Iran, intelligence sources have revealed. Mr Bush has signed an official document endorsing CIA plans for a propaganda and disinformation campaign intended to destabilize, and eventually topple, the theocratic rule of the mullahs,” reported the London Telegraph in May 2007.
Part of that destabilization campaign involved the the CIA “Giving arms-length support, supplying money and weapons, to an Iranian militant group, Jundullah, which has conducted raids into Iran from bases in Pakistan,” stated the report.
Jundullah is a Sunni Al-Qaeda offshoot organization that was formerly headed by alleged 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. The fact that it is being directly supported by the U.S. government under both Bush and now Obama destroys the whole legitimacy of the “war on terror” in an instant.
The group has been blamed for a number of bombings inside Iran aimed at destabilizing Ahmadinejad’s government and is also active in Pakistan, having been fingered for its involvement in attacks on police stations and car bombings at the Pakistan-US Cultural Center in 2004.
The group also produces propaganda tapes and literature for al-Qaeda’s media wing, As-Sahab, which is in turn closely affiliated with the military-industrial complex front IntelCenter, the group that makes available Al-Qaeda videos to the western media.
In May 2008, ABC News reported on how Pakistan was threatening to turn over six members of Jundullah to Iran after they were taken into custody by Pakistani authorities.
“U.S. officials tell ABC News U.S. intelligence officers frequently meet and advise Jundullah leaders, and current and former intelligence officers are working to prevent the men from being sent to Iran,” reported ABC news, highlighting again the close relationship between the terror group and the CIA.
In July 2009, a Jundullah member admitted before a court in Zahedan Iran that the group was a proxy for the U.S. and Israel.
Abdolhamid Rigi, a senior member of the group and the brother of the group’s leader Abdolmalek Rigi, who was one of the six members of the organization extradited by Pakistan, told the court that Jundullah was being trained and financed by “the US and Zionists”. He also said that the group had been ordered by America and Israel to step up their attacks in Iran.
Jundullah is not the only anti-Iranian terror group that US government has been accused of funding in an attempt to pressure the Iranian government.
Multiple credible individuals including US intelligence whistleblowers and former military personnel have asserted that the U.S. is conducting covert military operations inside Iran using guerilla groups to carry out attacks on Iranian Revolution Guard units.
It is widely suspected that the well known right-wing terrorist organization known as Mujahedeen-e Khalq (MEK), once run by Saddam Hussein’s dreaded intelligence services, is now working exclusively for the CIA’s Directorate of Operations and carrying out remote bombings in Iran.
After a bombing inside Iran in March 2007, the London Telegraph also reported on how a high ranking CIA official has blown the whistle on the fact that America is secretly funding terrorist groups in Iran in an attempt to pile pressure on the Islamic regime to give up its nuclear program.
A story entitled, US funds terror groups to sow chaos in Iran, reveals how funding for the attacks carried out by the terrorist groups “comes directly from the CIA’s classified budget,” a fact that is now “no great secret”, according to a former high-ranking CIA official in Washington who spoke anonymously to The Sunday Telegraph.
Former US state department counter-terrorism agent Fred Burton backed the claim, telling the newspaper, “The latest attacks inside Iran fall in line with US efforts to supply and train Iran’s ethnic minorities to destabilise the Iranian regime.”
John Pike, the head of the influential Global Security think tank in Washington, said: “The activities of the ethnic groups have hotted up over the last two years and it would be a scandal if that was not at least in part the result of CIA activity.”
The timing of the bombing that targeted Iranian Revolutionary Guard members yesterday was clearly orchestrated to coincide with talks between representatives from Iran, Russia, France, the U.S. and the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna today concerning Iran’s nuclear intentions.
Tags: 9/11, afghanistan, Al-Qaeda, America, Barack Obama, cia, IAEA, iran, Iranian Revolutionary Guard, israel, Jundullah, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Middle East, Mossad, Pakistan, Pishin, Project 2012, suicide bomb attack, Terror, terrorism, U.S, United States, USA, war on terror
Obama and the Nobel Prize: When War becomes Peace, When the Lie becomes the Truth
Oct 13, 2009 News & Events
by Michel Chossudovsky
When war becomes peace,
When concepts and realities are turned upside down,
When fiction becomes truth and truth becomes fiction.
When a global military agenda is heralded as a humanitarian endeavor,
When the killing of civilians is upheld as “collateral damage”,
When those who resist the US-NATO led invasion of their homeland are categorized as “insurgents” or “terrorists”.
When preemptive nuclear war is upheld as self defense.
When advanced torture and “interrogation” techniques are routinely used to “protect peacekeeping operations”,
When tactical nuclear weapons are heralded by the Pentagon as “harmless to the surrounding civilian population”
When three quarters of US personal federal income tax revenues are allocated to financing what is euphemistically referred to as “national defense”
When the Commander in Chief of the largest military force on planet earth is presented as a global peace-maker,
When the Lie becomes the Truth.
Obama’s “War Without Borders”
We are the crossroads of the most serious crisis in modern history. The US in partnership with NATO and Israel has launched a global military adventure which, in a very real sense, threatens the future of humanity.
At this critical juncture in our history, the Norwegian Nobel Committee’s decision to award the Nobel Peace Prize to President and Commander in Chief Barack Obama constitutes an unmitigated tool of propaganda and distortion, which unreservedly supports the Pentagon’s “Long War”: “A War without Borders” in the true sense of the word, characterised by the Worlwide deployment of US military might.
Apart from the diplomatic rhetoric, there has been no meaningful reversal of US foreign policy in relation to the George W. Bush presidency, which might have remotely justified the granting of the Nobel Prize to Obama. In fact quite the opposite. The Obama military agenda has sought to extend the war into new frontiers. With a new team of military and foreign policy advisers, the Obama war agenda has been far more effective in fostering military escalation than that formulated by the NeoCons.
Since the very outset of the Obama presidency, this global military project has become increasingly pervasive, with the reinforcement of US military presence in all major regions of the World and the development of new advanced weapons systems on an unprecdented scale.
Granting the Nobel Peace Prize to Barack Obama provides legitimacy to the illegal practices of war, to the military occupation of foreign lands, to the relentless killings of civilians in the name of “democracy”.
Both the Obama administration and NATO are directly threatening Russia, China and Iran. The US under Obama is developing “a First Strike Global Missile Shield System”:
“Along with space-based weapons, the Airborne Laser is the next defense frontier. … Never has Ronald Reagan’s dream of layered missile defenses – Star Wars, for short – been as….close, at least technologically, to becoming realized.”
Reacting to this consolidation, streamlining and upgrading of American global nuclear strike potential, on August 11 the Commander-in-Chief of the Russian Air Force, the same Alexander Zelin cited earlier on the threat of U.S. strikes from space on all of his nation, said that the “Russian Air Force is preparing to meet the threats resulting from the creation of the Global Strike Command in the U.S. Air Force” and that Russia is developing “appropriate systems to meet the threats that may arise.” (Rick Rozoff, Showdown with Russia and China: U.S. Advances First Strike Global Missile Shield System, Global Research, August 19, 2009)
At no time since the Cuban missile crisis has the World been closer to the unthinkable: a World War III scenario, a global military conflict involving the use of nuclear weapons.
1. The so-called missile defense shield or Star Wars initiative involving the first strike use of nuclear weapons is now to be developed globally in different regions of the World. The missile shield is largely directed against Russia, China, Iran and North Korea.
2. New US military bases have been set up with a view to establishing US spheres of influence in every region of the World as well as surrounding and confronting Russia and China.
3. There has been an escalation in the Central Asian Middle East war. The “defense budget” under Obama has spiraled with increased allocations to both Afghanistan and Iraq.
4. Under orders of president Obama, acting as Commander in Chief, Pakistan is now the object of routine US aerial bombardments in violation of its territorial sovereignty, using the “Global War on Terrorism” as a justification.
5. The construction of new military bases is envisaged in Latin America including Colombia on the immediate border of Venezuela.
6. Military aid to Israel has increased. The Obama presidency has expressed its unbending support for Israel and the Israeli military. Obama has remained mum on the atrocities committed by Israel in Gaza. There has not even been a semblance of renewed Israeli-Palestinian negotiations.
7. There has been a reinforcement of the new regional commands including AFRICOM and SOUTHCOM
8. A new round of threats has been directed against Iran.
9. The US is intent upon fostering further divisions between Pakistan and India, which could lead to a regional war, as well as using India’s nuclear arsenal as an indirect means to threaten China.
The diabolical nature of this military project was outlined in the 2000 Project for a New American Century (PNAC). The PNAC’s declared objectives are:
defend the American homeland;
fight and decisively win multiple, simultaneous major theater wars;
perform the “constabulary” duties associated with shaping the security environment in critical regions;
transform U.S. forces to exploit the “revolution in military affairs;” (Project for a New American Century, Rebuilding Americas Defenses.pdf, September 2000)
Tags: 9/11, afghanistan, cia, India, iran, obama, Pakistan, peace, war, war on terror
FORMER FBI CHIEF SAYS 9/11 WAS AN INSIDE JOB
Oct 1, 2009 News & Events, afghan war
9/11 = INSIDE JOB! WAKE UP AND GET INFORMED! DO NOT BLINDLY FOLLOW WHAT THE MEDIA TELLS YOU LIKE LITTLE ROBOTS WHO CANNOT CRITICALLY THINK FOR YOURSELF! THE MASS MEDIA IS CONTROLLED AND BOUGHT AND PAID FOR BY THE GLOBAL ELITE AND BANKSTERS WHO OWN THE MEDIA AND TELL THEM EXACTLY WHAT TO SAY AND WHAT THEY WANT YOU TO KNOW NOT WHAT THE TRUTH IS BUT WHAT THEY WANT YOU TO BELIEVE IS TRUE. START DOING YOUR OWN RESEARCH AND REALIZE THE TRUTH FOR YOURSELF!
Tags: 9/11, 9/11 inside job, afghanistan, FBI Chief, obama, US, war, war on terror
US top military commander predicts failure in Afghanistan
Sep 24, 2009 afghan war
By ERIC SCHMITT and THOM SHANKER
Published: September 24, 2009
WASHINGTON — The top military commander in Afghanistan warns in a confidential assessment of the war there that he needs additional troops within the next year or else the conflict “will likely result in failure.”
The grim assessment is contained in a 66-page report that the commander, Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, submitted to Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates on Aug. 30, and which is now under review by President Obama and his top national security advisers.
The disclosure of details in the assessment, reported Sunday night by The Washington Post, coincided with new skepticism expressed by President Obama about sending any more troops into Afghanistan until he was certain that the strategy was clear.
His remarks came as opposition to the eight-year-old war within his own party is growing.
General McChrystal’s view offered a stark contrast, and the language he used was striking.
“Failure to gain the initiative and reverse insurgent momentum in the near term (next 12 months) — while Afghan security capacity matures — risks an outcome where defeating the insurgency is no longer possible,” General McChrystal writes.
A copy of the assessment, with some operational details removed at the Pentagon’s request to avoid compromising future operations, was posted on The Post’s Web site.
In his five-page commander’s summary, General McChrystal ends on a cautiously optimistic note: “While the situation is serious, success is still achievable.”
But throughout the document, General McChrystal warns that unless he is provided more forces and a robust counterinsurgency strategy, the war in Afghanistan is most likely lost.
Pentagon and military officials involved in Afghanistan policy say General McChrystal is expected to propose a range of options for additional troops beyond the 68,000 American forces already approved, from 10,000 to as many as 45,000.
General McChrystal’s strategic assessment could well fuel the public anxiety over the war that has been fast increasing in recent weeks as American casualties have risen, allied commanders have expressed surprise at the Taliban’s fighting prowess, and allegations of ballot fraud Afghanistan’s recent presidential elections have escalated.
In a series of interviews on the Sunday morning talk shows, Mr. Obama expressed skepticism about sending more American troops to Afghanistan until he was sure his administration had the right strategy to succeed.
“Right now, the question is, the first question is, are we doing the right thing? Are we pursuing the right strategy?” Mr. Obama said on CNN. “When we have clarity on that, then the question is, O.K., how do we resource it?”
Mr. Obama said that he and his top advisers had not delayed any request for additional troops from General McChrystal because of the political delicacy of the issue or other domestic priorities.
“No, no, no, no,” Mr. Obama said when asked on CNN’s “State of the Union” whether General McChrystal had been told to sit on his request.
Mr. Obama said his decision “is not going to be driven by the politics of the moment.”
In an interview on CBS’s “Face the Nation,” Mr. Obama said his top priority was to protect the United States against attacks from Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups.
“Whatever decisions I make are going to be based first on a strategy to keep us safe, then we’ll figure out how to resource it,” the president said. “We’re not going to put the cart before the horse and just think by sending more troops we’re automatically going to make Americans safe,” he said.
Mr. Obama and his advisers have said they need time to absorb the assessment of the Afghanistan security situation that General McChrystal submitted three weeks ago — a separate report from the general’s expected request for forces — as well as the uncertainties created by the fraud-tainted Afghan elections.
“General McChrystal’s strategic assessment of the situation in Afghanistan is a classified pre-decisional document, intended to provide President Obama and his national security team with the basis for a very important discussion about where we are now in Afghanistan and how to best to get to where we want to be,” Geoff Morrell, the Pentagon press secretary, said Sunday night in a statement.
In his report, General McChrystal issues a withering critique of both his NATO command and the Afghan government. His NATO command, he says, is “poorly configured” for counterinsurgency and is “inexperienced in local languages and culture.”
“The weakness of state institutions, malign actions of power-brokers, widespread corruption and abuse of power by various officials, and ISAF’s own errors,” General McChrystal says, referring to NATO, “have given Afghans little reason to support their government.”
The general also describes an increasingly savvy insurgency that uses propaganda effectively and is using the Afghan prison system as a training ground. Taliban and Qaeda insurgents represent more than 2,500 of the 14,500 inmates in Afghanistan’s overcrowded prisons.
“These detainees are currently radicalizing non-insurgent inmates,” the report concludes.
Mr. Morrell declined to comment on details of the assessment.
Until Sunday, details of General McChrystal’s report had not been made public.
Members of Congress were briefed on the reports and allowed to read copies of it in secure offices on Capitol Hill, but the lawmakers were not allowed to take notes.
General McChrystal has publicly stated many of the conclusions in his report: emphasizing the importance of protecting civilians over just engaging insurgents, restricting airstrikes to reduce civilian casualties, and sharply expanding the Afghan security forces and accelerating their training.
The Afghan government has about 134,000 police officers and 82,000 soldiers, although many are poorly equipped and have little logistical support.
General McChrystal has also signaled that he will seek to unify the effort of American allies that operate in Afghanistan, and possibly to ask them to contribute more troops, money and training.
Military officers said Sunday that General McChrystal had effectively completed his formal request for forces, and was prepared to send the proposal up through his hierarchy for review by Gen. David H. Petraeus, commander of American forces in the Middle East; Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; and Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates.
he grim assessment is contained in
Tags: 9/11, afghanistan, cia, obama, US, USA, war on terror
