Don't mention Fallujah

[UniverseSeven]

Don't mention Fallujah: Another unembedded journalist disappears in Iraq

By Luciana Bohne
Online Journal Contributing Writer
www.onlinejournal.com/Media/020905Bohne/020905bohne.html

[UniverseSeven]

Video:

www.rainews24.rai.it/ran24/inchiesta/video/fallujah_ING.wmv

[jonnygemini]

November 29, 2005 -- British mercenary firm with Pentagon contracts exposed in civilian shooting incident in Iraq. A souvenir video has surfaced on the Internet showing private security contractors working for Aegis Defense Services "Victory" Group firing indiscriminately at Iraqi civilian motorists in Baghdad. The video was reportedly taken by an Aegis employee and posted on a web site run by an ex-Aegis employee. The video has since been removed from the site. The video contains four clips showing Aegis mercenaries firing at civilian automobiles. The video's soundtrack includes Elvis Presley's "Train I Ride." Aegis is run by former British Scots Guard officer Lt. Col. Tim Spicer, an international mercenary who has been involved in UN sanctions busting in Sierra Leone and Bougainville invasion planning in Papua New Guinea. Spicer's firm, Aegis, was awarded a $293 million security contract in Iraq. Spicer's men also stand accused of shooting teenager Peter McBride in the back in Belfast in 1992. That has prompted a number of members of the Irish Caucus in the Congress to demand the Pentagon withdraw its contract to Aegis. The Pentagon has rejected such action.



Pentagon Iraq contractor head Tim Spicer under arrest in 1997 in Papua New Guinea following failed Bougainville invasion and resulting coup d'etat.

Aegis maintains its head office in London's Picadilly. It is also reported to have an office on K Street in Washington, DC.

The Pentagon has had a longstanding relationship with Spicer. The Pentagon's love affair with mercenary firms began in the 1990s when they were viewed with favor for their military activities, including sanctions busting, in Africa. Under the Clinton administration, mercenary firms blossomed. Under George W. Bush, they have flourished. On June 24, 1997, the Defense Intelligence Agency sponsored a seminar titled "The Privatization of National Security Functions in Sub-Saharan Africa." This conference ushered in the present cooperation between mercenaries, oil companies, diamond and other mineral companies, U.S. intelligence agencies, the military, and non-government organizations (NGOs), including the always suspect Human Rights Watch, an NGO that often obscures and obfuscates important facts, as it did with the causality of the Rwandan genocide and as it is currently doing with regard to offering an incomplete list of CIA prisoner aircraft in Europe.

WMR has obtained the attendee list [Page One Page Two] for the 1997 Pentagon mercenary seminar. Spicer attended along with two colleagues from Sandline International (for which Spicer served as CEO), a mercenary firm that had already been implicated in illegal Sierra Leone and Papua New Guinea operations.

Mercenary firms, which in neo-con "Newspeak" are referred to as "Private Military Contractors," "Private Security Contractors (PSCs), and Personal Security Details/Detachments (PSDs), are viewed by informed observers as the future military forces that will continue to protect US business interests in Iraq after the planned withdrawal of a large number of U.S. troops next year. These companies are not governed by any military regulations or international legal constraints. According to informed sources within the security contractor community, three U.S. firms, Phoenix, Anteon, and Sytex, should be looked at closely by U.S. authorities for their interrogation operations in Iraq. Sytex is currently advertising for interrogators for the US Central Command's Area of Responsibility (AOR), which includes Iraq and Afghanistan. Military interrogators who were charged with sexually humiliating prisoners at Guantanamo and Iraq are now working for firms like Anteon and Phoenix Consulting Group.

[jonnygemini]

"I cannot support a msn that leads to corruption, human rights abuse and liars. I am sullied. I came to serve honorably and feel dishonored. Death before being dishonored any more."

- This is the alleged suicide note scrawled by Col. Ted Westhusing before he allegedly put his sidearm to his head and allegedly pulled the trigger. Although yer old pal Jerky groks the sentiment, Westhusing "goodbye cruel world" letter seems somewhat lacking in epistolary flair considering he was a military ethicist with a PhD in Philosophy. And then, of course, there are the weird circumstances and shady contractors...

*** **** ***

"Despite his intelligence, his ability to grasp the idea that profit is an important goal for people working in the private sector was surprisingly limited. He could not shift his mind-set from the military notion of completing a mission irrespective of cost, nor could he change his belief that doing the right thing because it was the right thing to do should be the sole motivator for businesses."

- This is an excerpt from military psychologist Lt. Col. Lisa Breitenbach's report on the possible motives for Westhusing's suicide. With a philosophy like this running rampant in Iraq, it's no wonder the man shot himself/ended up dead (draw your own conclusions from the link above).

via: www.dirtfiles.com/

[jonnygemini]

One of the most penetrating analyses of the underlying motives of the Bush Cult I have yet to see.

From caribmon's post at Dailykos:

The recent revelations about the virulent spread of death squads ravaging Iraq have only confirmed for many people the lethal incompetence of the Bush Regime, whose brutal bungling appears to have unleashed the demon of sectarian strife in the conquered land. The general reaction, even among some war supporters, has been bitter derision: "Jeez, these bozos couldn't boil an egg without causing collateral damage."

But what if the truth is even more sinister? What if this murderous chaos is not the fruit of rank incompetence but instead the desired product of carefully crafted, efficiently managed White House policy?



Precisely! We have a winner!

If we analyze the spreading chaos in Iraq from a perspective of qui bono -- i.e. "who benefits?" -- the picture painted is quite clear. Not only is the Bush Cult not grossly incompetent, out of touch, and inept, but, in fact, they are brilliant strategists. And they've gotten everything they wanted.

Permanent bases? Not likely, unless Iraq degenerates into a permanent state of chaos and civil war. How to insure permanent chaos and civil war? Enter death squads, torture teams, psyops (recall the British soldiers caught with costumes, fake beards, and explosives), and voila! A country so unstable and violent that the U.S. is required to remain. Permanently.

And while we're there, we'll conveniently siphon off the black gold/Texas tea.

The Bush Cult has conceived and executed a plan to destabilize and permanently occupy a precious piece of resource-rich land that has been coveted by Western countries since the beginning of the oil economy.

It's a wrap. They got the brass ring. Whether or not the administration crumbles under it's perverse criminality, the U.S. is never going to pull out of Iraq. Yes, some troops will come home. But if you think any administration -- even a Democratic one -- is going to voluntarily extract itself from the second largest source of oil on the planet, I've got a copy of the Carter Doctrine I'd like you to read.

[jonnygemini]

from rigorous institution

False-hearted judges dying in the webs that they spin,
Only a matter of time 'til night comes stepping in. - Bob Dylan

The only commentary some stories require is the sound of one's head striking the desk. For instance:

Zarqawi "captured, but let go"

BAGHDAD: Iraqi security forces allegedly caught terrorist leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi but released him because they did not realise who he was.

Deputy Interior Minister Hussein Kamal said on Thursday that the Jordanian-born leader of al-Q'aida in Iraq was in custody some time last year, but he would not provide further details, CNN reported.

The report could not be confirmed, but a US official said in Washington that American intelligence believed it was plausible. The official spoke on condition of anonymity.

That reminded me of a Newsweek story from last April, which "revealed" how bin Laden sent two envoys to Iraq to assess the resistance in the summer of 2003, eventually endorsing Zarqawi as the "prince of Al Qaeda in Iraq."

Like the palid "strangers" of the film Dark City who are forever recasting reality, our masters of war are forever erasing distinctions and disappearing details. Little things, like deaths and resurrections, vanishing accents and the regeneration of amputed limbs. To any who pay attention to the changing narrative, the spin must sound like magic realism.

Zarqawi was first a prince of Ansar al-Islam, a vicious strategic counterweight to the authority of Saddam's central government that operated in the Kurdish lands of Iraq's former "no-fly" Northern Zone. Its founder is Mullah Krekar, who lives in Norway. Joern Holme, head of Norway's domestic intelligence service, says it's "incredible" that Krekar still resides in the country despite his links to groups identified as security risks, and despite a two-year old expulsion order. Neither has the United States sought Krekar's extradition.

Here's an interesting AFP item, now nearly three years old:

Ansar al-Islam leader threatens to document his links to US

DUBAI, Feb 1 2003 (AFP) - The suspected leader of a Kurdish Islamic extremist group threatened in an interview published Saturday to produce evidence of his contacts with Washington prior to the September 11 suicide hijackings.

"I have in my possession irrefutable evidence against the Americans and I am prepared to supply it ... if (the United States) tries to implicate me in an affair linked to terrorism," Mullah Krekar, who is believed to front Ansar al-Islam, told Al-Hayat newspaper.

He dismissed as "fabrications" reports linking his group to Al-Qaeda, saying they were designed to justify a strike against Iraq.

"I had a meeting with a CIA representative and someone from the American army in the town of Sulaymaniya (Iraqi Kurdistan) at the end of 2000. They asked us to collaborate with them ... but we refused to do so," he said.

Also:

"The Mullah claims he had a secret meeting with the CIA and US military personnel in Iraqi Kurdistan last year. Could this explain why US intelligence agencies were reportedly so concerned about Powell raising Ansar al-Islam as one of the key connections between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda?"

All this while Zarqawi functioned as his second-in-command, and chief actor on the ground in Iraq.

There are many "princes" of terror with shifting histories, and an inexhaustible supply of disposable "second" and "third" in commands. It's a shell game, like Dark City's Shell Beach that which proved to be just a fading poster on a brick wall. The wall needed smashing to find the truth.

In other words, who is the King of Terror?

[jonnygemini]

via: TotalInformationAnalysis

Rabbi Dov Zakheim: "The goal is not democracy, it is a united Iraq that doesn’t bother its neighbours."

US forces step up Iraq airstrikes , 01/01/06:

"AMERICAN forces are dramatically stepping up air attacks on insurgents in Iraq as they prepare to start the withdrawal of ground troops in the spring.

The number of airstrikes in 2005, running at a monthly average of 25 until August, surged to 120 in November and an expected 150 in December, according to official military figures.

...Dov Zakheim, a senior Pentagon official during Bush’s first term in office, said: “The goal is not democracy, it is a united Iraq that doesn’t bother its neighbours. There is no law that says American troops have to be in the most hostile areas.”