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Archive for category BIN LADEN DEATH HOAX

GOOD GOVERNANCE: Another Crook gets appointed to Board of Investment

GOOD GOVERNANCE OF CROOKS

               Another Crook gets appointed to Board of Investment 

Arslan

Could there be a worse action than appointing the confirmed crook and corrupt Arslan Iftikhar (son of ex Chief Justice Iftikhar Choudhry) on the Board of Investment in Baluchistan.

 

The natural resources of Baluchistan ie it’s mineral wealth is up for grab. Foreign investment is going to come for copper and gold deposits besides oil potential of Baluchistan . Ideal time to be in the game and make some bucks a trait in which this man has done doctorate . Is it pay back for all the rigging engineered by Iftikhar to make Nawaz win with absolute majority.

 

This Govt is not bothered about public opinion or the fact of Arslan being a house hold name in blackmailing and cheating besides misuse of his father,s authority. Unfortunate people of Baluchistan are going to be cheated and denied the benefits of their wealth. Well done Nawaz. You have learnt nothing from your previous two tenures

 

  And what happened to the cases against him ?

 

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USA responsible for making Pakistan most dangerous country

USA responsible for making Pakistan most dangerous country

 by

Asif Haroon Raja

 

Unknown-1

 

The US leaders and media often cite Pakistan as the most dangerous country in the world. If it is true, it didn’t attain this status at its own. Outsiders are responsible for making Pakistan a nursery of terrorism, or epicenter of terrorism, as recently described by Manmohan Singh, or the most dangerous country. Ironically, the ones responsible for converting a law abiding and peaceful country into a volatile country are today in the forefront censuring it. Till the onset of Afghan Jihad in 1980, Pakistan was a moderate and nonviolent country. It did suffer from the pangs of humiliation for having lost its most populous East Pakistan and  grieved over non-resolution of Kashmir dispute pending since January 1948 UNSC resolution. Both wounds had been inflicted upon Pakistan by its arch rival India. Pakistan had to perforce go nuclear in quest for its security because of India’s hostile posturing and nuclearisation.

 

Invasion and occupation of Afghanistan by Soviet forces in December 1979 brought five million Afghan refugees in Pakistan. These refugees disturbed the peace of Frontier Province and Balochistan where bulk got permanently settled. 2.8 million Afghan refugees have still not returned to their homes and besides becoming an economic burden, have posed serious social and security hazards. Foreign agencies carrying an agenda to destabilize Pakistan have been recruiting bulk of terrorists from within them.

 

Once the US decided to back proxy war in Afghanistan, CIA commissioned thousands of Mujahideen from all over the Muslim world and with the assistance of ISI, motivated, trained and equipped them to assist Afghan Mujahideen in their fight against Soviet forces. Large number of seminaries imparting religious training to the under privileged children were tasked to impart military and motivational training as well and prepare them for Jihad. FATA and Pashtun belt of Balochistan contiguous to Afghanistan were converted into forward bases of operation from where young Jihadists were unleashed. For next nine years the youth were continuously recruited and launched to fight the holy war against evil empire. Saudi Arabia became the chief financer of Jihad. It provided heavy funds to Sunni Madrassahs only. ISI took upon itself as the chief coordinator of the entire war effort while CIA restricted its role to providing arms, funds and intelligence only.

 

The whole free world led by USA enthusiastically applauded the heroics of holy warriors and none cared about astronomical fatalities and critical injuries suffered by them. The maimed for life, widows and orphans were patted and told that it was a holy war fought for a noble cause and huge rewards awaited them in the life hereafter. The single point agenda of the US was to defeat the Soviet forces with the help of Muslim fighters. Not a single soldier of any country including Pakistan took part in the unmatched war between a super power and rag-tag, ill-clothed and ill-equipped Mujahideen.

 

None bothered about the ill-effects this long-drawn war will have upon this region in general and Pakistan in particular acting as the Frontline State. Although Pakistan was only supporting the proxy war and was not directly involved, but it remained in a state of war and it faced continuous onslaughts of KGB-RAW-KHAD nexus as well as attacks by Soviet trained Afghan pilots and soldiers in the form of air assaults, artillery barrages and missile/rockets attacks.  Throughout the nine-year war, Pakistan faced twin threat from its eastern and western borders. By virtue of occupation of Wakhan corridor by Soviet troops, USSR had become immediate neighbor of Pakistan and had hurled repeated threats to wind up training centres and stop meddling in Afghanistan or else be prepared for dire consequences. Moscow’s age-old dream of reaching warm waters of Arabian Sea through Balochistan haunted Gen Ziaul Haq, but he stoutly held his ground. Pakistan’s relentless support ultimately enabled the Mujahideen to achieve the miracle of the 20th century. They defeated the super power and pushed out Soviet forces from Afghanistan in February 1989.

 

All foreign Jihadists who had come from other countries were not accepted by their parent countries. They had no choice but to stay put and get settled in Afghanistan and in FATA since they had collectively fought the war and had developed camaraderie with the Afghans and tribesmen. The US who had enticed and displaced them and used them as cannon fodder to achieve its interests was morally bounded to resettle them. It was honor bound to help Pakistan in overcoming the after effects of the war. FATA that had acted as the major base for cross border operations deserved uplift in socio-economic and educational fields. Afghanistan required major rehabilitation and rebuilding after its devastation. Nothing of the sort happened.

 

The US coldheartedly abandoned Afghanistan, Pakistan and Jihadists and instead embraced India which had remained the camp follower of Soviet Union since 1947 and had also partnered Soviet Union in the Afghan war and had vociferously condemned US-Pakistan proxy war. This callous act opened the doors for religious fanaticism and militarism. Pakistan suffered throughout the Afghan war and continues to suffer to this day on account of the debris left behind by Soviet forces and proxy war. By the time last Soviet soldier left Afghan soil, Pakistani society had got radicalized owing to free flow of weapons and drugs from Afghanistan and onset of armed uprising in occupied Kashmir.

 

Pakistan’s efforts to tackle the fallout effects of the war got seriously hampered because of harsh sanctions imposed by USA under Pressler Amendment in October 1989 and political instability throughout the democratic era from 1988 to 1999. Besides, Iran and Saudi Arabia started fuelling sectarianism in Pakistan throughout 1990s in a big way. Sipah-e-Muhammad Pakistan and Majlis-e-Wahadat ul Hashmeen were funded by Iran and Sipah-e-Sahabha Pakistan, now named as Ahle Sunnat Wal Jamaat (Sunni Deobandi) were supported by Saudi Arabia, which gave rise to religious extremism and intolerance and sharpened Shia-Sunni divide. Masjids and Imambargahs as well as religious clerics were incessantly attacked by the zealots of two communities. Threat of sectarian violence that had become menacing in Punjab in 1997-1998 had to be dealt with sternly. But the Punjab Police operation had to be curtailed because of severe pressure from Human Rights activists and NGOs on charges of extra judicial killings. Resultantly, the disease remained uncured.

        

Unseating of democratically elected heavy mandate of Nawaz Sharif led government by Gen Musharraf and the latter opting to ditch Taliban regime and to fight global war on terror at the behest of USA energized anti-Americanism, religious extremism and led to creation of Mutahida Majlis Ammal (MMA), an amalgam of six religious parties, which formed governments in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan. MMA on the quiet nurtured extremist religious groups that were also funded by foreign powers.

 

The fact that after 9/11, the US chose Pakistan to fight the war as a Frontline State is a clear cut indication that Pakistan at that time was viewed as a responsible and valued country and not a dangerous country. However, Pakistan’s nuclear program was an eyesore for India, Israel and USA. The planners had made up their minds to intentionally create anarchic conditions in Pakistan so that its nukes could be whisked away under the plea that it was unstable and couldn’t be trusted.

 

The initial attempt towards that end was to first allow bulk of Taliban and al-Qaeda leaders and their fighters to escape to FATA from Afghanistan and soon after forcing Pakistan to induct regular troops into South Waziristan (SW) to flush them out. This move created a small rivulet allowing terrorism to seep into FATA, which kept gushing in because of RAW led and CIA backed covert war at a massive scale and turning the rivulet into a river. Likewise, another rivulet was created in Balochistan. Concerted and sustained efforts were made to destabilize FATA and Balochistan and gradually sink Pakistan in sea of terrorism. Six intelligence agencies based in Kabul kept sprinkling tons of fuel on embers of religious extremism, sectarianism, ethnicity and Jihadism.

 

The US instead of helping in resolving Kashmir dispute misguided Gen Musharraf to forget about UN resolutions and float an out of box solution and try and resolve the dispute in accordance with the wishes of India. In order to woo India, Musharraf gave it in writing that he will not allow Pakistan soil to be used for terrorism against any neighboring country including India. While making this commitment unilaterally, he committed the fatal mistake of not imposing this condition on India. To further please USA and India and make the latter agree to sign peace treaty, he bridled all Jihadi groups engaged in Kashmir freedom struggle as well as in sectarianism. He also allowed India to fence the Line of Control. These moves did please India but angered Jihadis and sectarian outfits and in reaction, they hastened to join Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and turn their guns towards Pak security forces dubbed as mercenaries of USA fighting US war for dollars.

But for phenomenal clandestine support by foreign powers to the TTP in the northwest and to the BLA, BRA and BLF in the southwest, extremism and terrorism could have got controlled after major operations launched in Malakand Division including Swat, Bajaur and SW in 2009 and minor operations in other tribal agencies. The disarrayed network of TTP was helped to get re-assembled and regrouped in North Waziristan and that of Maulana Fazlullah in Kunar and Nuristan in Afghanistan. As opposed to good work done by Pak security forces in combating and curbing terrorism in Pakistan, the US-NATO forces operating in Afghanistan along with Afghan National Army kept making one blunder after another and in the process kept sinking deeper and deeper into the quagmire. Rather than correcting their follies, they chose to make Pakistan a scapegoat and declared it responsible for their failures. Rather than doing more at their end, they asked Pakistan to do more which was already doing much more than its capacity.

 

Since the aggressors underestimated their enemy they took things too lightly. Their intentions lacked sincerity and honesty and their stated objectives were totally different to their actual unspoken objectives which were commercial in nature. Above all they had no legitimate grounds to destroy a sovereign country and uproot its people which had played no role in 9/11. As a result, rather than devotedly fighting to win the war in Afghanistan, the assailants got deeply involved in drug business and other money-making schemes. The ruling regime led by Hamid Karzai became a willing partner in such shady businesses. American security contractors, defence merchants, builders and intelligence agencies started multiplying their wealth and lost their moral and professional ethics. Other than materialistic ventures, they got more involved in money-spinning covert operations against Pakistan, Iran, China and Middle East than in fighting their adversary. Taliban and al-Qaeda combine took full advantage of their self-destructive activities and opening of the second front in Iraq. After regrouping and re-settling in southern and eastern Afghanistan, they started striking targets in all parts of the country. War in Iraq helped al-Qaeda in expanding its influence in Arabian Peninsula and turning into an international organization.

 

The US has made a big mess in Afghanistan, in Iraq and in Libya and is now making another mess in Syria. It has lost the confidence of its most allied ally Pakistan by mistreating and distrusting it. Having lost on all fronts because of its tunnel vision and mercantile greed, it now wants the most dangerous country Pakistan to ignore the raw deal it gave all these years and to not only help ISAF in pulling out of Afghanistan safely but also to convince the Taliban to agree upon a negotiated political settlement. At the start of the Afghan venture, Pakistan was chosen by Washington to ensure success and in the endgame Pakistan is again being relied upon to bail it out of the mess. In the same breadth, the US is unprepared to cease drone attacks in FATA despite repeated requests that drones fuel terrorism. It is still focused on carving a lead role for India in Afghanistan. It is not prepared to stop its interference in internal affairs of Pakistan or to dissuade India from destabilizing Balochistan. Whatever socio-economic promises made are futuristic in nature and tied to conditions. US media and think tanks continue to demonize Pakistan. Its tilt towards India is too heavy and prejudicial behavior towards Pakistan conspicuous.

 

As a result of the US skewed policies with ulterior motives, Pakistan is faced with the demons of ethnicity, sectarianism, Jihadism, religious extremism and terrorism. While TTP is aligned with about 60 terrorist groups, in Balochistan there are more than two dozen terrorist groups. In Karachi, other than armed mafias, political parties have armed wings and are involved in target killings. Rangers and Police are engaged in targeted operation in Karachi and are producing productive results. 150,000 troops combating the militants in the northwest enjoy a definite edge over them. Major parts of Frontier Corps, Frontier Constabulary, Levies and Police are fighting the Baloch separatists and sectarian forces targeting Hazaras and have contained anti-state forces. All major cities are barricaded with road blocks and police piquets and yet terrorists manage to carryout acts of terror. The miscreants are fighting State forces with tenacity because of uninterrupted financial and weapons support from foreign agencies. Once external support dries up, their vigor will wane rapidly and sooner than later they will give up fighting.

 

With so many grave internal and external threats, most of which were invented and thrust upon Pakistan by foreign powers and duly exacerbated by meek and self-serving political leadership, Gen Ashfaq Pervez Kayani’s hands remained full. He has saddled the COAS chair for six years and during this period he had to face many a critical situations. It goes to his credit that he handled each crisis competently, astutely and honorably. During his eventful command, he tackled the challenge of terrorism, which he rightly described as the biggest threat to the security of Pakistan, boldly and produced pleasing results. Above all, he kept the morale of all ranks in the Army high and earned their respect and admiration. The list of his achievements is long and I have been highlighting those in my articles off and on. His successor has so far not been named but whosoever replaces him will find it difficult to fit into his shoes. I am sure he will breathe more freely and relax once he retires on November 29, 2013. We thank him for his laudable contributions and wish him sound health and happiness in all his future doings. Let us hope and pray that this senseless war comes to an end at the earliest, putting an end to chirping tongues deriving sadistic pleasure in describing Pakistan as the most dangerous country.

 

The writer is a retired Brig, defence analyst, columnist, historian and a researcher. asifharoonraja@gmail.com 

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Not ONE word of official account of raid that killed Bin Laden is true, claims award-winning journalist Seymour Hersh

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Not ONE word of official account of raid that killed Bin Laden is true, claims award-winning journalist Seymour Hersh

 

  • ·         The Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist says that raid which killed Osama Bin Laden in 2011 is ‘one big lie’
  • ·         He says the US media is too ‘afraid’ to pick on Obama
  • ·         Hersh, 76, says the solution is to shut down news networks like NBC and ABC
  • ·         He also suggested the firing of 90 per cent of mainstream editors

 

 Reference-1

By MARIE-LOUISE OLSON

28 September 2013

 

A Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist says that the official account of the raid which killed Osama Bin Laden in 2011 is ‘one big lie’. Seymour Hersh, 76, said that ‘not one word’ of the Obama administration’s narrative on what happened is true. In an interview with The Guardian

 

published today, Hersh savages the US media for failing to challenge the White House on a whole host of issues, from NSA spying, to drone attacks, to aggression against Syria.

 

‘Not true’: Journalist Seymour Hersh says the raid that killed Osama Bin Laden in 2011 was all a fabrication

 

Sucking up: Hersh said the American press spends ‘so much more time carrying water for Obama than I ever thought they would’

 ‘Lying’: Hersh says ‘not one word’ of the Obama administration’s account of the raid that supposedly killed Osama Bin Laden is true. The government has never released pictures of Bin Laden’s dead body to the public

 

 

The compound: The Pakistan home of the al Qaeda leader was in flames after it was attacked by Navy Seals

 

He said the Navy Seal raid that supposedly resulted in the death of the Al-Qaeda terror leader, Hersh said, ‘not one word of it is true’.   According to Hersh – who first gained worldwide recognition in 1969 for exposing the My Lai Massacre and its cover-up during the Vietnam War, for which he received the 1970 Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting – the problem is that the US media is allowing the Obama administration to get away with lying. ‘It’s pathetic. They are more than obsequious, they are afraid to pick on this guy [Obama].’ The White House has refused to publicly release images of Bin Laden’s body, fuelling suspicion they are withholding information.

 

 

The White House lynch mob: 

 

President Barack Obama, Vice President Joe Biden, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and members of the national security team watch the raid live from the White House’s Situation Room on May 1, 2011

 

Aftermath: Part of a damaged helicopter is seen lying near the compound after US Navy SEAL commandos supposedly killed bin Laden

 Destroyed: The grounds of the Bin Laden’s compound after the raid

Although the White House said the corpse was immediately ‘buried at sea’ within 24 hours of his death in line with Islamic tradition, it quickly emerged that this was not standard practice.

It has also been suggested that the White House has changed its story multiple times, according to infowars.com

 

 

RELATED: Bin Laden’s son-in-law treated like royalty on flight to New York: Marshall

 

Reference-2

 

Abbottabad Resident Never Saw Osama in the Neighborhood

      

Infowars.com, May 3, 2011

 

During an interview with Imtiaz Tyab of Aljazeera, a man who lives in the Abbottabad neighborhood where Osama was supposedly killed said he never saw him. “If somebody new comes on your street,” the man said, “you always know.” He said he never saw the six foot four Saudi and does not believe he lived there.

 

Reference

 

 

Seymour Hersh: Bin Laden Raid “One Big Lie”

 

Paul Joseph Watson, Infowars.com

 

 

September 27, 2013

 

Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Seymour Hersh says that the raid which killed Osama Bin Laden in 2011 is “one big lie” and that “not one word” of the Obama administration’s narrative on what happened is true.

 

In a wide-ranging interview published today by the Guardian

 

Hersh savages the US media for failing to challenge the White House on a whole host of issues, from NSA spying, to drone attacks, to aggression against Syria. On the subject of the Navy Seal raid that supposedly resulted in the death of the Al-Qaeda terror leader, Hersh remarked, “Nothing’s been done about that story, it’s one big lie, not one word of it is true.” Hersh added that the Obama administration habitually lies but they continue to do so because the press allows them to get away with it.

 

 

“It’s pathetic, they are more than obsequious, they are afraid to pick on this guy [Obama],” Hersh told the Guardian. The raid that supposedly led to Bin Laden’s death has been shrouded in mystery for over two years. Speculation that the Obama administration may have embellished or outright lied

 

 about the true account of what happened has persisted, mainly because the White House has refused to publicly release images of Bin Laden’s body. Although the White House said the corpse was immediately “buried at sea” in line with Islamic tradition, it quickly emerged that this was not standard practice

 

Numerous analysts  have claimed that Bin Laden had in fact been dead for years and that the raid on his alleged compound in Pakistan was little more than a stunt. Other questions also persist,

such as why the narrative and timeline of the raid has changed multiple times, why the White House initially claimed that “situation room” photos showed Obama

watching the raid live when in fact there was a blackout on the live feed, and why neighbors in the immediate area surrounding the compound said with absolute certainty that they had never seen Bin Laden and that they knew of no evidence whatsoever to suggest he lived there.

 

During the rest of the Guardian interview, which is well worth reading in its entirety, Hersh lambastes the corporate press and particularly the New York Times, which he says spends “so much more time carrying water for Obama than I ever thought they would.” Hersh’s solution is to shut down news networks like NBC and ABC and fire 90% of mainstream editors, replacing them with real journalists who are outsiders and not afraid to speak truth to power. “The republic’s in trouble, we lie about everything, lying has become the staple,” concluded Hersh.

 

http://www.theguardian.com/media/media-blog/2013/sep/27/seymour-hersh-obama-nsa-american-media

 

 

 

 

 

Seymour Hersh on Obama, NSA and the ‘pathetic’ American media

 

Pulitzer Prize winner explains how to fix journalism, saying press should ‘fire 90% of editors and promote ones you can’t control’

 

 

Seymour Hersh exposed the My Lai massacre during the Vietnam war, for which he won the Pulitzer Prize.

 

Seymour Hersh has got some extreme ideas on how to fix journalism – close down the news bureaus of NBC and ABC, sack 90% of editors in publishing and get back to the fundamental job of journalists which, he says, is to be an outsider. It doesn’t take much to fire up Hersh, the investigative journalist who has been the nemesis of US presidents since the 1960s

 

 and who was once described by the Republican party as “the closest thing American journalism has to a terrorist”. He is angry about the timidity of journalists in America, their failure to challenge the White House and be an unpopular messenger of truth.

 

 

Don’t even get him started on the New York Times which, he says, spends “so much more time carrying water for Obama than I ever thought they would” – or the death of Osama bin Laden. “Nothing’s been done about that story, it’s one big lie, not one word of it is true,” he says of the dramatic US Navy Seals raid in 2011 [see footnote]. Hersh is writing a book about national security and has devoted a chapter to the bin Laden killing. He says a recent report put out by an “independent” Pakistani commission about life in the Abottabad compound in which Bin Laden was holed up would not stand up to scrutiny. “The Pakistanis put out a report, don’t get me going on it. Let’s put it this way, it was done with considerable American input. It’s a bullshit report,” he says hinting of revelations to come in his book.

 

The Obama administration lies systematically, he claims, yet none of the leviathans of American media, the TV networks or big print titles, challenge him. “It’s pathetic, they are more than obsequious, they are afraid to pick on this guy [Obama],” he declares in an interview with the Guardian. “It used to be when you were in a situation when something very dramatic happened, the president and the minions around the president had control of the narrative, you would pretty much know they would do the best they could to tell the story straight. Now that doesn’t happen any more. Now they take advantage of something like that and they work out how to re-elect the president. He isn’t even sure if the recent revelations about the depth and breadth of surveillance by the National Security Agency will have a lasting effect.

 

Snowden changed the debate on surveillance

 

He is certain that NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden

 

 “changed the whole nature of the debate” about surveillance. Hersh says he and other journalists had written about surveillance, but Snowden was significant because he provided documentary evidence – although he is sceptical about whether the revelations will change the US government’s policy. “Duncan Campbell [the British investigative journalist who broke the Zircon cover-up story], James Bamford [US journalist] and Julian Assange and me and the New Yorker, we’ve all written the notion there’s constant surveillance, but he [Snowden] produced a document and that changed the whole nature of the debate, it’s real now,” Hersh says.

 

 

“Editors love documents. Chicken-shit editors who wouldn’t touch stories like that, they love documents, so he changed the whole ball game,” he adds, before qualifying his remarks. “But I don’t know if it’s going to mean anything in the long [run] because the polls I see in America – the president can still say to voters ‘al-Qaida, al-Qaida’ and the public will vote two to one for this kind of surveillance, which is so idiotic,” he says. Holding court to a packed audience at City University in London’s summer school on investigative journalism

 

, 76-year-old Hersh is on full throttle, a whirlwind of amazing stories of how journalism used to be; how he exposed the My Lai massacre in Vietnam, how he got the Abu Ghraib pictures of American soldiers brutalising Iraqi prisoners, and what he thinks of Edward Snowden.

 

 

Hope of redemption

 

Despite his concern about the timidity of journalism he believes the trade still offers hope of redemption. “I have this sort of heuristic view that journalism, we possibly offer hope because the world is clearly run by total nincompoops more than ever … Not that journalism is always wonderful, it’s not, but at least we offer some way out, some integrity.” His story of how he uncovered the My Lai atrocity is one of old-fashioned shoe-leather journalism and doggedness. Back in 1969, he got a tip about a 26-year-old platoon leader, William Calley, who had been charged by the army with alleged mass murder.

 

Instead of picking up the phone to a press officer, he got into his car and started looking for him in the army camp of Fort Benning in Georgia, where he heard he had been detained. From door to door he searched the vast compound, sometimes blagging his way, marching up to the reception, slamming his fist on the table and shouting: “Sergeant, I want Calley out now.” Eventually his efforts paid off with his first story appearing in the St Louis Post-Despatch

 

, which was then syndicated across America and eventually earned him the Pulitzer Prize

 

. “I did five stories. I charged $100 for the first, by the end the [London] Times were paying $5,000.”

 

 

He was hired by the New York Times to follow up the Watergate scandal and ended up hounding Nixon over Cambodia. Almost 30 years later, Hersh made global headlines all over again with his exposure of the abuse of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib.

 

Put in the hours

 

For students of journalism his message is put the miles and the hours in. He knew about Abu Ghraib five months before he could write about it, having been tipped off by a senior Iraqi army officer who risked his own life by coming out of Baghdad to Damascus to tell him how prisoners had been writing to their families asking them to come and kill them because they had been “despoiled”. “I went five months looking for a document, because without a document, there’s nothing there, it doesn’t go anywhere.” Hersh returns to US president Barack Obama

 

. He has said before that the confidence of the US press to challenge the US government collapsed post 9/11, but he is adamant that Obama is worse than Bush.

 

 

“Do you think Obama’s been judged by any rational standards? Has Guantanamo closed? Is a war over? Is anyone paying any attention to Iraq? Is he seriously talking about going into Syria? We are not doing so well in the 80 wars we are in right now, what the hell does he want to go into another one for. What’s going on [with journalists]?” he asks. He says investigative journalism in the US is being killed by the crisis of confidence, lack of resources and a misguided notion of what the job entails. “Too much of it seems to me is looking for prizes. It’s journalism looking for the Pulitzer Prize,” he adds. “It’s a packaged journalism, so you pick a target like – I don’t mean to diminish because anyone who does it works hard – but are railway crossings safe and stuff like that, that’s a serious issue but there are other issues too.

 

“Like killing people, how does [Obama] get away with the drone programme, why aren’t we doing more? How does he justify it? What’s the intelligence? Why don’t we find out how good or bad this policy is? Why do newspapers

 

 constantly cite the two or three groups that monitor drone killings. Why don’t we do our own work? “Our job is to find out ourselves, our job is not just to say – here’s a debate’ our job is to go beyond the debate and find out who’s right and who’s wrong about issues. That doesn’t happen enough. It costs money, it costs time, it jeopardises, it raises risks. There are some people – the New York Times still has investigative journalists but they do much more of carrying water for the president than I ever thought they would … it’s like you don’t dare be an outsider any more.”

 

 

He says in some ways President George Bush

 

‘s administration was easier to write about. “The Bush era, I felt it was much easier to be critical than it is [of] Obama. Much more difficult in the Obama era,” he said. Asked what the solution is Hersh warms to his theme that most editors are pusillanimous and should be fired. “I’ll tell you the solution, get rid of 90% of the editors that now exist and start promoting editors that you can’t control,” he says. I saw it in the New York Times, I see people who get promoted are the ones on the desk who are more amenable to the publisher and what the senior editors want and the trouble makers don’t get promoted. Start promoting better people who look you in the eye and say ‘I don’t care what you say’.

 

 

Nor does he understand why the Washington Post held back on the Snowden files until it learned the Guardian was about to publish. If Hersh was in charge of US Media Inc, his scorched earth policy wouldn’t stop with newspapers. “I would close down the news bureaus of the networks and let’s start all over, tabula rasa. The majors, NBCs, ABCs, they won’t like this – just do something different, do something that gets people mad at you, that’s what we’re supposed to be doing,” he says. Hersh is currently on a break from reporting, working on a book which undoubtedly will make for uncomfortable reading for both Bush and Obama. “The republic’s in trouble, we lie about everything, lying has become the staple.” And he implores journalists to do something about it.

 

 

 

 

 

http://antiwar.com/blog/2012/04/29/old-man-with-long-beard-apparently-murdered-in-abbottabad-pakistan/

 

 

 

 

 

Old man with long beard apparently murdered in Abbottabad, Pakistan

 

L. Reichard White, April 29, 2012

 

OK, this is the first anniversary of the U.S. apparently killing someone with a long beard in Abbottabad, Pakistan. The new spin is that Mr. Obama, making a “gutsy call,” took the high-risk course of sending in “boots on the ground” rather than using a drone. Aside from Mr. Obama being “gutsy” because he told folks to go do something dangerous, well, heck, go jump off a bridge. Now I’M gutsy. Right?

 

The new spin on why Mr. Obama decided on that high-risk (to someone else) course is that he wanted to be sure they actually got bin Laden. What’s that say about the men, women and children they murder with normal drone strikes

 

? But never mind, the reason given makes sense — they wanted to be able to prove the guy they murdered really was THE Osama bin Laden. Rather than, say, a body double or case of mistaken identity.

 

 

So, then, why did they bury the body at sea where no one could make sure it was THE bin Laden? And why shoot the highest-value information-laden target of all time in the head immediately, before he could talk, especially since he wasn’t armed

 

 and didn’t resist. And they still don’t want to release photos

 

 because, well – – – – ah – – –

 

 

Here for the full story: Barack Obama and the Incredible Flying Spaghetti Monster

 

 

 

D.C. really has to stop cutting back on it’s fiction budget

 

 

 

 

http://nypost.com/2011/08/07/22-osama-unit-navy-seals-killed-as-taliban-rocket-shoots-down-helicopter-over-afghanistan/

 

 

 

 

 

22 Osama-unit Navy SEALs killed as Taliban rocket shoots down helicopter over Afghanistan

 

By Todd Venezia

 

 

August 7, 2011

 

Nearly two dozen members of the elite Navy SEAL unit that took out Osama bin Laden perished yesterday in a horrific helicopter strike at the hands of the Taliban in Afghanistan, officials said. The special-forces operatives were reportedly blasted by a rocket-propelled grenade as they rushed to aid other troops in a firefight at an insurgent stronghold in Wardak province, just west of Kabul.

Thirty Americans — including 22 SEALs and an Army helicopter crew — were killed, along with an interpreter, seven Afghan soldiers and a combat dog, which makes this the deadliest incident in the nearly 10-year war.

 

“My thoughts and prayers go out to the families and loved ones of the Americans who were lost,” said President Obama, who was notified shortly after 8 p.m. Friday by National Security Adviser Tom Donilon. “Their deaths,” the president said, “are a reminder of the extraordinary sacrifices made by the men and women of our military and their families, including all who have served in Afghanistan.” Officials said none of the slain SEALs had participated in the May bin Laden raid carried out by their Team 6 comrades. The helicopter was rushing to support forces battling the Taliban in Wardak, according to ABC News. It was unknown how close the twin-rotor Chinook was to the fight when it went down.

 

Afterward, troops on the ground rallied around the wreckage and kept it covered while more US forces rushed to secure the area. A short time later, the Taliban claimed responsibility. “They wanted to attack our mujahedin who were in a house, but our mujahedin resisted and destroyed a helicopter with an RPG [rocket-propelled grenade] rocket,” Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said by phone from an undisclosed location. “Eight mujahedin were martyred,” he continued, “. . . and today they [American soldiers] carried away parts of their plane and shattered pieces of their bodies.” US officials said the cause of the crash was under investigation.

 

Afghan President Hamid Karzai said he “shared his deep sorrow and sadness” with Obama after learning of the deadly firefight. The loss of nearly two dozen members will likely have a temporary impact on how many missions Team 6 can carry out. The team, whose operations are highly classified, is believed to have some 300 members, and reserves will be able to step in. One of the slain SEALs was identified as Aaron Carson Vaughn, 30, of Tennessee. He was a decorated soldier who volunteered to return to combat just two weeks after his daughter was born this summer. He also leaves behind a 2-year-old son.

 

“He was a tough warrior, but he was a gentle man,” his heartbroken grandma said yesterday. The tragedy raises fears that a successful attack on the chopper could raise morale among the Taliban, who have been hit hard by special forces even as the total number of regular troops has been reduced. From April to July this year, special-ops forces captured 2,941 insurgents and killed 834 — twice as many as those killed or captured in the same three-month period of 2010, according to NATO.

 

The site of the crash is near the Tangi region, a particularly dangerous area that has been the scene of many planned attacks, said Wardak Deputy Gov. Ali Ahmad Khashai. “Even with all of the operations conducted there, the opposition is still active,” he said. The Army had intended to hand over its Combat Outpost Tangi to Afghan National Security Forces in April, but the Afghans have yet to establish a permanent base there.

 

The Chopper: Twin-rotor Chinook

* Cost: $32 million

* Max speed: 184 mph

* Troop capacity: 36

* Crew: 3

* Weight: 50,000 lbs.

 

The Team: SEAL Team 6

* Shot to fame when they took out Osama bin Laden

* Also credited with rescuing a ship’s crew from Somali pirates in 2009

* Formed in 1980 after botched mission to rescue Iran hostages

* Believed to have about 300 members

 

The Mission: Kill Taliban leader

* The team was conducting a raid on a Taliban compound in the Tangi Joy Zarin area of Wardak’s Sayd Abad district.

* They were believed to be targeting a high-ranking insurgent figure in the area, which lies 60 miles southwest of Kabul.

* Taliban officials claim they shot down the chopper with a rocket.

 

todd.venezia@nypost.com

 

 

 

http://www.roseanneworld.com/blog/2013/09/seymour-hersh-concurs-wayne-madsen/

 

 

 

Seymour Hersh Concurs with Wayne Madsen Osama Killing a Hoax

 

Wayne Madsen Report

 

May 2-3, 2011 — Bin Laden: Body buried at sea, shoddy proof of death — another “Made in Hollywood” performance from “Ari Gold”

 

Years after Public Enemy Number One, Osama Bin Laden, was reportedly killed in the mountains of the Afghan-Pakistani border region or died from kidney failure in his native Hadhramaut region of Yemen, President Obama pulled the Bin Laden rabbit out of his political hat during a Sunday late-night television address, when many Americans were already watching the tube, thus increasing Obama’s market share for his “surprise announcement.” After all, Obama, who has close links to Oprah Winfrey and Rahm Emanuel’s super-Hollywood agent brother, Ari Emanuel, depicted as the vile “Ari Gold” in fiction, is well-aware of TV Sunday prime time ratings.

 

So, in a few words, Obama announced that Bin Laden had been killed by a U.S. team that caught the wily Saudi Arabian terrorist mastermind by surprise. Bin Laden was not caught in a cave or some other underground facility in Waziristan but in a $1 million walled-off estate in Abbottabad, a military cantonment where a number of active and retired members of Pakistan’s military and intelligence community lived. Abbottabad is also home to Pakistan’s version of West Point, the Kakul Military Academy, where the firefight between U.S. Navy SEALS and Bin Laden’s security guards allegedly took place a mere 800 meters away.

 

Up until the 1980s, the mountains around Abbottabad were dotted with small U.S. National Security Agency (NSA)/U.K. Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) listening posts in places like Bada Bier and Parachinar were used to eavesdrop on signals from the Soviet Union and China. It was a time period when Bin Laden was operating his mujaheddin forces in Afghanistan under the aegis of Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency and its CIA overseers.

 

Abbottabad is also very familiar to the CIA and U.S. Special Forces, which operated from the nearby Kalabagh air force base, which has reportedly been used in the past by U.S. Special Operations forces, including U.S. Marines. Why Bin Laden would want to locate a massive safe house in the heart of Pakistani and American counter-insurgency and intelligence activity is curious. Bin Laden’s body was reported by the Pentagon to have been buried somewhere in the north Arabian Sea from the aircraft carrier, USS Carl Vinson. The Pentagon has assured the public that they confirmed Bin Laden’s identity through DNA sampling and are “100 percent” certain that the body they buried in the sea was that of Bin Laden. The question remains as to where Bin Laden’s comparative DNA samples were obtained over the past several years when the terrorist mastermind was supposedly a phantom-like fugitive.

 

However, the word from WMR sources at NSA is that no signals intercepts, from Pakistan or U.S. military sources, indicate that the man shot to death in Abbottabad was Osama Bin Laden. After the so-called killing of Bin Laden, operators were deluged with intercepted chatter about Bin Laden having been killed. However, not once did signals intercept operators, linguists and intelligence analysts based in Pakistan, Afghanistan, NSA headquarters at Fort Meade, Maryland, or on ships offshore — who would have been cleared for and involved with the top secret mission to kill Bin Laden — pick up any intelligence about Bin Laden prior to his reported assassination by the U.S. Special Forces ”kill” team acting on the direct orders of President Obama.

 

George W. Bush and other neo-con leaders, like Obama, have often pulled the Bin Laden rabbit out of their hat, years after reports of the Al Qaeda leader’s death in either thr Afghanistan-Pakistan border region or Yemen. On September 7, 2007, WMR reported: “‘Osama bin Laden’ supposedly appears in a new videotape with a dyed and trimmed beard and talking about Democratic control of Congress and the coming to power of Nicolas Sarkozy in France and Gordon Brown in Britain. ‘Bin Laden’ also refers to George W. Bush as the ‘leader of Texas.’ He also talks of the Democrats’ failure to ‘stop the war.’ “Bin Laden,’ who once recommended William Blum’ s book ‘Rogue State,’ is back in the Book-of-the-Month Club business in plugging Noam Chomsky and ex-CIA ‘Bin Laden Unit’ chiefMichael Scheuer.

 

‘Bin Laden’ also mentions ‘neoconservatives’ like Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, and Richard Pearl [sic], meaning Richard Perle. He also refers to Colin Powell and Richard Armitage and ‘their blood history of murdering humans.’ Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair also gets honorable mention. ‘Bin Laden’ also states that President John Kennedy was killed and ‘corporations were the primary beneficiary of his killing.’ Days before a huge anti-war march in Washington, on September 15, Bin Laden states that carrying ‘anti-war placards’ in the streets is of no use. As if expecting that many people will view the tape as a fake, the neocon media and their usual ‘sources’ and ‘experts’ are already claiming that it is quite common for Arab mean to dye their beards to make themselves look younger.”

 

On September 9, 2007, WMR reported on how “Al Qaeda” video and audiotapes are transmitted to the news media as authentic: “The so-called ‘Osama Bin Laden tape’ was not only transmitted via the auspices of the Search for International Terrorist Entities (SITE) Institute, a Washington, DC-based research institute with links to Israeli right-wing Likud elements, but U.S. intelligence officials are now claiming that large portions of the ‘Bin Laden’ speech were written by Los Angeles native Adam Gadahn, born Adam Pearlman, (aka Azzam the American), the number three man in charge of Al Qaeda, whose grandfather, Carl K. Pearlman, was a member of the board of the Anti Defamation League (ADL), an important component of the Israeli Lobby in the United States.

 

Carl Pearlman, a prominent California urologist, was the chairman of the Orange County Bonds for Israel campaign and the United Jewish Welfare Fund. SITE and an Israeli intelligence front operation in Washington, MEMRI (the Middle East Media Research Institute), are closely linked. MEMRI has been responsible for mis-translating several speeches made by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. SITE’s director is Rita Katz, an Iraq-born Jew who moved to Israel after her father was executed by Saddam Hussein’s government for spying for the Mossad. She emigrated to the United States from Israel in 1997. Katz worked for the U.S. Treasury Department in its pursuit of Muslim charity funds in the United States in Operation Green Quest and as a consultant for the FBI. The main coordinator for Green Quest was the then-head of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division, Michael Chertoff.

 

Not surprisingly, the Zawahiri tape ridiculing Obama was made available by the SITE Intelligence Group in Washington. Our September 9, 2007 report continued: “The delivery of the latest ‘Bin Laden’ video was reported by the Associated Press as follows: ‘the 30-minute video was obtained by the SITE Institute, a Washington-based group that monitors terrorist messages, and provided to the Associated Press.’ In the past, Bin Laden videos were sent to Al Jazeera and other Arab media sources directly. The first news of the video’s release came on the al-Sahab web site, where ‘Al Qaeda’ has previously posted messages.

 

Last year, a leaked French intelligence report stated that Bin Laden died of typhoid fever in Pakistan. There are other reports that after the US attack on Afghanistan, Bin Laden was spirited out of Afghanistan to his native Hadhramaut region of Yemen, where he later died of kidney failure surrounded by his close and extended family members. Bin Laden’s post-9/11 presence in Hadhramaut was hinted to by reputable Israeli intelligence sources in discussions with this editor in 2002. The speed at which the corporate media accepted the obviously bogus ’Bin Laden makeover’ tape is amazing. However, considering the links between the neocon disinformation machinery in Washington, DC and the corporate media, it may not be so surprising when put into context.”

 

After years of lies from the U.S. government about Saddam Hussein’s non-existent weapons of mass destruction, including “intelligence” about mobile biological weapons trailers from a known fraudster code named “Curveball”; bogus Niger documents on Iraq’s possession of yellow cake uranium; bogus Iraq Oil Ministry documents on Iraqi payoffs to Western political leaders under the UN’s Oil-for-Food program; and, more recently, false charges from Obama’s ambassador to the UN that Muammar Qaddafi’s troops in Libya were ingesting Viagra tablets before raping women, the public should be wary of a president who shows every tendency to lie as much as his three immediate predecessors: Bush II, Clinton, and Bush I. The White House is, perhaps, the greatest source of lies and disinformation in the world today, topping anything similar that may emanate from Pyongyang or Tripoli. There is no reason for any sane person to believe that anything Mr. Obama says is true. But Obama’s supporters wasted no time in proclaiming that Bin Laden’s killing ensures Obama’s re-election next year.

 

 Seymour Hersh UK Guardian

 

Seymour Hersh on Obama, NSA and the ‘pathetic’ American media.

 

Pulitzer Prize winner explains how to fix journalism, saying press should ‘fire 90% of editors and promote ones you can’t control’. Seymour Hersh exposed the My Lai massacre during the Vietnam war, for which he won the Pulitzer Prize. Seymour Hersh has got some extreme ideas on how to fix journalism – close down the news bureaus of NBC and ABC, sack 90% of editors in publishing and get back to the fundamental job of journalists which, he says, is to be an outsider. It doesn’t take much to fire up Hersh, the investigative journalist who has been the nemesis of US presidents since the 1960s

 

 and who was once described by the Republican party as “the closest thing American journalism has to a terrorist”.

 

 

He is angry about the timidity of journalists in America, their failure to challenge the White House and be an unpopular messenger of truth. Don’t even get him started on the New York Times which, he says, spends “so much more time carrying water for Obama than I ever thought they would” – or the death of Osama bin Laden. “Nothing’s been done about that story, it’s one big lie, not one word of it is true,” he says of the dramatic US Navy Seals raid in 2011. Hersh is writing a book about national security and has devoted a chapter to the bin Laden killing. He says a recent report put out by an “independent” Pakistani commission about life in the Abottabad compound in which Bin Laden was holed up would not stand up to scrutiny. “The Pakistanis put out a report, don’t get me going on it. Let’s put it this way, it was done with considerable American input. It’s a bullshit report,” he says hinting of revelations to come in his book.

 

The Obama administration lies systematically, he claims, yet none of the leviathans of American media, the TV networks or big print titles, challenge him. “It’s pathetic, they are more than obsequious, they are afraid to pick on this guy [Obama],” he declares in an interview with the Guardian. “It used to be when you were in a situation when something very dramatic happened, the president and the minions around the president had control of the narrative, you would pretty much know they would do the best they could to tell the story straight. Now that doesn’t happen any more. Now they take advantage of something like that and they work out how to re-elect the president. He isn’t even sure if the recent revelations about the depth and breadth of surveillance by the National Security Agency will have a lasting effect.

 

Snowden changed the debate on surveillance

 

He is certain that NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden

 

 “changed the whole nature of the debate” about surveillance. Hersh says he and other journalists had written about surveillance, but Snowden was significant because he provided documentary evidence – although he is sceptical about whether the revelations will change the US government’s policy. “Duncan Campbell [the British investigative journalist who broke the Zircon cover-up story], James Bamford [US journalist] and Julian Assange and me and the New Yorker, we’ve all written the notion there’s constant surveillance, but he [Snowden] produced a document and that changed the whole nature of the debate, it’s real now,” Hersh says.

 

 

“Editors love documents. Chicken-shit editors who wouldn’t touch stories like that, they love documents, so he changed the whole ball game,” he adds, before qualifying his remarks. “But I don’t know if it’s going to mean anything in the long [run] because the polls I see in America – the president can still say to voters ‘al-Qaida, al-Qaida’ and the public will vote two to one for this kind of surveillance, which is so idiotic,” he says. Holding court to a packed audience at City University in London’s summer school oninvestigative journalism

 

, 76-year-old Hersh is on full throttle, a whirlwind of amazing stories of how journalism used to be; how he exposed the My Lai massacre in Vietnam, how he got the Abu Ghraib pictures of American soldiers brutalising Iraqi prisoners, and what he thinks of Edward Snowden.

 

 

Hope of redemption

 

Despite his concern about the timidity of journalism he believes the trade still offers hope of redemption. “I have this sort of heuristic view that journalism, we possibly offer hope because the world is clearly run by total nincompoops more than ever … Not that journalism is always wonderful, it’s not, but at least we offer some way out, some integrity.” His story of how he uncovered the My Lai atrocity is one of old-fashioned shoe-leather journalism and doggedness. Back in 1969, he got a tip about a 26-year-old platoon leader, William Calley, who had been charged by the army with alleged mass murder.

 

Instead of picking up the phone to a press officer, he got into his car and started looking for him in the army camp of Fort Benning in Georgia, where he heard he had been detained. From door to door he searched the vast compound, sometimes blagging his way, marching up to the reception, slamming his fist on the table and shouting: “Sergeant, I want Calley out now.” Eventually his efforts paid off with his first story appearing in the St Louis Post-Despatch

 

, which was then syndicated across America and eventually earned him the Pulitzer Prize

 

. “I did five stories. I charged $100 for the first, by the end the [New York] Times were paying $5,000.”

 

 

He was hired by the New York Times to follow up the Watergate scandal and ended up hounding Nixon over Cambodia. Almost 30 years later, Hersh made global headlines all over again with his exposure of the abuse of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib.

 

Put in the hours

 

For students of journalism his message is put the miles and the hours in. He knew about Abu Ghraib five months before he could write about it, having been tipped off by a senior Iraqi army officer who risked his own life by coming out of Baghdad to Damascus to tell him how prisoners had been writing to their families asking them to come and kill them because they had been “despoiled”. “I went five months looking for a document, because without a document, there’s nothing there, it doesn’t go anywhere.” Hersh returns to US president Barack Obama

 

. He has said before that the confidence of the US press to challenge the US government collapsed post 9/11, but he is adamant that Obama is worse than Bush.

 

 

“Do you think Obama’s been judged by any rational standards? Has Guantanamo closed? Is a war over? Is anyone paying any attention to Iraq? Is he seriously talking about going into Syria? We are not doing so well in the 80 wars we are in right now, what the hell does he want to go into another one for. What’s going on [with journalists]?” he asks. He says investigative journalism in the US is being killed by the crisis of confidence, lack of resources and a misguided notion of what the job entails. “Too much of it seems to me is looking for prizes. It’s journalism looking for the Pulitzer Prize,” he adds. “It’s a packaged journalism, so you pick a target like – I don’t mean to diminish because anyone who does it works hard – but are railway crossings safe and stuff like that, that’s a serious issue but there are other issues too.

 

“Like killing people, how does [Obama] get away with the drone programme, why aren’t we doing more? How does he justify it? What’s the intelligence? Why don’t we find out how good or bad this policy is? Why do newspapers

 

 constantly cite the two or three groups that monitor drone killings. Why don’t we do our own work? “Our job is to find out ourselves, our job is not just to say – here’s a debate’ our job is to go beyond the debate and find out who’s right and who’s wrong about issues. That doesn’t happen enough. It costs money, it costs time, it jeopardises, it raises risks. There are some people – the New York Times still has investigative journalists but they do much more of carrying water for the president than I ever thought they would … it’s like you don’t dare be an outsider any more.”

 

 

He says in some ways President George Bush

 

‘s administration was easier to write about. “The Bush era, I felt it was much easier to be critical than it is [of] Obama. Much more difficult in the Obama era,” he said. Asked what the solution is Hersh warms to his theme that most editors are pusillanimous and should be fired. “I’ll tell you the solution, get rid of 90% of the editors that now exist and start promoting editors that you can’t control,” he says. I saw it in the New York Times, I see people who get promoted are the ones on the desk who are more amenable to the publisher and what the senior editors want and the trouble makers don’t get promoted. Start promoting better people who look you in the eye and say ‘I don’t care what you say’.

 

 

Nor does he understand why the Washington Post held back on the Snowden files until it learned the Guardian was about to publish. If Hersh was in charge of US Media Inc, his scorched earth policy wouldn’t stop with newspapers.”I would close down the news bureaus of the networks and let’s start all over, tabula rasa. The majors, NBCs, ABCs, they won’t like this – just do something different, do something that gets people mad at you, that’s what we’re supposed to be doing,” he says. Hersh is currently on a break from reporting, working on a book which undoubtedly will make for uncomfortable reading for both Bush and Obama. “The republic’s in trouble, we lie about everything, lying has become the staple.” And he implores journalists to do something about it.

 

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