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Axis of Evil


Best of the Web: Double Cover [3]: What Is A False Flag Attack?
commandos
© unknown
Commandos
We continue our look at mainstream coverage of the Mumbai attacks:

Michael Evans of the Times:
The group that claimed to be behind last night's attacks on Bombay -- the Deccan Mujahideen - has not hitherto been heard of in India, let alone in the outside world.
Boston Globe:
An e-mail message to Indian media outlets taking responsibility for the attacks said the militants were from a group called Deccan Mujahedeen. The word "Deccan" refers to a plateau in southern India, and "Mujahedeen" refers to holy warriors. Almost universally, analysts and intelligence officials said that name was unknown.

Deccan is a neighborhood of the Indian city of Hyderabad. The word also describes the middle and south of India, which is dominated by the Deccan Plateau. But the combination of the two words, said Gohel, is a "front name. This group is nonexistent."

"It's even unclear whether it's a real group or not," said Bruce Hoffman, a professor at the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University and the author of the book "Inside Terrorism."
Best of the Web: Double Cover [2]: What Is A Commando Raid?
taj burning 2
© unknown
Coordinated Terror Attacks

Here are some brief snippets from more-or-less randomly selected mainstream news reports pertaining to the Mumbai attacks. I have added the emphasis.

New York Times:
Coordinated terrorist attacks struck the heart of Mumbai, India's commercial capital, on Wednesday night, killing dozens in machine-gun and grenade assaults on at least two five-star hotels, the city's largest train station, a Jewish center, a movie theater and a hospital.
The NYT has a map showing where the attacks took place -- 13 locations in all.

Who Was Caught By Surprise?

Michael Evans of the [UK] Times:
British security and intelligence sources said there had been increasing concern, particularly in the United States, that a "terrorist spectacular" was on the cards. [...] The Americans have been expecting an atrocity partly because of the recent CIA success in eliminating figures in al-Qaeda, using Predator unmanned drones, firing Hellfire missiles at hideouts in the tribal regions of Pakistan. About a dozen al-Qaeda figures have been killed this year.
Best of the Web: Double Cover [1]: Nothing Can Ever Be The Same
taj burning
© unknown
The Mumbai terrorist attacks began Wednesday evening and I've been reading about the situation -- and thinking hard -- ever since. The most noteworthy feature so far is the prevalence of unsubstantiated assertions that make no sense at all. I haven't been doing a systematic survey of the world's media -- just grabbing stories from wherever they pop up -- and every item I've stumbled across has been contaminated with spin. Or at least that's the way it strikes me.

Then again, maybe it's become impossible for terrorism -- and news of terrorism -- to strike me any other way. I've seen too much, I've been lied to too many times, to ever take anything at face value -- except the occasional (accidental?) admission of horrors committed by unrepentant (audacious!) perpetrators.

Now that we know the geniuses at the Pentagon have conceived and implemented a worldwide program of fomenting terrorism, nothing can ever be the same.

According to the Department of Defense, it is fighting a war on terror which requires, or allows, it to perpetrate (or con others into perpetrating) acts of "terrorism" which can then be used as pretexts for war against the "terrorist groups" thus "exposed".
Olmert wins US backing for Iran war
bush olmert
© Press TV
Israeli Premier Ehud Olmert (L) says there has been no objection by the Bush administration to a military strike on Iran.
Israel's prime minister says Washington has not rejected a request by Tel Aviv to take any action it deems "necessary" against Iran.

Ehud Olmert, the outgoing premier, said Tuesday that he had extensively discussed Iran and its nuclear program with "Vice President Dick Cheney, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and the (US) president".

"There is a basic, deep understanding about the Iranian threat and the need to act in order to remove the threat," Olmert told reporters.

Israel insists that a nuclear Iran would pose an existential threat to Tel Aviv, claiming that Tehran has "plans to build a nuclear weapon."

Under the allegation, Israeli echelons and army brass have long argued that militarily taking out Iran's nuclear infrastructure is a legitimate option.

An earlier report by Time suggested that Washington had expressed its opposition to an Israeli military strike on Iran before President-elect Barack Obama takes office in January.
Nostradamus Redux
Although political forecasting and economic prognostication have long made astrology look respectable, there is still a latter-day Nostradamus who has defied the odds. "If Nostradamus were alive today," said the New York Post, "he'd have a hard time keeping up with Gerald Celente" -- the man who tracks the world's social, economic and business trends for corporate clients.
Beginning of end for Guantanamo?
His lawyers described him as a two-bit driver who hung out with the wrong people.

The US government maintained he was a dangerous terrorist who should be sentenced to life in jail.

Regardless of how important a role he may have played as Osama Bin Laden's driver, 40-year-old Yemeni national Salim Hamdan, became a central figure in the saga of trials at the controversial detention centre in Guantanamo Bay.
Hamdan BBC
© BBC
Hamdan spent more than five years in Guatanamo Bay

He frustrated the Bush administration by challenging the system of military commissions originally set up in Guantanamo, by taking his case to the Supreme Court in 2006, in Hamdan vs Rumsfeld.
Right-Wing Kristol Calls On Bush To Pardon Torturers And Wiretappers, Reward Them With Medal Of Freedom
Bush holding medal
In his new Weekly Standard column, right-wing pundit Bill Kristol lays out a to-do list for President Bush before he leaves office. He urges Bush to deliver speeches "reminding Americans of our successes fighting the war on terror." Kristol dreams, "Over time, Bush might even get deserved credit for effective conduct of the war on terror."

After urging Bush to fight the incoming administration's desire to close Guantanamo, Kristol concludes with this:
One last thing: Bush should consider pardoning - and should at least be vociferously praising - everyone who served in good faith in the war on terror, but whose deeds may now be susceptible to demagogic or politically inspired prosecution by some seeking to score political points. The lawyers can work out if such general or specific preemptive pardons are possible; it may be that the best Bush can or should do is to warn publicly against any such harassment or prosecution. But the idea is this: The CIA agents who waterboarded Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, and the NSA officials who listened in on phone calls from Pakistan, should not have to worry about legal bills or public defamation. In fact, Bush might want to give some of these public servants the Medal of Freedom at the same time he bestows the honor on Generals Petraeus and Odierno. They deserve it.
Bush hopes history overlooks his genocide against Iraqis and Afghanis, has no faith in democracy, consults Yahweh for redemption
George W. Bush hopes history will see him as a president who liberated millions of Iraqis and Afghans, who worked towards peace and who never sold his soul for political ends.
Obama to name Clinton secretary of state on Monday
President-elect Barack Obama planned to nominate Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton as his secretary of state on Monday, transforming a once-bitter political rivalry into a high-level strategic and diplomatic partnership.

Obama will name the New York senator to his national security team at a news conference in Chicago, Democratic officials said Saturday. They requested anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly for the transition team.
America's Child Soldiers: US Military Recruiting Children to Serve in the Armed Forces
In violation of its pledge to the United Nations not to recruit children into the military, the Pentagon "regularly target(s) children under 17," the American Civil Liberties Union(ACLU) says.

The Pentagon "heavily recruits on high school campuses, targeting students for recruitment as early as possible and generally without limits on the age of students they contact," the ACLU states in a 46-page report titled "Soldiers of Misfortune."

This is in violation of the U.S. Senate's 2002 ratification of the Optional Protocol to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.

Pentagon recruiters are enrolling children as young as 14 in the Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps(JROTC) in 3,000 middle-, junior-, and high schools nationwide, causing about 45 percent of the quarter of million students so enrolled to enlist, a rate much higher than in the general student population. Clearly, this is the outcome of underage exposure.

   

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