Bergdahl Sideshow Diverts Attention Away From Crimes Of The War Party

Bergdahl Sideshow Diverts Attention Away From Crimes Of The War Party

by Kurt Nimmo | Infowars.com | June 3, 2014

"The horror that is America is disgusting" The Bush era neocons and warmongering Republicans are frothing over the Bowe Bergdahl prisoner swap.

Numerous #BergdahlTraitor tweets express moral outrage over everything from antiwar statements made by Bowe while captive to his father growing a beard, speaking Pashto and daring to praise Allah from the Rose Garden. Neocons demand Bergdahl face court-martial and imprisonment for allegedly walking away from his post. Some even believe he should be taken out and shot for treason.

The Bergdahl circus sideshow, so avidly amplified by the corporate media, ignores a larger and more important issue, one rarely touched upon by the establishment media – the war in Afghanistan is illegal and criminal and makes anything Bowe Bergdahl may have done insignificant in comparison.

A War Predicated On Lies and Illegality The government argued “Operation Enduring Freedom” was in retaliation for the September 11, 2001 attack despite the fact nobody claimed responsibility for it. Wakeel Ahmed Mutawakel, the chief spokesman for the Taliban at the time, and other officials of the government in Afghanistan condemned the attack. They did not claim responsibility and promised to find the culprits. During the invasion the Taliban offered to turn over Osama bin Laden, who also did not claim responsibility for the attack, but this offer was rejected by the Bush administration. “There’s no need to discuss innocence or guilt. We know he’s guilty,” Bush said from Camp David. “One by one we’re going to find [Al Qaeda and the Taliban] and piece by piece we’ll tear their terrorist network apart,” the president promised.

Bush and his coterie of neocons said the invasion of Afghanistan was a case of self-defense. They

declared resistance to the invasion by the Taliban and others amounted to terrorism.

“However, the issue of self-defense could be raised by the Afghan people themselves, as resistance against NATO forces and their perceived aggression could in itself equate to individual self-defense, countering the collective, national self-defense that the US claimed,” writes Rabia Khan. Because the “justification for intervention by the occupying forces would not be seen as credible or permissible under international law,” the invasion was characterized by the government and its propaganda media as a humanitarian mission with the purported goal of liberating the Afghan people and bringing “them democracy by eradicating the Taliban hold on the country.” The Democracy Index categorizes Afghanistan as an authoritarian regime and ranks it at 180 of 182. It ranks 1.5 on the Transparency International corruption scale, the worst in South Asia. Only Somalia and Korea rate worse. The Pentagon admitted in 2009 the “widespread corruption and abuse of power” by the Karzai regime exacerbates “the popular crisis of confidence in the government and reinforce a culture of impunity.”

War crimes during the occupation became routine. In 2009, the prosecutor for the International Criminal Court was collecting information on possible war crimes by NATO forces and the Taliban. In 2013 the Afghan Loya Jirga, the country’s consultative assembly, demanded accountability for war crimes committed by the United States in the country, according to Amnesty International. “Over the past 12 years in Afghanistan, Amnesty International has repeatedly raised concerns about alleged violations of international humanitarian law – including unlawful killings and torture – committed by all parties to the conflict,” the organization reported.

“It is time that the good people of the world take a stand and prosecute the war criminals, such as President Obama, George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, the top CIA officials, the American Generals, the NATO and European leaders, who were and/or are the decision makers and architects of the illegal war and occupation of Afghanistan where numerous war crimes have been committed against the Afghan people during the past 13 years,” writes Kadir Mohmand. “Ultimately, these leaders are responsible for these war crimes. The Afghan people are not responsible for the tragic events of 9/11. No evidence has ever been presented linking the Afghan people to that tragic event.

There only has been U.S. propaganda, and expert speculation to promote and justify the United States’ actions. These leaders have scapegoated and collectively punished the Afghan people in their illegal war and occupation.”

“The horror that is America is disgusting” The unconstitutionality and illegality of the war and occupation, the documented war crimes and prisoner torture and abuse at Bagram, all of this has been systematically ignored as the corporate media dwells obsessively on Bowe Bergdahl. The issue has provided yet another distraction as the so-called right demands the soldier face court-martial while the left side of the war party accuses its supposed ideological enemies of trying to exploit the issue to take down Obama and sully probable presidential contender Hillary Clinton.

“The horror that is America is disgusting,” Bowe Bergdahl wrote before he went AWOL. “I have seen their ideas and I am ashamed to even be American. The horror of the self-righteous arrogance that they thrive in. It is all revolting.”

Bergdahl’s indictment of America and its war machine, even more than his supposed treason of walking away from his fellow occupiers, is the real crime in the eyes of the establishment.

However, as Justin Raimondo notes, the vindictiveness of the war party may backfire.

“From being a prisoner of the Taliban to being a prisoner of the War Party – will Sgt. Bergdahl be doubly victimized? In such a case, the War Party’s vindictiveness could well backfire on them. Imagine the trial: it won’t be Bergdahl who will be exposed as criminally incompetent and guilty of war crimes.

The war itself, and what it’s done to the best of our youth, will be put on trial in that courtroom,” he writes.

The Firestorm Over Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl's Release VIDEO BELOW http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H-uxanRYf3U

Obama Administration Pursues Ex-State Department Official For Refusing To Negotiate With Terrorists

by Paul Joseph Watson | June 3, 2014

Steve Pieczenik accused of being complicit in murder of Italian Prime Minister Amidst fierce criticism over the deal which saw five Taliban members go free, former U.S. State Department official Steve Pieczenik exclusively told the Alex Jones Show that he is being pursued by the Obama administration for complicity in the murder of Italian Prime Minister Aldo Moro because he refused to negotiate with Red Brigade terrorists. Pieczenik revealed exclusively to Infowars that he was recently served a subpoena by the FBI in Florida at the behest of the Justice Department, Eric Holder and the U.S. Supreme Court district judge Cecilia Altonaga requesting his presence and potential indictment for following the policy of refusing to negotiate with terrorists when working under the State Department during the kidnapping and murder of Italian Prime Minister Aldo Moro in 1978.

“I was brought in on criminal charges for….being consistent with our policy of no negotiation with the Red Brigade terrorists….35 years later the State Department and the Justice Department under the orders of Obama has ordered me to appear before the court just one week ago….at the behest of the Italian prosecutor with the overlying notion that I will be committed for criminal indictment if I don’t reveal what I had done in saving Italy and refusing to negotiate with terrorists,” Pieczenik told the Alex Jones Show.

Pieczenik denied that the case against him had anything to do with his many controversial comments made in recent years, almost all of which were broadcast via the Alex Jones Show.

According to published reports, Pieczenik, an international crisis manager and hostage negotiator in the State Department, said that it was necessary to “sacrifice” Moro for the “stability” of Italy in order to prevent the country from being taken over by Communists. Pieczenik’s role was to make it clear to Red Brigade terrorists that no negotiations would take place and that the United States already considered Moro to be dead.

Moro was snatched by terrorists at gunpoint from his car in Rome and held for 54 days before being shot dead. He had been set to implement an alliance between the Christian Democrat Party and the Italian Communist Party, an action that Henry Kissinger told Moro’s wife he would “pay dearly for.”

The potential indictment of Pieczenik for refusing to negotiate with terrorists is extremely relevant given the avalanche of criticism currently being directed at the Obama administration over the deal that freed U.S. Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, a deserter, in return for five Taliban prisoners.

Obama Administration Investigates Ex-State Dept Official For Supposed Treason VIDEO BELOW http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=znC4BqntDmI The Firestorm Over Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl's Release VIDEO BELOW http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H-uxanRYf3U Taliban Prisoners Released - President: They May Return To Terror - Judge Andrew Napolitano - F&F VIDEO BELOW http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZrTtyK6qxT4 CNN's Joe Johns to Carney: Does Obama Feel He's Above The Law? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pltjK2udqwM Questions Of Legality In Swap Of Gitmo Detainees For SGT Bergdahl Andrew Napolitano Kelly File VIDEO BELOW http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9qTvwJQGRz0

The War On Terror Has Been A Total Failure, So It Must Continue

by Paul Woodward | War in Context | June 3, 2014 The failure of the war on terror was built in from its conception

Al-Qaida has decentralized, yet it’s unclear whether the terrorist network is weaker and less likely to launch a Sept. 11-style attack against the United States, as President Barack Obama says, or remains potent despite the deaths of several leaders.

Obama said in his foreign policy speech last week that the prime threat comes not from al-Qaida’s core leadership, but from affiliates and extremists with their sights trained on targets in the Middle East and Africa, where they are based. This lessens the possibility of large-scale 9/11-type attacks against America, the president said.

“But it heightens the danger of U.S. personnel overseas being attacked, as we saw in Benghazi,” he said, referring to the September 2012 attack on a U.S. diplomatic outpost in Libya that killed the U.S. ambassador and three other Americans.

Experts argue that this restructured al-Qaida is perhaps even stronger than it has been in recent years, and that the potential for attacks on U.S. soil endures.

“We have never been on a path to strategically defeat al-Qaida. All we’ve been able to do is suppress some of its tactical abilities. But strategically, we have never had an effective way of taking it on.

That’s why it continues to mutate, adapt and evolve to get stronger,” said David Sedney, former deputy assistant secretary of defense for Afghanistan, Pakistan and Central Asia.

Decentralization does not mean weakness, he said.

“I think Americans think al-Qaida is no longer a threat — that Osama bin Laden’s death means alQaida is not a big thing anymore,” Sedney said.

He believes al-Qaida is gaining strength in Pakistan, is stronger in Iraq than it was three or four years ago and is stronger in Syria than it was a year or two ago.

“This is a fight about ideology. Al-Qaida is not this leader or that leader or this group or that group,” he said.

The experts say al-Qaida today looks less like a wheel with spokes and more like a spider web stringing together like-minded groups. But they believe there are several reasons that those who track al-Qaida warn against complacency.

While bin Laden was killed and his leadership team heavily damaged by U.S. drone strikes in Pakistan, the drawdown of American forces in neighboring Afghanistan will dry up field intelligence and restrict the effectiveness of U.S. counterterrorism operations. There is a worry that a pullback could allow alQaida to regroup.

Moreover, they worry about the thousands of foreign fighters flocking to the civil war in Syria, which has emboldened the al-Qaida breakaway group known as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant to expand its cross-border operations into neighboring countries such as Iraq.

U.S. officials also are concerned about Westerners who have joined the Syrian fight because they may be recruited to return home and conduct attacks.

When the U.S. counterterrorism strategy was conceived, it was thought that if al-Qaeda’s core leadership was dismantled or killed, then affiliated groups would simply become localized threats, said Katherine Zimmerman of the conservative American Enterprise Institute.

At that time, there wasn’t a network of connections among all the groups, said Zimmerman, who specializes in the Yemen-based group, Al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, or AQAP, and al-Qaida’s affiliate in Somalia, al-Shabab.

“As the network has become more decentralized, it’s become much more reliant on these human relationships and the sharing of resources, advice and fighters, which means that you no longer need bin Laden sitting in Pakistan dispersing cash to various affiliates,” Zimmerman said. “They have

developed their own sources. ... You can’t simply pound on part of the network and expect to see results.”

Tom Joscelyn, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and senior editor of The Long War Journal, a website that tracks how al-Qaida and its affiliates operate around the globe, said he thinks the Bush and Obama administrations mistakenly defined al-Qaida as a top-down pyramid with a hierarchal structure — that “if you sort of lop off the top of the pyramid, the whole thing crumbles.”

Al-Qaida leaders have scattered to other parts of the world, he said, noting that Al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula is headed by a former aide to bin Laden, who is now general manager of al-Qaida globally.

More recently, the Treasury Department penalized a senior al-Qaida operative on al-Qaida’s military committee who relocated from Pakistan to Syria and is involved with a group plotting against Western targets, he said. U.S. officials have tracked communication traffic going back and forth between Syria and Pakistan and Afghanistan, he said.

“This shows, to my mind, that we’re not dealing with this sort of discrete core entity in Pakistan and Afghanistan that can be droned to death, but in fact an international network that poses a lot graver challenges,” Joscelyn said.

While Obama is keen to burnish his legacy as a president who ended U.S. involvement in the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and killed bin Laden, even he has softened his rhetoric on terrorism.

Two years ago, on a trip to Afghanistan, Obama said, “The goal that I set — to defeat al-Qaida, and deny it a chance to rebuild — is within reach.”

His administration’s most recent terrorism report, released by the State Department in late April, uses a less definitive voice.

“The al-Qaida core’s vastly reduced influence became far more evident in 2013,” the report said. “AlQaida leader (Ayman) al-Zawahiri was rebuffed in his attempts to mediate a dispute among al-Qaida affiliates operating in Syria, with the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant publicly dissociating their group from al-Qaida.”

Michael Sheehan, a terrorism expert at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, New York, said the top two groups he fears could attack the U.S. are “al-Qaida central” in Afghanistan and Pakistan and AQAP, which has attempted several attacks on the United States, including a failed airline bombing on Christmas Day in 2009 and the attempted bombing of U.S.-bound cargo planes in October 2010.

“The other organizations right now — although potentially very, very problematic — are currently focused on the local fight,” said Sheehan, the Obama administration’s former assistant undersecretary of defense for special operations and low-intensity conflict. “Whether eventually they shift to Europe first, then the U.S., we’ll see. But certainly a potential is there.”

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