Decades of War – Moon of Alabama

October 8, 2007

Decades of War

There is reason to believe that the Oxford Research Group report by Paul Rogers will likely be ignored.

Six years after the Sept. 11 attacks in the United States, the "war on terror" is failing and instead fuelling an increase in support for extremist Islamist movements, a British think-tank said on Monday.

A report by the Oxford Research Group (ORG) said a "fundamental re-think is required" if the global terrorist network is to be rendered ineffective.

"If the al Qaeda movement is to be countered, then the roots of its support must be understood and systematically undercut," said Paul Rogers, the report’s author and professor of global peace studies at Bradford University in northern England.
…
"Failure to make the necessary changes could result in the war on terror lasting decades," the report added.

Who would benefit if Rogers’ plans are implemented? Who would lose?

Decades of high profits for ‘defense’ and oil companies, better control of the public and a ‘clash of civilizations’ rational for expending the ‘western’ empire – what’s not to like continuing this racket?

Posted by b on October 8, 2007 at 18:58 UTC | Permalink

Comments

I’m in a really black mood today, and this just squeezed a few more ounces of hope out of my reservoir. There is no place left on this planet where I can go to escape this shitty game! Why the fuck do they have to do this?!?!?

Posted by: Dr. Wellington Yueh | Oct 8 2007 19:12 utc | 1

There is reason to believe that the Oxford Research Group report by Paul Rogers will likely be ignored.

You’re being droll, right?

Posted by: steve | Oct 8 2007 19:13 utc | 2

C’mon, now: the War on Terror is a zero-sum game: every terrorist we kill in Iraq is one less that we will have to face on the streets of Poughkeepsie and Des Moines.
Or would you rather have Blackwater firing indiscriminately into crowds of US civilians?

Posted by: ralphieboy | Oct 8 2007 19:42 utc | 3

And more to come if the powers that be have anything to do with it…
Through, as what Naomi Klein talks about of, in ‘systemic neglect’ :
Weeping Interpol chief: No terror war help from USA

Ron Noble, the head of the international police coordinating organization known as Interpol, appeared on CBS’s 60 Minutes for an emotional discussion about how he believes his agency is being underfunded and underutilized in US efforts to combat terror.
Noble, the first American to run Interpol, says that even though his organization has unique resources valuable to counter-terrorism initiatives — including the world’s largest database of known terrorists — they are being largely ignored by the US government. Interpol also maintains the only database of stolen passports.
“Every significant international terrorist attack that’s occurred has been linked in some way with either a fraudulent passport…or with a counterfeit passport,” Nobel said. “So by catching the people with stolen passports, you get yourself closer to catching terrorist.”
Acknowledging that many US officials consider Interpol irrelevant, Noble said he is working to help the agency shake its lazy reputation.
“Al Qaeda has said they want to kill four million of us,” he said. ” So I’m asking myself, what do we need? What does it take, what will it take for government to say forget the past. If Interpol didn’t exist today, we’d invent it.”
The US contributes only five and a half million dollars a year to Interpol, compared to billions for agencies like the Department of Homeland Security.
“I just feel like they don’t get it. They don’t get it,” said a frustrated Noble, who said that his agency’s $50 million total budget is approximately the “same amount the Los Angeles Galaxy is paying for David Beckham to play football.”
“I get up every day, you know, and I think about how can I make the US understand this,” a clearly emotional Noble continued. “And I just can’t. I can’t, I can’t. ”
Later in the interview, with tears in his eyes, the Interpol chief warned of the consequences of marginalizing his organization.
“We know that terrorist activities are being planned, And we know that if we don’t respond, people will die,” he said. “And I know I’m a smart guy. I know I work hard and I know I can persuade people to do things. I know. But I can’t get the U.S. and other governments to understand that the problem’s a billion-dollar-a-year problem. You know, not a million-dollar-a-year problem. But I know that it’s going to change. It’s going to happen one day.”
“My neck is out there with this interview,” Noble concluded. “And after this interview I’ll go back to working like I do every other day, but I’ll know that there’s nothing that I held back.”
60 Minutes reports that Noble recently received a letter from the Department of Homeland Security saying the agency was considering assigning “one of its people to Interpol by the end of the year.”

I weep with him. Why has the US has been ignoring Interpol? Perhaps the same reason it has ignored the Swiss Nuclear Investigation*; cause it benefits them in some way? Seems there’s no shortage of crimes to keep Interpol busy — slave trafficing, drug and arms smuggling, money laundering, kidnap-renditions, criminal rackets with political ties, etc. But then that takes an adequate budget — and there’s the risk of uncovering the Globalist’s ‘business’ interests.
File this one under the “Don’t fund a police force unless you know exactly whose interests they’re going to be serving” heading.
Seems Noble has put his neck on the block before.
Swiss investigation into an international nuclear smuggling network is being hampered by a lack of cooperation from the United States
Democracy Now interviewed David Albright and a spokesperson for the Swiss Attorney General about this particular incident…
Not just qui bono, but “quo vadis” i.e, not just who benefits, but where does all this lead? And why?
Perhaps, it’s all found in the rabbit hole of the shadow-government-that runs-these type networks?

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Oct 8 2007 23:54 utc | 4

Nuke transportation story has explosive implications

This is about how six nuclear advanced cruise missiles got out of their bunkers and onto a combat aircraft without notice of the wing commander, squadron commander, munitions maintenance squadron (MMS), the B-52H’s crew chief and command pilot and onto another Air Force base tarmac without notice of that air base’s chain of command — for 10 hours.

Of course they noticed. They thought it was for a legitimate purpose, until one of them didn’t and blew the whistle.

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Oct 9 2007 2:30 utc | 5

Anyone know where a copy of the Roger’s piece can be found?

Posted by: johnf | Oct 9 2007 6:48 utc | 6

Uncle #4
Your link to “shadow-government-that runs-these type networks? “ – Page Not Found.
Sounds like it might have been another of your interesting and informative links?

Posted by: Juannie | Oct 9 2007 7:37 utc | 7

@Juannie Unca dropped a hyphen here it is

Posted by: Debs is dead | Oct 9 2007 8:55 utc | 8

The trouble with giving cash money to interpol is that none of the gang gets to sip from the cup. I’ve speiled on about this before – that most government funded foreign aid (as opposed to NGO aid) isn’t given in the form of straight out cash. It is generally given as services by the donor nation’s bureaucrats or as goods manufactured by the donor nation’s corporations. The public is given the the impression that cash has been handed out because when aid deals are announced, el presidente says for eg ‘I’m giving 200 million worth of Aids funding for Africa.”
Of course what he really means is that he is paying his god bothering mates a couple hundred million to fly to Africa first class as often as they like. Accompanying them, gangs of their god bothering mates living it up on the cash. Somewhere down at the pointy end will be a group of earnest young bible bashers telling a bored or bemused audience to keep in their pants.
This is one of the reasons so many ‘pledges’ remain unfulfilled. There are only so many useless and irrelevant services a struggling nation needs. This is especially so if the starving country is duty bound to provide a small percentage of support for these programs blatantly contrived to help amerikans, not starving unwhites.
It is ugly, and is one of the greatest sources of friction between the rich North and the struggling South.
Anyway Interpol manages it’s own budget just as the UN does. That means it is just as starved of funds from amerika as the UN is. It prolly isn’t totally shrubs fault, since this stuff has been going on for long before his tyranny.
Is it really likely that many Washington legislators would be happy to let too much money that is impervious to being porked, go? It isn’t really is it.
I imagine most available loose aid cash goes to Israel, where a percentage finds it’s way back into the aforementioned legislators’ pockets.
Since Interpol doesn’t fund PACs they are always gonna come up short on their amerikan busking tours.
The huge cultural gaps between amerikan style policing and the mainly euro-centric interpol may be an issue but it is doubtful if the impact of that is great. Interpol doesn’t do that much police work as it is primarily an information clearing house.
Like the article said, it would be an invaluable source of information on foreign visitors.

Posted by: Debs is dead | Oct 9 2007 9:32 utc | 9

Thanks to Debs for correcting the link. I can’t help wondering
if the Kam Air Flight 904 crash of Feb. 3, 2005 ties into this
story. Certainly, beyond the sketchy “official news” stories (including a fortuitous false initial report that the flight had landed as Peshawar), scandalously incomplete reports, and a Photo(shop?) filled “first person” story by the lead investigator, it seems well nigh impossible to get detailed information on that crash, even the name of the pilot, for example.

Posted by: Hannah K. O’Luthon | Oct 9 2007 9:51 utc | 10

Washington’s $8 Billion Shadow

Posted by: annie | Oct 9 2007 13:40 utc | 11

Yeah, thanks Debs, As usual from Uncle it was worth the asking.
annie,
I’ve only read the first two pages but a good find. I’ll have to print out the rest to digest it as beedtime reading toningt. Nightmares? – maybe a little before bedtime.

Posted by: Juannie | Oct 9 2007 14:01 utc | 12

While Interpol has trouble getting US attention, the complaint of a “private intelligence company” about US govt mishandling of the recent OBL video, gives a glimpse of activities and ambitions of private intel companies.
WaPo article describes SITE’s income as “drawn from subscriber fees and contracts.” But who? Do corps seek intel about OBL?

A small private intelligence company that monitors Islamic terrorist groups obtained a new Osama bin Laden video ahead of its official release last month, and around 10 a.m. on Sept. 7, it notified the Bush administration of its secret acquisition. It gave two senior officials access on the condition that the officials not reveal they had it until the al-Qaeda release.
Within 20 minutes, a range of intelligence agencies had begun downloading it from the company’s Web site. By midafternoon that day, the video and a transcript of its audio track had been leaked from within the Bush administration to cable television news and broadcast worldwide.
The founder of the company, the SITE Intelligence Group, says this premature disclosure tipped al-Qaeda to a security breach and destroyed a years-long surveillance operation that the company has used to intercept and pass along secret messages, videos and advance warnings of suicide bombings from the terrorist group’s communications network.
“Techniques that took years to develop are now ineffective and worthless,” said Rita Katz, the firm’s 44-year-old founder, who has garnered wide attention by publicizing statements and videos from extremist chat rooms and Web sites, while attracting controversy over the secrecy of SITE’s methodology. Her firm provides intelligence about terrorist groups to a wide range of paying clients, including private firms and military and intelligence agencies from the United States and several other countries.

This would be the video whose authenticity b evaluated as highly unlikely, wouldn’t it?
What are the chances that any of the story can be taken at face value? Was SITE trying to shoehorn supposed intel into the Executive wing, once again, bypassing the usual intel analysts? Was the video leaked by some govt agent in order to blow an
effective independent channel into AQ, or to discredit a false, rogue operation?
If the video was on SITE’s website, what would prevent intel agencies, or anyone else, from downloading? Why is SITE complaining publicly in WaPo? What is the purpose of publishing this story?
WaPo also notes:

A small number of private intelligence companies compete with SITE in scouring terrorists’ networks for information and messages, and some have questioned the company’s motives and methods, including the claim that its access to al-Qaeda’s network was unique.

How many private intel cos are there? Again, funding?

Posted by: small coke | Oct 9 2007 15:45 utc | 13

I suppose for ‘Al Qaeda’ one should read ‘Islamic fundamentalists / ‘anti-west insurgents’ or something.
Al Qaeda itself is minuscule, now decimated, powerless. Wiki lists its members – one page. Google news on ‘al q’ turns up 19 000 references from Algers to Karachi, passing by Stockholm, Paris, etc. etc. Never did a brand name do so well without expert advice.
The standard left position: they hate us not for our freedoms but for our violence. But they still hate us! They exist! They are out there and growing because of our actions!
Note no definitions are given, terrorism in Iraq, that is, resistance to occupation and infighting between different clans/groups is somehow lumped with ‘Al Qaeda’. The conclusion, an anti-war position – withdrawal from Iraq and diplomacy with Syria etc. doesn’t really follow, although it is often true of course that halting aggression will stop the counter-reaction as well. Yet, withdrawing because the enemy is multiplying or getting stronger makes no sense at all – that is loosing!
So the loony left comes out with: We should stop because it is dangerous for us to go on.
Pertinently not the case, as anyone not directly involved in these occupations (and war entails some losses, that is understood at the start) can note without difficulty that there has been no escalation in terrorist attacks in the cosy West. They are waving the same empty threat to come up with a different response. Ridiculous. They thereby cover up the real reasons for the war(s), turning them into a hunt for putrid apples – terrorists under the bed. While latching into majority opinion.
The so-called War on Terror has been a “disaster” and British military policy in Iraq and Afghanistan must be fundamentally changed if al Qaida is to be defeated, a new report states. says another news article.
How do you defeat an enemy by withdrawing?
it goes on: The dismantling of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan in 2001-02 was of “direct value” to al Qaida and the extraordinary rendition and detention of terror suspects is a “constant source of propaganda”, it adds.
Huh? I thought Binny and the Taliban were hand in glove? Gitmo is propaganda for what? For Al Q?
The title of the report is: *Towards sustainable security – Alternatives to the War on Terror*
Heh, bit of hypocritical green buzz words there.
So they will be ignored, rightly.

Posted by: Tangerine | Oct 9 2007 16:47 utc | 14

@Johnf – Anyone know where a copy of the Roger’s piece can be found?
I didn’t find it – I believe it’s for sale on the Oxford Group site I linked in the piece above.

Posted by: b | Oct 9 2007 17:39 utc | 15

@Tangerine – quite harsh – I disagree.
They are waving the same empty threat to come up with a different response. Ridiculous. They thereby cover up the real reasons for the war(s), turning them into a hunt for putrid apples – terrorists under the bed. While latching into majority opinion.
That is the only way to reach the majority and get some sense back into the issue. There is certainly no justification of Iraq-war as attack on AlQ base in what Roger’s writes.
If his intent as I believe is to stop this military imperial junket, his is a good way to do so.

Posted by: b | Oct 9 2007 17:50 utc | 16

What about the morality, or what is stipulated in international law? Illegal invasions? Torture? Illegal constitutions?
What about judging: the killling of ppl seen as scum on the ground, an obstacle to controlling resources, privatization, stripping assets, creating a new slave labor class? Forcing them to bow down to the ‘free’ market and agree to their own exploitation, right now their own death, as it that little fairy tale didn’t work out?
Why come in late in the day and say, ooops, that was a mistake, big boo boo, there might be MORE terrorists attacking us as a result of all this? Where was the left when the invasion of Iraq was planned and the shock and awe came down? More than one million civilians have been killed to date in Iraq and it is time to review strategy?
ONE MILLION.
If the ‘majority’ can only be reached by the never ending imagined terrorist threats that justify anything, then let them expire thru fear, or choke on a doughnut, or crash their SUVs.
I’m in a very bad mood. Strangled with rage!

Posted by: Tangerine | Oct 9 2007 18:35 utc | 17

that is oone of the strangest dynamics. when ythe war was just an idea of words coming out of the buffoon bush’s mouth – there were 12 million people who went on the streets throughout the world
& the more bloody this illegal & immoral war becomes – the less there are out on the streets
as a milliob bodies of the citizen of iraq drown that country in a sea of blood – in the countries of the perpetrators & their erstwhile allies – there are just relatively small demonstration & in other countries – nothing
this silence, this complicity masks the screams not only of the martyred people of iraq but also the fear filled citizens of the west

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Oct 9 2007 18:53 utc | 18

And not only have we been made to fund this – see Annie’s link @ 11 – but we, and I mean those American taxpayers who earn under $100,000 a year – have been paying our taxes DIRECTLY to private companies whose only responsibility is to their shareholders. We have been funding Blackwater as if we had been writing checks to them. I paid those mercenaries who killed two women in Baghdad today in front of their children. Strangled with rage indeed, Tangerine! I thought the rancid stench of fascism came from the government and corporations, but apparently it’s coming from the corpses they’re feasting on. We’re all so much winter-kill. I feel like a fucking collaborator.

Posted by: Tantalus | Oct 9 2007 19:03 utc | 19

apropos of the vanishing protesting millions rememberinggiap mentions @18, this is the sort of brownshirt politics Resident George is using to scare the spit out of ‘citizens’.

Posted by: ‘citizen’ | Oct 9 2007 19:33 utc | 20

>I didn’t find it – I believe it’s for sale on the Oxford Group site I linked in the piece above.
I’ll try and get hold of it. It should be interesting. Unintentionally Kennedy’s book on the rise and fall of superpower empires from the early modern period on and its implicit placing of America as the next to fall seems to have been influential with the neo-cons, who decided that America should use its post 1990 unipolar power to grab world hegemony. Post 9/11 Kennedy was bullied into supporting their shennanighans, but now seems to be having second thoughts.

Posted by: johnf | Oct 9 2007 21:17 utc | 21

b at 16: Tangerine – quite harsh – I disagree.
Well I was feeling very harsh now I’m calmer. I get mad at the left’s apologetics etc. after the fact.
Anyway, moves that will stop the killing, such as leading to withdrawal from Iraq, are worth adopting or supporting, I agree there.. Nevertheless, there are both moral and pragmatic shadings: does the strategy make a travesty of some kind of invested principles that should never be abandoned? Not for for any cause? Will the strategy help, be effective? How to balance the two if that is needed? Tough questions.
Rgiap mentioned the demos. I had forgotten them though I was there myself. They just petered out, ppl gave up, and it became an accepted fact. I do believe they had an effect. Look at what happened in Spain, after the Madrid bombings, the Spanish knew Aznar was lying, or pushing some agenda, and some of that attitude surely was the result of the visibility and thus respectability (demos, but not only) of an anti-war-against-Iraq stance.
An now the coalition of the willing is wilting..rats leaving a sinking ship..

Posted by: Tangerine | Oct 10 2007 17:43 utc | 22

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