West gives award to people who Insult our religion

[zraver]

Buddy, how does this relate to what the other dude is talking about, this is talking about life span, literacy, etc.

But I thought the subject was on violence, like sexual abuse and battery!

Actually things like literacy, violence, chances of a child dying etc are all part of quality of life issues. genmirajborgza786 threw out some very big numbers that paint a very dark picture of my nation: until put into perspective. The info on Pakistani women was to provide that missing perspective since reporting of DV in Islamic countries is famously non-existent or massively under reported due to wide held beliefs among large segments of the population that assume "she had it coming."

 

[PakSniper]

@ Zraver

I understand but also know a person doesn't have to be illiterate to commit, evil deeds, I see Court TV and read about smart doctors committing assault, etc. But to make it fair I will try and collect data about these things of the Islamic world, and post them if I can find to compare and contrast.

 

[zraver]

thanks, such info might be useful later. The info I posted was simply to provide prospective. America isn't perfect, but neither is it as dangerous or evil as some here like to make out.

We have violence, and crime. Our politics are often self serving and we seem to end up in a great many wars, not always for the right reasons, and rarely with the desired outcomes.

But we are also the worlds medic as well as its policeman. Despite trillions in debt, we give more than the rest of the world combined. The only group that gives more than the Federal Goverment are the American people themselves via privvate giving. We have the highest attnedance of religious services in the Western world, he highest standard of living, we offer imigrants a real chance to join our nation (unlike Europe) and despite what some Muslims beleive are islam's biggest freind.

yes we are Israels ally, but we are also allied with Egypt, Iraq,KSA, Kuwait, the gulf states, Pakistan and others. When Europe turned a blind eye to serb butchery in Bosnia and again in Kosovo it was he US that led NATO to war to stop it and brign peace. ect ad nasuem, I get kind of tired of people mistating things to make my country look bad.

 

[PakSniper]

Well, US does have it's qualities (good and bad), just like other nations, I guess the people can't be blamed for the stupidity of the politicians, but their is a saying people elect their leaders and some take it to great extremes. I study in a Univ in the US, and have met good and bad, same as when I went over seas in the ME.

But I have to say in Europe their are also good people for Example Keys on this forum and some others, else where, but I believe Majority are racists' (even recent polls proved this), but I never liked European countries (excluding UK).

The only group that gives more than the Federal Goverment are the American people themselves via privvate giving.

That is so true, I have seen people go to extreme lengths to go to Israel and rally along side Palestinians, and in turn get beaten (by IDF), I have extreme respect for those, who know whats really going on. Including US population who are the biggest donators in Africa, some even open businesses over their to help AIDs/HIV victims by having services that takes medicine to them, etc.

 

[Adux]

Adnan,

Keys is of Pakistan Origin and is an EX-UK Military Man.

 

[PakSniper]

Adnan,

Keys is of Pakistan Origin and is an EX-UK Military Man.

For real, I thought he was white, well I need Keys to confirm this.

 

[Keysersoze]

Adnan,

Keys is of Pakistan Origin and is an EX-UK Military Man.

Confirmed....

 

[alamgir]

Again blah blah blah.

1- Those needless civillian deaths are beign caused primarily by our enemies. Even the Lancet report and UN figures show the deaths do to coalition action are an insignifigant minority comapred to the sectarian killings. The deaths in Korea and Vietnam etc were also not exclusively the US's fault. In Korea in particular it was the communist that had the death sqauds and purges.

Also Ira qis a sovergien country and has been for a couple of years. In accordance with the Geneva Conventions and the UN, the occupying powers returned sobergienty to the people.

The US has also spent billions and continues to spend on reconstruction only to see insurgents come in behind them and undue all the work particaulary with water, power, and oil.

BTW the US/UK/Aus were no longer "occupying powers" when the complaint was filed.

sorry i want to reply you but interupt by ,,coculo di maiale,,if all world including UN, IHRC,humantarian ngo,s,media confirm these report you cannot neglect all just using three time blah.today,s condition of iraq is plan game of us.........Order Out Of Chaos In Iraq
Divide et impera a classic colonial strategy

Paul Joseph Watson/Prison Planet.com | March 10 2006

It is now clearer than ever before that the blueprint for Iraq from the very start was to deliberately allow the country to descend into chaos and encourage Muslim to kill Muslim as the Neo-Con juggernaut of ethnic cleansing roars on to steamroll its next victim.

We don't even need to cast our eye over recent incidents to know that staged managed events and psychological operations are taking place in Iraq. The Pentagon admitted that the April 9 2003 Saddam statue toppling was orchestrated not by joyous Iraqis but by a Marine colonel, with a psychological team using loudspeakers to urge onlooking Iraqis to assist.

Close angle shots of the scene broadcast live worldwide gave the impression that crowd numbered in the hundreds and not the 50 or so who were actually there.

In September 2005, British SAS were caught attempting to stage a terror attack by disguising themselves as Arabs and attacking Iraqi police. The soldiers were arrested and taken to a nearby jail where they were confronted and interrogated by an Iraqi judge.

The initial demand from the puppet authorities that the soldiers be released was rejected by the Basra government. At that point tanks were sent in to 'rescue' the terrorists and the 'liberated' Iraqis started to riot, firebombing and pelting stones at the vehicles injuring British troops.

The only news outlet to ask any serious questions was Australian TV news which according to one viewer gave, "credibility to the 'conspiracy theorists' who have long claimed many terrorist acts in Iraq are, in fact, being initiated and carried out by US, British and Israeli forces."
Italian journalist Giuliana Sgrena's car was fired upon and an Italian secret service agent killed during their escape after Sgrena was told by the group that kidnapped her that a threat to kill her if Italian troops didn't pull out of Iraq wasn't made by them. Sgrena wrote articles condemning torture at Abu Ghraib and more dangerous to the US, articles about the use of napalm in Fallujah. The Pentagon admitted they would target non-embedded journalists before the war even started. The BBC's Kate Adie reported,

" I was told by a senior officer in the Pentagon, that if uplinks --that is the television signals out of... Baghdad, for example-- were detected by any planes ...electronic media... mediums, of the military above Baghdad... they'd be fired down on. Even if they were journalists."

This means that Rumsfeld's Ministry of Truth in Iraq is putting out false statements by fake Jihad groups to try and maintain the facade that the resistance is run by brutal terrorists under the direction of Al-Qaeda/Iran/Syria or whoever else they want to bomb next.

Every high profile kidnapping brings with it eyewitness reports of white men in suits and police carrying out the abductions.

Throughout history we see the tactic of divide and conquer being used to enslave populations and swallow formerly sovereign countries by piecemeal. From the British stirring up aggression between different Indian tribes in order to foment division, to modern day Yugoslavia where the country was rejecting the IMF and world bank takeover before the Globalists broke it up and took the country piece by piece by arming and empowering extremists.

Donald Rumsfeld announced yesterday that if Iraq were to plunge into an all-out civil war then Iraqi security forces would be given the task of dealing with it. Who is cutting and running now? The Iraqi security forces, largely consisting of street thugs, militias and former Baathists loyal to Saddam, are responsible for a thousand Iraqis being tortured to death in Iraq every month, according to Dr. John Pace, the outgoing UN human rights chief.

Do they sound like amicable peacemakers to you?

The agenda to maintain division and ethnic tension in Iraq can be seen as long term plan and the only way to finally capture and enslave a country that has historically thrown out its occupiers on every occasion.

In 1982, Oded Yinon, an official from the Israeli Foreign Affairs office, wrote: "To dissolve Iraq is even more important for us than dissolving Syria. In the short term, it's Iraqi power that constitutes the greatest threat to Israel. The Iran-Iraq war tore Iraq apart and provoked its downfall. All manner of inter-Arab conflict help us and accelerate our goal of breaking up Iraq into small, diverse pieces."



Ethnic cleansing, maimed children and thousands of dead American soldiers are a small price to pay because for the Globalists the end always justifies the means and untold bloodshed and misery and bloodshed won't stand in their way.

That agenda was again underscored recently when Daniel Pipes, a highly influential Straussian Neo-Con media darling, who told the New York Sun that a civil war would aid the US and Israel because it would entangle Iran and Syria and enable those countries to be picked off by the new world empire without the need to sell a direct invasion to the public.

Stephen Zunes, professor of Politics and chair of the Peace & Justice Studies Program at the University of San Francisco, recently wrote,

"Top analysts in the CIA and State Department, as well as large numbers of Middle East experts, warned that a U.S. invasion of Iraq could result in a violent ethnic and sectarian conflict. Even some of the war's intellectual architects acknowledged as much: In a 1997 paper, prior to becoming major figures in the Bush foreign policy team, David Wurmser, Richard Perle, and Douglas Feith predicted that a post-Saddam Iraq would likely be "ripped apart" by sectarianism and other cleavages but called on the United States to "expedite" such a collapse anyway.""One of the long-standing goals of such neoconservative intellectuals has been to see the Middle East broken up into smaller ethnic or sectarian mini-states, which would include not only large stateless nationalities like the Kurds, but Maronite Christians, Druze, Arab Shi'ites, and others. Such a policy comes not out of respect for the right of self-determination – indeed, the neocons have been steadfast opponents of the Palestinians' desire for statehood, even alongside a secure Israel – but out of an imperial quest for divide-and-rule. The division of the Middle East has long been seen as a means of countering the threat of pan-Arab nationalism and, more recently, pan-Islamist movements."

The machinations of the Machiavellian's are unfolding according to plan. Let Iraq cascade into chaos and dilute the insurgency by manipulating it to become fractious and watch in-fighting ensue. Blame Iran and Syria for the anarchy (a sentiment echoed by Rice during the cartoon riots) and then move the troops in to decapitate two more rogue nations.

 

[Keysersoze]

I am sorry Alamgir but I have to interject here..........

The portion you highlighted in red regarding the whole SAS thing is complete and utter crap. If they were going to do something like you suggest. Then

A) There would not have only been two of them. (It was a standard recce mission)

B) They would not have surrendered. (They would have shot their way out. the SAS have experience of getting out of situations like stated.)

One thing anyone who comes up with this nonsense cannot answer an important question here.......What would be the idea behind this? Create more difficulties for themselves?

 

[alamgir]

I am sorry Alamgir but I have to interject here..........

The portion you highlighted in red regarding the whole SAS thing is complete and utter crap. If they were going to do something like you suggest. Then

A) There would not have only been two of them. (It was a standard recce mission)

B) They would not have surrendered. (They would have shot their way out. the SAS have experience of getting out of situations like stated.)

One thing anyone who comes up with this nonsense cannot answer an important question here.......What would be the idea behind this? Create more difficulties for themselves?

Are U.S and Britain actually involved in sectarian violence in Iraq to divert resistance???


Basra is relatively stable compared to central Iraq where violence involving insurgents, civilians and coalition forces is a daily routine. The city has rarely been a site of clashes between insurgents and coalition troops, nor is it a victim of regular terrorist attacks. This week, however, things changed. But not thanks to Zarqawi and his al-Qaeda ilk.

On Monday, two British soldiers were arrested and detained by Iraqi police in Basra. Within a matter of hours, the British military responded with overwhelming force. Despite subsequent Ministry of Defence denials, insisting that the two men had been retrieved solely through “negotiations”, British military officials, including Brigadier John Lorimer, told BBC News (20/9/05) [1] that the British Army had stormed an Iraqi police station to locate the detainees. Ministry of Defence sources confirmed that “British vehicles” had attempted to “maintain a cordon” outside the police station. After British Army tanks “flattened the wall” of the station, UK troops “broke into the police station to confirm the men were not there” and then “staged a rescue from a house in Basra”, according a commanding officer familiar with the operation. Both men, British defence sources told the BBC’s Richard Galpin in Baghdad, were “members of the SAS elite special forces.” After arrest, they had been handed over to local militia.

What had prompted this bizarre turn of events? Why had the Iraqi police forces, which normally work in close cooperation with coalition military forces, arrested two British SAS soldiers, and then handed them over to militia? A review of the initial on-the-ground reports leads to a clearer picture.

Fancy Dress and Big Guns Don’t Mix

According to the BBC’s Galpin, reporting for BBC Radio 4 (19/9/05, 18 hrs news script), Iraqi police sources in Basra “told the BBC the two British men were arrested after failing to stop at a checkpoint. There was an exchange of gunfire. The men were wearing traditional Arab clothing, and when the police eventually stopped them, they said they found explosives and weapons in their car… It’s widely believed the two British servicemen were operating undercover.” Undercover? Dressed as Arabs? What were they trying to do that had caught the attention of their colleagues, the Iraqi police?

According to the Washington Post (20/9/05) [2], “Iraqi security officials on Monday variously accused the two Britons they detained of shooting at Iraqi forces or trying to plant explosives.” Reuters (19/9/05) [3] cited police, local officials and other witnesses who confirmed that “the two undercover soldiers were arrested after opening fire on Iraqi police who approached them.” Officials said that “the men were wearing traditional Arab headscarves and sitting in an unmarked car.” According to Mohammed al-Abadi, an official in the Basra governorate, “A policeman approached them and then one of these guys fired at him. Then the police managed to capture them.”

Boobytrapped Brits?

In an interview with Al Jazeerah TV [4], the popular Iraqi leader Fattah al-Sheikh, a member of the Iraqi National Assembly and deputy official in the Basra governorate, said that police had “caught two non-Iraqis, who seem to be Britons and were in a car of the Cressida type. It was a booby-trapped car laden with ammunition and was meant to explode in the centre of the city of Basra in the popular market.” Contrary to British authorities’ claims that the soldiers had been immediately handed to local militia, al-Sheikh confirmed that they were “at the Intelligence Department in Basra, and they were held by the National Guard force, but the British occupation forces are still surrounding this department in an attempt to absolve them of the crime.”

No wonder the Iraqi authorities were annoyed. Two British SAS soldiers had been caught undercover dressed as Arabs, loaded with explosives and anti-tank weaponry [5], acting uncooperatively at a routine checkpoint, and opening fire on police when approached. This is hardly a mistaken case of ‘friendly fire.’ The undercover operatives had conducted themselves suspiciously and aggressively. When it became clear that the British Army was about to use overwhelming force to rescue the operatives, it is hardly surprising that Iraqi police were reluctant to give them up, preferring to interrogate them to find out precisely what they had been doing.

The Special Reconnaissance Regiment and British Covert Operations

British defence sources told the Scotsman (20/9/05) [6] that the soldiers were part of an “undercover special forces detachment” set up this year to “bridge the intelligence void” in Basra, drawing on “special forces’ experience in Northern Ireland and Aden, where British troops went ‘deep’ undercover in local communities to try to break the code of silence against foreign forces.” These elite forces operate under the Special Reconnaissance Regiment formed last year by then defence secretary, Geoff Hoon, “to gather so-called human intelligence during counter-terrorist missions.” The question, of course, is how does firing at Iraqi police while dressed as Arabs and carrying explosives constitute “countering terrorism” or even gathering “intelligence”?

The admission by British defence officials is revealing. A glance at the Special Reconnaissance Regiment gives a more concrete idea of the sort of operations these two British soldiers were involved in. The Regiment, formed recently, is “modelled on an undercover unit that operated in Northern Ireland” according to Whitehall sources.[7] The Regiment had “absorbed 14th Intelligence Company, known as ‘14 Int’, a plainclothes unit set up to gather intelligence covertly on suspect terrorists in Northern Ireland. Its recruits are trained by the SAS.” This is the same Regiment that was involved in the unlawful 22nd July execution - by multiple head-shots - of the innocent Brazilian, Mr Jean Charles de Menezes, after he boarded a tube train in Stockwell Underground station.

According to Detective Sergeant Nicholas Benwell, member of the Scotland Yard team that had been investigating the activities of an ultra-secret wing of British military intelligence, the Force Research Unit (FRU), the team found that “military intelligence was colluding with terrorists to help them kill so-called ‘legitimate targets’ such as active republicans... many of the victims of these government-backed hit squads were innocent civilians.” Benwell’s revelations were corroborated in detail by British double agent Kevin Fulton, who was recruited to the FRU in 1981, when he began to infiltrate the ranks of IRA. In his role as a British FRU agent inside the IRA, he was told by his military intelligence handlers to “do anything” to win the confidence of the terrorist group.

“I mixed explosive and I helped develop new types of bombs”, he told Scotland’s Sunday Herald (23/6/02) [8]. “I moved weapons… if you ask me if the materials I handled killed anyone, then I will have to say that some of the things I helped develop did kill… my handlers knew everything I did. I was never told not to do something that was discussed. How can you pretend to be a terrorist and not act like one? You can’t. You’ve got to do what they do… They did a lot of murders… I broke the law seven days a week and my handlers knew that. They knew that I was making bombs and giving them to other members of the IRA and they did nothing about it… The idea was that the only way to beat the enemy was to penetrate the enemy and be the enemy.” Most startlingly, Fulton said that his handlers told him his operations were “sanctioned right at the top… this goes the whole way to the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister knows what you are doing.”

Zarqawi, Ba’athists and the Seeds of Discord

So, based on the methodology of their Regiment, the two British SAS operatives were in Iraq to “penetrate the enemy and be the enemy,” in order of course to “beat the enemy.” Instead of beating the enemy, however, they ended up fomenting massive chaos and killing innocent people, a familiar pattern for critical students of the British role in the Northern Ireland conflict.

In November 2004 [9], a joint statement was released on several Islamist websites on behalf of al-Qaeda’s man in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, and Saddam Hussein’s old Ba’ath Party loyalists. Zarqawi’s network had “joined other extremist Islamists and Saddam Hussein’s old Baath party to threaten increased attacks on US-led forces.” Zarqawi’s group said they signed “the statement written by the Iraqi Baath party, not because we support the party or Saddam, but because it expresses the demands of resistance groups in Iraq.” The statement formalized what had been known for a year already – that, as post-Saddam Iraqi intelligence and US military officials told the London Times (9/8/2003) [10], “Al Qaeda terrorists who have infiltrated Iraq from Saudi Arabia and other Arab countries have formed an alliance with former intelligence agents of Saddam Hussein to fight their common enemy, the American forces.” Al Qaeda leaders “recruit from the pool” of Saddam’s former “security and intelligence officers who are unemployed and embittered by their loss of status.” After vetting, “they begin Al-Qaeda-style training, such as how to make remote-controlled bombs.”

Yet Pakistani military sources [11] revealed in February 2005 that the US has “resolved to arm small militias backed by US troops and entrenched in the population”, consisting of “former members of the Ba’ath Party” – the same people already teamed up with Zarqawi’s al-Qaeda network. In a highly clandestine operation, the US procured “Pakistan-manufactured weapons, including rifles, rocket-propelled grenade launchers, ammunition, rockets and other light weaponry.” A Pakistani military analyst noted that the “arms could not be destined for the Iraqi security forces because US arms would be given to them.” Rather, the US is playing a double-game to “head off” the threat of a “Shi’ite clergy-driven religious movement” – in other words, to exacerbate the deterioration of security by penetrating, manipulating and arming the terrorist insurgency.

What could be the end-game of such a covert strategy? The view on-the-ground [12] in Iraq, among both Sunnis and Shi’ites, is worth noting. Sheikh Jawad al-Kalesi, the Shi’ite Imam of the al-Kadhimiyah mosque in Baghdad, told Le Monde: “I don’t think that Abu Musab al-Zarqawi exists as such. He’s simply an invention by the occupiers to divide the people.” Iraq’s most powerful Sunni Arab religious authority, the Association of Muslim Scholars, concurs, condemning the call to arms against Shi’ites as a “very dangerous” phenomenon that “plays into the hands of the occupier who wants to split up the country and spark a sectarian war.” In colonial terms, the strategy is known as “divide and rule.”

Regardless of doubts about Zarqawi’s existence, it is indeed difficult to avoid the conclusion that this overall interpretation is plausible. It seems the only ones who don’t understand the clandestine dynamics of Anglo-American covert strategy in Iraq are we, the people, in the west. It’s high time we got informed.

Notes:

[1]. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4...

[2]. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-... dyn/content/article/2005/09/19...

[3]. http://today.reuters.com/news/newsarticl...
type=worldNews&storyID=2005-09...
_01_SPI946735_RTRUKOC_0_US-IRA...


[4]. http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?c...
viewArticle&code=20050920&arti...


[5]. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4...

[6]. http://news.scotsman.com/index.cfm?id=19...

[7]. http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/...
1542080,00.html


[8]. http://www.sundayherald.com/25646...

[9]. http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/com...
story_page/0,5744,11488568%255...


[10]. http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news...

[11]. http://www.atimes.com/atimes/middle_east...

[12]. http://english.aljazeera.net/nr/exeres/7...
EA07-492F-9E04-C080950DF180.ht...

 

[Keysersoze]

Are U.S and Britain actually involved in sectarian violence in Iraq to divert resistance???


Basra is relatively stable compared to central Iraq where violence involving insurgents, civilians and coalition forces is a daily routine. The city has rarely been a site of clashes between insurgents and coalition troops, nor is it a victim of regular terrorist attacks. This week, however, things changed. But not thanks to Zarqawi and his al-Qaeda ilk.

On Monday, two British soldiers were arrested and detained by Iraqi police in Basra. Within a matter of hours, the British military responded with overwhelming force. Despite subsequent Ministry of Defence denials, insisting that the two men had been retrieved solely through “negotiations”, British military officials, including Brigadier John Lorimer, told BBC News (20/9/05) [1] that the British Army had stormed an Iraqi police station to locate the detainees. Ministry of Defence sources confirmed that “British vehicles” had attempted to “maintain a cordon” outside the police station. After British Army tanks “flattened the wall” of the station, UK troops “broke into the police station to confirm the men were not there” and then “staged a rescue from a house in Basra”, according a commanding officer familiar with the operation. Both men, British defence sources told the BBC’s Richard Galpin in Baghdad, were “members of the SAS elite special forces.” After arrest, they had been handed over to local militia.

What had prompted this bizarre turn of events? Why had the Iraqi police forces, which normally work in close cooperation with coalition military forces, arrested two British SAS soldiers, and then handed them over to militia? A review of the initial on-the-ground reports leads to a clearer picture.

Fancy Dress and Big Guns Don’t Mix

According to the BBC’s Galpin, reporting for BBC Radio 4 (19/9/05, 18 hrs news script), Iraqi police sources in Basra “told the BBC the two British men were arrested after failing to stop at a checkpoint. There was an exchange of gunfire. The men were wearing traditional Arab clothing, and when the police eventually stopped them, they said they found explosives and weapons in their car… It’s widely believed the two British servicemen were operating undercover.” Undercover? Dressed as Arabs? What were they trying to do that had caught the attention of their colleagues, the Iraqi police?

According to the Washington Post (20/9/05) [2], “Iraqi security officials on Monday variously accused the two Britons they detained of shooting at Iraqi forces or trying to plant explosives.” Reuters (19/9/05) [3] cited police, local officials and other witnesses who confirmed that “the two undercover soldiers were arrested after opening fire on Iraqi police who approached them.” Officials said that “the men were wearing traditional Arab headscarves and sitting in an unmarked car.” According to Mohammed al-Abadi, an official in the Basra governorate, “A policeman approached them and then one of these guys fired at him. Then the police managed to capture them.”

Boobytrapped Brits?

In an interview with Al Jazeerah TV [4], the popular Iraqi leader Fattah al-Sheikh, a member of the Iraqi National Assembly and deputy official in the Basra governorate, said that police had “caught two non-Iraqis, who seem to be Britons and were in a car of the Cressida type. It was a booby-trapped car laden with ammunition and was meant to explode in the centre of the city of Basra in the popular market.” Contrary to British authorities’ claims that the soldiers had been immediately handed to local militia, al-Sheikh confirmed that they were “at the Intelligence Department in Basra, and they were held by the National Guard force, but the British occupation forces are still surrounding this department in an attempt to absolve them of the crime.”

No wonder the Iraqi authorities were annoyed. Two British SAS soldiers had been caught undercover dressed as Arabs, loaded with explosives and anti-tank weaponry [5], acting uncooperatively at a routine checkpoint, and opening fire on police when approached. This is hardly a mistaken case of ‘friendly fire.’ The undercover operatives had conducted themselves suspiciously and aggressively. When it became clear that the British Army was about to use overwhelming force to rescue the operatives, it is hardly surprising that Iraqi police were reluctant to give them up, preferring to interrogate them to find out precisely what they had been doing.

The Special Reconnaissance Regiment and British Covert Operations

British defence sources told the Scotsman (20/9/05) [6] that the soldiers were part of an “undercover special forces detachment” set up this year to “bridge the intelligence void” in Basra, drawing on “special forces’ experience in Northern Ireland and Aden, where British troops went ‘deep’ undercover in local communities to try to break the code of silence against foreign forces.” These elite forces operate under the Special Reconnaissance Regiment formed last year by then defence secretary, Geoff Hoon, “to gather so-called human intelligence during counter-terrorist missions.” The question, of course, is how does firing at Iraqi police while dressed as Arabs and carrying explosives constitute “countering terrorism” or even gathering “intelligence”?

The admission by British defence officials is revealing. A glance at the Special Reconnaissance Regiment gives a more concrete idea of the sort of operations these two British soldiers were involved in. The Regiment, formed recently, is “modelled on an undercover unit that operated in Northern Ireland” according to Whitehall sources.[7] The Regiment had “absorbed 14th Intelligence Company, known as ‘14 Int’, a plainclothes unit set up to gather intelligence covertly on suspect terrorists in Northern Ireland. Its recruits are trained by the SAS.” This is the same Regiment that was involved in the unlawful 22nd July execution - by multiple head-shots - of the innocent Brazilian, Mr Jean Charles de Menezes, after he boarded a tube train in Stockwell Underground station. Wrong! It was 2 policemen who shot him that is a matter of record!

According to Detective Sergeant Nicholas Benwell, member of the Scotland Yard team that had been investigating the activities of an ultra-secret wing of British military intelligence, the Force Research Unit (FRU), the team found that “military intelligence was colluding with terrorists to help them kill so-called ‘legitimate targets’ such as active republicans... many of the victims of these government-backed hit squads were innocent civilians.” Benwell’s revelations were corroborated in detail by British double agent Kevin Fulton, who was recruited to the FRU in 1981, when he began to infiltrate the ranks of IRA. In his role as a British FRU agent inside the IRA, he was told by his military intelligence handlers to “do anything” to win the confidence of the terrorist group.

“I mixed explosive and I helped develop new types of bombs”, he told Scotland’s Sunday Herald (23/6/02) [8]. “I moved weapons… if you ask me if the materials I handled killed anyone, then I will have to say that some of the things I helped develop did kill… my handlers knew everything I did. I was never told not to do something that was discussed. How can you pretend to be a terrorist and not act like one? You can’t. You’ve got to do what they do… They did a lot of murders… I broke the law seven days a week and my handlers knew that. They knew that I was making bombs and giving them to other members of the IRA and they did nothing about it… The idea was that the only way to beat the enemy was to penetrate the enemy and be the enemy.” Most startlingly, Fulton said that his handlers told him his operations were “sanctioned right at the top… this goes the whole way to the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister knows what you are doing.”
What the ehll has this got to do with anything? the guy was mixing explosives for the IRA In order to be a effective double agent. this was a scandal here and not hushed up. So where is the conspiracy?
Zarqawi, Ba’athists and the Seeds of Discord

So, based on the methodology (Obviously the writer has never met anyone from the regiment otherwise he would not write such utter crap)of their Regiment, the two British SAS operatives were in Iraq to “penetrate the enemy and be the enemy,” in order of course to “beat the enemy.” Instead of beating the enemy, however, they ended up fomenting massive chaos and killing innocent people, a familiar pattern for critical students of the British role in the Northern Ireland conflict.

In November 2004 [9], a joint statement was released on several Islamist websites on behalf of al-Qaeda’s man in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, and Saddam Hussein’s old Ba’ath Party loyalists. Zarqawi’s network had “joined other extremist Islamists and Saddam Hussein’s old Baath party to threaten increased attacks on US-led forces.” Zarqawi’s group said they signed “the statement written by the Iraqi Baath party, not because we support the party or Saddam, but because it expresses the demands of resistance groups in Iraq.” The statement formalized what had been known for a year already – that, as post-Saddam Iraqi intelligence and US military officials told the London Times (9/8/2003) [10], “Al Qaeda terrorists who have infiltrated Iraq from Saudi Arabia and other Arab countries have formed an alliance with former intelligence agents of Saddam Hussein to fight their common enemy, the American forces.” Al Qaeda leaders “recruit from the pool” of Saddam’s former “security and intelligence officers who are unemployed and embittered by their loss of status.” After vetting, “they begin Al-Qaeda-style training, such as how to make remote-controlled bombs.”

Yet Pakistani military sources [11] revealed in February 2005 that the US has “resolved to arm small militias backed by US troops and entrenched in the population”, consisting of “former members of the Ba’ath Party” – the same people already teamed up with Zarqawi’s al-Qaeda network. In a highly clandestine operation, the US procured “Pakistan-manufactured weapons, including rifles, rocket-propelled grenade launchers, ammunition, rockets and other light weaponry.” A Pakistani military analyst noted that the “arms could not be destined for the Iraqi security forces because US arms would be given to them.” Rather, the US is playing a double-game to “head off” the threat of a “Shi’ite clergy-driven religious movement” – in other words, to exacerbate the deterioration of security by penetrating, manipulating and arming the terrorist insurgency.

What could be the end-game of such a covert strategy? The view on-the-ground [12] in Iraq, among both Sunnis and Shi’ites, is worth noting. Sheikh Jawad al-Kalesi, the Shi’ite Imam of the al-Kadhimiyah mosque in Baghdad, told Le Monde: “I don’t think that Abu Musab al-Zarqawi exists as such. He’s simply an invention by the occupiers to divide the people.” Iraq’s most powerful Sunni Arab religious authority, the Association of Muslim Scholars, concurs, condemning the call to arms against Shi’ites as a “very dangerous” phenomenon that “plays into the hands of the occupier who wants to split up the country and spark a sectarian war.” In colonial terms, the strategy is known as “divide and rule.”

Regardless of doubts about Zarqawi’s existence, it is indeed difficult to avoid the conclusion that this overall interpretation is plausible. It seems the only ones who don’t understand the clandestine dynamics of Anglo-American covert strategy in Iraq are we, the people, in the west. It’s high time we got informed.

Notes:

[1]. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4...

[2]. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-... dyn/content/article/2005/09/19...

[3]. http://today.reuters.com/news/newsarticl...
type=worldNews&storyID=2005-09...
_01_SPI946735_RTRUKOC_0_US-IRA...


[4]. http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?c...
viewArticle&code=20050920&arti...


[5]. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4...

[6]. http://news.scotsman.com/index.cfm?id=19...

[7]. http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/...
1542080,00.html


[8]. http://www.sundayherald.com/25646...

[9]. http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/com...
story_page/0,5744,11488568%255...


[10]. http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news...

[11]. http://www.atimes.com/atimes/middle_east...

[12]. http://english.aljazeera.net/nr/exeres/7...
EA07-492F-9E04-C080950DF180.ht...

Wow all those links and not one of them works......

Where to start with that "evidence"


And please read your "evidence" Unless you have been in the SF You probably don't know what equipment will be carried by a patrol. It will include;

1) a AT rocket (more than likely a 66mm LAW)

2)Lots of ammo

3)Probably some claymore mines (which are explosives)

4)And lots of other stuff in the car.....

All of which is normal when there are only TWO of you in a car in a potentially dangerous situation.

Sorry but as someone who has been there and seen what goes on the above is utter bollocks.

Very entertaining though.........

 

[zraver]

Seriously dude, what exactly is are these groups allegding? The Un certified the iraqi elections and Irag now has a UN ambassador apointed by the Iraqi goverment. If the US/UK were occupying powers as you originally claimed, how does iraq have UN representation? if the IHRW allegedges misdeeds that is a far cry from a organized effort to destroy a nation. The US has placed multiple soldiers who broke the law in jail and some more face the death penalty fpor murder. If the goal was death and chaos why prosecute the people doing exactly that?

if the goal was domination, why rush to get Iraqies back in power? You are of course aware insurgents have an American POW who was not rescued becuase the Iraqi goverment ordered the Americans to stop thier rescue efforts?

BTW using sites like Prison Planet is not good for debate. They have an agenda and twist facts to make things fit. As key pointed out.

 

[alamgir]

Seriously dude, what exactly is are these groups allegding? The Un certified the iraqi elections and Irag now has a UN ambassador apointed by the Iraqi goverment. If the US/UK were occupying powers as you originally claimed, how does iraq have UN representation? if the IHRW allegedges misdeeds that is a far cry from a organized effort to destroy a nation. The US has placed multiple soldiers who broke the law in jail and some more face the death penalty fpor murder. If the goal was death and chaos why prosecute the people doing exactly that?

if the goal was domination, why rush to get Iraqies back in power? You are of course aware insurgents have an American POW who was not rescued becuase the Iraqi goverment ordered the Americans to stop thier rescue efforts?

BTW using sites like Prison Planet is not good for debate. They have an agenda and twist facts to make things fit. As key pointed out.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Democracy or divide and rule?
By Linda S. Heard
Online Journal Contributing Writer


Mar 15, 2006, 00:31




Western commentators, politicians and a growing percentage of the public are referring to Iraq in terms of a failed US policy. If we accept the line that the Bush administration sincerely sought a stable, democratic and unified Iraq, then obviously it is. But could there have been another agenda at play all along?

Let's suppose that any budding insurgency had been successfully quelled and Iraq now enjoyed a unified multi-party government. In that case, wouldn't such a government be clamouring for a swift US withdrawal? And mightn't such a government object to the five permanent US bases currently being constructed along with the largest and most fortified American embassy in the world?As things stand, Iraq is suffering from sectarian strife; some are referring to the situation as civil war. Yet Iraq has never experienced civil war before. Indeed, Iraqi Shiites and Sunnis often inter-marry.

Most Iraqis are incredulous over the recent attack on the revered Shiite shrine in Samarra and many stress the unlikelihood of Muslims planning and carrying out such an act of desecration.

The firebrand Shiite cleric Muqtada Al Sadr said, "It was not the Sunnis who attacked the shrine of Imam Al Hadi," while Iran's Supreme Leader Ayotallah Ali Khamenei says that plots "by the enemies of Islam" were responsible for the shrine's destruction.

And as Sami Ramadani, a political exile from Saddam's regime, points out in The Guardian, "The popular mood [in Iraq] has been anti-occupation rather than sectarian".

Ramadani says, "Iraq is awash with rumours about the collusion of the occupation forces and their Iraqi clients with sectarian attacks and death squads: the US is widely seen as fostering sectarian division to prevent the emergence of a united national resistance".

Dahr Jamail, one of the most respected independent journalists, reports on the Shiite-Sunni demonstrations of solidarity, which were barely covered by Western media. " . . . thousands marched while shouting slogans against America and Israel," he writes.

Israel's Supremacy

If one adopts the view that one of the reasons Iraq was invaded was to protect Israel's supremacy in the region, then the view of Ramadani and Jamail may not be as farfetched as might appear at first glance.

An article penned in 1982 by Oded Yinon, a journalist attached to the Israeli Foreign Ministry, for a World Zionist Organisation publication may offer a clue. Titled A Zionist Plan for the Middle East it calls for Iraq to be broken up into three small states to ensure Israel's security.

"In Iraq, a division into provinces along ethnic/religious lines as in Syria during Ottoman times is possible," writes Yinon.

"So, three (or more) states will exist around the three major cities: Basra, Baghdad and Mosul and Shiite areas in the south will separate from the Sunni and Kurdish North."

Isn't this exactly what would happen if Iraq were to succumb to all out civil war? A civil war in Iraq would benefit the US in other ways too. For instance, those in the administration who led the charge to war ostensibly on the back of democracy could simply shrug their shoulders and slough off the American government's security and reconstruction responsibilities.

Iraqi Mess
The mess that is Iraq today would then become an Iraqi mess, allowing the elegant exit of most occupation forces, thus freeing them up for the next military adventure, possibly waged in Iran or Syria. At the same time, substantial units and their military hardware would remain behind the high walls of America's new permanent bases.

This view is put forward by arch neocon and anti-Islamist Dan Pipes, who says, "The bombing on February 22 of the Askariya shrine in Samarra, Iraq, was a tragedy, but it was not an American or a coalition tragedy. Iraq's plight is neither a coalition responsibility nor a particular danger to the West. Fixing Iraq is neither the coalition's responsibility, nor its burden . . . civil war in Iraq, in short, would be a humanitarian tragedy, but not a strategic one." Precisely!

Pipes then goes on to suggest that a civil war in Iraq would also likely embroil Syria and Iran, which would, of course ratchet up tensions between the West and those countries already firmly in US sights.

America's so-called push for democracy in the region has also produced a Hamas-controlled Palestinian National Authority, which could be construed as benefiting Israel.

Israel had been pressured by the international community to return to the peace table until recently. Now it can cheerfully say it has no legitimate partner for peace and if the new Kadima Party wins the upcoming elections, as it is expected to do, then Israel will unilaterally delineate its permanent borders.

In that event, the Palestinians will be left with only around 12 per cent of historic Palestine and no access to Occupied Jerusalem. The Bush administration is also squeezing Egypt to adopt a democratic path, but this would translate to the Muslim Brotherhood, which had close links to Hamas, gaining power.

One doesn't need to be a genius to predict what would happen next. Egypt would morph from being a close ally of the West into a potential foe and could well find itself joining the regime change list.

There are lessons to be learned and those who believe that US policies in the region are failed should think again. Until we know for sure what those policies are then we can't be sure either way.

Linda S. Heard is a British specialist writer on Middle East affairs. She welcomes feedback and can be contacted by email at heardonthegrapevines@yahoo.co.uk.

 

[alamgir]

U.S. occupation at Root of Violence in Iraq
U.S. forces creating divide amongst Iraqis
by Sara Flounders

Global Research, February 12, 2007
Workers World - 2007-02-11





The Bush administration released on Feb. 1 a vile four-page summary of a longer classified report on Iraq called the National Intelligence Estimate. Prepared by 16 U.S. intelligence agencies active there, the summary described the situation in Iraq as going from bad to worse.

That conclusion is probably the only statement in the report that is true. The rest, prepared by the same spy agencies that in 2002 backed up all the Bush administration’s false claims of “weapons of mass destruction” and Iraq’s “links to terrorism,” is a series of distortions and slanders of the Iraqis. With unintentional irony it suggests that the Pentagon, which brought “shock and awe” to Iraq, now has to stay to pacify the Iraqis, who are plagued with a genetic or cultural “ready recourse to violence.”

The problems in Iraq are described in the report in the same way that the corporate media defines the chaos there. Rather than summarize these false arguments that everyone has heard so often until they seem to be part of the air we breathe, this article will debunk them with historical truth and show who is to blame for the “unraveling” of Iraq.

It is important first to recognize that the “sectarian violence” in Iraq today has no precedence in Iraq’s history. The now common bombings and assassinations in Baghdad were uncommon even during the first two years of U.S. occupation, and those that occurred were understood as political attacks on occupation forces and their collaborators.

At the time of the 2003 U.S. invasion Iraq was considered the most secular state in the region, with a strong national identity. Shiites and Sunnis lived in intermixed neighborhoods in major cities such as Baghdad, Mosul and Kirkuk. They often intermarried. Their religious differences were less pronounced than those between Catholic and Protestant groups in the U.S. today.

Shiites in Baath Party

Before 2003, both the Iraq Army and government bureaucracy were organized on a secular basis. Now nearly every article in the corporate media states that the Shiites in Iraq were totally oppressed and completely excluded from all positions of power. This is an intentionally divisive myth and was exposed in an Al-Jazeera article on Dec. 19, 2006, entitled “Media bias ‘threat’ to Iraq.”

“Information about Iraq propagated by Western media is often woefully inaccurate or downright wrong, according to leading Arab figures, and such distortions are damaging any chance of peace in the country,” says the article.

The article quotes a spokesperson from the Arab Baath Socialist Party, the ruling political party in Iraq from 1968 to 2003: “Most Western media outlets have been helping the U.S. occupation authorities to portray the Baath party as a Sunni party which suppressed the Shia and deprived them of their rights. ... The Committee of Debaathification issued a list of 100,000 senior Iraqi Baathists who would not be allowed to enjoy governmental posts, 66,000 of them were Shia—so how is the Baath party a Sunni party?”

And at the top of the Baath party? Consider the U.S. occupation’s own list of 55 top Iraqi officials who they wanted dead or alive, starting with President Saddam Hussein. Of this famous “deck of cards,” half were Shiite; others were Sunnis, along with Christian and Kurds, according to this same article.

Occupation is root of violence
The U.S. invasion and occupation is responsible for the violence in Iraq today. Journalists, correspondents and editors omit this basic underlying fact in almost all coverage of “sectarian violence.” The U.S. occupation army, its officials, its contractors—another name for mercenaries—wreak violence daily. They are not innocent bystanders who stumbled into the country to bring democracy and reconciliation.

Before the 1991 U.S. war, Iraq had the highest standard of living in the region, full literacy and full free health care.

Pentagon air power unleashed 110,000 aerial sorties in 1991, targeting every industrial complex, communications center, reservoir, pumping station, filtration plant and food processing plant in the country, along with schools, hospitals and housing. Sporadic U.S. bombing continued for 12 years, along with U.S. and U.N. imposed starvation sanctions. This created an artificial famine, designed to strangle the entire country, and led to 1.5 million Iraqi deaths. Then came the 2003 U.S. massive bombardment, invasion and occupation.

Occupiers set up a sectarian structure

The U.S. “occupation authority,” headed by L. Paul Bremer, then began to set up a structure that accentuated sectarian differences. Bremer closed down all the state-owned industries, started privatizing the formerly publicly owned oil resources of Iraq, and installed a hand-picked group of collaborators into office, most of whom had lived outside Iraq for over 30 years.

The collaborators were part of the old corrupt feudal class, who had been overthrown in the 1958 Iraqi Revolution. Reinstalled by the U.S., they revived the old system of clan chiefs that British colonialism had relied on, along with the most reactionary religious fundamentalists. Still, they had to demonstrate their craven loyalty by organizing witch hunts that rounded up former Baath Party members.

Bremer purged tens of thousands of Iraqi teachers, technicians, scientists and administrators at every level of government who had previously belonged to the Baath Party. This “debaathification” program barred them from working, holding office, or even voting.

The occupation authority decided who could run for office and form political parties, favoring those based on religious sects, with the elections organized strictly along sectarian lines. Since the armed resistance to the U.S. occupation was strongest in the mainly Sunni areas, Shiite and Kurdish-based parties received a larger portion of the seats in parliament and the control of ministries where they could hand out thousands of jobs and government appointments. The U.S. forces then used the threat of isolation to cajole some Sunnis into collaborating with the occupation.

The U.S. occupation authority also organized the Iraqi military units on a sectarian basis. They consciously used Shia units in Sunni areas and Sunni units against Shia resistance, while the media emphasized the sectarian fighting. The Iraqi media is hardly an independent force. To assure a U.S.-friendly line, the Pentagon awarded a $96 million contract to a U.S. communications company, Harris Corp., to establish the al-Iraqiya television and radio network and a national newspaper. The U.S. occupation forces appointed the directors, producers, staff and the journalists.

The U.S. occupation authority also pushed through a constitution that further hardened religious antagonisms and regional differences. Iraqis warned when this constitution was rushed to a vote in October 2005 that it would push the rights of women back 50 years, break the central government and promote sectarianism and even civil war.

Before 1991, rights for women in Iraq were the most advanced in the region.

While Washington always paid lip service to supporting a united Iraq, heightening the divisions among Iraqis was always part of Washington’s war plans. The constitution was actually drafted prior to the U.S. invasion by a task force of Iraqi expatriates the U.S. State Department pulled together. The final constitution gave both provinces and competing ministries the power to have their own security forces.

Washington’s hidden hand

Even without covert operations to stir up trouble, the U.S. occupation has created the structure and put the divisive policies in place. In an impoverished, war-torn country they have brought into office thousands of collaborators whose position and continued privileges are based on a divided, occupied and traumatized Iraq.

That there are at least 16 secret U.S. intelligence agencies, each with its own agenda and agents operating in Iraq, is another source of violence and instability. There are now 100,000 contractors working for the U.S. in Iraq, with some 30,000 to 50,000 working in “security” (Washington Post, Dec. 5, 2006). These are all hired guns. In addition the Israeli Mossad and other countries’ Special Forces have committed personnel.

The arrest on Sept. 19, 2005, of two British agents disguised as Arab “terrorists” with a car full of explosives in Basra raised international speculation and wide suspicion of a hidden hand behind the bombings there. Unable to secure the release of their two disguised terrorists from the local police, British forces took extraordinary action and bulldozed the police compound and jail in order to free them before they could be interrogated.

‘Divide and rule’ Iraq?
Both Washington rightist neo-cons and liberal commentators have argued that the only way to subdue and control Iraq is to divide it into a Kurdish north, Sunni center and Shiite south.

This view was strongly advocated by Peter Galbraith in the book “The End of Iraq” and in his columns in New Republic, which have been reprinted across the U.S. Earlier, Galbraith’s view prevailed regarding Yugoslavia and he became the U.S. ambassador to Croatia. He viewed the unraveling of the Soviet Union and Czechoslovakia as essential to U.S. hegemony.

Leslie Gelb, a former editor and columnist for the New York Times and president emeritus of the Rockefeller-created Council on Foreign Relations, also raised this view in a widely published article, “The Three-State Solution.” (New York Times, Nov. 26, 2003) Gelb contrasted the problems in Iraq to imperialism’s success in breaking up Yugoslavia.

Another commentator given wide coverage is David Brooks, who sees NATO-occupied Bosnia as a “model that could help stabilize Iraq. Brooks applauds the resurgence of American hegemony and calls for a soft partition of Iraq. He is a regular columnist for the New York Times and Washington Post, a contributing editor at Newsweek, and a commentator on PBS’s News Hour with Jim Lehrer and NPR’s All Things Considered.

The imperialist strategy of the U.S., and earlier Britain and France, has always been based on «divide and rule. This was their policy toward the indigenous peoples of the Americas, Africa, the Indian sub-continent and Western Asia, also known as the Middle East.

To control the Middle East the colonial powers played on differences and hostility between communities, whether they be Sunni and Shiite, Druze and Christians on the one hand, or Kurds, Iranians and other nationalities on the other. Breaking areas into mini-states was the imperialist response to the revolutionary challenge of anti-colonial pan-Arab nationalism. Today it is the response to pan-Islamic resistance.

The official U.S. position has always been to support a unified, sovereign and democratic Iraq. With so many top imperialist commentators urging a violent breakup, however, it would be naive to assume there are no agencies involved in planning its execution.

Many analysts see this division as the only way to avoid a humiliating U.S. defeat. For example, in a Jan. 14, 2005, article in Newsweek, in an article titled The Salvador option, the subhead read: The Pentagon may put Special Forces-led assassination or kidnapping teams in Iraq. In other words, death squads.

The growing mass enthusiasm in the region over Washington’s humiliation in Iraq and Israel’s stunning setback in Lebanon threaten all of the corrupt feudal regimes and military dictatorships held in place by U.S. military power. Popular resistance and unity are a threat to imperialist domination.

The U.S. client regimes in Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Qatar, Jordan and Egypt have stepped forward with the full power of their media in the Arab world to push daily news coverage that heightens the divisions, suspicion and antagonisms between Sunni and Shiite religious sects.

While the chaos of deepening sectarian conflict and civil war will take a devastating toll on the entire Iraqi population, it will not necessarily help the U.S. occupation stabilize its rule in Iraq or in the region. The conflict could instead take on a radical anti-U.S. character and lead to wider anti-imperialist resistance throughout the entire region.

All groupings are distrustful of the U.S. and feel betrayed by U.S. promises because the occupation has brought insecurity, misery and chaos to all of Iraq.

www.globalresearch.ca


Global Research Articles by Sara Flounders

 

[zraver]

The Bush administration released on Feb. 1 a vile four-page summary

talk about predjudicial in the extreme.

It is important first to recognize that the “sectarian violence” in Iraq today has no precedence in Iraq’s history.

outright lie, the Sunni miority went after the Kurds and Shia with a vengance under Saddam and blocked them from holding any power, even locally.

At the time of the 2003 U.S. invasion Iraq was considered the most secular state in the region, with a strong national identity.

Another outright lie, Bahrain is the secular state, after 91 Saddam used islam to try and rally support. Iraq as a make beleive country has not had a national identity since the Persians defeated the Medes.

these types of outright lies and hyperbole deaden your whole argument.