Saturday, November 13, 2010
Friday, November 12, 2010
Thursday, November 11, 2010
As we get closer to Eid-Adha - !!! Remember Millat Ibrahim
It is the first ten days of dhul-hijjah , when the deeds are increased and the world gathers in the Hijaz for Hajj.. it is also the time of year that all those articles on the life of Ibrahim (AS) are posted and we contemplate this ummah of Ibrahim. Unfortunately, most of the lectures and articles related to the biography of Ibrahim (AS) leave out a crucial component of his personality and life, that of open disavowal and baraa for the enemies of Islam. Fortunately, in every time, no matter the conditions, there are the sincere and so we implore all to read and discuss this classic work from Abu Muhammad Maqdisi - Millat Ibrahim - as part of their regiment for this year.
Afghanistan - Worse Crime than Vietnam - Continues!
This article from Derrick Crowe at the Huffington Post looks at the probability of the 2011 Afghan draw down promise from Obama (link). The reality of this rhetoric from Obama during his convincing the people that 30,000 more troops were needed in Afghanistan was easily ascertained. Progressives and others on the left really need to remove the carte blanche "benefit of the doubt" they give this man, wake up and realize that he is an enemy of humanity. Our article , written the day of the speech is embedded afterwards. The courageous activist speaks as event unfolds not in retrospect. If people in the West want to pretend that they are for justice and peace then they need to get the courage necessitated by acting on such value-laden terms. Here is to withdrawal from Afghanistan!
McClatchy reports that the Obama administration is "moving away from 2011 Afghan date." If this is true, Hope and Change have absolutely collapsed. The president will have shown that he can be bullied into whatever policy the Republicans and the generals want. That's political and policy suicide. The Afghanistan War isn't making us safer and it's not worth the cost, and it's past time to start bringing our troops home.
President Obama made a deal with the American people at West Point in December 2009. He declared that yes, he was escalating a deeply unpopular war in Afghanistan, but that "in 18 months, our troops will begin to come home." He also declared that "America has no interest in fighting an endless war in Afghanistan" and that the "nation he's most interested in building is our own." According to Jonathan Alter, he even pinned down the Pentagon (or thought he did) when the decision was made:
"If you can't do the things you say you can in 18 months, then no one is going to suggest we stay, right?" Petraeus responded: "Yes, sir, in agreement."
Those assurances are burned into my brain as the only glimmer of hope in the deeply destructive escalation policy ordered by the president late last year. If McClatchy's read on the situation is correct, the Pentagon, the Republicans and the hawks inside the Democratic Party (who do not in any way represent their base, by the way) have somehow convinced the president to completely reverse himself. Now, the reasoning goes, we can't do the things we said we could do in 18 months,so we have to stay. Hence the giant red headline on the cover of The Huffington Post today: "FORGET 2011."
The President must immediately and unequivocally deny any suggestion that the July 2011 deadline is shifting further into the future. He must take a strong hand with the "unnamed senior officials" who are again working to box him into a decision-making process that predetermines the outcomes in favor of a protracted war. And if was smart, he would seriously consider moving the withdrawal start date forward in time in response to what any honest review of the current strategy will show: the escalation policy has failed.
Having said all that, there's a strong possibility McClatchy is getting played by some clever administration official who opposes the president's stated policy of a 2011 drawdown and is using the press to box him into another predetermined policy. Note how the official phrases the decision he or she is "leaking," emphasis mine:
"During our assessments, we looked at if we continue to move forward at this pace, how long before we can fully transition to the Afghans? And we found that we cannot fully transition to the Afghans by July 2011," said one senior administration official. "So we felt we couldn't focus on July 2011 but the period it will take to make the full transition."
The bolded text was never the announced policy. No one in the White House ever said anythingabout "fully transitioning to the Afghans by July 2011." The troop withdrawals were always slated to begin to start in July 2011 with the pace of the subsequent drawdown being determined by conditions on the ground. That's a plain fact of public record. The official quoted is misrepresenting the announced policy of the White House, and McClatchy is running with it. The only policy decision that seems to have actually been made is that the White House's timetable for the transition seems to end in 2014.
It seems that the people in the government who opposed the 2011 drawdown deadline in the first place continue to work through the press to redefine it into meaninglessness. If the president wants to pass on an office to his successor that leaves any real meaning to the words "Commander-in-Chief," he's got to assert himself, right now, against the forces inside the government that are challenging his prerogative to make military policy.
Let's be clear: a "transition" that drags this brutal, futile war out until 2014 is completely unacceptable. It bogs us down in a war that's not making us safer and that's not worth the cost for a ridiculous amount of time. And just as important, the American people won't support a time-line that long. Sixty percent of those polled by Bloomberg in early October thought the war was a lost cause. CNN found roughly the same number of people opposed the war. Most of those polled think Afghanistan is now a situation "like Vietnam." Most people polled by Newsweek said they wanted withdrawals to start either in July 2011 or sooner. The American people could not be more clear: they don't support this war, they don't believe the happy-talk coming out of the Pentagon, and they want the troops brought home.
The president must take personal responsibility for knocking down this whisper campaign about the withdrawal time-line moving further into the future, and he's got to make a decision, right now, to bring this war to a close on terms acceptable to the American people.
And here's a hint, Mr. President: dragging the war out until 2014 won't fly.
If you're fed up with this war that's not making us safer, join Rethink Afghanistan on Facebook andTwitter.
Follow Derrick Crowe on Twitter: www.twitter.com/derrickcrowe
Wednesday, November 10, 2010
First QE2 now Obama Austerity - Deficit panel leaders' plan curbs Social Security as Liberal Fascist Agenda unfolds
The obvious allusions are that Barack Obama could end up like Bill Clintion.... Clinton suffered during his presidency with low approval polling going into midterm elections. Thereafter he faced a Republican House and Senate and subsequently went on foreign policy that represented globalism while cutting welfare farther than had been done in recent times through his 1996 welfare reform act. His popularity soared and he went on to a "successful presidency. It is obvious that Obama is a corporatist fascist and that this is the kind of policy manipulation that makes a narcissit proud (LINK HERE), his idea, having saved the banks and corporate America and with the Fed printing paper and destroying the middle class is for genocide - cut the Social Security, repeal unemployment benefits, cut all government spending that helps the people and say nothing about the bludgeoning military budget.....
WASHINGTON – Leaders of President Barack Obama's bipartisan deficit commission on Wednesday proposed reducing the annual cost-of-living increases in Social Security, part of a bold plan to control $1 trillion-plus budget deficits.The proposal also would set a tough target for curbing the growth ofMedicare and recommends looking at eliminating popular tax breaks, such as mortgage interest deduction.As proposed, the plan by Chairman Erskine Bowles and former Sen. Alan Simpson, R-Wyo., doesn't look like it can win support from 14 of the commission's 18 members to force a debate in Congress. Bowles is a Democrat and was former President Bill Clinton's White House chief of staff.Cuts to Social Security and Medicare are making some liberals on the panel recoil. And conservative Republicans are having difficulty with options on how to raise tax revenue. The plan also calls for cuts in farmsubsidies, foreign aid and the Pentagon's budget."This is not a proposal I could support," said Rep. Jan Schakowsky, D-Ill. "On Medicare and Social Security in particular, there are proposals that I could not support."The Social Security proposal would change the inflation measurement used to calculate cost of living adjustments for program benefits, reducing annual cost-of-living increases. It will almost certainly draw opposition from advocates for seniors, who are already upset that there will be no increase for 2011, the second straight year without a raise.The plan released by Bowles is only a proposal put forth by him and Simpson. Members of the commission will resume debate on it later Wednesday and next week in a long-shot bid to reach a compromise.The release of the proposal comes just a week after midterm elections that gave Republicans the House majority and increased their numbers in the Senate. During the campaign, neither political party talked of spending cuts of the magnitude proposed by Bowles, with Republicans simply proposing $100 million in cuts to domestic programs passed each year by Congress."It's a very provocative proposal," said GOP Rep. Jeb Hensarling of Texas. "Some of it I like. Some of it disturbs me. And some of it I've got to study."
Monday, November 8, 2010
An Advice for the American Muslims
Author: Abu Muhammad Al-Maqdese 2010-06-12
 Expression of thanks and gratitude for blessings is due but to Allah, peace and prayers are upon the Messenger of Allah…To proceed, We advise Muslims everywhere, those who have no combating programs, and those in confrontations with the regimes, whether due to their ability to afford it or because the conditions are not ready enough, or the place and time to do so are not compatible with it, or for any other reasons which those living them and who are aware of their facilities and the stage they have reached, we advise them by saying: 1. Don’t hasten with confrontations with the regimes as long as they can’t, as they can instigate the infidels and their regimes against them to eradicate them; and not to busy themselves with the materialistic actions which offer no benefit or use, nor can they benefit Islam, Da’wah or Jihad as long as they are still in need for experience and facilities, and as long as their strategies for the time being are not in harmony with them, and their facilities can’t permit them, as the duty of Jihad is bound to capabilities and facilities. It is useful here to quote the words of Sheikh-ul-Islam ibn-Taimiyah (may Allah have mercy upon him): "Were any Believer on a land he/she were oppressed, or in a time he/she were overpowered, they then are to implement the Ayahs of perseverance and forgiveness regarding those who try to harm Allah and His Messenger from among the people of the books and the polytheists. And the people of power are to implement the Ayahs of killing the callers Kufr who try to attack religion, and the Ayahs of combating the people of the book until they pay tributes with their being cheap and low". (As-Sarim Al-Maslul, 2: 412-414). 2. To be occupied with exploring the Islamic knowledge and filling the gaps of knowledge of their youth and clearing before their the duties toward religion and the current events, which are unavoidable for Da’wah and Jihad. The most important things to be considered are learning the basics of Tawheed and Aqeedah and what clashes with them from among the violations against Islam; learning the foundations of «God is there not but Allah» and its fastening bonds, and the keys to knowledge as much as possible. 3. To busy themselves with the call for Tawheed and warning against polytheism and denouncing all its aspects whether old or modern; to consider the mentality of the audience and talk to them in harmony with the scope of their minds, and to approach them from the doors of impressive mediums, as the mediums of the Islamic call is wide and versatile as long as they are compatible with the regulations of Shari’ah. 4. They are to be the best ambassadors of their Ummah, so they show the morals of Islam in their dealing with people; they are not to betray or become disloyal, or cheat; and they have the good example in the Messenger of Allah. 5. They need to avoid the evils of the western communities and protect their children against them, and to try finding Islamic substitutions to bring their children up with and teaching them with. All this is easy and have been tried before in those countries; and to live in close societies which can support, communicate with them, and cooperate to obey Allah, and unite together on good doings and taqwah (fear to commit sins) so as to preserve themselves against the evils of those countries, and to fortify their societies against the intervention of intruders and the holders of deviated beliefs and aberrant thoughts. 6. And as for dealing with the people living in the countries where you live, we don’t advise you to stick to the traditional classification of people to ones fighting against you, ones making covenants with you (the themyeen); or to deal with people on basis of literary meanings without considering the benefits, the damaging consequences, or the criteria against which matters are measured; but we choose for you dealing with them according to the foundations of dealings of Shari’ah and the benefit for Islam and the Da’wah for it based on the regulations of Shari’ah. Those who don’t bear grudges against Muslims and don’t attempt defaming their religion [of Muslims], then there is no harm to be dutiful to them and dealing with them according to that in a way that would make them interested in religion and invite them to Islam; and those who try to defame religion and make fun of its set of regulations of Shari’ah, then they need to be ignored; and if they were of the people of discussions, then hold discussions with them and expose their arguments; and if they were merchants, boycott their products and ignore them as long as you are deemed weak you need to work in the field of Da’wah; and tangible work is not among your choices or potencies. * As for the Islamic standpoint regarding 11/09, we have clarified with what pledges we bear for Allah in a message which you can refer to on this site.. * As for the blow of the Christmas, it was a day where women and children and such were gathering, and there should not be any involvement in such things or defaming Jihad with its consequences. It is always as we have said not to look into matters at the surface when considering their being religiously permitted or not only, but the duty is to look into matters and considering their benefits and their damaging consequences, and then weighing them and take the most of benefit through considering the prospective beneficial of damaging consequences of those matters and their appointed times. * As for the flattering institutions which carry the Islamic signs but their behavior is national American, it is a must not to get deceived with them, and we advise you not to busy yourselves with side fights with them; and it is enough warning against their deviations, their policies and false allegations; and to make Muslims aware of them through sense, sensibility, and humble advises, referring to Islamic knowledge and premises and evidences; as all this are among what can push forward the vehicle of Da’wah and preserve you from side fights that are fruitless; and put in mind the words of Allah in this Ayah: "Say each acts according to his intentions and Allah knows whose path is the guided most." Al-Isra’a: 84. And His words in this Ayah: "Say: “this is my path, calling to Allah with insight, me and who follows me, and Subhan Allah, and I’m not of the Mushrikeen." Youssuf: 108. May Allah guide you to supporting His religion and raising the banner of Tawheed high, and make you and us guided and guides for people |
East Meets West: Implications of the Growing Asian Presence in the Middle East – Prelude to War or Pathway to Peace?
Geoffrey Kemp, Director of Regional Strategic Programs at The Nixon Center, recently released a book entitled East Meets West: India, China, and Asia’s Growing Presence in the Middle East (LINK). Its content may help to initiate a turning point of recognition amongst influential policy planners that the military expenses dedicated to protecting the West’s predominant control over the oil-rich Middle East are not benefiting Western powers and that Western policy must make an immediate alteration. The work also emphasizes the rise of Eastern Asian powers in the region, and largely in a way that documents two competing spheres and forms of influence. Mr. Kemp does a great deal to call attention to the fact that, if processes continue at their present rate, Eastern powers will take over predominant influence of the region in the near term. These points direct an all too important conversation about the end of empire, albeit a conversation powers in history have oftentimes not handled well. The variables correlate significantly to the situation of the Middle East prior to World War I, when two imperialist powers, then Britain and Germany, also split the region in two and came to competition that eventually sparked worldwide conflict. Today the risk is similar, but there are alternatives that would leave all better off. These solutions would necessitate the end of the American era, but usher in a new, multi-polar era with reverberating consequences that would have positive effects on the state of the world.
Mr. Kemp is presently traveling around universities and institutions displaying his findings and communicating with fellow policy planners (see HERE). His efforts will certainly amplify a discussion amongst the intelligentsia in America that was temporarily put on hold with the election of Barack Obama, but that has resurfaced as of late: Is America entering a point where the expense of maintaining vast military prowess is superseding its benefit? The present American military presence is superfluous in Iraq, the Arab Sheikhdoms, Pakistan, Afghanistan, the Straight of Hormuz, the Gulf, everywhere except Iran (and that may change soon). Of course, as is typical of all establishment discussion, America is not mentioned as being an empire seeking only personal gain at the expense of others, its intentions are considered benign without exception, and the conclusion that will certainly be drawn in conversation is not that its military footprint should be decreased but rather that Asian powers must ultimately share more of the burden in protecting what is typically referred to as ‘security’ in the region.
It is important to recognize that questions are never seriously pondered about whether the political autocracies and networks of privilege existent in the Middle East, protected and promoted by aid (both humanitarian and arms) and the military presence are desirable and, in fact, even necessary. Instead, the attitude is that the Americans are providing stability and security while the Asians reap the benefits and if the Asian powers do not kowtow to this interpretation there will certainly be war and continuous breakdown of the international arena.
It is time for a conversation about why the Middle East is kept dependent on foreign powers in the first place, about how the undemocratic, authoritarian regimes have squandered the resource wealth, and thereby the potential for indigenous development, by expropriating proceeds from oil and gas in ways that preserve their unjust political and economic control and form the basis upon which contemporary indirect colonization has reigned. Should not the natural resource wealth of a nation be utilized to develop the sophistication of internal industrial, engineering, cultural and other productive capacities? The answer has, up to this point, flatly been no. The governments of the Middle East are oligarchies, across the broad, and by portraying this as a cultural rather than externally imposed phenomena, the politicized rhetoric and culture talk of imperialism provides a justification that makes the oppressor a liberating force. Oligarchies necessitate that the general population is left undeveloped, or else they become unsustainable and at the very worst rise to challenge the regime. Whereas the primary commodity of any nation is its people, oligarchies and imperialist subordinates’ greatest crime is in their conscious prevention of cultivation not of the terrain, or of economic infrastructure, but of the human minds that inhabit these nations, the creative capacities of their indigenous populations.
The cultivation of the human being inside the nation must be of primary import in order that a society may coagulate and flourish holistically. Otherwise, no matter the structure of governance, there can only be oppression. This is true in a democracy as well as an authoritarian regime. This is why the methodology of Islam cultivates an awareness of communal purpose and direction that drives individual actions into conformity with a social movement for collective improvement and prosperity. It is also why the theoretical Islamic system, when understood, propagated, and practiced correctly, is antithetical to imperialism and oligarchy, and why a conscious project of preventing Islamic governance from returning to the Middle East has underlined much of Western policy since the fall of the last Ottoman, Islamic regime.
Open Letter of Qari Mohammad Yousaf Ahmadi, Spokesman of the Islamic Emirate aof Afghanistan, to Members of the American Congress
Availing myself of this opportunity, I am pleased to share with you my views about certain issues that have become a cause of concern and resentments for many peace-loving people, not only in America, Afghanistan but for all people at the region and the world. They now openly say that the status quo is unbearable and that drastic measures must be taken to change it.
Messrs American Congressmen!
You certainly know that on June 7, the current year, the war of Afghanistan, surpassed that of Vietnam in terms of longevity--thus becoming the longest war in the history of America. Ironically, this war began on the basis of an event which in itself is a mystery to many people. But your government is bent on continuing the war further more on the same basis. However, we have made it clear from the day one that we have no role in this event, nor participation in operations on foreign soil is part of our policy.
It is also worth mentioning that , no neutral entity which is acceptable to all sides, has ever carried out investigation into the September Event. In short, the war started as you resorted to the usage of most sophisticated, lethal and latest weapons available at your arsenal. To confront this, our people had to put up resistance to your offensive out of sheer feeling of patriotism to defend the country and the religious sanctity. From the beginning of the war, your army, your coalition allies, the regional sycophants and proxies turned a blind eye to all universal norms and principles of the war, seeing that the Afghans were miserable and friendless. Hence, a new trend set in where murdering , capturing , harassing and insulting the Afghans became not only legal but a commendable work. Entire villages of Afghanistan were razed to ground as a result of your heavy bombardment, ostensibly under the name of mopping-up havens of so-called terrorists. Not only that. Orchards were burnt down to ashes; mass murders were committed in northern and central Afghanistan, not once but recurrently. Houses of local people were destroyed, women raped and green field scorched by using daisy-cutter bombs. People were put under detention in the notorious Jouzajan, Guantanamo, Bagram and Kandahar prisons for many years on mere suspicions. All these were done under the name of war on terror!
Throughout the past nine years, the Afghans have been festering in the vortex of an imposed war. They have remained deprived of the delight and solace of a normal life. The apparition of mass murder , imprisonment, night house raids and plundering which has become the order of the day, constantly haunts them. Every morning, as the Afghan wake up from the bed, they do not know whether he or she will see the next sunset, thinking that they might fall prey to your blind bombardment or straying bullets. Some times, media reports highlight these events. But the real and gruesome picture of these horrendous events remains stored in the chests of our people. In face of all these adversities, our people remained firm as they were in the right. Ultimately, casualties of your troops and your material losses began to spiral up as the war hauled along with the passage of time. This naturally sparked off hot discussions among common Americans about the worthiness of this unjustified war. The worry and concern of people presumably found way to the echelons of the representatives of the people in your country and now it has become one of the most critical issues pending before you.
As we monitor the developments, we see that, after every few days, a military official submits you distorted information about Afghanistan. They want to keep you snarled up in an environ of a misleading optimism and are trying to give vent to their own grudges. By doing so, they want to show themselves victorious, to obtain financial gains and add fuel to the fire of the war.
Your defense Secretary, Robert Gates, whenever he takes the floor at the podium, he speaks of military advancement in Afghanistan. General Petreous says, the initiative of the war is in our hands. But in fact, in the last two years, your military high-ups implemented different strategies including troop’s surge, construction of new military bases, forming militias, boosting the Kabul mercenary army etc. However, all these steps have been taken without considering the ground realities. It is why they all failed. The resistance of our people easily thwarted all efforts of your military brasses. Last year, on the basis of Obama’s new strategy, the south of our country saw rise in troop’s deployment, but, on the contrary, we opened new fronts in the north and east of the country and beefed up our operations there. You launched operations for the capture of rural areas, we infiltrated into different cities including the cities of Kandahar and Kabul, expanding our operations there. You intended to reverse the resistance but we extended the jihad to become a country-wide resistance. Now your troops are not able to take a breath of relief in any part of Afghanistan. Last, you launched military operations dubbed as Dagger’s Strike in Helmand province, considering it as your experimental initiative to test your fortune. But it only brought in casualties and failures. Resistance has increased comparatively in areas wherever you have carried out operations. Your troops have the highest life losses in these areas. In the east of the country, the successful operations of Mujahideen forced General Crystal to waive the rural areas protection strategy by announcing a new strategy of concentration of forces at most populated urban areas. Then you launched the Marja operations with great fanfare but only turned out to entangle you in a deadly and crippling battles. Every day, brings new fatality to your ranks and files. Similarly, in this current year, your generals wanted to launch Kandahar operations but Mujahideen took initiative in their hands as they always do so. They launched tip-and run attacks there instead and have been forging ahead with the tactic successfully. The formation of militias as a part of civilian support program and the boosting of the Kabul administration’s army was your most prominent plan, propagated with most fanfare, prior to launching it. But this plan also went awry. Soldiers in the army and in military uniform targeted you with their own weapons. Still, instead of pondering over their mistakes, your military officers are bent on continuing the war. They irresponsibly give you distorted information about a losing war, trying to conceal from you, their failures.
Your generals and intelligence high-ups claim that the current resistance in Afghanistan is the result of interference by neighboring countries. However, by doing so, they want to justify the prolongation of the war. Sometimes, they ascribe the resistance to foreign elements and are trying to show the current armed Jihad by the Afghans as being a war waged only by Taliban or they intentionally portray it as an insurgence being put up by a given tribe and ethnicity of Afghanistan-- whereas, in fact, the current armed Jihad is a country-wide resistance against you . Men and women, old and young from every tribe, ethnicity, caste and area have arisen to oppose you. Thus by your intending to wipe out the resistance, you have chosen the way of committing genocide of the whole nation.
Think, can a few militants stand up to armed forces of 40 countries including the strongest countries of the world—still more in circumstances that the initiatives of the war is in the hands of the invaders, as your generals claim? Can a clandestine and weak intervention (by foreigners) be able to confront these troops? Can only Taliban i.e. students, confront these large number of forces? Can a certain race in a multi-ethnicity nation of Afghanistan, be able to resist such a strong and well-equipped military coalition? If the intervention had been a decisive factor for the maintenance of stability, then the Karzai would have been able to achieve that goal by now?
If you claim that the current resistance is being put up by non-Afghan elements, then your government and the coalition should produce concrete evidence for all to see. Following your occupation of Afghanistan and the inception of armed Jihad against you, you have undoubtedly detained not only tens of people, or hundreds of them, or thousands of them, but tens of thousands of them, would your military generals produce only one hundred non-Afghans from among those thousands of detainees to prove their case? If they did so, we would accept your claim that non-Afghan Mujahideen had been fighting against you all these years? Otherwise, the claim is a mere assumption. If you are not willing to act on our suggestion, then how about another experiment? Send a team to Afghanistan on fact-finding mission. But members of the team should have freedom of movement, and should be allowed to remain far from the clutches of your intelligence agencies. Then they should see for themselves whether the military generals give them permission to go out of military barracks and hotels or they try to keep them in barracks and hotels as distinguished detainees? Presume, if they permit you to go out to find the ground realities, would you be able to travel to other areas beyond the vicinity of the few limited streets of Kabul? Even if you venture out of Kabul, do you believe, you will come back safe? The fact of the matter is that you will hardly find any area in all Afghanistan beyond proximity of two kilometers of the military bases where you can walk freely and openly. On the other hand, when Mujahideen captured your soldier Bergh dal, they traveled with him 500 km on foot. Berg dal himself says that no government soldier ever stopped him on the way during that long journey. But still if you are not willing to put to experiment our proposal, then you should listen to my words , however, they may be bitter but are the ground realities. By feeling the burden of the issue, as responsible persons, you should not plunge your nation into perdition furthermore.
Moreover, the fear that Afghanistan may turn out to be a threat to the world peace must be put out of your minds as it is a mere baseless propaganda and a lie fabricated by your rulers to justify and continue their illegal, unjustified and irrational war, the so-called war on terror.
You had better know the ground reality that the war of Afghanistan is a losing war, being fought by the indigenous people, not just by a given faction , a tribe but by an entire nation which has over 5,000 years old history; a nation that considers both victory and martyrdom in the war against your forces as a cherished wish of success not only in this world but in the world to come as well.
Your modern and advanced military warfare and arms with state-of the-art technology have failed against Mujahideen. Your tanks, the military hardware and your soldiers that you have been spending billion of dollars on them to keep, are simply and inexpensively wiped out by ordinary Afghans. For example, 69 year-old Saleh Jan Aka along with his 18 year-old son, destroyed 32 tanks of the coalitions and 9 ranger vehicles in Helmand, by spending just $ 2500 —the only amount paid to him for the purpose.
Sale Jan Aka who has never been trained in any military academy, neither he left his farming work nor his village to do this. Besides, he has never asked for any reward as quid pro que. Meantime,. All the items which he used to blow up the US and its allies tanks and vehicles has been bought from Lashkar Gah, while the seller not knowing what he bought them for?
According to him, his house has been searched four times so far by the US and its allies but nothing was found to prove that he was involved in such activities. He says, once after destroying the coalition forces tanks by using IEDs, he gave some cold water to the wounded soldiers to brush away their suspicions and to cause their injuries to get worse.
It is worth to consider whether your forces in Afghanistan with all the advanced hardware and modern military equipments that they have and your various operations such as Expectation, Mountain, Dagger, Dragon which cost you billion of dollars and the media war by you, will ever be able to prevent people like Saleh Jan Aka and many thousands others from carrying out their mission or even slow down the tempo of their mission? Not at all.
Is it that, that your force have come all the way to Afghanistan, expecting the Afghan people stand for them in ovation and keep watching while your forces will do what they wish to do? Or just the Afghans be sitting hand on hand while your forces will be busy building military bases, barracks, airbases and so forth? Or are you under the illusion that the Afghan nation would ever tolerate the presence of your forces and military interference in their country? You will only come around to know it when the Afghans rise to show their response.
Come and think, a moment for the sake of pondering. Suppose, a foreign force invades your country and tries to build military bases there, would you and your nation tolerate all these ? or would you be convinced that the invasion was a fair and just act and the forces in your country were there for security purposes?
Anyway, on the basis of the principle of your universal slogan( democracy) , the decision by parliament is considered final because it is the parliament that approves fund for each and every mission. So all relevant affairs and events are referred to the parliament for decision.
I would like to bring one last point to your notice, what was your goal to come to Afghanistan? what have you achieved so far ( through the war) and what will possibly you achieve in future? Will you be able to obtain your long-term goals in the region only through the war in Afghanistan?
You are representatives of people and are an authorized entity to take decision about the Afghan issue, therefore, I presented you with a true picture of the ground realities of Afghanistan-- say, another side of the coin, more different from the one which is submitted to you by your generals, time and again.
Qari Mohmmad Yousaf Ahmadi
Spokesman of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan
Sunday, November 7, 2010
Abdulbari Atwan: Al-Qa'ida stronger despite nine years of 'war on terror'
4 October 2010
Nine years of 'war on terror', the twin conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, the loss of more than 5,000 soldiers and a total cost of at least $1,200 billion at the least were meant to have made the world a safer place and eliminate al-Qa'ida's threat to global security. Facts on the ground suggest the exact opposite.
The United States of America, which spearheaded these military interventions, yesterday announced a state of maximum security alert and warned its nationals of the possibility of terrorist attacks occurring in Europe, saying that al-Qai'da might target transport, especially trains, planes and underground subways.
Britain, France and Germany, partners of the United States in its wars in the Middle East, raised their respective anti-terrorism alerts from 'general' to 'high' or 'severe' after security officials in these countries leaked reports to the media revealing the existence of plots for big attacks, found in the possession of 'terrorist cells' arrested in Germany.
Some months ago Western newspapers published 'fatwas' (Muslim religious edicts) repeated by those who call themselves 'terrorist experts' asserting that al-Qai'da was weaker than it has ever been with just a handful of fighters left in Afghanistan, and that it no longer poses a threat to the West.
The question that poses itself in the midst of confusion and uncertainty is: Whom are we to believe? The "experts" who speak of the weakness of al-Qa'ida or western governments who declare a state of emergency and warn their citizens against travelling by plane, bus and train?
What is certain is that al-Qa'ida is increasing in strength and dynamism. This is a signal failure for the war against terrorism; the western world has stumbled straight into al-Qa'ida's trap rather than the opposite.
Prior to the war on terrorism (today is its ninth anniversary), there was a single address for al-Qa'ida organization: The Srinagar mountains overlooking Jalalabad, the Tora Bora region, the main square, the third cave to the right. Now there is al-Qa'ida in the Arabian Peninsula led by Nasir al-Wahayshi in Yemen; al-Qa'ida in the Islamic Maghrib led by Abu Mus'ab Abd-al-Wadud; al-Qa'ida in the Horn of Africa represented in the Somali Mujahidin Youth; al-Qa'ida in the Land of the Two Rivers led by Abu-Amr al-Iraqi; the mother al-Qa'ida in Afghanistan led by the Old Guard, in addition to small branches in Lebanon and others in Gaza, with more to follow. The organization is in a state of multiplication that the most optimistic among its leaders and sympathizers had not imagined possible.
Two major developments took place within al-Qa'ida organization which have made it more dangerous:
First: Finding new sources of finance through kidnapping Western hostages in the Sahara countries, plus groups close to al-Qa'ida venturing to seize ships in the Gulf of Aden and the Arabian Sea. Second: success is in reaching some members of the Islamic communities that immigrated to Europe and recruiting cells from among the extremist youth.
The proximity to Europe of al-Qa'ida in the Islamic Maghrib and the increase in illegal immigration made it possible for al-Qa'ida elements to infiltrate more easily. We have to remember that only four individuals carried out the underground subway explosions in London, and nearly double that number carried out the bombings of the Madrid trains.
Western governments have often affirmed that they will never negotiate with that terroris t organization under any circumstances. But, after years that can be counted on the fingers of one hand, they have dropped these affirmations and have not only started to negotiate but to pay "jiziah" [Islamic tax] to the organization against their will.
The Spanish government which was the first to break this rule when it pulled out all its forces from Iraq as a reply to the demands of al-Qa'ida and its threats to carry out bombings similar to those of the Madrid railway station of 2004; subsequently it went beyond that and negotiated with a branch of the organization in the Sahara, and paid an estimated eight million euros to secure the release of two Spanish hostages who had been kidnapped by a cell of the organization.
The Government of Nicolas Sarkozy, the president of France who resorted to force to secure the liberation of a French hostage kidnapped by the organization, an operation ending "a la Rambo" with the execution of the hostage, is looking for a negotiating channel, and waving its readiness to pay 'a ransom' in return for the release of its five nationals kidnapped by the organization in northern Niger who are presently held in one of the protected caves in the chain of tortuous mountains in the north of the state of Mali.
The Taliban, now al-Qa'ida's closest ally, was supposed to have disappeared from the earth after the collapse of its rule in Kabul and the scattering of its elements under the weight of the bombings by giant American B-52 planes, but is currently in control of two-thirds of Afghanistan. President Hamid Karzai is begging it to negotiate with him and has formed a Higher Peace Council for the purpose, but there is no response, for the reply of the movement is clear: negotiations should be to ensure the withdrawal of the American forces and those who came with them without any conditions, and return it to the sovreignty of its rightful owners. Karzai publicly weeping in front of the cameras does not melt the heart so the opposition, who are of his own tribe - the Pashtun.
Who is responsible for this mess and how can it be repaired and its losses curtailed as a first step towards halting it altogether and emerging from this hemorrhaging bloody crisis?
America is the main culprit, due to its arrogant and exagerrated reaction to the events of September 11. Guilty too those in the administration who continue to support Israel's agenda regardless of the principles of justice and fairness and who incite the US army - the greatest military force in the world - to spill the blood of the Arabs and the Muslims in Iraq and Afghanistan. Yes, one can see and understand the reasons the US took the course it has done but consider the cost: the destruction of the America's international reputation, increasing hatred of the United States, and bankruptcy of Western capitalism because of the exorbitant costs entailed. In addition, there is the martyrdom of a million Arab and Muslim human beings in Iraq and Afghanistan and the destruction of the two countries.
Joseph Joseph Stiglitz, the American scientist who won the Nobel prize for economy in 2000, said that the cost of the two wars in Iraq and Afghanistan over the short term will reach four trillion dollars (4,000 billion dollars) and that 600,000 Iraqis and Afghans, and half a million Americans will require medical care and compensation in the near future as a result of their injuries or suffering. He made these statements at a press conference held last month in Washington.
US President Obama was not able to convince Israel to freeze the illegitimate settlements over the past two months for the sake of cont inuation of the negotiations with the Palestinians which are sponsored by his government, even though he extended a bunch of temptations the Israelis did not dream of including deals for ultra-advanced weapons, pressures on the Palestinians to accept Israeli forces on their borders with Jordan, and pressure on the Arabs to normalize relations in advance without the withdrawal specified in the second part of their initiative. He did not hesitate to send 100,000 soldiers to Afghanistan to fight the Taliban in the hope of breaking their backbone.
The shameful and humiliating weakness of the US Administration in its relations with Israel, and the continuation of its support for corrupt and despotic Arab regimes in the name of safeguarding stability, whilst viewing the Muslim world through the peep-holes of the Israeli tent alone, are all factors, individually or collectively, that made the leader of al-Qa'ida talk in his last tape as a Caliph for the Muslims. He criticized insufficiency in dealing with the flood catastrophe in Pakistan and talked from his cave at length about climate change, while leaving it to his youthful aides to spread terror in the hearts of the Western governments and their peoples.
Nine years of 'war on terror', the twin conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, the loss of more than 5,000 soldiers and a total cost of at least $1,200 billion at the least were meant to have made the world a safer place and eliminate al-Qa'ida's threat to global security. Facts on the ground suggest the exact opposite.
The United States of America, which spearheaded these military interventions, yesterday announced a state of maximum security alert and warned its nationals of the possibility of terrorist attacks occurring in Europe, saying that al-Qai'da might target transport, especially trains, planes and underground subways.
Britain, France and Germany, partners of the United States in its wars in the Middle East, raised their respective anti-terrorism alerts from 'general' to 'high' or 'severe' after security officials in these countries leaked reports to the media revealing the existence of plots for big attacks, found in the possession of 'terrorist cells' arrested in Germany.
Some months ago Western newspapers published 'fatwas' (Muslim religious edicts) repeated by those who call themselves 'terrorist experts' asserting that al-Qai'da was weaker than it has ever been with just a handful of fighters left in Afghanistan, and that it no longer poses a threat to the West.
The question that poses itself in the midst of confusion and uncertainty is: Whom are we to believe? The "experts" who speak of the weakness of al-Qa'ida or western governments who declare a state of emergency and warn their citizens against travelling by plane, bus and train?
What is certain is that al-Qa'ida is increasing in strength and dynamism. This is a signal failure for the war against terrorism; the western world has stumbled straight into al-Qa'ida's trap rather than the opposite.
Prior to the war on terrorism (today is its ninth anniversary), there was a single address for al-Qa'ida organization: The Srinagar mountains overlooking Jalalabad, the Tora Bora region, the main square, the third cave to the right. Now there is al-Qa'ida in the Arabian Peninsula led by Nasir al-Wahayshi in Yemen; al-Qa'ida in the Islamic Maghrib led by Abu Mus'ab Abd-al-Wadud; al-Qa'ida in the Horn of Africa represented in the Somali Mujahidin Youth; al-Qa'ida in the Land of the Two Rivers led by Abu-Amr al-Iraqi; the mother al-Qa'ida in Afghanistan led by the Old Guard, in addition to small branches in Lebanon and others in Gaza, with more to follow. The organization is in a state of multiplication that the most optimistic among its leaders and sympathizers had not imagined possible.
Two major developments took place within al-Qa'ida organization which have made it more dangerous:
First: Finding new sources of finance through kidnapping Western hostages in the Sahara countries, plus groups close to al-Qa'ida venturing to seize ships in the Gulf of Aden and the Arabian Sea. Second: success is in reaching some members of the Islamic communities that immigrated to Europe and recruiting cells from among the extremist youth.
The proximity to Europe of al-Qa'ida in the Islamic Maghrib and the increase in illegal immigration made it possible for al-Qa'ida elements to infiltrate more easily. We have to remember that only four individuals carried out the underground subway explosions in London, and nearly double that number carried out the bombings of the Madrid trains.
Western governments have often affirmed that they will never negotiate with that terroris t organization under any circumstances. But, after years that can be counted on the fingers of one hand, they have dropped these affirmations and have not only started to negotiate but to pay "jiziah" [Islamic tax] to the organization against their will.
The Spanish government which was the first to break this rule when it pulled out all its forces from Iraq as a reply to the demands of al-Qa'ida and its threats to carry out bombings similar to those of the Madrid railway station of 2004; subsequently it went beyond that and negotiated with a branch of the organization in the Sahara, and paid an estimated eight million euros to secure the release of two Spanish hostages who had been kidnapped by a cell of the organization.
The Government of Nicolas Sarkozy, the president of France who resorted to force to secure the liberation of a French hostage kidnapped by the organization, an operation ending "a la Rambo" with the execution of the hostage, is looking for a negotiating channel, and waving its readiness to pay 'a ransom' in return for the release of its five nationals kidnapped by the organization in northern Niger who are presently held in one of the protected caves in the chain of tortuous mountains in the north of the state of Mali.
The Taliban, now al-Qa'ida's closest ally, was supposed to have disappeared from the earth after the collapse of its rule in Kabul and the scattering of its elements under the weight of the bombings by giant American B-52 planes, but is currently in control of two-thirds of Afghanistan. President Hamid Karzai is begging it to negotiate with him and has formed a Higher Peace Council for the purpose, but there is no response, for the reply of the movement is clear: negotiations should be to ensure the withdrawal of the American forces and those who came with them without any conditions, and return it to the sovreignty of its rightful owners. Karzai publicly weeping in front of the cameras does not melt the heart so the opposition, who are of his own tribe - the Pashtun.
Who is responsible for this mess and how can it be repaired and its losses curtailed as a first step towards halting it altogether and emerging from this hemorrhaging bloody crisis?
America is the main culprit, due to its arrogant and exagerrated reaction to the events of September 11. Guilty too those in the administration who continue to support Israel's agenda regardless of the principles of justice and fairness and who incite the US army - the greatest military force in the world - to spill the blood of the Arabs and the Muslims in Iraq and Afghanistan. Yes, one can see and understand the reasons the US took the course it has done but consider the cost: the destruction of the America's international reputation, increasing hatred of the United States, and bankruptcy of Western capitalism because of the exorbitant costs entailed. In addition, there is the martyrdom of a million Arab and Muslim human beings in Iraq and Afghanistan and the destruction of the two countries.
Joseph Joseph Stiglitz, the American scientist who won the Nobel prize for economy in 2000, said that the cost of the two wars in Iraq and Afghanistan over the short term will reach four trillion dollars (4,000 billion dollars) and that 600,000 Iraqis and Afghans, and half a million Americans will require medical care and compensation in the near future as a result of their injuries or suffering. He made these statements at a press conference held last month in Washington.
US President Obama was not able to convince Israel to freeze the illegitimate settlements over the past two months for the sake of cont inuation of the negotiations with the Palestinians which are sponsored by his government, even though he extended a bunch of temptations the Israelis did not dream of including deals for ultra-advanced weapons, pressures on the Palestinians to accept Israeli forces on their borders with Jordan, and pressure on the Arabs to normalize relations in advance without the withdrawal specified in the second part of their initiative. He did not hesitate to send 100,000 soldiers to Afghanistan to fight the Taliban in the hope of breaking their backbone.
The shameful and humiliating weakness of the US Administration in its relations with Israel, and the continuation of its support for corrupt and despotic Arab regimes in the name of safeguarding stability, whilst viewing the Muslim world through the peep-holes of the Israeli tent alone, are all factors, individually or collectively, that made the leader of al-Qa'ida talk in his last tape as a Caliph for the Muslims. He criticized insufficiency in dealing with the flood catastrophe in Pakistan and talked from his cave at length about climate change, while leaving it to his youthful aides to spread terror in the hearts of the Western governments and their peoples.
Gareth Porter: Torture of Iraqis part of US dirty war
WASHINGTON - The revelation by WikiLeaks of a United States military order directing US forces not to investigate cases of torture of detainees by Iraqis has been treated in news reports as yet another case of lack of concern by the US military about detainee abuse.
But the deeper significance of the order, which has been missed by the news media, is that it was part of a larger US strategy of exploiting Shi'ite sectarian hatred against Sunnis to help suppress the Sunni insurgency when Sunnis had rejected the US war.
And General David Petraeus was a key figure in developing the strategy of using Shi'ite and Kurdish forces to suppress Sunnis in 2004-2005.
The strategy involved the deliberate deployment of Shi'ite and Kurdish police commandos in areas of Sunni insurgency, in the full knowledge that they were torturing Sunni detainees, as the reports released by WikiLeaks show.
That strategy inflamed Sunni fears of Shi'ite rule and was a major contributing factor to the rise of al-Qaeda's influence in the Sunni areas. The escalating Sunni-Shi'ite violence it produced led to the massive sectarian warfare of 2006 in Baghdad in which tens of thousands of civilians - mainly Sunnis - were killed.
The strategy of using primarily Shi'ite and Kurdish military and police commando units to suppress Sunni insurgents was adopted after a key turning point in the war in April 2004, when Civil Defense Corps units throughout the Sunni region essentially disappeared overnight during an insurgent offensive.
Two months later, the US military command issued "FRAGO [fragmentary order] 242", which provided that no investigation of detainee abuse by Iraqis was to be conducted unless directed by the headquarters of the command, according to references to the order in the WikiLeaks documents.
The order came immediately after Petraeus took command of the new Multinational Security Transition Command in Iraq (MNSTC-I). It was a clear signal that the US command expected torture of prisoners to be a central feature of Iraqi military and police operations against Sunni insurgents.
Petraeus knew that it would take more than two years to build a competent Iraqi military officer corps, as he told Bing West, author of the The Strongest Tribe, in August 2004. Meanwhile, he would have to use Shi'ite and Kurdish militias.
In September 2004, Petraeus adopted a plan to establish paramilitary units within the national police. The initial units were from non-sectarian former Iraqi special-forces teams. In October, however, Petraeus embraced the first clearly sectarian Shi'ite militia unit - the 2,000-man Shi'ite "Wolf Brigade" - as a key element of his police commando strategy, giving it two months of training with US forces.
In November 2004, after 80% of the Sunni police defected to the insurgents in Mosul, the US command dispatched 2,000 Kurdish Peshmerga militiamen to Mosul, and five battalions of predominantly Shi'ite troops, with a smattering of Kurds, were to police Ramadi. But a few weeks later, after the completion of its training, the Wolf Brigade was also sent to Mosul.
Hundreds of Shi'ite troops from Baghdad and southern areas of the country were also sent into Samara and Fallujah.
It did not take long for the Wolf Brigade to acquire its reputation for torture of Sunni detainees. The Associated Press reported the case of a female detainee in Wolf Brigade custody in Mosul who was whipped with electric cables in order to get her to sign a false confession that she was a high-ranking local leader of the insurgency.
But an official of the US command later told Richard Engel of NBC that the Wolf Brigade had been a very effective unit and had driven the insurgents out of Mosul.
The Wolf Brigade was then sent to Sunni neighborhoods in Baghdad, where the Association of Muslim Scholars publicly accused it of having "arrested imams and the guardians of some mosques, tortured and killed them, and then got rid of their bodies in a garbage dump."
The Wolf Brigade was also deployed to other Sunni cities, including Ramadi and Samarra, always in close cooperation with US military units.
The war logs released by WikiLeaks include a number of reports from Samarra in 2004 and 2005 describing how the US military had handed their captives over to the Wolf Brigade for "further questioning". The implication was that the Shi'ite commandos would be able to extract more information from the detainees than would be allowed by US rules.
General Martin Dempsey, who succeeded Petraeus as the commander responsible for training Iraqi security forces in September 2005, hinted strongly in an interview with Elizabeth Vargas of ABC News three months later that the US command accepted the Wolf Brigade's harsh interrogation methods as a necessary feature of using Iraqi counterinsurgency forces.
Dempsey said: "We are fighting through a very harsh environment. These guys are not fighting on the streets of Bayonne, New Jersey." Contrary to the Western notion of "innocent until proven guilty", he said the view in Iraq was "close” to the "opposite".
Vargas reported: "For Dempsey, a big part of building a viable police force is learning to accept, if not embrace, the cultural differences."
A second stage of the strategy of sectarian war against the Sunnis came after the new Shi'ite government's takeover of the Interior Ministry in April 2005. The Shi'ite minister immediately filled the Iraqi police - especially the commando units - with Shi'ite troops from the Badr Corps, the Iranian-trained forces loyal to the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq.
Within days, the Badr Corps, along with the Wolf Brigade, began a campaign of mass arrests, torture and assassination of Sunnis in Baghdad and elsewhere that was widely reported by news agencies.
The US command responded to that development by issuing a new version of the previous order on what to do about Iraqi torture, according to the WikiLeaks documents. On April 29, 2005, the US command issued FRAGO 039, requiring reports through operational channels on Iraqi abuse of prisoners using a format attached to the order. But no follow-up investigation was to be made unless directed by higher headquarters.
The former minister of interior, Falah al-Naquib, later told Knight-Ridder correspondent Tom Lasseter that he had personally warned Defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld and other US officials about the sectarian violence by Badr police commandos against Sunnis. "They didn't take us seriously," he lamented.
In fact, the US military and the US embassy were well aware of the serious risk that the strategy of relying on vengeful Shi'ite police commandos to track down Sunnis would exacerbate sectarian tensions between Sunnis and Shi'ite. In May 2005, Ann Scott Tyson wrote in the Washington Post that US military analysts did not deny that the US strategy "aggravates the underlying fault lines in Iraqi society, heightening the prospects of civil strife".
In late July 2005, when Petraeus was still heading the command, an unnamed "senior American officer" at MNSTC-I was asked by John F Burns of the New York Times whether the US might end up arming Iraqis for a civil war. The officer answered: "Maybe."
The US-sponsored Shi'ite assault on the Sunnis gave al-Qaeda a new opportunity. In mid-2005, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq, announced the creation of a special unit, the Omar Brigade, to combat the Shi'ite commando torture-and-death squads. That led to the massive sectarian bloodletting in Baghdad in 2006, when thousands of civilians were dying every month.
But the deeper significance of the order, which has been missed by the news media, is that it was part of a larger US strategy of exploiting Shi'ite sectarian hatred against Sunnis to help suppress the Sunni insurgency when Sunnis had rejected the US war.
And General David Petraeus was a key figure in developing the strategy of using Shi'ite and Kurdish forces to suppress Sunnis in 2004-2005.
The strategy involved the deliberate deployment of Shi'ite and Kurdish police commandos in areas of Sunni insurgency, in the full knowledge that they were torturing Sunni detainees, as the reports released by WikiLeaks show.
That strategy inflamed Sunni fears of Shi'ite rule and was a major contributing factor to the rise of al-Qaeda's influence in the Sunni areas. The escalating Sunni-Shi'ite violence it produced led to the massive sectarian warfare of 2006 in Baghdad in which tens of thousands of civilians - mainly Sunnis - were killed.
The strategy of using primarily Shi'ite and Kurdish military and police commando units to suppress Sunni insurgents was adopted after a key turning point in the war in April 2004, when Civil Defense Corps units throughout the Sunni region essentially disappeared overnight during an insurgent offensive.
Two months later, the US military command issued "FRAGO [fragmentary order] 242", which provided that no investigation of detainee abuse by Iraqis was to be conducted unless directed by the headquarters of the command, according to references to the order in the WikiLeaks documents.
The order came immediately after Petraeus took command of the new Multinational Security Transition Command in Iraq (MNSTC-I). It was a clear signal that the US command expected torture of prisoners to be a central feature of Iraqi military and police operations against Sunni insurgents.
Petraeus knew that it would take more than two years to build a competent Iraqi military officer corps, as he told Bing West, author of the The Strongest Tribe, in August 2004. Meanwhile, he would have to use Shi'ite and Kurdish militias.
In September 2004, Petraeus adopted a plan to establish paramilitary units within the national police. The initial units were from non-sectarian former Iraqi special-forces teams. In October, however, Petraeus embraced the first clearly sectarian Shi'ite militia unit - the 2,000-man Shi'ite "Wolf Brigade" - as a key element of his police commando strategy, giving it two months of training with US forces.
In November 2004, after 80% of the Sunni police defected to the insurgents in Mosul, the US command dispatched 2,000 Kurdish Peshmerga militiamen to Mosul, and five battalions of predominantly Shi'ite troops, with a smattering of Kurds, were to police Ramadi. But a few weeks later, after the completion of its training, the Wolf Brigade was also sent to Mosul.
Hundreds of Shi'ite troops from Baghdad and southern areas of the country were also sent into Samara and Fallujah.
It did not take long for the Wolf Brigade to acquire its reputation for torture of Sunni detainees. The Associated Press reported the case of a female detainee in Wolf Brigade custody in Mosul who was whipped with electric cables in order to get her to sign a false confession that she was a high-ranking local leader of the insurgency.
But an official of the US command later told Richard Engel of NBC that the Wolf Brigade had been a very effective unit and had driven the insurgents out of Mosul.
The Wolf Brigade was then sent to Sunni neighborhoods in Baghdad, where the Association of Muslim Scholars publicly accused it of having "arrested imams and the guardians of some mosques, tortured and killed them, and then got rid of their bodies in a garbage dump."
The Wolf Brigade was also deployed to other Sunni cities, including Ramadi and Samarra, always in close cooperation with US military units.
The war logs released by WikiLeaks include a number of reports from Samarra in 2004 and 2005 describing how the US military had handed their captives over to the Wolf Brigade for "further questioning". The implication was that the Shi'ite commandos would be able to extract more information from the detainees than would be allowed by US rules.
General Martin Dempsey, who succeeded Petraeus as the commander responsible for training Iraqi security forces in September 2005, hinted strongly in an interview with Elizabeth Vargas of ABC News three months later that the US command accepted the Wolf Brigade's harsh interrogation methods as a necessary feature of using Iraqi counterinsurgency forces.
Dempsey said: "We are fighting through a very harsh environment. These guys are not fighting on the streets of Bayonne, New Jersey." Contrary to the Western notion of "innocent until proven guilty", he said the view in Iraq was "close” to the "opposite".
Vargas reported: "For Dempsey, a big part of building a viable police force is learning to accept, if not embrace, the cultural differences."
A second stage of the strategy of sectarian war against the Sunnis came after the new Shi'ite government's takeover of the Interior Ministry in April 2005. The Shi'ite minister immediately filled the Iraqi police - especially the commando units - with Shi'ite troops from the Badr Corps, the Iranian-trained forces loyal to the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq.
Within days, the Badr Corps, along with the Wolf Brigade, began a campaign of mass arrests, torture and assassination of Sunnis in Baghdad and elsewhere that was widely reported by news agencies.
The US command responded to that development by issuing a new version of the previous order on what to do about Iraqi torture, according to the WikiLeaks documents. On April 29, 2005, the US command issued FRAGO 039, requiring reports through operational channels on Iraqi abuse of prisoners using a format attached to the order. But no follow-up investigation was to be made unless directed by higher headquarters.
The former minister of interior, Falah al-Naquib, later told Knight-Ridder correspondent Tom Lasseter that he had personally warned Defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld and other US officials about the sectarian violence by Badr police commandos against Sunnis. "They didn't take us seriously," he lamented.
In fact, the US military and the US embassy were well aware of the serious risk that the strategy of relying on vengeful Shi'ite police commandos to track down Sunnis would exacerbate sectarian tensions between Sunnis and Shi'ite. In May 2005, Ann Scott Tyson wrote in the Washington Post that US military analysts did not deny that the US strategy "aggravates the underlying fault lines in Iraqi society, heightening the prospects of civil strife".
In late July 2005, when Petraeus was still heading the command, an unnamed "senior American officer" at MNSTC-I was asked by John F Burns of the New York Times whether the US might end up arming Iraqis for a civil war. The officer answered: "Maybe."
The US-sponsored Shi'ite assault on the Sunnis gave al-Qaeda a new opportunity. In mid-2005, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq, announced the creation of a special unit, the Omar Brigade, to combat the Shi'ite commando torture-and-death squads. That led to the massive sectarian bloodletting in Baghdad in 2006, when thousands of civilians were dying every month.
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