Shameless, Hypocrite US Capitalist Oligarchy Refuse Entry to Former British Ambassador

Shameless, Hypocrite US Capitalist Oligarchy Refuse Entry to Former British Ambassador https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4y200nnocMY Craig Murray https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2016/09/thought-dangerous-usa/ Thought is Dangerous to the USA 5 Sep, 2016 I have been refused entry clearance to the USA to chair the presentation of the Sam Adams Award to CIA torture whistleblower John Kiriakou and to speak at the World Beyond War conference in Washington DC. Like millions of British passport holders I have frequently visited the USA before and never been refused entry clearance under the visa waiver programme. I shall apply for a visa via the State Department as suggested but I must be on a list to be refused under the ESTA system, and in any event it is most unlikely to be completed before the conference. It is worth noting that despite the highly critical things I have published about Putin, about civil liberties in Russia and the annexation of the Crimea, I have never been refused entry to Russia. The only two countries that have ever refused me entry clearance are Uzbekistan and the USA. What does that tell you? I have no criminal record, no connection to drugs or terrorism, have a return ticket, hotel booking and sufficient funds. I have a passport from a visa waiver country and have visited the USA frequently before during 38 years and never overstayed. The only possible grounds for this refusal of entry clearance are things I have written against neo-liberalism, attacks on civil liberties and neo-conservative foreign policy. People at the conference in Washington will now not be able to hear me speak. Plainly ideas can be dangerous. So much for the land of the free! https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2016/09/thought-dangerous-usa/ PETITION To: U.S. State Department Tell U.S. to Let Craig Murray into the Country LINK | PETITION TO US STATE DEPT TRANSCRIPT SOURCE VIDEO Why Did US Just Bar Former British Diplomat https://youtu.be/4y200nnocMY  The Real News [For quotation purposes, confirm audio] PARTIAL TRANSCRIPT Narrator Over the weekend, the United Stated denied entry to an unsuspecting individual, former British Ambassador to Uzbekistan, Craig Murry, who ten years ago made the critical mistake of exposing the Uzbek torture system that we now know the Americans supported and the British condoned. He was scheduled to participate in an awards ceremony next week ... John Kiriakou CIA Whistleblower We're talking about a British diplomat, a highly respected — an internationally respected British diplomat, a whistleblower in his own right; an exposer of torture, who has travelled to this country, dozens and dozens of times. And then, for reasons that have not been explained to him, finds himself banned by the United States. Narrator The Sam Adams [Associates] award for Integrity and Intelligence is given out annually to someone who shows moral courage in the midst of wrong-doing on the part of the state. Ray McGovern Founder, Sam Adams Associates In 2006, the Sam Adams Associates for Integrity and Intelligence decided to award Ambassador Murray our annual award for integrity ... he came and talked at several of our Sam Adams awards ceremonies here in the States and also at Oxford — we did two there.  We did more or less one in Berlin.  We go where the people are. Narrator Ten years after having won the award himself, Murray is still at home wondering how his name received what the State Department and Homeland Security call a 'hit'. Peter Van Buren Whistleblower, former Foreign Service Officer It means that the Department of Homeland Security believes that Ambassador Murray may be ineligible to enter the United States, under one of the categories of ineligibility. Peter Van Buren is a former United States foreign service employee turned whistleblower, after he heavily criticised the United States reconstruction effort in Iraq. Van Buren also just wrote a piece for Consortium News, that someone like Murray may have received a 'hit'. Peter Van Buren Whistleblower, former Foreign Service Officer More often than not, particularly in cases like Ambassador Murray's where there are political components, what we'e got is a likely potential 3(b) violation, or potential violation, which means terrorism. You don't have to be a terrorist to fall under this category ... you can just be placed on one of these watch lists, by any one of the dozens American intelligence agencies and organisations that are allowed to 'nominate names' — and they do love their Orwellian vocabulary — nominate names to the list. Narrator In his relatively short tenure as Ambassador to Uzbekistan, Craig Murray uncovered a torture infrastructure within the country that once silenced Uzbeki dissidents and fed the Americans shaky intelligence they were so desperate for, as the 'war on terror' in Iraq and Afghanistan began to unravel. In 2009, five years after Murray had left the British Foreign Office, but still seven years away from being denied entry into the United States, Murray spoke at that year's Sam Adams awards ceremony, which took place in Washington DC at American University. Craig Murray Former British Ambassador You know, there are over 10,000 political prisoners in Uzbekistan. Anybody who is a religious Muslim of any kind, no connection to terrorism; anyone who prays five times a day, as prescribed, will be arrested as a terrorist. Any young man with a beard will be arrested. Narrator He subsequently sat down with Real News editor, Paul Jay, to expand on the disturbing revelations that ended his career as ambassador. Craig Murray Former British Ambassador Many of them are killed at their [?] terrible, literally Stalinist Gulags:  they are in the old Stalinist Gulags which are still there, like Jaslik(?) in the middle of the Kyzylkum Desert, and people are tortured dreadfully.  The most appalling tortures that you can think of, on a routine basis.  If you are arrested, you're going to be tortured; and that means you're going to have a broken bottle inserted in your anus; you're going to have your neck broken; you're going to have your feet held over a fire; you're going to be suffocated by having a blocked gas mask put on your head.  Even, I came across instances of children tortured in front of their parents. You shouldn't forget the purpose of the torture was to get false intelligence which vastly exaggerated the threat from al-Qaeda. It vastly exaggerated the strength of al-Qaeda in Central Asia, and people knew that. Narrator Murray saw the Western powers like the UK and the US were far more interested in profiting from Uzbekistan's oil reserves and vital geopolitical position than they were with human rights. Craig Murray Former British Ambassador Uzbekistan sits at the heart of Central Asia.  It has half the population of Central Asia.  It really dominates the region. And Central Asia has the world's largest untapped reserves of oil and gas. So anyone who is interested in acquiring influence over hydrocarbon reserves needs to be in Uzbekistan. The Uzbek government plays this to its own advantage. The Uzbek government has no interest in [???] its own advantage, and is quite happy to switch between different world powers as it's able to get something out of them. Narrator Murray says that when he went over to Uzbekistan in 2002, the US viewed Uzbekistan, and especially its late President Islam Karimov (who coincidentally just died last week), not only as a long-term interest in the region, but also as maybe the most important ally of Central Asia when it came to the 'war on terror'. Beyond firing off a steady stream of intelligence memos and reports to the CIA, which were then being forwarded to the British intelligence service MI6; and beyond allowing the United States to set up its crucial Karshi-Khanabad airbase, the Uzbeks were engaged in a program of extraordinary rendition with the United States, of so-called 'suspected terrorists', and it happened to be a part of a network of black sites that spanned across many countries. Craig Murray Former British Ambassador The CIA were flying people in to be tortured, and I reported that officially to London is as many words; and this is in, you know in 2003, before anyone had even heard of the words 'extraordinary rendition'. I didn't realise that the people being flown in were not Uzbek. The idea that, you know, strangers would be flown in to be tortured— Interviewer Subsequently how do you know that that's the case, because essentially you're saying that CIA was flying people in to be tortured in Uzbekistan. Craig Murray Former British Ambassador I knew the CIA people who did it. There weren't many expats in Uzbekistan.  You're talking, quite seriously, of (not including military personnel) three or four hundred British and American expatriates in the whole of the country. So, not surprisingly, we used to drink in the same bars and meet. And I actually knew of the CIA people who flew people in.  Subsequently, we've learnt a great deal more.  For example, the Council of Europe inquiry into extraordinary rendition showed that 90% of the flights which took prisoners to the secret base in Poland at Szymany flew on to Tashkent as their next destination. There's a great deal of other evidence that this was a part of a global transportation of prisoners. ------- Other ------- Poland feels sting of betrayal over CIA 'black site' http://archive.is/1N4DX Poland admits role in CIA rendition programme http://archive.is/VnRi4#selection-763.1-763.47 Sam Adams Associates for Integrity in Intelligence AWARDED TO: JULIAN ASSANGE Aussie Journalist WikiLeaks Editor-in-Chief Page 1 Page 2  23 October 2010, London COMMENT American capitalist oligarchy can't help themselves:  proving they really are running a corrupt, totalitarian state. Even Russia, the US-Anglo capitalist target and official 'enemy', hasn't refused a critical Craig Murray entry.  LOL Bet the CAPITALIST-OWNED CORPORATE MEDIA won't be highlighting this totalitarian state of affairs. P.S.   Just read some of Murray's blog.  Comes across as a super softie.  Way soft from my perspective (I've no problem with challenging threats of the religious kind etc ... but I'm not really big on the senseless torture that Uzbekistan and CIA seem to like).  Anyway, I can't believe they banned Murray's entry.   P.P.S.  Screw the 'Fourth Estate' Sam Adams awards nonsense:  there is NO Fourth Estate. There NEVER HAS BEEN.  The Fourth Estate is a LIE. WikiLeaks is the only exception in how long?  How many hundreds of years of press/media lies and capitalist information control and exploitation of the people the capitalists have now moved onto robbing of even their nations?  That would be 566 years of capitalist lies before WikiLeaks was established ten years ago, making it a total of 576 years of nothing but capitalist press lies and censorship: The printing press was invented in the Holy Roman Empire by the German Johannes Gutenberg around 1440 ... [wikipedia] And the filthy capitalist partnership that is the US-Anglo Capitalist Empire destroyed the last vestige of the Holy Roman Empire when it twice unleashed capitalist war on Germany, and in the process the US-Anglo capitalist partnership has destroyed all of Europe and all European societies since WWII. All there is is rule by CAPITALIST OLIGARCHY, fortified by their propaganda organs:  the press / media and so-called 'social media', exploited, controlled and censored by despicable self-serving capitalist turds like Mark Zuckerberg. Once the criminal US-Anglo capitalist oligarchy imprison or murder Assange, that's the end of that road.  Back to nothing but propaganda, indoctrination and lies from capitalist owned and controlled, government and CIA colluding, Western corporate media.

Actual Crimes vs. 'Theoretical' Crimes - USA: Free Viktor Bout

Article SOURCE as marked Actual Crimes vs. 'Theoretical' Crimes USA:  Free Viktor Bout https://www.rt.com/news/337906-viktor-bout-american-prison/ Yoga, foreign languages & anecdotes: Viktor Bout marks 8yrs in US high-security prison Published time: 31 Mar, 2016 15:55 Avoiding depression and keeping in good shape are the key to survival in a top security American prison, says Russian businessman Viktor Bout, who was extradited to the US and later sentenced to a 25-year prison term, despite Russia’s belief his case is political. Russian citizen Viktor Bout was arrested in Thailand in 2008 after a sting operation by US agents. He allegedly admitted in a conversation that it was theoretically possible for a foreign terrorist group to purchase anti-aircraft weapons. In 2010 Bout was extradited to the United States, and one year later was convicted of conspiracy to kill US citizens. The allegations were based on the idea that guerrillas of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) could in theory have been the buyers of the weapons he could reportedly sell. The United States ranks FARC as a terrorist organization. In April 2012 the businessman was sentenced to 25 years behind bars and placed in a top security prison. This March signals eight years since Bout’s arrest in Bangkok. Russia called the judge’s decision in October to refuse Bout’s retrial plea “regrettable,” and proof the probe and trial were politicized from the very beginning. “This is yet another regrettable decision. As far as we know the defense lawyers have prepared a solid base of materials to ask for a retrial, they had serious arguments. The fact that the court ignored them again surely is a proof of our understanding that Viktor Bout’s case has been politicized by the American side from the very beginning,” Russian Foreign Ministry human rights envoy Konstantin Dolgov told TASS. ‘A sound mind in a sound body’ RIA Novosti contacted Bout via phone for a rare interview to share his experience of serving a term in an American top security prison. To remain in good physical shape, Bout practices yoga every morning and does high-intensity interval training during the day. The only alternative to keeping fit is falling into depression, which would result in being prescribed pills by the prison authorities, Bout told RIA Novosti’s Evgeny Belenky, who was among the first journalists to contact him in 2008. Bout continues studying foreign languages such as Turkish, Arabic and Farsi, but he has problems with obtaining new books and lacks mother-tongue speakers to practice with. He reads any book he can lay his hands on and is free to communicate with anybody in his block from 6am to 10pm, yet, naturally, there are certain communication problems. “It’s kind of an endless submarine independent cruise here, with the difference that the crew has been picked up randomly, without considering psychological compatibility and other subtleties,” Bout said, adding that sometimes it takes days before he can get out of his cell and talk with someone. Unlike America’s medium-security prisons, the jail where Bout is serving his term does not allow visits or team sports. He tells anecdotes from the Russian media he receives to entertain inmates he is on friendly terms with. “Everything is in our hands, the environment is neutral, even in the communications control block of a top security prison,” Bout said. “There is a saying that hell and paradise do not relate to geography, but to psychology. My motto is: any hell we turn into paradise.” Bout says you can help keep depression and pessimism away by beginning the day with a couple of good anecdotes and yoga, together with physical training and personal mind control. “Your glass is always half-full, not half-empty,” he says. Being a vegetarian, Bout finds it difficult to feed himself in a prison which has no alternative for those who don’t eat meat. Only once, when he complained about his vegetarian diet, did he get boiled beetroot, but the rest of the time he is fed like everybody else. ‘Where does the money go?’ Bout says that according to open US Congress sources, a maximum-security prison like the one he is in spends $981,000 a year from the US budget on every prisoner – a sharp contrast to the $34,000 needed to keep a man locked up in an ordinary prison. He believes that for that money, the prisoners could have decent food and vegetarians could be given a separate menu, yet inmates get food that leaves much to be desired and “nobody ever investigated” why the cost is so high. According to Bout, the prison he is serving his term in was built back in 1963 and has not been renovated since, and as a result is “in bad shape.” However strict the conditions of a top security prison are, Bout remains full of optimism. On Tuesday, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov criticized the detention in the US of people like Viktor Bout and Konstantin Yaroshenko, a Russian pilot sentenced in 2011 to 20 years in jail for allegedly participating in a plan to smuggle drugs to the United States. Peskov said the Russian government regards such actions as an attempt to project American jurisdiction to the rest of the world. “It was exactly in this context that these names [of Bout and Yaroshenko] were mentioned in the talks with [John] Kerry,” Peskov said, speaking about the head-to-head talks Russian President Vladimir Putin had with the US secretary of state this week. https://www.rt.com/news/337906-viktor-bout-american-prison/ http://www.religionnews.com/2016/02/24/italy-faces-fine-over-cia-abduction-of-egyptian-cleric/ Italy faces fine over CIA abduction of Egyptian cleric Rosie Scammell | February 24, 2016 | (RNS) Italy must pay compensation to an Egyptian imam’s family after a European court ruled his human rights had been breached in a CIA operation that had him abducted in Milan and sent to his country of birth, where he was tortured. The European Court of Human Rights ordered Italy to pay 115,000 euros ($126,500) in damages and legal expenses to Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr and his family.  [Comment:   got to be kidding.  What kind of compensation is that for kidnap, deportation & torture?] The cleric, who is also known as Abu Omar, was living in Milan in February 2003 when he was snatched from a street in a CIA-led operation. He was then flown to a U.S. airbase in Germany and onward to Egypt, where he was tortured during interrogation, Deutsche Welle reported. Concluding the case on Tuesday (Feb. 23), the Strasbourg court said: “(The) Italian authorities were aware that the applicant had been a victim of an extraordinary rendition operation which had begun with his abduction in Italy and continued with his transfer abroad.” Nasr had moved to Italy in 1998 and was granted political asylum three years later. Although Italy has convicted CIA agents for their role in the extraordinary rendition, the Italians have not requested they be extradited.    [Comment:  some of the CIA figures have been 'pardoned', so all is 'forgiven' and this was really a farce so that Italy, Germany and the Americans can pretend they're law abiding states.] Ferdinando Pomarici, a former Milan prosecutor who worked on the Abu Omar case, said on Wednesday that the ruling was a blemish on Italy’s justice system, in which “no one could ever say they had been deprived of their constitutional rights.” (Rosie Scammell is Rome correspondent for RNS) http://www.religionnews.com/2016/02/24/italy-faces-fine-over-cia-abduction-of-egyptian-cleric/ ---------------------- ---------------------- COMMENT The US makes sure that it is not held accountable for the crimes it commits -- crimes against entire countries (eg illegal bombing Serbia; illegal invasion Iraq; massive civilian casualties Afghanistan; 500,000 dead children Iraq; destruction of Libya; proxy attack on Syria; destabilising Africa and Middle East (plus loss of life, displaced persons etc) and so on. Actual crimes. IRAQ - 500,000 Dead Children 'WORTH IT' But the US has 'unsigned' itself from the Rome Statute, has bullied other countries into granting the US immunity to commit crimes against humanity, and has signed into law authorised military attack on any nation that attempts to bring the US (and their partners in crime) to justice. But it has locked up a Russian businessman on the basis of a *theoretical* possibilities catch-all, in what is described as a politically motivated violation -- without allowing retrial, where he obviously has a case for retrial or he wouldn't have a lawyer presenting it, after 8 years in prison. Free Viktor. The Americans consider that they *have* jurisdiction around the world and they'll  extend their jurisdiction beyond borders, no mater what it takes. Check out their over 30 CIA agents kidnapping and illegal transfer for torture from what is supposed to be a sovereign state:   Italy (above). The US regime snatches targets (often *wrong* targets) off the streets! That's what the mafia does. But I bet the mafia isn't making mistakes.  So not only is the US regime lawless; it's incompetent as well.

CIA Torture - Act of Testimony

CIA TORTURE Act of Testimony March 17, 2016 1:44 pm The appearance of disappearance: the CIA’s secret black sites Edmund Clark and Crofton Black http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/2/90796270-ebc3-11e5-888e-2eadd5fbc4a4.html ---------------------- ---------------------- COMMENT This is really creepy. It's like the government -- Western governments -- are the Mafia. Well, they are.  But I keep kind of forgetting that they are. Just like the Mafia, they 'disappear' and torture people in hide-away places. Only this is world-wide Mafia, that ships people to foreign countries. It only feels real sometimes and then the horror realisation sort of fades and there's a detached sort of 'unreality' to it. As in, you know it's real, but it doesn't feel real. Anyway, I stumbled on this looking for something totally different ... trying to figure out who "Lord Davies" is.

2012 - 'Afghanistan: The First Feminist War?'

ꕤ Article SOURCE http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/dan-ehrlich/afghanistan-feminist-war-the-first-fem_b_1349217.html http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/dan-ehrlich/afghanistan-feminist-war-the-first-fem_b_1349217.html Afghanistan: The First Feminist War? Dan Ehrlich Posted: 16/03/2012 22:37 GMT Updated: 16/05/2012 10:12 BST The tragedy in Afghanistan of a US soldier murdering 16 civilians has given President Obama a greater urgency in getting American troops out of that country. Yet, he finds himself in a similar situation as President Nixon during the latter days of the Vietnam War...Securing Peace (leaving) with honour. With America's "puppet" Afghan ruler Hamid Karzai now asking NATO troops to stay in their camps, abandoning one of their main goals of winning the hearts and minds of the people...one question resonates: Why are we sill there? Leaving Afghanistan was a main topic Obama discussed with British Prime Minister David Cameron this past week. And it's a cinch one of the talking points was that question: Why are we still there? What are our goals? Now that Osama Bin Laden is dead and Al Qaida is opening up chapters all over the Islamic world, the only concrete answer to that question is the protection of women. The feminist victory may be complete in America, but on the international stage it's not doing so well with three quarters of the world's women still under often-severe male domination. Afghanistan is an extreme case in point in what might be termed the first feminist war...a war that now may not be won even if Hillary Clinton dons a flack jacket and shoulders an M16 on the front lines. Still, since the Bush Administration to the present America's top foreign policy office has been held by women...women who have promised not to desert their Afghan sisters. I say that since there has yet to be a credible explanation as to why we, and other NATO nations, are sill there, except to keep the extreme male chauvinist and misogynist Muslim Taliban from power. Our main goal of defeating Osama bin Laden's Al Qaida group and international terrorism is over...at least there. Remember, America originally helped arm the Taliban in its fight against the Soviets. As far as anyone can tell the reason for our conflict with them, as with Iraq, is regime change. We have also accomplished that. How long Karzai remains in power after NATO leaves is questionable. Yet, unlike Iraq, which had a strong central autocratic government, the Taliban is a theocracy made up of hill tribesmen who simply abandoned Kabul when we arrived and took the mountains and friendly villages for a protracted war against NATO. Of course it doesn't have to be that way. If we had the money and popular support we could stay there as long as we wanted. We have maintained forces in South Korea since the end of WW2, most of that time under a cease-fire agreement with North Korea. But, this is the main weakness with progressive democracies when pitted against stagnant theocracies. Like sharks, we have to keep moving or we eventually will perish. Many Islamic states simply exist as shellfish, going where the tide takes them, in a non-evolutionary permanent state shielded by their faith. But, for us, as usual there's more at stake in Afghanistan than our war on terror, women being forced to wear burkas and our international reputation. There are big, big bucks in the form of natural gas and minerals. And there's one more thing...narcotics. The country's biggest cash crop is opium poppies, another battle that hasn't been going well. Because as with our similar efforts to eradicate South American cocaine, we're fighting an indigenous people's traditional work. President Obama's original contention during the GW Bush years that we should be concentrating on Afghanistan rather than invading Iraq was good politics in the aftermath of 9/11. Our invasion of Iraq wasn't based so much on Saddam Hussein's brutality as it was on reports of his so-called weapons of mass destruction aimed at the West...a claim that has since been proven false. So, it was left to the media to ramp the US population up for our Afghan adventure. Photos and videos of women being tortured and executed for trying to have jobs or enjoy some western music, inflamed many of us against the brutal Taliban religious fanaticism. As it should have. Develop a war on terrorism and couple this with the Taliban and nine years later we are still there with more NATO troops dying every week. But wait! There's one more weakness progressive democracies have: We won't do what some of our enemies would do to win. We are limited by our civility, rules of warfare, the Geneva Convention, etc. That's partly why those 16 senseless civilian deaths is so difficult to stomach. During the Korean War General Douglas MacArthur, one of the most brilliant military tacticians we have ever had was fired by President Truman because he wanted to bomb the railroads in Manchuria. That was from where China's Red Army supplies were being funneled into Korea. He felt if we broke the supply line, the Chinese offensive would collapse. Truman, however, felt such as action might bring Russia into the conflict and trigger WW3. We didn't win in Korea...but eventually bargained for a truce. In Vietnam we tried everything except invading North Vietnam and nuclear weapons. But, those options were nixed for fear of bringing the Chinese into the war. We are not about to nuke Afghanistan, killing everyone that isn't waiving Old Glory or even try to fight a war of attrition, which we would lose. That's possibly because we are still too nice to win. We will eventually just leave...but probably without that infamous Mission Accomplished banner. And, hopefully we may at long last learn that our nation is best defended by guarding our own borders and fighting a never-ending battle at home for truth, justice and the American way, if anyone can recall what that way is.  http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/dan-ehrlich/afghanistan-feminist-war-the-first-fem_b_1349217.html Decades-old CIA crack-cocaine scandal gains new momentum Published time: 11 Oct, 2014 01:47 Edited time: 13 Oct, 2014 14:52 Nearly two decades after a US reporter was humiliated for connecting the CIA to a drug-trafficking trade that funded the Nicaraguan Contras, important players in the scandal – which led to the journalist’s suicide – are coming forward to back his claims.   Back in 1996, Gary Webb of the San Jose Mercury News broke a story stating not only that the Nicaraguan Contras – supported by the United States in a rebellion against their left-leaning government – were involved in the US crack cocaine epidemic of the 1980s, but also that the CIA knew and turned a blind eye to the operation. As a result, Webb concluded, the CIA was complicit in a drug trade that was wreaking havoc on African American communities in Los Angeles. The bombshell report sparked outrage across the country, but when national newspapers like the Los Angeles Times, New York Times, and Washington Post weighed in on the matter, they dismissed Webb and attacked his story to the point that it was disowned by the Mercury News. Webb was forced out of journalism and ultimately committed suicide in 2004. Now, however, the whole ordeal is being looked at with fresh eyes in the form of two new films: “Kill the Messenger” and a documentary called, “Freeway: Crack in the System.” Additionally, several figures involved in the operation have recently spoken out, lending further credibility to Webb’s original reporting.  https://www.rt.com/usa/194992-cia-crack-scandal-webb/ ---------------------- ꕤ ---------------------- COMMENT I'm not really good with subtlety.  I don't get it.  I find it annoying. What exactly is this, a piss-take?  We know it wasn't a 'feminist war' and the writer himself goes on to discuss the big draw-cards of Afghanistan: 1.  "big, big bucks in the form of natural gas and minerals." 2.  "country's biggest cash crop is opium poppies" (narcotics). So that probably explains what the Americans are doing there.  That and the regime change the Americans sought. And regime change was accomplished, according to the author.  By installing  Hamid Karza. So what else is there? Seeing a military base in Korea was discussed (a base that is like an occupation since WWII), I'm going to guess that the Americans also want a military base in Afghanistan, so they can permanently occupy the country. There's a large number of military bases in Afghanistan.  Wow, who knew?  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ISAF_installations_in_Afghanistan The writer comes across as rather unpleasant, the way he keeps referring to the American invaders and aggressors as 'too nice' to win the invasion, yet he admits that the Americans will not win a war of attrition.  So short of dropping nukes on Afghanistan, what is there?  Whatever it is, it's not a case of being 'too nice' to win. This is a nation of invaders and destroyers that have killed for decades on a worldwide scale. The reference to progressive democracies being limited to rules of war, the Geneva Convention and so on, are total crap. The US has refused to ratify protocols of the Geneva Convention, the US has denied detainees basic human rights and denied detainees rights as combatants, and the US has engaged in torture of detainees, rendition (kidnap & transfer abroad), and was/is running black sites.  Plus the US has bailed out of the Rome Statute, so that it is not subject to provisions of the International Criminal Court (thus to avoid conviction for:   genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes, and the crime of aggression). The illegal invasion of Iraq would, I believe, be considered a 'war of aggression' and therefore a war crime. Chauvinism & burqas, and exporting 'feminism' (democracy or anything else), have absolutely nothing to do with American (or Western) NATO motivations. And as the CIA was involved in trafficking drugs in South America to fund the Nicaraguan Contras, even the mention of eradicating cocaine in South America is suspect. What's the bet that the CIA is just repeating the same patterns in the Middle East? P.S. Following is link to USA Rome Statute (ICC) unsigning: USA - Rome Statute - ICC -- USA 'unsigns' Rome Statute -- USA threatens military force -- USA hypocrisy re ICC & regime change Targets (Libya & Syria) Link | Post ꕤ