BUSH MAKES BIG MISTAKE, SENDS MORE TROOPS TO AFGHANISTAN

President George W. Bush's decision to redeploy more troops into Afghanistan is another strategic blunder in his "war on terror." The people who are fighting U.S. troops there are not terrorists but tribesmen like Pastuns who resent the presence in their country of foreign troops, especially when those foreigners drop bombs onto houses in their villages, causing the deaths of countless women and children and civilians.

Nor do Afghanis like it when American forces storm their homes in the middle of the night, search and frisk their women and wives, and otherwise turn their bedrooms into shambles.

The U.S. should not be fighting in Afghanistan. The War in Iraq was a mistake. The war in Afghanistan is just as wrong. The hunt for Osama bin Laden and Mullah Omar should be done as a police action, not as a battle involving the U.S. Army or the U.S. Air Force.

The move of Bush to put more American soldiers will just have the effect of increasing American casualties. As history shows, many times in the past foreign armies have invaded and tried to subdue the tribesmen in Afghanistan. Not one foreign army has ever succeeded.

TEN FRENCH SOLDIERS DIE IN AFGHANISTAN IN USELESS HOPELESS WAR

Ten French soldiers lost their lives in Afghanistan yesterday. Yet the French Foreign Minister Bernard Kourchner says today that France is committed to send and keep its troops to fight there.

There must be a better way. After all, what is the purpose of having NATO troops in Afghanistan?

• to capture Osama bin Laden? Not very likely. Bin Laden is probably safely ensconced in the tribal territories in northwest Pakistan.
• to defeat and kill the Taliban? Again, not much chance of this. The Taliban consists of local and mostly uneducated Afghanis who believe in fundamentalist Islam and who also resent the presence of foreign soldiers in their county. No foreign army will ever defeat the movement.
• to protect the rights of women? Laudable, but it will never happen in Afghanistan, an Islamic country that does not believe in rights except for men.
• to prop up Karzai? If Karzai has not by this time secured the loyalty of Afghanis, nothing will protect him, not George Bush himself with thousands of Army Rangers.

So what should be done vis-a-vis Afghanistan?

• withdraw all foreign troops.
• start negotiations with leaders of the Taliban and allow them representation in the Afghani government.
• make the search for bin Laden and other members of Al Qaeda a police operation. Dropping bombs on villagers and sending in the army with tanks has never convinced the locals that they are wrong and the army is right.

PULL U.S. TROOPS OUT OF AFGHANISTAN

Before committing more troops to Afghanistan, Barack Obama should take a step back and re-think the whole role for the United States in Afghanistan.

First, from a historical point of view, has there ever been an occupying force that invaded Afghanistan and defeated the local inhabitants? If there has, they are very few. Afghanistan chews up invaders, mauls them, bloodies their armies, then spits them out.

Second. If the people of Afghanistan wants to adopt an Islamic fundamentalist government, that is their business, and the U.S. has no right to interfere.

Some will say that Bin Laden's attacks on 9/11 show that the U.S. must of necessity defeat the Taliban. But this is not true. Bin Laden and the rest of the Islamic fundamentalists attacked to right what they saw as an unjust occupation by the Americans of Islamic lands like Saudi Arabia where the U.S. insisted on maintaining bases and non-Islamic troops. Were it not for the presence of Americans in Islamic countries, there would have been no 9/11. If you don't agree with this, ask yourself why bin Laden did not attack Japan or Norway. The answer is because those countries did not and don't try to establish air bases in Egypt or Qatar.

Yes, the U.S. under Obama will pull out of Iraq. But Obama should also call for an end to the Afghanistan campaign. The U.S. must withdraw all American forces from Afghanistan sooner rather than later. Otherwise, the Afghanis will add the U.S. to the list of those foreign "invaders" and "occupiers" who found out when all was said and done that they made a big mistake in lives and money by trying to control that fierce land.

ANOTHER LIE OF GEORGE BUSH: IRAQI INSURGENTS ARE LINKED TO 9/11

George Bush never gives up trying to foist another myth on the electorate. Al Qaeda in Iraq is somehow connected to the Al Qaeda of Osama bin Laden. Oh yeah, right. In a speech yesterday to a group of soldiers, (about the only type he dares to address without fear of blow back), Bush once again attempted to link the two. As if he could justify his catastrophic and disastrous mistake of invading and occupying Iraq. "If only we could come up with some way to portray our adventure in Iraq as part-and-parcel of 9/11 . . . umm, let's link bin Laden with Zarqawi (the Jordanian who tried to organize Iraqi Sunnis into a jihad against the Americans)."

Only one thing is in the way. There is absolutely no evidence that bin Laden is involved in Iraq in any way. Unless you take George Bush as a truth-teller. The same guy who said there were WMD in Iraq, that Saddam was an imminent threat, that the invasion of Iraq would bring in a new millenium of peace and democracy in the Middle East.

INTELLIGENCE REPORT TELLS LITTLE UNKNOWN BEFORE

Here is the National Intelligence Estimate released yesterday in its abbreviated non-classified form. In its two brief pages, the NIE says that Al Qaeda will remain a threat, as if this was breaking news.

"We assess that al-Qa’ida will continue to enhance its capabilities to attack the Homeland
through greater cooperation with regional terrorist groups. Of note, we assess that al-Qa’ida
will probably seek to leverage the contacts and capabilities of al-Qa’ida in Iraq (AQI), its
most visible and capable affiliate and the only one known to have expressed a desire to attack
the Homeland. In addition, we assess that its association with AQI helps al-Qa’ida to
energize the broader Sunni extremist community, raise resources, and to recruit and
indoctrinate operatives, including for Homeland attacks."

However, note what the NIE says about Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) - that it is the "only . . . known [affiliate] to have expressed a desire to attack the Homeland." Where has AQI ever expressed a desire to "follow us home," as Bush likes to say?

Karen DeYoung and Walter Pincus write in The Washington Post today:

"Although the NIE described al-Qaeda in Iraq as the only al-Qaeda affiliate "known to have expressed a desire to attack the Homeland," administration and intelligence officials yesterday cited only one such reference to that threat -- an audio statement posted in November on the Web site of a British-based Saudi dissident group. In the statement, Abu Hamza al-Muhajer, the al-Qaeda in Iraq leader, threatened to "blow up the filthiest house, which is called the White House."


"The Bush administration has long described al-Qaeda in Iraq as an operational subsidiary to the main al-Qaeda group, though intelligence officials have said the main al-Qaeda organization exercises little control over the Iraq group. Yesterday's NIE suggested that al-Qaeda derives stature from al-Qaeda in Iraq's activities, rather than the other way around."

So the NIE is basing its judgment that Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) wants to attack the U.S. based upon one audio statement, not even video, posted on some Saudi dissident group in the U.K.

Furthermore, note DeYoung and Pincus report that intelligence officials have said that Qaeda's bin Laden and Zawahiri exercise little control over AQI. As a matter of fact, it is AQI that is leading bin Laden by organizing and conducting its insurgency in Iraq, an insurgency that would have never been born if Bush had not first foolishly invaded and occupied a Muslim country.

BUSH SPIN - BIN LADEN DIRECTS QAEDA IN IRAQ

The Bush spin continues trying to tie "Al Qaeda in Iraq" to bin Laden. If a case could be made that bin Laden is directing Qaeda members in Iraq, Bush could justify his meaningless and illegal invasion and war.

In this regard, the BBC reports that the U.S. military claims to have captured a high-level Qaeda in Iraq leader.

"The man was named as Khaled Mashhadani. He was captured earlier in July in the northern city of Mosul, officials said."

According to the BBC, here's what Gen. Kevin Bergner, military spokesman and former Bush White House aide, claims:

"He [Mashhadani] is considered a conduit between Masri, Bin Laden and Zawahiri," Gen Bergner said, referring to the Saudi- and Egyptian-born founders of al-Qaeda, who are thought to be hiding in Afghanistan or Pakistan."

Writes the BBC:

"Correspondents say the announcement will be seen a US attempt to reinforce the idea of non-Iraqi control of al-Qaeda in Iraq, as Islamist insurgents come under pressure from former allies in Iraq's nationalist resistance."

WHO ARE THESE PEOPLE IN THE CIA?

What type of person do we have working for the CIA? The answer is disconcerting and upsetting after reading Michael F. Scheuer's opinion piece today in the Washington Post.

Scheuer's bio says he was the founding head of the CIA's bin Laden unit. His job was to catch or kill Osama bin Laden prior to the attack on 9/11. Scheuer, I think, correctly calls George Tenet to account for trying to shift the blame for that attack. But Scheuer also reveals his own dark side. In trying to get to Osama bin Laden, Scheuer expresses his disdain for innocent civilians who might be killed.

"I did not -- and do not -- care about collateral casualties in such situations, as most of the nearby civilians would be the families that bin Laden's men had brought to a war zone. But Tenet did care. (emphases added) "You can't kill everyone," he would say. That's an admirable humanitarian concern in the abstract, but it does nothing to protect the United States. Indeed, thousands of American families would not be mourning today had there been more ferocity and less sentimentality among the Clinton team."

Okay, let's see how Scheuer would feel if he were one of the "collateral casualties." Scheuer tries to justify this killing in two ways. First, he says most of the civilians would be members of bin Laden's family. Oh, this is a good argument. Children deserve to die because they are merely related to bin Laden? No, this is a baseless and foolish argument. The children and families did nothing wrong. What justifies Scheuer and the CIA in killing them?

Second, Scheuer argues that such collateral killings would be justified if bin Laden himself were killed, thus preventing thousands of American families from losing loved ones in the 9/11 attack. Suppose the CIA reckoned that 1,000 bin Laden family members would be killed. Would Scheuer still justify the killings? Suppose the number were 5,000? Could Scheuer still argue that they should be killed? Then the question becomes are the lives of Americans worth more than the lives of Afghans or Saudis? Apparently Scheuer's ethics would have him answer yes.

I hope Scheuer is not typical of the person who works for the CIA. Otherwise, the United States has a dysfunctional monster running amok in the world.