Entering a post-post-9/11 era...

[TankGirl]

We Must All Do Our Part To Preserve This Climate Of Fear

The last six years have been a golden age of American apprehension and mistrust. Thanks to the events of Sept. 11, 2001, all of America was united, standing shoulder to shoulder in sheer, unrelenting fear. But tragically, that atmosphere of panic and confusion has begun to fade, and without another terrible attack to bond us as a nation, we are dangerously close to entering a post-post-9/11 era.

...

Fear has always made America strong. Were we ever more determined than during the Yellow Scare? When every Christian gentleman lived in mortal terror of his daughter being doped up on opium and raped by pagan, mustachioed Chinamen? What about the Red Scare, when citizens from all walks of life showed their pride by turning in their friends and associates to rabid anticommunists? Has America ever been more resolute?

[Nicobie]

China men?

I think that the USA has gotten lazy.

Wait until their big TV's & microwaves cost what it really takes the yellow (asian) people to produce.

Then U'll see them pitch a bitch.

The EU might already be there.

There is absolutely zero socialized anything in the yellow nations. Unless you count getting a transitor radio when getting u're tubes cut.

[Nicobie]

I guess that I am right then.

whats'a a perp to do?




It's either vote or revolt


U're one if youdo or whatever.......

[multi]

The Collapse of the Second Front

The Pan-Sahel Initiative

In January 2004, following earlier visits from the U.S. Office of Counterterrorism to Chad, Mali, Mauritania, and Niger, Bush's Pan-Sahel Initiative (PSI) rolled into action with the arrival of a U.S. “anti-terror team” in Nouakchott, Mauritania's capital. U.S. Deputy Undersecretary of State Pamela Bridgewater confirmed that the team comprised 500 U.S. troops and a deployment of 400 U.S. Rangers into the Chad-Niger border region the following week. (In 2005, the PSI expanded to include Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco, Senegal, and Nigeria, and the organization became the Trans-Saharan Counter-Terrorism Initiative).

By the end of January, Algerian and Malian forces, reportedly with U.S. support, were said to have driven the GSPC from northern Mali. Then, in a series of engagements, a combined military operation of Niger and Algerian forces, supported by U.S. satellite surveillance, chased El Para's men across the Tamesna, Aïr, and Tenere regions of Niger into the Tibesti Mountains of Chad. There, thanks to the support of U.S. aerial reconnaissance, Chadian forces engaged the GSPC in early March in a battle lasting three days, reportedly killing 43 GSPC. El Para managed to escape the carnage but fell into the hands of a Chadian rebel movement. This group held him hostage until October 2004 when he was returned to Algeria, allegedly with the help of Libya. In June 2005, an Algerian court convicted him in absentia of “creating an armed terrorist group and spreading terror among the population.” It sentenced El Para to life imprisonment.

Within a year, the United States and its allies had transformed the Sahara-Sahel region into a second front in the global “war on terror.” Prior to the hostage-taking in March 2003, no act of terror, in the conventional meaning of the term, had occurred in this vast region. Yet, by the following year, U.S. military commanders were describing terrorists as “swarming” across the Sahel and the region as a “Swamp of Terror.” The area was, in the words of European Command's deputy commander General Charles F. Wald, a “terrorist infestation” that “we need to drain.” Stewart M. Powell, writing in Air Force Magazine, claimed that the Sahara “is now a magnet for terrorists.” Typical of the media hype were articles in the Village Voice such as “Pursuing Terrorists in the Great Desert.”

But the incidents used to justify the launch of this new front in the “war on terror” were either fiction, in that they simply did not happen, or fabricated by U.S. and Algerian military intelligence services. El Para was not “Bin Laden's man in the Sahara,” but an agent of Algeria's counter-terrorist organization, the Direction des Renseignements et de la Sécurité. Many Algerians believe him to have been trained as a Green Beret at Fort Bragg in the 1990s. Almost every Algerian statement issued during the course of the hostage drama has now been proven to be false. No combined military force chased El Para and his men across the Sahel. El Para was not even with his men as they stumbled around the Aïr Mountains in search of a guide and having themselves photographed by tourists. As for the much-lauded battle in Chad, there is no evidence that it happened. Leaders of the Chadian rebel movement say it never occurred, while nomads, after two years of scratching around in the area, have still not found a single cartridge case or other material evidence.

How and why did such a deception take place? The “how” is simple. First, the Algerian and U.S. military intelligence services channeled a stream of disinformation to an industry of terrorism “experts,” conservative ideologues, and compliant journalists who produced a barrage of articles. Second, if a story is to be fabricated, it helps if the location is far away and remote. The Sahara is the perfect place: larger than the United States and effectively closed to public access.

The “why” has much to do with Washington's “banana theory” of terrorism, so named because of the banana-shaped route Washington believed the dislodged terrorists from Afghanistan were taking into Africa and across the Sahelian countries of Chad, Niger, Mali, and Mauritania to link up with Islamist militants in the Maghreb. Hard evidence for this theory was lacking. There was little or no Islamic extremism in the Sahel, no indigenous cases of terrorism, and no firm evidence that “terrorists” from Afghanistan, Pakistan, or the Middle East were taking this route.

Washington appears to have based its notion on some unpublished sources and Algerian press reports on the banditry and smuggling activities of the outlaw Mokhtar ben Mokhtar. It also misconstrued the Tablighi Jama`at movement, whose 200 or so members in Mali are nicknamed “the Pakistanis” because the sect's headquarters are in Pakistan. Finally, local government agents told U.S. officials what they wanted to hear.

Notwithstanding the lack of evidence, Washington saw a Saharan Front as the linchpin for the militarization of Africa, greater access to its oil resources (Africa will supply 25% of U.S. hydrocarbons by 2015), and the sustained involvement of Europe in America's counterterrorism program. More significantly, a Saharan front reinforced the intelligence cherry-picked by top Pentagon brass to justify the invasion of Iraq by demonstrating that al-Qaida's influence had spread to North Africa.

http://www.fpif.org/fpiftxt/3544




Bush's African tour highlights U.S. long-term strategic interests

[malvachat]

And they wonder why they're hated around the world.
I feel sorry for the average American.
They deserve better.

[multi]

They deserve better beer also

[Nicobie]

Originally Posted by multi

They deserve better beer also

If you haven't ever bought and quarfed a 12/12oz Keystone Light (that retails for $5.59 inc.) wirh a friend, you are pissing away your money and don't know squat about anything else either.

U got to draw the line some where ~~~~~

[multi]

ahaha

I was joking.

[jcmd62]

Originally Posted by malvachat

And they wonder why they're hated around the world.
I feel sorry for the average American.
They deserve better.

And you wonder why we threw the fukin tea party..........

We deserve better allies.

[malvachat]

Originally Posted by jcmd62

And you wonder why we threw the fukin tea party..........

We deserve better allies.

That's the whole point right there.
You don't listen to your friends.

[albed]

We listen to them run out on us whenever things get tough.

[jcmd62]

Originally Posted by malvachat

That's the whole point right there.
You don't listen to your friends.

The point was.....We stopped listening to you tell us what to do quite a long time ago.

You are now our alliies, you either support us or you don't. You don't tell us what to do, nor are we obligated to listen when you still try.

As for support........The UK has supported us in practically every endeavour we have undertaken, even when it was to the disdain of spineless hypocritical citizens like you.

With friends like you........Who needs terrorists.

Now that your eyes are open......Try pulling that smug head out of your pompous ass.

[Nicobie]

I'd like to see a pic of a pompous arse...

Don't fuck with Malva too much as he/she is one of the good ones here. Much better than me and could be cuter than 2dog too.

dawn

[albed]

I'd like to see a pic of a pompous arse...

.

[multi]

A harmless hilarity and a buoyant cheerfulness are not infrequent concomitants of genius, and we are never more deceived than when we mistake gravity for greatness, solemnity for science, and pomposity for erudition. — Charles Caleb Colton (1780-1832)


Coming from the 3 most pretentious ,conceited assholes on the board it means very little........very little

Thankfully many of us not from the US understand the majority of folks there are nothing like you....

[jcmd62]

Originally Posted by multi

A harmless hilarity and a buoyant cheerfulness............

Aww shucks multi.....I always knew you were one of my biggest fans. Thanks for the compliment.

Although I think you were a bit tough on albed, nic, and malvachat.

[malvachat]

Originally Posted by jcmd62

The point was.....We stopped listening to you tell us what to do quite a long time ago.

You are now our alliies, you either support us or you don't. You don't tell us what to do, nor are we obligated to listen when you still try.

As for support........The UK has supported us in practically every endeavour we have undertaken, even when it was to the disdain of spineless hypocritical citizens like you.

With friends like you........Who needs terrorists.

Now that your eyes are open......Try pulling that smug head out of your pompous ass.

Interesting.

"We stopped listening to you tell us what to do quite a long time ago."
"you either support us or you don't."
"spineless hypocritical citizens like you."
"Try pulling that smug head out of your pompous ass."

All from this.
"And they wonder why they're hated around the world.
I feel sorry for the average American.
They deserve better."

People will make they're own mind up who's the.

"smug" "pompous ass."

I'm getting good at this copy and paste thing.
I just wish I knew some really credible sites to do it from.
I'm still waiting for a list.
I guess it must be with his medal.

That's a few years old that picture.
Here's one from Christmas just gone.
With my favourite beer.

[jcmd62]

Originally Posted by malvachat

Interesting.
All from this.
"And they wonder why they're hated around the world.
I feel sorry for the average American.
They deserve better."

People will make they're own mind up who's the.

"smug" "pompous ass."

Wow.......Now I'm interesting.....yet another fan.

What can I say.........Anyone who thinks they can speak for "THE WORLD", proclaims his "PITY" for the "AVERAGE" American, then proceeds to tell us what we "DESERVE"...........

I think "smug pompous ass" was being nice.......

.......and why just "average" Americans? Why no pity for the "below average" or "above average" American? Do they not "deserve" an invitation to your "holier than thou" "pity party"?

I am quite confident that anyone who doesn't also have their "smug heads" shoved up their "pompous asses", wil see what a "smug pompous ass" remark it was.

........and somehow I still don't think I used "smug pompous ass" or "quotation marks" enough in this post. Wait...........I think I'll rush out and reserve the domain "www.smugpompousass.com", just so I can start posting a collection of "smug pompous ass" remarks by "smug pompous asses" like yourself.

[malvachat]

:ka: :ka: :ka:

[Nicobie]

God damn it...

Send me u're pics and let me carve them. I never post other (or mine for that matter) pics on the web.

I'm selling the machine and would like for everyone to get a carving. They are8" x 10".

No charge, I will pay for the postage too (it's cheap).

Last chance DILLWEEDS.