- The pattern has been consistent and obvious. Every news
report or scandal that has been detrimental to the Bush/Anglo-American
war agenda has been followed, within hours, with shocking executions (real
and staged) that are attributed to "terrorist insurgents,"
despite
questionable circumstances, non-verifiable evidence and unreliable sources,
such as "unnamed" intelligence and military officials.
-
- The parties responsible for these acts have not and
likely
will not be identified, thanks in large part to deliberate US/Pentagon
blackouts of reporting from war zones, and disinformation-laden and
Bush-controlled
corporate media.
-
- What is clear, regardless of the identities of the
perpetrators,
is that the results have exclusively benefited the US/Bush administration
war machine, while completely undermining the political and public
relations
objectives of anti-US/anti-occupation opposition movements and groups.
The methods used in the kidnapping and murder of Margaret Hassan, Nick
Berg and others neatly fit the profile of classic western intelligence
and counterinsurgency operations.
-
- Margaret Hassan
-
- Reports of the genocidal mass murder, atrocities and
war crimes now being committed by US forces in Fallujah (also see
dispatches
by Dahr Jamail from Iraq) have been "countered" by a video of
the apparent execution of Margaret Hassan, a CARE relief official who was
beloved and respected by Iraqis and non-Iraqis alike. This act, blamed
on insurgents, has prompted outrage among Iraqis against rebel
fighters.
-
- But was the Hassan killing part of a British intelligence
operation? An account by a Jordanian journalist:
-
- "The British have tried to insure against any
potential
backlash from the general public and its own Labour MP's (in the event
things go badly wrong) by instructing its agents on the ground inside Iraq
to kidnap Margaret Hassan, the Care International charity worker.
-
- "The recent communiqué from the Mujaahideen
has exposed the British insurance policy and has denied any JTJ involvement
in the kidnapping. The kidnapping will send the message to the British
public that the Iraqi resistance is comprised of monsters and serial
murderers-and
there can be no response other than wiping them from the face of the
earth-thereby
prolonging the redeployment of the British troops in the region near
Baghdad."
-
- Indeed, the kidnapping and execution of Hassan make no
sense, except as an intelligence operation by US, British or US-allied
operatives:
-
- "But why would the resistance kidnap somebody who
has provided humanitarian assistance to the people of Iraq for 25 years?
Is it possible the Iraqi resistance wants to deny the Iraqi people
humanitarian
assistance? Of course not. In America, the corporate media answers the
above question every day-the Iraqi resistance is fanatical, murderous,
nothing more than a loose confederation of terrorists, criminals, Islamic
madmen, demented sadists who blow up car bombs in crowded market squares
and kill women and children, their own neighbors. However, there is another
possible explanation: the kidnapping of Margaret Hassan is part of a
counterinsurgency
operation devised to make the resistance look bad and thus turn world
opinion
against it."
-
- For over 20 years, Hassan herself was one of the most
powerful voices on the humanitarian crisis in Iraq. And recently, she was
a critic of the occupation. In a previous videotape, Hassan pleaded for
the British to get out of Iraq. She was a public relations
liability.
-
- Toretta and Pari Kidnappings
-
- In September 2004, two young Italian humanitarian aid
workers, Simona Toretta and Simona Pari, were kidnapped under suspicious
circumstances. This was blamed on insurgents and/or terrorists connected
to Zarqawi.
-
- According to an investigation by the UK Guardian, Iraqi
insurgents were not behind the kidnapping of the two Italian aid
workers:
-
- "The Guardian said the kidnapping of Simona Torretta
and Simona Pari has the mark of an undercover foreign operation in a bid
to discredit the unabated Iraqi resistance against US occupation
forces.
-
- "The mass-circulation newspaper adds more suspicion
on foreign involvement in the operation as it was carried out only few
meters from the heavily patrolled Green Zone with no interference from
Iraqi police or US military.
-
- "The Guardian maintains that the weapons used in
the operation were more sophisticated than those usually used by the Iraqi
resistance as the kidnappers used AK-47s, shotguns and pistols with
silencers
and stun guns, while the Iraqi resistance fighters always use the rusty
Kalashnikovs.
-
- "Most striking, according to the British daily,
the kidnappers wore Iraqi National Guard uniforms and identified themselves
as working for [Iraqi Prime Minister] Iyad Allawi."
-
- Nick Berg Execution
-
- In the spring of 2004, Nick Berg was "executed"
by US or US-allied intelligence operatives to divert attention from the
torture scandals at Abu Ghraib.
-
- There is also ample evidence that the videotaped
execution
of Nicholas Berg in the spring of 2004 was a complete fabrication, based
on a detailed analysis by La Voz de Aztlan. Despite this, and other
debunkings,
the Berg beheading remains a lurid image that prompts
"anti-terrorist"
hatred.
-
- Daniel Pearl
-
- The killing of journalist Daniel Pearl was similarly
twisted to benefit the "war on terrorism" propaganda, and to
ignite fury against alleged al-Qaeda terrorists involved in the 9/11
attacks.
-
- Just as Margaret Hassan was a public relations problem
that needed to be nipped in the bud, Pearl was a nuisance. He had been
pursuing links between terrorism, terrorist groups and intelligence
agencies,
and was going after Pakistan's ISI (a virtual CIA branch), shortly before
he was murdered.
-
- The mushrooming Post-9/11 Nightmare
-
- It is clear that most, if not all, of the
conveniently-timed
kidnappings and executions, false terror alerts, Osama Bin Laden videos,
"al-Qaeda" arrests, constant Zarqawi drumbeat (also see
here)-have
been staged and exploited for Anglo-American war propaganda, timed in order
to 1) distract from the truth of unilateral Anglo-American aggression,
2) turn world opinion against those resisting US-led war and occupation,
and3) maintain the fear, shock and hate-based myth of "terrorism"
and "the fanatical outside enemy."
-
- At the same time, what cannot be ignored is that violent
outrage on the part of the victims of US-led aggression will spiral out
of control-if it has not already. As US-led aggression has continued to
escalate, it has driven its victims to increasingly desperate acts of
resistance
and self-preservation. By design.
-
- As Mike Ruppert writes in Crossing the Rubicon:
"Even
if there weren't [terrorists] before 9/11 (and there were), the US has
gone out of its way to create animosity against this country that is in
full flower all over the globe." From the "war on terrorism"
to the bombing, invasion and occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq. From
the massacre at Mazar-I-Sharif to the torture cells of Guantanamo Bay and
Abu Ghraib. Today in Iraq, American soldiers are killing with fanatical
bloodlust--grotesquely demonstrated by the daily slaughter in Fallujah,
the mosque murders, and the earlier incidents such as the "mercy
killing"
of innocent Iraqis unloading a garbage truck.
-
- In this nightmarish world of endless and expanding war,
and continuous cycles of provocation and response, it becomes difficult,
if not impossible, to distinguish the brutality of criminal aggressors
from acts of resistance to this aggression. Just as Israel and Palestine
have been locked into unending cycles of unpredictable and uncontrollable
violence for decades, the entire world, lit by the 9/11 "war on
terrorism"
powder keg, is set for the same.
-
- This war, and the propaganda that fuels it, must be
stopped.
-
- _____
-
- Larry Chin is a freelance journalist and an Online
Journal
Associate Editor.
-
- The views expressed herein are the writers' own and do
not necessarily reflect those of Online Journal. Email
editor@onlinejournal.com
-
- Copyright © 1998-2004 Online Journal All rights
reserved. You may not alter or remove any trademark, copyright or other
notice from copies of the content.
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