January 12, 2010 “Information Clearing House” — “We are at war. We are at war against al Qaeda, a far-reaching network of violence and hatred that attacked us on 9/11, that killed nearly 3,000 innocent people and that is plotting to strike us again.”

Thus did Barack Obama clear the air as to whether we are at war, and with whom and why.

Following his remarks, during a White House briefing by National Security Council aide John Brennan,Helen Thomas asked a follow-up question to which we almost never hear an answer:

Why is al Qaeda at war with us? What is its motivation?

It was Osama bin Laden himself, in his declaration of war in 1998, published in London, who gave al Qaeda’s reasons for war:

First, the U.S. military presence on the sacred soil of Saudi Arabia. Second, U.S. sanctions causing terrible suffering among the Iraqi people. Third, U.S. support for Israel’s dispossession of the Palestinians. “All these crimes and sins committed by the Americans are a clear declaration of war on God, his Messenger and Muslims,” said Osama.

He began his fatwa quoting the Koran: “But when the forbidden months are past, then fight and slay the pagans wherever ye find them, seize them, beleaguer them, and lie in wait for them in every stratagem of war.”

To Osama, we started the war. Muslims, the ulema, must fight because America, with her “brutal crusade occupation of the (Arabian) Peninsula” and support for “the Jews’ petty state” and “occupation of Jerusalem and murder of Muslims there” was waging war upon the Islamic world.

Terrorism, the direct killing of civilians for political ends, is al Qaeda’s unconventional tactic, but its war aims are quite conventional.

Al Qaeda is fighting a religious war against apostates and pagans in their midst, a civil war against collaborators of the Crusaders and an anti-colonial war to drive us out of the Dar al-Islam. On Sept. 11, they were over here — because we are over there.

Nothing justifies the massacre of Sept. 11. But these are the political goals behind the 9/11 attack, and this is why Islamists fare well in elections in the Middle East. Tens of millions of Muslims, who may despise terrorism, identify with the causes for which Osama declared war — liberation of Muslim peoples from pro-American autocrats and Israeli occupiers.

Americans are being killed for the reasons Osama said we should be killed — not because of who we are, but because of where we are and what we do.

Consider. America lost 4,000 soldiers in six years in Iraq, with 30,000 wounded. Yet not one American of the 125,000 soldiers in Iraq was killed in December. Why not? Because we no longer conduct raids, patrol streets, kick down doors and pat down suspects. We have ended our combat operations, withdrawn to desert bases and seem anxious to go home. When we stopped fighting and killing them, they stopped fighting and killing us.

Most Americans today appear content to let Shia and Sunni, Arab and Kurd decide the future of Iraq. And if they cannot settle their quarrels without a civil-sectarian war, why should their war be our war?

According to Gen. Barry McCaffrey, we must now prepare for 300 to 500 dead and wounded every month in Afghanistan by summer.

Why are the Taliban killing our soldiers? Because we threw them out of power, took over their country and imposed the Hamid Karzai regime, and our troops, some 100,000 by fall, are the force preventing them from recapturing their country. We will bleed in Afghanistan as long as we are in Afghanistan.

But if, as Obama said, “we are at war with al Qaeda,” why are we fighting Taliban when al Qaeda is in Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia and North Africa?

Hamas has used terrorism, but not against us. Hezbollah has used terrorism, but not against us since the bombing of the Marine barracks, a quarter-century ago. And our Marines were attacked in Lebanon because we were in Lebanon, intervening in their civil-sectarian war. Had the Marines not been sent into the midst of that war, they would not have been targeted.

When Ronald Reagan withdrew them, the attacks stopped.

Like Europe’s Thirty Years’ War — among Germans, French, Czechs, Dutch, Danes, Swedes, Scots and English, Catholics and Protestants, kings, princes and emperors — the Muslim world is roiled by conflicts between pro-Western autocrats and Islamic militants, Sunni and Shia, modernists and obscurantists, nationalities, tribes and clans. The outcome of these wars, the future of their lands — is that not their business, and not ours?

The Muslims stayed out of our Thirty Years’ War. Perhaps we would do well to get out of theirs. But as long as we take sides in their wars, those we fight and kill over there will come to kill us over here.

This is payback for our intervention. This is the price of empire. This is the cost of the long war.

Source: War On You

Other stories at We Are Change Colorado Springs

The Foiled terrorist plot is a perfect opportunity for a Fascist Police State

One Day We’ll All be Terrorists

Can We Rescue the Republic Before the Dark Politics Take Over?

Google doesn’t say it outright, but it’s pretty clear to me they’re blamely the cyber attack on the Chinese govt. And Google is not amused. (Emphasis added)

[W]e have evidence to suggest that a primary goal of the attackers was accessing the Gmail accounts of Chinese human rights activists. Based on our investigation to date we believe their attack did not achieve that objective. Only two Gmail accounts appear to have been accessed, and that activity was limited to account information (such as the date the account was created) and subject line, rather than the content of emails themselves.

Third, as part of this investigation but independent of the attack on Google, we have discovered that theaccounts of dozens of U.S.-, China- and Europe-based Gmail users who are advocates of human rights in China appear to have been routinely accessed by third parties. These accounts have not been accessed through any security breach at Google, but most likely via phishing scams or malware placed on the users’ computers….

We launched Google.cn in January 2006 in the belief that the benefits of increased access to information for people in China and a more open Internet outweighed our discomfort in agreeing to censor some results. At the time we made clear that “we will carefully monitor conditions in China, including new laws and other restrictions on our services. If we determine that we are unable to achieve the objectives outlined we will not hesitate to reconsider our approach to China.”

These attacks and the surveillance they have uncovered–combined with the attempts over the past year to further limit free speech on the web–have led us to conclude that we should review the feasibility of our business operations in China. We have decided we are no longer willing to continue censoring our results on Google.cn, and so over the next few weeks we will be discussing with the Chinese government the basis on which we could operate an unfiltered search engine within the law, if at all. We recognize that this may well mean having to shut down Google.cn, and potentially our offices in China.

The decision to review our business operations in China has been incredibly hard, and we know that it will have potentially far-reaching consequences. We want to make clear that this move was driven by our executives in the United States, without the knowledge or involvement of our employees in China who have worked incredibly hard to make Google.cn the success it is today. We are committed to working responsibly to resolve the very difficult issues raised.

Google basically just told China to go f itself.

Source: AmericaBlog

Other stories at We Are change Colorado Springs

Yahoo Threatens Cryptome Over Leaked Surveillance Document

Global treaty could throw file-sharers off Internet after ‘three strikes’

The Obama Justice Department’s Secret Blogging Team… Is it Illegal?

Every time the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) fails to protect aviation, as it did when it allowed Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab to board a plane Christmas Day, it punishes passengers with further restrictions and humiliations. Now the agency wants to virtually strip-search us with whole-body imagers. These gizmos peer through clothing to the skin beneath so that we appear naked on the monitor.

Even passengers who most fear terrorism might object that exposing ourselves to government agents is too high a price for safe skies. It’s also ineffective. Whole-body imaging, like all technology, ultimately relies on human operators — like the ones who missed the many and obvious signs that Abdulmutallab was planning more than a fun-filled vacation in Detroit.

The TSA already subjects your carry-on bags to X-ray scanning that penetrates the “skin” to show what’s beneath. Yet screeners routinely fail to discern the guns, knives, and other contraband their monitors show. Sometimes undercover federalinvestigators are smuggling those weapons to test screeners; other times, passengers who’ve forgotten the pistol or ammunition in their knapsack turn themselves in when they reach their gate. Expecting screeners who overlook the hunting knife beside a paperback novel to find the explosives taped near a woman’s… Well, let’s just say the distractions of whole-body imaging are considerably greater than anything in the average carry-on.

The TSA continues to insist that it protects our privacy even as it virtually strips us naked. But its spurious fig leaves may work against the success of its peep-show. The agency’s website assures us that “The officer who views the image is remotely located, in a secure resolution room and never sees the passenger.”

Journalist Charles Leocha of Consumer Traveler “had an opportunity to step into the small video viewing room manned by a single TSA officer” at Reagan National Airport. He estimates the space as measuring “5-feet by 5-feet, a big telephone booth really … one wall [was lined] with a table with a monitor, keyboard and communications equipment and a government-issue desk chair. The monitor being used had about a 17-inch screen… ..” He concludes that fatigue will be an even bigger occupational hazard than distraction: “For me a half-hour shift in this cell would be 30 minutes alone in hell.”

Still, the TSA should have no shortage of eager applicants. Being paid to view naked men, women, and children certainly reverses the usual arrangement and will no doubt appeal to a great many folks — the sort Leviathan otherwise locks up. In Britain the Guardian reports that “Ministers now face having to exempt under 18s from the scans or face the delays of introducing new legislation to ensure airport security staff do not commit offences under child pornography laws.” How long until American parents demand similar exemptions? And when they do, will that rescue the rest of us from our compulsive strip-tease since terrorists would then naturally recruit kids? Or will the TSA continue to humiliate us out of bureaucratic inertia and power-lust?

There’s a far simpler, constitutional, and less offensive way to protect aviation than photographing two million passengers in their birthday suits each day: Free the airlines from the federal government’s stranglehold on security. Let each company determine what works best for its routes, customers, and specific risks. Does anyone seriously believe that politicians and bureaucrats know more about securing planes than pilots and executives who’ve spent their lives in the industry? Even baggage handlers could give Congress a lesson in preventing terrorists from hiding bombs in checked luggage — yet the Feds dictate to them instead.

Indeed, federal regulations enabled the 9/11 attackers to kill Americans in the first place. Screeners working that tragic day were “private,” it’s true, but only in the sense that private companies hired them and issued their paychecks. Everything those screeners did, from wanding passengers to confiscating knives while permitting box-cutters, came from the Federal Aviation Administration’s (FAA) playbook. Had each airline set its own policies, had it relied on serious security rather than the charade that satisfies political pretenses, 3,000 people might be alive today.

Returning responsibility for protecting its customers and inventory to the airlines also keeps everyone happy. Passengers who will rest easy only when we all fly naked can patronize See Everything Airways, with its motto No Place to Hide… Anything. Those who prize dignity and convenience over safety may prefer Tough Guy Air, where pilots not only arm themselves but also welcome passengers to pack heat as well. Since profits nosedive after any attempted skyjacking, let alone terrorism, airlines have all the incentive we could ask to institute practical, effective security.

The government failed to prevent 9/11, failed to thwart shoe-bomber Richard Reid, and failed to intercept Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab. Isn’t it time we entrusted our safety to professionals rather than politicians?

Source: Campaign For Liberty

Other stories at We Are Change Colorado Springs

Now Mobile Devices Will Scan Your Naked Body On The Streets

Body Scanner Waves Tear Apart DNA

Privacy activists score victories against more detailed body scanners at airports