More Bloodshed

Afghanistan and Pakistan suffer further. Of course it's been happening for a while, but I felt it worthy of a brief post, in relation to my earlier post on Iraq.

In Pakistan, it was Orna Guerin from the BBC who fronted for pictures of death and destruction after a bomb blast killed more than 90 people. The bomber "parked his car outside a mosque" apparently, which is interesting to hear - no evidence it was necessarily a suicide bomber. It would have been interesting to know if any notables were killed, but this was apparently a very soft civilian target.

The online account from Reuters said no one has claimed responsibility, but blame immediate fell upon the Taliban. Naturally.

But that makes no sense. Killing your own people, undermining your own support base in a time when therre are foreign forces rampaging through your country? Crazy - but, ah, yes: a story we in the West have become used to hearing.

Just for a quick check, let's go through the other possible suspects:

"Al-Qaeda" - Hmm, these guys usually claim responsibility, with some frown-worthy digital transmission. Motive? The ever-successful plan of taking over the world with an Islamic Jihad, based on the brilliant strategy of blowing up your own people.
Maybe that's why the mighty octopus with arms and cells all across the world has dropped off the radar lately.

Other previously unknown terrorist group: Well, if it's a publicity stunt, they'd do well to put out a press release. Or some statement of their cause. Maybe they've got lazy because the US Department of Defense usually writes them for them. Otherwise they fall into the "Amazingly well-resourced Crazies" Al-Qaeda basket.

Pakistan Military or Intelligence (ISI): Ahh, now we're getting somewhere. Resources? Check. Motive? Pleasing their American funders, check. Justifying military incursion, check. Justifying their internal authority in the struggle with the democratic government, check. Eroding the support base for the "Taliban in Pakistan" (read, anyone who opposes Pakistan's role in the War since 9/11) by vilifying them, check. Maybe there was even a specific leader killed in the blast.
This is entirely in line with the strategy of stalwarts of the War on Terror, such as Indonesian Intelligence, who have a long history of supporting terror in their own country to justify moving their military into disputed regions.

CIA black-ops or NATO/US sponsored mercenaries: yes, it could even have been NZ's own SAS, we don't know. Motive? For all the reasons above. But with the ISI being so compliant, I don't think it would have been necessary. First rule of Colonialism is let the natives do the work where you can.

False-flag Terror group: this is where native mercenaries are paid to act like a terror group. Motive? For all the reasons above. See "First Rule of Colonialism" above, and the entire digital existence of the Amazing Al-Zarqawi and Al-Qaeda in Iraq.

Taliban: Or of course, this "Taliban" problem that has popped up in Pakistan, particularly since US troops started redeploying from Iraq. Crazy, crazy, Taliban. See "Al Qaeda", above.

And of course, lets not forget the Kabul shooting.
Interesting that Reuters let the copy read as "a blast", when it was in fact a targeted shooting of UN officials and foreigners. The TV report I saw admitted "this was incredibly unlike the Taliban and daring" but justified by saying it showed how insecure the situation in Kabul is, and it was an attack in the lead up to the presidential run-off.

Maybe, although it shows poor tactics. It is crucial with shootings to know who the victims were, what they were doing. The UN always comes under attack, because occupying armies do not want them and local resistance see them as soft targets who are facilitating the occupation.
Needless to say, the shooting could have been committed by any of the groups above, or their equivalents.

It is worth pointing out that the American commander of the region is now General Stan McChrystal. To have a beer and a laugh with the General, go here. Otherwise, let's end with a quote from Global Research about this little smiler:

McChrystal was a special favorite of Rumsfeld and Cheney because he was in charge of the ‘direct action' forces of the ‘Special Missions Units. ‘Direct Action' operative are the death-squads and torturers and their only engagement with the local population is to terrorize, and not to propagandize. They engage in ‘propaganda of the dead', assassinating local leaders to ‘teach' the locals to obey and submit to the occupation. Obama's appointment of McChrystal as head reflects a grave new military escalation of his Afghanistan war in the face of the advance of the resistance throughout the country.

Ah well. Sorry, sorry... if I manage to keep away from the news, hopefully my next post will be more heartening.

Neo-colonial Iraq still a Mystery

As an event, the two explosions just outside Baghdad's government Green Zone on Monday (NZ time) leaving 155 dead, hundreds more injured, was impossible for global media to ignore.

That does not mean, we have seen, that they know what to say about it.

The TV ONE report had little story to go with its pictures. One shot was from one of those increasingly common, frown-worthy "impromptu" snaps from a cell phone camera, catching the moment of explosion perfectly in frame before the obligatory shaking. In the age of digital media and "social networking waves", we can never be too cynical about where such footage comes from. Not when there is a war being waged.

Of course, we haven't heard much of Iraq, lately - more about Afghanistan and Pakistan, which together form the three active theatres for US troops and their allies encircling Iran - which coincidentally had a very precise "bomb attack" on its border armed forces recently.
Wikipedia is a grossly unreliable source for such events, but I notice the battle of narrative there shifts back and forth between a bomb attack and a suicide attack. The difference, in all such explosions, is significant.

So after months of "relative quiet" where the "Surge" and "Handover" are supposed to have mostly established order, and the focus has been on the colonising army's withdrawal, the press have lost the thread of what story they are supposed to tell.
The TV ONE reporter didn't know who perpetrated the crime, and as usual, who was killed, although government offices were targeted. He didn't know "why". Almost meekly, he used the word "insurgents", just once, but enough to attribute the blame. The word that filled in his report nicely because the story there is so obvious, bedded into the years and years of narrative they've already laid down.
And fially, the tell-tale of a reporter with no clue what to say, we see him walking down a nice Baghdad market street that might have been the Riviera, exclaiming at what a "contradiction" the massive explosion made.

A contradiction? Or rather, is it the consequence of a chain of events, a story, the press has not been following.

So who perpetrated the criminal blast? The simple and plain fact is the media, and we the general public, don't know. As we almost always don't know, but are led to believe otherwise by the story that we have become used to hearing, wrapped around a pile of bodies after a blast. When there is no wrap-around press statement issued - usually from the White House or Pentagon, those authorities that the Western media respects - the news product ends up like last night: Bland, factless almost, and directionless; pointless, no matter how they tried to dress it up.
Which is almost any story from a war zone should be.

It is no lie that the first casualty of war is truth. Stories are crucial, and those with power seize them to their end. And the whole world has been subject to a creeping "Long War" since 9/11.

*

Back to the Baghdad blast, there are still questions that can be raised from it, and the tips of some are observable in this Reuters report.

First, from my observation of the war, the scale of this blast points to high-grade explosives. The Bali bombs, for instance, were very sophisticated military-grade devices, resulting in 200 victims. Detonations of such scale are rare because of skill in the construction and access to resources. Anything over fifty dead, even twenty, raises a flag for me.

Second, the methods were car/van. Iraqi government says two suicide drivers. Other reports say just a car and van.
As above, this is crucial. It does not take a suicidal martyr to make a car or truck bomb. There is substantial evidence from within Iraq that Coalition black ops teams used that very means to intimidate and eliminate local opposition and fuel "ethnic" or tribal tensions, Just as they are operating in Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan now. Making the world safer. That is what Black ops does.

Compounding this, over the period of Iraq's recolonisation there have been reports of Iraqi Government forces and "Wolf" militias doing this very same thing, after being trained by American forces. Like any good colonial government, they have learnt that this is an acceptable use of power in a time of strife.

This is where the key question in the story comes in, the one that is nearly always lost in the global media's story, because if you look too close you can find a much clearer motive.
So much has been explained away in Iraq as "ethnic conflict", and "Baath party hold-outs" where that story does not fit - not to mention the Amazing Digital Existence of "Al Qaeda in Iraq's" Al-Zarqawi. It is notable that Iraq expert Robert Fisk absolutely rejects any historical basis to Iraq's supposed Shi-Sunni ethnic conflict.
Nonetheless, for so long when people die, they are designated as Sunni and Shi'ite. Yet that is so often just part of a story - where they scholars? Were they scholars associated by a desire to organise a popular movement? Were they all killed in similar fashion, execution style? Was one a particularly respected local leader?
All stories, questions lost, under the ethnic blanket.

The fact these latest attacks were so close to the government district suggests they were made by a group with access to not only skills and resources, but contacts in (if not part of) the centre of power, as well as some dissatisfaction with some evolving political trend or upcoming decision. None of that suggests "fringe wacky-backy insurgents" to me.

Besides whatever laws are before the occupied nation's parliament, the most significant development I know of is the upcoming withdrawal of US from Baghdad, then from Iraq the next year. The attack may be an early strike by forces looking to assert authority once the country is no longer under direct threat of foreign force. Or, with things so "peaceful" and the American-built walls coming down across the city, it may be an attack designed to "convince" the American forces to stay.

Like good journalists, we'll not prejudge, but wait to see if further attacks occur, and what stories are spun to explain them.