Militarily, if nec., the US could level the state with enough Air power. It is not one of those wars, as we know.

These people-it was not so long ago when dealt with Russia and the US-and now again with the US-they are hardened, their lives are hard, it is their land.

People make the comparisons to Vietnam. The one big difference is the lack of a fighting population on the same level as the South. There is just not the same level and that is extemly disturbing.

In addition to the lives and blood fed into that country, it is not a far fetched thought that this involvement could lead to more horror that 9-11.

I just do not see a big swing in the state, region, a wave of love towards the US and the rest of it.
The entire two front war, most in the US wondering what they will get for Christmas, those unemployed and broke, def. not a serious war push in the states-the Dec 1st wait.

This country has been pouring money into wasted countries for decades because some believed it was in the best interest of the US, fighting communism, terrorism, promoting Democracy and the rest of it-just pouring money into two hell holes and empowering those who hate us anyway.

"Urban og andre organisatorer (Les CIA) spredte et rykte blant demonstrantene om at en 19 år gammel matematikkstudent, navngitt som Martin Šmíd, var blitt brutalt drept av politiet."

Lukter CIA lang vei her ja...
http://www.nyu.cz/pidec/documents/participants-bio/jan-urban

Finally I have indisputable documentary evidence that the British government had a positive policy of using intelligence from torture in the War on Terror, and that the policy was personally directed by Jack Straw.

Here are the minutes of the meeting at which I was told this:

Download file

All references to the CIA and MI6 have been literally cut out, but the meaning is still perfectly unmistakeable particularly given the heading of the minute.

And here is the absolute smoking gun of Jack Straw's involvement::

Download file

Straw has been lying about this for five years. He dismissed my evidence on this to the Parliamenary Joint Committee on Human Rights as "Entirely untrue".

http://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2009/10/either_craig_mu.html#comments

Straw ruined my career over my opposition to torture intelligence, after I had been appointed Ambassador by his predecessor, Robin Cook, who was rather more well disposed towards human rights. It is wonderful that it is Robin Cook's Freedom of Information Act which I have used to finally prove beyond any doubt that slippery Straw was up to his neck in approving intelligence from torture.

Minutes available as a JPEG here:
http://www.edavies.nildram.co.uk/2009/11/torture/

 

• Italian court convicts Robert Lady and 23 others in absentia

• First prosecution for US abduction of suspects to torture states

• John Hooper in Rome
• guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 4 November 2009 17.42 GMT
• Article history

A mid-1990s passport photo of Osama Moustafa Hassan Nasr, also known as Abu Omar, who was abducted by the CIA from Milan. Photograph: Marsela Glina/Chicago Tribune/AP

The former head of the CIA in Milan has been given an eight-year jail sentence for kidnapping at the end of the first trial anywhere in the world involving the agency's "extraordinary rendition" programme.

Robert Lady was tried in his absence and convicted of helping to organise the seizure of Osama Moustafa Hassan Nasr, known as Abu Omar, from a Milan street in February 2003. His superior, Jeff Castelli, the head of the CIA in Italy at the time, was acquitted on the grounds that he was covered by diplomatic immunity. Most of the other 23 alleged CIA operatives on trial were given five-year jail sentences in their absence.

Extraordinary rendition involved the abduction of suspects and their forcible transfer for interrogation to third countries, often states in which torture was routinely employed.

The judge ruled that neither the former head of Italian military intelligence, Nicolo Pollari, nor his deputy could be convicted because the evidence against them was subject to official secrecy restrictions. Two other Italian intelligence officials were given three years' jail.

Successive Italian administrations avoided applying to the US for the extradition of the 26 American defendants, who included a senior US air force officer. Their lawyers, appointed by the court, had no contact with their clients, who were regarded in Italian law as being on the run.

Eyewitnesses testified that Abu Omar was stopped, apparently by Italian police, and bundled into a van. The prosecution charged that he was driven to the US air base at Aviano near Venice, then transferred to another American military facility at Ramstein in Germany. He was allegedly flown from there to Egypt.

Four years later he was released without charge. He said he had been reduced to a "human wreck" by torture in a Cairo jail.

The prosecution alleged the Americans enjoyed co-operation from the Italian authorities. The head of the government when Abu Omar was kidnapped was Silvio Berlusconi, who returned to office as prime minister last year.

More than two years after the trial opened, the judge, Oscar Magi, heard final submissions from the prosecution and defence before retiring to consider his verdict. He told the court: "This was not an easy trial and the mere fact of its having been held is a significant event."

The CIA has declined to comment on the case. Successive Italian governments have denied involvement in renditions.

To build their case, prosecutors ordered police to tap intelligence officers' telephones and seize documents from intelligence service archives. Earlier this year Italy's constitutional court dealt the prosecution a heavy blow when it ruled that much of the evidence gathered was protected by official secrecy and could not be used in court. Magi ruled that the trial should continue regardless.

In a reference to the two senior Italian intelligence officials, prosecutors told the court yesterday that the defendants included those who "by kidnapping Abu Omar compromised, rather than safeguarded, national security".

Italian investigators had been tapping the cleric's calls before he was abducted. Court documents leaked to the media showed he was suspected of recruiting young Muslims for the Iraqi insurgency.

The prosecution contended that his seizure not only violated Italian sovereignty but aborted an important anti-terrorist investigation.

 

Not exactly the shocker of the century, but one to take note of nonetheless; the CIA is now investing in Visible Technologies, a software firm that monitors and steers social media, to more closely monitor the clicks, requests, tweets, pokes, stumbles, digs, feeds and any other dumb-downed cutesy-titled web exercises one may engage in.

We have been monitored by the government for argueably all our lives, others more closely than some. And when suspicious web activity has surged, they have proven to at least in the game, though not necessarily a step ahead.

However, now Wired Magazine is breaking the story about what the CIA wants now : " America’s spy agencies want to read your blog posts, keep track of your Twitter updates — even check out your book reviews on Amazon."

The magazine goes on: "In-Q-Tel, the investment arm of the CIA and the wider intelligence community, is putting cash into Visible Technologies... It’s part of a larger movement within the spy services to get better at using ”open source intelligence” — information that’s publicly available, but often hidden in the flood of TV shows, newspaper articles, blog posts, online videos and radio reports generated every day."

Visible scours almost a million 2.0 websites every day, nitpicking posts, conversations, blogs, Flickr, Youtube, and the like, to dish out a rundown of what is being said on these sites. People subscribed to Visible are provided with a plate of real-time feeds of everything searched and said, based on a series of keywords.

The CIA states it wants Visible to track foreign social media, and issue spooks, which is “early-warning detection on how issues are playing internationally."

The problem with all this of course is the paramount difference between saying and doing.

We all post, send and comment with little second thought. We also have heard that the internet is public territory, and have correspondingly experienced at least one bout of unfair or unmerited attention based on our web-action or an action documented and exhibited over the web.

So, although anything we put out there is technically fair game, it could quickly become controversial if they utilized information gathered through Visible to conduct unauthorized investigations. Still may not hit close to home-but think if they used found information on visited sites or commented photos done by political candidates or journalists, lawyers, doctors or professors.

The potential for information and character exploitation through this avenue, although said information has been conducted on open, public forums and gathered through a legal and accepted platform, is monumental.

New York Times reports that Ahmed Wali Karzai, the younger brother of Hamid Karzai, is being paid for 'a variety of services'

• Julian Borger, diplomatic editor
• guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 28 October 2009 13.50 GMT
• Article history

Ahmad Wali Karzai, brother of the Afghan president, Hamid Karzai. Photograph: AP

Ahmed Wali Karzai, the younger brother of the Afghan president, Hamid Karzai, has been on the CIA's payroll for almost eight years, it was reported today.

The New York Times, quoting unnamed current and former US officials, reported that the CIA was paying the president's brother, long alleged to be a powerful druglord, for "a variety of services".

The report said these included the recruitment of a paramilitary group to do US bidding in and around Kandahar, where he is the head of the provincial council.

The paramilitaries – known as the Kandahar Strike Force – have been accused of conducting rogue operations and score-settling.

They are based in a Kandahar compound that Ahmed Wali Karzai also rents to the CIA and US special forces as an operations base, the report said.

The president's brother was also reported to act as a middle man for contacts between the CIA and Taliban loyalists as part of attempts to persuade them to change sides.

He has long been alleged to be involved in the opium trade in southern Afghanistan, and the CIA's links with him are a cause of deep divisions in Barack Obama's administration, the New York Times said.

Ahmed Wali Karzai denied being involved in drug trafficking, or being paid by the CIA, in an interview with the newspaper.

"I don't know anyone under the name of the CIA," he said. "I have never received any money from any organisation. I help, definitely. I help other Americans wherever I can. This is my duty as an Afghan."

Speaking to the Council on Foreign Relations on Monday, the US senator John Kerry said he had asked US intelligence and law enforcement for solid evidence against Ahmed Wali Karzai but had not been given any.

"I have requested from our intelligence sources and law enforcement folks the smoking gun, the evidence. Show me – what do we know?" he said.

"And I'll tell you right now, folks – nobody has given me the sort of hard and fast 'Here's what we heard them say' or 'Here's what we've caught him doing' or 'Here's what he's involved in.' So this swirls around."

Kerry said there were "things that Ahmed Wali Karzai has done that haven't been helpful. There are things he does that are very helpful for us".

He added: "We need to look hard at the balance of how we can best manage Kandahar and that particular region."

The report of CIA ties with Ahmed Wali Karzai comes at a time when the Obama administration is contemplating increasing US troop numbers in Afghanistan.

It will also revive debate on the CIA's role.

The agency was heavily criticised for its links with rightwing paramilitaries and drug lords in Latin America in the 1970s and 80s.

But after the September 11 attacks, critics argued that it had become too timid and was so constrained by rules and political correctness that it was virtually unable to gather intelligence in troubled parts of the world.

I'd have hardly though that this was a surprise, especially seeing how Hamid Karzai got to be president in the first place...