February 16 2010 Travus T. Hipp Morning News & Commentary: 'Government-In-A-Box'... 21st Century Cultural Assimilation

"All The News You Never Knew You Needed To Know ...Until Now." February 16 2010 Travus T. Hipp Morning News & Commentary: 'Government-In-A-Box'... 21st Century Cultural Assimilation - Irregular Warfare (ie. War On Indigenous Peoples) Has Become A Different 'Game' And The Pentagon FINALLY Figures It Out [Pop Out Player? Click Here] Prefer An MP3 Playlist? It's Here: [192kbps VBR 7:43 Minutes] Other Audio Formats Available [ Here ] Twitter This Commentary

In The News:
This morning's News & Commentary audio files have been supplied by, and are courtesy of, my MP3 Angel ChrisM

How little it really matters... The alleged second in command of the Afghan Taliban, Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, has been captured and is being interrogated.

As ONE PUNDIT (Travus T. Hipp) pointed out a few years back in relation to the "Coalition of the Coerced" deck of playing cards with their Iraq government 'Most Wanted' on it, think of BASEBALL CARDS, not playing cards. The old ones are retired to the "Hall Of Fame", and new "rookies" emerge.

The captured Mullah's last known statement to the world (October 2009) sums up what the Pentagon KNOWS. The Taliban has seen enough of the buy-out' tactic over the last decades and are not liable to fall for it again, and the concept of a "moderate" Taliban is a figment of the West's imagination:

According to the Taliban’s web page, it appears to be “been there, done that” when it comes to bribing “moderate” Talibs to get them to switch sides, as is being touted by the U.S.

It didn’t take long for the Tailban’s English-language web page to share this tidbit (PDF version at non-terrorist page here), attributed to highish-up Taliban commander (“Deputy-Amir of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan” according to the statement) Mullah Brader Akhund, calling the idea:

an old weapon that has failed already. The British invaders used it in the 19th century but failed; the former Soviet Union used it, it failed too. The Afghan Mujahid people and the Mujahideen at the front lines have vast experiences of the past three decades in this regard and know all tactics used by the enemy.

And the idea of “moderate Taliban”? The statement straightens us out on THAT score:

The terms of moderate (Taliban) and extremists are American-invented terms, which have no physical existence.

[In Full]

An 'al Qaeda operative' has been caught in Oman (a country ostensibly allied with the West) on his way to Yemen with a 'rolodex' of information.

The razing of Marjah continues with the presence of 5000 Marines and 2000 Afghan troops who will ostensibly remain behind to 'secure' the city. So far, very little has been accomplished except invading a city where the defenders had already fled to defensive positions, and then drawing INTENSE fire when the Marines, in an act destined to infinitely increase animosity among the population actually had the audacity to raise the US supported 'Afghanistan' flag over the city.

There have been a number of civilian casualties when some of our 'smart' artillery got 'dumb'. The Pentagon has 'apologized' and allegedly called off the weapon's use.

Update:

Missile that killed Afghan civilians not faulty: NATO

LONDON (Reuters) - NATO forces in Afghanistan have resumed using a type of rocket that killed 12 civilians after concluding that the missile hit its intended target and did not veer off course, a NATO commander said on Tuesday. [Source, Reuters]

This is an indication that, for the military-industrial complex in the US it's more important to convince potential purchasers of Western manufactured weapons systems (The only high $$$ manufacturing left in the US, except the up-and-coming UAV industry) that they perform to spec and are worth buying... ...than the importance of putting on any humanistic pretense in the US government's PR about our dirty war on Afghanistan to the international community.

The Seminal @ FiredogLake points out a little known piece of Helmand History and notes that Human Terrain Teams (sociologists, anthropologists, and psychologists with military, not academic, ethics, rejected as unethical by their peers, as a doctor figuring out how to keep a tortured prisoner alive to be tortured further might be rejected) are on the move with the Marines in Helmand now in a last ditch attempt to culturally assimilate at least ONE area of Afghanistan where the attempt had been made 50 years ago and had also failed.

“Little America” in Afghanistan: Is the US Repeating a Failed 1950’s Experiment in Social Engineering?

Last October, Adam Curtis posted an article on the BBC website that provided a detailed look at the forgotten history of US development efforts in Helmand province. As the NATO offensive heads into its second day there, it is useful to compare the current efforts to what transpired fifty years ago.

Here is how Curtis opens the piece:

When you look at footage of the fighting in Helmand today everyone assumes it is being played out against an ancient background of villages and fields built over the centuries.

This is not true.

If you look beyond the soldiers, and into the distance, what you are really seeing are the ruins of one of the biggest technological projects the United States has ever undertaken.

Its aim was to use science to try and change the course of history and produce a modern utopia in Afghanistan. The city of Lashkar Gah was built by the Americans as a model planned city, and the hundreds of miles of canals that the Taliban now hide in were constructed by the same company that built the San Francisco Bay Bridge and Cape Canaveral.

As Curtis works his way through the remarkable history, it is clear that the US attempts at development in Afghanistan that began in the 1950’s were doomed from the start, but political forces kept them in operation:

"But almost immediately things started to go wrong. In 1949 the first, small diversion dam was built. But it raised the level of the water table in the whole area. And that brought salt to the surface.

The American engineers realised this meant that the whole project probably wouldn’t work. But at that very moment President Truman made a speech promising to give aid to poor countries. It was the start of the Cold War and Truman was going to use development projects and American money to stop countries from becoming communist.

Curtis also provides a photo of a page from the Morrison Knudsen (the engineering firm that built many of the projects) magazine touting "Little America" in Afghanistan. [In Full]

Meanwhile, the president appoints a 'special ambassador' to the Muslim world. Isn't THAT special.

Senator Evan Bayh, an alleged 'Democrat' from a long time political family, one of the early and continuing supporters of our wars on Iraq and Afghanistan along with other Republicrats like Joe Lieberman quits the senate with a "Lame Ass Excuse". Blue Texan @ Firedoglake has this to say: "Don’t Let the Door Hit You in the Ass on the Way Out..."

The Pay-Go method of budget balancing, thrown overboard by the Bush administration, has been restored by congress and signed by the president. This means we will PAY the nearly TRILLION DOLLAR Pentagon budget and your domestic budget will GO away.

In OTHER News:

Japan Takes A Prisoner... A Sea Shepherd captain boards a Japanese Whaling vessel to make an arrest for destruction of his ship and is taken hostage:

The Japanese government has said they will have Captain Peter Bethune of New Zealand taken to Japan to be tried on unknown charges in a Japanese court.
.
.
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“Captain Peter Bethune’s $3 million dollar vessel the Ady Gil was rammed, sunk and destroyed by the Captain of the Shonan Maru #2. The incident injured one of the six crewmembers and could have killed all six.” Said Captain Paul Watson. “Captain Bethune was entirely in his rights to confront the man who almost killed him and destroyed his ship. And now this same Japanese captain who destroyed a ship almost killing its crew is intent on bringing Captain Bethune back to Japan as his captive. [In Full]

The initial report on the boarding is here

Regarding today's commentary's rehash of General McChrystal and Odiernos assertion about having a "Government In A Box" ready to go...

Da Buffalo has seen reference to that before... about Iraq, from Doug "Propagandize his own people and violate federal law" Feith.

From Juan Cole's Informed Comment (with comments of my own from a few years ago

Speaking of scams, Neoconservative Douglas Feith is teaching at Georgetown. So in the run up to the 2003 war, I’m told, Douglas Feith was challenged by a State Department official who knows the Middle East about what in the world the US would do in Iraq once it won the war.

State Dept. Official: “Doug, after the smoke clears, what is the plan?”

Feith: “Think of Iraq as being like a computer. And think of Saddam as like a processor. We just take out the old processor, and put in a new one–Chalabi.”

State Dept. Official: “Put in a new processor?”

Feith: “Yes! It will all be over in 6 weeks.”

State Dept. Official: “You mean six months.”

Feith: “No, six weeks. You’ll see.”

State Dept. Official: “Doug.”

Feith: “Yes?”

State Dept. Official: “You’re smoking crack, Doug.”

Feith: “Oh, so you’re disloyal to the President, are you?” [Source]

Da Buffalo had an epiphany shortly thereafter:

“I elaborated a few days back about an anecdotal Doug Feith’s quip that it (the Iraq invasion) would be over in a matter of weeks, not to worry. I commented that it wasn’t some crack fantasy… it sounded like they had people inside Saddam Hussein’s baathist regime, not just in the early 60s as has been documented as “penetrated”, but just before we invaded Iraq as well.

Professor Cole’s anecdote re-iterated:

[Redacted]

This just showed up @ the National Security Archive, Georgetown University:

National Security Archive Update, February 14, 2007

TOP SECRET POLO STEP
Iraq War Plan Assumed Only 5,000 U.S. Troops Still There by December 2006

For more information contact:
Thomas Blanton/Joyce Battle - 202/XXX-XXXX

http://www.nsarchive.org

[…]
“First, they assumed that a provisional government would be in place by ‘D-Day’, then that the Iraqis would stay in their garrisons and be reliable partners, and finally that the post-hostilities phase would be a matter of mere ‘months’. ”
[…]

It wasn’t the battle plans, tactics, and strategy that fell apart on them, the WHOLE DANG THING fell apart on them because they were deluded enough to think that a ‘herd of Chalabis’ could just… take… over… and run the show. [Source]

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