FALSE KILLING OSAMA BIN LADIN: Ten Years in Afghanistan

 

FALSE KILLING OSAMA BIN LADEN: Ten Years in Afghanistan

 

 

Top US Government Insider: Bin Laden Died In 2001, 9/11 A False Flag (confirmed!)

 

Former Deputy Assistant Secretary of State under three different administrations Steve R. Pieczenik

says he is prepared to tell a federal grand jury the name of a top general who told him directly 9/11 was a false flag attack

 

“Bin Laden had already been “dead for months,” and that the government was waiting for the most politically expedient time to roll out his corpse. Pieczenik would be in a position to know, having personally met Bin Laden and worked with him during the proxy war against the Soviets in Afghanistan back in the early 80′s”

Top US government insider Dr. Steve R. Pieczenik, a man who held numerous different influential positions under three different Presidents and still works with the Defense Department, shockingly told The Alex Jones Show yesterday that Osama Bin Laden died in 2001 and that he was prepared to testify in front of a grand jury how a top general told him directly that 9/11 was a false flag inside job.

Pieczenik cannot be dismissed as a “conspiracy theorist”. He served as the Deputy Assistant Secretary of State under three different administrations, Nixon, Ford and Carter, while also working under Reagan and Bush senior, and still works as a consultant for the Department of Defense. A former US Navy Captain, Pieczenik achieved two prestigious Harry C. Solomon Awards at the Harvard Medical School as he simultaneously completed a PhD at MIT.

Recruited by Lawrence Eagleburger as Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Management, Pieczenik went on to develop, “the basic tenets for psychological warfare, counter terrorism, strategy and tactics for transcultural negotiations for the US State Department, military and intelligence communities and other agencies of the US Government,” while also developing foundational strategies for hostage rescue that were later employed around the world.

Pieczenik also served as a senior policy planner under Secretaries Henry Kissinger, Cyrus Vance, George Schultz and James Baker and worked on George W. Bush’s election campaign against Al Gore. His record underscores the fact that he is one of the most deeply connected men in intelligence circles over the past three decades plus.

The character of Jack Ryan, who appears in many Tom Clancy novels and was also played by Harrison Ford in the popular 1992 movie Patriot Games, is also based on Steve Pieczenik.

Back in April 2002, over nine years ago, Pieczenik told the Alex Jones Show that Bin Laden had already been “dead for months,” and that the government was waiting for the most politically expedient time to roll out his corpse. Pieczenik would be in a position to know, having personally met Bin Laden and worked with him during the proxy war against the Soviets in Afghanistan back in the early 80′s.

Pieczenik said that Osama Bin Laden died in 2001, “Not because special forces had killed him, but because as a physician I had known that the CIA physicians had treated him and it was on the intelligence roster that he had marfan syndrome,” adding that the US government knew Bin Laden was dead before they invaded Afghanistan.

Marfan syndrome is a degenerative genetic disease for which there is no permanent cure. The illness severely shortens the life span of the sufferer.

“He died of marfan syndrome, Bush junior knew about it, the intelligence community knew about it,” said Pieczenik, noting how CIA physicians had visited Bin Laden in July 2001 at the American Hospital in Dubai.

“He was already very sick from marfan syndrome and he was already dying, so nobody had to kill him,” added Pieczenik, stating that Bin Laden died shortly after 9/11 in his Tora Bora cave complex.

“Did the intelligence community or the CIA doctor up this situation, the answer is yes, categorically yes,” said Pieczenik, referring to Sunday’s claim that Bin Laden was killed at his compound in Pakistan, adding, “This whole scenario where you see a bunch of people sitting there looking at a screen and they look as if they’re intense, that’s nonsense,” referring to the images released by the White House which claim to show Biden, Obama and Hillary Clinton watching the operation to kill Bin Laden live on a television screen.

“It’s a total make-up, make believe, we’re in an American theater of the absurd….why are we doing this again….nine years ago this man was already dead….why does the government repeatedly have to lie to the American people,” asked Pieczenik.

“Osama Bin Laden was totally dead, so there’s no way they could have attacked or confronted or killed Osama Bin laden,” said Pieczenik, joking that the only way it could have happened was if special forces had attacked a mortuary.

Pieczenik said that the decision to launch the hoax now was made because Obama had reached a low with plummeting approval ratings and the fact that the birther issue was blowing up in his face.

“He had to prove that he was more than American….he had to be aggressive,” said Pieczenik, adding that the farce was also a way of isolating Pakistan as a retaliation for intense opposition to the Predator drone program, which has killed hundreds of Pakistanis.

“This is orchestrated, I mean when you have people sitting around and watching a sitcom, basically the operations center of the White House, and you have a president coming out almost zombie-like telling you they just killed Osama Bin Laden who was already dead nine years ago,” said Pieczenik, calling the episode, “the greatest falsehood I’ve ever heard, I mean it was absurd.”

Dismissing the government’s account of the assassination of Bin Laden as a “sick joke” on the American people, Pieczenik said, “They are so desperate to make Obama viable, to negate the fact that he may not have been born here, any questions about his background, any irregularities about his background, to make him look assertive….to re-elect this president so the American public can be duped once again.”

Pieczenik’s assertion that Bin Laden died almost ten years ago is echoed by numerous intelligence professionals as well as heads of state across the world.

Bin Laden, “Was used in the same way that 9/11 was used to mobilize the emotions and feelings of the American people in order to go to a war that had to be justified through a narrative that Bush junior created and Cheney created about the world of terrorism,” stated Pieczenik.

During his interview with the Alex Jones Show yesterday, Pieczenik also asserted he was directly told by a prominent general that 9/11 was a stand down and a false flag operation, and that he is prepared to go to a grand jury to reveal the general’s name.

“They ran the attacks,” said Pieczenik, naming Dick Cheney, Paul Wolfowitz, Stephen Hadley, Elliott Abrams, and Condoleezza Rice amongst others as having been directly involved.

“It was called a stand down, a false flag operation in order to mobilize the American public under false pretenses….it was told to me even by the general on the staff of Wolfowitz – I will go in front of a federal committee and swear on perjury who the name was of the individual so that we can break it open,” said Pieczenik, adding that he was “furious” and “knew it had happened”.

“I taught stand down and false flag operations at the national war college, I’ve taught it with all my operatives so I knew exactly what was done to the American public,” he added.

Pieczenik re-iterated that he was perfectly willing to reveal the name of the general who told him 9/11 was an inside job in a federal court, “so that we can unravel this thing legally, not with the stupid 9/11 Commission that was absurd.”

Pieczenik explained that he was not a liberal, a conservative or a tea party member, merely an American who is deeply concerned about the direction in which his country is heading.

October 7th, 2011 will marked the tenth anniversary of US and allied troops in Afghanistan. Four weeks after September 11th, 2001, troops were sent into the nation in retaliation for the attack and on a mission to find Osama Bin Laden and root out Taliban soldiers. 2008 has been the deadliest year for coalition forces in Afghanistan since the invasion in 2001.

From the fans at Citi Field in Flushing to the mobs at the White House gates, “USA, USA,” was the chant heard across the nation. Jubilant Americans celebrated the breaking news that Public Enemy No.1, terrorist mastermind Osama bin Laden was dead. Ten years have passed since the Twin Towers toppled and the Pentagon was whacked. After two failing wars and billions of dollars spent on the global manhunt to bring in Bin Laden “Dead or Alive,” America has now claimed victory. “This is bigger than the moon landing, this is huge,” exclaimed Fox News’ Geraldo Rivera. “Justice has been done,” intoned President Barack Obama announcing Bin Laden’s death. He not only called it “a good day for America,” but also declared that “The world is safer. It is a better place because of the death of Osama Bin Laden.” While Secretary of State Hillary Clinton echoed the sentiment that “justice has been served,” she evidently took issue with the Presidential vision of a “safer” world, warning that terror “won’t stop with the death of Bin Laden, we must redouble our efforts.” If it’s a “safer” world, why the need to “redouble our efforts”? These were but two of the contradictions coming from the White House in the early hours of the breaking story, and many discrepancies would follow. Some of them would be noted and debated, but totally absent from the 24/7 news coverage, political “high-fives” and patriotic triumphalism was the simple question: Why did Osama Bin Laden, former mujahedin ally of the United States, turn against it to become Public Enemy No.1? Was it that he and his Al Qaeda fighters suddenly decided to hate America’s “freedom and liberties” as George W. Bush maintained? Or was it remotely possible that the attacks were motivated by US foreign policy – with its unconditional support of Israel and concomitant support of the same Middle East monarchs, autocrats and dictators now being toppled in the wave of revolution? Also absent from America’s non-stop exultation and self-congratulation, absent from the acres of newsprint and the countless hours of air time, was any discussion of the practical consequences of the death of Bin Laden who, before making it back into the headlines, had been both a fading memory and a non-issue. Osama Bin Who? So irrelevant had Bin Laden and his jihad rhetoric become that, in the months preceding his assassination, every one of the uprisings occurring throughout the Middle East and North Africa was secular and in direct opposition to Bin Laden’s militant pan-Islamic vision. In a sentence: There were no practical consequences whatsoever attending the death of Osama Bin Laden. It would do nothing to: Help America win losing wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Lower the unemployment rate. Stop the US or European nations from sinking deeper into recessions and depression. Revive failing real estate markets or solve the debt and deficit crises. Lower oil and food prices. Reverse the damage or stop the radioactive fallout from Fukushima. On Wednesday, April 27th, just four days before Bin Laden was killed, a new Public Enemy No.1 held his organization’s first ever press conference. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke told the world that the United States would continue its low interest rate polices and, in effect, continue to flood the world with cheap money. The global equity markets immediately responded to the predictably destructive consequences. Before Bernanke ended the press conference, gold prices shot up $20 an ounce, silver $2, and the dollar fell to a 3 year low against a trade-weighted basket of currencies. Despite the Chairman’s claims to the contrary, the US dollar would continue to devalue and subsequently dollar based commodity prices would soar. Needing neither a mountain lair nor sequestration behind closed Fed doors, the new Public Enemy No.1, “Osama” Ben Bernanke committed, in broad daylight, an act of financial terrorism that would have far reaching and long lasting implications for the American public. As the value of the dollar went down, the cost of nearly everything would go up…excepting the cost of “risk.” This meant that financiers could continue to speculate and exploit the equity markets, with the profits going only to the 10 percent of Americans that owned 90 percent of the stocks, bonds and mutual funds. Moreover, the Fed reasoned the cheap dollar would also give a competitive edge to big US exporters. But as exports rose, so did the price of imports, putting further strains on average consumers whose real wages fell ever further behind the pace of inflation. Bombs Away What Osama Bin Laden’s death also did was to deflect attention from the US/NATO “humanitarian” mission in Libya, which, just two days earlier, had delivered several humanitarian bombs upon the home of Muammar Qaddafi’s son, killing him and three of his children. The bungled attempt to assassinate Qaddafi (who had been visiting his son) was condemned by Russia, brought recriminations against NATO from other UN members for overstepping the UN mandate, and called into question the legality of the air strike.  With a groundswell of public sympathy building around the world for Qaddafi’s murdered grandchildren, the very purpose and future of the entire mission was being called into question. Whether a real terror attack happens or not, Barack Obama, as he has done before, will take a page from the G.W. Bush playbook and keep the American public in a state of fear and hysteria for his reelection. And should terror strike the US, UK, France or other NATO ally, their governments, media “presstitutes,” pundits, and the public at large will debate and deplore the “cowardly act” and demand “swift justice.” They will blame Bin Laden sympathizers, Al Qaeda cells, Muammar Qaddafi, radical Islamists…but never will they blame themselves. They will refuse to acknowledge that what they called “terror” was nothing more than “revenge”; reprisal for foreign meddling in the domestic affairs of other nations, or retaliation for military invasions launched by the US, UK, France or other NATO ally upon a sovereign nation. Meanwhile, back in DC, the Chairman of the Fed, Public Enemy No.1, “Osama” Ben Bernanke, will mastermind the destruction of the American dollar, the US economy and the purchasing power of the American people. As we have been forecasting for years, gold, despite its recent pull back, is on-trend to reach $2000 per ounce (and possibly higher). And while Ben Bernanke claims that inflation is merely “transitory,” considering his penchant for printing trillions of digital dollars not worth the paper it’s not printed on, we see inflation as both entrenched and rising.

The War in Afghanistan was launched in response to the 9/11 attacks. Wrong!!The current military strikes against Afghanistan were planned long before the supposed terrorist assaults on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. As early as December 2000, Frederick Starr, Chairman of the Central Asia-Caucasus Institute at Johns Hopkins's Nitze School of Advanced International Studies, reported that: "[T]he United States has quietly begun to align itself with those in the Russian government calling for military action against Afghanistan and has toyed with the idea of a new raid to wipe out the Taliban. Until it backed off under local pressure, it went so far as to explore whether a Central Asian country would permit the use of its territory for such a purpose." Meetings between government American, Russian and Indian government officials took place at the end of 2000 "to discuss what kind of government should replace the Taliban." Starr observed that: "[T]he United States is now talking about the overthrow of a regime that controls nearly the entire country, in the hope it can be replaced with a hypothetical government that does not exist even on paper." The U.S. also supported a one-sided UN resolution: "... that would strengthen sanctions against foreign military aid for the Taliban but take no action against its warlord opponents, who control a mere 3 to 5 percent of the country's territory. These warlords, when they ruled in key areas, showed a brutal disregard for human rights and for other minorities that was comparable to the Taliban at its worst. Yet the fragment of a government they support limps on and, with U.S. backing, occupies Afghanistan's seat in the United Nations... These shifts add up to a fundamental redirection of American policy toward the world's largest and most vexed zone of conflict. All this is occurring without public discussion, without consultation with Congress and without even informing those who are likely to make foreign policy in the next administration." Canadian journalist Eric Margolis reported in the same month the existence of extensive military plans to invade Afghanistan, topple the Taliban regime, and install a government subservient to Western interests: "The United States and Russia may soon launch a joint military assault against Islamic militants, and against the leadership of Taliban, Afghanistan's de facto ruling movement. Such an attack would probably include US Delta Force and Navy Seals, who would join up with Russia's elite Spetsnaz and Alpha commandos in Tajikistan, the Central Asian state where Russian has military bases and 25,000 troops. The combined forces would be lifted by helicopters, and backed by air support, deep into neighboring Afghanistan to attack  supposedly Bin Laden's fortified base in the Hindu Kush mountains." The plans clearly have little to do with aiding the Afghan people, and more to do with eliminating the current danger to US interests in the region. As the Guardian rightly observes, "Another missile attack will merely add to Afghanistan's misery." First of all, Bin Laden's initial reaction to 9/11 was not to take credit for the crime at all. In fact, he continually denied any involvement in 9/11 up until the 'confession' video was mysteriously presented. Almost no one in the U.S. has read Bin Laden's first statement in response to 9/11, which so conflicts the later 'confession'. Here it is, from September 17, 2001: "I would like to assure the world that I did not plan the recent attacks, which seems to have been planned by people for personal reasons. I have been living in the Islamic emirate of Afghanistan and following its leaders' rules. The current leader does not allow me to exercise such operations." We've been asked to accept without question his other statements of 'confession'. So how do we make sense of the above statement? Or how do we make sense of his second public statement in regards to 9/11, given on October 16, 2001: "I have already said that I am not involved in the 11 September attacks in the United States. As a Muslim, I try my best to avoid telling a lie. I had no knowledge of these attacks, nor do I consider the killing of innocent women, children and other humans as an appreciable act. Islam strictly forbids causing harm to innocent women, children and other people. Such a practice is forbidden even in the course of a battle." These comments obviously do not prove that Bin Laden did not orchestrate 9/11. But they do raise a crucial question. Why would a man spend six weeks denying a crime, then suddenly flip-flop 180 degrees and happily start taking responsibility for the originally denied crime? Most people - including scientists, CIA analysts, FBI, and other independent investigators, etc. - who have a working familiarity with the 'confession' video, know the answer to this question. And that is that the man in the video making the 'confession' is almost certainly not Osama Bin Laden, and the tape is a fake. The man shown in the video, though bearded, Arabic, and of darkish complexion, is much heavier than all known photos and videos of the actual Bin Laden. The man in the video is seen writing something down with his right hand. Bin Laden is well-known to be left-handed. And there are scores of other reasons to question the validity of the tape. In fact, "the FBI's page on bin Laden as a 'Most Wanted Terrorist' does not list him as wanted for 9/11, and when asked why, a FBI spokesman said, 'because the FBI has no hard evidence connecting bin Laden to 9/11'." (Debunking 9/11 Debunking, pg. 21, David Ray Griffin, Olive Branch Press, 2007.)

False Flag attacks reflect the reality that for governments to go to war they must have some measure of support from their home constituencies. This need has grown with the spread of voting as the primary means of choosing public officials. False flag attacks are violent acts manipulated by agencies planning to go to war on targeted groups. The goal is to make the violent episodes look like acts of murder and mayhem perpetrated by the targeted groups when the violence is, in fact, the covert creation of the agency doing the targeting. False flag attacks are designed to deprive targeted groups of public sympathy in the home population of the belligerent power. They are designed as illusions to trick home populations into viewing their own governments’ acts of aggression as acts of self-defense. Well-known false flag attacks include the sinking of the Maine in the prelude to the Spanish-American War, the Reichstag Fire blamed by Hitler’s Nazi regime on a Jewish communist man, and the Gulf of Tonkin incident prior to the heightening of the US military intervention in Vietnam. This film goes in detail through the untold history of The Project for the New American Century with tons of archival footage and connects it right into the present. This film exposes how every major war in US history was based on a complete fraud with video of insiders themselves admitting it. The film provides solid evidence for the true reasons behind the Afghanistan and Iraq wars, whose unfolding is described in chilling detail in a document called “Project for the New American Century”, published in the year 2,000, that seems to have served as the actual blueprint for such dramatic events.

The Second Front: War in Afghanistan The Afghan war hit another grim milestone today: it has now lasted the same amount of time as the Soviet war in Afghanistan.   9 years and 50 days ago, the U.S. and its Afghan allies began a quick rout of the Taliban government. The war was supposed to last only a few months, or perhaps a few years; it wasn't supposed to be all that difficult. It took the Soviets 9 years and 50 days to abandon Afghanistan after their invasion. On Dec. 27, 1979, 80,000 soldiers arrived; on Feb. 15, 1989, the last one walked home over a bridge. The Soviets believed they were leaving behind a functional, loyal government and sufficiently strong army to hold the country together. But the 250,000 mujahedeen that the Americans, Pakistanis, and Saudis helped fund and train proved too hard to handle, and the rest of the story we all know. Tomorrow, the U.S. war in Afghanistan will officially be longer than the Soviet's, but the day will pass just like any other day. The U.S. and its allies have committed to 4 more years of robust military presence. There is little talk of withdrawing in any meaningful way next summer. The U.S. military hopes that by committing to Afghanistan through 2014 (and beyond, in a lesser capacity), Afghans will trust that they won't be abandoned -- and therefore throw their lot in with the U.S., instead of sitting on the fence and waiting to choose the winning side. But the Taliban is really good at waging a guerilla war: they abandon ground when an overwhelming enemy arrives, and they still terrorize the population they've just left behind. And huge parts of the Afghan countryside remain uncontrolled -- vacuums of governance in which insurgents, criminals, and militias rule the day. And until that ends, Afghans will remain doubtful the U.S. can win, and therefore the Taliban's often-quoted saying remains true -- regardless of the U.S. end-date: "You may have all the watches, but we have all the time." Ever since man realized that there was power, money and religion, there has been war. From the earliest times until today, countries have fought over land, power and myth with their soldiers at the frontier. The same is true of modern-day America and the thousands of soldiers who have died in action or are still fighting in Afghanistan. These soldiers leave their families, jobs and all other securities behind to protect their country. 1-WAR GOALS 2-JUSTIFICATION 3-NEW STRATEGY 4-CONCLUSION 1-INITIAL WAR GOALS The threat posed by US terrorism to the security of nations and individuals was outlined in prophetic detail in a document written years ago and disclosed only recently. What was needed for America to dominate much of humanity and the world's resources, it said, was "some catastrophic and catalysing event - like a new Pearl Harbor". The attacks of 11 September 2001 provided the "new Pearl Harbor", described as "the opportunity of ages". The extremists who have since exploited 11 September come from the era of Ronald Reagan, when far-right groups and "think-tanks" were established to avenge the American "defeat" in Vietnam. In the 1990s, there was an added agenda: to justify the denial of a "peace dividend" following the cold war. The Project for the New American Century was formed, along with the American Enterprise Institute, the Hudson Institute and others that have since merged the ambitions of the Bush 1 administration with those of the  Bush W.  regime. It was ten years after the beginning of the war, that Osama bin Laden was killed. It is not surprising because he is just a mercenary and a perfect lure. His well-known profile should have attracted the attention of analysts. Born in a wealthy family with close ties to the royal family and some US business circles, the young bin Laden traveled at large and spent a lot of time in the western nightclubs. When he engaged himself against the soviet in Afghanistan, many testimonies report that he was pro-American. With the end of the soviet war, he proposed his services to the Saudi Arabia against Iraq! He was rebuffed and became angry against the Saudi royal family. As a result, he lost his Saudi citizenship and the bin Laden family took control of his share in the family business. Then, he found new masters among the Saudi and Pakistani secret services and he launched his “International Islamic Front for Jihad against Jews and Crusaders.” in June 1998. Clearly, this profile is not in accordance with a new “prophet of Islam”. It pictures bin Laden as an opportunist mercenary serving different masters. The fact to be rebuffed by the royal Saudi family may have led him to his new role (Just as Frankenstein turning against his masters). However, considering the tribal relations of the Saudi society, he has kept many protections and found easily new secret masters. He became the leader of the Islamic jihad but his sincerity could be questioned. Finally, he appears as a perfect lure. If you are thinking, like I am speculating... We are now in the crisis stage of brainwashing, nothing is working, ie. schools, economy, govt.,etc. Like any military mind or intelligence in strategy, there is always a plan B, C, D just have an open mind. As a result, many disturbing facts characterize the chase of Bin laden. We must underline that all the following stories are public and well known. Once they are grouped, they give a feeling of confusion and disinformation. For example, a former CIA official (Mr. Scheuer) said his agents provided the U.S. government with many opportunities to capture bin Laden and that all of them were rejected. One of the last proposals involved a missile attack against a camp in the Afghan desert, where bin Laden and some princes from the Emirates were hunting! Moreover, a reccording to French Medias, Bin Laden was at the American Hospital of Dubai in July 2001, two months before the 9/11. During the battle of Afghanistan, the Al-Qaeda fighters were located in the mountains of Tora Bora. However, the US only engaged a local militia, backed by air forces. Surprisingly, a truce allowed bin Laden to escape into the tribal areas of Pakistan. What is more, the CIA closed a unit specialized in the bin Laden track in 2006. Officials explained that the agency has better to focus on regional trends rather than on individuals! Finally, bin Laden is periodically reported dead! In 2002, Musharraf believed bin Laden was dead. In 2006, a French newspaper reported that according to the French secret service, bin Laden had died in Pakistan. Unfortunately, on September 2007, the US authenticated a new video of bin Laden. Therefore, on November 2007, Benazir Bhutto claimed that bin Laden had been murdered by Omar Sheikh (the man who killed Pearl)!  The second purpose was to remove the Taliban and to prevent their return . Seven years later, the western forces are facing a strong return of the Taliban. During the soviet war, the Taliban were wealthy feudal warlords such as the Tajik Ahmed Shah Massoud, the Uzbek Abdul Dostum, and the pashtoun Gulbuddin Hikmatyar. They wanted to prevent the reforms initiated by the communist government (notably the land reform) and their insurgency began before the soviet invasion. The role of these freedom fighters played a key part in the Soviet defeat and we have not to be ashamed of our support Clearly, it was necessary to fix the soviet in Afghanistan for preventing them to invade Europe. As said Brezinsky: ” What is most important for world history? The Taliban or the fall of the Soviet Empire? Some Islamic hotheads or the liberation of Central Europe and the end of the cold war? ” Once the feudal warlords captured Kabul in 1992, they waged a fierce civil war. They completely destroyed the town and plunged the country into a dreadful anarchy. In reaction, the Taliban movement emerged. These new Taliban were not some warlords. They came from Islamic schools. In 1996, they took control of Kabul and claimed their intent to restore stability and enforce a strict interpretation of Islamic law. The western Medias depicted the Taliban as devils although their behavior did not differ from those of the Saudi. During this period, the Pakistan and Saudi Arabia supported the Taliban. The third attempt is the present history: The West has implemented a new constitution, a parliament, and free elections and so on. However, the new constitution depends on the Sharia’a and recently an Afghan journalist was facing a death sentence for blasphemy. According to Human Rights NGO, the parliament is composed with a majority of warlords, no better than the previous Taliban. The authority of the president of Afghanistan is symbolic outside Kabul and the tribal warlords exercise the provincial power. Our politicians claim that 6 million boys and girls can follow schools and that health and social services are improving. Unfortunately, the women remain veiled just as they were under the Taliban power. Finally, all these speeches dedicated to democracy and gender equality look like windows dressing. Firstly, it is impossible to attain these goals in a country like Afghanistan. Secondly, our motives sound untrue because a military intervention cannot be based on human rights. Do we intend to attack Saudi Arabia, Pakistan or Yemen where women endure the same situation as under the rule of the Taliban? Development Regarding development, Afghanistan is already a narco-state. The former Taliban had eradicated opium. After 2001, with the change of regime, opium production increased and Afghanistan is producing today 90% of the world’s opium. Revenue from poppy cultivation is now larger than the international aid. The second resource is grand corruption. The population does not benefit of the large international aid, which is trapped by the warlords, the drug traders, and the politicians of Kabul and a myriad of NGO. The great hope relies on the building of a gas pipeline connecting the Caspian to the Indian Ocean through Afghanistan and Pakistan. Until 1998, the US oil company UNOCAL was negotiating with the Taliban for the building of the pipeline. In 1998,  UNOCAL withdrew from the project, which is now re emerging. Afghanistan, Pakistan and Turkmenistan made a deal in 2002 and 2004 for the future building of a gas pipeline. Of course, considering the present insecurity, this project remains a dream. However, it boosts many leftists’ speculations about the motives of the war. Regarding the geopolitical balance, the western companies and Pakistan have interest to build such a pipe. Iran and Israel have their own pipe project. The Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States do not want to facilitate the export of Caspian resources because they want to keep their monopoly. Of course, they have interest to maintain the insecurity as long as possible. Finally, the oil mirage can only extend the war over the region. An endless war According to the new goals, the military forces were split into two components. The US enduring freedom is fighting al Qaeda. On the contrary, the NATO forces are supposed to be peacekeepers protecting the country and training a new afghan army. Seven years later, the afghan army only accounts for 25,000 soldiers in a country that was able to enroll one million fighters against the soviet army! In the same time, the number of fights and suicide attacks has increased fourfold. Despite thirty years of wars, droughts and famines, the population of Afghanistan ( 31,900,000 by mid 2007) is expected to grow to 50,300,000 by 2025 and 81,900,000 by 2050. As said Napoleon, a night in Afghanistan replaces the casualties of any long wars. Go to www.census.gov . Moreover, the secret services of Pakistan and Saudi Arabia provide the Taliban with arms and money while the Pakistan is becoming the safe haven of the insurgency. Clearly, NATO is engaged in an endless war. George Bush father coined the term a NEW WORLD ORDER in 1991 as a name for what he was trying to do with his War Against Iraq. Was it historical amnesia that failed to recall who used the very self-same term to describe an earlier geo-political ambition? - Adolf Hitler! George W worked over time to continue to build up and extend the NEW WORLD ORDER that his father started to construct in 1991. However the younger has extended this order not only geographically but also programatically through a combination of complete unilateralism [never mind the allies and even NATO, literally not to mention the UN] and you're either with us or against us plain English blackmail. The words are the same as the ones John Foster Dulles used in the early Cold War. But then those against us were left under the umbrellas of the Soviet Union and China. Now against us INCLUDES Russia and China among those subjected to US political economic blackmail - and, along with a half a dozen other rouge states, American nuclear threat as per Pentagon planning recently publicized by the press. At home in the meantime, the people are encouraged to show pride to be an American while, as Congressman Dennis J. Kucinich (D-Ohio) wrote, the Bill of Rights is being abrogated and the Constitution dismantled. A critical analysis of this NEW WORLD ORDER under construction is offered in the opening chapters of EMPIRE by Hardt & Negri, published by Harvard University Press in 2000, which argues that the entire world is now imperial per se in which the US occupies a position of priviledge, which includes that of re-defining the ethical and legal standards of good and evil to be imposed on one and all. More significantly still is the formation of an active group of rigth wing policy makers and opinion leaders [the usual suspects from the most dangerous wing of the Reagan and Bush administrations plus some younger converts] in Washington DC who argue that the United States is de facto THE IMPERIALIST POWER in the world today, so that it should accept that fact, make proud of the lable and carry out its imperial/ist responsibilities to the full extent of its abilities, which are and should be far greater still than those of the only "hesitant" Bush doctrine. So far, the most visible international part of this NEW WORLD ORDER has been the US War Against Afghanistan. Its real purpose and pursuit should have come as no surprise. So, the NEW WORLD ORDER is the name of the game on its world-wide scale if we are to accept its baptism by President Bush father. In Central and Inner Asia, it is to pursue the same BIG GAME twenty-first-century style that then Great Britain and Russia already fought over the Eurasian heartland MacKinder, and Huntington already identified it as the region from which to dominate the world and its Pulse as the measure of global geo-politics a century ago. In his 1997 book on the Global Chessboard, Zigniew Brezinski did so again for the present and future. Suitable pretexts came to hand or were made up easily a century ago as they are again now to legitimize such policy - so long as they are not examined for more than a minute. In 1991 the pretext was violation of sovereignty; in 1999 protection of human rights; and in 2001-2 combating terrorism. Wikileaks Wikileaks editor Julian Assange said "it is the most comprehensive history of a war ever to be published, during the course of the war". He compared the release of the war logs with the release of the Pentagon Papers in the 1970s. In an interview with Der Spiegel, Assange said that he believed the release would "change public opinion", and said that "we understand why it is important to protect certain U.S. and ISAF sources." He added that "the most dangerous men are those who are in charge of war. And they need to be stopped." Assange also claimed that the files "suggest thousands of war crimes." We see this pattern in the 9-11 War. Its public phase began when thousands of people of mixed nationalities, most American civilians, were killed by suicide bombers of a foreign male gang of Islamic fundamentalists. Each side then duly proclaimed the other the embodiment of evil, each repudiated the rule of law from start to finish, and both killed as many innocent people as got in the way of their war to rule other countries. While the gang leaders throughout stayed unscathed behind walls of armed protectors, both called each other "cowards". There is little difference in moral substance between these  gangs, although a megalomaniac rhetoric of each side proclaims direct backing from God. Both sides are mass killers, and both systematically destroy civilians and their means of life with sanctimonious justification overriding all accountability to truth or due legal process. Both proclaim their mission as the working of divine Justice, and both destroy the lives and human conditions of innocent others with a pathological abandon that takes the breath away. This is, in fact, the function of the demonstration killings and destructions - to command by terror, and seize whatever is wanted. With complicit governments like Britain's and Canada's barking and crouching behind, the real deal is struck beneath public notice - incalculably more innocent people in terror in exchange for incalculably more oil supplies for U.S-led. oil corporations and, as a side deal, $200,000,000,000 in giveaways of public revenues to corporations and the very rich. But the criminal-gang structure is not tracked for two reasons. The first is that saturating conditioning disconnects people from reality. "It is easy. All you have to do is tell the people they are being attacked, and denounce the the peacemakers for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger." These are Herman Goering's words, and they transmit the code of this the gang form of rule. Concealed under the most ludicrous lies, its coercion reigns supreme. Already university employees and a talk-show host have been unconstitutionally suspended in the U.S. for pointing out the most undeniable truths. The disorder goes to the heart of the ruling corporate psyche.   Was Osama Bin Laden Really Behind The U.S. Terror Attacks? The Western powers have failed to produce any credible evidence proving clearly that Osama Bin Laden was responsible for the attacks on the WTC and the Pentagon. Indeed, they appear to have been eager, under U.S. leadership, to scapegoat Osama Bin Laden so as to provide an adequate justification to execute longstanding plans to invade Afghanistan and destroy the Taliban regime. While President Bush was singling out Bin Laden as the prime suspect for the attacks, Juergen Storbeck, Director of the European Union's law enforcement arm — Europol — "warned on Saturday against rushing to blame the Saudi-born militant Osama bin Laden for masterminding Tuesday's attacks on New York and Washington," reported Reuters. see my posting “Bush Crime Family and Their Destruction of America” and their long time relationship with the bin Laden’s family. James Bath. [Source: Time Life Images]The FBI investigates connections between James Bath and George W. Bush, according to published reports. Bath is Salem bin Laden’s official representative in the US. Bath’s business partner contends that, “Documents indicate that the Saudis were using Bath and their huge financial resources to influence US policy,” since George W. Bush’s father is president. George W. Bush denies any connections to Saudi money. What becomes of this investigation is unclear, but no charges are ever filed. [Houston Chronicle, 6/4/1992]July 2000: Bush Meets with Suspected Terrorism Supporters "It's possible that he was informed about the operation, it's even possible that he influenced it, but he's probably not the man who steered every action or controlled the detailed plan. As for the idea that, sitting in Afghanistan, he could have controlled the last phase of the operation is something we should not accept without a lot of doubt. Bin Laden is not the automatic leader of every terrorist act carried out in the name of Islam."[19] Indeed, the British Government's 21-page dossier released on Thursday 4th October 2001, purportedly providing clear proof of Bin Laden's guilt in relation to the attacks in the U.S., is in fact entirely devoid of actual evidence. The document collects together the principal evidence against Bin Laden gathered by Western intelligence agencies. The dossier was compiled by a committee that included senior members of MI5 and MI6, under the guidance of Washington. Yet as the London Independent observes on analysis of the document: "What the Government's dossier against bin Laden doesn't say and can't say: One thing is missing from the document 'proving' Bin Laden's guilt - the proof. "It was too good to be true. We were told we would be getting evidence of Osama bin Laden's guilt. Instead, close analysis of the 21-page document put out by the Government on Thursday reveals a report of conjecture, supposition and unsubstantiated assertions of fact. It uses every trick in the Whitehall drafter's arsenal to make the reader believe they are reading something they are not: a damning indictment of Mr bin Laden for the events of 11 September... Ministers believe the document has sealed the propaganda war, convincing the country of the need to move against Mr bin Laden and al-Qa'ida and to accept limited British and civilian casualties. To their relief they are not being subjected to rigorous questioning on the report, either from their own supporters, the Opposition, or much of the media. "Officials are also pleased: the document successfully papers over the cracks in their own intelligence operations... The document carries a health warning that intelligence material has been withheld to protect the safety of sources. But, lawyers point out, this is not good enough. Assuming one aim of the military build-up is to try to capture bin Laden and put him on trial, that so-far-unseen evidence would have to be displayed — because on the basis of what has been released there is no chance of his being prosecuted, let alone convicted." British legal expert Robert Gordon QC thus notes that: "The Prime Minister told Parliament that this evidence was of an even more direct nature indicating guilt. The document makes it clear that the additional evidence is 'too sensitive to release'. That may be so, but in any criminal prosecution against bin Laden the necessary evidence would have to be adduced for the case to be proved." Commenting on the evidence presented, "All this shows in the language of lawyers, propensity, but it proves little." The London Guardian similarly highlights the utter lack of direct evidence demonstrating Bin Laden's responsibility for the attacks, or even the responsibility of elements within Afghanistan: "Like almost everyone on earth, I want to believe that the attack on New York was the work of a single despot and his obedient commando. But the more evidence US intelligence presents to this effect, the less credible the story becomes. "First there was the car. A man had informed the police, we were told, that he'd had a furious argument with some suspicious-looking Muslims in the parking lot at Boston airport. He led investigators to the car, in which they found a copy of the Qur'an and a flight manual in Arabic, showing that these were the fundamentalists who had hijacked one of the planes. Now flying an airliner is not one of those things you learn in the back of a car on the way to the airport. Either you know how to do it or you don't. Leaving the Qu'ran unattended, a Muslim friend tells me, is considered sinful. And if you were about to perpetrate one of the biggest terrorist outrages the world has ever seen, would you draw attention to yourself by arguing over a parking place? "Then there was the passport. The security services claim that a passport belonging to one of the hijackers was extracted from the rubble of the World Trade Centre. This definitive identification might help them to track the rest of the network. We are being asked to believe that a paper document from the cockpit of the first plane - the epicentre of an inferno which vapourised steel - survived the fireball and fell to the ground almost intact. "When presented with material like this, I can't help suspecting that intelligence agents have assembled the theory first, then sought the facts required to fit it... The West, in the name of civilization, was insisting that Bin Laden was guilty, and it would find the evidence later. "For these reasons and many others (such as the initial false certainties about the Oklahoma bombing and the Sudanese medicine factory, and the identification of live innocents as dead terrorists), I think we have some cause to regard the new evidence against Bin Laden with a measure of skepticism... [I]f the West starts chasing the wrong man across the Hindu Kush while the real terrorists are planning their next atrocity, this hardly guarantees our security." It is worth noting that although one of the hijacker's passports, as Monbiot reports, allegedly survived the WTC inferno — consisting of fire and heat over a 1,000 degrees Farenheit — according to FBI officials, all the Black Boxes were in contrast totally destroyed and rendered unusable. The Black Boxes, constituting a Flight Data Recorder and a Cockpit Voice Recorder in each plane, are specifically designed to withstand massive explosions. According to ABC News: "Although investigators look for an entire black box, sometimes the only parts of the device that survive are the recorder's crash-survivable memory units (CSMU). The CSMU is almost indestructible. It is housed within a stainless-steel shell that contains titanium or aluminum and a high-temperature insulation of dry silica material. "It is designed to withstand heat of up to 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit for one hour, salt water for at least 30 days, immersion in a variety of liquids such as jet fuel and lubricants, and an impact of 3,400 G's. By comparison, astronauts are typically exposed to up to six Gs during a shuttle takeoff." …………………………………… Axis Of Evil--in Washington Edward Herman March 15, 2002 Coup d'etat George W. Bush has designated three poor and unconnected states as an "axis of evil," reflecting this great moralist's sensitivity to good and evil. He has been subjected to a certain amount of criticism for this strong language even in the mainstream press, but nobody there has suggested that, as so common in this post-Orwellian world, such language might better fit its author and his associates. There IS a political axis of evil running strong in the United States that underpins the Bush regime, which includes the oil industry, military-industrial complex (MIC), other transnationals, and the Christian Right, all important contributors to the Bush electoral triumph, and each of which has high level representation in the administration including, besides Bush himself, Cheney, Rumsfeld, O'Neill and Ashcroft. This REAL axis of evil is using 9/11 and the "war on terrorism" to carry out its foreign and domestic agenda on a truly impressive scale, and so far without much impediment at home or abroad. What is notable about their agenda is that it flies in the face of all of the requirements for peace, global democracy, economic equity and justice, ecological and environmental protection, and global stability. It represents the choice of an overpowerful country's elite, determined to consolidate their economic and political advantage in the short run, at whatever cost to global society. They are accelerating all the ugly trends of militarization and globalization that have led to increasing violence, income polarization, and the vigorous protests against the World Trade Organization, IMF and World Bank. Consider the following: 1. New arms race: Even before 9/11 the Bush government was pushing for a larger arms budget and that gigantic boondoggle and offensive military threat, the National Missile Defense. With 9/11 and the collapse of the Democrats, they are allocating many billions to anything the MIC wants, and with their more violent behavior and threats abroad, other countries will have to follow. This takes enormous resources from the civil society, and will exacerbate conflict based on cutbacks and pain for ordinary citizens. The same will be true across the globe. Thus, the polarization of income effects of corporate globalization will be increased by this diversion of resources to weapons. As Jim Lobe notes, "Whatever hopes existed in the late 1990s for a new era of global cooperation in combating poverty, disease, and threats to the environment seem to have evaporated" (Dawn [Pakistan], Jan. 23, 2002). The complete irrationality and irresponsibility of this arms budget surge is reflected in the fact that almost none of it has to do with any threat from Bin Laden and his forces. Weapons designed to combat Soviet tanks are going forward, as well as advanced new aircraft and a missile defense system that are hardly answering Bin Laden, but represent instead MIC boondoggles and a rush for complete global "full spectrum" military hegemony. 2. The new violence: The Washington Axis has found that war and wrapping themselves in the flag is just what was needed to divert the public from bread and butter issues, inducing the public to revel instead in the game of war, rooting for our side while we beat up yet another small adversary, with perhaps others to follow. As the great political economist Thorstein Veblen wrote with irony almost a century ago, "sensational appeals to patriotic pride and animosity made by victories and defeats...[helps] direct the popular interest to other, nobler, institutionally less hazardous matters than the unequal distribution of wealth or of creature comforts. Warlike and patriotic preoccupations fortify the barbarian virtues of subordination and prescriptive authority...Such is the promise held out by a strenuous national policy" (Theory of Business Enterprise [1904]). The Bush team  threatend to beat up anybody who "harbors terrorists" or aims to build "weapons of mass destruction" without our approval. Israel is of course exempt from this rule and has been given carte blanche to smash the Palestinian civil society. Bush and his handlers decided who are terrorists, who harbors them, and who can build weapons. It is easily predictable that anybody who resists the corporate globalization process and tries to pursue an independent development path, will be found to violate human rights, harbor terrorists, or otherwise threaten U.S. "national security," with dire consequences. Because the ongoing globalization process is increasing inequality and poverty, protests and insurgencies will continue to arise. The U.S. answer is spelled out clearly in the "war on terrorism" and simultaneous push for "free trade" and cutbacks in spending for the civil society at home and abroad. The Washington Axis is also pursuing a "war on the poor" that will merge easily into the "war on terrorism," as the poor will be driven to resist and resistance will be interpreted as terrorism. This is in a great U.S. tradition, brought to a high level in the overthrow of the democratic government of Iran in 1953 and installation of the Shah, the assassination of Guatemalan democracy by Eisenhower and Dulles in 1954, the war against Vietnam, and the U.S.-sponsored displacement of democratic governments by National Security States throughout South America in the 1960s and 1970s. They were wars allegedly against the "Soviet Threat," but really against the poor and the populist threat to "free trade." The Bush team obviously threatened even more violence than we witnessed in that earlier era. The military force they control is relatively stronger and without the Soviet constraint. With the help of the more centralized and commercialized media they have worked the populace into a state of war-game fervor. They have brought back into the government some of the most fervent supporters of terrorism and death squads from the Reagan years in Otto Reich, Richard Perle, Paul Wolfowitz, John Negroponte, Elliott Abrams, and Lino Guterriez; men who can now work in a more killer- friendly environment. 3. Escalated support for authoritarian regimes. The United States actively helped bring to power and supported large numbers of murderous regimes in the years 1945-1990, on the excuse of the Soviet Threat, but really because those regimes were suitably subservient to U.S. interests and willingly provided that crucial "favorable climate of investment" (especially, union-busting). With the Soviet Threat gone, for a while there was a problem finding rationalizations for the long-standing and structurally-rooted anti-populist and anti-democratic bias, but now we have the "war on terrorism," which will do quite nicely. The Washington Axis has already leapt to the support of the military dictator of Pakistan, the ex-Stalinist boss of Uzbekistan, and it is clear that willingness to serve the "war on terrorism" will override any nasty political leadership qualities. At the same time, as with Netanyahu in his escalated crackdown on the Palestinians and Putin in Chechnya, cooperation with the war will mean support for internal violence against dissidents and minorities, forms of state terrorism that will readily be interpreted as part of the "war on terrorism." Just as militarization and war do not conduce to democracy, the effects of mobilization of countries to support the Washington Axis of Evil's war will damage democracy globally. 4. Destabilization effects. Corporate globalization has had a major destabilizing effect in the global economy, causing increased unemployment, civilian budget cuts, large-scale internal and external migrations, and environmental destruction. The more aggressive penetration of oil interests, in collusion with local governments in Nigeria, Colombia, and now Central Asia, and the new war on terrorism, should intensify destabilization trends. 5. The fight against democracy at home. At every level the Bush team has fought against the basics of democracy and attempted to concentrate unaccountable governmental authority in its own hands. Militarization itself is anti-democratic, but the team has attempted to loosen constraints on the CIA and police, reduce public access to every kind of information, and constrain free speech. They have put in place a secret government and are moving the country toward a more openly authoritarian government, and, if they can keep it going, their planned open-ended war on terrorism should serve this end well. 6. The Bush "vision" versus the "End of History." This process does not comport well with Francis Fukayama's vision of the new peaceful, democratic order that would follow the death of the Soviet Union and triumph of capitalism. Fukayama missed the boat on three counts. He failed to see that the end of the Soviet Union and termination of a socialist threat would also end the need to accommodate labor with social welfare concessions--in other words, that there could be a return to a pure capitalism such as Karl Marx described in the first volume of Capital. Second, he failed to see that corporate globalization and greater capital mobility would make for a global "reserve army of labor" and weaken labor's bargaining power and political position. Finally, he failed to recognize that without the Soviet Union's "containment" the United States would be freer to use force in serving its transnationals, forcing Third World countries to join the "free trade" nexus, and preventing them from serving the needs of their citizens (as opposed to the needs of the transnational corporate community). As this entire process will involve further polarization and immiseration of large numbers, insurgencies are inevitable, justifying more militarization and an escalated war on "terrorism" in a vicious cycle. What can be more frightening and dangerous to the world than facing the Washington Axis of Evil as the overwhelmingly dominant holder of "weapons of mass destruction," which it is seeking to improve and make more usable, with the elite's longstanding arrogance and self-righteousness at an all-time high, and with no countervailing force in sight? Bin Laden's threat is nothing by comparison. What is more, the Bin Laden threat flows from U.S. actions, which played a crucial role in building up the Al-Qaeda network, and policies which have made a hell of the Middle East and polarized incomes and wealth across the globe. The cycle of violence will only be broken if the Washington Axis of Evil is defeated, removed from office, and replaced by a regime that aims to serve a broader constituency than oil, the MIC, the other transnationals, and the Christian Right. Related Articles War on Terror Geopolitics Oil Politics Unintended Consequences Distortion Why War in Afghanistan? The Great Game Reaching Parts The Colder War U.S. Won’t Consult East Asia Axis Of Evil—in Washington Britain Wants Return to Empire Diplomatic Impunity Why is America Hated New Crusade Just Response Mourn on the Fourth of July Military 'Aid' Bali and Imperialism Arms Dealers Profit from War on Terror A New Pearl Harbor U.S. Middle East Propaganda U.S. military in Europe Harold Pinter Nobel Prize Speech South Asia in Turmoil Gates CIA Policy Blowback Related Issues War on Terror (12) War on Terror FAQs Sept 11 Reaction and in Context War on Terror Mainstream Media and Propaganda New War on Terror War on Freedom More articles… Geopolitics (42) Arms Trade: Big Business World Military Spending Training Human Rights Violators Arms Sales Propaganda Small Arms More articles… Site Navigation Most Popular Pages Poverty Facts and Stats Global Financial Crisis Causes of Poverty Climate Change and Global Warming Environmental Issues Racism World Military Spending Foreign Aid Poverty Around The World Women’s Rights Recently Updated Energy Security Mideast & N.Africa Unrest Climate Change Intro Coral Reefs COP 16— Cancún Poverty Around The World Iraq - WikiLeaks Global Financial Crisis Obesity Children as Consumers Useful Resources Reports of the Federal Building and Fire Investigation of the World Trade Center Disaster Complete Reports: Federal Building and Fire Investigation of the World Trade Center Disaster These are the final reports on the Investigation into the collapses of the World Trade Center Towers (WTC 1 and WTC 2) and into the collapse of World Trade Center Building 7 (WTC 7), conducted under the National Construction Safety team Act.  These reports summarize the reconstruction of the events on September 11, 2001 and how NIST and its contractors and collaborators developed this information.  The reports conclude recommendations for action in the areas of increased structural integrity, enhanced fire endurance of structures, new methods for fire resistant design of structures, enhanced active fire protection, improved building evacuation, improved emergency response, improved procedures and practices, and education and training. Extensive details are found in the 44 supporting reports, which provide technical details of all aspects of the investigation. NIST NCSTAR 1 through 1-9A NIST NCSTAR 1: Federal Building and Fire Safety Investigation of the World Trade Center Disaster: Final Report of the National Construction Safety Team on the Collapses of the World Trade Center Tower NIST NCSTAR 1-1: Design, Construction, and Maintenance of Structural and Life Safety Systems NIST NCSTAR 1-2: Baseline Structural Performance and Aircraft Impact Damage Analysis of the World Trade Center Towers NIST NCSTAR 1-3: Mechanical and Metallurgical Analysis of Structural Steel NIST NCSTAR 1-4: Active Fire Protection Systems NIST NCSTAR 1-5: Reconstruction of the Fires in the World Trade Center Towers NIST NCSTAR 1-6: Structural Fire Response and Probable Collapse Sequence of the World Trade Center Towers NIST NCSTAR 1-7: Occupant Behavior, Egress, and Emergency Communication NIST NCSTAR 1-8: The Emergency Response Operations NIST NCSTAR 1A:  Final Report on the Collapse of World Trade Center Building 7 * NIST NCSTAR 1-9: Structural Fire Response and Probable Collapse Sequence of World Trade Center Building 7 * * List of January 2009 Text Changes to the NIST Reports of the Federal Building and Fire Investigation of the World Trade Center Disaster, NCSTAR 1A, NIST NCSTAR 1-9, and NIST NCSTAR 1-9A Videos News Headlines Books and Reading List Links and Resources Favorite Quotes The energetic material that was found in the WTC dust by an international team of scientists (led by Niels Harrit of the University of Copenhagen in Denmark)  was reported in the peer-reviewed Bentham Open Journal of Chemical Physics. John Gross, NIST co-project leader, has denied the existence of – or even any reports of – molten iron or steel at the World Trade Center. Building a Better Mirage NIST's 3-Year $20,000,000 Cover-Up of the Crime of the Century by Jim Hoffman Version 1.0, Dec 8, 2005 a critique of the Final Report of the National Construction Safety Team on the Collapses of the World Trade Center Towers by the Federal Building and Fire Safety Investigation of the World Trade Center Disaster revision history 8/01/05: 911Research publishes Version 0.9 of this critique 8/21/05: 911Research publishes Version 0.98 of this critique 12/08/05: 911Research publishes Version 1.0 of this critique NOTE: Pre-1.0 versions of this essay critiqued the Draft of NIST's Final Report. Version 1 includes the new section NIST's Vacuous Response to its Critics. I. Introduction: II. Natural Skepticism III. Reframing the Story IV. Background and Motive V. Historical Precedent VI. Government Complicity and Intelligence Breakdowns VII. WTC Building 7 VIII. The Twin Towers IX. Marvin Bush and the Planting of Explosives X. Underground Explosions XI. Evidence Destroyed XII. Military Response XIII. AA Flight 77 XIV. Hani Hanjour and Flight 77's Unexplained Expert Maneuvers XV. Video Evidence at the Pentagon XVI. The Pentagon XVII. Flight Manifests and Passenger Lists XVIII. Flight 93 XIX. Bin Laden 'Confession' Tapes XX. Too Grand a Conspiracy? XXI. The Media, Official Investigations, Debunkers, and other Misinformation XXII. Conclusion XXIII. Links XXIV. Charlatans and Scoundrels "All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident." — Arthur Schopenhauer All of us - individuals and nations - have fictitious myths that we create, believe, and weave our identities into. We have all invented some aspect of ourselves, or the world, that we desperately want to believe, often despite ample evidence pointing to the absurdity and falseness of the created myth. This myth creation is some kind of defensive mechanism, used to evoke a sense of security in an insecure world, utilized to invoke a sense of personal worth in an often brutal and uncaring world. And while the psychology behind this myth making is an interesting and worthy topic for another essay, the principal subject of this paper is the fact that we have dramatically animated and amplified one of these myths. And it has metastasized into an out of control force that is wreaking havoc in our own country, and across the globe. On the morning of September 11th, 2001, something tragic and terrible took place in New York City, Washington D.C., and rural Pennsylvania. Unfortunately, the actual facts, context, and details of what it was that truly took place that day have been swallowed by the force and momentum of what is now perhaps the largest American myth that exists; i.e. the story that 19 Arab hijackers, under the exclusive direction of Al-Qaeda and Osama Bin Laden, and fueled by a religiously driven fundamental hatred and jealousy of American values, blind-sided and plunged an unforeseen dagger into the heart of American democracy, freedom, and innocence. What follows in this essay is not a promotion, nor a defense, of any kind of 'conspiracy theory' regarding the events of September 11, 2001. It is, instead, a presentation of facts, inconsistencies, and disturbing questions uncovered in 2 years of persistent and continuous research that will reveal the absurdity of a myth that is too self-delusional not to expose. It will reveal how the hard facts before, during, and after that now infamous day stand in stark opposition to the 'official' story and myth of 9/11 that has been spun and created by certain elements within the U.S. government. And it will consider why the easily revealed facts exposing U.S. government complicity in the mass-murder of thousands of its citizens have been comprehensively ignored by the American public, and wholly uninvestigated by the American media. That this hard truth may be difficult to swallow, in light of the 9/11 myth that has grown so immense around that day, bears no significance upon its efficacy and validity. There is a whole matrix of information pointing to U.S. Government involvement in the planning and execution of September 11th. From the ominous writings of the Project for a New American Century (PNAC), to the scores of so-called 'intelligence breakdowns', to the lack of military response and the comprehensive dismissal of standard operating procedures in reaction to a declared emergency, to the bizarre collapse of WTC 7, to the freefall speed and explosive collapse of the Towers, to the miraculous aeronautical maneuvering of the jets, to Dick Cheney's suspicious behavior in the underground bunker, and on and on. The incriminating data is there, and has been presented at length in this paper. The only thing keeping the truth about 9/11 from emerging is our collective desire to continue to spin the fairy tale we have been fed. We have an emotional investment in what it means to be American. We have an emotional investment in trusting and believing in the goodness of our 'leaders'. We have an emotional investment in the correctness of our initial reaction to the events of 9/11, and in the goodness of the justice we pursued thereafter. We have an emotional investment in our belief about the veracity and democratic function of the press. To admit and accept the truth that is illuminated by the actual hard facts and data of 9/11 would unravel the threads of a narrative we have used over the past 5 years to literally define ourselves. To admit to the hard truth about 9/11 would be a literal death of a part of us. But surely, in upholding this collective myth of 9/11, part of us is dying anyway. A much more central, vital part. All of us know that when we refuse to look at ourselves, and the world, honestly, we suffer. We are forced to live disconnected, unhappy, and wholly stressful lives. For whatever false images and versions of reality we have created will necessarily, and continuously, run up against the immovable certainty of the truth. In response, we will be forced to constantly manipulate our thoughts and actions, rearrange facts, polish our blinders, stick fingers in our ears, and engage in a perpetual state of denial to avoid that truth, struggling mightily to reestablish the more comforting feeling of our chosen myth. It is a full-time commitment, burden, and unequivocal waste of energy that will lead to a life of perpetual disconnect. Families burdened by the experience of sexual abuse often endure this kind of disjointed reality. Accusations are made, old memories suddenly rush back, various members of the family split into different camps, and an acute crisis unfolds. Often there will be a camp that will refuse to believe the accusations, refuse to listen to the strength of their memories, refuse to indulge their suspicions, refuse, ultimately, to reconcile with the truth. Ready excuses will be given in order to 'hold the family together'. The perpetuation of ignorance will be defended in order not to face the initial harshness of the truth. But this faction of the 'family' will live a life without depth, without real trust of each other, or of life. Because the 'family' they are defending does not exist. The 'family' they want to save is an illusion, an image they created in their collective minds that does not square with reality. And as such, their 'family', and the lives they engage within that 'family', will have no meaning. And the very suffering they wanted to avoid by ignoring the truth will only be deepened and made more harsh. The leaders of the U.S., in this case the Bush/Cheney Administration, are much like the abusive parents of our collective family. They have been entrusted with guiding and protecting us. Entrusted with decision-making responsibility to distribute and allocate our collective resources in order to lead us safely and effectively into the future. And in response, they have wholly abused and betrayed this power. They invented reasons to start an illegal war. They have intimidated and divided this country into two halves more interested in screaming at each other than collaborating. They have funneled vast sums of our collective resources into the hands of their already fabulously wealthy friends and partners in the defense and oil contract industries. They have dramatically energized and amplified an insurgency and a terrorist network they claimed their power, influence, and position were going to quell. And as laid out in the mountain of evidence reviewed and presented in this paper, they, not a nebulous force of bearded Arab men living in caves and annoyed at our 'American values', orchestrated the murder of 3,000 of our fellow citizens and family members on the morning of September 11, 2001. One of the tenets and ideals upon which this country was founded, and still resides, is accountability. Taking responsibility for our own actions, and rendering ourselves accountable for their consequences. In fact, the Republican Party, to which the Bush/Cheney Administration act as leaders, has made this their moral mantra over the past ten years. And indeed, accountability and responsibility are wise ideals to live by. And if 9/11 is, as advertised, the seminal event shaping our generation, then nowhere is it more important to uphold and honor our stated and chosen ideals than in honestly investigating and uncovering the actual truth about that event. And holding the real perpetrators accountable. That those perpetrators appear to come from within the ranks of our own family is a truth that, though perhaps initially harsh, must be dealt with and reconciled. If not, we will live lives without depth, lives wholly disconnected from reality, lives filled with deception and further suffering. I have heard from people who have at least considered the evidence of 9/11 still defend the need to uphold the official story by arguing that to reveal the truth would cause unpredictable chaos and social upheaval. Is there not chaos and upheaval now? Are there not thousands of Americans dead, hundreds of thousands of Iraqis and Afghanis dead? Has not Iraq been thrown into all out civil war? Has not the 'war on terror' served only to escalate the number of terrorists worldwide, giving more credence than ever to terrorist leaders' claims of an infidel western power bent on global domination? Was this not Bush and Cheney's plan from the beginning, to create a new sinister enemy in order to legitimize their pre-existing plans to "reorganize America's defenses" and reinforce the U.S. economic/oil hegemony? Has not this global corporate paradigm to which we are so attached served only to push the planet to the brink of catastrophic climate changes that threaten the very survival of our species? Is change really so unbearable? Perhaps change is, initially, painful. Dealing and reconciling with the truth about 9/11 is a big step that requires letting go of certain vines of reality we have depended upon for so long. But as any recovering addict or abuse victim will testify, this reconciliation is the only way to end the perpetual struggle we have locked ourselves into. Because with the truth, there is nothing left to defend. There is no sinking ship to save. There are no illusions that have to be rationalized with fancy language or media spin or public relations campaigns. There is only the truth of what is real. As is. And we can get on with living our lives. The axiom 'Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely' is a well-known and widely believed moral truism. The current U.S. government enjoys more absolute power than the world of human history has ever known. So what is it, what deeply held conviction, assumed self-evident truth, and collectively held myth keeps us from considering and suspecting that this U.S. government, with its unprecedented power and influence, is deeply and profoundly corrupt? And finally, to answer the most common and most important question I am consistently asked: So what? Why is it so important that the truth of 9/11 come out. My simple answer is that a significant crime has been committed, and the criminals who so comprehensively benefited from the crime are still running around, setting agendas and steering the course of not only our country, but the future of our shared planet as well. And these people should be sitting in prison, not in the Oval Office and high-rise executive suites. But perhaps more importantly, our continuing choice to remain ignorant about the reality of 9/11 is indicative of a more general apathy and collective ambivalence toward an accelerating global chaos that is quickly, and literally, making our shared planet inhospitable for the coming generations. To whom I believe we have a shared responsibility to grow up and behave like the adults we have been entrusted to be. The authors of 9/11 have worked tirelessly to franchise the impact and consequence of that fateful morning. A staggering amount of emotional weight has been bestowed upon September 11th. To even mention the word, to even hint that a sentence is about to reference the phrase 9/11, is to elicit an involuntary emotional response of shock and awe from the listener. And while this build-up and extraordinary emotional momentum generated around 9/11 is something the authors are undoubtedly proud of, something they have used for the past five years to shape and cajole and manipulate public will and opinion, there also lie the seeds of a great irony within the surging force of that momentum. Because built in to the force of that heavy tide lie not only the seeds for expanding the plotters' demented power and influence, but also the seeds of their potential downfall and demise as well. For if we the people can unshackle the fetters we have agreed to carry, if we can turn ourselves into social alchemists and harness the emotionality and momentum 9/11 already carries, redirect its force to wash back over its contriving authors, then therein lies a great potential to generate the much needed, lasting change in the currently destructive course of our collective heading. The proof that the threads of the 9/11 web, in which we find ourselves so entangled, were spun by individuals holding prominent positions within the ranks of our own governmental 'leadership' is undeniable. Those who wove those threads will not untangle the knots. This task is left to us. The following text is  a reply an article by Ted Goertzel publishedin the Skeptical Inquirer In his purported demolition of the alleged conspiracy theory about 9/11, Ted Goertzel writes in the January/February, 2011 SKEPTICAL INQUIRER "But no one had claimed that the steel (in the World Trade Center) had melted, only that it had gotten hot enough to weaken and collapse, which it did." However, it turns out, according to reputable sources, that no hydrocarbon fire has ever burned hot enough to cause the steel in a steel framed building to weaken and collapse either.  The 1992 edition of the National Fire Protection Association's Fire Protection Handbook(1) says that structural steel does not even BEGIN to soften until it reaches a temperature of 425 degrees centigrade, or 837 degrees fahrenheit, and doesn't loose half its strength until 650 degrees centigrade, or 1202 degrees fahrenheit.  And W. I. Edgar and C. Musse in their 2001 article "Why Did the World Trade Center Collapse? Science, Engineering and Speculation," in the JOURNAL OF THE MINERALS, METALS AND MATERIALS SOCIETY (53/12:8-11) state that even with its strength halved, the steel in the World Trade Center could still support two or three times the stresses imposed by a 650 degrees centigrade or 1250 degrees fahrenheit fire. These and other sources illustrate an important aspect of any investigation of an alleged conspiracy theory.  You can't automatically assume that any theory which makes claims too far outside the bounds of generally accepted opinion is a crackpot conspiracy theory and reject it; you've got to use some intelligence and actually examing the evidence that purports to support the theory.  You can't just mindlessly repeat -- 'you've got to be scientific;" "You've got to use reputable sources" -- like some ritually chanted abracadabra. Many other authorities have also stated that no steel framed building has ever collapsed because of fire.  Robert Berhinig, P.E. states in "Protecting the Foundation of Fire-Safety," in the July/August, 2002 IAEI (International Associaton of Electrical Inspectors) that "the FEMA report states further that until the attack on the WTC, no protected steel framed buildings had been known to collapse as a result of fire." FEMA is the federal agency that later came up with a theory about thermal expansion to explain the collapse of World Trade Center 7.  Yet in this FEMA statement quoted by Berhinig, we have an admission by FEMA that no such thermal expansion from fire had ever collapsed a steel framed building, even though steel framed buildings had been around for more than a hundred years, since the 1880's. Three of the experts who testified before the House Committee On Science May 1, 2002 Hearing On the Collapse of the World Trade Center -- Dr. W. Gene Corley, American Society of Civil Engineers and Chair of the Building Performance Assesment Team reviewing the WTC disaster; Dr. Arden L. Bement, Director of the National Institute of Standards and Technology; and Dr. Jonathan Barnett, Professor of Fire Safety Studies at the Worcester Polytechnic Institute -- all stated that fire had never caused a protected steel framed building to collapse.  Yet on 9/11/01, fire was the claimed cause of three such collapses of WTC 1, WTC 2, and WTC 7. In "Fire Inside: Strectural Design with Fire Safety in Mind," by Carolyn Berry in the August 25, 2007 issue of SCIENCE NEWS, Allen Hay, chief fire safety officer of the New York City Fire Department said concerning World Trade Center 7: "We just expected it to burn out -- we didn't expect it to fall down."  "It's the only building I know of in New York City to ever collapse (strictly) from fire." Upon reading the SCIENCE NEWS article, it turns out that the NIST (National Institute of Standards and Technology) computer simulation, which purported to account for for the collapse of WTC 7, did not account for that building's collapse.  In the paragraph in the first column on page 124 of SCIENCE NEWS, Berry writes: "The NIST simulation, like all models of building failures to date, couldn't follow the 9/11 collapses through to the end.  No computer is yet powerful enough to follow the chaotic sequence of events that ensues when components break apart and a building falls, but this is where research is headed." In other words, the much vaunted NIST simulation, which purported to dispose of the arguments of we conspiracy theorists didn't actually demonstrate how fire caused the buildings to collapse; they just waved their hands when the computing power currently available had took them as far as it could and said: "This is far enough; the buildings collapsed somewhere around here."  Of course we all know we have accounted for how the buildings probsbly collapsed once we have gone this far.  It HAS to be the probable explanation because the only alternative explanation is those NUTTY, WACKO CONSPIRACY THEORIES!  We know A PRIORI that that CAN'T be true! Since all three World Trade Center buildings,collapsed on to their footprints, or the areas on which they were standing, it is necessary to consult the article, "How Building Implosions Work," by Tom Harris in the COLUMBIA ENCYLOPEDIA.  Harris writes: "You can demolish a stone wall with a sledgehammer, and it is fairly easy to level a five-story building using excavators and wrecking balls.  But when you need to bring down a massive structure, say a 20-story skyscraper, you have to haul out the big guns. Explosive demolition is the preferred method for safely and efficiently demolishing larger structures. When a building is surrounded by other buildings, it may be necessary to 'implode' the building, that is, make it collapse down into its footprint." In other words, planting explosives within a building at carefully preselected locations is the ONLY way to bring down a building on to its footprint. Conversely, if a building falls on to its footprint, we can be certain that explosives were planted within it. But terrorists from Afghanistan would not be able to sneak past building security and stay hidden during the time they would need to preplant explosives at carefully preselected locations. Even a domestic  terrorist group would not be able to do this.  Only the U.S. government, or rogue elements within it, would be able to pull this off, a task made especially easy since both the FBI and CIA both had their offices in Building 7 of the World Trade Center. The similarity of the destruction of World Trade Center 7 to controlled demolition was pointed ouut by Dan Rather when he said on the September 11, 2001 CBS News: "It's reminiscent of those pictures we've all seen too much on television where a building was deliberately destroyed by well-placed dynamite to knock it down." Many of the firefighters, whose testimony is recorded in the oral histories that were made available to the public after an Appeals Court order reported on hearing and seeing the explosions that would occur in controlled demolitions.  Assistant New York Fire Commissioner Stephen Gregory said: "I thought that when I looked in the direction of the Trade Center before it came down, before Number Two came down, that I saw low-level flashes. In my conversation with Lieutenant Evangelista, never mentioning this to him, he questioned me and asked if I saw low-level flashes in front of the building, and I agreed with him... I saw a flash-flash-flash, and then it looked like the building came down. ... No, the lower level of the building.  You know like when they demolish a building, how they blow up a building, when it falls down?  That's what I thought I saw." Even though no hydrocarbon fire outside a blast furnace can melt steel, or even weaken steel sufficiently to cause a steel structure to collapse, and even if it could, it could not account for a building falling into its own footprint, since any fire would be unlikely to be equally hot and begin simultaneously at every point in a building, molten metal did appear in all three World Trade Center buildings.  An explanation for this molten metal can be found if we read chemist Kevin Ryan's article, "Environmental Anomalies at the World Trade Center: Evidence for Energetic Materials," in the March, 2009 THE ENVIRONMENTALIST. Ryan wrote: "The characteristics of these un-extinguishable fires have not been adequately explained as the results of a normal structure fire, even one accelerated by jet fuel.  Conversely, such fires are better explained by chemical energetic materials, which provide their own fuel and are not deterred by water, dust, and chemical suppressants." One such energetic material is thermite, a well mixed powder of iron oxide (rust) and aluminum.  It burns at a temperature of 4,500 degrees Fahrenheit. This is well above the 2,800 degrees Fahrenheit melting point of iron or steel but sometimes sufur is added to the mixture to lower the melting point of iron.  It can cut through steel like a hot knife through butter. The necessity of preserving the evidence of thermites is emphasized in the 2001 Edition of the National Fire Protection Association NFPA 921 Guide for Fireand Explosion Investigations. "Thermite mixtures also produce exxeedingly hot fires. Such accelerants generally leave resiidues that may be visually or chemically identifiable. ...As a result, the entire fire scene should be considered physical evidence and should be protected and preserved." But, as we have seen, the majority of the remains of the World Trade Center were shipped out to be melted down in China and Korea as soon as possible. And in spite of repeated attempts by FEMA to deny the presence of molten metal in the ruins of the World Trade Center, there are many sources confirming that molten metal was present.  The April 1, 2002 WASTE AGE describes New York Sanitation Department workers moving "everything from molten steel beams to human remains." A September 11, 2002 report in Government Computer News (GCN.com) quotes Greg Fuchek, vice-president of sales for LinksPoint Inc as stating: "In the first few weeks, sometimes when a worker would pull a steel beam from the wreckage, the end of the beam would be dripping molten steel."  A June 29, 2002 MESSENGER-INQUIRER (Messenger-Inquirer.com) recounts the experiences of Bronx firefighter "Toolie" O'Toole, who stated that some of the beams liffted from deep within the catacombs of Ground Zero by cranes were "dripping from molten steel." The RecordOnLine.com contains "The Chaplain's Tale," an audio transcription of an interview of Ground Zero chaplain Herb Trimpe, who said: "When I was there, of course, the remnants of the towers were still standing. It looked like an enormous junkyard. A scrap metal yard, very similar to that. Except this was still burning.  There was still fire.  On the cold days, even in January, there was a noticeable difference between the temperature in the middle of the site than there was when you walked two blocks over on Broadway.  You could actually feel the heat.  It took me a long time to realize it and I found myself actually one day wanting to get back.  Why? Because I felt more comfortable.  I realized it was actually warmer on site.  The fires burned up to 2000 degrees, underground for quite awhile before they actually got down to those areas and they cooled off.  I talked to many contractors and they said they actually saw molten metal trapped, beams had just totally had been melted because of the heat.  So this was the kind of heat that was going on when those airplanes hit the upper floors.  It was just demolishing." A report in the Johns Hopkins PUBLIC HEALTH MAGAZINE about recovery work in late October quotes Alison Geyh, Ph.D., as stating: "Fires are still actively burning and the smoke is very intense.  In some pockets now being uncovered, they are finding molten steel."  A publication by the National Environmental Health Association (NEHA.org) quotes Ron Burger, a public health advisor at the National Center for Envirinmental Health, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, who arrived at Ground Zero on the evening of September 12.  Burger stated: "Feeling the heat, seeing the molten steel, the layers upon layers of ash, like lava, it reminded me of Mt. St. Helen's and the thousands who fled that disaster."  An article in The Newsletter of the Structural Engineers Association of Utah (SEAU News, page 3) describing a speaking appearance by Leslie Robertson, a structural engineer responsible for the design of the World Trade Center, contains this passage: "As of 21 days after the attack, the fires were still burning and the molten steel was still running."  A December 1, 2001 article in GROUND ZERO is based on a journal kept by a member of the New York Air National Guard's 109th Air Wing who was at Ground Zero September 22 to October 6, 2001.  The article reads: "Smoke constantly poured from the peaks.  One fireman told us that there was still molten steel at the heart of the towers' remains.  Firemen sprayed water to cool the debris down but the heat remained intense enough at the surface to melt their boots."  The book AMERICAN GROUND says on page 32: "... or, in the early days, the streams of molten metal that leaked from the hot cores and flowed down broken walls inside the foundation hole."  And a review of the documentary Collateral Damage in the March 3, 2004 NEW YORK POST (NYPost.com) describes firemen at Ground Zero recalling "heat so intense they encountered rivers of molten steel." Although most of the steel in the World Trade Center had been shipped out to China and Korea to be melted down, in clear violation of the laws requiring that the evidence from a crime scene be preserved for forensic investigation, some of the steel girders remained.  The flanges of many of the girders had been reduced to paper thinness, with holes indicating that the steel had not only melted but vaporized.And Janette Mackinlay had returned to her fourth floor apartment at 113 Cedar Street, about 100 meters, or 328 feet, from the south tower of the World Trade Center to clean up after it had been flooded with dust from the WTC collapse.  She saved some of the dust in a plastic bag. Brigham Young University Professor of Physics, Steven E. Jones, obtained some of the dust from Mackinlay in the presence of other scientists.  In his subsequent online paper, "Revisiting 9/11, 2001 -- Applying the Scientific Method," Professor Jones found round spheres of iron, indicating that the iron had melted and subsequently solidified during the fall.  Mixed in were aluminum and sulfur, clear indications of thermate. And in January, 2009, Jones and other reported in their article, "Active Thermitic Material Discovered in Dust from the 9/11 World Trade Center Catastrophe," in the OPEN CHEMICAL PHYSICS JOURNAL that they have found nanoscopic particles of unignighted thermate in the World Trade Center dust.  Ordinary thermate is only an incendiary, even though it burns at a temperature hot enough  to burn through steel.  Nano is a prefix meaning billionths of a meter and the smaller size of the nano particles of iron oxide, aluminum, and sulfur mean that a greater proportion of the particles are exposed on the particles' surfaces and available to react with one another.  As a result, it burns so much faster that it becomes an explosive as well as an incendiary. Grain millers are familiar with an analogous process.  Ordinary grain will burn but it becomes an explosive when ground into a fine dust.  Even a random spark can set off a catastrophic explosion when enough of it builds up in the air inside a grain mill.  The residents of my home town, Minneapolis, found out about this in the early 1900's when one of the early grain mills exploded and hurled large pieces of concrete for several blocks. Skeptics too often reject theories too far out of the mainstream dismissing them by conditioned reflex, out of rote as "crackpot," "conspiracy theories," etc without actually looking at the evidence to determine whether the theory in question is actually a crackpot theory.  That won't do; there is no substitute for intelligence.  In so doing, skeptics violate the very essence of what they purport to be and become "skeptics" instead of skeptics. The boundaries of what is considered too far out of the mainstream to be credible has changed over time.  During the cold war, most Americans thought of our government as benign, with the exception of the occasional corrupt official, and any contrary views were considered far out conspiracy theories.  But Watergate, when a sitting President was shown to be complicit in attempting to burglarize the office of a competing political party marked a sea change in how U.S. citizens viewed their government.  Other immoral government actions that became public knowledge were the Tuskegee Experiment where Black men were left with untreated syphilis for decades so the federal government could study the progression of the disease and a cold war experiment where U.S. cities were sprayed with what was though to be a harmless chemical so the military could simulate the dispersal of germ warfare agents after spraying.  A few people in the sprayed areas were later found to have died of pneunomia.  A few years before all this came out, anyone who accused the government of such actions would be thought a raving, wacko, conspiracy theorist. But in spite of Watergate, most Americans would not have though our government would be capable of killing its own citizens to whip up public support for something the government wanted to do, even though the Project for a New American Century had written that the American people may need a new Pearl Harbor to wake them up.  But, as we have seen from the 1992 edition of the National Fire Protection Association's Fire Protection Handbook and Edgar and Musse's article in the JOURNAL OF THE MINERALS, METALS, AND MATERIALS SOCIETY, the temperatures reached in an hydrocarbon fire not only cannot melt steel, they cannot cause it to become soft enough to lead to the collapse of any steel structure of which they are a part.  The October 6, 2005 NEW CIVIL ENGINEER confirms that the steel from the World Trade Center ruins was shipped off to China and Korea to be melted down for recycling, although it is a felony to remove the evidence from a crime scene before all the forensic investigations have been completed.  The three expert who testified before the May 1, 2002 House Committee On Science Hearing on the Collapse of the World Trade Center all confirmed that no protected steel framed building had ever collapsed solely from fire except the three buildings that had collapsed on September 11, 2001.  The August 25, 2007 SCIENCE NEWS informs us that the much vaunted National Institute of Standards and Technology simmulation of the collapse of WTC 7 did not actually follow the building through to its collapse.  And the same issue of SCIENCE NEWS also contains the statement of Assistant New York Fire Commissioner Stephen Gregory that no other steel framed building in New York had fallen because of fire.  The COLUMBIA ENCYLOPEDIA ARTICLE on How Building Implosions Work confirmed that the ONLY way to make buildings fall on to their footprints is to carefully plant explosives within the building.  Conversely, if a building falls onto its footprint, we can be certain that someone has planted explosives inside the building.  Terrorists fron Afghanistan, or even a domestic terrorist group, would not be able to sneak past building security and remain unobserved long enough to plant the explosives.  And an article by Steven E. Jones and others in the January, 2009 OPEN CHEMICAL PHYSICS JOURNAL reports on the discovery of unignited particles of nano thermate in the dust from the World Trade Center. Many Americans will find it difficult to face up to the realization that the government which we thought was there to protect us would actually murder 3000 of us in order to whip up public support for some political project they wanted to implement.  But we will not be the first people to have to face such a grim reallity.  The German government burned their own Reichstag in 1933 in order to whip up support for wiping out the Jews and had men dressed in Polish  army uniforms attack their own military bases near the Polish border in 1939 in order to get the German public to support the invasion of Poland.  And it came out after a Russian defecter was poisoned with polonium, something that only a developed nations government would have access to, that agents of the Russian government had been responsible for blowing up Russian apartment buildings to gain the Russian public's support for reconqering Chechenya. The final step in a criminal investigation is to ask who had the motive to do the crime.  Whose poll numbers shot up into the stratosphere after 9/11 and who gained the popular support to enable the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, abolish habaeus corpus and, at least, the de jure power to lock anyone up for life without a trial or even telling them why they were being imprisoned?  Only the neo cons and the Bush Administration, although Bush may have been only the front man and Dick Cheney the real power behind the throne.  Given the continuation of the Bush/Cheney policies with Obama, we will have to face the fact that we have only elected another person to fit into the slot for President in the same unchanged system.  It was the neo con Project for a New American Century who proposed that the U.S. seize the lands where the world's dwindling supply of oil is located, who were quoted as saying that the American people may need a New Pearl Harbor to wake them up, and whose members moved into prominent positions in the Bush/Cheney Administration and whose policies have been continued in almost every detail under Obama. But if enough people realize in time just how bad our government is, we can counter them before it is too late. Global Research Articles by Robert Halfhill The Means for Executing the 9/11 Attack The success of the 9/11/01 attack depended on each of the following five events happening as planned: Four jetliners were taken over with no effective resistance. Three of the four jetliners were flown into small targets, with the Pentagon strike involving extreme aerobatic maneuvers. The air defense network froze for over an hour while the attack unfolded. The towers self-destructed in a manner never before seen in any structure. According to the official story, bin Laden got lucky in each case. The hijackers enjoyed phenomenal success in taking over each of the four planes, despite at least one Vietnam-era fighter pilot being among all four of the cockpit crews. The hijackers displayed miraculous skill in flying jetliners into small targets despite the fact than none had ever flown a jet. The Air Force and Air National Guard failed to put up any defense against the jetliners-turned-missiles, despite ample warning times and response options. The Very Lucky Hijackers Statistically speaking, the probability of the alleged perpetrators enjoying such a run of luck is vanishingly small. The probability that a mission would succeed can be calculated by estimating the probabilities of achieving each individual task required to fulfill the mission, and then multiplying those probabilities together. (This method of computing probabilities assumes that the individual events are causally independent. Since the success of each task was not strictly independent, the following computation is not statistically rigorous, but is provided only to illustrate a point.) The following table lists estimates of probabilities for each of several tasks critical to the success of the mission. In all cases we chose much higher probabilities than the facts would warrant, in order to give the official story the benefit of the doubt. task probability hijacking Flight 11 1/2 hijacking Flight 175 1/3 hijacking Flight 77 1/4 hijacking Flight 93 1/4 evasion of intercepts by Flight 11 1/2 evasion of intercepts by Flight 175 1/3 evasion of intercepts by Flight 77 1/8 evasion of intercepts by Flight 93 1/8 hitting the North Tower 1/2 hitting the South Tower 1/2 hitting the Pentagon 1/4 Assuming these individual probabilities, the aggregate probability for success in the attack would be: 1/2 * 1/3 * 1/4 * 1/4 * 1/2 * 1/3 * 1/8 * 1/8 * 1/2 * 1/2 * 1/4 = 1/589824 This computation ignores the many other improbable events that worked in favor of the attackers, such as the unprecedented (alleged) crumbling of the steel-framed skyscrapers of the World Trade Center. The Well-Planned Attack The hijacker theory is not only a conspiracy theory, because it involves teams of hijackers working with remarkable coordination given their limited communication infrastructure, it is also a coincidence theory, because the success of the operation was possible only through a long run of coincidences. Contrast the official theory with one that the attack was planned and executed by those with the means to infallibly take over jetliners and accurately pilot them into small targets, while preventing interceptions by the armed services. Such a theory is also a conspiracy theory, but it is not a coincidence theory, because the long string of "lucky" events was actually the product of careful planning by people in positions to make things happen. Contrary to typical assumptions, a conspiracy involving insiders may have been executed by fewer people than the villains in the officially accepted conspiracy theory. e x c e r p t title: Attack Scenario 404 authors: 9-11 Research How the Attack Might Have Been Engineered The case that the 9/11/01 attack was an inside job can be made quite apart from any specific theory as to how it was accomplished, by simply demonstrating that only insiders had the means and opportunity to execute key elements of the attack. The true nature of such an operation is undoubtedly hidden behind layer upon layer of cover story, and its details may never be discovered. Speculative theories of the operation, while not verifiable, nonetheless can be useful in answering important questions about the attack, such as how many people it required. Attack Scenario 404 is such a theory. It shows that although the attack employed a variety of sophisticated communications and weapons technologies, all of these technologies were available "off-the-shelf", having been developed by secret programs ostensibly for other purposes. Specific tasks required to fulfill the mission were outsourced to companies providing strict confidentiality and working on a need-to-know basis. ...   Afghans rebuild a home destroyed by a U.S. airstrike, Tarok Kolache, 2011. “You can’t just convince them through projects and goodwill,” another Marine officer said. “You have to show up at their door with two companies of Marines and start killing people. That’s how you start convincing them.” This was the comment made by a Marine officer to the Washington Post for its April 16 story about “signs of progress” for President Obama’s surge strategy in southern Afghanistan. The officer was discussing how the U.S. strategy succeeded in the signing of a security pact between elders of the Alikozai area in southern Afghanistan and the U.S.-backed Karzai government. Many hundreds of young men from the Alikozai area were killed in an onslaught by U.S./NATO troops in months leading up the agreement, according to the Washington Post account. “We started stacking bodies like cordwood,” said an officer in Sangin, who like other Marines asked for anonymity to speak frankly. “And they came to a point where they said, ‘Holy [expletive], there aren’t that many of us left.’ ” The Washington Post is an enthusiastic supporter of the expanding war in Afghanistan. The newspaper editorial policy insists that the war is necessary for an improvement in the lives of average Afghans. Like other U.S. corporate-owned media outlets, the Post pretends that the U.S. counter-insurgency strategy is aimed at winning the hearts and minds of impoverished Afghan villagers. Its own reports about war strategy, however, reveal that the Pentagon cares as much about Afghan villages as it did about those in Vietnam that were razed and burned by U.S. troops to “save them” from falling under the control of Vietnamese communists. In this recent story, the Post approvingly explains why it was necessary for a battalion of the Army’s 101st Airborne Division to completely destroy the village of Tarok Kolache after seven U.S. soldiers were killed and 70 others wounded in the first 100 days of an operation in the Arghandab district of Kandahar province last July: … [I]nstead of sipping tea, [Lt. Col. David] Flynn decided to strike back. An initial target was the village of Tarok Kolache, a collection of about a dozen mud-brick, multi-family housing compounds surrounded by pomegranate orchards. Video from surveillance aircraft indicated that the village had been vacated, save for insurgents who were manufacturing homemade explosives in the walled-off courtyards. The Post carries before and after pictures of the entirely flattened village. “U.S. B-1B Lancer and A-10 Warthog jets conducted repeated bombing runs. A new ground-launched artillery rocket system also pelted the enclave. All told, almost 25 tons of ordnance was dropped on Tarok Kolache,” the Post states. The U.S. war in Afghanistan is a terrorist enterprise. By employing these tactics of terror, the Pentagon seeks to force Afghan peasants to end their resistance to foreign occupation. They are succeeding in creating oceans of suffering among people, most of who have never heard of the World Trade Center or the September 11 attacks. In fact, a 2010 survey conducted by the International Council on Security and Development (ICOS) showed that 92 percent of 1,000 Afghan men surveyed in Helmand and Kandahar provinces knew nothing of the hijacked airliner attacks in 2001. The real goal of the operation is not to “protect the American people.” Rather, it is to create a network of permanent military bases in an energy-rich and geostrategically important region that the U.S. Empire has targeted for enduring domination. The U.S. effort can kill thousands of Afghans and destroy their villages but it will not succeed in liquidating the resistance of the people. From Vietnam to Afghanistan—the Pentagon Brass have learned nothing. In 1997 Trilateral Commission founder Zbigniew Brzezinski, the godfather of the Afghan mujahadeen, wrote a book titled, The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and its Geopolitical Imperatives.  In the book Brzezinski - who sat on the board at BP Amoco - argues that the key to global power is control of Eurasia and that the “key to controlling Eurasia is controlling the Central Asian Republics”.  Brzezinski’s plan called for ruling Central Asia via control of Uzbekistan - which borders Afghanistan to the north. In 1997 Enron attempted to negotiate a $2 billion deal with the Uzbek state-owned Neftegas with help from the Bush White House. [1] When that effort and other privatization attempts were rebuffed in 1998, CIA-backed Islamist attacks on Uzbekistan’s government were ratcheted up. In 1999 a series of explosions rocked the Uzbek capital of Tashkent.  Islamic al-Qaeda-trained militants were to blame.  The rebels - who called themselves the Islamic Party of Turkistan - attempted to assassinate socialist President Islam Karimov.  They attacked the fertile Fergana Valley in an attempt to disrupt harvests and the Uzbek food supply. Karimov was also attacked by the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan and Hizb-ut-Tahrir. After the “carpet of bombs” began raining down on neighboring Afghanistan in October 2001, Uzbekistan - along with neighbors Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan – were coerced into accepting new US military bases.  In 2005 Kyrgyzstan’s nationalist President Askar Akayev was deposed by Islamists in the Tulip Revolution.  Within days Donald Rumsfeld was meeting with the new leaders. [2] Karimov had seen enough and ordered US troops out of Uzbekistan. The timing of both Brzezinski’s book and the Bush Jr. Administration “carpet of bombs” threat to the Taliban are instructive since both occurred prior to the 911 attacks, which provided the perfect pretext for the massive Central Asian intervention that Brzezinski, Bush and their City of London bosses were advocating.  Dr. Johannes Koeppl - former German Defense Ministry official and adviser to NATO Secretary General Manfred Werner - explained of this rash of “coincidences” in November 2001, “The interests behind the Bush Administration, such as the Council on Foreign Relations, the Trilateral Commission and the Bilderberger Group, have prepared for and are now implementing open world dictatorship (which will be established) within the next five years.  They are not fighting against terrorists.  They are fighting against citizens.” Drugistan Central Asia produces 75% of the world’s opium.  According to the UN, the surge in opium production in the region coincided with the disintegration of the Soviet Union, which was “encouraged” by the Reagan Administration and the CIA.  It also coincided with the Four Horsemen’s (Exxon Mobil, Chevron Texaco, BP Amoco & Royal Dutch/Shell) Caspian Sea oil boom.  While the US issued humiliating certifications to judge countries on their ability to stop drug traffic, Big Oil produced 90% of the chemicals needed to process cocaine and heroin, which CIA surrogates process and distribute.  CIA chemists were the first to produce heroin. As Ecuadorian Presidential Candidate Manuel Salgado put it, “This world order which professes the cult of opulence and the growing economic power of illegal drugs, doesn’t allow for any frontal attack aimed at destroying narco-trafficking because that business, which moves $400 billion annually, is far too important for the leading nations of world power to eliminate.  The US...punishes those countries which don’t do enough to fight against drugs, whereas their CIA boys have built paradises of corruption throughout the world with the drug profits.”[3] The Afghan “paradise of corruption” yielded 4,600 metric tons of opium in 1998.  In 1999 the Taliban announced a crack down on opium production in Afghanistan.  The move angered the CIA, the Afghan aristocracy and their Turkish Gray Wolves allies, whose smuggling routes mirror those of the Four Horsemen’s Caspian Sea oil pipeline recently opened for business through Turkey. When the Taliban cracked down on opium production, poppy fields bloomed to the north where CIA/ISI-sponsored Islamists were fighting in Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Chechnya, Dagestan, Armenia and Azerbaijan.  Asia Times writer Pepe Escobar termed the entire region “Drugistan”. [4] Pakistani writer Ahmed Rashid says the Saudis- fulfilling their usual “paymaster” role - funded the northward shift in poppy production. [5] It was part of a larger operation run by Western intelligence agencies to encircle Russia, seize oilfields and destabilize the entire Central Asia region using Islamic fundamentalists and heroin proceeds. In 1991 Air America/Iran-Contra super spook Richard Secord showed up in Baku, Azerbaijan under the cover of MEGA Oil. [6]  Secord did military training, sold Israeli arms, passed “brown bags filled with cash” and shipped in over 2,000 Islamist fighters from Afghanistan with help from CIA-favorite Gulbuddin Hekmatyar.  Afghan heroin began flooding into Baku.  Russian economist Alexandre Datskevitch said of 184 heroin labs that police discovered in Moscow in 1991, “Every one of them was run by Azeris, who use the proceeds to buy arms for Azerbaijan’s war against Armenia in Nagorno-Karabakh”. [7] A Turkish intelligence source claims that Exxon and Mobil (now Exxon Mobil) were behind the 1993 coup against elected Armenian President Abulfaz Elchibey.  Secord’s Islamists helped. Osama bin Laden set up an NGO in Baku as a base for attacking the Russians in Chechnya and Dagestan.  A more pliant President Heidar Aliyev was installed in Armenia. In 1996, at the behest of Amoco’s (now BP) president, he was invited to the White House to meet President Clinton - whose National Security Advisor Sandy Berger held $90,000 worth of Amoco stock. [8] Not content with the Polish Solidarist-led grab of Eastern Europe and the partitioning of oil-rich Soviet Central Asian republics, the CFR/Bilderberger crowd now used mujahadeen surrogates in Chechnya to further squeeze Russia.  In 1994 35,000 Chechen fighters were trained at Amir Muawia camp in Afghanistan’s Khost Province. Osama bin Laden built the camp for the CIA.  Now-deceased Chechen commander Shamil Basayev graduated from Amir Muawia and was sent to advanced guerrilla tactics camp at Markazi-i-Dawar, Pakistan. There he met with Pakistani ISI officials. [9] ISI has historically excelled at carrying out the CIA’s dirty laundry. The Chechen Islamists took over a big chunk of the Golden Crescent heroin trade, working with Chechen crime families affiliated with the Russian Alfa Group that did business with Halliburton.  They also had ties to the Albanian heroin labs being run by the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA).  A Russian FSB report stated that the Chechens began buying real estate in Kosovo in 1997, just prior to the US-led partition of Kosovo from Yugoslavia. Saudi-born Chechen commander Emir al-Khattab set up guerrilla camps to train KLA Albanian rebels.  The camps were funded by the heroin trade, prostitution rings and counterfeiting.  Recruits were invited by Basayev and funded by the House of Saud’s Muslim Brotherhood Islamic Relief Organization. [10] In February 2002 sent 200 military advisers and attack helicopters to Georgia to “root our terrorism”. On September 20, 2002, Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov stated that the al Qaeda-trained Chechen rebels targeting his country were being given safe-haven by the government of Georgia.  The Four Horsemen’s strategic Baku-Tblisi-Ceyhan pipeline was set to open through the Georgian capital Tblisi. The US deployment was a smokescreen for pipeline protection.  In October 2003 Georgian President Eduard Schevardnadze was forced to step down despite the fact that he had been elected to serve until 2005. IMF darling Mikheil Saakashvili was installed to complete the banker coup which was dubbed the Rose Revolution. According to The Guardian, Rose Revolution funders included the U.S. State Department, USAID, National Democratic Institute for International Affairs, International Republican Institute, Bilderberg Group, the NGO Freedom House, George Soros's Open Society Institute and National Endowment for Democracy (NED). When Gulbuddin Hekmatyar ceded Kabul to the Taliban in 1995, Taliban training camps in Pakistan and Afghanistan were taken over by Jamiat-ul-Ulema-e-Islam (JUI) who, with help from Saudi Wahhabist clerics, recruited and trained Islamic fundamentalist volunteers to fight wars of destabilization throughout the Balkans and Central Asia.  Financed by Golden Crescent heroin, these terrorists shipped out to fight with Chechen rebels, the Kosovo Liberation Army, the Bosnian Muslim Army, the National Liberation Army (Albanian separatists fighting the government of Macedonia) and Chinese East Turkistan Uighur rebels fighting against Beijing. Out of these same camps came Lakshar e-Taiba and Jamiash-i-Mohammed, who in December 2001 attacked India’s Parliament in New Delhi, killing fourteen legislators and provoking the Indians into a massive military deployment along the Pakistani border. In the early 1990’s the CIA had helped Afghan mujahadeen veterans get passports to immigrate to the US.  The Al-Kifah Refugee Center in Brooklyn, where many Afghans landed, turned into a CIA recruiting base for wars in Yugoslavia and Central Asia.  Among those who frequented the center were El Sayyid Nosair, who assassinated far-right Israeli Rabbi Meir Kahane; and Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman, a fundamentalist Egyptian cleric linked to the assassination of Egyptian President Anwar Sadat.  The CIA brought the sheik to Brooklyn as a recruiting tool. [11]  His son was killed in December 2001 - a key al Qaeda leader fighting the US in Afghanistan. The CIA arranged for Egyptian al Qaeda leaders to flea to Albania in 1997, where they helped train and fight with the Kosovo Liberation Army.  Bin Laden’s #2 man Ayman al-Zawahiri heads Egyptian Islamic Jihad.  Al-Zawahiri’s sidekick Ali Mohammed came to the US in 1984.  He trained terrorists in Brooklyn and Jersey City on weekends.  His regular job was to instruct US Special Forces at Fort Bragg.  In 1998 he helped bomb the US Embassies in Africa. [12] According to British MP Michael Meacher, in an article for The Guardian, M16 recruited up to 200 British Muslims to fight in Afghanistan and Yugoslavia.  Meacher says a Dehli-based foundation describes Omar Saeed Sheikh, the man who beheaded US journalist Daniel Pearl in 2002, as a British agent.  He says it was Sheikh who - at the behest of ISI General Mahmood Ahmed - wired $100,000 to Mohammed Atta just prior to 911, a fact confirmed by Dennis Lomel, director of FBI’s financial crimes unit. [13] Restoring Petromonarchy According to Mossad intelligence reports, as of July 1, 2001, 120,000 metric tons of opium was warehoused in Afghanistan awaiting shipment. Two months later the US was bombing Afghanistan. Opium shipments resumed.  The US paid several Afghan warlords $200,000 each and gave them satellite phones to lead a surrogate army Northern Alliance-led ground assault on the Taliban.  Over $7 million was spent buying off these opium-trafficking warlords, including Uzbek butcher Rashid Dostum. [14] Amnesty International and UN Human Rights Commissioner Mary Robinson called for an investigation of an incident at Mazar-i-Sharif where Dostum oversaw the surrender of hundreds of Taliban and al Qaeda fighters, who were then massacred in a bombing raid by US aircraft during in an alleged prison uprising.  The “American Taliban” John Walker Lindh was among the few survivors.  The prisoners had come from Konduz where, according to investigative journalist Seymour Hirsch of The New Yorker, the White House had ordered US Special Forces to create an evacuation corridor whereby Pakistani military aircraft were allowed to fly no less than 2,500 al Qaeda and Taliban fighters - along with their ISI advisers and at least two Pakistani generals - to safety in Pakistan. While the Bush Administration used an alleged al Qaeda/Saddam Hussein alliance as a pretext to turn its guns towards oil-rich Iraq, al Qaeda and Taliban leadership remained unharmed in Pakistan. In Afghanistan US envoy and former Unocal executive Zalmay Khalilzad was busy paving the way for the construction of the Unocal-led Centgas pipeline.  Later Khalilzad became US Ambassador to Iraq.  US Ambassador to Pakistan Wendy Chamberlain huddled with Pakistan Oil Minister Usman Aminuddin and the Saudi Ambassador to Pakistan to plan the pipeline, which would run next to Khandahar - home of Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar.  Omar favored the Centgas consortium and remains mysteriously at large. Northern Alliance leader Burhanuddin Rabbani- who had been Afghan Prime Minster until he was deposed by Hekmatyar and the Taliban in 1996 - was quietly dealt out of the new Kabul government, ostensibly for favoring the Argentine-led Bridas pipeline consortium. [15]  The World Bank and IMF set up shop in Kabul after a twenty-five year hiatus.  Halliburton’s Brown & Root subsidiary and other post-war “reconstruction specialists” lined up for contracts.  On December 27, 2002 Turkmenistan, Pakistan and Afghanistan signed a deal paving the way for the Centgas pipeline. The US-handpicked Afghan Prime Minister Hamid Karzai emerged after the assassination of contender Abdul Haq, who walked into a trap inside Afghanistan while supposedly under CIA protection.  Haq’s handler was Robert “Bud” McFarlane, Reagan’s National Security Advisor who now runs a K Street oil consulting firm.  Haq had no ties to the oil industry and was considered by the CIA to be too cozy with Iran and Russia. Rabbani’s Northern Alliance military commander Sheik Massoud was mysteriously assassinated just two days before 911. According to Iranian, Afghan and Turkish government sources, Hamid Karzai was a top adviser to Unocal during their negotiations with the Taliban.  He was also a CIA contact during the Company’s decade-long Afghan War.  Bill Casey made sure Karzai’s family was moved safely to the US after anarchy took over in Kabul. [16]  Karzai is close to King Zaher Shah, who returned to Afghanistan from exile to convene the royalist loya jerga in July 2002.  When all other presidential candidates mysteriously dropped out of the race just 24 hours before the election, Karzai got the nod as head of state.  His people then shut down debate at the conference, stonewalled on the formation of parliament and refused to appoint a cabinet.  Karzai secret police roamed the grounds of the conference looking for dissenters to jail.  According to tribal representative Hassan Kakar, delegates disagreeing with Karzai were not even allowed to speak. The Karzai government represents a return of the Afghan monarchy, compliant as ever to international banker interests in the region. In 2005 Chevron Texaco bought Unocal, cementing Four Horsemen control over the trans-Afghan Centgas pipeline. The first British soldier to be killed in Afghanistan this year had told friends days before he feared he would die. Private Robert Hayes, 19, had said Britain was involved in a 'pointless' war that would drag on for at least another ten years. The rifleman with 1st Battalion The Royal Anglian Regiment was on foot patrol in Helmand on Sunday when he was killed by a bomb. Private Robert Hayes, of 1st Battalion the Royal Anglian Regiment, who has been named as the first British soldier to be killed in Afghanistan this year. A friend, student Jack Kempton, 17, who saw him on December 22 when the soldier was home on compassionate leave, said: 'Rob said he was scared and that it made you wonder who was next. 'But he said it was his job and the Army was his life. He told me it was a pointless war and that we shouldn't be there.' Private Hayes lived with his mother, Diane Baldwin, in Burwell, near Cambridge. Miss Baldwin, 52, was described as 'in pieces'. His girlfriend, Jemma Redfarn, 18, wrote on Facebook: 'Robbie, I dont know what to say. I have written to you almost every day since you left but I never imagined I would be writing to you like this. 'I am honoured to have been able to know you and love you. You have made me so happy. Loving you has been one of the most amazing experiences of my life. 'You will forever be in my heart. I am so in love with you, Robert Stephen Hayes, and as I always say, I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you. Your Jemma with a J.' Pte Hayes, from Burwell, Cambridgeshire, was a keen sportsman who played for Newmarket Rugby Club and won his weight category in his battalion's 2009 boxing championships. He completed his Army training in March last year and joined 1st Battalion the Royal Anglian Regiment shortly afterwards, the Ministry of Defence said. In October the young soldier deployed to one of the most dangerous parts of Afghanistan as part of the 1st Battalion Grenadier Guards Battle Group. Pte Hayes's family said in a statement: 'Trying to express the true measure of our sorrow - and our sense of loss - at this time is impossible. 'We are still coming to terms with this devastating news. However, we are strengthened by the thought that he was with his comrades, doing the job he so dearly loved, when his life was taken.' More than 1,000 people joined a Facebook group set up in Pte Hayes's memory and many left tributes. One of them, Dooley Murphy, wrote: 'There are no words to describe the unfairness and insanity of it all. 'Rob, you are a hero and an inspiration to everyone you met. I don't know what to say. Rest in peace bro, you'll be missed by all.' Britain's death toll since the start of operations in the country in 2001 is now 246. Last year's final casualty was 23-year-old bomb disposal expert Sapper David Watson who was killed by a roadside bomb on New Year's Eve. The latest death is also the second suffered by the Royal Anglian Regiment in recent weeks after Lance Corporal Adam Drane, also 23, was shot in December. Last year was the bloodiest for British forces since the Falklands War in 1982 with 108 British soldiers dying while serving in Afghanistan. Eslewhere in Afghanistan, a roadside bombing killed four U.S. service members. The explosion took place Sunday in the south, according to Nato's International Security Assistance Force. Afghan insurgents are increasingly turning to improvised explosive devices in their fight against Afghan and international forces. Of the 304 U.S. military deaths in Afghanistan last year, 129 were caused by IEDs. The deaths are the first U.S. fatalities from hostile action in Afghanistan this year. One U.S. service member died of non-combat causes so far in 2010. The Afghan Defense Ministry said its soldiers killed 10 Taliban fighters in battles on Sunday in northern Kunduz province's Imam Sahib district, which borders Tajikistan. One soldier was wounded in the clash. Afghan President Hamid Karzai ordered parliament to postpone its winter recess until a new list of Cabinet nominees is announced, following last week's stinging rejection of most of his choices. The rejection by lawmakers of 17 of 24 nominees was a surprising slap and an obstacle to Karzai getting his second term in office into full operation and focusing on badly needed reforms. Karzai's credibility both at home and abroad was shaken by the fraud-plagued presidential elections in August. In the vote on the Cabinet nominees on Saturday, lawmakers rejected nominees viewed as Karzai's political cronies, those believed to be under the influence of warlords and others deemed unqualified. The parliament did approve his retention of incumbents in the key portfolios of defense, interior and finance. The order, under a constitutional provision that allows the president to call extraordinary sessions of parliament, states that Karzai will introduce a new slate of Cabinet nominees within a few days. Drug crop: a British soldier in an opium poppy field in Helmand province. Afghan farmers are increasingly turning to marijuana production Karzai clearly hopes to have a full government in place before the Jan. 28 international conference in London on Afghanistan. Also today, Nato said a joint Afghan-international force discovered a huge cache of marijuana and turned it over to police for destruction. Nato said the cache contained up to 28,000 cubic feet of marijuana. As the U.S. and other Western nations have tried to help Afghanistan stamp out its poppy fields - the country is the world's leading opium producer - an increasing number of farmers have turned to marijuana, which is receiving less attention from authorities. The Interior Ministry said 256lbs of heroin were seized Sunday in an operation in Badakhshan province, and 4,100lbs of opium were incinerated on Sunday in Helmand province in a joint operation of counternarcotics police and U.S. Marines.   Since Saddam posed no threat at all to the U.S. or Britain, had nothing to do with the destruction of the World Trade Centre on September 11, 2001, and was even an enemy to Al Qaeda, it can be said for certain that Blair's exercise of the 'moral imperative' over Iraq served no British interest whatsoever. Far from making Britain a safer place, our occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan have actually rendered Britain and the world less secure. Saddam Hussein: Blair's exercise of the 'moral imperative' over Iraq served no British interest whatsoever It is now admitted by Whitehall that the spectacle of British troops and their U.S. allies in their Darth Vader costumes shouldering their way through Muslim villages, or of aircraft or drones bombing such villages and killing their inhabitants, has aroused the anger of the Muslim communities in our own cities. This is especially true of Muslim youth, such as the perpetrators of the '7/7' London bombings in 2005. But it is not just British Muslims who are incensed. Terror attacks have increased the world over. The U.S. and its allies invaded Afghanistan to destroy Al Qaeda, but Al Qaeda has spread with a vengeance to Yemen, Somalia, and Pakistan. Meanwhile, the invasions have inflamed Palestinian opinion and peace with Israel is further away than ever. Now Cameron and Fox have led Britain into a new adventure in Libya, another Muslim country. Do they believe, like Tony Blair, that they are being guided by God? Libya has so far cost us £200 million in fuel, bombs, and missiles. According to official sources, this total may well run far higher. But what if Gaddafi does not soon fall like a ripe date from a palm-tree rudely shaken? What if bombing doesn't work? Ever since World War II, British and American leaderships have believed that airpower can win wars all by itself. Yet in Vietnam in the Sixties the U.S. lost the war, despite having complete aerial mastery. We must never forget the cost of Bush and Blair's adventure - more than 100,000 dead and more than a million refugees In 1999, President Clinton and Tony Blair believed that two days of air and missile strikes would compel Milosevic to evacuate Kosovo. He was not compelled. The attacks had to be widened to civilian targets and continued for another two months. But even then, neither Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic nor the Serbian people were cowed. So the grim prospect loomed of having to fight a ground war against the formidable Serbian army. From this peril, Nato was rescued only by Russian diplomatic intervention which persuaded Milosevic to give way. Today Cameron, Fox, and presumably President Sarkozy, in defiance (or ignorance) of history are betting on airpower as the magic bullet that will topple Gaddafi. But what if airpower fails yet again? What if Gaddafi does not soon fall like a ripe date from a palm-tree rudely shaken? What if bombing doesn't work? Where do we find the troops and the logistic back-up for a ground force large enough to win a land campaign, even with the aid of the untrained rabble of rebels? We have 10,000 service personnel stuck in Afghanistan alone. But when the need for rotation of units and for training is taken into account, the Afghan commitment is actually swallowing some 40,000 men — a third of the British Army. No wonder senior soldiers are warning that our armed forces are too weak to support the pretence of Cameron, Fox, and Foreign Secretary William Hague that Britain is strategically still a first-class world power. The truth is that stronger armed forces would mean a much bigger defence budget. How can this be funded at a time of colossal national indebtedness? Answer: it cannot. This means a rock-hard decision must be made not to become any further entangled in Libya. And it means that we should do exactly what Liam Fox warned us this February not to do — choose 'a fortress Britain policy' and follow Obama's lead. The U.S. is actively stepping back from its policy of global intervention. Its voters are tired of the body bags and the billions of dollars burned up by its wars. What a tragedy that all these lives and all that money seem to have made the world only a more perilous place than ever. 'You've got to stop this war in Afghanistan': The last words of U.S. diplomat Richard Holbrooke before failed heart surgery Tributes flood in for veteran diplomat, 69, who helped bring peace to Bosnia President Obama praises the man he hoped would help get American troops out of Afghanistan 'He was truly one of the best and the brightest of his generation,' proclaims Foreign Secretary William Hague 'Towering figure': Veteran U.S. diplomat Richard Holbrooke has died aged 69 Richard Holbrooke, the veteran U.S. diplomat who helped bring peace to Bosnia and served as President Obama's special envoy to Pakistan and Afghanistan, has died at the age of 69. Mr Holbrooke, whose forceful style earned him nicknames such as 'The Bulldozer' or 'Raging Bull', was admitted to a Washington hospital after he became ill during a meeting with US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Friday. The former U.S. ambassador to the UN had surgery on Saturday to repair a torn aorta, the body's principal artery. His last words to the surgeon and his family were: 'You've got to stop this war in Afghanistan.' President Obama last night paid tribute to a 'true giant of American foreign policy... a truly unique figure who will be remembered for his tireless diplomacy, love of country, and pursuit of peace'. Foreign Secretary William Hague spoke for David Cameron's administration when he described Mr Holbrooke as 'truly one of the best and the brightest of his generation' who served the US 'with distinction and integrity'. Mr Holbrooke deserves credit for much of the U.S. progress in Afghanistan and Pakistan, Mr Obama added. He was appointed special envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan early in his term, hoping that his experience in Bosnia would help him turn the faltering nine-year-old war in Afghanistan around. The loss Mr Holbrooke will be a blow to Mr Obama's efforts to demonstrate swift progress in Afghanistan next year. Washington hopes to start putting Afghan forces in the lead and start bringing U.S. troops home in July 2011. Mrs Clinton called the politician one of America's 'fiercest champions and most dedicated public servants'. 'Richard Holbrooke served the country he loved for nearly half a century, representing the United States in far-flung war zones and high-level peace talks, always with distinctive brilliance and unmatched determination,' she said. Her husband, former U.S. President Bill Clinton said last night: 'Richard Holbrooke saved lives, secured peace and restored hope for countless people around the world.' When he served as Special U.S. envoy for the Balkans Richard Holbrooke sits with an unidentified Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) soldier at their HQ in Junik in June 1998 The then Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic and U.S. peace envoy Richard Holbrooke (R) shake hands at the beginning of their meeting in Belgrade in this September 15, 1996 Pakistani president Asif Ali Zardari said: 'Pakistan has lost a friend. He was an accomplished and experienced diplomat who quickly gained the confidence of his interlocutors. 'He was a key player in international diplomacy to bring peace to Bosnia and in confronting militancy in our part of the world.' 'His services will be long remembered. The best tribute to him is to reiterate our resolve to root out extremism and usher in peace.' Vice president Joe Biden said: 'Today, I lost a great friend and America lost one of its greatest warriors for peace. ... He was a tireless negotiator, a relentless advocate for American interests, and the most talented diplomat we've had in a generation.' Tony Blair said: 'He was a remarkable man, a remarkable public servant and someone who contributed enormously to the cause of a more peaceful and just world. He will be deeply mourned by many people in many different nations.' Mr Holbrooke's sizable ego, tenacity and willingness to push hard for diplomatic results won him both admiration and animosity. President Obama shaking hands with Mr Holbrooke as he was unveiled as Special Envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan, at the US State Department in Washington in 2009 When he served as US Representative to the United Nations, Mr Holbrooke confers with US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright in 1996 Former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger once said:  'If Richard calls you and asks you for something, just say yes. If you say no, you'll eventually get to yes, but the journey will be very painful.' He learned to become extremely informed about whatever country he was in, push for an exit strategy and look for ways to get those who live in a country to take increasing responsibility for their own security. The bearish Holbrooke said he has no qualms about 'negotiating with people who do immoral things'. 'If you can prevent the deaths of people still alive, you're not doing a disservice to those already killed by trying to do so,' he said in 1999. A frequent visitor to both Afghanistan and Pakistan, Mr Holbrooke had personal relationships with the region's leaders. At home he has sought to allay concerns in the U.S. Congress over the course of the war. His sudden death comes just before the White House is expected to roll out an assessment of the revised strategy for the two troubled countries. Holbrooke listens to Maj. Gen. Richard P. Mills, Commanding General of the First Marine Expeditionary Force in Helmand, during Hoolbrooke's visit to Marjah, south of Kabul last year The review is expected to conclude that despite entrenched corruption and weak governance, U.S. and Nato forces are making progress on security in parts of Afghanistan. It will not bring any major changes to strategy. Mr Holbrooke served under every Democratic president from John F. Kennedy to Mr Obama in a lengthy career that began with a foreign service posting in Vietnam in 1962 after graduating from Brown University, and included time as a member of the U.S. delegation to the Paris Peace Talks on Vietnam. Born in New York City on April 24, 1941, Richard Charles Albert Holbrooke had an interest in public service from his early years. He was a young provincial representative for the U.S. Agency for International Development in South Vietnam and then an aide to two U.S. ambassadors in Saigon. At the Johnson White House, he wrote one volume of the Pentagon Papers, an internal government study of U.S. involvement in Vietnam that was completed in 1967. The study, leaked in 1971 by a former Defence Department aide, had many damaging revelations, including a memo that stated the reason for fighting in Vietnam was based far more on preserving U.S. prestige than preventing communism or helping the Vietnamese. UN Secretary General Kofi Annan conferring with the US Ambassador to the UN Richard Holbrooke before the debate and vote on a resolution to impose a new system of arms inspection for Iraq in 1995 After stints in and out of government - including as Peace Corps director in Morocco, editing positions at Foreign Policy and Newsweek magazines and adviser to Jimmy Carter's presidential campaign - Mr Holbrooke became assistant secretary of state for Asian affairs from 1977 to 1981. He then shifted back to private life - and the financial world, at Lehman Brothers. A lifelong Democrat, he returned to public service when Bill Clinton took the White House in 1993. Holbrooke was U.S. ambassador to Germany from 1993 to 1994 and then assistant secretary of state for European affairs. One of his signature achievements was brokering the Dayton Peace Accords that ended the war in Bosnia in the early 1990s. He detailed the experience of negotiating the deal at an Air Force base near the Ohio city in his 1998 memoir To End A War. James Dobbins, former U.S. envoy to Afghanistan who worked closely with Holbrooke early in their careers, called him a brilliant diplomat and said his success at the Dayton peace talks 'was the turning point in the Clinton administration's foreign policy'. Mr Holbrooke's efforts surrounding Dayton later would lead to controversy when wartime Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic told a war crimes tribunal in 2009 that Holbrooke had promised him immunity in return for leaving politics. Mr Holbrooke denied the claim. He left the State Department in 1996 to take a Wall Street job with Credit Suisse First Boston but was never far from the international diplomatic fray, serving as a private citizen as a special envoy to Cyprus and then the Balkans. In 1998, he negotiated an agreement with Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic to withdraw Yugoslav forces from Kosovo where they were accused of conducting an ethnic cleansing campaign and allow international observers into the province. 'I make no apologies for negotiating with Milosevic and even worse people, provided one doesn't lose one's point of view,' he said later. When the deal fell apart, Mr Holbrooke went to Belgrade to deliver the final ultimatum to Mr Milosevic to leave Kosovo or face NATO airstrikes, which ultimately rained down on the capital. 'This isn't fun,' he said of his Kosovo experience. 'This isn't bridge or tennis. This is tough slogging.' Mr Holbrooke returned to public service in 1999, when he became U.S. ambassador to the UN after a lengthy confirmation battle, stalled at first by ethics investigations into his business dealings and then unrelated Republican objections. At the UN, Holbrooke tried to broker peace in war-torn African nations. He led efforts to help refugees and fight AIDS in Africa. He also confronted UN anger over unpaid U.S. dues to the world body and persuaded 188 countries to overhaul the United Nations' financing and reduce U.S. payments. Mr Holbrooke, with his long-standing ties to Bill and Hillary Clinton, was a strong supporter of her 2008 bid for the White House. US envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan Richard Holbrooke meets with displaced women, during his visit to a makeshift camp for displaced people from the Swat and Buner district, following flooding in the region Mr Holbrooke visits the old city of Herat west of Kabul, Afghanistan, during the Afghan elections last year He had been considered a favourite to become secretary of state if she had won. When she dropped out, he began reaching out to the campaign of Mr Obama. His relationship with Afghan President Hamid Karzai was strained after their heated meeting in 2009 over the fraud-tainted Afghan presidential election. Mr Karzai brushed it off, saying he had 'no problem at all with MrHolbrooke'. But the U.S. military commanders in Afghanistan, not Mr Holbrooke, were the ones who ended up developed the closest relations with the mercurial Afghan leader. The U.S. State Department said on Sunday that Mr Karzai and Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari were among those calling to wish Mr Holbrooke well. A torn aorta is a rip in the inner wall of the body's largest artery, which allows blood to enter the vessel wall and weaken it. The result is serious internal bleeding, a loss of normal blood flow and possible complications in organs affected by the resulting lack of blood, according to medical experts. Without surgery it generally leads to rapid death. 'True to form, Richard was a fighter to the end,' said Mrs Clinton. 'His doctors marveled at his strength and his willpower, but to his friends, that was just Richard being Richard.' He is survived by his wife, author Kati Marton, and two sons from an earlier marriage, David Holbrooke and Anthony Holbrooke.  Why We Couldn't Change Afghanistan When the West finally leaves after more than a decade of war, the country will not be so different than how we found it. Children look at a smoking German soldier on a patrol in the village of Isa Khel in Chahar Dara district / Reuters The West's military engagement in Afghanistan is entering its eleventh year and has another two years to go before the end of combat operations in 2014. Whatever the result of the international conferences that began last year in Istanbul and Bonn to elicit support for a successor state, one thing is clear: after Western forces draw down, Afghanistan won't bear much resemblance to the Western vision that fueled the intervention in the first place. However effective Western military organizations are in transitioning to Afghan control, the country's future will not be decided primarily by the residual structures and legacies of Western involvement, the current Taliban insurgency or even any formal process of reconciliation. Rather, it will be decided more by the country's ethnic character, the particular nature of local and national governance, and the influence of neighboring powers with enduring geopolitical and strategic imperatives in the region far stronger than those of the West.In other words, the future of Afghanistan will be determined by forces that antedate the latest Western effort to direct a turbulent area--and which probably will long survive this and future efforts to dominate the country. Thus, it is possible to discern a picture of an Afghan future and to predict it will fall far short of the high hopes that attended American and Western engagement there following the al-Qaeda attacks in America on September 11, 2001. These were hopes of an Afghanistan ruled effectively by a central government in Kabul aligned with the West and capable of keeping the Taliban at bay. Instead, Western influence will be severely reduced. The central government in Kabul will probably be weak, as it has been for most of Afghanistan's history. The centrifugal effect of Afghanistan's ethnic geography will be exacerbated by intensified involvement, directly and by proxy, of competing external powers. Pakistani, Indian and Iranian influence will increase, as will that of the Afghan Taliban in Pashtun-majority areas and probably within the Kabul political establishment. In the absence of a significant improvement in the relationship between India and Pakistan, their geopolitical competition, played out by proxy, could become the dominant ideological conflict inside Afghanistan. Given the weakness of the Afghan national polity, endemic corruption and economic dependence on international aid, the long-term survival of any successor regime is doubtful, even without the challenge of a Taliban insurgency more coherent than the mujahideen insurgency of the 1990s. Two fundamental strategic questions emerge from this picture of the Afghan future. First, in the event of a failure to manage the insurgency in the South and East, where the Taliban is strong and likely to remain strong, can a non-Taliban redoubt be sustained in northern Afghanistan? And, second, how effectively could influence be projected into the Pashtun South in order to prevent, if necessary, al-Qaeda from reestablishing an operational base in that area? Afghanistan will ultimately follow its own path. On the first question, historical precedent suggests a non-Taliban North can be sustained. Before 2001, ethnic connections among Tajiks, Uzbeks and Hazara, combined with external powers, provided sufficient support to the Northern Alliance to prevent a complete Taliban takeover of the North. But it should be noted that Taliban successes in first Herat and later Kunduz provided an opening for the organization's later campaign against the Northern Alliance. This indicates that future durability is likely to depend on preventing any Taliban footholds outside the Pashtun-majority areas in the South and East. But given the strength of Iranian connections in western Afghanistan, this probably would mean accepting significant Iranian influence over the outcome. On the second question, it would appear that sufficient influence could be projected into the Pashtun South and East to prevent the area from reverting to an operational base for al-Qaeda, should that prospect emerge as a danger to the West. In other words, al-Qaeda's freedom of operation can be disrupted after 2015 on both sides of the Durand Line, the porous and vaguely marked 1,600-mile border between Afghanistan and Pakistan that bisects the region's ethnic Pashtuns. That is because the demands of providing support to a major counterinsurgency operation in Afghanistan would be significantly reduced after the military drawdown by America and its allies and because the example of the successful campaign which ejected the Taliban from power in 2001 is well understood by all Afghan political players. Perhaps the key strategic lesson of more than ten years of Western involvement in Afghanistan is that, despite the West's economic, technical and intellectual strength as well as its sophisticated expertise in counterinsurgency, it can't effectively compete against neighboring powers such as Pakistan, India and Iran, whose strategic interests in the region make their involvement both nondiscretionary and enduring. If the West wishes to maintain the ability to project power in Afghanistan following 2014, it will have to leverage the antipathy toward the Taliban of non-Pashtun peoples in the northern and western areas. This in turn will require a willingness and ability to work effectively with neighboring players in the region that have significant influence with certain of those non-Pashtuns of the North and West. It will also require a measure of diplomatic humility. Any effort to assess prospects for Afghanistan after 2014 must begin with an examination of the current military state of play. Since 2010, it has become possible to assess the military surge in southern Afghanistan, particularly in the provinces of Helmand and Kandahar, and the picture is somewhat positive at the local level. It should be noted, however, that the increased military presence--and the intensified pressure on the Taliban--was never intended to be permanent. The aim was to provide the Afghan government and the international community with sufficient breathing space to allow them to establish governance with sufficiently strong roots and legitimacy to endure and an Afghan security apparatus with the strength to protect it. Thus far, where Western forces, particularly Americans, are present in strength, the combination of numbers and the professional expertise developed over a decade of counterinsurgency has disrupted--and in some areas reversed--the Taliban's tactical momentum. The success can be measured in the reduced number of violent incidents where troop densities are highest--down by more than 40 percent since 2009--and in the change in tactics forced upon the Taliban. Before 2008, for example, the Taliban pursued direct engagements, but Western tactics later forced it to make adjustments. In 2009, the balance shifted toward ieds, and from 2010, with the Taliban increasingly pressured in Helmand and Kandahar, the insurgents turned to assassinations of Afghan government officials and high-profile gun and suicide-bomb attacks in Kabul. But the Taliban's tactical adjustments represent a double-edged sword. One edge reflects the effective counterinsurgency campaign pursued by America and its allies. But the other reflects the adaptability and resilience of the Taliban. Indeed, notwithstanding tactical and local gains by America and the West, it is clear that the insurgency, rooted in Afghan Pashtun society and protected by cross-border sanctuaries, will endure well past 2015. As the cessation of combat operations approaches, the ability of Western military forces to control events will wane significantly. This does not mean that Western actions between now and 2014 are irrelevant. Effective transition to an Afghan security apparatus is essential. For one thing, the institutional reputation of Western armies is at stake. But beyond that, it is clear that without an effective transition, no Afghan successor state can survive long. This makes the style, timing and nature of the West's withdrawal from combat operations highly significant. Precipitate or sudden withdrawal is likely to damage the fledgling Afghan National Army and will deny time for local police forces to become effective. But the transition, however it unfolds, is unlikely to define the long-term Afghan future. That future will emerge from deep historical, political, cultural, economic and geopolitical forces and trends, both in Afghanistan and across the region. These forces and trends almost inevitably will sap Western influence in the region as the influence of Afghans and their neighbors will increase. This can be best understood through an examination of the country's ethnic makeup; its weak central government; the tribal and other cultural elements of the South and East dominated by Pashtuns, and of the North and the Hazarajat, largely anti-Pashtun territory; and the geopolitical imperatives of Afghanistan's neighbors. Ethnicity is a key determinant of identity in Afghanistan. It also affects how neighboring countries interact with Afghans. The country's population includes Pashtuns, Tajiks, Uzbeks, Hazara, Baluch, Kuchi and Uighurs. The largest ethnic group is the Pashtun, with about 44 percent of the population, most of it concentrated across the southern areas of the country (and in northern Pakistan). There are also a number of Pashtun enclaves in northern Afghanistan, established by the British in the nineteenth century. The Uzbek and Tajik populations are centered north of Kabul, the Hazara in the mountainous areas to the west of Kabul. This ethnic geography carries immense weight in determining the Afghan future. After Western withdrawal, the Taliban will probably not be able to exert effective control over the whole of Afghanistan. Essentially a Pashtun phenomenon, it will be difficult for the Taliban to command sufficient support in non-Pashtun areas to hold sway there. But the Taliban is strong enough amongst the Pashtuns to rapidly exert control over large areas in the South and East if residual structures fail. Afghanistan's central government also poses a big question mark for the country. The government almost surely will be weak--a consequence in large measure of President Karzai's two terms in office. His government has been undermined by corruption, familial and Pashtun nepotism, and a failure to engage consistently with the wider Kabul polity. At the provincial level and below, Karzai's political situation is not much better. Lack of effective government and the Taliban challenge have undermined his standing, and his support among Pashtuns in the South has declined precipitately. Despite the West's strength and expertise, it can't out-compete neighboring powers Pakistan, India, and Iran. There are surface parallels between Karzai's attempt to function as a national leader and the leadership of Mohammed Najibullah, head of the Soviet successor state in Kabul. Najibullah also sought to bring the nation together through his national reconciliation and pacification program of the late 1980s. But Najibullah was a far more effective national leader who understood and engaged with the wider societal and political issues of the day in a manner that Karzai has not been able to do. His People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan was a political party with national reach; the Karzai years have not spawned any such party organization with comparable influence. The 2011 formation of the Truth and Justice Party, which seeks to represent a broad range of ethnic groups and ideological positions, is a belated attempt to put this right. But however rapidly the party develops, it isn't likely to challenge successfully the well-established local and regional power brokers or take on the Taliban in the South and East. Still, the events that preceded Najibullah's fall in 1992 have a depressing contemporary resonance. His government fell after the collapse of the Soviet Union led to the end of Soviet support for the Kabul regime. But even before that, the country's extended crisis contained elements of corruption, financial collapse, scarcity of resources and chronic overdependence on foreign support. In 1988, 75 percent of Afghan state revenue derived from projects dependent on Soviet support. And in 1991, internally generated revenue provided just 30 percent of a declining gdp. The inability of today's Afghanistan to generate the revenue to meet the financial burden of maintaining an expanded national army and police force is eerily reminiscent of the immediate post-Soviet era, after the abrupt collapse of Soviet support left the country economically on its own. A joint Afghan and World Bank report issued in November 2011 stated that, assuming effective development of Afghan minerals and national economic growth of 5-6 percent a year for a decade, expenditures would still exceed gdp by some 25 percent, or $7.2 billion a year. Even when the cost of maintaining the security forces is removed, spending exceeds income by 11 percent. And this is based on the assumption that security will improve sufficiently to allow for the exploitation of mineral resources. That may not be a realistic assumption. The Senate Foreign Relations Committee issued a similarly pessimistic report. The international community may make available greater support than the USSR was able to give Najibullah, but it still may not be enough to offset the weakness of any national government following Western disengagement, not to mention the existence and durability of the Taliban. A more ideologically coherent opponent than the mujahideen of the late 1980s and early 1990s, today's Taliban is the dominant indigenous Afghan political influence in the South and East. Then there are the twin issues of personality and deeply ingrained behavioral patterns at the national level. One might think that the civil war of the 1990s and the subsequent Taliban government, followed by the Taliban overthrow, would have brought new governmental and political players to the fore. But the Afghan national polity seems to be dominated by the same people as before, and it is striking how difficult it is for outsiders to break into it, even in the face of these major traumas. Many of the key figures have been major players in Afghan national politics far longer than Karzai, which may account for some of his difficulties. With the exception of Ahmed Shah Massoud and Burhanuddin Rabbani, both killed by the Taliban, almost all the key players of the 1990s remain active today. But another important reality is that none of these men has obvious credentials as a potential national leader. They are distinctly ethnic or regional players. The result is that there has been a dearth of alternative potential national leaders. This reflects, in part, the ethnic and local nature of Afghan society and politics. But deliberate policy comes into play as well. Karzai raised concerns among American policy makers in 2010 when he sacked two top governmental officials--Interior Minister Mohammad Hanif Atmar and intelligence chief Amrullah Saleh--after they failed to prevent an attack on a Kabul peace council. Such actions belie any idea of an orderly political succession. Thus, the collective behavior of the Kabul polity is likely to revert to that of the early 1990s--jockeying for individual and ethnic advantage as well as the formation of unstable, shifting alliances susceptible to external exploitation and military pressure. It should be noted that, in Najibullah's day, the expectation that Soviet withdrawal would precipitate a large-scale and successful mujahideen offensive effectively undercut Najibullah's policy of national reconciliation. When the mujahideen failed to capture Kabul following a military defeat at Jalalabad, the idea of reconciliation temporarily gained renewed momentum. A similar pattern could emerge today as imminent Western withdrawal is sensed. But a major Taliban defeat in southern or eastern Afghanistan isn't likely. Without active Western military partners, it is doubtful the Afghan National Army will prosecute a successful counterinsurgency campaign against the resilient and resourceful Taliban. Once the extent of Taliban political control over the hinterland becomes plain, the national army's Pashtun soldiers could leave en masse. That would mean the struggle taking on an ethnic cast, as the residue of trained Tajiks (overrepresented within the officer corps), Panjshiris and Uzbeks assume the bulk of resisting any Taliban spillover from the Pashtun areas. Thus there is a strong possibility that the country will return to the politics and conflict of the 1990s, characterized by ethnic and geographic divisions and passions. It is premature and perhaps unduly pessimistic to talk of a Taliban protostate in southern and eastern Afghanistan. But after 2015, the Pashtun South and East will almost inevitably come under increased Taliban influence. Taliban strength and resilience are based as much on a natural affinity with the population as on intimidation or the Kabul government's weakness. Before 2010, each successive attempt to extend control and governance was followed by Taliban success in retaking that territory. Away from the areas of direct Western military control, Taliban "shadow governance" is far stronger than the writ of Kabul. It is true that the surge of American forces in southern Afghanistan has produced significant tactical gains, and Afghan forces, mentored by Western soldiers, have begun to perform more effectively. But once Western military forces are removed, Taliban influence and control will likely expand once again. The models of provincial governance imposed or attempted by the West are not sufficiently deep or rooted to endure in Pashtun-majority areas. In Helmand, the residual British model, based as it is on an external technocrat, effectively relied upon one man, Governor Gulbuddin Mangal, for several years. Even without a Taliban challenge, in the absence of Western military forces, local rivals with genuine roots in Helmandi society such as Sher Muhammad Akhundzada would have rapidly engineered Mangal's removal. These men draw their power and authority as much from business interests, including narcotics, as from any traditional tribal structures or patronage networks, which were substantially destroyed in the Soviet occupation. However, despite their ability to raise and arm militias, they are unlikely to be any more effective in resisting the Taliban's political and religious appeal and military power in 2015 than they were in 1994-96. By 2011, the structures of governance underpinning Mangal were more resilient, but their viability in the absence of the security provided by Western soldiers remains questionable. There are few reasons to anticipate durability in the U.S. model in the Pashtun areas of eastern Afghanistan. The practice was to install a strongman from outside the province as governor. In Nangarhar, Governor Gul Agha Sherzai established a credible level of security. But then bombings in a Jalalabad bazaar in 2010 demonstrated just how tenuous that security really was. The resurgence of Taliban influence was starkly illustrated by an attack on Kabul Bank in Jalalabad in early 2011. Residual tribal structures are stronger in the East than in the South, but there is little evidence that tribally based militias could resist a reversion to Taliban control. Western withdrawal would thus almost certainly be followed quickly in both the South and East by restored Taliban influence. The Taliban will probably also increase its influence in areas of mixed ethnicity, such as Wardak and Logar, near Kabul. In the 1990s, these areas formed the initial boundary between Taliban and governmental forces. Since 2008, the Taliban, using the capabilities of the Haqqani network, has infiltrated suicide attackers through Wardak and Logar to targets in Kabul. The influence of the warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar and his militia, loosely affiliated with the Taliban, is also strong in the area. Even at the apogee of its power, the Taliban never fully subdued the North, and there is little appetite for a return to Taliban rule in northern and western Afghanistan or the central Hazarajat. Given their experience with Taliban government, Uzbeks and Tajiks aren't likely to accept future Taliban domination. A similar reluctance to accept Taliban control amongst the Shia Hazara can only have been increased by the brutal attacks on Shia pilgrims celebrating Ashura in Kabul and Mazar-i-Sharif in December 2011. This antipathy could provide the basis for efforts to limit Taliban influence in northern and western Afghanistan. Away from the Pashtun South and East, individuals such as Atta Muhammad Noor, governor of Balkh, have established security, provided the basis for local stability and economic growth, and denied the Taliban a foothold. This model of governance, rooted in local conditions and society, is inherently more sustainable than models imposed by the West. Governors such as Noor command respect and raise effective militias, and warlords such as Ismail Khan in Herat have sufficient authority and capacity to provide the basis for coherent resistance to Taliban encroachment. Crucially, they also have overriding personal and ethnic incentives to do so. As Western military disengagement approaches, preventing the Taliban from persuading individual northern power brokers to change sides will be critical. This gives added significance to the northern Pashtun pockets and eliminating Taliban shadow governance within them. In its mid-1990s advance, the Taliban established almost unstoppable momentum by developing local shadow governance before launching military operations. This expedited its military success. In this way it captured Herat (which cut direct links from Iran to the Hazarajat and Mazar-i-Sharif) in September 1995, and then reinforced the Pashtun pocket of Kunduz (by air from Kabul) in 1997. This laid the foundations of its campaign against Mazar-i-Sharif. Almost all the key players of the 1990s remain active today. The revival of the National Front after the assassination of Rabbani indicates an appetite to prevent Taliban dominance of the North and the Hazarajat. The prospect of containment after 2015 depends on preventing the development of such Taliban momentum, which may persuade individual northern leaders that their best interest is achieved by cutting deals with the Taliban. Taliban shadow governance across the North, the West and the Hazarajat must be undermined and preferably removed before any pullout of international forces. Another imperative is the defeat of the mini-insurgency in Kunduz, which contains the seed for wider Taliban success in the North and provides a linkage with Uzbek militant groups. The security of Herat also is crucial, but this is most likely to be achieved by Iranian soft power preventing Taliban control of the area. History suggests that whilst the West's preferred policy may be to support a national successor regime in Kabul, there is a valid alternative: support effective leaders in northern Afghanistan in order to provide a non-Taliban redoubt based in the Panjshir Valley, Mazar-i-Sharif (which dominates trade routes to central Asia), the Hazarajat and Herat. This approach is likely to be more fruitful than attempting to sustain a successor regime of limited strength and uncertain durability in Kabul. Like nature, geopolitics abhors a vacuum. The looming cessation of full Western military engagement will precipitate intensified encroachment of Afghanistan's neighbors on the Afghan polity, economy, society and, in some cases, the insurgency. Iran, Pakistan, India, China and Russia have the ability to project influence and power into Afghanistan. Their geographical proximity and political, economic and cultural linkages with Afghanistan ensure depth and durability in their engagement. Their motivations range from ethnic and cultural affinity to complex interrelationships with external strategic issues such as Kashmir, which acts to drive both Pakistani and Indian policy in Afghanistan. Western withdrawal will force Iran to consider its policy choices. Before 2001, it regarded Taliban-controlled Afghanistan as a major threat. Thus it deployed troops to the Afghan border and provided military support to the Northern Alliance. Once confronted with the reality of Taliban influence in southern and eastern Afghanistan, Iran will sharpen its ethnic, cultural and religious links with the Shia Hazara and its memory of Taliban repression of the Hazara in 1998-2000. Its ethnic interest will be to ensure that the Taliban remains confined to the Pashtun South and East. This could manifest itself in an agreement to allow a level of Taliban influence in western Afghanistan in return for nonrepression of the Hazara and the Hazarajat. But indirect intervention to ensure the security of Herat cannot be ruled out. Iran attempted that through Ismail Khan in the 1990s. The strength of Iranian soft power in Herat and the Hazarajat gives Iran a level of durable influence in Afghanistan that the West cannot hope to match. Iran additionally remains well connected to the Kabul body politic and is adept at using political and economic levers (such as the periodic threat to expel Afghan refugees) to achieve political ends. This combination gives it significant influence over the sustainability of post-2015 governance in Afghanistan. In the context of Afghanistan's future, Western engagement with Iran--including American engagement--could become a necessity. But it's possible that Iran's ethnic interest in Afghanistan could coincide with the geopolitical interest of the West. Whether Iran's supreme leader and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps will allow ethnic interests in Afghanistan to override ideology and drive geopolitical behavior is a separate question, particularly if formal strategic-partnership agreements between Western powers and Afghanistan leave Western bases within the country. It is likely to depend in large part on external factors such as the state of tensions over the Iranian nuclear program, nervousness about the implications of the Arab Spring for Iran, wider relations with the United States, and Iran's perception of the level of U.S. threat after the departure of American combat forces from both Iraq and Afghanistan. Engagement with Pakistan is equally essential. Pakistani involvement in Afghanistan is well chronicled and includes the willingness of elements of the Pakistani state, in particular its Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), to support or at least provide sanctuary for the Afghan Taliban. There is little evidence that the Pakistani military establishment has fundamentally changed its perception that the Afghan Pashtuns, particularly the Afghan Taliban, are the most effective Pashtun political force north of the Durand Line, providing essential strategic depth against India, as does the Kashmiri group Lashkar-e-Taiba. Personal relationships between ISI officers and senior Afghan Taliban leaders are deep and enduring. Western pressure is unlikely to change this. Western withdrawal from Afghanistan will lead Pakistan to seek to ensure Taliban control of the South and East and to gain as much influence in Kabul as possible, not least to ensure Indian influence is limited and the specter of Indian encirclement, whether real or imagined, is mitigated. Following the fillip to Taliban morale that the cessation of full Western military engagement will undoubtedly provide, and notwithstanding the hope that the establishment of an Afghan Taliban office in Qatar will reduce Pakistani influence, Pakistan is likely to be the only external power with significant influence over the Afghan Taliban leadership. Whether or how the Pakistani government wishes to exercise such influence is a moot point. In the immediate aftermath of a Western withdrawal, viewed as a victory by elements of Pakistan's political and military elite and a significant majority of the Pakistani population, vague warnings of future destabilization will have limited effect. Like Iran, Pakistan is likely to regard any strategic partnership between the West and Afghanistan with deep suspicion, as it does the agreement signed between Afghanistan and India in November 2011. One line of argument that may have potential in Islamabad is that Afghan Taliban control of southern and eastern Afghanistan, combined with a continuing Pakistani Taliban insurgency in the tribal areas, would threaten to bring about the de facto creation of a cross-border Pashtunistan and cross-fertilization between the Afghan Taliban and Pakistani militant groups such as Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan and Tehreek-e-Nafaz-e-Shariat-e-Mohammadi. This will probably not be sufficient to deter the ISI (whose attitude toward both the Afghan Taliban and Lashkar-e-Taiba suggests it is institutionally inclined to ride the tiger), but the potential threat it poses to the Pakistani state may offer pause for thought among Pakistan's military commanders and political classes. Like Pakistan and Iran, India will be forced to recalibrate its Afghan policy as Western military operations cease. It is unlikely to reduce its involvement. Increased Taliban power will deprive New Delhi of its influence in southern and eastern Afghanistan and its intelligence on Kashmiri militants such as Lashkar-e-Taiba fighting and training in Afghanistan. Thus, India will probably seek to bolster Tajik, Uzbek and Hazara opposition to Taliban expansion. It may also increase support to Baluch separatists operating from Afghanistan against Pakistan and consider action against Kashmiri militants operating in Afghanistan. Continued and intensified Indian involvement in Afghanistan can only reinforce Pakistan's determination to ensure Pashtun influence in Kabul and on the Afghan side of the Durand Line. It is also likely to reinforce Pakistan's perception that this will best be achieved by an Afghan Taliban proxy. In the absence of a radical improvement in the relationship between India and Pakistan, which is itself probably dependent on a political shift in the Kashmir dynamic, the prospects for Afghanistan's future after 2015 are likely to be undermined by the strategic competition between the two powers, which will be carried out inside Afghanistan by well-resourced proxies. Other neighboring powers also have enduring interests. Russia has strong ethnic and political links with Uzbeks and Tajiks in Afghanistan. After 2014, any atavistic attraction of watching the West "bleed" in Afghanistan may be usurped by the impending geopolitical reality of the potential for southern Afghanistan to develop into a neo-Taliban state with the power to export jihadism into Central Asia. Russia is therefore likely to provide material and political support to Uzbeks and Tajiks. Turkey has both ambitions as a regional Eurasian power and strong links with Afghan Uzbeks and will provide support to them. China will secure its economic interests, particularly minerals, such as the Aynak copper mine, and probably protect ethnic Uighurs in Badakhshan. Uzbekistan has an incipient insurgency of its own and therefore has little interest in seeing a Taliban-controlled Afghanistan on its southern border. Similarly, Tajikistan's ethnic interest in northern Afghanistan is likely to translate into tangible support for Afghan Tajiks. History suggests that Afghanistan ultimately always follows its own path, guided in arcane and often obscure ways by powerful competing forces of ethnicity, tribalism, religion, geography, regional feuds, a fervor of national protectiveness and unbending obstinacy. For centuries these forces have militated against a strong central government in Kabul and all manner of foreign incursion. So will it be with the latest Western effort to fashion and direct the Afghan future. A measure of stability is possible following the decade-long Western involvement, if the Taliban can be confined to majority-Pashtun areas, if the non-Taliban North can resist Taliban incursion, if the influence of neighboring countries can help maintain an equilibrium of competing forces, and if Western nations--particularly America--exercise deft regional diplomacy combined with a measure of restraint commensurate with their ability to influence regional events. After ten years of efforts to shape Afghan society in ways favorable to Western interests, the long-term societal and geopolitical consequences of Western engagement are very different from those envisaged in 2002.

1 A tail gunner sits in the rear of a US Army CH-47 Chinook as part of US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld's helicopter entourage, as he visits Kandahar, Afghanistan 13 April, 2005. (GERALD HERBERT/AFP/Getty Images) 2 A British soldier from the Grenadier Guards Regiment smokes a cigarette at the Delhi Patrol Base (PB), a location in the desert in the Garmsir District, May 6, 2007 in Helmand Province, Afghanistan. British troops are in the front line of the effort to suppress the efforts of Taleban insurgents to regain control of southern Afghanistan, with the threat of a reinvigorated spring offensive from the militants looming large on the horizon. (Photo by Marco Di Lauro/Getty Images) 3 A village elder bids farewell to an American soldier after a meeting between the military and local leaders in the town of Gayan October 22, 2006 in the Paktika province of eastern Afghanistan. U.S. military officers there routinely meet with influential Afghans in the area to hear their concerns and to try and get information related to Taliban activity in the area, which stradles the border with Pakistan. (Photo by John Moore/Getty Images) 4 American forces pass through the vast arid landscape June 23, 2006 near Deh Afghan in the Zabul province of Afghanistan. Troops from the 2nd Battalion of the 4th Infantry Regiment were returning from almost two weeks at a remote firebase fighting Taliban insurgents as part of Operation Mountain Thrust. (Photo by John Moore/Getty Images) 5 A US soldier (L) sits in the rear of a Marine Chinook helicopter while flying over Camp Bastion in Helmand province, southwest of Kabul on May 3, 2008. Some 3000 British troops together with Danish, Estonian, Czech and American soldiers are stationed at Camp Bastion. Helmand, the main source of Afghanistan's opium output, is in the grip of a Taliban-insurgency launched after it was toppled from government in a US-led invasion in late 2001. Most ISAF soldiers in Helmand are British, and were joined by US Marines last week in a push to remove the Taliban from around southern Garmser district. (MASSOUD HOSSAINI/AFP/Getty Images) 6 U.S. Army Cpl. Shane Reese from San Clemente, California, hunkers down in a bunker with follow soldiers during a Taliban rocket attack October 23, 2006 at Camp Tillman in the Paktika province of eastern Afghanistan. It was the second day in a row that Taliban insurgents had fired on the camp, although no one was injured. American forces responded with artilery fire. (Photo by John Moore/Getty Images) 7 U.S. Army Col. Paul Calbos and Afghan police Maj. Gen. Dalut Zai Esmatollah sit atop a rusted Soviet tank overlooking Panjwai June 12, 2006 an area west of Kandahar, in southern Afghanistan. Coalition and Afghan forces launched a fresh offensive against Taliban insurgents in Panjwai today, and two Canadians were wounded in the fighting. (Photo by John Moore/Getty Images) 8 US Army soldiers from 2-506 Infantry 101st Airborne Division and Afghan National Policemen and Army take cover from dust and debris from a UH-47 Chinook helicopter landing to pick them up during day three of Operation Shir Pacha into the Derezda Valley in the rugged Spira mountains in Khost province, along the Afghan-Pakistan Border, directly across the border from Pakistan's lawless Waziristan region, on November 22, 2008. US Soldiers joined by the Afghan National Army launched Operation Shir Pacha in the Spira mountains arriving in mountain villages not operated in by coalition forces in approximately two years in an effort to disrupt Taliban safe havens in the region. (DAVID FURST/AFP/Getty Images) 9 Members of the district council of the Afghan town of Mus Qala dine with a British and American delegation on March 23, 2006 in Musa Qala in the southern Afghan province of Helmand. An advance team of British forces has been meeting with district leaders throught the province ahead of the arrival of the Helmand Task Force which which should be fully deployed by June. The British troops will face a strong Taliban presence in Helmand which many say is financed by protection money from the massive drug trade. (Photo by John Moore/Getty Images) 10 U.S. Army Spc. Kyle Stephenson, 21, passes through a village during a mission to overlook a Taliban position October 28, 2008 in the Korengal Valley in eastern Afghanistan. American forces from 2nd Platoon Viper Company of the 1-26 Infantry occupied the strategic mountaintop, and were shot at by Taliban insurgents. No Americans were injured in the ensuing firefight and Taliban casualties were unknown. The Korengal Valley is the site of some of the heaviest fighting of the Afghan war. (Photo by John Moore/Getty Images) 11 The sun rises as seen from a a U.S. Army helicopter flying over the Kunar River October 21, 2008 near Asadabad in the Kunar Province of eastern Afghanistan. American military units there are engaged in some of the fiercest fighting with the Taliban in the country. (Photo by John Moore/Getty Images) 12 US Army soldiers from 2-506 Infantry 101st Airborne Division and Afghan National Army soldiers take cover from dust and debris as a CH-47 Chinook helicopter lands to airlift them back to their forward operating base during day five of Operation Radu Bark VI, in the Spira mountains in Khost province, 5 kms from the Afghanistan-Pakistan Border, directly across the border from Pakistan's Waziristan region, on November 15, 2008. US Soldiers along with the Afghan National Army launched Operation Radu Bark VI in the Spira mountains setting up a patrol base along a known insurgent infiltration route, at altitudes up to 10,000ft, conducting dismounted maneuvers in the mountains, and setting up observation posts throughout the area. (DAVID FURST/AFP/Getty Images) 13 below U.S. Army Sgt. Matthew Hendrickson looks into Pakistan from an American forward observation post October 20, 2006 overlooking the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, from the Paktika province of eastern Afghanistan. The outpost, only 800 meters from the border, is frequently attacked by Taliban forces, many of whom cross over from the South Waziristan tribal area of Pakistan, according to American soldiers. (Photo by John Moore/Getty Images) Bush Insider: '911 Was An Inside Job' Saturday, June 25, 2011 10:20 Morgan O. Reynolds was a professor emeritus at Texas A&M University and former director of the Criminal Justice Center at the National Center for Policy Analysis headquartered in Dallas, TX. He served as chief economist for the United States Department of Labor during 2001–2002, George W. Bush's first term. In 2005, he gained public attention as the first prominent government official to publicly claim that 9/11 was an inside job, and is a member of Scholars for 9/11 Truth. Glad to see these kind of people speaking out! 14 An American soldier holds a U.S. Army hand grenade on which a soldier wrote "One free trip to Allah" while at an observation post in the Paktika province of Afghanistan Oct. 20, 2006 overlooking the Afghanistan-Pakistan border. The outpost, only 800 meters from the Pakistan, is frequently attacked by Taliban forces, many of whom cross over from the South Waziristan tribal area of Pakistan, according to American soldiers. Most Taliban believe they are fighting a holy war or "jihad" against non-Muslims in Afghanistan, and those who die in jihad are promised an eternity in paradise. (Photo by John Moore/Getty Images) 15 U.S. Army Spc. Kevin Yeatman, 21, (L) scans a Taliban position October 28, 2008 in the Korengal Valley in eastern Afghanistan. American forces from 2nd Platoon Viper Company of the 1-26 Infantry occupied a strategic mountaintop, and were shot at by Taliban insurgents. No Americans were injured in the ensuing firefight and Taliban casualties were unknown. (Photo by John Moore/Getty Images) 16 An Afghan boy raises his clothes for U.S. Marines, from the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit, so that he can be checked before passing by a military position near the town of Garmser in Helmand Province, Afghanistan, Thursday, May 1, 2008. (AP Photo/David Guttenfelder) 17 A U.S. Army humvee gunner rides past a shrapnel-pocked wall from a Taliban rocket October 15, 2006 at Camp Tillman, Afghanistan just two kilometers from the Pakistan border. Some 20 rockets were fired at the U.S. camp manned by soldiers from the 2-87 Infantry just the previous night, although no one was injured. Army officials say that Taliban insurgents continue to mount attacks from the Pakistani side of the border. Camp Tillman was named for former Arizona Cardinals football star Pat Tillman, who gave up his NFL career and joined the U.S. Army Rangers to fight in the war on terror. He was killed in 2003 while on combat operations in Afghanistan near the Pakistan border. (Photo by John Moore/Getty Images) 18 U.S. Marines, from the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit, return fire on Taliban positions near the town of Garmser in Helmand Province of Afghanistan Friday May 2, 2008. (AP Photo/David Guttenfelder) 19 A U.S. Army translator and American soldiers hand out propaganda flyers October 21, 2006 in the Village of Lowar in the Paktika Province of eastern Afghanistan. The U.S. troops were distributing flyers urging the population to back ISAF coalition forces against Taliban insurgents in the area which stradles the border with Pakistan. (Photo by John Moore/Getty Images) 20 A US soldier sits watches over helicopters at Bastion military airport in Helmand province, southwest of Kabul on May 3, 2008. Some 3000 British troops together with Danish, Estonian, Czech and American soldiers are stationed at Camp Bastion. Helmand, the main source of Afghanistan's opium output, is in the grip of a Taliban-insurgency launched after it was toppled from government in a US-led invasion in late 2001. Most ISAF soldiers in Helmand are British, and were joined by US Marines last week in a push to remove the Taliban from around southern Garmser district. (MASSOUD HOSSAINI/AFP/Getty Images) 21 U.S. Marine 2nd Lt. Mark Greenleaf, from the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit, calls orders to his men as they return fire on Taliban positions near the town of Garmser in Helmand Province of Afghanistan Friday May 2, 2008. (AP Photo/David Guttenfelder) 22 U.S. Army 1LT Matthew Hernandez looks down the Korengal Valley from a mountaintop outpost October 24, 2008 in the Kunar Province of eastern Afghanistan. The remote and isolated area is the site of some of the heaviest fighting between U.S. forces and Taliban insurgents. (Photo by John Moore/Getty Images) 23 U.S. Army officers fly back to the unit headquarters following a memorial service for Sgt. John Penich October 23, 2008 at the Korengal Outpost in the Kunar Province of eastern Afghanistan. Penich, from Beach Park, Illinois, was killed by a mortar round while in combat October 16. Soldiers from Viper Company of the 1st Battalion 26th Infantry based in the Korengal Valley battle Taliban insurgents on a daily basis, seeing some of the heaviest fighting of the Afghan war. (Photo by John Moore/Getty Images) 24 US Army soldiers from 2-506 Infantry 101st Airborne Division patrol past a mountain village during day three of Operation Shir Pacha into the Derezda Valley in the rugged Spira mountains in Khost province, along the Afghan-Pakistan Border, directly across the border from Pakistan's lawless Waziristan region, on November 22, 2008. US Soldiers joined by the Afghan National Army launched Operation Shir Pacha in the Spira mountains arriving in mountain villages not operated in by coalition forces in approximately two years in an effort to disrupt Taliban safe havens in the region. (DAVID FURST/AFP/Getty Images) 25 A suspected Taliban insurgent is detained by Afghan forces during a joint operation between Afghan and Pakistani troops on their volatile border between the Afghan Paktika province and Pakistan's South Waziristan tribal area on October 19, 2006, Afghanistan. The U.S. Army coordinated the joint operation in an effort to improve coordination between the two armies on the porous border, the site of constant Taliban incursions and attacks. Afghan and Pakistani forces each searched compounds on their respective sides of the border, coordinating through American radio contact. (Photo by John Moore/Getty Images) 26 A U.S. Marine, from the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit, patrol near the poppy fields in the town of Garmser in Helmand Province of Afghanistan Monday, July 7, 2008. The U.S. Defense Department has extended the combat tour of 2,200 Marines in Afghanistan after insisting for months the unit would come home on time. (AP Photo/Rafiq Maqbool) 27 An Afghan boy blows bubbles given to him by U.S. Army troops (seen in the background) December 3, 2002 during a U.S. military civil humanitarian mission in the village of Tadokhile in central Afghanistan. The mission provided more than a hundred Afghan men, women and children from the village with free medical care and basic dentistry as part of the ongoing Operation Enduring Freedom. U.S. military leaders have recently indicated a shift away from combat operations in the war in Afghanistan while increasing the emphasis on civil humanitarian efforts to rebuild the country and provide stability for the new government. (Photo by Scott Nelson/Getty Images) 28 British troops from 13th Air Assault Regiment and a U.S. Marine from the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit, forth from right, watch as palettes of water bottles drift to the ground on parachutes as NATO planes make a resupply airdrop to a forward operating base in southern Afghanistan Saturday, April 26, 2008. Some 3,500 U.S. Marines arrived in Afghanistan to help NATO's increasingly bloody fight against the Taliban. (AP Photo/David Guttenfelder) 29 U.S. Marines, from the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit, return fire on Taliban positions near the town of Garmser in Helmand Province of Afghanistan Friday May 2, 2008. (AP Photo/David Guttenfelder) 30 Artillerymen fire a 155mm Howlitzer at a Taliban position October 22, 2008 from Camp Blessing in the Kunar Province of eastern Afghanistan. Their unit, Charlie Battery, 3rd Battalion of the 321 Field Artillery, has fired more than 5,900 shells since they deployed to Afghanistan less than a year ago, making it the busiest artillery unit in the U.S. Army, according to to military officers. They most often fire in support of Army infantry units fighting Taliban insurgents in the nearby Korengal Valley, the site of some of the heaviest fighting in Afghanistan. (Photo by John Moore/Getty Images) 31 ANA ( Afghan National Army) Soldiers search an allegedly suspected Taliban, later released, during "Lastay Kulang" Operation on May 30, 2007 in Sangin Valley, Helmand Province, Afghanistan. British troops from The Inkerman Company, 1st Battalion Grenadier Guards, part of ISAF Task Force Helmand, are mentoring the Afghan National Army while conducting security operations on behalf of the Government of Afghanistan in Helmand Province.(Photo by Marco Di Lauro/Getty Images) 32 U.S. Army soldiers pay their respects at a memorial service for Sgt. John Penich October 23, 2008 at the Korengal Outpost in the Kunar Province of eastern Afghanistan. Penich, from Beach Park, Illinois, was killed by a mortar round while in combat October 16. Soldiers from Viper Company of the 1st Battalion 26th Infantry based in the Korengal Valley battle Taliban insurgents on a daily basis, seeing some of the heaviest fighting of the Afghan war. (Photo by John Moore/Getty Images) 33 The coffin containing the body of British Army soldier L/cpl Paul "Sandy" Sandford from the Worcestershire and Sherwood Foresters Regiment is carried by his fellow soldiers to the airplane that will bring him back to the United Kingdom during his repatriation ceremony on June 9, 2007 in Camp Bastion, Helmand Province, Afghanistan. British troops from various regiments including the Worcestershire and Sherwood Foresters Regiment held a repatriation ceremony for Sandford, a British soldier killed in action on June 6, 2007 in Afghanistan. (Photo by Marco Di Lauro/Getty Images) 34 British paratrooper from 3rd Battalion The Parachute Regiment Pvt. Paul Coleman, 21, from Coventry, England, prepares to go on patrol at his base in the Kandahar football stadium on June 21, 2008 in Kandahar, Afghanistan. British Paratroopers conducted operation 'Daor Bukhou' by flying in hundreds of paratroopers from 3rd Battalion The Parachute Regiment into the football stadium of Kandahar City for the first time since 2001 to provide a presence in the city to support the Afghan National Security Forces in their battle against the Taliban. The regiment was extracted from the stadium on June 22, 2008 upon completion of their mission. (Photo by Marco Di Lauro/Getty Images) 35 British Soldiers from the Royal Artillery Regiments on duty at their combat security outpost on May 15, 2007 in Southern Helmand Province, Afghanistan. Nato troops operating in the south and in the province of Helmand are preparing for a new wave of the offensive after US-led Afghan troops killed the Taliban's top military commander Mullah Dadullah last weekend. (Photo by Marco Di Lauro/Getty Images) 36 British Army soldiers and officers from various regiments stand lining up as the plane that will bring back the coffin containing the body of L/cpl Paul "Sandy" Sandford arrives during his repatriation ceremony on June 9, 2007 in Camp Bastion, Helmand Province, Afghanistan. British troops from various regiments including the Worcestershire & Sherwood Foresters Regiment held a repatriation ceremony for Sandford, a British soldier from Worcestershire and Sherwood Foresters Regiment killed in action on June 6, 2007 in Afghanistan. (Photo by Marco Di Lauro/Getty Images) 37 (L-R) British Army Anaesthetist Lt. Col. Ian Hicks and British Army Medical Emergency Response team Sgt. Mark Mitchell and Sgt. Gavin Carr from the UK Med Group prepare to get on the helicopter to go to the front line to collect a casualty on June 11, 2007 at the British Army Field Hospital at Camp Bastion in a location in the desert in the Helmand Province in Southern Afghanistan. The British Army hospital in Camp Bastion, run by the United Kingdom Joint Force Medical Group, provides the medical cover for all ISAF personnel operating in Helmand Province in Southern Afghanistan. In addition to the British, Danish, Estonian, Czech and American troops, who operate under the command of Task Force Helmand, the British hospital treats significant numbers of Afghan patients from across the spectrum of conflict, including Afghan National Security Forces, Taliban and civilians. The hospital, although situated in a tent, is the most advanced in southern Afghanistan. The medical team have developed groundbreaking trauma management practices including the use of consultants as part of its Medical Emergency Response Team. Early use of senior medical expertise ensures that clinical assessment can be started the moment a casualty is retrieved from the battlefield. This unique method of reducing time spent in medical reception and stabilisation has enabled patients to move from helicopter to operating table, via accident and emergency, sometimes in less than twenty minutes. The hospital boasts a five-bed accident and emergency department incorporating two portable digital x-ray machines, a CT scanner and an operating theatre where two patients can simultaneously undergo surgery. Ward space is provided for 25 (surging to 50) casualties including up to eight intensive therapy beds. (Photo by Marco Di Lauro/Getty Images) 38 Village elders speak with a U.S. Marine (L), through an interpreter as Afghan forces search for weapons October 25, 2008 in the Korengal Valley of Kunar Province in eastern Afghanistan. Taliban insurgents enjoy widespread public support in the contested valley, site of some of the heaviest fighting between U.S. forces and the Taliban. (Photo by John Moore/Getty Images) 39 British Army Officer, Captain Edward Janvrin from the 2nd Battalion of the Royal Gurkha Rifles, attached to the Inkerman Company, 1st Battalion Grenadier Guards look at Taliban positions as he directs air strikes from the ground during "Lastay Kulang" Operation on May 31, 2007 in Sangin Valley, Helmand Province, Afghanistan. British troops from The Inkerman Company, 1st Battalion Grenadier Guards, part of ISAF Task Force Helmand, are mentoring the Afghan National Army while conducting security operations on behalf of the Government of Afghanistan in Helmand Province. (Photo by Marco Di Lauro/Getty Images) 40 British paratroopers from 3rd Battalion The Parachute Regiment deploy into the Kandahar football stadium on June 19, 2008 in Kandahar, Afghanistan. British Paratroopers conducted operation 'Daor Bukhou'by flying in hundreds of paratroopers from 3rd Battalion The Parachute Regiment into the football stadium of Kandahar City for the first time since 2001 to provide a presence in the city to support the Afghan National Security Forces in their battle against the Taliban. (Photo by Marco Di Lauro/Getty Images) 41 British Paratroopers from the 3rd Battalion Parachute Regiment deploy from Chinook Helicopters during an operation to capture Taliban leaders on July 5, 2008 in the village of Segera, Kandahar Province. Afghanistan. The 3rd Battalion Parachute Regiment conducted a joint operation with U.S led Task Force Paladin and Afghan Border Police in the village of Segera in the Province of Kandahar to capture Taliban leaders. According to the military, during the operation about eight Taliban were captured and detained. (Photo by Marco Di Lauro/Getty Images) 42 British Paratroopers from the 3rd Battalion The Parachute Regiment deploy from royal Air Force Chinook Helicopter during an operation to search three compounds and look for weapons on July 1, 2008 in Salavat, Panjawi Province, Afghanistan. The 3rd Battalion The Parachute Regiment conducted a joint operation with Canadian-led Task Force Kandahar, U.S.-led Task Force Paladin, Afghan National Army (ANA) and Afghan National Police ANP) in the village of Salavat in the Province of Panjawi to search three compounds, of which one was a mosque, to seize weapons and fight against the Taliban. According to the military, during the operation about ten Taliban were killed and 200lbs of explosives confiscated. (Photo by Marco Di Lauro/Getty Images) 43 British Army trucks from the 13 Air Assault Support Regiment drive through the desert at sunrise after the overnight break during an operation to deliver supplies to several British Army Forward Operating bases (FOB) in the Helmand Province on July 17, 2008 in the Helmand Province, Afghanistan. The 13th Air Assault Support Regiment provides logistic support to the multi-national force in Helmand Province. The British drivers navigate hostile desert terrain to deliver combat supplies, ammunitions, food, water and engineering equipment. During a recent operation, drivers spent 48 hours avoiding enemy forces, mine fields and indirect fire. On return to Camp Bastion, vehicles are serviced immediately for further operations leaving little recreational time for the British soldiers who work in heat reaching 54 degrees celcius and drive on terrain without recognizable roads. (Photo by Marco Di Lauro/Getty Images) 44 A British Army soldier from the 3rd Battalion The Parachute Regiment walks during a sand storm as he prepare to leave for strike operation Southern Beast on August 2, 2008 at their base at the Kandahar Air Field (KAF) in Kandahar, Afghanistan. The British Army soldiers from the 3rd Battalion The Parachute Regiment spearheaded a strike operation in the Maywand District of the Kandahar Province, setting the conditions for a permanent ISAF presence to support the Afghan National Government in their fight against the Taliban. Striking within one of Afghanistan's major opium producing areas the Paratroopers were looking for weapons, drugs, and individuals related to the Taliban. During the operation about seventy kilograms of opium was seized and some weapons were recovered. (Photo by Marco Di Lauro/Getty Images) 45 LCPL Jordan Mitchell of the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit plays a hand held video game lying on his cot next to his humvee at a forward operating base in southern Afghanistan Friday, April 25, 2008. Some 3,500 U.S. Marines arrived in Afghanistan to help NATO's increasingly bloody fight against the Taliban. (AP Photo/David Guttenfelder) Declaring the killing of Osama bin Laden “a good day for America,” President Barack Obama said Monday the world was safer without the al-Qaida terrorist and mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks. His administration used DNA testing to help confirm that American forces in Pakistan had in fact killed bin Laden, as U.S. officials sought to erase all doubt about the stunning news. A U.S. official says Osama bin Laden went down firing at the Navy SEALs who stormed his compound. “Today we are reminded that as a nation there is nothing we can’t do,” Obama said of the news bound to lift his political standing and help define his presidency. He hailed the pride of those who broke out in overnight celebrations as word spread around the globe. An elite crew of American forces killed bin Laden during a daring raid on Monday, capping the world’s most intense manhunt, a search that spanned nearly a decade. (AP) 1 The hideout of Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden is pictured after his death by US Special Forces in a ground operation in Abbottabad on May 2, 2011. Pakistan said that the killing of Osama bin Laden in a US operation was a "major setback" for terrorist organisations and a "major victory" in the country's fight against militancy. (FAROOQ NAEEM/AFP/Getty Images) # 2 Jim Schweizer, assistant to the director of Fort Snelling National Cemetery, straightens flowers at the grave of Thomas Burnett, Monday May 2, 2011 in Bloomington, Minn. Burnett died Sept, 11, 2001 along with 39 other passengers and crew when Flight 93 was hijacked and crashed into a field near Shanksville, Pa., while flying to San Francisco from Newark, N.J. Osama bin Laden, the face of global terrorism and architect of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, was killed in a firefight with elite American forces in Pakistan on Monday, then quickly buried at sea in a stunning finale to a furtive decade on the run. (AP Photo/The Star Tribine, Richard Sennott) # 3 A map and photographs, part of a Pentagon briefing, showing pre and post contruction of the compound said to be where Osama bin Laden was killed, in Abbottabad, Pakistan, released Monday, May 2, 2011. President Obama announced Sunday night that bin Laden had been killed in a U.S. operaion. (Dept. of Defense via the New York Times) # 4 Afghan President Hamid Karzai (C) is flanked by vice presidents Mohammad Qasim Fahim (L) and Mohammed Karim Khalili (R) as he addresses media representatives at The Presidential Palace in Kabul on May 2, 2011. Afghan President Hamid Karzai said that the killing of Osama Bin Laden in neighbouring Pakistan proved Kabul's long-standing position that the war on terror was not rooted in Afghanistan. (SHAH MARAI/AFP/Getty Images) # 5 Jeff Ray of Shanksville, Pa holds a sign he made as he looks over the crash site of Flight 93 following the announcement that Osama Bin Laden had been killed in Pakistan May 2, 2011 in Shanksville, Pennsylvania. Nearly 10 years after September 11, 2001 construction is underway to erect a formal memorial at the crash site. Last night U.S. President Barack Obama announced that the United States had killed the most-wanted terrorist Osama Bin Laden in an operation led by U.S. Special Forces in a compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan. (Photo by Jeff Swensen/Getty Images) # 6 Jeff Ray and his wife, Barbara, of Shanksville, Pa look over the crash site of Flight 93 following the announcement that Osama Bin Laden had been killed in Pakistan May 2, 2011 in Shanksville, Pennsylvania. Nearly 10 years after September 11, 2001 construction is underway to erect a formal memorial at the crash site. Last night U.S. President Barack Obama announced that the United States had killed the most-wanted terrorist Osama Bin Laden in an operation led by U.S. Special Forces in a compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan. (Photo by Jeff Swensen/Getty Images) # 7 A passer by looks at newspaper headlines reporting the death of Osama Bin Laden, in front of the Newseum, on May 2, 2011 in Washington, DC. Last night U.S. President Barack Obama announced that the United States had killed the most-wanted terrorist Osama Bin Laden in an operation led by U.S. Special Forces in a compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan. (Photo by Mark Wilson/Getty Images) # 8 Workers at Ground Zero listen as New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg speaks at a news conference at Ground Zero following the announcement of the death of al Qaeda founder and leader Osama bin Laden on May 2, 2011 in New York City. U.S. President Barack Obama announced the death of Osama bin Laden during a late night address to the nation from the White House in Washington on May 1. The mastermind of the September 11 terrorist attacks was killed in an American military operation at a compound in Pakistan. (Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images) # 9 Rosemary Cain, mother of deceased firefighter George Cain who died on Sept. 11, 2001, holds a photo of her son as she speaks at a news conference to voice her reaction to the death of Osama Bin Laden. Other family members of the victims of the attacks are, standing from left, Russell Mercer, father of firefighter Scott Kopytko; Joyce Mercer, mother of firefighter Scott Kopytko; retired NYFD Deputy Cheif Jim Richards, father of Jim Richards Jr. and Sally Regenhard, mother of firefighter Christian Regenhard. Seated next to Cain are attorney Norman Seigel and Rosalie Tallon with son Paddy, sister of Sean Tallon. (AP Photo/Stephen Chernin) # 10 Former Marine Adam Furr, of Centreville, Va., visits the grave of his friend Marine Lt. Col. Kevin Michael Shea at Arlington National Cemetery in Arlington, Va., Monday, May 2, 2011. "It doesn't seem like it's in vain anymore" said Furr, who decided to visit after the death of Osama bin Laden. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci) # 11 Mary Power cries in reaction to the news of the death of Osama bin Laden, Monday, May 2, 2011 in New York. Power said her daughter survived the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001 on the World Trade Center but that they both lost friends and acquaintances. At left is the rising tower, 1 World Trade Center, also known as the Freedom Tower. (AP Photo/Mark Lennihan) # 12 An armed Metropolitan Transportation Authority police officer stands guard in New York's Grand Central Station on Monday, May 2, 2011. Security was heightened as a result of the announcement of the killing of Osama Bin Laden. (AP Photo/Stephen Chernin) # 13 FDNY firefighter Scott Hickey, left, and a fellow firefighter who did not give his name, sit in a fire truck parked in New York's Times Square as a crowd gathers in reaction to the news of Osama Bin Laden's death early Monday morning May 2, 2011. A plaque with names of Ladder 4 firefighters who lost their lives in the Sept. 11 attacks, the house that Hickey belongs to, is seen on the side of the truck. (AP Photo/Tina Fineberg) # 14 People walk past newspapers informing on the death of Osama bin Laden on display at a newsstand in Rio de Janeiro on May 2, 2011. US Navy SEALs led the commando operation in Pakistan that ended the life of 9/11 mastermind Osama bin Laden with a bullet to the head, a US official told AFP. DNA tests have confirmed that Osama bin Laden is dead, a senior US official said Monday, a day after a daring raid by US special forces on his compound in Pakistan. (VANDERLEI ALMEIDA/AFP/Getty Images) # 15 Pakistani soldiers stand guard on top of a building at the hideout of Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden after his death by US Special Forces in a ground operation in Abbottabad on May 2, 2011. Pakistan said that the killing of Osama bin Laden in a US operation was a "major setback" for terrorist organisations and a "major victory" in the country's fight against militancy. (AAMIR QURESHI/AFP/Getty Images) # 16 Pakistani army soldiers move pieces of a crashed helicopter near the hideout of Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden after a ground operation by US Special Forces in Abbottabad on May 2, 2011. Pakistan said that the killing of Osama bin Laden in a US operation was a "major setback" for terrorist organisations and a "major victory" in the country's fight against militancy. (FAROOQ NAEEM/AFP/Getty Images) # 17 Policemen walk in front of the White House in Washington, DC, on May 2, 2011 in a measure of stepped up security following the death of Osama bin Laden last night. Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden was shot dead deep inside Pakistan in a night-time helicopter raid by US covert forces, ending a decade-long manhunt for the mastermind of the September 11 attacks. "Justice has been done," President Barack Obama declared in a dramatic televised address late Sunday, sparking raucous celebrations across the United States, after an operation that officials said lasted less than 40 minutes. (JEWEL SAMAD/AFP/Getty Images) # 18 Pakistani soldiers stand guard outside a building at the hideout of Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden after his death by US Special Forces in a ground operation in Abbottabad on May 2, 2011. Pakistan said that the killing of Osama bin Laden in a US operation was a "major setback" for terrorist organisations and a "major victory" in the country's fight against militancy. (AAMIR QURESHI/AFP/Getty Images) # 19 US Marines of Regiment Combat Team 1 (RCT 1) watch TV as President Barack Obama announces the death of Osama Bin Laden, at Camp Dwyer in Helman Province, on May 2, 2011. US President Barack Obama said on May 1, 2011 that justice had been done after the September 11, 2001 attacks with the death of Osama bin Laden, but warned that Al-Qaeda will still try to attack the US. (BAY ISMOYO/AFP/Getty Images) # 20 Pakistani soldiers stand guard near a building the hideout of Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden after his death by US Special Forces in a ground operation in Abbottabad on May 2, 2011. Pakistan said that the killing of Osama bin Laden in a US operation was a "major setback" for terrorist organisations and a "major victory" in the country's fight against militancy. (AAMIR QURESHI/AFP/Getty Images) # 21 A crashed military helicopter is seen near the hideout of Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden after a ground operation by US Special Forces in Abbottabad on May 2, 2011. Pakistan said that the killing of Osama bin Laden in a US operation was a "major setback" for terrorist organisations and a "major victory" in the country's fight against militancy. (STR/AFP/Getty Images) # 22 Supporters of hardline pro-Taliban party Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam-Nazaryati (JUI-N) shout anti-US slogans during a protest in Quetta on May 2, 2011 after the killing of Osama Bin Laden by US Special Forces in a ground operation in Pakistan's hill station of Abbottabad. Pakistan said that the killing of Osama bin Laden in a US operation was a "major setback" for terrorist organisations and a "major victory" in the country's fight against militancy. (BANARAS KHAN/AFP/Getty Images) # 23 Joyce and Russell Mercer, parents of New York Firefighter Scott Mercer who lost his life on 9/11, sit before a news conference concerning the death of Osama Bin Laden at the law offices of Norman Siegel May 2, 2011 in New York City. U.S. President Barack Obama announced last night that the United States had killed the most-wanted terrorist Osama Bin Laden in an operation led by U.S. Special Forces at a compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan. (Photo by Daniel Barry/Getty Images) # 24 [iptc:caption] # 25 [iptc:caption] # 26 A Metro Transit Police Officer walks with a K9 along the platform of the Chinatown metro station May 2, 2011 in Washington, DC. The DC area and other places around the nation have stepped up security after it was announced that Osama bin Laden, mastermind of the September 11th terror attacks, was killed in a firefight with United States forces in Pakistan. (Photo by Brendan Smialowski/Getty Images) # 27 U.S. President Barack Obama stands after making a televised statement at the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., on Monday, May 1, 2011. Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden has been killed in a U.S. operation, Obama said. Photographer: Brendan Smialowski/Pool via Bloomberg # 28 [iptc:caption] # 29 Kevin Van Orden, whose brother is in the U.S. Army, celebrates outside the World Trade Center site after the death of accused 9/11 mastermind Osama bin Laden was announced May 2, 2011 in New York City. Bin Laden was killed in an operation by U.S. Navy Seals in a compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan. (Photo by Mario Tama/Getty Images) # 30 U.S. Marine Staff Sgt. Mark Gamache walks up to pay his respects to victims of the 9/11 terrorists attacks, at the 911 Pentagon Memorial on May 2, 2011, in Arlington, Virginia. Last night President Barack Obama announced the death of Osama Bin Laden during a special force led operation that killed Osama Bin Laden in a house outside Islamabad in Pakistan. (Photo by Mark Wilson/Getty Images) # 31 People react near the White House after President Barack Obama announced that Osama bin Laden was killed, in Washington, May 1, 2011. President Obama announced that Osama bin Laden, the mastermind of the most devastating attack on American soil in modern times and the most hunted man in the world, was killed in a firefight with United States forces in Pakistan on Sunday. (Doug Mills/The New York Times) # 32 Afghan men working at a TV shop hug each other while watching the news of the death of accused 9/11 mastermind Osama bin Laden was announced on the TV May 2, 2011 in Kabul, Afghanistan. Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden was killed in an operation by U.S. Navy Seals in a compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan. (Photo by Paula Bronstein/Getty Images) # 33 People react outside the White House after President Barack Obama announced that Osama bin Laden was killed, in Washington, May 1, 2011. President Obama announced that Osama bin Laden, the mastermind of the most devastating attack on American soil in modern times and the most hunted man in the world, was killed in a firefight with United States forces in Pakistan on Sunday. (Doug Mills/The New York Times) # 34 People gather at ground zero in the hours after President Barack Obama announced that Osama bin Laden was killed, in New York, on May 2, 2011. President Obama announced that Osama bin Laden, the mastermind of the most devastating attack on American soil in modern times and the most hunted man in the world, was killed in a firefight with United States forces in Pakistan on Sunday. (Joshua Bright/The New York Times) # 35 A man holds up a scoreboard displaying Obama - one, Osama - nil, as thousands of people celebrate in the streets at Ground Zero, the site of the World Trade Centre, waving American flags and honking horns to celebrate the death of al Qaeda founder and leader Osama bin Laden on May 1, 2011 in New York City. President Barack Obama announced the death of Osama bin Laden during an address to the nation from the White House in Washington. The mastermind of the September 11 terrorist attacks was killed in an American military operation at a compound in Pakistan. (Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images) # 36 Thousands of people celebrate in the streets at Ground Zero, the site of the World Trade Centre, waving American flags and honking horns to celebrate the death of al Qaeda founder and leader Osama bin Laden on May 1, 2011 in New York City. President Barack Obama announced the death of Osama bin Laden during an address to the nation from the White House in Washington. The mastermind of the September 11 terrorist attacks was killed in an American military operation at a compound in Pakistan. (Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images) # 37 Firefighters react in Times Square after President Barack Obama announced that the United States has the body of Osama bin Laden, in New York, May 1, 2011. Bin Laden, the mastermind of the most devastating attack on American soil in modern times and the most hunted man in the world, was killed in a firefight with United States forces in Pakistan on Sunday, President Obama announced. (Michael Appleton/The New York Times) # 38 University of Tennessee students, from left, Josh Hixson, Will Batey and Colin Marcum, cheer as a Knoxville Fire Department fire truck honks its horn while driving down Volunteer Boulevard on campus Sunday, May 1, 2011, in Knoxville, Tenn. The students were in the process of painting "The Rock" with anti-Osama bin Laden sentiments while the KFD unit was responding to a tree fire on fraternity row after President Obama's announcement that the terror leader had been killed in Pakistan. (AP Photo/The Knoxville News Sentinel, Adam Brimer) # 39 People gather at the White House chanting 'U.S.A.' as President Barack Obama announces the death of Osama bin Laden during a late evening statement to the press, Sunday, May 1, 2011 in Washington, D.C. (Olivier Douliery/Abaca Press/MCT) # 40 People gather at ground zero in the hours after President Barack Obama announced that Osama bin Laden was killed, in New York, on May 2, 2011. President Obama announced that Osama bin Laden, the mastermind of the most devastating attack on American soil in modern times and the most hunted man in the world, was killed in a firefight with United States forces in Pakistan on Sunday. (Joshua Bright/The New York Times) # 41 People react in Times Square after President Barack Obama announced that the United States has the body of Osama bin Laden, in New York, May 1, 2011. President Obama announced that Osama bin Laden was killed in a firefight during an operation he ordered inside Pakistan, ending a 10-year manhunt.(Michael Appleton/The New York Times) # 42 David Huber and Nicole Lozare of Arlington, Virginia, pay their respect to victims of the 9/11 terrorist attacks in the early morning of May 2, 2011, after President Barack Obama has announced the death of Osama Bin Laden, at the Pentagon Memorial outside the Department of Defense (Pentagon) in Arlington, Virginia. A special force led operation has killed Osama Bin Laden in a house outside Islamabad in Pakistan and his body is in U.S.'s custody. (Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images) # 43 FDNY firefighter Aaron Clark looks on from atop a firetruck as people celebrate in Times Square after the death of accused 9-11 mastermind Osama bin Laden was announced by U.S. President Barack Obama May 2, 2011 in New York City. A special force led operation has killed Osama Bin Laden in a house outside Islamabad in Pakistan and his body is in U.S.'s custody. (Photo by Mario Tama/Getty Images) # 44 Afghans watch television coverage announcing the killing of Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden at a Restaurant on May 2, 2011 in Kabul, Afghanistan. Bin Laden has been killed near Islamabad, Pakistan almost a decade after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001 and his body is in possession of the United States. (Photo by Majid Saeedi/Getty Images) # 45 In this photo provided by ISAF Regional Command (South)/U.S. Air Force, members of the U.S. military watch a television broadcast of U.S. President Barack Obama announcing the death of Osama Bin Laden Kandahar Airfield May 2, 2011 Kandahar, Afghanistan. Bin Laden was killed in Abbottabad, near Islamabad, Pakistan, then buried at sea, almost a decade after the terrorist attacks on the U.S. September 11, 2001. (Photo by U.S. Stephen D. Schester/U.S. Air Force via Getty Images) # 46 President Barack Obama leaves the East Room of the White House after announcing that the United States has the body of Osama bin Laden, in Washington, May 1, 2011. Obama alerted the nation and world on Sunday night, almost ten years after the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. (Doug Mills/The New York Times) #

Why Didn't We Capture the Terrorist Kingpin and Interrogate Him? I'm as happy as the next red-blooded American that Bin Laden is dead. For more than a decade, the government has said that Bin Laden is the world's worst terrorist, a terrorist kingpin, the head of the worst terrorist group in the world. But if we captured and interrogated him, he could have spilled a lot of beans which would help prevent future terrorist attacks. Right? But as the Atlantic reports today: There's one option the administration appears to have never seriously considered: taking bin Laden alive. *** The administration had made clear to the military's clandestine Joint Special Operations Command that it wanted bin Laden dead, according to a senior U.S. official with knowledge of the discussions. A high-ranking military officer briefed on the assault said the SEALs knew their mission was not to take him alive. The White House now admits that Bin Laden wasn't armed, so why wasn't he captured? The government says that the Seals who entered the compound thought he was reaching for a weapon. That might be true, although Bin Laden wasn't exactly a healthy spring chicken. Indeed, Bin Laden was already pretty sickly by late 2001. (Don't worry: This post won't go down any rabbit holes regarding claims that Bin Laden died years ago.) As CNN terrorism analyst Peter Bergen - who met Bin Laden and studied Bin Laden and his operation for many years - told CNN in 2002: He's aged enormously between '97 and October of last year. This is a man who was clearly not well. I mean, as you see from these pictures here, he's really, by December he's looking pretty terrible. But by December, of course, that tape that was aired then, he's barely moving the left side of his body. So he's clearly got diabetes. He has low blood pressure. He's got a wound in his foot. He's apparently got dialysis ... for kidney problems. I mean, this is a man who has a number of health problems, apart from the fact that anybody running around the Afghan mountains is not going to be in great shape. Indeed, the oldest - and second-largest - French newspaper claims that Bin Laden was in the hospital for kidney failure two months before 9/11. As the Guardian notes: Two months before September 11 Osama bin Laden flew to Dubai for 10 days for treatment at the American hospital, where he was visited by the local CIA agent, according to the French newspaper Le Figaro. The disclosures are known to come from French intelligence which is keen to reveal the ambiguous role of the CIA, and to restrain Washington from extending the war to Iraq and elsewhere. Bin Laden is reported to have arrived in Dubai on July 4 from Quetta in Pakistan with his own personal doctor, nurse and four bodyguards, to be treated in the urology department. *** Bin Laden has often been reported to be in poor health. Some accounts claim that he is suffering from Hepatitis C, and can expect to live for only two more years. According to Le Figaro, last year he ordered a mobile dialysis machine to be delivered to his base at Kandahar in Afghanistan. And CBS news reported that Bin Laden was ill on September 10, 2001, being treated in a Pakistan hospital with kidney dialysis: In addition, it is rumored that Bin Laden had Marfan Syndrome - a disorder of the connective tissue, which usually shortens the life span (Abraham Lincoln had Marfan). As Salon noted in November 2001: Judging by photos and the FBI's physical records, Osama bin Laden could be a candidate for the diagnosis. He is said to be between 6 foot 4 inches and 6 foot 6, which is apparently unusual for his family. He is thin, bony and has little muscle; he weighs only 160 pounds. And he uses a cane -- possibly the result of connective tissue or back problems. Other information about the leader of al-Qaida suggests he may have a heart condition. His facial structure also resembles that of people with Marfan. "He is Marfanoid," says Dr. Richard Devereux, a clinician who treats patients with the illness at the Weill Cornell Medical Center in New York. "He seems to have long fingers and long arms. His head appears to be elongated and his face narrow ... It's certainly conceivable that he has the Marfan syndrome and could be evaluated for it." Though people have long speculated about bin Laden having Marfan, federal officials won't answer questions about his health. "We don't discuss the medical conditions of our enemy commanders," says Maj. Jay Steuck, a Defense Department spokesman. And a Central Intelligence Agency spokesman says, "We don't do unclassified medical summaries." Yossef Bodansky, staff director of the House Task Force on Terrorism, told the New York Post: "We are getting a lot of reports and rumors. By all accounts, bin Laden is not a healthy man and is under a lot of stress." David K. Schenker, a research fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, agrees that bin Laden's size is atypical for his surroundings. "I lived in the Middle East, and I never ran into anyone that tall," he says. *** Should bin Laden have Marfan syndrome, the stress of cave-hopping and trying to outrun Allied cruise missiles could prove deadly. "People with the disease are told not to engage in heavy exercise," says Dr. Darwin Prockop, director of the Center for Gene Therapy at Tulane University. "If Osama bin Laden has Marfan, he is in danger of sudden rupture of the aorta and sudden death." Again, this post will not go down the rabbit hole to ask whether Bin Laden died prior to Sunday's raid. I am only focusing on the fact that Bin Laden was probably not a movie script type healthy young terrorist when he was thought to be reaching for a gun. In addition, Bin Laden’s 12 year old daughter purportedly claims that Bin Laden was successfully captured alive first and then later summarily executed by the troops. Hopefully, this isn't true. But assuming the government's version of events is true, why didn't the seals use knock-out gas and capture him? Even common thugs use knock out gas. For example, the U.S. state department warns: Do not accept food or drink from strangers. Criminals have been known to drug food or drink offered to passengers. Criminals may also spray sleeping gas in train compartments. Where possible, lock your compartment. If it cannot be locked securely, take turns sleeping in shifts with your traveling companions. If that is not possible, stay awake. If you must sleep unprotected, tie down your luggage and secure your valuables to the extent possible. (Be careful if you take any night trains in Italy). If common hoodlams knock out their victims, you know that the U.S. military has stuff they can easily lob in and knock everyone out. Why didn't the government knock out Bin Laden and then hall him off to the interrogation room? Indeed, the U.S. may have gotten the clue about Osama bin Laden's Abbottabad location in 2008. As the Guardian notes: US may have got Osama bin Laden's Abbottabad clue in 2008 – WikiLeaks Courier's interrogation at Guantánamo revealed network of messengers that US traced to track down the al-Qaida leader The US may have obtained a clue three years ago that Osama bin Laden was hiding in Abbottabad, according to information gathered by interrogators at Guantánamo. *** WikiLeaks released the report last week, prompting speculation that the US, afraid that its planned raid might be pre-empted, brought forward its attack. So the U.S. could have knocked him out in 2008 and interrogated him. As I've pointed out before, the U.S. had multiple opportunities to get Bin Laden in 2001 and 2007: According to the U.S. Senate - Bin Laden was "within the grasp" of the U.S. military in Afghanistan in December 2001, but that then-secretary of defense Rumsfeld refused to provide the soldiers necessary to capture him. This is not news: it was disclosed in 2005 by the CIA field commander for the area in Afghanistan where Bin Laden was holed up. In addition, French soldiers allegedly say that they easily could have captured or killed Bin Laden in Afghanistan, but that the American commanders stopped them. *** A retired Colonel and Fox News military analyst said that the U.S. could have killed Bin Laden in 2007, but didn't: We know, with a 70 percent level of certainty — which is huge in the world of intelligence — that in August of 2007, bin Laden was in a convoy headed south from Tora Bora. We had his butt, on camera, on satellite. We were listening to his conversations. We had the world’s best hunters/killers — Seal Team 6 [Note: this is the exact same team that is credited with killing Bin Laden yesterday] — nearby. We had the world class Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) coordinating with the CIA and other agencies. We had unmanned drones overhead with missiles on their wings; we had the best Air Force on the planet, begging to drop one on the terrorist. We had him in our sights; we had done it ....Unbelievably, and in my opinion, criminally, we did not kill Usama bin Laden. Indeed, a United States Congressman claims that the Bush administration intentionally let Bin Laden escape in order to justify the Iraq war. Moreover, as I've previously noted, capturing Bin Laden and taking down Al Qaeda was never the real priority: American historian, investigative journalist and policy analyst Gareth Porter writes in the Asia Times: *** Feith's book, War and Decision, released last month, provides excerpts of the paper Rumsfeld sent to President George W Bush on September 30, 2001, calling for the administration to focus not on taking down Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda network but on the aim of establishing "new regimes" in a series of states... *** If we had really wanted to get Bin Laden, we would have gotten him in 2001 (indeed, the Taliban offered to turn him over), or 2007. And Gareth Porter reported yesterday that the U.S. didn't even consider capturing Bin Laden as part of its Afghanistan war strategy: The absence of any military planning to catch bin Laden was a function of Bush's national security team, led by Vice-President Dick Cheney and Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld, which had firmly opposed any military operation in Afghanistan that would have had any possibility of catching bin Laden and his lieutenants. Rumsfeld and the second-ranking official at the Pentagon, Paul Wolfowitz, had dismissed CIA warnings of an al Qaeda terrorist attack against the United States in the summer of 2001, and even after 9/11 had continued to question the CIA's conclusion that bin Laden and al Qaeda were behind the attacks. Cheney and Rumsfeld were determined not to allow a focus on bin Laden to interfere with their plan for a U.S. invasion of Iraq to overthrow the Saddam Hussein regime. Even after Bush decided in favour of an Afghan campaign, CENTCOM commander Tommy Franks, who was responsible for the war in Afghanistan, was not directed to have a plan for bin Laden’s capture or to block his escape to Pakistan. We tortured a bunch of innocent farmers, children, grandparents and reporters ... supposedly to get information about Bin Laden. But it doesn't seem like the government was very interested in actually interrogating Bin Laden himself.

1 United States Marine LCpl. Franklin Romans of Mich. from the 2nd Battalion 2nd Marines "Warlords" searches a house during an operation in the Garmsir district of the volatile Helmand province, southern Afghanistan, Wednesday, Dec. 23, 2009. (AP Photo/Kevin Frayer) # 2 U.S Army operations Spec. Jeremy Hopkins from Task Force Lift "Dust Off", Charlie Company 1-214 Aviation Regiment stands on an overlook at Forward Operating Base Edi, in the volatile Helmand Province of southern Afghanistan, Thursday, May 5, 2011. (AP Photo/Kevin Frayer) # 3 Sgt. Darrell McKinstry, right, a medic with the United States Army's Task Force Shadow "Dust Off", Charlie Company 1-214 Aviation Regiment leads Marines as they carry a Marine wounded by an improvised explosive device to a waiting medevac helicopter in southern Helmand Province, Afghanistan, Wednesday, Jan. 26, 2011. (AP Photo/Kevin Frayer) # 4 U.S. Marines gather around a colleague wounded by an improvised explosive device (IED) as smoke marks the landing area for a medevac helicopter from the United States Army's Task Force Shadow "Dust Off", Charlie Company 1-214 Aviation Regiment in southern Helmand Province, Afghanistan, Wednesday, Jan. 26, 2011. (AP Photo/Kevin Frayer) # 5 Sgt. Quincey Northern of Lousiana, left, a medic with the United States Army's Task Force Shadow "Dust Off", Charlie Company 1-214 Aviation Regiment leads Marines as they carry an Afghan civilian wounded by insurgent gunfire on a stretcher to a waiting medevac helicopter in southern Helmand Province, Afghanistan, Tuesday, Jan. 25, 2011. (AP Photo/Kevin Frayer) # 6 Sgt. Quincey Northern, a medic with the United States Army's Task Force Shadow "Dust Off", Charlie Company 1-214 Aviation Regiment gathers his equipment after finishing a medevac mission and arriving back at Camp Dwyer, in southern Helmand Province, Afghanistan, Thursday, Jan. 27, 2011. (AP Photo/Kevin Frayer) # 7 U.S. Marines run through dust kicked up by a Black Hawk helicopter from Task Force Lift "Dust Off", Charlie Company 1-214 Aviation Regiment as they rush a colleague wounded in an IED strike for evacuation near Sangin, in the volatile Helmand Province of southern Afghanistan on Tuesday, May 10, 2011. (AP Photo/Kevin Frayer) # 8 US Army flight crew chief Spc. Torrell Bryant from Task Force Lift "Dust Off", Charlie Company 1-214 Aviation Regiment tends to an Afghan suffering a gunshot wound, during a medevac from east of Musa Qalah in the volatile Helmand Province of southern Afghanistan on Monday, May 9, 2011. (AP Photo/Kevin Frayer) # 9 US Army medic Sgt. Bob Winchester of Alaska, left, and US Navy nurse Lt. Cdr. Eric Gryn tend to a critically injured Afghan civilian on board a US Army medevac Blackhawk helicopter from Task Force Lift "Dust Off", Charlie Company 1-214 Aviation Regiment. The civilian was shot in an area north of Sangin District, in the volatile Helmand Province of southern Afghanistan, Sunday, May 8, 2011. (AP Photo/Kevin Frayer) # 10 A United States Marine Cobra attack helicopter fires diversionary flares as it flies near Forward Operating Base Edi in the volatile Helmand Province of southern Afghanistan, Sunday, May 8, 2011. (AP Photo/Kevin Frayer) # 11 US Army flight medic Sgt. Jose Rivera from Task Force Lift "Dust Off", Charlie Company 1-214 Aviation Regiment shaves his head while waiting for missions at Forward Operating Base Edi in the volatile Helmand Province of southern Afghanistan, Sunday, May 8, 2011. (AP Photo/Kevin Frayer) # 12 British medics wait to unload an Afghan patient, suffering from a gunshot wound, off a US Army medevac Blackhawk helicopter from Task Force Lift "Dust Off", Charlie Company 1-214 Aviation Regiment at hospital at Camp Bastion, in the volatile Helmand Province of southern Afghanistan, Sunday, May 8, 2011. (AP Photo/Kevin Frayer) # 13 NATO soldiers from Georgia carry an Afghan Army soldier, suffering from a gunshot wound, to a waiting Blackhawk helicopter from Task Force Lift "Dust Off", Charlie Company 1-214 Aviation Regiment west of Sangin District, in the volatile Helmand Province of southern Afghanistan, Friday, May 6, 2011. (AP Photo/Kevin Frayer) # 14 US Army flight crew chief SPC. Jenny Martinez holds her weapon as she secures the area in dust kicked up by a Blackhawk helicopter from Task Force Lift "Dust Off", Charlie Company 1-214 Aviation Regiment while awaiting the evacuation of a United States Marine wounded in an IED strike near Sangin, in the volatile Helmand Province of southern Afghanistan, Tuesday, May 10, 2011. (AP Photo/Kevin Frayer) # 15 U.S Army soldiers from Task Force Lift "Dust Off", Charlie Company 1-214 Aviation Regiment warm themselves on fire at Forward Operating Base Edi, in the volatile Helmand Province of southern Afghanistan, Thursday, May 5, 2011. (AP Photo/Kevin Frayer) # 16 U.S Army medevac pilot Chief Warrant Officer Eric Williams, left, holds onto his hat alongside Lt. Terry Hill of Task Force Lift "Dust Off", Charlie Company 1-214 Aviation Regiment during a brief dust storm at Forward Operating Base Edi, in the volatile Helmand Province of southern Afghanistan, Wednesday, May 4, 2011. (AP Photo/Kevin Frayer) # 17 A Blackhawk helicopter attached to Task Force Lift "Dust Off", Charlie Company 1-214 Aviation Regiment flies over Kandahar Province in volatile southern Afghanistan, Wednesday, May 4, 2011. (AP Photo/Kevin Frayer) # 18 A brief dust storm rolls towards United States Marine Forward Operating Base Edi, in the volatile Helmand Province of southern Afghanistan, Wednesday, May 4, 2011. (AP Photo/Kevin Frayer) # 19 A United States Marine from Bravo Company of the 1st Battalion of the 2nd Marines carries his weapons and ammunition during an operation to clear the area of insurgents near Musa Qaleh, in northern Helmand Province, southern Afghanistan, Friday, July 23, 2010. (AP Photo/Kevin Frayer) # 20 United States Marine LCpl. Grayson Barnette of Md. from the 2nd MEB, 4th Light Armored Reconnaissance Battalion patrols past Afghan men at the market in Khan Neshin, in the volatile Helmand province of southern Afghanistan, Thursday, Dec. 10, 2009. (AP Photo/Kevin Frayer) # 21 An Afghan man answers the door of his house to a United States Marine from the 2nd Battalion 2nd Marines and an Afghan National Army soldier before they searched the house during an operation in the Garmsir district of the volatile Helmand province, southern Afghanistan, Thursday, Dec. 17, 2009. (AP Photo/Kevin Frayer) # 22 United States Marines from the 2nd Battalion 2nd Marines "Warlords" try to keep warm after waking up on a cold morning during an operation in the Garmsir district of the volatile Helmand province, southern Afghanistan, Friday, Dec. 18, 2009. (AP Photo/Kevin Frayer) # 23 United States Marine Combat Engineer PFC. Bryan Huffman, of Ohio from the 2nd Battalion 2nd Marines "Warlords" uses a metal detector to search for explosives during an operation in the Garmsir district of the volatile Helmand province, southern Afghanistan, Wednesday, Dec. 23, 2009. (AP Photo/Kevin Frayer) # 24 United States Marines from the 2nd Battalion 2nd Marines "Warlords" gather during an operation in the Garmsir district of the volatile Helmand province, southern Afghanistan, Wednesday, Dec. 23, 2009. (AP Photo/Kevin Frayer) # 25 A United States Marines from the 2nd Battalion 2nd Marines "Warlords" takes position during an operation in the Garmsir district of the volatile Helmand province, southern Afghanistan, Wednesday, Dec. 23, 2009. (AP Photo/Kevin Frayer) # 26 Afghans stand near machine gunner LCpl. Tyler Holley of Ga. from the United States Marines 2nd Battalion 2nd Marines, during an operation in the Garmsir district of the volatile Helmand province, southern Afghanistan, Thursday, Dec. 17, 2009. (AP Photo/Kevin Frayer) # 27 United States Army Spec. Brian Channon, left, of Task Force Shadow "Dust Off", Charlie Company 1-214 Aviation Regiment, prepares a stretcher as United States Marines and Afghan Army soldiers run with a wounded Afghan man to a waiting medevac helicopter near Marjah in the volatile Helmand Province, Southern Afghanistan, Tuesday, Jan. 18, 2011. (AP Photo/Kevin Frayer) # 28 An Afghan man looks on as a United States Marine from the 2nd Battalion 2nd Marines and an Afghan soldier search his house during an operation in the Garmsir district of the volatile Helmand province, southern Afghanistan, Thursday, Dec. 17, 2009. (AP Photo/Kevin Frayer) # 29 The helmet of a United States Marine who was lightly injured in an explosion sits on the floor of a helicopter from Task Force Shadow "Dust Off", Charlie Company 1-214 Aviation Regiment, following a mission near Marjah in the volatile Helmand Province, Southern Afghanistan, Tuesday, Jan. 18, 2011. (AP Photo/Kevin Frayer) # 30 U.S. Army medevac crew chief Spec. Brian Channon from Task Force Shadow "Dust Off", Charlie Company 1-214 Aviation Regiment, carries a fresh stretcher back to his waiting helicopter after dropping off a wounded Afghan man in the volatile Helmand Province, Southern Afghanistan, Tuesday, Jan. 18, 2011. (AP Photo/Kevin Frayer) # 31 United States Marines and Afghan soldiers prepare to move a wounded man to a waiting helicopter of Task Force Shadow "Dust Off", Charlie Company 1-214 Aviation Regiment near Marjah in the volatile Helmand Province, Southern Afghanistan, Tuesday, Jan. 18, 2011. (AP Photo/Kevin Frayer) # 32 A United States Marine shouts to a medic as United States Army's Spec. Brian Channon of Task Force Shadow "Dust Off", Charlie Company 1-214 Aviation Regiment, Charlie Company 1-214 Aviation Regiment waits to depart near Marjah in the volatile Helmand Province, Southern Afghanistan, Tuesday, Jan. 18, 2011. (AP Photo/Kevin Frayer) # 33 U.S. Army medic Sgt. Joseph Campbell from Task Force Shadow "Dust Off", Charlie Company 1-214 Aviation Regiment, evaluates the condition of a wounded Afghan man as they fly in a medevac helicopter near Marjah in the volatile Helmand Province, Southern Afghanistan, Tuesday, Jan. 18, 2011. (AP Photo/Kevin Frayer) # 34 U.S. Army medic Sgt. Joseph Campbell from Task Force Shadow "Dust Off", Charlie Company 1-214 Aviation Regiment, stands next to a helicopter following a medevac flight, at Camp Dwyer, in the volatile Helmand Province, Southern Afghanistan, Monday, Jan. 17, 2011. (AP Photo/Kevin Frayer) # 35 A United States Marine from the 4th Light Armored Recon walks toward a LAV fighting vehicle in Khan Nashin, in the volatile Helmand Province of Southern Afghanistan, Thursday, Dec. 3, 2009. (AP Photo/Kevin Frayer) # 36 An Afghan man lifts his shirt to show a United States Marine from the 2nd MEB, 4th Light Armored Reconnaissance Battalion that he is unarmed during a patrol in Khan Neshin in the volatile province of Helmand, southern Afghanistan on Friday, Dec. 4, 2009. (AP Photo/Kevin Frayer) # 37 An Afghan boy sits on a pile of wood as he rides a donkey cart past two United States Marines from the 2nd MEB, 4th Light Armored Reconnaissance Battalion who were patrolling near Khan Nashin in the volatile province of Helmand, southern Afghanistan, Sunday, Dec. 6, 2009. (AP Photo/Kevin Frayer) # 38 A United States Marines Cpl. William Lins from the 2nd MEB, 4th Light Armored Reconnaissance Battalion speaks on his radio, during a patrol near Khan Nashin in the volatile province of Helmand, southern Afghanistan, Sunday, Dec. 6, 2009. (AP Photo/Kevin Frayer) # 39 United States Marine Sgt. Adam Wilson from Bravo Company of the 1st Battalion of the 2nd Marines mans a Mark 19 heavy gun at a fire position near Musa Qaleh, in northern Helmand Province, southern Afghanistan, Wednesday, July 21, 2010. (AP Photo/Kevin Frayer) # 40 An Afghan police trainee from the United States Marine police mentoring program looks on as others speak to locals during a patrol in Khan Neshin, in the volatile Helmand province of southern Afghanistan. The experience in Khan Neshin highlights the difficult task facing coalition partners as they work with the Afghan government to dramatically ramp up a police force known for its corruption, drug use, and lack of training in Dec. of 2009. (AP Photo/Kevin Frayer) # 41 United States Marine Cpl. Joseph Kelly, of Md. from the 2nd MEB, 4th Light Armored Reconnaissance Battalion walks across a makeshift bridge during an operation near Khan Neshin in the volatile Helmand province of southern Afghanistan, Saturday, Dec. 12, 2009. (AP Photo/Kevin Frayer) # 42 An Afghan youth looks on as United States Marines from the 2nd MEB, 4th Light Armored Reconnaissance Battalion patrol during an operation near Khan Neshin in the volatile Helmand province of southern Afghanistan, Saturday, Dec. 12, 2009. (AP Photo/Kevin Frayer) # 43 United States Marine Lt. Doug Toulotte from the 2nd MEB, 4th Light Armored Reconnaissance Battalion jumps across a canal during an operation near Khan Neshin in the volatile Helmand province of southern Afghanistan, Saturday, Dec. 12, 2009. (AP Photo/Kevin Frayer) # 44 An Afghan youth stands next to an Afghan police officer during an operation by the 2nd MEB, 4th Light Armored Reconnaissance Battalion near Khan Neshin in the volatile Helmand province of southern Afghanistan, Saturday, Dec. 12, 2009. (AP Photo/Kevin Frayer) # 45 Afghan elders walk into the desert on their way home from a meeting with members of the 2nd MEB, 4th Light Armored Reconnaissance Battalion and Afghan National Border Police at North Station near Khan Neshin in the volatile Helmand province of southern Afghanistan, Sunday, Dec. 13, 2009. (AP Photo/Kevin Frayer) # 46 A United States Marine and Afghan men rush a critically wounded elderly man to a helicopter for medevac by Task Force Shadow "Dust Off", Charlie Company 1-214 Aviation Regiment following the explosion of an insurgent placed improvised explosive device near Marjah in the volatile Helmand Province, Southern Afghanistan, Thursday, Jan. 20, 2011. At least five Afghan civilians were injured in the blast, military sources said. (AP Photo/Kevin Frayer) # 47 United States Marine Cpl. Jeremiah Judd of Hawaii, scans the ground below for insurgents with a 50 calibre machine gun from the back of a Marine Osprey aircraft as they fly over Lashkar Gah, in the volatile Helmand Province of Southern Afghanistan, Thursday, Dec. 3, 2009. (AP Photo/Kevin Frayer) # 48 An Afghan man is checked by US Navy Medical Corps Chief Damon Anderson of Corpus Christi at a free clinic run by the United States Marines' 2nd MEB, 4th Light Armored Reconnaissance Battalion at a in Khan Neshin in the volatile province of Helmand, southern Afghanistan, Monday, Dec. 7, 2009. The clinic provides medication and medical treatment for the local population. (AP Photo/Kevin Frayer) # 49 United States Marine Cpl. Benjamin Zellmann, of Va. from the 2nd MEB, 4th Light Armored Reconnaissance Battalion holds a puppy taken in by the company during a briefing before a mission in Khan Neshin, in the volatile Helmand province of southern Afghanistan, Friday, Dec. 11, 2009. (AP Photo/Kevin Frayer) # 50 United States Marines from the 2nd Battalion, 2nd Marines "Warlords" rest during an operation to hunt for insurgents following an exchange of fire in the Garmsir district of the volatile Helmand province, southern Afghanistan, Sunday, Dec. 20, 2009. (AP Photo/Kevin Frayer) # 51 Afghans ride a motorcycle past United States Marines from the 2nd Battalion, 2nd Marines "Warlords", not seen, during an operation to hunt for insurgents following an exchange of fire in the Garmsir district of the volatile Helmand province, southern Afghanistan, Sunday, Dec. 20, 2009. (AP Photo/Kevin Frayer) # 52 United States Marines from the 2nd Battalion, 2nd Marines "Warlords" are seen during an operation to hunt for insurgents following an exchange of fire in the Garmsir district of the volatile Helmand province, southern Afghanistan, Sunday, Dec. 20, 2009. (AP Photo/Kevin Frayer) # 53 An Afghan National Army soldier wears an ammunition belt around his neck during a joint patrol with United States Army soldiers from Bravo Company, 2nd Battalion of the 508 Parachute Infantry Regiment of the 82nd Airborne, in the volatile Arghandab Valley, outside Kandahar City, Friday, July 9, 2010. (AP Photo/Kevin Frayer) # 54 United States Marines from Bravo Company of the 1st Battalion of the 2nd Marines watch the explosion after calling in an airstrike during a gunbattle as part of an operation to clear the area of insurgents near Musa Qaleh, in northern Helmand Province, southern Afghanistan, Friday, July 23, 2010. (AP Photo/Kevin Frayer) # 55 A United States soldier from Bravo Company, 2nd Battalion of the 508 Parachute Infantry Regiment of the 82nd Airborne, walks through a doorway during a patrol in the volatile Arghandab Valley, outside Kandahar City on Thursday, July 8, 2010. (AP Photo/Kevin Frayer) # 56 A United States soldier from Bravo Company, 2nd Battalion of the 508 Parachute Infantry Regiment of the 82nd Airborne, walks through a flock of sheep during a patrol in the volatile Arghandab Valley, outside Kandahar City, Friday, July 9, 2010. (AP Photo/Kevin Frayer) # 57 United States soldiers from Bravo Company, 2nd Battalion of the 508 Parachute Infantry Regiment of the 82nd Airborne, prepare to cross a deep irrigation canal during a patrol in the volatile Arghandab Valley, outside Kandahar City on Thursday, July 8, 2010. (AP Photo/Kevin Frayer) # Among the thousands of photographs taken every year of US military operations in Afghanistan, viewers can see glimpses of the varied landscape of the country. Below is an image collection of Afghanistan from the air. 1 In this aerial photo taken Friday, Jan. 21,2011, an Afghan shepherd directs his sheep through an opening in a mud wall as seen from a medevac helicopter of the U.S. Army's Task Force Shadow "Dust Off", Charlie Company 1-214 Aviation Regiment near Marjah in the volatile Helmand Province, Southern Afghanistan. (AP Photo/Kevin Frayer) # 2 In this aerial photo taken Thursday, Jan. 27, 2011, an Afghan boy stands in a field as he looks up at a a medevac helicopter of the U.S. Army's Task Force Shadow "Dust Off", Charlie Company 1-214 Aviation Regiment near Marjah in the volatile Helmand Province, Southern Afghanistan. (AP Photo/Kevin Frayer) # 3 A .50 caliber machine gun points out from a U.S. Marine helicopter flying over the opium poppy fields and the Helmand River April 6, 2009 in Helmand province, Afghanistan. The river irrigates Afghanistan's richest crop, opium poppy, which is later refined into heroin. The illegal crop grown near the Helmand River accounts for the majority of the world's heroin supply. (Photo by John Moore/Getty Images) # 4 A view of the varied landscape of Paktika Province from a military helicopter January 25, 2010 in Paktika Province, Afghanistan. Paktika, which is roughly the size of Vermont, shares a restive and porous 600 kilometer border with Pakistan. (Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images) # 5 This photograph taken from a military transport aircraft shows an aerial view of Kunar on December 15, 2009. In a December 1st speech announcing he would send 30,000 more US troops to the war, Obama named a date for a drawdown to begin but he has not stated a deadline for completion of the withdrawal. (TAUSEEF MUSTAFA/AFP/Getty Images) # 6 A view of the varied landscape of Paktika Province from a military helicopter January 25, 2010 in Paktika Province, Afghanistan. Paktika, which is roughly the size of Vermont, shares a restive and porous 600 kilometer border with Pakistan. (Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images) # 7 An aerial view of southern Kandahar is seen from the gun turret of a transport helicopter June 2, 2010 in Kandahar, Afghanistan. Soldiers of the 1st Squadron, 71st Cavalry Regiment of the 10th Mountain Division fanned out in the vast hinterlands south of Kandahar, part of a counterinsurgency strategy aimed at protecting Afghan civilians and legitimizing the government of Afghanistan in the minds of the rural local populace. (Photo by Chris Hondros/Getty Images) # 8 A view of the varied landscape of Paktika Province from a military helicopter January 25, 2010 in Paktika Province, Afghanistan. (Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images) # 9 A view of the varied landscape of Paktika Province from a military helicopter January 25, 2010 in Paktika Province, Afghanistan. (Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images) # 10 U.S. Army chaplain Carl Subler flies over the Argandab River while moving between bases to celebrate Catholic Mass for soldiers on March 9, 2010 in Kandahar province, Afghanistan. Military chaplains travel the battlefield throughout Afghanistan, providing a backbone of support for thousands of soldiers struggling with the difficulties of war and year-long deployments away from home. (Photo by John Moore/Getty Images) # 11 A view of the varied landscape of Paktika Province from a military helicopter January 25, 2010 in Paktika Province, Afghanistan. (Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images) # 12 In this aerial photo taken Thursday, Jan. 20,2011, the Helmand River is seen from a medevac helicopter of the U.S. Army's Task Force Shadow "Dust Off", Charlie Company 1-214 Aviation Regiment near Marjah in the volatile Helmand Province, Southern Afghanistan. (AP Photo/Kevin Frayer) # 13 In this aerial photo taken Thursday, Jan. 20,2011, Afghan men stand next to an auto rickshaw near farmers' fields as seen from a medevac helicopter of the U.S. Army's Task Force Shadow "Dust Off", Charlie Company 1-214 Aviation Regiment near Marjah in the volatile Helmand Province, Southern Afghanistan. (AP Photo/Kevin Frayer) # 14 In this aerial photo taken Thursday, Jan. 20, 2011, Afghans work in a traditional brick factory as seen from a medevac helicopter of the U.S. Army's Task Force Shadow "Dust Off", Charlie Company 1-214 Aviation Regiment near Marjah in the volatile Helmand Province, Southern Afghanistan. (AP Photo/Kevin Frayer) # 15 In this aerial photo taken Thursday, Jan. 20, 2011, Afghans play soccer as seen from a medevac helicopter of the U.S. Army's Task Force Shadow "Dust Off", Charlie Company 1-214 Aviation Regiment near Marjah in the volatile Helmand Province, Southern Afghanistan. (AP Photo/Kevin Frayer) # 16 A gunner sits in the back of a CH 53 helicopter during a flight from Feyzabad to Mazar-i-Sharif on October 14, 2010 near Feyzabad, Afghanistan. Badakhshan province was free of Taliban until about a year ago, when they began infiltrating the region and have since killed several local government officials as well as attacked German ISAF soldiers on at least two occasions. (Photo by Miguel Villagran/Getty Images) # 17 In this aerial photo taken Friday, Jan. 21, 2011, a section of the Helmand River Valley is seen from a medevac helicopter of the U.S. Army's Task Force Shadow "Dust Off", Charlie Company 1-214 Aviation Regiment near Marjah in the volatile Helmand Province, Southern Afghanistan. (AP Photo/Kevin Frayer) # 18 A U.S. Marine CH-53 transport helicopter flies over the rugged terrain of Farah province March 17, 2009 in southwestern Afghanistan. The Marines, who expanded into the area November 2008, were joined by thousands more American troops as part of an additional 17,000 U.S. forces being sent to the war. (Photo by John Moore/Getty Images) # 19 In this aerial photo taken Friday, Jan. 21, 2011, a Muslim cemetery is seen from a medevac helicopter of the U.S. Army's Task Force Shadow "Dust Off", Charlie Company 1-214 Aviation Regiment near Marjah in the volatile Helmand Province, Southern Afghanistan. (AP Photo/Kevin Frayer) # 20 In this aerial photo taken Friday, Jan. 21, 2011, a NATO military re-supply convoy kicks up dust in the desert as seen from a medevac helicopter of the U.S. Army's Task Force Shadow "Dust Off", Charlie Company 1-214 Aviation Regiment near Marjah in the volatile Helmand Province, Southern Afghanistan. (AP Photo/Kevin Frayer) # 21 A French commando is armed at the door of a Caracal helicopter as it flies low over Kabul on October 28, 2008. About 70,000 international troops, 40,000 of them under NATO command, were helping Afghans fight the Taliban who were ousted from Kabul in a US-led invasion launched after the September 11, 2001 attacks. (JOEL SAGET/AFP/Getty Images) # 22 In this aerial photo taken Friday, Jan. 21, 2011, an Afghan vehicle moves through the open desert as seen from a medevac helicopter of the U.S. Army's Task Force Shadow "Dust Off", Charlie Company 1-214 Aviation Regiment near Marjah in the volatile Helmand Province, Southern Afghanistan. (AP Photo/Kevin Frayer) # 23 In this aerial photo taken Tuesday, Jan. 25, 2011, camels are seen from a medevac helicopter of the U.S. Army's Task Force Shadow "Dust Off", Charlie Company 1-214 Aviation Regiment near Marjah in the volatile Helmand Province, Southern Afghanistan. (AP Photo/Kevin Frayer) # 24 In this aerial photo taken Tuesday, Jan. 25, 2011, an Afghan leads camels across the desert as seen from a medevac helicopter of the U.S. Army's Task Force Shadow "Dust Off", Charlie Company 1-214 Aviation Regiment near Marjah in the volatile Helmand Province, Southern Afghanistan. (AP Photo/Kevin Frayer) # 25 A French commandi is armed at the door af a Caracal helicopter as it flies low over the Kapisa province on October 28, 2008. (JOEL SAGET/AFP/Getty Images) # 26 In this aerial photo taken Tuesday, Jan. 25, 2011, a section of the Helmand River Valley is seen from a medevac helicopter of the U.S. Army's Task Force Shadow "Dust Off", Charlie Company 1-214 Aviation Regiment near Marjah in the volatile Helmand Province, Southern Afghanistan. (AP Photo/Kevin Frayer) # 27 In this aerial photo taken Wednesday, Jan. 26, 2011, U.S. Marines gather around a colleague wounded by an improvised explosive device as they wait for a medevac helicopter of the U.S. Army's Task Force Shadow "Dust Off", Charlie Company 1-214 Aviation Regiment near Marjah in the volatile Helmand Province, Southern Afghanistan. (AP Photo/Kevin Frayer) # 28 In this aerial photo taken Wednesday, Jan. 26, 2011, the shadow of a medevac helicopter from the U.S. Army's Task Force Shadow "Dust Off", Charlie Company 1-214 Aviation Regiment comes in to land on a mission near Marjah in the volatile Helmand Province, Southern Afghanistan. (AP Photo/Kevin Frayer) # 29 A U.S. Marine mans a .50 caliber machine gun while flying in a CH-53 transport helicopter April 6, 2009 over Helmand province, Afghanistan. Much of the province was controlled by Taliban insurgents and was one of the fiercest battlegrounds between International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) and the Taliban. (Photo by John Moore/Getty Images) # 30 In this aerial photo taken Thursday, Jan. 27, 2011, U.S. Marines drive in a MRAP's as seen from a medevac helicopter of the U.S. Army's Task Force Shadow "Dust Off", Charlie Company 1-214 Aviation Regiment near Marjah in the volatile Helmand Province, Southern Afghanistan. (AP Photo/Kevin Frayer) # 31 In this aerial photo taken Thursday, Jan. 27 , 2011, an Afghan boy stands in a field as he looks up at a a medevac helicopter of the U.S. Army's Task Force Shadow "Dust Off", Charlie Company 1-214 Aviation Regiment near Marjah in the volatile Helmand Province, Southern Afghanistan. (AP Photo/Kevin Frayer) # 32 A U.S. soldier flies over the Hindu Kush after delivering aid to earthquake victims March 28, 2002 in the northern town of Nahrin. A powerful earthquake destroyed homes March 25, 2002 and injured many locals and left many others homeless. Aid agencies and others rushed relief supplies to tens of thousands of homeless Afghans after the devastating earthquake. (Photo Natalie Behring-Chisholm/Getty Images) # 33 An Afghan man watches as a Blackhawk helicopter from the 101st Airborne flies over his home February 16, 2002 during the helicopter's reconnasance mission in Kandahar, Afghanistan. The helicopters are part of the United States force that was continuing to pursue and fight the Taliban and Al Qaeda forces in the country. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images) # 34 A U.S soldier holds a machine gun as he sits onboard a Chinook helicopter while flying over the Panjshir province, some 100 kilometers north of Kabul, 02 October 2007, as US troops operating under NATO take Afghan media to show them reconstruction projects carried out by Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT). (SHAH MARAI/AFP/Getty Images) # 35 A U.S soldier holds a machine gun as he sits onboard a Chinook helicopter while flying over Panjshir province, some 100 kilometers north of Kabul, 02 October 2007, as US troops operating under NATO take Afghan media to show them reconstruction projects carried out by Provincial Reconstruction Teams (PRT). (SHAH MARAI/AFP/Getty Images) # 36 A French helicopter Caracal as it flies over an Afghan village in the Kapisa province on October 28, 2008. About 70,000 international troops, 40,000 of them under NATO command, are helping Afghans fight the Taliban who were ousted from Kabul in a US-led invasion launched after the September 11, 2001 attacks. (JOEL SAGET/AFP/Getty Images) # 37 A French commando is armed as he sits at the door of a French helicopter Caracal as it flies over the Kapisa province on October 28, 2008. (JOEL SAGET/AFP/Getty Images) # 38 An Afghan farm comes into view as a French helicopter Caracal flies low over the Kapisa province on October 28, 2008. (JOEL SAGET/AFP/Getty Images) # 39 A view of a small village in the mountains of Afghanistan is pictured as soldiers fly over aboard a French Army Airbus on December 11, 2008. General David McKiernan, the top commander of US and NATO forces in Afghanistan, has said that it would take three to four years to build up Afghan security forces sufficiently to reach a "tipping point" leading to less reliance on some 70,000 foreign troops. (JOEL SAGET/AFP/Getty Images) # 40 A US soldier holds a machine gun as he sits on board a a Chinook helicopter whilst flying over Kabul on September 25, 2010. (SHAH MARAI/AFP/Getty Images) # 41 A view of the suburbs of Kabul comes into view as soldiers fly over aboard a French Army Airbus on December 11, 2008. (JOEL SAGET/AFP/Getty Images) # 42 Soldiers aboard a French Army Airbus fly over the mountains of Afghanistan on December 11, 2008. (JOEL SAGET/AFP/Getty Images) # 43 A member of the air crew mans the rear gun on a Chinook helicopter as it travels to Lashkar Gah base on December 6, 2010 in Helmand Province, Afghanistan. (Photo by Leon Neal - WPA Pool/Getty Images) # 44 Aerial view taken 16 September 2001 of buildings atop a mountain North of Afghanistan near the Tajik border. (ALEXANDER NEMENOV/AFP/Getty Images) # 45 An aerial view taken 16 September 2001 shows a village built in a valley of the northern part of Afghanistan, near the Tajik border. (ALEXANDER NEMENOV/AFP/Getty Images) # 46 A member of the US Marine helicopter CH 53 crew sits at the back door as it flies over Marjah district in Helmand Province on May 3, 2011. On April 2, 2011 the US announced it had killed Osama bin Laden in a covert operation in Pakistan, nearly ten years after the superpower invaded Afghanistan in the wake of the 9/11 attacks claimed by the Al-Qaeda chief. (BAY ISMOYO/AFP/Getty Images) # 47 This aerial picture taken 06 April 2005 shows the Darul-Aman palace, the former house of Afghan King Amanullah (1920-1929), taken from an ISAF helicopter. Afghanistan unveiled 11 April 2005 plans to turn the bombed-out ruins of the former royal palace into the headquarters of the country's first post-Taliban parliament, but appealed to private donors to fund the restoration. Afghan officials backed the plan drawn up by a German architect to restore the Darul-Aman palace built by Afghan King Amanullah Khan in 1924 to its former glory but said private donors would have to foot the 60-70 million dollar bill. (EMMANUEL DUPARCQ/AFP/Getty Images) # 48 French soldiers perform an aerial patrol in Kabul, 22 December 2007, as part of security measures surrounding the visit by French President Nicolas Sarkozy. The international community cannot afford to lose the "war against terrorism" in Afghanistan, French President Nicolas Sarkozy said on a quick visit to the insurgency-hit country. (ERIC FEFERBERG/AFP/Getty Images) # 49 Aerial view of the Hindu Kush Mountain Range in Afghanistan on December 31, 2008. (JOEL SAGET/AFP/Getty Images) # 50 An aerial view shows the terrain on the Iran-Afghanistan border near the southeastern Iranian city of Zabol on May 20, 2009. Iran gave foreign envoys to Tehran and journalists a rare tour on May 20 of its restive eastern border in a bid to raise awareness and much-needed funds for its war on drugs. (BEHROUZ MEHRI/AFP/Getty Images) # 51 The aerial view from a U.S. Army helicopter as it flies with U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates during his visits to the Forward Operating Bases on May 7, 2009 over the Kandahar Province of Afghanistan. (Photo by Jason Reed-Pool/Getty Images) # 52 A CH-53 helicopter releases flares after being shot at from the ground while flying over Helmand Province, southern Afghanistan, on September 18, 2009. Afghanistan had begun contingency plans for a potential run-off to its deeply controversial presidential election as officers recount hundreds of thousands of suspect votes, officials said. (DAVID FURST/AFP/Getty Images) # 53 In this aerial photograph taken October 12, 2009, a wide strip of farming villages with large compounds of Afghan mudhouses bounded by the Helmand river and an irrigation canal is surrounded by green cultivated fields in the prodominantly dessert terrain. (ROMEO GACAD/AFP/Getty Images) # 54 This photograph taken from a military transport aircraft shows an aerial view of Jalalabad on December 15, 2009. US President Barack Obama vowed December 10 that Afghanistan would not become a "permanent protectorate" of the United States as he defended his decision to begin withdrawing US forces in July 2011. (TAUSEEF MUSTAFA/AFP/Getty Images) # 55 US soldiers fly in a Blackhawk helicopter over the Shahwali Kot district after taking off from an airfield in Kandahar on May 7, 2010. (TAUSEEF MUSTAFA/AFP/Getty Images) # 56 An aerial view of agricultural ground near the Afghan mountains are seen from a French military plane on December 31, 2009. France on December 16 signalled for the first time that it may agree to send troop reinforcements to Afghanistan in response to a request from US President Barack Obama. (JOEL SAGET/AFP/Getty Images) # 57 An aerial view shows Salang village covered with snow after avalanches killed at least 165 people at the Salang tunnel in Parwan province, on February 10, 2010. Rescuers recovered the bodies of 165 people killed by a series of avalanches on a treacherous Afghan mountain pass in one of the country's worst such disasters, an official said. (SHAH MARAI/AFP/Getty Images) # 58 A Blackhawk helicopter attachecd to Task Force Lift "Dust Off", Charlie Company 1-214 Aviation Regiment flies over Kandahar Province in volatile southern Afghanistan, Wednesday, May 4, 2011. (AP Photo/Kevin Frayer) # The Bush Administration’s National Security Strategy of 2002, which vowed to make the world safe for democracy in order to make it safer for America. It introduced unilateral, preventive war-making, for which the Yale historian John Lewis Gaddis found some dubious precedents , telling a Yale audience, “It doesn’t hurt to give history a little nudge now and then.” Now history has nudged us back. Removing Saddam and his cadres and the Taliban in the ways that we did only left us owning something we’d broken. Hence conservatives’ desperation in 2009 not only to win savage battles but also, suddenly, to drain swamps of corruption and despair. But by then their own ideology had generated so many new swamps in America that it was hard to see how our own security and democracy could be strengthened by creating public jobs in Afghanistan as rising politicians such as Wisconsin’s Scott Walker were scheming to slash them here. In 1965, as the American War on Poverty was getting underway, Lyndon Johnson warned that “You do not wipe away the scars of centuries by saying: ‘Now you are free to…choose the leaders you please.’ You do not take a person who, for years, has been hobbled by chains and liberate him, bring him up to the starting line of a race and then say, ‘you are free to compete with all the others,’….Ability is stretched or stunted by…. the poverty or the richness of your surroundings.” That was too much for conservatives then and again in 2003, when they told Iraqis, “Now you are free to…choose the leaders you please.” Conservatives who changed their tune in 2009 to demand more resources for McChrystal’s war on poverty have discovered since then that, thanks in no small part to their ideology’s impact on voters and governance, the United States has its own corrupt warlords and predatory lenders, who turn real estate into unreal estate, savage the American dream of home-ownership, and curry public assistance for themselves while denying their workers basic security and training and giving them degrading distractions. Earlier this month, as U.S. and NATO forces lay the groundwork for an accelerated withdrawal from Afghanistan, a serious misstep threatened to disrupt their plans. On February 21, reports surfaced that NATO personnel at Bagram Air Base had burned a number of Korans, which were discovered and saved by locals working at the base. Despite an apology from the Obama administration, and claims by NATO authorities that the burnings had happened inadvertently, violent anti-American demonstrations erupted in several places. Dozens were killed, including four American troops. Two of the Americans were allegedly killed by an Afghan colleague, another in an increasing number of insider attacks. According to the Pentagon, around 70 NATO members have been killed in 42 insider attacks from May 2007 through January 2012.   A CH-47 Chinook helicopter scatters snow as it lands at a remote landing zone in Shah Joy district, Zabul province, Afghanistan, on February 8, 2012. (U.S. Navy/Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Jon Rasmussen) 2 An Afghan boy watches Afghan Border Police Pvt. Ghul Faruq, a medic with 2nd Tolai, 2nd Kandak, Helmand ABP, provide security as fellow ABP search a compound during a partnered security patrol with U.S. Marines from Combined Anti-Armor Team 2, Weapons Company, 3rd Battalion, 3rd Marine Regiment, on January 30, 2012. (USMC/Cpl. Reece Lodder) # 3 Afghans warm their hands over a fire in Kabul, on February 9, 2012. National Weather Center meteorologist Abdul Qadir Qadir said temperatures in Kabul dipped as low as -16C (3F), with the lowest previous on record at -17C (1F) set about 15 years ago. (AP Photo/Musadeq Sadeq) # 4 U.S. Marine Corps Sgt. Guillermo Floresmartines wades through a canal during a patrol around the villages of Sre Kala and Paygel in Helmand province, Afghanistan, on February 16, 2012. U.S. Marines and sailors conducted clearing and disrupting operations around the villages during Operation Highland Thunder. (USMC/Cpl. Alfred V. Lopez) # 5 A local elder asks Garmsir District Governor Mohammad Fahim a question about development projects during a shura on February 23, 2012. Fahim asked the elders for help in growing the Afghan Local Police program, and urged them to cease illicit poppy growth in their villages. In response to their requests for school, clinic and road construction, Fahim implored the elders to support Afghan-led security efforts. (USMC/Cpl. Reece Lodder) # 6 An Afghan boy selling packed peas waits for customers on a cold, snow-covered street during a snowstorm in Kabul, on February 19, 2012. (AP Photo/Ahmad Nazar) # 7 Master Sgt. Rogelio Martinez, 76th Expeditionary Rescue Squadron flight engineer, inspects a camera on the front of a HC-130P King, a search and rescue version of the C-130 Hercules transport aircraft. Martinez is responsible for preflight, in-flight and post-flight checks of the aircraft. (USAF/Tech. Sgt. Beth Del Vecchio) # 8 Internally displaced Afghans from Helmand province inside a mud shelter for the displaced at the Charhi Qambar refugee camp on the outskirts of Kabul, on February 6, 2012. Fleeing NATO bombardment and Taliban intimidation, thousands of Afghans in refugee camps in the capital Kabul face a new enemy: an unusually bitter winter that is killing their children. (Shah Marai/AFP/Getty Images) # 9 Afghan demonstrators show copies of Korans allegedly set alight by US soldiers, during a protest against Koran desecration at the gate of Bagram Air Base, on February 21, 2012. The copies of the burnt Korans and Islamic religious texts were obtained by Afghan workers contracted to work inside Bagram air base, and presented to demonstrators gathered outside the military installation. (Shah Marai/AFP/Getty Images) # 10 Afghan police try to restrain demonstrators during an anti-US protest in Baghlan province, north of Kabul, Afghanistan, on February 24, 2012. Thousands of Afghans staged new demonstrations Friday over the burning of Qurans at a U.S. military base in Afghanistan. (AP Photo/Jawed Basharat) # 11 An Afghan boy who works at a bakery watches a protest outside his a window in Kabul, on February 24, 2012. Twelve people were killed on Friday in the bloodiest day yet in protests that have raged across Afghanistan over the desecration of copies of the Muslim holy book at a NATO military base with riot police and soldiers on high alert braced for more violence. (Reuters/Ahmad Masood) # 12 An Afghan protester gestures towards a US soldier in front of the US base of Bagram during an anti-US demonstration in Bagram north of Kabul, on February 21, 2012. More than 2,000 angry Afghans, some firing guns in the air, protested on Tuesday against the improper disposal and burning of Korans and other Islamic religious materials at an American air base. (AP Photo/Musadeq Sadeq) # 13 Afghan policemen form lines outside an American military base during an anti-U.S. demonstration in Mehterlam, Laghman province, on February 23, 2012. (AP Photo/Rahmat Gul) # 14 Afghan protesters throw rocks towards a water cannon near a U.S. military base in Kabul, on February 22, 2012. (Reuters/Ahmad Masood) # 15 An Afghan boy watches as a young man aims an airgun at US soldiers (unseen) at the gate of Bagram airbase during a protest against Koran desecration on February 21, 2012. Afghan protestors firing slingshots and petrol bombs besieged one of the largest US-run military bases in Afghanistan, furious over reports that NATO had set fire to copies of the Koran. Guards at Bagram airbase responded by firing rubber bullets from a watchtower. (Shah Marai/AFP/Getty Images) # 16 Afghan anti-riot policemen watch as smoke billows from a fuel tank supplying NATO troops, after it was set on fire by protesters during a demonstration in Jalalabad province, on February 22, 2012. (Reuters/Parwiz) # 17 Afghan policemen run for cover during clashes with protesters in Kabul February 24, 2012. Two protesters were shot dead in separate rallies in Kabul on Friday over the burnings of the Koran at a NATO base, police told Reuters at the scene. (Reuters/Ahmad Masood) # 18 An Afghan policeman runs after confiscating a U.S. flag from protesters in Kabul February 23, 2012. The Taliban urged Afghans to target foreign military bases and kill Westerners in retaliation for burnings of copies of the Koran at NATO's main base in the country as a third day of violent protests began. (Reuters/Omar Sobhani) # 19 Afghan protesters move an apparently dead man during clashes in Kabul, on February 24, 2012. Nine more people were killed on Friday in protests in Afghanistan over the burning of copies of the Koran at a NATO base, officials said. (Reuters/Ahmad Masood) # 20 An Afghan police officer fires into the air to disperse protestors during an anti-U.S. demonstration in Kabul, Afghanistan, on February 23, 2012. The Koran burnings have roiled Afghans and set off riots in an illustration of the intensity of the anger at what they perceive as foreign forces flouting their laws and insulting their culture. The U.S. has apologized for the burnings, which took place at a military base near Kabul, and said it was a mistake. (AP Photo) # 21 A parachute bundle with the Joint Precision Air Drop system is dropped from a C-130J Hercules to a remote Forward Operating Base in Afghanistan. The JPAD system uses a GPS navigation system to guide parachute bundles to precise drop zones, minimizing collateral damage, troops' ground travel, and the vulnerability of the aircraft. (USAF/SrA Tyler Placie) # 22 A displaced Afghan boy from Helmand province stands in a refugee camp in Kabul, on February 7, 2012. A new report by Amnesty International says that every day hundreds of Afghans join the ranks of half a million displaced by fighting and natural disaster. (AP Photo/Musadeq Sadeq, File) # 23 A child stands with his father as they wait to receive blankets and winter jackets from Welthungerhilfe, a German NGO, during a snow fall at a camp for internally displaced Afghans in Kabul, on Feb, 20. 2012. More than 40 people, most of them children, have frozen to death in what has been Afghanistan's coldest winter in years, an Afghan health official said Monday. (AP Photo/Musadeq Sadeq) # 24 An Afghan refugee child cries as she and her brother wait for non-food items donated by the United Nations Refugee Agency through a winter assistance program during a snowstorm at a refugee camp in Kabul, on February 12, 2012. (AP Photo/Musadeq Sadeq) # 25 A U.S. Air Force F-15E Strike Eagle from the 335th Expeditionary Fighter Squadron soars past mountains leaving a heat contrail on February 13 near Bagram Air Field, Afghanistan. (USAF/Tech. Sgt. Matt Hecht) # 26 U.S. Army Sgt. Aaron Sweeny, from San Diego, California, and Staff Sgt. Robert Novak, from Temple, Texas, both with 3rd Platoon, Battery A, 2nd Battalion, 377th Parachute Field Artillery Regiment, Task Force Spartan, watch explosions from a mountaintop near Forward Operating Base Salerno during a call-for-fire exercise on February 3, 2012. (US Army/Spc. Ken Scar) # 27 U.S. Army Spc. Patrick Dodson, of Headquarters and Headquarters Company, 3rd Brigade Special Troop Battalion, 25th Infantry Division, provides flight-line guard security, on February 20, 2012, at Forward Operating Base Fenty, in the Nangarhar province, Afghanistan. (US Army/Sgt. Trey Harvey) # 28 Afghan National Army commandos patrol toward their objective during an operation to disrupt a Taliban weapons storage and IED manufacturing network in Jaghatu district, Wardak province, on February 24. (U.S. Navy/MC3 Sebastian McCormack) # 29 An 8th Commando Kandak soldier fires a rocket-propelled grenade during a live-fire exercise in Tarin Kowt district, Uruzgan province, on February 2, 2012. (U.S. Navy/Petty Officer 2nd Class Jacob Dillon) # 30 A Taliban fighter, after he joined Afghan government forces during a ceremony in Herat province on February 18, 2012. Twenty fighters left the Taliban to join government forces in western Afghanistan. (Aref Karimi/AFP/Getty Images) # 31 An Afghan boy throws a cricket ball on a frozen lake in Kabul, on February 2, 2012. (Reuters/Mohammad Ismail) # 32 In this picture taken on January 18, 2012, an Afghan man injects heroin near the Kabul River. The number of drug users in Afghanistan has increased dramatically, but corruption within the state has prevented the distribution of methadone for treatments, said the Afghan minister of health. (Shah Marai/AFP/Getty Images) # 33 An Afghan man smokes a cigarette after using drugs near the Kabul River in Kabul, on January 18, 2012. (Shah Marai/AFP/Getty Images) # 34 An Afghan firefighter cleans bloodstains from the scene of a bomb blast in Lashkar Gah, Helmand province south of Kabul, Afghanistan, on February 9, 2012. Two Afghan policemen were killed and one more was wounded by the blast, police officials said. (AP Photo/Abdul Khaleq) # 35 A cache of unexploded ordnance is detonated by coalition special operations forces during a presence patrol in Pul-e Khumri district, Baghlan province, on February 8, 2012. Afghan commandos and coalition special operations forces detonated more than 450 pounds of unexploded ordnance. (U.S. Army/Spc. Robin Davis) # 36 U.S. Marine Corps Lance Cpl. Brandon Mann uses his automatic rifle's scope to scan the area while providing security with his military working dog, Ty, around the villages of Sre Kala and Paygel in Helmand province, on February 17, 2012. Mann, a military working dog handler, and Ty, an IED detection dog, are assigned to Alpha Company, 1st Light Armored Reconnaissance Battalion. (USMC/Cpl. Alfred V. Lopez) # 37 Gunnar Farrar, 3, hugs his dad Sgt. Denton Farrar, as Oklahoma National Guardsmen are greeted by family and friends on their return from Afghanistan on Friday, February 17, 2012, in Norman, Oklahoma. (AP Photo/The Oklahoman, Steve Sisney) # 38 Fort Riley-based Army Sgt. Jamie Jarboe waves to the people gathered on February 17, 2012, at Philip Billard Muncipal Airport in Topeka, Kansas, to welcome him home. Jarbo was shot by a sniper in Afghanistan. (AP Photo/The Topeka Capital Journal, Anthony S. Bush) # 39 Andrew and Laura Johnson turn to say a few words of gratitude to soldiers at the conclusion of a memorial service for their son, 1st Lt. David A. Johnson, as they stand in front of a ceremonial helmet, rifle and boots on February 15, 2012, at Joint Base Lewis-McChord, near Tacoma, Washington. Johnson, 24, of Horicon, Wisconsin, died on January 25 in Kandahar province, Afghanistan, of injuries suffered from an IED detonation while he was on patrol. Johnson was assigned to the 5th Battalion, 20th Infantry Regiment, 3rd Stryker Brigade Combat Team, 2nd Infantry Division, which had deployed to Afghanistan in December, 2011. (AP Photo/Elaine Thompson) # 40 Afghan Border Police with 4th Tolai, 2nd Kandak, Helmand ABP, and U.S. Marines with Weapons Company, 3rd Battalion, 3rd Marine Regiment, board a CH-53D Sea Stallion helicopter near Combat Outpost Torbert before the start of Operation Shahem Tofan (Eagle Storm), on February 10, 2012. After arriving in the Registan Desert on helicopters and an armored convoy, ABP and the Weapons Marines scoured dusty highways for smugglers and insurgents moving across the eastern desert into Helmand province. (USMC/Cpl. Reece Lodder) #