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In this interview with Scott Horton, he discusses the history pre-2001 invasion of Afghanistan. He covers the Afghan-Soviet War and Americas role in covertly backing the Mujahedeen, along with the Saudis and Pakistan. He also touches on the Iranian revolution, the Taliban's Rise in the 90s and the Wests direct role of working with Bin laden and Al Qaeda. Scott Hortons Website Scotts Books Zbigniew Brzezinski interview boasting about helping collapse the Soviet Union Memorandum From the President’s Assistant for National Security Affairs (Brzezinski) to President Carter December 26th 1979 Operation Cyclone The New Yorker - The Redirection Find quotes from Scotts books, all sourced to the original source, on the pages on my website below. Find Sourced Quotes About the Afghan Campaign Afghanistan 1979-1989 Afghanistan 1989-2001 Afghanistan 2001-Present Find Sourced Quotes about the Iran- Iraq War, US knowledge of Saddam's Chemical Weapons, The Gulf War and the 2003 invasion Iraq

Ex-US Official John Bolton, admits planning Coups abroad, live on CNN. Jake Tapper the CNN anchor, barely pushes for more details and carries on lusting after Trump. https://edition.cnn.com/videos/politics/2022/07/12/jake-tapper-john-bolton-debate-january-6-coup-attempt-sot-lead-vpx.cnn https://www.google.com/search?q=john+bolton+coup&source=lmns&bih=969&biw=1920&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwis0P_GnYX5AhUK-BoKHU2tCxMQ_AUoAHoECAEQAA https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_for_the_New_American_Century https://www.truthovercomfort.co.uk/post/sign-of-a-new-enemy-and-military-plans https://video.foxbusiness.com/v/5993599263001 https://www.foxbusiness.com/politics/venezuela-regime-change-big-business-opportunity https://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/26/opinion/to-stop-irans-bomb-bomb-iran.html

In this video, we will be following on from the previous video, where we discussed a US government report in 2010, detailing how private contractors hired by the US, via a $2.16 Billion contract, to bring US supplies to their base, along the way had to go through a journey of bribes and protection rackets, to Warlords, Commanders, the Taliban, insurgents and Afghan officials. In this video, we will be playing clips from the June 2010 hearings the committee held about this report. They focus their questions about the DoD turning a complete blind eye to these activities and having absolutely no visibility past their base. Although the DoD mostly claim they have no knowledge, the committee circle back and try to pin them down. They do also discuss elements of the report, like the "Butcher" Commander Ruhulla and Taliban funding. My Article Report Transcript of Hearing Map of Central Asia Scott Horton Books Scott Horton Radio Show

Todays video is about the Bilderberg meeting between the 2nd of June and the 5th of June 2022. I discuss the massive names in the participant list, talking about huge topics, in secret, with complete media blackout, except for the Guardian. https://www.truthovercomfort.co.uk/https://twitter.com/truthovercomfo2 https://www.bilderbergmeetings.org/index.html https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Bilderberg_participants https://www.bilderbergmeetings.org/meetings/meeting-2022/press-release-2022 https://www.bilderbergmeetings.org/meetings/meeting-2022/participants-2022 https://vci.org/https://www.mitre.org/about/corporate-overview https://twitter.com/jensstoltenberg https://twitter.com/jensstoltenberg/status/1532815988378435586?s=20&t=C61jaw8HggD1RnAzIsN2tA https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1953_Iranian_coup_d%27%C3%A9tat https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/home British intelligence lack of transparency https://www.youtube.com/c/TRUTHstreammedia https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=jason+bermas

In this video, we will be talking about a US government report in 2010, detailing how private contractors hired by the US, via a $2.16 Billion contract, to bring US supplies to their base, along the way had to go through a journey of bribes and protection rackets, to Warlords, Commanders, the Taliban, insurgents and Afghan officials. Many of the subcontractors had to pay Warlords of small militias, who controlled certain highway routes, to protect their trucks when passing certain areas, through fear of being attacked another time. Other Coalition forces had no choice but to work with criminals linked to drug smuggling and human rights abuses. The DoD turned a blind eye to these reports and had no visibility past their base. My Article Report Hearings Transcript of Hearing Map of Central Asia Scott Horton Books Scott Horton Radio Show

Introduction "We have to do a better job in the international side to coordinate our aid, to get more accountability for what we spend in Afghanistan. But much of the corruption is fuelled by money that has poured into that country over the last eight years. And it is corruption at every step along the way, not just in Kabul. You know, when we are so dependent upon long supply lines, as in Afghanistan, where everything has to be imported, it’s much more difficult than it was in Iraq, where we had Kuwait as a staging ground to go into Iraq. You offload a ship in Karachi and by the time whatever it is … gets to where we’re headed, it goes through a lot of hands. And one of the major sources of funding for the Taliban is the protection money." (Warlord Inc Page 1) – Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton Testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee December 3, 2009 Page 48 A report in 2010, by the US congress came out called, Warlord, Inc. : extortion and corruption along the U.S. supply chain in Afghanistan Author: John F Tierney; United States. Congress. House. Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. Subcommittee on National Security and Foreign Affairs. Publisher:[Washington, DC] : [U.S. House of Representatives], 2010. This report detailed how the private contractors and subcontractors bringing US supplies to their Forward Operating Base (FOB), along the way had to go through a journey of bribes and protection rackets, to Warlords, Commanders, the Taliban, and Afghan officials. Many of the subcontractors had to pay Warlords of small militias, who controlled certain highway routes, to protect their trucks when passing certain areas, through fear of being attacked another time. The report also details how Department of Defence (DoD) officials, had been sent a series of reports and complaints from the contractors about this and did not seem to care, as long as the supplies made it to the base. The report details how, the DoD had no visibility of these reports and activities because they barely went past “the wire” of their base. This 2.16 billion Dollar Taxpayer contract, given by the DoD to the trucking contractors, was directly paradoxical to stated justifications they were there for. The US aimed to curtail corruption in the country, yet this directly funded Warlordsism, corrupt officials and even created a market for it, due to their presence, as their occupation meant these supplies passed through the country, allowing certain elements to extort from it. Of course, the biggest inversion of reality was, these supplies were going to them, to fight the Taliban and insurgents, all the while funding these same elements to fight them. If the only way to get these supplies to them was to fund all these elements, was the war not futile from the start? What Was The Contract? For a brief background on the nature of the contract, the report reads “In order to accomplish this mission, the Department of Defense employs a hitherto unprecedented logistics model: responsibility for the supply chain is almost entirely outsourced to local truckers and Afghan private security providers. The principal contract supporting the U.S. supply chain in Afghanistan is called Host Nation Trucking, a $2.16 billion contract split among eight Afghan, American, and Middle Eastern companies… HNT contract provides trucking for over 70 percent of the total goods and materiel distributed to U.S. troops in the field, roughly 6,000 to 8,000 truck missions per month. The trucks carry food, supplies, fuel, ammunition, and even Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles (MRAPs)...  Most of the prime contractors and their trucking subcontractors hire local Afghan security providers for armed protection of the trucking convoys. Transporting valuable and sensitive supplies in highly remote and insecure locations requires extraordinary levels of security." (Warlord inc Page 1) The mass of the information from this report comes from the “25,000” documents from the DoD and contractors, along with Sub-Committee interviews with “31 witnesses in connection with the investigation, including military personnel, HNT contractors, private security providers, and experts on politics and corruption in Afghanistan.” (Page IIII) I aim in this article, to breakdown the key parts of the 66-page report and show just how nonsensical this policy was and in the bigger picture, due to it being the only practical option they had, the futility of the West aims in Afghanistan. Security for the U.S. Supply Chain Was Principally Provided by Warlords “The principal private security subcontractors on the HNT contract are warlords, strongmen, commanders, and militia leaders who compete with the Afghan central government for power and authority. Providing “protection” services for the U.S. supply chain empowers these warlords with money, legitimacy, and a raison d’etre for their private armies. Although many of these warlords nominally operate under private security companies licensed by the Afghan Ministry of Interior, they thrive in a vacuum of government authority and their interests are in fundamental conflict with U.S. aims to build a strong Afghan government.” (Page 17) The report, throughout this section, details how warlords with small militias, were hired by the subcontractors, unknown to the prime contractor and the DoD, to provide security to the trucks passing through certain sections of the route, with different warlords controlling different sections of the road. One such Commander, Ruhullah, referred to as the “Butcher” by villagers, was the “single largest security provider for the U.S. supply chain in Afghanistan.” The fact he is known as the “Butcher” and yet was a “mystery” to the prime contractors and especially the DoD, is worrying to say the least, considering the DoD has laws and regulations to have accountability and oversight over these $2.16 billion contracts. (Page 17-18) Commander Ruhullah and Watan Risk Management are said to make “several tens of millions of dollars per year providing convoy security" (Page 22-23), If this was not bad enough, there were a collection of other warlords being hired for security outside of the contracts scope. Another example of the power these warlords had over the supply routes is Matiullah, who was said by a CEO of a private security company in Afghanistan that Matiullah “has the road from Kandahar to Tarin Kowt completely under his control. No one can travel without Matiullah, without facing consequences”, even the Dutch and Australian forces based in Uruzgan also “exclusively use Matiullah for highway security.” This report of course is a US one, but it covers how other NATO and coalition forces, were in a similar situation. Matiullah is the nephew of Jan Mohammad Khan, the deposed governor of Uruzgan, who is known for drug smuggling and human rights abuses and Matiullah was one of his “uncle’s leading enforcers.” The Dutch blocked him from being the police chief due to this, however, were so dependent on him for their supply route, they still inevitably needed him. Although publicly they tried to distance themselves from him, they nevertheless told reporters that the Dutch Ministry of Défense does not pay Matiullah directly, but “it is up to local transporters whether they find it necessary to pay for protection.” The Australians being in a similar boat ““will neither confirm nor deny knowledge of payments to Colonel Khan,” but privately they acknowledged to reporters that they are dependent upon his permission for their supply routes.”“ (Page 25-26) This is so telling of how tied their hands were, that even though they protested him working in the government, due to how vile of a character he was, they still had to work with him, in an even more shadowy way, with a contractor or two in between, because of the dependency on the supply routes. Again, just underlying the hopelessness of their mission to rid the country of this sort of behaviour and have legitimate services/institutions. Not to go on with too many more examples, but some of the others were described as effectively controlling the “local government”, “extorting passing vehicles and trafficking drugs”, having to work with a warlord previously “imprisoned by the US”, who the British removed through pressure on the government, but in the end was reinstated and propagandised for, by the British, through “decorating the district with posters of Koka tending to a wounded civilian in front of a mountainous backdrop" (Page 26,27, 28) The report also details how these warlords and militias did not display any loyalty to the coalition and have been accused of working with the enemy, and instigating attacks if they were not hired for the areas they control. Ahmed Wali Karzai, President Hamid Karzai’s brothers stated, “If they were not working for the security companies… they would likely join the Taliban" (Page 20) The Highway Warlords Ran a Protection Racket "Everyone… must pay for Matiullah’s security services to travel up the road from Kandahar to Tarin Kowt. There are no exceptions: “[n]o one leaves without paying... Matiullah will kill anyone on his highway, Taliban or not.” A driver interviewed by the New York Times echoed that assessment: “It’s suicide to come up this road without Matiullah’s men.” Similar claims were made about Commander Ruhulla, with one former country manager of one HNT company saying, ““you had to pay Ruhullah to either provide security or let [us] go through his territory.” Commander Ruhullah held his company “hostage;” if he did not pay, he believed his trucks would be “shot up.”” Another executive from one private security company that travels without paying Ruhullah “said that U.S. supply convoys guarded by his company had come under attack by Commander Ruhullah’s men on multiple occasions. “[He] was trying to scare us into not participating on his route, attacking our resolve to continue to service the route.”” (Page 29,30) Not only does the report demonstrate, you must pay security services militias, to protect the trucks from insurgents, you must also pay the security services, due to fear of being attacked by them, amounting to a protection racket. A further example of this, from the DoDs own documents through a request for information on security and costs on certain routes, another HNT project manager responded “there is a continuous threat of roadside IED, and ambush. There will also be a threat, not only from enemy forces but from local commanders who have not been paid their tax." There is a stream of similar emails concerning this, claiming the more dangerous the mission was through Taliban controlled areas the “more corruption” there is, like having to pay an “additional fee” and “that the money that is allocated for the vehicles is sometimes utilized to pay the “Special Security” in the south and southwest.” (Page 32,33) Reports Of Money Going To Insurgents And The Taliban "Many within the HNT contractor community believe that a large portion of their protection payments to local warlords for convoy security subsequently go to the Taliban or other anti-government elements, the forces that actually control much of Afghanistan and many of the key routes used for transportation of U.S supplies. According to a former HNT project manager, it was widely known that the operational environment in Afghanistan requires payoffs to local warlords and the Taliban for safe passage of trucking convoys” The report goes into the most detail about payoffs to warlords and commanders, however, there are many parts of the report which detail how it was widely believed, much of the money also ends up in the Taliban/insurgents hands. My article of course begins with a quote from Secretary Clinton admitting this, to a previous hearing. Before this report and contract existed, a CEO of a transportation company told the financial times that "Every truck costs about $200 as a bribe I pay on the route – to police or Taliban”, along with Clintons comments, indicating this was known even before the contract was put into place. The report does tend to point towards more indirect payments, rather than the Taliban directly asking for money to the truckers. Commander Ruhullah was pointed out as a commander who was linked to the insurgents/Taliban and pays them off or works with them when necessary. One former HNT program manager who spent time in the military said that he had ““no doubt whatsoever” that Commander Ruhullah collaborated with insurgents. “Another security company executive stated “[W]e believe that Ruhullah serves his own needs at all times… We are of the opinion that, when it suits his need, he will engage with Taliban or similar elements. He will provide supplies and sell weapons to those elements but generally he is operating for his own benefits.” (Page 34-35) Outside of the interviews done by the subcommittee, even documents provided by the DoD and contractors, back up the claims of money falling into insurgents’ hands and at one meeting of all HNT project managers and military logisticians, they specifically spoke about protection payments “funding the insurgency.” Meeting minutes describe how if they received more authority for heavier-duty weapons, they could “stop funding the insurgency of what is estimated at 1.6 – 2 Million Dollars per week" and in a much more direct fashion, in an incident report filed by a HNT contractor, it detailed how they was contacted “through the carrier by the Taliban commander that we have to pay for safe passage if we want our truck to go through the area… [W]e were informed that this was a statement from the Taliban that if we did not want our assets engaged we had to pay a protection fee.” Yet again magnifying how if the subcommittee could read these documents, so could the DoD. The Report even states many of the military figures that oversaw the contract, believed the “Taliban did receive protection payments." (Page 35) The report also details how other companies and projects with western funding also fuel the insurgents/Taliban through payoffs. The Afghanistan country director for a major international NGO reported that “the Taliban and local warlords typically take between 10-20% of the value of any project as the price to provide protection. The United States and international community are unintentionally fueling a vast political economy of security corruption in Afghanistan.” (Page 38,39) Bribes To Official Afghanistan Military, Police and Officials "According to Commander Ruhullah and Watan Risk Management, bribes paid by drivers and security providers at Afghan National Army (ANA) and Afghan National Police (ANP) checkpoints represent only the tip of a pyramid of government corruption that feeds off of the U.S. supply chain. Rashid Popal [Owner of WRM] quickly volunteered a list of government offices that his company must bribe in order to successfully escort HNT convoys along Highway 1, including governors, provincial police chiefs, district police chiefs, and local commanders for the National Directorate of Security, in addition to the local ANA and ANP units. Many of the bribes are paid monthly and range from $1,000 to $10,000." (Page 41) Not only was there extortion from warlords, insurgents, the Taliban in the shadow realm, but also the legal realm of the Afghan state. With the apparent corruption so deep in the government, that when Rashid Popal asked a governor why he extorts from him, he explained because he needs “to pay back what he had paid for his position. The same rules apply to police chiefs and other government officials who pay a set price to the provincial government in order to obtain their positions, said Mr. Popal.” (Page 42) Military officials were apparently aware of this widespread corruption in the government. Lack of DOD Oversight Or Care Of Reports "According to Lieutenant Colonel David Elwell, the commander of the 484th, no one in the battalion ever personally witnessed trucking operations ‘outside the wire’… According to Major Valen Koger, the officer responsible for technical oversight of the contract, his battalion had “zero visibility” into the subcontractors operating under the contract.” (Page 49-50) "Under normal circumstances, contractors do not volunteer to the government that they might be breaking the law; in this case, HNT contractors repeatedly did just that. Their reports fell on deaf ears” (Page 55) "Before the HNT contract began in early 2009, one current HNT contractor had already warned the military of being approached by “Taliban personnel” about safe passage payments.” (Page 55,56) "Within days of the start of the HNT contract in May 2009, contractors informed military officials that they were being asked to make protection payments for safe passage through critical areas in the south and east.” (Page 56,57) The information in my article and the report clearly shows, military officials admitted to being aware of this, their own documentation back up the interviews done by the committee, that the contractors spoke of this quite regularly, including in meetings, warned the DoD and that the DoD had absolutely no oversight of the contracts due to not going out further than the “wire.” On top of this, the prime contractors were not even aware what is going on, as the subcontractors “further subcontract out the missions without the knowledge of the primes” and were nothing more than “brokerages for tribal trucking firms or owner-operators.” (Page 50) Since the military could not, or was unwilling to go on the roads to confirm reports themselves, they relied on the prime contractors to pass down information, however, many of prime contractors were unwilling to go out on the road, on top of subcontracting subcontractors. This was a taxpayer funded contract, to the worth of $2.16 billion, which was fuelling the corruption they were there to fight, contributing to bribes to the government they put in place and finally to the insurgents themselves, with absolutely no visibility or concern. One former country manager and ex US Special Forces, got so frustrated after raising the issue of protection payments to “every official channel”, including on the ground that “the prospect of funding warlords and potentially insurgents was “repugnant” to him. As a result, he left Afghanistan." (Page 59) Although he said he was met with a lot of sympathy, which I can believe, he was also met with no action, just perfectly illustrating the doomed-ness of the mission. The coalition did not like what is going on, but did not have another option, so chose to continue the way they were, causing the exact problems they were fighting. The Futility Of The War If the whole success of the war and mission in Afghanistan, is dependent on this supply route due to "Afghanistan [being] … a landlocked country whose neighbors range from uneasy U.S. allies, such as Pakistan and Uzbekistan, to outright adversaries, such as Iran” and “Thirty years of war” that has “devastated what little infrastructure the country had” (Page 6) was the mission not doomed to fail? You either accept you are going to have to fund the enemy, warlords and corruption, in the hope one day, coalition forces dominate the country enough to kill this market, or have trained the Afghan forces enough, to have stable control over the country after the coalition has left. Clearly, we saw in 2021 without the support of the coalition, the Afghan forces collapsed. So what, should the coalition of stayed another 20 years+ and maybe have a proper handle on the country? The report explains how in the 1980s Afghan-Soviet war “More than three-fourths of Soviet combat forces were regularly involved in convoy security missions, which prevented them from ever sustaining a larger occupation force and controlling key cities such as Kandahar” (Page 44) and that the US was not willing to do this, which is why they used private contractors. I am sure the US was not in support of money going to at least out of favour Warlords and the enemy, but from the looks of it, they did not come up with a practical third option to replace this, meaning their occupation, the reason for that amount of supplies even having to come through, was fuelling the very elements they justified their occupation to fight. You have to and they must have asked, what was the point then? I assume they told themselves, they just needed a bit more time, and this was a short term set back. Not only the fact they have to pay off corrupt elements continuously on the supply routes, the weather and the roads itself were massive obstacle. The report reads “The terrain is unforgiving: deserts that kick up sandstorms in the summer become flooded and muddy in the spring, and treacherous mountain roads leave no room for error… Mountain weather can change in an instant, bringing snow and freezing rain. In the winter, the single tunnel that connects Kabul to northern Afghanistan is frequently cut off by avalanches. A break-down in the mountains can close a route for days, until the vehicle can be disassembled and airlifted out. The lack of infrastructure – including a dearth of paved roads – leaves drivers to face the elements unassisted.” In addition to these natural threats, they were faced with manmade threats, like insurgents attacking and explosives being planted. General Duncan McNabb, commander of U.S. Transportation Command, told Congress last year, “[i]f you ask me what I worry about at night, it is the fact that our supply chain is always under attack” (Page 6-7), the job sounds unwinnable, with obstacle after obstacle. Because their supply routes were so limited, due to the country being landlocked, surrounded by uneasy countries, means they were completely restricted, which was then exacerbated by the weather conditions of that limited route and easy enemy targeting. Nevertheless, they either knew this before the war, or did not plan it properly and at the end of the day, no one forced them to invade, or at least occupy the country for decades. Conclusion Without nauseating the points I have already made, from the very beginning and even before the contract, there were reports of the activities discussed happening. The military chose to carry on with the contract in its exact fashion and essentially turn a blind eye to, widespread government corruption, fuelling warlordsim and money trickling down to the insurgents. They had absolutely no visibility of what was happening beyond their gates, with Russian doles of subcontracting inside of subcontracting, blocking the view even more. The subcommittee had absolutely no problem doing what the military was not willing to, speak to contractors, subcontractors, local commanders and military officials, to do a through investigation. You have to ask why they did not investigate themselves? Potentially because they knew their hands were tied and they did not plan to end this war anytime soon. This is only scratching the surface, of one specific aspect of the war, let alone past the basic need of supply routes. If a group of officials who have lost hope in the war, just listed out honestly the obstacles and impossibility of the war, it would make it much harder to ignore. This report was of course in 2010, I have yet to find any information on whether this policy changed.

Afghanistan 1989-2001 Courting/Accepting The Taliban/ Pipelines "A senior delegation from the Taleban movement in Afghanistan is in the United States for talks with an international energy company that wants to construct a gas pipeline from Turkmenistan across Afghanistan to Pakistan. A spokesman for the company, Unocal, said the Taleban were expected to spend several days at the company's headquarters in Sugarland, Texas. Unocal says it has agreements both with Turkmenistan to sell its gas and with Pakistan to buy it." World: West Asia BBC December 4th 1997, Taleban in Texas for talks on gas pipeline "Mr. Chairman, the Caspian region contains tremendous untapped hydrocarbon reserves. Just to give an idea of the scale, proven natural gas reserves equal more than 236 trillion cubic feet. The region's total oil reserves may well reach more than 60 billion barrels of oil. Some estimates are as high as 200 billion barrels … Unocal foresees a pipeline which would become part of a regional system that will gather oil from existing pipeline infrastructure in Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and Russia. The 1,040mile long oil pipeline would extend south through Afghanistan to an export terminal that would be constructed on the Pakistan coast. This 42-inch diameter pipeline will have a shipping capacity of one million barrels of oil per day." U.S. Interests in the Central Asian Republics: Hearing Before the Subcommittee on Asia and the Pacific of the Committee on International Relations, House of Representatives, One Hundred Fifth Congress, Second Session, February 12, 1998, Volume 4 Page 16-18. Testifying Unocal representative John Maresca "The only other possible route option is across Afghanistan, which has its own unique challenges. The country has been involved in bitter warfare for almost two decades. The territory across which the pipeline would extend is controlled by the Taliban, an Islamic movement that is not recognized as a government by most other nations. From the outset, we have made it clear that construction of our proposed pipeline cannot begin until a recognized government is in place that has the confidence of governments, lenders and our company. In spite of this, a route through Afghanistan appears to be the best option with the fewest technical obstacles. It is the shortest route to the sea and has relatively favorable terrain for a pipeline. The route through Afghanistan is the one that would bring Central Asian oil closest to Asian markets and thus would be the cheapest in terms of transporting the oil. Unocal envisions the creation of a Central Asian Oil Pipeline Consortium. The pipeline would become an integral part of a regional oil pipeline system that will utilize and gather oil from existing pipeline infrastructure in Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and Russia." U.S. Interests in the Central Asian Republics: Hearing Before the Subcommittee on Asia and the Pacific of the Committee on International Relations, House of Representatives, One Hundred Fifth Congress, Second Session, February 12, 1998, Volume 4 Page 50. Testifying Unocal representative John Maresca "Only bullet and shrapnel scars beneath their heavy attire would be clues that these visitors were militia commanders, some with ties to Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaida network. For the next five weeks, the men were feted at private parties, escorted on tours of other local landmarks, including a school and hospital, and given cash for a shopping mall excursion where most bought scented soaps and silk stockings. And just as quietly as they had arrived, the Afghans were shepherded back to Afghanistan -- all expenses paid courtesy of the U.S. government and the University of Nebraska at Omaha." University Helped US Reach Out to Taliban,” Chicago Tribune, October 22, 2001 "Mr. DAMELIN. Let's focus specifically on the oil pipeline issue in the Caucasus. Could you briefly describe what the U.S. policy was in June 1995 with respect to oil pipelines in this part of the world? Ms. HESLIN. U.S. policy was to promote the rapid development of Caspian energy, specifically through the development of multiple pipelines on commercially viable international terms. We did so specifically to promote the independence of these oil-rich countries to, in essence, break Russia's monopoly control over the transportation of oil from that region which had significantly reduced its flow and frankly to promote western energy security through diversification of supply. So that was our policy. It was a geopolitical decision. We sought to link these countries specifically to the West, while promoting good relations with their neighbors.” Investigation of Illegal Or Improper Activities in Connection with the 1996 Federal Election Campaign: Hearings Before the Committee on Governmental Affairs, United States Senate, One Hundred Fifth Congress, First Session, Part 7 Page 98 (Extended quote from book) Sheila Heslin Clinton National Security Council member Elise Labott, “US Gives $43 Million to Afghanistan,” CNN, May 17, 2001 The Growth Of Terrorism And Terrorist Organisations Moscow's specific worry was the spread of fundamentalism and its influence on Soviet Central Asian Muslims' Afghanistan The Bear Trap: The Defeat of a Superpower By Mohammed Yousaf, Mark Adkin Page 217 "The intelligence agencies of the US and the UK went along with Zia's policy of Arabising/Wahabising the Muslims of Pakistan because this contributed to an increase in the flow of jihadi terrorists to fight against the Soviet troops in Afghanistan." B. Raman, ‘Home-Grown Jihadis (Jundullah) in UK and US’, 6 May 2007 "Bin Laden's al-Qaeda network was able to expand under the safe sanctuary extended by Taliban following Pakistan Directives" Defence Intelligence Agency, ‘Veteran Afghanistan Traveler’s Analysis of Al Qaeda and Taliban Exploitable Weaknesses’, 2 October 2001, National Security Archive, ‘The September 11th Sourcebooks – Volume VII: The Taliban File "The Tadjik commander from southern Afghantstan, Pakistan also encouraged, facilitated and often escorted arabs from the middle east into Afghanistan. Eventually A special facility was constructed in Zarwa (CRA), in Paktia province, with Pakistan Inter-services Intelligence directorate (ISI) Funding." Defence Intelligence Agency, ‘Veteran Afghanistan Traveler’s Analysis of Al Qaeda and Taliban Exploitable Weaknesses’, 2 October 2001, National Security Archive, ‘The September 11th Sourcebooks – Volume VII: The Taliban File "They have however been disguised under the cover of dozens of "humanitarian" agencies spread throughout Bosnia, Kosovo and Albania. Funding has come from now-defunct banks such as the Albanian-Arab Islamic Bank and from bin Laden's so-called Advisory and Reformation Committee. One of his largest Islamist front agencies, it was established in London in 1994" Marcia Kurop, ‘Al Qaeda’s Balkan links’, Wall Street Journal Europe, 1 November 2001 "Indeed, to this day, those involved in the decision to give the Afghan rebels access to a fortune in covert funding and top-level combat weaponry continue to defend that move in the context of the Cold War. Sen. Orrin Hatch, a senior Republican on the Senate Intelligence Committee making those decisions, told my colleague Robert Windrem that he would make the same call again today even knowing what bin Laden would do subsequently. “It was worth it,” he said. “Those were very important, pivotal matters that played an important role in the downfall of the Soviet Union,” he said." Bin Laden comes home to roost Dec. 10, 2003, NBC By Michael Moran (Michael Moran, “Bin Laden Comes Home to Roost: His CIA Ties Are Only the Beginning of a Woeful Story,” NBC News, August 24, 1998) Taliban Deals Over Bin Laden "In the face of widespread famine, limited foreign aid and tough new sanctions, Afghanistan's Taliban regime is finally moving towards a compromise over demands for the extradition of the Saudi terrorist Osama bin Laden."Taliban ready to strike a deal on Bin Laden The Guardian Thu 22 Feb 2001 "For the first time, the Taliban offered to hand over Bin Laden for trial in a country other than the U.S. without asking to see evidence first in return for a halt to the bombing, a source close to Pakistan’s military leadership said. But U.S. officials appear to have dismissed the proposal and are instead hoping to engineer a split within the Taliban leadership. The offer was brought by Mullah Wakil Ahmed Muttawakil, the Taliban foreign minister and a man who is often regarded as a more moderate figure in the regime. He met officials from the CIA and Pakistan’s ISI intelligence directorate in Islamabad on Monday. . . [U]ntil now the Taliban regime has consistently said it has not seen any convincing evidence to implicate the Saudi dissident in any crime. “Now they have agreed to hand him over to a third country without the evidence being presented in advance,” the source close to the military said. . . . The U.S. administration has not publicly supported the idea of a trial for Bin Laden outside America and appears intent on removing from power the Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar and the hardliners in the regime." The Guardian October 16, 2001 New offer on Bin Laden US rejects Taliban offer to try bin Laden Sun, Oct 7, 2001 The Irish Times U.S. Rejects New Taliban Offer ABC News 14th of October 2001 U.S. rejects Taliban offer to try bin Laden October 7, 2001 CNN "Weeks before the terrorist attacks on 11 September, the United States and the United Nations ignored warnings from a secret Taliban emissary that Osama bin Laden was planning a huge attack on American soil. The warnings were delivered by an aide of Wakil Ahmed Muttawakil, the Taliban Foreign Minister at the time, who was known to be deeply unhappy with the foreign militants in Afghanistan, including Arabs." Kate Clark, “Revealed: The Taliban Minister, the US Envoy and the Warning of September 11 That Was Ignored,” Independent, September 6, 2002 The Taliban File Part IV - National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 134 Posted September 11, 2004 - Updated August 18, 2005 Osama bin Laden: Taliban Spokesman Seeks New Proposal for Resolving Bin Laden Problem,” State Department Document, November 28, 1998 "We never heard what they were trying to say," said Milton Bearden, a former CIA station chief who oversaw U.S. covert operations in Afghanistan in the 1980s. "We had no common language. Ours was, 'Give up bin Laden.' They were saying, 'Do something to help us give him up.' "David B. Ottaway and Joe Stephens, “Diplomats Met with Taliban on Bin Laden,” Washington Post, October 29, 2001 White House Says ‘No’ to Taliban Demand for Proof,” CBC News, September 21, 2001 "A SECRET plan to put Osama bin Laden on trial in Pakistan has been blocked after President Musharraf said he could not guarantee his safety, it was disclosed yesterday… The proposal, which had bin Laden's approval, was that within the framework of Islamic shar'ia law evidence of his alleged involvement in the New York and Washington attacks would be placed before an international tribunal." Patrick Bishop, “Pakistan Blocks bin Laden Trial,” Telegraph, October 4, 2001 ''When I said no negotiations, I meant no negotiations,'' Mr. Bush told reporters upon landing on the South Lawn of the White House after returning from a weekend of intensive national security briefings at Camp David. He added that he was not interested in discussing Mr. bin Laden's innocence or guilt. ''We know he's guilty,'' he said." Elizabeth Bumiller, “A Nation Challenged: President Rejects Offer by Taliban for Negotiations,” New York Times, October 15, 2001

Afghanistan 1979-1989 Operation Cyclone "The entry of our troops into Afghanistan would outrage the international community, triggering a string of extremely negative consequences in many different areas. Our common enemies are just waiting for the moment when Soviet troops appear in Afghanistan. This will give them the excuse they need to send armed bands into the country." SECRET MEMOS TRACE KREMLIN'S MARCH TO WAR Washington Post 15, 1992 "A Soviet Vietnam? However, we should not be too sanguine about Afghanistan becoming a Soviet Vietnam" FOREIGN RELATIONS OF THE UNITED STATES, 1977–1980, VOLUME XII, AFGHANISTAN 97. Memorandum From the President’s Assistant for National Security Affairs (Brzezinski) to President Carter December 26, 1979 Funding, Arming And Training "explore with the Pakistanis and British the possibility of improving the financing, arming and communications of the rebel forces to make it as expensive as possible for the Soviets to continue their efforts" Special Coordination Committee White House Situation Meeting on Afghanistan 17 December 1979 "There were 58,000 dead in Vietnam and we owe the Russians one … I have a slight obsession with it, because of Vietnam. I thought the Soviets ought to get a dose of it … I’ve been of the opinion that this money was better spent to hurt our adversaries than other money in the Defense Department budget" Rep Charles Wilson Texas U.S. Covert Aid to Afghans on the Rise Washington Post January 13, 1985 "Question: The former director of the CIA, Robert Gates, stated in his memoirs that the American intelligence services began to aid the Mujahideen in Afghanistan six months before the Soviet intervention. Is this period, you were the national security advisor to President Carter. You therefore played a key role in this affair. Is this correct? Brzezinski: Yes. According to the official version of history, CIA aid to the Mujahiddin began during 1980, that is to say, after the Soviet army invaded Afghanistan on December 24, 1979. But the reality, closely guarded until now, is completely otherwise: Indeed, it was July 3, 1979 that President Carter signed the first directive for secret aid to the opponents of the pro-Soviet regime in Kabul. And that very day, I wrote a note to the president in which I explained to him that in my opinion this aid was going to induce a Soviet military intervention [emphasis added throughout]. Q: Despite this risk, you were an advocate of this covert action. But perhaps you yourself desired this Soviet entry into the war and looked for a way to provoke it? B: It wasn’t quite like that. We didn’t push the Russians to intervene, but we knowingly increased the probability that they would. Q : When the Soviets justified their intervention by asserting that they intended to fight against secret US involvement in Afghanistan , nobody believed them . However, there was an element of truth in this. You don’t regret any of this today? B: Regret what? That secret operation was an excellent idea. It had the effect of drawing the Russians into the Afghan trap and you want me to regret it? The day that the Soviets officially crossed the border, I wrote to President Carter, essentially: “We now have the opportunity of giving to the USSR its Vietnam war." Indeed, for almost 10 years, Moscow had to carry on a war that was unsustainable for the regime , a conflict that bought about the demoralization and finally the breakup of the Soviet empire. Q: And neither do you regret having supported Islamic fundamentalism, which has given arms and advice to future terrorists? B : What is more important in world history? The Taliban or the collapse of the Soviet empire? Some agitated Moslems or the liberation of Central Europe and the end of the cold war? Q : “Some agitated Moslems”? But it has been said and repeated: Islamic fundamentalism represents a world menace today... B: Nonsense! It is said that the West has a global policy in regard to Islam. That is stupid: There isn’t a global Islam. Look at Islam in a rational manner, without demagoguery or emotionalism. It is the leading religion of the world with 1.5 billion followers. But what is there in common among fundamentalist Saudi Arabia , moderate Morocco, militarist Pakistan, pro-Western Egypt, or secularist Central Asia? Nothing more than what unites the Christian countries…" Zbigniew Brzezinski Interview with Le Nouvel Observateur (1998) - University Of Arizona "We can do a lot of damage to the Soviet Union," Casey said, according to Mohammed Yousaf, a Pakistani general who attended the meeting… Casey's visit was a prelude to a secret Reagan administration decision in March 1985, reflected in National Security Decision Directive 166, to sharply escalate U.S. covert action in Afghanistan, according to Western officials. Abandoning a policy of simple harassment of Soviet occupiers, the Reagan team decided secretly to let loose on the Afghan battlefield an array of U.S. high technology and military expertise in an effort to hit and demoralize Soviet commanders and soldiers. Casey saw it as a prime opportunity to strike at an overextended, potentially vulnerable Soviet empire." Washington Post , ‘Anatomy of a Victory: CIA’s Covert Afghan War’, 19 July 1992. "CIA operations officers helped Pakistani trainers establish schools for the mujaheddin in secure communications, guerrilla warfare, urban sabotage and heavy weapons, Yousaf and Western officials said… The first antiaircraft systems used by the mujaheddin were the Swiss-made Oerlikon heavy gun and the British-made Blowpipe missile, according to Yousaf and Western sources. When these proved ineffective, the United States sent the Stinger. Pakistani officers traveled to the United States for training on the Stinger in June 1986 and then set up a secret mujaheddin Stinger training facility in Rawalpindi, complete with an electronic simulator made in the United States. The simulator allowed mujaheddin trainees to aim and fire at a large screen without actually shooting off expensive missiles, Yousaf said. The screen marked the missile's track and calculated whether the trainee would have hit his airborne target" Washington Post , ‘Anatomy of a Victory: CIA’s Covert Afghan War’, 19 July 1992. "In Ken Connor's Ghost Force: The Secret History of the SAS, it is claimed that the elite regiment actually trained Afghan fighters in remote locations in Scotland. In Afghanistan itself, the services of Keenie-Meenie Services were used. This was an offshoot of British security firm Control Risks, mainly comprising ex-SAS members and former members of Rhodesian and South African special forces. It took its name from the Swahili word for the movement of a snake through grass. KMS later played a role in the Oliver North, Iran-Contra affair of 1987." Guardian , ‘Blowback Chronicles’, 15 September 2001. "Mr. Campbell-Savours: To ask the Prime Minister on what occasions since 1979 representatives of Her Majesty's Government discussed the use of Keenie Meenie Services or Saladin Security with Colonel Oliver North; and if she will make a statement. The Prime Minister: It has been the practice of successive Governments not to answer questions about the details of discussions which may have taken place with foreign Governments" Hansard, ‘Margaret Thatcher, Saladin Security and Keenie Meenie Services’, 1 December 1987. "Saudi Arabia has been a major source of financing to rebel and terrorist organisations since the 1970s. These were some of the conclusions of a 2006 report issued by the U.S. Department of State titled International Narcotics Control Strategy Report - Money Laundering and Financial Crimes (U.S. Department of State, 2006). Since the invasion of Afghanistan by the Soviet Union, Saudi Arabia and Saudi-based private actors (i.e. wealthy businessmen, bankers, charitable organisations ) have been providing financial and relief assistance to Muslim communities affected by natural calamities or conflicts. It has been estimated that Saudi Arabia has invested more than $ 10 billion to promote its Wahhabi agenda through charitable foundations. Some of the most influential charitable organisation operating in South and Southeast Asia are: the Islamic International Relief Organisation (IIRO), the Al Haramain Foundation, the Medical Emergency Relief Charity (MERC) and the World Assembly of Muslim Youth (WAMY). These organisations have provided funds to build educational and religious facilities, as well as hospitals, in countries like Afghanistan, Pakistan, Indonesia and the Philippines, just to mention some. Nevertheless, it is believed that some of the money destined to charitable activities has been diverted toward rebel and terrorist organisations throughout the region including Al Qaeda, the Haqqani network and Jemaah Islamiyah (JI). This was possible because during the 1990s Al Qaeda and JI filled leadership positions in several Islamic charities with some of their most trusted men (Abuza, 2003). Al Qaeda and JI’s operatives were than diverting about 15-20 percent of the funds to finance their operations. In some cases, like the Philippines, such percentage could reach even 60 percent. The paragraphs that follow will analyse Saudi sponsorship to terrorist/rebel groups in South and Southeast Asia, with case studies on Afghanistan, Pakistan, Indonesia and the Philippines. The case studies of Afghanistan and Pakistan will be treated together considering the strong interlink (also known as AfPak) they share due to cross border activities of Al Qaeda and Taliban fighters" European Parliament, ‘The Involvement of Salafism/Wahhabism in the support and supply of arms to rebel groups around the world’, Directorate-General for External Policies, June 2013, Page 5 "During the 1980s, the IIRO and the MWL were used by the Saudi intelligence to transfer money to mujahedeen, while the IIRO is also known to have directly funded six training camps in Afghanistan (Abuza, 2003, p. 24). At the same time, Bin Laden used to rely on a network of Saudi and Gulf-based sponsors known as the Golden Chain (Blanchard, 2008). According to the 9/11 Commission Report report, the Golden Chain provided Bin Laden with financial support to rebuilt Al Qaeda’s assets in Afghanistan following his departure from Sudan in 1996" European Parliament, ‘The Involvement of Salafism/Wahhabism in the support and supply of arms to rebel groups around the world’, Directorate-General for External Policies, June 2013, Page 5 "The Government of Saudi Arabia has generally matched the United States financial contributions, providing money in a joint fund with Washington to buy hundreds of Stingers for the Islamic guerrillas even though Congress would not permit such sophisticated weapons to be sold to the Saudis themselves. In addition, several wealthy Saudi princes, motivated by a sense of religious duty and solidarity, gave cash contributions to the guerrillas." Arming Afghan Guerrillas: A Huge Effort Led by US,” New York Times, April 18, 1988 "In the twilight of the Cold War, the United States spent millions of dollars to supply Afghan schoolchildren with textbooks filled with violent images and militant Islamic teachings, part of covert attempts to spur resistance to the Soviet occupation. The primers, which were filled with talk of jihad and featured drawings of guns, bullets, soldiers and mines, have served since then as the Afghan school system's core curriculum. Even the Taliban used the American-produced books, though the radical movement scratched out human faces in keeping with its strict fundamentalist code" From US, the ABCs of Jihad,” Washington Post, March 23, 2002 "It has famously been said that "short-term gain for long-term pain" is foolhardy, but this is exactly what happened to the allies in the jihad against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, not least the United States, Pakistan, and Saudi Arabia. We helped create the mujahideen, fired them with religious zeal in seminaries, armed them, paid them, fed them, and sent them to a jihad against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan. We did not stop to think how we would divert them to productive life after the jihad was won. This mistake cost Afghanistan and Pakistan more dearly than any other country. Neither did the United States realize what a rich, educated person like Osama bin Laden might later do with the organization that we all had enabled him to establish." Pervez Musharraf, In the Line of Fire: A Memoir Page 208, Ex SSG and Pakistani President KMS - Private security firm helped train the Mujahedeen British Training of the Mujahedeen in Scotland and other bases in the UK in the 1980s. Ken Connor (Ex SAS) The Ghost Force; The Secret History Of The SAS, Page 278 "They were well-armed and ferocious fighters, but they lacked battlefield organisation" Ken Connor (Ex SAS) The Ghost Force; The Secret History Of The SAS, Page 312 "planning of operations, the use of explosives and the fire control of heavy weapons – mortars and artillery" Ken Connor (Ex SAS) The Ghost Force; The Secret History Of The SAS, Page 312 "They were very grateful for the help and relations between the two groups were very friendly on a personal level but that did not translate into a corresponding warmth between the British government and the leaders of the Mujahedeen. It was strictly an anti-Communist marriage of convenience between two organisations that had nothing else in common." Ken Connor (Ex SAS) The Ghost Force; The Secret History Of The SAS, Page 313 "These cross-border strikes were at their peak during 1986. Scores of attacks were made across the Amu from Jozjan to Badakshan Provinces. Sometimes Soviet citizens joined in these operations, or came back into Afghanistan to join the Mujahideen" Afghanistan The Bear Trap: The Defeat of a Superpower By Mohammed Yousaf, Mark Adkin Page 230 (extended quote) "Thus it was the US that put in train a major escalation of the war which, over the next three years, culminated in numerous cross-border raids and sabotage missions north of the Amu. During this period we were specifically to train and despatch hundreds of Mujahideen up to 25 kilometres deep inside the Soviet Union. They were probably the most secret and sensitive operations of the war. They only occurred during my time with ISI as in 1987" Afghanistan The Bear Trap: The Defeat of a Superpower By Mohammed Yousaf, Mark Adkin Page 216-17 (extended quote) "We trained in all types of guerrilla warfare. We trained on weapons, tactics, enemy engagement techniques and survival in hostile environments. All weapons training was with live ammunition, which was available everywhere. Indeed, there were a number of casualties during these training sessions. There were ex-military people amongst the Mujahideen, but no formal state forces participated. We were also trained by the elite units of the Mujahideen who had themselves been trained by Pakistani Special Forces, the CIA and the SAS … We had our own specially designed manuals, but we also made extensive use of manuals from the American and British military" From Mujahid to Activist: An Interview with a Libyan Veteran of the Afghan Jihad’, 25 March 2005, Jamestown Foundation Propaganda "We should concert with Islamic countries both in a propaganda campaign and in a covert action campaign to help the rebels" FOREIGN RELATIONS OF THE UNITED STATES, 1977–1980, VOLUME XII, AFGHANISTAN 97. Memorandum From the President’s Assistant for National Security Affairs (Brzezinski) to President Carter "Third, we will attempt to increase our propaganda campaign on the Soviets worldwide. We will recommend to our European allies that they encourage their press to pay more attention to the subject... to cast the Soviets as opposing Moslem religious and nationalist expressions" Special Coordination Committee White House Situation Meeting on Afghanistan 17 December 1979 PDPA Afghan Government Change Of Laws And Living Conditions "Land reform attempts undermined their village chiefs. Portraits of Lenin threatened their religious leaders. But it was the Kabul revolutionary Government’s granting of new rights to women that pushed orthodox Moslem men in the Pashtoon villages of eastern Afghanistan into picking up their guns. … “The government said our women had to attend meetings and our children had to go to schools. This threatens our religion. We had to fight.” … “The government imposed various ordinances allowing women freedom to marry anyone they chose without their parents’ consent.” Afghans Resist New Rights for Women; Attacks in Response to Changes Portraits of Lenin Distributed Workers and Troops Surrounded The New York Times Feb. 9, 1980 "In October 1978 the Taraki regime issued Decree No. 7. Its main purpose was to reduce indebtedness caused by bride - price and to improve women's status . The decree had three parts : prohibition of bride - price in excess of a mahr of 300 afghanis ( for value of the afghani — see Glossary ) , provisions of complete freedom of choice of marriage partner , and fixation of the minimum age at marriage at 16 for women and 18 for men. In addition , it imposed the penalty of imprisonment for three months to three years for violation of the decree." US Department of the Army, Afghanistan, A Country Study (1986) Page 121 "The seventh decree attempted to promote equality between the sexes in married life. It fixed a maximum amount for the bride - price ( mahr ) , established a minimum age for marriage at 18 years for men and 16 years for women, abolished forced marriages , and established legal penalties of imprisonment for violating the decree's provisions" US Department of the Army, Afghanistan, A Country Study (1986) Page 232 "The effect of Decree No. 7 on women's status was not known as of 1985. The Democratic Women's Organization of Afghanistan ( DWOA ) was organized by Dr. Anahita Ratebzad after the foundation of the People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan ( PDPA ) . Its function was to educate women , bring them out of seclusion , and initiate social programs . It was still functioning and growing in the mid - 1980s." US Department of the Army, Afghanistan, A Country Study (1986) Page 128 "In 1985 women were admitted to militias on a volunteer basis. They were encouraged to enlist, and female“ martyrs ” were glorified in the Afghan press." US Department of the Army, Afghanistan, A Country Study (1986) Page 128 "Before the revolution cosmopolitan health care services were woefully inadequate… 60 percent of the country's hospital beds were in Kabul. In mid - 1985 the government reported an 80 - percent increase in hospital beds and a 45 - percent increase in the number of doctors since the revolution but asserted that health care provision still lagged far behind need. To attack the massive public health problems, the government has initiated mobile medical units composed of nurses and physicians and has instituted medical brigades of women and young people. In 1985 problems with public health programs and health care were discussed openly in the Afghan press. The news media reported attempts on the part of the government to expand health care into the provinces , but it seemed that most new clinic construction occurred in Kabul." US Department of the Army, Afghanistan, A Country Study (1986) Page 129 "Before the April Revolution Afghanistan had one of the world's highest rates of illiteracy. The new government ranked education high on its list of priorities. The revolutionary regime initiated extensive literacy programs, especially for women , because as of 1978 few women who lived outside of Kabul could read . The school system , which before 1978 had consisted of eight years of primary school and four of secondary , was changed . In 1985 primary school included grades one through five , and secondary education comprised grades six through 10. Textbook reforms were also instituted . The content of the books was changed to include the concept of dialectical materialism , and the number of languages in which the texts were printed was expanded , reflecting Karmal's stated policy that children should be able to learn in their mother tongue… The Afghan and Soviet governments signed several education cooperation agreements whereby Afghan students could pursue higher education in the Soviet Union , the Soviets would establish 10 professional and technical schools in Afghanistan , and the Soviets would provide the schools with technical assistance… In 1985 the government announced that since the April Revolution 1,150,000 people had graduated from literacy courses .On July 19, 1985, government figures put the number of students currently enrolled in literacy courses at 400,000… In 1983 there were seven professional and technical colleges in addition to the two universities. Although it was difficult to assess the veracity of the figures, which may have been inflated, it appeared in the mid - 1980s that the government was seriously attempting to expand education in the country." US Department of the Army, Afghanistan, A Country Study (1986) Page 130,132 "The Khalqi policy of encouraging the education of girls , for example , aroused deep resentment in the villages . Local sensibilities were also offended by the secular character of new curricula and the practice of putting girls and boys in the same classroom." US Department of the Army, Afghanistan, A Country Study (1986) Page 232 Although both PDPA groups were concerned with changing gender roles and giving women a more active role in politics , women such as Ratebzad , one of the four PDPA members elected to the Wolesi Jirgah in 1965 , were more prominent in US Department of the Army, Afghanistan, A Country Study (1986) Page 223

Afghanistan 2001- Present Bombings, Deaths, Destruction And Effects "We could do a very significantly increased level of activity without going anywhere near putting combat troops on the ground. And one of the points that I make in the essay is that if you look at the average rate of international air strikes since last August into Syria and Iraq, it's about 10 per day. If you compare that to Libya in 2011, it was 45 per day. In Afghanistan in 2001, it was 83 per day. And in the Kosovo campaign, which people may remember from 1999, was 250 per day. So without even going close to putting troops on the ground, we could be doing a very significantly greater amount to deal with the Islamic State" ABC (Australia), ‘Islamic State look increasingly like a state warns expert’, 18 May 2015 David Kilcullen (Ex- US Official) "Many of the people in the village then ran out of their homes, afraid that the bombs would fall on the homes. All witnesses stated that aircraft then returned to the area and began firing from guns. Many of the civilians were killed from the firing. The bombing and firing lasted for about one hour." HRW, 'Afghanistan; New civilian deaths due to US bombing', 30 October 2001 (At least twenty-five, and possibly as many as thirty-five, Afghan civilians died when U.S. bombs and gunfire hit their village, Chowkar-Karez) Civilian casualties in the war in Afghanistan (2001–present) "Behind the military jargon, the war logs are littered with accounts of civilian tragedies. The 144 entries in the logs recording some of these so-called “blue on white” events, cover a wide spectrum of day-by-day assaults on Afghans, with hundreds of casualties. They range from the shootings of individual innocents to the often massive loss of life from air strikes, which eventually led President Hamid Karzai to protest publicly that the U.S. was treating Afghan lives as “cheap.” When civilian family members are actually killed in Afghanistan, their relatives do, in fairness, get greater solatia payments than cans of beans and Hershey bars. The logs refer to sums paid of 100,000 Afghani per corpse, equivalent to about £1,500 [approximately $1,900]" Afghanistan war logs: Secret CIA paramilitaries’ role in civilian deathsInnocent Afghan men, women and children have paid the price of the Americans' rules of engagement David Leigh Sun 25 Jul 2010 Declan Walsh, “Afghanistan War Logs: How US Marines Sanitized Record of Bloodbath,” Guardian, July 26, 2010 Clancy Chassay, “‘I Was Still Holding My Grandson’s Hand - the Rest Was Gone,’” Guardian, December 15, 2008 Jerome Starkey, “Western Troops Accused of Executing 10 Afghan Civilians, Including Children,” London Times, December 31, 2009 "This was the hidden civilian damage from the first drone strike Barack Obama ever ordered, on 23 January 2009, the inauguration of a counter-terrorism tactic likely to define Obama’s presidency in much of the Muslim world. It was the third day of his presidency. Reportedly, the strikes did not hit the Taliban target Obama and the Central Intelligence Agency sought. Instead, they changed Qureshi’s life irrevocably." Spencer Ackerman, “Victim of Obama’s First Drone Strike: ‘I Am the Living Example of What Drones Are,’” Guardian, January 23, 2016 David Collins “Rogue SAS Unit Accused of Executing Civilians in Afghanistan,” Sunday Times, July 2, 2017 David Brown, “SAS Under Investigation Over ‘Rogue Unit’ Deaths in Afghanistan,” July 3, 2017, London Times "A former British Army officer has claimed the Special Air Service (SAS) killed innocent Afghan civilians during night raids on their homes after ignoring warnings they were targeting the wrong people. Captain Mike Martin has told The Sunday Times how he expressed severe misgivings about the “flawed” intelligence used to justify the raids during top secret “board meetings” in which SAS targets were identified. He said: “They [the SAS] would go in and kill members of a family based on faulty intelligence. The next morning there would be people going, ‘What was going on last night? You just murdered a whole family … ‘Army apology’ for killing of four Afghans. The British Army is said to have apologised to the family of four Afghan men who were shot dead by special forces soldiers during a night raid on their home in a village near Lashkar Gah in February 2011. Two of the victims are alleged to have been handcuffed before being killed. A family member, who found his father slumped against a wall, and a local official told The Sunday Times they were visited by British officers who they claim admitted the men had been wrongly targeted. “They just kept saying they were very, very sorry,” the official said. The Ministry of Defence declined to comment." SAS ‘Murderers’ Ignored Warning of Wrong Targets in Afghanistan,” Sunday Times, July 9, 2017 Michael Hastings, “King David's War,” Rolling Stone, February 2, 2011 "Afghanistan: NATO Air Strike Kills Seven Policemen,” Daily Telegraph, February 18, 2010 “American and Afghan officials have begun helping a number of anti-Taliban militias that have independently taken up arms against insurgents in several parts of Afghanistan… The emergence of the militias, which took some leaders in Kabul by surprise, has so encouraged the American and Afghan officials that they are planning to spur the growth of similar armed groups across the Taliban heartland… The American and Afghan officials say they are hoping the plan, called the Community Defense Initiative, will bring together thousands of gunmen to protect their neighborhoods from Taliban insurgents. Already there are hundreds of Afghans who are acting on their own against the Taliban, officials say. The endeavor represents one of the most ambitious and one of the riskiest plans for regaining the initiative against the Taliban, who are fighting more vigorously than at any time since 2001…“The idea is to get people to take responsibility for their own security,” said a senior American military official in Kabul, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. “In many places they are already doing that.”Dexter Filkins, “Afghan Militias Battle Taliban with Aid of US,” New York Times, November 21, 2009 (Quote not in book) Dan Edge and Stephen Grey, “Kill/Capture,” Frontline, PBS, May 10, 2011 Secret Killing Program is Key in Iraq, Woodward says,” CNN, September 9, 2008 "JSOC’s success in targeting the right homes, businesses and individuals was only ever about 50 percent, according to two senior commanders. They considered this rate a good one." Dana Priest and William M. Arkin, “‘Top Secret America’: A Look at the Military’s Joint Special Operations Command,” Washington Post, September 2, 2011 "A Times investigation suggests that Nato’s claims are either wilfully false or, at best, misleading. More than a dozen survivors, officials, police chiefs and a religious leader interviewed at and around the scene of the attack maintain that the perpetrators were US and Afghan gunmen. The identity and status of the soldiers is unknown. The raid came more than a fortnight after the commander of US and Nato forces in Afghanistan issued new guidelines designed to limit the use of night raids. Special forces and Western intelligence agencies that run covert operations in Afghanistan have been criticised for night raids based on dubious or false intelligence leading to civilian casualties… Three women crouching in a hallway behind him were hit by the same volley of fire. Bibi Shirin, 22, had four children under the age of 5. Bibi Saleha, 37, had 11 children. Both of them, according to their relatives, were pregnant. They were killed instantly." Jerome Starkey, “Nato ‘Covered Up’ Botched Night Raid in Afghanistan That Killed Five,” Times of London, March 13, 2010 (Quote not in book) Michael T. Flynn et al., “Fixing Intel: A Blueprint for Making Intelligence Relevant in Afghanistan,” Center for a New American Security, January 4, 2010 Spencer Ackerman, “25 Tons of Bombs Wipe Afghan Town Off Map,” Wired, January 19, 2011 Kevin Sieff, “Years Later, a Flattened Afghan Village Reflects on US Bombardment,” Washington Post, August 25, 2013 "With an average of an assassination a day and a suicide bombing every second or third day, insurgents have greatly increased the level of violence in Afghanistan, and have become by far the biggest killers of civilians here, the United Nations said. … The most striking change has been in suicide bombings, whose numbers have tripled this year compared with 2009. Such attacks now take place an average of three times a week compared with once a week before. In addition, two of three of those suicide attacks are considered “complex,” in which attackers use a suicide bomb as well as other weapons" Rod Nordland, “Violence Up Sharply in Afghanistan,” New York Times, June 19, 2010 "The governor of Afghanistan's Kunar province said Sunday that 64 people, including some civilians, were killed in a joint operation by NATO's International Security Assistance Force and Afghan security forces over the past few days." Afghan Governor: Women and Children Killed in Military Operation,” CNN, February 20, 2011 (Quote not in book) Joshua Partlow, “Petraeus's Comments on Coalition Attack Reportedly Offend Karzai Government,” Washington Post, February 21, 2011 "According to the Washington Post, Petraeus addressed the issue during a meeting with Afghan officials Sunday at the presidential palace. The newspaper cited unnamed Afghan officials in the meeting as saying Petraeus said parents may have purposely burned their children to make it seem like they were victims of the U.S. air strikes. Petraeus said no such thing, according to a statement from the top ISAF spokesman in Afghanistan, Rear Adm. Greg Smith."At a Sunday NSC (National Security Council) meeting, General Petraeus never said children's hands and feet were purposely burned by their families in order to create a civilian casualty event. Rather, he said the injuries to the children appeared inconsistent with the types of munitions used," Smith said in a statement. He said Petraeus did say in the meeting that he had an idea how the children were burned. "The burns to their hands and feet may have been the result of discipline sometimes handed out to Afghan children. Regrettably this is customary among some Afghan fathers as a way of dealing with children who misbehave" Tension Between Petraeus, Afghans over Airstrike, Children,” CNN, February 22, 2011 "Nine boys collecting firewood to heat their homes in the eastern Afghanistan mountains were killed by NATO helicopter gunners who mistook them for insurgents, according to a statement on Wednesday by NATO, which apologized for the mistake. The boys, who were 9 to 15 years old, were attacked on Tuesday in what amounted to one of the war’s worst cases of mistaken killings by foreign-led forces. The victims included two sets of brothers. A 10th boy survived… We were almost done collecting the wood when suddenly we saw the helicopters come,” said Hemad, who, like many Afghans, has only one name. “There were two of them. The helicopters hovered over us, scanned us and we saw a green flash from the helicopters. Then they flew back high up, and in a second round they hovered over us and started shooting. They fired a rocket which landed on a tree. The tree branches fell over me and shrapnel hit my right hand and my side.” General Petraeus pledged to investigate the attack and to take disciplinary action if appropriate. “We are deeply sorry for this tragedy and apologize to the members of the Afghan government, the people of Afghanistan and, most importantly, the surviving family members of those killed by our actions,” he said. “These deaths should have never happened.” It was the third instance in two weeks in which the Afghan government has accused NATO of killing civilians. NATO strongly disputes one of those reports, but another the killing of an Afghan Army soldier and his family in Nangarhar Province on Feb. 20 was also described as an accident." Alissa J. Rubin and Sangar Rahimi, “Nine Afghan Boys Collecting Firewood Killed by NATO Helicopters,”New York Times, March 2, 2011 (Extended Quote) "Army Specialist Jeremy Morlock, 23, told a military court he had helped to kill three unarmed Afghans. "The plan was to kill people, sir," he told an army judge in Fort Lea, near Seattle, after his plea… This week the German magazine Der Spiegel published three pictures that showed American soldiers, including Morlock, posing with the corpse of a young Afghan boy as if it were a hunting trophy. Some soldiers apparently kept body parts of their victims, including a skull, as souvenirs. In a statement issued in response to the publication of the photos the US army apologised to the families of the dead. "[The photos are] repugnant to us as human beings and contrary to the standards and values of the United States army," the statement said. Morlock has told investigators that the murders took place between January and May last year and were instigated by an officer in his unit, Staff Sergeant Calvin Gibbs. He described how elaborate plans were made to pick out civilian targets, kill them and then make their deaths look like they were insurgents. In his confession Morlock described shooting a victim as Gibbs tossed a grenade at him. "We identify a guy. Gibbs makes a comment, like, you know, you guys wanna wax this guy or not," Morlock said in the confession" Paul Harris, “US Soldier Admits Killing Unarmed Afghans for Sport,” Guardian, March 23, 2011 “In one of the most serious accusations of war crimes to emerge from the Afghan conflict, Gibbs recruited other soldiers to murder civilians he called "savages" after he took over command of a US army squad in Afghanistan's Kandahar province in November 2009. Prosecutors described Gibbs as hunting innocent Afghans "for sport", a view reinforced by the staff sergeant's statement likening the amputation of body parts as trophies to collecting antlers from a deer. Gibbs and other soldiers collected fingers, teeth and other body parts as trophies. They also took photographs of themselves posing next to their dead victims. In one of the pictures Morlock is seen lifting Mudin's head by its hair for the camera and smiling. The soldiers also took ghoulish pictures of themselves with dead combatants. The jury of five soldiers was shown pages of Facebook messages sent by Winfield to his parents in which he described how Gibbs led the killings. In one exchange with his father Winfield recounted Mudin's killing "An innocent dude. They planned and went through with it. I knew about it. Didn't believe they were going to do it. Then it happened. Pretty much the whole platoon knows about it. It's OK with all of them pretty much. Except me. I want to do something about it. The only problem is I don't feel safe here telling anyone. The guy who did it is the golden boy in the company who can never do anything wrong and it's my word against theirs," Winfield wrote. Winfield later told investigators: "[Gibbs] likes to kill things. He is pretty much evil incarnate. I mean, I have never met a man who can go from one minute joking around, then mindless killings." The court martial was told that Gibbs had six skull tattoos on his leg to mark up each of his "kills" from tours in Iraq and Afghanistan.In his testimony Gibbs denied responsibility for the killings, saying the victims all died in legitimate combat. But he did admit slicing off body parts from Afghans, including the fingers of a man, and keeping them or giving them to other soldiers as trophies. In my mind I was there to take the antlers off the deer. You have to come to terms with what you're doing. Shooting people is not an easy thing to do," said Gibbs." Chris McGreal, “‘Kill Team’ US Platoon Commander Gui lty of Afghan Murders,” Guardian, November 10, 2011 "A] review of internal Army records and investigative files obtained by Rolling Stone, including dozens of interviews with members of Bravo Company compiled by military investigators, indicates that the dozen infantrymen being portrayed as members of a secretive “kill team” were operating out in the open, in plain view of the rest of the company. Far from being clandestine, as the Pentagon has implied, the murders of civilians were common knowledge among the unit and understood to be illegal by “pretty much the whole platoon,” according to one soldier who complained about them. Staged killings were an open topic of conversation, and at least one soldier from another battalion in the 3,800-man Stryker Brigade participated in attacks on unarmed civilians. “The platoon has a reputation,” a whistle-blower named Pfc. Justin Stoner told the Army Criminal Investigation Command. “They have had a lot of practice staging killings and getting away with it" Mark Boal, “The Kill Team: How US Soldiers in Afghanistan Murdered Innocent Civilians,” Rolling Stone, March 27, 2011 Officials: Bales Sneaked Off Base Twice During Rampage,” CNN, March 26, 2012 Army: Bales, Wife Laughed About Killing Charges,” USA Today, August 19, 2013 Brendan Vaughan, “Robert Bales Speaks: Confessions of America’s Most Notorious War Criminal,” GQ, October 21, 2015 Afghan Families Skeptical as US Reopens Investigation of Bodies Found Near Base,” Guardian, November 5, 2015 Matthew Cole, “The Crimes of SEAL Team 6,” Intercept, January 10, 2017 "KABUL — United Nations officials Thursday condemned an airstrike by an unmanned U.S. military aircraft a day earlier that they said killed 15 civilians and wounded at least 12 in the insurgent-plagued eastern Afghan province of Nangahar. They called for a complete investigation." Pamela Constable, “UN Officials Criticize Fatal US Airstrike in Afghanistan,” Washington Post, September 29, 2016 Mary Kekatos, “‘Unprecedented’ Rate of Genital Injuries Among US Soldiers: Devastating Study Reveals More Than 1,300 Iraq and Afghanistan Vets Left with Life-Changing Wounds to Sexual Organs,” Daily Mail, January 16, 2017 "The United Nations reported today that Afghan hostilities in 2015 left more than 3,500 civilians dead, including an unprecedented number of children – one in four casualties over the past year was a child – and nearly 7,500 others wounded, making this the highest number of civilian casualties recorded… Civilian deaths and injuries caused by pro-Government forces caused 17 per cent of civilian casualties – 14 per cent from Afghan security forces, two per cent from international military forces, and one per cent from pro-Government armed groups. The report documents increased civilian casualties caused by pro-Government forces, including during ground engagements, aerial operations, and the activities of pro-Government armed groups" Afghan Casualties Hit Record High 11,000 in 2015 – UN Report,” UN News Centre, February 2016 Sayed Salahuddin and Pamela Constable, “UN Says Civilian Toll in Afghanistan is Highest in Years,” Washington Post, February 6, 2017 The Excuse Of 911, Al Qaeda And Lies "A former Pakistani diplomat has told the BBC that the US was planning military action against Osama Bin Laden and the Taleban even before last week's attacks. Niaz Naik, a former Pakistani Foreign Secretary, was told by senior American officials in mid-July that military action against Afghanistan would go ahead by the middle of October" BBC Tuesday, 18 September, 2001, US 'planned attack on Taleban "Dr. Rice has stated that she asked the National Security Council staff in her first week in office for a new presidential initiative on al Qaeda. In early March, the staff was directed to craft a more aggressive strategy aimed at eliminating the al Qaeda threat. The first draft of that approach, in the form of a presidential directive, was circulated by the NSC staff in June of 2001, and a number of meetings were held that summer at the deputy secretary level to address the policy questions involved, such as relating an aggressive strategy against Taliban to U.S.-Pakistan relations. "By the first week of September, the process had arrived at a strategy that was presented to principals and later became NSPD-9, the President's first major substantive national security decision directive. It was presented for a decision by principals on September 4th, 2001, seven days before the 11th, and later signed by the President, with minor changes and a preamble to reflect the events of September 11th, in October." NATIONAL COMMISSION ON TERRORIST ATTACKS UPON THE UNITED STATES Eighth Public Hearing Tuesday, March 23, 2004 Donald Rumsfeld "The issue was then made part of the reviews of U.S. policy towards Afghanistan and Pakistan. The government developed formal policy papers that were discussed by sub-cabinet officials, the deputies, on April 30th, June 27th and 29th, July 16th, and September 10th… The Afghanistan options debated in 2001 ranged from seeking a deal with the Taliban to overthrowing the regime." NATIONAL COMMISSION ON TERRORIST ATTACKS UPON THE UNITED STATES Eighth Public Hearing Tuesday, March 23, 2004 Michael Hurley "imagine that we were back before September 11th, and that a U.S. president had looked at the information then available, gone before the Congress and the world and said "We need to invade Afghanistan, overthrow the Taliban, and destroy the al Qaeda terrorist network," based on what little was known before September 11th. How many countries would have joined? Many? Any? Not likely" NATIONAL COMMISSION ON TERRORIST ATTACKS UPON THE UNITED STATES Eighth Public Hearing Tuesday, March 23, 2004 Donald Rumsfeld "American Airlines Flight 11 Mohamed Atta - Egypt, tactical leader of 9/11 plot and pilot Abdul Aziz al Omari - Saudi Arabia Wail al Shehri - Saudi Arabia Waleed al Shehri - Saudi Arabia Satam al Suqami - Saudi Arabia United Airlines Flight 175 Fayez Banihammad - United Arab Emirates Ahmed al Ghamdi - Saudi Arabia Hamza al Ghamdi - Saudi Arabia Marwan al Shehhi - United Arab Emirates, pilot Mohand al Shehri - Saudi Arabia American Airlines Flight 77 Hani Hanjour - Saudi Arabia, pilot Nawaf al Hazmi - Saudi Arabia Salem al Hazmi - Saudi Arabia Khalid al Mihdhar - Saudi Arabia Majed Moqed - Saudi Arabia United Airlines Flight 93 Saeed al Ghamdi - Saudi Arabia Ahmad al Haznawi - Saudi Arabia Ziad Jarrah - Lebanon, pilot Ahmed al Nami - Saudi Arabia" September 11th Hijackers Fast Facts,” CNN, last modified August 26, 2021 "Our war on terror begins with al Qaeda, but it does not end there. It will not end until every terrorist group of global reach has been found, stopped and defeated." Office of the Press Secretary September 20, 2001 Address to a Joint Session of Congress and the American People "The Taliban, on the other hand, would dig in and try to stall us until the first snows of winter, which were only a month or so away. People back at headquarters had told me to expect six months of World War I–style trench warfare. And as we tried to defeat the Taliban we had the added responsibility of searching for Osama bin Laden and destroying what we could of his terrorist organization." Jawbreaker: The Attack on Bin Laden and Al Qaeda: A Personal Account by the CIA ’s Key Field Commander Page 99-100 "Letters of marque and reprisal resolve one of the most vexing problems facing the country: how do we obtain retribution against the perpetrators of the attacks without inflicting massive damage on the Middle East which could drive moderate Arabs into an allegiance with bin Laden and other terrorists. This is because using letters of marque and reprisal shows the people of the region that we are serious when we say our quarrel is not with them but with Osama bin Laden and all others who would dare commit terrorist acts against the United States." AIR PIRACY REPRISAL AND CAPTURE ACT OF 2001 HON. RON PAUL of texas in the house of representatives Wednesday, October 10, 2001 "The Taliban, on the other hand, would dig in and try to stall us until the first snows of winter, which were only a month or so away. People back at headquarters had told me to expect six months of World War I–style trench warfare. And as we tried to defeat the Taliban we had the added responsibility of searching for Osama bin Laden and destroying what we could of his terrorist organization." Jawbreaker: The Attack on Bin Laden and Al Qaeda: A Personal Account by the CIA ’s Key Field Commander Page 99-100 Question: Mr. President, in your speeches now you rarely talk or mention Osama bin Laden. Why is that? Also, can you tell the American people if you have any more information, if you know if he is dead or alive? Final part — deep in your heart, don’t you truly believe that until you find out if he is dead or alive, you won’t really eliminate the threat of — Bush: Deep in my heart I know the man is on the run if he’s alive at all. Who knows if he’s hiding in some cave or not; we haven’t heard from him in a long time. And the idea of focusing on one person is — really indicates to me people don’t understand the scope of the mission… So I don’t know where he is. You know, I just don’t spend that much time on him, Kelly, to be honest with you. I’m more worried about making sure that our soldiers are well-supplied; that the strategy is clear; that the coalition is strong; that when we find enemy [Taliban] bunched up like we did in Shahikot Mountains, that the military has all the support it needs to go in and do the job, which they did. And there will be other battles in Afghanistan… Question: But don’t you believe that the threat that bin Laden posed won’t truly be eliminated until he is found either dead or alive… I’ll repeat what I said. I truly am not that concerned about him. I know he is on the run. I was concerned about him when he had taken over a country. I was concerned about the fact that he was basically running Afghanistan and calling the shots for the Taliban. But once we set out the policy and started executing the plan, he became — we shoved him out more and more on the margins" George W. Bush, “The President’s News Conference,” 38 Weekly Comp. Pres. Doc. 407 (March 13, 2002 "I think at most, we’re looking at maybe 50 to 100, maybe less. There’s no question that the main location of al Qaeda is in tribal areas of Pakistan.” CIA Director Leon Panetta: Serious Problems With Afghanistan War but Progress Being Made, ABC News JACK DATE June 27, 2010 Courtney Kube, “US Has Thousands More Troops in Afghanistan Than the Pentagon Admits,” NBC News, August 23, 2017 Torture And The Legal Framework "However, the war against terrorism ushers in a new paradigm, one in which groups with broad, international reach commit horrific acts against innocent civilians, sometimes with the direct support of states. Our nation recognizes that this new paradigm – ushered in not by us, but by terrorists – requires new thinking in the law of war, but thinking that should nevertheless be consistent with the principles of Geneva… a. I accept the legal conclusion of the Department of Justice and determine that none of the provisions of Geneva apply to our conflict with al Qaeda in Afghanistan or elsewhere throughout the world because, among other reasons, al Qaeda is not a High Contracting Party to Geneva. b. I accept the legal conclusion of the attorney general and the Department of Justice that I have the authority under the Constitution to suspend Geneva as between the United States and Afghanistan, but I decline to exercise that authority at this time. Accordingly, I determine that the provisions of Geneva will apply to our present conflict with the Taliban. I reserve the right to exercise the authority in this or future conflicts… d. Based on the facts supplied by the Department of Defense and the recommendation of the Department of Justice, I determine that the Taliban detainees are unlawful combatants and, therefore, do not qualify as prisoners of war under Article 4 of Geneva. I note that, because Geneva does not apply to our conflict with al Qaeda, al Qaeda detainees also do not qualify as prisoners of war." George W. Bush, “Memorandum to National Security Council Principles’ Committee,” February 7, 2002 "Additional elements of the necessity defense are worth noting here. First, the defense is not limited to certain types of harms. Therefore, the harm inflicted by necessity may include intentional homicide, so long as the harm avoided is greater (i.e., preventing more deaths). Id. at 634. Second, it must actually be the defendant's intention to avoid the greater harm; intending to commit murder and then learning only later that the death had the fortuitous result of saving other lives will not support a necessity defense. Id. at 635. Third, if the defendant reasonably believed that the lesser harm was necessary, even if, unknown to him, it was not, he may still avail himself of the defense." Memorandum for Alberto R. Gonzales Counsel to the President: Standards of Conduct for Interrogation Under U.S.C. 2340-2340A,” Office of the Assistant Attorney General, August 1, 2002 Page 40 "On Aug. 24, 2009, based on information the Department received pertaining to alleged CIA mistreatment of detainees, Attorney General Eric Holder announced that he had expanded Mr. Durham’s mandate to conduct a preliminary review into whether federal laws were violated in connection with the interrogation of specific detainees at overseas locations. Attorney General Holder made clear at that time, that the Department would not prosecute anyone who acted in good faith and within the scope of the legal guidance given by the Office of Legal Counsel regarding the interrogation of detainees" Statement of Attorney General Eric Holder on Closure of Investigation into the Interrogation of Certain Detainees,” United States Department of Justice, August 30, 2012 “Colonel Wilkerson, in your prepared testimony you write that: As I compiled my dossier for Secretary Powell, and as I did further research, and as my views grew firmer and firmer, I needed frequently to reread that memo; that is to say, the memorandum of February 7, 2002. I need to balance in my own mind the overwhelming evidence that my own Government has sanctioned abuse and torture, which, at its worst, has led to the murder of 25 detainees and a total of at least 100 detainee deaths. We had murdered 25 or more people in detention. That was the clear low point of the evidence. So your testimony is that 100 detainees have died in detention, and that you believe 25 of those were, in effect, murdered? Colonel Wilkerson. Mr. Chairman, I think the number is actually higher than that now. The last time I checked, there was about 108. And the total number that were declared homicides by the military services or by the CIA or others doing investigation, CID and so forth, was 25, 26, 27 Mr. Nadler. Were declared homicide? Colonel Wilkerson. Correct. Starting as early as December in Afghanistan. Mr. Nadler. And these are homicides committed by people engaged in an interrogation? Colonel Wilkerson. Or in guarding prisoners or something like that. People who were in detention. Mr. Nadler. So these weren't people trying to escape or something. They were declared homicides by our own authorities? Colonel Wilkerson. Right. Mr. Nadler. Do you know if any were prosecuted? Colonel Wilkerson. As far as I know, several were. And they have come to different conclusion.” From the Department of Justice to Guantánamo Bay: Administration Lawyers and Administration Interrogation Rules Part II: Hearing Before the Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Civil Liberties, 110 Congress (2008) Dana Priest, “CIA Holds Terror Suspects in Secret Prisons,” Washington Post, January 2, 2005 Nick Hawton, “Hunt for CIA ‘Black Site’ in Poland,” BBC News, December 28, 2006 Gordon Corera, “CIA ‘Secret Prison’ Found in Romania,” BBC News, December 8, 2011 Adam Zagorin, “US Used UK Isle for Interrogations,” Time, July 31, 2008 Duncan Campbell and Richard Norton-Taylor, “US Accused of Holding Terror Suspects on Prison Ships,” Guardian, June 2, 2008 "The mission found “compelling” evidence that 125 detainees, or 46 per cent, of the 273 detainees interviewed who had been in NDS detention experienced interrogation techniques at the hands of NDS officials that constituted torture, and that torture is practiced “systematically” in a number of NDS detention facilities throughout Afghanistan,” states the report" Systematic Torture in Afghan Detention Facilities – UN Report,” UN News Centre, October 10, 2001 (Quote not in book) Sudarsan Raghavan, “Inside the CIA’s Shadow War in Afghanistan: Agency Oversees Militias Implicated in Torture, Civilian Killings,” Washington Post, December 3, 2015 Daniel L. Davis, “Dereliction of Duty II: Senior Military Leaders’ Loss of Integrity Wounds Afghan War Effort,” United States Army, February 6, 2012 "In his last official act of business in 2011, President Barack Obama signed the National Defense Authorization Act from his vacation rental in Kailua, Hawaii. In a statement, the president said he did so with reservations about key provisions in the law - including a controversial component that would allow the military to indefinitely detain terror suspects, including American citizens arrested in the United States, without charge." Yunji De Nies, “With Reservations, Obama Signs Act to Allow Detention of Citizens,” ABC News, December 31, 2011 Corruption The Installed Afghan State "Afghanistan: Forces Linked to Vice President Terrorize Villagers,” Human Rights Watch, July 31, 2016 Sune Engel Rasmussen, “Vice-President Leaves Afghanistan Amid Torture and Rape Claims,” Guardian, May 19, 2017 "Mr. KUCINICH. Madam Speaker, I just would like to talk for a minute about the mission in the context of what is going on with the government in Kabul. The Washington Post did a story on February 25 which talks about ``Officials puzzle over millions of dollars leaving Afghanistan by plane for Dubai,'' and I will include that for the Record… Previous to that, the Post did a story about money funneled through a Kabul bank and companies owned by the bank's founder to individual friends, family, and business connections of Hamid Karzai. When you consider the amount of corruption that is going on in Afghanistan, it can only be called, charitably, ``crony capitalism.'' In fact, The Washington Post printed an article on February 22, entitled ``In Afghanistan, Signs of Crony Capitalism,'' and I include this for the Record." Congressional Record Volume 156, Number 34 (Wednesday, March 10, 2010) - Andrew Higgins, “Officials Puzzle Over Millions of Dollars Leaving Afghanistan by Plane for Dubai,” Washington Post, February 25 2010 "KABUL—American officers deployed as mentors in Afghanistan's main military hospital discovered a shocking secret last year: Injured soldiers were routinely dying of simple infections and even starving to death as some corrupt doctors and nurses demanded bribes for food and the most basic of care. The discovery, which hasn't previously been reported, added new details to longstanding evidence of gross mismanagement at Dawood National Military Hospital, where most salaries and supplies are paid for by American taxpayers." Maria Abi-Habib, “At Afghan Military Hospital, Graft and Deadly Neglect,” Wall Street Journal, September 3, 2011 Sune Engel Rasmussen, “US Funds Fed Corruption in Afghanistan, Eroding Security,” Guardian, September 14, 2016 "As a former NATO official with years of experience in Kandahar puts it, "You have essentially a criminal enterprise in the guise of government, using us [NATO forces] as its enforcing arm." As a result, says this official, who asked not to be identified, "the people are turning to the Taliban as the only means of protection and outlet for their anger."... Antinarcotics experts in Kabul say that while they have no evidence linking the President's half brother to drug trafficking, he and his relatives have sway over top police officers in Kandahar and Helmand province who are alleged to have ensured the safe passage of drug shipments along the roads to Iran and Pakistan. International observers and diplomats in Kabul say Wali Karzai retains close ties with units of the U.S. special forces and the CIA in Kandahar. Last October, the New York Times alleged that Wali Karzai had been on the CIA payroll for the past eight years, a charge he denied when speaking to TIME. "I see these people, I talk to them in security meetings, but I have no control," he said. But TIME's sources insist that Wali Karzai in the past has threatened to call down NATO air strikes or arrange night raids by U.S. special forces on tribal elders who defied him. Says a former NATO official: "Most of our intelligence comes directly or indirectly from him. We really didn't see this dynamic because we were so focused on the enemy." Tim McGirk, “A US Stumbling Block in Kandahar: Karzai’s Brother,” Time, March 19, 2010 James Risen, “Reports Link Karzai’s Brother to Afghanistan Heroin Trade,” New York Times, October 4, 2008 Julius Cavendish, “Bodyguard Who Killed Karzai’s Brother Was Trusted CIA Contact,” Independent, July 15, 2011 Chris Mondloch, “An Afghan Tragedy: The Pashtun Practice of Having Sex with Young Boys,” Independent, October 29, 2013 "Sgt. First Class Charles Martland, a member of the Special Forces, had helped to beat up the Afghan militia commander, Abdul Rahman, in 2011 after he abducted a boy and kept him chained to his bed as a sex slave. Sergeant Martland later told Army officials that he and a Special Forces captain, Dan Quinn, “felt that morally we could no longer stand by” and allow the Afghan local police “to commit atrocities.” After the episode, Captain Quinn was relieved of his command; he withdrew from Afghanistan and later left the military. But Sergeant Martland was put under an Army-wide review program that trims the number of its noncommissioned officers when their military records show performance or conduct that is “inconsistent” with standards. An initial decision to forcibly discharge him by Nov. 1, 2015, was delayed; in March 2016, the Army said it had postponed the discharge decision again, until May 1, to allow time for Sergeant Martland to appeal… The beating and its effect on the two men’s Army careers brought scrutiny to a policy of instructing American soldiers and Marines not to intervene in cases of child sex abuse by their Afghan allies. In an article in The New York Times last year, the spokesman for the American command in Afghanistan, Col. Brian Tribus, said of the United States’ military policy, “Generally, allegations of child sexual abuse by Afghan military or police personnel would be a matter of domestic Afghan criminal law.” He added that “there would be no express requirement that U.S. military personnel in Afghanistan report it.” An exception, he said, is when rape is being used as a weapon of war." Christine Houser, “Green Beret Who Beat Up Afghan Officer for Raping Boy Can Stay in Army,” New York Times, April 29, 2016 Yaroslav Trofimov and Ehsanullah Amiri, “Afghan Presidential Front-Runner Escapes Assassination Attempt,” Wall Street Journal, June 6, 2014 "Reports of “ghost” soldiers and police continue to surface. In January 2016, media reported that the price of maintaining ghost soldiers on the rolls was being paid on the battlefield, as the number of troops fighting alongside “ghost soldiers” is a fraction of the men required for the fight. In June 2016, the Helmand Province police chief claimed half of the Helmand police consisted of ghost personnel. In late July, General Nicholson sent a letter to the Minister of Interior outlining the actions required to reduce or eliminate ghost police as a condition for continued U.S. support." High-Risk List, Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction, January 2017 Page 18 Election Fraud "KABUL, Afghanistan — Mohammed Mohaqiq says he was getting ready to make his run for the Afghan presidency when U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad dropped by his campaign office and proposed a deal.“He told me to drop out of the elections, but not in a way to put pressure,” Mohaqiq said. “It was like a request.”... “He left, and then called my most loyal men, and the most educated people in my party or campaign, to the presidential palace and told them to make me -- or request me -- to resign the nomination. And he told my men to ask me what I need in return.” Paul Watson, “US Hand Seen in Afghan Election,”Los Angeles Times, September 23, 2004 (Quote not in book) "Leaders of a south-east Afghanistan tribe have told its members they must vote for Hamid Karzai in presidential polls or their houses will be burned" Crispin Thorold, “Vote Threat to Afghan Tribesmen,” BBC News, September 24, 2004 Cost Of The War "​Still, a close look at U.S. military statistics shows that Afghan soldiers and police officers are far more expensive than you'd expect. They are paid an average of just $1,872 a year, but the overall cost of training and fielding a police officer is roughly $30,000 per year, while the cost of each soldier is nearly $46,000 per year. the United States bears virtually all of those costs, adding up to more than $3.5 billion a year." The US Spends $14K per Afghan Troop Per Year, but Each Earns $1,872,” Atlantic, April 16, 2012 "We’ve spent trillions of dollars overseas, while allowing our own infrastructure to fall into total disrepair and decay. In the Middle East, we’ve spent as of four weeks ago, $6 trillion. Think of it. And by the way, the Middle East is in … much worse shape than it was 15 years ago. If our presidents would have gone to the beach for 15 years, we would be in much better shape than we are right now, that I can tell you. Be a hell of a lot better. We could have rebuilt our country three times with that money" Donald Trump, “Remarks at the Conservative Political Action Conference in National Harbor, Maryland,” DCPD-201700137 (February 24, 2017) CNN The Hole Of Aid Money And Contracts "Much of the more than $115 billion the United States has committed to reconstruction projects and programs risks being wasted because the Afghans cannot sustain the investment—financially or functionally—without massive, continued donor support. Donors were expected to finance approximately 69% of Afghanistan’s $6.5 billion fiscal year (FY) 1395 national budget (December 22, 2015–December 21, 2016), mostly through grants. At 2016 conferences in Warsaw and Brussels, the United States and other donors pledged to maintain assistance to Afghanistan at or near current levels through 2020" High-Risk List, Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction, January 2017 Page 2 "Contracting represents a high risk to the success of Afghanistan reconstruction. The usual difficulties of contract management are magnified and aggravated by Afghanistan’s remoteness, active insurgency, widespread corruption, limited ministerial capability, difficulties in collecting and verifying data, and other issues. … SIGAR has found that challenges in Afghanistan are so widespread that sometimes there is an assumption that if you throw enough money or people at a problem, the status quo will improve. In other words, implementers sometimes think their initial objective need not be precise, because the intervention will surely do some good somewhere" High-Risk List, Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction, January 2017 Page 3,9 "Corruption significantly undermined the U.S. mission in Afghanistan by damaging the legitimacy of the Afghan government, strengthening popular support for the insurgency, and channeling material resources to insurgent groups. Surveys and anecdotal evidence indicate that corrupt officials at all levels of government victimized and alienated the Afghan population. Substantial U.S. funds found their way to insurgent groups, some portion of which was due to corruption. Corruption also undermined faith in the international reconstruction effort. The Afghan public witnessed limited oversight of lucrative reconstruction projects by the military and aid community, leading to bribery, fraud, extortion, and nepotism, as well as the empowerment of abusive warlords and their militias. Public trust in the U.S.-led intervention eroded, as international aid agencies, contractors, and ISAF were seen as complicit in the corrupt behavior of the Afghan government." Corruption in Conflict: Lessons Learned from the US Experience with Corruption in Afghanistan,” Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction, September 2016 Page 75-76 "Adjusted for inflation, the $115 billion in U.S. appropriations provided to reconstruct Afghanistan exceeds the funds committed to the Marshall Plan, the U.S. aid program that, between 1948 and 1952, helped 16 West European countries recover in the aftermath of World War II. However, U.S. assistance to Afghanistan differs from the Marshall Plan in one key respect: whereas the Marshall Plan was a civilian effort operating in a post-war environment, over 60% of Afghanistan’s reconstruction funds have been spent to support the Afghan National Defense and Security Forces (ANDSF) in their efforts to secure a country still facing a determined insurgency. Including U.S. war funding unrelated to reconstruction, U.S. appropriations for Afghanistan now total more than three quarters of a trillion dollars—not including the $43.7 billion requested for FY 2017." High-Risk List, Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction, January 2017 Page 4 Together, DOD, State, and USAID spent approximately $759.6 million on 39 programs to support primary and secondary education in Afghanistan from FY 2002 to FY 2014. SIGAR’s analysis of State and USAID data showed that the agencies were able to identify the programs they implemented and the amount of funds (approximately $617.9 million) or the percentage of program funds that supported primary and secondary education. SIGAR found that DOD spent at least $141.7 million on Commander’s Emergency Response Program (CERP) projects to support primary and secondary education. However, SIGAR found limitations in DOD’s tracking of certain CERP projects that prevented SIGAR from determining how much DOD spent on about 1,000 CERP projects related to education. Although DOD subsequently corrected the two limitations with how it tracked CERP funds, DOD spent additional money on CERP beyond the $141.7 million that SIGAR was able to identify." Primary and Secondary Education in Afghanistan: Comprehensive Assessments Needed to Determine the Progress and Effectiveness of over $759 Million in DOD, State, and USAID Programs,” Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction, April 2016 Page 2 Marguerite Ward, “Afghanistan is on the Brink After US Invests $100 Billion,” CNBC, February 3, 2016 "Since 2002, USAID and DOD have spent approximately $2.8 billion to construct and repair Afghanistan’s road infrastructure, and perform capacity-building activities… SIGAR selected and assessed the condition of 1,640 kilometers of U.S.- funded national and regional highways, or approximately 22 percent of all paved roads in Afghanistan. The results indicate that most of these highways need repair and maintenance. For example, SIGAR performed inspections of 20 road segments and found that 19 segments had road damage ranging from deep surface cracks to roads and bridges destroyed by weather or insurgents. Moreover, 17 segments were either poorly maintained or not maintained at all, resulting in road defects that limited drivability. MOPW officials acknowledged that roads in Afghanistan are in poor condition. In August 2015, an MOPW official stated that 20 percent of the roads were destroyed and the remaining 80 percent continue to deteriorate. The official added that the Kabul to Kandahar highway is beyond repair and needs to be rebuilt. USAID estimated that unless maintained, it would cost about $8.3 billion to replace Afghanistan’s road infrastructure, and estimated that 54 percent of Afghanistan’s road infrastructure suffered from poor maintenance and required rehabilitation beyond simple repairs. Afghanistan’s Road Infrastructure: Sustainment Challenges and Lack of Repairs Put US Investment at Risk,” Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction, October 29, 2016 Page 1,2 Paying Off Warlords, Contractors And Enemy "KANDAHAR, Afghanistan, June 22, 2010 -- The United States military is helping fund both sides of the war in Afghanistan, knowingly financing a mafia-like collection of warlords and some of the very insurgents American troops are battling, according to Afghan and American officials and a new Congressional study released today.The military has turned to private trucking companies to transport the vast majority of materiel it needs to fight the war -- everything from bullets to Gatorade, gas to sandbags -- and in turn, the companies are using American money to pay, among others, the Taliban to try to guarantee the trucks' safe passage, the reports charge" Report: U.S. Bribes to Protect Convoys Are Funding Taliban Insurgents Rep. John Tierney concludes, "Tony Soprano would be proud of it." ABC News June 22, 2010 "The findings of this report range from sobering to shocking. In short, the Department of Defense designed a contract that put responsibility for the security of vital U.S. supplies on contractors and their unaccountable security providers. This arrangement has fueled a vast protection racket run by a shadowy network of warlords, strongmen, commanders, corrupt Afghan officials, and perhaps others. Not only does the system run afoul of the Department’s own rules and regulations mandated by Congress, it also appears to risk undermining the U.S. strategy for achieving its goals in Afghanistan" Warlord, Inc. : extortion and corruption along the U.S. supply chain in Afghanistan Author:John F Tierney; United States. Congress. House. Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. Subcommittee on National Security and Foreign Affairs.Publisher:[Washington, DC] : [U.S. House of Representatives], 2010. Page II "Security for the U.S. Supply Chain Is Principally Provided by Warlords. The principal private security subcontractors on the HNT contract are warlords, strongmen, commanders, and militia leaders who compete with the Afghan central government for power and authority. Providing “protection” services for the U.S. supply chain empowers these warlords with money, legitimacy, and a raison d’etre for their private armies. Although many of these warlords nominally operate under private security companies licensed by the Afghan Ministry of Interior, they thrive in a vacuum of government authority and their interests are in fundamental conflict with U.S. aims to build a strong Afghan government." Warlord, Inc. : extortion and corruption along the U.S. supply chain in Afghanistan Author:John F Tierney; United States. Congress. House. Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. Subcommittee on National Security and Foreign Affairs.Publisher:[Washington, DC] : [U.S. House of Representatives], 2010. Page 2 "The Highway Warlords Run a Protection Racket. The HNT contractors and their trucking subcontractors in Afghanistan pay tens of millions of dollars annually to local warlords across Afghanistan in exchange for “protection” for HNT supply convoys to support U.S. troops. Although the warlords do provide guards and coordinate security, the contractors have little choice but to use them in what amounts to a vast protection racket. The consequences are clear: trucking companies that pay the highway warlords for security are provided protection; trucking companies that do not pay believe they are more likely to find themselves under attack. As a result, almost everyone pays. In interviews and documents, the HNT contractors frequently referred to such payments as “extortion,” “bribes,” “special security,” and/or “protection payments.” Warlord, Inc. : extortion and corruption along the U.S. supply chain in Afghanistan Author:John F Tierney; United States. Congress. House. Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. Subcommittee on National Security and Foreign Affairs Publisher:[Washington, DC] : [U.S. House of Representatives], 2010. Page 3 "Protection Payments for Safe Passage Are a Significant Potential Source of Funding for the Taliban. Within the HNT contractor community, many believe that the highway warlords who provide security in turn make protection payments to insurgents to coordinate safe passage. This belief is evidenced in numerous documents, incident reports, and e-mails that refer to attempts at Taliban extortion along the road. The Subcommittee staff has not uncovered any direct evidence of such payments and a number of witnesses, including Ahmed Wali Karzai, all adamantly deny that any convoy security commanders pay insurgents. According to experts and public reporting, however, the Taliban regularly extort rents from a variety of licit and illicit industries, and it is plausible that the Taliban would try to extort protection payments from the coalition supply chain that runs through territory in which they freely operate." Warlord, Inc. : extortion and corruption along the U.S. supply chain in Afghanistan Author:John F Tierney; United States. Congress. House. Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. Subcommittee on National Security and Foreign Affairs.Publisher:[Washington, DC] : [U.S. House of Representatives], 2010. Page 3 "Unaccountable Supply Chain Security Contractors Fuel Corruption. HNT contractors and their private security providers report widespread corruption by Afghan officials and frequent government extortion along the road. The largest private security provider for HNT trucks complained that it had to pay $1,000 to $10,000 in monthly bribes to nearly every Afghan governor, police chief, and local military unit whose territory the company passed. HNT contractors themselves reported similar corruption at a smaller scale, including significant numbers of Afghan National Police checkpoints.U.S. military officials confirmed that they were aware of these problems." Warlord, Inc. : extortion and corruption along the U.S. supply chain in Afghanistan Author:John F Tierney; United States. Congress. House. Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. Subcommittee on National Security and Foreign Affairs.Publisher:[Washington, DC] : [U.S. House of Representatives], 2010. Page 3 Unaccountable Supply Chain Security Contractors Undermine U.S. Counterinsurgency Strategy. While outsourcing principal responsibility for the supply chain in Afghanistan to local truckers and unknown security commanders has allowed the Department of Defense to devote a greater percentage of its force structure to priority operations, these logistics arrangements have significant unintended consequences for the overall counterinsurgency strategy. By fueling government corruption and funding parallel power structures, these logistics arrangements undercut efforts to establish popular confidence in a credible and sustainable Afghan government." Warlord, Inc. : extortion and corruption along the U.S. supply chain in Afghanistan Author:John F Tierney; United States. Congress. House. Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. Subcommittee on National Security and Foreign Affairs.Publisher:[Washington, DC] : [U.S. House of Representatives], 2010. Page 3 "The Department of Defense Lacks Effective Oversight of Its Supply Chain and Private Security Contractors in Afghanistan. The Department of Defense has little to no visibility into what happens to the trucks carrying U.S. supplies between the time they leave the gate to the time they arrive at their destination. Despite serious concerns regarding operations, no military managers have ever observed truck operations on the road or met with key security providers. The Department of Defense’s regulations, promulgated in response to direction by Congress, require oversight of all private security companies working as contractors or subcontractors for the U.S government. These requirements include ensuring that all private security company personnel comply with U.S. government and local country firearm laws, that all private security company equipment be tracked, and that all incidents of death, injury, or property damage be fully investigated. The Department of Defense is grossly out of compliance with applicable regulations and has no visibility into the operations of the private security companies that are subcontractors on the HNT contract." Warlord, Inc. : extortion and corruption along the U.S. supply chain in Afghanistan Author:John F Tierney; United States. Congress. House. Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. Subcommittee on National Security and Foreign Affairs.Publisher:[Washington, DC] : [U.S. House of Representatives], 2010. Page 4 "HNT Contractors Warned the Department of Defense About Protection Payments for Safe Passage to No Avail. In meetings, interviews, e-mails, white papers, and PowerPoint presentations, many HNT prime contractors self-reported to military officials and criminal investigators that they were being forced to make “protection payments for safe passage” on the road. While military officials acknowledged receiving the warnings, these concerns were never appropriately addressed." Warlord, Inc. : extortion and corruption along the U.S. supply chain in Afghanistan Author:John F Tierney; United States. Congress. House. Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. Subcommittee on National Security and Foreign Affairs.Publisher:[Washington, DC] : [U.S. House of Representatives], 2010. Page 4 "In response to the same Department of Defense request for information on security and costs on certain routes, another HNT project manager responded: The cost of security for these vehicles is very high and absorbs most of any profit we would make. Sub Contractors and drivers request more money to operate in this area, further adding to the problems for our companies… The cost of Private Security is exceptionally high, with companies attempting to raise their prices continually. It is believed that a part of these charges are being paid as bribes to local Commanders, and therefore inevitably to the enemy… As previously stated this is one of the most volatile regions of the country. There is a continuous threat of roadside IED, and ambush. There will also be a threat, not only from enemy forces but from local commanders who have not been paid their tax." Warlord, Inc. : extortion and corruption along the U.S. supply chain in Afghanistan Author:John F Tierney; United States. Congress. House. Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. Subcommittee on National Security and Foreign Affairs.Publisher:[Washington, DC] : [U.S. House of Representatives], 2010. Page 32 "In an e-mail dated May 4, 2009 (within days of the beginning of the HNT contract), one HNT project manager wrote to his colleague: “the more dangerous the missions, entering areas where the Taliban controls, the more corruption we will have to deal with which for example requires an additional fee to get your trucks through without getting hit" Warlord, Inc. : extortion and corruption along the U.S. supply chain in Afghanistan Author:John F Tierney; United States. Congress. House. Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. Subcommittee on National Security and Foreign Affairs.Publisher:[Washington, DC] : [U.S. House of Representatives], 2010. Page 32 "Every truck costs about $200 as a bribe I pay on the route – to police or Taliban. The Taliban don’t care about small money: they ask for $10,000, $20,000 or $50,000 when they kidnap people." Haji Fata, CEO of Mirzada Transportation Company, as quoted in a November 13, 2009 Financial Times article, High Costs to Get NATO Supplies Past Taliban, by Matthew Green and Farhan Bokhari Warlord, Inc. : extortion and corruption along the U.S. supply chain in Afghanistan Author:John F Tierney; United States. Congress. House. Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. Subcommittee on National Security and Foreign Affairs.Publisher:[Washington, DC] : [U.S. House of Representatives], 2010. Page 33 "The PM [Project Manager] HNT from [an HNT contractor] asked LtCol Elwell if there was any progress on the Up Arming Authority [a request to be able to use greater armaments]. It was highlighted that this authority would enable IDIQ Carriers the flexibility to choose PSC to perform convoy security. By gaining this authority IDIQ Carriers would stop funding the insurgency of what is estimated at 1.6 – 2 Million Dollars per week" Farhan Bokhari Warlord, Inc. : extortion and corruption along the U.S. supply chain in Afghanistan Author:John F Tierney; United States. Congress. House. Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. Subcommittee on National Security and Foreign Affairs.Publisher:[Washington, DC] : [U.S. House of Representatives], 2010. Page 35 "Contacted through the carrier by the Taliban commander that we have to pay for safe passage if we want our truck to go through the area… [W]e were informed that this was a statement from the Taliban that if we did not want our assets engaged we had to pay a protection fee." Farhan Bokhari Warlord, Inc. : extortion and corruption along the U.S. supply chain in Afghanistan Author:John F Tierney; United States. Congress. House. Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. Subcommittee on National Security and Foreign Affairs.Publisher:[Washington, DC] : [U.S. House of Representatives], 2010. Page 35 "Mr. Karzai argued that the increased danger on the road was partially a result of a fatwa issued by the Taliban that amounted to a “license to steal from Americans.” As a result, there is no one group that could be bought off, but “hundreds and hundreds of groups trying to steal whatever they can along the road.” Because unemployment is so high – and the fact that “an AK-47 is like a mobile phone, everyone has one” – the road has become virtual anarchy and the private security companies must fight their way through." Farhan Bokhari Warlord, Inc. : extortion and corruption along the U.S. supply chain in Afghanistan Author:John F Tierney; United States. Congress. House. Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. Subcommittee on National Security and Foreign Affairs.Publisher:[Washington, DC] : [U.S. House of Representatives], 2010. Page 36 "According to U.S. officials, public reporting, and multiple experts, the Taliban regularly attempt to extort money from contractors for U.S. and coalition logistics and development work. Indeed, in December 2009, Secretary Clinton acknowledged before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that “one of the major sources of funding for the Taliban is the protection money." Farhan Bokhari Warlord, Inc. : extortion and corruption along the U.S. supply chain in Afghanistan Author:John F Tierney; United States. Congress. House. Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. Subcommittee on National Security and Foreign Affairs.Publisher:[Washington, DC] : [U.S. House of Representatives], 2010. Page 37 "Several recent articles have described Taliban extortion of USAID-funded reconstruction projects. According to one author, the Afghan Threat Finance Cell, along with “military and embassy officials confirmed the insurgents also use extortion of U.S. development money for their funding, citing supply convoy shakedowns, construction protection rackets, Taliban ‘taxes’ on corrupt officials, pay-offs from NGOs and skims from poorly overseen government projects of the National Solidarity Program.”143 According to a quote attributed to a former security consultant in Afghanistan, “I have yet to find a security company that doesn’t rely on payoffs to the Taliban.” Farhan Bokhari Warlord, Inc. : extortion and corruption along the U.S. supply chain in Afghanistan Author:John F Tierney; United States. Congress. House. Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. Subcommittee on National Security and Foreign Affairs.Publisher:[Washington, DC] : [U.S. House of Representatives], 2010. Page 38 "In another article, a journalist examined a small $200,000 dam and irrigation project: “In spite of the U.S. intervention in this Taliban-ridden region, the dam project has been counter-intuitively free of attack, leaving soldiers here suspicious. [Agri-business Development Team] commander Col. Brian Copes says: ‘The Taliban might have taken 30 or 40 percent right off the top, and now [the contractor’s] struggling to perform, because he’s got less than 100 percent of budget because the Taliban took their cut right off the top.’” Farhan Bokhari Warlord, Inc. : extortion and corruption along the U.S. supply chain in Afghanistan Author:John F Tierney; United States. Congress. House. Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. Subcommittee on National Security and Foreign Affairs.Publisher:[Washington, DC] : [U.S. House of Representatives], 2010. Page 38 "The Afghanistan country director for a major international NGO reported that “the Taliban and local warlords typically take between 10-20% of the value of any project as the price to provide protection. The United States and international community are unintentionally fueling a vast political economy of security corruption in Afghanistan.” Farhan Bokhari Warlord, Inc. : extortion and corruption along the U.S. supply chain in Afghanistan Author:John F Tierney; United States. Congress. House. Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. Subcommittee on National Security and Foreign Affairs.Publisher:[Washington, DC] : [U.S. House of Representatives], 2010. Page 38 "When asked “what is the source of the Taliban’s financing,” he responded: “[f]rom U.S. dollars from the U.S. authorities!” He further explained, “[U.S. authorities] distribute dollars to the tribal chiefs, local administrators and other concerned people for welfare projects… Not every penny, but most goes into Taliban pockets to refuel their struggle." For his video series “Talking to the Taliban,” journalist Graeme Smith conducted 42 video interviews with Taliban fighters. Mr. Smith concluded that “many kinds of negotiations with the Taliban have sprung up as the insurgents assert their presence in the outlying districts. Aid agencies and cell phone companies regularly negotiate safe passage of their workers across Taliban territory.” Farhan Bokhari Warlord, Inc. : extortion and corruption along the U.S. supply chain in Afghanistan Author:John F Tierney; United States. Congress. House. Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. Subcommittee on National Security and Foreign Affairs.Publisher:[Washington, DC] : [U.S. House of Representatives], 2010. Page 39 Western Calls To Keep Throwing Money In And Nation Build “I said from the get-go that we didn’t have enough money and we didn’t have enough soldiers,” said Robert P. Finn, who was the ambassador in 2002 and 2003. “I’m saying the same thing six years later.” Zalmay Khalilzad, who was the next ambassador and is now the American ambassador to the United Nations, said, “I do think that state-building and nation-building, we came to that reluctantly,” adding that “I think more could have been done earlier on these issues.” And Ronald E. Neumann, who replaced Mr. Khalilzad in Kabul, said, “The idea that we could just hunt terrorists and we didn’t have to do nation-building, and we could just leave it alone, that was a large mistake.” David Rohde and David Sanger, “How a ‘Good War’ in Afghanistan Went Bad,” New York Times, August 12, 2007 Surges "The Afghanistan surge In December 2009, President Barack Obama announces a troop surge: He will deploy 30,000 more U.S. troops to Afghanistan, on top of the 70,000 that he and Bush had previously authorized. NATO and other U.S. allies will increase their forces to 50,000."A timeline of US Troops in Afghanistan The Washington Post April 14th 2021 Potential Motivations For The Invasion Regional Presence/Bases "Who rules East Europe commands the Heartland; Who rules the Heartland commands the World Island; Who rules the World Island commands the World [Halford Mackinder]… Geopolitics has moved from the regional to the global dimension, with preponderance over the entire Eurasian continent serving as the central basis for global primacy. The United States, a non-Eurasian power, now enjoys international primacy, with its power directly deployed on three peripheries of the Eurasian continent, from which it exercises a powerful influence on the states occupying the Eurasian hinterland. But it is on the globe’s most important playing field — Eurasia — that a potential rival to America might at some point arise. Thus, focusing on the key players and properly assessing the terrain has to be the point of departure for the formulation of American geostrategy for the long-term management of America’s Eurasian geopolitical interests. … To put it in a terminology that harkens back to a more brutal age of ancient empires, the three grand imperatives of imperial geostrategy are to prevent collusion and maintain security dependence among the vassals, to keep tributaries pliant and protected, and to keep the barbarians from coming together." The grand chessboard by Zbigniew K. Brzezinski Page 38-40 "The basing strategy with an open-ended American military presence would ensure sufficient forces to defend important population centers, retain bases critical for counterterrorism, and maintain a U.S. foothold in Central Asia. Although little has been explicitly written, a range of arguments imply that some strategists are thinking seriously about a semi-permanent Central Asian foothold from which to counter terrorism, monitor developments ranging from increased influence of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization to China’s Belt and Road Initiative, and potentially pressure the more vulnerable flanks in any future contingency with China, Iran, or Russia… The downside, of course, is that the United States would necessarily accept a state of long-term instability in Afghanistan because a permanent U.S. presence in Afghanistan will incentivize regional actors to competitively back proxies. For example, they could support new militant groups and inject new capabilities into the conflict, similar to what the United States did in the 1980s against the Soviet Union. Moreover, the Afghan government’s acquiescence to a permanent foreign occupier could very well weaken its own legitimacy in the eyes of the Afghan public. Finally, without alternative lines of communication, a sustained American presence in Afghanistan would only deepen its dependence upon Pakistan, frustrating U.S. cooperation with India as a balance against China." Sameer Lalwani, “Four Ways Forward in Afghanistan,” Foreign Affairs, May 25, 2017 The Resource, Trade And Arms Angle "one of our goals in trying to work in Afghanistan is to stabilize Afghanistan, so it can become a conduit and a hub between South and Central Asia so that energy can flow to the south. Ideas and goods can flow to the north. People can move back and forth. Intellectual influences can move back and forth. And so that the countries of Central Asia are no longer bottled up between two enormous powers of China and Russia, but rather they have outlets to the south as well as to the north and the east and the west." Remarks to Paul H. Nitze School for Advanced International Studies Richard A. Boucher, Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asian Affairs Washington, DC September 20, 2007 "Germany's president, Horst Köhler, resigned without warning today, after intense criticism of remarks in which he suggested military deployments were central to the country's economic interests… In a radio interview given on his return from a tour of German military bases in Afghanistan earlier this month, Köhler, a former head of the International Monetary Fund, said that the largely pacifist German public was finally coming to terms with the concept that their country could no longer avoid involvement in military missions, which helped "protect our interests, for example, free trade routes, or to prevent regional instability, which might certainly have a negative effect on our trade, jobs and income" German president Horst Köhler quits over Afghanistan gaffe Abrupt resignation over 'misunderstandings' adds to pressure on Chancellor Angela Merkel, The Guardian Mon 31 May 2010 "The previously unknown deposits including huge veins of iron, copper, cobalt, gold and critical industrial metals like lithium are so big and include so many minerals that are essential to modern industry that Afghanistan could eventually be transformed into one of the most important mining centers in the world, the United States officials believe. An internal Pentagon memo, for example, states that Afghanistan could become the “Saudi Arabia of lithium,” a key raw material in the manufacture of batteries for laptops and BlackBerrys… “There is stunning potential here,” Gen. David H. Petraeus, commander of the United States Central Command, said in an interview on Saturday. “There are a lot of ifs, of course, but I think potentially it is hugely significant.” James Risen, “US Identifies Vast Mineral Riches in Afghanistan,” New York Times, June 13, 2010 James Bandler, “J.P. Morgan’s Hunt for Afghan Gold,” Forbes, May 11, 2011 Sam Stein, “Top Defense Contractors Spent $27 Million Lobbying at Time of Afghan Surge Announcement,” Huffington Post, March 23, 2010 Lack of Mission, Strategy, Purpose And Winnability "In the course of my five months of service in Afghanistan, in both Regional Commands East and South, I have lost understanding of and confidence in the strategic purposes of the United States’ presence in Afghanistan. I have doubts and reservations about our current strategy and planned future strategy, but my resignation is based not upon how we are pursuing this war, but why and to what end. To put simply: I fail to see the value or the worth in continued U.S. casualties or expenditures of resources in support of the Afghan government in what is, truly, a 35-year old civil war." Karen DeYoung, “US Official Resigns over Afghan War,” Washington Post, October 27, 2009 Matthew Hoh Political Officer in the Foreign Office and Civilization Representative in the Zabul Province - Resignation Letter "This fall will mark the eighth year of U.S. combat, governance and development operations within Afghanistan. Next fall, the United States’ occupation will equal in length the Soviet Union’s own physical involvement in Afghanistan. Like the Soviets, we continue to secure and bolster a failing state, while encouraging an ideology and system of government unknown and unwanted by its people. If the history of Afghanistan is one great stage play, the United States is no more than a supporting actor, among several previously, in a tragedy that not only pits tribes, valleys, clans, villages and families against one another, but, from at least the end of King Zahir Shah’s reign, has violently and savagely pitted the illiterate and traditional." Karen DeYoung, “US Official Resigns over Afghan War,” Washington Post, October 27, 2009 Matthew Hoh Political Officer in the Foreign Office and Civilization Representative in the Zabul Province - Resignation Letter "The Pashtun insurgency, which is composed of multiple, seemingly infinite, local groups, is fed by what is perceived by the Pashtun people as a continued and sustained assault, going back centuries, on Pashtun land, culture, traditions and religion by internal and external enemies. The U.S. and NATO presence in Pashtun valleys and villages, as well as Afghan army and police units that are led and composed of non-Pashtun soldiers and police, provide an occupation force against which the insurgency is justified." Karen DeYoung, “US Official Resigns over Afghan War,” Washington Post, October 27, 2009 Matthew Hoh Political Officer in the Foreign Office and Civilization Representative in the Zabul Province - Resignation Letter "In both RC East and South, I have observed that the bulk of the insurgency fights not for the white banner of the Taliban, but rather against the presence of foreign soldiers and taxes imposed by an unrepresentative government in Kabul. The United States military presence in Afghanistan greatly contributes to the legitimacy and strategic message of the Pashtun insurgency. In a like manner our backing of the Afghan government in its current form continues to distance the government from the people. The Afghan government’s failings, particularly when weighed against the sacrifice of American lives and dollars, appear legion and metastatic" Karen DeYoung, “US Official Resigns over Afghan War,” Washington Post, October 27, 2009 Matthew Hoh Political Officer in the Foreign Office and Civilization Representative in the Zabul Province - Resignation Letter "The Afghan government’s failings, particularly when weighed against the sacrifice of American lives and dollars, appear legion and metastatic: Glaring corruption and unabashed graft; A President whose confidants and chief advisers comprise drug lords and war crimes villains, who mock our own rule of law and counternarcotics efforts: A system of provincial and district leaders constituted of local power brokers, opportunists and strongmen allied to the United States solely for, and limited by, the value of our USAID and CERP contracts and whose own political and economic interests stand nothing to gain from any positive or genuine attempts at reconciliation; and The recent election process dominated by fraud and discredited by low voter turnout, which has created an enormous victory for our enemy who now claims a popular boycott and will call into question worldwide our government’s military, economic and diplomatic support for an invalid and illegitimate Afghan government." Karen DeYoung, “US Official Resigns over Afghan War,” Washington Post, October 27, 2009 Matthew Hoh Political Officer in the Foreign Office and Civilization Representative in the Zabul Province - Resignation Letter "Our support for this kind of government, coupled with a misunderstanding of the insurgency’s true nature, reminds me horribly of our involvement with South Vietnam; an unpopular and corrupt government we backed at the expense of our Nation’s own internal peace, against an insurgency whose nationalism we arrogantly and ignorantly mistook as a rival to our own Cold War ideology." Karen DeYoung, “US Official Resigns over Afghan War,” Washington Post, October 27, 2009 Matthew Hoh Political Officer in the Foreign Office and Civilization Representative in the Zabul Province - Resignation Letter "Finally, if our concern is for a failed state crippled by corruption and poverty and under assault from criminal and drug lords, then if we bear our military and financial contributions to Afghanistan, we must reevaluate and increase our commitment to and involvement in Mexico." Karen DeYoung, “US Official Resigns over Afghan War,” Washington Post, October 27, 2009 Matthew Hoh Political Officer in the Foreign Office and Civilization Representative in the Zabul Province - Resignation Letter "It hurts on a level that — three units from the Army, we all did what we did up there. And we all lost men. We all sacrificed. I was 18 years old when I got there. I really would not have expected to go through what we went through at that age. It confuses me, why it took so long for them to realize that we were not making progress up there." Alissa J. Rubin, “US Forces Close Post in Afghan ‘Valley of Death,’” New York Times, April 14, 2010 "Senator McCAIN. So in your view, if we left Afghanistan with no residual force, we could see a replay of the Iraq scenario? General DUNFORD. Senator If we leave at the end of 2014, the Afghan security forces will begin to deteriorate. The security environment will begin to deteriorate, and I think the only debate is the pace of that deterioration.” The Situation in Afghanistan: Hearing Before the Committee on Armed Services, United States Senate, One Hundred Thirteenth Congress, Second Session, March 12, 2014 Page 19 Sarah Almuktar and Karen Yourish, “More Than 14 Years After US Invasion, the Taliban Control Large Parts of Afghanistan,” New York Times, April 19, 2016 "The ANDSF [Afghan National Defense and Security Forces] has not yet been capable of securing all of Afghanistan and has lost territory to the insurgency. As of August 28, 2016, USFOR-A [U.S. Forces-Afghanistan] reported that only 63.4% of the country’s districts were under Afghan government control or influence a reduction from the 72% as of November 27, 2015" High-Risk List, Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction, January 2017 Page 2 Opium James Rupert and Steve Coll, “US Declines to Probe Afghan Drug Trade,” Washington Post, May 13, 1990 "According to the United Nations, the war-torn nation provides 90 percent of the world's supply of opium poppy, the bright, flowery crop that transforms into one of the most addictive drugs in existence… The U.S. has spent $8.4 billion in counternarcotics programs in Afghanistan. But opium output keeps rising: Fifteen years ago, Afghanistan accounted for just 70 percent of global illicit opium production" Elizabeth Chuck, “As Heroin Use Grows in US, Poppy Crops Thrive in Afghanistan,” NBC News, July 7, 2015 "Certain reconstruction projects such as improved irrigation, roads, and agricultural assistance can actually lead to increased opium cultivation. SIGAR found that affordable deep-well technology turned 200,000 hectares of desert in southwestern Afghanistan into arable land over the past decade. Due to relatively high opium prices and the rise of an inexpensive, skilled, and mobile labor force, much of this newly arable land is dedicated to opium cultivation. Poppy-growing provinces that were once declared “poppy free” have seen a resurgence in cultivation" High Risk List,” Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction, December 2014 Paul Harris, “Victorious Warlords Set to Open the Opium Floodgates,” Guardian, November 24, 2001 "More than ever, Afghan government officials have become directly involved in the opium trade, expanding their competition with the Taliban beyond politics and into a struggle for control of the drug traffic and revenue. At the local level, the fight itself can often look like a turf war between drug gangs, even as American troops are being pulled back into the battle on the government’s behalf, particularly in Helmand, in southern Afghanistan."There are phases of government complicity, starting with accommodation of the farmers and then on to cooperation with them,” said David Mansfield, a researcher who conducted more than 15 years of fieldwork on Afghan opium. “The last is predation, where the government essentially takes over the business entirely.”... “Over the years, I have seen the central government, the local government and the foreigners all talk very seriously about poppy,” said Hakim Angar, a former two-time police chief of Helmand Province. “In practice, they do nothing, and behind the scenes, the government makes secret deals to enrich themselves.” Azam Ahmed, “Tasked with Combating Opium, Afghan Officials Profit from It,” New York Times, February 15, 2016 "VIENNA, 21 June (UN Information Service) - A survey on Drug Use in Afghanistan, issued today by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), shows that around one million Afghans (age 15-64) suffer from drug addiction. At eight per cent of the population, this rate is twice the global average "After three decades of war-related trauma, unlimited availability of cheap narcotics and limited access to treatment have created a major, and growing, addiction problem in Afghanistan," said UNODC Executive Director Antonio Maria Costa. "The human face of Afghanistan's drug problem is not only seen on the streets of Moscow, London or Paris. It is in the eyes of its own citizens, dependent on a daily dose of opium and heroin above all - but also cannabis, painkillers and tranquilizers," said Mr. Costa. "Many Afghans are taking drugs as a kind of self-medication against the hardships of life. Significantly, many of them began taking drugs as migrants or refugees in camps in Iran and Pakistan," UNODC Reports Major, and Growing, Drug Abuse in Afghanistan,” United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, June 21, 2010 US Opposes Efforts to Legalize Opium in Afghanistan,” US Department of State Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs, February 20, 2007 Foreign Support For Insurgents And The Taliban Carlotta Gall, “Saudis Bankroll Taliban, Even as King Officially Supports Afghan Government,” New York Times, December 6, 2016 The Growth Of Terrorism And Terrorist Organisations "Bin Laden was, though, a product of a monumental miscalculation by western security agencies. Throughout the 80s he was armed by the CIA and funded by the Saudis to wage jihad against the Russian occupation of Afghanistan. Al-Qaida, literally "the database", was originally the computer file of the thousands of mujahideen who were recruited and trained with help from the CIA to defeat the Russians" Robin Cook, ‘The struggle against terrorism cannot be won by military means’, Guardian, 8 July 2005, Foreign Secetary 1997-2001 Head of House of Commons 2001-2003 "Osama bin Laden, the United States' prime suspect in last week's attacks on New York and Washington, could escape an American revenge mission in Afghanistan by hiding in tunnels that he built with funds from the CIA. At the height of the Afghan mojahedin's war against the Soviet invaders, the CIA provided money for a very ambitious project. A series of defence tunnels was built in 1986 near the town of Khost in the mountains of Paktiya province, a few miles from the border with Pakistan. The aim was to store weapons and create an underground field hospital as well as to provide shelter against Russian air attack." Bin Laden may flee in tunnels: underground escape routes funded by CIA’, 18 September 2001. "While I was deployed, I went to bed at night believing that I was protecting the homeland because coming after me and my fellow Marines was a much easier commute for those so hell-bent on killing Americans. But that argument no longer makes sense if my war has inspired enemies at home." I could justify fighting in Afghanistan — until the Boston bombing The Washington Post April 26th 2013 "Enter Qatar, a tiny but wealthy Gulf state with a penchant for coddling up to Islamist movements from Palestinian Hamas and Libyan Islamist militias to the Afghan Taliban. In March, Department of the Treasury Under Secretary David Cohen singled out Qatar as an especially "permissive jurisdiction" for terrorist financing. Qatari oversight is so lax, Cohen noted, that "several major Qatar-based fundraisers act as local representatives for larger terrorist fundraising networks that are based in Kuwait." Not wanting to expose sensitive intelligence, Cohen pointed to press reports that Qatar not only supports Hamas but also extremist groups operating in Syria. "To say the least," he concluded, "this threatens to aggravate an already volatile situation in a particularly dangerous and unwelcome manner." The Hill , ‘Qatar’s not-so-charitable record on terror finance’, 24 September 2014 "I told them [MI5] Hamza was brainwashing people and sending them to al-Qaeda terrorist training camps in Afghanistan, that he was preaching jihad and murder and that he was involved in the provision of false passports. I told them he was a chief terrorist… His MI5 handler did not appear unduly worried " Richard Woods and David Leppard, ‘Focus: How liberal Britain let hate flourish’, Sunday Times , 12 February 2006, Reda Hassaine ( Ex MI5) Mohammad Sidique Khan, Richard Reid Daniel McGrory and Richard Ford, ‘AlQaeda cleric exposed as an MI5 double agent’, Times , 25 March 2004 "told The Observer that MI5 approached intermediaries to offer him a passport and an Iranian visa so he could leave the country." Antony Barnett, Martin Bright and Nick Paton-Walsh, ‘MI5 wanted me to escape, claims cleric’, Observer , 21 October 2001 Profile: General Pervez Musharraf, 24 September 2001, 7/7 London bombing "Guantánamo Bay has often been the focus of jihadist media and propaganda. Just recently, the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan — the mouthpiece of the Taliban — put out a statement calling attention to the ongoing hunger strike at Guantánamo Bay. … In 2010, al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) released the first issue of Inspire, their English language recruitment magazine. … The plight of prisoners at Guantánamo Bay has been featured prominently in several issues. In the 2010 inaugural issue of Inspire, an essay by Osama bin Laden mentions “the crimes at Abu Ghraib and Guantánamo . . . which shook the conscience of humanity.” Tellingly, bin Laden points out that “there has been no mentionable change” at Guantánamo and the prison is noted again later in the issue. … The essays of Abu Sufyan al-Azdi and Uthman al-Gamidi, two former detainees who returned to AQAP upon their release, call new individuals to join the jihad, whether at home or abroad. In Issue 7, Yahya Ibrahim notes that Guantánamo Bay “exposed the West for what it really is” and “showed the world the American understanding of human rights.” Thérèse Postel, “How Guantanamo Bay’s Existence Helps Al-Qaeda Recruit More Terrorists,” Atlantic, April 12, 2013 "S]ome of the consequences of Washington’s anti-terrorism policies had galvanized the Taliban. Commanders fixated on the deaths of Afghan, Iraqi and Palestinian civilians in military airstrikes, as well as the American detention of Muslim prisoners who had been held for years without being charged. America, Europe and Israel preached democracy, human rights and impartial justice to the Muslim world, they said, but failed to follow those principles themselves" David Rhode, “7 Months, 10 Days in Captivity,” New York Times, October 17, 2009 "The … inescapable truth asserts that merely killing insurgents usually serves to multiply enemies rather than subtract them. This counterintuitive dynamic is common in many guerrilla conflicts and is especially relevant in the revenge-prone Pashtun communities whose cooperation military forces seek to earn and maintain. The Soviets experienced this reality in the 1980s, when despite killing hundreds of thousands of Afghans, they faced a larger insurgency near the end of the war than they did at the beginning." Michael T. Flynn et al., “Fixing Intel: A Blueprint for Making Intelligence Relevant in Afghanistan,” Center for a New American Security, January 4, 2010 Page 8 "Well, the drone hits in Afghanistan and Iraq, they don’t see children, they don’t see anybody. They kill women, children, they kill everybody. It’s a war, and in war, they kill people. They’re killing all Muslims. Judge: Now we're not talking about them; we’re talking about you. Shahzad: Well, I am part of that. I am part of the answer to the U.S. terrorizing the Muslim nations and the Muslim people. And, on behalf of that, I’m avenging the attack. Living in the United States, Americans only care about their own people, but they don’t care about the people elsewhere in the world when they die. Similarly, in Gaza Strip, somebody has to go and live with the family whose house is bulldozed by the Israeli bulldozer. There’s a lot of aggression… Judge: I see. Shahzad: We Muslims are one community. We’re not divided. Judge: Well, I don’t want to get drawn into a discussion of the Qur’an."Lorraine Adams and Ayesha Nasir, “Inside the Mind of the Times Square Bomber,” Guardian, September 18, 2010 "This past week, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev reportedly told investigators that he and his brother set off bombs near the finish line of the Boston Marathon in part because of their opposition to the U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. As a Marine who fought in Afghanistan in 2008 and 2010, the news made me wonder: Had my war brought the horrors of battle home?... I deployed to Afghanistan believing my presence in that country would help stop attacks such as Boston’s from happening. But instead, my war has spilled over, striking the city where my 22-year-old brother goes to school and where my mom, until recently, felt perfectly safe eating lunch outdoors. The Tsarnaev brothers aren’t the first alleged terrorists to cite U.S. military intervention in other countries as a reason for targeting civilians, and they won’t be the last. Despite our best efforts and valor, I wonder, have America’s wars made the homeland less safe? Sure, we’ve killed and captured thousands of radicals who wanted to harm Americans. But in doing so, have we created more?... While I was deployed, I went to bed at night believing that I was protecting the homeland because coming after me and my fellow Marines was a much easier commute for those so hell-bent on killing Americans. But that argument no longer makes sense if my war has inspired enemies at home." Thomas Gibbons-Neff, “I Could Justify Fighting in Afghanistan — Until the Boston Bombing,” Washington Post, April 26, 2013 "The 19-year-old suspect in the Boston Marathon bombings has told interrogators that the American wars in Iraq and Afghanistan motivated him and his brother to carry out the attack, according to U.S. officials familiar with the interviews." Scott Wilson et al., “Boston Bombing Suspect Cites US Wars as Motivation, Officials Say,” Washington Post, April 23, 2013 "Everybody who was in the bathroom who survived could hear him talking to 911, saying the reason why he's doing this is because he wanted America to stop bombing his country," she said… "The motive is very clear to us who are laying in our own blood and other people's blood, who are injured, who were shot," Ms Carter said. "He wasn't going to stop killing people until he was killed, until he felt like his message got out there." Orlando Shooting: Omar Mateen ‘Wanted US to Stop Bombing Afghanistan,’ Survivor Says,” ABC News (Australia), June 14, 2016 "You kill innocent women and children by doing us airstrikes..now taste the Islamic state vengeance.” Brian Bennett and Del Quentin Wilber, “Orlando Gunman, During Pause in His Rampage, Searched Social Media for News of It,” Los Angeles Times, June 16, 2016 "SUSPECT: No. Because you have to tell America to stop bombing Syria and Iraq. They are killing a lot of innocent people. What am I to do here when my people are getting killed over there. You get what I'm saying? NEGOTIATOR: I do. I completely get what you're saying. What I'm trying to do is prevent anybody else from getting - SUSPECT: You need to stop the U.S. air strikes. They need to stop the U.S. air strikes, okay? NEGOTIATOR: I understand. SUSPECT: They need to stop the U.S. air strikes. You have to tell the U.S. government to stop bombing. They are killing too many children, they are killing too many women, okay? NEGOTIATOR: I understand that. Here is why I'm here right now. I'm with the Orlando police. Can you tell me what you know about what's going on tonight? SUSPECT: What's going on is that I feel the pain of the people getting killed in Syria and Iraq and all over the Muslim" Omar Mateen blamed Pentagon air strike which killed Iraqi ISIS leader for 'triggering' his Orlando terror attack during calls with police negotiator By Hannah For Dailymail 28 Sep 2016 "We grieve and pray for the innocent victims of the terrorist attacks in Iran, and for the Iranian people, who are going through such challenging times. We underscore that states that sponsor terrorism risk falling victim to the evil they promote." Statement by the President on the Terrorist Attacks in Iran,” June 7, 2017 Anger Against The Invasion And Lack Of Awareness Of 911 Even Happening "[Religious] radicals refused to defend violent jihad in the West as religiously obligatory, acceptable or permitted. The same was true of the young Muslim sample. Young Muslims rejected al Qaeda’s message and often use simple, catchy sayings from the Qur’an or Hadith to express that rejection. However, there was widespread support among radicals and young Muslims for Iraqi and Afghan people “defending themselves” from “invaders,” framed in the language of self-defense, just war and state sovereignty." Demos 2010 Report, The Edge of Violence Page 16 "The report by The International Council on Security and Development (ICOS) policy think-tank showed 92 percent of 1,000 Afghan men surveyed in Helmand and Kandahar know nothing of the hijacked airliner attacks on U.S. targets in 2001. “The lack of awareness of why we are there contributes to the high levels of negativity toward the NATO military operations and made the job of the Taliban easier,” ICOS President Norine MacDonald told Reuters from Washington" Paul Tait, “Few Afghans Know Reason for War, New Study Shows,” Reuters, November 19, 2010 The Suspicious Failure To Capture Bin Laden "But the Al Qaeda leader would live to fight another day. Fewer than 100 American commandos were on the scene with their Afghan allies, and calls for reinforcements to launch an assault were rejected. Requests were also turned down for U.S. troops to block the mountain paths leading to sanctuary a few miles away in Pakistan. The vast array of American military power, from sniper teams to the most mobile divisions of the Marine Corps and the Army, was kept on the sidelines. Instead, the U.S. command chose to rely on airstrikes and untrained Afghan militias to attack bin Laden and on Pakistan's loosely organized Frontier Corps to seal his escape routes. On or around December 16, two days after writing his will, bin Laden and an entourage of bodyguards walked unmolested out of Tora Bora and disappeared into Pakistan's unregulated tribal area. Most analysts say he is still there today. The decision not to deploy American forces to go after bin Laden or block his escape was made by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and his top commander, Gen. Tommy Franks, the architects of the unconventional Afghan battle plan known as Operation Enduring Freedom. Rumsfeld said at the time that he was concerned that too many U.S. troops in Afghanistan would create an anti-American backlash and fuel a widespread insurgency... Even when his own commanders and senior intelligence officials in Afghanistan and Washington argued for dispatching more U.S. troops, Franks refused to deviate from the plan. There were enough U.S. troops in or near Afghanistan to execute the classic sweep-and-block maneuver required to attack bin Laden and try to prevent his escape. It would have been a dangerous fight across treacherous terrain, and the injection of more U.S. troops and the resulting casualties would have contradicted the risk-averse... After bin Laden's escape, some military and intelligence analysts and the press criticized the Pentagon's failure to mount a full-scale attack despite the tough rhetoric by President Bush. Franks, Vice President Dick Cheney and others defended the decision, arguing that the intelligence was inconclusive about the Al Qaeda leader's location. But the review of existing literature, unclassified government records and interviews with central participants underlying this report removes any lingering doubts and makes it clear that Osama bin Laden was within our grasp at Tora Bora. For example, the CIA and Delta Force commanders who spent three weeks at Tora Bora as well as other intelligence and military sources are certain he was there." TORA BORA REVISITED: HOW WE FAILED TO GET BIN LADEN AND WHY IT MATTERS TODAY A Report To Members OF THE COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN RELATIONS UNITED STATES SENATE John F. Kerry, Chairman One Hundred Eleventh Congress First Session November 30, 2009 I quickly called CENTCOM and spoke to our Agency rep. “I have al-Qaeda trying to draw our Afghan allies into negotiations. I have refused. You need to talk to CENTCOM and throw as much air power at them as quickly as possible. Guys who fly airliners into skyscrapers don’t negotiate. They’re trying to reduce the intensity of our attacks so they can slip out."... I’d learned that Afghans love to negotiate. I also knew that as far as our Eastern Alliance allies were concerned, they would be happy to take our money and let al-Qaeda slip away. The next eight hours were extremely dangerous for Team Juliet and the handful of U.S. soldiers in Tora Bora, since they weren’t sure if our Eastern Alliance allies had sided with the enemy. Day and night, I kept thinking, We needed U.S. soldiers on the ground! We need them to do the fighting! We need them to block a possible al-Qaeda escape into Pakistan! I’d sent my request for 800 U.S. Army Rangers and was still waiting for a response. I repeated to anyone at headquarters who would listen: “We need Rangers now! The opportunity to get bin Laden and his men is slipping away!!” Apparently, the U.S. Rangers weren’t coming. CENTCOM commander General Tommy Franks later explained to Frontline: “The Afghans themselves wanted to get into Tora Bora. They wanted to do it very quickly. At that time, our Special Forces troopers were not yet in large numbers, even with those forces that we were providing support to. So rather than taking a decision that said: Let’s take a break for some prolonged period of time and try to introduce large numbers of non-Afghan coalition forces, the determination was made. I made it, and I think it was a pretty good determination, to provide support to that operation, and to work with the Pakistanis along the Pakistani border to bring it to conclusion.” He was either badly misinformed by his own people or blinded by the fog of war. I’d made it clear in my reports that our Afghan allies were hardly anxious to get at al-Qaeda in Tora Bora. So why was the U.S. military looking for excuses not to act decisively? Why would they want to leave something that was so important to an unreliable Afghan army that’d been cobbled together at the last minute? This was the opportunity we’d hoped for when we launched this mission. Our advantage was quickly slipping away." Jawbreaker: The Attack on Bin Laden and Al Qaeda: A Personal Account by the CIA ’s Key Field Commander Page 290-291 "Even though the JSOC commander was directing the battlefield in Tora Bora, George and I were still very much involved. I spoke again with Hank at CTC/ and asked one more time for the U.S. military to deploy ground troops to trap bin Laden and the remnants of his force in the White Mountains. Hank assured me that my request had been forwarded to CENTCOM and the seventh floor. He explained: “Unfortunately, it’s not my call.” Jawbreaker: The Attack on Bin Laden and Al Qaeda: A Personal Account by the CIA ’s Key Field Commander Page 305 "The man you are about to meet was the officer in command, leading a team from the U.S. Army's mysterious Delta Force - a unit so secret, it's often said Delta doesn't exist. But you are about to see Delta's operators in action… "We want to come in on the back door," Fury explains. "The original plan that we sent up through our higher headquarters, Delta Force wants to come in over the mountain with oxygen, coming from the Pakistan side, over the mountains and come in and get a drop on bin Laden from behind." But they didn't take that route, because Fury says they didn't get approval from a higher level. "Whether that was Central Command all the way up to the president of the United States, I'm not sure," he says… The next option that Delta wanted to employ was to drop hundreds of landmines in the mountain passes that led to Pakistan, which was bin Laden's escape route. "First guy blows his leg off, everybody else stops. That allows aircraft overhead to find them. They see all these heat sources out there. Okay, there a big large group of Al Qaeda moving south. They can engage that," Fury explains. But they didn't do that either, because Fury says that plan was also disapproved. He says he has "no idea" why. "How often does Delta come up with a tactical plan that's disapproved by higher headquarters?" Pelley asks. "In my experience, in my five years at Delta, never before," Fury says. The military wouldn't tell 60 Minutes who rejected the plans or why. Fury wasn't happy about it but he pressed on with the only option he had left, a frontal assault on bin Laden's dug-in al Qaeda fighters" "Elite Officer Recalls Bin Laden Hunt,” 60 Minutes, CBS News, October 2, 2008 "For Dalton Fury, the reward would have been worth the risk. ``In general, I definitely think it was worth the risk to the force to assault Tora Bora for Osama bin Laden,'' he told the committee staff. ``What other target out there, then or now, could be more important to our nation's struggle in the global war on terror?'' TORA BORA REVISITED: HOW WE FAILED TO GET BIN LADEN AND WHY IT MATTERS TODAY A Report To Members OF THE COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN RELATIONS UNITED STATES SENATE John F. Kerry, Chairman One Hundred Eleventh Congress First Session November 30, 2009 Taliban Assistance During The War “I’m in San Francisco at the moment, sitting in the office of the FBI’s Special Agent in Charge. Believe it or not, they have an Afghan contact here who says his brother is on the front lines as a commander with the Taliban opposing you but would like to cut a deal.”... As she read the number I marveled at how globally connected even a Taliban commander in a backwater like Afghanistan could be with the right piece of technology. “Mary, give me your number and have the FBI keep their Afghan contact on a short leash in case I have problems contacting his brother, the commander.”... Mohammad says he has almost a thousand men under his command,” Aref* reported. Then he walked over to a map and pointed to a position northeast of Kabul. “He’s defending this position on the Shomali Plains and says he wants a half a million dollars to surrender all his forces, which he says he can arrange within a week… “Mohammad has twenty al-Qaeda fighters with him and wants to know what to do with the Arabs,” Engineer Aref* said. “Tell him to kill them all… The next morning, November 7, at 1100 hours gunfire could be heard from Mohammad’s position on the front. Thirty minutes later 730 soldiers crossed from the Taliban side in three single file lines with their hands up. Majid oversaw the quick bloodless transition, which lasted less than fifteen minutes. The Taliban soldiers simply marched into the Panshir and joined our side. They explained that the gunfire we heard was the sound of them killing the al-Qaeda fighters attached to their unit." Jawbreaker: The Attack on Bin Laden and Al Qaeda: A Personal Account by the CIA ’s Key Field Commander Page 158-160 External Pressure On The President "The president had put all of us on notice in the late fall of 2010 that, while he wanted a low-key and swift review of the Afghan strategy in December...The key subjects were the troop drawdowns in July and determining what our presence should be in Afghanistan after 2014. Did we want bases? Would we continue to conduct counterterrorism operations? What is “Afghan good enough”? How big should the Afghan national security forces be? How much would they cost, and who would pay for them? Petraeus and the Defense Department were proposing an Afghan force level between 352,000 and 378,000. The president expressed his displeasure that those numbers had leaked, again making it look like the military was trying to “jam” him… "He concluded [Obama], "If I believe I am being gamed ..."and left the sentence hanging there with the clear implication the consequences would be dire. I was pretty upset myself. I thought implicitly accusing Petraeus (and perhaps Mullen and me) of gaming him in front of thirty people in the Situation Room was inappropriate, not to mention highly disrespectful of Petraeus. As I sat there, I thought: The president doesn't trust his commander, can't stand Karzai, doesn't believe in his own strategy, and doesn't consider the war to be his. For him, it's all about getting out. Biden continued to egg him on, and his staff missed no opportunity to pass him inflammatory news clips and other information raising questions about Petraeus and the senior military leaders. I called Donilon two days later to express my concern that the vice president was poisoning the well with the president with regard to Petraeus and Afghanistan. I said I thought Biden was subjecting Obama to Chinese water torture, every day saying, “the military can't be trusted,” "the strategy can't work,” “it's all failing,” “the military is trying to game you, to screw you." Robert M. Gates, Duty: Memoirs of a Secretary at War, (New York: Knopf, 2014) Page 557 "Obama also shared with McDonough a long-standing resentment: He was tired of watching Washington unthinkingly drift toward war in Muslim countries. Four years earlier, the president believed, the Pentagon had “jammed” him on a troop surge for Afghanistan. Now, on Syria, he was beginning to feel jammed again" Jeffrey Goldberg, “The Obama Doctrine,” Atlantic, April 2016 Alex Spillius, “White House Angry at General Stanley McChrystal Speech on Afghanistan,” Daily Telegraph October 5, 2009 Evan Thomas, “General McChrystal’s Plan for Afghanistan,” Newsweek, September 25, 2009 "The situation in Afghanistan is serious, but success is achievable," McChrystal said in a statement. He added that progress will demand a revised strategy, greater "resolve" and a "unity of effort" by the NATO-led multinational force… The appraisal comes amid declining U.S. public support for the war and growing tension between U.S. commanders in need of resources and a White House wary of committing to fresh troops. It echoes recent gloomy statements by top military officials such as Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, that the conflict is "deteriorating" and that the Taliban is far more sophisticated than it was just a few years ago. Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates on Monday called Afghanistan "a mixed picture" and said "a very tough fight" lies ahead." Ann Scott Tyson, “US Commander in Afghanistan Calls Situation ‘Serious,’” Washington Post, September 1, 2009 “For all his innovations, McChrystal still is hostage to geography: Afghanistan is bigger than Iraq, yet he has only half as many troops. He plans to double the size of Afghan forces to 400,000, but that will take years. The only place he can get the troops he needs now is from the United States. Asked if he's confident he'll get what he is asking for, McChrystal said, "I'm confident that I will have an absolute chance to provide my assessment and to make my recommendations." But you're already under pressure not to ask for more. I mean, how's that affect what you do?" Martin asked. "Doesn't affect me at all. And David, I take this extraordinarily seriously. I believe that what I am responsible to do is to give my best assessment," McChrystal said."David Martin, “McChrystal’s Frank Talk on Afghanistan,” 60 Minutes, CBS News, September 24, 2009 "Biden argued throughout the process, and would continue to argue, that the war was politically unsustainable at home. I thought he was wrong and that if the president remained steadfast and played his cards carefully, he could sustain even an unpopular war. Bush had done that with a far more unpopular war in Iraq and with both houses of Congress in the hands of the Democrats. The key was showing that we were being successful militarily, at some point announcing a drawdown of forces and being able to show that the end was in sight" Robert M. Gates, Duty: Memoirs of a Secretary at War, (New York: Knopf, 2014) Opposition To The War "A CNN/Opinion Research Corp. survey released Tuesday morning indicates that 39 percent of Americans favor the war in Afghanistan, with 58 percent opposed to the mission. Support is down from 53 percent in April, marking the lowest level since the start of the U.S. military mission in Afghanistan soon after the September 11, 2001, attacks." Steinhauser, “Poll: Support for Afghan War at All-time Low,” CNN Politics, September 15, 2009 Demographics "In 1996, approximately 40 percent of Afghans were Pashtun, 11.4 of whom are of the Durrani tribal group and 13.8 percent of the Ghilzai group. Tajiks make up the second largest ethnic group with 25.3 percent of the population, followed by Hazaras, 18 percent; Uzbeks, 6.3 percent; Turkmen, 2.5 percent; Qizilbash, 1.0; 6.9 percent other." US State Department, “Afghanistan,” Country Studies "Despite ethnic quotas and recruiting drives, the Afghan army is still dominated by northern minorities who were oppressed by the Taliban. Nearly all Taliban are ethnic Pashtuns. Although many Pashtuns, the country's biggest ethnic community, are not connected to the Taliban, the rift between northerners and the southern Pashtuns runs deep. Now this ethnically skewed army is pouring into southern Afghanistan as part of an operation to squeeze the Taliban out of strongholds here and win the loyalty of the main prize — the Afghan people" Heidi Vogt, “Ethnic Divisions Plague Afghan Army,” NBC News, July 28, 2010 Other "DARNA, Libya—Two former Afghan Mujahedeen and a six-year detainee at Guantanamo Bay have stepped to the fore of this city's military campaign, training new recruits for the front and to protect the city from infiltrators loyal to Col. Moammar Gadhafi. The presence of Islamists like these amid the opposition has raised concerns, among some fellow rebels as well as their Western allies, that the goal of some Libyan fighters in battling Col. Gadhafi is to propagate Islamist extremism." Wall Street Journal , ‘Ex-Mujahedeen Help Lead Libyan Rebels’, 2 April 2011 "Now we have the full story of the secret alliance between the Pentagon and radical Islamist groups from the Middle East designed to assist the Bosnian Muslims - some of the same groups that the Pentagon is now fighting in "the war against terrorism". Pentagon operations in Bosnia have delivered their own "blowback"... The result was a vast secret conduit of weapons smuggling though Croatia. This was arranged by the clandestine agencies of the US, Turkey and Iran, together with a range of radical Islamist groups, including Afghan mojahedin and the pro-Iranian Hizbullah. Wiebes reveals that the British intelligence services obtained documents early on in the Bosnian war proving that Iran was making direct deliveries. Arms purchased by Iran and Turkey with the financial backing of Saudi Arabia made their way by night from the Middle East. Initially aircraft from Iran Air were used, but as the volume increased they were joined by a mysterious fleet of black C-130 Hercules aircraft. The report stresses that the US was "very closely involved" in the airlift. Mojahedin fighters were also flown in, but they were reserved as shock troops for especially hazardous operations." Guardian , ‘America used Islamists to arm the Bosnian Muslims’, 22 April 2002. "Intelligence on the extent to which extremist militant Islamist elements were involved in the anti-Gaddafi rebellion was inadequate. Former Chief of the Defence Staff Lord Richards of Herstmonceux confirmed that intelligence on the composition of the rebel militias was not “as good as one would wish.” He observed that “We found it quite difficult to get the sort of information you would expect us to get.”We asked Lord Richards whether he knew that Abdelhakim Belhadj and other members of the al-Qaeda affiliated Libyan Islamic Fighting Group were participating in the rebellion in March 2011. He replied that that “was a grey area. He added that “a quorum of respectable Libyans were assuring the Foreign Office” that militant Islamist militias would not benefit from the rebellion. He acknowledged that “with the benefit of hindsight, that was wishful thinking at best.” 28. The possibility that militant extremist groups would attempt to benefit from the rebellion should not have been the preserve of hindsight. Libyan connections with transnational militant extremist groups were known before 2011, because many Libyans had participated in the Iraq insurgency and in Afghanistan with al-Qaeda" House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee Libya: Examination of intervention and collapse and the UK’s future policy options Third Report of Session 2016–17 Page 12-13 "This is a time for Trump to be Trump — utterly cynical and unpredictable. ISIS right now is the biggest threat to Iran, Hezbollah, Russia and pro-Shiite Iranian militias — because ISIS is a Sunni terrorist group that plays as dirty as Iran and Russia. Trump should want to defeat ISIS in Iraq. But in Syria? Not for free, not now. In Syria, Trump should let ISIS be Assad’s, Iran’s, Hezbollah’s and Russia’s headache — the same way we encouraged the mujahedeen fighters to bleed Russia in Afghanistan." Why Is Trump Fighting ISIS in Syria? Thomas L Freidman April 12th 2017 NYT "The al Qaeda membership that was distinguished by having trained in Afghanistan will gradually dissipate, to be replaced in part by the dispersion of the experienced survivors of the conflict in Iraq.” BBC 14 January, 2005, National Intelligence Council report Mapping the Global Future

Philippines "I walked the floor of the White House night after night until midnight; and I am not ashamed to tell you, gentlemen, that I went down on my knees and prayed (to) Almighty God for light and guidance more than one night. And one night late it came to me this way—I don’t know how it was, but it came: (1) That we could not give them [the Philippine Islands] back to Spain—that would be cowardly and dishonorable; (2) that we could not turn them over to France or Germany—our commercial rivals in the Orient—that would be bad business and discreditable; (3) that we could not leave them to themselves—they were unfit for self-government—and they would soon have anarchy and misrule over there worse than Spain’s was; and (4) that there was nothing left for us to do but to take them all, and to educate the Filipinos, and uplift and civilize and Christianize them, and by God’s grace do the very best we could by them, as our fellow-men for whom Christ also died." —William McKinley, President of the United States, 1899, Charles S. Olcott, The Life of William McKinley (Boston, 1916) vol. 2 Page 110-111 "Gave equal rights to Americans in the development of the nation’s natural resources and the operation of its public utilities" NYT 12th of March 1947 (Philippine-US Trade act Passed in congress) In the Philippines, lumbering interests and major sugar interests have forced tens of thousands of simple, backward villagers to leave areas where they have lived for centuries. When these poor people flee to other areas, it should be quite obvious that they in turn then infringe upon the territorial rights of other villagers or landowners. This creates violent rioting or at least sporadic outbreaks of banditry, that last lowly recourse of dying and terrorized people. Then when the distant government learns of the banditry and rioting, it must offer some safe explanation. The last thing that regional government would want to do would be to say that the huge lumbering or paper interests had driven the people out of their ancestral homeland. In the Philippines it is customary for the local/regional government to get a 10 percent rake-off on all such enterprise and for national politicians to get another 10 percent. So the safe explanation becomes “Communist-inspired subversive insurgency.” The word for this in the Philippines is Huk." COL Fletcher Prouty, The Secret Team: The CIA and its Allies in Control of the World Page 103 Panama "It is my contention that the representatives of this Government [United States] made possible the revolution on the isthmus of Panama. That had it not been for the interference of this Government a successful revolution could not possibly have occurred, and I contend that this Government violated the treaty of 1846. I will be able to produce evidence to show that the declaration of independence which was promulgated in Panama on the 3rd day of November, 1903, was prepared right here in New York City and carried down there — prepared in the office of Wilson (sic) Nelson Cromwell" The Story of Panama: Hearings on the Rainey Resolution Before the Committee on Foreign Affairs of the House of Representatives 1913 Page 52-53 or 60 China "One is impressed immediately by the sense of national harmony. ... There is a very real and pervasive dedication to Chairman Mao and Maoist principles. Whatever the price of the Chinese Revolution, it has obviously succeeded not only in producing more efficient and dedicated administration, but also in fostering high morale and community purpose. General social and economic progress is no less impressive. ... The enormous social advances of China have benefited greatly from the singleness of ideology and purpose. ... The social experiment in China under Chairman Mao's leadership is one of the most important and successful in history." David Rockefeller China Traveller 1973 August 10th Nazi "Farben at that time produced 100 percent of German synthetic rubber, 95 percent of German poison gas (including all the Zyklon B gas used in the concentration camps), 90 percent of German plastics, 88 percent of German magnesium, 84 percent of German explosives, 70 percent of German gunpowder, 46 percent of German high octane (aviation) gasoline, and 33 percent of German synthetic gasoline" October 21st 1945 NYT Page 12 L, Referenced here Elimination of German Resources for War Hearings before a Subcommittee of the committee on military affairs United states senate 79th Congress Vol 8-11 December 11-12 1945 Page 1073 "The facts disclosed by this investigation concerning I. G. Farben's part in supplying the German armed forces with weapons of destruction make it clear that Dr. von Schnitzler, member of I. G. Farben's managing board of directors and chairman of its all-powerful commercial committee, was not boasting when he stated in an address of welcome to the Spanish Ambassador on February 10, 1943: "But only during the war could German chemistry prove itself worthy of the task. It is no exaggeration to say that without the services of German chemistry performed under the Four-Year Plan the prosecution of modern war would have been unthinkable". 3. Farben was a Nazi agency for world-wide military and economic espionage I. G. Farben's organization, both domestic and international, served the Nazi government as a principal agency for military and economic espionage throughout the world." Dr Von Schnitzeler of IG Farben stating to Spanish ambassador, Elimination of German Resources for War Hearings before a Subcommittee of the committee on military affairs United states senate 79th Congress, July 2nd 1945 Part 1-3 Page 947 or Page 317 The 1945 interrogation of I.G. Farben director yon Schnitzler reads: "Q. What did you do when they told you that I.G. chemicals was [sic] being used to kill, to murder people held in concentration camps? A. I was horrified. Q. Did you do anything about it? A. I kept it for me [to myself] because it was too terrible .... I asked Muller-Cunradi is it known to you and Ambros and other directors in Auschwitz that the gases and chemicals are being used to murder people. Q. What did he say? A. Yes: it is known to all I.G. directors in Auschwitz" Elimination of German Resources for War Hearings before a Subcommittee of the committee on military affairs United states senate 79th Congress, July 2nd 1945 Part 1-3 Page 988-89 or 358-59 "It is true that since 1934 or 1935, soon after the establishment of the Vermittlungsstelle W in the different works, theoretical war plant games had been arranged to examine how the effect of bombing on certain factories would materialize. It was particularly taken into consideration what would happen if 100 or 500 kilogram bombs would fall on a certain factory and what would be the result of it. It is also right that the word Kriegsspiele was used for it.The Kriegsspiele were prepared by Mr. Ritter and Dr. Eckell, later on partly by Dr. yon Brunning by personal order on Dr. Krauch's own initiative or by order of the Air Force, it is not known to me. The tasks were partly given by the Vermittlung-sstelle W and partly by officers of the Air Force. A number of officers of all groups of the Wehrmacht (Navy, Air Force, and Army) participated in these Kriegsspiele. The places which were hit by bombs were marked in a map of the plant so that it could be ascertained which parts of the plant were damaged, for example a gas meter or an important pipe line. As soon as the raid finished, the management of the plant ascertained the damages and reported which part of the plant had to stop working; they further reported what time would be required in order to repair the damages. In a following meeting the consequences of the Kriegsspiele were described and it was ascertained that in the case of Leuna [plant] the damages involved were considerably high; especially it was found out that alterations of the pipe lines were to be made at considerable cost" Dr Struss testimony to the Elimination of German Resources for War Hearings before a Subcommittee of the committee on military affairs United states senate 79th Congress, July 2nd 1945 Part 5-11 Page 1094 or 468 "January 25. Thursday. Our Commercial Attache brought Dr. Engelbrecht, chairman of the Vacuum Oil Company in Hamburg, to see me. Engelbrecht repeated what he had said a year ago: "The Standard Oil Company of New York, the parent company of the Vacuum, has spent 10,000,000 marks in Germany trying to find oil resources and building a great refinery near the Hamburg harbor." Engelbrecht is still boring wells and finding a good deal of crude oil in the Hanover region, but he had no hope of great deposits. He hopes Dr. Schacht will subsidize his company as he does some German companies that have found no crude oil. The Vacuum spends all its earnings here, employs 1,000 men and never sends any of its money home. I could give him no encouragement" Ambassador Dodds Diary 1933-38 edited by William E Dodd Jr and Martha Dodd Page 310-311 "These men were hardly out of the building before the lawyer came in again to report his difficulties. I could not do anything I asked him, however : Why did the Standard Oil Company of New York send $1,000,000 over here in December, 1933, to aid the Germans in making gasoline from soft coal for war emergencies? Why do the International Harvester people continue to manufacture in Germany when their company gets nothing out of the country and when it has failed to collect its war losses? He saw my point and agreed that it looked foolish and that it only means greater losses if another war breaks loose." Ambassador Dodds Diary edited by William E Dodd Jr and Martha Dodd Page 363 "This investigation has confirmed certain data heretofore presented to the Truman, Bone, and Kilgore committees by the Department of Justice with respect to this transaction which so seriously imperiled the war preparations of the United States. The story, in short, is that under the so - called Jasco agreement, synthetic rubber was to come under Farben's "sphere of influence” ' Standard was determined, however, to have an absolute monopoly of synthetic rubber developments in the United States, if and when Farben released the American rights to its process to Standard in accordance with the Jasco agreement. Accordingly, Standard fully accomplished I.G.'s purpose of preventing United States production by dissuading American rubber companies from undertaking independent research in developing synthetic rubber processes" Elimination of German Resources for War Hearings before a Subcommittee of the committee on military affairs United states senate 79th Congress Vol 8-11 December 11-12 1945 Page 1085 "Colonel BERNSTEIN. This Standard accomplished by falsely creating the impression that it had already received the buna process from Farben and was attempting to work out a scheme for licensing the process to the American rubber companies. As a matter of fact Farben had no intention of divulging the process. One conclusion which can be drawn from Standard's "stringing along” of other companies is that it did not want them to proceed with independent research thus preventing Standard from ever having a monopoly in the field" Elimination of German Resources for War Hearings before a Subcommittee of the committee on military affairs United states senate 79th Congress Vol 8-11 December 11-12 1945 Page 1085-1086 "Thus, Dr. Loehr indicated that, pursuant to conversations between Mr. Howard of Standard Oil and I. G.-Standard had agreed to keep American firms out of the synthetic rubber field and would let them enter it only if compelled to do so by forces beyond its control. The CHAIRMAN. In other words, had agreed to block research in this country? Colonel BERNSTEIN. Yes, sir" Elimination of German Resources for War Hearings before a Subcommittee of the committee on military affairs United states senate 79th Congress Vol 8-11 December 11-12 1945 Page 1085-1086 "Colonel BERNSTEIN. Yes, sir; at a time when war was in the air. By 1939, however, synthetic rubber development had reached a stage where Mr. Howard of Standard Oil stated that it would no longer be possible for him to keep the information in regard to the buna processes from the American companies. Nevertheless, he assured Î. G. that Standard would manage to stay "on top of the whole scheme.” As time dragged on and the licenses were not forthcoming, the clamor of the American rubber companies became so intense that Standard, not wanting to reveal the true situation, turned to Farben for an excuse to give the rubber companies. Howard of Standard, in October 1939, at a meeting with I. G. representatives in Basle, stated that he had to be provided with an excuse for not getting the knowhow. I. G. obligingly cabled Standard Oil to the effect that the authorities would not permit the information to be given to the American firm. “These are the conclusions," said Dr. Loehr, "which seem to disclose that I. G. impaired the military strength of the United States," which I would have called an understatement" Elimination of German Resources for War Hearings before a Subcommittee of the committee on military affairs United states senate 79th Congress Vol 8-11 December 11-12 1945 Page 1085-1086 "The CHAIRMAN. That identical excuse was furnished in the courts of the United States when Standard was being sued. It was furnished before the Truman committee as an excuse for not releasing the patent, as an excuse for saying they had no know-how, because Farben refused to give them the know-how, and on a statement that they had nothing but the right to operate under a patent with which they had no know-how, and Farben would not give it to them, showing a conspiracy between Mr. Howard of Standard, the vice president, and Farben, to still hoodwink and stay on top, and apparently Standard is still able to stay on top, as evidenced by the shutting down of these other independent plants. At that point in the record I want to introduce some testimony taken at a previous occasion with reference to the question of alcohol and petroleum and the way that has been manipulated in the past 6 months." Elimination of German Resources for War Hearings before a Subcommittee of the committee on military affairs United states senate 79th Congress Vol 8-11 December 11-12 1945 Page 1085-1086 "I. G. Farben acted in a representative capacity for the Nazi Government in its relations with its cartel partners. By virtue of its dominant position in the world chemical industry, Farben was in an excellent position to use its numerous cartel connections to prepare Germany To recite the examples of such use would be to recapitulate material which is already, for the most part, public knowledge. An outstanding example, however, is Farben's successful effort, by means of cartel agreements with Standard Oil, to delay the development and use of buna rubber in the United States until at least 1940 while at the same time producing sufficient buna in Germany to make the German Army and German industry independent of rubber imports" Elimination of German Resources for War Hearings before a Subcommittee of the committee on military affairs United states senate 79th Congress Vol 8-11 December 11-12 1945 Page 1085 "The CHAIRMAN. In previous hearings this committee has heard much evidence showing how cartel agreements with German firms affected our national security. In this evidence only one conclusion can be reached, namely, that German companies, in conspiracy with the Nazi government, purposely crippled our war production. This statement bears out those statements. Don't you think so—that it was intentional, sir? Colonel BERNSTEIN. I agree, sir." Elimination of German Resources for War Hearings before a Subcommittee of the committee on military affairs United states senate 79th Congress Vol 8-11 December 11-12 1945 Page 1085 "Colonel BERNSTEIN. That is right, sir, and one would hope that our business enterprises would learn that fact now. As has already been demonstrated before this and other congressional committees, I. G. used its extensive cartel connections with foreign firms to further this policy of the German Government. The dangers inherent in such monopolistic agreements take on a new significance when the activities of one of the parties are subordinated to the over-all policy of its government." Elimination of German Resources for War Hearings before a Subcommittee of the committee on military affairs United states senate 79th Congress Vol 8-11 December 11-12 1945 Page 1085 "Substantially the same pattern of behavior was pursued by the Paris office of the Chase Bank during German occupation, An examination of the correspondence between Chase, New York, and Chase, France, from the date of the fall of France to May, 1942 discloses that: (1) the manager of the Paris office appeased and collaborated with the Germans to place the Chase banks in a "privileged position;" (2) the Germans held the Chase Bank in a very special esteem — owing to the international activities of our (Chase) head office and the pleasant relations which the Paris branch has been maintaining with many of their (German) banks and their (German) local organizations and higher officers; (3) the Paris manager was "very vigorous in enforcing restrictions against Jewish property, even going so far as to refuse to release funds belonging to Jews in anticipation that a decree with retroactive provisions prohibiting such release might be published in the near future by the occupying authorities;" (4) the New York office despite the above information took no direct steps to remove the undesirable manager from the Paris office since it "might react against our (Chase) interests as we are dealing, not with a theory but with a situation" Morgenthau Diary Committee On The Judiciary United States Senate November 20, 1967 (Germany) Page 616 or 607 "a. Niederman, of Swiss nationality, manager of Chase, Paris, was unquestionably a collaborator; b. The Chase Head Office in New York was informed of Nieder-man's collaborationist policy but took no steps to remove him. Indeed there is ample evidence to show that the Head Office in New York viewed Niederman's good relations with the Germans as an excellent means of preserving, unimpaired, the position of the Chase Bank in France; c. The German authorities were anxious to keep the Chase open and indeed took exceptional measures to provide sources of revenue; d. The German authorities desired "to be friends" with the important American banks because they expected that these banks would be useful after the war as an instrument of German policy in the United States; e. The Chase, Paris showed itself most anxious to please the German authorities in every possible way. For example, the Chase zealously maintained the account of the German Embassy in Paris, "as every little thing helps" (to maintain the excellent relations between Chase and the German authorities); f. The whole objective of the Chase policy and operation was to maintain the position of the bank at any cost." Morgenthau Diary Committee On The Judiciary United States Senate November 20 , 1967 (Germany) Page 801 "The closing of an agreement with Standard was necessary for technical, commercial, and financial reasons: technically, because the specialized experience which was available only in a big oil company was necessary to the further development of our process, and no such industry existed in Germany; commercially, because in the absence of state economic control in Germany at that time, IG had to avoid a competitive struggle with the great oil powers, who always sold the best gasoline at the lowest price in contested markets; Financially, because IG, which had already spent extraordinarily large sums for the development of the process, had to seek financial relief in order to be able to continue development in other new technical fields, such as buna" Trials of War Criminals Before the Nuremberg Military Tribunals, October 1946 to April 1949, Volume 7 Page 1304 or 1340 IG Farben commentary on Haslams article "Especially in the case of iso - octane , it is shown that we owe much to the Americans because in our own work we could draw widely on American information on the behavior of fuels in motors. Moreover, we were also kept currently informed by the Americans on the progress of their production process and its further development. Shortly before the war, a new method for the production of iso - octane was found in America - alkylation with isomerization as a preliminary step. This process, which Mr Haslam does not mention at all, originates in fact entirely with the Americans and has become known to us in detail in its separate stages through our agreements with them , and is being used very extensively by us." Trials of War Criminals Before the Nuremberg Military Tribunals, October 1946 to April 1949, Volume 7 Page 1306 or 1342 IG Farben commentary on Haslams article "As a consequence of our contracts with the Americans, we received from them, above and beyond the agreement, many very valuable contributions for the synthesis and improvement of motor fuels and lubricating oils, which Just now during the war are most useful to us; and we also received other advantages from them. Primarily, the following may be mentioned: (1) Above all, improvement of fuels through the addition of tetraethyl-lead and the manufacture of this product. It need not be especially mentioned that without tetraethl-lead the present methods of warfare would be impossible. The fact that since the beginning of the war we could produce tetraethyl-lead is entirely due to the circumstances that, shortly before, the Americans had presented us with the production plans, complete with their know-how. It was, moreover, the first time that the Americans decided to give a license on this process in a foreign country (besides communication of unprotected secrets) and this only on our urgent requests to Standard Oil to fulfill our wish. Contractually we could not demand it, and we found out later that the War Department in Washington gave its permission only after long deliberation. (2) Conversion of low-molecular unsaturates into usable gasoline (polymerization). Much work in this field has been done here as well as in America. But the Americans were the first to carry the process through on a large scale, which suggested to us also to develop the process on a large technical scale. But above and beyond that, plants built according to American processes are functioning in Germany. (3) In the field of lubricating oils as well, Germany through the contract with America, learned of experience which is extraordinarily important for present day warfare. In this connection, we obtained not only the experience of Standard, but, through Standard, the experiences of General Motors and other large American motor companies as well. (4) As a further remarkable example of advantageous effect for us of the contract between IG and Standard Oil, the following should be mentioned: in the years 1934 / 1935 our government had the greatest interest in gathering from abroad a stock of especially valuable mineral oil products (in particular, aviation gasoline and aviation lubricating oil), and holding it in reserve to an amount approximately equal to 20 million dollars at market value. The German Government asked IG if it were not possible, on the basis of its friendly relations with Standard Oil, to buy this amount in Farben's name; actually, however, as trustee of the German Government. The fact that we actually succeeded by means of the most difficult negotiations in buying the quantity desired by our government from the American Standard Oil Company and the Dutch — English Royal — Dutch — Shell group and in transporting it to Germany, was made possible only through the aid of the Standard Oil Co." Trials of War Criminals Before the Nuremberg Military Tribunals, October 1946 to April 1949, Volume 7 Page 1309 or 1345 IG Farben commentary on Haslams article "Since the beginning of the war we have been in a position to produce lead tetraethyl solely because, a short time before the outbreak of the war, the Americans had established plants for us ready for production and supplied us with all available experience. In this manner we did not need to perform the difficult work of development because we could start production right away on the basis of all the experience that the Americans had had for years." NYT October 19th 1945 "At the request of the Air Ministry and on direct order of Goering, I.G . Farben procured in 1938, 500 tons of tetraethyl lead from the Ethyl Export Corporation, of the United States. The Air Ministry needed this lead because it is indispensable to the manufacture of high octane aviation gasoline and because they wanted to store up the lead in Germany to tide the Air Ministry over until such time as the plant in Germany could manufacture sufficient quantities. We were producing sufficient quantities of tetraethyl - lead for ordinary purposes but the storage of the 500 tons of tetraethyl - lead was undertaken because in case of war Germany did not have enough tetraethyl - lead to wage war, for which reason the German Reich pursued a stockpiling policy . 66 * * * Finally , it was decided to procure the tetraethyl - lead on a loan basis . All the gentlemen were very bewildered as Goering demanded a report by noon the next day. It was commonly known that tetraethyl - lead was needed as the German production in tetraethyl - lead while sufficient for peacetime purposes , was not sufficient to wage war, and we had to obtain it immediately for aviation gasoline." Trials of War Criminals Before the Nuremberg Military Tribunals, October 1946 to April 1949, Volume 8 Page 1272-1273 "BERLIN, Dec. 19.--A rumor is current here that Henry Ford, the American automobile manufacturer, is financing Adolph Hitler's nationalist and Anti-Semitic movement in Munich. Indeed, the Berlin Tageblatt has made an appeal to the American Ambassador in Berlin to investigate and interfere" NYT December 19th 1920, and rumoured he has a portrait of ford above his desk Henry Ford receives Grand Cross of the German Eagle award NYT August 1st 1938 "(1) the business of the Ford subsidiaries in France substantially increased ; ( 2 ) their production was solely for the benefit of the Germans and the countries under its occupation ; ( 3 ) the Germans have " shown clearly their wish to protect the Ford interests ” because of the attitude of strict neutrality maintained by Henry Ford and the late Edsel Ford ; and ( 4 ) the increased activity of the French Ford subsidiaries on behalf of the Germans received the commendation of the Ford family in America" Morgenthau Diary Committee On The Judiciary United States Senate November 20 , 1967 (Germany) Page 616 The Secret Meeting of 20 February 1933 (German: Geheimtreffen vom 20. Februar 1933) was a secret meeting held by Adolf Hitler and 20 to 25 industrialists at the official residence of the President of the Reichstag Hermann Göring in Berlin. Its purpose was to raise funds for the election campaign of the Nazi Party. Trials of War Criminals Before the Nuremberg Military Tribunals, October 1946 to April 1949, Volume 7 Page 16-17 or 7. IG Farben contributing 400,000 Reichsmarks, other German industrialists contributed too. "September 1st Friday Henry Mann of the National City Bank spoke of the conversation he and Mr Aldnch had had some ten days before with the Chancellor at his summer place. The ideas advocated by Hitler were the same as those he had advanced to Professor Coar. He is a fanatic on the Jewish problem he has no conception of international relationships he considers himself a German Messiah but despite Hitler’s attitude these bankers feel they can work with him" Ambassador Dodd's Diary edited by William E Dodd Jr and Martha Dodd Page 45 "At 1.30 Ivy Lee and his son James came to lunch. Ivy Lee showed himself at once a capitalist and an advocate of Fascism." Ambassador Dodd's Diary edited by William E Dodd Jr and Martha Dodd Page 87 Ivy Lee the Rockefeller public relations man. "a. Morgan and Company regarded itself as a French bank, and therefore obligated to observe French banking laws and regulations, whether Nazi inspired or not; and did actually do so; b. Morgan and Company was most anxious to preserve the continuity of its house in France, and, in order to achieve this security, worked out a modus vivendi with the German authorities; c. Morgan and Company had tremendous prestige with the German authorities, and the Germans boasted of the splendid cooperation of Morgan and Company; d. Morgan continued its prewar relations with the great French industrial and commercial concerns which were working for Germany, including the Renault Works, since confiscated by the French Government, Puegeqt [sic], Citroen, and many others. e. The power of Morgan and Company in France bears no relation to the small financial resources of the firm, and the enquiry now in progress will be of real value in allowing us for the first time to study the Morgan pattern in Europe and the manner in which Morgan has used its great power; f. Morgan and Company constantly sought its ends by playing one government against another in the coldest and most unscrupulous manner." Morgenthau Diary Committee On The Judiciary United States Senate November 20 , 1967 (Germany) Page 800 or 791 "You might also be interested in knowing, Mr. Chairman, that the top I. G. Farben people and others, when we questioned them about these activities, were inclined at times to be very indignant. Their general attitude and expectation was that the war was over and we ought now to be assisting them in helping to get I.G. Farben and German industry back on its feet . Some of them have outwardly said that this questioning and investigation was, in their estimation, only a phenomenon of short duration, because as soon as things got a dittle settled they would expect their friends in the United States and in England to be coming over. Their friends, so they said, would put a stop to activities such as these investigations and would see that they got the treatment which they regarded as proper and that assistance would be given to them to help reestablish their industry" Elimination of German Resources for War Hearings before a Subcommittee of the committee on military affairs United states senate 79th Congress Vol 1-6 July 2nd, 1945 Page 652 or 14 "On September 15, 1939, while the Netherlands were still neutral in the war, Shell offered to supply acids to I. G. Farben's foreign customers. Chemnyco relayed Shell's offer to Germany, stating that Shell “suggests that if under prevailing conditions you are prevented from delivering formic acetic and propionic acid to certain foreign countries you give Shell Developinent temporary permission to sell these acids from the production of the pilot plant which Shell is erecting in California. Shell is aware that according to the license agreement they are not allowed to export the acids from the United States, but they believe that it might be in the interest of both parties if they would make deliveries to customers whom you cannot supply… I. G. Farben rejected the proposal on September 29, 1939, apparently feeling confident that British blockades would be ineffective. The rejection of its offer did not discourage Shell" Scientific and Technical Mobilization, United States. Congress. Senate. Committee on Military Affairs Hearing, March 30, 1943 Page 462 "By February 1940 the Germans recognized that they were going to have considerable difficulty in supplying their foreign customers. Consequently, I. G. Farben reconsidered the Shell proposal and granted them permission… By initiating this proposal and then accepting the terms laid down by I. G. Farben, Shell Chemical indicated that it was willing to maintain the foreign trade of I. G. Farben which the British blockade was trying to prevent. Obviously, Shell was actuated entirely by its own narrow business interests and gave no consideration whatever to the fact that it was aiding the German Government in its direct war against Britain and its indirect war against the United States" Scientific and Technical Mobilization, United States. Congress. Senate. Committee on Military Affairs Hearing, March 30, 1943 Page 463 "Regardless of how the ordinary British, American, or Dutch citizen might characterize this deal, it did not involve any technical violation of law. Shell, as an international corporation, was quite naturally and quite legally grabbing every opportunity to expand its foreign trade, letting the political and military chips fall where they may. Not until Germany actually invaded Dutch Shell's native country in May 1940 did Shell abrogate this agreement with I. G. Farben. On May 13, 1940, the day Queen Wilhelmina had to flee from the Netherlands and only two days before Holland finally capitulated, Shell wrote to Chemnyco that “because of the recent political developments, we are no longer in a position to discuss any arrangement as referred to in your letter of May 9th. We have not yet decided whether or not we shall erect a plant for the production of the acids in question” Thus ended Shell's effort to help maintain Hitler's foreign markets. The question still left unanswered is what would have happened if Shell's country of incorporation happened to be an ally of Hitler or at least not a victim." Scientific and Technical Mobilization, United States. Congress. Senate. Committee on Military Affairs Hearing, March 30, 1943 Page 463 "On our side, the practices of Standard Oil and Shell are probably representative of the way international corporations in general have cooperated with foreign business interests in their manipulation of American patents. After all, the corporations involved rank very high in the world of business and their policies and practices have a profound influence on the methods of doing business adopted by others. These case studies can therefore be considered to be typical and as such they point to an alarming situation in the patent field the correction of which is essential if maximum war production is to be attained" Scientific and Technical Mobilization, United States. Congress. Senate. Committee on Military Affairs Hearing, March 30, 1943 Page 463 "Far more important is the fact that these international corporations seem oblivious of the political and military implications of their world-wide patent pools and understandings with foreign corporations. World trade never was a mere matter of business but the dangers inherent in neglecting its political and military aspects never were as great as they have been in recent years. The mechanization of war and the advent of Hitler with his barter diplomacy have intensified tremendously the need for giving primary attention to these features of foreign trade. I. G. Farben, for example, in recent years was first and foremost an instrumentality of Nazi political and military strategy and only secondarily a business enterprise. But our own international corporations seem to have disregarded these radical developments" Scientific and Technical Mobilization, United States. Congress. Senate. Committee on Military Affairs Hearing, March 30, 1943 Page 463 "Standard Oil knew as early as January 1934 that every foreign business move made by I. G. Farben had to be disclosed first to the Nazi Government and approved by them. That did not affect Standard Oil's performance under the 1929 partnership agreement even though it necessarily curtailed I. G. Farben's performance thereunder. The attitude of the international corporation seems to be that as long as it is legal and good business, that is in the opinion of corporate management, then it is all right to enter into patent pools and friendly agreements with foreign corporations no matter what the latter's motive might be or how such a deal might affect the welfare of the United States as a political and military power. In defense of this position, businessmen argue that political and military matters are the province of government and that by taking such a view business is merely sticking to its own knitting." Scientific and Technical Mobilization, United States. Congress. Senate. Committee on Military Affairs Hearing, March 30, 1943 Page 464 "With specific reference to the patent phase of international business, we must make certain that patents can no longer be used by foreign interests and their American friends as legal devices to attain illegal ends. Remedial machinery and legislation must be provided so that what I. G. Farben did in the acetylene field will not be repeated in the future" Scientific and Technical Mobilization, United States. Congress. Senate. Committee on Military Affairs Hearing, March 30, 1943 Page 464 "Government must act with speed and thoroughness if it is to end the era when United States patents could be used by foreign interests to enhance their own international position, hinder production here, evade the antitrust laws, keep American producers out of export markets, thwart American research, get the benefits of our discoveries without fully reciprocating, and, finally, obstruct our war-production program. By recognizing that world trade, including international patent pools, are matters of public concerns, not plain, ordinary private business, the patent system of this country can be made to operate more effectively in the public interest than it has in recent years." Scientific and Technical Mobilization, United States. Congress. Senate. Committee on Military Affairs Hearing, March 30, 1943 Page 464 Bolsheviks "Soviet government stronger today than ever before. It's authority and power greatly consolidated by dissolution of constituent Assembly… cannot urge too strongly importance of prompt recognition of Bolshevik authority…. Sisson approves this text and requests you to show cable to creel. Thacher and Wardwell concur" Russian-American relations, documents and papers doc 64 Page 77 Raymond Robins cable to William Boyce Thompson "I had been with the American Red Cross people at Odessa. I was there when the Red Army took possession of Odessa. At that time I was favorably inclined toward the Soviet Government, because I was a socialist and had been a member of that party for 20 years. I must admit that to a certain extent I helped to form the Soviet Government of Odessa" Conditions In Russia House Committee On Foreign Affairs 66th Congress Third Session Jan to March 1921 Page 6 , Jacob H Rubin "The doctor’s wife took my wife and the boys out driving, and was very kind to them. But she was a mere mortal, whereas the chauffeur was a magician, a titan, a superman I With a wave of his hand, he made the machine obey his slightest command. To sit beside him was the supreme delight. When they went into a tea-room, the boys would anxiously demand of their mother, “Why doesn’t the chauffeur come in?” Leon Trotsky My Life Page 21 (Trotsky living in New York, very well before the revolution) "I saw that his own mind was made up. He had been greatly impressed, as Lord Milner told me afterwards, by an interview with Colonel Thompson of the American Red Cross, who had just returned from Russia and who had denounced in blunt language the folly of the Allies in not opening up negotiations with the Bolsheviks.... Three days later all my doubts were put at rest. I was to go to Russia as head of a special mission to establish unofficial relations with the Bolsheviks.... Lord Milner I saw almost daily. Five days before my departure I dined alone with him at Brook's. He was in his most inspiring mood. He talked to me with a charming frankness about the war, about the future of England, about his own career, and about the opportunities of youth— He was, too, very far from being the Jingo and the Conservative reactionary whom popular opinion at one time represented him to be. On the contrary, many of his views on society were startlingly modern. He believed in the highly organized state, in which service, efficiency, and hard work were more important than titles or money-bags" Bruce Lockhart British Agent Page 200, 201, 206 "I had been selected for this Russian mission not by the Foreign Secretary but by the War Cabinet—actually by Lord Milner and Mr. Lloyd George" Bruce Lockhart British Agent Page 208 "Another new acquaintance of these first days in the Bolshevized St Petersburg was Raymond Robins, the head of the American Red Cross Mission.... He had been a leading figure in Roosevelt's "Bull Moose" campaign for the American Presidency in 1912. Although a rich man himself, he was an anti-capitalist.... Hitherto, his two heroes had been Roosevelt and Cecil Rhodes. Now Lenin had captured his imagination.... Robins was the only man whom Lenin was always willing to see and who ever succeeded in imposing his own personality on the unemotional Bolshevik leader. In a less official sense Robins had a similar mission to my own. He was the intermediary between the Bolsheviks and the American Government and had set himself the task of persuading President Wilson to recognize the Soviet regime." Bruce Lockhart British Agent Page 222-223 "I returned from our interview to our flat to find an urgent message from Robins requesting me to come to see him at once. I found him in a state of great agitation. He had been in conflict with Saalkind, a nephew of Trotsky and then Assistant Commissar for Foreign Affairs. Saalkind had been rude, and the American, who had a promise from Lenin that, whatever happened, a train would always be ready for him at an hour's notice, was determined to exact an apology or to leave the country. When I arrived, he had just finished telephoning to Lenin. He had delivered his ultimatum, and Lenin had promised to give a reply within ten minutes. I waited, while Robins fumed. Then the telephone rang and Robins picked up the receiver. Lenin had capitulated. Saalkind was dismissed from his post. But he was an old member of the Party. Would Robins have any objection if Lenin sent him as a Bolshevik emissary to Beme? Robins smiled grimly. "Thank you, Mr. Lenin," he said. "As I can't send the son of a bitch to hell, 'burned' is the next best thing you can do with him." Bruce Lockhart British Agent Page 228 "You will hear it said that I am an agent of Wall Street; that I am the servant of William B. Thompson to get Altai Copper for him; that I have already got 500,000 acres of the best timber land in Russia for myself; that I have already copped off the Trans-Siberian Railway; that they have given me a monopoly of the platinum in Russia; that this explains my working for the soviet.... You will hear that talk Now, I do not think it is true, Commissioner, but let us assume it is true. Let us assume that I am here to capture Russia for Wall Street and American business men. Let us assume that you are a British wolf and I arn an American wolf, and that when this war is over we are going to eat each other up for the Russian market; let us do so in perfectly frank, man fashion, but let us assume at the same time that we are fairly intelligent wolves, and that we know that if we do not hunt together in this hour the German wolf will eat us both up." U.S. Cong., Senate, Bolshevik Propaganda, Subcommittee of the Committee on the Judiciary, 65th Cong., 1919, p. 802.

"What my constant cry was that our biggest problem was our allies. Our allies in the region were our largest problem in Syria. The Turks were great friends, and I’ve a great relationship with [Turkish President Recep] Erdoğan, who I’ve just spent a lot of time with, the Saudis, the Emiratis, etc. What were they doing? They were so determined to take down Assad and essentially have a proxy Sunni-Shia war, what did they do? They poured hundreds of millions of dollars and tens of thousands of tons of weapons into anyone who would fight against Assad, except that the people who were being supplied were al-Nusra, and al Qaeda, and the extremist elements of jihadis coming from other parts of the world. If you think I’m exaggerating, take a look. Where did all of this go? So now what’s happening? All of a sudden, everybody is awakened because this outfit called ISIL, which was al Qaeda in Iraq, which when they were essentially thrown out of Iraq, found open space and territory in eastern Syria, work with al-Nusra, who we declared a terrorist group early on, and we could not convince our colleagues to stop supplying them. So, what happened? Now, all of a sudden [now that ISIS has taken over western Iraq]—I don’t want to be too facetious—but they have seen the lord. Now we have—the president’s been able to put together a coalition of our Sunni neighbors, because America can’t once again go into a [Sunni] Muslim nation and be the aggressor. It has to be led by Sunnis. To go and attack a Sunni organization. And so, what do we have for the first time? Now Saudi Arabia has stopped the funding from going in. Saudi Arabia is allowing training on its soil of American forces under Title 10, open training. The Qataris have cut off their support for the most extreme elements of the terrorist organizations. And the Turks, President Erdoğan told me—he is an old friend—said, “You were right; we let too many people through. Now we are trying to seal the border.” VP Joe Biden 2014 talk to Harvard University Delivers remarks on foreign policy "the head of the British Secret Intelligence Service, MI6, Sir Richard Dearlove. Prince Bandar told him: "The time is not far off in the Middle East, Richard, when it will be literally 'God help the Shia'. More than a billion Sunnis have simply had enough of them."... He does not doubt that substantial and sustained funding from private donors in Saudi Arabia and Qatar, to which the authorities may have turned a blind eye, has played a central role in the Isis surge into Sunni areas of Iraq. He said: "Such things simply do not happen spontaneously." Independent , ‘Iraq crisis: How Saudi Arabia helped ISIS take over the north of the country’, 13 July 2014 “a variety of donors and fundraisers, primarily in the Gulf countries and particularly in Saudi Arabia" The 9/11 Commission Report: Final Report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, Volume 3 Page 170 - Frank G.interview (Mar.2,2004); CIA analytic report, Financial Support for Terrorist Organizations, CTC 2002-40117CH, Nov. 14, 2002 “I accuse them of inciting and encouraging the terrorist movements. I accuse them of supporting them politically and in the media, of supporting them with money and by buying weapons for them,” Maliki told FRANCE 24’s Marc Perelman. “I accuse them of leading an open war against the Iraqi government.”Maliki went on to say that not only did Saudi Arabia support terrorism in countries such as Iraq and Syria, but around the world. The prime minister said, however, that Iraq did not intend to retaliate against Saudi Arabia and Qatar, citing concern over the region’s stability." Exclusive: Iraq’s Maliki accuses Saudi Arabia of supporting ‘terrorism’ France "As recently as last week, as the chairman alluded to, Stuart Levey, who is the Under Secretary of the Treasury Department, publicly remarked, “If I could somehow snap my fingers and cut off funding from one country, it would be Saudi Arabia.” In recent years, of course, Saudi-based individuals have provided support specifically to Sunni extremists in Iraq. Some of that money is believed specifically to support opponents of Prime Minister al-Maliki. For years the Saudi Government turned a blind eye to the financing of al-Qaeda by prominent Saudi-based religious and business leaders and organizations. Only after al-Qaeda bombed targets within Saudi Arabia in 2003 did the Saudis finally focus on the problem, and began a meaningful dialogue with the United States to combat it." U.S. Relations with Saudi Arabia: Oil, Anxiety, and Ambivalence : Hearing Before the Subcommittee on the Middle East and South Asia of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, House of Representatives, One Hundred Tenth Congress, First Session, September 18, 2007, Volume 4 Page 19 (Extended quote)

"In our dreams we have limitless resources, and the people yield themselves with perfect docility to our molding hands. The present educational conventions fade from our minds, and unhampered by tradition, we work our own good upon a grateful and responsive rural folk. We shall not try to make these people or any of their children into philosophers of mental learning or of science. We have not to raise from among them authors, editors, poets, or men of letters. We shall not search for embryo great artists, painters, musicians, nor lawyers, doctors, preachers, politicians, statesmen of whom we have ample supply. " The Country School of Tomorrow Page 6 by Frederick Taylor Gates, John D Rockefeller's Advisor and member of the General Education Board Founded by John D Rockefeller after pledging an additional 180 million after an initial 1 million in 1902 "I should reply that the very recognition Of, and reliance upon, free will in the pupil is the first mistake of the old system and the clear confession of its impotence and futility… The new education must consist essentially in this, that it completely destroys freedom of will in the soil which it undertakes to cultivate, and produces on the contrary strict necessity in the decisions of the will, the opposite being impossible" Johann Fichte, Addresses To The German Nation Page 20 "Fichte laid it out best when he said education should aim at destroying free will so that after pupils are thus schooled they will be incapable throughout the rest of their lives of thinking or acting otherwise than as their school masters would have wished" Bertrand Russell, The Impact Of Science On Society Page 66 "Moreover, compulsory military service, too, will thereby be ended, because those who are thus educated are all equally willing to bear arms for their Fatherland" Johann Fichte, Addresses To The German Nation Page 196 "Our constitutions will be made for us ; our alliances and the employment of our fighting forces will be prescribed to us ; a code of law will be given to us ; even justice and judgment and their administration will sometimes be taken from us. For the immediate future we shall be spared the trouble of these matters. It is only of education that no one has thought ; if we are looking for an occupation, let us seize this!" Johann Fichte, Addresses To The German Nation Page 192 "Early discipline is a guarantee against the need in later years of reformation and penal discipline, which are very doubtful, measures, while in a nation so trained there are no poor at all" Johann Fichte, Addresses To The German Nation Page 192 "Hitherto the State has had to do a great deal, and yet has never been able to do enough, for law and police institutions. Convict prisons and reformatories have caused it expense. Finally, the more that was spent on poor-houses, the more they required ; indeed, under the prevailing circumstances, they seemed to be institutions for making people poor. In a State which makes the new education universal, the former will be greatly reduced, the latter will vanish entirely." Johann Fichte, Addresses To The German Nation Page 191 "First, that the influence of home is obstructive. Second, that not much can be done unless indoctrination begins before the age of ten. Third, that verses set to music and repeatedly intoned are very effective..... It is for a future scientist to make these maxims precise and discover exactly how much it costs per head to make children believe that snow is black… Although this science will be diligently studied, it will be rigidly confined to the governing class. The populace will not be allowed to know how its convictions were generated. When the technique has been perfected, every government that has been in charge of education for more than one generation will be able to control its subjects securely without the need of armies or policemen" Bertrand Russell, The Impact Of Science On Society Page 65-66 "Not until a generation has passed through the new education can the question be considered, as to what part of the national education shall be entrusted to the home." Johann Fichte, Addresses To The German Nation Page 164 "Mr. Morris: Dr. Dodd, how recently have you been associated with the Communist Party? Mrs. Dodd: June 1949. Mr. Morris: Do you mean you severed your connection with the Communist Party at that time? Mrs. Dodd: They severed their connection with me. I had previously tried to find my way out of the Communist Party. In 1949 they formally issued a resolution of expulsion.... Mr. Morris: Dr. Dodd, will you tell us what relationship you bore to the Communist Party organization while you were the legislative representative for the Teachers’ Union? Mrs. Dodd: Well, I soon got to know the majority of the people in the top leadership of the Teachers’ Union were Communists, or, at least, were influenced by the Communist organization in the city. Sen. Homer Ferguson (Mich.): In other words, the steering committee, as I take your testimony, was used for the purpose of steering the teachers along the line that communism desired? Mrs. Dodd: On political questions, yes.... I would say also on certain educational questions. You take, for instance, the whole question of theory of education, whether it should be progressive education or whether it should be the more formal education. The Communist Party as a whole adopted a line of being for progressive education. And that would be carried on through the steering committee and into the union" Subversive Influence In The Educational Process: Hearings Before The Subcommittee to Investigate the Administration of the Internal Security Act and Other Internal Security Laws of the Committee on the Judiciary Page 2, 5, 7 "This board [the General Education Board] was authorized to do almost every conceivable thing which is anywise related to education, from opening a kitchen to establishing a university, and its power to connect itself with the work of every sort of educational plant or enterprise conceivable will be especially observed. This power to project its influence over other corporations is at once the greatest and most dangerous power it has." The 1917 Congressional Record Of The 64th congress of the United States Vol LIV Published the Following excerpt from a booklet containing articles by Bishop Warren A. Candler, Chancellor of Emory University in Atlanta Page 2831 "In my last article it was suggested that certain astute men, backed by millions of money, were making an effort to capture and control the colleges and universities of the country, especially the South. The movement to which reference is intended is called“ The General Education Board" The 1917 Congressional Record Of The 64th congress of the United States Vol LIV Published the Following excerpt from a booklet containing articles by Bishop Warren A. Candler, Chancellor of Emory University in Atlanta Page 2831 "Even now the Carnegie Corporation is facing protests from parents whose children are exposed to the textbooks financed by the foundation under its “Project Read.” This project provides programmed textbooks for schools, particularly in “culturally deprived areas.”... This writer has gone over these textbooks in the “Reading” series financed by the Carnegie Corporation and authored by M.W. Sullivan, a linguist. These foundation-funded books reveal a fire pattern that amounts to an incitement to the sort of arson and guerilla warfare that took place in Watts, Washington, D.C., and elsewhere. On one page in the series we find a torch next to a white porch. The caption reads invitingly, “a torch, a porch.” Further along there is a picture of a man smiling while he holds a torch aloft. The caption beneath it reads: “This man has a t_rch in his hand.” The children are required as an exercise to insert the missing letter to fill in the word torch. The next picture shows the burning torch touching the porch, with a caption, “a torch on a porch.” Thus, the children are led in stages to the final act that suggests itself quite naturally. The picture in the series shows a hand moving the hands of a clock to twenty-five minutes past one, while this same shack is being devoured by flames. The message is plain: an example of a man who deliberately commits the criminal act of setting a home on fire. Tragically, these young children are being indoctrinated with a pattern of anti-social ideas that will completely and violently alienate them from the mainstream of American middle-class values.... Other pictures in the Carnegie-funded supposedly educational texts include a comparison of a flag with a rag, the ransoming of an American soldier in a Chinese prison, a picture that shows people kneeling in a church to say their prayers beside a picture of a horse being taught to kneel in the same way, a reference to a candidate elected to public office as a “ruler,” a picture of a boy stealing a girl’s purse, and another boy throwing pointed darts at a companion whom he uses as target practice. Understandably, the Carnegie-financed books are causing concern to local law-enforcement officials, many of whom have to cope with riot or near-riot conditions. Ellen Morphonios, prosecutor for Florida in its attorney’s office, and a chief of its Criminal Court Division, said recently: “It’s a slap in the face and an insult to every member of the Negro community, saying that the only way to communicate with Negro children is to show a robber or violence. It’s like subliminal advertising. If this isn’t subversive and deliberately done as part of a master plan.… Only a sick mind could have produced it.” Repeated instances of this type of anti-social activity obviously constitute a strong argument for removing the tax-exempt status of these educational foundations, and for curbing their activities by Federal regulations and Congressional oversight." Edith Roosevelt, The Foundation Machine "And the builder of this new world must be education. Education alone can lay the foundations on which the building is to rest. On this point a kind of consensus has been reached by those who trust the future of international co-operation and those who refuse to believe in it. When the latter go about repeating that to succeed in such a task one would have to change human nature, they do but exaggerate the acknowledged need for a gradual and patient reshaping of the public mind. There is a great work to be achieved, and no men can forward it but those who are well informed as to the conditions and needs of our times, in as much as all countries and all races are concerned. Even the efforts of such men would be in vain unless, in a world of democracy, they were backed by a body of opinion ever growing more enlightened and more powerful. How can a well-prepared élite be raised throughout the world to spread its influence over the masses, who can then support them in their turn? Here we encounter the real problem, and it is essentially a problem of education." John Harley Paul Mantoux foreword to international understanding Page IX "If you want to influence him at all, you must do more than merely talk to him ; you must fashion him, and fashion him in such a way that he simply cannot will otherwise than you wish him to will." Johann Fichte, Addresses To The German Nation Page 21 The implications for education are clear and imperative: (a) the efficient functioning of the emerging economy and the full utilization of its potentialities require profound changes in the attitudes and outlook of the American people, especially the rising generation—a complete and frank recognition that the old order is passing, that the new order is emerging" The American Historical Association “Investigation of the Social Studies in the Schools,” 1934 Page 34-35 "During the last decade of the nineteenth century, in England, a group of men devoted to the study of economic questions endeavored to prepare the public mind for broad changes which, in their view, must be effected if social peace is to be preserved. To this end they founded the London School of Economics and Political Science, which today ranks among the most famous institutions of education." John Harley Paul Mantoux foreword to international understanding Page X "By means of the new education we want to mould the Germans into a corporate body, which shall be stimulated and animated in all its individual members by the same interest." Johann Fichte, Addresses To The German Nation Page 15 "the new education must be able surely and infallibly to mould and determine according to rules the real vital impulses and actions of its pupils." Johann Fichte, Addresses To The German Nation Page 20 "That power to create spontaneously images, which are not simply copies of reality, but can become its prototypes, should be the starting-point for the moulding of the race by means of the new education" Johann Fichte, Addresses To The German Nation Page 24 "The essential feature of the proposed new education, so far as it was described in the last address, consisted in this, that it is the sure and deliberate art of training the pupil to pure morality." Johann Fichte, Addresses To The German Nation Page 36 "Now, of the changes which have been indicated, the first, the change of home, is quite unimportant. Man easily makes himself at home under any sky, and the national characteristic , far from being changed by the place of abode, dominates and changes the latter after its own pattern." Johann Fichte, Addresses To The German Nation Page 54 "The German art of the State understands that it cannot create this spirit by reprimanding adults who are already spoilt by neglect, but only by educating the young, who are still unspoilt" Johann Fichte, Addresses To The German Nation Page 116 "One reason is that all who get through only the universal national education are intended for the working classes, and training them to be good workmen is undoubtedly part of their education." Johann Fichte, Addresses To The German Nation Page 181