Ralph Peters, Intelligence Specialist

Lieutenant Colonel Ralph Peters a retired U.S. Army intelligence officer and New York Post pundit advocates the hyper-balkanisation of the Middle East:

‘A just alignment in the region would leave Iraq's three Sunni-majority provinces as a truncated state that might eventually choose to unify with a Syria that loses its littoral to a Mediterranean-oriented Greater Lebanon: Phoenicia reborn. The Shia south of old Iraq would form the basis of an Arab Shia State rimming much of the Persian Gulf. Jordan would retain its current territory, with some southward expansion at Saudi expense. For its part, the unnatural state of Saudi Arabia would suffer as great a dismantling as Pakistan.’

- ‘Blood Borders: How a better Middle East would look’, Armed Forces Journal, June 2006. http://www.armedforcesjournal.com/2006/06/1833899

His expertise is illustrated by the statements he made after a visit to Baghdad in March:

'During a recent visit to Baghdad, I saw an enormous failure. On the part of our media. The reality in the streets, day after day, bore little resemblance to the sensational claims of civil war and disaster in the headlines.

'No one with first-hand experience of Iraq would claim the country's in rosy condition, but the situation on the ground is considerably more promising than the American public has been led to believe. Lurid exaggerations and instant myths obscure real, if difficult, progress.

'I left Baghdad more optimistic than I was before this visit. While cynicism, political bias and the pressure of a 24/7 news cycle accelerate a race to the bottom in reporting, there are good reasons to be soberly hopeful about Iraq's future.

'Much could still go wrong. The Arab genius for failure could still spoil everything. We've made grave mistakes. Still, it's difficult to understand how any first-hand observer could declare that Iraq's been irrevocably"lost"'
- ‘Myths of Iraq’, RealClearPolitics, 14 March 2006. http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2006/03/myths_of_iraq.html

---

Now, 7 months later...

'But remaining in Baghdad requires a new sense of reality. "Stay the course" is meaningless when you don't have a course - and the truth is that the administration still doesn't have a strategy, just a jumble of programs, slogans and jittery improvisations.

'Our Army and Marine Corps urgently need increases in personnel strength. They've been stripped to the strategic and tactical bone. We need more boots. But not on the ground in Iraq.

'Sending more troops wouldn't help and can't be done. It's too late. We've reached the point where Iraqis must fight for their own future. If they won't, nothing we can do will bring success...

'Give them [the Iraqis] one more year. And that's it.

Meanwhile, the notion of sending more U.S. troops is strategic and practical nonsense. Had the same voices demanded another 100,000-plus troops in 2003 or even 2004, it would have made a profound, positive difference. Now it's too late.

- ‘No More Troops, New York Post, 10 October 2006. http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2006/03/myths_of_iraq.html

Harlan Ullman, Strategoi

2003:

According to the architect of "Shock and Awe", military strategist Harlan Ullman, the plan would rely on an extensive array of precision-guided weapons.

"We want them to quit, not to fight," Ullman said, "so that you have this simultaneous effect - rather like the nuclear weapons at Hiroshima - not taking days or weeks but minutes."

The main objective was not just to disable Iraq's fighting capacity but to leave the population dispirited and unwilling to support Saddam's regime.

"You're sitting in Baghdad and, all of a sudden, you're the general and 30 of your division headquarters have been wiped out," Mr Ullman said. "You also take the city down. By that I mean you get rid of their power and water. In two, three, four, five days they are physically, emotionally and psychologically exhausted."

- Andrew West, ‘800 missiles to hit Iraq in first 48 hours’, Sun Herald, 26 January 2003.

2006:

HARLAN ULLMAN: We lost control of events on the ground probably in April or May of 2003. And it's taken a long time for that recognition to dawn in the White House. The President and the administration has refused to recognise reality.

Iraq is a disaster. It is a disaster at every level, and to think that they've got a functioning government and to think that the situation is better today than it was in 2003 or 2004, or 2005, is unbelievable.

We have a catastrophe on our hands and of course we've got to make course corrections and the only guy in town who seems not to be able to recognise that, sadly, is the President. It's just not conceivable, it is not feasible, probably in our lifetime. We should have understood that from the beginning, but we haven't, and what we have to do now is limit the damage in Iraq, so it does not spill over the borders and create a further catastrophe in the Middle East, which we cannot contain.

- Transcript, 'The World Today - US has lost control in Iraq, says military strategist’, ABC Online, 19 October 2006.

Maiwand - History Repeats itself?

"Lt Gen Richards, who says British forces have been involved in some of the fiercest fighting since Korea, has now decided to withdraw from outlying positions, which will be taken over by the Afghan forces. It is a decision that some have questioned...

An officer who has served in Helmand said... "We did not expect the ferocity of the engagements. We also expected the Taliban to carry out hit and run raids. Instead we have often been fighting toe to toe, endless close-quarters combat. It has been exhausting. I remember when we had to extract a Danish recce group which was getting attacked on all sides; it was bedlam. We have greater firepower, so we tend to win, but, of course, they can take their losses while our casualties will invariably lead to concern back home.You also have to think that each time we kill one, how many more enemies we are creating. And, of course, the lack of security means hardly any reconstruction is taking place now, so we are not exactly winning hearts and minds.""

- Kim Sengupta, The Independent, 13th September 2006

" The unknown factor was the number of tribesmen and Ghazis (religious fanatics who fought like fiends)... when the Ghazis with their banners attacked our right flank they ran into a blizzard of Martini-Henry rounds and case shot and were mown down in scores. However the superior numbers of the enemy despite their heavy losses had effectively turned both our flanks "
- Captain Mosley Mayne, of the 3rd Cavalry at Maiwand, 27th July 1880

Picture: http://www.britishempire.co.uk/

THE COST OF THE SHRUB WAR

The costs in military dead so far for Petrolica and its allies in Arbusto's adventure in Iraq are given by Iraq Coalition Casualty Count as (upto 31st August):

The number of dead Iraqi lascoreens employed as policemen and army troops is not quite so accurate. However, they are given as:

Up to Dec 2004....1,300
After Jan 2005.....4,016
Total...................5,316

Here in graphical form is the 'progress' of the war in terms of military dead for the US and its allies:

The Light Infantry: Proud history besmirched

The history of the Light Infantry (LI) goes back to the colonial war in North America (the 'French and Indian War') that preceded and then ran concurrently with the 'Seven Years War'. Groups of skilled North American skirmishers were recruited to fight the French colonists and their Native American allies.

Napoleon later used such skirmishers in front of his own main lines and the British Army (notably Sir John Moore) trained and deployed troops as 'light infantry' to fight these 'tirraileurs'. These soldiers were considered elite and the title 'Light Infantry' had considerable prestige.

The LI Regiment of the British Army was formed in the 1960s and 1970s from old LI Regiments: Somerset and Cornwall Light Infantry, Kings Own Yorkshire Light Infantry, King’s Shropshire Light Infantry, Duke of Cornwall's Light Infantry, Durham Light Infantry, Herefordshire Light Infantry and the Light Infantry Volunteers.

Click here for the Light Infantry's official website.

The Battle honours of the regiment include:
Gibraltar 1704-1705
Minden 1759
Salamanca 1812
Jellalabad 1842
Inkerman 1854
Lucknow 1857-1858
Anzio 1944
Hill 112 - 1944

Now the Battle Dishonours include: Basra 2006.

Dani Hamilton-Bing, whose 18-year-old son, Pte James Hamilton-Bing, of the 1st Battalion, The Light Infantry, tried to quell rioters in Basra after the downing of a Lynx helicopter in May that killed five British soldiers, has attacked Tony Blair for putting the lives of over-stretched troops in Iraq and Afghanistan at risk.

Mrs Hamilton-Bing said that anger at seeing her son sent to fight a dishonest war had driven her to take action, adding that many other military families shared her views. She said: "My son joined to fight legal wars, not wars based on lies and deception."

"I am not against war, just an illegal war, she says I can't understand why we are there," she says "I can't understand why we are there."

"Does Tony Blair really value what these men are going through? Does he really understand the sacrifices these men and women are making?" she asked. "Nobody believes what the Government says," she added.

Mrs Hamilton-Bing insists that she is part of a majority vehemently against the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts, who believe the forces have been over-stretched, and treated like "mercenaries" for hire by a dishonest Prime Minister. She believes that she is only reflecting the views of the servicemen and women who say nothing because they acknowledge that they relinquished that right when they signed up and "took the Queen's shilling".

"Nine out of 10 agree with me… there doesn't seem to be any end in sight."

From Terri Judd, 'Why did Blair send my son to fight an illegal and dishonest war?', The Independent, 2nd September 2006.

Military Families Against the War Peace Camp

Dates: 21st - 23rd September

Place: Albert Square, Manchester

There are only three weeks to go until the Military Families Peace Camp to highlight the MFAW campaign and the TIME TO GO demonstration at the Labour conference in Manchester on 23rd September

* The Camp is open to all those who want to show their support for the MFAW campaign to get the troops home.

* Please publicise the Peace Camp;

--- Tell your family and friends

--- Post the details on any web forums or groups

--- Write to your local paper

--- Contact your local Radio and TV stations

* If you would like to take part in the Peace Camp contact: peacecamp@mfaw.org.uk

* You can donate online to the Peace Camp fund using the "Make a donation" button at:

http://www.mfaw.org.uk

* Send cheques to: MFAW, 27 Britannia St, London WC1X 9JP

* Let MFAW know if you are coming, where you'll be traveling from and if you are military related.

* Camp will be set up in Albert Square, central Manchester at 3pm on Thursday 21st September until the morning of Saturday 23rd. It will then move to a site opposite the Labour conference venue.

* You will need a rigid frame tent and sleeping bags etc.

* The MFAW website will carry regular updates and information on the Peace Camp

* Don't forget to sign the Troops Home online petition at:

http://www.petitiononline.com/mfawmay/petition.html

Or download a copy at:

http://www.mfaw.org.uk/mfawpetitionsite020606.pdf

Pinko pro-Islamofascist traitor Cameron denounces St Margaret

In an article in today’s Observer, the leader of Britain’s Conservative Party, David Cameron has made common cause with the Cryptocommunist Islamofascist terrorist Nelson Mandela, whom he calls 'one of the greatest men alive'. The policy decisions his Party made with respect to relations with the ANC and sanctions on South Africa he describes as ‘mistakes’ and writes 'that there is so much to celebrate in the new South Africa is not in spite of Mandela and the ANC, it is because of them.'

Conservative students of Cameron's generation wore 'Hang Nelson Mandela' badges on campus, but today he calls ‘wrong’ the description of Mandela’s African National Congress (ANC) as 'terrorists' by Our Lady Margaret Thatcher and Her opposition to sanctions against South Africa. He thereby denounces a keystone of the foreign policy of the leaderene, who said in 1987 that anyone who believed the ANC would ever rule South Africa was 'living in cloud-cuckoo-land'.

His visit to South Africa came at the invitation of Nelson Mandela, who has said these seditious things about the United States in relation to Iraq:

"We see how the powerful countries, all of them so-called democracies, manipulate multilateral bodies to the great disadvantage and suffering of the poorer developing nations."

"Why is the United States behaving so arrogantly? All that (Mr. Bush) wants is Iraqi oil."

"If there is a country that has committed unspeakable atrocities in the world, it is the United States of America. They don't care."

"[Blair] is the foreign minister of the United States. He is no longer prime minister of Britain,"

"one power with a president who has no foresight, who cannot think properly, is now wanting to plunge the world into a holocaust."

Shawn Slovo (the daughter of former ANC military chief Joe Slovo and his wife, the arch-extremist Ruth First, who was terminated by South African intelligence) has welcomed Cameron's words, saying 'I feel pleased, I think: "You're on the right side."

A former minister, who did not wish to be named stated of his comments: 'They are ignorant.' This is the least that could be said. However, Lady Thatcher’s former spokesman and a prominent member of her cabinet, Sir Bernard Ingham has asked whether in fact David Cameron is a Conservative.

Since becoming Tory leader with the slogan 'Change to win', Cameron has distanced himself from core Conservative values. In contradiction to Lady Thatcher’s statement that 'there is no such thing as society', he declared the heresy that: 'There is such a thing as society, it's just not the same as the state.'

Cameron is now scheduled to head for India, to hold talks with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and other leading Indian government figures. What will he do there? Will he seek forgiveness for the 1919 Amritsar incident? Will he go against the word of the latter-day messiah, Winston Churchill, who referred to Mr MK Gandhi as a ‘half-naked fakir’ who ‘ought to be laid, bound hand and foot... and then trampled on by an enormous elephant’?

***

THE WORDS OF SIR WINSTON CHURCHILL

Prof V.N. Datta, an eminent historian and President of the Indian History Congress, has said that Winston Churchill's ' insane' and negative attitude played a decisive role in subverting the cause of India's freedom and creating a situation which made splitting of the country inevitable. Churchill hated Gandhi, ridiculed his fasts as a fraud and blackmail. He even declared that any approach to Gandhi would be made over his dead body.

During the Second World War, Churchill said he was prepared to let Gandhi die if he went on hunger strike whilst imprisoned at the Aga Khan prison in Puné (Poona).

The famous 1930 Gandhi quotes:

'It is alarming and also nauseating to see Mr. Gandhi, a seditious middle temple lawyer, now posing as a fakir of a type well known in the east, striding half-naked up the steps of the vice regal palace, while he is still organising and conducting a defiant campaign of civil disobedience, to parley on equal terms with the representative of the king-emperor.'

[Gandhi] 'ought to be laid, bound hand and foot, at the gates of Delhi and then trampled on by an enormous elephant with the new viceroy seated on its back.'

Other choice sayings:

Churchill was reported to have suggested in 1926 that machine guns be used on the striking miners.

He called Italy's Fascist dictator Benito Mussolini the 'Roman genius ... the greatest lawgiver among men.'

Regarding black and white soldiers fighting fascism in the Second World War, Churchill insisted that 'the views of the US must be considered.' Black soldiers were to show respect for the US army's segregation policies.

George Galloway on the air

Galloway wipes the floor with Sky Newsreader

Sky News broadcast an interview with George Galloway, MP for Bethnel Green on 6th August. The exchange between Galloway and the Sky Newsreader, regarding the war in Lebanon is both entertaining and revealing. Here is how it began:

Sky Newsreader: Joining me now is a man who’s not known for sitting on the fence. He passionately opposed the invasion of Iraq and now he feels that Hizbullah is justified in attacking Israel. The Respect MP for Bethnel Green is in our London studio. A very good evening, uh good morning to you Mr. Galloway. How do you justify your support for Hizbullah and its leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah?

Galloway (laughing): What a preposterous way to introduce an item and what a preposterous first question. Twenty four years ago, on the day my daughter was born and I’ve just celebrated her 24th birthday,I had to dash to the maternity hospital to see her giving birth from a mass demonstration in London against the Israeli invasion and occupation of Lebanon. Israel has been invading and occupying Lebanon all of my 24yr old daughter’s life. The Hizbullah are a part of the national resistance who are trying to drive, having successfully driven most Israelis from their land in 2000, Israel from the rest of their land and to get back those thousands of Lebanese prisoners who were kidnapped by Israel under the terms of their illegal occupation of Lebanon.

It’s Israel that’s invading Lebanon. It’s Israel that’s attacking Lebanon. Not Lebanon that’s attacking Israel...

Video: George Galloway taking on Sky News 6th August

George Galloway's live phone in from Beirut
© Socialist Worker 2015, 26 August 2006
On next Saturday and Sunday George Galloway MP will broadcast a Middle East special of his Talksport radio phone in show from bombed out Beirut.

He says: "I'm the first British political figure to visit the wreckage of Beirut and the south of Lebanon, seeing for myself the enormous toll taken by 33 days of aerial bombardment. I'll be reporting to Talksport listeners on just what I've found here and inviting guests from across the spectrum in Lebanon who know what they're talking about. I'll be taking calls as normal and we'll make it a two day special on the conflict in the Middle East, its fundamental causes and, a way forward for peace."

To call the show phone 08704 20 20 20 or text comments to 81089

The show runs from 8pm to 10pm each evening on 1089/1053AM and digital radio.

Killer cyborg settles groping suit

Cyber-Organism RNE-800-101

SACRAMENTO, 25 Aug 2006. (UPI) – California’s Black & More-Egg Corporation has settled a court case by a British woman who claimed that the Corporation’s RNE-Series model 800-101 killer cybernetic organism groped her after she interviewed him on television.

Lawyers for Black & More-Egg and for Anna Richardson, a former television host, told the Los Angeles Times that the terms of the agreement are confidential. In her legal suit, Richardson accused the cyborg (nicknamed ‘Arnie’) and two lesser ‘droids (the so-called 'Terminator Three') of libelling her by spreading stories that she had thrown herself at the robot.

Richardson said 'Arnie', after the taping of the interview, had fondled her breasts, telling her he wanted to know if they were ‘real human mammary organs’. The Governator’s version was that she had walked over to him holding her right breast and asked him what he thought. He had replied that, as an automaton, he could not 'think', but only 'act'.

Asked what his next step was, the Robossassin's lawyers replied that 'he'll be back'.

Giant warship on 'sudden unscheduled deployment' to Lebanon

POPULAR DEL NORTE NAVAL STATION, Virgenia State, Petrolica — The Petrolican Navy announced on Wednesday that the amphibious assault ship P.S. Avispa is set to begin a sudden, unscheduled deployment to Lebanese waters. Nearly 1,300 sailors — including Avispa’s crew, a Helicopter Mine Countermeasure Squadron detachment, and Assault Craft Units— will leave Popular del Norte Naval Station as early as Friday (today).

Joint Task Force Lebanon is commanded by the Petrolican 6th Fleet's Amiral Juan Viga de Stuffle, and at present includes vessels and aircraft operated by about 2,400 personnel from all service branches.

On Monday, President Jorge Dubia Arbusto announced that Petrolica would provide funding and other assistance to support the United Nations plan to end the fighting between the Israeli-based Tzahal militia and the Lebanon-based Hizbollah. Arbusto said the Petrolica would support the planned U.N. peacekeeping force with logistics, command and control, communications and intelligence. But the nature of that support is still a closely kept secret.

The sudden deployment of the Avispa comes on the heels of a similar deployment by the amphibious assault ship P.S. Cacerola de Sai, which left Popular del Norte on 15^th August. Cacerola de Sai’s 1,000 sailors and an embarked helicopter were reportedly not earmarked specifically for duty in the waters off Lebanon.

Other naval vessels in the area include the 6th Fleet command ship P.S. El Montaje Blanquea La Isla and the destroyer P.S. Isla de la Barra.

Tzahal Supremo admits failures

Dan Halutz, the Rav Aluf (‘supremo’) of Tzahal, the armed wing of the Zionist movement, has for the first time publicly admitted to failings in its conflict with Hizbollah.

In a letter to grassroots fighters, he said it had exposed shortcomings in the group's logistics, operations and command. There would be a thorough and honest investigation, he said.

Tzahal lost 116 gunmen. It killed about 1,200 Lebanese, mostly civilians in its vast blitz on the country. Forty-three Israeli civilians were also killed during more than 4,000 Hizbollah rocket attacks on Tzahal bases.

The immediate conflict was sparked by a cross-border raid by Hizbollah soldiers in which they captured two Tzahal fighters and killed eight others in an attempt to bargain for Lebanese kidnapped by Zionist gunmen earlier.

Throughout the terror campaign against Lebanon, Tzahal's aim was the destruction of Hizbollah, which stood in the path of an invasion of Syria.

Amir Peretz, the Zionist gauleiter overseeing the armed wing, has set up an internal inquisition to probe how the terror campaign in Lebanon was conducted. The inquisitors, headed by ex-Obergruppenführer Amnon Lipkin-Shahak, have already started work and are expected to produce results within weeks. The Zionist high command set up similar inquisitions after the perceived defeats in the 1973 October War and the 1982 attack on Lebanon.

Arbusto thanks Pervez for help on ‘baby bottle bomb plot’

Jorge 'Bring Em On' Arbusto explains a point to the press

Reuters news agency reports on 23^rd August that the President of Petrolica, Jorge Dubia Arbusto has telephoned President ‘Al Mush’ Pervez and thanked him for Bananistan’s help in foiling a conspiracy to blow up airliners over the Atlantic.

On 10^th August the Police announced they had arrested over 20 people and foiled this plot to blow up aircraft travelling to Petrolica using baby feeding bottles and carbonated drinks. They said they had acted on information received from Blairistan and made arrests before police rounded up suspects there…

The Pakistan Foreign Ministry said that:

‘In the context of the London terror plot, U.S. President George W. Bush expressed deep appreciation for Pakistan's role in fighting terrorism and the support Pakistan has been extending internationally.’

However, on 19^th August Glen Owen of the Daily Mail reported that Pakistan had not, in fact found any evidence against Rashid Rauf, the so-called ‘terror mastermind’ and the keystone of the ‘terror plot’. He had been accused of sending money back to the UK to allow the alleged bombers to buy plane tickets on the orders of Al Qaeda’s ‘No3’ in Afghanistan.

It seems that two weeks of interrogation later, after an inch-by-inch search of his house and analysis of his home computer, there is insufficient evidence to extradite him. Owen says that there are ‘wider suspicions that the plot may not have been as serious, or as far advanced, as the authorities initially claimed.’