Blowback: Unholy war culture

an excerpt from the 12/08/08 article by Arnaud de Borchgrave

It all goes back to the clandestine war the United States, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan fought together against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan (1979-89). The coalition's secret weapon: Islam and the cult of jihad.

In the early stages of the Soviet invasion and occupation, many of the Soviet troops were drawn from the Muslim republics of the Soviet Union. It was a colonial configuration: brown faces with white officers.

The anti-Soviet resistance, funded by the United States and Saudi Arabia to the tune of $1 billion a year (which was real money in those days), flooded towns occupied by the Soviets with Korans and pamphlets declaring jihad, or holy war, against the Russian occupier.

Blowback: Unholy war culture

Michael Scheuer: Al Qeada and the election

Today on Antiwar Radio, Michael Scheuer will be discussing Al Qaeda and the recent US election at 12:15pm est.

Michael Scheuer is the former chief of the CIA’s bin Laden unit and author of Through Our Enemies Eyes: Osama bin Laden, Radical Islam, and the Future of America, Marching Toward Hell: America and Islam After Iraq and Imperial Hubris: Why the West Is Losing the War on Terror.

The show is streamed live from Antiwar Radio page at Antiwar.com,

Michael Scheuer: Al Qeada and the election

Abu Nidal: US Spy

Iraqi secret police believed that the notorious Palestinian assassin Abu Nidal was working for the Americans as well as Egypt and Kuwait when they interrogated him in Baghdad only months before the Anglo-American invasion of Iraq. Hitherto secret documents which are now in the hands of The Independent – written by Saddam Hussein's brutal security services for Saddam's eyes only – state that he had been "colluding" with the Americans and, with the help of the Egyptians and Kuwaitis, was trying to find evidence linking Saddam and al-Qa'ida.

President George Bush was to use claims of a relationship with al-Qa'ida as one of the reasons for his 2003 invasion, along with Iraq's possession of weapons of mass destruction. Western reports were to dismiss Iraq's claim that Abu Nidal committed suicide in August 2002, suggesting that Saddam's own security services murdered him when his presence became an embarrassment for them. The secret papers from Iraq suggest that he did indeed kill himself after confessing to the "treacherous crime of spying against this righteous country".

Read the rest.

Abu Nidal: US Spy