Gareth Porter: President Barack Obama has sided with U.S. military and Defence Department officials in rejecting a proposal by the U.S. ambassador to Pakistan for a U.S. apology for last weekend’s attack,
Pak Border Post Attack a Big Loss for U.S. War Policy
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Gareth Porter: The decision to attack by helicopter gunships, which killed 24 Pakistani troops and stoked a new level of anti-U.S. sentiment feeling in the country, has caught the U.S.-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan in a rare defense posture, because senior officials don’t know what happened and why.
Ex-Inspector Rejects IAEA Iran Bomb Test Chamber Claim
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Gareth Porter: A former inspector for the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has repudiated its major new claim that Iran built an explosives chamber to test components of a nuclear weapon and carry out a simulated nuclear explosion.
Debunking the Iran “Terror Plot”
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Gareth Porter: A close analysis of the FBI deposition reveals, however, that independent evidence for the charge that Arbabsiar was sent by the Qods Force on a mission to arrange for the assassination of Jubeir is lacking.
Night Raids Killed over 1,500 Afghan Civilians
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Gareth Porter: U.S. Special Operations Forces (SOF) killed well over 1,500 civilians in night raids in less than 10 months in 2010 and early 2011, analysis of official statistics on the raids released by the U.S.-NATO command reveals.
U.N. Tally Excluded Most Afghan Civilian Deaths in Night Raids
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Gareth Porter: A July United Nations report asserting that only 30 civilians died in targeted raids in Afghanistan during the first six months of 2011 reflected only a very small fraction of night raids in which civilians were killed.
U.S. Officials Peddle False Intel to Support Terror Plot Claims
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Gareth Porter: The media stories generated by the leaks helped divert press attention from the fact that there is no verifiable evidence of any official Iranian involvement in the alleged assassination plan
FBI Account of “Terror Plot” Suggests Sting Operation
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Gareth Porter: While the administration of Barack Obama vows to hold the Iranian government “accountable” for the alleged plot to assassinate the Saudi ambassador in Washington, the legal document describing evidence in the case provides multiple indications that it was mainly the result of an FBI “sting” operation.
U.S. Debate on Haqqani: Military or Political Solution?
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Gareth Porter: The military, the Pentagon and the CIA have been pushing aggressively since late 2010 to get the administration to force the Pakistani military leadership to carry out a major offensive against the Haqqani leadership.
A Citizens’ Campaign for a New National Security Policy
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Gareth Porter: This “permanent war state” is now so politically powerful that it can keep the United States at war, even after the rationale for the war has been discredited or become irrelevant and the war has turned into a political and military disaster.
U.S. Knows Pressure on Pakistan Won’t Change Policy
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Gareth Porter: Even those who had held out hope in the past that pressure on Pakistan could lead to change in its relationship with the Haqqani group have now given up on that possibility.
Did Rabbani Hit Really Kill Peace Talks?
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Gareth Porter: Did the Taliban assassination of Berhanuddin Rabbani, the Chairman of the Afghan High Peace Council, bring a potentially permanent end of peace talks in Afghanistan?
Are U.S. Night Raids Aimed at Afghan Civilians?
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Gareth Porter: U.S. Special Operations Forces have been increasingly aiming their night-time raids, which have been the primary cause of Afghan anger at the U.S. military presence, at civilian noncombatants in order to exploit their possible intelligence value, according to a new study published by the Open Society Foundation and The Liaison Office.
Kabul Attack Continues Taliban Control of War Narrative
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Gareth Porter: This week’s Taliban attacks on multiple targets in Kabul, including the U.S. Embassy and U.S.-NATO headquarters, are the latest and most spectacular of a long series of operations that have given the insurgents the upper hand in establishing the narrative of the war as perceived by the Afghan population.
CIA’s Push for Drone War Driven by Internal Needs
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Gareth Porter: When David Petraeus walks into the Central Intelligence Agency Tuesday, he will be taking over an organisation whose mission has changed in recent years from gathering and analysing intelligence to waging military campaigns through drone strikes in Pakistan, as well as in Yemen and Somalia.
Tribunal Concealed Evidence Al-Qaeda Cell Killed Hariri
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Gareth Porter: In focusing entirely on the alleged links between four Hezbollah activists and the 2005 bombing that killed Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, the indictment issued by the Special Tribunal for Lebanon earlier this month has continued the practice of the U.N investigation before it of refusing to acknowledge the much stronger evidence that an Al-Qaeda cell was responsible for the assassination.
Hariri Bombing Indictment Based on Flawed Premise
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Gareth Porter: The indictment of four men linked to Hezbollah in the 2005 assassination of Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri made public by the Special Tribunal on Lebanon August 17 is questionable not because it is based on “circumstantial evidence”, but because that evidence is based on a flawed premise.
Why Pakistani Military Demands a Veto on Drone Strikes
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Gareth Porter: The new Pakistani demand for equal say over drone strikes marks the culmination of a long evolution in the Pakistani military’s attitude toward the drone war. Initially supportive of strikes that were targeting Al-Qaeda leaders, senior Pakistani military leaders soon came to realize that the drone war carried serious risks for Pakistan’s war against the Pakistani Taliban.
Ex-PM Says Taliban Offer Talks For Pullout Date
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Gareth Porter: The Taliban leadership is ready to negotiate peace with the United States right now if Washington indicates its willingness to provide a timetable for complete withdrawal, according to a former Afghan prime minister
What Is Sadr’s Game on Future U.S. Troop Presence?
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Gareth Porter: The big question looming over U.S.-Iraqi negotiations on a U.S. military presence after 2011 is what game Shi’a leader Moqtada al-Sadr is playing on the issue.
The Lies That Sold Obama’s Escalation in Afghanistan
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Gareth Porter: The Obama administration has relied heavily, of course, on the widespread impression that the Taliban regime was somehow mixed up with Osama bin Laden’s plotting the 9/11 attacks.
Despite Surge, Taliban Attacks, U.S. Casualties Soared
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Gareth Porter: Data on attacks by armed opposition forces and U.S. combat casualties since the U.S. troop surge in Afghanistan was completed last summer provide clear evidence that the surge and the increase in targeted killings by Special Operations Forces have failed to break the momentum of the Taliban.
Obama Leaves Door Open to Long-Term U.S. Afghan Combat
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Gareth Porter: Obama’s speech announcing that the 33,000 “surge” troops in Afghanistan will be withdrawn by “summer” 2012 indicates that he has given priority to the interests of the military and the Pentagon over concerns by key officials in his administration over the impact of the war’s costs on domestic socioeconomic needs.
Ninety Percent of Petraeus’s Captured “Taliban” Were Civilians
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Gareth Porter: The timing of Petraeus’s claim of Taliban fighters captured or killed, moreover, indicates that he knew that four out of five of those he was claiming as “captured Taliban rank and file” were not Taliban fighters at all.
U.S. Uses Peace Talks to Divide Taliban from Pakistan
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Gareth Porter: Senior Obama administration officials hope to use the talks to sow suspicion between the Taliban and their main ally, thus weakening the Taliban resolve to negotiate on a peace settlement only if the United States offers a timetable for troop withdrawal.
Obama Troop Surge Decision Ignored Pak-Taliban Ties
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Gareth Porter: The unilateral U.S. raid that killed Osama bin Laden created a spike in mutual recriminations between U.S. and Pakistani politicians, but their fundamental conflict of interest over Afghanistan was already driving the two countries toward serious confrontation.
After Bin Laden Hit, U.S. Aides Raise Dubious Hopes for Peace
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Gareth Porter: Barack Obama and top administration officials have taken advantage of the killing of Osama bin Laden to establish a new narrative suggesting the event will pave the way for negotiations with the Taliban for peace in Afghanistan.
U.S. Refusal of 2001 Taliban Offer Gave bin Laden a Free Pass
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Gareth Porter: When George W. Bush rejected a Taliban offer to have Osama bin Laden tried by a moderate group of Islamic states in mid- October 2001, he gave up the only opportunity the United States would have to end bin Laden’s terrorist career for the next nine years.
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