In a 2008 interview Patrick Cockburn, a veteran Iraq war correspondent, describes an incident in which he was one step away of being shot by insurgents. He was traveling from Baghdad to Najaf where Muqtada al-Sadr’s militia was resisting the U.S. Marines. Believing that a serious threat would come from the Sunni Arabs, he chose to wear a red and white kufia in order to be perceived as an Arab from the distance and not be shot at while on the road. However, he had the misfortune of running directly into a militia-controlled checkpoint. Once he was spotted, the heavily armed men dragged him out of the car, ripped of his kufia and started shouting “American spy!”

“They dragged me and two Iraqis out of the car. I and the Iraqis thought: That’s it. They’re going to kill us. Tens of thousands of Iraqis have died in this way.” Fortunately, at the last moment one gunman suggested that the captives should be taken to the Sheikh at the Mosque and let him decide their fate.

“They took us there and then things gradually became better,” Patrick Cockburn said when interviewed by James Zogby on After Words.

Next time, he might not be so lucky.

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A war cannot be won without solid intelligence, no war ever was. The US and most countries are involved in a new type of warfare, one that is not conventional in any way. The battlefields are now placed within the daily lives of countless people, battles are fought near their streets and homes and even more, the enemy now literarily takes refuge inside communities of which support they strongly depend.

As wars no longer witness regular armies with conventional weapons, the role of the intelligence service reaches sky high levels of importance. The Obama administration clearly understands this aspect of the forth generation warfare. As the public was shocked with the interrogation methods applied within the walls of Guantanamo, the intelligence service has to come up with new techniques and methods of obtaining information without being characterized as barbarian.

According to a recent AP news story, the US is considering a new unit of professional interrogators “to handle high-value terror suspects.” The unit’s “primary purpose would be intelligence-gathering, rather than building criminal cases for prosecution.”

No information is available on the way they will operate, and probably it will never be. But one question still remains: how do you convince an individual who has absolutely no doubts that what his organization does is far from being terrorism and he believes that this is what his religion requires, betray all that and offer valuable and reliable information?

Torture is not an option.

Some of us think that under immense physical pressure and incredible pain many Taliban or Al Qaida fighters will crack and start offering reliable information. This assumption is unrealistic. When an individual joins Al Qaida, he offers his life for the group’s cause; he would gladly endure pain or voluntarily sacrifice his life for any small and apparently unimportant benefit to the group.

To successfully extract information from such individuals, one has to completely understand the way they think, what makes them tick and what vulnerabilities do they present. This will be a very difficult task for the future special unit of interrogation.

Israel National News reports:

Hamas’s military council voted this week to gradually renew attacks from Gaza, according to a report on Friday by Maariv/nrg. The report says the attacks would escalate, depending on Israel’s reaction.

The first phase is to attack Israeli forces operating along the Gaza security fence. The escalation would be in the form of rocket fire. The attacks would be carried out by independent terrorist groups to relieve Hamas of the responsibility.

Since the end of Israel’s Cast Lead counter-terror operation in December and January, Hamas has set up a massive system for launching rockets with better accuracy and more range. It has also installed a line of mines, booby-trapped tunnels and other explosive devices.

Is this report to be trusted? I find it hard not to be a little skeptic.

According to a Reuters report, personal computers in the US and South Korea may be under serious threat as a new phase of cyber attacks launched from 5 countries will start in the next days.

Previous attacks aimed different government and business sites in South Korea and the US. However, they failed to produce significant damage, Reuters writes. The five countries from where the attacks were initiated are South Korea, United States, Germany, Georgia and Austria. Experts say that although North Korea is not on the list, it is known that Kim Jong-il launched a cyber warfare unit.

Some attacks came from North Korea, I do not think there can be any doubt in this. Any serious hacker would find a way to avoid direct tracking by making his IP look like from a foreign country, perhaps Germany or Georgia. The process is not that difficult, all you need is working proxies.

During the recent uprising in Iran, some people actually had it difficult to post videos and photos on the net. In consequence, they used HTTP proxies which virtually make them look as uploading from a different country.

I’m not an expert on Internet Security, thus the example I offered above is probably the most rudimentary method of illicit web surfing.

Now you may ask yourself this question: do North Koreans have computers? The majority does not; however let’s remember that the Stalinists impoverished their country just to invest in nuclear arms. Therefore, I see no reason in why they couldn’t have a highly trained cyber warfare unit.

The head of U.S. Central Command in Afghanistan warned that months of fighting lie ahead in what will likely be the biggest military operation there since the American-led invasion of 2001.

A recent AP story informs.

This is exactly what every US general will tell you: We have months ahead of tough fighting. The enemy is crippled but we have a couple of more months and we will have a decisive victory.

In my view, there is no end in sight. As Col. Thomas Hammes puts it in his book The Sling and the Stone: On War in the 21st Century, this kind of warfare (4GW) is not measured in years, but decades. Even more, it seems that the Coalition seeks a ‘decisive’ battle or a campaign to end this war once and for all. Although Operation Strike of the Sword is very promising and clearly adapted to 4GW, it may take years before the military can leave Afghanistan.

On the other side, the Taliban have no understanding of a decisive victory in Afghanistan – they will never have the firepower of the US Army. Their number are diminishing but this will only succeed in making them go deeper underground and operate even more carefully with less resources. And this will probably make our war even more expensive.

Alright, this post’s title may go a little too far, but I was shocked to find out that Britain does not persecute those who are accused of genocide and crimes against humanity. Things might change now, but there are already a few problems.

Anyway, take a look at this:

New powers to prosecute war criminals living in Britain have been unveiled by the justice secretary, Jack Straw. He proposes prosecutions against British nationals and residents accused of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity. Straw says the law will send a clear signal that Britain will no longer be a safe haven for those who commit such crimes. Will he begin by considering the case against himself?

My knowledge of Straw’s policy is limited and I will not comment any further. However, according to Stop the War Coalition, he should face trial. But won’t he have the power to make any changes necessary so that he could escape trial? Perhaps go to Sri Lanka, I’m sure the government there does not prosecute for crimes against humanity.

Back to Britain, here’s what The Guardian writes:

He proposes closing a gap in the law so that prosecutions can go ahead against British nationals and residents accused of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity. The changes will not cover people who are “passing through” or on a short visit.

This basically means that a war criminal can visit friends in Britain without fearing arrest.

[Jack Straw] will seek to cover acts of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity committed after 1 January 1991, which is the date from which the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia is able to operate.

Or the war criminal can visit his mentor who probably is an 80s genocide superstar, who comfortably lives in Britain. They can have a tea, check out the pubs, just like anybody else.

…disturbing.

True, according to a recent press release issued by Ecigarettesnational.com:

The origins of the anti-smoking campaign in Germany have their roots in the Nazi medical and military communities, as they were concerned that the act of smoking goes against the idea of a pure race. A number of tactics were used to attempt to discourage German civilians and soldiers from smoking, including allowing non-smoking soldiers to obtain candy or extra food in their rations instead of cigarettes.

Isn’t it funny? But wait, there’s more:

Adolf Hitler despised the act of smoking and went to the lengths that many areas of the United States are going to today: banning smoking in public buildings, post offices, restaurants, bars, civic transport, nursing homes, and workplaces. There was even a call for a ban on smoking while driving, but the ban was never passed into law. The habit of smoking was depicted as something no good respecting German would do: according to the Reich, only Jews, Gypsies, homosexuals, and other similar groups saw it fit to smoke.

Here are a couple of interesting photos:

And the one in which Goering is smoking a “bubble pipe”:

Call me a nazi, but I’m against smoking and I do smoke. I strongly believe that if I won’t see too many people smoking in bars when I go out, then I’ll be able to reduce the number of cigarettes per day or even quit.

And it was about time that German solders fighting in the so-called “War on Terror” receive simbolic acknowledgment for their service.

As you probably know, the real Iron Cross was abandoned after the end of the Second World War – nobody wanted to see it anymore. I find this to be absurd. The Cross has had a long history and tens of thousands of brave men received the decoration after fighting in 19th century wars as well as in both World Wars . By eliminating this decoration, their sacrifice is ignored.

Wouldn’t it be just as absurd to cancel different American military decorations just because some officials believe that the war in Irak is illegal?

I remember a great line in the movie Black Hawk Down when a Delta Force soldier said that (I am now citing from my memory) “when the first bullet passes by your head, politics and all that don’t mean nothing.” Not all German soldiers in WW2 who received the Iron Cross were nazis, and I am sure none of them were in the Great War – not to mention those who fought in previous wars.

Besides, the WW2 Iron Cross had a little swastika in the middle. The German government could have replaced those with old fashion pre-WW2 Iron Crosses.

Anyway, the soldiers that received the now called Cross of Honor fully deserve it.

They had dragged comrades and children to safety after a suicide bomb attack in northern Afghanistan.

As far as open source evidence suggest (news reports etc), the US government did not interfere directly to the uprising in Iran after the alleged fraud in the presidential elections. However, it interfered indirectly with a statement from Obama.

Well, a recent Washington Post article cites Ahmadinejad replying to the US president:

“Why did he interfere and comment in a way that disregards convention and courtesy? It is enough. No not disgrace yourself further by such language and behavior.”

I am not going to review Obama’s speech concerning Iran – but why make a statement in the first place? This is interfering indirectly into the country’s internal affairs and as far as I am concerned, the US has no business in Iran. Leave them alone!

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