Chris Floyd: Burn After Reading: Intel Dump Muddies Dirty War Waters

Burn After Reading: Intel Dump Muddies Dirty War Waters
Written by Chris Floyd

Throughout the long history of the Afghan War, the United States has never accused the Taliban of using white phosphorus weapons -- until now. Suddenly, after the emergence of glaring evidence of Afghan civilians being seared and maimed by these chemical weapons following American airstrikes and combat operations, the Pentagon has released "classified information" claiming that the Taliban have actually been using white phosphorus weapons for six years, since 2003: a practice that the Pentagon -- which has been using white phosphorus weapons in Afghanistan since 2002 if not before -- denounced as "reprehensible."

This is very curious. The bipartistan managers of the Terror War have always been eager to trumpet -- even exaggerate -- the atrocities committed by the various armed groups opposing the imposition of foreign troops in Afghanistan. But now we are to believe that the Pentagon has been keeping evidence of the Taliban's chemical weapons use -- chem weapons! WMDs! -- under wraps for years.

The "classified intelligence" was released in friendly territory: The Times (UK), owned by Fox News' own Rupert Murdoch.

(By the way, isn't it strange that super-duper top-secret material which would threaten the very existence of the United States and its way of life if it were divulged to, say, lawyers for torture victims or members of the public who've been illegally spied upon, can always be released when there are PR gains to be made? Why, it almost makes you think that Arthur Silber might be right when he tell us that "the 'secret' knowledge, which goes by the viciously misnamed designation 'intelligence' ... is almost always wrong... and is primarily used as propaganda, to provide alleged justification to a public that still remains disturbingly gullible and pliable -- and it is used after the fact, to justify decisions that have already been made."

Could that really be true? Would they really, you know, just lie and exaggerate and make things up? Perhaps we could ask the brand-new commander whom Obama has appointed in Afghanistan: Lt. Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the Special Ops honcho who ran covert ops and commandos in Iraq (see "Ulster on the Euphrates" for more on such activities on "the dark side, if you will"), and later signed off on the shameful concoction of the "heroic death in battle" of the war-questioning, Chomsky-reading Pat Tillman, who was in fact killed by his own men.)

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What's more, the Pentagon is now trying to claim that the mass slaughter of more than 140 civilians last week -- killed after a sustained bombing raid destroyed a compound where children, women and old men were sheltering from a battle miles away -- was really the Taliban's fault. How can that be, when officials of the U.S.-backed Afghan government, the International Red Cross and eyewitnesses on the ground all say that the compound, and three surrounding villages, were pulverized by a raid lasting several hours? Why, the discovery that some survivors were also by white phosphorus proves it! Because although the Pentagon routinely uses white phosphorus all over the country, it didn't use it on the day of the slaughter! And how do we know this? Because... the Pentagon said so! Case closed! Just as it was when General McChrystal signed off on Tillman's medal for his heroic death in battle, despite knowing the truth about the "friendly fire" killing.

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