‘The Pakistani government and pro-Taliban militants announced that they signed a peace accord Tuesday aimed at ending five years of violent unrest in a tribal region bordering Afghanistan.

The agreement came as a NATO-led offensive in southern Afghanistan continued for a fourth day, with U.S. artillery and airstrikes killing 50 to 60 suspected Taliban militants Tuesday, a NATO spokesman said.

Under the peace deal, the militants are to halt attacks on Pakistani forces in the semiautonomous North Waziristan region and stop crossing into nearby eastern Afghanistan to attack U.S. and Afghan forces hunting Qaeda and Taliban forces. It came as Pakistan's president, General Pervez Musharraf, was set to visit Kabul on Wednesday in a move aimed at improving strained relations between the United States' two key allies in the fight against terrorism.

The accord calls for Pakistani troops to stop their hugely unpopular military campaign in the restive Pakistani region, in which more than 350 soldiers have died, along with hundreds of militants and scores of civilians.

But the agreement, which one official said offered an "implicit amnesty" to foreign and local militants, highlights the Pakistani military's inability to crush a violent pro-Taliban insurgency on its own soil.’

Pakistan Signs Peace Deal With Pro-Taliban Militants

From The Independent

US and Europe are united in rejection of 'war on terror'

By Stephen Castle in Brussels
Published: 07 September 2006

George Bush's beleaguered foreign policy has been dealt a [http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/article1369596.ece|serious blow] as a poll showed that Americans and Europeans reject the US President's pursuit of the "war on terror".
For the first time in its five-year existence, the Transatlantic Trends opinion poll found that more Americans opposed President Bush's handling of international affairs - 58 per cent - than approved of it - 40 per cent.
The survey, conducted by the German Marshall Fund of the United States, provides a devastating commentary on the failure of President Bush and Tony Blair to convince the public of the merits of the "war on terror".
President Bush's approach has been shown to be increasingly unpopular, despite the fact that citizens on both continents share a growing fear of terrorism. European opposition to US foreign policy has risen over the past five years from 56 per cent to 77 per cent.

"We're engaged in a global struggle against the followers of a murderous ideology, that despises freedom and crushes all dissent, and has territorial ambitions and pursues totalitarian aims." says bushit.

meanwhile, the rest of the world thinks of Amerika ……

"We're engaged in a global struggle against the followers of a murderous ideology, that despises freedom and crushes all dissent, and has territorial ambitions and pursues totalitarian aims."

US Plays Down al-Qaeda In List Of Terror Threats

If I wuz Bin laden, I would be worried...

The US president needs a bit of fluff before the November elections of his congress... He's already steering his boat upwind with the admission of the secret rendition prisons, the existence of which he denied previously. But what he lost here on the port tack, he wins on the starboard tack of populism by revealing the bounty these secret prisons held: all kind of nasty figures who were (or not — it does not really matter) useful in getting valuable "information" to fight the "war on Terra". On the following tack, the president will let his military commissions mangle the law through Guano bay populist stuff...

But the inertia of the public at large is weary of small potatoes. It demands stronger booze for its addiction to Infotainment voyeurism... What the public needs to be fed now is a major serious victory, like a Napoleon at Austerlitz, to go praising the general forever, not knowing he is to meet his Waterloo later on...

Osama's head would be the perfect illusion of pyric victory, despite the fact the major part of the trumpeting brought on terrorism, was due to the stupid, but popular, reactions of the president and achieved a few results:
A) the president went to liberate Afghanistan from the gangster the US used to support against that country's possible communist government...
B) the president went on to kick the wrong arse (Iraq) using sordid and lying ways, being kicked back in the third phase... despite a "mission Accomplished" banner.
C) Terrorism, independently of Osama, has flourished beyond Osama's own dreams... The number of people who would like to kick the US's arse — in return for all kind of undeserved deaths, destruction and humiliation — has soared by zillions.

---------------------
From our ABC
In his weekly radio address, [http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200609/s1737261.htm|Mr Bush has said] the United States is safer than it was five years ago, but the country still faces determined enemies.
"We must take the words of these extremists seriously and we must act decisively to stop them from achieving their evil aims," he said.
He has warned Americans the "war on terror" will be long and difficult, with more tough days ahead.
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Gus: DAYS? Tough days? The way it's handled, the war on terra will last light years! But then:
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from our ABC again:
Afghanistan remembers [http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200609/s1737334.htm|military 'hero'] Afghans have been commemorating the death five years ago of anti-Soviet and anti-Taliban militia leader Ahmed Shah Massoud.
He was killed by suspected Al Qaeda suicide bombers two days before the attacks on the United States on September 11, 2001.
President Hamid Karzai and other government officials are among hundreds of people who have gathered in the main stadium of the capital, Kabul, to hear speeches and songs in honour of Mr Massoud.
Mr Karzai paid this tribute to him.
"As he had promised to our people, he'd defend this country whether alive or dead," he said. "He defended his country while he was alive and he liberated it when he died."

From Wikipedia, the free enclyclopedia
Ahmed Shah Massoud (احمد شاه مسعود) (January 9, 1953 – September 9, 2001) (variant transliterations include Ahmad, Massood, Masoud, Masood, etc.) was a Kabul University engineering student turned Afghan military leader who played a leading role in driving the Soviet army out of Afghanistan, earning him the nickname The Lion of Panjshir. He was officially proclaimed the national hero of Afghanistan on April 25, 2002.

Massoud was an ethnic Tajik who was charismatic and respected by all factions of the Afghan population. In the early 1990s he became Defence Minister under President Burhanuddin Rabbani. Following the collapse of Rabbani's government and the rise of the Taliban regime, Massoud became the military leader of the Northern Alliance, a coalition of various armed Afghani opposition groups embroiled in a prolonged civil war. As the Taliban established control over most of Afghanistan, Massoud's forces held the mountainous areas of the north, where they controlled some 10% of Afghanistan's territory and perhaps 30% of its population until late 2001. Massoud was assassinated on September 9, 2001, two days before the al-Qaeda attack on 9/11.

Massoud's team [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ahmed_Shah_Massoud|received millions of dollars from the CIA] in the 1980s and 1990s to fight the Soviets. According to Ghost Wars, by Steve Coll [1]: "The CIA had pumped cash stipends as high as $200,000 a month to Massoud and his Islamic guerrilla organization, along with weapons and other supplies. Between 1989 and 1991, Schroen had personally delivered some of the cash. But the aid stopped in December 1991 when the Soviet Union dissolved. The United States government decided it had no further interests in Afghanistan."

----------------
Gus: No further interest in Afghanistan? What do'ya mean? problem solved? This fellow, Ahmed Shah Massoud. had to go turn around and fight the Taliban on his own... But when he was fighting the soviets, was he also fighting his own communist government who was decidedly against religious fundamentalism... Thus now the Taliban has been ousted with the help of the US, the new government, still not in control of its space, is only a step removed from religious fundamentalism... the many layers here being managed by the US-Nato forces like a dinosaur trying to understand the weather.

So our Bushit-Hero needed an Osama to blame, but now the illusion is fading a bit, even since the release of Osama "admission of 9/11 deed" video — (number 5 on the list of most emailed articles at the Al Jazeera website — one notch below the croc man himself, Steve Irwin, at number four, while at numero uno is the ban by the Saudi's religious police on the sales of dogs and cats) — our Hero-Bushit needs a head on a platter...

If I wuz...

‘What motivated the 9/11 hijackers to attack the US?

US foreign policy bias for Israel in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and US government support for other oppressive regimes in the Middle East.

The 9-11 Commission held its twelfth and final public hearing June 16-17, 2004, in Washington, DC. On June 16 the Commission heard from several of the federal government's top law enforcement and intelligence experts on al Qaeda and the 9-11 plot.

It was at this hearing that the question "What motivated them to do it?" was finally asked.’

What Motivated The 9/11 Hijackers? The Hidden Truth

meanwhile, some of the sleepers finally awake …..

‘Five years after September 11, 2001, Americans are considerably less enthusiastic about projecting military power abroad, according to a major new survey, the first of a spate of polls that are likely to be released in the run-up to Monday's fifth anniversary of the attacks on New York and the Pentagon. 

The survey, conducted by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press in Washington, found that Republicans remained substantially more supportive of military deployments overseas than either Democrats or independents, who also believe, by 3-1, that the United States has lost respect in the world over the past few years.

The survey of more than 1,500 randomly selected adults also found that nearly half (46%) of the respondents consider US support for Israel a "major reason" for the rise in anti-US sentiment around the world, a significant increase since Pew last posed the question 10 months ago.’

Poll Finds Waning Faith In Military Interventions

and for those still suffering from memory impairment …..

Mark Fiore’s new animation "America Remembers Again" has just been posted!