From: http://www.petcem.com/dogs_of_war.htm

Proclaim ye this among the Gentiles; Prepare war, wake up the mighty men...Beat your
plowshares into swords and your pruninghooks into spears: let the weak say, I am strong"

(Joel 3:9-10).

Benjamin Franklin said, "They that give up essential liberty to obtain a little
temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."

"War is at best barbarism.... Its glory is all moonshine. It is only those who have neither fired a shot nor heard the shrieks and groans of the wounded who cry aloud for blood, more vengeance, more desolution. War is hell."
William Tecumseh Sherman,
Graduation address at Michigan Military Academy, June 19, 1879

"Cry 'Havoc!' and let slip the dogs of war." Shakespeare, Julius Caesar, III, i, 273.

"Mankind must put an end to war or war will put an end to mankind."
John F. Kennedy, Address to the United Nations, Sept. 25, 1961

"It is not the critic who counts, not the man who points out how the strong man stumbled, or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena; whose face is marred by the dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again; who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions and spends himself in a worthy course; who at the best, knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who, at worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly; so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory or defeat."

THEODORE ROOSEVELT

(Paris Sorbonne,1910)

DREAM - I was living in New Berlin, WI. I and my husband drove up to the top of the hill at the intersection of National Ave. and 172nd St. (Calhoun Rd.) There is no stop sign for National Ave., so traffic going north and south has to stop at the stop sign and then creep slowly forward and hope no car is coming from the east or west and slam into you. Since this is at the top of a hill, nobody can see where any other cars are coming from.

So, when we got to the top of the hill, it was pitch black outside. We could see one car trying to cross National Ave., both from the north AND from the south. We knew that because we could see their headlights.

The car from the south was further into the intersection than the one from the north and was slowly inching its way forward, still hoping no car came from the east or west before he made it to the other side of the intersection.

We pulled into the driveway of the house on the corner to wait our turn to cross the intersection. We had our headlights on as well.

Suddenly the outside lights of the house came on and a woman came to the door to see what we were doing in her driveway.

So, my husband went to the door of the house to talk to her, while I waited in the car.

When the woman opened the door, two dogs bounded out the door. I immediately recognized the dogs - they were 'THE DOGS OF WAR' - and they belonged to Benjamin Franklin.  One of the dogs was light brown with a dark-brown - almost black mask on its face around its eyes. The other dog was a silvery color.

I was petrified because these were the 'Dogs of War' and my feet were dangling outside the car and I was afraid I was going to be attacked.

My husband finished talking to the woman and we decided to go back home, but to my dismay, "The Dogs of War' went with us in the car. When we went back into our livingroom, I sat in a pink wing-backed chair and the the two dogs sat at my feet - one to the left and one to the right.

The next day, I went out into the garden where I had planted thousands of pink plume-fronded flowers. Towards the center of this garden, but with a path from one side, was a small concrete goldfish pond.  I was standing by the pond.

A schoolbus with a class of small girls came by and one of the little girls came running over. She wanted to give me a hug so her intentions were good, but she came running towards me as fast as she could go - though her teacher was yelling. "Go around! Go around!", the girl leapt up into the air, just barely clearing the flowers and landed in the center of the garden near the goldfish pond where I was standing.

I understood what the girl's intentions were, she just wanted a hug, but she was in too much of a hurry to get to where I was standing.

The girl hadn't damaged any flowers by leaping over them, but she might not leap as far if she tried it a second time, so I told the little girl's teacher that I would tell the little girl a secret so she'd never have to leap over the flowers again.

So, I bent down and whispered in the little girl's ear, "Time goes on forever, so you see you have plenty of time to walk around the garden. The hug will always be there waiting for you."

The little girl looked up at me and smiled, now knowing the secret of time.

I then went back into the house, into the boy's playroom. The playroom had a hard tiled floor of light blue. I saw 12 sky-blue eggs laying on the floor. I couldn't tell whether the eggs were plastic, hard-boiled, or raw but the boys playing with the eggs had cracked some of the eggs and they were in danger of cracking all the way through. So, I gently pushed the all the eggs together by the side of the room, where no one would step on them.

I noticed that the boys were outside playing war games. They had taken sides and it was getting rough.

Then I noticed that there was a set of marbles laying all over the floor. They were all the same color - crystal sky-blue.  I bent down a flipped a marble into the corner with my foot, where there was a ring etched in the tile and I scored a perfect hit.

So, I invited the boys to come into the house and settle their game of war by playing a game with the marbles. All they had to do was choose a marble (they were all alike), name the marble for a world leader and if the boy shot the marble perfectly into the ring in the floor tile like I had done, he would win the war.

The first marble chosen was name Benjamin Franklin. The marble didn't make it into the corner ring, so he didn't win.

The second world leader chosen was Ronald Reagan. When his marble was shot into the corner, it missed the ring as well, so he didn't win the war either.

I told the boys not to worry, there were still hundreds of marbles to choose from. All they had to do was name a different world leader each time until someone won the war.

**************************

9-15-02 - A DREAM FROM MY FRIEND DONNA -

We were at home and my husband's friend from England came over, all in a panic.  My husband asked him what was wrong. The friend from England said, "We need more 'acid-lava'.  My husband said, "What do we need 'acid-lava' for?  The friend didn't specify what the reason was, but was adamant that we needed more 'acid-lava'.  My husband said, "I really don't want to do this, but if we really have to, I'll drive you there.".  

We all got in the van together, with my husband driving and the English friend giving the directions to where the 'acid-lava' was located.  When we got to the place, it was like the 'tar-pits'. The 'acid-lava' was bubbling up from the ground in blue-green-black pools.  Some of it had hardened around the edges of the pools where people came to visit, but it was dangerous to get too near it.  

My husband was driving really fast and I cautioned him to slow down but he wouldn't. The Englishman also told him to slow down, but he didn't.  We got to the tar-pit area and my husband backed in o the area.  The back wheels were near the hard edge and it broke out from beneath the wheels and the car began to sink down into the tar-pit area.

We were all really freaking out, wondering how we were going to get out of this situation. I knew we couldn't open the car doors because the 'acid-lava' would start to come in the doors of the car and we'd sink faster.  I wondered if maybe we could cut a hole in the top of the car and climb out on top and be rescued that way.  

Meanwhile, we were all trying to figure out how to get out of the car, and it was sinking farther and farther down into the tar-pit with the 'acid-lava'.

At some point, the man from England vanished and I was sitting alone in the car with my husband as it sank farther and farther down into the 'acid-lava'. Finally the windows cracked and the 'acid-lava' started leaking into the car anyway and we sank down until the entire car was covered with the stuff and it was black inside the car.  

My husband said, "I'm so sorry! It looks like we're not going to get out of this alive.!  What makes me happy though is that you didn't blame me for what happened."

I was freaking out and wanted to leave my body so I wouldn't suffer the pain of being eaten alive by the 'acid-lava'. But my husband begged me to stay with him because he was afraid to die alone.  Finally, I agreed to stay with him and suffer death alongside him. It was inevitable. There was no way we could be saved from death. So I hugged my husband and we sat there, waiting to die.

I started to wake up, and I had a sudden vision - It was the face of Dick Cheney, the Vice President of the United States. A voice said clearly , "Dick Cheney"!

Some scholars believe it was the Hyksos (the mysterious invaders of Egypt who ruled from Avaris in the Delta) who popularised the use of spike-collared dogs in war. Along with light and speedy battle-chariots, both of which were used extensively during the New Kingdom, in particular by the expansionist Pharaoh Rameses II, who all too often cried "havoc and let slip the dogs of war." It is likely, however, earlier dynasties also used war dogs, though perhaps not to the extent seen later.

Mastiffs have been bred for all manner of tasks over the centuries. They were used as dogs of war, for gladiatorial contests in Roman arenas, for bear baiting and as draft animals. Their main use was as guardians of people and property.

In AD 74, the Romans invaded the area of Germany that they named Arae Flaviea (Flavian altar, in honor of the Flavian Emperor Vespasian), which was later named first Rotwil in 700 A.D., then Rottweil in approximately 1140 A.D. With them they brought the "Dogs of War", the molosser type dogs which were the progenitors of Rottweilers and many other breeds of that area.

Benjamin Franklin wanted dogs to become a part of the colonial militia. Colonist Benjamin Franklin was very concerned about the indian attacks on the settlements close to Boston. Towns and villages were being raided and burned, the inhabitants killed. His remarks were directed to the colonial militias fighting both, the French and the various indian tribes who were fighting for them.

Benjamin Franklin, 1775. Is quoted as writing to a friend: "Dogs should be used against the Indians. They should be large, strong and fierce; and every dog led in a slip string, to prevent their tiring themselves by running out and in, and discovering the party by barking at squirrels, etc. Only when the party come near thick woods and suspicious places they should turn out a dog or two to search them. In case of meeting a party of the enemy, the dogs are all then to be turned loose and set on. They will be fresher and finer for having been previously confined and will confound the enemy a good deal and be very serviceable. This was the Spanish method of guarding their marches."

WAR DOGS - THE UNTOLD STORY OF DOGS IN COMBAT

War Dogs - US Army's use of dogs 1942-Present

National War Dog Memorial Fund

Vietnam Dog Handler Association

The American Legion Post 127 War Dog Memorial

THE WAR DOG MEMORIAL

Australian Army Trackers & War Dogs Association

United Animal Nations

U.S. WAR DOGS

The Dogs of War

The Forgotten Hero's

War Dogs!!!

Dogs Of War

Veterans: Dogs of War Deserve a Memorial

United States War Dogs Association, Inc.

War Dogs: Canine Military Support Resource Guide

Dogs Of War.CC

47th Scout Dog Platoon Web Site

War Dogs: Canines in Combat

Please Help Us Honor America’s War Dogs

America's war dogs

British War Dogs

In CIA parlance missions that are “successful” create backlashes.
The CIA aptly calls this “Blowback when what we've created blows back in our face..”
When blowback strikes, the consequences are as devastating as they are tragic.

At the end of WW II the US took empire from a weakened Britain and France. Among the first casualties was East Europe, which was sacrificed on the mantle of superpower relations. That same deal between superpowers saw Greece put down by England and the US, with Soviet compliance. The Soviets and the West also concluded that the people of both their respective spheres would be put down if necessary in the interests of “stability.” Democracy on both sides of the Cold War divide was shelved.

Afghanistan, "Terrorism" and Blowback: A Chronology

by Janette Rainwater, Ph.D.

1747 Ahmad Shah Durrani becomes the chief of the Afghan Pashtun tribes. [He freed the Pashtun areas of what is now Afghanistan from Iranian rule, and then went on to acquire territory from the deteriorating empires to the west and east--- the Safavi dynasty in Iran and the Mughals in India. At the height of his conquests in 1762 his empire included all of present-day Pakistan, parts of northern India and the area around Meshed in Iran. The southern boundary was the Arabian Sea and included the port of Karachi. Nyrop, Richard F. and Donald M. Seekins, Afghanistan, a country study (1986), pp. 13-19.]

America's recruitment of Nazis,   and its disastrous effect on our domestic and foreign policy

by Christopher Simpson

Collier / Macmillan, 1988

The basic rationale U.S. policymakers used after 1945 to justify employment of former Nazis and collaborators was the possibility- no, the imminence-of the outbreak of a new war between the United States and the USSR.

The American anticipation of a cataclysm was reinforced by the East-West geopolitical confrontation in Europe and the Mideast in the first years after World War II; by the shortage of reliable information about actual conditions in the east; and not infrequently by religious doctrine that asserted that the Communists were Satan's army on earth.' Such perceptions varied from individual to individual, of course, but were by no means a fringe phenomenon.

See:  Book Excerpts

In the early 1980s after the overthrow of the pro-U.S. Shah of Iran by Shiite Islamic fundamentalists, the CIA supported and pushed Saddam Hussein to wage war against Iran. For several years, hundreds of thousands of Iraqi and Iranian workers and soldiers die in this war. Now Saddam Hussein is competing with bin Laden as number one in the U.S. top list of enemies.

George Bush Sr. was godfather to one of General Manuel Noriega’s children. Noriega was another CIA asset, used against the nationalist Panamian ruler General Torrijos, who negotiated the nationalization of the Panama Canal. In 1989, Bush ordered an invasion of Panama when Noriega another "blow black" for the CIA. Several thousands Panamanians died when Stealth planes bombed Chorillo, a working class neighborhood, during the invasion.

During the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, US officials passed billions in funding and training to the mojahedin. The CIA, in particular while under the direction of William Casey - head of the agency during the Reagan administration - was the main manager of these operations. With the Russian withdrawal in 1989, the CIA "celebrated its victory with champagne".

The celebrations, under the presidency of George Bush senior (himself a  former CIA director), were premature. The sophisticated methods taught to the mojahedin, and the thousands of tons of arms supplied to them by the US - and Britain - are now tormenting the west in the phenomenon known as "blowback", whereby a policy strategy rebounds on its own devisers. The  sins of the father, it might well be said, are being heaped on the head of the son.

The British military establishment colluded with the US in supporting the  mojahedin, with SAS and Green Berets going into Afghanistan itself. they were inevitably drawn into actual combat. "We came to a small hamlet and were stopped by a couple of mojahedin. They asked us, surprisingly politely, whether we would mind helping them, as their commander had decided he was going to make some  kind of stand against the Russians."

It was Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher's British government which supported the jihad with full enthusiasm". Hindered by Congressional interference, the CIA covertly sought Mrs Thatcher's help - in one incident, during the Falklands war, they curried favour by handing over an illegal supply of Stinger missiles to British officials in a Washington car park.

See: http://www.flora.org/library/wtc/foden.html

During the 1980s, resistance fighters in Afghanistan developed a world-wide recruitment and support network with the aid of the USA, Saudi Arabia and other states. After the 1989 Soviet withdrawal, this network, which equipped, trained and funded thousands of Muslim fighters, came under the control of Osama bin Laden. In light of evidence from the recently completed US embassy bombing trials, Phil Hirschkorn, Rohan Gunaratna, Ed Blanche, and Stefan Leader examine the genesis, operational methods and organisational structure of the Bin Laden network: Al-Qaeda.

Al-Qaeda ('The Base') is a conglomerate of groups spread throughout the world operating as a network. It has a global reach, with a presence in Algeria, Egypt, Morocco, Turkey, Jordan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Syria, Xinjiang in China, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Malaysia, Myanmar, Indonesia, Mindanao in the Philippines, Lebanon, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Yemen, Libya, Tunisia, Bosnia, Kosovo, Chechnya, Dagestan, Kashmir, Sudan, Somalia, Kenya, Tanzania, Azerbaijan, Eritrea, Uganda, Ethiopia, and in the West Bank and Gaza.

Since its creation in 1988, Osama bin Laden has controlled Al-Qaeda. As such, he is both the backbone and the principal driving force behind the network. . . .

See: Jane's International Security News

M A Y 1 9 9 6

BLOWBACK

The CIA poured billions into a jihad against Soviet-occupied Afghanistan, creating a militant Islamist Abraham Lincoln Brigade believed to have been involved in bombings from Islamabad to New York. Is Bosnia next?

The Lessons of Blowback

Even carefully planned actions can have unintended consequences. Let's not do something that ultimately benefits terrorists.

by Chalmers Johnson

SAN DIEGO -- One of the objectives of terrorism is to provoke the ruling elites of a target regime into disastrous overreaction. When it works, as it has in Israel over the past year, the results can be devastating for all sides. Who does this ultimately benefit? The terrorists.

Carlos Marighella, the Brazilian guerrilla leader whose writings influenced political terrorists in the 1960s and 1970s, explained why. If the government can be provoked into a military response to terrorism, he wrote, this will alienate the masses, causing them to "revolt against the army and the police and blame them for this state of things."

The overreaction doesn't necessarily have to alienate only domestic "masses." If we inflict great misery on innocent people in the Middle East, there will almost certainly be what the CIA refers to as "blowback"--unintended negative consequences of our actions. Vacillating supporters of the terrorists might be drawn into committing terrorist acts. Moderate governments throughout the Islamic world, especially in Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, would almost certainly face growing internal dissent and could even be overthrown. Perhaps the prime example of terrorism succeeding is the Philippeville massacre of Aug. 20, 1955, in which Algerian revolutionaries killed 123 French colonials. A conscious act of terrorism carried out by revolutionaries who until then had enjoyed only slight popular backing, the Philippeville massacre led to a massive and bloody retaliation by the French. It also converted a leading French reformer (Jacques Soustelle, then governor-general of Algeria) into an advocate of suppression. The French crackdown eliminated most of the moderates on the Muslim side and caused influential French citizens back home to turn against their country's policies. This chain of events ultimately provoked a French army mutiny, brought Gen. Charles de Gaulle back to power as the savior of the nation and caused a French withdrawal from Algeria. Franco-Algerian relations are still strained today.

See:  The Lessons of Blowback

Blowback - The Cost and Consequences of the American Empire - the Book

Bill Clinton, nearing the end of his White House tenure, knew that he had to be seen doing something to help end drug abuse in America. And Colombia's incoming president, Andre's Pastrana, knew that Colombia would not win the world's respect unless he could transform the nation into something other than the most agile and productive drug exporter in the global marketplace.

Pastrana had a master plan -- or at least a name for one: "Plan Colombia." And the U.S. supposedly, had the know-how, money and resolve to help make it work. The payoff for Colombia would be a new economic and social foundation for a future free of drugs and civil violence. The payoff for the United States would be meaningful and measurable progress in the War on Drugs.

Today nearly four years later, Plan Colombia is dead. You don't need classified information to know this. According to CIA findings, Colombian coca cultivation is up by nearly twenty-five percent, possibly the greatest one-year increase in the three decades since Richard Nixon declared war on drugs. And now we are about to get in even deeper. During his recent trip to Latin America, President Bush called for big increases in U.S. military involvement. And in April, President Pastrana was scheduled to reappear in Washington -- not with a plan this time, but with a plea for direct U.S. military help fighting Colombia's guerrillas. Before our eyes, a failed "war on drugs" is turning into an open-ended "war on terrorism."

See:  http://www.mapinc.org/ccnews/v02/n946/a11.html?146

by Raymond K. Kent
August 31, 2001

The Albanian "Bastard Army" was created by the CIA and the Pentagon for the ground invasion of Serbia under Milosevic. This invasion did not materialize. The Serb Third Army and police left Kosovo to NATO troops and a United Nations Administration without any real ground combat. One of the basic provisions built into the Serb pullout was the total and effective disarmament of the so-called Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA). It was not implemented.

The KLA "reprisals" against Serb civilians in Kosovo were even defined as "justifiable retribution" by the top UN Officer, Bernard Kouchner. Through our diplomatic intervention at Rambouillet and an air war against the Serbs, Kosovo’s moderate Albanians were completely marginalized in favor of the KLA. This has made any future cohabitation impossible and the KLA proved it via the ethnic cleansing of all non-Albanians from Kosovo, some 300,000 all told, right under the "watchful eye" of the 40,000 NATO troops suffering from self-induced myopia. Over 1,000 Serbs were abducted in a relatively short time and never found (but for one large mass grave). Kosovo became a paradise for white slavers, drug dealers and all sorts of illegal activities. The UN response was to draft the KLA fighters into its Constabulary and they promptly used it for more of the same. It also became clear that the more egregious charges against the Serbs in Kosovo could not be substantiated. The Clinton Administration Officials and some very vocal pro-Albanian Solons swept the Kosovo realities under the rug. This seemed sufficient to avoid any serious questioning of inept and capricious diplomacy at Rambouillet and the very need for an air war against Milosevic (i.e. the Serbs). But the Bastard Army was still around, and very much in-charge of Kosovo, which had been served to it on a silver plate.

See: http://www.antiwar.com/rep/kent1.html