President Bush receives a briefing on national policy issues from VP Dick Cheney, Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld, and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Richard B. Myers, U.S. Air Force, at the Pentagon. 
AP Photo/Department of Defense, Tech. Sgt. Kevin J. Gruenwald, U.S. Air Force  

Rather than being a tragic reminder of past Cold War conflicts, confined to a remote and barbarous country, Angola's present condition is an example of the handiwork of men like Secretary of Defence Rumsfeld, who strenuously lobbied for the removal of Congressional barriers on arming anti-government forces in the mid-1970s, Dick Cheney, a tireless supporter of UNITA, and George Bush senior, who both as president and head of the CIA prosecuted the war.

In claiming that the Angolan war was the result of super-power rivalry, the U.S. press is echoing the words of Henry Kissinger.

Conflicting Missions - Henry Kissinger
Secret Cuban Documents on History of Africa Involvement

Sept. 19 -- Fascinating. No really, the `evolution' of state disinformation has probably never been better displayed than in the case of the two (more than likely) SAS soldiers who were `liberated' after being arrested by the Iraqi police on 19 September by a phalanx of tanks and helicopter gunships that stormed the police station where the two undercover soldiers were being held after they allegedly failed to stop at an Iraqi police roadblock and subsequently opened fire on the Iraqi police, killing one and wounding another.

The car they were travelling in was loaded with weapons including allegedly, assault rifles, a light machine gun, an anti-tank weapon, radio gear and a medical kit ('standard' SAS issue according to the BBC). According to at least two reports, the car they were traveling in (A Toyota Cressida) was "booby-trapped"

Subsequent accounts vary according to the source but according to the initial story broadcast on the BBC (19/9/05), the two men wore traditional Arab dress but then this changed to "civilian dress" (BBC TV News).

[...]
By now, in a classic disinformation campaign, so many stories were being circulated that sorting out the truth from fiction was virtually impossible unless one is prepared to dig and dig deep.

What is clear is that the two SAS "undercover operatives" had been caught red-handed by the British government's alleged allies, the Iraqi police, dressed as Arabs, replete with wigs and armed to the teeth and in a car which according to one report, was packed with explosives (the car by the way, has been taken away by the British occupation forces).

  «« click on pic for more photos
Iraqi policemen search a car at a checkpoint in the southern Iraqi city of Basra. Local authorities in southern Iraq said they were halting cooperation with British forces, whose soldiers stormed a Basra jail to release two of their men, until the pair was handed back to face Iraqi justice.  AFP/Essam Al-Sudani

[...]
So now, the two undercover SAS men were, it is imputed, searching for `insurgents' as part of a counter-insurgency operation, which if true, what were they doing dressed as Iraqis?
Were they on some kind of provocative operation? According to one report, this is exactly what they were up to. Fattah al-Shaykh, a member of the Iraqi National Assembly told this account to al-Jazeera

If you really want to look for truth, then we should resort to the Iraqi justice away from the British provocations against the sons of Basra, particularly what happened today when the sons of Basra caught two non-Iraqis, who seem to be Britons and were in a car of the Cressida type. It was a booby-trapped car laden with ammunition and was meant to explode in the centre of the city of Basra in the popular market. However, the sons of the city of Basra arrested them. They [the two non-Iraqis] then fired at the people there and killed some of them. The two arrested persons are now at the Intelligence Department in Basra, and they were held by the National Guard force, but the British occupation forces are still surrounding this department in an attempt to absolve them of the crime.

[Al-Munajjid] In fact, Nidal, this incident gave answers to questions and suspicions that were lacking evidence about the participation of the occupation in some armed operations in Iraq. Many analysts and observers here had suspicions that the occupation was involved in some armed operations against civilians and places of worship and in the killing of scientists. But those were only suspicions that lacked proof. The proof came today through the arrest of the two British soldiers while they were planting explosives in one of the Basra streets. This proves, according to observers, that the occupation is not far from many operations that seek to sow sedition and maintain disorder, as this would give the occupation the justification to stay in Iraq for a longer period.

"What our police found in their car was very disturbing - weapons, explosives, and a remote control detonator. These are the weapons of terrorists. We believe these soldiers were planning an attack on a market or other civilian targets," Sheik Hassan al-Zarqani, spokesman for the Mehdi Army said.

What needs to be given more attention in the wake of recent clashes that broke out in Basra following the arrest of two British soldier last week is whether those commandos were planning an attack or not, whether their car did have explosives or not? The answer to this question is crucial for the future of Iraq and Bush's so-called "war on terror".

If allegations that the soldiers' car was loaded with explosives were proved, this will strengthen the theory suggesting that the British and American Intelligence is involved in the persistent and violent acts of "terror" spreading across Iraq, which means that the current "counterinsurgency" efforts involve the premeditated killing of innocent civilians to achieve the U.S. policy objectives. Isn't this the very definition of terrorism?

Numerous news reports, including BBC and the Washington Post asserted that bomb-making material was indeed found in the captured vehicle.

"The Iraqi security officials on Monday variously accused two Britons they detained of shooting at Iraqi forces or trying to plant explosives," The Post's Ellen Knickmeyer stated.