September 11 and the Origins of the War on Terrorism.pdf

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September 11 And The Origins Of The ‘War On Terrorism’: A Revisionist Account By Dr Stephen J. Sniegoski

 I off er here he re what might be called cal led a moderate moderat e revisionist re visionist account of the t he September Septembe r 11 terror ter ror and  the origin of the U.S. ‘war ‘war on terrorism.’  te rrorism.’ 

The official story permeating the major media runs something like this: the U.S. war on Afghanistan was simply simply an ad hoc ho c response to the t he horrific events of September 11, which struck as a bolt from the blue, totally tot ally unexpected by American security agencies. The Afghanistan Afghanistan war emerged overnight as a simple simple effort to punish, and thus t hus bring to justice, the perpetrators pe rpetrators of the abominable deeds - namely, na mely, the al Qaeda terrorist t errorist network masterminded masterminded by the infamous Osama Osama Bin Laden, ensconced in his cave in Afghanistan (accompanied, no doubt, by his dialysis dialysis machine). machine). Presumably, the punishment of the perpetrato p erpetrators rs would would make America safer from terrorism. terrorism. Because Becau se the Taliban government of Afghanistan Afghanistan harbored Bin Laden - the th e official line line goes - it was necessary and a nd just for the United States States to overthrow that regime, regime, which according to the U.S. Department of Justice was not actually a ctually a government at all a ll but simply simply a vipers’ nest of terrorists, terrorists, as evil as Bin Ladin and al Qaeda. [1] In the event, e vent, the United United States’s elimination elimination of the nefarious nefa rious terrorists had the effect effe ct of liberating the oppressed Afghan people from tyranny. The media, quoting government sources, identified Bin Laden as a s the likely likely culprit within within hours of  the attacks on the Twin Towers. It took more time for the story to evolve to the point where the Taliban Taliban became bec ame equivalent in evil with Bin Bin Laden Lade n and al a l Qaeda, but soon enough, e nough, the whole affair  was openly presented as a Manichæan conflict between good and evil, even including the claim that the United States was attacked attack ed because beca use evil folk folk hate good folk.

Manichæan conflict between between good and evil The official line line has ha s finally finally begun to wear thin, and even such mouthpieces of Establi E stablishment shment  platitudes as Chris Matthews and Michael Kinsley Kinsley are now able to discern that the war is directed directed toward much broader broade r purposes than a simple simple effort to punish the actual a ctual culprits of September September 11. Kinsley Kinsley writes: ‘But how did the “ war on terrorism te rrorism’’ change focus foc us so quickly from rooting out and  punishing  punishing the perpetrators of 9-11 - a task ta sk that is still still incomplete incomplete - to something (what?) (what?) about nuclear proli pro liferation?’ feration?’ (Parenthesis (Parent hesis in original.) original.) [2] In Matthews’s Matth ews’s view, the limited limited punitive war  has been ‘hijacked’ ‘hijacked’ by people with other, broader broa der aims - including including,, as he specifi spe cifies, es, the proposed propo sed effort to prevent members of the ‘axis of evil e vil’’ from developing weapons of mass destruction. Matthews writes: ‘A month ago, I knew kne w why we were fighting. fighting. You knew why we were fighting. fighting. We were getting the

killers killers of Sept. 11 before they t hey could get us again. If that meant tracking track ing down down Osama Bin Laden and an d his filthy gang to the ends of the Earth, we were up to the task. So what happened to that gutsy war of bringing bringing the World Trade Center and Pentagon Penta gon killers killers to  justice?  justice? Who hijacked that clear-eyed, c lear-eyed, all-American all-American front of September-to-January and left our  leaders mouthing this ‘axis of evil’ line? line? Who hijacked hijacked the firefighters’ firefighters’ war of righteous outrage and a nd got us reciting this weird mantra about Iran, Iraq - and North Korea, of all places?’ [3] Kinsley Kinsley and Matthews make signi significant ficant (though very obvious) observations here. The war is far  different from a simple simple effort e ffort to punish those responsible responsible for the t he September 11 atrocities. There is absolutely no connection between that event and President Bush’s current concern with his ‘axis of  evil.’ In fact, the White House does not even attempt to make such a connection. As columnist Robert Novak notes, commenting on the 2002 State of the Union speech, ‘Bush abandoned seeking some connection between the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and the next step in the war on terrorism. Indeed, the nexus between the three rogue nations and any kind of terrorism was slender, with the  president asserting these countries count ries “could provide” weapons of mass destruction “to terroris te rrorists.”’ ts.”’ [4]

September 11 events given as an excuse Even the t he idea that tha t the war has transmuted from its origi original nal intent represents a revisionist revisionist interpretation. And it is a short step from the transmutation thesis to the position that the war was never intended intende d to be b e a simple, simple, straightforward straightforward ‘firefighters’ ‘firefighters’ war of righteous outrage’ and that from f rom the very ve ry outset the September 11 events simply simply gave America’s foreign foreign policy elites the excuse to to  put their prewar agendas into action. As I will will show, American American penetration penet ration of energy-rich energy-rich Central Centra l Asia has been a much-discussed foreign policy policy objective for some years. Moreover, there the re is evidence that, prior to September 11, the th e United United States had actually been making plans to remove the Taliban Taliban regi re gime. me. Further, Zionist Zionist elements in the American American ruling ruling establishment establishment have always sought sought to direct the United United States agains a gainstt the ‘terrorist’ states, which are, not n ot coincidentally, the e nemies of Israel. Certainly, that - - which has ha s had its tentacles tentac les in both the Clinton and George W. Bush administrations administrations - has long talked of taking ta king a tougher line toward Iran and a nd Iraq, as a s well as giving giving greater support to t o Israel’s war on ‘terrorists.’ In short, it is apparent that tha t the war was anything but an overnight improvisation improvisation to address the September 11 atrocity; rather, the September 11 atrocities provided the pretext for the United States to put her existing war plans into motion. motion.

Anything but bu t an overnight improvisation improvisation There is nothing novel about policymakers policymakers taking advantage of certain c ertain events eve nts to achieve a  pre-existing agenda. In the 1840s James K. Polk exploited the Mexican army’s firing firing on American troops in the disputed d isputed region of south Texas in order to achieve his h is goal goal of acquiri ac quiring ng Mexican territory by military military means. In 1898, the explosion of the battle-ship Maine in Havana harbor   provided the pretext prete xt for American imperiali imperialists sts to launch a war to grab overseas colonies, notably including including the far-distant Philippines. Philippines. And, of course, in 1941 the t he Japanese Japane se attack attac k on Pearl Pe arl Harbor   provided Franklin Franklin Roosevelt his long-soug long-sought ht opportunity to enter ente r World War II against against Germany. If  a real incident doesn’t present itself, it becomes necessary for the crafty politico to fabricate one as Lyndon Johnson did with the Gulf of Tonkin incident. Examples could be provided pro vided ad infinitum. infinitum.

Populace has to be persuaded

So let me simply simply say that latching onto events event s to justify the implementation implementation of a pre-exis pre-ex isting ting militaris militaristic tic agenda has long been the standard operating o perating procedure of ruling elites, elites, especiall espec ially y in formal democracies where a war-averse populace has to be persuaded of the righteousness of  whatever poli p olicy cy of mayhem and murder government leaders intend to pursue. (I should add that th at in today’s context the word ‘persuaded’ is too strong a term, since the contemporary American public needs minimal minimal intellectual intellectual persuasi pe rsuasion. on. Instead, Instea d, like the th e less-intellig less-intelligent ent creatures creature s of Orwell’s Orwell’s Animal Animal Farm, it believes whatever story the government and the official media feed it.) Even if only this much were true - that the September 11 events served as a pretext to achieve  preexisting aims by military military action - the meaning of the war on Afghanistan Afghanistan would depart radically from the conventional conve ntional public public presentation. presenta tion. But going even further, furthe r, there are a re intimations that the t he United United States (and (a nd her close ally Israel) had prior knowledge knowledge of the impending attack and did nothing to impede impede it, in order to obtain the needed ne eded justification for war. Since Since that more-extreme thesis is is more difficult difficult to prove, this article will will devote considerable space to the evidence e vidence for it. I acknowledge that tha t my counter-interpretation count er-interpretation of September 11 is hardly original. original. While While the mainstream media media have naturally eschewed it, and assiduously, assiduously, it is quite evident on the Web. Web . [5] In its purest conspiratorial form - that the U. S. S. government had prior knowledge knowledge or actually a ctually facilitated facilitated the atrocities at rocities - it is most popular on the hard Left L eft and the conspiratorial far Right. Right. In its milder milder form - that from its very outset the purpose of the t he war was to achieve a chieve broader broade r goals than simply simply the  punishment  punishment of those responsible for September September 11 - the revisionist revisionist thesis actuall actua lly y seems to  predominate outside the United States. States.

Cui bono? What evidence exists for the revisionis revisionistt thesis the sis?? According to the traditional tra ditional adage, when a crime is committed, committed, the t he first question to be asked is ‘Cui bono?’ - ‘Who benefits?’ be nefits?’ The Afghanistan Afghanistan war has obviously been advantageous adva ntageous for American Big Oil Oil and for policymakers who think in terms of U.S. U.S. world hegemony. It has enabled e nabled the United United States to t o position herself so that she can secure sec ure the immense immense oil and gas reserves of Central Asia. Asia. The stabilization stabilization of  Afghanistan is a crucial element for the attainment of that prize. [6] As a consequence of the war on Afghanistan, Afghanistan, it appears a ppears that tha t U.S. military military and political influence influence will will be a permanent fixture in Central Asia, a region of key geostrategic importance importance for American global global hegemony. Later Late r in this article I will develop at greater length the issue of American resources and an d geostrategic interests. Obviously, Obviously, the other ot her primary beneficiary has been Israel. For Israel the ‘war on terrorism’ not only  provides a green light light for the crushing of the Palestini P alestinian an people, entail enta iling ing their expulsion expulsion or total  bantustanization[7], but also puts American American power on the side of Israel against her enemies across the entire en tire Middle Middle East. [8] That is because the officially officially designated designated ‘terrorists’ ‘terrorists’ and countries count ries that ‘harbor terrorists’ turn out to be the major enemies of Israel. Note that Iran and Iraq make up two-thirds of President Bush’s diabolical ‘axis’ ‘axis’ and that t hat North Korea is mainly mainly included because beca use she supplies supplies weapons to those t hose countries. It is interesting to note that the very phrase ‘axis ‘a xis of evil’ evil’ was coined by Bush’s speechwriter, speech writer, David Frum, a hyper-Zioni hyp er-Zionist st who holds dual United States/Canadian citizenship. citizenship. (It is not apparent appare nt that the protection protec tion of American American national na tional interests is is foremost in Mr. Frum’s Frum’s mind. I think Mr. Frum is one of those people pe ople whom the perceptive pe rceptive Joe Sobran would never accuse ac cuse of dual loyalty. I also expect expec t that tha t Mr. Frum’s singl singlee loyalty would not  be to Canada.) Cana da.) A policy of militarily restraining and diminishing the military strength of her neighbors serves ipso facto to maintain nuclear-armed Israel’s monopoly monopoly of power in the Middle East, which has been the

long-standing fundamental objective of Israeli foreign and military policy. As illustrated in 1981 by her military military strike on the Osiraq reactor reac tor in Iraq, Israel has ha s been willi willing ng to use force to maintain her  regional nuclear monopoly. Long before September 11, the United States was actively act ively helping helping Israel  preserve that monopoly by maintaining maintaining a hypo-critical double standard: ignori ignoring ng Israel’s Israel’s acquisition acquisition of weapons of mass destruction while opposing opposing the transfer of even e ven peaceful pea ceful nuclear technologi te chnologies es to others. Israel currently views Iran as the neig ne ighboring hboring state state most likely likely to develop deve lop nuclear weapons, and she has been pushing to have that blocked, using the issue of Iran’s alleg alleged ed support of terroris te rrorism m as the ostensible ostensible justification justification for a military military attack. a ttack. Hints are even floating about that if the United States doesn’t do something, Israel herself will act. [9] The initial move of the U.S. military into Afghanistan Afghanistan saw efforts on Iran’s part to improve relations with with the United United States, but that t hat tentative te ntative rapprochement has now been aborted, and for the fundamental cause of that one must look at the influence of Israel and her American supporters. One crucial point must be clear: a military military effort to prevent Iran from developing nuclear nuclear weapons wea pons has nothing to do with an effort to punish the perpetrators of the September 11 atrocities, an operation with which Iran has cooperated extensively. [10]

Interests Interests of Big Oil and Israel Israel converged on Afghanistan issue It is signifi significant cant that the interests of Big Oil Oil and Israel converged on the Osama/Afghanistan issue. issue. In the past, pa st, the interests of the two groups have often diverged - with the oil interests seeking to  placate Israel’s oil-producing oil-producing enemies. enemies. It is not clear that either group could have achieved suc cess on its own. While the oil interests loom large in the Bush administration, Zionist influence reigns supreme in the Establis E stablishment hment media. It is unlikely unlikely that any a ny major mili military tary action a ction could succeed succe ed without the media’s being favorably favorably disposed - witness the contributions con tributions of a hostile media to the Vietnam fiasco. However, while the interests of Big Oil Oil and Israel coincide on Afghanistan, Afghanistan, their overall overa ll interests interests are not identical. Big Oil Oil seems seems to desire a more limited limited war - restricted largely to Afghanistan and  benefiting from from the cooperation coopera tion of an ‘anti-terrorist’ ‘anti-terrorist’ coalition of ‘moderate’ ‘moderate’ Islamic states. Secretary of State Colin Powell appears to be the administration spokesman spokesman for that positi po sition. on. In contrast, Israel and her American supporters want a broader broa der war against ‘terrorism’ ‘terrorism’ - that is, a war  against the enemies of Israel. In that corner, one finds Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, William Kristol and the Weekly Standard, Charles Krauthammer, William Safire, Richard Perle, Pe rle, and neoconservatives ne oconservatives in general. [11] Such a ‘war against terrorism’ terrorism’ would work  against Big Oil’s Oil’s desire desire to form a coaliti c oalition on of moderate Islamic Islamic governments to counter c ounter Islamic ‘fundamentalism.’ ‘fundamentalism.’ Zionists, Zionists, for their part, understand that tha t a coalition of ‘moderate’ Islamic Islamic states state s in  bed with the United United States could be used to put dipl d iplomatic omatic pressure on Israel to moderate moderate her  he r   policies  policies toward the Palestini P alestinians. ans.

Benefits from September 11 Other important groups have benefited be nefited from September 11, especially e specially the Bush administration administration itself. itself. With the country going going nowhere and the economy e conomy sliding sliding downward, downward, September 11 was a godsend to the beleaguered regime. Bush’s popularity popularity has soared to astronomical heights. heights. More than that, the entire Republican Party has sought to capitalize on the popularity of the war. Karl Rove, the president’s top political political adviser, has been urging urging Republicans Republicans to focus foc us on the war theme. t heme. [12] Paraphrasing Pa raphrasing Roosevelt aide Harry Hopkins’s Hopkins’s notorious election-winning election-winning formula formula - ‘Tax, tax; spend, spend; elect, e lect, elect’ - a Republican activis ac tivistt jokingly jokingly said to me: ‘Bomb, ‘Bomb, bomb; elect, elect.’ e lect.’

For that matter, even eve n Franklin Roosevelt, seeing his popularity popularity flagging flagging,, found it necessary ne cessary to transform himself himself from ‘Dr. New Deal’ Dea l’ to ‘Dr. Win-the-War.’ Win-the-Wa r.’ Also benefiting from from the war and its accompanying fever is the once-denigrated military-industri military-industrial al complex, which naturally nat urally will will expand in size and prestige. prestige. An influential, influential, though often overlooked, element of that complex are the old Cold Warriors (and the institutions that house them), who need an Enemy Ene my to justify justify their existence. Many of those people pe ople would face unemployment should there ever be a ‘peace scare.’ [13] However, these latter two groups - Republican Republican politicos politicos and the military-industri military-industrial al complex - serve largely largely as auxil aux iliaries iaries in in the pro-war movement, rather rathe r than as seminal forces. They would tend to support any war, anywhere. a nywhere. The point is that while these groups are predisposed to support war pe r  se, they have not determined the specific parameters of this particular war with its focus on Central Asia and on Israel’s enemies. [14]

Foreknowledge How did it happen that the t he September 11 tragedy led to developments long sought sought by Big Oil Oil and  by Israel? Were the terrorist attacks attac ks really a bolt from from the blue - truly fortuitous - a case of pure serendipity? Or is there any evidence that the U.S. government and Israel had prior knowledge of  the impending terrorist terrorist strikes but allowed allowed them to take place or perhaps even eve n facilitated them? Even operatives of the t he Establi Estab lishment shment media recognize recognize the improbabili improbability ty of September 11’s coming c oming as a complete surprise. As Howard Kurtz wrote in the Washington Post: ‘How could we not have known? How is it it that America America was totally blindsided blindsided by the Sept. 11 attacks?’ atta cks?’ [15] As Bill Bill Clinton Clinton might might put it, it all depends on what ‘we’ means. In fact, fact , considerable evidence has come to light light suggesting suggesting that certain ce rtain Americans, and others, othe rs, were not blindsided blindsided at all a ll..

Instant messages to Israel Employees in the Israel office of the instant-messaging instant-messaging firm firm Odigo Odigo received rec eived messages from the company’s New York office warning of the terrorist aerial strikes strikes about two t wo hours before they occurred. Originall Originally y it was stated tha t the World Trade Center was specifi spec ifically cally mentioned, but that was later denied. [16]

Stock-market Stock-market speculation speculati on Just prior to September September 11, sudden and unexplained u nexplained speculation occurred in the stock of American and United airlines. airlines. An inordinate number of ‘put’ options - bets that t hat a stock will go go down - were  placed on those two t wo listing listings. s. No other airlines airlines saw such speculation. Simi Similar lar ‘put’ options were were  placed on the stock of various companies - including including Merrill Merrill Lynch and Morgan Stanley Stanley - that were housed in the World Trade Towers. Since Since it is common for stocks of companies that suffer tragedies to plunge, this stock speculation would imply imply that someone had foreknowledge of the horrifi ho rrificc event. eve nt. American intelligence should have been aware of the abnormal speculation, since the CIA and other  intellig intelligence ence agencies monitor stock trading closely. [17] It is interesting that many of the t he ‘put’ options o ptions on United United Airlines Airlines were purchased purc hased through Deutschebank/AB Brown, a firm managed until 1998 by the current executive director of the CIA, A.B. ‘Buzzy’ Krongard. [18]

Private warnings Some Some people pe ople outside the intellig intelligence ence organs seem also to have gotten warnings. warnings. For example, exa mple, San San Francisco Mayor Willie Willie Brown was scheduled sche duled to fly to New York City on the t he morning of  September 11, but he claimed later that he received a call the night before from his ‘security people at the airport’ telling him that he should be extra-cautious about air travel on the eleventh. [19] The FAA prevented the author Salman Rushdie, who is under special protection because of threats on his life, life, from flying to the United States during the week leading up to September 11, and Rushdie connects connec ts that prohibition prohibition to terror ter ror warnings warnings in the possession of the government. [20] In August 2001, Drs. Garth and Mary Nicolson, Nicolson, a husband-and-wife medical team who are among the foremost Gulf Gulf War Syndrome investigators, investigators, reported reporte d to Department of Defense and National Security Council officials officials that a number of personal friends in the intellig intelligence ence and dipl d iplomatic omatic communities had told them that a terrorist attack on the Pentagon would take place on September  11. [21] And CounterPunch, the newsletter edited by Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St. Clair, reported that t hat the extremely influential and well-connect well-connected ed investment firm Goldman Goldman Sachs Sachs circulated an internal memo in its Tokyo Tokyo office on September 10 advising all employees to avoid any U.S. government government buildings buildings because becau se of a possible possible terrorist attack. atta ck. [22] It is highly highly signifi significant cant that knowledg k nowledgee of the planned aerial onslaught onslaught seems to have leaked lea ked outside the terrorist network, for if outsiders knew about the planned attack, one would not expect the CIA itself to be excluded from that knowledge. Bin Laden and his associates had been funded and trained by the CIA in the war against the Soviet Union. Union. It is hard to fathom how the CIA, the  best-financed intelligence intelligence organization organization in the world, would would be unable to secure sec ure information information on an organization organization made up of its former employees.

Public warnings warnings The fact of the matter matte r is that it was public public knowledge that Osama Bin Laden Lade n was planning terrorist acts in the United States. On June 23, 2001, Reuters dispatched a story headlined ‘Bin Laden Fighters Plan Anti-U.S. attack,’ with this lead sentence: ‘Followers of exiled Saudi dissident Osama Bin Laden are a re planning a major attack on U.S. and Israeli interests.’ interests.’ And a June 25 UPI dispatch stated: ‘Saudi dissident dissident Osama Bin Laden Lade n is planning a terrorist terrorist attack at tack against against the United States.’ [23]

Warnings to the U.S. government Dire warnings warnings flowed to the U.S. U.S. government from various sources. Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak claims to have warned the United States 12 days prior to September 11 that ‘something would happen.’ [24] According to Russian Russian news ne ws reports, Russian Russian intelligence intelligence notified the CIA during the summer that 25 terrorist te rrorist pilots pilots had been specifically specifically traini tra ining ng for suicide missions missions.. In an interview September 15 with MSNBC, Russian -President Vladimir Putin confirmed that in August he had ha d ordered Russian Russian intelligence intelligence to warn the t he United States ‘in the strongest possible possible terms’ te rms’ of  imminent imminent terrorist strikes on airports a irports and government buildings. buildings. [25] According Acco rding to a story in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, U.S. and Israeli intelligence agencies received warning signals in the early e arly summer summer that tha t Middle Eastern terrorists t errorists were planning to hijack commercial aircraft and use them as weapons wea pons to destroy de stroy important symbol symbolss of American and Israeli Israe li culture. [26] German police have confirm c onfirmed ed that an Iranian man phoned phone d the U.S. Secret Secret Service Service from his deportation cell in Germany to warn of the planned terrorist assault on the World Trade Center. [27]

U.S. was aware of hijacked-planes scenario A key aspect a spect of the official story is that while U.S. U.S. authoriti autho rities es did expect expec t acts ac ts of terrorism in the United United States, the hijacked-planes hijacked-planes scenario sce nario was completely unforeseen. The truth is, however, that tha t terrorist use of hijacked planes had been be en talked about a bout for some time. As columnist columnist Robert Novak   pointed out in his column column of September September 27: ‘From the moment moment of the September 11th attacks, at tacks, high-ranking high-ranking federal officials insisted insisted that the terrorists t errorists’’ method of operation opera tion surprised surprised them. the m. Many stick to that story. Actually, elements of the hijacking plan plan were known kno wn to the FBI as a s early as 1995 and, if coupled with current information, information, might might have uncovered uncovere d the plot.’ [28] In January 1995, police in the Philippines Philippines arrested Abdul Hakim Murad, an associate a ssociate of Ramzi Yousef, leader of the group involved in the 1993 World Trade Towers bombing. bombing. Under  Under  interrogation, Murad spoke of a plan by the Ramzi group group to hijack a commercial airliner airliner and crash it into CIA headquarters hea dquarters in Virgi Virginia. nia. Murad, who had attended a ttended flight flight schools in the United States, said that he was going to be the pilot. Filipi Filipino no investigators investigators also turned up evidence that commerci c ommercial al  buildings  buildings in in San Francisco, Francisco, Chicago, and New York City were to be targeted. That information was  passed on to the FBI. [29]  Notably, U.S. U.S. security security officials had considered and prepared pre pared for possible possible attacks atta cks by suicide planes during the Atlanta Summer Summer Olympics Olympics in 1996. [30] Furthermore, measures to avert av ert suicide airliner  crashes were in effect during the 2000 Olympics in Sydney and were on track for the 2002 winter  games in in Salt Lake City. As a matter of fact, International Olympic Olympic Committee officials have revealed that suicide plane-crash scenarios had been considered in their security planning for every Olympics since 1972. [31] In addition, the FAA’s Criminal Acts against Civil Aviation report for  2000 warned that Bin B in Laden and his followers were were a threat to U.S. U.S. civil aviation. [32] Finally, Finally, since 1996 the FBI had made numerous inquiries inquiries about suspected suspecte d Bin Laden associates’ taking flight flight training in in the United United States and abroad. a broad. [33]

U.S. monitored monitored Bin B in Laden’s Lad en’s conversations conversations U.S. U.S. authorities acknowledge that they electronically e lectronically monitored monitored Bin Laden’s La den’s conversations in the  past, but the official o fficial story maintains that Bin Laden stopped stoppe d engaging engaging in in electronic communication after he learned that monitored communications communications had aided the U.S. U.S. cruise missile missile strike strike on his Afghanistan training camp in 1998. However, some knowledgeable observers reject that account. For example, the eminent Egyptian journalist journalist and former government spokesman Mohammed Heikal, in an interview with the British newspaper The Guardian, maintained that ‘Bin Laden has  been under unde r surveillance surveillance for years: every telephone call was monitored monitored and al Qaeda has ha s been  penetrated  penetrat ed by American intellig intelligence, ence, P akistani intelli intelligence, gence, Saudi intelli intelligence, gence, Egyptian intelligence. They could not have kept secret an operation that required such a degree of  organisation organisation and a nd sophistication.’ [34] Moreover, in February, 2001, UPI terrorism correspondent Richard Sale Sale reported reporte d that U.S. intellig intelligence ence agencies were able to monitor some of Bin Laden’s Lade n’s electronic communications. [35] If, as the official story story has it, the t he September 11 events required re quired long-term long-term planning, planning, it would seem likely likely that American American intellig intelligence ence picked up some information information about the plan. Official Official claims of an intelligence intelligence blackout in the run-up to September 11 seem odd in light light of other  ot her  official claims claims that U.S. U.S. intelligence intelligence was able to successfully successfully monitor the Bin Laden network’s electronic communications immediately immediately after the th e attacks. at tacks. According Accor ding to Newsweek Newsweek magazine, the key reason rea son that the authorities identified identified Bin Laden Lade n as the culprit was that U.S. U.S. intelligence intelligence picked

up communications among his his associates relaying the message: ‘We’ve hit the targets.’ [36] Senator Orrin Hatch of Utah gave a similar similar account to t o the Associated Press P ress on September 11, claiming claiming that U.S. government government monitors had overheard overhe ard two Bin Laden La den aides celebrating c elebrating the successful terrorist strike. [37] Hatch repeated the story to ABC News the same day, adding that he had received rec eived the information information from both CIA and FBI officials. officials. The validity of Hatch’s story was confirmed by the hostile hostile reaction rea ction of Bush admini a dministration stration officials, officials, with Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld Rumsfeld condemning c ondemning the unauthorized unau thorized disclosure disclosure of allegedly allegedly classified classified information. information. [38] It’s hard to deny that Bin Laden would have to rely heavily upon electronic communications in order to direct a global global terrorist operation. And if U.S. U.S. intelligence intelligence agencies a gencies were able to monitor his communications communications immediately immediately after the t he September 11 attack, at tack, it is difficult difficult to believe that tha t they were totally unable to do so before that time.

Hijackers were known to authorities Interestingly, Interestingly, the suicide hijackers were actually ac tually known to U.S. U.S. authorities, and they the y seem to have made little effort to conceal conc eal their identities. For example, the FBI placed two of t he hijackers, Kahlil Almihdhar Almihdhar and Nawaf Na waf Alhamzi, Alhamzi, on an FBI ‘watch list’ on August 23, after the CIA received re ceived information information linking linking the pair pa ir to Bin Laden. But the authorities somehow somehow failed to pass p ass along that information information to the airlines, airlines, and the t he two were able a ble to buy first-class one-way airline airline tickets, and the n  board and hijack a jetliner on September 11. [39] The case of Ziad Ziad Samir Jarrah, Jarrah, one of the suspected suspecte d hijackers aboard the United United Airlines Airlines jet that crashed in Pennsylvania, P ennsylvania, has its oddities also. Authorities Authorities in the United Arab Emirates detained deta ined and questioned Jarrah at the Dubai International Airport after he arrived there from Pakistan on January 30, 2001. The request re quest for the interrogation interrogation had been be en made by the U.S. U.S. government. According to an unnamed United Arab Emirates official: ‘The ‘The Americans told us that tha t he was a supporter of terrorist organizations, organizations, that he had connections connec tions with with terroris te rroristt organizations.’ organizations.’ Jarrah was allowed to leave the U.A.E., U.A.E., traveli trave ling ng on to Hamburg via via Amsterdam. Later he flew to the United States. Despite the interest of U.S. U.S. authoriti autho rities es in him and his activities and his connections, connec tions, Jarrah was allowed allowed to enter e nter the country. He then t hen enrolled in a flight flight school. Jarrah was stopped for speeding spee ding in in Maryland on September 9, two days da ys before the hijacking. hijacking. The Maryland State Police apparently appa rently ran his name through their computers but, inexplicably enough, found nothing on him. They issued him a ticket and allowed him to proceed. [40]

The strange case of Mohammed Atta Mohammed Atta, the all a lleged eged ringleader ringleader of the terrorist te rrorist strike strike team, was reportedly reported ly an object of  attention for Egyptian, German, and American authorities, and yet managed to travel without hindrance between Europe and America throughout 2000 and 2001. U.S. agents in Germany had monitored Atta’s group there before September 11; after the attacks, according to the British paper  The Observer, ‘A team of agents dispatched by the FBI to Germany has been focusing on the northern city of Hamburg, where three of the men who died in the planes and four others who were on the FBI’s initial initial list list of suspects studied at a t universities.’ universities.’ Atta ‘was under surveillance surveillance between January and May last year [2000] after a fter he was reportedly observed buying large large quantities of  chemicals in Frankfurt, apparently apparent ly for the production of explosi e xplosives ves and for biological biological warfare.’ [41] Atta came ca me to the attention attent ion of U.S. U.S. authorities several several times in 2001. On January 10, 2001, he was

allowed to enter ente r the United United States on a tourist visa, even though he admitted a dmitted to immigration immigration officials officials that he h e would be attending atte nding flig flight ht school, an activity a ctivity that requires a student stude nt visa. The executive execut ive director of the American American Imm Immig igration ration Lawyers Association told the Washing W ashington ton Post P ost that ‘nine times out of ten’ a person in that situation would have been denied entrance. Oddly enough, federal immig immigration ration police overlooked Atta’s Atta ’s visa status violation even though he had previousl pre viously y been under FBI surveillance surveillance for stockpiling bomb-making bomb-making materials. [42] During the summer of 2001, the FBI discovered that Atta received a wire transfer of $100,000 from an account in Pakistan alleged to be controlled by a representative of Osama Bin Laden. [43] It is difficult difficult to understand unde rstand how such a large sum of money could be transmitted with impunity impunity to someone under FBI surveillance. surveillance.

The strange case of Zacarias Moussaoui The government’s seeming lack of interest intere st in the case c ase of Zacarias Moussaoui is is also very strange. On January 3, 2002, Moussaoui was arraigned arraigned on terrorism conspiracy conspiracy charges c harges in connection with the September 11 attacks. a ttacks. He had h ad been bee n arrested in Minnesota Minnesota on August August 16 after afte r officials officials of a flight flight school there alerted the FBI of his suspicious behavior. Though lacking the most basic flying skills, he was seeking see king flig flight ht training on a commerci c ommercial al jet simulator. simulator. Moreover, Moreove r, he reportedly did not want to learn how to take off or o r land, only how to steer the jet while while it was in the air. Moussaoui was detained by the Imm Immig igration ration and Naturaliz Nat uralization ation Service on cha rges of violating violating the terms of his visa. Local FBI investigators investigators in Minneapolis immediately immediately viewed Moussaoui as a terrorist suspect and a nd sought authorization for a special counterintelligence surveillance warrant in order to search the hard drive of his home computer. Higher-level Higher-level officials in in Washington rejected the request, reque st, claiming claiming there was insufficient insufficient evidence to meet the legal requirements requirements for the warrant. On August August 26, French intelligence intelligence notified FBI headquarters that tha t Moussaoui had connections connec tions to Osama Bin Bin Laden, Lade n,  but even that t hat revelation had little effect. A special counterte rrorism rrorism panel of the FBI and CIA concluded that there was insufficient evidence to show that Moussaoui represented any threat, and he was not even e ven transferred tra nsferred from INS detention to FBI custody until after September 11. [44] In an analysis published published December 22, the New Ne w York Times Times commented that tha t the Moussaoui case ‘raised new questions about why the Federal Bureau of Investigation and other agencies did not prevent the hijackings.’ hijackings.’ [45]

What did the U.S. government know? In early August, the CIA informed informed the White House and other high government officials officials that Osama Bin Laden intended intende d to mount a terrorist attack in the United United States. [46] In its September 24 issue,  Newsweek made the startling revelation that on September 10, ‘A group of top Pentagon Penta gon officials officials suddenly canceled travel plans for the next morning, apparently because of security concerns.’ [47] That would imply imply that some federal officials knew of the exact exa ct timing of the attack. at tack. It appears appea rs that while while federal fede ral officials officials might might have made use of such knowledge to save their own skins, they had no desire to actually prevent the terrorist attack from taking place; or, to be more precise, that certain government officials at the th e highest levels had no desire de sire to prevent it from taking place. place. David P. Schippers, noted Chicago lawyer and the House Judiciary Committee’s Committee’s chief investigator  in the Clinton impeachment impeachment trial, has charged that elements e lements of the U.S. U.S. government had foreknowledge of the September attack. He claims that lower-echelon FBI agents in Chicago and Minnesota contacted him about a month and a half before September 11 and told him that a terrorist attack was going going to occur in lower Manhattan.

According to Schippers, Schippers, the agents a gents had been developing de veloping extensive extensive information on the planned attack attac k for many months. However, the FBI command c ommand pulled pulled them off the terrorist investigation investigation and threatened them with prosecution under the National Security Act if they went public with the information. information. As a result, some of them the m went to t o Schippers in hopes of prompting someone someone influential to persuade the government to ta ke action. ac tion. Schippers Schippers tried to pass the information information on to high government officials - including some in the attorney at torney general’s office - but his efforts apparently were ignored. One would have thought that tha t Schippers’s background would have made him a credible witness, especially especially in the eyes ey es of the intelligence intelligence and security appointees appo intees of a Republican regime. He is now representing at least ten of the FBI agents a gents in a suit against the U.S. U.S. government in an attempt to t o have their t heir testimony testimony subpoenaed, subpoenae d, which would enable them to legally tell what they know and legally get get it on record. re cord. [48]

Alleged terrorists acted like boobs In an interview that appeared on January 13 in the Berlin daily Tagesspi Tagesspiegel, egel, Andreas von Bülow who served on a parliamentary commissi commission on that oversaw the three thre e branches branch es of German intelligence intelligence from 1969 to 1994 - finds the modus operandi of the alleged terrorist highjackers to be very suspicious. suspicious. In particular, he regards the clues c lues that they left behind to be very amateurish, if not idiotic. idiotic. He describes de scribes them as ‘assailants ‘assailants who ... leave tracks behind them the m like like a herd he rd of stampeding elephants. They made payments with credit cards with their own names; they reported to their flight instructors with with their the ir own names. They left behind be hind rented cars c ars with flight flight manuals in in Arabic for   jumbo jets. jets. They took with them, on their suicide suicide trip, wills wills and farewell letters, which fell into the hands of the FBI, because they were stored in the wrong place and wrongly addressed. Clues were left like behind like in a child’s game game of hide-and-seek, which were to be followed.’ followed.’ [49] How could terrorists who were capable of secretly carrying out a very complicated plan, undetected  beforehand,  beforehand , leave evidence behind be hind that even the t he Keystone Cops could detect? detec t? Or was the evidence left behind for the e xpress purpose of incriminating incriminating the Bin Laden network? Reporter Robert Fisk points out that the alleged evidence does not mesh with the notion that the terrorist highjackers highjackers were we re devoted de voted Muslim Muslims. s. Fisk writes: writes: ‘If the hand-written, five-page document doc ument which the FBI says it found in the bagg ba ggage age of Mohamed Atta, the t he suicide bomber from Egypt, is genuine, then the men who murdered more than 7,000 innocent people believed in a very exclusive version of Islam - or were surprisingly unfamiliar with their religion.’ [50]

Other strange revelations Two other pieces of evidence frequently cited by conspiratorial believers are most intriguing intriguing but are of uncertain uncerta in validity. validity. One odd case ca se is that of a 35-year-old 35-y ear-old American American by the name of Delmart Delmart Edward ‘Mike’ Vreeland II. Vreeland claims to be a lieutenan lieutenantt in a U.S. U.S. Navy intelligence intelligence unit and says he knew in advance about the September 11 attacks. He has been imprisoned in Canada since December 2000, being initiall initially y arrested on fraud-related charges. While in prison, prison, he tried to warn Canadian authoriti aut horities es about possible terrorist attacks on New York and a nd the Pentagon, P entagon, as well as on targets in Ottawa and Toronto, but was ignored. He then wrote the warning on a piece of paper, sealed it in an envelope, and handed it to jail guards a month before the attacks. The guards opened the letter lette r on September 14 and immediately immediately forwarded the information information to Ottawa. American American law-enforcement law-enforce ment officials want Vreeland returned to the United States, where he would

face fraud-related crim c riminal inal charges in five states. Vreeland and his h is lawyers lawyers are fighting fighting extradition, claiming claiming that a return re turn to this country could mean his death. [51] The entire e ntire story is fascinating, fascinating, but Vreeland does appear to be a con artist. [52] That he was in naval intelligence and was involved in various secret operations opera tions seems implausi implausible. ble. His prediction prediction of the attacks a ttacks could have ha ve been bee n a lucky guess. More intriguing intriguing are remarks that Tom Kennedy, a member of the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s (FEMA) National Urban Urban Search and a nd Rescue Team, made during a nationally telecast interview with CBS News anchor Dan Rather on September 13. Kennedy told Rather that FEMA sent the Urban Search and Rescue Team to New York City on Monday night, which was the night  before the attacks attac ks occurred! Kennedy recounted: ‘We’re currently one of the first teams that was deployed to support the City of New York in this disaster. We arrived a rrived on late Monday night [September [September 10] 10 ] and went we nt right into action on Tuesday morning’ morning’ [September 11]. FEMA officials officials said Kennedy misstated misstated his team’s tea m’s arrival date. Kennedy has never been reached for comment. The easy explanation is that this was a slip slip of the tongue, t ongue, but since the interview took place on September 13, it would seem that Kennedy must have fallen victim to an extremely poor memory - perhaps perhap s signaling signaling early-onset early-onset Alzheimer’s Syndrome. Syndrome. [53]

Bush administration hindered Bin Laden probes FBI and military military intelligence intelligence officials officials in Washington Washington have hav e claimed that they were prevented for   political  political reasons from carrying out full investig investigations ations into members members of the Bin Laden family and Saudi activities activities in the United United States before the attacks at tacks of September 11. [54] FBI deputy de puty director  John O’Neill, O’Neill, who for years led U.S. U.S. investigations into into Bin Laden’s L aden’s al a l Qaeda network, resigned in August 2001 in protest over the obstruction. [55] Ironically, after his resignation resignation O’Neill took a new job as head he ad of security at the World Trade Center. He died on September 11.

Big Oil - and Big B ig Policy Since Since their motives for war differ, it is necessary to discuss the actions of Big Oil Oil and Israel separately. separate ly. (Israel’s moves moves - and movers - will will be exami exa mined ned in the fourth and concluding part of this article.) President Bush and his top advisors a dvisors,, most signifi significantly cantly Vice President Dick Cheney, Che ney, have ha ve had close c lose connections with major oil companies. companies. And major oil interests have for some time been bee n eyeing the vast, largely untapped oil and gas resources of the Caspian Basin and Central Asia. The Caspian Sea reserves compri c omprise se 10 percent pe rcent of o f the world’s known known supply - worth about abo ut $5 tril t rilli lion on at today’s tod ay’s prices. However, Central Asia’s oil oil and gas reserves are land-locked, which means that tha t the energy e nergy wealth must be sent through long pipelines pipelines to reach global global markets. Control of  Afghanistan Afghanistan is valuable not because beca use of any oil or gas reserves of her own but because of o f her crucial geographic geographic location. Potential P otential transit routes for oil and natural gas exports from Central Centra l Asia Asia to the Arabian Sea run through Afghanistan. American American oil companies companies have sought to lay such a pipeline pipeline across that country, but political political stability stability must first be establi estab lished shed in the turbulent region.

Afghanistan’s key role The value of Afghanistan, Afghanistan, however, far transcends transce nds the oil-pipeline oil-pipeline issue. Elie Krakowski, a former  Department of Defense specialist on Afghanistan, Afghanistan, points out that Afghanistan has traditionally been,

and remains, a key area are a in global power politi politics: cs: Why then have so many great nations fought in and over Afghanistan, Afghanistan, and why should we be concerned with it now? In short, because Afghanistan is the crossroads between what Halford MacKinder called the world’s Heartland and the Indian subcontinent. It owes its importance importance to its location at the confluence of major routes. A boundary between land power and sea power, it is the meeting point point between betwee n opposing forces forces larger than itself. Alexander the Great used it as a path pat h to conquest. So did the Moghuls. Moghuls. An object of competition between the British and Russian empires in the 19th century, Afghanistan became a source of controversy between the American and Soviet superpowers in the 20th. With the collapse of the Soviet Union, it has become an important  potential opening to the sea for the landlocked new state s of Central Asia. Asia. The presence of large oil and gas deposits in that area has attracted attra cted countries c ountries and multinational multinational corporations. Russia Russia and China, not to mention Pakistan and India, are deeply involved in trying to shape the future of what may be the world’s most most unchangeable people. pe ople. Because Afghanistan Afghanistan is a major strategic strategic pivot what happens there affects the rest of the world.’ [56]

U.S. control over Central Asia Leftist critics of American imperialism imperialism frequently portray American American policy as based simply simply on the desire for corporate profits - in the case ca se of Central Cent ral Asia, Asia, profits from oil. oil. And their the ir argument argument contains an element of truth. Most Persian Gulf countries place stringent stringent restricti re strictions ons on American investment, which means that tha t Central Cent ral Asia Asia is one of the few remaining growth growth regions for U.S. U.S. oil companies. [57] Undoubtedly some individuals profit profit monetaril moneta rily y from those restrictions; restrictions; but the  policies  policies that American state officials pursue pursue go far beyond providing mere personal wealth for  themselves or their cronies. American policies reflect certain geopolitical beliefs - connected to the economic interests of   particular groups, groups, indeed, but not necessarily ne cessarily related related to the immediate immediate financial gain gain of particular   policymakers.  policymakers. The United United States, or at least her foreign-policy foreign-policy elite, sees a need for the United United States to dominate Central Ce ntral Asian energy resources as she dominates the Persian P ersian Gulf oil fields. fields. Obviously, Obviously, the development of those tho se energy resources will mean financial gain gain for American investors. But control of the t he area are a will also also enhance enha nce U.S. global global power, and such control is thus a critical part of a geostrategic strategy to ac hieve global hegemony. hegemony.

U.S. geostrategic models Among the higher higher circles, views differ on how best to achieve ac hieve the agreed goal of American dominance of Central Asia. Opinions fall along a continuum between two contrasting cont rasting foreign-pol foreign-policy icy models: competitive and cooperative. coope rative. According to the competitive c ompetitive model, model, other powers are adversaries in the quest for world power and wealth. It’s a zero-sum game game - anything anyt hing that benefits the United United States’s adversaries automatically harms the United States. America’s goal is to achieve ac hieve world hegemony hegemony - any lesser achievement would leave the United United States vulnerable to her he r enemies. To achieve hegemony America must act unilaterally. In particular she must monopolize monopolize the world’s crucial energy sources to keep that wealth out of the hands of potential enemies such as Iran, Russia, Russia, and a nd China. One of the foremost articulators of the th e competitive c ompetitive position position is Zbigniew Zbigniew Brzezinski, Brzezinski, national security advisor in the Carter Ca rter admi a dministration. nistration. In his 1997 work The Grand Chessboard: Che ssboard: American American Primacy and its Geostrategic Geostrategic Imperatives, Brzezinski portrays the Eurasian landmass as the linchpin linchpin for world power, with Central Asia being key to the domination of Eurasia. Eura sia. [58] For the United United States to maintain the global global primacy that Brzezinski Brzezinski equates with American security, the United United

States must, at the very ve ry least, prevent any possible adversary, or coali coa lition tion of adversaries, from controlling that crucial c rucial region. region. And, of course, the t he best way for the United States to prevent adversaries from controlling controlling a region is to control it herself. [59] With considerable c onsiderable prescience, Brzezinski Brzezinski remarks that, tha t, because be cause of popular resistance to U.S. U.S. military military expansionis e xpansionism, m, his ambitious strategy could not be implemented implemented ‘except ‘e xcept in the circumstance of a truly massive massive and widely  perceived direct external e xternal threat.’ threat .’ [60] The second model envisions envisions cooperation, cooperat ion, rather than t han competition, c ompetition, in in seizing and managing the resources of Central Cent ral Asia. Asia. The idea that t hat cooperation co operation with Russia Russia and China in an a n expanded expande d world state-capitali state-ca pitalism, sm, with with its (notional) concomitant prosperity, would enhanc e world peace peac e closely resembles the old Kissi Kissinger/Rockefeller nger/Rockefeller 1970s vision of détente déte nte with the t he Soviet Union. Better  transport and a nd communications links in in the Central Asian region could transform presently isolated countries into key trading centers cente rs at the crossroads of Europe and Asia Asia - reminiscent of the Silk  Silk  Road of the Middle Ages. U.S. U.S. officials officials predict the 21st Century Silk Silk Road running through Central Asia will include railroads, oil and gas pipelines, and fiberoptic cables. [61] One twist on the cooperation cooperat ion thesis has it that energy e nergy production in Central Asia, hinging hinging on cooperation cooperat ion between the United States and Russia, Russia, is intended to t o lessen the industrial industrial world’s dependence depende nce on the unstable Middle East. Making Central Asia Asia safe for state-managed stat e-managed capitalistic capitalistic development aimed at enhancing the prosperity of the great powers entails, of course, the suppression suppression of trouble-some destabilizing destabilizing elements such as a s Islamic Islamic fundamentalis funda mentalism m and ethnic nationalism. [62] It appears appe ars that actual ac tual U.S. U.S. policy in Central Asia Asia leans toward the competitive model, but with elements of cooperation.

U.S. policy toward Afghanistan Whereas U.S. U.S. officials now portray the Taliban Taliban as the t he essence e ssence of evil e vil,, that was not their preva iling iling view in the past. It certainly c ertainly was not their view in the first part of 2001, when the United States saw the Taliban as a friendly government, and negotiated with it as such. Officially Officially the United States condemned the th e Islamic Islamic groups that used Afghanistan Afghanistan as a s their base for  terrorism, terrorism, and officially the United United States demanded the extradition e xtradition of Osama Bin Bin Laden Lade n to face fac e trial in the August 1998 bombing of U.S. U.S. embassies embassies in Kenya and a nd Tanzania. (After the 1998  bombings,  bombings, the Clinton regime regime even launched missi missile le strikes strikes on Bin Laden’s guerrilla guerrilla camps.) Although the record is convoluted and murky, it seems that, while the United States wanted to apprehend Bin Laden, she also a lso sought sought to improve relations with with the Taliban Taliban government, and that the latter goal often took precedence. Alternatively, one might argue that although Washington  preferred to use negotiati ne gotiation on to turn the Taliban against terrorism terrorism and achieve the stability necessary for regional energy exploitation, she had for some years considered the t he military military option to remove the Taliban. U.S.-Tali U.S.-Taliban ban relations re lations can be roughly roughly divided into four periods, though there is much overlap: • From perhaps two years before the Taliban captured capture d the capital c apital city of Kabul in 1996 until the embassy bombings bombings in August August 1998 the United States was, at the very ve ry least, covertly cove rtly friendly friendly toward the Taliban. • From August August 1998 to the beginning beginning of the Bush administration administration in January 2001, the U.S. attitude toward the Taliban Taliban cooled, and a nd Washington made plans to eliminate eliminate Osama Bin Ladin; at the same time, however, some covert cooperation with the Taliban may have continued.

• After the present U.S. U.S. regime took power, it attempted a ttempted to t o improve relations with with the Taliban Taliban but abandoned that approach in August 2001, owing to a paucity of results, and made concrete  preparations  preparat ions to remove the Taliban Taliban militaril militarily. y. • And after afte r the September 11 tragedy, of course, the U.S. U.S. regime implemented implemented the mili military tary option opt ion to eliminate the Taliban regime.

Oil companies’ interests American American oil companies had cozied up to the Taliban from the time it took over Kabul in 1996. In 1996, the t he U.S. U.S. oil company Unocal (Union Oil of California) California) reached reache d an agreement with the Taliban Taliban to build a pipeline, but the th e continuing con tinuing Afghan Afghan civil c ivil war prevented prevent ed that tha t project from getting started. According to Ahmed Rashid, a Central Asia specialist and author of Taliban: Militant Islam, Oil, and Fundamentali Fundamenta lism sm in Central Asia, Asia, ‘Between ‘Bet ween 1994-96 the U.S. supported the Taliban Taliban politically politically through its allies allies Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, Arabia, essential e ssentially ly because Washington Washington viewed the t he Taliban as anti-Iranian, anti-Shia, anti-Shia, and an d pro-Western.’ From 1995 to 1997, Rashid says, ‘U.S. ‘U.S. support was driven  by the UNOCAL UNOCAL oil/gas oil/gas pipeline pipeline project.’ [63] Private companies c ompanies conducted the actual actua l negotiating, negotiating,  but their actions were ‘encouraged ‘encoura ged by the U.S. U.S. government.’ [64] In May 1997 the New Ne w York Times Times wrote: ‘The Clinton Administration Administration has taken the view that tha t a Taliban Taliban victory ... would act as a counterweight cou nterweight to Iran ... and would offer the possibili possibility ty of new trade routes that could weaken Russian and Iranian influence in the region.’ region.’ [65] The Wall Street Journal opined that Afghanistan could provide ‘a prime transshipment transshipment route for the t he export of  Central Asia’s vast oil, gas, and other natural resources.’ ‘Like them or not,’ the Journal continued, ‘the Taliban are the players most capable of achieving  peace in Afghanistan Afghanistan at this moment moment in history.’ [66] The U.S. U.S. government’s main objective in Afghanistan Afghanistan was to consolidate the position position of the t he Taliban regime, regime, which would be friendly to the United States, in order to exploit the oil and gas reserves in Central Asia. Moreover, Washington saw the Taliban as the enemy ene my of Iran, which had her own  proxy in Afghanistan Afghanistan - the Northern Alliance. Alliance. Military Military support for the Taliban Taliban came c ame from Pakistan’s intelligence intelligence agency, the ISI (Inter Services Intelligence). Intelligence). In fact, fa ct, the Taliban Taliban was a virtual creation of P akistani intellig intelligence, ence, which viewed Afghanistan Afghanistan as a potential client state. [67] The United States, in turn, supported Pa kistan as a counterweight to Iran. Throughout the period when the United States took a favorable stance toward the Taliban, the Taliban was massacring civilians, oppressing women, and, in general, depriving the Afghan people of their basic liberties. liberties. It was those very ve ry same horrors that the United United States, after September 11, 2001, would cite as a s justification justification for her use of military military force to t o overthrow the t he tyrannical tyra nnical regime regime and, presumably, liberate the downtrodden populace. Amnesty International, which was concerned not with gas and oil concessions concessions but rather rathe r with the Taliban’s Taliban’s violations of human rights, commented negatively about abou t Washing Wa shington’s ton’s apparent appa rent friendliness friendliness toward that t hat regi re gime. me. According to Amnesty International, Int ernational, ‘Many Afghanistan analysts ana lysts  believe that the United United States has had close political political links links with the Taliban Taliban militia. militia. They They refer to visits visits by Taliban representatives representat ives to the United United States in recent rec ent months and a nd several visits by senior  U.S. U.S. State Department Depa rtment officials to Kandahar including one immediately immediately before the Taliban took over  Jalalabad.’ [68]

U.S. backing of the Taliban After the 1998 19 98 embassy bombings, bombings, the Clinton administration administration does seem to have moved to a  position  position of opposition opposition to the Taliban, pushing the UN Security Security Council to adopt UN Resolution Resolution 1267, which called on the Taliban Taliban to hand over indicted terrorist Osama Osama Bin Laden and to deal de al with the issue of terroris te rrorism. m. Economic sanctions were imposed to pressure pre ssure the Taliban to comply. c omply. The The United United States also a lso engaged engaged in some covert cove rt operations opera tions on Afghanistan’s Afghanistan’s borders and within within the country itself, aimed aimed at a t ultimately removing the regime. regime. [69] But still Washington Washington seems to have mixed mixed its opposition with covert support. The International Herald Tribune reported that t hat in the th e summer of 1998, ‘the Clinton Clinton administration was talking with the Taliban about potential pot ential pipeline pipeline routes to carry oil and natural natura l gas out of Turkmenistan Turkmenistan to the Indian Ocean by crossing crossing Afghanistan Afghanistan and Pakistan.’ P akistan.’ [70] In 1999, Rep. Dan Rohrabacher, a Republican who was a senior member of the House international relations committee, committee, with oversight oversight responsibili responsibility ty on o n policy toward to ward Afghanistan, complained that tha t ‘there is and has ha s been a covert poli po licy cy by this [Clinton] administration administration to support the Taliban movement’s control of Afghanistan.’ Rohrabacher Rohrabache r surmised surmised that U.S. U.S. policy was ‘based on the assumption assumption that tha t the Taliban Taliban would bring stabili stability ty to Afghanistan Afghanistan and a nd permit the building building of oil  pipelines  pipelines from Central Asia Asia through Afghanistan Afghanistan to Pakistan.’ [71] In July 2000, Rohrabacher Rohraba cher pressed p ressed his charge that the United States was aiding the Taliban in his testimony on global terrorism before the committee. Rohrabacher said: ‘We have been supporting the Taliban because beca use all of our aid goes to the Taliban areas, and when people from the outside try to to  put aid into areas not controll cont rolled ed by the Taliban, Taliban, they are a re thwarted by our own State Department.’ Depart ment.’ He continued: ‘Let me state for the record [that] at a time when the Taliban were vulnerable, the top person in this administration, administration, Mr. [Karl F.] Inderfurth [assistant [assistant secretary secre tary of state for South Asian affairs], affairs], and [Secreta [Secretary ry of Energy] Ene rgy] Bill Bill Richardson Richardson personally went to t o Afghanistan Afghanistan and a nd convinced the anti-Taliban forces not to go on the offensive. Further-more, they convinced all of  the anti-Taliban forces and their supporters to disarm and to cease their flow of support for the anti-Taliban anti-Taliban forces.’ forc es.’ [72] U.S. U.S. humanitarian aid to t o Afghanistan did help prop up the Taliban Taliban regi re gime. me. The United States  provided an estimated $113 milli million on in humanitarian humanitarian aid to Afghanistan Afghanistan in 2000 and a comparable c omparable sum in 2001 prior to September 11. [73]

Taliban do not submit su bmit In 2001, the new Bush administration administration greatly expanded American efforts to come to terms te rms with with the Taliban Taliban on oil and terrorism. From February February to t o August, the Bush regime conducted conducte d detail deta iled ed negotiations with Taliban Taliban diplomatic diplomatic representatives, representa tives, meeting several ttim imes es in Washing W ashington, ton, Berli Be rlin, n, and Islamabad. A recent re cent book by French Fre nch intelligence intelligence analysts Jean-Charles Brisard and Guillaume Guillaume Dasquie, Bin Laden: The Forbidden Truth, tells that story and tells it it well. [74] But the Taliban Taliban balked at any pipeline pipeline deal dea l and refused to eli e limi minate nate the terroris te rroristt camps in their  country. Instead of serving as a pliable pliable government that tha t could provide requisi re quisite te stability for  American American exploitation of energy resources, the t he Taliban were exporting e xporting their revolutionary Islamic Islamic fundamentalism to nearby Central Asian countries, thus t hus destabilizing destabilizing the entire energy-rich region. According to Brisard and Dasquie, U.S. U.S. negotiations with the Taliban Taliban broke down in August after a

U.S. U.S. negotiator threatened threa tened military military action agains a gainstt the Taliban, Taliban, tell te lling ing them to accept acce pt the American American offer of ‘a carpet c arpet of gold, or you’ll get get a carpet of bombs.’ [75]

Preparations for military action Months before August 2001, however, the United United States had been making plans to remove the Taliban. Taliban. In this connection, connec tion, note that tha t it is not unusual for a country to have a multifacted multifacted foreign foreign  policy, with with contingency plans that vary widely. In any case, the United United States seems to have sought to solve her differences with the Taliban Taliban through negotiations, while while at the same tim t imee making plans to remove re move the regime regime if negotiati ne gotiations ons failed. Washington had considered c onsidered projecting its mili military tary power into the Central Asian region for some years. For example, e xample, in 1997, U.S. U.S. Special Forces took part pa rt in the longest-range longest-range airborne operation opera tion in American American history, to reach reac h Kazakhstan and a nd Uzbekistan Uzbekistan in order to t o engage in joint mili military tary operations with military forces from Russia and the former Soviet Central Asian republics. U.S.  News and World Report opined that this demonstration of America’s America’s mili military tary muscle was primaril primarily y aimed at ‘Iran’s Islamic-fundamentalist Islamic-fundamentalist regime. regime. But it also could be seen as a warning wa rning to other   potential rivals, rivals, including including China China and the fundamentalist Taliban Taliban mili militia tia of Afghanistan.’ Afghanistan.’ [76] After the September 11 attack, it transpired that the United States and Uzbekistan had been sharing intellig intelligence ence and conducting conduc ting joint joint covert operations ope rations against against the Taliban for two to three thr ee years. yea rs. That  prior secret relationship relationship helps explain the rapid emergence emergence of the post-September 11 mili military tary  partnership between the two countries, making Uzbekistan Uzbekistan a base for launching attacks on Afghanistan. Afghanistan. [77] Furthermore, Furthe rmore, since 1997 special military military units of the CIA had been be en inside Afghanistan, Afghanistan, working with Tali Taliban ban oppositi op position on forces. force s. Not only did the t he CIA work with the anti-Taliban anti-Taliban Northern Alliance, Alliance, it also a lso helped establish an anti-Taliban anti-Taliban network net work in southern Afghanistan, Afghanistan, the area of o f the Taliban’s greatest greatest support. [78] [7 8] With the advent ad vent of the t he Bush administration administration in 2001, U.S. U.S. officials settled settled on concrete c oncrete plans for  military military action, act ion, in cooperation cooperat ion with other countries, to remove the Taliban Taliban regi re gime. me. Signi Significantly, ficantly, some information information on those plans p lans leaked to the public before September 11. On March 15, 2001, 2001 , the British-based British-based Jane’s Jane ’s International Security reported reporte d that tha t the new U.S. U.S. regime was working with with India, Iran, and a nd Russia ‘in a concerted conce rted front against Afghanistan’s Afghanistan’s Taliban Taliban regi re gime.’ me.’ India was supplying supplying the Northern Alliance Alliance with military military equipment, advisors a dvisors,, and helicopter technicians, tec hnicians, the magazine magazine said, and a nd both India and Russia Russia were using bases in Tajikistan Tajikistan and Uzbekistan for their  the ir  operations. ‘Several recent meetings between the newly instituted Indo-U.S. Indo-U.S. and Indo-Russian Indo-Russian joint working groups on terrorism led led to this effort to tactically t actically and logistically logistically counter the Taliban’, Taliban’, Jane’s Jane ’s reported. ‘Intelligence ‘Intelligence sources in Delhi said that while while India, Russia, and Iran were leading the anti-Taliban anti-Taliban campaig c ampaign n on the ground, Washing W ashington ton was giving giving the Northern Alliance Alliance information and logistic support.’ [79] According to a June 26, 2001, article in the Indian public-affairs Web magazine magazine Indiareacts.com, Indiareact s.com, the United States, Russia, Russia, Pakistan, Pa kistan, and India made a pact for war against the Taliban. Taliban. Iran was considered a covert participant. The powers planned to begin the war in mid October. [80] A simil similar ar story, reported repo rted by the BBC on September 18, was provided by Niaz Naik, a former  Pakistani foreign secretary. He said he was told by senior U.S. officials in mid July that military action against Afghanistan Afghanistan would go ahead by the th e middle middle of October. Octobe r. The broader goal was the removal of the Taliban Taliban and a nd the installation installation of a compliant compliant pro-American regime. According to Naik, he was told t old that the t he United States would launch her operation from bases in Tajikistan, Tajikistan, where

American American military military advisors were were already a lready in place. [81] Four days later, on September 22, The Guardian newspaper confirmed Naik’s account and added that Pakistan had passed a warning of the impending attack to the Taliban. The story implied that the warning may have spurred Osama Bin Laden to launch his attacks, stating that ‘Bin Laden, far  from launching the attacks on the World Trade Centre in New York and the Pentagon out of the  blue 10 days ago, was launching launching a preemptive strike in response response to what he saw as U.S. U.S. threats.’ The warning to Afghanistan Afghanistan came ca me out of a meeting of senior U.S., U.S., Russian, Iranian, and Pakistani officials at a hotel in Berlin in mid July. [82]

Pretext Despite her preparations for war, the United States couldn’t just launch an attack on Afghanistan; U.S. officials required a compelling pretext in order to mobilize the American public into supporting a war in that faraway, and, to most people, unknown land. As Brzezinski had acknowledged, American military expansion into Central Asia could not be undertaken ‘except in the circumstance of a truly massive and widely perceived direct external threat.’ [83] Even more importantly, an irresistibl irresistiblee provocation provoca tion was needed to t o prevent strong opposition opposition to such a war in Iran and Pakistan. P akistan. Support - or, in the case of Iran, acquiescence - was seen as necessary to allow for the successful conduct of such a war. Was September 11 just a fortuitous event that meshed perfectly with U.S. U.S. strategic designs designs for  foreign oil resources and with actual U.S. military planning? Such serendipity does occasionally occur. However, even if the 9-11 attacks were such a case, they would still deserve to be placed in historical historical and political context, since they allowed the United States to capitalize upon them by implementing implementing a preexisting mili military tary agenda. a genda. Hitler may not have started the t he Reichstag fire, but he certainly intended to become dictator and was able to exploit the fire to achieve his goal; and that would be worth putting in context. But the official media portrayal of the ‘war on terrorism’ as simply an effort to remove the evil people who attacked America is contextless. The aims of the war are quite different. If the terrible tragedy of September 11 had not served as a pretext for  America’s America’s war policy, something else else probably would have, ha ve, though t hough undoubtedly less effectively. effec tively. But given the evidence presented in this article, it is also also conceivable conc eivable that high high U.S. U.S. officials had advance knowledge of a terrorist attack and decided to let it proceed, perhaps without envisioning the magnitude of the destruction, in order to provide a catalyst for their already planned war in Afghanistan. (We can probably exclude from that knowing circle President Dodo, who doesn’t seem to have a clue as to what’s going on beyond believing that we are good and they are bad.)

Israel’s involvement As important as the interest of Big Oil is, is, the success of America’s foreign policy requires the  backing of the supporters of Israel, who hold hold a dominant place in the official media. media. Israel’s supporters in America, unsurprising unsurprisingly, ly, constitute the vanguard of those who are working to enlarge the war into one agains a gainstt Israel’s enemies. But Israel is more than simply simply a beneficiary bene ficiary of the 9-11 attack. Considerable evidence exists that Israel had some connection to the attack, at least to the extent that her intelligence intelligence agents possessed prior knowledge of it. For years stories have circulated that tha t Israeli agents - especially those of Israel’s foreign intellig intelligence ence agency, the Mossad - have infiltrated infiltrated Arab terrorist networks and have sometimes sometimes actually actua lly involved involved themselves in deceptive terroristic activities designed designed to appear appea r as the work of Arabs. For example, it has been claimed claimed - by Victor Ostrovsky, for one - that the Mossad had foreknowledge of the

attack on the U.S. Marine Barracks in Lebanon in 1983. [84] Other observers all a llege ege that the Mossad thoroughly infiltrated infiltrated the nefarious ne farious terrorist terrorist group Abu  Nidal and even turned some of its terrorist terrorist activities to Israel’s benefit. [85] Anent the notorious Lavon Affair, even mainstream writers - and, to some extent, the Israeli government itself - have acknowledged a cknowledged Israel’s deceptive terroris te rrorism. m. In July 1954, Egypt was  plagued by a series of bomb bomb outrages directed mainly mainly against American American and British property in Cairo and Alexandria. The bombings, bombings, generally assumed assumed to be the work of Arab nationali na tionalists, sts, had the effect e ffect of heightening tensions tensions at a time when Egypt E gypt was negotiating with Britain Britain over the evacuation evacu ation of Britain’s military military bases in the t he Suez Canal Cana l Zone. Ultimately, Ultimately, the bombings bombings contributed to the attack on Egypt by the British British and French (and Israel) in the Suez crisis crisis of 1956. The terrorist  bombings  bombings were actually carried out by Egyptian Jews in the service service of Israel. [86] The belief that Israel might might engage in such deceptive dece ptive terrorism against against the United States is expressed in a recent study by the Army’s School School of Advanced Advance d Military Military Studies (SAMS (SAMS). ). A reference referenc e to this study appeared, appe ared, poignantly, in a frontpage article in the Washing Wa shington ton Times Times on September 10, 2001 - one day before the horrific attacks. According to the article, ‘Of the Mossad, the Israeli intellig intelligence ence service, the SAMS SAMS officers officers say: “ Wildcard. Ruthless and cunning c unning.. Has capability to target U.S. forces and make it look like a Palestinian/Arab act.”’ [87] Intimations of a possible possible Israeli connection connect ion emerged immediately immediately after the September 11 tragedy (and, naturally, na turally, were publicized publicized by Islamic Islamic sources). Initial reports from Israel Israel said that 4,000 Israelis worked in the World Trade Towers and the Pentagon, or in their vicinity. However, it turned out that only one Israeli (or at most a very few Israelis) died. died. The Islamic Islamic media inferred from this that Israelis in the target areas a reas had received prior warning. Jewish Jewish groups and the Establishment Establishment media have h ave labeled that inference ‘anti-S ‘ant i-Semiti emitic.’ c.’ It is undeniable tha t the Islamic Islamic media did embellish the story; they have offered no evidence that Israel actually provided a warning. warning. On the other ot her hand, unless the initial initial figure figure of 4,000 Israelis has been credibly recante d or  refuted, the t he minute death ratio would seem to seriously seriously challenge challenge the laws of probability. probability. [88]

Mysterious Israeli ‘movers’ Law enforcement enforc ement officials took at least three different groups of Israelis Israelis into custody after  eyewitnesses reported seeing them celebrating in several locations in New Jersey, across the river  from lower Manhattan, as the September 11 attacks occurred. In two cases, men were reported to have videotaped the initial attack on the World Trade Center. Witnesses say it appeared that they knew what would happen before it happened. It is also alleged alleged that tha t some of the men arrested were carrying ca rrying maps maps linking linking them to the blasts. All All the detained de tained Israelis were connected connecte d to Israeli-owned moving moving companies operating out of New York and New Jersey. [89] A clear implication implication is that the moving companies were fronts for an an Israeli spy network.

Fox story on Israeli spies in the U.S. On December 12, Fox News with with Brit Hume, featuring reporter Carl Cameron, broke an an eye-opening story that federal fe deral law enforcement officials had detained approximately a pproximately 60 Israeli citizens, citizens, including some some described desc ribed as active ac tive Israeli military military or intelligence intelligence operatives, in the course of the post-September post-September 11 roundup of potential pot ential terrorists. U.S. U.S. officials officials suspecte suspected d that the Israelis were part of an extensive e xtensive Israeli intelli intelligence gence network active a ctive in America, which which probably had

obtained advance information of the September 11 attacks. Regarding the September 11 connection, Cameron reported: ‘There is no indication that the Israelis were involved in the 9-11 attacks, but investigators suspect that the Israelis may have gathered intellig intelligence ence about the attacks attac ks in advance and not shared share d it. A highly highly placed investigator said there are “tieins.” But when asked for details, he flatly refused to describe them, saying, “Evidence linking these Israelis to 9-11 is classified. I cannot tell you about evidence that has been gathered. It’s classified classified information.”’ information.”’ [90] Muddying these already murky waters wate rs are claim c laimss that Israel did pass on warnings to the U.S. U.S. government that agents of Osama Bin Laden Lade n were preparing prepa ring a major assault on the United States. States. [91] However, the alleged alleged warnings do not seem to have been as specifi spec ificc as the information information Fox  News impli implies es Israel possessed. possessed. In short, the alleged Israeli warnings warnings did not offer the United United States any more information than the many other warnings that were flowing in. Conceivably, the apparently apparent ly vague warnings could simpl simply y represent an effort e ffort on the part of Israeli intelli intelligence gence to  protect itself from the charge that it was with-holding with-holding vital information information from the United States. States. The U.S. government seems to tolerate, unofficially, a high level of Israeli spying in the United States,  but surely Washington Washington expects expec ts to derive some benefit in return.

The question of state terrorism A considerable number of intelligence experts have contended that the whole September 11 event was too complicated to have been successfully conducted by al Qaeda and that it required state sponsorship. sponsorship. Some have pointed to Iraq, a few to Iran; however, no evidence inculpating either of  those states has ha s turned up. Intell Inte llig igence ence specialists specialists committed committed to t o the mainstream have refrained, re frained, of  course, from pointing any accusatory acc usatory fingers at Israel or the United States. In a January 3 interview in the German daily Tagesspiegel, Tagesspiegel, intellig intelligence ence expert Andreas von Bülow maintains that ‘the planning of the attacks was technically and organizationally a master  achievement. To hijack hijack four huge airpl a irplanes anes within a few minutes and within one hour, to drive them into their targets, ta rgets, with complicate complicated d flight flight maneuvers! maneuve rs! This This is unthinkable, without years-l yea rs-long ong support from secret apparatuses of the state and industry... I have real difficulties, however, to imagine imagine that all this sprang sprang out of the mind of an evil man in his cave.’ [92] Even if we assum a ssumee that Bin Laden is an evil genius capable of directing a complex attack from halfway around the t he globe, fundamental problems with the official story persist. For in the official view, Bin Laden somehow orchestrated orchestrate d the attack a ttack without relying relying on electronic communications. And not only that: t hat: intelligence intelligence agencies had already identified, as his associates, the men who allegedly allegedly received his instructions. How could could Bin Laden have directed direct ed a compli c omplicate cated d scheme, executed by people known to be his associates, without the authorities detecting anything? That the September 11 event eve nt took place in the way that tha t the official story story claims it it did is highly highly unlikely. unlikely.

Conclusions As I stated at the t he beginning, beginning, I hold a moderate revisi re visionist onist view of America’s America’s current war on terrorism. terrorism. We may divide 9-11 revisi re visionism onism into into four different categories, cat egories, from mild mild to hardli ha rdline. ne. The mildest mildest form would be that of Kinsley and Matthews, in which the purpose of the war has ha s been illici illicitly tly broadened broadene d from its original original intent: punishing the perpetrators perpetra tors of the September 11 crim c rime. e. A somewhat harder version holds that the broader war was intended from the very outset and that the September 11 atrocities simply simply provided a pretext prete xt to put the war plan into ac tion. More hardline is the view that the U.S. government was aware of the attack before it occurred and allowed it to

 proceed in order to a chieve a pretext prete xt for war. And the hardest line of all would would have it that the  beneficiaries of the war actually facilitated facilitated the t he atrocities. Among the claims of this this version are that U.S. U.S. warplanes intentionally allowed allowed the hijackers to reach reac h their targets; ta rgets; that the t he U.S. U.S. government  placed bombs in the World Trade Trade Center Cent er to make sure it would collapse; collapse; and that tha t Osama Bin Laden had nothing to do with the attack but was simply a convenient scapegoat. It seems obvious that the events of September 11 did provide a pretext to achieve, by military action, already-existing foreign foreign policy goals. To beli be lieve eve thatAmerican military military action was wa s aimed simply simply at bringing to justice the perpetrators perpetrat ors of the act - Matthews’s ‘firefighters’ ‘firefighters’ war’ - is sheer  naiveté. It not only ignores ignores signifi significant cant information information but also fails fails to reflect any understanding unde rstanding of how  policymakers  policymakers work. Simil Similarly, arly, the extreme revisionist revisionist version whereby the t he U.S. U.S. government actually a ctually perpetrated perpet rated the horrific horrific events e vents of September 11 represents a move into conspiratorial la-la-land. la-la-land. Such loopy ideas actuall actua lly y serve Establishment Establishment interests by discrediting any more-sober attempt to revise the official official account. accou nt. (As I have impli implied, ed, one might might want to be a little little slower to ridicule the hypothesis of Israeli sponsorship.) As for the evidence e vidence that tha t points to prior knowledge by the United United States and a nd Israel, this writer is just just not sure. But such a scenario must not be written off as an absurd impossibility, as the Establishment media and academia customarily do with ‘conspiracy theories’ that are in some way ‘anti-Establishment’ ‘anti-Establishment’ (while simultaneously simultaneously promoting promoting a host of other othe r conspiracy theories t heories that comport better bett er with their own world-view). Obviously, Obviously, the whole affair a ffair cries out for a rigorous rigorous investigation investigation - in fact the qualifier qualifier rigorous should should be deleted because the only evidence so far has come from the news media. Apparently, no official investigation investigation whatsoever of the ‘foreknowledge scenario’ has occurred, and, of course, no government documents have been subjected to public  perusal; most interesting interesting among the latter would be information from the intelligence intelligence agencies, such as intercepts and surveillance tapes. However, having studied the background of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, [93] I am struck   by the amount of information already available that runs counter to th e official line. line. It took years to reach a comparable stage in the analysis of Pearl Harbor, and it required numerous investigations. Granted, the P earl Harbor investigations were largely government whitewashes; but, willy-nil willy-nilly, ly, those probes dragged numerous anomalies into into the light. light. In fact, they t hey eventually eve ntually forced the Establishment Establishment to retreat re treat from its original original ‘bolt-from-the-blue ‘bolt-from-the-blue while a totally unsuspecting America was listening listening to Jack Benny on the radio’ ra dio’ fable. Unfortunately, in the case of the September 11 catastrophe, the anomalous information that was released, incautiously or unavoidably, right after the event seems to have been thrown down the memory hole and officially forgotten. forgotten. The leads simply simply have not been bee n investigated investigated - which is understandable in a world always short of heroes, because pulling on those threads would probably not be a career-enhancing caree r-enhancing activity. Who is to say? - it might might not even be b e life-enhancing. I have one o ne final observation about the overall Establishment Establishment position, position, an observation observa tion which is is so obvious it is often over-looked. ‘Defensive’ wars are intended to stop some action from continuing or from taking place - such wars are aim a imed, ed, classically, at ‘driving the invader invade r from our country.’  Now, many commentators commentators justify the ‘war on terrorism’ terrorism’ as a defense of the United States. States. But the t he fact of o f the matter matte r is that government officials officials make little little effort to t o demonstrate how their the ir ‘war on terrorism’ terrorism’ will will eliminate, eliminate, or even e ven lessen, the terrorist threat to the United United States. As their the ir critics have pointed out, it is none other than U.S. mili military tary interventionis intervent ionism m that provokes provoke s terrorists to target the United States for attacks. attac ks. [94] Thus, as the United United States expands expa nds and intensifies intensifies her war agains a gainstt terrorism around the globe, she actually a ctually increases the likelihood likelihood of terrorist strikes against against the

American American homeland. If the war has ha s not reduced reduce d the terrorist t errorist threat to America, what has h as it done? - what might might it do? It has been partly successful, at best, in bringing to justice the perpetrators of 9-11. It has disrupted the al Qaeda Qae da network, though t hough Osama Osama Bin Laden Lade n and many of his h is leading leading associates remain at large. large. But at the same time, the war has h as achieved the establishment of an American military military presence in energy-rich Central Asia and a pliable pliable government in Afghanistan. Afghanistan. Moreover, Moreove r, the war has given a green light light to Israel to smash the P alestinians; alestinians; and it has smoothed the path for a U.S. U.S. assault against Israel’s major enemies, starting with Iraq. When a war advances advanc es the long-sought long-sought aims of a power and its chief ally, may we not infer the  purpose of the war from those results? But perhaps that kind of logi logicc is too old-fashioned. old-fashioned. March 22, 2002 Source: www.thornwalker.com/ditch  For f urther questions and comments concerning conce rning the articles artic les please contac t the editors edi tors of Current  Curren t  Concerns, who will pass them on to the author.

(*) Stephen J. Sniegoski Sniegoski received a Ph. D. in United United States History from the University of Maryland. He published articles dealing with history, foreign  policy and education. Further articles by Dr. Sniegoski: Sniegoski: www.thornwalker.com/ditch www.thornwalker.com/ditch /towers_toc.htm

Footnotes:

[1] In regard to the treatment of o f Taliban Taliban prisoners, the Office of Legal Counsel of the Justice Department has opined that the ‘Taliban and its forces were, in fact, not a government, but a militant, militant, terrorist-l t errorist-like ike group.’ Rowan Scarborough, ‘Powell urges POW status,’ Washington Times, January 26, 2002, http://www.washtimes.com/national/20020126-76636371.htm. http://www.washtimes.com/national/20020126-76636371.htm. [2] Michael Kinsley, Kinsley, ‘The War Keeps Growing,’ Growing,’ Washington Washington Post, February 8, 2002, p. A31, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A426742002Feb7.html. [3] Chris Matthews, ‘Who hijacked our o ur war?,’ San Francisco Chronicle, February 17, 2002http://www.sfgate.c 2002http://www.sfgate.com/cgi om/cgiBin/article.cgi Bin/article.cgi?fi ?file=/chronicle/archive/2002/02 le=/chronicle/archive/2002/02/17/IN167643.DTL. /17/IN167643.DTL. [4] Robert Novak, ‘The war President,’ January 31, 2002, http://www.townhall.com/columnists http://www.townhall.com/columnists /robertnovak/rn20020131.shtml. [5] Patrick Pa trick Martin has written an excellent series of articles a rticles on this issue issue on the t he World Socialist Socialist Web Site: Site: http://www.wsws.org http://www.wsws.org/sections/category/news/terr-us.shtml /sections/category/news/terr-us.shtml..

[6] The United States has established a pliable government under Musharraf Karzai, who is already talking of developing the pipeline. See ‘Musharraf, Karzai a gree major oil pipeline pipeline in cooperation coope ration  pact,’ The Irish Times, Times, February 16, 2001, http://www.ireland.com/newspaper/world/2002/0209 http://www.ireland.com/newspaper/world/2002/0209 /448097021FR09KAR ZAI .html. . html. [7] Actually the condition of the Palestinians is is far worse than tha t of South Africa‘s Blacks Blacks in the Bantustans of the former white-ruled South Africa. Compared to the Bantustans, the preserves for  the Palestini P alestinians ans are tiny t iny and are lacking lack ing the necessary elements for survival - most most crucially water. In reality, the Palestinian reserves fall somewhere between a Bantustan and a Nazi concentration camp, sans homicidal homicidal gas chambers. [8] Stratfor.com, the intelligence intelligence Website, devoted devot ed an article to showing how Israel was the big winner from the Sept. 11 tragedy: tra gedy: George Friedman, ‘The Israeli Dimension,’ Dimension,’ September 11, 2001. 200 1. The piece cannot c annot be accessed acce ssed gratis gratis at Stratfor (www.stratfor.com), but it is posted in the news ne ws groups. [9] David Hirst, ‘Israel ‘Israel thrusts Iran in line line of US fire,’ The Guardian, February 2, 2002, http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/Story/0,2763,643734,00.html. http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/Story/0,2763,643734,00.html. Also Also see ‘Iran, Israel and a nd Nuclear  Weapons in the Middle Middle East,’ http://www.cdi.org h ttp://www.cdi.org/terrorism/m /terrorism/menukes.cfm. enukes.cfm. [10] The pro-Zi pro -Zionist onist American American media have recently been presenting anti-Iranian stories implyi implying ng that Iran has actually protected al Qaeda members. If true, that would be quite ironic since Iran fought the Taliban for years. [11] Jim Lobe, ‘Hawks Take Aim at Iraq,’ November 30, 2001, http://www.foreignpolicyi http://www.foreignpolicyinfocus.org/comm nfocus.org/commentary/0111h entary/0111hawk_body.html;‘U awk_body.html;‘US S Hawks Ha wks Say Taliban Taliban Is  Not Enough,’ November 9, 2001, http://www.atimes.com/c-asia/CK09Ag http://www.atimes.com/c-asia/CK09Ag01.html; 01.html; and Jude Wanniski, ‘Israel and the Terrorist Terrorist Attack,’ Attac k,’ October 10, 2001, http://www.supplysi http://www.supplysideinvestor.com deinvestor.com /showarticle.asp?articleid=1670. [12] Bill Press, ‘Bill ‘Bill Press: Making Making political political hay out of 9/11,’ January Janua ry 23, 2002, http://www.cnn.com/2002/ALLPOLITICS/01/23/column.bill http://www.cnn.com/2002/ALLPOLITICS/01/23/column.bi llpress/; press/; and an d Mark Halperin, ‘Bush Adviser KARL ROVE Suggests Suggests Republicans Benefit from War,’ ABCNEWS.com, ABCNEWS.com, January 18, 2002. [13] Julian Borger, Borger, ‘Washington hawks get power boost,’ b oost,’ The Guardian, December Dece mber 17, 2001. Borger writes: ‘The mostly casualtyfree military military successes succe sses in Afghanistan Afghanistan have signifi significantly cantly boosted the power powe r of Washington‘s ‚super-hawks‘ - a tight-knit group of former Cold Warriors who who have returned from more than a decade in policy exile to grasp the levers of power once more.‘“It‘s taken us 13 years to get here, but we‘ve arrived,” the evening‘s host, Frank Gaffney, the head of a hawkish Washington thinktank, declared to applause and murmurs of agreement’: http://www.pixunlim http://www.pixunlimited.co.uk/global/adpopup3.htm?IF ited.co.uk/global/adpopup3.htm?IFRHEIGHT RHEIGHT=’200’ =’200’ ?IFRWIDTH=’200’?IFRAM ?IFRWIDTH=’200’?IFRAMEBGCOL=’000000’?S EBGCOL=’000000’?SPACEDESC=popupbig38. PACEDESC=popupbig38. [14] Members of these two groups can, of course, also be proponents of the interests of Big Oil or  of Israel. [15] Howard Kurtz, ‘The Reluctant Scrutiny of 9/11,’ Washington Post, February 7 , 2002, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wpdyn/articles/A http://www.washingtonpost.com/wpdyn/articles/A3805938059- 2002Feb7.html.Kurtz 2002 Feb7.html.Kurtz,, of course, tries to account accou nt for this improbabili improbability ty in his own way. wa y. [16] Brian Williams, Williams, ‘Instant Messages to Israel Warned of WTC Attack,’ Newsbytes, September  September 

27, 2001, http://www.newsbytes.com/news/01/170583.html http://www.newsbytes.com/news/01/170583.html.. [17] Chris Blackhurst, ‘Mystery of terror “insider dealers,”‘ Independent, October 14, 2001, http://news.independent.co.uk/business/news http://news.independent.c o.uk/business/news/story.jsp? /story.jsp?story=99402 story=99402 . [18] Don Radlauer, ‘Black Tuesday: The World‘s Largest Insider Trading Scam?,’ Scam?,’ The International Intern ational Policy Institute for Counter Terrorism, September September 19, 2001, http://www.ict.org.il http://www.ict.org.il/. /. [19] Phillip Phillip Matier and a nd Andrew Ross, ‘Willi ‘Williee Brown got low-key early warning about air travel,’ San Francisco Chronicle, September 12, 2001, http://www.sf h ttp://www.sfgate.com/today gate.com/today /0912_chron_mnreport.shtml. [20] ‘Rushdie claims US US authorities knew of aattack ttack ,’ HindustanTimes.com, HindustanTimes.com, September 27, 2001, http://www.hindustantimes.com/nonfram/270901/dLAME64.asp; http://www.hindustantimes.com/nonfram/270901/dLAME64.asp; Joseph Farrah, Farra h, ‘The fail fa ilure ure of  government,’ WorldNetDaily.com, WorldNetDaily.com, October Octobe r 19, 2001, http://apll htt p://apll.freeyellow.com/farrah.html .freeyellow.com/farrah.html.. [21] ‘26 Reasons Why “White Collar Terrorists” are to Blame for “America’s New War” and the Impending World World War III,’ http://www.tetrahedron.org/articles/apocalypse/26_reasons.html. [22] Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St. Clair, ‘After-shocks,’ CounterPunch, September 14, 2001, http://www.counterpunch.org/aftershocks.html. [23] Simon Simon Marks, ‘Asleep ‘Asleep at the switch,’ switch,’ Society Society of Professi P rofessional onal Journalists, http://www.spj.org http://www.spj.org /quill_iss /quill_issue.asp?ref=233. ue.asp?ref=233. [Membership [Membership site - ed.] e d.] [24] ‘Egypt Leader Says He Warned America,’ AP, December 7, 2001, http://globalresearch.ca /articles/LEB112A.html;‘Mubarak says he warned U.S. of an attack before Sept. 11,’ Associated Press, Virtual Virtual Jerusalem, http://www.virtualjerusalem http://www.virtualjerusalem.com/news/usnews/? .com/news/usnews/?disp_feature=68aa disp_feature=68aav2. v2. var. [25] September 15, 2001 MSNBC interview with Vladim Vladimir ir Putin cited in Nevada Democratic News, http://www.nevadademocraticnews.com/page361976.htm. [26] Ned Stafford, ‘Newspaper: Echelon Eche lon Gave Authorities Warning of Attacks,’ Newsbytes, September 13, 2001, http://www.newsbytes.com/news/01/170072.html http://www.newsbytes.com/news/01/170072.html.. [27] ‘German police confirm Iranian Iranian deportee deporte e phoned phone d warnings,’ warnings,’ Ananova, September 14, 2001, http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_398414.html?menu. [28] Robert Novak, ‘Tom Ridge’s challenge,’ challenge,’ Septem-ber 27, 2001, http://www.townhal ht tp://www.townhall.com l.com /columnists/robertnovak/rn20010927.shtml. [29] Raymond C. Burgos, Acuin Papa, and a nd Dave Veridiano, ‘Plot to use planes in US attacks attac ks uncovered in RP,’ Inquirer News Service, Service, September 12, 2001, http://www.inq7.net/n http://www.inq7.net/nat/2001 at/2001 /sep/13/nat_41.htm ;Doug Struck, Struck, Howard Schneider, Karl Vick, and Peter P eter Baker, ‘Borderless ‘Borde rless Network of Terror, Bin Laden Followers Followers Reach across a cross Globe,’ Globe,’ Washing Wa shington ton Post, September 23, 2001, p. A1, http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wpdyn?pagename=article&node=&contentId=A10543-2001 Sep22;Maria Ressa, ‘U.S. ‘U.S. warned in 1995 of plot to hijack planes, attack att ack buildings,’ buildings,’ CNN, CNN, September 18, 2001, http://www.cnn.com/2001/US http://www.cnn.com/2001/US/09/18/inv.hijacking /09/18/inv.hijacking.phili .philippines/index. ppines/index. html. [30] Mark Fineman and Judy Pasternak, Pa sternak, ‘Suicide Flights Flights and Crop Dusters Considered Threats at at

‘96 Olympics,’ Olympics,’ Los Angeles Times, Times, November 17, 2001, 2 001, http://www.l h ttp://www.latimes.com/news/nationw atimes.com/news/nationworld orld /nation/la111701threat.story. [31] Jacqueli Jacque lin n Magnay, ‘Jet crash on stadium was Olympics Olympics nightmare,’ nightmare,’ Sydney Morning Herald, September 20, 2001, http://www.smh.com.au/news/0109/20/world/world20.html http://www.smh.com.au/news/0109/20/world/world20.html.. [32] FAA Office of Civil Aviation Security, Criminal Acts against Civil Aviation, 2000, http://cas.faa.gov/crimacts/. [33] Steve Fainaru and James V. Grimaldi, ‘FBI Knew Terrorists Were Using Flight Schools,’ Washington Post, September 23, 2001, 2 001, p. A-24, http://www.was h ttp://www.washing hingtonpost.com tonpost.com /ac2/wpdyn?pagename=article&node=&contentId=A10840-2001Sep22;Kevin Cullen and Ralph Ranalli, ‘FBI coming coming under renewed rene wed scrutiny,’ Boston Globe, Sept. 25, 2001, p. A8. [34] Mohammed Heikal, ‘There isn’t a target in Afghanistan worth a $1m missil missile,’ e,’ Guardian, October 10, 2001, http://www.guardian.co.uk/Archive/Article/0,4273,4273924,00.html. [35] Richard Sale, ‘Making cyberwar on Bin Laden,’ United Press International, February 8, 2001. [36] Michael Hirsh, ‘We’ve Hit the Targets,’ Newsweek, Newsweek, September 13, 2001,http://www.msnbc.com/news/627963.asp#BODY. [37] David Crary and Jerry Schwartz, Associated Press, September 11, 2001, ‘World Trade Cen ter  collapses in terrorist attack,’ at tack,’ http://www.timesdispatch.com/terroristattack/MGB6TPN1IRC.html. http://www.timesdispatch.com/terroristattack/MGB6TPN1IRC.html. [Link may have expired - ed.] [38] John Diamond and Jill Jill Zuckman, ‘Leak ‘Lea k of CIA C IA data angers officials,’ officials,’ Chicago Tribune, September 14, 2001, http://chicagotribune.com/news/nationworl http://chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld d /chi0109140370sep14.story?coll=chi-news-hed. [39] Bob Drogin and Eric Lichtblau, L ichtblau, ‘Search for Suspects Was on for Weeks,’ Wee ks,’ Los Angeles Times, Times, http://www.webcom.com/hrin/magazine/la-search.html. [40] John Crewdson, ‘Hijacker held, freed before Sept. 11 attack,’ Chicago Tribune, December 13, 2001, http://chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-0112130293dec13.story; Associated Press, ‘Official: ‘Official: Hijacker Hijacker Was Wa s Detained at Dubai Airport,’ Washington Washington Post, P ost, December 14, 2001, p. p . A-23, http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wpdyn?pagename=article&node=& contentId=A41318-2001Dec13. [41] Martin Bright, Bright, et al., a l., ‘The Secret Secret War: Part 2,’ The Observer, September 30, 2001, http://www.pixunlim http://www.pixunlimited.co.uk/global/adpopup3.htm?IF ited.co.uk/global/adpopup3.htm?IFRHEIGHT RHEIGHT=’200’ =’200’ ?IFRWIDTH=’200’?IFRAM ?IFRWIDTH=’200’?IFRAMEBGCOL=’000000’?S EBGCOL=’000000’?SPACEDESC=popupbig38;T PACEDESC=popupbig38;Tony ony Helm, ‘German secret service “failed to act on terrorist warnings,”’ Daily Telegraph (London), November 24, 2001;Hugh Williams Williamson, on, ‘Crash ‘Cra sh pilot “was “ was being watched” watch ed” investigation,’ investigation,’ Financial Times Times (London), (London ),  November 24, 2001. [42] George Lardner Lardne r Jr., ‘Lawyers Say Terrorist’s Entry into U.S. U.S. Could Have Been Barred,’ Ba rred,’ Washington Post, October 28, 2001, p. A8, http://www.washingtonpost.com /ac2/wpdyn?pagename=article&node=&contentId=A63328-2001Oct27. [43] Aditya Sinha, ‘In need of cash to pay for army, Taliban dump opium,’ October 3, 2001, http://www.hindustantimes.com/nonfram/041001/detfor02.asp.

[44] http://www http ://www.businessw .businessweek.com/bwdaily/dnflash/oct2001/nf2001104_7412.htm.Pa eek.com/bwdaily/dnflash/oct2001/nf2001104_7412.htm.Pa trick Martin, ‘The strange case of Zacarias Moussaoui: FBI refused to investigate investigate man charged in September 11 attacks,’ attac ks,’ World Socialist Socialist Web Site, Site, July 5, 2002, http://www.wsws.org http://www.wsws.org/articles/2002/jan2002/mous/articles/2002/jan2002/mous j05.shtml;Dan  j05.shtml;Dan Eggen, ‘Hijack ‘Hijack Plot Suspicions Suspicions Raised Raised With FBI in Aug.,’ Aug.,’ Washington Washington Post, January 2, 2002, p. A1, http://www.washi ht tp://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wpdyn?pagename=article&node=& ngtonpost.com/ac2/wpdyn?pagename=article&node=& contentId=A49567-2002Jan1;Greg contentI d=A49567-2002Jan1;Greg Gordon, ‘Eagan flight flight trainer wouldn’t let unease unea se about Moussaoui rest,’ Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Star-Tribune, December 21, 2001, 200 1, http://www htt p://www.startribune.com/stories .startribune.com/stories /1576/913687.html. [45] Patrick Pa trick Martin, ‘The strange case of Zacarias Moussaoui: FBI refused to investigate investigate man charged in September 11 attacks,’ attac ks,’ World Socialis Socialistt Web Site, Site, January Janua ry 5, 2002, http://www.wsws.org http://www.wsws.org /articles/2002/jan2002/mous-j05.shtml. [46] Bob Drogin, Drogin, Eric Lichtblau, L ichtblau, and Greg Krikorian, Krikorian, ‘CIA, FBI Disagree on Urgency Urgency of Warning,’ Los Angeles Times, Times, October 18, 2001, http://www.latimes.com/templ http://www.latimes.com/templates/misc/pri ates/misc/printstory.jsp? ntstory.jsp?slug slug=la%2D10 =la%2D10 1801cable. [47] Evan Thomas and Mark Hosenball, ‘Bush: “We’re at War,”’ Newsweek, September 24, 2001,  p. 26. [48] David Shippers, Shippers, ‘Government Had Prior Knowledge,’ The Alex Jones Show, Show, October, Octobe r, 10, 2001, http://pub54.ezboard.com/ftribul http://pub54.ezboard.c om/ftribulationpreparation89960frm2.showMes ationpreparation89960frm2.showMes sage?to  picID=14.topic. [49] ‘German Minister’s Interview Rips 911 Case Open,’ Tagesspiegel, Tagesspiegel, January 13, 2002, http://www.freeworldalli http://www.freeworldal liance.c ance.com/newsfl om/newsflash/2002/02newsflash0108.h ash/2002/02newsflash0108.h tm. [50] Robert Fisk, ‘The time of fun and waste is gone,’ The Independent , September 29, 2001, http://www. englishfir englishfirst.org/13166/terrornotetransaltion1001.htm. st.org/13166/terrornotetransaltion1001.htm. [51] Michael C. Ruppert, Ruppe rt, ‘A White Knight Talking Backwards / Spy Case in Canadian Courts Suggests Suggests US Naval Officer Had Foreknowledge of 9-11,’ http://www.copvcia.com/free/ww3 /01_25_02_revised_012802_vreeland. html;‘American Spy Warned Canadian Government about Sept. 11 Attacks,’ The Intelligence Intelligence Digest, http://www.watchmanjournal.org/000245.html. http://www.watchmanjournal.org/000245.html. [52] Det. Rick Pengelly of the Toronto police said that Vreeland ‘seems to e xist solely solely by committing committing frauds.’ Tom Godfrey, ‘Cops Catch Catc h Up with Artful Dodger,’ Toronto Sun, January 13, 2001. [53] ‘U.S. ‘U.S. Knew of o f Attacks Attack s in Advance?’, http://www.sweetliberty.org/audio/. http://www.sweetliberty.org/audio/. [54] Greg Palast and David Pallister, Pallister, ‘FBI and US Spy Agents Agents Say Bush Spiked Bin Laden P robes  before 11 September,’ The Guardian, November 7, 2001, http://www.gregpalast.com/detail.cfm? http://www.gregpalast.com/detail.cfm?artid=103&row=1;Greg artid=103&row=1;Greg P alast, ‘BBC: Did Bush Turn a Blind Eye to Terrorism?,’ Terrorism?,’ BBC Newsnight, Newsnight, November Nove mber 6, 2001, http://www.g ht tp://www.gregpalast.com regpalast.com /detail.cfm?artid=104&row=1. [55] O’Neill O’Neill expressed this view view in an interview for a recent rec ent book by French authors a uthors Jean-Charles Brisard and Guillaume Guillaume Dasquie, ‘Bin Laden: Lade n: La Verite Interdite (Bin Laden: La den: The Hidden Truth)’. Laura Marlowe, ‘US ‘US efforts to make peace pe ace summ summed ed up by ‘oil,’ Irish Irish Times, Times, November 19, 2001,

http://www.ireland.com/newspaper/world/2001/1119/wor8.htm; http://www.ireland.com/newspaper/world/2001/1119/wor8.htm; ‘Three reviews re views of Bin Laden: The Forbidden Truth by Jean-Charles Brisard and Guillaume Guillaume Dasquie,’ http://serendipity.magnet.ch http://serendipity.magnet.ch /wot/bl_tft.htm. [56] Elie Krakowski, ‘The Afghan Vortex,’ IASPS Research Papers P apers in Strategy, April 2000. No. 9, http://www.institute-for-afghanstudies.org http://www.institute-for-afghanstudies.org/dev_xyz/conflict/afghan_vortex_iasps_2000.htm. /dev_xyz/conflict/afghan_vortex_iasps_2000.htm. [Hitting this link link currently seems to produce p roduce odd results. - ed.] [57] ‘Asia’s big oil oil rush: count us in,’ U.S. U.S. News & World Report, Sept 29, 1997, p. 42. [58] Zbigniew Zbigniew Brzezinski, Brzezinski, ‘The Grand Chessboard: Che ssboard: American American Primacy and a nd its Geostrategic Geostrat egic Imperatives’ (New York: Basic Books, 1997). A similar similar argument that the control co ntrol of vital resources is the key to global global power and global warfare is presented by Michael T. Klare, Resource Wa rs: ‘The New Landscape Lan dscape of Global Conflict’ Conflict’ (New York: Henry Holt, 2001). [59] Brzezinski is is echoing the geopolitical geopolitical theory of 19th-century 19th-ce ntury British geostrategist geostrategist Halford Mackinder. See Christopher J. Fettweis, Fet tweis, ‘Sir ‘Sir Halford Mackinder, Geopolitics, Geopolitics, and Policymaking in in the 21st Century,’ Centu ry,’ Parameters, Pa rameters, Summer Summer 2000, pp. 58-71, http://carlislewww.army.m http://carlislewww.army.mil/us il/usawc awc /Parameters/00summer/fettweis.htm. [60] Brzezinski, Brzezinski, ‘The Grand Chessboard’, p. 211. [61] Stuart Parrott, ‘Azerbaijan: ‘Azerbaijan: International Conference Convened to Revive Silk Silk Road,’ Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, March 2, 1998, http://www.rferl.org/nca/features/1998/03 /F.RU.980302143024.html. [62] Anne Applebaum, ‘Russia, ‘Russia, Oil, and Conspiracy Theories,’ Slate, Slate, November 27, 2001,http://slate.msn.com/?id=2059026. [63] Quoted by Nafeez Na feez Mosaddeq Ahmed, ‘Afghanistan, ‘Afghanistan, the Taliban, Taliban, and the United States: The The Role of Human Rights in Western Foreign Policy,’ Institute Institute for Policy Research Researc h & Development, Dev elopment, January 2001, [64] Josh Martin, ‘Pipeline wrangle wrangle continues,’ c ontinues,’ The Middle Middle East, Ea st, May 1997, n267 p24(2). [65] New York Times, May 26, 1997. [66] Wall Street Journal, May 23, 1997. [67] Institute for Afghanistan Afghanistan Studies, ‘CIA worked in tandem with Pak to c reate Taliban,’ Taliban,’ March 7, 2001, http://www.institute-for-afghanstudi http://www.institute-for-afghanstudies.org/dev_xyz/news/2001_03_07_ians_harris es.org/dev_xyz/news/2001_03_07_ians_harrison.htm. on.htm. [Hitting this link link currently seems to produce p roduce odd results. - ed.] [68] Quoted by Nafeez Na feez Mosaddeq Ahmed, ‘Afghanistan, ‘Afghanistan, the Taliban Taliban and the United States: The The Role of Human Rights in Western Foreign Policy,’ Institute Institute for Policy Research Researc h & Development, Dev elopment, January 2001, [69] Thomas E. Ricks R icks and Susan B. Glasser, Glasser, ‘U.S. ‘U.S. Operated Operate d Secret Alliance Alliance With Uzbekistan,’ Uzbekistan,’ Washington Post, October Octobe r 14, 2001, http://www htt p://www.cdi.org/rus .cdi.org/russia/johns sia/johnson/5491-7.cfm; on/5491-7.cfm; Bob Woodward, ‘Secret ‘Secret CIA Units Units Playing a Central Combat Role,’ Washington Post, November  18, 2001, 2001 , p. A-1, www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/poli www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/CIA18.html tics/CIA18.html;; and a nd Barton Ba rton Gellman, ‘Broad Effort Launched After ‘98 Attacks,’ Washington Post, December 19, 2001,

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wpdyn?pagename=article&node=& contentId=A62725-2001Dec18. [70] Quoted by Nafeez Na feez Mosaddeq Ahmed, ‘Afghanistan, ‘Afghanistan, the Taliban Taliban and the United States: The The Role of Human Rights in Western Foreign Policy,’ Institute Institute for Policy Research Researc h & Development, Dev elopment, January 2001, [71] Statement of Congress C ongressman man Dana Rohrabache Rohra bacher, r, ‘U.S. ‘U.S. Policy toward Afghanistan,’ Afghanistan,’ hearing hea ringss  before the Senate Foreign Relations Relations Subcommi Subcommittee ttee on South Asia, Asia, April April 14, 1999, http://www.wapha.org/dana.html; Kevin Foley and Julie Moffett, ‘Afghanistan: U.S. Denies It Secretly Supports Taliban,’ Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, April 15, 1999, http://www.rferl.org/nca/features/1999/04 /F.RU.990415123406.html. [72] Testimony of Congressman Congressman Dana Rohrabacher, Rohrabach er, ‘Global Terrorism: Terrorism: South Asia Asia - The New Locus,’ hearing before the Committee on International Relations, House of Representatives, 106th Congress, 2nd Session, Session, July July 12, 2000, 106-173, p. 22. [73] U.S. U.S. Department of State, ‘Fact Sheet: Humanitarian Humanitarian Aid to the Afghan People,’ October, 15, 2001, http://usi htt p://usinfo.state.gov/topical/pol/terror/01101504.htm; nfo.state.gov/topical/pol/terror/01101504.htm; Brett Schaefer, ‘Afghanistan’s ‘Afghanistan’s Worst Enemy,’ Heritage Foundation, http://www.heritage.org http://www.heritage.org/views /views /2001/ed110601.html. [74] Julio Godoy, ‘US policy on Taliban influenced by oil,’ Asia Times Online, November 20, 2001, http://www.atimes.com/c-asia/CK20Ag http://www.atimes.com/c-asia/CK20Ag01.html;‘T 01.html;‘Three hree reviews of Bin Laden: The Forbidden Truth  by Jean-Charles Brisard and Guill Guillaume aume Dasquie,’ http://serendipity.magnet.ch/wot/bl_tft.htm. http://serendipity.magnet.ch/wot/bl_tft.htm. [75] Godoy. [76] ‘Asia’s big big oil rush: rush: count us in,’ U.S. News & World Report, Sept 29, 1997, p. 42; 42 ; R. Jeffrey Smith, ‘U.S., Russian Paratroops Join in Central Asian Jump; Exercise Shows Airborne Units’ Long Reach,’ Washington Post, Sept 16, 1997, p. A12. [77] Thomas E. Ricks R icks and Susan B. Glasser, Glasser, ‘U.S. ‘U.S. Operated Operate d Secret Alliance Alliance with Uzbekistan,’ Uzbekistan,’ Washington Post, October Octobe r 14, 2001, http://www htt p://www.cdi.org/rus .cdi.org/russia/johns sia/johnson/5491-7.cfm. on/5491-7.cfm. [78] Bob Woodward, W oodward, ‘Secret CIA Units Playing a Central Combat Role,’ Wa shington shington Post, P ost,  November 18, 2001, p. A-1, www.washingtonpost.com/wp-s www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politi rv/politics/CIA18.html. cs/CIA18.html. [79] Rahul Bedi, ‘India joins anti-Taliban anti-Taliban coali coa lition,’ tion,’ Jane’s, March 15, 2001, http://www.janes.com /security/international_security/news/jir/ji /security/international_security/news/ji r/jirr 010315_1_n.shtml. [80] ‘India in anti-Taliban anti-Taliban military military plan,’ Indiareacts.com, Indiarea cts.com, June 26, 2001, http://www.indiareacts.com/archivefeatures/nat2.asp?recno=10∓c tg=policy. [81] George Arney, ‘US ‘planned attack atta ck on Taleban,’ BBC, September 18, 2001, http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/south_asi http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/englis h/world/south_asia/newsid_1550000/ a/newsid_1550000/ 1550366.stm. [82] Jonathan Steele, Ewen MacAskill, MacAskill, Richard Norton-Taylor and Ed E d Harriman,  ‘Threat of US strikes strikes passed to Taliban weeks before NY attac k,’ Guardian, September 22, 2001,

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Archive/Article/0,4273,4262511,00.html. [83] Brzezinski, Brzezinski, ‘The Grand Chessboard’, p. 211. [84] Ostrovsky made the accusation acc usation in his By Way of Deception: De ception: The Making and Unmaking Unmaking of a Mossad Officer Officer (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1990). For a review by Joe Sobran, see ‘Allies ‘Allies don’t let our soldiers soldiers die: Did Israel deliberately allow 241 American Marines to die?’, http://www.codoh.com/zionweb/zionsob241die.html. [85] Patrick Pa trick Seale, Abu Nidal, ‘A Gun for Hire’ New York: Random House, 1992. [86] Doron Geller, Geller, ‘The Lavon L avon Affair,’ Jewish Jewish Virtual Library, http://www.us-isr http://www.us-israel.org/j ael.org/jsource source /History/lavon.html;David /History/lavon.html;David Hirst, Hirst, ‘The Lavon Affair,’ Excerpts from his book The Gun and a nd the Olive Olive Branch, Branc h, (Futura Publi P ublications, cations, 1977, 1984), http://www.mideastfacts.com/lavon_hirst.html; http://www.mideastfacts.com/lavon_hirst.html; and Livia Rokach, Israel’s Sacred Terrorism (Belmont, Mass.: AAU AAUG G Press Pre ss Association Association of Arab-American Arab-American University University Graduates, Graduate s, Inc., 1986), Chapter 7, ‘The Lavon Affair’,http://www.codoh.com/zionweb/zi Affair’,http://www.codoh.com/zionweb/zisacredte sacredterror/zi rror/zilavon7.html. lavon7.html. [87] Rowan Scarborough, ‘US troops would enforce peace under Army study,’ Washington Times, Times, September 10, 10 , 2001, pp. A1, A9,http://www.iii A9,http://www.iiie.net/Sept11/MossadTargetsU e.net/Sept11/MossadTargetsUS.htm S.html. l. [88] The initial 4,000 figure was reported in ‘Hundreds of Israelis missing in WTC attack,’ Jerusalem Post, September 12, 2001,http://www.jpost.com/Editions/2001/09/12/News 2001,http://www.jpost.com/Editions/2001/09/12/News /News.34692.html;Ed Toner, ‘Evidence of Mossad Treachery in the WTC,’ November 25, 2001,http://www.fpp.co.uk/online/01/11/WTC_DeathRoll2.html. [89] Yossi Melman, Melman, ‘5 Israelis detained for “ puzzling puzzling behavior” after WTC tragedy,’ Ha’aretz, September 17, 2001,http://www.haaretzdaily.com/hasen/pages/S 2001,http://www.haaretzdaily.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtm hArt.jhtml?i l?itemNo=75266& temNo=75266& sw=mockery;Scott DaVault, Urban Moving Systems Systems and Detained Israelis,http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/sears.html; Israelis,http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/sears.html; and ‘The Stories Stories of 9/11 9 /11 the American American Media Hopes You Forget,’http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/forget.html. Forget,’http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/forget.html. [90] This story was quickly erased from the Fox News Website but still appears elsewhere on t he web. See ‘Carl Cameron Reports,’ December 12, 2001, http://www.fpp.co.uk/online/01/12/Israelis /spies1.html; /spies1.html; and Michael Collins Collins Piper, American Free Press, ‘Israel Conducts Conduct s Massive Massive Spying Operation in U.S.,’ U.S.,’ December 24, 2001, http://www.geocities.com/denverspiri http://www.geocities.com/denverspiritualcommuni tualcommunity/AmericanFreePress ty/AmericanFreePress /AFPNewsDec01.htm#anchor14658. [91] Richard A. Seranno and John-Thor Dahlburg, Dahlburg, ‘Officials ‘Officials Told of “Major “ Major Assault” Plans,’ Los Angeles Times, Times, September 20, 2001, http://www.latimes.com/news/nationwor http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-092001probe.story; ld/nation/la-092001probe.story; andDavid Wastell Wa stell and Philip Jacobson, ‘Israeli security security issued urgent warning to CIA of large-scale terror att acks,’ (London) Sunday Telegraph, http://portal.telegraph.co.uk  /news/main.jhtml? /news/main.jhtml?xml xml=%2Fnews%2F2001%2F09%2F16%2Fw =%2Fnews%2F2001%2F09%2F16%2Fwcia16.xml. cia16.xml. [92] ‘German Minister’s Minister’s Interview Rips 911 Case Open,’ Rense.Com, posted January 16, 2002,http://www.rense.com/general19/minis.htm.

[93] Stephen J. Sniegoski, Sniegoski, ‘The Case for Pearl Harbor Revisionism Revisionism,’ ,’ Occidental Quarterly Qua rterly 1:2 (Winter 2001),http://www.charlesm 2001),http://www.charlesmartelsociety.org/toq/vol1no2/ssartelsociety.org/toq/vol1no2/ss-pearlharbor.html. pearlharbor.html. [94] Ivan Eland: E land: ‘Does U.S. U.S. Intervention Overseas Breed Bree d Terrorism? Terrorism? The Historical Historical Record,’ Cato Foreign Policy Briefing Briefing No. 50, December 17, 1998,http://www.cato.org/pubs/fpbriefs /fpb-050es.html.

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