15 - FRAMING BIN LADEN

<div style="text-align: justify;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhyR_1KgLkrv0jGmshm-sQ5J39SNxwPjryeoOZ9Zsb248p0Y5ZNq0aK4qssTfa7QqsJ33Xrq0QvR_uZHQiDpyFyNqRhHP4WEkspe4pvjGPlJSYjy5OgW9lV7AXoMNWXNWIWKPPuKFpE5_Y/s1600/6a00d8341c565553ef01538e584b16970b.jpg" imageanchor="1" style=""><img border="0" data-original-height="341" data-original-width="238" height="341" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhyR_1KgLkrv0jGmshm-sQ5J39SNxwPjryeoOZ9Zsb248p0Y5ZNq0aK4qssTfa7QqsJ33Xrq0QvR_uZHQiDpyFyNqRhHP4WEkspe4pvjGPlJSYjy5OgW9lV7AXoMNWXNWIWKPPuKFpE5_Y/s320/6a00d8341c565553ef01538e584b16970b.jpg" width="248" /></a></div><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica";"><span style="font-family: "georgia";">Within minutes after the attack, a parade of politicians and "terrorism experts" appeared on every TV channel all claiming that the attacks were the work of Osama Bin Laden. The Bush administration claimed that it had evidence linking Bin Laden to the attacks which it would release to the public in a matter of days. They never did. Just like they never provided any evidence that he blew up the US embassies in Africa in 1997. </span></span><br /><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica";"><span style="font-family: "georgia";"><br /></span></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica";"><span style="font-family: "georgia";">The entire case against Osama Bin Laden was based on nothing but the repeated claim that he was the culprit for the embassy bombings and for 9-11. Demands were placed upon the Taleban government of Afghanistan turn Bin Laden over to the US or face an attack (we established earlier that US military action had already been planned since June). </span><a href="http://www.maebrussell.com/India%20in%20antiTaliban%20plan.html" style="font-family: georgia;">116A</a><span style="font-family: "georgia";"> ,</span><a href="http://www.janes.com/security/international_security/news/jir/jir010315_1_n.shtml" style="font-family: georgia;">116B</a><span style="font-family: "georgia";"> </span></span><br /><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica";"><span style="font-family: "georgia";"><br /></span></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica";"><span style="font-family: "georgia";">The Taleban offered to turn Bin Laden over to a neutral party if the US provided any evidence to them that he had anything to do with the 1997 US African embassy bombings or the 9-11 attacks. The evidence was never presented to the Taleban for two reasons:</span></span><br /> <ol><li><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica";"><span style="font-family: "georgia";">There was never any evidence, not even circumstantial</span></span></li><li><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica";"><span style="font-family: "georgia";">The war to replace the Taleban with a US puppet government was already in motion. The 9-11 attacks served as the perfect excuse, the "incident" to win the support of the American people and kick off the war. </span></span></li></ol><span style="font-family: georgia;">Three months after the attacks, and with the bombing of Afghani peasants in full swing, the US had still not provided one shred of evidence to link Bin Laden and his Al Qaeda "network" to 9-11. People in foreign countries were beginning to ask questions. Then one day, the Pentagon claimed that some unnamed source found a video tape in Afghanistan. The Bush gang began dropping hints in the media that this video shows Osama Bin Laden bragging and admitting his role in the attacks. How convenient! And how improbable. The "mastermind" of 9-11, who was so brilliant that he pulled off 9-11 without being detected, was careless enough to leave a "confession video" laying around to be discovered by the US!</span><br /><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica";"> </span><br /><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica";"><span style="font-family: "georgia";"> The video was shown on the news with English subtitles. Bin Laden's voice was so barely audible that even viewers in Arab nations had to rely on the Pentagon’s translated subtitles! An obedient American (Zionist) news media accepted the Pentagon story and translation without question. A few Arab media whores were even trotted out to vouch for the tape’s authenticity. Aha! This is the "smoking gun" they assured us. But this too is another vicious lie. </span></span><br /><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica";"><span style="font-family: "georgia";"><br /></span></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica";"> </span><br /><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica";"><span style="font-family: "georgia";"> On December 20, 2001, the German TV show Monitor (the "60 Minutes of Germany") found the translation of the "confession" video to be not only </span><i style="font-family: georgia;">"inaccurate",</i><span style="font-family: "georgia";"> but even </span><i style="font-family: georgia;">"manipulative"</i><span style="font-family: "georgia";">. </span><a href="http://www.rense.com/general18/inac.htm" style="font-family: georgia;">117</a><span style="font-family: "georgia";"> Dr. Abdel El M. Husseini and Professor Gernot Rotter made an independent translation and accused the White House translators of </span><i style="font-family: georgia;">"writing a lot of things that they wanted to hear but cannot be heard on the tape no matter how many times you listen to it."</i><span style="font-family: "georgia";"> </span><a href="http://www.rense.com/general18/inac.htm" style="font-family: georgia;">118</a> </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica";"> </span><br /><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica";"><span style="font-family: "georgia";"> Even more compelling than the revelations of the European press are the actual images of the "confession video". Every photo previously taken of Osama Bin laden shows gaunt facial features and a long thin nose. The Pentagon video of Bin Laden clearly shows a man with full facial features and a wide nose. Examine the pictures side-by-side for yourself if you don't believe it. The differences in facial features will jump right out at you. </span><a href="http://www.rense.com/general18/face.htm" style="font-family: georgia;">119</a> </span><br /><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica";"> </span><br /><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica";"><span style="font-family: "georgia";"><br /></span></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica";"><span style="font-family: "georgia";"> Would the Pentagon leadership be capable of such deception? Why not?! They were capable of allowing 9-11 to happen weren't they? The Pentagon itself has even admitted the existence of a special department established for the purpose of planting false stories in the media in order to carry out strategic objectives. The very Zionist and very pro-war New York Times broke a story in February 2002 which revealed that the Pentagon has plans to deliberately provide false stories to the press as part of an effort to influence policy. The Pentagon set up the Office of Strategic Influence (OSI) for this purpose. </span></span><br /><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica";"><span style="font-family: "georgia";"><br /></span></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica";"><span style="font-family: "georgia";">A Zionist Air Force General named Simon P. Worden was chosen to head this criminal effort. </span><a href="http://www.atimes.com/terror/DB22Dk02.html" style="font-family: georgia;">120</a><span style="font-family: "georgia";"> Worden's boss is Douglass Feith, another dedicated Zionist who serves as Undersecretary of Defense for Policy. How dedicated of a Zionist is Feith? The Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) honored Feith and his father at an award dinner in 1999. So I’ll let ZOA’s 1997 press release you about Feith: </span></span><br /><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica";"> </span><br /><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica";"><i style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></i></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica";"> <i style="font-family: georgia;">"This year's honorees will be Dalck Feith and Douglas J. Feith, the noted Jewish philanthropists and pro-Israel activists. Dalck Feith will receive the ZOA's special Centennial Award at the dinner, for his lifetime of service to Israel and the Jewish people. His son Douglas J. Feith, the former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense, will receive the prestigious Louis D. Brandeis Award at the dinner." </i><span style="font-family: "georgia";">(121)- (Google usues enter: feith zionist organization award) </span></span><br /><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica";"><span style="font-family: "georgia";"><br /></span></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica";"> </span><br /><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica";"><span style="font-family: "georgia";"> There you have it! The Zionist Air Force General who runs the Pentagon’s media disinformation department, reports directly to a Zionist Pentagon boss who was a recipient of the "prestigious" Louis Brandeis Award. Brandeis, a former Supreme Court judge, was one of the key Zionist powerbrokers who helped influence Woodrow Wilson into joining World War I as part of the Zionist-British Balfour deal we learned about earlier. </span></span><br /><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica";"> </span><br /><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica";"><span style="font-family: "georgia";"><br /></span></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica";"><span style="font-family: "georgia";"> One year has passed since the 9-11 attacks and the FBI has not uncovered any Al Qaeda cells in the United States nor has it found any paper trail. The London Times reported: </span></span><br /><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica";"> </span><br /><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica";"><i style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></i></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica";"> <i style="font-family: georgia;">"Thousands of FBI agents have rounded up more than 1,300 suspects across America since September 11, but they have failed to find a single Al-Qaeda cell operating in the United States...Tom Ridge, Director of Homeland Security could not explain why none had been caught." </i><a href="http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,1164-232311,00.html" style="font-family: georgia;">122</a> </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica";"> </span><br /><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica";"><span style="font-family: "georgia";"> In April of 2002, FBI director Robert Mueller - the same Robert Mueller who admitted that several hijacker identities were in doubt due to identity thefts- made this stunning announcement: </span></span><br /><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica";"> </span><br /><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica";"><i style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></i></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica";"> <i style="font-family: georgia;">"In our investigation, we have not uncovered a single piece of paper - either here or in the treasure trove of information that has turned up in Afghanistan and elsewhere - that mentioned any aspect of the September 11 plot."</i><span style="font-family: "georgia";"> </span><a href="http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/3163998.htm" style="font-family: georgia;">123</a> </span><br /><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica";"> </span><br /><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica";"><span style="font-family: "georgia";"><br /></span></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica";"><span style="font-family: "georgia";"> Predictably, Directors Ridge and Mueller attribute this total lack of any evidence to the skill of the Al - Qaeda "terrorist network". If you've read this far you should know better. The reason that the US has been unable to uncover a shred of evidence to link Al Qaeda to 9-11 is because....Al Qaeda didn't do it! </span></span></div><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica";"><br /></span><br /><div align="center"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica";"><img alt="fake-osama.jpg (9804 bytes)" src="http://www.apfn.org/apfn/fake-osama.jpg" style="width: 280px;height: 119px;" /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: rgb(153 , 153 , 153); font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 78%;">***<br />WILL THE REAL OSAMA BIN LADEN PLEASE STAND UP?</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(153 , 153 , 153); font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 78%;"> LEFT: PENTAGON'S "CONFESSION" VIDEO BIN LADEN</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(153 , 153 , 153); font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 78%;"> RIGHT: KNOWN IMAGE OF BIN LADEN</span><br /><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica";"> </span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: rgb(153 , 153 , 153); font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 78%;"><br /></span></div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">Stranger Than Fiction, the content:</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><ul><li><a href="https://gusmendemanswering.blogspot.com/2010/04/1-opening-statement.html">The Opening Statement</a></li><li><a href="https://gusmendemanswering.blogspot.com/2010/04/2-dancing-israeli.html">The Dancing Israelis</a></li><li><a href="https://gusmendemanswering.blogspot.com/2010/04/3-zionism-and-world-war-i.html">Zionism And World War I</a></li><li><a href="https://gusmendemanswering.blogspot.com/2010/04/4-zionism-and-world-war-ii.html">Zionism And World War II</a></li><li><a href="https://gusmendemanswering.blogspot.com/2010/04/5-great-britain-turn-to-be-betrayed.html">Great Britain's Turn To Be Betrayed</a></li><li><a href="https://gusmendemanswering.blogspot.com/2010/04/6-america-becomes-zionist-whore.html">America Becomes The Zionist's Whore</a></li><li><a href="https://gusmendemanswering.blogspot.com/2010/04/7-zionist-power-structure-in-america.html">Zionist Power Structure In America</a></li><li><a href="https://gusmendemanswering.blogspot.com/2010/04/8-butcher-sharon.html">The Butcher Sharon</a></li><li><a href="https://gusmendemanswering.blogspot.com/2010/04/9-advance-warning.html">Advance Warning</a></li><li><a href="https://gusmendemanswering.blogspot.com/2010/04/10-september-11-dancing-party.html">The September 11 Dance Party</a></li><li><a href="https://gusmendemanswering.blogspot.com/2010/04/11-who-was-really-flying-those-planes.html">Who Was Really Flying Those Planes On 9-11</a></li><li><a href="https://gusmendemanswering.blogspot.com/2010/04/12-who-provided-protective-cover-for-9.html">Who Provided The Protective Cover For The 9-11 Operation</a></li><li><a href="https://gusmendemanswering.blogspot.com/2010/04/13-curious-collaps-of-twin-towers.html">The Curious Collapse Of The Twin Towers</a></li><li><a href="https://gusmendemanswering.blogspot.com/2010/04/14-miracle-of-passover.html">The Miracle Of Passover</a></li><li><a href="https://gusmendemanswering.blogspot.com/2010/04/15-framing-bin-laden.html">Framing Bin Laden</a></li><li><a href="https://gusmendemanswering.blogspot.com/2010/04/16-fbi-agents-who-tried-to-prevent-9-11.html">The FBI Agents Who Tried To Prevent 9-11</a></li><li><a href="https://gusmendemanswering.blogspot.com/2010/04/17-anthrax-letter-another-anti-arab.html">The Anthrax Letter, Another Anti-Arab Frame Up</a></li><li><a href="https://gusmendemanswering.blogspot.com/2010/04/18-hundreds-of-mossad-agents-running.html">Hundreds Of Mossad Agents Running Wild in America</a></li><li><a href="https://gusmendemanswering.blogspot.com/2010/04/19-zionist-wants-world-war-iii.html">Zionist Wants World War III</a></li><li><a href="https://gusmendemanswering.blogspot.com/2010/04/20-closing-argument.html">Closing Argument</a></li></ul></div><div align="left"></div>

15 - FRAMING BIN LADEN

Within minutes after the attack, a parade of politicians and "terrorism experts" appeared on every TV channel all claiming that t...

15 - FRAMING BIN LADEN

Within minutes after the attack, a parade of politicians and "terrorism experts" appeared on every TV channel all claiming that t...

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Bin Laden and His CIA Connections Come Home To Roost

<div style="text-align: justify;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4yaXfULMutWGomnNf716kXdyzjixKsRW7DimZ2F3YEF-kH2n0evBr7lbpbx3av9-MWzF3jerX_5yRYiIFWe7ZWq5cDktb829KptcexYsoP26oJ3z-vyGklVzcV4RttaWUQWJ5OnsbVAY/s1600/5v838k.jpg" imageanchor="1" style=""><img border="0" data-original-height="240" data-original-width="206" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4yaXfULMutWGomnNf716kXdyzjixKsRW7DimZ2F3YEF-kH2n0evBr7lbpbx3av9-MWzF3jerX_5yRYiIFWe7ZWq5cDktb829KptcexYsoP26oJ3z-vyGklVzcV4RttaWUQWJ5OnsbVAY/s1600/5v838k.jpg" /></a></div><b>BIN LADEN & HIS CIA CONNECTIONS COME HOME TO ROOST</b><br /><b><br /></b>[Note that the date on this story is August 1998, by MSNBC's International Editor] Bin Laden comes home to roost His CIA ties are only the beginning of a woeful <u>story By <a href="http://msnbc.com/news/190144.asp?cp1=1" target="_blank">Michael Moran MSNBC</a></u><br /><br /><br />NEW YORK, Aug. 24, 1998 - At the CIA, it happens often enough to have a code name: Blowback. Simply defined, this is the term that describes an agent, an operative or an operation that has turned on its creators. Osama bin Laden, our new public enemy Number 1, is the personification of blowback. And the fact that he is viewed as a hero by millions in the Islamic world proves again the old adage: Reap what you sow.<br /><br />BEFORE YOU CLICK on my face and call me naive, let me concede some points. Yes, the West needed Josef Stalin to defeat Hitler. Yes, there were times during the Cold War when supporting one villain (Cambodia's Lon Nol, for instance) would have been better than the alternative (Pol Pot). So yes, there are times when any nation must hold its nose and shake hands with the devil for the long-term good of the planet.<br /><a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" name="more"></a><br />But just as surely, there are times when the United States, faced with such moral dilemmas, should have resisted the temptation to act. Arming a multi- national coalition of Islamic extremists in Afghanistan during the 1980s - well after the destruction of the Marine barracks in Beirut or the hijacking of TWA Flight 847 - was one of those times.<br /><br />BIN LADEN'S BEGINNINGS<br />As anyone who has bothered to read this far certainly knows by now, bin Laden is the heir to Saudi construction fortune who, at least since the early 1990s, has used that money to finance countless attacks on U.S. interests and those of its Arab allies around the world.<br /><br />Osama bin Laden's network<br />As his unclassified CIA biography states, bin Laden left Saudi Arabia to fight the Soviet army in Afghanistan after Moscow's invasion in 1979. By 1984, he was running a front organization known as Maktab al-Khidamar - the MAK - which funneled money, arms and fighters from the outside world into the Afghan war.<br /><br />What the CIA bio conveniently fails to specify (in its unclassified form, at least) is that the MAK was nurtured by Pakistan's state security services, the Inter-Services Intelligence agency, or ISI, the CIA's primary conduit for conducting the covert war against Moscow's occupation.<br /><br />By no means was Osama bin Laden the leader of Afghanistan's mujahedeen. His money gave him undue prominence in the Afghan struggle, but the vast majority of those who fought and died for Afghanistan's freedom - like the Taliban regime that now holds sway over most of that tortured nation - were Afghan nationals.<br /><br />Yet the CIA, concerned about the factionalism of Afghanistan made famous by Rudyard Kipling, found that Arab zealots who flocked to aid the Afghans were easier to "read" than the rivalry-ridden natives. While the Arab volunteers might well prove troublesome later, the agency reasoned, they at least were one-dimensionally anti-Soviet for now. So bin Laden, along with a small group of Islamic militants from Egypt, Pakistan, Lebanon, Syria and Palestinian refugee camps all over the Middle East, became the "reliable" partners of the CIA in its war against Moscow.<br /><br />WHAT'S 'INTELLIGENT' ABOUT THIS?<br />Though he has come to represent all that went wrong with the CIA's reckless strategy there, by the end of the Afghan war in 1989, bin Laden was still viewed by the agency as something of a dilettante - a rich Saudi boy gone to war and welcomed home by the Saudi monarchy he so hated as something of a hero.<br /><br />America strikes back<br />In fact, while he returned to his family's construction business, bin Laden had split from the relatively conventional MAK in 1988 and established a new group, al-Qaida, that included many of the more extreme MAK members he had met in Afghanistan.<br /><br />Most of these Afghan vets, or Afghanis, as the Arabs who fought there became known, turned up later behind violent Islamic movements around the world. Among them: the GIA in Algeria, thought responsible for the massacres of tens of thousands of civilians; Egypt's Gamat Ismalia, which has massacred western tourists repeatedly in recent years; Saudi Arabia Shiite militants, responsible for the Khobar Towers and Riyadh bombings of 1996.<br /><br />Indeed, to this day, those involved in the decision to give the Afghan rebels access to a fortune in covert funding and top-level combat weaponry continue to defend that move in the context of the Cold War. Sen. Orrin Hatch, a senior Republican on the Senate Intelligence Committee making those decisions, told my colleague Robert Windrem that he would make the same call again today even knowing what bin Laden would do subsequently. "It was worth it," he said. "Those were very important, pivotal matters that played an important role in the downfall of the Soviet Union," he said.<br /><br />HINDSIGHT OR TUNNEL VISION<br />It should be pointed out that the evidence of bin Laden's connection to these activities is mostly classified, though its hard to imagine the CIA rushing to take credit for a Frankenstein's monster like this.<br /><br />It is also worth acknowledging that it is easier now to oppose the CIA's Afghan adventures than it was when Hatch and company made them in the mid-1980s. After all, in 1998 we now know that far larger elements than Afghanistan were corroding the communist party's grip on power in Moscow.<br /><br />Even Hatch can't be blamed completely. The CIA, ever mindful of the need to justify its "mission," had conclusive evidence by the mid-1980s of the deepening crisis of infrastructure within the Soviet Union. The CIA, as its deputy director William Gates acknowledged under congressional questioning in 1992, had decided to keep that evidence from President Reagan and his top advisors and instead continued to grossly exaggerate Soviet military and technological capabilities in its annual "Soviet Military Power" report right up to 1990.<br /><br />Given that context, a decision was made to provide America's potential enemies with the arms, money - and most importantly - the knowledge of how to run a war of attrition violent and well-organized enough to humble a superpower.<br /><br />That decision is coming home to roost.<br />[Michael Moran is MSNBC's International Editor]<br />Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space<br />PO Box 90083<br />Gainesville, FL. 32607<br />(352) 337-9274<br /><a href="http://www.space4peace.org/">http://www.space4peace.org</a><br />globalnet@mindspring.com </div>

Bin Laden and His CIA Connections Come Home To Roost

BIN LADEN & HIS CIA CONNECTIONS COME HOME TO ROOST [Note that the date on this story is August 1998, by MSNBC's International Edito...

Bin Laden and His CIA Connections Come Home To Roost

BIN LADEN & HIS CIA CONNECTIONS COME HOME TO ROOST [Note that the date on this story is August 1998, by MSNBC's International Edito...

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WHO IS OSAMA BIN LADEN?

<span style="font-size: large; font-weight: bold;">Who Is Osama Bin Laden? </span> <span style="font-weight: bold;"><br />by Michel Chossudovsky, </span> <span style="font-weight: bold;">Professor of Economics, University of Ottawa</span><br />Centre for Research on Globalisation (CRG), Montréal<br />Posted 12 September 2001<br /><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXZTcC_pV04bA6cB7i043ITQHrXvGyTn8M9xxHXsJK1zQ52krfUF6jjiWjGQ__iumW3ZYBrl9zB6IkzzpGztwd8Bm1R75athbKkMzwU6utaMSQ9q7Fsv1zvnBRRynIwf38sKQZnoljf_E/s1600/article-1384096-094589D1000005DC-180_306x423.jpg" imageanchor="1" style=""><img border="0" data-original-height="423" data-original-width="306" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXZTcC_pV04bA6cB7i043ITQHrXvGyTn8M9xxHXsJK1zQ52krfUF6jjiWjGQ__iumW3ZYBrl9zB6IkzzpGztwd8Bm1R75athbKkMzwU6utaMSQ9q7Fsv1zvnBRRynIwf38sKQZnoljf_E/s320/article-1384096-094589D1000005DC-180_306x423.jpg" width="231" /></a></div>A few hours after the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon, the Bush administration concluded without supporting evidence, that "Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaeda organisation were prime suspects".<br /><br />CIA Director George Tenet stated that bin Laden has the capacity to plan "multiple attacks with little or no warning.'' Secretary of State Colin Powell called the attacks "an act of war" and President Bush confirmed in an evening televised address to the Nation that he would "make no distinction between the terrorists who committed these acts and those who harbor them".</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />Former CIA Director James Woolsey pointed his finger at "state sponsorship," implying the complicity of one or more foreign governments. In the words of former National Security Adviser, Lawrence Eagleburger, "I think we will show when we get attacked like this, we are terrible in our strength and in our retribution." Meanwhile, parroting official statements, the Western media mantra has approved the launching of "punitive actions" directed against civilian targets in the Middle East.<br /><br />In the words of William Saffire writing in the New York Times: "When we reasonably determine our attackers' bases and camps, we must pulverize them -- minimizing but accepting the risk of collateral damage" -- and act overtly or covertly to destabilize terror's national hosts".<br /><br />The following text outlines the history of Osama Bin Laden and the links of the Islamic "Jihad" to the formulation of US foreign policy during the Cold War and its aftermath.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />Prime suspect in the New York and Washington terrorists attacks, branded by the FBI as an "international terrorist" for his role in the African US embassy bombings, Saudi born Osama bin Laden was recruited during the Soviet-Afghan war "ironically under the auspices of the CIA, to fight Soviet invaders". <span style="color: #cc0000;">1</span><br /><br />In 1979 "the largest covert operation in the history of the CIA" was launched in response to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in support of the pro-Communist government of Babrak Kamal.<span style="color: #cc0000;">2</span>:<br /><br />With the active encouragement of the CIA and Pakistan's ISI [Inter Services Intelligence], who wanted to turn the Afghan jihad into a global war waged by all Muslim states against the Soviet Union, some 35,000 Muslim radicals from 40 Islamic countries joined Afghanistan's fight between 1982 and 1992. Tens of thousands more came to study in Pakistani madrasahs. Eventually more than 100,000 foreign Muslim radicals were directly influenced by the Afghan<br />jihad.<span style="color: #cc0000;">3</span><br /><br />The Islamic "jihad" was supported by the United States and Saudi Arabia with a significant part of the funding generated from the Golden Crescent drug trade:<br /><br />In March 1985, President Reagan signed National Security Decision Directive 166,...[which] authorize[d] stepped-up covert military aid to the mujahideen, and it made clear that the secret Afghan war had a new goal: to defeat Soviet troops in Afghanistan through covert action and encourage a Soviet withdrawal. The new covert U.S. assistance began with a dramatic increase in arms supplies -- a steady rise to 65,000 tons annually by 1987, ... as well as a "ceaseless stream" of CIA and Pentagon specialists who traveled to the secret headquarters of Pakistan's ISI on the main road near Rawalpindi, Pakistan. There the CIA specialists met with Pakistani intelligence officers to help plan operations for the Afghan rebels.<span style="color: #cc0000;">4</span> The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) using Pakistan's military Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) played a key role in training the Mujahideen. In turn, the CIA sponsored guerrilla training was integrated with the teachings of Islam:<br /><br />Predominant themes were that Islam was a complete socio-political ideology, that holy Islam was being violated by the atheistic Soviet troops, and that the Islamic people of Afghanistan should reassert their independence by overthrowing the leftist Afghan regime propped up by Moscow.<span style="color: #cc0000;">5 </span><br /><br />Pakistan's Intelligence Apparatus<br />Pakistan's ISI was used as a "go-between". The CIA covert support to the "jihad" operated indirectly through the Pakistani ISI, --i.e. the CIA did not channel its support directly to the Mujahideen. In other words, for these covert operations to be "successful", Washington was careful not to reveal the ultimate objective of the "jihad", which consisted in destroying the Soviet Union.<br /><br />In the words of CIA's Milton Beardman "We didn't train Arabs". Yet according to Abdel Monam Saidali, of the Al-aram Center for Strategic Studies in Cairo, bin Laden and the "Afghan Arabs" had been imparted "with very sophisticated types of training that was allowed to them by the CIA" <span style="color: #cc0000;">6 </span><br /><br />CIA's Beardman confirmed, in this regard, that Osama bin Laden was not aware of the role he was playing on behalf of Washington. In the words of bin Laden (quoted by Beardman): "neither I, nor my brothers saw evidence of American help". <span style="color: #cc0000;">7 </span><br /><br />Motivated by nationalism and religious fervor, the Islamic warriors were unaware that they were fighting the Soviet Army on behalf of Uncle Sam. While there were contacts at the upper levels of the intelligence hierarchy, Islamic rebel leaders in theatre had no contacts with Washington or the CIA. With CIA backing and the funneling of massive amounts of US military aid, the Pakistani ISI had developed into a "parallel structure wielding enormous power over all aspects of government". <span style="color: #cc0000;">8 </span><br /><br />The ISI had a staff composed of military and intelligence officers, bureaucrats, undercover agents and informers, estimated at 150,000.<span style="color: #cc0000;"> 9 </span><br /><br />Meanwhile, CIA operations had also reinforced the Pakistani military regime led by General Zia Ul Haq:<br /><br />'Relations between the CIA and the ISI [Pakistan's military intelligence] had grown increasingly warm following [General] Zia's ouster of Bhutto and the advent of the military regime,'... During most of the Afghan war, Pakistan was more aggressively anti-Soviet than even the United States. Soon after the Soviet military invaded Afghanistan in 1980, Zia [ul Haq] sent his ISI chief to destabilize the Soviet Central Asian states. The CIA only agreed to this plan in October 1984.... `the CIA was more cautious than the Pakistanis.' Both Pakistan and the United States took the line of deception on Afghanistan with a public posture of negotiating a settlement while privately agreeing that military escalation was the best course.<span style="color: #cc0000;">10 </span><br /><br />The Golden Crescent Drug Triangle<br />The history of the drug trade in Central Asia is intimately related to the CIA's covert operations. Prior to the Soviet-Afghan war, opium production in Afghanistan and Pakistan was directed to small regional markets. There was no local production of heroin. <span style="color: #cc0000;">11</span> In this regard, Alfred McCoy's study confirms that within two years of the onslaught of the CIA operation in Afghanistan, "the Pakistan-Afghanistan borderlands became the world's top heroin producer, supplying 60 percent of U.S. demand. In Pakistan, the heroin-addict population went from near zero in 1979... to 1.2 million by 1985 -- a much steeper rise than in any other nation":<span style="color: #cc0000;">12 </span><br /><br />CIA assets again controlled this heroin trade. As the Mujahideen guerrillas seized territory inside Afghanistan, they ordered peasants to plant opium as a revolutionary tax. Across the border in Pakistan, Afghan leaders and local syndicates under the protection of Pakistan Intelligence operated hundreds of heroin laboratories. During this decade of wide-open drug-dealing, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency in Islamabad failed to instigate major seizures or arrests ... U.S. officials had refused to investigate charges of heroin dealing by its Afghan allies `because U.S. narcotics policy in Afghanistan has been subordinated to the war against Soviet influence there.' In 1995, the former CIA director of the Afghan operation, Charles Cogan, admitted the CIA had indeed sacrificed the drug war to fight the Cold War. `Our main mission was to do as much damage as possible to the Soviets. We didn't really have the resources or the time to devote to an investigation of the drug trade,'... `I don't think that we need to apologize for this. Every situation has its fallout.... There was fallout in terms of drugs, yes. But the main objective was accomplished. The Soviets left Afghanistan.'<span style="color: #cc0000;">13 </span><br /><br />In the Wake of the Cold War<br />In the wake of the Cold War, the Central Asian region is not only strategic for its extensive oil reserves, it also produces three quarters of the World's opium representing multibillion dollar revenues to business syndicates, financial institutions, intelligence agencies and organized crime. The annual proceeds of the Golden Crescent drug trade (between 100 and 200 billion dollars) represents approximately one third of the Worldwide annual turnover of narcotics, estimated by the United Nations to be of the<br />order of $500 billion.<span style="color: #cc0000;">14 </span><br /><br />With the disintegration of the Soviet Union, a new surge in opium production has unfolded. (According to UN estimates, the production of opium in Afghanistan in 1998-99 -- coinciding with the build up of armed insurgencies in the former Soviet republics-- reached a record high of 4600 metric tons.<span style="color: #cc0000;">15</span> Powerful business syndicates in the former Soviet Union allied with organized crime are competing for the strategic control over the heroin routes.<br /><br />The ISI's extensive intelligence military-network was not dismantled in the wake of the Cold War. The CIA continued to support the Islamic "jihad" out of Pakistan. New undercover initiatives were set in motion in Central Asia, the Caucasus and the Balkans. Pakistan's military and intelligence apparatus essentially "served as a catalyst for the disintegration of the Soviet Union and the emergence of six new Muslim republics in Central Asia." <span style="color: #cc0000;">16. </span><br /><br />Meanwhile, Islamic missionaries of the Wahhabi sect from Saudi Arabia had established themselves in the Muslim republics as well as within the Russian federation encroaching upon the institutions of the secular State. Despite its anti-American ideology, Islamic fundamentalism was largely serving Washington's strategic interests in the former Soviet Union.<br /><br />Following the withdrawal of Soviet troops in 1989, the civil war in Afghanistan continued unabated. The Taliban were being supported by the Pakistani Deobandis and their political party the Jamiat-ul-Ulema-e-Islam (JUI). In 1993, JUI entered the government coalition of Prime Minister Benazzir Bhutto. Ties between JUI, the Army and ISI were established. In 1995, with the downfall of the Hezb-I-Islami Hektmatyar government in Kabul, the Taliban not only instated a hardline Islamic government, they also "handed control of training camps in Afghanistan over to JUI factions..." <span style="color: #cc0000;">17 </span><br /><br />And the JUI with the support of the Saudi Wahhabi movements played a key role in recruiting volunteers to fight in the Balkans and the former Soviet Union.<br /><br />Jane Defense Weekly confirms in this regard that "half of Taliban manpower and equipment originate[d] in Pakistan under the ISI" <span style="color: #cc0000;">18 </span><br /><br />In fact, it would appear that following the Soviet withdrawal both sides in the Afghan civil war continued to receive covert support through Pakistan's ISI. <span style="color: #cc0000;">19 </span><br /><br />In other words, backed by Pakistan's military intelligence (ISI) which in turn was controlled by the CIA, the Taliban Islamic State was largely serving American geopolitical interests. The Golden Crescent drug trade was also being used to finance and equip the Bosnian Muslim Army (starting in the early 1990s) and the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA). In last few months there is evidence that Mujahideen mercenaries are fighting in the ranks of KLA-NLA terrorists in their assaults into Macedonia.<br /><br />No doubt, this explains why Washington has closed its eyes on the reign of terror imposed by the Taliban including the blatant derogation of women's rights, the closing down of schools for girls, the dismissal of women employees from government offices and the enforcement of "the Sharia laws of punishment".<span style="color: #cc0000;">20 </span><br /><br />The War in Chechnya<br />With regard to Chechnya, the main rebel leaders Shamil Basayev and Al Khattab were trained and indoctrinated in CIA sponsored camps in Afghanistan and Pakistan. According to Yossef Bodansky, director of the U.S. Congress's Task Force on Terrorism and Unconventional Warfare, the war in Chechnya had been planned during a secret summit of HizbAllah International held in 1996 in Mogadishu, Somalia. <span style="color: #cc0000;">21</span> The summit, was attended by Osama bin Laden and high-ranking Iranian and Pakistani intelligence officers. In this regard, the involvement of Pakistan's ISI in Chechnya "goes far beyond supplying the Chechens with weapons and expertise: the ISI and its radical Islamic proxies are actually calling the shots in this war". <span style="color: #cc0000;">22 </span><br /><br />Russia's main pipeline route transits through Chechnya and Dagestan. Despite Washington's perfunctory condemnation of Islamic terrorism, the indirect beneficiaries of the Chechen war are the Anglo-American oil conglomerates which are vying for control over oil resources and pipeline corridors out of the Caspian Sea basin.<br /><br />The two main Chechen rebel armies (respectively led by Commander Shamil Basayev and Emir Khattab) estimated at 35,000 strong were supported by Pakistan's ISI, which also played a key role in organizing and training the Chechen rebel army:<br /><br />[In 1994] the Pakistani Inter Services Intelligence arranged for Basayev and his trusted lieutenants to undergo intensive Islamic indoctrination and training in guerrilla warfare in the Khost province of Afghanistan at Amir Muawia camp, set up in the early 1980s by the CIA and ISI and run by famous Afghani warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar. In July 1994, upon graduating from Amir Muawia, Basayev was transferred to Markaz-i-Dawar camp in Pakistan to undergo training in advanced guerrilla tactics. In Pakistan, Basayev met the highest ranking Pakistani military and intelligence officers: Minister of Defense General Aftab Shahban Mirani, Minister of Interior General Naserullah Babar, and the head of the ISI branch in charge of supporting Islamic causes, General Javed Ashraf, (all now retired). High-level connections soon proved very useful to Basayev.<span style="color: #cc0000;">23 </span><br /><br />Following his training and indoctrination stint, Basayev was assigned to lead the assault against Russian federal troops in the first Chechen war in 1995. His organization had also developed extensive links to criminal syndicates in Moscow as well as ties to Albanian organized crime and the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA). In 1997-98, according to Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB) "Chechen warlords started buying up real estate in Kosovo... through several real estate firms registered as a cover in Yugoslavia" <span style="color: #cc0000;">24 </span><br /><br />Basayev's organisation has also been involved in a number of rackets including narcotics, illegal tapping and sabotage of Russia's oil pipelines, kidnapping, prostitution, trade in counterfeit dollars and the smuggling of nuclear materials (See Mafia linked to Albania's collapsed pyramids, <span style="color: #cc0000;">25 </span> Alongside the extensive laundering of drug money, the proceeds of various illicit activities have been funneled towards the recruitment of mercenaries and the purchase of weapons.<br /><br />During his training in Afghanistan, Shamil Basayev linked up with Saudi born veteran Mujahideen Commander "Al Khattab" who had fought as a volunteer in Afghanistan. Barely a few months after Basayev's return to Grozny, Khattab was invited (early 1995) to set up an army base in Chechnya for the training of Mujahideen fighters. According to the BBC, Khattab's posting to Chechnya had been "arranged through the Saudi-Arabian based [International] Islamic Relief Organisation, a militant religious organisation, funded by mosques and rich individuals which channeled funds into Chechnya".<span style="color: #cc0000;">26 </span><br /><br />Concluding Remarks<br />Since the Cold War era, Washington has consciously supported Osama bin Laden, while at same time placing him on the FBI's "most wanted list" as the World's foremost terrorist.<br /><br />While the Mujahideen are busy fighting America's war in the Balkans and the former Soviet Union, the FBI --operating as a US based Police Force- is waging a domestic war against terrorism, operating in some respects independently of the CIA which has --since the Soviet-Afghan war-- supported international terrorism through its covert operations.<br /><br />In a cruel irony, while the Islamic jihad -- featured by the Bush Adminstration as "a threat to America"-- is blamed for the terrorist assaults on the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon, these same Islamic organisations constitute a key instrument of US military-intelligence operations in the Balkans and the former Soviet Union.<br /><br />In the wake of the terrorist attacks in New York and Washington, the truth must prevail to prevent the Bush Adminstration together with its NATO partners from embarking upon a military adventure which threatens the future of humanity.<br /><br />The URL of this article is:<br /><a href="http://globalresearch.ca/articles/CHO109C.html">http://globalresearch.ca/articles/CHO109C.html </a><br />Copyright Michel Chossudovsky, Montreal, September 2001. All rights reserved.<br />Permission is granted to post this text on non-commercial community internet sites, provided the source and the URL are indicated, the essay remains intact and the copyright note is displayed. To publish this text in printed and/or other forms, including commercial internet sites and excerpts, contact the author at chossudovsky@videotron.ca, fax: 1-514-4256224.</div>

WHO IS OSAMA BIN LADEN?

Who Is Osama Bin Laden? by Michel Chossudovsky, Professor of Economics, University of Ottawa Centre for Research on Globalisation (CRG), M...

WHO IS OSAMA BIN LADEN?

Who Is Osama Bin Laden? by Michel Chossudovsky, Professor of Economics, University of Ottawa Centre for Research on Globalisation (CRG), M...

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