In the immediate aftermath of the
destruction of the World Trade
Center, the finger of guilt was
directed toward the only plausible
author for such a sophisticated and
ruthless act of terror - Osama bin
Laden.
In bits and pieces throughout the
late '90's - punctuated by various
acts of terror perpetrated against
overseas American interests - we
were informed that bin Laden had
declared war on America by reason of
the American military presence on
Saudi soil in the wake of the
Persian Gulf War. We were told how
bin Laden, ensconced in Afghanistan,
headed up a world-wide terror
franchise whose sophistication and
global reach dwarfed that of the
Iranian-financed Hizballah or
Islamic Jihad (previously, the most
widely known of the terror
organizations among the masses in
the Middle East). From the
beginning, this terror entity, al-Qaida,
was presented to us as something
entirely new in the annals of
terrorism - a far-flung,
sophisticated empire of terror,
possessing - possibly - weapons of
mass destruction, while having no
clear or viable state sponsor behind
it (as the Afghani Taliban were
merely its resident protectors).
More disturbingly, Americans were
presented with an apocalyptic
nemesis whose animosities could not
be curbed by any rational political
considerations or alignments. In
short, by September 11, the United
States now had a bona fide enemy -
and, as they say in criminal justice
parlance, a suspect with motive,
means, and opportunity.
John O'Neill
And while I was a bit taken at
how quickly - and confidently - the
fingers were pointing only hours
after the 9/11 bombings, I was
positively shaken by the first red
flag that popped up. His name was
John O'Neill - or more precisely, he
is the seam that shows. Dated
September 12, in a Washington Post
article by Vernon Loeb, it was
revealed that O'Neill, who died in
his capacity as head of security for
the World Trade Center, was also
formerly the New York FBI
Counter terror chief responsible for
the investigation into Osama bin
Laden. That could perhaps be written
off as one of those freak
synchronicities. It was the other
items - reported quite blandly, in
that "there's nothing to see
here, folks" tone - that gave
me that sinking feeling. Apparently,
O'Neill had a falling-out with the
Ambassador to Yemen over his
investigative style and was banned
from returning there. But then there
was that other nugget that I had
trouble digesting - that O'Neill had
resigned from a thirty-year career
in the FBI "under a cloud"
over an incident in Tampa - and then
left to take up the security
position at the WTC (only two weeks
before!).
The seam that shows...
For the bulk of his career, like
most of his FBI colleagues, John
O'Neill was largely unknown to the
public at large - respected in his
circle, to be sure, yet scarcely
meriting much mention in the media -
beyond being referenced now and then
as an expert on counter terrorism.
Yet in the few months leading up to
September 11, O'Neill was now
suddenly the subject of a series of
seemingly unrelated controversies -
the first, in July, involving his
dispute with the State Department
over the conduct of the bin Laden
investigation in Yemen; and the
second, in August, in which he was
reported to be under an FBI probe
for misplacing a briefcase of
classified documents during an FBI
convention in Tampa.
In the light of the aftermath of
this second controversy - the
documents were found,
"untouched", a few hours
later - one wonders why this
seemingly minor news would merit
such lengthy coverage in the
Washington Post and New York Times.
Keeping in mind the fact that these
latter articles on O'Neill appeared
a mere three weeks before he was to
die in the rubble of the Twin
Towers, one wonders if this wasn't a
well-orchestrated smear campaign
against O'Neill, with a bit of
unintended "blowback" - as
this now-discredited counter terror
chief in charge of all bin Laden
bombings would finally make the news
as a fatal casualty of bin Laden's
final bombing. Coincidence? Or was
there something more here that would
bear investigating?
My gut told me that, in the
months preceding September 11,
somebody was out to discredit John
O'Neill, yet this public campaign
would come back to haunt the
planners in the light of John
O'Neill's ultimate demise. Was a
mistake made - one pointing the way
toward a plan whose scope goes well
beyond the designs of Osama bin
Laden? In other words, could we spot
the telltale fingerprints of a
domestic conspiracy?
Well, as they say, a hypothesis
is only as good as its usefulness in
ferreting out reality. My
hypothesis: that the events of
September 11 were planned by those
who not only had the motive, means,
and opportunity to carry out the
plan, but also were best placed to
manage the consequences stemming
from it, as well as managing the
flow of information. If this were an
"inside job", the first
thing to do was to look at who
conveyed specific information on bin
Laden before - and I stress, before
- 9/11, for they were most likely
involved wittingly or not with those
who masterminded it. In other words,
circumstantial evidence of a
propaganda campaign, pre-9/11, to
present Osama bin Laden as America's
foremost nemesis would also provide
the circumstantial case against the
propaganda planners in taking down
the World Trade Towers. So I
monitored CNN and other media in the
days immediately after, taking note
of those trotted out - Judith
Miller, Paul Bremer, James Risen,
Vincent C! annistraro, etc. - to
provide instant commentary on bin
Laden. Moreover, I trolled through
past articles on bin Laden - noting
the wire service uniformity of
information as well as sources.
But first there was the John
O'Neill conundrum. If my hypothesis
were correct, it wouldn't make much
sense to draw public attention on
September 12 - however blandly
stated - to the fact that O'Neill
had left the FBI "under a
cloud" and that he had been
banned from the bin Laden
investigation in Yemen. It was a
September 4 article in the
Washington Post by Vernon Loeb that
gave me my answer. That article,
involving the Yemen investigation,
mentioned briefly about O'Neill
being banned by the Ambassador as
well as O'Neill's travails with the
briefcase incident. This was a full
week before the WTC attack. It was
perhaps conceivable that, upon
hearing of O'Neill's demise, someone
would dig up the September 4 item
and smell a rat. Thus, the September
12 follow-up with its "nothing shady
here" tone - employing, virtually
word-for-word, the incriminating
information revealed on September 4,
but providing no more details than
that. An almost obligatory coda to
paper over a thoughtless oversight. Presumably,
Loeb - the national security
correspondent for the Post - had no
inkling of what was to come in the
week ahead, so the oversight can
most probably be laid at the feet of
his confidential source. In any
case, the credulous tone of that
follow-up reportage succeeded in the
psychological trick of
"normalizing" an apparent
anomaly - a standard propaganda
trick known as a "limited
hang-out."
There's more. The evidence
implicating bin Laden was now
pouring in. Virtually the first
"smoking gun" was
presented the day after 9/11, when
Vernon Loeb and Dan Eggen reported
in the Post that Abdel Bari Atwan,
editor of the Al-Quds al Arabi
newspaper in London, "received
information that he [bin Laden]
planned very, very big attacks
against American interests"
only three weeks before 9/11.
Moreover, the article reported that
Atwan "was convinced that
Islamic fundamentalists aligned with
bin Laden were 'almost certainly'
behind the attacks."
Incidentally, Atwan had personally
interviewed bin Laden in Afghanistan
in 1996 - among the very few to do
so. As reported by Michael Evans in
the August 24, 1998 issue of The
Times, Atwan "is trusted by bin
Laden."
Curious, perhaps, that Atwan
seemed to be one of the major
"point men" used in
elaborating the Osama bin Laden
"legend", as they say in
intelligence parlance. In a U.S.
News article dated August 31, 1998,
Atwan informs us that bin Laden
"is a humble man who lives
simply, eating fried eggs, tasteless
low-fat cheese, and bread gritty
with sand. He hates America."
No flash in the pan, this
interviewer. Apparently, bin Laden
kept Atwan's business card tucked
away in his toga pocket. "Bin
Laden phoned this newspaper, phoned
me last Friday," Atwan revealed
in an ABC News Date Line Transcript
dated August 25, 1998. We'll come
back to ABC News shortly.
While solidly implicating bin
Laden the day after 9/11, Atwan was
also the media's "go-to"
guy back in 1998 when he informed
us, after President Clinton bombed
tool sheds in Afghanistan, that bin
Laden issued this threat against the
United States: "The battle has
not started yet. The response will
be with action and not words."
In the same article (which I took
from Nando Times), ABC News is the
source for an additional threat
called in by Ayman al-Zawahiri, a
senior bin Laden aide: "The war
has just started. The Americans
should wait for the answer."
Only a few months before that, ABC
had conducted its televised
interview of bin Laden. By the
summer of 1998, primed by Atwan, ABC
NEWS, and a surprisingly small
clique of well-worn sources, we had
come to know bin Laden as America's
latest "Saddam", "Qaddafi",
"Noriega" - take your pick
and set your bomb sites. To be fair
to ABC NEWS, they did include the
comments of the Honorary Consul of
Afghanistan in the above-noted 19!
98 Date Line transcript: "There
is a pattern developing - I'm not
quite sure about the rest of the
world, but in Afghanistan that has
been the case for the past 20 years.
That the intelligence service they
put together they create somebody
[sic], and they turn them into a
monster and then they attack this
very same creation, they destroy
that creation and then they reinvent
another creation."
By October 2000, when the U.S.S.
Cole was bombed in Yemen, in case
there was any doubt, Atwan offered
Reuters his helpful analysis with
regards to the source of blame:
"I do not rule out that this
was undertaken by Osama bin Laden.
Yemeni groups don't have the
experience to carry out this kind of
operation." Still, to assure us
that a bin Laden connection to the
Yemen incident was at least
plausible, Atwan recalled, in the
same interview with Reuters, how,
"in the early 1990's [bin
Laden] had hoped U.S. soldiers would
stop off in Aden during their
peacekeeping deployment in Somalia,
exposing themselves to attack from
his Yemen-based followers."
Also, Atwan informed Reuters that
bin Laden "was unlikely to
claim direct responsibility for
Thursday's attack for fear of U.S.
reprisals." One can imagine,
then, that Atwan gave his trusting
phone mate cause for many a
sleepless night. With friends like
these...
Leading up to 9/11, by the Spring
of 2001, an incriminating wedding
videotape, apparently implicating
bin Laden in the Yemen bombing, was
circulating around the Middle East
after being broadcast on the
ubiquitous al-Jazeera television
station (reconstituted from the BBC
TV Arabic Service - more on them
later). In the video, bin Laden,
according to the Saudi-owned al-Hayat
newspaper (more on them later, too),
recited a poem celebrating the
bombing of the U.S.S. Cole (shades
of deja vu here?) This from the
ABCNEWS.com site dated March 1:
"Al-Hayat, which carried a
photo of bin Laden and his son at
the wedding, said its correspondent
was the only journalist at the
ceremony, also attended by bin
Laden's mother, two brothers and
sister who flew to Kandahar from
Saudi Arabia." Last I heard,
the official story was that bin
Laden was on the outs with his
family. Well, maybe they just don't
invite him to the seders anymore.
And yes, here, too, Atwan offers
his thoughtful review of the bin
Laden video, courtesy of PTI,
datelined London June 22, 2001:
"[Atwan] said the video was
proof that the fugitive Saudi
millionaire [the Bruce Wayne of
terrorists] was fit, well equipped
and confident enough to send out a
call to arms." Why this sudden
need for proof? According to Atwan
in the same article: "There
have been rumors that he is ill and
that he is being contained by the
Taliban in Afghanistan. It is quite
clear from the film that he is in
good health to the point where he
can fire a rifle, and is free to
operate as he chooses." In
other words, limber enough for his
starring role in the months ahead.
So who is Abdel Bari Atwan and
why is he anxious to tell us so
much? According to the Winter 1999
issue of INEAS (Institute of Near
Eastern and African Studies), Abdel
Bari Atwan, a Palestinian, was born
in a refugee camp in the Gaza Strip
in 1950. Educated at the American
University of Cairo, Atwan moved to
Saudi Arabia and worked as a writer
for the al-Madina newspaper. In
1978, he moved to London, where he
became a correspondent for the
Saudi-owned Asharq Al-Awsat
newspaper. In 1988, after shuffling
around between Saudi-owned papers,
Atwan was offered a position as
editor of al-Quds al-Arabi. By his
account, he was offered a position
as the executive editor of the
Saudi-owned al-Hayat (of the bin
Laden wedding video coup), yet
turned it down to produce a more
independent newspaper as a challenge
to the "empires" of the
Saudi-dominated dailies.
Al-Quds began production in April
1989. A little more than a year
later, Saddam invaded Kuwait and al-Quds
stood alone as the only Arab
newspaper opposed to the Persian
Gulf War - at least by Atwan's
account. According to Atwan:
"Without the Gulf War, we
wouldn't have taken such political
lines, which made us well recognized
and well respected." In
November 1996, Bari-Atwan braved a
twelve-hour car ride through muddy
roads, attired in shabby Afghani
rags in below-zero weather, and gave
us the early scoop on bin Laden,
conducting a one-on-one interview in
bin Laden's [bat]cave. >From then
on, the mainstream media - CNN, ABC,
BBC, Sky News - looked to Bari-Atwan
and al-Quds as the
"independent" voice of the
Arab street.
Incidentally, in a discussion
concerning the matter of Saudi
domination of the Arabic media,
taken from the Carryon.oneworld.org
site, Atwan, as editor of his
struggling independent, was facing
off against Jihad Khazen, the editor
of the Saudi-owned al-Hayat. As
Atwan proudly related in support of
his independence: "One day I
was called by the BBC-TV Arabic
service [whose staff later
reconstituted itself as al-Jazeera
television]: 'There's a story on
your front page today, saying such
and such. Is it true?' I asked why
he should doubt it and he replied:
'It's not published in al-Hayat [his
job offer] or al-Sharq al-Awsat [his
alma mater].' " Atwan boasts:
"At least I can say we are 95
to 96 per cent independent" -
leaving out the 4 to 5 per cent
spent on bin Laden, I presume.
Whether or not al-Quds truly is
independent, this is the cover story
the mainstream media buys into when
they come trolling for their
"independent" evidence.
So, to elaborate further on this
(so far) fruitful hypothesis, it is
my contention that al-Qaida and bin
Laden are elaborate
"legends" set up to
promote a plausibly sophisticated
and ferocious enemy to stand against
American interests. I am not,
however, implying that bin Laden
himself is a total fabrication.
Rather, it is my contention that
confederates, believing themselves
to act on behalf of bin Laden, are
being set up in a "false flag
operation" to perform
operations as their controllers see
fit. And who are these controllers?
If they're anything resembling the
folks who brought you Hizbullah and
Hamas, you wouldn't be sweating the
suitcase nukes (made in America),
the Ames strain anthrax (made in
America), the MI5-like "sleeper
agents" and coded
"go" messages. Instead,
you would be dodging primitive nail
bombs and road mines - and not
needing Abdel Bari Atwan to feed you
the lowdown on the blame.
In view of the fact that bin
Laden is of Saudi origin, that much
of the "evidence" on the
Arab side initially originated from
Saudi-owned or Gulf Anglo-client
state sources, and that Saudi Arabia
is the major financial sponsor of
the Taliban brand of fundamentalism
in Afghanistan (as a counter-point
to Iran), I believe it is fair to
say that Saudi Arabia might possibly
be implicated. But why only take my
word for it? Just reference French
security expert Jean-Charles Brisard,
who in his book quoted John O'Neill
as saying, "All the answers,
everything needed to dismantle Osama
bin Laden's organization can be
found in Saudi Arabia ." Most
likely, the Saudis performed their
roles as subservient proxies. We'll
get to the ultimate controllers soon
enough (if you haven't already
guessed where this is going). And
now, to fill out the picture
further, it is necessary to name an
equally essential partner as proxy -
Pakistan, or, more specifically,
Pakistan's version of the CIA - t!
he ISI (Interservices Intelligence
Directorate).
And this is where we begin to
"close the circle" of our
closed-knit pre-9/11 propaganda
clique. Returning again to the
above-mentioned Dan Eggen and Vernon
Loeb Post article of September 12,
we're offered - in a powerful little
side-bar - more critical evidence
implicating bin Laden for the
attacks the day before. This time,
the bombshell is offered by
Palestinian journalist Jamal Ismail,
Abu Dhabi Television's bureau chief
in Islamabad. According to Ismail, a
bin Laden aide called him
"early Wednesday on a satellite
telephone from a hide-out in
Afghanistan," praising the
attack yet denying any
responsibility for it. By now
thoroughly cynical and looking
askance at anyone providing
incriminating "evidence"
so soon in the day, I decided to
have a look at any interesting
synchronicities I might find
involving Ismail. As it turns out,
Ismail was also among the select few
to conduct his very own bin Laden
interview, published by Newsweek
(owned by the Washington Post) in
its ! April 1, 1999 issue. Here is
how Newsweek described Ismail's good
fortune: "Palestinian
journalist Jamal Ismail's mobile
phone rang just before prayers on
December 18. 'Peace be upon you, '
said the voice on the line. 'You may
not recognize me, but I know you.'
" And thus was Jamal Ismail
invited on his own mud-soaked
incursion to the bin Laden [bat]cave.
Searching deeper, I found an
interesting obscure article penned
by respected Pakistani journalist
Rahimullah Yusufszai in The News
Jang, and dated May 3 2000. It
details the detention of two men of
Kurdish origin, accused by the
Taliban of spying for American and
Israeli intelligence. As Yusufszai
relates it, he spoke to the only
journalists allowed by the Taliban
to interview the detained men -
Jamal Ismail and his cameraman.
Apparently, Ismail had a special
relationship with the Taliban,
allowing him this rare privilege
above other journalists. And, as we
shall shortly see, so does Yusufszai.
One wonders who debriefs them at the
end of a workday. But more
interestingly, by May 5, as reported
by Kathy Gannon for the Associated
Press, the story acquires - as they
say - "new legs." Not only
are the basic elements of the
Yusufszai story mentioned, but the
article leads off with the bombshell
that one of the detained men
revealed that he was recruited by
the United States to! find Osama bin
Laden. It finishes with a little
coda implicating bin Laden in the
1998 embassy bombings. Thus, in the
space of two days, Yusufszai's
Pakistani "spy" article
sprouts a bin Laden addition when
fertilized by the American
Associated Press - and nicely
provides a plausible explanation as
to why a Kurd would be prowling
around Afghanistan on behalf of the
United States.
Yusufszai, incidentally,
moonlighted as an ABC News producer,
charged with guiding ABC News
correspondent John Miller through
the Afghani marshes to the bin Laden
[bat]cave - the only American
journalist to be accorded such an
honor (and also, as it happens, a
good friend of bin Laden arch-foe
John O'Neill. But not chummy enough
to direct O'Neill on to bin Laden's
hideaway). Moreover, Ismail and
Yusufszai are mentioned together in
a CNN article posted January 4, 1999
- the former for his Newsweek
interview, the latter for his own
bin Laden dialogue for TIME Magazine
the day later.
Rahimullah Yusufszai, regarded by
New York Times reporters John Burns
and Steve LeVine as "one man
who has seen more of the Taliban
than any other outsider," is
also named by The Nation, in its
article of January 27, 1997, as
"one of the favorite
journalists of [Pakistan's] ISI...one
of the organizations funding and
arming the Taliban. "
It's a small world after all. In
the September 29, 2001 article of
PressPlus, Yusufszai's ABC
colleague, John Miller, mused about
running into his buddy John O'Neill
in Yemen while reporting on the
U.S.S. Cole bombing the year before.
"He said, 'So this is the
Elaine's of Yemen.' "
"There is a terrible irony
to all this," Miller said. I'll
say: Miller, the only American who
can give a first-hand account of bin
Laden, bumps into his friend, bin
Laden's chief investigator while
both are investigating a bombing in
Yemen that will later be tagged onto
bin Laden - and only a year before
O'Neill dies at the hands of...
allegedly ...bin Laden.
Now, following the logic of my
hypothesis, if the bin Laden threat
was, pre-9/11, a closed-knit
propaganda campaign, one would
expect to find the same names
showing up repeatedly in combination
with one another. This, too, applies
to the American commentators. Let us
return to the August 1998 American
bombings of bin Laden's tool sheds
as an example. The night of the
bombing, Rahimullah Yusufszai
received a call from bin Laden aide
Ayman al-Zawahiri, in a report from
the Associated Press. Later,
Yusufszai obtained for ABC News
exclusive photos of the damage to
bin Laden's camp. Further commentary
describing the layout of the bin
Laden camp was furnished to the
Washington Post by former CIA
analyst and terrorism expert Kenneth
Katzman, as well as Harvey Kushner
of Long Island University. Only
little more than a week before that,
Katzman and Kushner were offering
their assessment of bin Laden's
culpability for the embassy bombings
in Africa in a Washington Post
article penned by Vernon Loeb and
Walter Pincus (who once admitted to
a prior CIA connection). They were
joined in this effort by Vincent
Cannistraro, the ABC news analyst
who provided running commentary in
the days immediately following 9/11.
Cannistraro, a former CIA
counter terrorism chief, provided
covert aid to the Afghani mujaheddin
in the late '80's, as well as
supervised CIA operations with the
contras. He was also one of the
point men in the notoriously
circumspect investigation at
Lockerbie. In the above-noted Loeb
and Pincus article - in which bin
Laden is quoted from the ABC News
Miller and Yusufszai interview -
Cannistraro weighs in with his
assessment of the embassy bombings:
"I believe Osama bin Laden is
the sponsor of this operation, and I
think all of the indications are
pointing that way."
Soon after the bombing of the
U.S.S. Cole in Yemen, a Vernon Loeb
Post article, dated October 13,
2000, proceeded to implicate bin
Laden through the detailed
information provided by Kushner,
Katzman, and Cannistraro. Kushner:
"He [bin Laden] has been
looking around for small, personal
submarines. One of his relatives in
the United States had an order in
for one of these personal
submarines, and it was
stopped." Katzman: "He
[bin
Laden] has claimed responsibility
for bombing a hotel in Yemen in 1992
where U.S. servicemen stayed on
their way to Somalia." Was that
so? This, of course, was a variation
on the disclosure that Atwan
provided that very same day to
Reuters, to whom he quoted bin Laden
as saying, "We waited for them
[the servicemen] in Aden but they
left the region. They knew what we
wanted to do to them. " Thus we
have two conflicting versions that
very same day - Katzman's Post
version and Atwan's Reuters version
- offered as evidence of bin Laden's
culpability for the U.S.S. Cole
bombings. To this day, it is not
clear which one has been accepted
into the official canon of the bin
Laden "legend." Clearly,
someone wasn't coordinating the
information flow too well that day.
Nevertheless, the bin Laden
"legend" was continuing to
be elaborated, with helpful
revelations provided by the same
cast of characters. In the Vernon
Loeb Post article dated July 3,
2000, Yusufszai, Kushner, and
Cannistraro unveil bin Laden aides
Ayman al-Zawahiri and Muhammed Atef
as the men to watch as bin Laden's
likely successors, with a helpful
tidbit on the Zawahiri biography
thrown in by the Saudi-owned al-Sharq
al-Awsat.
None of the above, of course, is
offered as the "smoking
gun" pointing the way to a
propaganda conspiracy, nor are my
chosen examples meant to be
exhaustive in evidencing this point.
Clearly, I have not heretofore made
mention of the other experts who
have worked assiduously toward
building our knowledge base on bin
Laden - Steven Emerson, Daniel
Pipes, Yosef Bodansky, Judith
Miller, and various British and EU
elites. However, the above examples
do show how the information flow on
bin Laden could be plausibly managed
by the skillfully placed revelations
of a relatively insular clique of
"experts" called upon
repeatedly by the mainstream media.
Such a technique of covert media
manipulation was, in fact, revealed
as an institutional norm with the
exposure of the CIA's Project
Mockingbird in the '70's.
Officially, it was discontinued.
Nevertheless, the essential
infrastructure remains intact. A
relatively few well-connected
correspondents provide the
"scoops" that get the coverage in the relatively few
mainstream news sources - the four
TV networks, TIME, Newsweek, CNN -
where the parameters of debate are
set and the "official
reality" is consecrated for the
bottom feeders in the news chain. In
other countries, this is what is
known as propaganda - or, put less
politely, psychological warfare. A
key element in the uses of
psychological warfare is the
repeated dramatization and sheer
numbing of a populace in order to
achieve the desired strategic goals.
But before I leave this topic, I
would like to provide an example of
"news management" that is
revealing for what is omitted - that
is, the "smoking gun" of
Pakistani ISI involvement in the
events of 9/11. This from Karachi
News, September 9, 2001:
"[Pakistani] ISI Chief
Lt-Gen Mahmood's week-long
presence in Washington has
triggered speculation about the
agenda of his mysterious meetings
at the Pentagon and National
Security Council. Officially,
State Department sources say he is
on a routine visit in return to
[sic] CIA Director George Tenet's
earlier visit to Islamabad...What
added interest to his visit is the
history of such visits. Last time
Ziauddin Butt, Mahmood's
predecessor, was here during Nawaz
Sharif's government the domestic
politics turned topsy-turvy within
days. That this is not the first
visit by Mahmood in the last three
months shows the urgency of the
ongoing parleys...Interestingly,
his visit also saw two CIA reports
expressing concern on issues
related to Pakistan this week. One
of them was about the effects of
demographic explosion and
Pakistan's continued build up in
its nuclear and missiles programme."
Now, let us move ahead three
weeks later, to a transcript of
ABC's "This Week", posted
on the Washington Post website
September 30, 2001: "As to
September 11, federal authorities
have told ABC News they've now
tracked more than $100,000 from
banks in Pakistan to two banks in
Florida to accounts held by
suspected hijack ringleader Mohamed
Atta. As well this morning, TIME
magazine is reporting that some of
that money came in the days just
before the attack and can be traced
directly to people connected to
Osama bin Laden."
Now, a little more than a week
later, on October 9, 2001, as
reported by The Times of India:
"While the Pakistani Inter
Services Public Relations claimed
that former ISI director-general
Lt-Gen Mahmud Ahmad sought
retirement after being superseded on
Monday, the truth is more shocking.
Top sources confirmed here on
Tuesday that the general lost his
job because of the
"evidence" India produced
to show his links to one of the
suicide bombers that wrecked the
World Trade Centre. The US
authorities sought his removal after
confirming the fact that $100,000
were wired to WTC hijacker Mohammed
Atta from Pakistan by Ahmad Umar
Sheikh at the instance of Gen Mahmud.
Senior government sources have
confirmed that India contributed
significantly to establishing the
link between the money transfer and
the role played by the dismissed ISI
chief. While they did not provide
details, they said that Indian
inputs, including Sheikh's mobile
phone number, helped the FBI in
tracing and establishing the
link."
These three news items, taken
together, shine a devastating
spotlight on the events preceding,
and following, 9/11. The first item,
the Karachi report of September 9,
serves to highlight the ISI chief's
"unusual" visit in the
days immediately preceding 9/11. Yet
with the subsequent revelations of
The Times of India report, this
visit starts to take on sinister
implications. But again, as I said
before, if there is Pakistani -
read, ISI - involvement in the WTC
bombings, there is little reason to
believe that Pakistan's involvement
was anything more than that of a
proxy agent serving the interests of
a powerful controller. Some might
assail the credibility of the Times
of India article in light of India's
state of belligerence with Pakistan.
Yet both the Karachi report and the
ABC report tend to lend credibility
to the Indian report, not only
because they both precede the Times
of India by a matter of weeks, but
most importantly in light of the
fact of what is omitted in e! ach.
The Indian article, if part of a
smear campaign against the ISI
chief, would surely have highlighted
the well-timed visit of the ISI
chief to Washington. Or would it -
for surely such a revelation in
conjunction with its report would
unavoidably implicate a player whose
overwhelming power could be used as
a vengeful bludgeon against Indian
interests: the United States.
Examining the implications more
deeply, the ABC report blatantly
references the FBI as the source for
the $100,000 revelation, calling in
TIME magazine to make the bin Laden
link and thereby cementing another
brick in the case against al-Qaida.
Yet any propaganda gains made by
this revelation were immediately
threatened by the blowback of the
Times of India report several days
later. In other words, this was a
"limited hang-out" that
went disastrously wrong. No matter.
The US authorities immediately went
into damage control mode by
insisting on the quiet retirement of
the "outed" ISI chief.
Thus removed from the public eye,
the Lt-Gen's role in all this could
be effectively ignored, and an
American media black-out could be
safely assumed.
Such a scenario certainly fits in
snugly with my hypothesis, which I
will now proceed to elaborate
completely. The events of September
11 were masterminded by those who
were in the best position to manage
the consequences - namely, those
most able to manage the flow of
information, those most able to
coordinate all the elements
necessary for the perpetration of a
successful operation (subverting
airport security, guiding the planes
to their specific targets), and most
significantly, those who stood to
reasonably benefit in the aftermath.
Conspiracies, by their very nature,
are not crimes of passion. They may
involve rational, albeit
cold-blooded, attempts to achieve a
desired end by employing the most
effective means available. It is for
this reason that
"mainstream" terror groups
like Hamas and Hizbullah largely
avoid attacking American interests
where such attacks would serve no
practical interest. For all their
talk of Jihad, these terror groups
tend to plan their specific
attacks with an eye to the
consequences that could reasonably
be expected to follow. Thus, knowing
the moral and political constraints
of Israeli deterrent strategies,
they calibrate their attacks to
elicit consequences that are most
tolerable for them - and hence,
manageable. Yet surely, in the light
of the cult of suicidal martyrdom,
such considerations no longer hold
sway. Perhaps. But then, in the case
of such a far-flung anti-Zionist
movement as al-Qaida, one would
expect at least a little more
exertion against Israeli interests
than has heretofore prevailed -
unless, of course, the
"point" of al-Qaida was to
provide a plausible dire threat to
American interests where none had
then existed. In any case, as nobody
has noticed this particular anomaly,
there was no need for any needless
exertion of resources in order to
bolster a credibility that needed no
bolstering in this one particular
sector.
Motive, means, and opportunity.
While I presented the Saudis and
Pakistani intelligence as clear-cut
proxies, the only motive these
elements would have to benefit from
a crime of this nature is an
assurance that no punishment would
be forthcoming but rather, they
would be on the right side of power
and wealth among those in a position
to determine the booty. In the light
of this supposition, it is clear as
to why the American media and
government have steadfastly avoided
any substantive investigations of
Pakistani and Saudi involvement. And
I am not the first to notice that
particular anomaly.
Another anomaly: only two days
before September 11, the head of the
Afghani National Alliance - a
cultishly popular figure within that
group, and one who stood adamantly
for Afghani independence - was
assassinated by two terrorists
posing as cameramen. Keeping in mind
the fact that, throughout the '90's,
American leaders such as Clinton,
and American companies such as
Unocal, were largely throwing their
support over to the Taliban in
opposition to the National Alliance,
it seems rather convenient that, in
the aftermath of 9/11, the way was
now cleared for the National
Alliance to be co-opted as an
instrument for setting up a more
pliant Afghani government (now
headed, incidentally, by a former
consultant to Unocal). One wonders
what the fiercely independent,
now-deceased, former leader of the
National Alliance would have had to
say on that point.
So who are the ultimate
controllers? To begin with, the
circumstantial evidence seems to
point to an operative clique
primarily based out of New York City
and the State of Florida. I stress
the word "operative", as
this clique appears to be
subservient agents involved in
laying the preparations. Once again,
John O'Neill serves as an effective
Rosetta Stone in interpreting the
raw outlines of this operative
clique (which is by no means a
"rogue" clique). The FBI
and CIA elements involved in
counter terrorism have a checkered
past. For one, Oliver North in the
1980's served as Counter terrorism
Chief while he used his office as a
cover to deal with such narco-terrorists
as Monzar al-Kassar (who figures in
the crash at Lockerbie - also
investigated by Cannistraro). In the
late '90's, O'Neill was transferred
from the federal office of
Counter terrorism to the New York
Counter terrorism Office of the FBI -
and it was the New York branch which
was then designated as the primary
investigator of all overseas
investigations involving bin Laden.
Moreover, this branch was also
involved in the somewhat suspect
investigation of TWA 800 -
investigated by O'Neill and reported
upon by ABC's John Miller, who was
formerly the Deputy Police
Commissioner of Public Relations for
the NYPD before he joined up with
ABC. As regards New York, there is
another element involved in germ
warfare operations. Actually, a
multi-million dollar bunker -
serving as a command and control
center in the event of a biological
attack - was set up at 7 World Trade
Center at the direction of Rudolph
Giuliani, who also oversaw a mass
spraying over the boroughs of New
York City when the West Nile Virus
hit town a few summers previously.
Moreover, there has been a
widespread campaign on to link the
threat of al-Qaida with that of a
mass biological attack. At least the
day after September 11, the link -
as the Anthrax mailings had yet to
arise - was not so apparent. Yet on
PBS' Frontline, the New York Times'
Judith Miller (no apparent relation
to John Miller, as far as I'm
aware), accompanied by the New York
Times' James Risen, was interviewed
as an apparent expert on al-Qaida.
Several weeks later, Judith Miller
would once more make the headlines
as the apparent recipient of an
anthrax mailing which turned out to
be a false alarm - yet was all the
same conveniently timed with the
well-publicized launching of her
book on...germ warfare. Thus, with
Ms. Miller, we have the interesting
synchronicity of someone who, on
September 12, unveiled herself
before a television audience as an
al-Qaida expert, while only weeks
later, presenting herself as an
authority on biowarfare - while at
the same time making the new! s as a
presumed anthrax recipient, targeted
- as initially presumed - by al-Qaida
elements. As was later discovered,
the anthrax mailings petered out
once the news leaked that a DNA test
revealed the material to be of the
Ames strain of anthrax, an agent
synthesized out of a CIA laboratory
in Fort Detrick, Maryland.
Nevertheless, this was sufficient to
fast-track Bioport's exclusive
license for the anthrax vaccine
toward FDA approval. Formerly,
Bioport's experimental anthrax
vaccine was being forcibly
administered - under threat of
court-martial - to hundreds of
thousands of American servicemen (in
conformity with Bioport's exclusive
and lucrative contract with the
Department of Defense). The point of
the above-noted information is to
draw attention to an apparent
propaganda campaign to prepare the
public for a catastrophic biological
attack. As with the Twin Towers, the
blame for any coming attack may be
duly and plausibly assigned by those
who carefully laid the groundwork!
in preparing us for this
eventuality. I do not claim to know
the motive behind any possible
widespread biological attack - be it
for population control or for other
reasons beyond my ken - yet I do
perceive a concerted effort to link
the fear of al-Qaida with the fear
of a catastrophic biological attack.
For those interested in
investigating this further, I
suggest that one "place"
to start is the New York operative
clique centered in the New York
Counter terrorism branch, as well as
minor elements of the NYPD (by way
of John Miller and Giuliani) and
certain elements based out of Long
Island University (Harvey Kushner).
As for Florida, the connection
with this state is obvious, for not
only was the first anthrax mailing
directed to the Florida offices of
the National Enquirer, but the
accused hijackers were also reported
to receive their pilot training from
flight schools in Orlando and Tampa.
Moreover, Florida, by way of the
MacDill Air Force Base, is also
Central Command for the war in
Afghanistan. And again, there is a
John O'Neill connection - for not
only did O'Neill meet his
professional undoing at a convention
in Tampa, but in an Associated Press
article dated May 24, 1997, John
O'Neill was commenting on the threat
of Islamic terrorism while the same
article pointed out the existence of
a Tampa-based "think tank"
possibly linked with terrorists -
the World and Islam Studies
Enterprise. In addition to its
function as Central Command for the
war on terrorism, MacDill is
-outside of Langley - also a major
base of the CIA. Thus, in the CIA's
own backyard, we find the
infrastructure an! d financial
support that went into the planning
for the events of 9/11. And, as we
so often find with events
surrounding 9/11, another
synchronicity - for coincidentally
enough, the woman who happened to
find an apartment for one of the
alleged hijackers was the wife of
the senior editor of the National
Enquirer. Moreover, her husband,
Michael Irish, also happened to make
use of an airfield that served as
flight training for some of the
hijackers. In intelligence
operations, foreign assets are often
placed with resident
"controllers" whose job it
is to supervise the asset as well as
provide accommodations as the need
arises. Who are Michael and Gloria
Irish? Or, perhaps more revealingly,
what kind of social circles do they
run with? This is certainly an
avenue worth exploring - by reason
of its many synchrocities if for
nothing else. Again, the seam that
shows.
So, to sum up, it appears that
the events of September 11 were
planned years in advance, with the
groundwork being carefully laid by a
propaganda campaign orchestrated to
convince the public that the United
States has a plausibly sophisticated
nemesis with the motive, means, and
opportunity to perpetrate a
devastating act of terror against
Americans. Toward that end, Saudi
Arabia and Pakistan have been used
as the primary proxy agents to run a
"false flag" operation,
setting up and financing the
infrastructure of al-Qaida in
Afghanistan. Through madrassas based
in Pakistan, Saudi and Yemenite
militants were instructed in the
Saudi brand of Wahabbi Islam, and
subsequently "graduated"
to the camps that were set up in
Afghanistan - again, under Saudi and
Pakistani sponsorship. Stateside,
the operative agents were mostly
based out of New York City and
Florida. In the aftermath of 9/11,
elements in the American government
are now widely disseminating
information in vast quantities,
overwhelming the populace and
lending credibility to the
government's version of events.
Thus, post-9/11, the actions of this
formerly insular propaganda clique
are no longer perceptible.
Information is now being doled out
in generous portions to credulous
reporters who are outside the loop,
yet perform their unwitting service
as "bottoms feeders" in
the downward flow of information.
In all cases, the actions of
these proxy agents and operative
planners are sufficiently distanced
and compartmentalized from the true
masterminds to create a condition of
"plausible deniability".
In short, the proxies have also been
set up as possible patsies with
evidence that has been carefully
laid to incriminate them should
cracks in the "official
story" become too discernible.
Moreover, the groundwork has already
been carefully laid to cast
aspersions on another convenient
patsy - the Jews, by way of the
State of Israel and its supporters.
Already, for those prone to perceive
Jewish conspiracies, the reliable
vein of anti-Semitism - combined
with anti-Zionism - has been mined
to distract the masses and to create
a modern version of the ritual blood
libel, thereby further
"muddying the waters"
should the true masterminds be
threatened with exposure. In other
words, the present difficulties in
the Middle East work perfectly to
set up the State of Israel as a
plausible ! alternative suspect with
motive, means, and opportunity.
Toward that end, a low-level
"buzz" has been
circulating over the Internet (and
especially in Europe) - fueled by a
coy report from Fox News - of an
Israeli spy ring that was rounded up
in the days after September 11.
Whether or not these reports are
credible is not the point. Most
likely, there was a spy ring
operating, and various Israelis were
unwittingly set up as patsies, to be
exposed should the need arise. Thus,
while evidence may be marshaled to
taint the Saudis, Pakistanis, and
Israelis, the real guilt must
inevitably lie with those in the
best position to manage the flow of
information as well as reliably
benefit from the new order created,
primarily, the political and
corporate elites of the United
States, the United Kingdom, and the
European Union - also, as it
happens, the very parties
orchestrating the global war on
terrorism. In this respect, the
Saudis, Pakistanis, or Israelis have
far less to gain (other than the
benefits of going along with the
designs of the rich and mighty).
I could go on and further
highlight the obvious geostrategic
gains of those who are clearly
managing the flow of information -
the proverbial pipelines, oil,
wealth, and so forth. But I think
those purported benefits are a bit
of a "red herring" - more
of a side benefit than the main
motivating factor. It is no small
act to intentionally take down such
an overarching symbol of financial
stability as the Twin Towers, and
chance killing thousands in the
process. Such a conspiracy, if in
fact perpetrated from within, would
by its nature necessitate a huge
structural, cultural, and
demographic change. The very
brazenness of the act, the naked
aggression, would necessitate a
tenacious determination to achieve
the ends for which these actions
were perpetrated. There is no going
back now. An infrastructure is being
laid out - one that will, finally,
provide a dissident-proof
totalitarian oligarchy composed of
like-minded elites served by an
under-class kept under constant
surveillance. The edifice of this
regime is being constructed, brick
by brick, with the mortar of the
Office of Homeland Security (to
centralize and coordinate an
effective police state), the Freedom
Corps (to indoctrinate the most
idealist - and therefore activist -
elements of the populace toward
service to the state), and the
Patriot Act (to provide the legal
basis for subverting long-held
rights under the screen of national
security). If all of this sounds
strangely familiar, if it is
redolent of Huxley and Orwell, that
is perhaps because Huxley and Orwell
were both intimately involved with
the elites of their time - in fact,
were fully subsumed among them - in
ways that made their future
projections abundantly prescient,
and, in their minds, inevitable.
With further refinements in mind
control technologies - yes, they do
exist - as well as the
monopolization of the food supply by
way of sterile seed "terminator
technology" - the approval for
which was granted in the months following 9/11 - the masses may be
perpetually culled and exploited by
those who hold the keys to this
fully managed society.
For such a plan to be effective,
there is no need for all elements to
be "in the loop." Many
look upon the Council On Foreign
Relations (CFR) as one likely agent
of a possible elitist conspiracy.
Yet with a membership consisting of
thousands, it would be too unwieldy
to manage such a group of
individuals with such varying
interests and outlooks. In any case,
that is not how the CFR is
structured. Members of the CFR are
invited into the ranks -
particularly where they have already
achieved some measure of prominence
in politics, finance, or the media.
The CFR, rather, exists as an organ
to manage these
"second-tier" elites - to
ensure a consensus of sorts simply
through the technique of
"mainstreaming" their
thoughts and beliefs, as these are
folk who are unduly preoccupied with
preserving their status in the
ranking order. No need to "rock
the boat" with foolish notions
that could only serve to discredit
oneself in the eyes of one's peers.
Standing over and above the CFR! is
a more manageable and, on the whole,
more powerful group of elites who
do, in fact, perceive it as their
duty and entitlement to determine
the mores and values, lifestyles and
fate of the rest of us. Where the
rank and file members of the CFR are
largely motivated by a
self-interested careerism, these
higher elites see it as their moral
duty to guide the "ship of
state", as it were. To them, a
unified world government is the most
logical way to manage the affairs of
the world. After all, these global
elites have more in common with one
another than they do with the bulk
of their respective countrymen.
If this notion of reality strikes
you as somewhat dissonant, at odds
with your own personal experience,
it may be perhaps that we have not
quite arrived there yet, and that
you have personally not felt the
corrosive lash of political
corruption and governmental
malfeasance. In all likelihood, you
have not read the mountain of
evidence detailing political and
elite deviant behavior in this
country. You may even be dismissive
of "conspiracies
theories", yet wholly unaware
of the well-documented attempts by
the CIA and FBI to subvert, surveill,
and propagandize the populace
through programs such as Project
Mockingbird (media infiltration) and
MK-Ultra (mind control through
chemical, hypnotic, or
electro-magnetic means). These
programs are effected primarily
through "think tanks" that are set
up across the United States for the
purpose of disseminating information
and propaganda under the rubric of
"expertise". Moreover, various
foundations, such as the Rockefeller
or Ford Foundations, are often used as
funnels to finance and feed the
arteries of these propaganda
networks. In the 1970's, a good deal
of this structural corruption was
officially exposed - in a
"limited hang-out" - by
way of the Church Commission, as
well as the House Select Committee
on Assassinations. Thereafter, much
of the most damaging revelations
were played down or ignored by the
mainstream media, and the waters
were then muddied by a stream of
outlandish conspiracy theories -
aliens, Elvis, etc. - that merely
served to discredit the information
that was most credible.
"Muddying the waters",
incidentally, is a tried and true
staple of the intelligence craft.
It is really just a matter of
familiarizing yourself with all the
documented anomalies that do not
accord with the received, mainstream
reality put forth to you by the
mainstream media. As a practical
guide to begin, you might want to
confine your search to strictly
"mainstream" sources, as I
have sought to do in attempting to
construct my case on 9/11. My
evidence is by no means exhaustive.
In fact, it is merely the proverbial
tip of the iceberg. Yet proceeding
in this direction, under my
hypothesis, has been most fruitful
in analyzing the various anomalies
that pop up now and then.
Any simple keyword search of the
following terms may be helpful in
pointing toward a more substantive
understanding of the elites who
ultimately guide your fortunes:
"Iran-Contra" , "Mena",
"BCCI", "Project
Paperclip", "Michael
Aquino", "Paul Bonacci",
"Operation Northwoods",
"MK-Ultra". Much of the
information on these topics is
credible and well-documented. More
disturbingly, it highlights
behavior committed by the very same
elites who are now interpreting the
events of 9/11 for you. Read for
yourself, and decide, at the end of
the day, how much credibility you
will continue to accord to those who
claim to be the proper trustees of
your fate and well-being.
Chaim
Kupferberg is a freelance researcher
and writer. Copyright ?Chaim
Kupferberg 2002. 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.