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Afghanistan, "Terrorism"
and Blowback: A Chronology
(this is the printer-friendly version) 1747 Ahmad
Shah Durrani becomes the chief of the Afghan Pashtun tribes. 1839-1842 The
First Afghan War is one of the first acts in the "Great
Game," so named by the British (and romanticized by Rudyard
Kipling) to describe the spy games played by the British and Russian
intelligence agencies as the spheres of influence of the two empires
moved closer and closer to an ultimate clash in Afghanistan. 1878-1881 The
Second Anglo-Afghan War starts when the imperious Viceroy of
India, Lord Lytton, delivers an ultimatum to Emir Sher Ali to accept
a British mission in Kabul. (The Russians had taken
Tashkent in 1865, Samarkand in 1868 and a year later were at the
banks of the Amu Darya River, the northern boundary of present-day
Afghanistan. British Liberals, on the other hand, felt that the
natural boundary of India should be the Indus River in western India,
now Pakistan.) The British were saved
by recognizing Abdul Rahman Khan as Emir--- a claimant who ironically
had been living in Russia and was sponsored by Russia! Back in Britain,
Gladstone won the1880 election by turning it into a sort of plebiscite
on Disraeli's imperial wars: "The sanctity of life in the hill
villages of Afghanistan, among the winter snows, is as inviolable
in the eyes of Almighty God as can be your own." This sentiment
didn't appeal to Her Majesty, but middle-class Britons approved.
1893 Drawing a Line across Mounainous Ranges: Abdul Rahman Khan is forced by the British Indian government to agree to the "Durand Line" as the boundary between Afghanistan and India. [This placed more than half of the Pashtuns in India, a decision that was protested then and by succeeding generations. Nyrog, pp. 37-38.] 1907 The
"Great Game" ends with the Anglo-Russian Convention.
May, 1919 The
new king of Afghanistan, Amanullah, starts the Third Anglo-Afghan
War when the British refuse to acknowledge the complete independence
of Afghanistan. Amanullah traveled far
more extensively than any king before him. He was particularly intrigued
with the reforms that Kemal Ataturk had instituted in Turkey and
tried to copy them. Western dress was required in Kabul, and secular
education was begun (for girls also.) The veiling and seclusion
of women was discouraged, and slavery and forced labor were abolished.
A constitution, civil rights, a legislative assembly and a court
system were established. He probably tried to do too much too fast,
as some tribal chiefs, the religious leaders, and elements of the
army rose up against him. 1933 King
Nadir Shah of Afghanistan is assassinated. His son, Zahir Shah,
born 1914, ascends to the throne for a reign that will last forty
years. Yet Afghanistan declared
neutrality during the war. It acquiesced to a British-Soviet
demand to expel non-diplomatic Axis personnel from the country by
expelling non-diplomatic personnel from all the belligerent
nations. After the war Prime Minister Shah Mahmud relaxed
the strict press censorship and a "liberal parliament"
was elected in 1949. Kabul University started a student union
which fostered political debate and produced plays that criticized
both Islam and the monarchy. 1934 Afghanistan joins the League of Nations. The United States recognizes Afghanistan. Nyrog, p. 50. 1947 The
British withdraw from India. As a result, the Afghani government
revives its old claims to land now in Pakistan and extending as
far as the Arabian Sea. August 19, 1953 A
CIA coup in Iran overthrows the government of Prime Minister
Mohammed Mossadegh and re-installs Reza Pahlavi as Shah of Iran.
Over 300 people are killed and many hundreds are wounded in the
nine hours of fighting. The future cost to the people of Iran was incalculable. Thousands were executed during the next twenty-five years of the Shah's reign. SAVAK, the secret police created and trained by the CIA, was described by Amnesty International in 1976 as having a "history of torture which is beyond belief. No country in the world has a worse record in human rights than Iran." Matchbox, Fall, 1976. The United States got many military installations in Iran, bases for surveillance flights over Russia, and radar and electronic listening posts that completed the encirclement of the USSR. American oil firms gained a 40% interest in the new international consortium for Iranian oil. The US would spend over a billion dollars to support the Shah's regime and the military in Iran. (The CIA distributed about $400 million a year to placate the ayatollahs and the mullahs from 1953 until President Carter ordered a stop in 1977, a move that undoubtedly contributed to the 1978 revolution.) Blum, William, The CIA: A Forgotten History (1986), pp. 67-76.] September, 1953 Mohammed Daoud Khan becomes prime minister in an intra-family transfer of power that involves no violence. [His ten-year tenure was noted for the foreign policy turn to the Soviet Union, the completion of the Helmand Valley project which radically improved living conditions in southwestern Afghanistan, and tentative steps towards the emancipation of women. (He required his wives and those of his cabinet members to appear in public unveiled.) His obsession with Pashtunistan and his hostility to Pakistan proved disastrous to the economy. (The grape and pomegranate harvests had to be air-lifted to markets in India in 1961 and 1962, thanks to Daoud's severance of diplomatic relations with Pakistan.) Nyrog, p. 58-62.] 1956 Arming
for War: Having been rebuffed by the US for both sales of arms
and loans, Afghanistan turns to the Soviet Union for aid to equip
and train the army and air force as a defense against provocations
by the Pakistanis. September 27, 1962 President Kennedy meets with Afghanistan's Foreign Minister, Prince Naim, and tells him "the United States is a long way off [from Afghanistan] and even though it is very anxious to help it can at best play a limited role." Anshutz, J. Bruce, Afghanistan: The First Five Years of Soviet Occupation (1986), p. 28. March, 1963 King
Zahir Shah ousts Daoud as prime minister, as his anti-Pakistan
policies have ruined the economy and the family agrees that Daoud
must go. Zahir Shah takes control of the government himself
and institutes a parliamentary democracy. January 1, 1965 Political Parties:Twenty-seven Afghans, mostly university lecturers and civil servants who have been meeting clandestinely for some time, take advantage of the more liberal atmosphere to form the People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA). A nine-man central committee is elected with Nur Mohammad Taraki as Secretary General and Babrak Karmal as his deputy. The platform and suggested reforms are very similar to those of King Amanullah. [In the autumn elections half of the PDPA candidates standing for election were elected. All four were from what would become the Parcham faction; one was a woman, Dr. Anahita Ratebzad, the close companion of Babrak Karmal. Only twenty progressive candidates were chosen for the 218-seat parliament unlike the "liberal parliament" of 1949. The tribal warlords, two-thirds of them illiterate, had recognized the political advantage of a parliamentary seat and had campaigned vigorously. Edward Girardet, Afghanistan, The Soviet War (1985), p.96] 1972 Drought and famine cause the deaths of over 100,000 Afghanis. Relief funds from abroad are mishandled by the king's son-in-law, General Abdul Wali. Cooley, p. 11. July 17, 1973
Daoud Back in Power: While King Zahir Shah is abroad in Italy
in one of his many absences (this one for medical treatment), he
is deposed by a coup, a relatively peaceful one with only eight
fatalities. Daoud Khan, the former prime minister, is installed
as leader of the country. He lessened the country's dependence on the Soviet Union and went to India, Saudi Arabia and newly-oil-rich Iran for aid. Surprisingly, he did not renew the Pashtunistan issue; relations with Pakistan improved thanks to interventions from the US and Iran. His administration and the army squelched a growing Islamic fundamentalist movement whose leaders fled to Pakistan. There they were supported by Prime Minister Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto and encouraged to continue the fight against Daoud. These men— Gulbuddin Hekmetyar, Burhanuddin Rabbani, and Ahmad Shah Massoud— would later be major leaders of the mujaheddin. Nyorg, pp. 67-72; Rashid, Ahmed, Taliban: Militant Islam, Oil and Fundamentalism in Central Asia (2000), pp. 12-13; Griffin, pp. 17, 88; Cooley, pp. 11-12.] Late 1977 As part of a worldwide review of Embassy categories, the United States downgrades its embassy in Kabul to the lowest category of mission, Class 4. [Obviously the State Department felt that Afghanistan was a country of little relevance to US interests. Amstutz, p. 29.] April 19, 1978 The funeral of Mir Akbar Khyber, a key leader of the Parcham party who had been assassinated two days before, turns into a rally with close to 30,000 communists from both factions of the PDPA (Peoples Democratic Party of Afghanistan) attending and listening to stirring speeches by Nur Muhammed Taraki (Khalq) and Babrak Karmal (Parcham). [This was the third political assassination in nine months. Daoud, concerned both by the size of the crowd and the reconciliation of the two formerly warring factions of the PDPA, ordered wholesale arrests of the leadership of both factions. Nyorg, p.72. Girardet suggests that Khyber was murdered by the Khalqis to provoke revolt and also get rid of a prominent Parchami. Girardet, p. 103.] April 27-28, 1978 Another Coup: Afghan soldiers sympathetic to the Khalq (the masses) faction of the Afghani communist party overthrow the government and release the arrested PDPA members. Daoud and most of his family are killed resisting the coup; several thousand people die in the fighting. Nur Muhammad Taraki is installed as president; his two principal deputies are the Columbia University-educated politician, Hafizullah Amin (Khalq), and Babrak Karmal. This ends the control of the country by the Durrani clan who had been in power (with one very brief interruption) since 1747. [Daoud's police had been so slow in making the post-funeral arrests that Amin, by using his children as couriers, had been able to arrange this coup which had already been planned for a later date. (Historians differ on whether the Soviet Union was taken by surprise or whether the USSR was aware of the plot and did nothing to stop it.) The PDPA quickly instituted
a number of reforms: Summer-Autumn, 1978 There are violent protests over some of the reforms which challenge Afghan cultural patterns, especially land reform and the emancipation of women. The Khalq faction takes over all the important government posts; the Parcham cabinet members are sent abroad as ambassadors. (Babrak Karmal goes to Prague.) Nyorg, pp. 231- 234. February 14, 1979 US Ambassador to Afghanistan Adolph Dubs is kidnapped by several armed members of a Maoist group and held hostage for the release of several of their imprisoned colleagues. [Afghan security forces attacked the hotel room where Dubs was being held. Both he and his captors were killed in the crossfire. President Jimmy Carter, who had been demanding that the situation be negotiated, was indignant, slashed the aid progam from $27 million to $5 million, and further reduced the diplomatic representation to chargé d'affaires. Prior to this Amin had been trying to increase US participation in the country as a counter-balance to the Soviet influence. Girardet, p. 114; Nyrog, p. 237.] March 28, 1979 There is a major revolt in the province of Herat against the Taraki regime possibly fomented by Iran's Ayatollah Khomeini, capitalizing on the resistance to the enforced participation of women in the government literacy programs. (Herat is predominantly Shi'ite Moslem; the rest of Afghanistan is mostly Sunni.) [The Soviet military advisors were major targets of the outraged mobs; 50-100 Soviets were killed, some tortured exquisitely. The government recaptured the city, killing nearly 5000 Afghans. Most of the air force had defected by this time. When Taraki called out the air force, only a few pilots were willing to bomb the people of Herat. Those who refused were executed. Taraki and Amin asked
the Soviet Union for "two or three battalions" to protect
communication lines and the Bagram airfield. The USSR attempted
to tamper the Khalqis' radicalism, urging attendance at
mosques, inclusion of Parchamis and non-communists in the
government, and a halt to the unpopular land reform movement. Most
of this advice was ignored; the insurrections and the political
executions continued. There were all the trimmings of a police
state— curfew, foreigners restricted to a radius of 35 miles
around Kabul, and a secret police, AGSA, trained by the East German
SSD. April 4, 1979 In Pakistan the somewhat populist president, Zulfilcar Ali Bhutto, is overthrown and hung on the orders of General Zia al-Haq. [Zia initially canceled elections indefinitely, but was soon forced to allow local elections of individuals but without party labels. Ali Bhutto's western-educated daughter, Benazir, took over the leadership of the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) and was able to get many of the party faithful elected. She traveled abroad and promoted international aversion to Zia. The discovery that Pakistan
was secretly constructing a facility to enrich uranium (in violation
of the 1976 Symington Amendment) caused President Carter to stop
military aid and impose economic sanctions in April. Zia, thus isolated,
was ripe to find a "good war" to regain American support. Friday, April 20,
1979 Kerala Massacre: Afghan armored
troops accompanied by 20 Soviet advisors move into the small farming
community of Kerala in eastern Afghanistan. They call the men, all
unarmed, to assemble in a field for a jirga to discuss the
recent mujaheddin attacks on a military garrison. The women and
children are sent into the mosque. When the men refuse to shout
pro-communist slogans, the shooting begins. Bulldozers appear and
proceed to plow the bodies into the soft earth; some are still alive
and visibly moving. All the while a photographer is taking pictures
that will be shown to demonstrate what happens to peasants who collaborate
with the mujaheddin. [An estimated 1170 unarmed males were massacred— a larger number than the massacres at Lidice or My Lai. All the women and children plus the 100 men who managed to avoid the massacre, left within hours for Pakistan, across a river and over some mountains. The community of Kerala, once numbering 5000, was deserted. Girardet, pp. 107-110.] July 3, 1979 President Carter, at the urging of his national security advisor, Zbigniew Brzezinski, signs a secret directive for clandestine assistance to enemies of the pro-Soviet regime in Afghanistan. Cooley, pp. 13, 19-22. [This, of course, was six months before the Soviets invaded Afghanistan. Brzezinski admitted this in 1998 to a rather shocked French interviewer: "We didn't push the Russians to intervene, but we consciously increased the probability that they would .... Regret what? That secret operation was an excellent idea. It had the effect of drawing the Russians into the Afghan trap. You want me to regret that?" When the interviewer asked if he regretted having supported the Islamic fundamentalists and given arms and advice to future terrorists, Brzezinski replied: "What is more important to the history of the world... the Taliban or the collapse of the Soviet empire? Some stirred-up Moslems or the liberation of Central Europe and the end of the cold war?" Interview with Vincent Javert in Le Nouvel Observateur, Paris, January 15-21, 1998, p. 76, translated from the French by Bill Blum.] September 9, 1979 An Amnesty International report claims there is widespread torture of prisoners in Afghanistan and that 12,000 political prisoners have been held without trial since the April, 1978 coup. Amin denies these charges. Nyrog, p. 241. September 14, 1979 After a second failed attempt by Taraki and the Soviets to assassinate him, Amin enters Taraki's office with a band of soldiers and has him arrested. [Two days later it was announced that Taraki had resigned his posts for "health reasons." A small newspaper notice on October 10th indicated that he had died of a "serious illness." According to Arnold, he was strangled and suffocated by three members of the presidential guards service. Nyrog, pp.238-239; Arnold, Anthony, Afghanistan: The Soviet Invasion in Perspective (1981); Cooley, p. 17.] September 26, 1979 A secret report prepared for President Carter describes the deteriorating political situation in Pakistan and questions whether the rule of General Zia al-Haq will last out the year. Much of Pakistan's GNP is going to their nuclear development program, yet the country is asking for a rescheduling of their huge international debt. "Another problem in the US--Pakistani relationship is in the unchecked expansion of opium poppy cultivation in the tribal areas of Pakistan along the Afghan border." [Despite this negative assessment the Carter government continued the covert funneling of arms and supplies to Pakistan's ISI (secret service) which then sent about 50% to the seven principal Islamic fundamentalist guerrilla groups in Afghanistan which they were training and equipping. Cooley, pp. 58-59.] November 4, 1979 Blowback in Iran: Islamic militant students invade the US Embassy in Tehran and hold 52 personnel hostage in retaliation for the US extension of hospitality to the deposed Shah Reza Pahlevi. [It would be 444 days before they were released.] December 12, 1979 At a secret meeting in the Kremlin the decision is made to invade Afghanistan at Christmas despite the strenuous objections of the three key generals. [The leaders believed that Taraki, before his overthrow and murder, had been undermined by Amin's "personal dictatorship," that Amin was in cahoots with the US Embassy, and that Pakistan and the CIA were encouraging and equipping the ultra-right Muslim opposition. They were afraid that the Americans would try to destabilize their Muslim republics of Central Asia and that they wanted Pakistan and Afghanistan as anti-Soviet bases to replace those in Iran (lost earlier that year with the overthrow of the Shah.) Cooley, pp. 13-19.] December 24, 1979 The Soviet Army enters Kabul and installs a puppet government. Babrak Karmal, the leader of the Parcham faction, is made president. Rashid, p. 13. December 27, 1979 The Soviets assassinate Amin, as planned at the Kremlin meeting. (They first reported that he had been "accidentally killed.") Cooley, pp. 17-18 January 4, 1980 President Carter announces some measures to counter the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan— a partial embargo on US grain sales to the Soviet Union, a major cutback on fishing rights in US waters, and no more licensing of American technology. He tells the Senate to shelve consideration of the SALT II arms reduction treaty. He hints that the US may boycott the Olympic games to take place that summer in Moscow. The next day Brzezinski leaves for Cairo and Islamabad to secure agreements:
September 22, 1980 President Saddam Hussein of Iraq resurrects some old boundary differences as an excuse to go to war with Iran. [Iraq had been nervous about its Shi'ite neighbor ever since their Islamic revolution the preceding year. Two-thirds or more of Iraqis were Shi'ites, although most of the government heads were Sunnis (and usually from Hussein's home town of Takrit.) The agreement made with the shah in Algiers in 1975 for both sides to refrain from fomenting the Kurds against the other nation was no longer in force under the new regime. Hussein
anticipated a brief war that would result in Iraq's hegemony in
the Persian Gulf. Initially Iraq was successful, but Iran was able
to regroup its forces and the war became a stalemate with fearful
numbers of casualties on both sides. Unwilling to see the Shi'ite
state become the victor, both Kuwait and Saudi Arabia gave huge
sums of money to support secular (but Sunni-dominated) Iraq. January 20, 1981 Ronald Reagan is inaugurated as the 40th president. (Television gives the American public the split-screen spectacle of the inauguration ceremony plus the arrival of the Embassy captives just released by Iran.) William Casey, the new head of the CIA, enthusiastically adopts the covert operation in Afghanistan started by Brzezinski, Carter, and Carter's DCI, Stansfield Turner. [The Black Budget cost of the first year under Carter had been $100 million. Rep. Charles Wilson (D-TX) of the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee called this "peanuts" and, with several other anti-communist hawks, saw to it that Black Budget funds for the covert operation in Afghanistan quickly quadrupled. More weapons and better weapons were procured. Under a super-secret SOVMAT program (probably unknown to Pakistan's Zia) phony corporations bought huge quantities of weapons from Eastern European governments, including latest-model Soviet tanks and radar systems for fighter planes. The New York Times has estimated that the US and Saudi Arabia supplied nearly $6 billion worth of weapons to the Afghani "freedom fighters." (Other countries supplying funds or arms were Egypt, France, Israel, Great Britain, Iran, China and Japan.) Large sums went to the recruitment, training and maintenance of Muslim zealots from many countries including Algeria, Bangladesh, China, Egypt, Great Britain, Morocco, Philippines, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Tunisia, and the United States. An early and enthusiastic
recruit was the wealthy Saudi national, Osama bin Laden, who had
been suggested to the CIA by the head of Saudi intelligence, Prince
Turki Ibn Faisal Ibn Abdelaziz. Most of the training was done by Pakistan's ISI in camps built by the CIA in Pakistan and border areas of Afghanistan. The trainers were trained at the CIA "farm" in Virginia where they learned the latest techniques of arson, demolition, and assassination.] Cooley, pp. 60, 106-119; New York Times, 24 August 1998; Reeve, Simon, The New Jackals: Ramzi Yousef, Osama bin Laden and the Future of Terrorism. June 30, 1981 General Maxwell Taylor, former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, refutes the notion that the Soviet Union is planning to go to war against the United States: "They have conventional forces in close proximity to virtually all their national interests that may require defense. From their World War II experience, their leaders know how devastating conventional war can be. They also know that nuclear war would be many more times destructive, that they would lose in a few hours more than they lost in four years fighting the Germans. They could not afford to fight or even win a strategic war with the United States. In so doing they would so paralyze the nation as to make it easy prey to nearby neighbors-- wolves ready to take advantage of a stricken bear. Such enemies would include Chinese, Afghans, Turks, Germans and Poles beyond Soviet borders and non-Russians within." September 23, 1981 The Afghani covert operation is blown to the American public when Egyptian president Anwar Sadat brags on the Today show about Egypt's contribution. When asked why he was doing this, he replies "because they are our Muslim brothers and are in trouble." Cooley, p. 38. October 6, 1981 Blowback in Egypt: Despite the presence of his CIA-trained bodyguards President Sadat is assassinated while watching the annual military parade in Cairo. [An ambiguous fatwa had been issued against the Egyptian president earlier in the year by blind Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman. Islamists were angry with Sadat for signing a peace treaty with "the Zionist project" and for the lavish life style of the administration. Tensions had been heightened when, on September 2, Sadat arrested 1536 individuals, the key leaders in all the opposition groups— al-Gihad, Islamic Group, Coptic priests, communists and Nasserites. A plot was formed by army members of al-Gihad and the execution was carried out by young Lieutenant Khaled al-Islambuli who shouted, "I killed the Pharaoh!" The group's 54-page document, "The Neglected Duty," contained an extensive theological justification for their actions. It is, they said, a holy duty to rebel against one's rulers if the rulers are not following the true Islam. Beattie, Egypt during the Sadat Years (2000), pp. 272-277; Cooley, pp. 38-41; New York Times, October 13, 2001.] February 11, 1982 Poppies - Opium - Heroin: In a secret memorandum Attorney General William French Smith exempts the CIA from its legal requirement to report on drug smuggling by any of its assets or clients. [Canny CIA Director William Casey, remembering the lucrative heroin tie-in with the Vietnam War, had fought a secret battle to secure this exemption. Almost from the beginning of the covert op in Afghanistan it had been "arms in, drugs out" despite the Carter administration's efforts to run a drug-free war. With Reagan that changed. The FBI, instead of the DEA, was put in charge of the anti-drug program in the United States, so any previous DEA-CIA information-sharing ended. A blind eye was turned to the Afghani warlords who controlled the Khyber Pass and other transit routes to Pakistan through which military supplies and newly-trained mujaheddin must pass. Western supplies of heroin from Central Asia increased ten-fold in the decade of the war, soon surpassing Southeast Asia as the principal source. And the drug was no longer
coming out as raw opium or blocks of morphine. Heroin-processing
laboratories sprang up in both Pakistan and Afghanistan displacing
Marseilles and Hong Kong as the principal refining centers. (Casey
also needed the exemption for the covert operation against the Nicaraguan
Sandinistas to protect the CIA officials working with cocaine-dealing
contras. The war took a recess each year at poppy harvesting time when the indigenous soldiers on both sides would go home to help harvest their crops. Soviet soldiers, frustrated with fighting a guerrilla war for which they had not been trained, quickly became addicted to the easily available drug, just as American GIs had in Vietnam. It can't be proven, but possibly that was part of the CIA scheme (as had been suggested to Casey and Reagan by the head of the French CIA and even given a label--- "Operation Mosquito.") Cooley, pp. 126-139, The Consortium, June 1, 1998, pp. 2-4.] June 6, 1982 Israel invades Lebanon in "Operation Peace for Galilee." [The immediate goal of Menachem Begin's government was to destroy the infrastructure of the PLO terrorists in southern Lebanon who had been killing and harassing citizens of northern Israel. Begin's ultimate aim, however, was to force the Palestinians out of their refugee camps and into Jordan where he hoped they would overthrow the monarchy and take over that country as "Palestine." Then with Palestinian ambitions for statehood satisfied, Israel could annex the West Bank captured in the 1967 War. Los Angeles Times, April 16, 1996, B7.] September 16, 1982 Massacre in Lebanon: Militiamen from the Lebanese Christian Phalanque— allies of Israel— storm two Palestinian refugee camps, Sabra and Shatilla, slaughtering around 800 civilians as Israeli troops, commanded by Defense Minister Ariel Sharon, stand by. [The invasion of South Lebanon, "Operation Peace for Galilee," had escalated. Israeli troops laid siege to the capital, Beirut, to widespread international condemnation. After the massacre in the refugee camps, 400,000 Israeli citizens demonstrated to protest the protracted campaign and the many Israeli casualties and demanded an inquiry into the degree of Israel's culpability at Sabra and Shatilla. Protesters gathered daily outside the windows of Prime Minister Menachem Begin, shouting "Murderer" in a manner reminiscent of the American doves who hurled similar epithets at LBJ. Like President Johnson, Begin resigned office in August, 1983 saying, "I cannot go on." The Kahan Commission concluded that Sharon was "personally responsible" for the massacres and forced him to resign as Defense Minister. Karpin and Friedman, Murder in the Name of God (1998), pp. 66-67. In June, 2001 a suit was filed in a Belgian court by 28 survivors of the massacre charging Sharon with crimes against humanity. The case was buttressed by some Israeli documents sent anonymously to the attorneys that indicated that Sharon actively encouraged the Lebanese Forces. (The documents are believed to be a secret appendix to the final report of the Kahan Commission.) Israeli Defense Forces also oversaw and assisted in the interrogation of nearly 1000 Palestinian men after the massacre who were never seen or heard from again. www.ccmep.org/hotnews/belgian113001.html] For more on the suit, see the entry for January 24, 2002. November
10, 1982 Leonid Brezhnev dies; he is replaced by
Yuri Andropov as General Secretary of the Communist Party of the
Soviet Union. [Andropov tried to arrange a negotiated peace in Afghanistan
with the United Nations. The Reagan administration was monumentally
distrustful, and pressured the Pakistanis to escalate the conflict.
The Soviet Union responded with more soldiers, more weapons, and
more brutality against the mujaheddin.] October 23, 1983 Blowback to USA for Sabra and Shatilla: A suicide truck loaded with explosives crashes into the US Marine barracks outside Beirut, Lebanon, killing 241 United States Marines and severely injuring dozens more. This is the highest loss of Marines in a single day since Iwo Jima. September 20, 1984 Further Blowback: The Islamic Jihad sends another explosive-loaded truck to bomb the US Embassy in Beirut on a day when the US and British ambassadors are meeting there. This time guards kill the suicide bomber before he can slam into the Embassy; fourteen people die. November 1984 The US restores diplomatic relations with Iraq (broken since 1967) despite Iraq's use of chemical weapons against Iranian troops. [President George H. W. Bush and others in the National Security Planning Group had been active in a project to help Iraq build an oil pipeline to the Jordanian port of Aqaba in reaction to the Iranian blockade of Iraq's Persian Gulf ports. The Reagan Administration had secretly allowed Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Egypt to transfer howitzers, Huey helicopters, bombs and other weapons of US manufacture to Iraq. Waas, Murray and Craig Unger "In the Loop: Bush's Secret Mission, The New Yorker, November 2, 1992, p 70.] March 8, 1985 Retribution for Marine Barracks Massacre in Beirut: A car loaded with explosives plows into a Beirut slum area that includes the compound of Sheikh Mohammed Fadlallah, the head of Hizbollah, the Party of God. The Sheikh escapes injury, but a city block is destroyed with at least 90 people buried in the rubble. [William Casey, the head of Reagan's CIA, had contracted the job out to Saudi intelligence. Friedman, Robert I., "The CIA and the Sheik", The Village Voice, March 30, 1993.] March 11, 1985
Mikhail Gorbachev is elected General Secretary
of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union following the death of
the geriatric Konstantin Chernenko. [In April the party agreed to
his program of perestroika, or restructuring of the soviet
system of government. Gorbachev again approached the UN to broker
a way for the Soviets to withdraw from Afghanistan without leaving
the nation in jeopardy. The United States refused to countenance
any of these proposals and further escalated the support for the
mujaheddin. Some of the bloodiest years of the Russo-Afghan war
followed.] July 1985 Stingers: The CIA begins supplying some of the closely-held Stingers to Pakistan's ISI, largely due to the lobbying efforts of Representative Charles Wilson (D-TX). [These highly effective heat-seeking anti-aircraft missiles turned the tide of the war in Afghanistan against the Soviet Union. With their kill rate of 75%, the skies were soon clear of Soviet and Afghan aircraft, enabling the guerrillas to trap the government forces inside a few cities and military camps. "We were handing them out like lollipops," a US intelligence official told the Washington Post. Many Stingers quickly reached the black market where a weapon that cost the US $35,000 fetched a price of $100,000 to $300,000. Some were bought by the Chechens for their war against Moscow; others went to the Azeris for the struggle for Nagorno-Karabakh. It is estimated that 30-70 Stingers were acquired by Osama bin Laden. Cooley, pp. 109, 172-174; Goodwin, Jan, Caught in the Crossfire (1987), pp. 48-49.] April 5, 1986 American Military Deaths in Germany: A bomb explodes in the La Belle Club, a West Berlin discotheque frequented by American service men. Three people are killed and 200 injured. [Libya and its leader, Colonel Muammar Qadhafi, were immediately blamed without evidence. A German documentary aired on August 25, 1998 (during the trial of five defendants for their alleged involvement in the attack on La Belle) declared that the lead defendant, Libyan Yasser Chraidi, was probably innocent and was being used as a scapegoat by the CIA and the German BND. Several of the suspects were shielded from court appearances by western intelligence agencies; one of these suspects was Mohammed Amairi, a Mossad agent. The documentary implied that the La Belle incident was a carefully prepared provocation designed to implicate Libya.] www.wsws.org/news/1998/aug/bomb1-a27.shmtl April 15, 1986 Retribution against Libya: President Ronald Reagan sends US planes to bomb the Libyan cities of Tripoli and Benghazi in retribution for the terrorist attack (by unknown perpetrators) on the La Belle Club, ten days earlier. Thirty-one people are killed, including Colonel Qaddafi's adopted baby girl. His home, the French Embassy and many homes in an affluent neighborhood of Benghazi are destroyed. [Qaddafi was not at home that night. There was no declaration of war and no prior approval of the US Congress for these air raids.] March 1987 Hekmatyar's mujaheddin cross the Amu Darya River and launch rocket attacks against villages in the USSR's republic of Tajikistan in an operation promoted by CIA chief William Casey. Casey also gives increased support to the ISI program to recruit radical Muslims, especially Arabs, to come to Pakistan to fight with the mujaheddin in Afghanistan. [General Zia wanted to make Pakistan the center of the Muslim world, the Reagan administration wanted to demonstrate that the entire Muslim world opposed the USSR, and the Saudis were happy to get rid of their dissidents. None of these principals foresaw the blowback that has resulted. Rashid, p. 129.] March 16, 1988 The Iraqi Air Force bombs the city of Jalaba in northen Iraq with poison gas, killing over 5000 civilians. [The day before the Iranian army with the help of the two major Kurdish opposition parties had captured the city. Slugett, p. 279.] April 1988 Chairman Mikhail Gorbachev announces that a phased withdrawal of Soviet troops from Afghanistan will begin May 15th, to be completed by 2-15-1989. July 3, 1988 US Shoots Down Iranian Commercial Plane: The USS Vincennes fires two missiles, shooting down the regularly scheduled Iran Air Flight 655 over Hangam Island in the Persian Gulf, killing 290 passengers and crew. Over 60 of the victims were children. Several US ships were in the area to protect tankers bringing oil to the west from Kuwait during the Iran-Iraq war. The gung-ho captain of the Vincennes, eager for an engagement with the Iranian gunboats that were routinely harassing the tankers, took his ship into the area against orders. He was actually within Iranian territorial waters when his $400 million Aegis computer system mistook the Iran Air plane for a much smaller F-14 fighter plane and fired two missiles. Iranian radio railed that the skies would "rain blood" on America in retribution. The Pentagon went into instant cover-up mode for this "tragic accident." They said the commercial plane was outside its air corridor, was descending onto the Vincennes, and failing to respond to the "Identify: Friend or Foe?" query. Captain Rogers denied that he had been within Iranian territorial waters and claimed that his ship was rushing to the defense of merchant ship Stovall which was under attack. It was proven, however, that the commercial plane was at the center of its corridor and climbing. There was no ship named Stovall; radio messages regarding it were part of a sting operation designed to lure out Iranian gunboats. The Pentagon was fully aware of the true facts by July 14 when Vice President Bush defended the US before the UN Security Council. Without acknowledging liability the United States later paid nearly $3 million to non-Iranian relatives of Flight 655's passengers. (Iranians were excluded because Iran had filed a claim against the United States in international court.) The Supreme Court upheld a lower court's dismissal of a law suit by the families, saying that neither the government nor the contractors of the Aegis system can be sued for negligence by the military in wartime: "There can be no doubt that during the 'tanker war' a 'time of war' existed." Newsweek, July 13, 1992; Liability Week, June 14, 1993.] August 17, 1988 The mysterious plane crash of a Pakistan Air Force C-130 kills General Zia, General Akhtar Abdel Rahman Khan (the former head of ISI and Zia's most probable successor), US Ambassador Arnold Raphel, US Brigadier General Herbert Wassom (defense attaché in Islamabad), eight Pakistani generals and the air crew. [The party had been viewing the test demonstration of a tank the Pentagon was hoping to sell to Pakistan. The plane dove and struck the ground shortly after takeoff. The Pakistani board of inquiry came to the (unpublished) conclusion that the pilot and crew had been knocked out by a chemical agent, such as a fast-working nerve gas, colorless and odorless, that had been secreted on the plane in some small container such as a thermos or soft drink can. The exact agent was never determined since the authorities at the military hospital were ordered not to perform autopsies Zia had survived six previous attempts at assassination, including a missile fired at his plane. His enemies were myriad---- the Bhutto family, the USSR, India, KHAD (the Afghan KGB), and elements of the Pakistani military. Mohammed Yousaf points out that only the CIA and KGB had access to such a nerve poison. For geopolitical reasons at least, the United States engaged in a coverup of the deaths of two high ranking American officials. A US air force inquiry (and Raphel's divorced wife, Robin Raphel, later Assistant Secretary of State for South Asia and Ambassador to Tunis) maintained that the plane had a faulty hydraulic system. The retired head of ISI's Afghanistan bureau believes that the US was not sorry to see Zia go. With the war winding down, the US was hoping to curb the power of the Afghan Islamists such as Gulbuddin Hekmatyar and Burhanuddin Rabbani and install a more moderate group of Afghanis (waiting in the wings in Peshawar) into any new government in Kabul. General Zia attempted to subvert this maneuvering. He and the ISI also opposed the attempts of the CIA to funnel arms and supplies to the mujaheddin directly, bypassing the ISI. (In 1990 the CIA did take over.) Cooley, pp. 225-226; Mohammed Youssaf and Mark Adkin, The Bear Trap (1992), pp. 8-19.] December 21, 1988 Blowback over Scotland---- for Iran Air 655? for the bombing of Libya?: Pan Am Flight 103 explodes over Lockerbie, Scotland from Semtex that had been secreted in a cassette recorder. All 259 (or 260?) passengers and crew are killed as well as 11 victims on the ground. [Warning of a bomb threat had been posted in the snack bar of the US Embassy in Moscow, and it is alleged that the US Ambassador to Lebanon and the South African Foreign Minister Pik Botha changed their travel planes to avoid PA 103. US intelligence officers were on the scene within two hours, searching for particular pieces of debris and particular corpses. A local police surgeon has insisted that one body was moved after it had been tagged and another disappeared completely. John Ashton and Ian Ferguson, Cover-Up of Convenience: The Hidden Scandal of Lockerbie. (The traveling public in general was not warned of any possible travel danger.) Suspicion initially rested on Syria and the PLFP-GC (Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command.) The latter had already bombed two Israel-bound planes in 1970 and 1972. However, attention quickly shifted to Libya and in November 1991 two Libyan airline staff were indicted by the US State Department and the Scottish Crown Office. President Bush apologized to Syria for the "bum rap", Syria signed on as an ally in the war against Iraq, and the last of the western hostages held in Beirut were released. Qaddafi stonewalled for years before giving up the men for a trial at Camp Zeist" in Holland before three Scottish judges. After a prosecution replete with circumstantial inferences and no hard evidence, one man was acquitted and the other, Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi, was convicted. Ashton and Ferguson further allege that the bombers utilized a Lebanese drug smuggling route that was protected by the CIA in return for their help in freeing the remaining hostages in Beirut. In Frankfurt a suitcase containing the bomb was substituted for one containing heroin. The authors believe that the bombers were the PLFP-GC hired by Iran to avenge the shoot-down of Iran Air 655. February 15, 1989 The last Soviet soldier crosses the Amu Darya River bridge and leaves Afghanistan on the promised day. [Two million people died during the nine years of the Soviet occupation. One out of eight Afghans was left dead, and five million Afghans, or one out of three in the population, became refugees in Pakistan and Iran. The departure of the Soviet army left Najibullah's government weak and unprotected. The Mujaheddin, now under the command of Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, but still funded by the United States, started shelling all the major cities, killing many thousands of civilians.] July 25, 1990 Ambassador April Glaspie meets with President Saddam Hussein of Iraq. [According to a transcript released by Iraq in September, she told Hussein that the United States had "no opinion" about his quarrel with Kuwait over its alleged slant oil-drilling into an Iraqi oil reserve, and that it was a longstanding policy of the US not to take sides in Arab boundary disputes. At no time did she warn him not to invade Kuwait or to threaten US retaliation for such a venture. Shibley Telhami pooh-poohs the theory that with this conversation "the United States handed Iraq enough rope to hang itself..." Rather, he says, Hussein anticipated a "forceful" US response, but miscalculated on the reactions of the USSR and the Arab states. Telhami, "Explaining American Behavior in the Gulf Crisis" in Ismael, Gulf War and the New World Order, pp. 161-162.] August 2, 1990 Iraqi forces invade Kuwait in a ten-hour blitzkrieg and set up a provisional government. [Kuwait had been demanding immediate repayment of its wartime loans to Iraq (which Iraq regarded as an insult to Arab "unity.") Iraq accused Kuwait of stealing Iraqi oil by slant-drilling into a field that overlapped the two countries and conspiring with other oil-producing countries to keep prices low. Iraq had considered Kuwait historically to be a part of its Basra province ever since Britain had drawn the "line in the sand" in 1920 to form the Kingdom of Iraq (with a sheikh imported from Mecca.) Iraq now needed a deep-water port for ships that had been ordered from Italy. Sluggett, p. 284.] August 8, 1990 The first detachments of United States soldiers arrive in Saudi Arabia ostensibly to defend the country against a supposedly imminent invasion from Iraq. Critics point out that Saddam Hussein has no dispute with the Saudis and most of his troops are deployed along the border with Iran. [Ever since FDR's historic meeting in February, 1945 with King Ibn Saud there has been an unwritten agreement that the United States will have access to Saudi Arabia's oil in return for protection of the kingdom from its enemies, external and internal, an arrangement respected by all subsequent presidential administrations. Yergin, Daniel, The Prize: The Epic Quest for Oil, Money and Power (1991) pp, 403-405; Klare, Michael T., "The Geopolitics of War", The Nation, November 5, 2001.] September 11, 1990 Addressing a joint session of Congress, President George Bush says: "In the early morning hours of August 2, following negotiations and promises by Iraq's dictator Saddam Hussein not to use force, a powerful Iraqi army invaded its trusting and much weaker neighbor, Kuwait. Within three days, 120,000 Iraqi troops with 850 tanks had poured into Kuwait and moved south to threaten Saudi Arabia. It was then I decided to act to check that aggression." [Yet, according to a story researched by reporter Jean Heller, experts who examined satellite photos of the area taken on that same day were unable to find evidence of such troop concentration: no tent cities, no congregation of tanks, only a deserted air base and deep deposits of wind-blown sand on all roads leading from Kuwait to Saudi Arabia. In November Commander-in-Chief Bush doubled the number of US troops in Saudi Arabia. St. Petersburg [Fla.] Times, January 6, 1991.] November 5, 1990 Murder in Manhattan: Minutes after Rabbi Meir Kahane finishes his speech in a mid-Manhattan hotel, he is shot in the throat and killed by yarmulke-wearing El Sayyid Nosair before scores of eye witnesses. [Kahane was the founder of the Jewish extremist group, the Jewish Defense League, which in the 1980s headed the FBI list of domestic terrorist groups, outranking the Aryan Nation et al. Nosair was an Egyptian engineer, a devout Muslim, and a devotee of the blind Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman of the El Salaam Mosque in Jersey City. Nosair escaped, but was wounded and captured. In his home the police found bombmaking materials, AK-47 cartridges, a stolen New York license plate and a "hit list" that named a US representative, a former assistant US attorney and two federal judges. Most alarming were some sensitive military documents stolen from Fort Bragg, North Carolina containing military training schedules, locations of Special Forces in the Middle East, a topographical map of Fort Bragg, and US intelligence estimates of Soviet forces in Afghanistan. Despite these finds and his association with Abdel Rahman (known for his rabble-rousing sermons and his terrorist past in Egypt), the New York City chief of detectives quickly declared Nosair to be a "lone gunman.... There was nothing found that would stir your imagination." Nosair was acquitted on the murder charge due to police bungling of the evidence. However, he was given a twenty-two year sentence on weapons charges and sent to Attica State Prison. At that time, the blind sheikh was an untouchable. Over the objections of the consular official in Khartoum, the Sheikh had been given a visa and a green card despite being listed on the Automated Visa Lookout System as a suspected terrorist. (He had been tried in absentia in Egypt for plotting to overthrow the government and for the 1989 murder of a police officer.) Reeve states that the CIA made the arrangement in hopes of having an informant in the event of an Islamist revolution in Egypt. Meanwhile, he had helped the CIA to funnel money, men and munitions to the mujaheddin in its program to knock out the fragile socialist Afghan state that remained after the Soviet departure. Reeve, p. 60; Village Voice , March 30, 1993.] November 29, 1990 The UN Security Council votes 12-2 on Resolution 678, authorizing the use of force against Iraq unless it withdraws from Kuwait by January 15th. January 12, 1991 Thousands of protesters march in European cities in protest against the portending war in the Persian Gulf: 100,000 in Paris, 100,000 in Rome, also London and 70 cities in Germany. January 12, 1991 War against Iraq: Congress, after an historic debate over whether to give sanctions time to work as opposed to authorizing the use of force, votes to go to war with Iraq, 250-183 (House) and 52-47 (Senate). [Never before has Congress been so divided over a vote for war or "authorization of force." 42% of the House and 47% of the Senate were opposed; whereas for World War II there was one dissenting vote and in the Cuban Missile Crisis and the Gulf of Tonkin, 8 and 2 dissenting votes respectively.] January 15, 1991 24-hour vigils are held in cities throughout the United States to protest against the US attack on Iraq. January 16, 1991 Operation Desert Storm begins as the US-led allied forces start the Persian Gulf War with an air offensive against Iraqi installations in Iraq and Kuwait. January 26, 1991 I00,000 march in Washington demanding an end to the war against Iraq, a protest that is ignored by most of the media. February 24, 1991 The US-led alliance begins the ground war to expel Iraqi forces from Kuwait. February 26, 1991 Its forces virtually surrounded by General Schwartzkopf's "Hail Mary" surprise maneuver, Iraq announces it is withdrawing from Kuwait. Washington says it will continue the war. [Thousands of Iraqi soldiers are buried alive as the US First Mechanized Infantry Division, using plows mounted on tanks and combat earthmovers, seals over the men and equipment in 70 miles of trenches. Los Angeles Times, September 12, 1991. In the final hours of the "Hundred Hour War" American pilots bombed and strafed the lines of defeated Iraqis straggling toward Baghdad. They made comments for reporters such as: "a turkey shoot," "like shooting fish in a barrel" and "they were sitting ducks." These callous remarks made the rounds in the Middle East. American "doves" were horrified by the slaughter; the "hawks" were enraged that the troops had not been allowed to roll on to Bagdad and capture Saddam Hussein. Los Angeles Times, February 27, 1991. A1.] February 27, 1991 After an even 100 hours of ground war, Bush declares victory over Iraq, says Kuwait is liberated and orders allied combat to cease at midnight. A permanent cease-fire will depend on Iraq's release of all prisoners and Kuwaitis detained in Iraq and compliance with all the UN resolutions on Kuwait including acceptance of responsibility to pay compensation for war damages. [[Three hundred American lives were lost. 25% of the deaths and 15% of the injuries in Operation Desert Storm were due to "friendly fire" ---a rather cynical oxymoron--- which is the highest figure for any US war and is attributed to the inability to identify friendly vehicles in the haze and smoke of the desert. .Los Angeles Times, August 14, 1991. The number of Iraqi casualties will probably never be known, thanks to the unreliability of the Iraqi media and the massive number of desertions. The most-quoted estimate of 100,000 killed in action and 300,000 wounded in action (forced from the Pentagon's Defense Intelligence Agency in May, 1991 by an FOIA inquiry) is disputed by military analyst John G. Heidenrich who, extrapolating from the number of wounded who were captured, postulates a much lower number of less than 10, 000 killed in action and fewer than 1000 civilian deaths. Foreign Policy, Number 90, Spring 1993, pp. 108-125. As of 1996, the US was spending $50 billion a year to maintain a military presence in the Persian Gulf (including the newly-created Fifth Fleet) and to enforce the blockade of Iraq.] March 16, 1991 The much-quoted story of the 312 premature Kuwaiti babies who died because their incubators were taken away by Iraqi soldiers is declared to be "untrue" and "propaganda" by the director of the Kuwaiti maternity hospital. Los Angeles Times, March 16, 1991, A8. April, 1991 Osama bin Laden and several of his faithful lieutenants move the operation of Al Qaeda to Khartoum, Sudan. He increases his fortune with shrewd investments in agriculture and banking. Bin Laden directs operations aimed at de-stabilizing the not-sufficiently-Islamic governments of Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Algeria. He is particularly incensed that the "infidels" (American soldiers) continue to occupy the "land of the two holy places" (Saudi Arabia). Cooley, pp. 120-121. May 17, 1991 A Harvard University study estimates that 170,000 Iraqi children will die from disease and malnutrition due to Allied bombing and destruction of the infrastruct— electricity, sewage treatment plants, water, etc. [A much later study estimated that more than half a million Iraqi children had already died as a result of the sanctions against Iraq.] December 17, 1991 The Soviet Union is dissolved; many of the republics, led by Russia, join together in the CIS. Many others, especially in Central Asia, become independent nations. January 13, 1992 OIL: Bridas, an Argentinian oil and gas company, is awarded exploration rights in the Yashlar block in eastern Turkmenistan for a 50-50 split of production profits. This energy-rich but landlocked country is happy that a western country is willing to help them capitalize on their new independence from the USSR. [Bridas obtained a lease on the Keimir block in western Turkmenistan the following year, and the company spent US$ 400 million in exploration. Oil was exported from Keimir at the rate of 16,800 barrels a day by 1994, and massive gas reserves were discovered at Yashlar that were more than double the size of Pakistan's gas reserves. On March 16, 1995 Bridas signed an agreement with President Saparmurad Niyazov of Turkmenistan and Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto of Pakistan for a feasibility study of a pipeline through Afghanistan to supply energy-starved Pakistan. (Two years earlier Niyazov and his consultant, former US Secretary of State Alexander Haig, had tried unsuccessfully to soften Washington's prohibition of a much shorter and more practical pipeline route through Iran.) Rashid, pp. 157-162.] March 1992 General Abdul Rashid Dostum defects from Najibullah's government, taking his Uzbek militia with him to join forces with Hekmatyar's mujaheddin. (Vijay Prashad dates this as the beginning of the Northern Alliance.) "Forward into the Past", zmag.org. April 1992 The Mujaheddin enter Kabul. A cease-fire is achieved with Professor Burhanuddin Rabbani of the Jamait-i-Islami recognized as the head of the guerrilla coalition and of the country. Prashad, "Forward into the Past". For the first time in 300 years (with one brief exception) the Pashtuns are not the country's rulers. (Rabbani and his commander, Ahmad Shah Massoud, are Tajiks.) The mujaheddin close schools and health clinics. They stop women from working. (Up to this time women constituted 40% of the doctors in Kabul, 70% of the schoolteachers, 60% of Kabul University professors, and 50% of the university students.) Armed groups beat, rape and murder women. Richter, "Revolutionary Afghan Women", zmag.org. August 1992 The civil war resumes as Hekmatyar and his Hezb-i-Islami fight the Rabbani regime with more civilian casualties. Prashad. December 29, 1992 First Blowback in Yemen: Bombs explode outside the Mohur and Mövenpick hotels in Aden. An Austrian tourist, a hotel worker and several terrorists are killed in the blasts, but no Americans. [The hotels had been chosen as targets with the intent of killing US soldiers who had been staying there on their way to Somalia. (In this same period some Al Qaeda terrorists were apprehended as they were preparing to launch rockets at US planes at the Aden airport; within days the Pentagon eliminated Yemen as a support base for the Somalia operation. Osama gloated about this in his interview with CNN in 1997.) Several suspects were
arrested, but escaped from jail. The army sent a brigade to attempt
to arrest the plot's leader, Tariq al-Fadhli, but his mountain fortress
proved to be impregnable. Tariq was a sheik from one of the most
prominent families of South Yemen whose properties and prosperous
cotton business were confiscated when the Marxists came to power
in 1967. Raised thereafter in Saudi Arabia, he went to Afghanistan
to fight the Soviets, returning to Yemen with funds from bin Laden
and instructions to overthrow the socialist government of South
Yemen. During the civil war of 1994 he fou ght on the side of the
victorious President Salih, had the family properties restored to
him, and was given a seat on the consultative council of the new
national unification government. His lieutenant in the bombings,
another Afghan Arab, was Jamal al-Nahdi who is today a prosperous
businessman and a high official in the country's ruling party.
Bergen, Holy War, Inc., pp. 172-174; Reeve, The New Jackals,
p. 182; www.al-bab.com/yemen/data/incident94.htm; www.al-bab.com/yemen/data/laden.htm;
Brian Whitaker, "Hostage to fortune and Yemeni guns,"
Guardian (UK), December 30, 1998.] January 17, 1993 The Al Rashid Hotel in Baghdad, Iraq is struck by a missile as a conference of Islamic fundamentalist leaders from around the world is taking place. The Pentagon apologizes for the attack, saying it was an accident. [When the World Trade Center in New York was bombed a month later, a CIA analyst speculated that this could be an act of revenge for the Al Rashid attack and that the Vista Hotel (adjacent to the twin towers and heavily damaged in the bombing) could have been the real target. Simon Reeve, The New Jackals:Ramzi Yousef, Osama bin Laden, and the Future of Terrorism (1999), p. 20.] February 26, 1993 Blowback in USA: On this second anniversary of the encirclement and destruction of the Iraqi army, a Ryder rental van containing a sophisticated segmented bomb (nitroglycerine, urea pellets, sulphuric acid, bottled hydrogen, magnesium and aluminum compounds and possibly sodium cyanide) explodes in the sub-basement of the World Trade Center in New York City. Six people are killed and more than a thousand injured. [Fortunately the bomb was detonated at 12:17 PM--- lunchtime--- so many workers had left the building. It still took five hours to evacuate the buildings, and hundreds of firefighters battled for two hours to extinguish the flames. The building was severely damaged, but, as an FBI explosives expert said, "It was a miracle it wasn't destroyed . If they had found the exact Achilles' heel, or if the bomb had been a little bigger, not much more, 500 pounds more, I think it would have brought her down." Ramzi Yousef had designed the bomb to topple the north tower into its southern twin, causing it also to fall. He anticipated there could be as many as 250,000 fatalities. Only lack of money prevented him from building the bigger bomb that he wanted. (The cost of his bomb was $3000; it caused damage of half a billion dollars. Bergen, p. 104.) Initially the perpetrators were thought to be Serbian terrorists. Then an ATF inspector located the rubble of the van and on one fragment could read its VIN [vehicle identification number]. The van's renter, Mohammed Salameh, a not very bright 24-year-old Palestinian, was arrested on March 4th when he returned to the agency to collect the deposit on the van which Yousef had reported as stolen. (Salameh worshipped at the same El Salaam Mosque in Jersey City as El Sayyid Nosair where the blind sheikh Omar Abdul Rahman preached his inflammatory sermons.) Information gleaned from Salameh's pockets, his residence, and the storage facility where the bomb had been prepared led to the arrests of Ahmad Ajaj, Palestinian chemist Nidal Ayyad and Mahmud Abouhalima. (The latter was extradited from Egypt where he had been viciously tortured because of his connections with militants who were attacking Egyptian installations.) Their trial began in September and on May 24, 1994 the four were convicted of conspiracy to commit terrorism and sentenced to 240 years in prison and sent to the top-security US penitentiary in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania. Missing from the courtroom were Abdul Yasin who had fled to Iraq and the plot's mastermind, Ramzi Yousef, who became the object of an intensive two-year manhunt until his capture in Islamabad. He was convicted on September 11, 1996 for bombings committed in Asia during the manhunt. In 1997 a second trial found him guilty for the World Trade Center attack. He currently resides in "Supermax", the Florence Correctional Institute in Colorado, where he enjoys the highest level security status in the entire American prison system and an occasional hour's recreation with Unabomber Ted Kaczynski.Yousef's terrorist motivations were not those of a militant Muslim fundamentalist, according to Reeve, who describes him as an "evil genius." He seems to have been a playboy, a sadist and someone with a mammoth ego (which proved to be his undoing, as he could have hidden out in the tribal areas of Pakistan undiscovered by the authorities.) Reeve alleges that individuals within Pakistan's ISI may have provided him with the documents that enabled him to enter the United States. Reeve, The New Jackals, pp. 6-70,101-106,112-154, 239-243, 253; Village Voice, March 30, 1993; National Post, March 4, 1994.] Early in their investigation the FBI had gone to Yasin's apartment in the same building in Jersey City as Yousef and taken him in for questioning. Since he seemed to be cooperating (and showed them the location of the apartment where the chemicals had been mixed), they let him go despite a chemical burn on his leg that suggested he could have been more than a nosy neighbor. Yasin then hopped onto a plane for Iraq. He was picked up by the Iraqi police a year later and has been held without a charge placed against him. On "60 Minutes" Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz told Leslie Stahl that Iraq has twice offered to deliver him to the United States, but only upon written receipt that Iraq had given him up… "like a receipt for a FedEx package" but that the US had rejected the offer. Aziz said Iraq was fearful that the FBI had let Yasin go free in 1993 to set up a sting operation to implicate Iraq in the WTC attack. Their second offer (in October 2001) further required a statement that the US acknowledge that Yasin had been incarcerated in Iraq on September 11th. In Yasin's prison interview with Leslie Stahl he said Iraq was not involved in the 1993 attack, admitted his guilt in helping mix chemicals and in scouting possible bomb sites (including Hasidic-populated Crown Heights in Brooklyn) and expressed remorse. He has been on the FBI "most Wanted" list with a $25 million reward offered. CBS, Sixty Minutes, "The Man Who Got Away", June 3, 2002; New York Times-Reuters, "Report: Iraq Offered to Hand Over Terror Suspect", June 2, 2002. March 1993 In the Islamabad Accord Rabbani continues as president of Afghanistan; Hekmatyar will be prime minister. [However, the terror continued with Hekmatyar shifting allegiance between Dostum / Ahmed Shah Massoud and Rabbani. In the background was a growing coalition of mullahs and students from madrassas (religious schools) who were deeply appalled by the massive violence of the warring mujaheddin factions and their departure from the original religious purity of the jihad against the Russians. They became known as the Taliban (plural for talib, or student of Islam). Their leader was Mullah Mohammed Omar, described by Rashid as "a poor village mullah with no scholarly learning and no tribal pedigree," who had been chosen for his especial piety rather than any leadership ability. By the time the civil war ended, 45,000 civilians had been killed and 300,000 had sought refuge in Pakistan. So that initially the Taliban, when they entered Kabul in September 1996, were welcomed with relief by a devastated citizenry. Prashad; Rashid, pp. 19-26, 42, 199.] March 12-19, 1993 Blowback in India: A series of bombings in Calcutta and Bombay kill over 300 people and injure more than 1200. Targets include the Bombay Stock Exchange, Air India offices and other financial symbols selected to avenge the earlier destruction of the Babri mosque at Ayodhya by Hindu extremists. [The perpetrators were Kashmiri fundamentalist Muslims who had fought in the Russo-Afghan war, using weapons diverted from the CIA-ISI pipeline. Many had been trained at the Afghani Zawar camp by Hekmatyar (who also was instrumental in smuggling the weapons into Kashmir.) The bombings were supported by the ISI and the bin Laden organization in what was described during the 1994 trial as a "proxy war, terrorism sponsored by a neighboring hostile country." Cooley, pp. 228-23. Ahmed Rashid notes that India came close to persuading the United States to declare Pakistan a "state sponsor of terrorism" for these and previous terrorist acts of the Kashmiri mujaheddin. Pakistan's response was to move their bases out of Pakistan and into eastern Afghanistan. The Jahalabad mullahs and the Taliban were reimbursed for the support and training of the militants; private Islamic parties such as Osama bin Laden were encouraged to contribute. Support of the Taliban was a big policy shift for Pakistan whose relations with the power structure in Kabul had been semi-hostile in earlier times. Relations had been severed in 1955 and again in 1962 over Afghanistan's push for a "Greater Pashtunistan." Rashid, p. 186. ] June 23, 1993 Terrorist Plot Aborted: The FBI surrounds a warehouse in Jamaica, Queens and arrests twelve men who are mixing chemicals for bombs to be used in a simultaneous bombing of seven New York City landmarks. The men belong to a terrorist cell headed by Sudanese Siddig Ibrahim Siddig Ali; all are worshippers at the mosque of Sheikh Omar. [The FBI had been tipped off by their informant, Emad Salem, a former lieutenant in the Egyptian army who had unsuccessfully attempted to warn the FBI of Yousef's forthcoming attack on the World Trade Center. Slated for destruction were the Holland and Lincoln Tunnels, the George Washington bridge, the UN building (with some help from the Sudanese delegation), the Statue of Liberty, the huge government building at 26 Federal Plaza, and the diamond district, workplace of many Hasidic Jews. On July 2nd Sheikh Omar was arrested following political pressure on Attorney General Janet Reno. In the 1999 trial Siddig
Ali pleaded guilty to all charges (including a plot to assassinate
Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak), testified against the others,
and so received a sentence of only eleven years. The others were
sentenced to life imprisonment. (Sheikh Omar was already incarcerated
for his October, 1995 conviction in the World Trade Center bombing.
For that he had been sentenced in January, 1996 to life imprisonment
without parole.) Reeve, The New Jackals,
pp. 61-62; CNN News, January 17, 1996; www.state.gov/www/global/terrorism/1999/report/review.html.] Late July, 1993 Ramzi Yousef is injured when the detonator of a bomb that he is attempting to place opposite Benazir Bhutto's home explodes. [Yousef was by this time quite famous and much in demand in certain circles for his superior bomb-making skills, and thus had been commissioned to assassinate the secular candidate for Prime Minister before the October elections. A second attempt, this time with a rifle, also failed. Reeve, pp. 50-54.] October 3, 1993 American Deaths in Somalia: In the largest single firefight involving US troops since the Vietnam War, a gun battle between US "peacekeepers" and the forces of indicted General Muhammad Farah Aydid leaves 18 US soldiers and around 500 Somalis dead. A US helicopter pilot is captured alive. [There had been near-constant civil war in Somalia ever since independence from Britain and Italy in 1960. In 1991 drought and famine escalated the death toll with thousands dying every month. Food was sent by international food airlifts and then by ships to the four ports. In December 1992 President Bush offered to send in US ground troops (ultimately 28,000) ostensibly to protect the food shipments and the relief workers, an offer that was accepted by UN Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali. Colin Powell, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, called the invasion a "paid political advertisement" for the Pentagon. (At this time, right after the end of the Cold War, the Pentagon was resisting pressure to cut the $300 billion Pentagon budget in favor of expenditures for jobs, education, health care, etc.) The humanitarian food deliveries soon turned into bombing raids of heavily populated neighborhoods. Africa Rights described UNOSCOM as "an army of occupation" and reported that troops "have engaged in abuses of human rights, including killing of civilians, physical abuse, theft. Many UNOSCOM soldiers have also displayed unacceptable levels of racism toward Somalis." In June 1993 General Aydid's troops ambushed a group of UN Pakistani soldiers, killing 24. The UN ordered the arrest of General Aydid, and the "peace keeping" morphed into guerrilla warfare between US-UN soldiers and the general. Soon after this humiliating defeat President Clinton withdrew all American troops from Somalia. Osama bin Laden would later claim credit for having trained and inspired the guerrillas. www.altapedia.com; Rakiya Omaar and Alex de Waal, Somalia: human rights abuses by United Nations forces (1993).] March 10, 1994
Silvan Becker and his wife, two German secret agents who are surveilling
terrorists in North Africa for the counter-espionage Bundesamt
für Verfassungsschutz, are assassinated near Surt, Libya.
[Although the Libyan government immediately suspected Bin Laden,
it was not until March 1998 that Libya filed a warrant for the arrest
of Osama bin Laden and three accomplices. Jean-Charles
Brisard and Guillaume Dasquié, Ben Laden: La vérité
interdite (2002), pp. 137-138.] April 7, 1994 King Fahd of Saudi Arabia announces that Osama bin Laden has been deprived of his Saudi citizenship for behavior that "contradicts the Kingdom's interests and risks harming its relations with fraternal countries." [Pressure had been put on the king by Egyptian President Mubarak, Yemen and Interpol. Also about this time bin Laden was supposedly disowned by his extensive and influential family in Saudi Arabia. Bergen, p. 89; Cooley, p. 123. The Saudi government also froze his assets within the country. However, it is clear that he continued to receive funds from his share of the vast family fortune. He seems to have had some temporary cash-flow problems in the 1994-1998 period, but after the East Africa bombings and the sympathy engendered by Clinton's retaliatory strike, funds for financing his terrorist ventures were no longer a problem. In 1999 Khalid bin Mahfouz was placed under house arrest in Saudi Arabia for allegedly transferring funds from the family's bank to charities that front for bin Laden. Bergen, Holy War, Inc., pp. 101-104.] October 12, 1994 The Pakistani transport and smuggling mafia essentially hire the Taliban to wrest control of the crucial border town of Spin Baldak from Hekmatyar and his bandits who are charging exorbitant tolls. The Taliban are successful, losing only one soldier out of the 200-man contingent. Part of their booty is a large munitions depot containing 18,000 Kalashnikovs and several vehicles. Rashid, pp. 27-28. November 4, 1994 The Taliban emerge as a significant military and political force after they rescue a Pakistani convoy that has been captured by warlords in the Kandahar area who are demanding a large ransom, a share of the convoy's profits, and Pakistan's pledge to stop support of the Taliban. [With the loss of only a dozen men the Taliban routed the warlords, hanged the commander from the barrel of his tank and proceeded on to capture Kandahar, Afghanistan's second largest city. Then they cleared the chains from all the toll roads, making it safe for Pakistani commerce and smuggling. By December, 1994 ten thousand Afghani and Pakistani Pashtuns who had been studying in madrassas rushed to Kandahar to join the Taliban. The majority were very young, between 14 and 24. As described by Ahmed Rashid, they were the displaced youth of the war who had grown up in refugee camps with their only education being that of the madrassa where they studied the Koran "as interpreted by their barely literate teachers [who had no] formal grounding in maths, science, history or geography. Many of these young warriors did not even know the history of their own country or the story of the jihad against the Soviets.... They had no memories of their tribes, their elders, their neighbours nor the complex ethnic mix of peoples that often made up their villages and their homeland.... They were literally the orphans of the war, the rootless and the restless, the jobless and the economically deprived with little self-knowledge. They admired war because it was the only occupation they could possibly adapt to. Their simple belief in messianic, puritan Islam which had been drummed into them by simple village mullahs was the only prop they could hold on to and which gave their lives some meaning. Untrained for anything, even the traditional occupations of their forefathers such as farming, herding or the making of handicrafts, they were what Karl Marx would have termed Afghanistan's lumpen proletariat." Rashid, pp. 28-29, 31-32.] December 11, 1994 The Bojinka Plot, Phase One: Two hours after Philippines Air Lines Flight # 34 leaves Cebu City in the Philippines en route to Tokyo a small bomb explodes under seat 26K. The unfortunate occupant of the seat is killed instantly, and six other passengers are wounded. The blast blows a small hole in the floor and damages the cables that control the flaps. The Captain dumps fuel and only through consummate skill manages to turn the plane and effect an emergency landing in Okinawa. [The previous occupant of seat 26K on the Manila-Cebu segment had been Ramzi Yousef. He had smuggled two nine-volt batteries hidden in his shoes (and thus below the reach of the airport metal detectors) onto the plane, then in the wash room assembled the tiny bomb of liquid nitroglycerine with a Casio watch for a timer, secreted the finished product in the life vest beneath his seat, and left the plane in Cebu to return to Manila. He telephoned the AP in Manila, giving the Abu Sayyaf group the credit for the explosion. The Japanese investigators released the details of their findings to the US Federal Aviation Administration which sent out a high-level security alert to all US airliners operating in Asia. Yousef had been progressively refining the architecture of his miniature bombs and, with financing provided by Osama bin Laden, had spent several weeks on Basilan island, teaching his bomb-making skills to members of Abu Sayyaf. Reeve, The New Jackals, pp. 74-81.] December 24, 1994 Four terrorists from the Armed Islamic group of Algeria (GIA) hijack an Air France Airbus in Algiers bound for Paris. Before the plane lands at Marseilles for refueling, they kill three passengers. None of the hijackers knows how to fly a plane; instead they hold a gun at the pilot's head and issue orders. They plan to crash the plane into the Eiffel Tower. However at the refueling stop, French counter-terrorist forces storm the plane and kill all the hijackers. [Shortly thereafter the GIA killed four Catholic priests in Algeria to retaliate for the deaths of the hijackers. Algeria, more than any other country, has suffered from blowback from the "Afghan Arabs" who were trained in Afghanistan and converted to the Taliban version of Islam. It is estimated that 100,000 civilians have died 1991-2001 in the efforts of GIA and its offshoots to change Algeria into a fundamentalist Muslim country. "Defending Islam. Denouncing Muslim Extremists," International Review Summer, 1995; "Algeria valuable in hunt for terrorists," Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, November 18, 2001.] January 6, 1995 The Bojinka Plot, Phase Two: Ramzi Yousef's grandiose plans come to a flaming halt when the chemicals that he and Abdul Hakim Murad are mixing in Yousef's Manila apartment catch fire and they are forced to leave the apartment. Murad is arrested when he returns to recover Yousef's laptop and manuals. Yousef escapes capture (but only for a month.) [The laptop revealed details of a massive and ingenious terrorist scheme that Yousef had named the Bojinka Plot: Five code-named terrorists (Yousef, Murad and three others) would board the first segments of flights going in different directions, leaving bombs to explode on the second segment, then board a second flight, leaving a second bomb for another explosion. In all eleven flights on American-owned airlines were scheduled to explode about the same time over the Pacific Ocean en route to San Francisco, Chicago, New York, Honolulu and Los Angeles. (One man, probably Yousef, would have to do a triple.) His plan would insure that the American airline industry would be severely damaged and there would be many American passengers among the estimated 4000 fatalities. A second plan allowed for two of the airplanes to crash into important buildings in the United States, including the World Trade Center in New York, The Sears Tower in Chicago, the Transamerica Building in San Francisco, and the White House and the Pentagon in Washington. (Murad admitted that members of the group had taken flying lessons in the Philippines in preparation for Bojinka. The investigators also found plans for the aborted assassination of President Clinton (commissioned by bin Laden for the president's visit to the Philippines the previous November), electronic and chemical reference books stolen from the Swansea (UK) library, and diagrams for the construction of his miniature bombs. There were maps of the Pope's route during his forthcoming visit to Manila, priests' robes and Bibles in preparation for an attempt to assassinate the Pope. And Yousef, despite all his careful planning, had left a partial fingerprint. Now the man hunt for him went into high gear with a reward offered of $2 million and Yousef's picture featured in Newsweek. Reeve, The New Jackals, pp. 76-78, 84-96; World Tribune, September 19, 2001. The Filipino police shared all of this information with the FBI including details of Murad attending flying schools in four American states and his great desire to dive-bomb a hijacked plane into CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia. He got a commercial pilot's license in North Carolina. "Clues Before Sept. 11 Were Plentiful," Associated Press, New York Times, May 16, 2002.] February 7, 1995 Thanks to the cooperation of Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, Ramzi Yousef is captured in Islamabad, Pakistan by a team of FBI special agents and Pakistani Special Forces. [He had been betrayed by Ishtiaque Parker, a young South African Muslim student whom he had dragooned into helping him purchase supplies and make trial runs on airplane flights. Parker was given the $2 million plus sanctuary in the United States for himself and his family. The New Jackals, pp. 97-107.] October 21, 1995 OIL: Bridas officials are stunned when they witness Turkmenistan's President Niyazov sign an agreement with Unocal and its partner, Delta Oil Company (owned by Saudi Arabia) to build a pipeline through Afghanistan, thus essentially abrogating Turkmenistan's earlier contract with Bridas. [Also present at the New York meeting was Henry Kissinger, a consultant for Unocal and another former Secretary of State. Unocal had become interested when Bridas offered the company a share in the pipeline consortium. Niyazov saw Unocal as a wedge for involving the United States in his country's development (and as an old Soviet apparachnik he had no compunctions about breaking contracts.) The US saw the Afghanistan route as a way to prevent Turkmenistan from becoming dependent on Iran and also to bar Iran from access to the potentially valuable Southeast Asia energy market. In the Spring of 1996 the United States pressured Prime Minister Bhutto to change her allegiance from Bridas to Unocal. Her failure to comply was "one of the factors" in her downfall, according to the Herald of Pakistan. The gas price finalized by Pakistan and Unocal under Bhutto's successor, Nawaz Sharif, was ridiculously low, so low as to prohibit competition. However, the Taliban was not included in the negotiation. The transit fee of fifteen cents per cubic meter was not acceptable to them and they continued to favor the Argentinians. Bridas, although banned by Turkmenistan from exporting oil from its leases, continued with plans for the pipeline and concluded an exclusive agreement with the Rabbani government. Bridas sued Unocal in federal court for US$ 15 billion in damages and began international arbitration against Turkmenistan for breach of contract. The Texas district court dismissed the case in 1998, saying the dispute should be adjudicated by Turkmenistan and Afghanistan rather than the US. The International Court of Arbitration in Paris awarded Bridas US$47 million. In December, 1998, following the US bombardment of Afghanistan and the anti-Taliban campaign of the Feminist Majority that was directed against Unocal, the company withdrew from the pipeline consortium. Feminist Majority President Eleanor Smeal: "How can women be safe anywhere if some governments can carry out gender apartheid with impunity?" Rashid, pp. 160-180; Herald (Pakistan), June, 1997.] November 13, 1995: Blowback against USA in Saudi Arabia: A joint US-Saudi military facility in Riyadh is blown up by a truck bomb, killing three US civilians and two soldiers and injuring 60 others including civilian passersby. [The Saudis arrested and beheaded four Saudi men before they could be interrogated by the Americans. Three of the men had fought with the mujaheddin in Afghanistan; all four admired and supported Osama bin Laden. Rashid and Reeve believe the government acted so swiftly to avert knowledge of bin Laden's involvement and his links to important Saudis. Shortly thereafter, the Saudis gave Osama bin Laden a warning: four Yemeni mercenaries opened fire with their AK-47s on his house in Khartoum. Bin Laden was not touched, but two of his guards and three of the mercenaries were killed in the gunfight.] Cooley, p. 220; Rashid, pp. 183-184; Reeve, pp. 184-185; Bergen, p. 87. January, 1996 A special "bin Laden task force" is established within the CIA's Counterterrorist Center. This includes personnel from operations, intelligence and science/technology directorates. [They investigated his links with other militants and interfaced with counterterrorist colleagues in Britain, Germany, Israel, Italy and France. In their analysis of the sources of his funding, they concluded that "large sums were still flowing into bin Laden's accounts from businessmen and senior politicians in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Qatar." Reeve, pp. 184-185.]. May, 1996 Osama bin Laden, his wives and about 150 supporters leave Khartoum and fly to Jalalabad, Afghanistan on a chartered C-130 plane. [Following a second unsuccesful attempt on his life Saudi officials flew to Sudan to threaten Sudanese President Hassan al-Turabi if he continued to harbor Osama bin Laden. The Saudis were joined by the US and Egypt. Turabi was unwilling to give up Osama even though Sudan had handed over Carlos the Jackal to the French two years before. Instead, Turabi asked bin Laden to leave. It took awhile for CIA analysts to realize what a mistake they had made, as Afghanistan would offer a much more impregnable base of operations. (The Shah of Iran had made a similar mistake when he pressured Iraq to expel Ayatollah Khomeini in October, 1978; France gave the cleric a much better base for preaching his sermons and distributing his audiotapes.) Rashid, pp. 185-187; William Shawcross, The Shah's Last Ride, p. 116.] May 12, 1996 On "60 Minutes" Leslie Stahl discusses the sanctions against Iraq with Secretary of State Madeleine Albright. Stahl asks, "We have heard that a half million children have died. I mean, that's more children than died in Hiroshima. Is the price worth it?" Albright replies, "I think this is a very hard choice, but the price— we think the price is worth it." Most Americans are unaware of this quote (or if they watched the program, have forgotten it.) But you can bet your bottom dollar that every Muslim in the Middle East over the age of 15, literate or not, has heard it. And that it was used in the bin Laden-Taliban recruitment pitch. June 25, 1996 Further Blowback against USA in Saudi Arabia: A 5000-pound truck bomb explodes at the Khobar Towers, a housing complex for the US military in Dhahran, destroying the entire front of the building, killing 19 American servicemen and wounding about 400.The blast was so powerful that it was felt twenty miles away in Bahrain. [Telephone calls were intercepted by the NSA from Ayman al-Zawahiri and others congratulating Osama bin Laden, who later expressed his feelings in a 1997 interview with Hamid Mir: "Only Americans were killed in the explosions. No Saudi suffered any injury. When I got the news about these blasts, I was very happy….I would like to say to the Saudi people that they should adopt every tactic to throw the Americans out of Saudi territory." (He was angry that the Saudis had admitted American troops to the country during the Gulf War and incensed that they still remained there, despite promises made to him to the contrary.) The Saudis blamed the attack on Iran or Iranian-financed Shi'ites from the eastern part of Arabia. (Bergen writes that their arrest of six hundred Afghan Arabs suggests that they suspected bin Laden was responsible.) On June 21, 2001--- just before the expiration date for indictments on attempted murder and conspiracy charges--- the US indicted fourteen members of Hezbollah (thirteen Saudis and one Lebanese) for the Khobar bombing. No Iranian officials were named in the indictment, although the indictment indicated that "elements of the [then] Iranian government inspired, supported and supervised members of Saudi Hezbollah." FBI Director Louis Freeh refused to say how many suspects were in custody or in what country. One suspect, Hani Sayegh, the Saudi suspected of blinking his car lights for the "all clear" signal to the bomb truck, was in US custody for two years, 1997-1999, before being sent to Saudi Arabia where he has been held incommunicado. Amnesty International has protested his treatment, fearing he will be tortured and beheaded after an unfair trial. Bergen, p. 88; www.cnn.com/2001/LAW/o6/21/khobar.indictments/index.html;www.cnn.com/2001/LAW/06/21/khobar.sayegh/index.html As with the previous attack, the FBI was not allowed to interview any of the suspects, thus escalating the suspicon about Saudi support for Al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden..The US changed the air base for the flights to Iraq from Dhahran to the more distant desert base of al-Kharj. A few weeks later the FBI and Mary Jo White, the US attorney for the Southern District of New York initiated the grand jury investigation of bin Laden which would led to his indictment for international terrorism. Reeve, p. 187; Cooley, pp. 220, 224.] September 26, 1996 Final Victory for the Taliban: The Taliban, supported by Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, enter Kabul a few hours after the army chief, Ahmad Shah Massoud, gives orders for a withdrawal from the city. [The Clinton administration had quietly favored the Taliban over the Rabbani regime because the Taliban were virulently anti-Iran and therefore more likely to cooperate in an oil pipeline from the Caspian Sea that would bypass Iran. Within hours of Kabul's capture the US Department of State announced that that it would establish diplomatic relations with the new Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, a statement that was quickly retracted. State Department spokesman Glyn Davis said, however, that the US found "nothing objectionable" in the Taliban's imposition of Islamic law--- they were just "anti-modern" and not "anti-western." A Unocal executive told the wire services that the pipeline project would be easier to implement with the Taliban in power.] Rashid, pp. 44-49, 166. September 27, 1996 Violation of Asylum: In one of the first acts of the victorious Taliban, ex-president Najibullah and his aides are dragged from the UN compound where they have had asylum for four years. Najibullah and his brother are tortured, publicly executed, and left hanging in front of the palace for over a day to the horror of the world. [Under the Taliban there is "peace," but at what a price. Women are even more restricted, required to wear an all-covering burqa, forbidden to work, and isolated in their homes. Only three countries recognize the regime— Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates.] September 28, 1997 Status of Women in Afghanistan: Emma Bonino, the European Community Commissioner for humanitarian affairs, arrives in Afghanistan accompanied by journalists and officials of NGOs. During their visit they are arrested and held at gun point for four hours for having taken photographs of female health workers. [Although the Taliban foreign minister later apologized for this "incident," the press reports and Bonino's statement on the miserable state of women, education and public liberties caused the final revulsion of the world against the new regime in Kabul. The Taliban's opposition, however, was winning few supporters: ten thousand people had been killed in the May to August offensive against Mazar-e-Sharif led by General Rashid Dostum and there had been numerous reports of torture. Brisard et Dasquié, pp. 50-51; Agence France-Presse, September 29, 1997; www.developments.org.uk/data/profile98.htm.] November 17, 1997: Blowback in Egypt: A tourist bus unloads passengers— Swiss, Japanese, British, German, etc.— in front of the temple to Queen Hatshepsut on the banks of the Nile River in Luxor, Upper Egypt. Six black-clothed members of the major Egyptian Islamic group, al-Gama'a al-Islamiya, shoot the two policemen taking tickets and then proceed to an hour-long slaughter of the tourists, spraying them with bullets, then stabbing them with knives and daggers. They shoot tourists who are attempting to flee through the bazaars, corner others who are hiding behind columns, and rake a bus of arriving tourists with automatic gunfire before running to the hills where they are tracked down and killed. They leave behind them 58 dead and 17 wounded. [Their leader was Medhat Muhamad Abdel Rahman who had been trained in the Afghan guerrilla camps. The Independent's Robert Fisk remarked that details of the massacre were reminiscent of the throat-cutting and disemboweling that took place in the Afghan war and were unlike tactics previously used in Egyptian uprisings by the more moderate Muslim Brotherhood. In the previous two years the Islamic Group had bombed cinemas and killed many policemen and at least 150 unarmed civilians, including tourists. They were demanding an Egyptian return to Sharia (Islamic law), outlawed by Nasser in 1952, and the release of blind Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman from his prison cell in Missouri. They hoped to achieve their goals by the destruction of tourism, Egypt's #1 industry worth $3 billion a year. Cooley, pp. 183-185.] February 1998 Osama bin Laden meets with senior fundamental Muslim leaders from Egypt, Bangladesh, Pakistan and Arab North Africa. They set up an "Islamic Struggle Front" dedicated to fighting "the Jews" (meaning Israel and its friends and allies.) They issue a fatwa declaring it to be legitimate to kill any American, military or civilian. Cooley, p. 224. March 16, 1998 First Arrest Warrant for Osama bin Laden: Libya issues an international arrest warrant for Osama bin Laden and three accomplices, accusing them of the murder of two German nationals and the possession of illegal firearms. [The warrant was not issued internationally by Interpol until April 15th and then with date and description of the crimes omitted. Brisard and Dasquié speculate that this warrant was virtually ignored thanks to the hostility of Great Britain and MI6 toward Muammar Qaddafi for his overthrow (September 1, 1969) of the government of their protegé, King Idriss, and the subsequent nationalization of the properties of British Petroleum. Some failed attempts to overthrow Qaddafi (employing some close associates of Bin Laden!) left MI6 with considerable egg on the face. Brisard and Dasquié , pp. 135-143; Stephen Dorril, MI6 (2000), pp. 735-738; Irish Times, November 19, 2001.] May 26, 1998 Osama bin Laden holds a press conference in Afghanistan in which he announces that there will be "good news in the coming weeks." [In an interview on ABC News two days later he predicted a "black day for America." He called for the deaths of all Americans: "We do not differentiate between those dressed in military uniforms and civilians: they are all targets." On June 12 the State
Department issued a warning: "We take those threats seriously
and the United States is increasing security at many U.S. government
facilities in the Middle East and Asia." May 28, 1998 ABC
interviews Osama bin Laden in "Talking with Terror's Banker."
May 30, 1998 An earthquake registering 6.9 on the Richter scale devastates an area of northern Afghanistan near the border with Tajikistan. Over 4000 are killed and many thousands more injured and made homeless. An earlier 6.1 quake in the same area (February 4) had killed 2500, injured nearly a thousand and left over 8000 homeless. This only adds to the misery of the two decades of warfare and the year-old drought. End of July, 1998 The Taliban force the non-governmental organizations to leave Afghanistan. Jean-Charles Brisard and Guillaume Dasquié, Ben Laden: La vérité interdite, p. 54. August 7, 1998 Blowback in East Africa--- Operation Holy Kaaba and Operation al-Aqsa: Truck bombs are exploded almost simultaneously at the American embassies in Nairobi, Kenya and Dar-es-Salaam, Tanzania. The timing is considerately set for 10:30 to 11 AM, a time when observant Muslims would be in their mosques praying and off the streets. [In Nairobi 247 people died, in Dar-es-Salaam, 20. Over 5000 people were severely wounded; some were blinded, some suffered severed arms or legs. With the synchronicity of the suicide bombings, the Osama bin Laden network was immediately suspected. And indeed the plan had been organized by Mohammed Sadeek Odeh, a Palestinian from Jordan who had been installed in Mombasa, Kenya as a "sleeper" since 1994 and whose prosperous fishing business had been financed by Al Qaeda. One of the Nairobi suicide
bombers, Mohamed Rashed Daoud al-'Owhali escaped the blast, but
his injuries enabled hospital doctors to identify him. His subsequent
confession led to the arrest of 18 others, including men who were
supposed to carry out even more devastating bombings in Kampala,
Uganda at the same time. (Al-'Owhali also told US investigators
that bin Laden's next operation would be an American warship in
Yemen. Bergen, p. 183.) Odeh was arrested
in the Karachi airport by an alert immigration official; he subsequently
confessed details about the operations and was deported to the United
States to stand trial. The master mind of the operation, Haroun
Fazil from the Comoros islands, remains at large. (He is described
as being fluent in Swahili, Arabic, French and English and "very
good" with computers.) Fazil, Odeh and the other senior members
of the plots all left Africa before the actual explosions. Of the
five men indicted for the Tanzania bombing, only Khalfan Khamis
Mohamed is in US custody. Bergen, Holy War,
Inc., pp. 105-114; Reeve, The
New Jackals, pp. 198-201; Cooley, pp. 7, 215-216.] August 8, 1998: Genocide and Ethnic Cleansing: Hundreds of civilians are among those killed when Taliban forces capture the city of Mazar-e-Sharif in northwestern Afghanistan, the only major city still controlled by the Northern Alliance. [In the days that followed there were house-to-house searches for men and boys who were Hazaras, Tajiks or Uzbeks. Amnesty International estimated that at least 8000 civilians were summarily executed either as they were being taken from their homes or while in transport to the jail. Many women and girls were raped and abducted. The Hazaras were especially singled out, as they are Shi'ites and considered infidels by the super-orthodox Sunni Taliban. Ten officials at the Iranian embassy and an Iranian jounalist were also slain. "The Massacre in Mazar-i Sharif," Human Rights Report, Vol. 10, No. 7, November 1998; Amnesty International , September 3, 1998; Brisard and Dasquié, p. 55. Historical Note: There was no "tut-tut" forthcoming from the US government on these atrocities of the Taliban, yet the US would go to war against Serbia a year later for far less grievous acts alleged against their Kosovar citizens. August 20, 1998: Retribution in Afghanistan and Sudan: In "Operation Infinite Reach" President Bill Clinton orders as many as 75 Tomahawk missiles fired from US Navy ships onto three of Osama bin Laden's training camps located near Khost and Jalalabad, Afghanistan. (One of the "smart" missiles lands in Pakistan!) He also orders the demolition of Al-Shifa in Khartoum, Sudan's major pharmaceutical factory, on the mistaken assumption that the plant is owned by bin Laden and is manufacturing nerve gas. [When pressed, the administration cannot offer credible evidence that the factory was indeed making chemicals for biological warfare. And the government was surprised that the Islamic world would demand proof of bin Laden's culpability for the 9-11-2001 attacks? In this period Clinton was under fire for his affair with Monica Lewinsky and skeptics believed these bombings were as much for "Wag the Dog" as for retribution against bin Laden. Osama was not killed in the operation. He had been warned just hours before the strike, allegedly by someone within the Pakistani ISI, that the CIA was tracking him by his phone calls, so he went incommunicado and was hundreds of miles to the north when the missiles hit. (Also the evacuation of American personnel from Kabul and Pakistan in the days preceding tipped him off.) Later he was heard to broadcast on the radio, "By the grace of Allah, I am still alive." Twenty or so men (of five different nationalities) died. The complex was flattened, but was rebuilt within two weeks. The next day Mullah Omar, the spiritual and political head of the Taliban, condemned the attacks and announced that he was giving kind and friendly refuge to Osama (héberge avec bienveillance). There were two important unintended consequences of these strikes:
September 20-21, 1998 Ahmad Shah Massoud's United Front forces fire a series of rockets into the northern part of Kabul, killing over 100 people. One hits a crowded night market. The International Committee of the Red Cross calls the attacks "indiscriminate"; Massoud denies targeting civilians. Human Rights Watch, October 2001. February 1, 1999 Under Secretary of State Strobe Talbott meets with several representatives of the Taliban in Islamabad, Pakistan. He brings proofs of bin Laden's complicity in the East African embassy attacks and an official demand for his extradition to the United States. After this, he hints, the US may recognize the Taliban government. Brisard and Dasquié, pp. 57-58. July 19, 1999 The first meeting of the UN-sponsored "6 + 2" meetings convenes in Tashkent, Uzbekistan to discuss the future of Afghanistan. [This had been arranged by Lakhdar Brahimi after considerable visits to heads of state worldwide. The six neighbors of Afghanistan---Iran, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Tadjikistan, China, and Pakistan--- sent representatives; Russia and the United States were the other two countries. Taliban representatives were there as observers; the month before the FBI had placed Osama bin Laden on its "ten most wanted" criminals list. Brisard and Dasquié, pp. 58-60.] October 5, 1999 Pakistani General Khawaja Ziauldine meets with Mullah Omar to ask for the extradition of Osama bin Laden and finds that Omar is "ready to cooperate." [This effort from Pakistan was the result of the July 4th meeting in Washington of President Clinton with Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif in which Clinton arranged for a delay of several weeks in the removal of the Pakistani military from Kashmir who were advising the Islamist groups there. Brisard and Dasquié, pp. 60-61.] October 12, 1999 Pakistan: The government of Prime Minister Sharif is overthrown by a military coup in response to Sharif's order to the ISI on the 7th to close all the fundamentalist Muslim training camps in Pakistan, especially those in the frontier tribal zone close to the border with Afghanistan. The new head of state is General Pervez Musharaf. Brisard and Dasquié, p. 61. October 15, 1999 The UN Security Council votes Resolution # 1267 enjoining the Taliban to extradite bin Laden and "foreseeing" very heavy sanctions in case of non-compliance. Brisard and Dasquié, p. 62. December 14, 1999
Millennium Bomb Plot Aborted: An alert
Customs agent at the Canada-US ferry crossing in Port Angeles, Washington
arrests Algerian Ahmed Ressam when his rental car is found to be
loaded with explosives. January, 2000 Al Qaeda Summit Meeting in Malaysia: A dozen of the top leaders of Al Qaeda, posing as tourists, meet at a condominium in suburban Kuala Lumpur presumably to discuss strategy and make future plans. [The CIA learned of the meeting in December and secured the cooperation of the Malaysian Special Branch to track and photograph the terrorists who went sightseeing and visited cybercafes. Two of the suspects, Nawaf Alhazmi and Khalid Almihdhar (later alleged to have been among the hijackers of the flight that hit the Pentagon), were known to have entered the United States soon after the meeting. Michael Isikoff and Daniel Klaidman, "The Hijackers We let Escape," Newsweek, June 10, 2002.] January 20, 2000 Karl Inderfurth, the US Assistant Secretary of State for Asia, journeys to Islamabad where he meets with the new Prime Minister Musharaf, Taliban Minister of Information Amir Khan Muttaqi and Taliban Ambassador to Pakistan, Saeed Mohammed Muttaqi, to discuss the extradition of Osama bin Laden and the normalization of relations between the international community and the Taliban government. [ Two days earlier UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, had named a new person responsible for Taliban affairs, Fransesc Vendrell, with the title of Special Representative of the Secretary General for Afghanistan, in the expectation of increased activity for the "6+ 2" group. The White House in this same period disbursed $114 million for humanitarian aid to Afghanistan. Brisard and Dasquié, pp. 63-64.] September 27, 2000
An aide for the Taliban Minister of Foreign
Affairs, Abdur Rahmin Zahid, meets with representatives of the State
Department at the Middle East Institute in Washington. He confides
that the religious authorities have created a special commission
to investigate Osama bin Laden's responsibility for the embassy
bombings; he is optimistic about his eventual extradition. On November 2nd Fransesc
Vendrell was able to announce to his superiors that the Taliban
and the Northern Alliance were working on a peace plan under the
aegis of the "6 + 2" group. People were confident that
a coalition government with "moderate" Taliban was truly
possible and that bin Laden would be extradited and Afghanistan
stabilized. But---- after the débacle of the American election, September 28, 2000
Provocation in Jerusalem: Ariel Sharon,
the leader of Israel's right-wing Likud party, visits the Al-Aqsa
mosque in Jerusalem, the third most holy place in Islam. According to the prestigious Ha'aretz, "Israel has security and administrative control" of most of the West Bank and 20% of the Gaza Strip. It has been able "to double the number of settlers in 10 years, to enlarge the settlements, to continue its discriminatory policy of cutting back water quotas for three million Palestinians, to prevent Palestinian development in most of the area of the West Bank, and to seal an entire nation into restricted areas, imprisoned in a network of bypass roads meant for Jews only. During these days of strict internal restriction of movement in the West Bank, one can see how carefully each road was planned: So that 200,000 Jews have freedom of movement, about three million Palestinians are locked into their Bantustans until they submit to Israeli demands. The bloodbath that has been going on for three weeks is the natural outcome of seven years of lying and deception (the Declaration of Principles of September, 1993), just as the first Intifada was the natural outcome of direct Israeli occupation." Ha'aretz, October 18, 2000. A week after the inception of the intifada, the US agreed to supply Israel with 35 Blackhawk helicopters and spare parts for a cost of $525 million. (This, of course, was peanuts compared to the $81 billion to $90 billion total US aid to Israel whom Charley Reese calls "the most expensive 'ally' in the history of the human race." Swomley, Facts for Action # 264, October 2001.) Noam Chomsky, "Al-Aqsa Intifada", www.zmag.org ] October 12, 2000 Further Blowback in Yemen: Sailors aboard the USS Cole, in the magnificent harbor of Aden for a brief refueling stop, return the waves of the occupants of the small fishing boat minutes before it pulls alongside and explodes, its load of C-4 blasting a 40 x 60 foot hole in the reinforced steel hull of the Cole. [Seventeen sailors were killed, thirty-nine were wounded, and the damage inflicted would cost the Pentagon $240 million. The contract with Yemen for refueling privileges had been signed in December, 1998 a few months after the warning from al-'Owhali that Osama bin Laden was planning to bomb a warship in Yemen. Peter Bergen indicates that there were two reasons--- the Navy didn't have enough oilers and so needed a port and the State Department hoped to woo Yemen, an ally of Iraq, into its "war against terrorism." The mastermind for the plot was a bin Laden deputy, Mohammed Omar al-Harzi who, like the intellectual authors of previous terrorist plots, fled the vicinity before the actual event. The Yemeni authorities were only minimally more cooperative with the FBI than the Saudis had been, much to the frustration of FBI agents such as John O'Neill. Yemen arrested six or so men who were directly involved with the Cole attack, but understandably refused the FBI's request to investigate and interview certain members of the government and an army general related to President Salih. According to a Yemeni newspaper, "It was clear from the start that the accessories to the attack would be tried and executed, but the people inside Yemen who financed it, and used their power to facilitate it, would never be brought to book." Bergen, Holy War, Inc., pp. 167-169, 184-193.] December 12, 2000 Addressing the Judiciary Affairs Committee of the House of Representatives, Michael Sheehan denounces the Taliban, accusing them of supporting terrorism and calling on the international community to apply new sanctions against Kabul. [On the 19th the UN Security Council obliged with a reinforcement of economic sanctions against Afghanistan and a freeze on part of their financial assets. Brisard and Dasquié, p. 68.] December 20, 2000 Plan Completed to "Roll Back" al-Qaeda: Counter-terrorism chief, Richard Clarke presents his finished plan to roll back al-Qaeda, the suspected and all-but-proven perpetrators of the deadly attack on the USS Cole. [The plan called for the freezing of al-Qaeda assets, a systematic attack on its sources of funding, and the closing of all fake "charities" that were sending money to the Islamic fighters. There would be a "dramatic increase" in covert action in Afghanistan to "eliminate the sanctuary" where al-Qaeda training camps operated with the blessing of the Taliban, and special-ops forces sent on specific search-and-destroy missions targeting bin Laden. The Tajik leader of the Northern Alliance, Ahmed Shah Massoud, would be given the resources for which he had been pleading in Washington and European capitals to offer a strong resistance to the Taliban (and thus keep al-Qaeda fighters engaged who might otherwise leave Afghanistan to do mischief elsewhere.) The improved Predator drone, which had made a real-time identification of bin Laden in September, would be sent back aloft after repairs were finished from an October accident. The two submarines in the north Arabian Sea would remain on station (as they had been for all of 2000) ready to attack with missiles should bin Laden's coordinates become known. Al-Qaeda cells elsewhere would be broken up and their members arrested. The plan was ready to go, but not put into action because of the transition to a new administration. However, Richard Clarke fully detailed the plan during a series of ten briefings that Sandy Berger, the outgoing National Security Advisor, held with Condoleeza Rice and other national security officials of the incoming Bush administration during the first week of January, 2001. Berger told Rice, "I believe the Bush administration will spend more time on terrorism generally, and on al-Qaeda specifically, than any other subject." The plan would languish while various committees examined it, priority was given to Bush's national missile defense system, and turf warfare ensued over whether or not Predator (still on the ground) should be armed or not and what department should pay for it, despite the anxiety in June and July 2001 about the possibility of a major terrorist attack. Richard Clarke kept pushing his plan, despite increasing ridicule. According to one counter-terrorism official, he cried "wolf" and he had been in the job too long. (Since the first Bush administration, actually.) "The guy was reading way too many fiction novels. He turned into a Chicken Little. The sky was always falling for Dick Clarke. We had our strings jerked by him so many times, he was simply not taken seriously." However the plan finally put on Bush's desk on September 6, 2001 bore a striking resemblance to the original, as did the actions taken after 9-11. The Bush people, however, would deny that the administration had ever been handed a formal plan for an attack on al-Qaeda and National Security Advisor Rice claims never to have met with Berger at any of the briefings.] Michael Elliott, "Could 9/11 Have Been prevented?" Time, August 4, 2002, www.time.com/time/covers/1101020812/story.html January 29, 2001
Four days after the inauguration of the new administration
Dick Cheney, ex-CEO of Halliburton, sets up an Energy Policy Task
Force to help him make policy decisions. January 31, 2001 The bipartisan Hart-Rudman commission issues its final report, "Road Map for National Security: Imperative for Change," in which they warn that the US homeland is vulnerable to "catastrophic attack" and outline recommendations for "a new triad of prevention, protection and response." [This comprehensive 149-page report was ignored by the new Bush administration. In May Bush scuttled Senate hearings on the report with his announcement of a new commission to be headed by Dick Cheney--- which failed to have its first meeting before 9-11. www.nssg.gov/PhaseIII.pdf; http://democrats.com/display.cfm?id=278. ] February 5, 2001 The Taliban use the pages of the London Times to invite the new administration in Washington to resume negotiations. Laila Helms, the PR person for the Taliban, expedites the visit of Mullah Omar's roving ambassador, Sayed Rahmatullah Hashimi, to the United States. (She is an Afghan by birth and the niece of former CIA director, Richard Helms.) Brisard, p. 69, The Times (UK), February 5, 2001, p. 21. February 12, 2001 Nancy Soderburg, the American ambassador to the United Nations, states that, at the request of Fransesc Vendrell, the United States will seek to "find a way to have a continuing dialogue on humanitarian issues with the Taliban." [Between April 19 and August 17 she made four trips to Kabul and Kandahar for discussions with the Taliban. In the same period the "6 + 2" meetings resumed under the sponsorship of the UN with Vendrell presiding, but with a change in personnel. The individuals attending were now people with no official positions in their current governments so as not to compromise them. There were at least three meetings in Germany, all with the goal of getting the Taliban to sign an armistice and form a coalition government with the Northern Alliance and to extradite Osama bin Laden. Brisard and Dasquié, pp. 75-76.] May 17, 2001 Christina Rocca, in a confirmation hearing before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee for her appointment as director of the State Department's Bureau of Asiatic Affairs, testifies that the Bush administration intends to establish peace and stability in Afghanistan and that requires that there be dialogue with the Taliban. [Rocca was a CIA intelligence
operative in the area, 1982-1997, during which time she coordinated
relations with mujaheddin and supervised part of the delivery of
Stinger missiles to them. It is rumored that 2001 informal contacts
included Qazi Hussein Ahmad, the head of Jamaa-i-Islamiya, which
had joined its forces with those of Osama bin Laden in the Khost
area. Brisard and Dasquié, pp. 74-75.] May 18, 2001 The Bush II administration pledges an additional $43 million to Afghanistan since the Taliban have agreed to eliminate the poppy crop. This brings the total for this year to $124 million, making the US the largest humanitarian aid donor to the country. Washington Post, 25 May 2001. June 1, 2001 A secret meeting on the subject of Afghanistan is held in Washington between Condaleeza Rice, Christina Rocca, Fransesc Vendrell and some British observers. [Beginning May 6th Vendrell had had discussions with ex-king Zahir Shah, aged 87 and in poor health, about conditions for his return to Afghanistan and possible replacement of the Taliban. Brisard and Dasquié, pp. 77-78.] July 4-14, 2001 Osama bin Laden is a patient in the American hospital in Dubai receiving treatment for his kidney disease. During this period he is visited by the CIA station chief who is summoned back to Washington on July 15th. Le Figaro, October 31, 2001. One wonders why this man, indicted in the US for conspiracy in the attacks on the East African embassies and the USS Cole and the subject of a targeted attack by the US in 1998, was not apprehended in Dubai or his private jet forced down (or shot down) on the way back to Afghanistan. July 5, 2001 Warnings and Increased Security: Richard Clarke, the White House's long-time national coordinator for counter-terrorism, calls a meeting of the heads of the major domestic security organizations--- the Federal Aviation Administration, the Coast Guard, Customs, INS, and the FBI. Major signals have been coming to the CIA concerning a likely attack on American soil by Al Qaeda, so he enjoins the agencies to increase security in view of an impending attack. "It all came together the third week in June," Clarke later told Lawrence Wright. "The CIA's view was that a major terrorist attack was coming in the next several weeks." "The Counter-Terrorist", The New Yorker, January 14, 2002, p. 61. Unlike the general public, Attorney General John Ashcroft is warned to use private planes and to avoid commercial airlines. CBSNews.com, July 26, 2001. July 10, 2001 Warning Signs from Arizona: Agent Kenneth Williams of the Phoenix office of the FBI becomes suspicious of the "inordinate number" of men from Middle Eastern countries taking pilot training in his state, especially after one of them expresses hostility towards the United States and a perverted view of Islam. He writes a seven-page memo detailing his observations, including the fact that several of the men have ties to a radical Islamic organization in London and that "fatwas" have been issued declaring American domestic aviation and airports to be legitimate targets. He suggests that all training schools in the United States should be probed for students with terrorist ties. He sends this memo to several field offices as well as the Radical Fundamentalist Unit addressed to the "Osama bin Laden" desk, but no action is taken until after September 11. (Five months earlier he had complained in a letter that counter-terrorism had the "lowest investigative priority" in his office.) Paul de la Garza, "Senator says FBI memo 'takes your breath away'" St. Petersburg Times, May 23, 2002; Jerry Seper, "Agent told CIA of flight students," Washington Times, May 23, 2002; Edward Helmore, "Agent blasts FBI over 11 September cover-up," London Observer, May 26, 2002. July 17-20, 2001 Crucial Track Two Meeting: The third round of a "track two" meeting of senior Russian, American, Iranian and Pakistani officials to brainstorm on the future of Afghanistan takes place in a Berlin hotel. The Americans propose that in exchange for delivering Osama bin Laden (wanted for his alleged involvement in the bombings of the African embassies and the USS Cole) and consenting to an enlarged government that would include Northern Alliance leaders, the Taliban could receive international recognition and financial aid. [These negotiations, first begun in November 2000, had been adopted fervently by the Bush fils administration in February. They hoped to stabilize Afghanistan and get the Unocal pipeline back on track. The Taliban, however, seemed unwilling to comply with all the conditions. Niaz Naik, a former foreign minister of Pakistan, reported to the Guardian that the Americans had threatened that "in case the Taliban does not behave and in case Pakistan also does not help us to influence the Taliban, then the United States would be left with no option but to take an overt action against Afghanistan." Naik passed this threat to his government which informed the Taliban. The Americans present were Tom Simons, former ambassador to Pakistan, Karl Inderfurth, former assistant secretary of state for South Asian affairs, and Lee Coldren, head of the State Department office of Pakistan, Afghan and Bangladesh affairs until 1997. The Guardian (UK), September 22, 2001 Jean-Charles Brisard in an interview in Paris after the publication of Ben Laden: La vérité interdite, quoted Simons as saying, "either you accept our offer of a carpet of gold, or we bury you under a carpet of bombs." Julio Godoy, Inter Press Service, November 15, 2001. On August 2nd Christine
Rocca, the director of Asian affairs at the State Department and
former CIA officer, met with the Taliban ambassador in Islamabad,
probably the last contact of the Americans with the Taliban before
September 11th. Irish Times,
November 19, 2001. So possibly September 11th was either
a pre-emptive strike by Osama and the Taliban or an attack by Al
Qaeda to prevent the Taliban from knuckling under and extraditing
bin Laden?] July 20-22, 2001 The G-8 conference meets in Genoa amid extraordinary security precautions. [Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and others had warned those responsible for security that there was a strong possibility that a hijacked airplane loaded with explosives would be crashed into the conference building. So all flights in the area were banned and anti-aircraft guns were deployed around the site. Bush slept on an American ship in the harbor, not on land.] "Cover-up and conspiracy: The Bush administration and September 11, wsws.org, May 18, 2002. August 16, 2001
The First Arrest for a Disaster Yet to Happen:
The FBI arrest Zacarias Moussaoui, a French-born man of Arab descent
from Morocco, after officials of a flight school outside of Minneapolis
report their suspicions. Justice Department officials in Washington refused to give Minneapolis agents permission to examine the hard drive on Moussaoui's computer. Newsweek, October 1, 2001. A frustrated instructor warned the FBI that "a 747 loaded with fuel can be used as a bomb." On August 26 French intelligence notified the FBI that Moussaoui had links to Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda and had been on their watch list since the late '90s.. (In July Phoenix FBI agent Ken Williams had warned the counterterrorism department that he had detected a pattern of Arabs taking flight training in Arizona who might involved in terrorist groups and urged that flight schools throughout the country be investigated, but his memo and hunch were not shared with the Minneapolis agents. James Risen, New York Times, May 4, 2002.) However, the FBI
turned Moussaoui over to INS who detained him for violating the
terms of his visa. After 9-11 the intelligence community examined
the Moussaoui case and concluded that he was the missing "20th
hijacker" who had been slated for the flight that went down
in Pennsylvania. His computer, when finally examined, contained
details of crop-dusting planes and evidence of links to Al Qaeda.
He was indicted on December 11th in the US District Court in Alexandria
on six counts of conspiracy. Four carry a maximum sentence of death.
Patrick Martin, wsws.org, January 5, 2002;
New York Times, December 12, 2001.] August 22, 2001
This is the last day at work for John P. O.Neill,
the deputy director of the FBI and, since 1995, the section chief
for counterterrorism. First, the Saudis executed the suspects of the Riyadh bombing before he could interview them. Second, he accused the US Ambassador to Yemen, Barbara Bodine, of impeding his inquiry into the bombing of the Cole. Finally, he was disgusted that the Bush administration had decided to negotiate with the Taliban, rather than pursuing it and its guest, bin Laden, in order to realize the goal of building a pipeline from Central Asia through Afghanistan. He told Brisard that "every answer, every key to dismantling the Osama bin Laden organizations are in Saudi Arabia." After retirement O'Neill went to work as head of security at the World Trade Center and, in the cruelest irony of all, died there on 9-11 attempting to save others' lives. Robert Kolker, "O'Neill Versus Osama," New York Magazine, December 17, 2001; Lawrence Wright, "The Counrer-Terrorist," The New Yorker, January 14, 2002, pp. 50-61; Brisard and Dasquié, Ben Laden: La vérité interdite.] August 27, 2001 The CIA sends a cable on a classified government network warning that two "Bin Laden related individuals" have entered the United States. [Khalid Almihdhar came through JFK on July 4; Nawaf Alhazmi flew into Los Angeles International on January 15, 2000. It is believed that they were two of the group who seized control of American Airlines Flight 77 and crashed it into the Pentagon on 9-11. Both men were members of the Egyptian Islamic Jihad; the CIA believes this terrorist group merged with Al Qaeda in June. Neither man was apprehended, and the FBI disputes the "Immediate" label which the CIA claims was affixed to the message. The Los Angeles Times pointed out that a check with the California DMV would have given the several addresses where the two men lived in the San Diego area. On August 27, 2001 Alhazmi used a VISA card in his own name to buy a ticket on the internet for AA #77 on September 11th. He gave an address in Fort Lee, New Jersey. Los Angeles Times, October 18, 2001. ] September 6-10, 2001 Activity on Wall Street: An abnormally high number of "put" options are purchased on stock of United and American airlines. (A put option is a speculation that the stock price will go down.) United Airlines put options were 90 times the normal rate for these days. On September 6th UA put options were 285 times the average. No other airlines experienced abnormal put activity in this period. CBS News, September 26, 2001;www.fromthewilderness.com. Morgan Stanley, the brokerage firm occupying some of the top floors of the north tower of the World Trade Center, and another WTC occupant, Merrill Lynch, also experience abnormally large put option purchases. [Some of the United puts were purchased through Deutschebank/AB Brown, a firm formerly managed by the executive director of the CIA, A.B. "Buzzy" Krongard. New York Times, September 21, 2001. Who were these buyers, what did they know, and HOW did they know? Why has there been no investigation? ] September 7, 2001 Florida Governor Jeb Bush signs an executive order that empowers his National Guard to assist police and emergency-management teams in the event of acts of terrorism, civil disturbances, or natural disasters. (Interesting timing.) September 11, 2001 "The Day that Everything Changed" (?): Around midnight (EST, but mid-morning in Afghanistan): A delegation arrives in Kabul from the People's Republic of China to sign a contract to provide the Taliban with the latest electronic defense equipment, including advance warning systems and missile tracking devices. Gordon Thomas, Seeds of Fire: China and the Story behind the Attack on Americ (2001), p. 491. Between 7:59 AM and 8:14 AM (EST) four planes take off from Boston's Logan Airport, Newark and Dulles headed for destinations in California. Shortly after takeoff the planes are diverted from their proper paths. 8:20 AM: Air traffic controllers become aware that AA 11, Boston to Los Angeles, has been hijacked. The airplane was headed back east, the transponder had been turned off, and the pilot had been able to push a button so the controller could hear the hijackers barking orders. New York Times, September 13, 2001. 8:38 AM: The Boston air traffic controllers notify NORAD that American Airlines Flight # 11 has been hijacked. [Standard Operating Procedure dictates that fighter jets be scrambled immediately to intercept any hijacked plane, indeed any plane that has deviated from its flight plan, as in the case of the doomed plane of golfer Payne Stewart in 1999. As of May 11, there has been no explanation why SOP was not followed on September 11.] 8:45 AM: American Airlines Flight 11, Boston-Los Angeles, crashes into the north tower of the World Trade Center in lower Manhattan and explodes. There is a gigantic hole at the level of the 80th floor of the 110-story tower. 9:03 AM: United Airlines Flight 175, Boston-Los Angeles, crashes into the south tower of the World Trade Center at about the 60th floor. 9:06 AM: New York police broadcast: "This was a terrorist attack. Notify the Pentagon." New York Daily News, September 12, 2001. 9:25 AM: The Federal Aviation Administration orders all planes grounded immediately. No further takeoffs will be allowed until noon the next day. [There was one interesting exception. Prince Bandar Bin-Sultan, the ambassador of Saudi Arabia to the United States, was allowed to use his private jet to take twenty-four members of the bin Laden family residing in the US back to Arabia. The FBI provided their escort to Logan Airport with no questions asked, no interrogation. And in the days following, Saudi Arabia would neither supply any information on the fifteen of its citizens believed to be among the nineteen alleged hijackers nor close down the bin Laden charities suspected of funding Al Qaeda. The prince (on Larry King's program, October 1st) described one of his benefactees who suddenly understood the injustice done to the Japanese-Americans in 1942. The privileged young man said, "I'm a rich man, I'm in Harvard, and I have to leave my school, not because I was guilty, but because the emotions are high." Could the ambassador possibly have been unaware of the arrogance involved in this anecdote? Christopher Hitchens, The Nation, January 21, 2002.] 9:31 AM: Resident Bush describes the crashes as an "apparent terrorism attack" in a brief television appearance from Florida. [He had been reading a story about a goat in a photo-op with young children in a Sarasota school. When notified of the second crash, he tucked the note in his pocket and continued with the story. After his brief remarks on TV, he flew to Barksdale Air Force Base in Louisiana. He had learned of the first crash while driving to Emma Booker School in his limo. Several months later he twice told reporters how shocked he was when he saw the first crash on TV while en route to the school. This is odd, since no commercial TV cameras were trained on the World Trade Center at the time of the first crash.] 9:33 AM: The air traffic controller at Dulles notifies Reagan National Airport and the Secret Service that a "fast-moving primary target" (an airplane without a transponder) is headed east toward the forbidden airspace over the White House and the Capitol. Shortly thereafter the White House, the Pentagon and the Capitol are evacuated. Vice President Cheney is hustled into an underground bunker at the White House along with other key officials. 9:40 AM: American Airlines Flight 77, Dulles-Los Angeles, crashes into the west side of the Pentagon. After this third crash F-16s are ordered to scramble from Langley Air Force Base in Hampton, Virginia, 130 miles from Washington. [This according to the testimony of General Richard B. Myers (Acting Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff) before the Armed Services Committee on September 13th. Vice President Cheney made a similar assertion to Tim Russert on NBC's "Meet the Press" on the 16th. However, the official story changed a few days later after there were questions about why fighter jets had not been scrambled much sooner to intercept the hijacked planes--- if not immediately after 8:20 AM. The public was then told by CBS News that jets from Otis Air Base on Cape Cod, Massachusetts had indeed been scrambled at 8:52 AM , but had arrived at the World Trade Center too late to do anything but view the disaster. Marine Major Mike Snyder, spokesperson for NORAD, declined to comment on the news report, but stated categorically that no planes had become airborne until after the crash at the Pentagon. Glen Johnson, "Otis Fighter Jets Scrambled Too Late to Halt the Attacks," Boston Globe, September 15, 2001.] 10:00 AM: The south tower implodes and collapses within seconds into a cloud of dust. The spectacle resembles the controlled demolitions of obsolete buildings that have been shown on TV for years.. 10:10 AM:
United Airlines Flight 93, Newark-San Francisco, crashes southeast
of Pittsburgh. Either the passengers had been alerted by cell phone
to the previous crashes and were able to overcome the hijackers
and crash the plane short of its possible destination of Washington
(the fashionable explanation) or the plane was shot down by a US
fighter jet. 10:28 AM: The north tower implodes and collapses similarly to the south tower. 12:39 PM: Bush, speaking from Louisiana, pledges to hunt down the evil ones and punish those reponsible. He leaves for Orfutt Air Force Base in Nebraska. Mayor Rudy Guiliani has taken charge in New York and Vice President Cheney is running the show from the bunker in Washington. 7:00 PM: Bush returns to the White House. [Many people in the US spent the day tethered to their TVs in a state of shock and millions more watched worldwide as the horrors escalated. Speculation was immediate by the administration, the TV networks and the public that this was the work of Osama bin Laden and his Al Qaeda network. By afternoon airport security photos were aired of two of the suspected hijackers as they passed the security camera at Logan. First estimates were that the death toll would be 6000-7000 people, but due to the space of time before the collapse of the towers, the final number of 3128 (including crews and passengers and deaths at the Pentagon and New York) was mercifully lower. A significant proportion of the deaths were the gallant police and firefighters who strove to rescue people at the World Trade Center. The damage was estimated at $15 billion plus another $1 billion to clean up the flaming debris, heaped seven stories high. It was believed that it would require 12-18 months to clean up the rubble, shore up the wall against the Hudson River, restore the underground utilities and repair the damaged subway station. Los Angeles Times, September 12, 2001; New York Times, October 16, 2001.] [For an exquisitely-detailed timeline, see Paul Thompson's The Complete 9/11 Timeline --- caution: multi megabytes--- at www.unansweredquestions.org/timeline/.] [In the following week the FBI announced the identities of 19 men believed to be the suicide bombers, and soon there were photos to go with the names. Details began to emerge of their lives in Germany, Britain and the United States prior to 9-11, their training in Al Qaeda camps, their behavior at the flight schools they attended in the US, and some nightclubbing inconsistent with the moral strictures of fundamentalist Muslims. (For their names and pictures, see http://boston.com/news/packages/underattack/news/hijackers_list.htm.) On September 23rd Secretary of State Colin Powell announced (on a Sunday talk show) that a "white paper" was forthcoming that would detail all the information on Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda and prove to the world that they were responsible for the attcks on the 11th. However, this paper has never been released to the public and of all the governments to whom it has been shown, only that of the compliant Tony Blair has found the contents convincing. Seymour Hersh, "Mixed Messages," The New Yorker, June 3, 2002. Also there came reports of warnings that had been given to the US government by foreign intelligence services:
After every major catastrophe in the United States there has been some blue-ribbon commission to investigate the incident. Pearl Harbor, for instance, was investigated even as a major war was going on. (And by the order of the president, FDR.) But as of this date--- May 11, 2001, eight months after 9-11--- there has been no such commission established, and Bush, Cheney and others have pressured the Senate Intelligence Committee and Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle to have "no investigation," not even of the obvious intelligence failure. This has only given fuel to concerned citizens and conspiracy theorists who fall roughly into four groups: Level One: Those who ask, what happened to our vaunted intelligence community which receives $30 billion+ yearly? Why couldn't they connect the dots between the foreign intelligence warnings, the Phoenix FBI agent's observations, and the frantic fears of the people in Minneapolis after Moussaoui's apprehension? Didn't they remember the Bojinka Plot that was so closely aborted in Manila in 1995? Or the 1994 terrorist threat to fly a plane into the Eiffel Tower in Paris? Are there no Tom Clancy fans in the CIA? (His 1994 thriller, Debt of Honor, featured a plane slamming into the Capitol and killing nearly a thousand people.) Or the warning and unusual precautions for the G-8 meeting in Genoa in July? Was it turf warfare between the FBI and the CIA that was responsible? Why has there been no investigation of the pre 9-11 activity in certain stocks that implies either insider trader knowledge or marvelous intuition? And why, oh why did it take so long to get those F-16s in the air when the FAA knew almost immediately that four planes had been hijacked? Don't any of these agencies communicate with one another? Level Two: Those who believe that the dots must have been connected, and the administration was warned, but--- Bush's poll ratings were slipping and the stock market was taking a nosedive, so "they" decided to let it happen and so have a cause around which to rally the public, and a good excuse to bomb Afghanistan and establish US primacy in Central Asia. Michael Ruppert at www.copvcia.com. Nico Haupt has a 91-page discussion of 20 suspects for "they" in They Let It Happen On Purpose at www.scoop.co.nz/mason/stories/HL0208/S00068.htm. Level Three: Those theorists who claim that the unnamed "they" not only connected the dots but decided to help it along. Explosives were planted at strategic places to insure the collapse of the twin towers. This theory claims it requires 550 degrees C (1022 F) to "melt steel" yet aviation fuel burns at a maximum of 360 degrees C (680 F.) A variation of this theory says that there were no suicide bombers; control of the planes was seized by the mysterious "they" using technology that has been developed to regain control from the ground of airplanes that have been hijacked and then fly the planes by remote control. This is the technology that was used in Global Hawk that flew across the Pacific unmanned in April, 2001. Carol Valentine, "Operation 911:No Suicide Pilots", http://serendipity.magnet.ch/wot/valentine.htm Level Four: Piggybacking on Level Three, there is a more complicated thesis in which three drone planes (no pilots, no passengers) hit the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Soon after takeoff the pilots of the four planes headed for California are notified by radio that the United States is under attack and they must turn off their transponders and head for a certain northeastern air force base. There the passengers and crew of flights 77, 11 and 175 (or at least the people who are not in on the game) are loaded onto UA Flight 93 ostensibly to return to Washington. (All four flights were carrying far fewer passengers than usual, so one plane could theoretically have accommodated all of them.) Over Pennsylvania that plane is either shot down by an Air Force F-16 or explosives loaded aboard at the air force base are detonated. Meanwhile the three drone planes have taken on the function of the three commercial flights and hit their targets. In this scenario Mohammed Atta and the other Arabs had boarded flights in Boston, Dulles and Newark as directed by their CIA handlers. They would later be labeled "the hijackers." This theory, of course, is contradicted by the cell phone calls made by passengers on the doomed flights describing the hijackings.http://serendipity.magnet.ch/wtc.html. Until we have an independent and impartial investigation of all the facets of 9-11, there will be more and more converts to these theories. If the Bush people are innocent of a "Level Two" conspiracy (which I would like to believe), it would be in their best interests to order rather than discourage a full-scale investigation.
September 14, 2001 Someone Knew Something: Officials at a Canadian jail open a sealed envelope which had been handed to them on August 11th or 12th by inmate Delmart "Mike " Vreeland. The envelope contains one sheet of paper with a list of targets that includes the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, the White House, "water supplies," the Sears Tower in Chicago, the Royal Bank in Toronto, the Canadian Parliament in Ottawa plus the ominous notation, "Let one happen. Stop the rest!!!" [Vreeland had attempted to warn his jailers verbally that attacks were coming against Canadian and America landmarks such as the World Trade Center. He had been arrested in December 2000 upon entry to Canada from Moscow upon request of the US government which declared that he was wanted in Michigan for credit card fraud (using his own credit card.) Vreeland, however, identified himself as a lieutenant in the US Navy assigned to the Office of Naval Intelligence. He claimed that he had been sent to Moscow to obtain Russian military plans to counter the US proposed "Star Wars" missile defense system. (Mike Ruppert believes that this is a cover story for his real mission to uncover US navy personnel drug smuggling.) The US denied all of this and said their only record of him is that of a seaman busted in 1986 after a few months of "unsatisfactory performance." Yet Vreeland's highly redacted military record came to 1200 pages. A phone call to the Pentagon made in open court produced the office number and direct-dial number of Lt. Delmart Vreeland and confirmed his rank as a Lieutenant O-3. Vreeland resisted extradition,
fearing assassination should he be returned to the United States,
and asked for refugee status. This was granted on a temporary basis
and he is living, at this writing on May 7, in a safe-house in Canada.
His attorneys, former Canadian prosecutors Rocco Galati and Paul
Slansky, have been harassed (dead cats, broken car windows, etc.)
and have received death threats. Some journalists have maintained
that Vreeland actually wrote down the information after September
11th. However, Vreeland was clever enough to use a Pilot pen with
light-blue ink that was not allowed in the jail. He told his jailers
about the pen after he wrote the note, and the pen was confiscated
on August 13th. September 14, 2001 Blowback to Constitutionally-Mandated Separation of Powers: Congress with only one dissenting vote gives the unelected resident of the White House a blank check to "use all necessary and appropriate force against nations, organizations, or persons he (emphasis added) determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored such organizations or persons." Barbara Lee, Democrat of Oakland, California, voted "Nay," saying, "However difficult this vote may be, some of us must urge the use of restraint.... Let us... think through the implications of our actions today so that this does not spiral out of control." September 24, 2001 Blowback on the Freedom to Know: This is the day when the study of the uncounted Florida ballots was scheduled to be released. [The study had been commissioned by a consortium of newspapers--- New York Times, Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, Wall Street Journal, CNN, Palm Beach Post and others---- to the National Opinion Research Center (NORC). The first indication that there would be no release came when NORC eliminated its Florida ballot survey web pages. Most of the media involved, when commenting, attributed the joint decision to a "matter of resources," i.e., the need for personnel to concentrate on reporting the aftermath of the 9-11 disaster. Richard Berke of the New York Times was a bit more disingenuous: “Until September 11th, the capital was riding a historically partisan period, with leading Democrats still portraying their president as 'appointed' by the Supreme Court. In a move that might have stoked the partisan tensions, but now seems utterly irrelevant, a consortium of news organizations, including The New York Times, had been scheduled this week to release the results of its ambitious undertaking to recount the Florida presidential ballots.... ” New York Times, September 23, 2001; Paul Lukasiak, Online Journal, October 6, 2001. However, many Americans do NOT consider this suppression to be irrelevant. See Robert Parry's article " Dissing Democracy" (December 5, 2001) (Previously I had a URL here to NORC's dispatch, but it is no longer available on the web.) September 26, 2001 Blowback on the Freedom to Speak: White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer denounces comments made by Bill Maher on his ABC-TV program "Politically Incorrect." [Maher had disagreed with George W. Bush's calling the 9-11 hijackers "cowards." Maher said, "We have been the cowards, lobbing cruise missiles from 2000 miles away. That's cowardly. Staying in the airplane when it hits the building, say what you want about it, it's not cowardly." Fleischer warns all Americans that they must "watch what they say and watch what they do." (The phrase "watch what they say" was censored out of the official transcript.) Time to dust off that old copy of 1984?] September 30, 2001 Supreme Court Justice Sandra O'Connor in a speech to the NYU School of Law predicts that there will be unprecedented restrictions of democratic rights as a result of the September 11 attacks. "We're likely to experience more restrictions on our personal freedom than has ever been the case in this country. ... [The attacks] will cause us to reexamine some of our laws pertaining to criminal surveillance, wiretapping, immigration and so on." [This open statement of an opinion broke the unwritten rule that Supreme Court justices do not make public comments on issues that are likely to come to the Court. It perhaps gave a signal to the Bush administration that authoritarian measures would be OK. The Court, it must be remembered, has not always been a firm guardian of the Bill of Rights. In the 1925 Gitlow v. New York the court upheld the imprisoning of socialists and anarchists for their political views and in the 1945 Korematsu v. United States, the internment of Japanese-Americans for their ethnicity. O'Connor was one of the five justices who selected the current resident of the White House in the Bush v. Gore decision of December 12, 2000.] October 4, 2001 Anthrax: Canadian researchers send an e-mail to the Center for Disease Control in Atlanta telling them that tests have demonstrated that anthrax spores can leak through envelopes. [Unfortunately, the mail was not read for another ten days. The next day Robert Stevens, a photo editor for the Sun tabloid newspaper, died from inhalation anthrax, the first anthrax inhalation fatality in the US in 25 years. New York Times, December 26, 2001. Shortly after September 11th the Sun's sister tabloid, The Globe (housed in the same facility in Boca Raton, Florida), had run a picture of Osama bin Laden with the headline: WANTED: DEAD OR ALIVE. The word ALIVE had been crossed out. This led to speculation that the perpetrator was from Al Qaeda, since some of the hijackers had lived in nearby communities. Bergen, p. 234.] October 5, 2001 Blowback on the Right of Congress to Know: The White House announces that congressional briefings involving classified information will be restricted to only eight members of Congress. The administration alleges that there have been unauthorized leaks to the media. [Strong criticism from Congress and the public forced the White House to rescind the memo and include all members of the Intelligence Committees in the briefings. In March, 2002 the Reporters Committee for the Freedom of the Press released a 40-page white paper, Homeland Confidential, detailing this and subsequent administration restrictions on the free flow of information to the public. See: www.rcfp.org/news/documents/Homefront_Confidential.pdf.] October 7, 2001 Air Strikes begin on Afghanistan: 31 targets are hit during the night hours by US and British forces targeting "military aircraft, runways, missile launchers and 'terrorist' training camps." A spokesman for the Northern Alliance reports that the Taliban's radar system was "completely destroyed." The Taliban says there are 20 casualties, including women, children and elderly people. The UN World Food program is forced to suspend its food convoys. The ration packs dropped by two US planes as the "humanitarian" part of the mission represent only a minute fraction of that supplied by the convoys. [World Food program officials have said that a quarter of the Afghan population will be dependent on food aid by the end of the year— 5.5 million people. There are only a few weeks left to get food convoys into the remote areas before passage is blocked by the winter snows. The people also need seeds to plant the winter wheat which will feed them next year. Chris Buckley, an aid officer: "The real Afghanistan is one where 85 per cent of the population are subsistence farmers. Most Afghans don't have newspapers, television sets or radios. They will not have heard of the World Trade Centre or the Pentagon, and most will have no idea that a group of zealots has attacked these icons of western civilisation. There isn't even a postal service. Now, in these isolated villages, families are down to their last weeks of food and already men, women and children in the refugee camps are dying of cholera and malnutrition. I have spoken to orphans with swollen bellies. I have spoken to men who have no money to hire trucks to escape the drought and make it to the camps. I have spoken to families who say they will wait in their villages for death.... To punish innocent Afghans would be immoral," Z Magazine, 14 September 2001.] October 8, 2001 Tom Ridge starts his first day at work as head of the Office of Homeland Security, a new advisory position announced by Bush in his address to Congress on September 20. This department will have responsibility for overseeing all aspects of domestic security in response to the September 11 attacks. [A former congressman and two-term governor of Pennsylvania, Ridge won his first term on a get-tough-on-crime platform, using Willie Horton-type ads against his opponent. Once in office, he had many anti-crime bills passed, several of which were declared unconstitutional. He believes all juveniles (and not just alleged murderers) should be tried as adults and do adult time in prison. His state police roughed up death penalty protesters and made pre-emptive strikes against headquarters of the protesters at the Philadelphia Republican Convention in 2000. Civil libertarians, beware! ] October 9, 2001 The Times of India reveals that Lt. General Mahmud Ahmed was recently fired as head of Pakistan's ISI because of evidence provided by India of his links to Mohammed Atta, one of the alleged suicide bombers of the World Trade Center on September 11th. [At the general's instance Ahmad Umar Sheikh had wired $100,000 to Atta. Sheikh was one of the three militants who hijacked an Indian Airlines plane in 1999. They were allowed to go free in exchange for the safe release of the plane's passengers. James Taranto, Wall Street Journal, October 10, 2001.] October 10, 2001 More Blowback on the Right to Know: The five major US TV networks accede to the "request" of the White House to not air live, unedited tapes of Osama bin Laden or his aides (as they had on October 7 and 9) on the rationale that Al Qaeda might be using the transmissions to send coded messages to terrorist "sleepers." October 12, 2001 Major Blowback on American Civil Liberties: The House passes the anti-terrorism bill (with a cumbersome title that yields the acronym PATRIOT) 339-79 after a five-hour debate. The bill gives unprecedented new powers to the police for eavesdropping on the internet without a court order, indefinite detention of non-citizens, and secret courts for foreign intelligence investigations. [The Senate had passed its version, the United and Strengthening America Act (acronym = USA) the night before with one lone dissenter, Senator Russell Feingold of Wisconsin. As troubling as the act's provisions was the way it was railroaded through the Congress. Congressman Barney Frank (D-MA): "What we have today is an outrageous procedure: A bill, drafted by a handful of people in secret, comes to us without a committee review and immune to amendment." He could have added that the bill was 186 single-spaced pages in length and unavailable in time to be read.] The definition of "terrorism" in the bill is so broad that it could be applied to citizens. For example, those picketing abortion clinics, to Greenpeace activists attempting to block whaling boats, and to dissenters protesting actions of the World Trade Organization. There were three laws already on the books that would have applied to the atrocities of 9-11, so no new law was needed. So let's look at some of the more troubling parts of the bill:
October 12, 2001 Blowback to the Federal Budget: The House Ways and Means Committee approves a bill which, if passed, would double the size of the Bush tax cuts approved in May, would cost the country $212 billion in lost taxes over the next three years, and again grossly favor the wealthy. In this "stimulus" tax bill 41% of the tax cuts would benefit the wealthiest 1%. Only 7% of the cuts would go to the bottom 3/5 of taxpayers. Citizens for Tax Justice, www.ctj.org October 13-14, 2001 Demonstrations are held throughout the world to protest the bombing of Afghanistan: London, 20,000; Berlin, 15,000; India, 100,000; San Francisco, 10,000 plus thousands more in other American cities, Sweden, Nepal, South Korea and Nigeria. The Nation, October 19, 2001. October 15, 2001 Several Islamic groups unite to call a nationwide strike in Pakistan to protest Pakistan's support of the US bombing of Afghanistan. [There have been daily protests, growing in intensity, with violent clashes with the police and numerous deaths. In an effort to shore up his shaky regime General Pervez Musharraf placed the leaders of three of the groups under house arrest and forced the resignation of two of his top generals who were pro-Taliban, transferring a third to a less sensitive command. Ironically, all three generals had supported Musharraf when he overthrew Prime Minister Nawaz Shaif in October 1999.] Vilani Peiris, "Pakistani leader faces an uncertain future as protests continue", wsws.org. October 16, 2001 Red Cross: Bush ends his televised report on the military campaign in Afghanistan by urging America's children to "go out and mow a lawn or do somebody a favor to earn a dollar" which they should send to the White House for the Red Cross fund for Afghanistan's children. At the same time US bombers are making a daytime raid on Kabul. One of their bombs destroys a Red Cross warehouse holding famine relief supplies whose roof was plainly marked with a large red cross. In Pakistan Secretary of State Colin Powell and General Pervez Musharraf hold a press conference in which they announce their agreement to work together for the creation of a "new, broad-based government in Afghanistan" which "could include moderate elements within the Taliban." Two ironies: These are the same guys that the US is currently bombing, and wasn't it George W. Bush who denounced "nation-building" in the 2000 campaign? New York Times, October 17, 2001. October 21, 2001 Smallpox:The World Health Organization warns governments around the world to prepare against a possible terrorist smallpox attack. The USA has already ordered 300 million doses of smallpox vaccine as a result of the anthrax scare in the US. There have been one death, 8 illnesses, and 38 exposures to anthrax caused by mail sent to people in the media and the government in Florida, New York, New Jersey and Washington DC since October 1st. Additionally there have been anthrax exposures in Argentina and Kenya. Anthony Browne, The Observer (UK), October 21, 2001. October 21, 2001 Bob Woodward reports in the Washington Post that Bush II signed an intelligence finding the previous month instructing the CIA to do "whatever is necessary" to eliminate Osama bin Laden and his Al Qaeda network. (So all the talk the previous month on whether or not President Ford's prohibition on assassination of world leaders should be rescinded was just so much rhetoric.) Additionally Woodward describes the "Threat Matrix," a CIA document that arrives every morning on the desks of the top officials in the Bush administration concerned with intelligence and national security. The Threat Matrix contains the raw data on all threats received of bombings, bioterrorism, hijackings, etc. Washington Post, October 21, 2001, p. A01. October 22, 2001 The Times of London reports that the FBI is considering using torture to force suspected members of bin Laden's network to talk. More than 150 of the 800 picked up after September 11 remain in custody and are remaining silent. One of these is Zacarias Moussaoui, the French Moroccan who is suspected of being a hijacker who failed to make it aboard United Flight 93 that crashed in Pennsylvania. Two others whose silence the FBI would especially like to crack are the two Indians who were apprehended on September 12th travelling with false passports, knives and hair dye. There is speculation that the current rather conservative Supreme Court would support the curtailment of civil liberties of prisoners in terrorism cases. Damian Whitworth, The Times (UK), October 2001. November 1, 2001 Blowback on the Right of Posterity to Know: George W. Bush signs Executive Order 13233, altering the 1978 Presidential Records Act in several fundamental and unconscionable ways:
[The current Bush administration
had been stalling on the Reagan presidential records which had been
vetted for national security and were ready for release on the due
date of January 12, 2001. November 9, 2001 Northern Alliance generals capture the key northern city of Mazar-e-Sharif. Nine hundred young Pakistani recruits, left behind when senior Taliban flee, take refuge in a former girls' school. Their garrison is identified by "spotters" (US Special Forces?) and bombers score two hits on the school, killing dozens, and causing the Pakistanis to offer to surrender. After about one hundred had emerged, Northern Alliance soldiers opened fire, summarily executing them as they walked forward with hands raised. Two days later the Alliance set fire to the building to smoke out the remaining Taliban, then shot them as they tried to flee the flames. Of the original 900, only 325 were taken prisoner. After Mazar-e-Sharif the Northern Alliance extended its control of Afghanistan to Taloquan in the north and Herat in the west, or about 50% of the country, with only Kunduz remaining in Taliban hands in the north. (When the bombing started two months before, the Alliance occupied only about 10%.) Much of this was accomplished without a great deal of fighting; US bombers had been pummeling the Taliban for weeks and many Taliban leaders, including the governor of Bamyan province, simply surrendered. World Socialist Web Site, November 15 and 22, 2001.] November 13, 2001
The Taliban suddenly retreat from Kabul to Kandahar,
taking all of the Afghan treasury with them. The Northern Alliance,
which had previously pledged not to enter Kabul until the US and
UN had set up some sort of new interim administration, swarms into
the capital and takes control of the major ministries. Pashtun residents
are afraid that Northern Alliance soldiers will assume they are
Taliban and summarily execute them. November 13, 2001 Major Blow to the Constitution and America's Reputation for Justice: Bush the Unelected issues a Military Order that would allow the government to try persons accused of "terrorism" before special military commissions rather than in civilian courts (as were the terrorists accused of bombing the World Trade Center in 1993 and the two embassies in East Africa in 1998.) These military tribunals may "sit at any time and any place"— Afghanistan, continental United States, Guantánamo Bay, etc. Articles III, V and VI of the Constitution are trashed by the following provisions:
The administration attempts to justify this outrageous order by invoking Ex Parte Quirin, the 1942 Supreme Court decision that declared that the secret military trial of the eight German saboteurs inside FBI headquarters was justified because FDR was commander in chief of a nation at war and the accused had been sufficiently charged with unlawful belligerency according to the international common law of war. The comparison with this shameful decision is not valid because now there has been no congressional declaration of war, and Quirin confirms that only Congress has the right to set up such tribunals, either specifically or by delegating such power to the President in the declaration of war. [The saboteurs had been tried secretly to cover up the bungling by the FBI. One of the would-be saboteurs called the FBI immediately upon landing on Long Island. The FBI dismissed the call as a hoax. Only when the caller, George Dasch, went to FBI headquarters in Washington and showed them the contents of his briefcase (including $80,000) was he believed and the other saboteurs found and arrested. J. Edgar Hoover got great publicity and the Medal of Honor for his "speedy capture" of the saboteurs, all of whom initially got the death sentence. When FDR found out that Hoover had lied to him, the sentences of Dasch and Burger (who also tried to sabotage the mission) were commuted to 30 years and life. The other six were immediately executed. Dasch and Burger were paroled to the American sector of Germany in 1948.] A more relevant precedent would be Ex Parte Milligan, the 1866 Supreme Court decision which decided unanimously that the military court which tried Milligan and two others (for conspiracy to seize munitions at federal arsenals and release Confederate prisoners) did not have jurisdiction and the prisoners must be released. Neither Congress nor the president may authorize the trial of civilians by a military commission when civil courts are available. As none other than our current Chief Justice William Rehnquist wrote, "The Milligan decision is justly celebrated for its rejection of the government's position that the Bill of Rights has no application in wartime." Quoted by Neal Katyal in testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee, November 28, 2001. [Bush said the trials would be "fair" and his administration spokespeople tried to imply that these tribunals would be similar to US military courts-martial. Alberto Gonzales, the White House counsel, wrote in a New York Times op-ed (November 30, 2001), defending the military commissions, "The American military justice system is the finest in the world." And perhaps it is, with these provisons that the proposed military tribunals lack:
Criticism from overseas was immediate, with comparisons being made to Stalinist trials, and the trial and conviction in Peru of US citizen Lori Berenson. Spain, where eight men suspected of complicity in the 9-11 attacks had been apprehended, indicated that they would not turn them over to the US for trial in such Star Chamber proceedings. In the United States the leading constitutional scholars testified against the proposals in hearings before the Senate Judiciary Committtee, and conservative columnists such as William Safire voiced disapproval. However, fellow Democratic representatives persuaded Dennis Kucinich of Ohio to withdraw his amendment to the Defense Appropriation bill that would have withheld funding for military tribunals."Hearings Reflect Some Unease with Ashcroft's Legal Approach," Washington Post, December 2, 2001.] November 25, 2001 Northern Alliance troops enter Kunduz after six days of heavy pounding of this city of 100,000 by American B-52s. The figures vary as to the number of Taliban who surrender--- 3300, 4000, 5000, or 6000. Some are taken away in trucks with their arms tied behind their backs with odd pieces of cloth. Some of the wounded are executed and left on empty stalls in the market place. [General Mohammed Daoud estimated that between 10,000 and 20,000 Taliban had taken refuge there after the other cities of northern Afghanistan fell to the Northern Alliance. The surrounded Taliban attempted to negotiate a surrender to "anyone but the Northern Alliance," a move that was forcefully prevented by the Bush administration. Defense Secretary Rumsfeld said he wanted them to "be killed or taken prisoner." Daoud was willing to grant amnesty to the Afghan fighters only. A few Taliban shaved their beards and slipped out of the city with the fleeing civilians; many must have died in the bombing. Secret airlifts on the three nights before the 25th rescued between 4000 and 5000 thousand men who were Pakistani military advisors (including two generals), Pakistani citizens who had volunteered to fight the Northern Alliance after the US bombing began, and non-Pakistani Taliban and Al Qaeda. Pakistani President Musharraf got the green light from the US for the airlift (and a special airlift safety corridor) after he explained that his regime might not survive the humiliation of the loss of so many citizens and key military. Indian intelligence "knew within minutes" of the airlifts, but the government did not denounce the action until after the December 13th attack on the Parliament. Protest notes sent to the US and UK have gone unanswered. The Indians have cause for alarm, for as one intelligence official told Seymour Hersh, "Musharraf can't afford to keep the Taliban in Pakistan. They're dangerous to his own regime. Our reading is that the fighters can go only to Kashmir." Seymour M. Hersh, "The Getaway," New Yorker, January 28, 2002, pp. 36-40; Rory McCarthy, "Alliance accused of brutality in capture of Kunduz," The Guardian (UK), November 27, 2001; Don Dahler, ABCNews.com, November 19, 2001; Peter Symonds, "US sets stage for a massacre in Kunduz", wsws.org, November 22, 2001; December 2, 2001 The highly-touted energy conglomerate, ENRON, the seventh largest corporation in the United States, files for bankruptcy. December 2, 2001 Next Country: Iraq? Britain's Observer breaks a story indicating the US military and CIA have drawn up plans for a military operation against Iraq's Saddam Hussein that could "begin within months" despite opposition from European Union leaders and that usually stalwart ally of the US, Tony Blair. The plan calls for the standard US bombing of key military installations combined with aid to Iraqi opposition groups. Playing the role assigned to the Northern Alliance in the war with Afghanistan will be Kurds in the North, Sunni extremists around Baghdad, and Shi'ites in the South. "Significant numbers" of US ground troops will probably be required in the early stages to guard the oil fields around Basra. Since no evidence has been found conclusively linking Iraq to 9-11, it is believed the US will use the excuse of Iraq's anticipated refusal to allow inspection for weapons of mass destruction. The major proponents of the plan are said to be Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, former CIA Director James Woolsey, General Tommy Franks of the US Central Command, and Charirman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Richard Myers. Peter Beaumont, Ed Vuillamy and Paul Beaver, The Observer, December 2, 2001. December 5, 2001 The Bonn Agreement: The UN Conference on Afghanistan (the 6 Plus 2 Group) concludes its nine days of haggling in a Bonn, Germany hotel. They announce an "interim government" that will attempt to govern Afganistan for six months beginning December 22. Its head will be Hamid Karzai, the head of the Pashtun Popolzai clan who is currently in Kandahar negotiating the surrender of the Taliban forces there. The key ministries of defense, interior and foreign affairs are given to leaders of the Northern Alliance who will have 17 of the 30 ministerial posts. The "Rome faction," those supporting the 87-year-old ex-king, receive nine posts including that of Karzai. The remaining four go to the Pakistani-supported "Peshawar group" and the Iranian-supported "Cyprus group." Neither ex-President Rabbani nor the powerful Uzbek warlord Abdul Rashid Dostum gets a job. In June there will be a loya jirga, presided over by King Zahir Shah, which will select another government to serve for two years. Meanwhile the Loya Jirga Commission (composed of 21 prominent Afghans selected by the UN) will be laying down the procedures for choosing the 800-1000 delegates to the loya jirga which Peter Symonds aptly describes as "a cynical piece of political theatre designed to give a democratic gloss to a regime that has no power to make even relatively minor decisions." "UN unveils a quasi-colonial regime for Afghanistan," wsws.org, December 8, 2001; www.eurasianet.org/loya.jirga/commission.shtml. December 10, 2001 Civilian Victims of US Bombs in Afghanistan: Professor Marc Herold of the University of New Hampshire releases his comprehensive accounting of the civilian deaths caused by US bombing from October 7th to December 6th. The number: 3,767, an average of 62 killed per day. [Herold compiled his figures from such sources as the BBC, Indian and Pakistani newspapers, and British and Canadian newspapers. In several cases he demonstrated that the Pentagon was just plain lying when they claimed "no civilian casualties." His total-to-date is more than died in all four plane crashes on September 11th (3128), and on a population scale is the equivalent of 38,000 US civilians. The number does not include the number who have died (and will die) from starvation as the result of the international food distribution trucks barred from entering the country by the US. Nor those who will die or be maimed from the 5000 unexploded cluster bombs. Nor those deaths incurred since December 6th. www.cursor.org/stories/civilian_deaths.htm] December 22, 2001 Hamid Karzai, resplendent in his trademark green-and-blue cloak, and his government are sworn in at a rather subdued ceremony in Kabul. [Two days before the US had bombed a convoy of vehicles in Paktia province. Among the dead were 15 tribal elders en route to Kabul to witness the inauguration of the new government. The US insisted that no mistake had been made, that the vehicles contained "Taliban leaders." Paktia tribal leader Munib and others accused rival warlord Pacha Khan Zadran of providing false intelligence to the US military. Pacha Khan denied having given such information at the same time denouncing the slain as Al Qaeda members. The New York Times noted that the "convoy that came under American attack may have contained some former Taliban members, but it was clearly welcome in Kabul." Peter Symonds, "Open-ended US bombing campaign results in further Afghan casualties," wsws.org, January 4, 2002; Amy Waldman, "Fluid Loyalties are Laid Bare by a U.S. Raid," New York Times, December 28, 2001.] December 22, 2001 Averted Suicide Bomber on Paris-Miami Flight: An alert flight attendant on American Airlines Flight 63 observes a rather scruffy-looking passenger attempting to light a match to the sole of his shoe soon after takeoff. It takes two crew members and several passengers to subdue the man and tie him to his seat. The plane is diverted to Boston, the nearest airfield, where British national, Richard Reid, is arrested. [His black basketball shoes contained about nine ounces of two explosives, TATP and PETN, a mixture similar to one devised by Ramzi Yousef, who had planned a series of simultaneous airplane explosions in the mid-1990s. For those who thought Reid "stupid" not to attempt to ignite the shoes in the washroom, he was seated in the ideal place described by Yousef--- a window seat above the Boeing's central fuel tank and adjacent to the wing. (The bomb was not big enough to destroy the jet, but big enough to detonate the fuel. The resulting fire would bring the plane down.) Reeve, The New Jackals, pp. 85-86. The "shoe bomber," as he was soon called, was found to be a petty British criminal who converted to Islam in prison and, after his release, fell in with extremists and attended a terrorist training camp in Afghanistan. He and Zacarias Moussaoui, the alleged "20th suicide bomber" of 9-11, worshipped at the same mosque in Brixton in the same time period. DEBKAfile hypothesizes that Reid is possibly Shoe Bomber #2, the first shoe-bomber having brought down American Airlines 587, the flight from JFK to Santo Domingo that crashed mysteriously minutes after takeoff on November 12th, killing 255 passengers and crew and five people on the ground in Rockaway Beach. The analysts believe that a shoe bomber explosion could have caused the very unusual disaster---- the clean break of the vertical stabilizer from the fuselage and the engines separating from the plane and landing 800 feet from the crash site. Simon Reeve, San Francisco Chronicle, January 6, 2002; World-Net-Daily, January 17, 2002.] December 25, 2001 Next Country: Somalia? One of the films opening Christmas Day (in Los Angeles and New York) is Ridley Scott's Black Hawk Down. Based on Mark Bowden's prize-winning series in the Philadelphia Inquirer about the 1993 episode in Somalia, the film is blatantly racist and pro-war and attempts to arouse sentiments for revenge. [Since September 11 Somalia has been one of the several countries frequently mentioned as next on the list in the "war on terrorism" despite the fact that the country has not been implicated in the 9-11 attacks. In November the US government closed down the Somali-owned Al-Bakarat money transfer company which is the only way Somalis in the US can send remittances to their families in Somalia. (About 80% of the country rely on these funds for survival.) The Somalia Internet Company was also closed and international telephone communication severely restricted, isolating the country. In December a group of US officials visited aides to opposition warlords in southern Somalia for talks about the war on terrorism, thus accelerating fears that these warlords, having watched the Northern Alliance regain power in Afghanistan with the help of US bombing missions, might ask for a sequel in Somalia. President Abdiqassim Salad Hassan told Reuters that fears of such US military strikes were interfering with his efforts to unite the country: "People are terrorized by this campaign of propaganda against Somalia....For their own interest, they [the warlords] want to see America involved in Somalia, Somalia bombed, and then to take over power like the Northern Alliance did in Afghanistan. But Somalia is not Afghanistan. The transitional national government is not Taliban. I am not Mullah Mohammed Omar." Black Hawk Down was privately screened for top White House officials who were allowed to make changes in the film before its release. (Bowden told the New York Post that he was pressured by the Army to change the name of the Ewan McGregor character from the heroic Army Ranger John "Stebby" Stebbins to "John Grimes." Stebbins was court-martialed on June 8, 2000 for sexually abusing a child under the age of 12 and sentenced to 30 years in the Leavenworth, Kansas military prison.) New York Times, January 11, 2002; www.eonline.com/News/Items/0,1,9281,00.html ] December 27, 2001 Stealth Attack on Labor: With Bush 43 still at his Texas ranch, the White House announces the suspension of the Clintonian regulations that would have prevented the awarding of federal contracts to companies that operate unhealthy or unsafe work sites. (A congressional report had shown that in one recent year the federal government had given out contracts worth $38 billion to over 250 companies that repeatedly violated environmental and workplace standards.) David Broder, "Pursuit of a Partisan Agenda," Washington Post, January 7-13, 2002. However, as Michael Moore has pointed out, this regulation was one of two dozen environmentally progressive measures that Clinton rather cynically issued in the last days of his presidency. Moore, Stupid White Men... and Other Sorry Excuses for the State of the Nation, pp. 216-221. December 28, 2001 Blowback on the Right of Congress to be Informed: Bush signs the inteligence authorization act for fiscal year 2002 which includes an amendment that reports to Congress should "always be in written form." He announces that such written notice could "impair foreign relations" and national security and, therefore, by his presidential authority his administration may frequently ignore the ruling. December 31, 2001 Oil: Dr. Zalmay Khalilzad is named by Bush to be the US special envoy to the interim government of Afghanistan. He will also continue in his present position as the Special Assistant for Southeast Asia, Near East and North Africa on the Security Council. [Khalilzad was the Unocal advisor who drew up the risk analysis for the proposed pipeline from Turkmenistan across Afghanistan and Pakistan to the Indian Ocean. He participated in the negotiations between Unocal and the Taliban in 1997 and lobbied for a more sympathetic governmental policy toward the Taliban. He headed the Bush-Cheney transition team for the Department of Defense, yet did not secure a subcabinet position for himself. (Possibly his affiliation with Unocal and his support for the Taliban would have made confirmation difficult?) Instead he was named to the National Security Council where no confirmation vote was needed. He was born in Afghanistan in 1951 to an elite family. (His father was an aide to King Zahir Shah.) When the Soviets invaded Afghanistan in 1979, Khalilzad was a graduate student at the University of Chicago. He became an American citizen and was a special advisor to the Reagan administration where he lobbied for more muntions for the mujaheddin, including the Stinger anti-aircraft missiles. With Khalilzad in Kabul, maybe it's time to start a betting pool: How many weeks (or months) until the Karzai government awards a contract to Unocal for its pipeline?] www.truthout.com/01.14A.Zalmay.Oil.p.htm; wsws.org, January 3, 2002. January 10, 2002 Attorney General John Ashcroft recuses himself from the criminal investigation that has been launched against the failed ENRON corporation and its accounting firm, Arthur Andersen. Andersen reveals that its employees have destroyed and deleted a "significant" number of documents pertaining to ENRON, even after those documents were subpoenaed. [Ashcroft reportedly received "up to $60,000" from Enron executives for his 2000 senatorial campaign (which was won by Mel Carnahan who died before the election.) In addition to the criminal investigation several civil suits have been filed against 29 officials of Enron (whose logo looks increasingly like a "W" in free fall.) They have been charged with selling their company shares while urging employees to buy and locking up the shares in their retirement funds. Independent (UK), January 11, 2002.] January 11, 2002 Stealth Appointments: Bush used his constitutional right to make two "recess appointments" of candidates who would have failed to get Senate approval. Otto J. Reich, named as assistant secretary of state for Western Hemisphere affairs, is a retread from the Reagan administration where he ran the covert program to garner support for the Nicaraguan contras. During the Iran-Contra investigation a government committee ruled that his activities constituted unlawful domestic propaganda. A native of Cuba, he is vehemently anti-Castro. The second stealth appointee is Eugene Scalia to be solicitor for the Department of Labor. John J. Sweeney, president of the AFl-CIO, called this appointment "a slap in the face of American workers." Scalia, who will now be the overseer of major laws affecting workers' compensation, and safety and health in the workplace, has a history of opposition to several initiatives for worker protection, including the Clintonian regulation on ergonomics which Scalia derided as "junk science" and Bush repealed in March. Scalia is also the son of Antonin Scalia, the leader of the Felonious Five who made Bush # 43. New York Times, January 11, 2002. January 11, 2002 Taliban and Al Qaeda Captives Arrive in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba: The first 20 "detainees" arrive in Cuba from Kandahar Airport in Afghanistan. They have been shaved, hooded, shackled, manacled, chained to their seats and, in a few cases, sedated for the 27-hour flight. They are guarded by 40 MPs armed with stun guns. Air Force General Richard Myers explains the extreme precautions: "These are people that would gnaw through hydraulic lines in the back of a C-17 to bring it down." Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld describes the detainees as "illegal combatants" and not prisoners of war and, therefore, the US is not bound by the Geneva Conventions for the treatment of POWs. However, he says, they will be treated "fairly." This fair treatment includes housing in separate 6 x 8 outdoor cages made of concrete and chain-link fencing with metal roofs located in a newly-constructed, super-safe area of the American naval base. The cages are open to the elements on all sides (for constant supervision, supposedly) so the prisoners have no privacy for either dressing or relieving themselves. (Some of their guards are women which should certainly offend their extremist Muslim sensibilities.) Their accomodations include a mattress, a Koran, two towels (one for use as a prayer rug) and "culturally appropriate" food. None has been charged with a crime; they will all be subject to interrogations in hopes of learning more about future Al Qaeda plans. Their "Camp X-Ray" will ultimately house several thousand prisoners. It is conjectured that Guantánamo was chosen as a location not only because of its security but also because it is not US soil and there are no federal courts to which the government might be pressured to take the prisoners. Los Angeles Times, Independent (UK), January 11, 2002; World Socialist Web Site, January 14, 2002. January 22, 2002 The International Conference on Reconstruction Aid for Afghanistan closes its meeting in Tokyo with a paltry $4.5 billion in grants and loans pledged by the richest nations of the planet— only $1.8 billion this year with the remaining $2.7 billion given in dribbles by 2006. The United States, which has just spent $4.5 billion bombing the country and whose almost-elected president is asking for an additional $48 billion for the Pentagon, pledges an unconscionably measly $296 million (not billion) for this year with no commitment for future years. [The UN had estimated that the bankrupt government needs $1.3 billion in immediate financing and $15 billion over the next decade. The whole country needs rebuilding— roads, electricity plants, communication systems, schools, hospitals, clean water systems, extensive de-mining, etc. Seven million people are dependent on international food aid; there are five million Afghan refugees waiting to be reabsorbed into the country. Yet the international community has demanded that much of this aid be spent on a new army and a police force. (Need to make the country secure for that new pipeline from Turkmenistan.) The Karzai government was forced to "assume responsibility for the foreign debt incurred by all previous governments"—$5.5 billion, which means that Afghanistan must pay out $100 million in interest each year. As well as subscribing to World Bank strictures and buying goods from the donor nations. Oh, and also about one-fourth of this munificent $4.5 billion is in the form of non-interest loans which must be repaid and— no more poppy-growing, the main source of income for the peasant farmers. All in all, a splendid prescription for failure. World Socialist Web Site, January 28, 2002.] January 23, 2002 Blowback to Guantánamo Bay: A reporter for the Wall Street Journal, Daniel Pearl, is kidnapped in Pakistan. [He was researching a story on Richard Reid, the "shoe bomber," and fell into the trap of an offer to meet with a potential source. On the 27th e-mails were sent to the Los Angeles Times and several other newspapers from the hitherto unknown group, the National Movement for the Restoration of Pakistani Sovereignty. Photos were enclosed of Pearl with his chained hands holding a current copy of Dawn and a pistol pointed at his head. The e-mail described Pearl as a CIA spy and said they would hold him until the Pakistani captives being held in Cuba were released. The conditions of his detention would be "inhumane" to match those in Cuba. A further communication on the 30th said that investigation had demonstrated that Daniel Pearl was not CIA but was working for Mossad. The US has 24 hours in which to release the Pakistanis or they will kill Pearl. They further warn that other American journalists have three days in which to leave Pakistan; after that time they, too, will be kidnapped. Los Angeles Times, January 28, 2002.] January 24, 2002 Targeted Killing in Lebanon: Less than two days after he agreed to give evidence in a Belgian court against Ariel Sharon, Elie Hobeika and his three bodyguards are killed in a Christian suburb of Beirut as their Range Rover passes by a Mercedes loaded with 100 kilos of explosive materials. It is a complicated assassination with at least four men involved: one to signal that Hobeika has left his house only 100 meters away, one to guard the car bomb, and two to discern the line of sight and push the detonator. It is widely believed in Lebanon that Israel is responsible, as neither the Syrians nor the Hizbollah would have been able to operate in this very Christian area. [Some Palestinian survivors of the 1982 Sabra-Shatilla massacre filed suit in Belgium against Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, charging him with crimes against humanity. Sharon was defense minister at that time and the Israeli Kahan Commission found him to be "personally responsible" for the massacre which was perpetrated by the right-wing Lebanese Christian militia allegedly at Sharon's urging.The leader of the Phalange was Elie Hobeika who has claimed that he was innocent of the atrocities. Independent (UK), January 24 and 25, 2002. However, on February 14, the International Court of Justice in The Hague ruled that diplomatic immunity prevents past and present government officials from being tried for war crimes outside their own country, thus potentially putting the kibosh on the Belgian case. (This as Milosevic was being tried just down the street!) The Belgian court, however, merely postponed indicting Sharon. Jean Shaoul, "Sharon's war crimes in Lebanon: the record", World Socialist Web Site, February 22, 2002. On March 8 a third potential witness against Sharon was killed. Michael Nassar and his wife were gunned down in a petrol station in the suburbs of Sao Paulo shortly after Nassar phoned a friend to say they were being followed by men in a car. Nassar, a close associate of Hobeika, had made a fortune selling former Phalangist weapons to the Croatians. He absconded from Lebanon in 1997 when pressed by the court to explain the source of his wealth. The first of Hobeika's colleagues to die after the suit was filed against Sharon was Jean Ghanem, who drove his car into a tree on New Year's Day. Robert Fisk, "Third former militiaman with links to Sabra and Chatila is murdered," Independent (UK), March 11, 2002. January 30, 2002 The G.W. Bush Doctrine and the "Axis of Evil": In his State of the Union message a bellicose Bush extends his "war on terrorism" to include any country that he believes to be acquiring or seeking to acquire weapons of mass destruction that could be used by terrorists. "The United States will not permit the world's most dangerous regimes to threaten us with the world's most destructive weapons….all nations should know: America will do what is necessary to ensure our nation's security." He names in particular North Korea, Iran and Iraq, calling them "an axis of evil, arming to threaten the peace of the world. By seeking weapons of mass destruction, these regimes pose a grave and growing danger." He mentions that his budget "includes the largest increase in defense spending in two decades…. Whatever it costs to defend our country we will pay." [Conspicuously omitted from his speech:
As numerous foreign newspapers pointed out, the three countries singled out have no common agenda and so hardly constitute an "axis" as did Germany, Italy and Japan in the obvious (although later denied) World War II reference. What they do have in common is dismal poverty and a long "unfinished business" status with the hawks of the Republican far right--- North Korea from the Cold War, Iran from the overthrow of the Shah and the American Embassy hostages, Iraq from the failure of Bush's father to capture Baghdad and install an American puppet government there. From the Guardian: "As for the weapons of mass destruction all three of these 'axis' powers seek, dangerous though that quest is, the experts tend to agree that the primary motive is regional (emphasis added) and that an attack on the US (or Israel) would in any case be a suicidal act. Nor could such regimes ever be sure that handing weapons over to terror groups would be untraceable, before or after use. The consequences of discovery would be as lethal as if they had used the weapons themselves." Martin Woolacott, "In a panic, Bush has opted to blame all the old enemies,' Guardian (UK), February 8, 2002. As the Guardian had earlier pointed out: "Every twist in the war on terrorism seems to leave a new Pentagon outpost in the Asia-Pacific region, from the former USSR to the Philippines. One of the lasting consequences of the war could be what amounts to a military encirclement of China." Simon Tisdall, "Republican agenda rules the war on terrorism." Guardian (UK),February 7, 2002. The third leg of Bush's speech was his dire warning, possibly made with the timetable of the November elections in view, that "our war against terror is only beginning. Thousands of dangerous killers,… are now spread throughout the world like ticking time bombs, set to go off without warning…. Tens of thousands of trained terrorists are still at large." Bush made a call for "every American to commit at least two years … to the service of your neighbors and your nation." (Possibly this was a feeler for a re-institution of the draft?) "State of the Union speech: Bush declares war on the world," wsws.org, January 31, 2002; "Bush has earned the praise of America but not the trust of the world," Independent (UK), January 31, 2002.] February 2, 2002 Fascism Revisited: "We need to execute people like John Walker in order to physically intimidate liberals, by making them realize that they can be killed too," says right-wing pundit Ann Coulter, a headline speaker at the five-day Conservative Political Action Conference in Arlington, Virginia. [Other speakers were a roll call of the far right wing of the Republican party: National Security Advisor Condoleeza Rice,Secretary of Health and Human Services Tommy Thompson, Republican National Committee chair Marc Raciot, Under Secretary of State John Bolton, Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris, Senator Jesse Helms (introduced by his hopeful successor, Libby Dole), George Will, Michael Deaver, former Ambassador to the UN Jeane Kirkpatrick, Pat Buchanan, Asa Hutchinson, Congressman Bob Barr (GA), Congressman Dave Weldon (FL), Senator Sam Brownback (KS), Phyllis Schafly, Laura Schlessinger, Oliver North, William Bennett, Edwin Meese, CNN's Bob Novak, ABC's Sam Donaldson, Rev. Lou Sheldon, Alan Keyes, David Horowitz, Senator Mitch McConnell (KY), and Lynne Cheney. Earlier Coulter had given her solution for the current crisis: "We should invade their [Muslim] countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity." Patrick Martin, "Conference of US right-wingers hears call to execute John Walker," World Socialist Web Site, February 27, 2002; cpac.org.] February 22, 2002 The Death of Daniel Pearl: After nearly a month of pleas for the release of Daniel Pearl and mysterious communiques indicating that he might still be alive, the US Consulate in Karachi receives a revolting video which depicts Pearl "confessing"---- "I am a Jew, my mother is a Jew" just before his throat is cut and his body decapitated on camera. [His death probably occurred in late January, about a week after his disappearance. "Worldwide revulsion at murder of American journalist on video," Independent (UK), February 23, 2002. On March 22nd Ahmed Omar Sheikh and three other Muslim militants were charged in a Karachi court with the kidnapping and murder of Pearl. Not only did Sheikh confess to the kidnapping (not under oath) but also notes in his handwriting had been found which matched the content of e-mail messages sent about Pearl. (Seven other suspected accomplices remained at large.) Sheikh was a leader of the Jaish-e-Mohammed (Army of Mohammed), a fundamentalist group that was banned by President Musharraf after 9-11. It had been covertly supported by ISI, the Pakistani intelligence service. The United States, which had already indicted Sheikh, asked for his extradition. New York Times, March 22 and 23, 2002. Initially Musharraf seemed to be unwilling to hand over Sheikh. He reportedly told US Ambassador Wendy Chamberlain that he would rather hang Sheikh himself than extradite him, undoubtedly fearing that the ties between the ISI and terrorist organizations would be exposed. Times of India, March 28, 2002. Abdullah Iqbat in Dubai's Gulf News suggests that Daniel Pearl was really researching exactly those links and also the role of the US in training the ISI, rather than getting interesting background material on shoe-bomber Richard Reid. He had been warned by other journalists of the very sensitive nature of his pursuit. One of Pearl's major stories had been the "fabrication" by Western sources of certain Kosovo "atrocities," a subject not likely to endear him to certain government circles. "Pearl was probing spy agencies' role," Gulf News, March 25, 2002.] March 9, 2002 Nuclear Policy Review: The Los Angeles Timesreveals a secret Pentagon report that was given to Congress on January 9th. The Bush administration has ordered the military to prepare contingency plans for the use of nuclear weapons against at least seven nations--- China, Russia, North Korea, Iraq, Iran, Libya and Syria--- and to build smaller nuclear weapons for use on the battlefield. The report anticipates three types of situations where these mini-nukes would be used:
The report says the US
should be prepared to use nuclear weapons in an Arab-Israeli conflict,
if North Korea should invade South Korea, if Iraq should attack
Israel, and if China should attack Taiwan. Paul
Richter, "U.S. Works Up Plan for Using Nuclear Arms,"
Los Angeles Times, March 9, 2002. [A Washington
Post article of June 10th made it clear that the new policy
contemplated would include pre-emptive attacks and sneak attacks,
thus abandoning the 50-year-old policy of "deterrence"
and "containment." Thomas E. Ricks and
Vernon Loeb, "Bush Developing Military Policy of Striking First,"
Washington Post, June 10, 2002.] March 15, 2002 Is the US Preparing to Abandon Afghanistan--- for the Second Time? Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld attempts to explain why the Bush administration has said NO to interim Prime Minister Hamid Karzai's pleas to increase and extend the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan: "There is not a serious security problem." The current force of 4500 soldiers from 17 nations is operating only in Kabul and its immediate area. The Bush administration is trying to get Turkey to take over the ISAF administration from Britain (and has suggested to Congress that $228 be given to Turkey to expedite the transfer.) Turkey is not willing to take over if the ISAF operates outside of Kabul,. David Corn suggests that the administration needs Turkey to be compliant about an invasion of Iraq (and continue the US of bases there), so----- [Rumsfeld 's assessment of life in Afghanistan was quickly contradicted by other prominent Americans testifying before the Senate Armed Services Committee. DIA chief Thomas Wilson said there was "a very widespread probability of insurgency-type warfare" in both the rural areas and the cities. CIA head George Tenet described severe economic, social and political problems. Journalists have reported the violent competition for control among the rival warlords in places like Herat, Farah and Helmand Province. The head of Refugees International reported that people are starving because the lack of security has prevented aid workers from reaching people in many parts of Afghanistan. There have been reports of food shipments stolen by warlords. (Yet George Bush boasted to some high school students: "We've prevented mass starvation because we've moved a lot of food into the region.") The International Crisis Group has recommended expanding the ISAF to 25,000 to 40,000 troops that would patrol the principal cities of Afghanistan and the major transportation routes. (The US State Department suggested 25,000 troops as the number.) Peter Symonds suggests: "Any extension of the ISAF would end the current monopoly of military power that Washington enjoys throughout the country and cut across its plans for a largely US-trained Afghan national army as the means for exerting long term political influence." "Washington presides over a political and social disaster in Afghanistan", wsws.org, March 29, 2002. The United States took no responsibility for nation rebuilding or for ensuring stability once the Soviet Union was forced out of Afghanistan thirteen years ago, letting the factional fighting happen and the Taliban emerge. Is this going to happen again? "Rival Flags Stir Afghan Fear," New York Times, February 4, 2002; "Warlords Steal Food Shipments," New York Times, January 4, 2002; David Corn, "Bush to Afghanistan: We Make War," TomPaine.org, March 22, 2002. March 20, 2002 Saudi "Charities" Targeted: John Loftus, former federal prosecutor, author and famed Nazi-hunter, files a lawsuit in Hillsborough County, Florida against Professor Sami A. Al Arian under Florida's Consumer Protection Act. He alleges that the various "charitable" agencies that Al Arian manages--- Islamic Concern Project, International Committee for Palestine, World Islamic Enterprise-- have operated illegally under the non-profit charter of the first-named to transport communications equipment to Osama bin Laden and to launder money for terrorist groups sponsored by Saudi Arabia, such as the Palestinian Islamic Jihad. The lawsuit asks for the appointment of a receiver to freeze the personal and corporate assets of the defendant, to make restitution to deceived consumers, to distribute remaining assets to legitimate charities, and to refer the matter to the Florida Attorney General for prosecution. (It is a felony under Federal law for anyone to solicit contributions to the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Al Qaeda, etc.) [A few hours after the filing, US Customs agents raided homes and offices in northern Virginia belonging to Saudi organizations with $1billion in assets, some of which the Florida groups had allegedly helped to launder. Al-Arian had been investigated by the federal government in the mid-'90s and WISE was shut down in 1995 as a front for Middle Eastern terrorists, but Al-Arian was never charged. Loftus claims that for years there were orders from the State Department and the White House "not to embarrass the Saudi Government." 9-11 was not an intelligence failure, "it was a foreign policy failure." The Saudis, he said, aimed to destroy the State of Israel and also to prevent the formation of an independent (and democratic) Palestinian state. They discovered too late that they had gone too far in their support of Al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden. (Purportedly, bin Laden laughingly turned down an offer of $300 million from his relatives to cancel the attack on the twin towers.) Al-Arian, a citizen of Kuwait, in September was suspended with pay from his position as professor of computer engineering at the University of South Florida. He has applied for US citizenship. www2.john-loftus.com; Graham Brink, "Suit labels Al-Arian terrorist fundraiser," St. Petersburg Times, March 21, 2002.] April 17, 2002: Oops! US "Friendly Fire" Kills Canadians: Despite having been told twice to hold his fire, Major Harry Schmidt of the Illinois Air National Guard, returning to base from a mission and seeing gunfire below, drops a 500-pound laser-guided bomb onto a nighttime training exercise being conducted near Kandahar by soldiers of the Canadian Light Infantry. Four soldiers are killed and eight are wounded. [A joint US-Canadian inquiry held that Schmidt and Major William Umbach, the lead pilot, bore responsibility for the tragedy. Canadian General Maurice Baril condemned their actions and described Schmidt as "trigger-happy." A US military panel recommended "appropriate disciplinary action" against the two F-16 pilots in addition to disciplinary action against some members of the pilots' chain of command. If such actions have been taken, a Google search of July 18 failed to reveal them. Daniel le Blanc, "US pilot ignored 2 orders," Globe and Mail (Canada), June 29, 2002; Thomas E. Ricks, "2 probes Fault Pilots in Allies' deaths," Washington Post, June 29, 2002, A13; www.pbs.org/newshour/updates/canada_06-28-02.html. Update of September 11, 2002: Majors Schmidt and Umbach are charged with four counts of manslaughter, eight counts of aggravated assault and dereliction of duty. They have been recalled to active duty to face the charges. A possible defense may be that Major Schmidt had taken amphetamines; this drug was routinely supplied to pilots in Afghanistan to fight fatigue and enable them to fly longer hours. The pilots were allowed to keep the drugs in the cockpit and self-regulate their dosage. Lieutenant General Bruce Carlson, commander of the 8th Air Force, is in charge of reviewing the case. His three options: dismissal of charges, general court martial or special court martial. Andrew Buncombe, "US pilots on manslaughter charge over 'friendly fire,'" Independent, September 14, 2002.] April 29, 2002 Oil Hegemony in the Southern Caucasus: US troops arrive in the former Soviet republic of Georgia ostensibly to "train and equip" Georgians to combat Islamic radicals in the Pankisi Gorge area (purportedly a safe haven for Al Qaeda fugitives and Chechen rebels) as part of the "war on terrorism." [However, a Defense Ministry official told Radio Free Europe on February 27: "The U.S. military will train our rapid reaction force which is guarding strategic sites in Georgia--- particularly oil pipelines ." (Emphasis added.) The Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan project has been designed to loosen Russia's energy hold on Georgia and Azerbaijan and bring the southern Caucasus into the US sphere of influence. It will also profit certain American companies---Halliburton, Chevron, and the law firm Baker Botts (headed by elder Bush's old friend and advisor, James Baker III.) Other conflicts of interest: Vice President Dick Cheney was CEO of Halliburton, National Security Advisor Condoleeza Rice was a director of Chevron. Armen Georgian, "U.S. Eyes Caspian Oil in 'War on Terror'", Foreign Policy in Focus, April 30, 2002.] May 6, 2002 "Axis
of Evil" Expanded: John Bolton, the Under Secretary of
State for Disarmament Affairs and International Security, adds Cuba,
Syria and Libya to Bush's "axis of evil" list in a speech
to the right-wing Heritage Foundation. [This on the same day that
he sent a letter to the United Nations annulling US participation
in the International Criminal Court. Bolton was previously vice
president of the equally conservative American Enterprise Institute.
Senator Jesse Helms (R-NC) endorsed him for his State Department
nomination saying, "John Bolton is the kind of man with whom
I would want to stand at Armageddon, if it should be my lot to be
on hand for what is forecast to be the final battle between good
and evil in this world." Ian Williams, AlterNet,
May 30, 2002.] May 15, 2002 The Public Learns that Bush Was Warned before September 11: CBS News reveals that Bush received a briefing from the CIA on August 6, 2001 that there was an imminent possibility of an airplane hijacking by terrorists linked to Osama bin Laden. [Did Bush then return to Washington to oversee increased precautions for "homeland security"? No, he continued with his vacation for the rest of August. This news temporarily derailed the TV talking heads from their usual celebrity gossip. Senators John McCain (R-AZ) and Joseph Lieberman (D-CN) announced their intention to sponsor legislation for a bipartisan independent commission to investigate what the government knew and what the government did in the pre-September 11 period. Vice President Cheney adopted a bullying posture, saying at a fundraising dinner that "my Democratic friends … need to be very cautious not to seek political advantage by making incendiary suggestions, as were made by some today, that the White House had advance information that would have prevented the tragic attacks of 9-11." Such criticism is "thoroughly irresponsible … in time of war." National Security Advisor
Condoleeza Rice baldly stated that the warning was only about a
hijacking to take hostages. "I don't think anybody could have
predicted that these people would take an airplane and slam it into
the World Trade center, take another one and slam it into the Pentagon,
that they would try to use an airplane as a missile." Really??
No one? Not the FBI agent in Phoenix, or the FBI department in Minneapolis,
or those responsible for security of the G-8 conference in Genoa,
or the Philippine police who uncovered the Bojinka plot, or ---
? A CBS poll taken May 18-19 (before the release of the Rowley letter
to FBI Director Mueller) indicated that "two-thirds of Americans
think the Bush administration is hiding something about what it
knew before September 11" and just over a fifth think the administration
is "telling the whole truth." "Cover-up
and conspiracy," wsws.org, May 18, 2002; AP, Washington
Post, May 21, 2002. May 16, 2002 NBC News Reveals that there was a document awaiting Bush' signature on September 9--- two days before September 11--- that was "a game plan to remove al-Qaida from the face of the Earth." [The details in this formal National Security Presidential Directive were essentially the same as the war plan that was adopted after September 11-- first the persuasion of other countries to share intelligence and arrest suspected terrorists, then freezing of Al Qaeda assets. The Taliban would be pressured to give up Osama bin Laden; if they refused, then a full-scale military attack on the country. www.msnbc.com/news/753359.asp An earlier scenario which surfaced June 26, 2001(and received zero attention by the US media) called for a joint US-Russian military venture against the Taliban on two fronts in northern Afghanistan with India and Iran "facilitating" the operations. It "would take place before the snows started falling in Afghanistan, by the middle of October at the latest." (The bombing started October 7 and the ground attacks on October 19.) "US planned war in Afghanistan long before September 11," wsws.org, November 20, 2001; www.indiareacts.com/archivefeatures/nat2.asp?recno=10.] May 21-22, 2002 Whistleblower from Phoenix FBI: Kenneth Williams, the Phoenix agent who wrote the seven-page memo in July, 2001 recommending an examination of all Middle Eastern students taking flight training in the United States, testifies in closed-door sessions before the Senate Judiciary and the Senate Intelligence Committees. [Senator Durbin (D-IL) commented that "although he didn't come up with the exact September 11 scenario, what he presents in that memo was so close to the fact pattern that emerged on September 11 that, as you read it, it just takes your breath away." Senator Durbin along with Senators Shelby (R-AL) and Senator Graham (R-FL) asked the FBI to make the memo public, but FBI Director Robert Mueller has refused. In addition to FBI headquarters, the New York field office and the Chicago field office, Mr. Williams had sent the memo to the Radical Fundamentalist Unit. Its head, David Frasca, would claim that he had not seen the memo until after September 11. (This is the same unnamed supervisor who stonewalled Coleen Rowley's requests from the Minneapolis office on the question of Zacarias Moussaoui.) Williams' memo stated that an inordinate number of individuals "of investigative interest" were attending flight schools in Arizona where they were getting pilot training and taking courses in airplane construction, aircraft security and mechanics. His suspicions had been aroused when he interviewed a particular Arab who expressed hostility towards the United States and an inflamed view of Islam. His memo included the facts that several of the Arizona students had ties to al-Muhajiroun, a London-based radical Islamic organization, and that several "fatwas" had indicated that America's civil aviation and its airports were legitimate targets. Paul de la Garza, "Senator says FBI memo 'takes your breath away'" St. Petersburg Times, May 23, 2002; Jerry Seper, "Agent told CIA of flight students," Washington Times, May 23, 2002; Edward Helmore, "Agent blasts FBI over 11 September cover-up," London Observer, May 26, 2002. May 21, 2002 Whistleblower from Minneapolis FBI: Coleen Rowley, FBI special agent and legal counsel for the Minneapolis FBI, sends a scathing 13-page letter to Director Robert Mueller and hand-delivers copies to the heads of the Senate Intelligence Committee. [Mueller immediately stamped the letter "classified" and refused to give it to congressional investigators or several US senators from the Judiciary Committee. The letter was leaked to the public and posted on the time.com web site on the 25th; the ensuing firestorm was enormous. Rowley contended that FBI headquarters stymied the investigation into Moussaoui, re-writing her request for a warrant to search his laptop and personal effects, and casting doubt on the French intelligence report (since Zacarias Moussaoui is such a common name in France!) She noted that the same personnel continued stalling even after the World Trade Center was struck when possibly an interrogation could have uncovered and prevented other attacks. The Supervisory Special
Agent, his unit chief and other involved headquarters personnel
were not only kept in their same positions unreprimanded but also
occupied critical positions in the Command Center on September 11th.
The SSA (who had both the Minneapolis case and the Phoenix memo
on his desk) has received a promotion! Rowley faulted Mueller also,
even though he came into the job only a week before the attack,
for "a delicate and subtle shading/skewing of the facts"
despite repeated attempts to deliver the true facts to him. "I
think you have not been completely honest about some of the true
reasons for the FBI's pre-September 11th failures." Minneapolis
agents were so frustrated that "jokes were actually made that
the key FBI HQ personnel had to be spies or moles, like Robert Hansen,
who were actually working for Osama Bin Laden to have so undercut
Minneapolis' effort." www.time.com/nation/printout/0,8816,249997,00.html. May 30, 2002 Pipeline
Agreement Signed: Pakistan, Turkmenistan and the interim
government of Afghanistan sign an agreement for a feasibility study
for that controversial 975-mile gas pipeline. This will provide
"the shortest transportation route for the transportation of
petrochemical resources from Central Asia to the Far East, Japan
and the West," said Pakistani President Musharraf… our
stand on a pipeline to India remains unchanged whatever the level
of tension."---- this as the two countries stand on the brink
of a possible nuclear war. Hamid Karzai, prime minister for the
interim government, issues a statement that "the stability
in Afghanistan is very, very satisfactory, keeping in mind what
we had five months ago."---- this as the British announce a
fresh offensive against Taliban remnants. Talek
Harris, Agence France-Presse , May 30, 2002. It
seems a tad presumptuous for the interim government to rush into
this agreement when the Loya Jirga, pursuant to the Bonn Agreement
of December 2001, is due to convene June 10-16 to select a permanent
government.] June 1, 2002 Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace--- Bush Takes on 60 Countries: June 3, 2002 Bush & Co. Sued for $7 Billion: Stanley Hilton files a class-action law suit in San Francisco naming ten defendants, including Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Condoleeza Rice and Norman Mineta. They are charged with allowing the September 11 attacks to take place for the political benefits to be gained from the disaster. The plaintiffs are the families of 14 of the victims of 9-11. Hilton, a former aide to Senator Dole, alleges that the administration ignored intelligence information, refused to round up suspected terrorists prior to 9-11, and did not use the available technology to disable pilot controls on the hijacked planes and control their flights from the ground. There will be financial benefit from oil and gas pipelines approved by the puppet Afghan government installed by the US. David Kiefer, "S.F. attorney: Bush allowed 9/11," San Francisco Examiner, June 11, 2002; William Rivers Pitt, "All Along the Watchtower," truthout.org, June 20, 2002. June 4, 2002 Secret Hearings on Intelligence Failures Begin: On the same day as the ceremony for the completion of the removal of millions of tons of debris from Ground Zero, the joint session of the House and Senate Intelligence committees begins its much delayed investigation of a very limited scope of what happened on September 11th. Before the first testimony is heard, Bush, speaking from the National Security Agency, flatly denies that the government could have prevented the attack and warns against any wider investigation: "I don't want to tie up our team when we're trying to fight this war on terrorism. So I don't want our people distracted." [He didn't need to worry about the joint session; most of the committee's staff was selected by L. Britt Snyder, the former CIA inspector general. The Republican co-chairman of the committee, Porter Goss of Florida, was a CIA spy 1962-1971. Before that he was in Army intelligence. All of the members of the House and Senate Intelligence committees have been vetted by the CIA and FBI for their "security" reliability to receive classified information. Therefore, these hearings and their findings are likely to be a whitewash of any substantive failures on a par with the Warren Commission Report. If the American public is ever to know the full truth of what happened on September 11th, a full-scale, independent investigation will be required. wsws.org, June 5, 2002.
June 6, 2002 Homeland Insecurity June 10, 2002 Dirty Bombs and Dirty Bombers: Attorney General Ashcroft makes a dramatic announcement at a press conference in Moscow, of all places: "We have captured a known terrorist who was exploring a plan to build and explode a radiological dispersion device, or 'dirty bomb,' in the United States"--- supposedly in Washington, D.C. [Abdullah al-Muhajir, also known as José Padilla, is an American citizen of Puerto Rican descent, born in New York, raised in Chicago, who converted to Islam while in prison for the last of a series of crimes, including armed robbery, the first committed 16 years ago when he was 14. He was "captured" upon entry to the United States from Zurich and Pakistan on May 8 because he answered the physical description of a man in Pakistan that Abu Zubaydah allegedly said was training with Al Qaeda, "studying how to wire explosive devices and researching radiological dispersion devices." As Patrick Martin points out, it is unclear how a man with a grade-school education and no knowledge of the local languages is going to accomplish this "research." Bush issued an executive order, declaring this American citizen to be an "enemy combatant who poses a serious and continued threat to the American people and our national security" and therefore not given presumption of innocence nor habeas corpus. Al-Mujahir was transferred from a New York jail to the military brig in Charleston, South Carolina. His attorney has not been allowed to see him. Rumsfeld said the US is not trying to punish him, just get s ome information from him. The government has admitted that it has no evidence against al-Mujahir that would stand up in a civil court--- no assembly of radioactive materials, no actual target, etc. He received $10,700 when
passing through Zurich; it seems much more likely that Al Qaeda
was using him as a courier, not a dirty bomb expert. Since the government
secured his release from Pakistan prison and tracked him to O'Hare,
surely it would have been more useful to continue tracking him and
see who got the money. But of course the disclosure of his "plot"
is most useful in spreading alarm to the American public and maintaining
the high approval ratings that typically go to a Commander-in-Chief
in time of war. And this announcement could not have been better
timed to distract attention from Coleen Rowley and other would-be
whistleblowers and to reassure the public that this "capture"
occurred only because the FBI and CIA are now working together harmoniously.
The Independent writes: "British and European security
officials are highly sceptical of American claims that the alleged
'dirty bomb' plotter, Abdullah al-Mujahir, was preparing to unleash
a radioactive attack." Altogether, this does not pass the smell
test. Patrick Martin, "Another step towards
presidential dictatorship: Bush orders US citizen held indefinitely
by military,", wsws.org, June 12, 2002; Kim Sengupta and Andrew
Buncombe, "British security sources raise doubts over US claims
about 'dirty bomber,'" Independent (UK), June 12, 2002;
"Padilla's journey from street thug to suspected terrorist,"
msnbc.com, June 11, 2002.] June 12, 2002 Massacre at Mazar: A special screening in the Berlin Reichstag of Jamie Doran's documentary provokes calls for an international inquiry into US war crimes allegedly committed in Afghanistan in late November, 2001 after the fall of Konduz. The film alleges that 1500-3000 prisoners were taken from Sheberghan prison in the presence of 150 American troops plus CIA officers, loaded into closed containers, transported into the desert where they were murdered and buried. (About half of the men died in the containers during the trip.) According to human rights lawyer Andrew McEntee who saw the film, "there is prima facie evidence of serious war crimes committed not just under international law, but also under the laws of the United States itself." All of the unnamed (and unpaid) witnesses in the film stand ready to testify in court; several allege that they saw American soldiers torturing the prisoners. One witness relates that an American commander demanded that the containers be moved to the desert before the arrival of the satellite camera. [Doran said in an interview that the mass grave is being tampered with. This information caused him to race the release of the 20-minute rough draft. "It's absolutely essential that the site of the mass grave is protected. Otherwise the evidence will disappear." He hopes to have the film finished in five to six weeks; it "will carry greater implications against the people involved." Stefan Steinberg, "Afghan war documentary charges US with mass killings of POWS," and "Interview with Jamie Doran, director of Massacre at Mazar," wsws.org, June 17, 2002.] June 22, 2002 Osama is Alive and Well (?): Al Jazeera broadcasts an audiotape from Al Qaeda spokesman, Suleiman Abu Gheith, who says, "I would like to assure all Muslims that Sheik Osama bin Laden is in good health and all the rumors about Sheik Osama's illness and being wounded in Tora Bora are devoid of any truth…. He will appear on TV screens very soon." Abu Gheith claims that Al Qaeda was responsible for the April attack on a Tunisian synagogue in which 17 people, most of them German tourists, were killed. Ninety-eight per cent of the Al Qaeda leadership have survived, including Ayman al-Zawahiri, and are "now monitoring, detecting and observing new American targets." Associated Press (Beirut); Neil MacFarquhar, "Qaeda Says Bin Laden is Well, and it Was Behind Tunis Blast," New York Times, June 23, 2002. July 1, 2002 Heavy-Handed Search for Osama: The Sydney Morning Herald reports that senior officials in the British Prime Minister's office have attacked the "blundering" of American troops who have been conducting house-to-house searches for Osama bin Laden and his associates in the Pakistani tribal areas. They say that the operation is "backfiring," and increasing the support for Al Qaeda and making their apprehension less likely. [The Pentagon has said that at least 1000 al-Qaeda members crossed into the Pakistani tribal areas late last year and are regrouping. In April Pakistan knuckled under to US pressure and agreed to deploy 12,000 troops to the area along with US Green Berets, CIA paramilitaries and British special forces. Traditionally, since the time of British rule, the area has been autonomous under tribal rule, disputes with the outside being settled by negotiation, not armies. As Arsallah Hoti, a leader of the Yusufzai tribe said, "This is not how things work here. They have been raiding our villages with less than an hour's notice and even burst in on a wedding because they heard the traditional firing of Kalashnikovs and assumed it was al-Qaeda…. I think people who were ambivalent to al-Qaeda in the tribal areas are now supporting them. A lot more could have been achieved through the old colonial way of negotiations rather than the American way of bombing and killing." Christina Lamb, "Britain denounces 'blundering' US hunt for al-Qaeda," Sydney Morning Herald, July 1, 2002.] August 4, 2002 TIME magazine reveals that the Bush administration had been handed counter-terrorism chief Richard Clarke's formal plan for a "roll back" of al-Qaeda during a series of ten briefings of the incoming national security staff in the first week of January, 2001. Clinton's National Security Advisor Sandy Berger told the new advisor, Condoleeza Rice that he was attending the particular briefing in which Clarke detailed the plan because he wanted "to underscore how important I think this subject is." Not only did the new administration let the plan languish while they pursued a national missile defense system (aka Son of Star Wars) and tax cuts for the wealthy but, when events caught up with them, they re-named the plan their "war on terrorism" and denied that the Clinton administration had presented any such formal plan or that Rice had met with Berger. (For details of the Clarke plan, see the entry for December 20, 2000.) Michael Elliott, "Could 9/11 Have Been Prevented?" Time, August 4, 2002, www.time.com/time/covers/1101020812/story.html.
August 15, 2002 Don't Attack Saddam, says Brent Scowcroft in a Wall Street Journal op-ed piece. "It is beyond dispute that Saddam Hussein is a menace. He terrorizes and brutalizes his own people. He has launched war on two of his neighbors.…. [but] There is little evidence to indicate that the United States itself is an object of his aggression….Our pre-eminent security priority … is the war on terrorism. An attack on Iraq at this time would seriously jeopardize if not destroy, the global counter terrorist campaign we have undertaken. The United States could certainly defeat the Iraqi military and destroy Saddam's regime. But it would not be a cakewalk. On the contrary, it undoubtedly would be very expensive--- with serious consequences for the U.S. and global economy--- and could as well be bloody. In fact, Saddam would be likely to conclude he had nothing left to lose, leading him to unleash whatever weapons of mass destruction he possesses. Israel would have to expect to be the first casualty, as in 1991 when Saddam sought to bring Israel into the Gulf conflict. This time, using weapons of mass destruction, he might succeed, provoking Israel to respond, perhaps with nuclear weapons, unleashing an Armageddon in the Middle East…. Possibly the most dire consequences would be the effect in the region. The shared view in the region is that Iraq is principally an obsession of the U.S. The obsession of the region, however, is the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. If we were seen to be turning our backs on that conflict--- which the region, rightly or wrongly, perceives to be clearly within our power to resolve--- in order to go after Iraq, there would be an explosion of outrage against us." [General Scowcroft was National Security Advisor to Presidents Ford and George Bush, Sr. He holds a doctorate in international relations from Columbia University and, at one point in his 29 year military career, was head of the Political Science department at the Air Force Academy. More importantly, he is a close friend of Bush's father, the 41st president, and this op-ed piece has been widely interpreted as Poppy warning his bellicose son. Scowcroft was joined in opposing a pre-emptive strike by other leading Republicans connected to Poppy: former secretaries of state, James Baker, Lawrence Eagleburger and Henry Kissinger and Norman Schwarzkopf, the Desert Storm commander. Several Republican legislators insisted that Bush must get approval from Congress, although White House Counsel Albert Gonzales assured Bush that no approval was needed. (Quick, get this Supreme Court aspirant a copy of the Constitution!) They include Chuck Hagel of Nebraska, Henry Hyde of Illinois, John Warner of Virginia.] Wall Street Journal, August 15, 2002; www.scowcroft.com/scowcroft.htm August 26, 2002 Forget Inspections; Let's Attack Iraq and Do a Regime Change: Vice President Dick Cheney emerges from his "undisclosed location" (where he has been ducking service on subpoenas that would compel him to testify about alleged fraud at Halliburton during his years as CEO) to deliver a speech to a convention of the Veterans of Foreign Wars in rebuttal to Scowcroft's op-ed. "A return of inspectors would provide no assurance whatsoever of his [Saddam's] compliance with U.N. resolutions. On the contrary, there is a great danger that it would provide false comfort that Saddam was somehow "back in his box.'… Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction. There is no doubt that he is amassing them to use against our friends, against our allies, and against us. And there is no doubt that his aggressive regional ambitions will lead him into future confrontations with his neighbors." [Yet he offered no real evidence for these flat assertions. He said that part of the evidence comes from Hussein Kamal, Saddam's son-in-law who defected to the US in 1995. Scott Ritter, a weapons inspector who was in Iraq until 1998, has testified that 95 to 98% of Saddam's weapons were destroyed and anything left over is "goo" by now. Ritter also pointed out that Kamal had stated that under his command all weapons programs were eliminated. Another "proof" offered by Cheney is the indisputable fact that Saddam used chemical weapons against the Iranians and "his own people," the Kurds, and therefore, according to Cheney, would have no qualms about using them again--- a little leap in logic. What Cheney failed to mention was that in this period Iraq was our ally, and the US was aiding them in the war against Iran. According to the New York Times (August 18), "American intelligence agencies knew that Iraqi commanders would employ chemical weapons in waging the decisive battles of the Iran-Iraq war" and did nothing to stop them. Le Figaro reported in 1998 that the US and France had supplied Iraq with anthrax bacillus in the mid-1980s for the secret biological weapons program that Saddam began in early 1985.] Containment worked against the nuclear-armed Soviet Union, Cheney agreed, but is not a prudent option in this case. He quoted Henry Kissinger: "The imminence of proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, the huge dangers it involves, the rejection of a viable inspection system, and the demonstrated hostility of Saddam Hussein combine to produce an imperative for preemptive action." Cheney concluded, "The risks of inaction are greater than the risks of inaction." Elizabeth Bumiller and James Dao, "Cheney Says Peril of a Nuclear Iraq Justifies Attack," New York Times, August 26, 2002; David Walsh and Barry Gray, "Cheney's brief for war: a mass of lies and historical falsifications," wsws.org, September 2, 2002. Cheney pictured a happy time in Iraq after the regime change: "Today in Afghanistan, the world is seeing that America acts not to conquer but to liberate, and remains in friendship to help the people build a future of stability, self-determination and peace." After this bald-faced distortion of what is happening in Afghanistan, he continued: "We would act in the same spirit after a regime change in Iraq….Iraq is rich in natural resources and human talent, and has unlimited potential for a peaceful, prosperous future." No mention here of which companies and which nations will aid in this development, but it is worth noting that Cheney's Halliburton sold $23.8 millions worth of oil industry equipment and services, September 1998 to winter of 1999-2000, through its subsidiaries, Dresser Rand and Ingersoll-Dresser Pump--- the largest contract of any American company doing business with Iraq. Martin A. Lee, "Cheney Made Millions Off Oil Deals with Hussein," San Francisco Bay Guardian, November 13, 2000 . September 5, 2002 Finally, a Democrat Speaks Out on "The Troubling New Face of America:" Former President Jimmy Carter decried the "fundamental changes" that are taking place in the historical policies of the United States led by "a core group of conservatives who are trying to realize long-pent-up ambitions under the cover of the proclaimed war against terrorism." In his Washington Post op-ed he states, "We have ignored or condoned abuses in nations that support our anti-terrorism effort, while detaining American citizens as 'enemy combatants,' incarcerating them secretly and indefinitely without their being charged with any crime or having the right to counsel." And on the current debate concerning "regime change" in Iraq: "The American people are inundated almost daily with claims from the vice president and other top officials that we face a devastating threat from Iraq's weapons of mass destruction, and with pledges to remove Saddam Hussein from office, with or without support from any allies. As has been emphasized vigorously by foreign allies and by responsible leaders of former administrations and incumbent officeholders, there is no current danger to the United States from Baghdad." (Emphasis added.) Read it all at www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A38441-2002Sep4.html. September 9, 2002 Saudis Say NO to Western Development of Its Natural Gas Fields: Last week Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal notified the oil company consortia led by Exxon-Mobil and RoyalDutch/Shell that the really significant fields will be closed to outside developers, thus ending a year of negotiations. The oil companies had expected to invest $25 billion in Saudi Arabia to drill for gas and to build and operate large power, water and petrochemical complexes in the country. Instead the prince offered lesser sites which the oil companies, according to the Wall Street Journal would not yield sufficient income to warrant the investment. Other oil companies involved in tnegotiations were: TotalFinaElf SA, Marathon Oil Corporation, British Petroeum, Occidental Petroleum and ConocoPhillips. Open bidding will begin in early October if the major players do not accept the Saudi take-it-or-leave-it offer. It is thought that one or more of the smaller companies might take the challenge. [The gas deal was first suggested by the kingdom's de facto ruler, Crown Prince Abdullah, four years ago as a job plan for unemployed Saudis and an increased economic stake in Saudi Arabia for the West in the event of uprisings within the kingdom or hostilities from without. It would have been a major reopening of the Saudi petroleum sector to the West, closed since the Saudis bought out western interests in Aramco in the 1970s. One can speculate that this decision was caused by the increased US-Saudi tension since 9-11 or by the palace intrigues among the princes with the approaching death of King Fahd.] www.petroleumworld.com/story9146.htm September 11, 2002 A Personal Note from this Website Host: I mourn for the nearly 3000 victims of September 11, 2001 and sympathize with their families and loved ones over their loss. I also mourn for the more than double that number of Afghani civilians killed in our bombing missions or who died from the war-curtailed delivery of food parcels. I also mourn for the ten thousand who died in Bhopal, India from the toxic cloud released by an American company, Union Carbide--- December 3, 1984--- and the hundreds of thousands who survived but still suffer from the poisoning. I mourn the hundreds of thousands--- mostly children and women--- who have died in Iraq since 1991 as the result of the inhumane sanctions demanded by the US government. I am appalled at the narcissism of the current (and unelected) government and its subservient media who find the 9-11 deaths of 3000 on American soil to be a colossal disaster while ignoring all these other deaths for which we Americans are responsible. We have been bombarded this past week with a fusillade of reminders of last year's "great national tragedy"------ I'm afraid this was designed to revive the original feelings of fear and anger and thus prepare the country to accept a perilous war adventure into still another country--- Iraq--- in an attempt to overthrow still another "evil one"--- Saddam Hussein. Today is also my 80th birthday; I need to tell you youngsters that this is NOT the country that I was born into and I grieve for the sufferings that most Americans will have to endure in the years to come as the result of the acts perpetrated by the current administration. September 12, 2002 Bush Lectures the United Nations General Assembly on its Responsibilities: To the surprise of many, Bush begins his speech with numerous laudatory remarks about the United Nations and the need for multilateralism--- this from a man who has taken the US out of the Kyoto treaty, refused participation in the International Criminal Court and, in general, thumbed his nose at the UN. He announces that the US is returning to UNESCO since the organization has been reformed. He then lays out a case that Saddam Hussein is a scumbag who has flaunted the Security Council resolutions and cites twelve instances. (Israel has been in violation of 67 Security Council resolutions since 1967, but there's no talk of a pre-emptive strike against Israel.) "The conduct of the Iraqi regime is a threat to the authority of the United Nations, and a threat to peace," Bush says. "Iraq has answered a decade of U.N. demands with a decade of defiance. All the world now faces a test, and the United Nations a difficult and defining moment. Are Security Council resolutions to be honored and enforced, or cast aside without consequence? Will the United Nations serve the purpose of its founding, or will it be irrelevant?" And later: "My nation will work with the U.N. Security Council to meet our common challenge. If Iraq's regime defies us again, the world must move deliberately, decisively to hold Iraq to account. We will work with the U.N. Security Council for the necessary resolutions. But the purposes of the United States should not be doubted. The Security Council resolutions will be enforced-- the just demands of peace and security will be met-- or action will be unavoidable. And a regime that has lost its legitimacy will also lose its power." In other words, give us our legal fig-leaf for war with Iraq, or we will do it alone. Thus really making the UN irrelevant. www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/09/2002912-1.html. September 15, 2002 Secret Blueprint for World Domination: The Sunday Herald reveals a document that was drawn up in October, 2000 for Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz (Rumsfeld's deputy), Jeb Bush, and Lewis Libby (Cheney's chief of staff) by the neo-con think tank, Project for the New American Century (PNAC). For the "global Pax Americana" to continue far into the future, the plan states, all steps must be taken to prevent the rise of any great power or any challenge to American leadership or even any nation aspiring to a larger regional role. US armed forces abroad will be "the cavalry on the new American frontier," ready to "fight and decisively win multiple, simultaneous major theatre wars." The most feared potential rival is Europe. The items on the agenda
include: So--- surprise, surprise!--- a war with Iraq was on the drawing board for Bush and his future cabinet even before Bush was selected for the presidency by the Supreme Court. Tam Dalyell, one of the leading Labour MPs opposed to a war with Iraq commented on the document, Rebuilding America's Defenses: Strategies, Forces and Resources for a New Century: "This is garbage from right-wing think-tanks stuffed with chicken-hawks--- men who have never seen the horror of war but are in love with the idea of war. Men like Cheney, who were draft-dodgers in the Vietnam war. This is a blueprint for US world domination--- a new world order of their making…. I am appalled that a British Labour Prime Minister should have got into bed with a crew which has this moral standing." Neil Mackay, "Bush planned Iraq 'regime-change' before becoming President," Sunday Herald (UK), September 15, 2002. September 16, 2002 US Special Forces Establish Base Three Miles from Iranian Border, reports the Christian Science Monitor; its perimeter is a maze of barricades designed to thwart suicide attacks. ["We are here to fight and hunt the enemies of the world and Afghanistan," the Green Beret leader, identified as "Commander Tony," told a group of Baluchi and Pashtun tribal officials three weeks ago. The Nimruz province of Afghanistan is riddled with heroin smugglers who take their goods to Iran for transshipment to Turkey and on to western Europe. Security officials in Nimruz and Kabul claim that Al-Qaeda members are operating in the border area of Iran with the full support of the Iranian government. They name Ayman al-Zawahiri, Osama's number two man, and cleric Abu Hafs "The Mauritainian" as the most senior of an insignificant number of armed men. Presumably, the Special Forces are there as a snatch squad for these wanted men. The Iranian delegate to Afganistan rejected the accusations of harboring Al Qaeda: "Iran has never had any relations with Al Qaeda or the Taliban. Indeed, we were the ones to inform the international community about the danger of these men several years ago, but no one listened to us at the time. Iranian authorities have detained some Al Qaeda members and sent them back to their homes in the Middle East, in particular to Saudi Arabia." Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei condemned the establishment of the base on his country's border and prophesized that a US attack on Iraq would be only the first step in a plan to bring the entire Middle East under US control. www.csmonitor.com/2002/0916/p01s03-wome.htm.] September 18, 2002 9/11 Investigating Committee Not Allowed to Reveal What Warnings Bush and White House Received: The joint House and Senate intelligence committees investigating the 9-11 attacks releases its preliminary report---- with certain major omissions. "The Director of Central Intelligence has declined to declassify two issues of importance to this inquiry," staff director Eleanor Hill told the panel, "any references to the intelligence community providing information to the president or White House and the identity of and information on a key al Qaida leader involved in the September 11 attacks [presumably Kuwaiti Khalid Shaikh Mohammed who has bragged publicly of being the mastermind for 9/11]…. The president's knowledge of intelligence information relevant to this inquiry remains classified even when the substance of intelligence information has been declassified." [Emphasis added.] Hill continued, "The Joint Inquiry Staff disagrees with the DCI's position on both issues. We believe the American public has a compelling interest in this information and that public disclosure would not harm national security. However, we do not have an independent authority to declassify intelligence information short of a lengthy procedure in the U.S. Congress." Hopefully this stonewalling on the part of the Bush administration could lead to a showdown in Congress. Senator Carl Levin (D-MI) threatened congressional action and Senator Richard Shelby (R-AL) stated that both the refusal to declassify and "regulations that have prevented members of the committee from following the work of the joint staff" have threatened the success of the entire committee. He warned that "there may come a day very soon when it will become apparent that ours must be only a prelude to further inquiries." The report cites twelve examples of possible terrorist use of airplanes that were known to US intelligence in the period 1994 to August, 2001. For instance, in August 1998 US intelligence learned that a "group of unidentified Arabs planned to fly an explosive-laden plane from a foreign country into the World Trade Center." The FAA and FBI were notified, but took little action. [Was Condi Rice lying or "out of the loop" when she said, "I don't think anyone could have predicted that they would use an airplane as a missile."] Between May and July 2001 the National Security Agency picked up at least 33 pieces of chatter that indicated a "possible, imminent terrorist attack." Senator Jay Rockefeller (D-WV): "[the report reveals] far too many breakdowns in the intelligence gathering and processing methods. Given the events and signals of the preceding decade, the intelligence community could have and in my judgment should have anticipated an attack on U.S. soil on the scale of 9/11." Dana Milbank, "Barriers To 9/11 Inquiry Decried," Washington Post, September 19, 2002; P. Mitchell Prothero, "Administration won't release 9-11 data," UPI, September 18, 2002; "Congress Opens Investigation of Sept. 11 Attacks to Public," New York Times, September 18, 2002.
Last updated September 19, 2002
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.This site was created on March 20, 1997. © Janette Rainwater 1997-2009 All rights reserved. Unauthorized use of any of the material contained herein is strictly prohibited. |
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