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The most successful tyranny
is not the one that uses force to assure uniformity but the one
that removes the awareness of other possibilities, that makes it
seem inconceivable that other ways are viable, that removes the
sense that there is an outside.
Allan Bloom The Closing of the American
Mind
It is dangerous to be right in matters on which the established authorities are wrong. --Voltaire--
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General Mahmoud Ahmed
Signs Supplement 6
Signs Supplement 5
Signs Supplement 4
Signs Supplement 3
Signs Supplement 1 |
December 6, 2002 - New Developments in the Baez Hoax - A major article is published in the French daily Le Figaro. Ark publishes his correspondence with the journalist - who has threatened us with a lawsuit. Hmmm... wonder what he wants to hide? In fact, one wonders what Baez and the US scientific community is hiding from the rest of the world? How does it relate to the current affairs of the planet? Readers of the site know that much of this is exposed in Adventures with Cassiopaea...
Saudi Minister: Jews Behind 9/11 Attacks - The Saudi police minister has claimed Jews were behind the Sept. 11 attacks because they have benefited from subsequent criticism of Islam and Arabs, according to media reports. Interior Minister Prince Nayef made the remarks in the Arabic-language Kuwaiti daily Assyasah last month. The latest edition of Ain al-Yaqeen, a weekly Internet magazine devoted to Saudi issues, posted the Assyasah interview and its own English translation. -
"We know that the Jews have manipulated the Sept. 11 incidents and turned American public opinion against Arabs and Muslims," Prince Nayef was quoted as saying in the Arabic text, while Ain al Yaqeen's English version referred to "Zionists" instead of "Jews." "We still ask ourselves: Who has benefited from Sept. 11 attacks? I think they (the Jews) were the protagonists of such attacks," Nayef was quoted as saying. Nayef's spokesman, Saud al-Musaibeeh, did not respond to repeated requests for confirmation the minister had been quoted accurately.-
Nayef's remarks echoed rumors that have been heard in the Arab world since the attacks - but this time they are attributed to the man in charge of Saudi investigations into the attacks.-
The Gulf kingdom, a close U.S. ally, has never officially held al-Qaida responsible for the attacks and usually refers to the hijackers as people "enticed and deluded" into committing their crimes.- He was quoted as saying he believed terrorist networks have links to "foreign intelligence agencies that work against Arab and Muslim interests, chief among them is the Israeli Mossad."
Comment: Oh, boy! What is Dubya gonna do about THAT?! After all, the Bushies and the Saudis are bosom buddies... I don't know about the rest of you, but this drama on the global stage is better than ANY cliff-hanger soap opera I ever saw! And, as it happens, reading about the "Pakistan Connection," one has to wonder if maybe the Saudis aren't right - at least insofar as the hijackers were people "enticed and deluded" ... Tune in tomorrow for "As the World Turns..." for REAL!
A Brief (But Creepy) History of America's Creeping Fascism
Canadians go to Baghdad as 'human shields' - Opposition to a war on Iraq has a long way to go before it rivals the draft-card burnings and demonstrations against the war in Vietnam in the 1960s, but a new anti-war movement is growing muscle. Some Canadians already have left for Iraq to serve as human shields against bomb attacks on Baghdad. More will follow before Christmas. - Another group of Canadians will go to Iraq later this month, joining some 30-40 young protesters from the U.S. and Britain.
MSNBC RATINGS HIT BOTTOM; NETWORK FLATLINING The joint news operation between GENERAL ELECTRIC and MICROSOFT has moved in to critical condition -- with audience levels of MSNBC fading to near unmeasurable readings, the DRUDGE REPORT has learned! Overnight NIELSEN returns for Wednesday night show MSNBC setting near all-time low viewership for the all-news channel. Comment: Maybe its because the viewers ALL know that they get nothing but LIES on an "all news channel." Maybe if MSNBC started reporting the TRUTH it would raise their ratings?
She's been elected to Congress for just more than a month, but already Katherine Harris has landed a leadership role in the U.S. House. - Harris now enjoys far more clout than many freshmen, according to Larry Dodd, a professor of political science at the University of Florida. - She now belongs to the inner circle of leadership-Harris gained instant national stature in the GOP for her decisions as Florida secretary of state during the 2000 presidential election dispute. Comment: Yup. She helped Bush rig the election, so ... her career will last only as long as Bush does...
Pentagon prepares for war with National Guard call-up - The Pentagon is preparing a wide-scale call-up of the National Guard and reservists in preparation for war against Iraq. Military officials said on Wednesday that the size and timing of the mobilisations would hinge on the pace of United Nations arms inspections in Iraq and Baghdad's response to them. In Baghdad, UN weapons inspectors defended themselves after accusations by Iraq that they were spying for the United States and Israel and suggestions by Washington that searches were not "aggressive" enough. - Hussam Mohammed Amin, head of the Iraqi National Monitoring Directorate, said Baghdad's arms dossier for the UN would be huge, but he added: "The declaration will repeat that in Iraq there are no weapons of mass destruction." - In what is likely to be only the first wave of new call-ups, the Pentagon is expected in the next several days to activate as many as 10,000 reservists, mainly military police units, for security duty at home and abroad, officials said. They would join the 50,755 reservists now mobilised for the defence of the US after the September11 attacks and for the war in Afghanistan. - "Activating reserves is significant because ... it sends a signal that the President is serious," a senior military official said.
Comment: America, prepare yourself! George Bush is getting ready to sacrifice your children to the fires of the Control System! Buy your black dresses, mothers in America... you are going to need them when your sons and daughters come home in body bags.
Flashback! US clutches at straws on Iraq - Make no mistake, Bush will have his little war. He just won't have it with the support of anyone but British Prime Minister Tony Blair and the Israeli government. That is something of a victory for Saddam and a blow to Bush. -
The Bush administration's line plumbs new depths of cynicism. It seems to think the world, and especially the United States, is peopled with idiots. - Israel has had many nuclear weapons for at least 30 years. It is not a signer of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and does not permit international inspection. Iraq is and does. For a long time Israel refused to even acknowledge it has nuclear weapons, even though one of its specialists, Mordechai Vanunu, wrote a book about them some years ago, and was then kidnapped by Israeli agents in London and imprisoned for life. -
Israel is the nuclear monopolist in the region, and its unconditional patron is the most powerful government on earth, the only government to have actually dropped atomic bombs – on innocent people. Israel has occupied Palestinian territory relentlessly since 1967, in a war it launched preemptively. It bombed the Osirak nuclear facility in Iraq in 1981, a facility the International Energy Agency had said was being used only for peaceful purposes. It invaded Lebanon in 1982, killing more than 17,000 Lebanese and Palestinians.
Journalist Eric Margolis reminds us that among the UN resolutions passed in 1990 was one calling for a regional approach to nuclear disarmament. That resolution the United States is happy to ignore because it would require Israel to dismantle its arsenal. That's why the Bush administration has to trump up charges against Saddam.
US propaganda fuelled the first Gulf war. It will fuel this one too - and the risks are even greater - There were two glaring examples of how the propaganda machine worked before the first Gulf war. First, in the final days before the war started on January 9, the Pentagon insisted that not only was Saddam Hussein not withdrawing from Kuwait - he was - but that he had 265,000 troops poised in the desert to pounce on Saudi Arabia. The Pentagon claimed to have satellite photographs to prove it. Thus, the waverers and anti-war protesters were silenced. We now know from declassified documents and satellite photographs taken by a Russian commercial satellite that there were no Iraqi troops poised to attack Saudi. At the time, no one bothered to ask for proof. -
No one except Jean Heller, a five-times nominated Pulitzer prize-winning journalist from the St Petersburg Times in Florida, who persuaded her bosses to buy two photos at $1,600 each from the Russian commercial satellite, the Soyuz Karta. Guess what? No massing troops. "You could see the planes sitting wing tip to wing tip in Riyadh airport," Ms Heller says, "but there wasn't was any sign of a quarter of a million Iraqi troops sitting in the middle of the desert." So what will the fake satellite pictures show this time: a massive chemical installation with Iraqi goblins cooking up anthrax?
Meanwhile, in Britain, Jack Straw's new human rights dossier on Iraq is timed to coincide with the build-up. Convenient, eh? The second tactic used to get consensus for war in 1991 was another propaganda classic: dead babies. Then, the daughter of the Kuwaiti ambassador in Washington, Nijirah al-Sabah, tearfully described how, as a volunteer in the Al Adnan hospital in Kuwait City, she had watched Iraqi soldiers looting incubators to take back to Baghdad, pitching the Kuwaiti babies on to "the cold floor to die".
Except it never happened.
The Filipina nurses, Frieda Construe-Nag and Myra Ancog Cooke, who worked in the maternity ward of the Al Adnan hospital, had never seen Ms al-Sabah in their lives. Amnesty admitted they had been duped. Middle East Watch confirmed the fabrication, but it was too late: a marginal US congress had been swung to vote for war. George Bush senior mentioned the "incubator babies" seven times in pre-war rallying speeches. It was months before the truth came out. By then, the war was over.
In a war in which his own survival is unlikely (and already rumoured to be ill with cancer) Saddam Hussein has nothing to lose. If he knows his fall is imminent, what terrible legacy might he choose to leave behind? What better present to his extremist Arab brothers than an attack on Israel? And how will the US, Britain or Israel respond if their troops or cities come under chemical or biological attack?
Congresscritters turning off their email inboxes - It appears to me that the response of our elected representatives to the flood of public input generated via email, is to simply eliminate email as a means of contacting them. - After receiving the email below, I called the Washington office of Senator Boxer (CA), and confirmed my impression that my email had just gone to the bit-bucket. "We don't have an email any more, it has been turned off, it is not that we don't read it, we don't get it." ... not quite true, given that they have an auto-responder attached, but probably true in effect.
Fearlessly Facing the System - I had a lot of time over the recent holiday weekend to think about the society we live in, the world we live in, the country we live in and the different developments I see unfolding. -
The feeling out there is that a lot of Americans know that something is wrong, they know that globalism is expanding, that the economy is slowly imploding and that the hearts and minds of the people are becoming more and more decadent and corrupt. A lot of people then try to just tune it out and retreat back into quiet desperation. We can't do that America, we have to be honest about what we're facing. Of course it's hard to do that because of all the counterfeit conservatives and libertarians that are out there that will present tyranny as freedom and try to tell the population that anyone who talks about real freedom is a kook or a dangerous extremist. -
Every day I have mounting piles of evidence of the tyranny, at every level, in every facet of our world and our lives. Scientifically crafted, focused, outrageous corruption. Every signpost, every marker of full-board despotism is now around us. There is so much evidence of this that I can't even cover it in a three hour radio show. How do we defend the constitution and bill of rights? How do we effectively educate our friends, family, neighbors and the people in our communities? How do we get the job done to help people crack the code and decipher what's developing? Because I know exactly what the New World Order's up to, what their plans are, how far ahead of schedule they are on some issues, how far behind on others. If you could only see what I see, if you could only have studied this as much as I have studied it, I know you would have a burning in your belly that would make you work harder to fight it.
It all boils down to our progeny, to our posterity. If you look back in history at what has guided the more successful civilizations and societies, it has been an understanding of the future, an ingrained instinctive need to sacrifice for your young and the young that they will bear and the young that they will bring forward and so on. ... You can know a person by what they love and also what they despise. I love my family, I love my country, I love planted fields and orchards, I love happy children, I love home and heart, I love decency and honour, strength and courage and will. I despise degeneracy, I despise hatred, I despise weakness and the twisted system that the New World Order is.
If you don't have a sorrow in your breast, a pain for the twisting of the population, if you can't look out and see the people being dumbed-down more and more every day, then something's wrong with you. If you don't feel a debt to your ancestors' struggle to build civilization and you don't feel a debt of responsibility for future generations, then you're not even alive, you're not even a human being. You're a mindless animal, a herd creature.
Comment: Unfortunately, as the C's have revealed, half of the population of the planet ARE just exactly that: Organic Portals. What is more, THEY have taken control of the planet and have instituted the programs that keep those with souls asleep... with religion, New Age philosophies, technological mind control, and a whole supermarket of distractions and sleep aids...
Flashback! Producing the Proper Crisis - On the eve of Philip Agee's 20-city tour to campuses and community groups throughout the U.S. the Nicaraguan foreign ministry revoked his Nicaraguan passport preventing him from traveling freely. ... his original passport ...was revoked since 1979 on the grounds that Agee's writing and speaking pose "a serious threat to the national security of the United States." Following is the speech that Agee planned to give at his scheduled engagement. [...] Bush says we're "stopping aggression." If that were true, the first thing U.S. forces would have done after landing [in Saudi Arabia], they would have dethroned the Gulf emirs, sheiks, and kings, who every day are carrying out the worst aggression against their own people, especially women. Mainstream media haven't quite said it yet, as far as I know, but the evidence is mounting that George Bush and his entourage wanted the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, encouraged it, and then refused to prevent it when they could have. I'll get back to Bush later, but first, a quick review of what brought on this crisis. Does the name Cox bring anything special to mind? Sir Percy Cox? [...]
In a historical sense this is the man responsible for today's Gulf crisis. Sir Percy Cox was the British High Commissioner in Baghdad after World War I who in 1922 drew the lines in the sand establishing for the first time national borders between Jordan, Iraq, Kuwait, and Saudi Arabia. And in each of these new states the British helped set up and consolidate ruling monarchies through which British banks, commercial firms, and petroleum companies could obtain monopolies.
Kuwait, however, had for centuries belonged to the Basra province of the Ottoman Empire. Iraq and the Iraqis never recognized Sir Percy's borders. He had drawn those lines, as historians have confirmed, in order deliberately to deprive Iraq of a viable seaport on the Persian Gulf. The British wanted no threat from Iraq to their dominance of the Gulf where they had converted no less than ten sheikdoms, including Kuwait, into colonies. The divide-and-rule principle, so well-practised in this country since the beginning. In 1958 the British-installed monarchy in Iraq was overthrown in a military coup. Three years later, in 1961, Britain granted independence to Kuwait, and the Iraqi military government massed troops on the Kuwaiti border threatening to take the territory by force. Immediately the British dispatched troops, and Iraq backed down, still refusing to recognize the border. Similar Iraqi threats occurred in 1973 and 1976. [...]
This history, Saddam Hussein's justification for annexing Kuwait, is in the books for anyone to see. But weeks went by as I waited and wondered why the International Herald Tribune, which publishes major articles from the Washington Post, New York Times and wire services, failed to carry the background. Finally, a month after the invasion, the Herald Tribune carried a Washington Post article on the historical context written by Glenn Frankel. I've yet to find this history in Time or Newsweek. Time, in fact, went so far as to say that Iraq's claims to Kuwait were "without any historical basis." Hardly surprising, since giving exposure to the Iraqi side might weaken the campaign to Hitlerize Saddam Hussein. [...]
Apart from Iraq's historical claims on Kuwait and its need for access to the sea, two related disputes came to a head just before the invasion. First was the price of oil. OPEC had set the price at $18 per barrel in 1986, together with production quotas to maintain that price. But Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates had long exceeded their quotas, driving the price down to around $13 in June. Iraq, saddled with a $70 billion debt from the war with Iran, was losing billions of dollars in oil revenues which normally account for 95% of its exports. Meanwhile, industrialized oil consumers like the United States were enjoying the best price in 40 years, in inflation-adjusted dollars.
Iraq's other claim against Kuwait was theft. While Iraq was occupied with Iran during the war, Kuwait began pumping from Iraq's vast Rumaila field that dips into the disputed border area. Iraq demanded payment for oil taken from this field as well as forgiveness of Kuwaiti loans to Iraq during the war with Iran. Then in July, Iraq massed troops on the Kuwaiti border while OPEC ministers met in Geneva. That pressure brought Kuwait and the Emirates to agree to honor quotas and OPEC set a new target price of $21, although Iraq had insisted on $25 per barrel. After that Hussein increased his troops on the border from 30,000 to 100,000. On August 1, Kuwaiti and Iraqi negotiators, meeting in Saudi Arabia, failed to reach agreement over the loans, oil thefts, and access to the sea for Iraq. The next thing Iraq invaded. Revelations since then, together with a review of events prior to the invasion, strongly suggest that U.S. policy was to encourage Hussein to invade and, when invasion was imminent, to do nothing to discourage him. [...]
During the Iran-Iraq War in the 1980s, the U.S. sided with Iraq and continued this policy right up to August 2, the day of the invasion. In April, the Assistant Secretary of State for the Middle East, John Kelly, testified before Congress that the United States had no commitment to defend Kuwait. On July 25, with Iraqi troops massed on the Kuwait border, the U.S. Ambassador to Iraq, April Glaspie, met with Hussein. Minutes of the meeting were given by the Iraqis to the Washington Post in mid-August.
According to these minutes, which have not been disputed by the State Department, the Ambassador told Hussein that Secretary of State James Baker had instructed her to emphasize to Hussein that the U.S. has "no opinion" on Iraqi-Kuwait border disputes. She then asked him, in light of Iraqi troop movements, what his intentions were with respect to Kuwait. Hussein replied that Kuwait's actions amounted to "an economic war" and "military action against us." He said he hoped for a peaceful solution, but if not, he said, "it will be natural that Iraq will not accept death..." A clearer statement of his intentions would be hard to imagine, and hardly a promise not to invade. The Ambassador gave no warning from Baker or Bush that the U.S. would oppose an Iraqi takeover of Kuwait. On the contrary she said, "I have a direct instruction from the President to seek better relations with Iraq." [...]
During the week between the Ambassador's meeting with Hussein and the invasion, the Bush administration forbade any warning to Hussein against invasion, or to the thousands of people who might become hostages. The Ambassador returned to Washington as previously scheduled for consultations. Assistant Secretary Kelly, two days before the invasion, again testified publicly before Congress to the effect that the U.S. had no commitment to defend Kuwait. And, according to press reports and Senator Boren, who heads the Senate Intelligence Committee, the CIA had predicted the invasion some four days before it happened. [...]
Put these events together, and add the total absence of any public or private warning by Bush to Hussein not to invade, together with no U.S. effort to create international opposition while there was time. Assuming the U.S. was not indifferent to an invasion, one has to ask whether Bush administration policy was in effect to encourage Hussein to create a world crisis.
Why would Bush seek a world crissis? [...]
A... document on CIA operations said, in extracts: Hitherto accepted norms of human conduct do not apply ... long-standing American concepts of fair play must be reconsidered ... we must learn to subvert, sabotage, and destroy our enemies by more clever, more sophisticated and more effective methods than those used against us. It may become necessary that the American people be made acquainted with, understand, and support this fundamentally repugnant philosophy.
And so, from the late 1940s until the mid-1950s, the CIA organized sabotage and propaganda operations against every country of Eastern Europe, including the Soviet Union. They tried to foment rebellion and to hinder those countries' effort to rebuild from the devastation of World War II. Though unsuccessful against the Soviet Union, these operations had some successes in other countries, notably East Germany. This was the easiest target because, as one former CIA officer wrote, before the wall went up in 1961 all an infiltrator needed was good documents and a railway ticket.
From about 1949, the CIA organized sabotage operations against targets in East Germany in order to slow reconstruction and economic recovery. The purpose was to create a high contrast between West Germany, then receiving billions of U.S. dollars for reconstruction, and the "other Germany" under Soviet control. William Blum, in his excellent history of the CIA, lists an astonishing range of destruction: "through explosive, arson, short circuiting, and other methods, they damaged power stations, shipyards, a dam, canals, docks, public buildings, petrol stations, shops, outdoor stands, a radio station, public transportation ... derailed freight trains ... blew up road and railway bridges ... used special acid to damage vital factory machinery ... killed 7,000 cows ... added soap to powdered milk destined for East German schools," and much, much more. These activities were worldwide, and not only directed against Soviet-supported governments. [...]
The so-called national security state of the past 40 years has meant enormous riches, and power, for those who are in the game. It has also meant population control - control of the people of this and many other countries. Bush and his team, and those they represent, will do whatever is necessary to keep the game going. Elitist control of the U.S. rests on this game. [...]
When George Bush attacks Saddam Hussein for "naked aggression," he must think the world has no knowledge of United States history no memory at all. One thing we should never forget is that a nation's foreign policy is a product of its domestic system. We should look to our domestic system for the reasons why Bush and his entourage need this crisis to prevent dismantling the national security state.
First we know that the domestic system in this country is in crisis, and that throughout history foreign crises have been manufactured, provoked, and used to divert attention from domestic troubles a way of rallying people around the flag in support of the government of the day. How convenient now for deflecting attention from the S&L scandal, for example, to be paid for not by the crooks but by ordinary, honest people.
Second, we know that the system is not fair, that about one in three people are economically deprived, either in absolute poverty or so close that they have no relief from want. We also know that one-in-three Americans are illiterate, either totally or to the degree that they cannot function in a society based on the written word. We also know that one-in-three Americans does not register to vote, and of those who register 2/3rds don't vote. This means we elect a president with about 25% or slightly less of the potential votes. The reason why people don't vote are complex, but not the least of them is that people know their vote doesn't count.
Third, we know that during the past ten years these domestic problems have gotten even worse thanks to the Reagan-Bush policy of transferring wealth from the middle and poor classes to the wealthy, while cutting back on social programs. Add to this the usual litany of crises: education, health care, environment, racism, women's rights, homophobia, the infrastructure, productivity, research, and inability to compete in the international marketplace, and you get a nation not only in crisis, but in decline as well. In a certain sense that might not be so bad, if it stimulates, as in the Soviet Union, public debate on the reasons. But the picture suggests that continuation of foreign threats and crises is a good way to avoid fundamental reappraisal of the domestic system, starting where such a debate ought to start, with the rules of the game as laid down in the constitution.
What can we do? Lots. On the Gulf Crisis, it's getting out the information on what's behind it, and organizing people to act against this intervention and possible war. [...] The point on the information side is to show the truth, reject the hypocrisy, and raise the domestic political cost to Bush and every political robot who has gone along with him. At every point along the way we must not be intimidated by those voices that will surely say: "You are helping that brute Saddam Hussein." We are not helping Hussein, although some may be. Rather, we are fighting against a senseless, destructive war based on greed and racism. We are for a peaceful, negotiated, diplomatic solution that could include resolution of other territorial disputes in the region.
We are against militarist intervention and against a crisis that will allow continuing militarism in the United States. We are for conversion of the U.S. and indeed the world economy to peaceful, people-oriented purposes. In the long run, we reject one-party elitist government, and we demand a new constitution, real democracy, with popular participation in decision-making. In short, we want our own glasnost and restructuring here in the United States. If popular movements can bring it to the Soviet Union, that monolithic tyranny, why can't we here in the United States?
SHOCKER: 6% UNEMPLOYMENT! DOW PLUNGING - The U.S. unemployment rate jumped back to its highest level of the most recent recession and businesses slashed thousands of jobs from payrolls in November, the government said Friday.
Comment: Georgie Porgie pudd'n and pie, kissed the economy and made it die...
Flashback! PRESIDENT Bush displayed no interest in having Congress extend unemployment benefits before it adjourned for more than 800,000 jobless workers whose essential federal lifeline will expire right after Christmas. And a Happy New Year to you, too, Master of the Universe. The White House and the incoming Republican-controlled Congress are gleefully making plans for many more tax giveaways to benefit rich individuals and lavish loopholes to benefit corporations. But the victims of a wave of corporate collapses and employee downsizing in the shaky economy were stiffed by the GOP-controlled House of Representatives and the White House. The president ignored Democratic pleas to lean on his party's House leaders. The Republicans, flaunting their new political power, are practicing the Marie Antoinette school of economics. If the people are starving because they cannot pay the price of bread, let them eat cake. - The GOP's verbal sophistry is small comfort to the 820,000 jobless workers whose benefits run out Dec. 28 or the 95,000 whose benefits will run out the following week and every week afterward.
The Reader who sent in this link comments: Seeing this article by Marianne Means brings back childhood memories on the chicken farm. People on foot would stop and ask my father if they could work for food. Other times as Dad could afford it, he would give them $4.50 a week along with that midday meal. Young teenagers who lived around us joined the CCC, the Civilian Conservation Corp to go off and clean wooded areas ( I really think it was "make work" to balance out the meals being given to the young men. Then there was the WPA. I remember there was a crew who came around and installed "outhouses" , making them more sanitary than the usual. Those were bad times, and I do think that those times are here or are right around the corner. This environment and the opinions my father had about the Hoover regime and the Republicans left me a Democrat for life.
Through a Glass Lightly: Hopeful Cracks in the Bush Facade - In my last piece ("Shining Our Light on the Shadow Forces: Open Letter to the Fledgling 'Movement'"), I talked about how things are going to get worse before they get worse, and then even more worse, and then things will start to get better. In my darker periods -- which these days is most of the time -- I still believe this, that what is about to come down from Bush&Co. in the next few years is going to be horrendous, both for Americans domestically and for those in the way of U.S. imperial moves abroad. -
In case you haven't heard, a Bush Administration insider -- John DiIulio, who was Bush's head of the faith-based initiative program -- sent a long memo to Esquire writer Ron Susskind that takes a vivid peek behind the corrupt, power-hungry mob in the White House. Among his bombshells: "There is no precedent in any modern White House for what is going on in this one: a complete lack of a policy apparatus. What you've got is everything, and I mean everything, being run by the political arm. It's the reign of the Mayberry Machiavellis...On social policy and related issues, the lack of even basic policy knowledge, and only a casual interest in knowing more, was somewhat breathtaking..." -
DiIulio made the obligatory public backtracking a few days ago, after coming under heavy fire from the Bushistas, but what he wrote stands as a most important critical attack, all the more effective because it's not from a Democratic heavy or an online progressive writer but from a conservative who continues to support Bush as a leader. -
What he's saying is what many of us have been asserting for quite awhile: that the extremist HardRight agenda is what is driving the Bush&Co. engine, not policy that is intelligently vetted in terms of what is good for the American people. And Karl Rove, the Rasputin behind the throne, runs that domestic 24/7 political operation -- just as Cheney runs the foreign policy wing, and probably much more. In short, a major fissure has opened up in the Bush facade, and through it the American people can get a clearer view of the ambitious, power-hungry zealots in charge. Score one for our side. [...]
Chuck Baldwin writes in "The Republican," a newsletter for the GOP faithful: "Back in August, columnist Paul Craig Roberts asked the question, 'Is a vote for Republicans a vote for a police state?' The answer seems to be a resounding yes! The Bush administration seems determined to turn our country into the most elaborate and sophisticated police state ever devised."
"Things are so bad," Baldwin goes on, "that outgoing house majority leader Dick Armey said that under Bush the [Justice Department] is 'out of control.' In fact, the conservative congressman is reported to be seriously considering taking a position with the ACLU in order to help fight the federal government's usurpation of constitutionally protected liberties. Does that mean one must leave the Republican Party in order to fight for liberty? Maybe so...The tyrannical tendencies of old King George III of England cannot hold a candle to the Machiavellian machinations of King George XLIII of the United States. Unfortunately, there are few Paul Reveres around to sound an alarm. Unless contemporary patriots act quickly, Republicans, not Democrats, will be the ones that ultimately dismantle our constitution and trample our liberties."
Again, this invective was not spewed by the partisan enemies of the Bush Administration, but by a fellow Republican, thoroughly angered by his realization that his beloved party has been hijacked by far-right extremists, hell bent for leather to turn this country into the exact opposite of what small-government conservatives have been supporting for decades. Grounds for hope. [...]
It would appear on the surface that Bush appointing Kissinger to chair the blue-ribbon commission on how 9/11 happened means the results will be a whitewash for Bush&Co. The ex-Secretary of State & National Security Advisor -- with blood all over his hands for his policies, and notoriously secretive in defending all regimes from public scrutiny -- is regarded as a Bush toady who will see no evil and report no evil in terms of what the Bush Administration knew and when they knew it, and why they did nothing to protect American citizens from the coming terrorist attackers on 9/11.
But one friend suggests the following, and though it's hard to swallow, it is a possibility. The shorthand version is: payback. Kissinger, in this reading, is not totally Bush's man. Kissinger, who is like an elephant that never forgets, may want to revenge himself on old enemies, most notably Rumsfeld and, perhaps subconsciously, even the Bush family. And so, with his own private resentments active, and with Democratic vice-chairman George Mitchell prodding him from the sidelines, Kissinger -- anxious to resurrect his image from that of potential war-criminal back to the days of the brilliant, courageous Nobel Prize-winning statesman -- may let some of the dirt reach the light of day.
If and when that smelly truth hits the fan, watch out! The American people, even in their terrorist-fright, would not take kindly to leaders who, to further their own political agenda, chose inaction in the face of knowledge of what was coming -- leading to 3000 innocent American civilians dying. Out of that kind of rage and disappointment are impeachment movements born. [...]
Bush&Co. are trying to make war with Iraq an inevitability, a fait accompli, a juggernaut that supposedly can't be stopped by anyone, not allies, not the American citizenry. To accomplish this end domestically, they pushed the USA PATRIOT Act and the Homeland Security Act through Congress. But in town after town, city after city -- 22 at last count, and 40 more pending -- municipal governments are voting not to recognize the validity of unconstitutional behavior on the part of the feds.
As Nat Hentoff reported about the growth of the work of these Bill of Rights Defense Committees, by and large these resolutions are similar to the one passed unanimously by the Northampton City Council on May 2, 2002, which required that: "Local law enforcement continue to preserve residents' freedom of speech, religion, assembly and privacy; rights to counsel and due process in judicial proceedings; and protection from unreasonable searches and seizures even if requested or authorized to infringe upon these rights by federal law enforcement acting under new powers granted by the USA Patriot Act or orders of the Executive Branch.
"Furthermore, Federal and state law enforcement officials acting within the City are asked to 'work in accordance with the policies of the Northampton Police Department . . . by not engaging in or permitting detentions without charges or [using] racial profiling in law enforcement.' Also, "the U.S. Attorney's Office, the Office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and Massachusetts State police [are to] report to the Northampton Human Rights Commission regularly and publicly the extent to and manner in which they have acted under the USA Patriot Act, new Executive Orders, or COINTELPRO-type regulations." This includes "disclosing the names of the detainees held in western Massachusetts or any Northampton residents detained elsewhere."
This is grassroots democracy at its finest, telling the over-reaching Ashcrofts and Bushes that they've gone way beyond the line of legal, or even decent, human behavior. Not a good omen for Bush&Co. (Why not try to get something similar going in your town or city?)
Nine Palestinians killed by Israeli troops in Gaza refugee camp - During the incursion, witnesses said troops surrounded the home of Jamal Ismail, a suicide bomber who blew himself up along with another man in an explosive-packed boat off the Gaza coast last month, wounding four Israeli soldiers in a navy patrol. Comment: Gee, sounds like a revenge on the relatives kind of thing. If the guy was already blown up, what's the point of destroying his house? Besides, there is another version of this one...
Muslim Feast in Gaza Turns to Massacre - The Israeli army has reportedly killed ten Palestinian civilians and wounded scores more in the Buraij refugee camp in Gaza. - Eyewitnesses told the Palestinian Chronicle that over 50 Israeli armored vehicles invaded the camp, located in the center of the impoverished Gaza Strip, and opened fire on civilian homes. - Scores of panic-stricken civilians took to the streets as Israeli army gunships began systematic bombardments of the small refugee camp. -
Ahmad Rabah, the head of the Martyrs Hospital in the area said that the Israelis blocked the movement of ambulances, which contributed to the increase in the number of dead. - “Over half of those killed could have been saved if the Israeli army allowed them transportation to a hospital,” Rabah said, adding that five of them were left to bleed to death while the residents put up a good fight to save them. -
The latest massacre took place while the residents of the camp were celebrating the first day of the Muslim Eid, which follows the holy month of Ramadan. Buraij is a crowded camp, with over 20,000 refugees who were driven from their homes in Palestine in 1948. The camp underwent a massacre in the early 1950’s at the hands of an Israeli army unit led by now Israel’s Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon.
Palestinians reject Sharon's plan for new state in unoccupied areas - Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon proposed yesterday the creation of a Palestinian state in the zones under Palestinian administration, covering 40 percent of the West Bank and three-quarters of the Gaza Strip as troops killed ten Palestinians on the eve of Eid Al-Fitr. – and the Palestinian leadership immediately rejected the proposals. The Israeli Prime Minister described a Palestinian state existing only in areas of the West Bank and Gaza Strip that were put under real or nominal Palestinian control as part of the Oslo peace process – that is, only in Palestinian population centres. The Palestinians want to establish a state on all of the occupied areas that Israel has annexed – in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, as well as east Jerusalem. The area Mr Sharon has proposed for any new state accounts for only about 40 per cent of the West Bank and 70 per cent of the Gaza Strip. The Israeli housing ministry and the so-called Settlers Council in the occupied Palestinian Territory have drawn up a plan for increased settlement activity in the West Bank over the next three months, the Israeli daily Ma’ariv reported on Tuesday.
Comment: Let's get this straight here: The Israelis moved into Palestine when the U.S. and Britain just "gave" it to them. Never mind that there were people there who had been there for at least the past 2,000 years or so. Then, the Israelis put the legitimate residents of Palestine into "REFUGEE Camps," and started a war against them when they objected to this somewhat rude treatment. NOW, Ariel Sharon is proposing to move all of them to unoccupied areas (read: "Unlivable" and want to call it a "Palestinian State." Meanwhile, all of the ADDITIONAL areas that Israel has taken over illegally it wants to keep (read: the most desirable land). Somebody please help me understand what I am missing here... Oh! Silly me! I forgot! Yes, Palestine was given to the Jews because their God told them it was theirs... and they are instructed to kill anybody who gets in their way... Didn't the Nazis have a God like that?
Washington won't release evidence of Iraqi weapons - The Bush administration says it has solid evidence that Iraq has weapons of mass destruction, but feels no obligation to prove its allegations before leading an attack on Baghdad. - At a White House briefing on Thursday, reporters repeatedly pressed spokesman Ari Fleischer to share whatever proof the Bush administration has that Saddam Hussein has weapons of mass destruction. - Some asked why Bush refuses to do what John F. Kennedy did 40 years ago when he showed photographic evidence that the Soviets had placed missiles in Cuba.
Comment: Well, considering the fact that the Secret Cult that is driving the Bush Reich was in on the assassination of JFK, we can't reasonably expect them to model their behavior on his....
Fleischer insisted the world knows Iraq has prohibited weapons and it is up to Saddam to prove he doesn't.
Comment: Actually, uh... no. The world does NOT know that Iraq has prohibited weapons. In fact, the world only knows a whole pack of lies that Fleischer, Bush, Cheney and the gang are propagating in the same way Hitler and his gang operated.
Fleischer sez: "President Bush has said Iraq has weapons of mass destruction. Tony Blair has said Iraq has weapons of mass destruction. Donald Rumsfeld has said Iraq has weapons of mass destruction. Richard Butler has said they do. The United Nations has said they do. The experts have said they do. Iraq says they don't. You can choose who you want to believe."
Comment: This guy is astonishing. Before anybody decides who to believe, have a look at some of the evidence...
In a separate move on Thursday, the U.S. State Department issued a warning to Americans in Turkey of a possible terrorist threat. - Americans in Turkey are being warned of a possible terrorist threat after US officials received "unconfirmed and fragmentary" information. - The announcement came just days after Turkey said it would allow the US to use its bases for action in Iraq, if the military campaign was supported by the United Nations.
Comment: Yeah, right - the old Osama Is Under Your Bed routine... and we notice right away that the announcement comes right after Turkey begins to wiggle out from under the control of the Bush propagandists... how stupid do they think people are? Well... don't answer that! My guess is that Turkey will buckle right under...
Britain came under fire from Russia after rebel Chechen envoy Akhmed Zakayev -- wanted by Moscow on terrorism charges -- arrived in London, days after his release from jail in Denmark. Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov slammed London for allowing Zakayev to be freed on bail after a brief arrest, and alleged the Chechen was a terrorist comparable to suspected terror mastermind Osama bin Laden. Zakayev, 43, a top aide to Chechen separatist leader Aslan Maskhadov, was arrested at Russia's request on his arrival at London's Heathrow airport Thursday night, but then released pending an extradition court hearing.
Putin brings offer of nuclear-tipped arms deal to India - Russia and India moved yesterday to forge a strategically important arms deal that could drastically alter the nuclear-tipped balance of power in the subcontinent. As the Russian President, Vladimir Putin, ended a two-day visit to Delhi, both nations also used the occasion to fulminate about the need to contain terror and to issue a joint declaration against a unilateral US strike against Iraq. But behind the posturing, efforts were under way to advance the multibillion-dollar arms deal, which could include the acquisition by India of at least one Russian-made Akula-11 class nuclear-powered submarine, capable of carrying a payload of nuclear Cruise missiles.
Comment: This is, of course, a MOST interesting development considering the FACTS we brought forward yesterday regarding the Indian Intelligence services playing a major role in exposing the link between the 9-11 attacks and the Oval Office of the White House.
Just to recapitulate, we discovered that the public record reveals the United States creating the Taliban and other Militant Islamic groups for the express purpose of bringing the Soviet Union to its knees. This was done by the CIA through the Pakistani military intelligence so that the Militant Islamic groups didn't even know that they were being funded and trained with the support of the CIA and that they were being manipulated to create a revolution just to occupy the Soviets. Of course, it was only AFTER the "invasion of Afghanistan" that the U.S. publicly gave aid and support. Years after, it was admitted that the Soviet Union was lured into a trap by the CIA activities. So, it is a certainty that the Soviets have a "bone to pick" on this one!
Meanwhile, Pakistan and India are not exactly friendly lately, as the nuclear threats that have passed between them in the past year or so will show. What seems to be apparent is that Pakistan is being played by the CIA against India as well. Because certainly, the U.S. has a bone to pick with India for revealing the link between Mohammed Atta and the White House.
The reader will recall that General Mahmoud Ahmed, the chief of the Pakistani military intelligence service (ISI), arrived in Washington on September 4, 2001. The U.S. used Pakistan's ISI as the go-between in its own activities of "International Terrorism," including the support and training of the Taliban and Al Qaeda. As we reported yesterday, on the morning of September 11, General Mahmoud Ahmed was having breakfast with some of the conspirators behind the 9-11 event, including Florida's Bob Graham, IN Florida, the state governed by Dubya's brother, Jeb. Bush himself was IN Florida - which suggests to us that there is some reason that Florida is considered to be a "safe place" for such conspirators to be during the implementation of their nefarious plans. Could it be because Jeb signed into law a declaration of martial law in the event of a national emergency just a short time before the 9-11 attack? Was this a maneuver to cover their behinds "just in case?"
Anyway, two days after the "terrorist attacks" on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, the mainstream press reported that a "delegation led by the head of Pakistan's ISI, Lt. Gen. Mahmoud Ahmed, was in Washinton for high level talks at the State Department. [The Guardian, London, Sept. 15, 2001] The U.S. media "conveyed the impression" that this delegation was the result of a request from Washington AFTER the 9-11 attacks! But we KNOW that Gen. Ahmed had arrived on September 4th because Bob Graham was interviewed by the Miami Herald and told us that he was having breakfast with the guy on the morning of 9-11. So, anyway, a big announcement was made that this delegation was in Washington, and impression was "conveyed" to the public that the Bush Administration had decided to seek the "cooperation" of Pakistan. Sounds a lot like they were "covering up" for the fact that Bob Graham had let the cat out of the bag that the guy was here. Press reports confirmed the General Ahmed met twice with Deputy Secretary of State, Richard Armitage on the 12th and 13th of September. He also met with Joe Biden after September 11. (Joe Biden was Chairman of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations.)
Now, let's back up just a short while before the September 11 attack. On September 9, the leader of the Northern Alliance, Commander Ahmad Shah Masood, was assassinated. The Northern Alliance informed the Bush administration that the ISI of Pakistan was implicated in the murder. However, if you do a web search for articles on this matter, you will find that the Western Media repeatedly says that Masood was assassinated by " Arab militants" - very often specifically naming Al Qaeda. What is omitted is the official statement: A "Pakistani ISI- Osama - Taliban axis" [was responsible for] plotting the assassination by two Arab suicide bombers. [...] "We believe that this is a triangle between Osama bin Laden, ISI, which is the intelligence section of the Pakistani Army, and the Taliban." [The Northern Alliance Statement released on September 14, 2001, quoted by Reuters News Service on September 15, 2001] So, the complicity of the ISI in relation to Osama and the Taliban IS a matter of Public Record and is also in the Congressional transcripts.
However, what we see happening is that General Mahmood, the head of the ISI, was having breakfast with Bob Graham in Florida on the morning of September 11, and that a couple of days later - with full awareness of the connections between ISI and Taliban - including the assassination of Masood just two days earlier - the Bush Administration announced that it would "directly cooperate" with Pakistan's ISI. Isn't that just a little bit like asking the fox to watch the henhouse? How did they DO that?
It was simple. The Western Mass Media, in full support of the Bush Reich (as is evident throughout the events of the past 14 months) remained completely silent on the role of Pakistan's ISI, even to the extent of inserting an (inaudible) in the published text of the question asked of Condoleezza Rice on May 16, 2002. It was NOT a coincidence that this question was addressed by an INDIAN journalist. So it was that the cover-up of ISI's position in the Taliban-Osama axis was underway and America declared Pakistan to be the "friend and ally" of America in those dark days following 9-11. And how did they explain it?
U.S. officials had sought cooperation from Pakistan [precisely] because it is the original backer of the Taliban, the hard-line Islamic leadership of Afghanistan accused by Washington of harboring bin Laden. [Reuters, September 13, 2001]
Never mind, of course, that just two days before 9-11, ISI was implicated in the assassination of Masood. Of course, not everybody was asleep on this one. At a State Department Briefing on September 13, a journalist asked Colin Powell:
[Does the U.S. see Pakistan as an ally or, as the "Patterns of Global Terrorism" pinted out, "a place where terrorist groups get training." Or is it a mixture?
Powell's reply: We have provided to the Pakistani government a specific list of things we think would be useful for them to work on with us, and we'll be discussing that list with the President of Pakistan later this afternoon.
" Patterns of Global Terrorism" just happens to be the U.S.'s own publication... and the journalist was quoting it... This document confirms that the government of President Pervez Musharraf was part of the international terrorism "axis" saying:
Credible reporting indicates that Pakistan is providing the Taliban with material, fuel, funding, technical assistance, and military advisers. Pakistan has not prevented large numbers of Pakistani nationals from moving into Afghanistan to fight for the Taliban. Islamabad also failed to take effective steps to curb the activities of certain madrasas, or religious schools, that serves as recruiting grounds for terrorism.
The designation of state sponsors of terrorism by the United States--and the imposition of sanctions--is a mechanism for isolating nations that use terrorism as a means of political expression. US policy seeks to pressure and isolate state sponsors so they will renounce the use of terrorism, end support to terrorists, and bring terrorists to justice for past crimes. The United States is committed to holding terrorists and those who harbor them accountable for past attacks, regardless of when the acts occurred. The US Government has a long memory and will not simply expunge a terrorist's record because time has passed. The states that choose to harbor terrorists are like accomplices who provide shelter for criminals. They will be held accountable for their "guests'" actions. International terrorists should know, before they contemplate a crime, that they cannot hunker down in safehaven for a period of time and be absolved of their crimes. [published April 30, 2001]
Now, isn't that just a peach! In April of 2001, the U.S. declares Pakistan to be a "state sponsor" of terrorism, and on September 11, the head of the ISI has breakfast with Bob Graham after a week of closed door "consultations" with all kinds of fun folks in Washington. In short, the Bush Reich was hunkered down in a huddle with those who were directly - right up until two days before the 9-11 attacks - aiding and abetting "international terrorism."
Dubya announced on September 13th that the Pakistan government had agreed "to cooperate and to participate as we hunt down those people who committed this unbelievable, despicable act on America." Watch it Georgie: Your nose is growing.
On the same day, September 13, Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf agreed with Washington that General Mahmoud Ahmad would be sent to meet with the Taliban and negotiate with them to turn over that bad, bad boy, Osama bin Laden. So, our good buddy General Ahmad, being sufficiently fortified by his breakfast with Bob Graham, left immediately to "deliver the ultimatum" to the Taliban.
At American urging, Ahmad travelled [...] to Kandahar, Afghanistan. There he delivered the bluntest of demands. Turn over bin Laden without conditions, he told Taliban leader Mohammad Omar, or face certain war with the United States and its allies. [Washington Post, September 23, 2001]
Of course the "negotiations" failed. They were intended to fail. How can you have a war if Osama gets turned over??? If he had been extradited, there would have been no pretext for the "war against terrorism." There would be no pretext for the current beating of the drums of war against Iraq. Heck, if Osama had been turned over, there would be no possibility that we could all be terrorized with the regular and repeated Osama Is Under Your Bed routine.
Well, everything was going along just swimmingly - the conspirators had everything under control... until... On Sunday, October 7th, just prior to the bombing of Afghanistan, General Ahmed was removed as head of ISI.
What happened? Apparently, at some point in the days before the bombing of Afghanistan, something extremely devastating occurred. We get a "hint" in the following:
As to September 11th, federal authorities have told ABC News they have now tracked more than $100,000 from banks in Pakistan, to two banks in FLORIDA, to accounts held by suspected hijack ring leader Mohammed Atta. As well, this morning, Time Magazine is reporting that some of that money came in the days just before the attack and can be traced directly to people connected to Osama bin Laden. It's all part of what has been a successful FBI effort so far to close in on the hijackers' high commander, the money men, the planners and the mastermind. [Statement of Brian Ross reporting on information conveyed to him by the FBI, ABC News, This Week, September 30, 2001]
Now, just what the heck happened here? This statement was made on September 30, and it alludes to the fact that "just days before" the 9-11 attack took place, money was sent from a bank in Pakistan to two banks in FLORIDA. The statement by ABC news makes the most intriguing remark that the money trail leads right to the "hijackers' high commander, the money men, the planners and the mastermind." And we already know that General Mahmoud was having breakfast in Florida on the morning of 9-11 and that he had been in Washington and other places since September 4th. Again we notice that Florida is the "center of action" of a LOT of very strange things. It was the center of action for the rigging of the election that put Bush in the White House. It was where Bush was physically located at the time of the 9-11 attacks. It was where the hijackers were said to have lived and trained. It also happens to be the state that is governed by Dubya's brother Jeb. Lot of coincidences going on there, don't you think? But again, the ABC report was important for what it omitted: it made NO mention whatsoever of the ISI or General Mahmoud Ahmad. But apparently, he was now an embarrassment.
On the 9th of October the Times of India sez:
While the Pakistani Inter Services Public Relations claimed that former ISI director-general Lt-Gen Mahmud Ahmad sought retirement after being superseded on Monday, the truth is more shocking. Top sources confirmed here on Tuesday, that the general lost his job because of the "evidence" India produced to show his links to one of the suicide bombers that wrecked the World Trade Centre. The US authorities sought his removal after confirming the fact that $100,000 were wired to WTC hijacker Mohammed Atta from Pakistan by Ahmad Umar Sheikh at the instance of Gen Mahumd.
Senior government sources have confirmed that India contributed significantly to establishing the link between the money transfer and the role played by the dismissed ISI chief. While they did not provide details, they said that Indian inputs, including Sheikh’s mobile phone number, helped the FBI in tracing and establishing the link.
A direct link between the ISI and the WTC attack could have enormous repercussions. The US cannot but suspect whether or not there were other senior Pakistani Army commanders who were in the know of things. Evidence of a larger conspiracy could shake US confidence in Pakistan’s ability to participate in the anti-terrorism coalition. Indian officials say they are vitally interested in the unravelling of the case since it could link the ISI directly to the hijacking of the Indian Airlines Kathmandu-Delhi flight to Kandahar last December.
Ahmad Umar Sayeed Sheikh is a British national and a London School of Economics graduate who was arrested by the police in Delhi following a bungled 1994 kidnapping of four westerners, including an American citizen.
In other words, India's intelligence service had information about the money exchange and was probably "blackmailing" the U.S. According to the FBI files, Mohammed Atta was "the Lead Hijacker" and the "head conspirator." They carefully avoided talking about General Ahmad or the ISI. But it seems that there was more to this little "link" than met the eye. Agence France Press confirmed the report:
A highly-placed government source told AFP that the "damning link" between the General [Mahmoud Ahmad] and the transfer of funds to Atta was part of evidence which India has officially sent to the U.S. "The evidence we have supplied to the U.S. is of a much wider range and depth than just one piece of paper linking a rogue general to some misplaced act of terrorism," the source said.
Whoa! Talk about your not-very-veiled threat here!
So, what happened to that awful General Ahmad who was having breakfast with Bob Graham, and then was caught paying money to Mohammed Atta? Was he a "rogue general" or a "double agent" who was chowing down on grits and eggs, biscuits and gravy, with that good ole boy Bob Graham, all the while he was using his cell phone to transfer the big payoff to the guys just down the road so they would get those jets fired up and on target?
Well, he was appointed to the position of Governor of Punjab. Nice cushy retirement for a job well done! And even though Pakistan apparently REWARDED their "rogue general," the U.S. continues to scratch Pakistan's back.
The Times of India wasn't done playing cat and mouse with the U.S. On the 11th of October the following appeared:
The United States could well consider naming Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) a foreign terrorist organisation judging by the revelations spilling out now about its nefarious activities that have not only troubled India but also jeopardised Washington's battle against terrorism. [...] Pakistanis are apt to snicker at the frequent Indian invocation of ISI for all its problems. But recent disclosures of the spy agency's dirty tricks is earning it the mistrust of even its mentors in Washington. Following last week's expose showing the money trail of the September 11 terrorist attacks leading to Pakistan with possible ISI connections comes the disclosure now that renegade ISI operatives visited Kandahar last month to help the Taliban prepare its defences and strategy against US attacks.
The clandestine visit, which came after the September 11 carnage, was reportedly made in defiance of military ruler Pervez Musharraf's orders. It was this skunk works which resulted in the replacement of the ISI chief earlier this week, according to Ahmed Rashid, author of a well-received book on the Taliban. "Senior retired army officers said Gen. Musharraf was infuriated when informed of the officers' trip because it could have jeopardized Pakistan's relations with the United States and Britain. There is no suggestion that Gen. Ahmad knew about the trip either, but he nevertheless resigned as ISI chief," Rashid, whose work is highly respected in western circles, wrote in an article published simultaneously in London's Daily Telegraph and The Washington Times. [...]
Indian intelligence agencies have long mapped the ISI operations, ascribing to it everything from terrorism to drug-running, and even subverting Pakistan's own democracy. Indian officials have also noted that several former ISI chiefs have been given important diplomatic assignments, including ambassadorships to key European countries, to enable Islamabad advance its nuclear program. Former ISI chiefs like Hamid Gul and Javed Nasir have grown old preaching the destruction of India and pontificating about its imminent collapse. [...]
Washington has been far more credulous about the ISI and has frequently entertained both former and incumbent spymasters, evidently under the illusion that the maverick organisation is still beholden to the CIA for the close ties developed during the "golden" 1980s decade. That was when the two organisations worked hand in glove to arm the Afghan Mujaheddin ("Mooj" in CIA parlance) against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. [...]
Although the two agencies fell out in the early 1990s amid reports of financial skullduggery by the ISI and a spat over weapons inventory, especially missing Stinger missiles, Washington continued to engage important Pakistani spooks. It was mandatory for all new ISI chiefs to pay their respects – in appearance at least - to Langley and Foggy Bottom, home of the CIA and the State Department respectively. Former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharief chief spymaster Gen. Ziauddin was in Washington a fortnight before he (Sharief) was deposed and Musharraf's chief spook Gen. Mahmoud Ahmed was also here on the day of the terrorist attack and he (Ahmed) was sacked thereafter. [...]
Why the Bush administration continues to consort with the ISI, when there is probably enough material to proscribe it, is something of a mystery.
Well, it's not really too hard to figure it out. When ABC news reported:
... federal authorities have told ABC News they have now tracked more than $100,000 from banks in Pakistan, to two banks in FLORIDA, to accounts held by suspected hijack ring leader Mohammed Atta... some of that money came in the days just before the attack and can be traced directly to people connected to Osama bin Laden... a successful FBI effort so far to close in on the hijackers' high commander, the money men, the planners and the mastermind...
...they were telling the truth. They were ALL in Florida that morning...
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