Informazione
Subject: [COMMUNISM LIST]Fw: historical questions
Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2001 00:13:01 +0100
From: "Karl Carlile" <dagda@...>
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_______________________________________
The Guardian (London), November 23, 1995
PAKISTAN IS SECRET OF TALIBAN'S SUCCESS;
By John-Thor Dahlburg
IT HAS been one of the most breathtaking advances in the annals of
modern warfare: master of little more than a single city in
Afghanistan a year ago, the Taliban now controls more than half the
country.
And standing at the gates of Kabul, the Muslim fundamentalists
announced at the weekend that they had launched their final assault
to overrun the capital and chase President Burhanuddin Rabbani from
office.
Many observers believe it is only a matter of time before the
political map of a country mauled by more than 15 years of warfare
will be changed decisively.
The Taliban, a motley band of fighters chiefly composed of
inexperienced but courageous Islamic students, credits its lightning
success to its creed and to Allah. "The only real superpower is
Allah," said a commander, Mulvi Abdul Samad. But in the rugged
countryside of Baluchistan, the sparsely populated Pakistani province
of mountain and desert that runs parallel to Afghanistan for 670
miles, more worldly reasons come to light.
Attracted by the sacred Islamic ideal of jihad, or holy war, young
Pakistanis have flooded across the border to embrace Kalashnikov
rifles and the Taliban's cause.
And, despite repeated official denials, the Islamic republic of
Pakistan has given enormous support to the Muslim Afghan fighters in
the past year, the Los Angeles Times has learnt.
"Pakistan has decided not to give financial or military support to
any faction of the Afghans," the prime minister, Benazir Bhutto, told
an Iranian audience earlier this month.
But from Pakistan have come petrol for the Taliban's tanks, aircraft
and armoured vehicles, lorry convoys filled with munitions and other
supplies, and telecommunications equipment, experts and advice.
"This is the work of the Lawrence of Arabias of the ISI
(Inter-Services Intelligence)," said an opposition senator, Abdur
Rahim Khan Mandokhel of Baluchistan, who accuses the government of
trying to play puppet-master in Afghanistan.
===
The Guardian (London)
April 8, 1995
MUFTI IQBAL'S SCHOOL FOR MARTYRS;
'Rent-a-jihad' groups are sending out Muslims, including foreigners,
to fight abroad. Benazir Bhutto must crack down on fundamentalism to
prove her pro-Western credentials, but dare not go too far. Kathy
Evans in Peshawar reports on her dilemma
By Kathy Evans
THE bearded mullah sat cross-legged on the floor, fingering his beard
thoughtfully. "No, money is not a problem. We have many supporters
and they help us keep the jihad going," Mufti Iqbal smiled.
Mufti Iqbal is the Karachi front man for Harakat al Ansar, one of
Pakistan's numerous "rent-a-jihad" services. It is his job to recruit
local volunteers, receive foreign Muslims, and send them on to jihads
of their choosing. It is one of Pakistan's growing businesses.
The focus of Harakat's attention is Kashmir, the slither of territory
claimed by both India and Pakistan. Liberating the Kashmiri Muslims
from the Indian yoke is a national cause in Pakistan shared by
government and the man in the street. Mufti Iqbal, himself an Afghan
jihad veteran, offers contacts to other causes and conflicts,
however.
"Our main objective is to help Muslims all over the world secure
their freedom. We have received thousands of volunteers to fight in
Kashmir, Bosnia, Tajikistan and Chechenia. Jihad is, after all, an
obligation on all Muslims."
It was through Harakat al Ansar's conduit for would-be martyrs that
the young east London Pakistani, Ahmed Sheikh, was reported to have
passed. The former London School of Economics student now faces
charges of kidnapping two British tourists in India. Mufti Iqbal, the
Karachi recruiter, denies any knowledge of him.
Harakat al Ansar says it has several hundred foreign Muslims who have
come to "learn". Among the volunteers are Pakistanis, black American
Muslims, Arabs, Indians, Afghans, and even one Canadian.
The movement's officials deny they offer military training, saying
such skills are acquired at the front line. But Western diplomats in
Karachi say they have a well-established camp in Miranshahr, a remote
area bordering neighbouring Afghanistan.
The rent-a-jihad service is just one of the avenues available in
Pakistan to young Muslims from all over the world who seek to grow in
their religion and get an insight into the growing list of conflicts
in which Muslims find themselves in, against oppressive
Western-backed governments and the Christian world.
For such Muslims, Pakistan offers a number of attractions. It is a
cheap, police are bribeable, arms all too easily available, and in
whole chunks of the country government officials rarely venture.
The tribal areas function as playgrounds for the heroin and weapons
mafia. Here you can buy vital necessities for a terrorist movement.
Moreover, some of the causes espoused by religious groups enjoy
government support.
Throughout the interview with Mufti Iqbal, a man sat beside him on
the floor, prompting his answers. He claimed he was from a Pakistani
news agency.
"It's the ISI man" laughed my local newspaper colleague as we left.
"He is his minder".
ISI is the acronym for the Inter-Services Intelligence, one of
Pakistan's main intelligence agencies. It has many rivals, but none
enjoys the covert power of the ISI. That power is the product of the
multi-billion-dollar war effort launched by the West at the beginning
of the eighties to fight communism in Afghanistan. Today, its main
focus is Kashmir.
Afghanistan was the West's last war against the Soviet Union. More
than $ 10 billion was ploughed into this "heroic" cause by the US,
Britain and Saudi Arabia.
An early agreement in the conflict between America's CIA and the ISI
made the Pakistani agency the sole channel for the billions of
dollars worth of arms to the jihad. This gave the agency an
unprecedented influence in both Pakistan and Afghanistan, which
lingers to this day. Headed by General Hamid Gul, working under
General Zia ul-Haq, ISI established the seven guerrilla groups known
as the mojahedin.
Today, the mojahedin groups have become little more than heroin
warlords.
In Pakistani internal politics, ISI functions as an instrument of the
government in power, drumming up evidence against opponents and
making and un-making political parties.
Embarrassingly, some of its creations are thought to be behind the
recent killing sprees in Karachi, including possibly the shooting
last month of two US embassy officials.
ISI's Afghan jihad operation was also a siren call to militant
Muslims in the Middle and Far East. The agency turned a blind eye to
the thousands who flocked to Afghanistan for military training.
Afghanistan became a playground for any disgruntled Muslim who felt
oppressed.
Today, veterans of the Afghan war dominate terrorist groups in
Algeria and Egypt, and they remain a latent and feared force in the
Gulf states.
A number of Arab veterans of the Afghan war are facing trial in New
York for suspected involvement in the bombing of the World Trade
Centre in 1993. The latest suspect to join them in the New York
courtroom is Ramzi Youssef, said to be the master bomber.
If Western intelligence sources are to be believed, Ramzi Youssef was
one of the world's most dangerous terrorists. However, it is still
unclear whether he is a Pakistani Baluch, a Kuwaiti or an Iraqi.
Since his arrest, many stories have grown up around him. He was known
to have travelled to Manila, allegedly to kill the Pope on his tour
there.
It is not just abroad that Youssef was allegedly active. Benazir
Bhutto, Pakistan's prime minister, told journalists last month that
he was also behind an attempt to assassinate her in 1993. Pakistani
press reports have linked him with the Sunni extremist group Sepah
Sehaba, believed to be behind dozens of killings of Shias in Karachi,
and also a bombing in Iran.
Today the Arab route to training grounds in Afghanistan has virtually
ceased to exist. Dozens of Arab mojahedin have been arrested and
hundreds more have fled.
It has become virtual grounds for arrest to be an Arab and an Afghan
veteran and still live in Pakistan.
It is not just Arabs who have been subjected to the police's tactic
of rounding up the usual suspects. Last week, offices of the region's
oldest and largest Islamic group, the Jamaat Islami, were raided in
the police effort to root out militants.
The crackdown on militants preceded the vital trip to the United
States this week by Ms Bhutto. For her, it is the most important trip
of her administration, one in which she will attempt to portray
herself as the only reliable partner Washington and the West has to
fight fundamentalism in the region.
Only last year, Pakistan narrowly avoided being put on the American
list of states sponsoring terrorism. But in the effort to clean
militants out of Pakistan and brush up the country's image, Ms Bhutto
risks all.
Gen Hamid Gul, the former head of ISI, warns that if these arrests
continue, a typhoon will hit Pakistan.
"What is a fundamentalist anyway? A man with a beard? If the state
machinery goes after what it calls extremists, then the reaction
could be very very nasty. Inflation, the effects of IMF policies - if
mixed with a danger to the faith - could be very dangerous for the
country," he says.
Naturally, the first beneficiary of such a backlash would be groups
Gen Gul is associated with. The former intelligence chief is said to
be a key figure behind the increasingly political campaign by the
former playboy-cricketer Imran Khan.
Another beneficiary of any reaction from Muslim groups is Ms Bhutto's
long-standing rival, the Lahore businessman Nawaz Sharif. Mr Sharif
has already been able to accuse her of attacking Islam to appease the
Americans. Unwittingly or not, Ms Bhutto has provided her opponents
with potent slogans.
It is not just on the parliamentary front that dangers lurk for Ms
Bhutto. Kashmir is a cause supported by both the ISI and the army,
two institutions which Ms Bhutto has to live with. India accuses both
of training and arming the Kashmiri militants. Western diplomats
believe that help is being organised by renegade elements in the ISI
and the army.
Figures such as Gen Gul continue to be admired in military circles
for their devotion to Islamic causes. In the past year, Ms Bhutto has
been trying to clean out Jamaat Islami sympathisers in the
intelligence service through her new ISI chief and loyalist, Javed
Ashraf.
Jamaat officials shrug off such changes, saying that in the end Ms
Bhutto has to do "her duty" towards Kashmir.
Publicly, Pakistani officials have consistently denied that they are
arming and training the militants. However, few Pakistanis would
bother to deny that the militants are able to buy weapons freely or
that they are helped to cross over to the Indian-controlled part of
Kashmir.
Any attack on these delicate covert mechanisms by Ms Bhutto would
lead to charges that the prime minister is not only against Islam but
against Pakistan's national cause, Kashmir. During the last 15 months
she has made her support for the cause a central platform from which
to reaffirm all her Islamic credentials. Rarely does she make a
speech without mentioning Kashmir and Islam in the same breath.
In private, her diplomats wonder why Pakistan cannot consider the
unthinkable third option - supporting total independence for
Kashmiris from both India and Pakistan. That way, they argue, the
fundamentalist groups and the role of the intelligence agencies, can
be wiped away in one go.
Gen Gul argues that if the West is really interested in curbing the
terrorism carried out in the name of Kashmir, it should try to
resolve the conflict, rather than fighting its symptoms.
Meanwhile, the prime minister's crackdown on militants is getting
closer to the groups and rent-a-jihad services that the Kashmir cause
has created. Ms Bhutto may find she can go only so far. It is a
dilemma which even her friends in Washington cannot help her with.
--
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Communism@...
Subject:
[COMMUNISM LIST]Fw: Very interesting article from 1999 about
Bin Laden
Date:
Mon, 17 Sep 2001 00:10:23 +0100
From:
"Jeff Seaman" <scratcher11@...>
Reply-To:
communism@...
To:
<communism@...>
Communism List:
http://homepage.eircom.net/~kampf/
Workers of the world unite!
_______________________________________
Sent: Sunday, September 16, 2001 3:31 PM
Subject: Very interesting article from 1999 about Bin Laden
I remember being struck by the tone of this article when it appeared.
It
suggests that Bin Laden is more the inspiration for terrorists than
their
mastermind, and that his grievances are focused on the US presence in
Saudi
Arabia. I had seen nothing like it in the mainstream media before, and
nothing since. Did anyone see the Frontline documentary related to this
article?
Steven Sherman
April 13, 1999, Tuesday
U.S. Hard Put to Find Proof Bin Laden Directed Attacks
By TIM WEINER
American commandos are poised near the Afghan border, hoping to capture
Osama
bin Laden, the man charged with blowing up two American embassies in
Africa
eight months ago, senior American officials say.
But they still do not know how to find him. They are depending on his
protectors in Afghanistan to betray him -- a slim reed of hope for one
of the
biggest and most complicated international criminal investigations in
American history.
Capturing Mr. bin Laden alive could deepen the complications. American
officials say that so far, firsthand evidence that could be used in
court to
prove that he commanded the bombings has proven difficult to obtain.
According to the public record, none of the informants involved in the
case
have direct knowledge of Mr. bin Laden's involvement.
For now, officials say, Federal prosecutors appear to be building a case
that
his violent words and ideas, broadcast from an Afghan cave, incited
terrorist
acts thousands of miles away.
In their war against Mr. bin Laden, American officials portray him as
the
world's most dangerous terrorist. But reporters for The New York Times
and
the PBS program ''Frontline,'' working in cooperation, have found him to
be
less a commander of terrorists than an inspiration for them.
Enemies and supporters, from members of the Saudi opposition to present
and
former American intelligence officials, say he may not be as globally
powerful as some American officials have asserted. But his message and
aims
have more resonance among Muslims around the world than has been
understood
here.
''You can kill Osama bin Laden today or tomorrow; you can arrest him and
put
him on trial in New York or in Washington,'' said Ahmed Sattar, an aide
to
Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman, the blind Egyptian cleric convicted of
inspiring the
bombing of the World Trade Center in 1993. ''If this will end the
problem --
no. Tomorrow you will get somebody else.''
Interviews with senior American officials and knowledgeable observers of
Mr.
bin Laden in Pakistan, Sudan and elsewhere suggest that there is
widespread
support among ordinary people in the Muslim world for his central
political
argument: that American troops should get out of Saudi Arabia. The
embassy
bombings, they note, took place eight years to the day after the G.I.'s
were
ordered onto Saudi soil.
The interviews also raise questions about key assertions that have been
made
by the Government about Mr. bin Laden. Senior intelligence officials
concede
that their knowledge of him is sketchy.
''We can't say for sure what was going on'' with him from 1991 to 1996
--
most of the years covered in the indictment -- one senior official said.
His Affluence Seems Overstated
Present and former American officials and former business associates of
Mr.
bin Laden say he appears to control only a fraction of the $250 million
fortune that the American Government says he possesses.
''Clearly, his money's running out,'' said Frank Anderson, a former
senior
Central Intelligence Agency official who maintains close Middle Eastern
contacts.
Larry Johnson, the State Department deputy counterterrorism director
from
1988 to 1993, said Administration officials had ''tended to make Osama
bin
Laden sort of a Superman in Muslim garb -- he's 10 feet tall, he's
everywhere, he knows everything, he's got lots of money and he can't be
challenged.''
Milton Bearden, a retired senior C.I.A. official who ran the agency's
war in
Afghanistan and retired in 1995, said the Government had ''created a
North
Star'' in Mr. bin Laden.
''He is public enemy No. 1,'' Mr. Bearden said. ''We've got a $5 million
reward out for his head. And now we have, with I'm not sure what
evidence,
linked him to all of the terrorist acts of this year -- of this decade,
perhaps.''
Political leaders in Sudan and Pakistan who have met Mr. bin Laden
describe
him as intelligent, soft-spoken, polite. They also say he is deadly
serious
about his violent brand of radical politics and capable of killing in
God's
name.
Mr. bin Laden was born into the ruling class of Saudi Arabia. His father
was
the favorite construction magnate of the Saudi royal family, who gave
Mr. bin
Laden's family huge contracts to renovate the holy cities of Mecca and
Medina
and build palaces for Saudi princes.
American officials calculated Mr. bin Laden's fortune by estimating the
family fortune at $5 billion and dividing by 20, the number of male
heirs.
But business associates of Mr. bin Laden said his family cut him off
years
ago and are managing his share of his inheritance for him as long as he
is
disowned. Business associates say that Mr. bin Laden has been living on
a
generous allowance from his eldest brother and that his assets in Saudi
Arabia are now frozen.
In 1980, at 22, Mr. bin Laden left Saudi Arabia and moved to the Afghan
frontier. In Peshawar, Pakistan -- working alongside, but never directly
allied with, the C.I.A. -- he used his money and his machines to help
the
Afghan rebels fight the Soviet Army invaders.
The Afghan war shaped Mr. bin Laden, those who know him say. ''He is an
ordinary person who is very religious,'' said President Omar Hassan
al-Bashir
of Sudan, who met Mr. bin Laden often from 1992 to 1996. ''He believes
in the
rule of Islam and where possible the establishment of an Islamic state.
The
time that he spent in Afghanistan led him to believe that this might be
achieved through military means.''
Legend has it that Mr. bin Laden fought bravely against Soviet troops.
But
former C.I.A. officers say he was a financier, not a warrior -- ''a
philanthropist supporting a number of health care, widows-and-orphans
charity
operations in Peshawar for Afghan refugees,'' as Mr. Anderson put it.
He also helped create a headquarters called Al Qaeda, the Base. It was a
way
station in Peshawar where Egyptian and Saudi volunteers rested before
setting
off for battle in Afghanistan. Its name became a kind of flag uniting
Mr. bin
Laden's followers. American officials call it a global terrorist
network.
When the Soviet forces left Afghanistan in 1989, Mr. bin Laden went home
to
Saudi Arabia. He soon set his sights on the last remaining superpower.
''He himself was very much wary about America,'' said Saad al-Faqih, a
Saudi
exile living in London, who worked as a surgeon for wounded Afghan
fighters,
''very skeptical about America and the Saudi regime.''
He found a new enemy on Aug. 7, 1990, when the United States began
sending
half a million soldiers to Saudi Arabia, preparing for war against Iraq.
''One of the stories put out by bin Laden is that he went to King Fahd
and
promised that he would raise holy warriors who would protect Saudi
Arabia,''
said Mr. Anderson, who was the chief of the C.I.A.'s Near East
operations in
the mid-1990's. ''His violent opposition to the Saudi royal family began
when
King Fahd denied or rejected that offer.''
Americans Painted As New Crusaders
To Mr. bin Laden the deployment of Americans in the land of Mecca and
Medina
smacked of the Crusades, the Christian religious wars against Islam that
began nine centuries ago. His rage transformed him into a stateless
outlaw.
In November 1991, Saudi intelligence officers caught Mr. bin Laden
smuggling
weapons from Yemen, his father's homeland. They withdrew his passport.
Soon
afterward he made his way to Sudan, which had decreed its borders open
to all
Muslims, with or without passports or visas.
Veterans of the Afghan jihad, or holy war, against Moscow followed Mr.
bin
Laden, under Al Qaeda's banner. But ''when Al Qaeda was moved to Sudan,
it
lost around 70 percent of its members,'' Mamdouh Mahmud Salim, accused
of
being an associate of Mr. bin Laden, said during an interrogation by the
German police after his arrest in September.
''This group didn't have a purpose except to carry out the jihad,'' Mr.
Salim
said, ''and since nobody carried out the jihad, it lost a lot of its
members.''
He Lived As an Investor
There were three kinds of men in Al Qaeda, he said. First, ''people who
had
no success in life, had nothing in their heads and wanted to join just
to
keep from falling on their noses.'' Second, ''people who loved their
religion
but had no idea what their religion really meant.'' And third, ''people
who
have nothing in their heads but to fight and solve all the problems in
the
world with battles.''
Mr. bin Laden lived in Khartoum, the Sudanese capital, ''as an
investor,''
said President Bashir. ''With his money, he was adventurous, and
probably he
gained this mentality by his experiences as a fighter.''
The indictment against Mr. bin Laden says he provided training camps in
Sudan
where Afghan war veterans prepared for terrorist missions. But a senior
American intelligence official contradicted that, saying, ''There was
never a
bin Laden-financed training camp in Sudan.''
The official added: ''In 1993, '94, '95, he's managing and building up
his
legitimate business presence there in Sudan. I won't pretend we've got a
good
intelligence base on this period, but we think he was laying the
groundwork
for Al Qaeda.''
In 1995 two C.I.A. officers were stalked by teen-age followers of Mr.
bin
Laden in the streets of Khartoum. ''Bin Laden was approached by us and
was
told that this would not be tolerated,'' said Ghazi Salaheldin, the
Sudanese
Information Minister. Sudan expelled the teen-agers.
In the face of such perceived threats -- though some were mirages, based
on a
slew of false C.I.A. reports -- the United States withdrew from Sudan in
late
1995. The absence of American diplomats and spies in the country
diminished
Washington's ability to know what Mr. bin Laden was doing at the very
moment
he stepped up his political war.
In 1995, after the Saudi Government rescinded his citizenship, he began
sending scathing attacks on the royal family from Khartoum.
''Bin Laden took a chance and started doing some political activities,''
President Bashir said, ''not terrorist activities, but he started
issuing
political bulletins and communiques and faxes'' denouncing the Saudi
Government as corrupt and repressive.
The United States took notice. ''There had been confusion'' after the
World
Trade Center bombing about the nature of radical Islamic threats to the
United States, said Mr. Johnson, the former senior counterterrorism
official.
No Evidence To Implicate Him
''There were lots of theories, not very good intelligence, and so the
intelligence community actually started generating a picture that Osama
bin
Laden was, if you will, the new face of terrorism,'' he said.
On May 31, 1996, four Saudis were beheaded after confessing to bombing a
Saudi National Guard post in Riyadh and killing five Americans. All told
their interrogators that they had received Mr. bin Laden's communiques.
Only
25 days later, a truck bomb tore through a military post in Dhahran,
killing
19 American soldiers.
Mr. bin Laden was blamed by American officials for instigating the
attacks.
But no known evidence implicates him, and the Saudi Interior Minister,
Prince
Nayef ibn Abdel Aziz, has absolved him. ''Maybe there are people who
adopt
his ideas,'' Prince Nayef said. ''He does not constitute any security
problem
to us.''
Shortly before the Dhahran attack, Mr. bin Laden and members of his
entourage
left Sudan in a C-130 military transport plane. The Sudanese had asked
him to
leave -- at the request of the United States. Mr. bin Laden landed at an
American-built airport in Kandahar, Afghanistan. Three months later, on
Aug.
23, 1996, he declared war on the United States.
''The situation in Saudi Arabia is like a great volcano about to
erupt,'' his
declaration stated. ''Everyone talks openly about economic recession,
high
prices, debt'' and ''the filling up of the prisons.''
How Did He Control the Bombers?
Mr. bin Laden's criticisms of Saudi repression and corruption closely
corresponded with State Department reports and C.I.A. analyses. But Mr.
bin
Laden blamed the United States. ''The root of the problem is the
occupying
American enemy,'' he proclaimed, ''and all efforts should focus on
killing,
fighting and destroying it.''
A second, more ominous warning from him came on Feb. 23, 1998: ''To kill
Americans and their allies, both civil and military, is an individual
duty of
every Muslim who is able, in any country where this is possible,'' until
American armies, ''shattered and broken-winged, depart from all the
lands of
Islam.''
Then came the embassy bombings last August. American authorities say the
men
who attacked the embassies in Kenya and Tanzania were controlled by Mr.
bin
Laden. But they still have no clear idea how.
Despite efforts at the highest levels of the United States Government,
Mr.
bin Laden and his closest associates remain isolated in Afghanistan.
It is difficult to say precisely where the criminal case against Mr. bin
Laden stands. Prosecutors have obtained unusually restrictive court
orders
that bar the defendants and their lawyers from communicating with
virtually
anyone.
The Case Runs Out of Steam
Publicly, at least, the case has lost momentum. While two men suspected
of
being bombers were quickly apprehended, many other suspects are still at
large. The last arrest was more than six months ago. A spokesman for the
United States Attorney in Manhattan declined comment.
Now the hunt for Mr. bin Laden depends on whether the Taliban, his
radical
hosts in Afghanistan, will betray him. The United States has little
leverage
with the Taliban, and little fresh intelligence on how to capture Mr.
bin
Laden. It has no spies in Afghanistan and little new information on
precisely
how he might have instigated the deadly bombings.
''I do not have a clear picture yet of what happened when,'' said
Prudence
Bushnell, the United States Ambassador to Kenya, who was wounded in the
bomb
blast, which killed 12 of her colleagues. ''I may not ever have a clear
picture of what happened when. None of us may.''
A COLLABORATION
This article resulted from a collaboration between The New York Times
and the
PBS program ''Frontline,'' which will broadcast a documentary tonight
about
Osama bin Laden that will run on most PBS stations at 9 o'clock. The
''Frontline'' program was based on the work of Lowell Bergman,
correspondent,
Martin Smith, producer, and Orianna Zill and Ivana Damjanov, associate
producers.
ON THE WEB
Past coverage of Mr. bin Laden, the 1998 bombings of the American
embassies
in East Africa and the American response to terrorism is available from
The
New York Times on the Web:
www.nytimes.com/ international
Communism List _______________________________________________
Communism@...
Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2001 00:13:01 +0100
From: "Karl Carlile" <dagda@...>
Reply-To: communism@...
Organization: Communism List
To: <communism@...>
Communism List:
http://homepage.eircom.net/~kampf/
Workers of the world unite!
_______________________________________
The Guardian (London), November 23, 1995
PAKISTAN IS SECRET OF TALIBAN'S SUCCESS;
By John-Thor Dahlburg
IT HAS been one of the most breathtaking advances in the annals of
modern warfare: master of little more than a single city in
Afghanistan a year ago, the Taliban now controls more than half the
country.
And standing at the gates of Kabul, the Muslim fundamentalists
announced at the weekend that they had launched their final assault
to overrun the capital and chase President Burhanuddin Rabbani from
office.
Many observers believe it is only a matter of time before the
political map of a country mauled by more than 15 years of warfare
will be changed decisively.
The Taliban, a motley band of fighters chiefly composed of
inexperienced but courageous Islamic students, credits its lightning
success to its creed and to Allah. "The only real superpower is
Allah," said a commander, Mulvi Abdul Samad. But in the rugged
countryside of Baluchistan, the sparsely populated Pakistani province
of mountain and desert that runs parallel to Afghanistan for 670
miles, more worldly reasons come to light.
Attracted by the sacred Islamic ideal of jihad, or holy war, young
Pakistanis have flooded across the border to embrace Kalashnikov
rifles and the Taliban's cause.
And, despite repeated official denials, the Islamic republic of
Pakistan has given enormous support to the Muslim Afghan fighters in
the past year, the Los Angeles Times has learnt.
"Pakistan has decided not to give financial or military support to
any faction of the Afghans," the prime minister, Benazir Bhutto, told
an Iranian audience earlier this month.
But from Pakistan have come petrol for the Taliban's tanks, aircraft
and armoured vehicles, lorry convoys filled with munitions and other
supplies, and telecommunications equipment, experts and advice.
"This is the work of the Lawrence of Arabias of the ISI
(Inter-Services Intelligence)," said an opposition senator, Abdur
Rahim Khan Mandokhel of Baluchistan, who accuses the government of
trying to play puppet-master in Afghanistan.
===
The Guardian (London)
April 8, 1995
MUFTI IQBAL'S SCHOOL FOR MARTYRS;
'Rent-a-jihad' groups are sending out Muslims, including foreigners,
to fight abroad. Benazir Bhutto must crack down on fundamentalism to
prove her pro-Western credentials, but dare not go too far. Kathy
Evans in Peshawar reports on her dilemma
By Kathy Evans
THE bearded mullah sat cross-legged on the floor, fingering his beard
thoughtfully. "No, money is not a problem. We have many supporters
and they help us keep the jihad going," Mufti Iqbal smiled.
Mufti Iqbal is the Karachi front man for Harakat al Ansar, one of
Pakistan's numerous "rent-a-jihad" services. It is his job to recruit
local volunteers, receive foreign Muslims, and send them on to jihads
of their choosing. It is one of Pakistan's growing businesses.
The focus of Harakat's attention is Kashmir, the slither of territory
claimed by both India and Pakistan. Liberating the Kashmiri Muslims
from the Indian yoke is a national cause in Pakistan shared by
government and the man in the street. Mufti Iqbal, himself an Afghan
jihad veteran, offers contacts to other causes and conflicts,
however.
"Our main objective is to help Muslims all over the world secure
their freedom. We have received thousands of volunteers to fight in
Kashmir, Bosnia, Tajikistan and Chechenia. Jihad is, after all, an
obligation on all Muslims."
It was through Harakat al Ansar's conduit for would-be martyrs that
the young east London Pakistani, Ahmed Sheikh, was reported to have
passed. The former London School of Economics student now faces
charges of kidnapping two British tourists in India. Mufti Iqbal, the
Karachi recruiter, denies any knowledge of him.
Harakat al Ansar says it has several hundred foreign Muslims who have
come to "learn". Among the volunteers are Pakistanis, black American
Muslims, Arabs, Indians, Afghans, and even one Canadian.
The movement's officials deny they offer military training, saying
such skills are acquired at the front line. But Western diplomats in
Karachi say they have a well-established camp in Miranshahr, a remote
area bordering neighbouring Afghanistan.
The rent-a-jihad service is just one of the avenues available in
Pakistan to young Muslims from all over the world who seek to grow in
their religion and get an insight into the growing list of conflicts
in which Muslims find themselves in, against oppressive
Western-backed governments and the Christian world.
For such Muslims, Pakistan offers a number of attractions. It is a
cheap, police are bribeable, arms all too easily available, and in
whole chunks of the country government officials rarely venture.
The tribal areas function as playgrounds for the heroin and weapons
mafia. Here you can buy vital necessities for a terrorist movement.
Moreover, some of the causes espoused by religious groups enjoy
government support.
Throughout the interview with Mufti Iqbal, a man sat beside him on
the floor, prompting his answers. He claimed he was from a Pakistani
news agency.
"It's the ISI man" laughed my local newspaper colleague as we left.
"He is his minder".
ISI is the acronym for the Inter-Services Intelligence, one of
Pakistan's main intelligence agencies. It has many rivals, but none
enjoys the covert power of the ISI. That power is the product of the
multi-billion-dollar war effort launched by the West at the beginning
of the eighties to fight communism in Afghanistan. Today, its main
focus is Kashmir.
Afghanistan was the West's last war against the Soviet Union. More
than $ 10 billion was ploughed into this "heroic" cause by the US,
Britain and Saudi Arabia.
An early agreement in the conflict between America's CIA and the ISI
made the Pakistani agency the sole channel for the billions of
dollars worth of arms to the jihad. This gave the agency an
unprecedented influence in both Pakistan and Afghanistan, which
lingers to this day. Headed by General Hamid Gul, working under
General Zia ul-Haq, ISI established the seven guerrilla groups known
as the mojahedin.
Today, the mojahedin groups have become little more than heroin
warlords.
In Pakistani internal politics, ISI functions as an instrument of the
government in power, drumming up evidence against opponents and
making and un-making political parties.
Embarrassingly, some of its creations are thought to be behind the
recent killing sprees in Karachi, including possibly the shooting
last month of two US embassy officials.
ISI's Afghan jihad operation was also a siren call to militant
Muslims in the Middle and Far East. The agency turned a blind eye to
the thousands who flocked to Afghanistan for military training.
Afghanistan became a playground for any disgruntled Muslim who felt
oppressed.
Today, veterans of the Afghan war dominate terrorist groups in
Algeria and Egypt, and they remain a latent and feared force in the
Gulf states.
A number of Arab veterans of the Afghan war are facing trial in New
York for suspected involvement in the bombing of the World Trade
Centre in 1993. The latest suspect to join them in the New York
courtroom is Ramzi Youssef, said to be the master bomber.
If Western intelligence sources are to be believed, Ramzi Youssef was
one of the world's most dangerous terrorists. However, it is still
unclear whether he is a Pakistani Baluch, a Kuwaiti or an Iraqi.
Since his arrest, many stories have grown up around him. He was known
to have travelled to Manila, allegedly to kill the Pope on his tour
there.
It is not just abroad that Youssef was allegedly active. Benazir
Bhutto, Pakistan's prime minister, told journalists last month that
he was also behind an attempt to assassinate her in 1993. Pakistani
press reports have linked him with the Sunni extremist group Sepah
Sehaba, believed to be behind dozens of killings of Shias in Karachi,
and also a bombing in Iran.
Today the Arab route to training grounds in Afghanistan has virtually
ceased to exist. Dozens of Arab mojahedin have been arrested and
hundreds more have fled.
It has become virtual grounds for arrest to be an Arab and an Afghan
veteran and still live in Pakistan.
It is not just Arabs who have been subjected to the police's tactic
of rounding up the usual suspects. Last week, offices of the region's
oldest and largest Islamic group, the Jamaat Islami, were raided in
the police effort to root out militants.
The crackdown on militants preceded the vital trip to the United
States this week by Ms Bhutto. For her, it is the most important trip
of her administration, one in which she will attempt to portray
herself as the only reliable partner Washington and the West has to
fight fundamentalism in the region.
Only last year, Pakistan narrowly avoided being put on the American
list of states sponsoring terrorism. But in the effort to clean
militants out of Pakistan and brush up the country's image, Ms Bhutto
risks all.
Gen Hamid Gul, the former head of ISI, warns that if these arrests
continue, a typhoon will hit Pakistan.
"What is a fundamentalist anyway? A man with a beard? If the state
machinery goes after what it calls extremists, then the reaction
could be very very nasty. Inflation, the effects of IMF policies - if
mixed with a danger to the faith - could be very dangerous for the
country," he says.
Naturally, the first beneficiary of such a backlash would be groups
Gen Gul is associated with. The former intelligence chief is said to
be a key figure behind the increasingly political campaign by the
former playboy-cricketer Imran Khan.
Another beneficiary of any reaction from Muslim groups is Ms Bhutto's
long-standing rival, the Lahore businessman Nawaz Sharif. Mr Sharif
has already been able to accuse her of attacking Islam to appease the
Americans. Unwittingly or not, Ms Bhutto has provided her opponents
with potent slogans.
It is not just on the parliamentary front that dangers lurk for Ms
Bhutto. Kashmir is a cause supported by both the ISI and the army,
two institutions which Ms Bhutto has to live with. India accuses both
of training and arming the Kashmiri militants. Western diplomats
believe that help is being organised by renegade elements in the ISI
and the army.
Figures such as Gen Gul continue to be admired in military circles
for their devotion to Islamic causes. In the past year, Ms Bhutto has
been trying to clean out Jamaat Islami sympathisers in the
intelligence service through her new ISI chief and loyalist, Javed
Ashraf.
Jamaat officials shrug off such changes, saying that in the end Ms
Bhutto has to do "her duty" towards Kashmir.
Publicly, Pakistani officials have consistently denied that they are
arming and training the militants. However, few Pakistanis would
bother to deny that the militants are able to buy weapons freely or
that they are helped to cross over to the Indian-controlled part of
Kashmir.
Any attack on these delicate covert mechanisms by Ms Bhutto would
lead to charges that the prime minister is not only against Islam but
against Pakistan's national cause, Kashmir. During the last 15 months
she has made her support for the cause a central platform from which
to reaffirm all her Islamic credentials. Rarely does she make a
speech without mentioning Kashmir and Islam in the same breath.
In private, her diplomats wonder why Pakistan cannot consider the
unthinkable third option - supporting total independence for
Kashmiris from both India and Pakistan. That way, they argue, the
fundamentalist groups and the role of the intelligence agencies, can
be wiped away in one go.
Gen Gul argues that if the West is really interested in curbing the
terrorism carried out in the name of Kashmir, it should try to
resolve the conflict, rather than fighting its symptoms.
Meanwhile, the prime minister's crackdown on militants is getting
closer to the groups and rent-a-jihad services that the Kashmir cause
has created. Ms Bhutto may find she can go only so far. It is a
dilemma which even her friends in Washington cannot help her with.
--
Communism List _______________________________________________
Communism@...
Subject:
[COMMUNISM LIST]Fw: Very interesting article from 1999 about
Bin Laden
Date:
Mon, 17 Sep 2001 00:10:23 +0100
From:
"Jeff Seaman" <scratcher11@...>
Reply-To:
communism@...
To:
<communism@...>
Communism List:
http://homepage.eircom.net/~kampf/
Workers of the world unite!
_______________________________________
Sent: Sunday, September 16, 2001 3:31 PM
Subject: Very interesting article from 1999 about Bin Laden
I remember being struck by the tone of this article when it appeared.
It
suggests that Bin Laden is more the inspiration for terrorists than
their
mastermind, and that his grievances are focused on the US presence in
Saudi
Arabia. I had seen nothing like it in the mainstream media before, and
nothing since. Did anyone see the Frontline documentary related to this
article?
Steven Sherman
April 13, 1999, Tuesday
U.S. Hard Put to Find Proof Bin Laden Directed Attacks
By TIM WEINER
American commandos are poised near the Afghan border, hoping to capture
Osama
bin Laden, the man charged with blowing up two American embassies in
Africa
eight months ago, senior American officials say.
But they still do not know how to find him. They are depending on his
protectors in Afghanistan to betray him -- a slim reed of hope for one
of the
biggest and most complicated international criminal investigations in
American history.
Capturing Mr. bin Laden alive could deepen the complications. American
officials say that so far, firsthand evidence that could be used in
court to
prove that he commanded the bombings has proven difficult to obtain.
According to the public record, none of the informants involved in the
case
have direct knowledge of Mr. bin Laden's involvement.
For now, officials say, Federal prosecutors appear to be building a case
that
his violent words and ideas, broadcast from an Afghan cave, incited
terrorist
acts thousands of miles away.
In their war against Mr. bin Laden, American officials portray him as
the
world's most dangerous terrorist. But reporters for The New York Times
and
the PBS program ''Frontline,'' working in cooperation, have found him to
be
less a commander of terrorists than an inspiration for them.
Enemies and supporters, from members of the Saudi opposition to present
and
former American intelligence officials, say he may not be as globally
powerful as some American officials have asserted. But his message and
aims
have more resonance among Muslims around the world than has been
understood
here.
''You can kill Osama bin Laden today or tomorrow; you can arrest him and
put
him on trial in New York or in Washington,'' said Ahmed Sattar, an aide
to
Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman, the blind Egyptian cleric convicted of
inspiring the
bombing of the World Trade Center in 1993. ''If this will end the
problem --
no. Tomorrow you will get somebody else.''
Interviews with senior American officials and knowledgeable observers of
Mr.
bin Laden in Pakistan, Sudan and elsewhere suggest that there is
widespread
support among ordinary people in the Muslim world for his central
political
argument: that American troops should get out of Saudi Arabia. The
embassy
bombings, they note, took place eight years to the day after the G.I.'s
were
ordered onto Saudi soil.
The interviews also raise questions about key assertions that have been
made
by the Government about Mr. bin Laden. Senior intelligence officials
concede
that their knowledge of him is sketchy.
''We can't say for sure what was going on'' with him from 1991 to 1996
--
most of the years covered in the indictment -- one senior official said.
His Affluence Seems Overstated
Present and former American officials and former business associates of
Mr.
bin Laden say he appears to control only a fraction of the $250 million
fortune that the American Government says he possesses.
''Clearly, his money's running out,'' said Frank Anderson, a former
senior
Central Intelligence Agency official who maintains close Middle Eastern
contacts.
Larry Johnson, the State Department deputy counterterrorism director
from
1988 to 1993, said Administration officials had ''tended to make Osama
bin
Laden sort of a Superman in Muslim garb -- he's 10 feet tall, he's
everywhere, he knows everything, he's got lots of money and he can't be
challenged.''
Milton Bearden, a retired senior C.I.A. official who ran the agency's
war in
Afghanistan and retired in 1995, said the Government had ''created a
North
Star'' in Mr. bin Laden.
''He is public enemy No. 1,'' Mr. Bearden said. ''We've got a $5 million
reward out for his head. And now we have, with I'm not sure what
evidence,
linked him to all of the terrorist acts of this year -- of this decade,
perhaps.''
Political leaders in Sudan and Pakistan who have met Mr. bin Laden
describe
him as intelligent, soft-spoken, polite. They also say he is deadly
serious
about his violent brand of radical politics and capable of killing in
God's
name.
Mr. bin Laden was born into the ruling class of Saudi Arabia. His father
was
the favorite construction magnate of the Saudi royal family, who gave
Mr. bin
Laden's family huge contracts to renovate the holy cities of Mecca and
Medina
and build palaces for Saudi princes.
American officials calculated Mr. bin Laden's fortune by estimating the
family fortune at $5 billion and dividing by 20, the number of male
heirs.
But business associates of Mr. bin Laden said his family cut him off
years
ago and are managing his share of his inheritance for him as long as he
is
disowned. Business associates say that Mr. bin Laden has been living on
a
generous allowance from his eldest brother and that his assets in Saudi
Arabia are now frozen.
In 1980, at 22, Mr. bin Laden left Saudi Arabia and moved to the Afghan
frontier. In Peshawar, Pakistan -- working alongside, but never directly
allied with, the C.I.A. -- he used his money and his machines to help
the
Afghan rebels fight the Soviet Army invaders.
The Afghan war shaped Mr. bin Laden, those who know him say. ''He is an
ordinary person who is very religious,'' said President Omar Hassan
al-Bashir
of Sudan, who met Mr. bin Laden often from 1992 to 1996. ''He believes
in the
rule of Islam and where possible the establishment of an Islamic state.
The
time that he spent in Afghanistan led him to believe that this might be
achieved through military means.''
Legend has it that Mr. bin Laden fought bravely against Soviet troops.
But
former C.I.A. officers say he was a financier, not a warrior -- ''a
philanthropist supporting a number of health care, widows-and-orphans
charity
operations in Peshawar for Afghan refugees,'' as Mr. Anderson put it.
He also helped create a headquarters called Al Qaeda, the Base. It was a
way
station in Peshawar where Egyptian and Saudi volunteers rested before
setting
off for battle in Afghanistan. Its name became a kind of flag uniting
Mr. bin
Laden's followers. American officials call it a global terrorist
network.
When the Soviet forces left Afghanistan in 1989, Mr. bin Laden went home
to
Saudi Arabia. He soon set his sights on the last remaining superpower.
''He himself was very much wary about America,'' said Saad al-Faqih, a
Saudi
exile living in London, who worked as a surgeon for wounded Afghan
fighters,
''very skeptical about America and the Saudi regime.''
He found a new enemy on Aug. 7, 1990, when the United States began
sending
half a million soldiers to Saudi Arabia, preparing for war against Iraq.
''One of the stories put out by bin Laden is that he went to King Fahd
and
promised that he would raise holy warriors who would protect Saudi
Arabia,''
said Mr. Anderson, who was the chief of the C.I.A.'s Near East
operations in
the mid-1990's. ''His violent opposition to the Saudi royal family began
when
King Fahd denied or rejected that offer.''
Americans Painted As New Crusaders
To Mr. bin Laden the deployment of Americans in the land of Mecca and
Medina
smacked of the Crusades, the Christian religious wars against Islam that
began nine centuries ago. His rage transformed him into a stateless
outlaw.
In November 1991, Saudi intelligence officers caught Mr. bin Laden
smuggling
weapons from Yemen, his father's homeland. They withdrew his passport.
Soon
afterward he made his way to Sudan, which had decreed its borders open
to all
Muslims, with or without passports or visas.
Veterans of the Afghan jihad, or holy war, against Moscow followed Mr.
bin
Laden, under Al Qaeda's banner. But ''when Al Qaeda was moved to Sudan,
it
lost around 70 percent of its members,'' Mamdouh Mahmud Salim, accused
of
being an associate of Mr. bin Laden, said during an interrogation by the
German police after his arrest in September.
''This group didn't have a purpose except to carry out the jihad,'' Mr.
Salim
said, ''and since nobody carried out the jihad, it lost a lot of its
members.''
He Lived As an Investor
There were three kinds of men in Al Qaeda, he said. First, ''people who
had
no success in life, had nothing in their heads and wanted to join just
to
keep from falling on their noses.'' Second, ''people who loved their
religion
but had no idea what their religion really meant.'' And third, ''people
who
have nothing in their heads but to fight and solve all the problems in
the
world with battles.''
Mr. bin Laden lived in Khartoum, the Sudanese capital, ''as an
investor,''
said President Bashir. ''With his money, he was adventurous, and
probably he
gained this mentality by his experiences as a fighter.''
The indictment against Mr. bin Laden says he provided training camps in
Sudan
where Afghan war veterans prepared for terrorist missions. But a senior
American intelligence official contradicted that, saying, ''There was
never a
bin Laden-financed training camp in Sudan.''
The official added: ''In 1993, '94, '95, he's managing and building up
his
legitimate business presence there in Sudan. I won't pretend we've got a
good
intelligence base on this period, but we think he was laying the
groundwork
for Al Qaeda.''
In 1995 two C.I.A. officers were stalked by teen-age followers of Mr.
bin
Laden in the streets of Khartoum. ''Bin Laden was approached by us and
was
told that this would not be tolerated,'' said Ghazi Salaheldin, the
Sudanese
Information Minister. Sudan expelled the teen-agers.
In the face of such perceived threats -- though some were mirages, based
on a
slew of false C.I.A. reports -- the United States withdrew from Sudan in
late
1995. The absence of American diplomats and spies in the country
diminished
Washington's ability to know what Mr. bin Laden was doing at the very
moment
he stepped up his political war.
In 1995, after the Saudi Government rescinded his citizenship, he began
sending scathing attacks on the royal family from Khartoum.
''Bin Laden took a chance and started doing some political activities,''
President Bashir said, ''not terrorist activities, but he started
issuing
political bulletins and communiques and faxes'' denouncing the Saudi
Government as corrupt and repressive.
The United States took notice. ''There had been confusion'' after the
World
Trade Center bombing about the nature of radical Islamic threats to the
United States, said Mr. Johnson, the former senior counterterrorism
official.
No Evidence To Implicate Him
''There were lots of theories, not very good intelligence, and so the
intelligence community actually started generating a picture that Osama
bin
Laden was, if you will, the new face of terrorism,'' he said.
On May 31, 1996, four Saudis were beheaded after confessing to bombing a
Saudi National Guard post in Riyadh and killing five Americans. All told
their interrogators that they had received Mr. bin Laden's communiques.
Only
25 days later, a truck bomb tore through a military post in Dhahran,
killing
19 American soldiers.
Mr. bin Laden was blamed by American officials for instigating the
attacks.
But no known evidence implicates him, and the Saudi Interior Minister,
Prince
Nayef ibn Abdel Aziz, has absolved him. ''Maybe there are people who
adopt
his ideas,'' Prince Nayef said. ''He does not constitute any security
problem
to us.''
Shortly before the Dhahran attack, Mr. bin Laden and members of his
entourage
left Sudan in a C-130 military transport plane. The Sudanese had asked
him to
leave -- at the request of the United States. Mr. bin Laden landed at an
American-built airport in Kandahar, Afghanistan. Three months later, on
Aug.
23, 1996, he declared war on the United States.
''The situation in Saudi Arabia is like a great volcano about to
erupt,'' his
declaration stated. ''Everyone talks openly about economic recession,
high
prices, debt'' and ''the filling up of the prisons.''
How Did He Control the Bombers?
Mr. bin Laden's criticisms of Saudi repression and corruption closely
corresponded with State Department reports and C.I.A. analyses. But Mr.
bin
Laden blamed the United States. ''The root of the problem is the
occupying
American enemy,'' he proclaimed, ''and all efforts should focus on
killing,
fighting and destroying it.''
A second, more ominous warning from him came on Feb. 23, 1998: ''To kill
Americans and their allies, both civil and military, is an individual
duty of
every Muslim who is able, in any country where this is possible,'' until
American armies, ''shattered and broken-winged, depart from all the
lands of
Islam.''
Then came the embassy bombings last August. American authorities say the
men
who attacked the embassies in Kenya and Tanzania were controlled by Mr.
bin
Laden. But they still have no clear idea how.
Despite efforts at the highest levels of the United States Government,
Mr.
bin Laden and his closest associates remain isolated in Afghanistan.
It is difficult to say precisely where the criminal case against Mr. bin
Laden stands. Prosecutors have obtained unusually restrictive court
orders
that bar the defendants and their lawyers from communicating with
virtually
anyone.
The Case Runs Out of Steam
Publicly, at least, the case has lost momentum. While two men suspected
of
being bombers were quickly apprehended, many other suspects are still at
large. The last arrest was more than six months ago. A spokesman for the
United States Attorney in Manhattan declined comment.
Now the hunt for Mr. bin Laden depends on whether the Taliban, his
radical
hosts in Afghanistan, will betray him. The United States has little
leverage
with the Taliban, and little fresh intelligence on how to capture Mr.
bin
Laden. It has no spies in Afghanistan and little new information on
precisely
how he might have instigated the deadly bombings.
''I do not have a clear picture yet of what happened when,'' said
Prudence
Bushnell, the United States Ambassador to Kenya, who was wounded in the
bomb
blast, which killed 12 of her colleagues. ''I may not ever have a clear
picture of what happened when. None of us may.''
A COLLABORATION
This article resulted from a collaboration between The New York Times
and the
PBS program ''Frontline,'' which will broadcast a documentary tonight
about
Osama bin Laden that will run on most PBS stations at 9 o'clock. The
''Frontline'' program was based on the work of Lowell Bergman,
correspondent,
Martin Smith, producer, and Orianna Zill and Ivana Damjanov, associate
producers.
ON THE WEB
Past coverage of Mr. bin Laden, the 1998 bombings of the American
embassies
in East Africa and the American response to terrorism is available from
The
New York Times on the Web:
www.nytimes.com/ international
Communism List _______________________________________________
Communism@...
Subject: Clinton Administration Supported the "Militant Islamic
Base"
Date: Fri, 21 Sep 2001 14:17:51 -0400
From: Michel Chossudovsky <chossudovsky@...>
To: (Recipient list suppressed)
CLINTON ADMINISTRATION SUPPORTED THE "MILITANT ISLAMIC BASE"
To read the complete 1997 Congressional document entitled:
"CLINTON-APPROVED IRANIAN ARMS TRANSFERS HELP TURN BOSNIA INTO MILITANT
ISLAMIC BASE"
click: http://globalresearch.ca/articles/DCH109A.html
Editorial Note:
Centre for Research on Globalisation at http://globalresearch.ca, 21
September 2001
Since the Soviet-Afghan war, recruiting Mujahedin ("holy warriors") to
fight covert wars on Washington's behest has become an integral part of
US
foreign policy. A 1997 document of the US Congress reveals how the
Clinton administration --under advice from the National Security Council
headed
by Anthony Lake-- had "helped turn Bosnia into a militant Islamic base"
leading to the recruitment through the so-called "Militant Islamic
Network,"
of thousands of Mujahedin from the Muslim world.
The "Bosnian pattern" has since been replicated in Kosovo, Southern
Serbia and Macedonia. Among the foreign mercenaries now fighting with
the
Kosovo Liberation Army(KLA) in Macedonia are Mujahedin from the Middle
East and the Central Asian republics of the former Soviet Union. Also
within the ranks of the Kosovo Liberation Army are senior US military
advisers from a private mercenary outfit on contract to the Pentagon as
well as
"soldiers of fortune" from Britain, Holland and Germany.
"Americans have many questions tonight. Americans are asking, ``Who
attacked our country?'' said George W. Bush in his address to the US
Congress on September 20th. "This group and its leader, a person named
Osama bin Laden are linked to many other organizations in different
countries"
What the President fails to mention in his speech is the complicity of
agencies of the US government in supporting and abetting Osama bin
Laden.
[link to Who is Osama bin Laden]
The Bush Administration has misled the American people. What is the
hidden agenda? The largest military operation since the Vietnam War is
being
launched against Osama bin Laden and the al Qaeda network, when the
evidence amply confirms that Osama has been "harbored" since the
Soviet-Afghan war by agencies of the US government.
To read the 1997 Congressional Press release entitled:
CLINTON-APPROVED IRANIAN ARMS TRANSFERS HELP TURN BOSNIA INTO MILITANT
ISLAMIC BASE
click http://globalresearch.ca/articles/DCH109A.html
The congressional report provides detailed evidence from official
sources of the links between the Islamic Jihad and the US government
during the
Clinton Adminstration.
Michel Chossudovsky, Centre for Research on Globalisation (CRT), 21
September 2001.
-------- Original Message --------
Subject: [COMMUNISM LIST]How the CIA created Osama bin Laden
Date: Sun, 30 Sep 2001 18:29:39 +0100
From: "Karl Carlile" <dagda@...>
Reply-To: communism@...
Organization: Communism List
To: <communism@...>
Communism List:
http://homepage.eircom.net/~kampf/
Workers of the world unite!
_______________________________________
How the CIA created Osama bin Laden
BY NORM DIXON
"Throughout the world ... its agents, client states and satellites are
on the
defensive - on the moral defensive, the intellectual defensive, and the
political and
economic defensive. Freedom movements arise and assert themselves.
They're doing so
on almost every continent populated by man - in the hills of
Afghanistan, in Angola,
in Kampuchea, in Central America ... [They are] freedom fighters."
Is this a call to jihad (holy war) taken from one of Islamic
fundamentalist Osama bin
Laden's notorious fatwas? Or perhaps a communique issued by the
repressive Taliban
regime in Kabul?
In fact, this glowing praise of the murderous exploits of today's
supporters of
arch-terrorist bin Laden and his Taliban collaborators, and their holy
war against
the "evil empire", was issued by US President Ronald Reagan on March 8,
1985. The
"evil empire" was the Soviet Union, as well as Third World movements
fighting
US-backed colonialism, apartheid and dictatorship.
How things change. In the aftermath of a series of terrorist atrocities
- the most
despicable being the mass murder of more than 6000 working people in New
York and
Washington on September 11 - bin Laden the "freedom fighter" is now
lambasted by US
leaders and the Western mass media as a "terrorist mastermind" and an
"evil-doer".
Yet the US government refuses to admit its central role in creating the
vicious
movement that spawned bin Laden, the Taliban and Islamic fundamentalist
terrorists
that plague Algeria and Egypt - and perhaps the disaster that befell New
York.
The mass media has also downplayed the origins of bin Laden and his
toxic brand of
Islamic fundamentalism.
Mujaheddin
In April 1978, the People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA)
seized power in
Afghanistan in reaction to a crackdown against the party by that
country's repressive
government.
The PDPA was committed to a radical land reform that favoured the
peasants, trade
union rights, an expansion of education and social services, equality
for women and
the separation of church and state. The PDPA also supported
strengthening
Afghanistan's relationship with the Soviet Union.
Such policies enraged the wealthy semi-feudal landlords, the Muslim
religious
establishment (many mullahs were also big landlords) and the tribal
chiefs. They
immediately began organising resistance to the government's progressive
policies,
under the guise of defending Islam.
Washington, fearing the spread of Soviet influence (and worse the new
government's
radical example) to its allies in Pakistan, Iran and the Gulf states,
immediately
offered support to the Afghan mujaheddin, as the "contra" force was
known.
Following an internal PDPA power struggle in December 1979 which toppled
Afghanistan's leader, thousands of Soviet troops entered the country to
prevent the
new government's fall. This only galvanised the disparate fundamentalist
factions.
Their reactionary jihad now gained legitimacy as a "national liberation"
struggle in
the eyes of many Afghans.
The Soviet Union was eventually to withdraw from Afghanistan in 1989 and
the
mujaheddin captured the capital, Kabul, in 1992.
Between 1978 and 1992, the US government poured at least US$6 billion
(some estimates
range as high as $20 billion) worth of arms, training and funds to prop
up the
mujaheddin factions. Other Western governments, as well as oil-rich
Saudi Arabia,
kicked in as much again. Wealthy Arab fanatics, like Osama bin Laden,
provided
millions more.
Washington's policy in Afghanistan was shaped by US President Jimmy
Carter's national
security advisor, Zbigniew Brzezinski, and was continued by his
successors. His plan
went far beyond simply forcing Soviet troops to withdraw; rather it
aimed to foster
an international movement to spread Islamic fanaticism into the Muslim
Central Asian
Soviet republics to destabilise the Soviet Union.
Brzezinski's grand plan coincided with Pakistan military dictator
General Zia
ul-Haq's own ambitions to dominate the region. US-run Radio Liberty and
Radio Free
Europe beamed Islamic fundamentalist tirades across Central Asia (while
paradoxically
denouncing the "Islamic revolution" that toppled the pro-US Shah of Iran
in 1979).
Washington's favoured mujaheddin faction was one of the most extreme,
led by
Gulbuddin Hekmatyar. The West's distaste for terrorism did not apply to
this
unsavoury "freedom fighter". Hekmatyar was notorious in the 1970s for
throwing acid
in the faces of women who refused to wear the veil.
After the mujaheddin took Kabul in 1992, Hekmatyar's forces rained
US-supplied
missiles and rockets on that city - killing at least 2000 civilians -
until the new
government agreed to give him the post of prime minister. Osama bin
Laden was a close
associate of Hekmatyar and his faction.
Hekmatyar was also infamous for his side trade in the cultivation and
trafficking in
opium. Backing of the mujaheddin from the CIA coincided with a boom in
the drug
business. Within two years, the Afghanistan-Pakistan border was the
world's single
largest source of heroin, supplying 60% of US drug users.
In 1995, the former director of the CIA's operation in Afghanistan was
unrepentant
about the explosion in the flow of drugs: "Our main mission was to do as
much damage
as possible to the Soviets... There was a fallout in terms of drugs,
yes. But the
main objective was accomplished. The Soviets left Afghanistan."
Made in the USA
According to Ahmed Rashid, a correspondent for the Far Eastern Economic
Review, in
1986 CIA chief William Casey committed CIA support to a long-standing
ISI proposal to
recruit from around the world to join the Afghan jihad. At least 100,000
Islamic
militants flocked to Pakistan between 1982 and 1992 (some 60,000
attended
fundamentalist schools in Pakistan without necessarily taking part in
the fighting).
John Cooley, a former journalist with the US ABC television network and
author of
Unholy Wars: Afghanistan, America and International Terrorism, has
revealed that
Muslims recruited in the US for the mujaheddin were sent to Camp Peary,
the CIA's spy
training camp in Virginia, where young Afghans, Arabs from Egypt and
Jordan, and even
some African-American "black Muslims" were taught "sabotage skills".
The November 1, 1998, British Independent reported that one of those
charged with the
1998 bombings of US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, Ali Mohammed, had
trained "bin
Laden's operatives" in 1989.
These "operatives" were recruited at the al Kifah Refugee Centre in
Brooklyn, New
York, given paramilitary training in the New York area and then sent to
Afghanistan
with US assistance to join Hekmatyar's forces. Mohammed was a member of
the US army's
elite Green Berets.
The program, reported the Independent, was part of a Washington-approved
plan called
"Operation Cyclone".
In Pakistan, recruits, money and equipment were distributed to the
mujaheddin
factions by an organisation known as Maktab al Khidamar (Office of
Services - MAK).
MAK was a front for Pakistan's CIA, the Inter-Service Intelligence
Directorate. The
ISI was the first recipient of the vast bulk of CIA and Saudi Arabian
covert
assistance for the Afghan contras. Bin Laden was one of three people who
ran MAK. In
1989, he took overall charge of MAK.
Among those trained by Mohammed were El Sayyid Nosair, who was jailed in
1995 for
killing Israeli rightist Rabbi Meir Kahane and plotting with others to
bomb New York
landmarks, including the World Trade Center in 1993.
The Independent also suggested that Shiekh Omar Abdel-Rahman, an
Egyptian religious
leader also jailed for the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center, was
also part of
Operation Cyclone. He entered the US in 1990 with the CIA's approval. A
confidential
CIA report concluded that the agency was "partly culpable" for the 1993
World Trade
Center blast, the Independent reported.
Bin Laden
Osama bin Laden, one of 20 sons of a billionaire construction magnate,
arrived in
Afghanistan to join the jihad in 1980. An austere religious fanatic and
business
tycoon, bin Laden specialised in recruiting, financing and training the
estimated
35,000 non-Afghan mercenaries who joined the mujaheddin.
The bin Laden family is a prominent pillar of the Saudi Arabian ruling
class, with
close personal, financial and political ties to that country's pro-US
royal family.
Bin Laden senior was appointed Saudi Arabia's minister of public works
as a favour by
King Faisal. The new minister awarded his own construction companies
lucrative
contracts to rebuild Islam's holiest mosques in Mecca and Medina. In the
process, the
bin Laden family company in 1966 became the world's largest private
construction
company.
Osama bin Laden's father died in 1968. Until 1994, he had access to the
dividends
from this ill-gotten business empire.
(Bin Laden junior's oft-quoted personal fortune of US$200-300 million
has been
arrived at by the US State Department by dividing today's value of the
bin Laden
family net worth - estimated to be US$5 billion - by the number of bin
Laden senior's
sons. A fact rarely mentioned is that in 1994 the bin Laden family
disowned Osama and
took control of his share.)
Osama's military and business adventures in Afghanistan had the blessing
of the bin
Laden dynasty and the reactionary Saudi Arabian regime. His close
working
relationship with MAK also meant that the CIA was fully aware of his
activities.
Milt Bearden, the CIA's station chief in Pakistan from 1986 to 1989,
admitted to the
January 24, 2000, New Yorker that while he never personally met bin
Laden, "Did I
know that he was out there? Yes, I did ... [Guys like] bin Laden were
bringing
$20-$25 million a month from other Saudis and Gulf Arabs to underwrite
the war. And
that is a lot of money. It's an extra $200-$300 million a year. And this
is what bin
Laden did."
In 1986, bin Laden brought heavy construction equipment from Saudi
Arabia to
Afghanistan. Using his extensive knowledge of construction techniques
(he has a
degree in civil engineering), he built "training camps", some dug deep
into the sides
of mountains, and built roads to reach them.
These camps, now dubbed "terrorist universities" by Washington, were
built in
collaboration with the ISI and the CIA. The Afghan contra fighters,
including the
tens of thousands of mercenaries recruited and paid for by bin Laden,
were armed by
the CIA. Pakistan, the US and Britain provided military trainers.
Tom Carew, a former British SAS soldier who secretly fought for the
mujaheddin told
the August 13, 2000, British Observer, "The Americans were keen to teach
the Afghans
the techniques of urban terrorism - car bombing and so on - so that they
could strike
at the Russians in major towns ... Many of them are now using their
knowledge and
expertise to wage war on everything they hate."
Al Qaeda (the Base), bin Laden's organisation, was established in
1987-88 to run the
camps and other business enterprises. It is a tightly-run capitalist
holding
company - albeit one that integrates the operations of a mercenary force
and related
logistical services with "legitimate" business operations.
Bin Laden has simply continued to do the job he was asked to do in
Afghanistan during
the 1980s - fund, feed and train mercenaries. All that has changed is
his primary
customer. Then it was the ISI and, behind the scenes, the CIA. Today,
his services
are utilised primarily by the reactionary Taliban regime.
Bin Laden only became a "terrorist" in US eyes when he fell out with the
Saudi royal
family over its decision to allow more than 540,000 US troops to be
stationed on
Saudi soil following Iraq's invasion of Kuwait.
When thousands of US troops remained in Saudi Arabia after the end of
the Gulf War,
bin Laden's anger turned to outright opposition. He declared that Saudi
Arabia and
other regimes - such as Egypt - in the Middle East were puppets of the
US, just as
the PDPA government of Afghanistan had been a puppet of the Soviet
Union.
He called for the overthrow of these client regimes and declared it the
duty of all
Muslims to drive the US out of the Gulf states. In 1994, he was stripped
of his Saudi
citizenship and forced to leave the country. His assets there were
frozen.
After a period in Sudan, he returned to Afghanistan in May 1996. He
refurbished the
camps he had helped build during the Afghan war and offered the
facilities and
services - and thousands of his mercenaries - to the Taliban, which took
power that
September.
Today, bin Laden's private army of non-Afghan religious fanatics is a
key prop of the
Taliban regime.
Prior to the devastating September 11 attack on the twin towers of World
Trade
Center, US ruling-class figures remained unrepentant about the
consequences of their
dirty deals with the likes of bin Laden, Hekmatyar and the Taliban.
Since the awful
attack, they have been downright hypocritical.
In an August 28, 1998, report posted on MSNBC, Michael Moran quotes
Senator Orrin
Hatch, who was a senior member of the Senate Intelligence Committee
which approved US
dealings with the mujaheddin, as saying he would make "the same call
again", even
knowing what bin Laden would become.
"It was worth it. Those were very important, pivotal matters that played
an important
role in the downfall of the Soviet Union."
Hatch today is one of the most gung-ho voices demanding military
retaliation.
Another face that has appeared repeatedly on television screens since
the attack has
been Vincent Cannistrano, described as a former CIA chief of
"counter-terrorism
operations".
Cannistrano is certainly an expert on terrorists like bin Laden, because
he directed
their "work". He was in charge of the CIA-backed Nicaraguan contras
during the early
1980s. In 1984, he became the supervisor of covert aid to the Afghan
mujaheddin for
the US National Security Council.
The last word goes to Zbigniew Brzezinski: "What was more important in
the world view
of history? The Taliban or the fall of the Soviet Empire? A few stirred
up Muslims or
the liberation of Central Europe and the end of the Cold War?"
Communism List _______________________________________________
Communism@...
(Found on Johnson's Russia List)
Interview of Zbigniew Brzezinski
Le Nouvel Observateur (France), Jan 15-21, 1998, p. 76*
Q: The former director of the CIA, Robert Gates, stated in his memoirs
["From the Shadows"], that American intelligence services began to aid
the Mujahadeen in Afghanistan 6 months before the Soviet intervention.
In this period you were the national security adviser to President
Carter. You therefore played a role in this affair. Is that correct?
Brzezinski: Yes. According to the official version of history, CIA
aid to the Mujahadeen began during 1980, that is to say, after the
Soviet army invaded Afghanistan, 24 Dec 1979. But the reality,
secretly guarded until now, is completely otherwise: Indeed, it was
July 3, 1979 that President Carter signed the first directive for
secret aid to the opponents of the pro-Soviet regime in Kabul. And
that very day, I wrote
a note to the president in which I explained to him that in my opinion
this aid was going to induce a Soviet military intervention.
Q: Despite this risk, you were an advocate of this covert action. But
perhaps you yourself desired this Soviet entry into war and looked to
provoke it?
B: It isn't quite that. We didn't push the Russians to intervene, but
we knowingly increased the probability that they would.
Q: When the Soviets justified their intervention by asserting that
they intended to fight against a secret
involvement of the United States in Afghanistan, people didn't believe
them. However, there was a basis of truth. You don't regret anything
today?
B: Regret what? That secret operation was an excellent idea. It had
the effect of drawing the Russians into the Afghan trap and you want
me to regret it?
(End of excerpt from Brzezinski interview.)
Base"
Date: Fri, 21 Sep 2001 14:17:51 -0400
From: Michel Chossudovsky <chossudovsky@...>
To: (Recipient list suppressed)
CLINTON ADMINISTRATION SUPPORTED THE "MILITANT ISLAMIC BASE"
To read the complete 1997 Congressional document entitled:
"CLINTON-APPROVED IRANIAN ARMS TRANSFERS HELP TURN BOSNIA INTO MILITANT
ISLAMIC BASE"
click: http://globalresearch.ca/articles/DCH109A.html
Editorial Note:
Centre for Research on Globalisation at http://globalresearch.ca, 21
September 2001
Since the Soviet-Afghan war, recruiting Mujahedin ("holy warriors") to
fight covert wars on Washington's behest has become an integral part of
US
foreign policy. A 1997 document of the US Congress reveals how the
Clinton administration --under advice from the National Security Council
headed
by Anthony Lake-- had "helped turn Bosnia into a militant Islamic base"
leading to the recruitment through the so-called "Militant Islamic
Network,"
of thousands of Mujahedin from the Muslim world.
The "Bosnian pattern" has since been replicated in Kosovo, Southern
Serbia and Macedonia. Among the foreign mercenaries now fighting with
the
Kosovo Liberation Army(KLA) in Macedonia are Mujahedin from the Middle
East and the Central Asian republics of the former Soviet Union. Also
within the ranks of the Kosovo Liberation Army are senior US military
advisers from a private mercenary outfit on contract to the Pentagon as
well as
"soldiers of fortune" from Britain, Holland and Germany.
"Americans have many questions tonight. Americans are asking, ``Who
attacked our country?'' said George W. Bush in his address to the US
Congress on September 20th. "This group and its leader, a person named
Osama bin Laden are linked to many other organizations in different
countries"
What the President fails to mention in his speech is the complicity of
agencies of the US government in supporting and abetting Osama bin
Laden.
[link to Who is Osama bin Laden]
The Bush Administration has misled the American people. What is the
hidden agenda? The largest military operation since the Vietnam War is
being
launched against Osama bin Laden and the al Qaeda network, when the
evidence amply confirms that Osama has been "harbored" since the
Soviet-Afghan war by agencies of the US government.
To read the 1997 Congressional Press release entitled:
CLINTON-APPROVED IRANIAN ARMS TRANSFERS HELP TURN BOSNIA INTO MILITANT
ISLAMIC BASE
click http://globalresearch.ca/articles/DCH109A.html
The congressional report provides detailed evidence from official
sources of the links between the Islamic Jihad and the US government
during the
Clinton Adminstration.
Michel Chossudovsky, Centre for Research on Globalisation (CRT), 21
September 2001.
-------- Original Message --------
Subject: [COMMUNISM LIST]How the CIA created Osama bin Laden
Date: Sun, 30 Sep 2001 18:29:39 +0100
From: "Karl Carlile" <dagda@...>
Reply-To: communism@...
Organization: Communism List
To: <communism@...>
Communism List:
http://homepage.eircom.net/~kampf/
Workers of the world unite!
_______________________________________
How the CIA created Osama bin Laden
BY NORM DIXON
"Throughout the world ... its agents, client states and satellites are
on the
defensive - on the moral defensive, the intellectual defensive, and the
political and
economic defensive. Freedom movements arise and assert themselves.
They're doing so
on almost every continent populated by man - in the hills of
Afghanistan, in Angola,
in Kampuchea, in Central America ... [They are] freedom fighters."
Is this a call to jihad (holy war) taken from one of Islamic
fundamentalist Osama bin
Laden's notorious fatwas? Or perhaps a communique issued by the
repressive Taliban
regime in Kabul?
In fact, this glowing praise of the murderous exploits of today's
supporters of
arch-terrorist bin Laden and his Taliban collaborators, and their holy
war against
the "evil empire", was issued by US President Ronald Reagan on March 8,
1985. The
"evil empire" was the Soviet Union, as well as Third World movements
fighting
US-backed colonialism, apartheid and dictatorship.
How things change. In the aftermath of a series of terrorist atrocities
- the most
despicable being the mass murder of more than 6000 working people in New
York and
Washington on September 11 - bin Laden the "freedom fighter" is now
lambasted by US
leaders and the Western mass media as a "terrorist mastermind" and an
"evil-doer".
Yet the US government refuses to admit its central role in creating the
vicious
movement that spawned bin Laden, the Taliban and Islamic fundamentalist
terrorists
that plague Algeria and Egypt - and perhaps the disaster that befell New
York.
The mass media has also downplayed the origins of bin Laden and his
toxic brand of
Islamic fundamentalism.
Mujaheddin
In April 1978, the People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA)
seized power in
Afghanistan in reaction to a crackdown against the party by that
country's repressive
government.
The PDPA was committed to a radical land reform that favoured the
peasants, trade
union rights, an expansion of education and social services, equality
for women and
the separation of church and state. The PDPA also supported
strengthening
Afghanistan's relationship with the Soviet Union.
Such policies enraged the wealthy semi-feudal landlords, the Muslim
religious
establishment (many mullahs were also big landlords) and the tribal
chiefs. They
immediately began organising resistance to the government's progressive
policies,
under the guise of defending Islam.
Washington, fearing the spread of Soviet influence (and worse the new
government's
radical example) to its allies in Pakistan, Iran and the Gulf states,
immediately
offered support to the Afghan mujaheddin, as the "contra" force was
known.
Following an internal PDPA power struggle in December 1979 which toppled
Afghanistan's leader, thousands of Soviet troops entered the country to
prevent the
new government's fall. This only galvanised the disparate fundamentalist
factions.
Their reactionary jihad now gained legitimacy as a "national liberation"
struggle in
the eyes of many Afghans.
The Soviet Union was eventually to withdraw from Afghanistan in 1989 and
the
mujaheddin captured the capital, Kabul, in 1992.
Between 1978 and 1992, the US government poured at least US$6 billion
(some estimates
range as high as $20 billion) worth of arms, training and funds to prop
up the
mujaheddin factions. Other Western governments, as well as oil-rich
Saudi Arabia,
kicked in as much again. Wealthy Arab fanatics, like Osama bin Laden,
provided
millions more.
Washington's policy in Afghanistan was shaped by US President Jimmy
Carter's national
security advisor, Zbigniew Brzezinski, and was continued by his
successors. His plan
went far beyond simply forcing Soviet troops to withdraw; rather it
aimed to foster
an international movement to spread Islamic fanaticism into the Muslim
Central Asian
Soviet republics to destabilise the Soviet Union.
Brzezinski's grand plan coincided with Pakistan military dictator
General Zia
ul-Haq's own ambitions to dominate the region. US-run Radio Liberty and
Radio Free
Europe beamed Islamic fundamentalist tirades across Central Asia (while
paradoxically
denouncing the "Islamic revolution" that toppled the pro-US Shah of Iran
in 1979).
Washington's favoured mujaheddin faction was one of the most extreme,
led by
Gulbuddin Hekmatyar. The West's distaste for terrorism did not apply to
this
unsavoury "freedom fighter". Hekmatyar was notorious in the 1970s for
throwing acid
in the faces of women who refused to wear the veil.
After the mujaheddin took Kabul in 1992, Hekmatyar's forces rained
US-supplied
missiles and rockets on that city - killing at least 2000 civilians -
until the new
government agreed to give him the post of prime minister. Osama bin
Laden was a close
associate of Hekmatyar and his faction.
Hekmatyar was also infamous for his side trade in the cultivation and
trafficking in
opium. Backing of the mujaheddin from the CIA coincided with a boom in
the drug
business. Within two years, the Afghanistan-Pakistan border was the
world's single
largest source of heroin, supplying 60% of US drug users.
In 1995, the former director of the CIA's operation in Afghanistan was
unrepentant
about the explosion in the flow of drugs: "Our main mission was to do as
much damage
as possible to the Soviets... There was a fallout in terms of drugs,
yes. But the
main objective was accomplished. The Soviets left Afghanistan."
Made in the USA
According to Ahmed Rashid, a correspondent for the Far Eastern Economic
Review, in
1986 CIA chief William Casey committed CIA support to a long-standing
ISI proposal to
recruit from around the world to join the Afghan jihad. At least 100,000
Islamic
militants flocked to Pakistan between 1982 and 1992 (some 60,000
attended
fundamentalist schools in Pakistan without necessarily taking part in
the fighting).
John Cooley, a former journalist with the US ABC television network and
author of
Unholy Wars: Afghanistan, America and International Terrorism, has
revealed that
Muslims recruited in the US for the mujaheddin were sent to Camp Peary,
the CIA's spy
training camp in Virginia, where young Afghans, Arabs from Egypt and
Jordan, and even
some African-American "black Muslims" were taught "sabotage skills".
The November 1, 1998, British Independent reported that one of those
charged with the
1998 bombings of US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, Ali Mohammed, had
trained "bin
Laden's operatives" in 1989.
These "operatives" were recruited at the al Kifah Refugee Centre in
Brooklyn, New
York, given paramilitary training in the New York area and then sent to
Afghanistan
with US assistance to join Hekmatyar's forces. Mohammed was a member of
the US army's
elite Green Berets.
The program, reported the Independent, was part of a Washington-approved
plan called
"Operation Cyclone".
In Pakistan, recruits, money and equipment were distributed to the
mujaheddin
factions by an organisation known as Maktab al Khidamar (Office of
Services - MAK).
MAK was a front for Pakistan's CIA, the Inter-Service Intelligence
Directorate. The
ISI was the first recipient of the vast bulk of CIA and Saudi Arabian
covert
assistance for the Afghan contras. Bin Laden was one of three people who
ran MAK. In
1989, he took overall charge of MAK.
Among those trained by Mohammed were El Sayyid Nosair, who was jailed in
1995 for
killing Israeli rightist Rabbi Meir Kahane and plotting with others to
bomb New York
landmarks, including the World Trade Center in 1993.
The Independent also suggested that Shiekh Omar Abdel-Rahman, an
Egyptian religious
leader also jailed for the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center, was
also part of
Operation Cyclone. He entered the US in 1990 with the CIA's approval. A
confidential
CIA report concluded that the agency was "partly culpable" for the 1993
World Trade
Center blast, the Independent reported.
Bin Laden
Osama bin Laden, one of 20 sons of a billionaire construction magnate,
arrived in
Afghanistan to join the jihad in 1980. An austere religious fanatic and
business
tycoon, bin Laden specialised in recruiting, financing and training the
estimated
35,000 non-Afghan mercenaries who joined the mujaheddin.
The bin Laden family is a prominent pillar of the Saudi Arabian ruling
class, with
close personal, financial and political ties to that country's pro-US
royal family.
Bin Laden senior was appointed Saudi Arabia's minister of public works
as a favour by
King Faisal. The new minister awarded his own construction companies
lucrative
contracts to rebuild Islam's holiest mosques in Mecca and Medina. In the
process, the
bin Laden family company in 1966 became the world's largest private
construction
company.
Osama bin Laden's father died in 1968. Until 1994, he had access to the
dividends
from this ill-gotten business empire.
(Bin Laden junior's oft-quoted personal fortune of US$200-300 million
has been
arrived at by the US State Department by dividing today's value of the
bin Laden
family net worth - estimated to be US$5 billion - by the number of bin
Laden senior's
sons. A fact rarely mentioned is that in 1994 the bin Laden family
disowned Osama and
took control of his share.)
Osama's military and business adventures in Afghanistan had the blessing
of the bin
Laden dynasty and the reactionary Saudi Arabian regime. His close
working
relationship with MAK also meant that the CIA was fully aware of his
activities.
Milt Bearden, the CIA's station chief in Pakistan from 1986 to 1989,
admitted to the
January 24, 2000, New Yorker that while he never personally met bin
Laden, "Did I
know that he was out there? Yes, I did ... [Guys like] bin Laden were
bringing
$20-$25 million a month from other Saudis and Gulf Arabs to underwrite
the war. And
that is a lot of money. It's an extra $200-$300 million a year. And this
is what bin
Laden did."
In 1986, bin Laden brought heavy construction equipment from Saudi
Arabia to
Afghanistan. Using his extensive knowledge of construction techniques
(he has a
degree in civil engineering), he built "training camps", some dug deep
into the sides
of mountains, and built roads to reach them.
These camps, now dubbed "terrorist universities" by Washington, were
built in
collaboration with the ISI and the CIA. The Afghan contra fighters,
including the
tens of thousands of mercenaries recruited and paid for by bin Laden,
were armed by
the CIA. Pakistan, the US and Britain provided military trainers.
Tom Carew, a former British SAS soldier who secretly fought for the
mujaheddin told
the August 13, 2000, British Observer, "The Americans were keen to teach
the Afghans
the techniques of urban terrorism - car bombing and so on - so that they
could strike
at the Russians in major towns ... Many of them are now using their
knowledge and
expertise to wage war on everything they hate."
Al Qaeda (the Base), bin Laden's organisation, was established in
1987-88 to run the
camps and other business enterprises. It is a tightly-run capitalist
holding
company - albeit one that integrates the operations of a mercenary force
and related
logistical services with "legitimate" business operations.
Bin Laden has simply continued to do the job he was asked to do in
Afghanistan during
the 1980s - fund, feed and train mercenaries. All that has changed is
his primary
customer. Then it was the ISI and, behind the scenes, the CIA. Today,
his services
are utilised primarily by the reactionary Taliban regime.
Bin Laden only became a "terrorist" in US eyes when he fell out with the
Saudi royal
family over its decision to allow more than 540,000 US troops to be
stationed on
Saudi soil following Iraq's invasion of Kuwait.
When thousands of US troops remained in Saudi Arabia after the end of
the Gulf War,
bin Laden's anger turned to outright opposition. He declared that Saudi
Arabia and
other regimes - such as Egypt - in the Middle East were puppets of the
US, just as
the PDPA government of Afghanistan had been a puppet of the Soviet
Union.
He called for the overthrow of these client regimes and declared it the
duty of all
Muslims to drive the US out of the Gulf states. In 1994, he was stripped
of his Saudi
citizenship and forced to leave the country. His assets there were
frozen.
After a period in Sudan, he returned to Afghanistan in May 1996. He
refurbished the
camps he had helped build during the Afghan war and offered the
facilities and
services - and thousands of his mercenaries - to the Taliban, which took
power that
September.
Today, bin Laden's private army of non-Afghan religious fanatics is a
key prop of the
Taliban regime.
Prior to the devastating September 11 attack on the twin towers of World
Trade
Center, US ruling-class figures remained unrepentant about the
consequences of their
dirty deals with the likes of bin Laden, Hekmatyar and the Taliban.
Since the awful
attack, they have been downright hypocritical.
In an August 28, 1998, report posted on MSNBC, Michael Moran quotes
Senator Orrin
Hatch, who was a senior member of the Senate Intelligence Committee
which approved US
dealings with the mujaheddin, as saying he would make "the same call
again", even
knowing what bin Laden would become.
"It was worth it. Those were very important, pivotal matters that played
an important
role in the downfall of the Soviet Union."
Hatch today is one of the most gung-ho voices demanding military
retaliation.
Another face that has appeared repeatedly on television screens since
the attack has
been Vincent Cannistrano, described as a former CIA chief of
"counter-terrorism
operations".
Cannistrano is certainly an expert on terrorists like bin Laden, because
he directed
their "work". He was in charge of the CIA-backed Nicaraguan contras
during the early
1980s. In 1984, he became the supervisor of covert aid to the Afghan
mujaheddin for
the US National Security Council.
The last word goes to Zbigniew Brzezinski: "What was more important in
the world view
of history? The Taliban or the fall of the Soviet Empire? A few stirred
up Muslims or
the liberation of Central Europe and the end of the Cold War?"
Communism List _______________________________________________
Communism@...
(Found on Johnson's Russia List)
Interview of Zbigniew Brzezinski
Le Nouvel Observateur (France), Jan 15-21, 1998, p. 76*
Q: The former director of the CIA, Robert Gates, stated in his memoirs
["From the Shadows"], that American intelligence services began to aid
the Mujahadeen in Afghanistan 6 months before the Soviet intervention.
In this period you were the national security adviser to President
Carter. You therefore played a role in this affair. Is that correct?
Brzezinski: Yes. According to the official version of history, CIA
aid to the Mujahadeen began during 1980, that is to say, after the
Soviet army invaded Afghanistan, 24 Dec 1979. But the reality,
secretly guarded until now, is completely otherwise: Indeed, it was
July 3, 1979 that President Carter signed the first directive for
secret aid to the opponents of the pro-Soviet regime in Kabul. And
that very day, I wrote
a note to the president in which I explained to him that in my opinion
this aid was going to induce a Soviet military intervention.
Q: Despite this risk, you were an advocate of this covert action. But
perhaps you yourself desired this Soviet entry into war and looked to
provoke it?
B: It isn't quite that. We didn't push the Russians to intervene, but
we knowingly increased the probability that they would.
Q: When the Soviets justified their intervention by asserting that
they intended to fight against a secret
involvement of the United States in Afghanistan, people didn't believe
them. However, there was a basis of truth. You don't regret anything
today?
B: Regret what? That secret operation was an excellent idea. It had
the effect of drawing the Russians into the Afghan trap and you want
me to regret it?
(End of excerpt from Brzezinski interview.)
URL for this article: http://emperors-clothes.com/news/bushladen2-i.htm
Join our email list at http://emperors-clothes.com/f.htm. Receive about
one
article/day.
www.tenc.net * [Emperor's Clothes]
=======================================
More on Bushladen Carlyle Group:
George Soros & James Baker are part of the Family
[Posted 8 October 2001]
The first Bushladen article can be found at:
http://emperors-clothes.com/news/bushladen.htm
=======================================
[Emperor's Clothes note: The following is an excerpt from a 'Baltimore
Chronicle & Sentinel' article entitled, "Republican-controlled Carlyle
Group
poses serious Ethical Questions for Bush Presidents, but Baltimore Sun
ignores it.'
The article, written by Alice Cherbonnier, deals with the world's
largest
private equity firm, The Carlyle Group, a company that links George Bush
Sr.
and the family of Osama bin Laden. ]
[START of EXCERPT]
Copyright © 2001 'The Baltimore Chronicle and the SENTINEL'
"AN IMPORTANT TENET of journalism is that you should always ask, 'Who
benefits?'
"In the case of a war, the answers to this question become of paramount
importance. Suppose, for example, that profits from military contracting
were
to go in the pockets of a former U.S. President whose son (and a
presumed
future heir) is now President? Suppose further that such profits
escalate in
times of conflict. Wouldnâ??t this be of concern to the public?
Wouldnâ??t you
expect the media to be all over such an important ethical (not to
mention
moral, and maybe legal) angle?
"Though described by the Industry Standard as 'the worldâ??s largest
private
equity firm,' with over $12 billion under management, chances are
readers
havenâ??t ever heard of The Carlyle Group. Isnâ??t that a little odd,
considering it is run by a veritable who's who of former Republican
political
leaders. Former Defense Secretary Frank Carlucci is Carlyleâ??s chairman
and
managing director (who, by the way, was college roommate of the current
Defense Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld). And that partners in this mammoth
venture include former U.S. Secretary of State James A. Baker III,
George
Soros, Fred Malek (George H.W. Bushâ??s campaign manager, forced to
resign when
it was revealed he was Nixonâ??s 'Jew counter'), and 'presumably' George
H.W.
Bush?
"We say 'presumably' because the privately-held Carlyle doesnâ??t have
to
reveal information about its partners or investments to the SEC or to
anyone
else. Our former President is reported to be active in seeking
investments
for the Carlyle Group from the Asian market, and word is heâ??s paid
between
$80,000 to $100,000 per presentation.
"All told, Carlyle has about 420 partners all over the globe, from Saudi
princes to the former president of the Philippines. Its investments run
heavily in the defense sector; they make money from military conflicts
and
weapons spending."
[END of EXCERPT]
excerpt from http://baltimorechronicle.com/media3_oct01.shtml
3 October 2001, 'Baltimore Chronicle & Sentinel' article by Alice
Cherbonnier
***
Join our email list at http://emperors-clothes.com/f.htm. Receive about
one
article/day.
= = = = = = = = = = = =
Further Reading
= = = = = = = = = =
'Bushladen': the first article in the series about Bush and bin Laden
family
partnership in the Carlyle Group 'defense' business at:
http://emperors-clothes.com/news/bushladen.htm
'Why Washington Wants Afghanistan' by Jared Israel, Rick Rozoff & Nico
Varkevisser at:
http://emperors-clothes.com/analysis/afghan.htm
'NATO Buildup in the Balkans: Part of a Deadly Game' by Jared Israel at:
http://emperors-clothes.com/news/farish.htm
'Why is NATO Decimating the Balkans and Trying to Force Milosevic to
Surrender?' By Jared Israel and Nico Varkevisser at:
http://emperors-clothes.com/analysis/whyisn.htm
***
----- Original Message -----
From: cobas@i...
To: Undisclosed-Recipient:;
Sent: Saturday, October 06, 2001 12:49 PM
Subject: Bush senior era capo della CIA
6-10-01 Bush senior era capo della CIA
George Bush, figlio di un banchiere di Wall Street, divenne il 41esimo
presidente degli Stati Uniti nel 1989 dopo essere stato pilota
dell'aviazione navale, petroliere, deputato al Congresso, ambasciatore
all'Onu e in Cina, capo della Cia e vicepresidente con Ronald Reagan
dal 1981 al 1989.
Dopo la guerra del Golfo contro l'Iraq "la popolarità di Bush negli
Usa giunse a un livello mai toccato prima da un presidente", cioè al
90%, esattamente come ora il figlio.
Nel 1993 fu sconfitto da Clinton anche perchè Bush fu accusato di aver
appoggiato Saddam Hussein con soldi ed armi fino a una settimana prima
dell'invasione del Kuwait (scandalo BNL-Atlanta, ecc..).
Un altro suo figlio è governatore della Florida, lo Stato al centro
dei brogli elettorali nelle elezioni presidenziali di un anno fa.
Nei giorni scorsi, mentre il figlio sta dichiarando la terza guerra
mondiale, ha fatta una strana visita di piacere a Milano, con "una
puntatina in Svizzera per salutare un amico".
C'è chi dice che è andato a sistemare qualche conto e qualche affare
in sospeso con qualche arabo poco presentabile.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
la Repubblica.it,24-9-01
Attacco agli Usa:
fratello Bin Laden socio di Bush
Il presidente americano George W. Bush sarebbe stato in affari con uno
dei fratelli di Osama Bin Laden, il miliardario saudita indicato come
il massimo responsabile degli attacchi a New York e Washington.
Lo scrive oggi il quotidiano britannico 'Daily Mail'.
Secondo il servizio pubblicato dal giornale, Salem Bin Laden e George
W. Bush avrebbero fondato insieme, nel Texas, una compagnia
petrolifera, la 'Arbusto Energy'.
Salem, uno dei 54 fratelli di Osama, morto nel 1983 in un incidente
aereo nel Texas, avrebbe investito gran parte del suo capitale
derivante dall'eredità del padre in compagnie petrolifere e nel 1978
aveva nominato James Bath, un intimo amico di George W. Bush come sua
rappresentante a Houston. Sempre stando al giornale britannico, Bath
avrebbe investito la somma di 50 mila dollari nelle azioni della
'Arbusto' e, sempre per conto di Salem Bin Laden, avrebbe acquistato
l' aeroporto della 'Houston Gulf'. (Red)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Nella due giorni milanese Bush è stato ospite del "sinistro"
finanziere Carlo De Benedetti ed ha partecipato - con la "crema" dei
padroni italiani- a una cena organizzata dal gruppo finanziario
americano «Carlyle»; questa banca d' affari agisce in 50 Stati in
tutto il mondo e in essa vi "lavorano" Bush senior, il suo ex
segretario di Stato James Baker e l' ex premier inglese John Major.
Ha dovuto poi rinviare la partenza per gli Usa perchè invitato in
pompa magna a Roma da Berlusconi, Ciampi, Veltroni e dal Papa.
cobasalfaromeo,6-10-01
a.. guerra 2001
--- End forwarded message ---
----- Original Message -----
From: "Réseau Voltaire" <redaction@...>
To: "Sources ouvertes" <redaction@...>
Sent: Tuesday, October 16, 2001 12:10 PM
Subject: Les liens financiers occultes entre les familles Bush et Ben
Laden
À QUI PROFITE LE CRIME ?
LES LIENS FINANCIERS OCCULTES ENTRE LES FAMILLES BUSH ET BEN LADEN
À la fin des années 80, alors qu¹il dirigeait l¹Harken Energy Company,
une
petite société pétrolière texanne, Georges W. Bush fit fortune en
emportant
la concession pétrolière du Bahreïn. Ce marché truqué était la
rétribution
d¹une rétro commission sur les ventes réalisées par le président Bush
père
au Koweït. L¹opération impliquait divers intermédiaires saoudiens, dont
Salem Ben Laden, frère aîné d¹Oussama et actionnaire d¹HarkenS
Les Notes d¹information du Réseau Voltaire, à paraître le 16 octobre à
20 h,
révèlent les réseaux financiers communs tissés depuis vingt ans par les
familles Bush et Ben Laden. Un monde occulte de marchands d¹armes et de
drogues où l¹on croise aussi bien le banquier nazi François Genoud, que
d¹anciens directeurs de la CIA et des services secrets saoudiens.
Attention : cette enquête ne sera postée par mail qu¹aux abonnés des
Notes
d¹information.
http://www.reseauvoltaire.net/presentations/abonnements.htm
_______________________________________________
Pour gerer votre abonnement :
http://listes.rezo.net/mailman/listinfo/rv-sources
URL for this article: http://emperors-clothes.com/misc/isi.htm
Join our email list at http://emperors-clothes.com/f.htm. Receive about
one
article/day.
www.tenc.net * [Emperor's Clothes]
Please take note: If Emperor's Clothes Website goes down, a reader has
'mirrored' the Website at http://thechaos.net/plea/
========================================
Did Pakistani Intelligence ('Our' Allies) Fund the WTC Attackers?
A Question Mr. Bush Is Not Asking...
[posted 15 October 2001]
========================================
Comment by Jared Israel, Emperor's Clothes
The following story from the 'Times of India' appears to confirm the
charge,
made by Emperor's Clothes and many others, that the U.S. foreign policy
Establishment is playing a hypocritical game in Afghanistan. (1)
According to a story in the 'Times of India," the Pakistani intelligence
service, ISI, Washington's close ally in the 'infinite war' against
terror,
was intimately involved with the 9-11 hijackers.
Is it true, as the 'Times' claims, that the U.S. pressured the
now-retired
head of Pakistani Intelligence, Lt-Gen Mahmud Ahmad, to 'request' early
retirement?
If so, wasn't this an attempt to head off a fuller investigation?
And doesn't that mean the U.S. side knows Ahmad is guilty as charged?
And by demanding early retirement, rather than a trial for terrorism,
hasn't
the U.S. government acknowledged that a) in sending $100,000 to one of
the
alleged WTC hijackers, Ahmad was acting in accord with ISI policy and b)
the
CIA or other U.S. covert forces were also involved?
If the 'Times' is telling the truth, and Lt-Gen Mahmud Ahmad was pushed
into
retirement to prevent a scandal, and if President Bush really wants to
punish
the parties behind 9-11, why doesn't he demand a full investigation so
that
the guilty can be brought to justice, whether they are to be found in
Kabul,
or Islamabad, or Riyadh, or Langley or Washington, D.C.?
If, on the other hand, the 'Times' is lying, why hasn't the U.S. State
Department demanded a retraction? After all, this is a most serious
accusation.
Washington's silence is one more piece of evidence that the "infinite
war"
against terrorism is an infinite sham.
-- Jared Israel
India helped FBI trace ISI-terrorist links
by MANOJ JOSHI
12 October 2001
'THE TIMES OF INDIA'
NEW DELHI: 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 Sheikhâ??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 Pakistanâ??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.
(C) 'Times of India' 2001, Reprinted for Fair Use Only
http://www.timesofindia.com/articleshow.asp?art_id=1454238160
***
Join our email list at http://emperors-clothes.com/f.htm. Receive about
one
article/day.
Join our email list at http://emperors-clothes.com/f.htm. Receive about
one
article/day.
www.tenc.net * [Emperor's Clothes]
=======================================
More on Bushladen Carlyle Group:
George Soros & James Baker are part of the Family
[Posted 8 October 2001]
The first Bushladen article can be found at:
http://emperors-clothes.com/news/bushladen.htm
=======================================
[Emperor's Clothes note: The following is an excerpt from a 'Baltimore
Chronicle & Sentinel' article entitled, "Republican-controlled Carlyle
Group
poses serious Ethical Questions for Bush Presidents, but Baltimore Sun
ignores it.'
The article, written by Alice Cherbonnier, deals with the world's
largest
private equity firm, The Carlyle Group, a company that links George Bush
Sr.
and the family of Osama bin Laden. ]
[START of EXCERPT]
Copyright © 2001 'The Baltimore Chronicle and the SENTINEL'
"AN IMPORTANT TENET of journalism is that you should always ask, 'Who
benefits?'
"In the case of a war, the answers to this question become of paramount
importance. Suppose, for example, that profits from military contracting
were
to go in the pockets of a former U.S. President whose son (and a
presumed
future heir) is now President? Suppose further that such profits
escalate in
times of conflict. Wouldnâ??t this be of concern to the public?
Wouldnâ??t you
expect the media to be all over such an important ethical (not to
mention
moral, and maybe legal) angle?
"Though described by the Industry Standard as 'the worldâ??s largest
private
equity firm,' with over $12 billion under management, chances are
readers
havenâ??t ever heard of The Carlyle Group. Isnâ??t that a little odd,
considering it is run by a veritable who's who of former Republican
political
leaders. Former Defense Secretary Frank Carlucci is Carlyleâ??s chairman
and
managing director (who, by the way, was college roommate of the current
Defense Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld). And that partners in this mammoth
venture include former U.S. Secretary of State James A. Baker III,
George
Soros, Fred Malek (George H.W. Bushâ??s campaign manager, forced to
resign when
it was revealed he was Nixonâ??s 'Jew counter'), and 'presumably' George
H.W.
Bush?
"We say 'presumably' because the privately-held Carlyle doesnâ??t have
to
reveal information about its partners or investments to the SEC or to
anyone
else. Our former President is reported to be active in seeking
investments
for the Carlyle Group from the Asian market, and word is heâ??s paid
between
$80,000 to $100,000 per presentation.
"All told, Carlyle has about 420 partners all over the globe, from Saudi
princes to the former president of the Philippines. Its investments run
heavily in the defense sector; they make money from military conflicts
and
weapons spending."
[END of EXCERPT]
excerpt from http://baltimorechronicle.com/media3_oct01.shtml
3 October 2001, 'Baltimore Chronicle & Sentinel' article by Alice
Cherbonnier
***
Join our email list at http://emperors-clothes.com/f.htm. Receive about
one
article/day.
= = = = = = = = = = = =
Further Reading
= = = = = = = = = =
'Bushladen': the first article in the series about Bush and bin Laden
family
partnership in the Carlyle Group 'defense' business at:
http://emperors-clothes.com/news/bushladen.htm
'Why Washington Wants Afghanistan' by Jared Israel, Rick Rozoff & Nico
Varkevisser at:
http://emperors-clothes.com/analysis/afghan.htm
'NATO Buildup in the Balkans: Part of a Deadly Game' by Jared Israel at:
http://emperors-clothes.com/news/farish.htm
'Why is NATO Decimating the Balkans and Trying to Force Milosevic to
Surrender?' By Jared Israel and Nico Varkevisser at:
http://emperors-clothes.com/analysis/whyisn.htm
***
----- Original Message -----
From: cobas@i...
To: Undisclosed-Recipient:;
Sent: Saturday, October 06, 2001 12:49 PM
Subject: Bush senior era capo della CIA
6-10-01 Bush senior era capo della CIA
George Bush, figlio di un banchiere di Wall Street, divenne il 41esimo
presidente degli Stati Uniti nel 1989 dopo essere stato pilota
dell'aviazione navale, petroliere, deputato al Congresso, ambasciatore
all'Onu e in Cina, capo della Cia e vicepresidente con Ronald Reagan
dal 1981 al 1989.
Dopo la guerra del Golfo contro l'Iraq "la popolarità di Bush negli
Usa giunse a un livello mai toccato prima da un presidente", cioè al
90%, esattamente come ora il figlio.
Nel 1993 fu sconfitto da Clinton anche perchè Bush fu accusato di aver
appoggiato Saddam Hussein con soldi ed armi fino a una settimana prima
dell'invasione del Kuwait (scandalo BNL-Atlanta, ecc..).
Un altro suo figlio è governatore della Florida, lo Stato al centro
dei brogli elettorali nelle elezioni presidenziali di un anno fa.
Nei giorni scorsi, mentre il figlio sta dichiarando la terza guerra
mondiale, ha fatta una strana visita di piacere a Milano, con "una
puntatina in Svizzera per salutare un amico".
C'è chi dice che è andato a sistemare qualche conto e qualche affare
in sospeso con qualche arabo poco presentabile.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
la Repubblica.it,24-9-01
Attacco agli Usa:
fratello Bin Laden socio di Bush
Il presidente americano George W. Bush sarebbe stato in affari con uno
dei fratelli di Osama Bin Laden, il miliardario saudita indicato come
il massimo responsabile degli attacchi a New York e Washington.
Lo scrive oggi il quotidiano britannico 'Daily Mail'.
Secondo il servizio pubblicato dal giornale, Salem Bin Laden e George
W. Bush avrebbero fondato insieme, nel Texas, una compagnia
petrolifera, la 'Arbusto Energy'.
Salem, uno dei 54 fratelli di Osama, morto nel 1983 in un incidente
aereo nel Texas, avrebbe investito gran parte del suo capitale
derivante dall'eredità del padre in compagnie petrolifere e nel 1978
aveva nominato James Bath, un intimo amico di George W. Bush come sua
rappresentante a Houston. Sempre stando al giornale britannico, Bath
avrebbe investito la somma di 50 mila dollari nelle azioni della
'Arbusto' e, sempre per conto di Salem Bin Laden, avrebbe acquistato
l' aeroporto della 'Houston Gulf'. (Red)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Nella due giorni milanese Bush è stato ospite del "sinistro"
finanziere Carlo De Benedetti ed ha partecipato - con la "crema" dei
padroni italiani- a una cena organizzata dal gruppo finanziario
americano «Carlyle»; questa banca d' affari agisce in 50 Stati in
tutto il mondo e in essa vi "lavorano" Bush senior, il suo ex
segretario di Stato James Baker e l' ex premier inglese John Major.
Ha dovuto poi rinviare la partenza per gli Usa perchè invitato in
pompa magna a Roma da Berlusconi, Ciampi, Veltroni e dal Papa.
cobasalfaromeo,6-10-01
a.. guerra 2001
--- End forwarded message ---
----- Original Message -----
From: "Réseau Voltaire" <redaction@...>
To: "Sources ouvertes" <redaction@...>
Sent: Tuesday, October 16, 2001 12:10 PM
Subject: Les liens financiers occultes entre les familles Bush et Ben
Laden
À QUI PROFITE LE CRIME ?
LES LIENS FINANCIERS OCCULTES ENTRE LES FAMILLES BUSH ET BEN LADEN
À la fin des années 80, alors qu¹il dirigeait l¹Harken Energy Company,
une
petite société pétrolière texanne, Georges W. Bush fit fortune en
emportant
la concession pétrolière du Bahreïn. Ce marché truqué était la
rétribution
d¹une rétro commission sur les ventes réalisées par le président Bush
père
au Koweït. L¹opération impliquait divers intermédiaires saoudiens, dont
Salem Ben Laden, frère aîné d¹Oussama et actionnaire d¹HarkenS
Les Notes d¹information du Réseau Voltaire, à paraître le 16 octobre à
20 h,
révèlent les réseaux financiers communs tissés depuis vingt ans par les
familles Bush et Ben Laden. Un monde occulte de marchands d¹armes et de
drogues où l¹on croise aussi bien le banquier nazi François Genoud, que
d¹anciens directeurs de la CIA et des services secrets saoudiens.
Attention : cette enquête ne sera postée par mail qu¹aux abonnés des
Notes
d¹information.
http://www.reseauvoltaire.net/presentations/abonnements.htm
_______________________________________________
Pour gerer votre abonnement :
http://listes.rezo.net/mailman/listinfo/rv-sources
URL for this article: http://emperors-clothes.com/misc/isi.htm
Join our email list at http://emperors-clothes.com/f.htm. Receive about
one
article/day.
www.tenc.net * [Emperor's Clothes]
Please take note: If Emperor's Clothes Website goes down, a reader has
'mirrored' the Website at http://thechaos.net/plea/
========================================
Did Pakistani Intelligence ('Our' Allies) Fund the WTC Attackers?
A Question Mr. Bush Is Not Asking...
[posted 15 October 2001]
========================================
Comment by Jared Israel, Emperor's Clothes
The following story from the 'Times of India' appears to confirm the
charge,
made by Emperor's Clothes and many others, that the U.S. foreign policy
Establishment is playing a hypocritical game in Afghanistan. (1)
According to a story in the 'Times of India," the Pakistani intelligence
service, ISI, Washington's close ally in the 'infinite war' against
terror,
was intimately involved with the 9-11 hijackers.
Is it true, as the 'Times' claims, that the U.S. pressured the
now-retired
head of Pakistani Intelligence, Lt-Gen Mahmud Ahmad, to 'request' early
retirement?
If so, wasn't this an attempt to head off a fuller investigation?
And doesn't that mean the U.S. side knows Ahmad is guilty as charged?
And by demanding early retirement, rather than a trial for terrorism,
hasn't
the U.S. government acknowledged that a) in sending $100,000 to one of
the
alleged WTC hijackers, Ahmad was acting in accord with ISI policy and b)
the
CIA or other U.S. covert forces were also involved?
If the 'Times' is telling the truth, and Lt-Gen Mahmud Ahmad was pushed
into
retirement to prevent a scandal, and if President Bush really wants to
punish
the parties behind 9-11, why doesn't he demand a full investigation so
that
the guilty can be brought to justice, whether they are to be found in
Kabul,
or Islamabad, or Riyadh, or Langley or Washington, D.C.?
If, on the other hand, the 'Times' is lying, why hasn't the U.S. State
Department demanded a retraction? After all, this is a most serious
accusation.
Washington's silence is one more piece of evidence that the "infinite
war"
against terrorism is an infinite sham.
-- Jared Israel
India helped FBI trace ISI-terrorist links
by MANOJ JOSHI
12 October 2001
'THE TIMES OF INDIA'
NEW DELHI: 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 Sheikhâ??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 Pakistanâ??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.
(C) 'Times of India' 2001, Reprinted for Fair Use Only
http://www.timesofindia.com/articleshow.asp?art_id=1454238160
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www.tenc.net * [Emperor's Clothes]
========================================
Congressman: U.S. Set Up Anti-Taliban Forces to be Slaughtered
* Excerpts from a most revealing hearing
* Comments by Jared Israel [posted 16 October 2001]
========================================
"At a time when the Taliban were vulnerable, the top person of this
administration, Mr. Inderfurth, and Bill Richardson, personally went to
Afghanistan and convinced the anti-Taliban forces not to go on the
offensive
and, furthermore, convinced all of the anti-Taliban forces, their
supporters,
to disarm them and to cease their flow of support for the anti-Taliban
forces. At that same moment, Pakistan initiated a major resupply effort,
which eventually saw the defeat, and caused the defeat, of almost all of
the
anti-Taliban forces in Afghanistan.
"Now, with a history like that, it's very hard, Mr. Ambassador, for me
to sit
here and listen to someone say, "Our main goal is to drain the swamp" --
and
the swamp is Afghanistan -- because the United States created that swamp
in
Afghanistan. And the United States' policies have undercut those efforts
to
create a freer and more open society in Afghanistan, which is consistent
with
the beliefs of the Afghan people." Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, lambasting the
U.S.
State Department at Congressional hearings 12 July 2000. Excerpts from
those
hearings are posted after these comments.
On July 12, 2000 a U.S. Congressional Committee held hearings that
turned
into a knockdown drag out fight over Washington's role in Afghanistan.
Rep. Dana Rohrabacher accused the U.S. State Department of treachery and
hypocrisy. He presented evidence that:
The U.S. deliberately sent 'humanitarian aid' only to Taliban-controlled
areas;
The U.S. State Department refused to act on information concerning the
location of Osama bin Laden's headquarters in Afghanistan.
U.S. officials tricked the Anti-Taliban opposition into disarming,
though the
officials knew Pakistan was airlifting weapons to the Taliban. This
allowed
the Taliban to wipe out most of the opposition forces.
Below I have posted excerpts from that hearing. As you will see, the two
U.S.
State Department officials, Mr. Eastham and Mr. Sheehan, and their
congressional supporters, never answered Rep. Rohrabacher's charges.
Rohrabacher listed specific acts of treachery. Eastham, Sheehan and
their
supporters dodged and responded with noble generalities.
This is important stuff. By definition, when a government engages in
covert
support of terrorist forces it does so to hide its real policy, and so
of
course the real policy is hard to expose. As Rep. Rohrabacher commented
at
the end of the hearing.
"You know, I am the only one here [making these accusations]. I am not
the
chairman of the committee. I would never get the opportunity to have a
back
and forth with you [people from the State Department], except in times
like
this." [From hearing, posted below]
Because he charged the U.S. State Department with pretending to oppose
bin
Laden and the Taliban while actually secretly supporting them, and
because
the State Department officials were manifestly unable to answer his
charges,
and because the whole thing was recorded and transcribed, Rohrabacher
gave us
a strong piece of documented evidence that during the 1990s, the actual
U.S.
policy was to support Islamist terrorism.
A note on Representative Rohrabacher: By posting this material we are
not
endorsing the Congressman or his current actions. In our opinion, Rep.
Rohrabacher did the world the service of exposing State Department
duplicity
not because he opposed US interference in Afghanistan, during the 1980s
and
1990s, but because he wanted the U.S. to meddle in a different way.
While the
U.S. was openly financing the worst Islamist terrorists, and, later,
secretly
supporting the Taliban, Rep. Rohrabacher was close to the former Afghan
King.
Now that his King has gained more influence, Rep. Rohrabacher has
altered his
criticisms of U.S. policy. He used to say the U.S. actively hurt
Afghanistan.
Now he says:
"We thought just forcing the Russians out and supporting the Afghans in
their
fight against Soviet domination was the end of story. But it wasn't,
obviously. We did not do, as far as I'm concerned, our responsibility to
the
Afghan people. We left them asleep in their own rubble and left them to
suffer. And what emerged? The Taliban emerged. What emerged after that?
Bin
Laden." (CNN SUNDAY MORNING, 07:00, September 30, 2001)
This is a complete change from the much more honest criticism you will
find
below: namely, that the U.S. actively fostered the rise of the Taliban
and
refused to go after bin Laden, even when the information regarding bin
Laden
and the Taliban came from Mr. Rohrabacher and his Afghan friends. Thus
he
charged Washington with having a policy of arrogant interference,
treachery
and hypocrisy. During the hearing, quoted below, Mr. Rohrabacher said:
"The
United States created that swamp in Afghanistan." A far cry from "We
left
them asleep in their own rubble and left them to suffer."
It appears that Dana Rohrabacher has made his peace with the State
Department.
Note: I have included a few comments in brackets by way of connecting
the
excerpts.
-- Jared Israel
July 12, 2000
Hearing Of the House International Relations Committee on "Global
Terrorism
And South Asia."
Chaired By: Representative Benjamin Gilman (R-NY)
Witnesses: Michael Sheehan, State Department Coordinator For
Counterterrorism; Alan Eastham, Jr., Deputy Assistant Secretary Of State
For
South Asian Affairs
[Emperor's Clothes note: Shortly after the hearing started, Rep.
Rohrabacher
heated things up by attacking U.S. policy in Afghanistan, head on:]
REP. DANA ROHRABACHER (R-CA): Mr. Chairman, thank you very much, and
thank
you very much for holding this hearing.
As we discuss terrorism in South Asia, I think it is important to renew
the
members of this committee's and the public's acquaintance with the
request
that I have made for the last three years concerning American policy
toward
the Taliban, because as we examine -- as we examine terrorism in South
Asia,
one can't help but recognize that if it weren't for the fact that the
Taliban
are in power, there would be a different equation going on.
It would be whole different situation in South Asia.
After a year of requesting to see State Department documents on Afghan
policy
-- and I would remind the committee that I have -- I have stated that I
believe that there is a covert policy by this administration, a shameful
covert policy of supporting the Taliban -- the State Department, after
many,
many months -- actually, years -- of prodding, finally began giving me
documents, Mr. Chairman. And I have, in the assessment of those
documents, I
have found nothing to persuade me that I was wrong in my criticism. And
I
might add, however, that there has been no documents provided to me,
even
after all of these years of requesting it, there have been no documents
concerning the time period of the formation of the Taliban. And I would,
again, I would hope that the State Department gets the message that I
expect
to see all those documents. And the documents that I have read, Mr.
Chairman,
indicate that the State Department, time and again, has had as its
position
that they have no quarrel, or that it would give them no heartburn, to
have
the Taliban in power. This, during the time period when the Taliban was
struggling to take over Afghanistan.
And although the administration has denied supporting the Taliban, it is
clear that they discouraged all of the anti-Taliban supporters from
supporting the efforts in Afghanistan to defeat the Taliban. Even so
much as
when the Taliban was ripe for being defeated on the ground in
Afghanistan,
Bill Richardson and Rick Inderfurth, high-ranking members of this
administration, personally visited the region in order to discourage the
Taliban's opposition from attacking the Taliban when they were
vulnerable,
and then going to neighboring countries to cut off any type of military
assistance to [opponents of the] Taliban. This, at a time when Pakistan
was
heavily resupplying and rearming the Taliban.
What did this lead to? It led to the defeat of all of the Taliban's
major
enemies except for one, Commander Massoud, in the north, and left the
Taliban
the supreme power in Afghanistan.
So what we hear today about terrorism and crocodile tears from this
administration, let us remember this administration is responsible for
the
Taliban. This administration has acted in a way that has kept the
Taliban in
power.
One last note. Many people here understand that I have been in
Afghanistan on
numerous occasions and have close ties to people there. And let me just
say
that some of my sources of information informed me of where bin Laden
was,
they told me they knew and could tell people where bin Laden could be
located. And it took me three times before this administration responded
to
someone who obviously has personal contacts in Afghanistan, to even
investigate that there might be someone who could give them the
information.
And when my contact was actually contacted, they said that the people
who
contacted them were half-hearted, did not follow through, did not appear
to
be all that interested, appeared to be forced to be talking to him.
…
[Emperor's Clothes note: Rep. Bonior attempted to rebut Rohrabacher's
charges. Note that this gentleman speaks entirely in generalities:]
REP. DAVID E. BONIOR (D-MI): On earlier occasions, the administration
has
expressed the importance of working with Pakistan in addressing
terrorism in
South Asia. I also believe that cooperation with Pakistan continues to
be
very much in our national interest. Combating and preventing global
terrorism
is one of the most serious challenges facing America's foreign policy in
this
new era.
It is my belief, Mr. Chairman, that Pakistan, as a long-standing ally of
the
United States, is committed to cooperating with the United States on
terrorism. Its record shows that. Sanctioning Pakistan will serve no
purpose
other than to isolate them and aggravate the social and economic and
political challenges in the region.
I also strongly believe that the Taliban support for terrorism, and its
harboring of Osama bin Laden, must be condemned in the strongest
possible
terms. We must also respond to the threat, and I believe that is where
Pakistan plays a very critical role. We must remember that it is not in
Pakistan's interest to have the Taliban on its border. It is also not in
Pakistan's interest to have terrorist groups operating within its
borders.
And it is clearly not in India's interest to have Pakistan isolated,
thereby
producing a greater threat to peace and stability in South Asia….
I know from my talks with General Musharraf, when I visited Pakistan and
India in April, that he is committed to dealing with the Taliban. He has
met
with one leader of the Taliban and is prepared to meet with others in
Afghanistan. Throughout my trip, I gained a new appreciation of the new
challenges facing the region. I also came away, more convinced than
ever,
that the United States must play a proactive role in helping to meet
those
challenges.
There are serious challenges and threats, which exist in Pakistan. But I
also
know that General Musharraf and General Aziz (sp), in Pakistan, are well
aware of what needs to be done.
[Emperor's Clothes note: Shortly after this, Michael Sheehan, the State
Department Coordinator For Counterterrorism and Alan Eastham, Jr., the
Deputy
Assistant Secretary Of State For South Asian Affairs spoke. However,
they
also talked in generalities. Following there remarks REP. GEJDENSON
spoke,
ending with the following heated exchange:]
REP. GEJDENSON: â?¦One last thing. Are there any countries supplying
weapons to
the Taliban at this point?
MR. SHEEHAN [from State Dep't]: I think I'll have to go in closed
session on
that as well, Mr. Congressman. I'm not -- what I know about that is from
classified sources. I'll be glad to talk to you about it after this.
REP. GEJDENSON: Thank you. You might check with Mr. Rohrabacher for any
other
information you need on Afghanistan -- (laughter). He seems to be very
knowledgeable about the military situation there.
REP. GILMAN: Thank you, Mr. Gejdenson. Mr. Rohrabacher?
REP. ROHRABACHER: (Laughing.) This is a joke! I mean, you have to go to
closed session to tell us where the weapons are coming from? Well, how
about
let's make a choice. There's Pakistan or Pakistan or Pakistan. (Laughs.)
Where do you think the Taliban -- right as we speak -- I haven't read
any
classified documents. Everybody in the region knows that Pakistan is
involved
with a massive supply of military weapons and has been since the very
beginning of the Taliban.
Let me just state for the record, here, before I get into my questions,
that
I think there's -- and it's not just you, Mr. Ambassador, but it is this
administration and, perhaps, other administrations as well. I do not
believe
that terrorism flows from a lack of state control. A breakdown of state
control, all of sudden you have terrorism. That's not what causes
terrorism.
What causes terrorism is a lack of freedom and democracy, a lack of a
means
to solve one's problems through a democratic process.
Afghanistan, from the very beginning, we have been -- when the Reagan
administration was involved with helping the Afghans fight the Russians,
which was engaged in trying to put a totalitarian government there --
because
of Pakistan's insistence, a lion's share of our support went to a guy
named
Hekmatyar Gulbuddin, who had no democratic tendencies whatsoever. And
since
the Russians lost, we have not been supporting, the United States has
not
been supporting any type of somewhat free, somewhat democratic
alternatives
in Afghanistan, and there are such alternatives, and we all -- those of
us
who have been involved know that.
So there's no democracy or freedom in Afghanistan, where people who are
good
and decent and courageous people, have a chance to cleanse their society
of
the drug dealers and the fanatics that torture and repress, especially
the
women of Afghanistan. But the men of Afghanistan are not fanatics like
the
Taliban, either. They would like to have a different regime. Only the
United
States has given -- and I again make this charge -- the United States
has
been part and parcel to supporting the Taliban all along, and still is
let me
add. But you don't have any type of democracy in Afghanistan.
â?¦Let me note that, three years ago, I tried to arrange support, aid,
humanitarian aid, to a non-Taliban-controlled section of Afghanistan,
the
Bamian area. Mr. Chairman, the State Department did everything they
could to
thwart these humanitarian medical supplies from going into Bamian. And
we
heard today that we are very proud that we are still giving aid to
Afghanistan. Let me note; that aid has always gone to Taliban areas. So
what
message does that send to people of Afghanistan? We have been supporting
the
Taliban, because all our aid goes to the Taliban areas. And when people
from
the outside try to put aid into areas not controlled by the Taliban,
they are
thwarted by our own State Department.
And let me just note that that same area, Bamian, where I tried to help
those
people who are opposed to the Taliban; Bamian now is the headquarters of
Mr.
Bin Laden. Surprise, surprise! Everyone in this committee has heard me,
time
and again over the years, say, unless we did something, Afghanistan was
going
to become a base for terrorism and drug dealing. And, Mr. Chairman, how
many
times did you hear me say that this administration either ignored that
or --
a part of the problem, rather than part of the solution?
Again, let me just -- I am sorry Mr. Inderfurth is not here to defend
himself
-- but let me state for the record: At a time when the Taliban were
vulnerable, the top person of this administration, Mr. Inderfurth, and
Bill
Richardson, personally went to Afghanistan and convinced the
anti-Taliban
forces not to go on the offensive and, furthermore, convinced all of the
anti-Taliban forces, their supporters, to disarm them and to cease their
flow
of support for the anti-Taliban forces. At that same moment, Pakistan
initiated a major resupply effort, which eventually saw the defeat, and
caused the defeat, of almost all of the anti-Taliban forces in
Afghanistan.
Now, with a history like that, it's very hard, Mr. Ambassador, for me to
sit
here and listen to someone say, "Our main goal is to drain the swamp" --
and
the swamp is Afghanistan -- because the United States created that swamp
in
Afghanistan. And the United States' policies have undercut those efforts
to
create a freer and more open society in Afghanistan, which is consistent
with
the beliefs of the Afghan people.
REP. GILMAN: Did the panelists want to respond at all?
MR. SHEEHAN: I would, Mr. Congressman.
REP. GILMAN: Ambassador Sheehan.
MR. SHEEHAN: First of all, Mr. Congressman, I'm sorry that you think
it's a
joke that I won't respond on the issue of support for the arms for the
Taliban, but the information that I have, which is -- I cannot respond
by
public source -- is based on intelligence methods, and I don't have the
authority to speak about that in this session. But I'll be glad to talk
to
you or anybody else afterwards.
Secondly, regarding the responsibility the United States government has
for
Afghanistan and the situation there, I don't accept that conclusion at
all.
The United States did help participate in helping the mujaheddin reject
the
Soviet occupation in the mid-'80s, and that was a policy that I think
was a
correct one at that time. The situation in Afghanistan, the
deterioration of
that state since 1979, has primarily to do with the situation in
Afghanistan.
Certainly there were those responsible, whether it was the Soviet
occupiers
or those who were involved in a civil war that has waged there for 20
years.
But the idea that the United States government is responsible for
everything
in Afghanistan I think is not true.
And the idea that we support the Taliban I also reject as well
completely. I
have spent 18 months in this job leading the effort within the United
States
government and around the world to bring pressure on the Taliban. After
the
bombing of the embassies in East Africa, when I got hired for this job,
I
have made it my sole effort, my primary effort in this job to bring
pressure
on that regime. And the United States government leads that effort in
providing pressure on that regime. My office leads that effort within
the
United States government. We started with an executive order in August
of
1999 that brought sanctions to bear on the Taliban. We've led the effort
in
the U.N. to bring international sanctions against them. We're also
leading
the effort internationally right now to look at further measures against
the
Taliban. It's the United States government that is leading that effort
--
we're ahead of everybody else -- to bring pressure on the Taliban. And
the
Taliban knows it, and those other member states within the U.N. and
other --
the other community knows our efforts to bring pressure to bear on that
organization because of its support for state -- for terrorism.
REP. GILMAN: Thank you.
Mr. Eastham, did you want to comment?
MR. EASTHAM: Yes, sir, I would. I would be happy to defend Mr.
Inderfurth, if
you'd like, Mr. Rohrabacher, even if he's not here in person.
I would just note that I have spent nearly 15 years of my life working
on
this part of the world. I was with the mujaheddin in Peshar [Pakistan!]
from
1984 to 1987. I was in the consulate in Peshar at that time. I've been
back
on this account now for -- I began my sixth year on the South Asia
account
this time, around this week. I was in Pakistan when you were trying your
effort to put -- the airdrop assistance into Bamian. So I'm quite
familiar
with the history of the whole episode. And I can say that at no point --
at
no point -- in the last six years has the United States of America
offered
its support to the Taliban.
This is why I think that despite the fact we've provided you nearly a
thousand documents in response to the request of the chairman, that you
haven't been able to find the support for the Taliban, because it isn't
there.
REP. ROHRABACHER: That is incorrect, by the way. And I will say that for
the
record. That is incorrect. I have found several references. And
documents
have been kept from me indicating what our policy formation about the
Taliban
has been. So that is not accurate.
MR. EASTHAM: Well, we have a fundamental difference of opinion, then,
about
the record of what this administration has done with respect to the
Taliban.
But I will say that we have -- that our goals with respect to the
Taliban
have shifted over the past two years, almost, since the East Africa
bombings.
When the Taliban first came into power in Afghanistan, we had an agenda
which
addressed terrorism, narcotics, human rights, including the rights of
women,
and bringing peace to Afghanistan. We tried to address all of those at
the
same time.
After the East Africa bombing, the terrorism problem became much more
acute
and a much higher priority in terms of our -- in terms of what we were
doing.
But we've been addressing all these issues since the first day the
Taliban
came into being, and particularly since they came to power in Kabul.
Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
â?¦
[TENC note: Rohrabacher replied:]
REP. ROHRABACHER: All right.
Let me just say that, in your denials to the charges that I made, you
were
very good at general denials. But there was no denial of some specific
charges, so I'd like to ask you about them now.
I charged that the aid that the United States has been giving has been
going
to the Taliban-controlled territories, especially during that time
period
when one-third of Afghanistan was being controlled by non- and
anti-Taliban
forces. Specifically, I used the example of the Bamian effort in which
we
tried to help the folks down there, who my sources said were in great
deprivation and starving, and the State Department undermined that
effort.
And we mentioned earlier there is an aid program going on to
Afghanistan. Ten
percent of Afghanistan is still controlled by anti- Taliban forces. Is
any of
the aid that we are giving going to this anti-Taliban area?
â?¦
MR. EASTHAM: The answer to the question is, yes, there is aid flowing to
all
areas in Afghanistan. That is a function, however, of accessibility, of
how
you get it to them. There is assistance, which flows through the United
Nations who are the implementers of the program, into the North, via
Tajikistan, and also through the Chitral area of Pakistan --
REP. ROHRABACHER: Okay. Okay. So --
MR. EASTHAM: -- as well as to the 80 percent of the country.
REP. ROHRABACHER: -- okay. So your answer is yes, that currently that
one
area in the Panjshir Valley, now controlled by Commander Massoud, that
does
-- they do receive humanitarian supplies?
MR. EASTHAM: I can't take you specifically to the Panjshir Valley
because
access to the Panjshir Valley is blocked from the south by the Taliban.
REP. ROHRABACHER: But of course, it's not blocked from Tajikistan,
right?
MR. EASTHAM: Yeah. But there is assistance, which flows into all areas
of
Afghanistan, through these U.N. programs.
REP. ROHRABACHER: All right. Okay. So you're on the record. Thank you
very
much.
MR. EASTHAM: Okay. But --
REP. ROHRABACHER: That's not what my sources say.
MR. EASTHAM: -- with respect to Bamian, I want to take you back to the
period
two, three years ago that you are referring to. In fact, I have -- at
around
that same time, I made a trip myself from Pakistan to Kandahar, to talk
to
the Taliban about the blockade, which they had imposed at the time, upon
assistance to Bamian, because at the time Bamian was controlled by
non-Taliban forces, from the Hazara people, there.
One of the main effects of the trip by Mr. Richardson and Mr. Inderfurth
that
you have so criticized was to attempt to persuade the Taliban in fact to
lift
that very blockade of Bamian, which was -- and we followed it up with
discussions in Islamabad, in which the Taliban did, in fact, agree to a
partial lifting to enable foodstuffs to go into Bamian.
REP. ROHRABACHER: So we traded off with the Taliban that they were going
to
lift their blockade and we were going to disarm all of their opponents.
MR. EASTHAM: No, sir, that's not the case.
REP. ROHRABACHER: Okay. Well, let's go back -- go to disarming the
Taliban's
opponents. And by the way, this has been reconfirmed in everything that
I've
read, both official and unofficial. Are you trying to tell us now that
the
State Department's policy was not, at that crucial moment when the
Taliban
was vulnerable, to disarm the Taliban's opponents? Did not Mr.
Inderfurth and
the State Department contact all of the support groups that were helping
the
anti-Taliban forces and ask them to cease their flow of military
supplies to
the anti-Taliban forces?
MR. EASTHAM: At that time we were trying to -- we were trying to
construct a
coalition which would cut off support for all forces in Afghanistan from
the
outside.
REP. ROHRABACHER: Oh, and I take it --- so I take it that's a yes to my
question. But the --
MR. EASTHAM: No, sir; you've left out the cutting off the Taliban part.
REP. ROHRABACHER: -- but the Taliban were -- but the Taliban were
included;
except what happened right after all of those other support systems that
had
been dismantled because of Mr. Inderfurth's and Mr. Richardson's appeal,
and
the State Department's appeal? What happened immediately -- not only
immediately after, even while you were making that appeal, what happened
in
Pakistan? Was there an airlift of supplies, military supplies, between
Pakistan and Kabul and the forward elements of the Taliban forces?
(Pause.) REP. ROHRABACHER: The answer is yes. I know.
MR. EASTHAM: The answer is --
REP. ROHRABACHER: You can't tell me because --
MR. EASTHMAM: The answer is --
REP. ROHRABACHER: -- it's secret information.
MR. EASTHAM: The answer is closed session, if you would like to dredge
up
that record.
REP. ROHRABACHER: Right. Okay.
MR. EASTHAM: That would be fine.
REP. ROHRABACHER: Well, I don't have to go into closed session because I
didn't get that information from any classified document. That
information is
available to anybody watching the scene up there. They know exactly what
happened. Mr. Inderfurth, Mr. Bill Richardson, a good friend of mine,
doing
the bidding of this administration, basically convinced the
anti-Talibans'
mentors to quit providing them the weapons they needed, with some scheme
that
the Taliban were then going to lay down their arms. And immediately
thereafter, Pakistan started a massive shift of military supplies which
resulted in the total defeat of the anti-Taliban forces.
This is -- now, this is either collusion or incompetence on the part of
the
State Department, as far as this congressman is concernedâ?¦
Why haven't I been provided any documents about State Department
analysis of
-- during the formation period of the Taliban, about whether or not the
Taliban was a good force or a bad force? Why have none of those
documents
reached my desk after two years?
MR. EASTHAM: Congressman, we were responding to a specific request
dealing
with a specific time period, which I believe the commencing period of
the
request for documents was after the time period you're talking about. We
were
asked to provide documents, by the chairman of this committee, from 1996
to
1999.
REP. ROHRABACHER: I see. You found a loophole in the chairman's wording
--
MR. EASTHAM: No, sir. We were responding to the chairman's request.
REP. ROHRABACHER: You found a loophole in the chairman's wording of his
request as to not to provide me those documents.
You know, I am the only one here. I am not the chairman of the
committee. I
would never get the opportunity to have a back and forth with you,
except in
times like this.
The State Department has taken full advantage of its use of words in
order
not to get this information out. I am looking forward to more documents.
I
will say this, I have spent hours overlooking those documents, and
there's
been nothing in those documents to persuade me that my charges that this
administration has been covertly supporting the Taliban is not accurate.
Feel free to respond to that.
MR. EASTHAM: It's not true.
REP. ROHRABACHER: Okay.
MR. EASTHAM: I have to negate the whole thesis that you're operating
under,
sir.
REP. ROHRABACHER: All right. Then -- okay, the other option is the State
Department is so incompetent that we have done things that helped the
Taliban
and have put them in a position of having hundreds of millions of
dollars of
drug money, and had power in Afghanistan, and undercutting the
anti-Taliban
forces. This is just -- this isn't intent, this is just incompetence?
MR. EASTHAM: That's a judgment you can make.
REP. ROHRABACHER: All right.
MR. EASTHAM: And if you want to make that judgment, that's up to you,
Congressman.
REP. ROHRABACHER: Okay.
MR. EASTHAM: I would just observe that it's considerably more complex
than
that to deal with people over whom we have so little influence as with
Taliban. I have spent -- I have been myself, by my count, six times into
Afghanistan on both the northern side and the southern side. I have met
innumerable times with Taliban officials to attempt to achieve U.S.
objectives, and I have to tell you that it's a tough job.
REP. ROHRABACHER: I believe it is a tough job --
MR. EASTHAM: I'd like to introduce you to some of them sometime.
REP. ROHRABACHER: Oh, I've met many Taliban, thank you. And as you are
aware,
I have met many Taliban and talked to them. Especially when you disarm
their
opponents, and you participate in an effort to disarm their opponents at
a
time when they're being supplied -- resupplied militarily, I guess it is
very
hard for them to take us seriously when we say we're going to get tough
with
them.
MR. EASTHAM: You keep saying that, but it's not true.
REP. ROHRABACHER: Well -- oh --
MR. EASTHAM: The effort --
REP. ROHRABACHER: You're just saying -- no, you're just --
MR. EASTHAM: The effort was to stop the support for all the factions.
REP. ROHRABACHER: That's correct. You didn't deny that we disarmed their
opponents, you just said we were doing it with the Taliban as well. But
as I
pointed out, which you did not deny, the Taliban were immediately
resupplied.
Which means that we are part and parcel to disarming a victim against
this
hostile, totalitarian, anti- Western, drug-dealing force in their
society,
and we were part and parcel of disarming the victim, thinking that the
aggressor was going to be disarmed as well, but it just didn't work out
-- at
the moment when Pakistan was arming them, I might add.
Copyright 2000 Federal News Service, Inc. Reprinted for Fair Use Only
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= = = = = = = = = = =
Further Reading
= = = = = = = = = = =
1) "Why Does Washington Want Afghanistan?" by Jared Israel, Rick Rozoff
and
Nico Varkevisser. Can be read at
http://www.emperors-clothes.com/analysis/afghan.htm
2) Is Washington sincere about fighting terrorism? Then why has it
coddled
the terrorist armies in the Balkans? See '"TERRORISM AGAINST SERBIA IS
NO
CRIME' at http://emperors-clothes.com/articles/jared/nocrime.htm
And why has it threatened to unleash a campaign of terror against
Belarus?
See, 'Tough Measures Needed in Belarus!' at
http://emperors-clothes.com/news/tough.htm
3) In the course of one week Osama bin laden switched from saying he
opposed
the 9-11 destruction to saying he rejoiced in it. Emperor's Clothes
found
this change a bit too convenient. See "'Osama bin laden, Terrorist
Monster,'
TAKE TWO!" by Jared Israel, at
http://www.emperors-clothes.com/articles/jared/taketwo.htm
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Congressman: U.S. Set Up Anti-Taliban Forces to be Slaughtered
* Excerpts from a most revealing hearing
* Comments by Jared Israel [posted 16 October 2001]
========================================
"At a time when the Taliban were vulnerable, the top person of this
administration, Mr. Inderfurth, and Bill Richardson, personally went to
Afghanistan and convinced the anti-Taliban forces not to go on the
offensive
and, furthermore, convinced all of the anti-Taliban forces, their
supporters,
to disarm them and to cease their flow of support for the anti-Taliban
forces. At that same moment, Pakistan initiated a major resupply effort,
which eventually saw the defeat, and caused the defeat, of almost all of
the
anti-Taliban forces in Afghanistan.
"Now, with a history like that, it's very hard, Mr. Ambassador, for me
to sit
here and listen to someone say, "Our main goal is to drain the swamp" --
and
the swamp is Afghanistan -- because the United States created that swamp
in
Afghanistan. And the United States' policies have undercut those efforts
to
create a freer and more open society in Afghanistan, which is consistent
with
the beliefs of the Afghan people." Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, lambasting the
U.S.
State Department at Congressional hearings 12 July 2000. Excerpts from
those
hearings are posted after these comments.
On July 12, 2000 a U.S. Congressional Committee held hearings that
turned
into a knockdown drag out fight over Washington's role in Afghanistan.
Rep. Dana Rohrabacher accused the U.S. State Department of treachery and
hypocrisy. He presented evidence that:
The U.S. deliberately sent 'humanitarian aid' only to Taliban-controlled
areas;
The U.S. State Department refused to act on information concerning the
location of Osama bin Laden's headquarters in Afghanistan.
U.S. officials tricked the Anti-Taliban opposition into disarming,
though the
officials knew Pakistan was airlifting weapons to the Taliban. This
allowed
the Taliban to wipe out most of the opposition forces.
Below I have posted excerpts from that hearing. As you will see, the two
U.S.
State Department officials, Mr. Eastham and Mr. Sheehan, and their
congressional supporters, never answered Rep. Rohrabacher's charges.
Rohrabacher listed specific acts of treachery. Eastham, Sheehan and
their
supporters dodged and responded with noble generalities.
This is important stuff. By definition, when a government engages in
covert
support of terrorist forces it does so to hide its real policy, and so
of
course the real policy is hard to expose. As Rep. Rohrabacher commented
at
the end of the hearing.
"You know, I am the only one here [making these accusations]. I am not
the
chairman of the committee. I would never get the opportunity to have a
back
and forth with you [people from the State Department], except in times
like
this." [From hearing, posted below]
Because he charged the U.S. State Department with pretending to oppose
bin
Laden and the Taliban while actually secretly supporting them, and
because
the State Department officials were manifestly unable to answer his
charges,
and because the whole thing was recorded and transcribed, Rohrabacher
gave us
a strong piece of documented evidence that during the 1990s, the actual
U.S.
policy was to support Islamist terrorism.
A note on Representative Rohrabacher: By posting this material we are
not
endorsing the Congressman or his current actions. In our opinion, Rep.
Rohrabacher did the world the service of exposing State Department
duplicity
not because he opposed US interference in Afghanistan, during the 1980s
and
1990s, but because he wanted the U.S. to meddle in a different way.
While the
U.S. was openly financing the worst Islamist terrorists, and, later,
secretly
supporting the Taliban, Rep. Rohrabacher was close to the former Afghan
King.
Now that his King has gained more influence, Rep. Rohrabacher has
altered his
criticisms of U.S. policy. He used to say the U.S. actively hurt
Afghanistan.
Now he says:
"We thought just forcing the Russians out and supporting the Afghans in
their
fight against Soviet domination was the end of story. But it wasn't,
obviously. We did not do, as far as I'm concerned, our responsibility to
the
Afghan people. We left them asleep in their own rubble and left them to
suffer. And what emerged? The Taliban emerged. What emerged after that?
Bin
Laden." (CNN SUNDAY MORNING, 07:00, September 30, 2001)
This is a complete change from the much more honest criticism you will
find
below: namely, that the U.S. actively fostered the rise of the Taliban
and
refused to go after bin Laden, even when the information regarding bin
Laden
and the Taliban came from Mr. Rohrabacher and his Afghan friends. Thus
he
charged Washington with having a policy of arrogant interference,
treachery
and hypocrisy. During the hearing, quoted below, Mr. Rohrabacher said:
"The
United States created that swamp in Afghanistan." A far cry from "We
left
them asleep in their own rubble and left them to suffer."
It appears that Dana Rohrabacher has made his peace with the State
Department.
Note: I have included a few comments in brackets by way of connecting
the
excerpts.
-- Jared Israel
July 12, 2000
Hearing Of the House International Relations Committee on "Global
Terrorism
And South Asia."
Chaired By: Representative Benjamin Gilman (R-NY)
Witnesses: Michael Sheehan, State Department Coordinator For
Counterterrorism; Alan Eastham, Jr., Deputy Assistant Secretary Of State
For
South Asian Affairs
[Emperor's Clothes note: Shortly after the hearing started, Rep.
Rohrabacher
heated things up by attacking U.S. policy in Afghanistan, head on:]
REP. DANA ROHRABACHER (R-CA): Mr. Chairman, thank you very much, and
thank
you very much for holding this hearing.
As we discuss terrorism in South Asia, I think it is important to renew
the
members of this committee's and the public's acquaintance with the
request
that I have made for the last three years concerning American policy
toward
the Taliban, because as we examine -- as we examine terrorism in South
Asia,
one can't help but recognize that if it weren't for the fact that the
Taliban
are in power, there would be a different equation going on.
It would be whole different situation in South Asia.
After a year of requesting to see State Department documents on Afghan
policy
-- and I would remind the committee that I have -- I have stated that I
believe that there is a covert policy by this administration, a shameful
covert policy of supporting the Taliban -- the State Department, after
many,
many months -- actually, years -- of prodding, finally began giving me
documents, Mr. Chairman. And I have, in the assessment of those
documents, I
have found nothing to persuade me that I was wrong in my criticism. And
I
might add, however, that there has been no documents provided to me,
even
after all of these years of requesting it, there have been no documents
concerning the time period of the formation of the Taliban. And I would,
again, I would hope that the State Department gets the message that I
expect
to see all those documents. And the documents that I have read, Mr.
Chairman,
indicate that the State Department, time and again, has had as its
position
that they have no quarrel, or that it would give them no heartburn, to
have
the Taliban in power. This, during the time period when the Taliban was
struggling to take over Afghanistan.
And although the administration has denied supporting the Taliban, it is
clear that they discouraged all of the anti-Taliban supporters from
supporting the efforts in Afghanistan to defeat the Taliban. Even so
much as
when the Taliban was ripe for being defeated on the ground in
Afghanistan,
Bill Richardson and Rick Inderfurth, high-ranking members of this
administration, personally visited the region in order to discourage the
Taliban's opposition from attacking the Taliban when they were
vulnerable,
and then going to neighboring countries to cut off any type of military
assistance to [opponents of the] Taliban. This, at a time when Pakistan
was
heavily resupplying and rearming the Taliban.
What did this lead to? It led to the defeat of all of the Taliban's
major
enemies except for one, Commander Massoud, in the north, and left the
Taliban
the supreme power in Afghanistan.
So what we hear today about terrorism and crocodile tears from this
administration, let us remember this administration is responsible for
the
Taliban. This administration has acted in a way that has kept the
Taliban in
power.
One last note. Many people here understand that I have been in
Afghanistan on
numerous occasions and have close ties to people there. And let me just
say
that some of my sources of information informed me of where bin Laden
was,
they told me they knew and could tell people where bin Laden could be
located. And it took me three times before this administration responded
to
someone who obviously has personal contacts in Afghanistan, to even
investigate that there might be someone who could give them the
information.
And when my contact was actually contacted, they said that the people
who
contacted them were half-hearted, did not follow through, did not appear
to
be all that interested, appeared to be forced to be talking to him.
…
[Emperor's Clothes note: Rep. Bonior attempted to rebut Rohrabacher's
charges. Note that this gentleman speaks entirely in generalities:]
REP. DAVID E. BONIOR (D-MI): On earlier occasions, the administration
has
expressed the importance of working with Pakistan in addressing
terrorism in
South Asia. I also believe that cooperation with Pakistan continues to
be
very much in our national interest. Combating and preventing global
terrorism
is one of the most serious challenges facing America's foreign policy in
this
new era.
It is my belief, Mr. Chairman, that Pakistan, as a long-standing ally of
the
United States, is committed to cooperating with the United States on
terrorism. Its record shows that. Sanctioning Pakistan will serve no
purpose
other than to isolate them and aggravate the social and economic and
political challenges in the region.
I also strongly believe that the Taliban support for terrorism, and its
harboring of Osama bin Laden, must be condemned in the strongest
possible
terms. We must also respond to the threat, and I believe that is where
Pakistan plays a very critical role. We must remember that it is not in
Pakistan's interest to have the Taliban on its border. It is also not in
Pakistan's interest to have terrorist groups operating within its
borders.
And it is clearly not in India's interest to have Pakistan isolated,
thereby
producing a greater threat to peace and stability in South Asia….
I know from my talks with General Musharraf, when I visited Pakistan and
India in April, that he is committed to dealing with the Taliban. He has
met
with one leader of the Taliban and is prepared to meet with others in
Afghanistan. Throughout my trip, I gained a new appreciation of the new
challenges facing the region. I also came away, more convinced than
ever,
that the United States must play a proactive role in helping to meet
those
challenges.
There are serious challenges and threats, which exist in Pakistan. But I
also
know that General Musharraf and General Aziz (sp), in Pakistan, are well
aware of what needs to be done.
[Emperor's Clothes note: Shortly after this, Michael Sheehan, the State
Department Coordinator For Counterterrorism and Alan Eastham, Jr., the
Deputy
Assistant Secretary Of State For South Asian Affairs spoke. However,
they
also talked in generalities. Following there remarks REP. GEJDENSON
spoke,
ending with the following heated exchange:]
REP. GEJDENSON: â?¦One last thing. Are there any countries supplying
weapons to
the Taliban at this point?
MR. SHEEHAN [from State Dep't]: I think I'll have to go in closed
session on
that as well, Mr. Congressman. I'm not -- what I know about that is from
classified sources. I'll be glad to talk to you about it after this.
REP. GEJDENSON: Thank you. You might check with Mr. Rohrabacher for any
other
information you need on Afghanistan -- (laughter). He seems to be very
knowledgeable about the military situation there.
REP. GILMAN: Thank you, Mr. Gejdenson. Mr. Rohrabacher?
REP. ROHRABACHER: (Laughing.) This is a joke! I mean, you have to go to
closed session to tell us where the weapons are coming from? Well, how
about
let's make a choice. There's Pakistan or Pakistan or Pakistan. (Laughs.)
Where do you think the Taliban -- right as we speak -- I haven't read
any
classified documents. Everybody in the region knows that Pakistan is
involved
with a massive supply of military weapons and has been since the very
beginning of the Taliban.
Let me just state for the record, here, before I get into my questions,
that
I think there's -- and it's not just you, Mr. Ambassador, but it is this
administration and, perhaps, other administrations as well. I do not
believe
that terrorism flows from a lack of state control. A breakdown of state
control, all of sudden you have terrorism. That's not what causes
terrorism.
What causes terrorism is a lack of freedom and democracy, a lack of a
means
to solve one's problems through a democratic process.
Afghanistan, from the very beginning, we have been -- when the Reagan
administration was involved with helping the Afghans fight the Russians,
which was engaged in trying to put a totalitarian government there --
because
of Pakistan's insistence, a lion's share of our support went to a guy
named
Hekmatyar Gulbuddin, who had no democratic tendencies whatsoever. And
since
the Russians lost, we have not been supporting, the United States has
not
been supporting any type of somewhat free, somewhat democratic
alternatives
in Afghanistan, and there are such alternatives, and we all -- those of
us
who have been involved know that.
So there's no democracy or freedom in Afghanistan, where people who are
good
and decent and courageous people, have a chance to cleanse their society
of
the drug dealers and the fanatics that torture and repress, especially
the
women of Afghanistan. But the men of Afghanistan are not fanatics like
the
Taliban, either. They would like to have a different regime. Only the
United
States has given -- and I again make this charge -- the United States
has
been part and parcel to supporting the Taliban all along, and still is
let me
add. But you don't have any type of democracy in Afghanistan.
â?¦Let me note that, three years ago, I tried to arrange support, aid,
humanitarian aid, to a non-Taliban-controlled section of Afghanistan,
the
Bamian area. Mr. Chairman, the State Department did everything they
could to
thwart these humanitarian medical supplies from going into Bamian. And
we
heard today that we are very proud that we are still giving aid to
Afghanistan. Let me note; that aid has always gone to Taliban areas. So
what
message does that send to people of Afghanistan? We have been supporting
the
Taliban, because all our aid goes to the Taliban areas. And when people
from
the outside try to put aid into areas not controlled by the Taliban,
they are
thwarted by our own State Department.
And let me just note that that same area, Bamian, where I tried to help
those
people who are opposed to the Taliban; Bamian now is the headquarters of
Mr.
Bin Laden. Surprise, surprise! Everyone in this committee has heard me,
time
and again over the years, say, unless we did something, Afghanistan was
going
to become a base for terrorism and drug dealing. And, Mr. Chairman, how
many
times did you hear me say that this administration either ignored that
or --
a part of the problem, rather than part of the solution?
Again, let me just -- I am sorry Mr. Inderfurth is not here to defend
himself
-- but let me state for the record: At a time when the Taliban were
vulnerable, the top person of this administration, Mr. Inderfurth, and
Bill
Richardson, personally went to Afghanistan and convinced the
anti-Taliban
forces not to go on the offensive and, furthermore, convinced all of the
anti-Taliban forces, their supporters, to disarm them and to cease their
flow
of support for the anti-Taliban forces. At that same moment, Pakistan
initiated a major resupply effort, which eventually saw the defeat, and
caused the defeat, of almost all of the anti-Taliban forces in
Afghanistan.
Now, with a history like that, it's very hard, Mr. Ambassador, for me to
sit
here and listen to someone say, "Our main goal is to drain the swamp" --
and
the swamp is Afghanistan -- because the United States created that swamp
in
Afghanistan. And the United States' policies have undercut those efforts
to
create a freer and more open society in Afghanistan, which is consistent
with
the beliefs of the Afghan people.
REP. GILMAN: Did the panelists want to respond at all?
MR. SHEEHAN: I would, Mr. Congressman.
REP. GILMAN: Ambassador Sheehan.
MR. SHEEHAN: First of all, Mr. Congressman, I'm sorry that you think
it's a
joke that I won't respond on the issue of support for the arms for the
Taliban, but the information that I have, which is -- I cannot respond
by
public source -- is based on intelligence methods, and I don't have the
authority to speak about that in this session. But I'll be glad to talk
to
you or anybody else afterwards.
Secondly, regarding the responsibility the United States government has
for
Afghanistan and the situation there, I don't accept that conclusion at
all.
The United States did help participate in helping the mujaheddin reject
the
Soviet occupation in the mid-'80s, and that was a policy that I think
was a
correct one at that time. The situation in Afghanistan, the
deterioration of
that state since 1979, has primarily to do with the situation in
Afghanistan.
Certainly there were those responsible, whether it was the Soviet
occupiers
or those who were involved in a civil war that has waged there for 20
years.
But the idea that the United States government is responsible for
everything
in Afghanistan I think is not true.
And the idea that we support the Taliban I also reject as well
completely. I
have spent 18 months in this job leading the effort within the United
States
government and around the world to bring pressure on the Taliban. After
the
bombing of the embassies in East Africa, when I got hired for this job,
I
have made it my sole effort, my primary effort in this job to bring
pressure
on that regime. And the United States government leads that effort in
providing pressure on that regime. My office leads that effort within
the
United States government. We started with an executive order in August
of
1999 that brought sanctions to bear on the Taliban. We've led the effort
in
the U.N. to bring international sanctions against them. We're also
leading
the effort internationally right now to look at further measures against
the
Taliban. It's the United States government that is leading that effort
--
we're ahead of everybody else -- to bring pressure on the Taliban. And
the
Taliban knows it, and those other member states within the U.N. and
other --
the other community knows our efforts to bring pressure to bear on that
organization because of its support for state -- for terrorism.
REP. GILMAN: Thank you.
Mr. Eastham, did you want to comment?
MR. EASTHAM: Yes, sir, I would. I would be happy to defend Mr.
Inderfurth, if
you'd like, Mr. Rohrabacher, even if he's not here in person.
I would just note that I have spent nearly 15 years of my life working
on
this part of the world. I was with the mujaheddin in Peshar [Pakistan!]
from
1984 to 1987. I was in the consulate in Peshar at that time. I've been
back
on this account now for -- I began my sixth year on the South Asia
account
this time, around this week. I was in Pakistan when you were trying your
effort to put -- the airdrop assistance into Bamian. So I'm quite
familiar
with the history of the whole episode. And I can say that at no point --
at
no point -- in the last six years has the United States of America
offered
its support to the Taliban.
This is why I think that despite the fact we've provided you nearly a
thousand documents in response to the request of the chairman, that you
haven't been able to find the support for the Taliban, because it isn't
there.
REP. ROHRABACHER: That is incorrect, by the way. And I will say that for
the
record. That is incorrect. I have found several references. And
documents
have been kept from me indicating what our policy formation about the
Taliban
has been. So that is not accurate.
MR. EASTHAM: Well, we have a fundamental difference of opinion, then,
about
the record of what this administration has done with respect to the
Taliban.
But I will say that we have -- that our goals with respect to the
Taliban
have shifted over the past two years, almost, since the East Africa
bombings.
When the Taliban first came into power in Afghanistan, we had an agenda
which
addressed terrorism, narcotics, human rights, including the rights of
women,
and bringing peace to Afghanistan. We tried to address all of those at
the
same time.
After the East Africa bombing, the terrorism problem became much more
acute
and a much higher priority in terms of our -- in terms of what we were
doing.
But we've been addressing all these issues since the first day the
Taliban
came into being, and particularly since they came to power in Kabul.
Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
â?¦
[TENC note: Rohrabacher replied:]
REP. ROHRABACHER: All right.
Let me just say that, in your denials to the charges that I made, you
were
very good at general denials. But there was no denial of some specific
charges, so I'd like to ask you about them now.
I charged that the aid that the United States has been giving has been
going
to the Taliban-controlled territories, especially during that time
period
when one-third of Afghanistan was being controlled by non- and
anti-Taliban
forces. Specifically, I used the example of the Bamian effort in which
we
tried to help the folks down there, who my sources said were in great
deprivation and starving, and the State Department undermined that
effort.
And we mentioned earlier there is an aid program going on to
Afghanistan. Ten
percent of Afghanistan is still controlled by anti- Taliban forces. Is
any of
the aid that we are giving going to this anti-Taliban area?
â?¦
MR. EASTHAM: The answer to the question is, yes, there is aid flowing to
all
areas in Afghanistan. That is a function, however, of accessibility, of
how
you get it to them. There is assistance, which flows through the United
Nations who are the implementers of the program, into the North, via
Tajikistan, and also through the Chitral area of Pakistan --
REP. ROHRABACHER: Okay. Okay. So --
MR. EASTHAM: -- as well as to the 80 percent of the country.
REP. ROHRABACHER: -- okay. So your answer is yes, that currently that
one
area in the Panjshir Valley, now controlled by Commander Massoud, that
does
-- they do receive humanitarian supplies?
MR. EASTHAM: I can't take you specifically to the Panjshir Valley
because
access to the Panjshir Valley is blocked from the south by the Taliban.
REP. ROHRABACHER: But of course, it's not blocked from Tajikistan,
right?
MR. EASTHAM: Yeah. But there is assistance, which flows into all areas
of
Afghanistan, through these U.N. programs.
REP. ROHRABACHER: All right. Okay. So you're on the record. Thank you
very
much.
MR. EASTHAM: Okay. But --
REP. ROHRABACHER: That's not what my sources say.
MR. EASTHAM: -- with respect to Bamian, I want to take you back to the
period
two, three years ago that you are referring to. In fact, I have -- at
around
that same time, I made a trip myself from Pakistan to Kandahar, to talk
to
the Taliban about the blockade, which they had imposed at the time, upon
assistance to Bamian, because at the time Bamian was controlled by
non-Taliban forces, from the Hazara people, there.
One of the main effects of the trip by Mr. Richardson and Mr. Inderfurth
that
you have so criticized was to attempt to persuade the Taliban in fact to
lift
that very blockade of Bamian, which was -- and we followed it up with
discussions in Islamabad, in which the Taliban did, in fact, agree to a
partial lifting to enable foodstuffs to go into Bamian.
REP. ROHRABACHER: So we traded off with the Taliban that they were going
to
lift their blockade and we were going to disarm all of their opponents.
MR. EASTHAM: No, sir, that's not the case.
REP. ROHRABACHER: Okay. Well, let's go back -- go to disarming the
Taliban's
opponents. And by the way, this has been reconfirmed in everything that
I've
read, both official and unofficial. Are you trying to tell us now that
the
State Department's policy was not, at that crucial moment when the
Taliban
was vulnerable, to disarm the Taliban's opponents? Did not Mr.
Inderfurth and
the State Department contact all of the support groups that were helping
the
anti-Taliban forces and ask them to cease their flow of military
supplies to
the anti-Taliban forces?
MR. EASTHAM: At that time we were trying to -- we were trying to
construct a
coalition which would cut off support for all forces in Afghanistan from
the
outside.
REP. ROHRABACHER: Oh, and I take it --- so I take it that's a yes to my
question. But the --
MR. EASTHAM: No, sir; you've left out the cutting off the Taliban part.
REP. ROHRABACHER: -- but the Taliban were -- but the Taliban were
included;
except what happened right after all of those other support systems that
had
been dismantled because of Mr. Inderfurth's and Mr. Richardson's appeal,
and
the State Department's appeal? What happened immediately -- not only
immediately after, even while you were making that appeal, what happened
in
Pakistan? Was there an airlift of supplies, military supplies, between
Pakistan and Kabul and the forward elements of the Taliban forces?
(Pause.) REP. ROHRABACHER: The answer is yes. I know.
MR. EASTHAM: The answer is --
REP. ROHRABACHER: You can't tell me because --
MR. EASTHMAM: The answer is --
REP. ROHRABACHER: -- it's secret information.
MR. EASTHAM: The answer is closed session, if you would like to dredge
up
that record.
REP. ROHRABACHER: Right. Okay.
MR. EASTHAM: That would be fine.
REP. ROHRABACHER: Well, I don't have to go into closed session because I
didn't get that information from any classified document. That
information is
available to anybody watching the scene up there. They know exactly what
happened. Mr. Inderfurth, Mr. Bill Richardson, a good friend of mine,
doing
the bidding of this administration, basically convinced the
anti-Talibans'
mentors to quit providing them the weapons they needed, with some scheme
that
the Taliban were then going to lay down their arms. And immediately
thereafter, Pakistan started a massive shift of military supplies which
resulted in the total defeat of the anti-Taliban forces.
This is -- now, this is either collusion or incompetence on the part of
the
State Department, as far as this congressman is concernedâ?¦
Why haven't I been provided any documents about State Department
analysis of
-- during the formation period of the Taliban, about whether or not the
Taliban was a good force or a bad force? Why have none of those
documents
reached my desk after two years?
MR. EASTHAM: Congressman, we were responding to a specific request
dealing
with a specific time period, which I believe the commencing period of
the
request for documents was after the time period you're talking about. We
were
asked to provide documents, by the chairman of this committee, from 1996
to
1999.
REP. ROHRABACHER: I see. You found a loophole in the chairman's wording
--
MR. EASTHAM: No, sir. We were responding to the chairman's request.
REP. ROHRABACHER: You found a loophole in the chairman's wording of his
request as to not to provide me those documents.
You know, I am the only one here. I am not the chairman of the
committee. I
would never get the opportunity to have a back and forth with you,
except in
times like this.
The State Department has taken full advantage of its use of words in
order
not to get this information out. I am looking forward to more documents.
I
will say this, I have spent hours overlooking those documents, and
there's
been nothing in those documents to persuade me that my charges that this
administration has been covertly supporting the Taliban is not accurate.
Feel free to respond to that.
MR. EASTHAM: It's not true.
REP. ROHRABACHER: Okay.
MR. EASTHAM: I have to negate the whole thesis that you're operating
under,
sir.
REP. ROHRABACHER: All right. Then -- okay, the other option is the State
Department is so incompetent that we have done things that helped the
Taliban
and have put them in a position of having hundreds of millions of
dollars of
drug money, and had power in Afghanistan, and undercutting the
anti-Taliban
forces. This is just -- this isn't intent, this is just incompetence?
MR. EASTHAM: That's a judgment you can make.
REP. ROHRABACHER: All right.
MR. EASTHAM: And if you want to make that judgment, that's up to you,
Congressman.
REP. ROHRABACHER: Okay.
MR. EASTHAM: I would just observe that it's considerably more complex
than
that to deal with people over whom we have so little influence as with
Taliban. I have spent -- I have been myself, by my count, six times into
Afghanistan on both the northern side and the southern side. I have met
innumerable times with Taliban officials to attempt to achieve U.S.
objectives, and I have to tell you that it's a tough job.
REP. ROHRABACHER: I believe it is a tough job --
MR. EASTHAM: I'd like to introduce you to some of them sometime.
REP. ROHRABACHER: Oh, I've met many Taliban, thank you. And as you are
aware,
I have met many Taliban and talked to them. Especially when you disarm
their
opponents, and you participate in an effort to disarm their opponents at
a
time when they're being supplied -- resupplied militarily, I guess it is
very
hard for them to take us seriously when we say we're going to get tough
with
them.
MR. EASTHAM: You keep saying that, but it's not true.
REP. ROHRABACHER: Well -- oh --
MR. EASTHAM: The effort --
REP. ROHRABACHER: You're just saying -- no, you're just --
MR. EASTHAM: The effort was to stop the support for all the factions.
REP. ROHRABACHER: That's correct. You didn't deny that we disarmed their
opponents, you just said we were doing it with the Taliban as well. But
as I
pointed out, which you did not deny, the Taliban were immediately
resupplied.
Which means that we are part and parcel to disarming a victim against
this
hostile, totalitarian, anti- Western, drug-dealing force in their
society,
and we were part and parcel of disarming the victim, thinking that the
aggressor was going to be disarmed as well, but it just didn't work out
-- at
the moment when Pakistan was arming them, I might add.
Copyright 2000 Federal News Service, Inc. Reprinted for Fair Use Only
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= = = = = = = = = = =
Further Reading
= = = = = = = = = = =
1) "Why Does Washington Want Afghanistan?" by Jared Israel, Rick Rozoff
and
Nico Varkevisser. Can be read at
http://www.emperors-clothes.com/analysis/afghan.htm
2) Is Washington sincere about fighting terrorism? Then why has it
coddled
the terrorist armies in the Balkans? See '"TERRORISM AGAINST SERBIA IS
NO
CRIME' at http://emperors-clothes.com/articles/jared/nocrime.htm
And why has it threatened to unleash a campaign of terror against
Belarus?
See, 'Tough Measures Needed in Belarus!' at
http://emperors-clothes.com/news/tough.htm
3) In the course of one week Osama bin laden switched from saying he
opposed
the 9-11 destruction to saying he rejoiced in it. Emperor's Clothes
found
this change a bit too convenient. See "'Osama bin laden, Terrorist
Monster,'
TAKE TWO!" by Jared Israel, at
http://www.emperors-clothes.com/articles/jared/taketwo.htm
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