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*** Program 14.9.2010. Programma ***

La trasmissione riprende dopo la pausa estiva. Vista la perdurante attualità del tema degli attacchi della FIAT contro i lavoratori italiani e serbi, si ripropone la registrazione dei colloqui avuti a inizio luglio con i sindacalisti della Zastava di Kragujevac. Sullo stesso argomento segnaliamo anche le dichiarazioni seguenti, rilasciate pochi giorni fa al "Manifesto":

Il Manifesto, 2.9.2010

IL SINDACATO SERBO

«Non ci lasceremo usare contro gli operai italiani»

di Lo. C.

Sono un migliaio, assemblano 15 mila vecchie Punto l'anno con i pezzi provenienti da Torino e guadagnano, in teoria, 320 euro al mese. In pratica in busta paga se ne ritrovano 270 perché da mesi il mercato è saturo, la crisi picchia duro e una settimana al mese sono in cassa integrazione. Eccoli gli operai della Fiat Auto Serbia, figli della già gloriosa Zastava con cui pure la Fiat, fino agli anni Novanta, aveva avuto molto a che fare. Altri operai sono ancora parcheggiati in una sorta di bad company che continua a chiamarsi Zastava con lavoratori inattivi, in attesa di entrare in Fiat quando (e se) si materializzerà il nuovo progetto del Lingotto: 300 mila vetture - una low cost di fascia B e una city car per complessive 200 mila unità annue e un modello di fascia C per altre 100 mila - alla fine del 2012, un organico di 2.540 dipendenti. Se i progetti di Marchionne incontreranno la domanda, naturalmente. E allora molte cose cambieranno, dai ritmi agli orari (oggi 40 ore settimanali su 5 giorni), ai salari.
Mihajlovic Zoran è il segretario generale del sindacato Samostalni alla Fiat Auto Serbia, a cui aderisce il 75% dei dipendenti, e ricopre numerose altre cariche sindacali. Lo intervistiamo con l'aiuto di Rajka Veljovic, più che traduttrice cuore della Zastava che collabora con il manifesto dal '99 per le traduzioni e le adozioni a distanza dei figli degli operai «licenziati» dalle bombe «umanitarie». «Siamo rimasti molto sorpresi dalle decisione Fiat di spostare da noi la produzione destinata a Mirafiori e ci teniamo a sottrarci dal gioco sporco che vorrebbe schierare operai contro operai. Naturalmente abbiamo bisogno di lavoro come il pane, ma non togliendolo a degli altri lavoratori. Siamo fiduciosi, ma non comprendiamo fino in fondo la logica della Fiat né si possono dare per scontati i numeri di vetture e di operai previsti nal mercato. L'allestimento delle nuove linee è già in ritardo. Preciso che i motori delle future vetture arriveranno dall'Italia, così come le piattaforme comuni ad altri modelli».
Mihajlovic è in Italia dove ha incontrato, tra gli altri interlocutori, il gruppo dirigente Fiom, proprio per stabilire un legame e condividere alcune scelte. «In Serbia abbiamo poche informazioni, è importante per capire con chi abbiamo a che fare sapere come la Fiat si muove, a Melfi o a Pomigliano. Abbiamo molte cose in comune con voi: in Serbia stanno passando tre leggi pesanti che colpiscono le pensioni, il lavoro e il diritto di sciopero». Quel che si è scritto sull'interesse della Fiat per la Serbia - l'assenza di tasse doganali con la Russia faciliterebbe l'esportazione in quel mercato - non risponde al vero: «Tasse doganali non esistono (c'è un 1% simbolico) per prodotti le cui componenti siano costruite in Serbia al 70%. Per le auto Fiat non è così, noi assembliamo pezzi italiani». Mille operai per 15 mila auto l'anno, 2.540 per farne 300 mila: non pensi che dietro questa sproporzione si celi una radicale modifica delle condizioni, turni e straordinari? «Certo, ma il problema d'oggi è la cassa integrazione, non gli straordinari».



(Riportiamo integralmente, in tre parti, il saggio di Andrew Gavin Marshall dedicato alle politiche di egemonia imperiale degli USA nell'epoca dell'"11 Settembre". L'autore si sofferma in particolare su Al-Qaeda, creatura della CIA utilizzata come strumento di provocazione delle più recenti guerre di conquista coloniale-imperialista da parte della declinante superpotenza mondiale. La terza parte è incentrata sulle incongruenze e falsità nella versione di regime sui fatti dell'11 settembre 2001 a New York, di cui oggi ricorre l'anniversario.
Andrew Gavin Marshall è un collaboratore del grande saggista Michael Chossudovsky e del suo "Centro per la Ricerca sulla Globalizzazione" - http://www.globalresearch.ca )



The Imperial Anatomy of Al-Qaeda. The CIA’s Drug-Running Terrorists and the “Arc of Crisis”

Part I

by Andrew Gavin Marshall

Global Research, September 5, 2010
- 2010-09-04

Introduction
 
As the 9th anniversary of 9/11 nears, and the war on terror continues to be waged and grows in ferocity and geography, it seems all the more imperative to return to the events of that fateful September morning and re-examine the reasons for war and the nature of the stated culprit, Al-Qaeda.
 
The events of 9/11 pervade the American and indeed the world imagination as an historical myth. The events of that day and those leading up to it remain largely unknown and little understood by the general public, apart from the disturbing images repeated ad nauseam in the media. The facts and troubled truths of that day are lost in the folklore of the 9/11 myth: that the largest attack carried out on American ground was orchestrated by 19 Muslims armed with box cutters and urged on by religious fundamentalism, all under the direction of Osama bin Laden, the leader of a global terrorist network called al-Qaeda, based out of a cave in Afghanistan.
 
The myth sweeps aside the facts and complex nature of terror, al-Qaeda, the American empire and literally defies the laws of physics. As John F. Kennedy once said, “The greatest enemy of the truth is not the lie – deliberate, contrived, and dishonest – but the myth – persistent, pervasive, and unrealistic.”
 
This three-part series on “The Imperial Anatomy of Al-Qaeda” examines the geopolitical historical origins and nature of what we today know as al-Qaeda, which is in fact an Anglo-American intelligence network of terrorist assets used to advance American and NATO imperial objectives in various regions around the world.
 
Part 1 examines the origins of the intelligence network known as the Safari Club, which financed and organized an international conglomerate of terrorists, the CIA’s role in the global drug trade, the emergence of the Taliban and the origins of al-Qaeda.
 
The Safari Club
 
Following Nixon’s resignation as President, Gerald Ford became the new US President in 1974. Henry Kissinger remained as Secretary of State and Ford brought into his administration two names that would come to play important roles in the future of the American Empire: Donald Rumsfeld as Ford’s Chief of Staff, and Dick Cheney, as Deputy Assistant to the President. The Vice President was Nelson Rockefeller, David Rockefeller’s brother. When Donald Rumsfeld was promoted to Secretary of Defense, Dick Cheney was promoted to Chief of Staff. Ford had also appointed a man named George H.W. Bush as CIA Director.

           

In 1976, a coalition of intelligence agencies was formed, which was called the Safari Club. This marked the discreet and highly covert coordination among various intelligence agencies, which would last for decades. It formed at a time when the CIA was embroiled in domestic scrutiny over the Watergate scandal and a Congressional investigation into covert CIA activities, forcing the CIA to become more covert in its activities.
 
In 2002, the Saudi intelligence chief, Prince Turki bin Faisal gave a speech in which he stated that in response to the CIA’s need for more discretion, “a group of countries got together in the hope of fighting Communism and established what was called the Safari Club. The Safari Club included France, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Morocco, and Iran [under the Shah].”[1] However, “The Safari Club needed a network of banks to finance its intelligence operations. With the official blessing of George H.W. Bush as the head of the CIA,” Saudi intelligence chief, Kamal Adham, “transformed a small Pakistani merchant bank, the Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI), into a world-wide money-laundering machine, buying banks around the world to create the biggest clandestine money network in history.”[2]
 
As CIA director, George H.W. Bush “cemented strong relations with the intelligence services of both Saudi Arabia and the shah of Iran. He worked closely with Kamal Adham, the head of Saudi intelligence, brother-in-law of King Faisal and an early BCCI insider.” Adham had previously acted as a “channel between [Henry] Kissinger and [Egyptian President] Anwar Sadat” in 1972. In 1976, Iran, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia formed the Safari Club “to conduct through their own intelligence agencies operations that were now difficult for the CIA,” which was largely organized by the head of French intelligence, Alexandre de Marenches.[3]
 
The “Arc of Crisis” and the Iranian Revolution
 
When Jimmy Carter became President in 1977, he appointed over two-dozen members of the Trilateral Commission to his administration, which was an international think tank formed by Zbigniew Brzezinski and David Rockefeller in 1973. Brzezinski had invited Carter to join the Trilateral Commission, and when Carter became President, Brzezinski became National Security Adviser; Cyrus Vance, also a member of the Commission, became Secretary of State; and Samuel Huntington, another Commission member, became Coordinator of National Security and Deputy to Brzezinski. Author and researcher Peter Dale Scott deserves much credit for his comprehensive analysis of the events leading up to and during the Iranian Revolution in his book, “The Road to 9/11”,* which provides much of the information below.
 
Samuel Huntington and Zbigniew Brzezinski were to determine the US policy position in the Cold War, and the US-Soviet policy they created was termed, “Cooperation and Competition,” in which Brzezinski would press for “Cooperation” when talking to the press, yet, privately push for “competition.” So, while Secretary of State Cyrus Vance was pursuing détente with the Soviet Union, Brzezinski was pushing for American supremacy over the Soviet Union. Brzezinski and Vance would come to disagree on almost every issue.[4]
 
In 1978, Zbigniew Brzezinski gave a speech in which he stated, “An arc of crisis stretches along the shores of the Indian Ocean, with fragile social and political structures in a region of vital importance to us threatened with fragmentation. The resulting political chaos could well be filled by elements hostile to our values and sympathetic to our adversaries.” The Arc of Crisis stretched from Indochina to southern Africa, although, more specifically, the particular area of focus was “the nations that stretch across the southern flank of the Soviet Union from the Indian subcontinent to Turkey, and southward through the Arabian Peninsula to the Horn of Africa.” Further, the “center of gravity of this arc is Iran, the world's fourth largest oil producer and for more than two decades a citadel of U.S. military and economic strength in the Middle East. Now it appears that the 37-year reign of Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi is almost over, ended by months of rising civil unrest and revolution.”[5]
 
With rising discontent in the region, “There was this idea that the Islamic forces could be used against the Soviet Union. The theory was, there was an arc of crisis, and so an arc of Islam could be mobilized to contain the Soviets. It was a Brzezinski concept.”[6] A month prior to Brzezinski’s speech, in November of 1978, “President Carter named the Bilderberg group’s George Ball, another member of the Trilateral Commission, to head a special White House Iran task force under the National Security Council’s Brzezinski.” Further, “Ball recommended that Washington drop support for the Shah of Iran and support the fundamentalist Islamic opposition of Ayatollah Khomeini.”[7] George Ball’s visit to Iran was a secret mission.[8]
 
Throughout 1978, the Shah was under the impression that “the Carter administration was plotting to topple his regime.” In 1978, the Queen and Shah’s wife, told Manouchehr Ganji, a minister in the Shah’s government, that, “I wanted to tell you that the Americans are maneuvering to bring down the Shah,” and she continued saying that she believed “they even want to topple the regime.”[9] The US Ambassador to Iran, William Sullivan, thought that the revolution would succeed, and told this to Ramsey Clark, former US Attorney General under the Johnson administration, as well as professor Richard Falk, when they were visiting Sullivan in Iran in 1978. Clark and Falk then went from Iran to Paris, to visit Khomeini, who was there in exile. James Bill, a Carter adviser, felt that, “a religious movement brought about with the United States’ assistance would be a natural friend of the United States.”[10]
 
Also interesting is the fact that the British BBC broadcast pro-Khomeini Persian-language programs daily in Iran, as a subtle form of propaganda, which “gave credibility to the perception of United States and British support of Khomeini.”[11] The BBC refused to give the Shah a platform to respond, and “[r]epeated personal appeals from the Shah to the BBC yielded no result.”[12]
 
In the May 1979 meeting of the Bilderberg Group, Bernard Lewis, a British historian of great influence (hence, the Bilderberg membership), presented a British-American strategy which, “endorsed the radical Muslim Brotherhood movement behind Khomeini, in order to promote balkanization of the entire Muslim Near East along tribal and religious lines. Lewis argued that the West should encourage autonomous groups such as the Kurds, Armenians, Lebanese Maronites, Ethiopian Copts, Azerbaijani Turks, and so forth. The chaos would spread in what he termed an ‘Arc of Crisis,’ which would spill over into the Muslim regions of the Soviet Union.”[13] Further, it would prevent Soviet influence from entering the Middle East, as the Soviet Union was viewed as an empire of atheism and godlessness: essentially a secular and immoral empire, which would seek to impose secularism across Muslim countries. So supporting radical Islamic groups would mean that the Soviet Union would be less likely to have any influence or relations with Middle Eastern countries, making the US a more acceptable candidate for developing relations.

           

A 1979 article in Foreign Affairs, the journal of the Council on Foreign Relations, described the Arc of Crisis, saying that, “The Middle East constitutes its central core. Its strategic position is unequalled: it is the last major region of the Free World directly adjacent to the Soviet Union, it holds in its subsoil about three-fourths of the proven and estimated world oil reserves, and it is the locus of one of the most intractable conflicts of the twentieth century: that of Zionism versus Arab nationalism.” It went on to explain that post-war US policy in the region was focused on “containment” of the Soviet Union, as well as access to the regions oil.[14] The article continued, explaining that the most “obvious division” within the Middle East is, “that which separates the Northern Tier (Turkey, Iran, Afghanistan) from the Arab core,” and that, “After World War II, Turkey and Iran were the two countries most immediately threatened by Soviet territorial expansionism and political subversion.”[15] Ultimately, “the Northern Tier was assured of a serious and sustained American commitment to save it from sharing the fate of Eastern Europe.”[16]
 
While Khomeini was in Paris prior to the Revolution, a representative of the French President organized a meeting between Khomeini and “current world powers,” in which Khomeini made certain demands, such as, “the shah's removal from Iran and help in avoiding a coup d'état by the Iranian Army.” The Western powers, however, “were worried about the Soviet Union's empowerment and penetration and a disruption in Iran's oil supply to the west. Khomeini gave the necessary guarantees. These meetings and contacts were taking place in January of 1979, just a few days before the Islamic Revolution in February 1979.”[17] In February of 1979, Khomeini was flown out of Paris on an Air France flight, to return to Iran, “with the blessing of Jimmy Carter.”[18] Ayatollah Khomeini named Mehdi Bazargan as prime minister of the Provisional Revolutionary Government on February 4, 1979. As Khomeini had demanded during his Paris meeting in January 1979, that western powers must help in avoiding a coup by the Iranian Army; in that same month, the Carter administration, under the direction of Brzezinski, had begun planning a military coup.[19]
 
Could this have been planned in the event that Khomeini was overthrown, the US would quickly reinstate order, perhaps even place Khomeini back in power? Interestingly, in January of 1979, “as the Shah was about to leave the country, the American Deputy Commander in NATO, General Huyser, arrived and over a period of a month conferred constantly with Iranian military leaders. His influence may have been substantial on the military's decision not to attempt a coup and eventually to yield to the Khomeini forces, especially if press reports are accurate that he or others threatened to withhold military supplies if a coup were attempted.”[20] No coup was subsequently undertaken, and Khomeini came to power as the Ayatollah of the Islamic Republic of Iran.
 
As tensions increased among the population within Iran, the US sent “security advisers” to Iran to pressure the Shah’s SAVAK (secret police) to implement “a policy of ever more brutal repression, in a manner calculated to maximize popular antipathy to the Shah.” The Carter administration also began publicly criticizing the Shah’s human rights abuses.[21] On September 6, 1978, the Shah banned demonstrations, and the following day, between 700 and 2000 demonstrators were gunned down, following “advice from Brzezinski to be firm.”[22]
 
The US Ambassador to the UN, Andrew Young, a Trilateral Commission member, said that, “Khomeini will eventually be hailed as a saint,” and the US Ambassador to Iran, William Sullivan, said, “Khomeini is a Gandhi-like figure,” while Carter’s adviser, James Bill, said that Khomeini was a man of “impeccable integrity and honesty.”[23]
 
The Shah was also very sick in late 1978 and early 1979. So the Shah fled Iran in January of 1979 to the Bahamas, allowing for the revolution to take place. It is especially interesting to understand the relationship between David Rockefeller and the Shah of Iran. David Rockefeller’s personal assistant, Joseph V. Reed, had been “assigned to handle the shah’s finances and his personal needs;” Robert Armao, who worked for Vice President Nelson Rockefeller, was sent to “act as the shah’s public relations agent and lobbyist;” and Benjamin H. Kean, “a longtime associate of Chase Manhattan Bank chairman David Rockefeller,” and David Rockefeller’s “personal physician,” who was sent to Mexico when the shah was there, and advised that he “be treated at an American hospital.”[24]
 
It is important to note that Rockefeller interests “had directed U.S. policy in Iran since the CIA coup of 1953.”[25] Following the Shah’s flight from Iran, there were increased pressures within the United States by a handful of powerful people to have the Shah admitted to the United States. These individuals were Zbigniew Brzezinski, former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, John J. McCloy, former statesman and senior member of the Bilderberg Group, Trilateral Commission and the Council on Foreign Relations, who was also a lawyer for Chase Manhattan, and of course, David Rockefeller.[26]
 
Chase Manhattan Bank had more interests in Iran than any other US bank. In fact, the Shah had “ordered that all his government’s major operating accounts be held at Chase and that letters of credit for the purchase of oil be handled exclusively through Chase. The bank also became the agent and lead manager for many of the loans to Iran. In short, Iran became the crown jewel of Chase’s international banking portfolio.”[27]
 
The Iranian interim government, headed by Prime Minister Bazargan, collapsed in November of 1979, when Iranian hostages seized the US Embassy in Teheran. However, there is much more to this event than meets the eye. During the time of the interim government (February, 1979 to November, 1979), several actions were undertaken which threatened some very powerful interests who had helped the Ayatollah into power.
 
Chase Manhattan Bank faced a liquidity crisis as there had been billions in questionable loans to Iran funneled through Chase.[28] Several of Chase’s loans were “possibly illegal under the Iranian constitution.”[29] Further, in February of 1979, once the interim government was put in power, it began to take “steps to market its oil independently of the Western oil majors.” Also, the interim government “wanted Chase Manhattan to return Iranian assets, which Rockefeller put at more than $1 billion in 1978, although some estimates ran much higher,” which could have “created a liquidity crisis for the bank which already was coping with financial troubles.”[30]
 
With the seizure of the American Embassy in Iran, President Carter took moves to freeze Iranian financial assets. As David Rockefeller wrote in his book, “Carter’s ‘freeze’ of official Iranian assets protected our [Chase Manhattan’s] position, but no one at Chase played a role in convincing the administration to institute it.”[31]
 
In February of 1979, Iran had been taking “steps to market its oil independently of the Western oil majors. In 1979, as in 1953, a freeze of Iranian assets made this action more difficult.”[32] This was significant for Chase Manhattan not simply because of the close interlocking of the board with those of oil companies, not to mention Rockefeller himself, who is patriarch of the family whose name is synonymous with oil, but also because Chase exclusively handled all the letters of credit for the purchase of Iranian oil.[33]
 
The Shah being accepted into the United States, under public pressure from Henry Kissinger, Zbigniew Brzezinski and David Rockefeller, precipitated the hostage crisis, which occurred on November 4. Ten days later, Carter froze all Iranian assets in US banks, on the advice of his Treasury Secretary, William Miller. Miller just happened to have ties to Chase Manhattan Bank.[34]
 
Although Chase Manhattan directly benefited from the seizure of Iranian assets, the reasoning behind the seizure as well as the events leading up to it, such as a hidden role for the Anglo-Americans behind the Iranian Revolution, bringing the Shah to America, which precipitated the hostage crisis, cannot simply be relegated to personal benefit for Chase. There were larger designs behind this crisis. So the 1979 crises in Iran cannot simply be pawned off as a spur of the moment undertaking, but rather should be seen as quick actions taken upon a perceived opportunity. The opportunity was the rising discontent within Iran at the Shah; the quick actions were in covertly pushing the country into Revolution.
 
In 1979, “effectively restricting the access of Iran to the global oil market, the Iranian assets freeze became a major factor in the huge oil price increases of 1979 and 1981.”[35] Added to this, in 1979, British Petroleum cancelled major oil contracts for oil supply, which along with cancellations taken by Royal Dutch Shell, drove the price of oil up higher.[36] With the first major oil price rises in 1973 (urged on by US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger), the Third World was forced to borrow heavily from US and European banks to finance development. With the second oil price shocks of 1979, the US Federal Reserve, with Paul Volcker as its new Chairman, (himself having served a career under David Rockefeller at Chase Manhattan), dramatically raised interest rates from 2% in the late 70s to 18% in the early 80s. Developing nations could not afford to pay such interest on their loans, and thus the 1980s debt crisis spread throughout the Third World, with the IMF and World Bank coming to the “rescue” with their Structural Adjustment Programs (SAPs), which ensured western control over the developing world’s economies.[37]
 
Covertly, the United States helped a radical Islamist government come to power in Iran, “the center of the Arc of Crisis,” and then immediately stirred up conflict and war in the region. Five months before Iraq invaded Iran, in April of 1980, Zbigniew Brzezinski openly declared the willingness of the US to work closely with Iraq. Two months before the war, Brzezinski met with Saddam Hussein in Jordan, where he gave support for the destabilization of Iran.[38] While Saddam was in Jordan, he also met with three senior CIA agents, which was arranged by King Hussein of Jordan. He then went to meet with King Fahd in Saudi Arabia, informing him of his plans to invade Iran, and then met with the King of Kuwait to inform him of the same thing. He gained support from America, and financial and arms support from the Arab oil producing countries. Arms to Iraq were funneled through Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait.[39] The war lasted until 1988 and resulted in over a million deaths.
 
This was the emergence of the “strategy of tension” in the “Arc of Crisis,” in particular, the covert support (whether in arming, training, or financing) of radical Islamic elements to foment violence and conflict in a region. It was the old imperial tactic of ‘divide and conquer’: pit the people against each other so that they cannot join forces against the imperial power. This violence and radical Islamism would further provide the pretext for which the US and its imperial allies could then engage in war and occupation within the region, all the while securing its vast economic and strategic interests.
 
The “Arc of Crisis” in Afghanistan: The Safari Club in Action
 
In 1978, the progressive Taraki government in Afghanistan managed to incur the anger of the United States due to “its egalitarian and collectivist economic policies.”[40] The Afghan government was widely portrayed in the West as “Communist” and thus, a threat to US national security. The government, did, however, undertake friendly policies and engagement with the Soviet Union, but was not a Communist government.
 
In 1978, as the new government came to power, almost immediately the US began covertly funding rebel groups through the CIA.[41] In 1979, Zbigniew Brzezinski worked closely with his aid from the CIA, Robert Gates (who is currently Secretary of Defense), in shifting President Carter’s Islamic policy. As Brzezinski said in a 1998 interview with a French publication:
 
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.[42]
 
Brzezinski elaborated, saying he “Knowingly increased the probability that [the Soviets] would invade,” and he recalled writing to Carter on the day of the Soviet invasion that, “We now have the opportunity of giving to the USSR its Vietnam war. Indeed, for almost 10 years, Moscow had to carry on a war unsupportable by the government, a conflict that brought about the demoralization and finally the breakup of the Soviet empire.” When asked about the repercussions for such support in fostering the rise of Islamic fundamentalism, Brzezinski responded, “What is most important to the history of the world? The Taliban or the collapse of the Soviet empire? Some stirred-up Moslems or the liberation of Central Europe and the end of the cold war?”[43]
 
As author Peter Dale Scott pointed out in, The Road to 9/11:*
 
For generations in both Afghanistan and the Soviet Muslim Republics the dominant form of Islam had been local and largely Sufi. The decision to work with the Saudi and Pakistani secret services meant that billions of CIA and Saudi dollars would ultimately be spent in programs that would help enhance the globalistic and Wahhabistic jihadism that are associated today with al Qaeda.[44]
 
Hafizullah Amin, a top official in Taraki’s government, who many believed to be a CIA asset, orchestrated a coup in September of 1979, and “executed Taraki, halted the reforms, and murdered, jailed, or exiled thousands of Taraki supporters as he moved toward establishing a fundamentalist Islamic state. But within two months, he was overthrown by PDP remnants including elements within the military.”[45] The Soviets also intervened in order to replace Amin, who was seen as “unpredictable and extremist” with “the more moderate Barbak Karmal.”[46]
 
The Soviet invasion thus prompted the US national security establishment to undertake the largest covert operation in history. When Ronald Reagan replaced Jimmy Carter in 1981, the covert assistance to the Afghan Mujahideen not only continued on the path set by Brzezinski but it rapidly accelerated, as did the overall strategy in the “Arc of Crisis.” When Reagan became President, his Vice President became George H.W. Bush, who, as CIA director during the Ford administration, had helped establish the Safari Club intelligence network and the Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI) in Pakistan. In the “campaign to aid the Afghan rebels ... BCCI clearly emerged as a U.S. intelligence asset,” and CIA Director “Casey began to use the outside – the Saudis, the Pakistanis, BCCI – to run what they couldn’t get through Congress. [BCCI president] Abedi had the money to help,” and the CIA director had “met repeatedly” with the president of BCCI.[47]
 
Thus, in 1981, Director Casey of the CIA worked with Saudi Prince Turki bin Faisal who ran the Saudi intelligence agency GID, and the Pakistani ISI “to create a foreign legion of jihadi Muslims or so-called Arab Afghans.” This idea had “originated in the elite Safari Club that had been created by French intelligence chief Alexandre de Marenches.”[48]
 
In 1986, the CIA backed a plan by the Pakistani ISI “to recruit people from around the world to join the Afghan jihad.” Subsequently:
 
More than 100,000 Islamic militants were trained in Pakistan between 1986 and 1992, in camps overseen by CIA and MI6, with the SAS [British Special Forces] training future al-Qaida and Taliban fighters in bomb-making and other black arts. Their leaders were trained at a CIA camp in Virginia. This was called Operation Cyclone and continued long after the Soviets had withdrawn in 1989.[49]
 
CIA funding for the operations “was funneled through General Zia and the ISI in Pakistan.”[50] Interestingly, Robert Gates, who previously served as assistant to Brzezinski in the National Security Council, stayed on in the Reagan-Bush administration as executive assistant to CIA director Casey, and who is currently Secretary of Defense.
 
The Global Drug Trade and the CIA
 
As a central facet of the covert financing and training of the Afghan Mujahideen, the role of the drug trade became invaluable. The global drug trade has long been used by empires for fuelling and financing conflict with the aim of facilitating imperial domination.
 
In 1773, the British colonial governor in Bengal “established a colonial monopoly on the sale of opium.” As Alfred W. McCoy explained in his masterful book, The Politics of Heroin:
 
As the East India Company expanded production, opium became India’s main export. [. . . ] Over the next 130 years, Britain actively promoted the export of Indian opium to China, defying Chinese drug laws and fighting two wars to open China’s opium market for its merchants. Using its military and mercantile power, Britain played a central role in making China a vast drug market and in accelerating opium cultivation throughout China. By 1900 China had 13.5 million addicts consuming 39,000 tons of opium.[51]
 
In Indochina in the 1940s and 50s, the French intelligence services “enabled the opium trade to survive government suppression efforts,” and subsequently, “CIA activities in Burma helped transform the Shan states from a relatively minor poppy-cultivating area into the largest opium-growing region in the world.”[52] The CIA did this by supporting the Kuomintang (KMT) army in Burma for an invasion of China, and facilitated its monopolization and expansion of the opium trade, allowing the KMT to remain in Burma until a coup in 1961, when they were driven into Laos and Thailand.[53] The CIA subsequently played a very large role in the facilitation of the drugs trade in Laos and Vietnam throughout the 1960s and into the 1970s.[54]
 
It was during the 1980s that “the CIA’s covert war in Afghanistan transformed Central Asia from a self-contained opium zone into a major supplier of heroin for the world market,” as:
 
Until the late 1970s, tribal farmers in the highlands of Afghanistan and Pakistan grew limited quantities of opium and sold it to merchant caravans bound west for Iran and east to India. In its decade of covert warfare against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, the CIA’s operations provided the political protection and logistics linkages that joined Afghanistan’s poppy fields to heroin markets in Europe and America.[55]
 
In 1977, General Zia Ul Haq in Pakistan launched a military coup, “imposed a harsh martial-law regime,” and executed former President Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto (father to Benazir Bhutto). When Zia came to power, the Pakistani ISI was a “minor military intelligence unit,” but, under the “advice and assistance of the CIA,” General Zia transformed the ISI “into a powerful covert unit and made it the strong arm of his martial-law regime.”[56]
 
The CIA and Saudi money flowed not only to weapons and training for the Mujahideen, but also into the drug trade. Pakistani President Zia-ul-Haq appointed General Fazle Haq as the military governor of Pakistan’s North-West Frontier Province (NWFP), who would “consult with Brzezinski on developing an Afghan resistance program,” and who became a CIA asset. When CIA Director Casey or Vice President George H.W. Bush reviewed the CIA Afghan operation, they went to see Haq; who by 1982, was considered by Interpol to be an international narcotics trafficker. Haq moved much of the narcotics money through the BCCI.[57]
 
In May of 1979, prior to the December invasion of the Soviet Union into Afghanistan, a CIA envoy met with Afghan resistance leaders in a meeting organized by the ISI. The ISI “offered the CIA envoy an alliance with its own Afghan client, Gulbuddin Hekmatyar,” who led a small guerilla group. The CIA accepted, and over the following decade, half of the CIA’s aid went to Hekmatyar’s guerillas.[58] Hekmatyar became Afghanistan’s leading mujahideen drug lord, and developed a “complex of six heroin labs in an ISI-controlled area of Baluchistan (Pakistan).”[59]
 
The US subsequently, through the 1980s, in conjunction with Saudi Arabia, gave Hekmatyar more than $1 billion in armaments. Immediately, heroin began flowing from Afghanistan to America. By 1980, drug-related deaths in New York City rose 77% since 1979.[60] By 1981, the drug lords in Pakistan and Afghanistan supplied 60% of America’s heroin. Trucks going into Afghanistan with CIA arms from Pakistan would return with heroin “protected by ISI papers from police search.”[61]
 
Haq, the CIA asset in Pakistan, “was also running the drug trade,” of which the bank BCCI “was completely involved.” In the 1980s, the CIA insisted that the ISI create “a special cell for the use of heroin for covert actions.” Elaborating:
 
This cell promoted the cultivation of opium and the extraction of heroin in Pakistani territory as well as in the Afghan territory under Mujahideen control for being smuggled into Soviet controlled areas in order to make the Soviet troops heroin addicts.[62]
 
This plan apparently originated at the suggestion of French intelligence chief and founder of the Safari Club, Alexandre de Marenches, who recommended it to CIA Director Casey.[63]
 
In the 1980s, one program undertaken by the United States was to finance Mujahideen propaganda in textbooks for Afghan schools. The US gave the Mujahideen $43 million in “non-lethal” aid for the textbook project alone, which was given by USAID: “The U.S. Agency for International Development, [USAID] coordinated its work with the CIA, which ran the weapons program,” and “The U.S. government told the AID to let the Afghan war chiefs decide the school curriculum and the content of the textbooks.”[64]
 
The textbooks were “filled with violent images and militant Islamic teachings,” and “were filled with talk of jihad and featured drawings of guns, bullets, soldiers and mines.” Even since the covert war of the 1980s, the textbooks “have served since then as the Afghan school system's core curriculum. Even the Taliban used the American-produced books.” The books were developed through a USAID grant to the “University of Nebraska-Omaha and its Center for Afghanistan Studies,” and when the books were smuggled into Afghanistan through regional military leaders, “Children were taught to count with illustrations showing tanks, missiles and land mines.” USAID stopped this funding in 1994.[65]
 
The Rise of the Taliban
 
When the Soviets withdrew from Afghanistan in 1989, the fighting continued between the Afghan government backed by the USSR and the Mujahideen backed by the US, Saudi Arabia, and Pakistan. When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, so too did its aid to the Afghan government, which itself was overthrown in 1992. However, fighting almost immediately broke out between rival factions vying for power, including Hekmatyar.
 
In the early 1990s, an obscure group of “Pashtun country folk” had become a powerful military and political force in Afghanistan, known as the Taliban.[66] The Taliban “surfaced as a small militia force operating near Kandahar city during the spring and summer of 1994, carrying out vigilante attacks against minor warlords.” As growing discontent with the warlords grew, so too did the reputation of the Taliban.[67]
 
The Taliban acquired an alliance with the ISI in 1994, and throughout 1995, the relationship between the Taliban and the ISI accelerated and “became more and more of a direct military alliance.” The Taliban ultimately became “an asset of the ISI” and “a client of the Pakistan army.”[68] Further, “Between 1994 and 1996, the USA supported the Taliban politically through its allies Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, essentially because Washington viewed the Taliban as anti-Iranian, anti-Shia, and pro-Western.”[69]
 
Selig Harrison, a scholar with the Woodrow Wilson International Centre for Scholars and “a leading US expert on South Asia,” said at a conference in India that the CIA worked with Pakistan to create the Taliban. Harrison has “extensive contact” with the CIA, as “he had meetings with CIA leaders at the time when Islamic forces were being strengthened in Afghanistan,” while he was a senior associate of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. As he further revealed in 2001, “The CIA still has close links with the ISI.”[70] By 1996, the Taliban had control of Kandahar, but still fighting and instability continued in the country.
 
Osama and Al-Qaeda
 
Between 1980 and 1989, roughly $600 million was passed through Osama bin Laden’s charity front organizations, specifically the Maktab al-Khidamat (MAK), also known as Al-Kifah. The money mostly originated with wealthy donors in Saudi Arabia and other areas in the Persian Gulf, and was funneled through his charity fronts to arm and fund the mujahideen in Afghanistan.[71]
 
In the 1980s, the British Special Forces (SAS) were training mujahideen in Afghanistan, as well as in secret camps in Scotland, and the SAS is largely taking orders from the CIA. The CIA also indirectly begins to arm Osama bin Laden.[72] Osama bin Laden’s front charity, the MAK, “was nurtured” by the Pakistani ISI.[73]
 
Osama bin Laden was reported to have been personally recruited by the CIA in 1979 in Istanbul. He had the close support of Prince Turki bin Faisal, his friend and head of Saudi intelligence, and also developed ties with Hekmatyar in Afghanistan,[74] both of whom were pivotal figures in the CIA-Safari Club network. General Akhtar Abdul Rahman, the head of the Pakistani ISI from 1980 to 1987, would meet regularly with Osama bin Laden in Pakistan, and they formed a partnership in demanding a tax on the opium trade from warlords so that by 1985, bin Laden and the ISI were splitting the profits of over $100 million per year.[75] In 1985, Osama bin Laden’s brother, Salem, stated that Osama was “the liaison between the US, the Saudi government, and the Afghan rebels.”[76]
 
In 1988, Bin Laden discussed “the establishment of a new military group,” which would come to be known as Al-Qaeda.[77] Osama bin Laden’s charity front, the MAK, (eventually to form Al-Qaeda) founded the al-Kifah Center in Brooklyn, New York, to recruit Muslims for the jihad against the Soviets. The al-Kifah Center was founded in the late 1980s with the support of the U.S. government, which provided visas for known terrorists associated with the organization, including Ali Mohamed, the “blind sheik” Omar Abdel Rahman and possibly the lead 9/11 hijacker, Mohamed Atta.[78]
 
This coincided with the creation of Al-Qaeda, of which the al-Kifah Center was a recruiting front. Foot soldiers for Al-Qaeda were “admitted to the United States for training under a special visa program.” The FBI had been surveilling the training of terrorists, however, “it terminated this surveillance in the fall of 1989.” In 1990, the CIA granted Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman a visa to come run the al-Kifah Center, who was considered an “untouchable” as he was “being protected by no fewer than three agencies,” including the State Department, the National Security Agency (NSA) and the CIA.[79]
 
Robin Cook, a former British MP and Minister of Foreign Affairs wrote that Al-Qaeda, “literally ‘the database’, was originally the computer file of the thousands of mujahideen who were recruited and trained with help from the CIA to defeat the Russians.”[80] Thus, “Al-Qaeda” was born as an instrument of western intelligence agencies. This account of al-Qaeda was further corroborated by a former French military intelligence agent, who stated that, “In the mid-1980s, Al Qaida was a database,” and that it remained as such into the 1990s. He contended that, “Al Qaida was neither a terrorist group nor Osama bin Laden's personal property,” and further:
 
The truth is, there is no Islamic army or terrorist group called Al Qaida. And any informed intelligence officer knows this. But there is a propaganda campaign to make the public believe in the presence of an identified entity representing the 'devil' only in order to drive the 'TV watcher' to accept a unified international leadership for a war against terrorism. The country behind this propaganda is the US and the lobbyists for the US war on terrorism are only interested in making money.[81]
 
The creation of Al-Qaeda was thus facilitated by the CIA and allied intelligence networks, the purpose of which was to maintain this “database” of Mujahideen to be used as intelligence assets to achieve US foreign policy objectives, throughout both the Cold War, and into the post-Cold War era of the ‘new world order’.
 
Part 2 of “The Imperial Anatomy of al-Qaeda” takes the reader through an examination of the new imperial strategy laid out by American geopolitical strategists at the end of the Cold War, designed for America to maintain control over the world’s resources and prevent the rise of competitive powers. Covertly, the “database” (al-Qaeda) became central to this process, being used to advance imperial aims in various regions, such as in the dismantling of Yugoslavia. Part 2 further examines the exact nature of ‘al-Qaeda’, its origins, terms, training, arming, financing, and expansion. In particular, the roles of western intelligence agencies in the evolution and expansion of al-Qaeda is a central focus. Finally, an analysis of the preparations for the war in Afghanistan is undertaken

(Message over 64 KB, truncated)


(Riportiamo integralmente, in tre parti, il saggio di Andrew Gavin Marshall dedicato alle politiche di egemonia imperiale degli USA nell'epoca dell'"11 Settembre". L'autore si sofferma in particolare su Al-Qaeda, creatura della CIA utilizzata come strumento di provocazione delle più recenti guerre di conquista coloniale-imperialista da parte della declinante superpotenza mondiale. La terza parte è incentrata sulle incongruenze e falsità nella versione di regime sui fatti dell'11 settembre 2001 a New York, di cui oggi ricorre l'anniversario.
Andrew Gavin Marshall è un collaboratore del grande saggista Michael Chossudovsky e del suo "Centro per la Ricerca sulla Globalizzazione" - http://www.globalresearch.ca )

I PART: The Imperial Anatomy of Al-Qaeda. The CIA’s Drug-Running Terrorists and the “Arc of Crisis”

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Empire, Energy and Al-Qaeda: The Anglo-American Terror Network

The Imperial Anatomy of al-Qaeda, Part II

by Andrew Gavin Marshall


Global Research, September 8, 2010


The End of the Cold War and Strategy for the New World Order

 
With the end of the Cold War a new strategy had to be determined to manage the global system. With the collapse of the Soviet Union, declarations of a “New World Order” sprang forward, focusing on the United States as the single world superpower. This presented a great many challenges as well as opportunities for the worlds most powerful hegemon.
 
With the collapse of the Soviet Union, a number of new Central Asian and Eastern European nations were formed and became independent, and with that, their immense deposits of natural gas and energy became available for exploitation. Afghanistan itself was considered “a major strategic pivot,” as it was “the primary gateway to Central Asia and the immense energy deposits therein.”[1] Western oil companies such as ExxonMobil, Texaco, Unocal, BP Amoco, Shell, and Enron begin pouring billions of dollars into the countries of Central Asia in the early 1990s.[2]
 
In 1992, a Pentagon document titled “Defense Planning Guidance” was leaked to the press, in which it described a strategy for the United States in the “new world order,” and it was drafted by George H.W. Bush’s Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney. It stated that, “America’s political and military mission in the post-cold-war era will be to ensure that no rival superpower is allowed to emerge in Western Europe, Asia or the territories of the former Soviet Union,” and that, “The classified document makes the case for a world dominated by one superpower whose position can be perpetuated by constructive behavior and sufficient military might to deter any nation or group of nations from challenging American primacy.”[3]
 
Further, “the new draft sketches a world in which there is one dominant military power whose leaders ‘must maintain the mechanisms for deterring potential competitors from even aspiring to a larger regional or global role’.” Among the necessary challenges to American supremacy, the document “postulated regional wars against Iraq and North Korea,” and identified China and Russia as its major threats. It further “suggests that the United States could also consider extending to Eastern and Central European nations security commitments similar to those extended to Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and other Arab states along the Persian Gulf.”[4]
 
Similarly, in 1992, the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, one of the most influential think tanks in the United States, had established a commission to determine a new foreign policy for the United States in the wake of the Cold War. Participants included Madeleine Albright, Henry Cisneros, John Deutch, Richard Holbrooke, Alice Rivlin, David Gergen and Admiral William Crowe. In the summer of 1992, the final report, “Changing Our Ways: America and the New World,” was published. The report urged “a new principle of international relations: the destruction or displacement of groups of people within states can justify international intervention.” It suggested that the US “realign NATO and OSCE [Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe] to deal with new security problems in Europe,” and “urged military intervention under humanitarian guises.” This report subsequently “planted the policy seedlings for the Kosovo war” as it “provided both the rationale for U.S. interventionism and a policy recommendation about the best means--NATO--for waging that war.”[5]
 
Another Carnegie publication in the same year, “Self-Determination in the New World Order,” furthered imperialist goals for America, as it “set criteria for officials to use in deciding when to support separatist ethnic groups seeking independence, and advocated military force for that purpose.” It recommended that “international military coalitions, preferably U.N.-led, could send armed force not as peacekeepers but peacemakers--to prevent conflict from breaking out and stay in place indefinitely.” It further stated that, “the use of military force to create a new state would require conduct by the parent government so egregious that it has forfeited any right to govern the minority claiming self-determination.”[6]
 
The United States and its NATO allies soon undertook a new strategy, seeking to maintain dominance over the world, expand their hegemony over regions previously under the influence of the Soviet Union (such as in Eastern Europe and Central Asia), and prevent the rise of a resurgent Russia or China. One of the key facets of this strategy was the notion of “humanitarian intervention.”
 
Yugoslavia Dismantled by Design
 
In the 1990s, the United States and its NATO allies, in particular Germany and the UK, undertook a strategy of destabilization in Yugoslavia, seeking to dismantle and ultimately fracture the country. To do this, the imperial strategy of divide and conquer was employed, manipulating various ethnic tensions and arming and training various militias and terrorist organizations. Throughout this strategy, the “database”, or Al-Qaeda was used to promote the agenda of the destabilization and dismantling of Yugoslavia.
 
In 1989, Yugoslavia had to seek financial aid from the World Bank and IMF, which implemented a Structural Adjustment Program (SAP), which resulted in the dismantling of the public state, exacerbating social issues and fueling secessionist tendencies, leading to Croatia and Slovenia seceding from the republic in 1991.[7] In 1990, the US intelligence community had released a report predicting that Yugoslavia would break apart and erupt in civil war, and it blamed Milosevic for the impending disaster.[8]
 
As far back as 1988, the leader of Croatia met with the German Chancellor Helmut Kohl to create “a joint policy to break up Yugoslavia,” and bring Slovenia and Croatia into the “German economic zone.” So, US Army officers were dispatched to Croatia, Bosnia, Albania, and Macedonia as “advisers” and brought in US Special Forces to help.[9]
 
Fighting broke out between Yugoslavia and Croatia when the latter declared independence in 1991. The fighting subsequently lasted until 1995, and merged in part with the Bosnian war. The US supported the operation and the CIA actively provided intelligence to Croat forces, leading to the displacement of between 150,000 and 200,000 Serbs, largely through means of murder, plundering, burning villages and ethnic cleansing.[10] The Croatian Army was trained by U.S. advisers and a general later put on trial at the Hague for war crimes was personally supported by the CIA.[11] So we see the double standard of ethnic cleansing and genocide: when the US does it or supports it, it’s “humanitarian intervention,” politically justified, or it is simply unacknowledged; when an enemy state does it, (or is accused of doing it), the “international community” demands action and any means is deemed necessary to “prevent genocide”, including committing genocide.
 
The Clinton administration gave the “green light” to Iran to arm the Bosnian Muslims and “from 1992 to January 1996, there was an influx of Iranian weapons and advisers into Bosnia.” Further, “Iran, and other Muslim states, helped to bring Mujahideen fighters into Bosnia to fight with the Muslims against the Serbs, 'holy warriors' from Afghanistan, Chechnya, Yemen and Algeria, some of whom had suspected links with Osama bin Laden's training camps in Afghanistan.”[12]
 
During the war in Bosnia, there “was a vast secret conduit of weapons smuggling though Croatia. This was arranged by the clandestine agencies of the US, Turkey and Iran, together with a range of radical Islamist groups, including Afghan mojahedin and the pro-Iranian Hizbullah.” Further, “the secret services of Ukraine, Greece and Israel were busy arming the Bosnian Serbs.”[13] Germany’s intelligence agency, the BND, also ran arms shipments to the Bosnian Muslims and Croatia to fight against the Serbs.[14] Thus, every side was being funded and armed by outside powers seeking to foment conflict and ultimately break up Yugoslavia to serve their own imperial objectives in the region.
 
In 1992, the al-Kifah Center in Brooklyn, the recruiting center for al-Qaeda, made Bosnia its chief target. By 1993, it opened a branch in Croatia. The recruitment operation for Bosnian Muslims “was a covert action project sponsored not only by Saudi Arabia but also in part by the US government.”[15]
 
In 1996, the Albanian Mafia, in collaboration with the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), a militant guerilla organization, took control over the enormous Balkan heroin trafficking routes. The KLA was linked to former Afghan Mujaheddin fighters in Afghanistan, including Osama bin Laden.[16]
 
In 1997, the KLA began fighting against Serbian forces,[17] and in 1998, the US State Department removed the KLA from its list of terrorist organizations.[18] Before and after 1998, the KLA was receiving arms, training and support from the US and NATO, and Clinton’s Secretary of State, Madeline Albright, was close with KLA leader Hashim Thaci.[19]
 
Both the CIA and German intelligence, the BND, supported the KLA terrorists in Yugoslavia prior to and after the 1999 NATO bombing of Yugoslavia. The BND had KLA contacts since the early 1990s, the same period that the KLA was establishing its Al-Qaeda contacts.[20] KLA members were trained by Osama bin Laden at training camps in Afghanistan. Even the UN stated that much of the violence at the time came from KLA members, “especially those allied with Hashim Thaci.”[21]
 
The March 1999 NATO bombing of Kosovo was justified on the pretense of putting an end to Serbian oppression of Kosovo Albanians, which was termed genocide. The Clinton Administration made claims that at least 100,000 Kosovo Albanians were missing and “may have been killed” by the Serbs. Bill Clinton personally compared events in Kosovo to the Holocaust. The US State Department had stated that up to 500,000 Albanians were feared dead. Eventually, the official estimate was reduced to 10,000, however, after exhaustive investigations, it was revealed that the death of less than 2,500 Albanians could be attributed to the Serbs. During the NATO bombing campaign, between 400 and 1,500 Serb civilians were killed, and NATO committed war crimes, including the bombing of a Serb TV station and a hospital.[22]
 
Ultimately the strategy of the destabilization of Yugoslavia served various imperial objectives. The war in Yugoslavia was waged in order to enlarge NATO, Serbia was to be excluded permanently from European development to justify a US military presence in the region, and expansion was ultimately designed to contain Russia.[23]
 
An op-ed in the New York Times in 1996 stated that, “instead of seeing Bosnia as the eastern frontier of NATO, we should view the Balkans as the western frontier of America's rapidly expanding sphere of influence in the Middle East.” Further:
 
The fact that the United States is more enthusiastic than its European allies about a Bosnian Muslim state reflects, among other things, the new American role as the leader of an informal collection of Muslim nations from the Persian Gulf to the Balkans. The regions once ruled by the Ottoman Turks show signs of becoming the heart of a third American empire.
 
[ . . . ] Now, in the years after the cold war, the United States is again establishing suzerainty over the empire of a former foe. The disintegration of the Soviet Union has prompted the United States to expand its zone of military hegemony into Eastern Europe (through NATO) and into formerly neutral Yugoslavia. And -- most important of all -- the end of the cold war has permitted America to deepen its involvement the Middle East.[24]
 
Further, with the dismantling of the former Yugoslavia, a passageway for the transport of oil and natural gas from the Caspian region was to be facilitated through the construction of the Trans-Balkan pipeline, which will “run from the Black sea port of Burgas to the Adriatic at Vlore, passing through Bulgaria, Macedonia and Albania. It is likely to become the main route to the west for the oil and gas now being extracted in central Asia. It will carry 750,000 barrels a day: a throughput, at current prices, of some $600m a month.” As the Guardian reported:
 
The project is necessary, according to a paper published by the US Trade and Development Agency last May, because the oil coming from the Caspian Sea "will quickly surpass the safe capacity of the Bosphorus as a shipping lane". The scheme, the agency notes, will "provide a consistent source of crude oil to American refineries", "provide American companies with a key role in developing the vital east-west corridor", "advance the privatisation aspirations of the US government in the region" and "facilitate rapid integration" of the Balkans "with western Europe".
 
In November 1998, Bill Richardson, then US energy secretary, spelt out his policy on the extraction and transport of Caspian oil. "This is about America's energy security," he explained. "It's also about preventing strategic inroads by those who don't share our values. We're trying to move these newly independent countries toward the west.
 
"We would like to see them reliant on western commercial and political interests rather than going another way. We've made a substantial political investment in the Caspian, and it's very important to us that both the pipeline map and the politics come out right."[25]
 
The pipeline project, supported since 1994, “featured prominently in Balkan war politics. On December 9 1998, the Albanian president attended a meeting about the scheme in Sofia, and linked it inextricably to Kosovo.” The message given at the meeting was that, “if you [the United States] want Albanian consent for the Trans-Balkan pipeline, you had better wrest Kosovo out of the hands of the Serbs.”[26]
 
And so, with the help of an international network of CIA-trained Islamic militants, American political and economic hegemony expanded into Central Asia and the Caspian region.
 
The Spread of Al-Qaeda
 
Al-Qaeda did not just spread to Bosnia and Albania/Kosovo, but rather a great many places around the world saw the spread of this vast “database” of Islamist fighters, and always aided by Western intelligence agencies or their regional conduits (such as the ISI and Saudi intelligence agencies). Following on the heels of the established American and NATO strategy following the Cold War, Islamic fundamentalism also came to play a part in this strategy.
 
Bernard Lewis was a former British intelligence officer and historian who is infamous for explaining Arab discontent towards the West as not being rooted in a reaction toward imperialism, but rather that it is rooted in Islam; in that Islam is incompatible with the West, and that they are destined to clash, using the term, “Clash of Civilizations.” For decades, “Lewis played a critical role as professor, mentor, and guru to two generations of Orientalists, academics, U.S. and British intelligence specialists, think tank denizens, and assorted neoconservatives.” In the 1980s, Lewis “was hobnobbing with top Department of Defense officials.”[27] He was also one of the originators, along with Brzezinski, of the “Arc of Crisis” strategy employed in the late 1970s.
 
Lewis wrote a 1992 article in Foreign Affairs, the journal of the Council on Foreign Relations, titled, “Rethinking the Middle East.” In this article, Lewis raised the prospect of another policy towards the Middle East in the wake of the end of the Cold War and beginnings of the New World Order, “which could even be precipitated by fundamentalism, is what has of late become fashionable to call 'Lebanonization.' Most of the states of the Middle East - Egypt is an obvious exception - are of recent and artificial construction and are vulnerable to such a process. If the central power is sufficiently weakened, there is no real civil society to hold the polity together, no real sense of common national identity or overriding allegiance to the nation-state. The state then disintegrates - as happened in Lebanon - into a chaos of squabbling, feuding, fighting sects, tribes, regions and parties.”[28]
 
Thus, the “database” of Al-Qaeda could be spread internationally so as to destabilize various regions, and thus provide the justification for intervention or even war. All that was needed was well-placed intelligence operatives to control key leadership positions within the terrorist organization. The great majority of both its higher-ups and nearly all al-Qaeda operatives would not have to be made aware of the organizations covert use as an arm of US geo-policy.
 
In the 1990s, Osama bin Laden “built a shadow air force to support his terrorist activities, using Afghanistan's national airline, a surplus U.S. Air Force jet and clandestine charters.” Further, as the Los Angeles Times revealed:
 
With the Taliban's blessing, Bin Laden effectively had hijacked Ariana, the national civilian airline of Afghanistan. For four years, according to former U.S. aides and exiled Afghan officials, Ariana's passenger and charter flights ferried Islamic militants, arms, cash and opium through the United Arab Emirates and Pakistan. Members of Bin Laden's Al Qaeda terrorist network were provided false Ariana identification that gave them free run of airports in the Middle East.
 
[ . . . ] Taliban authorities also opened the country's airstrips to high-ranking Persian Gulf state officials who routinely flew in for lavish hunting parties. Sometimes joined by Bin Laden and Taliban leaders, the dignitaries, who included several high-ranking officials from Saudi Arabia and the Emirates--left behind money, vehicles and equipment with their hosts, according to U.S. and Afghan accounts.[29]  
 
Bin Laden’s secret purchase of a US Air Force jet in 1992 “was used to ferry Al Qaeda commanders to East Africa, where they trained Somali tribesmen for attacks on U.S. peacekeeping forces,” and Americans had “unwittingly” helped bin Laden “disguise the plane as a civilian jet.” US security officials were well aware of Ariana airlines being used by al-Qaeda,[30]
 
Among the high-ranking Persian Gulf officials who flew to Afghanistan for “hunting trips” were Prince Turki al Faisal who ran Saudi intelligence until August 2001, “maintaining close ties with Bin Laden and the Taliban,” as well as “Sheik Mohammed ibn Rashid al Maktum, the Dubai crown prince and Emirates defense minister.” On occasions both Osama bin Laden and Omar, the head of the Taliban, mingled with the hunters. Upon their departure, “the wealthy visitors often left behind late-model jeeps, trucks and supplies,” which was “one way the Taliban got their equipment.”[31]
 
What the article does not mention, however, was that the ISI was the prime sponsor of the Taliban, with the complete backing and facilitation of the CIA. The connection to the Saudi intelligence chief further strengthens the thesis that the Safari Club, created in 1976 by the French intelligence chief, may have survived as a covert intelligence network encompassing western intelligence agencies working through regional agencies such as those of Pakistan and Saudi Arabia.
 
The German intelligence agency, the BND, revealed in 2004 that two Saudi companies that were linked with financing al-Qaeda throughout the 1990s were in fact front organizations for Saudi intelligence, with close connections to its chief, Prince Turki bin Faisal.[32]
 
Between 1989 and 2001, Billy Waugh, a CIA contractor, trained several al-Qaeda operatives around the world.[33] In 2002, it was revealed that, “British intelligence paid large sums of money to an al-Qaeda cell in Libya in a doomed attempt to assassinate Colonel Gadaffi in 1996 and thwarted early attempts to bring Osama bin Laden to justice.” In 1998, Libya had issued an arrest warrant for Osama bin Laden, yet:
 
British and US intelligence agencies buried the fact that the arrest warrant had come from Libya and played down the threat. Five months after the warrant was issued, al-Qaeda killed more than 200 people in the truck bombings of US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.[34] 
 
However, “the resistance of Western intelligence agencies to the Libyan concerns can be explained by MI6's involvement with the al-Qaeda coup plot.” Anas al-Liby, a Libyan al-Qaeda leader, “was given political asylum in Britain and lived in Manchester until May of 2000 when he eluded a police raid on his house and fled abroad.”[35]
 
Following the end of the Cold War, many mujahideen fighters were relocated to Russia’s unstable region of Chechnya, where the two main rebel leaders who came to power had previously been trained and funded by the CIA in Afghanistan. The war in Chechnya was planned in a secret meeting in 1996 attended by Osama bin Laden and high-ranking officials of the Pakistani ISI, whose involvement in Chechnya went “far beyond supplying the Chechens with weapons and expertise: the ISI and its radical Islamic proxies are actually calling the shots in this war.”[36] In other words, the CIA was directing the war through the ISI.
 
The US and U.K. have supported Chechen separatism as it, “weakens Russia, advances U.S. power in the vital Caspian Sea region, and cripples a potential future rival.”[37] Mikhail Gorbachev, former President of Russia, claimed that the British had been arming the Chechen rebels.[38] Oil also features prominently in the Chechen conflict, as Chechnya is home to large reserves of oil, as well as pipeline corridor routes being competed over by Russian and Anglo-American oil conglomerates. Thus, the Anglo-Americans support the Chechen separatists, while the Russians send in the military.[39] US intelligence helped fund and transport al-Qaeda into Chechnya in the early 1990s, American intelligence remained involved until the end of the decade, seeing the “sponsorship of ‘Islamist jihad in the Caucasus’ as a way to ‘deprive Russia of a viable pipeline route through spiraling violence and terrorism’.”[40]
 
The Global Domination Strategy for a New Century
 
Following upon the strategic objectives set out in the early 1990s for the United States and NATO to expand their hegemony across the world, in preventing the rise of rivals (China and Russia), and expanding the access of western economic interests to the Caspian region, new designs were being drawn in the powerful think-tank community in the United States as well as being outlined by highly influential strategic thinkers. The renewed strategy, hardly a break from the previously determined aim of encirclement and containment of China and Russia, simply expanded the scope of this strategy. From one faction, the neo-conservatives, came the initial aim at expanding militarily into the Middle East, starting with Iraq, while the more established hard-line realist hawks such as Zbigniew Brzezinski outlined a far more comprehensive and long-term strategy of world domination by controlling the entirety of Eurasia (Europe and Asia), and subsequently, Africa.
 
The neo-Conservative hawks in the US foreign policy establishment formed the think tank, the Project for the New American Century (PNAC) in the 1990s. In 2000, they published their report, Rebuilding America’s Defenses, in which they outlined a strategy for the United States in the “new century.” Following where the Defense Planning Guidance document left off (during the first Bush administration), the report stated that, “the United States must retain sufficient forces able to rapidly deploy and win multiple simultaneous large-scale wars,” and that there is a “need to retain sufficient combat forces to fight and win, multiple, nearly simultaneous major theatre wars,” as “the Pentagon needs to begin to calculate the force necessary to protect, independently, US interests in Europe, East Asia and the Gulf at all times.”[41]
 
It recommended the “regime change” of Saddam Hussein in Iraq as the “immediate justification” for a US military presence in the Gulf; however, “the need for a substantial American force presence in the Gulf transcends the issue of the regime of Saddam Hussein.” In advocating for a massive increase in defense spending, and outlining military operations against Iraq, North Korea, and possibly Iran, the report stated that, “further, the process of transformation, even if it brings revolutionary change, is likely to be a long one, absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event – like a new Pearl Harbor.”[42]
 
Zbigniew Brzezinski outlined a long-term American imperial strategy to control Eurasia in his book, The Grand Chessboard. He stated bluntly that, “it is imperative that no Eurasian challenger emerges, capable of dominating Eurasia and thus of also challenging America,” and then made clear the imperial nature of his strategy:
 
To put it in a terminology that harkens back to the more brutal age of ancient empires, the three grand imperatives of imperial geostrategy are to prevent collusion and maintain security dependence among the vassals, to keep tributaries pliant and protected, and to keep the barbarians from coming together.[43]
 
He further explained that the Central Asian nations (or “Eurasian Balkans” as he refers to them):
 
are of importance from the standpoint of security and historical ambitions to at least three of their most immediate and more powerful neighbors, namely Russia, Turkey and Iran, with China also signaling an increasing political interest in the region. But the Eurasian Balkans are infinitely more important as a potential economic prize: an enormous concentration of natural gas and oil reserves is located in the region, in addition to important minerals, including gold.[44]
 
Brzezinski emphasizes “that America's primary interest is to help ensure that no single power comes to control this geopolitical space and that the global community has unhindered financial and economic access to it.”[45]
 
Preparing for War Against Afghanistan
 
In 1997, Taliban officials traveled to Texas to meet with Unocal Oil Company to discuss the possibility of a pipeline being built from Turkmenistan across Afghanistan and to Pakistan. Unocal had agreements with Turkmenistan to sell its gas and with Pakistan to buy it. The missing link was getting the gas to Pakistan through Afghanistan, which is where the Taliban came into the picture. Unocal’s main competitor in the pipeline bid was with Bridas, an Argentine firm. However, at this time, Afghanistan was still embroiled in civil war, making the prospect of a pipeline being built an unstable venture.[46]
 
A month before the Taliban visited Texas, Bridas, Unocal’s main competitor, merged its oil and gas assets with Amoco-Argentina Oil, a subsidiary of British Petroleum (BP), one of the world’s top three oil companies.[47] Shortly before this merger was finalized, Bridas had announced that it was close to signing a 2 billion dollar deal with the Taliban, saying “the talks were in their final stages.”[48]
 
After meeting with Unocal officials in Texas, the Taliban announced in January of 1998 that, “they're close to reaching a final agreement on the building of a gas pipeline across Afghanistan,” however, they “didn't indicate which of two competing companies the Taliban favoured.”[49]
 
It is significant to note some of the important figures that were involved with the oil companies in relation to Central Asian gas reserves and pipeline projects. In 1997, Zbigniew Brzezinski, the (self-proclaimed) mastermind for the Afghan-Soviet War, Jimmy Carter’s National Security Adviser, and cofounder with David Rockefeller of the Trilateral Commission, was an adviser to BP-Amoco, specifically dealing with the Caspian region.[50] Unocal, in an effort to try to secure their pipeline contract with the Taliban, hired former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger. Afghan-born Zalmay Khalilzad, former Reagan State Department Advisor on Afghanistan during the Afghan-Soviet War, was also brought on as a consultant for a group hired by Unocal. He would later become US envoy to Afghanistan after the US invasion in 2001.[51]
 
The pipeline project then ran into significant problems when, in December of 1998, Unocal announced that it quit its Afghan pipeline project.[52] Between 1996 and 2001, Enron bosses had given millions of dollars in bribes to Taliban officials to secure contracts for building pipelines. After Unocal withdrew from the deal, Enron continued to pressure the Taliban to continue with a pipeline. In 1996, neighboring Uzbekistan signed a deal with Enron to develop Uzbek natural gas fields.[53] In 1997, Halliburton, with Dick Cheney as its CEO, secured a contract in Turkmenistan for exploration and drilling in the Caspian Sea basin.[54] However, in December of 2001, Enron filed for bankruptcy.
 
Eventually, Unocal pulled out of the deal as a result of Afghanistan’s Taliban government not being fully recognized internationally as the legitimate Afghan government, and therefore, the pipeline project could not receive funding from international financial institutions like the World Bank. Unocal also pulled out as a result of the continual conflict raging in Afghanistan between various groups.[55]
 
In 1999, the Pentagon issued a secret document confirmed by the Joint Chiefs of Staff and Secretary of Defense, which stated that, “Oil conflicts over production facilities and transport routes, particularly in the Persian Gulf and Caspian regions, are specifically envisaged” in the near future, stating that, “energy and resource issues will continue to shape international security.” The document “vividly highlights how the highest levels of the US Defence community accepted the waging of an oil war as a legitimate military option.”[56]
 
Before George W. Bush became President in January of 2001, there were plans at the highest levels of the United States government in beginning preparations for a war against Afghanistan, which included attempts to secure an alliance with the Russians in “calling for military action against Afghanistan.”[57]
 
In March of 2001 it was reported that India has joined the US, Russia and Iran in an effort to militarily replace the Afghan Taliban government, with Tajikistan and Uzbekistan to be used as bases to launch incursions into Afghanistan against the Taliban.[58] In the Spring of 2001, the US military envisaged and war gamed the entire scenario of a US attack on Afghanistan, which subsequently became the operational plan for the war.[59]
 
In the summer of 2001, the Taliban were leaked information from top-secret meetings that the Bush regime was planning to launch a military operation against the Taliban in July to replace the government. A US military contingency plan existed on paper to attack Afghanistan from the north by the end of the summer of 2001, as in, prior to 9/11.[60]
 
A former Pakistani diplomat told the BBC that the US was planning military action against Osama bin Laden and the Taliban before the 9/11 attacks. Niaz Naik, former Pakistani Foreign Secretary, “was told by senior American officials in mid-July that military action against Afghanistan would go ahead by the middle of October.” The invasion subsequently took place on October 7, 2001. Naik was told of this information at a secretive UN-sponsored meeting which took place in Berlin in July 2001, with officials from the US, Russia, and many Central Asian countries. He also stated that the US would launch the operation from their bases in Tajikistan, “where American advisers were already in place.”[61]
 
As revealed by MSNBC, “President Bush was expected to sign detailed plans for a worldwide war against al-Qaida two days before Sept. 11,” and that, “The plan dealt with all aspects of a war against al-Qaida, ranging from diplomatic initiatives to military operations in Afghanistan.” It outlined “essentially the same” war plan as was put into action following the 9/11 attacks. The National Security document was also submitted to Condoleezza Rice prior to the attacks, and included plans to attack the Taliban and remove them from power in Afghanistan.[62] Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair stated that, “To be truthful about it, there was no way we could have got the public consent to have suddenly launched a campaign on Afghanistan but for what happened on September 11.”[63]
 
Following the start of the war on Afghanistan in October of 2001, the Guardian’s George Monbiot wrote that the war “may also be a late colonial adventure,” as “Afghanistan is as indispensable to the regional control and transport of oil in central Asia as Egypt was in the Middle East.” It is worth quoting Monbiot at some length:
 
Afghanistan has some oil and gas of its own, but not enough to qualify as a major strategic concern. Its northern neighbours, by contrast, contain reserves which could be critical to future global supply. In 1998, Dick Cheney, now US vice-president but then chief executive of a major oil services company, remarked: "I cannot think of a time when we have had a region emerge as suddenly to become as strategically significant as the Caspian." But the oil and gas there is worthless until it is moved. The only route which makes both political and economic sense is through Afghanistan.
 
Transporting all the Caspian basin's fossil fuel through Russia or Azerbaijan would greatly enhance Russia's political and economic control over the central Asian republics, which is precisely what the west has spent 10 years trying to prevent. Piping it through Iran would enrich a regime which the US has been seeking to isolate. Sending it the long way round through China, quite aside from the strategic considerations, would be prohibitively expensive. But pipelines through Afghanistan would allow the US both to pursue its aim of "diversifying energy supply" and to penetrate the world's most lucrative markets. Growth in European oil consumption is slow and competition is intense. In south Asia, by contrast, demand is booming and competitors are scarce. Pumping oil south and selling it in Pakistan and India, in other words, is far more profitable than pumping it west and selling it in Europe.
 
As the author Ahmed Rashid has documented, in 1995 the US oil company Unocal started negotiating to build oil and gas pipelines from Turkmenistan, through Afghanistan and into Pakistani ports on the Arabian sea. The company's scheme required a single administration in Afghanistan, which would guarantee safe passage for its goods. Soon after the Taliban took Kabul in September 1996, the Telegraph reported that "oil industry insiders say the dream of securing a pipeline across Afghanistan is the main reason why Pakistan, a close political ally of America's, has been so supportive of the Taliban, and why America has quietly acquiesced in its conquest of Afghanistan". Unocal invited some of the leaders of the Taliban to Houston, where they were royally entertained. The company suggested paying these barbarians 15 cents for every thousand cubic feet of gas it pumped through the land they had conquered.
 
For the first year of Taliban rule, US policy towards the regime appears to have been determined principally by Unocal's interests. In 1997 a US diplomat told Rashid "the Taliban will probably develop like the Saudis did. There will be Aramco [the former US oil consortium in Saudi Arabia] pipelines, an emir, no parliament and lots of Sharia law. We can live with that."
 
[. . . ] In February 1998, John Maresca, [Unocal’s] head of international relations, told representatives that the growth in demand for energy in Asia and sanctions against Iran determined that Afghanistan remained "the only other possible route" for Caspian oil. The company, once the Afghan government was recognised by foreign diplomats and banks, still hoped to build a 1,000-mile pipeline, which would carry a million barrels a day. Only in December 1998, four months after the embassy bombings in east Africa, did Unocal drop its plans.
 
But Afghanistan's strategic importance has not changed. In September, a few days before the attack on New York, the US energy information administration reported that "Afghanistan's significance from an energy standpoint stems from its geographical position as a potential transit route for oil and natural gas exports from central Asia to the Arabian sea. This potential includes the possible construction of oil and natural gas export pipelines through Afghanistan". Given that the US government is dominated by former oil industry executives, we would be foolish to suppose that such plans no longer figure in its strategic thinking. As the researcher Keith Fisher has pointed out, the possible economic outcomes of the war in Afghanistan mirror the possible economic outcomes of the war in the Balkans, where the development of "Corridor 8", an economic zone built around a pipeline carrying oil and gas from the Caspian to Europe, is a critical allied concern.
 
American foreign policy is governed by the doctrine of "full-spectrum dominance", which means that the US should control military, economic and political development worldwide. China has responded by seeking to expand its interests in central Asia. The defence white paper Beijing published last year argued that "China's fundamental interests lie in ... the establishment and maintenance of a new regional security order". In June, China and Russia pulled four central Asian republics into a "Shanghai cooperation organisation". Its purpose, according to Jiang Zemin, is to "foster world multi-polarisation", by which he means contesting US full-spectrum dominance.
 
If the US succeeds in overthrowing the Taliban and replacing them with a stable and grateful pro-western government and if the US then binds the economies of central Asia to that of its ally Pakistan, it will have crushed not only terrorism, but also the growing ambitions of both Russia and China. Afghanistan, as ever, is the key to the western domination of Asia.[64]
 
As revealed by the San Francisco Chronicle in November of 2001, “the United States and Pakistan decided to install a stable regime in place in Afghanistan around 1994 -- a regime that would end the country's civil war and thus ensure the safety of the Unocal pipeline project.” And so:
 
the State Department and Pakistan's Inter- Services Intelligence agency agreed to funnel arms and funding to the Taliban in their war against the ethnically Tajik Northern Alliance. As recently as 1999, U.S. taxpayers paid the entire annual salary of every single Taliban government official, all in the hopes of returning to the days of dollar-a- gallon

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(Riportiamo integralmente, in tre parti, il saggio di Andrew Gavin Marshall dedicato alle politiche di egemonia imperiale degli USA nell'epoca dell'"11 Settembre". L'autore si sofferma in particolare su Al-Qaeda, creatura della CIA utilizzata come strumento di provocazione delle più recenti guerre di conquista coloniale-imperialista da parte della declinante superpotenza mondiale. La terza parte è incentrata sulle incongruenze e falsità nella versione di regime sui fatti dell'11 settembre 2001 a New York, di cui oggi ricorre l'anniversario.
Andrew Gavin Marshall è un collaboratore del grande saggista Michael Chossudovsky e del suo "Centro per la Ricerca sulla Globalizzazione" - http://www.globalresearch.ca )

I PART: The Imperial Anatomy of Al-Qaeda. The CIA’s Drug-Running Terrorists and the “Arc of Crisis”

II PART: Empire, Energy and Al-Qaeda: The Anglo-American Terror Network
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=20944
---


9/11 ANALYSIS: 9/11 and America’s Secret Terror Campaign

The Imperial Anatomy of Al-Qaeda, Part III

by Andrew Gavin Marshall

Global Research, September 10, 2010

Anticipating An Attack

 
For several years prior to the events of 9/11, top American strategists had been acknowledging the necessity of what they oft-termed a “new Pearl Harbor”, a momentous attack upon America itself, in order to mobilize the American populace for a new global war of domination.
 
As Zbigniew Brzezinski wrote in his 1997 book The Grand Chessboard, “America's primary interest is to help ensure that no single power comes to control this geopolitical space [of Central Asia] and that the global community has unhindered financial and economic access to it.”[1] Brzezinski acknowledged in his book that, “the pursuit of power is not a goal that commands popular passion, except in conditions of a sudden threat or challenge to the public’s sense of domestic well-being.”[2] He also wrote that, “The public supported America’s engagement in World War II largely because of the shock effect of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.”[3]
 
In 1999, Andrew Krepinevich, Executive Director of the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments testified before the Senate Armed Services Subcommittee on Emerging Threats and Capabilities. He stated that the US faces an “unprecedented challenge”:
 
[T]he need to transform our armed forces into a very different kind of military from that which exists today, while sustaining the military’s ability to play a very active role in supporting U.S. near-term efforts to preserve global stability within a national security strategy of engagement and enlargement.[4]
 
After advocating a massive re-imagining of the role and nature of US military might, pushing the notion of a “revolution in military affairs” and an acceleration of imperial ambitions, he told the Senate Committee:
 
There appears to be general agreement concerning the need to transform the U.S. military into a significantly different kind of force from that which emerged victorious from the Cold and Gulf Wars. Yet this verbal support has not been translated into a defense program supporting transformation. [. . . ] While there is growing support in Congress for transformation, the “critical mass” [i.e., public support] needed to effect it has not yet been achieved. One may conclude that, in the absence of a strong external shock to the United States—a latter-day “Pearl Harbor” of sorts—surmounting the barriers to transformation will likely prove a long, arduous process.[5]
 
In 1999, Graham Fuller, former Deputy Director of the CIA’s National Council on Intelligence, advocated using Muslim forces to further US interests in Central Asia. He stated that, “The policy of guiding the evolution of Islam and of helping them against our adversaries worked marvelously well in Afghanistan against [the Russians]. The same doctrines can still be used to destabilize what remains of Russian power, and especially to counter the Chinese influence in Central Asia.”[6]
 
In June of 2000, the Joint Chiefs of Staff of the Pentagon released Joint Vision 2020, outlining the American military strategy that the Department of Defense “will follow in the future.” The emphasis in the report was put on the notion of “Full Spectrum Dominance,” which means “the ability of U.S. forces, operating alone or with allies, to defeat any adversary and control any situation across the range of military operations”:
 
Joint Vision 2020 addresses full-spectrum dominance across the range of conflicts from nuclear war to major theater wars to smaller-scale contingencies. It also addresses amorphous situations like peacekeeping and noncombat humanitarian relief.[7]
 
The neoconservative think tank the Project for the New American Century (PNAC) released a report in September of 2000 called Rebuilding America’s Defenses in which they advocated for a massive expansion of America’s empire and “full spectrum dominance” as well as the necessity to undertake a “Revolution in military affairs,” and undertake multiple simultaneous wars in different regions of the world. Several members of the think tank and authors of the report would go on to enter key policy positions within the Bush administration several months later (including, but not limited to Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, and Zalmay Khalilzad). While acknowledging the massive undertaking this “project” would be, the report stated:
 
Further, the process of transformation, even if it brings revolutionary change, is likely to be a long one, absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event – like a new Pearl Harbor.”[8]
 
In January of 2001, the Rumsfeld Commission, which was set up to analyze the US National Security Space Management and Organization, chaired by incoming US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld (who had also been a signatory to and member of the Project for the New American Century at the same time). It advocated an expansion of military capabilities in Space and a total reorganization of the armed forces and intelligence agencies of the United States. The report stated that:
 
History is replete with instances in which warning signs were ignored and change resisted until an external, “improbable” event forced resistant bureaucracies to take action. The question is whether the US will be wise enough to act responsibly and soon enough to reduce US space vulnerability. Or whether, as in the past, a disabling attack against the country and its people – a “Space Pearl Harbor” – will be the only event able to galvanize the nation and cause the US Government to act.[9]
 
As early as 1998, the President was warned in his CIA daily briefing that, “bin Laden and his allies are preparing for an attack in the US, including an aircraft hijacking.” NORAD, the “North American Aerospace Defense command also conducted an exercise to counter a terrorist attack involving smashing an airplane into a building.” In August 1999, “the Federal Aviation Administration's intelligence branch warned of a possible "suicide hijacking operation" by Osama Bin Laden.”[10]
 
In October of 2000, the Pentagon undertook an emergency response exercise in which “there was a mock terrorist incident at the Pentagon Metro stop and a construction accident,” and it further envisioned a “downed passenger aircraft” in the Pentagon courtyard.[11]
 
For years, NORAD had been conducting military exercises and drills in which it envisioned planes being hijacked and flown into buildings in the United States.[12] One of the intended targets in the NORAD drills was the World Trade Center:
 
In another exercise, jets performed a mock shootdown over the Atlantic Ocean of a jet supposedly laden with chemical poisons headed toward a target in the United States. In a third scenario, the target was the Pentagon — but that drill was not run after Defense officials said it was unrealistic.[13]
 
As the Guardian revealed in April of 2004:
 
Five months before the September 11 attacks, US military planners suggested a war game to practise a response to a terrorist attack using a commercial airliner flown into the Pentagon, but senior officers rejected the scenario as "too unrealistic".[14]
 
In May of 2001, an exercise involving U.S. Central Command, U.S. Special Operations Command and U.S. Joint Forces Command took place in which the military establishment “forecasted” the first war of the 21st century so closely that, “Nostradamus couldn't have nailed the first battle of the next war any closer than we did,” as articulated by a former top official with the exercise, Dave Ozolek. The exercise, Unified Vision 2001:
 
[G]rew out of the realization that the threat was changing. Ozolek said the scenario was a major regional threat emanating from the Middle East. The scenario called for global deployment into a landlocked country with hostile terrain and a lack of basing and agreements with neighboring countries for U.S. access.
 
[. . . ] The threat we portrayed was an unstable and hostile state, but the primary enemy was not the state itself but a transnational actor based out of that area, globally connected, capable and willing to conduct terrorist attacks in the U.S. as part of that campaign.
 
[. . . ] "Many of the participants in Unified Vision, 100 days later, were war planners," Ozolek said. They took their experiences in Unified Vision back to their commands and put them to use as the commands created plans for operations Enduring Freedom and Noble Eagle, he said. They had an idea of the tactics, techniques and procedures needed to operate against such an enemy, he noted.
 
Ozolek said Unified Vision refutes the pundits who make a living out of critiquing the Department of Defense. "The first thing they like to talk about is that we always dwell on the last battle of the last war," he said. "What we're showing them is that this time we got it right: We really were looking at the first battle of the next war, and we nailed it pretty darned close."[15]
 
After 9/11, in May of 2002, Condoleezza Rice stated that, “I don't think anybody could have predicted that ... they would try to use an airplane as a missile, a hijacked airplane as a missile.”[16] So Condi is a fool or a liar, because that statement is nothing if not entirely and utterly false. The national security apparatus had fully anticipated, and even war gamed and drilled this very scenario. It was expected, planned for, and no less with war plans waiting in the wings.
 
The 9/11 Commission
 
Of critical importance in understanding the events of 9/11 is taking note of the funding for the operation. The 9/11 Commission itself stated:
 
To date the U.S. government has not been able to determine the origin of the money used for the 9/11 attacks. Ultimately the question is of little practical significance.[17]
 
However, one should take issue with this claim. The fact is that any comprehensive investigation, criminal or otherwise, should pay special attention to the role of financing; follow the money. This is not the only failure of the 9/11 Commission, as has been amply documented.
 
From its inception, the 9/11 Commission was plagued with problems. The Bush administration had resisted attempts to form a commission to investigate the attacks of 9/11 for over a year, even pressuring Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle not to launch an inquiry.[18] In May of 2002, President Bush voiced his opposition to the formation of a 9/11 commission.[19]
 
In September of 2002, Bush reversed his previous decision and backed the proposal to form an “independent” commission to investigate the attacks.[20] Within a month of this statement, the White House began undermining the process, as “an almost completed Congressional deal was suddenly undone in October after a Republican lawmaker involved in the final negotiations received a call from Vice President Dick Cheney,” which led to a stalling of the process.[21]
 
In mid-November, Congress approved the creation of a bi-partisan 9/11 Commission to investigate the attacks, with 10 Congressmen, 5 Democrats and 5 Republicans, with the Chairman appointed by the Bush administration and the Vice Chair appointed by the Democrats.[22]
 
The Bush administration chose as the Chairman none other than Henry Kissinger, former National Security Adviser and Secretary of State for Nixon and Ford, “a consummate Washington insider,” not to mention war criminal. Even the New York Times had to admit:
 
Unfortunately, his affinity for power and the commercial interests he has cultivated since leaving government may make him less than the staunchly independent figure that is needed for this critical post. Indeed, it is tempting to wonder if the choice of Mr. Kissinger is not a clever maneuver by the White House to contain an investigation it long opposed.[23]
 
Two week later, “Facing questions about potential conflicts of interest, Henry Kissinger resigned” as Chairman of the 9/11 Commission.[24] He was replaced with former New Jersey Governor Thomas Kean. As of November 2003, one Commissioner, Max Cleland, claimed that the “investigation is now compromised” by the White House.[25]
 
Shortly after the release of the final 9/11 Commission Report in 2004, Harper’s Magazine called it “a cheat and a fraud,” declaring the report a “whitewash.”[26]
 
In 2006, the two co-Chairs of the Commission published a book in which they claimed that the Commission was lied to by both the FAA and the Department of Defense, specifically NORAD.[27] Several commissioners are on the record as saying they felt that the Pentagon purposely lied to them in order to mislead them.[28] Further, much of the information the commission received and used in its report “was the product of harsh interrogations of al-Qaida operatives - interrogations that many critics have labeled torture.”[29]
 
As it turned out, the Executive Director of the 9/11 Commission, Philip Zelikow, was a man of dubious priorities and connections. He was the ultimate author of the final report and controlled the research staff of the commission. Zelikow, “a former colleague of then-National Security Adviser Condoleeza Rice, was appointed executive director of the 9/11 Commission despite his close ties to the Bush White House, and he remained in regular contact with [Karl] Rove while overseeing the commission.” Zelikow “secretly spoke with President Bush's close adviser Karl Rove and others within the White House while the ostensibly autonomous commission was completing its report.” Zelikow had even previously co-authored a book with Condoleezza Rice. Following the publication of the report, Zelikow then went to work as an adviser to Condoleezza Rice in the White House.[30]
 
The Bin Ladens
 
There are many fascinating and important revelations regarding the intricate relationship between the CIA, the ISI, and al-Qaeda in the lead-up to the events of 9/11 that deserve to be subjected to more scrutiny.
 
First, let’s take a look at Osama bin Laden. Bin Laden, whose relationship with the CIA in the past had been well documented, reportedly acted as a rogue following the 1991 US Gulf War against Iraq and American stationing of troops and military bases in Saudi Arabia. However, there are reports that would indicate that the relationship between bin Laden and the US intelligence apparatus remained, at least to some degree, for many years.
 
We must remember the nature of al-Qaeda, as an organization, or network, of intelligence assets funded, armed, trained and dispersed around the world by a complex network of intelligence agencies from the United States, France, Great Britain, Saudi Arabia, and Pakistan.
 
A French court undertook a probe into the financial network of Osama bin Laden, who was widely assumed to simply be independently wealthy, and financed al-Qaeda operations through his own funds. However, it was revealed that Osama maintained a joint bank account with his half-brother Yeslam bin Laden in Switzerland between 1990 and 1997. Of particular interest to investigators was “a 241 million euro transfer made to Pakistan in 2000 from an account belonging to a company called Cambridge, a SBG [Saudi Bin Laden Group] subsidiary, that was opened at Deutsche Bank in Geneva,” with the funds “transferred into an account belonging jointly to Osama bin Laden and someone of Pakistani nationality.”[31]
 
Der Spiegel, a major German newspaper, was granted access to thousands of pages of intelligence documents relating to bin Laden and al-Qaeda. In the report on the documents, the authors revealed that when bin Laden needed financing, “The Saudi elite -- and his own family -- came to his assistance.” The list of financiers:
 
is a veritable who's who of the Middle Eastern monarchy, including the signatures of two former cabinet ministers, six bankers and twelve prominent businessmen. The list also mentions "the bin Laden brothers." ... Did "the bin Laden brothers," who first pledged money to Al-Qaida and then, in 1994, issued a joint press statement declaring that they were ejecting Osama from the family as a "black sheep," truly break ties with their blood relatives -- or were they simply pulling the wool over the eyes of the world?[32]
 
Osama bin Laden’s sister-in-law even stated:
 
I absolutely do not believe that the bin Ladens disowned Osama. In this family, a brother is always a brother, no matter what he has done. I am convinced that the complex and tightly woven network between the bin Laden clan and the Saudi royal family is still in operation.[33]
 
Following the death of Osama’s father, Salem bin Laden, Osama’s brother, became head of the company, Saudi Binladen Group (SBG). As Der Spiegel reported:
 
Salem bin Laden established the company's ties to the American political elite when, according to French intelligence sources, he helped the Reagan administration circumvent the US Senate and funnel $34 million to the right-wing Contra rebels operating in Nicaragua. He also developed close ties with the Bush family in Texas.[34]
 
While Osama was fighting in Afghanistan against the Soviets, he would often be personally visited by Saudi Prince Turki, the head of Saudi intelligence, and was funded by both the Saudi Binladen Group (SBG) and the Saudi royal family. In 1990, when King Fahd of Saudi Arabia allowed the Americans to establish military bases in Saudi Arabia, the SBG got the contract to build the bases.[35]
 
Though the Bin Laden family claimed Osama was a “black sheep” and that they cut off ties with him in the early 1990s, the evidence remains strong that not only did Osama maintain ties with his family, but he maintained his ties with Saudi intelligence. While Osama was in Sudan in the early 1990s, Saudi intelligence would so frequently send his family over to meet with him, and kept in such close contact with him, that the Israeli intelligence agency, Mossad, believed Osama was a Saudi spy. In 1994, under intense public pressure, both Saudi Arabia and the bin Laden family publicly revoked their ties with Osama.[36]
 
Yet, even after this, when Osama returned to Afghanistan in the mid-1990s to work with the Taliban, Prince Turki of Saudi intelligence would still maintain contact and even visit Osama, even bringing “gifts” such as dozens of trucks:
 
According to a former member of the Taliban intelligence service, Prince Turki and OBL [Osama bin Laden] made a deal: The Saudis would support al-Qaida financially, but only under the condition that there would be no attacks on Saudi soil.[37]
 
On January 9, 2001, Osama attended his sons wedding in Afghanistan, accompanied by his mother and two brothers, hardly the actions of a “black sheep”. Further, two of Osama’s sisters traveled to Abu Dhabi in February of 2001 to “deliver large sums of cash” to an al-Qaeda agent. In the United States, the Bin Laden family had diplomatic passports, so following the 9/11 attacks, they could not be questioned, but instead were flown out of the country. The Bin Ladens were also in business with the Bush family through the investment company, the Carlyle Group.[38] No one ever seemed to question why the bin Laden family had diplomatic passports, a strange occurrence, it would seem, for a Saudi ‘business’ family who weren’t engaged in any official or formal ‘diplomacy’.
 
In March of 2000, it was reported that Osama bin Laden was sick and suffering from kidney and liver disease.[39] A western intelligence source told the Hong-Kong based magazine, Asiaweek, that bin Laden was dying of kidney failure.[40]
 
In July of 2001, Osama bin Laden spent 10 days at the American hospital in Dubai for treatment. He traveled from Pakistan to Dubai on July 4, 2001, to be treated in the urology department. While he was in the hospital, Osama was visited by several members of his family, Saudi officials, and the CIA. One visitor was Saudi Prince Turki al Faisal, the head of Saudi intelligence, and the CIA station chief in Dubai, who was soon after recalled back to Washington.[41]
 
On September 10, 2001, the night before the attacks of 9/11, Osama bin Laden was in Pakistan “getting medical treatment with the support of the very military that days later pledged its backing for the U.S. war on terror in Afghanistan.” Pakistani intelligence reported that bin Laden was quickly taken to a military hospital in Rawalpindi for kidney dialysis treatment. As one medical worker said, “they moved out all the regular staff in the urology department and sent in a secret team to replace them.” Pakistani President Musharraf openly stated in public that Osama suffers from kidney disease and is near death.[42]
 
The Pakistani ISI and 9/11
 
Throughout the entire time of overt and covert assistance by Pakistan’s ISI to both the Taliban and al-Qaeda in Afghanistan, the CIA had maintained its close ties with the ISI that they had developed during the Soviet-Afghan war in the 1980s, in which they used the ISI as a conduit; as was set up through the Safari Club in the 1970s, which was the organization of western intelligence agencies which used Middle Eastern and Asian intelligence agencies as conduits for their covert activities. Thus, the CIA maintained its extensive contact with the ISI, and so would be well aware of its activities.[43]
 
A top Indian intelligence official even stated that, “America's Defence Intelligence Agency was aware that Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) was sponsoring the Taliban and Al Qaeda, but the Bush Administration chose to ignore its findings.”[44] Is it inconceivable that since the CIA maintained its extensive contacts with the ISI, and the ISI maintained and expanded its contacts with the Taliban and al-Qaeda, that the CIA was not in fact sponsoring both the Taliban and Al-Qaeda through the ISI as well? We know that the CIA was supporting the Taliban through the same network of the ISI that was supporting al-Qaeda operatives,[45] thus it would take a stretch of the imagination to think that the CIA would be unaware of its subsequent support for al-Qaeda. Whether direct or indirect, the CIA was supporting al-Qaeda.
 
Shortly after 9/11, Indian intelligence became aware of the fact that General Mahmoud Ahmad, head of Pakistan’s Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) had wired $100,000 from Saeed Sheikh, a convicted terrorist who had associations with the ISI, to Mohamed Atta, the purported ringleader and one of the 9/11 hijackers. Thus, the ISI in effect, financed the 9/11 attacks. However, there are several more ambiguous facets to this story. It just so happens that General Mahmoud Ahmad went to Washington, D.C. on September 4th, 2001 for a weeklong visit. On September 10, the day before 9/11, a Pakistani newspaper ran a story on Ahmad’s visit:
 
ISI Chief Lt-Gen Mahmood's week-long presence in Washington has triggered speculation about the agenda of his mysterious meetings at the Pentagon and National Security Council. Officially, State Department sources say he is on a routine visit in return to CIA Director George Tenet's earlier visit to Islamabad. Official sources confirm that he met Tenet this week. He also held long parleys with unspecified officials at the White House and the Pentagon. But the most important meeting was with Mark Grossman, US Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs.
 
... What added interest to his visit is the history of such visits. Last time Ziauddin Butt, Mahmood's predecessor, was here during Nawaz Sharif's government the domestic politics turned topsy-turvy within days. That this is not the first visit by Mahmood in the last three months shows the urgency of the ongoing parleys.[46]
 
General Ahmad, while in Washington, met with CIA Director George Tenet and Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage. On the morning of 9/11, General Ahmad was in a meeting with the Chairmen of the House and Senate Intelligence Committees, Senator Bob Graham and Representative Porter Goss, a former 10-year veteran of CIA clandestine operations. Porter Goss was later put in charge of a joint House-Senate investigation into the Sept. 11 attacks, and later became the CIA director.[47]
 
General Mahmoud, having wired $100,000 to Mohamad Atta, the purported lead 9/11 hijacker, implicates the ISI in the attacks of 9/11, at least from a financial standing. The FBI even confirmed the transaction took place.[48] The ISI’s extensive ties to American intelligence and the fact that Ahmad was in D.C. talking to high level legislators, State Department, Pentagon and intelligence officials begs the question of what the precise nature of these secret meetings were. 
 
Michael Meacher, a former British MP and member of Tony Blair’s cabinet, wrote in the Guardian that:
 
Ahmed, the paymaster for the hijackers, was actually in Washington on 9/11, and had a series of pre-9/11 top-level meetings in the White House, the Pentagon, the national security council, and with George Tenet, then head of the CIA, and Marc Grossman, the under-secretary of state for political affairs. When Ahmed was exposed by the Wall Street Journal as having sent the money to the hijackers, he was forced to "retire" by President Pervez Musharraf.[49]
 
Meacher further discussed the case of Sibel Edmonds, a former FBI translator-turned-whistleblower who tried to expose evidence of what she saw as collusion between intelligence agencies and the terrorists behind 9/11. She was subsequently gagged by the U.S. Department of Justice:
 
She is a 33-year-old Turkish-American former FBI translator of intelligence, fluent in Farsi, the language spoken mainly in Iran and Afghanistan, who had top-secret security clearance. She tried to blow the whistle on the cover-up of intelligence that names some of the culprits who orchestrated the 9/11 attacks, but is now under two gagging orders that forbid her from testifying in court or mentioning the names of the people or the countries involved. She has been quoted as saying: "My translations of the 9/11 intercepts included [terrorist] money laundering, detailed and date-specific information ... if they were to do real investigations, we would see several significant high-level criminal prosecutions in this country [the US] ... and believe me, they will do everything to cover this up".[50]
 
In August of 2009, Sibel Edmonds revealed that, “the US was on 'intimate' terms with the Taliban and al-Qaeda using the militants to further certain goals in central Asia,” and stated, “With those groups, we had operations in Central Asia.” She explained that Washington used those groups “as we did during the Afghan and Soviet conflict.”[51] In other words, the US was arming, funding and using al-Qaeda for its own objectives, just as it always had.
 
On September 11, 2009, 8 years to the day of the events of 9/11, a major British newspaper, the Daily Mail, ran a story critical of the official story regarding Osama bin Laden. In it, the author posed the question:
 
What if he has been dead for years, and the British and U.S. intelligence services are actually playing a game of double bluff? What if everything we have seen or heard of him on video and audio tapes since the early days after 9/11 is a fake - and that he is being kept 'alive' by the Western allies to stir up support for the war on terror?[52]
 
The article quoted former U.S. foreign intelligence officer and senior editor Angelo M. Codevilla, a professor of international relations at Boston University as saying, “All the evidence suggests Elvis Presley is more alive today than Osama Bin Laden”:
 
Prof Codevilla asserted: 'The video and audio tapes alleged to be Osama's never convince the impartial observer,' he asserted. 'The guy just does not look like Osama. Some videos show him with a Semitic, aquiline nose, while others show him with a shorter, broader one. Next to that, differences between the colours and styles of his beard are small stuff.'[53]
 
Interesting to note is that following the 9/11 attacks, Osama bin Laden, in at least four separate statements to Middle Eastern press and media, stated that he did not take part in the 9/11 attacks, while the video in which he supposedly claimed responsibility for the attacks has him wearing gold rings, which is forbidden by his Wahhabist religion, as well as writing with his right hand, whereas the FBI website says that he is left handed, and his face is blurred and difficult to make out. On September 28, 2001, Osama bin Laden said, “'I have already said I am not involved. As a Muslim, I try my best to avoid telling a lie. I had no knowledge... nor do I consider the killing of innocent women, children and other humans as an appreciable act.”[54]
 
Osama bin Laden was even reported to have died of kidney failure on December 13, 2001, in the mountains of Tora Bora on the Afghan-Pakistan border. On that same day, the U.S. government released the fateful videotape in which Osama claimed responsibility for the attacks. However, the bin Laden in the video was very different from the known images of the real bin Laden, and even had a different shaped nose, his beard was darker, his skin paler, and his fingers were no longer long and thin, as well as the fact that he looked to be in good health.[55]
 
As the Los Angeles Times reported in November of 2009, the extensive and close relationship between the CIA and the ISI has not diminished since 9/11, but had in fact, accelerated: “the CIA has funneled hundreds of millions of dollars to Pakistan's intelligence service since the Sept. 11 attacks, accounting for as much as one-third of the foreign spy agency's annual budget.” Further, “the payments to Pakistan are authorized under a covert program initially approved by then-President Bush and continued under President Obama.” Further, “the CIA has routinely brought ISI operatives to a secret training facility in North Carolina,” and as the article pointed out, “the CIA also directs millions of dollars to other foreign spy services. But the magnitude of the payments to the ISI reflect Pakistan's central role.” As the report in the Los Angeles Times explained, the CIA financial support to the ISI began during the Afghan-Soviet conflict, and has not stopped since then, and since 9/11, it has actually accelerated.[56]
 
The Nexus Personified: The Case of Ali Mohamed
 
Perhaps the perfect example of the complex relationship and nexus between intelligence agencies and al-Qaeda is the case of a man named Ali Mohamed. As the San Francisco Chronicle reported in 2001, “A former U.S. Army sergeant who trained Osama bin Laden's bodyguards and helped plan the 1998 bombing of the U.S. Embassy in Kenya was a U.S. government informant during much of his terrorist career.” Ali Mohamed, an Egyptian-born US citizen had approached the CIA in the mid-1980s to inform for them. He also spent years as an FBI informant, all the while being a top-level al-Qaeda operative, even training Osama bin Laden’s bodyguards, as well as training terrorists in camps in Afghanistan and Sudan, and planned the 1998 US Embassy bombing in Kenya.[57]
 
State Department officials proclaimed this was merely a sign of the problems associated with recruiting informants, that Mohamed was a double agent working for al-Qaeda, and they should have “known better.” However, the ignorance plea can only go so far, and considering Mohamed’s extensive ties to not one, but several US agencies, there is no doubt he was a double agent, but perhaps it is more likely he was working as an al-Qaeda operative for the US government. After all, it is one thing to say the Ali Mohamed was lucky in his evading being caught, but he was continuously lucky, over and over again. One wonders when ‘luck’ is organized.
 
In 1971, Ali Mohamed joined the Egyptian Army, rising to the rank of major. Well educated in Egypt, he was fluent in English. In 1981, he joined the Egyptian Islamic Jihad, “a group of radical Muslim fundamentalists opposed to the Egyptian government's ties to the United States and Israel that included members of the Egyptian military.” The very same year, in 1981, Mohamed traveled to the United States for the first time, “graduating from a special program for foreign officers at the U.S. Army Special Forces school at Fort Bragg, N.C.” In 1984, Mohamed left the Egyptian military.[58]
 
In 1984, Ali Mohamed approached the CIA office in Egypt offering to be a spy. Officially, the CIA then cut off contact with him shortly thereafter, as he made contact with terrorist organizations and informed them he was working with the CIA, supposedly proposing to spy on US intelligence agencies. So the CIA had the State Department add him to a “watch list” so that he could not enter the United States. However, the next year, Ali Mohamed obtained a visa from the American Embassy and went to the United States. He then joined the American Army and “served with one of its most elite units.”[59]
 
From 1986 until 1989, Ali Mohamed served at the Army’s Special Forces base in Fort Bragg, N.C., until he was honourably discharged in 1989. While on active duty, he went to New York where he trained local Muslims in military tactics to go fight in the Afghan-Soviet war. One of his students was “El Sayyid A. Nosair, the Egyptian immigrant convicted of killing Rabbi Meir Kahane, the founder of the Jewish Defense League, in 1990,” which was the first recorded al-Qaeda operation on U.S. soil.[60]
 
In the early 1990s, Ali Mohamed began working for the FBI. Mohamed then forged ties with Osama bin Laden as early as 1991, and assisted in a variety of ways, such as helping bin Laden and ‘al-Qaeda’ obtain fake documents, assisted with logistical tasks, and even helped Osama relocate from Afghanistan to the Sudan in 1991. Many terrorists that Mohamed trained were subsequently involved in the 1993 plot to blow up the World Trade Center. In 1992, Mohamed returned to Afghanistan to continue training militants. That same year, he was detained by officials in Rome, yet was released shortly thereafter.[61]
 
In 1992, Ali Mohamed created an al-Qaeda terrorist cell in Kenya, and in 1993, bin Laden asked Mohamed to scout for potential terrorist targets in Nairobi, Kenya. He took photos of and scouted the French Embassy, the US AID office and the American Embassy. Bin Laden subsequently chose the American Embassy as the target.[62]
 
In 1993, he was detained by the RCMP in Vancouver, Canada, “while traveling in the company of a suspected associate of Mr. bin Laden's who was trying to enter the United States using false documents.”[63] However, after the RCMP were told to contact his FBI handlers, Mohamed was released.[64] He subsequently masterminded the American Embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998.[65]
 
However, there are implications that may suggest that Ali Mohamed’s ties to the CIA did not end or evaporate in the 1980s. Following 9/11, several revelations were reported in the media about a covert program of allowing high-level terrorists to enter the United States under a secret CIA program which had the State Department issue visas to terrorists in order to enter the United States.
 


L'URLO DEL KOSOVO

libro e DVD

sulle conseguenze subite dalla popolazione civile dopo i bombardamenti della Nato del 1999 sulla Jugoslavia

di Alessandro Di Meo
edito da ExOrma - 2010

Il libro e il dvd - L'Urlo del Kosovo - sono disponibili in edizione unica al costo di 18 euro. Le copie si possono richiedere direttamente all'autore (alessandro.di.meo@...), all'associazione Un Ponte per... (posta@... o info@...), a ExOrma edizioni (o.pagnani@... o m.sassara@...) o attraverso il sito internet di Un Ponte per...


Leggi la recensione apparsa su Il Manifesto: http://it.groups.yahoo.com/group/crj-mailinglist/message/6808

---

Grottaferrata (RM), 18 settembre 2010

presso AGRICOLTURA CAPODARCO, Via del Grottino snc, 00046 (RM)

(da Grottaferrata prendere viale San Nilo, quindi Via del Grottino)
tel.06-94549191 email info@...

presentazione del libro e del DVD 
L'URLO DEL KOSOVO

dalle ore 16 fino a notte inoltrata, ci sarà una bella iniziativa che gli amici della comunità di Capodarco (Agricoltura Biologica e Biosolidale, a Grottaferrata) hanno preparato in solidarietà con famiglie della ex Jugoslavia, vittime dei bombardamenti del 99 e residenti in villaggi serbi del Kosovo e Metohija.
Nell'occasione, come recita il volantino, verrà proiettato il documentario "L'Urlo del Kosovo" (intorno alle ore 19-19,30).

Intervenite numerosi!

Scarica il volantino: 


(slovenščina / italiano.
Sulla vicenda dei quattro fucilati di Basovizza si veda anche:

In occasione dell'80° anniversario

della fucilazione dei quattro antifascisti

(Ferdo Bidovec, Franjo Marušič,

Zvonimir Miloš e Alojš Valenčič)

presso il poligono di Basovizza


giovedì 9 settembre alle ore 17,

presso la Sala Tessitori

piazza Oberdan 6


conferenza - dibattito:


LA PRIMA

RESISTENZA EUROPEA


parlerà


Milan Pahor,

presidente del

Comitato per le onoranze ai Martiri di Basovizza


organizza

Il Coordinamento antifascista di Trieste


in collaborazione con il

Gruppo consiliare regionale della Sinistra Arcobaleno


---


V 80. obletnici

ustrelitve štirih antifašistov

(Ferdo Bidovec, Franjo Marušič,

Zvonimir Miloš e Alojš Valenčič)

na zastrelišču pri Bazovici


V četrtek 9. septembra ob 17 uri,

v dvorani Tessitori

Trg Oberdan 6


predavanje:


PRVI

EVROPSKI ODPOR


Govoril bo


Milan PAHOR

predsednik

Odbora za proslavo bazoviških junakov


organizirata

Tržaški antifašistični odbor


in

Deželna svetniška skupina Levica Mavrica

 


(srpskohrvatski / english.
Dalla SKOJ - organizzazione giovanile del Nuovo Partito Comunista di Jugoslavia, di tendenza cominformista (staliniana) - riceviamo il report dell'incontro delle organizzazioni giovanili comuniste europee - 25 le delegazioni - svoltosi a Belgrado per organizzare la partecipazione al prossimo Festival internazionale della gioventù e degli studenti che quest'anno si terrà in Sud Africa. Un report in lingua russa, corredato si alcune fotografie, è apparso anche sul sito della Lega Giovanile Comunista Rivoluzionaria (Bolscevica): http://rksmb.ru/get.php?3938 . Sullo stesso sito è presente anche una intervista al responsabile per i rapporti internazionali della SKOJ, Marijan Kubik, che qui riportiamo in lingua inglese.)


International communist youth meeting in Belgrade

1) SKOJ DOMAĆIN EVROPSKOG SAMITA KOMUNISTIČKE OMLADINE
2) Interview with Marijan Kubik about SKOJ and situation in Serbia


=== 1 ===


SKOJ DOMAĆIN EVROPSKOG SAMITA KOMUNISTIČKE OMLADINE
 
 
Trodnevna Konferencija koja se u Beogradu održala krajem jula i početkom avgusta predstavlja događaj od velikog međunarodnog značaja.
 
Centralna tema trodnevne konferencije evropskih komunističkih omladinskih organizacija bilo je održavanje 17-tog Svetskog festivala omladine i studenata koji se održava svake četiri godine u organizaciji Svetske federacije demokratske omladine – WFDY, koja je naslednica Kominističke omladinske internacionale-KOI i okuplja preko stotinu komunističkih i progresivnih organizacija iz celog sveta. Cilj je da se koordinarira i sinhronizuje rad svih evropskih komunističkih omladina na organizovanju značajnog događaja koji se ove godine održava u Južnoj Africi. Ovogodišnji festival će se održati od 13. do 21. decembra u zemlji bogate istorije borbe protiv aparthejda, kolevci istaknutog revolucionarnog borca Nelsona Mendele. Taj skup dobija poseban značaj pošto se obeležavaju godišnjice nezavisnosti više afričkih država: Namibije, Zimbabvea, Angole, Mozambika i Gvineje Bisao, datumi koje će se obeležiti u okviru festivala, na kome će se odati i priznanje Kubi na nesebičnoj pomoći koju je u duhu internacionalne solidarnosti pružila borbi za oslobođenje afričkog kontinenta. To će biti prvi put da Južna Afrika organizuje jedan veliki omladinski politički skup koji će okupiti progresivnu i antiimperijalističku omladinu sveta spremnu da izrazi svoje ubeđenje u nastavak borbe protiv imperijalizma. Mladi Južnoafrikanci u ovom trenutku vode svoju borbu za besplatno školovanje i zdravstvo, za nacionalizaciju prirodnih resursa i za poboljšanje uslova života čitavog siromašnog stanovništva koje je većim delom crnačko.
Festival će biti održan pod sloganom „Za svet mira, solidarnosti i društvenih promena, porazimo imperijalizam!“
 
Trodnevna Konferenciji u Beogradu je prisustvovalo više od 30 delegata iz 25 organizacija iz cele Evrope. Tokom trodnevnog skupa mladi komunisti raspravljali su o predstojećem Svetskom festivalu omladine i studenata ali su i u organizaciji NKPJ i SKOJ položili vence na spomenik ubijenim radnicima RTS-a u NATO agresiji i na Groblju oslobodilaca Beograda.
 
Omladina je uvek bila vitalna snaga razvoja svakog društva. Sa svojom prirodnom kreativnošću, voljom za promene i snagom, zahtevi omladine za slobodu, mir, obrazovanje, posao, demokratska prava i društvene promene, uvek su igrali značajnu ulogu u borbi za pravedniji svet. Dok imperijalizam nastoji da zavlada svetom, usred jedne od najdubljih strukturalnih kriza kapitalističkog sistema, odgovorne za pogoršanje stanja omladine i za rastući broj mladih bez posla, povećavaju se beneficije eksploatatorskih grupa naspram čega takođe raste broj ljudi koji pružaju otpor, bez straha od kazne, blokade i imperijalističke okupacije. U trenucima u kojima se povećava broj vojnih baza i takmičenje za osvajanje tržišta i prirodnih resursa, sa neumerenim povećanjem vojnih budžeta, Zemlja se pretvorila u veoma opasno mesto za život. Imperijalizam je svakog dana sve agresivniji prema progresivnim, demokratskim i komunističkim organizacijama, što zahteva od omladine pojačan napor u borbi za mir. Učestale provokacije protiv progresivnih vlada u Latinskoj Americi i na Karibima, proganjanje studentskih i omladinskih pokreta u Kolumbiji i u zemljama Istočne Evrope, izjednačavanje komunizma sa nacizmom, napadi na UJSARIO Zapadne Sahare, zločini protiv omladine i naroda Palestine koje vrši cionizam uz podršku imperijalizma, nastavak okupacije Kipra i Kosova, agresija na Irak i Avganistan, imperijalistički pritisci na DNR Koreju ugnjetavanje domorodačkih naroda su ključni elementi za razumevanje imperijalne strategije dominacije.
Svetski festival omladine i studenata se organizuje kako bi motivisao i ohrabrio milione mladih koji se bore za mirnu budućnost bez imperijalizma.
 
Za svet mira, solidarnosti i društvenih promena, porazimo imperijalizam! Snagom naroda protiv moći kapitala!
 
Sekretarijat SKOJ-a
3. avgust 2010. god


=== 2 ===

The original text, in russian, with photos:
Интервью с представителями Союза коммунистической молодёжи Югославии


Interview with member of the Secretariat of the New Communist Party of Yugoslavia and secretary for International Affairs of the League of Communist Yugoslav Youth (SKOJ) comrade Marijan Kubik (Mariyan Kubik) about SKOJ and situation in Serbia


Tell us briefly about the history of the organization. Which party inspires its political orientation?


The League of Communist Yugoslav Youth (SKOJ) was re-established on January 25, 1992 in Belgrade as the continuator of revolutionary traditions of the original SKOJ which emerged in 1919, and was abolished in 1948. SKOJ was revived in the form a youth organization of the New Communist Party of Yugoslavia (NKPJ), the only Marxist-Leninist party in the territory of the former Socialist Federative Republic of Yugoslavia, but it is also active as an independent political organization, therefore it is registered as such at the competent authorities. The SKOJ members make one third of the entire NKPJ membership. SKOJ is the only youth organization from this region which is registered as a member of the World Federation of Democratic Youth.


Which changes have your organization undergone in respect to the disintegration of Yugoslavia? You are active only in Serbia?


The Socialist Federative Republic of Yugoslavia (SFRY) did not disintegrate, as some people argue and try to prove it. It is violently thrown and broken up. The collapse of SFRY was perpetrated by Western imperialism. The easiest way for removal of socialism in our country was inspiration of ethnic conflicts that led to a local bloody, fratricidal war. In their anti-Yugoslav operation, the Western capitalists profusely used the services of separatist and nationalistic governments. SKOJ will be putting a word for the restoration based on voluntary, equal and mutually useful principles of the union of all Yugoslav nations and national minorities in the territory of the entire former Yugoslavia. In accordance with such endeavors, SKOJ has members in all Republics of the former Yugoslavia.


How would you describe your relations with Communists and Komsomol members in Croatia and other former Yugoslav Republics?


Our relations with youth communist and labor organizations in the territory of the former Yugoslavia with whom we share the same ideals and pursuits are marked by respect and solidarity. The common pursuits and actions were confirmed during this year’s regional meeting held in Belgrade on July 30.


It has been more then 10 years now since the NATO aggression against Yugoslavia. Do the Serbian people still remember this aggression? What do people think about it?


Between 24 March and 11 June 1999, the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and its 12 million inhabitants were faced with the ruthless attack of the strongest military force in the world. Bearing in mind the human potential of the aggressor countries 764 million inhabitants, the ratio was 1:70. The territorial ratio was 1:234, and economic power 1:676. A comparison of the military might is hard to set, due to the complete qualitative and quantitative disproportion. In the NATO aggression on FR Yugoslavia, nearly 27.000 sorties, were made. More than 8.200 involved the use of weaponry.. About 2.300 strikes were carried out against 995 sites ("targets") in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. A significant number of infrastructure facilities have been destroyed, more than 50 bridges were demolished The Serbian Broadcasting Corp (RTS) Building in the heart of Belgrade was bombed, causing the death of 17 RTS employees. The Novi Sad Radio-Television building was also destroyed, as well as several other electronic when the "Usce" business tower in Belgrade was targeted. 37 radio and TV relay towers and broadcasting facilities have been bombed. The telephone-telecommunication installations throughout the country were also raided. The list includes the TV tower on Mt. Avala, relay towers on Mt. Kopaonik, Mt. Jastrebac and Mt. Cer, the "Prilike" satellite station near Ivanjica, and the post office buildings in Uzice and Pristina. The aggressor planes bombed 53 medical facilities, and direct hits or aftereffects of bombing damaged or destroyed more than 300 preschool facilities, schools and tourism facilities. the "Dr. Dragisa Misovic" Hospital, the Surdulica Health Center, the Nis Clinical Center, the "Marija Bursac" elementary school in Belgrade, the elementary schools in Resnik, Batajnica and Rakovica, the "Jugoslavija" Hotel in Belgrade and the "Baciste" Hotel on Mt. Kopaonik are just a few examples of what the military structures pharisaically called legitimate military objective or collateral damage. The history of warfare will also mark the bombing of the embassy of PR China in Belgrade, when three Chinese citizens were killed. The overall damage to the economy and infrastructure is estimated at 100 billion dollars In the aggression on FR Yugoslavia, NATO breached dozens of international conventions, amongst others the convention on damages caused by oil pollution, on benzol poisoning, on the prevention of cancer risks, on transborder air-pollution over great distances, on the ozone layer protection, on the preservation of flora and fauna... Out of the 1.200 civilians killed 30 per cent were children, and out of the 5.000 wounded, as much as 40 per cent were the small ones. NATO aggression over FRY was imperialistic attack. The goal of western imperialists was very clear; they want to bring occupation troops on territories of Kosovo and Metohija. The least we can do is not to join, ten years later, the union whose war tactic rested at forcing Serbia into capitulation through making as much collateral damage as possible.


What position Serbia’s current government holds in relation to such events?


In 2006 Serbia was admitted to the Partnership for Peace Programme. In his speech at the session of the North Atlantic Union, the Serbian President Boris Tadic said that the admission of Serbia to the Partnership for Peace is only the first step which would culminate by the entire integration of the region into NATO. He marked the admission to the Partnership for Peace as the commencement of a new chapter in history of democratic freedoms in the South-East Europe. SKOJ acts in opposition to such policy. Neither Partnership for Peace nor NATO is place for Serbia.


Is it possible to talk about the Europeanization of Serbia? How strong is the impact of mass culture in contemporary Serbian society?


The advocacy of the European Union is evident at every step in Serbia. The accession to the European Union is presented as the final solution of all problems in Serbia, and each problem is interpreted as a consequence of the fact that Serbia is not in EU. Whoever is against EU is labeled as backward by the pro-imperialist bourgeois Serbian regime.


Is Serbia planning to join the EU? What is the attitude of its government in that regard? What do people think of such an idea?


In December 2009, the Serbian Government submitted the official application for EU membership. The opinions of Serbian citizens are strongly divided due to the heavy pressures by EU as well as the enormous propaganda whose purpose is acceleration of Serbia’s admission to an imperialist organization. SKOJ expressly opposes Serbia’s accession to EU. Let us only remember the EU’s role during the bloody fratricidal civil war in the territory of Yugoslavia the direct inspirer of which was EU itself backed by the imperialist United States of America and NATO. EU’s aim is not unification of nations, but the absolute liberalization within economic sphere which should ensure extra profits for the financial oligarchy which in collaboration with USA and NATO implements the imperialist politics all over the world. There is no doubt that the EU’s expansion towards the East should only enable the Western bourgeoisie to extend its markets for the sake of exploitation as well as to provide maximal protection of the invested capital in harmony with the laws dictated by the EU itself, whereby it gains enormous profit and profusely employs cheap and rightless labor force. The all capitalist “reforms” in Serbia, carried out on its “European path”, and similar “reforms” carried out in the former European socialist countries made us regress to the period of the bandit-like original accumulation of capital, transforming the economy into the peripheral workshops of multinational companies that sweep away, in the atmosphere of unequal powers and discriminating conditions, billions of Euros of profit to the imperialist West. Today, more than ever before, Serbia is in the firm hands of the foreign capital. The major part of the gross domestic product accounts for the private sector which is absolutely dominated by the Western capital. SKOJ does not call for closing, isolation and confrontation but for equal and mutually useful cooperation accompanied by mutual respect.

The perspective that the Communists offer is not the Europe united on the capitalist bases, but democratic, freedom-loving, SOCIALIST EUROPE.


What is your attitude in regard of the problem of Kosovo? What are the prospects for resolving this problem?


One of the most complex causes of today’s Kosovo drama stems from the impaired international relations provoked by domination of the USA after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Those nations who live in Kosovo must independently decide on all issues related to economic, cultural, political and social development. After the armory aggression against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia NATO troops came to Kosovo and built the biggest military base in Europe – Bondsteel. During the NATO bombing, American airplanes discharged to the territory of Kosovo about ten millions of impoverished uranium. According to Pristina journal “Ekspres”, Kosovo took over the leading position in the region in regard of the number of cancer-caused deaths, since around 5,000 people annually dies of cancer due to the increased radioactivity, which is tree times more than it was the case before the war. What illustrates the seriousness of this problem with impoverished uranium is the fact that out of 225 Italian soldiers who took part in the KFOR mission, 45 of them died of malign diseases, whereas 25 of them got children with genetic abnormalities. About 73 percent of working population is unemployed, and more than a half of the unemployed is under 35. Kosovo and Metohija produce almost three times less electric power than before 1999. Factories almost do not operate at all, or utilize only 10 percent of its capacities. The major problems of Kosovo are organized crime and corruption as well as endangered state of human rights. The major industries are in hands of the NATO occupier which freely disposes of and collect profit from what was created in the best interest of the peoples of Kosovo Metohija in the last five decades. The current occupation is not in the long-term and real interests of the peoples of Kosovo and Metohija, it is only in the interest of imperialist-expansionist goals of NATO. The goals of various international “peace” committees’ policies is further intensification of the existing state on basis of the principle “divide and conquer”. Peace, unity and progress of all Balkan nations are possible only if the imperialism leaves the historical-political scene. Peace, unity and progress of all Balkan nations will be possible only when the imperialist domination, guided by the dictum “divide and conquer” gives way to the unity of working people of the Balkans, their resistance and collapse of the imperialist, neocolonial gives. SKOJ is of the opinion that Kosovo and Metohija are integral part of Serbia which is occupied by the Western imperialism. Therefore, SKOJ demands that the occupation NATO troops leave Kosovo and Metohija.


Does your organization operate in Kosovo?


SKOJ and NKPJ have their members on Kosovo. There are Albanians among them as well. Many of them were the victims of repression due to their pro-Yugoslav orientation in the last two decades.


What is the role of the Church today, is it progressive or reactionary?


Serbian Orthodox Church in this moment is primarily recognizable as a dominant political force in continual partnership with power structures. It is part of what ecclesiastical history identifies as ‘the union between throne and altar’. The Church is present today in all pores of the public life. The leadership of the Serbian Orthodox Church supported in 2000 the opposition in its fight against Milosevic, it has the decisive impact on introduction of religious teaching at school, and it has its representatives in the Republic Broadcasting Agency. The Serbian Orthodox Church belongs to circle of conservative societies, it is traditionally fused with the state government and it spent ages praying for the emperor, and obeying the Emperor. Accordingly the Serbian Orthodox Church does not have a single answer to the global-scale contemporary problems which it can provide as an official church. The Serbian Orthodox Church, that used to be reputed for ages as a poor church in terms of material resources, for the first time in its history is not poor, and is exposed to numerous financial scandals and corruption. Bourgeois political structures in Serbia accepted the Church wholeheartedly as a pillar of its power and the Church decided to play along. Today the Serbian Orthodox Church defends the quisling chetnik movement, presenting it as a victim of Communism. In 2003, the Serbian Orthodox Church canonized Bishop Nikolaj Velimirovic. This canonization was carried out on the basis of a purely political principle: Nikolaj Velimirović was an ideologist of the movement of Dimitrije Ljotic who openly, with riffle in his hands, was fighting four years on the Nazi’s side in Serbia. When in April 1945 Hitler committed suicide, Velimirovic still called for the “fight against plutocratic West, Jews and masons”. His books contain the most drastic anti-Semitic references. Not only was he a chauvinist and anti-Communist but an ardent follower of Nazis as well. For instance, Nikolaj Velimirovic said the following about Hitler: “Nevertheless, we must give full credit to the present German leader who as a common craftsman and one of the ordinary people realized that the nationalism without religion is an abnormality, a cold and frail mechanism. Now in the 20th century, he came to the idea of Saint Sava, and although an amateur he undertook the most important action for a nation, an action that befits only saints, geniuses and heroes”.


How does once ruling party - the Socialist Party of Serbia - look now? How would you describe its political course?


In July the Socialist Party of Serbia (SPS) celebrated two decades of its operation. After having spent three years and a half in opposition after the fall of Slobodan Milosevic in 2000, in 2004 socialists supported the minority government of Vojislav Kostunica, and after the parliamentary elections in 2008, it became part of the present government. The President of SPS is the first Deputy Prime Minister and the Minister of Internal Affairs, and the Party has three ministers in the government: for infrastructure, energy and mining, and education. The President of Serbia and Democratic Party Boris Tadić congratulated the Socialist Party of Serbia on “the first 20 years” and wished to this Party unlimited duration. Tadić said that the historical compromise between the Democratic Party and the Socialist Party of Serbia rests at his agreement with the SPS leader Ivica Dačić in regard of Serbia’a membership in the European Union. SKOJ does not approve the political agenda that SPS has been pursuing since it joined the government formed by the pro-imperialist parties headed by the Democratic Party. At the moment SKOJ does not make any essential difference between the activities of the Socialist Party of Serbia and pro-imperialist parties headed by the Democratic Party.


Relations between Serbia and Russia?


Since 1948 and the clash between Tito and Stalin, constant reminding about the threat of so-called Soviet occupation was in full force. Such a politics was further continued by the pro-imperialist opposition from the 1990s, i.e. current government which is entirely West-oriented. Nevertheless, people believe that the positive changes in Russia will lead to changes in Serbia which will radically transform the present situation.


Can you extend some wishes to the Russian young communists?


Dear comrades, on behalf of the League of the Communist Yugoslav Youth – SKOJ, I wish to extend combative, revolutionary greetings and best wishes for new victories. The temporary collapse of socialism in Europe in the 1990s for a moment stopped the progress of our planet; however, thanks to the communists from all over the world and socialist countries, the success of the capitalist globalization was only temporary. We are convinced that that the wild anticommunism will not terminate our struggle for socialism, but, on the contrary, will only help us unite even more and lead us to the final victory.


http://rksmb.ru/





(srpskohrvatski / italiano)

CILIEGINA POSITIVA

Una società ferroviaria comune tra Serbia, Croazia e Slovenia, che allegerirà notevolmente il trasporto delle merci sul Corridoio 10, inizierà con il suo lavoro il 9 settembre.
Senza alcun investimento nella infrastruttura, il trasporto da Lubiana fino ad Istanbul sarà più veloce, ed invece delle attuali 65 ore durerà 40-45 ore lungo il Corridoio 10 da Lubiana, via Zagabria, Belgrado e Nis, in direzione di Dimitrovgrad e Vranje.
Una parte dell'attuale carico di 7000 convogli che passano sul Corridoio 4, che si trova in condizioni molto più difficili, attraversando Ungheria, Romania e Bulgaria, sicuramente sarà spostata sul nuovo (o, per meglio meglio dire, vecchio) tragitto. Attualmente, lungo il percorso del Corridoio 10, passano soltanto un migliaio di treni merci. Se solo 2000 treni si spostassero sul tragitto che passa da Lubiana, Zagabria, Belgrado e verso il sud e sud-est, i tre Stati coinvolti in questa joint-venture aumenterebbero già notevolmente l'afflusso di redditi in valuta. Speriamo bene, auguri!

Zajedničko železničko preduzeće Srbije, Hrvatske i Slovenije, koje će značajno smanjiti vreme transporta robe na Koridoru 10, počeće s radom 9. septembra, najavio je ministar za infrastrukturu Milutin Mrkonjić.

„U Beogradu će 8. septembra biti završni sastanak i već 9. septembra imaćemo potpisan sporazum o formiranju zajedničkog preduzeća, koje će početi da radi istog dana sa sedištem u Ljubljani”, izjavio je Mrkonjić Tanjugu i dodao da bi

prvi voz zajedničkog preduzeća trebalo da počne da saobraća tokom septembra.

On je objasnio da će, bez ikakvih ulaganja u infrastrukturu, transport robe od Ljubljane do Istambula time biti skraćen sa sadašnjih 65, na 40 do 45 sati.

Mrkonjić je kazao da ga je ministar saobraćaja Slovenije Patrik Vlačić obavestio da su i makedonske i crnogorske železnice zainteresovane da budu partneri u tom projektu.

„Oni neće ući u naše zajedničko preduzeće, jer nisu na tom koridoru, ali će kao partneri sarađivati sa našim preduzećem, što je pravi primer regionalne saradnje”, rekao je srpski ministar.

On je objasnio da je osnovna ideja da Koridor 10 - od Ljubljane, preko Zagreba, Beograda i Niš ka Dimitrovgradu i Vranju - preuzme deo transporta koji sada ide Koridorom 4, preko Mađarske, Rumunije i Bugarske, u daleko težim uslovima.

„Danas Koridorom 4 ide 7.000 vozova, a Koridorom 10 oko 1.000 i ako bismo uspeli da privučemo samo još 2.000 vozova na Koridor 10, Srbija, Hrvatska i Slovenija bi značajno uvećale neto devizni priliv”, istakao je ministar.

Mrkonjić je kazao da je u Srbiji već postignut dogovor između četiri ministarstva - unutrašnjih poslova, za infrastrukturu, poljoprivredu i finansije - da se skrate sve carinske, policijske, infrastrukturne i fitopatološke procedure na granici, kako bi se vozovi što manje zadržavali.

Generalni direktor „Železnica Srbije” Milovan Marković je izjavio Tanjugu da će, kroz zajedničko železničko preduzeće, železnice Srbije, Hrvatske i Slovenije ostvariti veće prihode.

„To je velika šansa da povećamo obim rada, skratimo vreme transporta i ponudimo kvalitetniju uslugu našim klijentima”, objasnio je Marković.

On je kazao da „Železnice Srbije” očekuju da će narednih dana dobiti od Slovenije predlog osnivačkog akta o zajedničkom preduzeću i da će tada biti poznato kako će se prihod deliti.

„Ukoliko neko neopravdano izazove kašnjenje, dugo zadržavanje vozova, to će ići na teret te železničke upave, što i prema međunarodnim ugovorima predviđa određene penale”, rekao je Marković.

On je istakao da je ideja o zajedničkom preduzeću često u prošlosti pokretana, ali da nikada nije došlo do potpisivanja konkretnog dogovora.

„Srpske železnice su danas potpuno spremne za osnivanje zajedničkog preduzeća”, zaključio je Marković i dodao da „naši partneri u poslu, železničke uprave Hrvatske i Slovenije, znaju čime mi raspolažemo” i da smo „ušli u ovaj projekat sa preciznim procenama ko šta može da uradi”.

Tanjug
objavljeno: 21/08/2010



Il Coordinamento Nazionale per la Jugoslavia - onlus aderisce al

PRESIDIO ANTIFASCISTA 
Contro la Fondazione R.S.I. con sede alla Cicogna - Terranuova Bracciolini 

che si terrà SABATO 11 Settembre dalle ore 10 alle 13 in piazza della Repubblica a Terranuova Bracciolini (AR). 

Il Dossier sulla Fondazione R.S.I. si può scaricare da internet:

<< La presenza di questa sede nel nostro territorio, una valle bagnata da eccidi sanguinari, riapre una ferita ancora non defiitavamente chiusa. FACCIAMOLA CHIUDERE!!! 25 APRILE TUTTO L'ANNO! LA RESISTENZA CONTINUA! CHIUDIAMO I COVI FASCISTI IN VALDARNO E IN TOSCANA 

CAAT - AREZZO 
Per adesioni: caataretino@... 
Prime adesioni: COLLETTIVO BUJANOV,COLLETTIVO DUSAN BORDON, COLLETTIVO LICIO NENCETTI, PARTITO COMUNISTA DEI LAVORATORI TOSCANA, FEDERAZIONE DELLA SINISTRA AREZZO, ASSEMBLEA POPOLARE DI RIGNANO ANTIFASCISTA, POPOLO VIOLA AREZZO, RETE DEI COMUNISTI AREZZO E PISA, CAAT SIENA, SEL AREZZO, P-CARC FEDERAZIONE TOSCANA, LA SINISTRA PER SAN GIOVANNI, GRUPPO CONSILIARE LA SINISTRA PER SAN GIOVANNI, GRUPPO CONSILIARE SINISTRA AL COMUNE DI AREZZO,CPA FI_SUD, CIRCOLO ANARCHICO FIORENTINO DI VIA DEI CONCIATORI. Con il sostegno di: ANPI VALDARNO >>



Sulla strumentalizzazione e falsificazione dei fatti di Srebrenica si veda anche la documentazione raccolta alla pagina:

The original version of the following article, in english, can be read at: 


Srebrenica 15 ans après : Instrumentalisation du « Génocide »





Edward S. Herman


C’est désormais un rituel, tous les ans, au mois de juillet, on commémore le fameux « massacre de Srebrenica », qui remonte au 11-16 juillet 1995. Selon la version définitivement instituée, « huit mille hommes et jeunes garçons musulmans bosniaques » furent alors exécutés sommairement par les Serbes, « le plus épouvantable massacre de masse commis en Europe depuis la fin de la Seconde Guerre mondiale ».


Cet événement est mondialement commémoré chaque année par des marches silencieuses – et en Bosnie, par « le cortège éploré des familles des victimes », interviewées pour l’occasion – puis par des débats, des conférences et une pléthore d’articles, de reportages, de déclarations officielles de diplomates et de représentants politiques, rappelant les faits et exprimant leurs regrets concernant la prétendue responsabilité des grandes puissances, de l’ONU et des Casques Bleus hollandais, qui n’auraient rien fait pour empêcher le massacre. Cette année (2010), le président serbe lui-même, Boris Tadic, était présent, affichant le visage contrit de la Nouvelle Serbie (défaite et suppliante). Le président Obama parla d’une « tache sur notre mémoire collective », en violation du « plus jamais ça » promis suite aux atrocités nazies de la Seconde Guerre mondiale, et déclara solennellement : « Il ne peut y avoir de paix durable sans justice »1.
 
La démarche qui consiste à focaliser chaque année l’attention du public sur cette tragédie-là plutôt qu’une autre mérite toutefois quelques explications. Après tout, on ne connaît pas d’équivalent dans le monde occidental d’une pareille commémoration pour le massacre de plusieurs milliers de Palestiniens à Sabra et Shatila en septembre 1982, bien que ce soit là des civils qui furent massacrés, alors que les musulmans tués à Srebrenica étaient presque exclusivement des hommes en âge de porter les armes et principalement des soldats. De même, à peine un mois après Srebrenica, les forces croates ont envahi la province majoritairement serbe de Krajina, où elles ont massacré des milliers de personnes, dont des centaines de femmes et d’enfants, et où elles ont contraint à l’exode quelques 250 000 Serbes originaires de la région. Cette opération aura été le nettoyage ethnique le plus massif de toutes les guerres des Balkans. Curieusement, non seulement cet épisode ne fait l’objet d’aucune commémoration annuelle, mais il est même célébré en Croatie comme « Fête Nationale de la Victoire ». Les représentants de l’Union Européenne et le président Obama n’en expriment pas pour autant plus de compassion à la mémoire des victimes serbes qu’ils ne s’indignent du cynisme avec lequel les Croates fêtent ostensiblement leur victorieux nettoyage ethnique. Certes, Madeleine Albright condamna bien les expulsions de Krajina devant le Conseil de Sécurité des Nations Unies, le 10 août 1995, mais elle s’indigna davantage des « 13 000 hommes, femmes et enfants chassés de chez eux » à Srebrenica2. Datée du 15 janvier 2009, une résolution du Parlement Européen institutionnalise désormais officiellement la « journée de commémoration du génocide de Srebrenica » et rappelle « la déportation de milliers de femmes, d’enfants et de vieillards » loin de Srebrenica, mais à aucun moment elle ne condamne la déportation de 250 000 Serbes hors de Krajina ni n’en demande qu’elle soit mondialement commémorée3.
 
Cette indignation sélective est bien sûr éminemment politique. Les massacres de Sabra et Shatila de même que le nettoyage ethnique de la Krajina ont été perpétrés par des alliés des USA, le second bénéficiant même ouvertement du soutien US – bien qu’Albright l’ait catégoriquement nié devant le Conseil de Sécurité4, instance qui avalise ou rejette toute citation ou commémoration officielle (parl’establishment occidental), et toute demande de justice internationale. Le massacre de Srebrenica était au contraire imputable à un pays qui était dans la ligne de mire des USA et de L’OTAN, il a d’ailleurs été déclenché au moment le plus opportun possible et s’est avéré depuis extrêmement utile. Il a notamment permis de justifier l’intervention militaire des USA et de l’OTAN, et en particulier leur bombardement de la Serbie et du Kosovo demars à juin 1999, puis leur durable occupation militaire du Kosovo. Enfin il a permis de parachever le démantèlement complet de l’ex-Yougoslavie. Le rôle de Srebrenica dans la diabolisation des Serbes a en outre permis de justifier l’interdiction faite aux dirigeants serbes de Bosnie de prendre part aux négociations de paix de Dayton, puis pour finir, en s’appuyant sur le Tribunal Pénal International pour l’ex-Yougoslavie (TPIY : institué et sponsorisé par les pays de l’OTAN), de légitimer l’arrestation, la détention, la mise en examen et enfin l’élimination physique de Milosevic5. Il permettait du même coup d’humilier la Serbie afin de pouvoir la traiter de facto en vaincue, un acte de pure vengeance pour avoir osé résister à la projection des puissances occidentales dans les Balkans après la fin du bloc de l’Est – à l’instar des 18 années d’embargo qui sanctionnèrent la résistance du Vietnam à l’invasion américaine et au maintien d’un régime satellite supplémentaire à l’autre bout du monde. Pour autant, dans l’esprit d’une majorité d’occidentaux médiatiquement décérébrés, Srebrenica montre clairement combien les interventions militaires occidentales peuvent être bénéfiques – si le génocide ne fut pas stoppé net, au moins l’Occident sut-il rendre justice aux méchants pour leurs crimes. La commémoration annuelle du « génocide de Srebrenica » est désormais là pour nous rappeler sempiternellement la dimension humanitaire de cette intervention militaire occidentale.
 
Bien sûr 8 000 morts ce n’est pas rien, mais 250 000 déportés ce n’est pas rien non plus, pour ne rien dire de la réponse de Madeleine Albright au sujet des 500 000 enfants irakiens qui payèrent de leur vie le régime des « sanctions de destruction massive » mis en place et maintenu plus d’une décennie par les USA : du point de vue des objectifs politiques américains, « ça en vaut la peine ! » avait-elle déclaré [« We think the price is worth it ! »]. Et que dire de ce mémorandum confidentiel de septembre 1994, à l’attention du Secrétaire d’Etat Warren Christopher, cité dans The Politics of Genocide6, et qui indiquait que, selon le HCR, les forces [tutsies] de Kagame massacraient alors au Rwanda quelques 10 000 civils Hutus par mois ? Ce n’est pas rien non plus mais les USA n’en ont pour autant jamais cessé de soutenir Kagame. Les médias et les « interventionnistes humanitaires » n’en ont jamais fait étalage et Kagame n’en est pas moins exclu de la longue liste des dirigeants africains (une quinzaine au total) poursuivis par la Cour Pénale Internationale. Et bien évidemment, il n’y a ni mémorial ni journée commémorative à la mémoire de toutes ces victimes sans intérêt et les Occidentaux n’exigent nullement que justice leur soit rendue, au contraire.
 
Mais cette sélectivité mise à part, il y a aussi un problème de justesse, concernant ces 8 000 morts de Srebrenica. Pendant toutes les guerres des Balkans c’était un flux interrompu de chiffres gonflés, parfois monstrueusement gonflés concernant l’origine et le nombre des victimes. A partir de 1993, les chiffres improbables mais invérifiables de 2 à 300 000 victimes musulmanes avancés par les musulmans bosniaques, furent instantanément répercutés et institués dans les médias occidentaux sans vérification aucune. Deux études, l’une était commanditée par le TPIY lui-même et l’autre par le gouvernement norvégien, invalidèrent pourtant totalement ces chiffres en convergeant au final sur un total de 100 000 morts pour l’ensemble du conflit bosniaque, tous adversaires confondus, soldats inclus7. Cette révision à la baisse ne filtra que très progressivement dans les médias, lesquels se dispensèrent toujours de s’expliquer ou de s’excuser pour de pareils écarts. De même, au moment de la campagne de bombardements du Kosovo, de mars à juin 1999, le nombre de morts imputés aux forces serbes grimpa jusqu’à 500 000 dans les déclarations de responsables américains. Les dénonciations et l’indignation des chefs de la diplomatie ou des médias occidentaux tenaient littéralement de l’hystérie. En fin de compte, le chiffre officiel retomba à 11 000, mais le cumul total des corps retrouvés et des disparus, militaires inclus, était d’à peine plus de la moitié, soit environ 6 000 morts8. Les médias n’en utilisèrent pas moins 323 fois le terme de « génocide » pour décrire ce qu’avaient alors subi les Albano-Kosovars, tandis qu’ils n’y eurent recours que 80 fois au sujet des sanctions de destruction de masse (qui firent pourtant 200 fois plus de morts) et 17 fois au sujet des victimes des exactions commises en République Démocratique du Congo (lesquelles firent plus de 1 000 fois plus de morts)9. Chiffres gonflés et dénonciation de « génocide » pour les victimes dignes d’intérêt (soit celles des adversaires des USA) ; traitement minoré et éviction de termes tels que génocide pour les victimes indignes d’intérêt (à savoir celles des USA eux-mêmes ou de leurs clients).
 
L’idée du massacre à Srebrenica de « 8 000 hommes et jeunes garçons » froidement abattus par les Serbes est partie à l’époque d’allégations de la Croix Rouge au sujet du nombre de disparus en juillet-août 1995, alors qu’aucune donnée chiffrée n’était encore disponible10. Miracle de coïncidence et de persistance, aujourd’hui encore c’est toujours ce même chiffre qui sert de référence. En fait, ce total de 8 000 morts est même désormais évoqué comme une possible sous-estimation : la Résolution de l’UE du 15 janvier 2009 par exemple parle de « plus de 8 000 morts » et c’est loin d’être un cas isolé. Rappelons au passage que les premières estimations du nombre de victimes des attentats du 11 septembre à New York, faisaient état de 6 886 morts. Ce chiffre retomba ensuite à 2 749 morts, soit un déclin de 60%. Pour la première guerre des Balkans, le nombre de musulmans bosniaques tués par les Serbes tomba lui de 250 000 en 1992-93 à moins de 100 000 aujourd’hui, soit une diminution de plus de 60%. Pour la seconde, le nombre d’Albano-Kosovars prétendument exterminés par les Serbes au Kosovo au moment des bombardements de 1999, oscillait entre 100 et 250 000 et monta même jusqu’à 500 000 dans les déclarations de certains représentants US. Il retomba ensuite à un chiffre officiel (toujours exagéré) de 11 000, soit une chute de plus de 90%. Mais pour Srebrenica, le total resta toujours invariablement le même. Non qu’il repose sur quoi que ce soit de solide, mais parce qu’il étaye une construction politique si cruciale et indispensable que les représentants de l’establishment n’ont eu de cesse de le rabâcher constamment depuis avec l’assurance des vrais croyants.
 
Si l’on est arrivé à ce chiffre de 8 000 morts, c’est notamment parce que pour dresser la liste des victimes, on avait à l’époque appelé la population musulmane bosniaque à se présenter avec les noms des personnes disparues. Là encore, toujours par le même miracle, cette liste compte toujours 8 000 noms aujourd’hui. Elle n’a pourtant aucune base scientifique et l’on s’est aperçu depuis que certains hommes de cette liste étaient morts avant juillet 1995. Un certain nombre d’autres ont semble-t-il voté aux élections de 1996 et le nombre total n’a été confirmé par aucune documentation médico-légale. En 2001, après six ans de recherches, le TPIY n’avait localisé que 2 100 corps dans les environs de Srebrenica, dont bien peu avaient été identifiés ou attestés comme ceux de victimes des événements de 199511. Concernant les fosses, d’autres découvertes plus tardives se sont également avérées problématiques. Depuis le début, un problème de base était que les combats ayant opposé les forces serbes au 25e régiment musulman bosniaque (plusieurs milliers d’hommes qui avaient finalement quitté Srebrenica pour se replier sur leurs lignes aux alentours du 11 juillet 1995), avaient été particulièrement rudes. Les responsables serbes comme musulmans estimaient que plus de 2 000 soldats musulmans, voire davantage, avaient été tués dans l’offensive. Ainsi, témoignant au procès de Radislav Krstic, le Général Enver Hadzihasanovic, Chef d’Etat-major des forces musulmanes bosniaques, déclara-t-il pouvoir « affirmer que 2 628 soldats et officiers de la 28e Division avaient été tués » au cours de cette retraite12. D’après une analyse des rapports d’autopsie réunis entre 1995 et 2002 par l’expert médico-légal Ljubisa Simic pour le bureau du procureur du TPIY, pour près de 77% des corps sur lesquels portaient ces rapports, soit il était impossible de déterminer la « manière de mourir » (exécution, combat, autre), soit celle-ci suggérait fortement que la victime avait été tuée au combat13. Mais l’impossibilité de trancher avec certitude en la matière demeurait extrêmement commode car, grâce à la complaisance des médias, du TPYI et des responsables d’investigations musulmans bosniaques, tous les corps pouvaient être considérés comme étant ceux de personnes froidement exécutées.
 
Que plusieurs centaines d’hommes aient été exécutés dans les parages de Srebrenica en juillet 1995 ne fait aucun doute, car on a retrouvé dans les fosses 443 cadavres aux mains liées et « au moins » 448 avaient les yeux bandés14. Mais il n’existe aucune preuve sérieuse que davantage de musulmans bosniaques aient été exécutés à Srebrenica qu’il n’y eut de civils tués par les forces croates au cours de l’Opération Storm et du mois qui suivit. Il est clair que dans cette bataille les Serbes de Bosnie étaient d’humeur vengeresse car la « zone sécurisée » de Srebrenica était de longue date un sanctuaire des forces musulmanes bosniaques, d’où elles lançaient régulièrement leurs attaques contre les villes et villages serbes des alentours. Un grand nombre d’entre eux avaient fait les frais de ces attaques qui firent en quelques années des milliers de victimes, avant juillet 199515. Nacer Oric, qui commandait les forces musulmanes bosniaques pendant toute cette période se vantait d’ailleurs ouvertement de ces massacres devant les journalistes occidentaux, leur montrant même des vidéos de décapitations et claironnant qu’au cour d’un seul de ces raids, 144 Serbes avaient été tués16. Quelle aubaine cela aurait été pour le TPIY si de pareils aveux et de telles vidéos avaient pu être produits contre Karadzic, Mladic ou Milosevic ! Mais vu qu’ils ne permettaient d’accuser que le défenseur présumé d’une population victime, les crimes d’Oric n’intéressaient personne. Le général Morillon, qui avait commandé les forces de l’ONU dans la région de Srebrenica, avait pourtant témoigné devant le TPIY que selon lui, la brutalité des Serbes dans cette zone de combats s’expliquait largement par la violence dont les musulmans bosniaques d’Oric avait fait preuve avant juillet 1999. Mais cet aspect du contexte n’est évoqué nulle part, ni dans la résolution de l’Union Européenne de janvier 2009, ni dans les discours et analyses relatant le drame de Srebrenica aux commémorations de juillet 2010.
 
Un autre aspect de l’occultation du contexte apparaît dans la manière dont on s’en est pris au contingent de maintien de la paix déployé par l’ONU à Srebrenica, pour leur incapacité à empêcher le massacre. On les a même traînés en justice aux Pays Bas pour leur prétendue complicité passive avec les forces serbes17. Cette facette de la commémoration annuelle repose sur un empilement de mensonges et de représentations biaisées. La résolution de l’UE de janvier 2009 rappelle deux fois de suite que Srebrenica était une « zone protégée » en vertu d’une disposition du Conseil de Sécurité et que « hommes et jeunes garçons de confession musulmane avaient cherché refuge dans cette enclave sous l’égide » des forces de protection de l’ONU, de sorte que le massacre « demeure un symbole de l’impotence de la communauté internationale ». Ce que la résolution de l’UE prend soin de ne pas rappeler c’est que ladite zone protégée était supposée être une zone démilitarisée mais ne l’était pas le moins du monde. Naser Oric et ses cadres militaires n’avaient jamais été désarmés et de nombreux raids sur les villages serbes environnants avaient été lancés précisément depuis cette « zone protégée ». En outre, il s’avère qu’en juillet 1995, plusieurs milliers de soldats lourdement armés du 25e régiment musulman bosniaque avaient pris position dans la ville. De fait, ici, la résolution de l’UE n’est pas simplement erronée mais délibérément mensongère : premièrement en ce qu’elle passe sous silence la fonction réelle de la « zone protégée » (assurer la protection d’une base militaire pleinement opérationnelle des musulmans bosniaques), mais surtout parce qu’en affirmant que « hommes et jeunes garçons de confession musulmane avaient trouvé refuge » à Srebrenica, elle sous-entend qu’il s’agissait de civils, et non du 25e régiment musulman bosniaque. Mais elle contient d’autres mensonges encore, notamment au sujet du « viol d’un très grand nombre de femmes », une allégation qui n’a jamais reposé sur le plus petit élément de preuve. De sorte qu’en lieu et place de « l’impotence de la communauté internationale », ce qui apparaît c’est bel et bien la complicité de la « communauté internationale » avec Naser Oric, les musulmans bosniaques et leurs stratégies militaires, leur nettoyage ethnique et leurs provocations des forces armées serbes, mais ce qui apparaît aussi parallèlement, c’est le refus des gouvernements occidentaux d’envisager une issue pacifique à ce conflit, refus qui s’exprime dans leur sabotage systématique du traité de Lisbonne de 1992 et de tous les plans de paix élaborés par la suite18.
 
Le fait qu’un régiment de plusieurs milliers d’hommes lourdement armés se soit trouvé dans Srebrenica et se soit subitement replié littéralement sans dresser aucune ligne de défense face à une force d’à peine 200 hommes, montre à quel point les accusations portées contre les 69 hommes du contingent hollandais de maintien de la paix, équipés d’un armement léger, sont aussi ridicules que malhonnêtes. Pourquoi ne pas tenir plutôt les musulmans bosniaques qui ordonnèrent ce repli pour responsables des morts qu’il eut pour conséquence autour de Srebrenica ? Dans l’esprit de la commémoration, mais surtout des pratiques et de l’idéologie sur lesquelles elle repose19, dès lors que les musulmans bosniaques ne peuvent être présentés que comme des victimes, l’UE et le petit contingent de casques bleus de la « zone protégée » ne sauraient avoir été complices de leurs crimes et pour enfoncer le clou, peuvent bien être suspectés de complicité passive avec les criminels serbes.
 
Autre mythe du mémorial de Srebrenica, l’idée que la commémoration elle-même et les actions politiques qui y sont associées sont indispensables à une paix durable. Dans la formulation de la résolution de l’UE : « Il ne peut y avoir de paix véritable sans justice ». En d’autres termes, Mladic doit comparaître devant le TPIY, et cette comparution est essentielle pour la « réconciliation », afin que « les civils, de quelque ethnie qu’ils soient, puissent dépasser les tensions du passé ». Et pour les milliers de Serbes tués au cours des raids lancés entre 1992 et juillet 1995 depuis la « zone protégée » de Srebrenica sous égide de l’ONU, ou pour les 250 000 autres expulsés hors de Krajina au cours de l’Opération Storm, ou pour les centaines de milliers de Serbes et de Roms expurgés hors du Kosovo depuis son annexion par l’OTAN et la prise de pouvoir de l’UCK, demandera-t-on justice ? La campagne de bombardements de l’OTAN contre la Yougoslavie (de mars à juin 1999) violait ouvertement la Charte des Nations Unies et recourrait en outre à un armement illégal (bombes à fragmentation, uranium appauvri, etc.) Elle fit des centaines de morts et de mutilés. N’est-il besoin d’aucune poursuite pénale, d’aucune condamnation pour ces crimes-là, au nom de la justice et de la réconciliation ? Une attention démesurée accordée à la commémoration d’une seule catégorie de victimes n’a-t-elle pas plutôt tendance à alimenter le ressentiment et à pérenniser les haines ethniques ? N’est-elle pas propre à servir aux vainqueurs à entretenir ces haines, à frotter de sel les plaies de leurs ennemis et à obtenir de leurs puissants parrains occidentaux toutes sortes d’avantages financiers ou politiques ?
 
Les commémorations et la résolution de l’UE visent tout sauf la paix et la réconciliation. Elles sont une continuation de la guerre de pacification et des menées de vengeance contre la Serbie, et un moyen supplémentaire d’imposer au monde l’idée que la militarisation de l’OTAN et des USA et leur « guerre permanente contre le terrorisme » incarnent le combat du bien contre le mal.
 
 
 
Traduit de l’anglais par Dominique Arias
 
Edward S. Herman est Professeur Emérite de Finance à la Wharton School, Université de Pennsylvanie. Economiste et analyste des médias de renommée internationale, il est l’auteur de nombreux ouvrages dont : Corporate Control, Corporate Power(1981), Demonstration Elections (1984, avec Frank Brodhead), The Real Terror Network (1982), Triumph of the Market (1995),The Global Media (1997, avec Robert McChesney), The Myth of The Liberal Media : an Edward Herman Reader (1999) etDegraded Capability : The Media and the Kosovo Crisis (2000). Son ouvrage le plus connu, Manufacturing Consent (avec Noam Chomsky), paru en 1988, a été réédité 2002.
 
 
 
NOTES :

Pour les commentaires de Madeleine Albright, voir : "The situation in Croatia" (S/PV.3563), Conseil de Sécurité des Nations Unies 10 août 1995, p. 20 ; et "The situation in Bosnia and Herzegovina" (S/PV.3564), Conseil de Sécurité des Nations Unies 10 août 1995, pp. 6-7.
 
"The situation in Croatia" (S/PV.3563), Conseil de Sécurité des Nations Unies, 10 août 1995, p. 20.
 
« Permettez-moi de nier catégoriquement l’allégation qui, m’a-t-on dit, a été avancée par Mr. Djokic », déclara Albright devant le Conseil de Sécurité, « selon laquelle les Etats-Unis auraient apporté des conseils tactique ou un soutien logistique à l’opération militaire du gouvernement de Croatie. Cette accusation sans fondements peut seulement rendre la tâche plus difficile à mon gouvernement pour savoir à partir de quand la Serbie et le Monténégro pourront rejoindre la communauté des nations ». C’était parfaitement faux bien sûr !
 
Slobodan Milosevic est mort en prison en mars 2006, deux semaines après que les juges du TPIY eurent refusé d’autoriser son transfert d’urgence dans un hôpital de Moscou, en service de cardiologie, du fait de la sérieuse dégradation de son état de santé. Cf. Edward S. Herman et David Peterson, "Milosevic’s Death in the Propaganda System," Electric Politics, 14 mai 2006.
 
Cf. Edward S. Herman et David Peterson, The Politics of Genocide (New York : Monthly Review Press, 2010), p. 57. http://www.monthlyreview.org/books/politicsofgenocide.php
 
Cf. Ewa Tabeau et Jakub Bijak, "War-related Deaths in the 1992-1995 Armed Conflicts in Bosnia and Herzegovina : A Critique of Previous Estimates and Recent Results," European Journal of Population, Volume 21, 2005, pp. 187-215http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/klu/eujp/2005/00000021/F0020002/00006852 ;
ainsi que : Patrick Ball et al., Bosnian Book of the Dead : Assessment of the Database, Research and Documentation Center, Sarajevo, June, 2007.
 
http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2010/herman200710p.html#_ednref8 Dans leur déclaration devant le Conseil de Sécurité de l’ONU, fin 2000, la Procureur Général du TPIY, Carla Del Ponte, fit état d’environ 4 000 ensembles de restes humains découverts, et liés au conflit du Kosovo ; Cf. : "Statement to the Press by Carla Del Ponte" (FH/P.I.S./550-e, ICTY, 20 décembre 2000, para. 16.) Dans sa plus récente estimation du nombre de “personnes portées disparues en lien avec le conflit du Kosovo”, le TPIY fait état d’un total de 1 904 personnes disparues au lieu des 2 047 supposées telles en juin 2007 ; Cf. : "Serbia / Kosovo : More Progress Needed to Clarify Fate of Kosovo Missing",ICRC, 3 juin 2009.
 
Cf. : Herman et Peterson, The Politics of Genocide, Tableau 1, "Differential attributions of ’genocide’ to different theaters of atrocities," p. 35.
 
Voir aussi Edward S. Herman et David Peterson, "The Dismantling of Yugoslavia", Monthly Review, Vol. 59, No. 5, October 2007, p. 19.
 
Cf. : Juge Almiro Rodrigues et al., Jugement, Procureur, contre Radislav Krstic (IT-98-33-T), 2 août 2001, Section A(9), "Forensic Evidence of the Executions," para. 71-79, et A(10), "The Number of Men Executed by the Bosnian Serb Forces Following the Take-over of Srebrenica in July 1995," para.80-84 ; en particulier para. 80. http://www.icty.org/x/cases/krstic/tjug/en/krs-tj010802e.pdf
 
Cf. : Procureur du Tribunal contre Radislav Krstic (IT-98-33-T), minutes du procès, 6 avril 2001, p. 9 532, lignes 20-21. http://www.icty.org/x/cases/krstic/trans/en/010406ed.htm Hadzihasanovic déclara également que “le nombre exact de membres de la 28e Division qui parvinrent à traverser [le territoire contrôlé par le gouvernement bosniaque] était de 3 175" (p. 9 532, lignes 15-16).
 
Ljubisa Simic, "Forensic Analysis of Srebrenica Post-Mortem Reports," article présenté à Moscou lors d’un symposium sur le TPIY et Srebrenica, sous l’égide de l’Académie des Sciences de la Fédération de Russie et du « Srebrenica Historical Project », septembre 2009.
 
L’historien serbe Milivoje Ivanisevic donne un inventaire des noms de 3 287 Serbes, pour la plupart civils, qui furent tués dans la région de Srebrenica-Birac entre 1992 et 1995 : Srebrenica July 1995 (Belgrade : Christian Thought, 2008).
 
Cf. Bill Schiller, "Muslims’ Hero Vows He’ll Fight to the Last Man," Toronto Star, 31 January 1994 ; et John Pomfret, "Weapons, Cash and Chaos Lend Clout to Srebrenica’s Tough Guy," Washington Post, 16 February 1994.
 
Cf Herman et Peterson, “The Dismantling of Yugoslavia”, en particulier la Section 2, "The Role of the Serbs, Milosevic, and ’Greater Serbia’," pp. 9-14 ; et la Section 11, "Final Note," pp. 46-49. Voir aussi David Owen, Balkan Odyssey (New York : Harcourt Brace and Company, 1995), et Susan L. Woodward, Balkan Tragedy : Chaos and Dissolution After the Cold War (Washington, D.C., Brookings Institution, 1995).
 


(deutsch / english)

On the role of ex-Nazis in post-war Germany

1) East German secret police files highlight role of ex-Nazis in post-war Germany (Emma Bode, Verena Nees)
2) Sensation des Tages: Nazis im BND / Brauner Sumpf (Andreas Förster)


=== 1 ===


East German secret police files highlight role of ex-Nazis in post-war Germany


By Emma Bode and Verena Nees 
23 August 2010


Certain truths about German post-war development are often dismissed by historians and the media as “old history.” Among these is the fact that after the collapse of the Hitler regime, countless Nazi criminals went unpunished and were allowed to pursue careers in West Germany as judges, public prosecutors, professors, business executives and policemen.

An article entitled “A Nazi Quagmire,” published July 12 by Andreas Förster, the political editor of the Berliner Zeitung, revived public awareness of this fact.

The article was occasioned by the release last April of two previously undisclosed files of the East German Ministry for State Security (MfS or Stasi), which dealt with the processing of Nazi and other war criminals. When a journalist applied to inspect records for a research project in 2000, both of these files were deemed classified by officials responsible for the Stasi documents.

The documents concerned issues relating to the years 1971-1980 and involved 18 police officers and employees of the West German Federal Intelligence Agency (BND), the Military Counter-Espionage Service (MAD), the Office for the Protection of the Constitution (OPC), as well as police from the states of Schleswig-Holstein, Hamburg and West Berlin. Photocopied documentary evidence of the Nazi past of 12 of these people was enclosed in the Stasi files.

In his article, Förster listed some of the names, including Kurt Fischer, a former employee of the federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution, who was born in 1905. According to the Nazi files, Fischer served as a police officer during the war, first in Sosnowitz in occupied Poland.

In 1944, the SS main office for business and administration—responsible for the concentration camps—moved him to Dachau and then “to service” in the office for “pest control” in Auschwitz. From this office Zyklon B poison gas was sent from Germany to be used in the mass murder of the inmates in Auschwitz. After the war, SS officer Fischer first turned up in the Federal Republic (West Germany) under the name of Karschner, before the OPC recognised him by his true name.

According to Nazi documents among the MfS files, 39-year-old Josef Anetzberger—apparently later employed by the BND—had been appointed a troop-leader of the Sachsenhausen SS Death’s Head Guard, responsible for guarding prisoners.

The records also show that Franz Market, a Schleswig-Holstein-born employee of the federal OPC, had been commissioned as an SS overseer to a POW camp in Bozen from 1944. However, he was dismissed from the SS in September 1944 on account of “repeated procedural transgressions.”

The Stasi also found incriminating documents concerning Erwin Japp, a police inspector in southern Schleswig-Holstein in the early 1970s. According to the enclosed Nazi files, Japp was from 1942 adjutant to the commissioner of police in Simferopol, where a massacre of more than 14,000 Jews took place around Christmas 1941, followed by another mass killing in 1942. His name also appears on a list of people who were supposed to have participated in Nazi crimes in the USSR.

The newspaper report builds on previous revelations. Memorable in this respect is the so-called Brown Book, which was published in Stalinist East Germany (German Democratic Republic—GDR) in 1965 and appeared in a new edition after the fall of the Berlin Wall.

The Brown Book was branded by West German politicians and the media at the time as pure Stalinist propaganda. It listed the SS rankings and Nazi party positions of 1,800 leading businessman, politicians and senior civil servants in the Federal Republic and West Berlin. Most historians now agree that 99 percent of the information in the Brown Book is true, although the number of ex-Nazis occupying leading positions in business, state administration, scientific institutions, the legal profession and the army is thought to have been underestimated.

By the time of the appearance of the Brown Book, the Nazi past of a number of prominent figures in the business world and politics had already been revealed. These included the former West German president Heinrich Lübke, who was involved in the construction and management of concentration camps; the former Baden-Wurttemberg prime minister Hans Filbinger, who as a Nazi naval judge continued passing out death sentences up to the very end of the war; the former West German chancellor Kurt Kiesinger, who had occupied a top post in Hitler’s foreign ministry; Hans Globke, undersecretary in the federal chancellery and Konrad Adenauer’s closest advisor, who had been responsible for the framing of the Nuremberg race laws in his ministerial post in the Third Reich’s Department of the Interior; and also—less known to some—Theodor Maunz, the Nazis’ leading administrative jurist, who wrote a substantial part of the commentary to the West German constitution after the war.

Also documented is the process whereby the post-war West German intelligence agency (BND) developed out of the so-called “Gehlen Organisation.” Reinhard Gehlen, its leader and later the first president of the BND, had run the Department of Eastern Foreign Armies in Hitler’s general staff. He was commissioned by the US occupation authorities and the forerunner of the CIA to set up the new German secret service in 1946.

He used the opportunity to provide refuge and new identities for numerous former members of the SS, the Nazi intelligence service, the Gestapo, Hitler’s counter-intelligence and his armed forces. Documents about the Gehlen Organisation, released by the CIA and now available in the National Archive in Washington, reveal that about 400 members of the organisation—most of whom were in leading West German positions in the summer of 1949—originally worked in the Nazis’ intelligence network. An internal investigation during the early 1960s identified some 200 BND employees as former members of the Nazi security service. Even at the beginning of the 1970s, approximately 25 to 30 percent of those engaged by the BND had Nazi backgrounds.

In the same issue of the Berliner Zeitung, Förster mentions a research project commissioned to clarify the history of the BND. Gregor Schöllgen, the renowned historian appointed to the task, gave up “in exasperation” after two years of negotiations with the authorities, because forces in the government and the BND blocked the project, evidently to protect BND employees.

The exposé of the “Nazi quagmire” within the German state poses questions that are important for an assessment of the current political situation. The Stasi research project with the reference number FV 5/7 contains altogether 27 file folders. Only 25 of these have so far been released for inspection. Förster claims that these folders also name numerous people with a Nazi past who are still members of the intelligence service or police force, as well as about 100 more former Nazis who were later able to take up positions in business and politics.

The Stalinist regime of East Germany exploited such findings to spread illusions about the supposed anti-fascist and socialist character of the official ruling party, the Socialist Unity Party (SED). At the same time, however, Western secret service agents with a Nazi past were pressured by the Stalinists to offer themselves as double agents for the East German Stasi.

What interest did the German state have in keeping these files under lock and key for another twenty years after the demise of East Germany?

After outraged demonstrators stormed the central Stasi buildings to prevent the shredding of files in 1989-1990, those in control agreed that all documents of the East German intelligence service were to be transferred to the state archive for the purpose of research and to enable public access. After the last election to the People’s Chamber of the German Democratic Republic (East Germany), Joachim Gauck (a member of the New Forum movement at the time) was elected leader of a special committee for overseeing the dismantling of the GDR secret service ministry.

After the incorporation of the GDR into the Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany), Gauck was appointed commissioner to oversee the documents of the GDR state security service. Allowing the original demand for the opening of all files to lapse, he initiated instead the Stasi Document Law in 1991.

This law states that the authorities can block access to files if they contain information about employees in the Federal Republic’s secret services or those of friendly nations, and “if the federal minister of the interior says that the release of documents would endanger public safety or otherwise impinge on the well-being of the nation or another country.” This part of the law was applied to the above-mentioned two files when a journalist tried to gain access them in 2000. Gauck’s office denied him permission after consulting with the then-Social Democratic Party interior minister and former member of the Greens, Otto Schily.

Addressing this issue, Förster states: “The stringent custody provisions in the Stasi Documents Law mean, among other things, that even twenty years after the demise of the Stasi, files concerning GDR (East German) business partners—who, for example, worked as managers of West German SED firms while simultaneously acting as spies for the Federal Republic (West Germany)—are still locked-up. Names of former officers of the Soviet secret service, the KGB, also have to be redacted in the files, because the current Russian intelligence organisation has in the meantime become an ally of the German intelligence service.”

What were these people used for? What are they being used for now? What files are still being kept secret and for what reason? Do they contain the names of former Stasi employees or double agents who crossed over into the service of the BND, MAD or OPC after the fall of the Berlin Wall? Do present-day secret service agencies need their experience when it comes to the suppression of opposition tendencies within the population? This would seem to be the likely conclusion in view of the current situation, characterised by an ever-deepening gap between rich and poor and increasingly brutal attacks on the population by the ruling elite.

The announcement by Chancellor Angela Merkel’s government that it needs to make use of the files of the Stasi Documents Authority until 2019—that is, until 30 years after the end of the GDR—could be relevant to the previous questions. The reason offered for this course—that the government wants to check all applicants for and employees in top positions in the public service to see if they formerly worked for the Stasi—is at best half-true.

A visible sign of the expansion of secret service operations against the population is already to be found in the massive new building complex that will become the new BND headquarters—no longer in faraway Pullach in Munich, but in the middle of the capital, Berlin.

Some €720 million was set aside for this in the budget. Further funding has already been officially requested. The 10-hectare terrain of the complex will be hermetically blocked off, numerous surveillance cameras will keep watch on the building site fencing, the site itself will be floodlit at night, and almost every construction worker is being accompanied by a guard. The area of this city within the city will equal 35 football fields. About 4,000 of the 6,000 official employees of the BND are expected to move into the premises in 2013.

Like the history of the BND itself, the architectural dimensions evoke the darkest period in German history.



=== 2 ===

Da:  truth @...
Oggetto:  I: "Sensation des Tages": Nazis im BND
Data:  19 luglio 2010 23.09.03 GMT+02.00


Sensation des Tages: Nazis im BND


Eine ganze Seite widmete die Berliner Zeitung am Montag dem Bericht darüber,
daß es in den Geheimdiensten der alten Bundesrepublik von Nazis,
Kriegsverbrechern und Judenmördern wimmelte. Autor Andreas Förster teilt
mit, die Birthler-Behörde habe »bislang gesperrte Unterlagen des
DDR-Staatssicherheitsdienstes freigegeben«. Es gehe um die »NS-Vergangenheit
von früheren westdeutschen Geheimdienstmitarbeitern und Polizeibeamten«. Die
Sperrung der Akten sei im November 2000 »nach Rücksprache mit dem
Bundes-innenministerium verfügt« worden, als sie erstmals von Journalisten
angefordert worden seien. Bei den Unterlagen handele es sich um »zwei Bände
eines insgesamt 27 Aktenordner umfassenden Forschungsvorgangs der
Stasi-Hauptabteilung IX/11 aus den Jahren 1971 bis 1980«. Darin fänden sich
18 Namen, zu zwölf von ihnen seien belastende Unterlagen zusammengetragen
worden. Förster nennt einige Personen, woraus nichts Besonderes hervorgeht,
außer: Für Massenmörder gab es in der Bundesrepublik stets eine gutdotierte
Verwendung im Staatsdienst, wenn sie im Auftrag des Führers gehandelt
hatten. In dem Artikel des Blattes fehlen solche sprachlichen Perlen nicht
wie, es habe Angehörige der Sicherheitsbehörden gegeben, »die trotz ihrer
Vergangenheit als Nazi-Geheimdienstler Karriere in der Bundesrepublik machen
konnten«. Selbstverständlich fehlt auch nicht der Hinweis Försters, die
»Stasi« habe das Material propagandistisch ausschlachten oder mit ihm
erpressen wollen. Denn weil die Bundesrepublik völlig arglos per
Grundgesetzartikel 131 seinerzeit möglichst alle noch lebenden Nazis in den
Staatsdienst holte, waren die »trotz ihrer Vergangenheit« z. T. Jahrzehnte
im Dienst. Nur die »Stasi« hatte was dagegen. Weswegen es zum Glück die
Birthler-Behörde gibt, und die Berliner Zeitung, und investigative
Journalisten etc. Eine Sternstunde des Für-Dumm-Verkauf-Journalismus. (asc)

http://www.jungewelt.de/2010/07-13/038.php?print=1


Brauner Sumpf

NS-VERGANGENHEIT - Jetzt freigegebene Stasi-Akten belegen, dass frühere
Nationalsozialisten bei westdeutschen Geheimdiensten und der Polizei
Karriere machten. Der Bundesnachrichtendienst zögert mit der Aufklärung
seiner Anfänge.

Andreas Förster

BERLIN. Zwanzig Jahre nach Öffnung der Stasi-Archive hat die
Birthler-Behörde bislang gesperrte Unterlagen des
DDR-Staatssicherheitsdienstes freigegeben. Sie betreffen die
NS-Vergangenheit von früheren westdeutschen Geheimdienstmitarbeitern und
Polizeibeamten. Die Sperrung der MfS-Akten hatte die Behörde nach
Rücksprache mit dem Bundesinnenministerium im November 2000 verfügt, als die
betreffenden Unterlagen erstmals von einem Journalisten zur Akteneinsicht
angefordert wurden.

Bei den bis vor Kurzem als "VS - Vertraulich" eingestuften Unterlagen
handelt es sich um zwei Bände eines insgesamt 27 Aktenordner umfassenden
Forschungsvorgangs der Stasi-Hauptabteilung IX/11 aus den Jahren 1971 bis
1980. Darin sammelte das MfS Informationen über die Verwicklung
westdeutscher Sicherheitsbeamter in Kriegsverbrechen während der Nazizeit.
In den Vorgang mit der Registriernummer FV 5/72, der MfS-intern die
Bezeichnung "Dienst" trug, flossen auch Erkenntnisse der für
Auslandsspionage zuständigen Hauptverwaltung A (HVA) ein. Die HVA führte
seinerzeit die nachrichtendienstliche Operation "Dschungel", mit der die
NS-Vergangenheit von BND-Mitarbeitern aufgeklärt wurde.

Zwölf Fälle belegt

In den am 28. April 2010 von der Birthler-Behörde freigegebenen Akten finden
sich die Namen von insgesamt 18 Geheimdienstlern und Polizisten. Dabei
handelt es sich um Mitarbeiter des Bundesnachrichtendienstes (BND), des
Verfassungsschutzes, des Militärischen Abschirmdienstes (MAD) sowie der
Landespolizei von Schleswig-Holstein, von Hamburg und von West-Berlin. Zu
zwölf von ihnen konnte die Hauptabteilung IX/11 belastende Unterlagen aus
NS-Archiven zusammentragen, die der MfS-Akte als Kopie beigefügt sind.

Einer von ihnen ist der frühere Mitarbeiter im Bundesamt für
Verfassungsschutz (BfV), der 1905 geborene Kurt Fischer. Laut der
NS-Unterlagen wurde der zu Kriegszeiten als Polizeibeamter tätige Fischer
1941 zunächst in Sosnowitz im besetzten Polen eingesetzt. 1944 versetzte ihn
das für die Konzentrationslager zuständige Wirtschafts-Verwaltungshauptamt
der SS erst nach Dachau und dann "zur Dienstleistung" an das Amt für
Schädlingsbekämpfung in Auschwitz. Das Amt war Adressat des aus Deutschland
gelieferten Giftgases Zyklon B, das zum Massenmord an den KZ-Insassen in
Auschwitz verwendet wurde. Nach dem Krieg tauchte der SS-Sturmbannführer
Fischer zunächst unter dem Namen Karschner in der Bundesrepublik unter,
bevor er unter seinem richtigen Namen vom BfV übernommen wurde.

Der mutmaßlich beim BND tätige Josef Anetzberger war den in der MfS-Akte
beigelegten NS-Unterlagen zufolge als damals 39-jähriger Rottenführer
Angehöriger des SS-Totenkopf-Wachbataillons Sachsenhausen und im dortigen KZ
zur Bewachung von Häftlingen eingesetzt.

Über den 1902 geborenen schleswig-holsteinischen Verfassungsschützer Franz
Market heißt es, er sei ab 1944 in Bozen als SS-Mann in einem
Gefangenenlager eingesetzt gewesen. Wegen "fortgesetzter Wachverfehlungen"
habe man ihn im September 1944 jedoch aus der SS ausgeschlossen.

Belastende Unterlagen fand das MfS auch über Erwin Japp, Anfang der
70er-Jahre Inspekteur der Schutzpolizei Süd in Schleswig-Holstein. Laut den
beigefügten NS-Unterlagen war Japp von 1942 an Adjutant des Kommandeurs der
Ordnungspolizei in Simferopol. In einer sowjetischen Liste von Personen, die
an Nazi-Verbrechen in der UdSSR beteiligt gewesen sein sollen, taucht auch
sein Name auf.

Warum die beiden Aktenbände aus dem MfS-Forschungsvorgang FV 5/72 jahrelang
für die Öffentlichkeit gesperrt waren, gibt die Birthler-Behörde nicht an.
Sie verweist lediglich auf das Stasi-Unterlagengesetz. Danach können
Unterlagen gesperrt werden, wenn sie Mitarbeiter von Nachrichtendiensten des
Bundes, der Länder und der Verbündeten betreffen.

Mit dieser Begründung aber hätte man auch die übrigen 25 Bände des
Forschungsvorgangs als VS-Vertraulich einstufen können. Das geschah aber
nicht, obwohl auch darin eine Reihe von Angehörigen westdeutscher
Sicherheitsbehörden erwähnt werden, die trotz ihrer Vergangenheit als
Nazi-Geheimdienstler Karriere in der Bundesrepublik machen konnten. Wie
übrigens an die Hundert weitere, ebenfalls namentlich erwähnte NS-Spione,
die später leitende Positionen in Wirtschaft und Politik einnahmen.

Material für Erpressungen

Mit dem Vorgang FV 5/72 verfolgte das MfS zwei Ziele: Zum einen wollte man
die gewonnenen Erkenntnisse propagandistisch nutzen, um in
Medienveröffentlichungen eine zumindest in Teilen tatsächlich existierende
personelle Kontinuität zwischen dem faschistischen und dem westdeutschen
Sicherheitsapparat nachzuweisen. Zum anderen hielt man die möglichen
NS-Verstrickungen auch für ein Erpressungspotenzial, das im Einzelfall
eingesetzt werden konnte, um westliche Geheimdienstler zur Zusammenarbeit
mit dem MfS zu verpflichten.

------------------------------

Gesperrt zum Wohl des Landes

Die Birthler-Behörde berief sich bei der Sperrung der jetzt freigegebenen
Akten auf das Stasi-Unterlagengesetz. Dort heißt es in Paragraf 37:
"Gesondert zu verwahren sind Unterlagen über Mitarbeiter von
Nachrichtendiensten des Bundes, der Länder und der Verbündeten."

Die gesonderte Verwahrung bedeutet, dass die Behörde die entsprechenden
Akten - stets in Rücksprache mit dem Bundesinnenministerium - als
Verschlusssachen der Geheimhaltungsgrade VS-Vertraulich und höher einstuft.
Das gilt selbst dann, wenn die darin erwähnten Geheimdienstler bereits
verstorben oder nicht mehr im Amt sind. Die Akten sind dann etwa für
Journalisten und Wissenschaftler gesperrt.

Diese Regelung betrifft auch Unterlagen über Mitarbeiter aller
Nachrichtendienste außer dem Stasi-Ministerium, "wenn der
Bundesinnenminister im Einzelfall erklärt, dass das Bekanntwerden der
Unterlagen die öffentliche Sicherheit gefährden oder sonst dem Wohl des
Bundes oder eines Landes Nachteile bereiten würde".

Die rigide Verwahrungsordnung im Stasi-Unterlagengesetz führt unter anderem
dazu, dass auch zwanzig Jahre nach Ende der Stasi Akten über
DDR-Geschäftspartner, die beispielsweise als Chefs westdeutscher SED-Firmen
gleichzeitig als Informanten für den Verfassungsschutz gearbeitet haben,
gesperrt sind. Auch die Namen von früheren Offizieren des sowjetischen
Geheimdienstes KGB müssen in den Akten geschwärzt werden, da der russische
Nachfolgedienst inzwischen Partner des Bundesnachrichtendienstes ist.

------------------------------

Foto: Reinhard Gehlen um 1962 beim Baden. Der frühere General der Wehrmacht
war nach 1946 Leiter des nach ihm benannten westdeutschen
Nachrichtendienstes Organisation Gehlen. Daraus wurde 1956 der
Bundesnachrichtendienst, kurz BND, dessen Präsident Gehlen bis 1968 war.





(Integralno izlaganje Predsednika Beogradskog Foruma Zivadina Jovanovica,
na Medjunarodnom simpozijumu ‘’BALKAN 2020. – A REGION OF CRISIS OF PEACE’’)


The Balkan in 2020: region of crisis or peace

Tuesday, 25 May 2010 09:3o


We all here are devoted to peace, stability and progress for all countries in the Balkan. In trying to project the future, however, we should consider, as objectively as possible, inheritance of the past, to assess realistically existing problems, to identify trends and key political players. 
My starting remark and primary cause of concern for the future of the Balkan stems from the fact that the present set up of relations and solutions, current trends are not based on the compromise of genuine, legitimate interest of the countries and societies of the region but predominantly on the pressures, will and interest of out-of -Balkan centers of political, economic and military might. 
Inheritance of the past, especially of the civil wars in Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina, of separatism and terrorism in Kosovo and Metohija and of NATO aggression on Serbia (FRY) 1999 remain causes of great concern and, naturally, do occupy our attention and energy. 
Economic, cultural, informative, social and other links among the former Yugoslav republic cut during the crisis function on a rather modest level today. In any case, far below potentials and needs of the region. Cooperation and free flow of goods, people, ideas, culture, capital should definitely be encouraged, obstacles removed, reciprocity of interest duly respected. Unilateral concessions, especially expected from Serbia, are not justified.
New international borders while not general problem, in a number of instances are still to be defined, including parts of Serbia-Croatian border on Danube. International standards should be respected in accepting border line.
With the distraction of Yugoslavia, in addition to old ones, new national minorities have been created. Standards of their human, political and national rights in a number of instances are disregarded. Serbs in Slovenia, Croatia and Montenegro continue to be discriminated. Appropriate reactions and guidelines from OSCE, CE or EU institutions would be quite appropriate and necessary.
Serbia is still hosting over 200.000 displaced persons from Kosovo and Metohija, mainly Serbs, and close to 300.000 Serb refugees from Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina. This accounts to about 7-8 percent of the total population of Serbia provoking not only socio-economic but political problems, too. Members of neither of the two groups are permitted to exercise their basic right to free and safe return to places of their origin. Serbs in Croatia although promised territorial autonomy, are deprived of same basic individual right such as right to private ownership of their houses and apartments. There is need for greater involvement of appropriate international institutions, including donors in securing conditions for free, safe and return in dignity.
It has been noted today that tension prevails in Northern Kosovo and Kosovska Mitrovica. While this is true, it should not be ommited that there is tension also all over the Province provoked by continuous daily attacks on Serbs, telephone and electricity services cuts and various other forms of intimidation. 
Furthermore, it should be noted that there is resentment all over Serbia because of illegal unilateral proclamation of separation of Kosovo and Metohija and particularly because of the recognition of that illegal act by major western countries (USA, Germany, Great Britain, France, Italy, Canada).
Serbia does not and cannot recognize illegal secession of the part of its sovereign territory and considers the status of the Province of Kosovo and Metohija a serious open issue yet to be resolved respecting basic principles of the international law, UN decisions and Constitution of Serbia as a sovereign state. Such a position is supported by major part of International community, including some members of EU (Spain, Greece, Romania, Slovak Republic and Cyprus). New negotiations on the status seem to be unavoidable. Any calculation on softening the official Serbia Government position could turn to be counterproductive. Perhaps not so much because of the Government’s firmness, but first of all because compromise is better investment in Serbia’s internal stability, thus in the lasting peace and stability of the Balkan, than any imposed solution.  
Constitutional set up of Bosnia and Herzegovina is part and parcel of the Dayton-Paris Peace Agreement. Attempts to change this system unilaterally, or by blackmailing the leadership of Republica Srpska, are jeopardizing stability and development. 
Applying outside pressures to impose centralization of power in Bosnia and Herzegovina, in one hand, and to oblige more countries of the world to recognize illegal secession of Kosovo and Metohija, in the other, is another example of double standards policy. 
I am convinced that there is no substitute to either Dayton-Paris Peace Agreement nor to UN SC resolution 1244. These should be considered as chief prerequisites of the Balkan as a zone of peace and prosperity 2020, and beyond. 
Flattering Serbia as a regional leader and “Serbian Government the most democratic and the most proeuropean”, on one side, and at the same time imposing endless concessions on account of the legitimate national interest of Serbia (Kosovo and Metohija, Republica Srpska) could hardly be a way to lasting peace and stability.      
Peace and stability in Europe are indivisible. Developments in Europe and developments in the Balkan have been and remain inter-conected.
It has been noted that the future of the Balkan lies in the hands of the Balkan countries. But one of the basic problems in the region remains to be excessive involvement of out-of-the-region centers. Considering that Bosnia and Herzegovina and the Province of Kosovo and Metohija continue to be international (UN) protectorates, that the governments in the most of the countries in the region owe their loyalty to the West which helped them various means to come to power, it is rather questionable what the regional factors can do themselves, what are real margins for them to find compromises of the genuine regional interests.
Putting an end to the protectorate status of Bosnia and Herzegovina would be important step in good direction. After 15 years of peace and international governance, local institutions and politicians must be capable of working, compromising and running the country themselves.   
EU appears to be key partner of the Balkan states. How long will last the current financial, economic and institutional crisis in EU? What conclusions Brussels may  draw from up to now enlargements of the EU membership? Answering these questions is a precondition to asses realistically prospects for EU membership of a number of Balkan countries.
Some current trends in the Balkan, especially in its western part, should be noted as relevant to the subject.
Democratization and transition has left, among others, profound social divisions and tensions, extremely high rate of unemployment, corruption, and organized crime. These tendencies are not assets for peace and stability. To alleviate the roots of these tendencies require political will, relevant strategies, recourses, including financial, and – time.  
Rise of separatism and territorial fragmentation, especially affecting Serbia and Serbian nation, in one hand, and centralization, unitarization of certain other countries, notably Bosnia and Herzegovina, are examples of double standards policy. Putting aside such a policy would definitely enhance prospects of peace and stability.
Proliferation of puppet sates with unsustainable economies, national minorities with uneven level of their rights, political parties based on ethnic and religious criteria and refugees and displaced persons with the lack of political will to provide conditions for free and safe return to their homes;
Expansion of Islamism not as a religion or culture, but as overall social and governmental system. Some Islamite leaders do consider Balkan as a spring board for further expansion. (Vehabist groups, Islamic extremist organizations have been uncovered recently in a number of Balkan countries);
It should be noted that in the period of the last twenty years the Balkan has been experimental ground for new doctrines and precedents in international relations:
- NATO aggression of Yugoslavia in 1999, contrary to basic principles of International Law, without approval of UN SC;
- Unilateral proclamation of Independence of Kosovo and Methija in 2008, while the Provence was under UN mandate, without UN permission or approval, and contrary to the Constitution and will of Serbia; 
These precedents have left negative consequences not only in the Balkan but in Europe and worldwide.
In my opinion, Serbia with its geostrategic position and resources is capacitated and willing to play its role in achieving sustainable stability, peace and development in the Balkans. But Serbia is faced with serious problems. First of all, stagnation of the socio-economic development, about one million of unemployed, 700.000 people billow the bottom line of poverty, disregard of her legitimate national interest. 
Serbia’s territorial integrity and sovereignty is not jeopardized by illegal unilateral secession of Kosovo and Metohija, only, but such tendencies are noticeable in some other parts (Vojvodina, Raska, Southern districts). 
Recently The Group of Friends of Sandzak (Raska) was established in Belgrade composed of the ambassadors of USA, Germany, Britain and Italy! What would be real political objective of such a move? These ambassadors surely have been welcomed to Belgrade as friends of Serbia and they are expected to behave as such. Preferring, or undermining any part of Serbia is not undiplomatic only, but disregarding friendship and hospitality.
Of course, I am aware that aforesaid is more a list of open problems as I see them, than a list of prescriptions how to resolve them. But any serious job starts from inventory. Thank you.

Zivadin Jovanovic
President of the Belgrade Forum for a World of Equals



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