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11th July 2002
A Timeline Surrounding September 11th - If CIA and the Government weren't involved in the September 11 Attacks What were they doing? - by Michael C. Ruppert
[© COPYRIGHT 2001, All Rights Reserved, Michael C. Ruppert and From The Wilderness Publications, www.fromthewilderness.com. May be copied and distributed for non-profit purposes only.]

[Expanded and Revised July 11, 2002 - Evidence of Bush Administration Foreknowledge and complicity is now overwhelming. 13 New Items (noted in RED) Since Our Last Revision!]

November 2, 2001, 12:00 PST -- On October 31 the French daily Le Figaro dropped a bombshell. While in a Dubai hospital receiving treatment for a chronic kidney infection last July, Osama bin Laden met with a top CIA official -- presumably the chief of station. The meeting, held in bin Laden's private suite, took place at the American hospital in Dubai at a time when he was a wanted fugitive for the bombings of two U.S. embassies and last year's attack on the U.S.S. Cole. Bin Laden was eligible for execution according to a 2000 intelligence finding issued by President Bill Clinton before leaving office in January. Yet on July 14, 2001 he was allowed to leave Dubai on a private jet, and there were no Navy fighters waiting to force him down.

In 1985 Oliver North -- the only member of the Reagan-Bush years who doesn't appear to have a hand in the current war -- sent the Navy and commandos after terrorists on the cruise ship Achille Lauro. In his 1991 autobiography "Under Fire," while describing terrorist Abu Abbas, North wrote, "I used to wonder: how many dead Americans will it take before we do something?" One could look at the number of Americans Osama bin Laden is alleged to have killed before Sept. 11 and ask the same question.

It gets worse, much worse. A more complete timeline listing crucial events both before and after the Sept. 11 suicide attacks, which have been blamed on bin Laden, establishes CIA foreknowledge of them and strongly suggests that there was criminal complicity on the part of the U.S. government in their execution. It also makes clear that the events that have taken place since Sept. 11 are based upon an agenda that has little to do with the attacks.

[June 19, 2002] -- As the revelations of Bush Administration foreknowledge have progressed from silence, to trickle, to cascade, the question has now changed from forcing the evidence into the open into one of forcing both the media and the people to avoid denying this information in the hopes that their desire for a sense of "normalcy" can be fulfilled. As many of us have known for years, normalcy went out the window forever when the first plane hit the tower. And what has been revealed will not be resolved with an expensive fact-finding commission, a few firing, or even an impeachment proceeding. What is needed in America -- and in the global economic system -- is an overhaul, not a tune up.

1. 1991-1997 - Major U.S. oil companies including ExxonMobil, Texaco, Unocal, BP Amoco, Shell and Enron directly invest billions in cash bribing heads of state in Kazakhstan to secure equity rights in the huge oil reserves in these regions. The oil companies further commit to future direct investments in Kazakhstan of $35 billion. Not being willing to pay exorbitant prices to Russia to use Russian pipelines, the major oil companies have no way to recoup their investments. [Source: "The Price of Oil" by Seymour Hersh, The New Yorker, July 9, 2001 - The Asia Times, "The Roving Eye Part I Jan. 26, 2002.]

2.    January 1995 - Philippine police investigating a possible attack on the Pope uncover plans for Operation Bojinka, connected to World Trade Center (WTC) bomber Ramsi Youssef. Parts of the plan call for crashing hijacked airliners into civilian targets. Details of the plan are disclosed in Youssef's 1997 trial for the 1993 WTC bombing. [Source: Agence France-Presse, Dec. 7, 2001]

3.  Dec. 4, 1997 - Representatives of the Taliban are invited guests to the Texas headquarters of Unocal to negotiate their support for the pipeline. Subsequent reports will indicate that the negotiations failed, allegedly because the Taliban wanted too much money. [Source: The BBC, Dec. 4, 1997]

4. Feb. 12, 1998 - Unocal Vice President John J. Maresca -- later to become a special ambassador to Afghanistan -- testifies before the House that until a single, unified, friendly government is in place in Afghanistan, the trans-Afghani pipeline needed to monetize the oil will not be built. [Source: Testimony before the House International Relations Committee.]

5.  August 1998 - After the U.S. cruise missile attacks on Al Qaeda targets in Afghanistan in retaliation for the African embassy bombings, Unocal officially withdraws from participation in the CentGas trans-Afghani gas pipeline project. [Various sources, Unocal]

6.  1998 -- The CIA ignores warnings from Case Officer Robert Baer that Saudi Arabia was harboring an Al Qaeda cell led by two known terrorists. A more detailed list of known terrorists is offered to Saudi intelligence in August 2001 and refused. [Source: Financial Times Jan. 21, 2001; "See No Evil" by Robert Baer (release date February 2002)]

7.  April 1999 - Enron with a $3 billion investment to build an electrical generating plant at Dabhol, India loses access to plentiful LNG supplies from Qatar to fuel the plant. Its only remaining option to make the investment profitable is a trans-Afghani gas pipeline to be built by Unocal from Turkmenistan that would terminate near the Indian border at the city of Multan. [Source: The Albion Monitor, Feb. 28, 2002]

8.  1998 and 2000 - Former President George H.W. Bush travels to Saudi Arabia on behalf of the privately owned Carlyle Group, the 11th largest defense contractor in the U.S. While there he meets privately with the Saudi royal family and the bin Laden family. [Source: Wall Street Journal, Sept. 27, 2001. See also FTW, Vol. IV, No. 7 - "The Best Enemies Money Can Buy"
http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/carlyle.html]

9.  March 2000 - An FBI agent, reportedly angry over a glitch in Carnivore that has somehow mixed innocent non-targeted emails with those belonging to Al Qaeda, destroys all of the FBI's Denver-based intercepts of bin Laden's colleagues in a terrorist investigation. [Source: The Washington Post, May 29, 2002]

10. 2000 (est.) - The FBI refuses to disclose the date of an internal memo stating that a Middle Eastern nation had been trying to purchase a flight simulator. [Source: Los Angeles Times, May 30, 2002]

11. August 2000 -- Suspected Al Qaeda operatives wiretapped by Italian police made apparent references to plans for major attacks involving airports, airplanes and the United States according to transcripts obtained by the Los Angeles Times. The Times suggests that the information might not have been passed to U.S. authorities (hard to believe), but it did report that Italian authorities would not comment on the report. The Times also noted that "Italian and U.S. anti-terrorism experts cooperate closely." [Source: The Los Angeles Times, May 29, 2002]

12. Oct. 24-26, 2000 - Pentagon officials carry out a "detailed" emergency drill based upon the crashing of a hijacked airliner into the Pentagon. [Source: The Mirror, May 24, 2002]

13. January 2001 - The Bush Administration orders the FBI and intelligence agencies to "back off" investigations involving the bin Laden family, including two of Osama bin Laden's relatives (Abdullah and Omar) who were living in Falls Church, Va. -- right next to CIA headquarters. This followed previous orders dating back to 1996 that frustrated efforts to investigate the bin Laden family. [Source: BBC Newsnight, Correspondent Gregg Palast, Nov. 7, 2001]

14. Feb. 13, 2001 - UPI terrorism correspondent Richard Sale -- while covering a trial of bin Laden's Al Qaeda followers -- reports that the National Security Agency has broken bin Laden's encrypted communications. Even if this indicates that bin Laden changed systems in February, it does not mesh with the fact that the government insists that the attacks had been planned for years.

15. May 2001 - Secretary of State Colin Powell gives $43 million in aid to the Taliban regime, purportedly to assist hungry farmers who are starving since the destruction of their opium crop in January on orders of the Taliban regime. [Source: Los Angeles Times, May 22, 2001]

16. May 2001 - Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage, a career covert operative and former Navy Seal, travels to India on a publicized tour, while CIA Director George Tenet makes a quiet visit to Pakistan to meet with Pakistani leader Gen. Pervez Musharraf. Armitage has long and deep Pakistani intelligence connections. It would be reasonable to assume that while in Islamabad, Tenet, in what was described as "an unusually long meeting," also met with his Pakistani counterpart, Lt. Gen. Mahmud Ahmad, head of the ISI. [Source: The Indian SAPRA news agency, May 22, 2001]

17. June 2001 - German intelligence, the BND, warns the CIA and Israel that Middle Eastern terrorists are "planning to hijack commercial aircraft to use as weapons to attack important symbols of American and Israeli culture." [Source: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Sept. 14, 2001; See
http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/f_a_zeitung_story.html]

18. July 2001 - FBI agents in Arizona write a memorandum warning about suspicious activities involving a group of Middle Eastern men taking flight training lessons in Phoenix. The memorandum specifically mentions Osama bin Laden and warns of connections to terrorist activities. [Source: The New York Times, May 14, 2002]

19. summer 2001 - The National Security Council convenes a Dabhol working group as revealed in a series of government e-mails obtained by the Washington Post and the New York Daily News. [Source: The Albion Monitor, Feb. 28, 2002]

20. summer 2001 - According to a Sept. 26 story in Britain's The Guardian, correspondent David Leigh reported that "U.S. department of defense official, Dr. Jeffrey Starr, visited Tajikistan in January. The Guardian's Felicity Lawrence established that U.S. Rangers were also training special troops in Kyrgyzstan. There were unconfirmed reports that Tajik and Uzbek special troops were training in Alaska and Montana."

21. summer 2001 (est.) - Pakistani ISI Chief Gen. Ahmad (see above) orders an aide to wire transfer $100,000 to Mohammed Atta who was, according to the FBI, the lead terrorist in the suicide hijackings. Ahmad recently resigned after the transfer was disclosed in India and confirmed by the FBI. The individual who makes the wire transfer at Ahmad's direction is Ahmad Umar Sheik, the lead suspect in the kidnapping and murder of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl. [Source: The Times of India, Oct.11, 2001.]

22.  summer 2001 - The online newswire online.ie reports on Sept. 14 that an Iranian man phones U.S. law enforcement to warn of an imminent attack on the WTC in the week of Sept. 9. German police confirm the calls but state that the U.S. Secret Service would not reveal any further information. [Source:
http://www.online.ie/news/viewer.adp?article=1512332.
http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/online_ie_story.html ]

23. summer 2001 - Jordanian intelligence, the GID, makes a communications intercept deemed so important that King Abdullah's men relay it to Washington, probably through the CIA station in Amman. To make doubly sure the message got through it was passed through an Arab intermediary to a German intelligence agent. The message: A major attack was planned inside the U.S., and aircraft would be used. The code name of the operation was "The Big Wedding."  "When it became clear that the information was embarrassing to Bush Administration officials and congressmen who at first denied that there had been any such warnings before Sept. 11, senior Jordanian officials backed away from their earlier confirmations." This case was authenticated by ABC reporter John K. Cooley. [Source: International Herald Tribune (IHT), May 21, 2002]

24. summer 2001 (est.) - The National Security Agency intercepts telephone conversations between bin Laden aide Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and Mohammed Atta and does not share the information with any other agencies. [Source: Jonathan Landay, Knight Ridder Newspapers, June 6, 2002]

25. June 26, 2001 - The magazine indiareacts.com states that "India and Iran will 'facilitate' U.S. and Russian plans for 'limited military action' against the Taliban." The story indicates that the fighting will be done by U.S. and Russian troops with the help of Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. [Source: indiareacts.com, June 26, 2001]

26. summer 2001 - Russian intelligence notifies the CIA that 25 terrorist pilots have been specifically training for missions involving hijacked airliners. This is reported in the Russian press and news stories are translated for FTW by a retired CIA officer. (Note: The story currently on the Izvestia web site has been edited to delete a key paragraph.) [Source: Izvestia, Sept. 12, 2001,
http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/izvestia_story_pic.html]

27. July 4-14, 2001 - Osama bin Laden receives treatment for kidney disease at the American hospital in Dubai and meets with a CIA official, who returns to CIA headquarters on July 15. [Source: Le Figaro, Oct. 31, 2001]
http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/Le Figaro_osama_dubai.html

28. July 15, 2001 - Members of the G8, meeting in Genoa, Italy, discuss the Taliban, pipelines, and the handing over of Osama bin Laden. According to Pakistani representative Ambassador Naiz Naik, the U.S. delegation, led by former Clinton Ambassador to Pakistan Tom Simmons warned of a "military option" if the Taliban did not change position. [Source: Jean-Charles Brisard and Guillaume Dasquie, "Bin Laden: La Verite Interdite," pp76-7. Thanks to Prof. Peter Dale Scott]

29. July 2001 - Immediately after the G8 Summit three American officials -- Tom Simmons (former U.S. ambassador to Pakistan), Karl Inderfurth (former assistant secretary of state for South Asian affairs) and Lee Coldren (former State Department expert on South Asia) -- meet with Pakistani and Russian intelligence officers in Berlin and tell them that the U.S. is planning military strikes against Afghanistan in October. A French book released in November, "Bin Laden - La Verite Interdite," discloses that Taliban representatives often sat in on the meetings. British papers confirm that the Pakistani ISI relayed the threats to the Taliban. [Source: The Guardian, Sept. 22, 2001; the BBC, Sept. 18, 2001; The Inter Press Service, Nov. 16, 2001; Alexander's Gas and Oil Connections, Feb. 21, 2002]

30. July 2001 - The G8 summit at Genoa, Italy is surrounded by anti-aircraft guns, and local airspace is closed off after Italian and Egyptian officials (including President Hosni Mubarak) warn American intelligence that airliners stuffed with explosives might be used to attack President Bush. U.S. officials state that the warnings were "unsubstantiated." (But I wonder if they would have taken away the anti-aircraft artillery?) [Source: Los Angeles Times, Sept. 27, 2001]

31. July 26, 2001 - CBS News reports that John Ashcroft has stopped flying commercial airlines due a threat assessment. Ashcroft told the press that he didn't know anything about what had caused it.

32. Aug. 2, 2001 - U.S. ambassador to Pakistan, Christine Rocca (a former CIA officer), meets in Islamabad with a Taliban ambassador and demands the extradition of bin Laden. This was the last known meeting on the subject. [Source: Brisard and Dasquie, p 79. Thanks to Prof. Peter Dale Scott]

33. August 2001 - The FBI arrests an Islamic militant linked to bin Laden in Boston. French intelligence sources confirm that the man is a key member of bin Laden's network and the FBI learns that he has been taking flying lessons. At the time of his arrest the man is in possession of technical information on Boeing aircraft and flight manuals. [Source: Reuters, Sept. 13, 2001]

34. Aug. 11 or 12, 2001 Ç U.S. Navy Lt. Delmart "Mike" Vreeland, jailed in Toronto on U.S. fraud charges and claiming to be an officer with U.S. naval intelligence, writes details of the pending WTC attacks and seals them in an envelope, which he gives to Canadian authorities. [Source: The Toronto Star, Oct. 23, 2001; Toronto Superior Court Records]

35. August 2001 - As reported in the IHT both a French magazine (name not given) and a Moroccan newspaper simultaneously report that a Moroccan agent named Hassan Dabou had penetrated Al Qaeda to the point of getting close to bin Laden, who was "very disappointed" that the 1993 bombing had not toppled the WTC. Dabou was called to the U.S. after reporting this, which curtailed his ability to stay in touch with the organization and gather additional intelligence that might have prevented the attacks. Though not proved beyond a doubt, these stories have been met with a wall of silence. [The IHT, May 21, 2002]

36. August 2001 - Russian President Vladimir Putin orders Russian intelligence to warn the U.S. government "in the strongest possible terms" of imminent attacks on airports and government buildings. [Source: MSNBC interview with Putin, Sept. 15, 2001]

37. August 2001 - President Bush receives classified intelligence briefings at his Crawford, Texas ranch indicating that Osama bin Laden might be planning to hijack commercial airliners. [CBS News; CNN, May 15, 2002]

38. late-August 2001 - Prince Turki, the pro-U.S. head of Saudi intelligence (also known to be close to bin Laden), is replaced by his more neutral half-brother, Prince Nawwaf who is an ally of Crown Prince Abdullah. [Source: Saudi Arabian Information Resource, Aug. 31, 2001; http://www.saudinf.com/ - Thanks to Prof. Peter Dale Scott]

39. August/September 2001 - The Dow Jones Industrial Average drops nearly 900 points in the three weeks prior to the attack. A major stock market crash is imminent.

40. August/September 2001 - According to a detailed 13-page memo written by Minneapolis FBI legal officer Colleen Rowley, FBI headquarters ignores urgent, direct warnings from French intelligence services about pending attacks. In addition, a single Supervisory Special Agent (SSA) in Washington expends extra effort to thwart the field office's investigation of Zacarias Moussaoui, in one case rewriting Rowley's affidavit for a search warrant to search Moussaoui's laptop. Rowley's memo uses terms like "deliberately sabotage," "block," "integrity," "omitted," "downplayed," "glossed over," "mis-characterize," "improper political reasons, "deliberately thwarting," "deliberately further undercut," "suppressed," and "not completely honest." These are not terms describing negligent acts but rather, deliberate acts. FBI field agents desperately attempt to get action, but to no avail. One agent speculates that bin Laden might be planning to crash airliners into the WTC, while Rowley ironically noted that the SSA who had committed these deliberate actions had actually been promoted after Sept. 11. [Source: Associated Press, May 21, 2002]

41. Sept. 3-10, 2001 - MSNBC reports on Sept. 16 that a caller to a Cayman Islands radio talk show gave several warnings of an imminent attack on the U.S. by bin Laden in the week prior to 9-11.

42. early-September 2001 - An FBI internal document, based upon field notes from Minnesota field agents discloses that the agents had been investigating and had questioned the "20th hijacker," Zacarias Moussaoui. The field notes speculate that Moussaoui, who had been taking flight lessons, might crash an airliner into the WTC. Interestingly, the field agents' requests to obtain a search warrant for his personal computer were denied. French intelligence confirms to the FBI that Moussaoui has ties to terrorist groups and may have traveled to Afghanistan. The agents also had no knowledge of the Phoenix memo (See Item #18). One news story states that agents were in "a frenzy," absolutely convinced that he was "going to do something with a plane." [Source: Newsweek, May 20, 2002 issue, story by Michael Isikoff].

43. Sept. 1-10 2001 - In an exercise, called Operation "Swift Sword" and planned for four years, 23,000 British troops are steaming toward Oman. Although the 9-11 attacks caused a hiccup in the deployment, the massive operation was implemented as planned. At the same time two U.S. carrier battle groups arrive on station in the Gulf of Arabia just off the Pakistani coast. Also at the same time, some 17,000 U.S. troops join more than 23,000 NATO troops in Egypt for Operation "Bright Star." All of these forces are in place before the first plane hits the WTC. [Sources: The Guardian; CNN; Fox; The Observer; International Law Professor Francis Boyle, the University of Illinois.]

44. September 7, 2001 - Florida Governor Jeb Bush signs a two-year emergency executive order (01-261) making new provisions for the Florida National Guard to assist law enforcement and emergency-management personnel in the event of large civil disturbances, disaster or acts of terrorism. [Source: State of Florida website listing of Governor's executive orders]

45. Sept. 6-7, 2001 - Put options (a speculation that the stock will go down) totaling 4,744 are purchased on United Air Lines stock, as opposed to only 396 call options (speculation that the stock will go up). This is a dramatic and abnormal increase in sales of put options. Many of the United puts are purchased through Deutschebank/A.B. Brown, a firm managed until 1998 by the current executive director of the CIA, A.B. "Buzzy" Krongard. [Source: The Herzliyya International Policy Institute for Counterterrorism (ICT), http://www.ict.org.il/, Sept. 21, 2001 (Note:The ICT article on possible terrorist insider trading appeared eight days *after* the 9/11 attacks.); The New York Times; The Wall Street Journal; The San Francisco Chronicle, Sept. 29, 2001]

46. Sept. 10, 2001 - Put options totaling 4,516 are purchased on American Airlines as compared to 748 call options. [Source: Herzliyya Institute - above]

47. Sept. 6-11, 2001 - No other airlines show any similar trading patterns to those experienced by United and American. The put option purchases on both airlines were 600 percent above normal. This at a time when Reuters (Sept. 10) issues a business report stating, "Airline stocks may be poised to take off."

48. Sept. 6-10, 2001 - Highly abnormal levels of put options are purchased in Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley, AXA Re(insurance) which owns 25 percent of American Airlines, and Munich Re. All of these companies are directly impacted by the Sept. 11 attacks. [Source: ICT, above; FTW, Oct. 18, 2001, http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/oct152001.html]

49. It has been documented that the CIA, the Israeli Mossad, and many other intelligence agencies monitor stock trading in real time using highly advanced programs reported to be descended from Promis software. This is to alert national intelligence services of just such kinds of attacks. Promis was reported as recently as June 2001 to be in Osama bin Laden's possession and, as a result of recent stories by Fox, both the FBI and the Justice Department have confirmed its use for U.S. intelligence gathering through at least summer 2002. This would confirm that CIA had additional advance warning of imminent attacks. [Sources: The Washington Times, June 15, 2001; Fox, Oct. 16, 2001; FTW, Oct. 26, 2001, - http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/11_19_01_magic_carpet.html FTW, Vol. IV, No. 6, Sept. 18, 2001 - http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/sept1801.html; FTW, Vol. III, No. 7, Sept. 30, 2000 - http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/pandora/052401_promis.html]

50. Sept. 9, 2001 - President George W. Bush is presented with detailed war plans to overthrow Al Qaeda, according to U.S. and foreign sources speaking to NBC News. [Source: MSNBC, May 16, 2002. Thanks to Prof. Peter Dale Scott]

51. Sept. 10, 2001 - Amr Elgindy, a colleague of Iran-Contra figure Adnan Khashoggi and a notorious inside trader on the financial markets, orders his broker to liquidate his children's $300,000 trust account, fearing a sudden crash in the market. Elgindy is arrested in San Diego in May 2002, along with FBI agents Jeffrey Royer and Lynn Wingate who allegedly have been using their FBI positions to feed him inside information on various corporations. Elgindy is currently being held without bail. [Source: The Globe and Mail, May 25, 2002]

52. Sept. 10, 2001 - On Sept. 10, Newsweek has learned, a group of top Pentagon officials suddenly cancelled travel plans for the next morning, apparently because of security concerns. [Source: Newsweek, Sept. 24, 2001 issue, story by Evan Thomas]

53. Sept. 11, 2001 - United Air Lines flight 23, scheduled to fly from New York City to Los Angeles was delayed after four Muslim passengers began demanding that the plane take off immediately. This happened apparently after the first plane had hit the WTC. The passengers were thrown off the flight. [Source: The Globe and Mail, June 13, 2002]

54. Sept. 11, 2001 Ç Gen. Mahmud of the ISI (see #16), friend of Mohammed Atta, is visiting Washington on behalf of the Taliban. He is meeting with the Chairmen of the House and Senate Intelligence Committees, Rep. Porter Goss, R-Fla., and Sen. Bob Graham, D-Fla., [Source: MSNBC, Oct. 7, 2001; The New York Times, Feb. 17, 2002]

55. Sept. 11, 2001 - Employees of Odigo, Inc. in Israel, one of the world's largest instant messaging companies with offices in New York, receive threat warnings of an imminent attack on the WTC less than two hours before the first plane hits. Law enforcement authorities have gone silent about any investigation of this. The Odigo research and development offices in Israel are located in the city of Herzliyya, a ritzy suburb of Tel Aviv that is the same location as the Institute for Counter Terrorism, which eight days later reports details of insider trading on 9-11. [Source: CNN's Daniel Sieberg, Sept. 28, 2001; MSNBC Newsbytes, Brian McWilliams, Sept. 27, 2001; Ha'aretz, Sept. 26, 2001]

56. Sept. 11, 2001 - For 50 minutes, from 8:15 AM until 9:05 AM, with it widely known within the FAA and the military that four planes have been simultaneously hijacked and taken off course, no one notifies the President of the United States. It is not until 9:30 that any Air Force planes are scrambled to intercept, but by then it is too late. This means that the National Command Authority waited for 75 minutes before scrambling aircraft, even though it was known that four simultaneous hijackings had occurred. [Source: CNN; ABC; MSNBC; Los Angeles Times; The New York Times; www.tenc.net]

57. Sept. 11-12, 2001 - Nearly a month before the first reported outbreak, White House officials start taking the powerful antibiotic Cipro to treat anthrax. By the end of the year it will be known that the Ames strain of anthrax used in the attacks against Sens. Leahy and Daschle was produced by CIA programs coordinated through Fort Detrick, the Batelle Memorial Institute and the Dugway Proving Ground. [Source: NBC; CNN; www.tetrahedron.org, www.judicialwatch.org]

58. Sept. 13, 2001 - China is admitted to the World Trade Organization quickly, after years of unsuccessful attempts. [Source: The New York Times, Sept. 30, 2001]

59. Sept. 14, 2001 - Canadian jailers open the sealed envelope from Mike Vreeland in Toronto and see that is describes attacks against the WTC and Pentagon. The U.S. Navy subsequently states that Vreeland was discharged as a seaman in 1986 for unsatisfactory performance and has never worked in intelligence. [Source: The Toronto Star, Oct. 23, 2001; Toronto Superior Court records]

60. Sept. 15, 2001 - The New York Times reports that Mayo Shattuck III has resigned, effective immediately, as head of the Alex Brown (A.B.) unit of Deutschebank.

61. Sept. 29, 2001 - The San Francisco Chronicle reports that $2.5 million in put options on American and United airlines are unclaimed. This is likely the result of the suspension in trading on the New York Stock Exchange after the attacks, which gave the Securities and Exchange Commission time to be waiting when the owners showed up to redeem their put options.

62. Oct. 10, 2001 - The Pakistani newspaper The Frontier Post reports that U.S. Ambassador Wendy Chamberlain has paid a call on the Pakistani oil minister. A previously abandoned Unocal gas pipeline project from Turkmenistan, across Afghanistan, to Pakistan is now back on the table "in view of recent geopolitical developments."

63. Oct. 11, 2001 - The Ashcroft Justice Department takes over all terrorist prosecutions from the U.S. Attorneys office in New York, which has had a highly successful track record in prosecuting terrorist cases connected to Osama bin Laden. [Source: The New York Times, Oct. 11, 2001]

64. mid-October 2001 - The Dow Jones Industrial Average, after having suffered a precipitous drop has recovered most of its pre-attack losses. Although still weak and vulnerable to negative earnings reports, a crash has been averted by a massive infusion of government spending on defense programs, subsidies for "affected" industries and planned tax cuts for corporations.

65. Nov. 21, 2001 - The British paper The Independent runs a story headlined, "Opium Farmers Rejoice at the Defeat of the Taliban." The story reports that massive opium planting is underway all over the country.

66. Nov. 25, 2001 - The Observer runs a story headlined "Victorious Warlords Set To Open the Opium Floodgates." It states that farmers are being encouraged by warlords allied with the victorious Americans are "being encouraged to plant as much opium as possible."

67. Dec. 4, 2001 - Convicted drug lord and opium kingpin Ayub Afridi is recruited by the U.S. government to help establish control in Afghanistan by unifying various Pashtun warlords. The former opium smuggler who was one of the CIA's leading assets in the war against the Russians is released from prison in order to do this. [Source: The Asia Times Online, Dec. 4, 2001]

68. Dec. 25, 2001 - Newly appointed Afghani Prime Minister Hamid Karzai is revealed as being a former paid consultant for Unocal. [Source: Le Monde]

69. Jan. 3, 2002 - President Bush appoints Zalmy Khalilzad as a special envoy to Afghanistan. Khalilzad, a former employee of Unocal, also wrote op-eds in the Washington Post in 1997 supporting the Taliban regime. [Source: Pravda, Jan. 9, 2002]

70. Jan. 4, 2002 - Florida drug trafficking explodes after 9-11. In a surge of trafficking reminiscent of the 1980s the diversion of resources away from drug enforcement has opened the floodgates for a new surge of cocaine and heroin from South America. [The Christian Science Monitor, Jan. 4, 2002]

71. Jan. 10, 2002 - In a call from a speaker phone in open court, attorneys for Mike Vreeland call the Pentagon's switchboard operator, who confirms that Vreeland is indeed a naval lieutenant on active duty. She provides an office number and a direct dial phone extension to his office in the Pentagon. [Source: Attorney Rocco Galati; Toronto Superior Court records]

72. Jan. 10, 2002 - Attorney General John Ashcroft recuses himself from the Enron investigation because Enron had been a major campaign donor in his 2000 Senate race. He fails to recuse himself from involvement in two sitting federal grand juries investigating bribery and corruption charges against ExxonMobil and BP Amoco, which have massive oil interests in Central Asia. Both were major Ashcroft donors in 2000. [Source: CNN, Jan. 10, 2002; FTW, "The Elephant in the Living Room, Part I," April 4, 2002,
http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/04_04_02_elephant.html]

73. Jan. 23, 2002 - Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl is kidnapped in Pakistan. Pearl is reported dead on Feb. 21. Lead suspect Ahmad Umar Sheik, former colleague of Gen. Ahmad, is arrested on Feb. 12 and named as the lead suspect in the kidnapping and murder. Legal sources close to the Pakistani government tell FTW that Pearl was investigating the ISI. [Source: CNN.com]

74. Feb. 9, 2002 - Pakistani leader Gen. Musharraf and Afghan leader Hamid Karzai announce their agreement to "cooperate in all spheres of activity," including the proposed Central Asian pipeline. Pakistan will give $10 million to Afghanistan to help pay Afghan government workers. [Source: The Irish Times, Feb. 9, 2002]

75. Feb. 18, 2002 - The Financial Times reports that the estimated opium harvest in Afghanistan in the late-spring 2002 will reach a world record 4,500 metric tons.

76. mid-April, 2002 - World Bank chief James Wolfensohn, at the opening of the World Bank's offices in Kabul, states he has held talks about financing the Trans-Afghanistan gas pipeline. He confirms $100 million in new grants for the interim Afghani government. Wolfensohn also states that a number of companies have already expressed interest in the project. [Source: Alexander's Gas and oil Connections, citing an Agence France-Presse story]

77. May 13, 2002 - The BBC reports that Afghanistan is about to close a deal for construction of the $2 billion gas pipeline to run from Turkmenistan to Pakistan and India. The story states, "work on the project will start after an agreement is expected to be struck" at a summit scheduled for the end of the month. Unocal will build the pipeline. [Source: BBC, May 13, 2002]

78. May, 2002 - A number of sources report progress on both oil and gas pipelines. Regional sources state that Unocal will re-emerge as a pipeline contender after withdrawing from the CentGas pipeline project in 1998. Unocal denies plans to revive the gas pipeline but curiously neglects to mention whether or not it has any interest in the oil pipeline, which local sources say is moving ahead. [Source: The Dawn Group of Newspapers, May 7, May 17, May 22, 2002]

79. May 30, 2002 - Afghanistan's interim leader, Hamid Karzai, Turkmenistan's President Niyazov, and Pakistani President Musharraf meet in Islamabad to sign a memorandum of understanding on the trans-Afghanistan gas pipeline project. The three leaders will meet for more talks on the project in October. The Turkmen-Afghan-Pakistani gas pipeline accord has been published and can be viewed at the following website: http://www.gasandoil.com/goc/news/nts22622.htm. [Source: NewsBase, June 5, 2002]

80.  May 16, 2002 Ç White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer states unequivocally that while President Bush had been warned of possible hijackings, "The president did not -- not -- receive information about the use of airplanes as missiles by suicide bombers." [Source: CBS News, May 15, 2002]

81. May 19, 2002 - Former FBI Agent Tyrone Powers, now a professor at Anne Arundel Community College states on radio station KISS 98.7 that he has credible evidence suggesting that the Bush Administration did in fact allow the Sept. 11 attacks to further a hidden agenda. [Source: http://www.indymedia.org - May 20, 2002]

82. May 31, 2002 - FBI Agent Robert Wright delivers a tearful press conference at the National Press Club describing his lawsuit against the FBI for deliberately curtailing investigations that might have prevented the 9-11 attacks. He uses words like "prevented," "thwarted," "obstructed," "threatened," "intimidated," and "retaliation" to describe the actions of his superiors in blocking his attempts to shut off money flows to Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups. These are not words of negligence. They are words describing deliberate and malicious actions. [Source: C-SPAN website]

83. June 4, 2002 - Air Force Lt. Col. Steve Butler, who had called President Bush a joke and accused him of allowing the Sept. 11 attacks to happen, is suspended from his post at the Defense Language School in Monterey, Calif. and could face a court martial. [Source: Associated Press, June 4, 2002]

84. June 17, 2002 - Reuters reports that Butler's case has been resolved without the necessity of a court martial. (I guess so. There's enough material here to prove him right. -- MCR) [Reuters, June 17, 2002]

85. July 2, 2002 - Motions from Zacarias Moussaoui are unsealed in federal court, indicating that Moussaoui wants to testify before both a grand jury and Congress about the Sept. 11 attacks. Moussaoui claims to have information showing that the U.S. government wanted the attacks to happen. [Source: The Washington Post, July 3, 2002]

86. July 3, 2002 - The first-ever shipment of Russian oil, 200,000 metric tons, arrives in Houston. [Source: The Moscow Times, July 6, 2002].

87. July 6, 2002 - Afghan Vice President Hajji Abdul Qadir is assassinated by Afghan warlords. The New York Times reports that Qadir may have been assassinated by opium warlords upset by Qadir's efforts to reduce the rampant opium farming and processing that has taken place since the U.S. occupation. Qadir had been overseeing a Western-backed eradication program, according to the Times. However, the opium warlords of the region are same ones sponsored, protected, and in some cases released from prison by the CIA and who have been protected by President Bush's special envoy, Zalmay Khalilzad. It is reported that the raw opium is being refined near U.S. bases at Kandahar. [Sources: The New York Times, July 8, 2002; Far Eastern Economic Review, April 18, 2002]

Now, let's go back to the Oct. 31 story by Le Figaro -- the one that has Osama bin Laden meeting with a CIA officer in Dubai in July 2001.

The story says that, "Throughout his stay in the hospital, Osama Bin Laden received visits from many family members [There goes the story that he's a black sheep! --MCR] and Saudi Arabian Emirate personalities of status. During this time the local representative of the CIA was seen by many people taking the elevator and going to bin Laden's room.

"Several days later the CIA officer bragged to his friends about having visited the Saudi millionaire. From authoritative sources, this CIA agent visited CIA headquarters on July 15, the day after bin Laden's departure for Quetta.

"According to various Arab diplomatic sources and French intelligence itself, precise information was communicated to the CIA concerning terrorist attacks aimed at American interests in the world, including its own territory.

"Extremely bothered, they [American intelligence officers in a meeting with French intelligence officers] requested from their French peers exact details about the Algerian activists [connected to bin Laden through Dubai banking institutions], without explaining the exact nature of their inquiry. When asked the question, ÎWhat do you fear in the coming days?' the Americans responded with incomprehensible silence.

"On further investigation, the FBI discovered certain plans that had been put together between the CIA and its ÎIslamic friends' over the years. The meeting in Dubai is, so it would seem, consistent with 'a certain American policy.'"

Even though Le Figaro reported that it had confirmed with hospital staff that bin Laden had been there as reported, stories printed on Nov. 1 contained quotes from hospital staff that these reports were untrue. On Nov. 1, as reported by the Ananova press agency, the CIA flatly denied that any meeting between any CIA personnel and Osama bin Laden at any time.

Who do you believe?

2nd January 2002
"Hindu Terrorism is Hindu Barbarism" by Dr Noam Chomsky
"Hindu Fundamentalism, Hindu Extremism and Hindu Nationalism Equal Hindu Terrorism. Hindu fundamentalism is terrorism, Hindu extremism is terrorism and Hindu nationalism is terrorism. Hindu terrorism is Hindu barbarism.
So-called Hindu nationalists are actually Hindu fundamentalists, extremists, terrorists and savage barbarians." said Dr Chomsky - an American Professor, during a Public Lecture at the Music Academy, Chennai (Madras), India on November 10, 2001.
(Presented by Frontline magazine and the Media Development Foundation and supported by 22 representative organizations)

25th November 2001
United States is a Terrorist State - Chomsky's address in Karachi
"The U.S. governmental system is one of the most fundamentalist (dogmatic) systems in the world, even more fundamentalist than the official system of Iran", said Dr. Noam Chomsky, a renowned American Scholar in his lecture in a forum organised by The Friday Times and Eqbal Ahmad Foundation in Karachi, Pakistan.
Dr. Noam Chomsky said that the United States did not seek authorization for launching air strikes on Afghanistan from the United Nations because the involvement of the world body could have limited its unilateral power to act. Russia and China were happy because of their own interests.

Prof. Chomsky said that the Muslim world as a whole was in serious trouble. Making an obvious reference to the Arab states, he said they were surviving on oil wealth which would not last long. Resources of these countries were being drained to the West and in case the situation remained unchanged, the future of next generations would not be good.
He did not agree with the suggestion that the American people had supported U.S. attacks on Afghanistan, or that the results of the opinion polls in this regard were reflective of their thinking. In fact, he said, the response by the American people depended on the questions put to them. If they were asked whether action should be taken against the perpetrators of the Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon, their response would be in the affirmative. But if they were asked whether innocent people should be targeted, their answer would be quite different. 

When a questioner tried to support the U.S. action against a 'repressive' regime in Afghanistan, Prof. Chomsky said it was not for America to take action against repressive regimes. He said the governments of India and Pakistan are "highly repressive" but this does not mean that they should be destroyed. In his opinion, the U.S. system was most fundamentalist in the world, more fundamentalist than even that of Iran. He said a fundamentalist system could be possible even in a democracy.

Answering a question, the American scholar said that going by the definition of terrorism, the U.S. itself is a terrorist state. He said the media was not portraying the entire picture because of which people were not fully aware of the ground situation. He recalled a UN agency's request that U.S. should withdraw the threat of bombing of Afghanistan as it was obstructing humanitarian assistance in that country and creating danger for starvation of millions of people there. But, he regretted, it was ignored by the media. The paper which carried the report made only a passing remark at the tail of some other story.

In reply to a question about the U.S. establishment's assertion that after Afghanistan they would target more countries, Iraq being one of them, Prof. Chomsky said the U.S. had said at the outset that they would go after everyone, every defenceless. He said the U.S. would not touch countries where its own interests were hurt. Oil-rich Saudi Arabia, he added, was one example. He pointed out that statements by Osama bin Laden and President Bush and Prime Minister Blair were identical, although both sides interpreted them differently. While Osama said he would use force to drive aggressors out of Afghanistan, Bush and Blair meant that they would drive such people from the world.

Prof. Chomsky said the U.S. was pressing Afghanistan to "hand over" Osama and not "extradite" him as in the latter case the U.S. would have required the [United Nations] Security Council's sanction. He said it was strange that war against terrorism was being led by a country which was condemned by the world for terrorism. Referring to American plans for militarisation of space, he said no other country was in race with the U.S. and it alone was its competitor.
He was critical of the U.S. support to Israel, saying when an Israeli helicopter killed somebody, it should be taken as an American helicopter because the Jewish state did not manufacture helicopters.

24th November 2001
11 Year Old Kainaat's hope for peace in Afghanistan - 
A letter by Shabir Chaudhry, London
Dear all, Aslamo-alykum.
For those who could not make it to the demonstration in London on 18th Nov:
I have been participating in various demonstrations since 1972 and this was no doubt the biggest one I have attended to. The crowed surely was far more than 15,000 as claimed by police. I would put the figure around 50,000. It was well organised and I was impressed with the role of young Muslim children. This is for the first time that I took my family with me to the demonstration. My children and some other of their age group were shouting the following slogans:

        1) Bush, Blair, We Know you    Your Father was a Killer too
        2) One, Two, Three, Four            Stop the Killing, Stop the War
        3) Bush, Blair and CIA                How many kids you killed today
        4) We want peace in Ramadan  Stop the State Terrorism in Afghanistan

My children who normally have no interest in political matters were very enthusiastic about it and were shouting their heads off. I told my 11 year old Kainaat, you need to stop now otherwise you will lose your voice. She replied, Daddy, it doesn't matter, children are losing their lives in Afghanistan and you are worried about my voice.

I was impressed by the reply and was further impressed by her shouting as if it would stop killing of innocent children in Afghanistan. The next day she asked me if they have stopped bombing?. I told her, No, as the American and British governments have already made up their minds to invade Afghanistan at any cost to establish their military bases in the area so that they can control natural reserves. Osama Bin Laden and the Taliban are mere smoke screen to show to the world, in fact they want to take over the Central Asia which is rich with oil and gas reserves. She of course could not understand these clever western plans but she was very disappointed and said why can't they get the oil without killing innocent people. She asked me if there was anything she could do to help stop this killing. More I told her, more upset she became. I wish I had answer to her questions!

I am afraid this war will escalate and many more innocent lives will be lost in Iraq, Pakistan, Iran and other neighbouring Muslim countries. If Taliban and Osama were the real objective then why are they bringing more troops in the area as the Taliban have almost been eliminated. Italian, Japanese, Australian, British troops are already in Afghanistan. Poland has been asked to send their troops. Question is, to do what? Surely, Afghanistan and Osama were only a start, Iraq would be next victim and that will surely drag other countries into the conflict. In one way or the other Pakistan will also be drawn into. In other words Pakistan can delay it by agreeing to everything they ask but CANNOT avoid it. I hope my analyses is incorrect.

1st November 2001
Looking for a terror school to bomb? Try Georgia, USA -  by George Monbiot, London
As the United States began bombing Afghanistan, President George Bush said "If any government sponsors the outlaws and killers of innocents, they have become outlaws and murderers themselves. And they will take that lonely path at their own peril".  I'm glad he said "any government", as there is one which, although it has yet to be identified as a sponsor of terrorism, requires his urgent attention.

For the past 55 years it has been running a terrorist training camp, whose victims massively outnumber the people killed in the attack on New York, the US embassy bombings and the other atrocities laid, rightly or wrongly, at al-Quaida's door.

The camp is called the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Co-operation, or WHISC. It is based in Fort Benning, Georgia, and it is funded by the U.S. government. Until January this year, WHISC was called the School of the Americas, or SOA. Since 1946, it has trained more than 60,000 Latin American soldiers and policemen. Among its graduates are many of the continent's most notorious torturers, mass murderers, dictators and state terrorists. Documentation compiled by the pressure group SOA Watch shows that Latin America has been ripped apart by its alumni. In June 2001, Colonel Byron Lima Estrada, once a student at the school, was convicted in Guatemala City of murdering Bishop Juan Gerardi in 1998. The bishop was killed because he had helped to write a report on the atrocities committed by Guatemala's D-2, the military intelligence agency run by Lima Estrada with the help of two other SOA graduates.

D-2 co-ordinated the "anti-insurgency" campaign which obliterated 448 Mayan Indian villages and murdered tens of thousands of their people. Forty percent of the cabinet ministers who served the genocidal regimes of Lucas Garcia, Rios Montt and Mejia Victores studied at the SOA. In 1993, the United Nations truth commission on El Salvador named the army officers who had committed the worst atrocities of the civil war. Two-thirds of them had trained at the school. In Chile, its graduates ran Augusto Pinochet's secret police and his three main concentration camps. Argentina's dictators Roberto Viola and Leopoldo Galtieri, Panama's Manuel Noriega and Omar Torrijos, Peru's Juan Velasco Alvarado and Ecuador's Guillermo Rodriguez all benefited from SOA instruction. The school's defenders insist that this is all ancient history. But its graduates are also involved in the dirty war now being waged, with US support, in Colombia. In 1999 the State Department's report on human rights named two SOA graduates as the murderers of the peace commissioner Alex Lopera.

Last year, Human Rights Watch revealed that seven former pupils were running paramilitary groups there and had commissioned kidnappings, disappearances and massacres. The FBI defines terrorism as "violent acts ... intended to intimidate or coerce a civilian population, influence the policy of a government, or affect the conduct of a government" - a precise description of the activities of SOA's graduates.

But how can we be sure that its alma mater has had any part in this? Well, in 1996, the US government was forced to release seven SOA training manuals, which recommended blackmail, torture, execution and the arrest of witnesses' relatives.

Last year, several congressmen tried to shut the school down, but they were defeated by 10 votes. Instead, the House of Representatives voted to close it and then immediately reopen it under a different name. So the School of the Americas washed its hands of the past by renaming itself WHISC.

Given that the evidence linking the school to continuing atrocities in Latin America is rather stronger than the evidence linking the al-Qaeda training camps to the attack on New York, what should we do about the "evil-doers" in Fort Benning, Georgia?

Well, we could urge our governments to apply diplomatic pressure to seek the extradition of the school's commanders for trial on charges of complicity in crimes against humanity. Alternatively, we could demand that our governments attack the US, bombing its military installations, cities and airports in the hope of overthrowing its unelected government and replacing it with a new administration overseen by the UN. This prescription is ridiculous, I agree. But try as I might, I cannot see the moral difference between this course of action and the war being waged in Afghanistan.

The Guardian   Taken from http://www.smh.com.au/news/0111/01/world/world7.html

1st November, 2001
An Overview of the War on Terrorism - by Jim Marrs © 2001
Extracted from Nexus Magazine, Volume 9, November 1 (December-January 2002)
As questions remain over the attacks of September 11, so too must questions be asked about the vested interests behind the US-led push for a war on terrorism.

We are not afraid to entrust the American people with unpleasant facts, foreign ideas, alien philosophies and competitive values. For a nation that is afraid to let its people judge the truth and falsehood in an open market is a nation that is afraid of its people.
 - President John F. Kennedy -

Americans are now beginning to pay the price for sleeping through history classes, ignoring important information in the alternative media and neglecting to participate in their own political process. They find themselves in a new war--the War on Terrorism. This is a war they never asked for and never envisioned, anaesthetised as we all are by the flickering tube of distraction. It is a war predicated on the premise that a sneak attack was made on the United States on September 11, 2001.

Unlike previous wars, there is no Berlin or Tokyo to capture and hence no victory to be won, except for those who profit from war. The real victims of this war will be the average American citizen, right along with the starving Afghan.

This new war might well be compared to the failed War on Drugs and the nearly forgotten War on Poverty. No clear victory has yet been achieved over the misuse of drugs or the ravages of poverty within our own nation. Our prisons are overflowing with drug offenders, with no appreciable lessening of either demand or supply of illegal drugs, and our basic civil rights have been badly mauled. Just like those failed campaigns, the War on Terrorism for the foreseeable future will set us all on a costly course of restrictions on individual freedom, ever more centralised authority and omnipresent fear.

And where are the voices of those who would argue the merits of this new war? The airwaves and newspapers only ratchet the fear factor upwards each day, with little or no effort to hear the many thoughtful Americans who are asking themselves, "Do I really need to give up my freedoms in order to save them?"

So with flags flying on the antennae of our gas-guzzling vehicles and love of country pulsing in our hearts, we march off to yet another war for oil.

Wars for Oil
Yes, oil. Petroleum has been behind all recent wars, beginning in the early 1940s when a mostly rural and isolationist America was suddenly thrown into World War II as a reaction to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Americans mourned the loss of some 3,000 soldiers and civilians in Hawaii and, in righteous indignation, allowed their country to be turned into a giant military camp.

The Federal government, which had consolidated so much power unto itself under the Depression-busting policies of President Franklin Roosevelt, grew even stronger and more centralised under the aegis of "national security". It all seemed quite natural and necessary at the time.

But serious students of history now know that even that "good war" was the result of machinations by a handful of wealthy and powerful men. By closing off Japan's oil supplies in the summer of 1941, Roosevelt, the quintessential Wall Street insider, ensured an eventual attack on the United States. It has now been well established that Roosevelt and a few close advisers knew full well that Pearl Harbor would be attacked on December 7, 1941, but chose to allow it to happen to further their agenda for launching America into war. (The details of this may be found in my book, Rule by Secrecy.)

The Vietnam War was prosecuted by men who were close to Roosevelt and the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) and who had long voiced a desire to gain control over Indochina's oil, magnesium and rubber assets. Again a provocation was created. In August 1964, President Lyndon Johnson whipped Congress into a frenzy by claiming that North Vietnamese gunboats had attacked the US Sixth Fleet in the Gulf of Tonkin off the coast of Vietnam. "Our boys are floating in the water," he cried.

Congress responded by passing the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, which bypassed the Constitution and gave Johnson the power to wage war to stop attacks on Americans. It was the beginning of the real-shooting Vietnam War.

And it was all a lie. No evidence has ever been brought forward that such an attack took place. In fact, editors for US News & World Report (July 23, 1984) called it "The 'Phantom Battle' that Led to War".

While America was waging war against North Vietnam, which we were told was merely a puppet of communist Russia and China, Johnson was encouraged by his CFR advisers to grant the Soviet Union loans at higher levels than offered during World War II when they were our ally. US-backed loans provided Russia with the means to build facilities which turned out war materials that were then sent to North Vietnam for use against American troops. This was a good example of the duplicity of our modern wars.

The Gulf War was all about oil, from the wells in Kuwait slant-drilling into Iraq's southern reserves to the destruction of the oilfields at its finish. Here we found a new Hitler in Saddam Hussein, an enemy armed and financed by the CIA--an agency whose top officials have long been connected to oilmen, CFR members and other globalists (see Rule by Secrecy).

Saddam Hussein, strapped for cash due to his eight-year war against Iran on behalf of the US, decided to regain Kuwait as a means of increasing his income. Kuwait had been carved out of southern Iraq by British troops. When asked her thoughts on this move, US Ambassador April Glaspie replied that the US Government had "no opinion" and that the matter of Kuwait was not associated with America. But when he moved his troops into Kuwait, President George H. W. Bush mobilised a United Nations force against him, backed by a US$4 billion secret fund provided by his business associates in Saudi Arabia.

Yet, as those patriotic soldiers closed in on Saddam, the whole war stopped and George H. W. Bush's old business partner is still in power. It appears to have been yet another provocation. And as in Vietnam, even as we prepared to fight against Saddam, the American taxpayers backed $500 million in loans that Bush used to purchase arms for use against our forces.

Caspian Sea Oil Coveted
Today the real issue is the rich oil reserves of the Caspian Sea region--the prize sought by Hitler, whose drive to that area was stopped only by the tenacious Russian defence of the Volga River city of Stalingrad.

In the late 1970s, with the Soviet discovery of vast untapped oil in Chechnya, the region was ripe for exploitation but control over Afghanistan was needed to ensure the safety of a pipeline to bring the oil to world markets. But after almost 10 years of brutal, no-quarter fighting against Afghans and Arab mercenaries including Osama bin Laden, and backed by the US, the Soviets were forced to withdraw. The economic stress of this Russo-Afghan War was enough to topple communism in the early 1990s.

Now the international bankers and oilmen have a foothold in cash-strapped Russia, and the estimated $40 billion in Caspian Sea oil is again attracting serious attention. In 1997, six international companies and the Government of Turkmenistan formed Central Asian Gas Pipeline Ltd (CentGas) to build a 790-mile-long pipeline to Pakistan and perhaps on to the New Delhi area of India. Leading this consortium was Unocal Corporation, whose president, John F. Imle, Jr, said the project would be "the foundation for a new commerce corridor for the region--often referred to as the Silk Road for the 21st century".

But problems developed with the fundamentalist Muslim government in Afghanistan, not the least of which was the Taliban government's treatment of women which prompted feminist demonstrations against firms seeking to do business there. Additionally, the Taliban regime was creating chaotic conditions by pitting the various Islamic sects against each other in order to maintain control. In mid-1999, Unocal withdrew from the pipeline consortium, citing the hazardous political situation, and the project languished.

Notice that in President George W. Bush's declaration of War on Terrorism, he never mentioned terrorists in Northern Ireland or Palestinian suicide bombers. Attention was focused only on Afghanistan, the one nation necessary to complete the lucrative pipeline.

It should also be noted that Vice President Dick Cheney headed Halliburton, a giant oil industry service company with vested interests in the region, and he is generally thought to be more powerful than the President.

Afghan Action Planned Long Ago
Today it can be demonstrated that military action against Afghanistan was in the works long before the September 11 attacks.

As reported by the BBC's George Arney, former Pakistan Foreign Secretary Niaz Naik was alerted by American officials in mid-July that military action against Afghanistan would be launched by mid-October.

At a UN-sponsored meeting concerning Afghanistan in Berlin, Naik was informed that unless bin Laden were handed over, America would take military action either to kill or capture both him and Taliban leader Mullah Omar as the initial step in installing a new government there.

In a 1998 interview published in the French publication Le Nouvel Observateur (the significant portions of which never made it to the United States), former National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski admitted that American activities in Afghanistan actually began six months prior to the Soviet action of December 1979.

Brzezinski said the Jimmy Carter administration began secretly funding opponents of the pro-Soviet regime in Kabul in July 1979, with the full knowledge that such action might provoke a Soviet invasion. Soviet leaders at the time argued that the invasion was necessary to thwart American aggression in Afghanistan. The former National Security Adviser, who helped found the globalist Trilateral Commission, expressed no regret at this provocation, stating: "That secret operation was an excellent idea. It brought about the demoralization and finally the breakup of the Soviet empire." It also produced the Taliban regime which we are fighting today, as well as Osama bin Laden.

By 1984, with Vice President George Bush overseeing the Afghan situation, bin Laden was in charge of the Maktab al-Khidamat (MAK), which funnelled money, arms and manpower from the outside world into the war against the Soviets. He soon helped form a polyglot formation of Muslim troops from Egypt, Pakistan, Lebanon, Syria and Palestinian refugee camps, whom the CIA found easier to deal with than the Muslim fundamentalists in Afghanistan.

There should be considerable soul-searching about America's role in arming and training an international group of Muslim extremists in Afghanistan, long after their comrades destroyed the Marine barracks in Beirut and hijacked numerous airliners.

Little noticed in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks were reports that China had signed a pact with the Afghans and was quietly inducted into the controversial World Trade Organization--action which under normal circumstances would have drawn widespread protest. Although such a pact is unconfirmed at this time, Pakistani General Pervez Musharraf, chairman of their joint chiefs and chief of the Pakistani Army Staff, this year visited China at their request and discussed matters of mutual interest.

Although it is claimed that Pakistan is aiding the US in the current War on Terrorism, the State Department's coordinator for counterterrorism, Michael Sheehan, told a Senate Foreign Relations subcommittee that Pakistan supports and trains terrorist groups in Afghanistan.

This raises the spectre of Chinese intervention, should US forces become bogged down in mountainous Afghanistan. This prospect is particularly unsettling, as back in 1555 the French prophet Nostradamus, who has been proven correct in so many of his prophecies, published his prediction that America and Russia would go to war against a coalition made up of Arab nations and China (see C. III v. 60; also C. VI v. 21). Until just recently, such a notion seemed absurd.

Would Americans Attack Americans?
The WTC/Pentagon attacks provided a convenient excuse to launch the pre-laid plans for military action against Afghanistan. But were they simply allowed to happen, or were they contrived? The question becomes: "Would any American allow an attack on fellow Americans, just to further his own business or political agenda?" The answer unfortunately appears to be "Yes".

Incredibly, 40-year-old government documents, thought to have been destroyed long ago but recently made public, show the US military in the early 1960s proposed making terrorist attacks in the United States and blaming them on Fidel Castro. They are discussed in a recent book on the National Security Agency (NSA), entitled Body of Secrets: Anatomy of the Ultra-Secret National Security Agency, by James Bamford [see Reviews this issue of NEXUS. Ed.].

These documents were produced beginning in late 1961, following the ill-fated Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba that spring. President John F. Kennedy, angered by the inept actions of the CIA, had shifted responsibility for Cuba from that agency to the Department of Defense. Here, military strategists considered plans to create terrorist actions which would alarm the American population and stampede them into supporting a military attack on Cuba. Under consideration in Operation Northwoods were plans:

• to create "a series of well-coordinated incidents" in or around the US Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to include inciting riots and blowing up ammunition stores, aircraft and ships;
• to "develop a Communist Cuba terror campaign in the Miami area, in other Florida cities and even in Washington";
• to "sink a boatload of Cubans en route to Florida (real or simulated)...foster attempts on the lives of Cuban refugees in the United States";
• to explode bombs in carefully chosen locations and coordinate with the release of "prepared documents" pointing to Cuban complicity;
• to use fake Russian aircraft to harass civilian airliners;
• to make "hijacking attempts against civil air and surface craft", even to simulating the shooting down of a civilian airliner.

Kennedy rejected Operation Northwoods and senior military officers ordered the documents destroyed. But someone slipped up and the papers were discovered by the Assassination Records Review Board and recently released by the National Archives.

On a more recent event, The New York Times (October 28, 1993) reported that an informant named Emad Salem was involved early in 1993 with Middle Eastern terrorists connected to Osama bin Laden, to develop a bomb for use against New York's World Trade Center. Salem, a former Egyptian Army officer, wanted to substitute a harmless powder for the explosive, but his plan to thwart the attack was blocked by an FBI official who apparently did not want to expose the inside informant. The attack was allowed to proceed. The February 26, 1993 explosion in the WTC resulted in six deaths, more than 1,000 casualties, and damage in excess of half a billion dollars.

We now see that creating crises to further political goals was a methodology well understood and utilised in the 20th century. Is this the game today? Let's examine the September 11 attacks.

Questions Over the September 11 attacks
Superficially, it all seemed straightforward enough. According to the official story, about 19 suicidal Middle Eastern terrorists, their hearts full of hatred for American freedom and democracy, hijacked four airliners, crashing two into the twin towers of New York City's World Trade Center and a third into the Pentagon. The fourth reportedly crashed in western Pennsylvania after passengers attempted to fight the terrorists.

But many disturbing questions have arisen. Among them:

• Why was the US military preparing war plans against Afghanistan months before the September 11 attacks? Were they just looking for some event to propel the normally disinterested American public into a war, as in the past?
• How could paper documents incriminating bin Laden be found intact at the WTC, but the planes' "black box" flight recorders--designed to withstand crashes--were damaged beyond use?
• Even days and weeks after the WTC attack, why were news cameramen prevented from photographing the ruins from certain angles, as complained about by CBS correspondent Lou Young, who asked, "What are they afraid we're going to see?"
• Why has the NYPD liaison to the FBI been sent packing as a "security risk", as reported in the October 16 New York Times? Whose security is at risk? The FBI's? What is it that the Bureau does not want NYPD to know?
• How could an obviously sophisticated terrorist plan, involving perhaps as many as 100 persons and in the works for five years, escape the notice of our intelligence services, especially the FBI and CIA? And why, instead of cashiering those responsible for this intelligence failure and totally restructuring these agencies, are we doubling their budgets?
• Why did the WTC South Tower collapse first, when it was not as extensively damaged as the North Tower which burned for almost an hour and a half before collapsing?
• Why did many witnesses claim to hear further explosions within the buildings? And why did the destruction of the towers appear more like a controlled implosion than a tragic accident?
• Why did FBI Director Robert Mueller acknowledge that the list of named hijackers might not contain their real names? Doesn't everyone have to show a photo ID to claim a boarding pass? Where was the normal security?
• Why was there a discrepancy of 35 names between the published passenger lists and the official death toll on all four of the ill-fated flights? Internet columnist Gary North reported that "the published names in no instance match the total listed for the number of people on board". Why the discrepancy?
• As none of these listed passengers had an Arabic-sounding name, how did the government know which ones were the hijackers?
• Why did the seat numbers of the hijackers, given in a cellphone call from Flight Attendant Madeline Amy Sweeney to Boston Air Traffic Control, not match the seats occupied by the men the FBI claims were responsible?
• Since Saudi Arabia's Foreign Minister claimed five of the proclaimed hijackers were not aboard the death planes and in fact are still alive, and a sixth man on that list was reported to be alive and well in Tunisia, why are these names still on the FBI list?
• Why were no names of the named hijackers on any of the passenger lists? If they all used aliases, how did the FBI identify them so quickly?
• Why did one of the named hijackers take luggage on a suicide flight, then leave it along with an incriminating note in his car at the airport?
• As for the overall investigation into the September attacks, by late October US authorities conceded that most of their promising leads for finding accomplices and some of their long-held suspicions about several suspects have unravelled, according to the New York Times. Since more than 800 people have been arrested and more than 365,000 tips have been received from the public, why has nothing substantial been forthcoming in the largest US criminal investigation in history?
• Why, of the nearly 100 people still being sought by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, is none seen as a major suspect?
• Why are we bombing Afghanistan, when apparently no listed hijackers were Afghans but instead Arabs from various Middle Eastern nations? Since Iraq was implicated in the 1993 WTC attack, why are we not bombing that "rogue" nation?
• Why does the heavy drinking and searching for hookers by some of the hijackers in Boston, as reported by Reuters news service, sound more like mercenaries carousing before a mission than pious religious fundamentalists about to meet their maker?
• How did the terrorists obtain top-secret White House and Air Force One codes and signals--the excuse for hustling President Bush all across the country on September 11? Was this evidence of an inside job, or was it, as reported by Fox News, evidence that former FBI employee and double agent Robert Hanssen had delivered an updated version of the purloined Promis computer software to his Russian handlers who passed it along to bin Laden? Does this software, which was stolen from a US company during the Reagan administration by Justice Department officials under Attorney-General Ed Meese, allow outsiders carte blanche entrée to our top-security computers? (Hanssen's last job before being arrested as a spy was to upgrade the FBI's intelligence computer systems.)
• If United Airlines Flight 93 crashed as the result of a struggle between heroic passengers and the hijackers, why did witnesses tell of a second plane which followed it down, falling burning debris, no deep crater and crash wreckage spread over a six-mile area, indicative of an aerial explosion?
• Why did news outlets describe the throat-cutting and mutilation of passengers on Flight 93 with box cutters, when Time magazine on September 24 reported that one of the passengers called home on a cellphone to report, "We have been hijacked; they are being kind"?

As Internet pundit Gary North wrote: "We need a theory of the coordinated hijackings that rests on a plausible cause-and-effect sequence that does not assume the complete failure of both check-in procedures and the on-board seating procedures on four separate flights on two separate airlines. I don't see how anyone can make an accurate judgment about who was behind the attacks until he has a plausible explanation of how hijackers got onto the planes and were not removed."

But the Federal government, aided by a sycophantic mass media, did not allow such rational thinking to interfere with a rush to judgement that Osama bin Laden was the culprit behind the attacks.

Osama Bin Laden and his Friends
As in the JFK assassination, authorities had a suspect even before anyone knew for certain what had happened. Osama bin Laden, born into a wealthy Saudi oil/construction family, received arms and financing from the US Government during the Russo-Afghan War of the 1980s. Despite the fact that bin Laden has denied any knowledge of the September 11 attacks, he is presumed guilty by both the government and the press. No other interpretation of the attacks has been allowed in the corporate mass media.

Bin Laden is a made-to-order enemy, the man reportedly behind the 1993 WTC attack and a fugitive from United States justice for more than a decade. It has been noted that the government apparently has spent more time and money chasing Microsoft's Bill Gates than in capturing bin Laden. This may be due to the business connections between our new terrorist enemy and wealthy American companies.

According to several reports, including Jonathan Beaty and S. C. Gwynne's book The Outlaw Bank: A Wild Ride into the Secret Heart of the BCCI (Random House, NY, 1993) and American Free Press (October 15, 2001) (the reincarnation of the Washington newspaper The Spotlight), Bush family friend James R. Bath used money from Osama bin Laden's older brother, Salem, to open a partnership with George W. Bush in Arbusto Energy, a West Texas drilling company. Bush believed the Spanish word arbusto to mean "bush", although it generally refers to "shrub".

According to the Houston Chronicle, Salem bin Laden named Bath his business representative in Texas shortly after the senior Bush was named CIA Director by appointed President Gerald Ford in 1975. It was the Bush family, particularly Jeb and Neil, who were involved in the 1989-93 Savings and Loan debacle that cost taxpayers more than US$500 billion.

Through a tangled web of Texas oilmen, wealthy Saudi sheiks and unscrupulous bankers connected to BCCI, the younger George Bush eventually gained a sizeable interest in a new oil company called Harken Energy. Two months before Saddam Hussein sent Iraqi troops into Kuwait, Bush sold two-thirds of his Harken stock, netting himself nearly a one-million-dollar profit. The stock dropped when the Iraqi invasion began.

The BCCI was closed by federal investigators in 1991 after suffering some US$10 billion in losses. It was a Pakistani-run institution with front companies in the Cayman Islands that used secret accounts for global money-laundering and it was used by US intelligence to funnel money to bin Laden and the Mujahedin in Afghanistan who were fighting against the Soviet-backed government.

Salem bin Laden, incidentally, was killed in the strange crash of an ultralight aircraft in 1988. The single-passenger craft suddenly and inexplicably veered into high-voltage electric powerlines near San Antonio, Texas.

It should be noted that during the Persian Gulf War it was Binladen Brothers Construction (now the Saudi Binladen Group) that helped build airfields for US aircraft. The bin Laden brothers were then described as "a good friend of the US Government".

Later, the bin Laden firm continued to be hired to construct an American air base in Saudi Arabia, despite the fact that Osama had already been blamed for terrorist acts such as the truck bombing of the Khobar Towers at the Dhahran base, which killed 19 Americans. A WorldNetDaily writer commented: "So let's get this straight. Osama blows up our facilities and his family gets the contract for rebuilding them. Do you get the feeling there is more going on than meets the eye?"

Another close connection between bin Laden and the Bush family is the $12-billion private international investment firm known as The Carlyle Group. Although it has removed its website since the September 11 attacks, it is known that Carlyle directors include former Reagan Secretary of Defense Frank Carlucci, former Bush Secretary of State James Baker, and former Reagan aide and GOP operative Richard Darman. The New York Times reported that former President Bush was allowed to buy into Carlyle's investments, which involve at least 164 companies around the world.

According to the Wall Street Journal (September 28, 2001): "George H. W. Bush, the father of President Bush, works for the bin Laden family business in Saudi Arabia through The Carlyle Group, an international consulting firm." It has been confirmed by the senior Bush's chief of staff that Bush sent a thank-you note to the bin Laden family after a social visit in early 2001.

With such connections and a son as a sitting President of the United States, the senior Bush and his Carlyle involvement were questioned by Larry Klayman, chairman and general counsel of Judicial Watch, who said: "Any foreign government or foreign investor trying to curry favor with the current Bush administration is sure to throw business to The Carlyle Group. And with the former President Bush promoting the firm's investments abroad, foreign nationals could understandably confuse The Carlyle Group's interests with the interests of the United States Government."

After detailing some of the Carlyle/bin Laden investments in several businesses including aerospace industries, web writer and former LA policeman Michael C. Ruppert commented: "In other words, Osama bin Laden's attacks on the WTC and Pentagon, with the resulting massive increase in the US defense budget, have just made his family a great big pile of money."

What made these business dealings that entangle former and current American political leaders with Middle Easterners even more suspect was the announcement that several US firms were being investigated for short-selling stocks just prior to the September 11 attacks.

Short-Selling Indicates Foreknowledge
Short-selling of stocks involves the opportunity to gain large profits by passing shares to a friendly third party, then buying them back when the price falls. Historically, if this precedes a traumatic event, it is an indication of foreknowledge. It is widely known that the CIA uses the Promis software to routinely monitor stock trades as a possible warning sign of a terrorist attack or suspicious economic behaviour.

A week after the September 11 attacks, the London Times reported that the CIA had asked regulators for the Financial Services Authority in London to investigate the suspicious sales of millions of shares of stock just prior to the terrorist acts. It was hoped the business paper trail might lead to the terrorists. The Times said market regulators in Germany, Japan and the US all had received information concerning the short-selling of insurance, airlines and arms companies stock, all of which fell sharply in the wake of the attacks.

City of London broker and analyst Richard Crossley noted that someone sold shares in unusually large quantities beginning three weeks before the assault on the WTC and Pentagon. He said he took this as evidence that someone had insider foreknowledge of the attacks. "What is more awful than he should aim a stiletto blow at the heart of Western financial markets?" he added. "But to profit from it. Words fail me."

The US Government also admitted it was investigating short- selling which evinced a foreknowledge of the tragedy. There was unusually heavy trading in airline and insurance stocks several days before September 11, which essentially bet on a drop in the worth of the stocks. It was reported by the Interdisciplinary Center, a counterterrorism think-tank involving former Israeli intelligence officers, that insiders made nearly US$16 million profit by short-selling shares in American and United Airlines, the two airlines that suffered hijacking, and the investment firm of Morgan Stanley, which occupied 22 floors of the World Trade Center.

Apparently none of the suspicious transactions could be traced to bin Laden because this news item quietly dropped from sight, leaving many people wondering if they tracked back to American firms or intelligence agencies.

According to Michael C. Ruppert, these transactions were handled primarily by Deutsche Bank-A. B. Brown, a firm which until 1998 was chaired by A. B. "Buzzy" Krongard, who today is Executive Director of the CIA. Besides Krongard, other prominent Americans who have been connected to both the CIA and Wall Street power include Clark Clifford (who was a key player in gaining legitimacy for the BCCI), John Foster Dulles and Allen Dulles (Allen oversaw the failed Bay of Pigs invasion and sat on the Warren Commission), Bill Casey, David Doherty, George Herbert Walker Bush, John Deutch, Nora Slatkin and Hank Greenburg.

As detailed in Rule by Secrecy, the CIA historically has been top heavy with members of the Wall Street elite who desire to advance their globalist agenda. It also operates a number of front companies which themselves deal in stocks and bonds.

"I am absolutely convinced that the Central Intelligence Agency had complete and perfect foreknowledge of the attacks, down to the date, time, place and location," Ruppert told OnLine Journal on October 12.

There were other indications of foreknowledge. San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown stated that on September 10 he was warned by his personal "airport security" not to fly the next day, according to radio station KSFO.

More ominous was a piece in the September 28 edition of the Washington Post, stating that officials with the instant messaging firm of Odigo in New York have confirmed that two employees in Israel received text messages warning of an attack on the WTC two hours before the planes crashed into the buildings. The firm's Vice President of Sales and Marketing, Alex Diamandis, said it was possible that the warning was sent to other Odigo members, but they had not received any reports of such.

Military forces had been on a heightened state of alert for several days before the attack, and several psychics claimed to have had a premonition that something was afoot.

Even the Russians got in on the act. Dr Tatyana Koragina, a senior research fellow at the Institute of Macroeconomic Researches, part of the Russian Ministry of Economic Development, gained credibility due to her July prediction that an unusual catastrophe would strike America in late August, ruining the economy. In a Pravda interview, she stated: "The US has been chosen as the object of financial attack because the financial centre of the planet is located there. The effect will be maximal. The strike waves of economic crisis will spread over the planet."

Following the September 11 attacks, Dr Koragina was interviewed again and asserted that the "powerful group" behind the attacks will make new strikes. "When [Americans] understand after the upcoming, new strikes that their government can guarantee them nothing, they will panic, causing a collapse of their financial system."

Asked who was really behind this odious plan, she replied that it is not the 19 terrorists identified by the FBI but, rather, a larger group seeking to reshape the world. She said this group of extremely powerful private persons hold total assets of about $300 trillion and intend to legitimise their power under a new global government.

Remote-Controlled Aircraft A Reality
Thanks to newly revealed technology, it is now possible to theorise that none of the hijackers intended to die. "Global Hawk" is the name of the latest version of a high-altitude, long-endurance. unmanned air vehicle (UAV); in other words, an unmanned drone plane that can take off, conduct missions such as photographing battlefields and land by remote electronic control.

This Buck Rogers equipment made its first operational flight on October 7 when it was used for reconnaissance over Afghanistan in preparation for US air and missile strikes against the Taliban regime. But this remote-controlled plane, similar to a Boeing 737 commercial airliner, was successfully tested earlier in 2001, first at Edwards Air Force Base and later at Edinburgh Air Force Base in South Australia.

When news of Global Hawk was first released, there was speculation that the UAV technology might be used to thwart airline hijackings. Once a hijacking took place, the Global Hawk technology would be triggered and the captured plane flown to a landing at a safe location regardless of the actions of the flight crew or the hijackers.

In fact, following the attacks the New York Times, in a September 28 article on increasing air safety, mentioned "new technology, probably far in the future, allowing air traffic controllers to land distressed planes by remote control". This made it seem that such technology is not yet available, but earlier in 2001 a former chief of British Airways suggested that such technology could be used to commandeer an aircraft from the ground and control it remotely in the event of a hijacking.

Needless to say, there are those today who question if Global Hawk's first truly operational use might have been conducted on September 11. After all, as all experienced aviation and military persons well know, if a technology such as Global Hawk is publicly revealed, it most probably has been in secret use for several years. But regardless of how the planes with the terrorists were controlled, it is clear that their managers had information, if not help, from inside the government.

Bin Laden and the Media
And what of Osama bin Laden? What did he have to say about all this? Don't look to the corporate mass media to inform you, as they have all agreed not to broadcast anything that might detract from the official government story, even though it is acknowledged that Bush's media denunciations of bin Laden have been more filled with descriptions like "evil" and "evil-doer" than specific evidence.

Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting (FAR) noted that, on October 10, network executives representing ABC, NBC, CBS, Fox and CNN were involved in a conference call with National Security Adviser and Council on Foreign Relations heavyweight Condoleezza Rice. The execs apparently agreed to limit how and what they broadcast regarding bin Laden or his al-Qaeda group. Bush people even tried unsuccessfully to have al-Jazeera, called "the CNN of the Middle East", broadcasting from Qatar, tone down its coverage of bin Laden. They were more successful with members of Congress when they threatened to cut off intelligence reports if members spoke offhand to the media. The next day, White House spokesman Ari Fleischer, already on the record as saying Americans "need to watch what they say", extended this constraint by contacting major newspapers and asking that they not print full transcripts of bin Laden's interviews.

According to a FAR news release: "The point is not that bin Laden or al-Qaeda deserve 'equal time' on US news broadcasts, but that it is troubling for government to shape or influence news content. Withholding information from the public is hardly patriotic. When the White House insists that it's dangerous to report a news event 'in its entirety', alarm bells should go off for journalists and the American public alike."

Here's what bin Laden did say in an interview on September 28, according to the Pakistani newspaper Ummat: "I have already said that I am not involved in the 11 September attacks in the United States. As a Muslim, I try my best to avoid telling a lie. I had no knowledge of these attacks, nor do I consider the killing of innocent women, children and other humans as an appreciable act. Islam strictly forbids causing harm to innocent women, children and other people. Such a practice is forbidden even in the course of battle. It is the United States which is perpetrating every maltreatment on women, children and common people."

In this interview, apparently suppressed in the United States, bin Laden unsurprisingly blamed the attacks on Israel, claiming: "All that [has been] going on in Palestine for the last 11 months is sufficient to call the wrath of God upon the United States and Israel [and for] what had earlier been done to the innocent people of Iraq, Chechnya and Bosnia."

Bin Laden went on to state: "We are not hostile to the United States. We are against the [US Government] system which makes other nations slaves to the United States or forces them to mortgage their political and economic freedom."

One cannot, of course, take bin Laden at face value--but then, the same could be said for the US Government, which has been caught in so many lies and deceits in the past that it is surprising that anyone pays any attention to official pronouncements.

US Foreign Policy
What should be thoughtfully considered is the dismal record of United States foreign policy since World War II. This policy, as confirmed by the New York Times years ago, has been in the hands of the Council on Foreign Relations elite since at least 1939. This elite and its associates includes former Presidents George H. W. Bush, Bill Clinton, Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter and (the late) Richard Nixon, virtually every CIA Director as well as a considerable number of familiar past and present government officials such as Dick Cheney, Henry Kissinger, Wesley Clark, Strobe Talbott, Alexander Haig, Alan Greenspan, James A. Baker III, Sandy Berger, Colin Powell, Zbigniew Brzezinski, Frank C. Carlucci, John Deutch, Lawrence Eagleburger, Robert McFarlane and Casper Weinberger.

This policy has been one of neo-colonialism; that is, the subjugation and control of other nations through military dictators or wealthy families supported by, and often placed in power by, the US military or intelligence services. The names of nations that have felt the brunt of US CIA and/or military activity as a result of foreign policy include Somalia, Afghanistan, Mexico, Guatemala, Panama, Colombia, Indonesia, Dominican Republic, Iraq, Iran, Libya, Palestinian Territories, Cuba, Vietnam, Korea, Nicaragua, Lebanon, Grenada, Haiti, Serbia, Kosovo, Bosnia, Brazil, Chad, Sudan and many others.

As Dr Martin Luther King, Jr, stated during the Vietnam War: "My government is the world's leading purveyor of violence." He did not say "my country" or "my people". It is the government--or, rather, those who control it--that is responsible, although we, the distracted and unaware citizens who claim to live in a democracy, must take our fair share of the blame.

Historical Precedents
Is there precedence in history for what is happening to America today? So much so, there is not enough space to present it all. Nero burned Rome, blamed it on his enemies and took dictatorial power. But consider what happened just last century.

On February 27, 1933, the German Reichstag or Parliament was destroyed by fire. Hitler and his Nazis blamed the destruction on communist terrorists. They even caught one: a retarded Dutch youth named Marinus van der Lubbe, who carried a Communist Party card. After some time in custody, the youth confessed to being the arsonist. However, later investigation found that one person could not have started the mammoth blaze and that incendiaries had been carried into the building through a tunnel which led to the offices of Hitler's closest partner, Hermann Goering.

Less than a month later, on March 24, 1933, a panicky German Parliament voted 441 to 94 to pass an "Enabling Act" at Hitler's urging, which was the starting point for his dictatorship. As a result of this act, Germans soon saw gun confiscation, national identity cards, racial profiling, a national security chief (Heinrich Himmler) and, later, mass murders and incarcerations in concentration camps.

One of the Western leaders who supported Hitler and his policies was Prescott Bush, grandfather of President George W. Bush. He must have taken notice of Hitler's method for gaining unwarranted power.

Since the Reichstag fire, the Bush family and their associates in the Council on Foreign Relations, Trilateral Commission and the Bilderbergers have often mimicked Hitler's tactics of creating a problem, offering a draconian solution and advancing their agenda through any resulting compromise.

The real enemy is whoever is behind the September 11 terror attacks. Osama bin Laden, so closely connected to the financial interests of the Bush family and the CIA, may be the mastermind, or he may be a convenient scapegoat--yet another provocation to stampede Americans into another war for oil.

We must thoughtfully consider where the real source of terror lies: with one bearded fanatic in an impoverished Middle Eastern country, or with those who would profit while shredding the US Constitution in the name of defending freedom.

Major-General Smedley Butler on Interventionism
"War is just a racket. A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of people. Only a small inside group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few at the expense of the masses.

I believe in adequate defence at the coastline and nothing else. If a nation comes over here to fight, then we'll fight. The trouble with America is that when the dollar only earns six per cent over here, then it gets restless and goes overseas to get 100 per cent. Then the flag follows the dollar and the soldiers follow the flag.

I wouldn't go to war again, as I have done, to protect some lousy investment of the bankers. There are only two things we should fight for: one is the defence of our homes, and the other is the Bill of Rights. War for any other reason is simply a racket.

There isn't a trick in the racketeering bag that the military gang is blind to. It has its "finger men" to point out enemies, its "muscle men" to destroy enemies, its "brain men" to plan war preparations, and a "Big Boss": supernationalistic capitalism.

It may seem odd for me, a military man, to adopt such a comparison. Truthfulness compels me to. I spent thirty-three years and four months in active military service as a member of this country's most agile military force, the Marine Corps. I served in all commissioned ranks from Second Lieutenant to Major-General. And during that period, I spent most of my time being a high-class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and for the Bankers.

In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism.

I suspected I was just part of a racket at the time. Now I am sure of it. Like all the members of the military profession, I never had a thought of my own until I left the service. My mental faculties remained in suspended animation while I obeyed the orders of higher-ups. This is typical with everyone in the military service.

I helped make Mexico, especially Tampico, safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefits of Wall Street. The record of racketeering is long. I helped purify Nicaragua for the international banking house of Brown Brothers in 1909-1912. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for American sugar interests in 1916. In China I helped see to it that Standard Oil went its way unmolested.

During those years, I had--as the boys in the back room would say--a swell racket. Looking back on it, I feel that I could have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket in three districts. I operated on three continents."

(Source: Excerpt from a speech delivered in 1933 by Major-General Smedley Butler, USMC.)

About the Author
Jim Marrs, a native of Fort Worth, Texas, is a distinguished author and investigative journalist whose career began in 1968 as a reporter with the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. After serving in the Vietnam War, he became the newspaper's military and aerospace writer.

Since 1976, Marrs has taught a course on the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, at the University of Texas at Arlington, and since 1980 has been a freelance writer, author, PR consultant, publisher of a weekly rural newspaper and a monthly tourism tabloid as well as producer of a cable TV show and several videos. He is the author of Crossfire: The Plot That Killed Kennedy (1989) (a basis for Oliver Stone's JFK film), Psi Spies (1995, 2001), UFOs: Alien Agenda and Rule by Secrecy (2000; see review in 8/01). He is also a regular speaker at UFO conferences and, beginning in 2000, began teaching a course on UFOs at the University of Texas.

A member of various professional societies, Jim Marrs has received several awards for his writing and photography and is a commentator sought after by US national and regional television and radio talk shows.

18th January, 2000
Kashmir the key to region's fate 
(The Australian, 18^th January 2000)
PAKISTAN'S military ruler, General Pervez Musharraf, said in remarks published yesterday that only talks on disputed Kashmir could improve ties with India, now at their "lowest" level. 

General Musharraf also denied New Delhi's allegations that his country was involved in the recent hijacking of an Indian Airlines plane and said the hijackers were not in Pakistan.

"I totally agree that relations between India and Pakistan are at their lowest", he said in and interview with The Hindu, the first to an Indian newspaper since he took power in a coup in October last year.

"The root cause is Kashmir", he said, adding that earlier efforts to improve ties through cricket matches and a path-breaking journey to Pakistan by Indian Prime Minister  Atal Bihari Vajpayee had failed.

His comments came as Muslim Guerillas shot dead a pro-India Muslim politician - Ghulam Qadir Bhat, a top leader of Kashmir's ruling National Conference party - three of his family members and a policeman in Kashmir.

Officials said that a former militant now working with Indian security forces was also killed by the Guerillas elsewhere in the Himalayan state.   All the killings occurred late on Sunday, a police spokesman said.

An official spokesman said the suspected Muslim militants also blew up the tower in the central Kashmir district of Budgam, 30 Km North-West of Srinagar.  No militant group has claimed responsibility for the blast.

India accuses Pakistan which administers the Northern part of Kashmir, of fomenting  a Muslim separatist drive in the Indian zone of the state.   The secessionist campaign has claimed more than 25,000 lives since 1989.   Islamabad denies the charge but extends moral and diplomatic  support to the insurgents.

India on Saturday formally asked Pakistan to extradite the 5 hijackers to stand trial for terrorism.  It was India's first official demand since the hijackers released 160 hostages in southern Afghanistan and fled into the desert.

Pakistan has dismissed the Indian call, saying the charges were not supported by "credible evidence".

General Musharraf also issued a veiled warning.

"And I might add that I am not one of those that when you keep on receiving this kind of flak from across the border, I keep sitting and turning my other cheek", he said.

25th May, 1998
Tracking Nuclear Weapons  
(Time Magazine pg 32-33, May 25, 1998)
The table below shows details about the Nuclear status for several different countries.

25th May, 1994
Who Supplied the Chemical/Biological Agents to Iraq  
(1994 Congressional Report))
The following report lists all the Chemical Biological Agents exported to Iraq from February 8,1985 to January 31, 1989, by United States.

103d Congress/2d Session, SENATE, "U.S. CHEMICAL AND BIOLOGICAL WARFARE -RELATED DUAL USE EXPORTS TO IRAQ AND THEIR POSSIBLE IMPACT ON THE HEALTH CONSEQUENCES OF THE PERSIAN GULF WAR," A Report of Chairman Donald W. Reigle, Jr., and Ranking Member Alfonse D'Amato of the Committee On Banking, Housing, And Urban Affairs, with respect to Export Administration, United States Senate (198-pages), May 25, 1994.

Here are the dates of shipments and their destinations in Iraq:

• Centers for Disease Control compiled a listing of biological materials shipped to Iraq prior to the Gulf War. The listing covers the period from October 1, 1984 (when the CDC began keeping records) through October 13,1993.

These Biological Toxins were sent to:

1. University of Basrah, College of Science, Department of Biology

2. Officers City Al-Muthanna, Quartetret 710, Street 13, Close 69 House 28/1, Baghdad, Iraq.

3. University of Baghdad, College of Medicine, Department of Microbiology.

4. Basrah, Iraq.

5. Minister of Health, Ministry of Health, Baghdad, Iraq.

The materials sent were as follows: Enterococcus faecalis; Enterococcus faecium; Enterococcus avium; Enterococcus raffinosus; Enterococcus gallinarium; Enterococcus durans; Enterococcus hirae; Streptococcus Bovis (etiologic); Botulum toxoid; 3 yeast cultures; Lyophilized arbovirus seed; West Nile Fever Virus; antigen and antisera (r.rickettsii and r.typhi);

The Report Lists additional shipments to following destinations with dates:

• February 8, 1985: Iraq Atomic Energy Agency.

• February 22, 1985: Ministry of Higher Education.

• August 31, 1987: State Company for Drug Industries.

• July 11, 1988: Iraq Atomic Energy Commission.

• April 26, 1988: Iraq Atomic Energy Commission.

• August 31, 1987: Iraq Atomic Energy Commission.

• September 29, 1988: Ministry of Trade.

• January 17, 1989: Iraq Atomic Energy Commission.

• January 31, 1989:Iraq Atomic Energy Commission.

"Included in the approved sales are the following biological materials (which have been considered by various nations for use in war):"

1. Baciluss Anthracis.

2. Clostridium Botulinum.

3. Histoplasma Capsulatum.

4. Brucella Melitensis.

5. Clostridium Perfringens.

In addition several shipments of Escherichia Coli (E.Coli) and genetic materials, as well as human and bacterial DNA, were shipped directly to the Atomic Energy Commission.

Chemical Warfare Agents Detection:

"The dispersal of the chemical agents and other hazardous substances is controlled by factors such as topography, wind velocity, direction, temperature, precipitation, vertical temperature gradient, and atmospheric humidity. . . . In addition, as confirmed by unclassified U.S. satellite imagery, debris from the Coalition bombings were upwardly dispersed, rather than downwardly dispersed ass would occur in offensive use, causing chemical agents to be carried by upper atmosphere currents and distributed as 'traces' of chemical fallout over 'down weather' positions. Czech and French officials confirmed detections of these chemicals during the war."

Possible Chemical Agents dispersed in atmosphere:

1. Chemical nerve agents. The report says: "The following is a list of a number of agents which the Iraqi government could have combined or which could have been combined in the atmosphere as a result of Coalition bombings:" Sarin(GB); Soman (GD) Tabun (GA); and VX.

2. Vesicants and Blood Agents: Lewisite Cyanogen chloride; and Hydrogen Cyanide.

3. Blister Agents: Mustard gas.

An article published in Scientific American, July 1991 issue stated that NOAA Satellites were banned to relay weather information for several days to the scientists involved in environmental studies. This was partly a cover-up for the bombings of the Oil Fields in Kuwait.