First published by Global Research in March 2015, the following text was presented to the Public Forum on:
America’s War on Terror and the Urgency of World Peace,
Social Sciences, University of the Philippines (UP-Cebu), March 2, 2015
Introduction
America’s “war on terrorism” is a hegemonic project, under a fake counter-terrorism agenda which consists in going after al Qaeda entities which “threaten Western civilization”.
Major military and covert intelligence operations are being undertaken simultaneously in the Middle East, Eastern Europe, sub-Saharan Africa, Central Asia and the Far East. The U.S. military agenda combines both major theater operations as well as covert actions geared towards destabilizing sovereign states.
Under a global military agenda, the actions undertaken by the Western military alliance (U.S.-NATO-Israel) in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Palestine, Ukraine, Syria and Iraq are coordinated at the highest levels of the military hierarchy.
We are not dealing with piecemeal military and intelligence operations. The July-August 2014 attack on Gaza by Israeli forces was undertaken in close consultation with the United States and NATO. The actions in Ukraine and their timing coincided with the onslaught of the attack on Gaza, Syria and Iraq.
In turn, military undertakings are closely coordinated with a process of economic warfare which consists not only in imposing sanctions on sovereign countries but also in deliberate acts of destabilization of financial and currencies markets, with a view to undermining the enemies’ national economies.
Our analysis in this article will largely be geared towards refuting the myth that the United States is waging “a Global War on Terrorism”.
The evidence amply confirms that the the United States of America is a “State Sponsor of Terrorism” and that the campaign against the Islamic State is a smokescreen used by the US and its allies to justify in the eyes of public opinion its global war of conquest.
The Global War on Terrorism has become a consensus. It is part of war propaganda. It is also used by Western governments to justify and implement “anti-terrorist” legislation. It is the cornerstone of the West’s demonization campaign directed against Muslims.
It should also be understood that the “Global War on Terrorism” supports a process of “economic conquest”, whereby countries forego their sovereignty.
Their national economies are “taken over by foreign investors”.
Their assets are confiscated, austerity measures are imposed and a process of macro-economic restructuring under the helm of Wall Street and the Bretton Woods institutions are implemented.
US sponsored terrorism creates factional divisions within national societies.
Countries are impoverished and destabilized. National institutions are undermined as part of a US led war of conquest.
The evidence presented in this article, including the historical review, is intended to fully reveal the “Big Lie”.
Beyond doubt, the “Global War on Terrorism” is a fabrication. The United States of America is the “Number One” State Sponsor of Terrorism.
Public Forum on America’s War on Terror and the Urgency of World Peace: Its Ramification in the Philippines. University of the Philippines, UP-Cebu, March 2 2015
The Global War on Terrorism: Obama’s Crusade against the Islamic State (ISIS)
The U.S. airstrikes initiated in September 2014 directed against Iraq and Syria under the pretext of going after the Islamic State are part of a scenario of military escalation extending from North Africa and the Eastern Mediterranean to Central and South Asia.
Since August 2014, the US Air Force with the support of a coalition of more than twenty countries has relentlessly waged an intensified air campaign against Syria and Iraq allegedly targeting the Islamic State brigades.
According to Defense News, over 16,000 airstrikes were carried out from August 2014 to mid January 2015. Sixty percent of the air strikes were conducted by the US Air Force using advanced jet fighter and bombing capabilities (Aaron Mehta, “A-10 Performing 11 Percent of Anti-ISIS Sorties”. Defense News, January 19, 2015.)
The airstrikes have been casually described by the media as part of a “soft” counter-terrorism operation, rather than an act of all out war directed against Syria and Iraq.
This large scale air campaign which has resulted in countless civilian casualties has been routinely misreported by the mainstream media. According to Max Boot, senior fellow in national security at the Council on Foreign Relations. “Obama’s strategy in Syria and Iraq is not working… [ because] the U.S. bombing campaign against ISIS has been remarkably restrained”. (Newsweek, February 17, 2015, emphasis added).
Americans are led to believe that the Islamic State constitutes a formidable force confronting the US military and threatening Western Civilization. The thrust of media reporting is that the US Air Force has failed and that “Obama should get his act together” in effectively confronting this “Outside Enemy” of America.
According to CFR Max Boot, military escalation is the answer: what is required is for the president “to dispatch more aircraft, military advisers, and special operations forces, while loosening the restrictions under which they operate.” (Ibid)
What kind of aircraft are involved in the air campaign? The F-16 Fighting Falcon,(above right), The F-15E Strike Eagle (image below) , The A-10 Warthog, not to mention Lockheed Martin’s F-22 Raptor stealth tactical fighter aircraft.
Why has the US Air Force not been able to wipe out the Islamic State which at the outset was largely equipped with conventional small arms not to mention state of the art Toyota pickup trucks?
From the very outset, this air campaign has NOT been directed against ISIS. The evidence confirms that the Islamic State is not the target. Quite the opposite.
The air raids are intended to destroy the economic infrastructure of Iraq and Syria.
The USAF-15E Strike Eagle
We call on our readers to carefully reflect on the following image, which describes the Islamic State convoy of pickup trucks entering Iraq and crossing a 200 km span of open desert which separates the two countries.
This convoy entered Iraq in June 2014.
What would have been required from a military standpoint to wipe out a ISIS convoy with no effective anti-aircraft capabilities?
Without an understanding of military issues, common sense prevails.
If they had wanted to eliminate the Islamic State brigades, they could have “carpet” bombed their convoys of Toyota pickup trucks when they crossed the desert from Syria into Iraq in June.
The answer is pretty obvious, yet not a single mainstream media has acknowledged it.
The Syro-Arabian Desert is open territory (see map right). With state of the art jet fighter aircraft (F15, F22 Raptor, F16) it would have been –from a military standpoint– “a piece of cake”, a rapid and expedient surgical operation, which would have decimated the Islamic State convoys in a matter of hours.
Instead what we have witnessed is an ongoing drawn out six months of relentless air raids and bombings, and the terrorist enemy is apparently still intact.
(In comparison, the NATO bombing raids of Yugoslavia in 1999 lasted about three months (March 24-June 10, 1999).
And we are led to believe that the Islamic State cannot be defeated by a powerful US led military coalition of more than 20 countries.
The air campaign was not intended to decimate the Islamic State.
The counter-terrorism mandate is a fiction. America is the Number One “State Sponsor of Terrorism”.
The Islamic State is not only protected by the US and its allies, it is trained and financed by US-NATO, with the support of Israel and Washington’s Persian Gulf allies.
Al Qaeda Afiliated Entities are “Intelligence Assets. Instruments of US Intelligence
The Global War on Terrorism is a Fabrication used to justify a war of conquest. The Jihadist terrorists are “Made in America”. They are instruments of US intelligence, yet they are presented to public opinion as “enemies of America”.
The Islamic State (IS) militia, which is currently the alleged target of a US-NATO bombing campaign under a “counter-terrorism” mandate, continues to be supported covertly by the US. Washington and its allies continue to provide military aid to the Islamic State.
US and allied bombings are not targeting the ISIL, they are bombing the economic infrastructure of Iraq and Syria including factories and oil refineries.
The IS caliphate project is part of a longstanding US foreign policy agenda to carve up Iraq and Syria into separate territories: A Sunni Islamist Caliphate, an Arab Shia Republic, a Republic of Kurdistan.
These various affiliated Al Qaeda entities in the Middle East, sub-Saharan Africa and Asia are CIA sponsored “intelligence assets”. They are used by Washington to wreck havoc, create internal conflicts and destabilize sovereign countries.
Boko Haram in Nigeria, Al Shabab in Somalia, the Libya Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG) (supported by NATO in 2011), Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), Jemaah Islamiah (JI) in Indonesia, among other Al Qaeda affiliated groups are supported covertly by Western intelligence.
The US is also supporting Al Qaeda affiliated terrorist organizations in the Xinjiang Uighur autonomous region of China. The underlying objective is to trigger political instability in Western China.
Chinese jihadists are reported to have received “terrorist training” from the Islamic State “in order to conduct attacks in China”. The declared objective of these Chinese-based jihadist entities (which serves the interests of the US) is to establish a Islamic caliphate extending into Western China. (Michel Chossudovsky, America’s War on Terrorism, Global Research, Montreal, 2005, Chapter 2).
Flashback to 1979: The History of Al Qaeda
The US has supported Al Qaeda and its affiliated organizations for more than thirty years: since the heyday of the Soviet Afghan war.
CIA training camps were set up in Pakistan, in liaison with Pakistan’s Inter-Services-Intelligence (ISI). In the ten year period from 1982 to 1992, some 35,000 jihadists from 43 Islamic countries were recruited by the CIA to fight in the Afghan jihad.
“Advertisements, paid for from CIA funds, were placed in newspapers and newsletters around the world offering inducements and motivations to join the Jihad.”
Lest we forget, Osama bin Laden, America’s bogyman and founder of Al Qaeda was recruited by the CIA in 1979 at the very outset of the US sponsored jihadist war against Afghanistan . He was 22 years old and was indoctrinated in a CIA sponsored guerilla training camp. Al Qaeda was a creation of US intelligence, which was put together with the support of Pakistani and Saudi intelligence:
“[I]t was the government of the United States which supported Pakistani dictator General Zia-ul Haq in creating thousands of religious schools from which the germs of Taliban emerged.” (Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan (RAWA), RAWA Statement on the Terrorist Attacks In the US, Centre for Research on Globalisation (CRG), http://globalresearch.ca/articles/RAW109A.html , 16 September 2001)
Since the Carter Administration, Washington has supported the Islamic terror network
Ronald Reagan called the terrorists “freedom fighters”. The US supplied weapons to the Islamic brigades. It was all for “a good cause”: fighting the Soviet Union and regime change, leading to the demise of a secular government in Afghanistan.
Ronald Reagan meets Afghan Mujahideen Commanders at the White House in 1985 (Reagan Archives)
Front row, from left: Major Gen. Hamid Gul, director general of Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate (ISI), Director of Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) Willian Webster; Deputy Director for Operations Clair George; an ISI colonel; and senior CIA official, Milt Bearden at a Mujahideen training camp in North-West Frontier Province of Pakistan in 1987. (source RAWA)
“We Created Al Qaeda to Fight the Soviets in Afghanistan”
In 1979, President Carter’s National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski confirmed on CNN that the U.S. organized and supported Bin Laden and the other originators of “Al Qaeda” in the 1970s to fight the Soviets:
“We know of their deep belief in god – that they’re confident that their struggle will succeed. – That land over-there is yours – and you’ll go back to it some day, because your fight will prevail, and you’ll have your homes, your mosques, back again, because your cause is right, and god is on your side.”
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“CIA director and Secretary of Defense Robert Gates confirmed in his memoir that the U.S. backed the Mujahideen in the 1970s.” (See Washington Blog, Sleeping With the Devil: How U.S. and Saudi Backing of Al Qaeda Led to 9/11, September 5, 2012).
Under Reagan’s NSDD 166, US assistance to the Islamic brigades channelled through Pakistan was not limited to bona fide military aid. Washington also contributed –through the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID)– to financing the process of religious indoctrination, largely to secure the demise of secular institutions. (Michel Chossudovsky, 9/11 ANALYSIS: From Ronald Reagan and the Soviet-Afghan War to George W Bush and September 11, 2001, Global Research, September 09, 2010)
Religious schools were generously funded by the US. Jihadist textbooks were published by the University of Nebraska. According to the The Washington Post (2002 reported):
… the United States spent millions of dollars to supply Afghan schoolchildren with textbooks filled with violent images and militant Islamic teachings, part of covert attempts to spur resistance to the Soviet occupation.
The primers, which were filled with talk of jihad and featured drawings of guns, bullets, soldiers and mines, have served since then as the Afghan school system’s core curriculum. Even the Taliban used the American-produced books…
The White House defends the religious content, saying that Islamic principles permeate Afghan culture and that the books “are fully in compliance with US law and policy.” Legal experts, however, question whether the books violate a constitutional ban on using tax dollars to promote religion.
… AID officials said in interviews that they left the Islamic materials intact because they feared Afghan educators would reject books lacking a strong dose of Muslim thought. The agency removed its logo and any mention of the U.S. government from the religious texts, AID spokeswoman Kathryn Stratos said.
“It’s not AID’s policy to support religious instruction,” Stratos said. “But we went ahead with this project because the primary purpose . . . is to educate children, which is predominantly a secular activity.”
… Published in the dominant Afghan languages of Dari and Pashtun, the textbooks were developed in the early 1980s under an AID grant to the University of Nebraska -Omaha and its Center for Afghanistan Studies. The agency spent $ 51 million on the university’s education programs in Afghanistan from 1984 to 1994.” (Washington Post, 23 March 2002)
Picture above is translated as follows: “Jihad – Often many different wars and conflicts arise among people, which cause material damages and loss of human life. If these wars and disputes occur among people for the sake of community, nation, territory, or even because of verbal differences, and for the sake of progress…”
This page is from a third-grade language arts textbook dating from the mujahidin period. A copy of the book was purchased new in Kabul in May 2000.
According to the Council on Foreign Relations in the wake of the US 2001 invasion,”New madrassas sprouted, funded and supported by Saudi Arabia and U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, where students were encouraged to join the Afghan resistance.
Washington’s Agenda: Destabilize Secular Institutions. Install an Islamic State in Afghanistan. The Role of the Wahhabi Missions
US military intervention in Afghanistan in the 1980s was supported by the Wahhabi missionaries out of Saudi Arabia, which trained the Taliban (‘graduates”) in the US sponsored madrassas in Pakistan and Afghanistan. The Wahhabi doctrine would not have spread in the way it did without the support of US intelligence.
Saudi Arabia worked closely with Washington in recruiting the Mujahideen (holy warriors) to fight against the Soviet Union. The Saudi monarchy enlisted the support of the religious authorities. Fatwas were issued;
“urging Saudi and non-Saudi youths to go to Afghanistan and carry out jihad there. And it praised those who sacrificed their lives for the sake of Islamic nation’s causes.” (Al-Quds al-Arabi, op cit)
Confirmed by the Afghan Project (http://nsarchive.chadwyck.com/afintro.htm ), which has collected hundreds of CIA and State Department documents, cables and memoranda, the CIA developed from the late 1970s, ties with a number of Islamic organizations. The objective was to use “Islamic fundamentalist” doctrine to unseat the secular pro-Soviet People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA) government as well as unleash a war with the Soviet Union. The same strategy of supporting Islamic political movements was used by Washington in the post-Cold War era in the Muslim republics of the former Soviet Union as well in Bosnia and Kosovo.
The CIA led war on Afghanistan largely contributed to destroying secular education. The number of CIA sponsored religious schools (madrassas) increased from 2,500 in 1980 to over 39,000 [in 2001]. (Michel Chossudovsky, 9/11 ANALYSIS: From Ronald Reagan and the Soviet-Afghan War to George W Bush and September 11, 2001, Global Research, September 09, 2010)
Women’s Rights in Afghanistan
The CIA-led war on Afghanistan was largely conducive to the derogation of Women’s Rights.
Before the Taliban came to power, Afghan women lived a life in many ways similar to that of Western women (see pictures below):
In the 1980s, Kabul was “a cosmopolitan city. Artists and hippies flocked to the capital. Women studied agriculture, engineering and business at the city’s university. Afghan women held government jobs.” There were female members of parliament, and women drove cars, and travelled and went on dates, without needing to ask a male guardian for permission. (Julie Levesque, Women Rights: From Afghanistan to Syria: Women’s Rights, War Propaganda and the CIA, Global Research, April 2014)
Al Qaeda and The Islamic State
“The Global War on Terrorism” (GWOT) is presented as a “Clash of Civilizations”, a war between competing values and religions, when in reality it is an outright war of conquest, guided by strategic and economic objectives.
U.S. sponsored Al Qaeda terror brigades (covertly supported by Western intelligence since the 1980s) have been deployed in Mali, Niger, Nigeria, the Central African Republic, Somalia and Yemen. Al Qaeda affiliated organizations have also been deployed in several Asian countries including China and Indonesia.
The Islamic State (ISIS) was originally an Al Qaeda affiliated entity created by US intelligence with the support of Britain’s MI6, Israel’s Mossad, Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) and Saudi Arabia’s General Intelligence Presidency (GIP), Ri’āsat Al-Istikhbārāt Al-’Āmah ( رئاسة الاستخبارات العامة).
In relation to the Syrian insurgency, the Islamic State fighters together with the Al Qaeda affiliated jihadist forces of the Al Nusrah Front are the foot soldiers of the Western military alliance. They are covertly supported by US-NATO-Israel. Their mandate is to wage a terrorist insurgency against the government of Bashar al-Assad. The atrocities committed by Islamic State fighters in Iraq are similar to those committed in Syria. Their unspoken mandate is to wreck havoc and destruction in Syria and Iraq, acting on behalf of their US sponsors.
The ISIS brigades were involved in the US-NATO supported insurgency in Syria directed against the government of Bashar al Assad. NATO and the Turkish High Command were responsible for the recruitment of ISIL and Al Nusrah mercenaries from the outset of the Syrian insurgency in March 2011.
According to Israeli intelligence sources, this initiative consisted in:
“a campaign to enlist thousands of Muslim volunteers in Middle East countries and the Muslim world to fight alongside the Syrian rebels. The Turkish army would house these volunteers, train them and secure their passage into Syria. (DEBKAfile, NATO to give rebels anti-tank weapons, August 14, 2011.)
There are Western Special Forces and Western intelligence operatives within the ranks of the ISIL. British Special Forces and MI6 have been involved in training jihadist rebels in Syria.
Western military specialists on contract to the Pentagon have trained the ISIS and Al Nusrah terrorists in the use of chemical weapons.
“The United States and some European allies are using defense contractors to train Syrian rebels on how to secure chemical weapons stockpiles in Syria, a senior U.S. official and several senior diplomats told CNN Sunday. ( CNN Report, December 9, 2012)
The ISIS’s practice of beheadings is part of the US sponsored terrorist training programs implemented in Saudi Arabia and Qatar.
Recruited by America’s ally, a large number of ISIS mercenaries are convicted criminals released from Saudi prisons on condition they join the ISIL. Saudi death row inmates were recruited to join the terror brigades.
The Islamic State is routinely funded by the US, invariably through indirect sources. According to a recent (January 28, 2015) report by Pakistan’s Express Tribune (affiliated to the international Herald Tribune)
Yousaf al Salafi – allegedly the Pakistan commander of Islamic State (IS) or Daish – has confessed during investigations that he has been receiving funds through the United States.
Law enforcing agencies on January 22 claimed that they arrested al Salafi, along with his two companions, during a joint raid in Lahore. However, sources revealed that al Salafi was actually arrested sometimes in December last year and it was only disclosed on January 22.
“During the investigations, Yousaf al Salafi revealed that he was getting funding – routed through America – to run the organisation in Pakistan and recruit young people to fight in Syria,” a source privy to the investigations revealed to Daily Express on the condition of anonymity.
…[F]rom 2007 where the US, Saudi Arabia, and Israel openly conspired to stand up, fund, and arm a terrorist army to fight a proxy war against Syria and Iran, to 2015 where this army has finally manifested itself as the “Islamic State” complete with funding, arms, and fighters streaming in from NATO members, the source cited by the Tribune claiming that “the US had to dispel the impression that it is financing the group for its own interests,” and thus must now feign to be interested in stopping the organization in Syria, is the most compelling and logical explanation available.
The State Sponsors of Terrorism: Who’s Who
George W. Bush and the late King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia
The late Saudi King Abdullah was known to have supported and financed Al Qaeda in liaison with the Washington. Saudi intelligence played a key role in this regard.
The House of Saud provides financial aid to the terrorists. And so does the bin Laden family. According to The Washington based CATO Institute (November 2001) Saudi Arabia is a “prime sponsor of terrorism”
The U.S. government has warned that it will treat regimes that harbor or assist terrorist organizations the same way that it treats the organizations themselves. Yet if Washington is serious about that policy, it ought to regard Saudi Arabia as a State sponsor of international terrorism. Indeed, that country should have been included for years on the U.S. State Department’s annual list of governments guilty of sponsoring terrorism.
We recall that in the immediate wake of the 9/11 attacks, George W. Bush stated in no uncertain terms that “State sponsors of terrorism” would be considered as “terrorists”.
“We will make no distinction between the terrorists who committed these acts and those who harbor them”.
But there is always an “Exception that the Proves the Rule” and that is George W. Bush himself.
When George W. Bush respectfully kisses King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, does this mean that Dubya could –by some stretch of the imagination– be considered a “suspected terrorist”, who should never have been elected president of the United States of America?
The answer is negative: Kissing “State sponsors of terrorism” on the mouth is not defined by the FBI as “suspicious behavior”.
The Insidious Relationship between the Bush and bin Laden Families
Now let us turn our attention to the relationship between the Bush and bin Laden families.
The Bushes and bin Ladens are long-time friends. This relationship goes back to George H. W. Bush, who served as head of the CIA in the Ford administration, before becoming Vice President under the Reagan administration and President of the United States (1989-1993).
George W. Bush Junior had business dealings in the oil industry dating back to the late 1970s, at the time when his father Bush Senior was head of the CIA:
The wider bin Laden clan [was] closely tied to the Saudi royal family. According to Seymour Hersh … it is far from clear that the royal family, … has forsaken Muslim extremists. Indeed, some members of the royal family itself are said to bankroll Osama bin Laden. … The Saudi monarchy, Hersh reports, has also quietly resisted U.S. efforts to conduct background checks of Saudi suspects in the wake of September 11. While much remains to be learned about these shadowy connections, it is clear that any investigation of the bin Laden’s family’s U.S. investments will lead to some well-placed Texans.
Like George W. Bush, the fortune of Osama bin Laden is rooted in oil and his family’s government connections. Before his death in a 1968 plane crash, Osama’s father, Mohammed bin Laden, made a fortune off construction contracts awarded by the Saudi royal family. The $5 billion per year construction conglomerate, known as the Binladin Group (the company uses another spelling of the name) remains closely tied to the Saudi royal family.
After the death of Mohammed bin Laden, control of the company passed to Salem bin Laden, Osama’s half brother. The roots of the first known Bush-bin Laden convergence date back to the mid-1970s, when the two clans were linked by a Houston businessman named James R. Bath. … By 1976, when Gerald Ford appointed the elder George Bush as CIA director, Bath was acting as a business agent for Salem bin Laden’s interests in Texas. …
After W. lost a bid for Congress, he decided to launch an oil company in Midland in 1979. For $50,000, Bath bought a 5 percent stake in W.’s Arbusto (Spanish for “Bush”) partnerships. At the time, Bath also served as business agent for several prominent Saudis, including Salem bin Laden. In exchange for a percentage of the deals, Bath made U.S. investments for these clients in his own name, according to Time. Although Bath has said that he invested his own money in Arbusto, not Saudi money, the fact that he was Salem’s agent at the time has fueled speculation that Osama bin Laden’s eldest brother was an early investor in W.’s first oil venture. It was around the time of this investment, incidentally, that Osama bin Laden made his first trip to the Khyber Pass, where he would soon join the Mujaheddin and the CIA in the holy war that expelled the Soviets from Afghanistan. (Salem, for his part, owned a house in Marble Falls, and died in a 1988 plane crash near San Antonio.) Andrew Wheat, The Bush-bin Laden Connection, Texas Observer, November 9, 2001)
The Bush-bin Laden Relationship: Flash Forward to September 10, 2001
Despite his family ties and links to the Royal Saudi household, Osama bin Laden was officially considered “a disgrace” to members of the bin Laden family, who reluctantly provided him with “pocket money”, which was used to develop Al Qaeda (The Base). He was referred to as a “Black Sheep”.
Its all part of a “good guys project” of going after Osama, the “Black Sheep”, and waging the “Global War on Terrorism”.
There is nothing wrong, therefore, in socializing and doing business with family members of terror mastermind Osama bin Laden, including the late Salem bin Laden and Shafiq bin Laden of the Carlyle Group.
Flash Forward to September 10, 2001. The Bush-bin Laden Relationship prevails. Confirmed by the Washington Post, “fellow investors” of the Carlyle Group Osama’s brother Shafiq bin Laden and former President H.G.W. Bush met at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel on September 10, 2001, one day before 9/11, (see image below):
It didn’t help that as the World Trade Center burned on Sept. 11, 2001, the news interrupted a Carlyle business conference at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel here attended by a brother of Osama bin Laden [Shafiq bin Laden]. Former president Bush [senior, see image below], a fellow investor, had been with him at the conference the previous day. (Greg Schneider, Pairing the Powerful With the Rich, Washington Post, March 16, 2003)
Lest we forget, Osama bin Laden was the alleged architect of the 9/11 attacks, yet his brother Shafiq bin Laden was meeting up with the presidents’s dad, former president George H. W. Bush on September 10, 2001.
A day later, on the evening of September 11, 2001, president George W. Bush pronounced a historic speech in which he defined the relationship between “terrorists’ and “state sponsors of terrorism”:
The search is underway for those who are behind these evil acts. I’ve directed the full resources of our intelligence and law enforcement communities to find those responsible and to bring them to justice. We will make no distinction between the terrorists who committed these acts and those who harbor them.
Needless to say Osama’s brother Shafiq and members of the bin Laden family were flown out of Washington in government planes in the immediate wake of 9/11.
Where was Osama bin Laden on September 10, 2001
Ironically, on September 10th while brother Shafiq bin Laden and George Bush Senior were meeting at the Ritz Carleton, the alleged 9/11 mastermind Osama bin Laden was undergoing treatment for his kidney condition at the Urology War of Pakistan’s military hospital in Rawalpindi. (according to Dan Rather, CBS News Report).
Everyone remembers what happened on September 11. Here`s the story of what may have happened the night before. It is a tale as twisted as the hunt for Osama bin Laden.
CBS News has been told that the night before the September 11 terrorist attack, Osama bin Laden was in Pakistan. He was getting medical treatment with the support of the very military that days later pledged its backing for the U.S. war on terror in Afghanistan.
Pakistan intelligence sources tell CBS News that bin Laden was spirited into this military hospital in Rawalpindi for kidney dialysis treatment. On that night, says this medical worker who wanted her identity protected, they moved out all the regular staff in the urology department and sent in a secret team to replace them. She says it was treatment for a very special person. The special team was obviously up to no good.
“The military had him surrounded,” says this hospital employee who also wanted his identity masked, “and I saw the mysterious patient helped out of a car. Since that time,” he says, “I have seen many pictures of the man. He is the man we know as Osama bin Laden. I also heard two army officers talking to each other. They were saying that Osama bin Laden had to be watched carefully and looked after.” Those who know bin Laden say he suffers from numerous ailments, back and stomach problems. Ahmed Rashid, who has written extensively on the Taliban, says the military was often there to help before 9/11.
AHMED RASHID, TALIBAN EXPERT: There were reports that Pakistani intelligence had helped the Taliban buy dialysis machines. And the rumor was that these were wanted for Osama bin Laden.
PETERSEN (on camera): Doctors at the hospital told CBS News there was nothing special about that night, but they refused our request to see any records. Government officials tonight denied that bin Laden had any medical treatment on that night.
…
PETERSEN: The United States has no way of knowing who in Pakistan`s military or intelligence supported the Taliban or Osama bin Laden maybe up to the night before 9/11 by arranging dialysis to keep him alive. So the United States may not know if those same people might help him again perhaps to freedom.
Barry Petersen, CBS News, Islamabad. (CBS News quoted in Michel Chossudovsky, Where was bin Laden on 9/11, Global Research, November 16, 2003)
What this CBS report, which has largely been overlooked by analysts, suggests is that:
1) Pakistan’s Military Intelligence (ISI), which is in permanent liaison with the CIA, was complicit in protecting Osama bin Laden.
2) If the CBS report by Dan Rather is accurate and Osama had indeed been admitted to the Pakistani military hospital on September 10, 2001, courtesy of America’s ally, in all probability, his whereabouts were known to US officials.
3) The hospital was directly under the jurisdiction of the Pakistani Military, which has close links to the Pentagon. U.S. military advisers based in Rawalpindi. work closely with the Pakistani Armed Forces. Again, no attempt was made to arrest America’s best known fugitive, but then maybe bin Laden was serving another “better purpose”. Defense Secretary Rumsfeld claimed at the time that Osama’s whereabout were unknown: “Its like looking for a needle in a stack of hay”.
Needless to say, the CBS report was a crucial piece of information in the 9/11 jigsaw. It refuted the administration’s claim that the whereabouts of bin Laden were unknown. It pointed to a Pakistan connection, it also suggested a cover-up at the highest levels of the Bush administration.
Bush and the “State Sponsors of Terrorism”
Ironically, in a subsequent address to the joint session of the House of Representatives and the Senate on September 20, 2001, president George W. Bush stated unequivocally his administration’s intent to “pursue nations that provide aid or safe haven to terrorism”, with no exceptions (e.g. Saudi Arabia and Pakistan)
Every nation, in every region, now has a decision to make.
“We will starve terrorists of funding, turn them one against another, drive them from place to place, until there is no refuge or no rest. And we will pursue nations that provide aid or safe haven to terrorism. Every nation, in every region, now has a decision to make.
Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists. (Applause.)
From this day forward, any nation that continues to harbor or support terrorism will be regarded by the United States as a hostile regime [state sponsor of terrorism]. President George W. Bush, 20 September 2001 (emphasis added)
What both presidents Bush and Obama have failed to acknowledge is that America’s staunched ally Saudi Arabia, not to mention Turkey and Israel are financing and supporting the terrorists, in liaison with Washington.
Both Bush and Obama seem to be caught up in the contradictions of their own political rhetoric, the “either you are with us or you are with the terrorists” conundrum:
“I am with myself and I am also with the terrorists”
Flash Forward to March 2011: “New Normal” and the War on Syria: Supporting “Moderate Terrorists”
With the war on Syria (2011- ), establishing political ties with “State sponsors of terrorism” is considered to be part of a “New Normal”, a humanitarian endeavor intent upon unseating the secular government of Bashar al Assad and spreading American democracy throughout the Middle East.
John Kerry concurs: financial aid to Syria’s Al Nusrah, an affiliate of Al Qaeda is part of an R2P mandate.
There are now “‘good guy terrorists” and “bad guy terrorists”. Financial aid is channeled to Al Qaeda “good guy terrorists” to protect Syrians against the terrorists (New York Times, April 20, 2013)
Barack Obama, John Kerry, John McCain: Are They “Terror Suspects”?
Now let us examine in more detail the Al Nusrah Front, which constitutes the main rebel fighting force in Syria. Al Nusrah is affiliated to Al Qaeda. The leader of Al Nusrah, Abu Mohammad al-Golani, has pledged his allegiance to Al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri, who replaced Osama bin Laden after his death.
According to the State Department Bureau of Counter-terrorism, Jabhat al Nusrah, the main rebel force in Syria is a terrorist organization, an affiliate of Al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI).
The State Department has issued a “prohibition against knowingly providing, or attempting or conspiring to provide, material support or resources to, or engaging in transactions with, al-Nusrah Front, and
the freezing of all property and interests in property of the organization that are in the United States, or come within the United States or the control of U.S. persons.” (emphasis added). It is understood that US State Department Counter-terrorism policy also applies to “state sponsors of terrorism”.
Al Nusrah is financed by Turkey, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Israel in close consultation with NATO and the Pentagon.
The Obama administration has openly confirmed its support for the Syrian rebels with most of this aid channeled to Al Nusrah.
US Senator John McCain is reported to have met up with jihadist terrorist leaders in Syria. (see picture right)
The Role of Israel: State Sponsor of Al Nusrah and the Islamic State (ISIS)
While theoretically committed to the US-led war on terrorism, the Israeli government of Benjamin Netanyahu quite openly supports al Qaeda. The Al Nusrah and ISIS terror brigades operate out of the occupied Golan Heights.
Jihadist fighters have met Israeli IDF officers as well as Prime Minister Netanyahu. The IDF top brass acknowledges that “global jihad elements inside Syria” [ISIL and Al Nusrah] are supported by State of Israel. See image below:
image. “Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defence Minister Moshe Ya’alon next to a wounded mercenary, Israeli
military field hospital at the occupied Golan Heights’ border with Syria, 18 February 2014″.
Xenophobia: The Demonization of Muslims
The US president and his NATO allies, not to mention Bejamin Netanyahu, “R the Terrorists”, they are the “state sponsors of terrorism.”.
Obama’s “counter-terrorism” campaign against the Islamic State has contributed to the demonization of Muslims, who in the eyes of Western public opinion are increasingly associated with the jihadists.
Anybody who dares to question the validity of the “Global War on Terrorism” is branded a terrorist and subjected to the anti-terrorist laws.
The ultimate objective of the “Global War on Terrorism” is to subdue the citizens, totally depoliticize social life in America, prevent people from thinking and conceptualizing, from analyzing facts and challenging the legitimacy of the inquisitorial social order which rules America.
The Obama Administration has imposed a diabolical consensus with the support of its allies, not to mention the complicit role of the United Nations Security Council. The Western media has embraced the consensus; it has described the Islamic State as an independent entity, an outside enemy which threatens the Western World.
France has initiated a hate campaign against French Muslims, who represent approximately ten percent of France’s population.
While France mourns the victims of the Charlie Hebdo January 2015 attacks, the French government under the helm of president Francois Hollande is supporting as well as funding Al Qaeda affiliated terrorists in the Middle East and North Africa in liaison with the US, NATO and Israel:
France, as part of a NATO-led coalition, has been arming, funding, aiding, and otherwise perpetuating Al Qaeda terrorists for years, beginning, on record in Libya with the overthrow of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi and continuing until today with NATO’s arming, harboring, and backing of Al Qaeda terrorists including the so-called “Islamic State” (ISIS) within and along Syria’s borders.
With the recent attack in Paris likely the work of the very terrorists France has been arming and backing across North Africa and the Middle East, the French government itself stands responsible, guilty of the continued material support of a terrorist organization that has now killed French citizens, including two police officers, not only on French soil, but within the French capital itself. (Tony Cartalucci, Global Research, January 8, 2015)
Ironically, while the French media in chorus point to “Freedom of Expression” in journalism, not a single French media has had the courage of pointing to the issue of State sponsorship of terrorism by the French Republic.
The Urgency of World Peace
The antiwar movement in several Western countries is in crisis. Some of America’s wars are condemned outright, while others are heralded as “humanitarian interventions”. A significant segment of the US antiwar movement condemns the war but endorses the campaign against international terrorism, which constitutes the backbone of US military doctrine.
Historically, progressive social movements in Western countries (including the World Social Forum) have been infiltrated, their leaders co-opted and manipulated, through the corporate funding of non-governmental organizations, trade unions and political parties. The ultimate purpose of “funding dissent” is to prevent the protest movement from challenging the legitimacy of the capitalist elites.
The “Just War” theory (Jus Ad Bellum) has served to camouflage the nature of US foreign policy, while providing a human face to the invaders. The logic behind the “Global War on Terrorism” is that of a Just War. It is portrayed as a counter-terrorism initiative rather than outright military operation.
A large segment of “progressive” opinion in the US and Western Europe is supportive of NATO’s R2P “humanitarian” mandate (Responsibility to Protect) to the extent that these war plans are being carried out with the “rubber stamp” of civil society.
Prominent “progressive” authors as well independent media outlets have supported regime change and NATO sponsored humanitarian intervention in Libya. Similarly, many “progressive voices” rallied in support of the US-NATO sponsored opposition in Syria.
Let us be under no illusions: This pseudo-progressive discourse is an instrument of propaganda. Several prominent “left” intellectuals –who claim to be opposed to US imperialism– have supported the imposition of “no fly zones” and “humanitarian interventions” against sovereign countries.
“Progressives” are funded and co-opted by elite foundations including Ford, Rockefeller, et al. The corporate elites have sought to fragment the people’s movement into a vast “do it yourself” mosaic. War and globalization are no longer in the forefront of civil society activism. Activism tends to be piecemeal. There is no integrated anti-globalization anti-war movement. The economic crisis is not seen as having a relationship to the US led war.
Dissent has been compartmentalized. Separate “issue oriented” protest movements (e.g. environment, anti-globalization, peace, women’s rights, climate change) are encouraged and generously funded as opposed to a cohesive mass movement. This mosaic was already prevalent in the counter G7 summits and People’s Summits of the 1990s.
In numerous organizations including the trade union movement, the grassroots is betrayed by their leaders who are co-opted. The money trickles down from the corporate foundations, setting constraints on grassroots actions. Its called “manufacturing dissent”. Many of these NGO leaders are committed and well meaning individuals acting within a framework which sets the boundaries of dissent. The leaders of these movements are often co-opted, without even realizing that as a result of corporate funding their hands are tied.
In recent history, with the exception of Iraq, the so-called Western left namely “Progressives” have paid lip service to US-NATO military interventions in Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Libya and Syria. “Progressives” also support the official 9/11 version of events. They deny 9/11 Truth.
“Progressives” acknowledge that the US was under attack on 9/11 and that the war on Afghanistan was a “Just War”. In the case of Afghanistan, the “self-defense” argument was accepted at face value as a legitimate response to the 9/11 attacks, without examining the fact that the US administration had not only supported the “Islamic terror network”, it was also instrumental in the installation of the Taliban government in 1995-96. It was tacitly implied that by supporting al Qaeda, Afghanistan had attacked America on September 11, 2001.
In 2001, when Afghanistan was bombed and later invaded, “progressive” organizations largely upheld the administration’s “just cause” military doctrine. In the wake of 9/11, the antiwar movement against the illegal invasion of Afghanistan was isolated. The trade unions and civil society organizations had swallowed the media lies and government propaganda. They had accepted a war of retribution against Al Qaeda and the Taliban.
Media disinformation prevailed. People were misled as to the nature and objectives underlying the invasion of Afghanistan. Osama bin Laden and the Taliban were identified as the prime suspects of the 9/11 attacks, without a shred of evidence and without addressing the historical relationship between Al Qaeda and the US intelligence apparatus (as outlined above). In this regard, understanding 9/11 is crucial in formulating a consistent antiwar position. 9/11 is the pillar of US war propaganda; it sustains the illusion of an outside enemy, it justifies pre-emptive military intervention, it is the cornerstone of xenophobia and the hate campaign directed against Muslims.
With regard to Syria, from the outset in 2011, “progressives” and mainstream “antiwar” organizations have supported so-called opposition forces without acknowledging that the mainstay of these forces is composed of Al Qaeda affiliated terrorists, recruited, trained and financed by US-NATO and their allies including Israel, Turkey, Qatar and Saudi Arabia.
These antiwar groups, which previously supported NATO intervention in Libya, blame the Syrian government for the atrocities committed by the US sponsored Al Qaeda rebels.
Rebuilding the Antiwar Movement
What is required is to rebuild a mass movement. And this cannot be undertaken by organizations which are supported of corporate foundations and charities.
The social base as well as the organizational structure of the antiwar movement must be transformed. America’s “Long War” is an imperialist project which sustains the financial structures and institutional foundations of the capitalist World Order. Behind this military agenda are powerful corporate interests including an extensive propaganda apparatus.
War and the Economic Crisis are intimately related. The Worldwide imposition of neoliberal macro-economic policy measures is part of the broader imperial agenda. And consequently, the broader movement against neoliberalism must be integrated into the anti-war movement.
Breaking the “Big Lie” which presents war as a humanitarian undertaking, means breaking a criminal project of global destruction, in which the quest for profit is the overriding force. This profit-driven military agenda destroys human values and transforms people into unconscious zombies.
The holding of mass demonstrations and antiwar protests is not enough. What is required is the development of a broad and well-organized grassroots antiwar network, across the land, nationally and internationally, which challenges the structures of power and authority as well as the nature of the capitalist World order. People must mobilize not only against the military agenda – the authority of the state and its officials must also be challenged.
A meaningful anti-war movement requires breaking the “war on terrorism” consensus and upholding 9/11 Truth. To reverse the tide of war and globalization requires a massive campaign of networking and outreach to inform people across the land, nationally and internationally, in neighborhoods, workplaces, parishes, schools, universities and municipalities, on the nature of the imperial project, its military and economic dimensions, not to mention the dangers of a US sponsored nuclear war. This movement must also occur within the Armed Forces (including NATO) with a view to challenging the legitimacy of the military agenda.
The message should be loud and clear:
The US and its allies are behind the Al Qaeda and Islamic State terrorists who have committed countless atrocities against civilians on the specific instructions of the Western military alliance,
China and Russia are not a threat to Global Security. Neither are Syria, Iran or North Korea a threat to World Peace. Quite the opposite. The threat to Global Security emanates from the Pentagon and the US State Department.
What has to be achieved:
Reveal the criminal nature of this military project. War is a criminal undertaking under Nuremberg. It is the ultimate “Crime against the Peace”.
Undermine war propaganda, reveal the media lies, reverse the tide of disinformation, wage a consistent campaign against the corporate media. Bear in mind war propaganda is also considered a criminal act under the Nuremberg protocol
Break the legitimacy of the warmongers in high office. Indict political leaders for war crimes.
Dismantle the multibillion dollar national intelligence apparatus.
Dismantle the US-sponsored military adventure and its corporate sponsors. Bring home the troops.
Repeal the illusion that the state is committed to protecting its citizens.
Uphold 9/11 Truth. Reveal the falsehoods behind 9/11 which are used to justify the Middle East/Central Asian war under the banner of the “Global War on Terrorism” (GWOT).
Expose how a profit-driven war serves the vested interests of the banks, the defense contractors, the oil giants, the media giants and the biotech conglomerates.
Challenge the corporate media which deliberately obfuscates the causes and consequences of this war.
Reveal and take cognizance of the unspoken and tragic outcome of a war waged with nuclear weapons.
Call for the Dismantling of NATO.
Reorganize the system of international justice which protects the war criminals. Implement the prosecution of war criminals in high office.
Close down the weapons assembly plants and implement the foreclosure of major weapons producers.
Close down all US military bases in the US and around the world.
Develop an antiwar movement within the armed forces and establish bridges between the armed forces and the civilian antiwar movement.
Forcefully pressure governments of both NATO and non-NATO countries to withdraw from the US-led global military agenda.
Develop a consistent antiwar movement in Israel. Inform the citizens of Israel of the likely consequences of a US-NATO-Israeli attack on Iran.
Target the pro-war lobby groups including the pro-Israeli groups in the US.
Dismantle the homeland security state. Repeal the legitimacy of Obama’s extrajudicial assassinations. Repeal the drone wars directed against civilians.
Undermine the “militarization of law enforcement”.
Reverse the gamut of anti-terrorist legislation in Western countries which is intended to repeal fundamental civil rights.
These are no easy tasks. They require an understanding of the power structure, of hegemonic relations between the military, intelligence, the state structures and corporate powers which are promoting this destructive agenda.
Ultimately these power relations must be undermined with a view to changing the course of World history.
Without war propaganda and media disinformation, war criminals in high office do not have leg to stand on. Without the mainstream media’s lies and fabrications, the legitimacy of the “Global War on Terrorism” would collapse like a deck of cards.
This text was presented to the Forum on America’s War on Terror and the Urgency of World Peace: Its Ramification in the Philippines.
Social Sciences, University of the Philippines (UP-Cebu), in cooperation with Cebu Educators Forum (CEF), National Union of Students of the Philippines, (NUSP), National Commission on Muslim Filipinos, Visayas (NUSP), NUJP, Cebu Archdiocese, Peace Solidarity Movement, Cebu.
March 2, 2015
