On March 7, 2001, the Russian government gave the UN Security Council a detailed report on the activities of Al Qaeda and its many base locations. Al Qaeda contacts names were given and enough information to find Osama bin Laden. The Russians told the US that as many as 25 Al Qaeda pilots were trained for a mission within the United States. And Vladamir Putin told MSNBC on September 15, 2001 that he ordered Russian intelligence to strongly warn the US about pending attacks on government buildings and airports. Jane’s Intelligence Review concluded that the failure to prevent 9/11 grew out of “a political decision not to act against bin Laden.”
On April 16, 2004 Guillaume Dasquie wrote in Le Monde that French intelligence (DGSE) gave the CIA a 328 page report on Al Qaeda in January, 2001. It was based on contacts in Afghanistan as well as with Islamic students in Europe. They had infiltrated the highest levels of Al Qaeda and knew what airlines might be attacked. They gleaned some information from Uzbek intelligence. They acquired a great deal of information about al Qaeda, knew the terrorists wanted to target US airlines --specifically American and United—but had little how the plane would be used. They did know that a big attack was imminent. The report was e3specially strong on the support and financing coming from Saudi Arabia. Subsequent French reports suggest the Ryiad government is not serious about drying up the sources of Al Qaeda financing.
Randy Glass, a FBI informant, claims that learned while working a sting that the World Trade Center was to be attacked. Pakistani intelligence people told him this and that planes would be used as weapons. His repeated warnings were ignored. Glass acquired the information while working on an effort to nab Egyptian and Pakistani arms smugglers. He recorded a restaurant conversation in which a Pakistani ISI agent told that the Twin Trade towers are coming down. FBI agents were seated nearby at other tables. In 2005, Glass changed his story and said the ISI man did not say planes would be used. Glass said he bluffed a friend in the State Department into telling him that planes would be used. Glass told him some of what he knew about the towers coming down, and the State Department man said, "Randy, listen, you cannot mention any of these things, especially airplanes being used to fly into the World Trade Center. “ The tape from the restaurant was played on telecvision in 2003. The conversation with the state department official is also available on tape.
In 2007 New York Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein had 24 cases before him brought by the families of 9/11 victims. He selected three to try. The families said they were going to court to learn what had really happened. However, the judge consistently prevented the plaintiff’s attorney from calling for the testimony of people like George Tenet, Richard A. Clarke, or Louis Freeh. A few of the plaintiff’s attorneys were permitted to visit a heavily guarded room where they could read Transportation Safety Administration materials. But the most peculiar thing was that the plaintiff’s attorneys soon joined in the effort to exclude witnesses and information. In the end, the judge said life was beautiful and that the families should put 9/11 behind them and accept the settlements they had earlier rejected. One can only wonder why it was so important to exclude witnesses and materials. Must the truth always be a top secret?
By the evening of September 11, CNN was broadcasting a story that the hijackers used knives and box cutters to overpower the crew and passengers, herd them all to the back of American 77, and turn toward Washington. The network claimed that Solicitor General Ted Olson told them that his wife Barbara, who was aboard the plane, called him twice with her cell phone to explain what was going on. In 2001, cell phones worked very poorly when planes were flying at low altitudes. We are also expected to believe that these relatively small men overcame the passengers and crew with ease. The pilot was a tough welterweight boxer.
It might strike some that it is a little odd that Olson would be talking to the press the same day his wife died in a terrible situation.
Three days later, the story changed when Olson appeared on Hannity and Colmes. Now, Barbara called the Pentagon collect because she did not have access to her credit cards. He thought she was using a seat phone, but that would have required the swipe of a credit card to activate. In any event, that 757 did not have seat telephones. Olson was telling the same story in March, 2002.
However, it was possible to telephone from the plane. In 2006, at the trial of Zacarias Moussaoui, the FBI established that she unsuccessfully tried to place a call. It was an “unconnected call” that lasted zero seconds. Pentagon historians have also rejected the Olson story and hypothesize that the pilots were killed in the cockpit. A caller to Larry King’s show confronted Olson with the above information, and Olson finally concluded that she must have been calling by some sort of walkie-talkie. Human remains were identified at the Dover Air Force Base, but there was no chain of evidence linking them to the Pentagon crash site.
We know now that hijacker Ziad Jarrah had an e-mail address provided by defense contractor Rockwell Automation. Why?
Sunday, May 2, 2010
Wednesday, April 28, 2010
Why Question the Official 9/11 Story: Part Two
The respected correspondent Robert Fisk has stated his doubts and misgivings:
It's not just the obvious non sequiturs: where are the aircraft parts (engines, etc) from the attack on the Pentagon? Why have the officials involved in the United 93 flight (which crashed in Pennsylvania) been muzzled? Why did flight 93's debris spread over miles when it was supposed to have crashed in one piece in a field? Again, I'm not talking about the crazed "research" of David Icke's Alice in I am increasingly troubled at the inconsistencies in the official narrative of 9/11. Wonderland and the World Trade Center Disaster – which should send any sane man back to reading the telephone directory.
Even before the last of the hijacked planes crashed, the FBI told Richard Clarke in the NSC that it had a list of the likely terrorists. Pictures of some of them were running on CNN that night. There was no explanation how they obtained these names or why the agency had not rounded them up. Only two of their names did not appear on the four flight manifests.
A fifth plane may have been targeted for hijacking, United Airlines 23, JFK-Los Angeles. It was is line on the runway at JFK at 9:00 AM. They received a warning from the United Dispatcher and instructions to secure the cockpit and secure the doors. After the orders were carried out the pilot called the senior attendant to say no one should try to open the cockpit door. She told him there were four Arab young men in first class. All planes were called b ack and the four young men were not detained. However, Al Qaeda literature and box cutters were found in their luggage. There is no evidence the hijackers on the four other planes had box cutters.
The most maddening thing about 9/11 is that the government did so little to produce evidence to prove its case. The most obvious failure was that it provided almost no aircraft parts from the four hijacked planes. What happened to them. Airplane parts are carefully marked as are replacement parts so that disaster investigators can determine why crashes occurred. There is no record of any previous airplane crashes in which no parts were preserved. Private investigators were kept away from where United Flight 93 crashed. Not even evidence showing the tail number or part of it was made available. Some kind of equipment was removed from the Twin Trade Towers, but the public was not told what it was and private investigators were kept away. A few airplane parts were found in the Pentagon, but some experts claim they were part of a Global Hawk’s engine. The diameter of the engine that was found is said to be half that of the engine used in the 757. Why did someone not produce something to definitively make the case for the official explanation? That airplane had two 9 foot Rolls Royce engines. Some parts of them must have survived.
It's not just the obvious non sequiturs: where are the aircraft parts (engines, etc) from the attack on the Pentagon? Why have the officials involved in the United 93 flight (which crashed in Pennsylvania) been muzzled? Why did flight 93's debris spread over miles when it was supposed to have crashed in one piece in a field? Again, I'm not talking about the crazed "research" of David Icke's Alice in I am increasingly troubled at the inconsistencies in the official narrative of 9/11. Wonderland and the World Trade Center Disaster – which should send any sane man back to reading the telephone directory.
Even before the last of the hijacked planes crashed, the FBI told Richard Clarke in the NSC that it had a list of the likely terrorists. Pictures of some of them were running on CNN that night. There was no explanation how they obtained these names or why the agency had not rounded them up. Only two of their names did not appear on the four flight manifests.
A fifth plane may have been targeted for hijacking, United Airlines 23, JFK-Los Angeles. It was is line on the runway at JFK at 9:00 AM. They received a warning from the United Dispatcher and instructions to secure the cockpit and secure the doors. After the orders were carried out the pilot called the senior attendant to say no one should try to open the cockpit door. She told him there were four Arab young men in first class. All planes were called b ack and the four young men were not detained. However, Al Qaeda literature and box cutters were found in their luggage. There is no evidence the hijackers on the four other planes had box cutters.
The most maddening thing about 9/11 is that the government did so little to produce evidence to prove its case. The most obvious failure was that it provided almost no aircraft parts from the four hijacked planes. What happened to them. Airplane parts are carefully marked as are replacement parts so that disaster investigators can determine why crashes occurred. There is no record of any previous airplane crashes in which no parts were preserved. Private investigators were kept away from where United Flight 93 crashed. Not even evidence showing the tail number or part of it was made available. Some kind of equipment was removed from the Twin Trade Towers, but the public was not told what it was and private investigators were kept away. A few airplane parts were found in the Pentagon, but some experts claim they were part of a Global Hawk’s engine. The diameter of the engine that was found is said to be half that of the engine used in the 757. Why did someone not produce something to definitively make the case for the official explanation? That airplane had two 9 foot Rolls Royce engines. Some parts of them must have survived.
Tuesday, April 27, 2010
Why Question the Official 9/11 Story: Part One
If we set aside the official explanation of the tragic events of September 11, 2001, we are left with many facts that clearly contradict the story, but not enough evidence to piece together an explanation of what happened.
The deathly precision of the attacks and the magnitude of planning would have required years of planning. Such a sophisticated operation would require the fixed frame of a state intelligence organization; something not found in a loose group, like the one led by the student Mohammed Atta in Hamburg.
- Eckehardt Werthebach, former president of Germany's Verfassungsschutz intelligence service
No one in his right mind wants to believe that out government had anything to do with 9/11. Conpiracy theories emerge when there are too many fact that are not analyzed by official bodies.
Several things are clear about 9/11. (1) The Bush administration moved heaven and earth to try to prevent a Congressional inquiry and then to restrict what the 9/11 commission knew. (2) The official story neglects so much and is often so implausible that the numbr of people who believe it diminishes each month. ( 3) Defenders of the official story have now fallen back to claiming that the Islamic terrorists were marvelously efficient while nothging in the US government seemed capable of working then, or before the tragic event. (4) An examination of FBI records make it clear that two hijackers , Al-Mihdhar and Hazmi, were in San Diego , when the Commission timeline has them elsewhere. (5) For some reason, the press has shown little interest in digging into the nitty gritty of what is known, and it denounces doubters as nut cases and conspiracy theorists.
In a recent address ( 2008) Attorney General Michael Mukasey said that there were Al Qaeda telephone calls from Afghanistan, routed through Yemmen to the US that involved preparations for the attack. He was attacking the FISA law as it then existed, claiming that the calls were not recorded. The fact is that NSA could intercept foreign calls and did so in that instance. It apparently did not share the calls with the FBI, as the AG claimed. The 9/11 Commission report does not mention the calls, and the commissioners refuse to comment on this. It would also be interesting to know if the surveillance was tied to the pending attack on Afghanistan .
The 9/11 Commission was co-chaired by former New Jersey Governor Thomas Kean and former Congressman Lee Hamilton. Hamilton had, over the years, conducted a number the hearings on the so-called October, 1980 Surprise and gave the Repubnlicans every benefit of the doubt. At another point, he played a role is suppressing evidence about CIAQ involvement in the Contra drug trade. Kean, through Hess Oil, had business dealings with Khaloid bin Mahfouz, Osama’s brother-in-law and bagman. But of course, George W. Bush also had business dealings with bin Mahfouz.
Ray McGovern, a respected CIA veteran, pronounced the 9/11 report “a joke,” noting there were many unanswered questions.
In 2004, former German intelligence minister Andreas von Bulow was interviewed on the Canadian TV show, “Cloak and Dagger.” Von Bulow did not buy the official assessment of what happened on September 11. He thought the hijacking of the four airliners and the three coordinated strikes required the orchestration of the apparatus of’state and industry.” He noted that none of the names of the alleged terrorists were on the passenger lists. However, he must have been referring to victim lists as the government did not release the passenger list for years, and their names did appear when the documents were made public. He added that leaving flight manuals in rented cars seemed too amateurish. That “Cloak and Dagger” broadcast had high ratings but was cancelled soon after the Von Bulow interview.
Bulow might have been wrong. We will probably never have a very full picture of what happened on September 11. The event is similar to the assassination of John F. Kennedy. Official explanations pass over important matter and advance improbably hypotheses. New information, probably including some disinformation, continually appear.
General Leonid Ivashov, former chief of staff for the Russian military, insisted it was an inside job. Like Bullow, he said that only the secret services have the ability to organize something like this. He doubted that Al Qaeda had the necessary resources, leadership, or expertise.
Former Italian president ( 1985-1992) and prime minister Francesco Cossiga told C Corriere della Serra in late 2007 that 9/11 was the work of Mossad and the CIA. The reason for the attack was the desire to attack Afghanistan and Iraq. He added that Italian intelligence had discovered that a recent Osama bin Laden tape attacking Silvio Berlusconi , a former prime minister, had been made in Bertusconi’s film studio in Milan. He earlier said about 9/11
The mastermind of the attack must have been a’sophisticated mind, provided with ample means not only to recruit fanatic kamikazes, but also highly specialized personnel. I add one thing: it could not be accomplished without infiltrations in the radar and flight security personnel.
In his last statement, he said it is now common knowledge among intelligence agencies that 9/11 was an inside job. Cossiga has kept good relations with Vladimir Putin and Putin may have given him some information.
Cossiga is known for his close ties to Italian and Western intelligence people. He helped establish Operation Gladio, an underground network of former fascists who were to engage in guerilla warfare if there were a Soviet invasion. There was no invasion, so the underground operatives went about creating violent incidents and blaming them on the Red Brigades. Cossiga had to resign rather than face impeachment when former Prime Minister Prime Minister Giulio Andreotti revealed the false flag operations of Operation Gladio. There were other CIA backed stay-behind forces elsewhere in Europe, and they too engaged in false flag terrorism. In 1978, he was interior minister when Prime Minister Aldo Moro was kidnapped and assassinated. Some thought this was the work of Gladio men because Moro was trying to seek a modus vivendi between the Christian Democrats and the Communists. In March, 2001, a former Gladio agent said:
You had to attack civilians, the people, women, children, innocent people, unknown people far removed from any political game. The reason was quite simple: to force ... the public to turn to the state to ask for greater security
The deathly precision of the attacks and the magnitude of planning would have required years of planning. Such a sophisticated operation would require the fixed frame of a state intelligence organization; something not found in a loose group, like the one led by the student Mohammed Atta in Hamburg.
- Eckehardt Werthebach, former president of Germany's Verfassungsschutz intelligence service
No one in his right mind wants to believe that out government had anything to do with 9/11. Conpiracy theories emerge when there are too many fact that are not analyzed by official bodies.
Several things are clear about 9/11. (1) The Bush administration moved heaven and earth to try to prevent a Congressional inquiry and then to restrict what the 9/11 commission knew. (2) The official story neglects so much and is often so implausible that the numbr of people who believe it diminishes each month. ( 3) Defenders of the official story have now fallen back to claiming that the Islamic terrorists were marvelously efficient while nothging in the US government seemed capable of working then, or before the tragic event. (4) An examination of FBI records make it clear that two hijackers , Al-Mihdhar and Hazmi, were in San Diego , when the Commission timeline has them elsewhere. (5) For some reason, the press has shown little interest in digging into the nitty gritty of what is known, and it denounces doubters as nut cases and conspiracy theorists.
In a recent address ( 2008) Attorney General Michael Mukasey said that there were Al Qaeda telephone calls from Afghanistan, routed through Yemmen to the US that involved preparations for the attack. He was attacking the FISA law as it then existed, claiming that the calls were not recorded. The fact is that NSA could intercept foreign calls and did so in that instance. It apparently did not share the calls with the FBI, as the AG claimed. The 9/11 Commission report does not mention the calls, and the commissioners refuse to comment on this. It would also be interesting to know if the surveillance was tied to the pending attack on Afghanistan .
The 9/11 Commission was co-chaired by former New Jersey Governor Thomas Kean and former Congressman Lee Hamilton. Hamilton had, over the years, conducted a number the hearings on the so-called October, 1980 Surprise and gave the Repubnlicans every benefit of the doubt. At another point, he played a role is suppressing evidence about CIAQ involvement in the Contra drug trade. Kean, through Hess Oil, had business dealings with Khaloid bin Mahfouz, Osama’s brother-in-law and bagman. But of course, George W. Bush also had business dealings with bin Mahfouz.
Ray McGovern, a respected CIA veteran, pronounced the 9/11 report “a joke,” noting there were many unanswered questions.
In 2004, former German intelligence minister Andreas von Bulow was interviewed on the Canadian TV show, “Cloak and Dagger.” Von Bulow did not buy the official assessment of what happened on September 11. He thought the hijacking of the four airliners and the three coordinated strikes required the orchestration of the apparatus of’state and industry.” He noted that none of the names of the alleged terrorists were on the passenger lists. However, he must have been referring to victim lists as the government did not release the passenger list for years, and their names did appear when the documents were made public. He added that leaving flight manuals in rented cars seemed too amateurish. That “Cloak and Dagger” broadcast had high ratings but was cancelled soon after the Von Bulow interview.
Bulow might have been wrong. We will probably never have a very full picture of what happened on September 11. The event is similar to the assassination of John F. Kennedy. Official explanations pass over important matter and advance improbably hypotheses. New information, probably including some disinformation, continually appear.
General Leonid Ivashov, former chief of staff for the Russian military, insisted it was an inside job. Like Bullow, he said that only the secret services have the ability to organize something like this. He doubted that Al Qaeda had the necessary resources, leadership, or expertise.
Former Italian president ( 1985-1992) and prime minister Francesco Cossiga told C Corriere della Serra in late 2007 that 9/11 was the work of Mossad and the CIA. The reason for the attack was the desire to attack Afghanistan and Iraq. He added that Italian intelligence had discovered that a recent Osama bin Laden tape attacking Silvio Berlusconi , a former prime minister, had been made in Bertusconi’s film studio in Milan. He earlier said about 9/11
The mastermind of the attack must have been a’sophisticated mind, provided with ample means not only to recruit fanatic kamikazes, but also highly specialized personnel. I add one thing: it could not be accomplished without infiltrations in the radar and flight security personnel.
In his last statement, he said it is now common knowledge among intelligence agencies that 9/11 was an inside job. Cossiga has kept good relations with Vladimir Putin and Putin may have given him some information.
Cossiga is known for his close ties to Italian and Western intelligence people. He helped establish Operation Gladio, an underground network of former fascists who were to engage in guerilla warfare if there were a Soviet invasion. There was no invasion, so the underground operatives went about creating violent incidents and blaming them on the Red Brigades. Cossiga had to resign rather than face impeachment when former Prime Minister Prime Minister Giulio Andreotti revealed the false flag operations of Operation Gladio. There were other CIA backed stay-behind forces elsewhere in Europe, and they too engaged in false flag terrorism. In 1978, he was interior minister when Prime Minister Aldo Moro was kidnapped and assassinated. Some thought this was the work of Gladio men because Moro was trying to seek a modus vivendi between the Christian Democrats and the Communists. In March, 2001, a former Gladio agent said:
You had to attack civilians, the people, women, children, innocent people, unknown people far removed from any political game. The reason was quite simple: to force ... the public to turn to the state to ask for greater security
Monday, April 26, 2010
“Republicans are Betting on Continued Hard Times” Revisited
While cleaning out computer files, I found a piece that was submitted last year. It was entitled “Republicans are Betting on Continued Hard Times.” It was clear then that the GOP would do whatever was necessary to block recovery efforts because there was a great political advantage in doing so. At the time, it as hard to imagine how badly the Democrats would fritter away their political advantages or how inept their Congressional leadership would prove to be. On the other hand, it was recognized then that the GOP remained strong and possessed far superior communications and strategic skills.
In three important respects, the piece needs to be amended and improved.
1. “This recession promises to last a number of years and will certainly extend well beyond 2012, in part because the problems of repairing a collapsed financial system are nothing short of enormous. Everyone in Washington must grasp this, and it offers the GOP a good shot of regaining power in 2012.”
Sherm is happy to have been partly wrong here. The Obama administration did a phenomenal job of pulling the country away from the brink of depression and out of a recession. The financial system has been repaired with bailing wire and duct tape and it is possible that the Dodd Bill is being excessively weakened. Yes, there are too many carve outs for some classes of derivatives, and the majority leader has insisted on a provision that weakens it still more to save some banking jobs in Nevada. Still, the measure is better than nothing, and one must remember Dick Durbin’s comment that the banks own the Congress.
In the sense that the jobs will not come back anytime soon, the earlier article was all too accurate.
2. “ Limbaugh was probably wrong in seeing 2010 as the comeback year, but it could be if the party is successful in delaying and trimming stimulus and bailout legislation.”
Clearly 2010 will be a big comeback year for the Republicans. They intimidated the Democrats into offering a weak stimulus bill with too much in tax cuts—to appeal to conservatives—and too little in New Deal—Great Society style stimulus. Then, during the legislative process, they weakened it still more in return for a few Senate votes.
“ Some savvy Republicans may realize that recessions are good for their wealthiest and most powerful constituents. When unemployment is low, labor expenses are high. Hard times present excuses to cut hours, vacations, sick days and other benefits.”
The accuracy of this is reflected in declining union membership in the public sector, improved earnings statements, and the willingness of unions to provide give-backs in return for jobs.
What I missed was that a deep recession gave big manufacturing firms the cover to plow vast amounts of cash into the derivatives and hedge fund casinos. That is why so many lobbyists attending the hearings on derivatives were representing manufacturers.
I year ago, this writer had no idea that the manufacturers were gambling in that casino nor was the size of the derivatives market known. Now many estimate it at between $250 and $650 trillion, and one respected sources places it at twice the latter figure. now I know it could be twice the former figure.
3. “Over the course of the New Deal, FDR invested about 25% of the GDP in stimulus and was not able to completely rescue the economy. The present stimulus package is a little less that 6% of the GDP. It is only the first installment of many similar steps if we are to escape a “lost decade” similar to that experienced in Japan.
It terms of restoring jobs, it will be a tough decade. It has proven politically impossible for the Democrats to muster enough support to pass significant follow-on stimulus packages. Republicans have convinced increasing numbers of voters that somehow President Barack Obama and free-spending Democrats are responsible the lost jobs and the fact that the jobs are not coming back very quickly. Obama and the Democrats get no credit for ending the recession or finally stemming job.
Over the last three decades, beginning with Ronald Reagan, Republicans have moved the nation to the right. Now the nation is paying the price because it is impossible to do the things needed to partially restore the manufacturing sector, which would include high speed rails, stimulation of much more R and D, improved education, especially in the technical sector, repeal of legislation rewarding the exporting of jobs, and making it harder to hide money abroad.
Another reason for the Democrats’ problems is the matter of race. We forgot how many Reagan Democrats left their party because they thought too much was being done for blacks. The fact that, during the primaries, Obama did not spend or campaign in West Virginia was recognition of the problem, and the 41 point spread between Clinton and Obama there confirmed it. After the North Carolina and Indiana primaries, the polls showed that Obama was not popular among what Mrs. Clinton called “hard working whites.” Now recent polling evidence confirms that racial antagonism is a major motivating factor for the Republicans and independents who joined the Tea Bagger movement. The November election result itself may have been a fluke— with the recession prompting many independents to select the Democrat rather than trust Mc Cain with the economy. The independents, ever impatient and usually not well informed, soon turned against Obama when the worst of the crisis passed.
In three important respects, the piece needs to be amended and improved.
1. “This recession promises to last a number of years and will certainly extend well beyond 2012, in part because the problems of repairing a collapsed financial system are nothing short of enormous. Everyone in Washington must grasp this, and it offers the GOP a good shot of regaining power in 2012.”
Sherm is happy to have been partly wrong here. The Obama administration did a phenomenal job of pulling the country away from the brink of depression and out of a recession. The financial system has been repaired with bailing wire and duct tape and it is possible that the Dodd Bill is being excessively weakened. Yes, there are too many carve outs for some classes of derivatives, and the majority leader has insisted on a provision that weakens it still more to save some banking jobs in Nevada. Still, the measure is better than nothing, and one must remember Dick Durbin’s comment that the banks own the Congress.
In the sense that the jobs will not come back anytime soon, the earlier article was all too accurate.
2. “ Limbaugh was probably wrong in seeing 2010 as the comeback year, but it could be if the party is successful in delaying and trimming stimulus and bailout legislation.”
Clearly 2010 will be a big comeback year for the Republicans. They intimidated the Democrats into offering a weak stimulus bill with too much in tax cuts—to appeal to conservatives—and too little in New Deal—Great Society style stimulus. Then, during the legislative process, they weakened it still more in return for a few Senate votes.
“ Some savvy Republicans may realize that recessions are good for their wealthiest and most powerful constituents. When unemployment is low, labor expenses are high. Hard times present excuses to cut hours, vacations, sick days and other benefits.”
The accuracy of this is reflected in declining union membership in the public sector, improved earnings statements, and the willingness of unions to provide give-backs in return for jobs.
What I missed was that a deep recession gave big manufacturing firms the cover to plow vast amounts of cash into the derivatives and hedge fund casinos. That is why so many lobbyists attending the hearings on derivatives were representing manufacturers.
I year ago, this writer had no idea that the manufacturers were gambling in that casino nor was the size of the derivatives market known. Now many estimate it at between $250 and $650 trillion, and one respected sources places it at twice the latter figure. now I know it could be twice the former figure.
3. “Over the course of the New Deal, FDR invested about 25% of the GDP in stimulus and was not able to completely rescue the economy. The present stimulus package is a little less that 6% of the GDP. It is only the first installment of many similar steps if we are to escape a “lost decade” similar to that experienced in Japan.
It terms of restoring jobs, it will be a tough decade. It has proven politically impossible for the Democrats to muster enough support to pass significant follow-on stimulus packages. Republicans have convinced increasing numbers of voters that somehow President Barack Obama and free-spending Democrats are responsible the lost jobs and the fact that the jobs are not coming back very quickly. Obama and the Democrats get no credit for ending the recession or finally stemming job.
Over the last three decades, beginning with Ronald Reagan, Republicans have moved the nation to the right. Now the nation is paying the price because it is impossible to do the things needed to partially restore the manufacturing sector, which would include high speed rails, stimulation of much more R and D, improved education, especially in the technical sector, repeal of legislation rewarding the exporting of jobs, and making it harder to hide money abroad.
Another reason for the Democrats’ problems is the matter of race. We forgot how many Reagan Democrats left their party because they thought too much was being done for blacks. The fact that, during the primaries, Obama did not spend or campaign in West Virginia was recognition of the problem, and the 41 point spread between Clinton and Obama there confirmed it. After the North Carolina and Indiana primaries, the polls showed that Obama was not popular among what Mrs. Clinton called “hard working whites.” Now recent polling evidence confirms that racial antagonism is a major motivating factor for the Republicans and independents who joined the Tea Bagger movement. The November election result itself may have been a fluke— with the recession prompting many independents to select the Democrat rather than trust Mc Cain with the economy. The independents, ever impatient and usually not well informed, soon turned against Obama when the worst of the crisis passed.
Sunday, April 25, 2010
WE NEED TO RETHINK WHAT WE ARE DOING IN AFGHANISTAN
Barack Obama and progressives were correct to say that the war in Afghanistan was a necessary war because Al Qaeda’s headquarters are there or in nearby northwest Pakistan. The problem is that it was the necessary war in 2003, but the situation has since spun out of control. It is no longer the necessary war. It has spun too far out of control. President Obama's "surge" has tripled the number of US troops there, but it is accompl;ishing little.
The surge was to buy time to establish honest, effective government in urban areas and to recruit and train militia. Neither effort has been successful. President Karzai is still complaining because the US wants him to root out corruption. If the corruption does not end and the regime cannot win over the populace by providing a multiplicity of services, nothing the US attempts will work.
People in the urban areas want the US forced to do the policing. There are no signs that the Afghan police are reformed or reformable.
An unspoken oblective was to buy time so that the Pakistanis could begin to deal with those Taliban forces in Pakistan who also enter Afghanistan. So far the Pakis have only dealt with the Taliban foces that are giving them trouble. There are many reports that the Pakis are unhappy with stepped-up intelligence efforts there.
The time has come for the administration to gradually educate the public on the grim situation we face there and to point out the davantages of the Biden strategy, which was rejected last year. Americans need an open and full discussion of the unpromising situation in Afghanistan, and the Obama administration needs to set very limited objectives. The public needs to know that the situation in Afghanistan is far worse and complicated than that in Iraq.
The regime we installed in Kabul is a vast kleptocracy, that is despised by the people. There was so much talk about helping the country on to the path of democracy and modernity. Now they execute people for converting to Christianity, and the role of women has only improved slightly. War lords regained power in the provinces, and narcofarmers and others restored the poppy crop that the Taliban outlawed. A reinvigorated Taliban now taxes the crop. Forget about nation-building there.
There has been a revival of the Taliban, and the new Taliban are not just seminarians; they are rebels of all sorts, bandits, and ethnic rebels. They effectively employ roadside bombs, suicide bombers and other Iraqi tactics. Once seemingly revived by the ISI, the Pakistani Intelligence agency, or by rogue elements within it, the Afghan Taliban recently have begun working in concert with Taliban from the tribal areas of northwest Pakistan. These elements now take on Pakistani forces and Afghan forces in small formations of 500 or 600. President Hamid Karzai has offered to open talks with Mullah Omar, but the Taliban leader did not respond affirmatively.
Now there are tribal insurgencies in the south that the Karzai regime cannot contain. In all, there are fourteen important insurgent organizations in Afghanistan. The country is a little over half Pashtuns ( which includes the Taliban), and other large groups re the Uzbeks, Hazaras, and Tajiks. Warlords are the traditional leaders, and they are now fighting over control of the drug trade.
The situation there now has so deteriorated that it cannot be greatly improved by the application of American military might. We have shown that the application of masssive force can inspire the Taliban to evacuate an area. But it is also clear that they will return as soon as we leave.
Afghanistan has all the ingredients of a major military disaster. There is no silver bullet military solution; the rugged terrain is a guerilla’s paradise. Remember the British experience there in the late 19th century and the Russian military’s meltdown there in the 1980s. There are multiple factions, unbelievable geographical obstacles, and very tough logistical hurdles. American abuse of detainees and bombings has turned much of the population against us. Obama correctly noted the counterproductive effects of the bombings.
Our NATO allies are becoming discouraged and impatient, and their continued presence cannot be expected. We need to persuade NATO to remain longer and to consider introducing troops from Muslim nations, such as Jordan, Egypt, Morocco, and Algeria. There are ominous signs of discontent among the German troops.
Long-term pacification would take between 200,000 and 400,000 troops over a ten year period. The allies will not remain there that long. It is almost impossible to imagine how this option could carried out.
Our goal cannot extend much beyond buying enough time to do some more damage to Aq Qaeda in Pakistan and the Afghan Taliban. The best approach would be address it as part of a regional diplomatic effort that would bring greatly improve relations between India and Pakistan, give Afghanistan a coalition government, and to quietly continue efforts to mend our relations with Iran, who is in a position to see that our withdrawal from Afghanistan would be very painful.
Twice we missed the opportunity to get rid of President Karzai. Now he is calling us the occupiers and has even threatened to join the Taliban. Peter Galbraith, who exposed the recently stolen election there, is now saying it is possible that the Afghan prewsident is on drugs. This is the man we are betting on!
If the US plans to remain much longer, it must find a way to replace Hamid Karzai with someone more acceptable to Pakistan, who almost inevitably will plan a major role in Afghan affairs. This optimum solution would require some help from Russia, China, and the “stans.”
The ideal regional solution may well not be possible, and the US may have to settle for simply weakening the insurgencies enough to allow what passes for a central government to keep security manageable. Warlords must be bought off and not be rearmed. Far more Afghan troops must be recruited and trained. on to Kabul.
While we are there in reinforced numbers, American special forces can use the secret base the US is building in Pakistan to launch multiple operations against Al Qaeda. It should not be used for attacks by Americans against Taliban forces in northwestern Pakistan. It is paramount that we avoid creating supporters for AL Qaeda. Clearly, it would benefit if the US prolonged its presence in Iraq and Afghanistan. Continuing the level of bombings that injure civilians is also a way of creating more Al Qaeda recruits. We are now seeing signs of closer ties between Al Qaeda and the Taliban—something experts thought could not happen. The US must find ways to avoid bringing them together.
It also must be kept in mind that Pakistan is an even greater problem—prone to violence and instability. We must do nothing to destabilize her more. Pakistan faces a radical Islamic insurgency and there is the remote possibility that nuclear weapons and/or the technology of A.Q. Khan could fall into the hands of Wahabi radicals. Pakistan has a strategic reason to gain the upper hand in Afghanistan, as it needs influence in that country as part of its regional strategy of counterbalancing India. For that reason we have to assume that the ISI, or elements within it, are assisting the Taliban. There will be no increase in stability until Pakistan gets what it wants there.
Some European writers complain that the Afghan national forces are rarely used in the south, where most of the Taliban is. It is also said that there is very little coordination between allied forces and Pakistani forces on the other side of the border. Brits complain that the US might want them out of their old sphere of influence in Pashtun country. They suggest that the US wants to continue the instability there so it can use Afghanistan as a base for continuing US influence in Central Asia. It is probably more likely that the Afghan national army is simply not ready. As for dreams of being a Central Asian power— we should look at our finances, manpower problems, and the logistical difficulties of keeping a large force there over an extended period.
Dreams of greatly expanding US power in Central Asia are unrealistic. To obtain assistance from Russia and China in bringing a settlement to Afghanistan, the US must reconsider its plans to disrupt the Collective Security Treat Organization (CSTO), led by Russia, and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO). Given our present economic circumstances, there are strong reasons to work out an amicable arrangement with the China-led SCO. The price for Russia’s help might be pulling back on NATO membership for Georgia, a move many of our allies would applaud. In both cases, there should be ways to see that the US gets its share of Caspian energy.
Barack Obama and progressives were correct to say that the war in Afghanistan was a necessary war because Al Qaeda’s headquarters are there or in nearby northwest Pakistan. The problem is that it was the necessary war in 2003, but the situation has since spun out of control. It is no longer the necessary war. It has spun too far out of control. President Obama's "surge" has tripled the number of US troops there, but it is accompl;ishing little.
The surge was to buy time to establish honest, effective government in urban areas and to recruit and train militia. Neither effort has been successful. President Karzai is still complaining because the US wants him to root out corruption. If the corruption does not end and the regime cannot win over the populace by providing a multiplicity of services, nothing the US attempts will work.
People in the urban areas want the US forced to do the policing. There are no signs that the Afghan police are reformed or reformable.
An unspoken oblective was to buy time so that the Pakistanis could begin to deal with those Taliban forces in Pakistan who also enter Afghanistan. So far the Pakis have only dealt with the Taliban foces that are giving them trouble. There are many reports that the Pakis are unhappy with stepped-up intelligence efforts there.
The time has come for the administration to gradually educate the public on the grim situation we face there and to point out the davantages of the Biden strategy, which was rejected last year. Americans need an open and full discussion of the unpromising situation in Afghanistan, and the Obama administration needs to set very limited objectives. The public needs to know that the situation in Afghanistan is far worse and complicated than that in Iraq.
The regime we installed in Kabul is a vast kleptocracy, that is despised by the people. There was so much talk about helping the country on to the path of democracy and modernity. Now they execute people for converting to Christianity, and the role of women has only improved slightly. War lords regained power in the provinces, and narcofarmers and others restored the poppy crop that the Taliban outlawed. A reinvigorated Taliban now taxes the crop. Forget about nation-building there.
There has been a revival of the Taliban, and the new Taliban are not just seminarians; they are rebels of all sorts, bandits, and ethnic rebels. They effectively employ roadside bombs, suicide bombers and other Iraqi tactics. Once seemingly revived by the ISI, the Pakistani Intelligence agency, or by rogue elements within it, the Afghan Taliban recently have begun working in concert with Taliban from the tribal areas of northwest Pakistan. These elements now take on Pakistani forces and Afghan forces in small formations of 500 or 600. President Hamid Karzai has offered to open talks with Mullah Omar, but the Taliban leader did not respond affirmatively.
Now there are tribal insurgencies in the south that the Karzai regime cannot contain. In all, there are fourteen important insurgent organizations in Afghanistan. The country is a little over half Pashtuns ( which includes the Taliban), and other large groups re the Uzbeks, Hazaras, and Tajiks. Warlords are the traditional leaders, and they are now fighting over control of the drug trade.
The situation there now has so deteriorated that it cannot be greatly improved by the application of American military might. We have shown that the application of masssive force can inspire the Taliban to evacuate an area. But it is also clear that they will return as soon as we leave.
Afghanistan has all the ingredients of a major military disaster. There is no silver bullet military solution; the rugged terrain is a guerilla’s paradise. Remember the British experience there in the late 19th century and the Russian military’s meltdown there in the 1980s. There are multiple factions, unbelievable geographical obstacles, and very tough logistical hurdles. American abuse of detainees and bombings has turned much of the population against us. Obama correctly noted the counterproductive effects of the bombings.
Our NATO allies are becoming discouraged and impatient, and their continued presence cannot be expected. We need to persuade NATO to remain longer and to consider introducing troops from Muslim nations, such as Jordan, Egypt, Morocco, and Algeria. There are ominous signs of discontent among the German troops.
Long-term pacification would take between 200,000 and 400,000 troops over a ten year period. The allies will not remain there that long. It is almost impossible to imagine how this option could carried out.
Our goal cannot extend much beyond buying enough time to do some more damage to Aq Qaeda in Pakistan and the Afghan Taliban. The best approach would be address it as part of a regional diplomatic effort that would bring greatly improve relations between India and Pakistan, give Afghanistan a coalition government, and to quietly continue efforts to mend our relations with Iran, who is in a position to see that our withdrawal from Afghanistan would be very painful.
Twice we missed the opportunity to get rid of President Karzai. Now he is calling us the occupiers and has even threatened to join the Taliban. Peter Galbraith, who exposed the recently stolen election there, is now saying it is possible that the Afghan prewsident is on drugs. This is the man we are betting on!
If the US plans to remain much longer, it must find a way to replace Hamid Karzai with someone more acceptable to Pakistan, who almost inevitably will plan a major role in Afghan affairs. This optimum solution would require some help from Russia, China, and the “stans.”
The ideal regional solution may well not be possible, and the US may have to settle for simply weakening the insurgencies enough to allow what passes for a central government to keep security manageable. Warlords must be bought off and not be rearmed. Far more Afghan troops must be recruited and trained. on to Kabul.
While we are there in reinforced numbers, American special forces can use the secret base the US is building in Pakistan to launch multiple operations against Al Qaeda. It should not be used for attacks by Americans against Taliban forces in northwestern Pakistan. It is paramount that we avoid creating supporters for AL Qaeda. Clearly, it would benefit if the US prolonged its presence in Iraq and Afghanistan. Continuing the level of bombings that injure civilians is also a way of creating more Al Qaeda recruits. We are now seeing signs of closer ties between Al Qaeda and the Taliban—something experts thought could not happen. The US must find ways to avoid bringing them together.
It also must be kept in mind that Pakistan is an even greater problem—prone to violence and instability. We must do nothing to destabilize her more. Pakistan faces a radical Islamic insurgency and there is the remote possibility that nuclear weapons and/or the technology of A.Q. Khan could fall into the hands of Wahabi radicals. Pakistan has a strategic reason to gain the upper hand in Afghanistan, as it needs influence in that country as part of its regional strategy of counterbalancing India. For that reason we have to assume that the ISI, or elements within it, are assisting the Taliban. There will be no increase in stability until Pakistan gets what it wants there.
Some European writers complain that the Afghan national forces are rarely used in the south, where most of the Taliban is. It is also said that there is very little coordination between allied forces and Pakistani forces on the other side of the border. Brits complain that the US might want them out of their old sphere of influence in Pashtun country. They suggest that the US wants to continue the instability there so it can use Afghanistan as a base for continuing US influence in Central Asia. It is probably more likely that the Afghan national army is simply not ready. As for dreams of being a Central Asian power— we should look at our finances, manpower problems, and the logistical difficulties of keeping a large force there over an extended period.
Dreams of greatly expanding US power in Central Asia are unrealistic. To obtain assistance from Russia and China in bringing a settlement to Afghanistan, the US must reconsider its plans to disrupt the Collective Security Treat Organization (CSTO), led by Russia, and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO). Given our present economic circumstances, there are strong reasons to work out an amicable arrangement with the China-led SCO. The price for Russia’s help might be pulling back on NATO membership for Georgia, a move many of our allies would applaud. In both cases, there should be ways to see that the US gets its share of Caspian energy.
Saturday, April 24, 2010
A Natural Gas Pipeline, 9/11, and the Afghan War
The terrorist attack on the United States that occurred on September 11, 2001 was successful in part because of flaws in this nation’s counterinsurgency efforts. There was a deliberate policy of avoiding careful scrutiny of what Saudis were doing in the United States. Saudi ties to Al Qaeda were not examined closely. Friendship with Saudi Arabia was considered crucial for a number of reasons. One important priority was obtaining Saudi help in advancing an American controlled pipeline to bring Caspian natural gas to Pakistan and India.
Al Qaeda & the Trans Afghanistan Pipeline
The US had obtained a report written by Mohammed Atef, head of military operations for Al Qaeda. It stated that the terrorist organization was alarmed by secret Taliban negotiations with the American oil companies who wanted to build the Trans Afghanistan Pipeline , fearing it increase US influence in Afghanistan. The August, 1998 bombing of the two embassies in Africa were most probably an effort to end the Taliban-US talks about the pipeline. It was clear that Al Qaeda had great influence within the Taliban and that it was working against an American-controlled pipeline.
This made it essential that the US obtain the help of the Saudis, who were pumping money into Afghanistan. Saudi Arabia was in a position to help the United States bring about the Trans Afghanistan Pipeline, The Saudis had a standing interest in moving oil across Afghanistan going back to their funding of the Taliban in the 1970s and 1980s. They were doing this even before the US. Later, the American companies used the Saudi intelligence people to begin talks with the Taliban. Enron served as a consultant for Unocal. Price Turki, head of Saudi intelligence, made several trips to Afghanistan on behalf of the energy firms. He was close to the Bin Laden family and it is said that he promised them the construction contract in return for a kickback for the Saudi royal family. Some link his firing to the breakdown of pipeline talks in August, 2001.
Red Herring magazine reported that George W. Bush and his father were not in agreement on the importance of keeping close ties to Saudi Arabia and that they argued about this at Kennebunkport. After this, the Boston Herald, prompted by friends of the young president ran an expose of the ties of some White House officials to Saudi Arabia and called it an “obscene conflict of interest.” The expose was part of a debate going on at the highest levels of government. There were also leaks from the White House about Saudi ties to terrorism.
Cheney succeeded in changing the president’s view of the Saudis perhaps by pointing out all his family’s ties to the Saudi royal house. King Abdullah’s visit to the Bushes demonstrates that a shift had occurred. The angered Israelis started leaking information on Saudi ties to terrorism.
“Hands-Off” Investigating the Saudis
Since the administration of George H.W. Bush, there had been a policy of not looking closely into the activities of Saudis in the United States. In 1998, Clinton backed away from that policy; he permitted the FBI to examine the activities of Saudis in the US and Saudi ties to Al Qaeda. The Bush administration reverted to the “hands off” policy and strengthened it. An American intelligence source told the Guardian that the “hands off” order was necessary to prevent it from becoming public that some Saudis were paying protection money to bin Laden. According to Greg Palast, an American journalist working in London, “A group of well-placed sources -- not-all-too-savory-spooks and arms dealers --told my BBC team that before September 11 the U.S. government had turned away evidence of Saudi billionaires funding Osama bin Laden’s network. ” He continued, “we got our hands on documents that backed up the story that FBI and CIA investigations had been slowed by the Clinton administration, then killed by Bush Jr. when those inquiries might upset Saudi interests.” Another reason was allegedly “Arbusto” and ”Carlyle,” terms that refer to the Bush’s business ties with Saudis.
John Loftus, a former federal prosecutor who claims to have sources within the intelligence community, claimed that Vice President Cheney ordered the FBI and intelligence agencies not to investigate Al Qaeda from January to August because these probes might endanger efforts to negotiate a pipeline deal with Afghanistan. Loftus also reported that Enron was involved in these investigations. Unfortunately, we only have the former prosecutor’s word for all this. We do know that after the brief US War in Afghanistan that the pipeline project was again live and well and slated to terminate at a Pakistan city not too far from an Enron power plant in India that was in desperate need of cheap fuel.
The Guardian obtained FBI documents that indicated there were restrictions on investigating possible terrorist plots. Shown on the BBC television program NewsNight, the file was coded “199,” which was a designation for national security cases. The material indicated the FBI could not investigate two of bin Laden=s relatives who lived in Falls Church, Virginia. Abdullah and Omar bin Laden were associated with a suspected terrorist organization, the World Assembly of Muslim Youth (WAMY) which had an office there. Abdullah was the director of the US branch of WAMY. Two of the September 11 hijackers used a false address several blocks away from the office. The public statements of two Chicago-based FBI men indicate that from the late 1990s on there was a policy of not opening criminal investigations of potential Islamic terrorists or the financial networks that supported them. It seems clear that the White House had put counterterrorism planning on the back burner.
John P. O’Neill’s Frustrations
The late John P. O’Neill was the most active FBI agent in investigating Al Qaeda. He eventually rose to the rank of assistant director. Earlier than almost anyone else, he saw Osama bin Laden for what he was—a great threat to the security of the United States. He was obsessed with Bin Laden and told anyone who would listen about the terrorist and his vile network. In 1997, O’Neill was special agent in charge of national security programs in the New York office. Working around the clock, he coordinated the effort to catch Ramzi Yousef. When ABC News interviewed Osama bin Laden, the producer formulated questions based on discussions with O’Neill. His messy personal life and tendency to bend the rules slowed his advancement. O’Neill could be brutally honest and his direct ways alienated people. When returning from an unsuccessful trip to Saudi Arabia with Director Louis Freeh, he said , “ They didn’t give us anything. They were just shining sunshine up your ass.”’ The director had said it was a successful operation, and did not speak to O’Neill for the next twelve hours of flight.
O’ Neill was aware of the Mohammed Atef document, which made it clear that Al Qaeda did not want a US-dominated dual pipeline crossing Afghanistan. He thought concerns about oil led the administration to prevent investigations of Saudi activities in the US. John O’Neill resigned shortly after an article criticizing him appeared in the New York Times. He had already been removed from the fast career advancement track, and he thought that interim director Tom Pickard planted the article because incoming director Robert Mueller wanted to replace O’Neill with a minion of the Bushes. O’Neill became director of security at the World Trade Center and died trying to save lives on September 11. The truth of O’Neill’s claims about the Bush administration’s quashing of anti-terrorist activities may have gone to the grave with him.
John O’Neill’s knowledge of the Mohammed Atef document would have led him to see the connection between oil and terrorism and to focus on the Saudi-Taliban-Al Qaeda connection. He later confided to French investigators that concern for oil was behind the Bush Administration’s reluctance to do much about possible terrorism. His investigations were continually shut down, and he began seeking information from French intelligence by using two reporters, Jean-Charles Brisard and Guillaume Dasquie. Both journalist cut-outs were experts on oil and terrorism and were consultants for French intelligence. They later wrote The Forbidden Truth. Perhaps the French government permitted O’Neill to learn more because it had been cut out of the Caspian oil deals. O’Neill and another dissenter Robert Baer of the CIA would be forced into retirement in part due to their efforts to probe Saudi ties to terrorists. Much relevant information in Baer’s book, See No Evil, was blacked out by t he CIA.
Since 1995, the FBI and CIA operated a computer program called “Alex” that tracked Al Qaeda communications. O’Neill was the chief CIA link to the program and Michael Scheuer, was the key CIA figure in “Station Alex” at Langley. They soon learned that Al Qaeda was involved in the diamond trade, drug and arms smuggling, and teen sex businesses. Scheuer and his CIA people, in the words of an O’Neill associate “ despised the FBI and they despised John O’Neill.” A CIA officer added that the working relationship with the flashy O’Neill was often very poor. When O’Neill began to learn too much about Al Qaeda, his access to Alex information was lifted. O’Neill took to asking French intelligence to monitor Al Qaeda telephone calls. Scheuer resigned when he decided that the Bush administration was not doing enough about Al Qaeda. Soon the Bush Administration shut down Alex, just as it closed its military counterpart, “Able Danger.”
O’Neill had learned that his own agency continually stymied his investigative leads and he had taken to relying on the DEA and French intelligence for help. His frustrations began to mount when he was sent to Aden in 2000 to investigate the attack on the USS Cole. He received little cooperation there from local authorities and was ordered out of Yemen by the US Ambassador Barbara Bodine, who gave him the cold shoulder from the outset. Bodine wanted him to dismiss his bodyguard even though O’Neill thought Mossad might move against him because he was open to the possibility that Israel was behind the Cole incident. O’Neill foolishly spoke openly about Abu Nidal, leader of Black September, probably being a Mossad operative. She did not back him when the Yemeni authorities refused to let him interview the people who saw the explosion, to see the hat of one of the alleged attackers, or to sample sludge in the area. He wanted an explosives analysis done on the mud beneath the ship and a DNA study of hat of one of the two alleged bombers. One former FBI agent believes O’Neill was removed out of fear that he would discover that the ship had been hit by an Israeli missile. In 2001, he wanted to return to Yemen but Bodine would give him a clearance. In February, 2001, the Yemeni Minister of the Interior announced that he had found no evidence linking the attack to Al Qaeda.
It was natural for O’Neill to rely upon the French because they had the best information in the West on Arab terrorists. They had concluded that an Arab team of 10 under a Yemeni was trained to assault a ship in 1999 at Al Qaeda’s Darounta, Afghanistan base. However, the team did not use its training and was not responsible for the Cole bombing. O’Neill probably learned this from them. The French looked into two of their nationals who were at the Darouta training camp and found that these people worked with Muslim rebels in Bosnia. The insurgency was largely supported by western intelligence agencies and many of the funds came from the Riggs Bank account of the Bosnian Defense Fund, which was operated by American Neo-Conservatives. Much of their money came from the Middle East, including the Saudi and Egyptian governments. Some of these funds spilled over to Al Qaeda, which had operative in Bosnia working with the Islamic insurgency. Secretary of the Treasury Paul O’Neill took steps to dry up Al Qaeda funds and was putting pressure on Middle Eastern governments to provide information on how money from that region reached Al Qaeda. It is likely that these investigative activities generated enough opposition to result in his ouster. David D. Aufhauser, Treasury’s General Counsel, soon followed O’Neill into the private sector. He has spearheaded the effort to look into Al Qaeda financing.
In 2000, John O’Neill joined 150 other FBI agents in attending a retirement seminar in Orlando. His briefcase was stolen there, and it contained classified e-mail and a report on anti-terrorist activities. Ninety minutes after he missed the briefcase, it turned up in another hotel. A cigar cutter, a lighter and pen were missing, but the sensitive material was there. It had to be assumed that this information could have been copied. The bureau investigated the matter and cleared O’Neill of all charges of negligence. It also said the documents had not bee touched, but it is hard to imagine how that could have been established. Still, his reputation had been badly tarnished. The loss of the briefcase was used to force him to go through with retirement, and the story was later leaked when there was a chance that he would replace Richard Clarke as the new Bush administration’s chief anti-terrorism advisor. Clarke and O’Neill were friends and allies, and Clarke wanted O’Neill to be his replacement. The FBI refused to investigate the leak, despite a request to do so from the bureau chief in New York City. As it turned out, Clarke remained at the NSC but with a less important title.
The briefcase also had information that showed that O’Neill knew about Michael Dick’s investigation of Israeli agents, working for a moving company in New York and New Jersey. Dick was also aware of the Israeli agents who came to the United States under the cover of marketing art. They were shriveling all sorts of federal facilities, especially those of the DEA. They were also spying on DEA agents and FBI agents. The “Israeli artists” also followed Arabs who would later be accused of involvement in the 9/11 plot.
By 2000, he was busy trying to find Al Qaeda sleeper cells in the United States, but he was soon taken out of action and assigned to deskwork. Janet Parker, a Seattle veterinarian and O’Neill friend, said that O’ Neill’s superior, Tom Picard, prevented O’Neill from getting a wire tap on Shadrack Manyathella, who was tied to probably double agent Ali Mohammed and Mohammed Atta, possible ring leader of 9/11. Parker and O’Neill were keeping track of one cell through her foster-daughter, who had previous ties with the terrorists.
John O’Neill resigned soon after the second Bush took power. O’Neill told two respected French investigators “All of the answers, all of the clues allowing us to dismantle Osama bin Laden’s organization, can be found in Saudi Arabia..” O’Neill was extremely frustrated by the Bush administration’s approach to terrorism , claiming the administration had also made it more difficult to investigate Saudis.
O’Neill retired on August 22, after thirty years of service. He immediately took up his duties as head of security at the World Trade Center on behalf of Kroll Associates and occupied his office on the 34th floor of the North Tower. While trying to rescue people in the South Tire, he lost his life. In November 2001, weapons inspector Richard Butler told TV investigator Paula Zahn, “The most explosive charge, Paula, is that the Bush administration -- the present one, just shortly after assuming office slowed down FBI investigations of al Qaeda and terrorism in Afghanistan in order to do a deal with the Taliban on oil -- an oil pipeline across Afghanistan."
.
Al Qaeda & the Trans Afghanistan Pipeline
The US had obtained a report written by Mohammed Atef, head of military operations for Al Qaeda. It stated that the terrorist organization was alarmed by secret Taliban negotiations with the American oil companies who wanted to build the Trans Afghanistan Pipeline , fearing it increase US influence in Afghanistan. The August, 1998 bombing of the two embassies in Africa were most probably an effort to end the Taliban-US talks about the pipeline. It was clear that Al Qaeda had great influence within the Taliban and that it was working against an American-controlled pipeline.
This made it essential that the US obtain the help of the Saudis, who were pumping money into Afghanistan. Saudi Arabia was in a position to help the United States bring about the Trans Afghanistan Pipeline, The Saudis had a standing interest in moving oil across Afghanistan going back to their funding of the Taliban in the 1970s and 1980s. They were doing this even before the US. Later, the American companies used the Saudi intelligence people to begin talks with the Taliban. Enron served as a consultant for Unocal. Price Turki, head of Saudi intelligence, made several trips to Afghanistan on behalf of the energy firms. He was close to the Bin Laden family and it is said that he promised them the construction contract in return for a kickback for the Saudi royal family. Some link his firing to the breakdown of pipeline talks in August, 2001.
Red Herring magazine reported that George W. Bush and his father were not in agreement on the importance of keeping close ties to Saudi Arabia and that they argued about this at Kennebunkport. After this, the Boston Herald, prompted by friends of the young president ran an expose of the ties of some White House officials to Saudi Arabia and called it an “obscene conflict of interest.” The expose was part of a debate going on at the highest levels of government. There were also leaks from the White House about Saudi ties to terrorism.
Cheney succeeded in changing the president’s view of the Saudis perhaps by pointing out all his family’s ties to the Saudi royal house. King Abdullah’s visit to the Bushes demonstrates that a shift had occurred. The angered Israelis started leaking information on Saudi ties to terrorism.
“Hands-Off” Investigating the Saudis
Since the administration of George H.W. Bush, there had been a policy of not looking closely into the activities of Saudis in the United States. In 1998, Clinton backed away from that policy; he permitted the FBI to examine the activities of Saudis in the US and Saudi ties to Al Qaeda. The Bush administration reverted to the “hands off” policy and strengthened it. An American intelligence source told the Guardian that the “hands off” order was necessary to prevent it from becoming public that some Saudis were paying protection money to bin Laden. According to Greg Palast, an American journalist working in London, “A group of well-placed sources -- not-all-too-savory-spooks and arms dealers --told my BBC team that before September 11 the U.S. government had turned away evidence of Saudi billionaires funding Osama bin Laden’s network. ” He continued, “we got our hands on documents that backed up the story that FBI and CIA investigations had been slowed by the Clinton administration, then killed by Bush Jr. when those inquiries might upset Saudi interests.” Another reason was allegedly “Arbusto” and ”Carlyle,” terms that refer to the Bush’s business ties with Saudis.
John Loftus, a former federal prosecutor who claims to have sources within the intelligence community, claimed that Vice President Cheney ordered the FBI and intelligence agencies not to investigate Al Qaeda from January to August because these probes might endanger efforts to negotiate a pipeline deal with Afghanistan. Loftus also reported that Enron was involved in these investigations. Unfortunately, we only have the former prosecutor’s word for all this. We do know that after the brief US War in Afghanistan that the pipeline project was again live and well and slated to terminate at a Pakistan city not too far from an Enron power plant in India that was in desperate need of cheap fuel.
The Guardian obtained FBI documents that indicated there were restrictions on investigating possible terrorist plots. Shown on the BBC television program NewsNight, the file was coded “199,” which was a designation for national security cases. The material indicated the FBI could not investigate two of bin Laden=s relatives who lived in Falls Church, Virginia. Abdullah and Omar bin Laden were associated with a suspected terrorist organization, the World Assembly of Muslim Youth (WAMY) which had an office there. Abdullah was the director of the US branch of WAMY. Two of the September 11 hijackers used a false address several blocks away from the office. The public statements of two Chicago-based FBI men indicate that from the late 1990s on there was a policy of not opening criminal investigations of potential Islamic terrorists or the financial networks that supported them. It seems clear that the White House had put counterterrorism planning on the back burner.
John P. O’Neill’s Frustrations
The late John P. O’Neill was the most active FBI agent in investigating Al Qaeda. He eventually rose to the rank of assistant director. Earlier than almost anyone else, he saw Osama bin Laden for what he was—a great threat to the security of the United States. He was obsessed with Bin Laden and told anyone who would listen about the terrorist and his vile network. In 1997, O’Neill was special agent in charge of national security programs in the New York office. Working around the clock, he coordinated the effort to catch Ramzi Yousef. When ABC News interviewed Osama bin Laden, the producer formulated questions based on discussions with O’Neill. His messy personal life and tendency to bend the rules slowed his advancement. O’Neill could be brutally honest and his direct ways alienated people. When returning from an unsuccessful trip to Saudi Arabia with Director Louis Freeh, he said , “ They didn’t give us anything. They were just shining sunshine up your ass.”’ The director had said it was a successful operation, and did not speak to O’Neill for the next twelve hours of flight.
O’ Neill was aware of the Mohammed Atef document, which made it clear that Al Qaeda did not want a US-dominated dual pipeline crossing Afghanistan. He thought concerns about oil led the administration to prevent investigations of Saudi activities in the US. John O’Neill resigned shortly after an article criticizing him appeared in the New York Times. He had already been removed from the fast career advancement track, and he thought that interim director Tom Pickard planted the article because incoming director Robert Mueller wanted to replace O’Neill with a minion of the Bushes. O’Neill became director of security at the World Trade Center and died trying to save lives on September 11. The truth of O’Neill’s claims about the Bush administration’s quashing of anti-terrorist activities may have gone to the grave with him.
John O’Neill’s knowledge of the Mohammed Atef document would have led him to see the connection between oil and terrorism and to focus on the Saudi-Taliban-Al Qaeda connection. He later confided to French investigators that concern for oil was behind the Bush Administration’s reluctance to do much about possible terrorism. His investigations were continually shut down, and he began seeking information from French intelligence by using two reporters, Jean-Charles Brisard and Guillaume Dasquie. Both journalist cut-outs were experts on oil and terrorism and were consultants for French intelligence. They later wrote The Forbidden Truth. Perhaps the French government permitted O’Neill to learn more because it had been cut out of the Caspian oil deals. O’Neill and another dissenter Robert Baer of the CIA would be forced into retirement in part due to their efforts to probe Saudi ties to terrorists. Much relevant information in Baer’s book, See No Evil, was blacked out by t he CIA.
Since 1995, the FBI and CIA operated a computer program called “Alex” that tracked Al Qaeda communications. O’Neill was the chief CIA link to the program and Michael Scheuer, was the key CIA figure in “Station Alex” at Langley. They soon learned that Al Qaeda was involved in the diamond trade, drug and arms smuggling, and teen sex businesses. Scheuer and his CIA people, in the words of an O’Neill associate “ despised the FBI and they despised John O’Neill.” A CIA officer added that the working relationship with the flashy O’Neill was often very poor. When O’Neill began to learn too much about Al Qaeda, his access to Alex information was lifted. O’Neill took to asking French intelligence to monitor Al Qaeda telephone calls. Scheuer resigned when he decided that the Bush administration was not doing enough about Al Qaeda. Soon the Bush Administration shut down Alex, just as it closed its military counterpart, “Able Danger.”
O’Neill had learned that his own agency continually stymied his investigative leads and he had taken to relying on the DEA and French intelligence for help. His frustrations began to mount when he was sent to Aden in 2000 to investigate the attack on the USS Cole. He received little cooperation there from local authorities and was ordered out of Yemen by the US Ambassador Barbara Bodine, who gave him the cold shoulder from the outset. Bodine wanted him to dismiss his bodyguard even though O’Neill thought Mossad might move against him because he was open to the possibility that Israel was behind the Cole incident. O’Neill foolishly spoke openly about Abu Nidal, leader of Black September, probably being a Mossad operative. She did not back him when the Yemeni authorities refused to let him interview the people who saw the explosion, to see the hat of one of the alleged attackers, or to sample sludge in the area. He wanted an explosives analysis done on the mud beneath the ship and a DNA study of hat of one of the two alleged bombers. One former FBI agent believes O’Neill was removed out of fear that he would discover that the ship had been hit by an Israeli missile. In 2001, he wanted to return to Yemen but Bodine would give him a clearance. In February, 2001, the Yemeni Minister of the Interior announced that he had found no evidence linking the attack to Al Qaeda.
It was natural for O’Neill to rely upon the French because they had the best information in the West on Arab terrorists. They had concluded that an Arab team of 10 under a Yemeni was trained to assault a ship in 1999 at Al Qaeda’s Darounta, Afghanistan base. However, the team did not use its training and was not responsible for the Cole bombing. O’Neill probably learned this from them. The French looked into two of their nationals who were at the Darouta training camp and found that these people worked with Muslim rebels in Bosnia. The insurgency was largely supported by western intelligence agencies and many of the funds came from the Riggs Bank account of the Bosnian Defense Fund, which was operated by American Neo-Conservatives. Much of their money came from the Middle East, including the Saudi and Egyptian governments. Some of these funds spilled over to Al Qaeda, which had operative in Bosnia working with the Islamic insurgency. Secretary of the Treasury Paul O’Neill took steps to dry up Al Qaeda funds and was putting pressure on Middle Eastern governments to provide information on how money from that region reached Al Qaeda. It is likely that these investigative activities generated enough opposition to result in his ouster. David D. Aufhauser, Treasury’s General Counsel, soon followed O’Neill into the private sector. He has spearheaded the effort to look into Al Qaeda financing.
In 2000, John O’Neill joined 150 other FBI agents in attending a retirement seminar in Orlando. His briefcase was stolen there, and it contained classified e-mail and a report on anti-terrorist activities. Ninety minutes after he missed the briefcase, it turned up in another hotel. A cigar cutter, a lighter and pen were missing, but the sensitive material was there. It had to be assumed that this information could have been copied. The bureau investigated the matter and cleared O’Neill of all charges of negligence. It also said the documents had not bee touched, but it is hard to imagine how that could have been established. Still, his reputation had been badly tarnished. The loss of the briefcase was used to force him to go through with retirement, and the story was later leaked when there was a chance that he would replace Richard Clarke as the new Bush administration’s chief anti-terrorism advisor. Clarke and O’Neill were friends and allies, and Clarke wanted O’Neill to be his replacement. The FBI refused to investigate the leak, despite a request to do so from the bureau chief in New York City. As it turned out, Clarke remained at the NSC but with a less important title.
The briefcase also had information that showed that O’Neill knew about Michael Dick’s investigation of Israeli agents, working for a moving company in New York and New Jersey. Dick was also aware of the Israeli agents who came to the United States under the cover of marketing art. They were shriveling all sorts of federal facilities, especially those of the DEA. They were also spying on DEA agents and FBI agents. The “Israeli artists” also followed Arabs who would later be accused of involvement in the 9/11 plot.
By 2000, he was busy trying to find Al Qaeda sleeper cells in the United States, but he was soon taken out of action and assigned to deskwork. Janet Parker, a Seattle veterinarian and O’Neill friend, said that O’ Neill’s superior, Tom Picard, prevented O’Neill from getting a wire tap on Shadrack Manyathella, who was tied to probably double agent Ali Mohammed and Mohammed Atta, possible ring leader of 9/11. Parker and O’Neill were keeping track of one cell through her foster-daughter, who had previous ties with the terrorists.
John O’Neill resigned soon after the second Bush took power. O’Neill told two respected French investigators “All of the answers, all of the clues allowing us to dismantle Osama bin Laden’s organization, can be found in Saudi Arabia..” O’Neill was extremely frustrated by the Bush administration’s approach to terrorism , claiming the administration had also made it more difficult to investigate Saudis.
O’Neill retired on August 22, after thirty years of service. He immediately took up his duties as head of security at the World Trade Center on behalf of Kroll Associates and occupied his office on the 34th floor of the North Tower. While trying to rescue people in the South Tire, he lost his life. In November 2001, weapons inspector Richard Butler told TV investigator Paula Zahn, “The most explosive charge, Paula, is that the Bush administration -- the present one, just shortly after assuming office slowed down FBI investigations of al Qaeda and terrorism in Afghanistan in order to do a deal with the Taliban on oil -- an oil pipeline across Afghanistan."
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Friday, April 23, 2010
The TAPI Pipeline and US Policy Toward Afghanistan
In November, 2009, President Barack Obama honored eighteen fallen American soldiers at a midnight ceremony at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware. Let us home that none of these heroes died in order to pave the way for the Trans Afghanistan Pipeline. Advocates of the TAP— sometimes known as TAPI--see it has a modern-day extension of the ancient Silk Road. Congress has passed two Silk Road Strategy Acts ( 1999-2006) that essentially voice strong support for projecting US military and economic power into the Eurasian Corridor in Central Asia. Talk about moving natural gas on the TAP does not pass the lips of our politicians or pundits, but has been a big factor in our dealings with Afghanistan since the 1990s. Operation Enduring Freedom was about terrorism, but much more was involved. Noam Chomsky has reminded us that the pipeline would sharply reduce the region’s dependency upon Iran for energy. There is also the matter of competition with Russia. In September, Zamir Kabulov Russian ambassador to Afghanistan, said that the “ U.S. and its allies are competing with Russia for influence in the energy-rich region….Afghanistan remains a strategic prize because of its location.”
The Clinton and Bush administrations both sought stability in Afghanistan to permit California-based construction of a planned twin pipelines--- Caspian natural gas and oil-- to take Caspian fuels through Afghanistan into Pakistan and India. TAP only briefly involved oil as well as gas; it is now a natural gas venture. For a time, it appeared that the ide3a of bringing Caspian oil through Afghanistan had been abandoned. Now, there is again talk of an oil pipeline, but it would follow a different rout. It would not be part of a twin pipeline.
A major benefit of TAP is that it would provide Caspian fuel not controlled by Russia’s Gazprom. It would begin in the Daulatabad gas field and bring gas to Pakistan and India. The line would also outflank a proposed Iran- Pakistan-India ( IPI) line, that would probably benefit China and its China National Petroleum Corporation. India has been hedging its bets by disc using the second line with Iran and China, and there were some break-troughs in the negotiations with Iran in 2008. The United States, of course, has been actively opposing the Chinese project, in part because it would hasten economic development in Iran. The US is pressuring India to withdraw from discussions of the IPI and not to agree to buy natural gas from the IPI. Iran is pressing India for a definite commitment and is threatening to go it alone, with the help of China. Recent reverses in the Afghan War have given new life to prospects for the IPI. Though it would appear that China and the US are working at cross purposes in Afghanistan, that is not quite the case. Since 2008, China, with the help of British engineers and geologists, has begun exploiting the woprld’s largest copper deposits thirty miles south of Kabuil in the Aynak Valley. The deposits are estimated to be worth $88 billion. This project will greatly improve the economy in an area marked by continued warfare. It could serve to reduce the power of the insurgency in the long run.
An even murkier economic factor that could relate to the Afghan War is the poppy trade. Beginning in the late 1970s, the CIA encouraged the mujahedeen to finance its war against the Soviets with opium. The Taliban, under Mullah Omar, shut down the opium trade in 2000 as a way of putting pressure on the West. After the US/NATO occupation , poppy cultivation has skyrocketed and Afghanistan now supplies almost all the world’s opium. The U.S. has largely turned a blind eye to the opium trade even though troops must move through poppy fields in their search for the Taliban. There are token US/UN efforts to halt the trade, but it is clear that the Afghan government itself, as well as its security forces, thrive on opium money. There are also reports that the infusion of vast amounts of opium money into world financial markets after the collapse of 2008 greatly facilitated the restoration the woprld financial infrastgructure. What all this has to do with U.S. continued involvement in Afghanistan cannot be demonstrated.
There is no way of knowing how important the gas pipeline is as a motive for the Afghan War? All we can do is review the facts.
Bridas vs. US Oil
The 1040 mile pipeline was the idea of Carlos A. Budgheroni of Bridas, an Argentine firm. In 1995, he thought he had a secure agreement with Afghanistan and Turkmenistan to develop the project. He invited California-based Unocal to join his consortium, but the American firm soon elbowed out Bridas and launched its own consortium. In March, 1995, the governments of Turkmenistan and Pakistan signed a memorandum of agreement to co-operate on the pipeline. Unocal created the Central Asian Gas and Pipeline Consortium in August, 1996, with Unocal holding 46.5 %. The government of Turkmenistan had some involvement, and by 2000, Halliburton was in Turkmenistan to provide “integrated drilling services with an estimated value of $30 million for the total package." There were firms from Russia, Saudi Arabia, Indonesia, Japan, Pakistan, and South Korea.
Unocal, which was to be purchased by Chevron, soon began courting the Taliban faction and brought some of its leaders to its headquarters in Sugarland, Texas in 1997. The delegation , led by Mullah Mohammed Ghaus, visited Unocal headquarters in Sugarland, toured NASA Space Center facilities, and visited the Houston Zoo. The corporation sponsored the training of Afghans in oil technology at the University of Nebraska, but soon backed off and gave the impression it was no longer interested in the Afghan venture It seemed that the desired deal was about to be signed, but the Taliban seemed to lose interest in dealing with the U.S .
The Taliban, which had been created with the help of the US and Pakistan, was seen as a vehicle for providing stability in Afghanistan. It had a bad record on its treatment of women and on human rights, but the US and Unocal still supported it. In 1996, the Taliban gained the upper hand in the civil war when it occupied Kabul. At that time, it invited Osama bin Laden to Afghanistan as a guest.
The Taliban’s honored guest supported Bridas. His engineers had taken the trouble to sip tea with Afghan leaders, and some of the Taliban agreed with Bin Laden that the contract should go to Bridas. He also offered to let Afghanistan tap some of the gas from the line, while t6he Americans were not promising that. The French newspaper Le Figaro reported that U.S. intelligence people maintained contacts with Bin Laden in hopes that he could find a way to renew his ties with the United States. An agent met with him in July, 2001 but could not restore ties. Bin Laden remained angry that there were U.S. troops in Saudi Arabia, which he considered holy soil.
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Unocal employed two influential Pashtuns-- Taliban backer Kalmay Khalizad, a Chicago Ph.D. and Hamid Karzai, leader of the Pashtun Durrani tribe who also had ties to the royal family. Khalizad was to be on the Bush National Security Council, and Karzai would preside over the regime the that US would install in Afghanistan. Patrick Martin has written, “If history had skipped over September 11 and the events of that day had never happened, it is very likely that the United States would have gone to war in Afghanistan anyway, and on much the same schedule.”
In January, 1998, the Taliban selected CentGas over the Argentine firm to build the pipelines. The Russians pulled out of the deal in June. Due to Al Qaeda’s bombing of two African embassies, the Clinton administration, in 1998, banned further negotiations with Afghanistan.
Enron and the Line
Unocal suspended activities in pursuit of the pipeline, in December, 1998, but Enron quietly began to take a leadership role. Enron was facing a financial crisis, and the pipeline would make Enron lands in the Caspian Basin very valuable. Enron had just purchased enormous tracts of land in Turkmenistan and gambled that the pipeline would make the acquisitions very profitable. Construction of the TAP would also make it possible to get cheap natural gas to the Dabhol, India power plant, which was then a huge financial liability for Enron and General Electric.
Bush Policy Toward Afghanistan
The Bush administration, in early 2001, lifted the Clinton ban, probably to give Enron one last change to negotiate a successful pipeline deal and possibly reverse its fortunes. Secretary of State Colin Powell quickly gave the Taliban $43 million for “humanitarian purposes.” It is possible that the younger Bush knew nothing about the pipeline deal. Condoleezza Rice was a former member of the Chevron board, but it should be recalled that she did not see the Phoenix memo on terrorism before 9/11. It was thought essential that relations with Saudi Arabia improve if the pipeline negotiations were to be successful.
The effort to force the Taliban to accept U.S. demands was probably related to attempts to assist Enron Corporation avoids financial shipwreck. If a coalition government emerged quickly in Afghanistan, it was believed conditions would be right for the construction of gas and oil pipelines across that country, a venture in which Enron was heavily involved. The gas [pipeline would also place Enron’s three billion power plant in Dabhol, India on a profitable basis. In an unprecedented effort to assist a private concern, the National Security Council was they coordinating a government-wide drive to force India to make payments to the Enron power plant in Dabhol. To assist Enron and other energy wholesalers make the most of the energy crisis in California, the administration resisted calls to reinstate price caps on interstate energy sales. Enron and Ken Lay were permitted to exert great influence in fashioning the Bush energy plan.
The Bush administration sharply reversed U.S. policy with respect to Afghanistan. Whether the new approach to diplomacy with the Taliban was related to the administration’s somewhat relaxed approach to counterterrorism cannot be known. Contacts with the Taliban were reopened and a vigorous carrot and stick approach was pursued in an effort to have Bin Laden turned over and set in motion a coalition government there. A coalition government, which would open the door to the proposed twin pipeline across Afghanistan. The Afghan government would benefit from fees paid for construction rights and later for sending oil and natural gas through the lines.
Laili Helms, niece by marriage to former CIA director Richard Helms and a relative of King Zahir Shah, quickly arranged for Sayed Rahmatullah Hashami, an envoy of Mullah Omar, to visit Washington. Helms, whose two grandfathers had been Afghan officials, was working as a public relations consultant for the Taliban. Hashami brought a carpet for George W. Bush, a gift from his one-eyed leader. According to the Village Voice, he offered to detain Osama bin Laden long enough for US agents to seize the terrorist, but for some reason the US did not accept the offer. Not long after that, bin Laden announced in a written statement that he and Omar has sworn baya or blood brotherhood. At this time, the Voice of America’s Pashtun service broadcasted so much favorable information about Mullah Omar and the Taliban that wags called the woman heading that division “Kandahar Rose.”
Dr. Christiana Rocca, who had been a CIA operative in Afghanistan from 1982 to 1997, began working on the Afghanistan problem for the State Department in May, 2001. At the same time, State maintained constant contact with the Taliban diplomatic mission in Queens and remained hostile to the Northern Alliance’s Islamic State of Afghanistan, which was recognized by the United Nations. As late as July, the CIA welcomed Qazi Hussein Ahmed , head of the pro-Bin Laden Jamiaat-i-Islami Party, at the George H.W. Bush Intelligence Center in Langley, Virginia. The policy was clearly to work out an gas deal with the Taliban.
Diplomacy Rarely Discussed in US Press
State Department representatives met with counterparts from Iran, Italy, Germany, and in Geneva to devise ways to force the Taliban to enter an oil/gas deal with the United States. The 6+2 negotiating process was also in motion with Francesc Vendrell, personal representative of UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, making five trips to Kandahar and Kabul between April 19 and August 17, 2001. There also a stormy UN sponsored meeting in Brussels on May 15 which the Taliban foreign minister refused to attend because Dr. Abdullah Abdullah, the Northern Alliance representative was there. Twenty-one nations had representatives at Weston Park in England in July, where a coalition government under the oversight of former King Zahir Shah was tentatively agreed.
There was a March meeting of the UN-sponsored A group of 6 + 2" in Berlin. The 6+2 meetings were “level-2” discussions because they were attended by former government officials. These former officials tried to reflect the policies of their governments, but their lack of official positions gave their governments a large measure of desirability if something went wrong. Nevertheless, they were useful forums for exchanging ideas that clearly represented the positions of the governments involved. The small US delegation included Tom Simons, former ambassador to Pakistan, and Robert Oakley, a Unocal lobbyist and former ambassador. In a May meeting in Geneva, the US unveiled plans to attack Afghanistan. Representatives of Iran, Germany, and Italy were present. In July, war with Afghanistan was again discussed at the Group of 8 meeting in Genoa. An Indian observer was also present for these discussions and even contributed plans. The US was busy acquiring base rights in Pakistan, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan.
Another Berlin meeting was held in July. The Taliban was expected to send a spokesman, but he did not appear, probably because the Northern Alliance was represented there. It was later reported in Europe that the US spokesman said that the Taliban could either “ accept our offer of a carpet of gold, or we bury you under a carpet of bombs.'' Simons denied that a direct threat was made in these words but conceded that the subject of force may have come up in connection with a discussion of the investigation of the attack on the USS Cole. He also said that “It is possible that an American participant, acting mischievously, after some glasses, evoked the gold carpets and the carpet bombs.” Whatever Simons’ exact words were, people came away convinced that the US was determined employ force in Afghanistan if it did not get its way.
A British newspaper later reported that it was said that the bombing could begin as early as October. Niaz Naik, Pakistan’s former foreign minister, in mid-July, reported back to his government that he was US would resort to force if Pakistan could not persuade the Taliban to come into line. Pakistan passed this information on to the Taliban. It was later reported on French television, “Islamabad and Pakistani military circles were buzzing with rumors of war.” The Indian press reported in October that "Tajikistan and Uzbekistan will lead the ground attack with a strong military back up of the U.S. and Russia. Vital Taliban installations and military assets will be targeted. “ MSNBC reported that the plan to invade Afghanistan was on Bush’s desk before 9/11 and included giving a red light to the Northern Alliance to mount a major campaign against the Taliban. On the afternoon of September 11, General Richard Myers reported at a teleconferenced NSC meeting that the Pentagon had 42 major Taliban bombing targets. After the 9/11 attacks, the Bush administration immediately attributed it to Osama Bin Laden, but he repeatedly denied any involvement for several weeks. Later, a videotape turned up in Afghanistan in which Bin Laden supposedly took credit for the attack; however, some translators deny that is what he said.
Dr. Christina Rocca, represented the US at its last meeting with the Taliban, which occurred five weeks (August 2) before September 11 in Islamabad. The Taliban, at this point, was in the process of awarding the twin pipeline deal to an Argentine-led consortium. At that meeting she demanded that the Taliban turn over bin Laden. In an interview, Brisard commented on the Islamabad meeting:
We believe that when [Rocca] went to Pakistan in [August] 2001 she was there to speak about oil, and unfortunately the Osama bin Laden case was just a technical part of the negotiations. He said “ I'm not sure about the pipeline specifically, but we make it clear she was there to speak about oil. There are witnesses, including the Pakistani foreign minister.”
Journalists outside the United States have discussed these events in detail and raise the possibility that the threat of military action may have had a direct effect on the timing of Al Qaeda’s attack on America. The last US-Taliban meeting occurred five days before 9/11. The Taliban continued to grant hospitality to Osama bin Laden and refused to turn him over until the US promised him a fair trial and submitted the proper extradition papers. Those papers were not submitted.
After the successful US attack on Afghanistan, the US installed a government led by a former employee of Unocal/Chevron, Hamid Karzai. His regime, on February 8, 2002, agreed with Pakistan to enter into a long-term agreement with a US-led consortium to build a twin pipeline that would bring gas and oil from the Caspian Basin down through Afghanistan and to the coast of Pakistan and to India. Kevin Phillips, a Republican writer, was to note that US troops in Afghanistan were to become “pipeline protection troops.” The value of Caspian oil and gas has been placed at $4 trillion. However, little progressed has been made on the pipeline, and Unocal, since 1998, has claimed that it is no longer involved in the consortium.
Recent Developments
In December, 2002, the leaders of Turkmenistan, Pakistan, and Afghanistan signed a new agreement to move ahead with the pipelines. Six years later, the governments of India, Pakistan, and Afghanistan agreed to purchase gas coming through the pipeline. The Asian Development Bank will finance the $7.6 billion venture. In 2006, the United States assured India that the project would go ahead. In 2008, Afghanistan assured India that landmines would be cleared, making construction possible. Technical experts met in Ashgabat to deal with transit agreements and other details. It appears that the project will be financed through the Asia Development Bank, whose largest share holders are the U.S. and Japan. . The Indian Gas authority has suggested that Russia’s Gazprom be brought in as a consultant and maybe even the eventually operator of the line. However, the project cannot move forward because southern Afghanistan is controlled by the Taliban. If the TAP is ever built, the Afghan government will receive 8% of the revenue. It may well be that the Afghans, in their failure to resolve their problems, have frittered away the prospect of this windfall There is growing doubt in the region that stability will be restored in Afghanistan, and there is now talk of using the proposed IPI line that would not involve Afghanistan. Two problems are that using this line would benefit Iran and China, not the U.S.
The Clinton and Bush administrations both sought stability in Afghanistan to permit California-based construction of a planned twin pipelines--- Caspian natural gas and oil-- to take Caspian fuels through Afghanistan into Pakistan and India. TAP only briefly involved oil as well as gas; it is now a natural gas venture. For a time, it appeared that the ide3a of bringing Caspian oil through Afghanistan had been abandoned. Now, there is again talk of an oil pipeline, but it would follow a different rout. It would not be part of a twin pipeline.
A major benefit of TAP is that it would provide Caspian fuel not controlled by Russia’s Gazprom. It would begin in the Daulatabad gas field and bring gas to Pakistan and India. The line would also outflank a proposed Iran- Pakistan-India ( IPI) line, that would probably benefit China and its China National Petroleum Corporation. India has been hedging its bets by disc using the second line with Iran and China, and there were some break-troughs in the negotiations with Iran in 2008. The United States, of course, has been actively opposing the Chinese project, in part because it would hasten economic development in Iran. The US is pressuring India to withdraw from discussions of the IPI and not to agree to buy natural gas from the IPI. Iran is pressing India for a definite commitment and is threatening to go it alone, with the help of China. Recent reverses in the Afghan War have given new life to prospects for the IPI. Though it would appear that China and the US are working at cross purposes in Afghanistan, that is not quite the case. Since 2008, China, with the help of British engineers and geologists, has begun exploiting the woprld’s largest copper deposits thirty miles south of Kabuil in the Aynak Valley. The deposits are estimated to be worth $88 billion. This project will greatly improve the economy in an area marked by continued warfare. It could serve to reduce the power of the insurgency in the long run.
An even murkier economic factor that could relate to the Afghan War is the poppy trade. Beginning in the late 1970s, the CIA encouraged the mujahedeen to finance its war against the Soviets with opium. The Taliban, under Mullah Omar, shut down the opium trade in 2000 as a way of putting pressure on the West. After the US/NATO occupation , poppy cultivation has skyrocketed and Afghanistan now supplies almost all the world’s opium. The U.S. has largely turned a blind eye to the opium trade even though troops must move through poppy fields in their search for the Taliban. There are token US/UN efforts to halt the trade, but it is clear that the Afghan government itself, as well as its security forces, thrive on opium money. There are also reports that the infusion of vast amounts of opium money into world financial markets after the collapse of 2008 greatly facilitated the restoration the woprld financial infrastgructure. What all this has to do with U.S. continued involvement in Afghanistan cannot be demonstrated.
There is no way of knowing how important the gas pipeline is as a motive for the Afghan War? All we can do is review the facts.
Bridas vs. US Oil
The 1040 mile pipeline was the idea of Carlos A. Budgheroni of Bridas, an Argentine firm. In 1995, he thought he had a secure agreement with Afghanistan and Turkmenistan to develop the project. He invited California-based Unocal to join his consortium, but the American firm soon elbowed out Bridas and launched its own consortium. In March, 1995, the governments of Turkmenistan and Pakistan signed a memorandum of agreement to co-operate on the pipeline. Unocal created the Central Asian Gas and Pipeline Consortium in August, 1996, with Unocal holding 46.5 %. The government of Turkmenistan had some involvement, and by 2000, Halliburton was in Turkmenistan to provide “integrated drilling services with an estimated value of $30 million for the total package." There were firms from Russia, Saudi Arabia, Indonesia, Japan, Pakistan, and South Korea.
Unocal, which was to be purchased by Chevron, soon began courting the Taliban faction and brought some of its leaders to its headquarters in Sugarland, Texas in 1997. The delegation , led by Mullah Mohammed Ghaus, visited Unocal headquarters in Sugarland, toured NASA Space Center facilities, and visited the Houston Zoo. The corporation sponsored the training of Afghans in oil technology at the University of Nebraska, but soon backed off and gave the impression it was no longer interested in the Afghan venture It seemed that the desired deal was about to be signed, but the Taliban seemed to lose interest in dealing with the U.S .
The Taliban, which had been created with the help of the US and Pakistan, was seen as a vehicle for providing stability in Afghanistan. It had a bad record on its treatment of women and on human rights, but the US and Unocal still supported it. In 1996, the Taliban gained the upper hand in the civil war when it occupied Kabul. At that time, it invited Osama bin Laden to Afghanistan as a guest.
The Taliban’s honored guest supported Bridas. His engineers had taken the trouble to sip tea with Afghan leaders, and some of the Taliban agreed with Bin Laden that the contract should go to Bridas. He also offered to let Afghanistan tap some of the gas from the line, while t6he Americans were not promising that. The French newspaper Le Figaro reported that U.S. intelligence people maintained contacts with Bin Laden in hopes that he could find a way to renew his ties with the United States. An agent met with him in July, 2001 but could not restore ties. Bin Laden remained angry that there were U.S. troops in Saudi Arabia, which he considered holy soil.
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Unocal employed two influential Pashtuns-- Taliban backer Kalmay Khalizad, a Chicago Ph.D. and Hamid Karzai, leader of the Pashtun Durrani tribe who also had ties to the royal family. Khalizad was to be on the Bush National Security Council, and Karzai would preside over the regime the that US would install in Afghanistan. Patrick Martin has written, “If history had skipped over September 11 and the events of that day had never happened, it is very likely that the United States would have gone to war in Afghanistan anyway, and on much the same schedule.”
In January, 1998, the Taliban selected CentGas over the Argentine firm to build the pipelines. The Russians pulled out of the deal in June. Due to Al Qaeda’s bombing of two African embassies, the Clinton administration, in 1998, banned further negotiations with Afghanistan.
Enron and the Line
Unocal suspended activities in pursuit of the pipeline, in December, 1998, but Enron quietly began to take a leadership role. Enron was facing a financial crisis, and the pipeline would make Enron lands in the Caspian Basin very valuable. Enron had just purchased enormous tracts of land in Turkmenistan and gambled that the pipeline would make the acquisitions very profitable. Construction of the TAP would also make it possible to get cheap natural gas to the Dabhol, India power plant, which was then a huge financial liability for Enron and General Electric.
Bush Policy Toward Afghanistan
The Bush administration, in early 2001, lifted the Clinton ban, probably to give Enron one last change to negotiate a successful pipeline deal and possibly reverse its fortunes. Secretary of State Colin Powell quickly gave the Taliban $43 million for “humanitarian purposes.” It is possible that the younger Bush knew nothing about the pipeline deal. Condoleezza Rice was a former member of the Chevron board, but it should be recalled that she did not see the Phoenix memo on terrorism before 9/11. It was thought essential that relations with Saudi Arabia improve if the pipeline negotiations were to be successful.
The effort to force the Taliban to accept U.S. demands was probably related to attempts to assist Enron Corporation avoids financial shipwreck. If a coalition government emerged quickly in Afghanistan, it was believed conditions would be right for the construction of gas and oil pipelines across that country, a venture in which Enron was heavily involved. The gas [pipeline would also place Enron’s three billion power plant in Dabhol, India on a profitable basis. In an unprecedented effort to assist a private concern, the National Security Council was they coordinating a government-wide drive to force India to make payments to the Enron power plant in Dabhol. To assist Enron and other energy wholesalers make the most of the energy crisis in California, the administration resisted calls to reinstate price caps on interstate energy sales. Enron and Ken Lay were permitted to exert great influence in fashioning the Bush energy plan.
The Bush administration sharply reversed U.S. policy with respect to Afghanistan. Whether the new approach to diplomacy with the Taliban was related to the administration’s somewhat relaxed approach to counterterrorism cannot be known. Contacts with the Taliban were reopened and a vigorous carrot and stick approach was pursued in an effort to have Bin Laden turned over and set in motion a coalition government there. A coalition government, which would open the door to the proposed twin pipeline across Afghanistan. The Afghan government would benefit from fees paid for construction rights and later for sending oil and natural gas through the lines.
Laili Helms, niece by marriage to former CIA director Richard Helms and a relative of King Zahir Shah, quickly arranged for Sayed Rahmatullah Hashami, an envoy of Mullah Omar, to visit Washington. Helms, whose two grandfathers had been Afghan officials, was working as a public relations consultant for the Taliban. Hashami brought a carpet for George W. Bush, a gift from his one-eyed leader. According to the Village Voice, he offered to detain Osama bin Laden long enough for US agents to seize the terrorist, but for some reason the US did not accept the offer. Not long after that, bin Laden announced in a written statement that he and Omar has sworn baya or blood brotherhood. At this time, the Voice of America’s Pashtun service broadcasted so much favorable information about Mullah Omar and the Taliban that wags called the woman heading that division “Kandahar Rose.”
Dr. Christiana Rocca, who had been a CIA operative in Afghanistan from 1982 to 1997, began working on the Afghanistan problem for the State Department in May, 2001. At the same time, State maintained constant contact with the Taliban diplomatic mission in Queens and remained hostile to the Northern Alliance’s Islamic State of Afghanistan, which was recognized by the United Nations. As late as July, the CIA welcomed Qazi Hussein Ahmed , head of the pro-Bin Laden Jamiaat-i-Islami Party, at the George H.W. Bush Intelligence Center in Langley, Virginia. The policy was clearly to work out an gas deal with the Taliban.
Diplomacy Rarely Discussed in US Press
State Department representatives met with counterparts from Iran, Italy, Germany, and in Geneva to devise ways to force the Taliban to enter an oil/gas deal with the United States. The 6+2 negotiating process was also in motion with Francesc Vendrell, personal representative of UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, making five trips to Kandahar and Kabul between April 19 and August 17, 2001. There also a stormy UN sponsored meeting in Brussels on May 15 which the Taliban foreign minister refused to attend because Dr. Abdullah Abdullah, the Northern Alliance representative was there. Twenty-one nations had representatives at Weston Park in England in July, where a coalition government under the oversight of former King Zahir Shah was tentatively agreed.
There was a March meeting of the UN-sponsored A group of 6 + 2" in Berlin. The 6+2 meetings were “level-2” discussions because they were attended by former government officials. These former officials tried to reflect the policies of their governments, but their lack of official positions gave their governments a large measure of desirability if something went wrong. Nevertheless, they were useful forums for exchanging ideas that clearly represented the positions of the governments involved. The small US delegation included Tom Simons, former ambassador to Pakistan, and Robert Oakley, a Unocal lobbyist and former ambassador. In a May meeting in Geneva, the US unveiled plans to attack Afghanistan. Representatives of Iran, Germany, and Italy were present. In July, war with Afghanistan was again discussed at the Group of 8 meeting in Genoa. An Indian observer was also present for these discussions and even contributed plans. The US was busy acquiring base rights in Pakistan, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan.
Another Berlin meeting was held in July. The Taliban was expected to send a spokesman, but he did not appear, probably because the Northern Alliance was represented there. It was later reported in Europe that the US spokesman said that the Taliban could either “ accept our offer of a carpet of gold, or we bury you under a carpet of bombs.'' Simons denied that a direct threat was made in these words but conceded that the subject of force may have come up in connection with a discussion of the investigation of the attack on the USS Cole. He also said that “It is possible that an American participant, acting mischievously, after some glasses, evoked the gold carpets and the carpet bombs.” Whatever Simons’ exact words were, people came away convinced that the US was determined employ force in Afghanistan if it did not get its way.
A British newspaper later reported that it was said that the bombing could begin as early as October. Niaz Naik, Pakistan’s former foreign minister, in mid-July, reported back to his government that he was US would resort to force if Pakistan could not persuade the Taliban to come into line. Pakistan passed this information on to the Taliban. It was later reported on French television, “Islamabad and Pakistani military circles were buzzing with rumors of war.” The Indian press reported in October that "Tajikistan and Uzbekistan will lead the ground attack with a strong military back up of the U.S. and Russia. Vital Taliban installations and military assets will be targeted. “ MSNBC reported that the plan to invade Afghanistan was on Bush’s desk before 9/11 and included giving a red light to the Northern Alliance to mount a major campaign against the Taliban. On the afternoon of September 11, General Richard Myers reported at a teleconferenced NSC meeting that the Pentagon had 42 major Taliban bombing targets. After the 9/11 attacks, the Bush administration immediately attributed it to Osama Bin Laden, but he repeatedly denied any involvement for several weeks. Later, a videotape turned up in Afghanistan in which Bin Laden supposedly took credit for the attack; however, some translators deny that is what he said.
Dr. Christina Rocca, represented the US at its last meeting with the Taliban, which occurred five weeks (August 2) before September 11 in Islamabad. The Taliban, at this point, was in the process of awarding the twin pipeline deal to an Argentine-led consortium. At that meeting she demanded that the Taliban turn over bin Laden. In an interview, Brisard commented on the Islamabad meeting:
We believe that when [Rocca] went to Pakistan in [August] 2001 she was there to speak about oil, and unfortunately the Osama bin Laden case was just a technical part of the negotiations. He said “ I'm not sure about the pipeline specifically, but we make it clear she was there to speak about oil. There are witnesses, including the Pakistani foreign minister.”
Journalists outside the United States have discussed these events in detail and raise the possibility that the threat of military action may have had a direct effect on the timing of Al Qaeda’s attack on America. The last US-Taliban meeting occurred five days before 9/11. The Taliban continued to grant hospitality to Osama bin Laden and refused to turn him over until the US promised him a fair trial and submitted the proper extradition papers. Those papers were not submitted.
After the successful US attack on Afghanistan, the US installed a government led by a former employee of Unocal/Chevron, Hamid Karzai. His regime, on February 8, 2002, agreed with Pakistan to enter into a long-term agreement with a US-led consortium to build a twin pipeline that would bring gas and oil from the Caspian Basin down through Afghanistan and to the coast of Pakistan and to India. Kevin Phillips, a Republican writer, was to note that US troops in Afghanistan were to become “pipeline protection troops.” The value of Caspian oil and gas has been placed at $4 trillion. However, little progressed has been made on the pipeline, and Unocal, since 1998, has claimed that it is no longer involved in the consortium.
Recent Developments
In December, 2002, the leaders of Turkmenistan, Pakistan, and Afghanistan signed a new agreement to move ahead with the pipelines. Six years later, the governments of India, Pakistan, and Afghanistan agreed to purchase gas coming through the pipeline. The Asian Development Bank will finance the $7.6 billion venture. In 2006, the United States assured India that the project would go ahead. In 2008, Afghanistan assured India that landmines would be cleared, making construction possible. Technical experts met in Ashgabat to deal with transit agreements and other details. It appears that the project will be financed through the Asia Development Bank, whose largest share holders are the U.S. and Japan. . The Indian Gas authority has suggested that Russia’s Gazprom be brought in as a consultant and maybe even the eventually operator of the line. However, the project cannot move forward because southern Afghanistan is controlled by the Taliban. If the TAP is ever built, the Afghan government will receive 8% of the revenue. It may well be that the Afghans, in their failure to resolve their problems, have frittered away the prospect of this windfall There is growing doubt in the region that stability will be restored in Afghanistan, and there is now talk of using the proposed IPI line that would not involve Afghanistan. Two problems are that using this line would benefit Iran and China, not the U.S.
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