|
Friday, April 30, 2004
The Bin Laden-CIA Connection
Lately I've been reading books about Osama bin Laden and the Taliban that were written pre-9-11, looking for "clues" that might have telegraphed the attacks. This book, Dollars for Terror: The United States and Islam, was written by Swiss journalist Richard Labévière and originally published in 1999, with a translation into English the following year. What it has to say about bin Laden (particularly his ties to the CIA) has me donning my tinfoil hat once again, and in despair of the 9-11 Commission ever getting to the bottom of the whole mess.
Here's the opening paragraph of Chapter VI, which is entitled "Osama Bin Laden, Our Man In Kandahar":
Who is this man with the enigmatic smile? Abruptly elevated to the rank of "planetary public enemy number one," the federal court of New York has issued an international warrant for his arrest. This 43 year old Saudi, a veteran of the first Afghanistan war, is the son of a billionaire and is a billionaire himself. Leading an army of 7,000 men and an international financial empire, he is more powerful than a head of state. He invented a form of terrorism that is privatized and practically quoted on the stock exchange. For him, it all began in Afghanistan, with the "holy war" against the Red Army. First, he was a recruiter of "Arab volunteers," then a front-line soldier. At that time he sealed a secret agreement with the CIA. This "public enemy number one" enjoys the protection of the American agency, and has close relations with the Saudi special services as well. Their chief, Prince Turki Ibn Fayçal, continues to "handle" Osama bin Laden, despite his having been deprived of Saudi nationality in 1994. The billionaire also maintains close relations with his family, even if he had to wage a war for control of the bin Laden financial empire. After several sojourns in Sudan and Yemen, he is back in Afghanistan. He took refuge with his Taleban friends, from whom he acquired control of a whole province producing opium. This "man who wanted to be king" has thrown all his weight into the process of arranging the succession to the throne of Saudi Arabia. Is he still the CIA's joker in the game for the future of the monarchy, which is a matter of such great concern to the United States?
posted by Michael
7:24 PM
Global economy, si… global justice…mais, non!
Former NBA star Jayson Williams (wearing a big cross on his lapel) gets acquitted in the murder of his Greek chauffeur. In France, a copycat killer who used the movie "Scream" as his model gets 22 years of hard time. No wonder the tabloids are saying that OJ is telling his close friends... I did it, so what...
posted by Groom
6:37 PM
The Tipping Point
I've just seen the touched-up CNN photos of the Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghuraib. I’ve seen some hard core stuff in my day, but these are beyond belief, and as I watched I could only imagine how the typical, sex-obsessed Arab male is going to feel seeing an American female soldier pointing and laughing at a naked prisoner, or seeing piled-up nude male hindquarters. These will be the images that young male Muslims will have etched in their brains as deeply as Ned Beatty’s “sooey” call is heard in my male friends’ even today. At least now we should all know why they will hate us.
These photos are inflaming the Arab world and will be seen at some future, more reasonable moment as the tipping point in this war. Like Nick Ut’s classic photo of a young Vietnamese girl fleeing her village with her back on fire, the photos will make real for the rest of the world – and perhaps for some Americans – the utter degredation and moral bankruptcy of a war of choice against an innocent people.
Tipping point because leading up to disclosure of these photos (how was it that these photos had belonged to the military since December?) is the simultaneous disaster in Falluja, where we are reversing our earlier hard-line stance, perhaps wisely, and are bringing back the Iraqi Army. Yes, the same folks we had to wipe out because they supported Saddam and by extension, terrorists.
As Juan Cole's guest blogger, Ray Close, former CIA Station Chief in Saudi Arabia, points out here , the implications of the U.S. pulling back from Falluja, the city that Bush boasted only two days ago U.S. Marines would do “whatever actions necessary to secure....” are enormously significant. We are basically at the point of admitting that we are losing this misadventure and are going to be working very hard to turn over the security of this country to any Iraqificationers we can find.
That in turn will mean a greater demand for our removal entirely from the scene by those we are equipping to replace us. As Close points out:
“… the political imperative of independence may very well trump the obviously high short-term risks of chaos; the Iraqi people place a very high value on stability, and rightly so, but the force of national self-determination can become irresistible in an atmosphere of foreign occupation, and reason is sometimes the loser in that contest. Ask the Hungarians in 1956. Ask the Palestinians today.”
The whole unraveling could happen very quickly. As Close also notes, the U.S. military may be forced to leave before Bush/Cheney/Wolfowitz have the victory flags printed. This could be a good thing for our soldiers, but once again, the U.S. will be seen to be defeated, weakened, and open to greater aggression from our real enemies.
posted by Evelyn
5:30 PM
Big Dems Fear Kerry Getting "Gored"
This time it's Tony Coelho and Donna Brazile speaking out about the direction (or lack thereof) of the Kerry campaign. Oh well, when you grow up on Beacon Hill it's tough to get a grip on the concept of hosing down the porch. Can't go there... that's how the average Americans do spring cleaning over in Dorchester and Mattapan.
posted by Groom
4:10 PM
Immunity Baath
New gauleiter for Fallujah, former Republican Guard Maj. Gen Yasin Muhammed Saleh, marched into town wearing his old uniform and beret to the applause of the well-wishing crowds. This guy rated a four of clubs on the “deck of cards” but he didn’t make the short list. If we’re playing this kind of “let’s make a deal” you gotta wonder when Lord Cheney will allow Tarek Aziz, Saddam and “Chemical” Ali to start videoconferencing to provide input on Iraq’s first “democratic” elections. And to think that Venezuela sits on more oil than Iraq…
posted by Groom
3:25 PM
Yeah, That's Our Job
In yet another 5-4 Supreme Court decision this week upholding the GOP's distorted redistricting plans (this time in Pennsylvania), Justice Anthony ("secret-Bush-v.-Gore-author") Kennedy wrote the following (apparently without a hint of irony):
"The ordered working of our Republic, and of the democratic process, depends on a sense of decorum and restraint in all branches of government, and in the citizenry itself," Kennedy said. "Whether spoken with concern or pride, it is unfortunate that our legislators have reached the point of declaring that, when it comes to apportionment, 'We are in the business of rigging elections.'"
Mr. Pot? Meet Mr. Kettle.
posted by Michael
11:53 AM
Everybody send a “Thank You” Note to Don Hewitt
Guts and a respect for truth seem to be in short supply in the Fourth Estate these days, as its members spend a lot of time chasing John Kerry’s gopher around. We dwellers in the Land of Happy News would probably not have been aware of the horrors committed by our troops at the Abu Ghraib prison had it not been for 60 Minutes II, whose producers are even now probably getting a visit from Michael Powell.
Perhaps the ghosts of Murrow and Cronkite are still haunting the Viacom halls, or the brass there feels that they already gave it up (The Reagans, the MoveOn ad) for Shrub and just aren't going to take it anymore.
posted by Evelyn
11:51 AM
Gee, dad, I told them everything, like you said...
To see Steve Bell's cartoon of little Shrubby and Lord Cheney in today's Guardian, click here, then scroll down to cartoons (the URL is not bringing up the cartoon directly).
posted by Groom
10:14 AM
Pop Quiz
Who said on February 26, 2001--six months before 9/11--that the Bush administration was "paying no attention" to terrorism?
"What they will do is stagger along until there's a major incident and then suddenly say, 'Oh my God, shouldn't we be organized to deal with this?'"
Hint: The source of the quote chaired the National Commission on Terrorism, a bipartisan body formed by the Clinton administration to examine U.S. counterterrorism policies.
posted by Jerry Bowles
9:22 AM
Shut Up, Koppel, You Commie
If you are unlucky enough to live in a city where the “local” ABC affiliate is owned by Sinclair Broadcast Group Inc., you will not be able to hear Ted Koppel read the names and show photos of the U.S. soldiers killed in action in Iraq on Nightline tonight. Sinclair Broadcast Group, a nominally public company, run by four brothers named Smith who took a single UHF station in Baltimore purchased by their old man in 1971 and through the skillful and barely legal exploitation of FCC local content rules parlayed it into a network of 62 stations across the country,has decided that Ted’s reading is politically motivated and has ordered its ABC affiliates to preempt it.
“Despite the denials by a spokeswoman for the show, the action appears to be motivated by a political agenda designed to undermine the efforts of the United States in Iraq,'' the company says on its web site. Sinclair says ABC is disguising political statements as news content.
These are the same grubby media banditos whose idea of good citizenship is to gobble up TV stations and then “maximize” their investment by firing most of the local news staff and replacing them with prepackaged news from a “News Central” anchor team in Baltimore that is trained in local pronunciations so they can pretend to be just down the street. These are the same big thinkers (one of the Smiths is a licensed dentist) whom others in the industry say make Rupert Murdoch look like a bleeding-heart liberal. Sinclair helpfully supplies all 62 of its stations with a nightly right-wing rant called The Point by Mark Hyman. Here’s a sample:
“And speaking of Osama, we have the audio of Clinton admitting in 2002 that he turned down the Sudanese offer to extradite bin Laden to the U.S. in 1996. At that time, bin Laden was an unindicted co-conspirator in the 93 World Trade Center bombing. You'll never hear the partisan press of the angry left report that Clinton made this admission.”
Local viewers in, say, Minneapolis or Rochester or Madison might be forgiven for thinking that Mark Hyman is the local station manager or journalist or independent commentator but they would be wrong. Mark Hyman is director of corporate relations for Sinclair Broadcast whose duties include “developing strategic policy, managing Federal, state and local legislative and regulatory relations (my italics), public and media affairs, and community outreach and charitable activities.”
Did I mention that the Smith Brothers and other top Sinclair executives are huge contributors to Republican candidates and rabid supporters of Bush-Cheney? But, of course, you knew that already, didn’t you?
posted by Jerry Bowles
8:24 AM
The Bulworth Factor
In Warren Beatty’s classic political spoof Senator Jay Bulworth makes a campaign stop at a church in South Central LA and gets bushwhacked by some angry constituents. What about that low cost insurance for small black enterprises you promised us, an angry voice asks. Breaking from the script created by his advisers, Bulworth literally calls a spade a spade, suggesting that if these folks contributed more to his campaign fund, they might get better results. Segue to politics imitating art and the Rev. Al Sharpton weighing in on the Kerry “inner circle” flap in today’s New York Times. Regardless of how Shrum and Cahill play this one, it’s going to be difficult for any African-American, Asian, Hispanic, or Native American for that matter who is brought close to the Kerry “inner circle” to be viewed as anything but a “token” by their peers. If Kerry’s crew lacked the foresight to see this little train wreck coming, what else is flying low under their radar? Will Kerry need a cameo appearance from the "Ace of spades?"
posted by Groom
5:35 AM
|
