 |
| Kyeretwie Opoku (SFG Convener) |
By Ekow Mensah.
The Socialist Forum
of Ghana (SFG) has said that there are only narrow differences between the
National Democratic Congress (NDC) and the New Patriotic Party (NPP).
In a statement to
mark the 5th anniversary of Ghana’s independence, the SFG said these
narrow differences are deliberately amplified to create the false impression
that the two parties represent the broad spectrum of ideas about the way
forward for Ghana.
It said “The
domination of the political space by the two
parties is problematic to the extent that essentially they all represent
the status quo- two different arms of the elite that is strangling working
people on behalf of foreign masters” .
Editorial
ALARM
On the 57th anniversary of Ghana’s
independence, it is important to sound the alarm bells about the on-going
attempt to re-colonize Africa.
In
spite of the fact that many countries have formally gained independence their
resources continue to be exploited for the benefit of the money bags in Europe
and North America.
Policy
initiatives have also been surrendered by African governments to foreign policy
institutions of the West.
Africa has been plunged heading into the crazy
and exploitative world of neo-colonialism and this is the time for the second
liberation.
The
colonial structure of the Ghanaian and African economy remains intact and it
must be smashed give full meaning to the decolonization process.
It
is time to build the independent organization of the working people to lead the
struggle for full decolonization.
STATEMENT ON GHANA’S INDEPENDENCE ANNIVERSARY
 |
| Kwesi Pratt Jnr, CJA Capo |
On the occasion of
the 57th anniversary of Ghana’s independence, the Committee for
Joint Action (CJA) salutes the founding fathers of the Republic who made
tremendous sacrifices to free our people from the tentacles of oppression and
exploitation.
We also salute the
working people; farmers, commercial drivers, health workers, teachers, civil
servants and all those whose continued sacrifices have sustained the
independence project.
As we celebrate 57th
years of nationhood, we are mindful of the blatant attempts by negative forces
to roll back the gains of independence and
to return Ghana to the ambling house of neo-colonial exploitation.
The CJA notes that corruption continues to be
an obstacle to the extent that it siphons vital resources for national
development into the pockets of the elite and contributes to the denial of
access to important social services to the people.
We applaud the Chief Justice for establishing
the Financial Court to deal with cases of corruption unearthed by the Auditor-
General and the Public Accounts Committee of Parliament. This is a step in the
right direction which would contribute to the fight against corruption.
The CJA calls on all the people of Ghana to
insist on the application of the principles of probity, accountability and transparency
in all public transactions as we celebrate the 57th anniversary of
Ghana’s independence.
Long live the independence of Ghana.
Kwasi Adu
Convener
THOSE
WHO BETRAYED KWAME NKRUMAH (2)
Ghana Civil Service Declares Positive Stand for
N.L.C.
 |
| Osagyefo Dr KWAME Nkrumah |
The Ghana Civil
Service and Other Public Services in a message expressed their wholehearted
support, co-operate and unalloyed loyalty to the military regimes.
The message was
signed Mr. T K. Impraim, former deputy secretary to the cabinet, Mr. E C
Quist-Therson, Principal Secretary, Ministry of Science and Higher Education,
Mr. D. E. Awotwi, Secretary, State
Functions Secretariat, Mr. M. A. B. Sarpong, Principal Secretary, Ministry of
Information, Mr. Frank W. Beecham,
Principal Secretary Ministry of Industries, Mr. H. R. Amonoo, Former Principal Secretary and Head
of African Affairs Secretariat, Mr. E. K. Minta, Former
Principal Secretary, Cabinet
Secretariat and Mr. A. Osah Mills, Principal Secretary,
Establishment Secretariat.
The message said : “On behalf of
ourselves the civil service
and other public
services, we warmly congratulate
the National Liberation Council under
Lt. General J. A. Ankrah,
the Armed Forces
and the Police Service on the
bold and
timely action they
have taken to rescue our beloved
country from the
clutches of dictatorship,
nepotism and economic
chaos.
To the National Liberation
Council and the
Authorities of law and
order, we wish
to convey a
promise of wholehearted support, co operation and unalloyed loyalty, it
added.
The Students
Council of the University of
Science and Technology Kumasi,
in a
message appealed to the
National Liberation Council to
change the name of the University.
The University was
Formerly Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology.
The Student Council
also asked for the dissolution of the Ghana National Students Organization
(Ghanaso).
The message signed
by Mr. J. Owusu Acheampong,
President of the
Council, said the days
in which Kwame Nkrumah
“proudly and wickedly played the
role of the mischievous
captain of the
crew of presumptuous
and corrupted rascal
and pirates on
the sea of
the political, social and
economic conditions of our beloved
country and fished the
blood of innocent
and peace-loving people of
Ghana, are gone and gone forever”. It said the student
of the
University having knowledge
of the activities
of the Kwame Nkrumah regime “send
our unequalled loyalty and
firm support to National
Liberation Council and the
restoration of the freedom and recognition of
individual rights for the full
development of our
Ghanaian society”.
Students Association Of U.S Backs Take-Over
In a special message
to Lt General J. A. Ankrah, Chairman of the National Liberation Council, the Ghana
Students Association of the Americas, said “We of the Students Association of
The Americas congratulates you and your colleagues on your historic act in freeing
our people from oppression and tyranny. No action could have been more
appropriate”.
The Chiefs and People
of the Efutu Traditional Area also in
their congratulatory message said “We
pledge to you our wholehearted support
and faithfully promise to assist you
and play our
part for the rebuilding of our
beloved Ghana”.
·
Tyranny
“We congratulate you
for liberating Ghana from the tentacles of dictatorship, tyranny, anarchy and
economic chaos brought about by the Kwame Nkrumah and his wicked C.P.P. regime.
“We shall destroy the
statue of the demigod erected at the institute of his godless and disrespectful
Ideology at Winneba”, the message added, long live Ghana.
(First published in the Evening News Tuesday, March 1, 1966)
Nkrumah has no more supporters in Ghana
Dr. K. A. Bossman,
former Ghana high commissioner in London, has arrived in London from Peking
after deserting Kwame Nkrumah, the former Ghanaian President dismissed from his
post last Thursday by a successful Army coup.
In an interview at
the airport, Dr. Bossman, who was asked of his future plans said, he was a
doctor by profession and a diplomat by occupation.
Incredulous
Asked how Nkrumah
received the news of his overthrow, Dr. Bossman said, the former leader was
incredulous and thought it even “impossible”.
He said Nkrumah had
sent Mr. Alex Quaison- Sackey, the former Foreign Minister to Addis Ababa to
represent him, but (Dr. Bossman) from his discussion with Mr. Quaison thought
he would ignore the instructions and only go there to connect for Accra.
The former high
commissioner told the press that Nkrumah had no supporters now in Ghana and
that there was no more hope of any counter revolution to restore him to power.
Pioneers denounce Nkrumah
Members of the Ghana
Young Pioneer Movement have demonstrated and denounced ousted President Nkrumah
as “a false messiah” and pledged their support for the National Liberation
Council.
In a resolution they
congratulated the Army and the Police for their timely action in rescuing Ghana
from the “monstrous and inglorious past” and ushering the nation into an era of
true freedom, democracy and progress.
The movement
denounced the corrupt regime of the former government led by Kwame Nkrumah and
“thankfully welcome with relief the National Liberation Council.
The Black Star Line
in a resolution sent to the National Liberation Council pledged its loyalty to
and support for the N.C.L. and promised to work honestly and devoted towards
Ghana economic and political reconstruction.
(First published in the Evening News Wednesday, March 2, 1966)
Don’t Sanitize Nelson Mandela:
He’s Honored Now, But Was Hated Then
By
Peter Beinart
If we turn the late South African leader into a nonthreatening
moral icon, we’ll forget a key lesson from his life: America isn’t always a
force for freedom.
Now that he’s dead, and can cause no more trouble, Nelson Mandela is being mourned across the ideological spectrum as a saint. But not long ago, in Washington’s
highest circles, he was considered an enemy of the United States. Unless we
remember why, we won’t truly honor his legacy.
In the 1980s, Ronald Reagan placed Mandela’s African National
Congress onAmerica’s official
list of “terrorist” groups. In 1985, then-Congressman Dick
Cheneyvoted against a resolution urging that he be released from
jail. In 2004, after Mandela criticized the Iraq War, an article in
National Review said his
“vicious anti-Americanism and support for Saddam Hussein should come as no
surprise, given his longstanding dedication to communism and praise for
terrorists.” As late as 2008, the ANC remained on America’s terrorism watch
list, thus requiring the
89-year-old Mandela to receive a special waiver from the secretary of State to visit the U.S.
From their perspective, Mandela’s critics were right to distrust
him. They called him a “terrorist” because he had waged armed resistance to
apartheid. They called him a “communist” because the Soviet Union was the ANC’s
chief external benefactor and the South African Communist Party was among its
closest domestic allies. More fundamentally, what Mandela’s American detractors
understood is that he considered himself an opponent, not an ally, of American
power. And that’s exactly what Mandela’s American admirers must
remember now.
Mandela’s
message to America’s leaders, born from firsthand experience, was clear: Don’t
pretend you are pure.
We must remember it because in Washington today, politicians and
pundits breezily describe the Cold War as a struggle between the forces of
freedom, backed by the U.S., and the forces of tyranny, backed by the USSR. In
some places—Germany, Eastern Europe, eventually Korea—that was largely true.
But in South Africa, the Cold War was something utterly different. In South
Africa, for decades, American presidents backed apartheid in the name of
anti-communism. Indeed, the language of the Cold War proved so morally
corrupting that in 1981, Reagan, without irony, called South
Africa’s monstrous regime “essential to the free world.”.
In South Africa, it was the Soviet bloc—the same communist
governments that were brutally repressing their own people—that helped the ANC
fight apartheid. In the 1980s, they were joined by an American and European
anti-apartheid movement willing to overlook the ANC’s communist ties because
they refused to see South Africa’s freedom struggle through a Cold War lens. At
a time when men like Reagan and Cheney were insisting that the most important
thing about Mandela was where he stood in the standoff between Washington and
Moscow, millions of citizens across the West insisted that the ANC could be
Soviet-backed, communist-influenced, and still lead a movement for freedom.
Facts
and figures from Nelson Mandela’s life, set to the trailer from ‘Mandela: Long
Walk to Freedom.’
They were right. When it came to other countries, Mandela’s
leftist ties did sometimes blind him to communism’s crimes. In 1991, for
instance, he called Fidel Castro “a source of inspiration to all freedom-loving
people.” But at home, where it mattered most, the ANC was a genuine,
multiracial movement for democracy. And so the Americans who best championed
South African freedom were the ones who didn’t view freedom as synonymous with
the geopolitical interests of the United States.
Therein lies Mandela’s real lesson for Americans today. The Cold
War is over, but mini-Cold Wars have followed. And once again, American elites,
especially on the right, have a bad habit of using “freedom” as a euphemism for
whatever serves American power. Thus, American politicians frequently suggest
that by impoverishing the people of Iran with ever-harsher economic sanctions, and
threatening to bomb them, we are promoting their freedom, even though the
people risking their life for democracy in Iran—people like dissident
Mandela challenged that. Like Martin Luther King, who publicly
repudiated Lyndon Johnson’s claim that Vietnam was a war for democracy, Mandela
rejected George W. Bush’s idealistic
rationalizations of the Iraq War. In 2003, when Bush was promising
to liberate Iraq’s people, Mandela said, “All that he wants is Iraqi oil.” When
Bush declared Iraq’s alleged pursuit of nuclear weapons a threat to the planet,
Mandela had the bad manners to remind Bush that the only country to
have actually used nukes was the United States. Mandela’s
message to America’s leaders, born from firsthand experience, was clear: Don’t
pretend you are pure.
As with King, it is this subversive aspect of Mandela’s legacy
that is most in danger of being erased as he enters America’s pantheon of
sanitized moral icons. But it is precisely the aspect that Americans most badly
need. American power and human freedom are two very different things. Sometimes
they intersect; sometimes they do not. Walking in Nelson Mandela’s footsteps
requires being able to tell the difference.
Al Qaeda and the “War on Terrorism”
 |
| Osama Bin Laden |
The following text was first published in Italian in: Giuletto
Chiesa (Editor), Zero, Perché la versione ufficiale sull’ 11/9 è un
Falso [Zero: Why the Official Version on 9/11 is a Falsehood], Piemme,
Casale Monferrato, 2007.
A detailed analysis of the relevant issues covered in this
article is also contained in the author’s book America’s “War on Terrorism”, Global Research, 2005
Introduction
Referred to as “Freedom Fighters”, president Reagan meets Afghan
Mujahideen leaders at the White House
One of the main objectives of war propaganda is to “fabricate an
enemy”. The “outside enemy” personified by Osama bin Laden is “threatening
America”.
Pre-emptive war directed against “Islamic terrorists” is
required to defend the Homeland. Realities are turned upside down. America is
under attack.
In the wake of 9/11, the creation of this “outside enemy” has
served to obfuscate the real economic and strategic objectives behind the war
in the Middle East and Central Asia. Waged on the grounds of self-defense, the
pre-emptive war is upheld as a “just war” with a humanitarian mandate.
As anti-war sentiment grows and the political legitimacy the
Bush Administration falters, doubts regarding the existence of this illusive
“outside enemy” must be dispelled.
Counter-terrorism and war propaganda are intertwined. The
propaganda apparatus feeds disinformation into the news chain. The terror
warnings must appear to be “genuine”. The objective is to present the terror
groups as “enemies of America.”
Ironically, Al Qaeda –the “outside enemy of
America” as well as the alleged architect of the 9/11 attacks– is a
creation of the CIA.
From the outset of the Soviet-Afghan war in the early 1980s, the
US intelligence apparatus has supported the formation of the “Islamic
brigades”. Propaganda purports to erase the history of Al Qaeda, drown the
truth and “kill the evidence” on how this “outside enemy” was fabricated and
transformed into “Enemy Number One”.
The US intelligence apparatus has created it own terrorist
organizations. And at the same time, it creates its own terrorist warnings
concerning the terrorist organizations which it has itself created. Meanwhile,
a cohesive multibillion dollar counterterrorism program “to go after” these
terrorist organizations has been put in place.
Portrayed in stylized fashion by the Western media, Osama bin
Laden, supported by his various henchmen, constitutes America’s post-Cold war
bogeyman, who “threatens Western democracy”. The alleged threat of “Islamic
terrorists”, permeates the entire US national security doctrine. Its
purpose is to justify wars of aggression in the Middle East, while establishing
within America, the contours of the Homeland Security State.
Historical Background
What are the historical origins of Al Qaeda? Who is Osama bin
Laden?
The alleged mastermind behind the 9/11 terrorists attacks,
Saudi-born Osama bin Laden, was recruited during the Soviet-Afghan war,
“ironically under the auspices of the CIA, to fight Soviet invaders”.(Hugh
Davies, “`Informers’ point the finger at bin Laden; Washington on alert for
suicide bombers.” The Daily Telegraph, London, 24 August 1998).
In 1979 the largest covert operation in the history of the CIA
was launched in Afghanistan:
“With the active encouragement of the CIA and Pakistan’s ISI,
who wanted to turn the Afghan Jihad into a global war waged by all Muslim
states against the Soviet Union, some 35,000 Muslim radicals from 40 Islamic
countries joined Afghanistan’s fight between 1982 and 1992. Tens of thousands
more came to study in Pakistani madrasahs. Eventually, more than 100,000
foreign Muslim radicals were directly influenced by the Afghan jihad.” (Ahmed
Rashid, “The Taliban: Exporting Extremism”,Foreign
Affairs, November-December 1999).
This project of the US intelligence apparatus was conducted with
the active support of Pakistan’s Inter Services Intelligence (ISI), which was
entrusted in channelling covert military aid to the Islamic brigades and
financing, in liason with the CIA, the madrassahs and Mujahideen training
camps.
U.S. government support to the Mujahideen was presented to world
public opinion as a “necessary response” to the 1979 Soviet invasion of
Afghanistan in support of the pro-Communist government of Babrak Kamal.
The CIA’s
military-intelligence operation in Afghanistan, which consisted in creating the
“Islamic brigades”, was launched prior rather than in response to the entry of
Soviet troops into Afghanistan. In fact, Washington’s intent was to
deliberately trigger a civil war, which has lasted for more than 25 years.
(photo: CIA and ISI agents)
The CIA’s role in laying the foundations of Al Qaeda is
confirmed in an 1998 interview with Zbigniew Brzezinski, who at the time was
National Security Adviser to President Jimmy Carter:
Brzezinski: According to the official version of history,
CIA aid to the Mujahideen began during 1980, that is to say, after the Soviet
army invaded Afghanistan, [on] 24 December 1979. But the reality, secretly
guarded until now, is completely otherwise. Indeed, it was July 3, 1979, that
President Carter signed the first directive for secret aid to the opponents of
the pro-Soviet regime in Kabul. And that very day, I wrote a note to the
President in which I explained to him that in my opinion, this aid was going to
induce a Soviet military intervention.
Question: Despite this risk, you were an advocate of this covert
action. But perhaps you yourself desired this Soviet entry into war and looked
to provoke it?
Brzezinski: It isn’t quite that. We didn’t push the Russians to
intervene, but we knowingly increased the probability that they would.
Question:When the Soviets justified their intervention by
asserting that they intended to fight against a secret involvement of the
United States in Afghanistan, people didn’t believe them. However, there was a
basis of truth. You don’t regret anything today?
Brzezinski: Regret what? That secret operation was an excellent
idea. It had the effect of drawing the Russians into the Afghan trap and you
want me to regret it? The day that the Soviets officially crossed the border, I
wrote to President Carter. We now have the opportunity of giving to the
USSR its Vietnam War. Indeed, for almost 10 years, Moscow had to carry on a war
unsupportable by the government, a conflict that brought about the
demoralization and finally the breakup of the Soviet empire.
Question: And neither do you regret having
supported the Islamic fundamentalism, having given arms and advice to future
terrorists?
Brzezinski: What is most important to the history of the
world? The Taliban or the collapse of the Soviet empire? Some stirred-up
Moslems or the liberation of Central Europe and the end of the Cold War? (
“The CIA’s Intervention in Afghanistan, Interview with Zbigniew Brzezinski,
President Jimmy Carter’s National Security Adviser”, Le Nouvel Observateur,
Paris, 15-21 January 1998, published in English, Centre for Research on
Globalisation,http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/BRZ110A.html, 5 October
2001, italics added.)
Consistent with Brzezinski’s account, a “Militant Islamic
Network” was created by the CIA.
The “Islamic Jihad” (or holy war against the Soviets) became an
integral part of the CIA’s intelligence ploy. It was supported by the United
States and Saudi Arabia, with a significant part of the funding generated from
the Golden Crescent drug trade:
“In March 1985, President Reagan signed National Security
Decision Directive 166 … [which] authorize[d] stepped-up covert military aid to
the Mujahideen, and it made clear that the secret Afghan war had a new goal: to
defeat Soviet troops in Afghanistan through covert action and encourage a
Soviet withdrawal. The new covert U.S. assistance began with a dramatic
increase in arms supplies — a steady rise to 65,000 tons annually by 1987 … as
well as a “ceaseless stream” of CIA and Pentagon specialists who travelled to
the secret headquarters of Pakistan’s ISI on the main road near Rawalpindi,
Pakistan. There, the CIA specialists met with Pakistani intelligence officers
to help plan operations for the Afghan rebels.”(Steve Coll, The Washington
Post, July 19, 1992.)
The Central Intelligence Agency using Pakistan’s ISI as a
go-between played a key role in training the Mujahideen. In turn, the
CIA-sponsored guerrilla training was integrated with the teachings of Islam.
The madrasahs were set up by Wahabi fundamentalists financed out of Saudi
Arabia:
“[I]t was the government of the United States who supported
Pakistani dictator General Zia-ul Haq in creating thousands of religious
schools, from which the germs of the Taliban emerged.”(Revolutionary
Association of the Women of Afghanistan (RAWA), “RAWA Statement on the
Terrorist Attacks in the U.S.”, Centre for Research on Globalisation
(CRG), http://globalresearch.ca/articles/RAW109A.html , 16
September 2001)
Predominant themes were that Islam was a complete
socio-political ideology, that holy Islam was being violated by the atheistic
Soviet troops, and that the Islamic people of Afghanistan should reassert their
independence by overthrowing the leftist Afghan regime propped up by Moscow.
(Dilip Hiro, Fallout from the Afghan Jihad, Inter Press Services, 21 November
1995.)
Pakistan’s ISI Used as a “Go-Between”
CIA covert support to the “Islamic Jihad” operated indirectly
through the Pakistani ISI — i.e. the CIA did not channel its support directly
to the Mujahideen. For these covert operations to be “successful”, Washington
was careful not to reveal the ultimate objective of the “Jihad”, which
consisted not only in destabilising the secular (pro-Soviet) government in
Afghanistan, but also destroying the Soviet Union.
In the words of the CIA’s Milton Beardman, “We didn’t train Arabs.”
Yet, according to Abdel Monam Saidali, of the Al-aram Centre for Strategic
Studies in Cairo, bin Laden and the “Afghan Arabs” had been imparted “with very
sophisticated types of training that was allowed to them by the CIA”. (National
Public Radio, Weekend Sunday (NPR) with Eric Weiner and Ted Clark, 16 August
1998).
The CIA’s Beardman confirmed, in this regard, that Osama bin
Laden was not aware of the role he was playing on behalf of Washington.
According to bin Laden (as quoted by Beardman): “Neither I, nor my brothers,
saw evidence of American help.” (National Public Radio, Weekend Sunday (NPR)
with Eric Weiner and Ted Clark, transcript, 16 August 1998).
Motivated by nationalism and religious fervour, the Islamic
warriors were unaware that they were fighting the Soviet Army on behalf of
Uncle Sam. While there were contacts at the upper levels of the intelligence
hierarchy, Islamic rebel leaders in the war theatre had no contacts with
Washington or the CIA.
With CIA backing and the funnelling of massive amounts of U.S.
military aid, the Pakistani ISI had developed into a “parallel structure
wielding enormous power over all aspects of government”. (Dipankar Banerjee,
“Possible Connection of ISI With Drug Industry”, India Abroad, 2 December
1994). The ISI had a staff composed of military and intelligence officers,
bureaucrats, undercover agents and informers, estimated at 150,000. (Ibid).
Meanwhile, CIA operations had also reinforced the Pakistani
military regime led by General Zia Ul Haq:
“Relations between the CIA and the ISI had grown increasingly
warm following [General] Zia’s ouster of Bhutto and the advent of the military
regime. … During most of the Afghan war, Pakistan was more aggressively
anti-Soviet than even the United States. Soon after the Soviet military invaded
Afghanistan in 1980, Zia [ul Haq] sent his ISI chief to destabilize the Soviet
Central Asian states. The CIA only agreed to this plan in October 1984.
The CIA was more cautious than the Pakistanis. Both Pakistan and
the United States took the line of deception on Afghanistan with a public
posture of negotiating a settlement, while privately agreeing that military
escalation was the best course.” (Diego Cordovez and Selig Harrison, Out of
Afghanistan: The Inside Story of the Soviet Withdrawal, Oxford University
Press, New York, 1995. See also the review of Cordovez and Harrison in
International Press Services, 22 August 1995).
The CIA sponsored Narcotics Trade
The history of the drug trade in Central Asia is intimately
related to the CIA’s covert operations. Prior to the Soviet-Afghan war, opium
production in Afghanistan and Pakistan was directed to small regional markets.
There was no local production of heroin. (Alfred McCoy, Drug Fallout: the CIA’s
Forty Year Complicity in the Narcotics Trade. The Progressive, 1 August 1997).
Researcher Alfred McCoy’s study confirms that within two years
of the onslaught of the CIA operation in Afghanistan, “the Pakistan-Afghanistan
borderlands became the world’s top heroin producer, supplying 60 per cent of
U.S. demand.” (Ibid)
“CIA assets again controlled this heroin trade. As the
Mujahideen guerrillas seized territory inside Afghanistan, they ordered
peasants to plant opium as a revolutionary tax. Across the border in Pakistan,
Afghan leaders and local syndicates under the protection of Pakistan
Intelligence operated hundreds of heroin laboratories. During this decade of
wide-open drug-dealing, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency in Islamabad failed to
instigate major seizures or arrests. … (Ibid)
Afghanistan is a strategic hub in Central Asia, bordering on
China’s Western frontier and on the former Soviet Union. While it constitutes a
land bridge for the oil and gas pipeline corridors linking the Caspian sea
basin to the Arabian sea, it is also strategic for its opium production, which
today, according to UN sources, supplies more than 90 % of the World’s heroin
market, representing multi-billion dollar revenues for business syndicates,
financial institutions, intelligence agencies and organized crime. (See Michel
Chossudovsky, America’s “War on Terrorism, Global Research, 2005, Chapter XVI)
Protected by the CIA, a new surge in opium production unfolded
in the post cold War era. Since the October 2001 US invasion of Afghanistan,
opium production has increased 33 fold since the US led invasion. The annual
proceeds of the Golden Crescent drug trade are estimated between 120 and 194
billion dollars (2006), representing more than one third of the worldwide
annual turnover of the narcotics trade. (Michel Chossudovsky, Heroin is good
for Your Health, Occupation Forces Support Afghan Drug Trade, Global Research,
April 2007. see also Douglas Keh, Drug Money in a Changing World, Technical
document No. 4, 1998),
From the Soviet-Afghan War to the “War on Terrorism”
Despite the demise of the Soviet Union, Pakistan’s extensive
military-intelligence apparatus (the ISI) was not dismantled. In the wake of
the Cold War, the CIA continued to support the Islamic brigades out of
Pakistan. New undercover initiatives were set in motion in the Middle East,
Central Asia, the Balkans and south East Asia. In the immediate wke of the Cold
War, Pakistan’s ISI “served as a catalyst for the disintegration of the Soviet
Union and the emergence of six new Muslim republics in Central Asia”. (International
Press Services, 22 August 1995).
Meanwhile, Islamic missionaries of the Wahabi sect from Saudi
Arabia had established themselves in the Muslim republics, as well as within
the Russian federation, encroaching upon the institutions of the secular State.
Despite its anti-American ideology, Islamic fundamentalism was largely serving
Washington’s strategic interests in the former Soviet Union, the Balkans and
the Middle East.
Following the withdrawal of Soviet troops in 1989, the civil war
in Afghanistan continued unabated. The Taliban were being supported by the
Pakistani Deobandis and their political party, the Jamiat-ul-Ulema-e-Islam
(JUI). In 1993, the JUI entered Pakistan’s government coalition of Prime
Minister Benazzir Bhutto. Ties between the JUI, the Army and the ISI were
established. In 1996, with the downfall of the Hezb-I-Islami Hektmatyar
government in Kabul, the Taliban not only instated a hardline Islamic
government, they also “handed control of training camps in Afghanistan over to
JUI factions …”. (Ahmed Rashid, “The Taliban: Exporting Extremism”, Foreign
Affairs, November – December, 1999, p. 22.)
The JUI, with the support of the Saudi Wahabi movement, played a
key role in recruiting volunteers to fight in the Balkans and the former Soviet
Union. (Ibid)
Jane Defence Weekly confirms, that “half of Taliban manpower and
equipment originate[d] in Pakistan under the ISI”. In fact, it would appear
that following the Soviet withdrawal, both sides in the Afghan civil war
continued to receive US covert support through Pakistan’s ISI. (Tim McGirk,
“Kabul Learns to Live with its Bearded Conquerors”, The Independent,
London, 6 November 1996.)
Backed by Pakistan’s military intelligence, which in turn was
controlled by the CIA, the Taliban Islamic State largely served US geopolitical
interests. No doubt this explains why Washington had closed its eyes on the
reign of terror imposed by the Taliban in 1996, including the blatant
derogation of women’s rights, the closing down of schools for girls, the
dismissal of women employees from government offices and the enforcement of
“the Sharia laws of punishment”. (K. Subrahmanyam, “Pakistan is Pursuing Asian
Goals”, India Abroad, 3 November 1995.)
The Golden Crescent drug trade was also being used to finance
and equip the Bosnian Muslim Army (starting in the early 1990s) and the Kosovo
Liberation Army (KLA). In fact, at the time of the September 11 attacks,
CIA-sponsored Mujahideen mercenaries were fighting within the ranks of KLA-NLA
terrorists in their assaults into Macedonia.
The War in Chechnya
In Chechnya, the renegade autonomous region of the Russian
Federation, the main rebel leaders, Shamil Basayev and Al Khattab, were trained
and indoctrinated in CIA-sponsored camps in Afghanistan and Pakistan. According
to Yossef Bodansky, director of the U.S. Congress’ Task Force on Terrorism and
Unconventional Warfare, the war in Chechnya had been planned during a secret
summit of HizbAllah International held in 1996 in Mogadishu, Somalia. (Levon
Sevunts, “Who’s Calling The Shots? Chechen conflict finds Islamic roots in
Afghanistan and Pakistan”, The Gazette, Montreal, 26 October 1999.)
The summit was attended by none other than Osama bin Laden, as
well as high-ranking Iranian and Pakistani intelligence officers. It’s obvious
that the involvement of Pakistan’s ISI in Chechnya “goes far beyond supplying
the Chechens with weapons and expertise: The ISI and its radical Islamic
proxies are actually calling the shots in this war.”(Ibid)
Russia’s main pipeline route transits through Chechnya and
Dagestan. Despite Washington’s condemnation of “Islamic terrorism”, the
indirect beneficiaries of the wars in Chechnya are the Anglo-American oil
conglomerates which are vying for complete control over oil resources and
pipeline corridors out of the Caspian Sea basin.
The two main Chechen rebel armies (which at the time were led by
the (late) Commander Shamil Basayev and Emir Khattab), estimated at 35,000
strong, were supported by Pakistan’s ISI, which also played a key role in
organizing and training the rebel army:
“[In 1994] the Pakistani Inter Services Intelligence arranged
for Basayev and his trusted lieutenants to undergo intensive Islamic
indoctrination and training in guerrilla warfare in the Khost province of
Afghanistan at Amir Muawia camp, set up in the early 1980s by the CIA and ISI
and run by famous Afghani warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar. In July 1994, upon
graduating from Amir Muawia, Basayev was transferred to Markaz-i-Dawar camp in
Pakistan to undergo training in advanced guerrilla tactics. In Pakistan, Basayev
met the highest ranking Pakistani military and intelligence officers: Minister
of Defence General Aftab Shahban Mirani, Minister of Interior General
Naserullah Babar, and the head of the ISI branch in charge of supporting
Islamic causes, General Javed Ashraf (all now retired). High-level connections
soon proved very useful to Basayev.” (Ibid)
Following his training and indoctrination stint, Basayev was
assigned to lead the assault against Russian federal troops in the first
Chechen war in 1995. His organization had also developed extensive links to
criminal syndicates in Moscow as well as ties to Albanian organized crime and
the KLA. In 1997-1998, according to Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB)
“Chechen warlords started buying up real estate in Kosovo … through several
real estate firms registered as a cover in Yugoslavia.” (Vitaly Romanov and
Viktor Yadukha, “Chechen Front Moves To Kosovo”, Segodnia, Moscow, 23 Feb 2000)
Dismantling Secular Institutions in the former Soviet Union
The enforcement of Islamic law in the largely secular Muslim
societies of the former Soviet Union has served America’s strategic interests
in the region. Previously, a strong secular tradition based on a rejection of
Islamic law prevailed throughout the Central Asian republics and the Caucasus,
including Chechnya and Dagestan (which are part of the Russian Federation).
The 1994-1996 Chechen war, instigated by the main rebel
movements against Moscow, has served to undermine secular state institutions. A
parallel system of local government, controlled by the Islamic militia, was
implanted in many localities in Chechnya. In some of the small towns and
villages, Islamic Sharia courts were established under a reign of political
terror.
Financial aid from Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States to the rebel
armies was conditional upon the installation of the Sharia courts, despite
strong opposition of the civilian population. The Principal Judge and Ameer of
the Sharia courts in Chechnya was Sheikh Abu Umar, who “came to Chechnya in
1995 and joined the ranks of the Mujahideen there under the leadership of
Ibn-ul-Khattab. … He set about teaching Islam with the correct Aqeedah to the
Chechen Mujahideen, many of whom held incorrect and distorted beliefs about
Islam.” (Global Muslim News,http://www.islam.org.au/articles/21/news.htm,
December 1997).
Meanwhile, state institutions of the Russian Federation in
Chechnya were crumbling under the brunt of the IMF-sponsored austerity measures
imposed under the Presidency of Boris Yeltsin. In contrast, the Sharia courts,
financed and equipped out of Saudi Arabia, were gradually displacing existing
State institutions of the Russian Federation and the Chechnya autonomous
region.
The Wahabi movement from Saudi Arabia was not only attempting to
overrun civilian State institutions in Dagestan and Chechnya, it was also
seeking to displace the traditional Sufi Muslim leaders. In fact, the
resistance to the Islamic rebels in Dagestan was based on the alliance of the
(secular) local governments with the Sufi sheiks:
“These [Wahabi] groups consist of a very tiny but well-financed
and well-armed minority. They propose with these attacks the creation of terror
in the hearts of the masses. … By creating anarchy and lawlessness, these
groups can enforce their own harsh, intolerant brand of Islam. … Such groups do
not represent the common view of Islam, held by the vast majority of Muslims
and Islamic scholars, for whom Islam exemplifies the paragon of civilization
and perfected morality. They represent what is nothing less than a movement to
anarchy under an Islamic label. … Their intention is not so much to create an
Islamic state, but to create a state of confusion in which they are able to
thrive.34 Mateen Siddiqui, “Differentiating Islam from Militant
‘Islamists’” San Francisco Chronicle, 21 September 1999
Promoting Secessionist Movements in India
In parallel with its covert operations in the Balkans and the
former Soviet Union, Pakistan’s ISI has provided, since the 1980s, support to
several secessionist Islamic insurgencies in India’s Kashmir.
Although officially condemned by Washington, these covert ISI
operations were undertaken with the tacit approval of the U.S. government.
Coinciding with the 1989 Geneva Peace Agreement and the Soviet withdrawal from
Afghanistan, the ISI was instrumental in the creation of the militant Jammu and
Kashmir Hizbul Mujahideen (JKHM). (See K. Subrahmanyam, “Pakistan is Pursuing
Asian Goals”, India Abroad, 3 November 19950.
Im the immediate wake of 9/11, the December 2001 terrorist
attacks on the Indian Parliament — which contributed to pushing India and
Pakistan to the brink of war — were conducted by two Pakistan-based rebel
groups, Lashkar-e-Taiba, (Army of the Pure) and Jaish-e-Muhammad (Army of
Mohammed), both of which are covertly supported by Pakistan’s ISI. (Council on
Foreign Relations, “Terrorism: Questions and Answers, Harakat ul-Mujahideen,
Lashkar-e-Taiba, Jaish-e-Muhammad”,http://www.terrorismanswers.com/groups/harakat2.html,
Washington 2002.Note: This report is no longer available on the CFR website.)
The timely attack on the Indian Parliament, followed by the
ethnic riots in Gujarat in early 2002, were the culmination of a process
initiated in the 1980s, financed by drug money and abetted by Pakistan’s
military intelligence.
Needless to say, these ISI-supported terrorist attacks serve the
geopolitical interests of the U.S. The powerful Council on Foreign Relations
(CFR), which plays a behind-the-scenes role in the formulation of U.S. foreign
policy, confirms that the Lashkar and Jaish rebel groups are supported by the
ISI:
Through its Inter-Service Intelligence Agency (ISI), Pakistan
has provided funding, arms, training facilities, and aid in crossing borders to
Lashkar and Jaish. This assistance — an attempt to replicate in Kashmir the
international Islamist brigade’s “holy war” against the Soviet Union in
Afghanistan — helped introduce radical Islam into the long-standing conflict
over the fate of Kashmir. …
Have these groups received funding from sources other than the
Pakistani government?
Yes. Members of the Pakistani and Kashmiri communities in
England send millions of dollars a year, and Wahabi sympathizers in the Persian
Gulf also provide support.
Do Islamist terrorists in Kashmir have ties to Al-Qaeda?
Yes. In 1998, the leader of Harakat, Farooq Kashmiri Khalil,
signed Osama bin Laden’s declaration calling for attacks on Americans,
including civilians, and their allies. Bin Laden is also suspected of funding
Jaish, according to U.S. and Indian officials. And Maulana Massoud Azhar, who
founded Jaish, travelled to Afghanistan several times to meet bin Laden.
Where were these Islamist militants trained?
Many were given ideological training in the same madrasahs, or
Muslim seminaries, that taught the Taliban and foreign fighters in Afghanistan.
They received military training at camps in Afghanistan or in villages in
Pakistan-controlled Kashmir. Extremist groups have recently opened several new
madrasas in Azad Kashmir.
(Council on Foreign Relations, “Terrorism: Questions and
Answers, Harakat ul-Mujahideen, Lashkar-e-Taiba, Jaish-e-Muhammad”,
Washington 2002. This text was removed from the CFR website in
2006)
What the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) fails to acknowledge
are the links between the ISI and the CIA and the fact that the “international
Islamic brigades” were a creation of the CIA.
U.S.-Sponsored Insurgencies in China
Also of significance in understanding America’s “War on
Terrorism” is the existence of ISI-supported Islamic insurgencies on China’s
Western border with Afghanistan and Pakistan. In fact, several of the Islamic
movements in the Muslim republics of the former Soviet Union are integrated
with the Turkestan and Uigur movements in China’s Xinjiang-Uigur autonomous
region.
These separatist groups — which include the East Turkestan
Terrorist Force, the Islamic Reformist Party, the East Turkestan National Unity
Alliance, the Uigur Liberation Organization and the Central Asian Uigur Jihad
Party — have all received support and training from Osama bin Laden’s Al Qaeda.
(According to official Chinese sources quoted in UPI, 20 November 2001.). The
declared objective of these Chinese-based Islamic insurgencies is the
“establishment of an Islamic caliphate in the region”. (Defence and Security,
May 30, 2001).
The caliphate would integrate Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan
(West Turkestan) and the Uigur autonomous region of China (East Turkestan) into
a single political entity.
The “caliphate project” encroaches upon Chinese territorial
sovereignty. Supported by various Wahabi “foundations” from the Gulf States,
secessionism on China’s Western frontier is, once again, consistent with U.S.
strategic interests in Central Asia. Meanwhile, a powerful U.S.-based lobby is
channelling support to separatist forces in Tibet.
By tacitly promoting the secession of the Xinjiang-Uigur region
(using Pakistan’s ISI as a “go-between”), Washington is attempting to trigger a
broader process of political destabilization and fracturing of the People’s
Republic of China. In addition to these various covert operations, the U.S. has
established military bases in Afghanistan and in several of the former Soviet
republics, directly on China’s Western border.
The militarization of the South China Sea and of the Taiwan
Straits is also an integral part of this strategy.
Yugoslavia
Throughout the 1990s, the Pakistan Inter Services Intelligence
(ISI) was used by the CIA as a go-between — to channel weapons and Mujahideen
mercenaries to the Bosnian Muslim Army in the civil war in Yugoslavia.
According to a report of the London based International Media Corporation:
“Reliable sources report that the United States is now [1994]
actively participating in the arming and training of the Muslim forces of
Bosnia-Herzegovina in direct contravention of the United Nations accords. US
agencies have been providing weapons made in … China (PRC), North Korea (DPRK)
and Iran. The sources indicated that … Iran, with the knowledge and agreement
of the US Government, supplied the Bosnian forces with a large number of multiple
rocket launchers and a large quantity of ammunition. These included 107mm and
122mm rockets from the PRC, and VBR-230 multiple rocket launchers … made in
Iran. … It was [also] reported that 400 members of the Iranian Revolutionary
Guard (Pasdaran) arrived in Bosnia with a large supply of arms and ammunition.
It was alleged that the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) had full knowledge
of the operation and that the CIA believed that some of the 400 had been
detached for future terrorist operations in Western Europe.
The US Administration has not restricted its involvement to the
clandestine contravention of the UN arms embargo on the region … It [also]
committed three high-ranking delegations over the past two years [prior to
1994] in failed attempts to bring the Yugoslav Government into line with US
policy. Yugoslavia is the only state in the region to have failed to acquiesce
to US pressure.” (International Media Corporation, Defence and Strategy Policy,
U.S. Commits Forces, Weapons to Bosnia, London, 31 October 1994)
“From the Horse’s Mouth”
Ironically, the US Administration’s undercover
military-intelligence operations in Bosnia, which consisted in promoting the
formation of “Islamic brigades”, have been fully documented by the Republican
Party. A lengthy Congressional report by the Senate Republican Party Committee
(RPC) published in 1997, largely confirms the International Media Corporation
report quoted above. The RPC Congressional report accuses the Clinton
administration of having “helped turn Bosnia into a militant Islamic base”
leading to the recruitment through the so-called “Militant Islamic Network,” of
thousands of Mujahideen from the Muslim world:
“Perhaps most threatening to the SFOR mission – and more
importantly, to the safety of the American personnel serving in Bosnia –
is the unwillingness of the Clinton Administration to come clean with the
Congress and with the American people about its complicity in the delivery of
weapons from Iran to the Muslim government in Sarajevo. That policy, personally
approved by Bill Clinton in April 1994 at the urging of CIA Director-designate
(and then-NSC chief) Anthony Lake and the U.S. ambassador to Croatia Peter
Galbraith, has, according to the Los Angeles Times (citing classified
intelligence community sources), “played a central role in the dramatic
increase in Iranian influence in Bosnia.
(…)
Along with the weapons, Iranian Revolutionary Guards and VEVAK
intelligence operatives entered Bosnia in large numbers, along with thousands
of mujahedin (“holy warriors”) from across the Muslim world.Also engaged in the
effort were several other Muslim countries (including Brunei, Malaysia,
Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, and Turkey) and a number of radical Muslim
organizations. For example, the role of one Sudan-based “humanitarian
organization,” called the Third World Relief Agency, has been well documented.
The Clinton Administration’s “hands-on” involvement with the Islamic network’s
arms pipeline included inspections of missiles from Iran by U.S. government
officials… the Third World Relief Agency (TWRA), a Sudan-based, phoney
humanitarian organization … has been a major link in the arms pipeline to
Bosnia. … TWRA is believed to be connected with such fixtures of the Islamic
terror network as Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman (the convicted mastermind behind the
1993 World Trade Center bombing) and Osama Bin Laden, a wealthy Saudi
émigré believed to bankroll numerous militant groups. [Washington Post,
9/22/96]
(Congressional Press Release, Republican Party Committee (RPC),
U.S. Congress, Clinton-Approved Iranian Arms Transfers Help Turn Bosnia into
Militant Islamic Base, Washington DC, 16 January 1997, available on the website
of the Centre of Research on Globalisation (CRG) at http://globalresearch.ca/articles/DCH109A.html. The
original document is on the website of the U.S. Senate Republican Party
Committee (Senator Larry Craig), at http://www.senate.gov/~rpc/releases/1997/iran.htm; see
also Washington Post, 22 September 1999, Emphasis added)
Complicity of the Clinton Administration
In other words, the Republican Party Committee report confirms
unequivocally the complicity of the Clinton Administration with several Islamic
fundamentalist organisations including Al Qaeda.
The Republicans wanted at the time to undermine the Clinton
Administration. However, at a time when the entire country had its eyes riveted
on the Monica Lewinsky scandal, the Republicans no doubt chose not to trigger
an untimely “Iran-Bosniagate” affair, which might have unduly diverted public
attention away from the Lewinsky scandal. The Republicans wanted to impeach
Bill Clinton “for having lied to the American People” regarding his affair with
White House intern Monica Lewinsky. On the more substantive “foreign policy lies”
regarding drug running and covert operations in the Balkans, Democrats and
Republicans agreed in unison, no doubt pressured by the Pentagon and the CIA
not to “spill the beans”.
From Bosnia to Kosovo
The “Bosnian pattern” described in the 1997 Congressional RPC
report was replicated in Kosovo. With the complicity of NATO and the US State
Department, Mujahideen mercenaries from the Middle East and Central Asia
were recruited to fight in the ranks of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) in
1998-99, largely supporting NATO’s war effort.
Confirmed by British military sources, the task of arming and
training of the KLA had been entrusted in 1998 to the US Defence Intelligence
Agency (DIA) and Britain’s Secret Intelligence Services MI6, together with
“former and serving members of 22 SAS [Britain's 22nd Special Air Services
Regiment], as well as three British and American private security companies”. (The
Scotsman, Edinburgh, 29 August 1999).
The US DIA approached MI6 to arrange a training programme for
the KLA, said a senior British military source. `MI6 then sub-contracted the
operation to two British security companies, who in turn approached a number of
former members of the (22 SAS) regiment. Lists were then drawn up of weapons
and equipment needed by the KLA.’ While these covert operations were
continuing, serving members of 22 SAS Regiment, mostly from the unit’s D
Squadron, were first deployed in Kosovo before the beginning of the bombing
campaign in March. (Truth in Media, “Kosovo in Crisis”, Phoenix,
While British SAS Special Forces in bases in Northern Albania
were training the KLA, military instructors from Turkey and Afghanistan
financed by the “Islamic jihad” were collaborating in training the KLA in
guerilla and diversion tactics.:(The Sunday Times, London, 29 November 1998).
“Bin Laden had visited Albania himself. He was one of several
fundamentalist groups that had sent units to fight in Kosovo, … Bin Laden is
believed to have established an operation in Albania in 1994 … Albanian sources
say Sali Berisha, who was then president, had links with some groups that later
proved to be extreme fundamentalists.” (Ibid)
Congressional Testimonies on KLA-Al Qaeda links
In the mid-1990s, the CIA and Germany’s Secret Service, the BND,
joined hands in providing covert support to the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA).
In turn, the latter was receiving support from Al Qaeda.
According to Frank Ciluffo of the Globalized Organised Crime
Program, in a December 2000 testimony to the House of Representatives Judicial
Committee:
“What was largely hidden from public view was the fact that the
KLA raise part of their funds from the sale of narcotics. Albania and Kosovo lie
at the heart of the “Balkan Route” that links the “Golden Crescent” of
Afghanistan and Pakistan to the drug markets of Europe. This route is worth an
estimated $400 billion a year and handles 80 percent of heroin destined for
Europe.” (U.S. Congress, Testimony of Frank J. Cilluffo, Deputy Director of the
Global Organized Crime Program, to the House Judiciary Committee, Washington
DC, 13 December 2000).
According to Ralf Mutschke of Interpol’s Criminal Intelligence
division also in a testimony to the House Judicial Committee:
“The U.S. State Department listed the KLA as a terrorist
organization, indicating that it was financing its operations with money from
the international heroin trade and loans from Islamic countries and
individuals, among them allegedly Usama bin Laden” . Another link to bin Laden
is the fact that the brother of a leader in an Egyptian Jihad organization and
also a military commander of Usama bin Laden, was leading an elite KLA unit
during the Kosovo conflict.”(U.S. Congress, Testimony of Ralf Mutschke of
Interpol’s Criminal Intelligence Division, to the House Judicial Committee,
Washington DC, 13 December 2000.)
These KLA links to international terrorism and organised crime
documented by the US Congress were totally ignored by the Clinton
Administration. In fact, in the months preceding the bombing of Yugoslavia,
Secretary of State Madeleine Albright (image Albright with KLA leader Hashim
Thaci, 1999) was busy building a “political legitimacy” for the KLA. The
paramilitary army had –from one day to the next– been elevated to the status of
a bona fide “democratic” force in Kosovo. In turn, Madeleine Albright has
forced the pace of international diplomacy: the KLA had been spearheaded into
playing a central role in the failed “peace negotiations” at Rambouiillet in
early 1999.
The Senate and the House tacitly endorse State Terrorism
While the various Congressional reports confirmed that the US
government had been working hand in glove with Osama bin Laden’s Al Qaeda, this
did not prevent the Clinton and later the Bush Administration from arming and
equipping the KLA. The Congressional documents also confirm that members of the
Senate and the House knew the relationship of the Administration to
international terrorism. To quote the statement of Rep. John Kasich of the
House Armed Services Committee: “We connected ourselves [in 1998-99] with the
KLA, which was the staging point for bin Laden…” (U.S. Congress, Transcripts of
the House Armed Services Committee, Washington, DC, 5 October 1999,)
In the wake of the tragic events of September 11, Republicans
and Democrats in unison have given their full support to the President to “wage
war on Osama”.
In 1999, Senator Jo Lieberman had stated authoritatively that
“Fighting for the KLA is fighting for human rights and American values.” In the
hours following the October 7 missile attacks on Afghanistan, the same Jo
Lieberman called for punitive air strikes against Iraq: “We’re in a war against
terrorism… We can’t stop with bin Laden and the Taliban.” Yet Senator Jo
Lieberman, as member of the Armed Services Committee of the Senate had access
to all the Congressional documents pertaining to “KLA-Osama” links. In making
this statement, he was fully aware that that agencies of the US government as
well as NATO were supporting international terrorism.
“The Islamic Militant Network” and NATO join hands in Macedonia
In the wake of the 1999 war in Yugoslavia, the terrorist
activities of the KLA were extended into Southern Serbia and Macedonia.
Meanwhile, the KLA –renamed the Kosovo Protection Corps (KPC)– was elevated to
United Nations status, implying the granting of “legitimate” sources of funding
through United Nations as well as through bilateral channels, including direct
US military aid.
And barely two months after the official inauguration of the KPC
under UN auspices (September 1999), KPC-KLA commanders – using UN resources and
equipment – were already preparing the assaults into Macedonia, as a logical
follow-up to their terrorist activities in Kosovo. According to the Skopje
daily Dnevnik, the KPC had established a “sixth operation zone” in Southern
Serbia and Macedonia:
“Sources, who insist on anonymity, claim that the headquarters
of the Kosovo protection brigades [i.e. linked to the UN sponsored KPC] have
[March 2000] already been formed in Tetovo, Gostivar and Skopje. They are being
prepared in Debar and Struga [on the border with Albania] as well, and their
members have defined codes.” (Macedonian Information Centre Newsletter, Skopje,
21 March 2000, published by BBC Summary of World Broadcast, 24 March 2000.)
According to the BBC, “Western special forces were still
training the guerrillas” meaning that they were assisting the KLA in opening up
“a sixth operation zone” in Southern Serbia and Macedonia. (BBC, 29 January
2001.)
Among the foreign mercenaries fighting in Macedonia in 2001 in
the ranks of self-proclaimed National Liberation Army (NLA) were Mujahideen
from the Middle East and the Central Asian republics of the former Soviet
Union. Also within the KLA’s proxy force in Macedonia were senior US military
advisers from a private mercenary outfit on contract to the Pentagon as well as
“soldiers of fortune” from Britain, Holland and Germany. Some of these Western
mercenaries had previously fought with the KLA and the Bosnian Muslim Army.
(Scotland on Sunday, 15 June 2001. See also UPI, 9 July 2001. For further
details see Michel Chossudovsky, America’s “War on Terrorism”, Global Research,
2005, Chapter III ).
Extensively documented by the Macedonian press and statements of
the Macedonian authorities, the US government and the “Islamic Militant
Network” were working hand in glove in supporting and financing the
self-proclaimed National Liberation Army (NLA), involved in the terrorist
attacks in Macedonia. The NLA is a proxy of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA).
In turn the KLA and the UN sponsored Kosovo Protection Corps (KPC) are
identical institutions with the same commanders and military personnel. KPC
Commanders on UN salaries are fighting in the NLA together with the Mujahideen.
In a bitter twist, while supported and financed by Osama bin
Laden’s Al Qaeda, the KLA-NLA was also being supported by NATO and the United
Nations mission to Kosovo (UNMIK). In fact, the “Islamic Militant Network”
still constitutes an integral part of Washington’s covert military-intelligence
operations in Macedonia and Southern Serbia.
The KLA-NLA terrorists were funded from US military aid, the
United Nations peace-keeping budget as well as by several Islamic organisations
including Al Qaeda. Drug money was also used to finance the terrorists with the
complicity of the US government. The recruitment of Mujahideen to fight in the
ranks of the NLA in Macedonia was implemented through various Islamic groups.
US military advisers mingle with Mujahideen within the same
paramilitary force, Western mercenaries from NATO countries fight alongside
Mujahideen recruited in the Middle East and Central Asia. And the US media
calls this a “blowback” where so-called “intelligence assets” have gone against
their sponsors!
But this did not happen during the Cold war! It happened in
Macedonia in 2000-2001. Confirmed by numerous press reports, eyewitness
accounts, photographic evidence as well as official statements by the
Macedonian Prime Minister, who accused the Western military alliance of
abetting the terrorists, the US had been supporting the Islamic brigades barely
a few months prior to the 9/11 attacks.
Washington’s Hidden Agenda
U.S. foreign policy is not geared towards curbing the tide of Islamic
fundamentalism. In fact, it is quite the opposite. The significant development
of “radical Islam”, in the wake of the Cold War in the former Soviet Union and
the Middle East is consistent with Washington’s hidden agenda. The latter
consists in sustaining rather than combating international terrorism, with a
view to destabilizing national societies and preventing the articulation of
genuine secular social movements directed against the American Empire.
Washington continues to support — through CIA covert operations
— the development of Islamic fundamentalism, throughout the Middle East, in the
former Soviet Union as well in China and India.
Throughout the developing world, the growth of sectarian,
fundamentalist and other such organizations tends to serve U.S. interests.
These various organizations and armed insurgents have been developed,
particularly in countries where state institutions have collapsed under the
brunt of the IMF-sponsored economic reforms.
These fundamentalist organizations contribute by destroying and
displacing secular institutions.
Islamic fundamentalism creates social and ethnic divisions. It
undermines the capacity of people to organize against the American Empire.
These organizations or movements, such as the Taliban, often foment “opposition
to Uncle Sam” in a way which does not constitute any real threat to America’s
broader geopolitical and economic interests.
Erasing the History of Al Qaeda
Since September 2001, this history of Al Qaeda has largely been
erased. The links of successive US administrations to the “Islamic terror
network” is rarely mentioned.
A major war in the Middle East and Central Asia, supposedly
“against international terrorism” was launched in October 2001 by a government
which had been harboring international terrorism as part of its foreign policy
agenda. In other words, the main justification for waging war on Afghanistan
and Iraq has been totally fabricated. The American people have been
deliberately and consciously misled by their government.
This decision to mislead the American people was taken on
September 11, 2001 barely a few hours after the terrorist attacks on the World
Trade Centre. Without supporting evidence, Osama had already been tagged as the
“prime suspect”. Two days later on Thursday the 13th of September — while the
FBI investigation had barely commenced — President Bush pledged to “lead the
world to victory”.
While the CIA tacitly acknowledges that Al Qaeda was an
“intelligence asset” during the Cold War, the relationship is said to “go way
back” to a bygone era.
Most post-September 11 news reports tend to consider that these
Al Qaeda -CIA links belong to the “bygone era” of the Soviet-Afghan war. They
are invariably viewed as irrelevant to an understanding of
9/11 and the “Global War on Terrorism”. Yet barely a few months before 9/11,
there was evidence of active collaboration between members of the US military
and Al Qaeda operatives in the civil war in Macedonia.
Lost in the barrage of recent history, the role of the CIA, in
supporting and developing international terrorist organizations during the Cold
War and its aftermath, is casually ignored or downplayed by the Western media.
A blatant example of post-9/11 media distortion is the
“blowback” thesis: “Intelligence assets” are said to “have gone against their
sponsors; what we’ve created blows back in our face”.1 In a display of twisted
logic, the U.S. administration and the CIA are portrayed as the ill-fated
victims:
The sophisticated methods taught to the Mujahideen, and the
thousands of tons of arms supplied to them by the U.S. — and Britain — are now
tormenting the West in the phenomenon known as “blowback”, whereby a policy
strategy rebounds on its own devisers.(The Guardian, London, 15
September 2001)
The U.S. media, nonetheless, concedes that “the Taliban’s coming
to power [in 1996] is partly the outcome of the U.S. support of the Mujahideen
— the radical Islamic group — in the 1980s in the war against the Soviet
Union”. 3 But it also readily dismisses its own factual statements and concludes,
in chorus, that the CIA had been tricked by a deceitful Osama. It’s like “a son
going against his father”.
The Post 9/11 “War on Terrorism”
The “blowback” thesis is a fabrication.
The CIA never severed its ties to the “Islamic Militant
Network”. There is ample evidence that Al Qaeda remains a US sponsored
intelligence asset.
Al Qaeda is presented as the architect of 9/11 without ever
mentioning its historical links to the CIA and Pakistan’s ISI.
While Al Qaeda remains firmly under the control of the US
intelligence apparatus, the US administration has repeatedly intimated that
this “outside enemy” will strike again, that a “second 9/11’ will occur
somewhere in America or in the western World:
[there are] “indications that [the] near-term attacks … will
either rival or exceed the [9/11] attacks…
And it’s pretty clear that the nation’s capital and New York
city would be on any list…”(Tom Ridge, Christmas 2003)
“You ask, ‘Is it serious?’ Yes, you bet your life. People don’t
do that unless it’s a serious situation.”(Donald Rumsfeld, Christmas 2003)
“Credible reporting indicates that Al Qaeda is moving forward
with its plans to carry out a large-scale attack in the United States in an
effort to disrupt our democratic process… This is sobering information about
those who wish to do us harm… But every day we strengthen the security of our
nation.” (George W. Bush, July 2004)
“The enemy that struck on 9/11 is fractured and weakened, yet
still lethal, still determined to hit us again”(Dick Cheney, July 2006)
“Another [9/11] attack could create both a justification and an
opportunity to retaliate against some known targets”(Pentagon official, quoted
in the Washington Post, 23 April 2006)
War Propaganda
A terrorist attack on American soil of the size and nature of
September 11, would lead –according to former US Central Command (USCENTCOM)
Commander, General Tommy Franks, who led the invasion of Iraq in 2003 — to the
demise of Constitutional government. In a December 2003 interview, which was
barely mentioned in the US media, General Franks had actually outlined a
scenario which would result in the suspension of the Constitution and the
installation of military rule in America:
“[A] terrorist, massive, casualty-producing event [will occur]
somewhere in the Western world – it may be in the United States of America –
that causes our population to question our own Constitution and to begin to
militarize our country in order to avoid a repeat of another mass,
casualty-producing event. (Cigar Aficionado, December 2003)
Franks was alluding to a so-called “Pearl Harbor type event”
which would be used to galvanize US public opinion in support of a military
government and police state.
The “terrorist massive casualty-producing event” was presented
by General Franks as a crucial political turning point. The resulting crisis,
social turmoil and public indignation would facilitate a major shift in US
political, social and institutional structures.
It is important to understand that General Franks was not giving
a personal opinion on this issue. His statement is consistent with the dominant
viewpoint both in the Pentagon and the Homeland Security department as to how
events might unfold in the case of a national emergency.
“Massive Casualty Producing Events”
The “massive casualty producing event” is a integral part of
military doctrine. The destruction and loss of life resulting from a terrorist
attack serve to create a wave of public indignation. They create conditions of
collective fear and intimidation, which facilitate the derogation of civil
liberties and the introduction of police state measures.
The September 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center and the
Pentagon were used to galvanize public support for the invasion of Afghanistan,
which took place barely four weeks later. Without supporting evidence, Al
Qaeda, which was allegedly supported by the Taliban government, was held
responsible for the 911 attacks.
The planning of a major theater war had been ongoing well before
9/11. Whereas the US military was already in an “advanced state of readiness”,
well at in advance of the 9/11 attacks, the decision to go to war with
Afghanistan was taken on the evening of September 11 and was formally announced
the following morning. Meanwhile, NATO invoked Article 5 of the Washington
Treaty and declared war on Afghanistan on behalf of all signatory member states
of the Atlantic Alliance. NATO’s declaration of war based on the principle of
“self-defense” was taken within 24 hours of the September 11 attacks.
Article 5 of the Washington Treaty was first invoked on
September 12, 2001. America’s European Allies plus Canada offered their support
in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. NATO embraced the US sponsored
“Global War on Terrorism”. Fourteen NATO member states sent troops to
Afghanistan. (See NATO Review, Summer 2006,http://www.nato.int/docu/review/2006/issue2/english/summaries.html )
Operation Northwoods
The 9/11 “massive casualty producing event” played a crucial
role in the process of military planning. It provided, in the eyes of public
opinion, a pretext to go to war.
The triggering of “war pretext incidents” is part of the
Pentagon’s assumptions. In fact it is an integral part of US military history.
In 1962, the Joint Chiefs of Staff had envisaged a secret plan
entitled “Operation Northwoods, to deliberately trigger civilian casualties to
justify the invasion of Cuba:
“We could blow up a U.S. ship in Guantanamo Bay and blame Cuba,”
“We could develop a Communist Cuban terror campaign in the Miami area, in other
Florida cities and even in Washington” “casualty lists in U.S. newspapers would
cause a helpful wave of national indignation.” (See the declassified Top Secret
1962 document titled “Justification for U.S. Military Intervention in Cuba”,
See Operation Northwoods athttp://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/NOR111A.html ).
Terror Warnings and Terror Events
To be “effective” the fear and disinformation campaign cannot
solely rely on unsubstantiated “warnings” of future attacks, it also requires
“real” terrorist occurrences or “incidents”, which provide credibility to the
Administration’s war plans. Propaganda endorses the need to implement
“emergency measures” as well as carry out retaliatory military actions.
Both the terror warnings and the terror events have served as a
pretext to justify far-reaching military decisions.
Following the July 2005 London bombings, Vice President Dick
Cheney was reported to have instructed USSTRATCOM to draw up a contingency plan
“to be employed in response to another 9/11-type terrorist attack on the United
States”. Implied in the contingency plan is the certainty that Iran would be
behind a Second 9/11.
This “contingency plan” used the pretext of a “Second 9/11″,
which had not yet happened, to prepare for a major military operation against
Iran, while pressure was also exerted on Tehran in relation to its
(non-existent) nuclear weapons program.
What is diabolical in this decision of the US Vice President is
that the justification presented by Cheney to wage war on Iran rested on Iran’s
alleged involvement in a hypothetical terrorist attack on America, which had
not yet occurred:
The plan includes a large-scale air assault on Iran employing
both conventional and tactical nuclear weapons. Within Iran there are more than
450 major strategic targets, including numerous suspected
nuclear-weapons-program development sites. Many of the targets are hardened or
are deep underground and could not be taken out by conventional weapons, hence
the nuclear option. As in the case of Iraq, the response is not conditional on
Iran actually being involved in the act of terrorism directed against the United
States. Several senior Air Force officers involved in the planning are
reportedly appalled at the implications of what they are doing—that Iran is
being set up for an unprovoked nuclear attack—but no one is prepared to damage
his career by posing any objections. (Philip Giraldi, Attack on Iran: Pre-emptive Nuclear War , The
American Conservative, 2 August 2005)
Are we to understand that US, British and Israeli military
planners are waiting in limbo for a Second 9/11, to launch a military operation
directed against Syria and Iran?
Cheney’s proposed “contingency plan” did not in the least focus
on preventing a Second 9/11. The Cheney plan was predicated on the presumption
that Iran would be behind a Second 9/11 and that punitive bombings could
immediately be activated, prior to the conduct of an investigation, much in the
same way as the attacks on Afghanistan in October 2001, allegedly in
retribution for the alleged support of the Taliban government to the 9/11
terrorists.
It is worth noting that one does not plan a war in three weeks:
the bombing and invasion of Afghanistan had been planned well in advance of
9/11. As Michael Keefer points out in an incisive review article:
“At a deeper level, it implies that “9/11-type terrorist
attacks” are recognized in Cheney’s office and the Pentagon as appropriate
means of legitimizing wars of aggression against any country selected for that
treatment by the regime and its corporate propaganda-amplification system….
(Michael Keefer, Petrodollars and Nuclear Weapons Proliferation: Understanding
the Planned Assault on Iran, Global Research, February 10, 2006)
Since 2001, Vice President Cheney has reiterated his warning of
a second 9/11 on several occasions
“The enemy that struck on 9/11 is fractured and weakened, yet
still lethal, still determined to hit us again” (Waterloo Courier, Iowa, 19
July 2006, italics added).
“Justification and Opportunity to Retaliate against some known
targets”
In April 2006, (former) Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld
launched a far-reaching military plan to fight terrorism around the World, with
a view to retaliating in the case of a second major terrorist attack on
America.
“Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld has approved the
military’s most ambitious plan yet to fight terrorism around the world and
retaliate more rapidly and decisively in the case of another major
terrorist attack on the United States, according to defense officials.
The long-awaited campaign plan for the global war on terrorism,
as well as two subordinate plans also approved within the past month by
Rumsfeld, are considered the Pentagon’s highest priority, according to
officials familiar with the three documents who spoke on the condition of
anonymity because they were not authorized to speak about them publicly.
Details of the plans are secret, but in general they envision a
significantly expanded role for the military — and, in particular, a growing
force of elite Special Operations troops — in continuous operations to combat
terrorism outside of war zones such as Iraq and Afghanistan. Developed over
about three years by the Special Operations Command (SOCOM) in Tampa, the plans
reflect a beefing up of the Pentagon’s involvement in domains traditionally
handled by the Central Intelligence Agency and the State Department.
(Washington Post, 23 April 2006)
This plan is predicated on the possibility of a Second 911 and
the need to retaliate if and when the US is attacked:
“A third plan sets out how the military can both disrupt and
respond to another major terrorist strike on the United States. It includes
lengthy annexes that offer a menu of options for the military to retaliate
quickly against specific terrorist groups, individuals or state sponsors
depending on who is believed to be behind an attack. Another attack could
create both a justification and an opportunity that is lacking today to
retaliate against some known targets, according to current and former defense
officials familiar with the plan.
This plan details “what terrorists or bad guys we would hit if
the gloves came off. The gloves are not off,” said one official, who asked not
to be identified because of the sensitivity of the subject.” (italics added,
Washington Post, 23 April 2006)
The presumption of this military document, is that a Second 911
attack “which is lacking today” would usefully create both a “justification and
an opportunity” to wage war on “some known targets [Iran and Syria]“.
Realities are twisted upside down. The disinformation campaign
has gone into full gear. The British and US media are increasingly pointing
towards “preemptive war” as an act of “self defense” against Al Qaeda and the
State sponsors of terrorism, who are allegedly preparing a Second 911. The
underlying objective, through fear and intimidation, is ultimately to build
public acceptance for the next stage of the Middle East “war on terrorism”
which is directed against Syria and Iran.
Concluding Remarks
The threat of an Al Qaeda “Attack on America” is being used
profusely by the Bush administration and its indefectible British ally to
galvanize public opinion in support of a global military agenda.
Known and documented, the “Islamic terror network” is a creation
of the US intelligence apparatus. There is firm evidence that several of the
terrorist “mass casualty events” which have resulted in civilian casualties
were triggered by the military and/or intelligence services. Similarly,
corroborated by evidence, several of the terror alerts were based on fake
intelligence as revealed in the London 2006 foiled “liquid bomb attack”, where
the alleged hijackers had not purchased airline tickets and several did not
have passports to board the aircraft.
The “war on terrorism” is bogus. The 911 narrative as conveyed
by the 911 Commission report is fabricated. The Bush administration is involved
in acts of cover-up and complicity at the highest levels of government.
Revealing the lies behind 911 would serve to undermine the
legitimacy of the “war on terrorism”.
Revealing the lies behind 911 should be part of a consistent
antiwar movement.
Without 911, the war criminals in high office do not have a leg
to stand on. The entire national security construct collapses like a deck of
cards.
Michel Chossudovsky is the author of the international
bestseller America’s “War on Terrorism” Global
Research, 2005. He is Professor of Economics at the University of Ottawa and
Director of the Center for Research on Globalization.
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