World War III - 'This Was Not An Intelligence Failure'
By Michael C. Ruppert
From The Wilderness www.copvcia.com
© 2001 All Rights Reserved
9-24-1
Some of us will come out of the shock sooner than others. Some of us will
acknowledge the fear and the hurt sooner than others. Sooner or later we all
will feel the pain. But the unfolding of events following the September 11
attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon will wait for none of us.
I do not rely on the fifteen or so times that I have seen the term "World
War III" used by major publications like the New York Times. I rely on my
knowledge of how the U.S. military, intelligence and economic infrastructure
will respond to a given set of circumstances. In this case, the relevant
context for these tragedies had developed long before last Tuesday's events.
Only a few, as yet, grasp the dynamics already in motion that will almost
certainly produce a long and protracted war, as well as huge economic and
perhaps physical dislocations in the United States and around the world.
Additional attacks on Americans are almost a certainty, even -- as I am
about to describe -- a necessity. The rhetoric from President Bush and his
Administration contains messages for the American people, which they do not
yet grasp, and for terrorist organizations, which they most certainly do.
"This is a war and it will not be a short war." "This will not be over
quickly." "We have a war plan that will work, over whatever period of time
it requires." "There will be many casualties. The military is prepared for
that." "This is not just an effort to get bin Laden. This is a war to wipe
out terrorism all over the world." "We are not thinking just in terms of a
few air strikes. Ground troops will be involved. And some of them will die."
"We will go after terrorism wherever terrorism threatens the United States."
"Americans need to be prepared for more sacrifices and more casualties."
"Just removing bin Laden won't suffice. We are going after terrorism in all
of the countries where it resides."
The last statement is the first great lie of this war. As the U.S.
government has announced its partnership with the drug-financed government
of Pakistan, which has supported terrorist groups from the Middle East to
the Balkans, to China, to Southeast Asia, the deception begins. Indeed,
after Afghanistan, Pakistan should have been the first great enemy in this
war. It's long support of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan ended only as
the Taliban destroyed most of that nation's opium crop in February of this
year. As in every conflict since World War II, the drug trade will now see a
new day of freedom.
And I guarantee that terrorist groups are well aware of one fact that we, as
Americans, have not yet grasped. George W. Bush carries on his shoulder the
political memory of a father who waged a war against Sadam Hussein and then
left him in power. He can afford no such image in the current context and
the military he commands must become engaged in a do or die battle. They
too, will accept no less.
That said, the terrorist groups in or from Pakistan, Iran, Iraq, Libya,
Syria, the Sudan, Yemen, Jordan, Algeria, Somalia, Turkey, Chechnya,
Uzbekistan, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Germany, Ireland, France,
Spain, Italy, Albania, Peru, Colombia, Ecuador and Mexico know that they are
now in a "use it or lose it" position. For, not knowing where and when the
industrialized nations may strike, they now realize that almost any action
against any political group will go unchallenged in the world press. Even
separatist groups not posing an immediate threat can be conveniently
eliminated in the months and perhaps years to come. As evidenced by the
almost immediate admission of China into the World Trade Organization, after
15 years of unsuccessful attempts, the warp drive for globalization -
unfettered by any need to respond to public opinion - has now been engaged.
The most cynical part of me hopes that the headline for this war will not
be, "The G-8 Wipes Out Poverty." In this model I must say that the long
discussed, but rarely acknowledged, alleged plans for massive global
population reduction are no longer a "back burner" issue.
Therefore, in this context, the American people must expect additional
attacks that may even include biological warfare or nuclear devices on
American soil. And these attacks, already being hinted at by the
Administration, will serve an additional purpose. Two days after the attacks
every street and highway was a sea of American flags. Now, a week after the
attacks - at least in Los Angeles - they are hard to find. Whether we admit
it or not, what the vast majority of the American people really want is for
this to go away. Only sustained attacks on the American people will provide
George W. Bush with the political mandate to wage the war he has committed
to fight - to the bitter end. As the economic impact sinks in, and as
Americans feel the pain in their wallets, the willingness of American
citizens to experience the carnage that has been raging around the world for
decades - in the name of prosperity and for the benefit of the G-8's largest
corporations - is, in my opinion, a big question mark. Do not expect a quick
recovery in the stock market based upon emotion. As we describe in this
issue, the fundamental weaknesses in the U.S. economy were not blown up with
these attacks. And the markets, if they can still be called that, are driven
by one 800 pound guerilla above all others - earnings. With the exception of
defense contractors, there is absolutely nothing hopeful to report and I,
for one, cannot and refuse to be an advocate for investing in the
destruction of the planet.
The United States has many enemies. It is the economic enemies that warrant
the most scrutiny now because the perception that America is the safest
place in the world in which to invest foreign capital has been dealt a huge
blow. Further blows will come with further attacks and this exposes the fine
line that the Administration must walk. Without more attacks at home, the
bold gambit of George Bush, et al will fail for lack of political support.
With them, the world may eventually conclude that the United States is
economically expendable as nations look to their own interests. Too much
economic blood in the water will start a feeding frenzy.
In the major media, in the alternative media, in Congress and around the
world the context now provides the opportunity for great lights with
courageous souls to emerge and to lead. We are walking a fine line on a
precipice that may lead to Armageddon or, please God, something better. The
Bush Administration is not equipped with a repertoire of responses
sufficient to navigate the long term perils. We must dig and find something
better within ourselves.
We are living in a whole New World. We just don't know what it looks like
yet. ___
The U.S. Had Advance Warning And Could Have Acted --This Was Not An
Intelligence "Failure"
To grasp the meaning of the events of 9-11-01, it is critical to go past the
widely acknowledged reports that the U.S. had general warnings of a
terrorist attack and to look for evidence that the U.S. government had
specific warnings of attacks on airports and aircraft. Further, the task is
to look for any warnings that signaled the size and scope of the attack and
went beyond the vagaries that we have become used to. These will provide the
clues needed to understand that the devastating attacks of Sept. 11 served a
distinct purpose for the Bush Administration and those in control of the
U.S. economy. Given this year's revelations on The History Channel --
including classified documents and the on-camera testimony of intelligence
officers -- that the U.S. knew the Japanese were going to attack Pearl
Harbor, and allowed it to happen in order to bring the country into World
War II, we cannot be so blind as to overlook evidence that it has happened
again.
Leaving aside the intelligence reports that are still secret and will likely
remain so, and remembering the fact that the Federal Bureau of Investigation
had undercover informants working hand in glove with those who perpetrated
the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, a preliminary review of solid
information showing that this attack could have been prevented is only the
beginning of what must remain an essential line of inquiry.
It is premature to jump to conclusions about the rapidity with which the FBI
has gathered essential information. I used the word information, instead of
intelligence or evidence. Evidence is gathered for the court room.
Intelligence is the results of a process done at CIA to evaluate information
from various sources. Understanding the differences between work done by the
FBI and the CIA is a key to understanding the US counterterrorist work.
Hence, use end-result thinking to interpret any counterterrorist discussion
and effort.
Any notice of a potential or alleged terrorist act has a well established
procedure for its handling. According to a reliable source, the United
States government, especially the intelligence community in the early
1980's, had established a clearly defined procedure for handling notices of
threat. The State Department was the lead coordinator and member
intelligence community agencies participated in evaluations. The key is that
everyone understood that the information might be untrue. That is, the
information was still circulated and disseminated to the community so that
protective measures might be considered if justified. That last word
considered was deferred to the agency involved.
However, one thing is certain, based upon what is now known. By itself,
neither the CIA nor the FBI can claim that a lack of resources or human
intelligence prevented them from predicting this attack. Indeed, there is
credible but preliminary and circumstantial information, that certain
segments of Wall Street and the U.S. financial community did know of the
pending attack. There is also evidence that the U.S. government already had
the technical expertise to know what was coming and was likely using it at
the time the attacks occurred.
The Cayman Islands - MS-NBC reported on September 14 that a caller to a
radio talk show made several warnings of an imminent attack by Osama bin
Laden against American Airlines.
Germany - On September 14, the German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine
Zeitung (FAZ) reported that "U.S. and Israeli intelligence agencies received
warning signals at least three months ago that Middle eastern terrorists
were planning to hijack commercial aircraft to use as weapons to attack
important symbols of American and Israeli culture."
According to a report filed by the Post-Newsweek information service, "The
FAZ, quoting unnamed German Intelligence sources, said that the Echelon spy
network was being used to collect information about the terrorist threats,
and that U.K. intelligence services apparently also had advance warning. The
FAZ, one of Germany's most respected dailies, said that even as far back as
six months ago, western and near-east press services were receiving
information that such attacks were being planned.
"Within the American intelligence community, the warnings were taken
seriously and surveillance intensified"
NOTE: Echelon is a highly secret technical intelligence gathering system
used to monitor worldwide communications and coordinated in the U.S. by the
National Security Agency. Participating countries, who eavesdrop on the
citizens of the other member countries -- to avoid civil restrictions
preventing governments from spying on their own citizens -- then pool and
share their information. Participating countries include the U.S.,
Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Great Britain and Germany. The eavesdropping
covers both telephone and email communications.
According to a Feb 13, 2001 UPI story detailing Echelon's use against bin
Laden and other terrorist organizations, "The targets of Echelon center on
the penetration of the major components of most of the world's telephone and
telecommunications systems. This could cover conversations NSA targets. Also
included are all the telexes carried over the world's telecommunications
networks, along with financial dealings: money transfers, airline
destinations, stock information, data on demonstrations or international
conferences and much more."
Germany - The German news agency "online.ie" reported on September 14,
"German police have confirmed an Iranian man phoned U.S. police from his
deportation cell to warn of the planned attack on the World Trade Center.
The Lower Saxony Justice Ministry has confirmed the man warned of impending
series of terrorist attacks, but had not been believed. Spokesman Frank
Woesthoff said the man phoned America 'several times', but refused to give
further details. He said the U.S. Secret Service had not told the ministry
about the calls received from the Langehagen prison until after the attacks.
'I cannot say anything about the man and the ministry does not know the
content of the conversations,' he added. The Hanover daily Neue Presse
reported the 29 year-old was dismissed as mentally unstable when he gave the
warning of the terrorist attack to occur this week. The ministry would not
reveal when the calls had been made."
France - On September 13, Reuters reported, "The FBI arrested an Islamic
militant in Boston last month and received French intelligence reports
linking him to Saudi-born dissident Osama bin Laden but apparently did not
act on them, a French radio station said on Thursday.
"Europe 1 radio reported that U.S. police arrested a man with dual French
and Algerian nationality who had several passports, technical information on
Boeing aircraft and flight manuals.
"The man had been taking flying lessons, it added.
"Asked for information by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, French
security services provided a dossier clearly identifying him as an Islamic
militant working with bin Laden."
Russia - A former CIA officer told FTW that, according to a Russian
newspaper article, Russian intelligence had notified the U.S. government of
the attacks. They even stated that they were aware that 25 pilots had been
specifically trained for the suicide missions.
Russia - On September 15, Russian president Valdimir Putin told interviewers
on MS-NBC that the Russian government had been warning the U.S. of imminent
attacks on airports and government buildings in the strongest possible terms
for weeks.
The United States - A criminal case proceeding in New York courts at the
time of the attacks contradicts the position of conservative news site
WorldNetDaily.com which has taken the position that the Clinton
Administration had provided bin Laden's terrorists with encryption
technology so advanced that the National Security Agency was unable to
penetrate bin Laden's most secure communications.
A February 13, 2001 story by UPI terrorism correspondent Richard Sale
described Echelon's effectiveness against the bin Laden organization in an
active case against him in the U.S. District Court in Manhattan. That case,
wrote Sale, "is based mainly on National Security Agency intercepts of phone
calls between bin Laden and his operatives around the world - Afghanistan to
London, from Kenya to the United States."
The UPI story stated that the technology had been used since at least 1995
and Ben Venzke, director of intelligence and special projects for iDefense,
a Virginia information warfare firm, was quoted in a key paragraph of that
story.
"Since Bin Laden started to encrypt certain calls in 1995, why would they
now be part of a court record? 'Codes were broken,' US officials said, and
Venzke added that you don't use your highest levels of secure communications
all the time. It's too burdensome and it exposes it to other types of
exploitation.'"
The UPI story made it clear that much of the evidence in the case had been
obtained in Echelon intercepts subsequent to the 1998 bombings of U.S.
embassies in East Africa and were presumably still effective at the time of
the New York attacks.
The United States - Several press reports confirm the writing of veteran
journalists Alexander Cockburn and Jeff St. Clair in their Sept. 14 issue of
Counterpunch. "Reports kept coming in to us of advanced warnings that an
attack of some sort was eminent [sic]. San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown was
booked to fly from the Bay area to New York City on the morning of September
11. But Brown says that late Monday evening, a full 8 hours prior to the
attack, he received a call from a person brown described as his airport
security man telling him that he should be extra cautious about air travel
on September 11."
The Financial Markets - Cockburn and St. Clair report, "In addition to what
we have previously reported about heightened security at the World trade
center itself in the weeks leading to the attack and at the Picatinny
Arsenal in Rockaway, New Jersey, Counterpunch has also learned that internal
memo was sent around Goldman Sachs in Tokyo on September 10 advising all
employees of a possible terrorist attack. It recommended all employees to
avoid any American government buildings." Morgan Stanley, the largest tenant
of the WTC complex lost none of its 3500 employees occupying some 50 floors
according to The Washington Post. Neither did Oppenheimer Funds. FTW has
also verified that at least one Goldman Sachs Vice President had taken the
day off to go surfing. This may or may not be a lucky coincidence.
A Word About Promis Software
In the Sept, 2000 issue of FTW (Vol III, No 7) we described recent
developments in the decades-long saga of the legendary Promis software and
this writer's interaction with members of the Royal Canadian Mounted
Police's national security section over its current use by various
intelligence agencies. Promis (Prosecutor's Management Information System)
was specifically reengineered and mated with artificial intelligence during
the 1980s for the purpose of tracking terrorists. One of its main strengths
was its ability to integrate diverse pieces of data and predict the movement
of terrorists based upon financial (e.g. credit card transactions), entries
through various border checkpoints, car rentals and airline ticket
purchases. This special software, refined and enhanced many times since
then, is capable of integrating and coordinating precisely the kind of
information described above and then setting off warning bells. We have
confirmed many times over that Promis' unique abilities have also been
specifically targeted at financial markets to track sudden shifts in
currency and stock speculation as well as the laundering of money.
That being said, we find it extremely disturbing that the UPI and the
Swedish daily newspaper Aftonbladet both published September 14 reports
indicating that Osama Bin Laden had possibly engaged in large scale stock
speculation in the U.S. and Europe just before the attacks. Both stories
suggested that Bin Laden had bought large amounts of "shorts.' Taking a
short position means that an investor, betting that a stock's price will go
down, places a large number of shares up for sale at a given price usually
just at or below the current market price. If a stock is in short supply,
buyers will purchase the stock rapidly and the "short seller" then has a
given period of time to produce the actual shares which he or she is not
required to own at the time of the sale.
The future sale of the stock at a given price is a fixed contract that
cannot be altered. The seller pockets the money before he has to go out and
buy the shares. Therefore, if the seller agrees to sell 10,000 shares of XYZ
company at $100 each and enters into a contract at that price, and if the
stock price falls to $60 the following day, he can make a quick profit of
$400,000 when he buys the stock to complete the contract.
It is inconceivable that such movements were not detected before the WTC
attacks.
Given all of the above, which is only the beginning of what will be revealed
as time passes, only a cretin would believe that the United States
government could not and did not know that these attacks were coming, and
then chose to remain silent. Given these tiny bits of knowledge that are now
public how much more was available to the intelligence community? How could
they have apparently ignored it?
Dissenters will say, "Yes but the CIA has been hamstrung and prevented from
taking pre-emptive action by those liberal do-gooders in Congress." Not so.
A September 14 Reuters story reported accurately, "The CIA has been
authorized since 1998 to use covert means to disrupt and pre-empt terror
operations allegedly planned abroad by Saudi-born dissident Osama bin Laden,
The Washington Post reported Friday.
"The newspaper said the directive, signed by President Clinton and
reaffirmed by his successor, George W. Bush, adhered to a legal ban on the
assassination of foreign leaders but sanctioned the use of lethal force in
self-defense.
"Quoting government sources, the paper said the CIA had used such force
several times to stop armed groups before they initiated attacks."
A final question: Why, in light of all the information we now know the
government had about imminent attacks, did the Bush Administration gift the
Taliban with $43 million in May of this year? The move by the White House,
sorely criticized by columnist Robert Scheer in the May 22, 2001 Los Angeles
Times, was an alleged reward by the U.S. for the Taliban's destruction of
Afghan opium crops in February. Now, the U.S. government is rushing to mate
with a Pakistani regime that sustains itself by, and derives liquid currency
from, the drug trade. The result of that is that opium production will
surely blossom again in Afghanistan - under U.S./CIA control. The obvious
suggestion here is that the U.S., directly or indirectly, helped to fund the
WTC attacks.
It took 60 years for The History Channel, this year, to disclose to us
through U.S. government documents and the statements of intelligence
personnel who participated in it, that the highest levels of both government
and finance knew that the Japanese were going to attack Pearl Harbor on
December 7, 1941. And they kept silent about it. Historically, the key fact
that made the attack suspicious was that all five aircraft carriers of the
Pacific Fleet were conveniently and safely out to sea when the attacks
occurred. In 2001, it appears that the aircraft carriers of American finance
enjoyed the same advantage, one that was not afforded to those who died in
New York, or even to members of the U.S. Congress. That should tell us where
the real power lies. ___
Osama bin Laden's Bush family Business Connections
Alliance With Pakistan Will Stimulate Drug Trade, Bring Revenues Under U.S.
Control - Colombian Opium Production Will Soar
The Taliban's Biggest Economic Attack on the U.S. Came in February With The
Destruction of Its Opium Crop
FTW - Money connections between Bush Republicans and Osama bin Laden go way
back and the political and economic connections have remained unbroken for
20 years. And what appears to be a "new" alliance with Pakistan is merely a
new manifestation of a decades-long partnership in the heroin trade.
Conveniently ignored in all of the press coverage since the tragic events of
Sept. 11 is the fact that on May 17 Secretary of State Colin Powell
announced a gift of $43 million to the Taliban as a purported reward for its
eradication of Afghanistan's opium crop this February. That, in effect, made
the U.S. the Taliban's largest financial benefactor according to syndicated
columnist Robert Scheer writing in The Los Angeles times on May 22. But --
as we described in FTW's March 2001 issue -- the Taliban's destruction of
that crop was apparently the single most important act of economic warfare
against U.S. economic interests that the Taliban had ever committed. So why
the gift?
Critics of the Gulf War well recall how, just prior to Sadam's invasion of
Kuwait, President Bush (Sr.) dispatched Ambassador April Glaspie to visit
Sadam with a letter and a "wink and a nod" telling the Iraqi leader that it
was OK to invade his smaller neighbor. The May gift from Uncle Sam could
well have been sending the same kind of message, along with necessary funds
to complete the attacks. Drugs and terrorism go hand in hand.
Until February, Afghanistan had been the world's largest producer of
opium/heroin, claiming close to 70% of the world's total production. That
opium, consumed largely in Western Europe and smuggled through the Balkans,
was a direct source of cash deposits in Western financial institutions and
markets.
I specifically commented on this at an economic crisis conference in Moscow,
Russia on March 7. In my formal statement to the Russian conference I said,
"Just before coming to this conference I read in the Associated Press,
Agence France Press and other reliable sources that the Taliban has recently
eradicated most of its 3000 ton opium crop in Afghanistan. If true, I view
this as a form of economic warfare against Russia [and the U.S.] because it
would drive opium production more into Southeast Asia and Colombia. However,
I now suspect that this will result in a shift of opium production to the
Caucasus under the Kurds which will see an increase in smuggling through
Armenia, Georgia, and Azerbaijan. I should note that both Vice President
Richard Cheney and the designated Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage
are members of the US-Azerbaijan Chamber of Commerce. Such a move would have
the effect of drastically shortening smuggling routes and costs into Western
Europe and of bypassing unstable areas of the Balkans.
I have received additional reports that Uzbekistan is now awash in the opium
poppy and, as in the US with the CIA, that Russian military and intelligence
agencies facilitate the trade as a means of protecting access to hard
currency. The point here is not that the US it totally evil or the only
country doing these things. But the US is far and away the most advanced
nation when it comes to the use of such methods to achieve superiority. As
[Russian economist Michael] Khazin has noted, the US and Britain and Germany
started the conflict in Kosovo in 1999 to stave off a collapse of western
markets following the Asian collapse of 1997-8. Now Colombia is a last-ditch
effort to protect the US markets and European opposition is jeopardizing
that plan."
The Taliban's actions this year severed the ruling military junta in
Pakistan from its primary source of foreign revenues and made bin Laden and
the Taliban completely expendable in the eyes of the Pakistani government.
It also cut off billions of dollars in revenues that had been previously
laundered through western banks and Russian financial institutions connected
to them.
Now as US military action will replace the Taliban government and fresh
crops will be planted in Afghanistan, the slack in cash flow will assuredly
be replaced by dramatically increased opium production in Colombia; the
revenues from that effort being needed to maintain the revenue streams into
Wall Street. Prior to the WTC attacks, credible sources, including the U.S.
government, the IMF, Le Monde and the U.S. Senate placed the amount of drug
cash flowing into Wall Street and U.S. banks at around $250-$300 billion a
year.
In that context, the real history of Osama bin Laden, as America's useful
terrorist-du-jour reveals a long and continuous history, interwoven with the
drug trade and the Bush family, of supporting conflicts that have benefited
U.S. military and economic interests.
bin Laden There are direct historical links between Osama bin Laden's
business interests and those of the Bush family. On September 15 I received
the following message from FTW subscriber, Professor John Metzger of
Michigan State University:
"We should revisit the history of BCCI, a bank used by the legendary
Palestinian terrorist known as Abu Nidal. BCCI was closely tied to American
and Pakistan intelligence. Its clients included the Afghan rebels, and the
father of Osama bin Laden. The father of bin Laden named Houston investment
broker James R. Bath as his business representative in Texas, right after
George W. Bush's father became CIA director in 1976. By 1977, Bath invested
$50,000 into junior's first business, Arbusto Energy, while Osama bin Laden
would soon become a CIA asset. George W. Bush's FBI director Robert Mueller
was part of the Justice Department's questionable investigation of BCCI. (On
BCCI, the bin Ladens, and the Bushes, see the books, The Outlaw Bank, A Full
Service Bank, and Fortunate Son)." Further details of the business and
financial relationships between the Bush and bin Laden family are found in
Peter Brewton's 1992 book The Mafia, CIA and George Bush. BCCI,
incidentally, was founded by a Pakistani.
Economics Professor Michel Chossudovsky of the University of Ottawa has just
completed a detailed history of bin Laden's career detailing his secret
funding and logistical support to terrorist organizations beginning from his
early CIA-supported roots in the 1980s as a "freedom fighter" through to the
present day. Chossudovsky's compelling and well documented article, Who Is
Osama Bin Laden? dated Sept 12, 2001 can be found on the Internet at:
http://globalresearch.ca/articles/CHO109C.html.
Bin Laden's role has not just been as a practitioner of terrorist acts but
as a trainer and supplier of terrorist organizations around the world.
Included in bin Laden's coterie are terrorist groups linked to the Balkans,
Albania, the KLA (a U.S. ally), and rebel groups leading the insurrection
against Russia in Chechnya.
As FTW described in 1998, and as confirmed by Chossudovsky, the key to
understanding U.S. support of bin Laden is to grasp that he has always been
controlled by a cutout, the Pakistani government and its intelligence
service the ISI. In this manner there has been virtually no direct contact
between bin Laden and the CIA. This has served the dual purpose of
maintaining his apparent "purity" with his followers and providing plausible
deniability for the CIA. The whole underlying pretext for this relationship
evaporated with the Taliban's destruction of the opium crop in February.
Chossudovsky writes:
"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. In this regard [Professor] 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 sent of the U.S. demand
"With the disintegration of the Soviet Union, a new surge in opium
production has unfolded. (According to UN estimates, the production of opium
in Afghanistan in 1998-99 -- coinciding with the build up of armed
insurgencies in the former Soviet republics -- reached a record high of 4600
metric tons. Powerful business syndicates in the former Soviet Union allied
with organized crime are competing for the strategic control over the heroin
routes.
"The ISI's extensive intelligence military-network was not dismantled in the
wake of the Cold War. The CIA continued to support the Islamic "jihad" out
of Pakistan"
" 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 the last few months there is evidence that
Mujhideen mercenaries are fighting in the ranks of the KLA-NLA terrorists in
their assaults into Macedonia
" With regard to Chechnya, the main rebel leaders Shamil Basayev and Al
Khattab were trained and indoctrinated in CIA sponsored camps in Afghanistan
and Pakistan In this regard, the involvement of Pakistan's ISI and its
radical Islamic proxies are actually calling the shots in this war.
"Russia's main pipeline route transits through Chechnya and Dagestan.
Despite Washington's perfunctory condemnation of Islamic terrorism, the
indirect beneficiaries of the Chechen war are the Anglo-American oil
conglomerates which are vying for control over oil resources and pipeline
corridors out of the Caspian Sea basin."
The oil and drug connections were the subject of FTW's story, The
Bush-Cheney drug Empire in October, 2000. That story is online at
http://www.copvcia.com/stories/previous/bush-cheney-drugs.html. Both Bush
and Cheney are oil men.
George Bush, Sr. was Vice President and, by virtue of executive Order 12333,
in charge of all U.S. intelligence and narcotics operations from 1981
through 1989. As President from 1989 through 1993, he continued and expanded
his control in these areas. Thus, it was Bush (the elder) who directly
nourished and nurtured bin Laden's evolution.
Dramatic Confirmation From Indian Government
The web site of the Indian Embassy in Washington contains dramatic
confirmation for these positions. On September 4, 2000, B. Raman, Director
of India's Institute for Topical Studies wrote an open letter to the U.S.
Congress entitled Pakistan's Noriega's. That eight-page article exposed the
depth of Pakistani government involvement in the drug trade. It may be
viewed at www.indianembassy.org/int_media/saag_september_04_2000.html.
The letter said, in part:
"For more than a decade, the people of India have been living in a state of
half-war and half-peace due to the depredations of a large number of
terrorists, outrageously called jehadists, who have been trained, armed and
funded and infiltrated into the State of Jammu & Kashmir and other parts of
India by Pakistan in order to make the people of India and its security
forces bleed in the name of religion.
"More people belonging to different religions -- Hindus, Muslims,
Christians, Sikhs, Buddhists and others -- have been killed in India by
these mercenary-terrorists sponsored by the State of Pakistan than by any
other terrorist groups anywhere else in the world"
"Many other States have suffered and have been suffering due to the
depredations of terrorists, made in and exported from Pakistan and the
Taliban-controlled Afghanistan -- [these include] Algeria, Egypt, Saudi
Arabia, the Central Asian Republics, the Chechnya and Dagestan areas of
Russia, the Xinjiang province of China, Bangladesh, the Arakan area of Burma
and the southern Philippines..."
"After his [1993] removal, [as official head of Pakistani intelligence,
trusted advisor to Pakistani leader Gen. Pervez Musharraf] Lt. Gen. Nasir
traveled to Somalia, Chechnya, Dagestan, the Central Asian Republics, China,
and the Southern Philippines as a preacher and helped Islamic organizations,
including the group which killed U.S. troops in Somalia."
"It was he, who, during his tenure as the DG [Director General] of the ISI
has entered into an agreement with the LTTE of Sri Lanka [which secured]
LTTE's assistance in smuggling Afghanistan produced heroin in its ships to
West Europe, the USA and Canada"
"Another reason for the ISI's helping the LTTE, despite its anti-Muslim
policies, was to use it for smuggling heroin to West Europe, the U.S. and
Canada. During Zia-ul-Haq's regime in the 1980s, heroin had become a major
source of extra revenue not only for the State of Pakistan, especially the
ISI and Pakistan's nuclear and missile establishment, but also to many
senior officers of the Pakistan Army, including [Musharraf et al]"
"The way Mr. Sharif before October 1999 and Gen. Musharraf since then have
been using the heroin money to prevent the Pakistani economy from collapsing
has not received due attention in the U.S. ..."
"If one goes purely by economic indicators, Pakistan's must be in as bad a
shape as that of Russia, or even worse, since Russia has been in receipt of
Western and IMF assistance"
"Where does the money come from? From the smuggling of heroin to West
Europe, the U.S. and Canada. The U.S. Government might have stopped economic
assistance from the taxpayers' money. But why should the Noriegas of
Pakistan be worried when they get billions of dollars from the heroin sale
in the U.S.? "
Vice President ***** Cheney's recent comment that the CIA needs to get in bed
with "unsavory characters" is a joke. That's a bed that the CIA has never
left. And it's a marriage vow that President Bush has just reaffirmed for
all the world to see. ___
An Economic Conspiracy?
FTW - [Expanded from an initial report dated 9-13-01] - On Sept. 11, 2001
the two most visible symbols of American economic and military power -- the
World Trade Center (WTC) and the Pentagon -- were simultaneously hit in a
well-planned and well financed attack that will have enormous and permanent
impact on the world economy and American culture. Just a day after the
attacks, which brought the planet to a halt, both CNN and Reuters - after
interviewing many financial experts - reported the likelihood of a worldwide
recession. This prediction has apparently been confirmed with the reopening
of U.S. markets as the Dow Jones Industrial average lost 684 points or 7% of
its value on Monday September, 17th. Americans have not yet grasped the
implications for their jobs, pensions plans, home equity or future income.
As major central banks have acted swiftly, with as much as $70 billion in
instant cash infusions to stem immediate spikes in oil and gold prices,
their subsequent actions in multilateral agreements between the Federal
Reserve, British banks and the European Central Bank, indicate that this
policy will continue. But it cannot last forever and its long-term
effectiveness is in question.
Just two days before the attacks we had issued an urgent electronic bulletin
warning that, as a result of many years of manipulation of gold prices by
the Federal Reserve, the Treasury and major investment banks, and a $30
trillion derivatives bubble on the verge of bursting, the U.S. economy was
in peril of an immediate and cataclysmic crash. That crash now has a
convenient -- if untrue -- explanation.
It is then, perhaps, coincidental that on 9-11, the day of the attack, there
was a meeting in Basel Switzerland at the Bank for International Settlements
(BIS). The BIS is known as the bank for world's central bankers - is also
the world "policeman" of the gold trade. All G-10 central banks were
represented on the day of the attack. Federal Reserve Chairman Alan
Greenspan was there, safely out of harm's way. Another telling coincidence
is that a critical hearing in a suit brought by the Gold Anti Trust Action
Committee (GATA) -- which alleges BIS collusion in the rigging of gold
prices was scheduled to be heard in U.S. District court in Boston on October
9th.
In another coincidence, the headquarters of Comex, the precious metals
trading exchange, was destroyed in the attacks, along with whatever records
were kept there. The central banks of many nations also had WTC offices and
some also had vaults in the basement. Estimates of the amount of gold stored
in the WTC range from a low of $100 million to a high of $16 billion. The
status of the gold is unknown at this time. What is known is that there are
futures options on gold amounting to roughly five times the actual amount of
physical gold in existence.
The destruction of records in the attacks was not limited to banking
records. The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) maintained
investigative offices at the WTC. At the time of the attack the SEC was
investigating, among others, Credit Suisse -- a major player in the gold
trade -- for massive irregularities connected to the Wall Street Bubble. The
Wall Street Journal on September 13 reported the destruction of the regional
enforcement office of the SEC, located in 7 World Trade Center:
"The collapse of [building] No. 7 on Tuesday took with it documents and
computer records focused on hundreds of investigations, as well as records
related to broker-dealers. The New York office is well-known for handling
numerous insider-trading cases, as well as small-company stock manipulation
cases involving organized-crime families."
"According to an unnamed Journal source, there are off-site copies of some
of these records, but 'other material is lost forever, including many raw
notes taken by SEC lawyers during their investigations and audiotaped
evidence that was not shared with the U.S. Attorney's office or other
government investigators.' The SEC believes all staff was evacuated, but the
regional director said, 'It's going to be a monumental task getting back in
operation.'"
bin Laden, et al
In a number of media appearances beginning on the evening of September 11,
former CIA Director James Woolsey has now begun pointing the finger at
"state sponsorship," - the prime suspect being Iraq. FTW strongly suspects
eventual finger pointing and military action at the one Arab country known
to sponsor terrorism that has not been mentioned in any press reports -
Libya. Militarily, it is an easily conquered enemy with shores on the
Mediterranean and its oil reserves would quickly lower pressures on the U.S.
markets.
Continuing revelations as to the complexity of the attacks continues to
suggest logistical, intelligence and financial resources beyond bin Laden's
known abilities. In addition, bin Laden's lineage, as a protégé of the CIA
from the Afghan conflict of the 1980s, threatens to raise serious questions
which the American government might not want answered.
As some American news outlets, including MS-NBC and the Houston Chronicle
demonstrate great courage by looking into bin Laden's past links to CIA and
the Bushes, the most compelling leads are the flight training schools
attended by many of the pilots involved in the attacks. FTW has begun a
major investigation into links between these schools and U.S. interests and
even Newsweek has issued a report on Sept. 14 showing that some of the
pilots may have received training at U.S. military installations.
Dispelling One Rumor
As speculation ran rampant in the first hours after the attacks, reports
that explosives had been placed in the World Trade Center spread rapidly. We
quickly concluded, based upon expert opinions and a BBC report, that this
was not a plausible theory. Jet fuel, burning at 2000 degrees Fahrenheit,
some 400 degree hotter than the temperature required to melt steel, cascaded
quickly down elevator shafts and engulfed critical support pillars placed in
the center of the building. A BBC diagram of the building showed that the
main elevator banks and air shafts were centrally located. This would
explain why the building seemed to collapse inward as the interior columns
melted.
This opinion was shared by retired Air Force General Ben Partin who has
spent his career studying the destruction of various structures by military
attack. Additionally, the placement of explosives in the building could only
have been carried out before the air attacks and that would have run counter
to known procedures for covert operations. WTC employees had experienced a
bomb in 1993 and were conditioned to look for explosives. So many explosives
would have been required that the likelihood of discovery before the plane
crashes would have increased. And evacuation of the buildings before the
attack would have greatly diminished their symbolic victory.
Quo Vadis?
World confidence in the security of US markets and the economy has been
shattered. FTW correspondents in Moscow report a divergence between public
and official government reaction. Three people reported from Moscow on
Wednesday, an immediate move by Russian citizens to sell US dollars - the
most common form of savings in the economically battered country - resulting
in a dramatic plunge in public exchange rates from 29:1 to as low as 15:1
overnight. However a Russian government source told FTW on Thursday that
rates on MICEX (The Moscow International Currency Exchange) have remained
stable. In early trading the Russian stock exchange lost 5% of its value.
Of a certainty, consumer confidence -- recently touted as the savior of the
US economy -- has been demolished around the globe. Asian economies, already
venturing deeper into recession, had been looking for increased US orders,
based upon consumer confidence, to boost exports as a life preserver. That
life preserver has evaporated. A CNN story today quoted Asian financial
expert Andy Xie of Morgan Stanley as saying that consumer confidence had
"tipped over."
"We are going down to the bottom," Xie said. "no one knows where that is."
Reuters quoted a Chief Economist at Wells Fargo as saying, "A full-blown
global recession is highly likely."
It is interesting to note that the plan for globalization of the world's
economy has been greatly aided by recent events. On September 17, 2001 the
World Trade Organization (WTO) announced that China would be immediately
admitted as a member country. If announced at any other time this move would
have drawn widespread criticism and perhaps large scale demonstration's.
A fine line is called for in the walk between panic and precaution,
especially in a New World that has not been defined and needs to be explored
even as it reveals itself to us. The very real possibility of a global
conflict that will claim millions of lives, perhaps more, is before us. At
the moment my best recommendation is buying physical gold - even in the form
of jewelry - and keeping extremely vigilant. And we can pray that a free
press will find its strength and purpose, and that people all over the globe
will find the will to keep the madmen from driving the planet off a cliff.
___
FTW's Warning - Two Days Before The Attack
On September 9, just two days before the World Trade Center attack FTW
issued an electronic subscriber bulletin, warning of an imminent economic
collapse. That collapse was to have been triggered by a huge bubble on Wall
Street that was already bursting, a huge manipulation in world gold prices
and the overselling of gold by central banks, and an estimated $20-30
trillion derivatives bubble that was also on the verge of an immediate
implosion. We attached a shocking economic expose with that bulletin which
had been published on the website www.lemetropolecafe.com. We regret that
space limitations prevent us from placing that article here. To obtain a
better understand of the gold issue, previously covered in FTW we also
strongly recommend that you visit www.gata.org .
[As published on Sept. 9, 2001] I cannot overstate the importance of this
post in helping to understand the economic precipice on which we are all
perched. More importantly, there is also a huge socio-political precipice
that is just as dangerous because of the fact that trust in government
institutions is at an all time low. Every time there is a police shooting
these days, whether as corrupt as those revealed in Miami recently; as
indicative of bad judgement and poor training as the one in Santa Clarita;
or as justified as those in Indiana; the "automatic" reaction of many now is
that the cops are always wrong. This "barometer" of public trust indicates
that average people are beginning to have a first reaction that government
and major institutions are "the enemy" rather than that they should be
trusted. Right or wrong, the implications for society as a whole are ominous
when emotion overrides reason.
"Let them eat cake."
It is this mix of economic and socio/political nitroglycerin that scares me.
I am joined by many "thinkers" now in sensing the possibility of a "Reign of
Terror," or mindless bloodletting. It would have nothing to do with justice,
good and evil, right or wrong and it would not subside until the fear and
revenge quotients just below the surface of the collective consciousness
have spent themselves. This is especially true for the nations of the world
whose populations have suffered under US economic bullying and globalization
for many decades.
The sooner corrective action is taken the better. The more it is postponed,
the more certain is the bloody abyss, as emotional and rational "account
balancings" occur at the same time as the economic ones.
Read this posting carefully and then consider two points: Since the 1998
Russian economic collapse was triggered by the "looting" by Harvard and
Goldman Sachs and THAT in turn triggered the collapse of LTCM [Long Term
Capital Management], were we looking at a system of greed out of control
where competing pyramids fight each other for diminishing capital streams?
Would Goldman and Harvard wage war against LTCM or JPMorganChase knowing
that it could destroy the world economy and create a global depression? If
true, that implies a pending financial and economic donnybrook, that could
"Hiroshima" the economy of the entire planet. The lunatics are officially
running the asylum now. As the DOW plummets - and I expect that it may be in
the 8,000s or below by the end of October - I have now come to the
conclusion that it is POSSIBLE, IF NOT LIKELY - that the Bowers shootdown in
Peru this Spring was an intentional move. Reason: the immediate and total
suspension of drug interdiction flights -- an apparent easy capitulation by
the CIA -- that has since allowed drug smuggling to multiply in the
intervening months. I have read some estimates indicating that cocaine
smuggling to the US is up 30% this year as a result. Add to that the fact
that the eradication efforts in Colombia have not reduced coca production
but have instead, increased it by 15-20% or more. What better way to pour
additional billions in drug money into markets on the brink of collapse
while trying to maintain a public image that fewer and fewer people are
buying anyway?
There's a reason why people in this country no longer get motivated by
individual cries for justice or any single human interest story, whether the
victim lost a house or $250 million. In the panic of a fire in a crowded
movie theater, no one gives a *****. We're all going to burn.
------------------------------
Kind regards,
Barbarossa
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