November 2009

by Nafeez Mossadeq Ahmed
October, 2009
New Internationalist.org

Islamic fundamentalist militants are the enemies of Israel and Western governments, right? Think again. Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed reports.
Once upon a time, the CIA trained, financed and supported Osama bin Laden and his mujahidin networks in Afghanistan to repel the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. After the end of the Cold War, bin Laden turned against the West and we no longer had any use for him. His persistent terrorist attacks against us for more than a decade, culminating in 9/11, provoked our own response, in the form of the ‘War on Terror’. This is the official narrative. And it’s false. Not only did Western intelligence services continue to foster Islamist extremist and terrorist groups connected to al-Qaeda after the Cold War; they continued to do so even after 9/11.

The CIA’s jihad
The story begins in the summer of 1979, six months before the Soviet invasion, when the CIA had already begun financing elements of an emerging Islamist mujahidin force inside Afghanistan. The idea, according to former US National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski and former CIA Director Robert Gates, was to increase the probability of a Soviet invasion, and entrap ‘the Soviets into a Vietnamese quagmire’.1
Osama bin Laden arrived in the country later that year, sent by then-Saudi intelligence chief Prince Turki bin Faisal, where he set up the Maktab al-Khidamat (MAK) which helped finance, recruit and train mujahidin fighters.2 Bin Laden, the MAK, and the Afghan mujahidin in total received about half a billion dollars a year from the CIA, and roughly the same from the Saudis, funnelled through Pakistan’s Inter Services Intelligence (ISI).3
By around 1988, as Jane’s Defence Weekly reports, ‘with US knowledge, Bin Laden created al-Qaeda (The Base): a conglomerate of quasi-independent Islamic terrorist cells spread across at least 26 countries’.4 US and Western intelligence agencies facilitated this process, seeing rightwing Islamist movements as a counterweight to Communist, leftwing and nationalist political trends. They supported the Saudis and other Gulf states, as well as Pakistan, Turkey and Azerbaijan among others, in proliferating Islamist extremist institutions in far-flung countries such as Algeria, Yemen, Indonesia, and the Philippines. Funding for these activities was intertwined with the establishment of organized criminal financial centres in Malaysia, Madagascar, South Africa, Nigeria, Latin America, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, Turkestan, and elsewhere.5

By Philip Giraldi
November 4, 2009
Campaign for Liberty

Most Americans believe that we are in a terrible dilemma. An increasing number are uncomfortable with the continuing carnage in Iraq and Afghanistan and fearful of the consequences of yet another Middle East war, this time against Iran, but most also believe that our country is threatened by dark forces that seek to destroy us and that extreme measures are justified. Few realize that fear alone is bringing about our transformation into a country driven by constant warfare to the detriment of our constitutional liberties.

Those who believe that a change of course is essential if we are to survive as a nation quite rightly demand the disengagement of the United States from two wars and the avoidance of further conflicts. They understand that the United States has acted unwisely and illegally in its interference in the affairs of others and also that the presence of American military forces all over the world has not made us safer and has in fact served as a catalyst for escalating violence. But those who see the state of the world with such clarity must first convince a majority of their fellow citizens that disengagement is not another word for national suicide. In short, the American people must come to understand that their safety is best assured when our government does not go around the world looking for dragons to slay. A key element in being able to reassure the American people could be the development of a positive and proactive intelligence program that speaks the truth and, inter alia, could actually help avoid conflicts and demonstrate that every citizen benefits when the United States is at peace and a friend to all nations.

November 4, 2009
BBC
News
An Italian judge has convicted 23 Americans – all but one of them CIA agents
– and two Italian secret agents for the 2003 kidnap of a Muslim cleric.
The agents were accused of abducting Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr, known as Abu
Omar, from Milan and sending him to Egypt, where he was allegedly tortured.
The trial, which began in June 2007, is the first involving the CIA’s so-called
"extraordinary rendition" programme.
Three Americans and five Italians were acquitted by the court in Milan.
The Americans were all tried in their absence as they have not been extradited
from the US to Italy.
The CIA’s Milan station chief at the time, Robert Lady, was given an eight-year
term, while the other 22 Americans convicted – one of them a US air force colonel
– were sentenced to five years in prison.

9/11 Timeline additions as of November 4, 2009
Source URL: http://www.historycommons.org/news.jsp?oid=140393703-933
One of the main focuses at the 9/11 Timeline recently has been the destruction
of a tape of FAA flight controllers’ recollections. The tape
was made at the FAA’s New York Center about an hour and a half
after the attacks ended, despite worries
about the procedure by a union official and the controllers. However, when
New York Center forwarded evidence about the attacks to the FBI the next
day, it did not provide
the tape, and its existence was not
reported to superiors. The controllers then prepared written statements
without reviewing the
tape, and a union official was concerned
whether anyone had heard it. One of the controllers later asked to listen
to the taped statement he had made, but his request was denied.
When New York Center submitted a formal accident package, the tape was again
absent. Although the Center had been told to retain
9/11 evidence, the tape was later destroyed. Following the tape’s
destruction, the manager who destroyed it was suspended,
but did not face criminal charges. A later Transportation Department report
simply attributed the tape’s destruction to “poor
judgment.”