"Americans are asking, "How will we fight and win
this war?" We will direct every resource at our command -- every means of
diplomacy, every tool of intelligence, every instrument of law enforcement,
every financial influence, and every necessary weapon of war -- to the
destruction and to the defeat of the global terror network."
-
President Bush's address to a joint session of Congress on Thursday night,
September 20, 2001
"Our government has kept us in a perpetual state of
fear -- kept us in a continuous stampede of patriotic fervor -- with the cry of
grave national emergency. Always there has been some terrible evil at home or
some monstrous foreign power that was going to gobble us up if we did not
blindly rally behind it by furnishing the exorbitant funds demanded. Yet, in
retrospect, these disasters seem never to have happened, seem never to have been
quite real."
-
US General Douglas MacArthur, 1957, Source: Whan, ed. "A Soldier Speaks:
Public Papers and Speeches of General of the Army Douglas MacArthur," (1965);
Nation, August 17, 1957.
FBI AND US SPY AGENTS SAY BUSH SPIKED BIN LADEN PROBES BEFORE 11 SEPTEMBER
The Guardian (London)
Wednesday, November 7, 2001
Officials told to 'back off' on Saudis before September 11
by Greg Palast and David Pallister
“FBI and military intelligence officials in Washington say they were prevented
for political reasons from carrying out full investigations into members of the
Bin Laden family in the US before the terrorist attacks of September 11.”
“US intelligence agencies have come under criticism for their wholesale failure
to predict the catastrophe at the World Trade Centre. But some are complaining
that their hands were tied.”
…
“But the FBI files were closed in 1996 apparently before any conclusions could
be reached on either the Bin Laden brothers or the organisation itself.
High-placed intelligence sources in Washington told the Guardian this week: "There
were always constraints on investigating the Saudis".”
“They said the restrictions became worse after the Bush administration took over
this year. The intelligence agencies had been told to "back off" from
investigations involving other members of the Bin Laden family, the Saudi
royals, and possible Saudi links to the acquisition of nuclear weapons by
Pakistan.”
QUESTIONS THAT WON'T BE ASKED ABOUT IRAQ
Congressman Ron Paul
U.S. House of Representatives
September 10, 2002
9. Is it not true that the vast majority of al-Qaeda leaders who escaped appear
to have safely made their way to Pakistan, another of our so-called allies?
Rescuing the Enemy
Yes, Pakistan evacuated men from Kunduz. Why'd the U.S. let them?
BY TUNKU VARADARAJAN, The Wall Street Journal Editorial Page
Wednesday, November 28, 2001 12:01 a.m. EST
Last Thursday the Indian press carried reports that two helicopters of the
Pakistani air force had landed in the heart of Kunduz--an Afghan town then under
siege by the Northern Alliance, but still under Taliban control--and "flew out
soon after carrying two chopper loads of personnel." These included two
brigadiers of the Pakistani army. Two days later, the Indian press again carried
reports, based on information supplied by Indian intelligence, that Pakistan's
air force had "flown several missions since Sunday to evacuate top Pakistani
military commanders."
Report: Pakistan rescued Taliban
By Kirk Spitzer, USA TODAY
KUNDUZ, Afghanistan -- Pakistani air force planes evacuated hundreds of foreign
fighters from the besieged city of Kunduz hours before Northern Alliance
soldiers captured the city, the commander of anti-Taliban forces said Monday.
The charges came amid reports of atrocities against Taliban troops by Northern
Alliance forces entering Kunduz, the last Taliban stronghold in northern
Afghanistan.
''We are very angry about the taking away of the foreign Taliban,'' said Gen.
Daoud Khan, leader of the Northern Alliance forces that captured this key
crossroads city Monday after a 15-day siege. ''They must answer for their
crimes.'' Daoud said his soldiers saw Pakistani planes arriving and departing
from the airport early Monday as they closed in on Kunduz. Alliance officials
have long accused Pakistan of supporting the Taliban and interfering in Afghan
affairs.
“Absolute power has no necessity to lie, it may be silent – while responsible
governments obliged to speak, not only disguise the truth, but lie with
effrontery.”
– Napoleon Bonaparte
The ‘airlift of evil’
By Michael Moran, MSNBC
"NEW YORK, Nov. 29 — The United States took the unprecedented step this week of
demanding that foreign airlines provide information on passengers boarding
planes for America. Yet in the past week, a half dozen or more Pakistani air
force cargo planes landed in the Taliban-held city of Kunduz and evacuated to
Pakistan hundreds of non-Afghan soldiers who fought alongside the Taliban and
even al-Qaida against the United States. What’s wrong with this picture?"
"THE PENTAGON, whose satellites and drones are able to detect sleeping
guerrillas in subterranean caverns, claims it knows nothing of these flights.
When asked about the mysterious airlift at a recent Pentagon briefing, Secretary
of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs
of Staff, denied knowledge of such flights. Myers backpedaled a
bit, saying that, given the severe geography of the country, it might be
possible to duck in and out of mountain valleys and conduct such an airlift
undetected. But Rumsfeld intervened. With his talent for being blunt and
ambiguous at the same time, he said: “I have received absolutely no
information that would verify or validate statements about airplanes moving in
or out. I doubt them.”
How bin Laden gave US the slip
(Filed: 17/11/2002)
A meeting between sworn enemies of the West - al-Qaeda, Taliban ministers,
Gulbuddin Hekmatyar (a fundamentalist mujaheddin leader), and members of
Pakistan's military intelligence (ISI) - was being held in the Pakistani town of
Quetta and the taped message was seen as rallying the troops.
The meeting took place in the knowledge of Western intelligence services, yet
they could do nothing about it. 'There's one word for why we didn't catch Osama
and that's Pakistan," complained one frustrated intelligence officer.
"Put it this way, the Pakistanis are selling nuclear technology to the north
Koreans after September 11 yet we're calling them our best buddies. . ."
Most CIA agents are convinced that their inability to seal off Afghanistan's
long border with Pakistan because their supposed ally would not allow them to
deploy troops on its soil until April, allowed bin Laden to cross over twice and
ultimately escape.
They also believe that ISI helped about 3,000 al-Qaeda members escape after the
fall of the Taliban's stronghold of Kandahar last December.
U.S. Hopes to Check Computers Globally
System Would Be Used to Hunt Terrorists
By Robert O'Harrow Jr.
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, November 12, 2002; Page A04
A new Pentagon research office has started designing a global
computer-surveillance system to give U.S. counterterrorism officials access to
personal information in government and commercial databases around the world.
The Information Awareness Office, run by former national security adviser
John M. Poindexter, aims to develop new technologies to sift through
"ultra-large" data warehouses and networked computers in search of threatening
patterns among everyday transactions, such as credit card purchases and travel
reservations, according to interviews and documents.
"There's an Orwellian concept if I've ever heard one," Hart said when
told about the program.
Poindexter said any operational system would include safeguards to govern the
collection of information. He said rules built into the software would identify
users, create an audit trail and govern the information that is available. But
he added that his mission is to develop the technology, not the policy. It would
be up to Congress and policymakers to debate the issue and establish the limits
that would make the system politically acceptable.
"We can develop the best technology in the world and unless there is public
acceptance and understanding of the necessity, it will never be implemented," he
said. "We're just as concerned as the next person with protecting privacy."
Getting the Defense Department job is something of a comeback for Poindexter.
The Reagan administration national security adviser was convicted in 1990 of
five felony counts of lying to Congress, destroying official documents and
obstructing congressional inquiries into the Iran-contra affair, which involved
the secret sale of arms to Iran in the mid-1980s and diversion of profits to
help the contra rebels in Nicaragua.
Poindexter, a retired Navy rear admiral, was the highest-ranking Regan
administration official found guilty in the scandal. He was sentenced to six
months in jail by a federal judge who called him "the decision-making head" of a
scheme to deceive Congress. The U.S. Court of Appeals overturned that conviction
in 1991, saying Poindexter's rights had been violated through the use of
testimony he had given to Congress after being granted immunity.
