Dispelling the CIA-Bin Laden Myth

FOX ^ | September 24, 2003 | Richard Miniter

[Tailgunner Joe]

Two years after the Sept. 11 attacks, no memorial service, cable-news talkfest or university seminar seemed to have been complete without someone emerging from the woodwork to wonder darkly why the CIA ever financed Usama bin Laden "in the first place."

[Sam's Army]

Uh-oh!

[JohnGalt]

It's not a conspiracy theory until there's a denial. ;)


Thanks for the ping.

[JohnGalt]

"Plausible denial", I believe is the CIA term:

http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/CHO109C.html

Pakistan's Intelligence Apparatus
Pakistan's ISI was used as a "go-between". The CIA covert support to the "jihad" operated indirectly through the Pakistani ISI, --i.e. the CIA did not channel its support directly to the Mujahideen. In other words, for these covert operations to be "successful", Washington was careful not to reveal the ultimate objective of the "jihad", which consisted in destroying the Soviet Union.

In the words of CIA's Milton Bearden "We didn't train Arabs". Yet according to Abdel Monam Saidali, of the Al-aram Center 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" 6

CIA's Bearden confirmed, in this regard, that Osama bin Laden was not aware of the role he was playing on behalf of Washington. In the words of bin Laden (quoted by Beardman): "neither I, nor my brothers saw evidence of American help". 7...

...Jane Defense Weekly confirms in this regard that "half of Taliban manpower and equipment originate[d] in Pakistan under the ISI" 18

In fact, it would appear that following the Soviet withdrawal both sides in the Afghan civil war continued to receive covert support through Pakistan's ISI. 19

In other words, backed by Pakistan's military intelligence (ISI) which in turn was controlled by the CIA, the Taliban Islamic State was largely serving American geopolitical interests. 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 last few months there is evidence that Mujahideen mercenaries are fighting in the ranks of KLA-NLA terrorists in their assaults into Macedonia."

[Huck]

Who is Michel Chossudovsky, Professor of Economics, University of Ottawa
and why should I believe him?

[JohnGalt]

Really don't know anything about him, but I noticed he was able to put some context for the 'denial.'

[Huck]

It's just such a rough subject. When you are talking about CIA spooks, what do you believe/not believe? To me, it's beside the point as far as what we do now. The Afghan war is something Putin and his Commie buddies should answer for, not us. We were on the side of freedom, poorly executed or not.

[JohnGalt]

I agree to some extent; the Cold War is generally thought of, in conservative census circles, as a unique case. I point out, however, that is was the failure of the CIA to clean-up loose-ends and then to employ radical Islam in different parts of the world that needs to be aired if we as some sort of cognitive elite are going to make rational determinations on 'what to do' rather than rely on mere ideology.

Do you recall LD Brown and Terry Reed? LD Brown said that the CIA attempted to employ him on a trip to Mexico to assassinate Terry Reed, a former drugs and guns pilot in the Mena/Louisana Barry Seal days. That clean up job was to protect political careers; what about clean up jobs to protect national security?

[theFIRMbss]

>Mr. Peikney added in an e-mail to me: “I don’t even recall UBL [bin Laden] coming across my screen when I was there.”

"Yeah, that's what I mean,
I never saw him! Never
even heard his name..."

[Huck]

LD Brown said that the CIA attempted

That's not much to go on.

[Recovering_Democrat]

Though both Iraq and Al Quaeda wished us harm, there isn't any evidence that the ever collaborated on any sort of joint venture...Bush himself has come out denying that there was a Saddam/Al Quaeda link, we would do well to drop this false lead before it becomes the next Democrat talking point.

Bullfeathers. This is mixing apples and oranges: the apple being a Saddam/Al Qaeda link and the orange being the Saddam/September 11 link. Bush never denied there was a Saddam/Al Qaeda link. There is evidence that Iraq harbored at least one top Al Qaeda operative who needed medical attention. There was a camp in North Iraq with an Al Qaeda-linked group (I forget the specific name of the group...). No one seriously argues that camp existed without the knowledge and tolerance of Saddam.

Despite the genuflections of the mainstream press to that wrong-headed notion, the adminstration NEVER said Saddam was involved in 9/11. There is a huge difference between being allied--in ideology and goals--with Al Qaeda and being intimately involved in every operation thereof.

There was not a link between Adolph Hitler and Pearl Harbor, either. But the need to crush both Japan and Germany wasn't argued seriously by anyone in the 1940s. But the liberals seem to have to learn the lessons of history over and over again.

[JohnGalt]

Fair point, but I was just giving an example.

Tyrell and Pritchard believed him, and he testified in front of Ken Starr.

http://www.idfiles.com/ld-brown-testifies.htm

[Huck]

I saw a bumper sticker while outside earlier. It was an American flag and the words "The Sleeping Giant Awakes." I contend that the government did not connive or contrive that sentiment. It is the expression of the attitudes of a lot of Americans. That's off the topic of the CIA, but I thought of our earlier discussion when I saw it, and wanted to share it with you.

[DTA]

>>>>>Yeah, that's what I mean,I never saw him! Never even heard his name..."

Technically speaking, Peikney may be telling the truth- there are different transliterations of OBL name. UBL was OBL perhaps.

The question Mr. Mr. Peikney should answer is: Mr. Peikney, to the best of your recollection, what was the name of the person at the helm of Maktab al-Khidamat (MAK) in 1984-86, at the time you were station chief in Pakistan? Do we know that person today as Osama Bin Laden?

[JohnGalt]

Friend, that is a blatant appeal to emotion rather than reason.

The country has been so conditioned to accept the premise that the state can protect them, despite what there independent thinking told them on 9/11, that the state saw an opportunity to grow rather than decentralize. Rather than demand the punishment of the those who failed so miserably, there were appeals to abstracts (9/11 changed everything, they hate us for our freedom) that are almost absurd in retrospect in the context of rational discourse and conservative responsibility to the institutions we have been left by our ancestors.

Where for some, 9/11 was a reminder of the debt we owe each other to protect the herd as seen on Flight 93, to others it was an excuse to ignore the failures of the government (let bygones be bygones) and instead embark on a new war and taste/recapture all the good patriotic feelings that come with a good solid ass kicking. (The media obliged by flashing the amoral leftists at Berkley as the anti-war movement.)

I don't expect for their to be justice in this world, but I do like to think shining light where it does not want to be shown, is the best conservative patriots can hope for politically, in a rapidly declining culture. Then just raise our kids, hope they have more freedom then we do, leave them some money, and hope the King doesn't demand our first born sons for the battles on the fringes of the Empire.

"More Todd Beamers, Fewer Ivy Leaguers"

[Huck]

Friend, that is a blatant appeal to emotion rather than reason.

You may be right, but you say that as if it's all bad. We're not Vulcans. Human beings should get emotional sometimes. The bumper sticker isn't so much an appeal to emotion as it is an expression of emotion. I think it is a good thing. I think getting goosebumps with love of America is a good thing. True, it's emotional. But that's not always a bad thing, Spock.

The country has been so conditioned to accept the premise that the state can protect them, despite what there independent thinking told them on 9/11, that the state saw an opportunity to grow rather than decentralize.

Another way of looking at that is to say that Americans were conditioned to believe we were safer and more insulated than we really are from terror attacks. What their independent thinking told them on 9-11 is that we are vulnerable, we don't have to accept that, and it is the proper role of our national government to act on our behalf. That's a completely sensible response. By the way, Americans also reached into their pockets--motivated in part by--gasp--emotion, and gave a lot of money to help with the suffering. And they gave of their time. And they expressed and continue to express a heightened sense of pride in their country. As we say in Jersey, you got a problem with that?

Rather than demand the punishment of the those who failed so miserably, there were appeals to abstracts (9/11 changed everything, they hate us for our freedom)

Another way of looking at that is to say that rather than respond with finger pointing and internecine fighting, America was right there with the President in his forward looking, resolute, results oriented approach to leadership in this crisis. I don't think Americans are saying don't hold anyone accountable. But they are supportive of using our precious resources to mainly move ahead. After all, we Americans are responsible for our government. We slept too. We didn't demand more. We were complacent. And I think most of us are honest about it and ready to move on and get busy.

that are almost absurd in retrospect in the context of rational discourse and conservative responsibility to the institutions we have been left by our ancestors.

I think most Americans were good to go without a lot of discourse. The President has made his doctrine pretty easy to undertand. Find em, kill em. With us or against us. Freedom vs. terror. Civilization vs. evildoers. And America will lead. End of story. Americans agree with that.

an excuse to ignore the failures of the government (let bygones be bygones) and instead embark on a new war and taste/recapture all the good patriotic feelings that come with a good solid ass kicking. (The media obliged by flashing the amoral leftists at Berkley as the anti-war movement.)

I don't agree with that characterization.

I don't expect for their to be justice in this world, but I do like to think shining light where it does not want to be shown, is the best conservative patriots can hope for politically, in a rapidly declining culture. Then just raise our kids, hope they have more freedom then we do, leave them some money, and hope the King doesn't demand our first born sons for the battles on the fringes of the Empire.

I understand your anxiety about our culture, our freedoms, and our future. That's what we all want.

"More Todd Beamers, Fewer Ivy Leaguers"

Let's have less Todd Beamers, if that means less people dying as a result of vicious attacks on American soil. The President is taking it to them, and our trained, professional killers are doing their work. Support them.

[JohnGalt]

A solid, patriotic response.

9/11 for many was a metaphoric wake-up call, and will prove to be the seminal event of their political lives, just as April 19, 1993, was for me. When I started reading critiques from the gun culture, their intellectuals kept repeating that the end result of gun control was genocide.

In context, that was to say is that a culture that does not take a personal responsibility to defend themselves will perish. After reading this, Columbine and a dozen other school shootings took place to underline the point. Rather than jocks and teachers rushing two skinny shotgun wielding teens, they ran for their lives as the federalis hid in the parking lot.

The gun culture pointed to a picture from Nazi Germany where thousands are led into a concentration camp, guarded by men with unloaded weapons. You could tell because the bolts were open (see John Ross's Unintended Consequences.) The point was that people had lost their will to defend even their own lives, let alone the heard. They were led willingly to their own certain deaths.

It was like the Twilight Zone episode with the bomb shelter, and the neighbors trying to break-in. Is this what we have come, too as a society? The culture that drilled and trained for a year and caught the greatest army in the world off guard April 19, 1775 up in my neck of the woods, is long gone. What crazy bastards those SOBs must have been!

But to see a glimpse of that culture alive in Todd Beamer was to be reminded, like the first time you see a painting of Jesus and Mary, that deep within us is the love of our neighbor that will cause men to give up their lives so that others may live. Attempts by yourself to dismiss it a rational decision made after they learned their fates, or the FBI claiming that the hijackers crashed the plane on purpose, serve only as weak attempts to diminish what we all saw on TV. While three other planes 'hoped it was just a hijacking', one group was not led willingly to the slaughter.

F-16s, machine guns, trillion dollar central intelligence agencies, global hegemony...are nothing compared to an angry American who loves liberty more than life itself.

The response of the befuddled DC tax regime was to lash out, in retrospect almost irrespective of 9/11. They attacked 'states' and let the criminals escape, all the while the schemers and money men corrupted the entire process. That is the nature of war, a dirty, ugly enterprise.

Bringing the boys home, is what we, the conservative cognitive elite, must support. It is far too risky to leave them in the field for a Democratic President to go in search of monsters to destroy (see Serbia/KLA.)

[theFIRMbss]

>we, the conservative cognitive elite

"Cognitive elite?"
That's Hillary talk. It's bad
from the Left, it's bad

from the Right. Fellow
conservatives aren't sheep.
Get with the program.

[Snuffington]

Good article. A decent followup would be debunking the notion that the U. S. government installed Saddam Hussein in Iraq. Another lie that won't die.

[Huck]

In addition to 9-11, the Florida election debacle was a seminal moment for me. Actually, the Hillarycare scare was also. I was real scared they would succeed. I will always be thankful for Phil Gramm for how he stood up to that monster.

I appreciate your comments. It's easy to sink into pettiness online. It's nice to be able to step away from that abyss and share honest thoughts and perspectives. It takes two to make that happen. Thanks for that.

I am glad that you are passionate about America and our future. It is possible to strongly disagree even while sharing the same goals and ideals. Look at Patrick Henry and James Madison, two great American patriots and statesmen. Look at their debates on the ratification of our Constitution. Great minds can disagree.

Unfortunately, we have people like Kennedy and Leahy et al sullying the water with their bile. Only thing I would ask of you is to consider the temper of your words. Criticism is good and right, but do so judiciously, or shall I say, graciously, and I believe the result will be better, and the unwanted effects fewer. Not just in terms of decorum and civility, but in terms of whether you carefully raise concern while affirming goodness, or whether you spread alarm and subversion recklessly. Something to consider. I hope I do not condescend in saying my peace on that. Good day.

[Huck]

To make myself clear, I am asking you to consider the substance of your criticisms, and what you are willing to say and what assumptions you are willing to make in public. I am not saying play nice in the sandbox. That's good, too, and we should all do that. I am addressing the substance. You said a few things that to me approached Kennedy-esque proportions, along the lines of his recent "fraud" and "bribery" remarks. Those comments are not helpful at all. Be careful not to contribute to that sort of public vomiting. Be prudent.