When the Lie Becomes the Truth...

by Dr. Paul Craig Roberts
Global Research
May 4, 2011

The US government’s bin Laden story was so poorly crafted that it did not last 48 hours before being fundamentally altered. Indeed, the new story put out on Tuesday by White House press secretary Jay Carney bears little resemblance to the original Sunday evening story. The fierce firefight did not occur. Osama bin Laden did not hide behind a woman. Indeed, bin Laden, Carney said, “was not armed.”

The firefight story was instantly suspicious as not a single SEAL got a scratch, despite being up against al Qaeda, described by former Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld as ‘the most dangerous, best-trained, vicious killers on the face of the earth.”

Every original story detail has been changed. It wasn’t bin Laden’s wife who was murdered by the Navy SEALs , but the wife of an aide. It wasn’t bin Laden’s son, Khalid, who was murdered by the Navy SEALs, but son Hamza.

Carney blamed the changed story on “the fog of war.” But there was no firefight, so where did the “fog of war” come from?

The White House has also had to abandon the story that President Obama and his national security team watched tensely as events unfolded in real time (despite the White House having released photos of the team watching tensely), with the operation conveyed into the White House by cameras on the SEALs helmets. If Obama was watching the event as it happened, he would have noticed, one would hope, that there was no firefight and, thus, would not have told the public that bin Laden was killed in a firefight. Another reason the story had to be abandoned is that if the event was captured on video, every news service in the world would be asking for the video, but if the event was orchestrated theater, there would be no video.


No explanation has been provided for why an unarmed bin Laden, in the absence of a firefight, was murdered by the SEALs with a shot to the head. For those who believe the government’s story that “we got bin Laden,” the operation can only appear as the most botched operation in history. What kind of incompetence does it require to senselessly and needlessly kill the most valuable intelligence asset on the planet?

According to the US government, the terrorist movements of the world operated through bin Laden, “the mastermind.” Thanks to a trigger-happy stupid SEAL, a bullet destroyed the most valuable terrorist information on the planet. Perhaps the SEAL was thinking that he could put a notch on his gun and brag for the rest of his life about being the macho tough guy who killed Osama bin Laden, the most dangerous man on the planet, who outwitted the US and its European and Israeli allies and inflicted humiliation on the “world’s only superpower” on 9/11.

When such a foundational story as the demise of bin Laden cannot last 48 hours without acknowledged “discrepancies” that require fundamental alternations to the story, there are grounds for suspicion in addition to the suspicions arising from the absence of a dead body, from the absence of any evidence that bin Laden was killed in the raid or that a raid even took place. The entire episode could just be another event like the August 4, 1964, Gulf of Tonkin event that never happened but succeeded in launching open warfare against North Vietnam at a huge cost to Americans and Vietnamese and enormous profits to the military/security complex.

There is no doubt that the US is sufficiently incompetent to have needlessly killed bin Laden instead of capturing him. But who can believe that the US would quickly dispose of the evidence that bin Laden had been terminated? The government’s story is not believable that the government dumped the proof of its success into the ocean, but has some photos that might be released, someday.

As one reader put it in an email to me: “What is really alarming is the increasingly arrogant sloppiness of these lies, as though the government has become so profoundly confident of their ability to deceive people that they make virtually no effort to even appear credible.”

Governments have known from the beginning of time that they can always deceive citizens and subjects by playing the patriot card. “Remember the Maine,” the “Gulf of Tonkin,” “weapons of mass destruction,” “the Reichstag fire”--the staged events and bogus evidence are endless. If Americans knew any history, they would not be so gullible.

The real question before us is: What agenda or agendas is the “death of bin Laden” designed to further?

There are many answers to this question. Many have noticed that Obama was facing re-election with poor approval ratings. Is anyone surprised that the New York Times/CBS Poll finds a strong rise in Obama’s poll numbers after the bin Laden raid? As the New York Times reported, “the glow of national pride” rose “above partisan politics, as support for the president rose significantly among both Republicans and independents. In all, 57 percent said they now approved of the president’s job performance, up from 46 percent.”

In Washington-think, a 24% rise in approval rating justifies a staged event.
Another possibility is that Obama realized that the the budget deficit and the dollar’s rescue from collapse require the end of the expensive Afghan war and occupation and spillover war into Pakistan. As the purpose of the war was to get bin Laden, success in this objective allows the US to withdraw without loss of face, thus making it possible to reduce the US budget deficit by several hundred billion dollars annually--an easy way to have a major spending cut.

If this is the agenda, then more power to it. However, if this was Obama’s agenda, the military/security complex has quickly moved against it. CIA director Leon Panetta opened the door to false flag attacks to keep the war going by declaring that al Qaeda would avenge bin Laden’s killing. Secretary of State Clinton declared that success in killing bin Laden justified more war and more success. Homeland Security declared that the killing of bin Laden would motivate “homegrown violent extremists” into making terrorist attacks. “Homegrown violent extremists” is an undefined term, but this newly created bogyman seems to include environmentalists and war protesters. Like “suspect,” the term will include anyone the government wants to pick up.

Various parts of the government quickly seized on the success in killing bin Laden to defend and advance their own agendas, such as torture. Americans were told that bin Laden was found as a result of information gleaned from torturing detainees held in Eastern European CIA secret prisons years ago.

This listing of possible agendas and add-on agendas is far from complete, but for those capable of skepticism and independent thought, it can serve as a starting point. The agendas behind the theater will reveal themselves as time goes on. All you have to do is to pay attention and to realize that most of what you hear from the mainstream media is designed to advance the agendas.

Osama bin Laden's Second Death

Editor's NOTE:

Paul Craig Roberts makes a very good point about how difficult it would be to survive 10 years on dialysis under the circumstances that Osama bin Laden has purportedly been exposed to. Without a kidney transplant and proper immunosuppresive medication, it would be extremely unlikely for any patient to survive for 10 years on dialysis especially if forced to be "on the run" for some of that time as bin Laden supposedly was.

For all the reasons Roberts detailed, I too find it almost impossible to believe that the genuine Osama bin Laden was killed yesterday. The fact that the body was so quickly disposed of irrespective of the suspect reasons offered, leads to the conclusion that the entire matter is an example of a major psychological intelligence operation.

It will be important to very carefully analyze any detailed data which might be forthcoming from the Obama administration with respect to forensic pathological examination of the body, including DNA identification. At this point, all that is available is a report that DNA analysis identified the body as that of Osama bin Laden with a 99.9% certainty. No details were provided for how a proper reference sample was obtained or what technique was utilized.

--Dr. J. P. Hubert


Osama bin Laden's Second Death

By:  Paul Craig Roberts

May 02, 2011 "Information Clearing House" -- If today were April 1 and not May 2, we could dismiss as an April fool’s joke this morning’s headline that Osama bin Laden was killed in a firefight in Pakistan and quickly buried at sea. As it is, we must take it as more evidence that the US government has unlimited belief in the gullibility of Americans.

Think about it. What are the chances that a person allegedly suffering from kidney disease and requiring dialysis and, in addition, afflicted with diabetes and low blood pressure, survived in mountain hideaways for a decade? If bin Laden was able to acquire dialysis equipment and medical care that his condition required, would not the shipment of dialysis equipment point to his location? Why did it take ten years to find him?

Consider also the claims, repeated by a triumphalist US media celebrating bin Laden’s death, that “bin Laden used his millions to bankroll terrorist training camps in Sudan, the Philippines, and Afghanistan, sending ‘holy warriors’ to foment revolution and fight with fundamentalist Muslim forces across North Africa, in Chechnya, Tajikistan and Bosnia.” That’s a lot of activity for mere millions to bankroll (perhaps the US should have put him in charge of the Pentagon), but the main question is: how was bin Laden able to move his money about? What banking system was helping him? The US government succeeds in seizing the assets of people and of entire countries, Libya being the most recent. Why not bin Laden’s? Was he carrying around with him $100 million dollars in gold coins and sending emissaries to distribute payments to his far-flung operations?

This morning’s headline has the odor of a staged event. The smell reeks from the triumphalist news reports loaded with exaggerations, from celebrants waving flags and chanting “USA USA.” Could something else be going on?
No doubt President Obama is in desperate need of a victory. He committed the fool’s error or restarting the war in Afghanistan, and now after a decade of fighting the US faces stalemate, if not defeat. The wars of the Bush/Obama regimes have bankrupted the US, leaving huge deficits and a declining dollar in their wake. And re-election time is approaching.

The various lies and deceptions, such as “weapons of mass destruction,” of the last several administrations had terrible consequences for the US and the world. But not all deceptions are the same. Remember, the entire reason for invading Afghanistan in the first place was to get bin Laden. Now that President Obama has declared bin Laden to have been shot in the head by US special forces operating in an independent country and buried at sea, there is no reason for continuing the war.

Perhaps the precipitous decline in the US dollar in foreign exchange markets has forced some real budget reductions, which can only come from stopping the open-ended wars. Until the decline of the dollar reached the breaking point, Osama bin Laden, who many experts believe to have been dead for years, was a useful bogyman to use to feed the profits of the US military/security complex.

Osama bin Laden--former CIA Asset--likely Dead

CIA without news of Osama bin Laden for almost 9 years

3 July 2010
Voltairenet.com

In an interview with ABC News Senior White House Correspondent Jake Tapper on “This Week” (27 June 2010), CIA Director Leon Panetta said the last time the CIA had “precise information" on Osama bin Laden was when he left Afghanistan to cross into Pakistan (late 2001).

Recruited by the CIA in 1979, Osama bin Laden - of Yemeni-Saudi nationality and a businessman at the time - was in charge of financing the Afghan Mujahideen against the Communists. He purportedly turned against the United States during Operation Desert Storm (1991), and has been tracked down by the CIA ever since. However, contradicting the official account, he was hospitalised in August 2001 at the American Hospital in Dubai, under CIA protection, where he received the visit of various political figures.

The Agency and the political establishment consider him to be the mastermind of the September 11, 2001 attacks. However, again contradicting the official version, the FBI’s most wanted fugitive list does not feature OBL in connection with 9/11.

Over the past decade, various audio and video tapes have been attributed by the CIA to Osama bin Laden. However, in contradiction with this official story as well, Swiss experts from The Dalle Molle Institute for Artificial Intelligence established that the tapes were all fake.

Recall that it was on the pretext of avenging the 9/11 victims and of capturing Osama bin Laden that President Bush ordered the Afghanistan offensive. But, in case OBL is not responsible for the attacks, or is no longer in the region, or may even be dead, then the rhetorical justification for the U.S. military presence in Afghanistan would wither away.

Editor's NOTE:

David Ray Griffen has made a persuasive case that Osama bin Laden died in 2001 in the mountainous regions of Tora Bora, Afghanistan and that the US national security state is well aware of it but continues to allege that bin Laden is alive in order to justify the continued Afghanistan war offensive. See the video below in which David Ray Griffen is interviewed by Tom Hartman on the likely death of Osama bin Laden.

--Dr. J. P. Hubert

Osama bin Laden Responsible for the 9/11 Attacks? Is This Belief Based on Evidence?

By David Ray Griffin

November 02, 2009 "Veterans Today" -- The idea that Osama bin Laden was responsible for the 9/11 attacks has been an article of faith for public officials and the mainstream media. Calling it an “article of faith” points to two features of this idea. On the one hand, no one in these circles publicly challenges this idea.

On the other hand, as I pointed out at length in two of my books – 9/11 Contradictions1 and The New Pearl Harbor Revisited,2 no good evidence has ever been publicly presented to support it.

Colin Powell’s Withdrawn Promise

Two weeks after 9/11, Secretary of State Colin Powell, speaking to Tim Russert on Meet the Press, said that he expected “in the near future . . . to put out . . . a document that will describe quite clearly the evidence that we have linking [bin Laden] to this attack.”3

Powell reversed himself, however, at a press conference with President Bush in the White House Rose Garden the next morning, saying that, although the government had information that left no question of bin Laden's responsibility, "most of it is classified."4 According to Seymour Hersh, citing officials from both the CIA and the Department of Justice, the real reason for the reversal was a "lack of solid information."5

This was the week that Bush, after demanding that the Taliban turn over bin Laden, refused their request for evidence that bin Laden had been behind the attacks.6 A senior Taliban official, after the US attack on Afghanistan had begun, said: "We have asked for proof of Osama's involvement, but they have refused. Why?"7 Hersh's answer was that they had no proof.

Tony Blair's Weak Document

The task of providing such proof was taken up by Bush's chief ally in the "war on terror," British Prime Minister Tony Blair. On October 4, 2001, Blair made public a document entitled: "Responsibility for the Terrorist Atrocities in the United States." Listing "clear conclusions reached by the government," it stated: "Osama Bin Laden and al-Qaeda, the terrorist network which he heads, planned and carried out the atrocities on 11 September 2001." Blair's report, however, began by saying: "This document does not purport to provide a prosecutable case against Osama Bin Laden in a court of law."8 Although the case was not good enough to go to court, Blair seemed to be saying, it was good enough to go to war.

The weakness in Blair's report, in any event, was noted the next day by the BBC, which said: "There is no direct evidence in the public domain linking Osama Bin Laden to the 11 September attacks. At best the evidence is circumstantial."9

The FBI's Surprising Statement

What does our own FBI say? Here is a surprising but little-known fact, because it has scarcely been reported in the mainstream media: The FBI's "Most Wanted Terrorist" webpage on "Osama bin Laden" does not list the 9/11 attacks as one of the crimes for which he is wanted. It does list bombings in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, and Nairobi as terrorist acts for which he is wanted. But it makes no mention of 9/11.10 In 2006, Rex Tomb, then the FBI's chief of investigative publicity, was asked why not. He replied: "The reason why 9/11 is not mentioned on Osama Bin Laden's Most Wanted page is because the FBI has no hard evidence connecting Bin Laden to 9/11."11

After this story started flying around the Internet and was even covered by a TV station in Louisiana,12 Dan Eggen tried to downplay its significance in an August 2006 Washington Post article entitled "Bin Laden, Most Wanted For Embassy Bombings?"13 Complaining about "conspiracy theorists" who claimed that "the lack of a Sept. 11 reference [on the FBI's "Most Wanted" webpage for bin Laden] suggests that the connection to al-Qaeda is uncertain," Eggen quoted the explanation offered by a former US attorney, who said that the FBI could not appropriately "put up a wanted picture where no formal charges had been filed."

But that explanation, while true, simply pushes the issue back a step to this question: Why have such charges not been filed? Rex Tomb's fuller statement, which Eggen failed to mention, had answered this question the previous June, saying:

The FBI gathers evidence. Once evidence is gathered, it is turned over to the Department of Justice. The Department of Justice then decides whether it has enough evidence to present to a federal grand jury. In the case of the 1998 United States Embassies being bombed, Bin Laden has been formally indicted and charged by a grand jury. He has not been formally indicted and charged in connection with 9/11 because the FBI has no hard evidence connecting Bin Laden to 9/11.14

The 9/11 Commission

What about the 9/11 Commission? Its report gave the impression that it was in possession of solid evidence of bin Laden's guilt. But the Commission's co-chairs, Thomas Kean and Lee Hamilton, undermined this impression in their follow-up book, which they subtitled: "The Inside Story of the 9/11 Commission."15 (I discussed this book at length in Chapter 2 of my 2007 book, Debunking 9/11 Debunking.16)

As the end-notes for The 9/11 Commission Report reveal, whenever the Commission referred to evidence of bin Laden's responsibility for the 9/11 attacks, the Commission was always referring to CIA-provided information, which had (presumably) been elicited during interrogations of al-Qaeda operatives. By far the most important of these operatives was Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, generally called simply "KSM," who has been called the mastermind of the 9/11 attacks. The Commission, for example, wrote:

Bin Laden . . . finally decided to give the green light for the 9/11 operation sometime in late 1998 or early 1999. . . . Bin Laden also soon selected four individuals to serve as suicide operatives. . . . Atta - whom Bin Laden chose to lead the group - met with Bin Ladin several times to receive additional instructions, including a preliminary list of approved targets: the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and the U.S. Capitol.17

The note for each of these statements says: "interrogation of KSM."18

Kean and Hamilton, however, reported that they had no success in "obtaining access to star witnesses in custody . . . , most notably Khalid Sheikh Mohammed."19 Besides not being allowed to interview these witnesses, Commission members were not even permitted to observe the interrogations through one-way glass or to talk to the interrogators.20 Therefore, Kean and Hamilton complained: "We . . . had no way of evaluating the credibility of detainee information. How could we tell if someone such as Khalid Sheikh Mohammed . . . was telling us the truth?"21

An NBC "deep background" report in 2008 pointed out an additional problem: KSM and the other al-Qaeda leaders had been subjected to "enhanced interrogation techniques," i.e., torture, and it is now widely acknowledged that statements elicited by torture lack credibility. "At least four of the operatives whose interrogation figured in the 9/11 Commission Report," NBC pointed out, "have claimed that they told interrogators critical information as a way to stop being ‘tortured.'" NBC then quoted Michael Ratner, president of the Center for Constitutional Rights, as saying: "Most people look at the 9/11 Commission Report as a trusted historical document. If their conclusions were supported by information gained from torture, . . . their conclusions are suspect."22

The "Bin Laden Confession Tapes"

As we have seen, neither the 9/11 Commission, the Bush-Cheney White House, the FBI, the British government, nor the 9/11 Commission provided good evidence that Osama bin Laden was responsible for the 9/11 attacks. Many people, however, have assumed that the question of his responsibility was settled by the existence of videotapes and audiotapes in which he himself confessed to the attacks. There are, however, good reasons to believe that these so-called confession tapes are fakes. I will illustrate this point in terms of the two best-known videotapes of this nature.

The "Jalalabad Video" Released December 13, 2001: The first and most famous of the "Osama bin Laden confession video tapes" was released by the Pentagon on December 13, 2001. It had purportedly been made on November 9, 2001, after which it was allegedly found by US forces in a private home in Jalalabad, Afghanistan. In this video, an Osama bin Laden figure is seen talking about the 9/11 attacks with a visiting Sheikh. During the course of the conversation, the bin Laden figure boasts about the success of the attacks, saying that he had planned them.23 Both US and British officials claimed that this tape left no doubt about bin Laden's guilt.24

Stories in both the Canadian and British media, however, raised questions about the tape's authenticity. These stories, besides pointing out the existence of the technical ability to create fake video tapes, also mentioned the suspicion of some people that the bin Laden figure was not Osama bin Laden himself.

A BBC News report said: "Washington calls it the ‘smoking gun' that puts Bin Laden's guilt beyond doubt, but many in the Arab world believe the home video of the al-Qaeda chief is a fake."25 This report was, in fact, entitled, "Could the Bin Laden Video Be a Fake?"

This question was also raised in Canada by CBC News, which pointed out that some people had "suggested the Americans hired someone to pretend to be the exiled Saudi."26

This question was raised even more insistently in a Guardian story with the title, "US Urged to Detail Origin of Tape." Reporting "growing doubt in the Muslim world about the authenticity of the film," writer Steven Morris said:

The White House yesterday came under pressure to give more details of the video which purports to show Osama bin Laden admitting his part in the September 11 attacks.27

Morris, pointing out that the White House had provided no details about how the Pentagon came to be in possession of the tape, added:

According to US officials the tape was found in a house in Jalalabad, eastern Afghanistan, and handed to the Pentagon by an unnamed person or group. . . . But for many the explanation is too convenient. Some opponents of the war theorise that the Bin Laden in the film was a look-alike.

Morris then quoted one such opponent in Pakistan, who said: "This videotape is not authentic. The Americans made it up after failing to get any evidence against Osama."

Morris also cited Bob Crabtree, the editor of Computer Video magazine, who explained that it was impossible to determine whether the video was authentic without more details of its source, adding: "The US seems simply to have asked the world to trust them that it is genuine."28

This skepticism about the authenticity of this "Jalalabad video" was based on sound reasons. For one thing, this video's bin Laden figure appeared too heavy and healthy, compared with the bin Laden who made the last of the undoubtedly authentic bin Laden videos, which was made sometime in 2001 between November 16 (on which occurred an event mentioned on the tape) and December 27 (the date on which the tape was released). In this post-November 16 video, bin Laden's beard was white, he had a "gaunt, frail appearance," and his "left arm hung limply by his side while he gesticulated with his right."29 This immobile left arm, Dr. Sanjay Gupta observed on CNN, suggested that bin Laden had suffered a stroke, adding that this plus a "frosting of the appearance" suggested that bin Laden was in the final stages of kidney failure.30

But in the "Jalalabad video," which was reportedly made at about the same time (being dated November 9 and released December 13), the bin Laden figure was heavier and also darker, in both skin and beard color; his nose had a different shape;31 and his hands were shorter and heavier than those of Osama bin Laden as seen in undoubtedly authentic videos.32

Still another problem is that, whereas bin Laden was left-handed, the man in the "Jalalabad video" wrote with his right hand. Although it might be thought that this was because his left arm was immobile, the bin Laden figure in this video was easily able to lift his left arm above his head.33

If this video was made on November 9, as claimed, then it would have been made at most only a few weeks before the post-November 16 video. It is very hard to believe that the heavy, dark-skinned, healthy-looking man with a dark beard could have, within two or three weeks, turned into the pale, gaunt, white-bearded, man seen in the post-November 16 video.

If one accepts the Jalalabad video as authentic, one not only has to accept these radical changes in bin Laden's physical appearance; one must also accept a complete change in his statements about 9/11. In the previous weeks, he had repeatedly - on September 12, 16, 17, and 28 - stated that he had had nothing to do with the attacks.34 In the September 28 statement, he had even declared:

I have already said that I am not involved in the 11 September attacks in the United States. As a Muslim, I try my best to avoid telling a lie. I had no knowledge of these attacks, nor do I consider the killing of innocent women, children and other humans as an appreciable act. Islam strictly forbids causing harm to innocent women, children and other people. Such a practice is forbidden even in the course of a battle. . . . [W]e are against the American system, not against its people, whereas in these attacks, the common American people have been killed.35

Is it likely that he would have made such statements if he himself had authorized the attacks and thereby the killing of innocents?

Whatever be one's opinion about that, the bin Laden figure in the "Jalalabad video" made other statements that Osama bin Laden himself would surely not have made. For example, he said:

[W]e calculated in advance the number of casualties from the enemy who would be killed based on the position of the tower. . . . [D]ue to my experience in this field, I was thinking that the fire from the gas in the plane would melt the iron structure of the building and collapse the area where the plane hit and all the floors above it only. This is all that we had hoped for.36

But in light of the real bin Laden's "experience in the field" as a building contractor, he would have known that high-rise buildings are framed with steel, not iron. Even more important, he would have known that the buildings' support columns - whether made of steel or iron - would not have been melted by the "fire from the gas in the plane." Why? Because he would have known, on the one hand, that a building fire, even if fed by jet-fuel (which is essentially kerosene), could not, even under the most ideal conditions, have risen above 1,800 degrees Fahrenheit (1,000 degrees Celsius). And he would have known, on the other hand, that iron and steel do not begin to melt until they are heated to a temperature far higher than that: to almost 2,800 degrees Fahrenheit (1,540 degrees Celsius). The real bin Laden, therefore, would not have expected any iron or steel to melt.

A final reason to consider the "Jalalabad video" a fake is that bin Laden experts have declared it to such. When Dr. Bruce Lawrence, a Duke University history professor widely considered the country's leading academic bin Laden expert,37 was asked what he thought about this video, he said, bluntly: "It's bogus." Some friends of his in the US Department of Homeland Security assigned to work "on the 24/7 bin Laden clock," he added, "also know it's bogus."38

General Hamid Gul, former head of Pakistan's ISI (Inter-Services Intelligence), suggested that the man in the video was an "Osama bin Laden lookalike."39

Former Foreign Service officer Angelo Codevilla, after saying "[t]he guy just does not look like Osama," added: "The fact that the video had been made for no self-evident purpose except perhaps to be found by the Americans should have raised suspicion."40

A fourth expert opinion has been issued implicitly, it would seem, by the Department of Justice and its FBI. If they considered this "confession video" authentic, would they not consider it "hard evidence" of bin Laden's responsibility for 9/11? They say, however, that they have no such evidence, so they must not consider this video authentic.

The "October Surprise Video of 2004: The other most famous of the "bin Laden confession tapes" is the video tape that was released on October 29, 2004, just before the presidential election between George W. Bush and John Kerry, leading to its being called "the October Surprise video." In this one, for the first time, a bin Laden figure directly addressed the American people. The Associated Press, focusing on the most important aspect of the speaker's message, entitled its story: "Bin Laden, in Statement to U.S. People, Says He Ordered Sept. 11 Attacks."41 However, although the AP accepted the authenticity of the tape, there are serious reasons to doubt it.

A reason to be at least suspicious is the very fact that it appeared just four days before the presidential election and seemed designed to help Bush's reelection - an assessment that was made even by CIA analysts.42 The video, moreover, evidently did help: Bush's lead over Kerry in national polls increased right after it appeared,43 and both Bush and Kerry said that this tape was significantly responsible for Bush's victory.44 Given the fact that this video would quite predictably help Bush win reelection, it would seem to have been issued by his friends, not his enemies.

There are also substantive reasons to doubt this tape's authenticity, one of which is the speaker's language. The clearly authentic bin Laden messages were filled with religious language. A bin Laden video released October 7, 2001, for example, began thus:

Praise be to God and we beseech Him for help and forgiveness. We seek refuge with the Lord of our bad and evildoing. He whom God guides is rightly guided . . . . I witness that there is no God but God and Mohammed is His slave and Prophet.45

Even though this talk as a whole had only 725 words, bin Laden referred to God (Allah) 20 times and to the prophet Mohammed 3 times. Likewise, his message of November 3, 2001, which contained 2,333 words, referred to God 35 times and to the prophet Mohammed 8 times.46 By contrast, the 2004 October Surprise video, which had almost the same number of words as the November 3 video, referred to God only 12 times. The only "Mohammad" mentioned, moreover, was Mohamed Atta.

Another substantive difference involved the type of causal analysis provided. Bin Laden's clearly authentic messages had portrayed historical events as occurring only because they were caused, or at least allowed, by God. In his message of October 7, 2001, for example, he said: "God Almighty hit the United States. . . . He destroyed its greatest buildings." Human agents were involved, to be sure, but they were successful only because "Almighty God . . . allowed them to destroy the United States."47 In his message of November 3, likewise, bin Laden said that, if people are helped or harmed, it is always by "something that God has already preordained for [them]."48

The message on the 2004 confession video, however, reflected a worldview in which events can be understood through a causal analysis based on secular rationalism. "One of the most important things rational people do when calamities occur," the lecturer asserted, "is to look for their causes so as to avoid them." He himself, in analyzing "the [Iraq] war, its causes and consequences," provided a causal analysis involving purely human actors: Bush, al-Qaeda, and the American people. Far from suggesting that everything is finally in the hands of God, he said to the American people: "Your security is in your own hands" - a statement that a devout Wahabi Muslim such as Osama bin Laden would surely have considered blasphemous.

Still another reason to doubt the authenticity of this 2004 video is that, although the speaker was addressing the American public, he spoke Arabic rather than English. This is strange, because Osama bin Laden was reportedly fluent in English, which he had started studying when he was 11 years old.49 A British journalist reported that, when he and bin Laden met in 1989, they conversed in English for 45 minutes.50 General Hamid Gul, speaking to United Press International in 2001, said: "I know bin Laden and his associates. They are graduates of the best universities and . . . speak impeccable English.51 If bin Laden spoke impeccable English, would he not have used it when speaking directly to the American people?52

Accordingly, this video does not, any more than the "Jalalabad video," provide evidence that Osama bin Laden himself confessed to planning the 9/11 attacks.

Conclusion

I showed in a previous essay that, according to the best evidence presently available, Osama bin Laden has been dead for many years.53 In the present essay, I have shown that there is not even any good evidence for the claim that bin Laden was responsible for the 9/11 attacks. Accordingly, insofar as the justification for the continuation of the AfPak war is based on the fact that bin Laden in the region both before and after the 9/11 attacks, that justification would seem to be doubly baseless.

David Ray Griffin is the author of 36 books, nine of which are about 9/11. His most recent book is The Mysterious Collapse of World Trade Center 7: Why the Final Official Report about 9/11 Is Unscientific and False (Olive Branch, 2009). In 2008, he put out two books: The New Pearl Harbor: 9/11, the Cover-Up, and the Exposé (which was named a "Pick of the Week" by Publishers Weekly) and Osama bin Laden: Dead Or Alive? (which has generated considerable media coverage in England).

Notes

1. 9/11 Contradictions: An Open Letter to Congress and the Press (Northampton: Olive Branch, 2008), Chap. 18, "Does the Government Have Hard Evidence of Bin Laden's Responsibility?"
2. The New Pearl Harbor Revisited: 9/11, the Cover-Up, and the Exposé (Northampton: Olive Branch, 2008). This book was named Publishers Weekly's "Pick of the Week" on November 24, 2008 (http://www.publishersweekly.com/article/CA6617001.html?industryid=47159).
3. "Meet the Press," NBC, September 23, 2001 (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/nation/specials/attacked/transcripts/nbctext092301.html).
4. "Remarks by the President, Secretary of the Treasury O'Neill and Secretary of State Powell on Executive Order," White House, September 24, 2001 (http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2001/09/20010924-4.html).
5. Seymour M. Hersh, "What Went Wrong: The C.I.A. and the Failure of American Intelligence," New Yorker, October 1, 2001 (http://cicentre.com/Documents/DOC_Hersch_OCT_01.htm).
6. "White House Warns Taliban: ‘We Will Defeat You,'" CNN, September 21, 2001 (http://archives.cnn.com/2001/WORLD/asiapcf/central/09/21/ret.afghan.taliban).
7. Kathy Gannon, "Taliban Willing to Talk, But Wants U.S. Respect," Associated Press, November 1, 2001 (http://nucnews.net/nucnews/2001nn/0111nn/011101nn.htm#300).
8. Office of the Prime Minister, "Responsibility for the Terrorist Atrocities in the United States," BBC News, October 4, 2001 (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/1579043.stm).
9. "The Investigation and the Evidence," BBC News, October 5, 2001 (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/1581063.stm).
10. Federal Bureau of Investigation, "Most Wanted Terrorists: Usama bin Laden" (http://www.fbi.gov/wanted/terrorists/terbinladen.htm).
11. Ed Haas, "FBI says, ‘No Hard Evidence Connecting Bin Laden to 9/11'" Muckraker Report, June 6, 2006 (http://www.teamliberty.net/id267.html).
12. "Bin Laden's FBI Poster Omits Any 9/11 Connection," KSLA 12 in Shreveport, Louisiana
(http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-6443576002087829136).
13. "Bin Laden, Most Wanted For Embassy Bombings?" Washington Post, August 28, 2006 (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/08/27/AR2006082700687.html)
14. Haas, "FBI says, ‘No Hard Evidence Connecting Bin Laden to 9/11.'"
15. Thomas H. Kean and Lee H. Hamilton, with Benjamin Rhodes, Without Precedent: The Inside Story of the 9/11 Commission (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2006).
16. David Ray Griffin, Debunking 9/11 Debunking: An Answer to Popular Mechanics and Other Defenders of the Official Conspiracy Theory, revised and updated edition (Northampton: Olive Branch, 2007). This book won a bronze medal in the 2008 Independent Publishers Book Awards.
17. The 9/11 Commission Report: Final Report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks upon the United States, authorized edition (New York: W. W. Norton, 2004), 149, 155, 166; henceforth 9/11CR.
18. See 9/11CR Ch. 5, notes 16, 41, and 92.
19. Kean and Hamilton, Without Precedent, 118.
20. Ibid., 122-24.
21. Ibid., 119. I have discussed this issue at greater length in Ch. 8, "9/11 Commission Falsehoods about Bin Laden, al-Qaeda, Pakistanis, and Saudis," of The New Pearl Harbor Revisited.
22. Robert Windrem and Victor Limjoco, "The 9/11 Commission Controversy," Deep Background: NBC News Investigations, January 30, 2008 http://deepbackground.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2008/01/30/624314.aspx).
23. "U.S. Releases Videotape of Osama bin Laden," Department of Defense, December 13, 2001 (http://www.defenselink.mil/releases/release.aspx?releaseid=3184); "Pentagon Releases Bin Laden Videotape: U.S. Officials Say Tape Links Him to Sept. 11 Attacks," National Public Radio, December 13, 2001 http://www.npr.org/news/specials/response/investigation/011213.binladen.tape.html). The entire video can be viewed at this NPR Web page.
24. See my book Osama bin Laden: Dead or Alive? (Northampton: Olive Branch [Interlink Books], 2009), 23-26.
25. "Could the Bin Laden Video Be a Fake?" BBC News, December 14, 2001 (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/1711288.stm).
26. "'Feeble' to Claim Bin Laden Tape Fake: Bush," CBC, December 14, 2001 (http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2001/12/14/bush_osama011214.html).
27. Steven Morris, "US Urged to Detail Origin of Tape," Guardian, December 15, 2001 (http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2001/dec/15/september11.afghanistan).
28. Ibid.
29. Toby Harnden, "US Casts Doubt on Bin Laden's Latest Message," Telegraph, December 27, 2001
30. "Dr. Sanjay Gupta: Bin Laden Would Need Help if on Dialysis," CNN, January 21, 2002
(http://www.cnn.com/2002/HEALTH/01/21/gupta.otsc/index.html). For the tape, see ""Osama Bin Laden Tape Dezember [sic] 2001" (http://www.myvideo.de/watch/3760193/Osama_Bin_Laden_Tape_Dezember_2001).
31. For a nose comparison, see "Osama bin Laden Gets a Nose Job" (http://www.awitness.org/news/december_2001/osama_nose_job.html),
or "Bruce Lawrence," Radio Du Jour (http://www.radiodujour.com/people/lawrence_bruce).
32. Compare his hands with bin Laden's hand as shown in the post-November 16 video (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/1729882.stm).
33. This can be seen in a portion of the Jalalabad video placed on YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x0FVeqCX6z8).
34. For documentation and discussion, see Osama bin Laden: Dead or Alive? 27-29.
35. "Interview with Usama bin Laden," Ummat (Karachi), September 28, 2001
http://www.robert-fisk.com/usama_interview_ummat.htm).
Bin Laden's statement about innocents repeated what he had said in an interview with John Miller of ABC News in 1998: "Our religion forbids us from killing innocent people such as women and children"
36. "Transcript of Usama bin Laden Video Tape," Department of Defense, December 13, 2001 (http://www.defenselink.mil/news/Dec2001/d20011213ubl.pdf).
37. Bruce Lawrence is the editor of Messages to the World: The Statements of Osama Bin Laden (London and New York: Verso, 2005).
38. Lawrence made these statements on February 16, 2007, during a radio interview conducted by Kevin Barrett of the University of Wisconsin at Madison. It can be heard at Radio Du Jour (http://www.radiodujour.com/people/lawrence_bruce).
39. BBC News, "Tape ‘Proves Bin Laden's Guilt,'" December 14, 2001 (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/1708091.stm).
40. Angelo M. Codevilla, "Osama bin Elvis," American Spectator, March 2009 (http://spectator.org/archives/2009/03/13/osama-bin-elvis/print).
41. Maggie Michael, "Bin Laden, in Statement to U.S. People, Says He Ordered Sept. 11 Attacks," Associated Press, October 29, 2004 (http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/nation/terror/20041029-1423-binladentape.html).
42. Ron Suskind, The One Percent Doctrine: Deep Inside America's Pursuit of Its Enemies Since 9/11 (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2006), 336.
43. Philip Sherwell, "Bush Takes a Six-Point Lead After New Bin Laden Tape," Telegraph, November 1, 2004 (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/1475515/Bush-takes-a-six-point-lead-after-new-bin-Laden-tape.html).
44. "Kerry Blames Defeat on Bin Laden," BBC News, January 31, 2005 http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4222647.stm); "Bush Says Bin Laden Tape Aided Re-Election: Report," Reuters, February 28, 2006 http://www.redorbit.com/news/politics/408991/bush_says_bin_laden_tape_aided_reelection_report/).
45. "Bin Laden's Warning: Full Text," BBC News, October 7, 2001 (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/1585636.stm).
46. "BBC Transcript Of Osama Bin Laden Statement," November 7, 2001 (http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/WO0111/S00049.htm).
47. "Bin Laden's Warning: Full Text."
48. "BBC Transcript Of Osama Bin Laden Statement."
49. See "In the Footsteps of Bin Laden," CNN, August 23, 2006 http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0608/23/cp.01.html), and Steve Coll, "Young Osama," New Yorker, December 12, 2005 http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2005/12/12/051212fa_fact).
50. "In the Footsteps of Bin Laden."
51. "Arnaud de Borchgrave Interviews Hameed Gul, Former Chief of Pakistan's Inter Services Intelligence," UPI, September 26, 2001 (http://www.strategypage.com/militaryforums/594-499.aspx; also available at(http://www.robert-fisk.com/hamid_gul_interview_sept26_2001.htm).
52. I have given a more thorough analysis of the problems in these two "confession videos" in my book Osama bin Laden: Dead or Alive? (Northampton: Olive Branch [Interlink Books, 2009).
53. "Osama Bin Laden: Dead or Alive?" Veterans Today, October 22, 2009 (http://www.veteranstoday.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=9079).

Osama Bin Laden: Dead or Alive?

By David Ray Griffin

October 10, 2009 "Global Research" -- Is Osama bin Laden still alive? I have dealt with this question in a recent little book entitled Osama bin Laden: Dead or Alive? The present essay summarizes the main points of this book.

Since the transference of power from the Bush administration to that of Barack Obama administration, the question of whether bin Laden is dead or alive has become more important.

Although George W. Bush famously said that he wanted Osama bin Laden “dead or alive,” he made clear that he was not serious about this. Besides stating that he was not concerned about bin Laden, he demonstrated this by diverting most of America’s military resources to Iraq. Bush could, of course, be unconcerned about bin Laden because he knew that, besides the fact that bin Laden had nothing to do with 9/11, he was probably dead anyway.

I do not know what President Obama and his people think about these matters, but their rhetoric presupposes that bin Laden was responsible for 9/11 and is still alive.

In November 2008, for example, a Washington Post story said:

“President-elect Barack Obama . . . intends to renew the U.S. commitment to the hunt for Osama bin Laden. . . . ‘This is our enemy,’ one adviser said of bin Laden, ‘and he should be our principal target.’”

In his White House address of March 27 of this year, President Obama said:

“[A]l Qaeda and its allies - the terrorists who planned and supported the 9/11 attacks - are in Pakistan and Afghanistan. Multiple intelligence estimates have warned that al Qaeda is actively planning attacks on the U.S. homeland from its safe-haven in Pakistan. . . . [A]l Qaeda and its extremist allies have moved across the border to the remote areas of the Pakistani frontier. This almost certainly includes al Qaeda's leadership: Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri.”

Obama has appealed regularly to these intelligence estimates, which have invariably claimed that bin Laden is hiding in Pakistan, somewhere along its border with Pakistan. This claim has been used to justify the extension of US military activity into Pakistan, with the result that people now speak of the “AfPak war.”

One way to argue against this war is to point out that, if these intelligence experts do not even know whether bin Laden is alive, they certainly cannot know where he is and what he is thinking.

There are, to be sure, other good arguments against the this war, and many critics are making these arguments. But to point out that bin Laden is almost certainly dead provides an argument that goes to the heart of the publically articulated rationale for this war.

Of course, another way to argue against this war would be to point out that bin Laden had nothing to do with 9/11. But even though our own FBI has admitted that it “has no hard evidence connecting Bin Laden to 9/11,” a large part of the American population has been conditioned to reject all revisionism about 9/11 out of hand. As we saw recently with “the Van Jones affair,” people are considered unfit for public service if they once signed a document suggesting that the official account of 9/11 might not be fully true.

My little bin Laden book is primarily for people who, besides assuming that Osama bin Laden was responsible for the 9/11 attacks, also believe that the AfPak war is justifiable because we need to prevent him from planning another attack. Many such people will turn against the war if they become aware of convincing evidence that bin Laden is almost certainly dead. There is considerable evidence for this conclusion.

This evidence is of two types: objective evidence and testimonies.

Objective Evidence that Bin Laden is Dead

The objective evidence includes the following facts:

First, up until mid-December 13, 2001, the CIA had regularly been intercepting messages between bin Laden and his people. At that time, however, the messages suddenly stopped, and the CIA has never again intercepted a message.

Second, on December 26, 2001, a leading Pakistani newspaper published a story reporting that bin Laden had died in mid-December, adding:

“A prominent official in the Afghan Taliban movement . . . stated . . . that he had himself attended the funeral of bin Laden and saw his face prior to burial.”

Third, bin Laden had kidney disease. He had been treated for it in the American Hospital in Dubai in July 2001, at which time he reportedly ordered two dialysis machines to take home. If you have ever wondered what bin Laden was doing the night before the 9/11 attacks, CBS News reported that he was being given kidney dialysis treatment in a hospital in Pakistan. And in January of 2001, Dr. Sanjay Gupta said – based on a video of bin Laden that had been made in either late November or early December of 2001 – that he appeared to be in the last stages of kidney failure.

Fourth, In July of 2002, CNN reported that bin Laden’s bodyguards had been captured in February of that year, adding: “Sources believe that if the bodyguards were captured away from bin Laden, it is likely the most-wanted man in the world is dead.”

Fifth, the United States has since 2001 offered a $25 million reward for any information leading to the capture or killing of bin Laden. But this reward offer has produced no such information, even though Pakistan has many desperately poor people, only about half of whom have been supportive of bin Laden.

Testimonial Evidence that Bin Laden Is Dead

In addition to this objective evidence, we had considerable testimony in 2002, from people in position to know, that bin Laden was dead, or probably so. These people included:

• President Musharraf of Pakistan;

• Dale Watson, the head of the FBI’s counterterrorism unit;

• Oliver North, who said: “I'm certain that Osama is dead. . . And so are all the other guys I stay in touch with”;

• President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan;

• Sources within Israeli intelligence, who said that any new messages from bin Laden were “probably fabrications”;

• Sources within Pakistani intelligence, who “confirmed the death of . . . Osama Bin Laden” and “attributed the reasons behind Washington's hiding news on the death of Osama Bin Laden to the desire of the hawks of the American administration to use the issue of al-Qaida and international terrorism to invade Iraq.”

For this reason, perhaps, the stories about the demise of bin Laden largely came to an end in the latter part of 2002, when the United States was gearing up for its attack on Iraq. From then until now, there have been few such stories.

Recently, however, two former intelligence officers have spoken out. In October 2008, former CIA case officer Robert Baer suggested in passing during an interview on National Public Radio that bin Laden was no longer among the living. When Baer was asked about this, he said: “Of course he’s dead.”
In March of 2009, former Foreign Service officer Angelo Codevilla published an essay in the American Spectator entitled “Osama bin Elvis.” Explaining his title, Codevilla wrote: “Seven years after Osama bin Laden's last verifiable appearance among the living, there is more evidence for Elvis's presence among us than for his.”

This is an excellent article, with only one serious flaw. In 2007, Benazir Bhutto, being interviewed by David Frost, referred to Omar Sheikh as “the man who murdered Osama bin Laden.” Codevilla cited this statement as further evidence that bin Laden is dead. But Bhutto had simply misspoken: She had meant to say “the man who murdered Daniel Pearl,” which is the standard way of referring to Omar Sheikh. That she misspoke was shown the next day, when she told CNN: “I don’t think General Musharaf personally knows where Osama bin Laden is.” Ten days later, speaking to NPR, she reported having asked a policeman assigned to guard her house: “Shouldn’t you be looking for Osama bin Laden?” This flaw aside, Codevilla’s article provides good support for his claim that the widespread belief in bin Laden’s continued existence is not backed up by evidence.

What about the “Messages from Osama bin Laden”?

Many people, of course, assume that there is a lot of evidence that bin Laden is still alive, namely, the dozens of audio tape and video tape “messages from bin Laden” that have appeared since 2001. These tapes provide good evidence, however, only if they are authentic. The longest chapter of my book is devoted to this question.

I show, in the first place, that the technology for making fake audio and video tapes is now so advanced that even experts can be fooled. So although the press regularly tells us that intelligence agencies have authenticated the latest bin Laden tape, it is virtually impossible to prove a tape to be authentic.

It is sometimes possible, however, to prove a tape to be a fake. For example: If the person hired to play bin Laden writes with his right hand; if he is much heavier and darker than bin Laden was in a tape made about the same time; if he has fatter hands and shorter fingers; if his nose has a different shape. And if, in discussing the Twin Towers, he says that the fire melted the steel, whereas the real bin Laden would have known that a building fire cannot melt steel. I am speaking here of the video that was allegedly found by US troops in Jalalabad, Afghanistan, in November 2001, which is widely known as the “bin Laden confession video.”

Also obviously fabricated was the “October Surprise” video, which appeared on October 29, 2004, just in time to help George W. Bush get reelected. One clue that it was a fake, aside from its timing, is provided by its language. Bin Laden’s own messages were saturated with references to Allah and the Prophet Mohammed. But in this October Surprise video, Allah was mentioned rarely and the only “Mohammad” mentioned was Mohamed Atta. Also, whereas undoubtedly authentic bin Laden messages portrayed worldly events as cause or at least permitted by Allah, the speaker on this October Surprise video gave a purely secular account of events, even telling the American people: “Your security is in your own hands.”

The most obviously faked video is one that, appearing in 2007, was identical to the October Surprise video of 2004, except that the bin Laden figure now had a completely black beard, leading me to call it the video from “Blackbeard the Terrorist.” Although pundits tried, with straight faces, to explain why bin Laden might have dyed his beard, or put on a fake one, this video was best treated with the respect it deserved by a YouTube video featuring a actor wearing a very long, very black, beard, and saying:

Hello, long time no see. It is me, Osama bin Laden. And no, this not to be confused with just-for-men hair color commercial. . . . I make this video to prove to world that me still alive and kicking.

This video is very funny. But there is, of course, nothing funny about the fact that obviously fake bin Laden videos have been used, and are still being used, to justify the AfPak war, which continues to kill dozens if not hundreds of innocent people each week, including women and children attending weddings and funerals.

Conclusion

If my little book, by showing that bin Laden has probably long been dead, can help shorten this war, it will have served its main purpose.

Its other main point, to which a separate chapter is devoted, is that these fake bin Laden tapes appear to be simply one part of an extensive propaganda operation, in which the US military intelligence is using tax dollars – illegally – to propagandize the American public, with the aim of furthering the militarization of America and its foreign policy.

I hope my little book will stimulate the 9/11 truth movement, along with the anti-war movement in general, to take on more fully the task of exposing this propaganda effort, to which a growing portion of our tax dollars is being devoted.

Osama Bin Laden Has Been Dead Since December 2001

Written by Abhijay Patel
Pakistan Daily
Sep 24, 2009

“If they didn’t have an Osama Bin Laden, they would have invented one.”
Milt Bearden – CIA agent, in an interview with anchor Dan Rather of the CBS (September 12, 2001)

“The reason why 9/11 is not mentioned on Osama Bin Laden’s Most Wanted page is because the FBI has no hard evidence connecting Bin Laden to 9/11. He has not been formally indicted and charged in connection with 9/11 because the FBI has no hard evidence connecting Bin Laden to 9/11″.
(Rex Tomb, spokesman, FBI’s Chief of Investigative Publicity)

Now that even Asif Ali Zardari the President of Pakistan & General Musharraf are stating that Bin Laden is dead, it is high time that we in India began to both debate as well as challenge this sheer calumny.

Basically the truth and the fact of the matter is that Bin Laden has been dead since the latter half of December 2001. So then why did Bush-Cheney & now the Obama-Hillary combine, as well as the Neoconservatives & Zionist ideologues, continue to insist & actively propagate the myth of Bin Laden?

First let us address the ‘Politics of Fear’, that is an integral part of the flawed ‘Global War on Terror’, which is part of the Neo-Zioncon doctrine of ‘Controlled Chaos’. The ghost of Bin Laden serves multiple purposes both at the Global and Indian context. In India, Bin Laden is used to generate fear in the mind of the Hindu community, the epitome of “Islamic terror” and thus distrust & hatred for the Muslim is its natural corollary.

For the Muslims he is meant to be the “false hero” and to wrongly inspire youth to follow the flawed path of extremism and terror.

The other primary strategy in propagating the myth of Bin Laden is so that every political struggle against US-Zionist Imperialism is converted into a struggle for the supposed cause of Islam and Muslims and thus reduce every struggle to a narrow religio-sectarian agenda, to the negation of all political, economic & social factors. Every Bin Laden message appeals to “Muslims to wage a jehad against Christians, Jews, Hindus and Buddhists”. The agenda is to communalise, divide, confuse and thus weaken society. The agenda is also to further isolate and marginalize Muslims from the mainstream struggles & spread Islamophobia. For example the Palestinian national freedom struggle against Israeli colonial occupation is reduced to a mere Muslim cause as per Bin Laden’s announcements & thus weaken the global Palestinian solidarity movement which is today striving for the total “Boycott of Israel”.

Now let us come to a few facts that will help us establish that Bin Laden has been dead since the last eight years and more.

During the period 4-14th of July, 2001 (only two months prior to the 9/11-WTC terror attacks), Bin Laden was in the American Hospital in Dubai. According to the United Press International (Oct 31, 2001), Bin Laden underwent kidney surgery and treatment under Dr. Terry Callaway. According to both the French “Le Figaro” & the “Radio France International”, Bin Laden was visited by a top US-CIA agent. This report and the one below are further substantiated by CBS anchor Dan Rather, Peter Bergen, investigative journalist Barry Petersen and Prof. Michel Chussodovsky.
More astonishing is the fact that just a day prior to the September 11 attacks, Bin Laden was undergoing treatment in the Military Hospital in Rawalpindi itself (Le Figaro – Jan 28, 2002). So both the Pakistani Military establishment and the ISI as well as the CIA were more than aware of Bin Laden’s whereabouts.

A few days later Dr. Sanjay Gupta (a highly respected Indian-American within the Medical fraternity) gave his assessment that both due to the heavy US bombing of the Taliban areas as well as the fact that kidney dialysis requires a special environment, it is impossible for a patient to survive beyond a week.

According to Pentagon sources, Bin Laden’s voice could not be detected beyond December 14, 2001.

Reports of Bin Laden’s death have been so widespread that it is a wonder as to how the myth of OBL has been kept alive. Now consider the following reports:

Dale Watson, the FBI chief of counter-terrorism said on BBC that he thought that OBL was dead.

In fact the announcement of OBL’s death and the funeral as well, appeared in the Egytian newspaper Al-Wafd on December 26, 2001. Also refer to an article by Robert Burns (26/04/02) on this matter.

Even the Israeli intelligence had announced the death (World Tribune). They also said that the new messages are possibly fabrications.

Reports of his death have appeared in the New York Times (July 11, 2002) as well the Guardian (UK) and the Telegraph (UK).

Both Musharraf and Karzai have been reported saying the same on CNN.

Most recently the most remarkable revelation on this matter was made by none other than the late Benazir Bhutto. In an interview with David Frost on Al-Jazeerah English (November 2, 2007), she made the stunning announcement that Bin Laden was dead and had been murdered by Omar Sheikh. Interestingly Omar Sheikh was an ISI operative and was also responsible for the murder of Daniel Pearl. The most telling part is the deafening silence of the International media.

The BBC did carry this interview but edited this line.

WHY??

If this is not “Breaking News”, then what is?

Does not this statement warrant international attention? Would not have this statement guaranteed higher TRP ratings and increased newspaper circulation? But not a word. The complicity of the corporate media is apparent.

But then people ask me and rightly so that, “what about all these Bin Laden-Al Qaeda tapes?, how do you explain that?”. So lets deal with that issue as well.

Bin Laden tapes have appeared prior to his death in December 2001, but since then the world has been subjected to a barrage of fake tapes. Prof. Bruce Lawrence of Duke University, is the world’s leading expert on these tapes and has studied every tape since then and it is his analysis and that of Diana Lee, Wayne Madsen as well as others that I put before you.

The first fake Bin laden tape was released by the Pentagon on December 13, 2001 and found in a deserted house in Jalalabad. It shows a stout and healthy man posing as Laden and making the claims of the destruction of the WTC. The most glaring error in the video is that the Laden duplicate is signing the confession letter with his right hand. Bin Laden used his left!

Another Laden video appeared just prior to the US presidential election on October 29, 2004, a few days after Bush had lost the first Presidential debate to John Kerry the Democratic nominee. The calls for a jehad against America helped to boost Bush’s ratings and was a factor in his ultimate victory.

The Bin laden audio tapes began to arrive in 2002. These tapes were also meant to achieve and create a climate of fear at the global level. However the experts at the IDIAP, the world’s premier voice identification institute based in Switzerland, have clearly stated that the voice on the tapes was not that of Bin Laden.

Bin Laden and Al Qaeda tapes have also appeared in India and the political agenda is the same. Last year (June 8, 2007) an Al Qaeda tape surfaced in Kashmir claiming that Al Qaeda had established a base in India. It appeared only a day after an Israeli Military delegation arrived in India to advice the government to combat “Islamic terror in Kashmir”. Even certain Indian intelligence and military sources rejected the tape as a fake.

But now the pattern at the global level of releasing the Bin Laden-Al Qaeda tapes has undergone a remarkable change. Earlier there would be a direct relay of the tapes without any fanfare. But now unbelievably the release is accompanied with a curtain raiser at a global scale. The release of the tapes is announced a few days prior to the final release. The news of the same appears in practically every newspaper and channel of note the world over. The ground is prepared to ensure that as many people as possible see the tape and register its message of fear and hatred. It is basically akin to a curtain raiser for a new movie or a music video.

Consider the following:

It was on the 6th anniversary of the 9/11 terror attacks that we were subjected to this mirage. The announcement of the new Bin Laden message flooded the airwaves and newspapers. We then saw a Bin Laden, hale and hearty and with a black beard. The reports stated that Bin Laden’s bodyguard (where did he come from and did he have a name?) had “revealed” that Bin Laden was healthy and was living with his four wives (how cliched!), in a compound (where, which country, city, location?). The media did not ask a single question. Worse was to follow. After a few days we had another Bin Laden photograph plastered all over the front pages, but this time with a “white beard”. Did the dye run off or had he lost his virility?. It was all so ridiculous, but they got away with it.

Then the Mumbai Mirror (29/05/08) reported that a new Laden tape is due in the next 24 hours. What’s more, this time the contents of the tape were also known to the “sources” even prior to the release. So we know then as to who writes all the scripts for these tapes, don’t we?. The report ominously states that the tape “will urge jehadis to use nuclear, chemical and biological weapons against civilians”. It quotes intelligence sources that have spoken to ABC News.

I too was very confused in the immediate aftermath of the September 11, 2001 terror attacks but I began to ask questions and seek answers independent of the corporate media, as the unfolding socio-economic and political scenario did not make rational sense. The incident that made me question and challenge the dominant paradigm was the following.

On the 14th of February 2003, prior to the final US-NATO attack on Iraq, an Al Qaeda tape appeared. It asked the Muslims of the world to unite and wage a jehad against the Christians, Jews, Hindus and Buddhists of the world. I was too stunned because of the simple fact that I was aware that on the next day the Christians, Jews, Hindus, Buddhists, people of faith and none, were going to march in their millions across the streets of USA, South America, Canada, Europe, Australia along with their Muslim brethren to oppose the impending war on Iraq. Clearly, the Al Qaeda tape had been released with the specific agenda to divide the masses of the world and further serve to demonize the Muslims. From that day I began to maintain a record of the Al Qaeda tapes and I found a design, a clear objective and purpose that was basically serving the cause of the Zionist empire.

Terror is and has always been an instrument of Imperial Zionist foreign policy. It is the politics of terror that is reshaping the geo-strategic and economic map as well as leading to the deepening of the religio-cultural & ethnic fault lines across the world. It is the myths of terror that seek to confuse and weaken the anti-imperialist masses and their struggles against neo-liberal globalization and perpetuate hatred for Muslims and spread Islamophobia, which itself is now a global phenomenon.

Thus it is imperative that we expose these myths and the lies of Bin Laden and the Al Qaeda. It is actually a very simple task and it must be done. By F Mithiborwala

Who Is Osama Bin Laden?

September 13, 2009
Global Research
by Michel Chossudovsky

The Truth behind 9/11: Who Is Osama Bin Laden?
At 11am, on the morning of 9/11, the Bush administration had announced that Osama was behind the attacks.

This article below entitled "Who is Osama bin Laden?" was drafted on September 11, 2001. It was first published on the Global Research website on the evening of September 12, 2001.

Since 2001, it has appeared on numerous websites. The original September 11, 2001 posting is one of the most widely read articles on the internet, pertaining to Al Qaeda.

From the outset, the objective was to use 9/11 as a pretext for launching the first phase of the Middle East War, which consisted in the bombing and occupation of Afghanistan.

Within hours of the attacks, Osama bin Laden was identified as the architect of 9/11. On the following day, the "war on terrorism" had been launched. The media disinformation campaign went into full gear.

Also on September 12, less than 24 hours after the attacks, NATO invoked for the first time in its history "Article 5 of the Washington Treaty - its collective defence clause" declaring the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center (WTC) and the Pentagon "to be an attack against all NATO members."

What happened subsequently, with the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq is already part of history. Iran and Syria constitute the next phase of the US administration's military road-map.

9/11 remains the pretext and justification for waging a war without borders.

Who Is Osama Bin Laden?
Global Research
Michel Chossudovsky, September 11, 2008

(Excerpts from the Preface of America's "War on Terrorism", Second edition, Global Research, 2005).

At eleven o’clock, on the morning of September 11, the Bush administration had already announced that Al Qaeda was responsible for the attacks on the World Trade Center (WTC) and the Pentagon. This assertion was made prior to the conduct of an indepth police investigation.

That same evening at 9.30 pm, a "War Cabinet" was formed integrated by a select number of top intelligence and military advisors. And at 11.00 pm, at the end of that historic meeting at the White House, the "War on Terrorism" was officially launched.

The decision was announced to wage war against the Taliban and Al Qaeda in retribution for the 9/11 attacks. The following morning on September 12th, the news headlines indelibly pointed to "state sponsorship" of the 9/11 attacks. In chorus, the US media was calling for a military intervention against Afghanistan.

Barely four weeks later, on the 7th of October, Afghanistan was bombed and invaded by US troops. Americans were led to believe that the decison to go to war had been taken on the spur of the moment, on the evening of September 11, in response to the attacks and their tragic consequences.

Little did the public realize that a large scale theater war is never planned and executed in a matter of weeks. The decision to launch a war and send troops to Afghanistan had been taken well in advance of 9/11. The "terrorist, massive, casualty-producing event" as it was later described by CentCom Commander General Tommy Franks, served to galvanize public opinion in support of a war agenda which was already in its final planning stage.

The tragic events of 9/11 provided the required justification to wage a war on "humanitarian grounds", with the full support of World public opinion and the endorsement of the "international community".

Several prominent "progressive" intellectuals made a case for "retaliation against terrorism", on moral and ethical grounds. The "just cause" military doctrine (jus ad bellum) was accepted and upheld at face value as a legitimate response to 9/11, without examining the fact that Washington had not only supported the "Islamic terror network", it was also instrumental in the installation of the Taliban government in 1996.

In the wake of 9/11, the antiwar movement was completely isolated. The trade unions and civil society organizations had swallowed the media lies and government propaganda. They had accepted a war of retribution against Afghanistan, an impoverished country of 30 million people.

I started writing on the evening of September 11, late into the night, going through piles of research notes, which I had previously collected on the history of Al Qaeda. My first text entitled "Who is Osama bin Laden?" was completed and first published on September the 12th. (See full text of 9/12 article below).

From the very outset, I questioned the official story, which described nineteen Al Qaeda sponsored hijackers involved in a highly sophisticated and organized operation. My first objective was to reveal the true nature of this illusive "enemy of America", who was "threatening the Homeland".

The myth of the "outside enemy" and the threat of "Islamic terrorists" was the cornerstone of the Bush adminstration’s military doctrine, used as a pretext to invade Afghanistan and Iraq, not to mention the repeal of civil liberties and constitutional government in America.

Without an "outside enemy", there could be no "war on terrorism". The entire national security agenda would collapse "like a deck of cards". The war criminals in high office would have no leg to stand on.

It was consequently crucial for the development of a coherent antiwar and civil rights movement, to reveal the nature of Al Qaeda and its evolving relationship to successive US adminstrations. Amply documented but rarely mentioned by the mainstream media, Al Qaeda was a creation of the CIA going back to the Soviet-Afghan war. This was a known fact, corroborated by numerous sources including official documents of the US Congress. The intelligence community had time and again acknowledged that they had indeed supported Osama bin Laden, but that in the wake of the Cold War: "he turned against us".

After 9/11, the campaign of media disinformation served not only to drown the truth but also to kill much of the historical evidence on how this illusive "outside enemy" had been fabricated and transformed into "Enemy Number One".

Excerpts from the Preface of America's "War on Terrorism", Second edition, Global Research, 2005. by Michel Chossudovsky
www.globalresearch.ca
September 12, 2001

A few hours after the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon, the Bush administration concluded without supporting evidence, that "Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaeda organisation were prime suspects". CIA Director George Tenet stated that bin Laden has the capacity to plan ``multiple attacks with little or no warning.'' Secretary of State Colin Powell called the attacks "an act of war" and President Bush confirmed in an evening televised address to the Nation that he would "make no distinction between the terrorists who committed these acts and those who harbor them". Former CIA Director James Woolsey pointed his finger at "state sponsorship," implying the complicity of one or more foreign governments. In the words of former National Security Adviser, Lawrence Eagleburger, "I think we will show when we get attacked like this, we are terrible in our strength and in our retribution."

Meanwhile, parroting official statements, the Western media mantra has approved the launching of "punitive actions" directed against civilian targets in the Middle East. In the words of William Saffire writing in the New York Times: "When we reasonably determine our attackers' bases and camps, we must pulverize them -- minimizing but accepting the risk of collateral damage" -- and act overtly or covertly to destabilize terror's national hosts".

The following text outlines the history of Osama Bin Laden and the links of the Islamic "Jihad" to the formulation of US foreign policy during the Cold War and its aftermath.

Prime suspect in the New York and Washington terrorists attacks, branded by the FBI as an "international terrorist" for his role in the African US embassy bombings, Saudi born Osama bin Laden was recruited during the Soviet-Afghan war "ironically under the auspices of the CIA, to fight Soviet invaders". 1

In 1979 "the largest covert operation in the history of the CIA" was launched in response to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in support of the pro-Communist government of Babrak Kamal.2:

With the active encouragement of the CIA and Pakistan's ISI [Inter Services Intelligence], 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.3

The Islamic "jihad" 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 traveled 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.4

The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) using Pakistan's military Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) played a key role in training the Mujahideen. In turn, the CIA sponsored guerrilla training was integrated with the teachings of Islam:

"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."5

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 Beardman "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 Beardman 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

Motivated by nationalism and religious fervor, 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 theatre had no contacts with Washington or the CIA.

With CIA backing and the funneling of massive amounts of US military aid, the Pakistani ISI had developed into a "parallel structure wielding enormous power over all aspects of government". 8 The ISI had a staff composed of military and intelligence officers, bureaucrats, undercover agents and informers, estimated at 150,000. 9

Meanwhile, CIA operations had also reinforced the Pakistani military regime led by General Zia Ul Haq:

'Relations between the CIA and the ISI [Pakistan's military intelligence] 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."10

The Golden Crescent Drug Triangle

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. 11 In this regard, 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 percent of U.S. demand. In Pakistan, the heroin-addict population went from near zero in 1979... to 1.2 million by 1985 -- a much steeper rise than in any other nation":12

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 ... U.S. officials had refused to investigate charges of heroin dealing by its Afghan allies `because U.S. narcotics policy in Afghanistan has been subordinated to the war against Soviet influence there.' In 1995, the former CIA director of the Afghan operation, Charles Cogan, admitted the CIA had indeed sacrificed the drug war to fight the Cold War. `Our main mission was to do as much damage as possible to the Soviets. We didn't really have the resources or the time to devote to an investigation of the drug trade,'... `I don't think that we need to apologize for this. Every situation has its fallout.... There was fallout in terms of drugs, yes. But the main objective was accomplished. The Soviets left Afghanistan.'13

In the Wake of the Cold War

In the wake of the Cold War, the Central Asian region is not only strategic for its extensive oil reserves, it also produces three quarters of the World's opium representing multi-billion dollar revenues to business syndicates, financial institutions, intelligence agencies and organized crime. The annual proceeds of the Golden Crescent drug trade (between 100 and 200 billion dollars) represents approximately one third of the Worldwide annual turnover of narcotics, estimated by the United Nations to be of the order of $500 billion.14

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.15 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. New undercover initiatives were set in motion in Central Asia, the Caucasus and the Balkans. Pakistan's military and intelligence apparatus essentially "served as a catalyst for the disintegration of the Soviet Union and the emergence of six new Muslim republics in Central Asia." 16.

Meanwhile, Islamic missionaries of the Wahhabi 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.

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, JUI entered the government coalition of Prime Minister Benazzir Bhutto. Ties between JUI, the Army and ISI were established. In 1995, 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..." 17

And the JUI with the support of the Saudi Wahhabi movements played a key role in recruiting volunteers to fight in the Balkans and the former Soviet Union.

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.

No doubt, this explains why Washington has closed its eyes on the reign of terror imposed by the Taliban 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".20

The War in Chechnya

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. According to Yossef Bodansky, director of the U.S. Congress's 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. 21 The summit, was attended by Osama bin Laden and high-ranking Iranian and Pakistani intelligence officers. In this regard, 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". 22

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 two main Chechen rebel armies (respectively led by 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 Chechen 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 Defense 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."23

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 Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA). In 1997-98, 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" 24

Basayev's organisation has also been involved in a number of rackets including narcotics, illegal tapping and sabotage of Russia's oil pipelines, kidnapping, prostitution, trade in counterfeit dollars and the smuggling of nuclear materials (See Mafia linked to Albania's collapsed pyramids, 25 Alongside the extensive laundering of drug money, the proceeds of various illicit activities have been funneled towards the recruitment of mercenaries and the purchase of weapons.

During his training in Afghanistan, Shamil Basayev linked up with Saudi born veteran Mujahideen Commander "Al Khattab" who had fought as a volunteer in Afghanistan. Barely a few months after Basayev's return to Grozny, Khattab was invited (early 1995) to set up an army base in Chechnya for the training of Mujahideen fighters. According to the BBC, Khattab's posting to Chechnya had been "arranged through the Saudi-Arabian based [International] Islamic Relief Organisation, a militant religious organisation, funded by mosques and rich individuals which channeled funds into Chechnya".26

Concluding Remarks

Since the Cold War era, Washington has consciously supported Osama bin Laden, while at same time placing him on the FBI's "most wanted list" as the World's foremost terrorist.

While the Mujahideen are busy fighting America's war in the Balkans and the former Soviet Union, the FBI --operating as a US based Police Force- is waging a domestic war against terrorism, operating in some respects independently of the CIA which has --since the Soviet-Afghan war-- supported international terrorism through its covert operations.

In a cruel irony, while the Islamic jihad --featured by the Bush Adminstration as "a threat to America"-- is blamed for the terrorist assaults on the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon, these same Islamic organisations constitute a key instrument of US military-intelligence operations in the Balkans and the former Soviet Union.

In the wake of the terrorist attacks in New York and Washington, the truth must prevail to prevent the Bush Adminstration together with its NATO partners from embarking upon a military adventure which threatens the future of humanity.

Endnotes:

1. Hugh Davies, International: `Informers' point the finger at bin Laden; Washington on alert for suicide bombers, The Daily Telegraph, London, 24 August 1998.
2. See Fred Halliday, "The Un-great game: the Country that lost the Cold War, Afghanistan, New Republic, 25 March 1996):
3. Ahmed Rashid, The Taliban: Exporting Extremism, Foreign Affairs, November-December 1999.
4. Steve Coll, Washington Post, July 19, 1992.
5. Dilip Hiro, Fallout from the Afghan Jihad, Inter Press Services, 21 November 1995.
6. Weekend Sunday (NPR); Eric Weiner, Ted Clark; 16 August 1998.
7. Ibid.
8. Dipankar Banerjee; Possible Connection of ISI With Drug Industry, India Abroad, 2 December 1994.
9. Ibid
10. See 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.
11. Alfred McCoy, Drug fallout: the CIA's Forty Year Complicity in the Narcotics Trade. The Progressive; 1 August 1997.
12. Ibid
13. Ibid.
14. Douglas Keh, Drug Money in a changing World, Technical document no 4, 1998, Vienna UNDCP, p. 4. See also Report of the International Narcotics Control Board for 1999, E/INCB/1999/1 United Nations Publication, Vienna 1999, p 49-51, And Richard Lapper, UN Fears Growth of Heroin Trade, Financial Times, 24 February 2000.
15. Report of the International Narcotics Control Board, op cit, p 49-51, see also Richard Lapper, op. cit.
16. International Press Services, 22 August 1995.
17. Ahmed Rashid, The Taliban: Exporting Extremism, Foreign Affairs, November- December, 1999, p. 22.
18. Quoted in the Christian Science Monitor, 3 September 1998)
19. Tim McGirk, Kabul learns to live with its bearded conquerors, The Independent, London, 6 November1996.
20. See K. Subrahmanyam, Pakistan is Pursuing Asian Goals, India Abroad, 3 November 1995.
21. Levon Sevunts, Who's calling the shots?: Chechen conflict finds Islamic roots in Afghanistan and Pakistan, The Gazette, Montreal, 26 October 1999..
22. Ibid
23. Ibid.
24. See Vitaly Romanov and Viktor Yadukha, Chechen Front Moves To Kosovo Segodnia, Moscow, 23 Feb 2000.
25. The European, 13 February 1997, See also Itar-Tass, 4-5 January 2000.
26. BBC, 29 September 1999.

What Ever Happened to: War of Necessity Only?

By: Dr. J. P. Hubert

Once upon a time it was part of conventional wisdom--based as it was in the "golden rule ethic" that "picking a fight" was immoral--whether by nation states or individuals. This moral tenet flowed from the first and second principles (of right reason) of the Natural Law: 1) do good/avoid evil and 2) treat your neighbor fairly--summarized by "do unto others as you would have them do unto you."

When/where the golden rule ethic still reigned, it was understood that even though one could legitimately defend oneself against aggression, it was always and everywhere morally wrong to instigate hostilities. That is to say, it is always morally licit to defend against aggression but never to cause it.
Several fundamental underlying assumptions are basic to understanding the “golden rule” as it is applied to war.

First,in traditional (scholastic) moral philosophy one assumes that human nature is fixed and not changing that is to say, all human beings are deemed to be of equal worth and their essence (nature or quiddity [what-ness]) is constant i.e. unchanging.[1] For the unlikely few who would object, it is important to note that there is no empirical (scientific) data to suggest that human nature is changing—cumulative evidence establishes the opposite (man remains the same "fallen creature" he has always been in spite of our modern scientific and technological accomplishments). Of course Divine Revelation calls for a fixed human nature as well.[2] Thus there are no defensible bases on which to assert that all human beings are not of equal worth which do not reduce to vacuous claims of unwarranted entitlement.

While a “fixed human nature” may conflict with what radical Darwinists who embrace metaphysical naturalism may propound, such a view is a philosophical not scientific notion and an incoherent one at that. The very notion that it would be possible to determine right and wrong--if human nature is constantly changing—is pure fantasy. Only if human nature is fixed does it become possible to hold that right and wrong in the moral sense exists or is discernible. If human nature is evolving; then right and wrong is evolving as well—a situation which is unintelligible. Under such a circumstance, virtually any behavior is justifiable since it can be effectively argued that some people are more evolved than others and therefore their behavior no matter how apparently objectionable is also acceptable. This leads to complete social Darwinism—survival of the fittest where “might” alone “makes right”—a prescription for total moral anarchy.

Second, any moral philosophy worthy of the name must include the notion of universality—that is, its moral tenets must be applicable to all human beings—a reality which flows from the existence of a fixed human nature (anthropology). If this is not the case, it becomes impossible to determine right and wrong at all. Identical behavior(s) can be considered morally acceptable by one person and not another or by one nation but not another simply by refusing to apply the relevant moral principles universally. What otherwise would always and everywhere be wrong for example might be right for some but wrong for others simply because of who it is that is performing the moral calculus in question--an example of the complete moral relativism which is so common in our age--nevermind the fact that it is contradictory (self-referentially absurd). Under these unfortunate circumstances, “intent” is allowed to become controlling since it can make behavior which is obviously wrong appear justifiable. Such a situation is very common in contemporary International Relations where the classical tripartite Aristotelian/Thomistic synthesis (means, ends, and circumstances) that is, moral calculus has been abandoned for rank Utilitarianism—too often resulting in obvious moral injustices.

Starting with the Bush administration in the wake of the September 11, 2001 attacks, the United States discarded a 2000+ year old golden rule ethical proscription against starting wars of aggression in which only legitimate defense not offense was understood to be acceptable—i.e. defensive war as a last resort only! It is difficult to overestimate just how radical this notion is. Particularly troublesome is the fact that the attacks themselves--in the words of Osama bin Laden--were the result of perceived immoral behavior on our part--the unilateral support of Israel over the Palestinian Arabs including our dismissal of their terrible plight and our garrisoning of US forces in the Holy Lands of Mecca and Medina; apparently contrary to the teachings of the Prophet Mohammed among other things.

While the intentional killing of innocent human beings (as occurred on 9/11) can never be morally justified, it would be foolish of us not to recognize that our behavior abroad can have disastrous consequences when we fail to consider our actions in terms of the two principles outlined above. That is to say; Palestinian Arabs are unwilling to accept that their lives are not worth as much as are Israelis and rightfully so since all human beings by virtue of their fixed human nature are equally valuable--by first principles if any are valuable at all. For Theists and particularly Christian Theists this is axiomatic of course because man is created in the image of God (Imago Dei). Moreover, we would by the principle of universality detest the stationing of foreign troops on our land and thus the fact that Muslim Arabs do as well is completely understandable. To suggest otherwise is irrational and or dishonest in the extreme.

For anyone to allege that the use of nuclear weapons in an offensive manner could under any conceivable set of circumstances be morally licit (Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and John McCain all have done so) is to completely depart from the golden rule ethic which has governed humanity for over 2 millennia. By their very nature, both strategic and tactical nuclear weapons intentionally kill innocent human beings. This is virtually 100% certain from an objective perspective and therefore provides the moral certitude required in performing the relevant moral calculus. Under no circumstances can nuclear weapons be used offensively. Moreover, it is extremely doubtful that they could ever be utilized defensively either due to the fact that they invariably would be associated with the killing of innocent non-combatants.[3] While conventional weapons are potentially useable in a morally licit way (for defensive purposes only), from a moral perspective, it is clear that the use of nuclear weapons under any set of circumstances is morally prohibitive due to the moral certitude that doing so always results in the intentional killing of innocent human beings and in tremendous numbers.

We have over the past 7+ years in a sense crossed the Rubicon where the waging of war is concerned, meaning we have stepped over the “red-line.” It has now become acceptable ala the “Bush Doctrine” to instigate offensive wars of aggression based on nothing more than a probability calculation that a given country might someday under certain imagined circumstances represent an actual or imminent threat to American national security or survival. This cannot be justified or accepted when subjected to rational/traditional (scholastic) moral philosophical precepts and must be rejected by all human beings of good will.

ENDNOTES:

[1] This in no way means that all human beings have equal talents and abilities.
[2] All the major Theistic belief systems ascribe to this view.
[3] It is impossible for the author to see how such a use could avoid the mass intentional killing of innocent human beings. It is not legitimate to argue that such killing would represent so-called “collateral damage “since it would be completely foreseeable and thus avoidable.