BIN_LADEN_BUSH_PART_I.htm
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PART II
Neoconservative ideas to transform the U.S. into a "dominant force" do not
come out of nowhere!
9/7/2006 9:30:00 AM GMT
This is a research article by Rudo de Ruijter, containing about a
hundred facts leading ultimately to the U.S. war against Afghanistan. For each
of them reliable sources are mentioned. It is a disturbing article, if you
don't know these facts yet.
For fair use, you may publish and/or forward this article.
Since 1993, in India, Enron had invested $ 2.9 billion for a power plant near
Bombay. Originally it had counted on cheap supply of gas from Turkmenistan via
the planned pipeline through Afghanistan. The power plant project had turned
into a nightmare.
Enron had faced severe criticism over their contemptuous way of doing
business. They had experienced severe opposition from the local population
after hiring police officers to beat down protests of opponents. Charges had
been filed against the company for human right violations. [39]
Last but not least, Enron’s deliveries to the regional electricity company
were invoiced more than double the price of power from other suppliers. [51]
Taking into account the real cost beared by the regional electricity company,
Enron's price was even 700 percent higher. [52]
The regional electricity company could not pay Enron's bills anymore. As
retaliation, in January 2001, Enron had cut the power to 200 million people in
Northern India, while demanding three times the normal price. [53]
(Around the same time, Enron was provoking power cuts in California as well,
to force higher prices. [54])
In
1997 Enron had started gas projects in Uzbekistan, for which George W. Bush
had had personal contacts with the Uzbek ambassador.
As soon as the Bush administration was in place, vice president Cheney would
reward Enron for their support during the elections. Enron's chairman, Kenneth
Lay, had a wish list that was almost entirely included in Cheney's proposals
for the new U.S. energy policy. [55] Cheney also
intervened to help Enron collect a $64 million debt for its power plant near
Bombay, during a meeting with Indian opposition leader Sonia Ghandi in
Washington on June 27 2001. [56]
Enron had also connections with the construction firm BinLadin from Saudi
Arabia, with which it constructed a power plant in the Gaza strip. (The power
plant would not be finished before Enron's bankruptcy in December 2001.) [57]
The wealthy bin Laden family is well known to the Bush family. Salem bin Laden
supplied part of the money for George W. Bush’s first oil company, Arbusto,
in 1978. [58] His father, George H.W. Bush,
joined the Carlyle group after being US' president, [59]
and developed relations with the BinLadin company. [60] He met the family in
November 1998 and in January 2000. [61]
Bin Laden also invested in the Carlyle group. H.W. Bush still met with Shafig
bin Laden, Osama's brother, on September 10, 2001, the day before the attacks,
at the annual investor conference of the Carlyle Group. [62]
Like Enron, Carlyle had grown tremendously.
In the early 1990s son Bush had been member of the board of a catering service
company for airliners. [60] Carlyle had bought
the catering company. Although the catering service crashed, Carlyle grew to
be an important defence contractor in the U.S. [61]
A bunch of well-known former politicians, including George W. Bush father,
former UK Prime Minister John Major and former president of the Philippines
Mister Ramos, are making a lot of money from the "war on terror". [59]
There
is a terrible lot of information available about bin Laden's son, Osama.
However, almost all of it comes from sources that cannot be verified, like
comments by unknown people who would have known him or met him. Other stories
are based on allegations by people who have big business interests in the "war
on terrorism", like the Bush. One step further, you find the comments by
officials "convinced" that everything that has been said about Osama is true.
On the other extremity, there is the image Osama draws of himself in an
interview by CNN reporter Peter Arnett in 1997. According to this interview he
is, first of all, a man of faith, who understands people who fight against the
U.S. soldiers that came to steal the oil and who attacked the Islamic
religion. He denies having organized any attacks against the U.S. himself. [63]
(Many people will remember a videotape with “Osama's confession”, that he
knew about the attacks of 9/11 in advance, which turned out to be a fake. [64])
Osama would become Bush's key excuse to invade Afghanistan. On September 17,
2001 Bush would declare Osama bin Laden was wanted "dead or alive". [65]
Why did Osama bin Laden stay in Afghanistan? Here too, different sources give
different stories. He had already been in Afghanistan during the eighties,
helping the mudjahedeen fight against the Soviet occupation (as did the U.S.).
Back in Saudi Arabia in 1989, he had opposed the king's alliance with the U.S.
When his passport was confiscated, he at first fled back to Afghanistan, and
then settled in Sudan in 1992, where all Muslims were welcome after a regime
change the year before. In 1994, because of his support to fundamentalist
Muslim movements, Saudi Arabia revoked his citizenship and froze his funds. [66]
After the assassination attempt against Egyptian president Mubarak in Ethiopia
on June 26, 1995, Sudan was accused of being behind it. The relations between
Egypt and Sudan deteriorated in the current of 1995.
At this point, let us jump to Afghanistan. In February 1996 things went wrong
for the U.S. pipeline project in Afghanistan. President Rabbani of Afghanistan
contracted the Argentinean BRIDAS instead of UNOCAL for the construction and
exploitation of the gas pipeline. For the US, to get the pipeline project back
in the hands of UNOCAL, Rabbani would have to disappear. But who could be
accused if Rabbani were killed?
Back to Sudan. March 8, 1996, the U.S. suddenly asked Sudan to extradite Osama.
It did not specify to which country. Since the Saudis took his passport and
nationality away, Osama had few options. On May 18, 1996, he left Sudan and
returned to Afghanistan. [67]
Years afterward, many people were still wondering why he had not been arrested
at that occasion.
In Afghanistan, events would take a different turn. From March 20 to April 4,
1996, Taliban leaders had held a shura (meeting) and concluded with a jihad
against Rabbani. [68] Osama arrived on May 18,
but would not get involved. On September 27, the Taliban conquered Kabul and
president Rabbani fled and joined the Northern alliance. At that moment things
must have looked hopeful for the UNOCAL pipeline project. Unfortunately for
them, in November 1996 BRIDAS signed a new contract with the Taliban.
Ultimately this would lead to the Taliban being evicted from power. Clinton
would not attack Afghanistan after the U.S. embassy bombings in Africa in
1998, maybe thanks to Monica Lewinsky. Bush did, after "the catastrophic and
catalysing events" of 9/11.
After having used the presence of Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan as his key
excuse to invade the country, Bush would state, on March 13, 2002, he wasn't
truly that concerned about Osama bin Laden. [69]
After the US conquest of Afghanistan (or at least of its capital), UNOCAL's
advisor Hamid Karzai would be appointed Chairman of the interim administration
of Afghanistan. On June 16, 2002, even before there was an elected president,
Karzai would sign an official agreement with Turkmenistan and Pakistan for a
gas pipeline through Afghanistan. [70]
But even if the gas pipeline would come too late to transport Turkmen gas to
Pakistan, Afghanistan remains an interesting booty. It has its own gigantic
gas field south of the Turkmen field, near Mazar e Sharif. It has also several
oil fields and coal. Furthermore, in the 1970s British geologists had already
found 1600 locations with minerals.
Preparations for 9/11 and the invasion of Afghanistan:
As noticed above, the timing for the attacks on the U.S. embassies in Africa
helped Clinton, as it drew away the attention from his threatening conviction
of perjury in the Monica Lewinsky affair, and focused on the common enemies:
the terrorists.
The invasion of Afghanistan would have to wait for the next US president.
Between 1998 and 2001 there was enough time to plan everything carefully.
Below we will notice, that the attacks of 9/11 occurred at the very moment
everything was in place. The only thing missing was a pretext to get support
from Congress, from the U.S. population and the rest of the world…
Military preparations:
For the U.S. to invade Afghanistan at the other side of the world was a
delicate operation. Step by step the U.S. had pushed its influence and control
in the former Soviet republics. U.S. oil and gas related companies had started
up activities in Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan and the
U.S. military had gained influence in the region, challenging Russia and China
in their backyards.
Already in 1997, north of Afghanistan, the US had considerably expanded its
military "cooperation" with Kazakhstan, which forms the buffer with Russia. [71]
In 1999, closer to Afghanistan, the US expanded its presence in Kyrgyzstan
[72], and in Uzbekistan, one of Afghanistan's direct neighbours. [73]
In April 14-15, 2000, Uzbek and US troops conducted joint military exercises.
[74]
East of Afghanistan the US administration has strong ties with the Pakistani
intelligence service. Its director, Lieutenant-General Mahmoud Ahmad, was with
U.S. officials the week before and during the attacks of 9/11. [75] On the
west side, F-15s were based in Saudi-Arabia, Kuwait and Turkey and the Fifth
fleet was permanently based in the Persian Gulf. [76]
For the war in Afghanistan, huge transports of troops and material had to be
organized well before the invasion. On November 7, 2000, the day all
US-citizens were occupied with the election of their president, the UK
announced its biggest military exercise since the Gulf War, operation Swift
Sword (Saif Sareea in Arabic), involving 24,000 troops and a lot of heavy
material. [77]
The exercise took place on the coast of Oman, a strategic location, since all
oil tankers from the Persian Gulf region (Saudi-Arabia, the United Arabic
Emirates, Qatar, Quait, Iraq and Iran) have to cross the Gulf of Oman. Here
the UK maintains a War Material Storage. [78] The
exercice had been scheduled from September 15 until the end of October 2001, [79]
The UK would start moving troops and material to Oman in August 2001.[80]
The UK participated in the invasion. [81]
From October 8 until the end of October, 2001 another military operation was
planned in Egypt: NATO Operation Bright Star. It was the world's largest
exercise including more than 11 Nations, and more than 70,000 troops (among
which 23,000 from the U.S.) participating. [82]
Among several other "coincidental" military moves towards Afghanistan, we
notice that on July 23, 2001, the aircraft carrier Carl Vinson was sent out
from Bremerton (on U.S. West coast) to the Arabian Sea. It arrived just in
time to launch the first air strikes on Afghanistan on October 7, 2001. [83]
Diplomatic preparations:
On the diplomatic front, to lower the risk of upsetting China, on June 19
2001, Bush had proposed to attend the APEC summit in Shang Hai and was
expected to meet president Zemir between October 15 and October 21 2001. [84]
& [85] (Bush's meeting with presidents Zemir and
Putin took place on October 20, 2001) [86]
Besides, in 2001 China was completing its bilateral agreements with all 37 WTO
members to become a full WTO-member. China wanted to become member since many
years. China's bilateral agreement with Mexico would be the last and this
would complete China's membership. [87] In July
2001 Bush would polish his relations with Mexico, "lobbying" against US unfair
import restrictions on Mexican trucks. [88]
This was probably not only to get the Mexicans in the right mood to sign with
China, but also because Mexico would be a member of the UN Security Council in
2002 and 2003. China reached its bilateral agreement with Mexico and became a
WTO member on September 13, 2001. [89]
Bush's unmanned systems:
In the summer of 1999, a number of US embassies on the African continent were
closed for the weekend because of suspicious people hanging around. [16]
A few days later Clinton had issued its order prohibiting commercial
transactions with the Taliban. [18] A few months
later George W. Bush presented his ideas of defence "on the troubled frontiers
of technology and terror."
He said, "In the air, we must be able to strike from across the world with
pinpoint accuracy - with long-range aircraft and perhaps with unmanned
systems." [19]
In September 1999 Bush still said "perhaps". He was still considering. This
was at a time when the market for unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV's) for both
military as well as civil aviation was rapidly developing. [90]
By 2001 there were more than 60 types of UAVs world wide, from small models to
big planes. [91]
At the time of Bush's speech in 1999, the U.S. was developing the Global Hawk
[92], a military UAV with a wing span comparable
to a Boeing 737, which had made its first flight from Edwards Air Force Base,
CA on 28 February 1998. [93] After Bush became
president, on April 23, 2001 the Global Hawk made a historical first unmanned
test flight to Australia. [94]
Not all of the material about 9/11 has been released to the public. Some of
the reliable evidence has been confiscated by the CIA. [95]
Statements of officials often turned out to be contradictory. And, in
particular about possible advanced knowledge, the White House has confiscated
dozens of documents from the 9/11 Commission. [96]
It doesn't make truth finding easier.
The official version of the events on 9/11 involves a very high number of
coincidences that facilitated the "success" of the attacks.
- A nationwide military exercise, Global Guardian, originally planned for
November 2001, is in full swing, creating confusion between exercises and
real-world events. [97]
- A large-scale military exercise, Vigilant Guardian, is taking place and
involves all of NORAD, that normally sends fighter jets after civil airplanes
several times a week, when flight control operators report incidences. [97]
- The Vigilant Guardian exercise simulates an air attack on the United
States. [97]
- NORAD is also running a planned real-world operation named Operation
Northern Vigilance, for which many NORAD fighters are located in Alaska and
Canada. [98]
- Operation Northern Vigilance also creates false blips on radar screens at
least until the second plane crashes into the World Trade Centre. [99]
- In Washington a planned National Reconnaissance Office exercise involves a
scenario of an airplane as a flying weapon. [97]
- The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff is flying across the Atlantic on
the way to Europe. [97]
- The Federal Emergency Management Agency Director is at a conference in
Montana. [97]
- FAA hijack coordinator, who has to contact the National Military Command
Centre in case of hijacks, is in Puerto Rico and cannot be reached. [97]
- All of the FBI's anti-terrorist and top special operations agents are,
together with the members of the CIA's anti-terrorist task force, on a
training exercise in Monterey, California. [97]
- For the day of 9/11, the commander of the National Military Command Centre
had requested to be replaced by someone without experience. [97]
- For FAA's new National Operations Manager it is the first day on the job.
[98]
- The hijackers can board without trouble, since the official no-fly list is
only used for international flights and, curiously, not for domestic flights.
[22] & [23]
- Informed a few minutes after the start of the first hijack (Flight 11),
American Airlines top management decide to "keep it quiet". [97]
- Boston flight controllers do not follow normal procedures and waste time
by contacting various military bases, instead of NORAD. [97]
- After NORAD is finally informed, two F-15s will remain on the ground and
only take off when Flight 11 already crashes into the WTC. [97]
- For various reasons F-16s will only arrive on the scene after the last
plane has crashed. [97] & [99]
- A decision is taken to ground not only civil airplanes, but also all
military planes. [99]
- The presumed hijacker pilot of flight 77 was not able to fly a Cessna
without difficulty in August, but succeeded to spiral down a Boeing 757 and
hit the Pentagon a few meters above the ground on September 11. [100]
- The President doesn't give any orders responding to the attack until just
before the last plane crashes. [97]
Above I only mentioned those coincidences that facilitated the success of the
attacks. If I were to build a story on such series of coincidences, no one
would believe me. Well, I would not either. Keeping the things in their
context, it makes more sense to look at them as facts, and not as
coincidences.
All released details show that the attacks of 9/11 were carried out with
military precision. However, the hijackers on the planes would have been
improvised pilots without the extraordinary skills needed to fly in the way
that has been reported. [101] & [102]
In addition, they would not have been intelligent enough to foresee the
reactions triggered by their actions. Apparently they had so little political
awareness, that they had not heard about the neoconservatives waiting for such
a "catastrophic and catalysing event" to speed up U.S.' conquests.
The success of the plan relied on a lot of advanced knowledge of the situation
that day, like the confusion offered by planned military exercises and the
scenarios played by them, like the confusion offered by fake radar blibs, like
traffic controllers lacking of primary radar images in specific areas, like
the absence of several experienced officers in the command chains responding
to the hijacks, like the absence of armed jet fighters to frustrate their
plans.
All this seems more likely to be the work of a more influential and well
trained organization, an organization willing to provide the justification for
the neoconservatives' conquest plans, with Afghanistan as the first target.
It does not seem likely to me, that such an organization would let the success
of its operation depend on the improvised skills of the hijackers. It makes
more sense to suppose the hijackers were not in control. (In spite of an
overheard phrase in the cockpit of the fourth plane, having been translated as
"Pull it down" and by officials interpreted as "Crash the plane" [102])
It seems more likely the operation was conducted on the “troubled frontier
of technology and terror”, and that technology had taken over the controls.
The two types of planes used, the Boeing 757 and 767, can be controlled
remotely. Robert Ayling, a former boss of British Airways, suggested in the
Financial Times a few days after 9/11, that those aircraft can be commandeered
from the ground and controlled remotely in the event of a hijack. [13]
On 9/11 the remote control would have been in the hands of the wrong people.
If we look closer to the remote control scenario, we notice that if the
published details about the transponders are right:
- 1- the transponder of the second 767 is turned off shortly after the
first 767 crashes.
- 2- the transponder of the second 757 is turned off shortly after the
first 757 crashes.
So, it looks as if one remote pilot handled the two 767s one after the other,
and another remote pilot handled the two 757s one after the other. ([104]
9/11 Commission Report, P.32, 8:47 & 9:41)
It has also been reported that a C-130 military cargo plane was tailing flight
77 when it crashed into the Pentagon. The same C-130 was behind flight 93 when
it crashed. Did the plane play a role? Or was it just a coincidental tourist,
flying around while all other planes had been ordered to land? [101],
[105], [106]
The hijackers hijacked?
Although the official story expects us to believe the hijackers wanted to fly
into the WTC and the Pentagon, the released pieces of cockpit conversations
offer no indications to support this theory. Although mountains of stories and
counter-stories have been published about the hijackers, I did not find a
single verifiable element.
If the hijackers were to support some Arabic or Islamic cause, they would
probably have been in a stronger position if they had returned to airports
with four planes and hundreds of U.S. citizens in their might. They could have
negotiated the release of political prisoners. They could have demanded a
retreat of U.S. forces from Saudi Arabia. They could have pleaded any cause
they were after.
Did the hijackers really have in mind to strike the WTC and the Pentagon or
were they overruled by the organization that had "contracted" them? Will we
find out? According to the official story, all radio contact and overhearing
of cockpit conversations stopped before the planes made their final approach
to the WTC and the Pentagon. If the hijackers were to create the biggest
possible spectacle, wouldn't they have shouted a last accusation against the
U.S.? Or a last glorious prayer to Allah? Or were they surprised and in panic
when they flew into the buildings?
The Afghan pipelines are only one step in U.S. political moves to take over
the influence in the oil and gas rich former Soviet republics. Consuming 25
percent of the world oil consumption, their imperialism is first of all about
energy. Today the U.S. already relies for over 60 percent on foreign oil, a
percentage that is quickly increasing. The neoconservative ideas to transform
the U.S. into a "dominant force" do not come out of nowhere.
The thought that they needed a "catastrophic and catalysing event" was not
just motivated by the personal financial benefits several of them get from the
war industries. It was also a sign of panic of a nation facing drying up oil
wells and preparing itself to conquer foreign oil wells until the last drip is
gone.
See Part I: