Of all the enemies to public liberty, war is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded because it comprises and develops the germ of every other. As the parent of armies, war encourages debts and taxes, the known instruments for bringing the many under the domination of the few. In war, too, the discretionary power of the executive is extended . . . and all the means of seducing the minds, are added to those of subduing the force, of the people. . . .
Thus, James Madison warned us at the dawn of our republic.
Post-9/11, thanks to the “domination of the few,” Congress and Media are silent as the executive, through propaganda and skewed polls, seduces the public mind while heretofore unthinkable centers of power like Homeland Defense are being constructed and 4 percent of the country has recently been invited to join TIPS, a civilian spy system to report on anyone who look suspicious—or who objects to what the executive is doing at home or abroad.
Although every nation knows how—if it has the means and the will—to protect itself from thugs of the sort that brought us 9/11, war is not an option. Wars are for nations, not rootless gangs. You put a price on their heads and hunt them down. In recent years, Italy has been doing that with the Sicilian Mafia—and no one has yet suggested bombing Palermo.
But the Cheney-Bush junta wants a war in order to dominate Afghanistan, build a pipeline, gain control of the oil of the Eurasian Stans for their business associates as well as to do as much damage to Iraq and Iran on the ground that one day those evil countries may carpet our fields of amber grain with anthrax or something.
The Media, never much good at analysis, is more and more breathless and incoherent. On CNN, even the stolid Jim Clancy started to hyperventilate when an Indian academic tried to explain how Iraq was once our ally and “friend” in its war against our Satanic enemy, Iran. “None of that conspiracy stuff,” snarled Clancy. Apparently, “conspiracy stuff” is now shorthand for unspeakable truth.
As of August, at least among economists, a consensus was growing that, considering our vast national debt (we borrow $2 billion a day to keep the government going) and a tax base seriously reduced by the junta in order to benefit the 1 percent who own most of the national wealth, there is no way that we could ever find the billions needed to destroy Iraq in “a long war” or even a short one, with most of Europe lined up against us. Germany and Japan paid for the Gulf War, reluctantly—with Japan, at the last moment, irritably quarreling over the exchange rate at the time of the contract. Now Germany’s Schroeder says no. Japan is mute.
But the tom-toms keep beating revenge and the fact that most of the world is opposed to our war seems only to bring hectic roses to the cheeks of Bush Senior of the Carlyle Group, Bush Junior of Harken, Cheney of Halliburton, Condoleezza Rice of Chevron-Texaco, Rumsfeld of Occidental, Gale Norton of BP Amoco. If ever there was an administration that should recuse itself in matters dealing with energy, it is the current junta. But they are unlike any other administration in our history. Their hearts are plainly elsewhere, making money, far from our mock Roman temples, while, alas, we are left only with their heads, dreaming of war, preferably against weak peripheral states.
Mohammed Heikal is a brilliant Egyptian journalist-observer, and sometime foreign minister. On October 10, 2001, he said to the Guardian:
Bin Laden does not have the capabilities for an operation of this magnitude. When I hear Bush talking about al Qa’eda as if it was Nazi Germany or the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, I laugh because I know what is there. Bin Laden has been under surveillance for years: every telephone call was monitored and al Qa’eda has been penetrated by American intelligence, Pakistani intelligence, Saudi intelligence, Egyptian intelligence. They could not have kept secret an operation that required such a degree of organization and sophistication.
The former president of Germany’s domestic intelligence service, Eckehardt Werthebach (American Free Press of December 4, 2001), spells it out. The 9/11 attack required “years of planning,” while the scale of the attacks indicates that they were a product of “state-organized actions.” There it is. Perhaps, after all, Bush Junior was right to call it a war. But which state attacked us?
Will the suspects please line up. Saudi Arabia? “No, no. Why, we are paying you $50 million a year for training the royal bodyguard on our own holy if arid soil. True, the kingdom contains many wealthy well-educated enemies but . . . .“ Bush Senior and Junior exchange a knowing look. Egypt? No way. Dead broke despite U.S. baksheesh. Syria? No funds. Iran? Too proud to bother with a parvenu state like the U.S. Israel? Sharon is capable of anything. But he lacks the guts and the grace of the true Kamikaze. Anyway, Sharon was not in charge when this operation began with the planting of “sleepers” around the U.S. flight schools five or six years ago. The United States? Elements of Corporate America are eager not only for “a massive external attack” that would make it possible for us to go to war whenever the president sees fit while suspending civil liberties. (The 342 pages of the USA Patriot Act were plainly prepared before 9/11.)
Bush Senior and Junior are giggling now. Why? Because Clinton was president back then. As the former president leaves the line of suspects, he says, more in anger than in sorrow, “When we left the White House we had a plan for an all-out war on al Qa’eda. We turned it over to this administration and they did nothing. Why?” Biting his lip, he goes out. The Bushes no longer giggle. Pakistan breaks down. “I did it! I confess! I couldn’t help myself. Save me. I am an evildoer.”
Apparently, Pakistan did do it—or some of it. We must now go back to 1979, when “the largest covert operation in the history of the CIA” was launched in response to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. Central Asia specialist Ahmed Rashid wrote (Foreign Affairs, November-December 1999):
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 ‘92 . . . more than 100,000 foreign Muslim radicals were directly influenced by the Afghan jihad.
The CIA covertly trained and sponsored these warriors.
In March 1985, President Reagan issued National Security Decision Directive 166, increasing military aid while CIA specialists met with the ISI counterparts near Rawalpindi, Pakistan. Jane’s Defense Weekly (September 14, 2001) gives the best overview: “The trainers were mainly from Pakistan’s Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) agency who learnt their craft from American Green Beret commandos and Navy Seals in various US training establishments.” This explains the reluctance of the administration to explain why so many unqualified persons, over so long a time, got visas to visit our hospitable shores. While in Pakistan, “Mass training of Afghan mujahideen [zealots] was subsequently conducted by the Pakistan army under the supervision of the elite Special Services. . . . In 1988, with US knowledge, bin Laden created al Qa’eda (The Base), a conglomerate of quasi-independent Islamic terrorist cells in countries spread across at least 26 or so countries. . . . Washington turned a blind eye to al Qa’eda.”
September 4, 2001, London’s Daily Telegraph reported that the Director General of the ISI, General Mahmoud Ahmed, arrived in Washington. On September 10, the Pakistani daily, The News, remarked how
ISI Chief Mahmoud’s week-long presence in Washington has triggered speculation about the agenda of his mysterious meetings at the Pentagon and National Security Council. . . . Officially, State Department sources say he is on a routine visit in return to CIA Director George Tenet’s earlier visit to Islamabad. Official sources confirm that he met Tenet this week.
No further details were given. But then, on October 8, Mahmoud was dismissed as Director of the ISI and took early retirement. The Times of India (September 8, 2001) was the first in the field with the reason:
Top sources here confirmed on Tuesday, that the general lost his job because of the “evidence” India produced to show his links to one of the suicide bombers that wrecked the World Trade Center. The US authorities sought his removal after confirming the fact that $100,000 were wired to hijacker Mohammed Atta from Pakistan by Ahmad Uhmar Sheikh at the instance of General Mahmoud.
Mohammed Atta is now known to have been in command of the nineteen men who hijacked the four planes on September 11, 2001. He died in the first tower collision. Why did General Mahmoud, during his visit to Washington, send him money?
Certainly, this is one of those questions that will be asked during the coming impeachment trial of George W. Bush, Jr. Let us hope that Chief Cheney has explained the Pakistan connection to him.
When Mohammed Atta’s plane struck the World Trade Center, Bush and the child at the Florida elementary school were discussing her goat. By coincidence, our word “tragedy” comes from the Greek: for “goat” tragos plus oide for “song.” “Goat-song.” It is highly suitable that this lament, sung in ancient satyr plays, should have been heard again at the exact moment when we were struck by fire from heaven, and a tragedy whose end is nowhere in sight began for us.
October 2002