December 3, 2001
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Whole Body Health
More proof has been developed that drugging children diagnosed as hyperactive could have unexpected and harmful long-term effects.
Recently concluded tests by scientists at the University at Buffalo, N.Y., have shown that the drug methylphenidate, the generic form of Ritalin, may have long-term effects on brain function and mirror the effects of illicit narcotics.
Ritalin is the drug of choice for children diagnosed as "hyperactive," and is pushed by teachers and medical professionals alike. But it triggers changes to the brain long after its calming effects have worn off, the New York scientists said.
The report received wide coverage in the United Kingdom, but scant notice in the United States, where the study was conducted.
Ritalin is prescribed to about 25,000 British children, but hundreds of thousands of American youngsters.
Ritalin is an amphetamine prescribed to children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). It works on the central nervous system as a stimulant, but has a calming effect on hyperactive youngsters.
LIKE COCAINE
Researchers believe that Ritalin is safe, but say that questions remain about its long-term side effects. The changes, which are not fully understood, are similar to those occurring with other forms of amphetamines and also cocaine.
In America, where up to 40 percent of pupils in some schools are on medication for ADHD, there are legitimate concerns that the drug is given inappropriately to sedate naturally boisterous, but otherwise healthy, children, according to The London Times.
Last year, the UK government's watchdog, the Na tion al Institute for Clinical Excellence, recommended that Ritalin be made available by the National Health Service, the UK's socialized health system, for children with serious hyperactivity.
Opponents of the plan cite studies done in the United States such as the one by the New York scientists.
Dr. Joan Baizer, who presented the study at the Society for Neuroscience in San Diego, Calif., said: "Clinicians consider Ritalin to be short-acting. When the active dose has worked its way through the system, they consider it ‘all gone.'
"Our research . . . in an animal model suggests that it has the potential for causing long-lasting changes in brain cell structure and function.
"Children have been given Ritalin daily for many years . . . but it's not quite as simple as a short-acting drug. We need to look at it more closely."Although the changes are similar to those seen with cocaine, scientists claim there is no evidence that the low doses given to children are likely to lead to addiction.
However, concerned parents have noted that children on Ritalin mirror the roller coaster effects of cocaine and amphetamines when they are on and off the drug, including withdrawal symptoms, irritability, lethargy, mood swings and depression.
Critics of Ritalin usage point out that sedating otherwise
healthy active children with drugs is ludicrous and a sign of
the country's nanny-state mentality.
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In direct violation of the Constitution, a pastor has been cited and blocked from entering a public building for trying to broadcast about corruption in courtrooms and the importance of educating juries.
On July 25 my God-given, constitutionally-protected rights were violated, and I am asking that the Justice Department investigate, protect and give back to me those rights. My rights under the First Amendment—the establishment clause, freedom of speech and freedom of press—were taken away from me by Judge Greg Prickett and the Orange County Superior Court.
At 9 a.m., as a member of the public, I was in the hallway of the Superior Court building, and, as a member of the broadcast press, was broadcasting a live radio show. On this broadcast, as well as many other broadcasts in a public place, I was exercising my right of free speech and practicing my religious commands as found in the Holy Bible.I was using a standard cell phone, in my normal voice to broadcast and discuss the rights of a free nation with a jury system.
During the broadcast I quoted the following events that I believed were in relationship to the members of a jury being able to exercise their God-given rights to judge both the law and the facts in a case:
1. "The jury has a right to judge both the law as well as the fact in controversy"—John Jay, 1st U.S. Supreme Court Justice;
2. "The jury has the right to determine both the law and the facts"—Samuel Chase, U.S. Supreme Court Justice, 1796 and signer of The Unanimous Declaration;
3. "The jury has the power to bring a verdict in the teeth of both law and fact"—Oliver Wendell Holmes, U.S. Supreme Court Justice, 1902;
4. "The law itself is on trial quite as much as the cause which is to be decided"—Harlan F. Stone, U.S. Supreme Court Justice, 1941; and
5. "The pages of history shine on instances of the jury's exercise of its prerogative to disregard instructions of the judge . . . " U.S. vs Dougherty, 473 F 2nd 1113, 1139 (1972).When I began my broadcast there were no members of the public within 20 feet of the location where I was broadcasting.
Approximately 20 minutes into my broadcast several members of the public began to gather in the hallway near me. Some of these people were wearing jury badges.
As I saw these badges, and knowing the content of my discussion, I moved slightly away from their location trying to get out of their ear range, while at the same time trying to stay in a strong signal area for my cell phone.
I mentioned to my producer in the studio that my voice would be lower since previously the Orange County Sheriff Department officers had said it was fine for me to broadcast in this area, but to please keep the volume as low as possible.
At no time did I approach any member of the public, nor did I direct my comments to, or toward them. Several times during this broadcast I moved when a member of the public would come close to listen to me. During my discussion of jury rights, I mentioned that Judge Prickett uses a pink wall analogy when he in structs jury members in this situation of judging the law and the facts.
I mentioned that I had heard with my own ears, and had it been reported to me by others, that he had said: "As a jury member, if I tell you the walls of this courthouse are pink, they are pink. Therefore, you are not to judge the law, that is my job. You are only to judge the facts in the case . . ."
During my broadcast, two officers came to me and said that Judge Prickett had ordered me into his courtroom. I explained that I was doing a live broadcast, and would be glad to meet with Judge Prickett in about 30 minutes when I went off the air.
The officers said I was under arrest and dragged me before Judge Prickett in his courtroom, ripping the cell phone from my hands and ending my broadcast. Judge Prickett ordered me to remain at least 200 yards from his courtroom. I was escorted out.
I asked the officers for advice of the distance of 200 yards, and they said, "Anywhere in this courthouse is off limits to you by the judge's order."
I then left the courthouse, re-established communications with my station and finished the last 10 minutes of my broadcast from the parking lot more that 200 yards from the judge's courtroom.
One hour later, I was met by an attorney who had served me to be in another case in the same courthouse.
I reported to the courtroom, making them aware that I might be in violation of the distance order, and I left the courthouse.
While I was exiting the courthouse, two officers came to me and said: "You are in violation of Judge Prickett's order, and under arrest." They took me once again before Judge Prickett.
I explained why I was in the courthouse and so did the attorney on the other case. Judge Prickett then ordered:
1. Mr. Drake is prohibited from "broadcasting his radio show from within the North Justice Center of the Orange County Superior Court, 1275 North Berkeley Avenue, Fullerton, Calif.
2. Mr. Drake is prohibited from the use of a cellular phone or telephone while within the North Justice Center of the Orange County Superior Court.
3. Mr. Drake is prohibited from communicating with any sitting juror, juror, prospective juror, or any person wearing a "juror badge" within the North Justice Center of the Orange County Superior Court.
4. Mr. Drake is prohibited from being within 100 yards of Department N-12 of the North Justice Center of the Orange County Superior Court unless his attendance within that area has previously been ordered or required . . .
5. This order shall remain in effect until further notice.
Executed in Fullerton, California on: Dated: July 26, 2001.
GREGG L. PRICKETT
Fax: 1-714-441-3508 or 1-714-773-4639
Judge of the Superior Court
Speaking out about injustice is not only my right of free speech, and freedom of the press to broadcast it, but is an integral part of my religious life given to me by God and supposed to be protected by the Constitution.
I am asking that an investigation of this matter be brought forth and that my First Amendment rights be restored.
Please hear my plea and restore my God-given, constitutionally-protected
rights. I have been treated like a common criminal and have had
my rights stolen.
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The federal government wants Americans to believe that the Constitution only applies when it says so.
The actions taken by President George W. Bush and Attorney General John Ashcroft in secretly detaining untold numbers of individuals and calling for secret military tribunals to handle captured Taliban and Al Qaeda prisoners have been condemned as "a constitutional coup d'etat" which may lead to a "police state," according to experts on constitutional and international law.
While most if not all the detainees "look Arab" now, experts warn, tomorrow's detainees could be blond, blue-eyed—or you.
"What we've seen, since Sept. 11, if you add up every
thing that Ashcroft, Bush and their coterie of federalist society
lawyers have done here, is a coup d'etat against the United States
Constitution," said Francis A. Boyle, professor of international
law at the University of Illinois. "When you add in the Ashcroft
police state bill that was passed by Congress . . . that's really
what we're seeing now.
"Since Sept. 11, we have seen one blow against the Constitution
after another," Boyle said. "Recently, we've had Ashcroft
saying that he had, unilaterally, instituted monitoring of attorney-client
communications without even informing anyone—he just went
ahead and did it, despite the Fourth Amendment ban on unreasonable
searches and seizures without warrant and the Sixth Amendment
right to representation by counsel."
The criminal investigation into the attacks, the largest in U.S. history, has netted about 1,200 detainees. But the Justice Department has failed to build a case against a single prime U.S. suspect in the terrorist attacks.
BAD EVIDENCE
Nine weeks after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, federal authorities said on Nov. 15 that they had found no evidence indicating that any of the roughly 1,200 people detained in the United States played a role in the suicide hijacking plot.
However, numerous legal protections, based on constitutional and international treaties, appear to have been ignored or violated in the case of the 1,200 detainees.
"We are becoming a banana republic here in the United States, with ‘disappeared' people, which was the phenomenon that we all saw down in Latin American dictatorships in the 1970s and 1980s, with the support, by the way, of the United States Government," Boyle said.
"We don't know where they are or the conditions under which they are being held. We have no idea wheth er they have access to attorneys. We do know one of them died, under highly suspicious circumstances, while in custody. There have been reports that he was tortured to death," he said.
The Constitution protects aliens in the United States, according to Boyle. "Clearly aliens here are entitled to the protections of the due process clause of the Fifth Amendment , as well as to the Article III (Section 2, Clause 3) basic constitutional rights in criminal cases, including indictment, trial before a federal district judge or jury, [rights relating to] venue and things of that nature," Boyle said.
"I'm surprised there hasn't been more of an outcry," said Robert B. Reich, secretary of labor under President Bill Clinton, about the long-term detentions and the administration's plans to monitor conversations be tween lawyers and terrorism suspects in federal custody. "The president is, by emergency decree, getting rid of rights that we assumed that anyone within our borders legally would have. We can find ourselves in a police state step-by-step without realizing that we have made these compromises along the way."
The foreign detainees are also protected by international law under treaties, including the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations (VCCR).
The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, to which the United States government is a party, affords basic due process protections to everyone here in the United States, irrespective of their citizenship, according to Boyle.
The VCCR of 1963 calls for notification "without delay" of consular officials when one of their nationals has been arrested or "detained in any other manner."
Although Egypt, Pakistan, Syria, and Saudi Arabia are party to the VCCR along with the United States, the Justice Department told AFP that it is using an abbreviated list of nations, the Mandatory Notification Countries, which includes only one Middle Eastern nation, Kuwait.
Spokesmen from the Justice and State Departments could not confirm to AFP that the United States was abiding by the terms of the VCCR and notifying the consulates of the detainees. However, Kareem Shora, legal adviser at the American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, said that it had received at least 10 complaints that this was not the case.
The Justice Department is planning to "round up" and question some 5,000 men, mostly from Middle Eastern countries, who entered the U.S. legally within the past two years."When will the FBI, the CIA and the National Secur ity Agency start to turn these powers, that they have under the Ashcroft police state bill, against American citi zens?" Boyle asks. "Clearly, that will be the next step."
BAD PRECEDENT
Concerning the executive order calling for military tribunals to try alleged al Qaeda members, or even former al Qaeda members, in Afghanistan, Boyle says there is an "even more serious problem."
"The third and fourth Geneva Conventions, of 1949, clearly apply to our conflict now with Afghanistan," Boyle says. "These alleged al Qaeda members would be protected either by the third Geneva Convention, if they are fighters incorporated into the army there in Afghanistan, or by the fourth Geneva Convention, if they are deemed to be civilians. Both conventions have very extensive procedural protections on trials that must be adhered to."
Although a trial can be held, there are extensive rules and protections and basic requirements of due process of law, set forth in these treaties that must be applied. Failures to apply these treaties would constitute war crimes, according to Boyle.
The executive order calling for secret military tribunals is extremely dangerous because it invites reprisals by the Taliban, Boyle says. "What it is basically saying to the Taliban government and to al Qaeda is, ‘We are not going to give you the protections of either the third or fourth Geneva Conventions' guarantees on trials.' What that means is that they could engage in reprisals against captured members of the United States Armed Forces.
"It opens up our own armed forces to be denied prisoner-of-war
treatment," he said. "So, what we're doing here is exposing
them to a similar type of treatment, which would be a summary
trial, in secret, subject to the death penalty."
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Ashcroft Called Before Congress to Justify Actions
The attorney general doesn't want to but he will be grilled about his recent power grabs.
Attorney General John Ashcroft is being dragged kicking and screaming before the Senate Judiciary Committee to explain why abandoning constitutional rights is the weapon of choice in the "war on terrorism."
After committee leaders repeatedly asked for, then demanded, his testimony, he "tentatively" agreed to confront the panel "for several hours" on Dec. 6.
After earlier entreaties produced no response, Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Ver.) and ranking minority member Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) sent a terse, three-sentence letter to Ashcroft on Nov. 16: "We suggest Wednesday, Nov. 28, 2001 and ask that you make yourself available for several hours."
Committee and Justice Department staffers negotiated the tentative date of December 6.
Leahy had sent six letters to Ashcroft and signed two with other lawmakers but there was no response from the attorney general. The letters—sent between Oct. 25 and Nov. 16 —included personal notations from Leahy such as "looking forward to your response" and "many people are concerned about this—I really need your response."
"Given the grave importance of this matter and its implications for basic civil liberties, I would appreciate a response to these questions no later than Nov. 13," Leahy wrote Nov. 9. "I would also respectfully request that full and responsive answers to my earlier letters of Oct. 25 and 31 and Nov. 7 and 8, 2001, be provided without delay."
Leahy's letters included a list of seven questions. He was especially critical of a provision allowing the government to listen to privileged conversations between inmates and their lawyers in certain circumstances.
"You have declined several requests to appear before the committee to answer questions and have not responded to requests to provide information on such basic points as the number of people . . . currently detained without trial," Leahy wrote.
Ironically Leahy, a left-winger, had voted against confirming his former Senate colleague as attorney general because Ashcroft was billed as a "strict constructionist" who favored interpreting the Constitution according to the "original intent" of the Founders and not "legislating from the bench."
Now Leahy is championing constitutional protections while Ashcroft grabs for power. In the unfolding story of strange political bedfellows, Rep. Bob Barr (R-Ga.), a strong constitutionalist and guardian of the Second Amendment right to bear arms, is the leading voice against encroachment on Americans' rights. Barr joined a lot of House left-wingers in calling for hearings.
Although Hatch signed the Nov. 9 letter with Leahy, he was less harsh in his judgment of Ashcroft.
"I'm always concerned about the appropriate utilization
of law enforcement techniques," Hatch told The Hill, a weekly
journal devoted to Congress. "On the other hand, I don't
want to interfere with properly utilized law enforcement that
may be protective of our American citizens."
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One reason why some Arabs have targeted the United States for terrorism may have something to do with the grisly circumstances surrounding a previously secret CIA operation in Albania.
The role the CIA played in overseeing the kidnaping and torture of several Arabs accused of being members in an international terrorist ring is part of a horrifying account told by a lawyer for the men in a series of reports made public against the wishes of the U.S. government.
The backdrop for the men's story was post-communist Albania. In the early 1990s, communists had outwardly relinquished control over the tiny impoverished country and a new regime took power ready to ally itself with U.S. intelligence agents. In return for allowing the CIA to use brutal—and often illegal—tactics to locate those accused of having knowledge of the inner workings of international terror cells, the new Albanian regime received arms deals and U.S. dollars.
"Today, as the Bush administration loosens its interpretations of the rules on foreign assassination and other restraints imposed on the CIA in the 1970s, Amer i ca's clandestine role in Albania illuminates some of the tactical and moral questions that lie ahead in the global war on terrorism," reported Andrew Higgins and Christopher Cooper in The Wall Street Journal on Nov. 20.
So led the CIA's behind-the-scenes efforts to capture and interrogate a group of Arabs in Albania suspected of having knowledge of the inner workings of terror networks. And that is the story which Hafez Abu-Saada, the lawyer for six men captured by the CIA, wants the world to know about.
According to Abu-Saada, one of his clients, Shawki Salama Attiya—a forger and an admitted member of Egyptian Jihad—was arrested on June 25, 1988, by Albania's intelligence agency, known as "SHIK," while driving in Albania's capital, Tirana. He was taken several miles outside the city and placed in a holding cell in an abandoned airbase.
That same day Albanian police searched Attiya's home and found forgery equipment used to make fake visas and other documents, according to Higgins and Cooper.
A few days later, Attiya found himself on a CIA plane bound for Cairo where he says he was severely tortured and interrogated for weeks.
Attiya said he was kept in a tiny cell, often being forced to stand in filthy water up to his knees. He was subjected to electric shocks to his genitals, dragged on his face and severely beaten.
Abu-Saada says that most of the other men he represented complained of similar treatment. Each said that after they were arrested in Albania, they were flown to Egypt where Egyptian police routinely applied electrical shocks to their nipples and genitals, and beat them severely, breaking fingers, ribs and faces.
‘AT THE CIA'S BEHEST'
Albanian security officials were forthright about CIA complicity in the monitoring and torture of the Arab men.
While Albanian agents did all the dirty work, SHIK officers told Higgins and Cooper, the CIA provided training and expertise to be able to carry out the difficult and often illegal task of tracking individuals suspected of involvement in attacks against their own governments.
Fatos Klosi, head of SHIK, told the two journalists that some of his agency's actions, taken at the CIA's prompting, were "not so justified legally."
On at least one occasion, Albanian agents visited Lang ley, Va., the home of the CIA, to learn surveillance and other intelligence-gathering techniques.
SHIK agents told Higgins and Cooper that every few days, a
CIA officer in Albania would pick up recordings of phone conversations
between suspects taped on American equipment and send them back
to America. The CIA would identify targets and then have the Albanian
security officials arrest them. The CIA would then oversee the
transfer of suspects to Egypt, where they would be
questioned and eventually put on trial.
By early 1999, more than 107 people had been rounded up in Albania and tried in one of the largest mass trials ever held in Egypt. Many of the men captured and transferred under the watchful eyes of the CIA were tortured and interrogated, and ultimately sentenced to life in prison or executed.
At least 60 more Arabs suspected of involvement in terror networks were tried in absentia and convicted in closed hearings.
Throughout the operation, Egyptian police amassed more than 20,000 pages in confessions given by the men, shedding some light on the inner workings of international terrorist networks. However, the accuracy of much of the men's statements, apparently given under extreme duress, has been called into question.
The question remains: did the CIA's brutal operation radically alter the objectives of fundamentalist Islamic groups in the Mideast, causing them to target America, too?
Certainly this could be a factor, note some terrorism experts.
"As the CIA operation drew to a close," wrote Higgins and Cooper, "an Arab newspaper in London published a letter on Aug. 15, 1998, signed by the International Islamic Front for Jihad. The letter vowed revenge for the counter terrorism drive in Albania, promising to retaliate against Americans in a ‘language they will understand.'
"Two days later, U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania
were blown up, killing 224 people," said the Wall Street
Journal reporters.
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Red China is more than just a "strange bedfellow'"in the "war on terrorism."
With the full knowledge of U.S. operations in Afghanistan, the Red Chinese are playing a game of double cross in the war against terror.
Sources have told American Free Press that Red China is giving lip service to efforts to end terrorism and playing along with the coalition to quash its own problems with Muslim groups and a burgeoning independence movement.
Peking is pretending to be on the side of the coalition, but its motive, according to a former U.S. intelligence operative familiar with Afghan operations, is to use its cooperation to fight its own battles against Muslim fundamentalists in Xinjiang Province in western China.
It is using its place with the coalition to brand all Chinese Muslims, as well as all other opposition groups within its borders, as terrorists.
The administration is giving the Chinese free rein to destroy the last vestiges of any independence and freedom movements in the world's most populous nation.
In addition, Chinese leaders have broken their pledge given a year ago to halt the sale of missiles and nuclear and chemical warfare technology and equipment to nations the Bush administration characterizes as sponsors of terrorism.
Sen. John Kyl (Ariz.), the ranking Republican on the Senate subcommittee on Technology, Terrorism and Government Information, says that China is selling missile technology to Iran, North Korea, Syria, Libya, and Pakistan and has sold nuclear technology to Iran and Pakistan. Kyl said China has also sold the Iranians cruise missiles.
Peking is also busy building up its own military forces, largely through the use of nuclear and missile technology that it stole from U.S. weapons laboratories or was given outright by Bill Clinton and China's leading stolen technology and arms trading partner, Israel.
"This Red Chinese treachery will continue just as long
as the U.S. government continues to face it with a blind eye,"
the source said.
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A leading foreign affairs expert and diplomatic historian gives his analysis of our war and terrorism.
Emir of Qatar, Sheik Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani, speaking to the UN General Assembly Nov. 10 as the representative of the world's main grouping of Muslim nations, said "terrorism has taken root" because the world ignored the plight of oppressed people in many places, especially the Palestinians.The Conference is made up of 56 nations.
"We should ask ourselves—what have we done as an international community vis-à-vis this situation? Have we actually faced up to this situation? Frankly speaking my answer is, ‘No.' "
What part has been played by the United States—sole superpower?"War is the continuation of policy by other means." Karl von Clausewitz's dictum is condensed wisdom. The day after the three-point attack on the tokens of American power, the Trade Towers representing the economic, the Pentagon as the military, and the White House and Congress as political, a British General and former commander-in-chief of NATO forces said on the BBC that we should examine our policies that may be related to this act of war. Clause witz was quoted.
The American-British misjudgment that ended World War II with Soviet expansion in Europe that had to be checked by NATO cost the people of the United States billions of dollars. This Cold War for the American and Russian people brought revolution, terrorism, costly in death and suffering, to millions around the world. Not least, the people of Afghanistan. Countering the Russian invasion, the United States flooded the country with weapons, leading to loss of central authority and civil order. This was largely re-established by the Taliban.
With the end of the Cold War, what were the plans of the collective oligarchy that we pay for? For a lecture in Germany in 1997, I wrote:
The World is under a growing imperium (definition: command not subject to definition or limitation of function; absolute command) with unassailable American military power. From Japan and Okinawa, and the Northern Marianas in the western Pacific, through the Indian Ocean, the Middle East, Europe, to the Americas and Alaska, its armed forces with fleets of warships and warplanes patrol seas and skies, and its spy satellites look everywhere.
"We don't want to engage in a fair fight, a contemporary war of attrition," said President Clinton's defense secretary, William S. Cohen. "We want to dominate across the full spectrum of conflict, so that if ever we have to fight, we will win on our terms."
What are "our terms"? With a 2001 defense budget of more than $340 billion the United States is impregnable to 20th century style military attack.
What are our policies? American policy toward the Near and Middle East from Turkey to Afghanistan has been to support compliant regimes, oppose, undermine, or subvert critical leaders or governments, especially those critical of Israel and its oppression of Palestinians, and to maneuver for the inclusion of Turkey into the European Union, and then Israel.
Until the Arab oil embargo of 1973, these policies kept the price of oil around $5 a barrel. Now, with more OPEC control over pricing, a compliant Saudi Arabia, in debt to the United States, particularly for weaponry that the Saudis train with, but the United States really controls, will generally pump more oil in response to American demand and U.S.-and British-led restrictions on output from Iraq.
But just as European empires are now seen as uneconomical systems for control of raw materials and trade, so American military bases and fleets on location around the world are uneconomical and obsolescent ways to assure sufficient foreign oil supplies and defense of the United States.
Decades of negotiations in which the United States posed as an honest broker have led to dwindling Palestinian territory and water supply. Christians, almost unsupported by European and American churches, once 20 percent, are now 2 percent of the population. Some American Christians even support Israel rather than Palestinian human rights. During the reign of George H. W. Bush, he and Congress passed a $10 billion loan guarantee for new housing in Israel.
America and Britain for over a decade have violated the sovereignty of Iraq's airspace. They support dissident or secessionist movements against its secular government whose able foreign minister is of Christian origin. We embargo its trade, with impoverishment of its middle class, and the death of hundreds of thousands of its people.
That is the effect of United States and British policy there. Policies that are relentless, without mercy, without charity. The policy of countries that are thought of by many in them, and certainly by the people in the Middle East—as "Christian" countries in spite of their professed secularism.
Can Christianity compete with the religion of Allah the Merciful? Some Muslim anger against British and American policy has been displaced into hostility toward Christians, in Pakistan for example.
The United States demanded the handing over of Osama bin Laden and his associates. The Taliban de-facto government asked for the prima facie evidence required in extradition cases. Echoed by the British prime minister, the U.S. government brushed this aside, saying it had ample evidence, and refused negotiation. The United States is not an example for respecting international law.
Only the United States and Israel voted in the United Nations in August 2001 against an observer force for occupied Palestine that would report on and thus expose and decrease atrocities. One thousand Palestinian children were killed in the Children's Uprising or first Intifada that began in 1988.
Terrorism worked for the Israelis in getting the Brit ish to leave Palestine. They used letter bombs to British politicians. They blew up government offices in the King David hotel and assassinated officials. I have held the arm and walked with a young man blinded by one of their bombs, so he did not have to tap with his white stick.
Winston Churchill said, "If our dreams for Zionism are to end in the smoke of assassins' pistols . . . these wicked activities must cease and those responsible for them must be destroyed root and branch." Instead, two terrorists became prime ministers of Israel.
Only the most militant Islamic movements have been successful against American power, and some Christian leaders have been inconspicuous in exposing its abuse.
In Iran, it was Ayatollah Khomeini, the Islamic militant, who drove out a shah who had become America's puppet, who allowed Mossad training for his Savak secret police.
Then the United States and Britain encouraged and armed Iraq to war against him. It was an American battle cruiser, Vincennes, that shot down an Iranian civil aircraft in the Persian Gulf, killing all its passengers.
In southern Lebanon, occupation for 25 years by Israeli forces was impervious to UN Security Council re solutions calling for withdrawal, because of tacit American support for occupation of this so-called buffer zone.
Only the Hezbollah Islamic fundamentalists eventually forced a withdrawal in 2001, and by Sharon of all people. Mounting deaths of Israeli soldiers from Lebanese Hezbollah "terrorist" attacks made the occupation unprofitable for territory paid for in lives lost.
Just as assassinations of Palestinian leaders ordered by the Israeli government have been called "state terrorism," so "terrorists" assassinated a former general and Israeli government member in October 2001
The attack on the United States of Sept. 11 was a continuation of policies that oppose the aims and policies of the United States in the Middle East.
Political efforts to change them having been unsuccessful, it was a continuation of policy—by other means —using means other than conventional warfare. Just as guerrilla warfare has been used against superior forces that cannot be defeated directly, so-called terrorist attacks are a riposte to the policies and sole superpower of the United States.
Would the United States bomb an adversary's commercial and
military centers. And the home of its president?
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Don't let media headlines about "rumors from the Muslim world" distract you: At least several Israelis have been held by FBI as possible suspects in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
Attorney General John Ashcroft has released an Israeli suspect in the Sept. 11 terrorist events who "had trouble" with a seven-hour polygraph test administered by the FBI—but who "did better on a second try." In other words, the suspect still flunked both times.
That's not some "rumor" from the Muslim world. That remarkable admission appeared in the Nov. 21 issue of The New York Times.
The Times reported the suspect, Paul Kurzberg, "refused on principle to divulge much about his role in the Israeli army or subsequently working for people who may have had ties to Israeli intelligence."
Yet, Ashcroft sent Kurzer home to Israel.
The Forward, a Jewish newspaper, reported on Nov. 23 that "top-ranking Israeli diplomats" had intervened with Ashcroft on behalf of Kurzer and four other young Israelis—evidently all former members of the Israeli Army—who had been taken into custody by the FBI in New Jersey after being seen acting suspiciously in the aftermath of the World Trade Center attack.
The Times said that witnesses had seen Kurzer and his four colleagues "going to unusual lengths to photograph the World Trade Center ruins" and, significantly, "making light of the situation"—hardly the response one would expect from American allies.
The five were carrying multiple passports, $4,000 cash and box cutters when apprehended. It is said that the Israelis had box cutters only because they worked for a moving company and that it is only a coincidence that the "Arabs" who hijacked the planes had used box cutters.
What has not been reported in the U.S. media—with the exception of American Free Press's Oct. 1 issue—was that on Sept. 18, the mother of one of the detainees told an Israeli newspaper, Ha'aretz, that the FBI had questioned her son as to whether he was an agent of Israel's intelligence agency, the Mossad.
Why the FBI would suspect that Mossad agents may have been involved in the so-called "Arab terrorist" attack is a logical question that has never been raised in the mainstream media.
Ironically, the Sept. 28-30 issue of USA Today cited the story of the five Israelis, calling them simply "Jews" and not identifying their nationality, as one of the "unsubstantiated rumors that implicate Israel" and of which "many in the Muslim world are endlessly chewing over and recycling." This "rumor" turned out to be true.
But there's much more to the story than just these five suspects. On Nov. 23, The Washington Post rocked many of its readers by reporting that among a total of some 60 young Israeli Jews picked up by the FBI in the wake of the attacks, there are at least a handful being held on suspicion of involvement in the terrorist acts.
The cautiously written article by Post staff writer John Mintz pointed out that while most of the Israelis arrested and detained since Sept. 11 were held on immigration charges and not suspected of any involvement in terrorism, there were exceptions. According to Mintz:
In several cases, such as those in Cleveland and St. Louis, INS officials testified in court hearings that they were "of special interest to the government," a term that federal agents have used in many of the hundreds of cases involving mostly Muslim Arab men who have been detained around the country since the terrorist attacks.
An INS official who requested anonymity said the agency will not comment on the Israelis. He said the use of the term "special interest" means the case in question is "related to the investigation of Sept. 11."
What is interesting about each of the 60 Israeli detainees is that, according to the Post, all are supposedly "observing a time-honored tradition in their country—touring the world after their mandatory service in the Israeli military." In addition, the Post revealed that "a number of them had served in counter-terrorist units in Israel."
The Post was careful to refer to Israel as a "close U.S. ally in the fight against terrorism." However, the Post article still pointed out that although one Israeli detainee, Liron Diamant, said that he and his friends had first been mistaken as Arabs, the FBI conducted an "hours-long" interrogation of the young ex-military men and that they were "questioned in detail about their Israeli military service."
It seems unlikely that the FBI would have continued to quiz the young men so intensely, after identifying them as "allies"—that is, Israelis—unless the FBI had reason to believe that Israeli elements may have been linked to the events of Sept. 11—or other potential terrorist actions in the offing.
On Feb. 5, 2001, writing in the now-defunct Spotlight and citing
Ashcroft's ties to the Israeli lobby, the late Andrew St. George
prophetically asked "Would Ashcroft Cover ‘Best Ally's'
Crimes?" Ashcroft's conduct in the 9-11 investigation may
answer that question.
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Experts cite evidence that the recent airline crash in New York was no accident despite "official" government pronouncements.
Federal officials are trying to convince the public that the Nov. 12 crash of American Airlines Flight 587 in New York was an accident. How ever, a growing number of experts, including some in the FBI, question the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) claim that the crash, which killed all 255 people on board, was due to a structural failure that caused the French-built A300 Airbus to lose its tail three minutes after takeoff from JFK International Air port.
Leading the critics of the NTSB explanation is Ver non Grose, a former inspector of the NTSB, who said: "They are trying to placate the public because they fear people won't fly."
Grose was one of the leading NTSB officials to probe the July 17, 1996, crash of TWA Flight 800 over the Atlantic near East Moriches, Long Island, also just after takeoff from JFK. All 230 people on board were killed.
Despite more than 300 accounts by people who witnessed from the ground what appeared to be a missile streaking toward Flight 800 just before it burst into flames in mid-air, the NTSB, with Grose dissenting, concluded after months of investigation that the tragedy was caused by a spark from frayed electrical wiring within the Boeing 747's center fuel tank.
Grose strongly questions that conclusion, as he now does the NTSB's line that Flight 587's tail fell off and plunged into Jamaica Bay, near a residential area of Queens.
"The tail would not have come off that way unless the bolts were loosened," Grose said. "There is a possibility that someone loosened those bolts."
Grose's skepticism is echoed by Mary Schiavo, former inspector general at the Department of Transportation, who said she is "suspicious because the structural breakup of an aircraft in the air is so rare . . . Flight 587 would be virtually the first case in the United States . . ."
The NTSB claims the airplane's tail fell off because of turbulence created by the takeoff of a Japan Air Lines jumbo jet moments before Flight 587 was airborne.
But Schiavo said, "air turbulence tends to go down. Flight 587 should have been well above the preceding aircraft's wake when it ran into trouble."NTSB spokesman George Black says the planes took off from JFK more than two minutes apart, as required by federal law.
The NTSB was designated the lead agency in the investigation before the flaming wreckage of the airliner had cooled. The FBI said that there was an "explosion aboard the plane before the crash." Hundreds of Queens' residents saw the explosion.
That report by the FBI came just hours after the aircraft went down and was repeatedly reported on FOX News and other television broadcasts for many hours following the tragedy, before NTSB claims of an accidental crash finally knocked it off the air.
New York fireman Thomas Lynch said that while taking his morning walk he saw Flight 587 completing its "banked turn and heading east toward the ocean. At about the time it appears to be leveling out . . . there was an orange-red explosion in the fuselage, behind or near the left of the wing, followed by a larger, second burst of flames. It flew for two to three more seconds, lost control and started a curved dive, losing parts as it fell from the air."
Monica Kalfur of Rockaway, Queens, also saw the plane coming apart in the air and coming down in pieces, including its separated engine and left wing. The NTSB now claims that the plane's pilot was fighting the controls of the aircraft just before the crash as the aircraft experienced vibration.
The NTSB's chairman, Mary Blakey, said shortly after the downing that "communications from the cockpit were normal until the last few seconds before the crash."
Flight 587 was in the air for only three minutes be fore it plunged to the ground and the NTSB's top official stated that communications from the plane's cockpit were normal until the "last few seconds."
Various officials and experts on air crashes are also pointing to the terrible record of air crashes that have occurred after takeoff from JFK.
On July 17, 1996, TWA Flight 800 crashed with the loss of all 280 people on board. Then, on Sept. 2, 1998 Swissair Flight 111 went down near Blandford, Nova Scotia, after leaving JFK, with all 215 passengers killed. That was followed on Oct. 31,1999, by the crash with the loss of all 217 aboard, of Egyptair Flight 990, which landed in the Atlantic, about 60 miles south of Nantucket Island, Mass. And, now, there is Flight 587.
This has prompted Larry Johnson, former deputy director of counter-terrorism at the State Department, to conclude that either there are saboteurs at work at JFK or the facility "is the unluckiest airport in the world."
There have been cases of reported sabotage, falsifying maintenance records, using bogus parts and security fraud at JFK, according to Schiavo.
"We had 68 cases of falsified maintenance reports from
just one major airline there," Schiavo added.
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Some good Americans inside the FBI and the Justice Department oppose a scheme by Attorney General John Ashcroft to revive the FBI's domestic spying operation known as COINTELPRO.
Under the guise of "fighting terrorism" Attorney General John Ashcroft is hoping to trash 30-year-old restrictions on the FBI's ability to spy on religious and political organizations in the United States.
This would effectively revive the FBI's infamous COINTELPRO ("counterintelligence program") of the 1960s. At that time, the FBI collaborated with the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) of B'nai B'rith to infiltrate and spy upon a wide variety of dissident American political organizations.
The names of some 62,000 American political dissidents were held in the FBI's files during that period.
Although the media frequently points out that "civil rights" groups were a key target of COINTELPRO, the FBI spent a great deal of time on so-called "white hate groups" and all manner of dissident "right wing" organization and individuals.
What is also not mentioned by the mainstream media is what The SanFrancisco Weekly, a small circulation local newspaper, reported on April 28, 1993: According to the Weekly, ADL spies had been conducting regular surveillance of the late Martin Luther King, Jr. and passing on the data to the FBI.
Although the media has reported about the FBI's spying on King, the now-defunct Spotlight was the only national newspaper to report on the ADL's frontline role in the FBI's war on the civil rights leader.
FBI guidelines were changed dramatically in the mid-1970s after widespread public outrage upon the discovery of the COINTELPRO operation - following the death of FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover, who worked closely with the ADL. New protocols stipulated that the FBI was only permitted to deply undercover operatives in churches and mosques or inside political organizations if investigators has first found "probable cause" that persons inside those groups may have committed a crime.
After the institution of the guidelines restricting the FBI's ability to spy on domestic political dissidents, however, the ADL rushed into do the spying.
The illicit fruits of the ADL's intelligence ventures still ended up in the hands of the FBI, the BATF, the CIA, the IRS and other federal agencies with which the ADL maintained close contact.
Now Ashcroft, along with new FBI Director Robert S. Mueller, are hoping to formally reinstate the old COINTELPRO under the guise of fighting terrorism.
However, according to The New York Times of Dec. 1, many career officials at the FBI and the Justice Department oppose the drive by Ashcroft and Mueller to expand federal police state powers.
FBI officials are also expressing concern about Ashcroft's plan to establish secret military tribunals to try accused terrorists.
The Times quoted one official who objected to this plan saying, "I believe in the rule of law, and I believe if we have a case to make against someone, we should make it in a federal courtroom in the United States."
Americans have good reason to be concerned about the FBI's covert activities. According to Edward S. Herman of the University of Pennsylvania, whiting in his book: The "Terrorism" Industry: The Wxperts and Institutions That Shape Our View of Terror:
In the United States, the FBI has long engaged in agent provocateur actions, urging violence on penetrated dissident organizations and carrying out direct acts of violence, then attributed to the individuals and organization under attack...
The same can be said about the FBI's allies at the Anti-Defamation League.
ADL UNMASKED
In the 1950s maverick New York publisher Lyle Stuart (who is himself Jewish) enraged the ADL by issuing a series of published reports that unmasked the ADL's role in helping finance and publicized a rag-tag "neo-Nazi" organization that the ADL proclaimed the vanguard of a rising "Nazi threat."
What makes the ADL's collaboration with the FBI more disconcerting is that, based on evidence that has emerged through a variety of sources, there is no question that the ADL functions as an adjunct of Israel's intelligence service, the Mossad.
Former Mossad operative Victor Ostrovshy reported in his book, The Other Side of Deception, that while writing his earlier book, By Way of Deception, he had hesitated in reporting "the direct links the Mossad had with...the Anti-Defamation League of the B'nai B'rith..." because he feared that Americans might rise up against the ADL and the American Jewish community which the ADL purports to represent in outrage at the activities of the Mossad.
In any case, the fact that Attorney General Ashcroft, who has
a long and close "special relationship' with the Israeli
lobby, is now trying to revive the COINTELPRO operations is a
matter of grave concern.
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Two American Jewish leaders have been charged with plotting to blow up several targets in California, including the office of a Congressman.
On Dec. 12, the FBI shocked the Jewish community by arresting one of its most ardent (if controversial) spokesman, Irv Rubin, international chairman of the Jewish Defense League (JDL), a violent terrorist group.
Rubin and his top JDL lieutenant, Earl Krugel, were charged with conspiring to blow up a Los Angeles mosque as well as the office of an Arab-American congressman, Rep. Darrel Issa (R-Calif.).
Until now, the JDL was virtually "off limits" to U.S. law enforcement despite a long string of bombings, murders and other acts of violence connected to its name.
The arrests were triggered by a heretofore secret FBI inquiry into the murder of Arab-American leader Alex Odeh who was killed in a 1985 bombing in Santa Ana, Calif.
Rubin and his associates have long been top suspects in that crime and, in the course of a renewed inquiry, the FBI learned about Rubin's recent terrorist intentions.
Although the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) publicly disavows JDL violence, it is an "open secret" that the ADL works with the JDL behind the scenes. In 1993 the FBI found a diagram of Alex Odeh's office in the home of longtime ADL informant Roy Bullock.
It may be no coincidence Rubin was nailed the same day federal sources leaked word to Fox News that the FBI believes Israeli intelligence had advance warning of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. The JDL has long-standing high-level ties to the Mossad.
Rubin and Krugel frequently made death threats against Willis Carto, publisher of the court-killed Spot light. Carto was forced out of his home by JDL vandalism and also physically attacked by JDL thugs. In addition, an FBI report leaked to The Spotlight revealed that when the Carto-founded Institute for Historical Review (IHR) was bombed in 1984, the JDL had assisted Israeli operatives in the venture. No one was ever charged in any of those crimes.
In 1998 AFP correspondent Michael Collins Piper was threatened
with death by Rubin and Krugel at a meeting in Irvine, Calif.,
where the JDL leaders attacked Piper for alleging Israeli involvement
in the JFK assassination. Armed police officers prevented violence.
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Were those hijackers really Arabs? Would Israeli agents carry out a suicide mission that could cost American Jewish lives? Consider these little-known facts . . .
In 1986 the New York-based leader of the terrorist Jewish Defense League, Victor Vancier, gave a prophetic hint of what may have been finally played out on Sept. 11, 2001:
If you think the Shiites in Lebanon are capable of fantastic acts of suicidal terrorism, the Jewish underground will strike targets that will make Amercans gasp: "How could Jews do such things?"
According to Vancier, quoted by Robert I. Friedman in The Village Voice on May 6, 1986, his allies were "desperate people" who "don't care if they live or die."
Considering this warning it is entirely conceivable the "Middle Eastern" men described by passengers on the airliners were not Arabs at all.
Evidence to be explored suggests that instead, these hijackers could well have been Israeli-sponsored fundamentalist Jewish fanatics (posing as "bin Laden Arabs") hoping to instigate an all-out U.S. war against the Arab world.
"Jewish suicide bombers? Impossible!" cry critics. However, the fact is that there is a "suicide tradition" that is a much-revered part of Jewish history—going back to the famous mass suicide at Masada by Jewish zealots.
But in modern times, Israeli suicide missions have been undertaken. In The Other Side of Deception former Mossad officer Victor Ostrovsky described one 1989 venture: the participants were "all volunteers" advised that there was effectively "no possibility of rescue should they be caught."
And what about the Arabic language heard on one airplane's black box?
Consider a formerly secret CIA assessment, Israel: Foreign Intelligence and Security Services, dated March 1979, which reported that it is a long-standing policy for Israeli intelligence to disguise Jews as Arabs:
One of the established goals of the intelligence and security services is that each officer be fluent in Arabic. A nine-month, intensive Arabic language course is given annually . . . to students . . .
As further training, these Mossad officers work in the [Israeli-controlled Arab lands] for two years to sharpen their language skills. . . .
Many Israelis have come from Arab countries where they were born and educated and appear more Arab than Israeli . . .
By forging passports and identity documents of Arab and western countries and providing sound background legends and cover, Mossad has successfully sent into Egypt and other Arab countries Israelis disguised and documented as Arabs or citizens of European countries. . . . These persons are also useful for their ability to pass completely for a citizen of the nation in question. The Israeli talent for counterfeiting or forging foreign passports and documents ably supports the agent's authenticity.
Pulitzer Prize-winner Jack Anderson, a supporter of Israel, wrote on Sept. 17, 1972 that:
Israeli agents—immigrants whose families had lived in Arab lands for generations—have a perfect knowledge of Arab dialects and customs. They have been able to infiltrate Arab governments with ease.
On Sept, 29, 1998, Yossi Melman, writing in Israel's Ha'aretz, revealed that:
Shin Bet agents, who worked undercover in the Israeli-Arab sector in the 1950s, went as far as to marry Muslim women and have children with them, in an attempt to continue their mission without raising suspicion.
In fact, serious questions have been raised about the identities of the Sept. 11 "Arab hijackers."
While the media reported the ringleader's passport conveniently landed atop rubble eight blocks from "Ground Zero," The Orlando Sentinel also reported that at least four men identified as hijackers are not dead and had nothing to do with the attacks.
In The New Yorker on Oct. 8, Pulitzer Prize winner Seymour Hersh pointed out:
Many of the investigators believe that some of the initial clues about the terrorists' identities and preparations, such as flight manuals, were meant to be found. A former high-level intelligence official told me, "Whatever trail was left was left deliberately—for the FBI to chase."
Why Arabs would plant evidence implicating their own is a point mainstream media chooses not to address.
Nor has the media ever ballyhooed the "hero" who tipped off the FBI where the hijackers' car (conveniently filled with "evidence") was parked. And for those who would doubt that Israel would endanger American Jews via terrorism, consider this: hard-line Israelis are willing to kill Jews if it means assuring Israel's survival.
The late Rabbi Meir Kahane—founder of the Jewish Defense League and one spiritual mentor of fundamentalists who support Ariel Sharon—exemplifies those willing to sacrifice other Jews to guarantee Israel's future.
Kahane called for killing "Hellenist [i.e. Western-oriented] spiritually sick [Jews] who threaten the existence of Judaism." That would include those working in slick offices in the World Trade Center, living on Long Island, rather than kibbutzing in Israel.
Israeli journalist Yair Kotler reports in Heil Kahane that Kahane wrote: "the adoption of foreign, gentilized [i.e. non-Jewish] concepts by a Jewish state . . . opens the door to a national tragedy."
In his book, Time to Go Home, Kahane called for all Jews to
"go home" to Israel—the only safe place for Jews.
Those who refused to "go home" were expendable. The
CIA's 1979 report on Israeli intelligence says this widely-held
view mirrors "the aggressively ideological nature of Zionism."
In fact, this Jewish attitude toward the West (exactly what the
media says is the Islamic attitude) has support at the Mossad's
top levels.
Robert Friedman revealed that "high-ranking members of Mossad" were directing Kahane and that the "central player" was former Mossad operations chief (and later prime minister) Yitzhak Shamir, an outspoken critic of America.
When Kahane said America would become "the major enemy of Israel," due to "economic disintegration, which no administration can stem," he enunciated a popular Israeli view.
In his Kahane biography, The False Prophet, Robert I. Friedman noted that Kahane's beliefs "have taken root and have become ‘respectable.' " and that Ariel Sharon is one of the "most potent supporters" of such extremism.
In the Oct. 15 issue of The New Republic, Israeli writer Yossi Klein Halevi echoed this view:
The destruction of the World Trade Center has partially rehabilitated, if only by default, the Zionist promise of safe refuge for the Jewish people.
In the last year, it had become a much-noted irony that Israel was the country where a Jew was most likely to be killed for being a Jew. For many, the United States had beckoned as the real Jewish refuge; in a poll taken just before the bin Laden attacks, 37 percent of Israelis said their friends or relatives were discussing emigration. That probably changed on Sept. 11.
I was among the thousands of Israelis who crowded Kennedy Airport on the weekend after the attack, desperate to find a flight to Tel Aviv. "At least we're going back where it's safe," people joked.
Everyone seemed to have a story about an Israeli living in New York who just barely escaped the devastation. If this could happen in Manhattan, the reasoning went, you might as well take your chances at home.
What Halevi describes reflects the widespread ideology known as "catastrophic Zionism" which rejects America, saying Israel is the only safe Jewish refuge.
In The Ascendance of Israel's Radical Right Israeli scholar Ehud Sprinzak found that these views are "a major school" of modern Israeli thought.
Sprinzak described the Israeli movement, Sikarikin, which honors ancient Jews who "conducted a systematic terror campaign against Jewish moderates who were ready to come to terms with the Romans on questions of religious purity." Israelis consider these terrorists "the symbolic de fenders of religious and nationalist purity."
Another popular rabbi, Israel Ariel, will risk massive loss of Jewish lives to achieve the "elimination" of the Arab countries to guarantee Israel's survival. The hawkish rabbi proclaims:
There is a ruling that a war is permitted as long as no more than one-sixth of the nation be killed. And this was stated in relation to an ordinary war, a fight between neighbors.
A war for Eretz Israel does not depend on the number of casualties. The command is "Ase!" ("Do it!"), and you may be sure that the number of casualties will thus be minimal.
As far as non-Jews, Sprinzak cites Rabbi David Bar-Haim who declares the concept Jews and non-Jews are equals "stands in total contrast to the Torah of Moses, and is derived from a total ignorance and an assimilation of alien Western values."
Ben-Haim cites 10 religious authorities who "repeatedly proposed that Gentiles are more beast than human," whereas, "only two authorities recognize non-Jews as full human beings created in the image of God."
Bear in mind: these comments from supposed "allies" represent widespread opinion in Israel's military and intelligence services.
Did Ariel Sharon help orchestrate the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks
to instigate all-out U.S. war against Israel's enemies? Don't
discount it.
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European intelligence experts dismiss the Bush "war on terrorism" as deception and reveal the realpolitik behind the bombing of Afghanistan.
BERLIN—In Germany, where war plans for Afghanistan were already being discussed in July and where several of the "Arab hijackers" lived and studied, intelligence experts say the terror attacks of Sept. 11 could not have been carried out without the support of a state secret service.
Eckehardt Werthebach, former president of Ger many's domestic intelligence service, Verfassungsschutz, told American Free Press that "the deathly precision" and "the magnitude of planning" behind the at tacks would have needed "years of planning."
Such a sophisticated operation, Werthebach said, would require the "fixed frame" of a state intelligence organization, something not found in a "loose group" of terrorists like the one allegedly led by Mohammed Atta while he studied in Hamburg.
Many people would have been involved in the planning of such an operation and Werthebach pointed to the absence of leaks as further indication that the attacks were "state organized actions."
Andreas von Bülow served on the parliamentary commission which oversees the three branches of the German secret service while a member of the Bundestag (German parliament) from 1969 to 1994, and wrote a book Im Namendes Staates ("In the Name of the State") on the criminal activities of secret services, including the CIA.
Von Bülow told AFP that he believes that the Israeli intelligence service, Mossad, is behind the Sept. 11 terror attacks. These attacks, he said, were carried out to turn public opinion against the Arabs and boost military and security spending.
"You don't get the higher echelons," von Bülow said, referring to the "architectural structure" which masterminds such terror attacks. At this level, he said, the organization doing the planning, such as Mossad, is primarily interested in affecting public opinion.
The architectural level planners use corrupt "guns for hire" such as Abu Nidal, the Palestinian terrorist who von Bülow called "an instrument of Mossad," high-ranking Stasi (former East German secret service) operatives, or Libyan agents who organize terror attacks using dedicated people, for example Palestinian and Arab "freedom fighters."
The terrorists who actually commit the crimes are what von Bülow calls "the working level," such as the 19 Arabs who allegedly hijacked the planes on Sept. 11.
"The working level is part of the deception," he said.
"Ninety-five percent of the work of the intelligence agencies around the world is deception and disinformation," von Bülow said, which is widely propagated in the mainstream media creating an accepted version of events. "Journalists don't even raise the simplest questions," he said, adding, "those who differ are labeled as crazy."
Both Werthebach and von Bülow said the lack of an open and official investigation, like congressional hearings, into the events of Sept. 11 was incomprehensible.
Horst Ehmke, who coordinated the German secret services directly under German Prime Minister Willi Brandt in the 70s, predicted a similar terrorist attack in his novel, Torches of Heaven, published last year, in which Turkish terrorists crash hijacked planes into Berlin.
Although Ehmke had long expected "fundamentalist attacks" and when he saw the televised images from Sept.11, he said it looked like a "Hollywood production."
"Terrorists could not have carried out such an operation with four hijacked planes without the support of a secret service," Ehmke said, although he did not want to point to any particular agency.
"The most important thing in the struggle against terrorists, who are abusing religion, is the battle for the soul of the people and the nations," Ehmke said. "If this isn't resolved successfully, the 21st century could be bloodier than the last."
A former Stasi agent who had warned the German secret service of terror attacks in America between Sept. 10-20 told AFP that a high ranking Stasi chief named Jürgen Rogalla, who is "an airplane terror specialist," was probably involved in the attacks along with Abu Nidal.
Both Nidal and Rogalla work with the Mossad, the former agent told AFP. Nidal, was said to be in Baghdad, and is a "leading officer for some Mossad agents."
The agent said that Nidal was "involved directly" in the events of Sept. 11.Sept. 11 was preparation for a larger attack on the United States, which is part of "an old plan," the agent said. Based on prior knowledge of this plan, the agent said that more attacks are imminent and that aircraft carriers may be targeted next.
Rogalla was responsible for "turning NATO men" to spy for the East. One of the East's NATO spies, Reiner Rupp, known as "Topaz," provided Stasi and the Russians with the organization's highest secrets until he was discovered in 1993 by the BND, the German intelligence agency.
TERROR INVESTIGATION BLOCKED
Under the influence of U.S. oil companies, the Bush administration blocked Secret Service investigations on terrorism, while it bargained with the Taliban to turn over Osama bin Laden in exchange for political recognition and economic aid, two French intelligence analysts claim.
In a recently published book, Bin Laden, la Verite Interdite ("Bin Laden, the Forbidden Truth"), the authors, Jean-Charles Brisard and Guillaume Dasquie, reveal that the FBI's deputy director John O'Neill re signed in July to protest official obstruction of his investigation of terrorism.
O'Neill had been in charge of national security in New York. While with the FBI, O'Neill led an investigation of Osama bin Laden and had forecast the possibility of an organized attack by terrorists operating from within the country.
O'Neill had investigated the USS Cole bombing in Yemen, the bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania and the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.
In 1995, FBI agents working under O'Neill captured Ramzi Yousef, a suspected lieutenant of bin Laden, who was among those convicted for the World Trade Center bombing.
O'Neill was considered a top-notch investigator and was known for his pugnacity. He was barred by U.S. Ambassador to Yemen Barbara Bodine from that country. That dispute reportedly involved a struggle between the State Department, which sought to preserve relations with Yemen, and the FBI, represented by O'Neill, who wanted access to Yemeni suspects.
O'Neill, 49, was hired as chief of security at the World Trade Center following a 25-year career with the FBI and died on Sept. 11, the first day of his new job. O'Neill reportedly died after reentering the building to assist others.
Brisard said O'Neill told them that "the main obstacles to investigate Islamic terrorism were U.S. oil corporate interests and the role played by Saudi Arabia in it."
Bin Laden and the Taliban received threats of possible American military strikes against them two months before the terrorist assaults on New York and Wash ington, according to The Guardian of London.
The warnings to the Taliban originated at a four-day meeting of senior Americans, Russians, Iranians and Pakistanis at a hotel in Berlin in mid-July. The meetings took place under the arbitration of Francesc Vendrell, personal representative of UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, to discuss the situation in Afghanistan.
The three Americans at the Berlin meeting were Tom Simons, former U.S. ambassador to Pakistan, Karl "Rick" Inderfurth, a former assistant secretary of state for South Asian affairs, and Lee Coldren, who headed the office of Pakistan, Afghan and Bangladesh affairs in the State Department until 1997.
There were other meetings arranged by Vendrell in which "representatives of the U.S. government and Russia, and the six countries that border with Afghanis tan were present," according to the French authors. "Some times, representatives of the Taliban also sat around the table."
The Berlin conference was the third meeting since November 2000 arranged by Vendrell. As a UN meeting, its official agenda was supposedly confined to trying to find a negotiated solution to the civil war in Afghan is tan, ending terrorism and heroin trafficking, and discussing humanitarian aid.
CARPET OF GOLD—OR BOMBS
The U.S. government's primary objective in Afghan istan was to consolidate the position of the Taliban regime in order to obtain access to the oil and gas reserves of Central Asia, the French authors wrote.
Until August, the U.S. government saw the Taliban regime "as a source of stability in Central Asia that would enable the construction of an oil pipeline across Central Asia," from the rich oilfields in Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Kazakhstan, through Afghanistan and Pakistan, to the Indian Ocean, they said.
"The oil and gas reserves of Central Asia have been controlled by Russia. The Bush government wanted to change all that," the book says. When the Taliban refused to accept U.S. conditions, "this rationale of energy security changed into a military one."
"The Americans indicated to us that in case the Taliban does not behave and in case Pakistan also doesn't help us to influence the Taliban, then the United States would be left with no option but to take an overt action against Afghanistan," said Niaz Naik, a former foreign minister of Pakistan, who attended the meetings.
During the "6 plus 2" meeting in Berlin in July, the discussions turned around "the formation of a government of national unity. If the Taliban had accepted this coalition, they would have immediately received international economic aid," Naik said on French television.
"And the pipe lines from Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan would have come," he added.
Naik also claimed that Tom Simons, the U.S. representative at these meetings, openly threatened the Taliban and Pakistan.
"Simons said, ‘either the Taliban behave as they ought to, or Pakistan convinces them to do so, or we will use another option.' The words Simons used were ‘a military operation,' " Naik said.
"At one moment during the negotiations, the U.S. representatives told the Taliban, ‘either you accept our offer of a carpet of gold, or we bury you under a carpet of bombs,' " Brisard said in an interview in Paris.
According to the book, the Bush government began to negotiate with the Taliban in February, soon after coming into power. U.S. and Taliban diplomatic representatives met several times in Washington, Berlin and Is lam a bad.
To polish their image in the United States, the Taliban even employed a U.S. expert on public relations, Laila Helms.
The authors claim that Helms is also an expert in the works
of U.S. secret services, for her uncle, Richard Helms, is a former
director of the CIA.
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You read it here first. The FBI believes Israel had advance knowledge about the impending September 11 terrorist attacks and failed to inform the United States.
American Free Press was first to expose the "bug secret" that the major media has been suppressing: that 60 Israeli Jews - many of whom are still in the military or intelligence - were taken into custody following the terrorist attacks and are being held because the FBI suspects they have material knowledge about the attacks.
For publishing that story, critics angrily denounced AFP for spreading "ridiculous conspiracy theories."
However, on Dec. 12 Fox News with Brit Hume, featuring reporter Carl Cameron, carried an eye-opening story that echoed precisely what AFP first reported.
According to Cameron:
There is no indication the Israelis were involved in the Sept. 11 attacks, but investigators suspect that they may have gathered intelligence about the attacks in advance and not shared it. A highly-placed investigator told Fox News there are "tie-ins," but when asked for details flatly refused to describe them. "Evidence linking these Israelis to 9-11 is classified. I cannot tell you about evidence that has been gathered. It is classified information."
During the broadcast segment, Hume asked Cameron: "What about this question of advance knowledge of what was going to happen on 9-11? How clear are investigators that some Israeli agents may have known something?"
Cameron responded: "It's very explosive information, obviously, and there's a great deal of evidence that they say they have collected. None of it necessarily conclusive. It's more when they put it all together. A bigger question, they say, is ‘How could they not have known?' That is almost a direct quote from the investigators."
Although Fox reported the Israeli embassy in Washington offered
"categorical denials," Fox indicated that it has been
learned that "one group of Israelis spotted in North Carolina
recently is suspected of keeping an apartment in California to
spy on a group of Arabs who the U.S. authorities are investigating
for links to terrorism."
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The government most likely knows the source of the anthrax-laced mail, says a respected group of scientists, but has been reluctant to say so.
The uncomfortable silence regarding the recent anthrax attacks which contaminated congressional buildings, post office distribution centers and several media offices indicates that government investigators have an idea of who is behind it and it is most likely one of their own people, reports a U.S. scientific organization.
"All letter samples contain the same strain of anthrax, corresponding to the AMES strain in the North Arizona State University database (which has been used for identification)," reports Barbara Hatch Rosen berg of the Federation of American Scientists, the successor to the 1940s Federation of Atomic Scientists (FAS).
"It has just been reported that the complete sequence has been determined for the genomes of both the anthrax used in the Florida attack and the AMES strain to which it corresponds," says FAS. "This work was done under government contract by the Institute for Genomic Research, a private non-profit organization. The results have not been made public but they are in government hands and there has been no retraction of the oft-repeated official statement that the letter anthrax matches the AMES strain."
Fort Detrick in Maryland controls at least four substrains of AMES anthrax. At least 20 laboratories have obtained strains for research purposes from the Army base, according to FAS, but only four are suspected of having the capabilities to "weaponize" anthrax.
Bioweapons experts note that the AMES strain is probably the earliest form of anthrax cultured in laboratories, dating back to as early as the 1920s in the United States.
Bill Patrick, the inventor of the U.S. weaponization process, says the process of turning the bacteria into a biological weapon is secret but involves a combination of chemicals. Weaponized anthrax can be easily identified by researchers.
Government investigators ruled out Iraq as the source because the sample collected from the office of Sen. Tom Daschle (D-S.D.) "contains a special form of silica used in the U.S. process. It does not contain bentonite (used by the Iraqis)," says FAS.
THE PERPETRATOR
The source of the anthrax-laced mail "appears to be a forensic expert," says FAS. "The perpetrator is most likely an American microbiologist who has access to weaponized anthrax or to the expertise and materials for making it, in a U.S. government or contractor lab.
"The U.S. government has undoubtedly known for some time that the anthrax terrorism was an inside job," FAS continues. "They may be reluctant to admit this."
Moreover, FAS reports:
"The recent anthrax attack was a minor one but nonetheless we now see that it was perpetrated with the unwitting assistance of a sophisticated government program. It is reassuring to know that it was not perpetrated by a lone terrorist without state support.
"It is not reassuring, however, to discover that a secret
U.S. program may have been the source of that support, and that
security is so dangerously lax in military or defense contractor
laboratories."
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A captured British journalist says Western intelligence funneled falsified information to the Taliban to get her killed so that her death could be used to bolster public support for the war in Afghanistan.
A British journalist captured and held by the Taliban claims that Western intelligence tried to get her killed in Afghanistan to drum up support for America's "war on terror."
On Sept. 28, Yvonne Ridley, a journalist with the London-based Sunday Express, was captured by the Taliban along with two guides and an aid worker when the group illegally entered the country.
Ridley was without a passport and was wearing a burqa, the traditional veil worn by Afghan women, when she was detained.
Ten days later, on Oct. 8, Ridley was taken to the Pakistani border and unceremoniously released.
According to her new book, In the Hands of the Taliban, Ridley says that the Taliban came into the possession of private documents and photographs, which could have only come from her apartment in London and her hotel room in Pakistan.
Ridley found out that the Taliban had been given personal information about her after Michael Mansfield, a journalist with the Arab television satellite channel, Al Jazeera, approached her with them after her release.
On Nov. 13, the Afghan office of Al Jazeera had been destroyed by a U.S. bomb believed to have been purposely dropped by a U.S. jet to quiet the Arab news station which had been broadcasting exclusive interviews with Osama bin Laden and giving equal air time to both Taliban and Western officials.
Among other things, Ridley said the files contained photocopies of her British tax returns and a deed to a house she once owned.
Oddly, the files also contained a copy of an Israeli passport that belonged to her third husband, Hermosh, along with documents containing "a Mossad code number and ID card also said to belong to him," she said.
What struck Ridley, however, was a picture of her daughter, Hermosh and her, identified in the file as being "taken on a river in Iran when you entered the country illegally."
According to Jo Dillon, a political correspondent with The Independent, a London newspaper:
Ms. Ridley's book says: "I looked at the picture again and initially laughed, when I realized it had been taken in October 1998 in Stratford-upon-Avon. Then an awful feeling came to my stomach and I wanted to vomit. I remembered where I had last seen that picture—in the top drawer at my new flat in Soho. I had kicked out Husband No. 3 a couple of weeks ago after those pictures were taken; they weren't developed until later—after he had gone. So who had been in my flat?"
Ridley believes that either the CIA or its British counterpart, MI6, stole documents and fabricated her connection to Israeli intelligence in order to make it look like she was working as a spy for the Mossad.
Western intelligence agencies did this, she says, "to
bolster support for the air strikes in Afghanistan."
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The latest videotape implicating Osama bin Laden has been called the "smoking gun" — but critics of the U.S. bombing of Afghanistan call it "smoke and mirrors" deception.
The blurry 40-minute videotape released by the Pentagon on Dec.13, purportedly showing Osama bin Laden boasting of masterminding the terror attacks of Sept.11, has raised more questions and doubts about its veracity than it has answered.
According to U.S. officials, the tape was found in a house in Jalalabad, eastern Afghanistan, and handed to the Pentagon by an unnamed person or group. At first it was reported that the CIA found the tape. Later press reports said United Front soldiers discovered it.
Unless the United States gives more information about how the tape was found or provides more technological details about it, doubts are bound to linger, The Guardian of London wrote.
One specialist in Islamic affairs, Hani Al Sibaei, described the videotape as "fabricated and a scandal for the greatest democratic country in the world." In a telephone call with the Arabic news network Al Jazeera from London, he noted the congratulatory wishes on the tape and bin Laden's happy expression.
He said that this segment was taken from a tape of bin Laden being congratulated on the pre-arranged marriage of his child to the child of Aiman Al-Zawaheri — which took place four years ago.
Al Sibaei said it boggles the mind that an organization like al Qaeda would create such simple-minded videotapes and then leave them behind in a private home. He added that bin Laden has twice denied involvement in the attacks and said that he had sworn to Mullah Mohamed Omar, leader of the Taliban movement, that the al Qaeda organization pledged it would not plan attacks against other countries from inside Afghanistan.
In the video, bin Laden, wearing a green military jacket and white headdress, claims to have known the attacks would take place five days in advance, and says the destruction of the twin towers exceeded his expectations.
In the tape, which was broadcast with muffled sound accompanied by English translation, bin Laden said that he believed that the fire from the jet fuel would result in a partial collapse of the iron infrastructure of the World Trade Center.The impact of the video may have been diluted to some extent by its poor quality and language difficulties. Many Arabs either had to accept the English translation on TV or strain to hear the words themselves.
Christopher Ross, a consultant hired by the State Department, told the Arabic news network Al Jazeera, that he had to replay the tape dozens of times in order to hear the conversation because the sound was so bad.
Ross indicated that to improve the translation, he replayed the tape another 50 times with the translator. He confirmed that the translation is not literal, because of the poor quality of the original tape's sound.
Some legal experts found the tape damning, if it could ever be admitted into court. "It is the most powerful kind of evidence," said Donald B. Ayer, former deputy attorney general. "It is a virtual confession."
In an earlier interview with a Pakistani newspaper, bin Laden said "I have already said that I am not involved in the Sept.11 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."
Prosecutors seeking to bring bin Laden to justice would certainly be keen to produce the tape but might struggle to prove its authenticity. Henry Hingson, former president of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, said: "In this day and age of digital wizardry, many things can be done to alter its veracity."
The United States says the tape provides compelling evidence that bin Laden was behind the attacks but the authenticity of the tape is doubted by many in the Muslim world and dismissed as unconvincing propaganda.
For all his familiarity with the Sept. 11 events, bin Laden did not explicitly take responsibility for directing the operation. He said he had received notification of the Tuesday attacks the previous Thursday, indicating that the timing, at least, might have been left to others.
In Jordan, Abdul Latif Arabiat, head of the Islamic Action Front said, "Do Americans really think the world is that stupid to think that they would believe that this tape is evidence?"
"Of course it is fabricated," Dia'a Rashwan, an Egyp tian expert on Islamic movements said, "If this is the kind of evidence that America has, then the blood of thousands who died and were injured in Afghanistan is on Bush's hands."
Riaz Durrani, a spokesman for Jamiat Ulema-e-Is lam, a pro-Taliban party in Pakistan, said: "This videotape is not authentic. The Americans made it up after failing to get any evidence against Osama."
President Bush, who hopes the video will bolster international support for the war on terrorism, challenged the critics calling the videotape a "devastating declaration of guilt for this evil person."
Countering claims that the video was faked, Bush said it was "preposterous for anybody to think this tape was doctored," adding, "Those who contend it's a farce or a fake are hoping for the best about an evil man. This is bin Laden unedited."
Sean Broughton, director of the London-based production company Smoke and Mirrors and one of Britain's leading experts on visual effects, said it would be relatively easy for a professional to fake a video of bin Laden.
But Broughton said to fool the top experts is much more difficult. "There are perhaps 20 people in America who would be good enough to fool everybody. To find someone that good and make sure they kept quiet would probably be pretty difficult."
Bob Crabtree, editor of Computer Video, said it is impossible to judge whether the video is a fake without more details of its source. "The U.S. seems simply to have asked the world to trust them that it is genuine," he said.
OLD OSAMA VS. NEW OSAMA
There are many problems with the videotape beginning with the appearance of bin Laden.
Bin Laden, who is reported to suffer from kidney problems and uses a cane, has appeared rather lean in previous videotapes, but suddenly seems to have gained weight and actually appears jolly in the latest video, supposedly made on Nov. 9, only weeks after his previous video.
Bin Laden, who is of Yemenite parentage, has a characteristic long neck and long narrow head. The "new" bin Laden appears to have a "husky" body and a smaller head in proportion to his body.
Some observers point out that in the latest video, bin Laden appears to be wearing a ring on his right hand. In previous tapes bin Laden wore no jewelry except a watch.
Others have pointed out that in the latest videotape bin Laden
is "gesticulating excessively" with his right hand,
while in the earlier tapes bin Laden, who is left-handed, spoke
in a slow and deliberate manner.
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Britain's top military officer warns that the "war on terrorism" will "radicalize" friendly states and lead to increased terrorism.
While Secretary of State Colin Powell visited Britain, the United State's closest ally in Afghanistan and only ally in Iraq, on the three-month anniversary of the Sept. 11 terror, significant differences surfaced on how to proceed with the "war on terrorism."
British Chief of Staff Admiral Sir Michael Boyce revealed a significant divergence between the allies' military and political branches on what to do after the defeat of the Taliban.
Boyce said that America's determination to use military might in a wider war was certain to "radicalize" friendly states whose support Britain and other nations need.
Speculation is growing that the United States will attack Iraq as part of its "war." Powell will not rule out war against Iraq.
An attack on Iraq would further destabilize the region, experts on the Middle East warn, drawing in neutral countries and stretching the allied coalition to the breaking point.
Britain will have to lay down "red lines" beyond which it would not go, Boyce said. Whatever is done must be legal, the admiral said, because to do otherwise would jeopardize its legitimacy.
The alliance must beware of "exporting terrorism," which had been the experience of the United States in Colombia, Boyce said, where military operations against the guerrilla movement, FARC, had forced it into Mexico and Guatemala.
Boyce also warned of "excessive optimism" about successes against the Taliban because the war was not conventional and could not be measured in territory won.
Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network remained "a fielded, resourced, dedicated and essentially autonomous terrorist force, quite capable of atrocity on a comparable scale" to the Sept. 11 attacks, Boyce said.
Boyce criticized the massive U.S. bombing campaigns saying that lack of constraint and proportionality could simply "radicalize" opinion in the Islamic world in favor of al Qaeda. Terrorism could only be defeated by winning "hearts and minds," Boyce said.
You cannot win the "war" by bombing and military action could have precisely the opposite effect to the one intended, he warned.
"Washington is making it quite plain that after bombing Afghanistan and toppling the Taliban, it wants to get out of the country as soon as Mullah Omar and bin Laden are captured, or presumed dead, leaving others to clean up the mess," wrote Richard Norton-Taylor of The Guardian.
Politicians and the media should take a longer-term view of events on the ground where the situation could often be tenuous, he said.
The international community must attack the causes, not the symptoms of terrorism, Boyce said. The enemy is not just Osama bin Laden. This was not a "high-tech 21st century posse in the new Wild West," he said.
Boyce, however, did not mention the presence of American bases
in Saudi Arabia, or America's failure to apply pressure on Israel
to recognize a Palestinian state—"absolutely central
issues raised only in private by senior officials" in both
the British military and political establishments, wrote Norton-Taylor.
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With a massive amount of information about planned terrorist attacks in hand, how could the government be caught by surprise on Sept. 11.
The CIA and FBI have known - since 1995 - about a terrorist plan to use civilian aircraft to attack the World Trade center and U.S. government installations. The plans to hijack a large number of American commercial passenger planes simultaneously and explode them in mid-flight or crash them into predetermined targets such as the World Trade Center have been well known by western intelligence agencies since 1995, according to a report in Die Welt, a Hamburg, Germany, newspaper on Dec. 7.
The terrorist scenario that unfolded on Sept. 11 was neither new nor unexpected - and the American intelligence agencies, both the CIA and the FBI, have known of the plan to execute such an act for more than six years, Die Welt said.
The airline terror plan, code named "Project Bojinka," was first discovered in January 1995 during a police search of a Manila apartment in which a suspicious fire had occurred just days before Pope John Paul II was to travel nearby during his visit to the Philippines.
A Philippines police investigation revealed that a three-man terrorist cell had occupied the apartment in the center of Manila and made preparations to assassinate the pope.
The contents of the apartment included bombs made of liquid chemicals along with the garb of priests, Bibles, and religious paraphernalia meant to disguise the assassins.
The three terrorists who had occupied the apartment, Ramsi Ahmed Yousef, Abdul Hakim Murad and Wali Khan Amin Shah, where allegedly affiliated with international terrorist networks. All three had attended pilot training schools in the Philippines.
The Kuwaiti terrorists, Yousef and Murad, had developed undetectable liquid nitroglycerine bombs that could be hidden in contact lens bottles, and plotted to kill the pope and President Bill Clinton, according to The Guardian.
Investigators say the Bojinka bombs are among the most sophisticated they have seen. Yousef and Murad planned to use liquid nitroglycerin, which is virtually undetectable by airport security screening.
Although Yousef and Shah managed to escape after the fire, Murad was arrested when he returned to the apartment to retrieve his laptop computer.
Federal investigative sources have confirmed that Murad detailed an entire plot to dive bomb aircraft into the headquarters of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in Langley, Va. The plot was contained on the laptop computer he had tried to recover.
On Murad's computer the police discovered "Project Bojinka," a plan to terrorize the United States by sabotaging 11 westbound civilian aircraft simultaneously with bombs, exploding them in mid-air as they approached the West Coast.
Furthermore, "Project Bojinka" included plans to hijack and crash several commercial airplanes into civilian and government buildings simultaneously, precisely as it occurred on Sept. 11.
Yousef in independently boasted of the plot to U.S. Secret service agent Brian Parr and FBI agent Charles Stern on an extradition flight from Pakistan to the United States in February 1995. The agents later testified to that fact in court.
Philippine investigators say the plan targeted not only the CIA but other U.S. government buildings in Washington, including the Pentagon.
The Philippine police said that the World Trade Center and Sears Tower were specific targets in the plan.
Shortly before the fire in Manila, at the end of 1994, Yosef conducted a Bojinka test run. Yousef boarded Philippine Airlines Flight 434 bound for Tokyo from Manila. He carried the volatile liquid onto the airliner in a plastic contact-lens solution bottle.
Once airborne, Yousef went to the rest room to prepare the bomb. Using a Casio watch as a timer and batteries from children's toys, he assembled the bomb, which he placed under a passenger seat.
Yousef left the plane during a stop in the Philippine city
of Cebu. The bomb exploded soon after the airliner left Cebu.
One person was killed and several were injured, though the pilot
was able to make an emergency landing.
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