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Power from the barrel of a lens

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By Satish Sharma

Forget about the power that, according to Mao, flows from the Barrels of Guns!

A lot more power actually flows through the matte black barrels of lenses. Camera lenses! And this is a power that flows a lot more silently and, most of the time, it works it magic very subtly.

Very rarely do pictures explode on the media scene like the now infamous cover picture on the August 9th issue of Time magazine. Very rarely do pictures present us with such a questionable and ‘teachable’ moment about photography and its political uses. Rarely do photographs become such a powerful peg for discussions that go on and on. Discussions that need to go on because we have to understand, dissect and discuss the spaces that photography occupies in contemporary society. Spaces that are hardly any different from the times when photography was a medium controlled by the political and secret department of a British colonial government. Photography, we have to remember, was invented at a time when colonialism was at its height and became a major player in the colonial game. Something that British army cadets, who were to be posted in the colonies, were specially taught and equipped for.

Images of Afghanistan by Mohammad Qayoumi (prior to CIA intervention and Russian invasion).

Photography is a powerful language, a valuable voice of authority for authorities. One has to understand how it is used. A “Writing with Light”- Photo Graphy is becoming more powerful than any other human language. It is more than just the world’s first universally understood language, one that needs no translators and appears to have no word language limitations because it is a technology driven by newer and newer technologies which give it a reach and power that no language ever had.

The endless flow of camera constructed pictures is, today, increasingly constructing our social and political landscape. Constructing us, actually, by manipulating the mental spaces that we live in. Defining our Drishti – our perception and very sense of self ! There are, after all, more photographs shot every year than there are bricks in the world. And photography, in its different, camera lens based, avatars (film and television, for example) is what makes us what we are -who we are manufactured to be.

Cameras construct our worlds in ways that word oriented languages did not because the visual language they present us with is perceived to have credibility, a veracity and a connection to objective truth that words did not. Pictures are becoming the bricks that construct our contemporary, increasingly visual world. A world that can no longer just ban the making of pictures as it once did or tried to do. A world in which technologies drive the move away from the word driven and language riven cultures towards vast visual information landscapes that are increasingly becoming part of a real, war driven, information wars . Wars that are, says the Project for a New American Century, about Full Spectrum Domination.

Domination that is blatant about not allowing any challenges –‘military, economic or cultural”. Domination that seeks ‘control of all international commons including Space and Cyberspace, Culture not excluded’ and is driven by never ending wars that see whole societies as a battlefield. A battlefield where – in the language of the US Marines’ ‘Fourth generation Warfare’ – “ the action will occur concurrently- throughout all participants depth , including their society as a cultural and not just as physical entity”. Special Human Terrain teams now work alongside the American Armed Forces. These anthropologists, ethnographers etc are uniformed cultural warriors. They are, very problematically, working in battlefields to understand and subvert cultures and peoples. Humanity is now a terrain to be controlled.

It is against this background of militrarised information and cultural control that one needs to look at the Time magazine cover. It was its founder, after all, who first projected the idea of the 20th century as ‘An American Centrury’. Henry Luce founded a media empire to project his agenda. Time, Fortune, Life and even the March of Time film series served to mediate his synarchist ideas of corporate control of political power. That he was a member of Yale university’s secretive Skull and Bones society like so many other American leaders, only adds to ones suspicions of hidden agendas.

Interestingly enough, Luce first used the term ‘American Century’ in a publication that is iconic in its use of photography. The words appeared in a 1941, Life magazine editorial.

Born in China, (a country which has interesting links to both synarchism and the Skull and Bones Society) he was the son of an American missionary and wanted the United States to be more missionary in the global and universal projection of its power beyond its territories. Go beyond territorial control, into the control of ideas and ideologies

It is the fact that he foresaw the power of photography in doing that and foregrounded it in his publications that interests and intrigues me. I am not surprised that “Time’ _ the first Magazine he founded – is still used (and uses photography) to push the ideas of a New American Century promoted by 21st century synarchists like Dick Cheney . No Wikileaks, digital world, challenge to mainstream, corporate media is to be allowed, or go unchallenged . Not in these days of information wars and their clear cut ideas on ”Perception Management”.

The introduction in the August 9th issue of Time by the editor, Richard Stengel, makes it very clear that the magazine was aiming to counter the information leaked by Wikileaks on the uncontrollable net.

“The much publicized release of classified documents by WikiLeaks has already ratcheted up the debate about the war. Our story and the haunting cover image by the distinguished South African photographer Jodi Bieber are meant to contribute to that debate. We do not run this story or show this image either in support of the U.S. war effort or in opposition to it. We do it to illuminate what is actually happening on the ground. As lawmakers and citizens begin to sort through the information about the war and make up their minds, our job is to provide context and perspective on one of the most difficult foreign policy issues of our time. What you see in these pictures and our story is something that you cannot find in those 91,000 documents: a combination of emotional truth and insight into the way life is lived in that difficult land and the consequences of the important decisions that lie ahead.”

The cover photograph offers an insight, but it is an insight into the workings of corporate media. It is definitely not about any truth – emotional or otherwise. It is, for all practical purposes, a political poster that you pay for. The accompanying text about “What Happens if We Leave Afghanistan” is a statement and not a question. It is a statement about staying on militarily, and it ignores the fact that Bibi Aisha’s mutilation occurred last year, at a time when the American led forces had been in the country for nearly nine years and with their own puppet government in place. Had intervened in, decades earlier, to actually create the Taliban. A government that hardly gives women any real space in the new Sharia ruled Islamic Republic that exists under American largesse. Reports by Afghan and womens’ human right groups actually show, from the times of the Taliban, an increase in the violence against women.
The cover photograph itself is a cynical attempt to photograph a desired future. It closely echoes the Steve McCurry photograph of another young Afghan girl on the cover of another American magazine. That ‘National Geographic’ cover represented the sad state of Afghanistan under Soviet occupation. This is one actually about life in Afghanistan after decades of American intervention and a decade of actual occupation.

Both the covers, interestingly enough, presented young and good looking women. Ones a western audience would be comfortable with. Ones the women in the west could connect with more easily. It is after all, they who are the actual targets of the propaganda. They and the lobbying they represent. Lobbying that is seen as necessary to keep the other international, partner armies in Afghanistan.

It is an earlier WikiLeaks document which makes that agenda clear. The CIA’s “Red Cell Special Memorandum: Afghanistan: Sustaining West European Support for the NATO-led Mission- Why Counting on Apathy Might Not Be Enough” presents a plan for a propaganda war designed to shore up declining public support in Germany and France. Support for a continued war in Afghanistan.
The memo is classified as ‘Confidential/No Foreign Nationals’ and presents a well thought out plan for the targeted manipulation of public opinion in the two NATO ally countries. Winning hearts and minds! This time in Europe and in America.

The fall of the Dutch government on the issue of Dutch troops in Afghanistan, worried the CIA. They became worried about repeat events in the countries that have the third and fourth largest troop contingents to the ISAF mission and proposed PR strategies that focused on pressure points that had been identified within these countries. For France it was the sympathy of the public for Afghan refugees and women. For Germany it was the fear of the consequences of defeat (drugs, more refugees, terrorism) as well as Germany’s standing in NATO.

The CIA report had clear bullet points. Power points, actually! They are about reinforcing Power.
• “Public Apathy Enables Leaders To Ignore Voters”
• “…But Casualties Could Precipitate Backlash”
• “Tailoring Messaging Could Forestall or At Least Contain Backlash”

The CIA thought that “Appeals by President Obama and Afghan Women Might Gain Traction” and very clearly stated that “Afghan women could serve as ideal messengers in humanizing the ISAF role in combating the Taliban because of women’s ability to speak personally and credibly about their experiences under the Taliban, their aspirations for the future, and their fears of a Taliban victory. Outreach initiatives that create media opportunities for Afghan women to share their stories with French, German, and other European women could help to overcome pervasive scepticism among women in Western Europe toward the ISAF mission…

The ‘media opportunities for Afghan women’ became a simple oppurtunistic use of Afghan women. They and their bodies fitted seamlessly into the old orientalist discourses about western, humanising and civilizing missions. Missions meant to liberate oriental women them from their savage and cruel men. This is about white knights in shining steel or modern camouflage armour rescuing dusky, eastern damsels in eternal distress. Distress that photography was successfully used to stress in the beautifully lit and textured colour of a magazine cover reduced to a campaign poster for more war. More occupation of more oriental lands in the name of more oriental women. That the real prizes were and are natural resources is not worthy of mention except when those resources might be seen by a western audience, to pay for western wars.

Jodi Bieber did a great job – aesthetically speaking. The cover portrait could be a professional fashion shoot! And the mainstream media jumped in to push her and their own messages about the need to fight on. They asked no serious questions about how empathy the photograph evoked was used to promote antipathy. To promote more war and further the occupation of a suddenly mineral and oil rich Afghanistan. There were no questions about the price that the civilian population of Afghanistan, including women and children were paying in lives cut horribly short by wars that go on and on and seem to be designed to do just that in an unending war on a tactic that the weak use to resist stronger occupiers of their resource rich lands . Who is terrorising whom, one wonders. And why?

Two interviews with Bieber that I heard on BBC and CNN, were focused in foregrounding her as a now famous photographer. A South African photographer, now based in London she was projected as a white, concerned woman photographer empathising with her Afghan sisters even as she (and they, the media themselves) ignored the privacy concerns of her subjects – women for whom purdah may actually be more than just a dictate by the terrible Taliban. The women who had to continue living their lives in the very badlands of Afghanistan she was showing up as evil and dangerous.

I remember that ‘privacy concerns of victims’ were and are still used to prevent the release of photographs of tortured Iraqis in Abu Ghraib. And even when the pictures were used the faces were carefully blurred out. That concern for privacy and the blurring to hide the identity of Bibi Aisha was not necessary for the Time cover, it seems. Dropping the family name while putting her on the cover of a magazine that sells millions of copies is no real attempt to protect her identity. Concern for the’ rights of victims’ matters when it might show up the ugly face of American occupation but doesn’t when it is the other side that is sought to be demonised. The real story of the mutilation is not important either. Later stories that checked out the Time story found that Aisha’s father in law had done the deed and then got a sanction for it from village elders. It had not been ordered by any Taliban Commander, as the Time story insisted.

Afghanistan becomes “ a broken 13th century country for the British Defense Secretary . A country full of “barbarians with 1200 AD mentality” for Erik Prince , the CEO of the infamous mercenary Blackwater ( now Xe) . What is wiped out of memory is shown by a collection of photographs from the Kabul of the mid 20th century. Recently republished in ‘Foreign Policy’ along with an essay by a Mohammed Qayoumi who lived there then, they present a conveniently forgotten Afghanistan. A country where women could wear western skirts and have bobbed haircuts as they attended universities and trained as doctors and nurses.

There is more to people than just the ugly western stereotypes the Time cover tries to reinforce and create anew. The freedom loving Mujhaideen heroes of the Soviet era are now Talibanised as barbaric terrorists. Terrorists cannot be “humanised” even in photographs that the world will see. I am reminded of the Red Cross photographs of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (wearing a white robe, sporting a long salt and pepper beard and sitting serenely) that were seen as dangerous by a former Research Director of the Combating Terrorism Centre in the US Military Academy at West Point. Jarret Barchman said ‘whats problematic for me is it (the Photograph) really humanises the guy”. The dangerous other is now not even supposed to be a human.

The history of photography, especially in American wars is an intriguing history. It is a story more mistold than told. It is a story of careful control. A control that began after the Vietnam war which, the Pentagon believes, was lost because of the freedom and unhindered access that photographers had in Vietnam and photographs got to the media at home. Since then, photographers and even journalists have a limited (if any) access to American battle fields. One is now embedded into an in-bed -with intimacy that makes dangerous disclosures difficult. Images that are released and printed go through a careful culling by self censoring photographers and the editors at home. Editors who act as censors and become the controllers of what the world is allowed to see. No dead bodies of American soldiers. Not even in flag draped coffins. Rights to privacy of dead soldiers and their families was the official Bush excuse when, actually, no one wanted a repeat of Mogadishu where pictures of dead American soldiers being dragged through the streets had forced an American withdrawal.

I wonder at how easily photography is used as a political weapon even as the medium itself is denied any political space or purpose.
Photography after the Second World War and McCarthyism was consciously pushed into the sanitised spaces of art galleries and museums away from its past as a concerned, conscience pricking tool. We were told by institutional gate keepers like the Museum of Modern Art in New York, that Photography was only about itself. It was an Art form that was about navel gazing photographers and about flattened formalist fields. Photography was not supposed to exist outside its own frame. It was not a medium that could be a window looking out on to the world’s uglier face – holding up a mirror to it. Photography was to be a mirror for a photographer to look into- see and explore his subjective self – express himself as an artist. An artist who never ever read what Roland Barthes says about one of the best ways of destroying the power of photography. Making it a Fine Art. But that is another story!

Related links:

The face that launched a thousand drones?

Once upon a time in Afghanistan

Sitting on a man’s back

Tags: 9/11, Afghanistan, CIA, privacy, propaganda, Rights, Soviet Union, Taliban, War, war on terror

Anti-semitism, and the 9/11, Israel-Mossad Connection Part IV

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Rahnuma Ahmed

“History cannot be permanently falsified; the myth cannot stand up to the scrutiny of research; the sinister web will be brought into the light and torn to pieces, however artfully it has been spun.”

- Dr Jakob Ruchti (1915)

Why should people who are highly knowledgeable in western diplomacy, intelligence, counter-terrorism, false flag operations, defence and security matters—including some who occupied very high leadership positions in the west—risk making utter fools of themselves by claiming that 9/11 was an inside job? Unless it was. False flag. Covert operation, you name it.

Michael Meacher, Tony Blair’s environment minister, thought 9/11 was “bogus.” Drawing parallels with Pearl Harbour, he said 9/11 had the hallmarks of a “political myth” made to pave the way for America’s goal of world hegemony. Japanese lawmaker, Yukihisa Fujita alleges, the official claims just don’t fit the facts. Plane crashes always yield plane fragments which can be identified by the plane’s serial number. The US government produced passports and DNA samples of individuals killed but no identifiable plane parts. Strange, no?

General Albert Stubblebine, the commanding general of US Army Intelligence and Security Command (INSCOM), now retired but with a 32 year army career says, I was in charge of the Army’s Imagery Interpretation for Scientific and Technical Intelligence during the Cold War. It was my job to measure pieces of Soviet equipment from photographs. “I look at the hole in the Pentagon and I look at the size of an airplane that was supposed to have hit the Pentagon. ‘The plane does not fit in that hole.’ “So what did hit the Pentagon? Where is it? What’s going on?” If a plane had hit the Pentagon, there’d have been wing marks on the walls of the Pentagon. Someone told me, you’ve got it all wrong. One wing tipped down, hit the ground. Broke off. Fine. But what about the other? “I haven’t met an airplane with only one wing.” He adds, We pride ourselves with the “free press.” I do not believe the “free press” is free anymore.

His observation seems equally valid for the “free press” in western Europe. Euro-parliamentarian Giulietto Chiesa, one of the team members which produced the 9/11 film Zero, organised its screening at EU Parliament on February 28, 2008. Despite having personally invited all 785 EU parliamentarians and nearly a thousand journalists, only 6 Europarliamentarians and 2 journalists turned up. When asked, Chiesa replied, “It shows that the US is controlling everything. They are all powerful. No politician in the European Parliament can ignore the power—or wrath!—of the US.” The Belgian media obliged by not publishing or broadcasting news of the screening and discussion that took place, either on that, or the following day. Suspecting Bush administration’s version of the 9/11 attacks, says Chiesa, is taboo. People just can’t handle 9/11 truth.

“The deathly precision,” “the magnitude of planning” behind September 11 attacks would require “years of planning,” says Eckehardt Werthebach, former president of Germany’s domestic intelligence service, Verfassungsschutz. An operation as sophisticated as this would require the “fixed frame” of a state intelligence organisation. Not something a “loose group” of terrorists, one led by a Mohd Atta studying in Hamburg, could pull off. Colonel Ronald Day, deputy assistant secretary of defense during the Reagan administration and a highly-decorated Vietnam veteran expresses his incredulity at the Bush administration’s story:  “Half a trillion dollars a year and a bunch of guys over in a cave in Afghanistan were able to penetrate that half a trillion dollar network that’s supposed to provide Americans with national security.” Hah!

To Horst Ehmke, the televised images of 9/11 looked like a “Hollywood production.” Coordinator of the German secret services under prime minister Willy Brandt, Ehmke maintains, “Terrorists could not have carried out such an operation with 4 hijacked planes without the support of a secret service.”

“The planning of the attacks,” says Andreas von Bulow, “was technically and organizationally a master achievement. To hijack four huge airplanes within a few minutes, and within one hour to drive them into their targets with complicated flight maneuvers! This is unthinkable without years-long support from secret apparatuses of the state and industry.” A former minister, and Bundestag member who served on the parliamentary commission which oversaw the three branches of the German secret service, von Bulow insists, Mossad (Israeli intelligence service) was behind 9/11. The attacks were carried out to turn public opinion against the Arabs. To boost military and security spending. To justify building military bases in the Middle East for future confrontation with China. The story of 19 Muslims working with bin Laden’s al-Qaeda is an “invented” one. WTC Building 7 (the one that fell on its face without being being hit by a plane) was a command bunker, later demolished to destroy the crime scene. “The BND (German secret service) is steered by the CIA and the CIA is steered by Mossad.”

Former Italian president Francesco Cossiga, famous for his honesty and outspokenness, who had revealed the existence of, and his part in setting up the false flag operation, Gladio, also thinks that the 9/11 attacks were run by the CIA and Mossad. Operation Gladio was a rogue intelligence network under NATO auspices—overseen by US intelligence agencies—that carried out bombings across Europe in the 60s, 70s and 80s. Gladio agent Vincenzo Vinciguerra had stated in his sworn testimony,

“You had to attack civilians, the people, women, children, innocent people, unknown people far removed from any political game. The reason was quite simple: to force…the public to turn to the state to ask for greater security.”

Cossiga says, it is common knowledge among global intelligence agencies that 911 was an inside job. The reason? To put the blame on the Arab countries. To induce western powers to take control of Iraq and Afghanistan.

September 11, writes David MacGregor (author, September 11 as ‘‘Machiavellian State Terror,’’ 2006), may be an example of “expedient destruction ordered from within the state, a macabre instance of a state protection racket.” Inspired by the sixteenth century Italian thinker Machiavelli, MacGregor writes, Machiavellian state terrorism, as distinct from those that are publicised, are often “initiated by persons or groups other than those suspected of the act.” Most importantly, they are secretly perpetrated by, or on behalf, of the violated state itself. Machiavellian state terror advances the ruling agenda while disguising itself as the work of individuals or groups opposed to the state’s fundamental principles. Convenient opportunities for maximum impact of terrorist events—and this includes pyrotechnic effects, spectacular deaths—may be best known by, and available to those in power.

Or, as Dr Alan Sabrosky (director of studies, US Army War College) had put it, it would have been impossible to stage 9/11 without the full resources of both the CIA and Mossad.

One must not underestimate the side actor roles played by the ISI (Pakistan), and the Saudi intelligence agency, I hasten to add. Most crucial.

Meacher had said, 9/11 had the hallmarks of a political myth. From Shlomo Sand’s When and How Was the Jewish People Invented? (2008) it seems that the idea of a Jewish nation too, is a political myth. Alongwith the idea that the Jews were exiled from the Holy Land. So also, the idea that most of today’s Jews have a historical connection to the land called Israel.

Dr Sand, a courageous Israeli historian, draws on extensive archaeological and historical research to argue that the idea of a Jewish nation is an early 20th century idea, one created by Zionist Jews to justify the founding of the state of Israel. “Zionism changed the idea of Jerusalem. Before, the holy places were seen as places to long for, not to be lived in.” He writes, like all other Israelis I had taken it for granted that the Jews were a people living in Judea, that they were exiled by the Romans in 70 AD. But historical evidence says that the kingdoms of David and Solomon were legends. That the Romans didn’t exile people. “In fact, Jews in Palestine were overwhelming peasants and all the evidence suggests they stayed on their lands.”

But if most Jews never left the Holy Land, what became of them? Answering his own question, Sand says, “It is not taught in Israeli schools but most of the early Zionist leaders, including David Ben Gurion [Israel's first prime minister], believed that the Palestinians were the descendants of the area’s original Jews. They believed the Jews had later converted to Islam.”

Both myths—America was attacked because they hate our freedom, Jews existed as a people separate from their religion—have been artfully spun. Both are unable to withstand scrutiny.





Three of the 5 Israelis detained for 10 weeks, later deported to Israel after FBI cleared them of any involvement in 9-11 (on Israeli TV talkshow, Nov 2001). They told the Israeli audience that their purpose was to document the event. But who were they documenting the event for? And how did they know the attack was going to be that particular morning?

Israelis were caught with a van on September 11 which had a mural painted on the side literally depicting the 9/11 attacks.

Published in New Age, May 31, 2008

Tags: 9/11, Israel, Mossad, Palestine, Rahnuma Ahmed, Shlomo Sand, USA, Zionism

Anti-semitism, and the 9/11, Israel-Mossad Connection Part II

By Rahnuma Ahmed

“We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality,”
an unnamed Bush official told reporter Ron Suskind,
quoted by Eric Alterman, Bush’s War on the Press, The Nation (2005)

Even when the US hadn’t been the only empire around, powerful members of the American administration had collectively attempted to create their “own reality.” One such plan, Operation Northwoods, consisted of staging terror attacks. To justify the launching of a war against Cuba. To (of course) defend America.

The secret plan was drafted by the US Joint Chiefs of Staff in 1962, signed by its Chairman, and sent to Robert McNamara, secretary of defense. Declassified in 1997 by a federal agency overseeing records relating to president John F Kennedy’s assassination, the plan proposed real or simulated actions against various US military and civilian targets: landing `friendly’ Cubans to attack US base (Guantanamo). Sinking a boatload of Cubans en route to Florida. Building a Soviet MIG aircraft to be flown by an American pilot, which would attack and destroy a US military drone aircraft. Launching a wave of violent terrorism (bombings, hijackings) in Washington D.C. In Miami. Elsewhere, too. The desired result? To convince Americans and the larger western public that the Cuban government was not only “rash and irresponsible” but a threat to peace in the Western Hemisphere. That America had no option but to `retaliate.’

Operation Northwoods was not implemented because, as the story goes, Kennedy had rejected it. But other false flag operations designed to create America’s own reality—to deceive the public, to manufacture support—have been successfully conducted. Of course, America is not the only culprit, as history attests. The Japanese blew up a section of the railway to annex Manchuria in 1931; kidnapped one of their own soldiers to invade China proper, 1937. The Soviets shelled their own village near the Finnish border, 1939. The Israelis secretly sponsored bombings of US/British interests in Cairo to sour relations between Egypt and the West, 1954.

Central to America’s “our own reality” story are two myths: it is America’s enemies who are `sneaky.’ The government goes to war only to `save the lives’ of US soldiers. Historical research proves otherwise: president Roosevelt let the Japanese attack Pearl Harbor (1941). Nearly three thousand American service men including civilians were killed which by fuelling public outrage at Japan’s so-called sneak attack, enabled FDR to overcome massive opposition to war.

According to America’s ideologues, if Hiroshima and Nagasaki had not been bombed—still described in official history as the “least abhorrent choice”—the lives of 500,000 American soldiers would have been at risk. But in reality, as people connected to history know, Japan was ready to surrender.

Dissenting opinion did exist, and in powerful circles, too: Japan was already defeated, dropping the bomb was completely unnecessary (Dwight Eisenhower). The lethal possibilities of atomic warfare are frightening (Admiral Leahy, chief of staff to presidents Roosevelt and Truman). The use of the atomic bomb, with its indiscriminate killing of women and children, revolts my soul. (Herbert Hoover, 31st US president). There was no military justification. I was not consulted (General Douglas MacArthur).

More than 103,000 people died in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. There were unrecorded deaths. There were slower deaths, caused by radiation.

But surely, just because previous US administrations have committed false flag operations, it doesn’t mean that 9/11 too, is an inside job? Granted. True. Except that when one looks at the mass of evidence, including oral testimonies, diligently gathered by physicists, pilots, architects, structural engineers and a host of other professionals (firefighters, whistle-blowers) over these last couple of years, also by grassroots people, under the rubric of what has come to be known as the 9/11 truth movement, even the blind are bound to be convinced.

What persuaded me most was the strange response of the Bush administration. Why was the government reluctant, why should family members of 9/11 victims have to insist that a commission be established to investigate the failures that made 9/11 possible? Why did Bush want someone as disreputable as Henry Kissinger, former US secretary of state (who should be tried for war crimes in Bangladesh and Cambodia for starters), to head the Commission? Why should Bush and vice-president Cheney agree to testify before the Commission on the condition that they should not have to take the oath, that their testimony should not be electronically recorded nor transcribed, nor made public? Why did the Commission co-chairmen allege later that the CIA had not cooperated with the Commission? Why did NORAD (North American Aerospace Defense Command) and FAA (Federal Aviation Administration) officials provide inaccurate information in their testimony to the Commission, and in media appearances? Why should the Commission have to use subpoenas and force NORAD and FAA to release evidence? Why did the Commission chairmen say that the Commission was “set up” to fail? Why did the NTSB (National Transportation Safety Board) not hold enquiries into any of the 4 plane crashes, which is required by law?

Another thing that I find odd, like many others, were the words blurted out by Bob Kerrey, a 9/11 Commission member. Several months ago he was pressed by a member of We Are Change who said, according to the constitution, a cover-up of an act of war is treasonous, the Pentagon continually changed its story, the country needs to get to the bottom of 9/11 etc., etc.,

Bob Kerrey: It’s a.. the problem is that it’s a 30 year old conspiracy.
Jeremy Rothe-Kushel: No, I’m talking about 9/11.
Bob Kerrey: That’s what I’m talking about too. Well anyway, I gotta go.

Listening to Kerrey reminded me of what the Bush official, who I quote at the head of the column, had gone on to tell Suskind, “And while you’re studying that reality—judiciously, as you will—we’ll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that’s how things will sort out. We’re history’s actors…and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.”

General Leonid Ivashov, former joint chief of staff of the Russian Armed Forces did just that. Having found the free-fall collapse of the towers disturbing, he instructed his staff to search for answers. Three days later he came to the conclusion that the 9/11 attack was the result of “a clash of interests among US leaders.”

While more recently, a Vietnam war veteran, former director of studies of the US Army War College, Dr Alan Sabrosky, has come out with the bold statement that 9/11 was not only `an inside job,’ but more specifically, a CIA-Mossad job. Nine-eleven would have been impossible to stage without the full resources of the CIA and the Mossad. Its Building 7, he says. It was not hit by a plane but still went down. “If one of the buildings was wired for demolition, all of them were wired for demolition.”

And it was my column on Sabrosky that yielded me accusations of being anti-Semitic. I wonder whether part of the problem lies in the strong western belief, an indissoluble one, that `the government loves them.’ Despite the history of false flag operations.

May be the Bush official, utterly contemptuous and disdainful as he was, knew what he was talking about. We create our own reality. And our people fall for it.

First published in New Age

Tags: 9/11, Anti-Semite, Arab, conflict, Israel, Jew, killing, middle east, Military, Occupation, Palestine, Rahnuma Ahmed, USA, War

Mirror, mirror on the wall. Who provides the best security of them all..?

By Rahnuma Ahmed

In the aftermath of the `underwear’ bomber incident, an increasing clamour of voices insist that the rest of the world should learn airport security from Israel, and El Al, its national airlines.

Their record is impressive, writes Christopher Walker. Global Traveller magazine has named El Al, the “world’s most secure airline” (`Air security: rest of world needs to learn from El Al,’ The First Post, 21 January 2010).

Their deterrents, both seen and unseen, are most effective. The Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) provide updated specifications of weapons and explosives likely to be used by terrorists and militants. Security staff, often women, trained in psychological techniques begin questioning passengers as they approach the terminal. El Al terminals the world over, are patrolled by plain-clothes agents, fully armed police, and military personnel. Passenger names are checked at passport control with FBI, Canadian Security Intelligence Service, Scotland Yard, Shin Bet (Israel’s domestic security service), Interpol and French Deuxieme Bureau databases. To divert missiles, all aircrafts are fitted with Flight Guard Civil Aviation Missile Protection System. All bags are routinely put in a decompression chamber which simulates on-flight pressure needed to trigger explosives. Sky marshals, armed but often in plain-clothes, travel on flights. All these are routine matters.

As is its pro-Jewish racial profiling.

Human rights campaigners the world over may “object” to it, some may think it “shameless,” others may regard it as “blatant” but, Walker writes, its inclusion ensures “thoroughness.” After all, what is more important? Differential treatment toward some passengers? Or, risking the lives of all?

Absence of the Israeli-kind-of security in Britain’s recent measures, is likely to lead to failure. (Only) No-fly lists. (Only) Cancelling all flights between Britain and Yemen. (Only) Seamlessly tracking and disrupting all terrorist movements. (Only) Introducing full body scanners at all British airports. These are just “not enough,” says Walker. Nothing short of racial and religious profiling, and fitting aircrafts with anti-missile systems—will do.

Delia Lloyd is similarly enthusiastic about Israel, which has “pioneered” and “perfected” aviation security. A full-scale Israelification of US and UK airports is needed, and even though sheer numbers, costs of re-training employees make it daunting, we should start thinking of “moving towards the Israeli model.” (`Airport Security: Is Israel the Answer,’ Politics Daily, 1/08/10).

Not everyone agrees. As a reader comments on Lloyd’s piece: “No, Israel isn’t the answer, Israel is the problem. Why do you think we are the object of attacks? Because we prop up Israel, and behave like Israel.” [TAWNY JONES 5:58 AM, JAN 8, 2010; CHECKED AT 21:26, 24 JANUARY, HAS BEEN REMOVED]

Interestingly enough, the clamor for Israelification began soon after serious doubts and questions surfaced about what actually occurred at Schipol airport in Amsterdam.

But there are questions about other airports too. About private firms who were in charge of security. Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris (2001). Logan airport in Boston (2001). For the underground, as well. The London Underground (2005).

But more on Schipol first. In an earlier column (`Padded Underwear,’ 10 January 2010), I’d written that airport security in Amsterdam is contracted to an Israeli controlled company; the same company which developed the concept of security profiling.

http://www.securityinfowatch.com/files/imagecache/article_main/pictures/apparatus/TSA-millimeter-wave.jpg

http://z.about.com/d/politicalhumor/1/0/V/6/3/Naked-Airport-Security.jpg

Newer information since: it’s called International Consultants on Targeted Security (not `ICTS Europe,’ a different company), and was established in 1982 by former agents of Israel’s internal Shin Bet security service and former El Al airline security agents. It is Netherlands-based and has two subsidiaries (I-SEC, and its daughter company P-I, or Pro-Check International). These provide security services consisting of consultation, instruction, training, inspection and supervision. Links between El Al security and Mossad (Israeli intelligence) are very close, according to Gordon Duff of Veteran Today, with “abundant cross-pollination of senior personnel back and forth.” ICTS’s senior management are all ex-Israeli security officials, many work for El Al security (e.g., retd Major General Amos Lapidot, an ICTS board member, had served as a commander of the Israeli Air Force).

Abdulmutallab’s father had gone to the US embassy in Nigeria, in November. His son, he said, was being influenced by “unidentified extremists,” and was planning to travel to Yemen (incidentally, Nigerian intelligence services are tied to, and trained by, Israel). Intelligence officials, said president Obama, had failed to “connect those dots.”

But being on a terrorist watchlist means (a) not being permitted to board a commercial airline

(b) being put under immediate surveillance. In Abdulmutallab’s case, not even his US visa was withdrawn. Well. Okay. It  could happen. It did. But what about security officers at Schipol? Despite his “age, name, illogical travel route, high-priced ticket purchased at the last minute, his boarding without luggage (only a carry on) and many other signs” they were not suspicious (Haaretz, 10 January 2010). Despite the fact that ICTS is renowned for using security measures “pioneered” in Israel: assessing the threat level of passengers based on name, age, nationality and behaviour during questioning.

The official account gradually began losing credibility. Kurt Haskell (American lawyer, passenger) recalled having seen a wealthy looking Indian man with Abdulmutallab at Schipol, (“an odd pair”). He heard the elder man tell the ticket agent, he doesn’t have a passport, he’s Sudanese, he needs to board the plane. “We do this all the time.” The agent suggested they go and talk to the manager. The next thing he knew, Abdulmutallab was on the same flight, trying to ignite explosives.

At first Dutch security insisted, Abdulmutallab had a passport. Later, it was revised: he did not have to “Go through normal passport checking procedures” but he did undergo “a security interview and check” (But if he did not have a passport, how could they have known that he had a valid US visa?) Haskell says, what is important is the presence of an apparently successful accomplice who can “skirt normal passport boarding procedures in Amsterdam.” Dutch security says there was no Indian man, but it has not released any video footage. “I have no doubt that if the video indicated that my account was wrong… [it] would have already swept over the entire world wide web.” As did video footage of the death of Iranian protestor Neda Agha-Soltan.

Another passenger, Richelle Keepman says, a man with a camcorder had calmly and without interruption filmed the entire incident (“he was standing up [when] we were supposed to be seated”). After the plane landed in Detroit, FBI agents arrived with sniffer dogs, handcuffed a younger Indian man, and took him away. Nothing has since been heard about him, or the person who video-recorded the foiled attempt. Interestingly enough, FBI’s account of what happened has changed 5 times, while Haskell’s remains unchanged.

Richard Reid, shoe bomber (22 December 2001): Reid attempted to board an El Al flight from Schipol to Tel Aviv six months before the attempted shoe bombing. El Al security identified him as a terrorist suspect (one-way ticket, cash payment) but instead of handing him over to Dutch security, they allowed him to board the plane so that his movements during his 5 days in Israel could be monitored by Shin Bet. Six months later, he tried to ignite his shoe on AA flight 63 from Paris to Miami. Israel had not informed British, American, French or any other security agency of their concerns about Reid. He later claimed that El Al had failed to detect the explosives in his shoes.

The name of the security company which allowed him to board the AA flight in Paris? ICTS.

London Bombings (7 July 2005): A series of successive and coordinated bomb attacks on 3 London Underground trains (and a double decker bus) killed 56 people. Calls for a full, independent inquiry dismissed by prime minister Tony Blair, a “ludicrous diversion.”

Security for London’s Underground train network was provided by Verint Systems (Israeli).

9/11 terror attacks (9 September 2001): ICTS sold services to all 3 airports—Logan International (Boston), Washington Dulles International, Newark International (New Jersey)—from which the four hijacked planes operated on 9/11, including security, sometimes through wholly-owned subsidiaries like Huntleigh USA Corporation. As a 9/11 researcher puts it, this means an Israeli company had “automatic inside access to all of the[se] airports…”

Hours before the House version of the first Patriot Act went to a vote, “technical corrections” were inserted making foreign security companies such as ICTS-International immune from lawsuits related to 9/11. The act was signed into law by president Bush on 26 October 2001.

No independent inquiry has been held on 9/11. According to Thomas Kean, chairman of the official 9/11 Commission, it was “set up to fail.” Pentagon, Federal Aviation Administration, and NORAD officials said things “just so far from the truth.”

And, `the Indian man’? Wayne Madsen, an ex-US navy lieutenant turned investigative journalist and blogger, thinks the attempted terrorist attack on the Detroit-bound plane was actually a false flag operation (covert operation, designed to deceive the public). That it was carried out by the “intelligence tripartite grouping of the CIA, Mossad, and India’s Research and Analysis Wing.”

To assume a RAW connection just because the man was Indian, is surely stretching it a bit too far? But then, I remember Israeli prime minister Netanyahu’s words, “Our ties with India don’t have any limitation…”

Published in New Age, 25 January 2010

Tags: 9/11, Abdulmutallab, airport security, Christopher Walker, CIA, Delia Lloyd, Detroit, El Al, ICTS, Israel, Israelification, Kurt Haskell, London bombings, Mossad, racial profiling, RAW, Richard Reid, Schipol, Shin Bet, Tawny Jones

Pentagon’s Prayers

By Rahnuma Ahmed

As more US troops surge into Afghanistan, as Predator drone attacks on Pakistan’s north-western villages increase, as news of operations by killing squads of US Special Forces on the Afghanistan side of the border intensifies, as yet another `front,’ a fifth one, opens up in the US-led war on terror, this time in Yemen—under the presidency of a Nobel Peace laureate—I return yet again to the day which supposedly re-wrote US history, which schematised history anew, into two distinct periods: Life Before, and Life After 9/11. How can I not? Unabated vengeance. More wars. To kill, loot and plunder….

That the prayers of those dubbed as representing the forces of `evil’ i.e., the “al Qaeda terrorists”—practitioners of a “fringe form of Islamic extremism” whose “directive commands them to kill Christians and Jews” (George Bush, September 21, 2001 )—were fulfilled on 9/11, seems to be obvious.

But the prayers of forces representing `good,’ that these too were met on 9/11, is not thought to be similarly obvious. Or, even if it is, it’s not similarly acknowledged. Not by western politicians. Nor by military leaders, defence analysts, security experts, writers, journalists—all those who speak in the name of the west. Who cling to the idea that it was a “surprise attack.” That it was carried out by “a collection of loosely affiliated terrorist organizations known as al Qaeda” who hate “our freedoms.” That it was an “act of war,” not only against the US, but against “civilization.” And that—since these terrorists number thousands and are spread in  “more than 60 countries”—America must declare war against “terror,” one which must be global, the likes of which have never ever been seen before. One that “begins with al Qaeda, but.. will not end until every terrorist group of global reach has been found, stopped and defeated.”

And thus we see newer fronts open up as the niceties of awarding Barack Obama the Nobel peace prize are endlessly talked about in polite circles, ooh, what a sweet gentle hint, ooh these Norwegians are so subtle…

Wars, however, are not subtle. As for the forces of `good,’ unlike those deemed evil, these do not  belong to the fringes. Neither of the American state, nor of western civilisation. They occupy its centre. Which is possibly why `their’ having prospered due to 9/11, is a heretical idea.

But only in the west. Outside its bounds, in the rest of the world, people talk about it. Freely.

Accounting. Before and after

In a speech to Pentagon employees on September 10, 2001, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld disclosed that over $2,000,000,000,000 (yes, twelve zeroes) in Pentagon funds could not be accounted for. “According to some estimates,” he said, “we cannot track $2.3 trillion in transactions.”

His statement didn’t make world headlines the next day. The 9-11 attacks had reduced its colossal significance to dust. As it had, the Twin Towers. But news of Pentagon’s “financial disarray” has never been headlined in western mainstream media. Strange, considering its scale, its enormity. It’d have made many third world governments—often enough unhappy recipients of lectures on good governance, elimination of corruption, accountability—ecstatically happy. May be, that’s why. It’d have undermined the west’s moral authority and of course, you can’t allow the plebs to laugh at the emperor’s nakedness.

Almost $7 trillion has been adjusted in the Department of Defense’s (DOD) financial ledgers, said a report released by the inspector general of Pentagon in 2000, “to make them add up.” Of this amount, no “receipts” were available for $2.3 trillion (presumably the sum Rumsfeld mentioned) (Associated Press, 03.03.2000). An investigative report published a week before 9/11 cites an 8 page summary of the DOD’s deputy inspector general. To compile the required financial statements, it says, $4.4 trillion had to be “cooked”; of this amount $1.1 trillion couldn’t be supported by reliable information. Another $1 trillion, at the end of Bill Clinton’s last full year in office, “was simply gone and no one can be sure of when, where or to whom the money went” (Insight, 03.09.2001 Rumsfeld_Inherits_Financial_Mess[1].pdf ).

Rumsfeld had promised reforms which would help transfer billions of dollars from the “bloated” bureaucracy to the battlefield. But 9/11 happened the next day. Spurred by anthrax fears, Congress soon approved a $40 billion (this has nine zeroes) emergency measure; a year later, the national defense budget totalled $400 billion, biggest since the cold war. It didn’t include Iraq’s occupation costs, covered by a $35 billion supplemental bill. Interestingly enough, the budget was accompanied by a bill, Defence Transformation for the 21st Century, which significantly lessened congressional oversight on military spending (Guardian, 22 May 2003).

So, where did all those trillions go? In this age of euphemism, writes Kelly Patricia O’Meara, the government has its own words for “missing” money. Unsupported entries. Material-control weakness. Adjusted records. Unmatched disbursements. Abnormal balances. Unreconciled differences. Rumsfeld had his own explanation, too. It was because of “gridlock” and not “greed.” “We cannot share information from floor to floor in this building because it’s stored on dozens of technological systems that are inaccessible or incompatible.” DOD, it seems, has hundreds of computer systems which run varied accounts—health care, payroll, inventory,  ones that are not integrated.

Scoffing at what she terms the `computers don’t talk to each other’ explanation, Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney, one of the few truly people’s representative in the US legislature says, when they tell us the money was lost, what it really means is that the money went some place, but they don’t want to tell us where it went.

Business analyst Joshua Daniels adds up the figures and points his fingers elsewhere. The entire US defense budgets from 1996 to 2001, says Daniels, add up to $1.6 trillion. To reach the $2.3 trillion figure, one would have to go further behind, to 1991. Now, its not possible, he says, that the Pentagon spent hundreds of billions and didn’t get a single receipt. Or, that the Government Accountability Office (GAO) failed to notice that the entire defense budget went missing for ten years. After all, soldiers and sailors were paid, tanks and missiles were bought etc. “The missing money wasn’t on the books to begin with. It couldn’t have been; it’s more money than we gave them.” Where could it have come from then? Only the Federal Reserve, says Daniels, has such colossal sums at its disposal, and we should be asking: who hired the Pentagon to do whatever they hired it to do? What are they paying for? Who is its target?

One may not know where the missing trillions went, but that the US military-industrial complex rewards those responsible for the (mis)deed is pretty clear. Comptroller Dov Zakheim (a signatory also to the Project for a New American Century) left Pentagon in March 2004 and joined Booz Allen Hamilton —the “most prestigious management firm in the world”(Time), which works on defense and homeland security matters—and is now vice-president there. Two former DOD officials, William J Lynn III (chief financial officer, 1997-2001) and Robert Hale (assistant secretary of the Air Force, Financial Management and Comptroller, 1994-2001) were brought back to the Pentagon by Obama, while president-elect, in January 2009, to the posts of deputy secretary of defense, and undersecretary of defense (comptroller), respectively. Hale had been working as chief lobbyist for Raytheon, a major American defense contractor.

Coincidentally, when the Pentagon was hit on 9/11, the “plane” hit an office of the Army where an investigation of the of the $2.3 trillion missing was taking place. The office lost 34 of its 45 employees, most of whom were civilian accountants, bookkeepers and budget analysts—officials who were reportedly working on the investigation. I will not go into the details of why believing the government’s account of what happened at the Pentagon on 9/11 is intellectually demeaning, but quickly quote Colonel Karen Kwiatkowski who writes, “the secretary of defense… in an unfortunate slip of the tongue referred to the aircraft that slammed into the Pentagon as a missile…”

After Christ. Atoning for the sins of others

To put the missing trillions of taxpayers money into perspective, O’Meara writes, it would have bought

(a)   nearly 14 million accounting degrees from any four year state college, estimating the cost at $20,000 per year. Or,

(b)   about $8 million single family houses costing $140,000 per home.

A far lesser sum, only US$22.6 billion per year, would provide access for all to improved water and sanitation services.

Another way of putting Pentagon’s missing trillions into perspective, one that I read somewhere on the internet, was: if Christ had spent a million dollars a day for two thousand years, by now he’d only have spent three-quarters of one trillion dollars.

He, of course, would have spent it differently.

Tags: 9/11, corruption, Cynthia McKinney, Donald Rumsfeld, Dov Zakheim, Missing trillions, nobel peace prize, Obama, Pentagon, war on terror

9/11 Suicide Hijackers. Risen from the dead

by Rahnuma Ahmed

“Curiouser and curiouser!” Cried Alice (she was so much surprised, that for the moment she quite forgot how to speak good English).

– Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland (1865)

It’s old news. So, why bother writing about it? Because recent research has come up with interesting explanations about why 9/11 `suicide’ hijackers could still be alive, even after all else in the World Trade Centre—concrete, glass and gypsum—had been pulverised into fine dust. The question of live suicide hijackers is one that the US government has refused to address. According to new research findings, all crucial government evidence which aims at proving that Islamic terrorist hijackers were responsible for 9/11 either lacks authentication, or, when placed alongside other evidence, are very clearly fabrications or forgeries.

The FBI’s list of nineteen 9/11 hijackers—complete with photos—a list which CNN had within  24 hours of the attack, was contested soon enough. By none other than the `suicided’ hijackers themselves. The very least they could have done was die in the plane crash (before burning in hell till eternity). But no. Some of them had the audacity to turn up. To claim that they were not hijackers. That they lived elsewhere. That they had not been on any of those domestic flights, had neither armed themselves with box-cutters, nor flown hijacked aeroplanes headlong into tall buildings. One of them even had the nerve to say that he had never been to the United States.

Did news reports such as these—’Suicide hijacker’ is an airline pilot alive and well in Jeddah’ (The Independent, 17 September 2001), `Hijack suspects alive and well’ (BBC World, 23 September 2001), `Revealed: the men with stolen identities’ (The Telegraph, 23 September 2001)—cause the FBI to alter its list? No. Its director Robert Mueller however, did admit that  the FBI case against these 19 named hijackers would never stand up in a court of law

The 9/11 Commission Report insists that the 9/11 attacks were carried out by “19 young Arabs acting at the behest of Islamist extremists headquartered in distant Afghanistan”

armed with small knives, box cutters, and cans of Mace or pepper spray. So does the US government, and all other western governments. The 19 young Arabs, we have been repeatedly told, were “al-Qaeda terrorists” who had hijacked four commercial passenger jet  airliners, had intentionally crashed two into the Twin Towers of the World Trade Centre in New York City, the third into the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia, and the fourth into a field near Shanksville in rural Pennsylvania. None of the passengers, or crew members, or hijackers, survived the disaster.

“If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it,” said Joseph Goebbels, the Nazi minister for propaganda. For propaganda to be successful, he added, it must be confined to a few points, which must be repeated over and over again. As one reads comments such as these on the internet: `facts about the known hijackers and the video taped confession of Osama Bin Laden makes it clear beyond reasonable doubt that Al Qaeda planned and committed the crime.’ `Whether we know their correct names or not, all of those who were on the planes doing the actual hijacking are dead.’ `There is a strain of Islam that is bent on mass murder and they carried it out on 9/11...’one can easily see how America’s `war on terror’ propaganda campaign has been scripted on Goebbels’ lessons: al-Qaeda. Osama bin Laden. Arabs. Islam. Extremists. Terrorists. Repeated ad nauseum. So what if Osama is, in all likelihood, dead? Has been so, probably for the last nearly-eight years. So what if those accused of hijacking and crashing planes, of causing untold misery, suffering and death to many thousands, were probably not on the planes? Have these mind-boggling discrepancies, of dead people not being dead, forced the US government to agree to a new investigation of what actually happened on 9/11, an investigation which is independent, impartial and thorough? No. Neither Bush, nor Obama, whose rationale for extending the war beyond the borders of Afghanistan is to hunt down al-Qaeda, its extremist allies, and its leadership, namely, Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri (March 27, 2009) .

The advantage of having al-Qaeda as the enemy, says independent researcher Jay Kolar, who has conducted research on the 9/11 hijackers, is that it lacks a `specific national identity.’  This enables the US military to extend its wars beyond national boundaries, to hunt its supra-national enemy in `multiple countries’ (`What we now know about the alleged 9-11 hijackers,’ in The Hidden History of 9-11-2001). Afghanistan. Iraq. Now Pakistan. Infinite wars. Endless profit for the US war machine. Never-ending cycles of death and destruction.

SEVEN OF THE NINETEEN 9/11 `SUICIDE’ HIJACKERS.THOUGH LATER FOUND TO BE ALIVE, THEY ARE STILL ON THE FBI LIST OF [DEAD] 9/11 HIJACKERS

Abdulrahman al-Omari, a Saudi Airlines pilot, who was “very much alive and living in Jeddah” was astonished to find himself accused not only of hijacking, but also, of being dead. Named by the US Department of Justice as a suicide hijacker of American Airlines flight 11, the first airliner to smash into the World Trade Centre, Al-Omari was reportedly “furious” and visited the US consulate in Jeddah demanding an explanation.

This made the FBI delete his name, to replace it with another name: Abdul Aziz al-Omari. But inconsiderately, Omari no 2 turned up too. Alive, and “furious.”  An engineer with Saudi Telecoms, he said he had been at his desk at the Saudi Telecommunications authority in Riyadh when the attacks took place. “The name [listed by the FBI] is my name and the birth date is the same as mine, but I am not the one who bombed the World Trade Center in New York” (Asharq Al-Awsat). Omari no 2 said his passport had been stolen while he was an electrical engineering student at Denver university in 1995, a theft which he had reported to the police. “I couldn’t believe it when the FBI put me on their list. They gave my name and my date of birth, but I am not a suicide bomber. I am here. I am alive. I have no idea how to fly a plane. I had nothing to do with this.”

Another hijacker from the FBI list, Captain Saeed Hussain Al-Ghamdi, turned up alive and `worried’ on September 18 after seeing his picture on CNN (Arab News). A Saudi citizen living in Tunisia for the last nine months, al-Ghamdi was a co-captain on Tunis Air. He had studied in Florida from 1998 to 1999 and suspected that his picture had been taken from the file of the aviation school in Florida.

Other `discrepancies’ turned up—Adnan Bukhari, Amer Kamfar. Also, Ameer Bukhari, who it turned out, had died a year earlier (2000). FBI then replaced these hijackers with new names, interestingly enough, with more `Arab’ names, ones which had not been on the 9/11 airline flight manifests confiscated by the FBI after the 9/11 attacks (nor on the list of deceased passengers released later by the government):

Adnan Bukhari was replaced by Waleed al-Shehri

Ameer Bukhari was replaced by Wail al-Shehri

Amer Kamfar was replaced by Satam al-Suqami

But even the newly-replaced dead, all except Satam al-Suqami, kept rising. Waleed Al-Shehri, a Saudi national. In Casablanca. Ahmed al-Nami. In Riyadh. An administrative supervisor with Saudi Arabian Airlines, al-Nami said he had been “shocked” to see his name mentioned by the American Justice Department. “I had never even heard of Pennsylvania where the plane I was supposed to have hijacked.” Khalid Almihdhar was reported to be alive as well.

Eleven of the FBI-named finalists could not have been on those planes, says Kolar. Ten were still alive, another’s identity had been improvised by a double. Could it be that none of the alleged hijackers were on these planes? Kolar’s close scrutiny of government evidence leads him to conclude that most of the hijackers had doubles, not only that, pairs of them were doubled, their car rentals and itineraries were doubled. As was the 9/11 attack itself through the military war-game exercise (Vigilant Warrior, Vigilant Guardian), scheduled for, and held on September 9. Part of the exercise was the simulation of live-fly hijacking and this confused military officers. This pattern of doubling, writes Kolar, “together with evidence of patsies, cut-outs, national security overrides, protected hijacker activities, and of the hands of controller-moles pulling the strings from inside the government, all suggest the entire scenario was a covert US intelligence operation.” One that was “disguised as an outside enemy attack.”

Outside enemy attack? I guess, it’s true. The US is its own enemy.

Tags: 9/11, Al-Qaeda, FBI, Goebbels, Hidden from History, Jay Kolar, propaganda, suicide hijackers, United States

The West’s Immortal `Terrorist’

By Rahnuma Ahmed

Who else…, but Osama bin Laden?

He’s alive. Not only in the western imagination which needs an unlimited supply of bogeymen as its alter. To create and re-create myths of its innocence which serve to justify the waves of death and destruction that it wreaks on the `rest.’ In earlier times, to civilise savages and barbarians. And later, in the last couple of decades, to spread progress and democracy. As the Berlin wall tumbled down, the earlier bogeyman — the communist — was soon enough replaced by `blood-thirsty’ Islam, and its `jihadis’. The `rest’ of the world knows this.

But surely not only in the western imagination, surely he’s alive in a real-time sense too? After all, we see videos cropping up now and then showing us the bogeyman threatening vengeance on the west for killing `our people.’ The battle will continue until victory is acheived. Till then, believers will die for the cause.

Actually, ahem there is reason to believe that he’s ahem dead. Yes. For the last nearly-eight years.

Osama bin Laden: Dead or Alive?

At least that’s what David Ray Griffin, professor of theology, political analyst and foremost in the 9/11 truth movement, thinks. In his Osama bin Laden; Dead or Alive, a little book that was published recently, he puts forth two types of evidence, objective evidence, and that based on testimonies.

Five objective facts are laid out to convince readers. First, the CIA had regularly intercepted messages between bin Laden and his people, but this stopped on December 13, 2001. No messages, no CIA interception. Second, a Pakistani daily published a report on December 26, 2001 which said, “A prominent official in the Afghan Taleban movement…stated…that he had himself attended the funeral of bin Laden and saw his face prior to burial.” Third, he suffered from kidney disease. In July 2001, he had been treated in the American Hospital in Dubai, and had later ordered two dialysis machines. According to a CBS news report, the night before 9/11, he was receiving kidney dialysis treatment in a hospital in Pakistan. Dr Griffin writes, on the basis of a video of bin Laden made in either late November or early December of 2001, Dr  Sanjay Gupta thinks that he was probably in the last stages of kidney failure.

The details of what Dr Gupta (CNN’s medical correspondent and a brain surgeon) said can be  found on the CNN website’s Health section. Pictures of bin Laden show a “sort of a frosting over of his features — his sort of grayness of beard, his paleness of skin, very gaunt sort of features.” Symptoms that are associated with chronic kidney failure, renal failure. Through the entire length of the video, says Dr Gupta, bin Laden did not move his arms. Not once his left arm; his right side, only a little. These speak of a stroke. If he was not receiving proper medical treatment, and this means not being separated from his dialysis machine (which requires electricity, clean water, a sterile environment), a kidney specialist, and a technician, “it’s unlikely that you’d survive beyond several days or a week at the most.”

According to a July 2002 CNN report, bin Laden’s bodyguards had been captured in February that year. If the bodyguards were captured “away from bin Laden,” argues Dr Griffin, it was very likely that the man himself was dead. The fifth reason is the $25 million reward announced by the US government since 2001, for any information that will lead to the capture or killing of bin Laden. It has produced no results “even though Pakistan has many desperately poor people.” As I read this I cannot help thinking, Enron, American economy in tatters, surely not because of poor people…? Anyway, to get back to the bin Laden story, the testimonial evidence which Dr Griffin advances is from people who are in a “position to know,” people like president Pervez Musharraf of Pakistan, president Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan, Iran-Contra figure Col Oliver North. It includes sources within Israeli intelligence who say that any new messages from bin Laden are “probably fabrications.” Whereas sources within Pakistani intelligence “confirm the death of…Osama bin Laden” and go on to add, “the reasons behind Washington’s hiding news on the death of Osama bin Laden to the desire of hawks of the American administration to use the issue of al-Qaida and international terrorism to invade Iraq.”

The `Fatty’ bin Laden Tape, and others

Some of the videos are obvious fakes. One of these is known as the Confession tape, in which bin Laden contradicts what he had said earlier, on four separate occassions, that he was not responsible for 9/11. In this, reportedly found by US troops in a house in Jalalabad, Afghanistan, while talking to a visiting sheikh bin Laden says that he had not only known about the 9/11 attacks but had personally overseen every detail.

1) Fatty bin Laden/Jalalabad video (being dated November 9 and released December 13).

2) Gaunt, tired and thin bin Laden, tape made between November 16 (on which occurred an event mentioned on the tape) and December 27 (the date on which the tape was released).

Osama has a much taller and narrower nose.

Osama has a less rounded brow ridge.

Osama is less well nourished.

Osama has lower and less full cheeks.

Osama’s forehead slopes back more.

Osama’s face is wider at the level of his eyes.

Dr Griffin lists even more differences, a black beard, not a grey one. A darker skin, and not bin Laden’s pale self. His slim, pianist fingers had turned short, stubby. More like those of a boxer. Although left-handed, he is seen writing a note with his right hand. Most telling however, are these words, “‘Due to my experience in this field, I was thinking that the explosion from the gas in the plane would melt the iron structure of the building and collapse the area where the plane hit and all the floors above it only. That is all we had hoped for.” But the real bin Laden, who has a civil engineering degree, would have known that a building fire cannot melt steel.

Did the American ruling class bother with such trivial details? But of course, not. Quoting US officials Washington Post said, the video “offers the most convincing evidence of a connection between Bin Laden and the September 11 attacks.” Whereas president Bush ecstatically crowed, “For those who see this tape, they realise that not only is he guilty of incredible murder, but he has no conscience and no soul.”

Another video, known as the “October Surprise” video appeared in end-October 2004, timed to help George Bush win the presidential election. This bin Laden, had turned secular. Where bin Laden’s own messages had been full of references to Allah and the Prophet Mohammad, the only Mohammad mentioned here was the 9/11 `terrorist’ Mohammad Atta.

While some critics of America’s imperial wars think that Dr Griffin’s question is irrelevant, that the “war policy makers in the US government can easily deal with a bin Laden death,” and can “find ways to justify their never ending war on terror” (Maher Osseiran), it is nonetheless true that bin Laden was called upon by president Barack Obama in his March 27 address, which announced the extension of the Afghanistan war beyond its borders:

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

America, it seems, needs bin Laden more than he needs them. After all, the evidence presented seems to indicate he’s dead. Has been, for quite some time.

Published in New Age, December 21, 2009

Tags: 9/11, Afghanistan, Al-Qaeda, David Ray Griffin, dead, Maher Osseiran, Obama, Osama bin Laden, Pakistan, Rahnuma Ahmed, terrorist, USA, war on terror

`Conspiracy theories.’ Learning from 9/11

By Rahnuma Ahmed

The truth is, conspiracies sometimes do occur.

Michael Meacher, current Labour MP, former British minister for the environment

`Bangladeshis love conspiracy theories’ was a comment I came across in foreign news reports, news analyses and blog talk soon after the BDR rebellion. Somewhat piqued, I thought, surely that’s not something essentially Bangladeshi? And, surely not more than the Bush administration?

Contending accounts of 9/11

Nagging disbelief about many aspects of the official story has seen the rise of a movement, initially grassroots, but later joined by professionals — pilots, architects, engineers, scientists, firefighters, lawyers, medical professionals, former intelligence officers including FBI and CIA whistleblowers, politicians — that has come to be known as the 9/11 Truth Movement, extending from America to Europe, and beyond. Its members have raised hard-nosed questions based on rigorous and meticuluously detailed research, serving to sideline the crackpots, and to turn it into a serious community of truth-seekers, seeking to expose the official lies and cover-up surrounding the events of September 11th, 2001. And, seeking justice and redress for those wronged on September 11th, or as a result of those events. One of its central demands is the complete disclosure of all records and evidence.

The mainstream press, both in the US and in other western countries, generally refer to the members of the movement, as conspiracy theorists. Matthew Rothschild, in Enough of the 9/11 Conspiracies, Already writes, “Here’s what the conspiracists believe: 9/11 was an inside job. Members of the Bush administration ordered it, not Osama bin Laden. Arab hijackers may not have done the deed. The Twin Towers fell not because of the impact of the airplanes and the ensuing fires but because of explosives. I’m amazed at how many people give credence to these theories.” (September 2006).

But, as Dr David Ray Griffin, professor of philosophy of religion and theology, and a renowned author of a series of eye-opening books on 9/11 (The New Pearl Harbour: Disturbing Questions about the Bush Administration and 9/11, 2004; The 9/11 Commission Report: Omissions And Distortions, 2004) points out, many journalists avoid `getting empirical’ about 9/11. Professor Griffin, in a televised lecture available on YouTube says, what Matthew Rothschild should have added, was: `Here’s what the government conspiracists believe: 19 hijackers with knives and box cutters defeated the most sophisticated defense system in history. Hani Hanjour, who could barely fly a Piper Cub, flew an astounding trajectory to crash Flight 77 into the Pentagon, the most well-protected building on the planet. Other hijacker pilots, by flying planes into two buildings of the World Trade Centre, caused three of them to collapse at virtually free-fall speed, straight down. I’m amazed at how many people give credence to these theories.’

Professor Paul Zarembka (State University of New York, Buffalo, editor of The Hidden History of 9-11-2001, publ. 2006) also dismisses the official account, he calls it `absurd.’ If you just relaxed and dreamed it up no one would believe that the US could be taken out by 19 hijackers. If this had happened in Russia, we would have laughed it out. We wouldn’t have believed that they would let it happen. I don’t know exactly who did it but the evidence points that it was done internally.

But, Michael Keefer, professor of English at the University of Guelph, Ontario says, disbelieving the official account is taboo. And it is so, because of the people’s contract, the implicit contract that they [western peoples] have with their governments. Namely, that the government will kill others, and not us. That it will not turn against us. Or, in the words of a young protester at one of the 9/11 Truth Movement rallies that I watched on YouTube, In the US, the people are convinced that the government loves them. But if it was, say Russia, if you say something bad about the government, people are likely to listen to what you have to say.

Andreas von Bulow, former German defense minister (in Helmut Schmidt’s government), finds the official account `totally incredible’. Convinced that it was a covert operation, Bulow argues, `It was a highly sophisticated operation. Who [else] was capable of doing it? It was not possible for a non-inside force, to do it.’ And the reasons? To influence and brainwash the American people into a “long, long, ongoing conflict with the Muslim world,” to get “the last oil reserves which we need for the next decades before the oil age” goes out. But, how could a government, one that leads the world’s most powerful democracy, entertain the idea, let alone carry it out, of doing something as heinous, as immoral, and well, outright murderous? Bulow’s words are chillingly clear, `It’s a form of war. In war, it’s acceptable for people to die, even on your own side.”

But could so large an operation, one that must have involved hundreds, if not thousands of people, remain a secret? Professor Griffins offers an interesting instance from history. The Manhattan project to build nuclear bomb involved 100,000 workers, it was kept so secret that even vice-president Harry Truman didn’t know about it until he became president. 

Who Benefited from 9/11?

`Cui Bono?’ is the question that any good investigator asks after a crime has been committed. In other words, who benefited from 9/11? 

The answers, 9/11 truth-seekers claim, are contained in `Rebuilding America’s Defenses. Strategy, Forces and Resources for a New Century’, a PNAC (Project for the New American Century) document drafted by the US military machine’s think-tank. `This is about control of middle-eastern oil,’ says Meacher. `It indicates that America is aiming for global leadership both militarily and economically and what it says, is, I think, chilling. It says if we are going to transform America to tomorrow’s dominant force, that’s their phrase, then it’s going to be a long process. Unless there is a catastrophic and catalysing event — like a new Pearl Harbour.’

And, 9/11 took place 12 months later.

Who benefited? As many 9/11 truth-seekers point out, Iraq didn’t, nor did Saddam Hussein, nor al-Qaeda, nor any of the Arab countries. But Larry Silverstein did. He had acquired the lease of the WTC complex a few weeks before 9/11, had re-worked the insurance policy to cover terrorist attacks, and after what is known as `Twin Tower’, received $7 billion in compensation. For an original investment worth $15 million only! So did those who took part in insider trading on the stocks of parent companies of American Airlines (AMR) and United Airlines (UAL), bringing in profits running to millions, possibly, as high as a billion dollars. And, the PNAC group, did. As did Dick Cheney (Halliburton), the arms industry (`there’s nothing better for the arms industry than a war’), the Bush family (Carlyle group), US oil companies (the oil pipeline from the Caspian oil fields to Afghanistan was signed the day after Karzai was installed), the US government (provided it with the excuse to pursue its goal of a new world order by means of war).

The 9/11 Commission: neither structurally nor procedurally independent

President Bush resisted forming an investigatory commission for a year. The 9/11 Commission that was subsequently formed was, despite its stated intention, neither `independent’, nor `impartial’, nor `thorough’. Bryan Sacks (a contributor to The Hidden History of 9/11) writes, it was structurally compomised by bias-inducing connections to subjects of the investigation (for instance, its executive director Philip Zelikow worked closely with Condoleeza Rice, was also her co-author). It was also procedurally compromised, on three counts. It failed to take up promising lines of inquiry, to force the release of key documents that were closely guarded by the Bush administration, the FBI and various intelligence sources. It distorted information about pre-9/11 military preparedness, foreknowledge of the attacks or similar attacks. It omitted information related to the funding of the plot and the specific whereabouts of key officials (foremost among them, vice-president Dick Cheney) on the morning of September 11, 2001.

These two key features, writes Sacks, converged to produce a report that unquestioningly accepted the official version that left unchallenged key myths associated with American exceptionalism (`the US government loves its people,’ `it would not conspire against them’).

Lessons for us

The new US administration led by Barack Obama speaks of change. Will the change be substantive? Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed, who has done ground-breaking research on 9/11, thinks not. Obama’s arrival is “set to rehabilitate American hegemony and restore some sense of credibility and even respectability to US military and financial power” in the context of Bush administration’s trampling of  “any semblance of half-decent PR” during the last eight years. And even though Hillary Clinton, US Secretary of State recently said that the use of the phrase `war on terror’ was to be discontinued, Obama’s formal request to Congress for $83.4 billion in “emergency” supplemental funding to pay for the continuation of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and his words to students in Strasbourg, “those terrorists are still plotting today. And there — if there is another al Qaeda attack, it is just as likely, if not more, that it will be here in Europe, in a European city,” sound ominous to my ears.  

Although our Commerce Minister, who is also coordinator of the investigations into the BDR rebellion has become more reticent recently, no longer chattering about the alleged mutineers links to Islamic militants, and the JMB, the incidents of custodial deaths, and allegations of torture cast doubts on the credibility of the evidence that is being gathered. One can only hope that the government will learn its lessons from the 9/11 Truth Movement, and that its investigative committee will not produce a report that is neither `independent’, nor `impartial’, nor `thorough’.

Tags: 9/11, Afghanistan, Al Quaeda, BDR, CIA, commerce minister, Conspiracy Theory, drone, FBI, Iraq, Mosaddeq Ahmed, Rahnuma Ahmed, USA

What Matters

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The World’s Preeminent Photojournalists and Thinkers Depict Essential Issues of Our Time

Sterling. 2008. 335p. ed. by David Elliot Cohen. photogs. index. ISBN 978-1-4027-5834-8. $27.95. POL SCI

PHOTOGRAPHY EXPOSES TRUTHS, advances the public discourse, and demands action. In What Matters, eighteen important stories by today’s preeminent photojournalists and thinkers poignantly address the big issues of our time—global warming, environmental degradation, AIDS, malaria, the global jihad, genocide in
Darfur, the inequitable distribution of global wealth and others. A “What You Can Do” section offers 193 ways to learn more and get involved.

Photographed by:

Shahidul Alam • The Associated Press • Gary Braasch • Marcus Bleasdale • Raymond Depardon • Paul Fusco • Lauren Greenfield • Maggie Hallahan • Ed Kashi • Gerd Ludwig • Magnum • Susan Meiselas • James Nachtwey • Shehzad Noorani • Gilles Peress • Sebastião Salgado • Stephanie Sinclair • Brent Stirton • Tom Stoddart • Anthony Suau • Stephen Voss

Commentary by:

Omer Bartov • Judith Bruce • Awa Marie Coll-Seck • Richard Covington • Elizabeth C. Economy • Helen Epstein • Fawaz A. Gerges • Peter H. Gleick • Gary Kamiya • Paul Knox • David R. Marples • Douglas S. Massey • Bill McKibben • Samantha Power • John Prendergast • Jeffrey D. Sachs • Juliet B. Schor •
Michael Watts

What Matters—an audacious undertaking by best-selling editor and author David Elliot Cohen—challenges us to consider how socially conscious photography can spark public discourse, spur reform, and shift the way we think. For 150 years, photographs have not only documented human events, but also changed their course—from Jacob Riis’s exposé of brutal New York tenements to Lewis Hine’s child labor investigations to snapshots of torture at Abu Ghraib prison. In this vein, What Matters presents eighteen powerful stories by this generation’s foremost photojournalists. These stories cover essential issues confronting us and our planet: from climate change and environmental degradation to global jihad, AIDS, and genocide in Darfur to the consequences of the Iraq war, oil addiction, and the inequitable distribution of global wealth. The pictures in What Matters are personal and specific, but still convey universal concepts. These images are rendered even more compelling by trenchant commentary. Cohen asked the foremost writers, thinkers, and experts in their fields to elucidate issues raised by the photographs.

Some stories in What Matters will make you cry; others will make you angry; and that is the intent. What Matters is meant to inspire action. And to facilitate that action, the book includes an extensive “What You Can Do” section——a menu of resources, web links, and effective actions you can take now.

Cohen hopes What Matters will move people to take positive steps——no matter how small——that will help change the world. As he says in his introduction, the contributors’ work is so compelling that “if we show it to you, you will react with outrage and create an uproar.” If, says Cohen, you look at these stories and think, “What’s the use? The world is irredeemably screwed up,” we should remember that, historically, outraged citizens have gotten results. “We did actually abolish slavery and child labor in the US; we abolished apartheid in South Africa; we defeated the Nazis; we pulled out of Vietnam. As the saying goes, ‘All great social change seems impossible until it is inevitable.’ ”

- Michael Zajakowski, Chicago Tribune

A. Newspapers and Online

1. Hard to see, impossible to turn away – Issues and images combine in ‘What Matters,’ a powerful and passionate new book
“Great documentary photojournalism, squeezed out of mainstream newspapers and magazines in an age of shrinking column inches, has had a hard time gaining traction in other venues… But nobody has told the 18 photographers in “What Matters: The World’s Preeminent Photojournalists and Thinkers Depict Essential Issues of Our Time.” These are photo essays by some of today’s best photojournalists following the great tradition begun over a hundred years ago with the exposés of New York tenement life by Jacob Riis. Through the doggedness of these photographers—who are clearly committed to stirring us out of complacency—all the power and passion of the medium is evident in this book… Some of the pieces will break your heart, some will anger you. All will make you think. To channel your thoughts and feelings into action, the book ends with an appendix “What You Can Do,” offering hundreds of ways to be a part of the solution to these problems.”

- Chicago Tribune Book Review, 2 page spread

2. “Must viewing.”

- San Francisco Chronicle, 2 page story

3. Photographs that Can Change the World
“David Elliot Cohen’s new book, What Matters, which hits bookshelves today, is a collection of photo essays that explore 18 distinct social issues that define our time. Shot by the world’s most renowned photojournalists, including James Nachtwey, who has contributed to V.F., the photographs explore topics ranging from genocide and global warming to oil addiction and consumerism, offering a raw view into the problems that plague our world. Each photo essay is accompanied by written commentary from an expert on the issue. Cohen hopes the book will inspire people to work toward resolving these problems. “Great photojournalism changed the world in the past, and it can do it again,” Cohen says. “I want people to see these images, get angry, and act on that anger. Compelling images by the world’s best photojournalists is the most persuasive language I have to achieve this.”
- vanityfair.com

4. Book Review: What Matters

“Changing the world might sound like a lofty goal for a photo book, but that’s what the new book, What Matters, The World’s Preeminent Photojournalists and Thinkers Depict Essential Issues of our Time edited by David Elliot Cohen (Sterling Publishing, $28, 2008), hopes to do. Citing the power of socially conscious photographers over the last 150 years, the beautiful collection of 18 photo-essays by some of today’s prominent photojournalists hopes to “inform pre-election debate and inspire direct action.” Regardless of what side of the political fence you sit on, this collection of heartbreaking and powerful stories and images is guaranteed to get you thinking.”
- Popular Photography

5. What Matters: The World’s Preeminent Photojournalists and Thinkers Depict Essential Issues of Our Time.
Those doubting the power of photojournalism to sway opinion and encourage action would do well to spend some time with this book. In 18 stories, each made up of photos by leading photojournalists and elucidated by short essays by public intellectuals and journalists, this book explores environmental devastation, war, disease, and the ravages of both poverty and great wealth. The photos are specific and personal in their subject matter and demonstrate how great photography can illuminate the universal by depicting the specific. Cohen has a goal beyond simply showcasing terrific photography. In his thoughtful introduction, he makes explicit his aim to connect the work compiled here with the great tradition of muckraking photography that helped to change conditions in New York tenements and to end child labor at the turn of the last century. A terrific concluding chapter directs readers to specific actions they can take if they are moved to do so by the book’s images, and it’s hard to imagine the reader who would not be moved. Highly recommended for public libraries and academic libraries supporting journalism and/or photography curricula. (a starred review in Library Journal generally means the book will be acquired by many libraries.)

- Library Journal

6. First of five part series about What Matters
(The first installment drew 500,000 page views)
- CNN.com

7. Second part in CNN. Black Dust by Shehzad Noorani

Tags: 9/11, Addiction, AIDS, America, Chernobyl, Darfur, david elliot cohen, Disaster, Disease, Economy, Edhi, Environment, genocide, Global Warming, Immigration, Iraq, Jihad, Malaria, Migration, Niger River Delta, Oil, Philanthropy, Photography, Radioactive Fallout, Sub-Saharan Africa, USA, Water