TALIBAN = 9/11??
Afghanistan by Hypnosis
Thursday, November 5, 2009
by Greg Palast for Zeek.net
On September 11, 2001, my office building, the World Trade Center, was attacked by al Qaeda, a murder cult of Saudi Arabians, funded by Saudi Arabians. And so, in response to the Saudis' attack, America invaded ... Afghanistan. Like, HUH?
And here we go again. New York Times headline last Friday: "Pakistani Army, In Its Campaign In Taliban Stronghold, Finds A Hint Of 9/11."
Google it and you'll find the Times report repeated and amplified 5,785 times more.
Taliban = 9/11. Taliban = 9/11. Taliban = 9/11.
Your eyelids are getting heavy. Taliban = 9/11. Taliban = 9/11.
It's the latest hit from the same crew that brought you Saddam = 9/11 and its twin chant, Saddam = WMD, Dick Cheney's chimerical tropes which the New York Times' Judith Miller happily channeled to the paper's front page.
And they're at it again.
Every war begins with a lie. In addition to Saddam = WMD, I'm old enough to remember the Gulf of Tonkin resolution authorizing the war in Vietnam, based on a fictional Vietnamese gunboat attack on our Navy. (White House recordings have Lyndon Johnson gloating privately, "Hell, those damn stupid [US] sailors were just shooting at flying fish.")
In the Glorious War against the Taliban in Afghanistan, the lie is thus: al Qaeda is "based" in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan. If we don't fight the wily Taliban, as the British once fought the wily Pathan, al Qaeda will attack America again from Talibanistan.
The latest Taliban=9/11 fantasy is a yarn spun wildly outward from the finding of a passport of an al Qaeda flunky who worked with suicide pilot Mohammed Atta in the same mountain area where, years later, a Taliban group operated. It's a stretch, but when you want to sell a war, it will do.
But selling the re-invasion of Afghanistan requires a repetition of Lie #1: that the original attack on the World Trade towers and the Pentagon were planned from Afghanistan's and Pakistan's mountains with the connivance of the Taliban.
It's not true, of course. The September 11 attack was neither organized nor directed from Afghanistan by the Taliban. In fact, as our BBC Report found, it was clear that the attack on my friends and co-workers was planned and carried out by al Qaeda operations in Falls Church, Virginia; Paris, France; Sarasota, Florida; Hamburg, Germany;— and, I repeat, funded and manned from Saudi Arabia. Neither the Sunshine State nor the Aryan namesake of the original beef patty sandwich were, nor are they now, convenient targets for a revenge attack by the 101st Airborne.
And revenge was what it was and remains: on September 11 the skunks hit us and we, goddamnit, were going to HIT BACK. ANYONE. SOMEONE. So we hit the odious, and conveniently weak, Taliban, who'd, undeniably, given refuge to killer Osama bin Laden. Though let us not forget that Osama’s safe passage from the Sudan to Afghanistan was initially encouraged by the US government.
Today, we continue to throw our soldiers' bodies into Afghanistan, and our drones’ rockets into Pakistan, to deny al Qaeda the supposed base from which to strike us again.
The media is eating it up and swallowing it whole. For example, CNN quotes a Pakistani from the Afghan border area, "Probably your next 9/11 is going to be from Swat."
That's not true either, of course: In the extraordinarily unlikely event Osama remains in the "caves of Tora Bora" (not where multi-millionaires with kidney disease tend to linger), any conceivable attack will be planned, funded and organized from comfy hotel rooms in Paris, Germany and Dubai as is the habit of these well-heeled hellions.
The truth is, we're not in Afghanistan to stop al Qaeda's US attackers, because they weren't "based" there in the first place, and their leaders are not there now.
So, why are we now re-invading Afghanistan? Beats me. I just hope our President will give us a hint that doesn’t involve some cockamamie fairytale about 9/11 and al Qaeda.
Now, please don't get me wrong: the Taliban are monsters. If you have any doubt, I suggest you read progressive journalist Michael Griffin's masterful history of the Taliban, Reaping the Whirlwind. (Published in early 2001, Griffin presciently warned against the US policy of placating the Taliban.)
Undeniably, the Taliban gave sanctuary to bin Laden, but that does not make the Taliban guilty of planning and participating in the 9/11 attack. However, the Taliban's innocence in the 9/11 massacre does not wash their hands of the blood of Afghans, particularly Shia and Sufi Muslims, whom the Taliban have tortured, raped and murdered.
I can't say I shed tears for the Taliban when, after my office towers fell, US troops ended their sharia dictatorship. And, honestly, there's a case to be made that rocketing more Taliban, really nasty cutthroats that they are, is a laudable exercise. But let's not pretend it has anything to do with preventing another 9/11.
And that's the danger. As the poet T.S. Eliot warned,
"The last temptation is the greatest treason
To do the right thing for the wrong reason."
Taliban = 9/11? Innocents, by the thousands and thousands, have paid and will pay in blood for this treasonous falsehood.
*******
For BBC Television, Greg Palast reported on the US intelligence failures leading to the 9/11 attack. Watch the BBC Newsnight episode or, for the full story, obtain a copy of the BBC documentary, Bush Family Fortunes, available on DVD. Or, beginning today, you may download Bush Family Fortunes. (Watch the Trailer).
The author is donating all proceeds of the sale of the film, Bush Family Fortunes, expanded from the BBC broadcast, to the Palast Investigative Fund, a not-for-profit foundation supporting investigative reporting. 100% of your donations for the film disc or download go to the fund and are tax-deductible.
This story is expanded from Palast's commentary in Zeek.net
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greg-you speak truth to power-if only the twain could meet..i bought yr dvd and donated it to our local library;after loan program of my own personal circle-great,good stuff..you are a nat'l treasure &my kinda american hero..i.f. stone would be proud..Now,let's get you some airtime on primetime USA...maybe my local public stations(t.v.&radio)could be coerced? If you ever need anybody to carry yr water,cameras,hold the boat in s. america or on the potamac,please give me a holler..Sincerely,tommy
"So, why are we now re-invading Afghanistan?"
The answer is quite simple: to keep the machine running.
Also, "the Taliban" or "the terrorists" are just terms used today for anybody who fights against the occupiers in Afghanistan. Your labeling these insurgents "monsters" and praising the truly cowardly drone attacks that seem to kill mainly innocent villagers made me cringe.
Greg, I really appreciate your reporting but I must urge you to watch your language here.
Sincerely,
v.
I am so thankful for the few people in this country like you who still have the courage to speak the truth. You are my hero. I have been through a lot in my life and my eyes have been opened. I can now see the spin from the government and MSM immediately. I start trying to figure out the real story behind the scenes and a lot of the time I get it right. If independent investigative reporters like you had not pointed a lot of the lies out we would not be able to see them as well. Thank you.
You said: "So, why are we now re-invading Afghanistan? Beats me."
Surely not. Surely you know that the reason we went into Afghanistan in the first place was because the Taliban reneged on a deal to allow the construction by Unocal of a trans-Afghan gas pipeline. Surely you know that the disposition of US forces there has nothing to do with attacking the enemy but with defending the proposed route of the trans-Afghan pipeline.
Surely you know that the US forces still in Kosovo and other former Soviet satellites are dotted along the routes of existing oil and gas pipelines. And that they're positioned on the side of the pipelines closest to Russia.
Surely you know that the illegal attack upon Iraq was initially called "Operation Iraqi Liberation" even though the excuse of liberating Iraqis was only used later. And surely you know that psychopaths love to give clues to their victims in order to enhance the torment of their actions, and so it is no coincidence that the acronym for Operation Iraqi Liberation is "OIL."
Surely you know of the Carter Doctrine, and so you can surely see that the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the humanitarian actions in Kosovo and the like, were all realizations of that doctrine.
In short, Afghanistan is all about oil and gas, as were Iraq, Kosovo, etc. Given the vilification of Hugo Chavez, it looks like Venezuela is on the list.
Could the continuation of the war in Afghanistan be to satisfy the insatiable appetite of the US military complex for weapons and war? After all someone has to keep cheney's cronies in business.
If Taliban=monsters, then Bush/Obama/Clinton? If ALL "Taliban" are monsters, are all members of our Government- who have done far more damage than the Taliban have ever perpetrated- at least as monster-ish as them? Mr. Palast, why regurgitate old and in many ways discredited information in lieu of a proper analysis that reveals all sides of the story for us-the readers- to make our own determination? Perhaps their were reasons why the Taliban restricted the movement of women? Perhaps if given an opportunity they would have adopted a more traditional form of the 1400year Sharia Law that would have been complementary to THEIR situation. Afghanistan has know nothing but war for decades. We cannot even begin to understand the type of impact that has on a society, its security, and its development.
The more we just castigate the Taliban (whoever they are) as some insane radical group of women hating Jihadist, the more we distort the picture without being honest about the parties involved, the more we lose on an opportunity to truly dialog with the stakeholders in this conflict toward a solution. But then again, a solution with a stable government run by Sharia law (as the people want it) doesn't coincide with the industry of reporting about this war, never mind the billions spent on executing it...
Thanks Greg; and thanks for the comments about the NHS in a previous post. (I owe you a cajun martini at Marion's for that!(wink))
It is still a complete mystery to many in Britain - from all political persuasions - that there is so much vitriol from some Americans towards the Health Reform over there; even comparing Obama to Hitler for fuck's sake. Cut a bit of military spending maintaining an empire and the US could just about create something similar.
Just for some people to remember: Britain created the NHS in 1948 when it was still living with rationing and recovering from a war fighting...Hitler and the Nazis. Still an institution many Britons are absolutely proud of. See? The Brits can get something right sometimes.
On topic: Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed on 'Our Terrorists':
'Not only did Western intelligence services continue to foster Islamist extremist and terrorist groups connected to al-Qaeda after the Cold War; they continued to do so even after 9/11.'
Whole thing on link:
http://www.newint.org/features/2009/10/01/blowback-extended-version/
Greg! kudos. you are the ONLY voice exposing Afghanistan. Imagine it! like the movie "wag the dog". The MSM broadcasts pictures of the MOST REMOTE...REMOTE...INHOSPITABLE crevices, ravines, terrain, fighting an invisible enemy......There is a cognitive disconnect that there are MASSIVE forces set up in the hills of these REMOTE locations bashing our military.
Afghanistan is about Baluchistan, Iran, Central Asia, anything but what is mentioned in MSM.