- As we come to the end of 2003 it's only natural to reflect
upon the year gone by. It's a ritual that most Americans have instilled
in them at a very early age; but this year as last, is different. In fact,
since 911 the way I see it, we don't just ponder the previous year anymore-we
gravitate back to that horrible day. We really can't help it, as everything
that is going on around us today is a direct result of that horrific event,
back on September 11th, of 2001.
-
- The state of our economy, how we are viewed in the
world, the lives and deaths of young American men and women on foreign
soil and our guaranteed rights as American citizens have been, and continue
to be affected since the 911 attack and our reactions to it.
-
- Our Very Own Freedom Fighter
-
- One week after the horrific attack in New York,
Senator John McCain appeared on the "Tonight Show" with Jay Leno.
This was Leno's return to late night following the attacks on WTC and the
Pentagon. During the segment with McCain, he said (McCain), "although
the U.S. was proficient in 'electronic intelligence,' i.e., state of the
art spy satellites etc., we were lacking in 'HUMINT' or 'human intelligence.'"
As it turns out that was an enormous understatement!
-
- He went on to say that it would be necessary for
the CIA to hire individuals of unsavory character in order to infiltrate
the terrorist organizations of Osama bin Laden. Now, what we forgot then,
and what continues to be overlooked today is that "Osama bin Laden"
was/is a "by-product" of the CIA, and the irony of those statements
was quite frankly, "frightening!"
-
- TO BE CLEAR-we created Osama Bin Laden to combat
our then enemy-the Soviet Union! How, "repeating the same mistakes"
to remedy a "problem situation," that clearly was "the cause,"
of that "problem," in the first place, seemed rather absurd,
to put it mildly.
-
- Osama bin Laden was born in Riyadh, and was the
17th of 52 children born to Mohammed Bin Laden-Saudi Arabia's wealthiest
construction magnate. Bin Laden graduated from King Abdul Aziz University
in Jiddah with a degree in civil engineering in 1979. This is the same
year the Soviets invaded Afghanistan. Bin Laden joined the Afghan resistance
(Mujahideen) in December of that year.
-
- During the Soviet Afghan war, bin Laden was supported
by a "CIA led coalition" to fight the "Soviets invaders."
In fact, in 1979 the CIA launched the largest covert operation in their
history in response to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan; because the
"enemy of the day" were the Soviets, the CIA felt that incorporating
these "Islamic militants" i.e. bin Laden and his cohorts, was
sound reasoning.
-
- By the early 1980's bin Laden was running an organization
known as Maktab al-Khidamar. The MAK routed funds, weapons and fighters
into the Afghan war. The MAK was supported by Pakistan's state security
services, the Inter-Services Intelligence agency, or ISI, which in turn
was
- the CIA's main channel for their covert operations against
Moscow's occupation.
-
- "Some 35,000 Muslim radicals from 40 Islamic
countries joined Afghanistan's fight between 1982 and 1992. Tens of thousands
more came to study in Pakistani Madrasahs. Eventually more than 100,000
foreign Muslim radicals were directly influenced by the Afghan jihad."
(Ahmed Rashid, The Taliban. Exporting Extremism, Foreign Affairs, November-December
1999).
-
- REMEMBER-Afghanistan was then as Iraq is now-in
a war torn shambles; which is the environment that allowed the then, CIA
BACKED FREEDOM FIGHTER" Osama Bin Laden, to organize and grow.
-
- "In March 1985, President Reagan signed National
Security Decision Directive 166, which authorized stepped-up covert military
aid to the Mujahideen, and it made clear that the secret Afghan war had
a new goal-to defeat Soviet troops in Afghanistan through covert action
and
- encourage a Soviet withdrawal. The new covert U.S. assistance
began with a dramatic increase in arms supplies-a steady rise to 65,000
tons annually by 1987, ... as well as a "ceaseless stream" of
CIA and Pentagon specialists who traveled to the secret headquarters of
Pakistan's ISI on the main road near Rawalpindi, Pakistan. There the CIA
specialists met with Pakistani intelligence officers to help plan operations
for the Afghan rebels." (Steve Coll, Washington Post, July 19, 1992).
-
- "According to Hazhir Teimourian, a Middle Eastern
analyst, bin Laden received security training from the CIA itself. In 1986,
he helped build the Khost tunnel complex, which the CIA was funding as
a major arms storage depot, training facility and medical center for the
Mujaheddin, deep under the mountains close to the Pakistan border. For
the first time in Khost he set up his own training camp for Arab Afghans,
who now increasingly saw this lanky, wealthy and charismatic Saudi as their
leader." (Ahmed Rashid of Pakistan, Taliban: Militant Islam, Oil and
Fundamentalism in Central Asia).
-
- Towards the end of the Afghan war, with a then,
"organized, trained and seasoned" group of radical Muslim extremists,
Osama bin Laden formed a new group, which we know so well today as "
al-Qaida." This is the end result of the covert actions taken by the
CIA without any foresight of the consequences of said actions.
-
- In retrospect, it is clear, (or at least it should
be) the obsession that our elected officials of the time (the Reagan administration)
had with the desired goal of "defeating the Soviets" in Afghanistan
had dire consequences that "all Americans would later come to regret!"
When Bin Laden's enemy was the Soviet Union, he was called a "Freedom
Fighter"; although his radical beliefs and interpretation of the Muslim
religion of Islam haven't changed since 1979, only his opponents have.
-
- Some would argue that in "times of peril"
it is a "necessary evil" to lower one's standards to achieve
the ultimate goal, e.g., the support of Joseph Stalin during the second
world war, and that excuse, or a variation of it, is how the CIA might
explain our support of Bin Laden and his associates during the Afghan war
with the Soviets, however; the question is, are we as Americans, willing
to pay such a high price to achieve said goals? The survivors, families
and friends of the victims, of the horrific attacks on the WTC and the
Pentagon, and Americans in general, who have witnessed the tragedy of 911
over and over again on television, I believe, would say "no!"
-
- Our Old Pal Saddam
-
- Creating a "future enemy," to battle a
"current enemy" is just plain idiotic as our recent history proves
time and time again! (Let us not forget our old ally Saddam Hussein, and
the support we provided him during the Iraq/Iran war. Moreover we turned
the other cheek when Iraq used
- chemical weapons against Iran, not to mention the "human
rights violations against their own people.) It is understandable that
the "rage" produced by such "unthinkable" violent attacks
on our country, within our own borders no less, will cause "knee jerk
reactions." However, to assure that these "abominable acts of
terrorism" come to a halt, this the cycle of covert actions taken
by our so-called "intelligence agencies," or "sleeping with
the enemy tactics," if you will, must come to a halt as well.
-
- It's a safe wager that the majority of young Americans
today are ignorant to the fact that Donald Rumsfeld was shaking Saddam
Hussein's hand in Baghdad on December 20, 1983. Our current Secretary of
Defense was then a "special envoy to the Middle East" under President
Ronald Reagan. Moreover, the mass media seems to have difficulty in terms
of investigative reporting of past events concerning Iraq; oddly enough,
the time-line more often then not, only goes back a few years.
-
- The meeting between Rumsfeld and Hussein took place
shortly after the slaughter of thousands of Kurds and Shi'ites by the Iraqi
military. In addition, according to U.S. intelligence sources, the Iraqis,
during the months of August through November (of '83) killed thousands
of Iranians at Haij Umran and Panjwin using "Mustard Gas."
-
- When President Bush gave his "State of The
Union Speech" on January 29th, 2002 and said in reference to Iraq,
"This is a regime that has already used poison gas to murder thousands
of its own citizens -leaving the bodies of mothers huddled over their dead
children," he failed to mention the fact that we were seeking full
diplomatic relations shortly after one of these dreadful events took place.
-
- Rumsfeld returned to Baghdad in March of '84 for
meetings with then Iraqi Foreign Minister Tariq Aziz. During that time
a United Nations report surfaced stating, "Mustard Gas laced with
a nerve agent has been used on Iranian soldiers." The U.S. State Department
issued a statement supporting the U.N. report.
-
- Even though the "horrific" use of such
deadly weapons was out in the open, the newspaper reports indicated that
diplomatic ties had been restored between the U.S. and Iraq, and that indeed
took place "officially" later that year. (November 1984). Rumsfeld
was attributed for restoring said ties between the two countries.
-
- FOR CLARITY-The bulk of the atrocities that were/are
echoed across the land by the current administration performed by Saddam
Hussein (which is one of the main reasons used for invading Iraq now, in
the absence of any Weapons of Mass Destruction [WMD]) were done prior to
1984, and shortly thereafter, with full knowledge of the United States
government; yet our elected officials chose to seek, and in fact reestablished
diplomatic ties with this tyrant!
-
- Moreover, In August of 2002 the New York Times wrote,
"the United States gave Iraq vital battle-planning help during its
war with Iran as part of a secret program under President Reagan even though
U.S. intelligence agencies knew the Iraqis would unleash chemical weapons."
[Emphasis added]
-
- "The covert program involved more than 60 officers
of the Defense Intelligence agency who helped Iraq in its eight-year war
with Iran by providing detailed information on Iranian military deployments,
tactical planning for battles, plans for air strikes and bomb-damage assessments."
-
- The Times said it based its report on comments by
senior U.S. military officers with direct knowledge of the program, most
of who spoke on condition of anonymity. Iraq and neighboring Iran waged
a vicious war from September 1980 to August 1988. An estimated 1 million
people were killed and millions more were dislocated by the fighting.
-
- In addition, also in August of 2002, Robert Windrem
of NBC News wrote that according to cables and court records obtained by
NBC News, although U.S. officials denied that the United States looked
the other way while Iraq used Weapons of Mass Destruction, there is evidence
in declassified State Department cables and court records which indicated
otherwise; that even though the United States was aware that Iraq had used
chemical weapons against Iranian troops, it was ready to help Iraq in thwarting
Iranian "human-wave" attacks. Further evidence indicated although
Rumsfeld was certainly "in the know" about the afore mentioned
atrocities, he still offered Hussein unspecified assistance on behalf of
the Reagan administration
-
- Windrem goes on to report that a NSC staff member,
Howard Teicher, revealed some astounding information; he said, "President
Reagan and then-Vice President Bush personally delivered military advice
to Saddam Hussein, both directly and through intermediaries." [Emphasis
added.] "CIA Director William Casey personally spearheaded the effort
to ensure that Iraq had sufficient military weapons, ammunition and vehicles
to avoid losing the Iran-Iraq war," Teicher said.
-
- In addition, says Teicher, the United States actively
supported the Iraqi war effort by supplying the Iraqis with billions of
dollars of credits, by providing U.S. military intelligence and advice
to the Iraqis, and by closely monitoring third country arms sales to Iraq
to make sure that Iraq had the military weaponry required."
-
- It's hard to believe, but the afore mentioned scenario
with Iraq actually gets worse; it involves our government exporting biological
materials to Iraq. I won't get into that now, as I believe it's clear-the
duplicitous attitude that our government has exuded towards Iraq is appalling!
-
- Remember!
-
-
- In order to prevent repeating our mistakes in the
future, we have to be aware of our past-it is imperative that we understand
our history! Unfortunately, this is where we as Americans suffer "short
term memory loss! It's safe to say, had we not aided Saddam Hussein in
the '80's, there wouldn't have been a "Gulf War," and of course
young American men and women wouldn't be dying over there today.
-
- Had we not armed and trained Osama Bin Laden allowing
him to grow in power, one would have to come to the conclusion that 911
would have never taken place.
-
- This terrible irony, the end result of the nearsighted
actions of our elected officials has affected us as Americans personally,
our children and soon our grandchildren. It has affected us as a country
in terms of how we are looked upon as a people by other countries.
-
- What will be the future consequences of our current
actions? Perhaps we don't have to look that far ahead. Prior to our invasion
of Iraq, we controlled the country from the air. No American lives were
lost; there was no threat from them militarily-they were contained! Now,
young American men and women die almost daily; the country is in utter
chaos; the borders cannot be monitored, consequently undesirables enter
the country consistently, and to top it off Iraq, one of the previously
richest oil producing countries in the world has to have gas imported;
but according to the current administration, Iraq, as well as the united
States are better off!
-
- Nations are governed by "hope and fear";
the latter was responsible for enacting "The Patriot Act" five
weeks after 911. The civil liberties trounced upon by the newly enacted
law could be the ingredients for a fictional novel, as one finds it hard
to believe that this could and can be happening in the United States of
America!
-
- The initial, as well as the continuing monetary
costs (about 4 billion a month) of occupying Iraq are skyrocketing, and
haven't been added to the estimated 500 billion dollar deficit we currently
face for this year.
-
- As we raise our glasses to toast the end of the
year; as we look back over what took place; and inevitably as we ponder
the events of 911, let's hope that we can look further back, past our government
and media's memory block and realize the consequences of our elected officials'
actions. Let us hope to learn from our past mistakes and make decisions
based on hope instead of fear. Let us learn to take time in making these
decisions, and realize the long-term effects from short term goals; let
us hope we can apply this wisdom to the New Year.
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