Something Heavy Going Down -- Remix

From Something Heavy Going Down, Part I:

From an article entitled February 27, 1993: WTC Engineer Says Building Would Survive Jumbo Jet Hitting It:

In the wake of the WTC bombing, the Seattle Times interviews John Skilling who was one of the two structural engineers responsible for designing the Trade Center. Skilling recounts his people having carried out an analysis which found the twin towers could withstand the impact of a Boeing 707. He says, "Our analysis indicated the biggest problem would be the fact that all the fuel (from the airplane) would dump into the building. There would be a horrendous fire. A lot of people would be killed." But, he says, "The building structure would still be there." [Seattle Times, 2/27/1993] The analysis Skilling is referring to is likely one done in early 1964, during the design phase of the towers. A three-page white paper, dated February 3, 1964, described its findings: "The buildings have been investigated and found to be safe in an assumed collision with a large jet airliner (Boeing 707—DC 8) traveling at 600 miles per hour. Analysis indicates that such collision would result in only local damage which could not cause collapse or substantial damage to the building and would not endanger the lives and safety of occupants not in the immediate area of impact."

[snip]

Here are excerpts from the February 27, 1993, Seattle Times article (cited as a source in the first quote) Twin Towers Engineered To Withstand Jet Collision; the article was written in the wake of the first terrorist attack on the WTC:

Engineers had to consider every peril they could imagine when they designed the World Trade Center three decades ago because, at the time, the twin towers were of unprecedented size for structures made of steel and glass.

"We looked at every possible thing we could think of that could happen to the buildings, even to the extent of an airplane hitting the side," said John Skilling, head structural engineer. "However, back in those days people didn't think about terrorists very much."

The article says "Skilling ... is among the world's top structural engineers." Because of a previous incident where an aircraft collided with the Empire State Building, the design team considered the possibility of an airliner crashing into the twin towers. As mentioned in a previous quote, it was believed the buildings would survive. In a comment about the February, 1993 WTC bombing, the article states:

Skilling - a recognized expert in tall buildings - doesn't think a single 200-pound car bomb would topple or do major structural damage to a Trade Center tower. The supporting columns are closely spaced and even if several were disabled, the others would carry the load.

"However," he added, "I'm not saying that properly applied explosives - shaped explosives - of that magnitude could not do a tremendous amount of damage."

Chillingly, the article concludes:

Although Skilling is not an explosives expert, he says there are people who do know enough about building demolition to bring a structure like the Trade Center down.

"I would imagine that if you took the top expert in that type of work and gave him the assignment of bringing these buildings down with explosives, I would bet that he could do it."

From Nine-Eleven Remix (see also Something Heavy Going Down, Part II):

Battalion Chief Brian Dixon

it actually looked -- the lowest floor of fire in the south tower actually looked like someone had planted explosives around it because the whole bottom I could see -- I could see two sides of it and the other side -- it just looked like that floor blew out.


Firefighter Christopher Fenyo

At that point a debate began to rage because the perception was that the building looked like it had been taken out with charges.


Battalion Chief Dominick DeRubbio

It was weird how it started to come down. It looked like it was a timed explosion


Paramedic Daniel Rivera

At first thought it was -- do you ever see professional demolition where they set the charges on certain floors and then you hear "Pop, pop, pop, pop, pop"? That's exactly what -- because I thought it was that.


Firefighter Edward Cachia

It actually gave at a lower floor, not the floor where the plane hit, because we originally had thought there was like an internal detonation explosives because it went in succession, boom, boom, boom, boom, and then the tower came down.


Chief Frank Cruthers

there was what appeared to be at first an explosion. It appeared at the very top, simultaneously from all four sides, materials shot out horizontally. And then there seemed to be a momentary delay before you could see the beginning of the collapse.


Firefighter James Curran

everything was getting blown out of the floors before it actually collapsed


Captain Karin Deshore

Somewhere around the middle of the World Trade Center, there was this orange and red flash coming out. Initially it was just one flash. Then this flash just kept popping all the way around the building and that building had started to explode. The popping sound, and with each popping sound it was initially an orange and then a red flash came out of the building and then it would just go all around the building on both sides as far as I could see. These popping sounds and the explosions were getting bigger, going both up and down and then all around the building.


Firefighter Kenneth Rogers

One floor under another after another and when it hit about the fifth floor, I figured it was a bomb, because it looked like a synchronized deliberate kind of thing. I was there in '93.


Firefighter Richard Banaciski

It seemed like on television they blow up these buildings. It seemed like it was going all the way around like a belt, all these explosions.


Assistant Commissioner Stephen Gregory

You know like when they demolish a building, how when they blow up a building, when it falls down? That's what I thought I saw.


Deputy Commissioner Thomas Fitzpatrick

My initial reaction was that this was exactly the way it looks when they show you those implosions on TV.

From Cracking the Case: An Interview With Sibel Edmonds by Scott Horton, August 22, 2005:

SE: This informant provided very specific information about the attacks. The other had to do with certain information the FBI had in July and August 2001, where blueprints and building composites of certain skyscrapers were being sent to certain Middle Eastern countries, and many more information was just omitted.

From the comments to Nine-Eleven Remix:

Russet Shadows said...
I had no idea that you were a "truther". Take me off your blogroll immediately, because by the time you read this, you will be off mine.

September 11, 2007 3:42 PM

____________________

I stand on principle, not on politics or popularity.

I think for myself.

The government is lying -- Republicans and Democrats, the Bush Administration and Congress, the 9/11 Commission -- the whole Washington crowd is lying.


And I know why.


From 'The Stakes Are Too High for Us to Stop Fighting Now' An interview with FBI whistleblower Sibel Edmonds by Christopher Deliso August 15, 2005:

CD: You think they [the government] know who they are, the top guys, and where?

SE: Oh yeah, they know.

CD: So why don't they get them?

SE: It's like I told you before -- this would upset "certain foreign relations." But it would also expose certain of our elected officials, who have significant connections with high-level drugs- and weapons-smuggling -- and thus with the criminal underground, even with the terrorists themselves.

Bushfire, Part 4

Continued from Part 3

But I hold back

Halliburton Iraq contract expands May 7, 2003

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The Army Corps of Engineers says a contract awarded without competition to a subsidiary of Halliburton included not only putting out oil well fires in Iraq but also "operation of facilities and distribution of products."

Officials previously have said the multi-million dollar contract only dealt with putting out oil well fires and performing emergency repairs as needed.

The awarding of the contract in March prompted some lawmakers, including Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., to question whether the administration's deep ties with Halliburton helped secure the contract -- charges the White House has adamantly denied. Vice President Dick Cheney formerly ran the company.

Get away from the heat

What Went Wrong with the Rebuilding of Iraq? May 16, 2007

Bremer defended his action, suggesting it was naïve to try to impose Western-style accounting practices in Iraq during a war. Several investigations led by Stuart Bowen, the special inspector-general for Iraq reconstruction, have found that the reconstruction effort was riddled with waste, fraud, corruption and shoddy construction. Bowen told NPR's All Things Considered about one particularly bad construction site he investigated -- a $75 million police training academy built by Parsons Corp.

"Essentially, when they put in the plumbing, they had no fittings, so they just joined plumbing pipes, cemented them together," he said. "The connections burst once they started to be used, and the sewage thus leaked from the bathrooms down through the building -- and into light fixtures and through the ceilings."

Hold back

Cracking the Case: An Interview With Sibel Edmonds August 22, 2005

SE: Sure. And believe me, once they lift the state-secrets privilege and once the court case actually begins and we have the witnesses and we can subpoena documents, it will be public. And it will be major. And it would make the AIPAC case look lame, actually.

SH: Oh, it will make the AIPAC case look lame?

SE: Correct.

In my field of vision

What Went Wrong with the Rebuilding of Iraq? May 16, 2007

There is little to show for the tens of billions of dollars spent over the last four years to rebuild Iraq. Plans that began with high hopes and were aimed at improving everything from Iraq's dilapidated infrastructure to its health care and education systems have instead become mired in corruption, waste and mismanagement.

Shortly after Baghdad fell in 2003, huge contracts were awarded to several U.S. companies. Some were no-bid, such as the $1.4 billion contract handed to Halliburton to rebuild Iraq's oil industry. For other contracts, there was limited competition.

Hold back

Interview: L. Paul Bremer, III June & August, 2006

We had to help the Iraqis rebuild their economy. Here we had some successes, not as much as I would have liked. It was very difficult to get the major amount of money that the American taxpayers have committed to Iraq spent while I was there. Less than 1 percent of the $18 billion had been spent on reconstruction by the time I left, which was very frustrating. But we had spent billions of Iraqi dollars, funds from the Iraqi government, on reconstruction. We had spent almost a billion dollars through very small projects that the military commanders ran. We had some progress there.

I see smoke

What Went Wrong with the Rebuilding of Iraq? May 16, 2007

The United States is trying to pressure Iraqis to do more for themselves, including spending their own money.

Iraq's proposed budget for 2007 is more than $40 billion.

Smoke in your eyes

For sale: West's deadly nuclear secrets January 6, 2008

Among the hours of covert tape recordings, she says she heard evidence that one well-known senior official in the US State Department was being paid by Turkish agents in Washington who were selling the information on to black market buyers, including Pakistan.

The name of the official -- who has held a series of top government posts -- is known to The Sunday Times. He strongly denies the claims.

However, Edmonds said: "He was aiding foreign operatives against US interests by passing them highly classified information, not only from the State Department but also from the Pentagon, in exchange for money, position and political objectives."

Bushfire

How the US sent $12bn in cash to Iraq. And watched it vanish February 8, 2007

However, evidence before the committee suggests that senior American officials were unconcerned about the situation because the billions were not US taxpayers' money. Paul Bremer, the head of the CPA, reminded the committee that "the subject of today's hearing is the CPA's use and accounting for funds belonging to the Iraqi people held in the so-called Development Fund for Iraq. These are not appropriated American funds. They are Iraqi funds. I believe the CPA discharged its responsibilities to manage these Iraqi funds on behalf of the Iraqi people."

Bremer's financial adviser, retired Admiral David Oliver, is even more direct. The memorandum quotes an interview with the BBC World Service. Asked what had happened to the $8.8bn he replied: "I have no idea. I can't tell you whether or not the money went to the right things or didn't -- nor do I actually think it's important."

Bushfire

The Shadow Realm (Part 3) October 16, 2007

The Left screams about oil as the reason for the war in Iraq, and oil certainly plays a part. Some on the Left scream about profiteering, and this, too, was a big factor in the invasion. But, consistently overlooked are the ties between corrupt elements in the US government and heroin-trafficking cartels in Central and Southwest Asia. One important reason for the Iraq invasion was to destabilize the region sufficiently to create the conditions necessary for the movement of the new bumper crops of opiate products from Afghanistan to Turkey, and 363 tons of US money were flown in to Iraq to pay for it all -- profiteering, terrorism and instability, heroin, everything -- with untainted money.

Bushfire

How the US sent $12bn in cash to Iraq. And watched it vanish February 8, 2007

Q: "But the fact is billions of dollars have disappeared without trace."

Oliver: "Of their money. Billions of dollars of their money, yeah I understand. I'm saying what difference does it make?"

The landscape's burning red (Bushfire)

One More Reason to Win - Let Sibel Edmonds Speak October 30, 2006

Yet, fellow FBI translator Malek Can Dickerson, who had encouraged Sibel to join the ATC, was suppressing intelligence Edmonds was uncovering regarding these front groups and their relationship to "certain allies and American business interests" in deference to the very organizations that the FBI had under investigation.

One can look back at the names mentioned in this criminal activity and notice that many of the players were involved in the more glamorous stories in the news over the past years. Armitage (MIC Inc./PNAC) leaking the name of a CIA operative who was investigating arms trafficking to Iran and Feith and Perle (IA Inc./PNAC) who were instrumental in the invasion of Iraq and who are together with Michael Ansari (MIC Inc.) pushing for an attack on Iran are just four of the most notorious examples.

It's red hot (Bushfire)

Taliban rejects Bush's 'second chance' offer October 13, 2001

Afghanistan's ruling Taliban has rejected President George W. Bush's "second chance" offer to surrender terrorist suspect Osama bin Laden, the Afghan embassy in Islamabad said today.

President Bush told a news conference on Thursday that if the Taliban "cough him up and his people today" then the United States will "reconsider what we're doing to your country. You still have a second chance," Bush said. "Just bring him in, and bring his leaders and lieutenants and other thugs and criminals with him."

The landscape's burning red hot (Bushfire)

The Shadow Realm (Part 7) November 8, 2007

In the wake of the first attempt on the World Trade Center, blueprints for certain US skyscrapers went to the Middle East, and the FBI eventually heard of this. The FBI also heard that terrorists were planning to crash airliners into tall buildings in the US -- all before 9/11. Law enforcement and the US intelligence community did nothing; the information was suppressed, and not allowed to flow freely throughout the US government agencies that could have done something.

Why?

The landscape is red hot (Bushfire)

Bush pledges to get bin Laden, dead or alive December 14, 2001

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Bush pledged anew Friday that Osama bin Laden will be taken "dead or alive," no matter how long it takes, amid indications that the suspected terrorist may be bottled up in a rugged Afghan canyon. The president, in an Oval Office meeting with Thailand's prime minister, would not predict the timing of bin Laden's capture but said he doesn't care how the suspect is brought to justice. "I don't care, dead or alive -- either way," Bush said. "It doesn't matter to me."

Hold me in a field of molten flowers (Bushfire)

For sale: West’s deadly nuclear secrets January 6, 2008

She claims that the FBI was also gathering evidence against senior Pentagon officials -- including household names -- who were aiding foreign agents.

"If you made public all the information that the FBI have on this case, you will see very high-level people going through criminal trials," she said.

Hold me in a field of molten flowers (Bushfire)

CNN EVANS, NOVAK, HUNT & SHIELDS: Interview With General Richard Myers April 6, 2002

HUNT: The Big Question for General Myers: One embarrassment for the U.S. has been that, in almost seven months after 9/11, we still haven't captured Osama bin Laden. With the apprehension this week of one of his top lieutenants, have we gotten enough information to be any closer to maybe finally getting bin Laden?

MYERS: Well, if you remember, if we go back to the beginning of this segment, the goal has never been to get bin Laden. Obviously, that's desirable.

Take me to the ground (Bushfire)

The Twilight Zone, Part 3 February 23, 2008

The terrorists on 9/11 thought they were martyring themselves for Allah, but they had been duped -- all they were really doing was covering up someone's scheme to simultaneously start a profitable war, gain control over the heroin industry, and launder the proceeds of organized crime...

Mostly heroin money... laundered in stock trades pushed through the computers in the WTC during the attack...

[snip]

And when the bad guys were done, they imploded the Twin Towers and WTC-7 to cover their trail.

Hold me, hold me, hold me

Former FBI Translator Sibel Edmonds Calls Current 9/11 Investigation Inadequate May 07, 2004

SE: [snip] If they were to do real investigations we would see several significant high level criminal prosecutions in this country. And that is something that they are not going to let out. And, believe me; they will do everything to cover this up.

The Twilight Zone, Part 3

(Continued from Part 2)

In what was obviously a set-up to lure her back to Pakistan and get her out in the open where they could take a shot at her, Benazir Bhutto was assassinated.

Help, I'm stepping into the Twilight Zone

She was too westernized, too liberal. She was killed by militant Islamic extremists. What do you expect? After all, we're in the midst of a War on Terror.

And we believe that...

The place is a madhouse

Pakistan's ISI helped the US support the jihad against the Soviets in Afghanistan, in part by helping arrange funding -- by trafficking heroin.

Destroy the Red Army through heroin addiction...

Covert money for covert ops... out of reach of Congress...

Feels like being cloned

The 9/11 operation was beyond the capability of a terrorist group that does not have a state sponsor. A terrorist group may have been the junior partner in the operation, but it needed help.

Pakistan's ISI is very professional, very capable -- and its leader at the time was connected to a significant money transfer to the 9/11 terrorists shortly before the attack.

Sibel Edmonds commented on the Turkish-language materials she encountered, how there was a buzz before 9/11 that something big was up, that blueprints for US skyscrapers had gone to some place in the Middle East...

My beacon's been moved

Elements in Pakistan have been involved in the nuclear blackmarket -- the same industry that the Turkish Deep State dabbles in.

Those elements in Pakistan are also connected to Communist China, from whom they got substantial help for their nuclear program, including detailed blueprints and assembly diagrams for nuclear bombs with instructions in Chinese.

"The PRC has stolen classified information on every currently deployed thermonuclear warhead in the U.S. ICBM arsenal."

Under moon and star

Al Qaeda is now believed to have some nuclear weapons, and to have them here inside the United States.

But, any investigation into Al Qaeda's nukes will lead to Pakistan's A. Q. Khan network, and from there to China and places in the Middle East -- and then to Washington.

Where am I to go

The attacks on 9/11 hit the World Trade Center, which houses firms that are involved in financial activities, such as stock trades.

During the attack, while the buildings were burning, the computers in the stock firms continued to work...

Now that I've gone too far?

Somebody pushed stock trades through those computers while everyone was distracted...

A lot of stock trades...

Help, I'm stepping into the Twilight Zone

WTC-7 housed, among other things, the offices of important government agencies that investigate financial and white collar crime.

WTC-7 collapsed that afternoon, even though it wasn't hit by a plane...

The place is a madhouse

The Twin Towers were engineered to survive the impact of a Boeing 707 fully loaded with fuel...

In fact, each tower could have survived multiple hits by 707's full of fuel...

Feels like being cloned

Yet, in collapses that looked remarkably like controlled implosions, three skyscrapers came down, supposedly due to the impact of two aircraft...

There was no real investigation of this catastrophe -- the rubble was cleared as fast as possible, under suspicious circumstances...

My beacon's been moved

The narcotics come from Afghanistan, where the drug cartels have experienced a tremendous surge in activity, now not only producing more than 90% of the world's supply of opiates, but actually refining it within Afghanistan -- a quantitative and qualitative leap made under the watchful eyes of US and NATO military power, the same military forces that have been backing Islamic terrorists in their bids for independence first in Bosnia, and now in Kosovo.

Over 90% of a trillion-dollar-a-year industry...

Under moon and star

Much of the heroin is moved through Turkey and within Europe by Turkish government personnel with diplomatic credentials -- the so-called Turkish Deep State, the same organized crime cartel that has US government officials in Congress, in the State and Defense Departments, and in the Federal Bureau of Investigation on its payroll.

The Albanian mafia, much of which is based in Kosovo and is very connected to terrorists and to Kosovo's new government, is also a major player, not just for heroin, but for weapons, sex slaves and other contraband.

Where am I to go

A backlog of Turkish-language FBI intercepts from before 9/11 had a buzz that the attack was coming.

In the Summer of 2001, the FBI noticed that Islamic extremists with no corresponding background were learning how to fly airliners.

Now that I've gone too far?

The FBI was alerted that a hijacked airliner could be used as a bomb, and passed that information on to the President's Secret Service detail.

US intelligence agencies were aware of a dozen similar plots in the previous decade by Islamic terrorists.

Soon you will come to know

Then-National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice, of Communist-China-proliferation-fame, stated:

I don't think anybody could have predicted that these same people would take an airplane and slam it into the World Trade Center, taken another one and slam it into the Pentagon; that they would try to use an airplane as a missile, a hijacked airplane as a missile.

When the bullet hits the bone

The terrorists on 9/11 thought they were martyring themselves for Allah, but they had been duped -- all they were really doing was covering up someone's scheme to simultaneously start a profitable war, gain control over the heroin industry, and launder the proceeds of organized crime...

Mostly heroin money... laundered in stock trades pushed through the computers in the WTC during the attack...

(And laundered during the War on Terror after the attack...)

By the billions...

Soon you will come to know

And when the bad guys were done, they imploded the Twin Towers and WTC-7 to cover their trail.

When the bullet hits the bone

The Twilight Zone, Part 2

(Continued from Part 1)

Kosovo unilaterally declared its independence from Serbia, and the United States and many other nations quickly recognized the new nation.

In a world turned upside-down, I find myself agreeing with the Kremlin that this is in violation of the applicable UN resolutions and of international law...

I find myself desiring the impeachment and prosecution of an entire Administration -- of "fellow" Republicans!

Help, I'm stepping into the Twilight Zone

Of course, international law is no obstacle for an Administration that has essentially established an extraterritorial system of gulags, in which are held "detainees", to whom the Administration denies fundamental human rights.

If prisoners of war, then they have certain internationally-recognized rights; if terrorists, then as suspected criminals they have certain other rights.

But the Bush Administration has made up its own set of rules regarding how to classify them, so as to deny them any legally-established rights -- and the US Government has been proactive in justifying abusive methods of interrogation.

The place is a madhouse

Waterboarding is, under US law, a war crime; it is a method of torture, and the results it yields are erratic and unreliable, and ultimately counterproductive, both as a form of intelligence collection, and in the realm of public relations.

The terrorists that threaten the world are fanatics, for whom no crime is too great; if it promotes the spread of Islam, they believe any crime will be forgiven by Allah, and they will be allowed into Paradise.

Feels like being cloned

The world is awash in a sea of brutal dictatorships, drowning in cynicism and fear, desperate to believe in America's promise of Liberty and Justice for all...

But now, the Bush Administration writes itself retroactive laws excusing its conduct...

My beacon's been moved

Its supporters justifying the action by saying that the terrorists are worse...

Of course, that's not the point.

Under moon and star

We are the good guys, and our standards should not be allowed to drop.

America is a beacon of hope to all the people in the world, and when America acts in such a manner...

Where am I to go

Then the light in the world dims, and the darkness of oppression and brutality closes in.

Now that I've gone too far?

Within hours after arriving back in Pakistan, Benazir Bhutto was targeted by would-be assassins as two powerful explosions killed and wounded hundreds of people nearby, including fifty security personnel from her own political party. The attacks were blamed on Islamic militants. Careful not to directly finger Pakistan's President Musharraf, who had seized power in a military coup in 1999, Bhutto nonetheless blamed certain government figures who abuse the militants to achieve their own goals -- a powerful indictment in a country where the military and intelligence services have for years trained jihadis and used them as proxies in ongoing low-intensity hostilities with India.

Soon you will come to know

Concerned not just about her safety, but about Pakistani government complicity in the assassination attempts, Bhutto wrote a letter to Musharraf implicating former senior intelligence officers who were close to Musharraf. Bhutto sought additional security from the government, including jammers to counter bombs, tinted windows, and police vehicles. She also requested security from foreign governments and foreign private security firms, but the Pakistani government would not provide visas for security contractors.

US diplomatic contacts did, however, take the unusual step of providing her with sensitive information regarding threats to her security.

When the bullet hits the bone

She later comments that "The extremists need a dictatorship, and dictatorship needs extremists."

Days after making that comment, Bhutto is placed under house arrest, only hours before she was scheduled to lead and address a rally protesting the state of emergency under which Musharraf had been ruling. Bhutto comments that 4000 police are outside her house while she is under house arrest.

Soon you will come to know

That kind of manpower was available to keep her from speaking publicly, but where was it on the day she was assassinated?

As one expert commented:

"It's odd and disturbing that the Pakistan government did not do a better job of protecting her and that the US apparently could not do more to persuade them," said Bruce Riedel, a former CIA officer and former National Security Council director for South Asia. "She made it very clear privately and publicly that she did not have enough security. That was abundantly clear after the attack on her return.

"I can't explain why the Bush administration didn't pressure Musharraf to do more. Her death leaves the US with a Pakistan policy that is completely bankrupt."

When the bullet hits the bone

Bankruptcy of policy depends on which side you are on, and as I investigate this, looking deeper and deeper into matters, looking farther and farther afield for more clues, and following up on leads, I find that the investigation keeps leading back to the same powerful people, to the same powerful interests...

Although each time it does lead back around, it ropes in another unexpected player from another unexpected direction.

I'm falling down a spiral

Following up on why the US government failed to respond adequately to indications that the 9/11 attacks were pending, I now have information connecting the Secretary of State to Communist Chinese espionage operations.

Questioning why the US government would violate international law and UN resolutions to support the independence of Kosovo, I now have information that a US Senator from Arizona has been knowingly backing Islamic terrorists for a decade.

Those terrorists are tied to organized crime syndicates that traffic in weapons, sex slaves and narcotics.

The Sibel Edmonds case is only the very small tip of a very big iceberg.

Destination unknown

Senator Hillary Clinton has taken over $100,000 from a new lobby that serves as a front for Turkish organized crime, and she has been supportive of the process leading to an independent Kosovo. No wonder, her husband supported KLA terrorists in the 1990's as President.

Sibel Edmonds tried to warn America that important US officials have been on the payroll of Turkish organized crime since the 1990's, but when she came forward in 2002, abiding by the law and following procedures, she was fired.

A double-crossed messenger

Her allegations have been investigated by the Department of Justice's Office of the Inspector General, by two US Senators, by 60 Minutes -- true, 60 Minutes only looked at the least incendiary allegations -- but every one of Sibel Edmonds's claims that has been looked into has been substantiated, and none of them have been disproven.

She should get a medal, but instead she was the target of legal action by the Bush Administration, essentially prohibiting her from talking about any of it.

All alone

Congress is too compromised -- too many of them have been bought off by the same people that Edmonds warns us of, Turkish lobbies that front for organized crime, the so-called Turkish Deep State. The Executive Branch, too, is compromised...

Many of those who aren't bought off by Turkish organized crime are bought off by someone else; the remainder have no power.

There is no one in officialdom who will act.

I can't get no connection

The media won't pick up her story.

So, it is up to the blogosphere to keep writing about this and investigating.

I can't get through

But, more has to happen. The American public has to take an interest in this story, and start making it an issue. They need to make this matter get the attention that Congress and the media seem determined to deny it.

Where are you?

If that doesn't happen, then the bad guys win -- and that means "that government of the People, by the People, for the People" shall indeed "perish from this earth".

Well, the night weighs heavy

The plug can get pulled on this in so many ways, because the system is so fragile. If any element collapses, the rest will come down like a house of cards.

It is a very expensive, very profitable house of cards, but a house of cards it is.

On his guilty mind

For example, if Islamic militants now hiding in Pakistan were decisively defeated or the battle against them were otherwise ended, then there would be no more reason to permit the opium trade to flourish in neighboring Afghanistan. Any battlefield success on the part of the US and NATO would eliminate the cover needed for heroin smuggling, and completely gut a 1 trillion-USD-per-year industry...

As well as causing the collapse of corrupt regimes who are tolerated in the name of the War on Terror...

This far from

So anyone who threatens the house of cards has to be stopped...

And Benazir Bhutto was doing just that with her determination to get Osama bin Laden, allowing US military forces into Pakistan if necessary...

The borderline

Lured by the possibility of power-sharing in a new government after elections, her way carpeted by an offer of amnesty for outstanding corruption charges, Benazir Bhutto ran the substantial risk of returning to Pakistan in order to campaign for the planned elections.

When the hitman comes

She was then assassinated in an operation staged in Rawalpindi, an important Pakistani city, home or past home to Pakistan's military headquarters, Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence, elements of Pakistan's nuclear weapons program, and other important facilities. It is a location that Pakistan's professional security apparatus should be able to secure; in any operation in which they are involved, Pakistani security forces have home-court advantage in "Pindi".

He knows damn well

Yet, somehow Islamic militants slipped in and killed Bhutto -- and the government couldn't prevent it, despite repeated warnings that her life was in danger, despite repeated assassination attempts that killed and wounded hundreds of people, and despite repeated requests for additional security.

That these Islamic militants train in camps associated with the Pakistani military and Pakistan's ISI is an inconvenient fact we aren't supposed to recall.

He has been cheated

It is obvious now that she was set up all along, enticed by the fragrant bait of involvement in an election, and targeted for elimination in such a way as to maintain plausible deniability for the people pulling the strings of her assassination.

(Continued in Part 3)

The Twilight Zone, Part 1

Sitting down at my computer and contemplating what I have learned blogging this past year...

Somewhere in a lonely hotel room

I started out investigating militant Islam, and the threat it poses to the world.

The "Religion of Peace" is centered on texts that continually call for the waging of holy war against non-believers -- and there are too many fanatical followers who interpret those passages quite literally as what they must do to get to paradise...

But, there's something else...

There's a guy starting to realize

The devastating attacks on this country that occurred on September 11, 2001, leaving thousands dead and propelling America forward into a War on Terror...

That eternal fate

A war that would erode our civil rights and international law, as our civilian authorities overrode the advice of career military officers and sent our armed forces and those of our allies careening around the world to battle evil...

Has turned its back on him.

Those attacks were successful, literally against all odds...

They were too successful, miraculously getting past layers of defense, from intelligence officers on watch, to government agents investigating financial irregularities, slipping past state-of-the-art fighter interceptors of the best Air Force in the world, and bringing down skyscrapers that were not only designed but overengineered to survive exactly such a crisis....

It's two AM...

Any one layer of those defenses, if functioning as it should, would have disrupted the attack and caused it to fizzle, perhaps leaving dozens of people dead, but leaving thousands of the attack's would-be victims alive, and resulting in the round-up of dozens of terrorists and the freezing of many millions of dollars' worth of their assets...

It's two AM

And it seems obvious to me that these guys could not have pulled this off alone, but that they had to have had help -- the backing of someone's national intelligence services.

(Two AM)

Someone expert and professional, well-connected, well-financed...

We are told that Al Qaeda acted alone, but I know the most powerful nation ever to exist was not humbled by a bunch of jihadis with boxcutters, terrorizing on a budget.

The fear is gone

The greatest nation on earth, the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave, one nation under God with liberty and justice for all...

Is under attack...

But the attackers have help...

(the fear is gone)

Help from our nation's "allies"...

And help from our nation's own corrupt "public servants"...

"...that government of the People, by the People, for the People shall not perish from this earth."

And I must investigate, and I must write the truth.

I'm sitting here waiting

Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence is tied to Pakistan's Islamic religious schools, known as madrassas. Some of the madrassas receive funding from Saudi Arabia, and preach an extremist form of Deobandi Islam which is similar to the Wahhabi extremism that has been officially sanctioned by the Saudi royal family, according to an agreement reached between Saud and Wahhab centuries ago.

(sitting here waiting)

Some of these extremist madrassas indoctrinate their students with a love of violent jihad against the infidel, preparing them to become mujahideen -- Islamic holy warriors who will seek the defeat of the infidel on earth, and an eternity in Paradise through martyrdom. These madrassas then feed eager recruits to training camps with which they are associated, where the holy warriors learn how to fight.

The gun's still warm

After an agreement was reached granting Benazir Bhutto amnesty in the face of pending corruption charges, the way was cleared for Bhutto, who had previously been Pakistan's prime minister on two occasions, to return to Pakistan for upcoming elections that were expected in late 2007 or early 2008.

We are told that Pakistani forces can't get the Taliban out of Pakistani territory near the border, nor can they find bin Laden. We are told that neither can the US go in and get them without fear of destabilizing Musharraf, and driving Pakistan into the hands of the extremists.

What we are not told about is the role played by Musharraf and key elements in Pakistan's government in setting up and perpetuating the extremist problem.

(the gun's still warm)

But now Bhutto, who is pro-Western and very popular in Pakistan, says "I would hope that I would be able to take Osama bin Laden myself without depending on the Americans. But if I couldn't do it, of course we [Pakistan and US] are fighting this war together and [I] would seek their co-operation in eliminating him."

Of course, if this happens, the extremist-sympathizers who now run Pakistan will have their bluff called.

Bhutto finalizes her plans for the upcoming election campaign; monitoring this, others finalize their plans, as well.

Maybe my connection

In the aftermath of 9/11, Sibel Edmonds sought to do her patriotic duty for her new country, and looked into offering her services as a translator to the FBI. She had previously applied, but the application was not acted on. Now, with a sense of urgency, the FBI puts her to work reviewing a backlog of material that had been piling up for years. Much of the backlogged material is in Turkish, Sibel's native language; dealing with bribery, corruption, narcotics trafficking and other areas of FBI concern, some of it also pertains to the recent terrorist attacks that shocked the world and launched the War on Terror.

Is tired of taking chances

While reviewing these documents and working in a room full of other translators who, in turn, have access to materials that literally give a global perspective on the threat facing America, Sibel comes across information -- raw, unfiltered, without any spin, yet correlated to other information and related to investigations she is supporting -- that shows elements in the US government knew, prior to 9/11, that Al Qaeda was going to attack American cities with airplanes. Moreover, she also saw evidence that plans for US skyscrapers had gone to some place in the Middle East, also in the months leading up to 9/11's devastating attacks.

Most importantly, though, she saw something else...

Yeah, there's a storm on the loose

High-ranking US government officials, including elected members of Congress from both parties, and including appointed officials in the State and Defense Departments, were on the payroll of Turkish organized crime. These Turkish mobsters were trafficking heroin, arms, and other contraband -- including information from the US nuclear weapons program for the world's nuclear blackmarket. And, people in the Federal Bureau of Investigation -- people sitting just a short distance away from Sibel -- were involved, on the payroll of these Turkish mafiosos, derailing investigations and burying critical intelligence information -- preventing our hard-working, brave FBI agents in the field from protecting America.

Sirens in my head

The reality of this became glaringly apparent one weekend when a colleague of hers from the FBI brought her husband over to the Edmonds' residence. Melek Can Dickerson's husband, a US Air Force officer, tried to recruit Sibel to work for an organization that fronts for the Turkish mafia: the American Turkish Council. Nervous about the ramifications of what she was hearing, legally unable to explain it to her own husband at all, and certainly not in the presence of their visitors, Sibel tries to divert the conversation to other topics, as she anticipates her duty of reporting this incident at the FBI.

But her reports are rebuffed, her family back in Turkey is threatened -- and, finally, Sibel is fired, literally escorted out of the building, after having spent only a few months reviewing and translating information at the FBI's Washington Field office.

Wrapped up in silence

Sibel takes the matter through channels, to the Department of Justice's Office of the Inspector General, to elected members of Congress, and finally to the media. Her story is examined by all; what is looked at is confirmed, and none of her accusations are disproven. But, despite this, the story dies.

Finally, the matter winds up in court, but representatives of the Bush Administration's Department of Justice appear in the courtroom, and Sibel Edmonds and her attorneys are asked to leave. When they are finally allowed back into the courtroom, it is to be told that the case is dead -- the government has imposed State Secrets Privilege, shutting the case down completely; technically, even Sibel Edmond's date and place of birth are considered sensitive information, the release of which would supposedly damage national security.

All circuits are dead

Meanwhile, not knowing where else to turn, both Sibel and those who know about and are following her case ponder what this could mean. But, Sibel knows -- it is not to protect national security, but rather to cover up their own criminal conduct that corrupt elements in the government have made her the most gagged person in US history.

I cannot decode

Afghanistan under the Taliban was a brutally oppressive place, especially for women, who were treated as sub-humans, devoid of the rights any person is entitled to. Afghanistan was also a nest of radical Islamic militants, who exported their holy war around the world as they sought to force submission on mankind, or achieve martyrdom and an eternity in paradise in the arms of virgins through their efforts.

But, the Taliban had been effective in reducing the production of opiates in Afghanistan, thus diminishing the supply of heroin on the world's market.

Now, however, in the wake of the 2001 American-led invasion to oust the Taliban, opium production has been reborn, and Afghanistan produces over 90% of the world's supply. On top of that, whereas Afghanistan once exported only raw opium, now heroin is refined within the country, and shipped to market along the old Silk Road...

My whole life spins into a frenzy

The Silk Road, so much of which is now protected by a new string of US military bases established since 9/11 in the War on Terror...

And I recall the connections Sibel Edmonds warned about -- that Turkish organized crime figures who are involved in the heroin trade are paying off US government officials, giving them money now and promises of a worry-free retirement later, if only...

Help, I'm stepping into the Twilight Zone

Suddenly, as the realization sinks in, it all makes sense...

The heroin moves through the Balkans on its way to market in Western Europe, and that explains why the US is siding with Islamic extremists, first in Bosnia, then in Kosovo -- the War on Terror is just a smokescreen for corruption in the highest circles of the US government.

The place is a madhouse

Islamic militants are a serious threat -- not just to America, but to the rest of the world, most especially to other Muslims; yet, in this War on Terror, we have been siding with the Islamic terrorists in the Balkans, because they are helping move the heroin.

Of course, oil and natural gas can be found in the Caspian Basin in great quantities, and they need to move to market in pipelines through these same areas, so that becomes another layer of the matter.

Feels like being cloned

The War on Terror is a charade: scratch it once, it comes up Big Oil; scratch it twice, it comes up Big Heroin.

Furthermore, there's profiteering going on -- big government contracts to provide various services -- feeding the troops, providing security guards for important facilities, rebuilding wartorn countries...

My beacon's been moved

Our troops are dying, battling an endless supply of jihadis, who themselves are being exploited; but our troops are not allowed to win, because the instability benefits the movement of heroin, and ongoing hostilities mean ongoing government contracts to the profiteers.

Under moon and star

How far does this go?

I investigate, and keep coming up with new names, new connections, new twists to the plot, but the basic answers don't change...

Heroin, the nuclear black market, arms trafficking, oil, corruption and terror...

Where am I to go

Congress has been compromised, the FBI has been infiltrated, and the Executive Branch is in bed with Big Oil and the war profiteers -- except for strategically placed officials who are on the payroll of heroin traffickers.

And the media is shamefully and conspicuously silent...

Now that I've gone too far?

(Continued in Part 2)

Next Stop: Twilight Zone

From Chris Deliso's interview with Sibel Edmonds, 'The Stakes Are Too High for Us to Stop Fighting Now', August 15, 2005:

SE: Look, I think that that [the AIPAC investigation] ultimately involves more than just Israelis – I am talking about countries, not a single country here. Because despite however it may appear, this is not just a simple matter of state espionage. If Fitzgerald and his team keep pulling, really pulling, they are going to reel in much more than just a few guys spying for Israel.

CD: A monster, 600-pound catfish, huh? So the Turkish and Israeli investigations had some overlap?

SE: Essentially, there is only one investigation – a very big one, an all-inclusive one. Completely by chance, I, a lowly translator, stumbled over one piece of it.

But I can tell you there are a lot of people involved, a lot of ranking officials, and a lot of illegal activities that include multi-billion-dollar drug-smuggling operations, black-market nuclear sales to terrorists and unsavory regimes, you name it. And of course a lot of people from abroad are involved. It's massive. So to do this investigation, to really do it, they will have to look into everything.

CD: But you can start from anywhere –

SE: That's the beauty of it. You can start from the AIPAC angle. You can start from the Plame case. You can start from my case. They all end up going to the same place, and they revolve around the same nucleus of people. There may be a lot of them, but it is one group. And they are very dangerous for all of us.

From a post at Lukery's blog, Sibel Edmonds Case: the untellable story of AIPAC:

Of course, Sibel would prefer to testify under oath in congress, but apparently our Democratic Congresscritters (I'm looking at you, Waxman) don't care about the treason, bribery, and corruption that has hijacked US foreign policy.

From a post at Lukery's blog, Sibel Edmonds Case: the untellable story of AIPAC:

Those of you who have been following Sibel's case will be familiar with the American Turkish Council (ATC) - the 'mini-AIPAC' that (ostensibly) exists to promote Turkey's military interests in the US.

As it happens, the ATC is a creation of AIPAC (and other Israeli lobbying interests) - and there is significant overlap in the membership, goals and activities of both AIPAC and the ATC. This is perhaps not surprising given the long-standing tri-lateral military (and military 'defense' spending) relationship between the three countries. In fact, Sibel refers to AIPAC and the ATC as 'sister organizations.'

Not only were the ATC and AIPAC 'sister organizations,' they also had something else in common: there have been 'sister investigations' into both organizations. And of course, both investigations uncovered serious criminality at the highest levels of the US administration - Congress, the Pentagon and the State Department.

From Chris Deliso's interview with Sibel Edmonds, An Interview with Sibel Edmonds (Page Two), July 1, 2004:

SE: These are organizations that might have a legitimate front – say as a business, or a cultural center or something. And we've also heard a lot about Islamic charities as fronts for terrorist organizations, but the range is much broader and even, simpler.

CD: For example?

SE: You might have an organization supposed to be promoting the cultural affairs of a certain country within another country. Hypothetically, say, an Uzbek folklore society based in Germany. The stated purpose would be to hold folklore-related activities – and they might even do that – but the real activities taking place behind the scenes are criminal.

CD: Such as?

SE: Everything – from drugs to money laundering to arms sales. And yes, there are certain convergences with all these activities and international terrorism.

CD: So with these organizations we're talking about a lot of money –

SE: Huge, just massive. They don't deal with 1 million or 5 million dollars, but with hundreds of millions.

From Chris Deliso's interview with Sibel Edmonds, An Interview with Sibel Edmonds (Page Two), July 1, 2004:

CD: Did you have any idea at the time about her suspect allegiances?

SE: I had no idea at first. It was only after some suspicious behavior and then her and her husband's unannounced visit to our house that everything became clear.

One day in December [2001], my husband and I were at our home in Alexandria, Va., when the doorbell rang. It was Jan and Doug Dickerson. They also lived in Alexandria, so I didn't think of it as suspicious at first. I think the point for her was to introduce her husband to mine. We invited them in for coffee, and –

CD: She started trying to recruit you for their illegal activities?

SE: No, actually she herself did not. It was the husband who started talking about this semi-legitimate organization: "Hey, have you ever heard of this group?" he said, casually mentioning this organization to my husband. He replied, "Yeah, I know about them." And I started sweating, because I knew this organization was under FBI investigation, and I was by law not allowed to discuss anything about it with my husband.

From Chris Deliso's interview with Sibel Edmonds, An Interview with Sibel Edmonds (Page Two), July 1, 2004:

SE: Yes, as I said, a legitimate front. And Dickerson asked my husband if he'd ever thought of joining the organization.

CD: So there was something socially desirable about belonging in this group?

SE: Correct. And so my husband was kind of surprised, you know, because this wasn't the sort of group just anyone could belong to. "But I thought you had to be such and such a person, with such and such connections and references to get in," my husband was saying.

And then Major Douglas Dickerson smiled and pointed at me. "All you have to do is tell them where your wife works and what she does, and they will let you in like that," he said [snapping his fingers]. They wanted to sell me for the information I could provide, basically.

CD: What did you take this to mean? You would have to hand over classified FBI information –

SE: Correct. The information I could give these people would be worth a lot of money.

CD: And what would you get out of it?

SE: Well, money, and we could leave the country, you know, live a very comfortable life wherever we wanted. We would never have to work again, they promised.

From Chris Deliso's interview with Sibel Edmonds, 'The Stakes Are Too High for Us to Stop Fighting Now', August 15, 2005:

CD: Okay, so when the drugs –

SE: Not only drugs.

CD: Okay, so when whatever kinds of criminal contraband enter the U.S., then what happens to it?

SE: They are circulated by huge front companies. Of course, these companies often have a legitimate side to their businesses; maybe even the majority of their business is aboveboard. In this way, they arouse less suspicion. Say if it was, I don't know, a textiles company in Delaware. The stuff comes into port, and when it comes off the boat they open it up, and –

CD: "Hey, great, more textiles!" Something like that?

SE: Sure. And then it gets sent everywhere, through other companies in other cities, other front companies under different owners or even different branches of the same company. They could be anywhere, Denver, Detroit, San Diego, and everywhere in between.

CD: It sounds very sophisticated.

From Organizing in Politics:

WHO IS G. LINCOLN McCURDY?

G. Lincoln McCurdy has over 30 years of leadership and management experience in both U.S. government service and the private sector. He has extensive experience in dealing with bi-national boards; working with senior officials of the governments and military of the United States and Turkey; leading trade/investment missions and U.S. congressional delegations to Turkey; co-sponsoring activities with the State and Commerce Departments, Environmental Protection Agency, Smithsonian Institute and National Public Radio; and fundraising.

He served as the senior advisor to the Turkish American Chamber of Commerce and Industry in New York in 2005 and 2006. McCurdy was the president and chief executive officer, 1998 - 2004, and executive director, 1989 – 1998, of the American-Turkish Council (ATC) in Washington, the leading business association in the United States devoted to the promotion of U.S.-Turkish commercial, defense and cultural relations. He received ATC’s Distinguished Career Award in 2005. Before joining ATC, Mr. McCurdy served in the American Consulate General in Istanbul as the Consul for Commercial Affairs, 1980 – 1984.

From Chris Deliso's interview with Sibel Edmonds, An Interview with Sibel Edmonds (Page Two), July 1, 2004:

SE: I can't say anything specific with regards to these departments, because I didn't work for them. But as for the politicians, what I can say is that when you start talking about huge amounts of money, certain elected officials become automatically involved. And there are different kinds of campaign contributions – legal and illegal, declared and undeclared.

From Chris Deliso's interview with Sibel Edmonds, 'The Stakes Are Too High for Us to Stop Fighting Now', August 15, 2005:

CD: You think they [the government] know who they are, the top guys, and where?

SE: Oh yeah, they know.

CD: So why don't they get them?

SE: It's like I told you before – this would upset "certain foreign relations." But it would also expose certain of our elected officials, who have significant connections with high-level drugs- and weapons-smuggling – and thus with the criminal underground, even with the terrorists themselves.

From Sibel Edmonds Official Website:

"As the widow of FireFighter Robert J. Minara who gave his life on 9/11/01 so that others would be saved, I deserve to have full accountability for the tragedy that affected me and thousands of people."
Paula A. Minara

"Nothing can ease the pain of losing our son, Stewart Harris, in this horrific tragedy. We, as parents, are entitled to know all the actual facts. This report MUST be released."
Mildred & R. Jay Harris

"'Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored.' In loving memory of our beloved son, Nicholas C. Lassman. {Tower 1}"
Ira & Laura Lassman

"I'm a 9/11 mom who lost her only daughter, Michelle at WTC#2 & want the truth to come out."
Julie Scarpitta

"I was injured at the Pentagon. I need to know the truth."
William K. Wright

There's a sign
at the end of the road
that says
NEXT STOP:
TWILIGHT ZONE

Pakistan's Madrassas, Part 3

We continue from Part 2 reviewing Learning from Pakistan's madrassas by Kaushik Kapisthalam, June 23, 2004:

Pakistani governments had grown comfortable spending massive amounts of money on defense and almost nothing on education during the days of Afghan jihad when US and Saudi aid flowed freely. In the 1990s, after US-imposed sanctions due to Pakistan's nuclear program, the economy almost collapsed and the education infrastructure deteriorated rapidly.

For the poor, the madrassas offered a place where their children could get free boarding, food and education, and it turned out to be an irresistible option when compared to crumbling or non-existent government-funded secular schools. Pakistani governments also encouraged this to avoid spending much on education. The sheer magnitude of this increase can be fathomed by this simple statistic: according to former Pakistani diplomat Hussain Haqqani, only 7,000 Pakistani children attended madrassas as early as 20 years ago. That number has grown today to closer to 2 million, by conservative estimates.

In the United States, many voters have the impression that we are spending more and more on a public school system that gives results that are less and less satisfactory; many families wish they could send their children to school in a place where the family's values will be respected and reinforced, not attacked by unfriendly policies and eroded by bad influences. Perhaps considering our concerns in the United States will help some of my American readers to better conceptualize the attractiveness of the madrassas for people in Pakistan.

The Pakistani army on its part saw the large number of madrassa-trained jihadis as an asset for its covert support of the Taliban in Afghanistan, as well as its proxy war with India in Kashmir. While the NWFP madrassas supplied both Afghan refugees and Pakistanis as cannon fodder for the Taliban, the Binori madrassa and associated ones formed the base for Deobandi groups like Harkat-ul-Mujahideen and Jaish-e-Mohammed, which sought to do the Pakistan army's bidding in Kashmir. The many Ahle-Hadith seminaries supplied Salafi groups like the Lashkar-e-Taiba. Arab sheikhs funded madrassas in the Rahimyar Khan area of rural Punjab, which formed the backbone of hardcore anti-Shi'ite jihadi groups like the Sipah-e-Sahaba, and its even more militant offshoot the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi. All these groups shared training camps and other facilities under the aegis of Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence(ISI).

So, mujahideen who had military- or paramilitary-style training -- perhaps not in the madrassas, but in facilities associated with them -- not only fought the jihad against the Soviet Union, but could help keep any undesired Iranian influences in check, and could even serve as a proxy army in Kashmir.

We now take a break from our article to consider a 2002 paper written by Bruce Riedel, who "was Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for Near East and South Asia Affairs in the National Security Council at the White House from 1997 to 2001." The paper is entitled American Diplomacy and the 1999 Kargil Summit at Blair House; here are excerpts:

KARGIL AND KASHMIR

For fifty years Pakistan and India have quarreled over the fate of Kashmir. The dispute is not a cold confrontation like that between the two superpowers over Germany in the Cold War. Rather it is a hot confrontation, which has been punctuated by three wars. Since the early 1990s it has been particularly violent with almost daily firefights along the Line of Control (LOC) that divides the state and within the valley between the Indian security forces and the Muslim insurgency. Both India and Pakistan deploy hundreds of thousands of troops in the area.

The situation in Kashmir began to flare up in the early 1990's, and then remained hotter.

That would have been enough time for the jihad in Afghanistan against the Soviets, and then the Soviet-backed regime of Najibullah, to have ended, after which some of the jihadis went northward, into Tajikistan; but others could have moved eastward, towards Kashmir.

In the spring of 1999 the Pakistanis sought to gain a strategic advantage in the northern front of the LOC in a remote part of the Himalayas called Kargil. Traditionally the Indian and Pakistani armies had withdrawn each fall from their most advanced positions in the mountains to avoid the difficulties of manning them during the winter and then returned to them in the spring. The two armies respected each other's deployment pattern and did not try to take advantage of this seasonal change.

In the winter of 1999, however, Pakistani backed Kashmir militants and regular army units moved early into evacuated positions of the Indians, cheating on the tradition. The Pakistani backed forces thus gained a significant tactical advantage over the only ground supply route Indian forces can use to bring in supplies to the most remote eastern third of Kashmir. By advancing onto these mountaintops overlooking the Kargil highway, Pakistan was threatening to weaken Indian control over a significant (yet barren) part of the contested province.

What was all the more alarming for Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee's hardline Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government was that the Pakistani military incursion came after the Prime Minister had made a bold effort in early 1999 at reconciliation with Pakistan by traveling by bus to the Pakistani city of Lahore for a summit with Sharif. The spirit of Lahore was intended to be the mechanism for breaking the two giants of south Asia out of their half century of violence and fear and moving the subcontinent to a better future. Instead, the Indians felt betrayed, deceived and misled by Sharif and were determined to recover their lost territory.

By late May and early June 1999 a serious military conflict was underway along a hundred fifty kilometer front in the mountains above Kargil (some of which rise to a height of 17,000 feet above sea level), including furious artillery clashes, air battles and costly infantry assaults by Indian troops against well dug in Pakistani forces. Pakistan denied its troops were involved, claiming that only Kashmiri militants were doing the fighting — a claim not taken seriously anywhere.

The "Kashmiri militants" were used as cover....

The situation was further clouded because it was not altogether clear who was calling the shots in Islamabad. Prime Minister Sharif had seemed genuinely interested in pursuing the Lahore process when he met with Vajpayee and he had argued eloquently with a series of American guests, including U.S. UN Ambassador Bill Richardson, that he wanted an end to the fifty year old quarrel with India. His military chief, General Pervez Musharraf, seemed to be in a different mold. Musharraf was a refugee from New Delhi, one of the millions sent into exile in the 1947 catastrophe that split British India and the subcontinent. He was said to be a hardliner on Kashmir, a man some feared was determined to humble India once and for all.

And it is unclear to what extent Pakistan's Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif even knew about the situation; hardly was the situation seen to have been at his instigation.

Notice the view presented of General Musharraf -- "a hardliner on Kashmir, a man some feared was determined to humble India once and for all."

This crisis developed into a serious showdown. To defuse the situation, Sharif flew to Washington to meet with President Clinton.

The paper, which makes extremely interesting reading, was written by an assistant to President Clinton, who witnessed, first-hand, the discussions between Clinton and Sharif on July 4th.

Picking up with another excerpt later on in the paper:

THE 4TH DAWNS

The President's advisers gathered early on the 4th to brief him on the meeting ahead and provide advice. The mood was somber. Sandy Berger opened the session by telling the President that this could be the most important foreign policy meeting of his Presidency because the stakes could include nuclear war. He had to press Sharif to withdraw while also giving him enough cover to keep him in office to deliver the retreat. Strobe noted the importance of being very clear with Nawaz and not letting the Prime Minister be alone with the President so that he could later claim commitments not made. A record of who said what was critical. Rick and I briefed the President on the latest information we had.

Continuing again with another excerpt later on in the paper:

Everyone left the room except Sharif, Clinton and myself. The President insisted he wanted a record of the event. Sharif asked again to be left alone, the President refused. The Prime Minister then briefed the President on his frantic efforts in the last month to engage Vajpayee and get a deal that would allow Pakistan to withdraw with some saving of face. He had flown to China to try to get their help to press India to agree to a fixed timetable for talks to resolve Kashmir. Sharif's brief was confused and vague on many details but he seemed a man possessed with fear of war.

The Prime Minister told Clinton that he wanted desperately to find a solution that would allow Pakistan to withdraw with some cover. Without something to point to, Sharif warned ominously, the fundamentalists in Pakistan would move against him and this meeting would be his last with Clinton.

Clinton asked Sharif if he knew how advanced the threat of nuclear war really was? Did Sharif know his military was preparing their nuclear tipped missiles? Sharif seemed taken aback and said only that India was probably doing the same. The President reminded Sharif how close the U.S. and Soviet Union had come to nuclear war in 1962 over Cuba. Did Sharif realize that if even one bomb was dropped... Sharif finished his sentence and said it would be a catastrophe.

The potential for nuclear war was real between Pakistan and India.

Use of "Kashmiri militants" was seen as one way to avoid nuclear devastation -- it gave powerful people in Islamabad plausible deniability regarding Pakistan's involvement, thus making it less likely that a general war would break out between India and Pakistan. The "Kashmiri militants", trained in facilities associated both with Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) and with the madrassas, provided the cover needed to proceed with an operation in Kashmir, while avoiding a punishing general war with India.

Notice also the connection between the militants and General Musharraf -- these militants weren't just tied to Pakistan, they were tied a very anti-Indian faction in Pakistan's military, a faction headed by General Musharraf.

Sharif agreed with a hard-bargaining Clinton: Pakistani forces must first withdraw. Another excerpt from near the end of the paper:

The Prime Minister was good to his word. He ordered his army to pull back its men and its allies and they did so. India was jubilant, Pakistan morose. The fighting had taken a toll. Estimates of the dead on both sides vary. Indians usually claim 1300 killed on both sides, Pakistanis cite around 1700.

The President also lived up to his word. As soon as the Pakistani forces were back across the LOC he pressed India for a cease-fire in the Kargil sector. After this occurred he privately invited Sharif to send a senior trusted official to Washington to begin discrete discussions on how to follow up on his "personal commitment" to the Lahore process.

It soon became apparent, however, that all was not well in Islamabad. For weeks the Prime Minister did not respond to our queries to send someone to discuss Kashmir. The only explanation offered was that it was difficult to decide whom the right person combining the PM's trust and the background on Kashmir was. We concluded the Pakistani internal situation was not ripe for Sharif to take action.

Finally in September Sharif sent his brother, the governor of Lahore, to Washington for the long awaited discussions. Rick Inderfurth and I met with him for hours in his suite at the Willard Hotel. A day-long downpour of rain made the capital a wet and dreary place.

We tried to get a feel for how the Prime Minister wanted to pursue the Kashmir issue. Instead, Shahbaz Sharif only wanted to discuss what the U.S. could do to help his brother stay in power. He all but said that they knew a military coup was coming.

On October 12, 1999 it came. Ironically, it was Nawaz who provoked the coup's timing by trying to exile Musharraf when he was on an official visit to Sri Lanka. His plane was denied permission to return to Karachi or anywhere in Pakistan. The military rebelled and forced open the airport. Within hours, Nawaz was in jail and the army was in control.

The "Kashmiri militants" were used as cover. The Pakistani military, especially the ISI, was pulling the strings. Funding comes, in large part, from Pakistan's close ally, Saudi Arabia, and permits the training of a proxy army that then does the bidding of factions in Islamabad.

To be sure, the militants may not know they are being used, and they may be far more than mere puppets. Still, the ties to Pakistani authorities are clear.

And let us keep this in context -- we often speak of "rogue elements" in governments, and I have used this term in relation to Pakistan and the ISI. The ISI, however, is a professional organization. It is run by military officers -- civilians can only rise to the equivalent of "major", and military officers of that rank and above are assigned only for 2-3 years to keep them from accumulating too much power. The constant interchange between the ISI and the regular military ensures that the ISI does not become a "rogue element"; instead, it is a professional organization -- mainstream, and which follows orders.

Consequently, the bigger the operation, the more unlikely that it is an operation of exclusively "rogue elements".

The madrassas are associated with places where militants are trained; the militants, recruited via the madrassas and trained in these special locations, form a proxy army for Pakistan, under the influence and control of Pakistan's highly professional ISI. The head of Pakistan's military, "a hardliner on Kashmir, a man some feared was determined to humble India once and for all", General Musharraf, was calling the shots within Pakistan's military when these militants began a war with India. After being forced to withdraw by Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, a coup developed that ousted Sharif and left General Musharraf in power; Musharraf continues to rule Pakistan today.

Considering this, it is little wonder that, in the wake of the events of late 2001, the Taliban retreated to the border area between Afghanistan and Pakistan, from where they originally came, and where recruits and other support could be found.

Considering his ties through the military to the madrassas and the mujahideen training centers associated with them, neither is it surprising that now Musharraf seems unable to drive the Taliban out of Pakistan, nor does he seem able to find Osama bin Laden in the border area, nor will he allow US forces to go in and get bin Laden.

We now have to view the assassination of Benazir Bhutto in this light. She was killed in a complex operation near Rawalpindi, which is home to some of Pakistan's most sensitive government installations, including both military and nuclear facilities -- an area where, presumably, security would be pretty high. Rawalpindi has served as the headquarters for Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence, an organization that has the expertise and resources to have organized her assassination. Bhutto's assassination was blamed on militants, whose training occurs in camps tied to Pakistan's ISI.

Were people taking orders from Musharraf when "Kashmiri militants" crossed the Line of Control in 1999? Were the Pakistani armed forces taking orders from Musharraf when they prepared nuclear weapons for use against India as the crisis escalated?

General Mahmoud Ahmad was the corps commander at Rawalpindi at the time of the coup ousting Sharif and leaving Musharraf in power. He then became head of Pakistan's ISI, and was in the United States on 9/11. General Mahmoud Ahmad was linked to a substantial funding transfer to the 9/11 terrorists prior to the attack. General Mahmoud Ahmad opposed the US invasion of Afghanistan, arguing that the Taliban -- which some elements in Pakistan had helped create -- were better for Pakistan.

Was General Mahmoud Ahmad, corps commander for Rawalpindi and later chief of Pakistan's ISI, following or disobeying orders from Musharraf when all this happened?

We are told that we must support Pakistan's "President" Pervez Musharraf, lest hardliners seize power if Musharraf's government should fall.

What we are not told is that the hardliners take orders from Musharraf, and have been doing so for years.

From a PBS INTELLIGENCE INVESTIGATION in the wake of the 9/11 attacks:

MARGARET WARNER: We turn now to, we hope two long-term intelligence experts. With me here James Woolsey, who was Director of Central Intelligence during the Clinton administration....

[snip]

JAMES WOOLSEY: ... And this time this administration, I hope and trust, will not brush aside the idea that there might be state involvement. We may well find that Osama bin Laden or some other terrorist group in the Mideast or elsewhere, probably the Mideast, is behind this. But they may well be a subcontractor or a junior partner. There conceivably could be a state behind this. Iran is possible. But I think we should focus very hard on the possibility of state backing.