Sunday, February 17, 2008

Digging It Up, Part 1 of 2

Why are some of my posts listed in the sidebar as "important"?

In the series Sibelology, Part 1 of 2, Sibelology, Part 2 of 2, and Sibelology, Part 3 of 2, we review an article entitled Did Speaker Hastert Accept Turkish Bribes to Deny Armenian Genocide and Approve Weapons Sales? We use the review of the article to learn about the Sibel Edmonds case, and to move in the direction of finding some answers to the enigmatic questions it poses.

At the end of Part 3, Aurora of The Midnight Sun makes the following comment:

Yankee, you certainly have an intriguing writing style. A long, twisting story with plenty of intrigue. It's a pity that it's based on fact and your research seems to be very well conducted. Unfortunately, I have to agree that there is a dark band of corruption running through institutions that we've always trusted.


In this series, The Shadow Realm, Part 1, The Shadow Realm, Part 2, The Shadow Realm, Part 3, The Shadow Realm, Part 4, The Shadow Realm, Part 5, The Shadow Realm, Part 6, and The Shadow Realm, Part 7, we review a work of Tamara Makarenko entitled The Crime–Terror Continuum: Tracing the Interplay between Transnational Organised Crime and Terrorism, making connections to the Sibel Edmonds case, especially to the posts cited above.

At the end of Part 2, the blogger Anticant of Anticant's Arena makes the following comment:

Your detailed researches are fleshing out what I have feared since the collapse of the Soviet Union - infiltration and ultimate takeover of the government machine of failed states by the international mafia.

Could this happen even in the USA? And could it be that this, rather than militant Islam, is the biggest ultimate threat to world peace and security?


Perhaps the answer can be found in the final paragraphs of Part 7:

Certain elements in the Islamic world have always had the desire to spread their ideology violently, offering humanity the infamous triple choice: conversion to Islam, submission to Islamic government under dhimmi status, or war of annihilation. In recent decades, the United States has become a focus for their hatred.

In 1993, these people attacked the Twin Towers at the World Trade Center. The method they used was a large amount explosives, an omnidirectional blast. It was a relative fizzle, as it achieved little compared to what could have been achieved with that quantity of explosives.

Determined to try again, these radicals conceived the idea of hijacking airliners and crashing them into the Twin Towers, among other targets. The new attack was much more spectacular, and would cause more damage....

But, when two of the very tallest buildings ever constructed were being engineered and designed, it was known then that sooner or later an airliner full of fuel would crash into them -- this was not a possibility, it was an inevitability. Consequently, both of the Twin Towers had to be designed for such an eventuality. They were not just engineered to withstand the impact of a large airliner full of fuel -- they were overengineered for such an event, known to be inescapable at some point. There would be a horrendous fire, and perhaps a terrible loss of life, but the buildings would remain standing. In fact, each tower would be able to withstand multiple such impacts, and remain standing -- that is how they were engineered and constructed. Yet, on 9/11, not just one, but both towers were brought down by the impact of one airliner each. Not only that, but a third tower that wasn't even struck collapsed that day.

Why?

(For information on this last paragraph and the next, see You Can't Touch This.)

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?

This latter issue is what the Sibel Edmonds case is about.

Six years after 9/11, we are in the midst of this War on Terror, with our military being spent in its fourth year of occupation of Iraq, a nation that had no connection to the events on 9/11 which spawned the war. Meanwhile, the culprit behind the hijackings, Osama bin Laden, is still at large. (It is worth recalling in contrast that less than four years after Pearl Harbor, the culprits behind that attack and their allies around the world had been defeated, having surrendered unconditionally.) On top of it all, those who have business ties with Osama bin Laden are considered our allies in the War on Terror; indeed, the United States supports a military dictator who seized power in a coup, and whose military intelligence helped bin Laden in the attacks on 9/11, the results of which we know were outside the capabilities of bin Laden's terrorist network.

Why?

We stand on a planet, not comprehending what we see -- not believing our eyes, because of the magnitude of the object we behold. The horizon fades off into the distance in this flat world of ours, because the orb upon which we stand is in reality round.

We stand in the midst of a War on Terror, not realizing that powerful forces share common interests in generating and then perpetuating the instability, death and destruction around us. This War on Terror is not flat: it is a continuous surface, where all points on it can be reached from all other points by going in any direction.

The War on Terror is a separate world, and it exists in the Shadow Realm.


This is a story that winds its way through remote areas of Pakistan, as we explore Pakistan's religious schools in Pakistan's Madrassas, Part 1, Pakistan's Madrassas, Part 2 and Pakistan's Madrassas, Part 3, where we conclude with the following:

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.


(Continued in Part 2)

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