By Richard Clark

 

opednews.com

Professor Michel Chossudovsky is of course not alone in propounding this thesis, which is as simple as it is astounding:   After 9/11, the fully enlivened myth of the "outside enemy" and the threat of "Islamic terrorists" was used as a convenient pretext to invade Afghanistan and Iraq -- invasions that had been planned, or at least anticipated, for more than a year prior to 9/11.   Further, and perhaps more importantly, these invasions helped provide the backdrop and political environment necessary for surreptitiously repealing civil liberties and constitutional government in America.  

As the good professor and many others point out, we need to remember that without an "outside enemy," there could have been no "war on terrorism," and the entire national security agenda built up since 9/11 would not exist -- at least not in its current form and not to the huge extent to which it has now grown , with nearly a million Americans currently employed by the Department of Homeland Security alone.   And now, if the complete fraudulence   of the current war on terrorism could be fully exposed, the high-level officials who became war criminals (Bush, Cheney, even Obama?) would be left with no leg to stand on.  

Amply documented but rarely mentioned by the mainstream media, is the fact that alQaeda was created by the CIA to lead the fight against the Soviets in the Soviet-Afghan war.   This is a well-known fact, corroborated by numerous sources including official documents of the US Congress.   Even the US intelligence community has acknowledged that it had indeed supported (click here  and here )  Osama bin Laden, but claimed that "he turned against us."  

After 9/11, the campaign of media disinformation served not only to drown the truth but also to kill much of the historical evidence about how this illusive "outside enemy" had been fabricated and transformed into the nation's "Enemy Number One."  

The Balkans Connection

Professor Chossudovsky's research on the Balkans, conducted since the mid-1990s, enabled him to document numerous ties and connections between alQaeda and the US Administration.  The US military, the CIA and NATO had supported  alQaeda in the Balkans.   Washington's objective was to trigger ethnic conflict and destabilize  the Yugoslav federation, first in Bosnia, then in Kosovo.  

In 1997, the Republican Party Committee (RPC) of the US Senate released a detailed report which accused   President Clinton of collaborating with the "Islamic Militant Network" in Bosnia and working hand in glove with an organization linked to Osama bin Laden.   (See Chapter III of Professor Chossudovsky's book .)   However, the report was not widely publicized.   Quite incredibly, the Republicans then chose, instead, to go after Bill Clinton for something "far more important":   his "reprehensible' oval office "liaison' with White House intern Monica Lewinsky, in which a blue dress was inadvertently "stained.'

The Clinton Administration had been providing  covert support to the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), a paramilitary group supported by alQaeda, which was involved in numerous terrorist attacks.   The U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) and Britain's Secret Intelligence Service, more commonly known as MI6, together with former members of Britain's 22nd Special Air Services Regiment (SAS) were providing   training to the KLA, despite its extensive links to organized crime, to alQaeda, and to the heroin trade.   Meanwhile, several known and documented alQaeda operatives had integrated and organized the ranks of the KLA.   (Again see Chapter III of Professor Chossudovsky's new book ).  

Click here to find out more about AMERICA'S phony "WAR ON TERRORISM"

Prior to 9/11, the self-proclaimed National Liberation Army (NLA) of Macedonia -- to reiterate, this was a paramilitary army organized and integrated by KLA/alQaeda Mujahadeen commanders -- launched terror attacks in Macedonia, with the help of former senior US military officers (now working for a private mercenary company on contract to the Pentagon) who were advising these terrorists!  

A couple of months prior to 9/11, US military advisers were seen mingling   with alQaeda operatives within this same paramilitary army.   In late June 2001, seventeen US "instructors" were identified among the withdrawing rebels.   To avoid the diplomatic humiliation and media embarrassment of senior US military personnel being captured together with "Islamic terrorists" (by the Macedonian Armed Forces), the US and NATO pressured   the Macedonian government to allow   the NLA terrorists and their US military advisers to be freed and to be quietly evacuated.  

The evidence, including statements by the Macedonian Prime Minister and press reports out of Macedonia, pointed unequivocally to continued US covert support   to the "Islamic brigades" in the former Yugoslavia.   This US support, for terrorists, had not occurred during the Cold War, but was definitely happening in June 2001, barely three months prior to 9/11.   These developments immediately cast doubt on the official 9/11 narrative which presented alQaeda as the organization that was solely behind the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.   (See Chapter IV, America's "War on Terrorism")

The Mysterious Pakistani General

On the 12th of September, the day after 9/11, a mysterious Lieutenant General with terrorist connections, who was head of Pakistan's Military Intelligence (ISI), just " happened to be   in Washington on the day of the attacks."   Even more surprisingly, he was on that day called into the office of Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage.   (In confirmation of this, Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf, in an interview with CBS News 60 Minutes on September 21, 2006, alleged that Armitage called an ISI general immediately after the September 11, 2001 attacks and threatened to "bomb the country (Pakistan) back to the stone age" unless they supported the US-led fight against Islamic terrorism.)  

The "War on Terrorism" had been officially launched on the night of September 11, and Dick Armitage was telling General Mahmoud Ahmad to help America "in going after the terrorists."   Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf was on the phone with Secretary of State Colin Powell and on the morning of the 13th of September, a comprehensive agreement was reached between the two governments.  

While the press reports confirmed that Pakistan would support the Bush administration in the "war on terror" (the Pakistanis would later give a safe hiding place to bin Laden and his family), what they failed to mention was the fact that Pakistan's military intelligence (ISI), headed by the very General Ahmad who had been meeting with US officials on 9/11, had a longstanding relationship to the Islamic terror network.   Documented by numerous sources, the ISI was known  to have supported a number of Islamic organizations including alQaeda and the Taliban.   (See Chapter IV.)

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