living islam _ Islamic Tradition
The Way Osama Was Setup For 9/11
By ABID ULLAH JAN
Excerpt from: Afghanistan: The Genesis of the Final Crusade
Following is the Introduction to the book, released: April 7, 2006.
By now, the obvious on 9/11 is undeniable. The official story of 9/11 obviously doesn't hold ground. Everyone with average intelligence can tell that it is impossible for someone sitting in an Afghan cave to plan an operation of this proportion. The theory of “nineteen Arab fanatics” who executed this plan because “they hate our freedoms” [295] also don’t make any sense. On the other hand we have independent scholars and research of 9/11, who are focusing on the “controlled demolition” and similar scientific aspects to prove that it was an “inside job.” This much is also obvious.
Instead of wasting further time on what is so glaringly obvious, we need to move from the How 9/11 aspect to Why 9/11. Without this shift, we will be running in circles and never reach the conclusions. We have enough information that shows that 9/11 was an inside job. Any evidence that proves the official story wrong also proves that the occupation of Afghanistan was on the cards and the 9/11 operation was staged only to justify dislodging the Taliban.
Although written with a different objective, but Josh Meyer’s story in Los Angeles Times (April 5, 2006) proves the fact that Osama bin Laden was actually set-up for 9/11 with the help of Arab agents (Mohammed Atta and company) who were knowingly or unknowingly working for the real forces which planned 9/11. According to LA Time’ report, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, who was closely working with Pakistan’s ISI and the hijackers,[*] “Osama bin Laden was a meddling boss whose indiscretion and poor judgment threatened to derail the terrorist attacks.”
Actually, the planning centre was in the United States, which was using the Arab patsies, most probably without their knowledge that they would not emerge alive from execution of the plan. Superficial information were shared with Osama only to somehow make him talk about possible attacks in the United States. The objective was to frame him before hand and facilitate war on Afghanistan without great taking great pains.
According to LA Times story: “He [Osama] also saddled Mohammed with at least four would-be hijackers who the ringleader thought were ill-equipped for the job. And he carelessly dropped hints about the imminent attacks, violating Mohammed's cardinal rule against discussing the suicide hijacking plot.”
The persons which Osama was dumping on Atta Mohammed were considered ill-quipped for the job simply because they were not part of the broad plan. It is natural that Osama would introduce some devoted persons for helping Atta Mohammed, when the latter shares his ambitions to plan terrorist attacks in the U.S. However, they become a liability for Atta because Atta’s bosses would not trust anyone who doesn’t belong to them and who are more loyal to Osama than Atta and his bosses.
Sheikh Mohammed’s working more closely with ISI and others than with Osama is evident from this statement in the LA Times report: “[Shaikh] Mohammed stated that he was usually compelled to do whatever Bin Laden wanted with respect to operatives for the September 11 operation,’ the interrogation summary states. ‘That said, [Shaikh] Mohammed noted that he disobeyed Bin Laden on several occasions by taking operatives assigned to him by Bin Laden and using them how he best saw fit.’ His independence from Bin Laden had its limits, however, because it was Al Qaeda's money and operatives that enabled the plot to go forward.”
Where was the money from Al-Qaeda spent? What did the hijackers purchase with it? Obviously not box cutters and knives. These are the questions which remain unanswered. However, what is obvious is that the planning centre was in the United States and Atta was working as a puppet for the real planners in the United States, not Afghanistan. Discussions with Osama and obtaining financial assistance from him was part of the plan to consolidate the frame-up.
To understand the frame-up, we need to go a little back in time. Initially the US administration tried to pin the blame on Osama with its December 13, 2001 video release. The quality of the video was very poor and the authenticity of the tape was questioned right away, which annoyed Bush to the extent that he made the following comment during a brief photo opportunity with the prime minister of Thailand: “It is preposterous for anybody to think that this tape is doctored. That’s just a feeble excuse to provide weak support for an incredibly evil man.”[370] Bush added: “Those who contend it’s a farce or a fake are hoping for the best about an evil man. This is Bin Laden unedited. This is... the Bin Laden who murdered the people. This is a man who sent innocent people to their death.” The foreign secretary, Jack Straw, insisted there was “no doubt it is the real thing.”[371] Such a defense at the most high level further confirmed that the video was specifically produced to cover up the real culprits and pave the way for legitimizing the war to dislodge the Taliban.
Osama’s comments on the november 19 tape, aired by Al Jazeera,[381] caused quite a stir because they contradicted the “confession” video. According to Toby Harnden of the Telegraph, “American officials argued that bin Laden’s frequent references to U.S. support for Israel were a bogus justification for his terrorism because in the ‘dinner party’ tape of a private conversation there was no mention of the Middle East.”[382]
This is very odd indeed because in Osama’s September 28, 2001 denial of involvement in the 9/11 attacks, he had plenty to say about the United States and Israel: "This system is totally in control of the American-Jews, whose first priority is Israel, not the United States. It is clear that the American people are themselves the slaves of the Jews and are forced to live according to the principles and laws laid by them. So, the punishment should reach Israel. In fact, it is Israel, which is giving a blood bath to innocent Muslims and the U.S. is not uttering a single word."[383]
Moreover, Osama’s views have been consistent about the problems caused by Israel since 1998: ”We say to the Americans as people and to American mothers, if they cherish their lives and if they cherish their sons, they must elect an American patriotic government that caters to their interests, not the interests of the Jews.”[384]
Let us assume for a moment that the December 13, 2001 tape is genuine. In that case, the war was launched more than two months before presenting the world with such evidence, which had absolutely nothing to do with the Taliban or their government. There is no mention to the Taliban or their support in planning the attack.
Even if the December 13, 2001 tape is genuine, it only serves to prove that Osama was not the mastermind behind the attacks. It would merely indicate that he had some prior knowledge of it, which does not make him responsible for the attacks. He states (if we accept the tape as stating anything) that he was told about the impending attack five days before it happened.
Although Osama told this writer, during an interview in mid-August 2001 that, “We are about to do something,” his immediate reaction after the 9/11 attacks—that he supports the attack but he did not do it[391]—shows that he was clearly setup. He was told through Arabs, who were knowingly or unknowingly working with the U.S. authorities involved in the 9/11 operation that they were “about to do something.” The objective was to force the loudmouthed Osama into talking about the attacks before time so that implicating him would not be a problem after the planned 9/11 events.
The set-up to implicate Osama seems to span a long period of time because, according to Ayman Al-Zawahiri, Osama made the same statement of “we are about to do something,” to a journalist from a Scandinavian country. That is what prompted Taliban authorities to restrict journalists from taking cameras or other recording devices with them while interviewing Osama because such statements were creating problems for them at a time when they looked forward to international legitimacy.
The set up theory is further supported by the fact that back in 1999, a US national intelligence council report noted that “al-Qaida suicide bombers could crash-land an aircraft packed with high explosives into the Pentagon, the headquarters of the CIA, or the White House”.[392] Furthermore, at least 11 countries provided advance warning to the US of the 9/11 attacks. Two senior Mossad experts were sent to Washington in August 2001 to alert the CIA and FBI to a cell of 200 terrorists said to be preparing a big operation.[393] The list they provided included the names of four of the 9/11 hijackers, none of whom was arrested. This is not a sign of incompetence. It only proves that the initial propagation of information was done to set up a trap and convincingly hold Osama and company responsible for the attacks planned by the insiders. Actually those who within the U.S. intelligence community were responsible for receiving and acting on the many foreign warnings received prior to 9/11, were most probably the ones who planted the information about the possible attacks to prepare a mindset for holding Osama responsible for the pre-planned attacks. The proof of this lies in the United States’ government hiding behind the façade of incompetence and the total lack of action before 9/11 and during the period while 9/11 events were unfolding.
Dr. Zawahiri’s sharing information about Osama’s statements (and statements of Osama on the “lucky find” tape, if we assume that the tape is genuine) suggest that Osama came to know about the impending attack days or weeks before it actually happened. It shows, neither Osama nor the Taliban could possibly have been the main organizers. Instead, the relationship between the Taliban and their Arab guests were not as friendly and deep as presented by the Western media. The Taliban had actually confiscated communication equipment from Osama and his fellows, as mentioned earlier. This is further confirmed by Mullah Omar’s statement reported by Reuters on September 19, 2001: "We have told America that we have taken all resources from Osama and he cannot contact the outside world. And we have told America that neither the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan or Osama are involved in the American events. But it is sad that America does not listen to our word." [394]
This is further confirmed by Dr. Zawahiri’s statements. He was not satisfied with the Taliban’s attitude at all. He told this scribe at the time of interview with Osama a few weeks before 9/11 that the Taliban do not listen to him and Osama at all. In his words: “When we give them [the Taliban] any suggestion, they simply give us a smile as if we don’t know anything.”
Assuming that the “lucky find” tape is genuine, we must note that it shows that Osama was informed five days before the attack. The question is: Who told him about it? Presumably, the real culprits behind 9/11 used Arabic speaking agents, or double agents, to send Osama these messages to implicate him like the thousands of drug-related conspiracy cases in the US in which innocent people are implicated and punished. For example, note what Arnold S. Trebach states in his book, The Great Drug War: “In many of these cases, the DEA allowed some of its informants to traffic in drugs in exchange for turning in their friends and supplying other information. In too many cases, Gieringer claimed, DEA agents themselves directly engaged in trafficking.” [395]
This is a routine in the United States, which is not limited to drug cases. James Bovard gives numerous examples in his famous book: Lost Rights. “During the past fifteen years, law enforcement officials have set up thousands of elaborate schemes to entrap people for “crimes” such as buying plant supplies, asking for a job or shooting a deer. Dozens of private accountants have become double agents, receiving government kickbacks for betraying their clients to IRS.”[396]
That is how Bank of Credit Commerce and International (BCCI) was trapped [397] and that is how the trap was set up to implicate Osama bin Laden and to dislodge the Taliban. There was no dearth of such agents. For example, Canadian police arrested Ali Mohamed, a high-ranking al-Qaeda figure. However, they released him when the FBI confirmed he was a US agent.[398] Even Saeed Sheikh, who is alleged to have sent money to the alleged lead hijacker, Mohamed Atta, was reported to be a CIA agent. The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review suggested that not only was Saeed closely tied to both the ISI and al-Qaeda, but he could be working for the CIA: “There are many in Musharraf’s government who believe that Saeed Sheikh’s power comes not from the ISI, but from his connections with our own CIA. The theory is that ... Saeed Sheikh was bought and paid for.”[399]
There is evidence, which shows that the Arabs, used in the 9/11 operation, were working with the U.S. government. A series of articles suggest that at least seven of the so-called 9/11 hijackers were trained in US military bases.[400] The New York Times reported: “The Defense Department said Mr. Atta had gone to the International Officers School at Maxwell Air Force Base in Alabama; Mr. al-Omari to the Aerospace Medical School at Brooks Air Force Base in Texas; and Mr. al-Ghamdi to the Defense Language Institute at the Presidio in Monterey, Calif.”[401]
Ahmed Alnami, Ahmed Alghamdi, and Saeed Alghamdi even listed the Naval Air Station in Pensacola, Florida as their permanent address on their driver’s licenses.[402] Hamza Alghamdi was also connected to the Pensacola base.[403] According to Guy Gugliotta and David S. Fallis, Washington Post Staff Writers: "Two of 19 suspects named by the FBI, Saeed Alghamdi and Ahmed Alghamdi, have the same names as men listed at a housing facility for foreign military trainees at Pensacola. Two others, Hamza Alghamdi and Ahmed Alnami, have names similar to individuals listed in public records as using the same address inside the base. In addition, a man named Saeed Alghamdi graduated from the Defense Language Institute at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, while men with the same names as two other hijackers, Mohamed Atta and Abdulaziz Alomari, appear as graduates of the U.S. International Officers School at Maxwell Air Force Base, Ala., and the Aerospace Medical School at Brooks Air Force Base in San Antonio, respectively."[404]
A defense official further confirmed that Saeed Alghamdi was a former Saudi fighter pilot who attended the Defense Language Institute in Monterey, California.[405] Abdulaziz Alomari attended Brooks Air Force Base Aerospace Medical School in San Antonio, Texas.[406] A defense official confirmed Atta is a former Saudi fighter pilot who graduated from the US International Officers School at Maxwell Air Force Base, Alabama.[407] The media drops the story after the Air Force makes a not-very-definitive statement, saying that while the names are similar, “we are probably not talking about the same people.”[408] However, the military fails to provide any information about the individuals whose names supposedly match those of the alleged hijackers, making it impossible to confirm or refute the story. In Daniel Hopsicker’s view: “How easy was it to tell the Pentagon was lying? Think about it. It is neither plausible nor logical that the reports were false because of seven separate cases of mistaken identity. One or two, maybe. But seven? No way.”[409]
Using Arabs as agents to entrap Osama bin Laden and force him into making rash statements of attacks on the United States before 9/11 is further confirmed by the 9/11 researchers. Daniel Hopsicker concludes in his book Welcome to Terrorland that rather than being a fundamentalist Muslim, Mohamed Atta better fits the profile of a member of Arab society’s privileged elite and also a spy. Amongst many oddities contradicting the ‘fundamentalist’ label and the description of a person determined to destroy the United States is the fact that his e-mail list included the names of several employees of U.S. defense contractors.[410]
Deciding to investigate for himself, Hopsicker phoned the Pentagon and spoke with the public information officer who helped write and disseminate their original denial of the story of hijacker identities. From the interaction with the officer, Hopsicker concludes that somewhere in the Defense Department a list exists with the names of September 11 terrorists who received training at U.S. military facilities. The officer “just didn’t [had] the authority to release it.”[411] Furthermore, Hopsicker spoke to a woman who works at the Maxwell Air Force Base in Alabama:
“I have a girlfriend who recognized Mohamed Atta. She met him at a party at the Officer’s Club,” she told us. “The reason she swears it was him here is because she didn’t just meet him and say hello. After she met him she went around and introduced him to the people that were with her. So she knows it was him.” Saudis were a highly visible presence at Maxwell Air Force Base, she said. “There were a lot of them living in an upscale complex in Montgomery. They had to get all of them out of here. “They were all gone the day after the attack.”[412] Despite it being a key 9/11 crime scene, there has been a surprising absence of investigations into the goings on in Venice, Florida. In fact, to the contrary, “the FBI’s full attention seemed to have been engaged—not in investigating what had happened—but in suppressing evidence and even intimidating the witnesses who had seen and heard things that fly in the face of the ‘official story.’”[413] For example, Mohamed Atta’s former girlfriend Amanda Keller says that even after she left Venice, the FBI called on her every other day for several months, telling her not to talk to anybody. Similarly, a woman called Stephanie Frederickson who lived next-door to Atta and Keller in Venice reported how she and other residents at the same apartment building were harassed and intimidated by FBI agents, to prevent them from talking to reporters.
The FBI arrived in Venice just hours after the 9/11 attacks. A former manager from Huffman Aviation said: “They were outside my house four hours after the attack.” He added: “My phones have been bugged, they still are. How did the FBI get here so soon? Ask yourself: How’d they got here so soon?”[414] Within 24 hours of the attacks, records from Huffman Aviation, where Atta and al-Shehhi attended, were escorted aboard a C-130 cargo plane to Washington by Florida governor and brother of the president Jeb Bush. Similarly, according to a sergeant with the Venice police, the FBI took all their files and flew them to Washington with Jeb Bush aboard. (Presumably this was on the same flight as the Huffman records.) Hopsicker notes: “The important point was that taking files was a lot different than copying them. The FBI wasn’t taking any chances.”[415] He concludes: “There is a demonstrable, provable, and massive federally-supervised cover-up in place in Florida.”[416]
Lifestyle of the alleged hijackers—actually agents working with the U.S. authorities—also prove that they were not religious fanatics or radicals, bent upon sacrificing their lives for Islam. Just days before 9/11, Atta and Marwan al-Shehhi (another of the alleged suicide-pilots) spent the evening drinking heavily at a bar in Fort Lauderdale. The bar’s manager later told reporters that the men “got wasted,” drinking “Stolichnaya and orange juice, and Captain Morgan’s spiced rum and Coke.” Bartender Patricia Idrissi concurred, saying: “Atta drank Stoli vodka for three straight hours. They were wasted.”[417] Amanda Keller describes a typical night out at a club with Atta: “Marwan [al-Shehhi] was in the reggae room drinking with a bunch of women at the bar, there were a lot of women around him, and he was just flaunting money.” As Hopsicker points out: “It’s one thing to hear Atta described as living it up with wine, women and song. But Marwan flaunting money at the bar pretty much puts the lie to the ‘Islamic fundamentalist’ tag.”[418] So much for the “Islamic fundamentalists” who hated American “way of life” and were ready to give their life in a global Jihad against the United States.
The December 13 tape was as much part of the entrapment process as could be one or more of the hijackers because according to the Newsweek, five of the hijackers received training at secure US military installations in the 1990s.[419] In all the frenzied outrage against Osama and his Al-Qaeda “network” that this convenient tape has engendered, it seems that very few people have actually viewed the tape carefully enough to ask the important question that flows from Osama’s “admission” of having been told about the attack five days in advance. Then who did actually organize 9/11 attacks?
Irrespective of the existence of this tape, if we think clearly and logically about the likelihood of Osama being involved, we actually find that it is impossible. If sending information to Osama about the impending attacks—which he shared with journalists well before 9/11—was not an attempt to trap him like the thousands of drug entrapment cases in the United States, then the possibilities left are: a) he was involved in the capacity of collusion with the United States authorities or, b) at best, he was involved in the context of the United States knowing all along what he was up to and deliberately allowing him to do it, so as to reap benefits of such attacks and achieve greater objectives rather than undermining the terrorist plan. That is why no other suspect for 9/11 was ever even contemplated, however briefly (even though the United States has plenty of enemies). An impartial, real inquiry would have considered a list of suspects, such as Saddam Hussein, Kaddafi, Castro, a Palestinian group, Russia, China, local right-wing militias, anti-globalization activists, Syria or someone completely unknown and unexpected? The list of possibilities that would spring to mind would be huge. Osama would have only been one of these. This becomes downright suspicious if we think clearly about the logistics of actually setting up a real inquiry into the events of 9/11.
Let us put it in context. It took the US authorities 18 years to catch the Unabomber [420] and the persons who allegedly masterminded the 9/11 operation along with the 19 “hijackers” became known to the United States government and media within a few hours. Similarly, they identified Afghanistan as the target within days. Later on, a CIA official, AB Krongard, said, catching Osama was not even important.[421] Krongard was the CIA’s third most senior executive. It confirms that the objective of the 9/11 operation was none other than invading Afghanistan and dislodging the Taliban.
It is quite a task simply to start drawing up the lists of possible suspects, possible personnel for the inquiry, and the main angles of investigation for the inquiry. In the case of 9/11, however, the conclusions were pre-determined and the pre-conceived results were announced without any real inquiry at all. Framing the Taliban began without setting up an inquiry into the most horrible terrorist attack in human history. Without setting up any inquiry team, without any inquiry, and without any reports and summaries for the President and others, without an investigation panel, the pre-determined verdict was announced in less than 12 hours, in a country that was in chaos and confusion at the time.
This is one of the most preposterous aspects of the whole 9/11 affair. Did all the inquiry miraculously happen? To actually hold a meeting of the senior officials needed to coordinate the inquiry within less than three days in such a chaotic situation would probably have been impossible. Yet, by this time, the United States had already claimed to have held its “inquiry” and established the Taliban’s guilt by association with Osama as the main culprit whose fingerprints were everywhere with copious quantities of evidence lying around to the extent that guilt was obvious within a few hours. How? Was anything ever more obviously a set up? It is simply not possible.
An important question remains to be cleared up about the pilots. If they were not remote controlled, as some theories suggest, then pilots were obviously on a suicide mission. It is difficult to believe that Americans, or those loyal to the United States, would knowingly participate in a suicide mission. The obvious explanation is that some of the hijackers were genuinely hostile to the United States and were either participating in an attack that they thought would damage it, or they did not even know the scope of the operation, that it would end up in their death and such devastation. Albert D. Pastore, who carefully studied, painstakingly researched and analyzed in detail all the sources and events of 9/11, also reaches the same conclusion in his book, Stranger Than Fiction. His logical deduction is that perhaps, “the hijackers were another group of angry Arab patsies who were not even aware of who their true handlers were or what the broader strategic aim of the mission actually was.”[427]
These individuals were under the impression that their plan was secret from the United States government. They were the ones who were possibly used to send a message to Osama that they were “about to do something.” That is why Osama started bragging to journalists, telling them that the myth of American might needs to be shattered. However, Osama did not know what the real perpetrators of 9/11 had actually planned for the few Arabs used as pawns in the 9/11 operation. That is why soon after the 9/11 attacks, Osama approved the attacks on United States interests but categorically denied his involvement.[428]
What puts the hijacking part of the official story of 9/11 in serious doubt is the revelation that at least seven of the alleged hijackers are still alive. Wail and Waleed al Shehri are brothers and both are alive.[429] Others who are still alive are Satam al Suqami, Abdul Aziz al Omari, Fayez Banihammad (from the UAE), Ahmed al Ghamdi, Hamza al Ghamdi, Mohand al Shehri, Saeed al Ghamdi, Ahmad al Haznawi, Ahmed al Nami, Majed Moqed, and Salem al Hazmi (the brother of Nawaf al Hazmi).[430] The FBI, however, is silent as if it did not even release the list of the alleged hijackers. How can the 9/11 Commission be taken seriously when they refer to 9/11 ‘hijackers’ who are still alive?
Stolen identities of at least five Saudis were used who worked in the airline industry as pilots, mechanics and flight attendants—people who would have had increased access in airports, a Saudi government official told the Sun-Sentinel.[431] In his book, Stranger than Fiction, Albert Pastore concludes, “We have established that at least 7 of the 19 hijackers are alive and well,”[432] and that “identities of 9 hijackers are in question due to identity theft.”[433]
Afghans were not even on the list of alleged hijackers. Their country has, however, been made to pay the price. The pre-determination of attacking Afghanistan is evident from the fact that Pakistan and Afghanistan were treated in different ways after 9/11 despite the fact that there was no evidence of the Taliban involvement whereas Pakistan ISI seems to have known some details of the inside job. A Pakistani, Umar Sheikh [= (Ahmad) Omar Saeed Sheikh], is said to have transferred $100,000 to the alleged “ring-leader” of the 9/11 hijackers[434] at the instance of Lt. General Mahmud Ahmed of Pakistan Intelligence Services (ISI) shortly before 9/11.[435]
According to the Wall Street Journal (October 9, 2001), the Pakistani newspaper Dawn reported on October 9, 2001 that Islamabad has replaced the head of its Inter-Services Intelligence agency, Lt. Gen. Mahmud Ahmed, “after the FBI investigators established credible links between him and Umar Sheikh, one of the three militants released in exchange for passengers of the hijacked Indian Airlines plane in 1999.”[436] One can imagine the promotion of this story by the co-opted media in case these persons were from Afghanistan or if he were the Taliban.
Although Lt. General Mahmud Ahmed’s link to Umar Sheikh and Umar Sheikh’s link to Mohammed Atta are well-known “facts” from the perspective of the United States government, U.S. authorities are quite uninterested in pursuing any action against these persons in spite of President Bush’s huffing and puffing that “if you fund a terrorist, you are a terrorist.” Not really so in the case of its allies in invasion and occupation of the target country. Or may be these “facts” from the United States are also lies crafted only to give General Musharraf a chance to purge Pakistan army of the perceived “Islamic fundamentalists.”
Lt. Gen. Mahmud Ahmed was forced to resign his position once his alleged involvement in 9/11 became known. There was, however, no retaliatory bombing or invasion of Pakistan to force it to hand accomplices of the 9/11 hijackers over to the United States. There was no labeling of Pakistan as a terrorist state or a state supporting and financing terrorists. May be there is more to this story than meets the eye because Lt. Gen. Mahmud Ahmed had a breakfast meeting on 9/11 at the Capitol with the chairmen of the House and Senate Intelligence Committees, Senator Bob Graham (D) and Representative Porter Goss (R) (a 10-year veteran of the CIA’s clandestine operations wing). The meeting is said to last at least until the second plane hits the WTC.[437]
A report to Senator Graham’s staff in August 2001 stated that one of Mahmud’s subordinates had told a US undercover agent that the WTC would be destroyed. Randy Glass, a former con artist turned government informant, later claimed that he contacted the staff of Senator Bob Graham and Representative Robert Wexler and warned them of a plan to attack the WTC, but his warnings were ignored.[438] Also present at the meeting were Senator John Kyl (R) and the Pakistani ambassador to the US, Maleeha Lodhi (almost all of the people in this meeting also met in Pakistan a few weeks earlier).[439] Senator Graham says of the meeting: “We were talking about terrorism, specifically terrorism generated from Afghanistan.” The New York Times mentioned bin Laden specifically was being discussed.[440] The fact that these people are meeting at the time of the attacks is a strange coincidence at the very least. Was the topic of conversation just more coincidence? So ISI was sending funds to the alleged mastermind of 9/11. Yet the head of ISI was having meeting with the top U.S. officials with extensive experience in clandestine operations.
In the case of Afghanistan, the United States was not ready to listen to any proposal from the Taliban government at all, as if it had decided once and for all that occupation of Afghanistan was the only solution. The numerous, almost daily Taliban appeals to the United States for showing patience and exercising restraint, were dismissed. In Mullah Omar words: "America always repeats threats and makes various accusations and now it is threatening military attack. This is being done in circumstances in which we have offered alternatives on the Osama issue. We have said, if you have evidence against Osama, give it to the Afghan Supreme Court or the Ulema (clerics) of three Islamic countries, or have OIC (Organization of Islamic Countries) observers keep an eye on Osama. But America rejected these, one by one. If America had considered these suggestions there would not have been a chance of such a great misunderstanding. We appeal to the American government to exercise complete patience, and we want America to gather complete information and find the actual culprits. We assure the whole world that neither Osama nor anyone else can use the Afghan land against anyone else."[441]
These words from the Taliban leadership fell on deaf ears because the United States did not want to lose the opportunity it created by engineering the 9/11 attacks after years of anti-Taliban propaganda. The real culprits, who are blamed by the American analysts for having done an “inside job,” killed 3000 innocent people, demolished three WTC buildings and hit the Pentagon to take the war on Afghanistan to its climax. How could these modern-day crusaders back off at these simple words from Mullah Omar, backed by no military might or support from the rest of the brainwashed world that could deter the aggressors?
Note:
* US agents uncover photographs showing Khalid Shaikh Mohammed with close associates of future Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif. The Financial Times later notes that Mohammed and his allies “must have felt confident that their ties to senior Pakistani Islamists, whose power had been cemented within the country’s intelligence service [the ISI], would prove invaluable.” [Financial Times, 3/15/2003] Also this year, Mohammed is involved in an operation to assassinate Benazir Bhutto, then prime minister of Pakistan (and an opponent of Sharif and the ISI). [Guardian, 4/3/2003; Slate, 10/21/2001] The Los Angeles Times later reports that Mohammed “spent most of the 1990s in Pakistan. Pakistani leadership through the 1990s sympathized with Osama bin Laden’s fundamentalist rhetoric. This sympathy allowed Mohammed to operate as he pleased in Pakistan.” [Los Angeles Times, 7/24/2002]
For other references in this write up, please refer to the author's latest book: Afghanistan: The Genesis of the Final Crusade
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