2001 – A Spaced out Oddity

GWB – the saga of his hidden papers in May 2002 – the law ruled they had to be made public – which he did after taking enough time that he could easily have scrubbed them clean. Even then they remained secret under auspices of the Governor of Texas – a Bush supporter .

The Neocons Arrive

Richard Nixon’s crooked spectre manifested itself in the form of George W Bush and his neocon entourage.

To say it was a dirty campaign would be mild.

Carl Rove was famous for his “East Texas Special”. He led Bush’s campaign and started a load of false rumours about McCain, including the rumour that he was gay. He’d been had been shot down in Vietnam and held as prisoner of war, Rove’s campaign said he spent too long in the Hanoi Hilton; that he was crazy, & his wife was on drugs and distributed pictures of his dark skinned daughter around Southern Carolina .

The draught dodger George W Bush said that Senator Max Cleland, a Democrat from Georgia seeking reelection, who’d lost three limbs in Vietnam, wasn’t patriotic.

George W Bush – his father had got him into the Texas Air National Guard so he would not have to go to Vietnam. “Vice president Dick cheney, who declared his way out of Vietnam because, as he says, he ‘had more important things to do’.”  –.

There was also the matter of strategically used dodgy voting machines. It began in the summer of 1999. Katherine Harris, Bush’s presidential campaign co-chair-woman and the Florida secretary of state in charge of elections, “paid $4m to Database Technologies (DBT) to go through Florida’s voter roles and remove anyone ‘suspected’ of being a former felon. She did so with the blessing” of Jeb Bush. 31% of black men were prohibited from voting because of a felony on their record, and blacks in Florida “overwhelmingly, are Democrats”. Harris told Database “to get rid of people with ‘similar’ names to those of actual felons, people with the same birth dates as known felons, or similar security numbers; an 80% match of relevant information, the election office instructed, was sufficient for Database to add a voter to the ineligible list”. 173,000 regsitered voters in Florida were permanently wiped of fthe voter rolls. In Miami Dade, Florida’s largest county, 66% of the voters who were removed were black. 8,000 additional Floridians “were thrown off the voting rolls because Database used a false list supplied” by Texas. The list claimed to be of former convicted felons who had moved to Florida.

The election on November 7th – 90% of black Floridians voted for Al Gore. But with thousands of black citizens unable to vote, in the end Bush was given 537 votes more than Al Gore in Florida – how much difference would all those thousands of mainly Democrat supporting voters have made?

Very expensive contract between Governor Jeb’s division of elections and DBT, which accidentally wiped off the voter rolls thousands of Democratic voters. In an interview with Clayton Roberts – the Director of Elections in Florida, after Palast revealed to Roberts that he had a copy of the secret DBT contract, Roberts became uncomfortable and ended the interview. Palast continued: “It could look to others don’t you think that you paid $4m to purchase the election for the Republican Party.” Roberts called the police .

The butterfly ballot caused yet more confusion. Theresa Le Pore chose to use the “butterfly ballot” – “confusing - led thousands of democrats, to punch the wrong hole, giving their vote not to Al Gore…but to Pat Buchanan.”  There was a recount. LePore insisted on the strictest standards for determining voter intent and then, 72 hours before the final deadline, ordering her staff to take the day off for Thanksgiving. Palm Beach County failed to complete its manual re-count on time “and the whole process…was rendered void.”

“Without the butterfly ballot, Gore would have taken as many as 7,000 more votes and cruised past Bush’s 537-vote margin of victory.”

She was told by the state of to replace the punchcard machines so she went for the electronic touchscreen voting sytem that had been used in Riverside County, east of LA. “She was told that Riverside’s system had performed flawlessly” but “had in fact suffered meltdown on election night, creating the first of many controversies about the reliability and accuracy of its Sequoia Pacific machines.” LePore was a “calamitously incompetent elections supervisor” but she managed to stay in the job.

It was some time before the winner was chosen – not by the ballot box, but by the supreme court.

“Our government has been overthrown” wrote Micheal Moore, by GW Bush, the “Thief-in-Chief”.

Star Wars

Clinton carried out promise to test the system and close it down if necessary – and since the test failed it was shut down. Just in time for Bush to start it up again.

January 2001

January 1 – A black monolith measuring approximately 9 feet tall appears in Seattle, Washington's Magnuson Park, placed by an anonymous artist in reference to the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey.

America Online and Time Warner merge to form AOL Time Warner – Jan 11th

January 13 earthquake in El Salvador, kills over 800 people

January 16 – Laurent-Désiré Kabila, president of the Democratic Republic of the Congo assassinated aged 62    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laurent-D%C3%A9sir%C3%A9_Kabila  and rebellion in Congo.

January 17 – Impeachment proceedings against Philippine President Joseph Estrada, accused of committing plunder, end prematurely and trigger the second EDSA People Power Revolution or People Power II. On January 20 – Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo is sworn in as the 14th President of the Philippines after the Armed Forces of the Philippines and several cabinet members withdraw support for Joseph Estrada.

January 20 – George W. Bush becomes the 43rd President of the United States.

 Seymour M. Hersh, "Annals of National Security Selective Intelligence: Donald Rumsfeld Has His Own Special Sources. Are they reliable?" The New Yorker, May 12, 2003, accessed May 8, 2007.check this link

Inauguration Protests

After much drama, and doubt over who had actually won the election, it was all decided behind closed doors, Gore dropped his court case suspiciously quickly and without much of a fight. Recounts were never finished. Suspicion pointed at James Baker, a close mate Cheney, who supervised the Florida recount and the related legal actions; and Jeb Bush, state governor. The Supreme Court appointed GW as president, and once in, he had the power to ensure a second term.

GW was now the head of the US oligarchy, or rather various borderline criminal types, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Cheney et al, were back in the top jobs.

Cheney – short history

Cheney was adamant that the administration was going to be leak proof. Andrew H Card Jr, appointed Chief of Staff, was a Bush family friend. Cheney and Card planned the White House out of the spotlight – not normal procedure and they created a highly compartmentalised WH. Access to the president was to be predetermined and limited.

Former LA Times reporter Jack Nelson, a seasoned Washington correspondent, was to report that “no president since Richard Nixon has been as secretive or as combative about leaks as GWBush.”

Abrams was appointed to the NSC in June as Senior Director of the Office of “Democracy, Human Rights and International Operations”. You’re ‘aving a larf ain’t ya! He’d been in the Reagan Administration where he was in his own words a “fighter” for the Reagan Doctrine in Central America. Some might say terrorist in chief. From 1991 it became known that he’d misled congress on two occasions in the course of public testimony he gave in 1986. He also concealed his role in obtaining $10m from the Sultan of Brunei for the Contras. He’d met the Sultan in London in 1986. It took a Bush pardon in 1992 to keep him out of gaol.

Ashcroft – Christian fundamentalist and gun nut – was appointed Attorney General.

These were the neo-cons or neo-conservatives, who had been biding their time since the Reagan era, who had written the open letter to Clinton in 96 (?).The neo-cons intentions were clear, roll back civil rights, boost the military, hand government over to the oil/ energy industry.

Disagreements with Europe over Son of Star Wars plans. http://www.brojon.org/frontpage/bj073001.html

Bush announced withdrawal from ABM treaty with Russia – to allow nuclear expansion. December 2001

Americans refused to support the International Criminal Court. DATES

One of the first things GW did was scrap something called Posse Comitatus. It had been around since 1878 and protected the US citizen against the use of the US military. Did Bush scrap this because he reckoned he’d need powers to us the military against US citizens?

All this spending -

Starve the Beast – term for what Republicans have done in office – spent on programs that benefited big business and defence contractors – which had added benefit that due lack of money in government coffers, welfare programs etc. had to be shut down. It was the effect that had kept Clinton’s administration under constraint, and was to effectively hamstring Bush’s popular successor, Barak Obama.

Plans to increase military spending were brought in  – but faced the opposition of the public. How would it be able to persuade America that this massive hike in military spending could be justified?

GW’s administration initially halted investigations into terrorism, while bargaining with the Taliban to deliver Bin Liner in exchange for economic aid and political recognition. This revealed in a book  by French intelligence analysts Jean-Charles Brisard and Guillaume Dasquié. The book goes on to reveal that former FBI Deputy Director John O’Neill eventually resigned in July in protest over the obstruction of his terrorist investigations.

Agence France Press reported  “FBI agents probing relatives of Saudi born terror suspect Osoma…were told to back off soon after GW Bush became president…”

January 22 "Texas 7"

January 23–25 – United Nations war crimes prosecutor Carla Del Ponte demanded that Serbia hand over Slobodan Milošević.

January 25 – A 50-year-old Douglas DC-3 crashes near Ciudad Bolivar, Venezuela, killing 24.[1]

Nine days into office and Bush, “legally” bought by the energy industry, created the National Energy Policy Development Group. Cheney chaired it. 

The General Accounting Office ended up taking Cheney to court over Freedom of Information rights (Janaury 2002) but the case got thrown out by Bush friendly judge John Bates.

February 2001

February 6 – Filemon Lagman, Filipino Communist revolutionary (b. 1953)

“He was the first prominent victim of a political assassination under the presidency of Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, carried out in Bahay ng Alumni, University of the Philippines, Diliman, Quezon City on February 8, 2001.[2] His assassination is widely speculated to have been carried out by his former associates in the Communist Party. The assassins and the culprits have not yet been apprehended as of 2008.[3] On July 2007, the Quezon City Prosecutor’s Office decided to drop the case on eight suspected communist assassins since the witnesses were unable to attended the preliminary investigations.[4]” Wikipedia – references from original text.

Haiti

7th Feb 2001 Elections held. Observers said they were “seriously flawed”. The new prime minister went on to spend $2m of government money on a luxury compound in Port-au-Prince. Discontent began to mount.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/1156540.stm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haitian_legislative_election,_2000

http://www.haitipolicy.org/archives/Publications&Commentary/snatch2.htm

http://journal.thelouvertureproject.org/archives/elections-in-haiti-in-2000-part-i/

February 9 – Herbert Simon, American economist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1916)

February 10 – Abraham Beame, American mayor of New York City (b.1906)

February 17 – Khalid Abdul Muhammad, American Black Nationalist leader (b. 1948)

February 19 – Stanley Kramer, American film director (b. 1913)

responsible for some of Hollywood's most famous "message" movies.[1] His notable films include The Defiant Ones (1958), On the Beach (1959), Inherit the Wind (1960), Judgment at Nuremberg (1961), Ship of Fools (1965) and Guess Who's Coming to Dinner (1967). His work was recognized with the Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award in 1961 and during his career has been nominated for Oscars 9 times. Wikipedia

February 6 – Likud Party leader Ariel Sharon won election as Prime Minister of Israel.

February 12 – The NEAR Shoemaker spacecraft touched down in the "saddle" region of 433 Eros, becoming the first spacecraft to land on an asteroid.

February 13 – A 6.6 magnitude earthquake hits El Salvador, killing at least 400.

February 16 – Iraq disarmament crisis: British and U.S. forces carry out bombing raids, attempting to disable Iraq's air defense network. US and UK war planes bomb a Baghdad suburb, killing 3 people.

February 18 – FBI agent Robert Hanssen is arrested and charged with spying for Russia for 15 years.

March 2001

March 23 – The Russian space station Mir re-entered the atmosphere and fell into the Pacific Ocean.

March 25 – The 73rd Academy Awards, hosted by Steve Martin – best picture: “Gladiator” the new Roman Empire paying homage to the old one? Idiot son of blessed ruler takes hold of empire through a treasonous act and leads it to injustice, war and tragedy. Sound familiar?

Wikipedia - In February 2001, Chief Accounting Officer [of Enron ] Rick Causey told budget managers: "From an accounting standpoint, this will be our easiest year ever. We've got 2001 in the bag."[65] On March 5, Bethany McLean's Fortune article “Is Enron Overpriced?” questioned how Enron could maintain its high stock value, which was trading at 55 times its earnings.[66] She pointed out how analysts and investors did not know exactly how Enron was earning its income. McLean was first drawn to the company's situation after an analyst suggested she view the company's 10-K report, where she found "strange transactions", "erratic cash flow", and "huge debt."[67] She called Skilling to discuss her findings prior to publishing the article, but he brushed her off, calling her "unethical" for not properly researching the company.[68] Fastow cited to Fortune reporters that Enron could not reveal earnings details as the company had over 1,200 trading books for assorted commodities and did "... not want anyone to know what's on those books. We don't want to tell anyone where we're making money."[66]

April 2001

April 1 – Milošević surrendered to police special forces, to be tried on charges of war crimes.

April 7 – Timothy Thomas, a black 19-year-old is shot by a police officer in Cincinnati, sparking riots in downtown Cincinnati from April 10 to April 12.

April 15 – Joey Ramone (b. 1951) died.

April 26 – Junichiro Koizumi became Prime Minister of Japan.

April 28 – Soyuz TM-32 lifts off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome, carrying the first space tourist, American Dennis Tito.

At the first Deputies Committee meeting on Terrorism held in April 2001, Richard A. Clarke strongly suggested that the U.S. put pressure on both the Taliban and Al-Qaeda by arming the Northern Alliance and other groups in Afghanistan. Simultaneously, that they target bin Laden and his leadership by reinitiating flights of the MQ-1 Predators. To which Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz responded, "Well, I just don't understand why we are beginning by talking about this one man bin Laden." Clarke replied that he was talking about bin Laden and his network because it posed "an immediate and serious threat to the United States." According to Clark, Wolfowitz turned to him and said, "You give bin Laden too much credit. He could not do all these things like the 1993 attack on New York, not without a state sponsor. Just because FBI and CIA have failed to find the linkages does not mean they don't exist." [9] Wikipedia – orginal references

In a conference call on April 17, 2001, now-Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Skilling verbally attacked Wall Street analyst Richard Grubman,[69] who questioned Enron's unusual accounting practice during a recorded conference call. When Grubman complained that Enron was the only company that could not release a balance sheet along with its earnings statements, Skilling replied "Well, thank you very much, we appreciate that ... asshole."[70] This became an inside joke among many Enron employees, mocking Grubman for his perceived meddling rather than Skilling's lack of tact, with slogans such as "Ask Why, Asshole".[71] However, Skilling's comment was met with dismay and astonishment by press and public, as he had previously brushed off criticism of Enron coolly or humorously, and many believe that this began a downward spiral that would unravel the company's deceptive practices.

By the late 1990s Enron's stock was trading for $80–90 per share, and few seemed to concern themselves with the opacity of the company's financial disclosures. In mid-July 2001, Enron reported revenues of $50.1 billion, almost triple year-to-date, and beating analysts' estimates by 3 cents a share.[72] Despite this, Enron's profit margin had stayed at a modest average of about 2.1%, and its share price had dropped by over 30% since the same quarter of 2000.[72]

However, concerns were mounting. Enron had recently faced several serious operational challenges, namely logistical difficulties in running a new broadband communications trading unit, and the losses from constructing the Dabhol Power project, a large power plant in India. There was also mounting criticism of the company for the role that its subsidiary Enron Energy Services had played in the power crisis of California in 2000-2001. Wikipedia [Wiki references]

May 2001

May 6 – Space tourist Dennis Tito returned to Earth aboard Soyuz TM-31. (Soyuz TM-32 is left docked at the International Space Station as a new lifeboat.)

May 7 – In Banja Luka, Bosnia and Herzegovina, an attempt is made to reconstruct the Ferhadija mosque. However, the ceremony results in mass riots by Serb nationalists, who beat and stone 300 elderly Bosnian Muslims.

May 12 – Perry Como died

May 13 – Silvio Berlusconi and the Italian House of the Liberties coalition win the general elections.

May 24 – The Versailles wedding hall disaster kills 23 in Jerusalem, Israel.

Brazilian governor says it is prepared to make changes to a development project which would have a catastrophic impact on the Amazon. In May President Cardoso abolished two government development agencies for the Amazon and the North East of the country. The agencies set up bogus projects in order to steal development funds estimated at > $1bn.

June 2001

June 1 – Crown Prince Dipendra of Nepal killed his father, the king, his mother and other members of the royal family with an assault rifle and then shot himself. Nepalese royal massacre. Dipendra died June 4, as King of Nepal. His uncle Gyanendra accedes to the throne.

A Hamas suicide bomber killed 21, mostly teenagers, in the Dolphinarium disco in Tel Aviv, Israel.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Hamas_suicide_attacks

June 5 – U.S. Senator Jim Jeffords leaves the Republican Party, which changes control of the US Senate from the Republicans to Democratics.

June 7 – The Bush tax cuts are signed into law by Bush.

June 7 – New Labour wins re-election in the UK.

June 7 – Víctor Paz Estenssoro, President of Bolivia (b. 1907)

June 10 – Princess Leila of Iran (b. 1970)

June 11 – In Terre Haute, Indiana, Timothy McVeigh is executed for the Oklahoma City Bombing. Terry Nichols not executed.

June 19 – An American missile hits a soccer field in northern Iraq (Tel Afr County), killing 23 and wounding 11. According to U.S. officials, it was actually an Iraqi missile that malfunctioned.[2] [reference on Wikipedia missing]

June 20 – Pervez Musharraf becomes President of Pakistan after the resignation of Muhammad Rafiq Tarar.

June 21 – John Lee Hooker, American musician (b. 1917)

June 23 – An earthquake (7.9 on the Richter scale) hits the south of Peru.

June 27 – Jack Lemmon, American actor and director (b. 1925)

June 30 – Chet Atkins, American country guitar player and producer (b. 1924)

July 2001

July 12 – Paul Magloire, Anti-communist President of Haiti during the 1950s - made Haiti a popular holiday spot for Americans.  

July 29 – Wau Holland, German hacker (b. 1951)

At a July 5, 2001 White House gathering of the FAA, the Coast Guard, the FBI, Secret Service and INS, Clarke stated that "Something really spectacular is going to happen here, and it's going to happen soon." Donald Kerrick, a three-star general who was a deputy National Security Advisor in the late Clinton administration and stayed on into the Bush administration, wrote Hadley a classified two-page memo stating that the NSA needed to "pay attention to Al-Qaida and counterterrorism" and that the U.S. would be "struck again." As a result of writing that memo, he was not invited to any more meetings. Wikipedia

July 3 – A Vladivostokavia Tupolev Tu-154 jetliner crashes on approach to landing at Irkutsk, Russia, killing 145.

July 16 – The People's Republic of China and the Russian Federation sign the Treaty of Good-Neighborliness and Friendly Cooperation.

July 16 – The FBI arrests Dmitry Sklyarov at a convention in Las Vegas, Nevada, for violating a provision of the DMCA.

Plans to Invade Afghanistan

In July according to the Grauniad a group of interested parties met, secretly, in a Berlin Hotel to listen to a former State Department official, Lee Coldren, as he said ‘the US was so disgusted with the Taliban that they were considering some military action. Pakistani diplomat and former Foreign Minister Niaz Naik was present .“Pakistan’s former foreign minister Niaz Naik has revealed that he was told by senior American officials in mid July that military action against Afghanistan would go ahead by the middle of October. The US secretary of state, Colin Powell, was then travelling in central Asia gathering support for an anti-Afghanistan war ‘coalition’.” - PILGER. BBC News “military action against Afghanistan would go ahead by the middle of October. It was Naik’s view that Washington would not drop its war for Afghanistan even if OBL were to be surrendered immediately by the Taliban.

“Osama was chosen on aesthetic grounds to be the frightening logo for our long-contemplated invasion and conquest of Afghanistan, planning which been ‘contingency’ some years before 911 and, again, from 20/12/00, when Clinton’s outgoing team devised a plan to strike at al-Qaeda in retaliation for the assault on the warship Cole.” “Osama, if it was he, and not a nation, simply provided the necessary shock to put in train a war of conquest.” .

The problem with the Taliban was that it “simply did not have total control of Afghanistan: a fact that deterred investors from financing oil and gas pipelines from the Caspian Sea, whose strategic position in relation to Russia and China and whose largely untapped fossil fuels are of crucial interests to the Americans. In 1988, Dick Cheney told oil industry executives: ‘I cannot think of a time when we have had a region emerge as suddenly as strategically significant as the Caspian.” JOHN PILGER.

Plans were hatched in the summer for relaunching – or ramping up – the interventions in the Middle East. It was a toss up between Afghanistan and Iraq. Neo-Cons were divided. Either way – military action was required, and public opinion needed to be swayed, and brought onside, something like Pearl Harbor which helped make the case for entering WW2.

A high budget film had been released on May 21, 2001 called “Pearl Harbor”, a love film loosely based on events from 60 years before. It was directed by mediocre ad and music video director Michael Bay, and received approval by the CIA. Roger Ebert: "'Pearl Harbor' is a two-hour movie squeezed into three hours, about how on Dec. 7, 1941, the Japanese staged a surprise attack on an American love triangle."

It was a biased, emotionally charged, skewed and historically inaccurate version of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour. But this film, intentionally or not, helped the US planners. The most important thing this film did for them was to plant ‘Pearl Harbor’ into the minds of millions of Americans. It has been long known by PR practitioners that visual images carry almost the same power as direct experience. It has become a convenient and efficient way of rewriting history and reprogramming millions of minds, not just in America, but anywhere Hollywood reaches.

July 20 – Vanessa Legget is found in contempt by a Federal Court for refusing to release notes made for her book on the Doris Angleton murder.

July 20–22 – The 27th G8 summit took place in Genoa, Italy. Massive demonstrations are held against the meeting by anti-globalisation groups. One demonstrator, Carlo Giuliani, is shot dead by a carabiniere. Several others are badly injured during a police attack on a school used by the protesters as their headquarters.

July 28 – Alejandro Toledo is sworn in as the new president of Peru, 8 months after a vote of no-confidence in former President Alberto Fujimori.

Gary Condit – congressman and Chandra Levy dead intern – story broke in July and was forgotten after 9-11  is this significant?

August 2001

August 1 – Alabama Supreme Court Chief Justice Roy Moore has a 2½ ton monument of the Ten Commandments installed in the Rotunda of the Judiciary Building. He is later sued to have it removed, and eventually removed from office.

On August 6, 2001, Clarke finally delivered a Daily Briefing Memo to President Bush entitled "Bin Laden determined to attack inside the United States". It featured information about ongoing Al-Qaeda activities within the United States, signs of a terror support network, indications of hijacking preparations and plans for domestic attacks using explosives. Wikipedia

August 9 –George W. Bush announces his limited support for federal funding of research on embryonic stem cells.

He claimed there would be “more than 60 cell lines available for this life-saving federally funded research, but no more. “A bit of what might be considered good ol’ Nixonian ity became evident in Bush’s decision, since there are in fact only 10 cell lines, not 60.”

Writer-editor Michael Kinsley claims that Bush’s  purported moral anguish was simply “pandering” to his political base while “sacrificing the future of many American citizens for short term advantage.”  “Taking Bush personally” by M. Kinsley via WTW – JWDean.

In the Comoros, the "Military Committee" of Major Mohamad Bacar seizes power in the island of Anjouan, which had declared independence. They plan to rejoin the Comoros.

September 2001

September 1 – The libertarian Free State Project is founded at Yale University.

September 5 – Peru's attorney general files homicide charges against ex-President Alberto Fujimori.

September 6 – United States v. Microsoft: The United States Justice Department announces that it no longer seeks to break up software maker Microsoft, and will instead seek a lesser antitrust penalty.

September 9 – Ahmed Shah Massoud, Afghan military commander (b. 1953)

September 9 – A suicide bomber kills Ahmed Shah Massoud, military commander of the Afghan Northern Alliance.

September 10 – Norwegian parliamentary election, 2001: Kjell Magne Bondevik returns to power as head of a conservative coalition.

September 11th 2001

Brzezinski’s ‘truly massive and widely perceived direct external threat’ on 911 “made it possible for the President to dance a war dance before Congress.”  “A long war!”, “Axis of evil” – incoherent; he did not get a declaration of war but he did get permission to go after Bin Laden.

“At the Labour party conference following the September 11th attacks, Tony Bliar said memorably: “To the Afghan people we make this commitment. We will not walk away…If the Taliban regime changes, we will work with you to make sure its successor is one that is broad-based, that unites all ethnic groups and offers some way out of the poverty that is your miserable existence.” He was echoing George Bush, who had said a few days earlier: “The oppressed people of Afghanistan will know the generosity of America and its allies. As we strike military targets, we will also drop food, medicine and supplies to the starving and suffering men and women and children of Afghanistan. The US is a friend of the Afghan people.”

Almost every word they spoke was false. Their declarations of concern were cruel illusions that prepared the way for the conquest of both Afghanistan and Iraq. As the illegal Anglo-American occupation of Iraq now unravels, the forgotten disaster in Afghanistan, the first “victory” in the “war on terror”, is perhaps an even more shocking testament to power.” Pilger  20/09/2003

The day after WTC attacks China was allowed to join the WTO – this is after 15 years of expectation. It wasn’t reported, which is lucky as it would have been difficult to square with US public opinion’s hatred of communism.

Aid workers began leaving Afghanistan on the day after 9-11. they knew what the score was, even if the Americans were playing it down.

Sharon now had every excuse to step up his killing machine in the occupied zone, which he did the very next day. September 12 – Israel sends tanks into Jericho, West Bank, starting a new military operation.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/holy/cron/

  In order to ensure the PR success of their wars in the Middle East, Bush forced Palestinians and Israel to agree a ceasefire on the 19th September. Shimon Peres was to reopen peace talks with Arafat. But it didn’t last long.

 “Further contributions to enhancing terror … when Washington again vetoed a security council resolution for dispatch of international monitors. Ten days earlier, the US boycotted an international conference in Geneva that once again concluded that the fourth Geneva convention applies to the occupied, so that many US-Israeli actions there are “grave breaches”, hence serious war crimes. As a “high contracting party”, the US is obligated by solemn treaty to prosecute those responsible for such crimes, including its own leadership. Accordingly, all of this passes in silence. But the US has not officially withdrawn its recognition that the conventions apply to the occupied  territories, or its censure of Israeli violations as the “occupying power”. In October 2000 the security council reaffirmed the consensus, “call(ing) on Israel, the occupying power, to abide scrupulously by its legal obligations…” The vote was 14 – 0, Clinton abstained.” CHOMSKY, THE SOLUTION IS THE PROBLEM, GUARDIAN, MAY 11TH 2002.

Sharon usefully compared Arafat with OBL.  Sharon cancelled the ceasefire talks on 23rd September. Israeli tanks and troops moved in to Palestinian controlled areas of Hebron in the west bank, killing at least 5 Palestinians and ending a tentative truce between the two sides, October 5th.

The media immediately whipped up the public ire against Bin Laden – even though it wasn’t clear who had perpetrated the attack.

It didn’t take long before Bin Laden was blamed officially – first it was conjecture, and then without any evidence it had become a fact. OBL began by denying involvement. Later a videotape arrived that proved OBL “planned the crimes against humanity in New York and Washington” Many doubted the tape was genuine…”[it was] incomprehensible to every Arab I’ve met…OBL’s overgrained, videotaped face…a dark, devilish image from Dante’s circles of hell.” .

But uncomfortable facts then began to emerge into public domain. Bush senior was employed by the Carlyle Group which owns 164 companies worldwide. The Wall Street Journal wrote: “If the US boosts defence spending in its quest to stop OBL’s alleged terrorist activities, there may be one unexpected beneficiary: Bin Laden’s family…investors in a fund established by the Carlyle Group. OBL is one of 50 children of Mohammed bin Laden who built the family’s $5bn business.”

To counter this a fabricated story  was put out that bin Liner’s family had broken with him, as had the royal family of Saudi Arabia. The CIA denied bin Laden had worked for them in war against USSR occupation of Afghanistan and the rumour that the Bushes had profited by its long involvement with the bin Liners.

It did look very much as if Bush and his son had been involved in blocking investigations into bin Laden’s terrorist activities and hiding the connection between George Bush and the bin Laden’s.

BBC TV Newsnight on 6th November 2001, reported “just two days after the hijackers took off from Boston aiming for the Twin Towers, a special charter flight out of the same airport whisked eleven members of OBL’s family off to Saudi Arabia. That did not concern the White House, whose official line is that the bin Ladens are above suspicion . “Above the Law” (Green Press 14th February 2002).

And “Newsnight has claimed evidence that the FBI was on the trail of other members of the Bin Laden family for links to terrorist organisations before and after September 11th. This document is marked “secret”. Case ID-199-Eye WF 213 589, 199 is FBI code for case type. 9 would be murder. 65 would be espionage. 199 means national security. http://www.gregpalast.com/printerfriendly.cfm?artid=104

Via: www.911independentcommission.org/fbi318004.html 

Arbusto Oil and the bin Laden Connection, By William Bowles

05/11/03: (Information Clearing House) Oh what a tangled Web we weave. Salem bin Laden, one of 57 children their father Mohammed sired with his 12 wives, and Bush were founders of the Arbusto Energy oil company in Texas (I assume not with the 12 wives as well).

He died in a plane crash -- like his father -- but not before the Arbusto Energy Oil Company, founded in 1978, had become hugely successful. Later, Spectrum 7 Corp bought out Arbusto (now called Bush Exploration Co). In 1986, with the company on the verge of bankruptcy, it was purchased by Harken (see Harken entry), and even though Bush Exploration Co had debts of $3 million, Harken paid Bush $2 million for his stock.

See also the BCCI (Bank of Credit & Commerce) connection, another murky international scandal involving drug money laundering etc which one of the original investors in Arbusto, James R. Bath, a Houston businessman and old friend of GWB was involved in.

"Time magazine described Bath in 1991 as "a deal broker whose alleged associations run from the CIA to a major shareholder and director of the Bank of Credit & Commerce." BCCI, as it was more commonly known, closed its doors in July 1991 amid charges of multibillion-dollar fraud and global news reports that the financial institution had been heavily involved in drug money laundering, arms brokering, covert intelligence work, bribery of government officials and–here's the kicker–aid to terrorists."

James Hatfield  http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article3332.htm

The White House issued a statement vehemently denying any connection between bin Laden and Bush, insisting Bath invested his own money in Arbusto. Bush initially denied knowing Bath, then acknowledged his stake in Arbusto and that Bath represented Saudi interests.

Arbusto energy emerged as Harken Energy Corp in 1986.

That day’s opening ceremony of the UN General Assembly was postponed. But was it just another lucky coincidence that the UN GA was on hand to react immediately to the WTC attack? That night in Kabul there were large incoming missiles and explosions. The US denied it was a revenge attack and claimed it was nothing to do with them.

The War On Terror / The War Against Terror

TWOT or TWAT. It doesn’t matter which title is used, the meaning is the same: oppression of minorities in the name of national security.

Bush called on US allies to join in a War on Terrorism on the 12th September. NATO invoked article 5 of its foundation charter – that the atrocities were an attack on all 19 member states. On September 13th GW talked of the first war of the 21st century. Bush established a war cabinet on September 14th and on 15th named OBL as the prime suspect, told Americans to get ready for war.

Tom Ridge became director of US’s new office of Homeland Security.

The new terms were “they hate us because we’re a democracy” even though few Arabs know much about democracy, and “the axis of evil” a childish phrase. Both phrases came from the Rand Corporation.

Economic Effects

There were fears of recession after 9-11. Airline companies suffered – managed to lose an estimated $10bn in less than a week since 9-11 occurred. Share prices plummeted when the NY stock exchange opened on 17th September. Oil prices were sent down on the 25th September – lack of demand from airline companies. IMF warned of a global recession on the 26th.

September 18 – The 2001 anthrax attacks commence as letters containing anthrax spores are mailed from Princeton, New Jersey to ABC News, CBS News, NBC News, the New York Post, and the National Enquirer. 22 in total are exposed; 5 of them die.

Blair began by parroting bush – but on 19th September he had to distance himself from Dubya’s declaration that he wanted OBL “dead or alive”. He went on a 9000 mile marathon diplomatic mission – taking him to four countries in less than 48 hours – Sep 19 – 21st.

Attack Iraq

Almost immediately the neo-cons in Bush’s administration tried to use 9-11 as an opportunity to attack Iraq. But this couldn’t be done immediately as an attack on Afghanistan had already been scheduled for October. So Bin Laden had to be blamed first, but with an OBL – Saddam connection put in place for the future attack of Iraq.

Richard Clarke, the White House counter-terrorism coordinator recounted in a book details of a meeting when officials considered the American response. “Rumsfeld was saying we needed to bomb Iraq,” Clarke said, “we all said ‘No, no, al-Qaueda is in Afghanistan’.” Observer, 21st March, 2004, Kama; Ahmed.

In November 2009 we learned that just three days after 9-11 Bush and Blair discussed Saddam and Iraq. This according to Sir David Manning, Blair’s foreign policy adviser, during the Chilcott Inquiry .

John Pilger suggested the real reason for attacking Iraq. “With unreliable Saudi Sheiks – for the US to control oil output it needs to topple Saddam to gain control of Iraqi oil output” 

And the US began a PR war to justify Global WAT. Rendon Group was hired to orchestrate sympathetic media coverage around the globe, including Muslim countries. Rendon Group worked for Kuwaiti government after Gulf War. It worked for the CIA in 1990s to wage a PR war against Saddam Hussein…helped to create and promote the Iraqi National Congress of Ahmed Chalabi.

http://www.prwatch.org/spin/September_2004.html#1094097603

As part of the PR campaign to persuade Americans of the case for a war in Iraq, the junta’s favourite columnists rallied to GW’s support.  Look at this article called “Bite the bullet and target Iraq” by William Safire in Washington, September 25, 2001, reprinted in The Guardian. The following is a pile of steaming cow poo:

"We're looking for links" between Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida terrorist group and Iraq's Saddam Hussein, said Colin Powell yesterday. So far, the US secretary of state can see "no clear link" between Bin Laden's forces in Afghanistan and the America-hater publicly laughing at our grief in Baghdad.

Powell does not want to acknowledge any evidence of sponsorship of Bin Laden by Iraq because that would demand a crushing blow at an Arab state. It might limit the diplomatic convoy of consensus he is assembling, which will travel at the rate of its most grudging member.

“The clear link between the terrorist in hiding and the terrorist in power can be found in Kurdistan, that northern portion of Iraq protected by US and British aircraft from Saddam's savagery.

Kurdish sources tell me (and anyone else who will listen) that the Iraqi dictator has armed and financed a fifth column of al-Qaida mullahs and terrorists that calls itself the Jund al Islam ("Soldiers of Islam"). Its purposes are to assassinate the leaders of free Kurdistan, to sabotage the relief efforts of the UN and to whip up religious fervor in that free Muslim region. That is how Saddam plans to reconquer the no-flight zone that has been a thorn in his side for a decade.

“According to a key member of the Kurdish resistance reached by cellphone in Suleymaniyah, some 400 "Arab Afghan" mercenaries armed with Katyusha rockets transported by Toyota Land Cruisers, have been infiltrated into the liberated region by Saddam's secret intelligence force, the Mukhabarat. They have already murdered a high Kurdish official as well as a Muslim scholar who dared to interpret the Koran humanely. This current, direct threat by Muslim fanatics doing Saddam's bidding is uniting the two squabbling democratic parties in the free zone. These Kurds are not Arabs or anti-Turkish terrorists. Nor are they pseudo-religious extremists humiliating women and moderates; on the contrary, the Muslim faith practised in northern Iraq has long been marked by tolerance.”

This tenuous case became one of the central planks to justify action in Iraq. An action that was had been planned for a decade or more by Bush-clan Neo-Cons. A former Clinton administration official in the Observer, 13th November 2002, who had been in charge of Bosnian policy, Richard Holbrooke, said there was going to be a war whatever the UN said.

In fact “As Bush’s enemies grew in number to include not just al Qaida but Iraq and Iran and their allies, a fabric of stories began to be woven.”

14th September the Taliban warned that they would retaliate if the country was attacked. British MP George Galloway warned an all-out assault on Afghanistan could create “10,000 OBLs”.

After Bush’s warning to the US, to get ready for war (15/09/01) tens of thousands of Afghans fled the country. Pakistan abandoned its support for the Taliban and jumped to Washington’s side demanding huge economic aid in exchange. The US demanded that Pakistan end food aid to Afghanistan – on the 16th September.

A high level Pakistani delegation met the Taliban on the 17th  to demand that OBL be handed over but it was rebuffed. British minister Clare Short said that a military operation which killed civilians would be “unbearable”. After rumours the Taliban on the 18th denied they had declared a jihad against the US. Reports on the 19th said OBL had ridden up to the mountains.

US began to fly more than 100 combat and support aircraft in various bases in the Middle East and Indian Ocean areas. Operation Infinite Justice was about to begin. Then on the 20th it was reported that the council of Islamic Clerics – shura – asked OBL to leave Afghanistan voluntarily. The US agreed to lift sanctions on Pakistan and India and to reschedule $600m in bilateral debt with Islamabad - pressed European countries to agree to a military campaign to topple the Taliban and replace with an interim administration.

On the 23rd Afghanistan shot down a US drone plane, Saudi Arabia rejected a US request to use its air bases and the Pope appealed for peace. On the 27th 1000 US airborne troops were deployed in Uzbekistan and Tajikstan.

Peace protesters marched in Washington on the 29th. UK journalist. Yvonne Ridley was arrested in Afghanistan on the 28th – to be tried for spying – she was released on October 8th after the war started.

There was a meeting of NATO defence ministers in Brussels on the September 26th September. Wolfowitz  put the US case to NATO defence ministers in Brussels 26th September, 2001 - leading proponent of a wider war against suspected state sponsors of terrorism, particularly Iraq.

It was said that Colin Powell was contemptuous of Wolfowitz's "ending states" suggestion. There was talk of a rift between Powell and Wolfowitz which became unusually public. Powell said, "I think 'ending terrorism' is where I would leave it and let Mr Wolfowitz speak for himself."

October 2001

October 4 – Siberia Airlines Flight 1812 crashes over the Black Sea en route from Tel Aviv, Israel to Novosibirsk, Russia; 78 are killed.

On October 5th the Taliban said they were willing to put OBL on trial in an Afghan court – if the US provided hard evidence against him.

There was all the OBL – hand him over crap. Of course the Afghani government capitulated in days and offered to hand him over but by then the goal posts had been shifted – the US didn’t want him to be handed over any more –it was reported that Afghanistan were being unreasonable – the war was on. But of course, “the conquest of Afghanistan had nothing to do with OBL. He was simply a pretext for replacing the Taliban with a relatively stable government that would allow Union Oil of California to lay its pipeline for profit of among others – Cheney – Bush junta .”

The  US had sought Iran’s help to attack the Taliban, but then acted increasingly hostile towards the Tehran government .

October 7 – War in Afghanistan (2001–present): The United States invades Afghanistan, with participation from other nations.

Arrests boomed all over the planet – and backlash attacks on Muslims. Sheikh Omar bin Bakri bin Muhammad – a British supporter of bin Laden, and Abu Hamza al-Masri – look up details.

The FBI detected a group of suspects at a Boston Hotel and 5 in southern Florida. Muslim communities in countries including US, Australia, Canada, came under attack from October 13th. An Afghan taxi driver (in US?) was beaten up on October 17th and paralysed from the neck down. Then a ‘terrorist cell’ in Detroit was discovered – 3 men arrested – diagrams of airports and forged id documents found. In the UK on October 22nd, police questioned three people arrested in Brum and London. Then more arrests over weekend of 22nd, the same day as a huge anti-war march in London. More arrests on the October 30th in UK, Germany and west African state of Mauritania. Intelligence told US congress on the 5th October that they believe a second major terrorist attack on the US is highly likely in the near future –

On October 11th a “very real” threat against the US given by the FBI – put police on high alert and called on Americans to be vigilant.

A Russian airliner exploded in midair over the Black Sea, with 78 killed. No survivors. US blamed Ukrainian ground to air missile – but Ukrainians denied responsibility. Putin said it may have been terrorists, October 4th.

It was an October 12th that Ukrainians made admission that his country’s military may have shot down the Russian airliner.

Jack Straw went to Iran, the first such visit by the UK foreign sec since 1979 revolution. Straw warned of further attacks by OBL on 28/09 and went to Pakistan on October 5th.

October 7th the US invaded Afghanistan.

The propaganda in the UK media managed to boost support for action in Afghanistan with nearly 3 out of 4 backing Blair’s support for the US.

Sudden and Short Lived Concern for Afghan Women

American and western public figures suddenly came over all sharing and caring regarding the plight of Afghani women. In his address to UNGA, Bush showed concern for Taliban’s treatment of women. Laura Bush demanded that Afghan women be involved in rebuilding democracy in Afghanistan. It has taken 13 years for America to recognise the problem. During Soviet occupation women’s lives improved enormously. Especially in education and employment. This was never an issue before. Now anything that might sway the public towards an attack on Afghanistan may be used – must be used.

What made it all much worse was that after the war had been “won”, “almost all afghan women continued to wear the burqa”.

On 7th October, after calling for restraint, the US bombed the fuck out of Afghanistan – for no believable reason. This response was labelled “Infinite Justice” and then “Enduring Freedom”. Central command was in Florida.

During this period tv viewers were witness to one of the most absurd appearances ever. “Donald Rumsfeld looking on solemnly as an anchorman detailed the complexities of al Qaida’s underground bases in the Tora Bora mountains. The graphic showed weapons stores, hydroelectric installations and air-filtration units. The reality was a set of dusty holes containing rusting ammunition and goat droppings.” 

Only one lone congresswoman – Barbara Lee of California – rejected Dubya’s demand to act on Afghanistan. War Powers Resolution Passed after Vietnam? – Look up.

October 8 – Flight SK686 of SAS collides first with a private plane and then a building in Milano Airport; 100 are killed.

October 9 – The 2001 anthrax attacks continue as contaminated letters are mailed from Princeton, New Jersey, to U.S. Senators Tom Daschle of South Dakota and Patrick Leahy of Vermont.

The US bombed 4 Afghan employees of a UN mine clearing operation based near Kabul on 9th October and killed them. UN children’s fund convoys from Pakistan were stopped. World food programmes also stopped emergency food shipments.

An Afghan cleric called on his followers to incite a nationwide revolt. Three protesters shot dead by police as a ‘mob’ rampaged through a town near the Afghan border.

Karam was hit by a stray US bomb on October 11th, killing more than 200 people.

Police fired tear gas at 100s of Islamic students to stop them from storming Indonesia’s parliament in Jakarta during the 3rd consecutive day of Anti US protests.

Anti US violent clashes in Pakistan, Indonesia, and Iran – October 12th.

October 15 – NASA's Galileo spacecraft passes within 112 miles of Jupiter's moon Io.

On October 18th the US stepped up air strikes. Eight members of Afghan family killed in Kabul by US military strike on October 21st. When the Taliban offered to turn OBL over to the US on October 21st, confusingly, GW rejected it.

October 23rd US bombers attacked Kabul attempting to finish before Ramadam starts.

The battle for the Taliban’s last northern stronghold of Kunduz. FEARS of a massacre of thousands of foreign fighters trapped in Kunduz, the last northern stronghold of the Taliban, were raised as the Northern Alliance launched an all-out attack to capture the besieged town.

10-day siege of the Kunduz

The International Committee of the Red Cross said that between 400 and 600 bodies had been found in the northern Afghan town of Mazar-i-Sharif following its capture by the alliance.

But a spokesman could not say whether the dead had been executed or were killed in the fighting that preceded the fall of the town on Nov 9.

Donald Rumsfeld said: "Any idea that those people should be let loose on any basis to go bring terror to other countries and destabilise other countries is unacceptable."

He made clear that he thought the Taliban and their cohorts should either be killed in battle or forced into unconditional surrender and face local justice. For the foreigners captured by the Northern Alliance, the outcome of local justice would be almost certain execution.

However, Daoud Khan, the commander of forces massed to the east of Kunduz, said that Afghan Taliban who wanted to surrender would be granted safe passage to Kandahar, the only other Afghan city in Taliban hands.

Hopes of a bloodless conclusion to the siege were raised by the Uzbek warlord, General Abdul Rashid Dostum, who met the top Taliban commander, Mullah Fazil, for talks near Mazar-i-Sharif.

The meeting was held in Gen Dostum's freshly recaptured headquarters, a fortress 100 miles west of Kunduz. Mullah Fazil arrived with a heavily armed squad of bodyguards while senior Northern Alliance commanders were sent to stay in Kunduz as hostages.

Gen Dostum said he had been assured by Mullah Fazil that 14,000 foreign and Afghan Taliban in Kunduz remained under his command and would surrender.

However, a few hours later, the alliance interior minister, Yunus Qanuni, said talks had failed. "We have been forced to choose a military solution. Our forces are advancing. We hope by tomorrow we will have secured Kunduz," he said.

Mr Qanuni accused the Taliban of treachery. "It was a political tactic. They wanted to buy time; they had no intention of surrendering."

To add to the confusion, rivalries between Gen Dostum and Gen Daoud broke into the open, with Gen Daoud saying he controlled five front lines near Kunduz as opposed to Gen Dostum's one and vowing he would take the city first.

His comments fuelled fears that the battle for Kunduz, supposedly a key piece of the global war against terrorism, would descend into a race for the spoils left behind by the Taliban, and for long-term control of the strategic city.

The troops massing for the advance on Kunduz expressed little interest in talk of deals and surrenders. Ahmad Shah, a tank commander, said: "I hate all Taliban. If we send the foreigners abroad, they will continue their activities outside the country. The best way is this: we kill all of them in Afghanistan."

“Mr Evil seemed to have disappeared” - fisk

October 26 – U.S. President George W. Bush signs the USA PATRIOT Act into law.

Soldiers board a Chinook helicopter.November – The Doha Declaration relaxes the grip of international intellectual property law.

On October 22nd, new public offensive to widen public debate by Labour dissidents – as they demand the setting up of a special international court, including Islamic judges, to try OBL if he can be captured alive. One thousand troops to be deployed for ground operations in Afghanistan. 

During October Dick Cheney visited the CIA to try to get legal opinion allowing greater latitude for coercive interrogation. CIA Gen. Counsel does not give Cheney the decision he wants.

In the UK the first Stop The War Coalition demo mobilised 20,000 people. October - DATE?

November 2001

November 10 – Ken Kesey, American author (b. 1935)

November 29 – George Harrison, English musician (b. 1943)

In November Dick Cheney warned that the US could take action against “40 to 50 countries”. It was claimed that Somalia was a haven for al-Qaeda and was put at the top of a list of possible targets with Iraq. It was in Somalia that the US marines suffered 18 deaths while a mere 7,000 to 10,000 Somalis were killed by US marines.

It was already clear that 9-11 would be used to justify a more aggressive foreign policy. An imperialist policy.

November 2 – The Glocal Forum, leading international organization in the field of city-to-city cooperation, is established by Ambassador Uri Savir.

6th November the Office of Counsel’s Patrick Philbin sent 35 page confidential memo to Alberto Gonzales saying the president has “inherent authority” to establish military commissions. It also says that trying terrorists under the laws of war “does not mean that terrorists will receive the protections of the Geneva Conventions or the rights that laws accord to lawful combatants.” “Taxi to the Dark Side” website

November 10 – The People's Republic of China is admitted to the World Trade Organization after 15 years of negotiations.

November 12 – In New York City, American Airlines Flight 587, headed to the Dominican Republic, crashes in Queens minutes after takeoff from John F. Kennedy International Airport, killing all 260 on board. Sparked a panic.

November 13 – Doha Round: The World Trade Organization ends a 4-day ministerial conference in Doha, Qatar.

November 13 – In the first such act since World War II, U.S. President George W. Bush signs an executive order allowing military tribunals against any foreigners suspected of having connections to terrorist acts or planned acts against the United States. 

Taliban prisoners, dead, in a mass grave. Died during an operation masterminded by US Special Forces, near the town of Shiberghan, where 800 Taliban fighters were still being held as late as 14th September 2002. Half of the prisoners still in Shiberghan were Afghans, the other half were Pakistanis. The prison was controlled by an Afghan warlord called General Abdul Rashid Dostum. Dostum’s commanders transported Taliban captives to Shiberghan in sealed shipping containers. No water for 20 hours. Out of 300 in one container, 10 were alive when they reached their destination. The estimate is that 400 people suffocated to death during the journey. Other sources say 900 to 1000. Physicians for Human Rights group from Boston in the US suggest 2,000 to 3,000 of the 8,000 prisoners taken to Shiberghan died on the way.

The Guardian “details which suggest that their death was not a tragic accident but a deliberate act of revenge”. General Dostrum’s soldier fired several Kalashnikov rounds into containers – witness saw blood running out of the holes. A driver saw guards rake dead and living laid out on desert with bullets to make sure they were dead. Dostrum is now deputy defence minister (2002) and has denied the accusations.

What makes this massacre different from Taliban killings is the presence of US Special Forces in the area. Dostrum had been on the US pay-roll for nearly a year.  DATE?

Afghan Massacre: The Convoy of Death released in June 2002

Newsweek: October 2001, an elite team from 5th Special Forces Group first met up with General Dostrum, dropped in by Chinook helicopter to Dostrum’s mountain base. They co-ordinated the Northern Alliance’s assault on Mazar-I-Sharif, which fell on November 6th, and pursued the Taliban’s northern army to Kunduz where they were trapped for over two weeks. 595 A-Team, US Special Forces unit paid repeated visits to Shiberghan prison. One source claims a special forces vehicle pulled up outside Dasht-I-Leili 500m from where bulldozers were burying the Taliban dead.

Afghanistan’s president Hamid Karzai in 2002 – called for an inquiry. Mohammed Fahim, the defense minister, dismissed allegations. Others have hinted that the Taliban have “had it coming”. Omar Samad is foreign ministry spokesman (2002). The UN concluded that there was enough evidence for “fully fledged criminal investigation”. The Pentagon has declined to answer questions.

“It’s amazing that ‘US intelligence officers’ who ‘spent weeks interrogating Taliban and Al Qaida suspects at the jail, and in time removed 114 prisoners…to Guantanamo Bay where they remain (2002) without charge, appear to have no knowledge of the mass grave just down the road.”

INCLUDE report of British Guantanamo detainees – eye witness of above atrocity – three survived it.

Mullah Omar – “the mysterious leader of the Taliban, has also got away”.

Thousands being killed equivalent to many My Lai’s every day? This was all successfully deflected while the US began to talk about the next target.  The object of their original attack to catch bin Liner – we seek him here we seek him there – is more or less forgotten. The US does not want him.  He’s a colleague of Bush and a very useful CIA operative. Why should they want to catch him?

Women still wearing the burqa – if anything things were worse for women.

“massive preponderance of Northern alliance killers represented in the new UN supported, pro-Western government in Kabul.”

The ‘peace’ force faced Northern alliance mafia, drug smugglers, warlords, vicious guerrillas who were the surviving remnants of Al Qaida and the Taliban.

Instead it was time to change reality, to plant a new name into the hate cells of the American brain – Saddam Hussein. Suddenly there was a sure fire connection between Saddam and Al Qaida, only we’re not sure what it is, and sometimes we know what it is but we can’t say for security reasons – although I’m sure that if it was true, Saddam and bin liner knew already. So who was it secret from? Why is it when evidence was produced it was useless, not actually evidence, or just downright lies? It’s the contradiction that undermined the US and UK case for war. It’s to get bin liner – now it’s to get the Taliban – now it’s for women’s rights – now it’s for democracy in Afghanistan but don’t ask why we put the old dictators back in charge and why women still do not have their freedoms– now we must attack Iraq for being sponsors of terror and having an Al quaida connection we don’t wish to prove – then its because of WMDs we couldn’t find – in fact WMDs that couldn’t possibly exist as the UN had accounted for all Iraq’s weapons years before – then it was a moral war cos Saddam’s a bad man, but that never worried the western powers before – suddenly right wing bigots became moralistic and blamed Saddam on peace protesters!?! When the moral argument didn’t work Bliar used to switch to one of the others – none of them stood up but maybe a hotchpotch of all of them with occasional mentions of 911 would probably suffice. It all came to a head in the following year when the gloves came off, diplomatic language ended, and we all saw Bush and Bliar for what they are, right wing thugs working for US hegemony. Bliar wanted to ban peaceful protest – his own party nearly ditched him.

AMERICA HAS REPLACED “AFGHANISTAN’S BAD TERRORISTS WITH AMERICA’S GOOD TERRORISTS”

JOHN PILGER.

A huge amount of money was handed out to militia leaders to persuade them to fight for the US. “When Taliban members changed sides for an Alliance payment of $250,000 and then attacked their benefactors, we all dwelt in their treachery. None of us asked how much the alliance – which didn’t have enough money to pay for bullets a few weeks earlier – could throw a quarter of a million bucks at the Taliban in the middle of a fire-fight. Nor how the Pashton tribal leaders of Kandahar province are now riding around in brand new four wheel drives with thousands of dollars to hand out to their gunmen. I wasn;t surprised to read that a Somali warlord is now offering his cash-for-hire services to the US for the next round of the war for civilisation.”

Former Mojahedin Warlords went on to call themselves the “Northern Alliance” – pilger

A conglomerate of various opportunistic ethnic groups, mostly Tajiks, Hazaras and Uzbeks. Needless to say, they are the same groups who were in power before the US supported the Taliban into power.

The US bribed “every commander that we could “ to stop fighting each other giving each warlord tens of thousands of dollars in cash and weapons. – pilger.

An estimate of 6,000 dead in Afghanistan.

American Taliban fighter John Walker – tortured by CIA operative Mike Spann; hooded, chained and drugged prisoners being herded onto American military aircraft at Kandahar airport.

US Special Forces, concerned by certain illegal orders from Washington and actions of local CIA operatives, responded by leaking highly sensitive information to the public.

The staged revolt by Taliban prisoners  - US and Allied warlord captors had been “gleefully pouring oil on the Taliban prisoners and lighting it with matches”. And Mike Spann was reportedly beaten to death.

Is this how we found out Walker existed and saved his life?

The footage of Al Qaida and Taliban prisoners being hooded, chained and medically sedated, to an American C17 transport aircraft at Kandahar airport – night – the footage was unauthorised. Rumsfeld authorised officers to gain undertakings from media not to show footage, but too late.

Now Afghanistan has been made safe, not only for democracy, but for Union Oil of California whose proposed pipeline from Turkmenistan to Afghanistan to Pakistan and the Indian Ocean port of Karachi, had been abandoned under the Taliban’s chaotic regime.

www.geocities.com/torture victims/kandahar.html

Anthrax Attacks and Mysterious Rashes

Mysterious rashes across US schools – hysteria? – 14/10/01

The Anthrax attacks across America which petered out once the press cottoned on to the fact that the “terrorist” campaign was being waged from within the US establishment.

Outbreak in Florida on October 9th at a newspaper office. FBI announced criminal investigation into the anthrax outbreak at the hqs of a Florida-based newspaper empire after a third worker tested positive. Two US postal workers died in “highly suspicious” circumstances on October 22nd – processed mail for congress. Joseph P Curseen Jr and Thomas L Morris Jr. Nine other post workers died October 2001 to October 2002.

10th November, while senior military JAGs are preparing a response to the draft military order, at the white house, Cheney, Ashcroft, Haynes and White House lawyers have their own meeting (according to the NY Times, Cheney advocated withholding the draft from Rice and Powell).

November 11th – capture of Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi in Pakistan.

November 13th Bush signs an Executive Order authorizing the Defense Secretary to hold non US citizens in indefinite detention. The Military Order: “Detention, Treatment and Trial of Certain Non-Citizens in War Against Terror” authorizes detention and trial by military commissions that should not be subject to principles of law and rules of evidence recognized by US courts or the Uniform code of Military Justice.

“Taxi to the dark side2 website

On November 28, 2001, Dynegy Inc. unilaterally disengaged from the proposed acquisition of the company and Enron's credit rating fell to junk status. Watson later said "At the end, you couldn't give it [Enron] to me."[112] The company, having very little cash with which to run its business, let alone satisfy enormous debts, imploded. Its stock price fell to $0.61 at the end of the day's trading. One editorial observer wrote that "Enron is now shorthand for the perfect financial storm."[113]

Systemic consequences were felt, as Enron's creditors and other energy trading companies suffered the loss of several percentage points. Some analysts felt Enron's failure highlighted the risks of the post-September 11 economy, and encouraged traders to lock in profits where they could.[114] The question now became determining the total exposure of the markets and other traders to Enron's failure. Early figures put the number at $18.7 billion. One adviser stated, "We don't really know who is out there exposed to Enron's credit. I'm telling my clients to prepare for the worst."[115]

Enron was estimated to have about $23 billion in liabilities, both debt outstanding and guaranteed loans. Citigroup and JP Morgan Chase in particular appeared to have significant amounts to lose with Enron's fall. Additionally, many of Enron's major assets were pledged to lenders in order to secure loans, throwing into doubt what if anything unsecured creditors and eventually stockholders might receive in bankruptcy proceedings.[116]

Enron's European operations filed for bankruptcy on November 30, 2001, and it sought Chapter 11 protection in the U.S. two days later on December 2. It was the largest bankruptcy in U.S. history (before being surpassed by WorldCom's bankruptcy the following year), and it cost 4,000 employees their jobs.[2][117] The day that Enron filed for bankruptcy, the employees were told to pack up their belongings and were given 30 minutes to vacate the building.[118] Around 15,000 employees held 62% of their savings in Enron stock, purchased at $83.13 in early 2001; when it went bankrupt in October 2001, Enron's stock later plummeted to below a dollar.[119]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enron_scandal

December 2001

Bin Laden Dead?

Pakistani and Egyptian press in December 2001

http://www.welfarestate.com/binladen/funeral

In December 2001 Fox News broadcast a 4 part series on alleged Israeli spying in the US. Transcript was posted on the net. Important implications in terms of who did the 911 attacks. Program and web site have disappeared without trace.

Early December onslaught on the Tora Bora caves complex south of the eastern town of Jalabad. Campaign to capture the cradle of the Taliban, Kandahar in south.

December 2nd – Enron files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection 5 days after Dynegy cancels a US$8.4 billion buyout bid (the largest bankruptcy to date in U.S. history).

Stop the War’s second demo took place on the 2nd of December – 100,000 people marched.

December 3rd – Officials announce that one of the Taliban prisoners captured after the prison uprising at Mazari Sharif, Afghanistan is John Walker Lindh, an American citizen.

On December 6th US nearly killed Hamid Karzai – their man to head the new Afghanistan – by a “smart bomb” attack  - the bomb dropped by a B-52 bomber – 3 US soldiers killed and 19 injured.

The Taliban were forced out of Afghanistan at the end of December.

December 11th – The United States government indicts Zacarias Moussaoui for involvement in the 9-11 attacks.

December 13th – The Parliament of India is attacked; 14 are killed. This brings India and Pakistan to the brink of war.[citation needed]  U.S. President George W. Bush announces the United States' withdrawal from the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty.

Arafat insisted he would march to Bethlehem to attend church services. Israel refused him and “he merely appeared on Palestinian tv and preposterously claimed that Israel’s refusal was an act of ‘terrorism’.

Arab Daily A Qudo al – Arabi (??) asked, “was there no explanation for this ‘bizarre and incomprehenisble’ performance by Arafat? Why did he not march out of Ramallah with the Christian clerics who had come to give their support until physically stopped by Israeli troops in front of the tv cameras? Robert Fisk. DATE??

The massacre of Muslims in India, became worse after September 11th 2001; but not widely reported.

The Tral incident – people shot dead by Indian security forces on December 16th. Fidayeen attack on India’s Parliament House in New Delhi. India blamed Islamic Jihadi organistaions. UN brokered cease-fire line divided Jammu and Kashmir since 1949. India sowed its border with hundreds of thousands of land-mines and test launched a ballistic missile. Perrez Musharraf, Pres of Pakistan, had begun a crack-down on Pakistani militants. More than 50 suspicious deaths of Indian Security forces around Tral allegations of torture rape and killings across state.

Mohamed al-Qahtani captured in Afghanistan

16th December Rumsfeld visit to Afghanistan

19th December Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi transferred to US control at Bagram Air Force base. FBI agents begin to question him. But the FBI refused to use any “coercive interrogation techniques.” Accroding to FBI agent Jack Cloonan, the interrogation produces information regarding Richard Reid and Zacaias Moussaoui. Depsite this progress, at the request of George Tenet, the Bush Administration decides to transfer al-Libi to the custody of the CIA. (see January 2002)

On December 19th nine men were removed from their homes in UK nationwide raids, by dozens of police officers and taken to Belmarsh and Woodhill high security prisons.

Families didn’t know where they’d been taken. They were all non-UK from Algeria, Egypt, Monaco and Tunisia – certified as ‘suspected international terrorists’ under new law – the Anti-Terrorism crime and Security Act (ATCSA). Home office only needs “reasonable belief” that those detained are a threat to national security. They were to stay in prison for years without trial and without prospect of release. The UK had to renege on the section of the European convention of human rights stipulating no detention without trial – the only country out of 40 to have done so.

“Curtis’s account of the spasm of panicky vigilance that September 11th sent through America’s law enforcement agencies, which immediately started seeing al Qaeda sleeper cells everywhere. One group of men in Detroit were arrested after a tip-off from a notorious fraudster. Their guilt was apparently proved by a videotape of a trip to Disneyland. That moment when the camera panned briefly across a rubbish bin? Clearly scoping for potential hiding places for bombs.

And the scene in which the 4 teenagers jig about having a pillow fight? A cunning Al Qaeda ploy to disguise their true malevolence.” Thomas Sutcliffe, Indie, on Adam Curtis’s ‘The Power of Dreams’.

December 22 – Hamid Karzai is sworn in as head of the interim government in Afghanistan.

December 22 – A Paris-Miami, Florida flight is diverted to Boston, Massachusetts after passenger Richard Reid attempts to set his shoe, filled with explosives, on fire.

Stats complied by a New Hampshire university professor show that by 22nd December, US air strikes had killed more innocent Afghans than the hi-jackers killed Westerners and others in the World Trade Centre [note: professer Marc W. Herold, “a dossier on civilian victims of United States Aerial Bombing of Afghanistan: A Comprehensive Accounting” (Revised March 2002) http://www.cursor.org/stories/civiliandeaths.htm ]

December 27 – The People's Republic of China is granted permanent normal trade status with the United States.

December 28th, Patrick Philbin (Deputy Asst. Attorney General) and John Yoo write memo on habeas corpus and Guantanamo (federal district court could not properly exercise habeas jurisdiction over an alien detained at GBC.

680 of them.

The US government argued that Guantanamo Bay is outside the jurisdiction of the US court system and that lawyers  cannot challenge the conditions in which prisoners are held, including their lack of access to legal advice. It’s where the US stashed prisoners after the invasion of Grenada.

Late 2001 President Bush signed top-secret finding authorizing DOD to set up Special Access Program (SAP) known to only a few high-level folks to kidnap or assassinate terror suspects or rendition them to sympathetic nations for more “coercive” interrogation. “Taxi to the Dark Side” website

Secret CIA prisons – Poland; ANDREW RETTMAN; 15.04.2009 @ 09:28 CET

Journalists from Polish TV station TVP and daily newspaper Rzeczpospolita say they have obtained new evidence that Poland ran a secret CIA prison used for extra-judicial extradition of terrorism suspects.

The evidence - documents and witness statements related to a Polish judicial investigation to see if the facility undermined Polish sovereignty - point the finger at the country's former Socialist government.

The new information suggests that in December 2001, Poland designated 20 secret service agents to help in Washington's new war on terror and leased part of a military base in Stare Kiejkuty in the northwest of the country to the US.