"...This is the reality of Washington’s so-called “war on terrorism.” It is utilized as a propaganda tool for justifying unprovoked wars of aggression abroad and terrorizing the American people and attacking their democratic rights at home. For this purpose, “terrorists” must be discovered and prosecuted, in their vast majority hapless victims of FBI entrapment operations. Meanwhile, real terror remains a vital instrument for imposing the dictates and interests of US-based transnational corporations and banks all over the world, and those who practice it are protected by the government..."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
WSWS : News & Analysis : North America
A tale of two cases in US “war on terror”: Jose Padilla and Chiquita Brands
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2007/mar2007/chiq-m24_prn.shtml
By Bill Van Auken
24 March 2007
Two recent cases prosecuted by the US Justice Department involving charges of providing material aid to a foreign terrorist organization have led to startlingly different results for the defendants.
In the first, the accused was seized by federal agents at a US airport, vilified as a mass murderer by the US attorney general in a nationally broadcast press conference and then held in solitary confinement without charges or the right to see a lawyer or have contact with family members for more than three years. During this period, he underwent sensory deprivation and outright torture that, his lawyers argue, left him mentally damaged and incompetent to stand trial.
While federal prosecutors now portray the defendant as merely a low-level courier, working for others, they still want to jail him for life.
In the second instance, the individual defendants have never even been named, much less publicly denounced by the attorney general. The sole mention of the ultimate punishment for their crime came in the form of a discreet posting on the Justice Department web site.
The defendants in this second case are part of a major multinational operation and admit to funneling millions of dollars abroad to finance a murderous terrorist organization. Yet they were allowed to reach a pre-trial plea bargain that included as the penalty a fine amounting to 0.55 percent of their annual revenue. The organization that financed the foreign terrorists has boasted publicly that its global operations have not been affected in the slightest.
What is to account for this apparently gross disparity? The answer is simple. In the first case, the defendant was Jose Padilla, born in Brooklyn and raised in a Chicago ghetto before converting to Islam in prison. In the second, the defendants are multimillionaire executives of a multibillion-dollar US-based transnational corporation with a long history of political influence and a prominent role in US foreign policy—Chiquita Brands International, Inc.
By any objective scale, the crimes to which the corporation pleaded guilty are far more serious than the rather vague conspiracy allegations made by the government against the former “enemy combatant” Padilla.
In November 2005, faced with a potential ruling by the US Supreme Court challenging the administration’s claim that it is empowered to detain both US citizens and foreign nationals indefinitely without charges on the sole say-so of the US president that they are “enemy combatants,” the Justice Department criminally indicted Padilla.
Gone were the lurid claims made three and a half years earlier that he was involved in a plot to detonate radioactive “dirty bombs” in US cities. Instead, he was accused of a “conspiracy” involving the raising of funds for Islamic movements in places like Bosnia, Chechnya and Kosovo, with the amounts of money listed ranging from $1,000 to $5,000. No charges whatsoever were presented that Padilla was involved in any terrorist activities in the US itself.
Chiquita, on the other hand, acknowledged financing right-wing paramilitary death squads in Colombia to the tune of more than $1.7 million between 1997 and 2004. This organization, the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (known by its Spanish acronym AUC), has been involved in the massacre, assassination, kidnapping and torture of tens of thousands of Colombians, most of them peasants and workers, as well as trade unionists and left-wing political figures.
On September 10, 2001, a day before the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, the US State Department formally designated the AUC as a “foreign terrorist organization,” making it illegal in the US to provide it with material support.
According to the announcement of the plea deal posted on the Justice Department’s web site, Chiquita made more than 100 monthly payments to the AUC through its wholly owned Colombian subsidiary, “Banadex,” which was the corporation’s most profitable division. The payments were arranged following a meeting in 1997 between a senior company executive and the leader of the AUC, Carlos Castaño.
“Chiquita’s payments to the AUC were reviewed and approved by senior executives of the corporation, including high-ranking officers, directors and employees,” the Justice Department reported, without naming any names. The company listed these payments in its records as being for “security services.” Beginning in 2002, it began making direct cash payments to the death squad, in order to better conceal the relationship.
Fully half of these payments—totaling $825,000—were made after the US designation of the AUC as a terrorist organization. The Justice Department uncovered records of communications between the corporation and its outside counsel in 2003 in which the lawyers insisted emphatically that Chiquita should immediately halt the payments and unload its Colombian operation in order to avoid prosecution for aiding a terrorist organization.
The Chiquita board of directors took the decision to continue the payments, while disclosing the practice to the US Justice Department. The attitude of company officers was expressed to their lawyer as, “Just let them sue us, come after us.”
The Justice Department, according to its own account, took an extraordinarily lenient approach, describing the practice as “complicated” and only a “technical violation.” Nonetheless, it maintained that the payments were illegal and could not continue.
Chiquita’s management, however, continued to flout the law, paying the right-wing paramilitaries for almost another year, giving them another $300,000. During that year, the AUC was accused of carrying out 16 massacres, 362 assassinations and 180 kidnappings, all of these crimes financed in part by the US food giant.
In June 2004, Chiquita sold its Colombian subsidiary, Banadex, for about $43.5 million.
Why Chiquita paid the AUC
The company has defended its action by describing the financing of the AUC as “protection payments,” made, in the words of Chiquita chairman and chief executive Fernando Aguirre, out of “our good faith concern for the safety of our employees.”
While apparently the company did make such payments to left-wing guerrilla movements, including the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), before 1997, the relationship between the fruit company and the right-wing paramilitaries was something quite different. In their original meeting in 1997, AUC leader Castaño sought and secured funding from the corporation for a military campaign to drive the FARC out of the regions where Chiquita had its banana operations.
While Chiquita’s executives have been given virtually a free pass by the US Justice Department, prosecutors in Colombia are pursuing a separate investigation and have indicated that they are preparing to seek the extradition of at least eight Chiquita executives.
In addition to the payments to the AUC, the executives are under investigation in connection with the shipment of 3,000 Israeli rifles and millions of rounds of ammunition to the right-wing paramilitaries in 2001. The weapons were brought into Colombia through the port facility operated by Banadex, Chiquita’s subsidiary, and stored on the company’s docks before being distributed to the death squads.
Even Colombia’s right-wing President Alvaro Uribe—Washington’s closest ally—has voiced support for extradition of Chiquita officers, apparently in part to divert public attention from a massive political scandal engulfing his administration. Top ruling party politicians, as well as his foreign minister and former secret police director, have been arrested or forced to resign because of ties to the AUC death squads.
The Bush administration’s supposed zeal for its “global war on terror” notwithstanding, there is little danger that millionaire executives are going to be sent to Colombia to stand trial for financing and arming terrorists.
In announcing the Chiquita plea bargain, US Attorney for the District of Columbia Jeffrey Taylor made the following curious statement: “Funding a terrorist organization can never be treated as a cost of doing business. American businesses must take note that payments to terrorists are a whole different category. They are crimes.... American businesses, as good corporate citizens, will find ways to conform their conduct to the requirements of the law and still remain competitive.”
Clearly implied in this statement is that Chiquita’s financing of the death squads in Colombia was a means of increasing its competitiveness and its profits.
How does this work? Quite simply, the right-wing terrorists earn their money by terrorizing the workers, murdering those who seek to organize struggles for higher wages or improved conditions and threatening the rest that the same will happen to them if they don’t submit.
Indeed, over the past six years, more than 800 union officials and organizers have been assassinated in Colombia—and more than 4,000 since 1986—with virtually no one punished for any of these killings. It is routine for employers to utilize the right-wing paramilitaries as hit-men against their own rebellious employees.
A concrete example of this process involving another US multinational is working its way through the legal systems in both the US and Colombia. Colombian prosecutors have opened a formal investigation against the Alabama-based coal producer Drummond Co. Inc. on charges that company paid a paramilitary leader to carry out the death squad murders of three union officials at its coal mine in the northeast of the country. The company is being sued in a civil case involving the same charges in Alabama, where Drummond is headquartered.
Such methods of terror, violence and murder against the working class are, as the statement from the US attorney suggests, a common business practice, dedicated to improving the bottom line. To “conform their conduct to the requirements of the law and still remain competitive,” as the prosecutor suggests, can be accomplished as simply as finding or organizing new death squads that are not on the State Department’s official terrorist list.
No doubt, Chiquita is more than up to such a task. The company, which is the successor to the United Fruit Company, has more than a century of experience in organizing invasions, right-wing coups, massacres and assassinations.
Through much of the twentieth century, the operations of the government and United Fruit in Central America, Colombia and elsewhere in Latin America were tightly integrated—as in the organization of the CIA-backed coup in Guatemala that overthrew the reformist government of Jacobo Arbenz in 1954.
Given the Justice Department’s kid-gloves treatment for Chiquita, there is every reason to believe that this relationship continues, and that the company’s financing—and apparent arming—of the AUC took place with the approval of the Bush administration in Washington.
This is the reality of Washington’s so-called “war on terrorism.” It is utilized as a propaganda tool for justifying unprovoked wars of aggression abroad and terrorizing the American people and attacking their democratic rights at home. For this purpose, “terrorists” must be discovered and prosecuted, in their vast majority hapless victims of FBI entrapment operations. Meanwhile, real terror remains a vital instrument for imposing the dictates and interests of US-based transnational corporations and banks all over the world, and those who practice it are protected by the government.
Read more!!
Saturday, March 24, 2007
Friday, March 23, 2007
DRANT #222: COALITION OF THE SHILLED
"Your silence will not protect you..."
Audre Lorde
"...The trouble with Eichmann was precisely that so many were like him, and that the many were neither perverted nor sadistic, that they were, and still are, terribly and terrifyingly normal. From the viewpoint of our legal institutions and of our moral standards of judgment, this normality was much more terrifying than all the atrocities put together..."
Hannah Arendt
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
If you ever needed another nose hair of evidence that we can NOT look to Congress to end our crimes in Iraq - just watch the loathesome charade that is to be staged in its' hallowed halls today.
Today the House will pass a bill that will - in our name -- prolong the war, and will -- with our money - provide the billions to kill yet more innocent thousands.
Don't tell me about realpolitik, and the art of the possible.
That's exactly what got us to this place.
Our compromise of principle in the name of expediency, our meek acceptance of the lesser of two evils, our eager complicity in the gross lie that there is participatory democracy to be found anywhere within vomiting distance of the US of A, our willingness to sacrifice what we know is right for some propaganda the grownups are feeding us that this is the best we're gonna get.
Barbara Lee caved in in DC last week, just like I toldya.
And today she did even worse, by trying to justify her betrayal of what she knows is right, and of what we told her we wanted her to do.
"I find myself in the excruciating position of being asked to choose between voting for funding for the war or establishing timelines to end it,"
said Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.).
"I have struggled with this decision, but I finally decided that, while I cannot betray my conscience,
I cannot stand in the way of passing a measure that puts a concrete end date on this unnecessary war."
What ? What what what what ?
Unnecessary ? This war is un fucking necessary ?
Oh is that what it is ?
Timelines to end it ?
Here's a timeline- it ends NOW. Today.
STOP giving them OUR money to fight it.
Stop giving them OUR money today.
All the money.
Stop.
The justification for this betrayal is that its the best deal we're gonna get. This or nothing.
And who is telling us this ?
The biggest collection of liars, grafters and mendacious manipulative cheats ever assembled in one room- Congress.
We are taking their WORD that this is the best we're gonna get ?
We are willing co-conspirators in our own betrayal. A coalition of the shilled.
Excruciating ? Poor Barbara, poor US. How excruciating it is for us all.
How about those for whom it is truly excruciating- for we are far far from the worst betrayed.
We and Congress, and Barbara Lee and all the others, are most betraying our victims- those we are murdering and poisoning and torturing and raping and displacing. Those truly in excruciating agony.
How do you say to innocent people that, gosh, shucks, we are really, ummmm, terribly sorry, but we ummmmm well, it's the best we can do right now.
I say fuck that.
And fuck all of those who are not only perpetrating this genocidal hoax, but their explainers and justifiers and apologists.
We must not continue to pursue our enduring and self-defeating expectations that Congress, or a candidate, or the law, or courts, or media, or ANYONE other than US will do anything. We have only ourselves.
It is time to lay our bodies on the line. No more symbolic marches and t shirts and signs and NY Times ads. No more petitions, chain letters, no more blogs.
Every minute that passes, another victim will die, another child will be born deformed from DU toxins, another family will disappear, another oil company will announce record profits, and we will find more justification for our crimes.
We will not end the war from our cell phones or by email.
What Barbara Lee did today is exactly what she has fought against her whole life.
She made a deal with The Possible.
That's what got us to this place. Not doing what's right, but what we are told is possible.
And that's exactly what has to stop.
Read more!!
Audre Lorde
"...The trouble with Eichmann was precisely that so many were like him, and that the many were neither perverted nor sadistic, that they were, and still are, terribly and terrifyingly normal. From the viewpoint of our legal institutions and of our moral standards of judgment, this normality was much more terrifying than all the atrocities put together..."
Hannah Arendt
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
If you ever needed another nose hair of evidence that we can NOT look to Congress to end our crimes in Iraq - just watch the loathesome charade that is to be staged in its' hallowed halls today.
Today the House will pass a bill that will - in our name -- prolong the war, and will -- with our money - provide the billions to kill yet more innocent thousands.
Don't tell me about realpolitik, and the art of the possible.
That's exactly what got us to this place.
Our compromise of principle in the name of expediency, our meek acceptance of the lesser of two evils, our eager complicity in the gross lie that there is participatory democracy to be found anywhere within vomiting distance of the US of A, our willingness to sacrifice what we know is right for some propaganda the grownups are feeding us that this is the best we're gonna get.
Barbara Lee caved in in DC last week, just like I toldya.
And today she did even worse, by trying to justify her betrayal of what she knows is right, and of what we told her we wanted her to do.
"I find myself in the excruciating position of being asked to choose between voting for funding for the war or establishing timelines to end it,"
said Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.).
"I have struggled with this decision, but I finally decided that, while I cannot betray my conscience,
I cannot stand in the way of passing a measure that puts a concrete end date on this unnecessary war."
What ? What what what what ?
Unnecessary ? This war is un fucking necessary ?
Oh is that what it is ?
Timelines to end it ?
Here's a timeline- it ends NOW. Today.
STOP giving them OUR money to fight it.
Stop giving them OUR money today.
All the money.
Stop.
The justification for this betrayal is that its the best deal we're gonna get. This or nothing.
And who is telling us this ?
The biggest collection of liars, grafters and mendacious manipulative cheats ever assembled in one room- Congress.
We are taking their WORD that this is the best we're gonna get ?
We are willing co-conspirators in our own betrayal. A coalition of the shilled.
Excruciating ? Poor Barbara, poor US. How excruciating it is for us all.
How about those for whom it is truly excruciating- for we are far far from the worst betrayed.
We and Congress, and Barbara Lee and all the others, are most betraying our victims- those we are murdering and poisoning and torturing and raping and displacing. Those truly in excruciating agony.
How do you say to innocent people that, gosh, shucks, we are really, ummmm, terribly sorry, but we ummmmm well, it's the best we can do right now.
I say fuck that.
And fuck all of those who are not only perpetrating this genocidal hoax, but their explainers and justifiers and apologists.
We must not continue to pursue our enduring and self-defeating expectations that Congress, or a candidate, or the law, or courts, or media, or ANYONE other than US will do anything. We have only ourselves.
It is time to lay our bodies on the line. No more symbolic marches and t shirts and signs and NY Times ads. No more petitions, chain letters, no more blogs.
Every minute that passes, another victim will die, another child will be born deformed from DU toxins, another family will disappear, another oil company will announce record profits, and we will find more justification for our crimes.
We will not end the war from our cell phones or by email.
What Barbara Lee did today is exactly what she has fought against her whole life.
She made a deal with The Possible.
That's what got us to this place. Not doing what's right, but what we are told is possible.
And that's exactly what has to stop.
Read more!!
Saturday, March 17, 2007
DRANT #221: LIVE FROM THE PENTAGON: DC REPORT #2
Live from Washington DC and The MARCH TO THE PENTAGON:
An anti-protest protestor-- 3-17-07 Photo by DR
"If people don't wanna see a movie, ya can't keep 'em away."
Samuel Goldwyn
We joined tens of thousands of people of every kind from all over in Washington's freezing wind today to March on The Pentagon, after a week of multiple actions and protests, including The Encampment at the Capitol, arrests inside the Rayburn building where none of We The People were allowed into Our House to witness the Co-Conspirators' cha cha cha, and an action by 3,000 Christian Anti War Activists with multiple arrests in the sleet and snow Friday night.
Brave and hearty souls, all of 'em. But.
If we want the war to stop, if we want seriously to cause change, we're going to have to dump these worn out old models, and the obsolete 1967 style Protest March. What worked in 1967 works no more.
We took one last ride in the old sedan this afternoon, and -- as well as the old boy has served us over the years, as comfy as it is to ride in, as much as it revives warm memories of granpa and granma and how we did so much Good when we were kids- it's time to stuff it and hang it on the wall.
In truth, these "demonstrations" and "marches" do more to harm our cause than to serve it.
The marches are full of bonhomie, solidarity, and spirit, but essentially are easily ignored marches to nowhere. The demonstrations or rallies are boring, endlessly verbose and hopelessly diffused affairs, run apparently more to satisfy the egos of their promoters than to provide lightning rods or impetus for change.
The major pimp media and the enforcers of the status quo use the meager attendance at these events to prove their case: that those against the war are a marginal few, and a motley disjointed few at that.
It was not the bad weather, or the logistical difficulties, or the lack of media exposure that kept tens of millions away from this and many other demonstrations this weekend, most notably in DC. It was that the event itself, like so many before --- was going to be one more unfocused and unproductive snore.
What exactly was the POINT ?
The organizers accepted the restrictions laid out by the cops, started on the outskirts of town, and then left town completely.
We needed to be in the middle of town, in the middle of the week, and on the doorsteps of those funding, running and supporting this war, not on a weekend in a dingy inconspicuous parking lot well out of the earshot and view of anyone even slightly involved with the war. We did not need speeches, we needed to stop the machine. Stop business as usual.
What is it that compels people to repeat acts that do not work ?
What is it that causes pretty smart folks to rely on and invest expectations in others, like those in Congress, to end this war for us, when we all know that they have done and will do nothing of the kind ?
Of course, we show up and feel better because we see people who share our views, and can vent some feelings about the way things are being done-- in a supportive environment of like minded souls.
But damned few of us are showing up, and when we do, nothing really happens, and absolutely nothing changes.
So, if we want to make ourselves feel better, we can keep marching and chanting and carrying smart signs and we can continue to write or email or fax or call our Congresspeople.
If we want to change anything, we'd better do something new, and be quick about it..
Along the march route, we encountered a good sized group of Pro War demonstrators, many of them Vietnam Vets.
These are people who cannot accept that what they and many of their buddies and families sacrificed for was meaningless, who are stuck -- in that period of their lives when they could feel strong, powerful, potent; with life and death in their hands, and shared purpose in their daily lives.
Who have never again felt as good as when they could strap on the M-16, and kick some slope ass.
There was more real dialogue about the War in the confrontations between these vets and the protestors, than we have heard or seen in Congress or the major media in six years, including the last three months under Pelosi's Poseurs.
Is there more self-delusion possible than the sign "Safe since 9-11" ?
Or another that read "There or HERE" ?
Well, just about as much as the self-serving illusion that another XX thousand people marching with signs and hearing harangues and going home will do one single thing to change the course of this war or alter our precipitate descent into fascism and planetary destruction.
Here is what I think needs to be done:
We need to take care of this ourselves.
No Congress, no newspaper, no court, no silver tongued candidate, no messiah. No logos, no "organizations."
We need to mobilize, we the people of the country, one body and one conscience and one will at a time.
And we need to walk -- starting from wherever we are-- to Washington DC.
And walk into Washington DC, and to the White House, and Congress, and the Pentagon and all along K street-
and fill the streets with our bodies, and lie down and not allow another minute of this bloody business as usual.
We need to take Gandhi's march to the sea as our model.
Every day, we walk, and we gather others, and day after day we gather more and more- and the media cannot ignore us, and people along the way will take us in, and feed us and join us.
I nominate and have tried to ask Cindy Sheehan to lead the walk, she would be ideal, but we don't need her.
We need you and me, and our kids and friends.
And we need to start now.
The weather is getting warm. If we leave California in April, we can get to DC in 3 months or so, maybe even by July 4.
What do you say ?
After the marches and protests of this weekend are over, how about we all take a walk ?
I'll tell ya what. If you will join me, I will stop everything I am doing - every thing -- and do only this.
Will you ?
"We're here in the shadow of the war machine,"
said anti-war activist Cindy Sheehan, whose soldier son was killed in Iraq.
(Watch Sheehan march with a throng of protesters Video)
We need to shut it down. We need to stop paying our taxes to fund this war."
At the rally Pentagon Parking Lot 3-17-07 Photo by DR State Highway Patrol Riot Squad
Troops block entrance to Pentagon 3-17-07 Photo by DR
Read more!!
Thursday, March 15, 2007
DRANT #220: MORE FROM KHALID!
URGENT: BREAKING NEWS !!!
KHALID SHEIK MOHAMMED CONFESSES !
In a shocking development early this morning, the confessed mastermind of 9-11, Khalid Sheik Mohammed, defiantly confessed to yet another crime:
He admitted that, as long suspected, he was the actual impregnator of Mary, and that Jesus was in fact his son.
While the physical resemblance has been noted by many, and since there were no actual eye witnesses, this was the first actual corroboration.
Insiders who refused to be named have also divulged that it was in fact Mohammed who threw the pitch to Bobby Thomson in 1951.
More details as they are released.
URL of this article: http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=KUP20070315&articleId=5087
www.GlobalResearch.ca
Khalid Sheikh Mohammed: The Official Legend of 9/11 is a Fabricated Setup
The June 2002 Plan to Market a New 9/11 Mastermind
by Chaim Kupferberg
Global Research, March 15, 2007
GlobalResearch.ca - 2003-10-26
Editor's note
The Pentagon has released a 26 page transcript of the "confession" of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (pdf) who is
now being presented to World public opinion as the mastermind and architect of the September 11, 2001 attacks.
This "confession", read from a prepared text by his "personal [legal?] representative" was delivered at "military hearings" held behind closed doors at the US Guantanamo concentration camp.
According to the transcript, Khalid Sheikh Mohamed claimed responsibility for the attacks on the twin towers and the Pentagon: “I was responsible for the 9/11 operation, from A to Z.”
According to his prepared statement, he also "confessed" to an impressive list of terrorist attacks as well as the planning of a “second wave” of post 9/11 attack, including the bombings of skyscrapers in New York, Chicago and Washington, attacks on London's Heathrow airport, Canary Warf and the Tower of Big Ben.
He also claimed responsibility for the 1993 attack on the World Trade Center, Richard Reid’s attempt to ignite a shoe bomb on an Transatlantic flight in December 2001, and the October 2002 Bali bombings in Indonesia.
In a statement read by his personal representative, he allegedly confessed to planning the assassination of several former presidents, including Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton, as well as Pope John Paul II.
With regard to Wall Street Journal's reporter Daniel Pearl, the statement reads: “I decapitated with my blessed right hand the head of the American Jew Daniel Pearl... For those who would like to confirm, there are pictures of me on the Internet holding his head.”
Khalid was arrested in March 2003 and was then imprisoned for more than three years in secret CIA detention facilities. He claims to have made this confession without any form of pressure being exerted on him.
Khalid Sheikh Mohamed personifies the "outside enemy" of America. His "confession" upholds the illusion that Al Qaeda outwitted the 40 billion dollar US intelligence apparatus in waging a terrorist attack on America.
The arrest and confessed statements of Khalid Sheikh Mohamed serve to uphold the official 9/11 narrative, namely that the 9/11 attacks were masterminded by Islamic terrorists.
The following text by Chaim Kupferberg, first published by Global Research in October 2003, shortly after the arrest of KSM, reveals with foresight thge nasture of the psyop propaganda ploy. According to Kupferberg, there was "a June 2002 marketing plan" to introduce Khalid Sheikh Mohammed to the public as the 9/11 mastermind.
Kupferberg exposed how the official legend was fabricated around Khalid Shaikh Mohammed. His analysis reveals the historical background behind the creation of the 9/11 Legend. The latter serves to drown the lies and inconsistencies contained in the official 9/11 narrative, it sustains the global war on terrorism. Ultimately, it is intended, in a rather clumsy fashion to uphold the Bush adminstration and the US intelligence apparatus.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Michel Chossudovsky, Global Research, 15 March 2007
Global Research, October 26, 2003
[note: the following text originally published by Global Research on October 26, 2003 was excerpted by the author from a much longer text, see references at the foot of this article]
The Official Legend of 9/11 as a prefabricated set-up.
As we will see, the Moussaoui indictment had lain the groundwork for the eventual Khalid Shaikh Mohammed/ Ramzi Binalshibh/ Mustafa Ahmed nexus that really gets rolling in June 2002, when Khalid is first introduced as the 9/11 "mastermind", then proceeds through Binalshibh's choreographed arrest in September 2002, and culminates with the simultaneous arrest of Khalid and Mustafa Ahmed in March 2003. Further, we will see how FBI Director Mueller uses the details in the Moussaoui indictment to explicitly pair up Khalid and Mustafa Ahmed - a full nine months before these characters end up sharing news space for their own simultaneously choreographed apprehensions.
The unsealed December 2001 Moussaoui indictment also set out two "unindicted co-conspirators" who had yet to play their final roles in the unfolding 9/11 Legend - Ramzi Binalshibh and Mustafa Ahmed al-hawsawi (the "official" paymaster)...
Of the various pivot points in the unfolding 9/11 Legend, the time period of June 4-5 2002 was among the most significant.
...Around the same time that the joint Senate-House Inquiry was proceeding under the co-chairmanship of Bob Graham and Porter Goss (the September 11 breakfast partners of Omar Saeed's reported ISI "handler"), Khalid Shaikh Mohammed was formally introduced as the operative mastermind behind 9/11. John J. Lumpkin of the Associated Press wrote the definitive article here, courtesy of the revelations of an anonymous "top U.S. counterterrorism official"
...Lumpkin's key June article served as a guidepost as to how the unfolding 9/11 Legend would finally crystallize. As reported by Lumpkin, in the same article where Khalid was introduced as the new 9/11 mastermind, he was also "accused of working with Ramzi Yousef in the first bombing of the World Trade Center [in '93]" in addition to working with Yousef on a 1995 plot (code-named Bojinka) to bomb a dozen airliners headed to the United States
...It was not by accident that the 9/11 paymaster - now officially dubbed as Mustafa Ahmed al-Hisawi - was mentioned in an article introducing Khalid as the mastermind. As it turned out, about the same time that Lumpkin's article was making the rounds, Robert Mueller was making a statement before the Senate-House Committee, narrating the full details of the money trail story (as set out in the Moussaoui indictment), but this time adding the role of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, who, according to Mueller's statement, shared a credit card with Mustafa Ahmed "Alhawsawi."
Thus, Mueller inserted Khalid into the Money Trail Story by way of a direct connection with the "Mustafa Ahmad" alias. And now, thanks to Lumpkin, "Mustafa Ahmad" was not to be thought of as simply a convenient pseudonym, but rather as a real person, bin Laden's bona fide "financial chief"...
...Once Lumpkin's June 2002 article on Khalid was out, further incriminating details were coming out fast and furious. According to CBS News, U.S. officials now had "evidence" that Khalid had met with "some of the 9/11 hijackers at their Hamburg, Germany apartment in 1999." Presumably, Ramzi Binalshibh - Mohammed Atta's Hamburg roommate who was also thought to be a potential "twentieth hijacker" - was among them. Lumpkin's key June article also mentioned Binalshibh as part of Atta's Hamburg "cell." And as Binalshibh was paired with Mustafa Ahmed as an "unindicted co-conspirator" in the Moussaoui indictment, we have perhaps an indication that Khalid, Binalshibh, and Mustafa Ahmed were part of a concerted strategy touched off in early June 2002 to bring this phase of the 9/11 Legend to a close. Conveniently timed for release on the very next day - June 6, 2002 - further news followed that, according to National Security Agency intercepts, Khalid was heard talking on the telephone with hijacker Mohammed Atta. Moreover, for the very first time, authorities were now reporting that Khalid was actually the uncle of Ramzi Yousef. In other words, when the nephew failed to bring down the Towers in '93, the uncle took up the slack in '01.
Perhaps it was this sort of conceptually artistic symmetry that made Khalid so attractive as the designated mastermind. Through Khalid, one had a direct connection to the first World Trade Center attack, providing a smoking gun continuity leading directly to al-Qaida. Prior to Khalid's June 2002 public promotion, he was lurking on the official terror lists merely as an indicted conspirator in the 1995 Bojinka plot masterminded by Ramzi Yousef. Thus, while Khalid had not previously been directly connected to the 9/11 plot, he did make the "most wanted" cut based on his alleged 1995 collaboration with Yousef. With that in mind, one can almost picture sitting in with the members of the National Security Council on a balmy Spring morning in late May 2002, leafing through their photo albums as they argued over the most appropriate candidate to close off the official 9/11 Legend. As it turned out, they chose the guy with the unibrow and the hair shirt.
What was the official reason for revealing the role of Khalid at this point in time? According to CBS News, it was senior al-Qaida figure Abu Zubaydah (captured a few months previously) who had "fingered [Khalid] as the mastermind behind the Sept. 11 attacks." Abu Zubaydah, the first "big fish" captured in the War On Terror, had previously - and conveniently - been fingered as a major al-Qaida player by Ahmed Ressam...
... As we will see, once Ramzi Binalshibh's number comes up for apprehension (in September 2002), followed by the capture of Khalid and Mustafa Ahmed in March 2003, another version will be offered for the timing of Khalid's introduction as 9/11 mastermind. But first, we should take note of James Risen's June 5, 2002 article for the New York Times, in which Risen reported that the authorities "had begun to suspect soon after the [Sept. 11] attacks that [Khalid] had some role in the hijackings. But in the next months, a detailed financial investigation of the money trail from the plot led officials to believe that he had a more prominent role than previously suspected." In other words, as Risen had framed it, Khalid had first garnered notice for 9/11 by way of his connection to the money trail. Was this a retrospective addition into the record? - for Khalid most certainly did not make it into the Money Trail Story as of December 2001, when pretty much all the details of the money trail were crystallized within the Moussaoui indictment. On the other hand, there is a possibility that Khalid was intended from the very beginning to be featured as the 9/11 mastermind, yet perhaps he could not be safely inserted back into the Legend by way of the money trail until that nasty confusion over the "Mustafa Ahmad" alias was resolved...
...By June of 2002, the contents of the Moussaoui indictment could indeed be viewed as the clear signpost pointing the way to the manner in which the final loose ends of the Official 9/11 Legend would be tied up for posterity. With Ramzi Binalshibh and Mustafa Ahmed al-Hisawi already tied together as unindicted co-conspirators in the Moussaoui case, FBI Director Robert Mueller would, by this time, explicitly weave in Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, pairing him up with Mustafa Ahmed and thereby inserting this newly-christened 9/11 mastermind into the Money Trail Story. The Associated Press' John Lumpkin would reference all three in his key June 2002 article. It is as if the powers-that-be were putting this trio of nefarious characters on notice - from here on, their fates were to be indelibly entwined.
If habitual coincidence is the mother of all conspiracy theories, then one must surely raise a discerning eyebrow at the revelation that, around this time - after more than a decade of staying hidden in the shadows - Khalid Shaikh Mohammed suddenly was stricken with an urge to conduct his very first interview, with none other than Ramzi Binalshibh at his side. The journalist chosen for this honor was the London bureau chief of Al-Jazeera, Yosri Fouda...
...On September 9, 2002, the die was cast. Al-Jazeera was broadcasting Part I of Fouda's historic interview with Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and Ramzi Binalshibh. For the first time, millions would hear - from the planners themselves - exactly how the September 11 plot was put in motion. It was al-Jazeera's version of VH1's Behind The Music, featuring guest commentaries from Vincent Cannistraro and Lyndon LaRouche. Unfortunately, viewers would only get the audio feed of Khalid and Binalshibh, as Binalshibh and Khalid purportedly had confiscated from Fouda his videotape of the proceedings before he had taken leave of them back in June.
In more ways than one, September 9 was an ideal launch date for the interview broadcast. By then, the mainstream media had the whole summer to feed the public - and themselves - with various leaks, revelations, and "official" comments concerning Khalid and Binalshibh's newfound place in the 9/11 pantheon. Set-up and payoff. Moreover, the interview was now being broadcast in the immediate lead-up to the first anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, thereby further raising the profile of this historic broadcast...
...It was practically a seamless propaganda extravaganza, except for one small detail - Fouda had gone on record as dating the interview to June of 2002, thereby raising the prospect of two plausible scenarios. Scenario One: Khalid and Binalshibh's respective roles in the plot were first discovered solely due to Fouda's contact with them; or Scenario Two: The decision to send Fouda on his interview errand was made at the same time that a decision was made to market Khalid as the new 9/11 mastermind. Of the two scenarios, the first one was far more palatable - from a propaganda perspective - as at least it could be kept within the borders of plausible deniability, and only Fouda would get burned by it. The second scenario, however, would raise the prospect of one of those uncomfortable coincidences that could conceivably expose the 9/11 Legend as a pre-fabricated set-up.
Only two days after the initial broadcast of Fouda's interview with Khalid and Binalshibh - on the first anniversary commemorating the 9/11 attacks - Pakistani forces, accompanied by FBI agents, raided an apartment complex in Karachi. After a "four hour" gun battle involving "hundreds" of Pakistani soldiers and policemen, the authorities captured, among a few others, Ramzi Binalshibh himself. Their original target, however, had been Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, whom they had been tracking for months throughout Karachi. While Khalid had just barely slipped away only a few hours before Pakistani forces had arrived at his door, the authorities were reportedly "surprised" to discover that they had netted Binalshibh in the process. At least that is now the official version of the day's events...
...With the well-timed arrest of Ramzi Binalshibh in September 2002, journalist Yosri Fouda was in a bind. Only days before, he had gone on record - repeatedly - as dating his interview with Khalid and Binalshibh to June 2002. Up to the time of Binalshibh's arrest, the official legend had it that Khalid's pivotal role as 9/11 mastermind was revealed to U.S. authorities through their interrogation of Abu Zubaydah, who was captured in March 2002. Now, in the aftermath of Binalshibh's capture, word was circulating that perhaps authorities had learned of Khalid's true role by way of Fouda. That contention, of course, would remain most plausible if Fouda's interview could definitively be back-dated to a time before early June 2002 - that is, to a time before Khalid was first publicly announced as 9/11 mastermind. The alternative scenario quite simply pointed to a conclusion that would have to be denied at all costs - that the decision to out Khalid publicly as the 9/11 mastermind was coordinated with the decision to send Fouda on his interview errand with Khalid. Had Fouda erred, then, by initially claiming that his historic interview had taken place in June 2002? Had he possibly exposed a seam pointing the way to a coordinated set-up?
Soon after the Binalshibh arrest, Fouda took the opportunity to revise the date of his interview for the record, revealing to Abdallah Schleifer of the Kamal Adham Center For Journalism:
Fouda: "Actually, this question of dates is very important for another reason. All of these Islamist websites that were denouncing me alluded to my interview as taking place in June. That's what I mentioned both in my article in The Sunday Times Magazine and in my documentary - that I met them in June."
Schleifer: "So?"
Fouda: "I lied."
Schleifer: "Really?"
Fouda: "Yeah."
Schleifer: "But you're going to come clean with [us], right?"
Fouda (laughter): "Yes, of course. I lied because I needed to lie. I'll tell you why. Because I thought, maybe even expected, that if something when wrong and I needed to get in touch with them through a website or a statement or a fax ... they would be the only ones who would know that I had met them one month earlier than I let on, and so I'd know I was talking to the right people.
So after the first wave of denunciations a pro-Qa'ida website "jehad.net" put up a statement online in the name of Al-Qa'ida clearing me of any blame or connection with Ramzi's arrest and I knew this was an authentic communique because it alluded to the interview taking place in May."
Apparently, Fouda had lied again, for on March 4, 2003 (i.e. a few days after Khalid's eventual arrest), Fouda offered up this newest version of his 48-hour encounter to The Guardian:
"It was late afternoon, Sunday 21 April 2002, when I packed my bags before joining Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and Ramzi bin al-shibh for a last prayer before saying goodbye."
That, as they say in legal parlance, is a very definite recollection. In short, Fouda had impeached his own testimony through these two explicitly detailed, contradictory dates. Fouda, through this compounded lie, was now calling into question the very credibility of his entire interview with Khalid and Binalshibh...
...Recall that, back in June 2002, the "official" legend at the time had it that it was Abu Zubaydah, back in March 2002, who had spilled the goods on Khalid. Yet with Khalid's March 2003 apprehension, this one aspect of the legend was duly revised. As revealed by Keith Olbermann in a March 3, 2003 MSNBC.com item: "Ironically, it would be [Fouda's] interview that would point out, to U.S. intelligence, that [Khalid Shaikh] Mohammed and Binalshibh were the brains behind the 9/11 attacks"...
...Within weeks of Binalshibh's Sept. 11, 2002 arrest, the disinformation apparatus was revisiting the Daniel Pearl thread of the 9/11 Legend, this time with a bombshell UPI exclusive from Richard Sale and Anwar Iqbal, dated September 30, 2002:
..."Bob Baer, a former case officer in the agency's Directorate of Operations, said he provided Pearl with unpublished information about Khalid Shaikh Mohammed...
...'I was working with Pearl,' said Baer, who had written a book about his time as a CIA official and has acted as a consultant and source for numerous media outlets. 'We had a joint project. Mohammed was the story he was working on, not Richard Reid' "...
...In Baer's book, See No Evil, Khalid is mentioned briefly as an expert in hijacking planes, but precious little detail is offered. One must be extremely cautious in assimilating any "official" details about Khalid offered after June 2002, as one cannot be sure as to which biographical details were fabricated solely to buttress Khalid's early June 2002 legend as the 9/11 mastermind. Interestingly, while Baer's brief reference to Khalid in his book is one of the very few public characterizations of him offered between September 2001 and June 2002, one must wonder why Baer chose to wait a good eight months after the Pearl kidnapping before revealing this new chapter about Khalid. Even more so, one must wonder why, back in June 2002, when Khalid was making the headlines as the newly marketed 9/11 mastermind - and at a time when the red-hot Baer was doing the post-9/11 media circuit - he apparently did not find it newsworthy to reveal the Khalid angle to the Pearl story. Or perhaps he had forgotten it altogether, and it had taken as long as three weeks after the Binalshibh arrest to jog his memory.
But with his memory now firmly jogged, apparently he would set out to discover what happened to his "joint project" partner, Daniel Pearl. Perhaps to his horror, he discovered that Pearl might have been disposed of by their joint research subject. "I have heard from (intelligence) people who follow this closely that it was people close to [Khalid Shaikh] Mohammed that killed him [Pearl], if it wasn't Mohammed himself," Baer revealed to UPI...
...On September 26, 2002 , only days before Baer's bombshell admission, John Lumpkin of the Associated Press presented his update on the 9/11 paymaster role. Recall that it was Lumpkin who had written, back in early June 2002, the definitive article introducing Khalid as the 9/11 mastermind, including references to the now-official paymaster Mustafa Ahmed al-Hisawi (a.k.a. Shaikh Saiid al-Sharif) and Ramzi Binalshibh. Now, Lumpkin was reporting the contents of Robert Mueller's formerly secret testimony before the Joint Senate-House Committee, made back in early June 2002, around the time of Lumpkin's key article on Khalid...
...And, as if to lay the groundwork for Khalid and al-Hisawi's eventual simultaneous capture, Lumpkin wrote, "Both al-Hisawi and Mohammed are at large and are among the most wanted al-Qaida figures remaining." He might also have mentioned Osama bin Laden and his deputy Ayman al-Zawahiri, but then that wasn't the point of the article. As I have argued, the time was fast approaching for al-Hisawi, Binalshibh, and Khalid (in conjunction with the Moussaoui indictment) to wrap up this segment of the 9/11 Legend and to take their indelible places in the official history books...
...Approaching the end of 2002, with Binalshibh secretly stashed away in U.S. custody - and with most people focused on the emerging War In Iraq - the time was now ripe to bring this part of the Official 9/11 Legend to its neat and tidy conclusion. For the record, the aforementioned John J. Lumpkin of the Associated Press (who had written the definitive June 2002 article introducing Khalid as the new 9/11 mastermind) took the opportunity - on December 27, 2002 - to clarify the true identity of the official 9/11 paymaster, this time providing the very first explicit acknowledgment of those troublesome contradictions previously conveyed through the pages of the Associated Press...
...Not that many people noticed - or cared. Still, all that prior nasty confusion concerning the 9/11 paymaster alias had to be qualified and clarified in time for [Mustafa Ahmed] al-Hisawi's approaching "official" arrest...
...In any case, the main story points of the Official 9/11 Legend were fully elaborated and resolved with the simultaneous capture of Khalid and the official paymaster, Mustafa Ahmed al-Hisawi, in March 2003. Only weeks later, however, with the War In Iraq in full sway, these presumably senior operatives in the 9/11 plot drew negligible scrutiny from the media and the public at large. Both men were reportedly stashed away in secret locations, presumably sharing the fruits of their interrogations with anonymous officials, who would duly pass off the requisite "scoops" to writers with a curious penchant for special intelligence access (Gerald Posner, for example).
Meanwhile, the - perhaps choreographed? - farce of the Moussaoui trial would drag on, with Moussaoui reportedly insistent on calling Khalid and Binalshibh as witnesses for the defense. At this point, one would be cautioned as to drawing any firm conclusions about the ongoing events of the Moussaoui trial. The important fact to keep in mind is that Moussaoui all along was likely set up as the convenient vessel through which the Justice Department and Mueller's FBI - cunningly obscured by Mueller's hedges - would gradually elaborate the main contours of the Official 9/11 Legend in that crucial first year following 9/11. In other words, by way of the lone Moussaoui indictment, the authorities were able to provide the illusion of a massive legal investigation covering literally thousands of pages, spanning continents in order to ferret out the full depth of Moussaoui's nefarious associations. In this respect, one might surmise that once Moussaoui has fully served his purpose as an investigative/propaganda vessel (as he likely already has), the authorities will then proceed to demonstrate that the Moussaoui case was never particularly relevant after all - thereby successfully concealing the all-important function that his case did serve in the finely calibrated public dissemination of the Official 9/11 Legend.
Given the foregoing, it remains to be seen how the authorities will conclusively deal with the festering anomalies surrounding their three prize catches - the elusive Binalshibh, the perhaps dead Khalid, and the perhaps fictitious Mustafa Ahmed al-Hisawi. Nevertheless, it is a safe bet that in the meantime, the authorities will continue to weave ever more complex and murky tapestries around the personalities of these operatives, employing the mercenary talents of writers like Gerald Posner to add to the crumbling sediment of "facts."
Chaim Kupferberg is a freelance researcher, writer and frequent Global Research contributor.
The text is excerpted from: Truth, Lies, and The Legend of 9/11 by Chaim Kupferberg, first published by Global Research in October 26, 2003.
Read more!!
KHALID SHEIK MOHAMMED CONFESSES !
In a shocking development early this morning, the confessed mastermind of 9-11, Khalid Sheik Mohammed, defiantly confessed to yet another crime:
He admitted that, as long suspected, he was the actual impregnator of Mary, and that Jesus was in fact his son.
While the physical resemblance has been noted by many, and since there were no actual eye witnesses, this was the first actual corroboration.
Insiders who refused to be named have also divulged that it was in fact Mohammed who threw the pitch to Bobby Thomson in 1951.
More details as they are released.
URL of this article: http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=KUP20070315&articleId=5087
www.GlobalResearch.ca
Khalid Sheikh Mohammed: The Official Legend of 9/11 is a Fabricated Setup
The June 2002 Plan to Market a New 9/11 Mastermind
by Chaim Kupferberg
Global Research, March 15, 2007
GlobalResearch.ca - 2003-10-26
Editor's note
The Pentagon has released a 26 page transcript of the "confession" of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (pdf) who is
now being presented to World public opinion as the mastermind and architect of the September 11, 2001 attacks.
This "confession", read from a prepared text by his "personal [legal?] representative" was delivered at "military hearings" held behind closed doors at the US Guantanamo concentration camp.
According to the transcript, Khalid Sheikh Mohamed claimed responsibility for the attacks on the twin towers and the Pentagon: “I was responsible for the 9/11 operation, from A to Z.”
According to his prepared statement, he also "confessed" to an impressive list of terrorist attacks as well as the planning of a “second wave” of post 9/11 attack, including the bombings of skyscrapers in New York, Chicago and Washington, attacks on London's Heathrow airport, Canary Warf and the Tower of Big Ben.
He also claimed responsibility for the 1993 attack on the World Trade Center, Richard Reid’s attempt to ignite a shoe bomb on an Transatlantic flight in December 2001, and the October 2002 Bali bombings in Indonesia.
In a statement read by his personal representative, he allegedly confessed to planning the assassination of several former presidents, including Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton, as well as Pope John Paul II.
With regard to Wall Street Journal's reporter Daniel Pearl, the statement reads: “I decapitated with my blessed right hand the head of the American Jew Daniel Pearl... For those who would like to confirm, there are pictures of me on the Internet holding his head.”
Khalid was arrested in March 2003 and was then imprisoned for more than three years in secret CIA detention facilities. He claims to have made this confession without any form of pressure being exerted on him.
Khalid Sheikh Mohamed personifies the "outside enemy" of America. His "confession" upholds the illusion that Al Qaeda outwitted the 40 billion dollar US intelligence apparatus in waging a terrorist attack on America.
The arrest and confessed statements of Khalid Sheikh Mohamed serve to uphold the official 9/11 narrative, namely that the 9/11 attacks were masterminded by Islamic terrorists.
The following text by Chaim Kupferberg, first published by Global Research in October 2003, shortly after the arrest of KSM, reveals with foresight thge nasture of the psyop propaganda ploy. According to Kupferberg, there was "a June 2002 marketing plan" to introduce Khalid Sheikh Mohammed to the public as the 9/11 mastermind.
Kupferberg exposed how the official legend was fabricated around Khalid Shaikh Mohammed. His analysis reveals the historical background behind the creation of the 9/11 Legend. The latter serves to drown the lies and inconsistencies contained in the official 9/11 narrative, it sustains the global war on terrorism. Ultimately, it is intended, in a rather clumsy fashion to uphold the Bush adminstration and the US intelligence apparatus.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Michel Chossudovsky, Global Research, 15 March 2007
Global Research, October 26, 2003
[note: the following text originally published by Global Research on October 26, 2003 was excerpted by the author from a much longer text, see references at the foot of this article]
The Official Legend of 9/11 as a prefabricated set-up.
As we will see, the Moussaoui indictment had lain the groundwork for the eventual Khalid Shaikh Mohammed/ Ramzi Binalshibh/ Mustafa Ahmed nexus that really gets rolling in June 2002, when Khalid is first introduced as the 9/11 "mastermind", then proceeds through Binalshibh's choreographed arrest in September 2002, and culminates with the simultaneous arrest of Khalid and Mustafa Ahmed in March 2003. Further, we will see how FBI Director Mueller uses the details in the Moussaoui indictment to explicitly pair up Khalid and Mustafa Ahmed - a full nine months before these characters end up sharing news space for their own simultaneously choreographed apprehensions.
The unsealed December 2001 Moussaoui indictment also set out two "unindicted co-conspirators" who had yet to play their final roles in the unfolding 9/11 Legend - Ramzi Binalshibh and Mustafa Ahmed al-hawsawi (the "official" paymaster)...
Of the various pivot points in the unfolding 9/11 Legend, the time period of June 4-5 2002 was among the most significant.
...Around the same time that the joint Senate-House Inquiry was proceeding under the co-chairmanship of Bob Graham and Porter Goss (the September 11 breakfast partners of Omar Saeed's reported ISI "handler"), Khalid Shaikh Mohammed was formally introduced as the operative mastermind behind 9/11. John J. Lumpkin of the Associated Press wrote the definitive article here, courtesy of the revelations of an anonymous "top U.S. counterterrorism official"
...Lumpkin's key June article served as a guidepost as to how the unfolding 9/11 Legend would finally crystallize. As reported by Lumpkin, in the same article where Khalid was introduced as the new 9/11 mastermind, he was also "accused of working with Ramzi Yousef in the first bombing of the World Trade Center [in '93]" in addition to working with Yousef on a 1995 plot (code-named Bojinka) to bomb a dozen airliners headed to the United States
...It was not by accident that the 9/11 paymaster - now officially dubbed as Mustafa Ahmed al-Hisawi - was mentioned in an article introducing Khalid as the mastermind. As it turned out, about the same time that Lumpkin's article was making the rounds, Robert Mueller was making a statement before the Senate-House Committee, narrating the full details of the money trail story (as set out in the Moussaoui indictment), but this time adding the role of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, who, according to Mueller's statement, shared a credit card with Mustafa Ahmed "Alhawsawi."
Thus, Mueller inserted Khalid into the Money Trail Story by way of a direct connection with the "Mustafa Ahmad" alias. And now, thanks to Lumpkin, "Mustafa Ahmad" was not to be thought of as simply a convenient pseudonym, but rather as a real person, bin Laden's bona fide "financial chief"...
...Once Lumpkin's June 2002 article on Khalid was out, further incriminating details were coming out fast and furious. According to CBS News, U.S. officials now had "evidence" that Khalid had met with "some of the 9/11 hijackers at their Hamburg, Germany apartment in 1999." Presumably, Ramzi Binalshibh - Mohammed Atta's Hamburg roommate who was also thought to be a potential "twentieth hijacker" - was among them. Lumpkin's key June article also mentioned Binalshibh as part of Atta's Hamburg "cell." And as Binalshibh was paired with Mustafa Ahmed as an "unindicted co-conspirator" in the Moussaoui indictment, we have perhaps an indication that Khalid, Binalshibh, and Mustafa Ahmed were part of a concerted strategy touched off in early June 2002 to bring this phase of the 9/11 Legend to a close. Conveniently timed for release on the very next day - June 6, 2002 - further news followed that, according to National Security Agency intercepts, Khalid was heard talking on the telephone with hijacker Mohammed Atta. Moreover, for the very first time, authorities were now reporting that Khalid was actually the uncle of Ramzi Yousef. In other words, when the nephew failed to bring down the Towers in '93, the uncle took up the slack in '01.
Perhaps it was this sort of conceptually artistic symmetry that made Khalid so attractive as the designated mastermind. Through Khalid, one had a direct connection to the first World Trade Center attack, providing a smoking gun continuity leading directly to al-Qaida. Prior to Khalid's June 2002 public promotion, he was lurking on the official terror lists merely as an indicted conspirator in the 1995 Bojinka plot masterminded by Ramzi Yousef. Thus, while Khalid had not previously been directly connected to the 9/11 plot, he did make the "most wanted" cut based on his alleged 1995 collaboration with Yousef. With that in mind, one can almost picture sitting in with the members of the National Security Council on a balmy Spring morning in late May 2002, leafing through their photo albums as they argued over the most appropriate candidate to close off the official 9/11 Legend. As it turned out, they chose the guy with the unibrow and the hair shirt.
What was the official reason for revealing the role of Khalid at this point in time? According to CBS News, it was senior al-Qaida figure Abu Zubaydah (captured a few months previously) who had "fingered [Khalid] as the mastermind behind the Sept. 11 attacks." Abu Zubaydah, the first "big fish" captured in the War On Terror, had previously - and conveniently - been fingered as a major al-Qaida player by Ahmed Ressam...
... As we will see, once Ramzi Binalshibh's number comes up for apprehension (in September 2002), followed by the capture of Khalid and Mustafa Ahmed in March 2003, another version will be offered for the timing of Khalid's introduction as 9/11 mastermind. But first, we should take note of James Risen's June 5, 2002 article for the New York Times, in which Risen reported that the authorities "had begun to suspect soon after the [Sept. 11] attacks that [Khalid] had some role in the hijackings. But in the next months, a detailed financial investigation of the money trail from the plot led officials to believe that he had a more prominent role than previously suspected." In other words, as Risen had framed it, Khalid had first garnered notice for 9/11 by way of his connection to the money trail. Was this a retrospective addition into the record? - for Khalid most certainly did not make it into the Money Trail Story as of December 2001, when pretty much all the details of the money trail were crystallized within the Moussaoui indictment. On the other hand, there is a possibility that Khalid was intended from the very beginning to be featured as the 9/11 mastermind, yet perhaps he could not be safely inserted back into the Legend by way of the money trail until that nasty confusion over the "Mustafa Ahmad" alias was resolved...
...By June of 2002, the contents of the Moussaoui indictment could indeed be viewed as the clear signpost pointing the way to the manner in which the final loose ends of the Official 9/11 Legend would be tied up for posterity. With Ramzi Binalshibh and Mustafa Ahmed al-Hisawi already tied together as unindicted co-conspirators in the Moussaoui case, FBI Director Robert Mueller would, by this time, explicitly weave in Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, pairing him up with Mustafa Ahmed and thereby inserting this newly-christened 9/11 mastermind into the Money Trail Story. The Associated Press' John Lumpkin would reference all three in his key June 2002 article. It is as if the powers-that-be were putting this trio of nefarious characters on notice - from here on, their fates were to be indelibly entwined.
If habitual coincidence is the mother of all conspiracy theories, then one must surely raise a discerning eyebrow at the revelation that, around this time - after more than a decade of staying hidden in the shadows - Khalid Shaikh Mohammed suddenly was stricken with an urge to conduct his very first interview, with none other than Ramzi Binalshibh at his side. The journalist chosen for this honor was the London bureau chief of Al-Jazeera, Yosri Fouda...
...On September 9, 2002, the die was cast. Al-Jazeera was broadcasting Part I of Fouda's historic interview with Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and Ramzi Binalshibh. For the first time, millions would hear - from the planners themselves - exactly how the September 11 plot was put in motion. It was al-Jazeera's version of VH1's Behind The Music, featuring guest commentaries from Vincent Cannistraro and Lyndon LaRouche. Unfortunately, viewers would only get the audio feed of Khalid and Binalshibh, as Binalshibh and Khalid purportedly had confiscated from Fouda his videotape of the proceedings before he had taken leave of them back in June.
In more ways than one, September 9 was an ideal launch date for the interview broadcast. By then, the mainstream media had the whole summer to feed the public - and themselves - with various leaks, revelations, and "official" comments concerning Khalid and Binalshibh's newfound place in the 9/11 pantheon. Set-up and payoff. Moreover, the interview was now being broadcast in the immediate lead-up to the first anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, thereby further raising the profile of this historic broadcast...
...It was practically a seamless propaganda extravaganza, except for one small detail - Fouda had gone on record as dating the interview to June of 2002, thereby raising the prospect of two plausible scenarios. Scenario One: Khalid and Binalshibh's respective roles in the plot were first discovered solely due to Fouda's contact with them; or Scenario Two: The decision to send Fouda on his interview errand was made at the same time that a decision was made to market Khalid as the new 9/11 mastermind. Of the two scenarios, the first one was far more palatable - from a propaganda perspective - as at least it could be kept within the borders of plausible deniability, and only Fouda would get burned by it. The second scenario, however, would raise the prospect of one of those uncomfortable coincidences that could conceivably expose the 9/11 Legend as a pre-fabricated set-up.
Only two days after the initial broadcast of Fouda's interview with Khalid and Binalshibh - on the first anniversary commemorating the 9/11 attacks - Pakistani forces, accompanied by FBI agents, raided an apartment complex in Karachi. After a "four hour" gun battle involving "hundreds" of Pakistani soldiers and policemen, the authorities captured, among a few others, Ramzi Binalshibh himself. Their original target, however, had been Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, whom they had been tracking for months throughout Karachi. While Khalid had just barely slipped away only a few hours before Pakistani forces had arrived at his door, the authorities were reportedly "surprised" to discover that they had netted Binalshibh in the process. At least that is now the official version of the day's events...
...With the well-timed arrest of Ramzi Binalshibh in September 2002, journalist Yosri Fouda was in a bind. Only days before, he had gone on record - repeatedly - as dating his interview with Khalid and Binalshibh to June 2002. Up to the time of Binalshibh's arrest, the official legend had it that Khalid's pivotal role as 9/11 mastermind was revealed to U.S. authorities through their interrogation of Abu Zubaydah, who was captured in March 2002. Now, in the aftermath of Binalshibh's capture, word was circulating that perhaps authorities had learned of Khalid's true role by way of Fouda. That contention, of course, would remain most plausible if Fouda's interview could definitively be back-dated to a time before early June 2002 - that is, to a time before Khalid was first publicly announced as 9/11 mastermind. The alternative scenario quite simply pointed to a conclusion that would have to be denied at all costs - that the decision to out Khalid publicly as the 9/11 mastermind was coordinated with the decision to send Fouda on his interview errand with Khalid. Had Fouda erred, then, by initially claiming that his historic interview had taken place in June 2002? Had he possibly exposed a seam pointing the way to a coordinated set-up?
Soon after the Binalshibh arrest, Fouda took the opportunity to revise the date of his interview for the record, revealing to Abdallah Schleifer of the Kamal Adham Center For Journalism:
Fouda: "Actually, this question of dates is very important for another reason. All of these Islamist websites that were denouncing me alluded to my interview as taking place in June. That's what I mentioned both in my article in The Sunday Times Magazine and in my documentary - that I met them in June."
Schleifer: "So?"
Fouda: "I lied."
Schleifer: "Really?"
Fouda: "Yeah."
Schleifer: "But you're going to come clean with [us], right?"
Fouda (laughter): "Yes, of course. I lied because I needed to lie. I'll tell you why. Because I thought, maybe even expected, that if something when wrong and I needed to get in touch with them through a website or a statement or a fax ... they would be the only ones who would know that I had met them one month earlier than I let on, and so I'd know I was talking to the right people.
So after the first wave of denunciations a pro-Qa'ida website "jehad.net" put up a statement online in the name of Al-Qa'ida clearing me of any blame or connection with Ramzi's arrest and I knew this was an authentic communique because it alluded to the interview taking place in May."
Apparently, Fouda had lied again, for on March 4, 2003 (i.e. a few days after Khalid's eventual arrest), Fouda offered up this newest version of his 48-hour encounter to The Guardian:
"It was late afternoon, Sunday 21 April 2002, when I packed my bags before joining Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and Ramzi bin al-shibh for a last prayer before saying goodbye."
That, as they say in legal parlance, is a very definite recollection. In short, Fouda had impeached his own testimony through these two explicitly detailed, contradictory dates. Fouda, through this compounded lie, was now calling into question the very credibility of his entire interview with Khalid and Binalshibh...
...Recall that, back in June 2002, the "official" legend at the time had it that it was Abu Zubaydah, back in March 2002, who had spilled the goods on Khalid. Yet with Khalid's March 2003 apprehension, this one aspect of the legend was duly revised. As revealed by Keith Olbermann in a March 3, 2003 MSNBC.com item: "Ironically, it would be [Fouda's] interview that would point out, to U.S. intelligence, that [Khalid Shaikh] Mohammed and Binalshibh were the brains behind the 9/11 attacks"...
...Within weeks of Binalshibh's Sept. 11, 2002 arrest, the disinformation apparatus was revisiting the Daniel Pearl thread of the 9/11 Legend, this time with a bombshell UPI exclusive from Richard Sale and Anwar Iqbal, dated September 30, 2002:
..."Bob Baer, a former case officer in the agency's Directorate of Operations, said he provided Pearl with unpublished information about Khalid Shaikh Mohammed...
...'I was working with Pearl,' said Baer, who had written a book about his time as a CIA official and has acted as a consultant and source for numerous media outlets. 'We had a joint project. Mohammed was the story he was working on, not Richard Reid' "...
...In Baer's book, See No Evil, Khalid is mentioned briefly as an expert in hijacking planes, but precious little detail is offered. One must be extremely cautious in assimilating any "official" details about Khalid offered after June 2002, as one cannot be sure as to which biographical details were fabricated solely to buttress Khalid's early June 2002 legend as the 9/11 mastermind. Interestingly, while Baer's brief reference to Khalid in his book is one of the very few public characterizations of him offered between September 2001 and June 2002, one must wonder why Baer chose to wait a good eight months after the Pearl kidnapping before revealing this new chapter about Khalid. Even more so, one must wonder why, back in June 2002, when Khalid was making the headlines as the newly marketed 9/11 mastermind - and at a time when the red-hot Baer was doing the post-9/11 media circuit - he apparently did not find it newsworthy to reveal the Khalid angle to the Pearl story. Or perhaps he had forgotten it altogether, and it had taken as long as three weeks after the Binalshibh arrest to jog his memory.
But with his memory now firmly jogged, apparently he would set out to discover what happened to his "joint project" partner, Daniel Pearl. Perhaps to his horror, he discovered that Pearl might have been disposed of by their joint research subject. "I have heard from (intelligence) people who follow this closely that it was people close to [Khalid Shaikh] Mohammed that killed him [Pearl], if it wasn't Mohammed himself," Baer revealed to UPI...
...On September 26, 2002 , only days before Baer's bombshell admission, John Lumpkin of the Associated Press presented his update on the 9/11 paymaster role. Recall that it was Lumpkin who had written, back in early June 2002, the definitive article introducing Khalid as the 9/11 mastermind, including references to the now-official paymaster Mustafa Ahmed al-Hisawi (a.k.a. Shaikh Saiid al-Sharif) and Ramzi Binalshibh. Now, Lumpkin was reporting the contents of Robert Mueller's formerly secret testimony before the Joint Senate-House Committee, made back in early June 2002, around the time of Lumpkin's key article on Khalid...
...And, as if to lay the groundwork for Khalid and al-Hisawi's eventual simultaneous capture, Lumpkin wrote, "Both al-Hisawi and Mohammed are at large and are among the most wanted al-Qaida figures remaining." He might also have mentioned Osama bin Laden and his deputy Ayman al-Zawahiri, but then that wasn't the point of the article. As I have argued, the time was fast approaching for al-Hisawi, Binalshibh, and Khalid (in conjunction with the Moussaoui indictment) to wrap up this segment of the 9/11 Legend and to take their indelible places in the official history books...
...Approaching the end of 2002, with Binalshibh secretly stashed away in U.S. custody - and with most people focused on the emerging War In Iraq - the time was now ripe to bring this part of the Official 9/11 Legend to its neat and tidy conclusion. For the record, the aforementioned John J. Lumpkin of the Associated Press (who had written the definitive June 2002 article introducing Khalid as the new 9/11 mastermind) took the opportunity - on December 27, 2002 - to clarify the true identity of the official 9/11 paymaster, this time providing the very first explicit acknowledgment of those troublesome contradictions previously conveyed through the pages of the Associated Press...
...Not that many people noticed - or cared. Still, all that prior nasty confusion concerning the 9/11 paymaster alias had to be qualified and clarified in time for [Mustafa Ahmed] al-Hisawi's approaching "official" arrest...
...In any case, the main story points of the Official 9/11 Legend were fully elaborated and resolved with the simultaneous capture of Khalid and the official paymaster, Mustafa Ahmed al-Hisawi, in March 2003. Only weeks later, however, with the War In Iraq in full sway, these presumably senior operatives in the 9/11 plot drew negligible scrutiny from the media and the public at large. Both men were reportedly stashed away in secret locations, presumably sharing the fruits of their interrogations with anonymous officials, who would duly pass off the requisite "scoops" to writers with a curious penchant for special intelligence access (Gerald Posner, for example).
Meanwhile, the - perhaps choreographed? - farce of the Moussaoui trial would drag on, with Moussaoui reportedly insistent on calling Khalid and Binalshibh as witnesses for the defense. At this point, one would be cautioned as to drawing any firm conclusions about the ongoing events of the Moussaoui trial. The important fact to keep in mind is that Moussaoui all along was likely set up as the convenient vessel through which the Justice Department and Mueller's FBI - cunningly obscured by Mueller's hedges - would gradually elaborate the main contours of the Official 9/11 Legend in that crucial first year following 9/11. In other words, by way of the lone Moussaoui indictment, the authorities were able to provide the illusion of a massive legal investigation covering literally thousands of pages, spanning continents in order to ferret out the full depth of Moussaoui's nefarious associations. In this respect, one might surmise that once Moussaoui has fully served his purpose as an investigative/propaganda vessel (as he likely already has), the authorities will then proceed to demonstrate that the Moussaoui case was never particularly relevant after all - thereby successfully concealing the all-important function that his case did serve in the finely calibrated public dissemination of the Official 9/11 Legend.
Given the foregoing, it remains to be seen how the authorities will conclusively deal with the festering anomalies surrounding their three prize catches - the elusive Binalshibh, the perhaps dead Khalid, and the perhaps fictitious Mustafa Ahmed al-Hisawi. Nevertheless, it is a safe bet that in the meantime, the authorities will continue to weave ever more complex and murky tapestries around the personalities of these operatives, employing the mercenary talents of writers like Gerald Posner to add to the crumbling sediment of "facts."
Chaim Kupferberg is a freelance researcher, writer and frequent Global Research contributor.
The text is excerpted from: Truth, Lies, and The Legend of 9/11 by Chaim Kupferberg, first published by Global Research in October 26, 2003.
Read more!!
DRANT #219: LIVE FROM THE BELLY OF THE BEAST: DC RALLY
URGENT: BREAKING NEWS !!!
KHALID SHEIK MOHAMMED CONFESSES !
In a shocking development early this morning, the confessed mastermind of 9-11, Khalid Sheik Mohammed, defiantly confessed to yet another crime:
He admitted that, as long suspected, he was the actual impregnator of Mary, and that Jesus was in fact his son.
While the physical resemblance has been noted by many, and since there were no actual eye witnesses, this was the first actual corroboration.
Insiders who refused to be named have also divulged that it was in fact Mohammed who threw the pitch to Bobby Thomson in 1951.
More details as they are released.
URL of this article: http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=KUP20070315&articleId=5087
www.GlobalResearch.ca
Khalid Sheikh Mohammed: The Official Legend of 9/11 is a Fabricated Setup
The June 2002 Plan to Market a New 9/11 Mastermind
by Chaim Kupferberg
Global Research, March 15, 2007
GlobalResearch.ca - 2003-10-26
Editor's note
The Pentagon has released a 26 page transcript of the "confession" of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (pdf) who is
now being presented to World public opinion as the mastermind and architect of the September 11, 2001 attacks.
This "confession", read from a prepared text by his "personal [legal?] representative" was delivered at "military hearings" held behind closed doors at the US Guantanamo concentration camp.
According to the transcript, Khalid Sheikh Mohamed claimed responsibility for the attacks on the twin towers and the Pentagon: “I was responsible for the 9/11 operation, from A to Z.”
According to his prepared statement, he also "confessed" to an impressive list of terrorist attacks as well as the planning of a “second wave” of post 9/11 attack, including the bombings of skyscrapers in New York, Chicago and Washington, attacks on London's Heathrow airport, Canary Warf and the Tower of Big Ben.
He also claimed responsibility for the 1993 attack on the World Trade Center, Richard Reid’s attempt to ignite a shoe bomb on an Transatlantic flight in December 2001, and the October 2002 Bali bombings in Indonesia.
In a statement read by his personal representative, he allegedly confessed to planning the assassination of several former presidents, including Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton, as well as Pope John Paul II.
With regard to Wall Street Journal's reporter Daniel Pearl, the statement reads: “I decapitated with my blessed right hand the head of the American Jew Daniel Pearl... For those who would like to confirm, there are pictures of me on the Internet holding his head.”
Khalid was arrested in March 2003 and was then imprisoned for more than three years in secret CIA detention facilities. He claims to have made this confession without any form of pressure being exerted on him.
Khalid Sheikh Mohamed personifies the "outside enemy" of America. His "confession" upholds the illusion that Al Qaeda outwitted the 40 billion dollar US intelligence apparatus in waging a terrorist attack on America.
The arrest and confessed statements of Khalid Sheikh Mohamed serve to uphold the official 9/11 narrative, namely that the 9/11 attacks were masterminded by Islamic terrorists.
The following text by Chaim Kupferberg, first published by Global Research in October 2003, shortly after the arrest of KSM, reveals with foresight thge nasture of the psyop propaganda ploy. According to Kupferberg, there was "a June 2002 marketing plan" to introduce Khalid Sheikh Mohammed to the public as the 9/11 mastermind.
Kupferberg exposed how the official legend was fabricated around Khalid Shaikh Mohammed. His analysis reveals the historical background behind the creation of the 9/11 Legend. The latter serves to drown the lies and inconsistencies contained in the official 9/11 narrative, it sustains the global war on terrorism. Ultimately, it is intended, in a rather clumsy fashion to uphold the Bush adminstration and the US intelligence apparatus.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Michel Chossudovsky, Global Research, 15 March 2007
Global Research, October 26, 2003
[note: the following text originally published by Global Research on October 26, 2003 was excerpted by the author from a much longer text, see references at the foot of this article]
The Official Legend of 9/11 as a prefabricated set-up.
As we will see, the Moussaoui indictment had lain the groundwork for the eventual Khalid Shaikh Mohammed/ Ramzi Binalshibh/ Mustafa Ahmed nexus that really gets rolling in June 2002, when Khalid is first introduced as the 9/11 "mastermind", then proceeds through Binalshibh's choreographed arrest in September 2002, and culminates with the simultaneous arrest of Khalid and Mustafa Ahmed in March 2003. Further, we will see how FBI Director Mueller uses the details in the Moussaoui indictment to explicitly pair up Khalid and Mustafa Ahmed - a full nine months before these characters end up sharing news space for their own simultaneously choreographed apprehensions.
The unsealed December 2001 Moussaoui indictment also set out two "unindicted co-conspirators" who had yet to play their final roles in the unfolding 9/11 Legend - Ramzi Binalshibh and Mustafa Ahmed al-hawsawi (the "official" paymaster)...
Of the various pivot points in the unfolding 9/11 Legend, the time period of June 4-5 2002 was among the most significant.
...Around the same time that the joint Senate-House Inquiry was proceeding under the co-chairmanship of Bob Graham and Porter Goss (the September 11 breakfast partners of Omar Saeed's reported ISI "handler"), Khalid Shaikh Mohammed was formally introduced as the operative mastermind behind 9/11. John J. Lumpkin of the Associated Press wrote the definitive article here, courtesy of the revelations of an anonymous "top U.S. counterterrorism official"
...Lumpkin's key June article served as a guidepost as to how the unfolding 9/11 Legend would finally crystallize. As reported by Lumpkin, in the same article where Khalid was introduced as the new 9/11 mastermind, he was also "accused of working with Ramzi Yousef in the first bombing of the World Trade Center [in '93]" in addition to working with Yousef on a 1995 plot (code-named Bojinka) to bomb a dozen airliners headed to the United States
...It was not by accident that the 9/11 paymaster - now officially dubbed as Mustafa Ahmed al-Hisawi - was mentioned in an article introducing Khalid as the mastermind. As it turned out, about the same time that Lumpkin's article was making the rounds, Robert Mueller was making a statement before the Senate-House Committee, narrating the full details of the money trail story (as set out in the Moussaoui indictment), but this time adding the role of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, who, according to Mueller's statement, shared a credit card with Mustafa Ahmed "Alhawsawi."
Thus, Mueller inserted Khalid into the Money Trail Story by way of a direct connection with the "Mustafa Ahmad" alias. And now, thanks to Lumpkin, "Mustafa Ahmad" was not to be thought of as simply a convenient pseudonym, but rather as a real person, bin Laden's bona fide "financial chief"...
...Once Lumpkin's June 2002 article on Khalid was out, further incriminating details were coming out fast and furious. According to CBS News, U.S. officials now had "evidence" that Khalid had met with "some of the 9/11 hijackers at their Hamburg, Germany apartment in 1999." Presumably, Ramzi Binalshibh - Mohammed Atta's Hamburg roommate who was also thought to be a potential "twentieth hijacker" - was among them. Lumpkin's key June article also mentioned Binalshibh as part of Atta's Hamburg "cell." And as Binalshibh was paired with Mustafa Ahmed as an "unindicted co-conspirator" in the Moussaoui indictment, we have perhaps an indication that Khalid, Binalshibh, and Mustafa Ahmed were part of a concerted strategy touched off in early June 2002 to bring this phase of the 9/11 Legend to a close. Conveniently timed for release on the very next day - June 6, 2002 - further news followed that, according to National Security Agency intercepts, Khalid was heard talking on the telephone with hijacker Mohammed Atta. Moreover, for the very first time, authorities were now reporting that Khalid was actually the uncle of Ramzi Yousef. In other words, when the nephew failed to bring down the Towers in '93, the uncle took up the slack in '01.
Perhaps it was this sort of conceptually artistic symmetry that made Khalid so attractive as the designated mastermind. Through Khalid, one had a direct connection to the first World Trade Center attack, providing a smoking gun continuity leading directly to al-Qaida. Prior to Khalid's June 2002 public promotion, he was lurking on the official terror lists merely as an indicted conspirator in the 1995 Bojinka plot masterminded by Ramzi Yousef. Thus, while Khalid had not previously been directly connected to the 9/11 plot, he did make the "most wanted" cut based on his alleged 1995 collaboration with Yousef. With that in mind, one can almost picture sitting in with the members of the National Security Council on a balmy Spring morning in late May 2002, leafing through their photo albums as they argued over the most appropriate candidate to close off the official 9/11 Legend. As it turned out, they chose the guy with the unibrow and the hair shirt.
What was the official reason for revealing the role of Khalid at this point in time? According to CBS News, it was senior al-Qaida figure Abu Zubaydah (captured a few months previously) who had "fingered [Khalid] as the mastermind behind the Sept. 11 attacks." Abu Zubaydah, the first "big fish" captured in the War On Terror, had previously - and conveniently - been fingered as a major al-Qaida player by Ahmed Ressam...
... As we will see, once Ramzi Binalshibh's number comes up for apprehension (in September 2002), followed by the capture of Khalid and Mustafa Ahmed in March 2003, another version will be offered for the timing of Khalid's introduction as 9/11 mastermind. But first, we should take note of James Risen's June 5, 2002 article for the New York Times, in which Risen reported that the authorities "had begun to suspect soon after the [Sept. 11] attacks that [Khalid] had some role in the hijackings. But in the next months, a detailed financial investigation of the money trail from the plot led officials to believe that he had a more prominent role than previously suspected." In other words, as Risen had framed it, Khalid had first garnered notice for 9/11 by way of his connection to the money trail. Was this a retrospective addition into the record? - for Khalid most certainly did not make it into the Money Trail Story as of December 2001, when pretty much all the details of the money trail were crystallized within the Moussaoui indictment. On the other hand, there is a possibility that Khalid was intended from the very beginning to be featured as the 9/11 mastermind, yet perhaps he could not be safely inserted back into the Legend by way of the money trail until that nasty confusion over the "Mustafa Ahmad" alias was resolved...
...By June of 2002, the contents of the Moussaoui indictment could indeed be viewed as the clear signpost pointing the way to the manner in which the final loose ends of the Official 9/11 Legend would be tied up for posterity. With Ramzi Binalshibh and Mustafa Ahmed al-Hisawi already tied together as unindicted co-conspirators in the Moussaoui case, FBI Director Robert Mueller would, by this time, explicitly weave in Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, pairing him up with Mustafa Ahmed and thereby inserting this newly-christened 9/11 mastermind into the Money Trail Story. The Associated Press' John Lumpkin would reference all three in his key June 2002 article. It is as if the powers-that-be were putting this trio of nefarious characters on notice - from here on, their fates were to be indelibly entwined.
If habitual coincidence is the mother of all conspiracy theories, then one must surely raise a discerning eyebrow at the revelation that, around this time - after more than a decade of staying hidden in the shadows - Khalid Shaikh Mohammed suddenly was stricken with an urge to conduct his very first interview, with none other than Ramzi Binalshibh at his side. The journalist chosen for this honor was the London bureau chief of Al-Jazeera, Yosri Fouda...
...On September 9, 2002, the die was cast. Al-Jazeera was broadcasting Part I of Fouda's historic interview with Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and Ramzi Binalshibh. For the first time, millions would hear - from the planners themselves - exactly how the September 11 plot was put in motion. It was al-Jazeera's version of VH1's Behind The Music, featuring guest commentaries from Vincent Cannistraro and Lyndon LaRouche. Unfortunately, viewers would only get the audio feed of Khalid and Binalshibh, as Binalshibh and Khalid purportedly had confiscated from Fouda his videotape of the proceedings before he had taken leave of them back in June.
In more ways than one, September 9 was an ideal launch date for the interview broadcast. By then, the mainstream media had the whole summer to feed the public - and themselves - with various leaks, revelations, and "official" comments concerning Khalid and Binalshibh's newfound place in the 9/11 pantheon. Set-up and payoff. Moreover, the interview was now being broadcast in the immediate lead-up to the first anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, thereby further raising the profile of this historic broadcast...
...It was practically a seamless propaganda extravaganza, except for one small detail - Fouda had gone on record as dating the interview to June of 2002, thereby raising the prospect of two plausible scenarios. Scenario One: Khalid and Binalshibh's respective roles in the plot were first discovered solely due to Fouda's contact with them; or Scenario Two: The decision to send Fouda on his interview errand was made at the same time that a decision was made to market Khalid as the new 9/11 mastermind. Of the two scenarios, the first one was far more palatable - from a propaganda perspective - as at least it could be kept within the borders of plausible deniability, and only Fouda would get burned by it. The second scenario, however, would raise the prospect of one of those uncomfortable coincidences that could conceivably expose the 9/11 Legend as a pre-fabricated set-up.
Only two days after the initial broadcast of Fouda's interview with Khalid and Binalshibh - on the first anniversary commemorating the 9/11 attacks - Pakistani forces, accompanied by FBI agents, raided an apartment complex in Karachi. After a "four hour" gun battle involving "hundreds" of Pakistani soldiers and policemen, the authorities captured, among a few others, Ramzi Binalshibh himself. Their original target, however, had been Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, whom they had been tracking for months throughout Karachi. While Khalid had just barely slipped away only a few hours before Pakistani forces had arrived at his door, the authorities were reportedly "surprised" to discover that they had netted Binalshibh in the process. At least that is now the official version of the day's events...
...With the well-timed arrest of Ramzi Binalshibh in September 2002, journalist Yosri Fouda was in a bind. Only days before, he had gone on record - repeatedly - as dating his interview with Khalid and Binalshibh to June 2002. Up to the time of Binalshibh's arrest, the official legend had it that Khalid's pivotal role as 9/11 mastermind was revealed to U.S. authorities through their interrogation of Abu Zubaydah, who was captured in March 2002. Now, in the aftermath of Binalshibh's capture, word was circulating that perhaps authorities had learned of Khalid's true role by way of Fouda. That contention, of course, would remain most plausible if Fouda's interview could definitively be back-dated to a time before early June 2002 - that is, to a time before Khalid was first publicly announced as 9/11 mastermind. The alternative scenario quite simply pointed to a conclusion that would have to be denied at all costs - that the decision to out Khalid publicly as the 9/11 mastermind was coordinated with the decision to send Fouda on his interview errand with Khalid. Had Fouda erred, then, by initially claiming that his historic interview had taken place in June 2002? Had he possibly exposed a seam pointing the way to a coordinated set-up?
Soon after the Binalshibh arrest, Fouda took the opportunity to revise the date of his interview for the record, revealing to Abdallah Schleifer of the Kamal Adham Center For Journalism:
Fouda: "Actually, this question of dates is very important for another reason. All of these Islamist websites that were denouncing me alluded to my interview as taking place in June. That's what I mentioned both in my article in The Sunday Times Magazine and in my documentary - that I met them in June."
Schleifer: "So?"
Fouda: "I lied."
Schleifer: "Really?"
Fouda: "Yeah."
Schleifer: "But you're going to come clean with [us], right?"
Fouda (laughter): "Yes, of course. I lied because I needed to lie. I'll tell you why. Because I thought, maybe even expected, that if something when wrong and I needed to get in touch with them through a website or a statement or a fax ... they would be the only ones who would know that I had met them one month earlier than I let on, and so I'd know I was talking to the right people.
So after the first wave of denunciations a pro-Qa'ida website "jehad.net" put up a statement online in the name of Al-Qa'ida clearing me of any blame or connection with Ramzi's arrest and I knew this was an authentic communique because it alluded to the interview taking place in May."
Apparently, Fouda had lied again, for on March 4, 2003 (i.e. a few days after Khalid's eventual arrest), Fouda offered up this newest version of his 48-hour encounter to The Guardian:
"It was late afternoon, Sunday 21 April 2002, when I packed my bags before joining Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and Ramzi bin al-shibh for a last prayer before saying goodbye."
That, as they say in legal parlance, is a very definite recollection. In short, Fouda had impeached his own testimony through these two explicitly detailed, contradictory dates. Fouda, through this compounded lie, was now calling into question the very credibility of his entire interview with Khalid and Binalshibh...
...Recall that, back in June 2002, the "official" legend at the time had it that it was Abu Zubaydah, back in March 2002, who had spilled the goods on Khalid. Yet with Khalid's March 2003 apprehension, this one aspect of the legend was duly revised. As revealed by Keith Olbermann in a March 3, 2003 MSNBC.com item: "Ironically, it would be [Fouda's] interview that would point out, to U.S. intelligence, that [Khalid Shaikh] Mohammed and Binalshibh were the brains behind the 9/11 attacks"...
...Within weeks of Binalshibh's Sept. 11, 2002 arrest, the disinformation apparatus was revisiting the Daniel Pearl thread of the 9/11 Legend, this time with a bombshell UPI exclusive from Richard Sale and Anwar Iqbal, dated September 30, 2002:
..."Bob Baer, a former case officer in the agency's Directorate of Operations, said he provided Pearl with unpublished information about Khalid Shaikh Mohammed...
...'I was working with Pearl,' said Baer, who had written a book about his time as a CIA official and has acted as a consultant and source for numerous media outlets. 'We had a joint project. Mohammed was the story he was working on, not Richard Reid' "...
...In Baer's book, See No Evil, Khalid is mentioned briefly as an expert in hijacking planes, but precious little detail is offered. One must be extremely cautious in assimilating any "official" details about Khalid offered after June 2002, as one cannot be sure as to which biographical details were fabricated solely to buttress Khalid's early June 2002 legend as the 9/11 mastermind. Interestingly, while Baer's brief reference to Khalid in his book is one of the very few public characterizations of him offered between September 2001 and June 2002, one must wonder why Baer chose to wait a good eight months after the Pearl kidnapping before revealing this new chapter about Khalid. Even more so, one must wonder why, back in June 2002, when Khalid was making the headlines as the newly marketed 9/11 mastermind - and at a time when the red-hot Baer was doing the post-9/11 media circuit - he apparently did not find it newsworthy to reveal the Khalid angle to the Pearl story. Or perhaps he had forgotten it altogether, and it had taken as long as three weeks after the Binalshibh arrest to jog his memory.
But with his memory now firmly jogged, apparently he would set out to discover what happened to his "joint project" partner, Daniel Pearl. Perhaps to his horror, he discovered that Pearl might have been disposed of by their joint research subject. "I have heard from (intelligence) people who follow this closely that it was people close to [Khalid Shaikh] Mohammed that killed him [Pearl], if it wasn't Mohammed himself," Baer revealed to UPI...
...On September 26, 2002 , only days before Baer's bombshell admission, John Lumpkin of the Associated Press presented his update on the 9/11 paymaster role. Recall that it was Lumpkin who had written, back in early June 2002, the definitive article introducing Khalid as the 9/11 mastermind, including references to the now-official paymaster Mustafa Ahmed al-Hisawi (a.k.a. Shaikh Saiid al-Sharif) and Ramzi Binalshibh. Now, Lumpkin was reporting the contents of Robert Mueller's formerly secret testimony before the Joint Senate-House Committee, made back in early June 2002, around the time of Lumpkin's key article on Khalid...
...And, as if to lay the groundwork for Khalid and al-Hisawi's eventual simultaneous capture, Lumpkin wrote, "Both al-Hisawi and Mohammed are at large and are among the most wanted al-Qaida figures remaining." He might also have mentioned Osama bin Laden and his deputy Ayman al-Zawahiri, but then that wasn't the point of the article. As I have argued, the time was fast approaching for al-Hisawi, Binalshibh, and Khalid (in conjunction with the Moussaoui indictment) to wrap up this segment of the 9/11 Legend and to take their indelible places in the official history books...
...Approaching the end of 2002, with Binalshibh secretly stashed away in U.S. custody - and with most people focused on the emerging War In Iraq - the time was now ripe to bring this part of the Official 9/11 Legend to its neat and tidy conclusion. For the record, the aforementioned John J. Lumpkin of the Associated Press (who had written the definitive June 2002 article introducing Khalid as the new 9/11 mastermind) took the opportunity - on December 27, 2002 - to clarify the true identity of the official 9/11 paymaster, this time providing the very first explicit acknowledgment of those troublesome contradictions previously conveyed through the pages of the Associated Press...
...Not that many people noticed - or cared. Still, all that prior nasty confusion concerning the 9/11 paymaster alias had to be qualified and clarified in time for [Mustafa Ahmed] al-Hisawi's approaching "official" arrest...
...In any case, the main story points of the Official 9/11 Legend were fully elaborated and resolved with the simultaneous capture of Khalid and the official paymaster, Mustafa Ahmed al-Hisawi, in March 2003. Only weeks later, however, with the War In Iraq in full sway, these presumably senior operatives in the 9/11 plot drew negligible scrutiny from the media and the public at large. Both men were reportedly stashed away in secret locations, presumably sharing the fruits of their interrogations with anonymous officials, who would duly pass off the requisite "scoops" to writers with a curious penchant for special intelligence access (Gerald Posner, for example).
Meanwhile, the - perhaps choreographed? - farce of the Moussaoui trial would drag on, with Moussaoui reportedly insistent on calling Khalid and Binalshibh as witnesses for the defense. At this point, one would be cautioned as to drawing any firm conclusions about the ongoing events of the Moussaoui trial. The important fact to keep in mind is that Moussaoui all along was likely set up as the convenient vessel through which the Justice Department and Mueller's FBI - cunningly obscured by Mueller's hedges - would gradually elaborate the main contours of the Official 9/11 Legend in that crucial first year following 9/11. In other words, by way of the lone Moussaoui indictment, the authorities were able to provide the illusion of a massive legal investigation covering literally thousands of pages, spanning continents in order to ferret out the full depth of Moussaoui's nefarious associations. In this respect, one might surmise that once Moussaoui has fully served his purpose as an investigative/propaganda vessel (as he likely already has), the authorities will then proceed to demonstrate that the Moussaoui case was never particularly relevant after all - thereby successfully concealing the all-important function that his case did serve in the finely calibrated public dissemination of the Official 9/11 Legend.
Given the foregoing, it remains to be seen how the authorities will conclusively deal with the festering anomalies surrounding their three prize catches - the elusive Binalshibh, the perhaps dead Khalid, and the perhaps fictitious Mustafa Ahmed al-Hisawi. Nevertheless, it is a safe bet that in the meantime, the authorities will continue to weave ever more complex and murky tapestries around the personalities of these operatives, employing the mercenary talents of writers like Gerald Posner to add to the crumbling sediment of "facts."
Chaim Kupferberg is a freelance researcher, writer and frequent Global Research contributor.
The text is excerpted from: Truth, Lies, and The Legend of 9/11 by Chaim Kupferberg, first published by Global Research in October 26, 2003.
Read more!!
Saturday, March 10, 2007
DRANT #218: STOP THE MACHINE!!!!
"Under the influence of politicians, masses of people tend to ascribe the responsibility for wars to those who wield power at any given time. In World War I it was the munitions industrialists; in World War II it was the psychopathic generals who were said to be guilty. This is passing the buck.
The responsibility for wars falls solely upon the shoulders of these same masses of people, for they have all the necessary means to avert war in their own hands. In part by their apathy, in part by their passivity, and in part actively, these same masses of people make possible the catastrophes under which they themselves suffer more than anyone else. To stress this guilt on the part of the masses of people, to hold them solely responsible, means to take them seriously. On the other hand, to commiserate masses of people as victims, means to treat them as small, helpless children. The former is the attitude held by genuine freedom fighters; the latter that attitude held by power-thirsty politicians."
Wilhelm Reich, The Mass Psychology of Fascism
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Come to DC.
As soon as you can.
If you can't, then do your own intervention and resistance wherever you are.
Stop The Machine.
Occupy your Congressperson's office. Stop The Machine
Do a Die-In in your city. Stop The Machine
Organize a work stoppage where you work, For a day, for an hour. Stop The Machine
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
***Weather forecast for next week – 60’s
For the latest Encampment updates - check the Encampment blog
ALERT ALERT ALERT ALERT ALERT ALERT ALERT ALERT ALERT ALERT
Democratic Party Leaders Plan To Betray Anti-War Movement
Phony “Withdrawal” Plan is Just a Cover for Funding Bush’s War
DON’T LET THEM
GET AWAY WITH IT!
Antiwar
Encampment in
Front of Congress Starts on Monday >>>
DON’T BE FOOLED, the “withdrawal from Iraq” plan that Democratic Party leaders in Congress have just announced is nothing more than a cover for them to approve Bush’s request for $100 billion to fund the war and occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan-- in other words, to continue the war.
CUT OFF THE WAR FUNDS - END THE WAR NOW – BRING THE TROOPS HOME
Democratic Party leaders propose to begin withdrawing troops in a year to 18 months. Over the last 18 months, more than 1,200 U.S. soldiers have been killed, and about 7 times that many wounded and maimed. Do the math: a year or 18 more months of war is a death sentence for untold numbers of soldiers and an even greater number of Iraqis.
CUT OFF THE WAR FUNDS – END THE WAR NOW – BRING THE TROOPS HOME
The “withdrawal time tables” along with the “ goals and conditions” that Democratic leaders are proposing are not fundamentally different than the ones that Bush proposed in his “State of the Union” address. The real stink bomb hidden in this new “withdrawal” legislation is that Bush and his generals have the authority to “waive” any part of these so-called timetables and conditions, any time he wants to. The fact is that these new proposals amount to nothing more than political posturing by Democratic leaders in order to get some of the antiwar heat off of them while they continue to fund the war. This plan is not a plan to end the war--it is just another non-binding resolution. Representative Jerry Nadler had it right when he said “All of this is just and excuse funding another year of war”.
CUT OFF THE WAR FUNDS – END THE WAR NOW – BRING THE TROOPS HOME
Democratic Party leaders can end the war right now if the exercise their power to simply cut off all funding for the war. If they don’t do that, then it’s not just Bush’s war, or just the Republican Party’s war, it’s the Democratic Party’s war as well and now is the time to demand that they put up or shut up.
CUT OFF THE WAR FUNDS – END THE WAR NOW – BRING THE TROOPS HOME
On Monday, antiwar activists from around the country will began camping in front of the Capital building at 3rd St. right on the Washington DC National Mall. We will be there with tents, banners, placards, signs, noisemakers, etc. demanding that Congress stop the BS and simply cut off the war funding, end the war now and bring the troops home. We need you to join us. We need you to march on the Pentagon on March 17. Moreover, if there was ever a time to be in the streets, blocking traffic, occupying bridges, organizing walk-outs from coast to coast to stop this criminal war THIS IS THE TIME!
The Encampment to Stop the War will start in just a few days - Monday, March 12 - and there is an enormous amount of work to be done in a short period of time. We have an opportunity in the next few days to have a major impact, if we work together--here's how you can help:
Let us know if you are coming to the Encampment. Use the Volunteer form at http://troopsoutnow.org/march12volunteer.shtml.
Volunteer at the Encampment - we will need hundreds of volunteers during the week of the Encampment let us know how you can help (logistics, security, medical, greeter, etc) - http://troopsoutnow.org/march12volunteer.shtml
Donate to to help with the enormous costs of the Encampment - http://troopsoutnow.org/donate.shtml. If you are not able to come to the encampment, help send a youth activist to the Encampment to the week- donate for transportation and housing costs here.
San Francisco Die-In
Monday, March 19th 2007 12 noon
San Francisco, CA USA
DIE-IN on Market Street to show what it would look like if downtown San Francisco were filled with dead bodies. Wear all black or wear a black armband, and put a Bring the Troops Home Now sign in the window of your home or car. Go to www.dieinmarch19.org for more information, downloadable leaflet, and ways to help publicize the event.
Location:
Assembly points: Federal Reserve (Spear & Market); McKesson Plaza (Montgomery & Market); Westfield Center (Powell & Market); UN Plaza (7th & Market). San Francisco CA
Contact:
March 19 Die-In
actionmarch19@gmail.com
http://www.dieinmarch19.org
COMMON DREAMS
March 9,2007
Protesters Aim To Take Over Lawmakers’ Offices, Fight War Funding
by Jennifer C. Kerr
WASHINGTON — Some opponents of the Iraq war are taking their protests straight to Congress — staging “occupations” in lawmakers’ offices on Capitol Hill and in their home communities.
Erin Cox of Chicago, left, gets handcuffed by Wausau Police officer Todd Baeten Monday, March 5, 2007, as three other peace activists are arrested at U.S. Rep. Dave Obey's office in Wausau, Wis. Protesters are staging sit-ins in congressional offices in Minnesota and Wisconsin, part of a nationwide effort to pressure lawmakers to vote against funding for the war in Iraq. (AP Photo/Wausau Daily Herald, Corey Schjoth)
Rep. Rahm Emanuel’s office in Chicago was targeted on Thursday.
A day earlier protesters were headed off before getting into House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s office in San Francisco.
In Washington, peace activists dressed in pink showed up recently at the Senate offices of presidential hopefuls John McCain and Hillary Rodham Clinton.
The protesters haven’t abandoned the larger, more familiar gatherings at college campuses, major cities and monuments in Washington. But in recent weeks, they have been turning up at congressional offices, vowing to stay until they get pledges that lawmakers will vote against more war funding — or until they are forcibly removed.
“We really see it as an extension of lobbying,” Jeff Leys, co-coordinator of Chicago-based Voices for Creative Nonviolence, said of the office occupations. “The aim is to keep going back time and time and time again.”
The protesters number anywhere from a handful to a few dozen. Sometimes, they stay for minutes. Sometimes, they remain for hours before police move in.
Organizers count more than 140 arrests so far. Most involve charges of trespassing or disorderly conduct.
During the occupations, the protesters sit, stand, sing, chant, pray, ring bells, and read letters from American troops sent home to their families.
The eight demonstrators at Emanuel’s office on Thursday performed skits about the consequences of war, read names of U.S. troops killed in Iraq and told stories about Iraqi children hurt in the fighting. They were welcomed by a staffer into the lobby of the congressman’s office.
Sometimes, though, the protesters don’t even get through the front door.
About 20 demonstrators gathered outside Pelosi’s San Francisco office on Wednesday. Before they could enter, a Pelosi staffer ushered the group down to a conference room seven floors below, where many voiced frustration that Pelosi was not being aggressive enough in seeking an end to the war.
The anti-war groups are setting their sights on Republicans, like McCain. But they’re also lining up against Democrats, like Pelosi, who were opposed to the war from the very beginning.
“Those who know there is an alternative, we want to put some pressure on them to do the right thing,” said Gael Murphy, co-founder of Codepink, an anti-war group with a name that serves as a poke at the Bush administration’s color-coded terror alert system. Pink, the group says, represents peace.
Occupations have been held at the offices of Sens. Richard Durbin of Illinois and Barbara Mikulski of Maryland, and Reps. Marcy Kaptur of Ohio and David Obey of Wisconsin. All four Democrats voted against the 2002 measure authorizing the war.
Earlier this week, Obey was confronted outside his Capitol office by war opponents, prompting a heated exchange in which Obey shouted at one women who wanted him to vote against money for the war.
In a video posted on the Internet site YouTube, the Democratic lawmaker is seen pounding his fist repeatedly into the air, complaining loudly that Democrats don’t have enough votes to cut off war funding and the protesters don’t understand the debate in Congress.
“That makes no sense. It doesn’t work that way,” Obey says at one point.
In Minnesota, protesters are pressuring most congressional offices, including that of Republican Sen. Norm Coleman, a former anti-war protester himself from the Vietnam era. He is considered one of the most vulnerable senators seeking re-election next year.
Coleman supported the Iraq war resolution as a candidate in 2002, but he was also one of just two Republicans last month to vote to allow debate on a resolution critical of President Bush’s plan to send more troops to Iraq.
Two of the weekly protesters at Coleman’s St. Paul office are nuns Rita and Kate MacDonald. Older sister Rita, 84, said they want to stir up the old anti-war feelings in the college protester-turned senator.
“It certainly is my hope that that could come back for him — being convinced that war is totally futile, especially this war,” she said.
Last month, Bush asked Congress to approve an additional $93.4 billion for war operations in Iraq and Afghanistan this year. Democrats, angry about the war but divided over whether to cut funding, are considering ways to attach conditions to any additional money.
To date, there are two pledges against Bush’s war supplemental request, organizers said. Both are from Democrats from Massachusetts — Reps. Martin Meehan and Edward Markey. Markey, however, has said he would consider war funding that had conditions attached, such as redeployments.
The campaign was organized by Voices for Creative Nonviolence. The occupations, the group says, are intended to coincide with other anti-war efforts, such as rallies and marches.
An anti-war demonstration is planned for Washington on March 17, when protesters will march from the Vietnam Veterans Memorial to the Pentagon. A January protest in the city drew tens of thousands of people, including actress Jane Fonda.
Associated Press writers Frederic J. Frommer in Washington, F.N. D’Alessio in Chicago and Marcus Wohlsen in San Francisco contributed to this report.
Copyright © 2007 by the Associated Press
© Copyrighted 1997-2007
www.commondreams.org
Troops out now
http://encampmenttostopthewar.blogspot.com/
http://www.troopsoutnow.org/mar17.html
An International CALL From The TROOPS OUT NOW COALITION:
MARCH ON WASHINGTON...and STAY THERE
Beginning MARCH 12
Encampment to STOP the WAR!
March on Washington DC & worldwide on the 4th Anniversary of the U.S. Invasion and Occupation of Iraq
Troops Out Now!
MARCH 12 Encampment to STOP the WAR
New! - For daily updates on the Encampment to Stop the War, go to the Encampment blog at http://encampmenttostopthewar.blogspot.com
1. Endorse the call for unity for March 17 - http://www.troopsoutnow.org/mar17endorse.html
2. Volunteer - http://www.troopsoutnow.org/mar17volunteer.html
3. Become an Organizing Center - http://troopsoutnow.org/mar17orgcentsignup.html
4. Donate - http://www.troopsoutnow.org/donate.html
Encampment site is on 3rd St. between Independence and Constitution Ave., directly in front of the Capitol Building.
The Troops Out Now Coalition calls on everyone to join the antiwar march on March 17 ... and come ready to STAY in DC!
ON MARCH 17, MARCH ON THE PENTAGON --
AND STAY IN WASHINGTON UNTIL THEY CUT OFF WAR FUNDING
Troops Out Now Coalition
www.troopsoutnow.org
5C - Solidarity Center
55 W. 17th St.
NY NY 10011
212.633.6646
Read more!!
The responsibility for wars falls solely upon the shoulders of these same masses of people, for they have all the necessary means to avert war in their own hands. In part by their apathy, in part by their passivity, and in part actively, these same masses of people make possible the catastrophes under which they themselves suffer more than anyone else. To stress this guilt on the part of the masses of people, to hold them solely responsible, means to take them seriously. On the other hand, to commiserate masses of people as victims, means to treat them as small, helpless children. The former is the attitude held by genuine freedom fighters; the latter that attitude held by power-thirsty politicians."
Wilhelm Reich, The Mass Psychology of Fascism
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Come to DC.
As soon as you can.
If you can't, then do your own intervention and resistance wherever you are.
Stop The Machine.
Occupy your Congressperson's office. Stop The Machine
Do a Die-In in your city. Stop The Machine
Organize a work stoppage where you work, For a day, for an hour. Stop The Machine
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
***Weather forecast for next week – 60’s
For the latest Encampment updates - check the Encampment blog
ALERT ALERT ALERT ALERT ALERT ALERT ALERT ALERT ALERT ALERT
Democratic Party Leaders Plan To Betray Anti-War Movement
Phony “Withdrawal” Plan is Just a Cover for Funding Bush’s War
DON’T LET THEM
GET AWAY WITH IT!
Antiwar
Encampment in
Front of Congress Starts on Monday >>>
DON’T BE FOOLED, the “withdrawal from Iraq” plan that Democratic Party leaders in Congress have just announced is nothing more than a cover for them to approve Bush’s request for $100 billion to fund the war and occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan-- in other words, to continue the war.
CUT OFF THE WAR FUNDS - END THE WAR NOW – BRING THE TROOPS HOME
Democratic Party leaders propose to begin withdrawing troops in a year to 18 months. Over the last 18 months, more than 1,200 U.S. soldiers have been killed, and about 7 times that many wounded and maimed. Do the math: a year or 18 more months of war is a death sentence for untold numbers of soldiers and an even greater number of Iraqis.
CUT OFF THE WAR FUNDS – END THE WAR NOW – BRING THE TROOPS HOME
The “withdrawal time tables” along with the “ goals and conditions” that Democratic leaders are proposing are not fundamentally different than the ones that Bush proposed in his “State of the Union” address. The real stink bomb hidden in this new “withdrawal” legislation is that Bush and his generals have the authority to “waive” any part of these so-called timetables and conditions, any time he wants to. The fact is that these new proposals amount to nothing more than political posturing by Democratic leaders in order to get some of the antiwar heat off of them while they continue to fund the war. This plan is not a plan to end the war--it is just another non-binding resolution. Representative Jerry Nadler had it right when he said “All of this is just and excuse funding another year of war”.
CUT OFF THE WAR FUNDS – END THE WAR NOW – BRING THE TROOPS HOME
Democratic Party leaders can end the war right now if the exercise their power to simply cut off all funding for the war. If they don’t do that, then it’s not just Bush’s war, or just the Republican Party’s war, it’s the Democratic Party’s war as well and now is the time to demand that they put up or shut up.
CUT OFF THE WAR FUNDS – END THE WAR NOW – BRING THE TROOPS HOME
On Monday, antiwar activists from around the country will began camping in front of the Capital building at 3rd St. right on the Washington DC National Mall. We will be there with tents, banners, placards, signs, noisemakers, etc. demanding that Congress stop the BS and simply cut off the war funding, end the war now and bring the troops home. We need you to join us. We need you to march on the Pentagon on March 17. Moreover, if there was ever a time to be in the streets, blocking traffic, occupying bridges, organizing walk-outs from coast to coast to stop this criminal war THIS IS THE TIME!
The Encampment to Stop the War will start in just a few days - Monday, March 12 - and there is an enormous amount of work to be done in a short period of time. We have an opportunity in the next few days to have a major impact, if we work together--here's how you can help:
Let us know if you are coming to the Encampment. Use the Volunteer form at http://troopsoutnow.org/march12volunteer.shtml.
Volunteer at the Encampment - we will need hundreds of volunteers during the week of the Encampment let us know how you can help (logistics, security, medical, greeter, etc) - http://troopsoutnow.org/march12volunteer.shtml
Donate to to help with the enormous costs of the Encampment - http://troopsoutnow.org/donate.shtml. If you are not able to come to the encampment, help send a youth activist to the Encampment to the week- donate for transportation and housing costs here.
San Francisco Die-In
Monday, March 19th 2007 12 noon
San Francisco, CA USA
DIE-IN on Market Street to show what it would look like if downtown San Francisco were filled with dead bodies. Wear all black or wear a black armband, and put a Bring the Troops Home Now sign in the window of your home or car. Go to www.dieinmarch19.org for more information, downloadable leaflet, and ways to help publicize the event.
Location:
Assembly points: Federal Reserve (Spear & Market); McKesson Plaza (Montgomery & Market); Westfield Center (Powell & Market); UN Plaza (7th & Market). San Francisco CA
Contact:
March 19 Die-In
actionmarch19@gmail.com
http://www.dieinmarch19.org
COMMON DREAMS
March 9,2007
Protesters Aim To Take Over Lawmakers’ Offices, Fight War Funding
by Jennifer C. Kerr
WASHINGTON — Some opponents of the Iraq war are taking their protests straight to Congress — staging “occupations” in lawmakers’ offices on Capitol Hill and in their home communities.
Erin Cox of Chicago, left, gets handcuffed by Wausau Police officer Todd Baeten Monday, March 5, 2007, as three other peace activists are arrested at U.S. Rep. Dave Obey's office in Wausau, Wis. Protesters are staging sit-ins in congressional offices in Minnesota and Wisconsin, part of a nationwide effort to pressure lawmakers to vote against funding for the war in Iraq. (AP Photo/Wausau Daily Herald, Corey Schjoth)
Rep. Rahm Emanuel’s office in Chicago was targeted on Thursday.
A day earlier protesters were headed off before getting into House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s office in San Francisco.
In Washington, peace activists dressed in pink showed up recently at the Senate offices of presidential hopefuls John McCain and Hillary Rodham Clinton.
The protesters haven’t abandoned the larger, more familiar gatherings at college campuses, major cities and monuments in Washington. But in recent weeks, they have been turning up at congressional offices, vowing to stay until they get pledges that lawmakers will vote against more war funding — or until they are forcibly removed.
“We really see it as an extension of lobbying,” Jeff Leys, co-coordinator of Chicago-based Voices for Creative Nonviolence, said of the office occupations. “The aim is to keep going back time and time and time again.”
The protesters number anywhere from a handful to a few dozen. Sometimes, they stay for minutes. Sometimes, they remain for hours before police move in.
Organizers count more than 140 arrests so far. Most involve charges of trespassing or disorderly conduct.
During the occupations, the protesters sit, stand, sing, chant, pray, ring bells, and read letters from American troops sent home to their families.
The eight demonstrators at Emanuel’s office on Thursday performed skits about the consequences of war, read names of U.S. troops killed in Iraq and told stories about Iraqi children hurt in the fighting. They were welcomed by a staffer into the lobby of the congressman’s office.
Sometimes, though, the protesters don’t even get through the front door.
About 20 demonstrators gathered outside Pelosi’s San Francisco office on Wednesday. Before they could enter, a Pelosi staffer ushered the group down to a conference room seven floors below, where many voiced frustration that Pelosi was not being aggressive enough in seeking an end to the war.
The anti-war groups are setting their sights on Republicans, like McCain. But they’re also lining up against Democrats, like Pelosi, who were opposed to the war from the very beginning.
“Those who know there is an alternative, we want to put some pressure on them to do the right thing,” said Gael Murphy, co-founder of Codepink, an anti-war group with a name that serves as a poke at the Bush administration’s color-coded terror alert system. Pink, the group says, represents peace.
Occupations have been held at the offices of Sens. Richard Durbin of Illinois and Barbara Mikulski of Maryland, and Reps. Marcy Kaptur of Ohio and David Obey of Wisconsin. All four Democrats voted against the 2002 measure authorizing the war.
Earlier this week, Obey was confronted outside his Capitol office by war opponents, prompting a heated exchange in which Obey shouted at one women who wanted him to vote against money for the war.
In a video posted on the Internet site YouTube, the Democratic lawmaker is seen pounding his fist repeatedly into the air, complaining loudly that Democrats don’t have enough votes to cut off war funding and the protesters don’t understand the debate in Congress.
“That makes no sense. It doesn’t work that way,” Obey says at one point.
In Minnesota, protesters are pressuring most congressional offices, including that of Republican Sen. Norm Coleman, a former anti-war protester himself from the Vietnam era. He is considered one of the most vulnerable senators seeking re-election next year.
Coleman supported the Iraq war resolution as a candidate in 2002, but he was also one of just two Republicans last month to vote to allow debate on a resolution critical of President Bush’s plan to send more troops to Iraq.
Two of the weekly protesters at Coleman’s St. Paul office are nuns Rita and Kate MacDonald. Older sister Rita, 84, said they want to stir up the old anti-war feelings in the college protester-turned senator.
“It certainly is my hope that that could come back for him — being convinced that war is totally futile, especially this war,” she said.
Last month, Bush asked Congress to approve an additional $93.4 billion for war operations in Iraq and Afghanistan this year. Democrats, angry about the war but divided over whether to cut funding, are considering ways to attach conditions to any additional money.
To date, there are two pledges against Bush’s war supplemental request, organizers said. Both are from Democrats from Massachusetts — Reps. Martin Meehan and Edward Markey. Markey, however, has said he would consider war funding that had conditions attached, such as redeployments.
The campaign was organized by Voices for Creative Nonviolence. The occupations, the group says, are intended to coincide with other anti-war efforts, such as rallies and marches.
An anti-war demonstration is planned for Washington on March 17, when protesters will march from the Vietnam Veterans Memorial to the Pentagon. A January protest in the city drew tens of thousands of people, including actress Jane Fonda.
Associated Press writers Frederic J. Frommer in Washington, F.N. D’Alessio in Chicago and Marcus Wohlsen in San Francisco contributed to this report.
Copyright © 2007 by the Associated Press
© Copyrighted 1997-2007
www.commondreams.org
Troops out now
http://encampmenttostopthewar.blogspot.com/
http://www.troopsoutnow.org/mar17.html
An International CALL From The TROOPS OUT NOW COALITION:
MARCH ON WASHINGTON...and STAY THERE
Beginning MARCH 12
Encampment to STOP the WAR!
March on Washington DC & worldwide on the 4th Anniversary of the U.S. Invasion and Occupation of Iraq
Troops Out Now!
MARCH 12 Encampment to STOP the WAR
New! - For daily updates on the Encampment to Stop the War, go to the Encampment blog at http://encampmenttostopthewar.blogspot.com
1. Endorse the call for unity for March 17 - http://www.troopsoutnow.org/mar17endorse.html
2. Volunteer - http://www.troopsoutnow.org/mar17volunteer.html
3. Become an Organizing Center - http://troopsoutnow.org/mar17orgcentsignup.html
4. Donate - http://www.troopsoutnow.org/donate.html
Encampment site is on 3rd St. between Independence and Constitution Ave., directly in front of the Capitol Building.
The Troops Out Now Coalition calls on everyone to join the antiwar march on March 17 ... and come ready to STAY in DC!
ON MARCH 17, MARCH ON THE PENTAGON --
AND STAY IN WASHINGTON UNTIL THEY CUT OFF WAR FUNDING
Troops Out Now Coalition
www.troopsoutnow.org
5C - Solidarity Center
55 W. 17th St.
NY NY 10011
212.633.6646
Read more!!
Thursday, March 8, 2007
DRANT #217: WE MUST DO IT OURSELVES
For any of us desperate enough or gullible enough or naive enough or irresponsible enough to persist in our expectation that CONGRESS, or anyone other than US will do anything -- here ya go..
The Democrats announced their decision this morning:
The Democrats are gonna give Bush the money.
ALL the money.
MORE than all the money.
They are NOT going to refuse to fund our despicable atrocities, they are not going to intercede in our genocide, they are going to PAY for it.
They are going to PROLONG it. They are going to make sure that more people die, and get DU poisoning, and become nameless "detainees" and homeless refugees in their own country.
Listen carefully- they are going to take OUR money -- OUR money -- OUR money--- 100 BILLION DOLLARS of OUR MONEY-- and they are going to give it to the same bastards who have made so insanely much blood profit on this War.
It is too late to call Congress, it is too late to beg them, it is too late to visit them.
They have decided.
They are GIVING BUSH THE MONEY.
The most anti war members of the House are sponsoring an amendment that GIVES BUSH THE MONEY, but, only if he is a good boy, and he promises to start withdrawing "Combat" troops from Iraq beginning in the FALL of 2008 ! Its very far from sure if even that will pass.
So, let's be clear-- CONGRESS IS GIVING BUSH THE MONEY. The Democrats are GIVING BUSH THE MONEY.
All this crap about calling Congress, talking to Congress, begging Congress, shaming Congress--
serves only to reinforce the fabrication that we live in a Democracy, where the elected are responsive to the people.
Read my lips-
Congress WANTS the war.
Congress always has supported EVERY war.
Congressmembers make good money and stay in office by supporting the war.
Congress has done nothing, and Congress will do nothing to stop this war.
Every single piece of evidence and experience screams this at us, and today's announcement by the Democrats confirms it beyond a reasonable doubt.
We know-
We can NOT depend on Congress to do anything.
We must turn now, today- to the only group that can do anything about it.
That is US.
US.
We must stop relying on anyone else.
We must stop waiting for anyone else.
NO ONE ELSE is going to do anything.
Every single one of us must act.
We must put our bodies and our freedom and our lives on the line.
We must take responsibility for our crimes, and stop them -- NOW.
We cannot stop the war from our cell phones.
Calling Congress and then being oh so very disappointed when they do nothing, serves only to further enable our disaffirmation of individual responsibility for the crimes being committed.
We KNOW they will do nothing.
They have TOLD US over and over again that they will do nothing. They told us again this morning.
We must do it ourselves.
In Washington DC on March 12- until it changes, or in LA or NY or SF or wherever you are.
Show up.
Impeaching Bush does NOTHING.
It is not HIS fault.
HE didn't do this.
WE did it.
And WE must act now to stop it.
Show up.
and STOP this -
now.
It is time to stop the machine.
It is time for you to join us in Washington DC, starting March 12, 2007.
Thousands of us will not just go to Washington, and march on the Pentagon on the 17th, but STAY there. Until it changes.
You must join us. Or do it wherever you live.
Or, you can keep whining, and then bemoan how Congress did nothing, and then next year, bitch about the lesser of two evils running for office.
Or, you can just do nothing, or some of the same stuff that hasn't changed anything-- and blame someone else.
They are counting on it.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
House Democrats to unveil Iraq war plan
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070308/ap_on_go_co/democrats_iraq;_ylt=AoM53ynvCB8KwYrNls0gIKis0NUE
By DAVID ESPO, AP Special Correspondent 22 minutes ago
In a direct challenge to President Bush, House Democrats are advancing legislation requiring the withdrawal of U.S. combat troops from Iraq by the fall of next year.
Democratic officials who described the measure said the timetable would be accelerated — to the end of 2007 — if the government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki does not meet goals for providing Iraq's security.
The conditions, described as tentative until presented to the Democratic rank and file Thursday, would be added to legislation providing nearly $100 billion the Bush administration has requested for fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The officials who described the measure did so on condition of anonymity, saying they were not authorized to speak until after it was presented to the Democratic caucus. They also stressed the provisions were tentative until then.
Underscoring the debate among Democrats, several opponents of the war issued a statement late Wednesday saying they "have had a constructive dialogue with members of our party's leadership. ... However, at this time, we have not reached any final agreement."
The statement was issued in the name of Reps. Lynn Woolsey (news, bio, voting record), Barbara Lee (news, bio, voting record) and Diane Watson (news, bio, voting record) of California; Rep. Jerry Nadler of New York; Rep. Lloyd Doggett (news, bio, voting record) of Texas and Rep. Keith Ellison (news, bio, voting record) of Minnesota.
Even so, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (news, bio, voting record)'s office announced plans for a Thursday news conference to unveil the measure, providing no details. The announcement said she would be joined by Rep. John Murtha (news, bio, voting record), D-Pa., and other key lawmakers. Murtha is chairman of the subcommittee with jurisdiction over the Pentagon's budget and is among the House's most outspoken opponents of the war.
Meanwhile, Gen. David Petraeus said insurgents in Iraq have sought to intensify attacks during a Baghdad security crackdown, which he predicted should not be at full strength until June. Petraeus, the new commander of U.S. forces of Iraq, said Thursday that the backlash has come since U.S. and Iraqi forces began the security sweep three weeks ago. The Pentagon has pledged 17,500 combat troops to the capital.
Petraeus also said additional U.S. forces should head to the Diyala province northeast of Baghdad, but declined to give specifics. Military officials believe many insurgents have shifted from Baghdad to Diyala to escape the security operation.
Pelosi and the leadership have struggled in recent days to come up with an approach on the war that would satisfy liberals reluctant to vote for continued funding without driving away more moderate Democrats unwilling to be seen as tying the hands of military commanders.
The decision to impose conditions on the war risks a major confrontation with the Bush administration and its Republican allies in Congress.
But without a unified party, the Democratic leadership faced the possibility of a highly embarrassing defeat when the spending legislation reaches a vote, likely later this month.
To make the overall measure more attractive politically, Democrats also intend to add money to Bush's request for military operations in Afghanistan, where the Taliban is expected to mount a spring offensive.
The bill also will exceed Bush's request for veterans' health care and medical programs for active duty troops at facilities such as the scandal-scarred Walter Reed Medical Center in Washington.
Democrats also are including funds for a health care program for low-income children. The program is popular among governors of both political parties, but the Bush administration has not signaled its acquiescence to the additional money.
The Democrats worked on their legislation as Defense Secretary Robert Gates announced approval of an extra 2,200 military police to help deal with an anticipated increase in detainees during the new Baghdad security crackdown.
The New York Times reported on its Web site Wednesday night that the day-to-day commander of U.S. troops in Iraq, Lt. Gen. Raymond Odierno, has recommended that the higher troop level be maintained until February 2008 to support a sustained effort to win over the Iraqi populace.
Democrats familiar with the emerging legislation in the House said the bill would require Bush to certify whether the Iraqi government was making progress toward providing for his country's security, allocating its oil revenues and creating a fair system for amending its constitution.
They said if Bush certified the Iraqis were meeting these so-called benchmarks, U.S. combat troops could remain until September of next year. Otherwise, the deadline would move up to the end of 2007.
The legislation also calls for the Pentagon to adhere to its existing standards for equipping and training U.S. troops sent overseas and for providing time at home between tours of combat.
Yet it also permits Bush to issue waivers of these standards. Democrats described the waiver provision as an attempt to embarrass the president into adhering to the standards. But they concede the overall effect will be to permit the administration to proceed with plans to deploy five additional combat brigades to the Baghdad area over the next few months.
The measure emerged from days of private talks among Democrats following the collapse of Murtha's original proposal, which would have required the Pentagon to meet readiness and training standards without the possibility of a waiver.
Murtha said its implementation would have starved the war effort of troops because the Pentagon would not be able to find enough fully rested, trained and equipped units to meet its needs.
Several moderate Democrats spoke out against it, though. And Republicans sharply attacked it as the abandonment of troops already in the war zone.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Troops out now
http://encampmenttostopthewar.blogspot.com/
http://www.troopsoutnow.org/mar17.html
An International CALL From The TROOPS OUT NOW COALITION:
MARCH ON WASHINGTON...and STAY THERE
Beginning MARCH 12
Encampment to STOP the WAR!
March on Washington DC & worldwide on the 4th Anniversary of the U.S. Invasion and Occupation of Iraq
Troops Out Now!
MARCH 12 Encampment to STOP the WAR
New! - For daily updates on the Encampment to Stop the War, go to the Encampment blog at http://encampmenttostopthewar.blogspot.com
1. Endorse the call for unity for March 17 - http://www.troopsoutnow.org/mar17endorse.html
2. Volunteer - http://www.troopsoutnow.org/mar17volunteer.html
3. Become an Organizing Center - http://troopsoutnow.org/mar17orgcentsignup.html
4. Donate - http://www.troopsoutnow.org/donate.html
Encampment site is on 3rd St. between Independence and Constitution Ave., directly in front of the Capitol Building.
The Troops Out Now Coalition calls on everyone to join the antiwar march on March 17 ... and come ready to STAY in DC!
ON MARCH 17, MARCH ON THE PENTAGON --
AND STAY IN WASHINGTON UNTIL THEY CUT OFF WAR FUNDING
Troops Out Now Coalition
www.troopsoutnow.org
5C - Solidarity Center
55 W. 17th St.
NY NY 10011
212.633.6646
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
DIE-IN IN SAN FRANCISCO
www.DieInMarch19.org
PASS IT ON
March 19 is less than two weeks away.
With everyone's help, we can make a dramatic statement on the fourth anniversary of the start of the invasion of Iraq -
Please go to www.DieInMarch19.org and sign up to participate in the Mass Die-In on Market Street at noon on March 19 assembling at one of the following locations:
Spear & Market
Montgomery & Market
Powell & Market
7th & Market
Remember, if you can't get to downtown SF, you can still participate -
-- wear black or wear a black armband
-- put a Stop the War Now sign in your home, car, bike or office (downloadable poster coming soon to our website)
-- hold a die-in wherever you are and take pictures; upload them to Indybay or send them to me
Please also SIGN UP at www.DieInMarch19.org to help get the word out this weekend and through the next week - leaflet at BART stations, farmers' markets, movie lines; clubs, events, post fliers at cafes, in your neighborhood, downtown, on MUNI - anywhere you go. Contact us for postcards or posters, or print out fliers from our website.
Read more!!
The Democrats announced their decision this morning:
The Democrats are gonna give Bush the money.
ALL the money.
MORE than all the money.
They are NOT going to refuse to fund our despicable atrocities, they are not going to intercede in our genocide, they are going to PAY for it.
They are going to PROLONG it. They are going to make sure that more people die, and get DU poisoning, and become nameless "detainees" and homeless refugees in their own country.
Listen carefully- they are going to take OUR money -- OUR money -- OUR money--- 100 BILLION DOLLARS of OUR MONEY-- and they are going to give it to the same bastards who have made so insanely much blood profit on this War.
It is too late to call Congress, it is too late to beg them, it is too late to visit them.
They have decided.
They are GIVING BUSH THE MONEY.
The most anti war members of the House are sponsoring an amendment that GIVES BUSH THE MONEY, but, only if he is a good boy, and he promises to start withdrawing "Combat" troops from Iraq beginning in the FALL of 2008 ! Its very far from sure if even that will pass.
So, let's be clear-- CONGRESS IS GIVING BUSH THE MONEY. The Democrats are GIVING BUSH THE MONEY.
All this crap about calling Congress, talking to Congress, begging Congress, shaming Congress--
serves only to reinforce the fabrication that we live in a Democracy, where the elected are responsive to the people.
Read my lips-
Congress WANTS the war.
Congress always has supported EVERY war.
Congressmembers make good money and stay in office by supporting the war.
Congress has done nothing, and Congress will do nothing to stop this war.
Every single piece of evidence and experience screams this at us, and today's announcement by the Democrats confirms it beyond a reasonable doubt.
We know-
We can NOT depend on Congress to do anything.
We must turn now, today- to the only group that can do anything about it.
That is US.
US.
We must stop relying on anyone else.
We must stop waiting for anyone else.
NO ONE ELSE is going to do anything.
Every single one of us must act.
We must put our bodies and our freedom and our lives on the line.
We must take responsibility for our crimes, and stop them -- NOW.
We cannot stop the war from our cell phones.
Calling Congress and then being oh so very disappointed when they do nothing, serves only to further enable our disaffirmation of individual responsibility for the crimes being committed.
We KNOW they will do nothing.
They have TOLD US over and over again that they will do nothing. They told us again this morning.
We must do it ourselves.
In Washington DC on March 12- until it changes, or in LA or NY or SF or wherever you are.
Show up.
Impeaching Bush does NOTHING.
It is not HIS fault.
HE didn't do this.
WE did it.
And WE must act now to stop it.
Show up.
and STOP this -
now.
It is time to stop the machine.
It is time for you to join us in Washington DC, starting March 12, 2007.
Thousands of us will not just go to Washington, and march on the Pentagon on the 17th, but STAY there. Until it changes.
You must join us. Or do it wherever you live.
Or, you can keep whining, and then bemoan how Congress did nothing, and then next year, bitch about the lesser of two evils running for office.
Or, you can just do nothing, or some of the same stuff that hasn't changed anything-- and blame someone else.
They are counting on it.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
House Democrats to unveil Iraq war plan
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070308/ap_on_go_co/democrats_iraq;_ylt=AoM53ynvCB8KwYrNls0gIKis0NUE
By DAVID ESPO, AP Special Correspondent 22 minutes ago
In a direct challenge to President Bush, House Democrats are advancing legislation requiring the withdrawal of U.S. combat troops from Iraq by the fall of next year.
Democratic officials who described the measure said the timetable would be accelerated — to the end of 2007 — if the government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki does not meet goals for providing Iraq's security.
The conditions, described as tentative until presented to the Democratic rank and file Thursday, would be added to legislation providing nearly $100 billion the Bush administration has requested for fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The officials who described the measure did so on condition of anonymity, saying they were not authorized to speak until after it was presented to the Democratic caucus. They also stressed the provisions were tentative until then.
Underscoring the debate among Democrats, several opponents of the war issued a statement late Wednesday saying they "have had a constructive dialogue with members of our party's leadership. ... However, at this time, we have not reached any final agreement."
The statement was issued in the name of Reps. Lynn Woolsey (news, bio, voting record), Barbara Lee (news, bio, voting record) and Diane Watson (news, bio, voting record) of California; Rep. Jerry Nadler of New York; Rep. Lloyd Doggett (news, bio, voting record) of Texas and Rep. Keith Ellison (news, bio, voting record) of Minnesota.
Even so, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (news, bio, voting record)'s office announced plans for a Thursday news conference to unveil the measure, providing no details. The announcement said she would be joined by Rep. John Murtha (news, bio, voting record), D-Pa., and other key lawmakers. Murtha is chairman of the subcommittee with jurisdiction over the Pentagon's budget and is among the House's most outspoken opponents of the war.
Meanwhile, Gen. David Petraeus said insurgents in Iraq have sought to intensify attacks during a Baghdad security crackdown, which he predicted should not be at full strength until June. Petraeus, the new commander of U.S. forces of Iraq, said Thursday that the backlash has come since U.S. and Iraqi forces began the security sweep three weeks ago. The Pentagon has pledged 17,500 combat troops to the capital.
Petraeus also said additional U.S. forces should head to the Diyala province northeast of Baghdad, but declined to give specifics. Military officials believe many insurgents have shifted from Baghdad to Diyala to escape the security operation.
Pelosi and the leadership have struggled in recent days to come up with an approach on the war that would satisfy liberals reluctant to vote for continued funding without driving away more moderate Democrats unwilling to be seen as tying the hands of military commanders.
The decision to impose conditions on the war risks a major confrontation with the Bush administration and its Republican allies in Congress.
But without a unified party, the Democratic leadership faced the possibility of a highly embarrassing defeat when the spending legislation reaches a vote, likely later this month.
To make the overall measure more attractive politically, Democrats also intend to add money to Bush's request for military operations in Afghanistan, where the Taliban is expected to mount a spring offensive.
The bill also will exceed Bush's request for veterans' health care and medical programs for active duty troops at facilities such as the scandal-scarred Walter Reed Medical Center in Washington.
Democrats also are including funds for a health care program for low-income children. The program is popular among governors of both political parties, but the Bush administration has not signaled its acquiescence to the additional money.
The Democrats worked on their legislation as Defense Secretary Robert Gates announced approval of an extra 2,200 military police to help deal with an anticipated increase in detainees during the new Baghdad security crackdown.
The New York Times reported on its Web site Wednesday night that the day-to-day commander of U.S. troops in Iraq, Lt. Gen. Raymond Odierno, has recommended that the higher troop level be maintained until February 2008 to support a sustained effort to win over the Iraqi populace.
Democrats familiar with the emerging legislation in the House said the bill would require Bush to certify whether the Iraqi government was making progress toward providing for his country's security, allocating its oil revenues and creating a fair system for amending its constitution.
They said if Bush certified the Iraqis were meeting these so-called benchmarks, U.S. combat troops could remain until September of next year. Otherwise, the deadline would move up to the end of 2007.
The legislation also calls for the Pentagon to adhere to its existing standards for equipping and training U.S. troops sent overseas and for providing time at home between tours of combat.
Yet it also permits Bush to issue waivers of these standards. Democrats described the waiver provision as an attempt to embarrass the president into adhering to the standards. But they concede the overall effect will be to permit the administration to proceed with plans to deploy five additional combat brigades to the Baghdad area over the next few months.
The measure emerged from days of private talks among Democrats following the collapse of Murtha's original proposal, which would have required the Pentagon to meet readiness and training standards without the possibility of a waiver.
Murtha said its implementation would have starved the war effort of troops because the Pentagon would not be able to find enough fully rested, trained and equipped units to meet its needs.
Several moderate Democrats spoke out against it, though. And Republicans sharply attacked it as the abandonment of troops already in the war zone.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Troops out now
http://encampmenttostopthewar.blogspot.com/
http://www.troopsoutnow.org/mar17.html
An International CALL From The TROOPS OUT NOW COALITION:
MARCH ON WASHINGTON...and STAY THERE
Beginning MARCH 12
Encampment to STOP the WAR!
March on Washington DC & worldwide on the 4th Anniversary of the U.S. Invasion and Occupation of Iraq
Troops Out Now!
MARCH 12 Encampment to STOP the WAR
New! - For daily updates on the Encampment to Stop the War, go to the Encampment blog at http://encampmenttostopthewar.blogspot.com
1. Endorse the call for unity for March 17 - http://www.troopsoutnow.org/mar17endorse.html
2. Volunteer - http://www.troopsoutnow.org/mar17volunteer.html
3. Become an Organizing Center - http://troopsoutnow.org/mar17orgcentsignup.html
4. Donate - http://www.troopsoutnow.org/donate.html
Encampment site is on 3rd St. between Independence and Constitution Ave., directly in front of the Capitol Building.
The Troops Out Now Coalition calls on everyone to join the antiwar march on March 17 ... and come ready to STAY in DC!
ON MARCH 17, MARCH ON THE PENTAGON --
AND STAY IN WASHINGTON UNTIL THEY CUT OFF WAR FUNDING
Troops Out Now Coalition
www.troopsoutnow.org
5C - Solidarity Center
55 W. 17th St.
NY NY 10011
212.633.6646
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
DIE-IN IN SAN FRANCISCO
www.DieInMarch19.org
PASS IT ON
March 19 is less than two weeks away.
With everyone's help, we can make a dramatic statement on the fourth anniversary of the start of the invasion of Iraq -
Please go to www.DieInMarch19.org and sign up to participate in the Mass Die-In on Market Street at noon on March 19 assembling at one of the following locations:
Spear & Market
Montgomery & Market
Powell & Market
7th & Market
Remember, if you can't get to downtown SF, you can still participate -
-- wear black or wear a black armband
-- put a Stop the War Now sign in your home, car, bike or office (downloadable poster coming soon to our website)
-- hold a die-in wherever you are and take pictures; upload them to Indybay or send them to me
Please also SIGN UP at www.DieInMarch19.org to help get the word out this weekend and through the next week - leaflet at BART stations, farmers' markets, movie lines; clubs, events, post fliers at cafes, in your neighborhood, downtown, on MUNI - anywhere you go. Contact us for postcards or posters, or print out fliers from our website.
Read more!!
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