Ten Years Later: Who Is Osama bin Laden?
By Prof. Michel Chossudovsky
URL of this article: www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=26444
Global Research, September 7, 2011
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This article below entitled Who is Osama bin Laden?
was drafted on September 11, 2001. It was first published on the
Global Research website on the evening of September 12, 2001.
Since 2001, it has appeared on numerous websites. The original September 12, 2001 posting is one of the most widely read articles on the internet, pertaining to Osama bin laden and Al Qaeda. From the outset, the objective was to use 9/11 as a pretext for launching the first phase of the Middle East War, which consisted in the bombing and occupation of Afghanistan. Within hours of the attacks, Osama bin Laden was identified as the architect of 9/11. On the following day, the "war on terrorism" had been launched. The media disinformation campaign went into full gear. Afghanistan was identified as a "state sponsor of terror". The 9/11 attacks were categorized as an act of war, an attack on America by a foreign power. The right to self-defense was put forth. On September 12, less than 24 hours after the attacks, NATO invoked for the first time in its history "Article 5 of the Washington Treaty - its collective defence clause" declaring the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center (WTC) and the Pentagon "to be an attack against all NATO members." What happened subsequently, with the invasions of Afghanistan (October 2001) and Iraq (March 2003) is already part of history. In the wake of the NATO sponsored "Liberation" of Libya (August 20011), Syria and Iran constitute the next phase of the US-NATO military roadmap. 9/11 remains the pretext and justification for waging a war without borders. In a bitter irony, the global war on terrorism (GWOT) is waged not against the terrorists but with "with the terrorists" (WTT), with the full support, as in Libya, of Al Qaeda affiliated paramilitary brigades under US-NATO supervision. Michel Chossudovsky, September 07, 2011 Excerpts from the Preface of America's "War on Terrorism", Second edition, Global Research, 2005. At eleven o’clock, on the morning of September 11, the Bush administration had already announced that Al Qaeda was responsible for the attacks on the World Trade Center (WTC) and the Pentagon. This assertion was made prior to the conduct of an indepth police investigation.
That same evening at 9.30 pm,
a "War Cabinet" was formed integrated by a select number of top
intelligence and military advisors. And at 11.00 pm, at the end of that
historic meeting at the White House, the "War on Terrorism" was
officially launched.
The decision was announced to
wage war against the Taliban and Al Qaeda in retribution for the 9/11
attacks. The following morning on September 12th, the news headlines
indelibly pointed to "state sponsorship" of the 9/11 attacks. In chorus,
the US media was calling for a military intervention against
Afghanistan.
Barely four weeks later, on the 7th of
October, Afghanistan was bombed and invaded by US troops. Americans
were led to believe that the decison to go to war had been taken on the
spur of the moment, on the evening of September 11, in response to the
attacks and their tragic consequences.
Little did the public
realize that a large scale theater war is never planned and executed in a
matter of weeks. The decision to launch a war and send troops to
Afghanistan had been taken well in advance of 9/11. The "terrorist,
massive, casualty-producing event" as it was later described by CentCom
Commander General Tommy Franks, served to galvanize public opinion in
support of a war agenda which was already in its final planning stage.
The tragic
events of 9/11 provided the required justification to wage a war on
"humanitarian grounds", with the full support of World public opinion
and the endorsement of the "international community".
Several
prominent "progressive" intellectuals made a case for "retaliation
against terrorism", on moral and ethical grounds. The "just cause"
military doctrine (jus ad bellum) was accepted and upheld at face value
as a legitimate response to 9/11, without examining the fact that
Washington had not only supported the "Islamic terror network", it was
also instrumental in the installation of the Taliban government in 1996.
In the wake of
9/11, the antiwar movement was completely isolated. The trade unions and
civil society organizations had swallowed the media lies and government
propaganda. They had accepted a war of retribution against Afghanistan,
an impoverished country of 30 million people.
I started
writing on the evening of September 11, late into the night, going
through piles of research notes, which I had previously collected on the
history of Al Qaeda. My first text entitled "Who is Osama bin
Laden?" was completed and first published on September the 12th. (See
full text of 9/12 article below).
From the very
outset, I questioned the official story, which described nineteen Al
Qaeda sponsored hijackers involved in a highly sophisticated and
organized operation. My first objective was to reveal the true nature of
this illusive "enemy of America", who was "threatening the Homeland".
The myth of the
"outside enemy" and the threat of "Islamic terrorists" was the
cornerstone of the Bush adminstration’s military doctrine, used as a
pretext to invade Afghanistan and Iraq, not to mention the repeal of
civil liberties and constitutional government in America.
Without an
"outside enemy", there could be no "war on terrorism". The entire
national security agenda would collapse "like a deck of cards". The war
criminals in high office would have no leg to stand on.
It was
consequently crucial for the development of a coherent antiwar and civil
rights movement, to reveal the nature of Al Qaeda and its evolving
relationship to successive US adminstrations. Amply documented but
rarely mentioned by the mainstream media, Al Qaeda was a creation of the
CIA going back to the Soviet-Afghan war. This was a known fact,
corroborated by numerous sources including official documents of the US
Congress. The intelligence community had time and again acknowledged
that they had indeed supported Osama bin Laden, but that in the wake of
the Cold War: "he turned against us".
After 9/11, the campaign of media disinformation served not only to drown the truth but also to kill much of the historical evidence on how this illusive "outside enemy" had been fabricated and transformed into "Enemy Number One". Michel Chossudovsky, Excerpts from the Preface of America's "War on Terrorism", Montreal, Global Research, 2005.
Who Is Osama Bin Laden?
by Michel Chossudovsky
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A few hours
after the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon,
the Bush administration concluded without supporting evidence, that
"Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaeda organisation were prime suspects". CIA
Director George Tenet stated that bin Laden has the capacity to plan
``multiple attacks with little or no warning.'' Secretary of State Colin
Powell called the attacks "an act of war" and President Bush confirmed
in an evening televised address to the Nation that he would "make no
distinction between the terrorists who committed these acts and those
who harbor them". Former CIA Director James Woolsey pointed his finger
at "state sponsorship," implying the complicity of one or more foreign
governments. In the words of former National Security Adviser, Lawrence
Eagleburger, "I think we will show when we get attacked like this, we
are terrible in our strength and in our retribution."
Meanwhile,
parroting official statements, the Western media mantra has approved the
launching of "punitive actions" directed against civilian targets in
the Middle East. In the words of William Saffire writing in the New York
Times: "When we reasonably determine our attackers' bases and camps, we
must pulverize them -- minimizing but accepting the risk of collateral
damage" -- and act overtly or covertly to destabilize terror's national
hosts".
The following
text outlines the history of Osama Bin Laden and the links of the
Islamic "Jihad" to the formulation of US foreign policy during the Cold
War and its aftermath.
Prime
suspect in the New York and Washington terrorists attacks, branded by
the FBI as an "international terrorist" for his role in the African US
embassy bombings, Saudi born Osama bin Laden was recruited during the
Soviet-Afghan war "ironically under the auspices of the CIA, to fight
Soviet invaders". 1
In 1979
"the largest covert operation in the history of the CIA" was launched in
response to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in support of the
pro-Communist government of Babrak Kamal.2:
With the
active encouragement of the CIA and Pakistan's ISI [Inter Services
Intelligence], who wanted to turn the Afghan jihad into a global war
waged by all Muslim states against the Soviet Union, some 35,000 Muslim
radicals from 40 Islamic countries joined Afghanistan's fight between
1982 and 1992. Tens of thousands more came to study in Pakistani
madrasahs. Eventually more than 100,000 foreign Muslim radicals were
directly influenced by the Afghan jihad.3
The
Islamic "jihad" was supported by the United States and Saudi Arabia with
a significant part of the funding generated from the Golden Crescent
drug trade:
In March
1985, President Reagan signed National Security Decision Directive
166,...[which] authorize[d] stepped-up covert military aid to the
mujahideen, and it made clear that the secret Afghan war had a new goal:
to defeat Soviet troops in Afghanistan through covert action and
encourage a Soviet withdrawal. The new covert U.S. assistance began with
a dramatic increase in arms supplies -- a steady rise to 65,000 tons
annually by 1987, ... as well as a "ceaseless stream" of CIA and
Pentagon specialists who traveled to the secret headquarters of
Pakistan's ISI on the main road near Rawalpindi, Pakistan. There the CIA
specialists met with Pakistani intelligence officers to help plan
operations for the Afghan rebels.4
The
Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) using Pakistan's military
Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) played a key role in training the
Mujahideen. In turn, the CIA sponsored guerrilla training was integrated
with the teachings of Islam:
Pakistan's Intelligence Apparatus
Pakistan's
ISI was used as a "go-between". The CIA covert support to the "jihad"
operated indirectly through the Pakistani ISI, --i.e. the CIA did not
channel its support directly to the Mujahideen. In other words, for
these covert operations to be "successful", Washington was careful not
to reveal the ultimate objective of the "jihad", which consisted in
destroying the Soviet Union.
In the
words of CIA's Milton Beardman "We didn't train Arabs". Yet according to
Abdel Monam Saidali, of the Al-aram Center for Strategic Studies in
Cairo, bin Laden and the "Afghan Arabs" had been imparted "with very
sophisticated types of training that was allowed to them by the CIA" 6
CIA's
Beardman confirmed, in this regard, that Osama bin Laden was not aware
of the role he was playing on behalf of Washington. In the words of bin
Laden (quoted by Beardman): "neither I, nor my brothers saw evidence of
American help". 7
Motivated
by nationalism and religious fervor, the Islamic warriors were unaware
that they were fighting the Soviet Army on behalf of Uncle Sam. While
there were contacts at the upper levels of the intelligence hierarchy,
Islamic rebel leaders in theatre had no contacts with Washington or the
CIA.
With CIA
backing and the funneling of massive amounts of US military aid, the
Pakistani ISI had developed into a "parallel structure wielding enormous
power over all aspects of government". 8 The ISI had a staff composed
of military and intelligence officers, bureaucrats, undercover agents
and informers, estimated at 150,000. 9
Meanwhile, CIA operations had also reinforced the Pakistani military regime led by General Zia Ul Haq:
The Golden Crescent Drug Triangle
The
history of the drug trade in Central Asia is intimately related to the
CIA's covert operations. Prior to the Soviet-Afghan war, opium
production in Afghanistan and Pakistan was directed to small regional
markets. There was no local production of heroin. 11 In this regard,
Alfred McCoy's study confirms that within two years of the onslaught of
the CIA operation in Afghanistan, "the Pakistan-Afghanistan borderlands
became the world's top heroin producer, supplying 60 percent of U.S.
demand. In Pakistan, the heroin-addict population went from near zero in
1979... to 1.2 million by 1985 -- a much steeper rise than in any other
nation":12
In the Wake of the Cold War
In the
wake of the Cold War, the Central Asian region is not only strategic for
its extensive oil reserves, it also produces three quarters of the
World's opium representing multibillion dollar revenues to business
syndicates, financial institutions, intelligence agencies and organized
crime. The annual proceeds of the Golden Crescent drug trade (between
100 and 200 billion dollars) represents approximately one third of the
Worldwide annual turnover of narcotics, estimated by the United Nations
to be of the order of $500 billion.14
With the
disintegration of the Soviet Union, a new surge in opium production has
unfolded. (According to UN estimates, the production of opium in
Afghanistan in 1998-99 -- coinciding with the build up of armed
insurgencies in the former Soviet republics-- reached a record high of
4600 metric tons.15 Powerful business syndicates in the former Soviet
Union allied with organized crime are competing for the strategic
control over the heroin routes.
The ISI's
extensive intelligence military-network was not dismantled in the wake
of the Cold War. The CIA continued to support the Islamic "jihad" out of
Pakistan. New undercover initiatives were set in motion in Central
Asia, the Caucasus and the Balkans. Pakistan's military and intelligence
apparatus essentially "served as a catalyst for the disintegration of
the Soviet Union and the emergence of six new Muslim republics in
Central Asia." 16.
Meanwhile,
Islamic missionaries of the Wahhabi sect from Saudi Arabia had
established themselves in the Muslim republics as well as within the
Russian federation encroaching upon the institutions of the secular
State. Despite its anti-American ideology, Islamic fundamentalism was
largely serving Washington's strategic interests in the former Soviet
Union.
Following
the withdrawal of Soviet troops in 1989, the civil war in Afghanistan
continued unabated. The Taliban were being supported by the Pakistani
Deobandis and their political party the Jamiat-ul-Ulema-e-Islam (JUI).
In 1993, JUI entered the government coalition of Prime Minister Benazzir
Bhutto. Ties between JUI, the Army and ISI were established. In 1995,
with the downfall of the Hezb-I-Islami Hektmatyar government in Kabul,
the Taliban not only instated a hardline Islamic government, they also
"handed control of training camps in Afghanistan over to JUI
factions..." 17
And the
JUI with the support of the Saudi Wahhabi movements played a key role in
recruiting volunteers to fight in the Balkans and the former Soviet
Union.
Jane
Defense Weekly confirms in this regard that "half of Taliban manpower
and equipment originate[d] in Pakistan under the ISI" 18
In fact,
it would appear that following the Soviet withdrawal both sides in the
Afghan civil war continued to receive covert support through Pakistan's
ISI. 19
In other
words, backed by Pakistan's military intelligence (ISI) which in turn
was controlled by the CIA, the Taliban Islamic State was largely serving
American geopolitical interests. The Golden Crescent drug trade was
also being used to finance and equip the Bosnian Muslim Army (starting
in the early 1990s) and the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA). In last few
months there is evidence that Mujahideen mercenaries are fighting in the
ranks of KLA-NLA terrorists in their assaults into Macedonia.
No doubt,
this explains why Washington has closed its eyes on the reign of terror
imposed by the Taliban including the blatant derogation of women's
rights, the closing down of schools for girls, the dismissal of women
employees from government offices and the enforcement of "the Sharia
laws of punishment".20
The War in Chechnya
With
regard to Chechnya, the main rebel leaders Shamil Basayev and Al Khattab
were trained and indoctrinated in CIA sponsored camps in Afghanistan
and Pakistan. According to Yossef Bodansky, director of the U.S.
Congress's Task Force on Terrorism and Unconventional Warfare, the war
in Chechnya had been planned during a secret summit of HizbAllah
International held in 1996 in Mogadishu, Somalia. 21 The summit, was
attended by Osama bin Laden and high-ranking Iranian and Pakistani
intelligence officers. In this regard, the involvement of Pakistan's ISI
in Chechnya "goes far beyond supplying the Chechens with weapons and
expertise: the ISI and its radical Islamic proxies are actually calling
the shots in this war". 22
Russia's
main pipeline route transits through Chechnya and Dagestan. Despite
Washington's perfunctory condemnation of Islamic terrorism, the indirect
beneficiaries of the Chechen war are the Anglo-American oil
conglomerates which are vying for control over oil resources and
pipeline corridors out of the Caspian Sea basin.
The two
main Chechen rebel armies (respectively led by Commander Shamil Basayev
and Emir Khattab) estimated at 35,000 strong were supported by
Pakistan's ISI, which also played a key role in organizing and training
the Chechen rebel army:
Following
his training and indoctrination stint, Basayev was assigned to lead the
assault against Russian federal troops in the first Chechen war in
1995. His organization had also developed extensive links to criminal
syndicates in Moscow as well as ties to Albanian organized crime and the
Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA). In 1997-98, according to Russia's Federal
Security Service (FSB) "Chechen warlords started buying up real estate
in Kosovo... through several real estate firms registered as a cover in
Yugoslavia" 24
Basayev's
organisation has also been involved in a number of rackets including
narcotics, illegal tapping and sabotage of Russia's oil pipelines,
kidnapping, prostitution, trade in counterfeit dollars and the smuggling
of nuclear materials (See Mafia linked to Albania's collapsed pyramids,
25 Alongside the extensive laundering of drug money, the proceeds of
various illicit activities have been funneled towards the recruitment of
mercenaries and the purchase of weapons.
During
his training in Afghanistan, Shamil Basayev linked up with Saudi born
veteran Mujahideen Commander "Al Khattab" who had fought as a volunteer
in Afghanistan. Barely a few months after Basayev's return to Grozny,
Khattab was invited (early 1995) to set up an army base in Chechnya for
the training of Mujahideen fighters. According to the BBC, Khattab's
posting to Chechnya had been "arranged through the Saudi-Arabian based
[International] Islamic Relief Organisation, a militant religious
organisation, funded by mosques and rich individuals which channeled
funds into Chechnya".26
Concluding Remarks
Since the
Cold War era, Washington has consciously supported Osama bin Laden,
while at same time placing him on the FBI's "most wanted list" as the
World's foremost terrorist.
While the
Mujahideen are busy fighting America's war in the Balkans and the
former Soviet Union, the FBI --operating as a US based Police Force- is
waging a domestic war against terrorism, operating in some respects
independently of the CIA which has --since the Soviet-Afghan war--
supported international terrorism through its covert operations.
In a
cruel irony, while the Islamic jihad --featured by the Bush
Adminstration as "a threat to America"-- is blamed for the terrorist
assaults on the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon, these same Islamic
organisations constitute a key instrument of US military-intelligence
operations in the Balkans and the former Soviet Union.
In the
wake of the terrorist attacks in New York and Washington, the truth must
prevail to prevent the Bush Adminstration together with its NATO
partners from embarking upon a military adventure which threatens the
future of humanity.
 Michel Chossudovsky is the author of the international best America’s "War on Terrorism" Second Edition, Global Research, 2005. He is Professor of Economics (emeritus) at the University of Ottawa and Director of the Center for Research on Globalization. Related article: Where was Osama on September 11, 2001? by Michel Chossudovsky, 9 September 2006 Notes
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