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Ordinarily, an out-of-the-way and poor place like Afghanistan
might be thought to attract little attention
from the rich countries, especially once
the Soviet Union withdrew its invasion forces there.
Yet, somehow the United $tates did develop an interest.
It turns out that Western oil companies sought to build a pipeline through Afghanistan to make up for a lack of cooperation from Russia with its pipelines. If Western oil companies can deliver oil from Central Asia to Europe without Russia, it strengthens their competitive position. That's why the united $tates went along with Saudi Arabia and Pakistan on the Taliban at first, troglodyte Bush Jr. even a little more enthusiastically than Clinton. This book garnered highly mixed reactions in the united $tates. Many dismissed the book as "conspiracy theory." Others were ecstatic to see a hard-hitting account of the events leading up to 9-11. No doubt a large part of the response came from the fact that the authors are French intelligence agents with prior access to an FBI manager who quit over his inability to get around the State Department's cover-up for Saudi Arabia on various crimes against Amerikkkans. That FBI agent who did the major reports on Al-Qaeda before quitting was in the private sector in charge of security at the World Trade Centers and died on 9-11. It's a measure of how pig-headed Amerikkkans are that anything criticizing the government is now called "conspiracy theory." In actual fact, there is very little "conspiracy theory" in this book. There's really nothing of doubted factual value here and there's also nothing too complicated by way of conspiracies. Osama Bin Laden had friends. George Bush Sr. and Reagan gave Osama Bin Laden money, technology and training in the 1980s. That really cannot be doubted. The Taliban had friends in high places in Amerikkka. That cannot be doubted either. Both Pakistan and Saudi Arabia were close U.$. allies. Yet, they had more to do with 9-11 than Iraq. George Bush Sr. received big money from Saudi clients, including the Bin Laden family. Even the Wall Street Journal has now reported that. From MIM's point of view, this book is rather ho-hum; although we can see how it got the public excited. We do not see a real solution offered here, but of course, it does serve as a warning, because military actions thought to be so useful in the past generated Bin Laden. Who are they generating now? The book says that the real target of attack should be Saudi Arabia.(e.g., p. 60) That's why we do not consider it much of a solution- oriented book. The real lesson for MIM in the book is that Western intelligence agencies play all the sides. It's especially easy to do so in an extremely poor country. It is reminiscent of the Woody Allen movie titled "Bananas" where the CIA parachutes in to aid both sides of a civil war in order to be able to say it helped the victor, no matter which side won. An example of the same principle is that the British intelligence agencies were trying to buy off the most radical supporters of Bin Laden right into November 1996, to do something--assassinate Col. Qaddafi in Libya.(p. 101) So it turns out that the first country in the world to issue an arrest warrant for Osama Bin Laden was Libya. In places like Afghanistan and Africa, once the imperialists decide on what interests them, the trouble is that they play almost all the sides. Once the Amerikkkans removed the pro-Soviet Afghans from the scene in Afghanistan, the remaining tribal and religious groups were all fair game for the CIA and its kind. First they aided the Taliban. Then they aided the opposition. Then they landed troops to make sure the Northern Alliance ousted the Taliban. It's hard to imagine a faction in present-day Afghanistan that the CIA would not try to buy off. |