FTR#560—Economics 9/11—(Two 30-minute segments) (Sources are noted in
parentheses.) (Recorded on 7/9/2006.)
Note: FTR#’s 260-316, 317,
324, FTR#325 and succeeding programs are streaming
on Real Audio at www.wfmu.org/daveemory.
FTR#’s 01-270, 316-324 are available for download
only, also on Real Audio, on their Archive Page.)
Note!! WFMU is now
podcasting the For The Record Shows. For details, access: http://podcast.wfmu.org/
Listeners are emphatically encouraged to use the
internet to disseminate as much of the audio and printed material as possible. Note: all of this material is free.
Note: It is
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encouraged that listeners use the printed files on the Spitfire web site and
the audio files on the WFMU web sites to create their own research/teaching
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NEW!! A diligent listener is turning the For The Record
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Listeners are emphatically encouraged to utilize these spots.
Listeners are
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NOTE: TWO
LECTURES PRESENTING MR. EMORY’S VIEWS OF WHAT WE CAN EXPECT IN THE FUTURE ARE
NOW AVAILABLE FOR DOWLOAD FOR FREE IN
BOTH REAL AUDIO AND MP3. These lectures are:
L-1: ‘The Political Implications of the UFO Phenomenon and the ‘ET’ Myth’; and
L-2: ‘The Future--Technology, Theocracy and the Thousand-Year-Reich.’
Descriptions are available in the Lecture Series section.
NEW!! A number of
vitally important books are now available for download for FREE. The books are:
Martin Bormann: Nazi in
Exile by Paul Manning; The Nazis Go Underground
by Curt Reiss; and All Honorable Men (parts 1 and 2) by James
Stewart Martin. Taken together, these books will provide a significant
understanding of the concept and reality of The Underground Reich, and they can
be downloaded with a modem Internet connection. They are available at: Spitfirelist.com/Books. In addition, we have added Cairo to Damascus by John Roy Carlson [1951], Germany Plots with the Kremlin by T.H. Tetens [1953], and Armies of Spies by Joseph Golomb [1939].
Yet another recent addition is Germany’s
Master Plan by Joseph Borkin and Charles Welsh. (Borkin is the author of
the 1979 classic The Crime and Punishment
of I.G. Farben.) Another anti-fascist classic about I.G. Farben supplements
the Borkin and Welsh text—Treason’s Peace
by Howard Watson Ambruster. Two more recently-posted gems are The Thousand-Year Conspiracy by Paul
Winkler and Falange by Alan Chase,
both published in 1943. The Winkler text documents the evolution of militant
Pan-Germanism from the Teutonic Knights to the Nazis and Falange documents the Third Reich’s geopolitical goals in the
Spanish-speaking world. By the time many of you read this description, more of
the long-out-of-print anti-fascist books that are more than 50 years old will
have been added to the Spitfirelist.com/Books URL. The Manning text’s URL also features a discussion of
Paul Manning’s career and professional credentials. Martin Bormann: Nazi in Exile is also available in html. Note also that FTR#305
has a synoptic overview of the Bormann organization. An understanding of the Bormann
organization is essential for an in-depth grasp of the arguments presented on
For The Record.
Note also that U.S. Government documents proving Prescott
Bush Sr.’s Money-Laundering on behalf of the Third Reich before and after World
War II are available at a linked website, along with commentary by John
Buchanan, who located the documentation. This material is discussed in FTR#435.
The website containing the documents is www.debatecomics.org/BushFamilyFortune/.
Summary of FTR#560—(Note: The massive
volume of ‘For The Record’ programs about 9/11 and related topics is summarized
and analyzed in the periodically-updated description for FTR#391.
FTR#’s 454,
455, 456 are compilations of
much of the key documentation culled from Mr. Emory’s investigation into 9/11.
Along with FTR#391, they should give
listeners/readers a substantive grasp of this momentous event. It is recommended
that listeners use this description and e-mail it to others.) Analyzing the economic implications of the
events of 9/11, this program examines significant areas of commonality between
the political and economic forces controlling the Bush administration, as well
as al-Qaeda and its parent organization the Muslim Brotherhood. The broadcast
begins with discussion of the free-market economic philosophy of the Muslim
Brotherhood—a philosophy consistent with the globalization agenda of the
multinational corporations. The World Bank views Brotherhood economic
inspiration Ibn Khaldun (a 14th century theoretician) as the first
advocate of privatization! It is Mr. Emory’s view that the multinational
corporations intend the Muslim Brotherhood as a force to replace
state-controlled economies such as Iraq (under Saddam Hussein) and Syria. The
Brotherhood also appears to be receiving Western support (U.S. and Saudi) for
activities in parts of Russia and China—the apparent goal being to fragment
those countries and split off and exploit petroleum producing regions. In this respect, the
behavior of the U.S. toward the Islamofascist Muslim Brotherhood is similar to
its conduct during World War II. Even as U.S. fighting men and women were
locked in mortal combat with the combatants of the fascist countries, many
American corporate elements were in bed with their business and (in some cases)
ideological partners in the Axis nations. The program notes that powerful GOP functionaries like Grover Norquist
are deeply involved with Muslim Brotherhood elements in the U.S. Taking stock
of the grim state of affairs in the Bush administration’s prosecution of the
“war on terror,” the program chronicles indications that Osama bin Laden
deliberately assisted George W. Bush’s re-election in 2004 and notes the view
of prominent intelligence specialists that the U.S. is losing the war as a
result of the invasion of Iraq.
Program Highlights Include: Osama bin Laden’s plan to bankrupt the U.S. economy by hitting petroleum
infrastructure targets in order to drive up the price of oil; discussion of the
commonality between bin Laden’s goal and the profit motive of the petroleum
industry; review of the fact that “offshore” financial conduits were used by
both multinational corporate elements and terrorists; the hypocrisy of the GOP
attack on the New York Times
for its disclosure of the Swift program aimed at ferreting out terrorist
finances; the Shiite Iraqi government’s implementation of Grover Norquist’s
plan for privatization of the Iraqi economic infrastructure.
1.
Beginning with an article about the laissez-faire commercial philosophy
of the Muslim Brotherhood, the broadcast notes that that organization’s
economic ideology is altogether consistent with the fundamental goals of
multinational corporations and the practice of globalization. (For more about
the corporatist/fascist economic philosophy of the Brotherhood, see—among other
programs—FTR#537. It
is said that a picture is worth a thousand words. This picture
of an Islamic Jihad campaign rally from April of 2005 speaks volumes about the
Muslim Brotherhood. (Palestinian Islamic Jihad is a subgroup of the
Brotherhood.) The Brotherhood’s populist pretensions and actual charitable
accomplishments should not blind one to the true nature of the organization. As
discussed in FTR#540,
the head of the Egyptian branch of the Brotherhood has denied the Holocaust.
Keep this in mind when reading discussion of the Egyptian Brotherhood in the
article below. “Judeo-Christian scripture offers
little economic instruction. The Book of Deuteronomy, for example, is loaded
with edicts on how the faithful should pray, eat, bequeath, keep the holy
festivals and treat slaves and spouses, but it is silent on trade and commerce.
In Matthew, when Christ admonishes his followers to ‘give to the emperor the
things that are the emperor's,’ he is effectively conceding fiscal and monetary
authority to pagan Rome. Islam is different. The prophet Muhammad—himself a
trader—preached merchant honor, the only regulation that the borderless
Levantine market knew. In Muslim liturgy, the deals cut in the souk become a
metaphor for the contract between God and the faithful. And the business model
Muhammad prescribed, according to Muslim scholars and economists, is very much
in the laissez-faire tradition later embraced by the West. Prices were to be
set by God alone—anticipating by more than a millennium Adam Smith's reference
to the ‘invisible hand’ of market-based pricing. Merchants were not to cut
deals outside the souk, an early attempt to thwart insider trading.” (“Islam
in Office” by Stephen Glain; Newsweek; 7/3-10/2006; accessed at: http://msnbc.com/id/13529579/site/newsweek/.)
2.
Note that the Islamist government of Iraq has preserved the
free-market, laissez-faire economic model crafted by Grover Norquist.
Norquist’s authorship of the post-invasion Iraqi economy is discussed below. “Today, with a spiritual revival sweeping much of the Muslim
world and with the Bush administration still keen on democratizing the region,
it is worth asking how an Islamist movement would manage the economy. Since
2001, Islamist parties have made strong showings or won elections in 10 Arab
countries (Morocco, Jordan, Lebanon, Turkey, Iraq, Iran, Bahrain, Egypt, Kuwait
and Pakistan) and the Palestinian Authority. And none are clashing with the
West on free-market economics. In Iraq, the supply-side economic-reform plan
submitted in 2003 by former U.S. administrator Paul Bremer has survived with
only minor revisions under Baghdad's new Shia-dominated government.
[Italics are Mr. Emory’s.] An interesting test came in the January election in
Egypt, when the Muslim Brotherhood—the fountainhead of modern Islamism—took a
fifth of the seats in Parliament. Now the largest opposition party, much of the
brotherhood's appeal rests on its network of hospitals, schools and charities,
which are often superior to state services (and help explain why the secular
regime cracks down harder on the secular opposition than on the religious one).
Fortunately for the reform-minded prime minister, Ahmed Nazif, the
brotherhood's economic agenda is largely consistent with his own, albeit with a
more populist twist.” (Idem.)
3.
“The brotherhood embraces free-trade deals in general, but
criticizes the government for failing to negotiate better terms for Egyptians.
Though Islam tends to frown on tax collection, the brotherhood supports tax
reform (not abolition) and opposes a proposed flat tax as regressive. It even
endorsed the recent decision to lift budget-busting food and fuel subsidies,
but wants to use Egypt's ample natural-gas reserves to finance a less painful
transition to market prices. ‘It must be done gently,’ says Mohammad Habib, the
brotherhood's first deputy chairman, ‘with the objective of reducing the gap
between rich and poor.’ In the 1950s, as the brotherhood gained political
momentum, it opposed President Gamal Abdel Nasser as much for his decision to
nationalize the Egyptian economy as for his fierce secularism. Muhammad, says
Yasser Abdo, a Muslim Brotherhood member and a former economist at the
International Islamic Bank for Investment and Development in Cairo, ‘believed
in the private sector as the basis of productive activity,’ with a ‘limited’
state role.” (Idem.)
4.
Note that although the Brotherhood officially disclaims monopolist
economics, it does not question the OPEC cartel. “Today, brotherhood parliamentarians remain anti-statist
and staunchly antitrust, citing a verse in the Qur'an: ‘He who brings
commodities to the market is good, but he who practices monopolies is evil.’
Not that any member goes as far as questioning the OPEC cartel. As Cairo
University economist Abdel Hamid Abuzaid puts it, Islam promotes ‘competition
of a cooperative’ nature, not the ‘cutthroat’ Western kind. Politically, at
least, the objective of fundamentalist Islam is to restore the Islamic
caliphate, the unified Muslim kingdom of the 7th to the early 20th centuries
that stretched from the Hindu Kush to the Strait of Gibraltar. This rhetoric
turns more practical on the subject of trade. ‘If the ancient caliphate can
revive itself,’ says Habib, who has a U.S. doctorate in geology, ‘it will
happen through regional commerce.’ A brotherhood in power, says Habib, would
respect Cairo's free-trade agreements—though the group appears to be divided
over whether it would honor one with Israel.” (Idem.)
5.
Note that no less an authority than the World Bank views Ibn
Khaldun—revered by the Brotherhood—as “the first advocate of privatization”! “In the days of the caliphate, Islam developed the most sophisticated
monetary system the world had yet known. Today, some
economists cite Islamic banking as further evidence of an intrinsic Islamic pragmatism. Though still guided
by a Qur'anic ban on riba, or interest, Islamic banking has adapted to
the needs of a booming oil region for liquidity. In recent years, some 500
Islamic banks and investment firms holding $2 trillion in assets have emerged
in the Gulf States, with more in Islamic communities of the West. British
Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown wants to make London a global center
for Islamic finance—and elicits no howl of protest from fundamentalists. How
Islamists might run a central bank is more problematic: scholars say they would
manipulate currency reserves, not interest rates. The Muslim Brotherhood hails
14th century philosopher Ibn Khaldun as its economic guide. Anticipating
supply-side economics, Khaldun argued that cutting taxes raises production and
tax revenues, and that state control should be limited to providing water, fire
and free grazing land, the utilities of the ancient world. The World Bank
has called Ibn Khaldun the first advocate of privatization. [Italics are
Mr. Emory’s.] His founding influence is a sign of moderation. If Islamists in
power ever do clash with the West, it won't be over commerce.” (Idem.)
6.
The free-market economic model imposed on Iraq after the U.S. invasion
was crafted by Grover Norquist, one of the lynchpins of the GOP right wing.
Norquist developed the Islamic Institute, in effect a Muslim Brotherhood-linked
wing of the GOP. One should not fail to note that Norquist’s Islamic Institute
had active links with terrorist-linked Muslim Brotherhood members. (For more
about Norquist’s link to the Brotherhood and terrorists, see—among other
programs—FTR#’s 435, 454, 515.) “ . . . It was more like a corporate takeover, except with
Abrams tanks instead of junk bonds. It didn’t strike me as the work of a Kosher
Cabal for an Imperial Israel. In fact, it smelled of pork—Pig Heaven for
corporate America looking for a slice of Iraq, and I suspected its porcine
source. I gave it a big sniff and, sure enough, I smelled Grover Norquist.
Norquist is the capo di capi of right-wing, big-money influence
peddlers in Washington. Those jealous of his inside track to the White House
call him ‘Gopher Nose-Twist.’ A devout Christian, Norquist channeled a million
dollars to the Christian Coalition to fight the devil’s tool, legalized
gambling. He didn’t tell the Coalition that the loot came from an Indian tribe
represented by Norquist’s associate, Jack Abramoff. (The tribe didn’t want
competition for its own casino operations.) I took a chance and dropped in on
Norquist’s L Street office, and under a poster of his idol [‘NIXON— NOW MORE
THAN EVER’], Norquist took a look at the ‘recovery’ plan for Iraq and
practically jumped over my desk to sign it, filled with pride at seeing his
baby. Yes, he promoted the privatizations, the tax limit for the rich, and the
change in copyright law, all concerns close to the hearts and wallets of his
clients. . . .” (“Was the Invasion of Iraq A Jewish Conspiracy?” by
Greg Palast; Tikkun; July/August/2006.)
7.
Revisiting the subject of terrorist financing and the
[abortive] attempts at interdicting the money flow, the program touches on the
furor launched by the GOP over The New York Times’ disclosure
of the Swift program to monitor terrorist money transactions. It is ironic that
the GOP is screeching over the disclosure, because the original Operation Green
Quest program uncovered profound links between the GOP hierarchy and the
networks involved in financing Al Qaeda. At the center of the disclosures
concerning Operation Green Quest was the aforementioned Grover Norquist. (For more about the frustration of Operation Green
Quest, see—among other programs—FTR#462, 464, 495, 500, 513, 514, 556. For information about
the links between the Bank Al Taqwa, the Muslim Brotherhood, the GOP, and the
Bush administration, see FTR#’s 454, 495, 500, 515.) As
discussed in FTR#367,
the financial industry opposed many of the regulations the U.S. imposed in
order to interdict terror financing networks, because significant elements of
the corporate community utilized the same networks—cracking down on the
terrorists also compromised the “offshore” money channels used by the
corporations. Could this be one of the reasons for the opposition to the Swift
program in certain circles? Note, also, that the Sullivan
& Cromwell law firm, the old Dulles law firm, led much of the opposition to
anti-terror regulations. “Bush
administration officials have been lining up to condemn The New York Times for revealing
a program to track financial transactions as part of the war on
terrorism. But if the Times’ revelation about a program to monitor
international exchanges is so damaging, why has the administration been
chattering about efforts to monitor domestic transactions for nearly
five years? Shortly after the 9/11 attacks, many journalists — including this
one — were briefed by U.S. Customs officials on Operation Green Quest, an effort to roll up
terrorist financiers by monitoring, among other things, ‘suspicious’ bank
transfers and ancient money lending programs favored by people of Middle
Eastern descent. . . .” (“White House NYT Bashers: Hypocrites” by Shane Harris; Defensetech.org;
6/28/2006; accessed at: http://www.defensetech.org/archives/002546.html.)
8.
“Since [9/11], the Treasury Department has produced dozens
of news releases and public reports detailing its efforts. Though officials
appear never to have mentioned the Swift program, they have repeatedly
described their cooperation with financial networks to identify accounts held
by people and organizations linked to terrorism... Representative Peter T.
King, Republican of New York, convened a hearing
in 2004 where Treasury officials described at length their
efforts, assisted by financial institutions, to trace terrorists' money. But he
has been among the most vehement critics of the disclosures about the Swift
program, saying editors and reporters of The New York
Times
should be imprisoned for publishing government secrets.” (Idem.)
9.
Next, the broadcast sets forth the view of CIA experts that an address
released by bin Laden four days before the presidential election was
deliberately intended to help Bush win the election! Al-Qaeda in Iraq and
an al-Qaeda affiliate called the Abu Hafs al-Masri Brigade had issued statements
in the run-up to the 2004 presidential election indicating that they thought
Bush’s re-election would help the Islamist cause and that they would do nothing
to impede that re-election. Are both Bush and bin Laden actually working
(albeit unintentionally) toward the same goals?! Is this because the same
macroeconomic forces are controlling both of them? Mr. Emory believes that
such is the case, and that the controlling economic entity is the Underground
Reich, in control of the multinational corporate landscape. A banker said to
the late Paul Manning, author of Martin Bormann: Nazi in Exile,
that the Bormann capital network is the greatest concentration of money power
under a single control in all of history. It is this “money power” that is
determining the course of events. “On Oct. 29, 2004,
just four days before the U.S. presidential election, al-Qaeda leader Osama
bin-Laden released a videotape denouncing George W. Bush. Some Bush supporters
quickly spun the diatribe as ‘Osama’s endorsement of John Kerry.’ But behind
the walls of the CIA, analysts had concluded the opposite: that bin-Laden was
trying to help Bush gain a second term. This stunning CIA disclosure is
tucked away in a brief passage near the end of Ron Suskind’s The One Percent
Doctrine, which draws heavily from CIA insiders. Suskind wrote that the CIA
analysts based their troubling assessment on classified information, but the
analysts still puzzled over exactly why bin-Laden wanted Bush to stay in
office. According to Suskind’s book, CIA analysts had spent years ‘parsing each
expressed word of the al-Qaeda leader and his deputy, [Ayman] Zawahiri. What
they’d learned over nearly a decade is that bin-Laden speaks only for strategic
reasons.” (“CIA:
Osama Helped Bush in ‘04” by Robert Parry; Consortiumnews.com; 7/4/2006;
p. 1; accessed at: http://www.consortiumnews.com/2006/070306.html.)
10.
“‘Their [the CIA’s] assessments, at day’s end, are a
distillate of the kind of secret, internal conversations that the American
public [was] not sanctioned to hear: strategic analysis. Today’s conclusion:
bin-Laden’s message was clearly designed to assist the President’s reelection.
‘At the five o’clock meeting, [deputy CIA director] John McLaughlin opened the
issue with the consensus view: ‘Bin-Laden certainly did a nice favor today for
the President.’’ McLaughlin’s comment drew nods from CIA officers at the table.
Jami Miscik, CIA deputy associate director for intelligence, suggested that the
al-Qaeda founder may have come to Bush’s aid because bin-Laden felt threatened
by the rise in Iraq of Jordanian terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi; bin-Laden
might have thought his leadership would be diminished if Bush lost the White
House and their ‘eye-to-eye struggle’ ended. But the CIA analysts also felt
that bin-Laden might have recognized how Bush’s policies – including the
Guantanamo prison camp, the Abu Ghraib scandal and the endless bloodshed in
Iraq – were serving al-Qaeda’s strategic goals for recruiting a new generation
of jihadists.” (Idem.)
11.
“‘Certainly,’ the CIA’s Miscik said, ‘he would want Bush to
keep doing what he’s doing for a few more years,’ according to Suskind’s
account of the meeting. As their internal assessment sank in, the CIA analysts
drifted into silence, troubled by the implications of their own conclusions.
‘An ocean of hard truths before them – such as what did it say about U.S.
policies that bin-Laden would want Bush reelected – remained untouched,’
Suskind wrote. One immediate consequence of bin-Laden breaking nearly a year of
silence to issue the videotape the weekend before the U.S. presidential
election was to give the Bush campaign a much needed boost. From a virtual dead
heat, Bush opened up a six-point lead, according to one poll.” (Ibid.; pp. 1-2.)
12.
“The implications of this new evidence are troubling, too,
for the American people as they head toward another election in November 2006
that also is viewed as a referendum on Bush’s prosecution of the ‘war on
terror.’ As we have reported previously at Consortiumnews.com, a large body of
evidence already existed supporting the view that the Bushes and the bin-Ladens
have long operated with a symbiotic relationship that may be entirely unspoken
but nevertheless has been a case of each family acting in ways that advance the
interests of the other. [See ‘Osama’s
Briar Patch‘ or ‘Is
Bush al-Qaeda's 'Useful Idiot?'’]” (Ibid.; p. 2.)
13.
Author Parry notes that, before the 9/11 attacks, the political
fortunes of the Bush administration and bin Laden’s forces were growing dim
quickly. The attacks changed all of that. “Before
al-Qaeda launched the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks against New York and
Washington, Bush was stumbling in a presidency that many Americans felt was
headed nowhere. As Bush took a month-long vacation at his Texas ranch in August
2001, his big issue was a plan to restrict stem-cell research on moral grounds.
Privately, Bush’s neoconservative advisers were chafing under what they saw as
the complacency of the American people unwilling to take on the mantle of
global policeman as the world’s sole superpower. The neocons hoped for some
‘Pearl Harbor’ incident that would galvanize a public consensus for action
against Iraq and other ‘rogue states.’ Other senior administration officials,
such as Vice President Dick Cheney, dreamed of the restoration of the imperial
presidency that – after Richard Nixon’s Watergate scandal – had been cut down
to size by Congress, the courts and the press. Only a national crisis would
create a cover for a new assertion of presidential power.” (Idem.)
14.
“Meanwhile, halfway around the world, bin-Laden and his
al-Qaeda militants were facing defeat after defeat. Their brand of Islamic
fundamentalism had been rejected in Muslim societies from Algeria and Egypt to
Saudi Arabia and Jordan. Bin-Laden and his lieutenants had even been expelled
from the Sudan. Bin-Laden’s extremists had been chased to the farthest corners
of the planet, in this case the caves of Afghanistan. At this critical
juncture, al-Qaeda’s brain trust decided that their best hope was to strike at
the United States and count on a clumsy reaction that would offend the Islamic
world and rally angry young Muslims to al-Qaeda’s banner. So, by early summer
2001, the clock ticked down to 9/11 as 19 al-Qaeda operatives positioned
themselves inside the United States and prepared to attack. But U.S.
intelligence analysts picked up evidence of al-Qaeda’s plans by sifting through
the ‘chatter’ of electronic intercepts. The U.S. warning system was ‘blinking
red.’” (Idem.)
15.
“Over the weekend of July Fourth 2001, a well-placed U.S.
intelligence source passed on a disturbing piece of information to then-New
York Times reporter Judith Miller, who later recounted the incident in an
interview with Alternet. ‘The person told me that there was some
concern about an intercept that had been picked up,’ Miller said. ‘The incident
that had gotten everyone’s attention was a conversation between two members of
al-Qaeda. And they had been talking to one another, supposedly expressing
disappointment that the United States had not chosen to retaliate more
seriously against what had happened to the [destroyer USS] Cole [which was
bombed on Oct. 12, 2000]. ‘And one al-Qaeda operative was overheard saying to
the other, ‘Don’t worry; we’re planning something so big now that the U.S. will
have to respond.’ . . . ” (Ibid.; p. 3.)
16.
A consortium of intelligence and national security experts feel that
the U.S. is losing the “war on terror” because of the invasion of Iraq. Mr.
Emory has expressed this same view for a number of years. It is also Mr.
Emory’s considered opinion that, with the invasion of Iraq, the U.S. was lured
into a trap by the Underground Reich—a view expressed in –among other programs—FTR#’s
471, 502, 527, 535. “The United States is losing its fight against terrorism,
and the Iraq war is the biggest reason, more than 8 of 10 American terrorism
and national security experts concluded in a poll released Wednesday. One
participant in the survey, a former CIA official who describes himself as a
conservative Republican, said the war in Iraq has provided global terrorist
groups with a recruiting bonanza, a valuable training ground and a strategic
beachhead at the crossroads of the oil-rich Persian Gulf and Turkey, the
traditional land bridge linking the Middle East to Europe. ‘The war in Iraq
broke our back in the war on terror,’ said the former official, Michael
Scheuer, the author of Imperial Hubris, a book highly critical of the
administration’s anti-terrorism strategy and tactics. ‘It has made everything
more difficult and the threat more existential.’ . . . .” (“U.S.
Losing Fight Against Terrorism, Security Experts Say” by Bob Deans [Cox News
Service]; San Francisco Chronicle; 6/29/2006; p. A15.)
17.
The program concludes with an interesting look at al-Qaeda strategy
with regard to the world petroleum markets. Osama bin Laden has previously
expressed his intent to collapse the U.S. economy. The former head of the CIA’s
al-Qaeda task force believes that this strategy will involve attacks on the
petroleum infrastructure in the U.S. and elsewhere—not destruction of oil wells
themselves. It is interesting to note how the strategy of bin Laden and other
Islamist terrorists dovetails with the goals of the oil industry—driving up
prices and, as a result, maximizing profits. As will be discussed at greater
length in FTR#561,
the global increase in oil is effecting an enormous transfer of wealth from the
accounts of every individual and institution on earth—both private and
public—into the coffers of the petroleum related interests, both nations and
commercial enterprises. (Remember in this regard that virtually everyone and
everything uses petroleum, either directly or indirectly. This transfer of
wealth is an altogether profound phenomenon, and one that will prove decisive
in the course of human affairs if it is not altered. “The US and its Arab allies must expect an increase in attacks on their
oil infrastructure in the next phase of the war by al-Qaeda targeting the US
economy, the former Central Intelligence Agency official who was responsible for
hunting down Osama bin Laden warns today. Writing for the Jamestown Foundation,
a Washington security think-tank, Michael Scheuer says Mr. Bin Laden’s
intention to bankrupt the US economy by driving up world oil prices is very
likely to lead to attacks inside the US by al-Qaeda, its allies or unrelated
groups. Houston’s gas refineries, oil import facilities and ship canal and
pipeline systems, and the trans-Alaska pipeline are potential targets.” (“US
‘Must Beware’ Rise in al-Qaeda Oil Strikes” by Guy Dinmore; Financial Times;
5/15/2006; p. 6.)
18.
“Al-Qaeda’s failed attack on Saudi Arabia’s Abdaiq
facility on February 24, which led to a $2 a barrel jump in world oil prices,
should also be seen as the beginning of a new and more systematic phase of
targeting of the kingdom’s oil infrastructure. Two days after the attack, an
al-Qaeda-affiliated cleric issued a religious justification for attacking
oil-processing installations. The cleric, using the Internet, also claimed that
attacks on prominent Muslim oil officials were justified. The militant
organization’s media apparatus is also being used ‘to stir the troubled pot of
oil-related international worries,’ Mr. Scheuer writes, noting encouragement
for Nigerian insurgents in the Niger Delta and ‘mujahideen’ in the Caspian Sea
region.” (Idem.)
19.
Note that bin Laden’s strategy dovetails nicely with the agenda of the
oil industry. Note also how the administration of George W. Bush is doing an
excellent job of realizing bin Laden’s goal of collapsing the U.S. economy. It
is Mr. Emory’s long-held view that the Underground Reich is manipulating both
“W” and bin Laden. “Tracing al-Qaeda’s evolving
strategy, Mr. Scheuer, who left the CIA in 2004, notes that Mr. bin Laden has
never threatened to cut oil supplies to the US. Instead he is driven by the
belief that Muslim oil is bought too cheaply. In December 2004, Mr. bin Laden
wrote that a minimum of $100 a barrel was a ‘fair price.’ In his September 1996
‘Declaration of War against Americans,’ Mr. bin Laden argues that oil in the
Islamic world is a treasure to be preserved for future generations of Muslims
and thus should not be wasted through attacks. As a result, Mr. Scheuer says
al-Qaeda’s plans rule out attacks on oil wells but focus on the infrastructure
needed for refining and transporting oil, as well as industry personnel.” (Idem.)