by Jim Marrs on Wednesday, May 4, 2011 at 12:58pm
The surest way to control a free people is to initiate a war. But to have a war requires an enemy. In recent years, America’s great enemy has been Osama bin Laden and his al Qaeda network, but this has turned out to be a Bogyman -- a false and ethereal image to provoke fear.
“There are people within the US intelligence community who doubt that the hijacker list from 9/11 has much truth in it,” said one unnamed intelligence source quoted by investigative reporter and publisher Jon Rappoport, who has built up many sources in his more than 20 years of experience. “They see it as a more-or-less invented list. They know that if you start with men showing false passports (or no passports) to get on four planes on 9/11, you can’t assemble a correct list of nineteen suspects within a few days—especially since all those men are presumed dead and missing, untraceable. Al Qaeda is being used as a term to convince people that these terrorists are all connected in a vast, very well-organized network that is global in reach, that has a very sophisticated and far-flung communication setup, that issues orders from the top down to cells all over the world,” stated the intelligence source. “There are a number of people inside the US intelligence agencies who know this is a false picture. They know that false intelligence is being assembled in order to paint a picture which is distorted, so that the American people will have a single focus on one grand evil enemy.”
If one doubts this source, consider this video of author researcher Jason Burke:
http://www.brasschecktv.com/page/59.htmlSupporting the claim that the terrorist organization is a fabrication is the fact that not one of the accused 9/11 hijackers’ names appeared on the passenger lists made public by American or United airlines. In fact, as many as seven of those named as the culprits in the attacks were soon found alive and well in the Middle East. These included Saudi pilot Waleed al-Shehri, identified by the US Justice Department as one of the men who crashed American Flight 11 into the WTC. But a few days later, Waleed al-Shehri contacted authorities in Casablanca, Morocco, to proclaim that he was very much alive and played no part in the attacks. Another man identified as one of the hijackers of Flight 11, Abdulaziz al-Omari, also turned up alive in the Middle East, telling BBC News that he lost his passport while visiting Denver, Colorado. Actually two turned up, as yet another Abdulaziz al-Omari surfaced in Saudi Arabia very much alive and telling newsmen, “I couldn’t believe the FBI put me on their list. They gave my name and my date of birth, but I am not a suicide bomber. I am here. I am alive. I have no idea how to fly a plane. I had nothing to do with this.”
Yet another man identified as one of the hijackers of United Flight 93, Saeed al-Ghamdi, was reported alive and well and working as a pilot in Saudi Arabia. “You cannot imagine what it is like to be described as a terrorist—and a dead man—when you are innocent and alive,” said al-Ghamdi, who was given a holiday by his airline in Saudi Arabia to avoid arrest. At least three other named 9/11 hijackers surfaced to proclaim their innocence in the attacks but none of this was widely reported in the US corporate mass media.
In October, 2004, the BBC in England broadcasted a documentary entitled
The Power of Nightmares: The Rise of the Politics of Fear, a three-hour documentary that challenged the Bush administration’s stated concept of al Qaeda as a multi-faceted globe-spanning octopus of terrorism. The documentary raised questions such as:
Why has the Bush administration, after rounding up hundreds of suspected terrorists and using torture during interrogation, failed to produce any hard evidence of al Qaeda activities?
Of the 664 suspected terrorists detained in Britain, why have only 17 been found guilty of crimes? Why have none of these men been proven to be members of al Qaeda?
Why has the Bush administration prompted so much frightening speculation over “dirty” radioactive bombs when experts have stated that public panic over such devices will kill more people than any radioactivity caused by one?
Why did Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld claim on Meet the Press in 2001 that al Qaeda controlled massive high-tech cave complexes in Afghanistan, when none were later found following the military invasion?
While it is clear that groups of disaffected Arab Muslims do exist, the BBC documentary nevertheless convincingly argued that “the nightmare vision of a uniquely powerful hidden organization waiting to strike our societies is an illusion. Wherever one looks for this al Qaeda organization, from the mountains of Afghanistan to the ‘sleeper cells’ in America, the British and Americans are chasing a phantom enemy.”
Los Angeles Times political columnist Robert Scheer said that the documentary makes “a powerful case that the Bush administration, led by a tight-knit cabal of Machiavellian neoconservatives, has seized upon the false image of a unified international terrorist threat to replace the expired Soviet empire in order to push a political agenda.” He pointed out that everything we know about al Qaeda comes from only two sources, both with a vested interest in maintaining the concept of a well-financed and deeply entrenched enemy— the terrorists themselves and military and governmental intelligence agencies. “Such a state of national ignorance about an endless war is, as The Power of Nightmares makes clear, simply unacceptable in a functioning democracy,” Scheer wrote.
In Britain it has been suggested that al Qaeda is not a real organization, but rather a computer list of Arab freedom fighters or terrorists available for hire. British commentator Robin Cook, who served as Foreign Secretary from 1997 – 2001 and as Leader of the House of Commons from 2001 – 2003, has suggested that “Bin Laden …was armed by the CIA and funded by the Saudis to wage jihad against the Russian occupation of Afghanistan. Al Qaeda, literally ‘the database,’ was originally the computer file of the thousands of Mujahideen who were recruited and trained with help from the CIA to defeat the Russians.”
Ironically, supposed enemies are often two sides of the same coin. Author Thom Hartmann pointed out that both Bush’s neocons and Muslim terrorists operated from similar ideologies— though the specifics may differ, both groups believe the end justifies the means and that people must be frightened into accepting religion and nationalism for the greater good of morality and a stable state.
Now, we are told that Osama bin Laden has been killed in a Pakistani firefight, yet controversy sprang up immediately.
Why did it take 10 years to find the man when an errant taxpayer can be found by computer within minutes? Why did government sources claim Osama hid behind his wife, who was then killed only to retract those statements later? Why were the American people told his body was buried at sea as a Muslim custom when there is no such custom in Muslim countries, most of which are desert nations? Why did a photograph purporting to be the body of Osama prove to be a composite forgery? Why did “official sources” claim Osama died at least nine times during the past 10 years? Why did several sources, including former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, say Osama died years ago but would be preserved until he could be brought public at the proper time? Has anyone in authority discussed rescinding the PATRIOT Act, the Military Commissions Act, the Real ID Act or any of the other Constitution-shredding legislation passed by a panicked and cowardly Congress who by several accounts never even read these laws before passing them?
This whole issue smells like a barrel of dead fish yet do not expect to hear any truth concerning this on our corporate-controlled mass media. This scam, along with the growing defense and TSA budgets, must be continued.
FALSE PICTURE OF AL QAEDA -- sources
Unnamed intelligence source: Jon Rappoport, “Briefing on Al Qaeda,” StratiaWire (Sept. 5, 2002)
Accused 9/11 hijackers turned up alive: Editors, “Hijack suspects alive and well,” BBC News (Sept. 23, 2001)
Al Qaeda an illusion:
http://articles.latimes.com/2005/jan/11/opinion/oe-scheer11Al Qaeda as CIA database:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2005/jul/08/july7.developmentEnemies operate from same ideology:
http://www.commondreams.org/cgi-bin/print.cgi?file=%2Fviews04%2F1207-26.htmObama on intelligence estimates and more troops:
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=BUR20090329&articleId=12943Obama sends 30,000 troops but pledges withdrawal in 2011:
http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2009/12/01/obama-afghanistan001.html?ref=rss-
Northern Command:
http://www.northcom.mil/About/index.htmlJim