Chapter 19

Multi-Purpose Al-Qaeda

Those plotting against Kennedy in 1963 chose their patsy, not only to distance themselves from suspicion, but also to redirect attention toward a false conspiracy by a foreign government, as a means to justify a war of retaliation, in this case against the Republic of Cuba. The same goes for the patsies of September 11th, except that they were supposed to belong to a transnational organization, a diffuse and networked enemy which could be pointed at in just about any country. Al-Qaeda is the Swiss Army knife of war propaganda, and if it didn’t exist, it would be necessary to invent it. In fact, that is what happened, according to Alain Chouet, director of French secret services (DGSE) from 2000 to 2002, who denounced (in front of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the French Senate on January 29th, 2010) the “obsessive insistence of Westerners to invoke this mythical organization”, with the dual perverse effect of encouraging unrelated terrorists or merely two-bit criminals claim allegiance to al-Qaeda in an effort to be taken seriously, and encouraging Muslim regimes to describe their opponents as members of al-Qaeda as a means to legitimately repress them, if possible with the assistance of Westerners. Al-Qaeda is, essentially, a myth created in January 2001 during the trial of four men suspected in the bombings against the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998. It was then that the FBI adopted, for the legal requirements of the charge, the idea of an organization structured under the orders of bin Laden, which was arbitrarily given the name of “al-Qaeda” (an Arabic word meaning “the list” or “the database”, referring to a list of all the would-be jihadists who stayed at bin Laden’s training camps in Afghanistan at some time or another). The idea that such a “list” constituted an organization was drawn solely from the testimony of Jamal al-Fadl, a former associate of bin Laden who had robbed him and who received 100,000 dollars from the U.S. government in exchange for his testimony. As a result of wanting to establish legitimatization for anti-terrorist actions, both at home and abroad, the concept evoked by the term “al-Qaeda” has now become so broad and misconstrued that it ceases to designate any actual terrorist organization itself, and has rather become an American metonym for “terrorism” – albeit still carrying an illegitimate human face.



In the aftermath of September 11th, Afghanistan was first to be singled out, since it is there that Osama bin Laden was supposed to be found. From 1996, bin Laden was close to Mullah Omar, the leader of the Taliban, and in 1997 demonstrated his allegiance in marrying one of Omar’s daughters. It was therefore logical for America to take vengeance for 9/11 on Afghanistan’s Taliban regime who refused to hand bin Laden over. Behind bin Laden were the Taliban; but behind the Taliban was Pakistan, from where they came and got their support — with the help of U.S. funds. Pakistan is thus indirectly charged during the aftermath of September 11th. Though no formal charges were given, the press delivers their own indictment on ISI complicity: General Ahmed Mahmud, head of the ISI, was fingered by information first reported by The Times of India on October 9th, 2001: “US authorities sought his removal after confirming the fact that $100,000 were wired to WTC hijacker Mohamed Atta from Pakistan by [ISI agent] Ahmed Omar Said Sheikh at the instance of General Mahmud”. If Mohamed Atta was just a patsy, this information can only be interpreted as a blackmail attempt against the ISI and Pakistan, in an effort to force their cooperation with the United States in the destruction of the Taliban regime. If the ISI had truly paid money to Atta, then we must suppose that Atta was chosen as the fictive terrorist leader for precisely this reason: for his connection (genuine or fabricated) to ISI, just like Oswald had been chosen for his fabricated connection to pro-Castro groups.



Mahmoud, who had regularly visited Washington since 1999, happened to be there just between the 4th and the 11th of September 2001. There he met with George Tenet, Director of the CIA, and Marc Grossman, Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs. At the time of the attacks, he was attending a breakfast meeting that included Bob Graham, president of the Senate Intelligence Committee, and Porter Goss, president of the House Intelligence Committee; “we were talking about terrorism, specifically terrorism generated from Afghanistan”, reported Graham, who would be appointed with Goss to the 9/11 Commission. It’s not known what was said to Mahmoud after the news of the attacks, but he would retire the following month and leave politics, joining the religious movement Tablighi Jamaat.



One can easily imagine why those from the American deep state who orchestrated the September 11th attacks would have wanted to put pressure on the Pakistani government: to force their alignment to the official version of September 11th. But the rumors about the links between al-Qaeda and the ISI may also have been designed to damage U.S.-Pakistan relationship, rather than improve them. The staging of the capture of bin Laden fits that interpretation, for it allowed to accuse Pakistan, after Afghanistan, of having given asylum to bin Laden for 10 years, which is   tantamount to betrayal from an ally. Among several books defending this line, one was written by CIA veteran Bruce Riedel, Deadly Embrace: Pakistan, America, and the Future of Global Jihad (2011). According to Riedel, the quiet life of bin Laden in the suburbs of Abbohabad suggests “an astonishing degree of duplicity” by Pakistan, which could be “the secret patron of global jihad on a scale almost too dangerous to conceive. We would need to rethink our entire relationship with Pakistan and our understanding of its strategic motives”.



It is not clear whether there was a plot intended to destabilize or undermine relations between the United States and Pakistan; but it is certain that such a plot existed in regard to Saudi Arabia. Bin Laden is Saudi, and 15 of the 19 alleged hijackers of September 11th were Saudis. This supposed list, from the perspective of the one who created it, is a deliberate attempt to undermine Saudi Arabia's rulers or at least an attempt at blackmail. But why? Have not the Saudis been, since 1975, loyal suppliers of oil? Like Pakistan, the 9/11 Commission was informed that “evidence” existed linking Al-Qaeda to members of the Saudi royal family through Saudi funding. The final report said nothing to that effect, but the commissioner Bob Graham took responsibility for informing the public (without providing evidence), in an interview with PBS in December 2002, and again in a book entitled Intelligence Matters: The CIA, the FBI, Saudi Arabia, and the Failure of America's War on Terror (2004), where he denounced the government censorship of 28 pages of the Commission’s report dealing with Saudi support to terrorists. “Why would the Saudis have given substantial assistance to at least two of the hijackers, and possibly all 19?”, asked Graham rhetorically, “The answer I have come to is survival — survival of the state and survival of the House of Saud”. Graham wants us to believe that the Saudi princes, after having stripped bin Laden of his nationality, have helped him strike the United States for fear he would otherwise strike them or encourage social unrest at home. As for Bush, if we are to believe to Graham, he covered up the 9/11-Saudi connection because of “the special personal friendship between the [Saudi] royal family and the highest levels of our national government”. These accusations are indicative of a power struggle between several players within the deep state, not unlike the suppression of the pseudo Oswald / Castro connection: some wanted to involve Saudi Arabia, while others wanted to hush it up in the name of national interest. It is not difficult to know who had an interest in protecting the Saud family: the Bush family, for it was they who would be indirectly affected by rumors of complicity by their Saudi friends with al-Qaeda.



The links forged by the Bushes with Saudi Arabia are notorious. They date back to when CIA Director George H.W. Bush established its first trade with elite families of Saudi Arabia, notably the bin Mahfouz and the bin Laden, through a company of aircraft brokerage entrusted to Jim Bath. Links will be strengthened and multiplied during the Gulf War, which allowed President Bush to pose as protector of Saudi Arabia. The Carlyle Group, of which George Bush is a shareholder, is at the heart of the affair, and is notoriously linked with a nephew of King Fahd. A scandal broke out in March 2001, during one of Bush’s visits to Saudi Arabia, as acting head of the Carlyle Group. The nature of his meeting with King Fahd raised questions: was this a diplomatic meeting, private business travel, or both? The former President also met the bin Laden family on this occasion, who had been in business with Carlyle since 1990. On September 11th, 2001, George Bush and Shafig bin Laden (Osama’s half-brother) were holdint a meeting of the Carlyle Group in Washington, with several hundred investors in attendance. The news caused considerable embarrassment for the Bush family. In the following week, at the request of the Saudi ambassador to Washington Bandar Bin Sultan (called Sultan Bush because of his close ties to the President’s family), and in violation of the flight ban maintained by the FAA (Federal Aviation Administration), a Boeing 747 from Saudi Arabian Airlines was allowed to leave the United States, carrying 140 Saudis, including Shafig bin Laden and twenty members of his family.



The hypothesis of a conspiracy emanating from inside the Bush administration, which is the common conclusion claimed by the 9/11 Truth Movement, contains an internal contradiction: if the responsibility of Osama bin Laden is a prefabricated lie, so are the elements that are potentially embarrassing for the Saudi state, and indirectly the Bush family. The involvement of the Bush clan in the organization of the September 11th scheme (and not only in its cover-up) is probable, given the role played by the President’s brother, Marvin Bush, and his cousin Wirt Walker III, through their company Securacom; but the choice of bin Laden as a patsy does not seem very wise, especially if the objective was to divert suspicion away from the Bush family. To resolve this paradox, it is necessary to examine more closely the Bush administration: there were, in fact, diverging interests at stake.

Le Rapport de la Commission sur le 11-Septembre, a bâti son accusation de Ben Laden sur le témoignage d’Abou Zoubeida, qualifié d’ « associé d’Al-Qaïda  », d’ « allié de longue date de ben Laden », de «  lieutenant de ben Laden » et de « lieutenant d’al-Qaïda ». Zoubeida, arrêté en mars 2002 (et emprisonné depuis sans procès ni même inculpation), aurait fourni les informations décisives sur Al-Qaïda sous de nombreuses tortures — dont au moins 83 simulations de noyade (waterboarding). Selon le journaliste Gerald Posner (Why America Slept, 2003), il aurait également révélé que des membres de la famille royale saoudienne aidaient financièrement Al-Qaïda (curieusement, Posner était l’auteur en 1993 d’un livre sur l’assassinat de Kennedy défendant la thèse du tireur solitaire, Case Closed). Mais depuis septembre 2009, le gouvernement des États-Unis admet que Zoubeida n’a jamais été un membre ou un associé d’Al-Qaïda et n’avait aucune connaissance du 11-Septembre.

Comble de l’ironie, on apprend en décembre 2012 qu’Al-Qaïda, depuis le Yémen, demande au président iranien Mahmoud Ahmadinejad de cesser de leur contester le mérite des attentats du 11-Septembre en accusant le gouvernement américain d’en être responsable. Ahmadinejad a en effet déclaré devant l’Assemblée des Nations Unies le 24 septembre 2010 : « Quelques éléments à l’intérieur du gouvernement américain ont orchestré l’attentat pour inverser le déclin de l’économie américaine et son emprise sur le Moyen-Orient de manière à sauver le régime sioniste. »

Colonel Pierre-Henri Bunel, ancien agent des services de renseignement français : « La vérité est qu’il n’y a pas d'armée islamiste ou de groupe terroriste appelé Al Qaida. Tout agent de renseignement sait cela ; mais il y a une campagne de propagande pour faire croire au public à la présence d’un groupe, d’une entité identifiée et représentant le 'diable', seulement dans le but de conduire les spectateurs de télévision à accepter un leadership unique international pour lutter contre le terrorisme. »

50 ANS D'ETAT PROFOND

de l'assassinat de Kennedy au 11-Septembre

(comparaison et perspective)  

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