In the aftermath of 9/11, reams of newsprint were given over to discussing the CIA and FBI failures before the attacks; the agency had some of the hijackers under surveillance and allegedly lost them, the bureau was unable even to inform its own acting director of the Zacarias Moussaoui case. However, the USA’s largest and most powerful intelligence agency, the National Security Agency, got a free ride. There was no outcry over its failings, no embarrassing Congressional hearings for its director. Yet, as we will see, the NSA’s performance before 9/11 was shocking.
It is unclear when the NSA first intercepted a call by one of the nineteen hijackers. Reporting indicates it began listening in on telephone calls to the home of Pentagon hijacker Khalid Almihdhar’s wife some time around late 1996. However, although Almihdhar certainly did stay there later, it is unclear whether he lived there at that time. The house, in the Yemeni capital of Sana’a, was a key target for the US intelligence community as it was Osama bin Laden’s communication hub, run by Almihdhar’s father-in-law Ahmed al-Hada.
In a tribute to the seven CIA agents killed December 30th by a suicide bomber in Afghanistan, Agency Director Leon Panetta wrote, “Our officers were engaged in an important mission in a dangerous part of the world.”
What he neglected to tell readers of the Washington Post, the Juneau Empire, the Monterey Herald and other mainstream publicity outlets is that CIA agents, like the United States itself, have no business in that part of the world. The U.S. is only in Afghanistan because eight years ago it launched a war of aggression against that small country and occupied it. Now Panetta is distressed as militants there strike back at the occupiers—occupiers who are breathing life into a crooked, dishonest, Kabul regime whose stellar achievements are dope-peddling and vote-stealing.
Panetta also failed to tell readers that, if not for such CIA actions as the violent overthrow of the government of Iran in 1953 to get that country’s oil, and the 2003 U.S. aggression against Iraq to get that country’s oil, the Middle East might not be quite so violent today. Those aren’t Boy Scout camps President Obama is reinforcing in Afghanistan.
January 1 will usher in the last year of the first decade of a new millennium and ten consecutive years of the United States conducting war in the Greater Middle East.
Beginning with the October 7, 2001 missile and bomb attacks on Afghanistan, American combat operations abroad have not ceased for a year, a month, a week or a day in the 21st century.
The Afghan war, the U.S.’s first air and ground conflict in Asia since the disastrous wars in Vietnam and Cambodia in the 1960s and early 1970s and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s first land war and Asian campaign, began during the end of the 2001 war in Macedonia launched from NATO-occupied Kosovo, one in which the role of U.S. military personnel is still to be properly exposed [1] and addressed and which led to the displacement of almost 10 percent of the nation’s population.
Evidence is emerging that clearly indicates Abdulmutallab was more than just a Nigerian extremist carrying out his anger through an ill-conceived plot to ignite a powdery explosive substance on-board a flight to the United States. Eyewitness testimony pointing to a man helping the accused terrorist board without a passport, along with an unusual cameraman documenting the attempted attack on board the plane raise more than red flags– they point towards an intelligence operation, run as a drill, meant to conjure up public support for a number of fronts in the continuing ‘War on Terror.’
CNN interviewed key flight witnesses during their Dec. 28 program who raised these very points, making clear that the full story is still emerging and that wider-connections to intelligence handlers is evident.
THE SHARP-DRESSED MAN
Kurt Haskell and his wife, who were witnesses on board Northwest Airlines Flight 253 saw Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab receiving assistance from a well-dressed, wealthy-looking Indian man at the boarding gate in Amsterdam. Haskell told CNN that the accused bomber appeared strikingly ‘poor’ next to the well-dressed man. According to Haskell, that man did the talking for him, explaining to the flight personnel at the gate that Abdulmutallab needed to board without a passport, claiming that he was a Sudanese refugee. Haskell told CNN:
“Laurie and I were sitting near the boarding gate, sitting on the floor, there weren’t any seats to sit in. And I saw two men. They caught my eye because they seemed to be an odd pair. One was what I would describe as a poor-looking black teenager around 16 or 17, and the other man, age 50-ish, wealthy looking Indian man. And I was just wondering why they were together– kinda strange. And I watched them approach what I would call the ticket agent, the final person that checks your boarding pass before you get on the plane. And I could hear the entire conversation. The only person that spoke was the Indian man, and what he said was: ‘This man needs to board the plane, but he doesn’t have a passport.’ And the ticket agent responded, ‘Well, if he doesn’t have a passport, he can’t get on the plane.’ To which the Indian man responded back, ‘He’s from Sudan. We do this all the time.’ And the ticket agent said, ‘Well, then you’ll have to go and talk to my manager.’ And she directed them down a hallway. And that was the last time I saw the Indian man, and the black man I didn’t see again until he tried to blow up our plane hours later.”
The gate attendee referred the odd-couple to the manager. Haskell said that was the last he saw of the wealthy man, but later recognized Abdulmutallab after the incident occurred on the plane. That’s when he says he put two and two together about the unusual connection.
US special forces have been sent to Yemen to train its army, as the Yemeni military backed by the Saudi Arabian army has been fighting local Houthi fighters in the north of the country.
The development comes amid fears that foreign military intervention in the country has put Yemeni civilians in dire condition.
American officials told The Daily Telegraph on Sunday that the US forces have been sent to Yemen to prevent the country from turning into a “reserve base” for al-Qaeda. Read the rest of this entry »
Human Rights Watch is calling on those fighting against Yemeni Houthis to take all necessary measures to spare civilian lives and ensure they receive humanitarian assistance.
James Ross, legal and policy director at Human Rights Watch said on Monday that “the escalating conflict in northern Yemen risks escalating civilian casualties,” calling on all sides to avoid harming civilians and ensuring the quick delivery of aid to the displaced.
Yemeni armed forces have been attacking Houthi fighters in northern Yemen since August. Saudi warplanes have also been bombing Yemeni villages belonging to Houthis since early November. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted by Brian 
