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----- Original Message -----
From: eric stewart <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Monday, December 17, 2001 12:28
PM
Subject: Bin Laden, Terrorist Monster: Take
Two!
Bin Laden, Terrorist Monster: Take Two!
by Jared Israel
[9 October 2001]
=======================================
In 'US Army Gets Secret Advice from Hollywood,' the
BBC (British Broadcasting Company) notes that:
"American intelligence specialists are reported to
have 'secretly' sought advice on handling terrorist
attacks from Hollywood film-makers."
(http://emperors-clothes.com/news/hollywood-i.htm )
Among said film-makers is Steven E De Souza, the
screenwriter for the movie 'Die Hard,' whose plot
deals with terrorists trying to destroy a big city
skyscraper.
The goal of this interaction?
"In particular...the entertainment industry can offer
[the Army] expertise in understanding plot and
character, as well as advice on scenario training."
Have the black ops boys by any chance lent their
script doctors to Osama bin Laden?
Consider the following.
Bin Laden was interviewed September 28th by a
pro-Taliban newspaper. Here's a summary:
>
"In an interview with 'Ummat' -- a publication
sympathetic to Afghanistan's ruling Taliban -- bin
Laden said both he and al Qaida had 'nothing to do
with the terrorist attacks in America' and that
'hard-line Jewish organizations might be involved.'
"Ummat said it sent questions to bin Laden through
Taliban officials, and received written responses. Bin
Laden reportedly said in his replies that dozens of
terrorists organizations from countries like Israel,
Russia, India and Serbia could be responsible for the
attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon that
left over 6,000 people dead or missing.
He also insisted that al Qaida does not consider the
United States its enemy." ('United Press
International,' 28 September 28, 2001, Friday)
This interview was seized on by those opposed to
bombing Afghanistan. They noted that terrorists always
> take credit for their murders. Indeed, the whole point
of terror is to take credit. How else can the
terrorists intimidate the target group and force them
to flee, give up, change their political allegience or
make concessions to terrorist demands?
Since bin Laden wasn't taking credit, how, asked
critics, could anybody be sure he was behind the WTC
attacks? And if nobody could be certain he was behind
the attacks why was the U.S. so anxious to
'counter'attack against Afghanistan?
Now bin Laden has issued a speech which he recorded on
videotape. This speech has been broadcast on TV.
Transcripts have been published in major newspapers.
His picture is on the front page of the 'NY Times,'
holding a microphone, looking like a maniacal crooner.
This is in itself remarkable. As opponents of the NATO
bombing of Yugoslavia and the U.S.-supported, Kosovo
Liberation Army attacks on that country will testify,
it is virtually impossible for people critical of U.S.
foreign policy to get their views presented in major
newspapers or on TV in the U.S.
But here is bin Laden, front page and prime time.
And mind you, he's no longer saying, "Russia, India,
Serbia and Israel" did it, or "America is not the
enemy." Rather, his expressed views have altered:
"God Almighty hit the United States at its most
vulnerable spot. He destroyed its greatest buildings.
Praise be to God. Here is the United States. It was
filled with terror from its north to its south and
from its east to its west. Praise be to God...
"But if the sword falls on the United States after 80
years, hypocrisy raises its head lamenting the deaths
of these killers who tampered with the blood, honour,
and holy places of the Muslims.
". When Almighty God rendered successful a convoy of
Muslims, the vanguards of Islam, He allowed them to
destroy the United States. I ask God Almighty to
elevate their status and grant them Paradise." (1)
Quite a change.
The 'Times' commented:
"Within hours of the first American bombs dropping on
Afghanistan, the world's most wanted man, Osama bin
laden, appeared in a videotape broadcast, worldwide in
which he taunted the United States and celebrated the
Sept 11 terrorist attacks. (Our emphasis)
Allow me to remind you, Osama bin Laden's tape was not
broadcast worldwide by Osama bin Laden, nor by chance.
Rather, it was broadcast worldwide by the mainstream
mass media, that is, by the conscious effort of bin
Laden's supposed enemies.
The 'Times' described Mr. bin Laden's performance as
"an evident attempt to rally the entire Islamic world
against the United States."
I beg to differ.
By providing this videotape at this time, bin Laden
has given the mass media an effective and timely
argument to justify bombing Afghanistan and perhaps
other countries.
The other day the British government published a
document purporting to prove bin laden was behind
9-11. In fact, the document proved no such thing.
Rather, it listed some horrific crimes in which he was
involved, or probably involved, prior to 9-11, and it
repeated various violent things he purportedly said.
This might constitute negative character evidence at a
trial, but it offers no proof that he was behind 9-11.
Having for days promised Great Revelations, and having
finally produced something that would flunk an exam in
First Semester Criminal Law in any U.S. Law School,
the U.S. and British governments were in a bad spot.
They wanted to bomb Afghanistan - but why? Many
people, or at least those whose critical faculties are
able to overcome the current political atmosphere in
the U.S. and Britain, would like to know, when bombing
other countries, whether it is necessary and
appropriate.
Bombing Afghanistan because bin Laden masterminded
9-11 is a stretch for three reasons:
It violates the entire fabric of international law,
for instance the Helsinki Final Act and the United
Nations Charter. International Law denies the U.S. and
British governments the right to bomb other countries
even if they feel they have a good reason. (Other
countries might feel they have a good reason to do
likewise to the U.S. and Britain, and the U.S.
government would not like that.)
It is not clear how the punishment (bombing
Afghanistan) would fit the crime, since whereas
millions of ordinary people in Afghanistan would be
bound to suffer, and surely many would die, bin Laden
and the Taliban leaders might not. Indeed, official
British/US plans call for creating a new "government"
in Afghanistan largely made up of - the Taliban (2)
And obviously bombing would encourage violent
reprisals and/or create a climate where secret
government agencies could stage phony terrorist
attacks (often called 'provocations') to justify
further military action overseas.
That is what is wrong with bombing Afghanistan if the
U.S. and British governments had proven that bin Laden
was responsible for 9-11.
But bombing Afghanistan despite the U.S. and British
governments having provided no hard evidence that bin
Laden was behind 9-11 is simply insane. Unless, of
course, the U.S. and British governments have a
purpose entirely separate from the publicly stated one
of taking revenge for 9-11. (3)
By issuing this videotape, bin Laden has accomplished
the following:
He has provided a harsh verbal "taunt" (the 'Times'
word) which can be read, and has been read and
listened to, by millions of people in the NATO
countries and which has thereby created a mass
emotional basis for bombing. Not because bin Laden's
taunt justifies U.S. military attacks but because it
a) allows demagogues to say, "He has confessed! We
must retaliate!" while encouraging ordinary people to
feel less upset about attacking faraway countries.
People say: "We've got to do something about that
bastard, don't we?" and "We have to retaliate in some
way." That is the refrain I hear from many quarters.
One friend of mine wanted to know just one thing: "Do
you think he's a monster or not?" To which I answered,
"Yeah, he's a monster. But that has nothing to do with
bombing Afghanistan." It's a hard argument to make
given the passions which bin Laden's video has
conveniently further inflamed.
Bin Laden mixes Islamist fanaticism and callous glee
over the suffering of Americans, on the one hand, with
valid criticisms of the U.S. government, on the other.
Among the valid statements: he accuses the US of being
responsible for the deaths of a million Iraqi children
through its insistence on imposing horrific economic
sanctions on Iraq. This is a very extreme charge, of
course, but it also happens to be true, as admitted by
one of the responsible parties, former Secretary of
State, Madeline Albright. (4) (At the time Albright
made her admission, the number of dead children was
estimated at 500,000.)
Since bin Laden utters vicious, Islamist ravings and
equates ordinary Americans with the U.S. government,
on the one hand, but mixes this with valid criticisms,
on the other, his video creates an atmosphere of
hostility towards views critical of U.S. foreign
policy because now, in addition to challenging the
propaganda apparatus of the U.S. government and its
supporting media, we bear the burden of "sounding like
bin Laden," whom we happen to loathe.
Consider this example: Emperor's Clothes has been
fighting Islamist and secessionist terrorism for over
two years. We have proven, from evidence available in
the mass media, that the U.S. government has been
intimately involved, often covertly, in creating and
sponsoring terrorist organizations, especially in the
Balkans. (7) Our Website has hundreds of pages of
texts attacking this terrible union. Ironically, bin
Laden and related Islamist terrorists have been
involved on the U.S. side, backing local terrorists in
Kosovo, Bosnia and Macedonia. (8)
But today we received an email accusing us of
supporting Islamist terrorism because we attack U.S.
government arrogance and violence - and after all,
said this person, so does bin Laden!
At the same time, by linking Islamist terrorist
ravings with valid criticisms, the bin Laden video
encourages those who hate US foreign policy to view
the bin Laden monster as some kind of hero.
Never mind that he helped the CIA turn Afghanistan
into a living hell. Never mind that he and his
Mujahedeen, who were praised by Ronald Reagan as
"freedom fighters," who were paid billions by the CIA
(5), would execute school teachers because obviously
every teacher in a secular school had to be a
communist - why else would anyone teach a little girl
to read?
Never mind that his Taliban monsters have made it a
crime for male surgeons to operate on women. (One of
our readers, an Afghan surgeon now living in the U.S.,
reports that he was performing a stomach operation on
a woman when the Taliban seized Kabul. He was
literally forced to leave the operating room and was
arrested for treating a female patient. The patient
was left unconscious, stomach cut wide open, on the
operating table.)
In his 28 September interview, bin Laden is quoted as
follows:
"'I can go from Indonesia to Algeria, Kabul to
Chechnya, Bosnia to Sudan, and Burma to Kashmir," he
said. "This is not a question of my survival. This is
the question of the survival of jihad (holy war).
Wherever required, I will be there.'"
This amounts to a confession that bin Laden has been
involved with the very terrorists that the U.S. has
sponsored, for example in Chechnya, Bosnia, Macedonia,
Algeria, and Indonesia, and also, with the KLA whom
the U.S. government has sponsored in attacking Serbia.
(6)
This man is no enemy of oppression. This is terribly
distorted person who tries to distort others in his
image, a spoiled billionaire who exploits the misery
of angry people to lure them into the fascistic
'solution' of his murderous Islamist fundamentalism.
Wouldn't the U.S. government love it if some young
people who hate the bombing of Afghanistan were to
elevate this thug into some kind of hero? Such people
would discredit themselves and any valid criticisms
they had of the status quo and - as we have seen time
and again - they could then easily be used by the CIA,
as followers of bin Laden have been used to attack
secular governments from Algeria to Yugoslavia to
Afghanistan.
+ + + + + + + + + + + + +
PERFECT TIMING
+ + + + + + + + ++ + + +
The 'N.Y. Times' notes:
"[The tape] appeared to have been carefully prepared
so as to have the maximum effect the moment American
military operations against Mr. bin Laden and the
Taliban rulers of Afghanistan began."
Very true. A cynic might say that in constructing the
storyline of a Hollywood blockbuster it is necessary
to have the terrorist villain goad and taunt (and
perhaps treacherously assault) the All-American hero
several times before the hero comes back to smash the
villain (or, in this case, smash the country where the
villain resides.)
If the villain does not verbally (and perhaps
physically) abuse the All-American hero, then when the
hero crushes the villain (or the country where the
villain resides) the audience might not cheer; it
might look askance; it might view the hero as a bully
and a monster himself.
-- Jared Israel
Click here to email the link to this article to a
friend!
= = = = = = = = = = = =
Further Reading
= = = = = = = = = =
1) A transcript of bin Laden's latest speech can be
read at
http://www.truthout.com/0657.Bin.Laden.Stmt.htm
2) See http://emperors-clothes.com/news/jw.htm#a
3) 'Why Washington Wants Afghanistan' by Jared Israel,
Rick Rozoff & Nico Varkevisser at:
http://emperors-clothes.com/analysis/afghan.htm
4) Madeline Albright's exchange with Leslie Stahl on
'60 Minutes', 12 May 1996, regarding deaths of Iraqi
children:
Lesley Stahl: We have heard that a half a million
children have died [due to sanctions on Iraq, imposed
because of US pressure]. I mean, that's more children
than died when--wh--in--in Hiroshima. And--and, you
know, is the price worth it?
Ambassador Albright: I think this is a very hard
choice, but the price--we think the price is worth it.
(60 MINUTES, May 12, 1996) -
5) See 'Taliban Camps U.S. bombed in Afghanistan Were
Built by NATO' which can be read at:
http://emperors-clothes.com/docs/camps.htm
6) See '"TERRORISM AGAINST SERBIA IS NO CRIME"' at:
http://emperors-clothes.com/articles/jared/nocrime.htm
and
7) 'Gentle Reign: Washington Makes It Perfectly Clear
in Kosovo & Macedonia' at:
http://emperors-clothes.com/articles/jared/gentle.htm
8) See 'Excerpts from News Reports - Bin Laden in the
Balkans' at:
http://emperors-clothes.com/news/binl.htm
To read the Helsinki Final Act (the "Helsinki
Accords") please go to
http://www.hri.org/docs/Helsinki75.html
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