In Bed With the Enemy

by Paul David Collins ©, Sept. 28th, 2006

Huey Long once asserted that fascism would first appear in America as anti-fascism. Whether you consider the man to have been a hero or a tyrant, Long hit the nail on the head with this assertion. President George W. Bush recently characterized Arab terrorists as fascists. During a press conference held at his Texas ranch, Bush stated that the terrorists “try to spread their jihadist message – a message I call … Islamic radicalism, Islamic fascism” (Greene, no pagination). The President’s contention concerning Arab terrorists is, for the most part, correct. There is little difference between a radical Islamic fundamentalist and a goose-stepping Nazi. However, when one examines the American political landscape more closely, the tremendous hypocrisy of Bush’s statement becomes apparent. While denouncing Islamofascism in the public spotlight, criminal factions in the government are actually connected to the terrorists behind the scenes. Islamofascism is not merely the refuge of fanatics; it is a well-oiled, highly intricate, government-sponsored enterprise.

A key character connecting the government to the terrorist network is Grover Norquist. Norquist is a GOP/Bush operative who helped the President gain the support of Islamic people and organizations here in the United States. The Nation magazine referred to Norquist as “‘Field Marshal of the Bush Plan” (Gitell, no pagination). However, Norquist can be characterized as much more than just a Bush supporter. Grover Norquist is best described as the tie between the Administration and Islamists. Seth Gitell elaborates:

The Protestant Norquist is a founding director of the Islamic Institute, a socially conservative Muslim think tank that eschews international issues in favor of domestic issues such as tax cuts and faith-based initiatives. In addition, Norquist’s lobbying firm, Janus-Merritt Strategies LLC, was officially registered as a lobbyist for the Islamic Institute as well as for Abdurahman Alamoudi, the founder and former executive director of the American Muslim Council. Public records show that Alamoudi has done more than $20,000 worth of business with Norquist’s firm, on issues relating to Malaysia. (No pagination)

Norquist’s Islamic links can be called anything but moderate. Consider the aforementioned Abdurahman Alamoudi. Alamoudi has been involved in activities that could be characterized as extremist. Seth Gitell informs us that Alamoudi:

attended an anti-Israel protest outside the White House on October 28, 2000. Alamoudi revved up the crowd, saying: “I have been labeled by the media in New York as being a supporter of Hamas. Anybody supporters of Hamas here? “The crowd cheered.” Hear that, Bill Clinton? We are all supporters of Hamas … I wish they added that I am also a supporter of Hezbollah.” (Both groups are on the State Department’s official list of terrorist organizations.) (No pagination)

Another individual tied to the Alamoudi’s American Muslim Council is Sami Al-Arian, a Kuwaiti born Palestinian associate professor at the University of South Florida. In House of Bush, House of Saud, Craig Unger describes Al-Arian’s 1998 guest appearance at the American Muslim Council:

In 1998, he appeared as a guest speaker before the American Muslim Council. According to conservative author Kenneth Timmerman, Al-Arian referred to Jews as ‘monkeys and pigs’ and added, ‘Jihad is our path. Victory to Islam. Death to Israel. Revolution! Revolution! Until victory! Rolling, rolling to Jerusalem!’ That speech was part of a dossier compiled on al-Arian by federal agents who have had him under surveillance for many years because of suspected ties to terrorist organizations. (207)

On March 12, 2000, Al-Arian was among a group of Muslim leaders who had the opportunity to meet with George and Laura Bush at a local mosque in Tampa Florida (206). Doubtless, such a meeting would not have been possible without the influence of Grover Norquist.

The ties between Norquist and Alamoudi are disturbing. However, Norquist’s links to radical Islam go much deeper. There is evidence that seems to suggest that Norquist is now a convert to Islam. Daniel Pipes provides evidence that this is the case:

Paul Sperry, author of the new book, Infiltration, in an interview calls Grover Norquist “an agent of influence for Islamists in Washington.” When asked by FrontPageMag.com why a Republican anti-tax lobbyist should so passionately promote Islamist causes, Sperry implied that Norquist has converted to Islam: “He’s marrying a Muslim, and when I asked Norquist if he himself has converted to Islam, he brushed the question off as too ‘personal.'” As Lawrence Auster comments on this exchange, “Clearly, if Norquist hadn’t converted to Islam, or weren’t in the process of doing so, he would simply have answered no.” (No pagination)

Norquist’s marriage to a Muslim woman further supports the contention that the GOP/Bush operative is no longer a Protestant. Pipes elaborates:

Indeed, Norquist married Samah Alrayyes, a Palestinian Muslim, on April 2, 2005, and Islamic law limits a Muslim woman to marrying a man who is Muslim. This is not an abstract dictum but a very serious imperative, with many “honor” killings having resulted from a woman ignoring her family’s wishes.

Alrayyes (now known as Samah Norquist) has radical Islamic credentials of her own; she served as communications director at the Islamic Free Market Institute, the Islamist organization Norquist helped found. Now, she is employed as a public affairs officer at the U.S. Agency for International Development – and so it appears that yet another Islamist finds employment in a branch of the U.S. government. (No pagination)

Daniel Pipes is notorious for his anti-Arab, anti-Muslim writings that verge on paranoia. However, his contentions concerning Norquist are supported by the facts and seem to be quite sound. It is interesting to find that Samah Norquist is an employee of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). This government organization has actually been involved in social engineering projects meant to spread a violent and radical form of Islam. Using the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan as a pretext, USAID provided Afghan school children with textbooks “filled with violent images and militant Islamic teachings” (Stephens and Ottaway, no pagination). The Washington Post’s Stephens and Ottaway continue:

THE PRIMERS, which were filled with talk of jihad and featured drawings of guns, bullets, soldiers and mines, have served since then as the Afghan school system’s core curriculum. Even the Taliban used the American-produced books, though the radical movement scratched out human faces in keeping with its strict fundamentalist code. (No pagination)

Stephens and Ottaway further inform us that the textbooks were replete with violent images and language:

Children were taught to count with illustrations showing tanks, missiles and land mines, agency officials said. They acknowledged that at the time it also suited U.S. interests to stoke hatred of foreign invaders. (Stephens & Ottaway, no pagination)

According to Stephens and Ottaway, the material shocked and disturbed some: “An aid worker in the region reviewed an unrevised 100-page book and counted 43 pages containing violent images or passages” (no pagination). The article elaborates:

One page from the texts of that period shows a resistance fighter with a bandolier and a Kalashnikov slung from his shoulder. The soldier’s head is missing.

Above the soldier is a verse from the Koran. Below is a Pashtu tribute to the mujaheddin [sic], who are described as obedient to Allah. Such men will sacrifice their wealth and life itself to impose Islamic law on the government, the text says. (Stephens & Ottaway, no pagination)

USAID poured money hand over fist into this social engineering project. Stephens and Ottaway elaborate:

Published in the dominant Afghan languages of Dari and Pashtu, the textbooks were developed in the early 1980s under an AID [Agency for International Development] grant to the University of Nebraska-Omaha and its Center for Afghanistan Studies. The agency spent $51 million on the university’s education programs in Afghanistan from 1984 to 1994. (No pagination)

With Samah Norquist working for a government organization guilty of spreading violent Islam, and Grover Norquist tied to extremists such as Alamoudi and the American Muslim Council, it seems safe to say that the couple are in the radicalization business. Furthermore, if Grover Norquist has truly converted to Islam, he is in the perfect position to solidify ties between the government and Islamic extremists. He is also a perfect shepherd for government-sponsored terrorists. Evidence suggests that Norquist may already be acting in that capacity. The case of Operation Green Quest provides us with this evidence.

Operation Green Quest

Operation Green Quest was a Treasury Department task force that conducted a series of raids against several Islamic groups. Grover Norquist led the crusade to condemn these raids as civil rights violations (Shwartz, no pagination). However, was Norquist really concerned with civil rights when he condemned Green Quest? The truth was that several of Green Quest’s targets were connected to the government and to several different elites. The possibility that this would be discovered probably made Norquist uneasy.

One of Green Quest’s targets was the Herndon office of Jamal Barzinji (Schwartz, no pagination). Concerning Barzinji, Stephen Schwartz writes: “In 1980, he was listed in local public records as a representative of the World Assembly of Muslim Youth (WAMY), an arm of the Saudi regime with offices in Virginia” (no pagination). Barzinji’s involvement with WAMY suggests a government connection. Journalist Greg Palast discovered that the Bush Administration had effectively killed an FBI investigation into WAMY prior to the September 11, 2001 attacks on the Pentagon and the World Trade Center (145). Osama bin Laden’s younger brother, Abdullah, was the president of WAMY (Schwartz, no pagination).The WAMY investigation was blocked and then unblocked after the attacks, putting the lie to the idea that Osama was merely a “black sheep” and the rest of the Bin Laden clan was not involved in terrorism (Palast 245).

It is also very interesting to note that the WAMY headquarters was in Falls Church, Virginia (Palast 144). This is strangely close to CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia. Osama bin Laden is essentially a CIA creation. In 1979, Bin Laden went to Afghanistan to fight the Soviets (Moran, no pagination). Osama came to head the Maktab al-Khidamar, also known as the MAK (no pagination). This organization would act as a front through which money, arms, and fighters were supplied for the Afghan war (no pagination). According to MSNBC’s Michael Moran, hidden puppeteers controlled the MAK:

What the CIA bio conveniently fails to specify (in its unclassified form, at least) is that the MAK was nurtured by Pakistan’s state security services, the Inter-Services Intelligence agency, or ISI, the CIA’s primary conduit for conducting the covert war against Moscow’s occupation. (No pagination)

Even after the war in Afghanistan was over, Bin Laden was still regarded by the CIA as an admirable freedom fighter:

Though he has come to represent all that went wrong with the CIA’s reckless strategy there, by the end of the Afghan war in 1989, bin Laden was still viewed by the agency as something of a dilettante-a rich Saudi boy gone to war and welcomed home by the Saudi monarchy he so hated as something of a hero. (Moran, no pagination)

Unfortunately, evidence suggests that Bin Laden’s connection to the American Intelligence Community continued up to the present and extends to the rest of the Bin Laden family, some of whom are just as involved in terrorism as Osama. Peter L. Bergen points out that the Bin Laden construction firm “receives legal advice from the white-shoe law firm Sullivan and Cromwell” (49). The Sullivan and Cromwell legal firm is one of the most powerful on Wall Street and has been known to collaborate with enemies of the United States before. These enemies included Nazi clients such as I.G. Farben (the outfit responsible for running a slave factory at Auschwitz), Fritz Thyssen, and Gestapo General Kurt Von Schroeder (Keith 24). Sullivan and Cromwell connect to the Intelligence Community through the Dulles family. Brothers Allen and John Foster Dulles were lawyers for Sullivan and Cromwell. Both supervised the writing of the National Security Act of 1947, which led to the creation of the CIA. Allen would serve as a Director of Central Intelligence (DCI) until President John Kennedy fired him for the Bay of Pigs fiasco.

In his article entitled “Bin Laden Comes Home to Roost,” Moran suggests that Osama was propped up by the Agency for reasons other than doing battle with our Cold War nemesis:

The CIA, ever mindful of the need to justify its “mission,” had conclusive evidence by the mid-1980s of the deepening crisis of infrastructure within the Soviet Union. The CIA, as its deputy director Robert Gates acknowledged under congressional questioning 1992, had decided to keep that evidence from President Reagan and his top advisors and instead continued to grossly exaggerate Soviet military and technological capabilities in its annual “Soviet Military Power” report right up to 1990. (No pagination)

The Agency wished to keep Osama in the game in spite of his irrelevance in the Cold War crusade against Communism. In fact, it was so important to the CIA that they were willing to present a fraudulent assessment of Soviet military capabilities to the President. Certain elites and criminal factions within the U.S. Intelligence Community obviously wanted to create the Bin Laden threat to act as a pretext for their own agendas. WAMY was a part of the Bin Laden network that receive protection from the Bush Administration. By condemning Green Quest’s move against WAMY representative Barzinji, Norquist was perhaps trying to protect both the Bush Administration and his Islamic extremist clients.

Ptech

Another target of Green Quest raids was the Boston-area computer software firm known as Ptech. (“Whose War on Terror?” no pagination). This company had sensitive government contracts worth millions of dollars (no pagination). Those government organizations that could be counted among Ptech’s clients were the Air Force, the Energy Department, and the FBI (no pagination). One of the firm’s main investors was Yasin Al-Qadi, who MSNBC describes as “a wealthy Saudi businessman whom the Bush administration had formally designated a terrorist financier under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act” (no pagination). When company whistleblowers tried to alert the FBI to criminal and terrorist activity at Ptech, the Bureau strangely did nothing (no pagination).

Ptech was still in business in 2002, six months after the Bush administration had designated its main investor a terrorist financier (Hopsicker, “FBI Shut Down Investigation Into Saudi Terror Cell In Boston,” no pagination). One of the places Ptech came looking for business was one of America’s largest banks, J.P. Morgan Chase (no pagination). Ptech had been invited to give a presentation at J.P. Morgan Chase by the bank’s consultant, Indira Singh. Singh had no idea what she was stepping off into. Investigative journalist Daniel Hopsicker tells the story:

Indira Singh, who later became a whistleblower, was an unwitting eyewitness to the “train wreck.”

“I invited Ptech to come down and give a presentation and a customized demo to JP Morgan Chase,” states Singh, who was a consultant to the bank on “risk architecture,” an arcane software specialty which calculates enterprise risk. In one of the story’s many ironic twists, Singh was at the time designing a system to help JP Morgan Chase detect terrorist money laundering.

When Ptech showed up, Singh quickly realized that she was witnessing her worst fears about compromised security come true. “Within half an hour on the premises, I knew something was up,” she says. “They had almost immediately raised about six of my red flags, to the point where I walked over to my desk and picked up the phone, and began making phone calls.”

She talked with a respected industry figure who had once worked at Ptech. “He was shocked to learn that I had invited Ptech on the premises. He told me the company belonged to Yasin Qadi.”

In the course of what would otherwise have been just another day at the bank, Indira Singh made the amazing discovery that the firm in front of her at the moment was owned by Saudis, including Yasin Qadi, with suspected as well as proven ties to the terrorists who carried out the 9/11 attack.

All this left her feeling more than a little surprised. (No pagination) Naturally, Singh decided to alert her bosses at J.P. Morgan Chase to the danger. Their response was nothing less than shocking. Hopsicker reports:

When Singh alerted authorities, and her employer, what she encountered was the inexplicable wrath of a top Wall Street Bank, as well as an official wall of silence at the FBI.

“I took everything I had at that point back to my boss at JP Morgan Chase,” she states. “He didn’t want to deal with it. So I called his boss, because at this point I realized I was sitting on dynamite.”

“The various heads of the security functions at the bank set up an interview with me, and it quickly escalated to the bank’s General Auditor, who introduced himself to me as JP Morgan Chase’s ‘chief thug.'”

We didn’t know banks like JP Morgan had thugs, we said.

“He introduced himself as the General Auditor,” said Singh, “but he said, for the real purposes of what he does at JP Morgan Chase, I am the ‘chief thug.'”

“He basically told me to keep my mouth shut and look the other way, and enjoy a wonderful life here at JP Morgan, and if I didn’t I was out.” (No pagination)

Why would J.P. Morgan Chase cover for a firm with ties to terrorism? There are, of course, financial reasons. J.P. Morgan Chase might be able to make a good profit from collaboration with Ptech. However, there is also a little known political reason as well. J.P. Morgan Chase used to be two different financial institutions. One of those institutions was J.P. Morgan Bank. Morgan Bank founder, J.P. Morgan, attended the University of Gottingen in Germany (Sutton 120). According to deceased researcher Antony Sutton, the University of Gottingen was “a center of Hegelian activism” (120). Sutton further states that “German Hegelianism is apparent in J.P. Morgan’s approach to political parties-Morgan used them all” (120, emphasis in original). The Hegelian dialectic involves the engagement of two ideational entities in an ostensibly adversarial dynamic. However, neither of two ideational entities involved are dichotomously related. The conflict that ensues between the two is superficial at best and, eventually, results in their synthesis into a new ideational entity. This synthesis amalgamates the worst features of the opposing camps. The Hegelian tradition in Morgan firm may have continued on after its merger with Chase. If this is the case, J.P. Morgan Chase’s collaboration with Ptech may be part of the construction of a dialectical camp. In this case, that dialectical camp is Islamofascist terrorism. America (thesis) clashes with Islamofascism (antithesis) which leads to the rise of an American Empire (synthesis) spoken so much about by the neoconservative faction of the elite in their Project for a New American Century (PNAC) documents.

Indira Singh also had an opportunity to speak to the FBI concerning Ptech. The results were equally shocking. Hopsicker reports:

After talking to the Boston FBI, Singh said she had been ”shocked” and ”frustrated” to learn that the FBI had not alerted any of the government agencies using Ptech software that there were questions about the company’s ties to suspected terrorist fund-raisers. (“FBI Shut Down Investigation Into Saudi Terror Cell In Boston,” no pagination)

The FBI seems to have no desire to touch Ptech. There is however, evidence that the Bureau has tried to protect the firm from scrutiny. According to MSNBC, shortly after Green Quest began investigating Ptech “the FBI stepped in and unsuccessfully tried to take control of the case” (No pagination). Interestingly, the FBI and its parent agency, the Justice Department, sought to gain control over Green Quest after it folded into Homeland Security (no pagination). Needless to say, such an acquisition would make it easier for the FBI and the Justice Department to disrupt attempts to probe organizations and individuals with suspected ties to terrorism. There seems to be a criminal element at the Bureau and Justice that believe terrorists are to be shepherded, not hunted. It should raise more than a few eyebrows to learn that Michael Chertoff pushed for the FBI/Justice takeover of Green Quest while he was DOJ Criminal Division chief (no pagination). This is the same Michael Chertoff who is now the head of Homeland Security. It is also the same Michael Chertoff who is related to Ben Chertoff, the man who wrote a piece for Popular Mechanics claiming that all questions about 9/11 are simply baseless conspiracy theories. Ultimately, all the article did was knock over a few straw men in a poor attempt to label anyone looking into government complicity in 9/11 clinically insane.

The Ptech case raises an important question about Grover Norquist. When Norquist condemned the Green Quest raid, was he really concerned with civil rights? Is it more likely that he feared an investigation would reveal that sometimes terrorists received protection from the FBI and do business with large Wall Street firms?

The Saar Foundation, Khalid bin Mahfouz, and BCCI

Perhaps another reason Norquist didn’t like the Green Quest raid stems from the fact that the Saar Foundation was the keystone of the network being investigated (Schwartz, no pagination). The Saar Foundation is connected to Khalid bin Mahfouz (no pagination). Just who is Bin Mahfouz? Incredibly, he was the director of the Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI) (“Khalid bin Mahfouz,” no pagination). The BCCI was a hotbed of scandal. Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega and Palestinian terrorist Abu Nidal were just two of the individuals in a rogue gallery tied to BCCI (Bainerman 286).

Therefore, it was shocking when the CIA engaged in a cover-up of the BCCI scandal. The Agency’s first report over the BCCI in 1986 only cryptically referred to the bank’s methods “unorthodox and unconventional” (286). A later CIA report was equally unacceptable. Israeli investigative reporter Joel Bainerman elaborates:

A later CIA report, a 30-page document issued in May 1989, contained mini-profiles of BCCI managers and a long list of its branches and shareholders. Even by 1989, the only thing the CIA would admit that it knew about the bank was that it was “a source of undetermined reliability” and that BCCI established a Washington, D.C., presence in late 1987 with the purchase of First American Bankshares. It goes on to describe BCCI as a bank that “has a reputation for doing business with anyone, and using whatever means are available to preserve anonymity when the depositor request it.” (286)

Why was the CIA being so secretive? Richard Kerr, who acted as the DCI prior to Robert Gates being chosen to run the Agency in 1991, probably spilled the beans when he revealed that the CIA held accounts at the BCCI (286). While Kerr claimed the accounts were “ordinary” and “lawful and honest,” it begs the question why the CIA was not honest and up front about the BCCI from the offset. All the secrecy and concealment suggest the Agency had something to hide about its relationship with the BCCI. Perhaps they did not wish for it to be known that $2 billion in U.S. aid had been funneled to Mujahadeen rebels through the bank (287). These were the same people who were radicalized by textbooks made with USAID money.

It is safe to say that people in high places were watching over BCCI. However, it would be wrong to accuse Ronald Reagan of being one of those individuals just because much of the bank’s nefarious activities occurred during his time as President. Webster Tarpley and Anton Chaitkin provide a description of Reagan at the time:

Ronald Reagan was 70 years old when he took office, the oldest man ever to be inaugurated as President. His mind wandered; long fits of slumber crept over his cognitive faculties. On some days, he may have kept bankers’ hours with his papers and briefing books and meetings in the Oval Office, but he needed a long nap most afternoons and became distraught if he could not have one. His custom was to delegate all administrative decisions to the cabinet members, to the executive departments and agencies. Policy questions were delegated to the White House staff, who prepared the options and then guided Reagan’s decisions among the pre-defined options. This was the staff that composed not just Reagan’s speeches, but the script of his entire life: Normally, every word that Reagan spoke in meetings and conferences, every line down to and including “Good morning, Senator,” every word was typed on three-by-five file cards from which Reagan would read (363-64).

Clearly, Reagan was a puppet, not a puppeteer. On the other hand, George H. W. Bush can be described as a master manipulator. Furthermore, Bush is connected to BCCI through Little Rock billionaire Jackson Stephens. Joel Bainerman explains Jackson’s connections to Bush and BCCI:

The Stephens group investment firm, Stephens Inc., is reportedly to be worth nearly $1 billion. Stephens helped BCCI executives in the late 1970s to find key American investment opportunities, such as First American Bankshares. He was a major contributor to President Bush and part of Team 100, a Republican group where membership required a $100,000 donation to Bush’s election campaign. Stephens’ wife, Mary Anne, was the 1988 co-chairman of the Bush for President drive. In September 1977, Jimmy Carter’s former Office of Management and Budget director Bert Lance recommended that BCCI officials meet his good friend Jackson Stephens to discuss acquisition of National Bank of Georgia. Stephens met with Agha Hasan Abedi, founder and head of BCCI. Stephens was a defendant in the suit against BCCI in its attempt to take over First American Bankshares. (293-4)

Why did Bill Clinton fail to look into BCCI after Bush was ousted? The answer to that question lies with Jackson Stephens. Joel Bainerman explains:

When Arkansas’ governor Bill Clinton was running for governor in October 1990, his campaign was in deep financial trouble. He called on Jackson Stephens, a member of the Bush 100 Club in Little Rock, and the prime mover behind Harken Energy’s bid to win a lucrative oil-drilling contract in Bahrain. Stephens helped Clinton raise nearly $100,000, and receive a $2 million line of credit from the Worthen National Bank. This was done, it is believed, through one of Stephens’ associates, Curt Bradbury, a former employee of his who is now chief executive officer of Worthen National Bank. Jackson Stephens is chairman of the bank. (305)

Did Norquist really believe that the Green Quest raids were a civil rights violation? An investigation that could potentially lead to George Bush, Jackson Stephens, BCCI, and CIA with a little Bill Clinton thrown into the mix has nothing to do with civil rights. However, it does have everything to do with political conspiracy and elite criminality.

Disinformation

BCCI also connects to another interesting character named Adnan Kashoggi. Seymour Hersh elaborates on the connection between Kashoggi and the BCCI:

During the Reagan Administration, Khashoggi was one of the middlemen between Oliver North, in the White House, and the mullahs in Iran in what became known as the Iran-Contra scandal. Khashoggi subsequently claimed that he lost ten million dollars that he had put up to obtain embargoed weapons for Iran which were to be bartered (with Presidential approval) for American hostages. The scandals of those times seemed to feed off each other: a congressional investigation revealed that Khashoggi had borrowed much of the money for the weapons from the Bank of Credit and Commerce International (B.C.C.I.), whose collapse, in 1991, defrauded thousands of depositors and led to years of inquiry and litigation. (No pagination)

Kashoggi also worked with Mohammad Hammoud, the front man for BCCI Holdings Luxembourg (Bainerman 293). Even after the BCCI collapse, Kashoggi remained connected to people very high up in the government. Seymour Hersh explains:

Khashoggi is still brokering. In January of this year, he arranged a private lunch, in France, to bring together Harb Saleh al-Zuhair, a Saudi industrialist whose family fortune includes extensive holdings in construction, electronics, and engineering companies throughout the Middle East, and Richard N. Perle, the chairman of the Defense Policy Board, who is one of the most outspoken and influential American advocates of war with Iraq.

The Defense Policy Board is a Defense Department advisory group composed primarily of highly respected former government officials, retired military officers, and academics. Its members, who serve without pay, include former national-security advisers, Secretaries of Defense, and heads of the C.I.A. The board meets several times a year at the Pentagon to review and assess the country’s strategic defense policies. (No pagination)

When Adnan Kashoggi is not brokering, he is busy spreading disinformation to muddy the waters surrounding 9/11. Investigative journalist Daniel Hopsicker has discovered that Adnan Kashoggi owns the business of John Gray, author of Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus and a primary financier of the misnamed 9/11 Truth Movement (Hopsicker, “The 9.11 Heroin Connection,” no pagination). One of Hopsicker’s anonymous sources puts the relationship between Kashoggi and John Gray in proper perspective:

“To say that John Gray is in business with Adnan Khashoggi doesn’t portray the relationship in quite the right light,” stated another observer, asking to remain anonymous. “Khashoggi owns John Gray. He bought his whole Mars-Venus shtick, his company. Gray works for him.” (No pagination)

The 9/11 Truth Movement basically holds that 9/11 was an inside job. This contention puts government agents at the scene of the crime planting demolition charges in the WTC buildings and shooting missiles at the Pentagon. If the building was an Iranian government facility in Tehran, then maybe an American soldier or intelligence agent would be willing to shoot a missile at it or blow it up. However, it is doubtful an American soldier or intelligence agent would do the same in America. The 9/11 Truth Movement also holds that the hijackers were patsies. As Hopsicker eloquently points out, there is no basis to believe that the hijackers were patsies because of the numerous examples of Arab suicide bombers throughout history (no pagination). If Islamofascists would be willing to conduct suicide bombings in the Middle East, then they would hold no reservations about conducting suicide attacks in America.

Ultimately, all of the 9/11 Truth theories are nonsense. From the standpoint of scholarship, the contentions of the 9/11 Truth Movement are intellectually lazy. Instead of following the money trail or connecting the dots between the people involved, the 9/11 Truth Movement speculates about elements that are not even pertinent to the crime. However, from the standpoint of disinformation, the 9/11 Truth Movement is priceless. The 9/11 Truth Movement diverts attention away from Islamofascists who were involved in the crime that were protected and shepherded by criminal factions in the United States government. That’s why Adnan Kashoggi and his puppet, John Gray, are throwing money at these trash-peddlers. Yes, there was government complicity in the 9/11 attacks. However, the attacks were carried out by surrogates, many of who were Islamofascists who may have not even been aware of Western elites manipulating things from behind the scenes. Terrorism is almost always surrogate warfare. Surrogate warfare is not the same as an inside job.

9/11 Truth Movement “researchers” also have a tendency to present those who will listen with the picture of a monolithic conspiracy behind 9/11. The monolithic view contends that the U.S. government as a whole conducted the attacks. This gives a very distinct anti-American flavor to the 9/11 Truth Movement. It comes as little surprise that the anti-American, communist Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez has come out supporting the 9/11 Truth Movement’s contention that the buildings were destroyed by demolition charges (“Chavez says U.S. may have orchestrated 9/11,” no pagination). Does Chavez have a reason for diverting peoples’ attention away from the Islamofascist aspect of 9/11? Chavez, like criminal elements in the U.S government, may have supported the Islamofascist terrorist network. Juan Diaz Castillo, a former Venezuelan Air Force major, claims he was charged by Chavez with the job of organizing a million dollars worth of assistance from Chavez to Al Qaeda (Freitas, no pagination).

The evidence overwhelmingly points to factions of the U.S. government being involved in 9/11. However, the government as a whole is not the culprit. Several government employees, such as Sibel Edmonds, Robert Wright, and others were doing their jobs. The culprit is a criminal element within our government. Do not think for one moment that Washington, Jefferson, or any of the other Founding Fathers constructed our constitutional government to be a system of enslavement. Parasitical criminal forces have latched on to the legitimate government. This criminal element has evolved into a shadow government running parallel with the constitutional government. The shadow government periodically prostitutes portions of our government to the power elite. They also sanction the power elite’s private forces to actually act as extensions of the government. So, in the end, oligarchs existing above government are the ultimate villains. Sorry if this bursts the bubble of anti-government types.

Fortunately, some of the more responsible researchers are not buying the garbage. According to German author Matthias Broeckers, when researcher Michel Chossudovsky learned of Gray’s financing of the International 9/11 Inquiry meeting, he demanded the that organizers drop Gray (Hopsicker, no pagination). While Chossudovsky’s warning was ignored, his actions clearly illustrate that not everyone is fooled by Kashoggi’s illusion. Essentially, Norquist and Kashoggi share the same job. Both want to divert peoples’ attention away from a government-sponsored Islamofascist terrorist network. Norquist diverts with a debate over civil rights. Kashoggi diverts with talk of demolition charges in the buildings, remote-controlled planes equipped with bunker buster bombs, missiles fired at the Pentagon, and holograms.

Iran-Contra Connection

Adnan Kashoggi, Khalid Bin Mahfouz, and BCCI are not just names associated with the shepherding and protecting of the Islamofascist terrorist network. They are also names associated with the Iran-Contra affair. Curiously, several members of the Iran-Contra fraternity have reemerged in the Bush Administration. Among them are Otto Reich, John Pointdexter, Elliott Abrams, and John Negroponte. There seems to be a connection between the shepherding and protection of the Islamofascist terrorist network and Iran-Contra. What is the commonality? Perhaps the answer lies in an exchange between Representative Jack Brooks and Senator Daniel Inouye during the 1987 Iran-Contra hearings:

Brooks: Colonel North, in your work at the N.S.C., were you not assigned, at one time, to work on plans for the continuity of government in the event of a major disaster?

Brendan Sullivan (North’s counsel): Mr. Chairman?

Senator Daniel Inouye: I believe that question touches upon a highly sensitive and classified area so may I request that you not touch upon that?

Representative Brooks: I was particularly concerned, Mr. Chairman, because I read in the Miami papers, and several others, that there had been a plan developed, by that same agency, a contingency plan in the event of emergency, that would suspend the American Constitution. And I was deeply concerned about it and wondered if that was the area in which he had worked I believe that it was and I wanted to get his confirmation.

Senator Inouye: May I most respectfully request that matter not be touched upon, at this stage. If we wish to get into this, I’m certain arrangements can be made for an executive session. (Keith 104)

It seems the Iran-Contra fraternity was in the midst of building a dictatorship here in the United States prior to being discovered. They may have returned to finish the job. The Islamofascist terrorist network is providing the pretext. John Poindexter’s Total Information Awareness (TIA) program provides a case in point. Daniel Schorr, a journalist for Christian Science Monitor, examines TIA:

Deep in the recesses of the Pentagon is the Office of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). DARPA is where Vice Adm. John Poindexter (USN ret.) hangs out these days, working on TIA. TIA stands for Total Information Awareness. The project, which is budgeted at $10 million this year and expected to get more next year, has been getting bad press. That is in part because its Orwellian-sounding purpose is to create a centralized database of personal information about Americans.

Cutting-edge technology would be used to gather everything that the computer age has to offer, from travel plans to pharmacy prescriptions. Pentagon officials say it’s meant to be a tool in the war against terrorism, not an invasion of privacy of innocent citizens. Well, maybe. But that would sound more reassuring if it were not for the identity of the project manager. (No pagination)

Indeed, Poindexter is certainly not one of the most ethical people who have ever lived. His past is replete with scandal and fraud, more than enough to preclude him from such a sensitive position as project manager of a national security program. Schorr proceeds to unveil Poindexter’s shady past:

Admiral Poindexter is probably better known for destroying information than for gathering it. Before a congressional investigating committee in 1986, he admitted that, as President Reagan’s national security adviser, he destroyed evidence in connection with the Iran-contra affair. Specifically, he tore up the only signed copy of a document called a “presidential finding” that retroactively authorized shipment of arms to Iran in return for the release of American hostages in Lebanon.

He testified that he did this to avoid embarrassment to Mr. Reagan. Poindexter, like Oliver North, who reported to him, was convicted in federal district court of lying to Congress and of obstruction. The conviction was overturned on technical grounds by an appeals court majority of two Reagan-appointed judges, Douglas Ginsburg and David Sentelle, over the vigorous dissent of Carter-appointed judge Abner Mikva. (No pagination)

Yet, despite Poindexter’s dubious past, the Bush Administration had no qualms about employing him in such a sensitive post. Schorr states:

The Bush administration has shown no inclination to alter Poindexter’s sensitive assignment. Mr. Rumsfeld says: “I would recommend people take a deep breath. Nothing terrible is going to happen.” (No pagination)

What was the nature of Poindexter’s Total Information Awareness project? What was its true magnitude and scope? Washington Times journalist Audrey Hudson provides a glimpse:

In what one critic has called “a supersnoop’s dream,” the Defense Department’s Total Information Awareness program would be authorized to collect every type of available public and private data in what the Pentagon describes as one “centralized grand database.” (No pagination)

This data would include: “e-mail, Internet use, travel, credit-card purchases, phone and bank records of foreigners” (no pagination). Further elaborating on the ominous scope of this centralized database, New York Times columnist William Safire wrote:

“To this computerized dossier on your private life from commercial sources, add every piece of information that government has about you – passport application, driver’s license and bridge toll records, judicial and divorce records, complaints from nosy neighbors to the FBI, your lifetime paper trail plus the latest hidden camera surveillance – and you have the supersnoop’s dream: a ‘Total Information Awareness’ about every U.S. citizen.” (Qutd. In Hudson, no pagination)

Needless to say, the TIA program would enable the Bush Administration to erect a dictatorship in the name of fighting the War on Terror. However, this would be no ordinary dictatorship. It would be a scientific dictatorship, also known as a technocracy. The particular variety of technocracy that TIA would help establish is what author Charles Stross refers to as a Panopticon Singularity. A Panopticon Singularity is a technocracy that technology has transformed into the perfect surveillance state. Charles Stross elaborates:

A Panopticon Singularity is the logical outcome if the burgeoning technologies of the singularity are funneled into automating law enforcement. Previous police states were limited by manpower, but the panopticon singularity substitutes technology, and ultimately replaces human conscience with a brilliant but merciless prosthesis.

If a panopticon singularity emerges, you’d be well advised to stay away from Massachusetts if you and your partner aren’t married. Don’t think about smoking a joint unless you want to see the inside of one of the labour camps where over 50% of the population sooner or later go. Don’t jaywalk, chew gum in public, smoke, exceed the speed limit, stand in front of fire exit routes, or wear clothing that violates the city dress code (passed on the nod in 1892, and never repealed because everybody knew nobody would enforce it and it would take up valuable legislative time). You won’t be able to watch those old DVD’s of ‘Friends’ you copied during the naughty oughties because if you stick them in your player it’ll call the copyright police on you. You’d better not spend too much time at the bar, or your insurance premiums will rocket and your boss might ask you to undergo therapy. You might be able to read a library book or play a round of a computer game, but your computer will be counting the words you read and monitoring your pulse so that it can bill you for the excitement it has delivered. (No pagination)

Even the official emblem of the Total Information Awareness program semiotically gesticulated towards the rise of a technocratic dictatorship. Schorr concludes his examination of the program with the following statement:

Outside Poindexter’s Pentagon office is a logo showing an all-seeing eye on top of a pyramid and the slogan, “Scientia est potentia” (“Knowledge is power”). The question is: How much power over knowledge about us should be entrusted to an admitted destroyer of federal documents? (No pagination)

Extensive press coverage of TIA led to the Pentagon shutting the program down and Poindexter leaving the government (Bamford, no pagination). However, the TIA’s method of collecting vast heaps of information, known in national security circles as “data mining,” did not disappear. Initiatives that elites cannot establish in plain view, they usually sneak through the back door. It was recently revealed that, in the fall of 2001, President Bush secretly ordered the National Security Agency (NSA) to sidestep a special court and carry out warrantless spying on American citizens (Bamford, no pagination).

The legality of the President’s actions is questionable. Under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, before spying domestically on Americans suspected of having terrorist ties, the NSA must first go before a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance court and show probable cause to obtain a warrant (Bamford, no pagination). Persuading a FISA court to give the NSA the warrants it desired would have been relatively simple, as James Bamford points out:

The court rarely turns the government down. Since it was established in 1978, the court has granted about 19,000 warrants; it has only rejected five. And even in those cases the government has the right to appeal to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court of Review, which in 27 years has only heard one case. And should the appeals court also reject the warrant request, the government could then appeal immediately to a closed session of the Supreme Court. (No pagination)

Given the ease with which the NSA might have procured the required warrants it is shocking that the President’s secret program bypassed the FISA court entirely. Perhaps the evidence suggesting probable cause was extremely flimsy. It would not be the first time that such was the case. J. Edgar Hoover was convinced that Martin Luther King Jr. was a subversive and tirelessly snooped into the famous Civil Rights leader’s private life. Today it is known that, while King’s private life left much to be desired, the case that he was somehow a conscious agent of Moscow was weak. Perhaps Bush did not want take a chance, no matter how low the odds, because his oligarchical upbringing has made it hard for him to take “no” for an answer.

However, there is another possibility. Perhaps the neoconservative faction of the elite are determined to establish the Panopticon Singularity before this President’s time in office is over. Such a task would call for circumventing every safeguard the law provides. The President may believe he has done just that by having the NSA spy on hundreds, perhaps even thousands, of Americans just for a few days or weeks at a time (Bamford, no pagination). Such fishing expeditions would allow the President to argue that the eavesdropping was short-term and that FISA does not apply because it is for long-term monitoring (Bamford, no pagination). Even still, Bamford contends that such a method is “precisely the type of abuse the FISA court was put in place to stop” (No pagination). The President may be establishing a dangerous precedent, the end of which is a fully functional Panopticon Singularity. All of this done in the name of fighting the very Islamofascist terrorist network that criminal elements in the government are sponsoring.

Conclusion

While it is discomforting, the conclusion is inescapable. There are criminal elements within the U.S. government that are guilty of protecting and shepherding the very Islamofascists they claim to be fighting. The power elite have an unhealthy influence on the American political system. A disturbing consequence of this influence is the fact that our government periodically goes to bed with known enemies of the United States. Whoever said, “When you lie down with dogs you get up with fleas” knew whereof he spoke. The enemy is now within the gates. If America had an effective internal security apparatus to weed people with conflicts of interest out of government service, this problem would probably be nonexistent. After all, government service is a privilege, not a right. The American people have a right to a government staffed with decent people. However, America does not have an effective internal security apparatus. The lack may be deliberate; as such an apparatus would have the potential of shining a light on people in very high places.

For instance, one person who would probably come under heavy scrutiny is none other than Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz. Recently it was revealed that Wolfowitz was engaged in a “discreet romance” with Shaha Riza, a communications advisor at the World Bank (Leiby, no pagination). The Oxford-educated Riza was born in Tunisia and grew up in Saudi Arabia (no pagination). She is a British citizen who claims to be a feminist, not exactly the qualities of an Islamofascist (no pagination). However, is this really the case or a just a cover? Has Wolfowitz been compromised? Is the man now working for the other side? Only an in-depth inquiry into the relationship between Wolfowitz and Riza could answer these questions. None seems to be forthcoming.

What are the motives behind this treason? The first motive is periodic loyalty to an ideological kissing cousin. Currently, the government has come under the control of the neoconservative wing of the power elite. The neoconservatives are Trotskyites who have blended their Trotskyist beliefs with the fascism of Leo Strauss. Because of this fascist additive, neoconservatives share much more in common with the Islamofascists than they care to admit.

However, the most important motive for protecting Islamofascists is the fact that they provide a pretext for world government. With the help of certain financiers who view neoconservatism as politically expedient, the neoconservatives have risen up through the political ranks to become a faction of the power elite. The power elite possess a shared vision of a world without borders, a New World Order. Neoconservatives are no exception to the rule. Without Islamofascism, there is no war on terrorism. Without the war on terrorism, there is no American Empire. The American Empire is merely the final stepping-stone to world government. Alexander Joffe made this clear in an article for the neocon connected Journal of International Security Affairs entitled “The Empire that Dared Not Speak Its Name.” In the article, Joffe states: “The best way to preserve the American empire is to eventually give it up. Setting the stage for global governance can only be done with American leadership and American-led institutions…” (no pagination).

The neoconservative crusade for world government calls for an expanded military campaign in the Middle East, the region of the world that is considered the epicenter of Islamofascism. This campaign will employ a method which neoconservative Michael Ledeen refers to as creative destruction. Ledeen defines this term:

Creative destruction is our middle name, both within our own society and abroad. We tear down the old order every day, from business to science, literature, art, architecture, and cinema to politics and the law. Our enemies have always hated this whirlwind of energy and creativity, which menaces their traditions (whatever they may be) and shames them for their inability to keep pace. Seeing America undo traditional societies, they fear us, for they do not wish to be undone. They cannot feel secure so long as we are there, for our very existence-our existence, not our policies-threatens their legitimacy. They must attack us in order to survive, just as we must destroy them to advance our historic mission. (212-213)

In a nutshell, creative destruction is the tearing down and rebuilding of every aspect of a society. It may be no accident that Ledeen’s creative destruction bears eerie resemblance to the Masonic dictum of Ordo ab Chao (order out of chaos). Ledeen collaborated with Francesco Pazienza, an Italian Secret Service agent and member of the notorious Propaganda Due (P2) Masonic lodge headed up by Licio Gelli (Szymanski, no pagination). It is quite possible that the creative destruction is merely the Masonic idea of Ordo ab Chao recycled by Ledeen and given a new name. The Islamofascists have been swept up into the game for a New World Order. When the American Empire resumes its march across the Middle East, it may eventually become apparent that the Islamofascists’ involvement in the game has made them beggars to their own demise. Creative destruction could tear down both extremist and moderate Islam. Islamic culture has been marked for extinction. Christian and Judaic cultures are meant to follow, as all the Abrahamic faiths are at odds with the oligarchical Weltanschauung.

However, there is another possibility to consider. Maybe the neoconservative faction could miscalculate and lose control of the Islamofascist network. While it is true that the neoconservatives are using the Islamofascists, it is also safe to assume the Islamofascists are milking the neoconservatives as well. What if the neoconservatives cease to be useful to the Islamofascists? The very network the neoconservatives facilitated the rise of could become too hard to manage. Islamofascism could actually turn on the neoconservatives. In such a situation, all bets would be off. Who knows which side would be the victor?

While many of the other elite factions do not agree with the neoconservatives’ imperial approach to world government, all parties seem to agree that the Islamofascists are an asset for now. At least one member of the ruling elite, former CIA executive director A.B. “Buzzy” Krongard has publicly stated that Bin Laden’s capture “might prove counter-productive” (Allen-Mills, no pagination). Krongard tried to justify his position by claiming that Bin Laden’s capture would result in a power struggle among Al-Qaeda subordinates that would unleash a wave of terrorist attacks (Allen-Mills, no pagination).

However, Krongard’s argument strains credulity to the breaking point. In all likelihood, Osama’s apprehension would result in a terrible loss of morale for Al-Qaeda and disorganization stemming from a serious leadership void. When you chop off the snake’s head, the body dies too. Truth be told, a world government needs enemies to justify its existence. An invisible Bin Laden, who can be everywhere and nowhere at the same time, provides just such a pretext.

The power elites’ collusion with the Islamofascists does not only jeopardize America’s well being. It also places America’s ally in the Middle East, Israel, in a very dangerous position. There is hardly a single Islamofascist group that does not steadfastly believe in the destruction of Israel. However, thee power elite do not care if their collaboration with Islamofascists results in Israel becoming a target. Recently, Israeli researcher Barry Chamish had an opportunity to speak with a member of the Rothschild dynasty. This family member’s statement captures the power elites’ attitude toward Israel. Chamish tells the story:

I am in Salt Lake City. A lunch is arranged for me with Evelyn Rothschild’s grandson who has abandoned the family for Mormonism. He does not talk willingly but I learn that just seven families are enjoying the fruits of the war. I ask him why they want to destroy Israel. He smiles and notes, “They created Israel as their personal toy. It makes them richer and gives them more control. It’s not going to be destroyed.” (no pagination)

The power elite considers Israel a play-thing. Doubtless, they feel the exact same way about America. Only ending the influence the power elite have over national governments will end this sorry state of affairs. Until that time, do not think it strange if current events have you feeling like someone’s toy.

Sources Cited

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About the author

Paul D. Collins has studied suppressed history and the shadowy undercurrents of world political dynamics for roughly eleven years. In 1999, he earned his Associate of Arts and Science degree. In 2006, he completed his bachelor’s degree with a major in liberal studies and a minor political science. Paul has authored another book entitled The Hidden Face of Terrorism: The Dark Side of Social Engineering, From Antiquity to September 11. Published in November 2002, the book is available online from www.1stbooks.com, barnesandnoble.com, and also amazon.com. It can be purchased as an e-book (ISBN 1-4033-6798-1) or in paperback format (ISBN 1-4033-6799-X). Paul also co-authored The Ascendancy of the Scientific Dictatorship (ISBN 1-4196-3932-3).

The Ascendancy of the Scientific Dictatorship is available here. Read a comprehensive collection of Collins essays here.