Nexus - 0905 - New Times Magazine-pages

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Both President Bush and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff largely as a form of bribery, payment of which secures the regime Myers displayed sheer indifference to the September 11 attacks as from being targeted by his network. In the words of the New they were occurring, which further suggests their particular Yorker (October 22, 2001), the regime is "so weakened and fright- responsibility. Once again, a full-fledged inquiry is required into ened that it has brokered its future by channelling hundreds of this matter. millions of dollars in what amounts to protection money to funda- « Independent journalists revealed that Mahmoud Ahmed, as ISI mentalist groups that wish to overthrow it". As a result, it has Director-General, had channelled US government funding to been specifically US interests, rather than those of the Saudi Mohamed Atta, described as the "lead hijacker" by the FBI. The establishment, that have come under fire from such groups. US government protected Ahmed, and itself, by asking him to While the US seems to have been aware for many years of the resign quietly after the discovery, thus blocking a further inquiry Saudi establishment's involvement in funding Al-Qa'ida, succes- and a potential scandal. sive administrations have deliberately allowed this to continue, * The events of September 11 have in fact been of crucial bene- motivated by concern for oil profits as secured through US hege- fit to the Bush administration, justifying the consolidation of elite mony over the Saudi regime, whose "stability"—meaning ongo- power and profit both within the US and throughout the world. ing rule—must be preserved at any cost. It appears that this sta- The tragic events that involved the murder bility is worth preserving, even if the cost of thousands of innocent civilians were be the lives of American soldiers and civil- exploited by the US government to crack ians, abroad and at home. down on domestic freedoms, while launch- Corporate elite interests, in other words, ing a ruthless bombing campaign on the far outweigh alleged concerns for American largely helpless people of Afghanistan, lives. A documented precedent for this sort directly resulting in the further killing of of policy is Al-Qa'ida's bombing of the US almost double the number of civilians who The events of embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, which, died on 9-11. as Richard Labeviére reports, did not inter- September 11 have rupt the Clinton administration's indirect Possible US Complicity in 9-11 in fact been of support of bin Laden's network, since "they There are several possible scenarios . . figured the US would gain more from it in regarding the role of the US government crucial benefit to the the long run". The same brand of consider- that explain these facts. All of these possi- Bush administration, ations seems to have motivated the continu- bilities, however, strongly suggest a signifi- . aps ation and promotion of US ties with those cant degree of US complicity in the events justifying the responsible for supporting Al-Qa'ida, even of September 11. This does not imply consolidation of in the aftermath of September 11— that the US was involved in orches- . 5 namely, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia. trating the events of September 11 elite power and profit Simultaneously, it is also clear that from start to finish, or that the attacks both within the US US intelligence had anticipated Al- on the World Trade Center and Qa'ida's terrorist plans for September and throughout the world. Pentagon were "staged" by the US, or 11 (at least to a general extent, but that those responsible were on a direct most probably to a highly specific US payroll in receipt of direct US degree), but continued to facilitate and orders. support—from behind the scenes What it does mean is that the US through its regional allies—the build- government, through its actions and up to the implementation of those inactions, effectively facilitated the plans, while ensuring the lack of pre- attacks, protected those responsible, ventive measures at home both prior blocked attempts to prevent the to and on September 11. The reason attacks, and maintained close political, for this appears to be that those financial, military and intelligence ties attacks were about to occur at a fortu- to key figures who supported those responsible. Whether or not —_itous time for the Bush administration, which was facing both a every stage of these policies was a result of deliberation, the role domestic and an international crisis of legitimacy, accompanied that the US government has played both historically and currently by growing cracks in world order under US hegemony in the form in key events leading up to and after September 11 strongly sug- of escalating worldwide dissent and protest. gests US responsibility for those events. By allowing these terrorist acts to occur, and by apparently At the very least, this amounts to complicity through negligence pushing a few necessary buttons while closing a few important or omission, for the simple reason that the US government has doors, thus ensuring their occurrence, the Bush administration systematically behaved with wilful recklessness, with sheer indif- effectively permitted and supported Al-Qa'ida through its key ference as to the probable consequences in terms of loss of allies in its September 11 assault (whether the terrorist network American lives, in the pursuit of strategic and economic interests. knew it or not), thus establishing the trigger so desperately needed Furthermore, the consistent and indeed systematic manner in to re-assert its power politics worldwide. which these policies have been implemented, even in the after- Indeed, the measures taken by the Bush administration in the math of September 11, also suggests deliberate complicity.' aftermath of September 11 appear to have been specifically tai- There is, of course, a context to this complicity, which estab- lored to ensure that the increasingly fatal cracks in world order, lishes that the US relationship with Osama bin Laden is far more _ that had begun to appear both at home and abroad before complex than conventional opinion would have us believe. The September 11, did not appear again. Saudi establishment appears to have been supporting bin Laden The domestic crackdown on basic civil rights, combined with The events of September 11 have in fact been of ; justifying the consolidation of ; elite power and profit both within the US and throughout the world. NEXUS = 13 crucial benefit to the Bush administration, AUGUST - SEPTEMBER 2002 www.nexusmagazine.com