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wealth. And it has to be said that the American free enterprise business interests have shown their eagerness to work with these system, like every other dominant political system in a current allies of the meta-group. nation with world pretensions, will tend above all to represent the It is fitting to think of most US intelligence assets as chess interests of the wealthy. pieces, moved at the whim of their controllers. That is, however, Thus the Bush Administration's policies cannot be assumed to not an apt metaphor for the meta-group, which clearly has the reflect the national goals of peace and security, as outlined above. resources to negotiate and to exert its own influence interactively On the contrary, its shocking underfunding of Afghanistan's upon the governments with which it works. recovery, like its complex and destabilising interventions in Since first hearing about the meta-group's role in the Russian Georgia, suggest that it, as much as the drug traffic, hopes to 9/11, Ihave pondered the question of whether it could have utilise instability—as a pretext for maintaining unstable US bases played a similar role in the American 9/11 as well. At this point, I in countries like Uzbekistan, whose people eventually will object have to say that I have found no persuasive evidence that would more and more to them. prove the meta-group's involvement. The fact remains that two It is, I think, a matter of national priority to learn more about informed and credible witnesses, Sibell Edmonds and Indira the American links to Far West Ltd, the group accused of staging Singh, have spoken independently of the importance of the Russian 9/11. It is a matter of more than purely historic international drug-trafficking in the background of 9/11. interest to learn if that group's Islamist and American connections I said earlier that by suppressing awareness of the role of drug- could have supplied a meeting ground for staging the American trafficking in our society, we give drug-traffickers a de facto 9/11 as well. For at present, America faces in franchise to exert political influence without Afghanistan what Russia faces in Chechnya: a icism or opposition. An example of this is war which is favourable to drug-trafficking but the discussion 0 in America, whic hich is fi ble to drug-trafficking bi he di i f 9/11 in Ameri hich increasingly deleterious to national well-being. usually fails to consider the meta-group among The Bush Administration continues to use 9/11 the list of possible suspects. to sell its Asian adventures to the American . people. Meanwhile, elements profiting from It is a matter of MetaGroups and Transpolitics the flow of Afghan drugs continue to grow national priority to History has demonstrated, four or five times stronger and more dangerous to the well-being over, the dialectics of openness. This process of both countries. learn more about determined the fates of the ancient city-states of the American links Athens and Rome, and since the Renaissance Concluding Question: The we have seen it again with the empires of MetaGroup and the United States to Far West Ltd, Spain, The Netherlands and Great Britain. Government the group accused An urban civil society that is free and open It seems clear that the meta-group, with . will generate wealth. As wealth increases, its influential connections on at least three of staging the the society will expand its institutions continents, was powerful enough to effect Russian 9/1 1. beyond its borders. This is the story richly changes, through the Russian 9/11, in documented by Kevin Phillips in his book Russian history. The question arises as to Wealth and Democracy (Broadway Books, whether they could similarly effect changes 2002), a book that should be read in every in American history as well. American college and school. To the As we have seen, Russian sources claim extent that wealth expands, these extra- that the US Government has had access to societal institutions come to lie outside the the meta-group for such especially transparency of domestic civil society. In sensitive projects as the assassination of effect, they become both powerful and Abu al-Walid al-Hamadi. They claim the meta-group's secret, and new elements of the state develop to interact with them involvement in a number of US-sponsored regime changes in on a secret level." Eastern Europe, from the overthrow of Ceausescu in Romania to Within the state, secrecy trumps openness. There is a political the recent deposition of Shevardnadze in Georgia. The Wall sociology of secrecy: those with higher clearances participate in Street Journal [November 24, 2003] attributed the latter to the policy-making at a level where those without clearances are work of "a raft of non-governmental organizations...supported by denied access. As long as external wealth continues to increase, American and other Western foundations". One of these was the so will the importance of secret policy-making. The result is the Albert Einstein Institute (AEI), funded by both the National transition of what was once an open society, perhaps even a Endowment for Democracy (NED) and the Soros foundations, republic (as in the case of Athens, Rome and The Netherlands), which helped to create the dissident youth movement Kmara in into an empire. Institutions and relationships outside the bounds Georgia. Audrius Butkevicius, the meta-group member now of civil society will tend to consolidate into what I call "meta- resident in Georgia, is said to be closely connected with the AEI.”’ groups"—groups outside the state that have the wealth and de Returning to a question raised earlier, it also seems possible that —_facto power to influence the policies of the state. the US Government might contemplate using Hizb ut-Tahrir and This has been particularly true since the so-called Reagan the meta-group for political changes in Russia itself, even while Revolution and the collapse of the Soviet Union. US bases have combating the Islamism of al-Qaeda elsewhere. This would be now appeared in previously unthinkable outposts like the former far from the first time that the US Government had used drug- Soviet republics of Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and Georgia, but only trafficking proxies ssets, and would do a lot to explain the role after US oil majors had already secured multibillion-dollar of the US in 2001 in restoring major drug traffickers to power in contracts for oil exploration in the Transcaspian basin. Afghanistan. Dubious figures like Khodorkovsky and Khashoggi have already shown their interest in such initiatives, and Western Continued on page 77 national priority to learn more about to Far West Ltd, the group accused of staging the Russian 9/11. NEXUS 25 It is a matter of the American links Continued on page 77 AUGUST - SEPTEMBER 2006 www.nexusmagazine.com