The omnipotence of Al Qaeda and meaninglessness of "Terrorism" By Glenn Greenwald

[Magda Hassan]

The omnipotence of Al Qaeda and meaninglessness of "Terrorism"
By Glenn Greenwald

The omnipotence of Al Qaeda and meaninglessness of
AP
An injured woman is assisted from a damaged building in Oslo, Friday, after an explosion rocked the city.

(updated below - Update II)

For much of the day yesterday, the featured headline on The New York Times online front page strongly suggested that Muslims were responsible for the attacks on Oslo; that led to definitive statements on the BBC and elsewhere that Muslims were the culprits. The Washington Post's Jennifer Rubin wrote a whole column based on the assertion that Muslims were responsible, one that, as James Fallows notes, remains at the Post with no corrections or updates. The morning statement issued by President Obama -- "It's a reminder that the entire international community holds a stake in preventing this kind of terror from occurring" and "we have to work cooperatively together both on intelligence and in terms of prevention of these kinds of horrible attacks" -- appeared to assume, though (to its credit) did not overtly state, that the perpetrator was an international terrorist group.

But now it turns out that the alleged perpetrator wasn't from an international Muslim extremist group at all, but was rather a right-wing Norwegian nationalist with a history of anti-Muslim commentary and an affection for Muslim-hating blogs such as Pam Geller's Atlas Shrugged, Daniel Pipes, and Robert Spencer's Jihad Watch. Despite that, The New York Times is still working hard to pin some form of blame, even ultimate blame, on Muslim radicals (h/t sysprog):

Terrorism specialists said that even if the authorities ultimately ruled out Islamic terrorism as the cause of Friday's assaults, other kinds of groups or individuals were mimicking Al Qaeda's brutality and multiple attacks.

"If it does turn out to be someone with more political motivations, it shows these groups are learning from what they see from Al Qaeda," said Brian Fishman, a counterterrorism researcher at the New America Foundation in Washington.

Al Qaeda is always to blame, even when it isn't, even when it's allegedly the work of a Nordic, Muslim-hating, right-wing European nationalist. Of course, before Al Qaeda, nobody ever thought to detonate bombs in government buildings or go on indiscriminate, politically motivated shooting rampages. The NYT speculates that amonium nitrate fertilizer may have been used to make the bomb because the suspect, Anders Behring Breivik, owned a farming-related business and thus could have access to that material; of course nobody would have ever thought of using that substance to make a massive bomb had it not been for Al Qaeda. So all this proves once again what a menacing threat radical Islam is.

Then there's this extraordinarily revealing passage from the NYT -- first noticed by Richard Silverstein -- explaining why the paper originally reported what it did:

Initial reports focused on the possibility of Islamic militants, in particular Ansar al-Jihad al-Alami, or Helpers of the Global Jihad, cited by some analysts as claiming responsibility for the attacks. American officials said the group was previously unknown and might not even exist.

There was ample reason for concern that terrorists might be responsible.

In other words, now that we know the alleged perpetrator is not Muslim, we know -- by definition -- that Terrorists are not responsible; conversely, when we thought Muslims were responsible, that meant -- also by definition -- that it was an act of Terrorism. As Silverstein put it:

How's that again? Are the only terrorists in the world Muslim? If so, what do we call a right-wing nationalist capable of planting major bombs and mowing down scores of people for the sake of the greater glory of his cause? If even a liberal newspaper like the Times can't call this guy a terrorist, what does that say about the mindset of the western world?

What it says is what we've seen repeatedly: that Terrorism has no objective meaning and, at least in American political discourse, has come functionally to mean: violence committed by Muslims whom the West dislikes, no matter the cause or the target. Indeed, in many (though not all) media circles, discussion of the Oslo attack quickly morphed from this is Terrorism (when it was believed Muslims did it) to no, this isn't Terrorism, just extremism (once it became likely that Muslims didn't). As Maz Hussain -- whose lengthy Twitter commentary on this event yesterday was superb and well worth reading -- put it:

That Terrorism means nothing more than violence committed by Muslims whom the West dislikes has been proven repeatedly. When an airplane was flown into an IRS building in Austin, Texas, it was immediately proclaimed to be Terrorism, until it was revealed that the attacker was a white, non-Muslim, American anti-tax advocate with a series of domestic political grievances. The U.S. and its allies can, by definition, never commit Terrorism even when it is beyond question that the purpose of their violence is to terrorize civilian populations into submission. Conversely, Muslims who attack purely military targets -- even if the target is an invading army in their own countries -- are, by definition, Terrorists. That is why, as NYU's Remi Brulin has extensively documented, Terrorism is the most meaningless, and therefore the most manipulated, word in the English language. Yesterday provided yet another sterling example.

One last question: if, as preliminary evidence suggests, it turns out that Breivik was "inspired" by the extremist hatemongering rantings of Geller, Pipes and friends, will their groups be deemed Terrorist organizations such that any involvement with them could constitute the criminal offense of material support to Terrorism? Will those extremist polemicists inspiring Terrorist violence receive the Anwar Awlaki treatment of being put on an assassination hit list without due process? Will tall, blond, Nordic-looking males now receive extra scrutiny at airports and other locales, and will those having any involvement with those right-wing, Muslim-hating groups be secretly placed on no-fly lists? Or are those oppressive, extremist, lawless measures -- like the word Terrorism -- also reserved exclusively for Muslims?



UPDATE: The original version of the NYT article was even worse in this regard. As several people noted, here is what the article originally said (papers that carry NYT articles still have the original version):

Terrorism specialists said that even if the authorities ultimately ruled out terrorism as the cause of Friday's assaults, other kinds of groups or individuals were mimicking al-Qaida's signature brutality and multiple attacks.

"If it does turn out to be someone with more political motivations, it shows these groups are learning from what they see from al-Qaida," said Brian Fishman, a counterterrorism researcher at the New America Foundation in Washington.

Thus: if it turns out that the perpetrators weren't Muslim (but rather "someone with more political motivations" -- whatever that means: it presumably rests on the inane notion that Islamic radicals are motivated by religion, not political grievances), then it means that Terrorism, by definition, would be "ruled out" (one might think that the more politically-motivated an act of violence is, the more deserving it is of the Terrorism label, but this just proves that the defining feature of the word Terrorism is Muslim violence). The final version of the NYT article inserted the word "Islamic" before "terrorism" ("even if the authorities ultimately ruled out Islamic terrorism as the cause"), but -- as demonstrated above -- still preserved the necessary inference that only Muslims can be Terrorists. Meanwhile, in the world of reality, of 294 Terrorist attacks attempted or executed on European soil in 2009 as counted by the EU, a grand total of one -- 1 out of 294 -- was perpetrated by "Islamists."


UPDATE II: This article expertly traces and sets forth exactly how the "Muslims-did-it" myth was manufactured and then disseminated yesterday to the worldwide media, which predictably repeated it with little skepticism. What makes the article so valuable is that it names names: it points to the incestuous, self-regarding network of self-proclaimed U.S. Terrorism and foreign policy "experts" -- what the article accurately describes as "almost always white men and very often with military or government backgrounds," in this instance driven by "a case of an elite fanboy wanting to be the first to pass on leaked gadget specs" -- who so often shape these media stories and are uncritically presented as experts, even though they're drowning in bias, nationalism, ignorance, and shallow credentialism.
http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_...index.html

[Jan Klimkowski]

One last question: if, as preliminary evidence suggests, it turns out that Breivik was "inspired" by the extremist hatemongering rantings of Geller, Pipes and friends, will their groups be deemed Terrorist organizations such that any involvement with them could constitute the criminal offense of material support to Terrorism? Will those extremist polemicists inspiring Terrorist violence receive the Anwar Awlaki treatment of being put on an assassination hit list without due process? Will tall, blond, Nordic-looking males now receive extra scrutiny at airports and other locales, and will those having any involvement with those right-wing, Muslim-hating groups be secretly placed on no-fly lists? Or are those oppressive, extremist, lawless measures -- like the word Terrorism -- also reserved exclusively for Muslims?

Indeed.

Maybe the US should start using predator drones to bomb Norwegian farms suspected of using fertilizer....

Anyone dressed in freemasonic ritual attire should presumably also be a target for the acne-scarred, gum-chewing, adolescent assassins pushing their joysticks in feverish excitement and demanding the power of death from afar....

There are plenty of easy targets where christian fundamentalists gather - starting with, ahem, places of worship aka churches. Langley should order up some preemptive strikes which the US regime's hired gun lawyers can justify on grounds of the "precautionary principle": Heaven knows what horrors these fundamentalists could be plotting.....

If Norway protests against America's infringement of its airspace and killing of its citizens by drone, Richard Armitage could threaten to bomb Scandanavia back to the Stone Age.

[Charles Drago]

Anti-Muslim.

Pro-Muslim.

Anti-Castro.

Pro-Castro.

The template, updated.

To which I might add:

Helter-Skelter.

And Jan, wouldn't "back to the Ice Age" be more appropriate?

[Magda Hassan]

Helter Skelter was exactly what I was thinking about Oslo. A race war brought on by whitey using chaos.

[Jan Klimkowski]

Helter Skelter was exactly what I was thinking about Oslo. A race war brought on by whitey using chaos.

And Helter Skelter was of course a psyop Race War created by an intelligence operation masquerading as a church and then translated into Pop idiom for Charlie Manson to preach to his paranoid family....

I note in passing that the Bug promoted Helter Skelter as credible rationale...

[Magda Hassan]

Al Qaeda: Enemy or Asset?

by NAFEEZ MOSADDEQ AHMED
A whistleblower has revealed extraordinary information on the U.S. government's support for international terrorist networks and organised crime. The government has denied the allegations yet gone to extraordinary lengths to silence her. Her critics have derided her as a fabulist and fabricator. But now comes word that some of her most serious allegations were confirmed by a major European newspaper only to be squashed at the request of the U.S. government.
In a recent book Classified Woman, Sibel Edmonds, a former translator for the FBI, describes how the Pentagon, CIA and State Department maintained intimate ties to al-Qaeda militants as late as 2001. Her memoir, Classified Woman: The Sibel Edmonds Story, published last year, charged senior government officials with negligence, corruption and collaboration with al Qaeda in illegal arms smuggling and drugs trafficking in Central Asia.
In interviews with this author in early March, Edmonds claimed that Ayman al-Zawahiri, current head of al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden's deputy at the time, had innumerable, regular meetings at the U.S. embassy in Baku, Azerbaijan, with U.S. military and intelligence officials between 1997 and 2001, as part of an operation known as Gladio B'. Al-Zawahiri, she charged, as well as various members of the bin Laden family and other mujahideen, were transported on NATO planes to various parts of Central Asia and the Balkans to participate in Pentagon-backed destabilisation operations.
According to two Sunday Times journalists speaking on condition of anonymity, this and related revelations had been confirmed by senior Pentagon and MI6 officials as part of a four-part investigative series that were supposed to run in 2008. The Sunday Times journalists described how the story was inexplicably dropped under the pressure of undisclosed "interest groups", which, they suggest, were associated with the U.S. State Department.
Shooting the Messenger
Described by the American Civil Liberties Union as the "most gagged person in the history of the United States of America," Edmonds studied criminal justice, psychology and public policy at George Washington and George Mason universities. Two weeks after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, her fluency in Turkish, Farsi and Azerbaijani earned her an FBI contract at the Washington DC field office. She was tasked with translating highly classified intelligence from operations against terrorism suspects in and outside the U.S..
In the course of her work, Edmonds became privy to evidence that U.S. military and intelligence agencies were collaborating with Islamist militants affiliated with al-Qaeda, the very forces blamed for the 9/11 attacks and that officials in the FBI were covering up the evidence. When Edmonds complained to her superiors, her family was threatened by one of the subjects of her complaint, and she was fired. Her accusations of espionage against her FBI colleagues were eventually investigated by the Justice Department's Office of the Inspector General, which did not give details about the allegations as they remained classified.
Although no final conclusions about the espionage allegations were reached, the Justice Department concluded that many of Edmonds' accusations "were supported, that the FBI did not take them seriously enough and that her allegations were, in fact, the most significant factor in the FBI's decision to terminate her services."
When she attempted to go public with her story in 2002, and again in 2004, the U.S. government silenced Edmonds by invoking a legal precedent known as "state secrets privilege" a near limitless power to quash a lawsuit based solely on the government's claim that evidence or testimony could divulge information that might undermine "national security." Under this doctrine, the government sought to retroactively classify basic information concerning Edmonds's case already in the public record, including, according to the New York Times, "what languages Ms. Edmonds translated, what types of cases she handled, and what employees she worked with, officials said. Even routine and widely disseminated information like where she worked is now classified."
Although certainly not the first invocation of "state secrets privilege", since the Edmonds case the precedent has been used repeatedly in the post-9/11 era under both the Bush and Obama administrations to shield the U.S. government from court scrutiny of rendition, torture, warrantless wiretapping, as well as the President's claimed war powers.
Other intelligence experts agree that Edmonds had stumbled upon a criminal conspiracy at the heart of the American judicial system. In her memoirs, she recounts that FBI Special Agent Gilbert Graham, who also worked in the Washington field office on counter-intelligence operations, told her over a coffee how he "ran background checks on federal judges" in the "early nineties for the bureau… If we came up with shit skeletons in their closets the Justice Department kept it in their pantry to be used against them in the future or to get them to do what they want in certain cases cases like yours."A redacted version of Graham's classified protected disclosure to the Justice Department regarding these allegations, released in 2007, refers to the FBI's "abuse of authority" by conducting illegal wiretapping to obtain information on U.S. public officials.
Incubating Terror
Five years ago, Edmonds revealed to the Sunday Times that an unidentified senior U.S. State Department official was on the payroll of Turkish agents in Washington, passing on nuclear and military secrets. "He was aiding foreign operatives against U.S. interests by passing them highly classified information, not only from the State Department but also from the Pentagon, in exchange for money, position and political objectives", Edmonds told the paper. She reported coming across this informationwhen listening to suppressed phone calls recorded by FBI surveillance, marked by her colleague Melek Can Dickerson as "not pertinent".
In the Sunday Times exposé, Edmonds described a parallel organisation in Israel cooperating with the Turks on illegal weapons sales and technology transfers. Between them, Israel and Turkey operated a range of front companies incorporated in the U.S. with active "moles in sensitive military and nuclear institutions", supported by U.S. officials, in order to sell secrets to the highest bidder. One of the buyers was Pakistan's Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) which often used its Turkish allies, according to the Times, "as a conduit… because they were less likely to attract suspicion."
The Pakistani operation was, the paper reported, "led by General Mahmoud Ahmad, then the ISI chief" from 1999 to 2001, when the agency helped train, supply and coordinate the Afghan Taliban and gave sanctuary to their Arab allies brought together in the coalition named al-Qaeda. Ahmad, as the Timesnoted, "was accused [by the FBI] of sanctioning a $100,000 wire payment to Mohammed Atta, one of the 9/11 hijackers, immediately before the attacks."
According to Indian intelligence officials, they had assisted the FBI in "tracing and establishing" the financial trail between the General and the chief hijacker. The discovery was, they allege, the real reason behind the General's sudden retirement in October 2001. The Pakistani daily, The News, reported on 10th September 2001 that the ISI chief held several "mysterious meetings at the Pentagon and National Security Council" that week, including with CIA director George Tenet.
In an interview with this author in March, Edmonds raised the question of whether U.S. officials' liaisons with an espionage network overseen by Ahmad, and the FBI's suppression of related intelligence, played a role in facilitating the attacks.
"Following 9/11, a number of the foreign operatives were taken in for questioning by the FBI on suspicion that they knew about or somehow aided the attacks", reported the Sunday Times. The paper related that according to Edmonds, the senior State Department official received a call from a foreign agent under FBI surveillance asking for help to "get them out of the U.S. because we can't afford for them to spill the beans." The official promised "he would take care of it'."
Edmonds told this author that high-level corruption compromised the ability of the U.S. intelligence community to pursue ongoing investigations of those planning the 9/11 attacks. "It was precisely those militants that were incubated by some of America's key allies", she said. Corruption helped guarantee Congressional silence when that incubation strategy backfired in the form of 9/11. "Both Republican and Democratic representatives in the House and Senate came up in FBI counterintelligence investigations for taking bribes from foreign agents", she said.
Al-Qaeda: Enemy or Asset?
In her interview, Edmonds insisted that after its initial exposé, the Times investigation had gone beyond such previous revelations, and was preparing to disclose her most startling accusations. Among these, Edmonds described how the CIA and the Pentagon had been running a series of covert operations supporting Islamist militant networks linked to Osama bin Laden right up to 9/11, in Central Asia, the Balkans and the Caucasus.
While it is widely recognised that the CIA sponsored bin Laden's networks in Afghanistan during the Cold War, U.S. government officials deny any such ties existed. Others claim these ties were real, but were severed after the Soviet Union collapsed in 1989.
But according to Edmonds, this narrative is false. "Not just bin Laden, but several senior bin Ladens' were transported by U.S. intelligence back and forth to the region in the late 1990s through to 2001″, she told this author, "including Ayman al-Zawahiri" Osama bin Laden's right-hand-man who has taken over as al-Qaeda's top leader.
"In the late 1990s, all the way up to 9/11, al-Zawahiri and other mujahideen operatives were meeting regularly with senior U.S. officials in the U.S. embassy in Baku to plan the Pentagon's Balkan operations with the mujahideen," said Edmonds. "We had support for these operations from Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, but the U.S. oversaw and directed them. They were being run from a secret section of the Pentagon with its own office".
Edmonds clarified, "the FBI counterintelligence investigation which was tracking these targets, along with their links to U.S. officials, was known as Gladio B', and was kickstarted in 1997. It so happens that Major Douglas Dickerson" the husband of her FBI co-worker Melek whom she accused of espionage "specifically directed the Pentagon's Gladio' operations in Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan at this time."
In testimony under oath, Edmonds has previously confirmed that Major Doug Dickerson worked for the Pentagon's Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) under the weapons procurement logistics division on Turkey and Central Asia, and with the Office of Special Plans (OSP) overseeing policy in Central Asia.
Gladio B
Edmonds said that the Pentagon operations with Islamists were an "extension" of an original Gladio' programme uncovered in the 1970s in Italy, part of an EU-wide NATO covert operation that began as early as the 1940s. As Swiss historian Dr. Daniele Ganser records in his seminal book, NATO's Secret Armies, an official Italian parliamentary inquiry confirmed that British MI6 and the CIA had established a network of secret "stay-behind" paramilitary armies, staffed by fascist and Nazi collaborators. The covert armies carried out terrorist attacks throughout Western Europe, officially blamed on Communists in what Italian military intelligence called the strategy of tension'.
"You had to attack civilians, the people, women, children, innocent people, unknown people far removed from any political game" explained Gladio operative Vincenzo Vinciguerra during his trial in 1984. "The reason was quite simple. They were supposed to force these people… to turn to the State to ask for greater security."
While the reality of Gladio's existence in Europe is a matter of historical record, Edmonds contended the same strategy was adopted by the Pentagon in the 1990s in a new theatre of operations, namely, Asia. "Instead of using neo-Nazis, they used mujahideen working under various bin Ladens, as well as al-Zawahiri", she said.
The last publicly known Gladio meeting occurred in NATO's Allied Clandestine Committee (ACC) in Brussels in 1990. While Italy was a focal point for the older European operations, Edmonds said that Turkey and Azerbaijan served as the main conduits for a completely new, different set of operations in Asia using veterans of the anti-Soviet campaign in Afghanistan, the so-called "Afghan Arabs" that had been trained by al-Qaeda.
These new Pentagon-led operations were codenamed Gladio B' by FBI counterintelligence: "In 1997, NATO asked [Egyptian President] Hosni Mubarak to release from prison Islamist militants affiliated to Ayman al-Zawahiri [whose role in the assassination of Anwar Sadat led to Mubarak's ascension]. They were flown under U.S. orders to Turkey for [training and use in] operations by the Pentagon", she said.
Edmonds' allegations find some independent corroboration in the public record. The Wall Street Journal refers to a nebulous agreement between Mubarak and "the operational wing of Egyptian Islamic Jihad, which was then headed by Ayman al-Zawahiri… Many of that group's fighters embraced a cease-fire with the government of former President Hosni Mubarak in 1997."
Youssef Bodansky, former Director of the Congressional Task Force on Terrorism and Unconventional Warfare, cited U.S. intelligence sources in an article for Defense and Foreign Affairs: Strategic Policy, confirming "discussions between the Egyptian terrorist leader Dr. Ayman al-Zawahiri and an Arab-American known to have been both an emissary of the CIA and the U.S. Government." He referred to an "offer" made to al-Zawahiri in November 1997 on behalf of U.S. intelligence, granting his Islamists a free hand in Egypt as long as they lent support to U.S. forces in the Balkans. In 1998, Al Zawahiri's brother, Muhammed, led an elite unit of the Kosovo Liberation Army against Serbs during the Kosovo conflict he reportedly had direct contact with NATO leadership.
"This is why", Edmonds continued in her interview, "even though the FBI routinely monitored the communications of the diplomatic arms of all countries, only four countries were exempt from this protocol the UK, Turkey, Azerbaijan, and Belgium the seat of NATO. No other country not even allies like Israel or Saudi Arabia, were exempt. This is because these four countries were integral to the Pentagon's so-called Gladio B operations."
Edmonds did not speculate on the objectives of the Pentagon's Gladio B' operations, but highlighted the following possibilities: projecting U.S. power in the former Soviet sphere of influence to access previously untapped strategic energy and mineral reserves for U.S. and European companies; pushing back Russian and Chinese power; and expanding the scope of lucrative criminal activities, particularly illegal arms and drugs trafficking.
Terrorism finance expert Loretta Napoleoni estimates the total value of this criminal economy to be about $1.5 trillion annually, the bulk of which "flows into Western economies, where it gets recycled in the U.S. and in Europe" as a "vital element of the cash flow of these economies."
It is no coincidence then that the opium trade, Edmonds told this author, has grown rapidly under the tutelage of NATO in Afghanistan: "I know for a fact that NATO planes routinely shipped heroin to Belgium, where they then made their way into Europe and to the UK. They also shipped heroin to distribution centres in Chicago and New Jersey. FBI counterintelligence and DEA (Drug Enforcement Agency) operations had acquired evidence of this drug trafficking in its surveillance of a wide range of targets, including senior officials in the Pentagon, CIA and State Department. As part of this surveillance, the role of the Dickersons with the support of these senior U.S. officials in facilitating drug-trafficking, came up. It was clear from this evidence that the whole funnel of drugs, money and terror in Central Asia was directed by these officials."
The evidence for this funnel, according to Edmonds, remains classified in the form of FBI counterintelligence surveillance records she was asked to translate. Although this alleged evidence has never made it to court due to the U.S. government's exertion of state secret privilege', she was able to testify in detail concerning her allegations, including naming names, in 2009.
Censorship
In recent interviews, two Sunday Times journalists confirmed to this author that the newspaper's investigation based on Sibel Edmonds' revelations was to break much of the details into the open.
"We'd spoken to several current and active Pentagon officials confirming the existence of U.S. operations sponsoring mujahideen networks in Central Asia from the 1990s to 2001," said oneSunday Times source. "Those mujahideen networks were intertwined with a whole range of criminal enterprises, including drugs and guns. The Pentagon officials corroborated Edmonds' allegations against specific U.S. officials, and I'd also interviewed an MI6 officer who confirmed that the U.S. was running these operations sponsoring mujahideen in that period."
But according to Edmonds, citing the investigative team at the paper, the last two articles in the series were spiked under U.S. State Department pressure. She recalled being told at the time by journalists leading the Sunday Times investigation that the newspaper's editor had decided to squash the story after receiving calls from officials at the U.S. embassy in London.
A journalist with the Sunday Times investigative unit told this author he had interviewed former Special Agent in Charge, Dennis Saccher, who had moved to the FBI's Colorado office. Saccher reportedly confirmed the veracity of Edmonds' allegations of espionage, telling him that Edmonds' story "should have been front page news" because it was "a scandal bigger than Watergate." The same journalist confirmed that after interviewing Saccher at his home, the newspaper was contacted by the U.S. State Department. "The U.S. embassy in London called the editor and tried to ward him off. We were told that we weren't permitted to approach Saccher or any other active FBI agents directly, but could only go through the FBI's press office that if we tried to speak to Saccher or anyone else employed by the FBI directly, that would be illegal. Of course, it isn't, but that's what we were told. I think this was a veiled threat."
Saccher's comments to the journalist never made it to press.
A lead reporter on the series at the Sunday Times told this author that the investigation based on Edmonds' information was supposed to have four parts, but was inexplicably dropped. "The story was pulled half-way, suddenly, without any warning", the journalist said. "I wasn't party to the editorial decision to drop the story, but there was a belief in the office amongst several journalists who were part of the Insight investigative unit that the decision was made under pressure from the U.S. State Department, because the story might cause a diplomatic incident."
Although the journalist was unaware of where this belief came from and was not informed of the U.S. embassy's contact with the paper's editor which the other journalist was privy to he acknowledged that self-censorship influenced by unspecified "interest groups" was a possible explanation. "The way the story was dropped was unusual, but the belief amongst my colleagues this happened under political pressure is plausible." He cryptically described an "editorial mechanism, linked to the paper but not formally part of it, which could however exert control on stories when necessary, linked to certain interests." When asked which interests, the journalist said, "I can't say. I can't talk about that."
Edmonds described how, due to the U.S. government's efforts to silence her, she had no option left except to write her story down. The resultant book, Classified Woman, had to be submitted to an FBI panel for review. By law, the bureau was required to make a decision on what could be disclosed or redacted within 30 days.
Instead, about a year later, Edmonds' lawyer received a letter from the FBI informing them that the agency was still reviewing the book, and prohibiting her from publishing it: "The matters Ms. Edmonds writes about involve many equities, some of which may implicate information that is classified… Approval of the manuscripts by the FBI will include incorporation of all changes required by the FBI. Until then, Ms. Edmonds does not have approval to publish her manuscripts which includes showing them to editors, literary agents, publishers, reviewers, or anyone else. At this point, Ms. Edmonds remains obligated not to disclose or publish the manuscript in any manner."
The block was another example, Edmonds said, "of the abuse of national security' to conceal evidence of criminality." She said that this forced her to release the book herself in March 2012, as no publisher would risk taking it on.
Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed is executive director of the Institute for Policy Research & Development and chief research officer at Unitas Communications Ltd, both in London; his latest book is A User's Guide to the Crisis of Civilization: And How to Save It , Pluto Press, 2010, which inspired the award-winning documentary feature film The Crisis of Civilization, 2011.

[David Guyatt]

He referred to an "offer" made to al-Zawahiri in November 1997 on behalf of U.S. intelligence, granting his Islamists a free hand in Egypt as long as they lent support to U.S. forces in the Balkans.

The origin of the Muslim Brotherhood's ouster of Hosni Mubarak presumably?

Edmonds did not speculate on the objectives of the Pentagon's Gladio B' operations, but highlighted the following possibilities: projecting U.S. power in the former Soviet sphere of influence to access previously untapped strategic energy and mineral reserves for U.S. and European companies; pushing back Russian and Chinese power; and expanding the scope of lucrative criminal activities, particularly illegal arms and drugs trafficking.

And

Terrorism finance expert Loretta Napoleoni estimates the total value of this criminal economy to be about $1.5 trillion annually, the bulk of which "flows into Western economies, where it gets recycled in the U.S. and in Europe" as a "vital element of the cash flow of these economies."

Combining capitalist greed with grand geographical strategy.

It is no coincidence then that the opium trade, Edmonds told this author, has grown rapidly under the tutelage of NATO in Afghanistan: "I know for a fact that NATO planes routinely shipped heroin to Belgium, where they then made their way into Europe and to the UK. They also shipped heroin to distribution centres in Chicago and New Jersey. FBI counterintelligence and DEA (Drug Enforcement Agency) operations had acquired evidence of this drug trafficking in its surveillance of a wide range of targets, including senior officials in the Pentagon, CIA and State Department. As part of this surveillance, the role of the Dickersons with the support of these senior U.S. officials in facilitating drug-trafficking, came up. It was clear from this evidence that the whole funnel of drugs, money and terror in Central Asia was directed by these officials."

Using NATO aircraft to "routinely" ship heroin to Belgium HQ of NATO for distribution to UK and Europe, and also ship to distribution centres in Chicago and New Jersey.


The Military-Dope complex.

"The way the story was dropped was unusual, but the belief amongst my colleagues this happened under political pressure is plausible." He cryptically described an "editorial mechanism, linked to the paper but not formally part of it, which could however exert control on stories when necessary, linked to certain interests." When asked which interests, the journalist said, "I can't say. I can't talk about that."

That "editorial mechanism" would be Rupe Murdoch, I guess?

[Magda Hassan]

Podcast Interview- Sibel Edmonds on the U.S. Government's Support for International Terrorism, Heroin & Organized Crime

Tuesday, 21. May 2013
Last week UK magazine Ceasefire published never- before-disclosed insights into how the Sunday Times investigative series was spiked under the direct pressure of interest groups tied to the US government. The groundbreaking and revelatory exposé is investigated and reported by bestselling author and analyst Dr. Nafeez Ahmed. Today Part I of my podcast interview series with Dr. Ahmed is published here.

In this podcast we discuss her case and feature a long in depth Skype- chat between Sibel Edmonds & Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed. This is part one of a two part special hosted and edited by Dean Puckettdeaddeanfilms.co.uk . Find more from Sibel at boilingfrogspost.com & find Nafeez's articles and work at http://www.nafeezahmed.com. This podcast is brought to you by the team that made The Crisis of Civilization http://crisisofcivilization.com/

Listen to the Podcast Interview Part I

[Magda Hassan]

Sorry about the Fox link. Even a broken clock is correct twice a day. There is another from Sibel Edmonds below.

FBI director does not deny al-Awlaki may have been government asset

By Catherine Herridge, Pamela Browne
Published August 23, 2013FoxNews.com


FacebookAs he leaves the FBI after 12 years -- two years beyond the traditional term - Director Robert Mueller did not dismiss the possibility in an interview with Fox News.
A four year investigation by Fox News, and newly declassified documents obtained separately by Judicial Watch, are raising questions over the U.S. government's handling of Anwar al-Awlaki, and whether it tried to recruit the radical American cleric as an intelligence source in 2002.
" I am not personally familiar with any effort to recruit Anwar al-Awlaki as an asset -- that does not mean to say there was not an effort at some level of the Bureau (FBI) or another agency to do so," Mueller said.
Al-Awlaki. who was born in New Mexico, died in a U.S. drone attack in Yemen nearly two years ago.
Fox's ongoing reporting on the cleric, who would later become the first American targeted for death by the CIA in 2011, shows that in 2002 he was released from custody at JFK international airport -- despite an active warrant for his arrest -- with the okay of FBI Agent Wade Ammerman.
Within days of his re-entry, al-Awlaki showed up in Ammerman's counter-terrorism investigation in Virginia into Ali al-Timimi who is now serving a life sentence on non-terrorism charges.
While Timimi's case is on appeal, Fox News is told that none of the information about al-Awlaki's release from federal custody at JFK, a sudden decision by the Justice Department in October 2002 to rescind an arrest warrant for the cleric, nor the cleric's connection to Ammerman was provided to the defense during Timimi's 2005 trial.
Based on a July 31 court filing by the U.S. Attorney's office in Virginia through Gordon Kromberg, who handled the original prosecution, Timimi's defense team is pressing the government on the asset issue during the appeal.
"Defendant Timimi moves for discovery involving Anwar Awlaki. In particular, he seeks evidence to establish that Awlaki was a government informant when Awlaki had a meeting with Timimi in October 2002. Just as his motions seeking the same information were denied in the past, this one should be denied as well."
Documents obtained by Judicial Watch after it filed a Freedom of Information Act request and then sued the FBI, show the FBI Director was more deeply involved in the post-9/11 handling of al-Awlaki than previously known.
One memo from Mueller to then-Attorney General John Ashcroft on Oct. 3, 2002 -- seven days before the cleric re-entered the U.S. and was detained at JFK -- is marked "Secret" and titled "Anwar Aulaqi: IT-UBL/AL-QAEDA."
While the substance of the memo is redacted in full, with the FBI citing classified material, the memo is one of at least three FBI reports, whose primary subject is the cleric, in the nine days leading up to al-Awlaki's sudden return to the U.S. in October 2002.
Another FBI memo, also marked "Secret," on Oct. 22, 2002, 12 days after the cleric's return, includes the subject line "Anwar Nasser Aulaqi" and "Synopsis: Asset reporting." It is not clear whether the term "asset" refers to the cleric or another individual.
"Why would al-Awlaki get the attention of the FBI Director? Why would a warrant for his arrest be pulled when he's trying to reenter the country?" asked Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton.
"All of that, you know, put two and two together. It seems like he was protected. And it's about time this administration and the government generally come clean about their relationship with al-Awlaki. It's screaming for further clarification."
The Judicial Watch records also indicate that on Oct. 1, 2002 - before he returned to the U.S. -- a memo marked "Secret" and "Priority" was faxed from the FBI's Washington Field Office to FBI headquarters.

On Oct. 3, the FBI director's memo was sent to Ashcroft. And on Oct. 10, the day Awlaki entered the U.S., there was a heavily redacted fax from the FBI at JFK airport including the cleric's plane ticket, customs form, passport and Social Security card.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/08/...nce-asset/

All the Government's Men: Agents of Terror on Payroll

Wednesday, 16. October 2013
The Establishment Says "2 + 2 + 2 + 2 + more 2's = 0"Since the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, through quasi investigative reports, leaks, whistleblowers and numerous court documents, several key 9/11 operatives have been identified and confirmed as assets and or informants of the United States government. Further, all details of these operatives' positions, functions and employment records have been sealed and protected as beyond top secret classified.Whether it is Ali Mohamed's employment with the United States Army and his connections with the Federal Bureau of Investigation, or Anwar al-Awlaki on the payroll of the Bureau, or the landlord of two 9/11 hijackers in San Diego, who happened to be a highly valued long-term FBI informant, we are looking at incomplete profiles and missing crucial information. In each of these cases we are dealing with a government engaged in an extraordinary level of secrecy and protection. And with every single case we are faced with the crucial why question.While each case, individually, on its own, paints an extremely troubling picture with serious implications, we must delve into the cases as a whole, collectively, in order to see the larger theme and an even more telling story. Despite my extensive research I have not seen a report where the cases in question are presented and examined together-in one place. I believe putting together documentation like that would be a good starting point for an ongoing and evolving report that can take us further in our search for needed answers, and the truth.I want to emphasize the importance of this being a starting point, and an ongoing and evolving report. What do I mean by that? We need your participation and input to take this report further. I know some of our readers have spent tremendous amounts of time writing about and analyzing the key figures in question. As you read this first report with background information and case summaries, you may think of other missing facts and documents. Please send us those missing pieces of information, but please make sure that your sources are legitimate and of positive reputation. We want to keep this ongoing report factual and bullet-proof.Anwar Awlaki- An Established FBI Informant & Pentagon InsiderOn October 4, 2013, lawyers for Ali Al-Timimi, a Virginia man serving a life sentence for supporting jihad against the U.S., pushed to obtain more information from the federal government on evidence pertaining to the cleric Anwar Al-Awlaki's recruitment as a U.S. government informant a decade ago. According to Al-Timimi's defense lawyer Jonathan Turley, recently-released FBI files suggest that Al-Awlaki may have been acting as an "asset" for some government agency. In response to Turley's request for this crucial evidence government prosecutors insisted that they had no obligation to provide the detail of its dealings with Al-Awlaki:

"Mr. Turley has no right to know [whether the government] had an asset into Awlaki at that time. Mr. Turley has no right to know if Mr. Awlaki was an asset at that time!"

Leonie Brinkema, the presiding U.S. District Court Judge on the case, has not been inclined to grant motions filed by Muslim scholar Ali Al-Timimi seeking more details on the government's relationship with Al-Awlaki. Further, Brinkema suggested that part of the answer to these concerns is so highly classified that she is the only person at the court who is allowed to see it, and that even a number of other personnel with "Top Secret" clearance were not allowed to see the documents pertaining to these concerns.You can read Al-Tamimi's motion seeking evidence about Al-Awlaki here , and the government's response here.Even former FBI Director Robert Mueller does not deny the official working relationship between the Bureau and Awlaki:

FBI director does not deny al-Awlaki may have been government asset

Awlaki was born in the United States. He was raised in an affluent family, with a highlyeducated father who was a Fulbright scholar:

Al-Awlaki was born in the United States. His parents were from Yemen. His father did his graduate work at U.S. universities, receiving his doctorate at the University of Nebraska, and later working at the University of Minnesota (1975 to 1977).

Awlaki pursued higher education at prestigious U.S. universities as well:

Al-Awlaki earned his B.S. in Civil Engineering from Colorado State University (1994). He also studied at San Diego State University, and worked on a doctorate degree in Human Resource Development at George Washington University Graduate School of Education & Human Development (2001).

Strangely, despite his preacher, aka Imam, positions, al-Awlaki never received any formal Islamic education. In fact, this is what other Islamic preachers said about him:

Some Muslim scholars said they did not understand al‑Awlaki's popularity, because while he spoke fluent English and could therefore reach a large non-Arabic-speaking audience, he lacked formal Islamic training and study.

Awlaki's upbringing and higher education took place here in the United States. His family was not Islamist or radicalized. He never went to Madrasas or Islamic preaching schools. So was he really radicalized? From documented facts and his history it seems as if he had later assumed the role of a radical Islamist. He wasplaying that role.Now things get a bit more interesting: Awlaki spent a summer of his college yearstraining with the Afghan Mujahideen. Why is this interesting? Because this summer training took place sometime between 1991 and 1994. We are not talking about the era when the Mujahideen fought the Soviets. No, this is not the 80s we are talking about. During this period there were no Taliban guys; Taliban had not yet been formed. The only Mujahideen in operation were the ones backed and directed by Pakistan's ISI, with foreign participants mainly backed by Saudi Arabia:

Pakistan's ruling military establishment was opposed to the new developments in neighboring Afghanistan. Afghanistan expert Neamatollah Nojumi writes, "[t]hese new political and military developments in Afghanistan forced the Pakistani intelligence agency ISI to organize a military plan with forces belonging to Hekmatyar's Hezb-i Islami … This militaristic plan aimed to capture Kabul and was in full force when … the rest of the Mujahideen leaders in Pakistan agreed to the UN peace plan. On the eve of the successful implementation of the UN peace plan in Afghanistan the ISI, through Hekmatyar and non-Afghan volunteers, led hundreds of trucks loaded with weapons and fighters to the southern part of Kabul."…

When we delve in further, we see Awlaki's main interest area:

In 1994 Awlaki began service as a part-time imam of the Denver Islamic Society, where he encouraged Saudis to fight in Chechnya against the Russians.

Let's see. Who else would have interests in that region that would be against the Russian interests? Remember we are talking about the Post-Soviet period here. So the relationship between Awlaki and the CIA-Pentagon cannot be written off as one of those overly used well, that was during the Afghan-Soviet War when we aligned ourselves with one evil against another evil,' lines. This was the era when we began competing with Russia over the resource-rich region. Chechens have been one of our main tools to sabotage Russian interests in this region. So basically, Awlaki was encouraging terror operations against our competitor, and that would make him someone who was suavely playing a radical Islamist role for our side and special interests.So what happened next? Based on documented background, by 2000-2001 Awlaki had ties to and relationships with high-ranking FBI officials:

In 2001 Awlaki settled on the East Coast in the Washington Metropolitan Area where he served as imam at the Dar al-Hijrah mosque. This is where he led academic discussions and preaching frequented by FBI Director of Counter-Intelligence for the Middle East Gordon M. Snow.…

Awlaki was also a sought after figure by the Pentagon-he even dined with top brass, and he was a chosen man on Capitol Hill as well.This is the same man, who from very early on during the 9/11 investigation, was tiedin many way to the supposed 9/11 terrorist attacks:

When police investigating the 9/11 attacks raided the Hamburg, Germany, apartment of Ramzi bin al-Shibh, they found the telephone number of al-Awlaki among bin al-Shibh's personal contacts.…One detective later told the 9/11 Commission he believed al-Awlaki "was at the center of the 9/11 story". And an FBI agent said, "if anyone had knowledge of the plot, it would have been" him, since "someone had to be in the U.S. and keep the hijackers spiritually focused".[SUP][5[/SUP]…

Anwar al-Awlaki, a man who was born and highly educated in the United States, who fought on our side against our competitors' interests, who was a regular figure in the Pentagon & the brass' dinner companion, who was on the FBI's payroll, who was highly valued in the US Congress, has been identified as one of the 9/11culprits.Ali Mohamed- A Double Agent for the CIA, FBI Informant & Pentagon Insider with the Green BeretsAli Mohamed is well-known for his position as a CIA Agent, a man who was selected by Special Forces in the United States Army, a man who taught courses on Arabic culture at the John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center and School, a man who trained anti-Soviet fighters en route to Afghanistan in early 80s, a man who FBI special agent Jack Cloonan called "bin Laden's first trainer," a man who was a major in the Egyptian army's military intelligence unit, a man who used U.S. military information to train al-Qaeda and other Muslim militants, and to write al-Qaeda's multivolume terrorist training guide, and also a major trainer for Al Qaeda terrorists, and Bin Laden's bodyguard, and a man who was charged with the 1998 bombings of the United States embassies in Nairobi, Kenya and in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.Are you dizzy yet? Let's breakdown Ali Mohamed's background, skills and resume:

Mohamed was a major in the Egyptian army's military intelligence unit.Mohamed enlisted in the U.S. Army and was selected by U.S. Army Special Forces, who sent him to Special Warfare School and encouraged him to pursue a doctorate in Islamic Studies and teach courses on the Middle East.He was highly educated and spoke fluent English, French, and Hebrew in addition to his native Arabic.In America he married an American woman from Santa Clara, California and became a U.S. citizenWhile in the United States he helped train a number of Jihadis, such as El Sayyid Nosair and Mahmud Abouhalima, who assisted Ramzi Yousef in his 1993 attack on the World Trade Center.In 1984 the CIA recruited him to be a junior intelligence officer.The FBI publicly used Ali Mohamed as an informantDuring the 1980s, Ali Mohamed was involved in the training of Anti-Soviet forces, which included members of the mujahideen, Osama bin Laden, Ayman al-Zawahiri, and terrorist members responsible for the bombings of the two US embassiesIn 1992, Ali Mohamed made at least 58 trips to Afghanistan as part of the training of terrorist cells while under the surveillance of the CIA.In 1998 Mohamed was charged with the 1998 bombings of the U.S. embassies in Nairobi, Kenya and in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. In 2000, he pleaded guilty to five counts of conspiracy to kill nationals of the United States and to destroy U.S. property

Just as in the case of Awlaki, all court sessions and documents, all reports and all investigations pertaining to Ali Mohamed are highly classified and not available to even those with TS clearance. Unlike Awlaki, who was fried and turned into ashes by a US drone, Mohamed was quietly jailed in a high-security prison and he has not been interviewed or seen by any outsiders.Even more glaring than in the Awlaki case is the absence of any documents or historical connections in Ali Mohamed's case that show even the slightest trace of Islamization or Radicalization. None whatsoever. We have a man who was educated with incredible linguistic skills including fluency in English, Hebrew and French. A man who married an American woman. We have a man who was a Pentagon darling- a valued member of U.S. Army's Special Forces. A man who was recruited and watched by the CIA for over a decade. A man who worked as an FBI informant.CIA Trademark vs. FBI Modus OperandiDespite the fact that the major emphasis with regard to the two above cases has been placed on the FBI and its relationship or connections with Mohamed and Al-Awlaki, their backgrounds, qualifications, world residency and travel patterns, and operational modes clearly establish them as CIA-Pentagon operatives rather than FBI assets-informants. No question about that.Note- These standards don't apply to regular CIA US Origin operatives (NOCs). Many of the operatives are from a lower-class background, mentally unstable, and without strong educational or linguistic capabilities. With agents such as Mohamed, we are talking about foreign military operations (Remember Gladio Operations)- Think of these characters as our Generals & Lt. Generals for overseas paramilitary operations or home-front terror operations.Let me recap trademark characteristics and qualifications:

· Upper and Upper Middle Class Upbringing in the Middle East· Highly Educated- Either in the U.S. or UK; possess graduate degrees· Linguistic Skills-Three Languages or more· Extensive Travelling; Significant Travel Pattern· Comfortable in Official or Formal settings: Pentagon, Congress, NGO Heads, etc.· Charismatic· Social and or Skilled Communicator· Military Training

Mohamed and Awlaki would Ace 85% + of the above CIA sought qualifications. These men are way above the FBI's pay-grade and playing field. Despite the emphasis and publicity on their roles and connections with the bureau (which is very possibly a method to redirect attention) they have active' CIA operative (not only asset or informant), I'm talking agent here, written all over their CV.Another good example of aperfect CIA profile is Ayman al-Zawahiri-the real operator of the brand called al-Qaeda, despite other claims. Let me put it in illustrated bullet points to compare with the above general characteristic points:

· Ayman al-Zawahiri's parents both came from prosperous families. Ayman's father came from a large family of doctors and scholars. Mohammed Rabie became a surgeon and a medical professor at Cairo University. Ayman's mother, Umayma Azzam, came from a wealthy, politically active clan· Zawahiri excelled in school. He became a doctor and in1978 earned a master's degree in surgery.· Zawahiri speaks three languages: Arabic, English and French· He served three years as a surgeon in the Egyptian Army· His early travel Pattern: Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Afghanistan, United States, Switzerland, Sarajevo, Malaysia, Russia (Dagestan, Chechnya), Hong Kong, Bosnia, Azerbaijan, Albania …· Highly Passionate and Radical Orator; Leadership & Organizing Skills: He became one of Egyptian Islamic Jihad's leading organizers and recruiters.

No wonder he is referred to as al-Qaeda's Brain. Compare him to Bin Laden-who meets the qualifications sought by the CIA?To further make the point, let me present a couple of FBI informant cases:Abdussattar Shaikh (San Diego Landlord)- FBI InformantThis case exhibits more FBI informant-asset characteristics than the two cases above.Abdussattar Shaikh is another mysterious and highly-protected person related and linked directly to two of the supposed 9/11 hijackers, Alhazmi and Almihdhar. All we have is the man's name, home address in San Diego, that his native language is not Arabic, and that he housed two 9/11 hijackers, opened bank account for them and prayed with them, and that other key hijackers such as Mohamed Atta were his regular visitors …yes, all that, and the fact that this man was FBI's longtime asset and informant.

Two of the Sept. 11 hijackers who lived in San Diego in 2000 rented a room from a man who reportedly worked as an undercover FBI informant, highlighting the lack of cooperation by the nation's law enforcement and intelligence agencies.Newsweek magazine reports that Khalid Almihdhar and Nawaf Alhazmi lived with a "tested" undercover "asset" who had been working closely with the FBI office in San Diego.…While there, the FBI informant prayed with them and even helped one open a bank account. Alhazmi and Almihdhar took lessons at a flight school while living in San Diego.…

The FBI refused to allow the 9/11 Congressional inquiry to interview either Shaikh or his FBI contact. The FBI refused to provide him to the pseudo Commission on 9/11. How could they refuse it? On what grounds? None cited.Generally speaking, and based on bits and pieces of information leaked over time, Shaikh fits the general profile of an informant-asset operating on the FBI payroll:

· No significant educational background· No particular linguistic abilities· No militaristic background or training· No unusual international background and travel history

The Iranian-Another Longtime FBI InformantThe following case is another typical FBI informant-asset profile:In January 2011 we published a series of articles and documents pertaining to the case of Behrooz Sarshar, Former FBI Language Specialist who held TS clearance and worked for the bureau for over ten years.In February 2004 I accompanied Sarshar to the office of 9/11 Commissioners where he was taken inside a SCIF (Secured Compartmentalized Intelligence Facility) and was interviewed for nearly two hours. He provided the commissioners with documented and witnessed FBI case involving a longtime Iranian informant-asset. Several months prior to the September 11 attacks the FBI asset had provided the bureau with detailed information on the coming attack:

According to previously published sources, in April 2001 Mr. Sarshar, in his position as FBI interpreter/translator, attended a meeting between a long-term, reliable FBI asset and two additional FBI agents from the Washington Field Office. That FBI asset told the two FBI agents that his sources in Afghanistan had information of an al-Qaeda plot to attack America in a suicide mission involving planes. It would appear that when Mr. Sarshar filed his reports within the Bureau, they were titled "Kamikaze Pilots".After leaving the FBI in 2002, Mr. Sarshar provided the same information to various Congressional offices and investigators, such as staffers for the Senate Judiciary Committee and Senator Patrick Leahy. The Justice Department's Inspector General also interviewed him.Thus, we were shocked to find that Mr. Sarshar's relevant information was missing from the "System Was Blinking Red" section of the 2004 Final Report issued by the 9/11 Commission. Now, six and a half years past the publication of the Final Report, the transcript of Mr. Sarshar's interview has been released with all of its substance redacted. In light of the fact that the majority of his information does not meet the standard for classification, which is to protect "sources and methods", it is unclear as to why that information was blocked. Covering up incompetence, or worse, malfeasance, is not a valid reason for classification.…

In this particular case, the FBI prevented the informant-asset from providing his direct testimony to either the Commission or Congress, and this, despite the asset's willingness and consent to come forward with details of his pertinent information and how he'd obtained it.This case also fits the typical FBI informant-asset profile. The informant is a much older individual, with no particularly interesting educational or linguistic qualifications (outside of Farsi he barely speaks English), no significant world trotting patterns, reclusive, shy …
Now that we have identified the US government two-track terrorist recruitment and management systems CIA-Backed & FBI-Connected, the differences between the two camps, and the status and roles of those recruited, we must go back and ask the real question: How is it that these notorious 9/11 terror operatives and lower-grade facilitators happen to all be on the US government's payroll, and that before, during and after the September 11 attacks? Whether it is the Pentagon Special Forces, the CIA, or the FBI, wouldn't they All be considered The Government's Men? And if that's the case, whose attack did we suffer on September 11, 2001?

http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/2013/10/...n-payroll/