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Sent: Saturday, September 15, 2001 3:56 PM

Subject: World Affairs Brief September 14, 2001

Dear Subscribers,  This week's briefing has been delayed due to many breaking news stories.  This story is far from over and much information will be forthcoming in future weeks.  The brief is also 4 times longer than normal.  However, the subject matter is so significant, I felt it necessary to deviate from the normal "briefing" format.  I have cancelled my planned trip to Europe in the wake of this week's events, and I suggest that everyone be very cautious about travel in the future.  Our government's use of arbitrary power to shut down any portion of the nation they wish is particular disturbing.  The threat of being stranded in some far away location is still very real.  Take care to listen to those small warning signals from conscience--more than a few people evaded death or injury last week by heeding that "still small voice."   --Joel Skousen, editor

 World Affairs Brief, September 14, 2001 Copyright Joel Skousen. Partial quotations with attribution permitted. Cite source as Joel Skousen’s World Affairs Brief (http://www.joelskousen.com)

BUSH WAR THREATS BASED ON ANOTHER MORE DANGEROUS AGENDA

There is something very dangerous and wrong about this new war fever being pushed upon the American people. Taking advantage of a nation shocked and shaken after being "under attack," the Bush administration is showing every sign of marshaling a much larger military force than necessary to tackle the stated enemy--international terrorism. Terrorism is a distributed and dispersed threat. It is not concentrated in any single country. There are perhaps two dozen significant terrorist training camps in the world, and any one of them can be neutralized by the judicious use of point air strikes and special forces. There are hundreds of smaller terrorist cells in all western countries. Some are too well hidden to be found, but many can be tackled by existing intelligence and police agencies. The point I am making, as forcefully as possible, is that this problem does not have to be attacked with a Gulf War style mobilization--which is precisely what President Bush and Defense Secretary Rumsfeld are building. Something is very wrong with the growing beat of Republican war drums. The 50,000 reservists being mobilized alone exceed by almost 10 times the number of known terrorists in the world. There appears to be a hidden agenda behind these major war preparations--and fighting terrorism may well be only the excuse.

First, I want to establish that the official US response to this terrorist attack showing surprise, shock and indignation is, in part, a sham. For years the US government has known and tracked every significant terrorist organization to raise its head, and yet has done little to impede their growth or target their weapons procurement lines (with the exception of one attack on a Libyan terrorist training camp in the 80's, and those camps were back in operation within months). There is even evidence of US intelligence agencies turning a blind eye on terrorist preparations for just such an attack as happened this week. As Reed Irvine, writing for NewsMax.com, reported,

"In 1995, when one of his (Osama bin Laden’s) followers, Abdul Hakim Murad, was arrested in Manila, the Philippine authorities discovered a plot on his laptop computer that called for hijacking US airliners and bombing them or crashing them into targets, including the CIA. It was called Project Bojinka, and US officials were made aware of it at that time. Murad admitted that he was being trained for a suicide mission. He was extradited to the US and convicted, together with Ramzi Yousef, of participating in the World Trade Center bombing in 1993. That should have focused the attention of the CIA, FBI and NSA on any indications that bin Laden had not abandoned Project Bojinka. Reports that bin Laden was training pilots should have set alarm bells ringing. Only a few months ago an American Airlines crew had their uniforms and ID badges stolen from their hotel room in Rome. At the end of August, the airline alerted its employees to be on the lookout for impostors, but apparently no one saw this as a possible link to Project Bojinka. Airport security remained as lax as ever. Next came bin Laden's warning in mid-August that there would be 'an unprecedented attack on US interests.' With Bojinka in mind, the government should have taken the strongest possible measures to prevent hijackings."

So, why should this nation be surprised when it finally falls victim to an enemy the US has allowed to prosper? It's partially because Americans always believe the half-truths about our government’s efforts to stamp out terrorism, or even drugs, for that matter. Simply put, the people don't realize that the government both harbors terrorism and fights terrorism with two different sides of its police power. It both facilitates drug importation (to fund black budget activities) and fights against drugs using competing portions of separate federal agencies. Naturally, the public only sees the "good guy" operations. But the dark side exists, and now predominates--under the surface.

Terrorists have had the motive, the hatred, the weapons and the will to attack the US for many years. Indeed, we in this nation are very vulnerable. So, why has America been spared for so many years? As I have pointed out before in these briefs, the only reason that Islamic terrorism has not struck before (with the exception of the failed bombing of the WTC in 1993) is that someone within the US who controls these terror networks has had a "hold" on any attacks on the US, accomplished by buying off terrorist groups with money, drugs and weapons. Part of the reason for that hold was to reserve the US for "domestic terrorism" that could be fomented by the dark side of government to blacken the reputation of the American right wing. That hold is now obviously gone as the government's ploy to make an enemy out of the right wing has run its course. Accordingly, we can expect Tuesday's attack to be just the beginning. Next, I expect to see terrorists use biological and chemical weapons, or even Stinger missiles left over from the Afghanistan war, to shoot down more airliners. Again, we'll hear the same "wake-up call" that is being trumpeted by government this week. Naturally, we will be unprepared for each new form of attack and as each new threat looms greater, some new and powerful legislative or military solutions will be promulgated--complete with more and more restrictions of liberty.

Sadly, the most ominous effect of this latest attack has been the negation of all the distrust of government that had been properly building during 8 years of the Clinton corruption. I am saddened by the abject submission of the American people to any edict the government attempted to justify in the wake of these attacks. It amounted to a partial use of martial law and the government didn't even have to use the term to enforce its edicts. Now President Bush has declared a National Emergency--without telling the people that former executive orders give the President unlimited powers in such situations. He won't use them just yet--but people will get used to living under an "emergency" form of law, without realizing the full implications. In future attacks people will already have become accustomed to seeing the government shut down any sector of the nation that is affected, just as we saw the virtual shutdown of the air traffic system--including private aircraft flying to private fields. However, the price in billions of dollars lost to the economy will not go unnoticed as the recession deepens.

In the final analysis, I hold the US government in large part responsible for the events of September 9, because they have paid off, trained, swapped favors with, and even saved from destruction terrorist leaders like Osama bin Laden and Yassir Arafat for decades. If they didn't have intelligence specifically pointing to the use of hijacked airliners as weapons of destruction, they are at least guilty of having abetted this form of terror.

Conjecture abounds as to how, when and where the US intends to retaliate, but it's clear now that the US intends to make a BIG military statement to the world, and Osama bin Laden is to be the whipping boy. Frankly, I'm not sure what the Bush CFR team is up to, but whatever it is, it is looking ominous. My best guess is that they are going to take on Afghanistan with both air and ground troops. This is a foolish quagmire that the Russians stepped into and you'd think the US would be smart enough not to go down that road. But I suspect Bush may be promoting another agenda, which dovetails with the US/NATO intervention in the Balkans during the last decade--fomenting hatred of the US among the Eastern Bloc of Slavic peoples. If NWO powers intend to use a world War to accelerate the transition to world government, they need to help the attackers (Russia and China) to justify the attack on the West. US meddling and bullying around the world creates that hatred. Obviously, the Islamic world is aligned with the Russians, and thus I suspect that in this upcoming "war" the Powers That Be may have decided to spread even more hatred of America among the Muslims by taking on Afghanistan, in what will appear to the Arab world as a giant unjustly terrorizing a helpless and poor land.

If the insiders at the National Security Council (who really call the shots for Bush) want an even larger war than Afghanistan would provide, they could go after the dozen or so terrorist camps in Syria, Iraq, Iran, Yemen, the Sudan, and Libya. But this would surely usher in a major Middle East war, involving Israel. It would also pit the US directly against Yassir Arafat and his Palestinians--which the US is continually trying to protect from ultimate annihilation. I don't think the insiders want a full scale war in that region just yet.

Lastly, Bush could go after Iraq, like his father. However, there doesn't seem to be any new evidence of direct Iraqi involvement in this terror attack. Besides, attacking Iraq is old news and will hardly give a sense of "justice done" that Americans are so wistfully yearning for.

I originally suspected that all this "war preparation" was mere propaganda to justify the $40 billion Congress has agreed to fund this bottomless cause. I have since concluded that these leaders are investing much more money and effort into this military buildup for simple sabre-rattling. They really do intend to go to war with someone larger than Osama bin Laden. A declaration of war, frankly, is meaningless unless you have an identifiable enemy to name as the object of the war. A one-sided declaration of war in this case would probably serve to justify more US interventionist warmongering at home and abroad, rather than fight terrorism. The secondary agenda is surely the consolidation of executive authority in the US. The predictable reactionary legislation to beef up US war-making powers in the name of fighting terrorism is already at Congress' door. The "Elimination of Terrorism Act" is being readied for a fast track treatment in both houses. Lost in the rhetoric, of course, is the fact that no additional powers are necessary to fight terrorism. Nevertheless, this bill gives the Executive Branch permanent powers to engage in warfare at any time without Congressional approval--an approach to which the founders of this nation would have vigorously rejected.

I am saddened to see how unscrutinizing people have become about the motives of government in a crisis. The reason so many people in the US are vulnerable to manipulation by the media in this regard is that they don't compare what the government does in any battle with what they could be doing--what the alternatives are. They only look at the government's story in isolation, as if its reasons stand alone and should be taken at face value. To a certain extent the public can't judge what's real because most people don't have much experience working inside government. Those of us who have been inside know how things work. When things don't follow according to how they are supposed to, experienced people see red flags indicating something unusual is occurring. There are red flags cropping up all over this excessive reaction to the events of September 11th. Let's look at the inconsistencies in the government investigation and its various pronouncements.

MY ANALYSIS OF THE "ATTACK ON AMERICA" --SEPT 9, 2001

America is full of a strange mixture of shock, sadness, indignation and bravado in the wake of the aerial suicide attacks on the World Trade Center (WTC) twin towers and the Pentagon. We have heard countless leaders vowing that "terrorism will not stand," and that Americans will bounce back and rebuild these symbols of American economic and military power--if nothing else, to deny the terrorists the joy of seeing America down and discouraged. All this is typically American in its arrogance and is very naive. Terrorism has only begun to strike America and we are terribly exposed--not only because of the free and open access which we rightfully cherish, but also because the political establishment has for years refused to interdict the training and arming of the known terrorist groups they now claim have committed an "act of war on America."

Government commentators echo the hollow words that "a sleeping giant has been awakened" and is filled with resolve. Hogwash! They said those same words in 1993 after the WTC bombing, and America quickly went back to sleep and all our anti-terrorist vows led to no significant diminution of the tens of terrorist networks and training camps around the world. Indeed, terrorist groups multiplied and became far better armed during the Clinton era. Worse, I don’t believe for a minute that the current administration’s retaliatory attacks being planned are truly meant to eradicate terrorism, let alone be effective at such an objective. They are targeting Osama bin Laden, a convenient scapegoat, while leaving the Palestinians untouched, who are the main source of support for Islamic terrorist activity. I will explain the motives behind government subterfuge, and help sort out the fact from the fiction in our government’s response to this incident. But first, let’s review how this act was accomplished, technically.

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