21 November 2003
Wracking up the anté with a fortuitous bombing or two – given the parlous state of the ‘war on terror’ and global opposition to USUK operations – is an option we should not dismiss lightly.
Was the bombing in Istanbul a provocation? Before you accuse me of joining ‘conspiracy central’ consider that the CIA were tied directly to the terrorist group that bombed the US barracks in Beirut in 1982 through funding their operations and the use of provocations to destabilise and/or as a reason for intervention has a long tradition going all the way back to the Spanish-American War that led to the US colonising Cuba. Consider also the pretext for Reagan’s invasion of Grenada, the supposed threat to American students or that of the invasion of Panama, where CIA asset Manuel Noreiga was the pretext, or Cuban ‘arming’ of the Sandinistas in 1981. Need I go on?
And of course, the Istanbul bombings occurred at a very ‘fortuitous’ time vis a vis the massive demonstration that took place in London yesterday (20/11/03) and served the purpose of deflecting attention away from the display of massive opposition to UK policies. The problem of course is proving a connection. But consider also that since 9/11 in spite of all the scare tactics the Blah government has created re the ‘war on terror’, until yesterday there had not been a single attack on British interests outside of Iraq.
And although Al-Qu’eda has claimed responsibility for the bombings, there is no proof of this or indeed, based on the evidence (or lack of it) that Al-Qu’eda even exists at least in the way it’s presented to the world by the US and the UK. The bombing of the UN HQ in Baghdad last month also occurred at another ‘fortuitous’ time for the US given the immense pressure at precisely the time of the bombing that the US was under to get the UN to take over the administration of Iraq. The same goes for the bombing of the US team visiting the Gaza Strip last month and as I suggested at the time, whether it was US ‘asset’ Israel that carried out the bombing or an Arab ‘front’ organisation, it achieved its objective, to derail the ‘peace process’. Israel also has a history of employing Palestinians to carry out spying operations on their behalf and no doubt these self-same spies have penetrated Hamas and other liberation groups. Getting them to carry out bombing operations is not a wild idea by any means.
And to bring it closer to home, for several decades the FBI and local police forces penetrated left organisations to such a degree that they actually formulated policy inside the Communist Party USA and the US Socialist Workers Party and in the 1960s, the Black Panther Party through the COINTEL programme. Indeed, there’s ample evidence to support the proposition that FBI provocateurs actually constituted the majority of leading members of the CPUSA!
And given the hatred engendered by the US and the UK over the past years, it shouldn’t be difficult to find any number of people willing to carry out terrorist attacks without even realising that they are being funded by US intelligence. After all, nine of the fourteen people involved in 9/11 were Saudi Arabians and the deep connections between the US military and intelligence and the Saudi regime goes back years.
The argument – refuted by the US and the UK – that the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan merely upped the anté and increased the likelihood of even more attacks by extremist elements, merely serves as a smokescreen to make identification of the real culprits even more difficult, as under the pretext of ‘security’ gaining access to information is now even more difficult than ever. Consider the unfortunate people imprisoned in Cuba or here in the UK, who without access to open courts, the evidence or their accusers, can be branded as terrorists without fear of refutation.
In atmosphere of paranoia, fear and good ol’ red-baiting reformulated as the ‘war on terror’, provocations on a large scale, even 9/11 itself are not so far-fetched given what’s at stake. The US government, the world’s number 1 terrorist outfit has everything to lose if it’s programme is exposed. What better cover than the actions of a zealot like millionaire and former CIA ‘asset’ Osama bin Laden, as history shows it’s not the first time and it most definitely won’t be the last.
Investigating Imperialism 