The dynamic of democratic, nationalist and class struggles throughout the Muslim world has set in motion a new constellation of alliances between the imperial West (US and European Union) and Islamist parties, leaders and regimes, dubbed "moderate" by US officials, propagandists and academics.

This essay analyzes the changing contemporary context of imperial domination, especially the demise of longstanding client regimes. It then examines the previous significant ties between western imperial powers and Islamist movements and regimes and the basis of 'historical collaboration'.

The third part of the paper will outline the political circumstances in which the imperial powers embrace "moderate" Islamists in government and utilize "armed fundamentalists" in opposition to secular regimes. We will critically analyze how "moderate" Islam is defined by the Western imperialist powers. Is this a tactical or strategic alliance? What are the political "trade-offs"? What do imperialism's neo-liberal clients and their new 'moderate' Muslim allies have in common and how do they differ?

In conclusion we will evaluate the viability of this alliance and its capacity to contain and deflect the popular democratic movements and repress the burgeoning class and national struggles, especially in regard to the 'obstacles' posed by the Israel-US-Zionist ties and the continued IMF policies which promise to worsen the crises in the Muslim countries.

The Transition from Neo-Liberal Client Rulers to Power-Sharing with Moderate Islamists

The key motivation in Washington's and the European imperial troika's (England, France and Germany) embrace of what their press and officialdom hail as "moderate" Islamist parties has been the collapse or weakening of their long-term client rulers. Faced with the ouster of Mubarak, in Egypt, Ali in Tunisia and Saleh in Yemen, mass protests in Morocco and Algeria, the US-EU turned to conservative Muslim leaders who were willing to work within the existing state institutional framework (including the army and state police), uphold the capitalist order and align with the empire against anti-imperial movements and states. In Egypt, the Freedom and Justice Party (FJP) (the political arm of the Muslim Brotherhood), in Tunisia the Renaissance Party, in Morocco the Justice and Development Party have all indicated their willingness to serve as reliable partners in blocking the pro-democracy movements that challenge the socio-economic status quo and the long-standing military-imperial linkages.

The Islamist collaborators are called "moderate and respectable" because they agree to participate in elections within the boundaries of the established political and economic order; they have dropped any criticism of imperial and colonial treaties and trade agreements signed by the previous client regions - including ones which collaborate with Israel's colonization of Palestine.

Equally important "moderate" means supporting imperial wars against nationalist and secular Arab republics, such as Syria and Libya, and isolating and/or repressing class based trade unions and secular-left parties.

"Moderate" Islamists have become the Empire's 'contraceptive of choice' against any chance the massive Arab peoples' revolt might give birth to substantive egalitarian social changes and bring those brutal pro- western officials, responsible for so many crimes against humanity, to justice.

The West and their client officials in the military and police have agreed to a kind of "power-sharing' with the moderate/respectable (read 'reactionary') Islamist parties. The Islamists would be responsible for imposing orthodox economic policies and re-establishing 'order' (i.e. bolstering the existing one) in partnership with pro-multinational bank economists and pro US-EU generals and security officials. In exchange the Islamists could take certain ministries, appoint their members, finance electoral clientele among the poor and push their 'moderate' religious, social and cultural agenda. Basically, the elected Islamists would replace the old corrupt dictatorial regimes in running the state and signing off on more free trade agreements with the EU. Their role would keep the leftists, nationalists and populists out of power and from gaining mass support. Their job would substitute spiritual solace and "inner worth" via Islam in place of redistributing land, income and power from the elite, including the foreign multi-nationals to the peasants, workers, unemployed and exploited low-paid employees.

Why the Empire Arms Fundamentalist Anti-Secular Muslims

While the US and EU have backed respectable "moderate Islam" in heading off a popular upheaval of the young and unemployed, in other contexts they have enlisted violent, fundamentalist Islamic terrorists to overthrow secular independent anti-imperialists regimes - like Libya, Syria - just as they had done earlier in Afghanistan and Yugoslavia. The US, Qatar and the European troika financed and armed Libyan fundamentalist militias and then engaged in a murderous eight months air and sea assault to ensure their client's 'victory' over the secular Gaddafi regime. Fresh from NATO's success, the US, the European 'Troika' and Turkey, with the backing of the League of Arab collaborator princes and emirs, have financed a violent Muslim Brotherhood insurrection in Syria, intent on destroying the nationalist economy and modern secular state.

The US and EU have openly unleashed their fundamentalists allies in order to destroy independent adversaries in the name of "democracy" and 'humanitarian intervention', a laughable claim in light of decade long colonial wars of occupation in Iraq and Afghanistan. All target regimes have one crime in common: Using their national resources to develop modern secular states - independent of imperial dictates.

NATO implements its campaigns through conservative 'moderate' or armed fundamentalist Islamist movements depending on the specific needs, circumstances and range of options in any given target nation. With the fall of pro-Empire 'secular dictatorships' in Egypt and Tunisia, pliable conservative Islamist leaders are the fall back "lesser evil". When the opportunity to overthrow an independent secular or nationalist regime arises, armed and violent fundamentalist mercenaries become the political vehicle of choice.

As with European empires in the past, the modern Western imperial countries have relied on retrograde religious parties and leaders to collaborate and serve their economic and military interests and to provide mercenaries for imperial armies to savage any anti-imperialist social revolutionaries. In that sense US and European rulers are neither 'pro nor anti' Islam, it all depends on their national and class position. Islamists who collaborate with Empire are "moderate" allies and if they attack an anti-imperialist regime, they become 'freedom fighters'. On the other hand, they become "terrorists" or "fundamentalists" when they oppose imperial occupation, pillage or colonial settlements.

Contemporary History of Islamist-Imperial Collaboration

The historical record of western imperial expansion reveals many instances of collaboration and cooptation as well as conflict with Islamist regimes, movements and parties. In the early 1960's the CIA backed a brutal military coup against the secular Indonesian nationalist regime of Sukarno, and encouraged their puppet dictator General Suharto to unleash Muslim militia in a veritable "holy war" exterminating nearly one million leftist trade unionists, school teachers, students, farmers, communists or suspected sympathizers and their family members. The horrific 'Jakarta Option' became a model for CIA operations elsewhere. In Yugoslavia the US and Europe promoted and financed fundamentalists Muslims in Bosnia, importing mujahedeen who would later form part of Al Qaida, and then backed the Kosovo Liberation Army, a known terrorist organization, in order to completely break-up and ethnically 'cleanse' a modern secular multi-national state - going so far as to have Americans and NATO bomb Belgrade for the first time since the Nazis in the Second World War.

During President Carter's administration, the CIA joined with Saudi Arabia's ruling royalty, providing billions of dollars in arms and military supplies to Afghan Muslim fundamentalists in their brutal but successful Jihad overthrowing a modern, secular nationalist regime backed by the USSR. The murderous fate of school teachers and educated women in the aftermath was quickly covered up.

Needless to say, wherever US imperialism faces leftists or secular, modernizing anti-imperialist regimes, Washington turns to retrograde Islamic leaders willing and able to destroy the progressive regime in return for imperialist support. Such coalitions are built mainly around fundamentalist and moderate Islamist opposition to secular, class- based politics allied with the Empire's hostility to any anti-imperialist challenge to its domination..

The same 'coalition' of Islamists and the Empire has been glaringly obvious during the NATO assault on Libya and continues against Syria: The Muslims provide the shock troops on the ground; NATO provides the aerial bombing, funds, arms, sanctions, embargoes and propaganda.

These Islamist-Imperialist coalitions are usually temporary, based on a common secular or nationalist enemy and not on any common strategic interest. After the defeat of a secular anti-imperialist regime, militant Muslims may find themselves attacked by the colonial neo-liberal regime most favored by the imperial west. This happened in Afghanistan and elsewhere after the overseas Islamist fighters (Afghan Arabs) returned to their own neo-colonized, collaborating home countries, like Saudi Arabia, Algeria and Egypt and elsewhere.

Contemporary History of Islamist-Imperial Conflict

The relation between Islamist regimes and imperialism is complex, changing and full of examples of bloody conflict.

The US backed the "modernizing" free market dictatorship of the Shah in Iran, overthrowing the nationalist Mosaddegh regime. They provided arms and intelligence for the Savak, the Shah's monstrous secret police as it hunted down and murdered tens of thousands of nationalist-Islamists and leftist resistance fighters and critics in Iran and abroad. The rise to power of the fundamentalist-anti-imperialist Khomeini regime fueled US armed attacks and provoked retaliatory moves: Iran backed and financed anti-colonial Islamist groups in Lebanon (Hezbollah), Palestine (Hamas) and Iraq (the Shia parties).

Subsequent to 9/11 the US invaded and overthrew the Islamist Taliban regime, re-colonized the country, establishing a puppet regime under US-European auspices. The Taliban and allied Islamist and nationalist resistance fighters organized and established a mass guerrilla army which has engaged in a decade long war with armed support from Pakistani Islamist forces responding to US military incursions.

In Palestine, Washington, under the overweening control of Israel's Zionist fifth column, has armed and financed Israel's war against the popularly elected Palestinian Islamist Hamas government in Gaza. Washington's total commitment to the Jewish state and its colonial expansion and usurpation of Palestinian (Muslim and Christian) lands and property in Jerusalem and elsewhere reflects the profound and pervasive influence of the Zionist power configuration throughout the US political system .They secure 90% votes in Congress, pledges of allegiance from the White House, and senior appointments in Treasury, State Department and the Pentagon.

What determines whether the US Empire will have a collaborative or conflict-ridden relation with Islam depends on the specific political context. The US allies with Islamists when faced with nationalist, leftist and secular democratic regimes and movements, especially where their optimal choice, a military-neo-liberal alternative is relatively weak. However, faced with a nationalist, anti-colonial Islamist regime (as is the case of the Islamic Republic of Iran), Washington will side with pro-western liberals, dissident Muslim clerics, pliable tribal chiefs, separatist ethnic minorities and pro-Western generals.

The key to US-Islamist relations from the White House perspective is based on the Islamists' attitude toward empire, class politics, NATO and the "free market" (private foreign investment).

Today's 'moderate' Islamist parties in Tunisia, Egypt, Turkey, Morocco (and elsewhere), which have offered their support to NATO and its wars against Libya and Syria, uphold 'private property' (i.e. foreign and imperialist client control of key industries) and repress independent working class and anti-imperialist parties: They are the Empire's "new partners" in the pillage of the resource-rich Middle East and North Africa.

The US-brokered counter-revolutionary alliance among moderate Islamists, the previous military rulers and Washington is fraught with tensions. The military demands total impunity and a continuation of its economic privileges; this includes a veto on any legislation addressing the previous regime's brutal crimes against its own people. On the other hand, the Islamist parties uphold their electoral victories and demand majority rule. Washington insists the alliance adhere to its policy toward Israel and abandon their support for the Palestinian national struggle. As these tensions and conflicts deepen, the alliance could collapse ushering in a new phase of conflict and instability.

Emblematic of "moderate Islamiist" collaboration with US-EU imperialism is the role of Qatar, home to the 'respectable' Arabic media giant, Al-Jazeera, and the demagogic Qatari "spiritual guide" Sheik Youssef al-Qaradawi. Sheik Youssef quotes the Koran and Islamic moral principles in defense of NATO's 8-month aerial bombing of Libya, which killed over 50,000 pro-regime Libyans (themselves Muslims). He calls for armed imperial intervention in Syria to overthrow the secular Assad regime, a position he shares comfortably with the state of Israel. He urges the "moderate Islamists" in Egypt and Tunisia to cease any criticism of the existing economic order, ( see "Spiritual guide steers Arabs to moderation", Financial Times, December 9, 2011 - p5). In a word, this respectable Muslim cleric is NATO's perfect Koran-quoting "moderate Islamist" partner - a dream come true.

The Strategic Utility of "Moderate" Islamist Parties

Islamist parties are approached by the Empire's policy elites only when they have a mass following and can therefore weaken any popular, nationalist insurgency. Mass-based Islamist parties serve the empire by providing "legitimacy", by winning elections and by giving a veneer of respectability to the pro-imperial military and police apparatus retained in place from the overthrown client state dictatorships.

The Islamist parties compete at the "grass roots" with the leftists. They build up a clientele of supporters among the poor in the countryside and urban slums through organized charity and basic social services administered at the mosques and humanitarian religious foundations. Because they reject class struggle and are intensely hostile to the left (with its secular, pro-feminist and working-class agenda), they have been 'half-tolerated' by the dictatorship, while the leftist activists are routinely murdered. Subsequently, with the overthrow of the dictatorship, the Islamists emerge intact with the strongest national organizational network as the country's 'natural leaders' from the religious-bazaar merchant political elite. Their leaders offer to serve the empire and its traditional native military collaborators in exchange for a 'slice of power', especially over morality, culture, religion and households (women), in other words, the "micro-society".

For their part, they offer to marginalize and undermine the left, anti-imperialist secular democrats in the streets. In the face of mass popular rebellion calling into question the imperial order, a 'moderate' Islamist-imperial partnership is a 'heavenly deal' praised in Washington, Paris or London (as well as Riyadh and Tel Aviv).

Conclusion: How Viable is the Imperial-Islamic Coalition?

Those who thought that the spontaneous pro-democracy movements spelled the end of the imperial order left out the role of organized "moderate" Islamist electoral parties as able collaborators of Empire. The brutally repressed mass mobilization of unemployed youth was no match for the well-funded grass roots community organization of the moderate Islamists. This is especially true when politics shifted from the street to the ballot box, a process that the Islamist parties facilitated. In the absence of a mass revolutionary party, seeking state power, the existing military-police state was able to work around the mass protesters and put together a power sharing agreement at least in the short-run.

In the November 2011 elections, the radical Egyptian Islamist party, Nour, gathered one-quarter of the vote in Cairo and Alexandria. Their showing was even higher among the urban poor districts, which promises even greater support among poor rural constituencies in the coming elections. Essentially a Salafist Islamist party, Nour, unlike the Muslim Brotherhood, combined denunciations of class abuses and elite corruption with mass appeals to a return to a mythic harmonious life. They used effective grass roots organizing around basic services in order to gain a greater proportion of the working class vote than all the leftist parties combined. Nour's message of "class retribution against the ...abuses of Egypt's elite fueled Nour's new found popularity", (Financial Times December 10, 2011 p6).

Despite the successes of the Islamist-Imperial partnership, the world economic crises and especially the growing unemployment and misery in the Arab countries will make it difficult for the 'respectable moderate' Islamists to stabilize their societies. They are inextricably constrained by their alliances to function within the confines of the 'orthodox neo-liberal framework' imposed by the Empire. For that reason, the "moderate" Islamists will try to co-opt some secular liberals, social democrats and even a few leftists as 'minority partners', so that they won't be held solely responsible for dashing the expectations of the poor in their countries.

The fact of the matter is that the pro-imperial Islamist parties have absolutely no answer to the current crises: Charities delivered from the mosque during the dictatorship won them mass support; now more austerity programs imposed from their ministerial posts will certainly alienate and infuriate their mass base. What will follow depends on who is best organized: Liberals are limited to media campaigns and tied to economic orthodoxy; the leftists have to advance from protest movements in the downtown squares to organized political units operating in popular neighborhoods, workplaces, markets, villages and slums. Otherwise radical fundamentalist, like the Salafists, will exploit the people's outrage with moderate Islamist betrayals and promote their own version of a closed clerical society, opposing the West while repressing the Left.

The US and EU may have 'temporarily' avoided revolution by accommodating electoral reforms and adapting to alliances with "moderate" Islamists, but their ongoing military interventions and their own growing economic crisis will simply postpone a more decisive conflict in the near future.

* James Petras is the author of more than 62 books published in 29 languages, and over 600 articles in professional journals. Petras' latest books, Global Depression and Regional Wars (Atlanta, Clarity Press, 2009) is the third in a series, including Zionism, Militarism and the Decline of US Power (Atlanta, Clarity Press 2008) and The Power of Israel in the United States (Atlanta, Clarity Press 2006), analyzing the influence of militarism and Zionism in American foreign policy.

By Andrew Gavin Marshall* | Sabbah Report | www.sabbah.biz

Introduction

As the 9th anniversary of 9/11 nears, and the war on terror continues to be waged and grows in ferocity and geography, it seems all the more imperative to return to the events of that fateful September morning and re-examine the reasons for war and the nature of the stated culprit, Al-Qaeda.

The events of 9/11 pervade the American and indeed the world imagination as an historical myth. The events of that day and those leading up to it remain largely unknown and little understood by the general public, apart from the disturbing images repeated ad nauseam in the media. The facts and troubled truths of that day are lost in the folklore of the 9/11 myth: that the largest attack carried out on American ground was orchestrated by 19 Muslims armed with box cutters and urged on by religious fundamentalism, all under the direction of Osama bin Laden, the leader of a global terrorist network called al-Qaeda, based out of a cave in Afghanistan.

The myth sweeps aside the facts and complex nature of terror, al-Qaeda, the American empire and literally defies the laws of physics. As John F. Kennedy once said, "The greatest enemy of the truth is not the lie - deliberate, contrived, and dishonest - but the myth - persistent, pervasive, and unrealistic."

This three-part series on "The Imperial Anatomy of Al-Qaeda" examines the geopolitical historical origins and nature of what we today know as al-Qaeda, which is in fact an Anglo-American intelligence network of terrorist assets used to advance American and NATO imperial objectives in various regions around the world.

Part 1 examines the origins of the intelligence network known as the Safari Club, which financed and organized an international conglomerate of terrorists, the CIA's role in the global drug trade, the emergence of the Taliban and the origins of al-Qaeda.

The Safari Club

Following Nixon's resignation as President, Gerald Ford became the new US President in 1974. Henry Kissinger remained as Secretary of State and Ford brought into his administration two names that would come to play important roles in the future of the American Empire: Donald Rumsfeld as Ford's Chief of Staff, and Dick Cheney, as Deputy Assistant to the President. The Vice President was Nelson Rockefeller, David Rockefeller's brother. When Donald Rumsfeld was promoted to Secretary of Defense, Dick Cheney was promoted to Chief of Staff. Ford had also appointed a man named George H.W. Bush as CIA Director.

In 1976, a coalition of intelligence agencies was formed, which was called the Safari Club. This marked the discreet and highly covert coordination among various intelligence agencies, which would last for decades. It formed at a time when the CIA was embroiled in domestic scrutiny over the Watergate scandal and a Congressional investigation into covert CIA activities, forcing the CIA to become more covert in its activities.

In 2002, the Saudi intelligence chief, Prince Turki bin Faisal gave a speech in which he stated that in response to the CIA's need for more discretion, "a group of countries got together in the hope of fighting Communism and established what was called the Safari Club. The Safari Club included France, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Morocco, and Iran [under the Shah]."[1] However, "The Safari Club needed a network of banks to finance its intelligence operations. With the official blessing of George H.W. Bush as the head of the CIA," Saudi intelligence chief, Kamal Adham, "transformed a small Pakistani merchant bank, the Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI), into a world-wide money-laundering machine, buying banks around the world to create the biggest clandestine money network in history."[2]

As CIA director, George H.W. Bush "cemented strong relations with the intelligence services of both Saudi Arabia and the Shah of Iran. He worked closely with Kamal Adham, the head of Saudi intelligence, brother-in-law of King Faisal and an early BCCI insider." Adham had previously acted as a "channel between [Henry] Kissinger and [Egyptian President] Anwar Sadat" in 1972. In 1976, Iran, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia formed the Safari Club "to conduct through their own intelligence agencies operations that were now difficult for the CIA," which was largely organized by the head of French intelligence, Alexandre de Marenches.[3]

The "Arc of Crisis" and the Iranian Revolution

When Jimmy Carter became President in 1977, he appointed over two-dozen members of the Trilateral Commission to his administration, which was an international think tank formed by Zbigniew Brzezinski and David Rockefeller in 1973. Brzezinski had invited Carter to join the Trilateral Commission, and when Carter became President, Brzezinski became National Security Adviser; Cyrus Vance, also a member of the Commission, became Secretary of State; and Samuel Huntington, another Commission member, became Coordinator of National Security and Deputy to Brzezinski. Author and researcher Peter Dale Scott deserves much credit for his comprehensive analysis of the events leading up to and during the Iranian Revolution in his book, "The Road to 9/11",** which provides much of the information below.

Samuel Huntington and Zbigniew Brzezinski were to determine the US policy position in the Cold War, and the US-Soviet policy they created was termed, "Cooperation and Competition," in which Brzezinski would press for "Cooperation" when talking to the press, yet, privately push for "competition." So, while Secretary of State Cyrus Vance was pursuing détente with the Soviet Union, Brzezinski was pushing for American supremacy over the Soviet Union. Brzezinski and Vance would come to disagree on almost every issue.[4]

In 1978, Zbigniew Brzezinski gave a speech in which he stated, "An arc of crisis stretches along the shores of the Indian Ocean, with fragile social and political structures in a region of vital importance to us threatened with fragmentation. The resulting political chaos could well be filled by elements hostile to our values and sympathetic to our adversaries." The Arc of Crisis stretched from Indochina to southern Africa, although, more specifically, the particular area of focus was "the nations that stretch across the southern flank of the Soviet Union from the Indian subcontinent to Turkey, and southward through the Arabian Peninsula to the Horn of Africa." Further, the "center of gravity of this arc is Iran, the world's fourth largest oil producer and for more than two decades a citadel of U.S. military and economic strength in the Middle East. Now it appears that the 37-year reign of Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi is almost over, ended by months of rising civil unrest and revolution."[5]

With rising discontent in the region, "There was this idea that the Islamic forces could be used against the Soviet Union. The theory was, there was an arc of crisis, and so an arc of Islam could be mobilized to contain the Soviets. It was a Brzezinski concept."[6] A month prior to Brzezinski's speech, in November of 1978, "President Carter named the Bilderberg group's George Ball, another member of the Trilateral Commission, to head a special White House Iran task force under the National Security Council's Brzezinski." Further, "Ball recommended that Washington drop support for the Shah of Iran and support the fundamentalist Islamic opposition of Ayatollah Khomeini."[7] George Ball's visit to Iran was a secret mission.[8]

Throughout 1978, the Shah was under the impression that "the Carter administration was plotting to topple his regime." In 1978, the Queen and Shah's wife, told Manouchehr Ganji, a minister in the Shah's government, that, "I wanted to tell you that the Americans are maneuvering to bring down the Shah," and she continued saying that she believed "they even want to topple the regime."[9] The US Ambassador to Iran, William Sullivan, thought that the revolution would succeed, and told this to Ramsey Clark, former US Attorney General under the Johnson administration, as well as professor Richard Falk, when they were visiting Sullivan in Iran in 1978. Clark and Falk then went from Iran to Paris, to visit Khomeini, who was there in exile. James Bill, a Carter adviser, felt that, "a religious movement brought about with the United States' assistance would be a natural friend of the United States."[10]

Also interesting is the fact that the British BBC broadcast pro-Khomeini Persian-language programs daily in Iran, as a subtle form of propaganda, which "gave credibility to the perception of United States and British support of Khomeini."[11] The BBC refused to give the Shah a platform to respond, and "[r]epeated personal appeals from the Shah to the BBC yielded no result."[12]

In the May 1979 meeting of the Bilderberg Group, Bernard Lewis, a British historian of great influence (hence, the Bilderberg membership), presented a British-American strategy which, "endorsed the radical Muslim Brotherhood movement behind Khomeini, in order to promote balkanization of the entire Muslim Near East along tribal and religious lines. Lewis argued that the West should encourage autonomous groups such as the Kurds, Armenians, Lebanese Maronites, Ethiopian Copts, Azerbaijani Turks, and so forth. The chaos would spread in what he termed an 'Arc of Crisis,' which would spill over into the Muslim regions of the Soviet Union."[13] Further, it would prevent Soviet influence from entering the Middle East, as the Soviet Union was viewed as an empire of atheism and godlessness: essentially a secular and immoral empire, which would seek to impose secularism across Muslim countries. So supporting radical Islamic groups would mean that the Soviet Union would be less likely to have any influence or relations with Middle Eastern countries, making the US a more acceptable candidate for developing relations.

A 1979 article in Foreign Affairs, the journal of the Council on Foreign Relations, described the Arc of Crisis, saying that, "The Middle East constitutes its central core. Its strategic position is unequalled: it is the last major region of the Free World directly adjacent to the Soviet Union, it holds in its subsoil about three-fourths of the proven and estimated world oil reserves, and it is the locus of one of the most intractable conflicts of the twentieth century: that of Zionism versus Arab nationalism." It went on to explain that post-war US policy in the region was focused on "containment" of the Soviet Union, as well as access to the regions oil.[14] The article continued, explaining that the most "obvious division" within the Middle East is, "that which separates the Northern Tier (Turkey, Iran, Afghanistan) from the Arab core," and that, "After World War II, Turkey and Iran were the two countries most immediately threatened by Soviet territorial expansionism and political subversion."[15] Ultimately, "the Northern Tier was assured of a serious and sustained American commitment to save it from sharing the fate of Eastern Europe."[16]

While Khomeini was in Paris prior to the Revolution, a representative of the French President organized a meeting between Khomeini and "current world powers," in which Khomeini made certain demands, such as, "the shah's removal from Iran and help in avoiding a coup d'état by the Iranian Army." The Western powers, however, "were worried about the Soviet Union's empowerment and penetration and a disruption in Iran's oil supply to the west. Khomeini gave the necessary guarantees. These meetings and contacts were taking place in January of 1979, just a few days before the Islamic Revolution in February 1979."[17] In February of 1979, Khomeini was flown out of Paris on an Air France flight, to return to Iran, "with the blessing of Jimmy Carter."[18] Ayatollah Khomeini named Mehdi Bazargan as prime minister of the Provisional Revolutionary Government on February 4, 1979. As Khomeini had demanded during his Paris meeting in January 1979, that western powers must help in avoiding a coup by the Iranian Army; in that same month, the Carter administration, under the direction of Brzezinski, had begun planning a military coup.[19]

Could this have been planned in the event that Khomeini was overthrown, the US would quickly reinstate order, perhaps even place Khomeini back in power? Interestingly, in January of 1979, "as the Shah was about to leave the country, the American Deputy Commander in NATO, General Huyser, arrived and over a period of a month conferred constantly with Iranian military leaders. His influence may have been substantial on the military's decision not to attempt a coup and eventually to yield to the Khomeini forces, especially if press reports are accurate that he or others threatened to withhold military supplies if a coup were attempted."[20] No coup was subsequently undertaken, and Khomeini came to power as the Ayatollah of the Islamic Republic of Iran.

As tensions increased among the population within Iran, the US sent "security advisers" to Iran to pressure the Shah's SAVAK (secret police) to implement "a policy of ever more brutal repression, in a manner calculated to maximize popular antipathy to the Shah." The Carter administration also began publicly criticizing the Shah's human rights abuses.[21] On September 6, 1978, the Shah banned demonstrations, and the following day, between 700 and 2000 demonstrators were gunned down, following "advice from Brzezinski to be firm."[22]

The US Ambassador to the UN, Andrew Young, a Trilateral Commission member, said that, "Khomeini will eventually be hailed as a saint," and the US Ambassador to Iran, William Sullivan, said, "Khomeini is a Gandhi-like figure," while Carter's adviser, James Bill, said that Khomeini was a man of "impeccable integrity and honesty."[23]

The Shah was also very sick in late 1978 and early 1979. So the Shah fled Iran in January of 1979 to the Bahamas, allowing for the revolution to take place. It is especially interesting to understand the relationship between David Rockefeller and the Shah of Iran. David Rockefeller's personal assistant, Joseph V. Reed, had been "assigned to handle the shah's finances and his personal needs;" Robert Armao, who worked for Vice President Nelson Rockefeller, was sent to "act as the shah's public relations agent and lobbyist;" and Benjamin H. Kean, "a longtime associate of Chase Manhattan Bank chairman David Rockefeller," and David Rockefeller's "personal physician," who was sent to Mexico when the shah was there, and advised that he "be treated at an American hospital."[24]

It is important to note that Rockefeller interests "had directed U.S. policy in Iran since the CIA coup of 1953."[25] Following the Shah's flight from Iran, there were increased pressures within the United States by a handful of powerful people to have the Shah admitted to the United States. These individuals were Zbigniew Brzezinski, former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, John J. McCloy, former statesman and senior member of the Bilderberg Group, Trilateral Commission and the Council on Foreign Relations, who was also a lawyer for Chase Manhattan, and of course, David Rockefeller.[26]

Chase Manhattan Bank had more interests in Iran than any other US bank. In fact, the Shah had "ordered that all his government's major operating accounts be held at Chase and that letters of credit for the purchase of oil be handled exclusively through Chase. The bank also became the agent and lead manager for many of the loans to Iran. In short, Iran became the crown jewel of Chase's international banking portfolio."[27]

The Iranian interim government, headed by Prime Minister Bazargan, collapsed in November of 1979, when Iranian hostages seized the US Embassy in Teheran. However, there is much more to this event than meets the eye. During the time of the interim government (February, 1979 to November, 1979), several actions were undertaken which threatened some very powerful interests who had helped the Ayatollah into power.

Chase Manhattan Bank faced a liquidity crisis as there had been billions in questionable loans to Iran funneled through Chase.[28] Several of Chase's loans were "possibly illegal under the Iranian constitution."[29] Further, in February of 1979, once the interim government was put in power, it began to take "steps to market its oil independently of the Western oil majors." Also, the interim government "wanted Chase Manhattan to return Iranian assets, which Rockefeller put at more than $1 billion in 1978, although some estimates ran much higher," which could have "created a liquidity crisis for the bank which already was coping with financial troubles."[30]

With the seizure of the American Embassy in Iran, President Carter took moves to freeze Iranian financial assets. As David Rockefeller wrote in his book, "Carter's 'freeze' of official Iranian assets protected our [Chase Manhattan's] position, but no one at Chase played a role in convincing the administration to institute it."[31]

In February of 1979, Iran had been taking "steps to market its oil independently of the Western oil majors. In 1979, as in 1953, a freeze of Iranian assets made this action more difficult."[32] This was significant for Chase Manhattan not simply because of the close interlocking of the board with those of oil companies, not to mention Rockefeller himself, who is patriarch of the family whose name is synonymous with oil, but also because Chase exclusively handled all the letters of credit for the purchase of Iranian oil.[33]

The Shah being accepted into the United States, under public pressure from Henry Kissinger, Zbigniew Brzezinski and David Rockefeller, precipitated the hostage crisis, which occurred on November 4. Ten days later, Carter froze all Iranian assets in US banks, on the advice of his Treasury Secretary, William Miller. Miller just happened to have ties to Chase Manhattan Bank.[34]

Although Chase Manhattan directly benefited from the seizure of Iranian assets, the reasoning behind the seizure as well as the events leading up to it, such as a hidden role for the Anglo-Americans behind the Iranian Revolution, bringing the Shah to America, which precipitated the hostage crisis, cannot simply be relegated to personal benefit for Chase. There were larger designs behind this crisis. So the 1979 crises in Iran cannot simply be pawned off as a spur of the moment undertaking, but rather should be seen as quick actions taken upon a perceived opportunity. The opportunity was the rising discontent within Iran at the Shah; the quick actions were in covertly pushing the country into Revolution.

In 1979, "effectively restricting the access of Iran to the global oil market, the Iranian assets freeze became a major factor in the huge oil price increases of 1979 and 1981."[35] Added to this, in 1979, British Petroleum cancelled major oil contracts for oil supply, which along with cancellations taken by Royal Dutch Shell, drove the price of oil up higher.[36] With the first major oil price rises in 1973 (urged on by US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger), the Third World was forced to borrow heavily from US and European banks to finance development. With the second oil price shocks of 1979, the US Federal Reserve, with Paul Volcker as its new Chairman, (himself having served a career under David Rockefeller at Chase Manhattan), dramatically raised interest rates from 2% in the late 70s to 18% in the early 80s. Developing nations could not afford to pay such interest on their loans, and thus the 1980s debt crisis spread throughout the Third World, with the IMF and World Bank coming to the "rescue" with their Structural Adjustment Programs (SAPs), which ensured western control over the developing world's economies.[37]

Covertly, the United States helped a radical Islamist government come to power in Iran, "the center of the Arc of Crisis," and then immediately stirred up conflict and war in the region. Five months before Iraq invaded Iran, in April of 1980, Zbigniew Brzezinski openly declared the willingness of the US to work closely with Iraq. Two months before the war, Brzezinski met with Saddam Hussein in Jordan, where he gave support for the destabilization of Iran.[38] While Saddam was in Jordan, he also met with three senior CIA agents, which was arranged by King Hussein of Jordan. He then went to meet with King Fahd in Saudi Arabia, informing him of his plans to invade Iran, and then met with the Emir of Kuwait to inform him of the same thing. He gained support from America, and financial and arms support from the Arab oil producing countries. Arms to Iraq were funneled through Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait.[39] The war lasted until 1988 and resulted in over a million deaths.

This was the emergence of the "strategy of tension" in the "Arc of Crisis," in particular, the covert support (whether in arming, training, or financing) of radical Islamic elements to foment violence and conflict in a region. It was the old imperial tactic of 'divide and conquer': pit the people against each other so that they cannot join forces against the imperial power. This violence and radical Islamism would further provide the pretext for which the US and its imperial allies could then engage in war and occupation within the region, all the while securing its vast economic and strategic interests.

The "Arc of Crisis" in Afghanistan: The Safari Club in Action

In 1978, the progressive Taraki government in Afghanistan managed to incur the anger of the United States due to "its egalitarian and collectivist economic policies."[40] The Afghan government was widely portrayed in the West as "Communist" and thus, a threat to US national security. The government, did, however, undertake friendly policies and engagement with the Soviet Union, but was not a Communist government.

In 1978, as the new government came to power, almost immediately the US began covertly funding rebel groups through the CIA.[41] In 1979, Zbigniew Brzezinski worked closely with his aid from the CIA, Robert Gates (who is currently Secretary of Defense), in shifting President Carter's Islamic policy. As Brzezinski said in a 1998 interview with a French publication:

According to the official version of history, CIA aid to the Mujahadeen began during 1980, that is to say, after the Soviet army invaded Afghanistan, 24 Dec 1979. But the reality, secretly guarded until now, is completely otherwise: Indeed, it was July 3, 1979 that President Carter signed the first directive for secret aid to the opponents of the pro-Soviet regime in Kabul. And that very day, I wrote a note to the president in which I explained to him that in my opinion this aid was going to induce a Soviet military intervention.[42]

Brzezinski elaborated, saying he "Knowingly increased the probability that [the Soviets] would invade," and he recalled writing to Carter on the day of the Soviet invasion that, "We now have the opportunity of giving to the USSR its Vietnam war. Indeed, for almost 10 years, Moscow had to carry on a war unsupportable by the government, a conflict that brought about the demoralization and finally the breakup of the Soviet empire." When asked about the repercussions for such support in fostering the rise of Islamic fundamentalism, Brzezinski responded, "What is most important to the history of the world? The Taliban or the collapse of the Soviet empire? Some stirred-up Moslems or the liberation of Central Europe and the end of the cold war?"[43]

As author Peter Dale Scott pointed out in, The Road to 9/11:**

For generations in both Afghanistan and the Soviet Muslim Republics the dominant form of Islam had been local and largely Sufi. The decision to work with the Saudi and Pakistani secret services meant that billions of CIA and Saudi dollars would ultimately be spent in programs that would help enhance the globalistic and Wahhabistic jihadism that are associated today with al Qaeda.[44]

Hafizullah Amin, a top official in Taraki's government, who many believed to be a CIA asset, orchestrated a coup in September of 1979, and "executed Taraki, halted the reforms, and murdered, jailed, or exiled thousands of Taraki supporters as he moved toward establishing a fundamentalist Islamic state. But within two months, he was overthrown by PDP remnants including elements within the military."[45] The Soviets also intervened in order to replace Amin, who was seen as "unpredictable and extremist" with "the more moderate Barbak Karmal."[46]

The Soviet invasion thus prompted the US national security establishment to undertake the largest covert operation in history. When Ronald Reagan replaced Jimmy Carter in 1981, the covert assistance to the Afghan Mujahideen not only continued on the path set by Brzezinski but it rapidly accelerated, as did the overall strategy in the "Arc of Crisis." When Reagan became President, his Vice President became George H.W. Bush, who, as CIA director during the Ford administration, had helped establish the Safari Club intelligence network and the Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI) in Pakistan. In the "campaign to aid the Afghan rebels ... BCCI clearly emerged as a U.S. intelligence asset," and CIA Director "Casey began to use the outside - the Saudis, the Pakistanis, BCCI - to run what they couldn't get through Congress. [BCCI president] Abedi had the money to help," and the CIA director had "met repeatedly" with the president of BCCI.[47]

Thus, in 1981, Director Casey of the CIA worked with Saudi Prince Turki bin Faisal who ran the Saudi intelligence agency GID, and the Pakistani ISI "to create a foreign legion of jihadi Muslims or so-called Arab Afghans." This idea had "originated in the elite Safari Club that had been created by French intelligence chief Alexandre de Marenches."[48]

In 1986, the CIA backed a plan by the Pakistani ISI "to recruit people from around the world to join the Afghan jihad." Subsequently:

More than 100,000 Islamic militants were trained in Pakistan between 1986 and 1992, in camps overseen by CIA and MI6, with the SAS [British Special Forces] training future al-Qaida and Taliban fighters in bomb-making and other black arts. Their leaders were trained at a CIA camp in Virginia. This was called Operation Cyclone and continued long after the Soviets had withdrawn in 1989.[49]

CIA funding for the operations "was funneled through General Zia and the ISI in Pakistan."[50]

Interestingly, Robert Gates, who previously served as assistant to Brzezinski in the National Security Council, stayed on in the Reagan-Bush administration as executive assistant to CIA director Casey, and who is currently Secretary of Defense.

The Global Drug Trade and the CIA

As a central facet of the covert financing and training of the Afghan Mujahideen, the role of the drug trade became invaluable. The global drug trade has long been used by empires for fueling and financing conflict with the aim of facilitating imperial domination.

In 1773, the British colonial governor in Bengal "established a colonial monopoly on the sale of opium." As Alfred W. McCoy explained in his masterful book, "The Politics of Heroin":

As the East India Company expanded production, opium became India's main export. [. . . ] Over the next 130 years, Britain actively promoted the export of Indian opium to China, defying Chinese drug laws and fighting two wars to open China's opium market for its merchants. Using its military and mercantile power, Britain played a central role in making China a vast drug market and in accelerating opium cultivation throughout China. By 1900 China had 13.5 million addicts consuming 39,000 tons of opium.[51]

In Indochina in the 1940s and 50s, the French intelligence services "enabled the opium trade to survive government suppression efforts," and subsequently, "CIA activities in Burma helped transform the Shan states from a relatively minor poppy-cultivating area into the largest opium-growing region in the world."[52] The CIA did this by supporting the Kuomintang (KMT) army in Burma for an invasion of China, and facilitated its monopolization and expansion of the opium trade, allowing the KMT to remain in Burma until a coup in 1961, when they were driven into Laos and Thailand.[53] The CIA subsequently played a very large role in the facilitation of the drugs trade in Laos and Vietnam throughout the 1960s and into the 1970s.[54]

It was during the 1980s that "the CIA's covert war in Afghanistan transformed Central Asia from a self-contained opium zone into a major supplier of heroin for the world market," as:

Until the late 1970s, tribal farmers in the highlands of Afghanistan and Pakistan grew limited quantities of opium and sold it to merchant caravans bound west for Iran and east to India. In its decade of covert warfare against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, the CIA's operations provided the political protection and logistics linkages that joined Afghanistan's poppy fields to heroin markets in Europe and America.[55]

In 1977, General Zia Ul Haq in Pakistan launched a military coup, "imposed a harsh martial-law regime," and executed former President Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto (father to Benazir Bhutto). When Zia came to power, the Pakistani ISI was a "minor military intelligence unit," but, under the "advice and assistance of the CIA," General Zia transformed the ISI "into a powerful covert unit and made it the strong arm of his martial-law regime."[56]

The CIA and Saudi money flowed not only to weapons and training for the Mujahideen, but also into the drug trade. Pakistani President Zia-ul-Haq appointed General Fazle Haq as the military governor of Pakistan's North-West Frontier Province (NWFP), who would "consult with Brzezinski on developing an Afghan resistance program," and who became a CIA asset. When CIA Director Casey or Vice President George H.W. Bush reviewed the CIA Afghan operation, they went to see Haq; who by 1982, was considered by Interpol to be an international narcotics trafficker. Haq moved much of the narcotics money through the BCCI.[57]

In May of 1979, prior to the December invasion of the Soviet Union into Afghanistan, a CIA envoy met with Afghan resistance leaders in a meeting organized by the ISI. The ISI "offered the CIA envoy an alliance with its own Afghan client, Gulbuddin Hekmatyar," who led a small guerilla group. The CIA accepted, and over the following decade, half of the CIA's aid went to Hekmatyar's guerillas.[58] Hekmatyar became Afghanistan's leading mujahideen drug lord, and developed a "complex of six heroin labs in an ISI-controlled area of Baluchistan (Pakistan)."[59]

The US subsequently, through the 1980s, in conjunction with Saudi Arabia, gave Hekmatyar more than $1 billion in armaments. Immediately, heroin began flowing from Afghanistan to America. By 1980, drug-related deaths in New York City rose 77% since 1979.[60] By 1981, the drug lords in Pakistan and Afghanistan supplied 60% of America's heroin. Trucks going into Afghanistan with CIA arms from Pakistan would return with heroin "protected by ISI papers from police search."[61]

Haq, the CIA asset in Pakistan, "was also running the drug trade," of which the bank BCCI "was completely involved." In the 1980s, the CIA insisted that the ISI create "a special cell for the use of heroin for covert actions." Elaborating:

This cell promoted the cultivation of opium and the extraction of heroin in Pakistani territory as well as in the Afghan territory under Mujahideen control for being smuggled into Soviet controlled areas in order to make the Soviet troops heroin addicts.[62]

This plan apparently originated at the suggestion of French intelligence chief and founder of the Safari Club, Alexandre de Marenches, who recommended it to CIA Director Casey.[63]

In the 1980s, one program undertaken by the United States was to finance Mujahideen propaganda in textbooks for Afghan schools. The US gave the Mujahideen $43 million in "non-lethal" aid for the textbook project alone, which was given by USAID: "The U.S. Agency for International Development, [USAID] coordinated its work with the CIA, which ran the weapons program," and "The U.S. government told the AID to let the Afghan war chiefs decide the school curriculum and the content of the textbooks."[64]

The textbooks were "filled with violent images and militant Islamic teachings," and "were filled with talk of jihad and featured drawings of guns, bullets, soldiers and mines." Even since the covert war of the 1980s, the textbooks "have served since then as the Afghan school system's core curriculum. Even the Taliban used the American-produced books." The books were developed through a USAID grant to the "University of Nebraska-Omaha and its Center for Afghanistan Studies," and when the books were smuggled into Afghanistan through regional military leaders, "Children were taught to count with illustrations showing tanks, missiles and land mines." USAID stopped this funding in 1994.[65]

The Rise of the Taliban

When the Soviets withdrew from Afghanistan in 1989, the fighting continued between the Afghan government backed by the USSR and the Mujahideen backed by the US, Saudi Arabia, and Pakistan. When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, so too did its aid to the Afghan government, which itself was overthrown in 1992. However, fighting almost immediately broke out between rival factions vying for power, including Hekmatyar.

In the early 1990s, an obscure group of "Pashtun country folk" had become a powerful military and political force in Afghanistan, known as the Taliban.[66] The Taliban "surfaced as a small militia force operating near Kandahar city during the spring and summer of 1994, carrying out vigilante attacks against minor warlords." As growing discontent with the warlords grew, so too did the reputation of the Taliban.[67]

The Taliban acquired an alliance with the ISI in 1994, and throughout 1995, the relationship between the Taliban and the ISI accelerated and "became more and more of a direct military alliance." The Taliban ultimately became "an asset of the ISI" and "a client of the Pakistan army."[68] Further, "Between 1994 and 1996, the USA supported the Taliban politically through its allies Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, essentially because Washington viewed the Taliban as anti-Iranian, anti-Shia, and pro-Western."[69]

Selig Harrison, a scholar with the Woodrow Wilson International Centre for Scholars and "a leading US expert on South Asia," said at a conference in India that the CIA worked with Pakistan to create the Taliban. Harrison has "extensive contact" with the CIA, as "he had meetings with CIA leaders at the time when Islamic forces were being strengthened in Afghanistan," while he was a senior associate of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. As he further revealed in 2001, "The CIA still has close links with the ISI."[70] By 1996, the Taliban had control of Kandahar, but still fighting and instability continued in the country.

Osama and Al-Qaeda

Between 1980 and 1989, roughly $600 million was passed through Osama bin Laden's charity front organizations, specifically the Maktab al-Khidamat (MAK), also known as Al-Kifah. The money mostly originated with wealthy donors in Saudi Arabia and other areas in the Persian Gulf, and was funneled through his charity fronts to arm and fund the mujahideen in Afghanistan.[71]

In the 1980s, the British Special Forces (SAS) were training mujahideen in Afghanistan, as well as in secret camps in Scotland, and the SAS is largely taking orders from the CIA. The CIA also indirectly begins to arm Osama bin Laden.[72] Osama bin Laden's front charity, the MAK, "was nurtured" by the Pakistani ISI.[73]

Osama bin Laden was reported to have been personally recruited by the CIA in 1979 in Istanbul. He had the close support of Prince Turki bin Faisal, his friend and head of Saudi intelligence, and also developed ties with Hekmatyar in Afghanistan,[74] both of whom were pivotal figures in the CIA-Safari Club network. General Akhtar Abdul Rahman, the head of the Pakistani ISI from 1980 to 1987, would meet regularly with Osama bin Laden in Pakistan, and they formed a partnership in demanding a tax on the opium trade from warlords so that by 1985, bin Laden and the ISI were splitting the profits of over $100 million per year.[75] In 1985, Osama bin Laden's brother, Salem, stated that Osama was "the liaison between the US, the Saudi government, and the Afghan rebels."[76]

In 1988, Bin Laden discussed "the establishment of a new military group," which would come to be known as Al-Qaeda.[77] Osama bin Laden's charity front, the MAK, (eventually to form Al-Qaeda) founded the al-Kifah Center in Brooklyn, New York, to recruit Muslims for the jihad against the Soviets. The al-Kifah Center was founded in the late 1980s with the support of the U.S. government, which provided visas for known terrorists associated with the organization, including Ali Mohamed, the "blind sheik" Omar Abdel Rahman and possibly the lead 9/11 hijacker, Mohamed Atta.[78]

This coincided with the creation of Al-Qaeda, of which the al-Kifah Center was a recruiting front. Foot soldiers for Al-Qaeda were "admitted to the United States for training under a special visa program." The FBI had been surveilling the training of terrorists, however, "it terminated this surveillance in the fall of 1989." In 1990, the CIA granted Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman a visa to come run the al-Kifah Center, who was considered an "untouchable" as he was "being protected by no fewer than three agencies," including the State Department, the National Security Agency (NSA) and the CIA.[79]

Robin Cook, a former British MP and Minister of Foreign Affairs wrote that Al-Qaeda, "literally 'the database', was originally the computer file of the thousands of mujahideen who were recruited and trained with help from the CIA to defeat the Russians."[80] Thus, "Al-Qaeda" was born as an instrument of western intelligence agencies. This account of al-Qaeda was further corroborated by a former French military intelligence agent, who stated that, "In the mid-1980s, Al Qaeda was a database," and that it remained as such into the 1990s. He contended that, "Al Qaeda was neither a terrorist group nor Osama bin Laden's personal property," and further:

The truth is, there is no Islamic army or terrorist group called Al Qaida. And any informed intelligence officer knows this. But there is a propaganda campaign to make the public believe in the presence of an identified entity representing the 'devil' only in order to drive the 'TV watcher' to accept a unified international leadership for a war against terrorism. The country behind this propaganda is the US and the lobbyists for the US war on terrorism are only interested in making money.[81]

The creation of Al-Qaeda was thus facilitated by the CIA and allied intelligence networks, the purpose of which was to maintain this "database" of Mujahideen to be used as intelligence assets to achieve US foreign policy objectives, throughout both the Cold War, and into the post-Cold War era of the 'new world order'.

Part II of "The Imperial Anatomy of al-Qaeda" takes the reader through an examination of the new imperial strategy laid out by American geopolitical strategists at the end of the Cold War, designed for America to maintain control over the world's resources and prevent the rise of competitive powers. Covertly, the "database" (al-Qaeda) became central to this process, being used to advance imperial aims in various regions, such as in the dismantling of Yugoslavia. Part 2 further examines the exact nature of 'al-Qaeda', its origins, terms, training, arming, financing, and expansion. In particular, the roles of western intelligence agencies in the evolution and expansion of al-Qaeda is a central focus. Finally, an analysis of the preparations for the war in Afghanistan is undertaken to shed light on the geopolitical ambitions behind the conflict that has now been waging for nearly nine years.

Part III of "The Imperial Anatomy of al-Qaeda" takes the reader through 9/11 and America's Secret Terror Campaign.

* Andrew Gavin Marshall is a Research Associate with the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG). He is co-editor, with Michel Chossudovsky, of the recent book, "The Global Economic Crisis: The Great Depression of the XXI Century," available to order at Globalresearch.ca.

** [Note on the research: For a comprehensive analysis of the history, origins and nature of al-Qaeda, see: Peter Dale Scott, The Road to 9/11: Wealth, Empire and the Future of America, which provided much of the research in the above article.]

Notes

[1] Peter Dale Scott, The Road to 9/11: Wealth, Empire, and the Future of America. University of California Press: 2007: page 62

[2] Ibid, page 63.

[3] Ibid, page 62.

[4] Ibid, pages 66-67.

[5] HP-Time, The Crescent of Crisis. Time Magazine: January 15, 1979:
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,919995-1,00.html

[6] Peter Dale Scott, op. cit., page 67.

[7] F. William Engdahl, A Century of War: Anglo-American Oil Politics and the New World Order. London: Pluto Press, 2004: page 171

[8] Manouchehr Ganji, Defying the Iranian Revolution: From a Minister to the Shah to a Leader of Resistance. Greenwood Publishing Group, 2002: page 41

[9] Ibid, page 39.

[10] Ibid, page 41.

[11] Ibid.

[12] F. William Engdahl, A Century of War: Anglo-American Oil Politics and the New World Order. London: Pluto Press, 2004: page 172

[13] Ibid, page 171.

[14] George Lenczowski, The Arc of Crisis: It's Central Sector. Foreign Affairs: Summer, 1979: page 796

[15] Ibid, page 797.

[16] Ibid, page 798.

[17] IPS, Q&A: Iran's Islamic Revolution Had Western Blessing. Inter-Press Service: July 26, 2008:
http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=43328

[18] Michael D. Evans, Father of the Iranian revolution. The Jerusalem Post: June 20, 2007:
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1181813077590&pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull

[19] Peter Dale Scott, op cit., page 89.

[20] George Lenczowski, The Arc of Crisis: It's Central Sector. Foreign Affairs: Summer, 1979: page 810

[21] F. William Engdahl, op cit., page 172.

[22] Peter Dale Scott, op cit., page 81.

[23] Michael D. Evans, Father of the Iranian revolution. The Jerusalem Post: June 20, 2007:
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1181813077590&pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull

[24] Peter Dale Scott, op cit., page 83.

[25] Ibid, page 84.

[26] Ibid, page 81.

[27] Ibid, pages 85-86.

[28] Ibid.

[29] Ibid, page 87.

[30] Ibid, pages 88-89.

[31] Ibid.

[32] Ibid, pages 87-88.

[33] Ibid, page 85.

[34] Ibid, page 86.

[35] Ibid, page 88.

[36] F. William Engdahl, A Century of War: Anglo-American Oil Politics and the New World Order. London: Pluto Press, 2004: page 173

[37] Andrew Gavin Marshall, Controlling the Global Economy: Bilderberg, the Trilateral Commission and the Federal Reserve. Global Research: August 3, 2009:
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=14614

[38] Peter Dale Scott, The Road to 9/11: Wealth, Empire, and the Future of America. University of California Press: 2007: page 89

[39] PBS, Secrets of His Life and Leadership: An Interview with Said K. Aburish. PBS Frontline:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/saddam/interviews/aburish.html

[40] Michael Parenti, Afghanistan, Another Untold Story. Global Research: December 4, 2008:
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=11279

[41] Oleg Kalugin, How We Invaded Afghanistan. Foreign Policy: December 11, 2009:
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2009/12/11/how_we_invaded_afghanistan

[42] ''Le Nouvel Observateur' (France), Jan 15-21, 1998, p. 76:
http://www.ucc.ie/acad/appsoc/tmp_store/mia/Library/history/afghanistan/archive/brzezinski/1998/interview.htm

[43] Ibid.

[44] Peter Dale Scott, The Road to 9/11: Wealth, Empire, and the Future of America. University of California Press: 2007: page 73

[45] Michael Parenti, Afghanistan, Another Untold Story. Global Research: December 4, 2008:
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=11279

[46] Peter Dale Scott, op cit., page 78.

[47] Ibid, page 116.

[48] Ibid, page 122.

[49] Ibid, page 123.

[50] Ibid,.

[51] Alfred W. McCoy, The Politics of Heroin: CIA Complicity in the Global Drug Trade. (Lawrence Hill Books: Chicago, 2003), page 80

[52] Ibid, page 162.

[53] Ibid.

[54] Ibid, pages 283-386.

[55] Ibid, page 466.

[56] Ibid, page 474.

[57] Peter Dale Scott, The Road to 9/11: Wealth, Empire, and the Future of America. University of California Press: 2007: page 73

[58] Alfred W. McCoy, op cit., page 475.

[59] Peter Dale Scott, op cit., page 74.

[60] Ibid, pages 75-76.

[61] Ibid, page 124.

[62] Ibid, pages 75-76.

[63] Ibid, page 124.

[64] Carol Off, Back to school in Afghanistan. CBC: May 6, 2002:
http://www.cbc.ca/news/background/afghanistan/schools.html

[65] Joe Stephens and David B. Ottaway, From U.S., the ABC's of Jihad. The Washington Post: March 23, 2002:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A5339-2002Mar22?language=printer

[66] Steve Coll, Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan, and Bin Laden, From the Soviet Invasion to September 10, 2001. Penguin Books, New York, 2004: Page 328

[67] Steve Coll, Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan, and Bin Laden, From the Soviet Invasion to September 11, 2001. (London: Penguin, 2005), page 285

[68] Steve Coll, "Steve Coll" Interview with PBS Frontline. PBS Frontline: October 3, 2006:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/taliban/interviews/coll.html

[69] Robert Dreyfuss, Devil's Game: How the United States Helped Unleash Fundamentalist Islam. (New York: Metropolitan Books, 2005), page 326

[70] ToI, "CIA worked in tandem with Pak to create Taliban". The Times of India: March 7, 2001:
http://www.multiline.com.au/~johnm/taliban.htm

[71] Robert Dreyfuss, Devil's Game: How the United States Helped Unleash Fundamentalist Islam. (New York: Metropolitan Books, 2005), pages 279-280

[72] Simon Reeve, The New Jackals: Ramzi Yousef, Osama bin Laden, and the Future of Terrorism. (London: André Deutsch Ltd, 1999), page 168

[73] Michael Moran, Bin Laden comes home to roost. MSNBC: August 24, 1998:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3340101/

[74] Veronique Maurus and Marc Rock, The Most Dreaded Man of the United States, Controlled a Long Time by the CIA. Le Monde Diplomatique: September 14, 2001: http://www.wanttoknow.info/010914lemonde

[75] Gerald Posner, Why America Slept: The Failure to Prevent 9/11. (New York: Random House, 2003), page 29

[76] Steve Coll, The Bin Ladens. (New York: Penguin, 2008), pages 7-9

[77] AP, Al Qaeda Financing Documents Turn Up in Bosnia Raid. Fox News: February 19, 2003:
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,78937,00.html

[78] Peter Dale Scott, The Road to 9/11: Wealth, Empire, and the Future of America. University of California Press: 2007: pages 140-141

[79] Ibid, page 141.

[80] Robin Cook, The struggle against terrorism cannot be won by military means. The Guardian: July 8, 2005:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2005/jul/08/july7.development

[81] Pierre-Henri Bunel, Al Qaeda - the Database. Global Research: November 20, 2005:
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=BUN20051120&articleId=1291

It seems that football fans might be able to do what Arab governments have miserably failed to achieve or even address: lifting the illegal inhuman Israeli siege off Gaza!

Players line up before a football match on the first day of Gaza's version of the World Cup, in Gaza City, on May 2, 2010. Photo Xinhua/Wissam Nassar

Get involved!

Efforts like the Gaza World Cup, as cliché as it sounds, are only as strong as those who choose to seize the opportunity and get involved. Some have joined because they live in Gaza and know what the siege is doing to the long-term hope for peace. Yet so have many foreigners, as, whether they live in Gaza or have never been here, they can identify with what it feels like to suffer. Many others of varying religions are getting involved because they believe that faith should steer us towards respecting each other's humanity, not discourage it. And finally, a lot of newcomers to the Middle East are taking an interest simply because they're dumbfounded that none of the traditional powers have made any progress in the region over the last 60 years - and they want to help try something new - anything new - in the hopes that we can finally start to change direction in the Middle East. So for whatever reasons you're interested in supporting the Gaza World Cup, your involvement is warmly welcomed.

BRIDGING THE GLOBAL GAPS

Forming the core of the Gaza World Cup will be a partnership between 16 professional football clubs in Gaza and an equal number of foreigner amateurs residing in Gaza for various humanitarian purposes. The 16 Gazan clubs include each of the 14 first-level teams, and, if needed, the two highest ranking second-level teams. The availability of these 352 players will provide the backbone to ensure that the tournament is successful in both the caliber of play, as well as ensuring the event retains a strong local character.

Balancing out the teams begins with 250 international humanitarian workers and journalists from primarily Western countries currently residing in Gaza. Non-regional internationals currently based in Gaza and participating in the tournament include citizens of Britain, France, Holland, Ireland, Italy, Spain, Switzerland, and the United States. Including these 125 potential players, along with encouraging outside journalists and other professionals with travel coordination residing abroad to journey to Gaza specifically to participate, the non-Arab participation goal is 100 players.

Regional participation will add a further layer of international solidarity to the tournament. With considerable numbers of Algerians, Egyptians, Jordanians, and Turks living in Gaza, a further six teams will play alongside the Palestinian team. The goal for regional participation, beyond Gazans, is 100 players.

In total, 400 players comprising 16 teams are planned, with 200 holding Palestinian nationality and 200 from other countries. And while a non-political event, it should be noted that a wide variety of Palestinian political factions are expected to join together and contribute players within the Palestinian half, promoting national unity over their own political agendas.

The teams involved are Algeria, Egypt, England, France, Germany, Holland, Ireland, Italy, Jordan, Palestine, Russia, Serbia, South Africa, Spain, Turkey, and the USA.

COMMUNITY INVOLVEMENT

Beyond direct player participation, the tournament will also extensively involve and unite many unique communities within the larger Gazan society. First off, each of the 15 matches will be free and open to the public, welcoming both men and women. And while all events will be confined to Gaza City for logistical reasons, it is widely believed that each of the 16 club teams from throughout Gaza will attract their own local fan base to the events.

A second goal of the tournament is to highlight the resilient strength and culture of Gaza, with a special focus on partnering art and technology with sport. Each aspect of the project, from designing logos, to billboards, to each of the 16 "national" jerseys, will be supported by local artists and graphic designers. And the winning team members will find themselves honored by a trophy hand-crafted from the reclaimed iron of Gazan wreckage, as well as intentionally celebrated by the skilled local tradition of urban graffiti. Each step will then subsequently be featured technologically, with a considerable effort to promote all aspects of the tournament online and in the media, supported extensively behind the scenes by local university students and recent technological graduates.

http://gazaworldcup.org/

Players of Palestine and a foreign team compete during the opening football match on the first day of Gazas version of the World Cup, in Gaza City, on May 2, 2010. The Gaza Strip kicked off its own version of the World Cup with teams of Palestinian footballers and foreigners representing foreign countries on Sunday. The trophy is made out of twisted metal and rubble from last year war with Israel. Photo Xinhua/Wissam Nassar

French official sacked for anti-Israeli diatribe

PARIS (AFP) — A French senior civil servant has been sacked for publishing a violent anti-Israeli diatribe on a web site, the interior ministry said.

Bruno Guigue, deputy prefect of the southwestern town of Saintes, wrote in an online column this month that Israel was "the only state where snipers shoot down little girls outside their school gates."

The author of several books on the Israli-Palestinian conflict, Guigue wrote of the "Israeli jails where -- thanks to religious law -- they stop torturing on the Sabbath."

Interior Minister Michele Alliot-Marie dismissed the official after learning of the column on Wednesday, the ministry said.

President Nicolas Sarkozy's decision to select Israel as guest of honor at the International Book Fair (salon Due Livre) in Paris underscores his government's obscene embrace of Israel's manifestly criminal policies in the occupied Palestinian territories, including apartheid, ethnic cleansing and genocide.

Indeed, hosting Shimon Peres only one week after the Israeli Wehrmacht murdered in cold blood more than 130 Palestinians, including babies, children, minors and other civilians in the Gaza Strip underscores the moral quagmire in which the French President and government have sunk.

This repulsive celebration of Zionism, which in truth is a celebration of evil and racism, will leave an indelible stigma of shame on France, a country that prides itself on adhering to the principles of "liberté, égalité and fraternité."

This dark embrace also means that France is supporting soul and heart Israel's Nazi-like policies of killing Palestinian civilians, destroying their homes, stealing their land and narrowing their horizons. Moreover, it implies that France views as legitimate the hermetic blockade being clamped on 1.5 human beings in the Gaza Strip who are being denied access to food, water, fuel and electricity as well as nearly all consumer products on no account other than the fact that they two years ago elected a political party that Israel and the US didn't like. It also implies that France is effectively quite satisfied with Israel's rabid settlement expansion on occupied Arab land, as expressed in the recent Israeli decision to built for-Jews-only 1100 settler units in the heart of Arab East Jerusalem. This is at least how Israel is going to understand the meanings and implications of Sarkozy's honeymoon with the Jewish state.

But Israel has not only been indulging in pornographic mass murder in Gaza and the West Bank. Israeli political, military and religious leaders have also been making strident statements and remarks that really would make the most virulent anti-Semites look very much like innocent boy scouts.

Let us remember a few examples of how Zionism is unmasking itself and exposing its ugly face. The Israeli Deputy Defense Minister, Matan Vilnai, declared recently that "We will inflict on the Palestinians a greater holocaust." Greater than what? Moreover, two Knesset members, speaking during an official session of the Israeli parliament last week, warned their non-Jewish lawmakers that "we will kick you out of this house" and "we will kick you out of the country." I don't really know if these two Nazionist thugs, Eifi Eitam and Avigdor Lieberman, will also be invited as guests of honor to the Palais de l' Elysées

Similarly, a growing number of Rabbis in Israel are already instigating the Jewish public to commit genocide against the unprotected Palestinians on the ground that in war there are no civilians of the enemy.

So why does enlightened France, the country of Voltaire, and its so-called enlightened President, not speak up against this brazen barbarianism, instead of celebrating a hateful war criminal, who has a lot of innocent blood on his dirty hands, by asking him to be a guest of honor at such a solemn occasion as the Salon du Livre? Isn't that comparable to inviting Adolph Hitler to a symposium on the sanctity of life?

Is Sarkozy trying to transform France into another Zionist fiefdom? Another Israeli-occupied territory, to be added to the US government and congress and media?

For younger generations who don't know, Shimon Peres is a war criminal by every shred of imagination.

In 1996, during his brief stint as Prime Minister following the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin, Peres instructed the Israeli army to bomb the UN peace keepers' headquarters at the village of Qana in Southern Lebanon, killing over a hundred civilians who had sought refuge there. Then an official UN report condemned Israel for "knowingly and deliberately" perpetrating the horrible crime.

Interestingly, up until now, the so-called dove of peace, the Noble Laureate, has not uttered the word "mea kulpa" neither to the helpless victims and their families, nor to the world at large.

Well, I wonder when, if ever, will Zionist Jews apologize for their crimes against humanity? Perhaps when kosher pigs fly.

Is it possible that Sarkozy doesn't know all these facts about Peres and Israel? Well, I doubt it. Which actually makes Sarkozy a willing friend of war criminals?

This is to say the least of a man who is planning to visit world's last-remaining apartheid in a few weeks to celebrate the ethnic cleansing of millions of native Palestinians who were banished from their ancestral land in order to effect Zionism.

It is very shameful indeed that the President of the French republic has chosen to identify his country so closely with a pariah state that constantly defies international law and norms, a state that carries out ethnic cleansing and commits genocide in full view of the entire world, a state that murders and steals and lies to fulfill an diabolical ideology called Zionism.

It is true that thanks to his unholy relationship with Israel, Sarkozy is insulting and flying in the face of the Muslim world and jeopardizing France's traditional relations with the Arab world.

But, first and foremost, he is actually harming France's image, not only among Arabs and Muslims, but also among millions of people around the world who had hoped France would serve as a moral counter-balance to America's wanton inhumanity and incivility.

In a document released by the National Archives, British diplomat, DH Colvin of the Paris embassy, citing an unnamed contact at the Euro-Arab parliamentary association, wrote: "According to his information, the hijack was the work of the PFLP [Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine], with help from the Israeli secret service, the Shin Beit."

Describing the collaboration as an unholy alliance, he went on: "The operation was designed to torpedo the PLO's [Palestine Liberation Organisation] standing in France and to prevent what they see as a growing rapprochement between the PLO and the Americans.

"Their nightmare is that after the November elections, one will witness the imposition in the Middle East of a Pax Americana, which will be the advantage of the PLO (who will gain international respectability and perhaps the right to establish a state on evacuated territories) and to the disadvantage of the Refusal Front (who will be squeezed right out in any overall peace settlement and will lose their raison d'etre) and Israel (who will be forced to evacuate occupied territory)." (Source: Guardian)

Surprised? Not Me.

Ok, here is the latest brain-farts from France:

More than 70 Muslim workers at France's main airport have been stripped of their security clearance for allegedly posing a risk to passengers.

The staff at Charles de Gaulle airport, including baggage handlers, are said to have visited terrorist training camps in Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Earlier this year officials at Charles de Gaulle airport, north of Paris, conducted a security review of staff and questioned dozens of Muslim workers.

More than 100 baggage handlers and aircraft cleaners had been under surveillance for months.

In all, 72 people were later told their passes allowing access to secure areas were being withdrawn.

Airport officials say some of the workers had frequently visited Pakistan and Afghanistan the previous year. [BBC]

These French officials are really weird. Look at the numbers, 72 out of 100, that is 72% of these labors. All of these visited "terrorist training caps in Pakistan and Afghanistan," duh, they claim! (I wonder how many of these are actually Pakistanis or Afghani's)

Doesn't it look like French are using a headhunter agency which is operated by Al-Qaeda? Or it looks that Al-Qaeda is already running the HR department/recruiting section of Charles de Gaulle airport. So don't be surprised if you hear soon that French Muslims Pilots are fired too...

How naive and racist can these French guys be?

A Star on Earth: France build a 10bn-euro nuclear fusion reactor. The International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (Iter) will be the most expensive joint scientific project after the International Space Station. Nuclear fusion is seen as a cleaner approach to power production than nuclear fission and fossil fuels.