This is patently false Doug. Where are you getting your wrong information? Cite a source. The Al-Qaeda-ISI connection (and more importantly, the ISI-CIA connection) is a one of the main issues discussed by researchers like Michel Chussodovsky, Michael Ruppert and Paul Thompson to name a few. One of the key points in both Ruppert's and Thompson's 9-11 timeline is the matter of the $100,000 wired by Gen. Mahmoud Ahmad to Mohammed Atta Indeed. In fact Norman Solomon, one of your own, has laboured to discredit this issue by sying that the story about the Al Qaeda-ISI conection was 'anti-Pakistani propaganda from the Hindustan Times.'
See: The Role of Pakistan's Military Intelligence (ISI) in the September 11 Attacks
http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/CHO111A.html
Pakistan's chief spy Lt. General Mahmoud Ahmad "was in the US when the attacks occurred." He arrived in the US on the 4th of September, a full week before the attacks. He had meetings at the State Department "after" the attacks on the WTC. But he also had "a regular visit of consultations" with his US counterparts at the CIA and the Pentagon during the week prior to September 11.
What was the nature of these routine "pre-September 11 consultations"? Were they in any way related to the subsequent "post-September 11 consultations" pertaining to Pakistan's decision to cooperate with Washington. Was the planning of war being discussed between Pakistani and US officials?
On the 9th of September while General Ahmad was in the US, the leader of the Northern Alliance Commander Ahmad Shah Masood was assassinated. The Northern Alliance had informed the Bush Administration that the ISI was allegedly implicated in the assassination.
The Bush Administration consciously took the decision in "the post September 11 consultations" with Lt. General Mahmoud Ahmad to directly "cooperate" with Pakistan's military intelligence (ISI) despite its links to Osama bin Laden and the Taliban and its alleged role in the assassination of Commander Masood, which coincidentally occurred two days before the terrorist attacks.
Meanwhile, senior Pentagon and State Department officials had been rushed to Islamabad to put the finishing touches on America's war plans. And on the Sunday prior to the onslaught of the bombing of major cities in Afghanistan (October 7th), Lt. General Mahmoud Ahmad was sacked from his position as head of the ISI in what was described as a routine "reshuffling."
In the days following General Ahmad's dismissal, a report published in the Times of India, revealed the links between Pakistan's Chief spy Lt. General Mahmoud Ahmad and the presumed "ring leader" of the WTC attacks Mohamed Atta. The Times of India article was based on an official intelligence report of the Delhi government that had been transmitted through official channels to Washington. Quoting an Indian government source Agence France Press (AFP) confirms in this regard that: "The evidence we [the Government of India] have supplied to the US is of a much wider range and depth than just one piece of paper linking a rogue general to some misplaced act of terrorism."
The revelation of the Times of India article has several implications. The Indian intelligence report not only points to the links between ISI Chief General Ahmad and terrorist ringleader Mohamed Atta, it also indicates that other ISI officials might have had contacts with the terrorists. Moreover, it suggests that the September 11 attacks were not an act of "individual terrorism" organised by a separate Al Qaeda cell, but rather they were part of coordinated military-intelligence operation, emanating from Pakistan's ISI.
The Times of India report also sheds light on the nature of General Ahmad's "business activities" in the US during the week prior to September 11, raising the distinct possibility of ISI contacts with Mohamed Atta in the US "prior" to the attacks on the WTC, precisely at the time when General Mahmoud and his delegation were on a so-called "regular visit of consultations" with US officials.
In assessing the alleged links between the terrorists and the ISI, it should be understood that Lt. General Ahmad as head of the ISI was a "US approved appointee". As head of the ISI since 1999, he was in liaison with his US counterparts in the CIA, the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) and the Pentagon. Also bear in mind that Pakistan's ISI remained throughout the entire post Cold War era until the present, the launch-pad for CIA covert operations in the Caucasus, Central Asia and the Balkans
The existence of an "ISI-Osama-Taliban axis" was a matter of public record. The links between the ISI and agencies of the US government including the CIA are also a matter of public record. The Bush Administration was fully cognizant of Lt. General Ahmad's role. In other words, rather than waging a campaign against international terrorism, the evidence would suggest that it is indirectly abetting international terrorism, using the Pakistani ISI as a "go-between".
The Bush Administration's links with Pakistan's ISI --including its "consultations" with General Ahmad in the week prior to September 11-- raise the issue of "complicity". While Ahmad was talking to US officials at the CIA and the Pentagon, ISI officials were allegedly also in contact with the September 11 terrorists.
In other words, according to the Indian government intelligence report, the perpetrators of the September 11 attacks had links to Pakistan's ISI, which in turn has links to agencies of the US government. What this suggests is that key individuals within the US military-intelligence establishment might have known about the ISI contacts with the September 11 terrorist "ring-leader" Mohamed Atta and failed to act.
Whether this amounts to the complicity of the Bush Administration remains to be firmly established. The least one can expect at this stage is an inquiry. What is crystal clear, however, is that this war is not a "campaign against international terrorism". It is a war of conquest with devastating consequences for the future of humanity. And the American people have been consciously and deliberately misled by their government. Whether this amounts to the complicity of the Bush Administration remains to be firmly established.
And the American people have been consciously and deliberately misled by their government.
Ultimately the truth must prevail. The falsehoods behind America's war against the people of Afghanistan must be unveiled
>From: Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com>
>Reply-To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org
>To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org
>Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] Re: Is Berlet Combat Ready?
>Date: Sat, 19 Jun 2004 18:52:45 -0400
>
>Joseph Wanzala wrote:
>
>>And how Henwood arrives at the conclusion that this constitutes a 'fuck
>>up' by 9-11 researchers is beyond me. Clearly the people who have fucked
>>up are in the US National Security apparatus.
>
>Which is what I said. Perhaps the antecedents were unclear. The national
>security establishment fucked up, bigtime. Still, 9-11 "researchers" strike
>me as a bunch of paranoids who belong on the right.
>
>>"Apparently, 'conspiracy stuff' is now shorthand for unspeakable truth."
>>— Gore Vidal, from "The Enemy Within", 27 Oct 2002
>>
>>"That's an internet theory and it's hopelessly implausible. Hopelessly
>>implausible. So hopelessly implausible I don't see any point in talking
>>about it."
>>—Noam Chomsky, at a FAIR event at New York's Town Hall, 22 January 2002,
>>in response to a question from the audience about US government
>>foreknowledge of 9/11. At that time, 9/11 investigators had already
>>presented substantial documented evidence for: prior warnings, Air Force
>>stand-down, anomalous insider trading connected to CIA, cover-up of the
>>domestic anthrax attacks, inconsistencies in identities & timelines of
>>"hijackers", US connections to al Qaeda in Balkans, a Pak ISI-al Qaeda
>>funding connection, etc etc etc.
>
>Gosh, given a choice between following the political judgment of Gore Vidal
>(an elitist with a deep nativist streak who has a lot in common with
>certain precincts of the American right) and Noam Chomsky, I think Chomsky
>wins in a landslide.
>
>The ISA-AQ connection is widely known and 9-11 "researchers" don't have
>much to do with exposing it. If anything, they discredit it.
>
>You're kind of a wuss. You put "hijackers" in quotes, but you remain
>"agnostic" on "complicity." What's your point? That we don't know all about
>what really happened, or something more grandiose than that (Bush knew?
>Bush did it?). Had we world enough & time, this coyness, Wanzala, were no
>crime!
>
>Doug
>
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