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Al Qaeida, The CIA, Mujahadeen etc

Dillinger4 said:
So what? there are loads of other people saying other things.
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Well, having been Foreign Secretary, it's not unreasonable to suspect that he might have known what he was talking about. :)

As he resigned his cabinet post over the UK's involvement with the invasion of Iraq, I tend to give him a little more credibility than most politicians.
 
darkfibre said:
Well, having been Foreign Secretary, it's not unreasonable to suspect that he might have known what he was talking about. :)

As he resigned his cabinet post over the UK's involvement with the invasion of Iraq, I tend to give him a little more credibility than most politicians.

So who was saying 'other things'? :confused:
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I would say Osama bin Laden is probably more informed on the origins of the group that he created.
 
After the Soviet pull out, the Mujahadeen, who where essentially a loose knit group of smaller groups went on to fight amongst themselves in the Aghan civil war.
To add the the above, I believe a lot of the Mujahadeen went on to join the Northern Command along with local tribal lords. These of course ended up siding with the coalition when we it went into Afghanistan.
Also as far as I am aware, the Taleban had it's origins in the Madrasses if Pakistan that run along the border with Afghanistan. They also recruited ex-Mujahadeen into their ranks as well when they pushed across the country back in the 1990's.

I think it is fairly well documented that arms and funding where funneled from the West into various anti-Soviet forces operating in Afghanistan in the 80s.

TomPaine
 
Pakistan intelligence (ISI) was a conduit for the funding of the anti-Soviet forces. General Ahmet of the ISI wired $100,000 to Mohammed Atta shortly before 911, though the Official Investigation said the funding issue wasnt important.

Shortly before her assasination Ms Bhutto said OBL had been murdered. I havent checked it out by I think the guy she named was linked to ISI. The Pakistani govt deny it was an assination at all saying she banged her head.

I would be very suprised if ISI werent involved in her murder as well as being up to their necks in the 911 weirdness. I am a novice at ISI history but I think we could all do with informing ourselves more about them in relation to the thread topic.

Aside from all this there is a theory that the USSR was deliberately sucked into the Afghan quagmire by provokation backed by we know who.

The same we know who may have been trying a similar stunt with the recent Georgia episode.
 
Ok I tend to keep out of these conspiracy threads so I'm not really sure who the main culprits are, otherwise I wouldn't have started posting in this thread. Anyway, I'm not getting involved in a 100 page long argument about conspiracy theories I know for a fact have no grounding in reality, so I'm out
 
taffboy gwyrdd said:
Arrogant to say what is obvious and pretty well known?
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Arrogant to say that things are as simple as you are making them out to be, because they are not. To say that is simply fact when is part fact part conjecture.

You write as if you are right and anybody who questions your claims is wrong.

That is arrogance.
 
AFAIK, the difference between the Mujahideen and the Taliban is that the former were rooted in local Afghan communities, while the latter came out of the refugee camps in Pakistan. Not only were the Taliban a creation of Pakistani military intelligence, they also lacked the traditional Afghan codes of 'warrior's honour' which had sustained the initial resistance of the Mujahideen after 1979, but which could not survive the experience of total warfare as it was practiced in 1980s Afghanistan.

Also, the youth who grew up in the camps were not socialised into the old forms of identity based on lineage and kinship; the Taliban brand of fundamentalism offered them an alternative foundation for identity. What's interesting is that some journalistic reports from Afghanistan now talk about a merging of the Taliban with local communities in the border areas with Pakistan (interesting if true that is).

Finally, it's not true to say that the Taliban were a *direct* creation of the Americans: it is true to say that they were the *indirect* result of American policy.
 
It should be remembered that in 1998 the Taliban attempted to sell bin-laden to Saudi Arabia where he would go on trial for treason. It's damgerous and misleading to lump what became AQ in with the taliban, they have many signficant differences, poltical, religious and social - differences that OBL was trying to smooth over at the time of 911 through financing their plans and conducting proxy-operations against their internal enemies. That he needed to do this highlights the gap that still existed bewteen them.
 
Idris> Yes I remember reading that along the border the religous schools had radacilised young men which went on to form the Taliban. I presume the schools got their funding from the ISI?

Cyberose> Not sure what you are referring to here, the history of the Aghani resistance to the Soviet Union is well documented. There are however some grey areas where Western intelligence where involved, although this to be expected as Nato and the USSR played out the Cold War on foreign battle fields e.g. Iran - Iraq war for example.
Although as time passes documents are declassified and slowly those involved at the time are opening up with info, like what has happened slowly with the Vietnam war for example.

TomPaine
 
TomPaine said:
Idris> Yes I remember reading that along the border the religous schools had radacilised young men which went on to form the Taliban. I presume the schools got their funding from the ISI?
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From elements of the ISI. The ISI (and the pakistan state)itself was the battleground for competing factions, some of the more influential ones remaining committed to the more tradtional anti-taliban forces. In fact, Jason Burke claims that the ISI were often effrctively cut out of the loop as regards the taliban and funding came direct from the Ministry of the Interior.
 
Aside from all this there is a theory that the USSR was deliberately sucked into the Afghan quagmire by provokation backed by we know who.
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Carter’s National Security Adviser was Zbigniew Brzezinski, he did an interesting interview back in the 90's with the French magazine "Le Nouvel Observateur" in which he said:

Yes. 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.
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Source watch ahs a bit more info on it for those interested:

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Zbigniew_Brzezinski

TomPaine
 
From elements of the ISI. The ISI (and the pakistan state)itself was the battleground for competing factions, some of the more influential ones remaining committed to the more tradtional anti-taliban forces. In fact, Jason Burke claims that the ISI were often effrctively cut out of the loop as regards the taliban and funding came direct from the Ministry of the Interior.
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That's interesting stuff. I do wonder where Pakistan is headed, there seems to be a lot of pro-hardliners hidden away in the various government departments and the country seems incredibly unstable at the moment as well.

TomPaine
 
taffboy gwyrdd said:
Pakistan intelligence (ISI) was a conduit for the funding of the anti-Soviet forces. General Ahmet of the ISI wired $100,000 to Mohammed Atta shortly before 911, though the Official Investigation said the funding issue wasnt important.
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Part of the problem is that there is so much that is unclear about 911.

911 commissioner Lee Hamilton said he felt they where not supported, even hindered by the executive. Getting information was always difficult because they weren’t given the co-operation and support they needed. They where also very restricted by time and money, and they had to fight for what they did get.

There we're also conflicts of interest on the commission. The fact that commission Executive Director Phillip Zelikow was closely tied to the Bush government for example…
"Though he has no vote, (Zelikow) arguably has more sway than any member, including the chairman. Zelikow picks the areas of investigation, the briefing materials, the topics for hearings, the witnesses, and the lines of questioning for witnesses. . . .In effect, he sets the agenda and runs the investigation."

The situation was so bad that Sen. Max Cleland resigned in disgust form the comission because he felt Zelikow was actively covering up for the White House. “It’s a scam, it’s absolutely disgusting” he said in an interview with CNN’s Wolf Blitzer.

The 911 report was effectively restricted to trying to describe the events that unfolded on 911. There was no real investigation of what went wrong in the government or intelligence services

One pretty large controversy last year was the fact that commissioners Hamilton and Keane had strongly criticised the CIA for not giving them taped interrogations of key Al-Quaeda figure Abu Zubaydah.

9/11 Commission Chairmen Believe CIA Impeded Inquiry by Withholding Interrogation Tapes

According to author Gerald Posner, in the interrogation Zubaydah named Prince Ahmed bin Salman bin Abdul Aziz and other important Saudi's as being involved with funding and assisting the Al-Quaeda organisation.

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1101030908-480226,00.html

Interestingly, Zubaydah named as his boss the leader of the group of Saudis that where allowed to fly out of America after 911. Here is the declassified FBI report on the flight that names the Prince as the leader of the group on page 11.

http://www.truthout.org/imgs.art_02/saudidocs_2.pdf


Now I guess we will never know what was on the tapes because the CIA for some reason saw fit to destroy them (years after Posner's claim I would add). I find Posner at least somewhat credible because of the fact he had written earlier books to debunk conspiracy theories around the assassinations of JFK and MLK. So I don’t think it is so easy to dismiss him as a conspiraloon or me for bringing it up.

This brings me back to the 911 Commission. In a recent controversy, Phillip Zelikow specifically asked about Abu Zubaydah, and weather he had referred to ‘Prince Aziz’ during the interrogation. The CIA did not respond!
http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/national/20071222-INTEL-MEMO.pdf

There is also a lot of information about the hijackers’ connections with US military installations, CIA, FBI, Pakistani and Israeli intelligence that has simply been covered up. Page after page of anything remotely interesting in this respect has simply been redacted and withheld, seemingly never to reach the light of day.
 
Dillinger4 said:
Arrogant to say that things are as simple as you are making them out to be, because they are not. To say that is simply fact when is part fact part conjecture.

You write as if you are right and anybody who questions your claims is wrong.

That is arrogance.
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Some things are simple and I dont mind people saying Im wrong. OBL was a CIA protege. AQ was drawn from a CIA database. No arrogance. No conjecture, but if you think Im wrong thats fine.
 
taffboy gwyrdd said:
Some things are simple and I dont mind people saying Im wrong. OBL was a CIA protege. AQ was drawn from a CIA database. No arrogance. No conjecture, but if you think Im wrong thats fine.
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You're totally confusing a CIA operatives use of the term for a specfic existing group and it's later acceptance by the CIA for this purpose with the use of the term by those involved at a much earlier date. The first CIA reference is from 1996, and it mistakenly refers to it as a 'front', it then dissapears until 1998 and when it is more accurately refered to as a 'hub' or 'base'. The name AQ was being used as a description of a tactic by various fighters from the early 90s onwards.
 
butchersapron said:
You're totally confusing a CIA operatives use of the term for a specfic existing group and it's later acceptance by the CIA for this purpose with the use of the term by those involved at a much earlier date. The first CIA reference is from 1996, and it mistakenly refers to it as a 'front', it then dissapears until 1998 and when it is more accurately refered to as a 'hub' or 'base'. The name AQ was being used as a description of a tactic by various fighters from the early 90s onwards.
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So what was the CIA database that Robin Cook and many others draw reference to?
 
What was it? It wasn't a CIA database, it was OBL's database. The sort of collection of records that every guerilla group who relies on recruits from abroad collects and relies on. It's quite clear there's attempt to twist RObin Cook's word here. This is what he says - he doesn't say it was a CIA database he just says what the term means literally (base), and what it camer to mean in modern conditions:

Bin Laden was, though, a product of a monumental miscalculation by western security agencies. Throughout the 80s he was armed by the CIA and funded by the Saudis to wage jihad against the Russian occupation of Afghanistan. Al-Qaida, 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. Inexplicably, and with disastrous consequences, it never appears to have occurred to Washington that once Russia was out of the way, Bin Laden's organisation would turn its attention to the west.
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Have you read Jason Burke's book on AQ?
 
...and a prize for the fist person to suggest that Cook was murdered as he had started spilling the beans (despite the deliberate misreading of his words pointed out above).
 
EddyBlack

On the commission: Philip Shenon, a washington post journo, wrote a book about the process where he says Zelicow, who really ran the show, was on the phone to the White House everyday.

ButchersApron

Thanks for clarifying. So it wasnt a direct CIA database but a list of CIA recruits collated by one of their prime assets?
 
taffboy gwyrdd said:
EddyBlack

On the commission: Philip Shenon, a washington post journo, wrote a book about the process where he says Zelicow, who really ran the show, was on the phone to the White House everyday.

ButchersApron

Thanks for clarifying. So it wasnt a direct CIA database but a list of CIA recruits collated by one of their prime assets?
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NO!!!!!!! It was a datebase of people that OBL had recruited with money and help (transport, arms etc) from the CIA (and not even directly). Not of CIA operatives.

And no, you need to prove that OBL was a CIA operative rather then there just being a mutually convenient meeting of interets at one particular time on one particular place.

And Burke?
 
So it wasnt a direct CIA database but a list of CIA recruits collated by one of their prime assets?
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No I think what he means is, it was OBL and associates database of recruits, which where also in part funded and trained by the CIA.

TomPaine
 
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