Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

Bojinka The Dog That Didn't Bark
Debate USA.com ^ | June 18, 2002 | Jim Rarey

Posted on 06/20/2002 12:46:08 PM PDT by exodus

Bojinka, The Dog That Didn't Bark

By Jim Rarey
June 18, 2002

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s fictional hero Sherlock Holmes once solved a case because a dog that would have been expected to bark didn’t. Something is missing from the numerous allegations about the government’s foreknowledge of the 9/11 terrorist attack. That thing is any mention of "Project Bojinka" by government officials and most of the national media.

Those members of the media who do mention the project carefully avoid giving a full description of the plot with one exception, Bill Gertz of the Washington Times. But this was after the 9/11 disaster. Before that terrorist attack, even the alternative media had no information on the diabolical plot; it was a closely held secret by the government, first in the Clinton administration and then the Bush administration that followed (with mostly Clinton holdovers).

In the Philippines in January of 1995, a fire broke out in an apartment 200 yards from the Vatican’s embassy in Manila. This was two weeks before a scheduled visit of the Pope to the Philippines. When police investigated they found bomb making material and other items suggesting a plot to assassinate the Pontiff. They also found computer disks containing the details of Project Bojinka (big bang).

The Philippines police determined that at least three operatives were involved in the plots with ties to Al Queda, Iran, Iraq and Pakistan. Abdul Hakim Murad was arrested when he returned to the apartment, apparently to retrieve the computer disks. Wali Khan Amin Shah, an Afghani, was arrested in Malaysia. Ramzi Yousef, the alleged mastermind of Bojinka, was arrested in Pakistan and returned to New York by FBI agent John O’Neill (then FBI counter-terrorism chief whose main focus was on Osama bin Laden and Al Queda). More about O’Neill later.

The terrorist actions detailed on the computer disks comprised three separate elements. The first, for which the three were tried and convicted in 1996, was a plot to leave bombs on 11 U.S. commercial flights departing from various cities in the far East to be destroyed simultaneously on the same day.

The FBI said Yousef staged a trial run in 1994 leaving a bomb on a Philippine flight that killed a Japanese businessman. Yousef was also charged as the mastermind of the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center and was later tried and convicted of that terrorist strike in which four others were already serving life sentences.

The second element was a plan to load a small plane with explosives and fly it into CIA headquarters in Virginia. Abdul Murad admitted he had trained as a pilot in North Carolina and was slated to be the suicide pilot on that mission. This element of Bojinka has received some exposure in the national media.

The third element of Bojinka had by far the most potential for catastrophic casualties and impact on the American public. It involved the simultaneous hijacking of several commercial domestic flights and crashing them into selected targets that included the Pentagon, the Sears Tower and the World Trade Center. Obviously, the plot required a member of each hijacking team to be capable of flying the big jets. No commercial pilot could be expected to deliberately fly his plane into such targets even with a pistol at his head or a knife (box cutter) at his throat.

The details of Project Bojinka were furnished by Philippine police to the American Embassy in Manila and to the CIA and FBI. Yet, to this day, high government officials in the administration and congress maintain they had no idea that such a plot was contemplated, much less possible. But Project Bojinka was not the first red flag raised on the 9/11 scenario.

In a 1993 book, "Target America: Terrorism in the U.S." author and terrorism expert Yossef Bodansky detailed the training of suicide pilots in Iran for just such missions beginning in the early 1980’s. A terrorist training school had been set up at an airfield in Wakilabad, Iran for the training. Iran Air (the national airline) maintained a Boeing 707 and 727 at the airfield (built by western companies) and occasionally furnished a Boeing 747 for that training. Bodansky says the main support for the operation came from Iran and Syria although the volunteers were from a broad spectrum of Islamic terrorist groups. Many were Afghani mujahideen trained in Pakistan (by the CIA). Some had fought in Afghanistan.

An obscure company, Shapolsky Publishers with close ties to organizations supporting Israel, distributed the book. Indeed, some speculate that Bodansky’s information may come from Mossad, the highly efficient Israeli intelligence agency. Nevertheless, the information contained was what the spooks call "open source intelligence." There is another reason Bodansky’s warning in that book and a subsequent offering in 1996 entitled, "Terrorism: The inside story of the Terrorist Conspiracy in America" should have been heeded.

Yossef Bodansky is the director of the Task Force on Terrorism and Unconventional Warfare for the U.S. Congress. He is also a former consultant to the Department of Defense and the State Department. He has testified in many closed sessions of the congress’ intelligence committees. He most certainly would have elaborated on his public description in his second book on the terrorist network already established in the U.S. This includes safe houses in major cities, weapons, ammunition, money, systems to provide medical and legal aid, false identity papers, and intelligence for the operatives. Bodansky warned that the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center was, "but a prelude to an escalation of Islamic terror in the United States."

While top officials in Washington continue to deny they had any inkling of the 9/11 targets or tactics to be used, we now know that lower levels in the CIA and FBI were actively monitoring suspects at flight schools in at least four states for at least the two years preceding 9/11. Daniel Hopsicker, author and brilliant investigative journalist, has written a series of articles on the sinister activities at the Huffman flight school in Venice, Florida. He calls it the "Venice Flying Circus." Needless to say, the major media has not picked them up.

If the recent revelations of suspicious characters taking flight training by a Phoenix FBI agent and the highly sensationalized story of Coleen Rowley, a Minnesota FBI legal operative, are not part of the "it’s just incompetence and the culture spin" they might prove another point. If Rowley had linked her request for a search warrant to look at the contents of Zacarias Moussaoui"s computer with Project Bojinka, denying the request would have been political suicide. Either Rowley did not know about Bojinka (along with a lot of other field agents) or she chose not to invoke it.

So who in the government was in a position where they knew, or should have known about Bojinka? Certainly the heads of the FBI and CIA should have known. FBI Director Louis Freeh resigned just two months before 9/11 two years before the end of his ten-year term. Congressional investigators seem to have no interest in hearing testimony from him.

CIA Director John Deutch also resigned earlier. He had been accused of having unauthorized classified information on his laptop computer. He was cleared of any wrong doing by a woman in the CIA IG office who then resigned to take a position as a vice president at CitiBank. Deutch followed and was awarded a professorship at MIT and a seat on the CitiGroup board of directors as well as CMS energy, currently enmeshed in the energy company trading scandals. Deutch has not been called on to testify either.

Surely FBI terrorism expert John O’Neill would have known the details of Bojinka having investigated the 1993 WTC bombing and the plot to blow up 11 airliners. O’Neill’s departure from the FBI was started when he tangled with the U.S. Ambassador to Yemen over the investigation of the bombing of the U.S.S. Cole. She banned him from Yemen. O’Neill’s reputation was further stained when his laptop computer went missing for several hours when he was called away to the telephone during a conference in Tampa, Florida. As a result of that unexplained incident, he was told he would not get a position in the National Security Agency (NSA) that he believed he had earned.

O’Neill became the Director of Public Safety at the WTC after he resigned and died mysteriously during the 9/11 attack. He had phoned his wife after the first tower was hit to inform her he was safe.

There is no direct evidence (so far) that Bush officials had knowledge of Project Bojinka before or after the 9/11 attack. However, the administration’s actions (and lack thereof) have raised serious questions that have yet to be answered.

Perhaps the best example of this is the pathetic performance of General Richard B. Myers at his confirmation hearing to be Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff held two days after the attack. Myers was asked when Air Force planes were first scrambled during the emergency. He said he wasn’t sure but confirmed it was after the Pentagon was hit, more than an hour after the first hit on the WTC and well after the FAA had reported four planes had been hijacked.

Myers, as much as anyone, is familiar with the standard operating procedure for the immediate scrambling of air force fighters as soon as an airplane is reported to have lost contact with the tower or the hijack signal has been given. Myers, from August 1998 to February 2000 was Commander in Chief of the North American Aerospace Defense Command that has integrated procedures with the FAA. For 18 months prior to his nomination as Chief, he was Vice-Chairman of the Joint Chiefs.

Nevertheless, notwithstanding his apparent ignorance on the most important event of his adult career, Myers was easily confirmed.

These and other unanswered questions have led to several theories that Bush let the attack happen. One being as an excuse to remove the Taliban from power in Afghanistan which was considered an obstacle to exploitation of Caspian Sea oil. Another may have been to grease the path for draconian measures through the congress. Some, including this writer, believe it to be a combination of the two.

That there is a huge coverup in progress by the government and the media is obvious. However, there are two words that have not come from the lips of even Bush’s most virulent critics, the left-wing Democrats. Those two words are Project Bojinka.

Permission is granted to reproduce this article in its entirety.


TOPICS: Editorial; Foreign Affairs
KEYWORDS: balkans; bojinka; cia; conspiracy; fbi; oklahomacity; terrorism; terrorist; worldtradecenter
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-4041-58 next last
To: exodus
Bojinka is terribly inconvenient for the FBI and averyone else pantsed by the terrorists on 9/11 because it directly and very specifically makes it an outright LIE that nobody could have guessed the 9/11 terrorists would use planes as bombs. Any official above the level of janitor who told you it was inconcievable a damned liar, plain and simple.
21 posted on 06/20/2002 1:42:01 PM PDT by eno_
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: eno_
I have to agree with that.

Lots of stuff coming out now.

22 posted on 06/20/2002 1:45:33 PM PDT by carenot
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 21 | View Replies]

To: lds23
Bojinka or BOHICA?

No, Project BOHICA was, ahem, "under" Prezident Bill Clinton.

23 posted on 06/20/2002 1:50:47 PM PDT by john in missouri
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 6 | View Replies]

To: dead; shadowman99
Quote:
"These and other unanswered questions have led to several theories
that Bush let the attack happen.
One being as an excuse to remove the Taliban from power in Afghanistan
which was considered an obstacle to exploitation of Caspian Sea oil.
Another may have been to grease the path
for draconian measures through the congress. Some, including this writer,
believe it to be a combination of the two."
You don’t have to be a mindnumbed Bushbot to think that that suggestion is absurd.
The mind boggles at the multiple levels of idiocy inherent in that theory.
# 17 by dead

*************************

If it had been Clinton in power instead of Bush, would it be so hard to believe?

I've been on threads during Clinton's term in office where we speculated on just such an attack, to be used as an excuse to extend Clinton's term due to a State of Emergency combined with a long drawn out war.

The Talaban would not allow oil lines in Afganistan. The new government will, it's already in the works.

The passing of the Patriot Act was unthinkable before 9-11. It was shot down badly a couple of years ago, on the grounds that it gave government too much power. After 9-11, the Patriot Act passed without a murmur.

24 posted on 06/20/2002 1:54:16 PM PDT by exodus
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 17 | View Replies]

To: exodus; Spar
"Bojinka" is a "Serbo-Croatian" word, which suggests a linkage to "Bosnian" muslims and/or mjuehadin who fought in Bosnia.

According to an article in the Fianacial Times last November, "Much of the military experience of the current generation of fighters who have joined al-Qaeda was gained in Bosnia, where Muslim forces and communities have received millions of dollars of funding from Iran, Saudi Arabia and other countries."

More recently, a raid on the Benevolence International Foundation in Bosnia (one of those muslim "charities" that funnels money to terrorists--it has "American" muslim ties as well) showed a link between the head of that organization, bin Laden, bin Laden's brother-in-law, and Ramzi Yousef, the mastermind of WTC '93 and of Project Bojinka.

The US had NO BUSINESS backing the muslims against the Serbs in Bosnia, or anywhere else. And it has no business continuing to do so.

25 posted on 06/20/2002 1:56:38 PM PDT by Honorary Serb
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: eno_; Demidog
To: exodus
Bojinka is terribly inconvenient for the FBI and averyone else pantsed by the terrorists on 9/11 because it directly and very specifically makes it an outright LIE that nobody could have guessed the 9/11 terrorists would use planes as bombs. Any official above the level of janitor who told you it was inconcievable a damned liar, plain and simple.
# 21 by eno_

*************************

Not to mention the best-selling book by Tom Clancy, where the same method was used to destroy the American governmental leadership. I guess it wasn't so "unthinkable" after all.

26 posted on 06/20/2002 1:58:26 PM PDT by exodus
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 21 | View Replies]

To: exodus
There is no logic under the sun that would necessitate the death of 3,000 (and could have easily been 30,000) American civilians to get at that Caspian Sea oil.

Covert operations could have started the fall of the Taliban and any number of excuses could have been dreamed up to step into the ensuing civil war.

Or we could have gone through another friendlier country.

The theory is patently absurd.

27 posted on 06/20/2002 1:59:38 PM PDT by dead
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 24 | View Replies]

To: Honorary Serb
To: exodus; Spar "Bojinka" is a "Serbo-Croatian" word, which suggests a linkage to "Bosnian" muslims and/or mjuehadin who fought in Bosnia.

The US had NO BUSINESS backing the muslims against the Serbs in Bosnia, or anywhere else. And it has no business continuing to do so.
# 25 by Honorary Serb

*************************

Agreed.
The United States should admit that it was wrong to fight on the side of Islam.

28 posted on 06/20/2002 2:07:30 PM PDT by exodus
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 25 | View Replies]

To: exodus
In a free country, government officials do not pretend to be clairvoyant.

Most of the faggot terrorists themselves didn't even know they were on a suicide/homicide mission the morning of September 11th. How could anyone who wasn't a mad-dog Islamic goat-f****r be expected to know?

Once we give our government officials permission to pretend to be clairvoyant, all bets are off.

I don't blame Dubya or Clinton or the CIA or the FBI for September 11th.

I blame mad-dog Islamic goat-f*****s like the homicide bombers murdering innocent Israelis on a daily basis.

29 posted on 06/20/2002 2:10:16 PM PDT by E. Pluribus Unum
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: dead
It's absurd as a grab for Caspian oil, since I agree destabilization could have been done other ways, perhaps in concert with Russia.

But as a two-pronged plan, with the other part being destruction of our civil liberties, it fits very nicely
30 posted on 06/20/2002 2:14:44 PM PDT by bloggerjohn
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 27 | View Replies]

To: dead
The theory is patently absurd.
# 27 by dead

*************************

It is logical if you're an evil person.
History is full of examples equally evil, and equally effective.

Literature has hundreds of examples. The entire planet of Alderan was destroyed, and billions killed, just to make a point. It's not as absurd as you believe.

31 posted on 06/20/2002 2:18:45 PM PDT by exodus
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 27 | View Replies]

To: exodus
The entire planet of Alderan was destroyed, and billions killed, just to make a point.

Oh, I see. I didn’t realize you had proof of Bush's complicity.

32 posted on 06/20/2002 2:20:16 PM PDT by dead
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 31 | View Replies]

To: bloggerjohn
The pre-911 votes to defeat much of the crap in the Patriot Act were quite close.

Spreading a little more pork around congress would have been just as effective, and alot less drastic, than murdering 3,000 people.

(And, as I said, it was entirely possible that 30,000 or more could have died from those actions that day.)

Incompetence in the federal government, combined with the screwed up mind of sick ruthless pig f*ckers, very adequately explains 911.

33 posted on 06/20/2002 2:25:00 PM PDT by dead
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 30 | View Replies]

To: dead
Wasn't it our current President who said that his job would be a lot more easier if he was a dictator instead of President?

Hmmmmmmmm.
34 posted on 06/20/2002 2:26:34 PM PDT by DrLiberty
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 27 | View Replies]

To: E. Pluribus Unum
I don't blame Dubya or Clinton or the CIA or the FBI for September 11th.

I blame mad-dog Islamic goat-f*****s
like the homicide bombers murdering innocent Israelis on a daily basis.
# 29 by E. Pluribus Unum

*************************

I also blame the Islamic terrorists for the deaths.
It was their idea, and then they committed the crime.

However, I blame Clinton, Bush, the FBI and the CIA for allowing the plot to succeed. It was their responsibility, they had plenty of warning, and they didn't do their sworn duty.

Americans died because of their incompetence. That is a more alarming idea than even more Islamic terrorists attacking us. Criminals can be stopped, if you have good policemen. We don't have good policemen, so we're at war instead.

35 posted on 06/20/2002 2:28:47 PM PDT by exodus
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 29 | View Replies]

To: exodus
I still think a lot of this can be traced back to the too-cosy relationship between our rotten State Department and the Saudis. It has little to do with any administration unless they take an active hand. For many, many administrations it's just been standard practice to avoid offending rotten Saudi princes. That means calling off the FBI and CIA whenever they get to close to Saudis, since the State Department is their boss in matters of foreign affairs. It's a simple economic motive since oil does run our entire economy.

However, after bin Laden killed a lot of soldiers and sailors, coddling of spoiled Saudi princes should have been reconsidered. Unfortunately for us, it was not. They're still being coddled.

Since most of the hijackers and most of the money came from Saudi Arabia, it's no surprise that orders to avoid them would totally cripple any investigation or followup. That's why the FBI's top anti-terror man, who actually knew what was going on, quit in protest, only to die in the WTC - very conveniently.

Hey, I was away on business for while. The new posting format is Great. Thanks and a tip o the hat to management.
36 posted on 06/20/2002 2:29:29 PM PDT by bloggerjohn
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 31 | View Replies]

To: exodus
Americans died because of their incompetence.

In one post, you’re arguing that it was incompetence, in another you’re arguing that it was knowing and calculated complicity.

It can’t be both.

37 posted on 06/20/2002 2:31:53 PM PDT by dead
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 35 | View Replies]

To: dead
To: exodus
The entire planet of Alderan was destroyed, and billions killed, just to make a point.
Oh, I see. I didn’t realize you had proof of Bush's complicity.
# 32 by dead

*************************

I tell ya, dead, the Sith lords hide among us.
They can be anywhere, or anybody.

38 posted on 06/20/2002 2:32:27 PM PDT by exodus
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 32 | View Replies]

To: exodus
Reading that book now, "Debt of Honor." Copyright 1994
39 posted on 06/20/2002 2:39:21 PM PDT by Ingtar
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 26 | View Replies]

To: exodus
Actually, I seem to recall a very good economic analysis which points out the entire Star Wars saga is a portrayal of a battle between free market capitalism (Jedi) as opposed to the govt-corporate oligarchy (Sith) that is now evolving - the ideas behind Star Wars aren't shallow at all and surprisingly conservative. Slips my mind where I read it, though. I'll get back when I remember.
40 posted on 06/20/2002 2:47:30 PM PDT by bloggerjohn
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 38 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-4041-58 next last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson