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The analogy with commercial arrangements may hold, but the PRC does not have military bases or any military isntallations in the Western hemisphere. On the other hand, there are US bases in Asia surrounding China.

The reason why I mentioned this is that you would be amazed at how much misinformation is floating around here on COSCO and Hutchison Whampoa contracts. I've seen people on some threads who actually believe that the PLA has a military base in Panama or that the PLA has launched an invasion of the canal.

The PLA would never have to "invade" the US, we have already opened the door for them

Like I just said on another thread, that's not something that is going to happen with a COSCO contract in Boston or anywhere else. We need to keep a perspective and keep our facts straight so that we concentrate on what are realistic dangers so that we don't go on wild goose chases after something that won't happen in the real world.

COSCO is a commercial firm with ties to the PLA leadership, but COSCO has no authority to dispatch troops or to conduct military operations for the PLA. They do have a history of intelligence gathering for the PRC and the main problem with COSCO is the triad connections. COSCO has a history of engaging in black market operations, such as smuggling drugs, pirated goods, AK47s, and human trafficking. Here's one example of what we should be concerned about: COSCO CAUGHT SHIPPING 87 POUNDS OF HEROIN

Many news websites, especially in the UK, even if you don't post anything, require you to "register" and enable your "cookies" before you can even read the articles. There's no way to avoid that if the website requires that you "enable your cookies."

"With all the whining and crying about Echelon and Carnivore, critics, domestic and foreign, of U.S. electronic eavesdropping vastly overestimate our abilities to process and disseminate the stuff," noted Brown.

The utter arrogance of such a statement is astounding. Anyone who dismisses protests of a giant "Big Brother is always watching you" system, as "whining and crying" has no respect for our constitution or for the American citizen.

If the Clinton and Bush administrations both made a deal with the devil, I wonder why bin Laden chose to attack this country in a way that made a response inevitable? I think the evidence that the highest levels of the administration were involved in such a deal is much stronger for the Clinton administration than for the George W. Bush administration. Granted, things like the reported Dubai meeting suggest that parts of the current administration wanted at least to continue communicating with bin Laden. But I think the fact that 9/11 occurred means that bin Laden considered any deal off with the current administration.

Bin Laden and his operatives know very well that the CIA does not want to lose their Balkan assets or other ways that they have benefited from the Bin Laden network. They know that 9-11 would not cause the CIA to sever these connections, and it is obvious that the Al Qaeda network throughout the world will continue to function.

Also the Saudi Bin Laden Group through Carlyle and other channels stood to profit from increases in US military spending. Bin Laden Family Could Profit From a Jump In Defense Spending Due to Ties to U.S. Bank

This was NOT a failure to gather and analyze intelligence

You bet there was no "failure to gather and analyze intelligence"! The CIA has obviously been in touch with Al Qaeda operatives for years in planning joint CIA-Bin Laden operations in the Balkans. The Clinton and the Bush administrations made a strategic decision to "make a pact with the devil," then naturally they will play innocent and say "Gee, we just couldn't find Bin Laden."

According to http://globalresearch.ca/articles/DCH109A.html:"Perhaps most threatening to the SFOR mission - and more importantly, to the safety of the American personnel serving in Bosnia - is the unwillingness of the Clinton Administration to come clean with the Congress and with the American people about its complicity in the delivery of weapons from Iran to the Muslim government in Sarajevo. That policy, personally approved by Bill Clinton in April 1994 at the urging of CIA Director-designate (and then-NSC chief) Anthony Lake and the U.S. ambassador to Croatia Peter Galbraith, has, according to the Los Angeles Times (citing classified intelligence community sources), 'played a central role in the dramatic increase in Iranian influence in Bosnia.' Further, according to the Times, in September 1995 National Security Agency analysts contradicted Clinton Administration claims of declining Iranian influence, insisting instead that 'Iranian Revolutionary Guard personnel remain active throughout Bosnia.' Likewise, 'CIA analysts noted that the Iranian presence was expanding last fall,' with some ostensible cultural and humanitarian activities 'known to be fronts' for the Revolutionary Guard and Iran's intelligence service, known as VEVAK, the Islamic revolutionary successor to the Shah's SAVAK. [[LAT, 12/31/96] .....
For example, one such group about which details have come to light is the Third World Relief Agency (TWRA), a Sudan-based, phoney humanitarian organization which has been a major link in the arms pipeline to Bosnia. ["How Bosnia's Muslims Dodged Arms Embargo: Relief Agency Brokered Aid From Nations, Radical Groups," Washington Post, 9/22/96; see also "Saudis Funded Weapons For Bosnia, Official Says: $ 300 Million Program Had U.S. 'Stealth Cooperation'," Washington Post, 2/2/96] TWA is believed to be connected with such fixtures of the Islamic terror network as Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman (the convicted mastermind behind the 1993 World Trade Center bombing) and Osama Binladen, a wealthy Saudi emigre believed to bankroll numerous militant groups. [WP, 9/22/96]"

More on the Rahman story: THE CIA AND THE SHEIK [Omar Abdel Rahman]:< THE CIA AND THE SHEIK [Omar Abdel Rahman]:"'It was no accident that the sheikh got a visa and that he's still in the country,' replied the agent, visibly upset. 'He's here under the banner of national security, the State Department, the NSA [National Security Agency], and the CIA.' The agent pointed out that the sheikh had been granted a tourist visa, and later a green card, despite the fact that he was on a State Department terrorist watch-list that should have barred him from the country. He's an untouchable, concluded the agent."

http://globalresearch.ca/articles/MNA110A.html:"Skopje, 26 September: Daily Vecer read on the relation between the members of the so-called ONA National Liberation Army, UCK in Albanian and the Number One world's terrorist - Usamah Bin-Ladin. The writings were supported with photos that clearly showed that the Mojahedin are fighting in the 'ONA' [National Liberation Army] lines....
Dnevnik and Nova Makedonija also focus on the financial relations among the terrorist organizations in the Balkans such as the 'disbanded' KLA Kosovo Liberation Army, UCK in Albanian from Kosovo, amnestied OVPMB (Liberation Army of Presevo, Medvedja and Bujanovac) from southern Serbia and the intelligence connections between the terrorist groups acting in Macedonia and Usamah Bin-Ladin's organization Al-Qa'idah.
Dnevnik reports the text published in the British daily Times claiming that Bin-Ladin and KLA have a 'joint' cash box in the United States. There is information that Bin-Ladin's collaborators raise money through an organization allegedly for the Albanian refugees after the Kosovo crisis. The raised money is then allocated to Bin-Ladin's terrorists, but also to KLA fighters. Some of the men in KLA are trained in the camps led by Bin-Ladin.
The Times does not state the name of the organization, but it is obvious that it is a "humanitarian organization" acting in the mosques and Muslim cultural centres in the United States. Under the veil that money for 'Kosovo's refugees' or 'Afghanistan's children' is being raised, the organization accumulates large amounts of dollars. This is not additional expenditure for the Muslims that live in the United States, as according to the American laws the persons that support the humanitarian organizations have tax reliefs, so the Muslims working in the United States are stimulated to give money in the organization. Some of money is won back directly from the American budget through the tax reliefs. The raised money is used for buying weapons.
The Times stresses that some of these organizations were established under CIA's auspices in the time when the American intelligence agency supported the Afghanistan Islamists in the fight against the Soviet Union. But even when the Russian Army withdrew from Afghanistan they continued to raise money.
Money for the KLA was raised in a similar manner, under US auspices, as that helped to oust Slobodan Milosevic's regime in Yugoslavia."

Is anyone shocked by this revelation? Prince Turki has been a go-between with the Bin Laden network and the CIA for over two decades. He also showed up at this Dubai hospital. CIA agent alleged to have met Bin Laden in July-- French report claims terrorist leader stayed in Dubai hospital "Two months before September 11 Osama bin Laden flew to Dubai for 10 days for treatment at the American hospital, where he was visited by the local CIA agent, according to the French newspaper Le Figaro. The disclosures are known to come from French intelligence which is keen to reveal the ambiguous role of the CIA, and to restrain Washington from extending the war to Iraq and elsewhere.
Bin Laden is reported to have arrived in Dubai on July 4 from Quetta in Pakistan with his own personal doctor, nurse and four bodyguards, to be treated in the urology department. While there he was visited by several members of his family and Saudi personalities, and the CIA.
The CIA chief was seen in the lift, on his way to see Bin Laden, and later, it is alleged, boasted to friends about his contact. He was recalled to Washington soon afterwards.
Intelligence sources say that another CIA agent was also present; and that Bin Laden was also visited by Prince Turki al Faisal, then head of Saudi intelligence, who had long had links with the Taliban, and Bin Laden. Soon afterwards Turki resigned, and more recently he has publicly attacked him in an open letter: 'You are a rotten seed, like the son of Noah'".

The irony of Echelon is that it is making it more difficult for the CIA and other US government agencies to claim "plausible deniability." They were really on the spot when this came out: U.S. attack: Report: Echelon engaged months in advance: "THE U.S. NATIONAL Security Agency (NSA) engaged the so-called Echelon communications monitoring network, following on warnings of possible terrorist attacks, as long as three months ago, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ) newspaper reported.
Western and Middle East intelligence services had received warnings more than six months ago that terrorists were planning attacks using hijacked airplanes against 'prominent symbols of American and Israeli culture' in the United States and elsewhere, the FAZ said Wednesday, citing 'information available to this newspaper.'"

A comprehensive eavesdropping system like this exists, and we are expected to believe that the FBI & CIA had absolutely no clues that 9-11 was going to happen?

With all due respect this isn't the case. All those involved in this savagery on 9-11 must be put to the sword. But to pretend that Islam is, in and of itself, a savage religion, and that the resentment f the west arises ex nihilo is not intellectually rigorous, and will only cause substantially more problems.

I agree. It is just as inaccurate to say that all Muslims are "terrorists," as it would be to say that all Christians are "terrorists" because of what the IRA or the Phalange of Lebanon have done.

How many millions of Indians have been killed or maimed or injured by Pakistanis in all these wars? The Hindus are not violent people. They don't even kill animals. They don't even eat meat. They're not violent people. Those muslim maniacs have been creating problems and have been going to war and trying to exterminate the Indians for the longest of time...India and Pakistan..

This is not historically accurate. The Kashmir conflict is not one sided, good vs. evil, by any means. It may be true that the upper caste Brahmin Hindus are ideally required to not eat meat, but that does not mean that India has not committed its own share of atrocities in wars with Pakistan and in Kashmir. Remember that Mahatma Ghandi was assassinated by a Hindu extremist.

How do you feel today, in light of the revelation that project bojinka was known to the cia since 1995, when you hear official after official proclaim "nobody could have foreseen this type of a terrorist attack!"

I think that this is outrageous. Obviously the FBI & CIA were NOT really totally surprised by 9-11. They were also warned by the Mossad and other sources, as has been mentioned on other threads. After examining the logistics involved, I have to conclude that this assessment is correct: http://www.townhall.com/columnists/robertnovak/rn20010913.shtml: "Security experts and airline officials agree privately that the simultaneous hijacking of four jetliners was an 'inside job,' probably indicating complicity beyond malfeasance. This makes all the more ominous Tuesday's national catastrophe and its dismal consequences."

Brainwashed terrorists don't belong here. Disaffected citizens of our satrapies definitely do. Otherwise we risk having our political system totally gum up.

If we are talking about "extremists," such as those who I referred to in post #91, those trained for the Afghan "jihad," then we ARE talking about "brainwashed terrorists," not "disaffected citizens" of anywhere.

When word of the massacre at the Twin Towers in New York City on September 11 got back to the Phillipines...word has it that the authorities said "Project Bojinka"!!
Amd the CIA knew about it too!!
Similar Plot First Uncovered in the Phillipines, Says Police Chief

To quote from your link: "A terrorist plot similar to this week's attack in New York and Washington was first uncovered in Manila in 1995, Philippine police said today.
"The statement came amid a warning by the senate's vice chair for national defence that Saudi dissident Osama bin Laden, the prime suspect in Tuesday's attacks in the US, could try to slip into the southern Philippines where he maintains contacts with Muslim separatist rebels.
"Chief Superintendent Avelino Razon said a plot called 'Project Bojinka' was uncovered by Philippine police in 1995 after arresting terrorist Abdul Hakim Murad in a Manila apartment where he was plotting to assassinate visiting Pope John Paul II.
"Murad 'is part of a terrorist cell established by Ramzi Yousef under the direction of Osama bin Laden,' Razon said. Both Murad and Yousef were then wanted by US authorities for the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center.
"'In the course of the investigation, we found out through a laptop computer confiscated from Murad that they were also going to implement a terrorist plot called Project Bojinka,' Razon, formerly Manila's police chief, said.
"The plot called for the hijacking of US commercial airliners, bombing them or crashing them into several targets including the Central Intelligence Agency."

I remember reading about this back in 1995, and I was outraged that this story was generally relegated to three inch articles on the back pages of major newspapers, at least this was the case here in California. But when you consider that these terrorists were doing jobs for the CIA, it is not surprising that this did not get a lot of media coverage.

"It is not unusual for foreign nationals to train at U.S. military facilities. A former Navy pilot told NEWSWEEK that during his years on the base, "we always, always, always trained other countries’ pilots. When I was there two decades ago, it was Iranians. The shah was in power. Whoever the country du jour is, that’s whose pilots we train."

In this case that includes foreign terrorists. I guess this is just another example of how we nutured our relationship with the Islamic terror groups. They helped us in Kosovo...and were to help provide a bulwark against Iran, China and Russia.. some policy...7,000 Dead Americans..

I agree. When terrorism hits close to home, then the notion of using terrorists as tools to gain strategic advantages against another country, doesn't seem like such a bright idea.

I'd like to know how Prince Turki's firing fits into all of this.

Thanks for calling this to my attention. I definitely want to follow-up on the Prince Turki al-Faysal matter! According to the BBC Monitoring Middle East - Date: 09/04/2001 "Text of report by London-based newspaper Al-Sharq al-Awsat on 1 September Jedda - Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Fahd Bin-Abd-al- Aziz has issued a royal decree appointing Prince Nawwaf Bin-Abd-al- Aziz as head of the Saudi intelligence service with the rank of minister and relieving Prince Turki al-Faysal of the post at his own request"

Trying to get info on the Royal House of Saud is sometimes like pulling teeth, since, like the royal family of Kuwait, they spend millions of dollars on Washington PR firms to whitewash their image. Various members of the Saudi royal family also own large shares of US high tech & other firms.

No doubt that Prince Turki resigned under pressure, related to his relationship with Bin Laden, which began during the anti-Russian Afghan insurgency of the 1980's. According to Ahmed Rashid: "Among these thousands of foreign recruits was a young Saudi student, Osama Bin Laden, the son of a Yemeni construction magnate, Mohammed Bin Laden, who was a close friend of the late King Faisal and whose company had become fabulously wealthy on the contracts to renovate and expand the Holy Mosques of Mecca and Medina. The ISI had long wanted Prince Turki Bin Faisal, the head of Istakhbarat, the Saudi Intelligence Service, to provide a Royal Prince to lead the Saudi contingent in order to show Muslims the commitment of the Royal Family to the jihad. Only poorer Saudis, students, taxi drivers and Bedouin tribesmen had so far arrived to fight. But no pampered Saudi prince was ready to rough it out in the Afghan mountains. Bin Laden, although not a royal, was close enough to the royals and certainly wealthy enough to lead the Saudi contingent. Bin Laden, Prince Turki and General Gut were to become firm friends and allies in a common cause."

As for letting extremists in: if the man could either have been in Iran or here, there are many advantages to having him here; you can keep an eye on him, know that other troublemakes won't be as close, and perhaps even show him that democracy does work.

This is the rationale offered by supporters of this policy, and one that you often will hear from CIA spokesmen. I would say that if somebody has a history of terrorism, particularly if he has threatened to bomb targets within the United States, the smart thing to do is to try to keep him out of the country, not bring him in. We are talking about those who have been programmed or "brainwashed" to convert, and not be converted. IMHO it is playing with fire to bring them into this country and use them as assets or to do business with them.

Foreigners, including many from the Middle East, flock to flight schools in the U.S. Visas are given almost automatically to those who apply to these schools. It is especially easy for those with Saudi Arabian passports. At Huffman Aviation International in Venice, Florida, about 70 percent of the students are foreigners. That is one of the schools where Mohammed Atta, 33, who steered American Airlines flight 11 into the north WTC tower, and Marwan Yousef Alshehhi, who flew United Airlines flight 175 into the south tower were trained. Both had back-grounds that would have sounded an alarm had the CIA checked them.

The entire thrust of this article, even the title "intelligence failure," presupposes that the problem is ineptness or goof-ups. Any government agency would prefer to be thought of as inept, rather than criminal, but the facts strongly suggest that this was not a matter of incompetence.

First of all, it was not the case that all of these hijackers simply got visas, were trained at civilian US flight schools and managed to slip through without a CIA background check. We know that at least 5 of the hijackers DID have a CIA background check. Why? Because these 5 were trained as pilots on a US military base. [Alleged Hijackers May Have Trained at U.S. Bases ] No one can even enter a US military base and wander around unsupervised, and certainly no one can possibly get training as a pilot on a military base without a complete background check.

It is also noteworthy to check into the circumstances surrounding those who were convicted of bombing the WTC in 1993. THE CIA AND THE SHEIK [Omar Abdel Rahman]:
"'Why aren't we going after the sheikh [Abdel Rahman]?' demanded the undercover man.
'It's hands-off,' answered the agent.
'Why?' asked the operative.
'It was no accident that the sheikh got a visa and that he's still in the country,' replied the agent, visibly upset. 'He's here under the banner of national security, the State Department, the NSA [National Security Agency], and the CIA.
The agent pointed out that the sheikh had been granted a tourist visa, and later a green card, despite the fact that he was on a State Department terrorist watch-list that should have barred him from the country. He's an untouchable, concluded the agent."

Now the question is: who authorized the Sept. 11 WTC & Pentagon hijackers to train on US military bases and who intervened to stop the ones with criminal records from being denied access to a US military base and deported? These are the questions that we should be asking, not why there was an "intelligence failure."

Unocal set up a center to educate taliban members at the U of Nebraska.

More on Unocal and pipeline schemes in Afghanistan here:Afghanistan, EIA Country Analysis Brief [updated today!]. Afghanistan is also rich in natural gas and coal resources. The main obstacle to exploitation of these resources for the last few years has been the Taliban.