Has General Wesley Clark joined the ranks of the 9/11 "conspiracy theorists"?
Clark has not only accused George W. of "possible
manipulation of intelligence", he is also calling for an investigation
"into possible 'criminal'
conduct in the drive to war." (Daily Telegraph, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2003/10/04/wclark04.xml
4 October 2003)
Strong words from the front-runner Democratic candidate in the presidential race:
"Nothing could be a more serious violation of
public trust than consciously to make a case for war based on false
claims... We need to know if we were
intentionally deceived... This administration is trying to do something
that ought to be politically impossible to do in a democracy, and that
is to govern against the will of the majority...
That requires twisted facts, silence, secrecy and very poor lighting." (quoted in Daily Telegraph, 4 October 2003)
General Clark's statement hints to a cover-up in
the 9/11 joint Senate-House inquiry, regarding Pakistan and Saudi
Arabia, which he identifies as "terrorist
sponsors". In other words, the Retired Four Star General tacitly
acknowledges the insidious role played by Washington's indefectible
ally, the military government of President Pervez
Musharraf, which is known to have supported Al Qaeda and the Taliban.
It is important that we understand the political motivations behind Wesley Clark's position.
While his observations regarding the Bush administration are accurate, his own record is tainted.
During his stint as NATO Supreme Commander
(1997-2000), Wesley Clark was in permanent liaison with the Kosovo
Liberation Army (KLA). Under
Wesley Clark's command, NATO directly sponsored a terrorist paramilitary
army, with links to Al Qaeda and the trans-Balkan narcotics trade.
About turn: a former "terrorist sponsor" (to use
his own words) under NATO auspices is now accusing the Bush
administration of "seizing on the
Sept. 11 attacks for justification [to wage war]" (San Francisco
Chronicle, 2 October 2003).
In an utterly twisted logic, an individual who is
recognized as a war criminal is seeking the support of the anti-war
movement. In the words of the Palestine Chronicle:
"Enthusiastic support for front-running
Democratic presidential contenders Wesley Clark and Howard Dean from
liberals and some progressives reveals the dismal
state of oppositional politics in America. Decades of unremitting right
wing assaults on every sphere of American life has so jerked the
political landscape to the right, that instead of
clamoring for sweeping or even revolutionary changes as in days long
past, the main battle-cry coming from 'the left' is ``Anybody But
Bush'".(Sunil Sharma and Josh Frank,Two Measures
of American Desperation: Wesley Clark and Howard Dean, 17 October 2003, http://www.palestinechronicle.com/story.php?sid=20031017175449217
)
Filmmaker and antiwar critic Michael Moore supports the candidacies of Wesley Clark and Howard Dean: "We need a doctor [Dean] because there
are 43 million of us without health care and we need a general to kick Bush's ass." (http://www.dailynorthwestern.com/vnews/display.v/ART/2003/10/15/3f8ce93feca0a
15 October 2003).
Regime Rotation in America
Clark's Bush bashing and antiwar stance, supported
by Hollywood and Wall Street, is not meant to reverse the tide of war.
Quite the opposite. It provides a phony
legitimacy to the war agenda in the name of "peace building" and
democracy.
It perpetuates "the big lie".
What this bipartisan mud-slinging achieves is
"regime rotation" in America. The "war on terrorism" which underlies the
national security agenda
remains functionally intact.
Ironically, during the Clinton administration, it
was the Republicans who were accusing Bill Clinton of having links to
the Islamic Militant Network in Bosnia and Kosovo.
In a carefully worded 1999 document prepared by the Senate Republican
Party Committee, the GOP blatantly accused Clinton of supporting
terrorism in Kosovo:
"By the time the NATO air strikes began, the
Clinton Administration's partnership with the KLA was unambiguous...
Such an effusive embrace by top Clinton
Administration officials of an organization that only a year ago one of
its own top officials labeled as "terrorist" is, to say the least, a
startling development. Even more
importantly, the new Clinton/KLA partnership may obscure troubling
allegations about the KLA that the Clinton Administration has thus far
neglected to address." (Senate Republican
Party Committee, The Kosovo Liberation Army: Does Clinton Policy Support Group with Terror, Drug Ties? http://www.kosovo.com/rpc.html
, Washington, March 31, 1999)
A previous 1997 document emanating from the House
Republican Party Committee entitled "Clinton-Approved Iranian Arms
Transfers Help Turn Bosnia into Militant Islamic
Base", accused Clinton of working hand in glove with Al Qaeda in
Bosnia:
"The Clinton administration’s hands-on
involvement with the Islamic network's arms pipeline included
inspections of missiles from Iran by U.S. government
officials... [T]he Third World Relief Agency (TWRA), a Sudan-based,
phoney humanitarian organization ... has been a major link in the arms
pipeline to Bosnia... TWRA 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 Centre
bombing) and Osama bin Laden, a wealthy Saudi émigré
believed to bankroll numerous militant groups." (Congressional Press
Release, Republican Party Committee (RPC), U.S. Congress,
Clinton-Approved Iranian Arms Transfers Help Turn Bosnia
into Militant Islamic Base, Washington DC, 16 January 1997, available on
the website of the Centre of Research on Globalisation (CRG) at http://globalresearch.ca/articles/DCH109A.html
.)
Needless to say, the Republicans and the Democrats
are complicit. They accuse one another of having links to Al Qaeda.
Yet successive Democratic and Republican
administrations have been involved from the outset of the Soviet Afghan
war in 1979 (during the Presidency of Jimmy Carter) in developing Al
Qaeda as a US sponsored "intelligence
asset".
These Congressional briefs, however, are not meant
to be read by the broader public. They are used to score political
points in a longstanding bipartisan ritual, while
providing the illusion of a functioning Legislature, where political
leaders are said to be held accountable.
If the Democrats were to win the 2004 presidential
elections, continuity in US foreign policy would be maintained. More
importantly, the "war on terrorism" and
the lies concerning Al Qaeda and 9/11 would also be maintained.
Bin Laden and the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA)
The role of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) as a
terrorist organization is amply documented by Congressional
transcripts. According to Frank Ciluffo of the
Globalized Organized Crime Program, in a testimony presented to the
House of Representatives Judicial Committee:
"What was largely hidden from public view was
the fact that the KLA raise part of their funds from the sale of
narcotics. Albania and Kosovo lie at the heart of
the "Balkan Route" that links the "Golden Crescent" of Afghanistan and
Pakistan to the drug markets of Europe. This route is worth an estimated
$400 billion a year and
handles 80 percent of heroin destined for Europe." (House Judiciary Committee, 13 December 2000)
The relationship between the KLA and Osama bin Laden is confirmed by Interpol's Criminal Intelligence division:
"The U.S. State Department listed the KLA as a
terrorist organization, indicating that it was financing its operations
with money from the international heroin
trade and loans from Islamic countries and individuals, among them
allegedly Usama bin Laden . Another link to bin Laden is the fact that
the brother of a leader in an Egyptian Jihad
organization and also a military commander of Usama bin Laden, was
leading an elite KLA unit during the Kosovo conflict." (US Congress, Testimony of Ralf Mutschke of Interpol's
Criminal Intelligence Division, to the House Judicial Committee, 13 December 2000).
The evidence regarding the KLA contained in
Congressional transcripts, news reports and intelligence documents
directly implicates General Wesley Clark.
During his stint as NATO Supreme commander
(1997-2000). Clark had close personal ties with KLA Chief of Staff
Commander Brigadier Agim Ceku and KLA Leader Hashim Thaci (see photo below
).
Agim Ceku, who directly collaborated with NATO
during the 1999 Kosovo campaign is recognized by the Hague ICTY Tribunal
"for alleged war crimes committed against
ethnic Serbs in Croatia between 1993 and 1995." ( AFP 13 Oct 1999)
Hashim Thaci had ordered the political
assassination of his opponents in Ibrahim Rugova's nationalist
Democratic League of Kosovo (LDK) (See November 2000 BBC Report at http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/1037302.stm
). According to The Boston Globe (2 August 1999):
"Terrorists with ties to Osama bin Laden
running around with AK-47s and anti-tank weapons is bad enough. Worse,
Thaci's boys aren't just killers and kleptos, but
mafioso who are neck deep in the drug trade. (During the war, the
Washington Times quoted an unnamed U.S. drug enforcement official
commenting on the KLA, 'They were drug dealers in 1998 and
now, because of politics, they're freedom fighters.')"
In the wake of the 1999 Kosovo campaign, under
NATO regency, these acts of political assassination--ordered by the
self-proclaimed Provisional Government of Kosovo (PGK)--
were carried out in a totally permissive environment. The leaders of the
KLA, rather than being arrested by NATO for war crimes, were granted
KFOR protection. According
to one report of the Foreign Policy Institute (published during the 1999 bombings): "...the
KLA have [no] qualms about murdering Rugova's collaborators, whom it
accused of the "crime" of moderation...(Michael Radu, "Don't Arm the
KLA", CNS Commentary from the Foreign Policy Research Institute, 7
April, 1999).
In course of the bombing campaign, Fehmi Agani,
one of Rugova's closest collaborators in the Kosovo Democratic League
(KDL) was executed on the orders of the r Hashim
Thaci.(Tanjug Press Dispatch, 14 May 1999): "If Thaci actually
considered Rugova a threat, he would not hesitate to have Rugova removed
from the Kosovo political landscape." (Stratfor
Comment, "Rugova Faced with a Choice of Two Losses", Stratfor, 29 July
1999). In turn, the KLA has abducted and killed numerous professionals
and intellectuals.
And who were behind the 29 year old KLA leader Hashim Thaci? Madeleine Albright and Wesley Clark. (see photos below
).
NATO, the KLA and Al Qaeda
According to a US Department of Defense briefing,
so-called "initial contacts" between the KLA and NATO took place in
mid-1998, during the first part of
General Clark's mandate as NATO Commander in Chief:
"...the realization has come to people [in
NATO] that we [NATO led by Wesley Clark] have to have the UCK [acronym
for KLA in Albanian] involved in this process
because they have shown at least the potential to be rejectionists of
any deal that could be worked out there with the existing Kosovo
parties. So somehow they have to be brought in and that's
why we've made some initial contacts there with the group, hopefully the
right people in the group, to try and bring them into this negotiating
process." (US Department of Defense,
Background Briefing, July 15, 1998)
["Hopefully the right group" means "we deal with people who obey orders."]
While these "initial contacts" were acknowledged
by NATO officially only in mid-1998, the KLA had (according to several
reports) been receiving "covert
support" and training from the CIA and Germany's intelligence agency
the Bundes Nachrichten Dienst (BND) since the mid-nineties. These
covert operations were known and approved by
NATO. (Michel Chossudovsky, Kosovo `Freedom Fighters' Financed by Organised Crime,
Covert Action Quarterly, 2000)
The development and training of KLA forces was
part of NATO planning, directly led by General Wesley Clark. In the
words of former Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA)
secret agent Michael Levine, writing at the height of the 1999 bombing
of Yugoslavia:
"Ten years ago we were arming and equipping the
worst elements of the Mujahideen in Afghanistan - drug traffickers,
arms smugglers, anti-American terrorists…Now
we're doing the same thing with the KLA, which is tied in with every
known middle and far eastern drug cartel. Interpol, Europol, and nearly
every European intelligence and counter-narcotics
agency has files open on drug syndicates that lead right to the KLA, and
right to Albanian gangs in this country." (New American Magazine, May 24, 1999)
The KLA acted as a paramilitary force, present on
the ground in Kosovo. It was integrated by US and British SAS Special
Forces and remained in close liaison with NATO. The
KLA was also used by NATO High Command to acquire intelligence on
bombing targets during the 1999 Kosovo campaign.
Confirmed by British military sources, the task of
arming and training of the KLA had been entrusted in 1998 to the US
Defence Intelligence Agency (DIA) and Britain's
Secret Intelligence Services MI6, together with "former and serving
members of 22 SAS [Britain's 22nd Special Air Services Regiment], as
well as three British and American private security
companies". (The Scotsman, Glasgow, 29 August 1999)
"The US DIA approached MI6 to arrange a
training program for the KLA, said a senior British military source.
`MI6 then sub-contracted the operation to two British
security companies, who in turn approached a number of former members of
the (22 SAS) regiment. Lists were then drawn up of weapons and
equipment needed by the KLA.' While these covert
operations were continuing, serving members of 22 SAS Regiment, mostly
from the unit's D Squadron, were first deployed in Kosovo before the
beginning of the bombing campaign in March
[1999]." (Ibid)
While British SAS Special Forces in bases in
Northern Albania were training the KLA, military instructors from Turkey
and Afghanistan financed by the "Islamic
jihad" were providing the KLA with guerilla and diversion tactics:
"Bin Laden had visited Albania himself. He was
one of several fundamentalist groups that had sent units to fight in
Kosovo, ... Bin Laden is believed to have
established an operation in Albania in 1994 ... Albanian sources say
Sali Berisha, who was then president, had links with some groups that
later proved to be extreme fundamentalists."
(Sunday Times, London, 29 November 1998.)
In the Wake of the 1999 Bombing of Yugoslavia
In the wake of the 1999 bombing of Yugoslavia,
NATO under Wesley Clark's command, supported the extension of the
terrorist activities of the KLA into Southern Serbia and
Macedonia.
Meanwhile, the KLA --renamed the Kosovo Protection
Corps (KPC)-- was elevated to United Nations status, implying the
granting of "legitimate" sources of funding
through United Nations as well as through bilateral channels, including
direct US military aid.
In other words, a terrorist paramilitary force
supported by Al Qaeda and linked to organized crime becomes a legitimate
"civilian" National Guard, directly
supported by NATO and the UN.
And barely two months after the official
inauguration of the KPC under UN auspices (September 1999), KPC-KLA
commanders - using UN resources and equipment - were already
preparing the assaults into Macedonia, as a logical follow-up to their
terrorist activities in Kosovo. In this endeavour they had the full
support of NATO and the US military, not to mention
the so-called "international community" symbolised by the UN Mission to
Kosovo (UNMIK), headed by France's former Minister of Health Bernard
Kouchner:
According to the Skopje daily Dnevnik, the KPC had established a "sixth operation zone" in Southern Serbia and Macedonia:
"Sources, who insist on anonymity, claim that
the headquarters of the Kosovo protection brigades [i.e. linked to the
UN sponsored KPC] have [March 2000] already
been formed in Tetovo, Gostivar and Skopje. They are being prepared in
Debar and Struga [on the border with Albania] as well, and their members
have defined codes." (Macedonian
Information Centre Newsletter, Skopje, 21 March 2000, published by BBC Summary of World Broadcast, 24 March 2000)
According to the BBC, "Western special forces were
still training the guerrillas" meaning that they were assisting the KLA
in opening up "a sixth operation
zone" in Southern Serbia and Macedonia. (BBC, 29 January 2001, at http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/europe/newsid_1142000/1142478.stm
)
Ironically the United Nations in a confidential
February 2000 report to Secretary General Kofi Annan acknowledged that
the KPC, was responsible for "criminal
activities . . . killings, ill-treatment (and) torture, illegal
policing, abuse of authority, intimidation, breaches of political
neutrality and hate-speech.". These occurred at the
height of Bernard Kouchner's "humanitarian" mandate as the UN Interim
Administration Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK) (15 July 1999 to 12 January
2001).
And in this regard, Kouchner, whose mandate was to
channel humanitarian aid under UN auspices, worked closely with NATO
officials including Wesley Clark in providing
support to Kosovo's terrorist paramilitary army. (See photo below
). Let us not forget that Bernard Kouchner was the Founder of "Doctors without Borders".(Médecins sans frontières)
According to the London Observer, "the grim
message to the U.N. secretary-general is that his own organization [led
by UNMIK Head Bernard Kouchner] is paying the
salaries of many of the offenders" (Observer, http://www.commondreams.org/headlines/031400-03.htm
, 14 March 2000)
The 2004 Presidential Elections
What choices for the US Electorate?
The evidence presented above confirms that both
the Democrats and the Republicans have links to Al Qaeda and are
complicit in the "war on terrorism".
In a bitter irony, the very same terrorist
organization (Al Qaeda) which were supported by successive
administrations, is heralded in both the Republican and
Democratic election platforms as "an enemy of America". (See Michel
Chossudovsky, Expose the Links between Al Qaeda and the Bush
Administration, Centre for Research on
Globalization, http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/CHO303D.html
, 15 March 2003).
Ironically, Osama bin Laden has become part of the
election ritual, providing all the necessary buzz-words for a stylized
debate on "Homeland Security",
which is a central feature of the election platform of both political
parties. . .
Republicans or Democrats: The war agenda remains
intact . The Democrats do not oppose President Bush's request to
Congress to allocate $87 billion to finance Iraq's
occupation and "reconstruction." :
"The consent on financing the occupation and
the reconstruction of Iraq are strong indications that there will be no
substantial change in the U.S. policy in
the region, at least until the strategic goal of the war is achieved." (Salameh Nematt, Bin Laden and the U.S. Elections, Salameh Nematt Al-Hayat, 11 September 2003, http://english.daralhayat.com/OPED/09-2003/Article-20030911-9082bea7-c0a8-01ed-002a-cc14f6dc4d75/story.html
)
The Republicans led the first Gulf war, the
Democrats led the wars in the Balkans leading to the military occupation
of Bosnia-Herzegovina under the Dayton Accords in 1995
and the invasion of Kosovo in 1999. The Democrats were in office during
the devastating wars in Rwanda and the Congo, leading to more than 3
million deaths. The Democrats and the Republicans
joined hands in enforcing the "No Fly Zone" (1991-2003) and a twelve
year program of economic sanctions and bombing of Iraq.
The Clinton-led wars in the Balkans were a stage
of the "road-map". They were part of a broader US led-war extending from
the Balkans into the Middle East and
Central Asia.
Republicans present a consistent team dominated by
the Neo-cons including former Iran Contra officials of the Reagan
administration. The GOP's war agenda is defined in
terms of "multiple and simultaneous theater wars" as contained in the
Project for the New American Century (PNAC). (See http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/NAC304A.html
). The PNAC also foresaw the triggering of a so-called "Pearl Harbor
Event" to mobilize public opinion in support of the war agenda. (Ibid).
While there are substantive differences between
the Neo-Cons and leading Democrats, Bush's National Security doctrine
is, in many regards, a continuation of that
formulated by Clinton in 1995, which was based on a "strategy of
containment of rogue states".
There are significant differences. The NeoCons are
more reckless than the Democrats, particularly with regard to nuclear
policy. The Democrats under the Clinton
adminstration were more skillful in using the UN system and multilateral
framework to their advantage to effectively pursue their war agenda.
It is worth mentioning, however, that US Central
Command (USCENTCOM) had already, during the Clinton administration,
formulated "in theater war plans" to
invade Iraq and Iran. And the stated objective of these 1995 war plans
was oil::
"The broad national security interests and
objectives expressed in the President's National Security Strategy (NSS)
[President Clinton] and the Chairman's National
Military Strategy (NMS) form the foundation of the United States Central
Command's theater strategy. The NSS directs implementation of a
strategy of dual containment of the rogue states of Iraq
and Iran as long as those states pose a threat to U.S. interests, to
other states in the region, and to their own citizens. Dual containment
is designed to maintain the balance of power in the
region without depending on either Iraq or Iran. USCENTCOM's theater
strategy is interest-based and threat-focused. The purpose of U.S.
engagement, as espoused in the NSS, is to protect the
United States' vital interest in the region - uninterrupted, secure
U.S./Allied access to Gulf oil."(USCENTCOM, http://www.milnet.com/milnet/pentagon/centcom/chap1/stratgic.htm#USPolicy
)
In fact, broadly the same concepts of Homeland
Defense, preventive war, etc. are contained in Clinton's 1999 and 2000
National Security Strategy documents.(See http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/policy/national/
)
In other words, the invasions of Afghanistan and
Iraq under the Bush administration were part of the bipartisan road-map
to Empire, --i.e. a continuation of a war
agenda which had already been decided upon well in advance of Bush's
accession to the White House in January 2001. This should come as no
surprise since many of the people in charge of these
war plans, including CIA director George Tenet,had been appointed during
the Clinton administration.
Increasingly, the military-intelligence
establishment (rather than the State Department, the White House and the
US Congress) call the shots on US foreign policy , with
the Texas oil giants, the defense contractors and Wall Street operating
discretely behind the scenes.
Ultimately, the war agenda and "Homeland
Security" (including the ongoing militarisation of civilian police and
judicial institutions) are determined by
powerful economic interests. Party politics largely serves as a
smokescreen.
It is, therefore, unlikely that the Democrats would undo either the War agenda or the Patriot Act.
Totalitarian State in America: De facto Military Dictatorship
The backbone of this system is militarisation,
including territorial conquest and military occupation. Behind the
democratic facade and the bipartisan ritual, a de facto
military dictatorship prevails.
Militarisation in turn endorses and enforces the global "free market" on behalf of dominant economic and financial interests.
In other words, the underlying political and
economic power structures will not be fundamentally modified through
"regime rotation" and the ritual of
presidential and Congressional elections.
To effectively build their "legitimacy", both the
Democrats and Republicans need to uphold the falsehoods behind the "war
on terrorism".
Sustaining the "freedom and democracy rhetoric" is
not only part of this bipartisan ritual, it is part of the process of
building a totalitarian State in America
under the disguise of a functioning democracy.
Let us be under no illusion: the 2004 presidential elections will not result in a significant change of direction.
To reverse the tide of war, military bases must be
closed down, the war machine namely the production of advanced weapons
systems (WMDs) must be dismantled, the evolving
police state must be dismantled, etc.
To achieve these broad objectives, it is essential
to break the legitimacy of the military and political actors who rule
in our name.
The falsehoods which sustain the legitimacy of the bipartisan ritual must be unraveled.
Both parties share the same war agenda. There are
war criminals in both political parties. Both parties are complicit in
the 9/11 cover-up.
The evidence points to what is best described as
"the criminalization of the State", which also includes the Judiciary
and the bipartisan corridors of the
US Congress.
In the words of Andreas van Buelow, former German Minister of Defense and author of The CIA and September 11: "If what I say is right, the whole US
government should end up behind bars,"
1999 War Criminals Join Hands (Kosovo 1999).
From Left to Right:
Hashim Thaci, Head of the KLA, closely
linked to Osama bin Laden's Al Qaeda. Hashim Thaci had ordered
political assassinations directed against the Party of
Ibrahim Rugova. Thaci was a protégé of Madeleine Albright (see photo
below).
Bernard Kouchner, Head of United
Nations Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK) in Kosovo (July 1999- January 2001),
instrumental in elevating the KLA to UN status.
General Michael Jackson, Commander of KFOR Troops in Kosovo.
General Agim Ceku, Military Commander
of the KPC, investigated by the International Criminal Tribunal for the
former Yugoslavia (ICTY) "for alleged
war crimes committed against ethnic Serbs in Croatia between 1993 and
1995." ( AFP 13 Oct 1999)
General Wesley Clark, NATO Supreme Commander.
[The only person missing in the photo is Osama bin Laden.]
Madeleine Albright greets KLA Hashim Thaci
(Right) Ambassador Richard Holbrooke (appointed by President Clinton) with a KLA Commander, Summer 1998
Source of pictures: Senate Republican Party Committee, http://www.kosovo.com/rpc.html
