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muse plugs alex jones' 'terror storm'
El_Kabong
Posts: 4,141
for cincy 
http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/august2006/270806rockfrontman.htm
Rock Frontman Invites Viewing Millions To See Alex Jones Movie
Muse singer scrawls name of Terror Storm on t-shirt, performs headlining show at Reading Festival
Paul Joseph Watson/Prison Planet.com | August 27 2006
Critically acclaimed rockers Muse cited Alex Jones' new film as one of their influences as frontman Matt Bellamy scrawled "Terror Storm" on the back of his shirt for the band's Saturday night headline gig at the Reading Festival in the UK.
The Reading Festival is famous worldwide amongst music lovers and is regularly screened by the BBC to viewers in the UK. Muse are considered one of the best alternative rock bands in Britain and they have played many large stadiums in the United States, in which their fan base is also large and ever-expanding.
Following the performance, Bellamy explained the meaning ( http://www.nme.com/news/muse/24109 ) behind the t-shirt to NME, Britain's top selling music magazine.
"Go to Google Video, type in Terror Storm and you'll find a nice little surprise. It will shed some light on world affairs, put it that way. I rather point you in the direction then preach about it myself," said Bellamy.
A BBC news report also picked up on the story. ( http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/5290674.stm )
"With "terror storm" written on his T-shirt, singer Matthew Bellamy took to a white piano at one point. Afterwards he said they were getting a vibe from the crowd, and in the words of their own song they really seemed invincible."
It is very exciting and a boon for the 9/11 Truth Movement to have a major rock band encourage people to watch Terror Storm in front of 80,000 festival goers and millions watching at home on BBC television.
The connection between the cultural zeitgeist and the 9/11 truth movement as well as the wider truth movement in general is evergreen and can only help in spreading awareness amongst those who will inherit the battle to preserve all our freedoms - the youth of today.
It is our task to nurture that bond and ensure that it isn't just a flash in the pan that gets replaced by the next fad in a couple of years time. Muse should be commended and more people in the public spotlight encouraged to use their soapbox to educate people on the reality of the hidden hand that directs world events from behind closed doors.
Click here to get the high quality Terror Storm on DVD with extras! Click here to support our efforts and see the film by subscribing at Prison Planet.tv
http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/august2006/270806rockfrontman.htm
Rock Frontman Invites Viewing Millions To See Alex Jones Movie
Muse singer scrawls name of Terror Storm on t-shirt, performs headlining show at Reading Festival
Paul Joseph Watson/Prison Planet.com | August 27 2006
Critically acclaimed rockers Muse cited Alex Jones' new film as one of their influences as frontman Matt Bellamy scrawled "Terror Storm" on the back of his shirt for the band's Saturday night headline gig at the Reading Festival in the UK.
The Reading Festival is famous worldwide amongst music lovers and is regularly screened by the BBC to viewers in the UK. Muse are considered one of the best alternative rock bands in Britain and they have played many large stadiums in the United States, in which their fan base is also large and ever-expanding.
Following the performance, Bellamy explained the meaning ( http://www.nme.com/news/muse/24109 ) behind the t-shirt to NME, Britain's top selling music magazine.
"Go to Google Video, type in Terror Storm and you'll find a nice little surprise. It will shed some light on world affairs, put it that way. I rather point you in the direction then preach about it myself," said Bellamy.
A BBC news report also picked up on the story. ( http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/5290674.stm )
"With "terror storm" written on his T-shirt, singer Matthew Bellamy took to a white piano at one point. Afterwards he said they were getting a vibe from the crowd, and in the words of their own song they really seemed invincible."
It is very exciting and a boon for the 9/11 Truth Movement to have a major rock band encourage people to watch Terror Storm in front of 80,000 festival goers and millions watching at home on BBC television.
The connection between the cultural zeitgeist and the 9/11 truth movement as well as the wider truth movement in general is evergreen and can only help in spreading awareness amongst those who will inherit the battle to preserve all our freedoms - the youth of today.
It is our task to nurture that bond and ensure that it isn't just a flash in the pan that gets replaced by the next fad in a couple of years time. Muse should be commended and more people in the public spotlight encouraged to use their soapbox to educate people on the reality of the hidden hand that directs world events from behind closed doors.
Click here to get the high quality Terror Storm on DVD with extras! Click here to support our efforts and see the film by subscribing at Prison Planet.tv
standin above the crowd
he had a voice that was strong and loud and
i swallowed his facade cos i'm so
eager to identify with
someone above the crowd
someone who seemed to feel the same
someone prepared to lead the way
he had a voice that was strong and loud and
i swallowed his facade cos i'm so
eager to identify with
someone above the crowd
someone who seemed to feel the same
someone prepared to lead the way
Post edited by Unknown User on
0
Comments
A hell of a good way to get the word out there. Too bad the US government thinks that everybody in the world is schooled in the US. Would make it easier to buy into their shit!
Considering that 1/3 of the US population now believes that the government was complicit in the 9/11 attacks, I don't think this point holds much water.
2/3 do? Still a lot of people.
In the absence of new evidence either way, the 9/11 conspiracy crowd will simply have to wait out the generation that actually lived through the attacks. 30 years from now, much of the current innuendo and speculation will magically turn into "fact" and you'll probably see similar numbers in support of the 9/11 conspiracy that you do with the Kennedy conspiracy (2/3-3/4 of the population).
Something like 1/3rd of the population also believes that various psychic powers (e.g., telepathy) might exist as well.
Anyhow, even assuming this stat is true, it may be better understood as an indicator of people's feelings about the Bush administration these days, as opposed to "yeah, the conspiracy theories are true!".
I'm not advocating that these statistics somehow reflect the veracity of the conspiracy claims. They don't. Furthermore, your second point is spot on and the large-scale belief in these kind of theories has less to do with the evidence backing them than it does the emotional predispositions of the listener combined with their attitudes on government. Fifty years ago, these kind of claims would have been nearly unanimously laughed at to a fault. Today, they're often readily accepted without any honest questioning. It is what it is and no amount of polls or statistics of belief will alter the events of that day.
Very valid questions. But you have two threads of logic up there competing with each other. I've bolded them. It's not self-castigation. How many conspiracy theorists that blame the government for 9/11 do you see in turn blaming themselves??? None. They blame the "rich" or the "New World Order" or the "Bush administration" or the "Israelis". They pick their "they" quite easily.
You have a point ...
yeah, they should instead look at the money trai....oooooohhhhh...we end up at the same spot
maybe it's b/c we see billions of our tax money go to these ppl one year, then the next they are compared to hitler and a grave threat to our safety. obviously the us government (especially ppl like cheney and rummy)are piss poor judges of character in who we support
as for ppl not banding together...it's like if a bully keeps pushing kids around at recess...when one of the kids finally punches back should we blame the bully or the kid who fought back? a lot of the violent actions towards the US are reactions to US policy
he had a voice that was strong and loud and
i swallowed his facade cos i'm so
eager to identify with
someone above the crowd
someone who seemed to feel the same
someone prepared to lead the way
If you look at very small part of the money trail, yes. How much money has Alex Jones made off of 9/11, friend? Perhaps you should add him to the list
Yes they are.
I had no respect for the bully. I had respect for the kid. Now I have respect for neither.
Just because US policy may piss people off does not somehow give them the right to attack the US. Furthermore, as you state above the US is often the reason those people have anything in the first place. You'll lampoon Cheney and Rumsfeld for supporting someone 20 years ago and then calling them a terrorist now. That's fair. But why don't you apply that same standard to those who now despise America but were perfectly willing to accept our help in Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, etc?
i'm not talking about just profitwise but also funding wise...like al qaeda was created by bin laden while he was working for the cia...
didn't say it did, just explaining the WHY of it and it is far from the 'they hate our freedoms!' line
sometimes there's only days between that support and being compared to hitler...saddam (the first time) bush vetoed every single sanction against iraq for their mass graves and such until he needed a new enemy and iraq was told we didn't care how he handled the kuwait situation...
same thing w/ noriega...he was a cia agent and we helped him take power in panama...but when he stopped following orders and instead started running his mouth about our actions in the region suddenly was a threat to our national security and a horrible drug dealer (even tho daddy bush instructed agencies to ignore his drug activities prior to that)
i'd have to take it on a case by case basis instead of giving you a single answer and i have to run now...but if i had to boil it down simplisticly i'd say something about mistrust...they see our actions do not match w/ our reasons and are tired of being at the shit end of the stick in it. take iran for example...they even had a democratically elected PM...but...he didn't think foreign companies should own all iran's oil...so the cia takes him out and installs a corrupt thug who has one of the worst human rights abuses in history...would you trust a country after something like that? after being one of the most progessive countries in your region to having to kiss your leaders ring/hand if in his presence and US funded/trained/armed death squads running around keeping everyone in check?
obviously this can not apply to every situation you asked about
he had a voice that was strong and loud and
i swallowed his facade cos i'm so
eager to identify with
someone above the crowd
someone who seemed to feel the same
someone prepared to lead the way
Bin Laden didn't "work for the cia". At most, the Afghani Mujahideen were funded by both the US Government and Bin Laden himself. Did their interests align then? Certainly. Were they actively in contact and working together? No.
But the "they hate our freedoms!" line has about the same validity as the "they hate our foreign policy!" line. This is a clash of cultures, not some tactical war over troops on the ground or socio-political constructs. Both statements completely misrepresent what this conflict is about.
Right now, someone in Pakistan is saying "they hate our religion" to justify their actions. That's just as stupid as saying "they hate our freedoms" or "they hate our foreign policy".
Ok. I'm certainly not here to defend the veracity or intelligence of George Bush. Regardless, you can say the exact same thing above about Saddam Hussein. He loved us when we helped him, hated us when he didn't. It's no different than George Bush or Donald Rumsfeld.
Yep. Goes both ways there too.
You give Iran far too much credit. To pretend that being tired of US double-talk is the reasoning for their actions is to completely ignore the details of everything they've done over the past 40 years. Certainly the US is guilty of a lot of stupidity and harm in the region, but so are the British, the Turks, the Russians, the Iranians themselves, the Iraqis, the Saudies, the Israelis....
You want to pretend that the ills of the Middle East would be solved if the US got its nose out of the region? That's fine, go right ahead. Hopefully you and everyone else will buy a fuel-cell car because of that misconception because that will help us in other ways. But don't be surprised when the US does pull out of that region and none of these conflicts are solved.
Regardless, none of your statement above answers the very simple question: "But why don't you apply that same standard to those who now despise America but were perfectly willing to accept our help in Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, etc?" If it's all justified because of "mistrust", then why can't the US launch wars and attack these nations because they've also given us reason to "mistrust" them?
They actually have lots of news reports from trusted news sources on them, Like Fox news, CNN and the BBC.
How do you manage to ignore things that are staring you in the face?
Are these news channels lying to you but at the same time telling you the truth that you want to believe?
The economy has polarized to the point where the wealthiest 10% now own 85% of the nation’s wealth. Never before have the bottom 90% been so highly indebted, so dependent on the wealthy.
Please be serious. Many of the "mainstream" reports are taken completely out of context or misrepresented. For example, the CNN quote where a guy at the Pentagon refers to something that "sounded like a missile"? The part where he says "and I saw this plane" is omitted. For example, like the BBC story that talks about "alive hijackers"? The later retraction and clarification by BBC and an ABC reporter are omitted. For example, MSNBC videos of the towers collapsing with voiceover of a non-MSNBC "journalist" else describing the "unequivocal proof" of explosive use? The actual proof is omitted.
The source of news provides little by way of veracity. The content of the news is what matters. And when news is the simple reporting of fact from a reliable source, much can be gleaned from it. But when "news" is the reporting of someone's half-baked conclusions wrapped in language like "unquestionable" or "undeniable" or "conclusive", I'm always going to question it, regardless of its source.
You may ask those of us who support the official version how we "manage to ignore things that are staring [us] in the face". And to that I'll offer a simple response: we don't. One of the biggest things staring me in the face is a group of people who believe journalism is the process of publishing opinions that coincide with their own.
The official version of 9/11 is not the version I want to hear. It is simply the version that seems most consistent with the available evidence. And in the context of drawing conclusions, consistency with evidence is much more relevant than consistency with my own or anyone else's person opinions.
Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth.
-Oscar Wilde
All people are doing is questioning the truth, what is so wrong with that?
The economy has polarized to the point where the wealthiest 10% now own 85% of the nation’s wealth. Never before have the bottom 90% been so highly indebted, so dependent on the wealthy.
The one being spread by conspiracy theorists...that the government was complicit.
Nothing. I answered your questions.
he didn't 'work for them...he was just paid to do certain things for him....got it
bin laden was 1 of the 3 ppl who ran Maktab al Khidamar (Office of Services — MAK) and eventually became the overall leader...this all occurred while MAK was a somewhat ISI front...what was MAK's role in it all? they distributed the money and organized the flow of weapons, money, ppl, equipment, training...the CIA gave the $ to the ISI, who in turn, gave a large chunk of it to MAK
i never said it was the sole reason, but it is a pretty big one and not the same validity as saying they hate our freedoms, not even close. they see us overthrowing their governments when they don't do what dc tells them, they see puppet governments, death squads and a wave of repressive brutality...they see their ppl being kept in line w/ us made weapons...you can't tell me that doesn't play a role in it? some of them probably would still be dicks even w/o our foreign policy, but why give them that as an excuse? why let it be a recruitment tool for more to join?
i disagree w/ the foreign policy one, it is more legitimate to say "they hate us for organizing a coup against our democratically elected government, installed a brutal dictator, trained, armed and funded death squads to keep the populace in line...."
how would you feel?
but saddam didn't arm us...he didn't keep giving us weapons and looking the other way while he knew we were using them on civilians and filling up mass graves, did he?
there is a pretty big difference between GIVING aid and RECEIVING it. worst case scenario for saddam: he'd have to find a new person to sell him weapons, give him aid and protect him while he kills civilians. worst case scenario for us? we'd...have to find some other dictator to be our puppet? i don't see the similarity in that.
again, difference being one is the (supposed to be) puppet, the other is holding the strings. we helped put noriega in power, if it wasn't him it would've been someone else. again, you can not compare
never said it was the sole reason behind their actions, again, i'm merely saying it facilitated it. had we not overhtrown their democractic PM and had the shah installed...would the religious nuts in power now have had any opportunity? it's easy to grasp for something, anything to save you when you are under the heel of a brutal thug, you'll believe almost anything.
no, i don't think all the ills would be solved, i just think our actions are one of the biggest destabilizing factors. it also gives countries like saudi someone to point at so the ppl will be mad towards the us and not the saudi government.
i think we need alternatives to oil
when did i say anything iraq or iran or afghanistan was justified??? and the ppl rarely want abusive puppet governments. iran never overhtrew our government and put in death squads. iraq never sold us arms and protected us while we killed civilians and had mass graves.
he had a voice that was strong and loud and
i swallowed his facade cos i'm so
eager to identify with
someone above the crowd
someone who seemed to feel the same
someone prepared to lead the way
Man they've done a number on you....
Your facts are right, your interpretation is hilarious. Yes the CIA funded the ISI. Yes the ISI in turn funded MAK. This doesn't mean that Osama Bin Laden is "working for the CIA".
Look, much of Osama Bin Laden's money came from the family construction business. A lot of that money was in turn used to fund MAK and terrorist operations. That doesn't mean that the MAK or those organizations were "working for the Mohammed bin Laden construction agency".
Of course it plays a role in it! Freedom and religion and ideology and racism and lots of other things also play a role in it! But you and so many others are confusing the logs for the match. Foreign policy, freedom, religion, racism -- these are things that simply fuel the fire. They didn't start the fire and if you remove them the won't necessarily end it either.
Of course we should stop playing God with their governments. Of course we should stop arming sections of their society. I completely agree. Furthermore, they should stop establishing their own corrupt governments and aggressive terrorist organizations that play God with the lives of their enemies and their own civilian populations. But let's not pretend that's what this conflict is about. This conflict is about competing ideologies, not competing foreign policies.
No he didn't arm us. He did maintain a secular state however and for whatever reason we decided that was in our best interest at the time. Furthermore, he certainly had no problem accepting our help, visiting our nation, and being just as duplicitous as George Bush.
There are no string. You want to pretend that people like Saddam and Noreaga were just unwitting puppets in the imperialistic puppet show, but that's not the way it works. These people knew the game they were playing it and played it on same terms the corrupt elements of our government did and continue to do.
Of course they would have. What makes you think that the Iranian Revolution was fought against the West? Primarily it was fought against the Shah, who just happened to be a Western sympathizer. The Iranian revolution was a revolution against secularism, not a revolution against the British or the Americans. Furthermore, they won. They got what they wanted then.
So desperation justifies stupidity? Ok. George Bush is a pretty desperate guy too.
Sure.
Agreed! That's your solution and it'll be a very effective one.
Wait. So Iran's attempts to overthrow the Iraqi government don't matter but ours do? Iraqs mass graves don't count unless they're caused by us?
who is they?? oh, shit! do you know about the vast left-wing conspiracy!?!?
ok, how about change 'working for the cia' to 'funded by the cia'?? the US dumped $6-20BILLION worth of arms, training and funds to the mujaheddin. so let's say i really don't work for my company, i work for the payroll department :rolleyes:
yes, he had a lot of money, doesn't mean he spent his own on the jihad...in fact, you can do a search for the cia's station chief in pakistan, milt berden, he says he and the cia knew of bin laden and knew what he was doing...but they didn't care b/c ' [Guys like] bin Laden were bringing $20-$25 million a month from other Saudis and Gulf Arabs to underwrite the war.'
he also brought in heavy construction equipment to build these terrorist camps using cia and isi money. so, are you telling me the cia just dumped all this money to them w/o wanting to know who or where it was going?
also, your last sentence is not valid. using money one already has or is part of your inheritance is NOT the same as the cia giving a group money for a SET PURPOSE. see, daddy bin laden didn't give him the inheritance and say 'now go build training camps w/ this money, son!' , did he? noooope. but the cia gave the money for that very purpose. (pssst weren't some of the ppl we used in kosovo, like the kla, trained at these camps by bin laden?)
if you cut the gas off on a grill, will it still keep burning indefinetly?
of course he did! we brought him over here and trained him at our war college! (just like one of the main ppl in the bombings of our embassies in kenya and tanzenia were trained at camp peary here in the us) i never made him out to be some innocent patsy. when ppl like that are offered weapons by the us i think pretty much all of them would gladly accept.
no i don't, i said if it wasn't them they'd find someone else to do it. again, offering a bribe and accepting a bribe are 2 different things. just like shooting someone and being shot is. one plays a bigger role in the scheme of things.
i think it was a result of the treatment of the ppl from the shah and his government. i think w/o that atmosphere there wouldn't have been enough support for it
no, but when you live in an environment of secret police, prisons, torture, executions...and someone is offering to end that...most ppl would accept.
<sigh> is that what i said? i don't know if iran tried to overthrow the iraqi government or not...but i do know both the shah and saddam got into power w/ the help of the cia.
of course mass graves matter no matter who they were caused by...no clue how you even came to that conclusion...
he had a voice that was strong and loud and
i swallowed his facade cos i'm so
eager to identify with
someone above the crowd
someone who seemed to feel the same
someone prepared to lead the way
Your friends at prisonplanet.
Stupidity is not a conspiracy
No, he didn't work for any of it. "Working" implies taking direction from. There was no active relationship between Bin Laden and the CIA. Certainly there was a cash trail from the CIA to MAK, but that trail is very long. You have money going from us to the Saudis to the ISI to MAK with stops in between. Furthermore, that $6-20b number is not only ridiculously overstated (the real number is closer to $100-200 million), it also is misleading. Money from the CIA that went to the ISI had no CIA decision making power attached to it. There was no known contact between Afghan mujahadin and the CIA or any American military/security branch.
Regardless, none of this justifies the incredible stupidity of funding foreign revolutionaries, particularly when the underlying ideology of those revolutionaries is opposed to your own. But let's stop pretending that Osama Bin Laden "worked for the CIA" or even had any kind of relationship with the CIA. You're taking legend and innuendo and trying to turn it into fact.
Of course. They do it all the time. The CIA knew the money was going in part to fund defensive efforts against the Russians. They didn't care to which specific groups it was going. That's the whole problem here. All they knew and all they cared about was that the money was working in Saudi interests which at the time was the real concern and the real reason for the investment. If you think there were CIA book keepers sitting around making sure Osama got his millions you're just fooling yourself. There is not a shred of evidence for that.
Agreed! What you're not seeing is that the "SET PURPOSE" of that money had nothing directly to do with Osama Bin Laden. It had much to do with Saudi and anti-Communistic interests. Regardless, the US is not alone in this. The list is quite long: Egypt, Britain, China, Saudi Arabia and other nations all funnelled money into the ISI in various ways in an effort to prevent Soviet incursions into Afghanistan. Unfortunately, these nations were too short-sighted to see what they were doing.
No. Too bad foreign policy is not the "gas". That same foreign policy exists throughout the world without the same reaction. Furthermore, it existed throughout Asia long before Osama Bin Laden came along. Finally, America is not along in its historic bungling in that region.
Yep.
Accepting a bribe is not like "being shot". I can shoot you without giving you any choice in the matter. I can't bribe you without you participating.
Bullshit. Certainly the US helped keep the Shah in power but to pretend there wasn't an active anti-secular resistance before we got our hands in things is silly. Mossadegh was almost overthrown by radical muslims in 1952 before we got to him in 1953.
Obviously, the US has no business helping to orchestrate coups against elected leaders anywhere in this world. But lets not pretend that coup gave rise to the anti-secular movements within Iran. Those anti-secular currents had been there for 400 years.
Sure. But I'm not going to forgive stupidity in any form just because someone was desperate.
You seem to be trying to make the argument that the actions of the United States are the primary creator of terrorism. That argument fails because the United States is not alone in the actions you specify and the situations you often try to attach to the United States have roots that extend beyond US involvement.
Look, the United States certainly has played a role in creating terrorists. But the size of that role certainly pales in comparison to the influence of the ideologies many hold in that region and have held long before the United States even was a major international player. It is the choices of terrorists that creates terrorism. And those terrorists are not developing their ideologies and the subsequent choices around the number of US pennies that go to Israel or the number of coup attempts led by the CIA. If they were, Britain would be their primary target since Britain is responsible for far more historical misdeeds than we are in that region.
I agree with you that the US should stop meddling in Middle East politics. I agree with you that US consumers should start moving away from oil immediately. But this isn't going to end this conflict (neither will armed warfare either, BTW). And it isn't going to end the much greater long-term issue here -- the sufferring of millions of Arabs forced to live in very backwards repressive societies.
i don't have any friends at prisonplanet...in fact i don't know that i've ever posted anything from there...i know cincy is a big fan of muse so i posted it.
No, he
so, if i work at a temp company and they send me somewhere to work i can say to them 'hey, i work for the temp agency, not you!' when they ask me to do something? cia money paid bin laden and his group. his group received a large chunk of the $ given by the cia. i would expect the cia would want to be aware of who was receiving their money and what was being done w/ it (as the cia station chief in pakistan admits)...i highly doubt they'd just throw this money at isi and not care how or who it's spent on. granted the cia didn't say 'make a training camp here', but they knew what was being done w/ the money. btw, i thought i had read before the cia admitted bin laden was an 'intelligence asset'?
as for no american presence...i thought htey helped train some of hte mujahideen? and didn't they organize all the arms deliveries from the us, china, israel, egypt...and fly them in on us planes?
also, didn't we give them access to military satellite imagery and such? didn't reagan have mujahideen leaders at the white house?
http://www.statesmanjournal.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060825/OPINION/60824012/1049
'In 1985, President Reagan hosted a group of Afghan “freedom fighters.” These men where Afghan Mujahideen who were fighting “Soviet terrorism.” They were friends of Bin Laden and later became “terrorists” themselves.'
pakistan only wanted no americans inside afghanistan, not the training camps in pakistan
you're right, he only received hundreds of millions a year from the cia
nope, but even the cia station chief in pakistan has said they knew who bin laden was and that he was receiving the $. while there weren't cia book keepers around making sure he got the $, they weren't in the dark that he was receiving it.
the money went from the cia to the isi to mak (bin laden) the cia also flew weapons from poland, israel, china, egypt...to pakistan on us planes.
i didn't say they did it b/c of osama, i've said several times about others in situations kind of close to his...if it wasn't him it would've been someone else they supported. they were paying for a service bin laden provided
are those other countries the only current super power? do i live in any of those countries?
i didn't say it was. i was pointing out how being the creator of the action and being the receiver of it are different. so you can not compare the us supporting ppl like saddam, noriega, bin laden...w/ their acceptance of this support.
are you talking about when he resigned over a disagreement with Shah Reza over military involvement in parliamentary elections?
again you misstate my point. i didn't say it created or gave rise to it...i said it gave it the support it needed...as you said, it had been there for 400 years. the abuse of the shah was the tipping point
no one's asking anyone to forgive. you can say it was stupid all you want, and yet here we are decades later still not having learned our lesson.
once again, i'm saying the US is one of the biggest destabilizing factors in the region and world. so what if others do it! are they doing it on the scale we are/have done it on!? are those other countries the world's only super power? yeah, i'll agree some other countries help create it, just not on nearly as large a scale as the us
maybe b/c britian's are HISTORICAL and the US' is CURRENT (if you are talking on scale)? ever think of that? of course the idealogies play a role in it. but ya know what? we have nuts here saying the same kinds of shit. maybe the difference is they have these constant images and abuses of us to help beat it in their heads and give it creedence. see, it's easier to get someone to see their side when they live thru it or see the actions rather than if we actually tried to help. as in, if my parents were killed as a result of the us i would be mad, if our lives became better b/c of an action of the us i wouldn't.
someone can tell me to hate blacks or asians or hispanics all day long...but if i lived in an environment where they were abusive to me (raping, murdering, robbing, beating...) then one would be more inclined to accept those beliefs.
yes, but a lot of the wind would be taken out of the sails. now they have abu garhib, the rape/murder of a 14 year old iraqi girl by the US military, fallujah, executions of civilians...if we left them alone and actually tried to help there wouldn't be as much support (as in my reasoning w/ iran)
also, we wouldn't be funding it w/ our aid and oil sales
he had a voice that was strong and loud and
i swallowed his facade cos i'm so
eager to identify with
someone above the crowd
someone who seemed to feel the same
someone prepared to lead the way
You should check it out then. You have a lot in common.
The CIA station chief in Pakistan at the time was Milt Bearden. He wrote an excellent book called "The Main Enemy" and it discusses the events and the CIA's involvement . You should read it. It discusses how the money went to the ISI with a promise that the ISI could distribute it as they saw fit.
The CIA wanted that money to get into the hands of any group that incite a Russian invasion. So did the ISI along with lots of other nations (China, Britian, Egypt, etc). The CIA did not track or even care where the money ended up so long as the Russians continued to be concerned about the region. When the Russian invasion happened, the CIA and other governments continued to fund the "resistance" for the sole purpose of bogging down the Soviets.
The goal of the CIA was to start a war. The goal of MAK was to end it. Their interests aligned in that both opposed the Russians, but the CIA had no interest in empowering MAK over anyone else so long as they had someone who could give the Russians reason to engage. If anyone can be claimed to be "working for the CIA" it was the ISI and the Saudis.
They were aware of MAK and the fact that Bin Laden was one of its major players, but you're allowing too much hindsight here. No one gave an extra thought to Bin Laden. Bearden has said numerous times that they knew who Bin Laden was but that he was "one of many" and that he was not even really involved in the war effort. Bin Laden was only known to have participated in one actual battle during the conflict. His role was similar to our own: a funder.
To the rest of the points we're just kind of talking over each other. You want to say that the US is more active now and Britain was active then? OK. Then don't bring in stuff the US did 50 years ago as an excuse. Issues like Abu Grahib and Haditha of course help fuel the fire but even in their absence of those events it's not going to get better. Go research Middle East history. The fact that you claim that the US has destabilized the Middle East more than any other foreign nation just shows a lack of knowledge. The bullshit we've pulled in these regions pales in comparison to many others, particularly the British. What we're doing is more comparable to what the Germans were doing in the Middle East before and during WWII. It's peanuts compared to the real imperialists. Again, this doesn't make it right or even acceptable. It's just required for any argument that is going to contend foreign influence as a major contributing factor in a conflict.
you should also read the new yorker article about him:
http://www.newyorker.com/archive/content/?010924fr_archive03
'The C.I.A. station chief in Pakistan from 1986 to 1989 was Milt Bearden, an avuncular, barrel-chested man with an easy smile. He arrived with the first shipments of Stinger missiles that Washington dispatched to the combatants, and he spent a good deal of time in the mountains with the resistance groups.'
"As time went on," Bearden told me, "the story of the battle of Ali Khel grew, as did that of the Saudis' battlefield role. Part of the myth of bin Laden and of the Saudi fighters sprang from this. The U.S. government, along with others, sang the ballad of the Saudi shaheeds, and, dollar for dollar, King Fahd matched our funds. We put five hundred million dollars into Afghanistan in 1987 alone, and the Saudis matched us bill for bill."
and
'Four years had passed since the C.I.A. began providing weapons and funds—eventually totalling more than three billion dollars...'
there's also a nice summary of roles here
http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/context.jsp?item=a86operationcyclone
annnnnd:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/yemen/Story/0,2763,209260,00.html
'It was hardly surprising. In Afghanistan he fought with the Hezb-i-Islami group of mujahideen, whose training and weaponry were mainly supplied by the CIA.
He was not alone. American officials estimate that, from 1985 to 1992, 12,500 foreigners were trained in bomb-making, sabotage and urban guerrilla warfare in Afghan camps the CIA helped to set up.'
'Dr Ayman al-Zawahiri, a key figure in the Egyptian al-Jihad terrorist group. Al-Zawahiri ran his own operation during the Afghan war, bringing in and training volunteers from the Middle East. Some of the $500 million the CIA poured into Afghanistan reached his group.'
<yes, i know al-zawahiri was not mentioned before, just thought it was interesting>
i've already explained my view on the cia not saying who it went to specificially, you can re-read it if you like
MAK's roles were to:
help smuggle fighters and weapons into afghanistan
create and operate training camps
distribute money, weapons and other supplies to groups
i never said the cia picked them...i admitted the isi did, but still, the cia knew. it's like my temp job analogy you ignore...or say my neighbor tells me he'll pay me $500 to do some work in his yard...but the work is too hard for just me, so i ask if i can have someone else help me and the neighbor says i don't care. isn't the neighbor still effectively paying him, too?
first, see my links above which mentions us assistance in training. the camps were mainly in pakistan <to start> and pakistan wanted our help as long as no american was inside afghanistan. so natrually we couldn't fly the planes into afghanistan to deliver things, but we did deliver arms for these other countries to pakistan. now, you can play semantics and say 'we didn't give them the weapons!' all day long...to me, giving weapons to one group who we KNOW will give it to another group is the same as giving it to them directly. altho, there were some instances:
http://www.counterpunch.org/nimmo04242004.html
likes to claim Reagan and the CIA did not directly support bin Laden, defendants accused of the 1998 U.S. embassy bombing in Kenya have revealed the CIA shipped high-powered sniper rifles directly to bin Laden's operation in 1989, a fact confirmed by the Tennessee-based manufacturer of the rifles.
and yes, i am well aware they used russian arms...this was done to partly cover up who was funding it and so the mujahideen could use russian weapons they picked up along the way.
http://www.counterpunch.org/nimmo04242004.html
"Beginning in 1985, the CIA supplied mujahideen rebels with extensive satellite reconnaissance data of Soviet targets on the Afghan battlefield, plans for military operations based on the satellite intelligence, intercepts of Soviet communications, secret communications networks for the rebels, delayed timing devices for tons of C-4 plastic explosives for urban sabotage, and sophisticated guerrilla attacks, long-range sniper rifles, a targeting device for mortars that was linked to a U.S. Navy satellite, wire-guided anti-tank missiles, and other equipment," writes Phil Gasper.
but didn't the us also use ppl trained in these camps in kozovo, chechneya <and other post-russian/asian countries> as well as others?
now you are twisting things, again...that was a reply about american involvement...pakistan wanted our help but didn't want any americans inside afghanistan, that was the only real stipulation in their request for aid
more than likely we'll never know...i've read sites that claim they received a good chunk of aid from the isi
twisting things again...you claimed they didn't know who he was...i said they did and provied a reliable source...now you use that to say they knew who he was but didn't think he was important! make up your mind!
bin laden also built the training camps and helped train ppl...or are you saying that was our role, too?
i don't think actions 7 decades or more ago are as destabilizing as actions committed NOW. the uk got bombed, too...but why is mostly the us in their rhetoric? i'm not even saying i believe them or think if the us stopped they would...just that if we stopped we coudl at least be innocent of helping create the situation<s>.
he had a voice that was strong and loud and
i swallowed his facade cos i'm so
eager to identify with
someone above the crowd
someone who seemed to feel the same
someone prepared to lead the way
Dude, I never said the CIA didn't know where the money and weapons were going or who Bin Laden was. I said the CIA didn't care where the money was going as long as it helped intice the Russians to invade and also please the Saudis. They didn't give any second thought to Bin Laden since he was just one of many foreign interests with money to contribute. This is actually corroborated in the exact same interview that you posted at the start of your reply. Furthermore, you're making huge leaps with the language above. Not all of your dollar figures above are cash -- most of it is made up in valued weapons and the figures conflict with Mujahadin reports. Furthermore, not all of the actual cash went to foreign fighters. Lots of it went to policital, social and economic interests throughout the region. Finally, because some article says the CIA "helped" train fighters or "assisted" in something, it doesn't mean there were armies of CIA assets on the ground training people or some kind of direct managerial/oversight involvement by the CIA.
Regardless, all of this arises from your claim "al qaeda was created by bin laden while he was working for the cia". If this were true, we're the worst boss ever. We gave no direction to Bin Laden, there was no chain of command to us under which Bin Laden reported. Furthermore, based on all the justifications you've provided Bin Laden was also "working for the Egyptians" and "working for the Saudis" and "working for the British" and "working for the ISI" -- they all were doing what we were doing. Finally, based on your standards you might as well say all of those parties were "working for Bin Laden" since they were contributing to his interests.
al-Zawahiri describes it best here:
"While the United States backed Pakistan and the mujahidin factions with money and equipment, the young Arab mujahidin's relationship with the United States was totally different....The Arab mujahidin did not confine themselves to financing their own jihad but also carried Muslim donations to the Afghan mujahidin themselves. Usama Bin Ladin has apprised me of the size of the popular Arab support for the Afghan mujahidin that amounted, according to his sources, to $200 million in the form of military aid alone in 10 years. Imagine how much aid was sent by popular Arab organizations in the non-military fields such as medicine and health, education and vocational training, food, and social assistance"
The ultimate failure of your argument comes from the fact that Al Qaeda would have been created and funded regardless of US involvement.
not really
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inter-Services_Intelligence
During the Soviet-Afghan war of the 1980s saw the enhancement of the covert action capabilities of the ISI by the CIA. A number of officers from the ISI's Covert Action Division received training in the US and many covert action experts of the CIA were attached to the ISI to guide it in its operations against the Soviet troops by using the Afghan Mujahideen, Islamic fundamentalists of Pakistan and Arab volunteers.
to guide it? received training from? doesn't sound like they just handed them $ and that was that.
i'm glad you can see what would've happened if...
from the same article:
ISI played a central role in the U.S.-backed guerrilla war to oust the Soviet Army from Afghanistan in the 1980s. That Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)-backed effort flooded Pakistan with weapons and with Afghan, Pakistani and Arab "mujahideen", who were motivated to fight as a united force protecting fellow Muslims in Soviet occupied Afghanistan.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet-Afghan_war#Afghan_Resistance
By the mid-1980s, the Afghan resistance movement, receptive to assistance from the United States, United Kingdom, China, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and others, contributed to Moscow's high military costs and strained international relations. Thus, Afghan guerillas were armed, funded, and trained mostly by the US and Pakistan.
MOSTLY by the US and Pakistan?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mujahideen#Afghan_Mujahideen
The mujahideen were significantly financed, armed, and trained by the United States (during the Carter and Reagan administrations) and by Pakistan (during the Zia-ul-Haq military regime
like it or not we played a very large role in this, a veeeeeeery large role. you can downplay it by saying we only gave pakistan the $ and weapons and had no other role in it.
he had a voice that was strong and loud and
i swallowed his facade cos i'm so
eager to identify with
someone above the crowd
someone who seemed to feel the same
someone prepared to lead the way