The Panama Deception

Byrnzie

jlew24asu wrote:

but instead we get nonsense like, "they were Saudis who attacked us", "Taliban had nothing to do with it", "9/11 was not an act of war" and the dumbest of them all "America was already planning to go to war in Afghanistan". this place is worse then the Alex Jones board

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Archive/Artic ... 45,00.html

Attack and counter-attack

Evidence suggests that Washington had planned to move against Bin Laden in the summer. Was the attack on America a pre-emptive strike?

David Leigh -Guardian
Wednesday September 26, 2001

'Did Bin Laden decide to get his retaliation in first? And did the new Bush administration make a horrible miscalculation by taking an ill-informed, "tough guy" approach to their fanatical Islamist opponent ?

These are the troubling questions raised by the Guardian's disclosure at the weekend that the Taliban received a specific warning - passed during secret diplomacy in Berlin in July - that the Bush team had prepared a new plan to topple the entire Afghan regime militarily unless they handed Bin Laden over.

If it turns out that our future safety is in the hands of those who might possibly have averted the horror of September 11 by behaving more cautiously, then we owe it to history to establish the true record. But we can be certain that no one presently in charge in Washington will want to do that.

The Guardian's disclosures are proving controversial. Some analysts say Bin Laden had evidently prepared his suicide pilots up to a year beforehand, thus making Washington's behaviour in July beside the point. Others ask why US threats of military strikes in July should be of any more concern to Bin Laden than previous episodes, such as Clinton's rocketing of his camps.

We need to assess the evidence of the Bush team's foreign policy dealings this year to find the answers. This is made easier by the fact that two major players have now come out of the woodwork.

First, President Putin made clear he had tried to egg on the previous Clinton administration - without success - to act militarily against the whole Taliban regime: "Washington's reaction at the time really amazed me. They shrugged their shoulders and said matter-of-factly: 'We can't do anything because the Taliban does not want to turn him over'."

And then Clinton himself disclosed what limited - and equally unsuccessful - action he had been prepared to attempt by secret executive order. He said on Saturday: "I authorised the arrest and, if necessary, the killing of Osama bin Laden and we actually made contact with a group in Afghanistan to do it." Speaking to reporters in New York, he added: "We also trained commandos for a possible ground action, but we did not have the necessary intelligence to do it in the way we would have had to do it."

So Bush came into office this January against a background of American (and Clintonian) failure. While running for president the previous October, he said he was "saddened and angered" by the "cowardly attack" on the destroyer the USS Cole, and added: "There must be consequences."

As the outgoing senior official at the state department in charge of Afghanistan, Karl Inderfurth, remarked: "The Bush administration will have many urgent problems to face and, unfortunately, Afghanistan will be one of those because of terrorism and Bin Laden... Those problems are getting worse".

Although support from Pakistan, its southern neighbour, seemed to render the regime invulnerable, there were signs early this year that Washington was moving to threaten Afghanistan militarily from the north, via the wild former Soviet republics.

A US department of defence official, Dr Jeffrey Starr, visited Tajikistan in January. The Guardian's Felicity Lawrence established that US Rangers were also training special troops inside Kyrgyzstan. There were unconfirmed reports that Tajik and Uzbek special troops were training in Alaska and Montana.

And US General Tommy Franks visited Dushanbe on May 16, where he conveyed a message from the Bush administration that the US considered Tajikistan "a strategically significant country". On offer was non-lethal military aid. Tajikistan used the occasion to apply to join Nato's Partnership for Peace.

Shortly afterwards the Republican senator from Alabama who is vice-chairman of the Senate intelligence committee, Richard C Shelby, returned from a Gulf tour to bullishly tell the Washington Post that US counterterrorism officials were winning the war against Bin Laden. "He's on the run, and I think he will continue to be on the run, because we are not going to let up." He went on: "I don't think you could say he's got us hunkered down. I believe he's more hunkered down... He knows he's hunted."

Reliable western military sources say a US contingency plan existed on paper by the end of the summer to attack Afghanistan from the north. Throughout the spring, FBI information suggests terrorist suicide pilots were continuing to train at US aviation schools. But whatever contingency plan of theirs existed, no one pushed the terrorist button. By July 8, the Afghan opposition, Pakistani diplomats, and senior staff from the British Foreign Office, were gathering at Weston Park under UN auspices for private teach-ins on the Afghan situation.

And a couple of weeks later, another group gathered in a Berlin hotel. There, former state department official Lee Coldren passed on a message he had got from Bush officials: "I think there was some discussion of the fact that the United States was so disgusted with the Taliban that they might be considering some military action." Karl Inderfurth was there too, and former ambassador to Pakistan, Tom Simons.

The chilling quality of this private warning was that it came - according to one of those present, the Pakistani diplomat Niaz Naik - accompanied by specific details of how Bush would suceed where Clinton had failed.

The hawks in Washington could count on the connivance of Russian troops, and on facilities in such places as Uzbekistan and Tajikistan, already host to US military advisers.

The message that thus went back via Pakistan to the Taliban was that the hawks in Washington thought they were backing Bin Laden into a corner. Unfortunately, he decided to push his own button, instead.'

jlew24asu

LOL scratch that. dumbest thing I've heard yet "9/11 was a pre-emptive strike"

Byrnzie

http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/01/10/oneill.bush/

O'Neill: Bush planned Iraq invasion before 9/11

Wednesday, January 14, 2004 Posted: 2:12 AM EST (0712 GMT)


(CNN) -- The Bush administration began planning to use U.S. troops to invade Iraq within days after the former Texas governor entered the White House three years ago, former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill told CBS News' 60 Minutes.

"From the very beginning, there was a conviction that Saddam Hussein was a bad person and that he needed to go," O'Neill told CBS, according to excerpts released Saturday by the network. "For me, the notion of pre-emption, that the U.S. has the unilateral right to do whatever we decide to do, is a really huge leap."

O'Neill, who served nearly two years in Bush's Cabinet, was asked to resign by the White House in December 2002 over differences he had with the president's tax cuts. O'Neill was the main source for "The Price of Loyalty: George W. Bush, the White House, and the Education of Paul O'Neill," by former Wall Street Journal reporter Ron Suskind.

The CBS report is scheduled to be broadcast Sunday night; the book is to be released Tuesday by publisher Simon & Schuster.

Suskind said O'Neill and other White House insiders gave him documents showing that in early 2001 the administration was already considering the use of force to oust Saddam, as well as planning for the aftermath.

"There are memos," Suskind told the network. "One of them marked 'secret' says 'Plan for Post-Saddam Iraq.'"

Suskind cited a Pentagon document titled "Foreign Suitors For Iraqi Oilfield Contracts," which, he said, outlines areas of oil exploration. "It talks about contractors around the world from ... 30, 40 countries and which ones have what intentions on oil in Iraq."

In the book, O'Neill is quoted as saying he was surprised that no one in a National Security Council meeting asked why Iraq should be invaded.

"It was all about finding a way to do it. That was the tone of it. The president saying 'Go find me a way to do this,'" O'Neill said...


"I've always said the president had failed to make the case to go to war with Iraq," Dean said. "My Democratic opponents reached a different conclusion, and in the process, they failed to ask the difficult questions. Now, after the fact, we are learning new information about the true circumstances of the Bush administration's push for war, this time, by one of his former Cabinet secretaries.

"The country deserves to know -- and the president needs to answer -- why the American people were presented with misleading or manufactured intelligence as to why going to war with Iraq was necessary."

Democratic Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts also issued a statement. In 2002, Kerry voted to support a resolution giving Bush authority to wage war against Iraq if it didn't dismantle its presumed illegal weapons program.

"These are very serious charges. It would mean [Bush administration officials] were dead-set on going to war alone since almost the day they took office and deliberately lied to the American people, Congress, and the world," Kerry said. "It would mean that for purely ideological reasons they planned on putting American troops in a shooting gallery, occupying an Arab country almost alone. The White House needs to answer these charges truthfully because they threaten to shatter [its] already damaged credibility as never before."

Byrnzie

http://whatreallyhappened.com/WRHARTICL ... anned.html

"In politics, nothing happens by accident. If it happens, you can bet it was planned that way."
Franklin D. Roosevelt

The Afghanistan War was Planned
Months Before the 9/11 Attacks


Jane's Defense - India Joined US led plan against Afghanistan in March 2001.


"India joins anti-Taliban coalition"

By Rahul Bedi

India is believed to have joined Russia, the USA and Iran in a concerted front against Afghanistan's Taliban regime. [janes.com]

From April 2001, yet more indications that a mideast war was planned long before 9/11.

India Reacts - American government told other governments about Afghan invasion IN JUNE 2001.

In this article published in India in the summer of 2001 the Indian Government announces that it will support America's PLANNED military incursion into Afghanistan.

India in anti-Taliban military plan

India and Iran will "facilitate" the planned US-Russia hostilities against the Taliban.

By Our Correspondent

26 June 2001: India and Iran will "facilitate" US and Russian plans for "limited military action"
against the Taliban if the contemplated tough new economic sanctions don't bend Afghanistan's fundamentalist regime. The Taliban controls 90 per cent of Afghanistan and is advancing northward along the Salang highway and preparing for a rear attack on the opposition Northern Alliance from
Tajikistan-Afghanistan border positions.

Indian foreign secretary Chokila Iyer attended a crucial session of the second Indo-Russian joint working group on Afghanistan in Moscow amidst increase of Taliban's military activity near the Tajikistan border. And, Russia's Federal Security Bureau (the former KGB) chief Nicolai Patroshev is visiting Teheran this week in connection with Taliban's military build-up.

Indian officials say that India and Iran will only play the role of "facilitator" while the US and Russia will combat the Taliban from the front with the help of two Central Asian countries, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, to push Taliban lines back to the 1998 position 50 km away from Mazar-e-Sharief city in northern Afghanistan.

Military action will be the last option though it now seems scarcely avoidable with the UN banned from Taliban controlled areas. The UN which adopted various means in the last four years to resolve the Afghan problem is now being suspected by the Taliban and refused entry into Taliban areas of the war ravaged nation through a decree issued by Taliban chief Mullah Mohammad Omar last month. [indiareacts.com]
BBC - American government told other governments about Afghan invasion IN JULY 2001.


BBC - American government told other governments about Afghan invasion IN JULY 2001.


US 'planned attack on Taleban'

The wider objective was to oust the Taleban

By the BBC's George Arney

A former Pakistani diplomat has told the BBC that the US was planning military action against Osama Bin Laden and the Taleban even before last week's attacks. Niaz Naik, a former Pakistani Foreign Secretary, was told by senior American officials in mid-July that military action against Afghanistan would go ahead by the middle of October.

Mr Naik said US officials told him of the plan at a UN-sponsored international contact group on Afghanistan which took place in Berlin. Mr Naik told the BBC that at the meeting the US representatives told him that unless Bin Laden was handed over swiftly America would take military action to kill or capture both Bin Laden and the Taleban leader, Mullah Omar.

The wider objective, according to Mr Naik, would be to topple the Taleban regime and install a transitional government of moderate Afghans in its place - possibly under the leadership of the former Afghan King Zahir Shah. Mr Naik was told that Washington would launch its operation from bases in Tajikistan, where American advisers were already in place.

He was told that Uzbekistan would also participate in the operation and that 17,000 Russian troops were on standby. Mr Naik was told that if the military action went ahead it would take place before the snows started falling in Afghanistan, by the middle of October at the latest.

He said that he was in no doubt that after the World Trade Center bombings this pre-existing US plan had been built upon and would be implemented within two or three weeks. And he said it was doubtful that Washington would drop its plan even if Bin Laden were to be surrendered immediately by the Taleban. [BBC]

MSNBC - Afghanistan war plans were on Bush's desk on 9/9/2001

President Bush was expected to sign detailed plans for a worldwide war against al-Qaida two days before Sept. 11 but did not have the chance before the terrorist attacks in New York and Washington, U.S. and foreign sources told NBC News. ... The plan dealt with all aspects of a war against al-Qaida, ranging from diplomatic initiatives to military operations in Afghanistan, the sources said on condition of anonymity. [MSNBC]

..............................................................................................................................

In the summer of 2001, while the American media kept the people distracted with "All Condit All The Time", the US Government was informing other governments that we would be at war in Afghanistan no later than October.

How lucky for our government that just when they are planning to invade another country, for the express purpose of removing that government, a convenient "terrorist" attack occurs to anger Americans into support for an invasion.

jlew24asu

OOOOOooooo look at the elaborate use of Bold, Italics, and colors. what a super fun cut and paste party!!!!!

whatreallyhappened.com

Byrnzie

jlew24asu wrote:

OOOOOooooo look at the elaborate use of Bold, Italics, and colors. what a super fun cut and paste party!!!!!

But the war in Afghanistan hadn't been planned prior to 9/11, had it Jlew?

jlew24asu wrote:

whatreallyhappened.com

You conveniently forgot to mention the BBC, Newsweek, CNN, MSNBC, The Guardian, The Washington Post, e.t.c., e.t.c, but then this wouldn't suit your purpose of ignoring the facts and trying to derail this thread with your usual tactics.

catefrances

jlew24asu wrote:

LOL scratch that. dumbest thing I've heard yet "9/11 was a pre-emptive strike"

def not the dumbest thing ive ever heard but certainlyone of the dumbest id say.


and do we know absolutely for sure that OBL is even in afghanistan. or if he ever was.. and if so exactly for how long???? just asking.

Byrnzie

catefrances wrote:

jlew24asu wrote:

LOL scratch that. dumbest thing I've heard yet "9/11 was a pre-emptive strike"

def not the dumbest thing ive ever heard but certainlyone of the dumbest id say.


and do we know absolutely for sure that OBL is even in afghanistan. or if he ever was.. and if so exactly for how long???? just asking.

So, Bin Laden received news at the end of the summer that the U.S planned an invasion to oust the Taliban regime. Bin Laden then strikes on U.S soil. And to suggest that there was any connection is dumb? O.k.

Probably the attacks would have come at some point regardless. Though maybe the F.B.I could have followed up on the information they already possessed of the terrorist networks at flight schools across the U.S and the attacks could have been averted. Who knows?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Archive/Artic ... 45,00.html
'...Reliable western military sources say a US contingency plan existed on paper by the end of the summer to attack Afghanistan from the north. Throughout the spring, FBI information suggests terrorist suicide pilots were continuing to train at US aviation schools. But whatever contingency plan of theirs existed, no one pushed the terrorist button. By July 8, the Afghan opposition, Pakistani diplomats, and senior staff from the British Foreign Office, were gathering at Weston Park under UN auspices for private teach-ins on the Afghan situation.

And a couple of weeks later, another group gathered in a Berlin hotel. There, former state department official Lee Coldren passed on a message he had got from Bush officials: "I think there was some discussion of the fact that the United States was so disgusted with the Taliban that they might be considering some military action." Karl Inderfurth was there too, and former ambassador to Pakistan, Tom Simons...

The message that thus went back via Pakistan to the Taliban was that the hawks in Washington thought they were backing Bin Laden into a corner. Unfortunately, he decided to push his own button, instead.'

jlew24asu

Byrnzie wrote:

jlew24asu wrote:

OOOOOooooo look at the elaborate use of Bold, Italics, and colors. what a super fun cut and paste party!!!!!

But the war in Afghanistan hadn't been planned prior to 9/11, had it Jlew?

no it wasnt. was it talked about it? sure maybe. and rightfully so. how soon you forgot America was already under attack from these people throughout the Clinton years. WTC, Cole, Africa.....

but I'm confused, aren't you a truther? a firm believer that 9/11 was an inside job. I remember you posted crap about how the American government planted bombs inside WTC. you gave up that theory? now it really was OBL, but now it was a justified "pre-emptive" strike eh?

I wonder what the whackjob websites will come up next, only for you to suck it up as fact yet again.

Byrnzie

jlew24asu wrote:

I remember you posted crap about how the American government planted bombs inside WTC.

I never said anything of the sort. I said there's ample evidence to show that the U.S had prior knowledge of the attacks and chose to do nothing about it. I also mentioned the fact that Cheney was put in overall command of NORAD just prior to 9/11 and that it's a funny coincidence that the F16's were ordered not to stand down on that particular day, despite having been scrambled approx 100 times already that year as part of their routine procedure, e.t.c.
I said nothing about bombs being planted by the government. But if you insist I did, them great. Go ahead and find these posts of mine and paste them here.

Byrnzie

jlew24asu wrote:

I wonder what the whackjob websites will come up next, only for you to suck it up as fact yet again.

Whackjob websites? Like CNN, MSNBC, Newsweek, The BBC, and The Washington Post, e.t.c.?

jlew24asu

Byrnzie wrote:

jlew24asu wrote:

I remember you posted crap about how the American government planted bombs inside WTC.

I never said anything of the sort. I said there's ample evidence to show that the U.S had prior knowledge of the attacks and chose to do nothing about it. I also mentioned the fact that Cheney was put in overall command of NORAD just prior to 9/11 and that it's a funny coincidence that the F16's were ordered not to stand down on that particular day, despite having been scrambled approx 100 times already that year as part of their routine procedure, e.t.c.
I said nothing about bombs being planted by the government. But if you insist I did, them great. Go ahead and find these posts of mine and paste them here.

you are a truther until a new theory comes along. I'm sure the AJ crowd will come up with something new soon.

Byrnzie

jlew24asu wrote:

you are a truther until a new theory comes along. I'm sure the AJ crowd will come up with something new soon.

Sure, whatever you say Jlew.

jlew24asu

Byrnzie wrote:

jlew24asu wrote:

you are a truther until a new theory comes along. I'm sure the AJ crowd will come up with something new soon.

Sure, whatever you say Jlew.

trying something new then "thats bullshit" good job.

jlew24asu

jlew24asu wrote:

Byrnzie wrote:

jlew24asu wrote:

OOOOOooooo look at the elaborate use of Bold, Italics, and colors. what a super fun cut and paste party!!!!!

But the war in Afghanistan hadn't been planned prior to 9/11, had it Jlew?

no it wasnt. was it talked about it? sure maybe. and rightfully so. how soon you forgot America was already under attack from these people throughout the Clinton years. WTC, Cole, Africa.....

how about responding to the valid points I make? or not man enough to say I'm right?

Byrnzie

jlew24asu wrote:

no it wasnt. was it talked about it? sure maybe. and rightfully so. how soon you forgot America was already under attack from these people throughout the Clinton years. WTC, Cole, Africa.....

how about responding to the valid points I make? or not man enough to say I'm right?

That's right Jlew, you're a big tough man.

Anyway, I provided evidence that the American government planned to invade Afghanistan at least a year before 9/11. You've done nothing to refute this other than to say 'No they didn't'.

'NBC News reported in May 2002 that a formal National Security Presidential Directive submitted two days before September 11, 2001 had outlined essentially the same war plan that the White House, the CIA and the Pentagon put into action after the Sept. 11 attacks. The plan dealt with all aspects of a war against al-Qaida, ranging from diplomatic initiatives to military operations in Afghanistan, including outlines to persuade Afghanistan’s Taliban government to turn al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden over to the United States, with provisions to use military force if it refused.'

jlew24asu

Byrnzie wrote:

jlew24asu wrote:

no it wasnt. was it talked about it? sure maybe. and rightfully so. how soon you forgot America was already under attack from these people throughout the Clinton years. WTC, Cole, Africa.....

how about responding to the valid points I make? or not man enough to say I'm right?

That's right Jlew, you're a big tough man.

Anyway, I provided evidence that the American government planned to invade Afghanistan at least a year before 9/11. You've done nothing to refute this other than to say 'No they didn't'.

wrong. actually this was my response. you actually quoted it, but I'll post it again because you seemed to ignore it..

jlew24asu wrote:

no it wasnt. was it talked about it? sure maybe. and rightfully so. how soon you forgot America was already under attack from these people throughout the Clinton years. WTC, Cole, Africa.....

Byrnzie

jlew24asu wrote:

Byrnzie wrote:

But the war in Afghanistan hadn't been planned prior to 9/11, had it Jlew?

no it wasnt. was it talked about it? sure maybe. and rightfully so. how soon you forgot America was already under attack from these people throughout the Clinton years. WTC, Cole, Africa.....

That's funny, I could swear that you suggested just the other day that the American government didn't have time to wait for the Taliban to hand over Bin Laden, and yet now you're drawing attention to the fact that Bin Laden attacked America as early as 1993.
So, either it was o.k for them to wait 8 years to get Bin Laden or they couldn't wait even one day to get their hands on him? Which was it?

jlew24asu

Byrnzie wrote:

jlew24asu wrote:

Byrnzie wrote:

But the war in Afghanistan hadn't been planned prior to 9/11, had it Jlew?

no it wasnt. was it talked about it? sure maybe. and rightfully so. how soon you forgot America was already under attack from these people throughout the Clinton years. WTC, Cole, Africa.....

That's funny, I could swear that you suggested just the other day that the American government didn't have time to wait for the Taliban to hand over Bin Laden, and yet now you're drawing attention to the fact that Bin Laden attacked America as early as 1993.
So, either it was o.k for them to wait 8 years to get Bin Laden or they couldn't wait even one day to get their hands on him? Which was it?

I never said it was ok for the US to wait 8 years. I think Clinton failed after the 93 attacks. he was too busy dealing with the blowjob stuff.

and after 9/11 happened, we did the right thing by removing the Taliban and breaking up el quedas safe haven. the Taliban was given evidence against bin laden, they chose war.

Byrnzie

jlew24asu wrote:

I never said it was ok for the US to wait 8 years. I think Clinton failed after the 93 attacks. he was too busy dealing with the blowjob stuff.

So after 9/11 it was a matter of the utmost urgency to go to war despite the Taliban's offer to hand over OBL, but after 1993 your government did nothing because it was too engrossed in the details of Bill Clinton's blow job?

Hmm, O.k.