Who Are the "Terrorists?"

[W. Niederhut]

       I noticed today that the Biden administration has now officially re-designated the Houthi Shiites in Yemen as "terrorists." *

      This raises the question that Sandy Larsen and I discussed earlier this month (at the Water Cooler) about how the U.S. government has used the term "terrorist," since the Bush-Cheney-Neocon-9/11 years, to describe any target of U.S. military ops in the Middle East.

       Some people have described Menachem Begin as the "Godfather of Modern Terrorism."  Begin and his Israeli Irgun associates dressed up like Arabs in 1946 when they blew up the King David Hotel, killing 91 people, including many Brits.  The Mossad later attempted a similar false flag "terrorist" bombing in Egypt, -- the Lavon Affair.

       Menachem Begin's King David Hotel example is what most of us have traditionally defined as "terrorism"-- shocking acts of blowing up buildings, killing civilians, etc., to terrorize a government and/or a people.

       But, in contrast to the Menachem Begin example, when the Pentagon has wanted to carpet bomb a people in the 21st century -- e.g., in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya, Yemen, etc.-- they first define them as "terrorists."  Then, bombs away.

       In the case of Afghanistan, the designated Pentagon "terrorist" was Osama Bin Laden, who was publicly accused on 9/11 by Henry Kissinger, Paul Bremer, Ehud Barak, and the Bush-Cheney-Neocon administration of attacking the (explosively demolished) World Trade Center and Pentagon.  Osama Bin Laden publicly denied any involvement in 9/11, (and FBI translator Sibel Edmonds later reported that Bin Laden had actually been working for the CIA before, and even after, 9/11.)  Like his CIA-affiliated predecessor, Lee Harvey Oswald, Osama Bin Laden declared in September of 2001 that he was a "patsy."  That story was completely blacked out of the U.S. mainstream media.

      Then, the multi-trillion dollar U.S. military response to the alleged 9/11 "terrorist" op was prompt and extreme.  We were told that Muslim terrorists had flown Boeing jetliners into the World Trade Center because they "resented our freedom."   Few Americans, even today, know that the World Trade Center skyscrapers (WTC1, WTC2, and WTC7) were actually demolished by pre-planted thermitic explosives, or that the U.S. military had successfully-tested Raytheon GPS-guided technology, prior to 9/11, which could remotely-pilot Boeing jetliners with great precision.  Fewer still know that Barbara Olson's alleged 9/11 phone calls from AA77, describing "Muslim hijackers with box cutters," never actually happened-- according to expert FBI testimony in the Moussaoui trial.  There were similar anomalies about other alleged phone calls from "hijacked" Boeings on 9/11, which were foundational for the official U.S. government/M$M narrative blaming Muslim "terrorists" for 9/11.

       Incidentally, the Taliban government in Afghanistan asked the Bush-Cheney administration in September of 2001 for evidence that Osama Bin Laden and "Al Qaeda" were involved in the 9/11 attacks, but the Bush-Cheney administration offered the Taliban no evidence.   (Noam Chomsky later declared that Bush gave the Taliban no evidence "because he didn't have any evidence.")  FBI Director Robert Mueller later testified that the FBI 'never found a single scrap of paper" implicating Osama Bin Laden and "Al Qaeda" in the 9/11 attacks. 

      Nevertheless, the U.S. government/M$M "Osama Bin Laden Did 9/11" narrative became promptly and permanently fixed in America's national consciousness, in a manner similar to the way the mass media psy op that Lee Harvey Oswald had assassinated JFK became fixed in the national consciousness after 11/22/63.

      And, of course, the carpet bombing and U.S./NATO military occupation of Afghanistan commenced-- resulting, ultimately in the longest war in American history.

      As for January of 2024, there have been numerous recent attacks on U.S. military bases in Iraq and Syria, and on Red Sea cargo ships, in response to Israel's carpet bombing of Gaza's civilian population.  These Shiite Axis attacks on the U.S. have been reflexively defined in Washington as "terrorism."

      But, is military resistance to U.S./NATO/Israeli hegemony in the Middle East, really "terrorism," in any meaningful sense of the word?

      Muslims are angry that the U.S. has actively colluded in Israel's ethnic cleansing of Gaza-- even vetoing U.N. resolutions for a Gaza cease-fire.

      Who are the "terrorists" in the Middle East?  Who are the people massacring civilians and blowing up buildings?

*  Biden administration re-designates Houthis as Specially Designated Global Terrorists | CNN Politics

 

       

       

Edited January 18 by W. Niederhut

[W. Niederhut]

Well, here we are on the brink of another major U.S. war in the Middle East, and the Education Forum members are mainly obsessing about oft-repeated, 60+ year-old details in the life of Lee Harvey Oswald.

I must say that I have long been amazed by the lack of intellectual curiosity on the forum about the history of the CIA and the U.S. military industrial complex during the past fifty years!

Where's John Simkin, when we could use some intellectual curiosity?

James DiEugenio recently mentioned CIA Operation Timber Sycamore in his essay about JFK and Gaza, but that was a rare exception to the pervasive forum silence about our multi-trillion dollar 21st century CIA and U.S. military ops in the Middle East.

There has been a similar lack of intellectual curiosity, and discussion, about the 21st century history of Putin and the Russian Federation.

Edited January 17 by W. Niederhut

[Ron Ecker]

I recall a reported remark by Bin Laden some tme after 9/11 in which he expressed surprise at how the Twin Towers fell, that he only expected damage to the buildings. Do you recall that statement? Do you know its source? Was it a legitimate report by some news agency, a U.S. fabrication, or what?

 

 

Edited April 6 by Ron Ecker

[W. Niederhut]

2 hours ago, Ron Ecker said:

I recall a reported remark by Bin Laden some tme after 9/11 in which he expressed surprise at how the Twin Towers fell, that he only expected damage to the buildings. Do you recall that statement? Do you know its source? Was it a legitimate report by some news agency, a U.S. fabrication, or what?

 

 

Ron,

    As I recall, Bin Laden made two public statements after 9/11 explicitly denying any involvement in the 9/11 attacks.  One statement was made to Al Jazeera, and the other was provided to a journalist in Pakistan.

     Both statements were completely blacked out of the U.S. mainstream media, which relentless pushed the narrative that Osama Bin Laden and "Al Qaeda" did 9/11-- beginning shortly after the first plane struck L. Paul Bremer's office in the North Tower.

     Oddly, at the time, L. Paul Bremer (CEO of Kissinger Associates) was standing by at a CNN television studio in New York, to announce to America that the attack on the Twin Towers was most likely the work of "Osama Bin Laden" and "Al Qaeda."

     Henry Kissinger repeated the same "Osama Bin Laden did it" message on Sky Television, on 9/11, and Ehud Barak repeated it on BBC television.

      

Edited April 6 by W. Niederhut

[Ron Ecker]

1 hour ago, W. Niederhut said:

Ron,

    As I recall, Bin Laden made two public statements after 9/11 explicitly denying any involvement in the 9/11 attacks.  One statement was made to Al Jazeera, and the other was provided to a journalist in Pakistan.

     Both statements were completely blacked out of the U.S. mainstream media, which relentless pushed the narrative that Osama Bin Laden and "Al Qaeda" did 9/11-- beginning shortly after the first plane struck L. Paul Bremer's office in the North Tower.

     Oddly, at the time, L. Paul Bremer (CEO of Kissinger Associates) was standing by at a CNN television studio in New York, to announce to America that the attack on the Twin Towers was most likely the work of "Osama Bin Laden" and "Al Qaeda."

     Henry Kissinger repeated the same "Osama Bin Laden did it" message on Sky Television, on 9/11, and Ehud Barak repeated it on BBC television.

      

I found the statement I’m think of in a Web search. It was in a meeting with Bin Laden supporters and was videotaped. But unless I’m mistaken, this is the videotape that was “found” by the US with a guy portraying Bin Laden who was about a hundred pounds too heavy. I knew this was faked, but my recollection was that the statement in question came from some other source. My bad. (Bad memory, that is.)

This is from the transcript:

UBL: (...Inaudible...) we calculated in advance the number of casualties from the enemy, who would be killed based on the position of the tower. We calculated that the floors that would be hit would be three or four floors. I was the most optimistic of them all. (...Inaudible...) due to my experience in this field, I was thinking that the fire from the gas in the plane would melt the iron structure of the building and collapse the area where the plane hit and all the floors above it only. This is all that we had hoped for.

http://www.defenselink.mil/news/Dec2001/d20011213ubl.pdf