Friends, I have no idea which of these reports are valid or which are fake. If anyone has any kind of corroboration or counter-evidence for any of them, please let me know. Also: For my article, I would appreciate it if anyone could send me a really detailed timeline, marking when each plane was first hijacked, and when each notable event occurred. The lack of air-defense response is TOTALLY incredible and the more details the better the case can be made. welcome to the NWO, rkm ============================================================================ Date: Wed, 19 Sep 2001 15:16:30 -0400 From: "Robin Alexander" <•••@••.•••> To: "Recipient list suppressed": ; Subject: Statement of the UE General Exedcutive Board STATEMENT OF THE GENERAL EXECUTIVE BOARD ON THE TRAGIC EVENTS OF SEPTEMBER 11, 2001 Like all Americans, the members of the United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America (UE) are devastated by the mind-numbing loss of life caused by the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. We share the sense of loss and violation, despair and outrage. We mourn as our nation mourns. The horror visited upon our nation that Tuesday morning should never have happened; it should never happen to another people again, anywhere. Innocent people suffered deaths more horrific than could be imagined in nightmares. Many of the slain were union members, murdered at their place of work and on the job. With profound sorrow, we mourn our fallen brothers and sisters and express our solidarity with the families of the victims. We condemn unreservedly the hidden, unseen, faceless killers who are responsible for this crime against humanity. We demand that the perpetrators be brought to justice. We are resolved not to yield to terror or to terrorists’ designs. Democracy is too precious. We continue with plans for our convention — the highest expression of our union democracy — with renewed commitment to freedom and solidarity. We shall not be stopped by cold-blooded, calculating killers. And we shall not allow our grief and righteous anger to be polluted by hatred and bigotry. We recall with pride that weeks after Pearl Harbor, as UE mobilized to win the war for freedom, our union condemned anti-Japanese racism as fundamentally opposed to that great cause. Today’s war against the terrorism of an evil few must not be confused with attacks on an ethnicity or religion. Verbal slurs and physical assaults against our Arab-American and Islamic neighbors and co-workers must be countered, condemned and stopped. As we mourn and as we rage, we also declare our resistance to efforts to use this tragedy to curtail our civil liberties or to engage in military adventures that can lead only to more carnage and senseless loss of life. Our greatest memorial to our fallen brothers and sisters will be a world of peace, tolerance and understanding, underscored by the solidarity of working people. Robin Alexander UE Director of International Labor Affairs One Gateway Center, Suite 1400 420 Fort Duquesne Blvd. PGH., PA. 15222-1416 412-471-8919 412-471-8999 FAX Please note new e-mail address above. Labor and related news from Mexico is reported bi-monthly in Mexican Labor News and Analysis. Check it out on our web site: <HTTP://www.igc.apc.org/unitedelect/> ============================================================================ From: "Brit Eckhart" <•••@••.•••> To: <•••@••.•••> Subject: Re: What's next? Former US Army Officer..... Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2001 21:55:51 -0400 PLEASE FORWARD WIDELY A Former US Army Officer turned radical has responded to the opinion that we must scale back our political activism. In reply to another Rad-Green listmember who believes we need to scale back our demands/actions in face of what is coming- stating that we have no real power based on the situation (as it currently is) here and in America. Retired US Army Veteran-come radical Stan Goff speaks on what we must do. I ask people to forward this far and wide- it is important right now, and Stan is (as usual) helping find clarity during a blackout. I urge you all to get people reading this. Macdonald Stainsby ------- I couldn't possibly disagree more. Since the savage attacks of September 11th, we have seen the unfolding of a national ritual denunciation of this crime that is much more than an expression of outrage and sadness. If the ritual is performed incompletely or incorrectly, one risks the charge of heresy. It's the new McCarthyism, and this is the new loyalty oath. A disciplined military-financial-industrial press is harmonizing us, and the orchestra director is our de facto executive branch. Heresies include: (1) the failure to call for war or support out "leaders" when they call for war, (2) the denial that this can be reduced to a test between good and evil, (3) the refusal to accept official explanations, (4) the temerity to suggest that our own rulers have committed equally offensive actions, (5) and finally, that our own financial, political, military, and intelligence establishments bear a portion of the blame. I retired from the Army in February, 1996, after some 24 years of service. "Special operations" was my field. That gives me a perspective on this military-macho posturing that seems to have seized the whole country. The military, industrial, and political establishment are cashing in on this tragedy, and it shouldn't serve as an excuse to be stupid. This can not be allowed to provoke a retreat by progressives. The admirable and poignant solidarity of New Yorkers, and many across the nation, is being contaminated by a military fetish, a mindless phallic nationalism, and instead of seeking solutions, we are seeking enemies. And we'll find them. History sent us a warning, but we're not listening. Herr Hitler announced with a familiar combination of grief-stricken solemnity and manly outrage, on February 27, 1933, "Gentlemen, the Reichstag is on fire." We ought to pay attention to this. We've got to interrupt this war talk, and we've got to do it aggressively and on a mass scale, because MUCH is at stake. And we've got to interrupt it with more than an appeal against xenophobia and the abrogation of civil liberties. We are responsible to shift attention from the motives of "Usama bin Laden and his legions of demonic followers" to the motives of the Bush Administration and the capitalist governments of Europe. I've come to assume, from my own experience, that anything I hear from the State Department or the FBI is apt to be... less than truthful. Officialdom doesn't make statements to represent reality. It constructs stories to pursue interests. Whether those stories conform to reality is incidental. This attack will benefit the militarists in this country far more than it will benefit anyone else, and I remember the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution. Progressives in the US have reason to be afraid. This unforgivable act of inhumanity will be used as an excuse to crack down on dissent here, to engage in military aggression against other peoples, and to whip up an already more-than-latent anti-Muslim xenophobia. But the key thing to understand here is that this is pulling a lot of political and economic cookies out of the fire, or so dangerous buffoons like Bush believe, and is leading us to disaster. There is quite simply no security system in the world that can not be bypassed, and there is no way to protect absolutely against these kinds of attacks. When we accept this premise, we have to conclude that overwhelming violence in retaliation for these kinds of acts will not bring such acts to an end, but escalate the levels of overall violence. An Israeli-like response will bring with it an Israeli-like situation, on a global level. In a very short step, we can tumble from chauvinism into the abyss of repression and tribalism. U. S. military might and the willingness to use it is not only not the solution, it's a powerful contributing factor to terrorism, when it is combined with the arrogance and impunity of our foreign policies. We have the capability to overwhelm any conventional military force in the world, so no one in the world has the option to oppose those forces in a conventional way. When those forces or allied forces are the ultimate guarantors of intolerable situations, or when the sovereignty of nations is swept aside, unconventional means will inevitably be employed. If I would rather die fighting than go on living as I am, and I can't build a Tomahawk Cruise missile, then I can learn to fly a Boeing 767. Progressives can't withdraw from the scene. I urge people to revisit the post by Mark Jones on the world energy system. QUOTE "The extremely finite nature of petroleum reserves was always the Achilles heel of industrial capitalism, and even now it is the great blind spot, the great point of denial at the heart of the priesthood's theology of growth and accumulation. "World oil is already in sharp and irreversible decline. We remain more than ever dependent on Saudi and Iraqi oil reserves. Everything else is being or has already been, used up. Yet it is precisely here in this volatile geopolitical tinderbox that America and its allies are now planning to wage new, intensified war. It is hard to imagine a more suicidal course of action. As often before in history, the hubris of ruling classes conceals some real stupidity. "War in the Middle East and South Asia and Afghanistan is ultimately going to be a war for control over oil. WHAT SEEMS TO BE IN PROSPECT IS A MILITARY OCCUPATION OF THE OIL FIELDS BY THE MAJOR CAPITALIST STATES [Stan's caps], against the will of the masses there and in the teeth of furious resistance. This does not look like a promising way to guarantee long-term and vital energy supplies. Without Persian Gulf oil, world capitalism will be snuffed out quicker than the Mayan empire was. Waging war against the local population seems to be the one surefire way to lose Arab oil forever." CLOSE QUOTE That's why action, even action with risks, is so critical. Mark further pointed out that events are out of the control of the global bosses, who are now blundering from one reaction to the next in a system that was already incredibly unstable. We were already, before this catalytic event, somnambulating into the hell-hole of this global ecological, economic, and political crisis. I think it's absolutely certain, with the course we're now on, that there WILL be massive dislocation, suffering, and degradation-and we shall not be spared this time. This attack on September 11th did not happen in a social or historical vacuum. If the conceit of our rulers is contributing directly to the bewilderment of the people, this implies to me that for clarity among the masses, the solution is not support for this priesthood of the market, and not acquiescence to this de facto political leadership, but on the contrary, its replacement. The struggle is not for justice, but for survival. These loons are talking about WWIII, because in their undying hubris they really believe they can win it, because they think it will bolster the economy, and because they see what looks like an opportunity. If we are to fight for sanity and survival, it's our duty now to be stubborn and have the courage of our convictions. Something to seriously consider. The local newspaper today in an editorial stated that Americans were being niave if they think this is going to be a short "war." They stated in sociopathic rants that this may well go on past our lifetimes. In addition to their civil liberties must go editorial yesterday, what sort of a political order are they advocating here, it seems pretty clear to me--it has the ugly whiff of fascism. It is time to roll and oppose this. Now is not the time to go silent and wait this out. It's not going to blow over!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! From a purely tactical standpoint, NOW is the best opportunity we will have to fight back, NOT after this madness has had more time to develop. And given the climate that will develop if this madness progresses, there will be risks. There will be witch-hunts. Ironically, we are now in the same position, I think, as the pilots of those planes that were hijacked, forced to choose between bad and worse. Denial of this dilemma only contributes to the problem. Right now is the time for progressives to show up and grow up. Audre Lorde summed up our situation about as nicely as anyone I can imagine, so I'll close with her statement: "Your silence will not protect you." ------------------------------------------- Macdonald Stainsby Macdonald Stainsby Rad-Green List: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/rad-green ### ============================================================================ Delivered-To: •••@••.••• From: "Tim Murphy" <•••@••.•••> To: <•••@••.•••> Subject: FW: US was planning to attack Afghanistan regardless of last week's incident Date: Wed, 19 Sep 2001 23:50:24 +0100 Importance: Normal -----Original Message----- From: Discussions on the Socialist Register and its articles [mailto:•••@••.•••]On Behalf Of Atif Durrani Sent: 19 September 2001 05:56 To: •••@••.••• Subject: Fwd: US to attack Afghanistan regardless of last week's incident (fwd) http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/south_asia/newsid_1550000/1550366.stm 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. ============================================================================ Date: Tue, 18 Sep 2001 18:16:26 -0500 From: Jeff Moebus <•••@••.•••> Reply-To: •••@••.••• X-Accept-Language: en CC: •••@••.•••, •••@••.•••, Tom Atlee <•••@••.•••>, •••@••.••• Subject: Re: rkm reflections... Richard: Why don't you stop bullshitting and just come out and say it? The key questions are very simple: When did bin Laden stop working for the CIA and who was he working for at 0845 EDT 13 SEP 01? Another key question is: what was the intended target of the fourth plane? Here. Let me say it. What we have witnessed is a coup. The Legislative branch of the government of the US has folded itself into the Executive branch. The voices of dissent and protest (the anti-globalists, the environmentalists, the progressives, etc etc etc) have been neutralized and silenced. The military-industrial/national security/neoliberal globalization faction was seized total control of the US government. Now the task is a Rush to Normalcy and Rush to Vengeance. When, in the name of national security, GW Bush asks Congress for eleventy gazillion dollars to upgrade our defense, intelligence, law enforcement, surveillance, security, anti/counter terrorist, etc etc etc capability, who and what is going to stop him from getting what he wants. When he asks for money to go full-bore ahead with STAR WARS - again in the name of national security - who's going to stop it (if somebody argues, watch for a "rogue nation" missile to take out, say, Chicago)? When he asks for fast track authority for the FTAA, who's going to stop it? When he seeks to rename the ANWR in the sacred memory of the victims of S11 as the "September 11 National Memorial Wildlife Refuge," and tacks on a rider to open the whole thing to oil drilling -- again, in the name of national security --, whose going to stop him? I think the target of the fourth plane was the US Capital and that the leaders of both houses in both parties have been so informed. The questions that a world-wide manhunt and criminal investigation directed by anybody but the FBI and CIA (the two primary agencies whose failures contributed to enabling S11 to happen in the first place) must answer are pretty simple regarding the terrorist operation and act of war perpetrated against the people, government, and nation of the United States on S11: Who planned the operation? Who financed it? Who provided administrative, logistical, and operational support? Who exercised command and control? And, above all, who ordered it? To paraphrase the Mayor of New York in the context of WTC casualties: "The true answers to these questions may be more terrible than any of us can bear." Welcome to the New World Order. Day 8. J Moebus New Orleans, LA ============================================================================ Date: Tue, 18 Sep 2001 19:13:49 -0700 To: "Richard K. Moore" <•••@••.•••> From: Michael Linton <•••@••.•••> Subject: Re: rkm reflections... Cc: Tom Atlee <•••@••.•••> At 11:38 PM Tuesday +0100, Richard K. Moore wrote: > Do we have a similar scenario today? Were the terrorists being tracked all the while? Were our air defenses intentionally thwarted? The scenario is frightening and unbelievable, but it does need to be discussed. The sad fact is that such a scenario would fit the modus operandi of US imperialism. It seems odd that a full 35 minutes after the second plane hit the WTC, the third plane flew two circuits of around the white house and the pentagon before diving in, without any apparent challenge ============================================================================ Delivered-To: •••@••.••• Delivered-To: •••@••.••• From: "Michael Albert" <•••@••.•••> To: <•••@••.•••> Subject: Why ZNet Isn't Online... Date: Wed, 19 Sep 2001 17:45:09 -0400 Importance: Normal Sender: •••@••.••• Hello to ZNET's Users for whom I have email addresses, I don't quite know how to write this message, I can barely fathom it myself, so I will simply relay the facts as I currently know them. We have an internet provider out in Washington State. They are very congenial and nice people who have worked very hard for us during the lifetime of our operations. They report being very hard hit by yesterday's virus attack. They report that of 200 machines in one of their buildings, ZNet's was by far the hardest hit, they think because of its very high use level at the time. The technicians have been unable to get our ZNet machine back on line, even to get it to boot up, even to get it to allow any functionality at all. They have prepared a new server for our operations, but when they tried to insert the old hard drive and read the data from our prior hard drive onto the new server, (thousands upon thousands of files), they were unable to do so. Without getting technical, at the moment they simply cannot access the data from our old drive or even see it, and they don't really know, in fact, whether the data is intact or not. You might wonder, why worry? Why not just restore your backup data to the new server, and if you lose a day or two days of data that wasn't backed up, and if it takes another day or so for the provider to get operations fully up to speed, that's all very annoying, of course, but it's certainly not a catastrophe. Just get back online as soon as you can, and then reconstruct the site from there. Hundreds of thousands of users who have been accessing ZNet from all over the world, particularly in this difficult time, are waiting to regain access. Well, that's our attitude as well, and it would be our agenda except that our provider reports that they have no backup of our data. If you find this last fact incredible, so do I. But that's the condition they report to us. I can't answer how it could be, I don't know. But the conclusion is that at this moment I don't know when we will be back online - even assuming they can access the old data at all - much less if they cannot access it. We could be back online with no losses tomorrow. On the other hand, it could be a week including huge losses of web site content, the loss of our sustainer and other databases, the loss of our forum archives, etc. PLEASE do not write to tell me you commiserate or to suggest options. I know that you do.and I thank you, but I can't handle the mail. I will continue to send anti-war and related materials by email to our free update list, as with the Chomsky interview and the call to action below both included below, at least during this crisis, particularly since I can't place materials on line. Hopefully we will retreive our data and be back in web space shortly. If we can't retreive the data, then I may have to ask you all for help...but that's later. For now, we all have to go on out there and stop the war machine. We'll try to do our part as best we can, alongside you all... Sincerely and with solidarity, Michael Albert for ZNet -------------------- A CALL TO ACTION FOR PEACE Our government has stolen from us the time to grieve. They have made it clear they want war -- on anyone, at any price, with seemingly no thought for the consequences. Government officials speak openly of going after "high-value" targets such as capital cities in countries that "harbor" terrorists. There are calls for carpet-bombing a country of 25 million people. In a world where no objections are raised in the halls of power to such plans, our task is clear: We must fight for the soul of our nation. We have no choice but to begin speaking out and organizing for peace as we grieve. The best way we can honor those who have died is to make sure no more innocents are killed, here or abroad. If we win, there is the possibility of a new movement for peace, a new hope for justice. If we lose, the escalating cycle of hatred may usher in a new era of unending war. Officials think they have the support of an angry, blood-thirsty public, and many in the United States are calling for vengeance. But there is also great fear, not just for our own safety but for what such a war will unleash in the world. Military actions that kill civilians will also multiply tenfold the number of people willing to die to wreak havoc on the United States. We have already paid a terrible price. What will happen when we arouse further anger with a blatantly unjust and destructive retaliation? Many, even in the peace movement, are saying, "Now is not the time to talk politics; the country needs time to heal." Just the reverse is true: Now is the time, before it is too late. We, the undersigned organizations, are calling for Sunday, September 23, to be a National Day of Action for Peace with Justice. We will call for a peace based not on terror and death but on recognition of our common humanity. In each locality, people concerned about the drive to destruction should gather in public, as close to 2 p.m. as possible. We will gather -- in churches and in parks, in homes and universities, public squares, streets and living rooms -- with banners and signs, with black armbands and candles, in fear and in hope. While a single gathering will not itself change policy, it signals the mood of the public and will help build a movement. September 23 will be not the end, but the beginning of more vigorous organizing for peace and a just world. We have already seen spontaneous demonstrations of thousands of people across the country. There is new interest in the consequences of our foreign policy. People are listening. Now is the time: For action. For organization. For change. Organizations that want to sign onto this call should write to •••@••.•••. In Solidarity, The Nowar Collective www.nowarcollective.com ============================================================================ Delivered-To: moderator for •••@••.••• Date: Wed, 19 Sep 2001 22:48:39 -0400 From: "Nurev Ind." <•••@••.•••> Organization: Nurev Independent Research X-Accept-Language: en Subject: A moron of Biblical proportions. Bcc: ANALYSIS: Europe Cringes at President Bush's 'Crusade' Against Terrorists By Peter Ford [Christian Science Monitor - Paris -September 19, 2001): As Europeans wait to see how the United States is planning to retaliate for last week's terrorist attacks in Washington and New York, there is growing anxiety here about the tone of American war rhetoric.President Bush's reference to a "crusade" against terrorism, which passed almost unnoticed by Americans, rang alarm bells in Europe. It raised fears that the terrorist attacks could spark a 'clash of civilizations' between Christians and Muslims, sowing fresh winds of hatred and mistrust. "We have to avoid a clash of civilizations at all costs," French foreign minister Hubert Vedrine said on Sunday. "One has to avoid falling into this huge trap, this monstrous trap" which he said had been "conceived by the instigators of the assault." On Sunday, Bush warned Americans that "this crusade, this war on terrorism, is going to take awhile." He and other U.S. officials have said that renegade Islamic fundamentalist Osama bin Laden is the most likely suspect in the attacks. His use of the word "crusade," said Soheib Bensheikh, Grand Mufti of the mosque in Marseille, France, "was most unfortunate." "It recalled the barbarous and unjust military operations against the Muslim world," by Christian knights, who launched repeated attempts to capture Jerusalem over the course of several hundred years.Bush sought to calm American Muslims' fears of a backlash against them on Monday by appearing at an Islamic center in Washington. There he assured Americans that "the face of terror is not the true faith of Islam. That's not what Islam is all about."But his earlier comments, declaring a war between good and evil, shocked Europeans. "If this 'war' takes a form that affronts moderate Arab opinion, if it has the air of a clash of civilizations, there is a strong risk that it will contribute to Osama bin Laden's goal: a conflict between the Arab-Muslim world and the West," warned the Paris daily Le Monde on Tuesday in an editorial."Bush is walking a fine line," suggested Dominique Moisi, a political analyst with the French Institute for International Relations, the country's top foreign policy think tank. "The same black and white language he uses to rally Americans behind him is just the sort of language that risks splitting the international coalition he is trying to build."This confusion between politics and religion ... risks encouraging a clash of civilizations in a religious sense, which is very dangerous," he added.On Monday, Taliban deputy leader Mohammed Hasan Akhund warned his fellow Afghans to prepare for 'Jihad' - holy war - against America, if U.S. forces attack Afghanistan. While almost every world leader agrees with Washington that the terrorists who destroyed the World Trade Center were evil, not all of those leaders - especially in the Middle East - identify the United States with good.British prime minister Tony Blair has gone out of his way this week to make it clear that the battle against terrorists is a battle not between Christians and Muslims, but between civilized values and fanaticism. In that battle, he said Monday, "the vast majority of decent law-abiding Muslims" opposed fanaticism. It is their support for Washington's war that could be undermined by the sort of language on the president's lips, warns Hussein Amin, a former Egyptian ambassador who now lectures on international affairs. "The whole tone is that of one civilization against another," he finds. "It is a superior way of speaking, and I fear the consequences - the world being divided into two between those who think themselves superior" and the rest.Moderate Muslim opinion could also easily be swayed against America, predicted Ghayasuddin Siddiqui, head of the Muslim Parliament in Britain, an umbrella group for Muslim organizations. "If they end up killing innocent civilians it will be very unfair," Dr. Siddiqui said. "The problems will arise if people see that justice has not been done." French President Jacques Chirac, who arrived in Washington on Tuesday, and Blair, who will see Bush on Thursday, are expected to offer Europe's solidarity but to stop short of offering Washington a blank check. If European help is needed, Europeans want to be in on the planning, officials here say. ---------------------------------- MiD-EasT RealitieS - http://www.MiddleEast.Org Phone: 202 362-5266 Email: •••@••.••• Fax: 815 366-0800 To subscribe email to •••@••.••• with subject SUBSCRIBE To unsubscribe email to •••@••.••• with subject UNSUBSCRIBE ============================================================================ Delivered-To: moderator for •••@••.••• Date: Wed, 19 Sep 2001 22:08:31 -0400 From: "Nurev Ind." <•••@••.•••> Organization: Nurev Independent Research X-Accept-Language: en Subject: Western leader had business ties with Bin Laden. Bcc: 09/19/2001 The Tangled Path to a Response As we prepare to retaliate for last week's atrocities, let's take time to be sure of our targets By John Mecklin At this distance in time and place from last Tuesday's terror, I feel an unjournalistic temptation to silence. So much has been written and broadcast by and about people who were at or near the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, so much published in the local media, reflecting almost every reaction, reasonable and otherwise. At a certain point, sheer repetition threatens to demean the victims of tragedy, even mass, history-altering tragedy. So, because I have no experience of the World Trade Center and Pentagon bombings that anyone with a television could not also possess, I have decided to relate something from my past, hoping that it might be new to you, and might help set some frames of reference, as the country ponders what it will do and become in the initial months of the coming bin Laden War. In the late 1980s, when I lived in Houston and earned my keep as an investigative reporter, I spent months looking into possible connections among Texas business and political figures and Middle Eastern notables associated with the fascinatingly fraudulent Bank of Credit and Commerce International. In the end, my BCCI investigations didn't add up to a whole lot; chasing worldwide fraud is not a particularly rewarding pursuit for a local reporter without an expense account. As an offshoot of my research, however, I ran upon, and wound up writing some stories about, a Houston airplane broker named James R. Bath. Among his varied business activities, Mr. Bath represented, as a sort of business agent, at least four prominent and wealthy Saudi Arabian citizens in their U.S. investments. According to public records, those citizens included Salem (sometimes spelled Salim) bin Laden, the favored son of the founder of a great Saudi construction empire, and one of dozens of half-brothers of a then-obscure man named Osama bin Laden. Bath's associations did not exclusively involve Saudi petrodollars. Among other things, he also counted as a friend and minor business partner another man who, except for his family connections, was not well known to the wider public: George W. Bush. A story I co-wrote for the Houston Post in October 1990 put the relationship between George W. Bush and Jim Bath this way: "George W. Bush said he met Bath [in the 1970s] when both were fighter pilots at the ANG [Air National Guard] base at Ellington [Field, a former Air Force base near Houston]. The younger Bush ... described Bath as a friend who is "a lot of fun.' George W. Bush said he last saw Bath about three years ago, and speaks to him perhaps once a year." For that story, Bush said he had never been in business with Bath, American agent to part of the bin Laden fortune. The assertion was less than completely true, if subsequent stories in Time magazine and the Houston Chronicle are to be believed. "In sworn depositions, Bath said he represented four prominent Saudis as a trustee and that he would use his name on their investments. In return, he said, he would receive a 5 percent interest in their deals," a Houston Chronicle piece about a lawsuit between Bath and a business partner said. "Tax documents and personal financial records show that Bath personally had a 5 percent interest in Arbusto '79 Ltd., and Arbusto '80 Ltd., limited partnerships controlled by George W. Bush, President Bush's eldest son. Arbusto means "bush' in Spanish. "Bath invested $50,000 in the limited partnerships, according to the documents. There is no available evidence to show whether the money came from Saudi interests." Time, which first confirmed the Bath/ Bush investment connection, wrote this about the airplane broker: "Bath controlled a fleet of companies connected to his aircraft business, and he enjoyed unusual carte blanche to direct the U.S. investments of several wealthy Middle Easterners. Associates confirm that Bath has brokered more than $150 million in private plane deals in recent years, concentrated in sales and leases to Middle Eastern royalty and other influential figures. ... The firm that incorporated Bath's companies in the Cayman Islands is the same one that set up a money-collecting front company for Oliver North in the Iran-contra affair." The Chronicle and Time pieces (and to some degree, alas, the story I wrote 11 years ago) have a sort of breathless, agape tone, as if Bath's connections were almost magically far-reaching. "Bath, while insisting he is nothing more than a "small, obscure businessman,' is associated with some of the most powerful figures in the U.S. and Middle East," Time observed. Through subsequent experience, some of it involved with covering the Persian Gulf War, I came to know, much more completely, that the connections among the Saudi and American oil industries are many, and intricate, and of long standing. A decade ago, a tenuous, friend-of-a-friend association between the lower levels of the bin Laden and Bush families did not wind up meaning much. In many senses, it probably has less meaning now. Spokesmen for the bin Laden family have repeatedly stressed that the family ostracized Osama in 1993 when he became a fugitive and began activities in Sudan before going to Afghanistan. "The family is absolutely mortified by what has happened in New York, and totally rejects Osama's activities and ideology. I know that Osama has no business connections with them in any shape or form," a London in-law to the bin Ladens said last week. But if I am not suggesting a direct or nefarious connection between George W. Bush and anyone named bin Laden -- and I truly am not -- there is a reason I've written today about obscure facts from 11 years ago. I recount these facts because you will be hearing a lot in coming weeks and months about people, organizations, and entire countries with "links" and "connections" to Osama bin Laden. Those with such links and connections may well be marked out for arrest, or abduction, or annihilation. But proving, with a reasonable degree of certainty, that such linkage amounts to aid for terrorism takes time and money. The tangle of financial and other relationships that characterizes al Qaeda, the shadowy movement headed by bin Laden, is complex beyond the general imagination. As investigation of the World Trade Center and Pentagon atrocities continues, the arc of relationship between enemies will, at times, veer oddly -- even ironically -- close to friends, or to those who may dislike U.S. policy in the Middle East but would never countenance the slaughter of innocents. For example: It is no particular secret that at least some of bin Laden's financing has come from wealthy Saudis. It is regularly speculated in the international press, in fact, that Saudi businessmen are essentially paying his organization to refrain from targeting the Saudi kingdom and its royal family. Is paying protection a "link," or an understandable reaction to threats from a madman with a worldwide following? Is knowing about such payments, but not moving to stop them, a "link"? Is there any reason, except the political, to believe that retaliation for last Tuesday's attacks will be less valid if investigators spend weeks or even months exploring such links, and making sure the targets we choose represent real, and not just possible, enemies? Lest anyone misunderstand, let it be known, and clearly, that I have no patience -- at all -- with the arguments of those who counsel a judicial, rather than military, response to the evil acts that killed 5,000 innocents last week. My sentiments are well expressed by this quote, contained in a recent Peter Maas piece in the online magazine Slate: "This may not be politically correct, but I don't want justice here," Maas quoted a special forces captain as saying. "These people do not need to be brought to justice or apprehended. They need to be killed. That's what you do to your enemy in war -- you destroy him. And this is a war." If it is a war, it's a peculiar kind, one in which the enemy may be the brother of a friend of a friend, and relative unknowns may step quickly to the center of the world stage. When I was in Houston just 11 years ago, after all, Osama bin Laden and George W. Bush were at best footnotes to the footnotes of history. In such conflict, it would seem, there is special reason to take care, to strike only at documented demons. Smite, yes, but verify. For memory is long, and the killing of innocents creates enemies who cannot forget. Ever. ============================================================================
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