War Against Terrorism

"There's no way that our Government could mandate love"
A lament from George Bush, London Times, 22 Dec 2001

"Every single time these numbers have been achieved, extraordinary peace and prosperity has resulted,' Collins said. 'It’s never failed. The research is out there, and the results have been published in leading scientific journals. I would hope Defense Secretary Rumsfeld would look at this research and say, ‘What have we got to lose?’ It’s like an insurance policy. We have to do things now to protect our way of life. I see all this evidence that this approach works, and I just think we need to get the word out."
Seventh Heaven's (Warner Bros), Stephen Collins, on Invincible Defense Technology, on NBC and ABC television, Dec 2001

23 Dec	Strange snub to US at inaugural ceremony	"They thanked the UN, the EU, each other and even the Chancellor of Germany. But when Aghanistan's new interim government took power yesterday, at a colourful ceremony at the Grand Hall of the Ministry of the Interior in Kabul, there was no mention of the US, the country that had made it all possible. To add to the surreal note, American representatives overwhelmed those of every other country at the inauguration ceremony." - The Independent
22 Dec	So, the war is officially over. But who won?	"It was clear that deals were being made by radio between al-Qaeda and Mujahidin commanders, many of whom retained loyalties to the terrorists. In Afghanistan, it is common practice of warfare to switch sides several times, almost always because the lure of money is stronger than that of allegiance. 'Most of my men pray for Osama’s health every night,' one commander said. 'They are Muslims and the al-Qaeda are Muslims. If the Americans weren’t paying, no one would be fighting to get rid of fellow Muslims.'... As we trudged towards the caves, watching for booby traps, the aftermath of the battle was hideous: shoes had been blown off limbs, pieces of uniforms were stuck to the trees, there were half-finished tins of food.But there was a curious lack of bodies. Had they been vaporised by the bombing, or had they escaped?... And despite the fact that everyone declared it a victory, it is an ending without closure. Where are all bodies? Where is bin Laden? And why, most of all, was it so chilling when one of the al-Qaeda prisoners held up two fingers in a victory sign as he was led away?"- London Times
21 Dec	Israeli Spying In U.S. Exposé Cracks Coverup Of Sept. 11	"As to Sept. 11, we are not saying that 'Israel did it'—as some might wish to conclude. Since the morning of Sept. 11, LaRouche has defined what took place that day as a coup attempt, run by an Anglo-American-Israeli cabal, including rogue elements of the U.S. military-security establishment, for the purpose of dragging the United States into a 'clash of civilizations' conflict centering in the Middle East. What has come to light so far—indicating a high-level Israeli spy operation in the United States which, among other things, has had the capacity to thwart U.S. law-enforcement and intelligence investigations—is totally consistent with LaRouche's analysis." - Executive Intelligence Review
19 Dec	Missile Defense Delusion	"One of the lessons we should have learned from the devastating attack of Sept. 11 is that terrorists determined to do this nation harm can employ a wide variety of means, and that weapons of mass destruction -- chemical, biological or even nuclear -- need not arrive on the tip of an intercontinental ballistic missile with a return address. That's why the Joint Chiefs of Staff argue that an ICBM launch ranks last on the 'Threat Spectrum,' while terrorist attacks constitute the greatest potential threat to our national security. The administration's obsession with missile defense -- with a price tag in excess of a quarter-trillion dollars for the layered program on the president's wish list -- is doubly troubling because of the attention and resources being diverted from critical efforts to address genuine threats....the cost of unilaterally walking away from the ABM Treaty and forging ahead with national missile defense includes not only dangerous neglect of the real threats we face but the likelihood that we will unleash a new arms race that will create a nuclearized Asia." - Washington Post
*Dec	“Invincible Defense” Strategy Welcomed on Capitol Hill	"John Hagelin, Ph.D., Peter Salk, M.D., and David Edwards, Ph.D., bring to Capitol Hill the Institute’s Proposal to Prevent Terrorism. Institute Director Dr. John Hagelin is widely respected on Capitol Hill for his visionary leadership, including his efforts to promote a peaceful solution to war and terrorism. For over 20 years, the world-renowned quantum physicist has brought his message of a scientifically proven approach for resolving conflict to government leaders in Washington, D.C., and has always received a polite response—but with little action. Now, suddenly, after September 11 and with the fear of terrorist reprisals following the U.S. military campaign in Afghanistan, U.S. Congressional leaders are responding very differently to Dr. Hagelin’s message. During dozens of top-level government meetings held during the past few weeks with Members of Congress and with top leaders at the Pentagon and State Department, Dr. John Hagelin’s comprehensive proposal to prevent terrorism through a peaceful, scientifically validated approach is being welcomed with remarkable enthusiasm and with growing bipartisan support to put the plan into place. The innovative proposal, validated by more than 50 replications and 19 studies published in leading peer-reviewed scientific journals, targets the acute ethnic, political, and religious tensions that fuel violence, terrorism, and social conflict." - Institute of Science, Technology and Public Policy
18 Dec	Clearing up America's mess	"But what of Bin Laden? He was originally offered for extradition by Sudan, but then apparently allowed to head for Afghanistan in 1996 with barely a whimper from the US. Here is the world's most wanted man, explaining how he acquired his substantial arsenal during the 1980s: 'I settled in Pakistan, in the Afghan border region. There I received volunteers, trained by Pakistani and American officers. The weapons were supplied by the Americans, the money by the Saudis'. As the Middle East slips further towards conflagration and Washington's ultras prepare to extend the war elsewhere, Tony Blair must explain why our government is so happy to help clear up America's mess without asking some awkward questions." - Guardian
18 Dec	The FBI's House Calls	"He buzzed them into the building and met them in the hallway. There were two young men, one white, one black, apparently in their 20s. Reingold asked them for ID, and the two flashed him their [FBI] badges. 'And so I asked them what this was all about,' Reingold recalled. 'And they asked me if I was a member of the gym [in San Francisco]. And I said yes. And then they said someone in the gym had reported that I had been talking about terrorism and Sept. 11, oil profits, capitalism and Afghanistan'..." - San Francisco Chronicle
17 Dec	Prime Number	"525 million pages of secret U.S. government documents should have been released under current declassification laws but are still under wraps" - Time Magazine, Europe, print edition p13
17 Dec	RECOUNTED OUT	"Is it O.K. to talk about the recount yet? It wasn't the right time on September 10th, because the University of Chicago's National Opinion Research Center had only just finished organizing the data gleaned from its meticulous examination of a hundred and seventy-five thousand uncounted Florida ballots. It wasn't on September 12th, because the news organizations that had commissioned the study were otherwise occupied.... Maybe it'll never be the right time. But what the hell. Let's talk about it anyway.....it turned out....no matter what standard or combination of standards is applied, Al Gore got a handful more votes than George W. Bush." - The New Yorker
17 Dec	Putin warns US over war on terror	"Russia expects the US to consult it before taking the 'war against terrorism' anywhere beyond Afghanistan, President Vladimir Putin said in an interview with the Financial Times. ...Some White House officials are pressing to shift the fight against terrorism to other rogue states.But the Russian president warned specifically against military action in Iraq....Mr Putin, interviewed at the end of last week, criticised past bombing of Iraq by US and UK warplanes. The main concern of the international community, he said, was to prevent Iraq developing weapons of mass destruction. Bombing did not seem to advance this aim. " - Financial Times
17 Dec	Dependence on Saudi Oil	"We might well assume, though, that energy planning is at the front of the Bush Administration’s mind in its new attempt to strengthen links with the Caucasus region, and in Rumsfeld’s lightning visits to Azerbaijan, Georgia and Armenia at the weekend. He said that Washington was ready to suspend the sanctions imposed on Azerbaijan, banning military and economic aid, in 1992 after Azerbaijan’s 1988-94 war with Armenia over its Nagorno-Karabakh enclave. The economic embargo has hindered US oil companies from developing Caspian Sea fields, which they now have encouragement from Washington to try to do." - London Times
17 Dec	Open Letter and Question for FBI Director, Robert Mueller, from Dr. Leonard G. Horowitz	"On October 1, 2001, approximately two weeks prior to the first publicized anthrax mailing, I personally delivered information to the FBI that should have prompted an immediate investigation of affiliated military-industrial and pharmaceutical contractors that maintain intimate ties to BMI and the CIA—-information and an investigation that might have prevented the mailings sent more than a week later from Trenton, NJ. In fact, as evidenced by Sunday’s report in the Washington Post, this information still appears to be actively suppressed, namely, the most obvious motives behind the mailed anthrax was to fan fears, dramatically expand pharmaceutical industry profits, and meet military-industrialists’ and political objectives grossly jeopardizing American freedoms and civil rights." - KRLA Radio, Los Angeles
17 Dec	CIA expands its watchful eye to the US	"The Central Intelligence Agency is poised to get involved in domestic surveillance and investigations in ways that are unprecedented in its history. The CIA's intelligence gathering has long been kept as separate as possible from domestic law enforcement, which is bound by strict evidence-gathering rules and legal safeguards protecting the rights of those investigated.But as the nation girds itself against global terrorism carried out on American soil, the barriers between covert, stealthy intelligence and by-the-book domestic law enforcement investigations are beginning to melt..." - Christian Science Monitor
16 Dec	Ten times more bribe money available to US intelligence	"US agents seeking to bribe foreign officials and informants for intelligence have 10 times more money at their disposal since September 11, a Newsweek reports claims.The weekly magazine, due to hit newsstands tomorrow, cites an unnamed intelligence source and also says rules restricting the Central Intelligence Agency's (CIA) ability to deal with torturers and murderers have largely been removed.The US Congress on Thursday unanimously approved an intelligence spending bill of undisclosed size to boost the nation's capacity to collect information about potential enemies and thwart terrorist acts.....Senator Richard Shelby, the top ranking Republican on the Senate Intelligence Committee, told Newsweek the CIA has been 'given the go-ahead, by presidential order, to untie their hands and take the shackles off.' 'They were told to get moving, basically, and given the backing of the president and congress to do whatever it took,' he said..." - The Age
16 Dec	[US] Gun Shows and Terrorists	"In Florida, Conor Claxton, accused of being linked to the IRA, testified last year that he and others had bought hand grenades and high-powered ammunition at [US] gun shows to smuggle to Northern Ireland. In Texas, Muhammad Asrar, a Pakistani who pleaded guilty to immigration violations and illegal possession of ammunition, told authorities that he had been purchasing handguns, rifles and submachine guns at gun shows for seven years." - Washington Post
15 Dec	Actor and Author Stephen Collins Speaks about Invincible Defense Technology on National Television	"Stephen Collins, Emmy-nominated star of 'Seventh Heaven,' the WB television network’s highest rated show for the past four years, spoke forcefully about the Invincible Defense Technology on NBC’s nationally syndicated television newsmagazine Extra, and on ABC’s The View with Barbara Walters. 'Every single time these numbers have been achieved, extraordinary peace and prosperity has resulted,' Collins said. 'It’s never failed. The research is out there, and the results have been published in leading scientific journals. I would hope Defense Secretary Rumsfeld would look at this research and say, ‘What have we got to lose?’ It’s like an insurance policy. We have to do things now to protect our way of life. I see all this evidence that this approach works, and I just think we need to get the word out.' He joins a growing number of leaders in the business and entertainment communities who support the Institute’s Proposal to Prevent Terrorism ." - Institute of Science, Technology and Public Policy
15 Dec	Capitol Hill Anthrax Matches Army's Stocks	"The FBI's investigation into the anthrax attacks is increasingly focusing on whether U.S. government bioweapons research programs, including one conducted by the CIA, may have been the source of deadly anthrax powder sent through the mail, according to sources with knowledge of the probe.....the FBI has turned its attention to learning more about the CIA's work with anthrax, which investigators were told about by the agency within the past few weeks, government officials said.... The FBI remains extremely interested in the CIA's work with anthrax, with one official calling it the best lead they have at this point....A law enforcement source said the FBI did not initially include the CIA on its list of labs working with anthrax because the agency was not among 91 labs registered with the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to transfer anthrax specimens. But as investigators interviewed workers at those known labs, they learned of the CIA's work, and in the past few weeks posed questions about it to the agency." - Washington Post
15 Dec	As the War Shifts Alliances, Oil Deals Follow	"There is no oil in Afghanistan, but there are oil politics, and Washington is subtly tending to them, using the promise of energy investments in Central Asia to nurture a budding set of political alliances in the region with Russia, Kazakhstan and, to some extent, Uzbekistan. Since the Sept. 11 attacks, the United States has lauded the region as a stable oil supplier, in a tacit comparison with the Persian Gulf states that have been viewed lately as less cooperative. The State Department is exploring the potential for post-Taliban energy projects in the region, which has more than 6 percent of the world's proven oil reserves and almost 40 percent of its gas reserves.... The Bush administration says that its war goals have been clear — and do not involve oil. 'There is no such hidden agenda,' said an administration official. 'Operation Enduring Freedom is meant to get rid of terrorism in Afghanistan, Central Asia and the surrounding areas.'..." - New York Times
15 Dec	Old News	"Let’s call it a ninety-day bloodless coup d’etat. Well, nearly bloodless. Close enough to bloodless. All power to the executive!... I won’t mention the Iran-Contra scandal, I doubt if anybody remembers it anyway, but the fact remains that the turf wars over drugs, guns, and oil are still on the executive agenda and we, the common people, are still paying to wage these wars. Now that the executive has assumed all power, we the common people, can expect to be snuffed out for complaining about their wars and about the extortion enacted against us. The executive tells us, shut up, or we will shut you up. A similar thing happened in Athens long ago. A similar thing happened in Rome a few centuries later. Now it’s happening to us. It’s old news. " - LewRockwell.com
15 Dec	Media distorted Florida court ruling to invent Bush victory	"It's absolutely crucial that we expose the lies of the media consortium and get the truth out to everyone that Al Gore won the 2000 election and that there's an illegal occupant in the White House." - Online Journal
14 Dec	Bush Shields Clinton Scandals	"The Bush administration, citing executive privilege for the first time, refused Thursday to honor subpoenas from a House committee investigating campaign finance violations in the Clinton administration and the use of informants in organized crime investigations. .. Republicans and Democrats alike excoriated the decision, suggesting Bush was creating a 'monarchy' or 'imperial' presidency to keep Congress from overseeing the executive branch and guarding against corruption."- NewsMax.com
14 Dec	Bush Halts Inquiry of FBI and Stirs Up a Firestorm	"President Bush yesterday invoked executive privilege to block a congressional subpoena exploring abuses in the Boston FBI office, prompting the chairman of a House committee to lambaste his fellow Republicans and triggering what one congressman said is the start of 'a constitutional confrontation.' 'You tell the president there's going to be war between the president and this committee,' Dan Burton, the Indiana Republican who heads the House Government Reform Committee, told a Justice Department official during what was supposed to be a routine prehearing handshake. 'His dad was at a 90 percent approval rating and he lost, and the same thing can happen to him'..." - Boston Globe
14 Dec	Who Will Run Missile Defense?	"President Bush's decision to pull out of the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty is being called a masterpiece of political timing. Announced while television stations were showing the bin Laden tapes ....... the president's move now puts more pressure on the Pentagon's Ballistic Missile Defense Organization: To justify the president's action it must develop a national missile defense on a foreshortened time scale." - Washington Post
13 Dec	Army made weapons-grade anthrax	"An Army biological and chemical warfare facility in Utah has been quietly developing a virulent, weapons-grade formulation of anthrax spores since at least 1992, and samples of the bacteria were shipped back and forth between that facility and Fort Detrick, Md., on several occasions in the past several years, according to government officials and shipping records....The Utah spores, grown and processed at the 800,000-acre Dugway Proving Ground about 80 miles from Salt Lake City, belong to the Ames strain — the same strain used in the deadly letters sent to media outlets and two senators in September and October. No other nation is known to have made weapons-grade Ames. And although it is legal to make small quantities of such agents under the provisions of an international treaty the United States has signed, experts said yesterday they were surprised by the revelation that a U.S. lab was producing such lethal material." - MSNBC
13 Dec	Omar's men left intact by warlords	"Hundreds of Taleban officials who have fled Afghanistan and taken refuge in Pakistan look likely to escape investigation by either the United States or the new Kabul Government.....All the top Taleban leadership, including Mullah Muhammad Omar, who have survived US airstrikes are either hiding in Afghanistan or have moved to Pakistan, where they have strong links with Islamic religious parties. Nine former Taleban ministers surfaced in Islamabad last week, when they announced the formation of a new party.... Pakistani officials believe that despite recent defections, the Taleban have remained largely intact because of deals made with Pashtun warlords in eastern and western Afghanistan, providing the Taleban leaders and the soldiers with a passage to safety. As a result, no senior Taleban leader has been killed or arrested so far." - London Times
13 Dec	CIA Snookered Again?	"[CIA] Director Tenet [is] the only Clinton holdover in the Bush cabinet...The real question here is: how could Tenet and the CIA screw up yet again? ... The final straw may very well be the 'escape' of Osama bin Laden, Dr. Al Zwahiri (Anwar Sadat's convicted assassin) and other al-Qaeda leaders. How - with every satellite, overflight, radio intercept and on-the-ground agent imaginable - could these criminals have crossed into a country that's a supposed ally? Especially an ally whom we have plied with money and debt relief since September 11? The answer is clear: Tenet and his boys are fools. They are not qualified for the jobs they hold. [or they know exactly what they are doing and we are the fools. Bin Laden has been let go before, nlpwessex.] The Pentagon now admits that several 'high ranking Taliban leaders' have 'paid for safe passage into Iran! So now we have Pakistan and Iran both harboring terrorists - one of President Bush's central criteria for determining which nations are 'terrorist nations'. What are we going to do about that?" - NewsMax.com
13 Dec	And They Call Him General	"John Ashcroft's testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee last week--during which he declared that his critics 'only aid terrorists, for they erode our national unity and diminish our resolve'--was despicable. And not just for the obvious reasons. Ashcroft, you see, is the last person who should be accusing others of undermining a war effort, given his own sorry performance during the Vietnam War. While attending Yale and then the University of Chicago Law School in the 1960s, Ashcroft repeatedly sought and received student deferments from his local draft board in Springfield, Missouri.Although Ashcroft was clearly eager to avoid going to Vietnam, he never protested the war. At least those people Ashcroft now brands traitors have the courage to voice their dissent." - The New Republic
* Dec	Globalisation and Terror	"As the UK and US governments push through ever more stringent surveillance laws, ostensibly to protect as all from the dangers of terrorism, the opportunities for privacy and rational dissent become increasingly threatened. This month The Ecologist features a 16-page report on terrorism, asking the questions that have been studiously ignored elsewhere, such as who really stands to benefit in a world scared by the threat of biological war; whether bombing is not only futile, but counterproductive....." - The Ecologist
12 Dec	Scrambled Messages	"There remains one question to ask about Sept. 11. What happened?... Marine Corps Maj. Mike Snyder, a spokesman for NORAD, echoed Myers in a Sept. 15 Boston Globe story, which stated: '[T]he command did not immediately scramble any fighters even though it was alerted to a hijacking 10 minutes before the first plane…slammed into the first World Trade Center tower... The spokesman said the fighters remained on the ground until after the Pentagon was hit...' U.S. inaction was all the more astonishing because the same story had Snyder admitting that 'fighters routinely intercept aircraft.' So why were no fighters dispatched to intercept planes on an extraordinary day like Sept. 11?.... Happily, the war against the Taliban managed to push these questions out of the papers. For now." - New York Observer
12 Dec	Bush vows to attack 'terrorism threat'	"The war in Afghanistan had provided the 'first glimpses' of how the US military machine would deal with countries that failed to destroy terrorist groups within their borders, the President said." - London Times [Bush to bomb United Kingdom, Ireland, Spain, France, Germany, Russia, China, United States etc? - nlpwessex]
11 Dec	US likely to deploy NMD in Afghanistan	"As the United States is continuing military build up in the south of Afghanistan, the deployment of National Missile Defense system in the southern part of Afghanistan by Washington is likely to counter any inter-continental ballistic missile attack threat from China, diplomatic sources told PNS on Monday. The United States has recently tested this system at a cost of 100 million dollars.The sources said the objective of the United State to come to this region was manifold. Primarily it aims to establish itself to have control on the would-be flowing natural resources from the Central Asian States via Afghanistan, to contain increasing Chinese economic and military influence, and to deploy anti-missile defence system in Afghanistan to counter ICBM attack from Beijing." - PNS
11 Dec	Bush advisers cashed in on Saudi gravy train	"Many of the same American corporate executives who have reaped millions of dollars from arms and oil deals with the Saudi monarchy have served or currently serve at the highest levels of U.S. government, public records show. Those lucrative financial relationships call into question the ability of America's political elite to make tough foreign policy decisions about the kingdom that produced Osama bin Laden and is perhaps the biggest incubator for anti-Western Islamic terrorists. Nowhere is the revolving U.S.-Saudi money wheel more evident than within President Bush's own coterie of foreign policy advisers, starting with the president's father, George H.W. Bush." - Boston Herald
11 Dec	US lays first 11 September charges	"A man has been charged with conspiring with Osama Bin Laden and other suspects to kill thousands in the 11 September attacks on the United States. The FBI had wanted to examine the hard drive of his computer, but the Justice Department refused to grant a search warrant because there did not seem enough evidence to suggest he was a terrorist threat." - BBC Online [For an alternative explanation as to why parts of the Bin Laden network have been left alone see : "[The FBI] were prevented for political reasons from carrying out full investigations into members of the Bin Laden family in the US before the terrorist attacks of September 11" London Guardian, 7 November 2001, nlpwessex ]
11 Dec	Lobbyists Seek Special Spin on Federal Bioterrorism Bill	"In the final hectic days before Congress adjourns for the year, lobbyists are swarming around the Capitol, trying to adorn a bill on bioterrorism with all sorts of special-interest provisions....Biotechnology companies want the government to protect them against lawsuits over injuries caused by use of their products." - New York Times
11 Dec	The White House connection: Saudi `agents' close Bush friends	"A powerful Washington, D.C., law firm with unusually close ties to the White House has earned hefty fees representing controversial Saudi billionaires as well as a Texas-based Islamic charity fingered last week as a terrorist front.... Partners at Akin, Gump include one of President Bush's closest Texas friends, James C. Langdon, and George R. Salem, a Bush fund-raiser who chaired his 2000 campaign's outreach to Arab-Americans. Another longtime partner is Barnett A. 'Sandy' Kress, the former Dallas School Board president who Bush appointed in January to work for the White House as an 'unpaid consultant' on education reform.... In addition to the royal family, the firm's Saudi clients have included bin Mahfouz, who hired Akin, Gump when he was indicted in the BCCI banking scandal in the early 1990s." - Boston Herald
Delayed Update 10 Dec	U.S. ties to Saudi elite may be hurting war on terrorism	"A steady stream of billion-dollar oil and arms deals between American corporate leaders and the elite of Saudi Arabia may be hindering efforts by the West to defeat international Islamic terrorism. U.S. business and political leaders are so wedded to preserving the gilded American-Saudi marriage that officials in Washington D.C. continue to give the oil-rich Gulf monarchy a wide berth, despite mounting evidence of support in Saudi Arabia for Osama bin Laden's terrorist network, some experts say.... A Herald examination of corporate records, intelligence reports and published accounts - as well as interviews with terrorism and foreign policy experts - reveals an extraordinary array of U.S.-Saudi business ventures which, taken together, are worth tens of billions of dollars. They range from deals to pipe oil and natural gas out of former Soviet republics and develop Saudi Arabia's own vast natural gas reserves, to lucrative but rarely talked about arrangements pairing private U.S. military contractors with virtually every branch of the Saudi armed forces.... One of the most revealing examples of how U.S.-Saudi business interests seep into foreign diplomacy is a major pipeline deal in the 1990s that almost resulted in the U.S. recognizing the Taliban regime as the legitimate government in Afghanistan. In 1995, U.S. oil giant Unocal formed a partnership with the Saudi-owned Delta Oil and mounted a high-stakes international lobbying campaign to build oil and natural gas pipelines from oil fields in Turkmenistan, through Afghanistan and Pakistan, and out to the Arabian Sea.... The financial bond welding the U.S. and Saudi governments begins with oil but it doesn't end there. Between 1990 and 1999, the Saudi government paid U.S. arms makers $30 billion for a wide array of weaponry - including F-15 fighter aircraft, M-1A2 Abrams tanks, and Apache attack helicopters - as well as for the training necessary to operate and maintain the U.S.-made arsenal, according to Department of Defense statistics. Those arms and technology deals are, by law, publicly disclosed. What is less known, however, is that for the last 25 years Saudi Arabia's rulers have also employed a handful of politically connected American companies to buttress the monarchy's military and internal security forces. These secretive U.S. firms, sometimes referred to as ``spook outfits,'' earned billions of dollars over the last decade alone, equipping, training and managing virtually all branches of the Saudi Arabian armed forces. As a result of these contracts, tens of thousands of American workers and their families have lived and still live on Saudi soil. This year, private American military companies placed an estimated 35,000 to 40,000 workers inside the kingdom, according to the Congressional Research Service, a non-partisan adjunct to the Library of Congress. For many Saudi Islamic fundamentalists who oppose the royal family's longstanding alliance with the west, that heavy U.S. presence is deeply offensive. Because of this, U.S. officials are reluctant to talk about private American military companies operating inside Saudi Arabia..." - Boston Herald
Delayed Update 10 Dec	Saudi clans working with U.S. oil firms may be tied to bin Laden	"Two billionaire Saudi families scrutinized by authorities for possible financial ties to Osama bin Laden's terrorist network continue to engage in major oil deals with leading U.S. corporations...Working through their companies - Delta Oil, Nimir Petroleum and Corral Petroleum - the Saudi families have formed international consortiums with U. S. oil giants Texaco, Unocal, Amerada Hess and Frontera Resources. These business relationships persist despite evidence that members of the two Saudi families - headed by patriarchs Khalid bin Mahfouz and Mohammed Hussein Al-Amoudi - have had ties to Islamic charities and companies linked financially to bin Laden's al-Qaeda organization.... In the mid-1990s, Delta Oil formed a partnership with Unocal in a failed bid to build oil and gas pipelines from Turkmenistan to the Arabian Sea..." - Boston Herald
Delayed Update 10 Dec	3,500 Civilians Killed in Afghanistan by U.S. Bombs	"More than 3,500 civilians have been killed in Afghanistan by U.S. bombs, according to a study to be released December 10 by Marc W. Herold, Professor of Economics, International Relations, and Women's Studies at the University of New Hampshire. Professor Herold will announce his findings on Monday, December 10 in a discussion with award-winning journalist, Amy Goodman of Democracy Now!" - Common Dreams
Delayed Update 9 Dec	Intelligence services wanted me killed	"Yvonne Ridley, the British journalist captured by the Taliban, this week makes the extraordinary claim that Western intelligence agencies tried to get her killed to bolster public support for the air strikes on Afghanistan." - Independent
		Earlier 'WAT' Media News Updates from NLPWessex - click here

Terrorist reprisals are all but certain now that the U.S. has launched its military campaign to 'eradicate' terrorism. For this reason, a proven solution to terrorism is especially urgent. Please follow the link below, read carefully, and act decisively. There is no other effective defense against terrorism.
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