long letter from Joe Rowe in Paris -- his email address is paramod@club-internet.fr

Tue, 15 Jan 2002 17:34:42 -0600

Dear Friends and Family,

        Americans are not getting anything even resembling a balanced
and
objective view of the world through their major media. This is
especially
true since Sept. 11.
        The following is an important story which was reported widely by
mainstream news media in Europe, but has been systematically and totally
ignored by all major American media,  even including PBS and NPR. I have
searched the archives of every major American media website in vain for
ANY
mention of this story. It is one thing to disagree with a story, or to
question its sources. But it is entirely another thing to refuse to even
discuss it. This is a kind of selective news blackout, the same kind of
sheeplike collective self-censorship that prevailed in America during
the
McCarthy era.
        So, just in case you haven't read this story through alternative
media, which thank God are still going strong, here it is.
        By the way, I personally am not a "conspiracy theorist."  Nor am
I
an America-hater. Nor am I a left-wing ideologue, nor a pacifist
ideologue.
And I am glad to see the Taliban destroyed. But this does not mean I
support the current blank check and suspension of civil rights in Bush's
"war" on terrorism. I was against Stalinism too, but that didn't mean I
supported McCarthy or John Foster Dulles. Simplistic, dualistic,
black/white, true/false sound-byte thinking is the curse of political
life
in America.

        All the best from your heretic friend in France, who still loves
his home country,
        Joseph

PS --- this is followed by another story on the under-reported results
of
the last presidential election.
PPS - btw, Le Figaro is a politically conservative, very mainstream
daily
newspaper.

IF THE CIA AND THE GOVERNMENT WEREN'T INVOLVED IN THE SEPTEMBER 11
ATTACKS
WHAT WERE THEY DOING?

Bin Laden Met with the CIA in July and Walked Away

byMichael C. Ruppert

Wilderness Publications (FTW), http://www.copvcia.com. May be copied and
distributed for non-profit purposes only.]

FTW, November 2, 2001 - 1200 PST -- On October 31, the French daily Le
Figaro dropped a bombshell. While in a Dubai hospital receiving
treatment
for a chronic kidney infection last July, Osama bin Laden met with a top
CIA official - presumably the Chief of Station. The meeting, held in bin
Laden's private suite, took place at the American hospital in Dubai at a
time when he was a wanted fugitive for the bombings of two U.S.
embassies
and this year's attack on the U.S.S. Cole. Bin Laden was eligible for
execution according to a 2000 intelligence finding issued by President
Bill
Clinton before leaving office in January. Yet on July 14th this
international terrorist, already at the top of the CIA's most-wanted
list
at that time,  was allowed to leave Dubai on a private jet and there
were
no Navy fighters waiting to force him down.
[An English translation of the original Le Figaro article can be found
at:
http://globalresearch.ca/articles/RIC111B.html ]

In 1985 Oliver North - the only member of the Reagan-Bush years who
doesn't
appear to have a hand in the current war - sent the Navy and commandos
after terrorists on the cruise ship Achille Lauro. In his 1991
autobiography "Under Fire," while describing terrorist Abu Abbas, North
wrote, "I used to wonder: how many dead Americans will it take before we
do
something?" One could look at the number of Americans Osama bin Laden is
alleged to have killed before September 11 and ask the same question.

It gets worse, much worse. A more complete timeline listing crucial
events
both before and after the September 11th suicide attacks, which have
been
blamed on bin Laden, establishes CIA foreknowledge of them and strongly
suggests that there was criminal complicity on the part of the U.S.
government in their execution. It also makes clear that the events which
have taken place since September 11th are based upon an agenda that has
little to do with the attacks.

One wonders how these events could have been ignored by the major media
or
treated as isolated incidents. Failing that, how could skilled news
agencies avoid being outraged, or at least even just a little
suspicious?

1.. 1998 and 2000 - Former President George H.W. Bush travels to Saudi
Arabia on behalf of the privately owned Carlyle Group, the 11th largest
defense contractor in the U.S. While there he meets privately with the
Saudi royal family and the bin Laden family. [Source: Wall Street
Journal,
Sept. 27, 2001. See also FTW, Vol. IV, No 7 - "The Best Enemies Money
Can
Buy," - http://www.copvcia.com/members/carlyle.html. ]
2.. Feb 13, 2001 - UPI Terrorism Correspondent Richard Sale - while
covering a trial of bin Laden's Al Q'aeda followers - reports that the
National Security Agency has broken bin Laden's encrypted
communications.
Even if this indicates that bin Laden changed systems in February it
does
not mesh with the fact that the government insists that the attacks had
been planned for years.
3.. May 2001 - Secretary of State Colin Powell gives $43 million in aid
to
the Taliban regime, purportedly to assist hungry farmers who are
starving
since the destruction of their opium crop in January on orders of the
Taliban regime. [Source: The Los Angeles Times, May 22, 2001].
4.. May, 2001 - Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage, a career
covert
operative and former Navy Seal, travels to India on a publicized tour
while
CIA Director George Tenet makes a quiet visit to Pakistan to meet with
Pakistani leader General Pervez Musharraf. Armitage has long and deep
Pakistani intelligence connections and he is the recipient of the
highest
civil decoration awarded by Pakistan. It would be reasonable to assume
that
while in Islamabad, Tenet, in what was described as "an unusually long
meeting," also met with his Pakistani counterpart, Lt. General Mahmud
Ahmad, head of the ISI. [Source The Indian SAPRA news agency, May 22,
2001.]
5.. July, 2001 - Three American officials: Tom Simmons (former U.S.
Ambassador to Pakistan), Karl Inderfurth (former Assistant Secretary of
State for South Asian affairs) and Lee Coldren (former State Department
expert on South Asia), meet with Taliban representatives in Berlin and
tell
them that the U.S. is planning military strikes against Afghanistan in
October. Also present are Russian and German intelligence officers who
confirm the threat. [Source: The Guardian, September 22, 2001; the BBC,
September 18, 2001.]
6.. Summer 2001 - According to a Sept. 26 story in Britain's The
Guardian,
correspondent David Leigh reported that, "U.S. department of defense
official, Dr. Jeffrey Starr, visited Tajikistan in January. The
Guardian's
Felicity Lawrence established that US Rangers were also training special
troops in Kyrgyzstan. There were unconfirmed reports that Tajik and
Uzbek
special troops were training in Alaska and Montana."
7.. Summer 2001 (est.) - Pakistani ISI Chief General Mahmud (see above)
orders an aide to wire transfer $100,000 to Mohammed Atta, who was
according to the FBI, the lead terrorist in the suicide hijackings.
Mahmud
recently resigned after the transfer was disclosed in India and
confirmed
by the FBI. [Source: The Times of India, October 11, 2001.]
8.. June 2001 - German intelligence, the BND, warns the CIA and Israel
that
Middle Eastern terrorists are "planning to hijack commercial aircraft to
use as weapons to attack important symbols of American and Israeli
culture." [Source: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, September 14, 2001.]
9.. Summer 2001 - An Iranian man phones U.S. law enforcement to warn of
an
imminent attack on the World Trade Center in the week of September 9th.
German police confirm the calls but state that the U.S. Secret Service
would not reveal any further information. [Source: German news agency
"online.ie", September 14, 2001.]
10.. August 2001 - The FBI arrests an Islamic militant linked to bin
Laden
in Boston. French intelligence sources confirm that the man is a key
member
of bin Laden's network and the FBI learns that he has been taking flying
lessons. At the time of his arrest the man is in possession of technical
information on Boeing aircraft and flight manuals. [Source: Reuters,
September 13.]
11.. Summer 2001 - Russian intelligence notifies the CIA that 25
terrorist
pilots have been specifically training for suicide missions. This is
reported in the Russian press and news stories are translated for FTW by
a
retired CIA officer.
12.. July 4-14, 2001 - Osama bin Laden receives treatments for kidney
disease at the American hospital in Dubai and meets with a CIA official
who
returns to CIA headquarters on July 15th. [Source: Le Figaro, October
31st,
2001.]
13.. August 2001 - Russian President Vladimir Putin orders Russian
intelligence to warn the U.S. government "in the strongest possible
terms"
of imminent attacks on airports and government buildings. [Source:
MS-NBC
interview with Putin, September 15.]
14.. August/September, 2001 - The Dow Jones Industrial Average drops
nearly
900 points in the three weeks prior to the attack. A major stock market
crash is imminent.
15.. Sept. 3-10, 2001 - MS-NBC reports on September 16 that a caller to
a
Cayman Islands radio talk show gave several warnings of an imminent
attack
on the U.S. by bin Laden in the week prior to 9/11.
16.. September 1-10, 2001 - 25,000 British troops and the largest
British
Armada since the Falkland Islands War, part of Operation "Essential
Harvest," are pre-positioned in Oman, the closest point on the Arabian
Peninsula to Pakistan. At the same time two U.S. carrier battle groups
arrive on station in the Gulf of Arabia just off the Pakistani coast.
Also
at the same time, some 17,000 U.S. troops join more than 23,000 NATO
troops
in Egypt for Operation "Bright Star." All of these forces are in place
before the first plane hits the World Trade Center. [Sources: The
Guardian,
CNN, FOX, The Observer, International Law Professor Francis Boyle, the
University of Illinois.]
17.. September 6-7, 2001 - 4,744 put options (a speculation that the
stock
will go down) are purchased on United Air Lines stock as opposed to only
396 call options (speculation that the stock will go up). This is a
dramatic and abnormal increase in sales of put options. Many of the UAL
puts are purchased through Deutschebank/AB Brown, a firm managed until
1998
by the current Executive Director of the CIA, A.B. "Buzzy" Krongard.
[Source: The Herzliyya International Policy Institute for
Counterterrorism,
http://www.ict.org.il/, September 21; The New York Times; The Wall
Street
Journal.]
18.. September 10, 2001 - 4,516 put options are purchased on American
Airlines as compared to 748 call options. [Source: ICT - above]
19.. September 6-11, 2001 - No other airlines show any similar trading
patterns to those experienced by UAL and American. The put option
purchases
on both airlines were 600% above normal. This at a time when Reuters
(September 10) issues a business report stating, "Airline stocks may be
poised to take off."
20.. September 6-10, 2001 - Highly abnormal levels of put options are
purchased in Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley, AXA Re(insurance) which owns
25% of American Airlines, and Munich Re. All of these companies are
directly impacted by the September 11 attacks. [Source: ICT, above; FTW,
Vol. IV, No.7, October 18, 2001,
http://www.copvcia.com/members/oct152001.html. ]
21.. It has been documented that the CIA, the Israeli Mossad and many
other
intelligence agencies monitor stock trading in real time using highly
advanced programs reported to be descended from Promis software. This is
to
alert national intelligence services of just such kinds of attacks.
Promis
was reported, as recently as June, 2001 to be in Osama bin Laden's
possession and, as a result of recent stories by FOX, both the FBI and
the
Justice Department have confirmed its use for U.S. intelligence
gathering
through at least this summer. This would confirm that CIA had additional
advance warning of imminent attacks. [Sources: The Washington Times,
June
15, 2001; FOX News, October 16, 2001; FTW, October  26, 2001, -
http://www.copvcia.com/members/magic_carpet.html;
FTW, Vol. IV, No.6, Sept. 18, 2001
http://www.copvcia.com/members/sept1801.html; FTW, Vol. 3, No 7, 9/30/00
-
www.copvcia.com/stories/may_2001/052401_promis.html.
22.. September 11, 2001 - Gen Mahmud of the ISI (see above), friend of
Mohammed Atta, is visiting Washington on behalf of the Taliban. [Source:
MS-NBC, Oct. 7.]
23.. September 11, 2001, For 35 minutes, from 8:15 AM until 9:05 AM,
with
it widely known within the FAA and the military that four planes have
been
simultaneously hijacked and taken off course, no one notifies the
President
of the United States. It is not until 9:30 that any Air Force planes are
scrambled to intercept, but by then it is too late. This means that the
National Command Authority waited for 75 minutes before scrambling
aircraft, even though it was known that four simultaneous hijackings had
occurred - an event that has never happened in history. [Sources: CNN,
ABC,
MS-NBC, The Los Angeles Times, The New York Times.]
24.. September 13, 2001 - China is admitted to the World Trade
Organization
quickly, after 15 years of unsuccessful attempts. [Source: The New York
Times, Sept. 30, 2001.]
25.. September 15, 2001 - The New York Times reports that Mayo Shattuck
III
has resigned, effective immediately, as head of the Alex (A.B) Brown
unit
of Deutschebank.
26.. September 29, 2001 - The San Francisco Chronicle reports that $2.5
million in put options on American Airlines and United Airlines are
unclaimed. This is likely the result of the suspension in trading on the
NYSE after the attacks which gave the Securities and Exchange Commission
time to be waiting when the owners showed up to redeem their put
options.
27.. October 10, 2001 - The Pakistani newspaper The Frontier Post
reports
that U.S. Ambassador Wendy Chamberlain has paid a call on the Pakistani
oil
minister. A previously abandoned Unocal pipeline from Turkmenistan,
across
Afghanistan, to the Pakistani coast, for the purpose of selling oil and
gas
to China, is now back on the table "in view of recent geopolitical
developments."
28.. Mid October, 2001 - The Dow Jones Industrial Average, after having
suffered a precipitous drop has recovered most of its pre-attack losses.
Although still weak, and vulnerable to negative earnings reports, a
crash
has been averted by a massive infusion of government spending on defense
programs, subsidies for "affected" industries and planned tax cuts for
corporations.

Now, let's go back to the October 31 story by Le Figaro - the one that
has
Osama bin Laden meeting with a CIA officer in Dubai this June.

The story says that, "Throughout his stay in the hospital, Osama Bin
Laden
received visits from many family members [There goes the story that he's
a
black sheep!] and Saudi Arabian Emirate personalities of status. During
this time the local representative of the CIA was seen by many people
taking the elevator and going to bin Laden's room.

"Several days later the CIA officer bragged to his friends about having
visited the Saudi millionaire. From authoritative sources, this CIA
agent
visited CIA headquarters on July 15th, the day after bin Laden's
departure
for Quetta.

"According to various Arab diplomatic sources and French intelligence
itself, precise information was communicated to the CIA concerning
terrorist attacks aimed at American interests in the world, including
its
own territory.".

"Extremely bothered, they [American intelligence officers in a meeting
with
French intelligence officers] requested from their French peers exact
details about the Algerian activists [connected to bin Laden through
Dubai
banking institutions], without explaining the exact nature of their
inquiry. When asked the question, "What do you fear in the coming days?'
the Americans responded with incomprehensible silence.".

"On further investigation, the FBI discovered certain plans that had
been
put together between the CIA and its "Islamic friends" over the years.
The
meeting in Dubai is, so it would seem, consistent with 'a certain
American
policy.'"

Even though Le Figaro reported that it had confirmed with hospital staff
that bin Laden had been there as reported, stories printed on November 1
contained quotes from hospital staff that these reports were untrue. On
November 1, as reported by the Ananova press agency, the CIA flatly
denied
that any meeting between any CIA personnel and Osama bin Laden at any
time.

In the most ironic twist of all, FTW has learned that Le Figaro is owned
by
the Carlyle Group, the American defense contractor which employs George
Bush Sr., and which had as investors - until they sold their stake on
October 26 - the bin Laden family.

Who do you believe? In coming stories FTW will prove to you that this
war,
which according to Dick Cheney, may not end in out lifetimes, has been
in
the works for at least four years.

Mike Ruppert

http://www.copvcia.com.

=46rom Agence France Presse (AFP) :

 BIN LADEN UNDERWENT TREATMENT IN JULY AT DUBAI AMERICAN HOSPITAL
 AFP
 Wednesday October 31, 2001

 http://sg.news.yahoo.com/011031/1/1ml07.html

 Osama bin Laden underwent treatment in July at the American Hospital in
Dubai where he met a US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) official,
French
daily Le Figaro and Radio France International reported.

 Quoting "a witness, a professional partner of the
administrativemanagement
of the hospital," they said the man suspected by the United States of
being
behind the September 11 terrorist attacks had arrived in Dubai on July 4
by
air from Quetta, Pakistan.

 He was immediately taken to the hospital for kidney treatment. He left
the
establishment on July 14, Le Figaro said.

 During his stay, the daily said, the local CIA representative was
seengoing into bin Laden's room and "a few days later, the CIA man
boasted
to some friends of having visited the Saudi-born millionaire."

 Quoting "an authoritative source," Le Figaro and the radio station said
the CIA representative had been recalled to Washington on July 15.

 Bin Laden has been sought by the United States for terrorism since the
bombing of the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998. But his CIA
links go back before that to the fight against Soviet forces in
Afghanistan.

 Le Figaro said bin Laden was accompanied in Dubai by his personal
physician and close collaborator, who could be the Egyptian Ayman
al-Zawahari, as well as bodyguards and an Algerian nurse.

 He was admitted to the urology department of Doctor Terry Callaway, who
specializes in kidney stones and male infertility. Telephoned several
times, the doctor declined to answer questions.

 Several sources had reported that bin Laden had a serious kidney
infection.
 He had a mobile dialysis machine sent to his Kandahar hideout
inAfghanistan in the first half of 2000, according to "authoritative
sources" quoted byLe Figaro and RFI.
 ------------

Also of interest is this story, which was reported, but in such a way as
to
bury it in the back pages of most papers. As far as I am aware it was
not
reported at all by TV news corporations.

BURYING THE LEAD: DEMOCRACY DENIED
 By Jim Naureckas
 Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR-L)
 November 15, 2001

 http://www.fair.org/

 In journalism, it's called "burying the lead": A story starts off with
what everyone already knows, while the real news -- the most surprising,
significant or never-been-told-before information -- gets pushed down
where people are less likely to see it.
 That's what happened to the findings of the media study of the
uncounted
votes from last year's Florida presidential vote. A consortium of news
Outlets -- including The New York Times, The Washington Post, Tribune
Co.
(Newsday's parent company), The Wall Street Journal, Associated Press
and
CNN -- spent nearly a year and $900,000 reexamining every disputed
ballot.
 The consortium determined that if the U.S. Supreme Court had allowed
the
ongoing recount to go through, George W. Bush would still likely
haveended
up in the White House. That's because the recount ordered by the Florida
Supreme Court -- as well as the more limited recount asked for
byDemocratic
candidate Al Gore -- only involved so-called undervotes, ballots that
when
counted mechanically registered no choice for president.

 Gore and the Florida Supreme Court ignored overvotes -- votes where
mechanical counting registered more than one vote -- on the assumption
that
there would be no way to tell which of the multiple candidates the voter
actually intended to pick.

 But as the consortium found when it actually looked at the overvotes,
one
often could tell what the voter's intent was. Many of the overvotes
involved, for example, a voter punching the hole next to a
candidate'sname,
and then writing in the same candidate's name.

 Since the intent of the voter is clear, these are clearly valid votes
under Florida law. And Gore picked up enough of such votes that it
almost
didn't matter what standard you used when looking at undervotes --
whether
you counted every dimple or insisted on a fully punched chad, the
consortium found that Gore ended up the winner of virtually any full
reexamination of rejected ballots.

 So there are two main findings: The Supreme Court's intervention
probably
did not affect the outcome of the limited recounts then under way,
andmore
people probably cast valid votes for Gore than for Bush. If the first
finding was the important news, the consortium was scoopedlong ago: The
Miami Herald and USA Today, working as a separate team, published
stories
in April that argued persuasively that the particular recountsthat were
halted by the Supreme Court probably would have produced a Bush victory.

 What's new is the finding that, since voters are supposed to decide
elections rather than lawyers or judges, the state's electoral
votesappear
to have gone to the wrong candidate. Given that the outcome in Florida
determined the national victor, this is not just news but a critical
challenge to the legitimacy of the presidency.

 So how did the media report the results of the ballot reexamination?
 Overwhelmingly, they chose to lead with the news that was comfortable,
Uncontroversial -- and seven months old. "In Election Review, Bush Wins
Without Supreme Court Help," was The Wall Street Journal's headline on
its
story, paralleling The New York Times' "Study of Disputed Florida
Ballots
Finds Justices Did Not Cast the Deciding Vote." That angle would be
fineif
you believed that the Supreme Court was the most important aspect of the
story; but what about the presidency?

 Other members of the consortium emphasized the most Bush-friendly
aspectsof the story: "Bush Still Had Votes to Win in a Recount, Study
Finds," wasthe Tribune Co.'s Los Angeles Times' main headline on its
report, matching The Washington Post's "Florida Recounts Would Have
Favored
Bush" and CNN.com's "Florida Recount Study: Bush Still Wins." The St.
Petersburg Times' Website put it succinctly: "Recount: Bush." While some
of
these outlets tried to convey greater complexity in subheads, all these
headlines obscure thefact that the outlets' most comprehensive recount
put
Gore ahead of Bush.

 Emphasizing the old and conventional while playing down the new and
controversial is a recipe for being ignored, and sure enough, few
outlets
that were not part of the consortium did much with the findings. A story
that may well be mentioned in high school history classes a hundred
years
from now didn't even merit an editorial comment from most newspapers.
It's
tempting to attribute this coyness to Sept. 11, and news outlets'
reluctance to undermine the legitimacy of the presidency when the
countryis
at war. But the coverage of the consortium's findings is similar to
theway
earlier media recounts were handled; even the most preliminary Miami
Herald/USA Today ballot stories prompted "Bush Really Won" stories
across
the country. Similarly, when Bush's inauguration was greeted by raucous
marchers contesting his victory, many outlets played down the
significance
of the protests. The New York Times virtually ignored them.

 War or no war, many journalists are instinctively protective of the
legitimacy of the institutions they cover. But the job of a journalist
is
not to promote but to question. The theory behind the First Amendment is
that the system will be strengthened by an unflinching look at
thesystem's
flaws. In looking back at the results of the Florida election, the media
flinched.

 ---

 Jim Naureckas is the editor of Extra!, the magazine of the media
watchgroup FAIR. A version of this appeared in New York's Newsday
(11/15/01).

 Published by FAIR
 (212) 633-6700
 http://www.fair.org/
 E-mail: fair@fair.org

Another alternative news site of interest:
NewHeavenNewEarth (NHNE)
 eMail: nhne@nhne.com
 NHNE Website: http://www.nhne.com/

        "Fascism should more properly be called corporatism, since it is
the merger of state and corporate power."
                                --- Benito Mussolini

        "You're either with us or you're against us."

                                --- George W. Bush

Joseph Rowe
chez Arcosud
1, rue Constance, code porte 0118
75018 Paris, France

tel. (331) 42 55 18 92