WorldTribune.com

Israeli intelligence: Iraq financed attacks

GEOSTRATEGY-DIRECT.COM Wednesday, September 12, 2001

Iraq recruited Saudi billionaire fugitive Osama Bin Laden and his Islamic allies to carry out the suicide attacks around the United States, according to Israeli intelligence.

Israeli officials and intelligence analysts said the suicide hijackings that downed the World Trade Center and destroyed parts of the Pentagon was too large an operation for any one group. The analysts said the operation was also too big even for a coalition of Islamic terrorists headed by Saudi billionaire fugitive Osama Bin Laden. Bin Laden is accused of masterminding the bombings of the U.S. embassies in eastern African in 1998.

Intelligence sources briefed the Cabinet of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon on late Tuesday, hours after the catastrophe in New York and Washington. The sources were quoted as telling the Cabinet that a Middle East government was probably the sponsor of the attack.

The most likely sponsor for such an attack, the sources said, is Iraq. The Baghdad regime has long maintained an alliance with Bin Laden and Islamic groups.

"All the steps lead to him [Bin Laden]," Reuven Paz, a leading expert on Islamic terrorism, said. "Of all the countries, Iraq seems the most reasonable [candidate]."

In Baghdad, Iraqi state television appeared to welcome the bombings. The television said the spate of attacks demonstrated the vulnerability of the United States.

"The massive explosions in the centers of power in America, notably the Pentagon, is a painful slap in the face of U.S. politicians to stop their illegitimate hegemony and attempts to impose custodianship on peoples," the television said. "It was no coincidence that the World Trade Center was destroyed in suicidal operations involving two planes that have broken through all U.S. security barriers to carry the operation of the century and to express rejection of the reckless U.S. policy."

"The collapse of U.S. centers of power is a collapse of the U.S. policy, which deviates from human values and stands by world Zionism at all international forums to continue to slaughter the Palestinian Arab people and implement U.S. plans to dominate the world under the cover of what is called the new [world] order," the television added. "These are the fruits of the new U.S. order."

The Israeli Cabinet was informed that the United States might launch a massive attack on Iraq and Afghanistan over the coming days. The sources said such an attack could prompt a regional war.

On early Wednesday, Afghanistan appeared to have been a target of retaliation. Several bombings were heard in the Afghan capital of Kabul. U.S. officials denied that their country was responsible.

In the aftermath of the suicide bombings in the United States, Israel closed its air space. Israel also warned the Palestinian Authority to immediately stop all attacks against the Jewish state.

-- Anonymous, September 12, 2001

Answers

This one about Iraq wouldn't surprise me one bit if they're correct. But a massive attack? Uh oh. Wonder if that's where we are headed?

-- Anonymous, September 12, 2001

I think it is... with the backing of US citizens reeling from the horror of the attacks, the world community in unison expressing shock and outrage at this atrocity, NATO declaring the the 5th Article in effect....

This is not a "stand back and launch a million dollar missile at a twenty dollar tent"....

We're looking at possible 10 times the deaths at Pearl Harbor, which were mostly military, but this time almost all civilian... an act that lead to the US launching into WWII with a vengence...

This is war, and I pray for my son, and all those in uniform. But at least they will go knowing what their fate might be, unlike those who dropped their kids off at school and hurried to their desks in the heart of America's financial center to pay the bills...

15,000 to 25,000 dead, by the last estimate I heard.... how many orphans? How many children left at school, at daycare, or worse yet, went home to an empty house to wait for someone who is never going to come home again and ask how school was today?

-- Anonymous, September 12, 2001

I heard the description of our retaliation "will not be some little pin prick missile shots at a few sites here and there but a full and complete barrage over a major area. That will get our message across. "

I am sorry, but I don't remember who said it. That is as close as I can remember the quote. I am not sure at this point if it was a pentagon news brief or just an idiot talking head. I like the sentiment, though.

-- Anonymous, September 13, 2001

Barefoot, after the hundreds of articles, plus TV, Radio, etc., we've all been watching, reading, listening to, the last couple days, you're forgiven for not citing the source :)

Now if you tell me Dolly Parton's boobs are fake, you better be able to back it up, chapter and verse...

Hell, I can't remember where I saw the "million dollar missile for a twenty dollar tent", but I know I didn't think of it :)

PS: What the heck you doing up so late?

-- Anonymous, September 13, 2001

I do like that missile-tent remark. Brilliant.

-- Anonymous, September 13, 2001

One thing we could do immediately is send a bunch of B-52s in to carpet bomb all the known terrorist training camps. And that includes those in Iraq, Iran, Afganistan, wherever. That needs to be done anyway, so it could be the opening hand to get their attention.

-- Anonymous, September 13, 2001

I hope that's just what TPTB are planning right now, Gordon. Trouble is, as soon as a bunch of 'em take off, someone will alert whoever and the terrorist camps would be prepared. But we could still take out the infrastructure and go back in again and again as necessary.

-- Anonymous, September 13, 2001

[Where the missile-tent remark originated--I think.]

Jewish World Review Sept. 13, 2001 /24 Elul 5761

Sam Schulman

"Politics of meaning" guru does it again --- and in Public!

http://www.jewishworldreview.com -- So much has changed since September 11. But one thing will remain the same.

Rabbi Michael Lerner can be relied on to justify and explain terrorism. And to tell us, the victims, that the death and destruction we have suffered is our fault.

In a sickening little homily posted on the New Age website Beliefnet.com, which is linked to by the egregious AOL, Rabbi Lerner nastily poses an ugly little question, "What is it in the way that we are living, organizing our societies, and treating each other that makes violence seem plausible to so many people?"

It's the question that so many anti-Semites ask themselves about Jewry. If so many people hate them -- what's actually wrong with the Jews? Because hatred -- if it's really spectacular enough --- must in some way be justified.

No surprise --- Rabbi Lerner finds it easy to answer his own question.

First, he tells us that we are responsible for the "fact" that one third of the world's billions are "actually starving." This, of course, is neither a fact, nor is the existence of hunger our responsibility. In fact, we - our farmers and scientists -- are responsible for the true fact that fewer people are hungry than ever before, and that food is cheaper and more abundant than ever. (Of course Rabbi Lerner undoubtedly supports crippling the promise of even greater abundance, because it would involve "modified" foods, --- but that's another matter.)

Then he tells us that our "hoarding" of the world's resources justifies the hatred of others. Again, wrong in fact and reason. We use exactly the same proportion of the world's resources represented by our economy. And our use of these resources distributes our wealth around the world - most notably to the very Arab countries who Rabbi Lerner feels are justified in hating us.

Then he blames our "frantic attempts to accelerate globalization, with its attendant inequalities of wealth." Again, he is wrong in fact, reasoning, and in humanity. globalization is being accelerated by the demands of those less-developed countries. And globalization, when attained, accelerate the creation of wealth among the poor --- creating undreamt of equality of wealth.

Then he says that the suffering of refugees and the oppressed rebounds in hatred against us. Is he saying that Israel and the West created refugees? The rabbi knows the opposite is true - that the Arab world, having turned residents of Palestine into refugees, has refused to let them assimilate anywhere else. And he also knows that the West is where people are not oppressed --- it is precisely the countries where terrorism is fostered that practice a kind of oppression horrifying in its scale and brutality.

Having made it clear that we in the West must be guilty of creating the rage of the Arab and Islamic terrorists, and choosing hobbyhorses of his own choosing, he then assures us that in his opinion terrorism is never justified. But it certainly sends a signal that something is terribly wrong about those who suffer from its effects.

If you don't follow Rabbi Lerner's reasoning, look into your heart. He actually says that America should turn "to a period of repentance and atonement." He feels that if we victims would only atone for our sins of prosperity and freedom, freely shared with the world -- if we would but repent for our freedom -- then, perhaps, the men of violence might stay their hand. Or at least exert it on their own women and children, and leave ours alone.

In the Rabbi's clear vision of things, violence -- however unjustified -- is always a sign that those who suffer by it have deserved it. He has not extended this notion to the death camps of Stalin's USSR and Hitler's Germany -- that they were filled by those guilty of having provoked the Nazis and Communists who were forced into "de-sanctifying" their victims -- but I can't see why he hasn't.

He's spreading himself too thin, poor fellow.

-- Anonymous, September 13, 2001

Nope, here's where I found it, just paraphrased it a bit...

Missiles vs Tents

"The American people and the military will now be ready to put in ground troops with all the risks that that would entail," said an Army special operations soldier. "Missiles will not do the trick. We'll spend millions on missiles to destroy $20 worth of tents."

-- Anonymous, September 13, 2001

Sorry, I evidently cut and pasted the wrong article. The one I saw was written by Charles Krauthammer--I guess he ripped it off from the soldier. Great phrase, anyway.

-- Anonymous, September 13, 2001