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Sup­ple­ment­ing prior dis­cus­sion, this pro­gram fur­ther exam­ines the 9/11/2001 attacks against the back­ground of events, insti­tu­tions and peo­ple involved with the power pol­i­tics of oil. The title of this pro­gram and its name­sake derive from the anti-Semitic tract The Pro­to­cols of the Elders of Zion, a Czarist Russ­ian forgery that was impor­tant to, and used by, Hitler and his successors.

1. The dis­cus­sion begins with a sub­ject that is tan­gen­tial to the sub­ject of petro­leum. A Ger­man intel­li­gence agent con­sid­ered expert on the sub­ject of Arab ter­ror­ism was mur­dered in Libya, appar­ently by the Bin Laden net­work. (“FBI Probe Into WTC Attack Pro­vides Fresh Lead in Case of Mur­dered Ver­fas­sungss­chutz Agent” by Josef Hufelschulte & Carl Thal­mann; Focus; #41 [10/8/2001]; p. 36.)

2. A sus­pect in his death car­ried the same name as a sus­pect in the World Trade Cen­ter attack. (Idem.)

3. The agent, Sil­van Becker, had been trans­ferred to an assign­ment mon­i­tor­ing Tamil extrem­ists. (Idem.)

4. The authors of the arti­cle spec­u­late that Becker was in Libya research­ing Islamic extrem­ist ele­ments against the wishes of his supe­ri­ors. (Idem.) Like Becker, FBI agent John O’Neill (in charge of the Amer­i­can inves­ti­ga­tion into Bin Laden and killed in the WTC attacks) appears to have been “dou­bled on” by ele­ments in his own com­mand and oper­a­tional structure.

5. In a book recently pub­lished in France, O’Neill stated that the inves­ti­ga­tion into Bin Laden had been frus­trated by Amer­i­can cor­po­rate con­nec­tions to Saudi Ara­bia and “oil.” (“Oil Diplo­macy Mud­dled U.S. Pur­suit of Bin Laden, New Book Con­tends” by Ethan Bron­ner; New York Times; 11/12/2001; p. B6.)

6. O’Neill resigned his posi­tion at the FBI in July of 2001 in protest over the obstruc­tion, and believed the Saudis to be deeply com­plicit in that obstruc­tion. (Idem.)

7. Fur­ther devel­op­ing dis­cus­sion of the French book, the pro­gram high­lights alle­ga­tions that the Tal­iban were seen as a “sta­bi­liz­ing force” in Cen­tral Asia. (“U.S. Pol­icy Towards the Tal­iban Influ­enced by Oil—Authors” by Julio Godoy; 11/15/2001; Inter Press Service.)

8. The book con­tends that the Bush admin­is­tra­tion was nego­ti­at­ing with the Tal­iban over a pipeline to carry oil from the Caspian Sea. (Idem.) It should be noted that the pro­posed pipeline was a project under­taken by Unocal—in which the elder George Bush has a stake—British Petro­leum and the Saudis.

9. So pro­found were the alleged con­nec­tions between the U.S. and the Tal­iban, that the Tal­iban had hired a female con­sul­tant as their pub­lic rela­tions rep­re­sen­ta­tive in the U.S. (Idem.)

10. This woman (Laila Helms) is, allegedly, the niece of for­mer CIA direc­tor Richard Helms. (Idem.)

11. In addi­tion, the arti­cle charges that the last meet­ing between the Tal­iban and rep­re­sen­ta­tives of the Bush admin­is­tra­tion took place five weeks before the 9/11 attacks. (Idem.)

12. Next, the broad­cast returns to the sub­ject of the Wah­habi sect of Islam and its rela­tion­ship to the Saudi power elite and the petro­leum indus­try. Shortly after the 9/11 attacks, a reveal­ing arti­cle was pub­lished in Ger­many, charg­ing that Osama Bin Laden seeks to replace the house of Saud as the prime exem­plar of Wah­habism. (“The Bat­tle Over Ibn Abdul Wah­hab” by Rainer Her­mann; Frank­furter All­ge­meine Zeitung; 9/24/2001; p. 6.)

13. Although offi­cially ostra­cized from Saudi Ara­bia and Saudi affairs, Bin Laden has met “time and time again since 1994” with his men­tor Prince Turki bin Abdul Aziz (the Saudi chief of intel­li­gence). (Idem.)

14. The arti­cle also charges that Bin Laden views Crown Prince Abdul­lah with favor. (Idem.) (Crown Prince Abdul­lah is posi­tioned to suc­ceed the ail­ing King Fahd.) It remains to be seen if the Crown Prince views Osama in a sim­i­lar light.

15. In the con­text of the alle­ga­tions in the FAZ arti­cle, it is inter­est­ing to note that Bin Laden’s alleged men­tor and liai­son was replaced as chief of Saudi intel­li­gence the week before the attacks. ( “Strains in Saudi-U.S. Rela­tions” by Patrick Tyler [New York Times]; San Fran­cisco Chron­i­cle; 9/24/2001; p. A7/ “Sta­tus Quo in the Per­sian Gulf” by Jim Hoagland; Wash­ing­ton Post; 9/9/2001; p. B7.)

16. In an appar­ently sup­pressed edit of the Jim Hoagland story from the Wash­ing­ton Post, it is stated that the Saudis can­celed sched­uled mil­i­tary maneu­vers with the United States hours before they were to begin in August. (“Mys­ter­ies in the Per­sian Gulf” by Jim Hoagland.) Accord­ing to the researcher who found this edit, it is not listed in the Post’s online archives. The national edi­tion of the paper car­ried the ver­sion of the story noted in FTR 334.)

17. In that con­text, it is impor­tant to note that, ten days before the attacks, Crown Prince Abdul­lah warned George W. Bush that his pol­icy on the Israeli-Palestinian ques­tion was “unac­cept­able.” (“Saudis Warned Bush Over Pol­icy on Israel” by Roula Kha­laf; Finan­cial Times; 10/10/2001; p. 1.)

18. In the sum­mer of 2001, the elder Bush had been in con­tact with the Saudi royal fam­ily on his son’s behalf, dis­cussing his son’s Mid­dle East pol­icy. (“Bush’s Father Con­tacts Saudis on Son’s Behalf” by Jane Per­lez; San Fran­cisco Chron­i­cle; 7/15/2001; p. A5.)

19. The Car­lyle group is an inter­na­tional equity firm that has served as a point of inter­sec­tion for Crown Prince Abdul­lah and both Georges Bush (“Elder Bush in Big G.O.P. Cast Toil­ing for Top Equity Firm” by Leslie Wayne; New York Times; 3/5/2001; pp. A1-A14.)

20. Inter­est­ingly (and per­haps sig­nif­i­cantly), it was under the aus­pices of the Car­lyle Group that Bush met with Crown Prince Abdul­lah of Saudi Ara­bia dur­ing the 2000 pres­i­den­tial cam­paign, in order to dis­cuss “American-Saudi busi­ness affairs.” (Ibid.; p. A1.) (It has been sug­gested that the increase in the price of petro­leum dur­ing the year 2000 might have been the result of delib­er­ate manip­u­la­tion. A sim­i­lar increase appears to have been engi­neered in 1979–80, in part by the elder Bush and the Saudis. The Georges Bush ben­e­fited from these respec­tive manipulations.)

21. The Car­lyle Group also employs for­mer Rea­gan sec­re­tary of defense Frank Car­lucci and Bush sec­re­tary of state James Baker. (Ibid.; p. A14.)

22. Car­lyle has also lent a hand to the younger George Bush. “Car­lyle also gave the Bush fam­ily a hand in 1990, by putting George W. Bush, who was then strug­gling to find a career, on the board of a Car­lyle sub­sidiary, Cat­erair, an airline-catering com­pany.” (Idem.)

23. It should not be for­got­ten that the Bin Laden fam­ily was also invested in Car­lyle. (“Bin Laden Fam­ily Is Tied to U.S. Group” by Daniel Golden, James Ban­dler and Mar­cus Walker; Wall Street Jour­nal; 9/27/2001; pp. A3-A6.)

24. The broad­cast then reca­pit­u­lates the fact that key Pales­tin­ian diplo­mats were pro­teges of James Baker, another Car­lyle oper­a­tive. The CIA termed them “Baker’s dozen.” (The Secret War Against the Jews: How West­ern Espi­onage Betrayed the Jew­ish Peo­ple; John Lof­tus and Mark Aarons; Copy­right 1994 [HC]; St. Martin’s Press; ISBN 0–312-11057-X; p. 476.)

25. These “mod­er­ate” Pales­tini­ans com­prised the nego­ti­at­ing team for the PLO in their peace talks with the Israelis. (Idem.)

26. In that con­text, it is inter­est­ing to note that the day that petro­leum indus­try pro­fes­sional Dick Cheney (another Bush Sr. cab­i­net offi­cer) was named as George W’s Vice-Presidential can­di­date, Yasser Arafat walked out of the Camp David peace talks that were being bro­kered by Pres­i­dent Clin­ton. (“Clin­ton Ends Dead­locked Peace Talks” by Jane Per­lez; New York Times; 7/26/2000; p. A1.; “Bush Names Cheney , Cit­ing ‘Integrity’ and ‘Expe­ri­ence’” by Frank Bruni; New York Times; 7/26/2000; p. A1.) The pos­si­bil­ity that the Republican/petroleum industry/Saudi con­nec­tion may have played a backchan­nel role in inter­dict­ing the peace talks is not a pos­si­bil­ity to be too read­ily dis­carded. The Bush/Saudi con­nec­tion appears to have helped to destroy Jimmy Carter’s elec­tion prospects in 1980. Had Pres­i­dent Clin­ton suc­cess­fully bro­kered the Israeli/Palestinian peace process, it might have very well given the 2000 elec­tion to Al Gore.) One won­ders whether there was inter­fer­ence on the part of the Republican/petroleum inter­ests to frus­trate the peace talks and, per­haps, delib­er­ately increase the price of oil.

27. The pro­gram reviews the col­lab­o­ra­tion between the Saudis, ele­ments of the CIA, the petro­leum indus­try and the elder Bush to destroy Jimmy Carter. (The Secret War Against the Jews: How West­ern Espi­onage Betrayed the Jew­ish Peo­ple; pp. 334–335; pp. 338–339.)

28. The broad­cast con­cludes with a look at some of the his­tor­i­cal con­ti­nu­ity join­ing Ger­ald Ford’s admin­is­tra­tion (under which the elder Bush allegedly helped con­coct the phony “oil pro­duc­tion” esti­mates) with the his­tor­i­cal milieu. It should be remem­bered that Richard Nixon appointed Ford to be Vice Pres­i­dent and Ford suc­ceeded Nixon. Ford appointed Bush to be CIA direc­tor. After World War II, Bush fam­ily financial/legal asso­ciate Allen Dulles helped obscure the Nazi con­nec­tions of Con­ti­nen­tal Oil chief Karl Bless­ing. (Ibid.; p. 221.)

29. Con­ti­nen­tal Oil, in turn, was con­nected to king Ibn Saud (friend of Osama Bin Laden’s father) and to the Arabian-American Oil Com­pany (Aramco). (Idem.)

30. A Dulles polit­i­cal pro­tégé and young naval offi­cer named Richard Nixon, allegedly viewed the Blessing/Continental doc­u­ments and was assisted by Allen Dulles in his polit­i­cal career in exchange for Nixon’s silence and acqui­es­cence. (Idem.)