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Con­tin­u­ing dis­cus­sion of the 9/11 attacks, this pro­gram presents new mate­r­ial and reviews infor­ma­tion touched on in pre­vi­ous programs.

1. Cen­tral to the dis­cus­sion in this broad­cast is the Car­lyle Group. One of the most suc­cess­ful invest­ment firms in the world, Car­lyle is an orga­ni­za­tion that cements the Bush fam­ily, key offi­cials from the Rea­gan and George H.W. Bush admin­is­tra­tions to the “Petrodol­lar” milieu of which the Bin Laden fam­ily is an inte­gral part.

The program’s sub­ti­tle is a direct, pro­foundly respect­ful ref­er­ence to the title of an impor­tant and dis­turb­ing arti­cle about the Car­lyle Group in the respected busi­ness pub­li­ca­tion Red Her­ring. (“Carlyle’s Way” by Dan Briody; Red Her­ring; 1/8/2002.)

“Like every­one else in the United States, the group stood trans­fixed as the events of Sep­tem­ber 11 unfolded. Present were for­mer sec­re­tary of defense Frank Car­lucci, for­mer sec­re­tary of state James Baker III, and rep­re­sen­ta­tives of the Bin Laden fam­ily. This was not some under­ground pres­i­den­tial bunker or Cen­tral Intel­li­gence Agency inter­ro­ga­tion room. It was the Ritz-Carlton in Wash­ing­ton, C.C., the plush set­ting for the annual investor con­fer­ence of one of the most pow­er­ful, well-connected, and secre­tive com­pa­nies in the world: the Car­lyle Group. And since Sep­tem­ber 11, this little-known com­pany has become unex­pect­edly impor­tant. That the Car­lyle Group had its con­fer­ence on America’s dark­est day was mere coin­ci­dence, but there is noth­ing acci­den­tal about the cast of char­ac­ters that this private-equity pow­er­house has assem­bled in the 14 years since its found­ing. Among those asso­ci­ated with Car­lyle are for­mer U.S. Pres­i­dent George Bush Sr. [as well as George W. Bush] . . . and Osama bin Laden’s estranged fam­ily. . . And as the Car­lyle investors watched the World Trade tow­ers go down, the group’s prospects went up.” (Idem.)

2. Before return­ing to the remark­able arti­cle from Red Her­ring, the pro­gram high­lights a cou­ple of other points of infor­ma­tion. FTR#334 high­lights the fact the Bin Laden fam­ily were flown out of the United States the day after the attacks, before they could be inter­viewed by the FBI. This pro­gram sets forth more spe­cific infor­ma­tion. Twelve mem­bers of the fam­ily were flown out of the coun­try the day after the attacks, allegedly with the clear­ance of the CIA. (“Amer­ica, Afghanistan & the Con­trar­ian” by Christo­pher Hitchens; San Jose Mer­cury News; 1/27/2002; p. 5C.)

3. The pro­gram also reviews infor­ma­tion pre­sented in FTR#343. Author Richard Labeviere quotes a Euro­pean mil­i­tary attache sta­tioned in the Per­sian Gulf for many years.

“Con­trary to its recur­ring denials, the Bin Laden fam­ily never cut its ties with Osama, the prodi­gal son. In spite of his loss of Saudi nationality-which was announced in response to inter­na­tional requirements-Osama always relied on the fam­ily group to con­clude the train­ing and the many relo­ca­tions of his ‘Afghan’ mer­ce­nar­ies. These suc­ces­sive rede­ploy­ments were always car­ried out at the insti­ga­tion of Turki and in con­nec­tion with his CIA con­tacts. Among his many activ­i­ties, the chief of the Saudi secret ser­vice, endowed with a power that cuts across many fields, polit­i­cally super­vises the allo­ca­tion of State con­tracts and always gives pref­er­ence to the Bin Laden Group and ensures it the best terms of pay­ment. This metic­u­lous care partly explains the finan­cial power of the ‘Banker of the Jihad’ . . . Still today [1999], Prince Turki, the con­strained friend of the CIA, and his secret ser­vice, make abun­dant use of Osama bin Laden’s net­works, whereas the fed­eral court of New York has issued an inter­na­tional war­rant for his arrest. . .Tak­ing into account the close ties between the United States and Saudi Ara­bia, it is incon­ceiv­able that Bin Laden remains beyond reach! Bin Laden’s net­works, with all their many branches, also enjoy the active sup­port of the Mus­lim Broth­ers. The pow­er­ful reli­gious fra­ter­nity never refused to put its mil­i­tary and finan­cial logis­tics at the dis­posal of the Saudi billionaire.”

(Dol­lars for Ter­ror: The United States and Islam; Richard Labeviere; Copy­right 2000 [SC]; Algora Pub­lish­ing; ISBN 1–892941-06–6; pp. 117–118.)

Mr. Emory notes that the CIA (not to men­tion the rest of the U.S. intel­li­gence com­mu­nity) is not mono­lithic. For Labaviere’s use of the term “CIA,” one might well sub­sti­tute the term “petroleum-related fac­tion of U.S. intelligence.”

4. The dis­cus­sion then returns to the vitally impor­tant arti­cle about the Car­lyle Group. Mr. Briody reports that the 9/11 attacks resulted in the res­ur­rec­tion of the Cru­sader self-propelled how­itzer, a Carlyle-owned project and one that enriches the dis­trict of Repub­li­can J.C. Watts. (Idem.) It is worth not­ing that, among the major areas of Carlyle’s inter­est is Korea-an invest­ment under­tak­ing heav­ily pro­moted by the Senior George Bush. (Idem.)

It should be noted in that con­text that North Korea was recently cited by George W. as part of the “axis of evil” that his admin­is­tra­tion would focus on. Mr. Emory spec­u­lates that the inclu­sion of North Korea in his speech may have been an echo of Ronald Reagan’s “Evil Empire” speech refer­ring to the Soviet Union.

Reagan’s mil­i­tary buildup and war-mongering rhetoric were designed to destroy the Soviet Union by forc­ing it to attempt to match the U.S. mil­i­tary buildup and, in so doing, bank­rupt itself. It should be noted that Car­lyle is quite explicit about using its gov­ern­ment con­nec­tions to do business.

“In run­ning what its own mar­ket­ing lit­er­a­ture spook­ily calls ‘a vast, inter­lock­ing, global net­work of busi­nesses and invest­ment pro­fes­sion­als’ that oper­ates within the so-called iron tri­an­gle of indus­try, gov­ern­ment, and the mil­i­tary, the Car­lyle Group leaves itself open to any num­ber of con­flicts of inter­est and stun­ning ironies.” (Idem.)

5. The pro­gram then pro­ceeds to a review of the inter­twin­ing of the busi­ness and terror-promoting inter­ests of the Bin Laden and Bin Mah­fouz fam­i­lies, excerpt­ing an arti­cle that was one of the cen­tral ele­ments of FTR#342. (“Im Wun­der­land des Has­ses”; by Johannes von Dohnanyi; Welt­woche; Aus­gabe 01/2002.)

Of par­tic­u­lar sig­nif­i­cance in the analy­sis of the Al Qaeda milieu is the pres­ence at its core of mem­bers of the Bin Mah­fouz fam­ily, (like the Bin Ladens) one of the most pow­er­ful fam­i­lies of Saudi Ara­bia. (Idem.) Closely con­nected to the failed BCCI, Khalid Bin Mah­fouz is report­edly mar­ried to Osama Bin Laden’s sister!(Idem.) The Bin Mah­fouz and Bin Laden fam­i­lies have a num­ber of busi­ness oper­a­tions together, includ­ing the Car­lyle group. (Idem.) Mr. Emory notes that the sig­nif­i­cance of the pres­ence of mem­bers of the vast Bin Laden and Bin Mah­fouz fam­i­lies in busi­ness inter­ests involv­ing mem­bers of the Bush fam­ily lies in the fact that this involve­ment con­notes the “petrodol­lar” milieu dis­cussed in FTR#345.) The actual dol­lar amount of the invest­ment of any given indi­vid­ual in these fam­i­lies is rel­a­tively unimportant.

6. Next, the pro­gram reprises dis­cus­sion of the con­nec­tion of James R. Bath to all three fam­i­lies. Like the Bin Laden fam­ily, the Bin Mah­fouz fam­ily was rep­re­sented in North Amer­ica by James R. Bath, an orig­i­nal investor in Arbusto Energy, George W. Bush’s first energy com­pany. (The Mafia, CIA & George Bush; by Pete Brew­ton; SPI Books; Copy­right 1992 [HC]; ISBN 1–56171-203–5; p. 219; pp. 221–222.)

7. The inter­lock­ing busi­ness inter­ests of the Bush, Bin Laden and Bin Mah­fouz groups are worth not­ing in the con­text of the fact that a num­ber of Bin Mah­fouz fam­ily bank accounts are under scrutiny in con­nec­tion with Sep­tem­ber 11. (“Saudi Ara­bia Is Mon­i­tor­ing Key Bank Accounts” by James M. Dorsey; Wall Street Jour­nal; 2/6/2002; p. A10.)

8. The fam­ily that “preys” together stays together. The pro­gram reviews an ele­ment of dis­cus­sion from FTR#346. Bush’s edu­ca­tion pro­gram may well ben­e­fit his brother Neil and his Saudi busi­ness asso­ciates. FTR#345 pre­sented infor­ma­tion about a recent con­fer­ence in Jed­dah, Saudi Ara­bia, at which the Bin Ladens (among oth­ers) expressed anx­i­ety about their U.S. busi­ness ties. Bush’s younger brother Neil was using that (in part) Bin Laden-sponsored con­fer­ence to recruit Saudi investors for his new edu­ca­tional soft­ware com­pany, which fig­ures to be a ben­e­fi­ciary of his brother’s edu­ca­tion pro­gram. (“Neil Bush’s Saudi Busi­ness Con­nec­tion” by Michael Isikoff; Newsweek; 2/4/2002; p. 6.) It is worth not­ing that another of the spon­sors of the con­fer­ence was Prince Alwaleed, a major player in Car­lyle Group, as well as an asso­ciate of Youss­eff Nada. (For more about the Nada, Alwaleed con­nec­tion, see FTR#343. For more about Nada, see FTR#‘s 335, 336, 340, 342.)

9. The cozy rela­tion­ship between the Bushes and the fam­i­lies of America’s mor­tal ene­mies is worth not­ing, in that another attendee at the Jed­dah con­fer­ence, for­mer Pres­i­dent Clin­ton, point­edly dis­in­vited the Bin Laden fam­ily and Prince Alwaleed to his address. (Idem.) Clinton’s speech crit­i­cized the Saudi stance with regard to its own Islamic fun­da­men­tal­ists and also crit­i­cized the PLO over its unwill­ing­ness to arrive at a peace set­tle­ment with the Israelis. (“Jed­dah Busi­ness­men Frus­trated by Tense Rela­tions with U.S.” by Roula Kha­laf; Finan­cial Times; 1/21/2002; p. 5.)

10. In that con­text, it is inter­est­ing to con­tem­plate the fact that the PLO is financed by Saudi Ara­bia, pos­sess­ing more for­eign cur­rency reserves than many Third World coun­tries. (The King­dom: Ara­bia and the House of Sa’ud; Robert Lacey; Copy­right 1981 [HC]; Har­court Brace Jovanovich; ISBN 0–15-147260–2; p. 446.) It is note­wor­thy that this wealth does not appear to “trickle down” to the Pales­tin­ian peo­ple. In addi­tion, the Saudis, like other Arab (and Mus­lim) nations, divert atten­tion to the Israeli/Palestinian con­flict in an attempt to scape­goat Israel (and Jews) for their own fis­cal problems.

11. It is also worth not­ing that the stan­dard of liv­ing for the aver­age Saudi is declin­ing, amidst grow­ing finan­cial cor­rup­tion. (“Saudi Deficit Mys­tery Sym­bol­izes Frus­tra­tion” by Roula Kha­laf; Finan­cial Times; 1/28/2002; p. 5.)

12. Next, the pro­gram explores in greater depth a topic of dis­cus­sion touched on in FTR#346. This sub­ject serves to fur­ther under­score the inex­tri­ca­ble rela­tion­ship between the for­eign, domes­tic, eco­nomic and mil­i­tary impli­ca­tions of the Sep­tem­ber 11 attacks. The pro­gram returns to the sub­ject of the reprisal against the Al Shifa phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal plant for the attacks on U.S. embassies in August of 1998. Repris­ing a point pre­sented in FTR#346, Mr. Emory notes that the Al Shifa attack was attrib­uted by the Mus­lim Broth­er­hood to Clinton’s desire to dis­tract from his domes­tic prob­lems stem­ming from the Lewin­sky scan­dal. (Dol­lars for Ter­ror.; p. 367.)

13. Mr. Emory then sets forth a cyn­i­cal, Machi­avel­lian rela­tion­ship between the Repub­li­can estab­lish­ment, the Israeli right, and the Pales­tin­ian nego­ti­at­ing team. It is Mr. Emory’s view that this rela­tion­ship was instru­men­tal in desta­bi­liz­ing Clinton’s for­eign pol­icy and weak­en­ing his domes­tic polit­i­cal consensus.

14. The Repub­li­cans tried to move the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. Yitzhak Rabin and Clin­ton viewed this as inim­i­cal to the peace process, and the leg­is­la­tion passed by the Repub­li­can dom­i­nated Con­gress was vetoed. (Ibid.; p. 167.) Sub­se­quently, Rabin was assas­si­nated. Mr. Emory notes that Ben­jamin Netanyahu (who suc­ceeded Rabin) was almost indicted for incite­ment in the murder.

In 1998, as Clin­ton was deal­ing with the Mon­ica Lewin­sky scan­dal, Newt Gin­grich was cater­ing to the Israeli right, under­min­ing U.S. pol­icy with a speech in the Knes­set (the Israeli par­lia­ment) which directly coun­tered the administration’s pol­icy. Also in 1998, a rep­re­sen­ta­tive of the Likud party (to which Sharon and Netanyahu belong) was present at the con­gress of the Allianza Nationale, the Ital­ian fas­cist party and heir to Mussolini’s fascisti. (Netanyahu’s father, one of his clos­est polit­i­cal advis­ers, was the per­sonal sec­re­tary of the Betar, the fas­cist ele­ment in the Zion­ist move­ment.) There are indi­ca­tions that the Lewin­sky scan­dal was being exploited by a right-wing ele­ment of Israeli intelligence.

In the spring of 2000, Ariel Sharon was meet­ing with for­mer U.S. ambas­sador to Italy Maxwell Rabb and Sil­vio Berlus­coni, whose gov­ern­ment includes the Allianza Nationale. In the sum­mer of 2000, the Camp David nego­ti­a­tions failed, after Yasser Arafat walked out of the talks. (This occurred on the same day that Bush named Cheney as his run­ning mate.)

15. The pro­gram con­cludes with review of “Baker’s Dozen” the so-called “mod­er­ate” Pales­tini­ans who com­prised the PLO nego­ti­at­ing team. (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.) These “mod­er­ates” were polit­i­cal and diplo­matic pro­teges of James Baker, who watched the col­lapse of the World Trade Cen­ter tow­ers with his Car­lyle Group part­ners the Bin Ladens. One should not over­look the pos­si­bil­ity that the peace talks were delib­er­ately sab­o­taged by the Repub­li­cans and their fas­cist and intelligence-connected allies to deny Al Gore the cam­paign issue of a suc­cess­ful Demo­c­ra­tic bro­ker­ing of the Mid­dle East peace process.