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For The Record  

FTR #355 Ties that Bind, Part 2

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This pro­gram presents more infor­ma­tion about the 9/11 attacks, con­tin­u­ing the dis­cus­sion of the over­lap­ping milieux of oil, inter­na­tion­al finance, fas­cism, “islam­o­fas­cism” and “neo”-fascism, and explor­ing the spheres of influ­ence in which those forces behind the 9/11 attacks con­tin­ue oper­ate.

1. The pro­gram begins with descrip­tion of for­mer Third Reich defense min­is­ter Albert Speer’s account of Hitler’s vision of the anni­hi­la­tion of New York City. “As Ger­many’s defeat loomed dur­ing the final months of World War II, Adolf Hitler increas­ing­ly lapsed into delu­sion­al [?] fits of fan­ta­sy. Albert Speer, in his prison writ­ings, recounts an episode in which a mani­a­cal Hitler ‘pic­tured for him­self and for us the destruc­tion of New York in a hur­ri­cane of fire.’ The Nazi fuehrer described sky­scrap­ers turn­ing into ‘gigan­tic burn­ing torch­es, col­laps­ing upon one anoth­er, the glow of the explod­ing city illu­mi­nat­ing the dark sky.’ An approx­i­ma­tion of Hitler’s hell­ish vision came true on Sep­tem­ber 11, when ter­ror­ists destroyed the Twin Tow­ers in New York, killing near­ly 3,000 peo­ple. But it was not Nazis or even neo-Nazis who car­ried out the attack the dead­liest ter­ror strike in his­to­ry alleged­ly came at the hands of for­eign Mus­lim extrem­ists.” Still, in the after­math of the slaugh­ter, white suprema­cists in Amer­i­ca and Europe applaud­ed the sui­cide attacks and praised Osama bin Laden, the mas­ter­mind of the mas­sacre.” (“The Swasti­ka & the Cres­cent” by Mar­tin A. Lee; Intel­li­gence Report; Spring 2002 [#105].)

2. Next, the pro­gram explores fric­tion between the Unit­ed States and the EU over the freez­ing of ter­ror­ist assets appar­ent­ly linked to Al Qae­da. (“U.S.-European Divi­sions Hin­der Dri­ve to Block Ter­ror­ists’ Assets” by Michael M. Phillips and Ian John­son; Wall Street Jour­nal; 4/11/2002; p. A1.) This fric­tion may be due to the enor­mous influ­ence with­in Euro­pean finance and pol­i­tics of the Under­ground Reich and its eco­nom­ic com­po­nent, the Bor­mann orga­ni­za­tion: the major goals of the 9/11 attacks include the destruc­tion and/or sub­ju­ga­tion of the Unit­ed States, the anni­hi­la­tion of Israel and world Jew­ry, and the elim­i­na­tion of the Unit­ed States as a sig­nif­i­cant force in the Mid­dle East. Dri­ving a wedge between the U.S. and the EU would advance that goal. Trea­sury Sec­re­tary O’Neill has recent­ly been in Europe to con­vince Amer­i­ca’s “allies” that they should do more to neu­tral­ize Al Qae­da finances. (Idem.)

3. Per­haps in response to O’Neil­l’s trip, the French and Swiss have recent­ly been mov­ing to cur­tail the oper­a­tions of Yeslam Bin Laden, Osama’s wealthy sib­ling and the head of SICO. (“A Half Broth­er Under Scruti­ny” by Mark Hosen­ball [with Peg Tyre and Ali­son Lan­g­ley]; Newsweek; 4/8/2002; p. 7.) Bin Laden denies any involve­ment with his broth­er’s oper­a­tions, but oth­ers (appar­ent­ly) dis­agree with that view. (Idem.) The arti­cle also con­tains dis­cus­sion of alleged con­nec­tions between the Bin Laden fam­i­ly and Al Taqwa. (Idem.) Yeslam Bin Laden has threat­ened legal action against any­one claim­ing he was involved in his broth­er’s ter­ror­ist oper­a­tions. (Idem.)

4. In that con­text, it should be not­ed that Bin Laden’s legal rep­re­sen­ta­tives have suc­cess­ful­ly blocked pub­li­ca­tion of the Swiss edi­tion of a recent book. (“Yeslam Bin­laden Bloque la Vente en Suisse du Livre ‘La Verite Inter­dite’ by Yves Petig­nat; Le Temps; 1/26/2002.) As dis­cussed in pre­vi­ous broad­casts, the book charges that pow­er­ful Sau­di inter­ests have been cen­tral­ly involved in Islamist ter­ror­ism (Bin Laden’s oper­a­tions, in par­tic­u­lar) and that that fact has been delib­er­ate­ly obscured at the behest of pow­er­ful cor­po­rate inter­ests allied with the petro­le­um indus­try. Jean-Charles Bris­ard has charged that the edi­to­r­i­al revi­sion oblig­ed by Bin Laden’s coun­sel con­sti­tutes a fun­da­men­tal restric­tion of free­dom of expres­sion. (Idem.)

5. Explor­ing the net­work­ing through which the Islamist/Al Qae­da net­work has suc­cess­ful­ly oper­at­ed, the broad­cast high­lights an Ital­ian arti­cle about some of the petro-financ­ing con­nec­tions of the George W. Bush milieu. (“The U.S. Pres­i­den­t’s Dan­ger­ous Con­nec­tions” by Francesco Bonazzi; L’E­spres­so; 11/1/2001; p. 54.) The arti­cle fur­ther explores the milieu of Bush, his father, James R. Bath, Salem Bin Laden, Khalid Bin Mah­fouz, the BCCI and the murky world of intel­li­gence oper­a­tions. (Idem.)

6. Of par­tic­u­lar inter­est in the L’E­spres­so is the Sky­way cor­po­ra­tion, an air­craft bro­ker­age firm. “In 1976, when George Bush was appoint­ed to head the CIA, he quick­ly sold a large num­ber of the clan­des­tine ser­vices’ air­craft to a pri­vate com­pa­ny. That com­pa­ny was Sky­way, formed by James Bath, a Tex­an who had been in the mil­i­tary [reserve] with George Bush junior. Dur­ing this peri­od Bath became the U.S. rep­re­sen­ta­tive of Sau­di mil­lion­aire Salem Bin Laden, one of Osama Bin Laden’s broth­ers. In 1977, bath gained man­age­ment con­trol of the Port of Hous­ton and Bush junior found­ed Arbus­to Ener­gy. With­in twelve months, Arbus­to need­ed mon­ey, so Bath offered the com­pa­ny $50 mil­lion. In an embar­rass­ing bul­letin issued short­ly after the 9/11 attacks, the White House tried to say that Bath had invest­ed his own mon­ey in the com­pa­ny. Arbus­to’s finan­cial sit­u­a­tion wors­ened, and in 1986, after a series of merg­ers, it became Harken Ener­gy. Among its share­hold­ers and board of direc­tors: George Bush Junior. In the space of a year, Harken need­ed mon­ey. To save it from bank­rupt­cy, Sau­di banker Khalid Bin Mah­fouz inject­ed $25 mil­lion into the com­pa­ny. The trans­ac­tion was nego­ti­at­ed in great secre­cy in Gene­va. The mon­ey arrived from Unione Banc Suisse [UBS] and the Bank of Com­merce and Cred­it Inter­na­tion­al [BCCI].” (Idem.)

7. It should be not­ed that one of the finan­cial firms alleged­ly close­ly con­nect­ed to the Bin Mah­fouz financ­ing of Harken is the UBS. UBS, in turn, is strong­ly con­nect­ed to the Bor­man orga­ni­za­tion, through Inter­han­del, the Swiss-based hold­ing com­pa­ny that was formed to man­age much of the stock of I.G. Far­ben. (Mar­tin Bor­mann: Nazi in Exile; Paul Man­ning; Copy­right 1981 [HC]; Lyle Stu­art Inc.; ISBN 0–8184-0309–8; pp. 160–161.)

8. Next, the pro­gram under­scores the con­nec­tion between Fran­cois Genoud (part of the Islam­o­fas­cist milieu con­nect­ed to 9/11) and the post­war Nazi finan­cial under­ground. (“The Swasti­ka & the Cres­cent” by Mar­tin A. Lee; p. 4.) “Where did the mon­ey come from? Accord­ing to Euro­pean press accounts, Genoud was man­ag­ing the hid­den Swiss trea­sure of the Third Reich, most of which had been stolen from Jews, ‘Secu­ri­ty ser­vices claim he trans­ferred the defeat­ed Nazis’ gold into Swiss bank accounts,’ reports Git­ta Sere­ny, who called Genoud ‘the most mys­te­ri­ous man in Europe.’ ” (Idem.)

9. It should be not­ed in that con­text that all mon­ey belong­ing to the post­war Nazi trea­sure was care­ful­ly man­aged exclu­sive­ly by Bor­mann. “The ruth­less­ness that char­ac­ter­ized Mar­tin Bor­mann when he served Hitler and the Third Reich as Reich­sleit­er did not dis­ap­pear when he made it to South Amer­i­ca. Every­one want­ed in on the wealth, but he sat on it like the chair­man of a bank. ‘It belongs to the par­ty, and I am the par­ty trea­sur­er,’ he would say, and unless sums request­ed con­tributed to the growth of cor­po­rate enti­ties that his orga­ni­za­tion con­trolled, the mon­ey would remain in the banks, He want­ed no layabouts, and the news soon spread that he was a tight-fist­ed leader.” (Mar­tin Bor­mann: Nazi in Exile; p. 287.)

10. As not­ed in many of the pro­grams deal­ing with Paul Man­ning’s work on Bor­mann, Man­ning’s jour­nal­is­tic cre­den­tials are impres­sive. He was part of Edward R. Mur­row’s CBS news team that cov­ered World War II in Europe. He trained as a 50-cal­iber gun­ner on B‑17’s in order to cov­er bomb­ing raids into occu­pied Europe, and ulti­mate­ly broad­cast the sur­ren­der of Ger­many on CBS. He then trained as a gun­ner on B‑29’s, order to cov­er the air war over Japan-ulti­mate­ly broad­cast­ing the sur­ren­der of Japan on CBS. (Man­ning was the only broad­cast jour­nal­ist to broad­cast both sur­ren­der cer­e­monies. His work on Bor­mann was under­writ­ten by CBS, which ulti­mate­ly refused to broad­cast it, despite an abun­dance of doc­u­men­ta­tion from var­i­ous offi­cial sources. Sev­er­al major pub­lish­ers had con­tracts inter­dict­ed, as a result of pres­sure from the dead­ly Bor­mann orga­ni­za­tion. Those inclined to dis­miss his efforts should eval­u­ate how read­i­ly they might be ready to fol­low in his foot­steps, and do what he has done, and endure what he has endured.

11. Next, the pro­gram under­scores the fact that Sau­di Ara­bia has set aside $50 mil­lion for the fam­i­lies of Pales­tin­ian ‘mar­tyrs,’ includ­ing sui­cide bombers. “The Sau­di Com­mit­tee for Sup­port of the Al-Aqsa Intifa­da dis­trib­utes pay­ments of $5,333 to the fam­i­lies of the dead and $4,000 to each Pales­tin­ian receiv­ing med­ical treat­ment in Sau­di hos­pi­tals. The fund is man­aged by Sau­di Inte­ri­or Min­is­ter Prince Nayef fin Abdu­laz­iz, accord­ing to the embassy. The sum . . . is nonethe­less sig­nif­i­cant to the aver­age Pales­tin­ian whose annu­al income is $1, 575.” (“Sau­di Ara­bia Sets Aside $50M for ‘Mar­tyrs’ “; Unit­ed Press Inter­na­tion­al; 4/9/2002.)

12. 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.

13. The broad­cast then turns to the sub­ject of the pro­found cor­po­rate con­nec­tions between the Bin Laden milieu and the influ­ence-buy­ing that its petro­le­um-gen­er­at­ed wealth can gen­er­ate. After review­ing the con­nec­tion between Bau­doin Dunant, Fran­cois Genoud and SICO, the pro­gram high­lights the fact that one of the sub­sidiary com­pa­nies of SICO is the Daniels Real­ty Cor­po­ra­tion, a sub­sidiary of the pow­er­ful Flu­or Cor­po­ra­tion. “SICO, as the par­ent com­pa­ny of the group’s for­eign inter­ests, also has offices in Lon­don and in Cura­cao in the Dutch Antilles. The lat­ter out­post estab­lished in 1984, man­ages among oth­er things the rela­tions of the Bin Laden group with an Amer­i­can com­pa­ny, the Daniels Real­ty Cor­po­ra­tion, a sub­sidiary of the Flu­or Cor­po­ra­tion, which, through the influ­ence of the Bin Ladens, was award­ed many recon­struc­tion con­tracts in Kuwait after the Gulf War.” (In the Name of Osama Bin Laden; by Roland Jacquard; Copy­right 2002 [SC]; Duke Uni­ver­si­ty Press; ISBN 0–8223-2991–3; pp. 17–18.)

14. Much of the sec­ond side of the pro­gram is devot­ed to detailed dis­cus­sion of the Flu­or Cor­po­ra­tion’s sig­nif­i­cant involve­ment on behalf of Sau­di Ara­bia in estab­lish­ing pow­er­ful influ­ence at the Uni­ver­si­ty of South­ern Cal­i­for­nia. (The Amer­i­can House of Saud; by Steven Emer­son; Copy­right 1985 [HC]; Franklin & Watts; ISBN 0–531-09778–1; pp. 294–297.) This influ­ence, rep­re­sen­ta­tive of the petro-dol­lar con­nec­tion to many opin­ion-form­ing insti­tu­tions, was heav­i­ly protest­ed by the fac­ul­ty at USC.

15. The broad­cast then reca­pit­u­lates the fact that key Pales­tin­ian diplo­mats were pro­teges of James Bak­er, anoth­er inti­mate of the Bush/Bin Laden milieu. The CIA termed them “Bak­er’s dozen.” “. . . the CIA secret­ly brought sev­er­al mod­er­ate Pales­tini­ans to the Unit­ed States for inten­sive brief­ing. This group, code named ‘Bak­er’s Dozen,’ includ­ed most of the ‘offi­cial’ Pales­tin­ian nego­ti­at­ing team with Israel: ‘Han­nan Ashrawi, Han­na Senio­ra, Saeb Erakat, Sari Nus­seibeh and oth­er low­er rank­ing Pales­tini­ans were sum­moned to Lan­g­ley for a three day con­fer­ence on inte­grat­ing their pol­i­tics with the U.S.” (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.) Mr. Emory notes the inter­dic­tion of the 2000 Camp David peace talks, the same day that Bush named Cheney as his Vice-Pres­i­den­tial can­di­date. As pas­sions run high (and intel­lects run low) on the sub­ject of the Israeli/Palestinian con­flict, lis­ten­ers may want to note the sig­nif­i­cant pres­ence in Amer­i­can media of “Bak­er’s Dozen” — Ashrawi, Erekat and Nus­seibeh, in par­tic­u­lar.

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