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This program continues the macro-political and macro-economic analysis of the events in and around the attacks of 9/11. Beginning with discussion of an intersection between the foreign bank accounts in which Saddam Hussein placed his ill-gotten gains and the genesis of the Bank Al Taqwa, the broadcast highlights the role in both situations of Gianluca Boscaro. Boscaro died under mysterious circumstances while working to straighten out the finances looted by Saddam, and was the lawyer in whose offices Al Taqwa was formed.
Next, the program reviews speculation concerning the possibility that the depredations of the Islamofascists may be intended to precipitate a shift of the vast capital of the oil-producing Arab nations to European banks associated with far-right elites. Largely dependent on foreign investment, such an event could seriously affect American capital markets. The possibility that the war in Iraq may have seriously undermined the US position in that part of the world, to the benefit of Al Qaeda, is one to be seriously considered. Osama bin Laden’s popularity is soaring among Middle Eastern populations.
The point man for Republican Party’s insane tax-cutting proposals—which are a deadly threat to the American economy—is Grover Norquist, who is also the Islamist point man in the Republican ethnic outreach organization. Norquist’s pronouncements are very close to seditious, when he discusses his plans for government. Heightened sympathy for Al Qaeda and apparently resurgent activity may result in attacks on Eastern Seaport cities. Boding ill for the future, the program discusses the fact that the reform of the political landscape may also help the Islamofascist Muslim Brotherhood gain political ground in Middle Eastern countries. In addition, the sentiments among European intelligence agencies concerning the Iraq war may not be conducive to actively interdicting the attacks of Al Qaeda.
Program Highlights Include: France’s arrest of German al Qaeda suspect Christian Ganczanski–an event that may shed light on the organization’s operations; new disclosures concerning the AMIA bombing in Argentina that may shed light on the possible role of members of an Argentine branch of White Aryan Resistance, a group to which Timothy McVeigh may have belonged (Monzer Al-Kassar’s name has also cropped up in connection with the crime); a look at the alleged Olympics bomber’s Christian Identity beliefs—an anti-semitic hate view that binds him ideologically to the militant Islamofascists.
1. Beginning with an important correlation of elements from two past broadcasts, the program highlights the work of Swiss lawyer Gianluca Boscaro, hired to investigate the money secreted in the Banco del Gottardo by Saddam Hussein.
After the death of (Saddam financial adviser Saad) Al-Mahdi, his family hired Boscardo to investigate the missing money in the Satan account. That lawyer, Gianluca Boscaro, died under suspicious circumstances.
“ . . . Years after the death of al-Mahdi, his family decided to pursue some of the millions that had washed through the network of offshore companies. They hired Gianluca Boscaro, a Swiss lawyer, to bring a case which named, among others, Borradori’s accountant and other trustees . . . Through the legal action, Boscaro secured evidence of how, at least in part, Saddam had siphoned off a fortune and hidden it around the world. Increasingly paranoid about his own safety, Boscaro told one friend that should anything untoward happen to him, the documents should be brought to public attention.”
2.
“In the midst of the legal action in August last year, Boscaro, an adventurous man in his forties, died while taking time off from the case to relax in the foothills of the Piedmont mountains. At around 7:30 pm on a clear sunny evening, he was floating high in the sky beneath a paraglider. Suddenly the canopy seemed to stall. Boscaro plunged to his death. It is a dangerous sport and such accidents are not uncommon, but officials who examined the canopy noticed cords were damaged. Police concluded it was an accident, although friends of Boscaro dispute their findings. Accident or murder? It may never be known. But for Saddam, the end was nearing. Within months, coalition troops were on their way to Kuwait. However, the many millions Saddam siphoned off for his own purposes may never be fully traced, let alone recovered.”
(Idem.)
3. Reviewing the story of the founding of Al Taqwa, the program reviews the founding of the bank at the offices of Gianluca Boscaro. Note that the principal players of the Al Taqwa milieu were present at this gathering, and that the Islamofascist milieu and Saddam were (to a certain extent) utilizing some of the same financial vehicles. It is Mr. Emory’s view that–to a certain extent—this relationship reflects what might be termed “tax haven real-politik.” In addition, the relationship may well be symptomatic of the Underground Reich’s use of Islamofascism and secular Arabo-fascism to wage proxy war against the US and Israel.
“On July 21, 1988, at the bureau of a Lugano-based notary named Gianluca Boscaro gathered Huber, the Swiss professor (Hochschulleher) Mohammed Mansour and his wife Zeinab Mansour Fattouh, as well as the Tunisian Youssef Nada and Ali Ghaleb Himmat, who both live in the Italian enclave of Campione d’Italia in Switerland. Himmat had come from Damascus in 1958 and first settled down in Germany and then in Austria. The Alexandrian-born Egyptian Nada two years later came first to Austria and then to Germany. Nada’s oldest daughter married the son of the director of the Islamist center in Aachen, al-Attar Issam, who is considered by the German Office for the Protection of the Constitution (Verfassungschutz) one of the most dangerous Islamists in Germany. Nada later settled down in Ticino (Tessin). Both Nada and Himmat are members of the Muslim Brotherhood and in the 1990’s both took Italian citizenship.”
(“Report on Islamists, The Far Right, and Al Taqwa” by Kevin Coogan.)
4. As a prelude to discussion of the implications of the events in and around 9/11 for the American investment climate, the broadcast reviews speculative discussion from the Coogan essay about Al Taqwa and the far right.
“The overwhelming thrust of this report has been to give the reader a great deal of empirical information that he or she may not have easy access to in order that they may evaluate the claims for themselves. I have avoided drawing any conclusions because I do not feel qualified to draw conclusions about the Islamist financial machinations this report discusses. However I find it impossible not to put out a call for further research involving the overlap between Nazi and Islamist networks that seem to have been in continual contact from the 1930s until today. In the case of Genoud, Huber, and Ramadan, this is becoming more and more impossible to avoid.”
(Ibid.; p. 15.)
5.
“My own belief is that it is less the apparently fantastic and ‘James Bond’-like quality of this analysis that is most difficult to understand. The real difficulty is the utter ignorance of most Westerners (Americans in particular) about the very existence of such people as Francois Genoud. Thus when Ernst Backes, one of Europe’s leading experts in money laundering, told the Luxemourg-based economic journal Plus Minus last year that he believed the financial source of funds for the 9/11 terrorists would ultimately be traced back to Swiss bank accounts established by Genoud, few Americans had any idea what Backes could possibly be talking about. For this same reason there has been virtually no independent investigation into SICO’s Baudoin Dunand’s relationship to Genoud or (for that matter) the role of Syrian-born Muhammad Mardam Bay (believed to be related to a former Syrian foreign minister) has played both as a member of Magnin, Dunand & Associates as well as Bay’s possible links with Genoud. And what does it mean when we are told that Youssef Nada, for example, is believed by Egyptian authorities to have worked for German intelligence in World War II?”
(Idem.)
6.
“It is not at all impossible that networks first developed in the 1930’s and who saw their economic power fantastically multiplied in the wake of the enormous hike in oil prices in 1973 are now engaged in trying to enact a major financial shift away from the dollar and Anglo-American financial networks and to shift the vast wealth of the Muslim oil states into a new Euro-based financial network that would vastly increase the power of those banks and financial interests in Europe associated with elements of far right elites that survived World War II relatively intact.”
(Idem.)
7.
“If this were at all the case, it would not be a new development. The very same attempt to develop an independent Saudi-German hookup to subvert the U.S. and British domination of the Saudi oil markets was actually attempted in the mid-1950’s. At that time, the Saudi royal family—using the advise of the famous German banker Hjalmar Schacht—attempted to employ Aristotle Onassis to transport Saudi oil on new oil tankers that would be constructed in the shipyards of Germany. This attempt to break the Western oil control over Saudi Arabia was finally blocked by the United States, a story well documented in Jim Hougan’s book Spooks (New York: William Morrow, 1978.)”
(Ibid.; pp. 15–16.)
8.
“The documentation regarding this complex question is there for anyone who wants to examine it. Of course I am NOT attempting to suggest a simple mono-causal explanation for the current crisis. What I am suggesting is that sooner or later these connections between the far right and groups like the Muslim Brotherhood that began in the 1930’s and continue today will have to become the subject of serious and sober research in order to help us shed new light on the extraordinary circumstances we are living under today.”
(Ibid.; p. 16.)
9. Detailing the attempt at gaining control of the Saudi oil wealth alluded to in the conclusion of Kevin’s paper on the von Dohnanyi book, the broadcast sets forth the maneuvering of former Third Reich finance minister Hjalmar Schacht. In particular, note Robert Maheu’s discussion of how difficult it was to convince Allen Dulles’ CIA that “the national interest was at stake.” Recall that Dulles was at the core of the Transatlantic financial and industrial axis that lay at the core of the decisively important structural economic relationship between the Wall Street, the Third Reich and the postwar Underground Reich.
“Another key figure involved in German intrigue in the Middle East was Hjalmar Schacht. He first came to Egypt as General Naguib’s ‘guest of honor’ after the coup against King Farouk. Schacht’s most daring Middle East power-play was the ‘Jiddah Agreement’ between German industry and Saudi Arabia in January 1954. Under the terms of the deal, Saudi Arabia agreed to establish a fleet of supertankers to be built in German shipyards) that would carry Saudi oil around the world. Aristotle Onassis was chosen to manage the shipping side of the operation. Besides making the Ruhr industrialists fantastically wealthy, Jiddah threatened to break the ‘Seven Sisters’ oil companies’ hegemony over the distribution of Middle East oil. The Jiddah Agreement was ultimately blocked by the Western oil cartel with help from the CIA. Yet Allen Dulles’s CIA was surprisingly hesitant to confront Schacht. Robert Maheu, one of the coordinators of the American attack on Jiddah, said of the CIA: ‘You can’t imagine how hard it was to convince them that the national interest was at stake.’ [Emphasis added.]”
(Dreamer of the Day: Francis Parker Yockey and the Postwar Fascist International; Kevin Coogan; Copyright 1999 [SC]; Autonomedia; ISBN 1–57027-039–2; p. 383.)
10. In the context of the discussion above, consider the implications of the events in and around 9/11 for the US economic investment and economic landscape.
“For years, the US has been viewed as the most attractive region for global investors, but concerns about the economy, the weak dollar and corporate governance may be changing that. A rush to the exit doors by overseas investors would be a huge blow to Wall Street and the fragile economy. That’s because overseas investors own about 45 per cent of all US government bonds, 35 percent of corporate bonds and 12 per cent of equity holdings.”
(“Wall St. Wary of Rush to the Exits” by Mary Chung; Financial Times; 5/31–6/1/2003; p. 12.)
11.
“The stock market has already seen a withdrawal of overseas funds because of the three-year bear market. But those losses in stocks have been offset by a heavy rotation of money into US government and corporate bonds. But the current danger is that overseas investors will reduce their US asset holdings or pull out completely amid increasing doubts about the commitment of the administration of President George W. Bush to a strong dollar. Those doubts were compounded by the apparent unconcern of John Snow, Treasury Secretary, to the greenback’s sharp slide. While the White House may be playing down the drop, Wall Street is taking notice. The worry is that overseas investors will find little incentive to keep funds in the US, especially if the dollar continues to falter. Clark Winter, global investment strategist at Citigroup Private Bank, said overseas investors are finding alternatives to the US, which has long been viewed as the region to ‘park’ money.”
(Idem.)
12. Reprising a major theme, the broadcast discusses the fiscal suicide being imposed on the United States by the Bush administration.
“ . . . Of course, the big betrayal was George W. Bush’s decision to push this tax cut in the first place. There is no longer any doubt that the man who ran as a moderate in the 2000 election is actually a radical who wants to undo much of the Great Society and New Deal . . .”
(“Duped and Betrayed” by Paul Krugman; The New York Times; 6/6/2003; p. 2.)
13. As discussed in numerous programs, Grover Norquist is of paramount interest in the For The Record series as the point man for the administration’s suicidal tax cutting policies and as the principal contact point for the Islamists on the GOP ethnic outreach organization. In addition to slashing taxes, he is integrating the Islamofascist enemies of this country into its political establishment, even as they are engaging the country and a potentially costly war against the peoples of the Earth Island.
“ . . . Grover Norquist, the right-wing ideologue who has become one of the most powerful men in Washington, once declared: ‘I don’t want to abolish government. I simply want to reduce it to the size where I can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub.’ Mr. Bush has made a pretty good start on that plan.”
(Idem.)
14. The War on Terror may be heading into a more active and vigorous (and more costly) mode.
“Alsaha.com seems innocent enough. The Abu Dhabi-based Web site offers bulletin boards where Arabic speakers can advertise for wives and exchange messages about sports, politics and the true meaning of Jihad. Since the 9–11 attacks, however, the CIA and FBI have closely monitored Alsaha.com as a kind of terrorist early-warning system. The reason: on Sept. 9, 2001, a message appeared on the Alsaha Web site proclaiming that, in the next two days, a ‘big surprise’ was coming from the Saudi Arabian region of Asir, the remote, mountainous province that produced most of the 19 hijackers who struck on September 11.”
15.
“So last week, Newsweek has learned, the U.S. intelligence community grew more than a little alarmed when it discovered another cryptic posting on Alsaha.com ‘Oh brothers, further attacks are to come in the next 48 hours,’ it read. ‘All good Muslims in New York, Boston and other cities on the seacoast should leave.’ Was this a starting gun to sleeper cells to spring into action? Another oracle that chaos was about to erupt in America’s crowded Northeast corridor? The counterterror analysts were unsure. The FBI and CIA had no other direct warnings of an attack, and analysts could not rule out the possibility that the terrorists were planting disinformation to stir panic. Yet the terrorist ‘chatter’ level was on the rise again. Electronic intercepts from tapped phones and spy satellites suggested that Al Qaeda operatives around the world were planning something.”
(Idem.)
16. It will be many years before the substantive results of the Iraq war are evident. One of the fears that Mr. Emory has expressed about the Iraq situation concerns the possibility that the war is a trap set by the Underground Reich—designed to lure the U.S. into a conflict with the Muslim population of the Earth Island and (ultimately) its economic and/or physical destruction. The observations of the head of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt are worth noting in this regard. It is doubtful that the U.S. will acquiesce in the ascension of either the Muslim Brotherhood or militant Shiites associated with Iran. Should the advent of democracy in Iraq (or elsewhere) lead to such an eventuality, the results are likely to be altogether unpleasant.
“ . . . Yet with only a day to organize, the Muslim Brotherhood got tens of thousands of mourners to show up. ‘We have cellphones and the Internet and we live in the modern world,’ says the dead leader’s deputy, Mamun Hodaibi. ‘There was no secret to getting the word out.’ This organizational strength, despite years of suppression, spotlights a powerful conundrum in the Middle East. President Bush hopes that by establishing a representative government in Baghdad, the U.S. will spark a wave of democratic reform in other authoritarian nations in the region. Among other benefits, such a movement, by giving voice to the masses, might lessen the odds of their turning toward malign revolutionaries such as Al Qaeda. Yet the groups that are most organized, broad-based, and best positioned to benefit from any creeping Middle East democracy are Islamic fundamentalist forces such as the Muslim Brotherhood. They are the political elements the U.S. would least like to encourage. ‘I’m sure George Bush never meant to help us,’ says Mr. Nodaibi, 83 years old. ‘But he did.’”
(“If Iraq War Opens Mideast Politically, Islamists Are Ready” by Christopher Cooper; The Wall Street Journal; 5/1/2003; p. A1.)
17. The Iraq invasion appears to have been very destructive to America’s image in the Middle East, and that, in turn appears to have benefited the fortunes of Al Qaeda.
“In the year that the US has fought terrorism, toppled a Middle Eastern dictatorship and launched a peace initiative between Israelis and Palestinians, its standing in the Muslim world has collapsed. A survey published yesterday by the Pew Global Attitudes Project also suggests the Iraq war had widened the rift between western Europeans and Americans and softened international support for the war on terrorism. ‘The bottom has fallen out of support for America in most of the Muslim world,’ reports the organization after a survey last month of international public opinion.”
(“Muslims Reveal Fear and Loathing of America” by James Politi; Financial Times; 6/4/2003; p. 1.)
18.
“As President George W. Bush met Arab leaders yesterday, the polls in the Palestinian Authority and Jordan revealed only 1 percent of the population held favorable views of the US . . . The survey suggests many Muslims feel threatened by the U.S. In Pakistan, whose government supports Mr. Bush’s ‘war on terrorism,’” 73 percent of the population are ‘very’ or ‘somewhat’ worried about a military threat from the US. Osama bin Laden, the leader of the al-Qaeda terrorist network, won significant backing as the leader most capable of ‘doing the right thing regarding world affairs.’ Among Palestinians, Mr. bin Laden topped the poll with 71 percent saying they had ‘a lot’ or ‘some’ confidence in him.”
(Idem.)
19.
“Shrewd recruiting of new, young militants has allowed Al-Qaida to re-establish itself here in Osama bin Laden’s homeland and around the world as an elusive and deadly threat that is seeking to launch new attacks in the United States and other countries, many U.S. officials now believe.”
(“Al-Qaida Regaining Strength, Officials Fear” by Josh Meyer [Los Angeles Times]; The San Jose Mercury News; 6/1/2003; p. 18A.)
20. Should the resentments felt by security forces in other countries over the Iraq incursion, it could lead to a slow down in the effectiveness of attempts to interdict al Qaeda operations.
“Not only has Al-Qaida survived the U.S.-led crackdown against it, it has also found loopholes in the tactics of its pursuers and is exploiting them, according to interviews with U.S. officials here and in Washington. Of particular concern, these officials say, are indications that the terrorist network has infiltrated an unknown number of essentially untraceable operatives into the United States. Some of them are believed to be planning suicide bombings of ‘soft targets’ such as subways within the next several months, U.S. officials said.”
(Idem.)
21. Declining views of US foreign policy have also been evident in Europe. Should European security interests slacken in their willingness to pursue Al Qaeda elements, it could significantly increase the danger to US forces and interests.
“Shay Berry has made plenty of trips to Europe, but last week he saw a few new things in Berlin: the Bundestag, the Brandenburg Gate—and some pretty overt anti-Americanism. As the visitor from New York sat in a West Berlin bar, a man asked whether he and his friends were American, and then said, ‘I just want you to know I really hope Sept. 11 happens again.’”
(“Tourists Get a Euro-Trashing” by Keith Johnson and Paul Glader; The Wall Street Journal; 2/28/2003; p. W1.)
22. Huber recently attended a meeting of European far-rightists in Switzerland which characterized the growing alliance between the European Far Right and Islamofascists. This also may hold serious consequences for the future of the war on terror. There are numerous connections between the racist right in a number of countries (including the US) and the Al Taqwa/Al Qaeda milieu.
“Perhaps the most recent remarkable story concerning Huber comes from a brief item in the Swiss tabloid Blick that in an April 26, 2002 article by Alexander Sautter that Huber was involved in a meeting of far-right leaders from Europe. A photo showing Huber with Jean Marie Le Pen accompanies the article. The Blick story (available on the web) is as follows: Mon Pelerin VD: Christian Cambuzat, the promoter (Scharfmacher) of the right extremist Jean-Marie Le Pen (73): The guru assembles together some of the top leaders of the European right. On the idyllic Mont Pelerin, they debate their crude ideas. At his secret visit to a spa in Switzerland, Le Pen hardly remained alone. Rightist leaders from all over Europe traveled to meet the extremist presidential candidate who was hosted by Cambuzat. Franz Schonhuber (79). Founder of the Republican Party in Germany and a former member of the SS. He talked with Le Pen who constitutes together with Schonhuber the ‘Front National’ Faction in the European parliament. Gianfranco Fini (50). Italian post-fascist, Mussolini admirer, and founder of the Alleanze Nationale. He also was at the meeting with Le Pen and Schonhuber. Ahmed Huber (74). The Swiss is on the Bush Administration blacklist . . . ‘I met le Pen at Mont Pelerin as he went to Christian Cambuzat’s spa,’ Huber told Blick yesterday. At the extremist rendezvous an American far right politician was also supposed to have taken part. [Note: the American is not further identified.—KC] Christian Cambuzat said that Le Pen (after the election) had again become the sharpest weapon of the ‘Front National’ because Le Pen changed his image from a venomous old man to a ‘kindly U.S. TV evangelist.’ Proudly Cambuzat brags, ‘With me Le Pen can relax well’ [from his political endeavors—KC]. And openly link up with new contacts. [Although the Blick story does not give details, Cambuzat runs a spa for the very rich, the Lemanique de Revitalisation, inside a hotel on the famous Mont Pelerin.]”
(Report on Islamists, the Far Right and Al Taqwa; pp. 14–15.)
23. Christian Ganczarski, an apparently important Al Qaeda operative, has been arrested in France after his suspiciously gentle handling by both Saudi and German authorities.
“French counter-terrorism investigators Friday were questioning a German suspected of taking part in the Al Qaeda bombing of a Tunisian synagogue last year and of having ties to the Hamburg cell that plotted the Sept. 11 attacks. The arrest Monday of Christian Ganczarski, a 36-year-old convert to Islam, was part of a French operation this week targeting potentially dangerous extremists who have eluded capture although they were known associates of the 9/11 plotters.”
(“France Interrogating Two Al Qaeda Suspects” by Sebastian Rotella; Los Angeles Times; 6/7/2003; p. A3.)
24.
“The day before Ganczarski’s capture at Charles de Gaulle Airport, French police at the airport arrested Karim Mehdi, a 34-year-old Moroccan living in Germany. Mehdi had arrived from Germany and planned to catch a flight to Reunion Island a French territory and vacation spot in the Indian Ocean east of Madagascar. He allegedly planned to take part in terrorist attacks there, according to Laurent Gerard of the French Interior Ministry. Mehdi knew some of the Sept. 11 hijackers and their Hamburg accomplices, authorities said. He was arraigned Thursday night in a separate French investigation of the attacks, which was opened on behalf of four French victims who died in the World Trade Center, according to a senior French law enforcement official . . .”
(Idem.)
25.
“Mehdi and Ganczarski know each other from the German city of Duisburg, where both lived, investigators said. Like a number of converts involved in Al Qaeda, the German was ferociously militant and his ethnicity made him especially valuable as a clandestine operative investigators say. . . About a month ago, Ganczarski and his family traveled to Saudi Arabia—an odd destination given that he was publicly known as a suspected extremist and travel by Westerners is carefully regulated by Saudi authorities. European investigators were initially disgruntled by the Saudis’ seeming tolerance of his presence but last weekend he was ‘more or less expelled’ by Saudi authorities to France where police were waiting for him at the airport Monday night the French official said.”
(Idem.)
26. In several previous programs, we have analyzed evidentiary tributaries running between the AMIA bombing in 1994, the first World Trade Center bombing, the Oklahoma City bombing and Monzer Al Kassar. The Argentine government is now opening up those files.
“Argentina will release long-secret intelligence files on the 1994 bombing of a Jewish community center here, the government of President Nestor Kirchner announced, opening a new chapter in the investigation of the bloodiest act of anti-Semitism in Latin American history. Previous administrations strongly resisted cooperation between the Secretariat of State intelligence and prosecutors investigating the bombing of the Argentine Israelite Mutual association which killed 85 people. ‘The most important news of the last nine years of our effort to find the truth,”Abraham Kaul, president of the mutual association said at a news conference late Thursday after a meeting with Kirchner and the new intelligence secretary, Sergio Acevedo. ‘The president is determined to solve this case.’”
(“Argentina to Open Intelligence Files on 1994 Bombing” by Hector Tobar; Los Angeles Times; A3.)
27. The program concludes with an apparent shift of focus on the part of American white extremists from targeting blacks to targeting Jews as their main enemies.
“. . . These days, says [Mark] Potok [of the Southern Poverty Law Center] Jews have replaced blacks the enemy of extremist groups. Loy Witherspoon, professor emeritus of religious studies at the University of North Carolina-Charlotte and an ordained Untied Methodist Minister, mentioned the Ku Klux Klan and its violent mix of racism and Christianity. More timely, he spoke of terrorists who the Koran for violent ends and their own political gain. Of the movements that justify violence by their reading of scriptures, Witherspoon said, ‘People get caught up in these groups and become convinced.”
(“Bombing Suspect Said to be Motivated by Religious Venom” by Ken Garfield [Knight Ridder]; San Jose Mercury News 6/8/2003; p. 4A.)
Discussion
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