November 7, 2001
3:56 PM   Subscribe

What really happened in the week before the attacks in reguards to a Pakistani Inteligence visit with CIA officials.
posted by bas67 (29 comments total)
 
This is a long article so please don't start discounting it within a few minutes of this posting. I know that many people disagree with the things I have posted here, but, at least take in the information before you start calling me crazy. Thanks.
posted by bas67 at 3:59 PM on November 7, 2001


Fine. I read the entire thing and it rates right up there with Elvis sightings and Kennedy Assassination theories. Who are these people? (Oh, yeah, anti-globalization folks. I might have known.)
posted by Steven Den Beste at 4:09 PM on November 7, 2001


Two questions:

1) Are you going to continue making front page posts about this over and over forever?

2) If we didn't buy it the first (or second) time, why should we wade through another long article?

You've posted this (IMHO) crap twice (or three times? I forget) before. If we could get, say 2000 people to sign a petition that says, "Yes, we think Bush is creating a war to rake in oil profits. And we don't think bas67 is a loon", would you stop beating us over the head with it?

We've seen it. We've talked about it. When will be enough?
posted by y6y6y6 at 4:12 PM on November 7, 2001


I'm glad someone else said all that first ... I just googled the name of the writer and couldn't believe I'd never heard of any of the publications in the first two pages (disbarring the university of Ottowa, who I must subconsciously have assumed existed, and Pravda) ...
posted by walrus at 4:17 PM on November 7, 2001


Wow, walrus -- you've never heard of the New York Times or Newsweek? And Y6 if you are not interested in this why do you feel it necessary to berate me, just don't comment and leave it at that.
posted by bas67 at 4:25 PM on November 7, 2001


Sorry Walrus-- I guess you meant on the google page. No apology for you Y6 you're just mean.
posted by bas67 at 4:30 PM on November 7, 2001


I agree with y6 -- not only is this crap, but it's tired crap.
posted by donkeyschlong at 4:33 PM on November 7, 2001


Well the author has 6000+ results in google with his first name followed by last in quotes like so "Michel Chossudovsky".

Maybe his theories are wack but his facts are smack. I'm a sucker for JFKAT (er, last two letters stand for assassination theories). I mean who here thinks Oswald did actually kill him, raise your hand.
posted by HoldenCaulfield at 4:33 PM on November 7, 2001


From the Centre for Research on Globalisation's home page: The New World Order is based on the "false consensus" of Washington and Wall Street, which ordains the "free market system" as the only possible choice on the fated road to a "global prosperity". The GRG [sic] purports to reveal the truth and disarm the falsehoods conveyed by the controlled corporate media. Michel Chossudovsky, Editor, 29 August 2001

Three quotes-bracketed ironic/sarcastic sneers in one sentence! (The linked-to article is so loaded with such "scare quotes" that I simply cannot read it.)
posted by Carol Anne at 4:38 PM on November 7, 2001


sorry, guys, but this article makes much more sense to me the official opinion. thanks, bas67.
posted by arf at 4:39 PM on November 7, 2001


Two reasons:

1) This is a community web log. And for good or bad, I'm part of that community.

2) I'm honestly wondering. How many times do we have to see this on the Metafilter front page? If you have a crusade, take it to your own website. Don't hijack Metafilter to push the same conspiracy theory over and over.

Mean? Because you put out a loony conspiracy theory and I attack it? If you throw out the idea that our government allowed the WTC attack to increase Bush's bank account, expect to take some heat.

Am I expected to find some nice way to say, "Your theory is poop and I'm tired of you posting it"?
posted by y6y6y6 at 4:40 PM on November 7, 2001


bas67...I'm not one to discount ideas on MeFi because of who posted them, but I don't think globalresearch.ca is a very reliable source for news and analysis. Getting reports on anything related to globalization from them is like getting the "5000 Jews didn't show up for work on 9/11" from the Syrian national dailies and printing it as if it's valid.

And, anyway, the economic losses we've suffered because of 9/11 and greater than any that we might get if we defeat Afghanistan, somehow convince the UN that we should be the ones to run the nation, and then swindle "all their oil" out.

There's a reason that people dont' trust those on the extremes (left or right), and it's articles like these.
posted by Kevs at 4:40 PM on November 7, 2001


It is nice to know that the CIA an do very little without some folks knowing exactly who they are meeting with and for what purposes.
Note: beware of an author who cites himself (note 22) for evidence to support something he asserts.
posted by Postroad at 4:47 PM on November 7, 2001


It is nice to know that the CIA an do very little without some folks knowing exactly who they are meeting with and for what purposes.
Note: beware of an author who cites himself (note 22) for evidence to support something he asserts.
posted by Postroad at 4:47 PM on November 7, 2001


Ah, Chossudovsky. My first exposure to him was watching him on a political talk program on CBC Newsworld during the NATO actions in Kosovo. I can't remember the precise subject of his on-air ravings -- probably in the "NATO is committing war crimes" vein -- because I couldn't change the channel fast enough. It's worth seeing him in action, not just reading him, believe me.
posted by mcwetboy at 4:49 PM on November 7, 2001


Are all his articles chock-full of quotation marks and exclamation points? And contain summaries which don't make his point clear? If you're going to try to convince anybody of anything, much less of something this far out of the mainstream, you need to find somebody who can cobble together a rational argument.
posted by skyscraper at 4:50 PM on November 7, 2001


Y6 (and you too SDB),

I agree with bas67, there is lot of good information in that article. The broad point of this article is that as citizens of this country, we need to know what the administration knew and when did they know it. FYI, just today it was revealed that after the 2000 elections, the FBI was told to get off bin Ladin's back by the new administration! So you see, this kind of information certainly CANNOT be dismissed outright.

If you have specific criticism of the article, fine, but to dismiss it out of hand, NO MATTER HOW MANY TIMES IT'S BEEN DISCUSSED BEFORE, just gets old and tiring. Some of us would like as much information as possible, and we would like to decide how seriously to treat the content. YOU don't need to make that decision FOR US, ok. So please, GET OFF BAS67'S BACK.
posted by Rastafari at 4:56 PM on November 7, 2001


Rasta -- that article reports that a TV show reported that a "source" said that there have been more constraints on investigating Saudis since Bush came in.

Your characterization of the story is way exaggerated.
posted by Mid at 5:13 PM on November 7, 2001


Fine. Here's a guy with a visionary theory and tons of vital information. Make sure you read it all before you dismiss it out of hand! This is important stuff!!!!!
posted by marknau at 5:13 PM on November 7, 2001


Time cube hurts my head really bad.
posted by prodigal at 8:11 PM on November 7, 2001


Wow mark you are so clever!

Since everyone is so concerned with well known, name brand, sources and since apparently Y6 is the Metafilter Police and gets to decide what everyone wants to know or not know I'll leave this here and will not provide any more links of this sort. I'm sure that everyone will be happier with the "trace the bunny" link and the intellectual "create a fart" link.

But...if you want to know ...more just look. There is much more than I can (or will) link to here. There are reems of information out there. I tried to ignore it and think "it just can't be" but with everything I have found I'm really scared. I know that everyone is scared but I'm just as afraid of our current administration as I am of terrorists. I have a teenaged son and I don't want to send him off blindly to fight in a war that is maybe just maybe for a purpose other than what we think. His life is worth more than that to me.

Thanks to everyone (well most everyone) for having an open mind and realizing blind trust can be a dangerous thing.
posted by bas67 at 8:25 PM on November 7, 2001


This guy's got it all wrong; the reason Ahmad was in the US before 9/11 was that 9/6 was the Harmonic Divergence, and he would have lost his vampire powers of he wasn't in Reston, VAfnord for that. Armitage was brainwashedfnorded by The Illuminati in 1986; all his actions since that point have been as an intermediary between them and the RepublicanfnordParty. Bin Ladenfnordfnord is a rogue Bavarian Scholar committed to re-awakening Leviathan; he must be destroyed, or we will share the dinosaurs'fnord fate. The reason we need Pakistan's assistance is that we need to place our underground laserfnord there to slay The Nameless Horror sleeping under the Indian Ocean. This will have to be my last post for a while, but, Eros willing, everything will turn out all right.
posted by boaz at 9:27 PM on November 7, 2001


I'm sure that everyone will be happier
Odd, that rhymes with "I pity you infinitely for your sins."

Open mind... brain falls out... oh, screw it.
posted by darukaru at 9:30 PM on November 7, 2001


that article reports that a TV show reported that a "source" said that there have been more constraints on investigating Saudis since Bush came in.

Mid, please realize that Deep Throat was a "source" for Woodward and Bernstein for a scandal which brought down a Presidency. So just because the source is anonymous, doesn't mean it's not credible.
posted by Rastafari at 10:48 PM on November 7, 2001


Well, this anti-globalization crowd is the same one that came on the KPFA airwaves during the Kosovo campaign against Serbia to tell us how Milosevic was at the head of a multi-ethnic workers' paradise, and how our Balkan policy was reducible to the interests of multinational corporations.

Call me willfully ignorant, but I have not been able to bring myself to tune into KPFA to test how flagrantly, these days, their anti-Americanism is bleeding into pro-bin-Ladenism. Don't get me wrong - I've been reading a balanced diet of writers on international affairs who actually have a freaking idea what they're talking about. I can even wade through Al-Ahram Egyptian-government-sponsored propaganda...at least I will be able to imagine where they're coming from some time in the next million years.

Well, bas67 saved me from darkness. I had a sneaking suspicion that every evil in the world was somehow traceable to those sneaky Republicrat tyrant stooges, and here's the "proof." Do you even appreciate the wonderful echoes with jihadists' own propaganda? This is what I mean when I talk about fading into pro-bin-Ladinism. An iron rule of your conspiracy theory says the U.S. government is never honest - which throws us perforce into the arms of the delightful proposition that bin Laden and the Taleban are (relatively) honest in their propaganda. Genius!

The whole business, IMHO, boils down to one painful fact: the entire staff of Le monde diplomatique together cannot tell us what to do about the fact that there's such a copious supply of ignoramuses on hand to perpetrate 9.11-type atrocities. We hear how we can mend our evil, meddling Middle East foreign policy (actually, I agree with that wholeheartedly). But we don't get an answer to the brutal fact that, until you're ready positively to buy into the complete list of the jihadists' apocalyptic dreams, the fact remains that we are still faced with a military threat capable of killing thousands of innocent American (and international) civilians in a day in an act of war.
posted by Zurishaddai at 11:16 PM on November 7, 2001


I thought this article was much more entertaining once I began inserting SNL-Belushi-era type dramatic chords after each paragraph.

Pakistani Chief of Intelligence next visited a juice stand on Wisconsin Avenue. There he picked up postcards of prominent Washington landmarks.

DAH dah DAHHHHH....

Clue: that we have economic and diplomatic interests in Central Asia and in Pakistan especially are no secret, nor is pursuing those ends surprising. That we were dealing with an intelligence service gone rogue, emboldened by its role in forcing the military coup, and riddled with odious characters who consort with our enemies ... well, gosh, it sure wouldn't be the first time.
posted by dhartung at 1:02 AM on November 8, 2001


Oh, by the way, Chossudovsky got a lot of attention in the weeks following the attacks for his essay Who is Osama bin Laden?, which was published in many newspapers around the world and forwarded thru e-mail constantly. Essentially, he argues that the US support for mujahedin in Afghanistan is the same thing as support for Osama bin Laden and the Taliban, even though Osama himself has sworn he never took a dollar of "infidel's money".

His arguments in both articles seem to employ quite a bit of "A meeting with B means A supports B", and "B meeting with C means B supports C", so therefore "A supports C".

DAH dah DAAAAAAAHHHHH.
posted by dhartung at 1:08 AM on November 8, 2001


But...if you want to know ...more just look.

The fact that there is oil in central Asia (news flash!) or that a pipeline across Afghanistan had been proposed -- or that the head Pakistani intelligence was in the U.S. in early September --do not in themselves prove Chossu's kooky theory that the CIA engineered the 9/11 attacks to start a war of conquest in Afghanistan.

Lookit, all Chossu does is footnote relentlessly the fact that Ahmad was in the U.S. (how useful), and then make unsubstantiated insinuations about his reason for being there. His method seems to be to footnote mundane facts to give himself a veneer of respectability and obscure the fact that the meat of his argument is based on insinuation, coincidence, and detecting patterns of behaviour.

There are people who believe that FDR engineered the attack on Pearl Harbor to bring the U.S. into the Second World War. There are people who believe the moon landings were a hoax. There are people who believe that the earth is not moving. I'm sure some of them read Newsweek and the New York Times, too.
posted by mcwetboy at 4:32 AM on November 8, 2001


Rastafari: Reread the story you linked to. It claims that the FBI was told to back off of members of Bin Laden's family, not Bin Laden himself. Since there's dozens of Bin Ladens around, some of whom have ties to American businesses and people, I don't find this fact any more surprising than the numerous ties between the Bush family and Arab oil bazillionaires.
posted by rcade at 5:28 AM on November 8, 2001


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