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When Morgan Reynolds called the official story about 9/11 bogus, it seemed like the whole world stopped for a moment to listen.

It seemed like a lighting bolt hit the heart of the government story, cracking it into a million unexplainable pieces.

And when the dust settled from his explosive statements, the highest-ranking member of the Bush team to make such an accusation said he wasn’t expecting any "invitations to the White House anytime soon."

Two weeks ago, the former chief economist in the Labor Department during President Bush’s first term told the world he thought the WTC fell from a controlled demolition, indicating 9/11 was "an inside government job."

Reynolds, a respected economist and former Republican conservative, made his claims after researching many aspects of 9/11, including scientific and engineering data for and against the government story.

He presented his findings on the Internet in a long, detailed article, concluding:

"It is hard to exaggerate the importance of a scientific debate over the cause(s) of the collapse of the twin towers and Building 7. If the official wisdom on the collapses is wrong, as I believe it is, then policy based on such erroneous engineering analysis is not likely to be correct either.

"The government's collapse theory is highly vulnerable on its own terms. Only professional demolition appears to account for the full range of facts associated with the collapse of the three buildings.

"More importantly, momentous political and social consequences would follow if impartial observers concluded that professionals imploded the WTC. Meanwhile, the job of scientists, engineers and impartial researchers everywhere is to get the scientific and engineering analysis of 9/11 right."

Considering his place among the Republican faithful, once the media got its "claws into his controversial remarks," his words quickly spread with the help of cyberspace like an out of control wildfire.

Not only did millions read his story on the Internet, but Reynolds controversial comments then drew instant attention from numerous mainstream newspapers, radio and television stations, including UPI, MSNBC, FOX News and over a dozen other major market local radio and TV stations.

It was a story that "grew wings," a story Reynolds never expected would get so much attention and such a large audience.

"I had a huge response and it really was amazing. I never expected so many people to respond so passionately," said Reynolds this week in a telephone interview. "I literally received hundreds and hundreds of emails, some agreeing with me and others, of course, disagreeing.

"After it was all said and done, as things are starting to finally quiet down now, I would guess it was about 5 to 1 in favor of what I was saying. However, I never imagined how much support there was out there for what I was suggesting occurred on 9/11."

Without mincing words, as he did in his article, Reynolds quickly changed the subject, again placing the blame squarely on the government for not coming clean about what happened on 9/11, saying it’s important to get to the bottom of a "story that dwarfs all others in comparison."

"What it boils down to is that the government and the mainstream media are not digging into the 9/11 controversy because they are hiding something," said Reynolds. "From a media point of view, it’s the story of the century and they are not even trying to connect the dots."

Continuing to throw some punches at his former employer, he added:

"It’s nothing new. The government has always lied about so many things. Look at the Downing Street Memo, for example, the document confirming that the Bush administration lied to us about its motives for getting into the war.

" If they lied to us about this, what else? Well, 9/11 is just another example."

To add more fuel to the hot 9/11 controversy, William Rodriguez, the WTC janitor who heard and felt a strong explosion in the basement levels of the north tower just seconds before the jetliner crashed into the top floors, recently came forward to tell his story, adding further credibility to Reynolds’ conclusions.

Rodriguez claims a massive underground explosion brought down the towers. His story is strengthened further by 14 other eye witnesses who can verify his claims, as well as a burn victim from the basement explosion who he helped to safety.

Immediately following 9/11, Rodriguez tried to tell his story, but claims the 9/11 Commission and the mainstream media have systematically censored his words in order to protect the official government story, a story ignoring the possibility of explosives being used to bring down the WTC.

Commenting on Rodriguez, Reynolds said:

"It’s not a coincidence that there was first an explosion below and then the jetliner explosion seconds later above. At least there should have been a thorough investigation since the timing of the explosions strikes me as an impossibility if you believe, as the government contends, that only a jetliner brought down the towers."

Reynolds added that nobody from the Bush administration has officially contacted him about his statements suggesting 9/11 was an "inside job," but said he was aware that "administration operatives" have carried his message into the halls of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

"How high up it went, I just don’t know," he added.

Asked if he was going to continue to research and write about 9/11, Reynolds said:

"Yes, of course, I see it as a citizen’s duty and I hope to do some more writing on the subject very soon."

For more informative articles, go to www.arcticbeacon.com where donations are accepted to keep the news flowing in the wake of media apathy.

What has become of the print and TV media watchdogs who hounded President Nixon from office because he lied about when he learned of a minor burglary of no consequence in itself?

What became of the watchdog media that bayed after President Reagan because some low level neoconservative officials sold arms to Iran and diverted the money to anti-communist insurgents in Latin America?

President Clinton was impeached by the House, though not convicted by the Senate, for lying about a sexcapade with a White House intern.

Now that we really need them, the watchdog media has hired out as public relations and propaganda shills for the Bush administration and the neocon network.

The entire Bush administration-not merely the president-is involved in the most extraordinary lies and fabrication of false intelligence claims in order to lead America into an unwarranted and illegal invasion of Iraq, an invasion that has cost the US taxpayers $300 billion and resulted in the deaths and maiming of tens of thousands of people.

The sordid affair has been revealed in leaked top secret Downing Street memos, which were prepared for UK prime minister Tony Blair and his cabinet. Unlike the Nixon episode, there is no need to search for a "smoking gun." Smoking guns have been printed all over the pages of the London Times. Yet hardly a peep from the watchdog media.

The August 1 issue of The American Conservative reports that Vice President Cheney has instructed the US Strategic Command to prepare a plan to spread the war by attacking Iran with tactical nuclear weapons in the event of another terrorist attack on the US. Appalled US Air Force officers have leaked the story, but you have not learned of it from the tamed media.

A federal prosecutor seems to be closing in on Karl Rove, president Bush's righthand man, and on Scooter Libby, vice president Cheney's righthand man. The two are suspected of leaking the identity of a covert CIA agent, a felony. Both have had to hire lawyers. But there is no demand for accountability from the US media.

American civil liberties have been trounced by the "Patriot" Act. Torture of detainees is now a routine practice of the US government and defended by the attorney general. Senators and military officers who try to place constraints on the inhumane treatment of detainees are stonewalled by the White House.

The mainstream media has been co-opted as propaganda organ for the Bush administration. How did this come about?

It came about through media concentration. There are no longer independent voices in the mainstream media. American news reporting is a corporate operation run with a view to advertising profits and the accommodation of government in order to protect holdings of valuable federal licenses. For reporters and editors, knowing what to say and not to say is the main qualification for job security.

A person who wants to find out anything must go online and spend time learning the sites that are trustworthy.

The Internet, thought invaluable for spreading news, hasn't the impact on the public of a story pounded over and over on TV news or newspaper front pages. Exposure on the Internet doesn't have the same embarrassment factor as exposure on TV news and the New York Times front page.

The public is still socialized into taking its cue from the old TV and print media. This media is now heavily controlled, partly through job fears of editors and reporters.

This raises the question whether government officials who have broken the law and betrayed trust will be held accountable.

Consider the implications if the Bush administration escapes accountability:

The executive branch will have established itself as above the law.

The executive, armed with a compliant media, will have war-making power subject only to successful PR spin. It means the final end of the people's right to declare war via elected representatives in Congress.

The few remaining restraints on the executive's ability to detain people indefinitely without charges will be removed. This power will silence the Internet.

Spiteful neighbors, employees, former spouses, whomever will gain the power to report any disliked person. The anti-terrorist apparatus needs victims to demonstrate its effectiveness, and as warrants, hearings, and evidence are no longer required, Americans will simply disappear like Soviet citizens in the Stalin era.

The "imperial judiciary" will disappear overnight. No checks and balances will remain.

Gentle reader, you can continue with this theme in "How the Worst Get on Top," a chapter in F.A. Hayek's classic, The Road to Serfdom. You might as well learn what it is going to be like as you are already half way there.

The worst rise rapidly as the honest depart the corrupt system. Two US Military prosecutors, Major Robert Preston and Captain John Carr, resigned after denouncing rigged Guantanamo trials of detainees as "a severe threat to the reputation of the military justice system and a fraud on the American people." (see www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200508/s1426797.htm)

Altogether now, let's yell, "I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it any longer."

BEIJING, Aug. 4 -- Americans are worried about their role in the world, the US reputation in Muslim nations and rising deaths in Iraq, but have no idea how their fears could be remedied, according to a poll published yesterday.

Three out of four Americans polled by Foreign Affairs journal and Public Agenda were worried both about losing trust abroad and concerned about hatred of the United States in Muslim nations.

Two-thirds of those polled believed that the world had a negative view of the United States and one in 10 actually used the word "bully" to describe foreign perceptions of their country.

Eighty-two per cent of those surveyed worried a lot, or somewhat, that the Iraq War was leading to too many casualties.

"Americans are broadly uneasy about the quality of our relations with the rest of the world, especially Muslim nations," said Public Agenda Chairman Daniel Yankelovich.

"The questions reveal widespread doubts about the country's current course. But there is no consensus on which direction to take."

As to how the United States should wield power in the world, those surveyed were undecided.

President Bush invigorated proponents of teaching alternatives to evolution in public schools with remarks saying that schoolchildren should be taught about "intelligent design," a view of creation that challenges established scientific thinking and promotes the idea that an unseen force is behind the development of humanity.

Although he said that curriculum decisions should be made by school districts rather than the federal government, Bush told Texas newspaper reporters in a group interview at the White House on Monday that he believes that intelligent design should be taught alongside evolution as competing theories.

"Both sides ought to be properly taught . . . so people can understand what the debate is about," he said, according to an official transcript of the session. Bush added: "Part of education is to expose people to different schools of thought. . . . You're asking me whether or not people ought to be exposed to different ideas, and the answer is yes."

These comments drew sharp criticism yesterday from opponents of the theory, who said there is no scientific evidence to support it and no educational basis for teaching it.

Much of the scientific establishment says that intelligent design is not a tested scientific theory but a cleverly marketed effort to introduce religious -- especially Christian -- thinking to students. Opponents say that church groups and other interest groups are pursuing political channels instead of first building support through traditional scientific review. [...]

GRAPEVINE, Tex., Aug. 3 - President Bush publicly overruled some of his top advisers on Wednesday in a debate about what to call the conflict with Islamic extremists, saying, "Make no mistake about it, we are at war."

In a speech here, Mr. Bush used the phrase "war on terror" no less than five times. Not once did he refer to the "global struggle against violent extremism," the wording consciously adopted by Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and other officials in recent weeks after internal deliberations about the best way to communicate how the United States views the challenge it is facing.

In recent public appearances, Mr. Rumsfeld and senior military officers have avoided formulations using the word "war," and some of Mr. Bush's top advisers have suggested that the administration wanted to jettison what had been its semiofficial wording of choice, "the global war on terror."

In an interview last week about the new wording, Stephen J. Hadley, Mr. Bush's national security adviser, said that the conflict was "more than just a military war on terror" and that the United States needed to counter "the gloomy vision" of the extremists and "offer a positive alternative."

But administration officials became concerned when some news reports linked the change in language to signals of a shift in policy. At the same time, Mr. Bush, by some accounts, told aides that he was not happy with the new phrasing, a change of tone from the wording he had consistently used since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

It is not clear whether the new language embraced by other administration officials was adopted without Mr. Bush's approval or whether he reversed himself after the change was made. Either way, he planted himself on Wednesday firmly on the side of framing the conflict primarily in military terms and appeared intent on emphasizing that there had been no change in American policy.

"We're at war with an enemy that attacked us on September the 11th, 2001," Mr. Bush said in his address here, to the American Legislative Exchange Council, a group of state legislators. "We're at war against an enemy that, since that day, has continued to kill."

Mr. Bush made a nod to the criticism that "war on terror" was a misleading phrase in the sense that the enemy is not terrorism, but those who used it to achieve their goals. In doing so, he used the word "war," as he did at least 13 other times in his 47-minute speech, most of which was about domestic policy.

"Make no mistake about it, this is a war against people who profess an ideology, and they use terror as a means to achieve their objectives," he said.

Gen. Richard B. Myers of the Air Force, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said on July 18 in an address to the National Press Club that he had "objected to the use of the term 'war on terrorism' before, because if you call it a war, then you think of people in uniform as being the solution."

General Myers said then that the threat instead should be defined as violent extremists, with the recognition that "terror is the method they use."

On Wednesday, in its efforts to hammer home the point that the "war" phraseology was still administration policy, the White House sent e-mail messages to reporters after Mr. Bush's speech with some excerpts of an address delivered Tuesday by Mr. Rumsfeld. In that speech, Mr. Rumsfeld backed away from the new language he had been employing in recent weeks.

"Some ask, are we still engaged in a war on terror?" Mr. Rumsfeld said. "Let there be no mistake about it. It's a war. The president properly termed it that after Sept. 11. The only way to defend against terrorism is to go on the attack."

In a telephone interview on Wednesday evening, a spokesman for the Pentagon, Lawrence Di Rita, sought to play down any disagreement between Mr. Rumsfeld and the president, citing the secretary's speech on Tuesday, in Dallas.

"The secretary doesn't feel this is push back," Mr. Di Rita said. "He feels it's an important clarification."

In introducing the new language, administration officials had suggested that the change reflected an evolution in the president's thinking nearly four years after the Sept. 11 attacks and had been adopted after discussions among Mr. Bush's senior advisers that began in January.

The new slogan quickly become grist for late-night comics and drew news coverage that linked it with the emergence of a broad new approach to defining and attacking the problem of Islamic extremism through diplomacy and efforts to build closer ties to moderate Muslims, as well as through military action.

Mr. Bush arrived in Texas on Tuesday, and is spending the rest of the month at his vacation home in Crawford. After winning a string of legislative victories before Congress recessed for the summer, Mr. Bush also used his appearance here to try to build support for the issues that will be at the top of his agenda when he returns to Washington.

He said that he would continue to push to overhaul Social Security and that he would press ahead with his call for a new approach to immigration despite the deep divisions it has exposed in his party.

Eric Schmitt contributed reporting from Washington for this article.

NEW YORK (AP) -- Middle Easterners should be targeted for searches on city subways, two elected officials said, contending that police have been wasting time with random checks in efforts to prevent terrorism in the transit system.

The city began examining passengers' bags on subways and buses after the second bomb attack in London two weeks ago. Police Commissioner Ray Kelly and Mayor Michael Bloomberg have said several times that officers will not engage in racial profiling.

But over the weekend, state Assemblyman Dov Hikind said police should be focusing on those who fit the "terrorist profile."

"They all look a certain way," said Hikind, a Democrat from Brooklyn. "It's all very nice to be politically correct here, but we're talking about terrorism."

On Tuesday, Republican City Councilman James Oddo said the Sept. 11 World Trade Center attack by Middle Eastern men in hijacked airplanes prompted him to publicly declare his support for Hikind's statements.

"The reality is that there is a group of people who want to kill us and destroy our way of life," he said. "Young Arab fundamentalists are the individuals undertaking these acts of terror, and we should keep those facts prominently in our minds and eyes as we attempt to secure our populace."

Oddo commended Hikind for "rushing headlong against the strong undertow of political correctness."

Hikind said he planned to introduce legislation allowing police to racially profile, and Oddo said he intended to introduce a resolution in the City Council supporting the measure.

The director of the New York chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, Wissam Nasr, said their push for racial profiling is offensive and ignorant.

"Terror comes in all shapes and sizes, and certainly there's no legislation or system that's going to identify terrorists on the spot," Nasr said.

The New York Police Department said in a statement that racial profiling is "illegal, of doubtful effectiveness and against department policy."

The Republican mayor reiterated Tuesday that it is against the law and doesn't work. "I'm against it for fairness reasons, and we're not going to do it," he said.

NEW YORK -- The suicide bombers cooked up their explosives using mundane items like hydrogen peroxide. They stored them in a fancy commercial refrigerator that was out of place in their grimy flat. And cell phones likely were used to set them off.

Those details from the July 7 London bombing emerged on Wednesday at an unusually wide-ranging briefing given by the New York Police Department to city business leaders.

The briefing -- based partly on information obtained by NYPD detectives who were dispatched to London to monitor the investigation -- was part of a program designed to encourage more vigilance by private security at large hotels, Wall Street firms, storage facilities and other companies.

Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly warned the materials and methods used in the London attack were easily adaptable to New York.

"Initially it was thought that perhaps the materials were high-end military explosives that were smuggled, but it turns out not to be the case," Kelly said. "It's more like these terrorists went to a hardware store or some beauty supply store."

The NYPD officials said investigators believe the bombers used a peroxide-based explosive called HMDT, or hexamethylene triperoxide diamine. HMDT can be made using ordinary ingredients like hydrogen peroxide (hair bleach), citric acid (a common food preservative) and heat tablets (sometimes used by the military for cooking).

HMDT degrades at room temperature, so the bombers preserved it in a way that offered an early warning sign, said Michael Sheehan, deputy commissioner of counterterrorism at the nation's largest police department.

"In the flophouse where this was built in Leeds, they had commercial grade refrigerators to keep the materials cool," Sheehan said, describing the setup as "an indicator of a problem."

Among the other details cited by the NYPD officials:

-- The bombers transported the explosives in beverage coolers tucked in the backs of two cars to the outskirts of London.

-- Investigators believe the three bombs that exploded in the subway were detonated by cell phones that had alarms set to 8:50 a.m.

-- Similar "explosive compounds" were used in the attempted attack in London on July 21. However, the detonators were hand-activated, not timed.

Sheehan said the NYPD was troubled by information it had received about the bombers' links to "organizations," but he did not name any groups.

"We know those same types of organizations that they're affiliated with are very much present in New York City," he said. "That's something we're studying very, very carefully. ... This could happen here."

After the briefing, police spokesman Paul Browne said the department had clearance from British authorities to present the information about the July 7 attack, which killed 52 people.

The session at police headquarters in lower Manhattan was attended by officials from police departments and law enforcement agencies in Baltimore, Washington, D.C., Philadelphia and other jurisdictions. The officials were in the city discussing plans to beef up security along Amtrak's New York-Washington route.

An international organization representing the heads of police departments across the world has issued new guidelines recommending that officers who confront a suicide bomber should shoot the suspect in the head, the Washington Post reported.

The recommendations by the International Association of Chiefs of Police take a more aggressive posture than typical lethal-force guidelines for police departments, the newspaper reported on its Web Site late Wednesday. It said the guidelines were published July 8 - before the London police, acting on a similar policy, on July 22 fatally shot a Brazilian electrician in the head because they mistook him for a suicide bomber.

In the United States, the National Bomb Squad Commanders Advisory Board is developing the first national guidelines for responding to suicide bombers, the newspaper said.

Police in Israel and Britain, which have a long history of dealing with terrorist attacks, have adopted a national policy of shooting a suspected suicide bomber in the head to prevent detonation of a bomb.

The International Association of Chiefs of Police, responding to the July 7 attacks on three London subways and a double-decker bus that killed 52 people, produced a training guide for dealing with suicide bombers for its 20,000 members, the newspaper said.
The Post said the guidelines recommend that if an officer needs to use lethal force to stop someone who fits a certain behavioral profile, the officer should "aim for the head" to kill the person instantly and prevent the setting off of a bomb.

The association's behavioral profile says a suicide bombing suspect might exhibit "multiple anomalies," including wearing a heavy coat or jacket in warm weather or carrying a briefcase, duffle bag or backpack with protrusions or visible wires, the newspaper said.

The profile also said suspects may display such characteristics as nervousness, an unwillingness to make eye contact, excessive sweating, or mumbling prayers or "pacing back and forth in front of a venue," the newspaper said.

The Post said the police chiefs' guidelines say an officer does not have to wait until a suspected bomber makes a move in order to use deadly force, but just needs to have a "reasonable basis" to believe that the suspect can detonate a bomb.

Freelance journalist Steven Vincent went to Iraq because he believed in the U.S. effort there, but he wasn't afraid to write critically about the war and its messy aftermath.

That combination of passion and dedication may have cost Vincent his life.

The former Sunnyvale resident was abducted, shot and dumped on the streets of the port city of Basra on Tuesday, authorities said. Just two days earlier, the New York Times had published an essay in which Vincent criticized the Iraqi police for corruption and ties with Islamic extremists.

He was the first American journalist killed in such an attack since the war began in 2003, though others have died in different circumstances. And unlike mainstream reporters who try to avoid espousing personal views, Vincent openly said he'd been inspired by the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and wanted to use his writing skills to fight Islamic extremism. [...]

In his opinion piece for the New York Times on Sunday, Vincent quoted sources who accused Shiite police in Basra of assassinating members of Saddam Hussein's former Baath Party, which brutally oppressed Shiites for decades.

Quoting an Iraqi officer, Vincent described "a sort of `death car:' a white Toyota Mark II that glides through the city streets, carrying off-duty police officers in the pay of extremist religious groups to their next assignment.''

He also criticized the British military for allowing Islamist extremists to exercise power in the city. Vincent had been strongly critical of Iraqi extremists in earlier writing, but he also wrote on other topics during his three visits to Iraq since the war began.

A prolific freelancer, he described the efforts to form an Iraqi police force for the Christian Science Monitor and discussed the work of Iraqi painters for the magazine Art in America. Before 2001, Vincent had been an art writer in New York for the Wall Street Journal and other publications.

While in Iraq, he analyzed the emerging political landscape for conservative publications such as National Review, while depicting the struggles of ordinary Basra residents in his blog, In the Red Zone (www.redzoneblog.com). [...]

Roth said his friend admitted being frightened for his safety. "I don't know why he was killed,'' Roth said. "Just by being an American journalist, he was a target.''

But some in Iraq said they suspected the worst.

"He wrote an article about radicalism in Basra and how security has been left in the hands of the militias,'' said Mehdi Abdul Karim, a hotel receptionist who'd befriended Vincent in Basra. "This led to his death. He paid with his life for that article.''

In a dispatch posted at 3:55 GMT Wednesday, Quds Press reported that it had learned from "exclusive sources" that a special American detachment had arrived in the country about a week ago with the task of carrying out "dirty operations" that could be blamed on the Iraqi Resistance in an effort to try to erode mass support for the independence movement.

The sources said that the American unit, dubbed "gnawing rats," was to carry out assassinations, sabotage of government installations and random bombings, all of which could be blamed on the Iraqi Resistance.

The sources said that the American black operations unit had been formed six months ago and underwent special training enabling the commandos to recognize the political, natural and social ?geography? of Iraq. Among the soldiers in the unit are Arab-Americans who have received training in the Iraqi spoken dialect of Arabic.

The command of the unit is directly subordinated to the supreme US military command in the Pentagon rather than to the local US military occupation command in Baghdad, the sources told Quds Press. Its headquarters is said to be in one wing of the as-Sujud Presidential Palace in the occupied Iraqi capital.

GRAPEVINE, Texas - In the wake of the deaths of 14 U.S. Marines in Iraq, President George W. Bush said on Wednesday the best way to honor the dead is to complete the mission and he rejected any early U.S. withdrawal.

"We're at war. We're facing an enemy that is ruthless. If we put out a (pullout) timetable the enemy would adjust their tactics. ... The timetable depends on our ability to train the Iraqis, to get the Iraqis ready to fight and then our troops will come home with the honor they have earned," Bush said in a speech.

Bush was sticking to a familiar position despite the grim news that 21 Marines have been killed in three days in Iraq, including 14 on Wednesday in the deadliest roadside bomb attack since the Iraq war began. [...]

The day after his detention in Rome, the Ethiopian Hamdi Isaac received the news that he would be extradited to London. He was told in no uncertain terms that he had no recourses available: no right to a bond, no immigration hearing to attend, no administrative proceedings to delay his extradition. It was enough for Italian authorities that he was wanted by London for the terrorist attacks this past July 21. According to the Italian news agency, ANSA, Hamdi´s extradition will be expedited.

Why are things so different in the United States? In what legal limbo can a terrorist who is accused of 73 counts of premeditated murder find shelter? What is the status of Venezuela's request for the extradition of Luis Posada Carriles?

The inconsistency in this so-called war against terrorism is glaring. Whereas Hamdi´s extradition to London will take place in a matter of days, Luis Posada Carriles´case languishes, and after a more than a month and a half the United States has yet to even name a prosecutor to handle the extradition case in court.

The United States instead stubbornly insists on plodding along with an immigration case, premised on the inconsequential charge of Posada´s visa violations. The authorities want to hypnotize us with the immigration case in El Paso, so that we forget the extradition matter pending in Washington. They want to show us the undocumented immigrant detained in El Paso since May, so that we do not discover the terrorist that they sheltered for more than four decades.

A storm, however, may be brewing in El Paso. Washington didn't count on the legal audacity and courage of a previously unknown administrative judge in El Paso. A few days ago, Judge William Abbott told one of Posada´s lawyers that it doesn't matter if it was the United States that organized and planned his client's actions. According to news reports, the attorney was astonished to hear Judge Abbott tell him that under U.S. immigration laws there is no such thing as good terrorism and bad terrorism. Terrorism is terrorism, period.

Posada Carriles´ asylum application is a Pandora's Box. From it spring, as hidden demons from a bottle, the secret intelligence agencies and sacred cows of American political institutions who, alongside local dictators, unleashed a campaign of terror in Latin America for decades.

Despite the distasteful consequences to some, immigration law is quite clear. To stand a chance of winning, an asylum applicant must testify and tell the truth under penalty of perjury. To have Posada Carriles under oath, answering questions about his life as a CIA agent, is his superiors´ worst nightmare.

Posada has never been a loose cannon. He was a disciplined and key agent in Washington's dirty war in Latin America. Will he explain on the stand under whose orders he acted?

Will Judge Abbott be given as evidence the admissions that Posada made to the New York Times in 1998, claiming credit for masterminding the string of bombs that exploded in several Cuban hotels and restaurants the previous year, resulting in the death of an Italian tourist. He is already examining Posada´s record of conviction in Panama for the attempted murder of Fidel Castro with C-4 explosives in a university auditorium crowded with students. Posada´s testimony about these terrorist acts will be riveting and fraught with danger for his accomplices and superiors.

It is evident that Judge Abbott wants to get to the heart of the immigration case at bar, and we applaud the efficient way he goes about his job. But the Immigration Court in El Paso is the wrong forum to hear about the crimes of Luis Posada Carriles. It's an administrative forum within the executive branch of the government. The maximum sanction it can impose on Posada is to deny him asylum and recommend he be expelled from the country. It can neither convict nor punish.

The Italians know it, and they instead promise to expedite Hamdi´s extradition to London. The United States knows it as well, yet thus far it refuses to begin Posada´s extradition proceedings. Why?

There is an arrest warrant for Luis Posada Carriles in Caracas for 73 counts of first degree murder. Posada escaped from a Venezuelan jail in 1985 in the midst of his criminal trial. The case against him is still pending.

The children, widows and loved ones of those who perished in a ball of fire in that passenger plane above a sun drenched beach on October 6, 1976 have a right to see him prosecuted for homicide. To try him in the United States for immigration violations makes a mockery of their pain and is an affront against the war on terrorism.

José Pertierra is an attorney. He represents the government of Venezuela in Washington, D.C.

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico -- Two Yemeni men say they were held in solitary confinement in secret, underground U.S. detention facilities in an unknown country and interrogated by masked men for more than 18 months without being charged or allowed any contact with the outside world, Amnesty International charged Wednesday.

Amnesty and human rights lawyers argued that the report added to long-standing claims that the United States has held "secret detainees" in its war on terror.

"We fear that what we have heard from these two men is just one small part of the much broader picture of U.S. secret detentions around the world," Sharon Critoph, a researcher at Amnesty International who interviewed the men in Yemen, told The Associated Press by telephone.

Navy Lt. Commander Flex Plexico, noting that it was difficult to respond to a report he hasn't seen said, "We have said many times that the Department of Defense does not engage in the practice of renditions" - the transfer of terror suspects to third countries without court approval.

Comment: Even if the DOD itself didn't engage in rendition, all it has to do is hand over "terrorists" to the CIA...

Plexico, a spokesman for the department, said it was important to note that training manuals of al Qaida terrorist network "emphasize the tactic of making false abuse allegations."

U.S. officials have denied allegations of secret detention facilities, saying they hold terror suspects only at the U.S. Naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and in Iraq and Afghanistan.

In June, U.S. officials denied a suggestion from the U.N.'s special expert on torture, Manfred Nowak, that some undeclared holding areas could include American ships cruising international waters. Others have suggested "high-value" detainees could be held secretly in Diego Garcia, a British-held island in the Indian Ocean that the United States rents as a strategic military base.

Lawyers who represent detainees at Guantanamo have long believed that the CIA or other U.S. government agencies have used clandestine jails for terror suspects.

"The fact that there are underground CIA facilities somewhere where people are being tortured has been known for a while," Michael Ratner of the U.S. Center for Constitutional Rights in New York City told the AP in a telephone interview.

In the report released in Washington, Amnesty said it interviewed Salah Nasser Salim Ali and Muhammad Faraj Ahmed Bashmilah in a jail in Yemen in late June. The group also spoke to a Yemeni government official who said the men were being held in that country only because it was a condition of their release from U.S. custody.

Ali told the rights group that he was originally detained in Indonesia in August 2003 and then flown several days later to Jordan; Bashmilah said he was detained in Jordan in October 2003 while on a trip to visit his mother.

Both men claimed they were tortured by Jordanian intelligence agents for four days and then flown to what they believe were underground jails in an unknown location.

Once there, they were held in solitary confinement for more than 18 months, interrogated daily by U.S. guards and blared Western music all day and night. No charges were ever filed against them, they said.

The men said their first jail was underground, surrounded by high walls and that it took more than 4 hours to fly there from Jordan. After six to eight months they were transferred to a modern prison run by U.S. officials a three-hour plane journey away that also appeared to be underground.

"Millions of people have been misled regarding the causes and consequences of September 11. When people across the US and around the World find out that Al Qaeda is not an outside enemy but a creation of US foreign policy and the CIA, the legitimacy of the bipartisan war agenda will tumble like a deck of cards." (Michel Chossudovsky, War and Globalization, The Truth behind September 11, 2002)

Global Research E-Monograph and Reports Series, No. 1, 2004

Copyright Michel Chossudovsky and the Centre for Research on Globalization 2004. All Rights Reserved.

Preface

As the election campaign unfolds, the "war on terrorism" has become the main if not the sole election issue. Ironically, Osama bin Laden has become a central figure of the election debate.

Whatever it takes"… said President Bush:

"[We will] fight the terrorists across the Earth, not for pride, not for power, but because the lives of our citizens are at stake."

Senator Kerry has promised to do even better:

"As President, I will fight a smarter, more effective war on terror. We will deploy every tool in our arsenal: our economic as well as our military might; our principles as well as our firepower."

In other words, the tragic events of 9/11 are being used by both political parties to galvanize public opinion in support of America's war agenda.

9/11 is being used as a justification to wage a pre-emptive war against "rogue states" and Islamic terrorists, which are "threatening the security of Homeland".

Meanwhile, the "war on terrorism" has diverted attention from all other issues, including the militarization of America and a looming social and economic crisis, marked by rising levels of poverty and unemployment.

Comment: Think about this for a moment - America's attention has been diverted away from the militarization of the country and a looming social and economic crisis. The US economy does not seem to be improving. A serious economic meltdown would be the perfect opportunity for those in power to expand their plans and seize the reins of the budding empire more firmly. It's a good plan - after all, it worked for Hitler. Many Germans were more than willing to join the Nazi party and fight for their fuhrer. They had status, power, and a sense of belonging that was lacking when they were out of work with nowhere to go.

Across the land, the image of an "outside enemy" is instilled in the consciousness of Americans. Al Qaeda is threatening America and the world. The repeal of democracy under the Patriot legislation is portrayed as a means to providing "domestic security" and upholding civil liberties.

The Big Lie

This evolving bipartisan consensus is based on a lie. Confirmed by congressional transcripts, intelligence and news reports, this illusive outside enemy is a creation of the US intelligence apparatus.

The enemy of America is "Made in America". This is an inescapable fact.

The "Islamic Militant Network" (the forerunner of Osama bin Laden's Al Qaeda), was created and sustained by the CIA. CIA-sponsored guerrilla training in Afghanistan and Pakistan were integrated with the teachings of Islam. The madrasas were set up by Wahabi fundamentalists financed out of Saudi Arabia, with the support of Washington.

The Reagan, Bush senior and Clinton administrations actively supported the Islamic brigades during the Soviet-Afghan war and its aftermath. The Taliban were the "graduates" of the CIA sponsored madrasas. They would not have been able to form a government, had it not been for US military aid, channeled through Pakistan.

Confirmed by official congressional documents, US support to Al Qaeda continued after the Cold war.

Ironically, during the Clinton administration, it was the Republicans who were accusing Bill Clinton of having links to the Islamic Militant Network in Bosnia and Kosovo. A 1997 document emanating from the House Republican Party Committee entitled "Clinton-Approved Iranian Arms Transfers Help Turn Bosnia into Militant Islamic Base", accused Clinton of working hand in glove with Al Qaeda in Bosnia:

"The Clinton administration's hands-on involvement with the Islamic network's arms pipeline included inspections of missiles from Iran by U.S. government officials... [T]he Third World Relief Agency (TWRA), a Sudan-based, phoney humanitarian organization ... has been a major link in the arms pipeline to Bosnia... TWRA is believed to be connected with such fixtures of the Islamic terror network as Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman (the convicted mastermind behind the 1993 World Trade Centre bombing) and Osama bin Laden, a wealthy Saudi émigré believed to bankroll numerous militant groups."
- (Congressional Press Release, Republican Party Committee (RPC), U.S. Congress, Clinton-Approved Iranian Arms Transfers Help Turn Bosnia into Militant Islamic Base, Washington DC, 16 January 1997, available on the website of the Centre of Research on Globalisation (CRG) at http://globalresearch.ca/articles/DCH109A.html .

Needless to say these Congressional documents, while revealing the outright lies behind US foreign policy, were not meant to be read by the broader public.

US Support to Al Qaeda (1999-2001)

US and NATO support to Al Qaeda continued during the wars in Kosovo (1999) and Macedonia (2001). Three weeks before 9/11, the US government and the "Islamic Militant Network" were working hand in glove in supporting and financing the self-proclaimed National Liberation Army (NLA), involved in the terrorist attacks in Macedonia. US military advisers mingle with Mujahideen within the same paramilitary force, Western mercenaries from NATO countries fight alongside Mujahideen recruited in the Middle East and Central Asia. And the US media calls this a "blowback" where so-called "intelligence assets" have gone against their sponsors!

Needless to say, the Republicans and the Democrats are complicit. They accuse one another of having links to Al Qaeda. Yet successive Democratic and Republican administrations have been involved from the outset of the Soviet Afghan war in 1979 in developing and sustaining Al Qaeda as a US sponsored "intelligence asset".

In other words, if the Democrats were to win the 2004 presidential elections, continuity in US foreign policy would be maintained. More importantly, the "war on terrorism" and the lies concerning Al Qaeda and 9/11 would also be maintained.

The 9/11 Commission Report

The 9/11 Commission Report is devoid of a historical perspective. While it provides all the appearances of a constructive critique of the US government, it serves to uphold the myth of an outside enemy.

Following the publication of the 9/11 Commission Report, the unfolding consensus is there were "intelligence failures. "They knew but failed to act".

This line of reasoning is appealing to many 9/11 critics and Democrats, because it tends to place the blame on the Bush administration. Yet in a bitter irony, the very process of expressing public outrage on the failures of senior Bush officials in waging an effective "war on terrorism", the Report has contributed to reinforcing the myth of the "outside enemy", which is being used to justify the largest military build-up since the Vietnam war.

The foreknowledge issue is an obvious red herring. It serves to present Al Qaeda as a threat, as an "outside enemy", when in fact Al Qaeda is a creation of the US intelligence apparatus.

Both the 9/11 Commission Report and the earlier Joint Senate-House Inquiry constitute a cover-up. The function of these reports is to destroy the historical record of US covert support to internationalism terrorism, while creating the illusion that America and "Western Civilization" are threatened. In turn, the various terrorist warnings and code orange alerts have created, across America, an atmosphere of fear and intimidation.

Refuting the Myth of the Outside Enemy

In response to the 9/11 Commission Report, we bring to the attention of our readers a compilation of articles on 9/11 and the "war on terrorism".

This collection includes most of my recent writings on 9/11, together with a few of earlier texts written the immediate wake of September 11 2001.

The material contained in this collection will eventually be the object of a full-length book, as a sequel to my earlier book entitled War and Globalization, the Truth behind September 11.

However, in view of the urgency and the need to inform public opinion, at this critical juncture in our history, we decided to bring this collection out in the context of The CRG's E-Reports and Monograph Series.

The Table of Contents provided below provides a link to key articles on different aspects of 9/11 and the war on terrorism.

It does not, however, purport to provide an exhaustive review of 9/11 issues. Its main objective is to refute the myth of "the outside enemy", which has served as a justification for war and the repeal of civil liberties.

Michel Chossudovsky, Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG), 8 September 2004 [...]