NAZIS AND BUSH FAMILY HISTORY: Government Investigated Bush Family's Financing Of Hitler Publisher: ONLINE JOURNAL "http://onlinejournal.com/Archive/Bush/bush.html" "http://www.onlinejournal.com/Archive" "http://www.rense.com/general17/bushhitler.htm" "http://groups.yahoo.com/group/InfoTimes/message/1197" "http://onlinejournal.com/Archive/Bush/Binion122100/" binion122100.html December 21, 2000 By CARLA BINION This article on Nazis in the Republican Party was originally published in Online Journal on 1/28/2000. However, the following includes additional information regarding George H. W. Bush's father, Prescott, and his maternal grandfather, George Herbert (Bert) Walker, and the fact that the U. S. government investigated their financing of Adolf Hitler. One book referenced here, Christopher Simpson's "Blowback," was praised by journalist Seymour Hersh as "the ultimate book about the worst kind of cold war thinking." Nora Levin, Director, Holocaust Archive, Gratz College, said: "The full story of this country's shameful, cynical collaboration with Nazi criminals has not been told until now with the publication of Simpson's book." Congresswoman Elizabeth Holtzman said: "'Blowback' is a must read for anyone who wants to understand postwar policy on Nazi war criminals and the cold war." In another Simpson book, "The Splendid Blonde Beast," the author wrote about George H. W. Bush's father, Prescott, and his maternal grandfather, George Herbert Walker. Both Bert Walker and Prescott Bush were powerful financial supporters of Adolf Hitler. Walker was President of Union Banking Corporation, a firm that traded with Germany and helped German industrialists consolidate Hitler's political power. Simpson says Union Banking became a Nazi money-laundering machine. Walker helped take over North American operations of Hamburg-Amerika Line, a shipping line and cover for I.G. Farben's Nazi espionage unit in the U.S. Hamburg-Amerika smuggled in German agents, and brought in money for bribing American politicians to support Hitler. A 1934 congressional investigation showed Hamburg-Amerika subsidized Nazi propaganda efforts in the U.S. George H. W. Bush's father, Prescott, was a board member of Union Banking and a senior partner in a Union Banking affiliate, the investment firm Brown Brothers, Harriman. The U. S. government investigated both Bert Walker and Prescott Bush, and under the Trading with the Enemy Act seized all shares of Union Banking, including shares held by Prescott Bush. The government held that "huge sections of Prescott Bush's empire had been operated on behalf of Nazi Germany and had greatly assisted the German war effort." Investigative reporter Christopher Simpson says in "Blowback" that after World War II, Nazi emigres were given CIA subsidies to build a far-right-wing power base in the U.S. These Nazis assumed prominent positions in the Republican Party's "ethnic outreach committees." Simpson documents the fact that these Nazis did not come to America as individuals but as part of organized groups with fascist political agendas. The Nazi agenda did not die along with Adolf Hitler. It moved to America (or a part of it did) and joined the far right of the Republican Party. Simpson shows how the State Department and the CIA put high-ranking Nazis on the intelligence payroll "for their expertise in propaganda and psychological warfare," among other purposes. The most important Nazi employed by the U.S. was Reinhard Gehlen, Hitler's most senior eastern front military intelligence officer. After Germany's defeat became certain, Gehlen offered the U.S. certain concessions in exchange for his own protection. Gehlen promoted hyped up cold war propaganda on behalf of the political right in this country, and helped shape U.S. perceptions of the cold war. Journalist Russ Bellant ("Old Nazis, the New Right and the Republican Party") shows that Laszlo Pasztor, a convicted Nazi war collaborator, built the Republican emigres network. Pasztor, who served as adviser to Republican Paul Weyrich, belonged to the Hungarian Arrow Cross, a group that helped liquidate Hungary's Jews. Pasztor was founding chairman of the Republican Heritage Groups Council. Two months before the November 1988 presidential election, a small newspaper, Washington Jewish Week, disclosed that a coalition for the Bush campaign included a number of outspoken Nazis and anti-Semites. The article prompted six leaders of Bush's coalition to resign. According to Russ Bellant, Nazi collaborators involved in the Republican Party included: (1) Radi Slavoff, GOP Heritage Council's executive director, and head of "Bulgarians for Bush." Slavoff was a member of a Bulgarian fascist group, and he put together an event in Washington honoring Holocaust denier, Austin App. (2) Florian Galdau, director of GOP outreach efforts among Romanians, and head of "Romanians for Bush." Galdau was once an Iron Guard recruiter, and he defended convicted Nazi war criminal Valerian Trifa. (3) Nicholas Nazarenko, leader of a Cossack GOP ethnic unit. Nazarenko was an ex-Waffen SS officer. (4) Method Balco, GOP activist. Balco organized yearly memorials for a Nazi puppet regime. (5) Walter Melianovich, head of the GOP's Byelorussian unit. Melianovich worked closely with many Nazi groups. (6) Bohdan Fedorak, leader of "Ukranians for Bush." Fedorak headed a Nazi group involved in anti-Jewish wartime pogroms. The Philadelphia Inquirer ran an article on the Bush team's inclusion of Nazis (David Lee Preston, "Fired Bush backer one of several with possible Nazi links," September 10, 1988.) The newspaper also ran an investigative series on Nazi members of the Bush coalition. The articles confirmed that the Bush team included members listed by Russ Bellant. Journalist Martin A. Lee has written for The Nation, Rolling Stone, The San Francisco Chronicle and other publications. In "The Beast Reawakens," Lee confirms that during both the Reagan and Bush years, the Republican Party's ethnic outreach arm recruited members from the Nazi emigres network. Lee says that the Republican Party's ethnic outreach division had an outspoken hatred of President Jimmy Carter's Office of Special Investigations (OSI), an organization dedicated to tracking down and prosecuting Nazi war collaborators who entered this country illegally. Former Republican Pat Buchanan attacked Carter's OSI after it deported a few suspected Nazi war criminals. According to Lee, public relations man Harold Keith Thompson was principal U.S. point man for the postwar Nazi support network known as die Spinne, or the Spider. In the late 1940s and early 1950s, Thompson worked as the chief North American representative for the remaining National Socialist German Worker's Party and the SS. Lee writes that the wealthy Thompson gave generously to Republican candidates Senator Jesse Helms and would-be senator Oliver North. Thompson's money gained him membership in the GOP's Presidential Legion of Merit. Lee says Thompson also "received numerous thank-you letters from the Republican National Committee." Those letters are now in the Hoover Institution Special Collections Library. Christopher Simpson writes in "Blowback" that in 1983, Ronald Reagan presented a Medal of Freedom, the country's highest civilian honor, to CIA emigres program consultant James Burnham. Burnham was a psychological warfare consultant who promoted something called "liberationism." Just before the 1952 election, the CIA worked up a multimillion-dollar public relations campaign aimed at selling Americans on expanding cold war activities in Europe. Part of the guiding theory (given the name "liberationism") was the idea that certain Nazi leaders from World War II should be brought in as "freedom fighters" against the USSR. Reagan said that Burnham's ideas on liberation "profoundly affected the way America views itself and the world," adding, "I owe [Burnham] a personal debt, because throughout the years of traveling on the mashed-potato circuit I have quoted [him] widely." Reagan may not have known Burnham's theories were based on his work on projects that enlisted many Nazi collaborators, but it seems that Reagan's CIA Director Casey or former CIA Director, Vice President George Bush, would have informed him. At a May 9, 1984 press conference, Simon Wiesenthal said: "Nazi criminals were the principal beneficiaries of the Cold War." The cold war mentality, hyped by Reinhard Gehlen and other Nazis, became the shelter for tens of thousands of Nazi criminals. Helping the far right in this country to promote cold war hysteria became the Nazi war criminals "reason for being." As Christopher Simpson says, the cold war became those criminals' means "to avoid responsibility for the murders they had committed." Journalist Seymour Hersh says Christopher Simpson's "Blowback" is "the ultimate book about the worst kind of cold war thinking, in which some of our most respected statesmen made shameful decisions that they mistakenly believed to be justified." To this day, says Simpson, the U.S. intelligence agencies hide the scope of their post-World War II collaboration with Nazi criminals. Are Republicans like George H. W. Bush, Oliver North and Jesse Helms aware they have been assisted by Nazi collaborators? Bush once worked for the CIA and should have known about the nature of the Nazis in his 1988 campaign. No doubt he knows the history of Nazi-CIA collaboration. Whether or not Bush knew of the fascists' involvement in his campaign, the Republican Party should have done a far better screening job. One thing is certain: The intelligence agencies know the scope and extent of Nazi involvement with the political right in this country [USA]. It is a shame they keep it hidden from the majority of the American people. [Copyright © 1998-2001 Online Journal - www.OnlineJournal.com ] ================================================== INTERNET-WEB LINKS: NAZIS AND BUSH FAMILY HISTORY: Government Investigated Bush Family's Financing Of Hitler "http://www.onlinejournal.com/Archive/Bush/bush.html" "http://www.onlinejournal.com/Archive" "http://www.rense.com/general17/bushhitler.htm" "http://groups.yahoo.com/group/InfoTimes/message/1197" "http://onlinejournal.com/Archive/Bush/Binion122100/" binion122100.html Online Journal "http://www.onlinejournal.com" FL Holocaust Museum President Links Bush Family To Nazis "http://www.rense.com/general17/link.htm" "http://www.nettime.org/nettime.w3archive/200102/msg00005.html" Nazis and the U.S. Republican Party "http://onlinejournal.com/Archive/Special_Reports/Nazis/" nazis.html Bush's War - The WTC Oil Gambit "http://www.rense.com/general17/oik.htm" "http://www.ConspiracyPlanet.com" "http://www.dieoff.org" EchelonWatch "http://www.echelonwatch.org" "http://onlinejournal.com/Archive/Special_Reports/Surveillance/" surveillance.html Shielded From Justice Police Brutality and Accountability in the United States "http://www.hrw.org/reports98/police" FBI Flyer Names U.S. Constitution Defenders As Terror Suspects "http://www.rense.com/general17/fly.htm" NY Times, USA Today and AP All Say WTC Death Toll Less Than 3,000 "http://www.rense.com/general17/NYtimesUSAtoday.htm" Missing, Dead at WTC Drops Below 3,900 "http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/ap/20011121/ts/" attacks_the_toll_3.html Latest News About the Bush-Bliar War on the Afghan People "http://www.megastories.com/attack/aip/aipindex.shtml" "Thank You Letter To Supporters Of Bush's "War On Terrorism" "http://www.rense.com/general16/waron.htm" The Truth About Imperialistic Terrorists - "http://www.geocities.com/americanterrorism" - "http://www.geocities.com/americanstateterrorism" - "http://www.angelfire.com/dc/americanterrorism" - "http://free.freespeech.org/americanstateterrorism" - "http://www.wakefieldcam.freeserve.co.uk/classicquotes.htm" Free Press Network (FPN) "http://www.geocities.com/fpninfo" Human Rights Foundation (HRF) "http://www.geocities.com/hrfinfo" Government Reform Committee (GRC) "http://www.geocities.com/grcinfo" Common Dreams "http://www.commondreams.org" CounterPunch - America's Newsletter "http://www.counterpunch.org" CounterPunch: Complete Coverage of 9-11 and the War on Afghanistan "http://www.counterpunch.org/wtcarchive.html" Anti-War "http://www.antiwar.com" ZNet - Z Magazine - "http://www.zmag.org" - "http://www.zmag.org/weluser.htm" - "http://www.zmag.org/ZNET.htm" Rense "http://www.rense.com" International Action Center (IAC) "http://www.iacenter.org" Stop War and End Racism "http://www.internationalanswer.org" Free Speech For Everyone "http://www.freespeech.org" Writings by Peace Activist S. Brian Willson "http://www.brianwillson.com" Michael Parenti Political Archive "http://www.michaelparenti.org" FACT PRESS "For the latest in American Terror on the World" "http://www.factpress.com" Third World Traveler "http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com" Terrorism Watch "http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Terrorism/Terrorism_watch.html" True Facts Knowledge and Information for Everyone "http://www.truefacts.co.uk" CovertAction Quarterly "http://www.covertaction.org" ConsortiumNews "http://www.consortiumnews.com" PR Watch Public Interest Reporting on the PR/Public Affairs Industry "http://www.prwatch.org" From The Wilderness Publications (formerly "Case File: C.I.A. and Drugs") "http://www.copvcia.com" The Emperor's New Clothes Piercing a Fog of Lies "http://www.emperors-clothes.com" Mathaba "Mathaba" means "the place where people gather to do justice." "http://www.mathaba.net" TV-Turnoff Network "http://www.tvturnoff.org" Castle Tales "http://www.iancgbell.clara.net/vortex/castle" Cryptome "http://www.cryptome.org" An Appraisal of Technologies of Political Control "http://www.cryptome.org/stoa-atpc.htm" Irish Holocaust The Mass Graves of Ireland "http://www.irishholocaust.org" The Conservative Hall of Fame "http://www.451world.com/fame.html" WAR CRIMES TRIBUNAL FINDS U.S. AND NATO GUILTY "http://www.iacenter.org/warcrime/wct2000.htm" Serendipity Website "http://serendipity.magnet.ch" Exposing Big Lies of the Pro-War Propaganda Media "http://www.11september.20m.com" PALESTINIAN RESISTANCE TO ISRAELI TERROR "http://www.iacenter.org/palestinian_resist.htm" Did Israeli Mossad Know? "http://www.blackelectorate.com/articles.asp?ID=480" Reporters Notebook Bulletin Board "http://reportersnotebook.com/newforum/indexforum.html" Islamic News Information Network (ININ) "http://www.inin.net" Islamic Association For Palestine (IAP) "http://www.iap.org" American Civil Liberties Union "http://www.aclu.org" Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR) "http://www.fair.org" Media Beat "http://www.fair.org/media-beat" Institute for Public Accuracy (IPA) "http://www.accuracy.org" The Nation "http://www.thenation.com" The Progressive "http://www.theprogressive.org" U.S. Map of Human Rights Groups "http://www.tolerance.org/maps/human_rights/state.jsp?state_id=9" Fight Hate and Promote Telerance "http://www.tolerance.org" Independent Media Center "http://www.indymedia.org" Ralph Nader "http://www.nader.org" "http://www.votenader.com" "http://www.essential.org" Progressive Review "http://www.prorev.com" Working For Change "http://www.workingforchange.com" AlterNet "http://www.alternet.org" Musharraf Dictatorship Boxed into a Corner "http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=11920" Web Active "http://www.webactive.com" Citizen Works "http://www.citizenworks.org" Public Citizen "http://www.publiccitizen.org" Open Secrets "http://www.opensecrets.org" Green Party - USA "http://www.gpus.org" "http://www.greenpartyus.org" "http://www.gp.org" "http://www.greenparties.org" Green Pages "http://www.greenpages.ws/index.php" ================================================== INFORMATION TIMES: "http://www.InformationTimes.com" America's Daily Internet Newspaper - Washington DC, USA ==================================================


www.antiwar.com (excellent dump of daily news/opinion) www.public-i.org (excellent investigative reports) "http://dlis.gseis.ucla.edu/people/pagre/rre.html" (this is an impressive clearinghouse of info, contributed bya bunch of folks who are researching/compiling at the grass roots level - they have archives as well) www.emperors-clothes.com/analysis/collater.htm (you may have to alter the URL to go back to home page) "http://www.rumormillnews.com/" (upon first introduction, this sight might seem way out; but i have been corresponding with Rayelan, the founder and publisher (who, along with her husband, is ex-cia. She has been remarkable in forcsting events, and her understanding of how the intelligence community works is invaluable. Check out the reading room.) "http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/" "http://www.judicialwatch.org/" "http://www.cursor.org/" "http://www.aclu.org/" "http://www.copvcia.com/" "http://www.apfn.org/" (these guys are basically malitia oriented, but have had some interesting, and credible reports- defintiely worth keeping an open mind about) "http://www.strategypage.com/" "http://www.tompaine.com/" (a compilation of interesting news/op-ed bits from mainstream, good for a review of the range of opinion) "http://www.zmag.org/ZNET.htm" (Chomsky gets a good platform here, as well as other so-called 'libs') "http://www.rense.com/" (Mar, I think Andy will defintely appreciate this site as Rense (a radio broadcaster/ journalist) dabbles in everything - including Roswell, etc. Another site, that at first blush, looks a bit wacky bt actually has some valuable reporting). There are lots more, but at leave at this for now. Here are some tech oriented links that you can use for other purposes (as we discussed) "http://www.networksolutions.com/en_US/?_requestid=390794" (select the 'whois' button to get info on DNSs, IPs, etc) http/whois.arin.net/ (another site with similar functionality- remember, if you can't find a domain name or IP on these sites in their registries, good bet its a fed server). http/www.internettrafficreport.com/cgi-bin/tr_chartpage.pl?NorthAmerica (excellent tool to see where all internet packet traffic is being routed - not surprisingly, alot of it is thru us.xo.net...) "http://cyberjournalist.net/supersearch/" (this is just a general research tool, thats very useful in looking up phone numbers, addresses, etc for "registrants" on netsol and arin which have dummmy info - another tip off that things arenot what they appear).


WTC bombing "http://www.cyberspaceorbit.com/towerblast.html" "http://www.drudgereport.com/flash91.htm" This site has some info I've sent them including the articles (and links) on US Plans to Invade Afghanistan last May; the Carlyle Group, George W. Bush, coonnection to Caterair; and other CIA connections to 911. "http://ez-websites.com/grudge/" Here'e the link for "CIA-Brokerage Handled Terror Trades" "http://news.independent.co.uk/business/news/story.jsp?story=99402" And the New York Times disclosure "US Breeding More Potent Anthrax" 9/4/2001 from "U.S. Germ Warfare Research Pushes Treaty Limits" "http://www.nytimes.com/2001/09/04/international/04GERM.html?todaysheadlines" the Atlanta, GA anthrax letter sent to Kenya postmarked 9/8/2001 "http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/sentinel/20011018/lo/kenya_confirms_anthrax_spores_in_envelope_mailed_from_u_s__1.html" Cheney White House staff on Cipro since 9/11 "http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/aponline/20011023/aponline201158_000.htm" Cheney/Halliburton - Drugs, Mafia, Oil, and Billions of taxpayer funded loans. "http://www.public-i.org/story_01_080200.htm" JUDICIAL WATCH SUES VP CHENEY OVER ENERGY TASK FORCE "http://www.judicialwatch.org/press_release.asp?pr_id=1398" Dick Cheney's $37 million (Halliburton) stock and option windfall? - profits made by Halliburton partnering or engaging with governments -including some of the most repressive regimes in the world-and its complicity with egregious human rights violations. "http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Oil_watch/Cheney_Halliburton.html" "http://www.earthrights.org/news/bysubj.html" (more on Halliburton-Burmese atrocities) END RUN FOR ENRON In October 1997, George W. Bush placed a call to his friend Tom Ridge, the Republican governor of Pennsylvania, to vouch for Enron Corp., the giant Houston energy and trading company that, at the time, was battling to sell electricity in Pennsylvania. After a nasty regulatory fight, Enron cracked into Pennsylvania's market -- and in the ensuing years, Enron and Bush both have seen their influence widen nationally and internationally. Along the way, Enron and its executives have been Bush's most generous contributors, giving more to his various campaigns -- over $550,000, according to the New York Times -- than any other source. (and that's just the hard money) "http://www.coxnews.com/2000/briefing/archive/06-30-00ralph0630.html" Flight 93 shot down (why ridge wouldn't allow the media in Shanksville) "http://www.post-gazette.com/headlines/20010913somersetp3.asp" florida vote: gore won "http://www.smh.com.au/news/0110/22/world/world14.html" (Another source includes Tennessee - sorry, I don't have the link handy right now, I have to backtrack to find this, again)


(this is from Dick Eastman, from Yakima WA. Yakima coincidentally happens to be one of several hubs through which "ECHElon" is based. I was wondering if he was able to intercept some of this information, as he reported other details re: the 911 money trail (trying not to put to trigger words here) well before the intl press had. New WTC Evidence Raises Questions Of Evidence Destruction Here New, Stongest-Possible Evidence Of US Corporation Executive's Guilt In WTC Destruction - Destruction Of Evidence The Certain Motive From Dick Eastman "/ym/Compose?To=eastman@wolfenet.com&YY=13980&order=down&sort=date&pos=0" 10-26-1 The evidence that the destruction of the WTC was to destroy evidence contained on the 23rd and 24th floors of the North Tower is now incontrovertable. This messageis the first revelation of the evidence that makes this conclusion a certainty. As yet no one has contacted any authorities with this information. (I want to make sure itis well in the public sphere before I show up at the FBI office here in Yakima.) Dick Eastman 223 S. 64th Ave Yakima, Washington I want you to provide me with lists of names I can contact in government and elsewhere around the world. I also want you to work by your own avenues to get to any officials or law enforcement agencies with jurisdiction in this case. A war and the greatest crime in history are involved, and many of the people responsible are standing in the way of justice. Here is evidence supplied by the Head of Security of the WTC on network television indicating that the FBI floors (the 22nd, 23rd and 24th floors) of the North Tower -- 70 floors below the crashbombing impact -- had been devastated and reduced to debris that this same Head of Security himself dug through to get to trapped persons (whom he saved). But it was on these floors that the entire accumulation of evidence and investigation briefs on two highly important cases were being stored: 1) the case against Mobil Oil and James Giffen on illegal oil swaps between Iran and Kazakhstan (at that time before a New York grand jury as described in great detail by Seymore Hersh in the July 9 New Yorker magazine); 2) and even more important, the evidence in the investigation of GOLD PRICE FIXING stemming from charges brought against Alan Greenspan, Morgan & Comapy, Goldman Sachs. (see below for full reconstruction of this crime -- that is now all but confirmed by this revelation of a bomb devestating the FBI floors of the North Tower before the tower collapsed.) At noon I received a phone call from New England from Steve. He was reviewing recorded footage of coverage of the destruction of the WTC on NBC's program "48 Hours." Steve has reviewed the footage many times and taken detailed notes. I took notes at my computer as he spoke. After the south tower collapsed, men went up to the 22nd floor of the WTC and "dug" someone out of the "rubble" he found there. {It is known that these floors contained the New York FBI offices -- Peter Jennings actually did a two-day network news story on the effects of the destroyed evidence and files on American financial crime investigations around the world.] ----- The 48 Hours anchor was interviewing the Head of Security of the WTC about the evacuation who had received a call, after the South tower was down, from the Port Authority's Command Center on the 22nd floor asking for rescue. The Head of Security himself travelled to that floor in the company of a NY Fireman where they found the offices devestated to the point where they had to "tunnel through debris" to "dig out" the two or three Port Authority workers who were trapped there. All of this happened 73 floors below crashbombing impact. --- The man who called me about this -- Steve from Maine -- said that he had received a copy detailing the evidence for a terror frame-up from one of the hundreds of people pester with my posts each day (whose name I recall from my address book) -- and that he had been reviewing three lists of occupants of the WTC. He gave the sites for two different listings of WTC tower occupants, which I copied as follows: Tenants by floor and square footage - www.cnn.com/special/2001/trade.center/tenants1.html and Occupation by tenancy - www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/nation/article/tower1.html He noticed from these that listings were given for all floors EXCEPT floors 23 and 24, immediately above the location of the call for "digging out" rescue -- indicating that the debris had fallen down from a destructive event occuring on the floor directly above. Steve left off with this statement (which I am not able now to confirm or disconfirm): "The Murrah Building in Oaklahoma City was where all of the records of the Waco Seige were being kept. I think this is their MO." Meaning their modus operandi -- i.e., their distinctive pattern of crime. ____ Here is the post that prompted Steve's phone call: Below I present what I think are incontrovertable reasons for concluding that the WTC/Pentagon crashbombings were a frame-up designed to benefit members of, at least, these four groups: 1) people profiting from the opium trade of the Northern Alliance druglords and the money-laundering through global investment channels that the opium trade and the derivative heroin trade supports; 2) people seeking control of the $6 trillion worth of oil and natural gas in Central Asia; 3) people seeking to win back support to increasingly unpopular Sharonist policies in Israel; and 4) people arraigned before a grand jury on charges of fixing gold prices, illegal involvement in oil swaps between Kazakhstan and (sanctioned) Iran, and bribery in cases where all incriminating documentary evidence was stored in FBI files and data banks in one of the twin towers of the WTC. All four of these groups have fluid secret channels of communication through networked integration of banking, politics, the CIA and Mossad connections. The fact is if one of these groups was complicit the other three would have to be also. Here are three independently developed arguments: I. Best guess origins of the WTC/Pentagon crashbombing frame-up. Mossad and the CIA were supporting traffick in Afgan-opium-derived heroin -- devoting public resources to protect and assist the suppliers and distributors of the multi-trillion-dollar money-laundered drug revenue deposits backing the global investments of American and Britsih elite finance. The Afgan Northern Alliance druglords grow 70 to 90 percent of the worlds opium, the prime ingredient of heroin The opium which is moved across the small China-Afgan boarder for processing and distribution by the giant People's Liberation Army, that amazing transnational corporation, Triad drug cartel-and military super military establishment all in one. Against the tremendous- stake interests this giant outlaw network, the morally conservative Taliban had been erradicating Afgan opium production, supressing supply to druglords and the drug-revenue flow money- laundering establishment bankers and global investors alike. Thus "crisis" became the initial motivation of a renegade group of CIA and/or Mossad in seeking ways to defeat Afganistan's Talibanist government. (Nothing absurd so far, right?) Next, the Russian and Kazakh mafias have criminal ties to U.S. executive James Giffen in Kazakhstan -- a man under investigation by a New York grand jury in the months before September 11 for illegal involvement in an oil swaps between Kazakhstan and (sanctioned) Iran (source: the Aug. 9 New Yorker Magazine for a full account of this by Seymore Hershe -- and all of the evidence for this crime was being kept at the WTC on the 20th through 25th floor of one of the twin towers where the FBI had its New York Offices. And James Giffen is the key man everyone has to go through to get any oil agreement with Kazakhstan -- including any pipelines built that would traverse Afganistan. (There is $6 trillion dollars worth of oil and gas in Central Asia.) Giffen certainly understood -- if he did not originate the idea -- that if he couldcan get operatives (even "captured" vengeful Islamic activists whose rage could be shaped and directed to use of terror) to destroy the FBI offices in the WTC building and the documentation evidence it contained, then he would be escape grand jury indictment -- and, as an powerful added benefit, the (framed) Taliban would get replaced with a regime in Afganistan that would permit a pipeline to be built -- preferably a Northern Alliance druglord government that would harmonize with Giffen's own unethical (murderous) entrepreneural style. (See the New Yorker artlical for details of Giffen's history.) (So far this super-crime scheme involves only a small group of people-- Russian Mafia and perhaps a Giffen - renegade CIA or a Giffen "dark-side" Mossad link. But other, even more powerful players may have had involvement -- certainly they stood to gain tremendously if the crashbomb frame-up were successfully accomplished. (Prior to September 11 charges had been brought against Alan Greenspan (forgive me -- in a previous post I said "Milton Friedman" instead of Greenspan -- Friedman is a great and honest and honorable academic scholar and Nobel Prize winner -- who, very superficially, looks like Greenspan) -- at any rate, Alan Greenspan, Goldman Sachs, Morgan & Co. and other powerful American financial figures and instiutions had charges brought against them -- reportedly a very well-documented case -- over the fixing of gold prices -- with evidence for that case too stored by the FBI on the FBI floors of the WTC! These parties would not only profit heavily from the "carrot" of both oil and drug monies circulating through thier great financial instiutions, but they also would gain from avoding the "stick" of one of the most threatening lawsuits ever to confront the U.S. financial establishment (realize what a guilty verdict in this case would mean to these leading financial families and to the Establishment in general!) -- these parties would welcome predictable and certainly substantial benefits from the the destruction of the evidence in the WTC and of some of the witnesses and researchers on the case as well.) Notice that so far we have powerful men with powerful incentives who characteristically operate in secret and under the protection of wealth, status and power -- both the carrot ($2 trillion in annual drug revenues funneled through the banking system -- which has funded much of the proceeds to fund the development of the Princeling-Triad dictatorship in China, btw, -- (The communist government has been in the opium business since the 1930's -- Mao pioneered the model later followed by Peru's Shining Path and Colombia's Maoist F.A.R.C. narco-terrorists. And Zhou Enlai devised the plan in the 1950's of weakening American society through a drug invasion.) "China white" heroin distributed by the People's Liberation Army, made from Afgan opium links all banker and oilman to the corrupt and renegade the secret state agencies, CIA, FBI, and Mossad -- renegade agents of either agency may have seen this opportunity for mutual gain and found the way -- having profiles of each of the players -- to propose the crashbombing frame-up as the best "solution" to each of players most troublesome problems, while making enormous profits besides. Note that the Bush's are tied to both the CIA and oil and, through Mena Arkansas drug smuggling and through the Iran-Contra drugs and arms deals etc. (drugworld investigator Daniel Hopsicker, as well as Noam Chomsky and many others have exposed this thoroughly -- at least in the broad strokes necessary to support this reconstruction of the crime.) (The facts of the drug connections are known to everyone from the Russians, to the John Birchers, to Wired Magazine, Harpers, New Yorker, the Village Voice, the Nation, and Rolling Stone Magazine, all having explored the drug - Establishment connections in great detail.) Which brings us to Ariel Sharon. His hard-head policy of retaliation regardless of 'collateral damage' and his provocation at the mosque cost him dearly in world opinion. In fact, the Bush administration was very close to initiating a major policy shift -- obviously known to Sharon from the greatest intelligence organization in the world -- Bush was planning the recognition/sponsorhip of a seperate Palestinian state. Also war crime charges had been brought against Sharon in international court, further putting his hard-line policy against the Palestinians in unfavorable light. Mindful of Ariel Sharon's self-made hard spot, it is entirely possible that the same CIA or Mossad mastermind that thought of the crashbombing frame-up plan in the first place decided to take the risk of telling Sharon about the plan, offering it as a solution to the trapped old "freedom fighter's" problems as well. If the U.S. could be made to think that the hated Osama bin Laden -- that Islamic fundametnalism itself -- is responsible for destroying twin towers of the WTC and the American government itself, then, Sharon would certainly grasp, American opinion woudl radically swing to an extremely hard line against all Moslem and Arab entities not securely under their thumb, and most particularly, from Sharon's viewpoint, against Palestinians. No profile of Sharon gives any indication that he would not close on such a deal, such a serving of his higher good, his prime directive. And that is all that was needed to carry off this operation. The getting and conditioning/deceiving of hijackers is an easy affair. Mossad has infiltrated bin Ladin's forces in Central Asia and the Mideast -- but it is a radically decentralized organization (as it must be to remain viable) and so it was an easy matter for this "dark-side" Mossad, with Sharon's clandestine approval, to trick some very angry and vengeful Arabs into thinking they were doing bin Ladens or some other anti-Zionist or anti- Globalization radicals to agree to hijack the four planes. Millions in the world hated the America and the globalization that the World Trade Center represents. These recruited hijackers need not have been Arabs -- there are Croats, Serbs, Latin Americans, and Iranians and any number of other victim-pool people who could have volunteered to conduct the hijacking -- possibly without fully understanding the end result of the mission -- they need not have "signed on" for a suicide bombing. (Many aviation experts on the net are describing a system built into commercial airliners for taking over control of flight from the ground, a system developed to combat terrorism. It is possible that the course of the plane's flight was taken over by this system installed to thwart hijackers (detailed in several reports on the web.) But if the crashes were not effected in this way, psychological-control methods, wholly sufficient for the job, were also available. The technology of behavoir control is further advanced than the popular press has made people aware. Skilled psy op agents can get subjects angry enough and convinced enough of the justice and good effects of "acts' represented as serving their 'cause" to be willing to undertake even suicidal missions. (Activist Alan Yu has researched this technology as have other researchers from a broad spectrum of political orientation.) And this is all that is needed to conduct the terror act. But then what? When the crashes take place -- word merely has to be put out by those involved (the CIA, Mossad, Sharon and those complicit in the Bush Administration, (based on his behavior, my money is on Paul Wolfowitz) to push the theme that bin Ladin was responsible and that this aggressive war to overthrow the Taliban is the only immediate appropriate reaction -- since, the spin goes, the Afgans are responsible for "harboring" bin Laden and that "harboring is exactly the same as terrorism" and that for that reason the entire Afgan government must be terminated (must be "ended as a state" to use Wolfowitz's revealing phrasing of September 12.) The frame-up has all sorts of collateral benefits for the perpetrators. Now the perpetrators can tell the unsuspecting that bin Ladin's guilt has been established beyond doubt -- that for the sake of the security and safety of Israel and the United States that it is necessary that the impression of an "open and shut case" must be spun. (The news media is exhorted to be patriotic and exemplary "wartime correspondents" and sets about selling the blaming of bin Ladin and advocating war and overthrow in Afganistan -- because they have been deceitfully led to believe they really know who bombed the buildings; and among the elite of the news publishers, they "know" it is in the best interests of Israel and Wall Street that this be the response, that this be the spin. And Mr. Bush and Mr. Blair each benefit enormously, politically. And trillions of dollars are enough to subdue and supress criticism of the investigation -- after all, who would know better than the CIA and Mossad exactly who is responsible? (The fact has been reported -- in a different context, of course -- that the U.S. intelligence receives all of its ground intelligence from Central Asia through Mossad's network of infiltrator spies -- in other words, whatever "proofs" the U.S. has (and has shown Tony Blair and NATO) has come exclusively through Sharon via Mossad. The "evidence" so-called, thus, is no counterweight to this reconstruction of the crime. The "evidence" comes exclusively from the prime "frame-up" suspect. Has Mossad done this kind of thing before? Remember the USS Liberty, an American ship with flag flying, deliberatly attacked and sunk (in multiple attack waves) with efforts to kill every saior abord -- either to destroy information that the ship may have intercepted or to frame Arab states to gain the support of American public opinion. (There are other cases involving the blowing up of a disco dance nightclub, again to frame targeted enemies -- a case actually brought to light by the non-renegade "good side" Mossad. The coverup apparently has unlimited resources. Two Mossad men caught red handed days after the WTC crashbombings, were carryhing explosive charges and detonation controls in the government chambers of the Mexican legislature? Apparently big bribes have been, because these men have been set free. One surmises that appeals are made to the bodey man of a "destabalizing international crisis" is the truth were to get out. This is ancient cloak of deviant ruling elites. How many readers -- even if they strongly suspect that this reconstruction fits the facts -- would not deny the conclusion anyway because of fear of what this fact would do to Israel's reputation and thus to her security and survival? Yet this view may be wrong. If Israeli's on the "good side" were to arrest Sharon and chase down the renegades of the Mossad "dark side" and bring them to justice -- tensions in the Mideast would dissolve, and good-faith restored -- good faith that will never return to the world as long as the greatest terror frame-up in history is not corrected by justice and the truth. Also, if this reconstruction is valid, then that certainly raises the liklihood that Ariel Sharon was also the man who gave the order for the murder of Yhitzak Rabin. Israel's greatest peacmaker (if that title does not go to Began for his treaty with Sadat.) Conviction of Sharon would mean that the warmongering "take-no-prisoners" school of Zionism would at last be discredited and that the humanitarian way of Rabin could again be given another chance -- with the Palestinians gaining restored faith in Israel to be fair and just after seeing Sharon removed and brought to justice. I know that at this point you are poised to throw the usual tomatoes and call me a "loon" and a "nazi" -- but I know that those who call me those names are themselves fearful that this analysis may be right.. (ANd I forgive you in advance for having to through those tomatoes out of loyalty and not knowing what else to do in your uncertainty.) It is a rotten world all around -- but my advice is to seek the truth wherever it leads and then to enforce justice -- justice against the real authors of the Sept 11 terror, whoever they may be -- to go after Sharon just as strenuously as you were recently ready to hunt down bin Laden. And of course, the United States has a similar house cleaning of its topmost shelves of power and influence -- a job that we have been putting off since the 1870's. (How the entire world will benefit from that job!) (And I should make this clearer: The media are not silent because they are conmplicit in the terror -- they are silent because they are "yes men" who "know where their bread is buttered" and they are not about to jump up and say "Sharon did it" until they see others in their postions doing so. This is consitent with today's "Dilbert" world of Establishment-monopolized organizations. Only an earth shaking event, like the exposing of the Establishment's role in the WTC terror, will


this link has copies of the original docs wherein op no was proposed and defined- OPERATION NORTHWOODS In 1962 the Pentagon and the CIA were desperate for a war with Cuba. How desperate? Desperate enough to plan attacks against American bases, equipment and personnel. Desperate enough to dress up American trained Cubans as Communists to make the attacks on American bases. Desperate enough to manufacture an airplane that looked like a Russian MiG to shoot down an American airliner. Why? "The desired resultant from the execution of this plan would be to place the United States in the apparent position of suffering defensible grievances from a rash and irresponsible government of Cuba and to develop an international image of a Cuban threat to peace in the Western Hemisphere." And you think that the United States wouldn't do this or worse to control the largest remaining untapped oil reserves in the world, along with more than half of the world's heroin trade? "http://www.copvcia.com/stories/nov_2001/operation_northwoods.html"


India and Iran will "facilitate" the planned US-Russia hostilities against the Taliban. By Our Correspondent 26 June 2001: India and Iran will "facilitate" US and Russian plans for "limited military action" against the Taliban if the contemplated tough new economic sanctions don't bend Afghanistan's fundamentalist regime. The Taliban controls 90 per cent of Afghanistan and is advancing northward along the Salang highway and preparing for a rear attack on the opposition Northern Alliance from Tajikistan-Afghanistan border positions. Indian foreign secretary Chokila Iyer attended a crucial session of the second Indo-Russian joint working group on Afghanistan in Moscow amidst increase of Taliban's military activity near the Tajikistan border. And, Russia's Federal Security Bureau (the former KGB) chief Nicolai Patroshev is visiting Teheran this week in connection with Taliban's military build-up. Indian officials say that India and Iran will only play the role of "facilitator" while the US and Russia will combat the Taliban from the front with the help of two Central Asian countries, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, to push Taliban lines back to the 1998 position 50 km away from Mazar-e-Sharief city in northern Afghanistan. Military action will be the last option though it now seems scarcely avoidable with the UN banned from Taliban-controlled areas. The UN which adopted various means in the last four years to resolve the Afghan problem is now being suspected by the Taliban and refused entry into Taliban areas of the war-ravaged nation through a decree issued by Taliban chief Mullah Mohammad Omar last month. Diplomats say that the anti-Taliban move followed a meeting between US Secretary of State Collin Powel and Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov and later between Powell and Indian foreign minister Jaswant Singh in Washington. Russia, Iran and India have also held a series of discussions and more diplomatic activity is expected. The Northern Alliance led by ousted Afghan president Burhanuddin Rabbani and his military commander Ahmed Shah Masood have mustered Western support during a May 2001 visit to Dusseldorf, Germany. The Taliban is using high-intensity rockets and Soviet-made tanks to attack Northern Alliance fighters in the Hindukush range with alleged Pakistani aid. But Northern Alliance fighters have acquired anti-tank missiles from a third country that was used in the fight near Bagram Air Base in early June. The Taliban lost 20 fighters and fled under intense attack. Officials say that the Northern Alliance requires a "clean up" operation to reduce Taliban's war-fighting machinery to launch an attack against the Taliban advance to the Tajik-Afghan border. This "clean up" action is being planned by the US and Russia since the Taliban shows no "sign of reconciliation". Tajikistan and Uzbekistan will lead the ground attack with a strong military back up of the US and Russia. Vital Taliban installations and military assets will be targeted. India and Iran will provide logistic support. Russian President Vladimir Putin has already hinted of military action against the Taliban to CIS nation heads during a meeting in Moscow in early June. India and Iran have been assisting the Northern Alliance and the Afghan people under their humanitarian programme since Taliban's ouster of the Rabbani government in 1996. The US needs Russian assistance because of Soviet knowledge of the Afghan terrain. The former Soviet Union intervened in Afghanistan in 1979 and withdrew in 1989. Masood's strategic stronghold of Panjsher valley has been threatened by the advancing Taliban militia for the last three months. The Northern Alliance has stepped up its attack on Taliban troops who have brought the valley within artillery fire range. Military planners say that if Taliban were not given a blow now it would slowly make inroads into the Panjsher valley. The fall of Panjsher will enable Taliban to control the remaining 10 per cent of Afghanistan in possession of the Northern Alliance. Russia says it has evidence that the Taliban aims to create "liberated zones" all across Central Asia and Russia and links its Chechnya problem to the rise of Taliban fundamentalism. The US is directly hit by the anti-US thrust of Islamic groups who use Afghanistan as their base for terrorism and is demanding extradition of Osama Bin Laden to face trial in the embassy bombing case. Such Central Asian countries as Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan are threatened by the Taliban that is aiming to control their vast oil, gas and other resources by bringing Islamic fundamentalists into power. Now all the CIS nations are seeking assistance of Russia's Federal Border Guard Service to overcome the Taliban threat. General Konstantin Trotsky, director of the border force, said in a newspaper interview, "We are watching the opposition of the Northern Alliance and the Taliban in Afghanistan very closely." For its part, Shia Iran is reluctant to tolerate a Sunni militia regime on its border that gives Pakistan, a Sunni country and a sponsor of the Taliban, a "strategic sway" on considerable parts of the Iranian border. Iran is also affected by a Taliban-sponsored movement in Ispahan province where Sunnis have a sizable population. Iran is also worried over the unending war effort of the Taliban to get supremacy in Afghanistan that is harming Iran's economic interests. India, Iran and Russia, for example, are working on a broad plan to supply oil and gas to south Asia and southeast Asian nations through India but instability in Afghanistan is posing a great threat to this effort. Similarly, India is apprehensive about the increasing infiltration of Afghan-trained foreign mercenaries into Kashmir. Security agencies have reported that as many as 15,000 hardcore militants have received training in such places in Afghanistan as Khost, Jalalabad, Kabul and Kandahar since 1995. There are 55 terrorist training camps located in Afghanistan that are funded and aided by Islamic fundamentalists to carry out attacks against non-Islamic nations. The UN had sent a 12-member delegation to India in the first week of May to assess the feasibility of tough economic sanctions against Taliban. The same delegation met General Pervez Musharraf to convince him about the importance of Pakistani cooperation. The UN believes that the sanctions can be only as tough as Pakistan desires. India's official position is for a "peaceful and lasting solution" to the Afghan problem. But it strongly advocates strict economic sanctions against Taliban and is also not averse to a "limited military action" to weaken it. India plans to raise the Afghanistan issue in the forthcoming G-8 summit in Geneva in mid-July. "http://www.indiareacts.com/Story33.htm" (THE ORIGINAL WAS SCRUBBED) AND, IF YOU'RE INTERESTED, YOU CAN SEE HOW THEY "REVISED" IT: "http://www.indiareacts.com/archivefeatures/nat2.asp?recno=10&ctg=" Two more background article, that have bearing on what happening today -as again the same folks are back in power and calling the shots. THE CASE AGAINST HENRY KISSINGER. Hitchens in Harper's Feb 2001 "http://www.findarticles.com/cf_0/m1111/1809_302/69839383/p1/article.jhtml?term=kissinger" THE CASE AGAINST HENRY KISSINGER, Hitchens in Harper's March 2001 "http://www.findarticles.com/cf_0/m1111/1810_302/71250720/p1/article.jhtml?term=kissinger"


Hi, a word of caution 'be very, very careful from here on with what you open in your email'. I would take every precaution possible. Also be aware that you may receive email that looks like its being sent from someone you know or whom you ordinarily get mail from - but make sure every character, every space is precisely how and where it should be. I'm getting email that at a glance looks like its sent from 'reliable' sources, but on closer inspection there's a missing "T" or an extra space -very crafty devils. Also, another ploy is to send mail that looks like its being sent from the ISP or email host servers - be careful with this too. "/ym/Compose?To=postmaster@bouncedmess.net&YY=14565&order=down&sort=date&pos=0" is not the address for undeliverable mail in one of my accounts, so I know this is bogus. Another thing, even if you get mail from someone you know, but there is any delay on the delivery, and they have attached files 39-41K -don't open the attachments. COnfirm first whether they were acutally sent by the sender. Lastly, If you think you're being hit with virus laden email - don't open it, but don't delete it. If you can open it at a library, (or somewhere else where those parties will also want to contact the authorities aboutthis maliciousness -) you can then find out where its coming from, and reearch whether it was sent by the spooks. And if its the guv - well it might be time for everyone to seriously consider another tea party.

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SHAYKH HAMZA YUSUF on BBC RADIO 5 with FI GLOVER

Please note: This is a transcript of an interview originally broadcast live on BBC Radio 5. If you would like to recieve the original MP3 recording (50 MB) please mail Zhikr. Thank you.

Fi Glover: After the news and sport our guest is Shaykh Hamza Yusuf who is a leading academic on Islam. He is happy to answer your questions.

Shaykh Hamza Yusuf: Sure.

Fi Glover: Good, we've got plenty of them so far. What we'd like to do, if this is all right by you Hamza, is kind of take it right back to the beginning so people shouldn't feel afraid to ask what they might think of the most basic questions about the Islamic faith and you're happy to go through things in detail for us. You have met President Bush and you actually advised him on quite a key point which was the name of the operation, originally called Infinite Justice. And did you suggest the alternative name or did you just point that out?

Shaykh Hamza Yusuf: He asked for a suggestion and I think I said... Righteous Justice. But they didn't use that one.

Fi Glover: And how did you find it, talking to him, because we often have a caricature of the man over here.

Shaykh Hamza Yusuf: I think my caricature was definitely, it burst so to speak. He came off as very different in private than I imagined him to be.

Fi Glover: Is he knowledgeable?

Shaykh Hamza Yusuf: I think he's much more intelligent than he comes off on some of his public imagery. Knowledgeable that I think that he's much more a people type person. He's somebody that seems to me to be, connects very well with people, he's got a type of charisma so to speak. I don't know about... I think that he's probably got a lot to learn about the Muslim world.

Fi Glover: Does he have an intellectual curiosity, do you think?

Shaykh Hamza Yusuf: Yeah, I think so. He certainly seemed to be a very good listener and I think ultimately people that make it to these levels of achievement in the world obviously... you know, they've got something going for them.

Fi Glover: One hopes so very much!

Shaykh Hamza Yusuf: {laughs}

Fi Glover: We'll take lots of calls after the news and sport...

-------------------------[ PROGRAM INTERVAL ]-------------------------


Fi Glover: Shaykh Hamza Yusuf is in the studio with us. He has briefed Western leaders on the current situation and has been described as the West's most influential Islamic scholar he's going to stay around for the next hour or so and will be more than happy to answer any questions that you might have. Let's start with where your authority comes from if that's alright. You converted to Islam at the age of seventeen?

Shaykh Hamza Yusuf: Right, seventeen, and I subsequently, actually moved to England, I spent a few years in England and then after that I was given a scholarship to the United Arab Emirates and I studied there for four years and then I studied also in Algeria and in West Africa and in Morocco and I spent a period of time also in Saudi Arabia and after that I returned to the United States and did my university studies in religious studies and subsequently started an Islamic school, institute, in California, and I've been teaching there for several years and lecturing. I've lectured quite a bit in the UK and also in the United States and in the Arab world as well.

Fi Glover: What drew you to the Islamic faith?

Shaykh Hamza Yusuf: I think that it's probably a difficult question to really pin point any one thing, but I think I was particularly drawn to the Muslims that I'd met, but I had read the Qur'an in English, an English translation of the Qur'an, and was very impressed by certain aspects of the faith that I felt were lacking in my previous faith, so I saw it really as an enhancement of my own upbringing. I was raised Christian and I felt that it was something that was a progressive step for me.

Fi Glover: Can you give us a guide as to the different paths of Islam because this interpretation of the Qur'an seems to be a very integral part of understanding who believes in what and what has drawn some people to the rather disturbed situation we're in now.

Shaykh Hamza Yusuf: I think that in all religious traditions legitimacy is problematic. Certainly within the Christian tradition legitimacy was defined within the Catholic Church and obviously the Protestant Reformation rent that asunder so to speak. And since then, I mean obviously we've got untold numbers within the Methodists alone in America, there are over seventy, I think there are seventy seven Methodist branches, that are all within the United Methodist, but they all have different interpretations of their tradition.

Within Islam traditionally you've had, the Muslims have been divided into two groups. The Sunni and then the Shiite. The majority are Sunni. There's probably about eight-five percent of the Muslim world is Sunni. And then you have the large minority is the Shiite. And then you'll have small sects like any religious tradition. Unfortunately a lot of people don't realise that because of the colonial period a lot of the teaching universities were shut down and the Muslim world is still a deeply religious part of the world unlike, you know, the increasingly secularised West. People here tend to see religion as really a marginalised aspect of their life. And even within Christianity the fact that we do in the West tend to see religion as something that's done on Sunday. Whereas Muslims pray five times a day, so there's a pretty strong connection to a religious world view so to speak.

So when you look at the Muslim world. I think by and large you do have a deeply religious community of people and they're as dysfunctional as most human beings in the modern world, I mean there's a lot of problems in the Muslim world. There's social problems, economic problems. I think areas of Muslim strength are the family, I think the family is still a very integral part of Muslim society and culture and I think that families in many ways are more integral in the Muslim world than they are in the West but certainly in areas, economics and development, these type things, there's no doubt that the Muslim societies by and large are significantly behind the West in those areas.

Fi Glover: Would it be unfair to say that Islam is in a bit of a mess at the moment?

Shaykh Hamza Yusuf: I think Muslims are in a bit of a mess. I think Islam is a world religion. I wouldn't say Islam is in a mess but I'd say the Muslims are in a mess.

Fi Glover: What kind of a mess?

Shaykh Hamza Yusuf: Well I think part of it is what we were getting to, the legitimacy, is because that these teaching institutions were pretty much dismantled by the colonial powers I mean this is all documented stuff, it's well known to academics. Places like Al-Azhar were actually radically altered and Lord Cromer from England had a hand in that. Places like the Zaytuna in Tunis is pretty much become a secular university. The one place where there still is significant I think strength in terms of traditional studies is in Morocco. The Qaraween university in Fez is still fairly strong, but it was revived by the late King Hussan.

So the fact that there are so few really trained scholars what's happened is lot of Arabs who are not educated in the religious sciences but because of modern schooling have gone through say twelve years of education they can read Arabic up to a point, because Arabic's a much more difficult language, classical Arabic, than say modern English. But they do have access to religious knowledge through books and things like that and what's happened is there's a new generation has emerged of people who are speaking in the name of religion and really aren't trained because I think all of us would agree that in order to interpret anything you have to have the tools.

So for instance in the United States we have the constitution in the United States is the foundation of law. In order to reach a level where you can interpret the constitution you have to be considered a constitutional lawyer and really have a very high level of expertise in legal theory and in law so what happens is that people take Qur'an who don't have that training and they find verses in the Qur'an like the Bible, I mean you have a verse in the bible where Jesus says don't think I've come to bring peace, I come to bring war. But then there's another verse where Jesus says blessed are the peacemakers for they shall be called children of God. So which one is it? Are we warmongers or are we peacemakers? And what you need is you need to understand these things. There's metaphysical implications, there's things that aren't to be taken literally, in the Bible as well as in the Qur'an and this is where you need a trained scholastic tradition.

Fi Glover: Right, I mean that's very much like an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth is often quoted from the Bible not in it's context it isn't saying what people now use it as a justification.

Shaykh Hamza Yusuf: Well I was on a program and I woman called in it's like Jesus said an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. And I reminded her actually that Jesus didn't say that he said it is said of old an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth but I say unto you love those who hate you, right, which is quite different. {Laughs}

Fi Glover: From what you're saying is one of the fundamental problems the lack of leadership?

Shaykh Hamza Yusuf: I think it is

Fi Glover: And is Osama bin Laden actually trying to become one leader?

Shaykh Hamza Yusuf: Osama bin Laden he's an engineer. He's not a trained theologian. He's an engineer. He was trained I think in structural engineering or something like that. Eiman Zahaweeri who's with him is a pediatrician. How a pediatrician could become a terrorist is very strange.

Fi Glover: That's quite a leap isn't it?

Shaykh Hamza Yusuf: I think it's a big leap, you know, somebody who was trained to save children and help children could end up participating in events that actually children are killed in is something very very strange. I think you're dealing with people... I think the Afghani war was an extremely traumatic war and I think the veterans of that war were deeply traumatised and I don't think that their psychological wounds have healed , I think in a way they've festered and these people are filled with a lot of rage and anger which is tragic.

Fi Glover: Is there an inconsistency with the actions of the suicide bombers in that they wouldn't have achieved the martyrdom that that they were searching for or even have been granted a place in paradise because of they way they'd lived before? I mean they had smoked, they had drunk, they had taken up with women of ill repute. They had not lived a life that seemed to be very religious beforehand.

Shaykh Hamza Yusuf: I think that was enigmatic for most of the Muslims, devout Muslims, because Muslims tend to generally... people that are committed to their tradition don't drink, they might smoke, but they certainly don't drink, they don't womanise. I mean human beings always have their short comings and failures, but generally you won't find that in the Muslim community, certainly not in religiously committed Muslims and even not that much in the secularised Muslim community. So I think that was problematic.

But I think when we are looking at these people, if they were indeed Muslims, and most of the circumstantial evidence points to that, I think that there's two major problems here. One that suicide is prohibited in Islam, it's considered one of the grave sins of Islam, and while it doesn't excommunicate a person it is seen as one of the worst things that you can do and homicide as well and it's very rare that these two things will come together where you get a suicidal individual who's also homicidal. I mean this is a very unusual combination. And obviously it's one of the worst but it does occur even in the West. I mean every once in a while we get the guy in America who goes into the post office and shoots all his co-workers and then turns the gun on himself. Human beings do do this. It is a problem.

I think here for me the most difficult aspect of this is the premeditation because this is obliviously something that took a great deal of planning and these people would have had to have been actively living amongst Americans. I think for people in the West when they look at Muslims if you look at Pakistanis for instance on the news with contorted faces and kind of shouting and screaming anti-Western diatribes and burning flags and things like this I think for people who don't know Pakistanis they can obviously think that these are pretty insane people whereas I think English people who have friends that are Pakistanis who have experienced a little bit of that culture know that is in no way definitive of a people or a culture but it represents similar to our National Front for instance in the West or white supremacists, there's quite a few of them in America. There's some ugly Americans, but generally Americans they're nice people. So I think that this is one of the things that has to happen, there needs to be a little more interaction and people need to be aware of some commonly shared core values that we have.


Fi Glover: We've got so many questions to get through we'll go straight to them after we've had some headlines and travel.

-------------------------[ PROGRAM INTERVAL ]-------------------------

Fi Glover: Time to go straight to some e-mails.

Co-presenter: Very interesting questions, Eddie from Birmingham: "Isn't the key difference between Western thinking and Islam that Western thought values scientific rational thought, questioning things, whereas Islam values submission to the will of God and therefore is it possible for the two to exist happily together in society?"

Shaykh Hamza Yusuf: I think it's a good question, but I would say on the contrary I think Islam is very interesting in that it does demand that you question, that you inquire. I think that if Eddie read the Qur'an he would probably be surprised that the amount of verses that are talking about looking at the creation and thinking, 'don't they travel in the earth and see how creation began', the Muslims were extraordinary in their scientific pursuit. In fact a lot of our science is actually based on a bridge that occurred between the ancient world of Greece and Islam, trigonometry was invented by the Muslims, also algebra is an Arabic word, Al-Jabr.


Fi Glover: Isn't one of the problems though...

Shaykh Hamza Yusuf: Also just out of the three thousand named stars over a thousand of them in the West still have Arabic names. Most of the brightest stars that you can see up in the sky like Vega, is from Wak'ih or Atere is Al-Tair I mean these are still stars that we look up. They carry Arabic names because the Arabs and Muslims were great astronomers so on the contrary I think there was a great deal of science but the Muslims did like many civilisations go into a type of regressive retroactive period and that was the time when the West began to emerge.

Fi Glover: And so what happens now, I mean is it possible to still say that perhaps there is a dark age going on in terms of new developments?

Shaykh Hamza Yusuf: I think there is a bit of a dark age, a little bit, I think that's probably true. Octavio Pase who won the noble prize said if the West does not learn how to bridge the gap between religion and science that we are hell-bent on destruction and he said Islam seems to be uniquely the only religion that was able to do that and that is something that Prince Charles also said in some speechs that we need to bring Muslim theologians to the West to teach us how we can bridge this gap between science and religion that the Muslims seem to have done for centuries.

Fi Glover: But presumably also to also teach the younger generations. I mean do you see that there's some kind of generation gap that is preventing better assimilation between Muslims and people in the West?

Shaykh Hamza Yusuf: I think, you know it's important for us in the West to realise how traumatic the last 150 years have been for the Muslims. The Muslims were a people generally who didn't really know defeat. Historically there's very few instance where they actually experienced defeat. Generally it was a very successful religion. The Ottoman empire is the longest lasting dynasty in the history of human civilisation and yet with the colonial incurgen into the Muslim lands beginning with Napoleon, well probably you can look at it from Spain but Napoleon was the heart land, when Napoleon entered into Egypt and then you see until before long the entire Muslim world was basically under colonial control. So I think that was very humiliating for the Muslims. I think they are still suffering from that humiliation.

I think it's very interesting that Osama bin Laden said in one of his broadcasts that we've been living in humiliation for eighty years. I think for us if we look at for instance Nazi Germany. Germany after the Versai treaty was humiliated quite considerably by the other Western countries that opposed Germany in World War One and then they had massive inflation, economic collapse. Within thirteen years they were already electing a fascist government into power. The same is true for Italy so I think one of the things about humiliation is what will often come out of it is a type of an attempt to restore the glory of the past and anybody that can promise that like Jamal Abdul Nassar in Egypt, gains a widespread popular support. I think it's tragic that bin Laden could even strike a cord like that in the Muslims and I think it is indicative of a very serious crisis in the Muslim world that in some ways Muslims have reached a type of rock bottom.

Fi Glover: Lets have another question...

Co-presenter: This is from Claire from Norwich: "We hear a lot about the Islamic nations but is that a reality? Aren't nations divided along geopolitical lines and can there ever be such a thing as an Islamic nation?"

Shaykh Hamza Yusuf: I don't think there are any Islamic nations, there are Muslim countries and this is another problem because traditionally the Muslims believed that all of the Muslims should be under one leadership which was called the Caliph or the Khalifa and this is the Ottoman Turkey when it was dismantled in 1924 that was the last Caliph or Khalifa and since then there hasn't been any unified force. There's been attempts at some kind of pan-Islamic movement and this is certainly what Osama bin Laden is relying on that this pan-Islamic spirit will kind of emerge and it will create a clash of civilisations which oddly enough is the policy paper written by Samuel Huntington at Harvard in which he envisioned the future being a clash between the Chinese culture, the Islamic culture and the Western culture. I personally think that we should do whatever we can to avoid any scenarios like that because I think that the world is too intertwined, it's too interdependent and I think that the West has immense interest in the Muslim world. But I also think the Muslim world has serious interests in having amicable relations with the West, I think it's a really bad scenario.

Fi Glover: What is it within the Muslim faith that can provoke such hatred of capitalism

Shaykh Hamza Yusuf: I think that Muslims have a deep deep commitment to social justice, to economic justice. I think there's a lot, for instance in October 13th's The Economist, there was an article that 'it's important to keep saying this it's not a war against Islam because the West really has nothing against Islam'. I think that's a little bit disingenuous. Given that I think there's certain elements in the Islamic religion that are particularly troublesome. One of them is the prohibition of usury. So I think that the foundation of Western venture capitalism is ...

Fi Glover: By usury you mean money lending?

Shaykh Hamza Yusuf: Interest, money lending, these type things. And this is still a very very essential aspect of the Islamic religion. It was traditionally banned in Christianity and also most philosophers have been opposed to usury or interest. Even John Maynard Keynes called it the necessary evil whereas the Muslims really view it as something evil. And so I think that will always be a problem, a type of tension between Muslims and the dominant economic, for instance in America, you pretty much have to have a mortgage and be paying interest on your house to get tax breaks. Well most Muslims can't take mortgages because it is prohibited in their religion, so they end up renting and it's a real problem for a lot of devout Muslims.

Fi Glover: Sure, fascinating stuff, we've got so many other questions to get through, so we'll pick up this after half past eleven.

-------------------------[ PROGRAM INTERVAL ]-------------------------

Fi Glover: It's eleven thirty, so coming up, we're taking your calls, you can put them to the man who has President Bush's ear on Islamic matters.

-------------------------[ PROGRAM INTERVAL ]-------------------------

Fi Glover: It's twenty three minutes to midnight Fi Glover here and Hamza Yusuf is still with us and Anita Anand and we've been joined by the writer and documentary maker John Ronson, his most recent publication was titled 'Them - Adventures with Extremists'. Aside from that he's made many award winning documentaries about people who're often on the fringes fighting for their causes, they're all delivered with wry and pertinent wit and he was of course hotly tipped to take over from Richard Maidley on This Morning, that's a joke! You're a very unlikely contender for that post.

John Ronson: I am that.

Fi Glover: Right let's get straight to all the calls and the e-mails that we have for Hamza Yusuf and I'll start with this e-mail that comes from Steve and Steve says how do Saudi's who've sat on huge money piles square this with your comments on Islamic views on capitalism. Why aren't these guys putting some serious resources into helping their poor Afghan brothers?

Shaykh Hamza Yusuf: I think that in Saudi Arabia there's an incredible amount of philanthropic activity in Saudi Arabia and I think that to deny that is unfair to them. But unfortunately that doesn't make news, what tends to make news is the Saudi that spends all his money in Monte Carlo or in London or buying DisneyWorld or something like that. But actually there's an incredible amount of money that does go from Saudi Arabia to other places, but obviously not as much as I would like or most people would like but in the end of the day everybody's accountable to what they do and in Islam there's an idea of accountability not just in this world but in the next world as well.

Fi Glover: Does Islam have Hell as we would recognise it within the Christian faith?

Shaykh Hamza Yusuf: There's something called The Fire which is a place of punishment and purification.

Fi Glover: I wanted to ask you as well about the view of women in the Islamic world. We actually talked about it in the program last week and it stirred up quite a lot of controversy and it may seem to an outsider that women get quite a raw deal but would you say that's the wrong interpretation of her status in the Qur'an?

Shaykh Hamza Yusuf: I think women get a raw deal in most places and I don't think that Muslims have a monopoly on the mistreatment of women. I think that we still have a lot to learn as just as half of the human race. Men have a lot to learn about dignity and respect that should be warranted to women and I think that the Islamic tradition has an incredible view of women. The Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, said that paradise is at the feet of the mother. And there's an idea of really honouring the woman. Mary is mentioned, probably, I think she's mentioned more than any other single person in the Qur'an outside of perhaps Moses, she's mentioned many many times in the Qur'an and I think that Islam generally is misunderstood, and I think Muslims misunderstand Islam and the rights of women.

For instance just to give you an example, it is a woman's right in Islam to have a servant in the house and that's actually considered a legal right of a woman that she should have help in her house, domestic help for her chores. It's a right not to have to cook meals for her husband, it's considered a duty if she has children to take care of her children, but actually it's not a right to cook for her husband, or to cook for his guests, and she can actually refuse to do that in Islamic law. Is that practiced? No. Do you see what I mean?

So I think that always you have, in religious studies you have what's called the descriptive and the normative. The normative is what the tradition defines itself as being. The descriptive is how practitioners actually follow that religion and I think there's a very, very deep gap between normative Islam and descriptive Islam and so what most people in the West see is they see descriptive Islam and generally it's sometimes as bad as descriptive Christianity, descriptive Judaism, descriptive Hinduism and every other group of people out there. I think people tend to fall short of their ideals and their traditions but I don't think we should judge a tradition based on the acts of it's practitioners, that's always a flaw in logic.

Fi Glover: Right let's bring in Liz who's in Highbury. You're very welcome on the programme Liz, how can we help your thirst for knowledge this evening?

Liz: Hi, thank you Fi. I'd like to go back to the normative and the descriptive words that you've been talking about. If Islam is the understanding and compassionate religion it's keen to suggest, how can it be that some of it's followers, especially those of the Taliban, deny the opportunity of education to women? Deny them training in important roles such as doctors and dentists? And then deny women access to health care because the men who've made the rules won't allow them to be examined by the only one's who're allowed to study i.e. men. If the rulers of the religion bar women from study how then do they justify the fact that women are actually denied primary health care? That might be construed by a load of people as murder by implication. And it certainly doesn't happen in the Jewish and Christian religions.

Fi Glover: Okay, I think... should... Hamza Yusuf...

Shaykh Hamza Yusuf: I think it's definitely a good point and the idea that it doesn't happen in the Jewish and Christian traditions is certainly true now, but historically is it true? I mean don't forget, we're in the post Christian secular West, and we tend to think that somehow Christianity has brought us to this wonderful point of enlightenment and progression. I think in reality a lot of what's happening in the West is a reaction in fact to the brutality of Christianity in the West. The Christians debated whether women had souls or not. And this is in Christian theological texts. St. Augusta considered women to be a real bane to humanity, Eve is seen as the cause of all the problems.

So I think to say that, and I am not attacking Christianity because I actually have a high regard for Christianity, but I think it's important for us to realise that the Taliban are reflective of a deeply, I would say medieval is probably the best adjective that I can find, I mean these are people, the ambassador to the Taliban in Pakistan went into a room and refused to enter when he saw a picture and when they informed him that it was Muhammad Ali Jinnah, the founder of Pakistan, he said who? I mean this is the ambassador to Pakistan who does'nt know who the founding father, that would be like a British person not knowing George Washington.

So I think that to use these people as an example of Islam, lets look at what the Prophet Muhammad said, he said seeking knowledge is an obligation upon every male and female Muslim and that's related in a collection of traditions related by ibn Maja. Women historically, there is immense number of female scholars in the history of Islam, Imam Isakhawi notes in his Book of Notables, over five hundred living in Cairo in the 12th century.

Fi Glover: So why haven't other Muslims before now, taken a stronger line with the Taliban because it sounds like they've actually contravened?

Shaykh Hamza Yusuf: I think that there's a lot of, there's a patriarchal type of ignorance in the Muslim world generally. I think that women do get a raw deal in the Muslim world. I think it's true also in the Mediterranean world, in the southern Mediterranean world, it's true also in South America, it's true to a certain degree in Mexico. I think that this is consistent with a lot of behavior around the world certainly in Asia as well.

Now in the West I think there have been many many strides made for women in the West, on the other hand we also have a lot of things we should be ashamed of. I was in a BBC television programme a few days ago and the woman that interviewed me I said don't you find it troubling that men in this business don't have to be attractive but the women tend to be attractive and she said they won't even let me wear my glasses on this show. I mean, I find that very problematic. But this is the reality. So I think that we have to be very careful about taking standards we have here in the West and simply attacking everybody else.

We have very serious social problems in the West also, and its very easy to take Jesus' advice, his good advice, before you take the speck out of your brothers eye, take the two by four out of your own eye. In this world it's very easy to find targets outside of ourselves, but I think that Muslims have to become more introspective and I think Western people in general we need to become more introspective as well beause the blame game is a very easy game and I see the Taliban essentially, are victims of the Cold War.

I think we tend to forget that a million and half Afghanis died in a war that was largely funded and supported by American covert activity and then instead of having a Marshall Plan to rebuild the country, instead of de-mining the country, instead of actually helping the people we walked away, washed our hands of it, and then let these people hack it out for the next ten years. I mean the actual suffering that's been going on in Afghanistan, I don't think anybody should be looking at that country with anything other than sympathy, I really do, and I think that we're losing our humanity to demonise these people. I know the Afghani people very well. I was in the refugee camps in 1986 and I have many, many Afghani friends. They're extraordinary people, they're a wonderful people, they're a freedom loving people, they love and honour women, and what's happening there is a tragedy of epic proportions.

Fi Glover: Well let me just bring in Chris in Wembley, I don't know whether Chris your point is exactly pertinent to Afghanistan or on a wider issue but do go ahead.

Chris: Well generally it's on a wider issue Fi. The problem seems to me that the West is a consumer society, we have to deal with sometimes people we don't necessarily like because that's the way our economy works. Now we know that a lot of people being run by despotic governments, or tyrannical military regimes or whatever, but the people in those countries object to that way of life or to being run by those people, and they blame us for propping their governments up. However it seems to me that many of the people leave the country if they have a bit of education and a bit of money, they leave and come and live in the West, in safety and security, because they don't want to be persecuted at home. If they keep doing that and only the lower ends of society if you like are left in the country nothing will ever change. They have to stay there and fight and change their system.

Shaykh Hamza Yusuf: It's actually a really good point, I think you're making an excellent point. It's called the braindrain. It's not just the money that comes here, but actually the West incites some of the best intellects in the third world to enter into think tanks and to enter into university and also in America there's over ten thousand physicians from the Muslim world practicing medicine in the United States most of them don't want to live in their countries and that is a serious problem because the West we do have freedoms here that most people don't enjoy in other places in the world. I grew up in the United States and I hope we don't lose them I think we're very vulnerable right now, you know increasing security and just the overall paranoia that's starting to permeate the society can enable some of these laws to be enacted that we're going to regret later. But unfortunately security is a higher priority than liberty even in Western legal theory which is why in the United States the fourth amendment says that you're protected from illegal searches and seizures except in case of invasion or threat to national security. So security is actually a higher priority than liberty.

Unfortunately in most of the Muslim world they do live under despotic regimes and it's very difficult and I think a lot of the anger and resentment towards the West is due to the fact that a lot of these regimes are armed militarily by France, by China, by America and by Great Britain. Great Britain has incredible economic interests in the Muslim world.

Fi Glover: Do you in a sense though dilute your faith if you do leave your country and go and live in a capitalist society?

Shaykh Hamza Yusuf: I haven't found my faith diluted living in the West. I've found that, you know there's things that trouble me about the West, I think they trouble all of us. I think most thinking people are troubled by the consumerism. I think that the breakdown of family, a lot of the things that are in traditional understanding, some of the core values of Western civilisation. In a sense I was a child of the enlightenment, my father was a professor of humanities, I great up with a lot of the enlightenment ideals and I think they're wonderful ideals and I've never found them to be in conflict with my Islamic training.


Fi Glover: But isn't it interesting that we will have all those kind of debates in a very secular way. I mean certainly in this country on a very kind of political scale, with a lower case P. But when it comes to interpreting somebody's faith we attribute I think a greater kind of importance to it all or less than acceptance. That you can be diverse, you can debate the problems, you can accept the problems, they're just what you live with. They're just all around you, no matter what faith you are.

Shaykh Hamza Yusuf: There's, you know there's an idea in America they say in polite company you don't discuss religion and politics because they tend to cause conflict and I think that for Muslims in particular they're very sensitive about their religion, particularly right now, because the West tends to look down on a lot of aspects of the Islamic religion certainly the veiling of women, the covering of women is very very problematic in the West. On the other hand I think in the West it's very troublesome to Muslims to see the unveiling of women, to see the levels of pornography that have entered into the levels of mainstream society. The fact that I have small children, when I go to the grocery store, I feel troubled by the fact that there's pictures everywhere. Now some people will say it's just human bodies and things like this but I think that most societies have this idea that we should have modesty, that there should be levels of modesty.

I certainly think that women should have a choice about these things and I think that in Islam that is part of the Islamic tradition. You don't want to become fascist and to impose religious ideas on people, that breeds hypocrisy, it doesn't breed faith and I think that it's an indication of the bankruptcy of the Muslim community that they want to enforce these things because it would seem that they're not capable of convincing people that these are things that they should adhere to, and I think that's what troubles Western people so much because we do have this idea that there is a freedom. Even in that smorgasbord of decadence that is out there there's kind of still an underlying
idea in the West that well you still choose watch something that maybe you shouldn't be watching, you still choose to wear something that maybe you shouldn't be wearing. But there's that idea of the freedom of choice.

From a Muslim perspective there's also this idea that it's a little bit demonic to really, to basically, to exploit these natural tendencies that tend to make people feel disappointed with themselves when they succumb to it. I think a lot of us when we do things people that over eat you know they tend to have that tinge of guilt, oh God, you know my gluttony got the best of me again or the husband who's trying not to have an affair but God he just can't keep it together and he goes and he does that thing and then he sees his wife and he feels guilty and...

Fi Glover: And he ends up on a bad television programme.

Shaykh Hamza Yusuf: Exactly, or breaking down his family and then really regretting that it all happened and all that. So I think that playing on those weaknesses because obviously vices have always made good business so I think for Muslims they've always felt that it's just not a good business to go into.

Fi Glover: And John do feel free to join our conversation. We know that you've got a lot of questions that you want to put and sadly we're almost running out of time.

John Ronson: I wanted to just ask you how you got to know George Bush and how that worked out?

Shaykh Hamza Yusuf: {laughs}

John Ronson: Well obviously all the things you've said up to this point open up many fascinating areas and I think for instance, I think the great misunderstanding is the fact that we forget that our secular liberalism is itself a belief system. We fear people who have belief systems not realising that our fear is our belief system.

Shaykh Hamza Yusuf: Brian Appleyard wrote a brilliant book about that, he's a British writer, about the kind of secularist fundamentalism that exists and the intolerance that a lot of secular humanists have toward other belief systems.

John Ronson: Well you were speaking about the paranoia in America that's happening now...

Shaykh Hamza Yusuf: That one of your favorite subjects.

John Ronson: Well yes it is.

[everyone laughs]

Fi Glover: You carry on Anita.

Anita Anand: Well I actually want to know how you know George Bush.

Fi Glover: Oh okay we're on the Bush thing again!

Anita Anand: Well did he ask you?

Shaykh Hamza Yusuf: Well I was actually bushwhacked. It wasn't something I sought after.

John Ronson: So who? What?

Shaykh Hamza Yusuf: Somebody who's in the White House who I knew his father quite well they asked for a Muslim scholar suggested that I would be probably the most appropriate person to be representative of Islamic scholastic tradition.

John Ronson: This was after September the 11th?

Shaykh Hamza Yusuf: After September 11th.

John Ronson: They wouldn't have wanted an Islamic scholar before that.

Shaykh Hamza Yusuf: They should have had one though, I think because it'd help pre-empt some of these things.

Fi Glover: Can I bring Hanif from Birmingham into the conversation gentlemen as we only have 4 minutes left. Hello Hanif.

Hanif: Hello Fi, first I just want to make one point which is thank you very much for finally bringing on a legitimate Islamic scholar on to your programme and on to the BBC who can articulate Islam to people and not people with hooks and eye patches and shouting out.

Fi Glover: Well I mean it's absolutely our pleasure Hanif and I'm sorry we've kept you waiting so long but do go ahead.

Hanif: I have a number of points but my main point was this, as a Muslim and Imam Hamza will understand what I have to say and he can explain to you later. I am a Muslim from the Deobandi tradition of north Pakistan. We have been told by virtually every single mosque imam in Birmingham that the Taliban are a legitimate Islamic government following an orthodox Islamic law which is a Hanafi version of it and that the law that they're trying to implement in that country is the Sharia and Muslims should be supporting them and that any differences that Muslims have with them are differences of interpretation. But in the main they are trying to implement Islam in their country including you know cutting off hands, the hand of a thief or stoning adulteresses and adulterers. Now I want to ask Imam Hamza what is his view about the Islamic legitimacy and orthodoxy of the Taliban because we're getting confused signals.

Shaykh Hamza Yusuf: Well, again I think that they filled a power vacuum. They were put in there by the Pakistani secret police which tells you something right away because I think there were definitely state interests in having some stability in Afghanistan.

Fi Glover: But why are other Muslims supporting them and saying they are a believable cause?

Shaykh Hamza Yusuf: I think generally because Muslims have a very strong affinity for anybody that declares that they're going to establish an Islamic law. Nowhere in the Muslim world is the Islamic law being practiced anywhere. I personally don't agree because I've actually heard people speaking in the name of the Taliban and there are things that, I mean the idea of forcing people to have beards. There's nobody can say that's Islamic. There are Islamic opinions that a beard is not an obligation to wear. Also, the idea of cutting off hands in a place that has no economic framework right now, I mean it's madness, Omar, who's called Omar The Just suspended the law of cutting off of hands during a famine because he said it would be unfair to...

Fi Glover: I just want to ask Hanif a couple more questions before we have to leave it. I think Hanif it goes right back to what we started talking about. There's just this confusion isn't there, which obviously you are feeling and having to find your own solutions to. Would that be right?

Hanif: Well the basic confusion is, I am trying to be a student of Islamic Law. I go to an Imam who teaches me from a centuries old Islamic text book and there are certain laws in there which go against the whole grain of Western civilisation. But for me, from my understaning of it, they're fundamental to Islam. So okay there are these laws there and we're told by people who happen to have read the translation of the Qur'an...

Fi Glover: Hanif thank you very much indeed for your call. Hamza Yusuf thank you very much for coming in.

Shaykh Hamza Yusuf: Thank You.

Fi Glover: It's been absolutley fascinating, we appreciate your time.

-------------------------[ PROGRAM ENDS ]-------------------------

Israel And 9/11: Feds Holding 60 Israelis In Connection With 9/11 - Why?
Antiwar.com (California)
By Justin Raimondo
Posted Monday December 3, 2001 - 06:13:23 AM EST


Haven't we had enough of Israel? The other day, an explosive device planted near a school by Israeli army commandos killed five Palestinian kids: Mohammed Na'im Astal, 14; his brother, Akram Na'im Astal, 7; Aniz Idris Astal, 11; his brother Omar Idris Astal, 14; and Mohammad Sultan Astal, 12, a cousin.

They were blown to smithereens, and not even the shards of their bodies could be found. The children were killed 200 yards from the UN-sponsored school they attended, along a path regularly used by students. Looming over this horrific death scene, the shadow of an Israeli army watchtower guarding the nearby Gush Katif settlement.

BULLDOZING PEACE: Haven't we had enough of Israel? The day after the US announced its new Middle East peace initiative, the Israelis bulldozed more Palestinian homes in Gaza and announced the planned construction of new houses for Jewish settlers in the West Bank city of Hebron, thumbing their noses at their American benefactors at a time when the US itself is besieged.

POLLARD, AGAIN: Haven't we had enough of Israel? When Prime Minister Ariel Sharon visits Bush at the White House, he plans to "raise the issue of Jonathan Pollard," according to Middle East Newsline. Pollard, you'll remember, is the Israeli spy whose betrayal of American secrets led to the deaths of untold numbers of American agents in the field. Many contend that the Israelis traded the stolen information to the Soviet Union in return for increasing the emigration of Russian Jews to Israel. In "The Case Against Jonathan Pollard," Seymour M. Hersh relates a conversation between the late William J. Casey, then CIA director, and one of his station chiefs, a month after Pollard's arrest. When his subordinate asked why the CIA chief was ordering stepped-up monitoring of an Israeli delegation on a routine visit, "He asked if I knew anything about the Pollard case,' the station chief recalled, and he said that Casey had added, 'For your information, the Israelis used Pollard to obtain our attack plan against the USSR, all of it. The coordinates, the firing locations, the sequences. And for guess who? The Soviets.' Casey had then explained that the Israelis had traded the Pollard data for Soviet emigres. 'How's that for cheating?' he had asked." HE'S KIDDING, RIGHT?: When one grasps the enormity of Pollard's betrayal, it is possible to wonder: why wasn't he shot? Yet, Sharon, like his predecessors, is intent on releasing him: furthermore, he is raising the issue at a particularly tense moment in the history of US- Israeli relations. After all, the Israeli Prime Minister just got through accusing the Americans of "appeasing" the Arabs by sacrificing Israel on the altar of a Middle East peace settlement, just as Czechoslovakia was sold out to the Germans in the years leading up to World War II. First he compares an American President in the midst of a crisis to Neville Chamberlain - now he wants to bring up Pollard. What will he do for an encore - build an Israeli settlement on the White House lawn? BITTERSWEET SIXTEEN: November 21 was the sixteenth anniversary of Pollard's arrest, and the week seemed to mark a new upsurge in the movement to release Pollard from his life sentence. In addition to the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations (a consortium of fifty-five groups), the Reform Union of American Hebrew Congregations and the Orthodox Union, the roster of organizations and politicians urging freedom for Pollard includes the sainted Mayor Rudolph Giuliani - and now even the Reverend Al Sharpton.

The POLLARD-SHARPTON PACT: Sharpton is being wooed by another Pollard supporter, Rabbi Shmuley Boteach, author of the "Kosher Sex" guide for married couples and bosom buddy of mutant pop singer Michael Jackson. Shmuley opines: "The civil rights movement was not a black issue, it was about human rights. This is not a Jewish issue, it's about human rights. I think Rev. Sharpton can help in this cause. He's a man who is a voice for many who have no voice." At Shmuley's urging, Pollard wrote to Sharpton, suggesting a meeting: "I am aware that in the past you have gone on public record stating that the life sentence that I am serving is too harsh, calling for equal justice in my case, and advocating for my release. Your participation in this case is welcome and I look forward to exploring with you the ways in which your enhanced involvement might be most effective." STRANGE BEDFELLOWS?: Sharpton and Pollard might seem like strange bedfellows, at first: after all, the Reverend Al has attacked Jewish merchants in the black community as "interlopers," and been accused of anti-Semitism by his detractors. But when you get right down to it, Pollard's supporters and the Reverend Al's are brothers under the skin. Black victimology and its Jewish equivalent - the doctrine of Zionism - are both organized around the same principle: that past oppression of a minority requires extraordinary present-day remedies, which inevitably violate the rights of the majority.

INGRATITUDE, THY NAME IS ISRAEL: US support for Israel has gotten us - what? Our tax dollars bought the explosives that snuffed out those five young lives. We also pay for Israeli settlements that make peace in the Middle East an impossible dream. Without US aid and political support, the Israeli settler-colony would sink like a stone, enveloped by the vicious and incessant tribal warfare that characterizes the whole history of the region. Certainly our support has not earned us the gratitude that one might expect. Instead, the Israeli Knesset held a special session to mark the anniversary of Pollard's incarceration, where, as Israel National News reports, "speakers from across the political spectrum addressed the Knesset and dozens of special guests, each demanding that the U.S. release Pollard." During the session, one right-wing deputy got up and denounced Sharon because he "didn't have the courage to stand in front of the US President and demand Pollard's immediate release." Sharon cannot afford to lose the support of his ultra-right wing, and, at any rate, cannot fail to do what his Labor predecessor did, and that is lobby for Pollard's release.

The ISRAELI CONNECTION: What's interesting, in this regard, is the news that, along with the 1,000 or so Muslim Middle Easterners jailed in the Ashcroft Sweep, 60 Israelis have been picked up and held, not just for routine visa violations, but in connection with the 9/11 investigation. The Washington Post story subhead read: "Government calls Several Cases 'of Special Interest,' Meaning Related to Post-Attacks Investigation." According to the Post, INS officials in Cleveland and St. Louis testified in court that these Israelis were "of special interest to the government" - putting them in the same category as hundreds of mostly Arab men rounded up by the feds since the attacks.

What, exactly, is the meaning of this? In the days and weeks after the twin towers went down, perfervid rumors of Israeli responsibility for the attack roiled some sectors of the Arab media, with the former Imam of New York City's biggest mosque refusing to rule it out. The pro-Israel pundits had a field day with this, pointing to such nonsense as proof positive that the Arab mind was fundamentally and perhaps irreversibly deformed by "Islamo-fascism" and anti-Semitism. But as long as 60 Israeli citizens are being held - under conditions of great secrecy - in connection with the 9/11 investigation, it is no longer tenable to dismiss the possibility of an Israeli angle in this story.

SPYING - A TIME-HONORED TRADITION: Although the Post story blandly assures us that the Israeli detainees "are observing a time-honored tradition in their country - touring the world after their mandatory service in the Israeli military," we are also informed that "a number of them had served in counterterrorist units in Israel." Well, spying is indeed a time-honored tradition, and something tells me these guys are no ordinary tourists, but since the US Government is keeping mum about everything connected with this investigation, we just don't know. In rounding up untold hundreds of mostly Arab Muslim men, and interviewing thousands more, the Ashcroft Sweep is clearly designed to gather information that might lead them to the remaining conspirators. It could be that the Israelis, or at least some of them, fall into this category: while not being directly involved, maybe they know something. Nothing else could account for the government's "special interest." SMILE FOR The CAMERA: A delegation from Israel came to the US warning of some unspecified terrorist threat a few months before 9/11. Add to this persistent stories about the employees of Odigo, an Israeli software company, who received "instant messages" over their computers on the morning of 9/11, and news reports of Israelis picked up by the FBI after neighbors reported them laughing and smiling while they photographed themselves against the backdrop of the burning World Trade Center - and now this.

WHAT DID THEY KNOW?: Taken together, these stories justify at least some suspicion of Israel's role. It is still nonsense - and vicious nonsense - to ascribe the 9/11 horror to "Zionist agents." But now there is at least a hint of Israeli foreknowledge, on some level, which can only be dispelled if and when the government comes clean and lifts the veil of secrecy.

TRUTH WILL OUT: Secret trials, secret evidence, closed military tribunals - many commentators, in decrying these extraordinary measures as unconstitutional, have also pointed out that none of this is necessary, since we already have the legal means to deal with terrorism, as in the case of the first WTC bombing. One would think that, normally, the US would be trying to impress the public that the administration is on the job with this investigation, in addition to building a public case for holding over a thousand detainees.

There is, however, nothing normal about the times we are living in: and, in any case, secrecy is a necessity for those who have something to hide. But in these days of the Internet, and the instant dissemination of information, the gatekeepers have to resort to quasi-legal means to keep the truth from coming out. But it will come out, sooner rather than later - in which case, the question, "Haven't we had enough of Israel?" may be definitively answered.