[Became unnecessary. And Mika's post below looks odd because the book I'm talking about was "Mien Kampf" ... only I forgot to put the name in. Posted correctly elsewhere on the boards, hence sniiiip]
After buying the book's copyright in 1979, the US publisher Houghton Mifflin continued to sell the book. Experts estimated that the publishing house has sold at least 300,000 copies, netting profits worth between 300,000 and 700,000 dollars.
uhh?!?
Where are you getting this? How can they buy the book's copyright in 1979, when the incident occurred in 2001?
This is the dumbest thing I've heard yet. Coming from you I?m not surprised.
Maybe you didn't see the correct post, so the question is:
Does the fact the Mien Kampf sold 300,000 copies since 1979 in the US prove, like you have insinuated by your comments regarding sales of a nutty book in France, that a nation that buys 'questionable' books can be judged en masse by that fact?
To put it more simply for you deary, does this show that our American brothers are "dumb" fascists? If not, why not?
(Again, a disclaimer for the hard of understanding, I don't think it does)
Maybe you didn't see the correct post, so the question is:
Does the fact the Mien Kampf sold 300,000 copies since 1979 in the US prove, like you have insinuated by your comments regarding sales of a nutty book in France, that a nation that buys 'questionable' books can be judged en masse by that fact?
To put it more simply for you deary, does this show that our American brothers are "dumb" fascists? If not, why not?
(Again, a disclaimer for the hard of understanding, I don't think it does)</strong><hr></blockquote>
Where did I say that? I was actually insinuating that the book was NOT bought by real Frenchies, but rather by alien elements in that country. Hassan picked up on that, but you are just too dense, and more intent in trolling than posting anything of real intelligence.
I didn't think someone could make such a statement and didn't spot that was your POV. I mean, in the context of the article which made it incredibly clear the book was sold via mass-market publicity to a mass-market audience, to claw a bit of anti rag-head sentiment into the the thread was actually a step further then you'd take it. By the way, Muslims in France are more then likely FRENCH not "alien elements."
But I digress. The books sold in France were sold to the "bad guys" in your thinking (surely you can't deny that, it would go against every post you've made in this thread). Who bought the Hitler books in the states? Were they bad guys, and does that make you worried at all?
[QB]Are the people of France this dumb or do they think this book is some kind of parody? I guess they are.?
How typically american - slagging of a whole nation because of one person, would you like it if we judged all americans on Bushs comments?</strong><hr></blockquote>
Two French authors allege that before Sept. 11, the White House put oil interests ahead of national security.
- - - - - - - - - - - -
By Nina Burleigh
Feb. 8, 2002 | PARIS -- In a new book, "Bin Laden: The Forbidden Truth," two French intelligence analysts allege the Clinton and Bush administrations put diplomacy before law enforcement in dealing with the al-Qaida threat before Sept. 11, in order to maintain smooth relations with Saudi Arabia and to avoid disrupting the oil market. The book, which has become a bestseller in France but has received little press attention here, also alleges that the Bush administration was bargaining with the Taliban, over a Central Asian oil pipeline and Osama bin Laden, just five weeks before the September attacks. The authors, Jean-Charles Brisard and Guillaume Dasquie, see a link between the negotiations and Vice President Dick Cheney's energy policy task force, with its conclusions that Central Asian oil was going to become critical to the U.S. economy. Brisard and Dasquie also claim former FBI deputy director John O'Neill (who died in the attack on the World Trade Center, where he was the chief of security) resigned in July to protest the policy of giving U.S. oil interests a higher priority than bringing al-Qaida leaders to justice. Brisard claims O'Neill told him that "the main obstacles to investigating Islamic terrorism were U.S. oil corporate interests and the role played by Saudi Arabia."
The authors also allege that the Sept. 11 attacks were a calculated response to Western pressure on the Taliban to hand over bin Laden and permit the return of the long-exiled Afghan leader, King Shah. They say the terror attacks were aimed at sparking a widespread war in Central Asia and thereby reinforcing the Islamic extremists' grip on power.
Brisard, a private intelligence analyst who once worked for the French conglomerate Vivendi, compiled a report in 1997 on the financing behind the al-Qaida network. Dasquie is a journalist and editor of Intelligence Online. The authors are negotiating with American publishers now to get the book translated and published in England. They recently discussed their book with Salon.
How did you meet John O'Neill, and how often and where? Did you ever tape your discussions with him?
Brisard: I met him twice. The first time was in Paris in June 2001 and then in July in New York. I met him because I wrote some years ago a report about the bin Laden family and its financial connections with Osama bin Laden. Our meeting was in the process of the French sharing information with the FBI. He wanted to meet me again a month after our first meeting to discuss the points of my report, and so we met at the end of July 2001. I never taped him and that's why I only quote him directly three or four times. That's all I have and the rest is paraphrase. The discussion of O'Neill is only 10 pages in the book. It is the first 10 pages of the book. What he said is a synthesis of what we say in the book, and that's why we decided to put it on the first pages. That is, the role of Saudi Arabia, the role of oil and the way the investigation worked in the United States before Sept. 11.
Did O'Neill indicate that the FBI expected more attacks on the United States?
Brisard: No. Not even implicitly. We didn't talk about the threat itself. We focused on the sources and roots of the problems and the way to deter further action.
How much did Mr. O'Neill know about al-Qaida that the public didn't know until after Sept. 11, such as the extent of the training, the network and the hatred?
Brisard: John O'Neill clearly knew extensively about the threat of Osama bin Laden and al-Qaida. He told me the FBI had identified for years the financial supports of bin Laden. For instance, in the Yemen investigation [of the terrorist bombing of the USS Cole], he said everything pointed at Osama bin Laden but there was an unwillingness among U.S. diplomats to act and to put any kind of pressure against the governments. His investigation was made difficult because of this unwillingness, and in his mind it was especially because of the economic interests of the United States. I quote him saying that everything about bin Laden and al-Qaida can be explainable through Saudi Arabia. And when I asked why the U.S. was unwilling to go after the states that host bin Laden, he said because of oil.
In what sense was Saudia Arabia supporting bin Laden? He had been exiled.
Brisard: Yes, the official stance is he was banned in 1994 and his assets were frozen. This is the official position of the Saudi government. But we prove in our book that until 1998 he was able to use economic and financial structures in Saudi Arabia. He could have linked working bank accounts in Sudan with companies registered in Saudi. He had various contacts with Saudi officials. And remember, the Saudis were supporting the Taliban regime, which was hosting him. In Saudi Arabia, the left hand ignores the right hand. And the FBI was fully aware of the situation.
Other than the U.S. ambassador in Yemen sending O'Neill home because of his alleged insensitivity to the culture, exactly how did the State Department hinder the FBI investigation?
Brisard: O'Neill said the State Department has had an overwhelming role on these investigations. He was explicitly blocked in Yemen from further investigation. We now know from different files that the FBI was starting investigations on different aspects of Saudi Arabian support [of bin Laden], and those investigations were all stopped, even under Clinton. What John O'Neill said is that for him, there was a clear [conflict] between the FBI's goal, which was to go fast and to implicate members of the networks and eventually to implicate states that gave them support, and the State Department's goal, which was to move in a more diplomatic way to negotiate with those states and to some extent accommodate them. And what he said was that the diplomatic way was chosen over the security or law enforcement policy, and of course he was very angry about what happened to him in Yemen.
In your book, you allege that the Bush administration was negotiating with the Taliban last year over a proposed Central Asian oil pipeline through Afghanistan. Which Bush official conducted those talks?
Brisard: [Assistant Secretary of State] Christina Rocca, in August 2001 in Pakistan, explicitly discussed the oil interest, not the pipeline.
Did you ever speak with Rocca?
Dasquie: I tried to, but when you are a foreign journalist you must ask the U.S. embassy in France before an interview. My correspondent in Washington also made requests. Since March or April 2001 we had tracked this story, because just after the United Nations' decision against the Taliban, it was crazy to see Taliban leaders coming into Washington and having meetings. Christina Rocca arrived at the State Department in June, and we knew her background at the CIA; she had managed all the relations between the agency and Islamic groups in Central Asia. Since around June I have been focused on Rocca. We made requests. The embassy said it was impossible. With no explanation.
Do you allege that she mentioned oil explicitly?
Dasquie: Madeleine Albright was the first to refuse to negotiate with the Taliban in 1997. Before that, from 1994 to '97, Clinton did negotiate with the Taliban. We describe the meeting of Rocca and some Taliban leaders in Islamabad in August 2001. There are documents to support it. And at the same time in Washington there are lots of meetings of the energy policy task force and lots of oil company representatives around Dick Cheney. The task force's conclusion is that Central Asia oil is a very important goal. And at the same time people are negotiating with the Taliban for the first time since 1994.
Brisard: We believe that when [Rocca] went to Pakistan in 2001 she was there to speak about oil, and unfortunately the Osama bin Laden case was just a technical part of the negotiations. I'm not sure about the pipeline specifically, but we make it clear she was there to speak about oil. There are witnesses, including the Pakistani foreign minister.
Are you saying that the Central Asian oil and pipelines were not an issue under Clinton, or just more of an issue for the Bush administration? And what are you basing that on?
Brisard: Oil was also an issue for the Clinton administration, but the difference between Clinton and Bush is, under Bush the economic argument became predominant and the U.S. thought they could pursue the Taliban to accept a deal on economics.
Dasquie: The area was of enormous strategic concern to many nations. The U.N. "six plus two" group [made up of the six countries that border Afghanistan, plus the United States and Russia] had tried to persuade the Taliban to take back the Afghan king in exchange for recognition. The biggest mistake of the U.N. and the U.S. was to consider the Taliban as independent and able to negotiate. Nobody saw the reality of the relationship between Osama bin Laden and Mullah Omar. So when the U.N.'s six-plus-two group and the U.S. said accept the king and give us Osama, it was incredible; it was like asking them to kill themselves. It was the very wrong way to negotiate. People say the only reason 9-11 happened is that Osama is a bad boy and the Muslims hate the U.S., but that is not enough. It is a pity to see that all our policies are built on that. It is very, very much more complex. They knew that if they did nothing they would lose. Everyone wanted to give power to the former king. When you think you are going to lose, the easy reaction is to be the first to attack. So 9-11 was not just a mad act, it was a political act meant to create a good ground for a big war in all Central Asia. Mullah Omar and bin Laden wanted to rally Muslims in Central Asia. In the last 10 years, the focal point of Islamists has taken off from the Middle East and gone into Central Asia.
The first President Bush has lots of connections with the Saudis and has made visits there as a private businessman with the merchant banking firm the Carlyle Group. Did you find any trace of the Carlyle Group on the financial trail?
Brisard: No. Carlyle has connections to the bin Laden family. Also, [Saudi banker and alleged terrorist financer] Khaleed bin Mahfooz financed the Bush oil companies in Texas in the late '70s and we discovered that he is also the primary financial support of Osama bin Laden. For years he was the personal banker of King Fahd, but now Mahfooz is under house arrest in Saudi Arabia for allegedly financing terrorist groups. He was arrested in 1999, but he is still a shareholder of the Saudi Bank National Commercial. He had charities around the world and one of them, International Development Foundation in London, has just been banned by the charity commission in London because of our book. We also make lots of connections with BCCI [Bank of Credit and Commerce International, the foreign bank closed 10 years ago after a huge scandal connected it to fraud, secret weapons deals, money laundering and the financing of terrorist groups]. We say the system financing bin Laden was more or less the revival of the BCCI. Even the associates of the BCCI are now involved in those networks. And bin Mahfooz was the operational director of BCCI.
Exactly how have the Saudis promoted Islamic terrorism?
Brisard: It's a political question for them. They have to support those religious fundamentalists because they are a large part of the regime of the kingdom and they need them to survive politically. Wahhabism, the Saudi form of Islam, is one of the harshest forms, and bin Laden is a product of his country.
Is there anything in the American press about your book you would like to correct?
Brisard: The main error is to say that the U.S. preferred oil to fighting against al-Qaida. That oversimplifies it. And it is also wrong to say John O'Neill told me that George Bush blocked inquiries into al-Qaida because of oil. It was not personally Bush [that O'Neill complained about]; it was a policy of putting diplomacy ahead of law enforcement going back to Clinton.
Why is the book so popular in France?
Brisard: Because there have been a lot of books about Sept. 11 and what happened and bios of bin Laden, but it's the first time that two investigators put facts on the table, documents, interviews and nothing else. We don't say it could have been stopped. If any government had known what was going to happen it wouldn't have happened. But we point out the role of the Western countries that led to Sept.11 -- back to 50 years ago, when we agreed to make an alliance with Saudi Arabia, and then by closing our eyes to the support they were giving fundamentalists around the world for the last 20 years.
I'm glad to see you do this, although a little worried about your motives.
Unlike the ludicrous book that Scott chose to put a ludicrous spin on, this is a properly researched book with facts that bear up to analysis.
Indeed, the claims that the US were negotiating with, and may have complicitly allowed the creation of, the Taliban to get hold of oil reserves are well documented.
So I'm surprised to see you refer to books that show how some of "all this" is all our fault (which it is) ... but I am worried by that the fact that this book is by French people ... you're not trying a "here they go again" are you?
I keep noticing you always bring up the issue of my motives. I think I?ve been quite transparent about my views, and did not mince words in expressing them. Why the confusion in your mind?
I do have legitimate grips against the French government and the French intellectual elites, but again, I qualify this by trying not to paint the whole French population with same brush.
As far as the thesis of the book, namely that the White House put oil interests ahead of national security, I whole-heartedly agree. That was a long standing practice of the state department, and by proxy also that of the white house. I still see little signs of that ?diplomacy? changing. Although Pres. Bush, I think intuitively understands the folly of such a policy.
This is a first. It's been coming (the more moderate Mika, not the one who still pokes up here and there) but it's a first:
I AGREE WITH A POST FROM PC^KILLA.
Bloody bloody bloody bloody hell.
He puts a percentage of the blame for "recent events" on the West, so do I. I shake his hand. More so because if it's not 100% the 'fault of Muslims' then Islam can't be 100% bad per se.
We're going to get there folks, there is hope.
The bit about the motives here was because you were insinuating SOMETHING by posting, commentless, an article about French writers in a thread called "Are the French this Dumb?" I assumed (wrongly I think) you did it to show with a how the French were just anti-US or something.
Comments
<strong>But hey, I thought that Jews (like me) were welcome in Israel?!</strong><hr></blockquote>
Yeah, but somehow I suspect you?ll feel more at home with the Hammasniks across the road ?
mika.
[ 06-27-2002: Message edited by: Harald ]
[ 06-27-2002: Message edited by: Harald ]</p>
After buying the book's copyright in 1979, the US publisher Houghton Mifflin continued to sell the book. Experts estimated that the publishing house has sold at least 300,000 copies, netting profits worth between 300,000 and 700,000 dollars.
uhh?!?
Where are you getting this? How can they buy the book's copyright in 1979, when the incident occurred in 2001?
This is the dumbest thing I've heard yet. Coming from you I?m not surprised.
mika.
[ 06-27-2002: Message edited by: PC^KILLA ]</p>
Maybe you didn't see the correct post, so the question is:
Does the fact the Mien Kampf sold 300,000 copies since 1979 in the US prove, like you have insinuated by your comments regarding sales of a nutty book in France, that a nation that buys 'questionable' books can be judged en masse by that fact?
To put it more simply for you deary, does this show that our American brothers are "dumb" fascists? If not, why not?
(Again, a disclaimer for the hard of understanding, I don't think it does)
<strong>You've gone all quiet Mika.
Maybe you didn't see the correct post, so the question is:
Does the fact the Mien Kampf sold 300,000 copies since 1979 in the US prove, like you have insinuated by your comments regarding sales of a nutty book in France, that a nation that buys 'questionable' books can be judged en masse by that fact?
To put it more simply for you deary, does this show that our American brothers are "dumb" fascists? If not, why not?
(Again, a disclaimer for the hard of understanding, I don't think it does)</strong><hr></blockquote>
Where did I say that? I was actually insinuating that the book was NOT bought by real Frenchies, but rather by alien elements in that country. Hassan picked up on that, but you are just too dense, and more intent in trolling than posting anything of real intelligence.
mika.
I didn't think someone could make such a statement and didn't spot that was your POV. I mean, in the context of the article which made it incredibly clear the book was sold via mass-market publicity to a mass-market audience, to claw a bit of anti rag-head sentiment into the the thread was actually a step further then you'd take it. By the way, Muslims in France are more then likely FRENCH not "alien elements."
But I digress. The books sold in France were sold to the "bad guys" in your thinking (surely you can't deny that, it would go against every post you've made in this thread). Who bought the Hitler books in the states? Were they bad guys, and does that make you worried at all?
mika.
<strong>Play nice kids. <img src="graemlins/oyvey.gif" border="0" alt="[No]" /> </strong><hr></blockquote>
Hey, Jamie, moderate AO is an hard job : if you want to relax you can always take a drink with me
<strong>
Hey, Jamie, moderate AO is an hard job : if you want to relax you can always take a drink with me
<img src="graemlins/lol.gif" border="0" alt="[Laughing]" /> I actually posted that before I became a Mod! Just being bossy I guess.
I'd love to share a drink powerdoc! Usual place?
J :cool:
Why not create a new forum for this kind of crap and call it "Smackdown, bring it on!"
OR "Handbags at dawn"
Sorry, should this be in Suggestions?
[QB]Are the people of France this dumb or do they think this book is some kind of parody? I guess they are.?
How typically american - slagging of a whole nation because of one person, would you like it if we judged all americans on Bushs comments?
<strong>[QUOTE]Originally posted by scott_h_phd:
[QB]Are the people of France this dumb or do they think this book is some kind of parody? I guess they are.?
How typically american - slagging of a whole nation because of one person, would you like it if we judged all americans on Bushs comments?</strong><hr></blockquote>
You?re not very perceptive, are you Sharpy?
I believe a number of 200,000 was quoted ...
mika.
I might be getting boring but I think we could do with some more logic lessons from some people ...
Nevermind
[ 06-28-2002: Message edited by: PC^KILLA ]</p>
Bush, oil and the Taliban
Two French authors allege that before Sept. 11, the White House put oil interests ahead of national security.
- - - - - - - - - - - -
By Nina Burleigh
Feb. 8, 2002 | PARIS -- In a new book, "Bin Laden: The Forbidden Truth," two French intelligence analysts allege the Clinton and Bush administrations put diplomacy before law enforcement in dealing with the al-Qaida threat before Sept. 11, in order to maintain smooth relations with Saudi Arabia and to avoid disrupting the oil market. The book, which has become a bestseller in France but has received little press attention here, also alleges that the Bush administration was bargaining with the Taliban, over a Central Asian oil pipeline and Osama bin Laden, just five weeks before the September attacks. The authors, Jean-Charles Brisard and Guillaume Dasquie, see a link between the negotiations and Vice President Dick Cheney's energy policy task force, with its conclusions that Central Asian oil was going to become critical to the U.S. economy. Brisard and Dasquie also claim former FBI deputy director John O'Neill (who died in the attack on the World Trade Center, where he was the chief of security) resigned in July to protest the policy of giving U.S. oil interests a higher priority than bringing al-Qaida leaders to justice. Brisard claims O'Neill told him that "the main obstacles to investigating Islamic terrorism were U.S. oil corporate interests and the role played by Saudi Arabia."
The authors also allege that the Sept. 11 attacks were a calculated response to Western pressure on the Taliban to hand over bin Laden and permit the return of the long-exiled Afghan leader, King Shah. They say the terror attacks were aimed at sparking a widespread war in Central Asia and thereby reinforcing the Islamic extremists' grip on power.
Brisard, a private intelligence analyst who once worked for the French conglomerate Vivendi, compiled a report in 1997 on the financing behind the al-Qaida network. Dasquie is a journalist and editor of Intelligence Online. The authors are negotiating with American publishers now to get the book translated and published in England. They recently discussed their book with Salon.
How did you meet John O'Neill, and how often and where? Did you ever tape your discussions with him?
Brisard: I met him twice. The first time was in Paris in June 2001 and then in July in New York. I met him because I wrote some years ago a report about the bin Laden family and its financial connections with Osama bin Laden. Our meeting was in the process of the French sharing information with the FBI. He wanted to meet me again a month after our first meeting to discuss the points of my report, and so we met at the end of July 2001. I never taped him and that's why I only quote him directly three or four times. That's all I have and the rest is paraphrase. The discussion of O'Neill is only 10 pages in the book. It is the first 10 pages of the book. What he said is a synthesis of what we say in the book, and that's why we decided to put it on the first pages. That is, the role of Saudi Arabia, the role of oil and the way the investigation worked in the United States before Sept. 11.
Did O'Neill indicate that the FBI expected more attacks on the United States?
Brisard: No. Not even implicitly. We didn't talk about the threat itself. We focused on the sources and roots of the problems and the way to deter further action.
How much did Mr. O'Neill know about al-Qaida that the public didn't know until after Sept. 11, such as the extent of the training, the network and the hatred?
Brisard: John O'Neill clearly knew extensively about the threat of Osama bin Laden and al-Qaida. He told me the FBI had identified for years the financial supports of bin Laden. For instance, in the Yemen investigation [of the terrorist bombing of the USS Cole], he said everything pointed at Osama bin Laden but there was an unwillingness among U.S. diplomats to act and to put any kind of pressure against the governments. His investigation was made difficult because of this unwillingness, and in his mind it was especially because of the economic interests of the United States. I quote him saying that everything about bin Laden and al-Qaida can be explainable through Saudi Arabia. And when I asked why the U.S. was unwilling to go after the states that host bin Laden, he said because of oil.
In what sense was Saudia Arabia supporting bin Laden? He had been exiled.
Brisard: Yes, the official stance is he was banned in 1994 and his assets were frozen. This is the official position of the Saudi government. But we prove in our book that until 1998 he was able to use economic and financial structures in Saudi Arabia. He could have linked working bank accounts in Sudan with companies registered in Saudi. He had various contacts with Saudi officials. And remember, the Saudis were supporting the Taliban regime, which was hosting him. In Saudi Arabia, the left hand ignores the right hand. And the FBI was fully aware of the situation.
Other than the U.S. ambassador in Yemen sending O'Neill home because of his alleged insensitivity to the culture, exactly how did the State Department hinder the FBI investigation?
Brisard: O'Neill said the State Department has had an overwhelming role on these investigations. He was explicitly blocked in Yemen from further investigation. We now know from different files that the FBI was starting investigations on different aspects of Saudi Arabian support [of bin Laden], and those investigations were all stopped, even under Clinton. What John O'Neill said is that for him, there was a clear [conflict] between the FBI's goal, which was to go fast and to implicate members of the networks and eventually to implicate states that gave them support, and the State Department's goal, which was to move in a more diplomatic way to negotiate with those states and to some extent accommodate them. And what he said was that the diplomatic way was chosen over the security or law enforcement policy, and of course he was very angry about what happened to him in Yemen.
In your book, you allege that the Bush administration was negotiating with the Taliban last year over a proposed Central Asian oil pipeline through Afghanistan. Which Bush official conducted those talks?
Brisard: [Assistant Secretary of State] Christina Rocca, in August 2001 in Pakistan, explicitly discussed the oil interest, not the pipeline.
Did you ever speak with Rocca?
Dasquie: I tried to, but when you are a foreign journalist you must ask the U.S. embassy in France before an interview. My correspondent in Washington also made requests. Since March or April 2001 we had tracked this story, because just after the United Nations' decision against the Taliban, it was crazy to see Taliban leaders coming into Washington and having meetings. Christina Rocca arrived at the State Department in June, and we knew her background at the CIA; she had managed all the relations between the agency and Islamic groups in Central Asia. Since around June I have been focused on Rocca. We made requests. The embassy said it was impossible. With no explanation.
Do you allege that she mentioned oil explicitly?
Dasquie: Madeleine Albright was the first to refuse to negotiate with the Taliban in 1997. Before that, from 1994 to '97, Clinton did negotiate with the Taliban. We describe the meeting of Rocca and some Taliban leaders in Islamabad in August 2001. There are documents to support it. And at the same time in Washington there are lots of meetings of the energy policy task force and lots of oil company representatives around Dick Cheney. The task force's conclusion is that Central Asia oil is a very important goal. And at the same time people are negotiating with the Taliban for the first time since 1994.
Brisard: We believe that when [Rocca] went to Pakistan in 2001 she was there to speak about oil, and unfortunately the Osama bin Laden case was just a technical part of the negotiations. I'm not sure about the pipeline specifically, but we make it clear she was there to speak about oil. There are witnesses, including the Pakistani foreign minister.
Are you saying that the Central Asian oil and pipelines were not an issue under Clinton, or just more of an issue for the Bush administration? And what are you basing that on?
Brisard: Oil was also an issue for the Clinton administration, but the difference between Clinton and Bush is, under Bush the economic argument became predominant and the U.S. thought they could pursue the Taliban to accept a deal on economics.
Dasquie: The area was of enormous strategic concern to many nations. The U.N. "six plus two" group [made up of the six countries that border Afghanistan, plus the United States and Russia] had tried to persuade the Taliban to take back the Afghan king in exchange for recognition. The biggest mistake of the U.N. and the U.S. was to consider the Taliban as independent and able to negotiate. Nobody saw the reality of the relationship between Osama bin Laden and Mullah Omar. So when the U.N.'s six-plus-two group and the U.S. said accept the king and give us Osama, it was incredible; it was like asking them to kill themselves. It was the very wrong way to negotiate. People say the only reason 9-11 happened is that Osama is a bad boy and the Muslims hate the U.S., but that is not enough. It is a pity to see that all our policies are built on that. It is very, very much more complex. They knew that if they did nothing they would lose. Everyone wanted to give power to the former king. When you think you are going to lose, the easy reaction is to be the first to attack. So 9-11 was not just a mad act, it was a political act meant to create a good ground for a big war in all Central Asia. Mullah Omar and bin Laden wanted to rally Muslims in Central Asia. In the last 10 years, the focal point of Islamists has taken off from the Middle East and gone into Central Asia.
The first President Bush has lots of connections with the Saudis and has made visits there as a private businessman with the merchant banking firm the Carlyle Group. Did you find any trace of the Carlyle Group on the financial trail?
Brisard: No. Carlyle has connections to the bin Laden family. Also, [Saudi banker and alleged terrorist financer] Khaleed bin Mahfooz financed the Bush oil companies in Texas in the late '70s and we discovered that he is also the primary financial support of Osama bin Laden. For years he was the personal banker of King Fahd, but now Mahfooz is under house arrest in Saudi Arabia for allegedly financing terrorist groups. He was arrested in 1999, but he is still a shareholder of the Saudi Bank National Commercial. He had charities around the world and one of them, International Development Foundation in London, has just been banned by the charity commission in London because of our book. We also make lots of connections with BCCI [Bank of Credit and Commerce International, the foreign bank closed 10 years ago after a huge scandal connected it to fraud, secret weapons deals, money laundering and the financing of terrorist groups]. We say the system financing bin Laden was more or less the revival of the BCCI. Even the associates of the BCCI are now involved in those networks. And bin Mahfooz was the operational director of BCCI.
Exactly how have the Saudis promoted Islamic terrorism?
Brisard: It's a political question for them. They have to support those religious fundamentalists because they are a large part of the regime of the kingdom and they need them to survive politically. Wahhabism, the Saudi form of Islam, is one of the harshest forms, and bin Laden is a product of his country.
Is there anything in the American press about your book you would like to correct?
Brisard: The main error is to say that the U.S. preferred oil to fighting against al-Qaida. That oversimplifies it. And it is also wrong to say John O'Neill told me that George Bush blocked inquiries into al-Qaida because of oil. It was not personally Bush [that O'Neill complained about]; it was a policy of putting diplomacy ahead of law enforcement going back to Clinton.
Why is the book so popular in France?
Brisard: Because there have been a lot of books about Sept. 11 and what happened and bios of bin Laden, but it's the first time that two investigators put facts on the table, documents, interviews and nothing else. We don't say it could have been stopped. If any government had known what was going to happen it wouldn't have happened. But we point out the role of the Western countries that led to Sept.11 -- back to 50 years ago, when we agreed to make an alliance with Saudi Arabia, and then by closing our eyes to the support they were giving fundamentalists around the world for the last 20 years.
- - - - - - - - - - -
mika.
I'm glad to see you do this, although a little worried about your motives.
Unlike the ludicrous book that Scott chose to put a ludicrous spin on, this is a properly researched book with facts that bear up to analysis.
Indeed, the claims that the US were negotiating with, and may have complicitly allowed the creation of, the Taliban to get hold of oil reserves are well documented.
So I'm surprised to see you refer to books that show how some of "all this" is all our fault (which it is) ... but I am worried by that the fact that this book is by French people ... you're not trying a "here they go again" are you?
I keep noticing you always bring up the issue of my motives. I think I?ve been quite transparent about my views, and did not mince words in expressing them. Why the confusion in your mind?
I do have legitimate grips against the French government and the French intellectual elites, but again, I qualify this by trying not to paint the whole French population with same brush.
As far as the thesis of the book, namely that the White House put oil interests ahead of national security, I whole-heartedly agree. That was a long standing practice of the state department, and by proxy also that of the white house. I still see little signs of that ?diplomacy? changing. Although Pres. Bush, I think intuitively understands the folly of such a policy.
mika.
I AGREE WITH A POST FROM PC^KILLA.
Bloody bloody bloody bloody hell.
He puts a percentage of the blame for "recent events" on the West, so do I. I shake his hand. More so because if it's not 100% the 'fault of Muslims' then Islam can't be 100% bad per se.
We're going to get there folks, there is hope.
The bit about the motives here was because you were insinuating SOMETHING by posting, commentless, an article about French writers in a thread called "Are the French this Dumb?" I assumed (wrongly I think) you did it to show with a
Note to self: Need to stop posting late at night.
[ 07-02-2002: Message edited by: PC^KILLA ]</p>