Cornel West, 9/11 Trutherism at the Million Muslim March

Originally posted on 9/11/2013

The main thrust, or reason of this post is to show Cornell West is a truther.

To be clear, this event was for a million Muslim’s to march AGAINST terrorism. Actually, only a few dozen showed up (LOL)… Huffington Post stretches that to a couple hundred: “‘Million Muslim March’ Shaping Up To Be More Like A Few Hundred People Walking Down The Street.” Even then, a large portion of the “Million Muslims” were 9/11 truthers.

  • It also appears, however, that trutherism will still play a significant role; the DC Area 9/11 Truth Movement and Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth Movement are currently listed as partners. (HUFFPO)

Here is a FLASHBACK ADDITION of BLAZE TV:

Illegal Immigrant Most Likely Known Terrorist [Video]

I saw this video a couple days ago. I thought to myself, “Arab accent, sleeper cells, border crisis — it’s only a matter of time.” I even thought this guy is probably n a watch list of some sort and will be identified. I would think the same thing immediately if he had said this in front of me. Which is why it baffled me when the guy filming brought up entitlement?

Entitlement? WTF? Even if not a clear [implicit] threat, what did that statement have to do with entitlement?

[Transcript slightly smoothed out from the video]:

POSSIBLE TERRORIST: If you are smart enough, you would know who I am. but you are not smart enough to know who I am, but soon you will know who I am.

CLUELESS FILMER: Wow. The entitlement. The entitlement.

POSSIBLE TERRORIST: No, believe me. I’m much better than that.

CLUELESS FILMER: The entitlement guy. Wow.

One of my boys sent this video today with a guy noting the high probability of this illegal immigrant coming across our border is an ACTUAL terrorist:

JIHAD WATCH noted the story. Pamela Geller at her GELLER REPORT goes a bit more in-depth:

This is what the Democrats are welcoming (and subsidizing) to invade our country.

Muslim ‘migrant’ says ‘You are not smart enough to know who I am. But soon you’re gonna know who I am.’

[….]

The above video video was reportedly taken at No More Death Camp, about 12 miles east from Sasabe, Arizona.

Movsum Samadov was been jailed for 12 years after being convicted of trying to overthrow the government. He was charged with plotting a terrorist act, illegal weapons possession, and attempting to seize power illegally.

Just to be clear, there were many before him and will be after. Until, that is, we get control of our border. Not a big fan of Grant Stinchfield, but he is one of the first to cover it well:


Stinchfield


Video has surfaced of the man believed to be Movsum Samadov, making threats against the United States. The once leader of The Islamic Party of Azerbaijan has a long history of ties to terrorism. The video was taken along the southern border of the United States. The man in the video appears to be Samadov chastising independent journalists on the ground for being, “not smart enough to know who i am, but soon you will know who I am.” That sounds like a threat. The question is where is Samadov now?

Here is what we know about Movsum Samadov:

On January 20th, 2011, Samadov was charged with “preparing a crime” (Art. 28 ACC), “preparing terrorism committed on preliminary arrangement by group of persons, by organized group or criminal community (criminal organization)” (Art. 214.2.1 ACC), “preparing terrorism committed with application of fire-arms or subjects used as a weapon” (Art. 214.2.3 ACC), “illegally purchasing, transferring, selling, storing, transporting, and carrying firearms, accessories, supplies, and explosives committed by organized group” (Art. 228.3 ACC), and “actions directed on violent capture power or violent deduction power” (Art. 278 ACC). He served 12 years in prison for those crimes. One year ago he was released from prison and now it seems he is free to roam about the U.S.

When he says, “Soon you will know who I am,” one can only wonder, what does he mean? My assumption is it is not good. May God Bless this nation that is under siege thanks to Joe Biden and his fellow Democrats.


Unrelated / Related UPDATE


From the DAILY CALLER:

Federal authorities caught a terrorist at the U.S. southern border and released him into the country, where he roamed freely for nearly a year before being arrested in Minnesota just days ago, according to an internal federal memo exclusively obtained by the Daily Caller News Foundation.

The unnamed individual, who the memo only identifies as a member of the Somali terror group al-Shabaab, was released shortly after being caught illegally crossing the southern border near San Ysidro, California on March 13, 2023, according to the memo, which the DCNF is not publishing in order to protect the identity of a confidential source. The Terrorist Screening Center “deemed him a ‘mismatch’” after running his name through the terror watchlist, according to the memo, which was sent to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials.

However, on January 18, 2024, the Terrorist Screening Center “made a redetermination” that the individual was “a confirmed member of al-Shabaab” and was involved in the use, manufacture or transport of explosives or firearms, the memo states. Two days later, ICE nabbed the al-Shabaab member in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

Border Patrol caught 172 terror watchlist suspects attempting to enter the U.S. illegally during fiscal year 2023. Former homeland security officials say the constant deluge of illegal immigrants hitting the southern border is making it easier for bad actors to slip into the country.

“Many within the Biden administration, including Secretary Mayorkas, have repeatedly assured us that the vetting process at the border is comprehensive and complete,” John Fabbricatore, a retired ICE field director who now sits on the National Immigration Center for Enforcement’s (NICE) board, told the DCNF. “However, we continue to witness alarming instances where terrorists are able to freely roam the United States for months after being released at the border before their criminal and terrorist histories come to light.”……..

Diplomacy is Back | Biden

Listen, I am not saying crazy Islamic fundamentalists would not have eventually made a move – even under Trump. But Republican administration foreign policy views are typically more realistic regarding the Middle East and Africa, and the spread of Islamo-Fascism. Under Biden one of the first things he did was remove the Houthis from the terrorist listing. And ignored [for the most part] Iran’s involvement in the hundred[+] attacks on bases in the Middle East and it took a record number of drone and missile strikes to garner a reaction [defensive] to these Iran backed terrorists.

The Biden administration has a skewed view of foreign policy that has created MORE unrest in a volatile area for evil opportunists “to pounce.” As well as a VERY porous border that is another opportunist wedge to get terrorists across the border who are creating cells in the country that will surely “pounce” when ordered.

Rep. Mike Gallagher, R-Wis., examines increased tensions in the Middle East after the U.S. struck Iran-backed Houthis in Yemen.

Remember, this was an “attack” [not preemptive, but retaliatory] with supported from Australia, Bahrain, Canada, and the Netherlands. For the record.

And the night of the attack on Houthi terrorists [Iranian proxies] led to this exchange that is a rarity on news channels that are not FOX:

New Rule: From the River to the Sea | Bill Maher

This is by far one of Bill Maher’s best “New Rules” segment. Love it! However, he is still a socialist on the economic front and a sleazeball on the moral front — that is, what backs moral ethics in society.

It may be a “magical time of year,” but what we all really need right now is a good dose of realism about Israel and Palestine.

BBC Admits Hamas Used Shifa Hospital As An Operations Base

The BBC and other MSM outlets have been horrible on their reporting of many topics during this newer war between Islamic-Nazis and Israel. Here is the BBC [finally] admitting that there was a Hamas command center underneath the Shifa Hospital – as Israel originally reported by the IDF.

BBC Finally Admits Hamas Used People in Shifa Hospital as Human Shields

The NEW YORK SUN has an excellent article detailing some of the past claims which are ignored presently:

As Evidence Mounts of Hamas Using Shifa Hospital as a Military Base, Human Rights Groups Turn Sullenly Silent  

…..A Dutch journalist who reported from Gaza and a British doctor who worked at Al Shifa hospital have both corroborated IDF claims. The doctor told a reporter from France 24 news that there was a section of the hospital leading to the basement that he was instructed not to go near or he’d “be in danger of being shot.”

The doctor added that “there were dodgy non-medical characters going in and out all the time,” and that discussion of this was made in “hushed tones about which Hamas was discussed. You know, people were genuinely fearful.”

In 2014, the Washington Post also reported that Al Shifa hospital had become “a de facto headquarters for Hamas leaders, who can be seen in the hallways and offices.”

“This was not a secret. This was an open secret,” a human rights advocate and executive director of UN Watch, Hillel Neuer, tells the Sun. “Certainly all the international organizations that have a constant presence on the ground knew about it.”  

Organizations such as Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, the World Health Organization, and committees within the United Nations, though, are not convinced — or at least won’t say so publicly now. This matters because, while Israel can win this war militarily, the war for international public support is a major challenge, and Hamas knows how to fight this battle. This is evident in protests on college campuses and in the streets across the United States and in European capitals.

It’s also evident in statements from these groups. “Amnesty International has so far not seen any credible evidence to support Israel’s claim that al-Shifa is housing a military command center — and indeed Israel has repeatedly failed to produce any evidence to substantiate this claim,” the executive director of Amnesty International USA, Paul O’Brien, tells the Sun in a statement.

“In their stated intent to use all means to destroy Hamas, Israeli forces have shown a shocking disregard for civilian lives,” Mr. O’Brien says. “These unlawful attacks, including indiscriminate attacks that caused mass civilian casualties, must be investigated as war crimes.”

This contrasts sharply with Amnesty International reports released in 2007 and 2015, in which the organization describes Hamas using Al Shifa hospital for interrogations, torture, and launching attacks. The harsh condemnation of Israel also contrasts to the language Mr. O’Brien uses to condemn Hamas’s terrorist attacks on October 7.

“The abduction of civilians and hostage-taking and deliberate attacks on civilians are prohibited by international law and can constitute war crimes,” Mr. O’Brien says.

“Can constitute war crimes” doesn’t have the force of Israel “must be investigated for war crimes.” Amnesty International’s X feed displays the same imbalance: for every 10 posts on Israel’s “chilling indifference to the catastrophic toll on civilians,” there is maybe one post about the hostages Hamas is still holding.

Human Rights Watch is also not ready to say whether Hamas used Al Shifa hospital as an operations base. This contrasts to 2007, when Human Rights Watch released a report that details Hamas’s use of hospitals in its battle with Fatah.

“Human Rights Watch takes seriously allegations by Israeli authorities that armed groups are operating inside or below hospitals. We are not, however, in a position to corroborate these claims presently,” the Israel and Palestine director of the Middle East division of Human Rights Watch, Omar Shakir, tells the Sun.

“If accurate, the use of medical facilities by Palestinian armed groups for military operations is alarming and violates the laws of war,” Mr. Shakir says. Yet he adds, “Attacks on hospitals being used to commit ‘acts harmful to the enemy’ are still unlawful if indiscriminate or disproportionate.”

The United Nations declined to comment about Hamas’s use of Al Shifa hospital but directed the Sun to a World Health Organization press conference held Friday. When asked at this press conference whether Hamas used Al Shifa as a base, the executive director of the WHO Health Emergencies Program, Michael Ryan, said that his team’s focus was solely on doctors and evacuating patients.…..

(Read It All)

Other noteworthy articles are below:

Videos: Inside The Hamas Shifa Hospital Underground Command Center

  • Behind the hatch door that was breached, war rooms, an air-conditioned living room and hiding place, as well as toilets and a kitchen for extended stays were discovered. [….]the images suggest that the labyrinthine tunnels were used not just for transporting materials or people, but as something of an extended-stay base. The Israel Defense Forces referred to it as “Hamas’ underground city.”…. (LEGAL INSURRECTION)

Media Minimize Evidence of Hamas Activity in Gaza’s Shifa Hospital

  • [by] minimizing the evidence by suggesting that what Israel has exposed is not enough or fake, while relying on the denials of a deceitful terror organization, is nothing less than a complete ethical and journalistic collapse.” (HONEST REPORTING)

BBC Says Israel Targeted Hospital Staff, Forced To Apologize (Again)

  • On Wednesday [15th of November, 2023], the globally influential BBC was forced to apologize yet again for an anti-Israel smear from one of its anchors. This time, the BBC accused Israel of intentionally targeting Al-Shifa Hospital staff and Arab speakers during its operations in Gaza, which was exactly the opposite of what the cited Reuters report said. (NEWSBUSTERS)

The Last Line of Defense | Bari Weiss

This is via a hat-tip to Ayaan Hirsi Ali who says: “Very Powerful. Do as Bari urges us to do: Get Up and Fight.” The introduction by Mr. Theodore W. Ullyot, Co-Chairman, Board of Visitors, The Federalist Society — is here.

Barbara K. Olson Memorial Lecture | The Federalist Society, November 10, 2023 (Washington, D.C.)

The Last Line of Defense By Bari Weiss

Israel Declared War… Day 1

Hamas Fires 5,000 rockets Into Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, Israel declares ‘state of war’ — More than 100 Israelis are dead and 900 Israelis have been injured in the Hamas rocket and terror assault from Beersheba to Jerusalem, the Health Ministry said.

Israel Declared War…

“Since this morning, the State of Israel has been at war. Our first objective is to clear out the hostile forces that infiltrated our territory and restore the security and quiet to the communities that have been attacked.

The second objective, at the same time, is to exact an immense price from the enemy, within the Gaza Strip as well. The third objective is to reinforce other fronts so that nobody should mistakenly join this war.

We are at war. In war, one needs to be level-headed. I call on all citizens of Israel to unite in order to achieve our highest goal – victory in the war.”

— Benjamin Netanyahu

  • POWERLINE | ADVICE TO ISRAEL [UPDATED]
  • RED STATE | BREAKING: Hamas Fires 5,000 Rockets Into Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, Israel Declares ‘State of War’
  • RIGHT SCOOP | BREAKING: Benjamin Netanyahu announces Israel is at WAR after Hamas infiltrates Israel
  • RED STATE | WATCH: Horrifying Videos Out of Israel, as Biden Administration Delivers Shockingly Grotesque 
  • RIGHT SCOOP | Hamas terrorist group releases disturbing video showing Israeli women they have captured
  • JERUSALEM POST | Israel at War: IDF Confirms That Hamas Has Israeli Hostages
  • NATIONAL REVIEW | Israel at War: What We Know about the Barbaric Hamas Attacks

Beirut Explosion (Angles and Latest News Report)

Some multiple angles first:

Latest News Report (Not IDF or terror):

Hillary’s New Zealand/Sri Lanka Tweets (UPDATED: The C Word)

(JUMP TO UPDATE) The headlines are in stark contrast to how the corporate media zealously covered the Christchurch terrorist attack by a white supremacist that killed 49 last month, which highlighted not only the attacker’s identity, but his white supremacist motives. But how they and politicians do not report on more than 400% more murders on Easter.


EASTER WORSHIPERS


One of my son’s pointed this out, and so I wish to UPDATE the post with the noting of this odd phenomenon. In all my religious studies I never came across this denomination.

Over at LIBERTY NATION, Leesa Donner writes about Obama and Hillary (in their Tweets) coming up with a new sect of Christians: “Easter Worshippers

Those pitching their tent on the left of the American political spectrum can’t seem to make themselves utter the “C” word. Many do verbal somersaults to avoid addressing, writing about, or publicly recognizing those who laud Easter. Are we on some sort of right-wing paranoid rant here? Well, let’s take a moment and see where the facts lead us.

Liberty Nation was first alerted to this odd assault on Christians by PATRICK HAUF, who seems to be a rather savvy college student. Perhaps he isn’t the progenitor of this phenomenon, but that’s where we spotted it. Hauf astutely noticed Hillary Clinton’s tweet that referred to Christians as “Easter worshippers.”

Then he did a taste-test, comparing HRC and former President Obama’s tweets about Easter and how they referred to people in the aftermath of the synagogue terrorist attack in Pittsburgh and the horrific killing of Christians in Sri Lanka.

This naturally led to tongue-in-cheek tweets like this one from LN’s Jeff Charles, “Can anyone actually tell me what an ‘Easter Worshipper’ is? Do these people worship the holiday Easter? Are they going to start calling us ‘Christmas Worshippers’ in December?”  Then Charles doubled down with: “What happens if a terrorist targets Jews during the same time period as Easter? Are we supposed to call them ‘Passover Worshippers’?”

[….]

Here we might take a moment to hearken back to a salient proverb of George Orwell. “Political languageis designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.” Orwell could have added another rubric to language distortion that works just as well: Never write or say the word you despise – just put it on extinction. Then in a generation or so people will ask one another: “Christian? What is a Christian?”

New York Democrats “Enable” Terror Attacks

By “enable” I mean legislate passivity in homeland security.

Dr. Sebastian Gorka, Lt. Col. Tony Shaffer and former NYPD counterterrorism detective Bill McGroarty weigh in on ‘Hannity.’

Sean Hannity interviews (RADIO SHOW) retired NYPD Lieutenant, Bill McGroarty, as well as Patrick Poole about the recent terror attack

Audio Description:

BILL MCGROARTY: Retired Lieutenant with NYPD, worked 10 years in the Counter Terrorism Unit. Bill McGroarty and his unit had done surveillance on the mosque that the terror suspect attended…unfortunately, Chris Christie outed the NYPD’s surveillance efforts and forced them to end the program

PATRICK POOLE: National Security Correspondent for PJ Media, give us an intel perspective on the terror attack in NYC yesterday (October 31st).

The Uzbekistan native accused of killing eight people in New York City had been planning his attack for weeks and did prior reconnaissance before he plowed a rented truck into pedestrians along a popular Manhattan bike path, officials revealed Wednesday.

Sayfullo Saipov, 29, was interviewed by investigators at the hospital after his surgery Wednesday, John Miller, NYPD’s Deputy Commissioner of Intelligence and Counterterrorism, said in a news conference. Miller did not reveal what was said, though reports indicated Saipov bragged about the assault and said he was “proud” of the attack. NYPD Commissioner James O’Neill would not confirm the statement.

Days before Tuesday’s assault, ISIS had been encouraging its followers to carry out Halloween attacks with propaganda from the terror group showing a graphic with a blood-splattered machete and Tuesday’s date. SITE intelligence group, which monitors terror activity online, also highlighted a recent photo taken by an ISIS supporter near the scene of Tuesday’s attack; but it remained unclear if there was a connection between that photo and the rampage.

(HANNITY)

Dispelling the “CIA Trained-Funded Bin Laden/Taliban” Myth/Mantra

Politicians and leaders from both sides of the aisle make mention of this myth that we funded/created Al Qaeda via weapons, training, and money to the likes of Osama Bin Laden. The Daily Caller in 2013 notes some of the positions:

…in just a one-month span, Sen. Paul has — not once, but twice — advanced a conspiracy theory that says that during the Reagan era, the U.S. funded Osama bin Laden.

During John Kerry’s secretary of state confirmation hearing, Paul said ”We funded bin Laden” — a statement that prompted Foreign Policy magazine’s managing editor, Blake Hounshell, to fire off a tweet saying: “Rand Paul tells a complete falsehood: ‘We funded Bin Laden.’ This man is on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.”

But that didn’t discourage Paul. During a much anticipated foreign policy speech at the Heritage Foundation today, Paul doubled down, saying: “In the 1980’s the war caucus in Congress armed bin Laden and the mujaheddin in their fight with the Soviet Union.”

The only problem is that this is, at best, highly speculative — and, at worst, the perpetuation of an outright myth.

This also puts Paul in the same camp as Michael Moore, who said: ““WE created the monster known as Osama bin Laden! Where did he go to terrorist school? At the CIA!”….

…read it all…

And, this is the crux of the matter: truthers took Michael Moore’s non-evidential presentations and statements and ran with them.

Another example that shows this myth isn’t necessarily one owned by strictly by politicians, as, this conversation on a friends FaceBook shows:

Antony: failed foreign policy means today’s buddies are tomorrows boogiemen.

Hunlsy: I just love the fact they’re fighting us with the weapons and training that we gave them.

Antony: Oh where oh where did Iran get those P3s and F-14 Tomcats?

Antony: it was the US – we used to be buddies with Iranians too. We played both sides of the Iran/Iraq war, which predicated Gulf I.

Hunsly: Likely from the Russians. Regardless, we’re fighting a group, not a country. This group makes all of its IEDs & buys all of their weapons with the money that we gave them.

Here is my short intercept of the above conversation. More info will follow it:

Weapons
This is somewhat of a myth — that we sold the majority of weapons to the Taliban, to Iraq, and the like. For instance, in the following graph you can see that (in the instance of Iraq, which I was told over-and-over-again was weaponized by the U.S.) you have to combine the U.K. and the U.S. to equal 1%.

Iraqi Weapons

Moral Position
Much like us supporting Stalin in defeating Hitler, we were aligned with people whom we didn’t see eye-to-eye with in order to beat the USSR during the Cold War (WWIII)… a war that was fought from 1947–1991.

History
And thirdly, the Taliban didn’t exist when Reagan said this:

Reagan didn’t say that about the Taliban because the Taliban didn’t exist yet. He said that of the Mujahedin, the same men who would later go on to fight the Taliban under the name “Northern Alliance”

The Afghan Northern Alliance, officially known as the United Islamic Front for the Salvation of Afghanistan (Persian: ‏جبهه متحد اسلامی ملی برای نجات افغانستان‎ Jabha-yi Muttahid-i Islāmi-yi Millī barā-yi Nijāt-i Afghānistān), was a military front that came to formation in late 1996 after the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (Taliban) took over Kabul. The United Front was assembled by key leaders of the Islamic State of Afghanistan, particularly president in exile Burhanuddin Rabbani and former Defense Minister Ahmad Shah Massoud. Initially it included mostly Tajiks but by 2000, leaders of other ethnic groups had joined the Northern Alliance. This included Abdul Rashid Dostum, Mohammad Mohaqiq, Abdul Qadir, Sayed Hussein Anwari and others.

The Northern Alliance fought a defensive war against the Taliban government. They received support from Iran, Russia, India, Tajikistan and others, while the Taliban were backed by al-Qaeda. The Northern Alliance was mostly made up of ethnic Tajiks, but later included Uzbeks, Hazaras, and Pashtuns. The Taliban government was dominated by Pashtuns with other groups being the minority. After the US-led invasion and establishment of the Karzai administration in late 2001, the Northern Alliance broke apart and different political parties were formed.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northern_Alliance

The mujaheddin fighters who had previously defeated the communist government and formed the Islamic State of Afghanistan (ISA) came under attack and in 1996 lost the capital to the Taliban. At this juncture the Mujahedin resorted to the creation of UIF because Rashid Dostum and other warlords who belonged to various tribes but to no specific political party did not want to recognize the ISA as a legal entity, so the defeated government devised a military strategy to utilize these forces while not offending their political sensibilities.

In October 1996 in Khinjan, Ahmed Shah Massoud and Dostum came to an agreement to form the anti-Taliban coalition that outside Afghanistan became known as the Northern Alliance.

CNN was doing a special on Afghanistan and Peter Bergen asked for questions from viewers that he would answer. One of the questions is as follows:

  • “If it’s true that bin Laden once worked for the CIA, what makes you so sure that he isn’t still?” ~ Anne Busigin, Toronto, Canada

Peter Bergen responds:

This is one of those things where you cannot put it out of its misery.

The story about bin Laden and the CIA — that the CIA funded bin Laden or trained bin Laden — is simply a folk myth. There’s no evidence of this. In fact, there are very few things that bin Laden, Ayman al-Zawahiri and the U.S. government agree on. They all agree that they didn’t have a relationship in the 1980s. And they wouldn’t have needed to. Bin Laden had his own money, he was anti-American and he was operating secretly and independently.

The real story here is the CIA didn’t really have a clue about who this guy was until 1996 when they set up a unit to really start tracking him.

One person in a forum that was similarly challenged pointed out that this surely wasn’t the Taliban because they hated women in any position of authority — look at the pic at the top again.

As you read on, keep in mind Mr. Bergen was not a fan of conservatives, or Republicans. With that in mind, enjoy the rest, it is posted here so it will never disappear on me:

U.S. government officials and a number of other parties maintain that the U.S. supported only the indigenous Afghan mujahideen. They deny that the CIA or other American officials had contact with the Afghan Arabs (foreign mujahideen) or Bin Laden, let alone armed, trained, coached or indoctrinated them. Scholars and reporters have called the idea of CIA-backed Afghan Arabs (foreign mujahideen) “nonsense”,[6] “sheer fantasy”, and “simply a folk myth.”

They argue that:

  • with a quarter of a million local Afghans willing to fight there was no need to recruit foreigners unfamiliar with the local language, customs or lay of the land
  • with several hundred million dollars a year in funding from non-American, Muslim sources, Arab Afghans themselves would have no need for American funds
  • Americans could not train mujahideen because Pakistani officials would not allow more than a handful of U.S. agents to operate in Pakistan and none in Afghanistan;
  • the Afghan Arabs were militant Islamists, reflexively hostile to Westerners, and prone to threaten or attack Westerners even though they knew the Westerners were helping the mujahideen.

Al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri says much the same thing in his book Knights Under the Prophet’s Banner.

Bin Laden himself once said “the collapse of the Soviet Union … goes to God and the mujahideen in Afghanistan … the US had no mentionable role,” but “collapse made the US more haughty and arrogant.”

According to CNN journalist Peter Bergen, known for conducting the first television interview with Osama bin Laden in 1997,

The story about bin Laden and the CIA — that the CIA funded bin Laden or trained bin Laden — is simply a folk myth. There’s no evidence of this. In fact, there are very few things that bin Laden, Ayman al-Zawahiri and the U.S. government agree on. They all agree that they didn’t have a relationship in the 1980s. And they wouldn’t have needed to. Bin Laden had his own money, he was anti-American and he was operating secretly and independently. The real story here is the CIA did not understand who Osama was until 1996, when they set up a unit to really start tracking him.

Bergen quotes Pakistani Brigadier Mohammad Yousaf, who ran the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) Afghan operation between 1983 and 1987:

It was always galling to the Americans, and I can understand their point of view, that although they paid the piper they could not call the tune. The CIA supported the mujahideen by spending the taxpayers’ money, billions of dollars of it over the years, on buying arms, ammunition, and equipment. It was their secret arms procurement branch that was kept busy. It was, however, a cardinal rule of Pakistan’s policy that no Americans ever become involved with the distribution of funds or arms once they arrived in the country. No Americans ever trained or had direct contact with the mujahideen, and no American official ever went inside Afghanistan.

Marc Sageman, a Foreign Service Officer who was based in Islamabad from 1987–1989, and worked closely with Afghanistan’s Mujahideen, argues that no American money went to the foreign volunteers.

Sageman also says:

Contemporaneous accounts of the war do not even mention [the Afghan Arabs]. Many were not serious about the war. … Very few were involved in actual fighting. For most of the war, they were scattered among the Afghan groups associated with the four Afghan fundamentalist parties.

No U.S. official ever came in contact with the foreign volunteers. They simply traveled in different circles and never crossed U.S. radar screens. They had their own sources of money and their own contacts with the Pakistanis, official Saudis, and other Muslim supporters, and they made their own deals with the various Afghan resistance leaders.”[14]

Vincent Cannistraro, who led the Reagan administration’s Afghan Working Group from 1985 to 1987, puts it,

The CIA was very reluctant to be involved at all. They thought it would end up with them being blamed, like in Guatemala.” So the Agency tried to avoid direct involvement in the war, … the skittish CIA, Cannistraro estimates, had less than ten operatives acting as America’s eyes and ears in the region. Milton Bearden, the Agency’s chief field operative in the war effort, has insisted that “[T]he CIA had nothing to do with” bin Laden. Cannistraro says that when he coordinated Afghan policy from Washington, he never once heard bin Laden’s name.

Fox News reporter Richard Miniter wrote that in interviews with the two men who “oversaw the disbursement for all American funds to the anti-Soviet resistance, Bill Peikney – CIA station chief in Islamabad from 1984 to 1986 – and Milt Bearden – CIA station chief from 1986 to 1989 – he found,

Both flatly denied that any CIA funds ever went to bin Laden. They felt so strongly about this point that they agreed to go on the record, an unusual move by normally reticent intelligence officers. Mr. Peikney added in an e-mail to me: “I don’t even recall UBL [bin Laden] coming across my screen when I was there.

Other reasons advanced for a lack of a CIA-Afghan Arab connection of “pivotal importance,” (or even any connection at all), was that the Afghan Arabs themselves were not important in the war but were a “curious sideshow to the real fighting.”

One estimate of the number of combatants in the war is that 250,000 Afghans fought 125,000 Soviet troops, but only 2000 Arab Afghans fought “at any one time”.

According to Milton Bearden the CIA did not recruit Arabs because there were hundreds of thousands of Afghans all too willing to fight. The Arab Afghans were not only superfluous but “disruptive,” angering local Afghans with their more-Muslim-than-thou attitude, according to Peter Jouvenal. Veteran Afghan cameraman Peter Jouvenal quotes an Afghan mujahideen as saying “whenever we had a problem with one of them [foreign mujahideen], we just shot them. They thought they were kings.”

Many who traveled in Afghanistan, including Olivier Roy[20] and Peter Jouvenal, reported of the Arab Afghans’ visceral hostility to Westerners in Afghanistan to aid Afghans or report on their plight. BBC reporter John Simpson tells the story of running into Osama bin Laden in 1989, and with neither knowing who the other was, bin Laden attempting to bribe Simpson’s Afghan driver $500 — a large sum in a poor country — to kill the infidel Simpson. When the driver declined, Bin Laden retired to his “camp bed” and wept “in frustration.”

According to Steve Coll, author of “Ghost Wars”, the primary contact for the CIA and ISI in Afghanistan was Ahmed Shah Massoud a poppy farmer and militia leader known as the “Lion of the Panjeer”. During the Afghan Civil War which erupted once the Soviets had left, Massoud’s army was routed by the Taliban (who were being helped by Pakistan’s ISI) and restricted to the northern region of the country. A loose entente was formed with several other native tribal militias which became known as the Northern Alliance who operated in opposition to the Taliban. On September 10, 2001 a camera crew was granted access to Massoud under the premise they were interviewing him for a documentary about the Mujahadeen. The crew members were actually Al Qaeda operatives who detonated a bomb killing themselves and Massoud. The purpose of the assassination was to eliminate a key ally for the US in anticipation of an invasion in retaliation for the 9/11 attacks which were to take place the following day.

(Northern Alliance ~ WIKI)

And here is another great post responding to the non-evidential/conspiratorial [leftists] on the subject:

“Osama bin Laden was trained and funded by the CIA” – you’ll read the claim everywhere, and it’s rarely opposed: everyone just seems to accept that it’s true. But why? How much evidence have you ever seen presented to support this?

The reality is that there are many people who say this is simply a myth. And we’re not just talking about neo-con friendly journalists, either.

Take Jason Burke, for instance, a major contributor to the BBC documentary “The Power of Nightmares”. In his book “Al Qaeda”, he wrote the following:

It is often said that bin Ladin was funded by the CIA. This is not true, and indeed it would have been impossible given the structure of funding that General Zia ul-Haq, who had taken power in Pakistan in 1977, had set up. A condition of Zia’s cooperation with the American plan to turn Afghanistan into the Soviet’s ‘Vietnam’ was that all American funding to the Afghan resistance had to be channeled through the Pakistani government, which effectively meant the Afghan bureau of the Inter Services Intelligence (ISI), the military spy agency. The American funding, which went exclusively to the Afghan mujahideen groups, not the Arab volunteers [bin Ladin’s groups], was supplemented by Saudi government money and huge funds raised from mosques, non-governmental charitable institutions and private donors throughout the Islamic world. Most of the major Gulf-based charities operating today were founded at this time to raise money or channel government funds to the Afghans, civilians and fighters. In fact, as little as 25 per cent of the monet for the Afghan jihad was actually supplied directly by states.

Page 59, Al Qaeda: The true story of radical Islam, Jason Burke

Steve Coll, former Managing Editor of the Washington Post, also suggests bin Ladin passed largely unnoticed by the CIA, in his book “Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan, and bin Laden, from the Soviet Invasion to September 10, 2001”:

…According to [Ahemd] Badeeb, on bin Ladin’s first trip to Pakistan he brought donations to the Lahore offices of Jamaat-e-Islami, Zia’s political shock force. Jamaat was the Pakistani offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood; its students had sacked the US embassy in Islamabad in 1979. bin Ladin did not trust the official Pakistan intelligence service, Badeeb recalled, and preferred to fund his initial charity through private religious and political networks.From the beginning of the Afghan jihad, Saudi intelligence used religious charities to support its own unilateral operations. This mainly involved funneling money and equipment to favoured Afghan commanders outisde ISI or CIA control… “The humanitarian aid-that was completely separate from the Americans”, Badeeb recalled. “And we insist[ed] that the Americans will not get to that, get involved–especially in the beginning,” in part because some of the Islamist mujahedin objected to direct contact with Western infidels…

In spy lexicon, each of the major intelligence agencies began working the Afghan jihad–GID [General Intelligence Department, Saudi Arabia], ISI and the CIA– began to “compartment” their work, even as all three collaborated with one another through formal liasons…

bin Ladin moved within Saudi intelligence’s compartmented operations, outside of CIA eyesight…

Page 86/ 87, Ghost Wars, Stevel Coll

In a Q&A session following the release of his book, Coll said:

Wheaton, Md.: There have been accusations from the left that have directly accused the CIA of funding and training bin Laden. Is there any truth to this ? Steve Coll: I did not discover any evidence of direct contact between CIA officers and bin Laden during the 1980s, when they were working more or less in common cause against the Soviets. CIA officials, including Tenet, have denied under oath that such contact took place. The CIA was certainly aware of bin Laden’s activities, beginning in the mid- to late-1980s, and they generally looked favorably on what he was doing at that time. But bin Laden’s direct contacts were with Saudi intelligence and to some extent Pakistani intelligence, not with the Americans.

Missouri EDU

Peter Bergen expanded on the supposed CIA/ bin Ladin links in his book, Holy War Inc:

But were the CIA and the Afghan Arabs in cahoots, as recent studies have suggested? One author charges: “The CIA had funded and trained the Afghan Arabs during the war”. Another refers to “the central role of the CIA’s Muslim mercenaries, including upwards of 2,000 mercenaries in the Afghanistan war”. Both authors present these claims as axioms, but provide no real corroboration.Other commentators have reported that bin Ladin himself was aided by the CIA. A report in the respected British newspaper The Guardian states: “In 1986 the CIA even helped him [bin Ladin] build an underground camp at Khost [Afghanistan] where he was to train recruits from across the Islamic world in the revolutionary art of jihad”…Bin Ladin, meanwhile, had expoused anti-American positions since 1982, and thanks to the fortune derived from his family’s giant construction business had little need of CIA money. In fact, the underground camp at Khost was built in 1982 by an Afghan commander, with Arab funding.

A source familiar with bin Ladin’s organisation explains that bin Ladin “never had any relations with America or American officials… He was saying very early in the 1980’s that the next battle is going to be with America… No aid or training or other support have ever been given to bin Ladin from Americans.” A senior offical unequivocally says that “bin Ladin never met with the CIA.”

While the charges that the CIA was responsible for the rise of the Afghan Arabs might make good copy, they don’t make good history. The truth is more complicated, tinged with varying shades of grey. The United States wanted to be able to deny that the CIA was funding the Afghan war, so its support was funneled through Pakistan’s military intelligence agency, Inter Services Intelligence agency (ISI). ISI in turn made the decisions about which Afghan factions to arm and train, tending to fund the most Islamist and pro-Pakistan. The Afghan Arabs generally fought alongside those factions, which is how the charge arose that they were creatures of the CIA.

Former CIA officer Milt Bearden, who ran the Agency’s Afghan operation in the late 1980’s, says: “The CIA did not recruit Arabs,” as there was no need to do so. There were hundreds of thousands of Afghans all too willing to fight…

Moreover, the Afghan Arabs demonstrated a pathological dislike of Westerners. Jouvenal says: “I always kept away from Arabs [in Afghanistan]. They were very hostile. They would ask, ‘What are you doing in an Islamic country?” The BBC reporter John Simpson had a close call with bin Ladin himself outside Jalalabad in 1989. Travelling with a group of Arab mujahideen, Simpson and his television crew bumped into an Arab man beautifully dressed in spotless white robes; the man began shouting at Simpson’s escorts to kill the infidels, then offered a truck driver the not unreasonable sum of five hundred dollars to do the job. Simpson’s Afghan escort turned down the request, and bin Ladin was to be found later on a camp bed, weeping in frustration. Only when bin Ladin became a public figure, almost a decade later, did Simpson realise who the mysterious Arab was who had wanted him dead.

Page 67/68, Holy War Inc, Peter Bergen

This level of hostility to Westerners doesn’t suggest a warm working relationship with the US, and there’s some confirmation in a story retold by Richard Miniter:

…the handful of Americans who had heard of bin Ladin in the 1980’s knew him mainly for his violently anti-American views. Dana Rohrabacher, now a Republican congressman from Orange County, California, told me about a trip he took with the mujihideen in 1987. At the time, Rohrabacher was a Reagan aide who delighted in taking long overland trips inside Afghanistan with anti-Communist forces. On one such trek, his guide told him not to speak English for the next few hours because they were passing by bin Ladin’s encampment. Rohrabacher was told, “If he hears an American, he will kill you.” 

Page 16, Disinformation, Richard Miniter

Bin Ladin was himself asked about US funding by Robert Fisk:

Fisk: …what of the Arab mujahedin he took to Afghanistan – members of a guerilla army who were also encouraged and armed by the United States – and who were forgotten when that war was over? bin Ladin: “Personally neither I nor my brothers saw evidence of American help…

Fisk interview, 1996

And Ayman al-Zawahiri, second-in-command of al Qaeda, explains more in his text “Knights under the Prophet’s Banner”. Here he claims the “Afghan Arabs” had plenty of funding from various Arab sources, and points to other indications that they never supported the US:

“While the United States backed Pakistan and the mujahidin factions with money and equipment, the young Arab mujahidin’s relationship with the United States was totally different.”Indeed the presence of those young Arab Afghans in Afghanistan and their increasing numbers represented a failure of US policy and new proof of the famous US political stupidity. The financing of the activities of the Arab mujahidin in Afghanistan came from aid sent to Afghanistan by popular organizations. It was substantial aid. “The Arab mujahidin did not confine themselves to financing their own jihad but also carried Muslim donations to the Afghan mujahidin themselves. Usama Bin Ladin has apprised me of the size of the popular Arab support for the Afghan mujahidin that amounted, according to his sources, to $200 million in the form of military aid alone in 10 years.

Imagine how much aid was sent by popular Arab organizations in the non-military fields such as medicine and health, education and vocational training, food, and social assistance (including sponsorship of orphans, widows, and the war handicapped. Add to all this the donations that were sent on special occasions such as Id al-Fitr and Id al-Adha feasts and during the month of Ramadan.”

“Through this unofficial popular support, the Arab mujahidin established training centers and centers for the call to the faith. They formed fronts that trained and equipped thousands of Arab mujahidin and provided them with living expenses, housing, travel, and organization.”

Changing Bin Ladin’s Guard

About the Afghan Arabs’ relationship with the United States, Al-Zawahiri says in his book: “If the Arab mujahidin are mercenaries of the United States who rebelled against it as it alleges, why is it unable to buy them back now? Are they not counted now-with Usama Bin Ladin at their head-as the primary threat to US interests? Is not buying them more economical and less costly that the astronomical budgets that the United States is allotting for security and defense?”

“The Americans, in their usual custom of exaggeration and superficiality, are trying to sell off illusions to the people and are ignoring the most basic facts. Is it possible that Usama Bin Ladin who, in his lectures in the year 1987, called for boycotting US goods as a form of support for the intifadah in Palestine, a US agent in Afghanistan?….

“Furthermore, is it possible that the martyr-as we regard him-Abdallah Azzam was a US collaborator when in fact he never stopped inciting young men against the United States and used to back HAMAS with all the resources at his disposal?

“Is it possible that the jihadist movement in Egypt can be a collaborator movement for the United States when Khalid al-Islambuli and his comrades killed Anwar al-Sadat, even before the phenomenon of the Arab mujahidin in Afghanistan emerged?”

“Is it possible that the jihadist movement in Egypt can be a US collaborator movement when in fact it brought up its children, ever since the movement started, to reject Israel and all the agreements of capitulation to it and to consider making peace with Israel as a contravention of Islamic Shari’ah?”

Book, His Own Words: A Translation of the Writings of Dr. Ayman Al Zawahiri

Richard Miniter has a little more on this in “Dispelling the CIA-Bin Ladin Myth“, and while you may not exactly trust the source, there were further comments worth at least a look on the US State Departments “Identifying Misinformation” site.

(Via 9/11 Myths)