4 ms·

This piece of the story I do not understand. "People in a position to know have suggested that the CIA concealed information about Hazmi and Mihdhar’s travel b

This piece of the story I do not understand. "People in a position to know have suggested that the CIA concealed information about Hazmi and Mihdhar’s travel because the CIA wanted to recruit them through Saudi intelligence, which would go a long way to support the defense theory that the United States and Al Qaeda are not at war..." I don't grasp how showing the CIA was attempting to recruit these people as operatives proves we are not currently at war with Al Qaeda; intelligence services try to recruit operatives in an opposing force's camp all the time.

nashashmi 4y ago
That would be as a counter intelligence purpose. Here the CIA wanted to befriend alqaeda. But not directly. So they went through an ally intelligence route.
- shadowgovt 4y ago
  Even still, I think as a defense the argument that this is evidence of lack of a state of war is easily countered by "but then what happened?"
  - ChrisKnott 4y ago
    You're not wrong, it's a ludicrously weak defence, probably designed precisely to cast as wide a discovery net as possible
- vuln 4y ago
  [flagged]
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - pessimizer 4y ago
    I think that's a stretch, but Al Qaeda was basically eradicated or forced into hiding between 9/11 and the beginning of the Afghan invasion in a desperate attempt to keep the US from attacking. Al Qaeda was in essence a name for bin Ladin's bank account, because he was doing VC funding for training fighters and making audacious attacks against the US and the Saudi royals. That financing source was cut immediately, and Ladin-financed people trapped in Afghanistan had to figure out how to escape a country filled with locals who thought (correctly) that the US was going to come and murder everybody because of what these foreign fighters had been doing. After that, the US called everything in the Middle East that it wanted to kill "Al Qaeda" and made "The Taliban," i.e. the local government, somehow "Al Qaeda" too, or maybe even worse. What was "Al Qaeda" and what was "Freedom Fighter" was based on whether we wanted to topple the government or not and unrelated to any qualities or beliefs of the groups. We poured money and weapons into some radical Islamist groups while executing others.
photochemsyn 4y ago
It's worth remembering that Al Qaeda in Syria (under various other names) was funded and armed by the United States, Britain, Jordan, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar according to numerous published reports, and that fighters for the organization were trained at secret CIA/military bases in Jordan and Turkey, and that the CIA operation in Libya in coordination with Qatar (out of Benghazi) funneled Libyan weapons to the organization for use against the Syrian government. For example: "Arming Syrian rebels: Where the US went wrong 10 October 2015 BBC" https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-33997408 https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-33997408 > "Those who supported his approach, the Arms for Rebels group, included then-CIA Director David Petraeus, then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and most of the foreign-policy establishment in Washington, both Democrat and Republican." "Behind the Sudden Death of a $1 Billion Secret C.I.A. War in Syria (2017)" https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/02/world/middleeast/cia-syria-rebel-arm-train-trump.html https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/02/world/middleeast/cia-syri... > "...some of the C.I.A.-supplied weapons had ended up in the hands of a rebel group tied to Al Qaeda..." Seems to be a pattern of behavior dating back to the Cold War, when the CIA decided that supporting violent religious fundamentalists in the Middle East and elsewhere would provide a bulwark against the Godless Communists.
dj_gitmo 4y ago
Well it's a legal defense and IANAL. I think what they are getting at is that the US gov and these groups have a long history and they are allies more often than not. * 1980s Afgan-Soviet War: Allies * 1990s Balkins Wars: Allies * late 90s attacks in Africa and Middle East: Enemies? * Post 2001: Mortal Enemies * Post 2011 Arab Spring: Allies in overthrowing the Syrian state.
- sedachv 4y ago
  It started much earlier than that, when the CIA took over Nazi Muslim terrorist networks after WWII, and from that started working with the Muslim Brotherhood in the 1950s. Ian Johnson's _A Mosque In Munich_ is a must-read if you are at all interested in why 9/11 happened: Privately, President Eisenhower seemed concerned about how to reach the Muslim world. He wrote to his confidant, the Presbyterian church leader Edward Elson, that Islam and the Middle East were always on his mind. “I assure you that I never fail in any communication with Arab leaders, oral or written, to stress the importance of the spiritual factor in our relationships. I have argued that belief in God should create between them and us the common purpose of opposing atheistic communism.” In White House meetings he was more blunt. Speaking with the CIA covert operations czar Frank Wisner and the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Eisenhower said that Arabs should dip into their own religion for inspiration in fighting communism. “The President said he thought we should do everything possible to stress the ‘holy war’ aspect,’ according to a memo outlining the conversation. “Mr. Dulles commented that if the Arabs have a ‘holy war they would want it to be against Israel. The President recalled, however, that [King Ibn] Saud, after his visit here, had called on all Arabs to oppose Communism.” The Operations Coordinating Board — the body set up to imple- ment covert plans by the CIA and other agencies — took up Islam. It had already produced a detailed study of Buddhism and how that religion could be used to further U.S. interests. In 1957, the board established an Ad Hoc Working Group on Islam that included offi- cials from the U.S. Information Agency, the State Department, and the CIA. According to a memo on the groups first meeting, its goal was to take stock of what public and private U.S. organizations were doing in the field of Islam and come up with an “Outline Plan of Operations.’ The plan had two main components, both of which were echoed in CIA actions in Munich. First, the United States would shun traditional Muslims in favor of “reform” groups, like the Muslim Brotherhood. Then, as today, the Brotherhood’s radi- cal political agenda of a return to a mythic state of pure Islam was obfuscated by its members’ use of modern symbols, such as West- ern clothing and rhetoric. “Both the Chairman and the CIA mem- ber felt that with the Islamic world being divided as it is between reactionary and reformist groups, it might be found profitable to place emphasis on programs which would strengthen the reformist groups.” In May, the coordination board passed the inventory and plan of action. Its statements were clear and simple: Islam is a natural ally, communists are exploiting Islam, and Islam affects the balance of power. The paper listed a dozen recommendations for strengthen- ing ties with Islamic organizations, especially those with a strong anticommunist bent. As always, the operations were to be covert. “Programs which are indirect and unattributable are more likely to be effective and will avoid the charge that we are trying to use reli- gion for political purposes,’ the report concluded. “Overt use of Is- lamic organizations for the inculcation of hard-line propaganda is to be avoided”

nashashmi 4y ago

That would be as a counter intelligence purpose. Here the CIA wanted to befriend alqaeda. But not directly. So they went through an ally intelligence route.

shadowgovt 4y ago
Even still, I think as a defense the argument that this is evidence of lack of a state of war is easily countered by "but then what happened?"
- ChrisKnott 4y ago
  You're not wrong, it's a ludicrously weak defence, probably designed precisely to cast as wide a discovery net as possible
vuln 4y ago
[flagged]
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- pessimizer 4y ago
  I think that's a stretch, but Al Qaeda was basically eradicated or forced into hiding between 9/11 and the beginning of the Afghan invasion in a desperate attempt to keep the US from attacking. Al Qaeda was in essence a name for bin Ladin's bank account, because he was doing VC funding for training fighters and making audacious attacks against the US and the Saudi royals. That financing source was cut immediately, and Ladin-financed people trapped in Afghanistan had to figure out how to escape a country filled with locals who thought (correctly) that the US was going to come and murder everybody because of what these foreign fighters had been doing. After that, the US called everything in the Middle East that it wanted to kill "Al Qaeda" and made "The Taliban," i.e. the local government, somehow "Al Qaeda" too, or maybe even worse. What was "Al Qaeda" and what was "Freedom Fighter" was based on whether we wanted to topple the government or not and unrelated to any qualities or beliefs of the groups. We poured money and weapons into some radical Islamist groups while executing others.

photochemsyn 4y ago

It's worth remembering that Al Qaeda in Syria (under various other names) was funded and armed by the United States, Britain, Jordan, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar according to numerous published reports, and that fighters for the organization were trained at secret CIA/military bases in Jordan and Turkey, and that the CIA operation in Libya in coordination with Qatar (out of Benghazi) funneled Libyan weapons to the organization for use against the Syrian government. For example: "Arming Syrian rebels: Where the US went wrong 10 October 2015 BBC" https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-33997408 https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-33997408 > "Those who supported his approach, the Arms for Rebels group, included then-CIA Director David Petraeus, then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and most of the foreign-policy establishment in Washington, both Democrat and Republican." "Behind the Sudden Death of a $1 Billion Secret C.I.A. War in Syria (2017)" https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/02/world/middleeast/cia-syria-rebel-arm-train-trump.html https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/02/world/middleeast/cia-syri... > "...some of the C.I.A.-supplied weapons had ended up in the hands of a rebel group tied to Al Qaeda..." Seems to be a pattern of behavior dating back to the Cold War, when the CIA decided that supporting violent religious fundamentalists in the Middle East and elsewhere would provide a bulwark against the Godless Communists.

dj_gitmo 4y ago

Well it's a legal defense and IANAL. I think what they are getting at is that the US gov and these groups have a long history and they are allies more often than not. * 1980s Afgan-Soviet War: Allies * 1990s Balkins Wars: Allies * late 90s attacks in Africa and Middle East: Enemies? * Post 2001: Mortal Enemies * Post 2011 Arab Spring: Allies in overthrowing the Syrian state.

sedachv 4y ago
It started much earlier than that, when the CIA took over Nazi Muslim terrorist networks after WWII, and from that started working with the Muslim Brotherhood in the 1950s. Ian Johnson's _A Mosque In Munich_ is a must-read if you are at all interested in why 9/11 happened: Privately, President Eisenhower seemed concerned about how to reach the Muslim world. He wrote to his confidant, the Presbyterian church leader Edward Elson, that Islam and the Middle East were always on his mind. “I assure you that I never fail in any communication with Arab leaders, oral or written, to stress the importance of the spiritual factor in our relationships. I have argued that belief in God should create between them and us the common purpose of opposing atheistic communism.” In White House meetings he was more blunt. Speaking with the CIA covert operations czar Frank Wisner and the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Eisenhower said that Arabs should dip into their own religion for inspiration in fighting communism. “The President said he thought we should do everything possible to stress the ‘holy war’ aspect,’ according to a memo outlining the conversation. “Mr. Dulles commented that if the Arabs have a ‘holy war they would want it to be against Israel. The President recalled, however, that [King Ibn] Saud, after his visit here, had called on all Arabs to oppose Communism.” The Operations Coordinating Board — the body set up to imple- ment covert plans by the CIA and other agencies — took up Islam. It had already produced a detailed study of Buddhism and how that religion could be used to further U.S. interests. In 1957, the board established an Ad Hoc Working Group on Islam that included offi- cials from the U.S. Information Agency, the State Department, and the CIA. According to a memo on the groups first meeting, its goal was to take stock of what public and private U.S. organizations were doing in the field of Islam and come up with an “Outline Plan of Operations.’ The plan had two main components, both of which were echoed in CIA actions in Munich. First, the United States would shun traditional Muslims in favor of “reform” groups, like the Muslim Brotherhood. Then, as today, the Brotherhood’s radi- cal political agenda of a return to a mythic state of pure Islam was obfuscated by its members’ use of modern symbols, such as West- ern clothing and rhetoric. “Both the Chairman and the CIA mem- ber felt that with the Islamic world being divided as it is between reactionary and reformist groups, it might be found profitable to place emphasis on programs which would strengthen the reformist groups.” In May, the coordination board passed the inventory and plan of action. Its statements were clear and simple: Islam is a natural ally, communists are exploiting Islam, and Islam affects the balance of power. The paper listed a dozen recommendations for strengthen- ing ties with Islamic organizations, especially those with a strong anticommunist bent. As always, the operations were to be covert. “Programs which are indirect and unattributable are more likely to be effective and will avoid the charge that we are trying to use reli- gion for political purposes,’ the report concluded. “Overt use of Is- lamic organizations for the inculcation of hard-line propaganda is to be avoided”