The Oklahoma City Bombing And The Politics Of Terror Part 36

General Gerardo Serravalle, head of "Office R" from 1971-1974 (the secret service office that controlled Gladio), revealed that at a Gladio meeting in 1972, at least half of the upper echelons "had the idea of attacking the Communists before an invasion. They were preparing for civil war."[1299] As the 1969 dispatch added: The introduction of provocateur elements into the circles of the revolutionary left is merely a reflection of the wish to push this unstable situation to breaking point and create a climate of chaos...[1300]

One early Gladio-precipitated incident was the December, 12, 1969 bombing of the Banca n.a.z.ionale del' Agricultura in Milan's Piazza Fontana. The attack killed 16 people and wounded 88. Police immediatly arrested and blamed anarchists. One anarchist leader, Giuseppe Pinelli, took the fall for the bombing, literally, when police tossed him out the window of the local precinct headquarters.

In addition to this, the Procurator General of the Republic, De Peppo, ordered the one unexploded bomb found in the wreckage to be detonated immediately. As in Oklahoma, the destruction of this evidence destroyed the single best chance at uncovering the true perpetrators of the deadly attack.[1301]

Nevertheless, police eventually discovered the real perpetrators - two fascists: Franco Freda and Giovanni Ventura. Ventura, it seems, was in close contact with Colonel Guido Giannettinni of the SID (part of the secret services), who was a fervent supporter of MSI. The trial of Ventura and Freda was delayed for 12 years, when they were finally given life sentences, only to be cleared on appeal.[1302][1303]

Former Gladio agents also attributed the 1969 Piazza Fontana bombing and the 1974 [and subsequent 1980] Bologna bombings, which resulted in over 113 deaths and 185 injured, to P2. These attacks include the Mafia's involvement in the Red Brigade's kidnap and murder of Italian Prime Minister Aldo Moro in 1978. The P2 organization was also suspected of the 1976 a.s.sa.s.sination of Italian magistrate Vittoria Occorsio. Occorsio was investigating P2 links to neo-n.a.z.i organizations at the time. His death conveniently terminated any further investigation.[1304]

This "strategy of tension," organized around a brutal campaign of terror and murder, resulted in the deaths of hundreds of people during the decades of the 1970s and '80s. The wave of terror led to the severe restriction of civil rights, with the 1975 law restricting popular campaigning and radical political discussion. Many people were locked up under "anti-terrorist" legislation (sound familiar?) or expelled from the country.

As the Left (the Red Brigades) resorted to armed struggle to defend themselves, it only strengthened Gladio/P2's position. The Red Brigades, which had been systematically infiltrated by the secret services, were repeatedly blamed for the attacks, all the while unknowingly serving the agenda of the fascist P2 establishment.

One unforgetable example of this wave of terror was the Bologna railway bombing in 1980, that killed 80 people and injured over 160. While reportedly masterminded by P2 members Stefano Delle Chiaie and Licio Gelli, the attack was blamed on the Red Brigades to discredit the Italian Communist party. According to author Steve Mizrach: Some Italian political a.n.a.lysts believe that P2 and "Ordine Nuova" (New Order) may have cooperated with the CIA [to bomb the railway station].... There are clearly overlapping circles of members.h.i.+p between P2, the CIA, and the Knights of Malta, a "sovereign military order descended from the Knights of St. John-Hospitallers," and whose members.h.i.+p in the U.S. has included Bill Casey, Alexander Haig, and Prescott Bush [and reportedly George Bush].[1305]

This covertly-orchestrated "strategy of tension" would repeat itself in Belgium in the mid-80s, in a bizarre series of killings called the "Supermarket Ma.s.sacres," in which hooded gunmen walked into crowded supermarkets and began firing away. The ma.s.sacres, orchestrated by a group calling itself the "Killers of Brabant," were later discovered to be linked to Belgium's Gladio unit.

The Supermarket ma.s.sacres occurred during the period when the U.S. was pus.h.i.+ng a plan to base the Euro-Missiles (nuclear-tipped Cruise missiles) in different European countries. The plan led to huge demonstrations in Europe, with certain countries threatening to break ranks with NATO. Belgium was one of those countries. The Belgian Parliament, which investigated the incidents, felt that they were another attempt to sow confusion and fear among the populace, thereby generating public outcries for a law-and-order government which would be amenable to the Euro-Missles.[1306]

Proof surfaced when a former gendarme, Madani Bouhouche, who worked for state security and was a member of a neo-n.a.z.i paramilitary group Westland New Post (WNP), was arrested with one of the murder weapons. The next day, Bouhouche's friend and fellow Right-wing militant Jean Bultot fled to Paraguay (a popular respite for n.a.z.is). While in Paraguay, Bultot admitted to Belgian journalist Rene Haquin that the killings were a state security destabilization operation with government partic.i.p.ation "at every level."

On January 25, 1988, another former gendarme, Robert Beyer, who police caught with a file of state security agents and addresses of garages filled with stolen arms, stated on Belgian television that state security had provided the weapons used by the killers.[1307]

One of the attacks, the 1982 bombing of a Synagogue on the Rue de la Regence in Brussels, was linked to a security guard for the Wackenhut Corporation - Marcel Barbier. An ardent anti-Semite and member of the WNP, Barbier had been guarding the synagogue when it was attacked. In August of 1993, police discovered plans of the synagogue in Barbier's home, with detailed points of access. The Belgian director of Wackenhut at the time was Jean-Francis Calmette, a member of the WNP.[1308]

The parallel to the European "Strategy of Tension" is strikingly similar to the Oklahoma City bombing. The U.S. establishment, which has sought to demonize the Patriot/Militia Movement in the aftermath of the attack, is following the exact same path that Gladio/P2 followed a decade earlier. Their links and a.s.sociations to P2 (which will be detailed in Volume Two) make the parallel all the more ominous.

In 1994, a car-bomb blew up a Jewish community center in Buenos Aires, killing 87 people. Police blamed the attack on unnamed Arab militants. Yet in July of 1996, Argentine authorities arrested 17 police officers in connection with the attack.[1309]

On October 3, 1980 the Paris synagogue on rue Copernic was bombed, killing four people and injuring 24 others. In media reports suspiciously similar to the Oklahoma City bombing, it was announced that "Right-wing" extremists were involved. Yet French intelligence pointed fingers at the Mossad. One French Intelligence report stated: On April 6, 1979, the same Mossad terror unit now suspected of the Copernicus carnage blew up the heavily guarded plant of CNIM industries at La Seyne-sur-Mer, near Toulon, in southeast France, where a consortium of French firms was building a nuclear reactor for Iraq.... The Mossad salted the site of the CNIM bomb blast with 'clues' followed up with anonymous phone calls to police - suggesting that the sabotage was the work of a conservative environmentalist group....

Two years later, six people were killed and 22 injured when terrorists attacked Goldenberger's Deli in Paris. Again, "Right-wing extremists" were blamed. Implicated in the attack was one Jean-Marc Rouillan, leader of a mysterious Left-wing group called Direct Action. While the real facts were being covered up by the government, angry French intelligence officers - some who had quit in disgust - decided to leak the story to the Algerian National News Service. Rouillan, it turns out, had been operating in the Mediterranean under the cover name of "Sebas" and had been linked to the Mossad.[1310]

Ill.u.s.trating the concept of trained killers who work on a "need-to-know" basis, former Mossad Agent Ari Ben-Menashe describes how Abu Abbas launched an attack on the Greek Cruise s.h.i.+p Achille Lauro in 1985. According to Ben-Menashe, Rafi Eitan, the director of Lakam, a super-secret agency in the Israeli Ministry of Defense, gave orders to former Jordanian Army Colonel Mohammed Radi Abdullah, who pa.s.sed on instructions to Abu'l Abbas, leader of the Tunis-based PLF, who in turn was receiving millions from Israeli intelligence officers posing as Sicilian dons. Abbas' orders were to "make it look bad," and to show what a deadly, cutthroat bunch the Palestinians were." The "terrorists" complied by killing Leon Klinghoffer, an elderly Jewish man in a wheelchair, then throwing his body overboard. As Ben-Menashe states, the entire operation was nothing more than an "Israeli 'black' propaganda operation."[1311]

Nidal began his long and b.l.o.o.d.y career in the PLO, only to become a bitter rival of Ya.s.ser Arafat. It was a situation that the Israeli Mossad, in a manner similar to their CIA cousins, would seek to exploit. As Middle East expert Patrick Seale writes: Israeli penetration of Palestinian organizations was common, but it was clearly not the whole story. Most intelligence sources I consulted agreed that it was standard practice to use penetration agents not simply to neutralize or destroy the enemy but to try to manipulate him so that he did one's bidding without always being aware of doing so....

Whatever jobs [Abu Nidal] might have done for Arab sponsors, and they had been numerous and nasty, he had done many other jobs from which Israel alone appeared to benefit."[1312]

Confirming Seale's theory are top Middle East terrorism experts, including intelligence officers in Arab countries, and even within Abu Nidal's own organization. One French terrorism expert stated: "If Abu Nidal himself is not an Israeli agent, then two or three of his senior people most certainly are. Nothing else can explain some of his operations..."

A former senior Jordanian intelligence officer said: "Scratch around inside Abu Nidal's organization and you will find Mossad."

Backing up these reports was a former member of Abu Nidal's own Justice Committee, who told Seale that Mossad agents captured by Abu Nidal were usually killed very quickly to prevent them from confessing their true motives.

Abu Iyad, former chief of PLO Intelligence, added, "Every Palestinian who works in intelligence is convinced that Israel has a big hand in Abu Nidal's affairs."[1313]

Nidal's organization has been responsible for some of the most brutal acts of terrorism in the world. According to the State Department, Abu Nidal has carried out more than 100 acts or terrorism that have resulted in the deaths of over 280 people. Some of these attacks include the 1986 grenade and machine-gun a.s.saults on El Al counters at the Rome and Vienna airports, attacks on synagogues, and a.s.sa.s.sinations of Palestinian moderates.

He (Iyad) had told me that Abu Nidal's murdering Palestinian moderates was connected with [former Israeli Prime Minister] Begin's determination never to negotiate with Palestinians for fear of losing the West Bank. For Begin (who had once called the Palestinians "two-legged animals" worthy of extinction), the moderates, who wanted to negotiate, were the real danger and had to be eliminated. If the Israelis had in fact infiltrated Abu Nidal's organization, perhaps some spymaster in Jerusalem had said, 'We've got someone who can do the job for us.'

Abu Nidal's most well-known attack was on a Greek cruise s.h.i.+p in 1988 that left nine people dead and 80 wounded. As Seale points out regarding the attack on the vessel City of Poros, "no conceivable Palestinian or Arab interest was served by such random savagery." In fact, Greece was the European country most sympathetic to the Palestinian cause, its prime minister, Andreas Papandreou, often defending Arabs against Israel's charges of terrorism. After the attack, Greece was furious with the Palestinians, who had damaged the Greek tourist trade and hastened the fall of the Papandreou regime. The motive, as in the Achille Lauro attack, was apparently to cast the Palestinians as heartless murderers. Several sources that Seale consulted were convinced the attack was a typical Mossad operation.[1314]

What is curious is that Israel has never punished Abu Nidal's organization. Israel has a long-standing policy of launching immediate and ma.s.sive retaliation against any terrorist attack. While Israeli forces have bombed, sh.e.l.led and raided Palestinian and s.h.i.+'ite positions in Lebanon, and have sent hit teams to kill Palestinian guerrilla leaders in other countries, they have never attacked Abu Nidal. Given Israel's harsh and unrelenting policy of retribution against terrorist attacks, this seems more than a bit bizarre. As Seale concludes: Abu Nidal is a professional killer who has sold his deadly services certainly to the Arabs and perhaps to the Israelis as well. His genius has been to understand that states will commit any crime in the name of national interest. A criminal like Abu Nidal can flourish doing their dirty work.[1315]

Former DEA agent Mike Levine described how an organization called the "Triangle of Death," founded by n.a.z.is, would blow up whole planes to kill one person. The organization, based in Paraguay, ran heroin and cocaine, and committed murders for the French Secret Service. "The quid pro quo agreement they had with the CIA and the French Secret Service," said Levine, "is that you protect us and we'll do you favors. And they did, and they got their protection.[1316]

One of the most recent examples of the use of "false flags" (scapegoats) was the November 4, 1995 a.s.sa.s.sination of Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin. In a cla.s.sic case of political demonizing strikingly similar to the Oklahoma City bombing, the gunman, Yigal Amir, was held out to be a "Right-wing fanatic." As William Jasper writes: The alleged gunman, Yigal Amir, was said to be a "fanatic Jewish fundamentalist." What's more, we were told repeatedly, he was part of a conspiracy of "religious extremists" - a conspiracy so nefarious and immense, mind you, that it had achieved meteorological significance, creating a "climate of hate" and an "atmosphere of violence." According to Time magazine, Rabin's opponents had created climatologically "the equivalent of the Right-wing milieu that led to the Oklahoma City bombing." In fact, said Time, even if Amir had acted alone, "he had many ideational conspirators."[1317]

But unlike the ma.s.sive cover-up obsfucating the Oklahoma City bombing, it didn't take long for investigators to discover that Amir was actually a paid informant for the Israeli security service, the Shabak. Amir had been inexplicably allowed through Rabin's protective security perimeter, and his suspected accomplice - leader of the Right-wing extremist group Eyal, Avishai Raviv, turned out to be a s.h.i.+n Bet operative (General Security Service, the Israeli equivalent to the FBI).

Rabin's controversial peace talks with the Palestinians - which would have sacrificed significant amounts of land and compromised Israel's security - had made him highly unpopular with Right-wing elements, including traditional Jews and many military officials. In fact, Hamas suicide bombers were wrecking havoc with Israel's population. A writer in the Jerusalem Post wrote: "If Yizhak Rabin were alive .... he would probably have been asked to resign."

The irony was that the s.h.i.+n Bet was controlled by Rabin himself, who had personally selected its head, and served as its supreme chief. In a policy suspiciously similar to the Oklahoma City situation, instead of employing the s.h.i.+n Bet to protect Israelis from Arab terrorists - its primary task - Rabin employed them to infiltrate and smear his Right-wing opponents. Politicizing the s.h.i.+n Bet for his own purposes, Rabin began orchestrating an Israeli version of COINTELPRO (the FBI's program of infiltrating and compromising the anti-war and New Left movements of the 1960s and '70s, and which is going on today against the militias). This included setting up phony Right-wing militant groups such as Raviv's Eyal.

As Rabin's popularity ratings dropped to a mere 32 percent, he escalated his dirty-tricks campaign, using agents provocateur to attack and smear the Prime Minister, who would then publicly criticize them for planning public disorder. Raviv's job was to distribute fervid "anti-government literature" which contributed to the "climate of hate" that allegedly motivated Amir. The coup de etat in this covert campaign would come in the form of a phony a.s.sa.s.sination attempt on Rabin himself. The s.h.i.+n Bet would foil the gunman at the last moment, and all the world would see first-hand evidence of the crazy Right-wing conspirators.

Yet, like the disastrous sting attempt in Oklahoma City, this covert operation went horribly wrong. When Amir realized that his mentor, Raviv, was a s.h.i.+n Bet operative, he cleverly fed him false information. Certain that the boastful and talkative Amir would inform his trusted mentor of the moment of his attack (as the FBI a.s.sumed with Emad Salem in the World Trade Center bombing), the s.h.i.+n Bet dropped their guard, and Rabin paid the price for his mendacity.

At least that is what is obvious. What is not obvious is why the s.h.i.+n Bet, who not only controlled Raviv but had ample notice of the threat on the Prime Minister's life, failed to prevent the a.s.sa.s.sination. As authors Uri Dan and Dennis Eisenberg note: "No human s.h.i.+eld was formed around Rabin, surveillance of the crowd was lax, Rabin wasn't wearing a bullet-proof vest, and an [apparently] unknown 25-year-old was able to gain un.o.bstructed access to Rabin."[1318] The parallels to the Oklahoma City bombing are all too familiar.

Naturally, Prime Minister s.h.i.+mon Peres, like his counterpart, President Clinton in regards to Oklahoma, would promote the idea that Rabin was killed by a pair of disgruntled "Right-wingers. And like his American counterpart, Peres promised to crack down on "political dissent."[1319]

On his August 19, 1995 radio address, President Clinton complained that Congress still had not pa.s.sed "his" Anti-Terrorism Bill. "It's hard to imagine what more must happen to convince Congress to pa.s.s that bill," Clinton warned, in the manner of an ominously veiled threat.

Then just two months later, on October 9, the nation witnessed its first attack on a pa.s.senger train, when Amtrak's "Sunset Limited" was derailed while enroute from Phoenix to San Diego. The derailment, caused by sabotage, resulted in over 100 injuries, including one death.

The terrorists left behind a cryptic note, calling themselves the "Sons of the Gestapo." The mainstream press quickly jumped on this latest "terrorist" attack, coming as it did only six months after the Oklahoma City bombing. While no one, including law-enforcement officials, had ever heard of the "Sons of the Gestapo," the purveyors of deception immediately played it up as the obvious work of a "Right-wing" militia group.

FBI officials were more cautious however, speculating that the attack may have been the result of a "disgruntled employee." Exhaustive searches through numerous data-bases revealed no group called "Sons of the Gestapo," and only someone with the technical knowledge necessary to disable a warning system on a railroad track would be capable of executing such a stunt.

It may not have mattered however. In the aftermath of the Oklahoma City bombing, any such attack on American citizens would be excuse enough to push the Anti-Terrorism Bill through Congress. And the press and anti-militia activists such as the ADL and the SPLC were eager to jump on the militia connection. "Sons of the Gestapo," they a.s.serted, could only be the pseudonym for a Right-wing hate-group.

Yet law-enforcement officials had only an enigmatic message to guide them. The note left behind by the saboteurs rallied against the ATF and FBI for their actions at Waco and Ruby Ridge, and stated, "This is not n.a.z.i Germany."

Why anyone would attack a pa.s.senger train to exact revenge on government officials for killing innocent civilians (or blow up babies as revenge for killing children) is beyond credulity. Yet, as in the Oklahoma City case, this was the message that the saboteurs - and the government-controlled press - wanted us to believe. America was filled with hateful Right-wing extremists who would do anything - kill anyone, women, children, babies - to pursue their violent anti-government agenda.

As Attorney General Janet Reno announced in the Oklahoma City case, so the local U.S. Attorney, Janet Napolitano would declare: "We are going to pursue every bit of evidence and every lead very thoroughly... until we find the person or persons who committed this crime."[1320]

While the FBI swarmed through Maricopa County, interrogating local residents and hara.s.sing the few isolated "desert rats" who inhabited the surrounding countryside, a real investigation was being conducted by a lone Maricopa County Sheriff. With the a.s.sistance of Craig Roberts, a retired Tulsa police officer with military intelligence experience who worked on the Oklahoma City investigation, the Sheriff was able to uncover some amazing information.

What they found was that other than rescue vehicles, there were no vehicle tracks entering or exiting the crash site. Moreover, the site itself was extremely remote, being near the summit of the rugged Gila Bend Mountains, which surrounded the site to the east, north, and west. It was there, along a sharp S-curve, that the perpetrators had pulled 29 spikes from the tracks, causing the fatal crash.

Why had the perpetrators chosen such a remote location, Roberts wondered? Had they picked a more accessible spot, he reasoned, it would have surely lessened their chances of being caught, as all they would have had to do was drive to the nearest highway. In this case, the nearest road was Highway 8, 38 miles away, necessitating a difficult drive over rugged terrain, at the same time as law-enforcement officers would surely be on a heightened state of alert.

What Roberts and his sheriff partner also discovered was that 90 minutes away by air, in Pinal County, was a mysterious air-base known as Marana. The locked-down facility was owned by Evergreen, Inc., a government contractor reportedly involved in drug smuggling during the Iran-Contra period. The base, located off of Highway 10 between Phoenix and Tucson, was the site of strange night-time training maneuvers involving black and unmarked military-type helicopters. Pa.s.sersby had also witnessed black-clad troops dropping into the desert en ma.s.s, using steerable black "Paracommander" parachutes.

This began to raise some interesting possibilities. Had the perpetrators been dropped into the site by air, then picked up by chopper? Both Roberts and his colleague at the Sheriff's Department were experienced military pilots. They observed that it would have been easy for a helicopter to fly low through the mountain pa.s.ses, avoiding radar, and insert and extract a team. As Roberts noted, "A full moon, wind out of the south at 8 knots, and a clear sky... would be an ideal night for air operations."[1321]

The possibilities of a covert paramilitary commando team being responsible for the attack raised more than a few eyebrows at the Maricopa County Sheriff's Department, until they began investigating a lead provided by a sympathetic FBI agent that several hikers had seen a small group of parachuters drop into the desert that night. They also discovered the following information: ...a VFR target squawking 1200 that left Tri-City airfield in Albuquerque on a southwest course, climbed to 10,500 feet, then, when it was exactly due east of the Amtrak site, turn due west and flew a course line that took it one mile south of the site. But just before arriving over the site, it dropped to 8,500 feet. After crossing the target zone, it turned on a southwesterly course towards California at 8,500 feet. Albuquerque contacted the Los Angeles Center which tracked the aircraft to a landing at Montgomery Field in San Diego.... It crossed the valley south of the bridge at 1940 hours (7:40 p.m.) Since the winds that night were at 8 knots out of the south, a drop one mile from the target site would compensate for wind drift. Moreover, such a flight is not required to file a flight plan listing its pa.s.sengers, and an aircraft flying out of Albuquerque, squawking on transponder 1200 wouldn't look particularly suspicious.

When they checked with the refueler at Montgomery Field, the records indicated that the "N" number checked to a Beachcraft, registered to Raytheon. Raytheon owns E-systems. Like Evergreen, E-Systems, based in Greenville, Texas, is a covert government contractor, reportedly involved in drug-running. The NSA contractor allegedly developed sophisticated systems to create electronic "holes" which would allow planes to cross the border without tripping the NORAD Early Warning Systems. E-Systems, which is reputed to have "wet-teams" (a.s.sa.s.sination teams), was directed by former NSA Director and CIA Deputy Director Bobby Ray Inman.

While it is possible a jump was made from the twin-engine Beechcraft, a plane commonly used for such purposes, it still left the problem of the team's extraction. With the radar track information, the Maricopa Sheriff then went to the Air Force at Yuma, who monitor the Aerostat radar drug balloons. The DEA balloons have "look-down" capability for detecting low-flying aircraft. The Master Sergeant at Yuma agreed to help out. A short time later he called back.

"Sorry," he said. "We can't help you out."

"What? Why?" asked Jack.

"The plug's been pulled."

"What does that mean?"

The sergeant sounded very uncomfortable when he replied. "We really wanted to check this out, but all I can say is the balloons were down that night."

"Why?" asked Jack.

"Maintenance."

"All of them?" asked Jack, incredulously.

"Yes, sir." The sergeant sounded very nervous.

"Why?"

"All I can tell you is that they were ordered down for maintenance. It came from above my pay grade."

One has to wonder what "above my pay grade" means. Why would all the balloons be ordered down for maintenance? Obviously, a cover-up was in progress.

It was beginning to sound suspiciously like the hurried demolition of the Oklahoma Federal Building, to prevent any independent forensic a.n.a.lysis of the bomb site. Or the Secret Service removing President Kennedy's protective bubble from his limousine; failing to secure the windows and rooftops along the parade route; and changing the route at the last minute.

Like the two foregoing examples, only the government - or shadow elements within the government - had the capability of pulling that off. No "lone nut" or criminal syndicate could order such last-minute changes, or orchestrate such a ma.s.sive and well-executed cover-up. Moreover, no militia group could order all the radar balloons down on the night of the attack.

As a Maricopa County resident stated to the Arizona Republic regarding the FBI's so-called militia theory, "Buddy, you can't get three people out here to get together on what kind of pickup to drive, and you think we're going to form a militia?"

Obviously, no militia would benefit from such an attack. And what about the "Sons of the Gestapo?" As Roberts wrote: "...as an old Southeast Asia hand (a marine sniper during Vietnam), I remember that one of the terms used by Phoenix Program a.s.sa.s.sins working under MACV-SOG (Military Advisory Command, Studies and Observations Group) was a twisted bar-room version of the last acronym. "Yeah," a drunk trooper would mention. "I'm SOG... a son of the Gestapo."[1322]

The Phoenix a.s.sa.s.sination program, as previously discussed, was organized by the CIA's William Colby, Ted Shackley, and fielded by General John Singlaub. Singlaub commanded Second Lieutenant Oliver North. Shackley, Singlaub, and North would go on to orchestrate the secret and illegal Iran-Contra operation, smuggling drugs into this country at such places as Mena, Arkansas... and Marana.[1323]

Curiously, whenever Iran-Contra drug s.h.i.+pments came in for the California run, the drug balloons under "Operation Watchtower" were shut down. Could this be the same mechanism that shut them down the night of the attack?

Then, in September of 1997, a confidential FBI memo intended for the U.S. Attorney's Office in Phoenix was accidentally faxed to the Arizona Republic, the a.s.sociated Press, and other news media. The memo states that the FBI's prime suspect is "a man with law enforcement and firefighting experience who recently moved out of Arizona."[1324]

Apparently, the "Sons of the Gestapo" note left behind was a "false flag," a distraction designed to serve a political purpose. In this case, that purpose - like the Oklahoma bombing which preceded it - was to connect the Amtrak attack with the Patriot/Militia movement. Considering the reaction of the mainstream press, it appears they have largely succeeded.

Interestingly, the same year as the Oklahoma City bombing, a grenade exploded near the Citibank building in Manila. Another hit the Sh.e.l.l Petroleum building. Four people were injured. The military claimed the blasts were political statements from the leftist Alex Boncayao Brigade (ABB).[1325] Yet five Philippine Congressmen accused the military of carrying out the attack to justify the pa.s.sage of anti-terrorism legislation.

The strongest accusation came from Makati Congressman Joker Arroyo, who said the bombings could not have been staged by the insurrectionary group, the Alex Boncayao Brigade or bank robbers.

"I don't think it is the ABB nor a bank robbery group as what the police investigators said. Only the military has the capability of using grenade launchers," Arroyo commented.[1326]

The U.S. certainly had its own share of manufactured incidents, ranging from the sinking of the l.u.s.t.i.tania to the Gulf of Tonkin incident. Yet in the recent annals of CIA-connected provocations, probably no better example exists than the 1985 bombing of the La Belle Discotheque. The April 5th attack in Berlin killed two U.S. servicemen and a Turkish woman, and left 200 others injured, including 50 G.I.s.

Lybia was quickly blamed by the U.S. for the attack. Propagandized by the American press as the preeminent sponsor of terrorism, Lybia had early on incurred the wrath of the U.S. by attempting to throw off the yoke of British and U.S. imperialism. Libyan President Muammar al-Qaddafi, who came to power in 1969, nationalized oil production and shut down U.S. military bases. Qaddafi began using the wealth formerly exported to multinational corporations to improve the living standards of his own people. Huge strides were made in education, housing, medicine and agriculture in a county in which the literacy rate had increased tenfold since 1969. While actually having the gall to defer to his own people instead of the multinationals, Qaddafi made the mistake of supporting national liberation and social justice movements - a.s.sisting such groups as the Sandinistas, the Basques, the Kurds, and the Palestinians.[1327] This, unfortunately, also included such terrorists as Abu Nidal.

In 1980, Ronald Reagan came to power on a pledge to restore U.S. military might and prestige around the world (and also by making a deal with the Iranians to hold the hostages until after his election. This little scandal was known as "October Surprise.").

He had also pledged to combat terrorism (apparently, terrorism sponsored by Reagan in Nicaragua and El Salvador was exempt from such a pledge), and on the top of his. .h.i.t-list was Libya. One of Reagan's first acts was to order the CIA to destabilize, overthrow, and a.s.sa.s.sinate Qaddafi. The attempts not only failed, but resulted in a covert battle of nerves and dead bodies scattered across Europe. After Abu Nidal's attacks on the Rome and Vienna airports in December of 1986, Reagan imposed sanctions and a.s.set freezes on Libya.[1328] Still this was not enough for the man who had pledged to vanquish terrorism from the face of the earth (or at least certain parts of it).

Angry over the recent terrorist bombings, frustrated by the CIA's failure to eliminate Qaddafi, and still smarting from Israeli rumors of a Libyan hit-squad sent to a.s.sa.s.sinate him, the President opted for a military-style a.s.sault. All the White House needed was an excuse, and this came in the form of an attack on the La Belle Discotheque. Nine days later, Reagan ordered U.S. planes to attack the Libyan cities of Tripoli and Benghazi, which resulted in over 37 dead, including Qaddafi's infant daughter. Unfortunately for Reagan, Qaddafi survived the attack.[1329]

But had Lybia actually bombed the disco? The White House was adamant. The National Security Agency (NSA) had intercepted coded exchanges between Tripoli and the East Berlin Libyan Peoples Bureau that purportedly said, "We have something that will make you happy." A second cable, hours after the bombing read, "An event occurred. You will be pleased with the result."[1330] What is interesting is that under orders from the NSC, the raw coded intercepts were sent straight to the White House, bypa.s.sing normal NSA a.n.a.lysis channels, drawing criticism from at least one NSA officer. A West German intelligence official who later saw the cables, said they were "very critical and skeptical" of U.S. intelligence blaming the Libyans.[1331]

The U.S.'s evidence hinged on reports in Sta.s.si (East German police) files pa.s.sed on to West German officials. The Sta.s.si reports, based on three separate informants, indicated the attack was planned by the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command (PFLP-GC), which had met in Tripoli a month earlier. A member of that group, living in Berlin, Youddeff Chraidi (code-named "Nuri"), had carried out the attack.

Yet the "Libya did it" theory quickly fell apart during the trial of Imad Mahmoud, another member of Nuri's group (Nuri could not be found), as the Sta.s.si informants' contradictions and inconsistencies cast doubts on the case. Moreover, one informant, Mahmoud Abu-Jabber (code named "Faysal") was, according to KGB files, a CIA informer. One KGB report indicated that Faysal had met with his CIA contact two days prior to the attack, and told them the price of the bombing would be $30,000, and not $80,000 as previously agreed.[1332]

Sta.s.si defector Colonel Frank Weigand, based on a PLO Security Report, concluded that Nuri was an agent for the West German police. Other evidence which seemed to back this up was that while Nuri was wanted for the murder of a Libyan CIA informer, he managed to repeatedly cross Checkpoint Charlie (the East-West Berlin border crossing), one of the most tightly-guarded border crossings in the world. When German authorities finally located Nuri in Lebanon in 1994, U.S. officials failed to provide the evidence needed to extradite him, despite repeated pleas by West German officials.[1333]

Ultimately, West German officials concluded that the CIA was responsible for the bombing.

Weigand recalled one phone conversation intercept where a high-ranking West German intelligence officer spoke with the Berlin official responsible for the La Belle investigation. According to Weigand, the investigator, when pressed for his conclusion, told the West German spook, "Well, when I add it all up, I think the Yanks did this thing themselves."[1334]

Weigand also cited a PLO Security Report indicating that the U.S. knew in advance of the late March bombing of the German-Arab Society. The implications of this, like those of the Oklahoma City attack, were that authorities knew about the bombing beforehand, and failed to stop it. While Nuri may have ultimately been responsible for the bombing, the question of who he was working for hung over the case like a dark cloud. As Weigand said. "I never could get [the CIA thesis] off the table, and you know, the one theory does not exclude the other."

A similar government-orchestrated outrage-incident was the Octopus' 1985 plot to bomb the American emba.s.sy and presidential offices in Costa Rica as a pretext for a full-scale U.S. invasion of Nicaragua. The plan was an offshoot of Operation Pegasus, the CIA's program of political a.s.sa.s.sinations, similar to the Phoenix Program.

The conspiracy was akin to the many American-engineered provocations of the past. The U.S. - through the skullduggery of the CIA - would bomb their own emba.s.sy, cleverly blaming it on the Sandinistas.

Civilian Military a.s.sistance (CMA) leader Tom Posey and his band of mercenaries - Steven Carr, Robert Thompson, Rene Corvo, and Costa Rican-American land-owners John Hull and Bruce Jones - arranged for a patriotic Cuban-American, Jesus Garcia, to take part in the plot. According to Leslie c.o.c.kburn (Out of Control ) Posey showed Garcia the blueprints of the emba.s.sy. "They came to me with a plan to hit the American emba.s.sy in Costa Rica," recalls Garcia. "They had an idea this would start a war between Nicaragua and the United States."

In addition to bombing the emba.s.sy, they were to "take out" the American amba.s.sador, Lewis Tambs, a vocal opponent of the Colombian/Contra cocaine trade, and collect the $1 million reward that the Ochoa clan had placed on his head. The CIA-led group, which had been funding their covert operations through arms and drug trafficking, would solve the problem of an American official who had dared interfere with their profitable business, while at the same time, serving the lofty goals of U.S. foreign policy.[1335]

According to CMA mercenary Jack Terrell, the plan was to place C-4 in a light-box outside the emba.s.sy and detonate it. When Tambs ran outside, he would be shot. A Nicaraguan would then be killed and fake doc.u.ments placed on his person to incriminate the Sandinistas.[1336]

While Garcia refused to partic.i.p.ate in the plot, he recalled, "The emba.s.sy plan was blessed from the White House. There were too many big people involved in this. In order to hit a U.S. emba.s.sy even us Cubans who are here in Miami would normally out of courtesy notify the CIA."

Considering the players involved, it appeared that the CIA knew fully well of the plot, as it drew members from Brigade 2506, Ted Shackley's old JM/WAVE anti-Castro Cuban mercenary group.[1337]

A second plot designed to draw the U.S. into the war involved the bombing of Los Chiles, a small town along the border of Costa Rica. The plan was to use a plane painted to look like a Sandinista craft to drop bombs on the unarmed townspeople. Terrell described it as a "continuous undercurrent of... really terrorist activity to try to draw the United States Government into direct conflict with the Nicaraguans because they were to be made to look like they were committing overt acts against a neutral and unarmed country, Costa Rica."[1338]

Garcia later learned that another hit was planned, this time on the Cuban and Soviet emba.s.sies in Nicaragua. The plan was proposed to Garcia by Major Alan Saum, a confederate of Posey's and General Vernon Walters, U.S. amba.s.sador to the UN and former Deputy Director of the CIA. As Garcia later testified in court, "Saum had come from the White House." Saum told Garcia the plan was "Vice-President Bush's baby."

While neither plot was carried out, the Octopus did manage to successfully murder eight people, mostly reporters, at La Penca, Costa Rica on May 30, 1984. The target was Eden Pastora, a Contra leader who wasn't going along with the plan, and was about to announce his misgivings at a press conference. CIA Deputy Director Dewy Clarridge had recently relayed a message to Pastora through Alfonso Robelo (who had previously met with Bud McFarlane at the White House) that his story would be "stopped" if he did not acquiesce.[1339]

The bombing was carried out by Amac Galil, who posed as a photographer, carrying a bomb inside a camera case. CIA "hit-man" Felipe Vidal told Terrell that Galil was a Mossad agent. He allegedly received his explosives training from John Harper, and his C-4 courtesy of John Hull. Vidal also told Terrell, "...we put a bomb under him and it didn't work because of bad timing."

As Terrell later stated: "...if anything happens to these people, whether they were carrying out directly or indirectly any plan of our government, it's easy to be at arm's length and have this great big beautiful deniability factor."[1340]