Epilogue
Richard Armitage has been accused of involvement in the Southeast Asian heroin trade for many years. The earliest indicator I saw that George W. Bush's campaign for the presidency had the backing of the drug-smuggling interests was in January 2000, when I read of Armitage's inclusion in Bush's foreign policy advisement team. After the election, Armitage was confirmed in Senate hearings as Bush's nominee for Deputy Secretary of State, the number two position under Colin Powell. Armitage had resigned from his position as Assistant Secretary of Defense in the Reagan administration, having been under investigation in the Iran-Contra affair. As Assistant Secretary of Defense for the Office of International Security Affairs under President Bush, Armitage held the rank of Ambassador and worked with the Newly Independent States after the breakup of the Soviet Union. Armitage served in both the State and Defense departments under President Bush. The Progressive Review writes, "Bush nominated Armitage to be Secretary of the Army in 1989 but Armitage withdrew before the confirmation hearing following reports that Perot and veteran organizers were gearing up to oppose him."
Ross Perot also knew that Armitage's preoccupation with drugs was getting in the way of "bringing the boys back home." While working with Armitage in a POW location program in 1986, Perot tried to pressure Armitage into resigning after learning of allegations of Armitages involvement in narcotics smuggling. In May 1987, as a green beret on a mission to rescue American POWs in Southeast Asia, Col. James "Bo" Gritz met General Khun Sa. The general commanded a remnant of Chiang Kai-Sheks nationalist Chinese army in the regions opium-growing "Golden Triangle." Khun Sa told Gritz that Armitage was the "money-man," one of a few American officials supervising the purchase and distribution of his opium to support his anti-Communist army. Also involved were CIA officer Ted Shackley and Florida mob chief Santos Trafficante. Khun Sa offered to cut off the opium supply if he could receive foreign aid in the form of money and a crop substitution program, but his offer was refused at the White House.
One by one, other figures in the Iran-contra scandal began showing up as Bush appointees. The Bush Administration began to smell extremely bad by Summer 2001 with the appointment of Asa Hutchinson to head the DEA. Hutchinson's inaction as US Attorney had allowed Barry Seal's drug-smuggling operation to thrive in Mena, Arkansas (see "The Crimes of Mena," "Langley's Revenge").
It was, I wrote in July 2001, like watching the progression of "a train wreck happening in slow motion." I had no idea how hard the moment of impact would shake us all.
When the planes hit the World Trade Center, I had no idea what to think. No conceivable explanation made sense. The government story was full of holes, but I just could not imagine any that any American official body, no matter how corrupt, could have sanctioned such a horrific event. I decided that, despite my reservations, I would operate on the assumption that the attacks were simply the work of Arab-Muslim extremists seeking to punish America for its support of Israel.
It took me a month to change my mind. One extremely influential article was Michel Chossudovsky's "Osamagate," which showed not only that Osama bin Laden had been an instrument of U.S. foreign policy in the Afghan War of the 1980s, but that bin Laden and Al Qaeda cooperated with the Clinton administration's efforts in Bosnia and Kosovo. Recalling Oliver North's use of drugs to fund the contras, Chossudovsky wrote, "The same pattern was used in the Balkans to arm and equip the Mujahideen fighting in the ranks of the Bosnian Muslim army against the Armed Forces of the Yugoslav Federation." Congressional Testimony was cited in the article, stating that the CIA-supported Kosovo Liberation Army was linked to both Osama bin Laden and the drug traffic originating in Afghanistan.
. . . the KLA raise part of their funds from the sale of narcotics. Albania and Kosovo lie at the heart of the "Balkan Route" that links the "Golden Crescent" of Afghanistan and Pakistan to the drug markets of Europe. This route is worth an estimated $400 billion a year and handles 80 percent of heroin destined for Europe.
The "final straw" for me was seeing the familiar players back at their timeless game, this time in Afghanistan and neighboring countries. From The Wilderness reported in early October 2001 that CIA proprietaries Southern Air Transport and Evergreen Air had been "establishing a presence in the Uzbek capitol of Tashkent for more than a year;" that two separate sources had indicated that Richard Secord had "recently traveled to Tashkent;" and that our Afghan allies were rapidly taking control of the opium trade.
History was repeating itself. In the years after World War II, the CIA had slowly worked its way up the heroin supply chain from Marseilles through Vietnam to Laos. After the Kennedy Assassination had removed the greatest obstacle to the growth of the enterprise, Richard Secord and the CIA's Air America helped get our Laotian allies' opium to market (see "Rogue Elephant"). In the years following the Cold War, I was seeing the CIA moving up the supply chain from Bosnia through Kosovo to Afghanistan, with the attacks on the World Trade Center paving the way for a war in Afghanistan.
The Bush Administration expressed its belief that Osama bin Laden was behind the World Trade Center attacks only hours after the towers were struck. Bin Laden denied responsibility immediately. According to an article appearing on ABCNews.com on September 12th, bin Laden "denied responsibility for Tuesday's attacks, and a Pakistan-based newspaper quoted bin Laden as blaming 'some American group.'" By October, I was beginning to find that theory more plausible than the one being promoted by our government.
With this paradigm shift, all the unanswered questions regarding the September 11th hijackings then became more urgent; but the Bush Administration insisted on keeping secret its "evidence" linking the so-called hijackers to Al Qaeda. I suspected, but did not yet know for certain, that such evidence never existed, as FBI Director Mueller would finally admit on April 19th. I did not know that the plans for the destruction of Al-Qaeda had been submitted to George Bush's office two days before the attacks and that the attacks merely provided the pretext for carrying out these plans. MSNBC reported in May 2002 that these plans "included efforts to persuade Afghanistans Taliban government to turn al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden over to the United States, with provisions to use military force if it refused." But at this point, I merely suspected that the attacks provided the pretext for the carrying out of such a pre-planned agenda. I wrote in an open letter on October 13th:
Why would fanatical Muslim suicide bombers hang out in Florida drinking rum and renting porno movies?
I was somewhat dismayed to find that I had a lot of catching up to do. I hadn't spent enough time getting the facts on most of the relevant events of the 1990s, from the 1993 World Trade Center bombing to Bosnia, the Oklahoma City bombing, TWA Flight 800, Kosovo, and the Clinton administration's skirmishes with Al Qaeda. So I dusted off the unread materials I had been gathering over the years and did some more searching in hopes of catching up. I also started a newsletter to share what I was finding. On October 28, I wrote:
SAUDI AND IRAQI CONNECTIONS IN SEPTEMBER 11TH ATTACKS TO BE REVEALED?
Because I had not had time to do an appropriate amount of research on the subject, I omitted from my article what I had found regarding the Oklahoma City Bombing and its possible connection to Iraq. I will do likewise here. Suffice it to say that many responsible people - not only the "conspiracy nuts" on which the media are wont to blame any rumors of government conspiracy - have been doing their best to force a reinvestigation of the bombing. It appears that the Justice Department knew of the bombing in advance and planned to foil the plot in a last-minute "sting" operation, but something went horribly amiss. Original reports of "middle eastern" men at the scene of the bombing were suppressed and eventually Timothy McVeigh became the government's primary suspect. Evidence of these "middle eastern" suspects and McVeigh's possible contacts with Iraqi intelligence was reportedly among the 3,000 pages of government documents released to McVeigh's lawyers just before his execution in spring of 2001.
In the October 28th newsletter, I continued:
WHO IS RESPONSIBLE?
SAUDI AND IRAQI CONNECTIONS IN SEPTEMBER 11TH ATTACKS - PART TWO
There has been no solid evidence linking the so-called 19 hijackers to Osama bin -Laden or Al Qaeda. For that matter, I have seen no evidence putting any of those 19 men on the hijacked airplanes, much less in the cockpit with boxcutters at the throats of the pilots. With such a weak case, one would have expected the government to be under some pressure. But the question of what really happened that day took a definitely lower priority for the American media once the anthrax letters began showing up. In the October 28th newsletter, I began discussing the anthrax mailings:
99 CHANNELS AND NOTHING ON
By January 6, my suspicions about the true source of the anthrax mailings were beginning to be confirmed. Federal investigators determined that the anthrax spores had likely originated with a CIA contractor. And No, the FBI said, we will not be investigating this lead. Army sources were also named as likely points of origin in an article in the Washington Post. Jeff Rense's website summed it up on January 3rd:
FBI officials may be implicated in a conspiracy to impede justice in the anthrax mailings case, if not treasonous dereliction of duty, according to a growing number of scientists and consumer advocates. After officials cited the likeliest origin of the powdered anthrax was the U.S. Army's Dugway Proving Grounds in Utah, or its Ohio-based supplier and CIA-contractor, Battelle Memorial Institute (BMI), FBI Director Robert Mueller announced the bureau has no intention of investigating anyone with, or formerly with, their chief suspect-BMI.
FURTHER CONFIRMATION OF OUR WORST SUSPICIONS THE TRUE SOURCE OF TERROR
It is time that America became familiar with the term "state terrorism." Why? Because we are all living with it.
Yes, you say; you already knew that. You looked up the definition of terrorism in your dictionary and found that it means "use of terror as a means of coercion." And you have seen former CIA director James Woolsey and other notable persons on the cable news at least half a dozen times saying that the terrorism America is now experiencing is state-sponsored.
Actually, he is right. And guess which state is sponsoring it? Afghanistan? Not even close. Iraq? No. Saudi Arabia or Pakistan? Youre getting warmer. Israel? Close. Almost ready to give up, you ask: The United States? Bingo.
When vague warnings are issued from the FBI from time to time directing the American people to remain alert, that might be construed as terrorism, but you had something weightier in mind.
When Attorney General John Ashcroft steamrolls our civil liberties and insists that anyone who opposes his agenda is merely helping Americas enemies . . . "That," you say, "is an act of terrorism. Is that what you mean?"
That, dear reader, is the merest beginning of what I mean. Those of you who have paid even passing attention to past issues of this newsletter know that there are abundant holes in the government version of September 11th and that there is reason to suspect that government officials had foreknowledge of the attacks and did nothing to prevent them perhaps even preventing the military from responding to the attacks as they took place. We have seen the government ignore and cover up evidence linking so-called "allies" to the attacks. We are aware that events now unfolding in Afghanistan are designed to channel billions of dollars in drug money to the Bush administration and its allies.
And now this.
The FBI is refusing to investigate the facility which is the likely source of the anthrax spores mailed to members of the US Senate. These mailings have not only put America in a state of panic and distracted the people from the alarming policies being pursued by the Bush administration; they have not only provided the perfect climate for the granting of unconstitutional powers to law enforcement; but they have also effectively neutralized an entire branch of government and disrupted communications between the people and their elected representatives. These mailings were, after the September 11th attacks, the second step along the path to a new and dictatorial form of government.
- That is only the beginning of the story. The facility in question is Battelle Memorial Institute (BMI). BMI was one of only five laboratories whose anthrax stocks genetically matched the spores found in the Senate letters. All five of those labs got their stock from an Army facility at Fort Detrick, Maryland. BMI, which came under particular suspicion, illegally developed biological weapons under contract with (who else?) the CIA. BMI, says a recent article, produced "the 1 trillion spore-per- gram strain of anthrax under investigation." Most alarming of all, BMI "commissioned America's top anthrax expert, William C. Patrick, III, to deliver a report on the powdered anthrax's prospects for being spread through the mail."
According to the Washington Post, a CIA spokesperson asserted that the purpose of its anthrax research was to find ways to defend against bioterrorism. Yet the Post article does not include any explanation regarding why the CIA would be involved in an undertaking so far beyond the scope of its charter, nor why the Agency failed to register its work with the Centers for Disease Control.
The FBI has a responsibility to address these questions.
Dan Hopsicker again proved that he's worth his weight in Pulitzer Prizes on January 7
by reminding us of an earlier incident in which the CIA had exposed "problem" individuals to anthrax when those individuals were standing in the way of the Agency's drug profits. In Fall 2001, it was the media and Congress. But in the 1980s it was Russell Welch, an Arkansas State Police officer investigating the CIA drug operation at Mena. In Anthrax and the Politics of Terror, Hopsicker wrote:Russell Welch was exposed to weaponized anthrax over a decade ago when he opened a letter which released electrostatically charged floating spores in his face.
"I got so sick that my wife had to help me to the car," Welch told us several years ago, when we interviewed him for our two-hour documentary (banned from TV) about the Mena Scandal called "The Secret Heartbeat of America."
"Luckily we had a doctor in town, a Vietnam vet, who when he saw me immediately called the Center for Disease Control in Atlanta." . . .
Later his doctor's office was burglarized, and test results and correspondence with Center for Disease Control officials in Atlanta were stolen.
By this time, the CIA was not only the best suspect in the anthrax case, but it was beginning to look like the best suspect in the World Trade Center attacks as well. The line between "us" and "them" in the "War on Terrorism" was getting extremely blurry. I wrote on November 4th:
ADMINISTRATION POSITION CONTINUES TO UNRAVEL - FBI LEFT CLUELESS
NO ASSASSINATIONS ALLOWED - HOSPITAL
ZONE
You would think that Osama bin Laden would be pretty hard to find after being named Public
Enemy Number One for his role in the bombings of the USS Cole and the U.S. embassies in
Kenya and Tanzania. Maybe you noticed his face this summer on the FBI's "Most
Wanted" clipboard at your local U.S. Post Office. I did. Apparently, though, the CIA
never got the word.
Bin Laden was treated in a Dubai hospital this July. He was visited by relatives as he was
treated for a serious infection. He was also visited by a CIA official, apparently the
local chief of station (http://sg.news.yahoo.com/011031/1/1mo0k.html
; see also http://globalresearch.ca/articles/RIC111B.html).
Was this a case of mistaken identity? Or is it further proof that Osama bin Laden
continues to be a tool of American intelligence and that the justification for this war is
a lie? Bin Laden was our man during the last Afghan war, where by no coincidence the CIA
used Pakistan's ISI to transport the opium grown by the mujaheddin and refine it into
heroin. Professor Michel Chossudovsky has shown that since then, bin Laden's Islamic
terrorists have also supported U.S. objectives in Bosnia and Kosovo (http://globalresearch.ca/articles/CHO110A.html),
where the CIA allied itself with the heroin-trafficking KLA. Now Osama bin Laden provides
us with a pretext for massive military intervention in Central Asia's opium-growing
heartland. As Dana Carvey might say, "How conveeenient . . ."
Since late 2001, Mike Ruppert has done an amazing job of building a timeline showing that the government must have known that the September 11th attacks were coming. Ruppert documents the many warnings that were received before the attacks, and the moves made by the Bush Administration indicating plans for an invasion of Afghanistan. It wasn't until much later that the CIA briefing given to George Bush became publicly known and Colleen Rowley, an FBI employee, began talking about the FBI's mishandling of advance warnings. In December 2001, I read of a strange set of circumstances which suggested to me that someone may have arranged the death of an FBI whistleblower who could have told a story much more devastating than Colleen Rowley's. On December 8, I wrote:
JOHN O'NEILL - HERO OR MARTYR? It's a mystery that may never be solved. By what whim of fate, design of providence, or scheme of man was former FBI counterterrorism chief John O'Neill at the World Trade Center on September 11th?
Also on December 8, I began writing about the possibility of Israeli sponsorship of the September 11th attacks. It still amazes me that the October 10th story (below) received no attention in the major media.
TALES OF MOSSAD CONSPIRACY - NOT JUST FOR HOLOCAUST DENIERS ANY MORE
The two-month silence has been deafening.
The media blackout hurts the eyes. On October 10th, two Israelis were arrested inside the
Mexican Congress building. They were armed with automatic firearms, hand grenades, and
dynamite. One of them is a former Colonel in Israel's military. Both are suspected of
being agents for the Mossad, Israel's intelligence agency.
Hello? Tom Brokaw? Peter Jennings? Larry King? Chris Matthews? Anyone at home? Nothing.
The men were later released by the Mexican government under intense pressure from the
Israeli Embassy in Mexico City.
Further reading:
http://www.narconews.com/mexicancapitol1.html
http://www.usajewish.com/scripts/usaj/paper/Article.asp?ArticleID=1307
http://www.rense.com/general17/mossadagentsarrested.htm
I continued this line of thought in the December 23rd newsletter:
WO, WO UNTO JERUSALEM, FOR I HAVE SEEN THINE ABOMINATIONS
I was pleasantly surprised that the last newsletter didn't draw any unsubscribe requests or accusations of anti-Semitism, but I'll press the issue further and then see what happens. Readers who were able to digest all the material in the December 8th issue will recall my assertions that 1) Israeli hawks are determined to destroy the Palestinian Authority, 2) Israel has penetrated the US intelligence community, and 3) Israel may have had a hand in the September attacks on the U.S. I will develop these themes further in this issue, drawing on recent news as well as recent history.
Israel's penetration of the U.S. intelligence community became most apparent in the 1980s. No, I'm not talking about the Jonathan Pollard spy case. I'm talking about Iran-Contra. During this period, "former" Mossad officers Michael Harari and Amiram Nir worked with the White House and CIA to smuggle cocaine into the U.S. through Central America. In the process, they gave the Mossad everything they would ever need to personally blackmail every U.S. President since that time. George H. W. Bush helped run the operation and Bill Clinton participated as governor of Arkansas, where much of the import operations took place. I could name lesser officials who were involved, but the point is already made. Israel and the U.S. have been bedmates and business partners in the cocaine trade for a long time. Anyone who denies the foregoing facts after examining all available evidence is either a liar or a fool.
Vince Foster is also thought to be both the beneficiary and victim of the Mossad. Forbes magazine was pursuing the story in 1995, but eventually backed off. Forbes' Senior Editor at the time wrote the following letter to the White House Press Secretary:
Dear Mr. McCurry:
Forbes Magazine is preparing an article for immediate publication. We would like to offer the White House an opportunity to comment on the following assertions.
1.) That Vincent W. Foster, while White House Deputy Counsel, maintained a Swiss bank account.
2.) That funds were paid into that account by a foreign government, specifically the State of Israel.
3.) That shortly before his death and coincident with the onset of severe and acute depression, Vincent Foster learned he was under investigation by the CIA for espionage.
4.) That this information was made available to him by Hillary Rodham Clinton.
5.) That while he was White House Deputy Counsel and for many years prior, Vincent Foster had been a behind-the- scenes control person on behalf of the National Security Agency for Systematics, a bank data processing company integrally involved in a highly secret intelligence effort to monitor world bank transactions.
6.) That Systematics was also involved in 'laundering' funds from covert operations, including drug and arms sales related to activities in and around Mena, Ark.
7.) That through Systematics' relationship with E-Systems, Vincent Foster may have had access to highly sensitive code, encryption and data security information of strategic importance.
8.) That both prior to and after his death, documents relating to Systematics were removed from Vincent Foster's office in the White House.
9.) That the meeting at the Cardozo (Landau) estate on the eastern shore of Maryland on the weekend before Vincent Foster's death was attended by, among others, George Stephanopolous.
10.) That Hillary Rodham Clinton was also a beneficiary of funds from Foster's Swiss account.
Thank you very much for your prompt attention to this matter. Please fax your written response before end-of-business Tuesday, April 18, to Forbes at 212-620-2417. If you have questions, please call me at 212-620-2215.
Respectfully yours,
James R. Norman, Senior Editor
Recently, reports have emerged of a massive and diversified espionage effort by Israel against the United States and in the United States. Consider the following items, reported during the past two weeks:
1. Dozens of Israeli residents of the US were picked up by the Justice Department both before and after the 9/11 attacks in connection with a massive campaign to enter US defense facilities and private homes. The Israeli spies were posing as art students and sought to enter the homes of US officials under the pretext of selling art.
2. The National Security Agency released a Top Secret/Sensitive Compartmentalized Information report expressing alarm at the fact that the majority of American phone calls were logged by an Israeli-owned billing and software firm. Add to that Israel's efforts to electronically monitor world banking transactions, and you have an unnerving situation indeed.
3. 100 Israeli citizens are being held by the Justice Department in what may become the most notorious spy case in United States history: individuals linked to Israeli organized crime, intelligence, and the military breached the system of US federal law enforcement wiretaps, in some cases even enabling criminals to eavesdrop on law enforcement. In one incident, a Los Angeles Police Department drug investigation was totally compromised.
If Israel was able to subvert the efforts of narcotics investigators, it is likely they also had the capability to protect terrorists operating in the United States.
You may have heard early accusations of Mossad involvement in the
9/11 attacks. The first one I heard was, I believe, from an Egyptian source and came
within days of the attacks. This was easy to dismiss, because Egypt is particularly keen
on tawdry anti-Semitic conspiracy literature like "The Protocols of the Elders of
Zion." Then the sources from which I was hearing the accusations started to migrate
away from the center of anti-Israeli hatred. The Times of India reported a Saudi
newspaper's accusation against the Mossad. Then a former German parliament member alleged
that the Mossad had organized the 9/11 attacks, using Moslem henchmen in order to turn
public opinion against the Arabs, and boost military and security spending.
Such vague commentaries prove nothing, but it is hard for me to imagine how such a
watershed event could have take place without the Mossad's foreknowledge; nor could the
attack plots have gone unexposed and unobstructed without the Mossad's indulgence. Of
course, that judgement could be applied almost equally to the Mossad's American
counterparts in the CIA, FBI and military intelligence, since there is a close
transnational relationship when it comes to matters such as these. One would expect that
the American side would have had much more motivation to stop the attacks, but as I have
said before, some very twisted individuals at the top of the American power structure
expect to benefit from the attacks. I must add that the possible guilt of Israel has no
bearing on the question of whether American treason was a factor in the attacks. We should
not be satisfied to punish foreign conspirators alone.
As for what Israel has gained from 9/11, it finally has complete U.S. acquiescence in its plans to destroy the Palestinian Authority. As the Bush Administration and its henchmen are once again waving the flag to distract the public from their international activities to organize the narcotics trade, the Mossad may also profit as a U.S. business partner.
You may recall the suppressed news story (carried in the December 8th issue) regarding the Mossad terrorists arrested in the Mexican congress building this winter, armed with automatic weapons and explosives.
The Mossad had the means, motive and opportunity to orchestrate the 9/11 attacks. The degree and nature of its involvement remains to be seen. Regardless of what the eventual findings are, the United States has good reason to end its favorable treatment of Israel now. That would solve the problem of pro-Palestinian terrorism against the U.S.; We can deal with Israeli terrorism as the evidence warrants.
It is not my intention to blame the September 11th attacks on Israel nor on the CIA as an organization. My intent is to show that it is precisely at that nexus where Israeli and American intelligence agencies cooperate in drug smuggling operations where we are most likely to find the true authors of the attacks. CIA and Mossad cocaine smuggling dates back at least as far as the late 1970s with Operation Watchtower, in which US Army Special Forces men were dispatched into Colombia to install radio beacons which could guide drug-carrying cargo planes to Allbrook Air Station in Panama. CIA personnel such as Ed Wilson, Frank Terpil, and Thomas Clines were reportedly involved in this operation, as was Mike Harari, a "former" Mossad agent acting as an adviser to Manuel Noriega in Panama.
Both the CIA and Mossad had a hand in the drug smuggling operations at Mena, Arkansas (see "Langley's Revenge"). The two men laundering the greatest amount of the drug money were bond trader Dan Lasater and Jackson Stephens, a major shareholder in Worthen Bank. Stephens also owned Systematics, the firm mentioned in the Forbes letter above. Systematics provides software to financial institutions, and this aspect of Jackson's operations leads to the Vince Foster murder, the NSA, Mossad, and the stolen PROMIS software, for which there is no time here. Orlin Grabbe has written over 30 articles on the relationship between these subjects, and his series is a good place for the curious to begin.
Ever the one to find the connections that escape the notice of others, Dan Hopsicker has pointed out that the Venice, Florida flight school where the alleged "terrorist pilots" received their training was only a stone's throw from a building which once served as the national headquarters of Jackson Stephens' Beverly Enterprises (a nursing home chain) and still houses his former law firm ( Hopsicker, "Jackson Stephens 'Active' in Venice Florida"). After two Israeli citizens in a rented moving truck were pulled over near Whidbey Naval Air Station in Oak Harbor, Washington, were detained on suspicion of illegally transporting explosives, and then had their alibi backed up by a nearby nursing home resident (who then promptly disappeared), Hopsicker pondered on the fact that Richard Boehlke had owned some nursing homes in the Northwest and one just down the block from Stephens' Beverly Enterprises in Venice (Hopsicker, "Israelis' Alibi Has a Few Problems"). Boehlke had also gone into business with Rudi Dekkers, the owner of one of the two Venice "terrorist flight schools" (Hopsicker, "Death in Venice"). Boehlke's looting of retirement pension funds in Portland, Oregon, Hopsicker writes, made money for Alvin Malnik, a South Florida mob figure related by marriage to the royal House of Saud (Hopsicker, "Was CIA Running Terrorist Flight School?").
The Oak Harbor incident has an interesting precedent: in a June 21st article on ABCNews.com, we find that some Israelis sitting on top of a moving van were seen gleefully filming the destruction of the World Trade Center:
The men were taking video or photos of themselves with the World Trade Center burning in the background, she said. What struck Maria were the expressions on the men's faces. "They were like happy, you know They didn't look shocked to me. I thought it was very strange," she said.
She found the behavior so suspicious that she wrote down the license plate number of the van and called the police. Before long, the FBI was also on the scene, and a statewide bulletin was issued on the van.
The plate number was traced to a van owned by a company called Urban Moving. Around 4 p.m. on Sept. 11, the van was spotted on a service road off Route 3, near New Jersey's Giants Stadium. A police officer pulled the van over, finding five men, between 22 and 27 years old, in the vehicle. The men were taken out of the van at gunpoint and handcuffed by police.
The arresting officers said they saw a lot that aroused their suspicion about the men. One of the passengers had $4,700 in cash hidden in his sock. Another was carrying two foreign passports. A box cutter was found in the van. But perhaps the biggest surprise for the officers came when the five men identified themselves as Israeli citizens.
Though the answers always spawn more questions, the answers with regard to September 11th are beginning to come. In the February 3rd newsletter, I wrote the following responses to the questions I had posed on October 13th:
May this book contribute to public awareness of the corruption that has allowed tragedies such as September 11th, the Kennedy assassination, and the wars that followed to take place; and more importantly, may it in some way help to prevent anything similar from happening again.
Kent Heiner
July 2002
Bellingham, WA