The Bush administration is determined to overturn established law and the Geneva Conventions when it comes to detainees in its gulags. I believe the reason is that virtually all the detainees and the evidence would point to Pakistan as the nexus for training, supply and financing of international terror.
Before 9-11 Pakistan was regarded as hostile to the USA and complicit in international terrorism against the USA. The terrorist training camps funded by the CIA and Saudis and run by Pakistan's ISI to resist the Soviets in Afghanistan had morphed into the world's leading terrorism resource.
Since 9-11 Pakistan has been embraced by the Bush administration as an ally and received billions of dollars of grants, loans and weaponry. Given that Pakistan is linked to ALL major terrorism attacks before 9-11, on 9-11 and since 9-11, you have to wonder whose side they are on.
The reason for secret trials and secret evidence may be the risk in open court that we would find out. We need a transparent judicial process if we are to discover the truth.
Timeline and request for help below.
It struck me a week or so ago that every time Bush and Musharraf get together there is another major incident of terrorism somewhere in the world followed by another grant of billions of dollars in aid to Pakistan. Pay off or blackmail, I couldn't say, but surely more than coincidence. With Musharraf coming to the White House this week, and Bush's warning last week that the terrorists "will strike again", I felt it was time to do a little research.
Pakistan has been linked to the training, supply and financing of the 9-11 attacks in New York and Washington, the Bali Bombings, the Madrid bombings, the 7/7/05 and 7/21/05 attacks in London, and the Delhi bombings. Pakistan harbours all the leaders of Al Qaeda, facilitates all the finance, provides all the sophisticated equipment for bombings, and provides all the training to all the known terrorist cells.
Despite what Bush would have you believe, Pakistan still operates training camps accommodating 3,000 militants of various nationalities at any time.
In March it was revealed by the Friday Times in Pakistan that testimony to the Public Accounts Committee confirmed that the government had paid thousands to US lobbyists to get anti-Pakistan references dropped from the 9/11 Commission Report, bribing members of the Commission and 75 Congressmen. The Pakistan Foreign Office defended the decision as reflecting "established practice in the US."
According to 9-11 Press for Truth, from 51:00 to 1:12, the trail of 9-11 bombers leads right back to Pakistan.
- 1980s - CIA and Saudis channel hundreds of millions through ISI to fund Afghan resistance to Russian occupation, raising Taliban and Bin Laden. ISI founds Taliban training camps and jointly administers ISI/Taliban terror strikes in Afghanistan and India using the same people and same leadership. More than $7 billion is provided to Pakistan during the Reagan/Bush I administrations.
- 1999 - Randy Glass, part of 1999 Operation Diamondback by FBI and ATF, testified to having dinner with "Abbas", identified as an ISI agent, in a sting to sell illegal arms. After dinner Abbas pointed to the WTC and said, "Those towers are coming down." Glass was later threatened by the FBI and instructed to keep silent.
- Summer 2001 - Wire transfers via Pakistan to Mohammed Atta from Omar Saeed Sheikh, who was a member of ISI and was supported by ISI. Orders for the transfers were signed by Lt General Mahmood Ahmad, chief of ISI.
- September 2001 - Osama Bin Laden is placed in Rawalpindi, Pakistan.
- September 11-14, 2001 - Lt Gen Mahmood Ahmad was in Washington, having wired $100,000 on September 10 to the hijackers. He met with State Department officials on the evening of September 11th, concluding September 14th when he returned to Pakistan with an unprecedented package of billions of dollars in aid and public recognition of Pakistan as "an ally in the War on Terror".
Despite this record, the Bush administration has been very generous to Pakistan while being very tight with just about every other developing nation. From the L.A.Times:
Since 9/11, the Bush administration has been propping up Musharraf's military regime with $3.6 billion in economic aid from the U.S. and a U.S.-sponsored consortium, not to mention $900 million in military aid and the postponement of overdue debt repayments totaling $13.5 billion. . . .
On Sept. 19, 2001, Musharraf made a revealing TV address in Urdu, not noticed at the time by most Americans, in which he reassured Pakistanis who sympathized with Al Qaeda and the Taliban that his decision to line up with the U.S. was a temporary expedient.
To Taliban sympathizers, Musharraf directed an explicit message, saying: "I have done everything for the ... Taliban when the whole world was against them....We are trying our best to come out of this critical situation without any damage to Afghanistan and the Taliban." He has kept his promise to the latter.
I'm not the first or only one to notice that Pakistan is linked to all the major acts of terrorism. Others are beginning to notice too. Just a few weeks ago here in London, Christina Lamb of the Times wondered Just whose side is Pakistan really on?
It was ISI that turned the Taliban from a bunch of religious students into a movement that took over Afghanistan. According to Hamid Karzai, president of Afghanistan, ISI continues to provide a safe haven, training them to fight British soldiers in Helmand.
Whose side is Pakistan on? After September 11, when Pakistan's leadership was given the blunt choice by President Bush -- "you're either with us or against us" -- it had little option. The decision to support Bush's war on terror turned President Pervez Musharraf from a pariah dictator to a feted world leader.
It was a lucrative move. Pakistan has again become one of the biggest recipients of US aid -- just as it was during the Afghan war against Soviet occupiers when ISI was the main conduit for arms and funds. Since September 11, America has dismissed $1.5 billion in debt and provided Pakistan with more than $3 billion in military assistance.
Last year Pakistan was one of the world's fastest-growing economies. It recently placed a $2.5 billion order for American F-16 jet fighters -- as much as Afghanistan's entire annual foreign aid.
My guess is that the determination of the Bush administration to have secret military tribunals and secret evidence against detainees is driven by a need to hide Pakistani complicity in virtually every major act of terrorism for the past 20 years, including all major attacks against the United States and its War on Terror allies - Britain, Spain, Australia and India. My guess is that every serious terrorist being held by the United States in its gulags was trained, financed and supplied by terrorist organisations based in and operating from Pakistan.
We need to know the truth before nuclear-capable F-16 fighter jets get delivered to a radical Islamist nation that may decide once again that its interests favour supporting terrorism against the United States.
Below is a list of all the terrorist incidents since 1993 linked to Al Qaeda. I've added connections to Pakistan in italics and will continue to update as we find more. Every event I've researched so far has been directed, funded, trained and equiped from Pakistan. You can help by finding more connections if you've got some time and some Google skills.
AL QAEDA/PAKISTAN TERRORISM TIMELINE
1993 (Feb.): Bombing of World Trade Center (WTC); 6 killed.
Mastermind was Ramzi Yousef, a Pakistani with links to the Pakistani government.
1993 (Oct.): Killing of U.S. soldiers in Somalia.
1996 (June): Truck bombing at Khobar Towers barracks in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, killed 19 Americans. Main suspect is Saudi named Abdelkarim Hussein Mohamed Al-Nasser.
1998 (Aug.): Bombing of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania; 224 killed, including 12 Americans.
Masterminds were all terrorists based in Pakistan. Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani was captured by Pakistani security forces in the eastern city of Gujrat in 2004.
1999 (Dec.): Plot to bomb millennium celebrations in Seattle foiled when customs agents arrest an Algerian smuggling explosives into the U.S.
Algerian plotters were trained in Pakistan and co-ordinated by Pakistan leadership.
2000 (Oct.): Bombing of the USS Cole in port in Yemen; 17 U.S. sailors killed.
Mastermind later captured in Pakistan and turned over via rendition to CIA.
2001 (Sept.): Destruction of WTC; attack on Pentagon. Total dead 2,992.
All 19 terrorists and Zacarias Moussaoui (suspected 20th) spent time in ISI-financed institutions in Pakistan. In Septmeber 2001, the Bush administration proposes an aid package to Pakistan worth billions in sweeping debt rescheduling, grants stretching over many years and trade benefits as a reward for its support against terrorism.
2001 (Dec.): Man tried to denote shoe bomb on flight from Paris to Miami.
Richard Reid trained at an ISI-financed institution in Pakistan by the same explosives expert who taught Moussaoui.
2002 (April): Explosion at historic synagogue in Tunisia left 21 dead, including 11 German tourists.
Bomber trained in Pakistan and Al Qaeda unit in Pakistan claims responsibility for bombing.
2002 (May): Car exploded outside hotel in Karachi, Pakistan, killing 14, including 11 French citizens.
2002 (June): Bomb exploded outside American consulate in Karachi, Pakistan, killing 12.
2002 (Oct.): Boat crashed into oil tanker off Yemen coast, killing 1.
2002 (Oct.): Nightclub bombings in Bali, Indonesia, killed 202, mostly Australian citizens.
The leaders and perpetrators of the bombings were trained in Pakistan and Afghanistan.
2002 (Nov.): Suicide attack on a hotel in Mombasa, Kenya, killed 16.
2003 (May): Suicide bombers killed 34, including 8 Americans, at housing compounds for Westerners in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
2003 (May): 4 bombs killed 33 people targeting Jewish, Spanish, and Belgian sites in Casablanca, Morocco. Bombers linked to Zarqawi and other Pakistan-linked terrorists.
2003 (Aug.): Suicide car-bomb killed 12, injured 150 at Marriott Hotel in Jakarta, Indonesia.
2003 (Nov.): Explosions rocked a Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, housing compound, killing 17.
2003 (Nov.): Suicide car-bombers simultaneously attacked 2 synagogues in Istanbul, Turkey, killing 25 and injuring hundreds.
2003 (Nov.): Truck bombs detonated at London bank and British consulate in Istanbul, Turkey, killing 26.
2004 (Jan.): Daniel Pearl, journalist for the Wall Street Journal investigating financing of 9-11, kidnapped and killed in Karachi.
2004 (March): 10 bombs on 4 trains exploded almost simultaneously during the morning rush hour in Madrid, Spain, killing 191 and injuring more than 1,500.
Mustafa Setmariam Nasar, the Syrian-born mastermind of the Madrid bombings, fled to Pakistan where he lived quietly until his reported arrest in 2005 when he was rendered to either the Americans or Syrians.
2004 (May): Terrorists attacked Saudi oil company offices in Khobar, Saudi Arabia, killing 22.
2004 (June): Terrorists kidnapped and executed American Paul Johnson, Jr., in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
2004 (July): Pakistani arrested for plotting bombing of 34th Street Herald Square subway station.
2004 (Sept.): Car bomb outside the Australian embassy in Jakarta, Indonesia, killed 9.
2004 (Dec.): Terrorists entered the U.S. Consulate in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, killing 9 (including 4 attackers).
2005 (July): Bombs on 7 July exploded on 3 trains and a bus in London, England, killing 52.
Mohammed Sidique Khan atttended a madrassa in northern Pakistan in July 2003, and Khan and Shehzad Tanweer took the same flight from London to Karchi on 19 November 2004, returning together 8 February 2005. A Pakistani who remains unidentified led the group of bombers on a white water rafting trip in Wales a month before the bombings.
Bombs on 21 July in London. The leader of the bombers travelled to Pakistan in December 2004.
Sophisticated road-side bombs detonated by long range cellular phones are deployed in Afghanistan. Investigators conclude that insurgents, training and equipment are all coming from ISI in Pakistan.
2005 (Oct.): 22 killed by 3 suicide bombs in Bali, Indonesia.
2005 (Nov): Australian police arrest Islamic militants in raids in Sydney and Melbourne.
Arrested Australian Khaled Cheikho trained in a paramilitary camp run by ISI-connected Lashkar-e-Taiba in 2001.
2005 (Nov.): 57 killed at 3 American hotels in Amman, Jordan.
2006 (March - June): 12 Pakistanis and Bangladeshis arrested for bomb plot in Toronto.
2006 (Feb.): Southern Afghanistan bombings intensify. Attacks were reported by suspects as organised and led by Taliban in Pakistan using Pakistani bombers.
2006 (March): 7 Pakistani Britons arrested for plotting shopping mall bomb.
2006 (Aug.): More than 25 arrested in plot to blow up jetliners between London and U.S.
At least 17 suspects arrested in London had ties to Pakistan. Two ringleaders had travelled to and received funding from Pakistan.
Just this month Pakistan has agreed a truce with extremists, assuring them territorial sovereignty over the border region with Afghanistan and amnesty from arrest, including Osama Bin Laden. The Bush response has been to defensively assert in a press conference that we can't get OBL because it would violate Pakistani sovereignty. (Sovereignty didn't stop him in Afghanistan or Iraq, did it?)