Believe Seymour Hersh or not, his contention, revealed in the
video below, follows the established pattern. As we know, the
CIA organized the Afghan Mujahideen, with the assistance of Pakistan’s
ISI and a large influx of Saudi money, and after the Soviets exited
Afghanistan with their tails tucked, the Mujahidden splintered
into the Taliban and “al-Qaeda,” the latter comprised
of primarily Sunni Wahhabi fanatics.
Once again, the “al-Qaeda” myth will be put to the
test, for Mr. Hersh tells us there are “at least three jihadist
groups… connected at al-Qaeda” at work in Lebanon
against the Shi’a, i.e., Hezbollah, and they are financed
by the Saudi monarchy.
Rest assured, Saudi intelligence, Al Mukhabarat Al A’amah,
does not act without explicit instructions from the United States.
It is no mistake Turki bin Faisal al-Saud, former intelligence
head, now comfortably ambassador to the United Kingdom and Ireland,
was Osama bin Laden’s handler in Afghanistan, although the
corporate media has turned mighty somersaults to make this relationship
appear innocent, if not disappear altogether.
According to Hersh, none other than Bandar bin Sultan, known
simply as Prince Bandar here in America, is behind this effort
to pass out money to “tough” Sunni groups—apparently
associated with “al-Qaeda,” thus connected to U.S.
and Saudi intelligence—and tasking them with killing Shi’ites
in Iran and Lebanon, much the same way the mythical al-Zarqawi
killed Shi’ites in Iraq. It should be no surprise Bandar
is so important to the Bush crime family and the neocons, he was
informed of the decision to invade Iraq ahead of Secretary of
State Colin Powell, or so claims the former military intelligence
operative Bob Woodward.
Hersh believes the neocons have made a “policy change,”
deciding to put “pressure on the Shi’ites” through
Sunni proxies and thus replicate the chaos and misery of Iraq
in both Lebanon and Iran, referred to as the “Shi’ite
Crescent,” according to the neocons. Hersh believes “his
government” is “sitting back” while the Saudis
run this operation—a delusional fantasy at best, as there
is plenty of evidence “al-Qaeda” and “Sunni
jihadists” are not renegade operations but rather under
the control of U.S., British, Saudi, and Pakistani intelligence,
the latter two acting as liaison offices passing out marching
orders, as no self-respecting “jihadist” patsy would
take an order directly from the CIA or the Pentagon.
In short, Seymour Hersh buys into the “al-Qaeda”
fairy tale, as does the rest of the corporate media.
Finally, Hersh expects us to believe John Negroponte was shifted
over to the State department because he was “not in tune
with Cheney” and was considered “too ethical”
for the continuing plans of the neocons, never mind Negroponte’s
ethics were obviously nowhere to be found when he was micromanaging
Honduran death squads during the good old “Iran-Contra”
heyday of the 1980s. Moreover, Hersh tells us Robert Gates, no
slack when it comes to Iran-Contra and facilitating what would
ultimately become “al-Qaeda,” is attempting to “get
control” over Pentagon covert operations, behavior Hersh
ascribes to Rumsfeld. In fact, the Pentagon has engaged in brutal
covert operations for decades, in essence competing with the CIA
to see who can kill more people.
It should be obvious what is going on here—Sy Hersh, offering
a mix of truth and fabrication, is acting as a shill for the neolib
faction of the ruling elite, weary of neocon over-the-top brusqueness
and their overt Israeli obsession. Of course, the neolib faction
does not exactly cringe at the prospect of hundreds of thousands,
if not millions, of dead Muslims, or the splintering of the Arab
and Muslim world along the fissures of a hyped-up and exacerbated
Islamic schism, but rather they prefer to do such behind the scenes,
as they have in the past—through skullduggery and “color
revolutions”—and avoid a cataclysmic “World
War Four,” as the neocons fondly call their mass murder
and misery project.
