In 1998, John McCain had a simple choice: He made the wrong one. McCain Against U.S. Strikes On Al-Qaeda In 1998By Cliff Montgomery – Oct. 8th, 2008GOP Vice Presidential Nominee Sarah Palin has made a fool of herself after having “exaggerated the nature of [Democratic Presidential Nominee] Barack Obama’s personal ties to a former 1960s radical,” according to article published yesterday by The Associated Press (AP).”Sarah Palin tells audiences the election is about the ‘truthfulness and judgment’ needed to be president. But the Alaska governor often stretches the truth herself,” flatly states AP.In fact if Ms. Palin bothered to read any reliable media reports of any kind, she would know that it is her party–the party of John McCain, George W. Bush and Dick Cheney–who often are the clear pals of known, active terrorists.It is the party of McCain and Palin which helped turn the “Afghan mujahidin”–the rebels who fought the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan through the 1980s–into a group filled and run by Islamic Jihadists who clearly hated America as much as Russia.A segment of this “mujahidin” later morphed into al-Qaeda.In late 1979, Soviet forces moved into Afghanistan. Then-President Jimmy Carter and others feared this was a power grab from the Soviets.Carter, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan’s Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) joined in an effort to quietly aid anti-Soviet groups in Afghanistan. But Carter worked on a two-tier approach, which both provided moderate amounts of covert aid and sought a diplomatic settlement to the crisis.But “Carter’s loss to Reagan in the 1980 presidential election signaled the end of the negotiation track,” states a report on Afghanistan by The National Security Archive, a non-governmental secrecy watchdog group.Reagan CIA head William Casey pursued three highly secret–yet telling and significant–changes from the Carter Doctrine.First, Casey persuaded Congress to supply the Afghan mujahidin “with American-made Stinger anti-aircraft missiles to shoot down Soviet planes and provide U.S. advisors to train the guerrillas,” according to Ahmed Rashid’s fascinating book, Taliban.”Until then no U.S.-made weapons or personnel had been used directly in the war effort,” stated Rashid.Secondly, Casey–along with the ISI and Britain’s MI6–decided the Afghan guerrillas should engage in acts of terrorism against average Soviet citizens, as a means of creating mass fear. They decided the terrorists should first strike the citizens of Soviet Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.”In March 1987, small units crossed the Amu Darya River from bases in northern Afghanistan and launched their first rocket attacks against villages in Tajikistan,” according to Taliban.”Casey was delighted with the news and on his next secret trip to Pakistan he crossed the border into Afghanistan…to review the mujahidin groups,” adds the book.And “thirdly, Casey committed CIA support to a long-standing ISI initiative to recruit radical Muslims from around the world to come to Pakistan and fight with the Afghan mujahidin,” stated Rashid.Among that new, much more radical group invited and trained in the arts of terrorism by American neo-conservatives was a young, rich Saudi named Osama bin Laden.Bin Laden joined the mujahidin in 1982. In 1986, Bin Laden–son of a wealthy construction magnate–helped the CIA build a massive underground complex for the terrorist groups near the Afghan-Pakistan border. It housed a medical facility, a training center and a huge arms storage depot.This also is about the time in which he set up his first terrorist training camp. In a statement published in 1998 by Agence France-Presse–a French wire service–Bin Laden discussed how he was able to do this:”To counter these atheist Russians, the Saudis chose me as their representative in Afghanistan,” said Bin Laden. “I settled in Pakistan, in the Afghan border region. There I received volunteers who came from the Saudi Kingdom and from all over the Arab and Muslim countries. I set up my first camp where these volunteers were trained by Pakistani and American officers. The weapons were supplied by the Americans, the money by the Saudis. I discovered that it was not enough to fight in Afghanistan, but that we had to fight on all fronts, communist or Western oppression.”So the party of McCain and Palin, of George W. Bush and Dick Cheney, trained and supplied Bin Laden’s Anti-Russian and Anti-American terrorist forces.After the first Gulf War in 1990, Bin Laden would form al-Qaeda from former mujahidin fighters and declare war on America. The party of McCain and Palin continued to pal around with these terrorists until the association ceased to be profitable.In fact, the young George W. Bush–a man for whom John McCain “did everything [he] could to get him elected, and re-elected, president”–was a failure in business until a number of wealthy Saudis bailed out yet another faltering company in 1987-88, where Dubya was working on the board of directors.It was an important step for the young Bush. As journalist Craig Unger wrote in his powerful book, House of Bush, House of Saud:”The Saudi bailout of Harken Energy…helped George W. Bush make his fortune.”Among those wealthy Saudis helping “George W. Bush make his fortune” was a man named Salem bin Laden–Osama’s half-brother.And what of John McCain’s own judgment of Bin Laden? On Aug. 7th, 1998, al-Qaeda bombed two U.S. embassies, one in Kenya and the other in Tanzania. The blast murdered more than 200 people, including 12 American citizens. This is the declassified FBI executive summary of those deadly terrorist attacks.But in September 1998, John McCain actually bad-mouthed then-President Clinton for going after al-Qaeda immediately after that brutal attack on American soil, and after the murder of our fellow citizens.Apparently the loss of American lives wasn’t enough to keep McCain from continuing to explain away this terrorist friend of U.S. neo-conservatives. Check out this interesting statement from a damning Mother Jones interview:
- Mother Jones: You not only have had combat experience in Vietnam, but you were also a prisoner of war. When you look at terrorism right now, with people like Osama bin Laden, do you have any reservations about watching strikes like [Clinton’s retaliation on Bin Laden]?John McCain: You could say: Look, is this guy, Laden, really the bad guy that’s depicted? Most of us have never heard of him before.
But John McCain certainly had. He served as a U.S. representative of Arizona from 1983-1986, and has served as a U.S. senator from 1987 to the present moment. It is inconceivable for him to claim that he had no knowledge of Osama bin Laden. After the embassy attacks, Clinton did everything in his power to inform both Congress and the public of the activities of al-Qaeda and its sinister leader, to explain his just retaliation on the terrorist group.In 1998, John McCain had a simple choice: Side with his country against those who had just attacked U.S. soil and martyred its citizens, or side with the terrorists. McCain made the wrong choice.This November, the choice is yours.Like what you’re reading so far? Then why not order a full year (52 issues) of thee-newsletter for only $15? A major article covering an story not being told in the Corporate Press will be delivered to your email every Monday morning for a full year, for less than 30 cents an issue. Order Now! *Privacy Policy: We use third-party advertising companies to serve ads when you visit our website. These companies may use information (not including your name, address, email address, or telephone number) about your visits to this and other websites in order to provide advertisements about goods and services of interest to you. If you would like more information about this practice and to know your choices about not having this information used by these companies, click here.
