1- In 1979 "the largest covert operation in the history of the Agency" was launched in response to the Soviet invasion of AFGHANISTAN in support of the pro-Communist government of Babrak Kamal.

2- With the active encouragement of the Agency and PAKISTAN's ISI [Inter Services Intelligence], who wanted to turn the Afghan jihad into a global war waged by all Muslim states against the Soviet Union, some 35,000 Muslim radicals from 40 Islamic countries joined AFGHANISTAN's fight between 1982 and 1992. Tens of thousands more came to study in PAKISTANi madrasahs. Eventually more than 100,000 foreign Muslim radicals were directly influenced by the Afghan jihad.

3- The Islamic "jihad" was supported by the United States and Saudi Arabia with a significant part of the funding generated from the Golden Crescent drug trade: In March 1985, President Reagan signed Security Decision Directive 166,... [which] authorize[d] stepped-up covert military aid to the mujahideen, and it made clear that the secret Afghan war had a new goal: to defeat Soviet troops in AFGHANISTAN through covert action and encourage a Soviet withdrawal. The new covert U.S. assistance began with a dramatic increase in arms supplies -- a steady rise to 65,000 tons annually by 1987, ... as well as a "ceaseless stream" of Agency and Pentagon specialists who traveled to the secret headquarters of PAKISTAN's ISI on the main road near Rawalpindi, PAKISTAN. There the Agency specialists met with PAKISTANi intelligence officers to help plan operations for the Afghan rebels.

4- The (Agency) using PAKISTAN's military Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) played a key role in training the Mujahideen. In turn, the Agency sponsored guerrilla training was integrated with the teachings of Islam: Predominant themes were that Islam was a complete socio-political ideology, that holy Islam was being violated by the atheistic Soviet troops, and that the Islamic people of AFGHANISTAN should reassert their independence by overthrowing the leftist Afghan regime propped up by Moscow.

5- PAKISTAN's Intelligence Apparatus- PAKISTAN's ISI was used as a "go-between". The Agency covert support to the "jihad" operated indirectly through the PAKISTANi ISI, --i.e. the Agency did not channel its support directly to the Mujahideen. In other words, for these covert operations to be "successful", Washington was careful not to reveal the ultimate objective of the "jihad", which consisted in destroying the Soviet Union. In the words of Agency's MBeardman "We didn't train Arabs". Yet according to Abdel Monam Saidali, of the Al-aram Center for Strategic Studies in Cairo, bin Laden and the "Afghan Arabs" had been imparted "with very sophisticated types of training that was allowed to them by the Agency"

6- Agency's beard man confirmed, in this regard, that Osman bin Laden was not aware of the role he was playing on behalf of Washington. In the words of bin Laden : "neither I, nor my brothers saw evidence of American help".

7- Motivated by nationalism and religious fervor, the Islamic warriors were unaware that they were fighting the Soviet Army on behalf of Uncle Sam. While there were contacts at the upper levels of the intelligence hierarchy, Islamic rebel leaders in theatre had no contacts with Washington or the Agency. With Agency backing and the funneling of massive amounts of US military aid, the PAKISTANi ISI had developed into a "parallel structure wielding enormous power over all aspects of government".

8- The ISI had a staff composed of military and intelligence officers, bureaucrats, undercover agents and informers, estimated at 150,000.

9- Meanwhile, Agency operations had also reinforced the PAKISTANi military regime led by General Zia Ul Haq: 'Relations between the Agency and the ISI [PAKISTAN's military intelligence] had grown increasingly warm following [General] Zia's ouster of Bhutto and the advent of the military regime,'... During most of the Afghan war, PAKISTAN was more aggressively anti-Soviet than even the United States. Soon after the Soviet military invaded AFGHANISTAN in 1980, Zia [ul Haq] sent his ISI chief to destabilize the Soviet Central Asian states. The Agency only agreed to this plan in October 1984.... `the Agency was more cautious than the PAKISTANis.' Both PAKISTAN and the United States took the line of deception on AFGHANISTAN with a public posture of negotiating a settlement while privately agreeing that military escalation was the best course.

10- The GOLDEN CRESCENT DRUG TRIANGLE: The history of the drug trade in Central Asia is intimately related to the Agency's covert operations. Prior to the Soviet-Afghan war, opium production in AFGHANISTAN and PAKISTAN was directed to small regional markets. There was no local production of HEROIN.

11-In this regard, AMcCoy's study confirms that within two years of the onslaught of the Agency operation in AFGHANISTAN, the PAKISTAN-AFGHANISTAN borderlands became the world's top HEROIN producer, supplying 60 percent of U.S. demand. In PAKISTAN, the HEROIN;-addict population went from near zero in 1979... to 1.2 million by 1985 -- a much steeper rise than in any other nation":

12-Agency assets again controlled this HEROIN trade. As the Mujahideen guerrillas seized territory inside AFGHANISTAN, they ordered peasants to plant opium as a revolutionary tax. Across the border in PAKISTAN, Afghan leaders and local syndicates under the protection of PAKISTAN Intelligence operated hundreds of HEROIN laboratories. During this decade of wide-open drug-dealing, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency in Islamabad failed to instigate major seizures or arrests ... U.S. officials had refused to investigate charges of HEROIN dealing by its Afghan allies `because U.S. narcotics policy in AFGHANISTAN has been subordinated to the war against Soviet influence there.' In 1995, the former Agency director of the Afghan operation, CCogan, admitted the Agency had indeed sacrificed the drug war to fight the Cold War. `Our main mission was to do as much damage as possible to the Soviets. We didn't really have the resources or the time to devote to an investigation of the drug trade,'... `I don't think that we need to apologize for this. Every situation has its fallout.... There was fallout in terms of D*R*U*G*S, yes. But the main objective was accomplished. The Soviets left AFGHANISTAN.'

13- In the Wake of the Cold War In the wake of the Cold War, the Central Asian region is not only strategic for its extensive oil reserves, it also produces three quarters of the World's opium representing multibillion dollar revenues to business syndicates, financial institutions, intelligence agencies and organized crime. The annual proceeds of the Golden Crescent drug trade (between 100 and 200 billion dollars) represents approximately one third of the Worldwide annual turnover of narcotics, estimated by the United Nations to be of the order of $500 billion.

14- With the disintegration of the Soviet Union, a new surge in opium production has unfolded. (According to UN estimates, the production of opium in AFGHANISTAN in 1998-99 -- coinciding with the build up of armed insurgencies in the former Soviet republics-- reached a record high of 4600 metric tons.

15- Powerful business syndicates in the former Soviet Union allied with organized crime are competing for the strategic control over the HEROIN routes. The ISI's extensive intelligence military-network was not dismantled in the wake of the Cold War. The Agency continued to support the Islamic "jihad" out of PAKISTAN. New undercover initiatives were set in motion in Central Asia, the Caucasus and the Balkans. PAKISTAN's military and intelligence apparatus essentially "served as a catalyst for the disintegration of the Soviet Union and the emergence of six new Muslim republics in Central Asia. 16- Meanwhile, Islamic missionaries of the Wahhabi sect from Saudi Arabia had established themselves in the Muslim republics as well as within the Russian federation encroaching upon the institutions of the secular State. Despite its anti-American ideology, Islamic fundamentalism was largely serving Washington's strategic interests in the former Soviet Union. Following the withdrawal of Soviet troops in 1989, the civil war in AFGHANISTAN continued unabated. The TALIBAN were being supported by the PAKISTANi Deobandis and their political party the Jamiat-ul-Ulema-e-Islam (JUI). In 1993, JUI entered the government coalition of Prime Minister Benazzir Bhutto. Ties between JUI, the Army and ISI were established. In 1995, with the downfall of the Hezb-I-Islami Hektmatyar government in Kabul, the TALIBAN not only instated a hardline Islamic government, they also "handed control of training camps in AFGHANISTAN over to JUI factions..." 17- And the JUI with the support of the Saudi Wahhabi movements played a key role in recruiting volunteers to fight in the Balkans and the former Soviet Union. Jane defence Weekly confirms in this regard that "half of TALIBAN manpower and equipment originate[d] in PAKISTAN under the ISI 18- In fact, it would appear that following the Soviet withdrawal both sides in the Afghan civil war continued to receive covert support through PAKISTAN's ISI. 19- In other words, backed by PAKISTAN's military intelligence (ISI) which in turn was controlled by the Agency, the TALIBAN Islamic State was largely serving American geopolitical interests. The Golden Crescent drug trade was also being used to finance and equip the Bosnian Muslim Army (starting in the early 1990s) and the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA). In last few months there is evidence that Mujahideen mercenaries are fighting in the ranks of KLA-NLA terrorists in their assaults into Macedonia. No doubt, this explains why Washington has closed its eyes on the reign of terror imposed by the TALIBAN including the blatant derogation of women's rights, the closing down of schools for girls, the dismissal of women employees from government offices and the enforcement of "the Sharia laws of punishment". 20- The War in Chechnya With regard to Chechnya, the main rebel leaders Shamil Basayev and Al Khattab were trained and indoctrinated in Agency sponsored camps in AFGHANISTAN and PAKISTAN. According to YBodansky, director of the U.S. Congress's Task Force on Terrorism and Unconventional Warfare, the war in Chechnya had been planned during a secret summit of HizbAllah International held in 1996 in Mogadishu, Somalia. 21- The summit, was attended by Osman bin Laden and high-ranking Iranian and PAKISTANi intelligence officers. In this regard, the involvement of PAKISTAN's ISI in Chechnya "goes far beyond supplying the Chechens with weapons and expertise: the ISI and its radical Islamic proxies are actually calling the shots in this war".

22- Russia's main pipeline route transits through Chechnya and Dagestan. Despite Washington's perfunctory condemnation of Islamic terrorism, the indirect beneficiaries of the Chechen war are the Anglo-American oil conglomerates which are vying for control over oil resources and pipeline corridors out of the Caspian Sea basin. The two main Chechen rebel armies (respectively led by Commander Shamil Basayev and Emir Khattab) estimated at 35,000 strong were supported by PAKISTAN's ISI, which also played a key role in organizing and training the Chechen rebel army: [In 1994] the PAKISTANi Inter Services Intelligence arranged for Basayev and his trusted lieutenants to undergo intensive Islamic indoctrination and training in guerrilla warfare in the Khost province of AFGHANISTAN at Amir Muawia camp, set up in the early 1980s by the Agency and ISI and run by famous Afghani warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar. In July 1994, upon graduating from Amir Muawia, Basayev was transferred to Markaz-i-Dawar camp in PAKISTAN to undergo training in advanced guerrilla tactics. In PAKISTAN, Basayev met the highest ranking PAKISTANi military and intelligence officers: Minister of defence General Aftab Shahban Mirani, Minister of Interior General Naserullah Babar, and the head of the ISI branch in charge of supporting Islamic causes, General Javed Ashraf, (all now retired). High-level connections soon proved very useful to Basayev.

23- Following his training and indoctrination stint, Basayev was assigned to lead the assault against Russian federal troops in the first Chechen war in 1995. His organisation had also developed extensive links to criminal syndicates in Moscow as well as ties to Albanian organized crime and the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA). In 1997-98, according to Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB) "Chechen warlords started buying up real estate in Kosovo... through several real estate firms registered as a cover in Yugoslavia.

24- Basayev's organisation has also been involved in a number of rackets including narcotics, illegal tapping and sabotage of Russia's oil pipelines, kidnapping, prostitution, trade in counterfeit dollars and the smuggling of nuclear materials (See Mafia linked to Albania's collapsed pyramids,

25- Alongside the extensive laundering of drug money, the proceeds of various illicit activities have been funneled towards the recruitment of mercenaries and the purchase of weapons. During his training in AFGHANISTAN, Shamil Basayev linked up with Saudi born veteran Mujahideen Commander "Al Khattab" who had fought as a volunteer in AFGHANISTAN. Barely a few months after Basayev's return to Grozny, Khattab was invited (early 1995) to set up an army base in Chechnya for the training of Mujahideen fighters. According to the BBC, Khattab's posting to Chechnya had been "arranged through the Saudi-Arabian based [International] Islamic Relief Organisation, a militant religious organisation, funded by mosques and rich individuals which channeled funds into Chechnya.

26- Concluding Remarks Since the Cold War era, Washington has consciously supported Ousmane bin Laden, while at same time placing him on the FBI's "most wanted list" as the World's foremost terrorist. While the Mujahideen are busy fighting America's war in the Balkans and the former Soviet Union, the bureau --operating as a US based Police Force- is waging a domestic war against terrorism, operating in some respects independently of the Agency which has --since the Soviet-Afghan war-- supported international terrorism through its covert operations. In a cruel irony, while the Islamic jihad --featured by the Bush Adminstation as "a threat to America"-- is blamed for the terrorist assaults on the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon, these same Islamic organisations constitute a key instrument of US military-intelligence operations in the Balkans and the former Soviet Union. In the wake of the terrorist attacks in New York and Washington, the truth must prevail to prevent the Bush Adminstration together with its NATO partners from embarking upon a military adventure which threatens the future of humanity. Endnotes International: `Informers' point the finger at bin Laden; Washington on alert for suicide bombers, The Daily Telegraph, London, 24 August 1998. See "The Un-great game: the Country that lost the Cold War, AFGHANISTAN, New Republic, 25 March 1996): The TALIBAN: Exporting Extremism, Foreign Affairs, November-December 1999. Washington Post, July 19, 1992. Fallout from the Afghan Jihad, Inter Press Services, 21 November 1995. Weekend Sunday (NPR); 16 August 1998. Ibid. Possible Connection of ISI With Drug Industry, India Abroad, 2 December 1994. Ibid Out of AFGHANISTAN: The Inside Story of the Soviet Withdrawal, Oxford university Press, New York, 1995. See also the review of in International Press Services, 22 August 1995. Drug fallout: the Agency's Forty Year Complicity in the Narcotics Trade. The Progressive; 1 August 1997. Ibid Drug Money in a changing World, Technical document no 4, 1998, Vienna UNDCP, p. 4. See also Report of the International Narcotics Control Board for 1999, E/INCB/1999/1 United Nations Publication, Vienna 1999, p 49-51, And Richard Lapper, UN Fears Growth of HEROIN Trade, Financial Times, 24 February 2000. Report of the International Narcotics Control Board, op cit, p 49-51, see also op. cit. International Press Services, 22 August 1995. The TALIBAN: Exporting Extremism, Foreign Affairs, November- December, 1999, p. 22. Quoted in the Christian Science Monitor, 3 September 1998) Kabul learns to live with its bearded conquerors, The Independent, London, 6 November1996. See PAKISTAN is Pursuing Asian Goals, India Abroad, 3 November 1995. Who's calling the shots?: Chechen conflict finds Islamic roots in AFGHANISTAN and PAKISTAN, 23 The Gazette, Montreal, 26 October 1999.. Ibid See Chechen Front Moves To Kosovo Segodnia, Moscow, 23 Feb 2000. The European, 13 February 1997, See also Itar-Tass, 4-5 January 2000. BBC, 29 September 1999).

SECTION 5.0 Many conservatives believe that the American voters' choice of George W. Bush as president marks a return to the founding values of our Republic, but it should be remembered that George W. Bush, like his father, George H. W. Bush, and his grandfather, Prescott Sheldon Bush, is a member of Skull and Bones. [6] It is the purpose of this article to show how Skull and Bones members (S&B) work in tandem with Rhodes Scholars (RS) and Fabian Socialists (FS) to form an important part of what is known as the power elite. 1833: That year the Skull and Bones fraternity was organized at Yale University as Chapter 322 of a German fraternity. 1883: What part has Skull & Bones played in our elections? Professor Carroll Quigley was President Clinton's mentor, and in Tragedy and Hope: A History of the World In our Time, the professor revealed that William C. Whitney (S&B) and others, in the late 19th century, developed a plan to control both major political parties through financial contributions, and have the parties alternate power so the public would think it had a choice.

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