Alright y'all, welcome back to the show It's anti-war radio.
I told you we're a jam-packed full of guests today.
Next is Gary loop He's professor of history at Tufts University and writes for counterpunch at counterpunch org He's a contributor to their book on the wars in Iraq Afghanistan and Yugoslavia Imperial Crusades and The article I'm looking at here is titled the many toner cartridge bomb story More questions than answers Welcome to show Gary.
How are you doing?
I'm doing fine.
Thank you.
I appreciate you joining us today My pleasure, so I love any article about anything that begins quoting Jeff Huber Mm-hmm.
He's my favorite that guy cracks me up He's I read him on anti-war calm, right?
Yeah, even better In fact, I'm just gonna go ahead and read this you you quoted it It's worth it if there's a single substantiated syllable in the entire narrative about the many cartridge bomb story I have yet to encounter it in the New York Times and a series of articles from the 29 30th and 31st of October our Newspaper of tarnished record created enough cognitive dissonance to drive the Dalai Lama to a therapist couch Now you claim in there.
That's a bit of an exaggeration, but I'm not so sure I I gotta admit I'm pretty confused about this case as well as it and we're all walkies out to get us And so that justifies killing them with a drone attack or what's going on here?well, my point is that I can't figure it out really from the the different contradictory evidence that's provided number one initially, it was announced that these were packages that were destined for two synagogues in Chicago and Then the British Prime Minister Gordon as well as the Foreign minister Both indicated that they felt that the bombs were obviously designed to go off in flight which raises the question Why they would be addressed to the synagogues, which would be a kind of deliberate political or ideological statement and then the New York Times Movetti and someone else published an article in which they said that The addressees reflected a kind of cynical sense of humor on the part of al-qaeda because the one name was that of a figure in the Spanish Inquisition Ie someone very hostile to Muslims and the other was the name of a prominent crusader.
I think of the 13th century which kind of raises the question of why they would go out of their way to To put these addresses and these names on packages wouldn't that kind of arouse suspicion?
Why not just send them to any Joe blow?
So the question of where they were Headed and when they were destined to go off is one question and then there's the the question of the actual operation of the device or the devices I Take it that These cell phones or some apparatus within the cell phones was supposed to Cause a syringe to containing lead ozied to or ozied to initiate the detonation of the patent, but There have been kind of conflicting explanations about that And I don't know that there's been any follow-up article that resolves some of these contradictions Well as far as I can tell no for what's that worth and I've been trying to read about them for what that's worth I've been trying to read about this as much as I can and Especially in preparation for this interview, and I think I'm left with all the same Confusions as you at least and then the French foreign minister then the French foreign minister Announced that one of the packages was 17 minutes away from detonation and The US State Department said no, that's not our understanding and certainly it's not the case the situation with the the Dubai Device that was discovered in Dubai so Yeah, I think the context of this is that in August the CIA issued a report which was then confirmed by unspecified top officials that Yemen has become or the al-qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula based in Yemen has become the single greatest threat to US security so it supersedes the threat of al-qaeda on the Afghanistan Pakistan border so they're Assessing this is a major ongoing battleground Whereas Patrick Colburn writes I Think it's in The Independent that This is a group of two or three hundred men that the regime of Ali Saleh in Yemen hasn't taken as much of a threat and Isn't inclined to to go after with much eagerness There was a piece in The New York Times Weekend magazine about say a month month and a half ago.
It was oh Geez I forgot the name of the guy that wrote it, but that's pretty honest for a New York Times piece And that was pretty much.
I think he agreed with that he pretty much described al-qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula such as it is as a very small group of people and and in fact goes on to describe how the various drone strikes made things worse that like there was an elder in the village who was on his way to tell them that they better get the hell out of there, and he got bombed too and a bunch of women and children killed Amnesty International documented the cluster bomblets the so-called duds still lying around waiting to go off and kill more people and But he ends the thing in The New York Times piece I think he even ends the thing saying well You know a pretty objective point of view here would be to stay the hell out of here There's barely anything to worry about and clearly intervening in you know.
This is the big money here Why wait in you know yeah, you could be very problematic, and that was the New York Times kind of version of the Yemen piece right in May of this year a deputy provincial governor Was was killed in a drone strike that just hit the wrong target at the same time I read in one article in the last few days that in the course of 2010 US drones have only been deployed for surveillance purposes, which is got to be wrong, but maybe there's some fuzziness in that the US doesn't accept responsibility for a lot of what's going on, but indicates that this is undertaken by Salih's government which is in fact carrying on to armed Missions against the the Ba'athist and Nasserite Former Or organization led by former officials of the Democratic People's Republic of Yemen which merged in 1990 with the north and then there's the Houthi Uprising in the in the north so that regime has its hands full with its own problems and it sees al-qaeda as a minor irritant at best well, and if the al-qaeda narrative is That we can't really successfully overthrow our local tyrannies until we get rid of the Americans first then all we're doing is making that true Yeah, yeah, I mean the US was not terribly interested in these local secessions before 9-11 But then immediately after 9-11 the US demanded that Salih's regime and Salih's been in power or was in power in the north from 1978 and Even though the north was the the anti-marxist Yemen and the south was aligned with the Soviet Union the US was not on very good terms with Salih because His government had opposed the invasion of Iraq But suddenly he was embraced as an ally in the war against terrorism and the US demanded that he launched a strike against al-qaeda which almost immediately after 9-11 That resulted in the death of 18 troops and four villagers and didn't get any al-qaeda and If are we running out of time or yeah, yeah music playing there, so we got to go out to this break Okay, we're talking with Gary loop from counter punch org He's got a great article here well worth your time about the package bombing and when we get back We'll talk a little bit more about Yemen a little bit more about this specific case Hang tight.
It's anti-war radio All right enough of that nonsense back to the show it's anti-war radio We're on chaos radio Austin dot Oregon on the Liberty Radio Network LRN FM all the archives are at antiwar.com/radio.
We're talking with Gary loop from counter punch the great counter punch The wonderful counter punch the only leftists in our society that stuck up for the branch civilians, I think So yeah check it out Gary loop.
He wrote this great article about hey, man I'm not so sure I'm buying this whole story about What all is going on or not even sure this story makes sense?
What the government's telling us about this plot to blow up planes or blow up synagogues or whatever it was But one of the things that has got me the most puzzled about this is This thing I read in the Christian Science Monitor That said that the reason that this whole plot was busted was because there was a guy who was in Guantanamo Bay Which must mean he was some innocent guy who'd been rounded up somewhere Jobby or I'll fight the yeah, well you go ahead.
Tell me the story then you know his name You know it better than me.
Well.
He was in Guantanamo.
I think from 2001 or 2002 maybe to 2007 and then he was handed over to the Saudis Who put him through some?rehabilitation program and then after getting out of that he went to Yemen and joined the al-qaeda on the Arabian Peninsula and Just last week.
I read an article that identified him as a double agent and He's the one who returned to Saudi Arabia on an airplane specifically sent to Sanaa to pick him up and Supposedly divulged the plot and he knew what the The numbers on the packages were so they could be apprehended in Dubai and in England and And Meanwhile the woman who Whose name appears on those packages and who was apprehended was released when it was discovered that someone had stolen her identity But there's been no further word about an investigation into the person who really Planted the packages well.
You know the CIA.
They're really losing their touch.
I mean how transparent can you get well?
It does look pretty suspicious doesn't it and also you have I think it's Oman something Airlines Denying that these packages were aboard their planes And you have one of the Yemeni ministers saying the flights didn't originate in Yemen And I don't know that there's been any follow-up On those statements any any real investigative journalism on the part of the New York Times or someone?
To resolve these questions well, and I guess that's how it'll stay because what's the New York Times, but the CIA anyway?
Yeah, and also so often these stories are or these situations are created and They do that what they're intended to do and then even if six months later.
There's an article showing how this was all Bogus as for example when the the daughter of the Kuwaiti ambassador in 1990 Opposed as a nurse and said that the Iraqi invaders had been taking Premature babies in hospital incubators and hurling them on the floor that all turned out to be bullshit, but it was very Useful at the time just like the Niger uranium story, so we may read six months or a year from now that this was all orchestrated in order to Promote greater u.s..
Action in Yemen.
Hey, I got the clip While I was there, I saw the Iraqi soldiers coming to the hospital with guns.
Yeah, they took the babies out of incubators Took incubators and left the children to die on the cold floor That was all acting Yeah, all right now So here's the thing as long as we're speculating on this as I think it's perfectly fair to speculate as long as we call it Speculation I got a big problem with the under bomber from last Christmas who came from Yemen now I got one narrative that makes perfect sense which is Barack Obama and not only been Murdering people in Yemen for about four and a half five weeks straight in the lead-up to that attack Yeah 17th of December and right 24th.
Yeah, yeah well and in November 2 We've been covering it at anti-war calm in November before he even gave the West Point speech And then he gave the West Point speech right about a year ago, and he ended the speech This is one where he pretended to promise the beginning of the end of the Afghan war would be in July 2011 Which they're admitting this week is nonsense of course, but at the end of the speech he promised Yemen Somalia.
You're next and And so there he was threatening and actually killing people in Yemen in the lead-up to that so it would make perfect sense That somebody there would retaliate by putting somebody on a plane and having them try to blow it up over Detroit on Christmas Day But here's the thing about that is that apparently some intelligence agency or somebody helped this guy change planes in the Netherlands And I interviewed a guy named Kurt Haskell a lawyer who saw the whole thing where they lied and said oh this guy's Somali He's a refugee.
Don't worry.
We do this all the time Sudanese.
I think they said Yeah, there you go.
You know that story too, so But they didn't at the time they didn't use that as an excuse seems like they could have used that as an excuse to Escalate you know big-time in Yemen, and they didn't Now that seems like another Gulf of Tonkin being created here Is anybody in the national security state really insane enough to do some kind of real invasion of the Arabian Peninsula?
It looks like there's CIA and JSOC are going to be bad enough for the time being well There seemed to be it seems to be a conflict between the CIA and JSOC CIA are basically saying JSOC is screwing it up, and they they have bad intelligence we have better intelligence or Capability and so what they're proposing is that a lot of CIA agents be infiltrated into I mean more than presently are there to Determine the targets and also to take control of the drone operation so Maybe since we're speculating maybe the CIA is Creating events to strengthen their position Yeah, well, I mean this whole thing just stinks to high heaven to me.
Oh guess what everybody this former Guantanamo inmate Gave us the tracking numbers of the packages well They actually they haven't even said that but um that's the only conclusion that I can derive Well, I think that one was in the in the Christian Science Monitor version was so what if I didn't read that mm-hmm And you said though that you saw an article that said that this guy was a double agent Can you recall that footnote by any chance?
Well?
It was in the Boston Globe the Boston Globally it could have been And it just a tiny little item it could have been an AP reprinters an AP Oh actually no it was um it was a longer article And it could have been New York Times, or it could have been AP But I think with some Google searching you could find as you just type in the the name of the guy A f a y t I of fayati F a y t I yeah Jabir Great, and I think that the Saudis are are trying to present this as a case of successful Cooperation with the u.s.
One of the interesting things is that?
Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula on the Arabian Peninsula Issued a statement taking responsibility for this But it often does that sort of thing it also took responsibility for a plane crash.
I think in Oman That officials had ruled out as an instance of terrorism but I think that they have a policy of Taking responsibility for things that they find Positive but in fact we're not behind Right yeah, well, and you know at this point all anybody in the Muslim world has to do or I hate to call it that But you know anybody wants to be part of these guys all I have to do is something violent and then claim that yeah I'm with them and Exactly, it's just it's a movement.
It's not a Corporation it's a movement well.
Yeah in February of 2002 after the Bush administration had begun its activities in Yemen and pressuring the government to Attack villages and so on this organization called the sympathizers of al-qaeda emerged And this was not the the earlier Al-qaeda on the Arabian Peninsula, which had been losing Manpower and support apparently, but this is a new group who just announced that we're sympathizers of al-qaeda which means that they are al-qaeda and certainly from the point of view of the US administration It's useful to conflate all of these different groups with al-qaeda even if they're very secular and or religiously Very very different from the wahhabis in al-qaeda Well and I guess as long as we follow a long war policy where we do nothing But continue to bomb nation after nation we can just guarantee that there's something that you know could be called Al-qaeda everywhere from Morocco to the Philippines right like this forever You think it'd be impossible, but Fox News shows it's 71% of those pulled say US troops are needed in Yemen Man oh man 71 all right.
Thanks Gary appreciate your time man.
Okay.
Thanks.
God everybody That's Gary loop from counter punch org Check him out
