9/11: Profit Motives Help Bin Laden

Pakistan Signs Peace with Taliba'an on Eve of Tragedy

By Ahmar Khan

ST. MARY'S TODAY

Tears fill eyes just to think about what happened that day.

The 9/11 attacks were the most horrendous attacks in history on U.S. soil,
deadlier than Pearl Harbor. Five years after the deadly 9/11 attacks,
terrorist mastermind Osama bin Laden is still hiding in Pakistan, though
President Bush had declared at that time, "Wanted Dead or Alive."

A news item on Fox Television network Thursday was asking "Pakistan: Friend
or Foe?"

The fact that bin Laden is successfully eluding American justice clearly
shows that with friends like Pakistan, the U.S. does not need any enemies.
Bin Laden is not a western terrorist hiding in a dirty, obscure hotel room
in Rome like one sees in the movies. At any given time, if he is in the
remote tribal areas, which Pakistan coup leader General Pervez Musharraf
says is out of bounds for his army, bin Laden is surrounded by a couple of
hundred loyal guards. Pakistan army's lie was exposed when they raided and
killed a pro-U.S. secular tribal leader and popular former head of a state
government in an even more remote area on August 26.

Bin Laden is well entrenched in Pakistan's power orbit, spending millions in
the county's politics. The reason Pakistan is not handing him over dead or
live is once that is done, Musharraf fears the U.S. will interest in his
army-controlled regime.

At the time of 9/11 attacks, President Bush declared he considered countries
who harbor terrorists as enemies of the U.S. Subsequently the U.S. forces
removed the despicable Taliba'an regime in Kabul. The point that was lost to
the U.S. public was the Taliba'an were nothing, but show boys of Pakistan's
intelligence service, named the Inter Services Intelligence, more infamous
by its acronym I.S.I.

Before the U.S. launched its Afghanistan offensive, the Pakistanis were
allowed to take planeloads of their spooks out of Afghanistan. No questions
were ever asked of them. Two months later in spite of a U.S. dragnet, Bin
Laden and top Al Qaeda leadership managed to flee Afghanistan into Pakistan
amid heavy U.S. bombardment.

Five months after the 9/11, Wall Street Journal's investigative journalist
Daniel Pearl was kidnapped and his killers later released videotapes showing
his throat being slit. His executioner was a Briton of Pakistani origin,
Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh.              .  Sheikh was the same man who
bankrolled the monies to the 9/11 terrorists in the U.S. As a search was
launched, the killer was staying as a guest of a top security official.

Musharraf came on record to blame Pearl for his death. He said the slain
journalist invited his death by being "over-inquisitive"!

One man, whose name has surfaced both in the 9/11 attacks and Pearl's
subsequent execution, got covered up was the then chief of Pakistan's
I.S.I., General Mehmud Ahmed. Pearl was actually trying to expose his role
in the 9/11 attacks. Interestingly, the monies for the 9/11 terrorists were
reportedly bankrolled to the terrorists from Pakistan under the General
Ahmed's instructions. General Ahmed was in the U.S. on September 11, 2001!

General Ahmed was among a handful of generals who catapulted Musharraf into
power.

When President Bush only wanted the Taliba'an to surrender bin Laden,
Pakistan army sent a team of Muslim clerics  to ask them to surrender bin
Laden. Under General Ahmed's instruction, they were asking the Taliba'an to
fight to the finish instead. The U.S. was furious to learn about this
double-faced policy and Musharraf was forced to fire his mentor, General
Ahmed.

It's not only a question of bin Laden. An equally dangerous man is the
father of the Islamic Bomb, Dr Abdul Qadeer Khan. Pakistan is the world's
only Islamic nuclear power. Dr Khan is sought by the U.S. for questioning in
supplying nuclear technology to Iran and North Korea. The army generals have
refused to hand him over to the U.S. fearing he would spill the beans on the
percentage they got in kick-backs when he supplied the nuclear technology to
Iran and North Korea.

Strangely enough General Musharraf gave a gift to the U.S. on the eve of the
fifth anniversary by signing a ceasefire agreement with the Taliba'an and Al
Qaeda forces in a remote tribal territory North Waziristan, bordering
Afghanistan. This happened when the U.S. stepped up pressure on the Al Qaeda
across the border inside Afghanistan. But in Kabul, General Musharraf
declared he will resolutely fight the Al Qaeda. Clearly, the words and deeds
of the General contradict each another.

Pakistan is today the Al Qaeda headquarters. From time to time the army-run
government there throws out one or two of the terrorists at the U.S. and
Pakistan's army generals' lies find President Bush's willing ear.

In spite of all these dangers, arms sales and supplies to Pakistan
continues, bringing a windfall of profit to the defense manufacturers. The
question the U.S. administration might want to ask itself on the fifth
anniversary of the 9/11 attacks is whether the profit interests of companies
like Lockheed Martin and Bell Helicopters Textron, manufacturing F-16s and
Cobra choppers respectively, that are supplied to Pakistan, are more
important than the security interests of the U.S.?