NEWSWEEK WEB EXCLUSIVE, Sep. 14, 2001
	
	Arnaud de Borchgrave, United Press International
	editor-at-large, interviews Pakistan ISI Chief 
	General Hamid Gul

	"The attacks against the twin towers started at
	8:45 a.m. and four flights are diverted from their
	assigned air space and no air traffic controller
	sounds the alarm. And no Air Force jets scramble
	until 10 a.m. That also smacks of a small scale Air
	Force rebellion, a coup against the Pentagon
	perhaps? Radars are jammed, transponders fail. No
	IFF -- friend or foe identification -- challenge.
	In Pakistan, if there is no response to IFF, jets
	are instantly scrambled and the aircraft is shot
	down with no further questions asked. This was
	clearly an inside job. Bush was afraid and rushed
	to the shelter of a nuclear bunker. He clearly
	feared a nuclear situation. Who could that have
	been? Will that also be hushed up in the
	investigation, like the Warren report after the
	Kennedy assassination?"

	De Borchgrave: So who did Black Sept. 11?

	Gul: Mossad and its accomplices. The U.S. spends
	$40 billion a year on its 11 intelligence agencies.
	That's $400 billion in 10 years. Yet the Bush
	Administration says it was taken by surprise. I
	don't believe it. Within 10 minutes of the second
	twin tower being hit in the World Trade Center CNN
	said Osama bin Laden had done it. That was a
	planned piece of disinformation by the real
	perpetrators. It created an instant mindset and put
	public opinion into a trance, which prevented even
	intelligent people from thinking for themselves.

	Q: So you're already convinced bin Laden didn't do
	it?

	A: I know bin Laden and his associates. I've been
	with them here, in Europe and the Middle East. They
	are graduates of the best universities and are
	highly intelligent with impressive degrees and
	speak impeccable English. These are people who have
	rediscovered fundamental Islamic values. Many come
	from the Gulf countries where ruling royal families
	have generated hatred by the way they flout divine
	law, wasting billions on gratifying their whims,
	jetting around in large private jets by themselves,
	and sailing the Mediterranean in big private boats
	for weeks on end. Osama's best recruits come from
	feudal areas that are U.S. protectorates and where
	millions of poor people are seeking human dignity.
	I have even visited a Christian convent school in
	Murree, 60 miles from here, where my 13-year-old
	daughter is studying. The young girls there have
	told me Osama is their hero. Osama's followers
	identify with Mujahideen freedom fighters wherever
	they are defending Islam and its values.

	Q: So what makes you think Osama wasn't behind
	Sept. 11?

	A: From a cave inside a mountain or a peasant's
	hovel? Let's be serious. Osama inspires countless
	millions by standing up for Islam against American
	and Israeli imperialism. He doesn't have the means
	for such a sophisticated operation.

	Q: Why Mossad?

	A: Mossad and its American associates are the
	obvious culprits. Who benefits from the crime? The
	attacks against the twin towers started at 8:45
	a.m. and four flights are diverted from their
	assigned air space and no air traffic controller
	sounds the alarm. And no Air Force jets scramble
	until 10 a.m. That also smacks of a small scale Air
	Force rebellion, a coup against the Pentagon
	perhaps? Radars are jammed, transponders fail. No
	IFF -- friend or foe identification -- challenge.
	In Pakistan, if there is no response to IFF, jets
	are instantly scrambled and the aircraft is shot
	down with no further questions asked. This was
	clearly an inside job. Bush was afraid and rushed
	to the shelter of a nuclear bunker. He clearly
	feared a nuclear situation. Who could that have
	been? Will that also be hushed up in the
	investigation, like the Warren report after the
	Kennedy assassination?

	Q: At this point, someone might be asking what
	you've been smoking. What is Israel's interest in
	such a monstrous plot, which, of course, no one
	believes except Islamist extremists who concocted
	this piece of disinformation in the first place,
	presumably to detract from the real culprits?

	A: Jews never agreed to Bush 41 (George H.W. Bush,
	the 41st president) or 43 (his son George W. Bush,
	the 43rd president). They made sure Bush senior
	didn't get a second term. His land-for-peace
	pressure in Palestine didn't suit Israel. They were
	also against the young Bush because he was
	considered too close to oil interests and the Gulf
	countries. Bush senior and Jim Baker had raised
	$150 million for Bush junior, much of it from
	Mideast sources or their American go-betweens. Bush
	41 and Baker, as private citizens, had also
	facilitated the new strategic relationship between
	Saudi Arabia and Iran. I have this from sources in
	both countries. So clearly the prospect of a Bush
	43 was a potential danger to Israel.

	Jews were stunned by the way Bush stole the
	election in Florida. They had put big money on Al
	Gore. Israel has given its imperialist guardian
	parent opportunities to turn disaster into a
	pretext for imposing an all-encompassing military,
	political and economic agenda to further the cause
	of global capitalism. While Colin Powell is
	cautious and others are reckless and want to make
	up for their failure to defeat Saddam Hussein in
	the Gulf War 10 years ago, the global agenda is the
	same.

	Israel knows it has a short shelf-life before it is
	overwhelmed by demographics. It is a state that was
	born in terrorism that terrorized Palestinians into
	the exile of refugee camps, where they have now
	subsisted in squalid refugee camps, and is now very
	much afraid of Pakistan's nuclear capability.

	Israel has now handed the Bush family the
	opportunity it has been waiting for to consolidate
	America's imperial grip on the Gulf and acquire
	control of the Caspian basin by extending its
	military presence in Central Asia. Bush
	conveniently overlooks -- or is not told -- the
	fact that Islamic fundamentalists got their big
	boost in the modern age as CIA assets in the covert
	campaign I was also involved with to force the
	Soviets out of Afghanistan. Bush senior was vice
	president during that entire campaign. And no
	sooner did he become president on Jan. 20, 1989,
	than he summoned an inter-agency intelligence
	meeting and issued an order, among several others,
	to clip the wings of ISI (Pakistani Inter-Services
	Intelligence) that had been coordinating the entire
	operation in Afghanistan. I know this firsthand as
	I was DGISI at the time (director general, ISI).

	Q: So how do you read U.S. strategy in Pakistan?

	A: The destabilization of Pakistan is part of the
	U.S. plan because it is a Muslim nuclear state. The
	U.S. wants to isolate Pakistan from China as part
	of its containment policy. President Nixon's book
	"The Real War" said China would be the superpower
	of the 21st Century. The U.S. is also creating
	hostility between Pakistan and Afghanistan, two
	Muslim states to reverse the perception that the
	Islamic world now has its own nuclear weapons. Bush
	43 doesn't realize he is being manipulated by
	people who understand geopolitics. He is not
	leading but being led. All he can do is think in
	terms of the wanted-dead-or-alive culture, which is
	how Hollywood conditions the masses to think and
	act.

	All summer long we heard about America's shrinking
	surplus and that the Pentagon would not have
	sufficient funds to modernize for the 21st century.
	And now, all of a sudden, the Pentagon can get what
	it wants without any Democratic Party opposition.
	How very convenient! Even your cherished civil
	liberties can now be abridged with impunity to
	protect the expansion of the hegemony of
	transnational capitalism. There is now a new excuse
	to crush anti-globalization protests.

	Bush 43 follows Bush 41. Iraq was baited into the
	Kuwaiti trap when the U.S. told Saddam it was not
	interested in his inter-Arab squabbles. Two days
	later, he moved into Kuwait, which was an Iraqi
	province anyway before the British Empire decreed
	otherwise. Roosevelt baited the Pearl Harbor trap
	for the Japanese empire, which provided the pretext
	for entering World War II.

	And now the Israelis have given the U.S. the
	pretext for further expansion into an area that
	will be critical in the next 25 years - the Caspian
	basin.

	Q: Were you a fundamentalist in the days of the war
	against the Soviets in Afghanistan when you worked
	closely with the CIA?

	A: Not as much as I am today.

	Q: What turned you against America?

	A: Betrayals and broken promises and what was done
	to my army career.

	Q: And what was that?

	A: President Ishaq Khan, who succeeded Zia ul-Haq
	after his plane was blown out of the sky, wanted to
	appoint me chief of staff, the highest position in
	the Pakistani army. The U.S., which by then had
	clipped ISI's wings, also blocked my promotion by
	informing the president I was unacceptable. So I
	was moved to a corps commander position. As ISI
	director, I held the whole Mujahideen movement in
	the palm of my hands. We were all pro-American. But
	then America left us in the lurch and everything
	went to pieces, including Afghanistan.

	The U.S. pushed for a broad-based Afghan government
	of seven factions and then waved goodbye. Even in
	the best of democracies, a broad-based coalition
	does not work. So we quickly had seven jokers in
	Kabul interested in only one thing - jockeying for
	power. The gunplay quickly followed, which led to
	the creation of Taliban, the students of the
	original Mujahideen, who decided to put an end to
	it.

	Q: What happened to the 1,000 shoulder-fired
	Stinger anti-aircraft missiles that were supplied
	by president Reagan in 1986 and 87 to the
	Mujahideen, and that literally grounded the Soviet
	air force?

	A: After the Soviets pulled out, the CIA allocated
	$60 million to try to buy them back. This just
	drove the black market price up for one Stinger
	from $100,000 to $300,000. The Taliban still have
	about 250 of them for the kind of situation they
	face today against U.S. aircraft.

	Q: Is the U.S. now your enemy?

	A: Is the U.S. national interest in contradiction
	with the Muslim world? The U.S. needs oil, as do
	its European allies. You have between 6 and 8
	million American Muslims and their ranks are
	growing. About the same number in Europe. Israel
	aside, we are America's natural allies. Prof. Sam
	Huntington in his "Clash of Civilizations" puts
	Confucius and Judeo-Christians in one corner, and
	us in the other. His prescription is wrong but is
	being adopted by Bush 43 who has now put 60
	countries on his hit list. This is the diabolical
	school that wants to launch an anti-Muslim
	"crusade." Muslims understood what Bush meant when
	he used that word.

	We need a meeting, not a clash, of civilizations.
	We are on the brink of disaster. It is time to pull
	back from the brink and reassess before we blow
	ourselves up. The purpose of Islam is service to
	humanity. The time for like-minded people to have a
	meeting of the minds is now.

	Q: But you are against democracy, so how can there
	be a meeting of the minds?

	A: Democracy does not work. Politicians are
	constantly thinking of their next election, not the
	public good, which means, at best, constantly
	shading the truth to hide it from their
	constituents. Their pronouncements are laced with
	lies and the voters are lulled or gulled into
	believing utter nonsense. The Koran says call a
	spade a spade. It is the supreme law and tells
	right from wrong. There is no notion of "my country
	right or wrong" under divine law. The creator's
	will predominates. All if subservient to Allah's
	will and adherence to a set of basic, fundamental
	values.

	Q: So what kind of a system are you advocating?

	A: The world needs a post-modern state system.
	Right now, the nation-state and round the clock
	satellite TV lead people to imitate America's way
	of life. Which is mathematically impossible. You
	have 4 percent of the world's population consuming
	32 percent of the world's resources. The creator
	through Prophet Mohammed said equal distribution.
	Capitalism is the negation of the creator's will.
	It leads to imperialism and unilateralism.

	Q: So what does this post-modern state system look
	like?

	A: A global village under divine order, or we will
	have global bloodshed until good triumphs over
	evil. Islam encapsulates all the principal
	religions and what was handed down 1,400 years ago
	was the normal evolutionary sequel to Judaism and
	Christianity. The prophet's last sermon was a
	universal document of human rights for everyone
	that surpasses everything that came since,
	including America's declaration of independence and
	the U.N. Charter of universal rights. If you
	superimpose true secular values on true Islamic
	values, there is no difference. So surely divine
	law should supersede man-made law. Islam is
	egalitarian, tolerant and progressive. It is the
	wave of the future.

	Q: Marxism also believed that the nation-state
	would eventually wither away.

	A: Socialism jumped the rails when it was co-opted
	by the imperialist Soviet state. Islam believes in
	dynamism, Christianity stands for static statism.
	The pope in all his pronouncements has expressed a
	dogmatic attachment to the status quo. Why are so
	many black Americans converting to Islam? Because
	they are looking for true equality which they
	cannot find under capitalism. Allah has no gender,
	neither male nor female. Islam has no indirect
	taxation in an interest-free economy. Usury was a
	Jewish concept.

	Q: Is Iran your model?

	A: There isn't a single true Islamic state in the
	world today. Iran has moved forward from its 1979
	revolution, but I am not sure whether it's the
	right direction.

	Q: And Taliban?

	A: They represent Islam in its purest form so far.
	It's a clean sheet. And they were also moving in
	the right direction when this crisis was cooked up
	by the U.S. Until Sept. 11, they had perfect law
	and order with no formal police force, only traffic
	cops without sidearms. Now, in less than two weeks,
	they have mobilized some 300,000 volunteers to
	fight American and British invaders if they come.

	Q: And your reaction to U.S. demands on Pakistan?

	A: If Pakistan gives the U.S. base rights we will
	have a national upheaval. And if the U.S. attacks
	Afghanistan, there will be a call -- a fatwa -- for
	a general jihad. All borders will then disappear
	and it will be a no-holds-barred Islamic uprising
	against Israel and American imperialism. Pakistan
	will be engulfed in the firestorm. So I can only
	hope that cooler heads will prevail in Washington.

	Q: What about the other U.S. demands?

	A: Overflight rights are meaningless since the U.S.
	violates air space daily all over the world. As for
	intelligence sharing with ISI, you can't even catch
	your own terrorists. And what ISI gives you will be
	of marginal value anyway.

	Q: President (Pervez) Musharraf has made strong
	statements supporting the U.S.

	A: He was my student in the army. He is a good man,
	but he doesn't understand Islam. The army will
	never fight the masses. If push comes to shove,
	Musharraf will say no to the Americans rather than
	turn against the people. He is not just facing a
	handful of angry people. By his own admission, it's
	10 percent to 15 percent of the population, or at
	least 10 million people willing to fight. For
	openers, they would close the port of Karachi. A
	country cannot breathe without lungs.

	Q: Back to Osama's terrorist network. Who was
	behind the bombing of the U.S. Embassies in
	Tanzania and Kenya?

	A: Mossad is strong in both countries. Remember the
	Israeli operation to free hostages in Entebbe
	(Uganda)? Both Kenya and Tanzania were part of the
	logistical tail. A so-called associate of Osama was
	framed at Karachi airport. The incidents took place
	on Aug. 8, 1999, and on the 10th a short,
	clean-shaven man disembarks at Karachi airport and
	presents the passport of a bearded man. Not your
	passport, he was told. He then tries to bribe the
	clerk with 200 rupees. A ludicrously small sum
	given the circumstances. The clerk says no and
	turns him in and he starts singing right away. Not
	plausible. Osama has sworn to me on the Koran it
	was not him and he is truthful to a fault. Pious
	Muslims do not kill innocent civilians who included
	many Muslim victims. The passport must have been
	switched while the man was asleep on the plane in
	what has all the earmarks of a Mossad operation.
	For 10 years, the Mujahideen fought the Soviets in
	Afghanistan and not a single Soviet embassy was
	touched anywhere in the world. So this could not
	have been Osama's followers.

	Q: What if bin Laden has been lying to you and is
	guilty. Is that inconceivable?

	A: If Taliban are given irrefutable evidence of his
	guilt, I am in favor of a fair trial. In America,
	one is entitled to a jury of peers. But he has no
	American peers. The Taliban would not object, in
	the event of a prima face case, to an international
	Islamic court meeting in The Hague. They would turn
	extradite Osama to the Netherlands.

	
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