Regardless of what you think of Pepe Escobar this article is
interesting and raises many salient points. I found myself hooked at the
beginning when he started talking about Ahmad Shah Massoud. I remember very
well where I was on 9 September 2001 when the news came over the radio that he
had been killed. We had just bought an old fixer-upper schoolhouse turned
domicile and I was poking around on that Sunday afternoon thinking about the
repairs that needed to be done. The radio was tuned to NPR and the story of
Massoud's death broke leaving me startled. I had been following Afghanistan for
some time and his death was a pretty big deal. You definitely felt like
something was going to happen, something would change.
And like I've mentioned in previous writings I believe the US
was pushing for a war in Afghanistan. I had sensed this by the late 1990's and
by 2000 it was clear that Kabul was in the Pentagon's sights. The way the media
hyped the destruction of the Bamiyan Buddhas in March of 2001 and the way they
kept highlighting the Taliban's treatment of women, it seemed certain that some
kind of confrontation was coming. The US had since 1991 entered this new and
certainly 'strange' phase of international relations. There was no 'big enemy'
out there and yet the US seemed to be looking for one.
Massoud's death seemed to be a harbinger but I pressed on
with daily life. When the attacks came Tuesday morning, I immediately thought
of Afghanistan. My boss came in and informed me of what had happened. I didn't
have a mobile phone. His wife had called him to tell him what was happening. I
said the US will be attacking Afghanistan. He didn't seem to see the
connection. Of course the connection was mostly bogus as the Taliban had
nothing to do with it. But for those watching it was clear that this was the
gift (or excuse) the US had been looking for.
For some time I had been following the machinations of the US
with regard to Iraq and the Balkans. My 'red pill' moment had come in 1995 and
was in conjunction with my embrace of the Christian faith. I had been running
from God for years and yet it was at that point that I finally read the Bible
seriously and in faith. It opened my eyes and right away I realised so many of
the Christian beliefs I had been instilled with growing up were in fact
completely wrong. In addition to the Dispensationalism, the Right-wing
politics, nationalism and many of the values I had assumed to be Christian were
revealed as not only astray but in many cases utterly false and antithetical to
New Testament doctrine and ethics.
I began the process of disentangling myself from the US
military. It took a little over a year but I got out and began a new life. I
was alive and awake and thus my vision and focus during the period before 9/11
and after was on a completely different path than most of the Christians I knew
and interacted with.
The more I studied the Scriptures, history and current events
the more I became alarmed by the trajectory of the United States, its culture
and certainly the state of Evangelicalism. It was changing and rapidly at that.
September 11 would represent a paradigm shift not just for the culture but even
for the Church... a Church I began to see as not just wayward but heretical and
even apostate.
I remember in 2003 I was driving through the Arkansas Ozarks
listening to Tariq Ali speak on 'Bush in Babylon' and it shocked me. Why was
this unbeliever speaking more truth than most of the Christian commentators and
experts that I knew? From 2001-2003 I had been appalled to watch the lies
unfold, lies surrounding 9/11, the events leading up to it, the moves taken
after it and the great propaganda campaign waged against the American public.
And I watched the Christian-Evangelical response to it all. They were fully on
board with the lies, the manipulations and the march toward mass murder,
bombing and the tearing asunder of the Middle East and eventually Africa.
Like I said I had already 'red pilled' (as they say) before
9/11 but that moment sure changed everything. I reflect on it often but of
course in a completely different vein than most of the public and certainly
most of the Church. About once a year I re-watch the footage from that day and
spend a couple of hours digging up news clips surrounding those events and the
days after. It's not a remembrance exercise but a revisiting of a watershed
moment in history, a crime, a tragedy, a labyrinth of lies and deceit on all
fronts. What the hijackers did was wicked but they weren't the only ones
hatching evil plots on that day.
Like Escobar, several years before 2001 I appreciated the
work of Mike Ruppert even when I couldn't always agree with everything he said.
Certainly his general worldview was flawed and yet for a lost person trying to
make sense of it all, his quest for truth put most Evangelicals to shame. They
were too busy marching toward war, cheerleading their messianic president,
whitewashing history and in some cases making the case for Greater Israel. Sold
out to the military machine, many if not most Evangelicals hung out their flags
and participated in all the idolatry that flooded the Church. There was a great
evil at work within the visible Body of Christ. It had been infiltrated. It was
at this time I began to understand that infiltration wasn't something that
happened in the 1990's. Rather it had happened decades and in some cases
centuries before. 9/11 was simply another vehicle for further infiltration and
it turned the page, bringing the false church and its myriad false teachers to
a new chapter, one in which the required subtleties of previous eras could be
abandoned. The enemies of Christ could operate openly and boldly. They could
blaspheme from the pulpit and teach God's people to commit idolatry and murder.
The hirelings twisted the truth and grew rich in the process. They were and are
the Sophists of our era.
Eighteen years later there are now some voices that are
calling for restraint and reflection. Some have realised 'this patriotism thing'
has been taken a little too far. And yet their course corrections are like
trying to hold a shutter open in the midst of a hurricane. They're not really
making any progress because despite their uneasiness and misgivings they
haven't even begun to question the larger system... the system that their
congregations are plugged into and deeply invested in. Until that happens,
there will be no change and precious few will be able to examine and understand
what has happened over the past thirty years. Why thirty? Because to understand
2001 and what came after you really need to go back to 1989 and the fall of the
Berlin Wall and the death throes of the USSR.
Escobar highlights the plots and subplots of the
9/11-Afghanistan connections. There are the back-stories which are largely
ignored and in some cases forgotten. It's a story of pipelines and drugs. This
sounds silly to some but it's only because they haven't been paying attention.
These were not new concerns. Whether Peak Oil proves true or not the notion of
a 'scramble' for resources was becoming all too clear in the 1990's and this
continues to play no small role in America's larger global strategy and its
many ongoing wars. It's about getting the resources and controlling them and
keeping them out of other's hands. Drugs have played a large part in the US
shadow economy since the end of World War II. From Southeast Asia, to Latin America,
to Central Asia these drugs have funded wars, black ops and US Deep State
machinations for decades. Billions of dollars have flowed through the Western
banking system and this dirty money is intimately tied in with politics. People
have grown rich and people have died. Why won't CNN, MSNBC or FOX pursue these
questions? Because their owners are either part of it, invested in it or answer
to those who are.
Escobar raises a very salient point with regard to Trump's
Afghan diplomacy. China is most certainly waiting in the wings as is the SCO. An
Afghanistan plugged into China's OBOR project will represent a defeat for not
only US imperialism but the aspirations of India. The funny thing is that 18
years after 9/11 the situation has not been resolved. If anything it's only
grown more complicated. The Great Game afoot in Central Asia has grown more
complex and the stakes are even higher. Trump the amateur, Trump the naive,
Trump the buffoon has waded into deep waters and while we don't know all the
details of the cancellation of the Camp David summit with the Taliban, it seems
obvious that someone or some forces within the US Deep State got through to him
and made it clear that such a 'peace' was unacceptable.
Now it would seem that China is stepping in and trying to
broker the peace. This will certainly anger more than one sector within
Washington.
Those of us who were aware of the PNAC agenda and
Brzezinski's Chessboard in the years
before 9/11 had a sense of what was to come... an endless war and the end of
society as we knew it. Despite the guesses no one could fully fathom the
changes that would take place in terms of law and the Constitution. We knew
about Echelon and we knew that technology would play a part in what was to come
but in the late 1990's no one could have guessed what would happen to the world
of computing and phones. Social media, Smartphones, the willing surrender of
privacy and the many other changes that have taken place were beyond anyone's
guess or wildest dream.
The funny business surrounding 9/11 appeared right way and
despite the many attempts to debunk the questions, they nevertheless remain.
Will we ever know what really happened that day? I don't think so. It's
reminiscent of Dallas in November 1963. In both cases the official narratives
touted and celebrated by the media and all the institutions of power are
fictitious and yet the truth is buried under multiple and nearly impenetrable layers
of obscurity. I personally have become convinced that there are active
disinformation campaigns at work. Such campaigns have been talked about for
decades and they are still being advocated. Despite the doubters it clearly
happened in the 1960's and if the Praetorians believe their paradigm is under
threat they won't hesitate to employ such methods again. Counter-intelligence
relies on propaganda and provocateurs. If you've read the right kind of books
this sort of thing isn't new. The question is, does the government do this
within the United States. For me the answer is an unequivocal and uncomplicated
'yes'.
When one wades into the muck of conspiracies surrounding
events like 9/11 and the Kennedy Assassination, I think the waters become
deliberately muddied and to such an extent that you can't work out the details.
The only hope you have is to step back and take in the big picture. I'll be
honest. Most people can't do it. Without a solid working knowledge of geography,
history, timelines and a sense of how the world systems work and interrelate...
you're lost in a labyrinth. It's a labyrinth even for those who 'sort of' know
their way around.
But one thing becomes clear... there's more to 9/11 than the
official narrative. WTC 7 alone is sufficient to prove that and yet that's just
the tip of the iceberg. Do I embrace all the theories about the Pentagon,
Flight 93 etc.? Of course not, but just because there are mistaken ideas out
there doesn't give credence and vindication to the official narrative. The same
is true with regard to Dallas. Oswald did not act alone. The Warren Report is
fiction. Now was Oswald in a grand conspiracy with the Anti-Castro (or
pro-Castro) Cubans, mafia and the CIA? I wouldn't put it that way and yet all
those groups were involved. Was the Warren Report a deliberate cover-up or just
sloppy investigation? Again, these are open questions. I have my opinions to be
sure but I'm circumspect and suspicious of the grand claims made by some.
I'm pleased that Escobar brings up Robert Mueller. Until the
media's touting of him as a man of integrity, many of us knew him as one of the
chief agents of the great cover-up and one of the architects and implementers
of the post-9/11 war on the Constitution. A villain if ever there was one, the
term 'integrity' doesn't belong on the same page as his name. In terms of his
post 9/11 role he played the same integral part that his predecessor (J Edgar
Hoover) played in the wake of the Kennedy Assassination. These people should be
villains in the eyes of the public. But as is so often the case, the opposite
happens and these are the guys that get buildings named after them.
I have gone back and forth in my opinions regarding the
events of that day and I don't even agree with every point raised by Escobar.
Nevertheless the questions need to be asked. At this point can any real change
be made? No, we live in a different country. Our culture has changed radically
since 2001 and certainly politics and law enforcement have changed and refuse
to look back. But what continues to disturb me is that people don't seem to
remember. Memories are short. They don't remember what it was like before 9/11.
They can't seem to remember how people used to think, speak and behave. Between
the social, political and technological changes everyone just seems to be in a brainwashed
dream. They've embraced it all without even realising it. And then of course
what's also disturbing is to encounter the people that were school kids at the
time, who are now full-fledged adults. They came of age after these events and
in the midst of the change. They barely seem able to conceive what someone like
me is talking about. These are generalisations to be sure and some have argued
that the younger generation is starting to wake up to certain aspects of this.
Are they? Given the way they're addicted to their phones and social media I'm
not so sure but I hope so.
In the meantime the War on Terror has drifted and morphed
into a permanent state of Global War. The Pentagon doesn't even pretend
anymore. Al Qaeda is barely on the radar anymore and in some cases functions as
a US ally or asset. 2011 launched what I have called War on Terror 2.0 as the
US began to shift toward Syria and Libya with greater focus on the African
theatre. The ISIS interlude proved the climax of WoT 2.0, but by the end of the
Obama era the Global War which had always been present was now openly on the
table... Russia, China and Iran were revealed to be the real strategic enemies.
It's a new 'axis' and yet the context is no longer terror but geopolitics,
economics and US determination to maintain global unipolarity. And yet the
Middle Eastern wars continue and will for the foreseeable future. The US has
laboured with no small degree of success to roll back the 'Pink Tide' in Latin
America. Gains have been made in Africa but the US Establishment is divided
over questions surrounding NATO vis-à-vis Russia and whether or not to throw
all its energy, determination and malice in the direction of Beijing.
History marches on and another generation will revisit this
period. Academics will whitewash it and soften out the edges. Others will decry
this period but it won't matter. At that point it's a battle over academic
standing, publishing and tenure. This is the way of things.
But in the meantime close to two million people have died as
a result of these wars and they have set the stage for many more deaths either
through crossfire or through the destruction of societies and the famine and
suffering that result. The warmongers and masters couldn't care less. The dead
are beyond contempt. They are worthless pawns. They just want to stop the waves
of immigration. Sadly many who profess Christ have adopted this violent
imperialist worldview and have the audacity to call it 'Biblical'.
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