Turgut Ozal; Visionary and Builder of Modern Turkey

Turgut Ozal; Visionary and Builder of Modern Turkey

 

"You know, I am also an engineer" he said to me , looking up from my bio-data , somewhat to my surprise. He was Turgut Ozal , president of the republic of Turkey , to whom I had just presented my letters of credence ( September ,1992) and along with foreign minister Hikmet Cetin ,I had just set down for the customary audience. This meeting lasted for nearly 50 minutes , with Hikmet Bay mostly a silent listener. When we emerged , a worried looking chief of protocol pacing up and down told me that normally such talks lasted 20 minutes or so.

 

Curiously three of the most powerful and durable leaders since the 1960s coup until the unexpected triumph and takeover of Turkey in end 2002 by Riyadh financed Islamist Justice and Development party (AKP) under Recep Tayep Erdogan ,were all contemporaries at Istanbul's Technical University  and had known each other .The other two being; Sueleyman Demirel , the eldest and seven times prime minister and the president and Nacamattin Erbakan , who when refused a ticket for elections in mid-1960s by Demirel founded his own political party and injected Islam into Turkish politics. Erbakan became the first ever Islamist prime minister to head a coalition in 1996 , a post he was  asked to vacate by the military for promoting religion in politics .Erbakan's proteges , Abdullah Gul and Edogan are now entrenched as the president and prime minister respectively at the head of a secular republic with help from yesil surmaye ( green money ) from Saudi Arabia . Gul had worked at the Islamic Development Bank in Jeddah for 7 years before returning to join hands with Erbakan in 1991.

 

Ozal took advantage of knowing Demirel , who when prime minister in 1960s and 70s helped the former into key bureaucratic appointments including as his Under Secretary until the 1980 military takeover .After the 1971 half coup which forced Demirel to resign, Ozal left Turkey and  studied in USA , worked in private and state sector , an experience which led to his being appointed as deputy PM in charge of economy when the military took over power in 1980 .Leaving Demirel behind , a cause of some heartburn, Ozal  surpassed his mentor ,established his own party ,True Path party (DYP), won elections in 1983 and became PM (President Gen Kenan Evren and other generals would have preferred a party they had supported). Ozal then got himself elected as a civilian president , a first since 1960 in 1989 even though his party's popularity was declining .

 

There were reasons for my long audience with Turgut Ozal .I had first met with him at a dinner at the Indian embassy in 1971 , when he was head of the state planning department and then in 1986 during his visit to India as prime minister. While awaiting dates for the ceremony I had been to our Consulate General in Izmir in west Turkey for the annual trade fair and had flown to our Consulate General in Istanbul for the independence day celebrations ; again revisiting unmatched museums, bazaars , historic mosques and Palaces in Istanbul, my most favourite foreign city ,laid across a spectacular Bosporus separating Asia and Europe .

 

And on way to and back by car from Izmir, the old Smyrna, Homer's birth place (where Aristotle Onasis too lived) I marvelled anew at nearby richest architectural site of Ephesus, the Carian city of St Paul's church, Virgin Mary is believed to be buried nearby (Scylax, from whose navigation of Indus for Persian Emperor Darius, the West knew first of India, was from Caryanda, also a Carian city); Priene, the spectacular Ionian city, whose oracle along with neighbouring Didim's was as well known as Delphi's.And ofcourse ,one of my favourite sites ,Miletus of 6th century BC, of the first thinkers;Thales, Anneximender, Anneximenes, spiritual forefathers of Socrates, Plato and Aristotle, where the roots of Greek and Western philosophy germinated.And of course near capital city Ankara itself ,  the Phyrigian Gordion (of its Knot and oracle fame ), of King Midas of the golden touch, Sardis, the Lydian capital and Persian Acheamenean Empire's outpost in Asia Minor of King Croceaus .

 

While Turkey's economic and industrial progress when Ozal was prime minister had been admired and documented in international media, I was pleasantly surprised at the tremendous strides in agriculture and forestation .During my first tenure (1969-73) one had to drive a good 50/60 kilometers from Ankara to find a shady shrub growth for a summer picnic outing ,but by 1992 , new highways were well lined with trees and grass . During winters in Ankara , the only vegetables available were potatoes , onions, cabbage and if you rubbed something dusty ,you guessed it might be carrots .And green chilies were sold like gold .Now, most vegetables including brinjals ,tomatoes, peas, beans , cucumbers ,okras and others were readily available year round ,cultivated down south in Antalya , Izmir and elsewhere where the Sun shines brightly in winters, under plastic hot house cultivation. And also attracting millions of tourists during winter months too on Turkish Rivera along the Aegean and Mediterranean Seas littered with ancient monuments and antiquities from Turkey's forty civilisations. 

 

So after Ozal had mentally checked the dates of my meetings with him earlier , I told him about the transformation in Turkey since my last posting .He was very pleased since he was credited with lifting the Turks by boot straps and putting them into an industrial age .When Iranian president Ali Akbar Rafsanjani visited Ankara in early 1993, he joked with Ozal that during his bus travel from Iranian border to Ankara in later 1970s , he got a dozen offers for his transistor radio. Ozal proudly gifted him with Turkish made music systems, TVs, video players. I remember buying terrylene shirts, mixies and even stationary from Beirut while flying from India to Ankara during 1969-73.

 

A relaxed Ozal asked me to report to him after my visits around Turkey .(Alas he passed away early next year and was replaced by Suleiman Demirel.) But Ozal was surprised that I had not visited Turkey since 1973 even though I had been posted nearby at Amman and Bucharest .I replied that I had wanted a longer stay in Turkey and not just a fleeting visit .I am sure his press advisor Kaya Toperi ,a good friend since he was counselor in New Delhi in mid 1960s must have informed him that my posting to Ankara which all my past friends were waiting for in 1988 was cancelled at the behest of a feudal Thakur hating Jat politician bad mouthing me to Rajiv Gandhi for reasons best known to him (there were some dark allegations connected to his erratic behavior in London.) 

 

Coming from a conservative and religious family of average means in Malatya in central east Turkey ,away from Istanbul and Ankara, Ozal rose from the periphery of the Turkish society to high echelons of public and private power in 1960s and 1970s and finally the presidency in 1989 .His conservative Islamist roots are evident because in 1970s he tried to enter  politics as a candidate of Erbakan's National Salvation Party (the MSP) but did not win .But his Islamist outlook subsequently proved to be an advantage in his search for broad-based public support as a political leader.

 

While he would walk hand in hand with wife Semra or publicly sip wine , he said that a human being needed some spiritual support and solace in this life .Not for him the dry anti- religious Jacobin crusade against Islam of Republican Peoples party (RPP).

 

Ozal was a statesman with great vision and drive .In a single decade by combing in himself the role of a technocrat and a reformist politician ,he organised Turkey's swift recovery from the deep economic crisis of late 1970s by enhancing the credibility of the stabilization-cum-structural adjustment program because of his unusually diverse background in economic bureaucracy, private business and international organizations by garnering support from international institutions like the OECD, the IMF and the World Bank.

 

Ozal would jokingly relate how he would wear layers of stockings for his wife when returning from USA in 1970s .With hard currency shortage Ankara could not afford to import coffee , home of Turkish coffee, so the first thing he did when he got power in 1980 was to  allow limited import of coffee ostensibly for the tourists .

 

 By end 1996 Turkish economy had advanced enough to enter into a Customs Union Agreement with the Europe Union - ie, exports and imports are not subject to duties. Turkey soon captured the white-goods market in the EU.

 

There were however some negative aspects of Ozal's fast economic transformation. This was  because of a  tendency to underestimate the importance of the rule of law and the need to develop a strong legal infrastructure for a well-functioning market economy. Ozal's preference was for rule by decrees, hence bypassing normal parliamentary procedures and constraints. His vision was some what typical presidential characterized by the absence of checks and balances and grant of enormous powers to key individuals. While this is useful in terms of the ability to undertake decisions rapidly and overcome powerful interest group pressures, it undermines longer-term viability of the process. Indeed, the origins of the significant increase in corruption in the Turkish economy during the course of the 1990s might be considered as a direct result of the Ozal era of the 1980s, specially the failure to penalize the misuse of export subsidies during the mid- 1980s. It had a rather devastating consequences later on .

 

Ozal and Turkey's Kurdish Problem

Ozal also tried to resolve Turkey's serious problem with its Kurds, who form 20% of the population and are concentrated in south east, north of Iraqi Kurdistan . A rebellion since 1984 against the Turkish state led by now imprisoned Abdullah Ocalan of the Marxist Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) has cost nearly 40,000 lives, including 5,000 soldiers. To control and neutralize the rebellion, thousands of Kurdish villages have been bombed, destroyed, abandoned or relocated; millions of Kurds have been moved to shanty towns in the south and east or migrated westwards. The economy of the region remains shattered. A third of the Turkish army remains tied up in the southeast, the cost of countering the insurgency at its height amounted to between $6 billion to $8 billion a year. 

 

The rebellion died down after the arrest in Kenya and trial of Ocalan in 1999, but has not been eradicated. It erupts from time to time .Recently tens of Turkish soldiers were killed in south east Turkey by PKK raising the ante . But most of the PKK cadre is now ensconced in north Iraq mountains. Sources in Kurdish nationalist circles indicate that Washington is letting them there to be used as pawns against Ankara. Ocalan was used by Syria , where he was resident ,before under Turkish threats ,he was expelled in 1999 and also by Greeks and other European states to extract concessions from Ankara. This is realpolitik!

 

Basically the British as in many other countries are responsible for creating the Kurdish problem. They had occupied oil rich Kirkuk now in Iraqi Kurdistan in the wake of  WWI in spite of a ceasefire .London then helped and organised ethnic and religion based insurgencies and conspiracies against the new secular Turkish republic in its south east. So Kemal Ataturk ,founder of the state ,to concentrate on building his nascent nation,  who had talked of various ethnicities and people in the Turkey  including Kurds opted for a unitary state of Turks . Kurdish rebellions in Turkey were ruthlessly suppressed .The word Kurd was banished and disenfranchised .Kurds had to call themselves mountain Turks . In mid 1980s a minister in Ankara was charged when he said that he was a Kurd .The Turks manifest a pervasive distrust of autonomy or models of a federal state for Iraqi Kurds as it would affect and encourage the aspirations of their own Kurds.

 

To tackle this Gordian Knot like problem, Ozal , who had Kurdish blood declared his ancestry publicly and used the word Kurd in mid 1980s. However, before he could take any further measures to heal the wounds and suspicions , he died suddenly .His wife claimed that he was poisoned .Many nationalist Kurds too allege that he was a victim of a conspiracy by vested interests in continuing the rebellion.

 

After the collapse of the Soviet Union ,Washington US wanted Turkey to be promoted as a model for Central Asia's newly independent states and to reach out to ethnic Turkic central Asian republics (CARs) recently freed from Moscow's domination , willingly or unwillingly to counter Iran's influence. But provided little financial help   .Summits held to bring CARs closer to Ankara did not achieve much . But Turks have invested in CARs and provided administrative personnel , teachers , scholarships and other educational and cultural facilities .But the new Turkic presidents wanted to keep all options open .Most wanted to follow the Chinese model but have not succeeded in the economic advancement. Perhaps if Ozal had lived , he might have done something dramatic.

 

India –Turkish  Relations ; Turgut takes the initiative

 

In the mid-1980s, when prime minister ,Ozal was flying back from the East .During a transit halt at the Indian metropolis of Bombay, now known as Mumbai, he was very much taken by the drive and bustle along glittering Marine Drive, which in many ways reminds Turks of their Istanbul on the Bosporus. Ozal was also impressed with Maharashtra's young and intelligent protocol minister .

Before emplaning for Ankara, Ozal told his ambassador, "Perhaps we have neglected this country." (Jawaharlal Nehru's visit to Ankara in 1960 had been the first and last by an Indian prime minister to Turkey) At the subsequent United Nations General Assembly session in New York, Ozal and Indian prime minister Rajiv Gandhi, both leaders with a modern outlook, met and took a liking for each other . Ozal was duly invited to India, an offer that he took up the following year, 1986. Thus high-level exchanges were renewed between India and Turkey, two secular republics with much in common.

 

Rajiv visited Turkey in 1988 .To give a start to industrial and economic cooperation ,Ozal awarded a railway electrification project to Indian RITES with price to be settled bilaterally (During my tenure -1992-96 ,after the completion of the project, an extension was also won by India )

History of Indian-Turkish relations
After its independence in 1947, India found Turkey on the other side of the Cold War divide, so there were few exchanges between them. Indian minister Maulana Abul Kalam Azad did visit Ankara in the 1950s, and signed agreements on educational, cultural and scientific cooperation. Nehru's visit in 1960 turned out to be ill-timed because a few days later the government of prime minister Adnan Menderes was overthrown by the Turkish armed forces. Nehru had insisted and met with Ismet Inonu, Ataturk's right-hand man and successor, then the opposition leader, but only at an embassy reception as the government would not fix an official meeting.

Menderes and his delegation came to the reception only after Inonu had left (after the coup, Menderes was tried and hanged). Inonu had told Nehru not to trust the communists (Chinese), and sent guns to India after the 1962 Chinese invasion of India, despite Pakistani objections.

The Turks maintain that they have always been the ones to take the initiative to normalize bilateral relations with India. As part of widening foreign relations, prime minister Demirel sent his foreign minister, Ihsan Sabri Caglayangil, to India in 1968. This was basically to soften up non-aligned movement leader India's support of Archbishop Makarios on Cyprus, as Turkey's relations with Arab and other Muslim countries had not improved enough on the basis of religious and economic interests. The Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC) had not yet been founded to garner Muslim support against Makarios. But within a decade, India and Turkey became engrossed in their own affairs.

Ozal's visit to India in 1986 and Rajiv Gandhi's visit to Turkey in 1988 were like Demirel attempt in the late 1960s, to broaden and expand Turkey's political and economic relations. Since then there have been regular exchanges of high-level visits, including that of president Shankar Dayal Sharma to Turkey in 1993 and Demirel's return visit in January 1995 to India . Another important visitor in 1996 was Turkey's chief of general staff, General I H Karadayi. The military, then, along with politicians and the secular elite, form the third power center in Turkey's ruling triangle. Sanskrit- and Bengali-literate former prime minister Bulent Ecevit was invited to India during Sharma's visit . A poet and a trade unionist, Ecevit followed the Bhagavad Gita's teachings in his political life and also translated some poems from Tagore's Geetanjali into Turkish.

 

It is the considered opinion of the author , who has kept a watch over Turkey for over 4 decades ,including ten years stay as a diplomat and accredited journalist ( 2 years ), after Kemal Ataturk ,the founder , stabilizer and modernizer of the secular republic of Turkey, Turgut Ozal comes third as the most important leader ,after Ismet Inonu , Ataturk's right hand man and successor as the president of the republic .Inonu kept Turkey out of the WWII , and then helped in laying foundations of multiparty democracy in Turkey.

 

  

11/9 Conspiracy; Excuse for US Reign of Terror in Middle East & South West Asia

11/9 Conspiracy; Excuse for US Reign of Terror in Middle East & South West Asia

 

But Massive Economic Blowback at Home 

 Needed an independent International Commission for 11/

 Richard Clarke says that there must have been a conspiracy within the CIA regarding 11/9 and that though he does not believe that it was intended to make 11/9 happen, it actually allowed 11/9 to happen.( Clarke was counter-terrorism Chief with Bill Clinton and George Bush). 

"It is not unthinkable for former US President George W. Bush to lie about who was responsible for the 9/11 terror attacks on the American soil.-- for some Americans, the deaths of nearly 3,000 people was not the scariest thing about 9/11. It was realizing who carried out the attack: yes, the American Government," Mahathir Mohamad, former Malaysian Prime minister .

"The atrocities against America created the image of Osama bin Laden as the leader of a global jihad upon the West. It was a fantasy that governments willingly, and disastrously, helped to perpetuate-- Al-Qa'ida as a global organisation has always been something of a fiction. Bin Laden may have wanted international reach but, aside from 9/11, seldom achieved it. His propaganda has been accepted as reality by self-interested governments and intelligence agencies with an interest in exaggerating the al-Qa'ida threat to enhance their own authority," Patrick Cockburn in 'the Independent' of 11 September,2011. 

"Recent events surrounding Afghanistan shouldn't confuse anyone, --The US-NATO coalition has lost a war its political leaders never meant, or knew how, to win." Michael Scheuer, former head of the CIA's bin Laden unit.

"We've never made the case, or argued the case that somehow Osama bin Laden was directly involved in 9/11. That evidence has never been forthcoming," Vice President Dick Cheney admitted as much in an interview with Tony Snow on 29 March 2006.   It was argued that Cheney made a slip of the tongue, but it is a fact that no evidence linking Osama bin Laden to 9/11 has been forthcoming. 

"The war in Iraq is a historic strategic and moral calamity undertaken under false assumptions – undermining America's global legitimacy – collateral civilian casualties, – abuses, – tarnishing America's moral credentials. Driven by Manichean impulses and imperial hubris, it is intensifying regional instability." Zbigniew Brzezinski, National Security Adviser to US President Jimmy Carter. 

"More Americans are living in poverty than at any time since records began more than 50 years ago as a weak economic recovery has failed to lift incomes.In 2010, 46.2m people fell below the poverty line, calculated as an annual income of $22,314 for a family of four and $11,139 for an individual, according to the Census Bureau,' Financial Times 13 September, 2011

US debt now amounts to around $ 14 trillion , almost equal to its GDP .Even in this GDP , the financial industry contributes 40%.The economy is now 20-25 % of world GDP unlike 50% after WWII and is being artificially sustained by a stimulus of  $ 2.8 trillion .There are no green shoots of revival , unemployment continues to rise . US economy is in recession .The 1930s recession was overcome by WWII which allowed its protected ( from war) industry to run full steam and indebt European and other countries .With many industries disappearing or in decline , even the automobile one ,the economic downhill can only worsen. Standard &Poors has downgraded US investment rating for the first time . 

The 10^th anniversary of 11/9 passed off without any terror attack as projected and pronounced , presumably by Al Qaeda, a US created monster to frighten its people and keep them under control with repressive laws like USA Patriots Act with little judicial review or oversight. People in US are now groaning under depression created by the loot by oligopolic elite consisting of financiers, bankers ,military-industry and energy corporates. 

The only point most people are agreed upon 11/9 is that was a game changer catastrophe. On most other aspects there are as many theories and different perceptions as persons. 

Since 11/9 a lot of new information has come out though not in full (US establishment releases what suits it.) I recall watching hour after hour ,day after day the recast of the on Western channels with anchors and news readers subdued but determined after 11/9 with a sense of foreboding for the people of the Middle East and South West Asia, if not for the Muslims around the globe . 

Even to me ( an engineer from IT-BHU ) it appeared a bit strange then the way the two main towers collapsed , so quickly , with steel reinforcements exploding out wards like a controlled destruction of old buildings with dynamite ( watch next time.)

An early TV report also stated that it was a missile that hit the Pentagon .The official view that one of the airline jets hit it is still not credible or easily believable. 

No wonder 42% of Americans in a 2006 Zogby poll were critical of the official version of 9/11 events, believing the federal government and the 11/9 commission had "concealed or refused to investigate critical evidence that contradicts their official explanation of the September 11th attacks," and that "there has been a cover-up."  

A Zogby poll in 2007 found that: 31 percent of likely voters did not buy the official 9/11 story [72 percent for ages 18 to 24 and nearly 60 percent for Hispanics and singles]; 51 percent still awaited  a congressional investigation of Bush's and Cheney's actions before, during and after the 9/11 attacks [88 percent for ages 18 to 24 and 77 percent for Hispanics and singles]; and 67% faulted the 9/11 Commission for not investigating the anomalous and still unexplained collapse of World Trade Center building 7. In a  2008 poll in 17 countries, 15% of those surveyed believed the US government was responsible for the attacks, 7% believed Israel was and another 7% believed some other perpetrator, other than Al Qaeda was responsible. Expectedly the poll in the Middle East named a perpetrator other than al Qaeda. 

The most prominent conspiracy theory about the collapse of the two main Towers and 7 World trade Center were the result of a controlled demolition rather than structural weakening due to jet fuel fire. Another prominent belief remains that the Pentagon was hit by a missile launched by elements from inside the U.S. government or that a commercial airliner was allowed to do so via an effective stand down of the American military. Motives for such theories include justification for the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq for its oil and control of the region to threaten Russia , its near abroad and China. 

Reports published in corporate media (corporate and military-industry complex funds and controls many think tanks , universities) and the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), the magazine Popular Mechanics promoted the view that the impacts of jet aircraft at high speeds in combination with subsequent fires, rather than controlled demolition, was the cause of the collapse of the Twin Towers. 

Why not try computer simulated exercises ! 

Recently Truthout.com published an exclusive report based on documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act and an interview with Richard Clarke , former counterterrorism chief that showed how a little-known military intelligence unit, unknown to US and other investigative agencies probing the terrorist attacks, was ordered by senior government officials to stop tracking Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda's movements prior to 9/11. 

In a stunning recent interview Clarke, for the first time, leveled grave allegations against three former top CIA officials – George Tenet, Cofer Black and Richard Blee – accusing them of knowingly withholding intelligence from the Bush and Clinton White House, the FBI, Immigration and the State and Defense Departments about two of the 9/11 hijackers who had entered the United States more than a year before the attacks. Moreover, Clarke says the former CIA officials likely engaged in a cover-up by withholding key details about two of the hijackers from the 9/11 Commission. 

"They've been able to get through a joint House investigation committee and get through the 9/11 Commission and this has never come out," Clarke said about Blee, Tenet and Black. He added,  "They got away with it." 

9/11 Commission Report reaction

 

To the consternation of the families and adherents of the 9/11 Truth movement, many of the questions that the 9/11 Family Steering Committee put to the 9/11 Commission, chaired by former New Jersey Governor Thomas Kean were not asked in either the hearings nor in the Commission Report. It is estimated that that only 30% of their questions were answered in the final 9/11 Commission Report, published on July 22, 2004.

 

The 9/11 Family Steering Committee produced a website summarizing the questions they had raised to the Commission, indicating which they believe had been answered satisfactorily, which they believe had been addressed but not answered satisfactorily, and which they believe had been generally ignored in or omitted from the Report. In addition, the 339-page book The 9/11 Commission Report: Omissions and Distortions by David Ray Griffin claimed that the report had either omitted information or distorted the truth, providing 115 alleged examples. He has characterized the 9/11 Commission Report as "a 571-page lie".

 

Noam Chomsky against conspiracy by US

 

One of the opponents of the conspiracy theories is Noam Chomsky , who on US government involvement in the 9/11 attacks, said that "the evidence that has been produced is essentially worthless" .While the American government stood to benefit from the incident, "every authoritarian system in the world gained from September 11th." He argued of the enormous risk of an information leak ."It is a very porous system and secrets are very hard to keep", and consequences of exposure for the Republican party would have made such a conspiracy foolish to attempt. He dismisses observations cited by conspiracy proponents saying, "if you look at the evidence, anybody who knows anything about the sciences would instantly discount that evidence," arguing that even when a scientific experiment is carried out repeatedly in a controlled environment, phenomena and coincidences remain that are unexplained.

 

You only believe the Official 9/11 Story because You don't know the Official 9/11 Story!

 

Some of the points raised by Jesse Richard in Global Research piece are; Why did the news agencies report that WTC 7 collapsed almost 1/2 hour before it did, even though it was not hit by a plane, only had a few floors on fire, and gave no indication that it was in any serious danger? Why do we still believe the tale of the 19 hijackers when so many of the accused hijackers showed up ALIVE within days? And why do we still believe the fable of the 19 hijackers when the FBI admitted that they are not sure about either the identity of the hijackers or if there were any hijackers at all? 

Why was WTC 7 rebuilt, reopened and reoccupied with no media attention? Wouldn't this be an important victory of American resolve and perseverance ,if true ? 

Why were the NORAD rules changed for the first time several weeks prior to 9/11, taking responsibility/authority for shooting down hijacked lanes away from NORAD military command for the first time in its history, and given to a civilian, defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld, and then returned to NORAD the day after 9/11? 

Why would hijackers planning on attacking NY and Washington DC drive from Florida, pass both DC and NY,  and drive all the way to Maine and hinge this huge operation on a connecting flight from Maine to Boston, where we are told they hijacked their plane? Why wouldn't they fly out of any of the airports that are visible from their targets, like Newark, La Guardia or JFK...or even some of the smaller local airports that would have given them a clear easy path to their target and reduce the amount of time that our air defense systems would have to stop them? 

Who placed all of those stock options on the airlines just prior to the event, as if they knew that the stock prices on those specific airlines would lose a huge amount of value? 

Why  did George W. Bush's Secret Service detail not rush the president to safety when it was evident that the nation was under attack? If the nation was under attack, and they did not know the scope of the attack, and the president's location was known, how did they not worry about him being attacked in Florida? (Bush's befuddled behavior did indicate that he was perhaps blissfully unaware of the plot .) 

Why did they act as if they knew that there was no threat? And why, when our nation was under attack, did the president not rush into action? If you say he was concerned about upsetting the children, you are the ultimate apologist. Our county was supposedly being attacked and he/they waited 20 minutes before they moved. This is the smoking gun of smoking guns. 

Why did the FBI never list Osama bin Laden as being wanted for 9/11? Actually, we know this one...because they admitted that they had no evidence linking him to the event.Why was their molten metal flowing under the wreckage of the WTC for months? No jet fuel can melt metal, and nothing explainable could melt that much metal and keep it hot enough to remain molten for a month. 

How did a passport of one of the so called hijackers make it through the huge fireball and end up on the street? 

Why have photos from the 80+ cameras confiscated at the Pentagon never been released?

Why did the airplane that supposedly crashed at Shanksville vaporize so that nothing remained, not bodies, not luggage, not metal, - nothing - for the first time in aviation history? However, we are told that even though the plane vaporized at Shanksville, a hand-written note from a hijacker was found. 

Of course, there are so many more questions .  We deserve the answers.  We deserve the right to ask these questions in public forums like the corporate media....who will not touch them with the proverbial ten foot pole. We have gate keepers on the Internet who actively ridicule and dismiss anyone who dares to raise these questions.  Will you be one of them?  Or, after really thinking about them, will you hope that one day, when we know what went on before, during and after the attacks on 9/11, - we can all say: "I did not know this, but I'm now  absolutely convinced that it is true." 

Think about it...it's really time to think about it. 

9/11 Truth Movement 

 

In the decade since  9/11 , a Truth movement , the collective name of loosely affiliated organizations and individuals who question the accepted account of the September 11, 2001 has evolved. Adherents of the movement assert that the explanation of the 9/11 events put forth by the United States government and mainstream media contain significant inconsistencies which suggest, at the least, a cover-up, and at worst, complicity by insiders. Truth movement suspects that US government insiders played a part in the attacks, or may have known the attacks were imminent, and did nothing to alert others or stop them. The 119 attacks was an excuse to launch wars on Afghanistan and Iraq and in using this as opportunities to curtail civil liberties in USA and  consolidating and extending the hold of the Bush Administration. (Of the 19 hijackers 14 were Saudis , but Saudi Arabia was not attacked .In fact Saudis including some bin Ladens were allowed to leave USA unlike other foreigners.)

Many adherents of the 9/11 Truth movement suspect that United States government insiders played a part in the attacks, or may have known the attacks were imminent, and did nothing to alert others or stop them.

 

 Some within the movement who argue that insiders within the United States government were directly responsible for the September 11 attacks often allege that it was to provide the U.S. with a pretext for going to war in the Middle East, to ensure future supplies of oil since so many of the ruling elite are connected with the energy industry.

 

Until 1998, US and its allies Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Pakistan fully supported the Taliban in Afghanistan and supplied them funds. Unocal, which spent millions of dollars on geological surveys on a projected pipeline from Central Asia to South Asia, courted the Taliban, whose leading officials were negotiating in Texas in 1998. It was only after the maverick Taliban decided to favor an Argentine rival that John Maresca, vice president of Unocal, testifying before the US Congress, said that there would be no pipeline until the Taliban were gone and a more friendly government was established.

Look at the presence of persons connected with energy interests in the United States and the rest of the world. Zalmay Khalilzad, Bush administration's envoy to Afghanistan after the fall of the Taliban, was a Unocal consultant, as was, according to some reports, Karzai himself. It is well known that the Bush family acquired its wealth through oil; former president George Bush Sr worked with the Carlyle Group that specializes in huge oil investments abroad. His son's commerce secretary, Dale Evans, was chairman and chief executive officer of an oil company. National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice was on the board of Chevron before going to Washington. Dick Cheney, before becoming vice president, worked for the giant oil conglomerate Halliburton. Halliburton has won contracts running into billions in Iraq after the illegal invasion.

 

In some cases, even in the corporate media, hawks in the Bush White House , especially former Vice President Dick Cheney, and members of the Project for a New American Century , a neoconservative think tank, have been accused of involvement in or awareness of the alleged plot. 

Occupation of Iraq for its energy resources and for control of the region was planned much earlier and publicly proclaimed in the "Project for the New American Century'( PNAC) 

PNAC is a Washington-based neo-cons think tank created in 1997 with the objective of  establishing  a global American empire to bend the will of all nations. So ,in order to create the global empire Washington must: 

* Reposition permanently based forces to Southern Europe, Southeast Asia and the Middle East; 
* Modernize U.S. forces, including enhancing our fighter aircraft, submarine and surface fleet capabilities; 
* Develop and deploy a global missile defense system, and develop a strategic dominance of space; 
* Control the "International Commons" of cyberspace; 
* Increase defense spending to a minimum of 3.8 percent of gross domestic product, up from the 3 percent currently spent. 

Most ominously, this PNAC document described four "Core Missions" for the American military. The US forces must be able to "fight and decisively win multiple, simultaneous major theater wars," and to "perform the 'constabulary' duties associated with shaping the security environment in critical regions." ( WHAT MORE PROOF OF HUBRIS) Note that the US military must fight these wars one way or the other to establish American dominance for all to see ie wars of choice , illegal if need be as the invasion of Iraq and its brutal occupation. Iraq's economy has been destroyed , its environment poisoned , perhaps for ever with unlawful use of depleted Uranium arms and ammunition .Even barbaric Halagu Khan would concede that Americans have done a more thorough job than him .US led corporate media and its copy cat Indian media rarely refer to the colossal disaster brought upon the hapless people of Iraq . 

Some consequences of invasion of Iraq and its brutal invasion, in brief , are ; 

Number Of Iraqis Killed In US War And Occupation Of Iraq "1,455,590" ( One million widows created along with 4 million orphans , as well as 5 million refugees inside Iraq and outside ) 

Number of U.S. Military Personnel Sacrificed (Officially acknowledged) In U.S. War And Occupation Of Iraq 4,780

 Number of U.S. Military Personnel  injured, maimed and psychologically disturbed with suicides, homicides over 80,000

 Number Of International Occupation Force Troops killed In Afghanistan : 2,541

Cost of War in Iraq & Afghanistan

Total ; $1,210,450,550,239 (Over $ 780 billion in Iraq and over $420 billion in Afghanistan)

 Iraq invasion planned in 2000. 

In an article in the Middle East Policy Council Journal titled 'Drinking the Kool-Aid' dated 12 July 2004, Col W. Patrick Lang ,a former defense intelligence officer at the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) describes how Bush planned the Invasion of Iraq , in the spring of 2000, much before he stole the elections in end 2000 from Al Gore with help from the Supreme Court. Some extracts form the article ; 

"Statements made by the Bush administration often convey the message that Iraq became a focus of attention only after 9/11. The evidence points in another direction.  In the spring of 2000, Stephen Hadley, Condoleeza Rice's deputy, briefed a group of prominent Republican party policymakers on the national-security and foreign-policy agenda of the future Bush administration. Hadley was one of the group of senior campaign advisers to then Texas Governor Bush known collectively as "the Vulcans." The group, in addition to Hadley, included Rice, Paul Wolfowitz and Richard Perle and had been assembled by George Shultz and Dick Cheney beginning in late 1998, when Bush first launched his presidential bid. 
 

 Hadley's briefing shocked a number of the participants, according to Clifford Kiracofe, a professor at the Virginia Military Institute. Hadley announced that the "number-one foreign-policy agenda" of a Bush administration would be Iraq and the unfinished  business of removing Saddam Hussein from power. Hadley also made clear that the Israel-Palestine conflict, which had dominated President Clinton's Middle East agenda would be placed in the deep freeze. 

Dr.Kiracofe's account of the pre-election obsession of the Vulcans with the ouster of Saddam Hussein is corroborated by former U.S. Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill's memory of the first meetings of the Bush National Security Council, which he attended in late January and early  February of 2001. Ron Suskind's book The Price of Loyalty, based on O'Neill's notes, recounts an NSC meeting, ten days into the Bush administration, at which Israel-Palestine and Iraq were discussed.
 

Next, Condoleeza Rice raised the issue of Iraq and the danger posed by Saddam's arsenal of weapons of mass destruction. A good deal of the hour-long meeting was taken up with CIA Director George Tenet's briefing on a series of aerial photographs of Iraqi sites  that "might" be producing WMD. Tenet admitted there was no firm intelligence on what was going on inside those sites, but at the close of the meeting, President Bush tasked Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and Joint
 

Chiefs of Staff Chairman Hugh Shelton to begin preparing options for the use of U.S. ground forces in the northern and southern no-fly zones in Iraq to support an insurgency to bring down the Saddam regime.

An interesting aspect about this meeting is that no one present at it had any substantive knowledge of the Middle East. ( A few months before the 2003 invasion Bush did not know the difference between Sunni and Shia) 
 

 In January 2001, the Iraqi National Congress (INC), headed by Ahmed Chalabi, began receiving U.S. funds for an "Information-Collection Program." The CIA had concluded that Chalabi and his INC colleagues were not to be trusted. Nevertheless, Chalabi was installed as a leading figure of the politically appointed civilian bureaucracy in the Pentagon and  Vice President's Office. Those ties paid off. The Information-Collection Program provided a steady stream of raw information for challenging the intelligence community whenever the "War with Iraq"enthusiasts disagreed with the intelligence agencies.

 If the president and Congress were to be sold the need for war, information had to be available to justify it and counter the regular intelligence analysts. To facilitate the flow of such "information" to the president, the Vice President's office created its own intelligence apparatus, buried in the recesses of the Pentagon, to "stovepipe" raw data to the White House,to make the case for war on the basis of testimony of self-interested émigrés."

 Perhaps there is need for an independent international tribunal under International Court of Justice ,Hague to enquire into 11/9  .UN is beholden to victors of WWII as shown by the humanitarian intervention in Libya – a disgraceful chapter in a corrupted UNSC , controlled by Nuclear armed bullies promoting and guarding individual self interests . 

Ambassador (Retd) K.Gajendra Singh 15 Septemebr, 2011.Mayur Vihar,Delhi

http://tarafits.blogspot.com/2011/08/amb-rtd-k-gajendra-singh-cv-post.htm

 

Amb (Retd) K. Gajendra Singh ;TV,Radio,lecture Prorgram

 

                 AMBASSADOR (Retd) K.GAJENDRA SINGH

          

     TV ,RADIO & LECTURE  PROGRAMMES IN INDIA , UZBEKISTAN, ROMANIA & GERMANY

                                                           TV INTERVIEWS

 

1.Interviewed in March 1999 on 10PM News hour STAR TV, New Delhi program on Death of King Hussein and future of the Kingdom of Jordan

 

2.Interviewed in April 2000 on 10PM News hour STAR TV , New Delhi program on the Visit to India of Turkish PM Bulent Ecevit and role of Military in Turkey and Pakistan 

3.Interviewed  on 29 April at  2000 hrs on  Sahara TV as Expert on Islamic Fundamentalism in Pakistan and elsewhere. 

4.Comments for Sahara TV Parakh weekly Progm.30 December  2001 Chances of war with Pakistan (nil except by accident) 

5.Telephone Interview by Polona Frelih Slovenian National Television on US franchised revolutions in Serbia, Georgia, Ukraine etc . 24 March, 2005 

6. One hour long Panel discussion on Mumbai bombings and terrorism  at Romania's Realitate TV channel . 12 July, 2006. 

7 .An hour and half long discussion on  Radio.Musika  Wisconsin , USA on US war on Iraq ,11 June, 2007 .

Interviews in Bucharest by BBC Hindi service 

Interviewed regularly at Bucharest, over a dozen times ,since September  ,2003 by BBC Hindi service for their Radio news broadcasts on US war in Iraq , Middle East ,Turkey, Eurasia , Caucasus ,Central Asia, etc.

 

Programme year 2009 

Delivered a lecture on Flouting of International Law and Failure of International Institutions along with George Galloway, British MP and Cynthia Mckinny, six times US Congresswoman ,at

The Kuala Lumpur International Conference to Criminalize War and War Crimes Tribunal –

28 October to 30 October, 2009.

 

                                 LECTURE  PROGRAMME  IN  INDIA , 2005-06

 

1. Timbuktu -- Nuclear proliferation by Pakistan's A.Q. Khan, to Iran , N. Korea etc

November 25 ,2005.  1330 hours at hotel Maurya Sheraton New Delhi-Mid Town Rotary Club

 

Lectures at the University of Kurukshetra

 

1.Chief Executive Officer, based on experience CMD, Indian drugs and pharmaceuticals Ltd., New Delhi and truth about globalisation

December 13.  1530 hrs at the Faculty of public administration.

 

2. Recent political developments in Central Asia and its linkages with India.

December 14 ,1130 hours. Faculty of political science. 

 

3. US led illegal war on Iraq's and decline of Western media.

December 15 1130 hours at Faculty of Law

 

4. Indo- US relations, India's vote against Iran and the Iraq war. 

1530 hours.  A talk with the Vice-Chancellor and the faculty of the Kurukshetra University.

 

Lectures in the University of Rohtak

 

1. US led illegal war on Iraq and the role of Western media. 

December 21 1130 hours , at the Faculty of law.

 

2. Recent changes In Central Asia and India's historical relations with the region.

December 22: 12:00 hrs.  at the faculty of Political Science.

 

Defence Institutes, India .

1.Iraq war and recent changes in Eurasia ,Lecture followed by Q &A`

1000hrs to 1130hrs ,4 January ,2006 at College of Military Engg ,Poone

 

2.Iraq war and recent changes in Eurasia ,Lecture followed by Q &A

1700 hrs to 1830 hrs`,5 January , 2006 Indian School of artillery , Deolali.

 

At New Delhi ; 

3.Iraq war and its consequences ,13Hrs , 4 February , 2006

India International Centre , New Delhi 

4.US led war on Iraq  , 1530 hrs , 8 February , 2006

  Foreign Service Inst , New Delhi 

5. Recent Strategic moves in Central Asia and its impact on India .

1830 Hrs , 14 , February ,2006 at India Habitat Centre , New Delhi .

 

At Banaras Hindu University ;

 

1. Role of Chief Executive Officer –Globalisation and world situation.

1530 Hrs , 21 February , 2006 , Institute of Technology , BHU 

2. Formulation and implementation of India's Foreign Policy ,

1030hrs, 22 February , 2006 , Academic Staff College , BHU 

3. Iraq war and other questions and impact on India ,

1200hrs, 22 February , 2006. Academic Staff College , BHU 

 

                                      LECTURE  PROGRAMME  IN  INDIA , 2004 

 

1. Panel Discussion on Western Asia  --1600 hrs 3 March , 2004

             Iraqi diplomats under training at the Foreign Service Institute, New Delhi 

 

2. COMING OUT OF CHAKRAVHYU- US's Iraq Exit Policy

       24 March, 2004   1830 hrs Ahmedabad Management Association, Ahmedabad.

 

3. Brief history of Central Asia and present day problems--1600 hrs 2 April , 2004

             Foreign diplomats from 20 countries at Foreign Service Institute ; New Delhi 

 

                                  LECTURE  PROGRAMME  IN  INDIA , 2002

 

1.  Eastern foundations of  Western Civilisation.

                   8 January ,2002 .  1830 hours .India International Centre, New Delhi

 

2 .Influence of Turkic languages in the evolution and development of

           Hindustani languages.14 January, 1230 hrs .Aligarh Muslim University, Aligarh

 

3. India  and Central Asia post 12 January ,

                        15 January, 1230 hrs Aligarh Muslim University, Aligarh

 

4.  India and Central Asia.

                    4 February, 2002. 19:00 India Habitat Centre, New Delhi.

 

5. Informal session on Musharraf –Ataturk ,Jehad and Islam .

                    6 February .Institute of Defence and Strategic Analysis, New Delhi

 

6.  India and the New Great Game in Central Asia.

                    7 February, 2002.  1130 hours.  Indian Council for world affairs, New Delhi

 

                                           LECTURE  PROGRAM IN BERLIN 

                                    Indian Cultural Centre , Berlin  1800 Hrs  4 July, 2001

 Cultural Relations between India and Central Asia and Influence of Buddhism on Islam 

                                        LECTURE  PROGRAM IN ROMANIA 

 1.  Forum Invest Romania , Brasov (Romania )   March , 1998 .

        One of the  Key note Speakers at 2 day Conference on

        Investment in Infrastructure projects 

 2. Central Education Library , Bucharest ; 1600 hrs , 15 March , 2001.

      Small is beautiful and Globalisation One of the Key note Speakers.

  3. Central Education Library , Bucharest ; 1600 hrs , 5  April , 2001.

                               India and Central Asia; Cultural Linkages and future Relations

 

                                       LECTURE TOUR OF UZBEKISTAN - NOV 1998

Tashkent

2^nd November, 1998-1200 hrs;

                                 Lecture followed by Questions and Answers session at Tashkent State Institute of Oriental Studies on 'Indo-Turkic World; (a) Cultural similarities between India and Turkic countries ,specially in languages; (b Political developments in India and Turkey since 1950s- a brief comparative study

                                  1600hrs;

                                  Lecture followed by Questions and Answers session at India Culture Centre on "A millenium mark after half century of Independence –Indian polity after 1998 Elections. Attended by diplomats, professors and university students.

13^th November,1998 1030hrs;

                                    Visit and discussions with the Director of Alberuni Institute.

Samarkand

3^rd November ,1998-1430 hrs;

                                   Lecture followed by Questions and Answers session at Samarkand State University, Department of Oriental Studies on the Influence of Turkic languages in the development and evolution of Hindustani languages.

Bukhara

4^th November, 1998- 1200 hrs;

                                     Lecture followed by Questions and Answers session at  Bukhara State University on 'Indo-Turkic World; (a) Cultural similarities between India and Turkic countries ,specially in languages;(b)Political developments in India and Turkey since 1950s- a brief comparative study . Attended by faculty members and students.

Andijan

6^th November, 1998-1600 hrs

                          Dances , poetry recital etc by Hindi students of a local school followed by speech on similarities in Indian and Uzbek languages, music and culture etc

7^th November,1998-930 hrs;             

                           Lecture followed by Questions and Answers session at  Babur University, Andijan on 'Indo-Turkic World; Cultural similarities between India and Turkic countries , specially in languages and Indian polity after 1998 Elections. Attended by professors and university students

            Most historical sites at Tashkent, Samarkand, Bukhara including sites of Bahaiuddin Naqsabandi's Tomb near  Bukhara and of Imam Bukhari near Samarkand and sites at Andijan (Babur's birthplace etc), Fergana and Kokand(Emir's Palace) were visited

 

 

                                      LECTURE  PROGRAMME  IN  INDIA , 2000

 

1.India International Centre , New Delhi; 1830 hrs ,27 January, 2000.

                         Military  in Governance ; Turkey and Pakistan

 

2. Foreign Service Institute , New Delhi  ; 1100 hrs 8 February, 2000

                                               Central Asia.

                                                Lecture for Foreign Diplomats

 

3. Rotary Club , Maurya Sheraton, New Delhi , 1430 hrs  , 25  Feb, 2000 

                       Military  in Governance ; Turkey and Pakistan  and Taliban

 

4. Centre for Middle Eastern Studies J. Nehru University, New Delhi.11 hrs 3 March, 2000

                                          Kurdish Problem  in Turkey

                     

                          LECTURE  PROGRAMME  IN  INDIA , FEB-APRIL 1999 

1.India International Centre , New Delhi; 1830 hrs ,18^th February, 1999.

                           New Economic Community for Aryan and Turkic Countries

                                     Lecture followed by Questions and answers

2. Foreign Service Institute , New Delhi  ; 1500 hrs 24  February, 1999

                          Common Market for Central and South Asia.

                                        Lecture followed by Questions and Answers

 3. Rotary Club , Maurya Sheraton, New Delhi , 1400 hrs  , 5  March, 1999 

                              Linkages between Central Asia and India.

                         Lecture followed by Questions and Answers

4.  Institute of Defence and Strategic Analysis , New Delhi,10.00 hrs  10 March 1999, 

                 Military's Role  in Politics, Comparative Study of Turkey and Pakistan

                         Seminar  followed by Questions and Answers

5. Delhi Business School , New Delhi  12/13 March,1999

                               Capitalism in a state of Flux                     

                   Seminar on Strategic Leadership in the Times of flux

6.  Centre for Russian and Central Asian Studies , Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi.

              Seminar on Energy Resources and  Geo-Politics of Central Asia and Caucasus.

                   Paper and discussions on Energy and other resources of the region  and

                                 A Common market with South Asia ; 23March,1999

7. Institute of Rail Transport ,Railway Board , New Delhi,  5 April , 1999

                   Energy Resources around the Caspian Basin and Rail Transport  

                              Lecture followed by Questions and Answer