by Joseph M. Mazgaj
In 2011, my students asked me about the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11. The class had a lot of questions about al-Qaeda and Afghanistan. After I provided some recommended reading, the superintendent stopped by to tell me several parents had called. They’d never heard about the Tengiz oil field, nor the BP, Unocal and Chevron pipeline project in Afghanistan, which had started during the 1990s, prior to the Taliban takeover.
That oil pipeline project provided a direct motive for our invasion of Afghanistan, but Americans were never informed of this by our corporate television media or by our politicians. While Fox News promoted the idea al-Qaeda attacked America for religious reasons, the attacks were motivated by politics. Bin Laden was upset Saudi Arabia had virtually no way to defend itself when Saddam Hussein rolled his army up to the border in 1991, during the First Gulf War.
Bin Laden’s men showed up ready to defend their homeland, only to be told, “Don’t worry, we don’t need you. The Americans will defend us.” The Saudi king asked George H. W. Bush to send troops. This angered Bin Laden (and a lot of Saudi Arabians, for that matter), who openly wondered why the richest nation in the world, with the most coveted natural resource on earth, in one of the most dangerous parts of the planet, would not have a military capable of defending itself. Why didn’t Saudi Arabia have a first-class military? The answer, in a word, was Israel.
Israel did not trust Saudi Arabia with the latest military technology, since that technology was invariably turned against Israel. To keep Israel safe, the U.S. government ensured Saudi rulers were chosen from families willing to do what we wanted. This angered Bin Laden (and a lot of Saudis), but when U.S. troops occupied their country and started building bases, tempers got even testier.
Bin Laden got so angry he tried to overthrow his government. When that failed, he decided to go after the real power behind the politics: global investment banks on Wall Street. And Bin Laden had a lot of support back home. That’s why the 9/11 Report was heavily redacted, because it revealed that rich, politically connected Saudi investors quietly assisted Bin-Laden on 9/11 to hit the nexus of U.S. power: the World Trade Center. That’s why the Twin Towers were targeted. If Bin Laden had only wanted to kill Americans, those jets would have flown into the Super Bowl.
Our government has no problem with radical Islam, or Sharia law, as our oil-rich relationship with Saudi Arabia demonstrates. The real lever of U.S. policy is Israel.
Thus, when Syria, Iran and Iraq openly opposed Israel, political pressure on U.S. politicians to invade increased. Plus, it gave U.S. investment banks control of the oil necessary for Chinese economic growth, permitting them to pressure China into ceasing support for Iran.
When that failed, U.S. support for an “insurrection” in Hong Kong indicated the crisis Congress was prepared to cause China if they refused to recognize Israeli demands and abandon Iran. Previously, when Egyptians elected a Muslim Brotherhood man as president, the U.S. and Israeli response was to topple a democratically elected government by encouraging revolution, and replacing it with a U.S.-backed military dictatorship. If this is any indicator of the lengths American politicians are willing to go for Israel, more Americans need to sit up and take notice.
Israel is the main issue that may cause a major conflict for the U.S. in Asia or the Middle East. It would be unfortunate if our children are sent to war with China or Iran knowing as little as we do about the economic ties of our politicians, the politics of investment banks on Wall Street and the motives behind Bin Laden, Sept. 11 and the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan.
Joseph M. Mazgaj is a former Homeland Security Operations Officer (2002-07) as well as a former U.S. Army Contractor — 10th Mountain Division (2007). He is now a substitute teacher residing in Morgantown.
