"From 1981 through 1988, at least 15 individuals of various nationalities, including William Casey, Director of the Central Intelligence, died in unusual circumstances:
airplane accidents,
explosions,
strange viruses which led to virulent cancers;
sudden heart attacks or straightforward homicide.
There were attempts on the lives of a further eight and one former National Security advisor tried to commit suicide."
Havana. May 5, 2011
Bin Laden familyâs relations with the United States greater than supposed
Lázaro Barredo Medina
THE surname Bin Laden has been demonized, through now representing the boogeyman of the 21st century. Just its mention evoked terror in U.S. society; it was utilized to promote the fear syndrome and to justify the most retrograde and anti-democratic actions in the United States.
However, the Bin Laden family had and still has many more links with the United States than generally supposed.
From 1981 through 1988, at least 15 individuals of various nationalities, including William Casey, director of the CIA, died in unusual circumstances: airplane accidents, explosions, strange viruses which led to virulent cancers; sudden heart attacks or straightforward homicide. There were attempts on the lives of a further eight and one, Robert McFarlane, former National Security advisor, tried to commit suicide.
What they all had in common was a close link to the Iran-Contra affair which involved the Reagan administration and the then Vice President George Bush Sr. in a major political scandal, given that they acted in total violation of legislation preventing financial aid to the Nicaraguan Contras and, in particular, weapon sales to Iran, the declared enemy of the United States.
For Washington, the Nicaraguan Contras, as the Afghan Mujahideen in their wake, were “freedom fighters.”
One of those characters to die in a strange way and linked to those events was Sheik Salem bin Laden, whose aircraft crashed in Texas in 1988, reportedly just after he had signed an important oil deal in which the Bush clan had interests.
Various publications dating back 20 years and others later noted that, according to the U.S. pilot of the aircraft, in October 1980 Sheik Salem had taken part in a secret meeting between CIA agents and Iranian envoys in Paris. There, the release of hostages in the U.S. embassy in Tehran had been agreed for after the inauguration as President of Ronald Reagan, a ploy which influenced Jimmy Carter's failure to secure a second term.
None of this was proven, but the district attorney in the case speculated as to the possibility of Salem having been eliminated as “an embarrassing witness,” while certain analysts confirmed at the end of 1990 that the aircraft flight plans had for some time been at the center of attention of a large number of investigations, whose conclusions were never divulged.
BUSH-BIN LADEN FAMILY BUSINESSES
American journalist Jerry Urban, from the Houston Chronicle, wrote an article titled “Keeping it all in the family.”
According to Urbanâs investigations, the FBI and a government agency involved in controlling financial crimes, were reviewing accusations that James Bath, a business entrepreneur, transferred to Houston certain sums of money from Saudi investors who wanted to influence U.S. policy under the Reagan and Bush Sr. administrations.
The columnist stated that in sworn depositions, Bath said that he represented four prominent Saudis as a co-signatory and was using his name in the investments. Bath declared that in payment he would receive an interest in the businesses.
The Houston Chronicle article confirmed that the tax documents and personal financial records showed that Bath had personal interests in Arbusto â79, and Arbusto â80, limited partnerships controlled by George W. Bush, the older son of President Bush.
Arbusto, the article noted, is Spanish for Bush.
Jerry Urban also noted that according to a 1976 trust agreement, drawn up shortly after Bush Sr. was appointed director of the CIA, Saudi Sheik Salem bin Laden appointed Bath his business representative in Houston and there is evidence that the businessman received a sizeable commission from companies owning and operating Houston Gulf Airport, after it was purchased by Bath for the Bin Laden family in 1977.
OTHER BUSINESSES AND CONSPIRATORIAL LINKS
As the older brother, Sheik Salem bin Laden was head of a family of numerous offspring (possibly 54 or 57 who Sheik Mohammed bin Laden fathered with 30 wives of diverse Arab nationalities) and who inherited the Bin Laden Construction Group, a corporation which he created in the 1950s in Jeddah, on the banks of the Red Sea.
When Sheik Salem bin Laden took over control of the businesses, he not only consolidated the construction enterprises but also invested in the manufacture and distribution of weapons and in Swiss-based banks with branches throughout the Middle East. He had the support of the then King Abdul Aziz and his family.
Various publications of the time commented on the Bin Laden family businesses and highlighted that their company was one of the most important in Saudi Arabia with assets of more than five billion dollars, and that Sheik Mohammed made his wealth thanks to important projects for the extension of the holy places of Islam, Mecca and Medina (west), given him by the Saudi royal palace.
At that time, 13 of his sons held posts on the groupâs executive committee, the best known of whom were Bakr, Hassan, Yeslam and Yehia. It is confirmed that Osama was the only son of a Saudi mother.
On Salemâs death, Bakr presided over the group and managed to extend its activities beyond Saudi borders, to cover a number of Arab countries and employing tens of thousands of people.
A number of media outlets stated that by then the conglomerate had become so large that they decided to divide it into the Syrian Group, the Lebanese Group, the Jordan Group and the Egyptian Group.
This last was the most developed with 40,000 employees, although a number of members of the Bin Laden family controlled the global businesses from Europe, under the leadership of Yeslam, with offices in Geneva and Paris.
Analysts agreed that prior to September 11, 2001, Bin Laden, the least favored member of the family, named Osama ben Muhammad ben Awad bin Laden, was also training for the family business by studying engineering at the King Abdul Aziz University in Jeddah.
But upon graduating in 1979, he rejected taking control of a national construction company and went to fight with the Mujihadeen in Afghanistan who were resisting the Soviet invasion of that country. It was during that mission that the links between the Bin Laden family and the CIA were strengthened.
The United States had given high-technology support in war materials and military instruction to the Afghan guerrillas and Islamic combatants from the Middle East and North Africa so that they could stand up to the Soviets but the two groups were not capable of coordinating their actions on account of ideological differences and old tribal battles.
Mac Liman, a UN consultant during that period, noted that it was Bin Ladenâs support as a CIA intermediary which made it possible to bring together and accelerate the creation of a common front, while at the same time, he became, with the backing of the CIA and the Saudi Arabian secret services, the treasurer of the Afghanistan operation.
In 1988, he formed what is known as the Al Qaeda terrorist network. After the war against the Russians, he returned to Saudi Arabia and discovered that he was a celebrity. The Riyadh government began to isolate him and his star slowly began to fade. But everything changed with the war in the Persian Gulf and he was forced to abandon any connection with his brothers after being expelled from Saudi Arabia for supporting the dissident King Fahd.
However, after a few months of anxiety, the Bin Laden Group restored its relationship with the Saudi royal family and obtained multi-millionaire contracts.
The Bin Laden Group owned mother companies which appeared in all of its contracts under names such as Ditco, Saud ben Birdgis, Al Mouraiban or Kara, plus offices in all the Middle Eastern capitals from Dubai to Amman, and an operational center in Geneva with subsidiaries in Paris and Madrid.
International analysts stressed that the Gulf War and his countryâs implication in it changed Bin Laden. Stripped of his Saudi nationality, accused of being the financier of Islamic terrorism, Osama bin Laden broke off his close links with the CIA and declared a jihad against the United States. His name reemerged mysteriously in recent years every time that there were tensions in U.S. society, functioning as a convenience for the political class.
But business is business. Not even Osamaâs activities in any way affected the Bin Laden familyâs relations with the superpower via various international group connections linked to finance capital.
Terrorism, business, conspiracy, all are intermixed in the history of this family and U.S. authorities. Will the absolute truth be told some day, including what really happened on September 11?
For now, there is no need to overtax our brains. As a neighbor of mine responded to the whole saga of these family ties, with a popular philosophy: “The truth is greater than the richest imagination,” and now when it is being said that he is dead, more than ever.
Once again, one thing is crystal clear, and that is double standards. Promises, huge efforts to kill the Al Qaeda terrorist and meanwhile, in the United States itself, another terrorist, Orlando Bosch, proclaimed by U.S. justice as public enemy Number One, was buried with all due ceremony in Miami, while another one, Luis Posada Carriles, as shady a character as the Saudi Arabian, is still enjoying legal impunity.
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