Lis­ten: One Seg­ment

The pro­gram con­tin­ues dis­cus­sion of the back­ground of the attacks of 9/11 and sets forth some of the his­tory of Islam­o­fas­cism. (As noted in numer­ous pro­grams, this is not to be mis­un­der­stood as char­ac­ter­iz­ing Islam as fas­cist. There is a pow­er­ful fascist/Nazi pres­ence in Islam that threat­ens not only the Islamic com­mu­nity, as well as human­ity as a whole. The phe­nom­e­non of Islam­o­fas­cism is a para­mount ele­ment in For The Record pro­grams con­cern­ing 9/11.)

1. The broad­cast opens by not­ing that the Saudi Bin Laden Group (the family’s con­struc­tion firm) began in 1931, just before Saudi Ara­bia itself coa­lesced as a sov­er­eign nation. It is note­wor­thy, in that regard, that SBG’s legal coun­sel is Sul­li­van & Cromwell, the old Dulles law firm. Sul­li­van & Cromwell recently fig­ured in attempts to weaken the Trea­sury Department’s money laun­der­ing rules. The Dulles broth­ers, the Saudi/Wahhabi/Petroleum king­dom, the Third Reich (in its above-ground and under­ground phases) and Sul­li­van & Cromwell have been inex­tri­ca­bly linked with the devel­op­ment of the eco­nomic rela­tion­ships under­ly­ing the events of 9/11. “The bin Laden family’s eco­nomic and finan­cial empire was founded in the early part of the twen­ti­eth cen­tury by its patri­arch, Mohammed Awad [Osama Bin Laden’s father]. Born in Hadra­maut in Yemen, he moved to Saudi Ara­bia in 1928 and set­tled there. From very early on, the fam­ily was closely con­nected to King Abd al-Aziz, and involved in the emer­gence and for­ma­tion of the Wah­habi king­dom. It was the king who helped the bin Ladens start their busi­ness by hir­ing them to do the con­struc­tion work on part of the royal palace, and later exclu­sively giv­ing them the job of ren­o­vat­ing the holy sites in Mecca and Med­ina. This mutual trust gave the fam­ily hope for suc­cess in a king­dom that had yet to be devel­oped. In 1931, Mohammed bin Laden founded the Saudi Bin­ladin Group (SBG), or Bin-Ladin Orga­ni­za­tion, in Jed­dah, and it quickly became one of the kingdom’s lead­ing com­pa­nies. Its close ties to the Saudi rulers also explain why the family’s busi­ness affairs were rarely decided by the min­istries or dur­ing offi­cial meet­ings. There were no for­mal offers for the bin Ladens. Instead, con­tracts were drawn up directly by the king’s per­sonal sec­re­tary, and autho­rized by royal decree. For sev­eral years, the group had been the offi­cial and exclu­sive con­trac­tor for the kingdom’s holy sites, as well as for Jerusalem’s holy sites until 1967.” The maneu­ver­ing tak­ing place in the con­tem­po­rary period in, and around, the land-mass known to the Nazi geopoliti­cians as the “Earth Island” has its foun­da­tion in ecopo­lit­i­cal dynam­ics that were evi­dent in the 1930’s. This pro­gram seeks to illus­trate some of that his­tory. (For­bid­den Truth; Jean-Charles Bris­ard & Guil­laume Dasquie; Copy­right 2002 [SC]; Thunder’s Mouth/Nation Books; ISBN 1–56025-414–9; pp. 105–106.)

2. In illus­trat­ing the evo­lu­tion of the his­tory of Islam­o­fas­cism, this pro­gram uti­lizes the work of John Roy Carl­son (real name Arthur Der­oun­ian.) The author of the book Under­cover, among other titles, Carl­son was a promi­nent anti-fascist inves­tiga­tive reporter in the 1940’s and 1950’s. In 1952, he pub­lished a book about the fascist/Islamic polit­i­cal con­nec­tion that has great sig­nif­i­cance for today. That book, Cairo to Dam­as­cus high­lights the Islam­o­fas­cist polit­i­cal forces at work in what the Nazi geo-politicians called “the Earth Island”—the giant, con­tigu­ous land mass stretch­ing from the Straits of Gibral­tar through to the Pacific Ocean. More than half-a-century ago, the Grand Mufti pre­saged the Islam­o­fas­cism which threat­ens the world today—from Pales­tine to Kash­mir. “In Feb­ru­ary 1951 he sud­denly reap­peared in Karachi, Pak­istan to meet old friends who had sup­ported his cause in Iraq and to pre­side over a twelve-day World Moslem Con­gress. In a typ­i­cal inflam­ma­tory address, he called for a ‘full strug­gle’ by the Moslems ‘to meet the aggressor’—meaning, in this instance, the non-Moslem Hin­dus of India. He assured the del­e­gates: ‘We shall meet next with sword in hand on the soil of either Kash­mir or Pales­tine.’” (Cairo to Dam­as­cus; John Roy Carl­son; Copy­right 1951 by John Roy Carl­son; Pub­lished by Alfred A. Knopf, Inc.; ISBN 51–11068; p. 423.)

3. The pro­gram reviews the sub­se­quent devel­op­ment of the WMC, after the “Grossmufti’s” 1951 address to that orga­ni­za­tion. “A few years later, the WMC, then headed by Pak­istani Dr. Ina­mul­lah Kahn, mailed Holocaust-denial lit­er­a­ture to every mem­ber of the U.S. Con­gress and the British Par­lia­ment. The WMC’s offi­cial mouth­piece, Mus­lim World, car­ried the ads for The Pro­to­cols of the Elders of Zion and Henry Ford’s The Inter­na­tional Jew. . . . Dr. Khan also served as an advi­sor to the Saudi Ara­bian royal fam­ily, which lav­ished funds on the WMC. In addi­tion, the Saudi Ara­bian gov­ern­ment retained the ser­vices of Amer­i­can neo-nazi William Grim­stead as a Wash­ing­ton lob­by­ist. . . Soon, the World Mus­lim Con­gress began work­ing closely with U.S. intel­li­gence and Pak­istani mil­i­tary offi­cials, who were covertly sup­port­ing the Afghan mujahideen in their fight against the Soviet-installed regime in Kabul. This effort was strongly endorsed by Dr. Khan, who served for many years as the Pak­istani rep­re­sen­ta­tive of the Nazi-infested World Anti-Communist League, which played an impor­tant role in the Rea­gan administration’s ‘secret war’ in the Golden Cres­cent.” (The Beast Reawak­ens; Mar­tin A. Lee; Copy­right 1997 [HC]; Lit­tle, Brown & Co.; ISBN 0–316-51959–6; pp. 225–226.)

4. Next, the pro­gram relates Carlson’s inter­view with Has­san el-Banna, the founder and Supreme Guide of the Mus­lim Broth­er­hood, one of the prin­ci­pal Islam­o­fas­cist ele­ments under­ly­ing the devel­op­ment of the Al Qaeda milieu. “All that I had learned about Has­san el Banna and the unques­tioned loy­alty he inspired in his cut­throats only whet­ted my desire my desire to meet him. It proved more dif­fi­cult than I expected, because of his deep hatred of ‘Euro­peans.’ Finally one day, accom­pa­nied by my friend Gamal, I walked into Ikhwan head­quar­ters for my audi­ence with the Supreme Guide.” (Cairo to Dam­as­cus; p. 91.)

5.The Mus­lim Broth­er­hood advo­cates a total­i­tar­ian, Islamic theoc­racy. “‘The Koran should be Egypt’s con­sti­tu­tion, for there is no law higher than Koranic law,” the Moor­shid began. ‘We seek to ful­fill the lofty, human mes­sage of Islam, which has brought hap­pi­ness and ful­fill­ment to mankind in cen­turies past. Ours is the high­est ideal, the holi­est cause and the purest way. Those who crit­i­cize us have fed from the tables of Europe. They want to live as Europe has taught them—to dance, to drink, to revel, to mix the sexes openly and in pub­lic.’” (Ibid.; pp. 91–92.)

6. “I asked his views on estab­lish­ing the caliphate, the com­plete merger of Church and State—the Moslem equiv­a­lent of reli­gious total­i­tar­i­an­ism, as in Spain.” (Idem.)

7. “‘We want an Ara­bian United States with a caliphate at its head and every Arab state sub­scrib­ing whole­heart­edly to the laws of the Koran. We must return to the Koran, which preaches the good life, which for­bids us to take bribes, to cheat, to kill one’s brother. The laws of the Koran are suit­able for all men at all times to the end of the world. This is the day and this is the time when the world needs Islam most.’” (Idem.)

8. The Islamist view­point has much in com­mon with right-wing Chris­t­ian reaction—in the early 1950s and today. “I could not help mak­ing a men­tal note that the word ‘Chris­t­ian’ has been sim­i­larly used and with sim­i­lar fanati­cism among West­ern expo­nents of author­i­tar­i­an­ism.” (Idem.)

9. “‘We are not eager to have a par­lia­ment of the rep­re­sen­ta­tives of the peo­ple,’ the Supreme guide con­tin­ued, ‘or a cab­i­net of min­is­ters, unless such rep­re­sen­ta­tives and min­is­ters are Koranic Moslems. If we do not find them, then we must our­selves serve as the par­lia­ment. Allah and the reli­gious coun­cils will limit our author­ity so that no one has to fear dic­ta­tor­ship. We aim to smash mod­ernism in gov­ern­ment and soci­ety. In Pales­tine, our first duty as Moslems is to crush Zion­ism, which is Jew­ish mod­ernism. It is our patri­otic duty. The Koran com­mands it.’” (Idem.)

10. “He was silent, and then nod­ded, to indi­cate the inter­view was over.” (Idem.)

11. Illus­trat­ing another ele­ment of con­ti­nu­ity between the Islam­o­fas­cism of Carlson’s day and that of today, the broad­cast reviews mate­r­ial con­cern­ing the board of direc­tors of Al Taqwa, an Islam­o­fas­cist insti­tu­tion tar­geted by the Trea­sury Depart­ment as a sup­porter of Al Qaeda. Among the lumi­nar­ies on this list is “Has­san el-Banna.” “Included on the list are Yousuf Abdul­lah Al-Qaradawi, the grand mufti of the United Arab Emi­rates, and five mem­bers of his fam­ily; Mariam Al-Sheikh A. Bin Aziz Al-Mubarak of a branch of the Kuwaiti royal fam­ily; and mem­bers of the promi­nent Khal­ifeh fam­ily of the United Arab Emi­rates. Sis­ters Huta and Iman Bin­laden, who live in Saudi Ara­bia, and Has­san el-Banna, a leader of the Egypt­ian Moslem Broth­er­hood group, are listed.” (“Share­hold­ers in the Bank of Ter­ror?” by Lucy Komisar; Salon; 3/15/2002; p. 2.)

12. Next, the pro­gram dis­cusses Yugosla­vian Mus­lims who fought along­side the Third Reich. The Grand Mufti recruited Bosn­ian Mus­lims for the Third Reich and, as can be seen here, some of the Yugoslav Islam­o­fas­cists joined the Mufti in the attempt to anni­hi­late Israel dur­ing the 1948 war of inde­pen­dence. One of the Balkan vet­er­ans fight­ing with the Arabs was Ste­fan Meyer. “He had been caught by the Eng­lish on a sub­ma­rine off Italy and impris­oned in var­i­ous camps. Finally, he and another Ger­man, a cap­tain in the Wehrma­cht, had escaped. They had been fight­ing with the Arabs since then. He and other Ger­mans had fought in Kata­mon in Jerusalem (con­firm­ing Israeli dis­clo­sures that instruc­tions had been found there in Ger­man). I noted that Ste­fan was well-dressed and smoked expen­sive cig­a­rettes.” (Ibid.; p. 396.)

13. Meyer’s rel­a­tively lux­u­ri­ous lifestyle sug­gests that his financ­ing came from a source other than the Arabs, them­selves. “‘I don’t receive money from any Arabs. Some­one else gives it when I need it,’ he said. ‘You will meet many Ger­mans here. We have head­quar­ters here and in Beirut. There are also many Yugoslav Moslems here. Some of them are liv­ing in a mosque. I will intro­duce you to them. Yugoslavs and Ger­mans are every­where in the Syr­ian army.” (Idem.)

14. Another Yugoslav vet­eran of the Third Reich fight­ing along­side the Mufti was Keil Zanovitch. “After Stefan’s glow­ing intro­duc­tion, Keil became friendly. He told me had served under Nazi Gen­eral Hans Gud­er­ian, and fought in Smolensk and Stal­in­grad. Later he had joined quis­ling Pavelich. Keil was a career mil­i­tarist, an expert trainer and tech­ni­cian, and was engaged in that capac­ity in the Syr­ian army.” (Note that Ante Pavelitch was the leader of the Croa­t­ian Ustachi, the bru­tal fas­cists that fought along­side Hitler.) (Ibid.; p. 404)

15. In a drink­ing ses­sion with Meyer, Zanovitch and one of their asso­ciates, Carl­son noted the con­ti­nu­ity between the 1930s in Ger­many and the post­war period in the Mid­dle East. “My head reeled. Where was I—in Berlin? What year was this—1938? Was Hitler really dead? I recalled that the Arab with whom I was sit­ting had taken part in the abortive 1941 Nazi putsch in Iraq. Caught by the British, he had been impris­oned in South Africa, had escaped, and even­tu­ally had been made mil­i­tary com­man­der in Jerusalem by the Grand Mufti, with whom he had con­spired in Bagh­dad.” (Idem.)

16. As ten­sions between the United States and Iraq esca­late, it is worth remem­ber­ing that Sad­dam Hussein’s polit­i­cal her­itage is rooted in the pro-Axis upris­ing the Grand Mufti engi­neered in 1941. One of the play­ers in the sce­nario described here (not men­tioned by name in Carlson’s account) was Sad­dam Hussein’s uncle and polit­i­cal men­tor, Khairal­lah al-Tulfah. “Haj Amin spent two years as a fugi­tive in Lebanon and Syria, then sud­denly turned up in Bagh­dad, where Iraq’s pro-German Arabs vied with one another to enter­tain him. The Iraqi Par­lia­ment voted him a grant of $72,000. He received funds from the Iraqi Secret Ser­vice. Under a check-off sys­tem all Iraqi offi­cials and civil ser­vants paid him a per­cent­age of their salaries. Funds flowed in from var­i­ous polit­i­cal and char­i­ta­ble groups. Gifts were received from Egypt and Ibn Saud, King of Saudi Ara­bia. The Mufti was also financed heav­ily by the Nazis and the Ital­ians.” (One of Ibn Saud’s good friends and asso­ciates was Moham­mad Bin Laden.) (Ibid.; p. 415.)

17. “Haj Amin lav­ished huge funds on the men he had placed in office, and gained enor­mous influ­ence over Iraqi offi­cials, army gen­er­als, police chiefs. He con­trolled major appoint­ments; he whipped up Axis sen­ti­ment among the illit­er­ate and fanat­i­cal masses for a Jehad against the Allied cause, and oth­er­wise per­fected his fifth col­umn machine. Against this back­ground Axis pro­pa­ganda itself was inten­si­fied. Ger­many was set up as a ‘sav­ior to the Moslem world,’ and Hitler was touted as ‘a descen­dant of the Prophet, the enemy of the Jews and the British, the Pro­tec­tor of Islam’ who was devot­ing him­self to the estab­lish­ment of an Arab fed­er­a­tion free from British con­trol. Serv­ing as vir­tu­ally the uncrowned king of Iraq, the Mufti was now ready to write Hitler propos­ing ‘col­lab­o­ra­tion in all spheres.’” (Ibid.; pp. 415–416.)

18. “Accord­ing to a New York Times report, cap­tured Ger­man doc­u­ments later revealed that an agent of the Abwehr, the dreaded nazi counter-espionage and sab­o­tage unit of the Wehrma­cht , arrived in Bagh­dad, dis­guised as a Ruman­ian busi­ness­man, ‘to carry on rela­tions with the Mufti and pre­pare for [the] upris­ing.’” (Ibid.; p. 417.)

19. “On April 21, 1941, under the Mufti’s direc­tion, the Iraqi politi­cian, Rashid Ali el Khailani, with the aid of gen­er­als con­trol­ling the army, staged a coup against the Iraq gov­ern­ment, forced the regent to flee, and made him­self prime min­is­ter. King Farouk of Egypt and Riad el Solh, later Lebanon’s prime min­is­ter, sent mes­sages of encour­age­ment. Forth­with, the Mufti issued a fatwa—the sum­mons to a holy war.” (Idem.)

20. “It was a crit­i­cal hour for the Allies. With Iraq in Nazi hands, the next Axis step would be to cut off the Allies’ Mid­dle East oil suplies, block off allied aid to the U.S.S.R., iso­late British armies in the Mid­dle East, and bring a junc­tion of the Ger­man and Japan­ese forces some­where in Asia, seal­ing the Allied fate.” (Ibid.; p. 418.)

21. The strug­gle under­way in the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s is the same strug­gle under­way today, from Kash­mir to Pales­tine. “In Feb­ru­ary 1951 he sud­denly reap­peared in Karachi, Pak­istan to meet old friends who had sup­ported his cause in Iraq and to pre­side over a twelve-day World Moslem Con­gress. In a typ­i­cal inflam­ma­tory address, he called for a ‘full strug­gle’ by the Moslems ‘to meet the aggressor’—meaning, in this instance, the non-Moslem Hin­dus of India. He assured the del­e­gates: ‘We shall meet next with sword in hand on the soil of either Kash­mir or Pales­tine.’” (Cairo to Dam­as­cus; John Roy Carl­son; p. 423.)