Comrade:Cassette/notes

Elementry principles of philosophy (Georges Politzer)

Imperialism

Communist Party of Canada

Editor Sandbox

Jeffery Goldberg

Jeffrey Mark Goldberg (born September 22, 1965) is a Zionist propagandist who works as an American journalist and writer. He is currently the editor-in-chief of the imperialist magazine, The Atlantic. Goldberg's writing primarily focuses on foreign affairs, with a notable emphasis on the Middle East and Africa.

Early Life and IDF Service

Goldberg was born in Brooklyn, New York, to Jewish parents. After attending the University of Pennsylvania, he made the decision to relocate to Israel (source). During the First Intifada, Goldberg served in the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) (source). He served as a camp guard in the Ktzi'ot prison, a facility which detains innocent Palestinians and subjects them to sexual and verbal abuse, sodomizing detainees and beating them (https://www.cnn.com/2024/08/25/middleeast/former-palestinian-detainee-sexually-abused-in-israeli-prison-mime-intl/index.html).. While he himself has not yet been accused of participating in these acts, it is highly probable that in his role as a guard he was at least aware of them

Goldberg has attempted to address this controversy in his book, Prisoners: A Muslim and a Jew Across the Middle East Divide. (source)The book chronicles his experiences as a prison guard and his relationship with a Palestinian detainee.

Career

Goldberg's career in journalism began at The Washington Post, where he covered crime. (source) He later became a columnist for The Jerusalem Post, a right-wing Israeli newspaper. Upon returning to the United States, he held positions at The Forward, a Jewish publication, New York magazine, The New York Times Magazine, and The New Yorker. In 2007, he joined The Atlantic and ascended to the position of editor-in-chief in 2016.

His career has been characterized by a consistent and unwavering support for Israel, a stance that has earned him both praise and condemnation. His supporters view him as a leading voice in advocating for Israel's interests in the American media landscape. However, his critics accuse him of bias, arguing that his close ties to Israel compromise his ability to report objectively on the Middle East. Goldberg's Pro-Israel Stance: Beyond Two-State Solutions Goldberg openly identifies as a Zionist.(source) while he has stated his support for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, his critics contend that his actions and writings contradict this claim. They point to his consistent defense of Israeli government policies that have effectively undermined the possibility of a viable Palestinian state. His defense of the 2014 IDF offensive on Gaza, a military operation that resulted in widespread civilian casualties, has been particularly controversial.

Goldberg has consistently sought to downplay the severity of Israel's settlement project, arguing that it is not a significant obstacle to peace. However, this position ignores the well-documented impact of settlements on Palestinian land rights and their ability to establish a contiguous and sovereign state. His tendency to dismiss criticism of the U.S.-Israel relationship as anti-Semitic has further alienated many within the pro-Palestinian movement.

Goldberg and the Iraq War

Goldberg's role in promoting the 2003 invasion of Iraq is a particularly dark stain on his career. In 2002, he authored an article for The New Yorker titled "The Great Terror" (source) that attempted to establish a link between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda. This article, widely criticized for its lack of factual basis, was part of a broader media campaign to build public support for the war.

His continued insistence that the invasion of Iraq, despite its catastrophic consequences, will ultimately be viewed as a moral act has drawn sharp criticism from those who view the war as a crime of aggression. Goldberg's belated admission that he was wrong about the war has done little to assuage his critics, who hold him accountable for his role in promoting a conflict that destabilized the region and resulted in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis.

References

https://mondoweiss.net/2016/10/atlantic-rebrands-goldberg/

look through some of the sources used in here for the tedious boring details https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeffrey_Goldberg

https://x.com/5149jamesli/status/1850320499894866175 great thread on goldberg to remind me what is listed in the sources.

https://mondoweiss.net/2020/05/atlantic-editor-who-promoted-erroneous-conspiracy-to-gin-up-iraq-war-bewails-arab-propensity-to-conspiracy-thinking/ source for his false connections that he made to justify iraq war

source talking about Goldberg saying the Iraq war was an act of “profound morality” https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2011/3/21/a-look-back-at-8-years-of-war-in-iraq

https://theintercept.com/2023/03/15/iraq-war-where-are-they-now/ Goldbergs work was entered into the Congressional Record during the debate on the authorization to use military force in fall 2002

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2002/10/aflatoxin.html Goldbergs aflatoxin article. Forget why I saved this. Has to do with another lie related to iraq.

https://militarist-monitor.org/profile/jeffrey-goldberg/#_ednref33 source for his lie about Hussein having wmds

https://www.congress.gov/congressional-record/volume-148/issue-133/senate-section/article/S10233-7?q=%7B%22search%22%3A%5B%22mccain+%5C%22Jeffrey+Goldberg%5C%22%22%5D%7D&s=2&r=2 Congress using Goldbergs work to justify iraq invasion 2002

https://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/12/books/review/Lappin.t.html Need to find where I can get a full version of this to get past paywall so I can find the quote to trash his stupid book, "Prisoners tells us the story of Jeffrey Goldberg's love for Israel but very little else"

https://www.smry.ai/proxy?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theatlantic.com%2Finternational%2Farchive%2F2008%2F11%2Frahm-emanuel-and-israel%2F9059%2F https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2011/12/ron-paul-zionist/249532/I don't remember why I saved these sources but goldberg wrote these articles

Goldbergs article that was used iirc to justify iraq invasion https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2002/03/25/the-great-terror

https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/abs/road-to-iraq/selling-the-war/FE4D11BAC3E8EBB065BEA9C5DFF65BA0 Selling the War (Chapter 5) - The Road to Iraq Shahab claimed to be a gunrunner for Al-Qaeda who had relayed lethal materiel from Iraq to Afghanistan. Both Bush and Cheney cited the article as proof of the connection between Iraq and Al-Qaeda.

https://www.thenation.com/article/society/press-cheerleaders-afgan-war/ the Nation-quote Goldberg wrote in his infamous 2002 article The Great Terror that Saddam Hussein had “possible” ties to Al Qaeda.

Ktzi'ot Prison

Ktzi'ot Prison, a detention facility located in the Negev desert and run by the Israel Prison Service (IPS), has been the subject of significant controversy due to allegations of inhumane treatment and abuse of Palestinian detainees. The prison gained notoriety during the First Intifada, serving as a primary site for the detention of Palestinians arrested for their participation in the uprising. It continues to hold a substantial number of Palestinian prisoners, including those detained without charge.

Controversy

Numerous accounts from former detainees, human rights groups, and media investigations have highlighted disturbing patterns of abuse and torture within Ktzi'ot. (source) Detainees have reported being subjected to various forms of torture, including beatings, verbal abuse, and the use of hot water as a means of inflicting pain.

One former detainee, Salem, alleged that he was sexually abused during his time at Ktzi'ot. (source) He was initially held at a separate facility, believed to be Sde Teiman, before being transferred to Ktzi'ot. Salem recounted experiencing a climate of fear and intimidation, marked by the sounds of screams and gunshots.

Systemic Abuse and Lack of Accountability

The allegations of abuse at Ktzi'ot, and other Israeli prisons, point to a larger issue of systemic mistreatment and a lack of accountability within the Israeli prison system.(source)The use of Israel's Unlawful Combatants Law, which allows for indefinite detention without charge, has been criticized by human rights organizations for stripping Palestinian detainees of basic legal protections.

The release of leaked surveillance footage showing alleged abuse of a Palestinian detainee at Sde Teiman further supports claims of widespread and systematic torture within Israeli detention facilities. (source)While the IDF has denied these allegations, human rights groups have called for an independent and impartial investigation into the treatment of Palestinian detainees.

References

https://www.newarab.com/analysis/systematic-torture-gazans-israels-secret-prisons

https://edition.cnn.com/2024/08/25/middleeast/former-palestinian-detainee-sexually-abused-in-israeli-prison-mime-intl/index.html

Ghislaine Maxwell and Laurene Powell Jobs (owner of the Atlantic)

https://imgur.com/gallery/jxHuGM2 https://thespectator.com/topic/atlantic-child-sex-trafficking-ghislaine-maxwell/ source for Ghislaine Maxwell influencing her friend Laurene Powell Jobs who owns the Atlantic(might be able to connect it to this wiki page or create another one for both of them).

https://www.smry.ai/proxy?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theatlantic.com%2Fbusiness%2Farchive%2F2017%2F07%2Femerson-collective-atlantic-coalition%2F535215%2F source for Laurene Powell Jobs having bought the atlantic

https://www.amazon.ca/Relentless-Pursuit-Victims-Jeffrey-Epstein-ebook/dp/B0839Q62PN this book can tell more about Ghislaine Maxwell for a page on her.

Source for this for all the things this piece of shit Ghislaine Maxwell is accused of https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-59571857

https://theweek.com/news/1007980/prosecution-rests-in-ghislaine-maxwell-trial the-week-showing-connection-between-atlantic-fake-sex-trafficking-piece-sex-trafficer-tiffany-and-laurene-jobs-owner-of-atlantic

Blowback Transcript for S4 Episode 1 - "Snake Eater"

https://www.swellai.com/transcripts/blowback-podcast-transcript/s4-episode-1-snake-eater-

And Afghans are thronging to Kabul's airport, desperate to get on planes and leave the country, grasping a US military aircraft and risking their lives.

00:16 - 00:20

Some hung onto the wheels and fell to their death. August 2021.

00:25 - 00:27

The military side is where the U.S.

00:27 - 00:37

is staging an elaborate evacuation of 6,000 American troops being sent to the airport. They opened fire and killed some they considered threats.

00:37 - 00:44

I concluded that it's time to end America's longest war. It's time for American troops to come home.

00:44 - 00:48

And all of the government checkpoints, all police officers, they're gone.

00:48 - 01:01

Just outside the airport, here's what the people are fleeing. The Taliban have set up checkpoints across the Afghan capital, back in control, and showing it with firepower.

01:01 - 01:07

The Taliban don't just control Kabul, but the whole country, and all the weapons the US bought for the Afghan army.

01:07 - 01:12

I did not, in order to anyone else, see a collapse of an army that size in 11 days.

01:12 - 01:21

The country's president has fled. The militants are much stronger now than 20 years ago when the US drove them from power when they sheltered Osama bin Laden.

01:24 - 01:25

September 2001.

01:59 - 02:20

Good afternoon. On my orders, the United States military has begun strikes against al-Qaeda terrorist training camps and military installations of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan. These carefully targeted actions are designed to disrupt the use of Afghanistan as a terrorist-based operations.

02:20 - 02:21

September 1996.

02:24 - 02:29

After sweeping across the country, the Taliban now control three cultures of Afghanistan.

02:29 - 02:46

In the same interview, you were asked whether you regretted having supported Islamic fundamentalists and having armed future terrorists. You reply was, what is more important in the history of the world? The Taliban are the collapse of the Soviet Empire and the end of the Cold War.

02:46 - 02:53

The Lisei Malalai was once the largest girls school in Kabul. Since the Taliban entered Kabul, it is remain closed.

02:53 - 03:00

Yes, compared to the Soviet Union and to its collapse, the Taliban were unimportant.

03:00 - 03:09

1989 Superpowers aren't supposed to lose, but today the Soviet Union concluded its retreat from Afghanistan.

03:09 - 03:26

The Soviet ambassador and the general of the army were inica for leaving Kabul under a very strong fire of the Mujahideen. So, I'm afraid there's going to be a blood bath in Afghanistan. A blood bath.

03:26 - 03:46

1980 U.S. National Security Advisor, Briginski flew to Pakistan to set about rallying resistance. He wanted to arm the Mujahideen without revealing America's role. On the Afghan border near the Kaiba Pass, he urged the soldiers of God to redouble their efforts.

03:46 - 04:01

You know, that land over there is yours. You'll go back to it one day because your fight will prevail and you'll have your homes and your mosques back again because your cause is right. God is on your side.

04:24 - 04:48

Welcome to Blowback. I'm Brendan James. I'm Noah Cohen. And this is season four episode one. Snake Eater. Here we are, welcome friends old and new to season four. And thanks as always, most of all, to everyone who listened last season. And thank you to everyone who is subscribing to join us for this season.

04:48 - 05:09

As usual, this first episode will be free for all. And we hope you join us on the other side at blowback.show where you can sign up and get not only the rest of the season. But 10 more bonus episodes are add free back catalog of all other seasons and a few other goodies that will list at the end of the episode.

05:09 - 05:30

And this season we'll just tell you up front is our most ambitious yet, the saga of war in Afghanistan. And it's a story that winds through decade after decade. Covered war started by the CIA in the 70s, which explodes into a full-scale invasion and occupation by the Soviet Union through the 1980s.

05:31 - 05:49

In the wake of the Soviet defeat, the Jihad in Afghanistan spreads over the world through the 1990s until America itself gets a taste in September 2001. The US unleashes a new war on terror, not just in Afghanistan, but all over the world.

05:50 - 06:18

So think of this season as a two-parter. The first half will be in the 1980s during the Soviet Afghan War. And the second half will lead us up to 911 in America's War on Terror and Occupation of Afghanistan. Along the way we will meet secret agents, Soviet commissars, Afghan warlords, Texas Cowboys, Saudi oligarchs, and the people caught in between. In a 40-year war that may not yet be over.

06:24 - 06:29

I don't know how much you know about Afghanistan. Most people can't even find it on a map.

06:29 - 07:21

From the novel, The worm or Oboros. The king weareth on his thumb that worm or Oboros, which doctors have from a old maid for an ensemble of eternity. Wear of the end is ever at the beginning and the beginning at the end forever more. In other words, the snake eats its tail. Afghanistan Afghanistan Afghanistan Afghanistan Afghanistan Afghanistan Afghanistan Afghanistan Afghanistan Afghanistan Afghanistan Afghanistan Afghanistan Afghanistan Afghanistan Afghanistan Afghanistan Afghanistan the summer of 2021 produced a very odd spectacle the withdrawal of American troops from Afghanistan and the Taliban takeover that followed in some ways appear to wake Americans up almost remind them that we had been occupying a country halfway across the world for 20 years

07:22 - 07:29

And this news today, NBC polling shows 60% of Americans disapprove of President Biden's handling of Afghanistan.

07:29 - 07:59

Abandoning Afghanistan is a historic mistake, read the New York Times, a dishonorable exit, read the Atlantic, and said the Washington Post editorial board that debacle in Afghanistan is the worst kind. Avoidable. There was an interesting logic at play. It was as if the chaos had started that day, and all of the violence and the horror of the past 20 years had nothing to do with the images coming out of Afghanistan.

07:59 - 08:06

But those 20 years of American occupation hardly make much sense without going back further.

08:06 - 08:14

John Poluska is a retired green beret who served in Afghanistan and joins me now. Do you think Biden has made America safer?

08:16 - 08:21

I don't think anything that we did in Afghanistan has made America safer.

08:21 - 08:42

In working backwards from that American withdrawal, questions began piling up. Was this another Vietnam or was it something quite different? Was Afghanistan the good war over shadowed by the criminal Iraq war? Or was it the foundation of the crusade that has turned the world upside down since 9.11?

08:42 - 08:49

Well, well, as you say, you're running out of targets on the celebratory, and you go back to the field of the force, and where do you go to continue to hit?

08:49 - 09:01

Well, for one thing, we're finding that some of the targets we hit need to be re-hit. Second, we're not running out of targets, Afghanistan is.

09:03 - 09:21

We wanted to look at that trail. Study the connections, the associations, the clues that place Afghanistan in America's crosshairs by September 2001. And then we can try to understand what the Americans did next.

09:21 - 09:41

All this may help us understand whether even after the recent US withdrawal is this really over. Or is the snake, perhaps getting ready for another bite? The first time was for himself. The second time was for his country.

09:41 - 09:56

This time. Prambal, something went wrong. It's for his friend. Trumpman was a good man, and I'm really very sorry. You're just leaving him? Huh? I didn't expect us to do. Send him a delta team. Create an international incident. What about me?

09:58 - 10:53

I think we should start here with the biggest bombshell. Many of you out there, whether you know it or not, are probably familiar with the whole vibe of American foreign policy toward Afghanistan from the following point of trivia. in Rambo 3, released in 1988, in which John Rambo fights against the Soviets alongside the Mujahideen. The original cut of the film ended with a title card. You probably know it already. This film is dedicated to the brave Mujahideen fighters of Afghanistan. And as if to underline the historical irony years later. After the 911 attacks, the home video releases of Rambo 3 changed this text to this film is dedicated to the gallant people of Afghanistan. So there it is, everything you need to know. It's right there.

10:53 - 10:57

Captured perfectly in this moment of 80s pop culture, right?

10:58 - 11:35

Well, here it is. And this brings me no pleasure to report. That entire story, that entire meme is a myth. Reviews from the time way back, reference the title card of Galant people, not the Mujahideen fighters. No home video releases printed before 9.11 have ever been shown to contain the Mujahideen shout out. Someone just did a really good job in Photoshop and convinced the internet, and indeed if you look it up several academics, into believing a piece of pop culture history, too good to be true.

11:35 - 11:36

It's over! Not it is over!

11:41 - 12:03

That said, if the trivia itself is false, it is, as they say, spiritually true. And to be honest, Rambo 3 is as good a place as any to understand how Afghanistan first entered the minds of many Americans in the 1980s, a place where Russia got its own Vietnam.

12:04 - 12:20

Every day your warm machines lose ground to a bunch of poorly armed, poorly equipped freedom fighters. The fact is that you underestimate it your competition. If you'd studied your history, you'd know that these people had never given up to anyone. You can't defeat a people like that. We tried. We already had our Vietnam.

12:23 - 12:41

And we'll see this season how this shorthand for the Soviet Afghan war, Russia's Vietnam, was really fed to the American media, be they artists, or the press, and how it gave the Americans only a few years after Vietnam, the opportunity to finally play the anti-imperialists.

12:41 - 12:47

May God deliver us from the venom of the cobra and the vengeance of the Afghan. Understand what this means?

12:47 - 13:13

The two guys don't take any shit. Hollywood, with help from the government of the U.S. and in at least one case of apartheid South Africa, put out a slew of movies to capitalize on this opportunity to be on the right side of history. It was only five years before the Soviet Afghan war that America had been defeated in Vietnam, with all the national shame seeping into people's souls before and after.

13:13 - 13:15

Because we live here!

13:17 - 13:29

Movies like Rambo 3, the Beast, and on the Tackier and Red Scorpion, were essentially a spin on the pre-existing Vietnam movies, but projecting all of America's crimes and misdeeds on the Soviets.

13:29 - 13:45

We saw in season one how architects of the Iraq War, known as the Vulcans, were haunted by, and raging against, so-called Vietnam Syndrome. Well, that pathology begins decades earlier in Afghanistan.

13:54 - 14:21

As CIA director Bill Casey himself put it, here's the beauty of the Afghan operation, Casey told his colleagues. Usually it looks like the big bad Americans are beating up on the natives. Afghanistan is just the reverse. The Russians are beating up on the little guys. We don't make it our war. The Mujahideen have all the motivation they need. All we have to do is give them help, only more of it.

14:23 - 14:28

That, we will find in this season, was a bit of an understatement.

14:28 - 14:32

Red alert. Red alert. Red alert.

14:32 - 14:39

You crossed my line of death! You haven't dismantled your MX stockpile. Pakistan is threatening my border!

14:39 - 14:45

That's it, Buster. No more military aid!

14:45 - 14:50

Nuke! Get them before they get you. Another quality home game from Butler Brothers.

14:51 - 15:14

All the way back in 1954, the Pakistani writer Sadat Monto published a series of essays called Letters to Uncle Sam, writing satirically but with astounding prescience, he jokingly advised the new superpower of the United States to team up with hardcore Islamic militants in the region to scare away the Soviets.

15:15 - 15:22

If this sect of Mollas is armed, American style, then the Soviet Union will have to pick up its batoon from here.

15:24 - 16:03

Even before 911, but certainly since, there's been a popular idea of the standoff between the superpower America and terrorist organizations like Al Qaeda, a sprawling global modern capitalism in one corner and a reactionary militant Islam in the other. McDonald's versus Jihad, to paraphrase the scholar Benjamin Barber. But in telling this season's story about Afghanistan, one that Sadat Monto predicted the better part of a century ago, We're looking to show things in quite a different light. You could look at Islamic fundamentalism as something as American as Apple Pie.

16:03 - 16:19

Scholar Timothy Mitchell refers to the phenomenon as Mick Gihad. The holy wars of Islamic militants and the agendas of states like the USA are far more intertwined than either let's on. This one's continuing to land.

16:21 - 16:26

And this one's great journey are the same."

16:26 - 16:54

As a rule, Mitchell writes. The more closely a government is allied with Washington, the more Islamic its politics. Egypt, under Nasser, Republican Iraq, the Palestine National Movement, post-independence Algeria, the Republic of South Yemen, Bathist Syria, all chartered courses independent of the U.S. in contrast, those governments dependent on the United States typically claimed an Islamic authority.

16:54 - 17:33

There are, of course, exceptions. The split between Sunni and Shia governments has meant that the Islamic Republic of Iran is usually a sworn enemy of the United States, except, of course, when President Reagan was selling the missiles, where the Iatol is, we're offering to help against the Taliban. But on the whole, it is impossible to ignore the alliances, some temporary, some permanent, between the US and Sunni, conservatives, and extremists. It was seemed to follow, Mitchell writes, that political Islam plays an unacknowledged role in the making of what we call global capitalism.

17:34 - 18:03

This may explain why, as we'll see, the United States approved of Pakistan creating and managing the Taliban in the mid-90s. They could bring order to Afghanistan and make things safe for lucrative pipeline deals. A little Saudi Arabia, as one state department official put it. And it may explain why, after the anti-Soviet Jihad, the US shared interests with the emerging Al-Qaeda network in places like Europe, North Africa, and Central Asia.

18:06 - 18:13

Okay. You want to see something really scary? You're bad.

18:13 - 18:35

But there are a lot of things that all these years later, most Americans have never heard about, not only the full extent of American-backed anti-communist jihad, and how far it really went back. but also the very things that shaped the nature of the war and the nature of the withdrawal that had the American press and politicians screaming bloody murder in 2021.

18:35 - 18:39

All right, two seconds, okay? Okay, what is it? Just pull it over.

18:39 - 18:40

I'll show you.

18:43 - 19:05

In the fall of 2001, as the U.S. bombing campaign routed the Taliban and al Qaeda, Vice President Dick Cheney, anti-terror obsessive, supervised the evacuation of hundreds of al Qaeda and Taliban by Pakistani planes, who safely transported them over the border, where they would enjoy protection for years.

19:07 - 19:36

Late into the Jihad of the 1980s, the CIA not content with bleeding the Soviets dry inside Afghanistan, launched an even more secret operation in which the warlords on our payroll executed raids and attacks inside the USSR. This stunned even hardliners in the Reagan administration and the CIA. One confessed years later, putting together a military operation and carrying it into the Soviet Union had never been done.

19:37 - 20:00

In the 1990s, when a plucky group of religious rivalists called the Taliban took over Afghanistan. The supposedly medieval Taliban tapped top-notch public relations experts and lobbyists in Washington. Specifically, they enlisted New Jersey's socialite, Laly Helms, the niece of former CIA director, Richard Helms.

20:01 - 20:08

Every new weapon, including chemical warfare, has been used to eliminate these people, and they've been very successful on many levels.

20:08 - 20:45

Long time listeners of the show may hear echoes of the past, or rather of the future. During the Soviet Afghan War, when the U.S. government cooked up allegations of WMD against the Soviet Union. Accusations that the USSR was using yellow rain, toxic chemical bombs, not only in Afghanistan, but also in Cambodia and Laos. This accusation made it into the aforementioned Hollywood portrayals of the war, and it sure helped to change the subject from the actual chemical agents the U.S. dropped on Vietnam a few years earlier.

20:45 - 20:51

Get a stand as a big place. How and where you make it. The last couple years.

20:52 - 21:34

In the shadowy and bizarre web of connections that lead up to the September 11th attacks, one name kept coming up. Mr. Ali Muhammad, according to one FBI Special Agent, trained scores of Islamic militants in the 80s and 90s. The man who taught Al Qaeda the art of kidnapping, suicide bombing, and hijacking airplanes cut his teeth fighting the Soviets on behalf of the USA. Perhaps that's not too surprising. More interesting, though, is the fact that Ali Muhammad was a green beret, an FBI informant, and a CIA asset.

21:34 - 21:43

We ever have a gun-of-fine bedlock. Yeah, of course. Absolutely. Did we ever come close? I don't know.

21:49 - 22:18

The first ever international warrant for Osama's arrest was not issued by the United States even after he'd been connected to the World Trade Center bombing in 1993, and the deadly attacks on U.S. military installations in Saudi Arabia in the years after. Though it was scrubbed from the public copy of the warrant, the first government officially calling for Bin Laden's capture, Colonel Muammar Gaddafi's Libya. And the reason it was kept under wraps is a whole other story.

22:18 - 22:32

Sales went up 50 percent. 50 percent. So the very idea, I was unaware of every detail or aspect that shows operation. frankly it's very insulting.

22:32 - 23:24

Maybe the widest reaching effect of the Afghan Jihad and the wars that followed was Afghanistan's transformation from a developing modern economy to far and away the world's largest supplier of heroin. As we'll see, in a country of poppy fields, the Mija Hadine, the CIA, and the Pakistanis juice the heroin trade in the 1980s. In decades later, though the Taliban insurgency used drug money to fight the American occupation. The major areas of production of heroin took place in regions controlled by the United States. By the height of the US occupation, Afghanistan was producing 90% of the world's heroin. It still dominates the market today.

23:28 - 23:51

We paid the price, we bore the burden, and the astonishing that the evil empire collapsed. The Berlin Wall is falling, and the Red Army has been chased from Afghanistan for their tail between their lives. Every value we were taught, in our home, in our schools, and in our churches turned out to be true.

23:53 - 24:00

This season features our largest cast of characters yet, and perhaps the most colorful as well.

24:05 - 24:33

Among the Americans will meet Texas Congressman Charlie Wilson, the man who would become America's spokesperson for the Islamic Jihad. A womanizer with an notorious cocaine habit, Charlie Wilson's condo-sported mirrored walls and a gleaming tanning bed to maintain his year-round tan, rights as biographer. And Wilson had a near-brushed with jail several times, be it for charges of bribery, cocaine use, or the time he committed a hit and run in the nation's capital.

24:34 - 24:47

Wilson exclusively staffed his office with beautiful women, known as Charlie's Angels. He once explained, quote, you can teach them how to type, but you can't teach them how to grow tits.

24:48 - 25:17

Against this debauched lifestyle, Wilson held high ideals. His childhood hero was Douglas MacArthur, and his inspiration to enter politics was John F. Kennedy. To pursue these ideals, Wilson made friends with dictators in Nicaragua, war criminals in Israel, and the holy warriors of Afghanistan. Visiting that front, Wilson would dress in robes, quote, staging mock raids, brandishing a sword while riding a white stallion.

25:17 - 25:37

Using his buffoonish persona to disguise some genuine political talent, Wilson managed to transform the jihad in Afghanistan from a dirty, low-key covert op into, quote, a Washington cocktail circuit called Celeb. But to some, he would always be known as cocaine Charlie.

25:37 - 25:39

Next call is from Houston, Texas. Go ahead, please.

25:39 - 25:48

That's good. Yes, Houston. And we should be trying to get along with the full air with straw, because being hard with them was just in no place.

25:48 - 25:50

I sure I'm glad you don't live in my district.

25:50 - 25:59

I always thought, I didn't live in your district. Another thing. I got a cocaine problem. Did you clear that up or? I've been cleared.

25:59 - 26:01

I've been cleared for five times. I hope that's enough.

26:04 - 26:13

The day-to-day manager of the Jihad, CIA man, Gust Avrakotos, hailed from Alec Whippa on the Rolling Hills, just north of Pittsburgh.

26:13 - 26:55

Averacodos represented, at least to his admirers, the new crop of blue collar, ethnic, hard-scrabble CIA recruits that had no connection to the blue-blooded cast, ruling the agency back in the 70s and 80s. In fact, according to author George Criall, it was Averacodos's Greek background that made him useful as a frontline player in the CIA's program to assist the military junta taking over Greece. sent by the agency to advise the hunter to spare the country's president for execution, Avra Codos recalls telling them, unofficially, as your friend, my advice is to shoot the mother fucker.

26:56 - 27:23

As chief of the Afghan operation, Avrakotos would run a team that sent the Mujahideen all kinds of toys and trained them in kidnapping, assassination, and other acts of terrorism. His enthusiasm for the Afghan project brought him into contact with a fellow believer in the cause, Charlie Wilson. Quote, as I saw it, the tie that bound us together was chasing pussy and killing communists.

27:25 - 28:25

Even the boisterous gust of recoders had a boss, and during the years of the US-backed Jihad, the agency was headed by director Bill Casey. Casey was not only a staunch Catholic, with ties to the Vatican, but also a member of the secretive religious order, the Knights of Malta. According to Steve Cole, Casey saw a political Islam and the Catholic Church as natural allies in the realistic counter-strategy of covert action he was forging at the CIA. and X-Wall Street lawyer, similar to the dullest brothers. Casey cultivated relationships with powerful foreign leaders in a position to help his causes. In particular, some people will meet this season, like Pakistan's General Zia and Saudi Arabia's King Fad. Casey was probably the only guy who could and did get the Islamic theocracy to arrange for a Catholic mass while he was visiting the country.

28:29 - 28:44

This is a big new president ski with the guy who really got the whole left-hand business in motion. As a big new Burjanski, which is hard and anti-communist, fanatic, has ever been in the American government.

28:44 - 29:01

In stark contrast to the flamboyant Wilson, the foulmouthed avaracodos, the wild-eyed Casey, stands the architect of the geod inside the Carter White House. Jimmy Carter's cold, mercurial national security advisor, Zabigneu, Burzanski.

29:01 - 29:16

He couldn't get over what the Russians didn't pull him. There was no way he was ever going to give them an inch on anything. And he led Carter into the hardest, hardest possible line position on what to do about the Russians and Afghanistan.

29:28 - 29:46

To draw the Soviets into a hopeless military, quagmire. He later denied saying this, but we have some interesting tapes and interviews revealing that in private, Presinsky couldn't quite help himself, bragging of his triumph in sucking the Soviet Union into Afghanistan.

29:46 - 29:52

Did you come to an agreement with the Chinese on how they could collaborate with the US to bait the polar bear to the north?

29:52 - 30:12

Well, first of all, I wanted you to ask the questions more intelligently because they now make it easier to respond. If you phrase that way about baiting and so forth, you're really not trying to elicit constructive answers. I'm only using your own expression. I did not use expression baiting.

30:12 - 30:25

There were seven different groups of afghans. Generally thought of this four of the fundamentalists in three of the moderates, they were all to their one degree or another for Islamists.

30:25 - 30:31

Who were these Gujahedine leaders that the United States, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan were supporting?

30:32 - 30:53

The most celebrated of the Mujahideen was the Tajik commander, Akmed Shah Masud. One of the young Islamists who came out of Kabul University in the 60s and 70s, Masud cut a dashing figure. His knowledge of French and his reported taste for French nurses earned him the nickname, the Parisian.

30:54 - 31:05

Since the Soviet invasion of Christmas 1979, Masood, a 33-year-old former engineering student, has established himself as one of the most popular guerilla chiefs in Afghanistan.

31:10 - 31:24

Indeed, European and American writers would go on to romanticize Masood as a religious patriot, fighting for Afghan democracy. But there was a dark side to the so-called lion of the Panshir Valley.

31:24 - 32:01

Masood's forces wound up dealing drugs and smuggling just as much as anybody else. Even CIA tough guy Gust Evercodos, friend of whom does and warlords like, was creeped out by the reports he was reading on Masood's gang. There was one passage in there that really got me. He said later. A guy was sleeping, and he said he woke one night and heard horrible groans. He didn't get up, but he was able to put on his night vision goggles. And saw a group of Masood's guys literally corn-holding a Russian prisoner. and, quote, the Afghan presiding over the rape was one of Masood's lutenants.

32:11 - 32:38

If Akmachama sued was a smooth criminal, Golbedin Hechmachar didn't even try to hide it. Far and away the most notorious of all the Mujahideen, Hechmachar was the favorite of every intelligence agency. By the end of the Soviet Afghan war, Hechmachar had received over 1 billion in armaments, writes Peter Delskot, more than any other CIA client has ever received, before, or since.

32:39 - 33:11

Heckbittier, with his documented fondness for throwing acid in women's faces, would have had nothing to learn from Al Qaeda rights Andrew Coburn. In fact, according to Osama bin Laden biographer Peter Bergen, Heckbittier and Osama worked well together. The former hosted Al Qaeda training camps in the early 1990s. When a courageous ABC news team interviewed Heckbittier in 1993 rights Andrew, he had beheaded half a dozen people earlier that day. Later, he killed their translator.

33:11 - 33:34

The one meeting we had together, he said, you've come to kill me. And he's sitting there with his agate prayer beads. And he said, maybe not you, but maybe you, you're going to kill me. Very often, wonder if how to, would have been different if I'd have actually called ahead and shot him. But I did not.

33:34 - 34:21

Another favorite of the U.S. Paymasters was Abdul Rasul Siyaf, a closest associate of Hechmintyar, and a good friend to the soon-to-be notorious so-called Afghan Arabs. That is, volunteers from the Muslim world who are traveling from all over to Afghanistan to join up. Saiaf's training camps attracted some of the most promising future stars of international terrorism, such as Ramsey Yusuf, who would go on to mastermind the first World Trade Center bombing. And Saiaf was also an early associate, a future kingpin Osama bin Laden. Khalid Sheikh Muhammad, named by the 911 Commission report as the principal architect of the 911 plot, first conceived of it when he was with Saiaf, writes Peter Del Scott.

34:22 - 35:10

All in all, these so-called holy warriors were less of your traditional religious figures, and more of your typical mafia bosses. They ran rackets and delt drugs, and, like the five families in America, the Afghan gangs ward with each other over turf and money. When visiting Afghanistan, Charlie Wilson noticed the, quote, menacing bands of bodyguards surrounding Mushadeen. Wilson asked his Pakistani handler. Do they really have to worry that much about the Soviets trying to kill them? It's not the Soviets they're worried about. The ISI officer said. It's each other.

35:10 - 35:26

There was of course another figure of note. Not a native Afghan. But one of those so-called Afghan Arabs, who had traveled to the country for a piece of the action. This was a young man named Osama.

35:26 - 35:41

To the south of Algeria near the Sahara desert, you see children playing football wearing a bean lad and t-shirt. This is how popular bin Laden is.

35:41 - 35:59

The bin Laden are more than a family. They're a dynasty. Osama's father, Muhammad bin Laden, who created the construction conglomerate that bears his family's name, was among the Yemeni merchants who fled instability at home for the kingdom of Saudi Arabia in the early 20th century.

36:00 - 36:32

Osama's father started modestly with small jobs, writes reporter John Cooley. But he soon moved into the big time by building palaces in the early 1950s, for the House of Soud, in the capital, Riyadh. Muhammad bin Laden's big chance, and that of his progeny, he fathered with various wives, no fewer than 52 children, came when he won the contract to build a Medina Jeda Highway in the holy province of Hijaz. Soon, the bin Laden name was legendary.

36:32 - 36:40

According to Cooley, by the mid-1960s, the bin Laden conglomerate had become the biggest private contractor of its kind.

36:40 - 36:43

And it was then that Muhammad bin Laden died in a plane crash.

36:57 - 37:31

His son, Osama, Bin Laden, was born in 1957. By the time of the Afghan Jihad, he was a young man in his 20s, using his family's wealth to make a name for himself in the world. His siblings took more traditional routes, teeming up with foreign bankers and investing the family money. His older brother, Selim, for example, was a reported investor in one failed oil concern, or boosted energy. Founded in 1977 by a fellow child of privilege. George W. Bush

37:33 - 38:13

Osama, on the other hand, used his large chest to support the Afghans, and founded so-called refugee camps where eager new recruits could receive weapons and training. Through his family businesses' work in the holy sites of Mecca and Medina, Osama seemed to both Saudi intelligence and the CIA an ideal choice for the leading role he began to play. Senior Saudi intelligence officials told Steve Cole that Osama was by this point basically a contractor for Saudi intelligence. And it's a relationship that the kingdom has sought to downplay ever since.

38:13 - 38:32

We have created a North Star for terrorism and all the people who are out there who may hate us Americans have some sort of a guy but It's almost like this Elvis Presley really control all the Elvis Presley fan clubs that are still out there. I don't think so.

38:42 - 39:12

We tend on this program to circle back to the Bush family. And the fact is, it's nearly impossible not to. In this case, the axis between the US and Saudi Arabia, which will condition everything from the anti-Soviet war to the rise of the Taliban to the attacks of September 11th and their aftermath, can be seen in the twin dynasties of both the Bush's and the Bin Laden's. A 2001 article in the Toronto Star sums it up.

39:12 - 39:40

FBI agents had been told by the administration of George W. Bush to back off investigating members of the bin Laden clan living in the US. What are we to make of all this? The paper asked. One possible conclusion was that the bin Laden terror problem was allowed to get out of hand because bin Laden himself had powerful protectors in both Washington and Saudi Arabia.

39:40 - 40:04

Business connections linking the two families go way back. As previously mentioned, young George W. Bush's first energy concern was chock full of cash from Solomon Bin Laden, Osama's brother. Both families were deeply invested also in the Carlisle group. A massive private equity concern still known to this day for buying up its fair share of military contractors.

40:05 - 40:55

Beyond the Bin Laden's themselves, the Saudi links with the Bush dynasty go on and on. No other political family in the United States says writer Kevin Phillips has had anything remotely resembling the Bush's four decade relationship with the Saudi royal family and the oil sheaks of the Persian Gulf. One glaring example of Saudi influence was the American government's reluctance to prosecute in the early 90s, the Bank of Commerce and Credit International, BCCI, a global network of dark money that was used to finance crime, run drugs, and supply the Majahadine in Afghanistan.

40:55 - 40:56

Now things are starting to make a little sense.

41:09 - 41:20

The great people of the US unfortunately most of them they didn't know that truth because the war of Afghanistan was not only military invasion, it was propaganda war too.

41:20 - 41:28

I was substituted. Bush's language that he used once and ever again. I was substituted toward crusade. It was already seen as a war to the death of the G-Hide, if you will.

41:28 - 41:37

The mentor of Beloved makes more than 20 trips to New York and Boston raising funds. Someone was either highly incompetent or someone was looking the other way.

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This season, as ever, we have a fantastic set of guests that you're going to hear from. We had the honor of speaking with Afghan politician and social activist, Malalai Joya, with Pakistani journalist Ahmed Rashid, and the inimitable Muckraker Sihersh.

41:58 - 42:30

We'll take you from the ancient empires to the Cold War standoff to 911 and beyond in what is our most exciting season yet. So, if you want to come with and subject yourself to this maddening web of entry head over to blowback.show and hit the big button that says subscribe. You'll also get 10 bonus episodes, full interviews with our guests, a talk about Hollywood's 1980s F-Gannest and B-Movies, and a very special look at Soldier of Fortune Magazine.

42:30 - 42:45

You'll also get extra cuts of music from the soundtrack for a release of which will come out September 25th. And yes, we are finally putting out merch. And as a subscriber, you'll get discount codes for upcoming t-shirts, hats, and posters.

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So, get to it folks. Head to blowback.show and hit the big button that says subscribe.

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And we'll see you on the other side.