DAVID MALONE'S PUBLICIZED FOREWARNING OF
AL QAEDA'S 2004 OCTOBER SURPRISE PLOT

From the grandson of my old friend Tom Malone -- showing the younger generation can be in there fighting...P

From: "David Malone" <dtmalone2005@yahoo.com>

To: < Paul R. Ehrlich>

<Bing Professor of Population Studies
President, Center for Conservation Biology
Department of Biological Sciences
Stanford University, Stanford, CA>

Date: Thu, 21 Oct 2004 06:49:47

Dear Professor Ehrlich

My Grandfather suggested you might be interested in some of my new additions, which offer an original perspective on how Bush has completely failed on national security by serving as Bin Laden's unwitting puppet president.

My book, titled "Bin Laden's Plan" (http://www.ladenbush.com), endeavors to show how Bin Laden has attempted to portray himself as the Messiah of Apocalypse mythology who destroys the Great Satan by manipulating Bush into demonizing America.

·        Bin Laden bombed the USS Cole three weeks before the 2000 election to support Bush's candidacy.

·        Bin Laden has chosen not to attack the American homeland since 9/11 in order to transfer war guilt to America and assist Bush's reelection.

·        Bush's reelection will signal Al Qaeda's victory in the public relations phase of its war and initiate the military phase to destroy America.  Right before the election is an optimal time for these compelling revelations to emerge publicly, considering the American public's notoriously short attention span.  Discrediting Bush on the issue he polls highest for, national security, would be a powerful way to challenge his reelection.  I have attached an excerpt on the Cole bombing and the void in post-9/11 attacks on the American homeland.  I invite your comment on the excerpt and my webpage.  Do you know anybody who would be interested in getting this message out?

Thank you for your reaction to these thoughts.

Sincerely,

David Malone

AN EXCERPT FROM BIN LADEN'S PLAN BY DAVID MALONE (LADENBUSH.COM)

CONTENTS

COLE BOMBING (37 P.)

NO ATTACKS INSIDE AMERICA (5 P.)

The most important vote in the 2000 United States Presidential Election was cast on October 12, 2000 by a man who plans to destroy America.  A mere three weeks before the election that was widely predicted to be the closest in American history, Osama bin Laden bombed the Naval Destroyer USS Cole.  As discussed in The 9/11 Commission Report, Bin Laden meticulously masterminded this attack[i].  A boat packed full of explosives detonated into the side of the Destroyer, nearly sinking the vessel, causing a quarter of a billion dollars in damage and killing seventeen Americans[ii]. This unprecedented terrorist attack was Al Qaeda's first unconcealed attack outside of Bin Laden's homeland Saudi Arabia that targeted the United States military.  The Cole bombing was only the second overt Al Qaeda attack on America abroad outside of Saudi Arabia. 

History witnesses that the appearance of a major foreign military threat to a nation at peace immediately results in an enormous surge in public support for national defense as personified by a leader who is viewed as a champion of the military.  Considering the vulnerability of today's increasingly interconnected world, the 2000 Election was the United States presidential election most vulnerable to such intentional manipulation by a foreign military threat.  The fact that the 2000 Election was the closest election in modern history magnified this vulnerability.  In such a close contest an event like a terrorist attack need only change the vote of a tiny fraction of 1% of the voters to give one candidate victory.  The bombing of the USS Cole immediately before Election 2000 gave Bush, the candidate who most favored national military defense, the critical votes in the most vulnerable election in United States history.  In determining whether Bin Laden intended to effect an American regime change via the Cole bombing, it must be considered that Bin Laden is a geo-political genius who has successfully evaded his superpower enemies for a decade while devising their destruction and, today, appears to be winning Al Qaeda's public relations war against America.  A proper respect for the genius Bin Laden has clearly demonstrated leads inevitably to the conclusion that he most certainly considered the effect the USS Cole bombing would have on the United States Presidential Election only three weeks away.

The timing of the Cole bombing indicated that Bin Laden hoped the attack would support Bush's election.  By launching the attack in the final weeks before the election, American voters were more apt to feel the immediate emotional impact of the attack in the voting booth than if the attack occurred earlier in the year.  The more vivid the attack was in the voters memory on election day, the more likely their vote would be influenced by the emotional response for a strong military retaliation to the attack.  The importance of a strong military response to a constituency just entering a war after a surprise attack supercedes the importance of diplomatic efforts, as feelings of fear and wrath trump any inclination to pursue a diplomatic solution.  This short-term effect of such an attack was most obviously displayed after 9/11, when the overwhelming American sentiment was military retaliation, not support for diplomatic efforts to eliminate such underlying causes of terrorism as poverty and economic inequity.  On the other hand, if the American public had a few months to absorb the shock of the Cole bombing prior to the election, a rational mandate for diplomatic ability might well have outweighed the emotionally-charged mandate for military retaliation in the voting booth.  Just as certain as the immediate emotional public outcry for military revenge following such an attack, the long term effect of a major terrorist attack is a rational campaign to mend foreign relations to subvert the fundamental causes of terrorism.  As the candidate most respected for foreign diplomatic prudence, Gore might well have won Election 2000 had the Cole bombing occurred earlier in the year.  Instead, Bin Laden chose to launch the attack shortly before the election in order to support Bush, the militarist candidate.  Bin Laden's timing of the Cole bombing shortly before the presidential election emphasized the true importance of diplomacy over hawkish militarism to the United States in his war. 

Substantial evidence indicates that Bin Laden intended to execute an even more dramatic and overt attempt at American regime change prior to the 2000 Presidential Election.  Originally, Bin Laden wanted the 9/11 attacks to occur in the final weeks of September 2000 or the month of October, but the 9/11 hijackers were not prepared at this time[iii].  Such a spectacular terrorist attack would have had an even more pronounced effect on the 2000 Election by generating a strong mandate for military retaliation.  As regards the Cole bombing, Bin Laden intended to execute it even closer to the election day than it actually occurred, but poor command communication led to its premature execution[iv].  If this bombing had occurred closer to the 2000 Election date it would have also generated a more pronounced support for the militarist candidate.  Bin Laden's well documented intent to launch a massive attack on America immediately before the 2000 Election clearly revealed his goal of facilitating Bush's election. 

     The bombing of the USS Cole was Al Qaeda's most remarkable and unappreciated feat of regime change to date.  Bin Laden has proven that a major terrorist attack can be a most effective means of regime change in a modern democracy.  By manipulating the fear of the voter constituency, a foreign terrorist can sway the voters towards supporting foreign policies that unintentionally favor the terrorist.  Unlike the case of the USS Cole bombing, during a war that was initiated by the targeted democratic nation, this form of voter manipulation typically sways the constituency into overt appeasement of the terrorist.  When an American-led multi-national force entered Lebanon to stabilize the civil-war torn country, the bombing of the U.S. Marine Barracks in Lebanon in 1983 by Bin Laden and Hezbollah affiliates pressured America and its allies to withdraw the security forces[v].  This bombing amounted to a regime change as it pressured America, the dominant security force in Lebanon at the time, to withdraw and concede victory to the radical Islamic fundamentalists.  After Spain sent its troops to assist the American occupation of Iraq in 2003, the Madrid train bombings on the eve of the 2004 Spanish national elections swayed voter sentiment towards ousting the pro-American government and installing a socialist government that acceded to Al Qaeda's demands for a Spanish withdrawal from Iraq[vi].  

Since the bombing of the USS Cole was an unprovoked attack during peacetime, the attack had the reverse effect of the Lebanon and Spanish bombings on the targeted voter constituency.  Instead of provoking the endorsement of a pacifist response, the Cole bombing manipulated a crucial fraction of American voters into endorsing a militant response to Al Qaeda in the form of Bush's election.  A similar event occurred in the context of the Russian-Chechen war in 2004, a conflict that Al Qaeda initiated in 1999 with the catastrophic Moscow apartment bombings[vii].  Only days before the Chechen presidential election, Al Qaeda-backed Chechen terrorists simultaneously bombed two Russian airliners, killing ninety civilians.  This event assisted the election of the Russian-backed Chechen presidential candidate on the mandate of harsh retaliation for this terrorist attack, a mandate that was dramatically increased in the following weeks with the Moscow subway bombing and the infamous Russian school siege.  In the two months before the 2004 American presidential election this monstrously spectacular terrorist campaign also supported the reelection of Bush on the mandate of an equally spectacular retaliation against Al Qaeda and all its perceived allies.  Both the Cole bombing and the Russian terrorist attacks were similar to the Madrid bombings in that they all assisted Bin Laden's war against America, either augmenting the sources of America's global vilification (the Bush Administration) or diminishing the support America receives from its allies.  Most notably among these Al Qaeda attacks, the bombing of the USS Cole assisted Bin Laden's war by installing a neo-conservative American president who has given Al Qaeda a sustained public relations victory over America.

How did the Cole bombing favor Bush over Gore?

On National Defense:

            Bush

The bombing of the USS Cole favored Bush in the election of the two remaining candidates on 10/12/00, both as the national defense candidate and as the leader of a new administration in the war against Al Qaeda.  Bush was undoubtedly the military's candidate, as was evident from his stated foreign policy doctrine, his inner circle of war hawks and his cowboy public image.  Consistent with the popular perception of the traditional Republican agenda on strengthening the military to pursue an aggressive foreign policy, Bush stated in his 2000 campaign that he planned to rebuild the military with a major upgrade[viii]. 

I'm going to rebuild our military power.  It's one of the major priorities of my administration[ix].

Bush portrayed himself as the candidate who would rebuild the American military and intelligence services that had been egregiously under-funded by the early Clinton/Gore Administration as part of its infamous post-Cold War "peace dividend".  One aspect of Bush's neo-conservative military upgrade was a renewed nuclear arms race, reflected by Bush's opposition to the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty and the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty.  In particular, Bush fervently endorsed the expansion of the National Missile Defense Program regardless of the resultant escalation of the nuclear arms race[x]. 

While reminiscent of the Reagan Administration's hawkish foreign policy, most prominently demonstrated by Reagan's massive escalation of the nuclear arms race, Bush Jr. revealed an even more extreme neo-conservative foreign policy with his unprecedented endorsement of preemptive war.

I believe the role of the military is to fight and win war and therefore prevent war from happening in the first place[xi].

Reiterating this statement on preemptive warfare throughout the 2000 presidential debates, Bush acted on this foreign policy by initiating war with Iraq in an apparent attempt to prevent attacks on America.  Bush's revelation of the radical doctrine of preemptive warfare in his first presidential campaign was naturally mitigated with softer language, reflecting his intent to bridge a transition from America's previous reactive foreign policy through a new proactive policy to his goal of preemption.  During the 2000 campaign Bush paradoxically complemented his public image as a war hawk with his dovish representation as a "compassionate conservative".  While today this campaign slogan has been long lost in the war clouds of Bin Laden's conflict, Bush's 2000 campaign did not fully reveal the unmitigated reality of Bush's hawkish foreign policy.  At times Bush's campaign tried to characterize his foreign policy as more humble than that of the Clinton/Gore Administration, as with Bush's assertions that his administration would diminish the American military's involvement in nation-building and policing the world.  However, this portrait of a humble foreign policy starkly contradicted Bush's other statements on foreign policy, the foreign policy of the neo-conservatives in his inner circle and his subsequent actions as president, poorly veiling the fact that Bush was undoubtedly the less dovish of the two presidential candidates.

The Bush campaign's most blatant revelation of his strikingly hawkish foreign policy was displayed by his inner circle of advisors.  During the 2000 campaign Bush's complete lack of foreign policy experience was widely publicized, an inexperience particularly displayed in his infamous failure of an interviewer's foreign policy pop-quiz in which Bush could not recall, among other names, the leader of America's most important post-9/11 ally, President Musharraf of Pakistan.  Bush's conspicuous ignorance of foreign policy matters led many to conclude that he would defer to the experienced neo-conservatives in his administration for guidance[xii].  Confirming predictions made before the election, the foreign policy of Bush's presidency, often referred to as the Cheney-Bush co-presidency, has been particularly influenced by his super-hawkish vice president to a greater degree than perhaps any administration in American history[xiii].

Most visible in his inner circle of advisors was Bush's choice for vice president, Dick Cheney, the super-hawkish Secretary of Defense of the Gulf War.  As a congressman in the 1980s Cheney established his identity as a perennial war hawk, consistently backing Reagan's precarious escalation of the nuclear arms race with such technological pursuits as the Multiple Independent Reentry Vehicle nuclear missile and the Star Wars National Missile Defense Program.  As head of the Pentagon during the Bush I Administration Cheney directed the largest American military engagements since Vietnam, conducting the invasion of Panama followed a year later by the still larger engagement of the American Gulf War.  During the Gulf War Cheney distinguished himself as a war hawk when he clashed with the Head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Colin Powell, overriding Powell's proposal for extending economic sanctions and delaying moderate military action by forcefully advocating an imminent massive military counterattack against Iraqi forces[xiv].  Cheney's success in convincing President Bush I to adopt his plan was reflected by the fact that he was chosen as a representative of America's hawkish resolve against Saddam to personally present to King Fahd of Saudi Arabia his proposal of sending 200,000 American troops to the kingdom in prelude to the counter-invasion of Kuwait.  In the days before America's ground counter-invasion, Cheney and Under-Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz enthusiastically advocated the outright invasion of Iraq[xv].  Cheney and the future architect of America's 2003 invasion of Iraq presented President Bush I with this invasion plan, known as Operation Scorpion, despite the widespread belief that an invasion of Iraq would provoke Arab nations to abandon America's coalition and instigate Saddam to attack America and Israel with his arsenal of chemical weapons (an arsenal the Bush I Administration definitively knew Saddam possessed because the Reagan/Bush Administration had supplied him with it to fight Iran from 1983-1988).  When Cheney finally succeeded in enacting his plan for an American invasion of Iraq twelve years later he demonstrated the same willingness to foment anti-Americanism and spark a WMD war in the Middle East in pursuit of his hawkish strategic objectives.  The unprecedented preemptive invasion of Iraq that Vice-President Cheney successfully enacted has demonstrated a super-hawkish inclination that dwarfs his previous enterprises in Panama and the Gulf War, initiating an American military engagement that threatens to dwarf even Vietnam. 

Aside from his record of a militant foreign policy, vice-presidential candidate Cheney was (and continues to be) a member of the neo-conservative organization The Project For The New American Century (PNAC).  As early as 1997 this group, founded in part by defense contractors and big oil, openly advocated an aggressive foreign policy based on America's domination of the world by military force.  In particular PNAC endorsed American military aggression, irrespective of the United Nations, against regimes that challenge America's supremacy[xvi].  A prime objective of this proposed military aggression is to ensure the security of Middle Eastern oil supplies[xvii].  PNAC was founded on the neo-conservative statement of foreign policy principles outlined in the 1992 Pentagon publication of "Defense Policy Guidance" written by the current Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz.  Along with Wolfowitz and Cheney, other members of PNAC who were part of Bush's inner circle of advisors for his 2000 campaign include I. Lewis Libby, Cheney's Chief of Staff and National Security Advisor, Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage, Undersecretary of Arms Control and International Security John Bolton, former Chairman and current member of the Defense Policy Board (the chief advisory board to the Secretary of Defense) Richard Perle, and George Bush's brother Jeb Bush.  The fact that the core of Bush's foreign policy advisors in his 2000 campaign were members of PNAC was a further indication of Bush's hawkish foreign policy.

The people in Bush's Administration and the implementation of his foreign policy have further confirmed Bush's apparent predisposition to a hawkish foreign policy.  In addition to the above mentioned foreign policy advisors of the 2000 Bush campaign, other members of PNAC that Bush appointed to high-level positions in his administration include Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, Undersecretary of Defense Douglas Feith, National Security Council member and Presidential Advisor on the Middle East Eliot Abrams, President of the Committee for the Liberation of Iraq and Advisor to Rumsfeld on Iraq in 2001 Randy Scheunemann, White House envoy to the Iraqi opposition Zalmay Khalilzad, and a number of other high-ranking administration officials.  In collaboration with Bush, these PNAC members have formulated an American foreign policy based on the PNAC agenda.  In particular, Bush's post-9/11 National Security Strategy is based on PNAC's central policy document "Rebuilding American Defenses" (RAD), including support of preemptive war outside of the United Nations against nations that are not an imminent threat to America, nuclear first-strikes against non-nuclear nations, rapid development of National Missile Defense as well as space-based military projects, and abrogation of international treaties and alliances[xviii].  The RAD document repeatedly identifies Iraq, Iran and North Korea as the three rogue nations that pose the principal threat to American security, the same nations that Bush labeled the "Axis of Evil" in his first post-9/11 State of the Union Address.  This PNAC document specifically recommends increasing America's military budget to 3.8% of the gross domestic product, the precise amount Bush proposed in 2003 for the next year's military budget.  "Rebuilding America's Defenses" was released two months before Bush's election by a group with members at the highest levels of the Bush team, clearly indicating this document was a blueprint for Bush's foreign policy.  The plethora of PNAC members appointed to high-level positions in the Bush Administration and the striking similarity between his foreign policy and the doctrine of PNAC strongly suggests that Bush's foreign policy was pre-formulated by the conspicuous war hawks in his inner circle of advisors. 

            Beyond his public statements and his foreign policy advisors in the 2000 campaign, Bush's striking public image as a cowboy portrayed a mighty bravado traditionally associated with a strong military leader.  This public presentation of Bush as a confident Texan further bolstered him as the military defense candidate.  Bush's extreme audacity and pride are also a window to a much more sinister characteristic that garners support for him following an attack such as the bombing of the USS Cole, his hawkish inclination towards extreme acts of vengeance in response to attacks.  This proclivity is popularly displayed in the infamous Texan warning, "Don't mess with Texas".  As the immediate popular response to a major terrorist attack in America is an overwhelmingly desire for vengeance, Bin Laden could expect that in the immediate weeks after the Cole bombing wrath would sway a crucial fraction of the United States populace to elect the most vengeful candidate to the presidency.  The swing vote from the Cole bombing aftermath that put a neo-conservative war hawk in the Oval Office represented a predictable mandate for a strong United States military retaliation against Al Qaeda.

Gore

While Bush's strong presentation as the military defense candidate positioned him to benefit from the Cole bombing, Al Gore's weak military persona was unlikely to draw benefit from Bin Laden's attack.  Both his association with the Clinton Administration and his public personality portrayed a presidential candidate who was weak on national defense.  Gore was part of an administration that was widely perceived as having greatly downsized the military and intelligence agencies, in particular shouldering responsibility for perhaps the greatest national security breach ever in the Chinese acquisition of state-of-the-art nuclear weapons and missile technology.  Continuing this dovish policy of national defense, Gore advocated a foreign policy based on international reconciliation and non-provocative, stabilizing measures such as arms control.  During the 2000 presidential campaign Gore endorsed the traditionally dovish democratic foreign policy of Carter and Clinton, in stark contrast to Bush's representation of the traditionally hawkish Republican foreign policy of Nixon, Reagan and his father.  Perhaps most damningly, Gore was seen as the candidate from an administration that had failed to diminish Al Qaeda's military capacity since it publicly declared war on the United States in 1998.  Additionally, the failure of the Clinton/Gore Administration's policy of reconciliation in the Middle East was widely perceived as the cause of the millennial Palestinian uprising and the ensuing resurgence in the fundamentalist Islamic crusade against America, further damaging Gore's attempt to portray an able candidate to lead the war against Al Qaeda.  Gore's appearance of advocating a dovish policy of national defense was part of his public image as the tender-hearted candidate, a personality that is incompatible with the traditional image of a strong military leader.  The combination of Bush's strong military persona and Gore's apparent inept leadership in the war against Al Qaeda presented Bush as the undisputed militarist candidate.  By pressuring the election of a militarist candidate, the bombing of the USS Cole constituted Bin Laden's attack on the Gore campaign and sponsorship of the Bush campaign.

On Israel

            The nature, location and timing of the bombing of the USS Cole overtly implied a threat not only to America but to Israel as well.  Much like Al Qaeda's October 2004 bombing of Israeli targets near the Egyptian-Gaza border, Bin Laden's October 2000 attack manipulated the Israeli political lobby, arguably the most powerful lobby in American government, into increasing its support for a hawkish American president.  This terrorist attack by radical Islamic fundamentalists on the American military presence in the Middle East threatened the source of Israel's military might, the basis for Israel's continued existence in a region entirely united in its hatred of this nation.  In this context, the Cole bombing threatened Israel more gravely than an equivalent attack on Israel itself. 

The bombing specifically targeted an American warship that was enforcing an embargo of the most flagrant financial supporter of Palestinian terrorism, Saddam's Iraq.  The naval attack occurred in a port of the Arabian peninsula, the epicenter of funding for radical Islamic Palestinian and global terrorism.  The Cole bombing occurred during the beginning of the current Palestinian uprising against Israel, specifically happening on the most climatic day of the early Palestinian uprising.  On October 12, 2000, the USS Cole bombing happened only hours after the infamous lynching of the two Israeli soldiers in Ramallah that instigated the massive Israeli retaliation to the Palestinian uprising that continues today.  In the same afternoon as the Cole bombing, Israeli helicopters were shelling near the compound of the leader of the Palestinian Authority, Yasser Arafat[xix].  Bin Laden's 2000 attack reframed the Palestinian uprising as a Muslim war against America and Israel, forcing an alliance between the two nations based on a militarist solution to the problem of radical Islamic terrorism.

            Not only was Bush the militarist of the two presidential candidates, he was also the candidate who most favored a militarist Israeli policy towards radical Islamic terrorism.  While Bush's support for a militant Israel did not dramatically alter the traditional support for the democratic party by American Jews, Bush's Israel policy certainly garnered the support of an increasingly belligerent Israel that was under siege from a new Palestinian uprising.  During the 2000 Campaign, Bush repeatedly criticized the Clinton/Gore Administration for pressuring Israel to conform to the peace process at the expense of Israel's security, clearly stating that his administration would allow Israel a free hand in dealing with the Palestinians[xx].  Bush's pledge to Israel was widely received as genuine by Jewish leaders, who were freshly resentful of the Clinton/Gore Administration's conspicuous failure in mediating the Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations[xxi].  At the time of the Cole bombing Israel was faced with a brewing campaign of unprecedented Palestinian terrorism sprouting from the millennial Palestinian uprising, begun less than a month earlier, that swayed the powerful Israeli political lobby into decidedly backing a hawkish supporter of the Israeli militancy.

Perhaps more revealing than the Bush campaign's public support for a hawkish Israel, most of Bush's foreign policy advisors were members of two influential groups that champion the right-wing Israeli agenda, the PNAC group (see above, "On National Defense: Bush") and the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA).  Both institutions, especially JINSA, have continuously advocated hawkish American and Israeli foreign policies that inextricably intertwine the national security concerns of the two nations.  The JINSA mission statement declares "U.S.-Israeli strategic cooperation has been at the heart of JINSA's mission since its inception in 1976", continuing on to blame Muslims entirely for instability in the Middle East[xxii].  Officials of the Bush Administration who were members of JINSA include Bush's Vice-Presidential Candidate Dick Cheney, key foreign policy advisor (now Deputy Secretary of Defense) Paul Wolfowitz, and Undersecretary of Arms Control and International Security John Bolton, all of whom resigned from the group upon joining the 2000 Bush Campaign apparently in order to avoid an obvious appearance of subservience to the right-wing Israeli agenda.  Aside from Cheney and Wolfowitz (Richard Perle's protégé and the architect of the invasion of Israel's most overtly menacing enemy, Saddam's Iraq), particularly notable among the former and current JINSA/PNAC members of Bush's foreign policy team are Wolfowitz's deputy Undersecretary of Defense Douglas Feith and former chairman/ current member of Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld's Defense Policy Board Richard Perle.  These two very influential Bush advisors, Douglas Feith and Richard Perle, co-authored a 1996 paper entitled "A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm" that was released through another right-wing Israeli think tank.  Fully supporting a hawkish Israel, this paper promotes a preemptive military confrontation with all of Israel's enemies at the expense of peaceful negotiation[xxiii].  Even prior to Bush's election, the collection of JINSA members that constituted the bulk of his foreign policy team revealed unmistakably the future deference the Bush Administration would display to the right-wing Israeli agenda.  The bombing of the USS Cole during the early escalation of the Palestinian uprising motivated the Israeli political lobby to support the replacement of the dovish Clinton/Gore Administration with Bush's hawkish, pro-Israel American administration based on the same threat of Islamic terrorism that would pressure Israel into replacing the dovish Barak Administration with the administration of the super-hawk Ariel Sharon two months later.

            In addition to directly benefiting Bush's campaign, the Cole bombing's concurrence with the current Palestinian uprising damaged the Gore campaign.  By attacking America in this fashion Bin Laden suggested that America was to be blamed and punished for the Clinton/Gore Administration's conspicuous failure in its ambitious attempt to broker peace between Israel and the Palestinian Authority.  The Cole bombing coupled with the beginning of the Palestinian uprising against Israel to portray the joint ineptitude of the dovish American Clinton/Gore and Israeli Barak Administrations to combat radical Islamic terrorism.  Since Gore's foreign policy doctrine was essentially a continuation of Clinton's policy of multilateralism and dovish negotiation, the USS Cole bombing also depicted the ineptitude of candidate Gore.  The Cole attack portrayed the inadequacy of peaceful negotiation in resolving the problem of radical Islamic terrorism, swaying the Israeli political lobby and the American public towards supporting a hawkish, unilateralist  candidate.  By jointly threatening the security of Israel and her superpower sponsor, America, Bin Laden's bombing helped to crystallize a militarist Israeli-American alliance led by Sharon and Bush. 

On Oil

The bombing of the USS Cole threatened the chief source of America's oil supply, Saudi Arabia, and therefore swayed the powerful oil industry towards fervently supporting the presidential candidate who was most subservient to the interests of Big Oil.  In particular, Bin Laden's attack on the American military presence in the waters of the Arabian peninsula directly threatened the primary trade routes of Saudi Arabian oil, causing a spike in global oil prices[xxiv].  The predictable response by the oil industry was to increase its support of the presidential candidate whose policies would most likely address the prevailing concerns about the security of Middle Eastern oil.  Coming from a family whose wealth was based on the oil industry, and who himself had been primarily employed by the oil industry prior to his political career, Bush's campaign from the beginning had relied heavily on oil money.  In addition to his family, Bush's political career and campaign financing were based in Texas, the most notoriously subservient state to the oil industry that functions as the nation's oil headquarters and also happens to be the nation's most heavily polluted state[xxv].  In his 1999-2000 presidential campaign Bush received more money from the oil and gas industries than any other federal candidate in the last decade[xxvi].  The other center for financial support of Bush and his family has been the oil capital of the world, Saudi Arabia, further revealing Bush's apparent disposition to zealously defending the security of Saudi oil exports[xxvii].  Perhaps most tellingly, President Bush is a representative of the American administration that led America's largest military effort to secure Middle Eastern oil supplies, Operation Desert Storm.  President Bush's father, former President Bush, is one of the current president's most valued advisors, a member of the megalithic Carlyle Group that has greatly benefited from the current Iraq invasion.  The current President Bush stands to inherit this fortune made off his decision to expand his father's oil crusade in the Middle East by invading Iraq.

Bush's choice for his vice-presidential running mate presented America with a candidate administration led by two Texas oil millionaires who are also the two most famous representatives of America's first colossal effort to secure Middle Eastern oil supplies in 1991.  Of the two, Dick Cheney was most widely anticipated to be the director of the Bush Administration's foreign and domestic energy plan[xxviii].  Dick Cheney is the most prominent representative of the oil industry in the Bush Administration.  For the past fifteen years Cheney has been the MVP of Big Oil, guiding America as Secretary of Defense and later as vice president in America's most extensive effort to secure the majority of the world's oil supplies, in the Gulf War and the Iraq Invasion, respectively.  Cheney led the oil industry in a five-year tenure as head of the world's largest oil fields services company and directly transferred from this job as top dog of the oil industry to the extremely influential vice presidency of the American Administration that has championed the agenda of Big Oil as American domestic and foreign policy more boldly than any in history. 

Cheney and many other top officials of the Bush Administration (see above, "On National Defense: Bush") were and continue to be members of the neo-conservative think tank, The Project For The New American Century (PNAC), that is funded largely by the oil industry and which fervently promotes a strong American military presence in the Middle East to secure America's oil supply.  PNAC was founded on a neo-conservative policy document, Defense Policy Guidance (1992), that advocates preemptive military action to secure "raw materials, primarily Persian Gulf oil".  The only influential member of Bush's foreign policy team who is not a member of PNAC, National Security Advisor Condoleeza Rice, was on the board of directors of the oil giant Chevron-Texaco prior to joining the 2000 Bush team.  Not surprisingly the Bush Administration's energy policy, formulated by Dick Cheney, unabashedly conceded to the agenda of Big Oil and even advocated military intervention in the Middle East to secure oil supplies for America (see below, "Bush's Iraq Invasion" and "Appendix C: The Bush/Cheney Energy Policy").

During his campaign Bush revealed his favoritism of the oil industry in his stated policies.  Emphasizing the importance of increasing oil supplies at the expense of attention to energy conservation, Bush made clear his intention to generate record profits for the oil industry[xxix].

I'll have an energy policy that empowers producers[xxx].

Bush specifically proposed America's withdrawal from the Kyoto global warming protocols, an international accord that would financially burden the oil industry with new environmental standards.  Furthermore, this governor of the most polluted state in America questioned the consensus of the global scientific community that global warming has been largely caused by pollution from fossil fuels, and even proposed the highly controversial plan to drill for oil in the Alaskan wildlife refuge[xxxi].  Bush's barely veiled submission to the agenda of the oil industry stood in stark contrast to Gore's renown environmentalist policies, which included energy conservation, serious implementation of alternative energy resources and adherence to the Kyoto global warming protocols.  Coupled with their differences on national defense, the stark contrast between the oil policies of Bush and Gore solidly positioned Bush to benefit from Bin Laden's attack on the American military presence that secures the Saudi Arabian oil supply.

Why did Bin Laden favor Bush over Gore?

The primary consideration behind Bin Laden's choice of an American president in 2000 was how this president would respond to the 9/11 attacks he was planning for the following year.  As Al Qaeda's subsequent actions have indicated, the direct effect on Al Qaeda of the American president's military retaliation for the 9/11 attacks was less important to Bin Laden than how the president's post-9/11 war conduct would impact America's reputation globally.  The 9/11 Commission Report identifies that Bin Laden's motive for the Cole bombing was to provoke a massive American retaliation.  When President Bush inexplicably failed to retaliate Bin Laden, surprised and frustrated at Bush's non-response, proceeded to launch an even more overt attempt to provoke this retaliation, the 9/11 attacks[xxxii].  By installing an American president who was a war hawk and a stanch supporter of Big Oil and Israel, Bin Laden ensured America's war in the Middle East would be led by a man who viewed America's friendly global relations as a relatively unimportant war objective.  Bin Laden chose Bush to be president so that his diplomatic ineptitude would make the world hate America.

Al Qaeda's Primary Objective: A PR Victory

The proposal that Bin Laden's primary goal is a sustained public relations victory over America is consistent with Al Qaeda's identity as a messianic group.  Simply destroying America would not be enough of a victory for such a group, rather, Al Qaeda additionally requires that it appear righteous in destroying America.  Portrayed as a virtuous bringer of justice with an unchallenged army, this religious cult could then persuasively deliver a messianic doctrine to humanity that would be widely accepted as gospel.  The messianic group Al Qaeda therefore needs to woo global public opinion in order to fulfill its most fundamental mandate, delivering the message of the Apocalypse upon which humanity founds a new civilization.  In order for Al Qaeda to appear at all righteous in its terrorist attacks America must appear to the world as the greater evil, the great satanic empire that fomented the world war.  Al Qaeda can only win the war if America defeats itself in a public relations conflict.

Just as Bin Laden supported the election of Bush to achieve a public relations victory, he chose not to attack the American homeland since instigating Bush's global crusade on 9/11 in order to transfer guilt for the war to America.  Bin Laden sacrificed a military campaign against America today in favor of a public relations campaign, reflecting both the importance he places on public relations and the confidence he has in his military capacity to destroy America.  Bin Laden is not intimidated by American military might because, since the fall of his sole state sponsorship in Afghanistan, Al Qaeda holds a strategic nuclear advantage over America.  As a global stateless organization Al Qaeda can launch a nuclear strike anywhere in the world with total abandon because a stateless group cannot be attacked with nuclear weapons (or any WMD), and therefore has no retaliatory deterrent from waging nuclear war.  With such an advantage Al Qaeda can afford to wait for a sustained public relations victory over America before beginning its military campaign.

Candidate Gore

The most crucial factor affecting Bin Laden's preference of Bush over Gore was the candidate's lack of diplomatic skill.  Only a stunning show of America's diplomatic ineptitude could allow Al Qaeda victory in its messianic war.  The most crucial front in America's war against Al Qaeda, America's campaign to sustain the support of the global community, would have been better managed with Gore as president.  While displaying conspicuous shortcomings as a candidate for leader of the armed forces, Gore's skill at the other realm of war, foreign diplomacy, far outmatched Bush's.  Gore's campaign represented a disciple of Clinton foreign diplomacy who would continue endeavoring to maintain friendly relations with the global community.  By keeping the United States in the good will of global opinion the Gore Administration would have continued Clinton's successful public relations war against Al Qaeda and forestalled Bin Laden's plan to destroy America. 

President Al Gore's response to the 9/11 attacks would likely have been radically different from that of Bush, focusing most strongly on uniting a strong global coalition to combat Al Qaeda's messianic movement rather than fracturing the global coalition with an illicit campaign of military adventurism.  Gore's multilateral post-9/11 war would have been a disaster for Al Qaeda's public relations war against America.  Since a Jewish American president would have been a much greater benefit than President Gore to Al Qaeda's effort to portray a joint Israeli-American crusade in the Middle East, Bin Laden probably would have quickly killed President Gore to install Vice President Joseph Lieberman as president.  To minimize his own public condemnation as a war monger Bin Laden might well have included this assassination in the 9/11 attacks as a single attack on America, as opposed to multiple successive attacks that would appear like repeated provocations to war.  This attempted presidential assassination might have involved the 9/11 kamikaze bombing of the White House when the president was home instead of away.  The fact that Bin Laden waited until Bush was outside of the White House to attempt to bomb it corroborates the indication of the Cole bombing that Bin Laden wants Bush in the presidency to launch a hawkish retaliation to his provocative attacks, an assertion further supported by the 9/11 Commission Report[xxxiii].

Candidate Bush

While Gore's diplomatic skill was ill-suited for Bin Laden's plan, Bush's diplomatic ineptitude is perfectly suited to Bin Laden's aims, an ineptitude so stunning that it quickly turned the biggest showing of global support for America into the biggest showing of global loathing of America.  The very quality that Bin Laden used to get Bush elected, his military adventurism, threatens to demonize the United States and hand victory to Al Qaeda in the public relations stage of Bin Laden's war.  Bush's global response to the 9/11 attacks, particularly the invasion of Iraq, has appeared to much of the world as an illegal, opportunistic, outlandish retaliation by the world's super-dominant military on weak and impoverished nations.  As Bush's war policy was a predictable product of the neo-conservatives dominating his administration, it is not surprising that Bin Laden chose to attempt to attack the White House on 9/11 at a time when Bush was on a highly publicized trip out of state.  Based on how greatly Bush has helped Al Qaeda's public relations war, Bin Laden has had every motive to keep Bush alive and in office.  By poisoning America's reputation, Bush has eroded the nation's relationship with the global community and created the necessary precondition for Al Qaeda's nuclear holocaust of America.

Bush's alienation of America from the international community was most prominently displayed by his administration's disregard of the United Nations in the prelude to the invasion of Iraq.  By breaking from the institution entrusted with maintaining world peace, the Bush Administration further portrays America as a criminal empire.  Just as Bush's hawkish military inclination was evident from his more revealing statements, Bush also forewarned America about his plans to dismantle the United Nations in favor of American global supremacy.  During the 2000 Campaign Bush promised to diminish American involvement with the United Nations, to effectively weaken the United Nations[xxxiv].  Combined with his abrogation of other international treaties and alliances, such as the Kyoto Global Warming Pact, nuclear arms reduction treaties and the World Court, Bush's conspicuous unilateralism has given America a global reputation as a menacing outcast from the world community.  Bush's reckless diplomacy has greatly assisted Bin Laden's effort to justify his holy war to the world.

A primary point of Bin Laden's war justification, America's unilateral support for Israel's war crimes, has been largely confirmed in world opinion by Bush's conspicuous bias towards Israel in the Israeli- Palestinian conflict.  During the 2000 campaign Bush was prominently portrayed in contrast with Gore as the unabashed supporter of Zionism.  The Zionists in Bush's foreign policy team, such as former chairman of the Defense Policy Board Richard Perle and Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfwitz, represented a foreign policy diametrically opposed to the dovish policies the Clinton/Gore Administration fruitlessly pursued to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.  Bush's inclination to support Israel's illegal war against the Palestinians has been undeniably displayed to the world in Bush's presidency.  Bush's foreign policy has been distinguished by his absence from intervention in the escalating Israeli-Palestinian conflict in the first 9 months and eleven days of his administration and his continuous support for Israel's violations of international law.  Highlighting Bush's pro-Zionist policy was his support for the Sharon government's construction of the Israeli border wall and assassination of the widely revered spiritual leader of Hamas, a hawkish policy condemned by every other member of  the United Nations.  Bush's invasion of Israel's archenemy, Iraq, has more visibly portrayed a joint American-Israeli crusade in the Middle East.  The coalescence of Bush's war against Al Qaeda and the Israeli war against Palestinians has incriminated America as an international outlaw, further explaining Bin Laden's choice of Bush as president. 

Another part of Bin Laden's indictment of America that Bush has confirmed in world opinion is the charge that America subverts the sovereignty of Muslim nations to secure oil reserves.  The Middle Eastern booty of Bush's crusade, oil has long motivated a strong American military presence in the Middle East.  By assisting the election of a representative of the oil industry to the American presidency Bin Laden has demonized America, ensuring aggressive American military engagements in the Middle East that portray to the world a "Great Satan" empire.  The representation of the oil industry is replete in Bush's foreign policy, from his forgiving relationship with the Saudi government to his unfolding plan for an American occupation of the key oil region of the world. The two prime targets of the Bush Administration in the War On Terror are Iraq and Iran, the richest proven oil region in the world.  Coupled with the American occupation of the nation most critical to the rich Caspian Sea Region oil reserves, Afghanistan, Bush's 9/11 retaliation appears like a modern-day crusader's war to seize control of the richest oil regions.  By installing a president who would turn America's 9/11 retaliation into a criminal crusade for oil booty, Bin Laden set in motion a global condemnation of America.

Bush's Invasion of Iraq

The most outstanding example of Bush's unilateral military adventurism was his invasion of Iraq, far and away Al Qaeda's greatest public relations victory to date.  The American invasion of Iraq vividly portrayed an illegal American crusade against oil-rich, anti-Israel Muslim nations, a portrayal that demonized America and vindicated Al Qaeda in world opinion, and fractured America's coalition against Al Qaeda.  In his 1998 declaration Bin Laden revealed the immense importance of the Iraq invasion to the success of his public relations war against America, stating that the "best proof" supporting his indictment of the United States was the American aggression against Iraq.  Considering Bush's public predisposition to invading Iraq during the 2000 Campaign, the bombing of the USS Cole can be viewed as part of Bin Laden's plan to instigate an American invasion of Iraq by supporting the election of Bush (see "Al Qaeda's ten-year campaign to instigate an American invasion of Iraq").

During the 2000 Election, Bush made clear his predisposition to invading Iraq, an event that would immensely assist Bin Laden's efforts to justify his war against America. 

Bush's foreign policy team consisted mostly of members of PNAC, a neo-conservative group that advocated an American invasion of Iraq as a means to American military world domination.  In terms of the most strategically important asset in the modern world, energy supplies, Iraq is the most prized oil real estate in the world because it contains vast quantities of easily accessible oil supplies that are virtually untouched.  Since 1997, PNAC urged the American administration to remove Saddam and establish an American protectorate in Iraq in order to control the world's second largest oil supply, eliminate the regime most publicly threatening Israel, intimidate Middle Eastern nations into deference to American power, and establish Iraq as a staging ground for future American military action.  In the central PNAC document "Rebuilding America's Defenses" (RAD) the neo-conservative group specifically promotes using regime change in Iraq as the excuse to initiate this defense of Big Oil and Israeli interests.

While the unresolved conflict with Iraq provides the immediate justification, the need for a substantial American force presence in the Gulf transcends the issue of the regime of Saddam Hussein[xxxv].

Consistent with this proposed indefinite American occupation of Iraq, RAD advocates that the American military presence in the Middle East be permanent.

The Air Force presence in the Gulf region is a vital one for U.S. military strategy, and the United States should consider it a de facto permanent presence[xxxvi].

These bold PNAC proposals for an invasion of Iraq were perhaps most explicitly stated in a January 1998 PNAC letter to President Clinton, coincidentally released at virtually the same time as Bin Laden issued his declaration of war against America because of its aggression against Iraq.  This PNAC letter urged a unilateral American invasion of Iraq because Saddam was a hazard to "a significant portion of the world's energy supply"[xxxvii].  Shirking the need for United Nations support, this PNAC letter advocated an American military action that would place the totality of Iraq's oil supplies solely in American control.  Ten of the eighteen signatories of this letter later joined the Bush Administration.  Bush's foreign policy was guided by a group that advocated a permanent American military occupation of the Middle East beginning with an invasion of Iraq, a perfect American president to play the role of the modern Crusader in Bin Laden's apocalypse drama.

Influential members of PNAC, such as former chairman of the Defense Policy Board Richard Perle and Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, are pro-Israel war hawks that have pushed for this American military intervention in the Middle East to secure Israel.  In 1996 Richard Perle released his paper entitled "A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm" through the right-wing Israeli think tank The Institute for Advanced Strategic and Political Studies.  In this paper Perle advises Israel to invade Iraq to remove Saddam and destabilize the Middle East, setting the precedent for the toppling of every hostile Arab regime, including Lebanon, Syria and Iran[xxxviii].  Since the group was formed in 1997, PNAC has campaigned for a unilateral American invasion of Saddam's Iraq, Israel's most public enemy state, regardless of international opposition[xxxix].  Compounding this appearance of Israeli influence in the decision to invade Iraq, the architects of the Bush plan to invade Iraq, Deputy Secretary of Defense Wolfowitz and his deputy Undersecretary of Defense Douglas Feith, were implicated in a 2004 FBI investigation as having been unduly influenced to invade Iraq by a high-ranking Israeli spy in the Pentagon[xl].  Bush's foreign policy advisors intended to launch an internationally illegal invasion of Iraq in stunning parallel to the abominable Crusades of the Middle Ages, an event that would immensely benefit Bin Laden in his public relations war against America.

            The most prominent member of PNAC, Dick Cheney, was a long-time advocate of the Iraq invasion as far back as the 1991 Gulf War.  As CEO of Halliburton, the world's largest oil fields services company, Cheney continued to advocate for this American invasion of Iraq that would reap billions of dollars in contracts for his company.  In a 1999 speech to the London Petroleum Institute, Cheney discussed the growing crisis in oil supplies and the need for more oil, asking, "Where is it going to come from?", and noting, "the Middle East with two-thirds of the world's oil and the lowest cost, is still where the prize ultimately lies"[xli].  In a most revealing glimpse of the special interests behind the Bush Administration's predilection to invade Iraq, Vice President Cheney's Energy Task Force formed its policy based on an April 2001 report called "Strategic Energy Policy Challenges for the 21^st Century", a report that recommended an American invasion of Iraq to control Iraq's oil reserves[xlii].  The report was issued two months after a National Security Council directive that instructed NSC staff to cooperate fully with Cheney's Energy Task Force in the "melding" of two policy areas, "operational policies toward rogue states" and "actions regarding the capture of new and existing oil and gas fields"[xliii].  The early 2001 Cheney Task Force was particularly attentive to the oil fields of Iraq, keenly studying the geographical location of these oil supplies and monitoring the progress of foreign companies in negotiations for Iraqi oil[xliv].  Cheney later weighed America's usurpation of Saddam's control of Iraq's oil reserves as equally important to Saddam's possible use of WMD's for justifying the Iraq invasion, echoing the unfounded fear that led him to advocate this same invasion as Secretary of Defense in 1991[xlv].  In the post-9/11 war, the man charged with formulating this American energy policy was pivotal in the movement to invade Iraq.

Beyond the words and actions of his foreign policy advisors, Bush's own words during the campaign revealed his strong predisposition to invading Iraq.  In the 2000 presidential debates, Bush identified Saddam as the most important problem in the Middle East and advocated a more aggressive American policy towards Saddam, coincidentally the man who tried to assassinate his father during the Clinton Administration.

The coalition against Saddam has fallen apart, or it's unraveling, let's put it that way.  The sanctions are being - are being violated.  There's - we don't know whether he's developing weapons of mass destruction.  He better not be, or there's going to be a consequence should I be president.

Bush further explained his Iraq policy by emphasizing that Saddam is the key difference in his and Gore's Middle East policy[xlvi].  Unlike Bush's aggressive policy, Gore advocated a less destabilizing Iraq policy that did not endorse even a multilateral invasion of Iraq[xlvii].  The recent revelations of Bush's spurious justification for the Iraq invasion confirm his apparent predisposition to invading Iraq, in particular the degree to which  PNAC interests and Bush's personal motivation of protecting and avenging his father have motivated Bush's plan to invade Iraq since before his election.

Bin Laden's bombing of the USS Cole helped install a Bush Jr. Administration that launched  an invasion of Iraq, an event that has revealed both Bush's inclination to invading Iraq and evidence supporting Bin Laden's indictment of America in world opinion.  Six days after the 9/11 attacks, on September 17, 2001, Bush formalized his post-9/11 national security policy in a top secret National Security Directive following a three-day war council at Camp David.  The document, which outlined America's military response to the 9/11 attacks, included planning for the American invasion of Iraq even though there was no evidence of an Iraqi alliance with Al Qaeda[xlviii].  The plan for the Iraq invasion, written by the ideological founder of The Project For The New American Century, Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, fulfilled the PNAC wish for an invasion of Iraq to control Middle Eastern oil.  The central policy document of PNAC, RAD, concluded that "a new Pearl Harbor" was needed to motivate a transformation to an American military policy that endorsed the Iraq invasion[xlix].  As if on cue, the PNAC members in Bush's administration immediately seized upon the 9/11 attacks as an excuse to invade Iraq.  The day after 9/11, Rumsfeld advised Bush to invade Iraq despite all indications that this was solely an Al Qaeda operation[l].  As early as five hours after the 9/11 attacks, notes from Rumsfeld's aide reveal that the final process towards war with Iraq had begun[li].  Rumsfeld's notes from these hours state:

. . . best info fast.  Judge whether good enough hit S.H. (Saddam Hussein) at same time.  Not only UBL (Usama bin Laden).  Go massive.  Sweep it all up.  Things related and not (emphasis added)[lii].

At this time Rumsfeld proposed bombing Iraq because there were no good targets for bombing in Afghanistan, despite the fact that there was no evidence linking Al Qaeda to Saddam[liii].  Richard Clarke, Bush's chief counter-terrorism advisor until his resignation a month before the Iraq invasion, recounts that the administration was primarily concerned with invading Iraq immediately after 9/11[liv].  Clarke even recounts how Bush pressured his counter-terrorism team to incriminate Saddam for the 9/11 attacks in a meeting he had with the president on September 12, 2001.

The President, in a very intimidating way, left us, me and my staff, with the clear indication that he wanted us to come back with the word that there was an Iraqi hand behind 9/11 because they had been planning to do something about Iraq from before the time they came into office . . . And while the World Trade Center was still smoldering, while they were still digging bodies out, people in the White House were thinking, "Ah, this gives us the opportunity we've been looking for to go after Iraq[lv].

Supporting Clark's account, Bush's former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill recounts in his memoirs that in the opening days of the Bush Administration Bush was pressuring his staff to find "any reason to invade Iraq"[lvi].  In the months following the fall of the Taliban the commander of the American invasion of Afghanistan, General Tommy Franks, told the head of the Senate Intelligence Committee that Bush had turned his attention away from Al Qaeda to pursue a bad target in Iraq, despite the continued vitality of Al Qaeda in countries such as Yemen and Somalia, and despite extensive direct connections between Saudi Arabia and Al Qaeda[lvii].  Initially, Bush did not even intend to approach the United Nations for assistance in invading Iraq, consistent with the PNAC plan for a unilateral American invasion of Iraq that secured Iraqi oil supplies exclusively for American oil companies.  After great resistance to this approach emerged from within and without his administration, Bush proceeded to make overtures for United Nations assistance and then forcefully removed the United Nations weapons inspectors after they largely confirmed that Saddam had no weapons of mass destruction and proceeded to unilaterally invade Iraq anyway.  During the invasion, the first Iraqi facilities secured by Bush's American war machine were not possible sights for WMD's or WMD information, but rather facilities critical to the oil industry such as the Iraqi Oil Ministry[lviii].  This initial conduct by the Bush war machine suggested both that the WMD threat was a farce and that the true motivation for the invasion was oil.  After the Iraq invasion, Deputy Secretary of Defense Wolfowitz publicly admitted that the fundamental reason for the invasion of Iraq was control of its oil supplies[lix].  By leading an American military crusade in the Middle East to eliminate Israel's enemies and control Middle Eastern oil supplies, Bush has predictably vindicated Bin Laden in his public relations war against America.

In a 1961 departure speech to the nation, President Eisenhower warned of the menace to American security and world leadership that Bin Laden later assisted to the executive branch with the Cole bombing.  Identifying the coercion of American government by the nation's massive military-industrial complex as the chief threat to America, Eisenhower stated that America had been "compelled to create a permanent industry of vast proportions" in addition to a 3.5 million-strong standing army.  Eisenhower explained that "this conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience."  In it, he went on, there resides the "potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power."  The Carlyle-Halliburton complex, from which President Bush and Vice-President Cheney base their respective personal fortunes, represents the most extreme mutation of this menacing military-industrial complex to date.  This complex has audaciously used the presidency to employ the American military to advance the interests of the defense and oil industries to the detriment of American and global security. 

The visibility of this criminal American regime in the eyes of the world has demonized America and rallied much of the world behind the anti-American imperialism movement currently led by the demonic group Al Qaeda.  A sustained public relations victory by Al Qaeda is the critical pretext for the military phase of Bin Laden's war when Al Qaeda will attempt to realize the most abominable potential of a terrorist organization, to hold the world hostage by nuclear terrorism.  Timing his terrorist attack immediately before the closest election in modern history, Bin Laden elevated his plan for a global holy war by helping to place a new man in the United States presidency who has unwittingly fulfilled Bin Laden's plan for a nuclear apocalypse by playing to perfection the role of the Great Satan of fundamentalist Islam.

"NO ATTACKS INSIDE AMERICA"