KNOW THY ENEMY…AND THE ONE BEHIND HIM

William Wallace

“On that September day, we were unprepared. We did not grasp the magnitude of a threat that had been gathering over a considerable period of time…this was a failure of policy, management, capability, and above all failure of imagination.”1

These were the words - and emphasis - of Chair Thomas Kean, upon announcing the findings of the 9/11 Commission. In a CNN News recounting of the event, commission members were concerned that, “Americans were simply not able to think in an imaginary fashion, think out of the box, and think in a deviant way.”2 Since that September day, our nation has made strides in correcting some systemic problems. Consolidating divergent elements within the intelligence community to enhance coordination and sharing of information, known as “all-source fusion,” and allowing for alternate analysis to be considered by policymakers, are among some of the promising signs of meaningful reform. However, any such reform it is likely to prove futile unless the major problem is fixed: “failure of imagination.” This is the hardest to fix; it’s a matter of mind, of thought. It involves thinking like the enemy in deviant ways. Our own cultural predispositions, worldview, preconceptions, assumptions, perspectives and group-think constrict our imagination, causing us to be blind to the ways of the enemy. Whittaker Chambers once wrote, that, “Invincible ignorance, rooted in what was most generous in the American character, which because it was incapable of such conspiracy itself, could not believe that others practiced it.”3 If indeed we are warring against a conspiring “axis of evil,” it is imperative that we understand the true composition of that axis. We must “grasp the magnitude of a threat” represented by such an axis with its multi-dimensional, sophisticated, camouflaged layers which aid and abet al-Qaeda. Otherwise, we will fail to thwart another attack and deplete our strength further shadow boxing a lesser enemy. Never forget what happened on that September day or its cardinal lesson: Know Thy Enemy…and the one behind him.

Four months after that September day, President Bush delivered a proclamation of war of sorts on terror in a state of the union address, saying, “A terrorist underworld… operates in remote jungles and deserts, and hides in the centers of large cities.” He declared and named “some” of the state sponsors of terrorism (North Korea, Iran and Iraq) as an “axis of evil,” vowing that, “We will work closely with our coalition to deny terrorists and their state sponsors the materials, technology, and expertise to make and deliver weapons of mass destruction.” 4

Cutting off the tail of a snake does not kill him; a new rattle only grows back. The head must be severed to guard against a venomous, lethal attack. Al-Qaeda’s rattle may serve to divert our attention, blinding us to its camouflaged entirety. If intelligence fails to connect the dots from tail to head, we may suffer a purported pending attack soon which could topple America into ruin, as did those towers on that September day: “American Hiroshima.”

“American Hiroshima,” is al-Qaeda’s nuclear plan to topple America. According to a former FBI consultant on terrorism and organized crime, Dr. Paul L. Williams, this plan of attack is currently operational and can be executed immediately, even as these words are read. He persuasively documents in his September 2005 book, The Al Qaeda Connection: International Terrorism, Organized Crime, and the Coming Apocalypse, that al-Qaeda – through a network of organized criminal elements, et al. – has the capability and intent to kill “four million Americans,”5 by simultaneously detonating tactical (“suitcase”) nuclear weapons in several American cities, among them, “Boston, New York, Washington, DC, Las Vegas, Miami, Chicago, and Los Angeles.”6

Williams says the plan has been financed by the production, processing and distribution of Number Four heroin. A former Soviet Union organized crime entity, the Albanian Mafia, has “become the world’s leading producer” of this highest quality heroin, which is “the drug of choice in Europe and the United States.”7 To refine and process this highest grade heroin, “bin Laden established sophisticated laboratories…and recruited chemists from Pakistan, China, and the former Soviet Union.”8 He states this criminal group of Albanians “have replaced La Cosa Nostra (LCN) 9 as the ’leading crime outfit in the United States.’”10 Moreover, he corrects the misconception of most that, the American Italian Mafia is still in the lead of activities, such as, “prostitution, gun running, labor racketeering, and drug trafficking… but this is no longer the case. The Albanian Mafia, owing to their incredible propensity for bloodletting, gained supremacy over the long-entrenched LCN families in every major city along the eastern seaboard.”11 Interrelated ties with Hezbollah and the cocaine and gun enterprises of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) 12 have all funneled into and have substantially assisted al-Qaeda’s funding for “American Hiroshima.”

With this drug money and other illicit financing, al-Qaeda has bought tactical nuclear weapons and materials from the former Soviet Union (the result of a cause and effect attributed to and stemming from the USSR’s collapse) through various organized criminal syndicates of the Russian Mafia.13

In quoting the 1997 testimony of Yossef Bodansky, then Chairman of the Congressional Task Force on Terrorism and Unconventional Warfare, before a congressional committee, Williams cites Bodansky’s words: “There is no longer much doubt that bin Laden has succeeded in his quest for nuclear bombs. The Russians believe he has a handful, the [Saudis say]…in the neighborhood of twenty.”14 But, that was in 1997; Williams’s book concludes that the number is at least in the twenties and beyond now. Bodansky went on to say that bin Laden “has a collection of individuals knowledgeable in activating the bombs and he is looking for recruiting former Soviet Union Special Forces [SPETSNAZ] in learning how to operate the bombs behind enemy lines.”15 To ensure proper maintenance of these weapons, bin Laden has hired “nuclear scientists from Russia, China and Pakistan” and he has “kept a score of SPETSNAZ… technicians from the former Soviet Union on his payroll.” Before revealing another disturbing facet of his research, Williams reminds his readers that, sometime after the collapse of the USSR, at hearings held in Belgium, “Belgian officials testified that they had found three secret depots replete with radio sets and tactical nukes that had been buried in Belgium by the Soviets during the 1960s.”16 He uses this preface to explain that there still exist today an unknown number of such hidden nuclear weapons in the U.S. and explains that “these weapons were placed under the care of SPETSNAZ technicians for deployment and detonation. Many of these scientists and technicians, during the 1990s, were sought out and employed by bin Laden.”17 The unstated implication here is that al-Qaeda may have a ready-made reserve of nuclear weapons in the U.S. in addition to the ones they have smuggled in with the assistance of the “MS-13” Gang.

Williams attributes the central role of smuggling al-Qaeda’s nuclear devices and sleeper-cell agents into the U.S. through Mexico to the MS-13 Gang (“Mara Salvatrucha”). But, the conventional notion of “gang” does not apply. It is unique. It retains ties to its foreign origins in El Salvador and was created, in part, by covert Cuban action. Its Cuban ties, originated from a left-wing paramilitary group named, “Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front” (FMNL). 18 The Federation of American Scientists notes of FMNL the following:

[It was] Formed with Cuban backing, the guerrilla umbrella organization is composed of five leftist groups: Central American Workers' Revolutionary Party (PRTC), People's Revolutionary Army (ERP), Farabundo Marti Popular Liberation Forces (FPL), Armed Forces of National Resistance (FARN), and the Communist Party of El Salvador's Armed Forces of Liberation (FAL).19

Dr. Joseph D. Douglass, Jr., a former national security analyst and author of Red Cocaine: the Drugging of America and the West, 20 published just as the USSR was collapsing, wrote about states hiding their finger prints – plausible deniability – in strategic covert actions through the use of terrorist organizations and organized crime. (By the way, the notion of state strategic policy employing plausible deniability is not entirely new. The Kennedy administration sought to assassinate Fidel Castro in “Operation Mongoose” via the American Italian Mafia.)

On March 8, 2002, Douglass wrote a 12-page article which, in essence, updated essential components of his work in Red Cocaine… and made a profound, persuasive case that almost all that he wrote in 1990 was still absolutely pertinent today: “Drugs, Russia and Terrorism.”21

Although beyond the purview of this writing – as the aspects of Douglass’s work are too extensive to cover here – his article addressed some the following: today’s involvement of Russia (and China) in the strategic use and control of organized criminal elements through its intelligence services; a long-term strategic plan that would include an apparent dissolution of the Warsaw Pact while intelligence services of the USSR & Bloc nations would infiltrate and wrest control over the world’s organized criminal syndicates; an historical presentation of the influence exerted over Islamic terrorist groups going back to the formation of the PLO; the astronomical, illicit monetary gains derived from controlling criminal profits; the ill-timed U.S. intelligence cutbacks contributing to post-Soviet covert actions going undetected; the direct ties between Russia and al-Qaeda; and, the assertion that al-Qaeda’s possession of nuclear weapons is anything but a natural cause and effect of the USSR’s collapse. He also recounts an intelligence committee question – pregnant with implications – posed by Senator Evan Bayh to then DCI George Tenent: “Are Russia and China involved in enabling evil?” The DCI gave an evasive – “near incoherent” – answer. Douglass “translated” a truer DCI answer, minus the evasion:

Yes, Senator, we believe there is involvement, but we don’t understand the role of those who are involved, whether they are independent “entities” or government representatives. Obviously, because we are trying to build a friendship with Russia and because we would not know what to do if they were involved, we would rather not discuss the subject at this time.22

Should al-Qaeda’s next attack be an “American Hiroshima,” no nation-state would dare have their fingerprints on it, exposing their complicity; they all have return addresses. Those unnamed state-sponsors in President Bush’s declaration, know full well that once a nuclear weapon detonates on American soil, it will change the entire nature of our war on terror: nuclear retaliation. Therefore, it makes perfect sense that any “axis of evil” state-sponsor would go to ultimate lengths to conceal and camouflage their culpability.

From the matters thus presented, it appears clear that there is indeed a connection between terrorism and organized crime. Dr. Williams sees the Russian Mafia and its subsidiaries as a natural, cause and effect offshoot from a collapsed, former Soviet Union. Dr. Douglass sees something quite different with exceedingly troubling implications – catastrophic ones that eclipse an “American Hiroshima.”

Whatever the truth may be, one thing appears quite certain: the rattle of al-Qaeda is indeed connected to a camouflaged snake of organized crime providing plausible deniability to state-sponsors who wish to avail themselves to its cloak while in alliance with the “axis of evil.”

Systemic reforms have been established which may ward off or lessen the threat we face with nuclear terrorism. All-source fusion efforts already underway within the intelligence community may need only balance or shift their emphasis concerning organized crime’s central role in terrorism. We may succeed in thwarting an “American Hiroshima,” but only if all involved are allowed to freely think – without taboo – and to invent effective countermeasures.

If the intelligence community can not shed past ghost labeling of “sick think” and "paranoid" and encourage creative thought to freely flow, we will likely witness the collapse of America. To know our enemy and the one behind him – no matter who he is – is the only way we will prevent that day; a day much more terrible that the one that befell us on that September day.