Was 9/11 the opening move of an intelligence war waged in plain sight and under cover of shared beliefs from which only Israel would benefit, asks Jeff Gates* On the day of the 9/11 attacks, former Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu was asked what the attack would mean for US-Israeli relations. His quick reply was: "It's very good... Well, it's not good, but it will generate immediate sympathy [for Israel]." Intelligence wars rely on mathematical models to anticipate the response of "the mark" to staged provocations. Reactions thereby become foreseeable, within an acceptable range of probabilities. When Israeli mathematician Robert J Aumann received the 2005 Nobel Prize in economic science, he conceded that "the entire school of thought that we have developed here in Israel" has turned "Israel into the leading authority in this field". With a well-planned provocation, the anticipated response can become a weapon in the arsenal of the agent provocateur. In response to 9/11, how difficult would it be to foresee that the US would deploy its military forces to avenge that attack? With fixed intelligence, how difficult would it be to redirect that response to wage a long-planned war in Iraq -- not for US interests, but to advance the agenda of Greater Israel? The emotionally wrenching component of a provocation plays a key role in the field of game theory war planning, where Israel is the authority. With the televised murder of 3,000 Americans, a shared mindset of shock, grief and outrage made it easier for US policy-makers to believe that a known Evil Doer in Iraq was responsible, regardless of the facts. The strategic displacement of facts with induced beliefs, in turn, requires a period of "preparing the mindset" so that "the mark" will put their faith in a pre-staged fiction. Those who induced the March 2003 invasion of Iraq began "laying mental threads" and creating agenda- advancing mental associations more than a decade earlier. Notable among those threads was the 1993 publication in Foreign Affairs of an article by Harvard's Professor Samuel Huntington. By the time his analysis appeared in book-length form in 1996 as The Clash of Civilisations, more than 100 academics and think tanks were prepared to promote it, pre-staging a "clash consensus", five years before 9/11. Also published in 1996 under the guidance of Richard Perle was "A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm" (ie Israel). A member since 1987 of the US Defense Policy Advisory Board, this self-professed Zionist became its chairman in 2001. As a key adviser to Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu, Perle's senior Pentagon post helped lay the required foundation for removing Saddam Hussein as part of a Greater Israel strategy, a key theme of "A Clean Break", released five years before 9/11. A mass murder, articles, books, think tanks and Pentagon insiders, however, are not enough to manage the variables in a "probabilistic" war- planning model. Supportive policy-makers are also required to lend the appearance of legitimacy and credibility to an operation justified by intelligence fixed around a pre-determined agenda. That role was eagerly filled by Senators John McCain, Joe Lieberman, a Jewish Zionist from Connecticut, and Jon Kyl, a Christian Zionist from Arizona, when they co-sponsored the Iraq Liberation Act of 1998. Echoing Tel Aviv's agenda in "A Clean Break", their bill laid another mental thread in the public mindset by calling for the removal of Saddam Hussein -- three years before 9/11. The legislation also appropriated $97 million, largely to promote that Zionist agenda. Distracted by mid-term Congressional elections and by impeachment proceedings commenced in reaction to a well-timed presidential affair involving White House intern Monica Lewinsky, Bill Clinton signed that agenda into law 31 October 1998 -- five years before the US-led invasion that removed Saddam Hussein. After 9/11, McCain and Lieberman became inseparable travel companions and irrepressible advocates for the invasion of Iraq. Looking "presidential" aboard the aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt in January 2002, McCain laid another key thread when he waved an admiral's cap while proclaiming, alongside Lieberman, "On to Baghdad!" BY WAY OF DECEPTION: The chutzpah with which this game theory strategy progressed in plain sight could be seen in the behavior of Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, another Zionist insider. Four days after 9/11, in a principals' meeting at Camp David, he proposed that the US invade Iraq. At that time, the intelligence did not yet point to Iraqi involvement and Osama bin Laden was thought to be hiding in a remote region of Afghanistan. Frustrated that President George H W Bush declined to remove Saddam Hussein during the 1991 Gulf War, Wolfowitz proposed a no-fly zone in northern Iraq. By 2001, the Israeli Mossad had agents at work for a decade in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul. Intelligence reports of Iraqi ties to Al-Qaeda also came from Mosul -- reports that later proved to be false. Mosul again emerged in November 2004 as a center of the insurgency that destabilised Iraq. That reaction precluded the speedy exit of coalition forces promised in Congressional testimony by senior war-planner Wolfowitz. The common source of the fixed intelligence that induced America to war in Iraq has yet to be acknowledged, even though intelligence experts agree that deception on such a scale required a decade to plan, staff, pre-stage, orchestrate and -- to date -- cover up. The two leaders of the 9/ 11 Commission report conceded they were stopped by Commission members from hearing testimony on the motivation for 9/11: the US- Israeli relationship. The fictions accepted as generally accepted truths included Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, Iraqi ties to Al-Qaeda, Iraqi meetings with Al-Qaeda in Prague, Iraqi mobile biological weapons laboratories and Iraqi purchases of uranium "yellowcake" from Niger. Only the last was conceded as phony in the relevant time frame. All the rest were disclosed as false, flawed or fixed, and only after the war began. An attempt to cover-up the yellowcake lie led to the federal prosecution of Vice-Presidential Chief-of-Staff Lewis Libby, another well-placed Zionist insider. Did game theory-modelled pre-staging also include the Israeli provocation that led to the second Intifada? An Intifada is an uprising or, literally, a "shaking off" of an oppressor. The second Intifada in Palestine dates from September 2000 when Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon led an armed march to Jerusalem's Haram Al-Sharif compound, within lies Al-Aqsa Mosque -- one year before 9/11. After a year of calm, during which Palestinians believed in the prospects for peace, suicide bombings recommenced after this high- profile provocation. In response to the uprising, Sharon and Netanyahu observed that only when Americans "feel our pain" would they understand the plight of "victimised" Israelis. Both Israeli leaders suggested that a shared mindset ("feel our pain") would require in the US a weighted body count of 4,500 to 5,000 Americans lost to terrorism, the initial estimate of those who died in the twin towers of New York City's World Trade Centre -- one year later. THE AMERICAN VALKYRIE? When successful, game theory warfare strengthens the agent provocateur while leaving "the mark" discredited and depleted by the anticipated reaction to a well-timed provocation. By game theory standards, 9/11 was a strategic success because the US was portrayed as irrational for its reaction -- the invasion of Iraq -- that triggered a deadly insurgency with devastating consequences both for Iraq and the US. That insurgency, in turn, was an easily modelled reaction to the invasion of a nation that: played no role in the provocation; and was known to be populated by three long-warring sects where an unstable peace was maintained by a former US ally who was rebranded an Evil Doer. As the cost in blood and treasure expanded, the US became overextended militarily, financially and diplomatically. As "the mark" (the US) emerged in the foreground, the agent provocateur faded into the background. But only after catalysing dynamics that steadily drained the US of credibility, resources and resolve. This "probabilistic" victory also ensured widespread cynicism, insecurity, distrust and disillusionment, along with a declining capacity to defend its interests due to the duplicity of a game theory-savvy enemy within. Meanwhile, the American public fell under a regime of oversight, surveillance and intimidation marketed as "homeland" security. This domestic operation even features rhetorical hints of a World War II "fatherland" with clear signs of a force alien to the US with its welcome embrace of open dissent. Is this operation meant to protect Americans or to shield those responsible for this insider operation from Americans? By manipulating the shared mindset, skilled game theory war-planners can wage battles in plain sight and on multiple fronts with minimal resources. One proven strategy: pose as an ally of a well-armed nation predisposed to deploy its military in response to a mass murder. In this case, the result destabilised Iraq, creating crises that could be exploited to strategic advantage by expanding the conflict to Iran, another key Israeli goal announced in "A Clean Break" -- seven years before the invasion of Iraq. Which nation benefited from the deployment of coalition forces to the region? Today's mathematically model-able outcome undermined US national security by overextending its military, discrediting its leadership, degrading its financial condition and disabling its political will. In game theory terms, these results were "perfectly predictable", within an acceptable range of probabilities. In the asymmetry that typifies today's unconventional warfare, those who are few in number must wage war by way of deception; non-transparently and with means that leverage their impact. Which nation -- if not Israel -- fits that description? TREASON IN PLAIN SIGHT? Game theory war-planners manipulate the shared mental environment by shaping perceptions and creating impressions that become consensus opinions. With the aid of well-timed crises, policy-makers fall in line with a predetermined agenda, not because they are Evil Doers or "imperialists" but because the shared mindset has been pre-conditioned to respond not to facts but to manipulated emotions and consensus beliefs. Without the murder of 3,000 on 9/11, America's credibility would not now be damaged and the US economy would be in far better shape. By steadily displacing facts with what "the mark" can be induced to believe, the "few- within-the-few" amplify the impact of their duplicity. By steady manipulation of the public's mindset, game theory war-planners can defeat an opponent with vastly superior resources by inducing those decisions that ensure defeat. Intelligence wars are waged in plain sight and under the cover of widely shared beliefs. By manipulating consensus opinion, such wars can be won from the inside out by inducing a people to freely choose the very forces that imperil their freedom. Thus in the information age the disproportionate power wielded by those with outsized influence in media, pop culture, think tanks, academia and politics -- domains where Zionist influence is most rampant. Induced beliefs act as a force-multiplier to wage intelligence wars from the shadows. At the operational core of such warfare are those masterful at anticipating the mark's response to a provocation and incorporating that response into their arsenal. For those who wage war in this fashion, facts are only a barrier to overcome. For those nations dependent on facts, the rule of law and informed consent to protect their freedom, such insider treachery poses the greatest possible threat to national security. America is far less safe than before 9/11. Tel Aviv clearly intends to continue its serial provocations, as evidenced by its ongoing expansion of settlements. Israel has shown no sign of a willingness to negotiate in good faith or to take the steps required to make peace a possibility. To date, Barack Obama appears unwilling to name senior appointees who are not either Zionists or are strongly pro-Israeli. The greatest threat to world peace is not terrorists. The greatest threat is the US-Israeli relationship. In the same way that a decade of pre-staging was required to plausibly induce the US to invade Iraq, a similar strategy is now underway to persuade the US to invade Iran or to support and condone an attack by Israel. The same duplicity is again at work, including the high- profile branding of the requisite Evil Doer. From its very outset, the Zionist enterprise focussed on hegemony in the Middle East. Its entangled alliance with the US enabled this enterprise to deploy American might for that purpose. Only one nation had the means, motive, opportunity and stable nation state intelligence required to take the US to war in the Middle East while also making it appear that Islam is the problem. If Obama continues to defer to Tel Aviv, he can rightly be blamed when the next attack occurs in the US or the European Union featuring the usual orgy of evidence pointing to a predetermined target. Should another mass murder occur, that event will be traceable directly to the US-Israeli relationship and the failure of US policy-makers to free America from this enemy within. * The writer is author of Guilt by Association, Democracy at Risk, and The Ownership Solution.
