Almost a decade after the 1979 downfall of the Shah of Iran's dictatorship, Mansour Rafizadeh, the SAVAK (Shah's secret police) chief in charge of the the US Operations and CIA liason, published his memoirs (Witness - From the Shah to the Secret Arms Deal, William Morrow & Co., New York). In that book, Rafizadeh mentions that many terrorist acts committed in Iran were actually committed by the Shah's regime and then blamed on the opposition.*

The Shah's secret police, SAVAK was organized and trained by the CIA and the Israeli Mossad which, by the way, is notorious for organizing terrorist groups and committing acts of terror.

Ari Ben-Menashi, a former top-level Israeli intelligence officer, in his book "Profits of War, Inside the Secret US-Israeli Arms Network" (Sheridan Square Press, New York) offers the following account of the attack:

"...the group's** methods were rather unconventional, one could say heinous, but it had operated successfully for years. An example is the case of the "Palestinian" attack on the cruise ship Achille Lauro in 1985. That was in fact, an Israeli "black" propaganda operation to show what a deadly, cutthroat bunch the Palestinians were.

The operation worked like this: Eitan passed instructions to Radi that it was time for the Palestinians to make an attack and do something cruel, although no specifics were laid out. Radi passed orders on to Abu'l Abbas***, who, to follow such orders, was receiving millions from Israeli intelligence officers posing as Sicilian dons. Abbas then gathered a team to attack the cruise ship. The team was told to make it bad, to show the world what lay in store for other unsuspecting citizens if Palestinian demands were not met. As the world knows, the group picked on an elderly American Jewish man in a wheelchair, killed him, and threw his body overboard. They made their point. But for Israel it was the best kind of anti-Palestinian propaganda."

In light of recent attacks on innocent civilians in Madrid, Spain, one wonders if these acts of terror are a continuation of what started on September 11, in New York City.

Isn't it curious that attackers always (quite conveniently) leave around evidence of who we should think they are? (watch out for all sorts of self-incriminating tapes, videos, interviews, etc).

It is quite unfortunate to see how we were spoon-fed and showed no reaction to the ridiculous "lone gunman - single bullet" theory, and now in a few months, we will be spoon-fed the "lone caveman" theory. In response to our silence, just to make sure they utterly insult our intelligence, every time they come up with an explanation more absurd and retarded than before.

The Middle East, just like America and other parts of the world is a hotbed of fundamentalism. Muslim "madrasahs" (or religious schools) are just as numerous, divided, small, and sectarian as Christian sects. Some are financed and supported by local reactionary governments. In fact most that were organized as Afghan Mojahedeen to fight the Soviets in Afghanistan were financed, trained, and supported by the CIA, Saudi government and Pakistani intelligence services.

Isn't it curious that the United States government did not name any earthly groups such as Hamas, Hezbollah, or Akhvan-e Moslemin (Muslim Brotherhood) as the mastermind behind recent terrorist acts? Such claims could easily be verified and disproved by journalists, intelligence authorities, and other investigative bodies.

That's how Al-Qaida was born.**** Here is an organization that has no known "earthly" bases. Al-Qaida members can be anywhere and everywhere: in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran, and even thousands of miles away in Iraq, and then can communicate with the base and their leaders through ESP (extra sensory perception)!

[Here is the joke: whatever Saddam Hussein was, he was certainly a secular ruler. Saddam was an enemy of the fundamentalists, and they were his foes. To claim any relations between any fundamentalists and Saddam Hussein would be a joke and a direct insult to the American people's intelligence.]

Al-Qaida has replaced the Soviets as the bogeyman that provided the American ruling class with the excuse to maintain the defense spending, justify military actions around the world, and more than ever take away our civil liberties. To stay alive, Al-Qaida has to commit acts of terror from time to time and place to place; otherwise, there will not be much justification for the billions of dollars spent on defense, and no acceptance for people like Bush.

Those who cooked up Sept. 11 and thousands of pages of legislation to restrict our rights have further plans and are not sitting by idly. By now, it might already be too late. It might sound too alarmist or outrageous, but we are already on our way to becoming a police state. Can the world be saved? It will all depend on our vigilance and the commitment to blow the whistle when we see foul play.

* Just get on google.com and do a search on "Rafizadeh" and "SAVAK". You will run into some very interesting reading material. Next do a search on "Operation Northwoods".

****The Saudi Osama bin-Ladin was a crusader against the Soviets on behalf of the CIA, and he might have been the leader of some organization called Al-Qaida, but one such group would in no way compare (as far as size or power) to Hamas or Hezbollah (especially after CIA and Saudi support was withdrawn), and he certainly would not have been in any position to carry out acts of this magnitude as claimed by the US government. Thanks to the US creation, other governments associate their opposition to Al-Qaida, just to rout them out.