The publishers response

in fairness, the arguments of the publisher to my points should be heard as
well.

arno tausch

-----Ursprungliche Nachricht-----
Von: John Leonard [mailto:leonardjp@earthlink.net]
Gesendet: Freitag, 13. September 2002 14:22
An: Tausch, Arno
Cc: anton.pelinka@uibk.ac.at; directory@uoguelph.ca;
pdscottweb@hotmail.com; redaktion@studien-von-zeitfragen.de;
Editor@MediaMonitors.net; info@globalresearch.org
Betreff: Re: WG: a question concerning the book THE WAR ON FREEDOM


Dear Ministerialrat Dr. Tausch,

as the author of the offending section of the book it would seem incumbent 
on me to reply.

Briefly, I believe we are working on the model that intelligence agencies 
consist of a larger overt entity which is an umbrella over smaller covert 
specialized cells. For instance, CIA fact books are a product of the overt 
entity, which provide a pleasant cover (for the sundry nastinesses within, 
revealed only by investigative journalists). Intelligence is based on 
deception, and should not be assessed in a naive manner, as you have done 
by being so easily confounded by an apparent contradiction. If you do not 
have a devious bent of mind, perhaps spy stories are not your cup of tea. 
Since most people are not devious by nature, i am recommending we make this 
point explicit for our readers in the next printing.

Secondly, as concerns the israeli connection, i for one never cease to be 
surprised at the shallowness and lack of clear thinking of the intellectual 
luminaries of our contemporary scene. one would have thought that after so 
many campaigns about racism and equal rights, the principle should have 
been established by now that we use the same yardstick for everyone, 
regardless of ethnic origin. again and again i find instead that if one 
finds fault with israel, immediately the debate rages around the alleged 
anti-semitism of the critic, rather than the merits or otherwise of the 
fault finding. your email is a case in point. you have omitted to evaluate 
the  sources i have drawn on that indicate an israeli connection (i do not 
say the whole thing was a mossad conspiracy; the model this evidence points 
to, in my mind, is some kind of cooperation between cia and mossad)

it is perhaps worth mentioning a couple aspects of this here-
1. to shelter any person or group from deserved criticism is to pave the 
way for their downfall
2. i can understand that the view from vienna, unfortunately drenched in 
the history of fascism, is one that makes one doubly cautious about 
anything resembling the old-time conspiracy theories about the jews. this 
may explain why your message is the very first protest about my israeli 
connection to come to my attention, after nearly 5000 copies of the work in 
circulation.
3. notwithstanding, we should have the moral and intellectual stamina to 
understand that fascism, i.e. militarism, is not an ethnic trait
4. unfortunately, the zionist state inherited no small measure of fascist 
tendencies from nazism and the overall zeitgeist of its genesis. numerous 
parallels between zionism and nazism have been noted by many observers; i 
suppose books must have been written on this. today, the israeli state is 
generally agreed by informed and impartial individuals to be a racist 
anachronism itself, as was recently dramatized in south africa. however, 
americans did to the indigenous peoples exactly what israel is trying to do 
today, ethnically cleanse them from the land, so we can scarcely adopt a 
holier than thou attitude about the tragedy in palestine. nor can we 
condone or abet it.
5. the term anti-semite is a mantra about as terrible for a modern 
intellectual as was excommunication to a scholar in the 13th century. this 
word-weapon is used unscrupulously to intimidate critics (see point 1).
6. we are living through a new period of nascent fascism in which the new 
axis is the usa with the uk and israel. i hope to develop this theme, 
particularly as it applies to the bush administration in the usa, and the 
tools of modern media at the disposal of this corporatist clique. the term 
i have just coined for it is open totalitarian society - or more 
colloquially, new improved nazism; it operates by marginalizing dissent 
rather than suppressing it - there are seeds of this idea in the Backword.
7. israel is a proxy state, as i explained, useful for attaining the US-UK 
goal of domination of eurasia. after 1945 the jews became 'honorary whites' 
(loosely speaking, since, of course, the zionists were more white than 
semite already) and were thence admitted to the club of colonizers in a 
very strategic zone, a beachhead to the middle east. so what you have is a 
continuation of the centuries-long race colonial war of whites against the 
other races for the lion's share of resources. i hope to link this to the 
current attempt to single out iraq as a pariah country that deserves to be 
destroyed simply by virtue of being in the way and having oil - and having 
challenged the dollar supremacy by converting to the euro.
8. the term "conspiracy theory," carelessly used, belongs to the semantic 
class of slurs without true denotative content. conspiracies and theories 
are nothing strange, but the most common of occurrences. loosely, a 
conspiracy occurs any time two people do something they dont' want others 
in on - so that all of us have got into this strange world as a result of 
intimate acts of conspiracy!
as for theories, science, even hard science, is composed of theories. 
theory is anything we have evidence about but are not completely sure of - 
i guess that is most of the time, if not all the time, isn't it?
so i should be a bit amused by this label, conspiracy theory. i think 
rather the critics should be labeled as coincidence theorists, and explain 
how all the facts we have put on the table just happened to occur 
innocently, without contrivance. unfortunately i am not a forensic 
statistician, but intuively i sense that the odds are infinitesimal.
9. personally i don't find the failure to intercept is the most compelling 
evidence in the book. yet i have labored to show that by pure deduction, 
even without the evidence we have brought forward, there would be a 
tentative presumption of guilt on the part of the U.S. government - i mean 
the fact that no one has ever been mad enough to pick a fight with the usa, 
without first being provoked beyond endurance. furthermore, examples of 
suspected or proven self - terror preceded virtually every one of our 
foreign wars.
10. one could also deduce the potential for an israeli connection entirely 
without evidence, as i mentioned in passing. it is generally preferable to 
use proxies for dirty operations, and for self-terror, 100 times moreso. 
thus a deductive sherlock holmes on the case would look for foreign 
proxies. Nafeez has documented the pakistani end of this, and no one 
protests. but certainly, israels mossad is also a very logical candidate. 
yet i have not made this inference without evidence, on the contrary. as to 
which is the tail and which the dog, that is a conundrum, but to me it 
would appear that the gas-guzzling american consumer is ultimately in the 
driver's seat.

well even moses was happy with ten points so i will close

Best regards

JP leonard



At 09:35 13.9.02 +0200, Tausch, Arno wrote:
> >
> >
> > in view of the endless debates on september 11 I have a question to you
-
> > in the name of intellectual honesty -, the editors of Radio Free
Europe`s
> > Security and Terrorism Watch.
>
> > I was originally quite impressed by the provisional word text file
version
> > of the study herewith included, by colleague dr. Ahmed in Britain on
> > September 11. My own first positive electronic comment on the first
> > version of the text, sent to me by Peter Spengler in Frankfurt, a joint
> > friend of the world wide known Professor Andre Gunder Frank and me - is
> > now on the book cover (in good company with several other, well-known
> > academic authors and the democratic representative for Georgia,
> > Congresswoman Mrs. Cynthia Mc Kinney). The website article on the flight
> > security aspects of September 11 is still indeed what I say on the cover
> > text - powerful, disturbing, interesting, especialy the first part of
it:
> >
> > http://www.druckversion.studien-von-zeitfragen.net/Chapter%20V.htm
> >
> >  <<The War on Freedom1.doc>>
> > I cannot escape the impression, that in the printed final version of the
> > book which I never saw before it went in print (with my name on the
cover)
> > - there is now really too much in terms of conspiracy theories and what
> > have you, and too little in terms of serious intelligence policy
research.
> >
> >
> > I now have to say, that I withdraw my positive assessment, printed on
the
> > book cover, for all future editions. And I bear no responsibility for
any
> > possible court action taken by the Bush family or other persons against
> > the book.
> >
> > The most glaring weakness is the contradiction now present in the book
in
> > the treatment of the role of Mossad, the Israeli external security
agency.
> > In the original draft, Mossad is positively mentioned three times -
> > correctly, and in conjunction with other western security agencies - as
> > warning against the impending catastrophe.
> >
> > Quite correctly so, I think, and well done on the part of the author.
Mr.
> > Nafeez M. Ahmed has given a dramatic turn in the published version -
what
> > looks in the draft as a serious account of the intelligence failure of
> > September 11 - by and large having come about in my own personal and
> > private assessment by a US foreign policy oriented blindness vis-a-vis
> > negative tendencies in Saudi Arabia and a blindness on the
Talibanization
> > of  the Pakistani ISI under Lt. General Hamid Gul - together with late
> > reactions, chaos and what have you and a glaring failure of inland
defense
> > structures before September 11 - has now become in the final printed
> > version as the great Israeli conspiracy.
> >
> > I trust that Congresswoman McKinney, and Professors McMurty and Peter
Dale
> > Scott, and Peter Spengler in Frankfurt share my apprehensions against
the
> > construction of such conspiracy theories.
> >
> > Why should the Mossad have warned against the threat (pages 114 etc. of
> > the printed book; and on 3 pages in the draft) when in the end they are
> > described in the later 1/3 of the book as the real culprits? So they
> > warned against a crime which they were about to perpetrate? This is
> > absurd, really absurd! And what about the hundreds of Jewish victims of
> > September 11?
> >
> > I would be grateful if Security and Terrrorism Watch at Radio Liberty
and
> > Radio Free Europe could seriously review the book: THE WAR ON FREEDOM,
by
> > Nafeez Mossaddeq Ahmed, and that you sort of dwell on the strengths and
> > weaknesses of this kind of analysis. I have decided to go public with
that
> > debate; and I have a good international academic and also diplomatic
name
> > to defend.
> >
> > Having written only 60 % of his final text, colleague Nafeez Mosaddeq
> > Ahmed would have prepared the groundwork for a good scholary book, that
> > could have been used by a serious investigation at the US Congress and
> > other bodies.
> >
> > Now he has ruined the logic of his arguments completely, and has sided
> > with conspiracy theories, anti-semites and other people, with whom I do
> > not want to have anything to do, and I think, the other scholars and
> > Congresswoman McKinney, all mentioned on the book cover as well.
> >
> > I should also stress that this should not preclude a serious debate
about
> > human rights violations in the Occupied Territories etc.
> >
> >
> > PS: I do not contact Mr. Barry Zwicker, who is also named on the back
> > cover of the book and who is electronically listed in such publications
as
> > 'free mason watch'. I do not want to have anything to do with such
> > publications, neither presently not in future.
> >
> > Kind regards
> >
> > Ministerialrat Dr. Arno TAUSCH
> > Tel. (0043 - 1) 711 - 00 - 2272
> > e-mail-address: Arno.Tausch@BMSG.gv.at
> >