Robin Cook, the Database and Secrets: If Robin Cook was starting to spill secrets, his sudden death one month later would have saved the defence, intelligence and security services from having to confront a difficult problem, one which would have had no obvious, certain solution. On the day after the July 7th, 2005 bombings on London transport, former foreign secretary Robin Cook MP wrote what turned out to be his penultimate newspaper column for the Guardian. In it he revealed something about al-Qaeda that perhaps he shouldnt have. Bin Laden was, though, a product of a monumental miscalculation by western security agencies. Throughout the 80s he was armed by the CIA and funded by the Saudis to wage jihad against the Russian occupation of Afghanistan. Al-Qaida, literally the database, was originally the computer file of the thousands of mujahideen who were recruited and trained with help from the CIA to defeat the Russians. Inexplicably, and with disastrous consequences, it never appears to have occurred to Washington that once Russia was out of the way, Bin Ladens organisation would turn its attention to the west. As far as I know, this was the first time publicly, in the anglophone world, that the al-Qaeda name had been explained as referring to a computer database. dailypaul/77379/al-qaeda-originally-a-computer-program-by-the-cia
Posted on: Tue, 03 Dec 2013 08:55:39 +0000
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