BEg2 ch25 summary - forgot the most important part

[rich]

After re-reading BE, I got the sense that the dark lords of them, some
within and without the intelligence community, didnt plan 9/11, just found
ways, like much of the country would afterwards, to make a killing in the
markets, and/or exploit new and existing relationships, which I would argue
is much more important than 9/11 itself, in the novel which in many ways is
alluded to in different scenarios and locations throughout. Even Ice, the
US gov't and govts are pawns. I grant there is much ambiguity over much in
BE.

rich

On Sun, Mar 20, 2022 at 10:04 AM Thomas Eckhardt via Pynchon-l <
pynchon-l at waste.org> wrote:

> “Sure, blast from past, part from Stinger missile launcher.
> Battery-coolant receptacle cap.”
> (...)
> “This writing on the battery cap, what’s it say, can you read it?”
> “Pashto, ‘God is great,’ maybe legit, maybe CIA forgery to look
> like mujahedeen, covering up some caper of their own.”
>
> (The "caper of their own" would be a "false-flag caper" as mentioned by
> Windust on p. 378. "Nobody is that good.")
>
> I like Igor's matter-of-factness:
>
> "You used to get shot at with Stingers." (...)
>
> "Me, my friends, nothing personal."
>
> The historical reference is of course to Operation Cyclone:
>
> -- Operation Cyclone was the code name for the United States Central
> Intelligence Agency (CIA) program to arm and finance the Afghan
> mujahideen in Afghanistan from 1979 to 1992, prior to and during the
> military intervention by the USSR in support of the Democratic Republic
> of Afghanistan. The mujahideen were also supported by Britain's MI6, who
> conducted separate covert actions. The program leaned heavily towards
> supporting militant Islamic groups, including groups with jihadist ties,
> that were favored by the regime of Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq in neighboring
> Pakistan, rather than other, less ideological Afghan resistance groups
> that had also been fighting the Soviet-oriented Democratic Republic of
> Afghanistan administration since before the Soviet intervention. --
>
> As for the links between the mujahideen and Al-Qaeda:
>
> -- Some have alleged that bin Laden and al Qaeda were beneficiaries of
> CIA assistance. This is challenged by experts such as Coll—who notes
> that declassified CIA records and interviews with CIA officers do not
> support such claims—and Peter Bergen, who argues: "It's worth mentioning
> here that there is simply no evidence for the common myth that bin Laden
> and his Afghan Arabs were supported by the CIA financially. Nor is there
> any evidence that CIA officials at any level met with bin Laden or
> anyone in his circle." Bergen insists that U.S. funding went to the
> Afghan mujahideen, not the Arab volunteers who arrived to assist them.
>
> However, Sir Martin Ewans noted that the Afghan Arabs "benefited
> indirectly from the CIA's funding, through the ISI and resistance
> organizations," and that "it has been reckoned that as many as 35,000
> 'Arab-Afghans' may have received military training in Pakistan at an
> estimated cost of $800 million in the years up to and including 1988.
> Some of the CIA's greatest Afghan beneficiaries were Arabist commanders
> such as Haqqani and Hekmatyar who were key allies of bin Laden over many
> years. Haqqani—one of bin Laden's closest associates in the
> 1980s—received direct cash payments from CIA agents, without the
> mediation of the ISI. This independent source of funding gave Haqqani
> disproportionate influence over the mujahideen. Haqqani and his network
> played an important role in the formation and growth of al Qaeda, with
> Haqqani allowing bin Laden to train mujahideen volunteers in Haqqani
> territory and build extensive infrastructure there. Milton Bearden, the
> CIA's Islamabad station chief from mid-1986 until mid-1989, took an
> admiring view of bin Laden at the time. --
>
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Cyclone
>
> Some see the attacks of 9/11 as "blowback" of supporting the
> mudjahideen. This claim, however is disputed:
>
> -- A number of commentators have described Al-Qaeda attacks as
> "blowback" or an unintended consequence of American aid to the
> mujahideen. In response, the United States government and American and
> Pakistani intelligence officials involved in the operation have denied
> this theory. Many journalists including Peter Bergen have also refuted
> the claim. They maintain the aid was given out by the Pakistan
> government, that it went to Afghan not foreign mujahideen, and that
> there was no contact between the Afghan Arabs (foreign mujahideen) and
> the CIA and other American officials, let alone the arming, training,
> coaching or indoctrination. --
>
>
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegations_of_CIA_assistance_to_Osama_bin_Laden
>
> Recommended reading:
>
> Steve Coll, "Ghost Wars"
> Lawrence Wright, "The Looming Tower"
> Peter Dale Scott, "The Road to 9/11"
>
> The CIA on supporting the mujahideen with Stinger missiles:
>
> https://twitter.com/CIA/status/1379437049728659459?s=20
>
> In BE, the scenario on the Deseret rooftop is one element of a
> conspiracy theory that, to the best of my knowledge, Pynchon invented
> out of whole cloth. In this fictional CT, developed by March and Maxine,
> there was a "dry run" for 9/11 with a manpad crew, presumably civilian
> contractors from the US, threatening to shoot down incoming airplanes,
> and a sniper as "[i]nsurance to see that they go through with it".
> (265-269). Maxine later learns from Igor that the DVD has a hidden track
> showing "young men of Arab background" building a virtual-cathode
> oscillator (330) at #hashlingerz.
>
> In any case, the coolant receptacle cap suggests that the events on the
> roof of the Deseret filmed by Reg really took place within BE's
> fictional world. What they mean is less clear.
>
> P.S. From the CIA's online museum:
>
> "This silver coin commemorating an anticipated (but never realized) Bay
> of Pigs victory features an outline of Cuba with a rebel invader
> advancing past a fallen member of Castro's military in the foreground."
>
> https://twitter.com/CIA/status/1397193234086957056
>
>
> --
> Pynchon-L: https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l
>