The Darkened Hour

Dan Christensen is the founder and lead investigative reporter of the Florida Bulldog. He is also an award-winning former investigative reporter for The Miami Herald and Daily Business Review. We talk about his ground breakling stories regarding the Saudi lawsuits in the Southern district of New York City, Operation Encore, an FBI investigation involving Musaed al-Jarrah, Fahad al-Thumairy and Omar al-Bayoumi, Abdulaziz al-Hijji a former sarasota native who met with 9/11 hijackers Mohammed Atta and Marwan al-Shehi in the days leading up to the attacks, Adnan Gushnair El Shukrijumah a high level Al Qaeda operative who lived in Florida and also had contacts with some of the 9/11 operatives, and the recent deposition of former US-Saudi ambassador, Bandar Bin Sultan, refusing to answer any questions about his knowledge regarding the September 11th 2001 terrorist attacks.
Florida Bulldog website: https://www.floridabulldog.org/

In the late evening hours of September 11th 2001, those in the highest levels of the federal government were gathering as much intelligence as they possible could to piece together just exactly what happened and who was responsible for the attacks earlier in the day. The Central Intelligence Agency and the Counter-terrorism unit were alarmed that their initial suspects who were being tracked by members of the special unit, the Bin Laden Issue Station" were responsible for the hijackings of four planes three of which intentionally crashed into the World Trade Center towers and the Pentagon. George Tenet, CIA Director, was given the flight manifests which reinforced his worst nightmares. Meanwhile a more nefarious unit was beginning to use the terrorist attacks to justify previous outlines, made many years prior by a very selective group called the neoconservatives. They were also called, The Vulcans, named after the Roman god of fire. They were Richard Armitage, Robert Blackwill, Stephen Hadley, Richard Perle, Dov S. Zakheim, Robert Zoellick and Paul Wolfowitz and  Condoleezza Rice. 
It was here they began to justify not just a military invasion of Afghanistan, but also against Iraq. It caused a split within the intelligence agencies who being forced to find anything linking the terrorist attacks by Al Qaeda to Iraq. The FBI and NSA were not able to find anything to link the two, which left Bush to give the responsibility to Tenet. The CIA began using enhanced interrogation techniques which was in it's simple definition, torture, on captured detainees from Afghanistan. They produced false intelligence but confessions none the less which was used to militarily invade Iraq. In this episode i outline the planning stages of the neoconservative unit in the many years prior to the September 11th attacks, and after.

Lawrence Wilkerson, a retired United States Army Colonel and former chief of staff to United States Secretary of State Colin Powell who has also served as the associate director under the Director for Policy Planning, talks with us about the past, present and future of the United States foreign policy in the Middle East. The Neoconservative, Israeli and Saudi influence on American politics and his thoughts on the Middle East past and present.
 
The topics Wilkerson speaks at length are numerous which encompass, the office of special plans created by Paul Wolfowitz and Douglas Feith. The powerful tentacles of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the Saudi Kingdom's Bandar Bin Sultan and the oil magnates billion dollar industries which corrupted many from the halls of congress, Colin Powell's speech at the United Nations Security Counsel in 2003 which was reformatted by the Central Intelligence Agency, the influence of Leo Strauss and Paul Nitze regarding the Bush neocons, The Guantanamo Bay detainee tortures, and the Libya conflict perpetrated by the Obama administration under the direct influence of Hillary Clinton and Samantha Power.War is Not About Truth, Justice and the American Way: Col. Lawrence Wilkerson on The Real News book:https://www.amazon.com/War-About-Truth-Justice-American/dp/1515113213/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=lawrence+wilkerson&qid=1627045903&s=books&sr=1-1
 

A journalist whose career spanned over three decades, Terry McDermott, author of Perfect Soldiers: The 9/11 Hijackers—Who They Were, Why They Did It, and, The Hunt for KSM: Inside the Pursuit and Takedown of the Real 9/11 Mastermind, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (co-authored with Josh Meyer) is invited to speak about both books today. McDermott covers a wide range of issues relating to what was being planned and known before the September 11th 2001 terrorist attacks and we also speak about what happened immediately afterwards. His book Perfect Soldiers, is the only book in existence which covers specifically on the hijackers backgrounds and profiles. Our conversation also touches various subjects such as the 1979 Afghan-Soviet War, 1993 WTC Bombing and Bojinka plot. We also cover the Guantanamo Bay military trial and the CIA torture of captured detainees and whether their admissions can be valid before the military tribunal.
Perfect Soldiers: The 9/11 Hijackers—Who They Were, Why They Did It:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0014H327G/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1
The Hunt for KSM: Inside the Pursuit and Takedown of the Real 9/11 Mastermind, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed :
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0071534XC/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i2

Kenneth Williams is a retired 35 year veteran from the Federal Bureau of Investigation out of Phoenix who worked in counter-terrorism on foreign and domestic issues that included being involved with two major terrorist attacks on the United States, The Oklahoma City Alfred Murrah bombing and the September 11th 2001 terrorist attacks. Williams conducted a covert operation involving an informant who went by the name Henry Ellen, a Phoenix based businessman who was also a Muslim convert and later went by the name, Abu Yousef. He was able to obtain information about suspicious activities by individuals who had contacts with known terrorist cells operating inside the United States, specifically involving Omar Abdel Rahman a radical Egyptian cleric based out of Brooklyn and New Jersey. This information was used to construct a memorandum which would be released to the FBI nationwide, known as the Phoenix Memo.The memo focused on Zakaria Soubra, a Lebanese flight student in Prescott, Arizona, and his connection with a terror group in Chechnya that had ties to al-Qaeda. Williams alerted his suspicions about radical militants training at flight schools in Arizona and elsewhere in the United States in the memorandum which was sent to numerous cities nationwide. However the report was not read by his superiors until after the September 11th terrorist attacks. He would later testify before the United States House of Representatives and the United States Senate regarding terrorism matters and cooperated with the 9/11 Commission. He is also currently assisting the 9/11 victims families in their civil suit against the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, even after defying the order of the FBI not to for fear of compromising US-Saudi relations.

When United Airlines Flight 93 crashed into an open field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania on September 11th 2001, nobody in Somerset County imagined that this horrific incident would be thoughtlessly expressed by the minds of fringe conspiracy theorists who would entertain, repeatedly, irrational theories that would undermine current federal and local investigators looking at foreign intervention and financial assistance into the cooperators of this crime. Or by the federal government who made sure to use the FBI to omit certain information that may be relevant to what took place before and during the hijacking. In time these outlandish theories, which still persist today, have made the crime that took place here seem like a distant cousin of sorts. The victims and their loved ones deserve much better than what is being told by either federal investigators who omit certain information pertaining to this incident, or by irresponsibly unhinged conspiracy theorists. In this episode i will give a historical outline of the actual anomalies that took place before, during and after the crash of Flight 93 in Shanksville, Pennsylvania. For more information on Assem al-Jarrah read my article: https://adamfitzgerald-5924.medium.com/assem-jarrah-out-from-the-ashes-of-flight-93-e2bb2b70d63eJ. Michael Springmann & Bonnie Faulkner interview transcript: http://www.rawa.org/temp/runews/2016/02/02/visas-for-al-qaeda-cia-handouts-that-rocked-the-world-and-8211-an-insider-s-view.htmlArticle regarding cell phone use on board airliners: https://www.sfgate.com/travel/article/The-real-reason-you-can-t-use-cell-phones-on-2896133.phpFlight 93 passengers personal effects return back to families: https://old.post-gazette.com/headlines/20011230flight931230p3.asp#:~:text=But%20searchers%20also%20gathered%20surprisingly,effects%20salvaged%20from%20the%20site.CIA potential recruitment of Mohammad Haydar Zammar and Marmoun Darkanzali: https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-2002-11-17-0211170296-story.html

In this episode, I lend my thoughts about what precipitated the terrorist attacks on New York City and Washington D.C. In a special edition three hour discussion where I cover many specific areas. They include the Afghan-Soviet War, The Rise of Islamic/Salafi Movement, Osama Bin Laden, Israel-Arab-US Foreign relations, The Paul Wolfowitz Doctrine, The Rise of Neoconservatism, The 1993 WTC Bombing, Bojinka Plot, AIPAC Influence On US Politics 1998 East Africa Bombings, The 2000 Millennium Plot, Nabil al-Marabh, Josie Hadas, Omar Abdel Rahman, Abdullah Azzam, Ramzi Yousef, Khalid Sheikh Muhammad, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, Benjamin Netanyahu, Paul Wolfowitz, James R. Bath, George W. Bush, The Bin Laden Issue Station, Able Danger, Operation Cyclone, Timber Sycamore, Urban Moving Systems, The Maktab al-Khidamat (Afghan Services Bureau) and the September 11th 2001 terrorist attacks.
 
 

In todays episode we cover the life of one of Islam's most venerated and enigmatic scholars of the century. Abdullah Yusuf Azzam was a Palestinian Islamic scholar, author and credited as being the founder of modern day defensive jihad, or "aljihad aldifaeiu" (aldifayou) in the Arabic. In the Quran there are three types of jihad, the jihad against yourself, the jihad against Satan — which are called the greater jihads — and the jihad against an open enemy — known as the lesser jihad. The jihad Azzam had implemented in the madrassas in Pakistan and to the young mujahid in the afghan services bureau also called the Maktab al-Khidamat will be carefully elucidated in todays episode for it would help shape to create the radical fundamentalist's we have witnessed in the modern period, like Al Qaeda, Aby Sayyaf, and Islamic State. Much of today's podcast is derived from Dr. Thomas Hegghammer's book on Abdullah Azzam.Thomas Hegghammer' book: The Caravan: Abdallah Azzam and the Rise of Global Jihad:https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B082PZ9CXN/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i0
 

In 1996, a classified military planning effort led by the U.S. Special Operations Command (SOCOM) and the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA)  constructed a covert meta-data collection operation code named, Able Danger. They employed the US Army's Land Information Warfare Activities Division as the data-miners needed to collect 'open source' information to track terrorist cells inside the United States. Erik Kleinsmith, Army Major and the Chief of Intelligence of the Land Information Warfare Activity (LIWA), was selected to take part of this highly classified unit. The data mining software would be provided by Raytheon Company and Orion Scientific, which helped execute the sophisticated data mining software packages. By 2000, the LIWA team managed to collect 2.5 terabytes of information showing 2 of 3 terrorist cells inside the United States, that included, one cell operated by Omar Abdel Rahman (Landmarks Plot) and Mohammed Atta (9/11 Planes Operation).
However, Kleinsmith was ordered by United States Special Operations Command (SOCOM) lawyers to destroy all the data the LIWA had amassed, which identified 20 suspects, some, who were involved with the terrorist attack on the USS Cole and in the September 11th 2001 terrorist attacks. He would later give testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee in 2005, regarding the covert Able Danger program and what the unit were able to uncover. In today's episode, Major Erik Kleinsmith talks with us about how he became part of the unit, what it entailed, and how SOCOM lawyers and the Department of Defense obstructed members of LIWA from sharing their intelligence with anyone outside of the US Army by ordering them to destroy it all completely.Intelligence Operations: Understanding Data, Tools, People, and Processes (First Edition):https://titles.cognella.com/intelligence-operations-9781516523580Able Danger And Intelligence Sharing:https://www.c-span.org/video/?188974-1/danger-intelligence-sharing
 

In 1932, King Saud Bin Abdulaziz Al Saud granted permission for the American oil company, Standard Oil, to begin drilling for oil in Bahrain. The vast oil reserves which exported billions of barrels annually, would provide the Kingdom with American military protection from it's Arab and non-Arabic neighbors. However the hegemony in the region would suddenly come under intense conflict, as Israel would declare independence in 1948. Both Israel and Saudi Arabia would begin a race for American geopolitical influence which started under the Woodrow Wilson administration. Over the next 40 years tens of millions have been donated to Washington lobbyists, billions in oil exports and millions from rich Saudi businessmen which would continually pressure American foreign policy to favor the Saudi Royal Family. The Lobby began to take hold during the energy crisis between 1973-1979, which the Saudis finally realized their potential to use their leverage of threatening to switch sides to the Soviets, in order to exert more political clout in Congress. 
To speak more precisely on the matter of Saudi Arabia's influence in American politics, is Dr. Mitchell Bard, the Executive Director of the nonprofit American–Israeli Cooperative Enterprise, and the director of the Jewish Virtual Library. He is the author of the book "The Arab Lobby: The Invisible Alliance That Undermines America's Interests in the Middle East". In this episode Dr. Bard gives us a descriptive history about how the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia became a country without any legitimate influence, to one with an enormous amount of financial and political clout in Washington D.C which began in the early 20th century.
The Arab Lobby (Mitchell Bard): https://www.amazon.com/Arab-Lobby-Invisible-Undermines-Interests/dp/0061725978

The "28 pages" are located in the final summary of the Joint Inquiry into Intelligence Community Activities before and after the Terrorist Attacks of September 11, 2001 (JIS), conducted by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. Entitled "Part IV: Finding, Discussion and Narrative Regarding Certain Sensitive National Security Matters", they refer to possible financial support of prominant Saudi businessmen and intelligence operatives and those who were involved with the September 11th 2001 terrorist attacks. When the report was finalized in July 2003, the Bush administration sought to redact the pages, but in 2016 under the Obama administration, it was fully declassified partly due to continued pressure from Senator Bob Graham, who was co-chair of the Joint House Inquiry. 
28 pages.org is a website which shows updated reports and information relating to the JIS report and other documents and files relating to Saudi links to the September 11th 2001 terrorist attacks, Brian McGlinchey, who operates the website also is an independent journalist at Stark Realities. We also talk about other Saudi incidents that went investigated by the FBI but were partly "covered up" due in part from the continued pressure from the Bush Administration which had close ties to the Saudi Royal Family and Bin Laden family going back decades.
28Pages,org website: https://28pages.org/the-declassified-28-pages/
Stark Realities with Brian McGlinchey: 
https://starkrealities.substack.com/
 

In 1996 the Defense Intelligence Agency and US Special Operations Command, under Joint Chiefs of Staff General Hugh Shelton and General Peter Schoomaker (Special Operations Command), constructed a covert signals intelligence program, code named, Able Danger. This unit would involve members of the Land Information Warfare Activities division with some of the most highly skilled tech analysts in the country. One of the members of this program, Major Anthony Shaffer, was already a highly decorated Army counter-intelligence officer, and was selected to the Able Danger unit. The operation involved data-mining which would later uncover two of three al-Qaeda active cells. The 'Brooklyn cell' linked to "Blind Sheik" Omar Abdel-Rahman, the other headed by Mohamed Atta along with three others linked to the 9/11 attacks.
However the program ran into resistance from SOCOM lawyers and Department of defense officials who determined that Atta and the cell were US persons and ordered that most of the Able Danger data destroyed. In 2003, while in Afghanistan fighting against the Taliban, Shaffer would give an interview to 9/11 Commission Director Phillip Zelikow, detailing the Able Danger program and what it compiled. When Shaffer returned to the United States he was shocked to learn that the Department of Defense had suspended his security clearance and levied "false allegations" against him. The Army Trial Defense Services heard his case and cleared him of the charges against him. Shaffer's story is told in full here in todays episode.
Operation Dark Heart: Spycraft and Special Ops on the Frontlines of Afghanistan -- and The Path to Victory:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B003P9XJX8/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i0
London Center for Policy Research: https://www.londoncenter.org/

Mark Rossini served as an FBI representative to the CIA’s Counter-terrorist Center (CTC) at CIA Headquarters and he was one of the founding executives of the National Counter-terrorism Center (NCTC). He was then situated in the 1997 NYC joint terrorism task force where he served under the I-48 counter terrorism unit which investigated Hezbollah, which was the unit next to the legendary I-49 unit which was the team investigating Al Qaeda. In January 1999, Rossini was tasked to replace Dan Coleman at the CIA's Bin Laden Issue Station, code named, Alec Station. The Bin Laden Issue Station was under the management of it's station chief Michael Scheuer, which allowed multiple agencies to work within the unit. However the CIA was quite strict about who they shared data with. Rossini would become an important figure in an explosive act of CIA malfeasance when in January 2000 a cable came in which showed two high level Al Qaeda operatives, Khalid al-Mihdhar and Nawaf al-Hazmi were coming to the United States after attending an Al Qaeda Summit Meeting In Malaysia. known to be involved in the 1998 East Africa Embassy bombings , this cable which showed the passport and US visa of the men was read by Rossini's FBI counterpart, Doug Miller, who began immediately drafting a cable to warn FBI headquarters.The Miller cable was then sent to, Alec Station's Deputy Chief, Tom Wilshire for approval to be shared with the FBI. Wilshire told CIA case officer, Michael Anne Casey, to hold off on sending. With the cable in 'limbo", Rossini inquired to Casey about why the information was being withheld. To which Casey replied ‘Look, the next attack is going to happen in Southeast Asia — it’s not the bureau’s jurisdiction. When we want the FBI to know about it, we’ll let them know. But the next bin Laden attack’s going to happen in Southeast Asia." This damning information which would have sent the FBI to closely watch the two men was never shared. According to Rossini, this would have helped to stop part of the September 11th 2001 terrorist attacks from happening. Rossini gives his thoughts about his experiences at Alec Station, his relationship with John O'Neill and his personal views about a new investigation including upcoming testimony in the Guantanamo Bay trial of Khalid sheikh Muhammad, the alleged 9/11 mastermind.Mark Rossini file: file:///C:/Users/adamf/Downloads/Mark%20Rossini%20File.pdf

In 1922, Egypt had gained it's independence from British Colonials rule and the Ottoman Empire was next. The country led by it's despot ruler, King Farouq, had begun to falter thru the leader's hedonism and affluent expenses which led most of Egyptian society living below the poverty level. Hassan al-Banna, a schoolteacher, began to organize a group of fellow Islamic scholars, it was called the Muslim Brotherhood in 1928. The goal of al-Banna and the group was simple. Usurp British colonel rule from Egypt and establish a sharia based government led by the Quran and sunnah.  By 1952, a coup de tat commenced by the Free Officers Movement led by Muhamad Neguib and Gamel Abdel Nasser. Nasser would become Egypt's second president, one that lasted just 14 years. The Brotherhood suffered under his tenure-ship. One influential figure from the Brotherhood would have a responding effect thru the Arab world, Sayyid Qutb who authored some works that would be influential in radical Islamic fundamentalism even to the present day,With Nasser's passing in 1970, Anwar Sadat became the third Egyptian president and was rather opposite in handling the Islamists. The Brotherhood, whom many were jailed under Nasser, were released. More radical splinter groups were born, opposed to the Brotherhood's wish to work with the secular Egyptian government. These radical groups wanted to live up to Sayyid Qutb's ideology of an Islamic caliphate by removing the secular Arab government and institute a religious one. By orchestrating to assassinate Anwar Sadat himself and force the loyalists out and institute an Islamic government. By 1981, Sadat was killed by members of the Egyptian army who were loyal to Al-Jihad and Gamma Islammiyah the splinter groups.  The plan for the Islamic radicalization of Egyptian government however failed. it would take years for the Muslim Brotherhood to rebound and become a legitimate part of Egyptian politics but in 2012, it finally achieved the goal of Hassan al-Banna.

In this special episode of The Darkened Hour, we interview Scott Horton. Scott is the director of the Libertarian Institute, editorial director of Antiwar.com, the author of “Fool’s Errand: Time to End the War in Afghanistan” and “Enough Already: Time to End the War on Terrorism” And since 2003 has conducted over 5,400 interviews, and is host of Antiwar Radio on KPFK 90.7 FM in Los Angeles which had won The Austin Chronicle's Best of Austin award in 2007 for "Best Iraq War Coverage." We spoke at length about certain events depicted in the chapters of his latest book, Enough Already: Time To End the War On Terrorism. Horton speaks about the disastrous effects of American Imperialism in the Middle East which has led to numerous Arab countries to become sectarian Jihadist battleground which has given the reason for the "war on terrorism" to continue while using covert operations thru the CIA to arm and train them at the same time. Scott Horton's Book: https://www.amazon.com/Enough-Already-Time-End-Terrorism/dp/1733647341​ The libertarian Institute: https://libertarianinstitute.org/