Author's comments - May 5, 2008.

In the summer of 1999, I wrote the following chapter 15 for my book.  At the time, the publisher decided that the subject of international terrorism was not relevant and would not include this chapter in the final edition of the book.  Unfortunately, the events of September 11, 2001, proved him wrong!

As you will learn as you read the following chapter, I believed at the time I wrote the book that the West was setting itself up for certain acts of international terrorism.  Regrettably, Osama bin Laden fulfilled my prediction.  However, there was no way that anybody could have predicted the method and magnitude of the terrorist attacks that occurred against New York and Washington, D.C. in 2001. Of course, it has not been forgotten that Ramzi Yousef organized the bombing of the World Trade Center twin towers in Lower Manhattan on February 26, 1993.

To this day, after almost seven years of constant terrorist alerts in the U.S., Osama bin Laden is still at large and exerting his form of terrorism around the world.  He can send a $5 videotape to an Arab TV station and cause the U.S. to spend millions of dollars a day fighting an illusive adversary!

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'PLANE TRUTH' - Chapter 15 in the original manuscript, written in 1999. 

"Inviting Terrorism." 

The law of the jungle works well in the jungle. It obeys the laws of natural selection and Nature stays in a healthy balance.  With the glaring exception of man, few animals attack the same species.  Men are particularly aggressive, but women are not totally excluded.  The aggressive behavior of man manifests itself in many ways, so let’s review a few. I need to make an important point.

War:  Historically, war has been between two trained armies and the conditions of war are well defined. The sides are more or less equally balanced and there is always collateral damage and loss of civilian life. World War II is a classical example and the Korean War a smaller version thereof.

Guerrilla War:  Guerrilla war is usually associated with two warring countries with one side more powerful than the other.  The Vietnam War was a typical case. The North Vietnamese knew they had little chance of winning a war against America with its massive war chest and advanced technology.  The North Vietnamese, we need not be reminded, won that guerrilla war of attrition against the French with the final battle at Dien Bien Phu, and against the Americans when Saigon fell on April 30, 1974.

Cold War: The Cold War was won essentially by America against the USSR by two distinct techniques with no obvious loss of life.  The fact that both sides had enough nuclear bombs to completely annihilate each other kept the balance of power equal and dangerous. The technique was called, MAD, Mutually Assured Destruction. The USSR lost as the cost of the cold war brought the country to economic ruin. America ran up six trillion dollars of debt but can probably pay this down over twenty years if Congress develops the courage or the Americans demand it. The rules were clear.

Civil Wars, Religious Wars, Murder, Domestic Violence, Road Rage: We are all very familiar with these  acts of violence as they occur on a daily basis. The wars followed by the mainstream media include the never ending conflict between the Israelis and Palestinians, the Northern Irish fiasco, the many wars in Africa, the Indian and Pakistan religious war and others of less interest to the press.

Economic War: The economic war between nations is a never-ending process, which may actually have great benefits to society over the long term. The economic wars have a tendency to make the process of exchanging goods and services more efficient. However, when the balance of trade swings too far in favor of one nation, serious one-sided conflicts can escalate to a more violent phase.  Japan has had a massive trade imbalance with the USA for decades. By 1999 the trade balance reached almost unsustainable levels. Yet with the Japanese holding two trillion dollars of the US National Debt there is precious little the US can do. The Japanese could just buy Euros. The United States, with a population of 278 million, in a world with a population of 6 billion, consumes over one third of the world’s resources every day. That is enough to make other less fortunate people less than happy with their prospects. To avoid being called biased, I must point out that Americans work harder and more efficiently than most other societies and provide huge volumes of food and other commodities to the world.

Terrorism:  There is little doubt that the people on Pan Am 103 felt terror in their hearts as the huge Boeing 747 broke into pieces at 550 MPH over Lockerbie. But was it terrorism?

The very word “terrorism” has a unique concept in the English language as it usually brings visions of personal fear of death or serious injury. It’s personal. War, on the other hand, is a vague term where others get hurt or killed, while the individual is not threatened. During the Vietnam War some young Americans were being slaughtered on the battlefield while others back home were going dancing on a Saturday night. Movies of war are very popular, Rambo movies sell well and the most popular video games involve some form of violence. Yet when the lights go out at the movie theatre, or the TV is shut off, those experiencing the violence, can sleep peacefully knowing that tomorrow will be just another day.

In my evaluation of events, if the Iranians, Syrians, Palestinians or Libyans did, in fact, bomb Pan Am 103 it was not terrorism. It was guerrilla warfare. 

The four potential adversaries had major grievances, which they blamed for the most part on Israel and America for its staunch and very biased economic and military support. The Iranians could have been avenging the downing of the Airbus in the Gulf, the Syrians are still smarting over losing the Golan Heights in the 1967 Six-Day war, the Libyans were incensed by the American bombing of Tripoli; and the Palestinian situation needs no further explanation. The leaders of these countries knew from experience that to tackle Israel or the USA in a head-on confrontation was suicidal. The only technique to win the war was by adopting guerrilla tactics. The bombing of buildings like the New York World Trade Center in 1993, and the bombing of airplanes in the 1980's, were surgical attacks designed to put fear into the public and hence force the Arab grievances to be addressed. You may say that it is unfair. It attacks innocent people going about their daily business. But isn’t the killing of innocent people just collateral damage?

Do not be deluded by words. The so-called “Terrorism” today is Guerrilla War! 

Future Wars That Might Effect You:  When Britain and the USA decided to become involved with the civil war in Kosovo they made a huge mistake.  No-one in Britain or the USA could have identified Kosovo on a world map if their life depended on it.  Now their lives may some day be touched by the aggressive act of bombing Serbia - the city of Belgrade in particular. The US army has a policy of attacking countries without declaring war and, in the case of Kosovo, violating the U.S. Constitution by carrying on the bombing without Congressional approval. A courageous congressman from Texas, Republican Ron Paul, filed a lawsuit to try and rectify the actions of the reckless Clinton Administration. The military is also very well aware that if one airman or soldier comes home in a body bag, the public will turn against the action.  It is OK to go to war as long as none of our guys get killed. If civilians on the other side are killed it’s just like the video games; turn off the TV and it goes away.

British Prime Minister, Tony Blair, was equally adamant he was on God’s side and championed the war in Kosovo, which he called a NATO war and which was in fact carried out by the US military in the Pentagon. How do we know this? The US was directing its bombers and accidentally, or otherwise, targeted and hit the Chinese embassy. I lost count of the number of times Blair stated that, “We won. He lost!” I’m not sure who he means by “we” since fewer British planes flew on bombing runs against the sovereign nation of Serbia than the American planes. The British always pride themselves as “being fair” and in many cases brought back the bombs because they could not see the targets. The American stealth bombers had the capability to bomb under any conditions. There is little doubt that the Serbs lost.  Months after the bombing stopped, the Serbs were concerned about being able to face the winter of 1999 with their towns destroyed. But did Blair win?  The Americans are telling Blair to pay for the reconstruction of the Balkans so the British taxpayer did not win. What if a few Serbs decide to retaliate the only way they know ----- guerrilla warfare. How safe are you? Turning off the TV might not be good enough to avoid a bomb in your apartment block.  In September 1999, 300 people have died by bombs in three Russian apartment blocks. Guerrilla warriors from Chechnya were probably responsible for the terror!  So, did Tony win?  We will have to wait and see; he may have another IRA on his hands.  Between 500 and 5,000 civilian Serbs, Kosovars, Albanians and others lost their lives and we shall never know how many died in the cold of the winter of 1999.  Some millennium celebration for the Balkan people!

If possible, place yourself in the shoes of a Serbian whose life has been tough under the elected but dictatorial leader, Slobodan Milosovich, and reflect on the fact that his family was killed by an American smart cluster bomb.  He cannot understand why you have killed his family, reduced his town to rubble, cut off the power and water and polluted the farm land with carbon fiber bombs used to cut off the electricity to the entire town of Belgrade.  This guy now has nothing else to lose and he can readily join a "guerilla warfare" group financed by the Russian Mafia to take revenge.  Furthermore, let us assume the group knows a Russian scientist who left Russia for not being paid and now works for Saddam Hussein in his biological and germ warfare operation.