The Darkened Hour

When the United States government ended the longest war in the nation's history on August 20th 2021, the ruling Afghan government was now in the power and influence of the Taliban. Under the guidelines laid under the, Doha Accords, the Taliban pledged to prevent any militant group from staging attacks from Afghan territory against the US and its allies. However, the Afghan government was not a party to the deal and rejected its terms. Coinciding with the withdrawal of troops, the Taliban launched a broad offensive throughout the summer of 2021, successfully reestablishing their control over Afghanistan, What made the withdrawal even more disastrous was that the US military left behind an estimated $7 billion in military equipment and weapons that had been supplied to the former Afghan National Security Forces but are now in the hands of the ruling Taliban. The United States military training of the Afghan Army, was deemed a complete and total failure due to internal incompetency and corruption (most likely from Taliban influence). Meanwhile over the course of 4 years, the Taliban have secretly allowed for terrorist groups such as Al Qaeda, Eastern Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM) and Jamaat Ansarullah to fully operate training camps and madrassas. On the eve of the 25th anniversary of the September 11th 2001 terrorist attacks, are the US government making the same mistakes previous to the 9/11 attacks once again?

In December 1999, NSA analysts working on a covert signals intelligence operation on an Al Qaeda network hub in Sana'a , Yemen, pick up an important phone call from Malaysia. The caller tells someone by the name of "Khalid", to tell the two others, to come to a meeting in Malaysia. The caller was identified as someone by the name of "Khallad". The CIA, which heads all international operations, had then asked Malaysian authorities to conduct a surveillance team from the Special Branch, and take photographs of anyone at this meeting. Afterwards, two of the meetings occupants, 'Khalid' and 'Nawaf', who possessed US visas, were coming to the United States. NSA and CIA then blocked the FBI from sharing this intelligence from being shared with FBI headquarters. Question is why? In this episode, we will go over the factual information regarding this meeting, where some of the information comes from Chapter 1 of Bob Graham's excellent book, "The CIA, The FBI, Saudi Arabia, And The Failure Of America’s War On Terror" Bob Graham's book: https://www.amazon.com/Intelligence-Matters-Arabia-Failure-Americas/dp/0700616268

Alka Pradhan is an American human rights attorney who has represented Guantanamo Bay detainees, civilian drone strike victims, and other torture victims. She currently works for the U.S. Department of Defense, Military Commissions Defense Organization and represents Ammar al-Baluchi in the case of United States v. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. Pradhan also works as a defense attorney at the International Criminal Court. Additionally, she is an active participant in the UN human rights mechanisms, with submissions or presentations on behalf of clients to the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, the UN Committee Against Torture, the Human Rights Committee, and the Committee on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination. She has co-written or advised on several amicus curiae briefs submitted to the U.S. Supreme Court. In this interview, Ms. Pradhan speaks at length regarding her initial career as a litigator while working alongside the International Criminal Court., Military Commissions Defense Organization and co-counsel for Ammar al-Baluchi (one of the defendants charged for the Sept 11th attacks).

Seth Hettena is a contributing editor at Rolling Stone and a freelance journalist. He reports on politics, organized crime, and international affairs. From 1997-2006, Hettena was a reporter and correspondent at The Associated Press in Detroit, Sacramento, Baltimore, and San Diego. Prior to that, he worked at two small newspapers in Iowa. He is the author of two books, Trump/Russia: A Definitive History and Feasting on the Spoils: The Life and Times of Randy "Duke" Cunningham, History's Most Corrupt Congressman. He is also runs a Weekly column at SpyTalk where we will discuss two of his articles at length involving the FBI investigation into Saudi government funding of two future 9/11 hijackers, Operation Encore, and the Canestraro documents revelations, as well as the current pre-hearings of four of the 9/11 defendants, at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Exclusive: FBI Agents Accuse CIA of 9/11 Coverup: https://www.spytalk.co/p/exclusive-fbi-agents-accuse-cia-of Yet Another Delay in Saudi-Related 9/11 Docs Case: https://www.spytalk.co/p/yet-another-delay-in-saudi-related

Cole M. Bunzel is a fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University. A historian and Arabist, he studies the history and contemporary affairs of the Islamic Middle East, with a particular focus on violent Islamism and the Arabian Peninsula. He is the editor of the blog Jihadica and has written widely on the ideology of Sunni jihadism. His current book project, "Wahhabism: The History of a Militant Islamic Movement" which draws on an array of rare manuscripts and other primary sources in Arabic, provides a new account of the history and doctrine of Wahhabism, the puritanical Islamic revivalist movement that arose in central Arabia in the 18th century, will be the main focus of our conversation today. Bunzel received his MA in international relations from the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies and his BA and PhD in Near Eastern Studies from Princeton University. He has been a research fellow in Islamic law and civilization at the Yale Law School, and is a nonresident fellow at the George Washington University Program on Extremism. Wahhābism: The History of a Militant Islamic Movement: https://www.amazon.com/Wahh%C4%81bism-History-Militant-Islamic-Movement/dp/0691241597Jihadica: https://www.jihadica.com/

After the terrorist events of September 11th 2001, the Bush White House, led by its legal counsel, drafted memorandums that would not only infringe on the rights of detained foreign prisoners, but also deny them any protections afforded to them by the Geneva Conventions. The State Department also authorized the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to implement a strategy at obtaining information "through any means necessary". So in 2002, the CIA would hire Mitchell, Jessen and Associates, to conduct a method on detainees entitled the SERE program where acts of torture would be implemented by captured prisoners to elicit information. Most of which would turn out to be false data. The manipulation of minds:reckoning with the legacy of the american post 9/11 torture program (Maria Hartwig & Mark Fallon): https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36519198/ The Guantánamo Docket: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/us/guantanamo-bay-detainees.html

Ray Holcomb has over 30 years’ experience as a law enforcement and intelligence officer. He served for 23 years as an FBI Special Agent; 8 as a Strategic Planner with the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC); and 4 as a state Homeland Security Advisor. Ray’s FBI career included 15 years investigating foreign espionage, major drug trafficking organizations, organized crime and National Security matters. He also served as a member of the FBI’s New York office SWAT team and was appointed Commander of the team from 1998 to 2001. Under Ray’s leadership, the NY SWAT team assumed an expanded role, being involved in high risk domestic arrests and providing overseas security and enhanced investigative capability for FBI teams deploying internationally in response to terrorism. In 2003 Ray was promoted to Section Chief of the FBI’s Operational Response Section which managed the Fly Away Team, the FBI’s Military Liaison/Detainee Unit and the National Joint Terrorism Task Force, overseeing operations and budget of nearly 60 state-based terrorism task forces. In addition to overseeing Special Agents detailed worldwide to the various Unified Combatant Commands, the Military Liaison/Detainee Unit had oversight of the FBI’s interrogation of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay. The Operational Response Section comprised a full-time complement of 58 Special Agents and 12 analysts. He is the author of Endless Enemies: Inside FBI Counterterrorism. Endless Enemies: Inside FBI Counterterrorism: https://www.amazon.com/Endless-Enemies-Inside-FBI-Counterterrorism/dp/1597973610

With the eve of the 22nd anniversary of the SEptember 11th 2001 terrorist attacks on the United States coming up Monday, myself and 9/11 researcher and co-host of the "Beyond Ground Zero" podcast, Sean Russell talk about various topics relating to 9/11. They include, US-Israeli Foreign Policy, 1993 WTC Bombing, the aftermath of the Soviet-Afghan war, Osama Bin Laden and Al Qaeda, CIA-NSA surveillance of Bin Laden and Al Qaeda in the mid 90's, the Al Qaeda communications hub in Yemen, and addressing the false conspiracies pushed by certain mainstream media and the fringe elements of the 9/11 Truth Movement. This episode is dedicated to the families and loved ones of the 2,996 victims. murdered in the September 11th attacks. Sean Russell (Beyond Ground Zero): https://odysee.com/@skrussellak:e/01-BGZ-1993-WTC-Full-Edit:1 The Darkened Hour: https://adamfitzgerald.podbean.com/ The Gerald Shea Memorandum: https://www.scribd.com/document/66321077/Gerald-Shea-Memo-to-the-9-11-Commission The Donald Canestraro Document: https://www.floridabulldog.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/Canestraro-Declaration-dated-20-July-2021.pdf