They left and entered the country unimpeded. Some were reportedly on the so-called ‘watch list,’ a list of people who are not permitted to enter the country. Yet this apparently caused them no problems." For a possible answer as to how this may have happened, we have turned to a book originally published abroad, Dollars for Terror, by Swiss television journalist Richard Labeviere. His thesis is that the international Islamic networks linked to Osama Bin Laden have been nurtured by elements of the U.S. intelligence community, especially during the Clinton years. This is a shocking view, but it puts other developments in perspective, such as Clinton support for Muslims in Bosnia and Kosovo. The Islamic radicals may have been tolerated because it was believed that they were training to hit targets in other countries, not the U.S.

Clinton and his top aides did not anticipate that this radical Islamic network would turn against the United States. A Los Angeles Times article headlined, "Some See U.S. as Terrorists’ Next Big Target," quoted Labeviere as saying, "For America, the bill is now coming due." That was dated January 13, 2000. Perhaps the bill has now come due. Bin Laden was initially supported by the CIA when he was battling the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan during the 1980s. But Labeviere’s book insists that this support continued. He argues that the Clinton administration viewed the Bin Laden network and the radical Taliban regime in Afghanistan as a bulwark against Russian, Iranian and even Chinese influence in Asia.

In his prologue to the American edition of the book, published last year, he says that between 1994 and 1997, "Bill Clinton was happy to allow Pakistan and Saudi Arabia to support the Taliban, seeing them as a useful counterbalance to Iran’s influence…" In August 1998, the situation seemed to change when Bin Laden was blamed for the destruction of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. Bin Laden was placed on the FBI’s Most Wanted List and was reported to be in Afghanistan. But Labeviere says the State Department did not exert any real pressure on the Taliban to apprehend him.

It has subsequently been reported that the Clinton Administration had specific intelligence information about bin Laden’s whereabouts but opted against attacking or apprehending him. It also turns out that one of bin Laden’s alleged patrons had a lawyer connected to the Clinton administration. We will have more on this in our next commentary.