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ATTACK ON AMERICA

A range of times have been given for American Airlines flight 11 hitting the south tower of the World Trade Center in New York. Using seismometer records, the November 24, 2001 issue of Science News gives the time as 8:46 AM EDT. A previous bombing attack on one of the 110 story skyscrapers in 1993 had killed 6 individuals and injured about 1,000, but the perpetrators had been caught relatively quickly, and given life sentences. US authorities had also nipped in the bud other plans to hit tunnels and trophy buildings in New York as well as to hit the airport in Los Angeles, so Americans were feeling relatively secure. The other incidents that had attacked Americans had happened in other countries, adding to the feeling that these things did not happen here.

Bombs in 1995 killed US servicemen stationed in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, followed by more of the same in Dhahran. US agencies had been collecting evidence that Osama bin Laden might be connected to these attacks. He was a citizen of Saudi Arabia who returned home after helping drive the Soviets out of Afghanistan. He protested when the rulers of Arabia invited American troops into their country to help fight Saddam Hussein following the latter’s invasion of Kuwait in 1990. Bin Laden objected to infidels defiling his country which held the holy sites considered sacred by Islam. The Saudi rulers ordered him confined to his home town of Jiddah, and he fled to Sudan where he worked to produce an Islamic state. The US put pressure on Sudan to expel him, and he returned to Afghanistan with 200 followers in the spring of 1996 where he declared a “fatwa” (religious decree) against the US.

The next major attack was almost simultaneous truck bombs that hit US embassies in Nairobi, Kenya and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania in 1998. 12 Americans died in Nairobi, along with hundreds of Kenyans. 12 individuals, 11 of them Moslems, were killed in Tanzania. Suspects were captured and they implicated bin Laden. Pushed by hawks in the US executive branch, especially Samuel Berger, Clinton ordered a missile attack on a factory in Sudan and a training camp in Afghanistan. There is minimal evidence that the factory was associated with chemical weapons or financially connected to bin Laden, but one night watchman was killed and the plant, which had produced medicine for the people of Sudan, was destroyed. Bin Laden was not in the training camp in Afghanistan, and the handful of people killed may have had little to do with its purpose of training terrorists. In 2000, suicide bombers in a small boat hit the Cole, a US warship in the harbor in Yemen, killing 17 US servicemen, and again the finger pointed at bin Laden.

Considerable evidence has now been accumulated describing the bin Laden training camps that attract Moslems from many countries to learn the principles of sabotage, urban warfare, and working with explosives. Students learn to attack power grids, airports, railroads, hotels, and military installations. The hijackers who flew the planes into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon had learned to fly in small schools in the US. They were theoretically supported financially by bin Laden’s organization, al-Qaeda. Training in the use of chemical and biological weapons was also said to be included. Warnings are now out that the small planes of crop dusters could be stolen and used to spread poisonous chemicals. Past attacks have used a variety of techniques and targets, so the next attack could be a new one. Warnings are out to watch out for commandeered fire trucks or ambulances carrying explosives. There are stories that nuclear weapons might be for sale in Russian black markets.

But the disastrously successful attack in New York may not have been planned or ordered by bin Laden. Secret service organizations in more than one country suspect that bin Laden was mainly a fund-raiser and a charismatic inspirer of religious extremists. A Lebanese and more than one Egyptian may be the true master-minds behind the attacks on September 11. The names are available, but I do not have birth data on any of these men, and bin Laden’s data is totally controversial. The Interpol has a warrant out for his arrest, listing him as born on March 10, 1957 in Jiddah, Saudi Arabia – the 17th child of 52 children born to the four wives of his father. Bin Laden himself just took his 4th wife, a 17 year old girl from Yemen where his father was born. One of his grown sons married the daughter of one of his main associates in January 2001. So even if bin Laden himself were jailed or killed, his legacy would continue. He is reportedly ill, walking with a cane and possibly with a kidney problem. He is also described as about 6 feet 5 inches and very thin, weighing only about 160 pounds. He is a true religious extremist, while the associates from Egypt and Lebanon mentioned above may be closer to being psychopaths. If our readers want to experiment with bin Laden’s dubious data, try a birth time of 17:05 with 1 Virgo on the Ascendant, but his fixed-sign grand cross close to the angles in the mutable houses. Remember the fixed signs give the tenacity for a protracted power struggle while the mutable houses represent the ethical issues, the potential for conflict driven by religious beliefs.

But there is someone else in the shadows who may be centrally involved – our perpetual enemy, Saddam Hussein. Secret service sources suspect that he has been cooperating with al-Qaeda, bin Laden’s organization, for several years. Saddam was theoretically born on April 28, 1937 in Tikrit, Iraq, not far from Baghdad. A variety of birth times are suggested for him. 0:11 AM has worked best for me. It puts his current P Moon on P Saturn and trioctile P Mars. His P Sun for that birth time would be trine his MC and sextile Uranus for the successful attack on the US, his mortal enemy. His P Ascendant in 18 Aries would square his N Ascendant and be coming to a quincunx to P Mars within days after the attack, and P Moon would reach P America, his own P Antivertex (auxiliary Ascendant) and square P Sun later this fall and early winter. I will not do more with his chart, which is dubious data, but it supports the picture in other, more reliable charts. It suggests increasing violence later this fall and winter, and extending into 2002.

We also have at least two relatively reliable charts for the country of Iraq. The Republic began with a military coup on July 14, 1958 at 5 AM in Baghdad. Post-War Iraq began when the US officially ended the Gulf War at 8 AM Iraq time on February 28, 1991. I will write more when I return from a trip, but will just comment here that the Republic chart has P Sun on P Pluto, P Vesta octile N Pluto, P Moon square its own nodes and P Jupiter, and quincunx P Mercury, while P south lunar node holds a very long conjunction with N Mars. P MC is approaching a quincunx to P Saturn and later a conjunction with P Mars which is quincunx N Saturn. The picture fits a war against the world.

The chart for Post-War Iraq also shows major power struggles with a stellium in Capricorn in the tenth house square Aries factors in the first house. P Sun in Pisces in the twelfth house trine the eighth house Pluto fits Saddam’s success in secretly building weapons and the potential for terrorism. P Sun has ended a two-plus year square to P Mars, but the latter is quincunx P Juno (equivalent to Pluto). P MC is moving to conjunct P Juno and quincunx P Mars by the spring of 2002. The tension and probably violence is likely to continue and to escalate. Countries are born in stages, so there are always a number of charts that can give part of the picture. I have a dozen or more relevant US charts that will have to wait to be discussed at a later date.

Turning finally to the chart for the first plane striking the World Trade Center tower, Mercury on the Ascendant fits the incredible media attention from the world, including the huge variations of ideas on what the event means and what should be done about it. The focus on transportation is another part of Mercury’s message. The squares from the MC and from Jupiter in its own house to the Ascendant and Mercury describe and amplify the focus on a search for meaning, religious/moral issues, and the use of executive power and the law (MC). Mars had just reached the mean south lunar node, signaling a lesson in handling personal rights and power and the Moon principles of dependency/nurturance and compassion for others. Many astrologers have written previously about the opposition of Saturn and Pluto, and the Sun had moved away from the square to them but was applying to a quincunx to Uranus. However, if I had been shown this chart before the event, I would not have been alarmed by it, or expected such a deadly event.

When we add some extra asteroids, we start to see more. We can start by noting that almost the whole Bush family was connected to the Ascendant by their personal name asteroids. George was on the Ascendant. Laura squared it from 13 Cancer. Welch (Laura’s maiden name) was octile it from 28 Scorpio. Busch and Jena (one of their twins) were trioctile it from 28 Aquarius and 28 Taurus. Barbara (their other daughter and Dubya’s mother) was in 5 Pisces trioctile America in 21 Libra, and the later was within one degree of Atlantis, often found with the abuse of power. Barbara was also opposite a stellium in 5 to 6 Virgo that including United Nations, Israel, Askalaphus (a healer), Hela (death goddess), Epimetheus (the brother who looked to the past), and Nemesis (the god who punished those who flouted divine law – Themis). Richard, for Dick Cheney, was on Saturn. All aspects are within one degree of exact.

The “main belt” asteroids orbit the Sun between Mars and Jupiter, so they are a little slower than Mars but considerably faster than Jupiter, circling the Sun in about four years. I have been watching P Tyr, the Norse name for Mars, as it maintained a long square to P Mars, with Mars gradually pulling ahead of it. The potential for violence was present through that period of weeks, and it was when P Mars finally reached the south lunar node that we had the disastrous event. P Tyr was in 0 Libra 58 and Chaldaea completed a T-square in 0 Aries 20. Chaldaea was named for the ancient region that covered much of Syria, Iraq, and other modern countries. Another asteroid named for this region in the Near East is Sumeria. It was on Pluto in 12 Sagittarius for the attack. Washingtonia in 26 Pisces 8 was retrograding opposite Arabia in 25 Virgo 11. Sharon, the Prime Minister of Israel, was in 26 Cancer on Juno and Ate, the goddess the Greeks considered almost totally evil, and the trio was trioctile Pluto and Sumeria.

Remember, astrology shows psychological principles. The Israelis and the terrorists each consider the other to be the epitome of evil. Religious extremism, with its attendant resistance to compromise because “God is on our side,” creates impasses with horrifying consequences. If we progress the Moon for the attack chart, it will reach a grand cross with Chaldaea, Tyr, Mars, and then the lunar nodes in the fall and winter this year. This combination could signal violence by or against the US, or both. If we look at George W’s chart, we can see that his P Moon will cross his IC and P Jupiter, suggesting the public will support his goals, and then it will square Saturn in his twelfth house during this same fall-winter period. Saturn, a cardinal planet in a cardinal sign, suggests that will be the period of action involving executive power and the law. But whether the outcome will be constructive is highly debatable. If we kill innocent Moslems, we could increase the danger of a religious war. Such a modern crusade could not be won, but it could last for years with sporadic acts of terrorism and reprisal such as we have seen in Israel for the last year, though with much more widespread death and destruction.

Obviously, we cannot let religious extremists force us to conform to their presumed laws laid down by their version of God. We are not going to veil our women and deny them the right to work outside the home, or to shut down all businesses, including restaurants that serve the public, on the official holy day. How do you reach a “true believer” who thinks he knows God’s will and is ordered by God to enforce it on everyone else? How do you teach tolerance, love, compassion, and empathy? We cannot hope to change sociopaths who are totally focused on their personal desires and will. We have to find them and limit their power to hurt others. But we can set a good example for the majority of normal humans. We can feed the starving Afghans citizens instead of bombing them. This is not a black and white confrontation, as our official hawks would like us to believe. The US talks democracy, but it has supported and still supports dictators as long as they play ball with our leaders. Some of those regimes oppress their own citizens, but we need them to keep meeting our needs for oil and other raw materials and cheap labor. The roots of terrorism go deeper than religious fanaticism, though it is often that which rouses humans to fight against their oppressors and to think that a regime ruled by their concept of God will solve their problems. There are no simple answers, either by bombing non-military targets or by loving sociopaths. Life is a balancing act. Extremes lead to pain. Somehow we have to find the compromises which will let us work together to build a more equitable world, a sharing world.

Zip Dobyns

Copyright © 2001 Los Angeles Community Church of Religious Science, Inc.

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