Monday, August 1 2011   -   9/11 Consequences

By Noah Shachtman
July 28, 2011
Danger Room blog at Wired.com

ASPEN, Colorado -- Ground the U.S. drone war in Pakistan. Rethink the idea of spending billions of dollars to pursue al-Qaida. Forget chasing terrorists in Yemen and Somalia, unless the local governments are willing to join in the hunt.

Those aren't the words of some human rights activist, or some far-left Congressman. They're from retired admiral and former Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair -- the man who was, until recently, nominally in charge of the entire American effort to find, track, and take out terrorists. Now, he's calling for that campaign to be reconsidered, and possibly even junked.

Starting with the drone attacks. Yes, they take out some mid-level terrorists, Blair said. But they're not strategically effective. If the drones stopped flying tomorrow, Blair told the audience at the Aspen Security Forum, "it's not going to lower the threat to the U.S." Al-Qaida and its allies have proven "it can sustain its level of resistance to an air-only campaign," he said.

 

Monday, August 1 2011   -   Bigger Picture

Peter Dale Scott
August 1, 2011
The Asia-Pacific Journal, Vol 9, Issue 31 No 1, August 1, 2011.

Twice in the last two decades, significant cuts in U.S. and western military spending were foreseen: first after the fall of the Berlin Wall, and then in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis. But both times military spending soon increased, and among the factors contributing to the increase were America's interventions in new areas: the Balkans in the 1990s, and Libya today.¹ Hidden from public view in both cases was the extent to which al-Qaeda was a covert U.S. ally in both interventions, rather than its foe.

U.S. interventions in the Balkans and then Libya were presented by the compliant U.S. and allied mainstream media as humanitarian. Indeed, some Washington interventionists may have sincerely believed this. But deeper motivations - from oil to geostrategic priorities - were also at work in both instances.

In virtually all the wars since 1989, America and Islamist factions have been battling to determine who will control the heartlands of Eurasia in the post-Soviet era. In some countries - Somalia in 1993, Afghanistan in 2001 - the conflict has been straightforward, with each side using the other's excesses as an excuse for intervention.

But there have been other interventions in which Americans have used al-Qaeda as a resource to increase their influence, for example Azerbaijan in 1993. There a pro-Moscow president was ousted after large numbers of Arab and other foreign mujahedin veterans were secretly imported from Afghanistan, on an airline hastily organized by three former veterans of the CIA's airline Air America. (The three, all once detailed from the Pentagon to the CIA, were Richard Secord, Harry Aderholt, and Ed Dearborn.)² This was an ad hoc marriage of convenience: the mujahedin got to defend Muslims against Russian influence in the enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh, while the Americans got a new president who opened up the oilfields of Baku to western oil companies.

The pattern of U.S. collaboration with Muslim fundamentalists against more secular enemies is not new. It dates back to at least 1953, when the CIA recruited right-wing mullahs to overthrow Prime Minister Mossadeq in Iran, and also began to cooperate with the Sunni Muslim Brotherhood.³ But in Libya in 2011 we see a more complex marriage of convenience between US and al-Qaeda elements: one which repeats a pattern seen in Bosnia in 1992-95, and Kosovo in 1997-98. In those countries America responded to a local conflict in the name of a humanitarian intervention to restrain the side committing atrocities. But in all three cases both sides committed atrocities, and American intervention in fact favored the side allied with al-Qaeda.

 

Wednesday, July 27 2011   -   First Responders/Health Effects

By Jonathan Lemire
DAILY NEWS CITY HALL BUREAU
Wednesday, July 27th 2011
New York Daily News

Image: Retired Firefighter Kenneth Specht said the exclusion of cancer as a disease covered by the Zadroga health act was "absolutely unacceptable". (Photo credit: Elisa Miller for News)

They sacrificed their bodies - and in some cases, their lives - for their noble work at Ground Zero, and now they and their loved ones feel abandoned.

Scores of first responders believe they contracted cancer due to the time they spent at the toxic World Trade Center site and are outraged the disease is being excluded from the new James Zadroga 9/11 Health and Compensation Act.

"Every time we bury a New York City firefighter: Cancer. Cancer. Cancer," said retired Firefighter Kenneth Specht, who is battling thyroid cancer.

"How can that not be included? It's absolutely unacceptable."

 

Wednesday, July 27 2011   -   Editorials

July 27, 2011
by Lew Rockwell
TheDailyBell.com

The violence perpetuated by Anders Behring Breivik in Norway unleashed the usual torrent of blaming anyone who might have influenced the murderer's thought. He was first described as a right-wing Christian -- a description designed to put a certain community on notice. As more evidence rolled in, he has been more accurately described as an anti-Islamic nationalist, but the tendency to pin this violence on any non-leftist is still there.

There were footnotes in his 1,500-page manifesto to many dozens of books and articles -- including a few published by the Mises Institute. Looking at the balance of his citations, however, it's clear that his main influence had nothing to do with libertarianism. His inspiration was a point of view reminiscent of American neoconservatism. He cited articles in this tradition -- particularly on the fear and hate of Islam -- far more often than any other.

So, does this violence discredit neoconservatism, as when then-President Clinton tried to blame libertarians and the "militia" movement for the Oklahoma bombing in 1995? The point of this game is to silence the opposition, shut down debate, and fundamentally discredit the body of ideas on which the violence can be blamed.

It's pretty much been this way since the ancient world. Governments can perpetuate violence in war and against the civilian population every day, but when a private person does the same for political reasons, a struggle ensues to see which line of thinking will pay what price.

The truth is that every political point of view can be twisted into a rationale for violence. If you think that the rich should be expropriated, there are generally two ways to bring this about: you and your friends can steal from the rich directly -- maybe killing some fat cats in the process -- or you can lobby Congress to do it for you.

The second method is preferred in a democratic society. When violence against person and property operates under the cover of the law, it is rarely called out for what it truly is. It is only when the legal cover is removed that the violence shocks and alarms us. But what about the morality of it all, whether we are speaking about private violence, the redistributionist state, or the war-making imperial state? In moral substance, they amount to the same thing.

 

Wednesday, July 27 2011   -   Editorials

By Glenn Greenwald
July 23, 2011
Salon.com

(updated below - Update II)

For much of the day yesterday, the featured headline on The New York Times online front page strongly suggested that Muslims were responsible for the attacks on Oslo; that led to definitive statements on the BBC and elsewhere that Muslims were the culprits. The Washington Post's Jennifer Rubin wrote a whole column based on the assertion that Muslims were responsible, one that, as James Fallows notes, remains at the Post with no corrections or updates. The morning statement issued by President Obama -- "It's a reminder that the entire international community holds a stake in preventing this kind of terror from occurring" and "we have to work cooperatively together both on intelligence and in terms of prevention of these kinds of horrible attacks" -- appeared to assume, though (to its credit) did not overtly state, that the perpetrator was an international terrorist group.

But now it turns out that the alleged perpetrator wasn't from an international Muslim extremist group at all, but was rather a right-wing Norwegian nationalist with a history of anti-Muslim commentary and an affection for Muslim-hating blogs such as Pam Geller's Atlas Shrugged, Daniel Pipes, and Robert Spencer's Jihad Watch. Despite that, The New York Times is still working hard to pin some form of blame, even ultimate blame, on Muslim radicals (h/t sysprog):

 

Friday, July 22 2011   -   Resources and Materials

July 22, 2011
by Kevin Fenton

Introduction to Chapter 15 of Disconnecting the Dots, for publication at 911Truth.org:

In January 2000, several high-ranking al-Qaeda operatives, including alleged Flight 77 hijackers Khalid Almihdhar and Nawaf Alhazmi, held a summit in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. The meeting was monitored by the CIA and a local Malaysian service, although the agency reportedly failed to exploit this opportunity to learn what bin Laden's organization was planning. In addition, the CIA deliberately withheld information about the two men, in particular that Almihdhar had a US visa, from the FBI. The agency then allegedly suffered the misfortune of losing Almihdhar, Alhazmi and another al-Qaeda operative in Bangkok, Thailand. The surveillance of the Malaysia summit was run by Alec Station, the CIA's bin Laden unit, its chief Richard Blee and his deputy Tom Wilshire. On January 12 and 14 Blee gave his superior, Cofer Black, incorrect briefings about what was happening with the surveillance. Chapter 15 picks up the story on January 15.

Chapter 15

I know nobody read that cable

After the CIA allegedly lost Khalid Almihdhar, Nawaf Alhazmi, and Khallad bin Attash in Bangkok, it asked the Thais to watchlist the three men, meaning that Almihdhar and Alhazmi's departure from Thailand on January 15, 2000 should have been noted and passed to the local CIA station. From there it would have gone to headquarters. Since the two men were flying to the US, they could have been picked up on arrival, or any time later. As they ended up lodging with an FBI counterterrorism informant in San Diego, it could have been a straightforward matter for the Bureau to get close to them.¹

For some reason that has not yet been determined, their departure from Thailand was not reported promptly by the CIA station in Bangkok. After a few weeks went by, a CIA officer in Malaysia noticed this lack of reporting and queried Bangkok about what had happened.² According to the 9/11 Commission:

Presumably the departure information was obtained back in January, on the days that these individuals made their departures. Because the names were watchlisted by the Thai authorities we cannot yet explain the delay in reporting the news.³

The CIA station in Bangkok sat on this request for two weeks. Then it told the CIA station in Kuala Lumpur that there was a delay in responding due to difficulties in obtaining the requested information.⁴ However, it appears the station already had this information and, even if it did not, it could have simply asked the Thais, who had watchlisted the men at the CIA's request.

 

Friday, July 22 2011   -   Other Important News

One lawyer's relentless quest for information reveals fresh hints of a coverup.

By James Ridgeway
July 21, 2011
MotherJones.com

In 2007, Mother Jones was the first national media outlet to tell the full story of Jesse Trentadue and his quest for the truth, which began four months after the attack on Oklahoma City's Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building on April 19, 1995, killed 168 people. It was then that Trentadue, a Salt Lake City lawyer, learned that his brother, a construction worker and one-time bank robber, had died in a federal prison in Oklahoma City. [Photo: Timothy McVeigh is escorted from the courthouse in Perry, Oklahoma. Bob Owen/Zuma]

Prison officials said the prisoner had hanged himself. But Kenney Trentadue, who had never revealed any suicidal inclination, was shipped home for burial with bruises all over his body and lacerations on his face and throat--suggesting something more sinister. Even Oklahoma City's chief medical examiner would later say, publicly, that it was "very likely he was murdered." But the most compelling evidence in the case was altered or turned up missing. Jesse Trentadue was never able to prove what had actually happened to his brother--though he did win a $1.1 million civil suit for "emotional distress" to his family, based on the way the government had handled the aftermath of Kenney's death.

 

Friday, July 22 2011   -   In the Media

by Kristen Breitweiser, 9/11 Widow and Activist
July 16, 2011
The Huffington Post

Breathlessly, six members of Congress have requested that the FBI investigate the "outrageous" allegations that News Corp might have hacked into the cell phones of 9/11 victims and their families. Lickety split, the Justice Department has done so.

First off, does it surprise me that a corporation like News Corp. might try to hack into the information of private citizens for their own financial gain? Nope.

Much like it wouldn't surprise me if my own government hacked into the private information of its citizens for political gain or... er, I mean, "reasons of national security." Just ask Dick Cheney and Karl Rove about that.

Of course, any such "accidental netting" on their part would be immediately explained away under the protections of FISA and the Patriot Act, because clearly it would have been necessary "in the ongoing fight against terrorism."

Too bad, Congress doesn't want to investigate those types of indiscretions. Sigh.

 

Tuesday, July 19 2011   -   Other Important News

By JENNIFER EPSTEIN
July 18, 2011
Politico.com

Relatives of victims of the September 11 attacks have asked to meet with the FBI and top members of the Obama administration about allegations reporters from one of Rupert Murdoch's British papers tried to hack the cell phone accounts of victims.

In letters sent Monday to Attorney General Eric Holder, FBI Director Robert Mueller and Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.), the ranking member on the House Judiciary Committee, a lawyer representing some victims' families is asking for meetings to discuss a report that journalists from the now-defunct News of the World asked a New York-based private investigator to help them gather information from victims' phones.

The FBI has initiated an informal probe into the allegations, which were first reported by the Daily Mirror.

 

Friday, July 15 2011   -   9/11 Consequences

July 14, 2011
By Robert Koehler
Published at Antiwar.com

Leon Panetta, on his first visit to Iraq as secretary of defense last weekend, reached for a Bush moment ten years too late.

"The reason you guys are here is because on 9/11 the United States got attacked," he said to the assembled troops at Camp Victory in Baghdad, according to the Washington Post. "And 3,000 Americans -- 3,000 not just Americans, 3,000 human beings, innocent human beings -- got killed because of al-Qaeda. And we've been fighting as a result of that."

Yeah, oops, gaffe, Mr. Secretary, right? That Iraq-al-Qaeda connection thingy isn't in the spin anymore, and Panetta's assistant had to mop up afterwards, making sure no one misinterpreted the boss's remarks as reopening an old "debate" by reiterating a long-abandoned lie.

In point of fact, Panetta told the embarrassing truth: 9/11, day of unspeakable tragedy, was a goldmine for the Pentagon and the corporate war interests and was quickly used to launch two wars, both of which are long past the need for justification and require, it seems, nothing more than the first law of physics to stay in motion. You guys are here because of 9/11, the tragic all-purpose justification for global hegemony and the pursuit of empire.

Of course, Panetta was trying to be inspirational. That's what's missing from the Obama game plan: the old-time patriotism the Bush administration milked till the cow dropped dead. The new secretary of defense apparently felt a need to connect with the troops and rouse their fervor, or whatever, so he reached a decade into the past and pulled up the tarnished jewel of American victimhood, blood-drenched from shock-and-awe bombing, drone warfare, cruel and arrogant occupation and the visitation of toxic genocide on the countries we liberated.

Oh, and torture -- can't forget torture, can we, Mr. Secretary? And I mean both kinds of torture, the Abu Ghraib-Gitmo variety, which we perpetrate on suspected bad guys, and the invisible, PTSD variety we bequeath to our own troops for the rest of their lives.

 

Thursday, July 14 2011   -   In the Media

by Michael Collins
July 13, 2011
The Economic Populist

There are some crimes so universally offensive that even mentioning the suspected crime has devastating effects. Senator Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) raised just such a question yesterday. In a brief press statement, the Senator said:

"The reported hacking by News Corporation newspapers against a range of individuals - including children - is offensive and a serious breach of journalistic ethics. This raises serious questions about whether the company has broken U.S. law, and I encourage the appropriate agencies to investigate to ensure that Americans have not had their privacy violated. I am concerned that the admitted phone hacking in London by the News Corp. may have extended to 9/11 victims or other Americans. If they did, the consequences will be severe." Senator John D. Rockefeller IV, July 12

Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation has used voicemail hacking and other forms of privacy intrusion in the United Kingdom as far back as 2002. The goal is to get the most intimate insider information, stay ahead of the news cycle, and beat the competition. Where better to get information than the voicemails and other electronic data belonging to those in the news. The News of the World, Murdoch's flagship paper, hacked the voicemails of a kidnapped 12 year old, the widows of fallen soldiers, and even the powerful. In 2006, the Murdoch papers invaded the private medical records of former Labour Party leader Gordon Brown.

A July 4 article by Nick Davies of the Guardian ignited the most recent focus on illegal actions by the Murdoch papers with the revelation about the hack of the 12 year old kidnap-murder victim. The outrage and subsequent revelations have laid waste to News Corporations plans for the total acquisition of a highly successful pay per view entertainment network, BSkyB.

Rockefeller's statement comes just five days after reports by London's Daily Mirror claiming that a Murdoch UK paper sought hacking services targeting the phone traffic and voicemails of 9/11 victims. David Collins of the Mirror wrote:

 

Wednesday, July 13 2011   -   Research/Evidence

Monday, July 11, 2011
Washington's Blog

It's front page news today that:

Journalists at Rupert Murdoch's now-shuttered News of the World paper tried to access the mobile phones of 9/11 victims, a former New York City police officer claimed on Monday.

It's also front page news today that the new Secretary of Defense, Leon Panetta, said that American soldiers are in Iraq because of 9/11, even though AFP notes:

That was one of the justifications for the 2003 US-led invasion, but the argument has since been widely dismissed.

(see this for details).

But a more important story - and one which might focus on a more appropriate country than Iraq - is that the co-chair of the Congressional Joint 9/11 Inquiry (Bob Graham) today alleged a cover up by the U.S. government of state assistance by Saudi Arabia to the 9/11 hijackers.

Graham is no flake. He was a member of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence for 10 years (including 18 months as chairman), member of the CIA External Advisory Board, chairman of the Commission on the Prevention of Weapons of Mass Destruction Proliferation and Terrorism, 18-year U.S. senator, two-term governor of Florida, co-chair of the national commission on the BP oil spill, and member of the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission.

 

Wednesday, July 13 2011   -   In the Media

July 11, 2011
Sydney Morning Herald

A New York police officer has claimed besieged British tabloid the News of the World attempted to hack into the voicemails of victims of the 9/11 terror attacks, as Rupert Murdoch arrived in London for emergency talks aimed at diffusing the international crisis surrounding his media empire.

Rival red-top newspaper the Mirror reported the officer was contacted by News of the World journalists who said they would pay him to retrieve the private phone records of the dead.

Now working as a private investigator, the ex-officer claimed reporters wanted the victims' phone numbers and details of the calls they had made and received in the days leading up to the atrocity.

The voicemails would likely include harrowing messages from desperate loved ones trying to make contact with their relatives caught up in the 2001 terror strikes on the World Trade Center, in which thousands perished.

A source told the newspaper: "This investigator is used by a lot of journalists in America and he recently told me that he was asked to hack into the 9/11 victims' private phone data. He said that the journalists asked him to access records showing the calls that had been made to and from the mobile phones belonging to the victims and their relatives.

"His presumption was that they wanted the information so they could hack into the relevant voicemails, just like it has been shown they have done in the UK. The PI said he had to turn the job down. He knew how insensitive such research would be, and how bad it would look.

 

Tuesday, July 12 2011   -   Resources and Materials

June 14, 2011
By Brian Truitt
USA TODAY

The Big Lie Exclusive Preview

It has been nearly 10 years since 9/11, and the tragedy is still on the minds of many Americans. One of those, writer and artist Rick Veitch, is convinced we haven't been told the complete truth about it.

The questions surrounding that fateful day power the themes and story of his new Image Comics series The Big Lie, which debuts Sept. 7 and reteams Veitch with fellow artist Gary Erskine.

Veitch structured the story similarly to the 1963 Twilight Zone episode "No Time Like the Past," in which a man uses a time machine to try to "fix" three events: warning a Hiroshima policeman about the atomic bomb, assassinating Hitler before World War II and stopping the sinking of the Lusitania.

In The Big Lie, the heroine is a woman named Sandra, who lost her husband, Carl, during the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center in New York City. A particle physicist working at the Large Hadron Collider, she figures out a practical way to travel back in time, so she ventures from present day to Manhattan an hour before the first plane hits the towers on Sept. 11, 2001.

She rushes to his office at a risk-management consulting agency, but since she has aged 10 years, Carl can't quite accept that it's her. And even though she brings evidence on her iPad, neither her spouse nor his co-workers believe her warnings.

"The meat of the story is her trying to convince these 'experts' that the terrorist attack is about to happen," Veitch says. "So it's essentially a taut emotional drama with the facts and questions surrounding 9/11 sewed into it."

 

Monday, July 11 2011   -   9/11 Consequences

By Agence France-Presse
Monday, July 11th, 2011
RawStory.com Newly appointed US Defence Secretary Leon Panetta told American troops in Baghdad on Monday that 9/11 was the reason they were in Iraq, before he was quickly corrected by his spokesman.

"The reason you guys are here is because of 9/11. The US got attacked and 3,000 human beings got killed because of Al-Qaeda," Panetta told about 150 soldiers at the Camp Victory US base.

"We've been fighting as a result of that," he said.

The administration of former US President George W. Bush had hastily linked Saddam Hussein, the ousted Iraqi dictator, to the 9/11 attacks.

That was one of the justifications for the 2003 US-led invasion, but the argument has since been widely dismissed [Ed.: by the Bush Administration itself].

Doug Wilson, Panetta's spokesman, quickly jumped in after his boss, who just took office on July 1, made the statement.