US Invoked State Secrets to Hide 9/11 Intelligence Failings

Moderators: Elvis, DrVolin, Jeff

US Invoked State Secrets to Hide 9/11 Intelligence Failings

Postby seemslikeadream » Wed Mar 28, 2012 8:24 am

Reports: US Invoked 'State Secrets' to Hide 9/11 Intelligence Failings
Operation Foxden, delayed by turf war between the FBI and the CIA, given green light three days before the al-Qaida attacks

- Common Dreams staff
Infighting between US intelligence agencies delayed a secret plan to tap every phone in Afghanistan that could have helped prevent the September 11, 2001 events in New York City and Washington, according to reports in UK media outlets today.


US shut down a series of court cases in order to conceal evidence of intelligence failure shortly before the 9/11 attacks. (Photograph: Hubert Boesl/Corbis)
News of the secret plan tell a tale of inter-agency squabbling that exemplifies well-known intelligence failures before the attacks of 9/11, but the revelations also speak to the wide and nefarious reach of US "state secrets privilege,' a legal doctrine that permits the US government to shut down litigation on the grounds of national security. In this case, accusations contend that the US government invoked the privilege, not to protect national security, but to avoid potential embarrassment for intelligence failures years after they had occurred.

The news is relevant now in Britain as the government considers implementation of a 'state secrets' law based on the US model.

* * *

The Guardian: US acted to conceal evidence of intelligence failure before 9/11

The US government shut down a series of court cases arising from a multimillion pound business dispute in order to conceal evidence of a damning intelligence failure shortly before the 9/11 attacks, MPs were told.

Moreover, the UK government is now seeking similar powers that could be used to prevent evidence of illegal acts and embarrassing failures from emerging in court, David Davis, the former shadow home secretary, told the Commons.

The Justice and Security green paper being put forward by Ken Clarke's justice ministry has already faced widespread criticism from civil rights groups, media representatives and lawyers working within the secret tribunal system that hears terrorism-related immigration cases.

Davis demanded to know how its proposals could be prevented from being used to cover up crimes and errors. "In light of previous revelations about the UK government's complicity in torture and rendition of detainees to locations like of Libya, Afghanistan, or illegally into American hands … how will the Government prevent the Justice and Security green paper proposals being misused in a similar way to cover up illegal acts and embarrassments rather than protect national security?"

Davis said that in 1998 the FBI seized upon an opportunity to eavesdrop on every landline and telephone call into and out of Afghanistan in a bid to build intelligence on the Taliban. The Bureau discovered that the Taliban regime had awarded a major telephone network contract to a joint US-UK venture, run by an American entrepreneur, Ehsanollah Bayat and two British businessmen, Stuart Bentham and Lord Michael Cecil.

"The plan was simple" Davis said. "Because the Taliban wanted American equipment for their new phone network, this would allow the FBI and NSA, the National Security Agency, to build extra circuits into all the equipment before it was flown out to Afghanistan for use. Once installed, these extra circuits would allow the FBI and NSA to record or listen live to every single landline and mobile phone call in Afghanistan. The FBI would know the time the call was made and its duration. They would know the caller's name, the number dialled, and even the caller's PIN."

But the plan, Operation Foxden, was delayed by a turf war, during which "the FBI and the CIA spent more than a year fighting over who should be in charge", he said.

The operation was eventually given the green light on 8 September 2001 - three days before the al-Qaida attacks. "A huge opportunity was missed," Davis said.
* * *

The Telegraph: US intelligence agencies used “closed” court hearings to suppress information about CIA/FBI row

David Davis, the former Conservative shadow home secretary, disclosed details of the “extraordinary” case to illustrate why the Coalition should abandon plans to allow similar secret hearings for intelligence cases to be held in British courts.

He said that the American authorities had “sealed” a case in a US court relating to a dispute between two British businessmen and an Afghan billionaire over the setting up of a mobile phone network in Afghanistan in the late 1990s.
And the Huffington Post/UK adds:

"The US intelligence agencies feared the consequences if the truth about their in-fighting emerged and they were determined to stop that truth from emerging," Davis said.

"In November 2003, a year after litigation began, the American judge suddenly sealed the case, shutting it down without warning, citing the state secrets privilege. All records of the case were expunged, and vanished from the court’s public database."

Davis said that the two Britons then took their case to a London court. However, he said, "so long is the reach of the American state secrets privilege that Bentham and Cecil were banned from discussing in the English High Court key facts and details of the American litigation".

"Through heavy-handed use of the state secrets privilege, US agencies can dictate what British judges in British courts are entitled to know and how much British citizens in British courts are entitled to say," he said.

Davis, who quit his post in David Cameron's front bench team in order to fight a campaign against the introduction of ID cards, told MPs that the case of Bayat, Bentham and Cecil highlighted the need to protect the "proper operation of the justice system" in the UK.

Foreign Office minister Jeremy Browne said the government was "extremely mindful" of the need to protect essential liberties.

"The government are committed to safeguarding national security. Drawing on our society’s fundamental values, we are also pledged to protect the liberties and way of life of our citizens. Those aims—protecting our national security and liberty and way of life of our citizens—need not be in conflict," he said.
Mazars and Deutsche Bank could have ended this nightmare before it started.
They could still get him out of office.
But instead, they want mass death.
Don’t forget that.
User avatar
seemslikeadream
 
Posts: 32090
Joined: Wed Apr 27, 2005 11:28 pm
Location: into the black
Blog: View Blog (83)

Re: US Invoked State Secrets to Hide 9/11 Intelligence Faili

Postby Nordic » Wed Mar 28, 2012 2:40 pm

Seems like another decoy story to blame it on "The Taliban".

We're now fighting "The Taliban" instead of Al Queda. At some point in the last few years, the media and the military (same thing) made that transition.

MUST. DEFEAT. THE TALIBAN. THOSE FUCKERS DID 9!! AND GODDAMNIT THE REASON IT HAPPENED IS BECAUSE OUR INTEL AGENCIES WEREN'T POWERFUL ENOUGH!!!

Next we invade Utah and defeat the Mormons. Convert them all to socialism.
"He who wounds the ecosphere literally wounds God" -- Philip K. Dick
Nordic
 
Posts: 14230
Joined: Fri Nov 10, 2006 3:36 am
Location: California USA
Blog: View Blog (6)

Re: US Invoked State Secrets to Hide 9/11 Intelligence Faili

Postby Wombaticus Rex » Wed Mar 28, 2012 3:07 pm

Highly recommend re-watching The Power of Nightmares in reverse.
User avatar
Wombaticus Rex
 
Posts: 10896
Joined: Wed Nov 08, 2006 6:33 pm
Location: Vermontistan
Blog: View Blog (0)

Re: US Invoked State Secrets to Hide 9/11 Intelligence Faili

Postby fruhmenschen » Wed Mar 28, 2012 3:32 pm

puleez!
The perps who created 911 are releasing this crap to muddy the waters, eh?
fruhmenschen
 
Posts: 5977
Joined: Thu Aug 12, 2010 7:46 pm
Blog: View Blog (0)

Re: US Invoked State Secrets to Hide 9/11 Intelligence Faili

Postby Nordic » Wed Mar 28, 2012 3:46 pm

Seems its all part of the ongoing "official" story.

"Mistakes were made". "Who could possibly have foreseen".

You know the same old same old.
"He who wounds the ecosphere literally wounds God" -- Philip K. Dick
Nordic
 
Posts: 14230
Joined: Fri Nov 10, 2006 3:36 am
Location: California USA
Blog: View Blog (6)

Re: US Invoked State Secrets to Hide 9/11 Intelligence Faili

Postby NeonLX » Wed Mar 28, 2012 4:36 pm

Yeah, haw haw, y'see the gubbmint is so incompetent and wasteful and stuff...them bureaucracies ain't talkin' ta each other 'n' junk...

But SUPPORT OUR TROOPS and kill all them towelheads!!
America is a fucked society because there is no room for essential human dignity. Its all about what you have, not who you are.--Joe Hillshoist
User avatar
NeonLX
 
Posts: 2293
Joined: Sat Aug 11, 2007 9:11 am
Location: Enemy Occupied Territory
Blog: View Blog (1)

Re: US Invoked State Secrets to Hide 9/11 Intelligence Faili

Postby MinM » Wed Mar 28, 2012 4:55 pm

seemslikeadream wrote:
Reports: US Invoked 'State Secrets' to Hide 9/11 Intelligence Failings
Operation Foxden, delayed by turf war between the FBI and the CIA, given green light three days before the al-Qaida attacks

- Common Dreams staff
Infighting between US intelligence agencies delayed a secret plan to tap every phone in Afghanistan that could have helped prevent the September 11, 2001 events in New York City and Washington, according to reports in UK media outlets today...

Larry Chin springs to mind when a term like "9/11 Intelligence Failings" gets tossed around.
Larry Chin wrote:# The United States government and its intelligence agencies not only possessed absolute foreknowledge of 9/11, but also planned, facilitated, and carried out the operation.

# The crime of 9/11 was (and remains) an historic intelligence success, not an intelligence "failure".

# The myth of "terrorism" continues to serve as the propaganda pretext and cover for the continuing war for oil and other geostrategic imperatives.

http://globalresearch.ca/articles/CHI505A.html
Earth-704509
User avatar
MinM
 
Posts: 3288
Joined: Wed Jun 04, 2008 2:16 pm
Location: Mont Saint-Michel
Blog: View Blog (0)

Re: US Invoked State Secrets to Hide 9/11 Intelligence Faili

Postby Nordic » Wed Mar 28, 2012 9:19 pm

All I'm seeing is the message "we're going to tap every damn phone in the world and we're doing it to keep you from being slaughtered by terrorists"

"If only we'd managed to tap all those phones before we could have prevented 911. Oh and by the way it was the Taliaban who did that - heh heh"
"He who wounds the ecosphere literally wounds God" -- Philip K. Dick
Nordic
 
Posts: 14230
Joined: Fri Nov 10, 2006 3:36 am
Location: California USA
Blog: View Blog (6)

Re: US Invoked State Secrets to Hide 9/11 Intelligence Faili

Postby MinM » Wed Sep 11, 2013 9:44 am

Cryptome repeats this meme...
Image Cryptome ‏@Cryptomeorg: CIA Director Forgets Its Utter Failure of 9/11: http://cryptome.org/2013/09/cia-utter-failure.htm

MinM » Wed Mar 28, 2012 3:55 pm wrote:
seemslikeadream wrote:
Reports: US Invoked 'State Secrets' to Hide 9/11 Intelligence Failings
Operation Foxden, delayed by turf war between the FBI and the CIA, given green light three days before the al-Qaida attacks

- Common Dreams staff
Infighting between US intelligence agencies delayed a secret plan to tap every phone in Afghanistan that could have helped prevent the September 11, 2001 events in New York City and Washington, according to reports in UK media outlets today...

Larry Chin springs to mind when a term like "9/11 Intelligence Failings" gets tossed around.
Larry Chin wrote:# The United States government and its intelligence agencies not only possessed absolute foreknowledge of 9/11, but also planned, facilitated, and carried out the operation.

# The crime of 9/11 was (and remains) an historic intelligence success, not an intelligence "failure".

# The myth of "terrorism" continues to serve as the propaganda pretext and cover for the continuing war for oil and other geostrategic imperatives.

http://globalresearch.ca/articles/CHI505A.html
Earth-704509
User avatar
MinM
 
Posts: 3288
Joined: Wed Jun 04, 2008 2:16 pm
Location: Mont Saint-Michel
Blog: View Blog (0)

Re: US Invoked State Secrets to Hide 9/11 Intelligence Faili

Postby seemslikeadream » Wed Sep 11, 2013 10:12 am

Image
September 10, 2013 - September 11, 2001 was unquestionably a tragic day for America and the world.
While the 3,000-plus deaths on American soil elicited support and tears from around the world, now many international citizens resent or even despise the country that ratcheted up the War on Terror.

But for many in the country, and a staggering number of foreign citizens, the truth about what really took place on September 11, 2001 remains under relentless scrutiny and doubt. The mainstream media and politicians love to pass these claims off as "conspiracy theories" (the threat of being a social outcast can get the best of us), but the facts tell a much different story.



Here are just some of the major coincidences surrounding 9/11.

1. WAR GAMES ON 9/11 (AND THE LONDON BOMBINGS)

Were the hijackers lucky on 9/11... or had an insider tipped them off? That morning, the majority of the eastern air defense of NORAD was preoccupied with a war game that left many jets far away from Washington and New York.

In the first phone call between the air-traffic controller and NORAD, the first question out of the NORAD employee's mouth is, "Is this real world or exercise?"

On July 7, 2005, the day of the London Bombings, London police were also running a simulated exercise: by a stroke of amazing coincidence that exercise revolved around a terrorism bombing in the London subways. Further, Mayor Guiliani happened to be in London advising on security.

2. "A NEW PEARL HARBOR"

The Project for a New American Century (PNAC) was a neo-con think tank stacked with future members of President George W. Bush's entourage including Dick Cheney, Jeb Bush, Paul Wolfowitz, Donald Rumsfeld, Scooter Libby and Richard Perle.

In September 2000, PNAC published a controversial and aggressive study called "Rebuilding America's Defenses." Among very concise outlines on military expansion in the Persian Gulf, the paper deduces "the process of transformation, even if it brings revolutionary change, is likely to be a long one, absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event -- like a new Pearl Harbor."

They say that if you want to find out who started a war, ask: "Who ended up with something in the end?" Post September 11, the four horseman of PNAC (Cheney, Wolfowitz, Libby and Perle) were the main catalysts for moving into Iraq despite no WMDs. Is it all just a coincidence that the policy they advocated was fulfilled after only a year of power?

3. ALEX JONES PREDICTED 9-11

On July 25, 2001, Alex Jones, the outspoken conspiracy theorist, predicted on his video report that the U.S government would carry out terrorist attacks against itself in what's known as a false flag operation. The attack would open the doors for a military invasion in the Middle East, expanding the power of corporate America and the military industrial complex, as well as extend martial law to American citizens.

In the midst of Jones's freestyle predictions, he guesses Bin Laden will be blamed for hitting a target, "like the World Trade Center."

4. PASSPORTS OF HIJACKERS FOUND INTACT

In an official statement by Susan Ginsberg of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks, she stated that three passports were found at the plane crash sites: two in Pennsylvania and one in New York. Another passport was found in a piece of Mohammad Atta's "left-behind luggage."

This is an amazing coincidence for obvious reasons, but let's state them anyway...

a) A fireball 100 stories high in a building that collapses to dust and debris leaves behind a perfect passport of one of the culprits to a crime, but it doesn't leave behind the indestructible black boxes of the aircraft recorders.

b) A plane crash in which damage was particularly severe, leaving no human bodies, just pieces of corpses weighing in at no more than 600 pounds, and a jet engine virtually demolished, left two intact passports of the culprits.

c) While the rest of the country uses identification to board flights (State IDs for domestic travel, passports for international and non-American's must provide either Green Cards or Passports), a foreign terrorist hijacker was able to board a flight while leaving his passport in his friend's luggage. And that luggage also happened to name all 19 hijackers and their precise motives in carrying out the attacks on the morning of their deaths.

5. THE THERMITE-LIKE SLICES ON THE STEEL

BYU Professor Steven Jones has been on a crusade since 9/11, aiming to prove that the buildings had to collapse with a controlled demolition. Jones claims that our eyes didn't deceive us, that what we all witnessed as a demolition-like collapse was in fact a controlled demolition.

Jones is a physicist and did a study on the video from the towers that day. He spotted falling pieces of molten metal falling from the towers, including white ash, indicating levels of heat impossible to reach with burning jet fuel. Instead that heat must have come from a substance like thermite, which also happens to be used in controlled demolitions to cut through steel.

FEMA even stated that one of the mysteries of the WTC 7 site was the sulfidiation and oxidation on the steel, which caused it to melt; however, FEMA walked away after "no clear explanation" was found.

6. STEEL STRUCTURES FALL DUE TO A FIRE?

No steel structure before (or since) had ever collapsed due to fire. While some steel buildings had burned a long time from fire, none has fallen because steel melts at a much higher temperature than gasoline, other fuels or combustibles normally found in buildings can burn at.

Despite this resistance to high temperature, on September 11, 2001, three of the most advanced steel structures in the world collapsed officially due to fire caused by burning jet fuel and structural damage due to the impact of the planes. This angle may not convince everyone of an alternate explanation for towers 1 and 2, but for tower 7, how can this be explained?

WTC 7 is considered by many conspiracy theorists to be the smoking gun of 9-11, because they argue is no plausible argument that can justify why a building that had no direct impact by the plane would burn so hot as to cause a first-of-its-kind collapse of a steel structure (aside from the towers hours earlier). Physicists like Steven Jones and scores of independent researchers from around the world agree.

7. DICK CHENEY'S APPOINTMENT

Fresh off The Project for a New American Century's subtle musings for a new Pearl Harbor, Cheney got the task of essentially controlling the government in the event of a terrorist or war catastrophe.

While President Bush conveniently had his hands full with elementary school children, Cheney ran the government from an underground control room on 9/11 because the executive order by the President four months earlier had permitted Cheney to bypass the previous protocol.

8. HALLIBURTON

Halliburton, the conglomerate that provides defense, infrastructure and energy, also happens to be the company Dick Cheney was formerly CEO of before he became Vice President.

The same man who ran a company which profited hugely from 9/11 also helped start a think tank that pushed for a U.S. military presence in the Persian Gulf to shape the world according to America's design. Meanwhile, that man's very same company has now quietly and comfortably moved its entire operation to nearby rich Dubai.

9. 15 of 19 HIJACKERS WERE SAUDI ARABIAN

It's no secret America and Saudi Arabia are business partners. The Saudis supply much of our country's oil at a cheap rate in return for protection. It's also no secret that the Bush family is crazy about the Saudis, doing business with them for decades; George Bush, Sr. was attending a Carlyle Group meeting with the kin of one Osama Bin Laden the morning of September 11.

10. JOHN ASHCROFT STOPPED FLYING COMMERCIALLY

Despite everyone in government playing stupid that they had no idea attacks were coming, former Attorney General John Ashcroft, was advised by the FBI to stop taking commercial flights as reported by CBS on July 26, 2001.

The FBI claimed this issue was the result of a threat assessment and "neither the FBI nor the Justice Department... would identify what the threat was, when it was detected or who made it," CBS News reported.

11. THE PENTAGON VIDEO'S MISSING FRAME

Conspiracy theories surrounding 9-11 don't end at Ground Zero. The Pentagon attack has also provided endless fodder for speculation.

These theories couldn't be more instigated by the government's handling of surveillance video footage showing the moment of impact. Video analysts claim the government has cut frame 20 from the tape, which is rumored to show the object that struck the Pentagon. While the official report claims in was a plane, doubters say it was a missile.

During one of the first news reports at the site, CNN anchor Jamie Macintyre claimed that "there's no evidence of a plane having crashed anywhere near the Pentagon."

12. THE $2.3 TRILLION DOLLAR INVESTIGATION

On September 10, 2001, Donald Rumsfeld issued a press conference declaring that $2.3 trillion of the Pentagon's money could not be accounted for.

The next day, the explosion at the Pentagon obliterated its accounting office and the ensuing destruction and confusion put the case of the money trail to rest.

13. LARRY SILVERSTEIN'S INSURANCE POLICIES

On July 24, 2001, Larry Silverstein, the new leaseholder of the World Trade Center site , opened an insurance policy on the WTC which included coverage for terrorist attacks.

The policy was valued at $3.5 billion, but Silverstein stated that two acts of terror had occurred, and therefore he was entitled to claim each building's collapse as a terrorist attack.

14. THE SHORTING OF AIRLINE STOCKS

On September 6, 2001, airline stocks, including United and American, suddenly had a put/call ratio 25 times higher than normal. Over the next few days, as the numbers kept climbing, Bloomberg reported a high on airline put options that was as much as 285 times their average.

This means that some unknown persons or a company made a bet that said "United and American Airlines are going to lose money very soon."

15. THE SPEED OF TOWER 7'S COLLAPSE

The internet is rife with homemade and professional videos that illustrate that WTC 7's collapse was at free fall speed. This means that there was zero friction on its way down...

If we were to imagine 47 stories of steel, glass and concrete falling on top of itself, we would assume there'd be a natural collapsing effect of asymmetrical falling speeds. But this isn't the case with WTC 7. The building, which wasn't even hit by a plane, collapsed like a pancake without friction after a fire in the lobby.

16. MARVIN BUSH

W's brother, Marvin Bush, was on the Board of Directors of the company Securacom, which maintained security for the WTC right until it collapsed on 9/11. The company also handled security for Dulles Airport and United Airlines, two other hot potatoes of 9/11 coincidences.

In the weeks leading up to 9/11 the towers had been on high alert due to bomb threats. Many occupants reported numerous evacuations and fire drills in the time before the attacks, However, seemingly immediately, on September 6, the firm pulled all its bomb sniffing dogs out of the towers abruptly.

17. DOV ZAKHEIM

Before Dov Zakheim was the Pentagon's top budget officer, setting the price for the Iraq invasion, he was CEO of System Planning Corp, which, through its subsidiary Tridata Corp, oversaw the investigation into the 1993 WTC bombing, giving it access to all the WTC's blueprints.

SPC sells many 9/11 conspiracy theory technologies: the Command Transmitter System, which allows pilotless remote flight control, a radar simulator for target acquisition used by the Navy and others and a flight termination system used to destroy drones in the event of malfunction or misses.

18. BARBARA OLSEN CALLS FROM THE PLANE AT 34K FEET

Barbara was the wife of former U.S. Solicitor General, Ted Olsen, and a regular commentator on Fox News and CNN when she died on September 11th in Flight 77's crash into the Pentagon.

In initial television interviews, Ted Olsen recounted Barbara calling him during flight on her cell phone and explaining the hijacking situation, saying there were men with box-cutters and that the passengers were planning on rushing the cockpit and securing the plane.

Did a highly connected Washington Insider pass information to her husband on a plane that many dispute ever hit the Pentagon and by cell phone, which is extremely difficult at that altitude? Of course, she might have misspoken and was calling from the backseat phone, but it's a strange coincidence nonetheless.

19. THE PATRIOT ACT WAS PASSED WITHIN DAYS OF 9-11

One month and fifteen days after 9/11, a 342-page document was produced while much of the government was in disarray and upended. The assumption is that the pages of the Patriot Act had to of been written before 9/11 and then introduced to Congress at a moment of vulnerability.

Before the Patriot Act, we didn' have body scanners at airports, warrantless wire taps and police officers actually needed a warrant before they could enter your home.

20. CONTROLLED DEMOLITIONS, INC.

Controlled Demolitions, Inc. (yes, that is their real name), along with Tully Construction, were hired to clean up the debris in Ground Zero after the collapse. Aside from both companies reporting the discovery of molten steel after the collapse, Controlled Demolitions Inc. also happened to be the clean-up crew on another of America'sfatal days of terrorism: the Oklahoma City bombings.

21. THE CASE OF ABLE-DANGER AND THE DENIAL OF WARNINGS

Able Danger was a classified military planning program intended to develop information on transnational terrorism.

Lt. Colonel Anthony Shaffer and four other members of the team allege they identified Mohammad Atta plus three other 9/11 terrorists as possible participants in the 1992 bombing. He implies that this information was ignored by the brass.

After 9/11, Shaffer approached Phillip Zelikow of the 9-11 commission but Zelikow showed no interest in these claims. The Department of Defense then purchased every copy of Shaffer's book, which detailed the story of Able Danger, and destroyed them.

22. BUSH COULDN'T TALK TO THE 9/11 COMMISSION ALONE

Our former Commander in Chief, leader of the free world, was not permitted to speak alone to the Commission investigators after the attacks. His watchdog, Dick Cheney, was by his side every moment. Also, the dynamic duo only agreed to speak if the conversation was not under oath.

23. EYEWITTNESSES DESCRIBED "BOMBS" GOING OFF

Give Youtube a whirl and search for eyewitness accounts of explosions inside the towers. These claims fuel rumors that the tower collapsed due to a controlled demolition.

In an amateur video interview with firefighters shortly after the buildings collapsed, each one of them mentioned explosions. Wouldn't firefighters know the sound of an explosion when they heard one?


Read more: http://www.disclose.tv/news/The_23_bigg ... z2eap2FlHk
Last edited by seemslikeadream on Wed Sep 11, 2013 12:37 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Mazars and Deutsche Bank could have ended this nightmare before it started.
They could still get him out of office.
But instead, they want mass death.
Don’t forget that.
User avatar
seemslikeadream
 
Posts: 32090
Joined: Wed Apr 27, 2005 11:28 pm
Location: into the black
Blog: View Blog (83)

Re: US Invoked State Secrets to Hide 9/11 Intelligence Faili

Postby seemslikeadream » Wed Sep 11, 2013 11:43 am

September 11, 2013

The Tension Between “Never Forget” and “Looking Forward, Not Backwards”

Who Will Pay for the Crimes in the Name of 9-11?
by JOHNNY BARBER

It is reported that this year the commemorations for 9-11 will be “low key”. The names of the dead will be read. Bells will toll. Moments of silence will be observed. I didn’t lose a friend or a family member on 9-11. I imagine it is a rare day that goes by when a loved one doesn’t remember that dreadful day. I imagine life is never “low key”.

The same mourning is played out across the globe. For every person lost in the attack on the twin towers there have been thousands of deaths around the world. The brunt of America’s retribution fell on Iraq, a country that had nothing to do with the attacks of 9-11. America’s attack on Iraq was based on lies and fabrications. Hundreds of thousands, if not millions have died. Millions are refugees, their families dispersed on the wind. Babies are born each day with horrendous birth defects. Children die from cancers and diseases unheard of prior to America’s attack. President Obama often claims credit for ending the war in Iraq and bringing the troops home. Yet the war is not ended for those who served. Every day 22 veterans and service members kill themselves in the United States. Suicide is at epidemic levels, the death toll surpassing those killed on 9-11. No one claims credit for this. And Iraq is in chaos. Car bombs and suicide bombers kill dozens on a nearly daily basis. One thousand people died in July alone. The war is not over, though America has moved on.

Those responsible for the illegal war on Iraq remain free. Their lies have been exposed. Their crimes are obvious. Rather prosecute these men and women, Obama said he believed “We need to look forward as opposed to looking backwards.” There is expediency in looking forward, especially when your administration will take up the policies of your predecessor and continue to act in unlawful and immoral ways. Drone attacks now kill in Yemen, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Somalia. The President reviews a “kill list” on a weekly basis. Targeted assassination is the norm. Innocent men remain imprisoned in Guantánamo. Libya is decimated after our humanitarian intervention.

Syria, already in shattered from war, is now under threat of an American attack. After two years of watching the carnage unfold, an American red line has finally been surpassed. In the lead up to bombing, there has been little looking ahead and many calls to never forget. Hitler has been conjured by Kerry, Clinton, Obama and the media pundits, as usual, when America wants to demonize a “brutal dictator” like Ahmadinejad, like Hussein, like Gaddafi and now Assad. Saddam Hussein’s use of chemical weapons (supplied by the United States) against Iran has also been called upon as evidence of Assad’s depravity. There has been no mention of America’s use of chemicals. No mention of dropping Agent Orange on Vietnam and the ongoing health crisis in that country four decades later. No mention of napalm (for this John Kerry should hang his head in shame). No mention of the chemicals sprayed over wide swaths of Latin America in our endless “War on Drugs”. No mention of white phosphorus used on civilians in Fallujah. Our “never forgetting” has its limits, you see, as does our “not looking backwards”. Quoting Kerry, “Let me be clear: The indiscriminate slaughter of civilians, the killing of women and children and innocent bystanders by chemical weapons is a moral obscenity.” Unfortunately our morality has its limits as well.

President Obama claims our ideals, principles, and “world leadership” are at stake in Syria.

Laying out his moral justification for a cruise missile attack, on the eve of Sept 11th, Obama had the audacity to claim, “America is not the world’s policeman. Terrible things happen across the globe, and it is beyond our means to right every wrong. But when, with modest effort and risk, we can stop children from being gassed to death, and thereby make our own children safer over the long run, I believe we should act. That’s what makes America different. That’s what makes us exceptional. With humility, but with resolve, let us never lose sight of that essential truth.”

With humility and resolve Americans should deal honestly with our past, with our present, and with our dire future. With modest effort and risk we can make the future safer for all children. We can do this by simply demanding accountability of our leaders and recognizing the only thing that is exceptional about America is our inability to see other’s lives as valuable as our own.

No one forgets the loss of loved ones at the hands of their oppressors. No one forgets their child’s (or their parent’s) suicide when they return from war. Loved one’s memories are long and children inherit the stories. Looking forward does not erase the past, except perhaps in the “victor’s” history books.

In time, Hillary Clinton, John Kerry and Obama will find their places in history alongside Rumsfeld, Rice, Cheney, and Bush. Each and every one of them are hypocrites, liars, and war criminals. And as the world has paid for the criminal acts of 9-11, we Americans will one day pay for our countries crimes.
Mazars and Deutsche Bank could have ended this nightmare before it started.
They could still get him out of office.
But instead, they want mass death.
Don’t forget that.
User avatar
seemslikeadream
 
Posts: 32090
Joined: Wed Apr 27, 2005 11:28 pm
Location: into the black
Blog: View Blog (83)


Return to General Discussion

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 168 guests