Post-trauma Disorder: none dare call it conspiracy?

    If you want to start a fight, ask a bunch of Americans whether 9/11 was a conspiracy. Most will say no. If you then note that 19-20 people working together is by definition a conspiracy, they'll get pissed and say they thought you meant "government conspiracy". Which is not what they thought, since we don't know what individual gov workers from the FAA or INS or FBI might have helped the hijackers, eg who let them through the airport with boxcutters or who helped them scope out security. What they really mean is "not a HIGH government conspiracy" or some coordinated renegade group of spooks, no Ollie North and gang.

    What I find interesting from this exercise is we let Republicans re-define a word, mostly to protect an unengaged President - and we're doing it 14 years later. There never was a good investigation, but from the article below we know there was plenty *not* done, but we don't know why exactly. We've seen horrid acts from Republicans (and Democrats) wiping out 10's of thousands of foreigners at least, as well as a slough of policies focused directly at hurting Americans - taking away health care to prove a point - as well as conspiracies by banks to steal billions from consumers enabled by gov officials who then gave trillions to protect those same banks. Wasn't George Bush the original "Too Big to Fail"? And wasn't it the original reluctance to believe a group of Americans could conspire to do cold-blooded treachery to other Americans?

    But of course they can. Whether they did or not, and if so, who, remains a question, because 14 years later we still haven't gotten past the conspiracy to excuse away one man, one leader's complete incompetence and indifference, who took a month's vacation as president with warnings piling up and who came back to a horrid intelligence and human catastrophe. But it's somehow important not to question him the way they make women stare at ugly fetal operatons before getting an abortion. 6 different hearings exploring conspiracies in a tribal/terrorist attack far away in Libya, but no close look at a conspiracy that leveled 3 buildings and killed thousands in Manhattan.

    Any sane observer would say we're plenty goofy,that we're exceptionally good at avoiding facts, for what reason I still don't know - maybe just "because"? Even a Confederacy of Dunces is still a conspiracy. 

    When a true genius appears, you can know him by this sign: that all the dunces are in a confederacy against him. - Jonathan Swift

    Where is our despised, outcast genius, our lonely prince?

    Dislike Trump all you want, he still may be the boy who noticed the Emperor had no Clothes, a useful idiot as Gurdjieff would say. From Huffpost:

    ...Then came the now-famous August 6 Presidential Daily Brief (PDB) intelligence memorandum to the president, headlined, "Bin Laden Determined To Strike in US." Bush was at his ranch in Crawford, Texas, on what was to be one of the longest summer vacations any president has taken; none of his senior aides was present for the briefing. Rice later described this PDB as "very vague" and " very non-specific" and "mostly historical." It was only after a great struggle that the 9/11 commission got it declassified and the truth was learned. In its final report, the commission noted that this was the thirty-sixth Presidential Daily Brief so far that year related to al-Qaeda and bin Laden though the first one that specifically warned of an attack on the US itself.

    While the title of the memo has become somewhat familiar, less known are its contents, including the following: "Clandestine, foreign government, and media reports indicate bin Laden since 1997 has wanted to conduct terrorist attacks in the US. Bin Laden implied in U.S. television interviews in 1997 and 1998 that his followers would follow the example of World Trade Center bomber Ramzi Yousef and 'bring the fighting to America.'" And: "FBI information since that time indicates patterns of suspicious activity in this country consistent with preparations for hijackings or other types of attacks, including recent surveillance of federal buildings in New York." Having received this alarming warning the president did nothing.

    As August went on, Tenet was so agitated by the chatter he was picking up and Bush's lack of attention to the matter that he arranged for another CIA briefing of the president later in August, with Bush still at his ranch, to try to get his attention to what Tenet believed was an impending danger. According to Ron Suskind, in the introduction to his book The One Percent Doctrine, when the CIA agents finished their briefing of the president in Crawford, the president said, "All right. You've covered your ass now." And that was the end of it.

    What might a president do upon receiving notice that the world's number one terrorist was "determined to strike in US"? The most obvious thing was to direct Rice or Vice President Cheney to convene a special meeting of the heads of any agencies that might have information about possible terror threats, and order them shake their agencies down to the roots to find out what they had that might involve such a plot, then put the information together. As it happened they had quite a bit: the administration had already been notified about some Arabs seeking flying lessons at a flight school in Arizona; what was so noticeable about them was that they unpeeled large amounts of cash for the lessons, which they limited to just wanting to know how to fly the plane in cruise mode, not learn how to take off and land. In July, an FBI agent stationed in Phoenix wrote to headquarters warning of the "possibility of a coordinated effort by Usama bin Laden" to send students to the United States to attend civil aviation schools.

    ....

    The bipartisan 9/11 Commission, established in November 2002, after Bush gave way to congressional demands that there be a high-level investigation into what had happened, with the commission members appointed by Bush and by Congress--this was after the administration made it clear that it wouldn't cooperate with a congressional investigation into 9/11--went no further than bipartisan commissions can be expected to go, but further than most of the journalism at the time suggested. Bipartisan commissions are a longstanding device for making sure that the findings aren't too disturbing to the principal figures or the public. The responsibility of the 9/11 Commission--made up of prominent Democrats and Republicans and co-chaired by two highly admired figures, former Indiana congressman and chairman of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs Lee Hamilton, and former governor of New Jersey Thomas Kean--was to investigate the background of the matter and make recommendations.

    When the commission finally succeeded in its demand that Bush testify before it, the arrangement was that only two commission members could be present at a White House meeting where the president was to be questioned for only one hour, without being put under oath and with no notes taken, and with Vice President Cheney present. In fact, the administration fought the commission at nearly every turn. Hamilton and Kean later wrote that they felt that the commission had been "set up to fail"--it had been rushed, its funding was insufficient and it didn't have adequate administration cooperation. They said that in fact the commission had considered seeking criminal charges against officials who had obstructed or lied to it.

    When the commission finally succeeded in its demand that Bush testify before it, the arrangement was that only two commission members could be present at a White House meeting where the president was to be questioned for only one hour, without being put under oath and with no notes taken, and with Vice President Cheney present. In fact, the administration fought the commission at nearly every turn. Hamilton and Kean later wrote that they felt that the commission had been "set up to fail"--it had been rushed, its funding was insufficient and it didn't have adequate administration cooperation. They said that in fact the commission had considered seeking criminal charges against officials who had obstructed or lied to it.

    Comments

    Paragraphs are of import.

    And like me, we should always take our meds.

    But paragraphs are of import if we wish others ro read us. hahahahahahahah


    Might have been posted from a mobile device. Sometimes they do weird things.


    Definitely. Even if it looks perfectly formatted before posting, Dag plays devil's advocate. Believe me, I know.


    Missy, youare a nice person 


    Right back at ya, Dick!


    Do realize how important your comment really is?

    Thank you for this

    I am not kidding


    Come on, Dick - even you know it's just Words between the Lines of Age.

    And here's a guy who makes you look young. Pick up your guitar, pluck along...

     

     


    Man this is one hell of a presentation!

    Is this Blues/Metal?

    Thank you I never heard this before.

    You know, Dylan and Young never had voices. But damn,they ended up voices for many generations!


    Neil plays well with others.
    Here is something from half way back:

     

     


     


    If you edit w/some HTML, you'll be fine. Or, of course, start over on another device.

    But is it kosher to reprint an entire article?


    It's a Sufi technique, the sound of one hand clapping, 1 finger typing, filling all space and time continuum. The next time I leave out spaces between words, then punctuation, later vowels - the more I take away, the more you'll appreciate what came before.


    Cnhndlvrythngwthnprblmbtplsdntrmvthvwls - thy?rmy?lfln


    Yes, what a tenuous grip we have on survival. And now for the philosophical question of whether y's are vowels, and if we take away our why's, do we lose our wherefore's?

    ; >]


    What seems plausible to me is that Bush had his own channel to the Saudis---who were not denying a threat of some kind, but minimizing the extent of it. With a minimal event, it is conceivable that Bush was manipulative enough to decide to let it play out to his benefit---given he was looking for justification to invade Iraq. All of this, a separate channel, dissing his own intelligence organization, seems consistent with his personality. The kicker was the size of the event. His frozen status at the school then was more than the shock of the event, it was the betrayal and the failure of his smart ass way of doing nothing and having the road paved for him. How this ties in with the inability to nail this guy, I'm not sure. Good post.


    Good points, nice someone ventured to discuss more than the formatting of the post.

    Senator Bob Graham (former D-Fl) wrote a book in 2008 on the rarely ever covered in the MSM 2002 Senate Joint Committee investigation of 9/11. The book, Intelligence Matters, The CIA, the FBI, Saudi Arabia, and the Failure of America's War on Terror had to have some redaction related to information on Saudi intelligence connections to the hijackers, yet it is still full of facts on deep and continual connections there. He also mentions the stonewalling of the Senate in getting information from the Bush administration.

    A jumbo jet pilot who worked for both as 'special ops' roles for the CIA and as a pilot for the Pentagon took Graham's book and other facts on 9/11 to write a book The Big Bamboozle. His name was Phillip Marshall, and he basically took the Senate inquiry a step further to say Saudi hands and money were all over 9/11, and believes the event was replete with disinformation and cover-ups.

    Marshall was going to write another book, but was found shot to death, along with his 2 kids and his dog, who were also shot to death, in his home.  It was called suicide.


    I was making a joke about formatting

    Six months ago my blog went nuts and Mike showed up and fixed just like Peracles' post has been fixed.

    But to the matter at hand; Michael More kept insisting that 9/11/01 was a Saudi operation in his film and generally.

    This an important point and this is an important post, overall!


    9/11 wasn't a Saudi operation anymore than McVeigh was an American or a republican operation. One can draw connections from right wing extremism to McVeigh's philosophy and motivations just as one can draw connections from Saudi support of Wahhabism to 9/11. But 9/11 wasn't official or even non-official policy of the Saudi government.
     


    Thanks for clearing that up. Saudi hijackers, Saudi money, Saudi intelligence agents paying for US lodging and expenses for Saudi hijackers, but not a "Saudi operation".  Senator Graham put Saudi Arabia into the title of his book for a number of reasons,  none of which were 'philosophical' in nature. But direct financial support, communication and physical meetings/contact between officials of the Saudi intelligence services and hijackers.

    For anyone who harbors doubts that 9/11 was set in motion by 19 disgruntled 'loner' Wahhabi McVeigh's, I would suggest reading Senator Graham's book, containing the facts and conclusions from his Senate investigation.


    Poppy Bush has a few things to say in an upcoming biography by Jon Meacham. Apparently, little George wasn't served well by those in his inner circle.

    In interviews with his biographer, Mr. Bush said that Mr. Cheney had built “his own empire” and asserted too much “hard-line” influence within George W. Bush’s White House in pushing for the use of force around the world. Mr. Rumsfeld, the elder Mr. Bush said, was an “arrogant fellow” who could not see how others thought and “served the president badly.”

    Well, I'm sure he had marvelous things to say about little shrub, and choosing the worst of Poppy's team to drive his own hardly recommends his judgment. Wonder if George Sr. ever stood back to think how the father-son rivalry escalated into a revenge presidency visiting some of the worst policy decisions on the history of the country. It appears that despite being a fairly good president, George Sr.'s worst policy decision was whether to have a particular child. Fortunately the other one in line is a bit too foppish to make the cut amount renegade "Lost Boys" nor can he rise above the damage of the supposed heroics of his now infamous brother.

    Meanwhile, incurious George paints a picture in Waco. How nice.


    Pericles, this is excellent. Thanks for posting. Conspiracy theories get debunked because people want to believe otherwise. The 911 coverup is ugly. But true. I think you pulled what is known quite well.  

    I'd like to see more if you feel like it. I don't really want to read each book. I'm reading Richard Clarke's now and it's pretty upsetting. 


    I'm no genius on the topic - would simply like more thorough exploration of what we do know, more curiosity about understanding what really happened. In October 2001, some was mailing anthrax to different public figures and we never solved it (except to blame it on a scientist who killed himself, but he couldn't have had access. This was military-grade anthrax - yet case closed and forgotten. I'm not looking to dive straight into conspiracy hot buttons - I'm mostly interested in the indisputable mundane stuff - How did that happen, why, could it happen again? The longer we wait, the more that's forgotten, witnesses die off, etc

    The never connected 'dots' on the anthrax attacks:

    Richard Cohen, WaPo reporter in Slate, March 2008:

    The attacks were not entirely unexpected. I had been told soon after Sept. 11 to secure Cipro, the antidote to anthrax. The tip had come in a roundabout way from a high government official, and I immediately acted on it. I was carrying Cipro way before most people had ever heard of it.

    White House 'precautions':

    As "a precaution" Cipro was administered to Dick Cheney and his close staff on the evening of 9/11 as the Vice President was secreted off to an undisclosed location, days before the first anthrax letters were mailed...

    George W. Bush State of the Union Address 2002:

    Iraq continues to flaunt its hostility toward America and to support terror. The Iraqi regime has plotted to develop anthrax and nerve gas and nuclear weapons for over a decade.

    George W. Bush SOU 2003 ( 2 months pre-invasion of Iraq):

    The United Nations concluded in 1999 that Saddam Hussein had biological weapons sufficient to produce over 25,000 liters of anthrax, enough doses to kill several million people. He hasn't accounted for that material. He's given no evidence that he has destroyed it.

    National Academy Sciences reviews FBI case against the dead government scientist Mr. Ivins as the 'lone nut' responsible:

    The NAS committee released its report on February 15, 2011, concluding that it was "impossible to reach any definitive conclusion about the origins of the anthrax in the letters, based solely on the available scientific evidence".[174] The report also challenged the FBI and U.S. Justice Department's conclusion that a single-spore batch of anthrax maintained by Ivins at his laboratory at Fort Detrick in Maryland was the parent material for the spores in the anthrax letters.

    Jesse Ventura has noted huge and fateful American political/war connected events and assassinations of major political figures are almost always passed off as being perpetrated by 'lone nuts', if dead, so much the better, they'll never stand trial and be able to defend themselves.

     


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