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He Kept Us Safe (Except When He Didn’t)
I'm really sick to death of hearing the Bush administration people brag about how they kept us safe from terrorists, matrimonially inclined homosexuals, and other really mean people.
Sure, I understand why they do it. And, no, I'm not referring to the fact that regressives seem to be congenital liars, or that, because they themselves are so existentially frightened, they understand instinctively just how the politics of fear work.
No doubt all of that is part of the equation. But I think the bigger reason that we are continually exposed to this insane mantra is because, despite their delusional tendencies, even conservatives recognize the paucity of plausible alternative claims.
I mean, would you want to go to the public bragging about having booted two wars, one based entirely on lies, and both strung out now about twice the length of America's involvement in World War II? Would you run for office touting your party's achievements at doubling the size of the national debt? Would you point to Hurricane Katrina and say "Heckuva job, Bushie", expecting the public to agree?
The truth is that, yes, regressives almost always lie, and, yes, they love to play the politics of fear, but the key reason that they brag about having kept the country safe during the Bush years is because it's the only claim they can plausibly make without being laughed out of the room.
In fact, though, they should be laughed out of the room for making what is in reality the most absurd claim of all. And then they should consider themselves damn lucky only to be laughed at.
Disingenuous regressives (and what other kind are there?) who try to sell you on this notion want you to believe that the Bush administration somehow began on September 12, 2001. They love to tell you about how the country was protected from terrorist attack after 9/11. But that's odd, isn't it? I always thought the job of the president was to protect the country for the entire length of his administration, not just nine-tenths of it.
It gets even odder still if you inject a little bit of logic into dissecting their argument, always a hugely dangerous enterprise from the perspective of regressive mythology. That is, let's just take them for a moment on their own terms, for the sake of argument. We're supposed to be impressed that George W. Bush kept the country safe from major terrorist attack. But of his forty-two predecessors in the Oval Office, can you think of any single one who failed to meet that test? Me neither.
Indeed, only one president experienced a major foreign terrorist attack on his watch over the two and a quarter centuries the United States has existed. His name was Bush, George W. Somehow, they don't mention that part. Of course, the joys of having conservatives around have always included the pleasure of hearing lies to cover truth, bluster to mask fear, and arrogance bluffing for insecurity. Likewise, the folks running hither and yon squawking about how they kept us safe are actually the only ones in the entire history of this country who, simply, did not. Did. Not.
Yet, in fact, this is only the beginning of the crime (and I won't even comment on the many strands of compelling evidence suggesting that some or all of the official 9/11 story is a fabrication). When I say that George W. Bush is the only president to have "experienced" a major terrorist attack on his watch, that is the most charitable possible reading of events. Even if one does manage to intrude upon regressive hallucinations by pointing out that, uh sorry, it wasn't Jimmy Carter who was president of the United States on 9/11, any regressive worthy of his stripes will demonstrate great umbrage at the suggestion that Bush might have prevented that day's attacks.
And, you know, personally, I suspect that blocking secretly-planned terrorist strikes is pretty tricky business, even for the best of governments at the top of their game. And so, ordinarily I'd be inclined to cut any president some serious slack on this question, assuming there was a competent team making its best efforts at the admittedly difficult project of swatting flies in the dark, with the necessity of getting them all.
And it is precisely this widely held sense of fair play upon which regressives prey when they implicitly exonerate the Bush administration for the failure of 9/11. But there are two crucial flaws to this unstated (because it is never challenged, and therefore doesn't need to be spoken) line of thought, and they are in fact monstrous in both scope and effect.
The first is the notion - generally implicit, but sometimes stated by people like Condoleezza Rice - that nobody could have seen this sort of attack coming. She, for example, has noted that when one used to think of terrorist airplane hijackings, those scenarios involved simply flying the plane to Cuba or some such place and demanding a ransom. Leave aside that some security officials did, in fact, game out precisely the possibility of hijacking airplanes and crashing them into buildings. And leave aside the odd twist of logic that this approach entails, suggesting that mere ‘regular' hijackings would be acceptable and unnecessary to guard against.
Even apart from all that, what is so galling about this lame defense is that it comes from the very same people who consistently criticized the Clinton administration for supposedly being weak on terrorism. In fact, Richard Clarke, who served both presidents, in addition to Bush's father and Ronald Reagan, has indicated emphatically - despite the fact that he's a Republican who voted for Bush in 2000 - that Clinton was far more serious about combating terrorism than his successor was.
It's well beyond outrageous for regressives to simultaneously attack the Clinton administration for its failures at preempting terrorist attacks - against the World Trade Center, against the USS Cole, against American embassies in Africa - and yet fully exonerate Bush, heroically even, for 9/11. Unless I'm reading my history book upside down again (as I am sometimes wont to do ‘cause it makes so much more sense that way), the Bush administration came after Clinton. They had no excuse for being less vigilant against an Al Qaeda attack, especially given their fondness for labeling Clinton as weak on terrorism.
But the second implicit logic underlying the exoneration of the Bush administration for 9/11 is even more gratuitous. It's the unspoken presumption that the administration did everything it could and simply couldn't prevent the attack any more than all the will and all the effort in the world could stop a tsunami coursing across the ocean from reaching its destination.
But here's what Clarke said in 2004,
and it's important to remember that he was not some off-the-pigs-counterculture-
Clarke had good reasons to say these things, too. He had tried in vain for eight months to get a meeting of top Bush administration officials on the question of terrorism and the Al Qaeda threat. Nobody would take the matter seriously. He finally got his meeting, but it was one week prior to 9/11, and the administration still had little interest in terrorism, because it was already entirely focused on Iraq. His meeting got hijacked, so to speak.
The myth of basic Bush administration competence in fighting terrorism is similarly shattered by George Tenet's efforts of a similar nature. The CIA director was also hearing alarm bells going off like crazy in the weeks before 9/11. Unable to shake the administration out of its stupor, Tenet finally resorted to calling an emergency meeting with National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice. He still could not manage to move the Bush team into action. She wasn't interested.
And then there's the president himself. He was famously briefed on August 6, 2001, one month before the attack, with an urgent report entitled, "Bin Laden Determined To Strike In US". Bush was in Crawford, Texas, chainsawing brush, pretending to be a Texan, and playing cowboys and Indians. What was his reaction to this seven alarm emergency? This president - who, by the way, spent more time on vacation than any other American president in history - remained on vacation for an entire month prior to 9/11.
Even more telling was Bush's immediate reaction to this briefing. He telegraphed his level of concern by responding to the CIA briefer who presented him with the report using these infamous words: "All right. You've covered your ass, now."
Unless one lives with Alice, the Mad Hatter and the Queen of Hearts in some sort of LSD-soaked Wonderland - which I'm increasingly convinced all regressives in fact do - it's impossible to reconcile these historical facts with any plausible argument that the Bush administration was competent, or even seriously concerned, about fighting terrorism. If there is any doubt about this whatsoever, just try replacing the name Bush in these stories with Obama. The lunatics on the right are literally already calling Obama a socialist, communist, and fascist, while worrying out loud about his secret plan to turn America into a Muslim paradise. Imagine what they would say about him if his top terrorism advisor and his CIA director warned him of a looming attack, he responded to that warning by accusing them of bureaucratic ass-covering and by spending the next month on vacation, and then 3000 Americans died in an attack he failed to take seriously.
Given what they already say about Obama, or Clinton, and given a repeat of these same set of facts that actually do apply to George Bush, I could quite literally imagine a massive, angry and violent march on Washington - think tea parties on steroids, complete with roid rage - in which the president's life would literally be in danger. And you know what? People should be incredibly angry at any president so incompetent, so negligent, and so cavalier.
But, of course, George Bush's job approval ratings only skyrocketed in the wake of 9/11, and he remains a favorite of regressives unto this day, who also miraculously completely buy into the myth of George the Protector, the guy who kept us safe (except when he didn't). So much so that even the former vice president could wait only a week or two into the new administration to begin lining up the predicate for blame should the United States experience another terrorist attack during the Obama administration.
In the end, all of this is powerful testament to the skill regressives possess at bludgeoning and marketing. Even middle Americans, who long ago migrated from supporting George Bush out of fear to despising the little puke for all the manifold and righteous reasons there are to choose from, still buy into the myth that Bush kept us safe. Nobody ever blames him for 9/11, despite the fact that there is ample evidence overwhelmingly demonstrating his administration's complete failure leading up to that day.
And, miraculously, nobody thinks of him with any sort of historical accuracy on this question. Not only is he not the president who kept us safe, he is indeed precisely the opposite. He is the one president - out of forty-four, serving for over two centuries time - on whose watch a massive terrorist attack took place.
Even as Barack Obama endears himself to America by returning the careening, hurtling eighteen wheeler to the middle-of-the-road - right there with Jim Hightower's proverbial yellow stripes and dead armadillos - and even as the Republican Party finds new ways each week to commit political suicide by increment, attitudes on this question still remains nothing short of astonishing.
Those among us - including tens of millions who voted for Bush not just once, but twice - wishing to dismiss the last eight years as some sort of aberrant nightmare should stop for a long moment to consider the meaning of Bush administration mythology on the question of terrorism and national security.
Maybe it's true that regressive freaks can no longer plausibly run around bragging about how great the boy king was on economics, or fighting bad guys abroad. Woo-hoo. Yep, we've come a long way, for sure.
But surely it is a measure of this society's profoundly pathetic and unyielding political immaturity that these lunatics can still get away with lauding the former president with the monumental claim of keeping America safe, when in fact he did just the opposite.
What kind of country is it where so manifestly absurd and oxymoronic a line as that goes unchallenged?
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39 Comments so far
Show AllAmen!
"What kind of country is it where so manifestly absurd and oxymoronic a line as that goes unchallenged?"
a country where the media is controlled by the same people who control the government.
What if the White House's "indifference" to all those ominous reports was actually a concerted effort at misdirection?
If, as many of us suspect, 9/11 was an inside job, wouldn't it have been part of the op to prevent as many people as possible who weren't in the loop from running around asking questions, detaining "persons of interest," following leads, and in general placing themselves where they might inadvertently blow the whole con---in other words, to prevent the honest cops from doing their jobs?
Jethro -
Rather than jumping in with both feet or even tiptoeing into the mine field of 9/11 as an "inside job" - and therefore the most outrageous mass murder of ordinary civilians in American history - try this variation on the known historical facts of the ominous warnings and the top Bush White House officials' indifference.
The NSA, the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), and the black ops boys (Directorate) of the CIA were tasked by the incoming Bush administration to take primary responsibility for preventing an al Qaeda attack on American soil. As you suggest, the FBI was kept pretty much stove piped out of the loop, even after it was known in US intelligence circles that some of the 9/11 high jackers were already inside the United States.
Such a delegation of counterterrorism responsibility away from traditional domestic law enforcement, into the hands of the Pentagon-based national security agencies, is consistent with what we now know was a major power allocation shift towards the military, and away from the civilian sector, in the early days of the Bush presidency. Rumsfeld/Cheney up. Powell/Condi/Richard Clarke marginalized in the executive branch pecking order. Militarizing and/or paramilitarizing counterterrorism within the boundaries of the United States furthered advanced the ideological goal of downgrading the need to deal with pesky paperwork requirements like FISA or regular Title III warrants to maintain electronic surveillance of the al Qaeda cells as they assembled.
It is absolutely certain that the Pakistani ISI was in a cooperative intelligence gathering relationship with their DIA, NSA, CIA American spook counterparts in the run up to 9/11. Who the hell do you think was doing the translation work on all that electronic chatter our boys at NSA were picking up? It is quite likely that Saudi intelligence and Israeli intelligence, plus possibly other countries' intelligence agencies were cooperating as well, with all the info ("the dots") connected at the very top.
In August, Bush takes a break from clearing brush in Crawford and gets briefed by the CIA about "Bin Laden determined to attack inside the United States." Little George quips at the end of this CIA briefing, "Okay. You've covered your ass now." The situation was in hand, because NSA and the Pentagon-based counterintelligence team and the ISI had the hijackers solidly under their surveillance.
The game plan was to bust the evil doers on the tarmac before any of the planes even took off. In the aftermath of the bust (which would demonstrate to jihadis everywhere not to try to mess with Uncle Sam), very likely one or more of the bad guys would confess how Saddam was a moving force behind the whole thing.
But there was a major fuck up. Perhaps a leak. Perhaps a double agent or two or three all along. It wasn't just another test run on the morning of September 11th like it was supposed to be. It was game day. The players got played.
Same historical facts. Same sequence of events. Slightly different explanation why so much remains so deeply classified and so many lies have been told.
Bill from Saginaw
Bill,
An interesting alternative, but it assumes---well, way too much. Just for starters:
(1) two plane strikes brought down 3 steel-framed buildings by fire, which had never happened before or since;
(2) OBL or his staff ordered the standown of NORAD before the planes hit, and the thorough destruction of forensic evidence afterward;
(3) all that pre-9/11 short-selling of airline and insurance company stocks was mere coincidence.
Until these and other questions are addressed, I remain skeptical. I hope you harbor no illusions about the good intentions of Cheney et al.
I was pretty early into the "something is not right here" over 9/11. The trigger for me was the early news reports of one of the passports found in the rubble of one of the hijackers.
This was just TOO convenient and having such fly out of some hijackers pocket to be found by a passerby simply beyond comprehension.
It had to have been planted and that being the case, the entire conspiracy falls apart.
I started researching it then found out that the Computers at Edwards Air force base had somehow gone down. When they came up again there was no mention of any fighter aircraft being based at Edwards.
Yet the press reported fighters scrambling AFTER the Pentagon hit.
GwNorth. The passport was explained. It was dropped by the escaping hijacker after the jets melted and vaporized the Towers. As he ran to the WTC7 restroom concourse, where he lit lighter soaked tp on fire and threw it into a trash can, bringing the building down.
Conspiracy theorists find it convenient to ignore logical explanations.
azjoe- Thanx for clearing that up. It has been keeping me awake at night and I'm so glad it can now be put to rest.
Hi _ B I L L ,
Your narrative is a huge stretch of imagination, considering the evidence of WTC demolitions is now totally definitive.
The detection and scientific calibration of still active high explosives found abundantly in separate collections of WTC dusts, is absolutely damning and unambiguous proof.
N A N O _ T H E R M I T E S ___ have absolutely no means to be explained away, especially considering the tremendously complex and expensive fabrication and processing required at one millionth of 1 mm atomized metal and oxidizer components.
Even today, 8 years later -- there is no commercial supplier of nano thermite high explosives, that are more powerful than dynamite. In fact, the militarized DIME high explosives used in recent Gaza slaughter, are quite similar in development to nano thermites, with both using minute ( very high surface area ) particles of metals and oxidizers.
DIME munitions use Tungsten ( W ) in a matrix of high explosives that when initially triggered, spread out as a diffuse cloud prior to detonation, that are effectively antipersonnel mines in nano-miniaturized form. The millions of Tungsten fragments, cut through human tissues causing severe ( un-stoppable ) internal bleeding, and the "shrapnel" is invisible because it oxidizes and burns up as in slows down.
NANO THERMITE munitions ( and spray paintable applications ) use nano-sized Iron Oxide, Magnesium, Aluminum particles -- w/o the need for plastic explosives -- as they are more explosove than dynamite alone.
In an electron microscope, the nano thermite stuff stares back at all of the anti-TRUTH deniers of gov't complicity ( at a minimum ), with red and gray colored layers.
There is little real means to erase this truth, there are no counter-arguments nor explanations that could sustain any muster.
With all due respect, please do attempt to explain how the cave-dwellers in Afghanistan cooked up this stuff like it is some type of crude IED, or how they got access to the WTC towers over several months to install tons of seriously mislabeled "flame retardant".
Namaste
bill - read your own post and then ponificate on outlandish conspiracy theories
as you say, and we now know, cheney - not bush - was working behind the scenes to create his own version of how the government should be run
lizard does as lizards do
there were no 19 saudi boys
none of them can be placed on any of the airplanes - despite what you "think" you know
none of these flights were on the ntsb database
there was no plane in pennsyvania
no plane at the pentagon
no planes in nyc on 9/11
one of the myths of 9/11 is that people on the ground saw these planes fly into the wtc towers 1 and 2
where are these witnesses
there are none
none of these patsies framed for the highjacking that never took place could fly a plane
two planes cannot knock down 7 steel framed skyscrapers, never mind turn them into dust
you say: "The game plan was to bust the evil doers on the tarmac before any of the planes even took off" - how do you know this
you don't know this do you
you might believe it to be true - but you can't know this
what we do know is this: 9/11 was the basis for the right wing war of aggression on the muslim world and its aim is to secure the oil and gas of the region and the ground for transport thereof - in pipleines
the truth movement has made a solid and unshakeable case for explosives - especially the nano-thermite noted above - but dr judy wood has also made a strong case for the usage of directed energy weapons (dew weapons)
either way - an investigation is called for
you start of your post by saying: "Rather than jumping in with both feet or even tiptoeing into the mine field of 9/11 as an "inside job" - and therefore the most outrageous mass murder of ordinary civilians in American history "
you are wrong there too
the "the most outrageous mass murder of ordinary civilians in American history " took place when we slaughtered 8 or 9 million first nation during our sack and pillage of this country
unless you want to make the case that the inhabitants - for 10 thousand years - of the continent were not - in fact - citizens
if that is the case you ought to be working for zion disparaging the existence of the palestinian peoples
bill - i am going to ask you to be a man and admit you are wrong
simple as that
Sioux Rose
BILL, I am with you for the first 4 paragraphs, and then there is this pesky device in your conscience that won't let you step across the line to understand how the dark side works. You left out Sybil Edmonds, one of the translators who smelled a rat and was fired when she brought up the inconsistencies.
What if the FBI was marginalized because with the CIA answering to the likes of Cheney (known to go there and intimidate) they could fix intelligence around their true motivating cause: the invasion of Iraq. Note the Mercurial ease with which Tenet (so untrue to his name as he has none) twisted info to suit his masters.
I was just thinking about this last night when I took my therapeutic drive through a wood-lined sanctuary to dine on Cedar Key, that how was it that the many intelligent minds that post in this forum witness some of the same data and still draw such opposed conclusions. The answer is that we see through the prism of what we are, and the more our personal experience expands, the greater our vision becomes. Many just will not entertain the possibility that their leaders, quick to consign others by the thousands to death, quick to allocate money for horrific weapons while taking it away from programs that fund the needy, quick to limit medical access to returning GIS, would somehow draw their line at protecting the civilian/domestic population. Alas, when one gets practiced at this thing, this art (to them) of collateral damage, it ALL becomes just inert numbers. The souls of these powerbrokers have long gone missing.
Exactly. Well put, Rose. PNAC needed a Pearl Harbor event in their own words from the 1998 document that Cheney, Rumsfield, Pearle, Wolfowitz, etc. signed. Catching a bunch of would be hijackers on the tarmac was NEVER the plan because it would not shock the public. Perhaps they had some planners with a conscience in the loop who were told this only to be warned to keep their mouth shut after the event occured.
AGG, the specific individual who authored the sentence re the need for a new Pearl Harbor in the PNAC report was ALSO on the 9-11 truth commission.
Bill,
"Same historical facts. Same sequence of events. Slightly different explanation..."
Read “Collateral Damage” by E. P Heidner, part I and II.
>>> www.scribd.com/people/documents/2169400-ep-heidner <<<
It IS gut wrenching.
Rose (below) put it well: “Alas, when one gets practiced at this thing, this art (to them) of collateral damage, it ALL becomes just inert numbers.”
Implications of even the most undeniable analysis are simply too horrific for many people to accept.
Truth might become too threatening.
Our BELIEF...TOO BIG TO FAIL.
The next time any Bushite spews this putative line, all need be said is this, "9/11 & the bungled response to Katrina happened on your watch." Expect tortured stammering in response.
Don't forget the Anthrax.
Oh, I forgot that Anthrax did not happen and I just imagined it. The party line is that we have not been attacked since 9/11.
Opps, I forgot about that fiasco. Its' good ammunition if you wish to use the classic three supports for a thesis argumentation method.
"Difficile est saturam non scribere." Juvenal
"But surely it is a measure of this society's profoundly pathetic and unyielding political immaturity that these lunatics can still get away with lauding the former president with the monumental claim for keeping the country safe, when in fact he did the exact opposite. What kind of a country is it where so manifestly absurd and oxymoronic a lie goes unchallenged?"
Answer: A country in which the mainstream print and electronic media fail to independently challenge revisionist history while it is being authored before their very eyes, and justify that editorial decision by pointing out that the loyal opposition political party's leadership itself never tried to affix any sort of political accountability upon the Bush administration for its negligence related to 9/11.
It remains my firm belief that in the very immediate aftermath of the attacks upon the WTC and the Pentagon, there was a very high level gentlemens' handshake agreement between the Bushies and the Democrats not to play a partisan "blame game" during the nation's traumatic ordeal.
The DC beltway Democrats, almost without exception, upheld their part of that grand bargain, joining hands with the Republicans to sing "God Bless America", condemn the brown skinned jihadi evil doers, wave the flag, enact the Patriot Act, invade first Afghanistan and then Iraq, and even ban reference to French fries. The right wing of the GOP reaped the benefits for seven full years, and then promptly double crossed the Democrats right after being resoundingly turned out of office by the citizenry in the 2008 election.
Whether the gentlemens' agreement to forego demagoguery (or accountability) over the fact that the nation's military command headquarters was successfully attacked in broad daylight while southern Manhattan was already ablaze was a wise or unwise bipartisan tradeoff is not really the issue: if the Dems had pointed fingers at Bush, Rove and the Bushies' intelligence establishment cronies would have just pointed the finger back at Bill Clinton. It would have been an ugly food fight. All of the politicians were terrified how the unpredictable electorate might ultimately react. Better therefore to play it safe and play nice.
To me, what is important is to recognize that, yet again, the DC leadership of the Democratic Party got successfully played big time as parliamentary suckers by the spinmeisters striving to salvage George W. Bush's presidential legacy. It is blatant, embarassing, but also apparently largely succeeding, because so many of those in public office and in the mainstream US media who were complicit in the original historical process would simply rather not talk about it, much less actually revisit the painful real events leading up to 9/11 which still remain classified and hidden from the public.
Bill from Saginaw
Unassailable fact: 9/11 has never been adequately investigated. Even one of the 9/11 commission chairmen said so. Bush/Cheney tried to thwart an investigation and, when the "jersey girls" (one of whom has already died in a plane crash(?), raised a clamor that made it impossible to avoid, Bush/Cheney hamstrung it. Precedent? The Warren Commission... Read "Family of Secrets" by Russ Baker & see how laughably lame THAT coverup was. Question for CD readers; what does YOUR congressman say about having a real inquiry?? Call 1-800-828=0498, capital switchboard, and ask for your rep. It's free!
Unassailable fact: 9/11 has never been adequately investigated. Even one of the 9/11 commission chairmen said so. Bush/Cheney tried to thwart an investigation and, when the "jersey girls" (one of whom has already died in a plane crash(?), raised a clamor that made it impossible to avoid, Bush/Cheney hamstrung it. Precedent? The Warren Commission... Read "Family of Secrets" by Russ Baker & see how laughably lame THAT coverup was. Question for CD readers; what does YOUR congressman say about having a real inquiry?? Call 1-800-828=0498, capital switchboard, and ask for your rep. It's free!
I for one don't believe that this gang who couldn't shoot straight was actually in on the planning or actual execution of 9-11. I think that would require far too much capability to DO something for them. But I do believe they knew it was coming, and I think they knew WHEN it was coming. I think they stood out of the way and kept everyone else from ruining their chance for a "new Pearl Harbor type incident". They and their handlers, the PNAC, had been looking for just such a thing to happen and had even SAID they wanted it since 1997. Is it any surprise that it DID happen on their watch?
For the regressives (a name they have truly earned) to keep on saying that W "kept us safe" is the height of delusion. The fact is that they GOT us attacked by ignoring every warning they got in the previous 9 months. What is also telling is that these same people will blame Clinton for everything under the sun, even though HE "kept us safe" for longer than W did, as the first World Trade Center bombing took place 6 WEEKS into his presidency, not 9 MONTHS into it, and we didn't get attacked after that until W took over.
The fact is that W and his cabal FAILED. They not only failed, but they destroyed everything this country stood for ever since. And now we have Cheney going around ADMITTING that they lied, admitting that they tortured, admitting that they did everything that we know they did, and not one thing is being done about it. They acted out of complete cowardice and no one is willing to hold them accountable for a GD thing. That is the biggest disappointment that I have with the current administration. They should be turning everything over to the Justice Department and saying "Run with it". But of course, we don't have JUSTICE in this country anymore, just retribution for you and I for smoking a joint, while those who kill off the country get away with everything.
We must DEMAND that these people pay a price for their crimes, just like WE do. They MUST do jail time, they MUST be held accountable. The more that one group gets away with things, the more the next and the next will get away with, using that first one as an excuse. We should have prosecuted those in the Nixon administration for their crimes, but we didn't, and the SAME people came back and did even worse to us this time. Rummy, Cheney, and several others are the SAME people who gave us Watergate, and now they have given us Iraq and 9-11. Without accountability, how much worse will the NEXT ones be?
"The fact is that they GOT us attacked by ignoring every warning they got in the previous 9 months."
The USA got itself attacked via general imperialist policies in the Mideast through the past 70 years for the benefit of petro/military profiteers and zionists who control it. The petro-profiteers wiped out rail transport in the USA in order to multiply petro-consumption by a factor of ten along with steel, rubber and other materials. USans were encouraged to consume, not think. To sustain the rackets after the domestic petro-sources were tapped, the military was called up to enforce petro-extraction from the Mideast along with enhanced patronizing of Mideast royalty and puppet installations otherwise. These violations of sovereignty inflamed Islamic radicalism, and led to the imperial blowback of 9/11. The profiteers realized their payback for their mecca/medina military bases had arrived - a jackpot, so they massively upped the ante in Iraq/Afghanistan, hoping to create in this next decade a battlefield out of the entire Mideast, especially Iran.
Re WJM June 2nd, 2009 12:11 pm
ae911truth.org
These people know whereof they speak, and they don't say any more than they can demonstrate. They don't speculate as to who or why, they simply prove that the official story is impossible.
And, no, I'm not referring to the fact that regressives seem to be congenital liars, or that, because they themselves are so existentially frightened, they understand instinctively just how the politics of fear work.
Thank you for that. It bears repetition as often as possible for it is the very foundation of thought and politics on the far right.
Thanks, guys, I know all about the arguments that these scumbags were in on it, but I don't give them that much credit. I think they knew an attack was coming, and they just sat back and waited for it. I don't doubt that they did everything they could to make sure that it got done with as little interference as possible, but I don't think they had to plan it themselves. I don't believe in their competence that much.
But, in reality, that does make them guilty before, during and after the act, and so if anyone should be held accountable, it is them. And the PNAC declaration that they WANTED such a thing to occur is pretty damning as well. They, I am sure, made it possible for the worst to happen, and kept any protection from occurring for the American people. Their incessant harping on it and continued use of it for political ends also makes me aware that they want to keep everyone as afraid as possible for as long as possible. It's a lot easier to run roughshod over those who are afraid.
They might have been in on it, I don't deny that. I think it's obvious that they let it happen, and they made as much political hay out of it as they could. For the last reason alone they should swing from a gallows.
And NEVER allow any statement of "they kept us safe" to go unanswered with a "but they let us get attacked in the first place". And a little reminder of the anthrax attacks (which just coincidentally targeted ONLY democrats) would also be in order. And never let anyone forget that the worst attacks came from those very traitors who stole our rights under the very guise of "keeping us safe". Keeping THEM in power is more the reason.
I wonder if you may have fallen into the mind trap of thinking that Bush and crew were incompetent?
On the surface level some progressives think that Bush was the most incompetent president the US has ever had... well, he certainly was for We the People... but, his presidency was a HUGE SUCCESS for the corporations and the ruling class.
The Bush crew was competent and very successful at advancing their agenda - neo-conservatism.
how did this thread turn into a truther-fest?
anyway, thanks again d.m.g., for another article on how evil/stupid bush was, w/o noting the continuity b/n clinton, bush, and obama, or noting that most of what bush did obama is defending, continuing, or expanding. failing to note that bushites aren't any dumber than obamatards.
forget 9/11 truth. what we think we know we don't know, and, at this moment, we can't know.
start a truther movement about the democratic party.
(and isn't it the least bit suspect that two people w/the most prominent roles to play in defending the country from terrorists, clarke & tenet, claim they were both soldiering on doing their jobs but the bush goons weren't interested? i'd take that narrative w/a big grain of salt. again, who knows? but why take at face value the words of these consummate insiders of the MIC? CYA, d.m.g.?)
"how did this thread turn into a truther-fest?"
because *every* thread gets turned into one. it's sort of like how the right turns every thread into an abortion screed. and we all know where that lead.
the irony of all this is, as a former military intelligence guy (yes, I know, oxymoron, ha ha), even if the data on explosives in the building debris and dust is true, there are perfectly pedestrian explanations for its presence, as well as why 7 might have had a little help in coming down.
but that wouldn't be very dramatic and would have depriced a whole bunch of people of a great hobby for so many years.
the tragedy is that we'll probably never get a decent investigation now, for the same reason you really can't get one with kennedy: the very people you aim to placate are no longer within reach of any conclusion other than their own.
S K I P,
So you say "perfectly pedestrian explanations" for active ( still unexploded ) nano thermite high explosives in the WTC dusts -- that even today -- are more explosive than dynamite.
START WALKING pedestrian DUDE, go ahead explain away !
Give it to me, I'm sure my feet can handle it
( ¿ that's about par for your "reach" right ? )
Or with all due respect, is your name somehow about your logical processes ?
Skip_Townes June 2nd, 2009 5:12 pm....May I nrefer to the NYC CAN effort...
http://www.flybynews.com/cgi-local/newspro/viewnews.cgi?newsid1014738186,11057,
Incidentally, what are the "pedestrian explanations" for the presence of unexploded nano particles of thermite in the residual dust...just curious? As a former military intelligence guy, maybe you know something that Ricard Cage has missed in this short interview.........
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oO2yT0uBQbM
Fair enough, guys. I'll bite, even though I'm sure I'll regret.
Before I start, let me say that I'm granting the explosive residue for the purposes of discussion only. I'm not saying it's true or not true. Here's my best take on this from my own experience in working in a highly classified environment.
Most facilities that possess top secret material also contain within them actual detonatiable ordnance designed to obliterate the sensitive materials in the facility. For example, if one worked in the G2 vault in Berlin, one would have had a couple of footlockers of phosphorus explosives designed to obliterate classified paperwork. Now in a TS facility that has possession of highly sensitive hardware systems, the explosives could come in the form of military grade c-4 or thermite explosives.
Now, as we all know, the official investigation wasn't so hot, but some of operations ongoing in those buildings--especially in 7--were of a nature as to not get released ina public report anyway. So what I'm saying here is essentially informed speculation, since I never worked *those* buildings, only in similar facilities operated by similar clients. Make sense? I hope so.
When I heard about how 7 dropped down--thought it was severely fire damaged bu there was no aircraft that hit it--my first reaction literally was "they pulled the plug". In short, it may very well have been a controlled explosion designed to bring down the building after an evacuation, which probably would have been standard procedure given some of the clients in there and the fact that there could be no organized retrieval of sensitive equipment and or data. This is a fact. Now, while most people were looking for survivors, I guarantee you there was a small coterie of individuals sifting through that rubble looking for *stuff*, to make sure it was either retrieved or thoroughly destroyed.
It's the same land-based principle as scuttling a ship, and that shouldn't be too hard a concept for you guys to get since most people know what that means, right? I think that's the best explanation IF it's true that explosives went off or were placed in foundational areas or internal vault areas. And I say this because I've worked in more than a few of them.
I'll be blunt: I'm like most people. I didn't like the investigation, I thought it was political theater and the embarassment level so high that the point of it was to mea culpa to a few obvious things while getting the establishment leadership out from under a hell of a cloud.
But that's not the same thing as proof of a conspiracy, and to this day, not a SINGLE piece of evidence to conspiracy has been uncovered. Not ONE. Not a leaked memo, not a turncoat operative involved, nor any such thing. And I'm telling you guys, if Guanatanamo and Abu Graib leaked out--both on foreign soil, away from prying domestic eyes--there is NO way that an operation of this sort, given the level of heinousness involved--would not have produced a leak somewhere.
I think you guys underestimate the gravity of your claim in some ways. I figure if they were smart enough and good enough to pull off this inside job, then they were surely smart enough and good enough to realize that they could get what they wanted without ever having to resort to this, which is almost inarguably true (since that's precisely what happened).
Skip Townes
What you neglect to mention is that it is not so much up to the 9/11 Truth Movement to prove its case as it is for the Bush administration to prove that Osama bin Laden was behind those terrorist attacks. How do you account for the fact that at least six of the hijackers were found to be alive by the BBC? Why is bin Laden not on the FBI's Most Wanted List in connection with what had transpired on 9/11? Why did Bush sit immobilized in that Florida classroom when he was told that a second plane had hit the WTC? Just as egregiously, why did the Secret Service not whisk Bush away to a secure location in order to protect the president instead of leaving him in that Florida elementary classroom?
How did 19 [alleged] crazy Arabs from the Middle East manage to overpower not only the flight crews but also the passengers on four airplanes, not with Uzi sub machine guns or pistols or machetes or blowtorches but with, of all things, box cutters? How was a runaway plane able to penetrate the most heavily guarded building on the planet, i.e. the Pentagon, in a country with the most sophisticated defense systems of any country in the world? Why did a surface-to-air missile not bring down that plane [or missile]? Why were the remains of the WTC Towers sent to India or China when they should have been left there so they could have been studied as being part of a crime scene?
These are all extremely valid questions which deserve to be answered by an open and honest investigative body and which was certainly not done by the Kane-Zelikow Commission.
blah blah
I tried to treat you to some modicum of respect, but that was apparently too much, you arrogant chimp.
Reread your list you tin-hat termite. I repeat--NOT ONE frigging piece of evidence directs to conspiracy, and that's IF I grant you everything on that list.
It could be the conspiracy is to cover up for negligence, could it not? Of course it could. It could be a conspiracy to turn a terror attack into the world's biggest diversionary movement. It COULD be anything. You guys remind me of that show In Search Of...All I hear is Nimoy's speculative voice-over...."Could it be...?" Well, yes, Spock, it *could* be.
A conspiracy is about a a conscious decision to orchestrate an attack on domestic territory. None of these things prove them.
So, yeah, there were tons of explosives planted on all floors of a skyscraper and nobody ever friggging noticed. Nope, nothing to see here, move right along.
YOU GUYS HAVE JACK SHIT! But what you do have is one of the biggest, most successful diversionary effects in the history of politics.
What saddens me most is that clearly a better investigation needed to happen. It's just unlikely now, and you guys are the reason. I mean really, if this is representative of your "movement" and the best it can do, what person isn't going to say "why bother? you think they'll believe anything anyone says?" And they'll have a point. Meanwhile, all the nasty things we *know* are true or have a higher probability of being true continue to sail by.
"You're so busted.." Idiot.
Perfectly pedestrian explanations are also available for why a mule gets hit by a two by four (to get its' attention). Is that what it's going to take to get yours? When inflation turns your pension into shit, maybe you will wake up. Then again, a perfectly pedestrian explanation is available for why the CPI doesn't move much and your buying power is shot, RIGHT?
I liked that SNL skit with Ann Coulter defending the reponse to Katrina with "But we don't know how many hurricanes he prevented!"
Anyway, this article sums up many conversations I've had recently. It's frustrating, they seem to have some kind of mental block.
On the other hand I heard a story on the radio this morning about the East India company and it was all about how horrible corporations are (which is true) but without even mentioning how government intervention is the real enabler of the corporations' wrongness and how this history is relevant to Obama policies. Never even came up at all???? How can Progressives not see that big govt creates big corp monopolies which then help to build a military-industrial complex that leads to endless war for profit and how can "Regressives" unquestionly support presidents who are strong on defense. People just don't get it both the right and the left.
They kept us safe. The people who are falling for that lie are the ones that believe that the 9-11 attack was because "they hate our freedom". Al-Qaida threatened to destroy the U.S. economically.We as a country are suffering financially more now than we have since the great depression. Trillions of tax dollars wasted on two wars. The Iraq war we were told was necessary(when no WMD and no connection to 9-11 was proven)because the U.S. citizens could be protected if Bush Administration took the war over there to Iraq. Young American troops were sent to give the Al-Qaida terrorist a place to fight Americans where the collateral damage would be the Iraqi civilians who survived our shock and awe bombings.How dare Bush and Cheney think that was the way people in America wanted to be kept safe by hiding behind the skirts of an Iraqi woman or child? How dare they brag about such cowardice?
I love how the Bush Administration says they kept us safe from terrorists during Bush's 8-year reign! Umm, HELLO!?!? What about 9/11? Oh yeah, they kept us safe apart from that little incident. Who else in real life is allowed to have that kind of twisted logic? It's like saying, "Yeah, I killed someone 10 years ago but I haven't done anything since, so I shouldn't have to go to prison." Whatever. When are we going deport these wankers to the International Crimes Court in The Hague? WHEN?????
"Even as Barack Obama endears himself to America by returning the careening, hurtling eighteen wheeler to the middle-of-the-road "
Yes, Mr. Green, I'm not sure if you are "reading your history book upside down" but given your view of Obama, your newspaper internet connection, or TV is definitely upside down.
"only one president experienced a major foreign terrorist attack on his watch over the two and a quarter centuries the United States has existed."
Of course, this excludes terrorism that is purely state sponsored like Israel's bombing of the USS Liberty, as well as "minor" (is this what he means? I guess that's fair) attacks like the USS Cole, World trade Center 93, and the African embassies etc...
"Clinton was far more serious about combating terrorism than his successor was."
Right, like when he combated terrorism by blowing up the largest pharmaceutical factory in Khartoum. Which was in fact a principal source of Sudan's anti-malaria and veterinary drugs.
(Wiki)
"Noam Chomsky has argued that the bombing of Al-Shifa was a horrendous crime committed by the United States Government that probably resulted in the deaths of several hundreds of thousands of Sudanese people from treatable diseases such as malaria and tuberculosis because they were deprived of medicines manufactured at the plant. "Insofar as such consequences ensued, we may compare the crime in Sudan to the assassination of Lumumba, which helped plunge the Congo into decades of slaughter, still continuing, or the overthrow of the democratic government of Guatemala in 1954, which led to 40 years of hideous atrocities; and all too many others like it."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Shifa_pharmaceutical_factory