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Impeach George Bush
The Bush 9/11 Scandal for Dummies
It's all so confusing, boil it down for us!
Source: Bernard Weiner, 2002-07-01
Candidate: President George Bush
Don't know about you, but all this who-knew-what-when pre-9/11 stuff is mighty confusing. So once again, I head to that all-purpose reference series for some comprehensible answers.
Q. I've heard all these reports about the government knowing weeks and months in advance of 9/11 that airliners were going to be hijacked and flown into buildings, and yet the Bush Administration apparently did nothing and denied they did anything wrong. They claimed the fault lay in the intelligence agencies "not connecting the dots," or that it was the "FBI culture" that failed. Can you explain?
A. Most of the "it's-the-fault-of-the-system" spin is designed to deflect attention from the real situation. Bush and his spokesmen may well be correct in saying they had no idea as to the specifics -- they may not have known the exact details of the attacks -- but it is more and more apparent that they knew a great deal more than they're letting on, including the possible targets.
Q. You're not just going leave that hanging out there, are you? Just bash Bush with no evidence to back it up?
A. There's no need to bash anybody. There is more than enough documentation to establish that the Bush Administration was fully aware that a major attack was coming from Al-Qaeda, by air, aimed at symbolic structures on the U.S. mainland, and that among mentioned targets were the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, the White House, the Congress, Statue of Liberty. (According to Richard Clarke, the White House's National Coordinator for Anti-Terrorism, the intelligence community was convinced ten weeks before 9/11 that an Al-Qaeda attack on U.S. soil was imminent.)
Q. If they knew in advance that the, or at least an, attack was coming, why did the Bush Administration do nothing to prepare the country in advance: get photos of suspected terrorists out to airlines, have fighter jets put on emergency-standby status or even in the air as deterrents, get word out to the border police to stop these "watch-list" terrorists, put surface-to-air missiles around the White House and Pentagon, etc.?
A. The explanation preferred by the government is to admit, eight months late, to absolute and horrendous incompetence, up and down the line (although Bush&Co., surprise!, prefer to focus the blame lower down, letting the FBI be the fall guy). But let's try an alternate explanation. Think about it for a moment. If their key goal was to mobilize the country behind the Bush Administration, get their political/business agenda through, have a reason to move unilaterally around the globe, and defang the Democrats and other critics at home -- what better way to do all that than to have Bush be the take-charge leader after a diabolic "sneak attack"?
Q. You're suggesting the ultimate cynical stratagem, purely for political ends. I can't believe that Bush and his cronies are that venal. Isn't it possible that the whole intelligence apparatus just blew it?
A. Possible, but not bloody likely. There certainly is enough blame to spread around, but the evidence indicates that Bush and his closest aides knew that bin Laden was planning a direct attack on the U.S. Mainland -- using airplanes headed for those icon targets -- and, in order to get the country to move in the direction he wanted, he kept silent.
Q. But if that's true, what you've described is utterly indefensible, putting policy ahead of American citizens' lives.
A. Now are you beginning to understand why Bush&Co. are fighting so tenaciously against a blue-ribbon commission of inquiry, and why Bush and Cheney went to Congressional leaders and asked them not to investigate the pre-9/11 period? Now do you understand why they are trying so desperately to keep everything secret, tightly locked up in the White House, only letting drips and drabs get out when there is no other way to avoid Congressional subpoenas or court-ordered disclosure? They know that if one thread of the cover-up unravels, more of their darkest secrets will follow.
Q. You're sounding like a conspiracy nut.
A. For years, we've avoided thinking in those terms, because so many so-called "conspiracies" exist only in someone's fevered imagination. Plus, to think along these lines in this case is depressing, suggesting that American democracy can be so easily manipulated and distorted by a cabal of the greedy and power-hungry. But I'm afraid that's where the evidence leads.
Q. You mean there's proof of Bush complicity in 9/11 locked up in the White House?
A. We wouldn't use the term complicity. So far as we now know, Bush did not order or otherwise arrange for Al-Qaeda's attacks on September 11. But once the attacks happened, the plans Bush&Co. already had drawn up for taking advantage of the tragedy were implemented. A frightened, terrorist-obsessed nation did not realize they'd been the object of another assault, this time by those occupying the White House.
Q. This is startling, and revolting. But I refuse to jump on the conspiracy bandwagon until I see some proof. Bush says he first heard about a "lone" pre-9/11 warning on August 6, and that it was vague and dealt with possible attacks outside the U.S. Why can't we believe him? After all, the FBI and CIA are notorious for their incompetence and bungling. You got a better version that makes sense, I'd love to hear it.
A. Bush and his spinners want us to concentrate on who knew what detail when; it's the old magician's trick of getting you to look elsewhere while he's doing his prestidigitation. We're not talking about a little clue here and another little clue there, or an FBI memo that wasn't shared. We're talking about long-range planning and analysis of what strategic-intelligence agencies and high-level commissions and geopolitical thinkers around the globe -- including those inside the U.S. -- saw for years before 9/11 as likely scenarios in an age of terrorist attacks.
The conclusion about Al-Qaeda, stated again and again for years by government analysts, was basically: "They're coming, by air. Get prepared. They're well-organized, determined, and technically adept. And they want to hit big targets, well-known symbols of America." (There was a 1999 U.S. government study, for example, that pointed out that Al-Qaeda suicide-bombers wanted to crash aircraft into a number of significant Washington targets; during the 199 5 trial of Ramsi Yousef, the mastermind of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, he revealed plans to dive-bomb a plane into CIA headquarters, and earlier he had told FBI agents that the list was expanded to include the Pentagon and other D.C. targets.)
Elements in the FBI, all over the country, who suspected what was coming, were clamoring, begging, for more agents to be used for counter-terrorism investigations, but were turned down by Attorney General Ashcroft; Ashcroft also gave counter-terrorism short shrift in his budget plans, not even placing anti-terrorism on his priority list; John O'Neill, the FBI's NYC antiterrorism director, resigned, asserting that his attempts at full-scale investigating were being thwarted by higher-ups; someone in the FBI, perhaps on orders of someone higher-up, made sure that the local FBI investigation in Minneapolis of Zacaria Moussauoi was compromised. All this while Ashcroft was shredding the Constitution in his martial law-like desire to amass information, and continues even now to further expand his police-state powers.
(Note: An FBI agent has filed official complaints over the bureau's interfering with antiterrorism investigations; his lawyers include David Schippers, who worked for the GOP side in the Clinton impeachment effort; Schippers says the agent knew in May 2001 that "an attack on lower Manhattan was imminent." A former FBI official said: "I don't buy the idea that we didn't know what was coming...Within 24 hours [of the attack], the Bureau had about 20 people identified, and photos were sent out to the news media. Obviously this information was available in the files and someone was sitting on it.")
One can accept the usual incompetency in intelligence collection and analysis from, say, an anti-terrorist desk officer at the FBI, but not from the highest levels of national defense and intelligence in and around the President, where his spokesman, in a bald-faced lie, told the world that the 9/11 attacks came with "no warning." More recently, National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice, in a quavering voice, tried to characterize the many warnings as mere "chatter," and concerned attacks "outside the U.S." But the many warning-reports focused on terrorist attacks both inside and outside the United States; the August 6th briefing dealt with planned attacks IN the United States.
Not only were there clear warnings from allies abroad, but the U.S., through its ECHELON and other electronic-intercept programs, may well have broken bin Laden's encryption code; for example, the U.S. knew that he told his mother on September 9: "In two days you're going to hear big news, and you're not going to hear from me for a while".
And, the word of an impending attack was getting out: put options (hedges that a stock's price is going to fall) in enormous quantities were being bought on United Airlines and American Airlines stock, the two carriers of the hijackers, as early as September 7; San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown was warned by "an airport security man" on September 10 to rethink his flight to New York for the next day; Newsweek reported that on September 10, "a group of top Pentagon officials suddenly canceled travel plans for the next morning, apparently because of security concerns"; many members of a Bronx mosque were also warned to stay out of lower Manhattan on September 11, etc. etc.
One can accept the usual incompetency in intelligence collection and analysis from, say, an anti-terrorist desk officer at the FBI, but not from the highest levels of national defense and intelligence in and around the President, where his spokesman, in a bald-faced lie, told the world that the 9/11 attacks came with "no warning." More recently, National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice, in a quavering voice, tried to characterize the many warnings as mere "chatter," and concerned attacks "outside the U.S." But the many warning-reports focused on terrorist attacks both inside and outside the United States; the August 6th briefing dealt with planned attacks IN the United States.
Not only were there clear warnings from allies abroad, but the U.S., through its ECHELON and other electronic-intercept programs, may well have broken bin Laden's encryption code; for example, the U.S. knew that he told his mother on September 9: "In two days you're going to hear big news, and you're not going to hear from me for a while".
And, the word of an impending attack was getting out: put options (hedges that a stock's price is going to fall) in enormous quantities were being bought on United Airlines and American Airlines stock, the two carriers of the hijackers, as early as September 7; San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown was warned by "an airport security man" on September 10 to rethink his flight to New York for the next day; Newsweek reported that on September 10, "a group of top Pentagon officials suddenly canceled travel plans for the next morning, apparently because of security concerns"; many members of a Bronx mosque were also warned to stay out of lower Manhattan on September 11, etc. etc.
Q. You're giving me intriguing bits and pieces. Can't you tie it all together and make it make sense?
A. OK, you asked for it, so we're going to provide you with a kind of shorthand scenario of what may well have gone down, a kind of narrative that attempts to tie a lot of disparate-seeming events together. There is voluminous, multi-sourced evidence that establishes this scenario. It's scary, so prepare yourself.
We believe that the HardRight began serious planning for a 2000 electoral victory -- and then implementation of a HardRight agenda, and the destruction of a liberal opposition -- a year or two after Clinton's 1996 victory. (The impeachment of Clinton was a key ingredient to sully Democrat opposition.) The GOP HardRight leaders decided early to select George W. Bush, a none-too-bright and easily malleable young man with the right name and pedigree. They ran into a speed-bump when John McCain began to take off in the public imagination, and so with dirty tricks they wrecked his campaign in the South and elsewhere, and continued on their merry course.
For a while, they fully expected an easy victory over dull Al Gore, tainted goods for a lot of conservative Republicans and others because of his association with Clinton, but, given the obvious limitations of their candidate, they weren't going to take a lot of chances. In Florida, for example, where it looked as if the race might be tight, they early on arranged things -- through Bush's governor-brother Jeb, and the Bush campaign's Katherine Harris, Florida's Secretary of State -- so that George W. couldn't lose. An example: removing tens of thousands of eligible African-American voters from the rolls.
As it turned out, Gore won the popular vote by more than a half-million votes nationwide, and, we now know, would have won Florida's popular vote had all the ballots been counted, but the U.S. Supreme Court HardRight majority, despite its longtime support for states' rights, in a bit of ethical contortionism did a philosophical reverse in midair and ordered the Florida vote-counting to stop and declared Bush the winner, installing a President rather than letting the people decide for themselves.
Q. That's ancient history. I'm interested in 9/11, not tearing at an old scab.
A. OK. We're merely trying to indicate that the HardRight's campaign to take power was not an overnight, post-9/11 whim but worked out long in advance. After so many near-chances to take total control, they would do anything to guarantee a presidential victory this time around -- which would give them full control over the reins of power: Legislature (where HardRightists dominated the House and Senate), the Courts (where the HardRight dominated the U.S. Supreme Court and many appellate courts), and the Executive branch, not to mention the HardRight media control they exerted in so many areas.
They had followed the news, they knew that the Al-Qaeda terrorist network was engaged in a maniacal jihad against America, and was quite capable -- as they had demonstrated on many occasions, from Saudia Arabia to East Africa to the first attempt on the World Trade Center -- of carrying out their threats. They also knew, from innumerable intelligence reports from telecommunications intercepts, and from various commissions, CIA and foreign agents that Al-Qaeda liked to blow up symbolic icon structures of countries targeted, and that Al-Qaeda, and its affiliates, had an affinity for trying to use airplanes as psychological or actual weapons. (The French had foiled one such attack in 1994, where a hijacked commercial airliner would be flown into the Eiffel Tower.)
By early 2001 and into the Summer, warnings were pouring in to U.S. intelligence and military agencies from Jordan, Morocco, Egypt, Tunisia, Israel, and other Middle East and South Asian intelligence sources, along with Russia and Britain and the Philippines, saying that a major attack on the U.S. Mainland was in the works, involving the use of airplanes as weapons of mass destruction.
Indeed, in June and July of 2001, the alerts started to be explicit that air attacks were about to go down in the U.S.; even local FBI offices in Phoenix and Minneapolis began passing warnings up the line about Middle Eastern men acting suspiciously at flight schools. In July, Ashcroft stopped flying on commercial airliners and traveled only by private plane, and Bush, after but a few months in office, announced he was going to ground, spending the month of August on his ranch in Crawford, Texas. Cheney disappeared from view, and our guess is that he was coordinating the overall, post-attack strategy.
Under this scenario, in mid-Summer 2001, Bush&Co. decided this was it. Bin Laden unknowingly was going to deliver them the gift of terrorism, and they were going to run with it as far and as fast and as hard as they could. The various post-attack scenarios had been worked out, the so-called USA Patriot Act -- which contained various police-state eviscerations of the Constitution -- was polished and prepared for a rush-job (with no hearings) through a post-attack Congress, the war plans against the Taliban in Afghanistan were readied and rolled out, the air-base countries around Afghanistan were brought onboard, and so on. All during the Summer of 2001.
Q. I don't understand how war against Afghanistan could have been anticipated so early.
A. Follow the money. Various oil/gas/energy companies had wanted a Central Asian pipeline to run through Afghanistan (costing much less to build, but also so it wouldn't have to go through Russia or Iran); that project was put on hold during the chaos in Afghanistan, but when the Taliban took over and brought stability to that country, the U.S. began negotiating with the Taliban about the pipeline deal. Even after sending them, via the United Nations, $43 million dollars for "poppy-seed eradication," and inviting them to talks in Texas, the Taliban began to balk. At a later meeting, the U.S. negotiator threatened them with an attack unless they handed over bin Laden and reportedly told them, in reference to the pipeline, that they could accept "a carpet of gold" or be buried in "a carpet of bombs." (The later U.S. Government spin was that the bin Laden issue and the pipeline issues were separate, and that the U.S. threats didn't mix the two and there were misunderstandings of what was said.) Shortly thereafter, bin Laden, hiding out in Afghanistan, initiated the September 11th attacks, and the U.S. bombing of that country began. Oh, by the way, in case you haven't noticed, under the new U.S.-friendly government in Kabul, the pipeline project is back on track. Oh, by the way, the pipeline will terminate reasonably close to the power plant in India built by Enron that has been lying dormant for years, waiting for cheap energy supplies.
Q. You're saying that U.S. war and foreign policy have been dictated by greed?
A. Among other pleasant motivations, such as hunger for domination and control, domestically and around the globe -- which always ties in with greed. That's why Bush&Co. play such political and military hardball. That's why the arrogant, take-no-prisoners, in-your-face attitude, to bully and frighten potential opponents into silence and acquiescence, even questioning their patriotism if they demur or raise embarrassing issues.
Q. But this is a democracy, people are still speaking their minds, right?
A. Certainly, there are areas of America's democratic republic that have not yet been shut down. But where there should be a vibrant opposition party, raising all sorts of questions about Bush Administration policy and plans, America receives mostly silence and timidity. However, as more and more of the ugly truth begins to emerge -- and Enron, Anthrax, and pre-9/11 knowledge are just the tips of the iceberg -- the Democrats (and moderate Republicans) are beginning to feel a bit more emboldened. But just a bit, preferring to run for cover whenever Bush&Co. accuse them of being unpatriotic when they raise pointed questions.
Q. You're so critical and negative about the Bush Administration. Can't you say anything good about what they're doing?
A. Yes. They have moved terrorism -- the new face of warfare in our time -- front and center into the world's consciousness, and have mobilized a global coalition against it. They may be making mistakes, which could lead to horrifying consequences, or acting at times out of impure motives, but at least the issue is out there and being debated and acted upon.
Now, having said that, we must point out that the institutions in this country -- the Constitution, the courts, the legislative bodies, civil liberties, the Bill of Rights, the press, etc. -- are in as much danger as they've ever been in. And the U.S.'s bullying attitude abroad may well lead to disastrous consequences for America down the line.
Q. So, what's to be done?
A. The most important thing at the moment -- even, or especially when, the inevitable next terrorist attack occurs -- is to break the illusion of Bush&Co. invulnerability. The best way to do that, aside from ratcheting up the Enron and Anthrax and 9/11 investigations (and it may turn out that those scandals are deeply intertwined), is to defeat GOP candidates in the upcoming November elections. If the Democrats hang on to the Senate and can take over the House, the dream of unchallengable HardRight power will be broken. Bush&Co. will become even more desperate, overt, nasty, and in their arrogance and bullying ways, will make more mistakes and alienate more citizens. The edifice will begin to crumble even more; there will be more and deeper Congressional and media investigations; resignations and/or impeachments (of both Bush & Cheney, and Ashcroft) may well follow.
Q. You're asking me to support ALL Democrats, even though in a particular race a moderate GOP conservative would be better?
A. Yes. In some cases, you may have to hold your nose and send money to, canvass for, and vote for a Democrat; we can get rid of the bad ones later. The objective right now -- for the future of the Constitution, and for the lives of our soldiers in uniform and civilians around the globe -- has to be to break the momentum of the HardRight by taking the House and keeping the Senate from returning to GOP control. Doing so would be even more important than what happened when that courageous senator from Vermont, Jim Jeffords, appalled by the HardRight nastiness and greed-agenda of the Bush folks, resigned from the GOP and turned the Senate agenda over to the Democrats.
Q. And you think if the GOP gets its nose bloodied in the November election, that will convince Bush to resign or lead to his impeachment? I don't get that.
A. Churchill once told the Brits during World War II that "this is not the beginning of the end, but it is the beginning of the beginning of the end." There is a lot of hard work and organizing and educating to be done, but the recent exposure of Bush coverup-lies about pre-9/11 knowledge is "the beginning of the beginning of the end." With a GOP defeat in November, Democrats will be emboldened to speak up more, investigate deeper, and those inquiries will unlock even more awful secrets of this greed-and-powerhungry administration. And that will be the beginning of the end -- and the beginning of the beginning of a new era of more humane values for America and the rest of the world.
Bernard Weiner, Ph.D., has taught American government & international relations at Western Washington University and San Diego State University; he was with the San Francisco Chronicle for nearly 20 years, and has published in The Nation, Village Voice, The Progressive, Northwest Passage and widely on the internet.
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User Originated Comments:
From: The Bush 9/11 Scandal for Dummies
2004-07-26 16:26:18
don't know about you, but all this
who-knew-what-when pre-9/11 stuff is mighty
confusing. so once again, i head to that
all-purpose reference series for some
comprehensible answers.
q. i've heard
all these reports about the government knowing
weeks and months in advance of 9/11 that airliners
were going to be hijacked and flown into
buildings, and yet the bush administration
apparently did nothing and denied they did
anything wrong. they claimed the fault lay in the
intelligence agencies "not connecting the dots,"
or that it was the "fbi culture" that failed. can
you explain?
a. most of the
"it's-the-fault-of-the-system" spin is designed to
deflect attention from the real situation. bush
and his spokesmen may well be correct in saying
they had no idea as to the specifics -- they may
not have known the exact details of the attacks --
but it is more and more apparent that they knew a
great deal more than they're letting on, including
the possible targets.
q. you're not just
going leave that hanging out there, are you? just
bash bush with no evidence to back it up?
a. there's no need to bash anybody.
there is more than enough documentation to
establish that the bush administration was fully
aware that a major attack was coming from
al-qaeda, by air, aimed at symbolic structures on
the u.s. mainland, and that among mentioned
targets were the world trade center, the pentagon,
the white house, the congress, statue of liberty.
(according to richard clarke, the white house's
national coordinator for anti-terrorism, the
intelligence community was convinced ten weeks
before 9/11 that an al-qaeda attack on u.s. soil
was imminent.)
q. if they knew in
advance that the, or at least an, attack was
coming, why did the bush administration do nothing
to prepare the country in advance: get photos of
suspected terrorists out to airlines, have fighter
jets put on emergency-standby status or even in
the air as deterrents, get word out to the border
police to stop these "watch-list" terrorists, put
surface-to-air missiles around the white house and
pentagon, etc.?
a. the explanation
preferred by the government is to admit, eight
months late, to absolute and horrendous
incompetence, up and down the line (although
bush&co., surprise!, prefer to focus the blame
lower down, letting the fbi be the fall guy). but
let's try an alternate explanation. think about it
for a moment. if their key goal was to mobilize
the country behind the bush administration, get
their political/business agenda through, have a
reason to move unilaterally around the globe, and
defang the democrats and other critics at home --
what better way to do all that than to have bush
be the take-charge leader after a diabolic "sneak
attack"?
q. you're suggesting the
ultimate cynical stratagem, purely for political
ends. i can't believe that bush and his cronies
are that venal. isn't it possible that the whole
intelligence apparatus just blew it?
a.
possible, but not bloody likely. there certainly
is enough blame to spread around, but the evidence
indicates that bush and his closest aides knew
that bin laden was planning a direct attack on the
u.s. mainland -- using airplanes headed for those
icon targets -- and, in order to get the country
to move in the direction he wanted, he kept
silent.
q. but if that's true, what
you've described is utterly indefensible, putting
policy ahead of american citizens' lives.
a. now are you beginning to understand
why bush&co. are fighting so tenaciously against a
blue-ribbon commission of inquiry, and why bush
and cheney went to congressional leaders and asked
them not to investigate the pre-9/11 period? now
do you understand why they are trying so
desperately to keep everything secret, tightly
locked up in the white house, only letting drips
and drabs get out when there is no other way to
avoid congressional subpoenas or court-ordered
disclosure? they know that if one thread of the
cover-up unravels, more of their darkest secrets
will follow.
q. you're sounding
like a conspiracy nut.
a. for years,
we've avoided thinking in those terms, because so
many so-called "conspiracies" exist only in
someone's fevered imagination. plus, to think
along these lines in this case is depressing,
suggesting that american democracy can be so
easily manipulated and distorted by a cabal of the
greedy and power-hungry. but i'm afraid that's
where the evidence leads.
q. you mean
there's proof of bush complicity in 9/11 locked up
in the white house?
a. we wouldn't use
the term complicity. so far as we now know, bush
did not order or otherwise arrange for al-qaeda's
attacks on september 11. but once the attacks
happened, the plans bush&co. already had drawn up
for taking advantage of the tragedy were
implemented. a frightened, terrorist-obsessed
nation did not realize they'd been the object of
another -ssault, this time by those occupying the
white house.
q. this is startling, and
revolting. but i refuse to jump on the conspiracy
bandwagon until i see some proof. bush says he
first heard about a "lone" pre-9/11 warning on
august 6, and that it was vague and dealt with
possible attacks outside the u.s. why can't we
believe him? after all, the fbi and cia are
notorious for their incompetence and bungling. you
got a better version that makes sense, i'd love to
hear it.
a. bush and his spinners want
us to concentrate on who knew what detail when;
it's the old magician's trick of getting you to
look elsewhere while he's doing his
prestidigitation. we're not talking about a little
clue here and another little clue there, or an fbi
memo that wasn't shared. we're talking about
long-range planning and analysis of what
strategic-intelligence agencies and high-level
commissions and geopolitical thinkers around the
globe -- including those inside the u.s. -- saw
for years before 9/11 as likely scenarios in an
age of terrorist attacks.
the conclusion
about al-qaeda, stated again and again for years
by government analysts, was basically: "they're
coming, by air. get prepared. they're
well-organized, determined, and technically adept.
and they want to hit big targets, well-known
symbols of america." (there was a 1999 u.s.
government study, for example, that pointed out
that al-qaeda suicide-bombers wanted to crash
aircraft into a number of significant washington
targets; during the 199 5 trial of ramsi yousef,
the mastermind of the 1993 world trade center
bombing, he revealed plans to dive-bomb a plane
into cia headquarters, and earlier he had told fbi
agents that the list was expanded to include the
pentagon and other d.c. targets.)
elements in the fbi, all over the
country, who suspected what was coming, were
clamoring, begging, for more agents to be used for
counter-terrorism investigations, but were turned
down by attorney general ashcroft; ashcroft also
gave counter-terrorism short shrift in his budget
plans, not even placing anti-terrorism on his
priority list; john o'neill, the fbi's nyc
antiterrorism director, resigned, -sserting that
his attempts at full-scale investigating were
being thwarted by higher-ups; someone in the fbi,
perhaps on orders of someone higher-up, made sure
that the local fbi investigation in minneapolis of
zacaria moussauoi was compromised. all this while
ashcroft was shredding the constitution in his
martial law-like desire to am-ss information, and
continues even now to further expand his
police-state powers.
(note: an fbi agent
has filed official complaints over the bureau's
interfering with antiterrorism investigations; his
lawyers include david schippers, who worked for
the gop side in the clinton impeachment effort;
schippers says the agent knew in may 2001 that "an
attack on lower manhattan was imminent." a former
fbi official said: "i don't buy the idea that we
didn't know what was coming...within 24 hours [of
the attack], the bureau had about 20 people
identified, and photos were sent out to the news
media. obviously this information was available in
the files and someone was sitting on it.")
one can accept the usual incompetency in
intelligence collection and analysis from, say, an
anti-terrorist desk officer at the fbi, but not
from the highest levels of national defense and
intelligence in and around the president, where
his spokesman, in a bald-faced lie, told the world
that the 9/11 attacks came with "no warning." more
recently, national security advisor condoleezza
rice, in a quavering voice, tried to characterize
the many warnings as mere "chatter," and concerned
attacks "outside the u.s." but the many
warning-reports focused on terrorist attacks both
inside and outside the united states; the august
6th briefing dealt with planned attacks in the
united states.
not only were there clear
warnings from allies abroad, but the u.s., through
its echelon and other electronic-intercept
programs, may well have broken bin laden's
encryption code; for example, the u.s. knew that
he told his mother on september 9: "in two days
you're going to hear big news, and you're not
going to hear from me for a while".
and,
the word of an impending attack was getting out:
put options (hedges that a stock's price is going
to fall) in enormous quantities were being bought
on united airlines and american airlines stock,
the two carriers of the hijackers, as early as
september 7; san francisco mayor willie brown was
warned by "an airport security man" on september
10 to rethink his flight to new york for the next
day; newsweek reported that on september 10, "a
group of top pentagon officials suddenly canceled
travel plans for the next morning, apparently
because of security concerns"; many members of a
bronx mosque were also warned to stay out of lower
manhattan on september 11, etc. etc.
one can accept the usual
incompetency in intelligence collection and
analysis from, say, an anti-terrorist desk officer
at the fbi, but not from the highest levels of
national defense and intelligence in and around
the president, where his spokesman, in a
bald-faced lie, told the world that the 9/11
attacks came with "no warning." more recently,
national security advisor condoleezza rice, in a
quavering voice, tried to characterize the many
warnings as mere "chatter," and concerned attacks
"outside the u.s." but the many warning-reports
focused on terrorist attacks both inside and
outside the united states; the august 6th briefing
dealt with planned attacks in the united states.
not only were there clear warnings from
allies abroad, but the u.s., through its echelon
and other electronic-intercept programs, may well
have broken bin laden's encryption code; for
example, the u.s. knew that he told his mother on
september 9: "in two days you're going to hear big
news, and you're not going to hear from me for a
while".
and, the word of an impending
attack was getting out: put options (hedges that a
stock's price is going to fall) in enormous
quantities were being bought on united airlines
and american airlines stock, the two carriers of
the hijackers, as early as september 7; san
francisco mayor willie brown was warned by "an
airport security man" on september 10 to rethink
his flight to new york for the next day; newsweek
reported that on september 10, "a group of top
pentagon officials suddenly canceled travel plans
for the next morning, apparently because of
security concerns"; many members of a bronx mosque
were also warned to stay out of lower manhattan on
september 11, etc. etc.
q. you're giving
me intriguing bits and pieces. can't you tie it
all together and make it make sense?
a.
ok, you asked for it, so we're going to provide
you with a kind of shorthand scenario of what may
well have gone down, a kind of narrative that
attempts to tie a lot of disparate-seeming events
together. there is voluminous, multi-sourced
evidence that establishes this scenario. it's
scary, so prepare yourself.
we believe
that the hardright began serious planning for a
2000 electoral victory -- and then implementation
of a hardright agenda, and the destruction of a
liberal opposition -- a year or two after
clinton's 1996 victory. (the impeachment of
clinton was a key ingredient to sully democrat
opposition.) the gop hardright leaders decided
early to select george w. bush, a none-too-bright
and easily malleable young man with the right name
and pedigree. they ran into a speed-bump when john
mccain began to take off in the public
imagination, and so with dirty tricks they wrecked
his campaign in the south and elsewhere, and
continued on their merry course.
for a
while, they fully expected an easy victory over
dull al gore, tainted goods for a lot of
conservative republicans and others because of his
-ssociation with clinton, but, given the obvious
limitations of their candidate, they weren't going
to take a lot of chances. in florida, for example,
where it looked as if the race might be tight,
they early on arranged things -- through bush's
governor-brother jeb, and the bush campaign's
katherine harris, florida's secretary of state --
so that george w. couldn't lose. an example:
removing tens of thousands of eligible
african-american voters from the rolls.
as it turned out, gore won the popular
vote by more than a half-million votes nationwide,
and, we now know, would have won florida's popular
vote had all the ballots been counted, but the
u.s. supreme court hardright majority, despite its
longtime support for states' rights, in a bit of
ethical contortionism did a philosophical reverse
in midair and ordered the florida vote-counting to
stop and declared bush the winner, installing a
president rather than letting the people decide
for themselves.
q. that's
ancient history. i'm interested in 9/11, not
tearing at an old scab.
a. ok. we're
merely trying to indicate that the hardright's
campaign to take power was not an overnight,
post-9/11 whim but worked out long in advance.
after so many near-chances to take total control,
they would do anything to guarantee a presidential
victory this time around -- which would give them
full control over the reins of power: legislature
(where hardrightists dominated the house and
senate), the courts (where the hardright dominated
the u.s. supreme court and many appellate courts),
and the executive branch, not to mention the
hardright media control they exerted in so many
areas.
they had followed the news, they
knew that the al-qaeda terrorist network was
engaged in a maniacal jihad against america, and
was quite capable -- as they had demonstrated on
many occasions, from saudia arabia to east africa
to the first attempt on the world trade center --
of carrying out their threats. they also knew,
from innumerable intelligence reports from
telecommunications intercepts, and from various
commissions, cia and foreign agents that al-qaeda
liked to blow up symbolic icon structures of
countries targeted, and that al-qaeda, and its
affiliates, had an affinity for trying to use
airplanes as psychological or actual weapons. (the
french had foiled one such attack in 1994, where a
hijacked commercial airliner would be flown into
the eiffel tower.)
by early 2001 and
into the summer, warnings were pouring in to u.s.
intelligence and military agencies from jordan,
morocco, egypt, tunisia, israel, and other middle
east and south asian intelligence sources, along
with russia and britain and the philippines,
saying that a major attack on the u.s. mainland
was in the works, involving the use of airplanes
as weapons of m-ss destruction.
indeed,
in june and july of 2001, the alerts started to be
explicit that air attacks were about to go down in
the u.s.; even local fbi offices in phoenix and
minneapolis began p-ssing warnings up the line
about middle eastern men acting suspiciously at
flight schools. in july, ashcroft stopped flying
on commercial airliners and traveled only by
private plane, and bush, after but a few months in
office, announced he was going to ground, spending
the month of august on his ranch in crawford,
texas. cheney disappeared from view, and our guess
is that he was coordinating the overall,
post-attack strategy.
under this
scenario, in mid-summer 2001, bush&co. decided
this was it. bin laden unknowingly was going to
deliver them the gift of terrorism, and they were
going to run with it as far and as fast and as
hard as they could. the various post-attack
scenarios had been worked out, the so-called usa
patriot act -- which contained various
police-state eviscerations of the constitution --
was polished and prepared for a rush-job (with no
hearings) through a post-attack congress, the war
plans against the taliban in afghanistan were
readied and rolled out, the air-base countries
around afghanistan were brought onboard, and so
on. all during the summer of 2001.
q. i
don't understand how war against afghanistan could
have been anticipated so early.
a. follow the money. various
oil/gas/energy companies had wanted a central
asian pipeline to run through afghanistan (costing
much less to build, but also so it wouldn't have
to go through russia or iran); that project was
put on hold during the chaos in afghanistan, but
when the taliban took over and brought stability
to that country, the u.s. began negotiating with
the taliban about the pipeline deal. even after
sending them, via the united nations, $43 million
dollars for "poppy-seed eradication," and inviting
them to talks in texas, the taliban began to balk.
at a later meeting, the u.s. negotiator threatened
them with an attack unless they handed over bin
laden and reportedly told them, in reference to
the pipeline, that they could accept "a carpet of
gold" or be buried in "a carpet of bombs." (the
later u.s. government spin was that the bin laden
issue and the pipeline issues were separate, and
that the u.s. threats didn't mix the two and there
were misunderstandings of what was said.) shortly
thereafter, bin laden, hiding out in afghanistan,
initiated the september 11th attacks, and the u.s.
bombing of that country began. oh, by the way, in
case you haven't noticed, under the new
u.s.-friendly government in kabul, the pipeline
project is back on track. oh, by the way, the
pipeline will terminate reasonably close to the
power plant in india built by enron that has been
lying dormant for years, waiting for cheap energy
supplies.
q. you're saying that u.s. war
and foreign policy have been dictated by greed?
a. among other pleasant motivations,
such as hunger for domination and control,
domestically and around the globe -- which always
ties in with greed. that's why bush&co. play such
political and military hardball. that's why the
arrogant, take-no-prisoners, in-your-face
attitude, to bully and frighten potential
opponents into silence and acquiescence, even
questioning their patriotism if they demur or
raise embarr-ssing issues.
q. but this
is a democracy, people are still speaking their
minds, right?
a. certainly, there are
areas of america's democratic republic that have
not yet been shut down. but where there should be
a vibrant opposition party, raising all sorts of
questions about bush administration policy and
plans, america receives mostly silence and
timidity. however, as more and more of the ugly
truth begins to emerge -- and enron, anthrax, and
pre-9/11 knowledge are just the tips of the
iceberg -- the democrats (and moderate
republicans) are beginning to feel a bit more
emboldened. but just a bit, preferring to run for
cover whenever bush&co. accuse them of being
unpatriotic when they raise pointed questions.
q. you're so critical and negative about
the bush administration. can't you say anything
good about what they're doing?
a. yes.
they have moved terrorism -- the new face of
warfare in our time -- front and center into the
world's consciousness, and have mobilized a global
coalition against it. they may be making mistakes,
which could lead to horrifying consequences, or
acting at times out of impure motives, but at
least the issue is out there and being debated and
acted upon.
now, having said that, we
must point out that the institutions in this
country -- the constitution, the courts, the
legislative bodies, civil liberties, the bill of
rights, the press, etc. -- are in as much danger
as they've ever been in. and the u.s.'s bullying
attitude abroad may well lead to disastrous
consequences for america down the line.
q. so, what's to be done?
a. the most important thing at
the moment -- even, or especially when, the
inevitable next terrorist attack occurs -- is to
break the illusion of bush&co. invulnerability.
the best way to do that, aside from ratcheting up
the enron and anthrax and 9/11 investigations (and
it may turn out that those scandals are deeply
intertwined), is to defeat gop candidates in the
upcoming november elections. if the democrats hang
on to the senate and can take over the house, the
dream of unchallengable hardright power will be
broken. bush&co. will become even more desperate,
overt, nasty, and in their arrogance and bullying
ways, will make more mistakes and alienate more
citizens. the edifice will begin to crumble even
more; there will be more and deeper congressional
and media investigations; resignations and/or
impeachments (of both bush & cheney, and ashcroft)
may well follow.
q. you're asking me to
support all democrats, even though in a particular
race a moderate gop conservative would be better?
a. yes. in some cases, you may have to
hold your nose and send money to, canv-ss for, and
vote for a democrat; we can get rid of the bad
ones later. the objective right now -- for the
future of the constitution, and for the lives of
our soldiers in uniform and civilians around the
globe -- has to be to break the momentum of the
hardright by taking the house and keeping the
senate from returning to gop control. doing so
would be even more important than what happened
when that courageous senator from vermont, jim
jeffords, appalled by the hardright nastiness and
greed-agenda of the bush folks, resigned from the
gop and turned the senate agenda over to the
democrats.
q. and you think if the gop
gets its nose bloodied in the november election,
that will convince bush to resign or lead to his
impeachment? i don't get that.
a.
churchill once told the brits during world war ii
that "this is not the beginning of the end, but it
is the beginning of the beginning of the end."
there is a lot of hard work and organizing and
educating to be done, but the recent exposure of
bush coverup-lies about pre-9/11 knowledge is "the
beginning of the beginning of the end." with a gop
defeat in november, democrats will be emboldened
to speak up more, investigate deeper, and those
inquiries will unlock even more awful secrets of
this greed-and-powerhungry administration. and
that will be the beginning of the end -- and the
beginning of the beginning of a new era of more
humane values for america and the rest of the
world.
bernard weiner, ph.d., has taught
american government & international relations at
western washington university and san diego state
university; he was with the san francisco
chronicle for nearly 20 years, and has published
in the nation, village voice, the progressive,
northwest p-ssage and widely on the internet.
From: Someone with a clue
2004-01-09 00:00:00
not so sure about credibility of theses facts but
believe the theories are correct. look back at
numbers. numbers and facts dont lie, bush does.
trace the whole bush family, they have always been
nothing but crooks who use their money and their
power to get away with things. they try changing
the subject but accusing the democrats of
attacking them. there is a reason they are
attacking them. bush is a criminal and the
american people are too dumb to realize it. they
buy into the one-sided foxnews and the other ideas
that sound good on paper, but in reality is
destroying our country!
From: Linda
2004-01-09 00:00:00
realist - and the fact that bush attacked iraq the
very week the 2000 election commission published
its report - that's looney too, eh?
coffee, anyone?
From: a realist
2004-01-08 19:02:17
you really blow your credibility when you get your
facts wrong. too many to point out here, and not
worth my time, but you might want to start by
reviewing the numbers you cite from the 2000
elections. your whole argument is full of
-ssertions that are either incorrect or
unsupported. you clearly know nothing about the
u.s. intelligence apparatus. however, if it makes
you feel better about yourself, go ahead and
pretend you have it all figured out.
From: Mary Agan
1999-11-30 00:00:00
you are delusional and a real nut!
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