The ten year anniversary of this disastrous day has come and gone. It was marked by patriotic celebrations, flags on our lawns and memorial services with speeches about heroism and resilience. But for anyone who had hoped that it might also finally bring some clarity into what had really happened on that day there was only disappointment. Among all of the words spoken and printed there was not a single one which questioned the official dogma that 19 fanatic Muslim hijackers under the command of Osama bin Laden had pulled off the greatest security breach of the most carefully guarded airspace of our country without encountering any problem. Three planes reached their goal and only the fourth one was prevented from doing so by heroic acts of the passengers.

          America was at war, our President defiantly declared. But, as he told us, we will emerge triumphant by not only hunting down the terrorists who committed this act but we will also appropriately punish all those countries that “harbor terrorists.” We would get Osama “dead or alive” and in addition relentlessly eliminate evil from this world. Nevertheless, in spite of all sorts of color coded terror alerts and increased vigilance, Americans should go about their business as usual.

          With few exceptions the American public bought this scenario. The people did not object to the invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq and only when the Iraq war began to deviate from the script, as envisaged in Washington, did second thoughts emerge in some segments of the public. Nevertheless, these were not of a magnitude to prevent the re-election of “The President of Good and Evil,” as Bush had been called in a book by Peter Singer. By now most people have finally come to realize that the Iraq invasion had been “a mistake,” although the media pundits still insist that the Afghanistan war was justified. Some responsible citizens have also pointed out that cutting taxes when one is fighting a war is contraindicated and can only lead to economic disaster. Their voices went unheeded and, sad to say, although the day of reckoning has arrived our Republicans in Congress still adhere to the dogma that lowering taxes, while pursuing a number of military actions is the right course.

Some of us who had voted for Bush in 2000, were subsequently sorely disenchanted by his conduct in office, and had hoped that by electing Obama in 2008 the country would finally be put on the right course again. But we had another disappointment coming. Instead of the promised “change,” we got what has been called “Bush-light,” in analogy to the reduced alcohol content of beers on sale in grocery stores. Obama, in spite of nice speeches, has shown himself unwilling or unable to confront the wrong policies of the Bush administration and initiate the promised program of accountability and transparency which would have opened the books on the real reasons behind the Bush policies. At this point it should be unequivocally stated that the Iraq war was not simply a “mistake,” but a geopolitical move to consolidate America’s role in the vital Middle East. Even the invasion of Afghanistan had less to do with bin Laden and more with getting access to the riches of the Caspian basin. But Americans are not supposed to see beyond the ends of their collective noses, instead they are to cherish the idea of injured innocence.

“Why do they hate us?” President Bush asked and I believe that he was probably sincere in his ignorance. The only answer he could come up with, and many Americans agreed with him, was that “they hate our freedoms.” To which one can only say, “No Mr. President, they hate our policies!” Unless and until the American people at large have been given  the full picture of 9/11 in the context in which these catastrophes took place we will continue to pursue unwinnable wars and chase shadows instead of their substance. The events of 9/11were a crime by groups of individuals and should have been treated as such. To immediately, even before an investigation into the perpetrators of the crime had begun, declare the event as an act of war was not a mistake; it was worse than that: a deception of the public for ulterior aims. I fully realize that this sounds harsh but I regard it as a truth which must reach the public because otherwise we will continue to be led from one disaster to the next.

I have previously discussed a number of these aspects on this website, but let me summarize the most puzzling features of the official account and put the event into its historical context. We are urged to believe that the Twin Towers had collapsed due to the impact of the aircraft and the resulting fires. That a third building, WTC7 which had not been hit by a plane, also collapsed later in the day in a similar manner was not taken into account in The 9/11 Commission Report. We are also to ignore that the buildings collapsed neatly into their “footprints,” and that fire cannot destroy simultaneously all of the core steel structures which held up the Towers and pulverize cement. We are asked to believe, furthermore, that this destruction by fire did not merely happen once but three times in the same area within a matter of hours. The most reasonable hypothesis is, of course, that the buildings succumbed to controlled demolitions but this would have required pre-positioned charges. If this were to have been the case the government’s position that the hijackers were the sole responsible agents for the collapse of the three WTC buildings would become untenable.

We are also supposed to believe that an inadequately trained pilot could smoothly steer AA flight 77 at maximum speed from a height of 7000 feet to near ground level into the west wing of the Pentagon. It has been pointed out that this maneuver would be difficult to perform even for a military pilot and that the hole left in the Pentagon was too small to accommodate a 757. Finally we are to believe that a plane which crashes into an open field (UA flight 93, Shanksville, PA) can create only a crater without leaving substantial debris or human body parts. These inconsistencies demand better explanations than we have been given.

In regard to the historical context for the destruction of the Twin Towers we have to go back to about a decade earlier. The plan was hatched by Ramzi Yousef and cohorts with collusion of “the blind Sheik,” Omar Abdel Rahman. On February 26, 1993 a truck bomb was detonated in the underground garage of the North Tower of the WTC which killed six people and injured more than one thousand others. The intention was for the building to collapse and fall on the neighboring South Tower. When this did not occur Yousef vowed that they would do better the next time. According to Wikipedia, Yousef had sent a letter to The New York Times after the 1993 attack which provided the motive: "We declare our responsibility for the explosion on the mentioned building. This action was done in response for the American political, economical [sic], and military support to Israel, the state of terrorism, and to the rest of the dictator countries in the region.”    

   Yousef’s uncle Khalid Sheik Mohammed (KSM), who had contacts with Pakistan’s security service ISI, had purportedly supplied the funds. Yousef as well as KSM have subsequently been captured. The former is imprisoned in Colorado and the latter, who has confessed to planning the 9/11 attack, is currently in Guantanamo facing a military tribunal. Two aspects are important in this connection. The Pakistani ISI role was not emphasized in the official 9/11 report and KSM is to be tried in a military, rather than civilian court. Although Attorney General Holder had initially desired open court hearings, this attempt came to naught because it was feared that KSM would unload a history of events which would be counterproductive to keeping the current 9/11 myth alive.

There exists an additional account of the 1993 WTC bombing in 9/11 Synthetic Terror Made in USA by Webster Griffin Tarpley, which was published in 2006. Tarpley asserts that “The FBI set it up and let it happen.” This is difficult to believe especially since he did not give a reference to documents which could be checked. On the other hand the idea that some people in the FBI did not have entirely clean hands, especially in the post 9/11 cover-up, is documented by the extensive problems a Turkish-American interpreter, Sibel Edmonds, had when she alerted her supervisor to several improprieties in regard to translating important material. Edmonds was fired and the supervisor promoted! The documentation for this event is extensive and can be found on the Internet as well as in Tarpley’s book. While I have reservations about some of Tarpley’s conclusions, the instances where he provides verifiable documentation should not be ignored.

In the Tarpley book one can also find the allegation that “the blind Sheik,” Omar Abdel Rahman, who resided in the New York-New Jersey area had come on a visa which was signed by a CIA officer at the Sudanese consulate. Wikipedia only relates that he was admitted in 1990 on a tourist visa and later on received a “green card,” although he had been on the terrorist watch list and had been incarcerated in his native Egypt in connection with the murder of Anwar Sadat. Having been tortured in prison did not increase his love for the USA, which he regarded as the sponsor of his torturer, Hosni Mubarak - a friend of Israel. In his sermons in our country the Sheik made no bones about his views and in 1995 was convicted of plotting a number of terrorist attacks in NYC, which included: blowing up the WTC, the Holland and Lincoln tunnels as well as a variety of other targets. He currently serves a life sentence without possibility of parole in a Federal Prison in North Carolina.

If the CIA had indeed had a hand in issuing that visa, one wonders why this should have happened. The most likely reason would have been to keep a closer eye on him because he might lead them to sleeper cells in the US. While this is laudable there exist, however, other elements within the CIA of whose activities the official government and even the president have hardly any information. A glimpse into this nether-world was provided by the now-deceased Col. L Fletcher Prouty in his book The Secret Team. The CIA and its Allies in Control of the United States and the World. One is likely to immediately react with: oh, another conspiracy theory book, but please hold your emotions and read on. Prouty was the liaison officer between the Air Force and the CIA and had, therefore, first-hand information about what was going on in the years from 1955-1964. As he stated in the 1972 edition of the book he was “Chief of Special Operations (clandestine activities) with the US Joint Chiefs of Staff. These duties involved the military support of clandestine activities of the CIA and were performed under National Security Council Directive No. 5412/2.”

Although published long after the events he describes, the book was clearly unpalatable to the powers and disappeared from bookshelves including those of the Library of Congress, where the author had previously seen it. This, of course, reminds one of the fate of Eustace Mullins’ The Secrets of the Federal Reserve, which was discussed in last month’s installment. But Col. Prouty did not give up and re-published the book in 1997. The current 2011 edition has a Foreword by ex-governor of Minnesota Jesse Ventura. The book should be read by everyone who wants to know how our government really works. Perhaps the most important statement is in the first paragraph of the 1972 Preface,

“From President to Ambassador, Cabinet Officer to Commanding General, and from Senator to executive assistant – all these men have their sources of information and guidance. Most of this information and guidance is the result of carefully laid schemes and ploys of pressure groups. In this influential coterie one of the most interesting and effective roles is that played by the behind the scenes, faceless, nameless, ubiquitous briefing officer.”

Col. Prouty was one of these briefing officers and, therefore, aware how the process works: the person who is being briefed knows only what the briefer wants him/her to know! Prouty saw that there exist, what may be called, “circles within circles” of which only few are aware and which operate entirely outside the law. This was the reason why he felt that he had to go public and to state unequivocally that the major role of the CIA is not the collection of information for policy makers but a government agency whose functions, as well as funding sources, are “off the books.” They are secret and within the agency the decision as to what is secret and what can be divulged is not necessarily made by the Director but by groups within groups who have their separate agendas. No one can tell one’s co-worker what he/she is working on and there are only “cover stories;” ergo lies upon lies. Prouty gives numerous examples and when one reads this information it is no longer surprising that we have not received a straight answer to all the questions raised by 9/11.

In regard to The 9/11 Commission Report one needs to realize that it was a political document for a political purpose. It focused entirely on Al Qaeda and ignored the Pakistani connection with the CIA’s counterpart: the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI). Yet this aspect is crucial in order to understand the full picture. The ISI was throughout its existence in close contact with the CIA. Since Pakistan’s major enemy, India, was under Nehru flirting with the Soviet Union it was only natural that we would cultivate the Pakistani military regime and the ISI for our purposes. During the Cold War Peshawar was our main base to spy on the Soviet Union (Abuse of Secrecy. August 8, 2008). This relationship intensified during the Soviet-Afghan War when CIA money as well as weapons to the mujahadeen, were funneled through the ISI. Steve Coll’s book: Ghost Wars. The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan, and Bin Laden, from the Soviet Invasion to September 10, 2001 which was published in 2005, can be regarded as a sequel to Prouty’s and provides extensive documentation. While we used the ISI to defeat the USSR, the ISI used us to foster militant Islam. These were some of the pigeons which came home to roost on 9/11. At present we are on a diplomatic collision course with Pakistan because democratic India is our friend and militant Islam the enemy. But this enemy, including the current bête noir, the Haqqani network in North Waziristan, was raised with our money!

Currently we are chiding the ISI for having sheltered Osama bin Laden in Abbottabad and the Pakistanis deny it. We don’t believe the denial but the ISI, in all probability, operates just as the CIA with circles within circles where the information is restricted to a “need to know basis.” Since the left hand doesn’t know what the right hand does, plausible deniability is maintained. The President of the country is kept out of the loop and thus can honestly and angrily refute all allegations of collusion. This pertains, of course, also to our country.

While the Pakistani connection to 9/11 is now becoming public knowledge, the Israeli connection is still shrouded in deepest secrecy. There is as yet no reliable documentation in book form, which I have come across, and one has to join bits and pieces together from the Internet where the sources are not necessarily reliable. That there has to be a connection is obvious when one asks oneself which country has the most to gain when Americans become incensed against Arab Muslims. Israel has been in perpetual war with Arabs since its inception and the country cannot survive for any length of time without America’s protection. The Mossad, Israel’s Intelligence Service, likewise operates on the “need to know” basis. Although it takes our interests into account, and shares with the CIA whatever information it wants to share, it keeps the rest of it close to its vest. This aspect was documented in The Niger Forgery (August 1, 2003) with the example of the warning the CIA had received prior to the Beirut Marine barracks bombing in 1983. Although a warning was given it was sufficiently nonspecific so that no action could be taken. A similar situation took place in regard to 9/11. The Mossad had warned the CIA that an attack was imminent but at that point their obligations ended and whatever additional information they had was not divulged.

The Mossad also possesses a unique advantage over all the other spy agencies of the world. While other countries have to either bribe or blackmail their prospective spies, Israel has a large reservoir of Sayanim (assistants) who will give our most guarded secrets to that country. This is done not for the sake of money or out of fear but simply because of a sense of identity beween the goals of the two nations. The documentation is in Victor Ostrovsky’s By Way of Deception The making of a Mossad officer. The book was published in 1990 and I discussed it in the mentioned Niger Forgery essay. The only requirement for these assistants is 100% Jewish ethnicity and an unwavering devotion to the well-being of the State of Israel. If the host country were to find out about the activities of a given sayan the latter would merely take a plane to Israel where he/she would be welcomed home. This is not some anti-Semitic fantasy and I would urge the reader to check whatever I am writing here with the sources which are provided.

Needless to say, facts relating to an Israeli connection with 9/11 are not welcome and efforts are made to suppress them. A case in point is the series by FOX News in December of 2001where Carl Cameron reported on the “Israeli art student” spy ring in connection with 9/11. Sixty Israeli citizens many of whom “stated that they served in military intelligence, electronic surveillance, intercept and/or explosive ordnance units,” had infiltrated a variety of government agencies and were detained in the wake of the 9/11 disaster. Cameron also reported on AMDOCS, the phone system which records every call made by land line in the US, as well as COMVERSE INFOSYS which furnished wiretapping equipment for US law enforcement agencies. These as well as a number of other high-tech firms with defense department contracts are joint American-Israeli companies. The original tapes have been removed from the FOX website but can be viewed among a host of others on “911- the Israeli Connection” and the essential information is also available in Tarpley’s book. There is little doubt that national security computer systems were compromised on 9/11, which required sophisticated inside knowledge as was discussed in The 9/11 Cover-up (October 1, 2006) and Sayanim may well have been in a position to do so.

Where does this leave us in regard to 9/11 Truth? Surely there is a great deal of smoke and equally surely the true facts are deliberately suppressed. Peter Lance’s Foreword to Paul Thompson’s The Terror Timeline quotes the now famous passage by the Roman satirist Juvenal: Quis custodiet ipsos custodes – who oversees the guards? In the current context: who oversees our government? Congress is entirely subservient to Israeli Likud policies, so are the media. President Obama has likewise abdicated his responsibility for an independent foreign policy when he vetoed the UN resolution against Israeli settlements and now threatens to veto a resolution for Palestinian statehood. Let’s face it: we have no standing in the Muslim world at this time and our unquestioned allegiance to Likud policies invites further disasters. Although the bin Laden network has been significantly compromised, the Pakistani and Israeli connections remain and unless these are addressed in a constructive manner we are in danger of further attacks.

What is to be done? As Paul Thompson stated: We the People have to become the guardians of the government and spread the word that there is something seriously wrong with the official 9/11 interpretation from which all policy decisions have flowed and will continue to flow. It is now high time that we recognize the 9/11 events as a crime and proceed with criminal investigations instead of a continued “War on Terror” which will continue to cause infinite harm.

When we remember 9/11 we should not confine ourselves to the nearly 3000 victims who died on that day and the thousands of our troops in Afghanistan and Iraq since then, but the hundreds of thousands of civilians who have died and been maimed by our arrogant military interventions. In addition we have lost some of our civil liberties in the cynically misnamed PATRIOT act and we may well lose the rest of them when martial law is declared in case of another major terror attack on our soil. This is not fantasy but a very real danger to our Republic. A patriot is not somebody who meekly accepts what the government tells one to do but a person who stands up and holds it to account. We in “the land of the free and the brave,” as the National Anthem proclaims, can still do so and this is why we need to seize the moment.

Apart from writing articles for the Internet we should be doing something else which propels the search for 9/11 Truth to our living room video sets and the mainstream press. I am, therefore, putting forth this

PROPOSAL

To arrange for a two day “INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON THE 9/11 CRIME,” in New York City, where professionals who have good standing in their respective fields have an opportunity to discuss the inadequacies of The 9/11 Commission Report and issue recommendations. The 2007 book by David Ray Griffin: 9/11 and American Empire Intellectuals Speak Out could serve as blueprint. The major news media would be invited and Michael Moore could film the event as a documentary. The mornings could be given to presentations while the afternoons could be devoted to the public asking critical questions of the invited speakers. Funding would have to be provided from private sources; for instance The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Warren Buffett or George Soros.

An event of this type could no longer be ignored and relegated to conspiracy theories but would open the events of that day to public discussion. Since all of the relevant government documents are kept secret, and whistleblowers lose their livelihood, Wikileaks could be an excellent initial venue to bring some of them to light. Thereafter it might be possible to refer the matter to the International Criminal Court in The Hague for a judicial inquiry. 9/11 was and is not a problem for the US alone it impacted the entire world and the world deserves to know the truth.

We live in extremely perilous times and for the reasons stated above can no longer rely on our government to assure that our children and grandchildren will have at least a peaceful, if not prosperous future. This is our task now and we owe it to them.

Please distribute this essay to your friends and colleagues in the hope that the above outlined suggestion will be implemented and I appreciate your comments via erodin@pol.net. Thank you.