Authors are best able to write about what they know (non-fiction and fiction), or an extrapolation of what could happen based on what they know (fiction and science fiction). Only occasionally are authors able to capture the human ideal, which makes their work resonate through ages beyond their own. Aristotle, K’ung Fu-Tse (Confucius), Thomas Jefferson, John Locke, Thomas Paine, and countless others fall into this category. So does Victor Hugo, of Notre Dame De Paris fame. A few paragraphs in his lesser-known work 1793, about the French revolution, encapsulates perfectly likely reaction to at least one of two recent events – the killing of US-born Anwar al-Awlaki by US forces in a foreign country, and the state-ordered execution of Troy Davis, a man probably innocent of his accused crimes.
Hugo writes, in Book Three, Chapter VI,
Among these men [at the Convention who were] full of passions were mingled men filled with dreams. Utopia was there under all its forms, under its warlike form which admitted the scaffold, and under its innocent form which would abolish capital punishment; a spectre as it faced thrones, an angel as it faced the people. Side by side with the spirits that fought, were the spirits that brooded. Some had war in their heads, other had peace; one brain Carnot, brought forth fourteen armies; another intellect, Jean Debry, meditated a universal democratic federation.
Hugo switches in mid-paragraph from talk of peace or war – two drastically different actions that spring from the same impulse – to talk of governing philosophy, which is the subject of peace or war on a domestic level. It continues, unbroken:
Amid this furious eloquence, among these shrieking and growling voices, there were fruitful silences. Lakanal remained voiceless, and combined in his thoughts the system of public education; Lanthenas held his peace, and created the primary schools; Revelliere-Lepeaux kept still, and dreamed of the elevation of Philosophy to the dignity of Religion. Others occupied themselves with questions of detail, smaller and more practical. Guyton-Morveaux studied means for rendering the hospitals healthy; Maire, the abolition of existing servitudes; Jean-Bon-Saint-Andre, the suppression of imprisonment for debt and constraint of the person; Romme, the proposition of Chappe; Duboe, the arrangement of the archives; Coren-Fustier, the creation of the Cabinet of Anatomy and the Museum of Natural History; Guyomard, river navigation and the damming of the Escaut. Art had its fanatics and even its monomaniacs. On the twenty-first of January, while the head of monarchy was falling on the Place de la Revolution, Bezard the representative of the Oise, when to see a picture of Rubens, which had been found in a garret in the Rue Saint-Lazare. Artists, orators, prophets, giant-men like Danton, child-men like Coots, gladiators and philosophers, all had the same goal, Progress.
All had the same goal, Progress. “Nothing Disconcerted them. The grandeur of the Convention was the searching how much reality there is in what men call the impossible.”
The essence of the Convention is that we are all things at once: peace and war, noise and silence, possible and impossible, clinging to the past and progressing toward the future.
In 2001 the FAA and NORAD (North American Aerospace Defense Command) were focused on external threats and traditional hijackings. The government report tells us that “the FAA was mandated by law to regulate the safety and security of civil aviation.” The Air Traffic Control System Command Center was different from the FAA Operations Center, which was in charge of incidents, “including accidents and hijackings.”
“On 9/11, the four hijacked aircraft were monitored mainly by the [control] centers in Boston, New York, Cleveland, and Indianapolis. Each center thus had part of the knowledge of what was going on across the system. What Boston knew was not necessarily known by [the other] centers, or for that matter by the Command Center in [Virginia] or by FAA headquarters in Washington.”
Controllers track aircraft by data emitted from transponders on planes. All planes over 10,000 feet are required to have their transponder on, each of which is unique. On 9/11, three of the four planes that were hijacked had the transponder turned off. The airlines could be tracked by radar, but would not be recognized as a unique plane. Not surprisingly, “the simultaneous loss of radio and transponder signal would be a rare and alarming occurrence, which would normally indicate a catastrophic system failure or an aircraft crash. In all of these instances, the job of the controller was to reach out to the aircraft, the parent company of the aircraft, and other planes in the vicinity in an attempt to reestablish communications and set the aircraft back on course. Alarm bells would not start ringing until these efforts – which could take five minutes or more – were tried and had failed.” In those five minutes, a plane could easily go fifty miles.
Like so many bureaucratic relics, NORAD was a reactionary system designed to detain Russian Communism. A partnership with Canada to protect the North American airspace, NORAD was created to”defend the airspace and protect the continent. That mission does not distinguish between internal and external threats; but because NORAD was created to counter the Soviet threat, it came to define its job as defending against external attacks.”
The Cold War is long over; “members of the air defense community advocated the importance of air sovereignty against emerging ‘asymmetric threats’ to the United States…NORAD perceived the dominant threat to be from cruise missiles. Other threats were identified during the late 1990s, including terrorists’ use of aircraft as weapons. Exercises were conducted to counter this threat, but they were not based on actual intelligence. In most instances, the main concern was the use of such aircraft to deliver weapons of mass destruction.”
Before 9/11, “it was understood that an order to shoot down a commercial aircraft would have to be issued by the National Command Authority (a phrase used to describe the president and secretary of defense). Exercise planners also assumed that the aircraft would originate from outside the United States, allowing time to identify the target and scramble interceptors. The threat of terrorists hijacking commercial airlines within the United States – and using them as guided missiles – was not recognized by NORAD before 9/11.”
Despite what seems like a bureaucratic mess, the FAA and NORAD worked together before 9/11, and there were probably several other agencies who did their job properly, or even stepped beyond mere formality.
The FAA and NORAD had developed protocols for working together in the event of a hijacking. As they existed on 9/11, the protocols for the FAA to attain military assistance from NORAD required multiple levels of notification and approval at the highest levels of government.
FAA guidance to controllers on hijack procedures assumed that the aircraft pilot would notify the controller via radio or by “squawking” a transponder code of “7500” – the universal code for a hijack in progress. Controllers would notify their supervisors, who in turn would inform management all the way up to FAA headquarters in Washington. Headquarters had a hijack coordinator, who was the director of the FAA Office of Civil Aviation Authority or his or her designate.
If a hijack was confirmed, procedures called for the hijack coordinator on duty to contact the Pentagon’s National Military Command Center (NMCC) and to ask for a military escort aircraft to follow the flight, report anything unusual, and aid search and rescue in the event of an emergency. The NMCC would then seek approval from the Office of the Secretary of Defense to provide military assistance. If the approval was given, the orders would be transmitted down NORAD’s chain of command.
The NMCC would keep the FAA hijack coordinator up to date and help the FAA centers coordinate directly with the military. NORAD would receive tracking information for the hijacked aircraft either from joint use radar or from the relevant FAA air traffic control facility. Every attempt would be made to have the hijacked aircraft squawk 7500 to help NORAD track it.
The protocols did not contemplate an intercept. They assumed the fighter escort would be discreet, “vectored to a position five miles directly behind the hijacked aircraft,” where it could perform its mission to monitor the aircraft’s flight path.
In sum, the protocols in place on 9/11 for the FAA and NORAD to respond to a hijacking presumed that
- the hijacked aircraft would be readily identifiable and would not attempt to disappear;
- there would be time to address the problem through the appropriate FAA and NORAD chains of command; and
- the hijacking would take the traditional form: that is, it would not be a suicide hijacking designed to convert the aircraft into a guided missile
We can all agree with the government report, which informs us that “on the morning of 9/11, the existing protocol was unsuited in every respect for what was about to happen.” As the saying goes, hindsight is 20-20.
What does 20-20 hindsight tell us about the death of Nick Berg? We last took the work of an author who chose to remain anonymous – perhaps for good reason – and allowed his speculation that Abu Musab al-Zarqawi probably was not actually responsible for the death of Nick Berg. Our anonymous author blames the Mossad – Israel’s intelligence agency – for the death. Some of the fourteen suspicious parts of the videotaped execution, pointed out by our author, include:
- Why does a man who wears a scarf to hide his identity announce his name to the public?
- Why is the Muslim executioner’s face covered with a scarf when tradition suggests that Muslim executioners do not wear facial coverings?
- Why would five Muslim executioners be dressed in all-black commando style outfits(except for the clean white sneakers), when you rarely see terrorists in uniform in other videos and news clips?
- Why would there be a general consensus that the dialect spoken by the terrorist in the video was not the same as that of the terrorist identified by the CIA, Al-Zarqawi?(Interestingly, the US Army had reported Al-Zarqawi killed by the bombing of Falluja, a month earlier.) Even more interesting, their Arabic is heavily accented(Russian, Jordanian, Egyptian). An aside comment in the video – in Russian – has been translated as “do it quickly”. The Russian presence becomes an increasingly important factor as this story emerges. It is not insignificant.
- How does it happen that the white chair shown in the execution video is the same style and color of the chairs shown in videos of Abu Ghraib prison, and the painted wall and floor boards the same color as that of Abu Ghraib? (Interestingly,subsequent news revelations by U.S. General Karpansky about the prison have identified “secret” holding sites, which allowed Israeli interrogators to keep prisoners out of public site.)
- Why would the Iraqi Police deny holding Berg as a prisoner when the FBI claimed he was an Iraqi Police prisoner?
- Why would the US Military deny holding Berg as a prisoner, when the FBI had notified his parents, after investigating, that Berg was a prisoner of the US military
- Why would firearms experts state that the AK-47 carried by one of the purported terrorists in the video was actually a “Galil” – an Israeli made, enhanced AK-47. It is very expensive and generally unavailable to Muslim “terrorists.”
These many facts may not be enough to convince that al-Zarqawi didn’t do it. But, just as it shouldn’t be taken for granted that an anonymous author claims al-Zarqawi didn’t do it, and that the Mossad did it, nor should it be taken for granted that al-Zarqawi was responsible. We’ll never know; much like a court of law in which the defendant is dead, we’ll have to go based on probable cause and circumstantial evidence. “There are just too many coincidences and inconsistencies to be ignored. (Web sites on the Internet list as many as fifty such discrepancies, but these appear to be the most pertinent.) Together, they suggest that someone pretended to be Al Qaeda or Musab al-Zarqawi, and did a relatively poor job at it.”
This is Part Three of a many part series, synthesizing the stories of 9/11, its aftermath, and our future.
An incredibly prescient letter to those seeking freedom in the Middle East was written a few months ago. In terms of news, it is quite old, but in terms of aspiration and inspiration it is quite up to date.
I am an Israeli-born American citizen. And I can tell you (and I am sure you already know) that in Israel and America and much of the world your revolutions have stirred up mixed emotions.
Some among us tell us to fear what is happening. They tell us that by tearing down the old regimes in your nations you have opened the door to a takeover by militants who would support violence toward us. They point to every incident of violence or expression of anger toward us as evidence of a threat.
I write this letter because I need you to know that I don’t share their fear. I don’t pretend to know what will happen in your countries. But I do know that when I see what you are doing on the streets of Cairo and Tunis and Tehran and Damascus, fear is not what I feel. Instead, I feel admiration. For your courage, for your dignity, for your audacity.
I am not naïve. I know some among your countrymen may truly hate Israel and America and the West. But I refuse to assume you share that feeling, or that you will be fooled by efforts to distract your revolutions with appeals to old hatreds. The tyrants who have ruled your nations and the would-be dictators seeking to hijack your movements will certainly try to redirect anger toward Israel, America and the West as a path to gain power. But if, as you say and I believe, you truly took to the streets to bring dignity to your own lives, I am confident you won’t be swayed from that goal by tired rhetoric and false threats.
I have this confidence because when I watch your revolution, I don’t see an enemy. You look like someone I would meet in a café or a conference or a classroom. Like someone I would start a business with or approach as a customer. Someone I could find on Facebook or follow on Twitter.
We have the choice to fear those who desire a better world. They’re called, derogatorily, ‘progressives,’ ‘protesters,’ and ‘activists.’ But I’ll join this American-Israeli Jew, a citizen of the world, in saying that “I want you to know that me, and many more like me, are inspired by what you are doing. We are going to stand beside you. We will continue to support you through what will surely be a long struggle to build a future for yourselves and your countrymen that is based on freedom, democracy, human dignity and peace.”
If we choose to fear these people, we fear that which is best within ourselves. I would rather “acknowledge what we have in common and start trying to work together, rather than focusing on ancient grudges, preconceived notions and a history that serves no one but those who want to control our lives.” That’s not an easy task; if it was, our problems would have long ago been solved. But that’s no reason to delay. It’s no reason to lose hope.
Progress, that dreaded thing desired by progressives, does not occur without action. That action need not be violent or rebellious, yet I see some hints of desire for change in saying “we know the fundamental truth of our moment is that it falls to us to clean up messes left to us by preceding generations.” We must now rebuild, and build the world we want to see, a world that is fair for everyone and gives everyone the chances they both need and deserve.
The United Nations is in session for its annual meeting, so it must be time for some sparring rhetoric between Iran’s president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and the United States. Beyond the usual clash of rhetoric, “Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad says that as an engineer he’s sure the twin towers were not brought down by jetliners. Ahmadinejad, in an interview with The Associated Press, says it would have been impossible for two jetliners to bring down the towers simply by hitting them. He says some kind of planned explosion must have taken place.”
At some point, we’ll return to the discussion of what caused the towers to fall. The North and South towers were each hit by a plane. At 8:46:40 – 47 minutes after takeoff – American Airlines Flight 11 crashed into the North Tower. The plane was hijacked about fifteen minutes into the flight; in the duration of the flight two stewardesses kept contact with the ground by phone. At 9:03:11 United Airlines Flight 175 crashed into the South Tower. It took off at 8:14 and was hijacked about thirty minutes later. Did the planes cause each building to fall?
Two more planes were hijacked and two more planes crashed that day. Whether these two planes that were hijacked were the same planes as the ones that crashed will delight the discussion of those who pay attention to basic laws of nature for years to come. “At 9:37:46 American Airlines Flight 77 crashed into the Pentagon, traveling at approximately 530 mph.” However, as will be discussed in the anonymously authored report at a later time, and as you could find for yourself, the hole created is much smaller than the size of a jumbo jet. Whatever the reality is, damage was done to the Pentagon, and the anonymous report will later look at why.
“The hijackers had planned to take flights scheduled to depart at 7:45 (American 11), 8:00 (United 175 and United 93), and 8:10 (American 77). Three of the flights had actually taken off within 10 to 15 minutes of their planned departure times. United 93 would ordinarily have taken off about 15 minutes after pulling away from the gate. When it left the ground at 8:42, the flight was running more than 25 minutes late.” The names of the four flights of September 11th have become engrained in our cultural memory; not least United Flight 93. It appears to be the only story of successful resistance by passengers to the hijacking, if dying in a field is to be considered success.
Over the past decade the world has “seen the emergence of two major terrorist groups – Osama Bin Laden’s ‘Al Qaeda’ and more recently, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. Terrorist incidents around the globe have been attributed to both groups, with Abu Musab al-Zarqawi establishing global notoriety with the video-taped beheading of three hostages in Iraq.” Just after the video-taped beheading of Nicholas Berg, Eugene Armstrong, and Nick Hensley, al-Zarqawi swore allegiance to Bin Laden, although they had always been reported as rivals. This created “the link between Al Qaeda and Iraq that helped justify the US invasion – a link that could not be proven, until someone created it and drew world attention to it.”
Abu Musab al-Zarqawi comes from an impoverished and uneducated background. Osama Bin Laden came from a wealthy and well-educated family. However, “if funding is a prerequisite to the level of activity supported by terrorists, one is forced to conclude that Abu Musab al-Zarqawi is funded from some unknown source. One is also forced to conclude that al-Zarqawi had access to passport forgery capabilities, and that he had significant connections for the purchase of weapons, explosives, chemicals and more. More simply, the newer, more public Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in Iraq represented a mature, sophisticated intelligence operation.” Of course, “CIA and British intelligence made Osama the success he is, and as long as he threatened the stability of Iran, or the Soviet presence in Afghanistan, he received all the arms and money he required.” It should be obvious that al-Zarqawi required the same advantages, if he was to be the same kind of operative. How does this relate to the beheadings al-Zarqawi is accused of?
A careful review of the facts which surround these executions suggests that little is at is appears. An alternative interpretation of the events is suggested:
1. Abu Musab al-Zarqawi is most likely a Mossad (Israeli intelligence) counter-espionage front (Whether this group is the original al-Zarqawi, or someone assuming his identity becomes immaterial.) This front was probably established under the direction of General Meir Dagan, current head of the Mossad who was responsible for setting up an Israel intelligence network in Iraq after the Iraqi-Kuwait War
2. The executed hostages of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi were probably not innocent bystanders and victims, but rather players in the world of espionage. To that point, a number of other, less publicized beheadings were broadcast as the executions of CIA agents. (In passing, one should note that no “Israeli” agents have been publicly executed by this group, although it is reported that Dagan did set up a network in Iraq.)
3. The hostages executed in Iraq were most likely executed by the Mossad for five reasons: 1) to create publicity and credibility for their Muslim front in Iraq, 2) to create American support for Israel against the Muslim threat to Israel’s existence, 3)to clean-up loose ends in their own intelligence world, 4) to send a message to other operatives and intelligence trespassers that the Middle East belongs to the Mossad,and that Mossad deals with its enemies harshly, and 5) to foster divisiveness amongst the Iraqi Muslim population, ultimately resulting in break-up of Iraq into smaller countries – a Balkanization of Iraq.
4. There are, in all likelihood, two arms to the Mossad: one of which is patriotic and public-service oriented, with another that is a more-or-less a rogue operation, heavily infiltrated by Russian mafia, ex-KGB and ex-Israeli Special Forces. This latter side is the ‘dark side’. This group has extensive connections to the international black market in armaments originating from former Soviet republics. It is linked to the conservative right-wing of Israeli politics: Sharon and the Likud Party. The different sides of the Mossad work together when it serves their own purposes – but neither controls the other
However incredible this may seem, a review of the public record suggests this interpretation is far more credible than the current, common view that the Muslim terrorists are fanatics striking out against America…The probability that the level of sophistication demonstrated by Musab al-Zarqawi is not the product of a well-established intelligence organization is pretty slim.
The contention that Musab al-Zarqawi is a “front” for a Western ally is not isolated to this terrorist group. As shall later be shown, this contention is consistent with the reports that show that most of the Muslim terrorist groups which ring the former Soviet Union (the “Islamic Liberation Party, the World Wide Islamic Front, the Defenders of the Shariat, the Mukhadjiri movement, the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, and Al Qaeda) are funded and controlled out of Western capitals by Western diplomats.
This is Part Two of a many part series, synthesizing the stories of 9/11, its aftermath, and our future.
Our two primary sources for the study of 9/11 (for the events of September 11, 2001, are such that the date lives in infamy) begin in very different places. The government-commissioned report, begins with a United States with Americans going to work on the eleventh day of September, 2001. The anonymously authored September 11 Commission Report begins in world where Al-Qaeda is infamous and the United States is embroiled in wars.
The government-commissioned report begins like a children’s story. “Millions of men and women readied themselves for work. Some made their way to the Twin Towers, the signature structures of the World Trade Center complex in New York City. Others went to Arlington, Virginia, to the Pentagon. Across the Potomac River the United States Congress was back in session. At the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue, people began to line up for a White House tour. In Sarasota, Florida, President George W. Bush went for an early morning run.” Remember these facts, including the last one.
The anonymous report is not ‘light reading,’ of the sort that a person raised on proper Victorian fairy tales would want to read; certainly not out loud to their children. After a brief opening paragraph disclaiming that the “report uses publicly available information to substantiate a hypothetical explanation of the causes and key conspirators in the attack on the World Trade Center. The findings of this investigation are not meant to be construed as proof or a statement of guilt, but rather are meant to serve as ‘probable cause’ for further investigation,” the reader is thrown into four hundred fascinating pages of covered-up, secretive, history.
In fact, the first page begins several years in to the aftermath of 9/11. First, and to be discussed in detail later,
The Murder of Nicholas Berg
A. The organization that murdered Nicholas Berg, Eugene Armstrong and Jack Hensley [in 2004], reported to be terrorists including Abu Musab Zarqawi, was most likely an Israeli intelligence operation – and in all likelihood part of a larger organization responsible for the attack on the World Trade Center.
Nick Berg was probably murdered by a group including Steven Stephanowicz,an employee of Titan Corp., a subcontractor to CACI –which has demonstrable links to Israeli Intelligence, Richard Armitage and the CIA. CACI was responsible for interrogation at Abu Ghraib when Nick Berg was killed
Stephanowicz was found (by U.S. military investigators) to be directly and indirectly responsible for most of the atrocities at Abu Ghraib, which demonstrates his ability to orchestrate the executions of Berg, Armstrong and Hensley. His presence at the scene of the crime, and a similarity to the tallest executioner in the photos of the execution makes him a likely candidate for suspicion.
B. Nicholas Berg was probably operating as an agent for the Israeli government (in the US and Iraq), and possibly as a double agent, working for a US intelligence organization;
C. Eugene Armstrong and Jack Hensley were also probably government agents in US intelligence operations
D. Nicholas Berg was probably murdered by Israeli agents to prevent his knowledge of the attack on the World Trade Center (WTC) from being handed over to the FBI, or as revenge for having provided that information to the FBI.
That’s a bit much to swallow all at once. After all, the government-commissioned report informs us that Mohamed Atta and Abdul Aziz al Omari were two of the many million people traveling Tuesday, September 11, and they went from the Portland, Maine, airport to the Boston airport. Mohamed Atta arrived in Boston at 6:45am; seven minutes later he a had few minutes phone conversation with Marwan al Shehhi, boarding a different flight in another terminal.
Mohamed Atta and several of his colleagues went through the CAPPS (Computer Assisted Passenger Prescreening System) security system, for people who should be subject to special security measures. The luggage of these people could not board the plane until after the person was aboard. All passengers went through standard X-ray machines, designed to detect of at least a .22-caliber handgun. At Boston Logan International American Airlines 11 security was handled by Globe Security; United Airlines flight 175 contracted security to Huntleigh USA.
“Between 6:45 and 7:40, Atta and Omari, along with Satam al Suqami, Wail al Shehri, and Waleed al Shehri, checked in and boarded American Airlines Flight 11, bound for Los Angeles. The flight was scheduled to depart at 7:45. In another Logan terminal, [Marwan al] Shehhi, joined by Fayez Banihammad, Mohand al Shehri, Ahmed al Ghamdi, and Hamza al Ghamdi, checked in for United Airlines Flight 175, also bound for Los Angeles.” Those are the people of interest in Boston; two more points of origin may be important.
“Hundreds of miles southwest of Boston, at Dulles International Airport in the Virginia suburbs of Washington, D.C, five more men were preparing to take their early morning flight. At 7:15, a pair of them, Khalid al Mihdhar and Majed Moqed checked in at the American Airlines ticket counter for flight 77, bound for Los Angeles. Within the next 20 minutes, they would be followed by Hani Hanjour and the two brothers, Nawaf al Hazmi, and Salem al Hazmi. The Hazmi brothers received extra scrutiny by security; one of them had no photo ID and couldn’t understand English.” The only result was that their bags were detained until they boarded. United Airlines contracted security to Argenbright Security.
In Newark, New Jersey, on that Tuesday morning “Saeed al Ghamdi, Ahmed al Nami, Ahmad al Haznawi, and Ziad Jarrah checked in at the United Airlines ticket counter for flight 93, going to Los Angeles.” Argenbright security was also in charge of security here. Haznawi was the only one in Newark to have CAPPS screening.
Many of us have forgotten it, but there was a time when security at the airport was neither arduous nor unfriendly. As often happens, due to the actions of a few individuals, many of us find ourselves inconvenienced to a point that is morally objectionable. It was indeed a happy time when five Muslim men could walk through the airport that serves our nation’s capital, and three of them set off the now-quite-antiquated X-ray machines, but were allowed to pass with through a “marginal at best” screening effort. Our world would be quite different if the security on duty had second thoughts, was beset with Islamophobia, or followed FAA guidelines. The anonymous author of the September 11th Commission Report might argue, though, that security was given specific instruction to allow men through that day.
The anonymous report, in good time, will detail why these individuals came together, where they came from, why they chose the date, and propose several theories, of which some, all, or none may be the accurate reasons for the event known as 9/11. As so often happens the anonymous report begins in media res – in the middle of things – and it is necessary that we will work forward and backward as the report reveals itself. The murder of Nicholas Berg takes place in the middle of things chronologically, but may play only the part of revealing the stakeholders in this saga.
This is Part One of a many part series, synthesizing the stories of 9/11, its aftermath, and our future.
It seems as if the House Republicans were told that they are in charge of the Frequent Failure to Fund Program. Maybe they all swore an oath to only serve part of the country. Whatever it is, something is screwy in the House. “The House on Wednesday failed to pass legislation to keep the government funded past next week, a major defeat for Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio), who was banking on having the votes for a package that tied emergency disaster aid to spending cuts.” I remember writing in April about looming government shutdown over lack of funding, and then writing again in June and July as the same saga played out. Here we are again.
But this time, it’s not just about a threatened shutdown. Like last time, with debt ceiling scares, the Republicans are going hell bent to leather; this time it’s about threatening to cut funding for emergency relief programs. There are some very scary things about FEMA (the Federal Emergency Management Agency) which will be revealed in due time, but that is not the beef of the Republican argument. They just don’t want to provide for those unlucky enough to live in an area where two hurricanes within a week followed on the heels of an earthquake.
Americans need no reminding that the federal government is inefficient. “The House and Senate are scheduled to leave town on Friday for a week-long recess; unless that changes, they only have two days left to figure out a way forward.” The Republicans spent the week playing politics with emergency relief, just in time to skip town. ” The failed vote was not only an embarrassment for Republican leaders, who ended up nowhere near the 218 votes they needed to pass the bill, but it also eats into the small window of time left to avert a government shutdown.”
You may remember the exciting times earlier this summer, when a special committee was created to do something about the debt. Some of our representatives remember this summer, and see the idiocy in having this same discussion again.
” Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said the easiest way to remedy the situation would be to take disaster aid completely out of the continuing resolution and pass the Senate’s standalone aid bill. But one option that remains unacceptable to Democrats would be to cut funding levels for disaster aid to appease conservative Republicans, especially since those funding levels had already been agreed upon during debt talks this summer. ‘We’re not going to negotiate something in July and then let people renege in September and say never mind. Absolutely not.'”
In order to pursue September 11, 2001, and its reverberating aftermath in the socio-political-economic world, we begin by looking at things as they are now. In contrast, our primary sources begin by looking at things as they were in 2001 and 2008. Conspiracy theories abound in politics. Obama was born in Kenya; Bush approved September 11 for personal reasons; Clinton was a werewolf, etc. I am apt to believe some of these and disbelieve others. Most of us do. We pick and choose our beliefs.
Fourteen months after September 11 – and whether that is a long or short time I’ll let the rest of this report conclude for itself – congress and the President created the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States. It had a massive job and a sweeping mandate.
The law directed [them] to investigate “facts and circumstances relating to the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001,” including those relating to intelligence agencies, law enforcement agencies, diplomacy, immigration issues and border control, the flow of assets to terrorist organizations, commercial aviation, the role of congressional oversight and resource allocation, and other areas determined relevant by the commission.
The Commission reviewed more than 2.5 million pages of of documents and interviewed more than 1,200 people – which included almost every senior official in past administrations that might be relevant.
And who were these commissioners, charged with an investigation into an event that has created unfathomable bloodshed and untold millions of deaths? Five Republicans and five Democrats; with a career in government on their resumes. They are:
- Thomas Kean, Republican, former governor of New Jersey
- Lee H. Hamilton, Democrat, former US representative 9th district Indiana
- Richard Ben-Veniste, Democrat, attorney and former chief of Watergate Task Force
- Max Cleland, Democrat, former US Senator Georgia (resigned in 2003 stating that White House was playing cover-up; replaced by Bob Kerrey, Democrat, former US Senator Nebraska)
- Fred F. Fielding, Republican, attorney and former White House counsel
- James Gorelick, Democrat, former Deputy Attorney General in Clinton administration
- Slade Gorton, Republican, former US Senator Washington
- John F. Lehman, Republican, former Secretary of the Navy
- Timothy J. Roemer, Democrat, former US representative 3rd district Indiana)
- James R. Thompson, Republican, former governor of Illinois.
Several years later, around 2005, an extensive document was published online by an anonymous author. Updated for a final time in 2008, as we read this anonymous document it is clear why the author desires to remain unnamed. It details the moral failings of the United States at many levels, including the highest levels. It is the kind of information we try to avoid, and therefore we must know it. Although the author remains ambiguous, neither the purpose nor the sources are unclear.
The intent of this report is to 1)provide a hypothetical explanation for the events of September 11, 2001 that incorporates currently public information not included in the official government report, and 2)focus public attention on circumstances that strongly suggest there has been wrong doing by public officials and organizations involved in misuse of government resources, 3)explain why officials may have been motivated to mislead the American public, and 4)provide a foundation of research and hypothesis for future research. Information presented in this report documents that the federal institutions responsible for investigating these events are currently involved in efforts to suppress the facts under the guise of National Security. Hence, this information is being made public in the hope that unknown officials with appropriate level of authority can re-institute the appropriate investigation, or that private investigative resources can further substantiate (or disprove) these claims.
These two sources, one by commissioned by the government titled “9/11 Commission Report,” and the other by unknown interestingly titled “September 11 Commission Report” tell different versions of the same story. Our job is to know the stories, and to know which, if either (or perhaps both) are the story we will be proud to tell, knowing that we have told the truth.
This is the first in a many part series, synthesizing the stories of 9/11, its aftermath, and our future.
If you’ve been following along you may have noticed a lapse in fairly regular discourse here. As I was preparing a many-part series about, and to be begun on, 9/11 the technology so may of us take for granted was turned off. Lacking in wireless internet, my internet was limited to hard-wiring my computer in other rooms in the house, or Starbucks.
I now have wireless internet, for which I am doubly thankful now that I’ve experienced trying to write, email, facebook, and work without a dependable connection.
I have returned, with a backlog of things to write about, about ten days of news I’ve missed, and things that should be done.
He’s just not that into you having a job, that is. Rick Perry is all for people having jobs, as long as those jobs don’t include social security, medicare, or living wages.
He’s proud that as governor, he’s created the most jobs of any state within his state, but he forgets the caveat that he is in one of the most populous states. Therefore, job creation only keeps pace with population, and the jobs are mostly minimum wage.
The Dole Blog 