Charlie Kirk, 9/11 Have This In Common
Still-classified 9/11 documents create the same confusion as Kirk's killing
Today on 9/11, it occurs to me that both the attack 24 years ago and the one that took Charlie Kirk’s life yesterday are plagued by many of the same wild allegations. Foreign intelligence involvement, federal coverup, a manufactured false flag; the parallel conspiracy theories are surreal.
Before the assassin has even been identified, countless people (including the president) have concluded it must have been a group effort, with Fox News alluding to unspecified “foreign intelligence” involvement. Others on the left, meanwhile, insist that the killing was orchestrated by Donald Trump to divert attention away from the Jeffrey Epstein scandal.
The reason behind the insta-theories is simple: nobody trusts what the authorities have to say. That’s understandable. Consider how almost a quarter of a century after the 9/11 attacks, there are still key documents that haven’t been declassified. This despite Trump’s repeated promises to declassify them (and even references to a Saudi Arabian role in the attack).
It’s not hard to see why the government won’t say what it knows. Washington and Riyadh are increasingly joined at the hip: oil, arms sales, and anti-Iran strategy. Actual transparency about 9/11 risks upending the relationship, and so much more about the very “deep state” that Trump was elected to combat. Yet even bull-in-the-China-shop Don isn’t willing to touch this one. So conspiracy theories rush in to fill the vacuum.
Tucker Carlson is currently teasing his new docuseries falsely alleging that the Israelis had foreknowledge of the attack. The reason such claims find traction is that people know that they’ve never been given the full story. And in a way, they’re right.
But Israel is not at the center of secrets of 9/11 that Trump is still hiding from the public, Saudi Arabia is. The central question still lingers: Did the Saudi Arabia have any kind of hand in 9/11, given that 15 of the 19 hijackers were Saudi? Did Saudi Arabia provide any kind of financial support? Did it have foreknowledge of the attacks?
Equally, who within the Saudi government or royal family was on the U.S. payroll? And what did the intelligence community know from its agents and its intercepts that it is still withholding from the 9/11 families? (And it is mostly the victims’ families, normal Americas, who have kept up the pressure.)
In trying to answer these questions about Saudi Arabia, media have largely focused on the 9/11 Commission, which presented a broad, narrative account of the tragedy but also produced a report that was highly curated as to not reveal anything secret.
There was another report though, that of the congressional Joint Inquiry into Intelligence Community Activities before and after the Terrorist Attacks of September 11, 2001, which was Top Secret and not only offered the sharpest insights but revealed the precise deletions that the executive branch insisted upon.
Many of its most explosive passages remain redacted today. The justification, two decades later, for why we can’t know about Saudi Arabia’s involvement is the usual one: “sources and methods,” that if we know precisely what the intelligence agencies knew and what they were doing, that secret agents and secret methods would be exposed. But we’re talking about the deadliest terrorist attack in U.S. history, nearly a quarter century ago.
Here’s just a sample of what we still don’t know:
On Saudi Arabia foreknowledge:
“In May 2001, the U.S. Government became aware that an individual in Saudi Arabia was in contact with a senior al-Qa’ida operative and was most likely aware of an upcoming al-Qa’ida operation.”
On Saudi obstruction:
“According to a U.S. Government official, it was clear from about 1996 that the Saudi Government would not cooperate with the United States on matters relating to Usama Bin Laden… [redacted].”
On Omar al-Bayoumi, a Saudi intelligence officer who hosted the two hijackers in San Diego:
“The Bureau [FBI] closed its inquiry on al-Bayoumi in July 1999 for reasons that remain unclear… [lengthy passage redacted].”
On preferential treatment:
“…should have inquired why the country of Saudi Arabia was given such preferential treatment by the State Department and whether the intelligence agencies were complicit in the policy.”
All of this is on my mind because I recently received a couple of Defense Intelligence Agency reports I’d requested years ago under FOIA. The report describes high-level Saudi naval officers trained in the U.S. peddling the antisemitic myth that “4,000 Jews did not show up for work at the World Trade Center.”
The Saudis, it turns out, had their own conspiracy theories, denying at the time that Osama bin Laden had anything to do with the attacks and of course that Israel was somehow responsible. The officers reporting to the DIA thought that Washington was complicit through its support for Israel and its wars in the Middle East and that U.S. policies had created the climate in which 9/11 became possible.
In the partially declassified report, the surrounding passages are still largely redacted, for the other reason that secrecy persists: that the “truth” might embarrass America, or more precisely the national security establishment that essentially runs America.
If Trump is serious about telling the truth about 9/11 (and sticking it to the “Deep State” he claims to hate), here’s a start: declassify the Joint Inquiry in full. Declassify the DIA report and other passages I’ve referenced here. Do so to tamp down conspiracy theories with facts so that people can reclaim their own power to demand that they be consented on what the government does.
Do so to begin the process of changing the discourse in America.
— Edited by William M. Arkin
As a trans woman, I won't celebrate charlie kirk's murder, even though he would have celebrated mine.
I never advocated for violence against him, even though he advocated for violence against me.
I won't use this situation as a pretext to encourage further violence, even though so many are doing just that right now to honor him, because they know that's what he would have wanted.
Ken,
why ask such insouciant rhetorical questions about Saudi support of the 911 hijackers when we know Prince Bhandar (aka Bandhar Bush) and Princess Haifa did fund key hijackers like Nawaf Al Hazmi and Khalid Al-Mihdar. According to author Joe Trento they were agents of Saudi intelligence. They were protected by the FBI, by the DIA, they were protected from the Able Danger operation, and they lived with an FBI informant in San Diego. Israel was clearly involved in some way in 911 and you don’t have to be a member of a marginal Arab media group to say so. Just look at the East Rutherford police records! East Rutherford, New Jersey police arrested five celebrating Israelis, on the morning of 911 who were videotaping the attacks from across the harbor. They were intelligence agents and that’s why the FBI counterintelligence took over the case, until Michael Cheroff intervened, and then all five Israelis were deported without a trial. Sources on this include The Forward, of all places. There’s a good documented paper trail on this and you should look into it. It starts with the East Rutherford police records. I can help you get those.
Otherwise, good article. I learned a few things. I’ve written two books about 911, personally.
I enjoyed your article because it pointed out that there are still a lot of rocks to turn over. But I’m not sure you see all the rocks either.