Thank you for this. I cringe at the "Never Forget," as it seems to always be about holding a grudge/getting revenge. That's the outlook that perpetuates violence around the world.
The National Security State didn’t fail. It succeeded beyond its wildest dreams.
What sticks with me most, besides the chaos, besides the news stories that ran investigating the weird shit that happened in the weeks before and after, and the speed with which even stories in the NYTIMES were memory holed with mind bending speed was this…
The nation was traumatized, society was more cohesive than it ever had been. People wanted to help, to help each other, to do something.
Bush’s response? He told us to go shopping. “America. Open for Business.”
I will never forget how stunned I was by that. While we were waiting for inspiration and asking what we could do for our country, the answer was: go shopping. Wtf.
The rapidity of the demolition and transport of the crime scene to China to get melted down into little statues of the Twin Towers and other stuff puzzles me.
Never forget. Never ask why. Never learn. We went on to kill 176,000 in Afghanistan, 400,000 in Iraq, stood by and supported Israel as they killed 73,000 in Gaza and then went on to murder 160 plus people, mostly children at a school in Iran. How many jihadists have we created for our posterity to deal with? Where have all the flowers gone.... when will we ever learn.
I am so sick of the superficial coverage of 911. Why did they do it is a question sorely lacking. Al-Qaeda attacked the United States on September 11, 2001, to retaliate against U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East and to force the U.S. to stop supporting governments in the region. Osama bin Laden and other group leaders stated their primary motives in public messages and fatwas (religious rulings): U.S. Military Presence: They opposed U.S. troops stationed in Saudi Arabia (home to Islam's holiest sites) after the 1991 Gulf War.
Motives for the September 11 attacks: They protested strong U.S. military and financial backing of Israel, especially regarding the treatment of Palestinians. Middle Eastern Governments: They wanted to overthrow secular or royal governments in the Muslim world (such as Saudi Arabia) and viewed U.S. financial and military support as the main shield keeping those leaders in power. Sanctions and Interventions: They cited U.S. military actions and economic sanctions against Iraq, as well as interventions in places like Somalia.
Their Strategic Goal: Al-Qaeda believed that striking the United States on its own soil would cause the U.S. to withdraw its military forces and stop supporting Middle Eastern regimes. They hoped this would weaken those local governments and allow Al-Qaeda to establish strict fundamentalist rule across the region. Instead, the attacks led to the U.S. declaring a "Global War on Terrorism" and invading Afghanistan, where Al-Qaeda was based.
• Some analysts distinguish between al-Qaeda's stated grievances (the ones you listed) and its deeper ideological goal of restoring a transnational caliphate — the political grievances were partly a recruitment and legitimacy tool layered on top of that broader aim
• The 1998 fatwa "Jihad Against Jews and Crusaders" (issued by bin Laden and allied figures) is usually treated as the clearest single statement of these combined grievances, framing attacks on Americans as a religious obligation
None of this was secret. Al-Qaeda often publicized this and previous attacks on USS Cole Occurring less than a year before the September 11 attacks, the bombing of the USS Cole is widely recognized as a major precursor and a stark warning of al-Qaeda's growing operational reach against U.S. military forces. Then A truck bomb explodes in the parking garage of the World Trade Center (WTC) killing six and injuring hundreds. Investigators discover the suspects have links to a network of Islamic extremists. Several people eventually convicted in the bombing are linked to the Office of Service's Al Kifah Center in Brooklyn; four of these men are connected to Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman. Rahman, a blind Egyptian cleric who was the spiritual leader of the Egyptian Islamic Jihad, is later convicted of conspiracy for his involvement in a plot to blow up New York City landmarks. He is sentenced to life in prison. Investigators charge Ramzi Yousef as the mastermind behind the WTC bombing and begin a worldwide manhunt. They discover immigration officials had already detained Ahmed Ajaj, a Yousef associate, when he entered the U.S. carrying terrorist training manuals. Osama bin Laden's name surfaces during the 1993 WTC investigation as a financier of the Office of Services. His name is also found on a list of individuals who was called from a safe house used by the conspirators. During the WTC bombing trial, bin Laden's name appears on a list of potential unindicted co-conspirators, but Al Qaeda is never mentioned.
However, rather than causing U.S. withdrawal, the attacks led to a much larger and longer U.S. military footprint in the region (Afghanistan for 20 years, plus the 2003 Iraq invasion), the opposite of al-Qaeda's stated strategic goal.
Thanks for mentioning Bush and Cheney's inaction before 9/11. They were given roughly 30 warnings and, I believe, took zero actions. The hijackers obviously knew that all the fighter jets in North America were going to be busy that day on a massive exercise. Given that "the system was blinking red" it would have been prudent to hold back some planes to protect coastal cities. On a normal day the second plane would have never gotten through. I've often thought that if America's democracy was healthy both Bush and Cheney would have been impeached after 9/11. Instead, they're spoken about with reverence whenever this is discussed.
The Bush admin jackals, neocons and neoCohens--along with CIA and Israeli Mossad--planned and/or carried out the attacks. Cheney resorted to more than just inaction; he actively stood down NORAD response protocol when their false flag scenario went "live." And the 9/11 Commission was an exercise in cover up, led by the self-described "creator of public myth," Philip Zelikow.
The ultimate insult added to this huge injury to our nation is that the actual perps are beginning to die off of old age instead of being prosecuted and publicly executed. They continue to enjoy the earnings from their put options against American and United airlines, which they directed just a few days prior to the event (And God knows who raked in the missing $2.3T perpetrator Rumsfeld had announced on 9/10....). And the PNAC's "new Pearl Harbor" unleashed the planned chaos in the Middle East as they continue to go down Wesley Clark's list of Arab countries to topple.
Very well written Ken! The victims have mostly been forgotten and the gluttony of the military industrial complex continues to impose itself on the American people.
If I had my wish, we would honor the victims of 9/11 by abolishing the Patriot Act & The war on Terrorism & the War on Drugs. Then I would honor JFK’s wish and Splinter the CIA into a thousand pieces!
I am incensed by 9/11 memorializing, period. You know I don't mince words so here is a hurricane of them...
We were united in blindness, oblivious to all the death and destruction across the world that the US had been conducting with no consequences to the homeland from our devastating military and CIA activities overseas. For Americans, ignorant of all US foreign policy, it was just like Oct 7 when Israelis united believing themselves an innocent party assaulted by barbarians, forgetting the 75 years (now 78) of death, destruction and eviction of the Palestinians whose crime was to be present in a land desired by others, those others determined to take the land by any means necessary.
America and Israel had for decades prior to being attacked in a way that could not be hidden had been practicing a policy of might makes right, quite often together.
It is no accident that Netanyahu said he was glad 9/11 happened because it could be exploited by Israel to get Americans to believe the nonsense that Israelis have believed and still believe, the false narrative that has the IDF joyfully killing in Gaza and the settlers joyfully terrorizing the Palestinians in the West Bank, illegally occupied by Israel.
America on 9/11 and Israel on Oct 7 were exactly alike in the respective countries in self-righteousness. About 3000 Americans died on 9/11, a small percentage of those killed in Central and South America and the Caribbean either from direct American intervention (send in the Marines!) where it had no business except to clear the way for business (look up Marine General Smedley Butler) or indirectly through the training and support of the militaries of foreign countries and the death squads of those militaries. Those deaths were in the Western Hemisphere only a part of American carnage across the globe.
Israel likewise went on a rampage after Oct 7 not only killing 73000 Palestinians and counting but killing Lebanese, Syrians and anyone else in a "7 front war" that has delighted Netanyahu with the great majority of Israelis behind him. After Oct 7, not a word was said about the prior "mowing the grass" operations of all out attack on Gaza by Israel that started at the end of 2009 and killed Palestinians far beyond the number of Israelis who died on Oct. 7.
America learned nothing from 9/11 just as Israel learned nothing from Oct 7. Both reacted the same way with the blood lust that GW Bush said he felt after the towers fell. Since then add in the thousands of dead Afghans pointlessly killed in pursuit of one man who left the country to be found in Pakistan years later, the dead Iraqis pointlessly killed in pursuit of one man who was no threat to the US, and now in progress the dead Iranians killed by America and Israel in service to the dream of Netanyahu who outrageously preached to Congress against Obama's peaceful JCPOA that Trump tore up in favor of letting blood flow in a pointless and expensive war he started.
Both 9/11 and Oct 7 were defensive, desperate acts that screamed, "STOP WHAT YOU HAVE DONE AND ARE DOING!" The ongoing Israeli slaughter has opened American eyes to the foundation of Israel in ethnic superiority and cleansing, its borders not formally declared to this day as it expands in an ocean of blood with the outrageously hypocritical support of the land of liberty and justice for all headed by a war criminal president.
The grip of Zionism on the US that was strengthened by Israel leveraging 9/11 is being broken. The "Special Consensus" of a bought US Congress is gone. The Democratic Party is hopelessly trying to defend Israel as the American people revolt in the name of LJ4A. AIPAC is pouring unlimited wealth into our corrupt political campaign system to shore up support for Isreal, hiding behind multiple PACs that are no sooner created than outed by diligent Americans seeking freedom from Israel's grip. Larry Ellison, the Zionist who has reaped astounding wealth under LJ4A has bought CBS News to protect ethnic cleansing Israel. He has his eyes on CNN.
Will Palestine ever be free for anyone who wants to live there? It looks very uncertain as Zionism is fanaticism and will do anything to protect ethnic supremacy regardless of American Jews being free, equal, respected and protected in the US. Remember that the Confederacy, another fanaticism, went to civil war to protect slavery.
Will the US return to upholding LJ4A, escaping its current place in the sewer with Israel? The outlook for that is good and you, reader, can help it progress this November.
I fondly remember Russ Feingold, who is Jewish but did not, does not clap in approval at everything the Jewish State does. In that way, he reminds me of Bernie Sanders.
Not only did our intelligence agencies fail us in 9/11, it also failed the Israeli people because there is no fucking way in hell they did not know about the conversation between Netanyahu and Al Zayed. You’d have to be deaf dumb and blind to ever want either of these intelligence people to combine their resources. God knows the other shit they could get up to that we still don’t know what happened prior to 9/11. They are still looking for that scapegoat, apparently Libya is out of the question since “we came, we saw, he died.”
From a "conversation" I had that took a lot of prodding with "AI". I'm sorry but I'm not convinced that 19 dudes with boxcutters managed to pull off all the insane actions on that day without plenty of help. There's a good reason that the 9/11 Commission was a coverup and that reason isn't to protect the reputation of the CIA or FBI or Bush Regime. That reason is that there's a lot more to the story than they wanted anyone to find out.
Kean and Hamilton: "Set up to fail" (the 9/11 Commission - a Whitewash con job)
In Without Precedent (2006), both co-chairs stated it plainly:
Kean: "If you want something to fail, you take a controversial topic and appoint five people from each party. You make sure they are appointed by the most partisan people from each party — the leaders of the party."
Hamilton: "We thought we were set up to fail. We got started late. We had a very short time frame. Indeed, we had to get it extended. We did not have enough money. They were afraid we were going to hang somebody."
They also stated that the commission was so frustrated by repeated misstatements from the Pentagon and FAA that they considered filing criminal obstruction-of-justice charges against those officials. They did not.
Max Cleland (Republican commissioner) resigned, stating the Commission had been "deliberately compromised by the President of the United States."
Six of the ten members expressed concerns about being lied to, denied access, and hampered by conflicted staff.
This is the part that distinguishes it from "the agencies were slow." The obstruction was active and deliberate:
The CIA: Kean stated directly: "Oh, it wasn't careless oversight. It was purposeful. No question about that in my mind... In the DNA of these organizations was secrecy." The CIA had been tracking two of the hijackers' entry into and whereabouts inside the US for over a year before the attacks and did not reveal this to the Commission.
The FAA and NORAD: The Commission was forced to subpoena both agencies to obtain audiotapes and records. The FAA initially withheld critical communications. NORAD withheld records of its inaction on the morning of 9/11. The agencies' reluctance, along with erroneous public statements, led commission staff to believe "authorities sought to mislead the Commission and the public."
The Pentagon: Withheld records of NORAD and Air Force command activities on 9/11. The Commission had to subpoena the Pentagon directly.
The White House / Oval Office: Refused to let four commission members who had been granted access to Bush's pre-9/11 daily briefings share their notes with the other six members. The Commission threatened to subpoena the Oval Office files. The White House eventually relented, but the notes remained in White House custody.
The 28 pages: The Joint Inquiry's section on possible Saudi government links to the hijackers was classified under "national security" and withheld. The stated reason was protecting the US-Saudi relationship. Prince Bandar (Saudi ambassador) himself asked for declassification, saying: "We stand charged with 28 blank pages and we can't respond to the charge." The pages were not released until 2016
The 9/11 Commission was, in the words of its own chairs, structurally designed to produce a politically manageable answer rather than a forensically rigorous one. The Warren Commission was compromised by its membership and its reliance on the FBI. The 9/11 Commission was compromised by its scope, its timeline, its funding, its subpoena threshold, the active obstruction of the agencies under investigation, and the classification of the most sensitive findings.
The key difference: the Warren Commission's flaws were structural and political (the wrong people, the wrong timeline, the wrong evidence base). The 9/11 Commission's flaws were structural, political, and actively obstructive — the agencies under investigation didn't just fail to cooperate, they deliberately misled the Commission, and the Commission's own chairs said so, on the record, in a book.
And the follow-up was even worse: the HSCA at least produced a contrary finding ("probable conspiracy"). No equivalent body has ever examined the 9/11 Commission's work. The "failure of imagination" framing has become the accepted conclusion, and the 25-year declassification cycle means the full picture may not be available for another decade.
"Distasteful" in my husband's words. He cringes at the normalization of "cuss words" in language, though doesn't regard the bombings of September 11 2001 to be anything but blowback for criminal behavior and complicity by the US government, with a lot of palace intrigue thrown in. But he was OK with "Fuck 911" after he read it.
Thank you for this. I cringe at the "Never Forget," as it seems to always be about holding a grudge/getting revenge. That's the outlook that perpetuates violence around the world.
The National Security State didn’t fail. It succeeded beyond its wildest dreams.
What sticks with me most, besides the chaos, besides the news stories that ran investigating the weird shit that happened in the weeks before and after, and the speed with which even stories in the NYTIMES were memory holed with mind bending speed was this…
The nation was traumatized, society was more cohesive than it ever had been. People wanted to help, to help each other, to do something.
Bush’s response? He told us to go shopping. “America. Open for Business.”
I will never forget how stunned I was by that. While we were waiting for inspiration and asking what we could do for our country, the answer was: go shopping. Wtf.
They never miss an opportunity to exploit a moment of vulnerability, to co-opt rare moments of collective humanity to feed the machine.
Honestly, that alone kinda closed the “inside job?” question for me.
And remember how we all got a stimulus check or tax refund or something? I think it was $200.
The rapidity of the demolition and transport of the crime scene to China to get melted down into little statues of the Twin Towers and other stuff puzzles me.
Millions for "Homeland Security" yet they kept trying to cut off healthcare for the first responders who were told the air was safe
Bravo! And fuck Hillary Clinton too!(maybe not)
Never forget. Never ask why. Never learn. We went on to kill 176,000 in Afghanistan, 400,000 in Iraq, stood by and supported Israel as they killed 73,000 in Gaza and then went on to murder 160 plus people, mostly children at a school in Iran. How many jihadists have we created for our posterity to deal with? Where have all the flowers gone.... when will we ever learn.
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/previously-classified-911-documents-released-cia-25th-anniversary-atta-rcna597262.
I am so sick of the superficial coverage of 911. Why did they do it is a question sorely lacking. Al-Qaeda attacked the United States on September 11, 2001, to retaliate against U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East and to force the U.S. to stop supporting governments in the region. Osama bin Laden and other group leaders stated their primary motives in public messages and fatwas (religious rulings): U.S. Military Presence: They opposed U.S. troops stationed in Saudi Arabia (home to Islam's holiest sites) after the 1991 Gulf War.
Motives for the September 11 attacks: They protested strong U.S. military and financial backing of Israel, especially regarding the treatment of Palestinians. Middle Eastern Governments: They wanted to overthrow secular or royal governments in the Muslim world (such as Saudi Arabia) and viewed U.S. financial and military support as the main shield keeping those leaders in power. Sanctions and Interventions: They cited U.S. military actions and economic sanctions against Iraq, as well as interventions in places like Somalia.
Their Strategic Goal: Al-Qaeda believed that striking the United States on its own soil would cause the U.S. to withdraw its military forces and stop supporting Middle Eastern regimes. They hoped this would weaken those local governments and allow Al-Qaeda to establish strict fundamentalist rule across the region. Instead, the attacks led to the U.S. declaring a "Global War on Terrorism" and invading Afghanistan, where Al-Qaeda was based.
• Some analysts distinguish between al-Qaeda's stated grievances (the ones you listed) and its deeper ideological goal of restoring a transnational caliphate — the political grievances were partly a recruitment and legitimacy tool layered on top of that broader aim
• The 1998 fatwa "Jihad Against Jews and Crusaders" (issued by bin Laden and allied figures) is usually treated as the clearest single statement of these combined grievances, framing attacks on Americans as a religious obligation
None of this was secret. Al-Qaeda often publicized this and previous attacks on USS Cole Occurring less than a year before the September 11 attacks, the bombing of the USS Cole is widely recognized as a major precursor and a stark warning of al-Qaeda's growing operational reach against U.S. military forces. Then A truck bomb explodes in the parking garage of the World Trade Center (WTC) killing six and injuring hundreds. Investigators discover the suspects have links to a network of Islamic extremists. Several people eventually convicted in the bombing are linked to the Office of Service's Al Kifah Center in Brooklyn; four of these men are connected to Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman. Rahman, a blind Egyptian cleric who was the spiritual leader of the Egyptian Islamic Jihad, is later convicted of conspiracy for his involvement in a plot to blow up New York City landmarks. He is sentenced to life in prison. Investigators charge Ramzi Yousef as the mastermind behind the WTC bombing and begin a worldwide manhunt. They discover immigration officials had already detained Ahmed Ajaj, a Yousef associate, when he entered the U.S. carrying terrorist training manuals. Osama bin Laden's name surfaces during the 1993 WTC investigation as a financier of the Office of Services. His name is also found on a list of individuals who was called from a safe house used by the conspirators. During the WTC bombing trial, bin Laden's name appears on a list of potential unindicted co-conspirators, but Al Qaeda is never mentioned.
However, rather than causing U.S. withdrawal, the attacks led to a much larger and longer U.S. military footprint in the region (Afghanistan for 20 years, plus the 2003 Iraq invasion), the opposite of al-Qaeda's stated strategic goal.
Thanks for all the additional details.
Thanks for mentioning Bush and Cheney's inaction before 9/11. They were given roughly 30 warnings and, I believe, took zero actions. The hijackers obviously knew that all the fighter jets in North America were going to be busy that day on a massive exercise. Given that "the system was blinking red" it would have been prudent to hold back some planes to protect coastal cities. On a normal day the second plane would have never gotten through. I've often thought that if America's democracy was healthy both Bush and Cheney would have been impeached after 9/11. Instead, they're spoken about with reverence whenever this is discussed.
The Bush admin jackals, neocons and neoCohens--along with CIA and Israeli Mossad--planned and/or carried out the attacks. Cheney resorted to more than just inaction; he actively stood down NORAD response protocol when their false flag scenario went "live." And the 9/11 Commission was an exercise in cover up, led by the self-described "creator of public myth," Philip Zelikow.
The ultimate insult added to this huge injury to our nation is that the actual perps are beginning to die off of old age instead of being prosecuted and publicly executed. They continue to enjoy the earnings from their put options against American and United airlines, which they directed just a few days prior to the event (And God knows who raked in the missing $2.3T perpetrator Rumsfeld had announced on 9/10....). And the PNAC's "new Pearl Harbor" unleashed the planned chaos in the Middle East as they continue to go down Wesley Clark's list of Arab countries to topple.
https://graviolateam.blogspot.com/2019/09/gelatin-and-e-team-israeli-art-students.html
https://corbettreport.substack.com/p/ted-walter-helps-turn-the-tide-on?utm_source=podcast-email&publication_id=725827&post_id=213930049&utm_campaign=email-play-on-substack&utm_content=watch_now_button&r=1wn25u&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email
Very well written Ken! The victims have mostly been forgotten and the gluttony of the military industrial complex continues to impose itself on the American people.
If I had my wish, we would honor the victims of 9/11 by abolishing the Patriot Act & The war on Terrorism & the War on Drugs. Then I would honor JFK’s wish and Splinter the CIA into a thousand pieces!
A good essay, Ken, as usual.
I am incensed by 9/11 memorializing, period. You know I don't mince words so here is a hurricane of them...
We were united in blindness, oblivious to all the death and destruction across the world that the US had been conducting with no consequences to the homeland from our devastating military and CIA activities overseas. For Americans, ignorant of all US foreign policy, it was just like Oct 7 when Israelis united believing themselves an innocent party assaulted by barbarians, forgetting the 75 years (now 78) of death, destruction and eviction of the Palestinians whose crime was to be present in a land desired by others, those others determined to take the land by any means necessary.
America and Israel had for decades prior to being attacked in a way that could not be hidden had been practicing a policy of might makes right, quite often together.
It is no accident that Netanyahu said he was glad 9/11 happened because it could be exploited by Israel to get Americans to believe the nonsense that Israelis have believed and still believe, the false narrative that has the IDF joyfully killing in Gaza and the settlers joyfully terrorizing the Palestinians in the West Bank, illegally occupied by Israel.
America on 9/11 and Israel on Oct 7 were exactly alike in the respective countries in self-righteousness. About 3000 Americans died on 9/11, a small percentage of those killed in Central and South America and the Caribbean either from direct American intervention (send in the Marines!) where it had no business except to clear the way for business (look up Marine General Smedley Butler) or indirectly through the training and support of the militaries of foreign countries and the death squads of those militaries. Those deaths were in the Western Hemisphere only a part of American carnage across the globe.
Israel likewise went on a rampage after Oct 7 not only killing 73000 Palestinians and counting but killing Lebanese, Syrians and anyone else in a "7 front war" that has delighted Netanyahu with the great majority of Israelis behind him. After Oct 7, not a word was said about the prior "mowing the grass" operations of all out attack on Gaza by Israel that started at the end of 2009 and killed Palestinians far beyond the number of Israelis who died on Oct. 7.
America learned nothing from 9/11 just as Israel learned nothing from Oct 7. Both reacted the same way with the blood lust that GW Bush said he felt after the towers fell. Since then add in the thousands of dead Afghans pointlessly killed in pursuit of one man who left the country to be found in Pakistan years later, the dead Iraqis pointlessly killed in pursuit of one man who was no threat to the US, and now in progress the dead Iranians killed by America and Israel in service to the dream of Netanyahu who outrageously preached to Congress against Obama's peaceful JCPOA that Trump tore up in favor of letting blood flow in a pointless and expensive war he started.
Both 9/11 and Oct 7 were defensive, desperate acts that screamed, "STOP WHAT YOU HAVE DONE AND ARE DOING!" The ongoing Israeli slaughter has opened American eyes to the foundation of Israel in ethnic superiority and cleansing, its borders not formally declared to this day as it expands in an ocean of blood with the outrageously hypocritical support of the land of liberty and justice for all headed by a war criminal president.
The grip of Zionism on the US that was strengthened by Israel leveraging 9/11 is being broken. The "Special Consensus" of a bought US Congress is gone. The Democratic Party is hopelessly trying to defend Israel as the American people revolt in the name of LJ4A. AIPAC is pouring unlimited wealth into our corrupt political campaign system to shore up support for Isreal, hiding behind multiple PACs that are no sooner created than outed by diligent Americans seeking freedom from Israel's grip. Larry Ellison, the Zionist who has reaped astounding wealth under LJ4A has bought CBS News to protect ethnic cleansing Israel. He has his eyes on CNN.
Will Palestine ever be free for anyone who wants to live there? It looks very uncertain as Zionism is fanaticism and will do anything to protect ethnic supremacy regardless of American Jews being free, equal, respected and protected in the US. Remember that the Confederacy, another fanaticism, went to civil war to protect slavery.
Will the US return to upholding LJ4A, escaping its current place in the sewer with Israel? The outlook for that is good and you, reader, can help it progress this November.
I wish I could give a thousand "likes" to this.
Don't miss Robert Reich's post today, with the video of Russ Feingold's speech on Oct 25, 2001.
https://robertreich.substack.com/p/the-lone-vote-against-the-patriot
I remember doing doors for Feingold in 2010-sadly we ended up with Our Dumb Senator Ron Johnson and ex Governor Scott Walker
I fondly remember Russ Feingold, who is Jewish but did not, does not clap in approval at everything the Jewish State does. In that way, he reminds me of Bernie Sanders.
Bush managed to mix cowardice and incompetence into a stew unseen since trump rode the meal truck
Not only did our intelligence agencies fail us in 9/11, it also failed the Israeli people because there is no fucking way in hell they did not know about the conversation between Netanyahu and Al Zayed. You’d have to be deaf dumb and blind to ever want either of these intelligence people to combine their resources. God knows the other shit they could get up to that we still don’t know what happened prior to 9/11. They are still looking for that scapegoat, apparently Libya is out of the question since “we came, we saw, he died.”
Fuck them all.
Willie Brown took the American flag
Turned it into a shopping bag
Come on baby let’s go downtown
City Lights, a drink at Specs
Have some Chinese food or Mex
And spread a few dollars around
Gray Davis told the National Guard
Stand on the bridge and look real hard
At every SUV Frisco bound
Might be nothing you can do
But the camo’ed sight of you
Will spread a few dollars around
Rudy went to ground zero,
turned into a national hero
Only yesterday he was a clown
Talks the talk, walks the walk,
Come on to New Yawk New Yawk
And spread a few dollars around\
George Bush is shrewd and bold
Don’t talk down to an 8-year old
About the evildoers underground
Take a pen, write a card
To a pen pal in Kandahar
Spread a few dollars around
Congress votes billions more
Whatever it takes gotta win the war
And keep the economy sound
Pay by card, pay by check
It’s all made in China so what the heck
Let’s spread a few dollars around
Willie Brown took the American flag
Turned it into a shopping bag
Come on baby let’s go downtown
Buy a bike, buy a yacht
Bring your card for medical pot
Spread a few dollars around
and around and around and around...
From a "conversation" I had that took a lot of prodding with "AI". I'm sorry but I'm not convinced that 19 dudes with boxcutters managed to pull off all the insane actions on that day without plenty of help. There's a good reason that the 9/11 Commission was a coverup and that reason isn't to protect the reputation of the CIA or FBI or Bush Regime. That reason is that there's a lot more to the story than they wanted anyone to find out.
Kean and Hamilton: "Set up to fail" (the 9/11 Commission - a Whitewash con job)
In Without Precedent (2006), both co-chairs stated it plainly:
Kean: "If you want something to fail, you take a controversial topic and appoint five people from each party. You make sure they are appointed by the most partisan people from each party — the leaders of the party."
Hamilton: "We thought we were set up to fail. We got started late. We had a very short time frame. Indeed, we had to get it extended. We did not have enough money. They were afraid we were going to hang somebody."
They also stated that the commission was so frustrated by repeated misstatements from the Pentagon and FAA that they considered filing criminal obstruction-of-justice charges against those officials. They did not.
Max Cleland (Republican commissioner) resigned, stating the Commission had been "deliberately compromised by the President of the United States."
Six of the ten members expressed concerns about being lied to, denied access, and hampered by conflicted staff.
The obstruction was not passive
This is the part that distinguishes it from "the agencies were slow." The obstruction was active and deliberate:
The CIA: Kean stated directly: "Oh, it wasn't careless oversight. It was purposeful. No question about that in my mind... In the DNA of these organizations was secrecy." The CIA had been tracking two of the hijackers' entry into and whereabouts inside the US for over a year before the attacks and did not reveal this to the Commission.
The FAA and NORAD: The Commission was forced to subpoena both agencies to obtain audiotapes and records. The FAA initially withheld critical communications. NORAD withheld records of its inaction on the morning of 9/11. The agencies' reluctance, along with erroneous public statements, led commission staff to believe "authorities sought to mislead the Commission and the public."
The Pentagon: Withheld records of NORAD and Air Force command activities on 9/11. The Commission had to subpoena the Pentagon directly.
The White House / Oval Office: Refused to let four commission members who had been granted access to Bush's pre-9/11 daily briefings share their notes with the other six members. The Commission threatened to subpoena the Oval Office files. The White House eventually relented, but the notes remained in White House custody.
The 28 pages: The Joint Inquiry's section on possible Saudi government links to the hijackers was classified under "national security" and withheld. The stated reason was protecting the US-Saudi relationship. Prince Bandar (Saudi ambassador) himself asked for declassification, saying: "We stand charged with 28 blank pages and we can't respond to the charge." The pages were not released until 2016
The 9/11 Commission was, in the words of its own chairs, structurally designed to produce a politically manageable answer rather than a forensically rigorous one. The Warren Commission was compromised by its membership and its reliance on the FBI. The 9/11 Commission was compromised by its scope, its timeline, its funding, its subpoena threshold, the active obstruction of the agencies under investigation, and the classification of the most sensitive findings.
The key difference: the Warren Commission's flaws were structural and political (the wrong people, the wrong timeline, the wrong evidence base). The 9/11 Commission's flaws were structural, political, and actively obstructive — the agencies under investigation didn't just fail to cooperate, they deliberately misled the Commission, and the Commission's own chairs said so, on the record, in a book.
And the follow-up was even worse: the HSCA at least produced a contrary finding ("probable conspiracy"). No equivalent body has ever examined the 9/11 Commission's work. The "failure of imagination" framing has become the accepted conclusion, and the 25-year declassification cycle means the full picture may not be available for another decade.
jesus, ken...
?
"Distasteful" in my husband's words. He cringes at the normalization of "cuss words" in language, though doesn't regard the bombings of September 11 2001 to be anything but blowback for criminal behavior and complicity by the US government, with a lot of palace intrigue thrown in. But he was OK with "Fuck 911" after he read it.