U.S. Plans for Martial Law
Since September 11, 2001, the Bush Regime, the US Congress and senior personnel in the U.S. military have been busy planning their escape routes from Washington, D.C. and surrounding communities in the event that the continental United States is attacked by another 19 global insurgents possessing little more than wit, dedication, an unrepentant animosity towards America, and an ample dose of radioactive material packed inside an explosive‑laden metallic suitcase. Corporate executives have ensured that they too will find a place in the bunker along side their effete government colleagues through organizations such as National Security Telecommunications Advisory Committee (NSTAC).
That group is composed of "up to 30 industry chief executives representing the major communications and network service providers and information technology, finance, and aerospace companies ¼the NSTAC provides industry‑based advice and expertise to the President on issues and problems related to implementing national security and emergency preparedness ¼" Defense contracting giants play a prominent role on the NSTAC and include Lockheed Martin, SAIC, Oracle (the company that volunteered to develop a post‑911 national identification database), Boeing, Raytheon, Northrop Grumman and CSC. The chairman of the NSTAC also conveniently serves as an ex‑officio member of Homeland Security czar Tom Ridge's President's Homeland Security Advisory Council.
The U.S. government and its military and corporate officials are fond of making the pitch to the American public that the U.S. Constitution mandates that their survival, above all others, is absolutely necessary to ensure that the government that emanates from that document survives a debilitating attack. It is astonishing that the American public believes such absurdities. But one has to admire the boldly craven and callous "doomsday" planning of the Bush regime and its military centurions and corporate nabobs, who take pleasure in gutting the environment, the workforce, the economy, and the world in general. These are the same people who played hide‑and‑seek with the American public in September 2001.
We the People?
On September 11, 2001, one of the commercial aircraft commandeered by suspected Saudi and Yemeni insurgents made its final approach to its destination, the Pentagon; located roughly three miles across the Potomac River from the U.S. Capitol and White House in Washington, DC, by following Columbia Pike, in Arlington, Virginia, to its target. The Pentagon is located adjacent to the glitzy Pentagon City Mall in Arlington, Virginia, not Washington, DC, as much of the media conveniently fudged the geographic difference. Although not Manhattan, Arlington is a densely packed and diverse community of close to 200,000 people. It hosts five high schools and two notable colleges: Marymount University and George Mason Law School. When the aircraft slammed into the Pentagon, residents of Arlington ‑including many in office buildings, stores, and schools in the "South Side," felt the thud of the explosion as the aircraft incinerated a block of the Pentagon and killed 123 employees and contractors on the ground and 64 on the Boeing 757.
Arlington fire fighters, police and EMT units were on the scene at the Pentagon; as were their counterparts at the World Trade Centers in New York City, within seconds of the aircraft's explosion. In Arlington's case, the rapidity of response was due to alert firefighters and police officers who noticed the aircraft off‑path as it flew dangerously low over the heavily populated Columbia Pike corridor in Arlington that leads directly to the Pentagon. They alerted their colleagues in the Arlington Fire and Police Departments that something was terribly wrong. Someone at the controls of the aircraft knew to pick up the visual of the "Pike" as it is called by Arlingtonians, the same way other pilots pick up the Potomac River on visual to land at Reagan National Airport.
Local residents scrambled to get their youngsters out of schools where the hallways were filled with the crying and unsettled. Teachers, counselors, and coaches did all they could to calm student's nerves. Local firefighters and police were busy trying to give relief to the Pentagon structure and its mangled people. Local hospitals were alerted to receive Pentagon injured. The same scene was played out in New York City.
As mayhem broke loose in Arlington, Virginia, adjacent Washington, and New York City, the response of those who are tasked with national governance provides important clues as to who will live and die during the next disaster. Prior to 911, the only insight into continuity‑of‑government planning was provided by Stanley Kubrick's Doctor Strangelove, which through its characters, portrayed dimwitted "leaders;" most un‑elected, sheltering themselves ahead of their populations.
911 Hide and Seek
Dick Cheney was hustled into a bunker and ultimately ended up in a cave running the Shadow Government. U.S. Supreme Court‑anointed George Bush II and staff was whisked from an elementary school class ‑ minus the children, teachers and school staff; to undisclosed locations scattered across the land. Military installations barricade their gates. As F‑16s patrolled the skies, government officials lauded the protection they were providing despite the fact that the fighters were there to shoot down commercial passenger planes. Leaders of both parties in Congress, and, in fact, all of Congress, were escorted from Washington, DC as if Gort from the Hollywood classic "The Day the Earth Stood Still" had gone on a rampage.
The Bush Regime's senior appointees and bureaucrats sprinted off to hardened bunkers or were taken by helicopter, like their military counterparts, to place like Site R in Pennsylvania to "monitor" the situation. Many of the local corporate senior managers and local newsreaders instructed the "public" to remain calm and not panic. A commonplace refrain from this lot was to "keep busy, be productive." The lone Superpower, with its arsenals and vaunted intelligence agencies convulsed from the handiwork of 19 insurgents, became enfeebled. In effect, the nation came under the rule of a tele‑ government. Undoubtedly, government and military planners; and their think tanks ‑ have discussed attack scenarios that include the institution of a Federal government tele‑governing operation. Members of the U.S. Congress, Supreme Court justices, and the President and his cabinet could easily debate, vote, set policy, render legal decisions via encrypted communications lines, from the comfort of their protective bunkers, home shelters, and command posts on land, sea, and air. In the eventuality of nationwide martial law, these individuals, based on their cowardly performance on 911, would no doubt prefer the safe confines of Hitleresque bunkers. Such was the case on September 11, when, from the safety of a studio in a bunker and a phone line from a basement, the nation's "leadership" sought to govern in an ersatz manner.
The American public fell for this act from a "government" whose inserted president and appointees are the wealthiest Americans ever to oversee a US populace. And as the wealthiest and most corrupt person ever to occupy the White House uttered his inanities, "average people" were taking care of their post‑attack communities in Arlington and New York City. As they suffered, the so‑called civilian and military "leaders" ducked and covered in a classic CYA move. These are America's leaders who; through sheer arrogance and stunning stupidity, ignored reports from tireless FBI field agents that involved suspicious flight school activities and similar reports from gutsy Drug Enforcement Administration agents about the activities of Israeli "art student" spies who happened to be living in the same Florida and Texas neighborhoods as the future hijackers. The same "leaders" would stand by and watch the state of California get raped by Enron, the Bush family's fund raising Ponzi scheme contrivance.
Where was the Senator or Representative, or Cabinet official (save for Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld) who said, "I'm staying with the people" and showed up in the bucket line? Where was the General or Admiral who said I'm staying with my people and worked with the body bags? Where was the Corporate Executive who, instead, was busy turning "patriotism" into profiteering to gain market share and recoup profits? Where will they be during the next attack?
As the U.S. military‑industrial complex sells more and more advanced weaponry to Israel, Indonesia, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Colombia, Pakistan, India, and Nepal and as more and more ethnic and religious minority groups, poor villagers, nomads, urban laborers, and sustenance farmers are massacred by national armies in the pay of ruling oligarchs and multinational corporations, will America's leaders care? No, it's good for business. After U.S. snubbing of the International Criminal Court (to protect war criminals like Henry Kissinger), Conventions on child soldiers and land mines, long‑held international nuclear test‑ban treaties, international protocols involving HIV/AIDS and global warming, will America's leaders care? No. When the Turkmens, Uzbeks, Afghans, Pakistanis, Azeris, Kurds, Turks, and Georgians tire of the special treatment that US Special Forces receive for guarding gas and oil pipelines; and the young troops are killed, will America's leaders notice? No.
Hand it to the CYA crowd, they now know that they can successfully sell the American public a rotten barrel of apples (or oil) and they will buy it gladly. Armed with that knowledge, the next attack may trigger enactment of national martial law.
Martial Law: Coming to a Neighborhood Near You?
The U.S. government has used martial law on numerous occasions, most often to quell domestic disturbances in specific locations around the country. According to the United States Constitution Online, during the War of 1812, Andrew Jackson imposed martial law in an area of New Orleans. When a judge demanded Jackson produce, through the writ of habeas corpus, a man arrested for sedition, Jackson ordered the arrest of the judge. in 1892 at Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, rebellious mine workers blew up a mill and shot at strike breaking workers. Mine owners requested that the state's governor impose martial law and, to no surprise, he did. In 1914, federal troops were ordered by Woodrow Wilson to end the Coal Field Wars in Colorado. In 1934, dockworkers in San Francisco initiated a strike and the governor declared the dockyards subject to martial law empowering the National Guard to make arrests and try detainees. The Supreme Court opined twice on matters involving martial law in Ex Parte Milligan and Duncan v. Kahanamoku. In 1866, Milligan's Supreme Court writers proclaimed that Abraham Lincoln's imposition of martial law had been unconstitutional:
"Martial law¼destroys every guarantee of the Constitution and effectually renders the military independent of an superior to the civil power, the attempt to do which by the King of Great Britain was deemed by our fathers such an offense that they assigned it to the world as one of the causes which impelled them to declare their independence. Civil liberty and this kind of martial law cannot endure together; the antagonism is irreconcilable, and, in the conflict, one or the other must perish."
In 1946, the Supreme Court ruled that the military arrest of two civilians in Hawaii during World War II and their subsequent trial by military tribunals was unconstitutional.
In 2002, with the U.S. Supreme Court nothing more than a useful machination of the Bush regime, it seems likely that if Americans become subjected to a Bush declaration of martial law, any challenge to it would fail miserably. With that thought in mind, its useful to note that the Bush crowd has had plenty of experience with martial law and states‑of‑emergency. In 1992, Bush the Elder issued Executive Order 12804 in response to the Los Angeles riots. Hence, the US Army 7th Infantry Division and detachments of US Marines were deployed to mop up Los Angeles.
That order was only issued after the city's poor had destroyed their neighborhoods. As an aside, that event would expose the CIA's penchant for selling drugs to inner city youth to raise funds for U.S. government covert operations in Central and South America. Bush the Elder was the overseer of much of this activity when he lorded over the Iran‑contra scandal while Vice President under Ronald Reagan. One of Bush's underlings at the time, Oliver North, came up with a secret plan, along with the fascist‑oriented Federal Emergency Management Agency (the key‑masters for the doors to the bunkers), to declare martial law in the event of a "national crisis," including "violent and widespread internal dissent or national opposition to a U.S. military invasion abroad." Florida's provincial ruler Jeb Bush signed Executive Order 01‑262 on September 11, 2001 declaring a State of Emergency in Florida. That was prior to similar declarations in New York and Virginia where the action was."Jebbie" (that's what Bill Clinton calls him) also has the power to suspend elections for 30 days in a county under a State of Emergency.
The Bush family has managed to involve the United States in two wars; two invasions in Latin America, one that resulted in the fiery deaths of thousands of poor Panamanian barrio residents and another that resulted in the Bay of Pigs fiasco; aiding and abetting through murky financial investments America's Teutonic enemy in the last world war; corrupting the U.S. presidential election process; and making the wealthiest Americans and U.S. corporations richer while at the same cutting federal health, education, and welfare budgets and offloading those tasks to the overburdened states.
As the economy sputters with real unemployment close to 8 percent and as income disparity reaches astronomical proportions, it seems that the Bush regime will begin another war. Will that war be against Iraq, as Bush's neo‑conservative hawks want? Or will the Seven Days in May crowd spin the Axis of Evil roulette wheel? Will the arrow point to Cuba? North Korea? Venezuela? The Bush family's record of death and destruction prompted one elderly couple in Baltimore, Maryland (the husband being a highly decorated WW II U.S. Army veteran) to say, " The Bush family should be barred from ever holding political office. Look what they've done to this nation!"
And They Are Not Done Yet
An invasion of Iraq or any of the "Axis of Evil" or "Beyond Axis of Evil" nations is likely to result in a response that means American citizens will die here in the U.S. One incident, one aircraft hijacked, a "dirty nuke" set off in a small town, may well prompt the Bush regime, let's say during the election campaign of 2003‑2004, to suspend national elections for a year while his government ensures stability. The precedent for such thinking is now enshrined in GOP politics. Another egotistical politician, Rudolph Giuliani, suggested that he should stay on as Mayor of New York a while longer past his term to make sure "New Yorkers would get through this thing." Would it be any surprise to hear Bush II say the same thing late in 2003 after insurgents would have destroyed part of a city or a chemical weapons cloud spreads over half of a small state?
Many closed‑door meetings have been held on these subjects and the notices for these meetings have been closely monitored by the definitive www.cryptome.org. In the event of martial law, the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878, which has already been largely gutted by the USA Patriot Act and other Bush II actions, would cease to exist. Posse Comitatus has, for over 100 years, served as an important criminal law safeguard proscribing the use of the Army (later, the Air Force and Navy) to "execute the laws," except where expressly authorized by the Constitution or by Congress.
With the abrogation of Posse Comitatus and the imposition of martial law, the military would, as it did during post‑Civil War Reconstruction in the South, be able to arrest and detain civilians for any flimsy reason. Civilian detainees consigned to federal prisons would be under the control of the Bureau of Prisons while those detained by the military would be subject to the regulations imposed by military commanders. The writ of habeas corpus would be suspended and the family members and legal representatives for detainees would not have a right to see them. This situation has already occurred with those detained in the wake of September 11 without a formal imposition of martial law.
Military tribunals could, as they did in Hawaii during the war, try and convict U.S. civilians. If prisons could not hold all the detainees, the government already has plans to create or reactivate large prison camps in the South and West. Some of these were already used to detain Cuban, Vietnamese, and Haitian "boat people."
In the event of martial law, Draconian censorship laws would be implemented. Even now, the Patriot Act grants authority to obtain an order from the FISA (Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act) Court requiring any person or business to produce any books, records, documents, or items." That law would undoubtedly be extended to encompass the Internet as well. It should be of little wonder why the Pentagon has brought Iran‑contra felon Admiral John Poindexter back from retirement to head the Office of Information Awareness. Coupled with the Office of Information Exploitation, Poindexter's office is seeking ways to identify, block, and determine the sources of seditious material posted on the Internet. Blocked web sites, confiscated computers and servers, and the arrest of non‑conforming web site managers would become the rule of the day.
Not that it would need much in the way of pressure, but the broadcast media would similarly be required to air only that which has been approved by government censors. For example, U.S. Air Force scientists are soon to meet with CNN to figure out how to gather and disseminate information. During the war against Yugoslavia, CNN and National Public Radio hosted as interns U.S. Army psychological warfare operatives who worked on news stories concerning the war.
Similar closed‑door meetings for "Continuity of Government" have taken place since September 11, 2001. Odd, it seems, that no "regular U.S. citizen" and few first responders have had any input into this process. Chalk that up to the fact that the entire process is classified and a matter of "national security," the rubric that is used to justify the constant whittling away of the Constitution and its Bill of Rights. If the general public knew that "Continuity" actually means that the abilities of the Internal Revenue Service to continue to collect taxes, the Customs Service to continue to collect duties, and the Environmental Protection Agency to continue to collect fines actually outweigh the health and safety of American citizens, they would be outraged. Hence the secrecy surrounding the continuity plans.
James Madison had in right in 1794 when he wisely warned about "the old trick of turning every contingency into a resource for accumulating force in the government." The United States was founded by political sages like Madison, Jefferson, and Franklin. It will ultimately see its demise as a democracy through the likes of Bush II, his father, and the Trent Lotts and Dick Armeys that pervade the American body politic.
The “Soviet Collapse” ‑ What Really Happened
For the last few weeks, we have been exploring the supremely crucial question of whom we are fighting in the present "war on terror." Last week, we returned to the beginning of the Soviet seizure of Russia in 1917, and began to look at the "Soviet collapse," and we saw that the Soviets have "collapsed" time after time. Let's look at that tactic more closely.
In 1921, Lenin saw that his Communist dictatorship would collapse without help, so he announced a complete overhaul, known as the New Economic Policy, the propaganda point of which was to prove that the Soviets were just like us Americans. The West, preeminently the United States, sent the aid that saved the new Soviet Union. By 1924, Lenin had died and the time had come to digest all this help. New Soviet dictator Stalin now reversed Soviet policy, which again became harsh.
So, the United States had helped install the Communists in the first place, at which point the Communists were good guys. As soon as they took over, the Cheka implemented the Red Terror, so they were bad guys. They were good guys again, during NEP, and then bad guys again when NEP was thrown out.
But now we are entering the 1930s, and it was time for the Soviets to be good guys again. Stalin launched a massive propaganda effort that culminated in the establishment of diplomatic relations with the United States. The exchange of ambassadors facilitated the transfer of even more financial aid to Moscow. As we have seen, for instance, the Ford Motor Company made it possible for the Soviets to manufacture motor vehicles. Other companies transferred entire factories.
But now here comes the "Purge," in which Stalin subjected his fellow Communists to show trials including brainwashing and execution for "disloyalty." There also was the little matter of the Soviet‑Nazi "Non‑Aggression Pact," signed by von Ribbentrop and Molotov in 1938, that made the Soviets and Nazis treaty allies. Little more than a year later, on September 1, 1939, these totalitarian socialist allies, married by treaty, began World War Two by attacking and dismembering Poland between them.
Needless to say, all this made the Soviets bad guys again. Sounding like rabid "isolationists," Communist fronts in this country driveled daily that the United States should stay out of the European war because it was none of our business. But now here comes crazy Adolf to the rescue. On June 22, 1941, Hitler stupidly attacks Russia.
On the next day, the Soviets are good guys again. The American Peace Mobilization disappears. Now we are told that we must intervene immediately to save the Soviets from collapse, because "Uncle Joe" Stalin is such a good guy. President Franklin Roosevelt conspires with British Prime Minister Winston Churchill to trick the United States into the war for the purpose, and finally succeeds by treasonously arranging the executions of hundreds of Americans and the destruction of a large element of our Pacific fleet at Pearl Harbor. Soviet asset Harry Hopkins, Roosevelt's closest confidant, supervises "Lend‑Lease," in which about $13 billion is sent to the Soviet Union, to "save it from collapse." Remember that we're talking about the early 1940s. Thirteen billion 1942 dollars would translate into a much bigger number today.
Because of all that aid, the Soviets not only survived but also were able to seize all of central Europe. The invasion of Poland had been the cause of the war, but now the United States literally forced Poland into the Soviet maw. See I Saw Poland Betrayed, by U.S. Ambassador Arthur Bliss Lane. Why not? The Soviets were such "good guys."
Stalin again needed time to digest. In 1946, in Missouri, Churchill announced that an "Iron Curtain" had descended over central Europe. The Soviets were bad guys again. They were bad guys during the Berlin Airlift, which was the only way the West could keep their part of Berlin alive. Then Stalin went home to Satan, and the Soviets were good guys again‑until the Hungarian Revolution of 1956. The Soviets deceitfully killed its leaders, invaded and ruthlessly suppressed Hungary, in a betrayal directed by Yuri Andropov of the KGB. Hungarians who could, escaped into Austria. So the Soviets now were bad guys again.
Until new Soviet thug Khrushchev launched the "thaw." Now we could really relate to the Reds. They were good home folks, just like us. Khrushchev became the "Man of the Year." There was a blip in 1962, during the "Soviet missile crisis" in Cuba, a confrontation that Jack Kennedy lost for the United States. The Soviets were bad guys again for a while, but recovered quickly.
The United States now was embroiled in the War in Vietnam. From beginning to end, until Washington finally defeated our victorious military, the Soviets and their satellites in central Europe sent the North Vietnamese and the Viet Cong the supplies and equipment they needed to fight us, despite which our military won in the Nam. From beginning to end, the traitors who defeated our military turned a blind eye and the Soviets remained good guys.
Until 1983, when the Soviets shot down Korean Airlines Flight 007, and, according to the best available speculation, kidnapped the survivors among the 269 passengers and crew, including Georgia Congressman Larry McDonald. Those were the days of Ronald Reagan's "Evil Empire," and our dear friends the Soviets certainly were bad guys again.
But, just a few years later, we began to hear rumors about the latest "Soviet collapse." Most of the little Soviet dictators disappeared. In Rumania, for instance, Ceausescu was deposed. Ronald Reagan demanded that the Soviets dismantle the Berlin Wall, and‑mirabile dictu‑they did it. They allowed the reunification of Germany. Miracle of miracles, the Soviet Union itself was no more. Instead, we had the Confederation of Independent States (CIS). Russia no longer was Communist. Now, it was a Free Enterprise powerhouse, just like the United States. The men who ran Russia were good guys‑just like us. Early in the 1990s, the process was completed.
For decades, your Intrepid Correspondent and others have been warning that long‑standing U.S. policy has been to merge the United States and the Soviet Union. We repeated that warning during the heat of the "Cold War." At that time, of course we were totally insane, potential serial killers, loonies who heard voices when no one was talking. Merge the United States and the Soviet Union? Preposterous!
We knew that was American policy at the highest levels because Rowan Gaither, a former black ops spook, who ran the multi‑billion dollar Ford Foundation at the time, said it was American policy in conversation with Norman Dodd, then a Congressional investigator. Norman told us the whole story on our radio talk show in Los Angeles.
And, sure enough, notice that, even with no treatment, no lithium or other stabilizing drugs, your Intrepid Correspondent has made one of the most amazing recoveries in the history of psychiatry, to the point of sanity at which I am arguably a paragon of "mental health." Now, when we mention the possible merger of the two nations, you still may not agree, but you certainly listen seriously.
Items: the F.B.I. (Federal Bureau of Incineration) and the "successor" (ha! ha!) to the KGB are as tight as a thumb in the nose. Russia is now in the middle of NATO. Did you happen to remember that a Soviet goal from the beginning has been the destruction of NATO? Space exploration has become a joint Russian‑American operation. Bush looked into Putin's very soul and likes what he saw. He may not be a Christian, but he's a man we can trust. That's why Bush is disarming without verification. Soviet, oh, excuse me, Russian generals are allowed to see our infantry tactics and other military secrets. Try this: go to Fort Benning and demand to see them yourself, but don't call on me when you are trying to make bail. These are just a few examples.
Let's recapitulate. The United States (with European help) installed the Communists in power in Russia in the first place. Every few years since, the parasitical Soviet system has routinely approached the point of collapse‑and every time without exception the United States has come to the rescue with billions. We like to call it, "yo‑yo diplomacy." Had the United States merely done nothing, the Soviet Union would have disappeared long ago, and today would be a mere footnote, maybe a chapter. Back and forth the public relations have gone, from good guys to bad guys and back again. Which recalls Wolcott Gibbs's classic parody of Time Magazine's style: "Backward ran sentences until reeled the mind."
So the point is that the "Soviet collapse" is nothing new. It has happened time after time. It is a standard strategy in the Soviet mind‑bending arsenal. It is a routine subterfuge the Soviets use, taught by Machiavelli and Sun Tsu. So, now that we have the necessary history, we are ready to examine the specific proof that this latest "Soviet collapse" is a fraud, leading to another look at the question of whom we are fighting in the present "war on terror." Be with your reporter next week for more.
Who Gave The Green Light For 9.11?
See No Evil
In the weeks leading up to the aerial attacks of Sept. 11, international flight crews used to heightened precautions abroad expressed dismay over relaxed security at all major US airports. As one veteran flight attendant told this reporter: "Airport metal detectors have three sensitivity settings: green, yellow and red. When anything sets it off, you know an alert has been issued, and that it's set to red. But on the morning of Sept. 11, airport metal detectors on the East coast were set on green."
Why?
For the next eight months, chanting "We Didn't Know" like a mantra, White House officials categorically denied receiving any advance warnings of attackers whose effortless evasion of airport and air force defenses left obvious questions unasked by flag‑waving media celebrities. None dared call it complicity.
Grounded
The Federal Aviation Administration says it alerted NORAD to the first hijackings at 8:38, less than 10 minutes before the first tower was hit.
The general in charge of North American Air Defense neglected to explain why 18 minutes later a pair of F‑15s were scrambled from Otis Air Force Base on Cape Cod ‑ 179 miles from the fray ‑ when other armed "ready alert" aircraft were much closer. [Miami Herald Sept. 14, 2001]
Ordered to keep their speed down to an airliner's crawl, Otis' Mach 2 fighters were 70 miles from New York City when the South Tower was struck at 9:03 a.m. Two F‑16s from Langley, Virginia arrived overhead 20 minutes after the Pentagon was hit. [Cape Cod Times Sept. 16, 2001]
Myers never mentioned that just 10 miles away, someone held two armed "ready‑ alert" fighters on the ground at Andrews Air Force Base until early evening. [Andrews AFB website]
I would like to interview those two pilots:
Q: Who overrode their repeated appeals to launch?
Q: How did they feel as they listened to airline pilots reporting the attacks they were trained and pledged to prevent?
Q: Who ordered their ready‑to‑fly, round‑the‑clock, "anti‑terrorist" 121st and 321st fighter squadrons erased from the Andrews website on Sept. 12?
And who shot down Flight 93, which came down in two widely separated sections after a heat‑seeking missile fired by a pursuing fighter flying under "weapons free" orders blew off a wing over Pennsylvania? ["Shoot down over Pennsylvania" New York Times Sept. 15, 2001]
FEMA Follies
Everywhere in this strange and sickening story, contradictions feed conundrums.
How did the Federal Emergency Management Agency know what was coming? Before being cured of his "memory lapse" by emergency spin doctors, FEMA Urban Rescue team leader Tom Kennedy told a nationwide CBS audience on Sept. 12: "We're currently one of the first teams that was deployed to support the City of New York in this disaster. We arrived on late Monday night and went right into action on Tuesday morning."
CBS anchor Dan Rather never asked what FEMA was doing deploying the night before the WTC attacks. Or how a President could claim that $30 billion worth of silicon and security specialists never considered that the previously bombed World Trade Center might still be a prime terrorist target ‑ when the WTC is depicted in a terrorist's crosshairs on the cover of FEMA's ant‑terrorist manual.
But in mid‑May, Rather and other highly paid readers and transcribers of official press releases were prodded into actually committing journalism when a three‑month old Congressional inquiry learned of a flurry of high‑level Washington warnings long‑discussed in the British and European press.
Fleischer Flounders
Attempting damage control, Presidential Press Secretary Ari Fleischer contradicted earlier denials, saying that the White House had received repeated "heads up!" calls from foreign leaders and security agencies of impending aerial attacks by al Qaeda hijackers.
Fleischer first insisted the warnings dealt solely with US interests outside the United States. Reversing himself without hesitancy or shame, the presidential spokesman then admitted that the administration had been warned of "domestic US targets" as early as the previous May.
Fleischer assured Americans that the White House immediately "notified the appropriate agencies" of the terrorist hijacking threat they had previously insisted they knew nothing about. If so, it is compellingly curious that airport check‑in and security personnel were never sent from "green" complacency to "red" alert.
US intelligence experts now say that if airline ticket agents and low‑paid gate security personnel had been ordered to pay close attention to the "Terrorist Profile" card at their elbows, young Middle Eastern men paying for tickets with cash would have been stopped for questioning before being allowed to board transcontinental flights. It is unlikely that men bent on bloody business would have been seated in Business Class after being asked to produce luggage "salted" with flight manuals, hijack exhortations and suicide notes, and left as convenient clues in the trunks of their rental cars.
Airline insiders insist that razor‑sharp Exacto knives would have also triggered metal detectors set to the highest sensitivity. But on May 16, a spokesman for security at Boston Logan Airport where the WTC kamikazes originated, told the Boston Globe: "The Federal government never handed down any intelligence regarding hijackings." Not to Logan airport security, anyway.
When San Francisco mayor Willie Brown called on Sept.10 to check the status of a flight he was planning to take into New York the following day, a return call from a person Brown described to the San Francisco Chronicle as an "airport security man", told him to be "extra cautious about air travel" into Gotham on Sept. 11.
By then, a Sept. 7 "worldwide warning" from the State Department had alerted other US government agencies that Americans "may be the target of a terrorist threat [from] extremist groups with links to Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda organization."
According to German BND Intelligence, an Echelon ear in England had overheard conversations regarding the coming attacks. Listening in on phone calls, faxes and emails, Echelon also automatically monitors international financial transactions and airline travel for signs of unusual activity.
Traders and Traitors
Sudden spikes in Wall Street trading are closely checked by PROMIS software. On Sept.10, as a Brooklyn high school student of Middle Eastern descent warned classmates not to venture into Manhattan, automatic stock‑trading alarms would have been triggered when 4,516 "put" options were suddenly purchased against American Airlines.
Essentially leveraged bets that American's stocks were about to "crash," the day's trading volume was 600% higher than the usual level of trading in AA shares. A similar sudden spike in UAL "put" purchases represented a 1,200% jump in the usual number of daily stock "bets" placed against United the day before that airline also lost two planes.
The WTC's biggest tenant, Morgan Stanley saw a daily average of 27 "put" contracts. On Sept. 8, 9 and 10, someone with inside knowledge of the Twin Towers takedown bought 2,157 of Morgan Stanley options. Merrill Lynch, another big brokerage house occupying 22 floors of the WTC, saw 12,215 put options purchased in the four trading days leading up to the attacks. The average trading volume in Merrill Lynch shares is 252 contracts per day. [The Independent Oct. 14, 2001]
Was there a CIA connection?
It turns out that the investment bank used to place "put options" on United Airlines stock was managed until 1998 by "Buzzy" Krongard. Currently executive director of the CIA, Krongard helmed the Alex Brown bank when it was acquired by Banker's Trust in 1997. Accused of laundering drug‑money, Banker's Trust was then absorbed into Deutsche Bank. Europe's biggest blockbuster bank next made the news by being named the hub of insider trades involving the insurance company Munich Re. European regulators are now examining unusually heavy trades in Munich Re, Swiss Re, Cigna and Axa of France. Each of these underwriters was exposed to heavy losses from the destruction of the Trade Center. Like Alex Brown, Axa and Cigna insurers have close links to the international drug trade and its handmaiden, the CIA. [AFD]
Osama bin Laden's family banks at Deutsche Bank. On Sept. 15, as German investigators probed Deutsche Bank's short‑selling of sensitive Sept. 11 stocks, Alex Brown head Mayo Shattuck abruptly resigned.
So did Lt‑Gen. Mahmud Ahmad. Instead of being tried by an American military tribunal, the ISI director‑general quietly left his post as head of Pakistan intelligence at the insistence of US authorities, after FBI agents recorded Mahmud's cell phone calls ordering a sheikh to wire $100,000 to Sept. 11 ringleader Mohamed Atta. [The Times Of India Oct. 12, 2001]
Since, like Osama bin Laden himself, the ISI is a creation of the CIA, did the feds at Foggy Bottom know what its director was manifesting for Manhattan? Fleischer fulminated that the President was "provided information about bin Laden wanting to engage in hijacking in the traditional pre‑9/11 sense ‑ not for the use of suicide bombing, not for the use of an airplane as a missile."
Letting It Happen
Apparently, repeated threats of conventional hijackings by Islamic fanatics keen on killing Americans were deemed unworthy of public mention by a junta the New York Times accused of "Seizing Dictatorial Power". [Nov. 15, 2001] But an unfazed Fleischer fantasized that Bush administrators would have hit alarm buttons if they'd dared dream that al Qaeda hijackers might turn commercial airliners into flying bombs.
Had Ari Fleischer forgotten President Putin's warnings to Washington "in the strongest possible terms" of imminent attacks on prominent symbols of American business and military might? Repeated throughout the month of August, Moscow's urgent messages specified that 25 terrorist pilots had been specifically trained for suicide missions. [Interview with President Putin MS‑NBC Sept. 15, 2001]
In this, Putin proved precise. Boxcutters found on two airliners diverted to Canada subsequently raised the number of targeted suicide planes to six, and the estimated number of hijackers to 25.
A leading Germany daily newspaper, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung reported that at least three months before Sept. 11, US intelligence agencies learned that "Middle Eastern terrorists were planning to hijack commercial aircraft to use as weapons to attack important symbols of American and Israeli culture." [Sept. 14, 2001]
This could not have been news to American alphabet agencies. In the months leading up to Sept. 11, the CIA was actively tracking as many as six bin Laden cells, whose members were making homes and learning news skills in the USA. According to ex‑CIA chief Stansfield Turner, every phone line, cell phone call and email was intercepted.
Vanity Fair's Henry Porter reveals that "hundreds" of Sept. 11 ringleader Mohamed Atta's cell phone calls were intercepted and traced by the CIA. [Dec. 2001]
Documents obtained by the Baltimore Sun boasted that National Security Agency officials "sometimes played tapes of bin Laden talking to his mother to impress members of Congress." [April 24, 2001]
Wright and Wrong
FBI agent Robert Wright wonders why no one intervened. On May 11, his lawsuit made the Washington Post after the agent alleged that senior intelligence officials had blocked investigations that could have led to the apprehension of the terrorists before Sept. 11.
Wright confirmed that Minneapolis FBI agents were yanked off the case after arresting a suspicious Middle Eastern flight student named Moussaoui ‑ and finding Boeing fight manuals and several passports in the trunk of his car.
When the French Directorate of Territorial Security (DST) flagged the feds that Moussaoui was a known al Qaeda terrorist, FBI counterterror specialists were ordered not to probe Moussaoui's activities and associations.
Angry agents beseeched David Schippers to intercede on their behalf. The prominent Clinton‑impeachment attorney asked Attorney General Ashcroft to allow intensified investigation of a known al Qaeda operative, who wanted to learn how to turn and bank heavy aircraft ‑ without landing or taking off. After schlepping with Schippers, Ashcroft immediately ordered a halt to all investigations into the man now regarded as a prime accomplice in the Sept. 11 hijackings.
Why were Wright's worries ignored by the same superiors who refused permission to mess with Moussaoui? As Newsweek noted on May 16: "When agents learned, from French intelligence, that he had radical Islamic ties, they sought a national‑security warrant to search his computer ‑ and got turned down. From his e‑mail traffic they found he wanted to learn to fly a 747."
Just days before the Sept. 11 attack, as a crack counterterror team frantically mused over Moussaoui's motives, the FBI agents were "in a frenzy," recalls a senior official, "absolutely convinced he was planning to do something with a plane." In his memo to superiors, Wright wrote that "one possibility" was that Moussaoui might be planning to hijack an airliner and crash it into the World Trade Center.
The FBI failed to broadcast Wright's prophecy. They also neglected to correlate this experienced agent's threat‑assessment with agent Kenneth Williams' "Phoenix memo", which warned of similarly suspicious Middle Eastern flight students two months before the airborne attacks on the World Trade Center..
On May 30th, Wright appeared at a televised press conference to say that "as a direct result of the incompetence, and at times intentional obstruction of justice by FBI management to prevent me from bringing terrorists to justice, Americans have unknowingly been exposed to potential terrorist attacks for years." [C‑SPAN]
A whistle‑blowing Wright further claims that his FBI employers prevented him from interdicting the financiers of Osama bin Laden's terror network, after Washington ordered agents to avoid offending the bin Laden and Royal Saudi families.
Long‑suspected as heavy donors to "charities" that help terrorists kill Americans, the King of the Saudi Kingdom, who holds to the same strict, anti‑modern brand of fundamentalist Wahhabism embraced by Osama bin Laden ‑and the ultra wealthy bin Laden family who spawned him ‑ are "must not offend" gateways to strategic US interests in the oil‑rich Middle East. (William Thomas Senior reporter, Lifeboat News, June 13, 2002)
Who Controls the American Presidency?
At this moment in time, the American people have NO say‑so in determining who their next President will be. Zero. None. Zilch! How can I make such a drastic statement? Well, if after reading the articles on "Votescam" don't convince you (see Babel issues # 19, 20, and 22), then check‑out this observation by noted researcher Susan George. "Economists generally agree that if 55% or more of a given market is controlled by four or fewer companies, then an oligopoly exists. An oligopoly is defined as, "Control by a few competing sellers of the amount and price of a given product or service to a large number of buyers." Thus, in regard to the "selection" (as opposed to "election") of our President, there are three organizations which determine not only who is chosen for that office, but also its Cabinet and policies. They are the Council on Foreign Relations, the Trilateral Commission, and the Bilderbergers. In this sense, the United States has gone from being a democracy to that of an oligopoly. We're the bamboozled "buyers" who are getting suckered by the illusion provided to us buy the "sellers."
During the course of this essay, I'm going to lay a groundwork that will show how the three above‑listed organizations have controlled the Executive Office from the Nixon and Carter Administrations all the way up to the current one. The most disturbing aspect of this phenomenon is the virtual lock these groups have on our highest office. In other words, how would you feel if every president in the last fifty years was a Hare Krishna, a plumber, or belonged to the Knights of Columbus? Would it unnerve you, or make you think something suspicious was taking place? It should, for this is exactly what's going on today, only the three main groups involved are the CFR, the Trilateral Commission, and the Bilderbergers, all led by the nefariously scheming David Rockefeller.
So, before I begin, please allow me to run a few quotes by you to set the stage:
Sir William Pitts, addressing the House of Lords in England, 1770: "There is something behind the Throne greater than the King himself."
Felix Frankfurter, former U.S. Supreme Court Justice: "The real rulers in Washington are invisible, and exercise power from behind the scenes."
Abraham Lincoln: "If destruction be our lot, we ourselves must be its author and finisher."
Walter Bernays, "Propoganda:" "Those who manipulate the unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country. Our minds are molded largely by men we have never heard of."
The Council on Foreign Relations, the Bilderbergers, and the Trilateral Commission
The CFR was formed in 1921, and one of its early influential members, Colonel Edward Mandell House, Chief Adviser to President Wilson, exerted an extremely heavy hand on three policy areas that America is still suffering from today:
1) The establishment of a Federal Income Tax
2) The establishment of the Federal Reserve System
3) Our entry into the League of Nations (a precursor to the United Nations)
Two of the main financial contributors to the CFR were the Carnegie Foundation and the Rockefeller Foundation. (As a side note, the second name is very important to remember, as you'll see.) Anyway, the CFR became such an important force in American politics that ever since the early 1940's, virtually every candidate for President has been a member.
The first question everyone should ask at this point is: What are the CFR's primary goals? The answer is as such:
1) Establish a single government with global power
2) Eliminate national boundaries
3) Increase the United Nation's domain
To support this point, Rear Admiral Chester Ward, former Judge Advocate of the Navy from 1956‑1960, commented on the CFR's goals. "The purpose of promoting disarmament and submergence of U.S. sovereignty and national independence into an all‑powerful and one‑world government is the only objective revealed to about 95% of the 1,551 members in 1975."
The Wall Street Journal stated in its "Notable and Quotable" section on April 10, 1991, "In the postwar years, the Council [on Foreign Relations] has continued to represent an invaluable way for many Washingtonians to tap the enormously important New York business and intellectual community."
What does this mean? The answer is very important because the "supposed" elected leaders that we place in Washington, D.C. DON'T make the decisions that affect our lives. Rather, the REAL shots are called in New York City, and even Europe. Thus, the direction our government takes isn't determined in the halls of Congress or the Oval Office, but instead in New York City by international bankers and the heads of multinational businesses. This, I'm sorry to say, is the key to power in our country.
The trend to filling an Administration's cabinet with CFR members is startling, as the numbers below reveal:
Nixon ‑ 115 CFR members
Carter ‑ 284 CFR members
Reagan ‑ 257 CFR members
Bush ‑ 382 CFR members
Clinton ‑ 17 of his top 19 Cabinet members were either CFR or TC
Being that another group has now been mentioned, allow me to say a few words about them. The Trilateral Commission was formed in 1973 by two individuals ‑ Zbigniew Brzezinsky and David Rockefeller ‑ and is at the very top of the "financial brotherhood." Regrettably, the Executive Branch is below them. An excellent description of this group is provided by Antony C. Sutton and Patrick M. Wood in "Trilaterals Over Washington."
1) The Trilateral Commission was formed primarily by David Rockefeller
2) Its members are chosen by David Rockefeller and four assistants
3) They're financed by David Rockefeller and the Kettering and Ford Foundations
The authors also provide two telling quotes: "Without being accused of hastiness or bias, one can reasonably conclude that David Rockefeller is the power behind the Trilateral Commission and presumably stands to gain the most from its activities."
"The essential point to hold in mind ...is that a global multinational corporation (Chase‑Manhattan owned by David Rockefeller) is in control of a power vehicle that controls the United States government. In 1976 the American voter thought they had elected Jimmy Cater. In fact, they elected Chase Manhattan."
Holly Sklar, in the introductory chapter to a book about the Trilaterals called "Trilateralism: Managing Dependence and Democracy ‑ An Overview," says the chief goal of this commission is: "The people, governments, and economies of all nations must serve the needs of multinational banks and corporations."
How is this information settling with you thus far? Well, don't worry ‑ it gets scarier.
Senator Barry Goldwater, in his book "No Apologies," called the Trilateral Commission, "David Rockefeller's newest international cabal."
Since I mentioned Zbigniew Brzezinski a little earlier, a few quotes from him are appropriate to convey where these people's heads are. These are culled from "Between Two Ages," which is one of the Trilateral Commission's most important books.
Quote 1: "Marxism is simultaneously a victory of the external, active man over the inner, passive man and a victory of reason over belief."
Quote 2: "Marxism, disseminated on the popular level in the form of Communism represented a major advance in man's ability to conceptualize his relationship to the world."
Quote 3: "Marxism supplied the best available insight into contemporary reality."
Hmmm, if I didn't know better, I'd say Zig the Mad Dog actually LIKED Marxism and Communism! And to think; he was David Rockefeller's right‑hand man, and also a key member of Jimmy Carter's Cabinet. Something smells fishy to me.
Zig's views on how he sees the world are further represented in "The Technetronic Era": "The nation state as a fundamental unit of man's organized life has ceased to be the principle creative force: International banks and international corporations are acting and planning in terms that are far in advance of the political concepts of the nation‑state."
How much more obvious could it be? The Controllers want to diminish, then virtually eliminate, national sovereignty and the Constitution, replacing it with a new framework determined by THEM ‑ unelected global financial leaders! Is this what you want?
Adding fuel to the fire, the Washington Post published a piece in 1976 that said, "Trilateralists are not three‑sided people. They are members of a private, though not secret, international organization put together by the wealthy banker David Rockefeller...But here is the unsettling thing about the Trilateral Commission. The President‑elect is a member. So is the Vice President‑elect Walter F. Mondale. So are the new Secretaries of State, Defense, and Treasury. So is Zbigniew Brzezinski, who is a former Trilateral Director and Carter's next National Security Advisor, and also a bunch of others who will make foreign policy for American in the next four years."
Can't you see? It's the same people over and over and over again who are calling the shots for us regardless of who the President is. It's the international bankers on Wall Street and in their New York City offices, and to a lesser extent, the heads of multinational corporations. These men and women aren't Democrats or Republicans, but members of the CFR, TC, and the Bilderbergers. In fact, at a 1974 Bilderberger meeting, seven of the eighteen Americans present were either Rockefellers per se, or Rockefeller agents. That comes to 39%. So when you examine these organizations, what do you find? The CFR's former Director was who? David Rockefeller! Who co‑founded the Trilateral Commission? David Rockefeller! And who controls nearly 40% (of the American invitees) of the most powerful group of all, the Bilderbergers? David Rockefeller!
To close this section, I'd like to relay some information published by Robert Goldsborough, President of the American Research Foundation, that was provided to him by Mark Jones in 1992. "Just four men, through their interlocking directorates on boards of large corporations and major banks, controlled the movement of capital and the creation of debt in America."
What position did Mark Jones hold prior to disclosing this information? He was the financial advisor to John D. Rockefeller himself!
David Rockefeller and his family cabal
Since David Rockefeller's name was brought up in the previous section, I suppose we should find out who this man really is. (Also see Babel issue # 44.) For starters, David Rockefeller is a billionaire, the Chairman of Chase Manhattan Bank (arguably the most influential financial center in the world), one‑time director of the CFR, co‑founder of the Trilateral Commission, and also a perennial attendee of the highly‑secretive Bilderberger meetings. In an article dated September 7, 1962, Time Magazine described him as, "The prime mover in banking that controls the course of world economic affairs and history."
Those accolades aren't too shabby, huh? But to really understand David Rockefeller, you must first become acquainted with the creator of their family fortune, John D. Rockefeller. In a book entitled, "Titan: The Life of John D. Rockefeller," the author says, "If he'd lived in the Middle Ages, he'd have been the Pope at Rome." Similarly, in "The Rockefellers" by Collier and Horowitz, the dynasty's dominance is unmistakable. "Among the power elite whose rule stretched from Wall Street to Washington, the Rockefellers were without peer."
At the apex of the Rockefeller pyramid is Chase Manhattan Bank, an octopus‑like financial network with over 50,000 branches and affiliates worldwide. "Worldwide" is the operative word, for the Rockefeller's loyalty isn't, by any means, to the United States, but to their GLOBAL interests! Did you know that the first American banks to open in Moscow and Peking, China were Chase Manhattan? In addition, Chase Manhattan financed the building of the largest truck factory in history. The only catch is, it wasn't erected in America, but along the Kama River in the Soviet Union. Do you remember the Soviet Union ‑ our arch enemy, the Evil Empire, Communism, Stalin, and the Cold War?
With the above information in mind, we need to ask ourselves, what do the Rockefellers want? The best answer can be found in Gary Allen's book, "The Rockefeller File." Their motive is to "Use American money and know‑how to build up your competitors, while at the same time use every devious strategy you can devise to weaken and impoverish this country. The goal is not to bankrupt the United States. Rather, it is to reduce our productive might, and therefore our standard of living."
A case in point is China, who is set to replace the United States as the world's next superpower. Let's examine what's going on with this situation. Who has given them their status as "Most Favored Nation?" Us! Who is providing all the technological know‑how to bring China into the 21st century? We are! Who is giving China all their computer parts? We are! Which President is now in China opening up more doors for them? Ours ‑ George Bush! And who continues to engage in unbalanced trade agreements with China where their products flood into our country unabated, while ours are subject to tariffs and governmental regulation? We do! Now, when added to how messed‑up the NAFTA and GATT agreements are (orchestrated by the Globalists), you have to scratch your head and wonder what forces would be at work to deliberately undermine our country. Is it US ‑ the American people ‑ doing it, or monsters and snakes lurking behind the scenes?
John D. Rockefeller HIMSELF, in his autobiography, "Reminiscenses," reinforced this point when he said, "One of our greatest helpers has been the State Department in Washington. Our ambassadors and ministers and consuls have aided to push our way into new markets to the utmost corners of the world."
Now do you know how they became a world power? Can you see the behind‑the‑scene machinations taking place? China's going to become the next world super‑power because they're the largest unexploited economic market in the world. And when this transformation takes place, our importance and status will be lessened, as it currently is right now. The United States is a milk cow being led to a slaughterhouse by the New World Order!
But other world affairs are also being affected by the Globalists' manipulative ways. A perfect example is given by the noted economic historian Dr. Balthus Freihofner. He said, "It's a long‑familiar Rockefeller practice to build a financial empire on predatory oil deals."
Hmmm, do any of you remember the infamous Standard Oil Company from my earlier pieces? (See Babel # 15 on how the Rockefellers helped finance the Nazi's.) In that vein, then, we need to look at our war in Afghanistan and the real reasons behind it. (See Babel # 36 for our motives). Yes, one of the keys is the oil lying beneath the Caspian region of Russia. The only problem with getting this buried oil to the existing pipelines is a little country standing between them ...yes, Afghanistan!
But their bamboozling doesn't stop there. It also directly affects domestic policy, as John F. McManus points out in "The Insiders: Architects of the New World Order." McManus says, "One of the more sinister tactics employed by Socialists to gain economic control of the people involves accumulating huge national indebtedness. Paying interest on the debt then gives the government leaders the excuse to impose more and more taxation."
Think about it! We pay over $300 billion/year in interest on our National Debt. Now, if you divide this sum by all the working people in this country, the total comes to $3,000/person/year to simply pay the interest alone. Can you see how messed‑up this situation is? Not only is it counter‑productive to our country, but also to each and every one of us as citizens. What could each of us do with an extra $3,000/year? We're getting screwed in a big way. Do you know what's even more sickening? In 1976, the largest bank in the United States ‑ Chase Manhattan ‑ which generated huge profits throughout the year, filed their taxes. Guess what percentage of their income they paid in U.S. taxes. 0%. Yes, 0%!!!!
Now, why don't we ever hear about any of this nonsense? Quite simply, because the Rockefellers are part of a hidden network that runs the world. Don't believe me? Well, the notorious Bilderbergers met at Vermont's Woodstock Inn years ago. Guess who owned the lodge. Yup, Laurance Rockefeller. The Bilderbergers also met at a resort in Williamsburg, Virginia. And who owned that one? You got it ‑ the Rockefeller family.
But wait. Shouldn't the media let us in on this terrible little secret? Fat chance, as Peter Borsnan so exquisitely relayed in his November 25, 1978 article in "The Nation" entitled "Who Owns the Networks?" He says, "Chase Manhattan and the other Rockefeller Institutions are among the largest holders of Network stock with substantial interests in all three networks (ABC, CBS, and NBC)."
Borsnan then goes on to say that if a particular institution holds at least 5% of a company's stock, they can wield great influence, or even outright control. Well, at the time that article was written, Chase Manhattan controlled 14% of CBS stock! Now do you know why we never hear any of these dirty little secrets? If YOU owned the media, would YOU expose your dirty dealings? Of course not. And neither does the New World Order. They're no dummies, and they don't plan on changing their tactics now. (Who Controls the American Presidency? by Victor Thorn )
The Reasons Behind 911
Sunday, July 21, 2002, by Mike Ruppert
Halliburton Corporation's Brown and Root is one of the major components of THE BUSH‑CHENEY DRUG EMPIRE [Lead story in the October 24, 2000 issue of "From The Wilderness"] by Michael C. Ruppert © Copyright 2000, Michael C. Ruppert and "From The Wilderness" Publications, P.O. Box 6061‑350, Sherman Oaks, CA 91413, 818‑ 788‑8791 October 24, 2000 ‑ The success of Bush Vice Presidential running mate Richard Cheney at leading Halliburton, Inc. to a five year $3.8 billion "pig‑out" on federal contracts and taxpayer‑insured loans is only a partial indicator of what may happen if the Bush ticket wins in two weeks.
A closer look at available research, including an August 2, 2000 report by the Center for Public Integrity (CPI) at www.public‑i.org, suggests that drug money has played a role in the successes achieved by Halliburton under Cheney's tenure as CEO from 1995 to 2000. This is especially true for Halliburton's most famous subsidiary, heavy construction and oil giant, Brown and Root. A deeper look into history reveals that Brown and Root's past as well as the past of Dick Cheney himself, connect to the international drug trade on more than one occasion and in more than one way.
This June the lead Washington, D.C. attorney for a major Russian oil company connected in law enforcement reports to heroin smuggling and also a beneficiary of US backed loans to pay for Brown and Root contracts in Russia, held a $2.2 million fund raiser to fill the already bulging coffers of presidential candidate George W. Bush. This is not the first time that Brown and Root has been connected to drugs and the fact is that this "poster child" of American industry may also be a key player in Wall Street's efforts to maintain domination of the half trillion dollar a year global drug trade and its profits. And Dick Cheney, who has also come closer to drugs than most suspect, and who is also Halliburton's largest individual shareholder ($45.5 million), has a vested interest in seeing to it that Brown and Root's successes continue. Of all American companies dealing directly with the U.S. military and providing cover for CIA operations few firms can match the global presence of this giant construction powerhouse which employs 20,000 people in more than 100 countries.
Through its sister companies or joint ventures, Brown and Root can build offshore oil rigs, drill wells, construct and operate everything from harbors to pipelines to highways to nuclear reactors. It can train and arm security forces and it can now also feed, supply and house armies. One key beacon of Brown and Root's overwhelming appeal to agencies like the CIA is that, from its own corporate web page, it proudly announces that it has received the contract to dismantle aging Russian nuclear tipped ICBMs in their silos.
Furthermore, the relationships between key institutions, players and the Bushes themselves suggest that under a George "W" administration the Bush family and its allies may well be able, using Brown and Root as the operational interface, to control the drug trade all the way from Medellin to Moscow. Originally formed as a heavy construction company to build dams, Brown and Root grew its operations via shrewd political contributions to Senate candidate Lyndon Johnson in 1948. Expanding into the building of oil platforms, military bases, ports, nuclear facilities, harbors and tunnels, Brown and Root virtually underwrote LBJ's political career. It prospered as a result, making billions on U.S. Government contracts during the Vietnam War.
The "Austin Chronicle" in an August 28 Op‑ed piece entitled "The Candidate From Brown and Root" labels Republican Cheney as the political dispenser of Brown and Root's largesse. According to political campaign records, during Cheney's five year tenure at Halliburton the company's political contributions more than doubled to $1.2 million. Not surprisingly, most of that money went to Republican candidates. Independent news service "newsmakingnews.com," also describes how in 1998, with Cheney as Chairman, Halliburton spent $8.1 billion to purchase oil industry equipment and drilling supplier Dresser Industries. This made Halliburton a corporation that will have a presence in almost any future oil drilling operation anywhere in the world.
And it also brought back into the family fold the company that had once sent a plane ‑ also in 1948 ‑ to fetch the new Yale Graduate George H.W. Bush, to begin his career in the Texas oil business. Bush the elder's father, Prescott, served as a Managing Director for the firm that once owned Dresser, Brown Bothers Harriman. It is clear that everywhere there is oil there is Brown and Root. But increasingly, everywhere there is war or insurrection there is Brown and Root also. From Bosnia and Kosovo, to Chechnya, to Rwanda, to Burma, to Pakistan, to Laos, to Vietnam, to Indonesia, to Iran to Libya to Mexico to Colombia, Brown and Root's traditional operations have expanded from heavy construction to include the provision of logistical support for the U.S. military.
Now, instead of U.S. Army quartermasters, the world is likely to see Brown and Root warehouses storing and managing everything from uniforms to rations to vehicles. Dramatic expansion of Brown and Root's operations in Colombia also suggest Bush preparations for a war inspired feeding frenzy as a part of "Plan Colombia." This is consistent with moves by former Bush Treasury Secretary Nicholas Brady to open a joint Colombian‑American investment partnership called Corfinsura for the financing of major construction projects with the Colombian Antioquia Syndicate, headquartered in Medellin. (See FTW June, 00).
And expectations of a ground war in Colombia may explain why, in a 2000 SEC filing, Brown and Root reported that in addition to owning more than 800,000 square feet of warehouse space in Colombia, they also lease another 122,000 square feet. According to the filing of the Brown and Root Energy Services Group, the only other places where the company maintains warehouse space are in Mexico (525,000 sq. feet), and the U.S. (38,000) square feet. According to the web site of Colombia's Foreign Investment Promotion Agency Brown and Root had no presence in the country until 1997. What does Brown and Root, which, according to the AP has made more than $2 billion supporting and supplying U.S. troops, know about Colombia that the U.S. public does not? Why the need for almost a million square feet of warehouse space that can be transferred from one Brown and Root operation (energy) to another (military support) with the stroke of a pen?
Drugs
As described by the Associated Press, during "Iran‑Contra" Congressman Dick Cheney of the House Intelligence Committee was a rabid supporter of Marine Lt. Col. Oliver North. This was in spite of the fact that North had lied to Cheney in a private 1986 White House briefing. Oliver North's own diaries and subsequent investigations by the CIA Inspector General have irrevocably tied him directly to cocaine smuggling during the 1980s and the opening of bank accounts for one firm moving four tons of cocaine a month. This, however, did not stop Cheney from actively supporting North's 1994 unsuccessful run for the U.S. Senate from Virginia just a year before he took over the reins at Brown and Root's parent company, Dallas based Halliburton Inc. in 1995.
As the Bush Secretary of Defense during Desert Shield/Desert Storm (1990‑91), Cheney also directed special operations involving Kurdish rebels in northern Iran. The Kurds' primary source of income for more than fifty years has been heroin smuggling from Afghanistan and Pakistan through Iran, Iraq and Turkey. Having had some personal experience with Brown and Root I noted carefully when the Los Angeles Times observed that on March 22, 1991 that a group of gunmen burst into the Ankara, Turkey offices of the joint venture, Vinnell, Brown and Root and assassinated retired Air Force Chief Master Sergeant John Gandy.
In March of 1991, tens of thousands of Kurdish refugees, long‑time assets of the CIA, were being massacred by Sadam Hussein in the wake of the Gulf War. Sadam, seeking to destroy any hopes of a successful Kurdish revolt, found it easy to kill thousands of the unwanted Kurds who had fled to the Turkish border seeking sanctuary. There, Turkish security forces, trained in part by the Vinnell, Brown and Root partnership, turned thousands of Kurds back into certain death. Today, the Vinnell Corporation (a TRW Company) is, along with the firms MPRI and DynCorp (FTW June, 00) one of the three pre‑eminent private mercenary corporations in the world. It is also the dominant entity for the training of security forces throughout the Middle East.
Not surprisingly the Turkish border regions in question were the primary transhipment points for heroin, grown in Afghanistan and Pakistan and destined for the markets of Europe. A confidential source with intelligence experience in the region subsequently told me that the Kurds "got some payback against the folks that used to help them move their drugs." He openly acknowledged that Brown and Root and Vinnell both routinely provided NOC or non‑ official cover for CIA officers. But I already knew that. From 1994 to 1999, during US military intervention in the Balkans where, according to "The Christian Science Monitor" and "Jane's Intelligence Review," the Kosovo Liberation Army controls 70 per cent of the heroin entering Western Europe, Cheney's Brown and Root made billions of dollars supplying U.S. troops from vast facilities in the region. Brown and Root support operations continue in Bosnia, Kosovo and Macedonia to this day. Dick Cheney's footprints have come closer to drugs than one might suspect.
The August Center for Public Integrity report brought them even closer. It would be factually correct to say that there is a direct linkage of Brown and Root facilities ‑ often in remote and hazardous regions ‑ between every drug producing region and every drug consuming region in the world. These coincidences, in and of themselves, do not prove complicity in the trade. Other facts, however, lead inescapably in that direction.
A Direct Drug Link
The CPI report entitled "Cheney Led Halliburton To Feast at Federal Trough" written by veteran journalists Knut Royce and Nathaniel Heller describes how, under five years of Cheney's leadership, Halliburton, largely through subsidiary Brown and Root, enjoyed $3.8 billion in federal contracts and taxpayer insured loans. The loans had been granted by the Export‑Import Bank (EXIM) and the Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC). According to Ralph McGehee's "CIA Base ©" both institutions are heavily infiltrated by the CIA and routinely provide NOC to its officers. One of those loans to Russian financial/banking conglomerate The Alfa Group of Companies contained $292 million to pay for Brown and Root's contract to refurbish a Siberian oil field owned by the Russian Tyumen Oil Company. The Alfa Group completed its 51% acquisition of Tyumen Oil in what was allegedly a rigged bidding process in 1998. An official Russian government report claimed that the Alfa Group's top executives, oligarchs Mikhail Fridman and Pyotr Aven "allegedly participated in the transit of drugs from Southeast Asia through Russia and into Europe."
These same executives, Fridman and Aven, who reportedly smuggled the heroin in connection with Russia's Solntsevo mob family were the same ones who applied for the EXIM loans that Halliburton's lobbying later safely secured. As a result Brown and Root's work in Alfa Tyumen oil fields could continue and expand. After describing how organized criminal interests in the Alfa Group had allegedly stolen the oil field by fraud, the CPI story, using official reports from the FSB (the Russian equivalent of the FBI), oil companies such as BP‑Amoco, former CIA and KGB officers and press accounts then established a solid link to Alfa Tyumen and the transportation of heroin.
In 1995 sacks of heroin disguised as sugar were stolen from a rail container leased by Alfa Echo and sold in the Siberian town of Khabarovsk. A problem arose when many residents of the town became "intoxicated" or "poisoned." The CPI story also stated, "The FSB report said that within days of the incident, Ministry of Internal Affairs (MVD) agents conducted raids of Alfa Eko buildings and found 'drugs and other compromising documentation.' "Both reports claim that Alfa Bank has laundered drug funds from Russian and Colombian drug cartels. "The FSB document claims that at the end of 1993, a top Alfa official met with Gilberto Rodriguez Orejuela, the now imprisoned financial mastermind of Colombia's notorious Cali cartel, 'to conclude an agreement about the transfer of money into the Alfa Bank from offshore zones such as the Bahamas, Gibraltar and others.
The plan was to insert it back into the Russian economy through the purchase of stock in Russian companies. "¼He [the former KGB agent] reported that there was evidence 'regarding [Alfa Bank's] involvement with the money laundering of¼ Latin American drug cartels." It then becomes harder for Cheney and Halliburton to assert mere coincidence in all of this as CPI reported that Tyumen's lead Washington attorney James C, Langdon, Jr. at the firm of Aikin Gump "helped coordinate a $2.2 million fund raiser for Bush this June. He then agreed to help recruit 100 lawyers and lobbyists in the capital to raise $25,000 each for W's campaign." The heroin mentioned in the CPI story, originated in Laos where longtime Bush allies and covert warriors Richard Armitage and retired CIA ADDO (Associate Deputy Director of Operations) Ted Shackley have been repeatedly linked to the drug trade.
It then made its way across Southeast Asia to Vietnam, probably the port of Haiphong. Then the heroin sailed to Russia's Pacific port of Valdivostok from whence it subsequently bounced across Siberia by rail and thence by truck or rail to Europe, passing through the hands of Russian Mafia leaders in Chechnya and Azerbaijan. Chechnya and Azerbaijan are hotbeds of both armed conflict and oil exploration and Brown and Root has operations all along this route.
This long, expensive and tortured path was hastily established, as described by FTW in previous issues, after President George Bush's personal envoy Richard Armitage, holding the rank of Ambassador, had traveled to the former Soviet Union to assist it with its "economic development" in 1989. The obstacle then to a more direct, profitable and efficient route from Afghanistan and Pakistan through Turkey into Europe was a cohesive Yugoslavian/Serbian government controlling the Balkans and continuing instability in the Golden Crescent of Pakistan/Afghanistan. Also, there was no other way, using heroin from the Golden Triangle (Burma, Laos and Thailand), to deal with China and India but to go around them.
It is perhaps not by coincidence again that Cheney and Armitage share membership in the prestigious Aspen Institute, an exclusive bi‑partisan research think tank, and also in the U.S. Azerbaijan Chamber of Commerce. Just last November, in what may be a portent of things to come, Armitage, played the role of Secretary of Defense in an practical exercise at the Council on Foreign Relations where he and Cheney are also both members. Speculation that the scandal plagued Armitage, who resigned under a cloud as Assistant Secretary of Defense in the Reagan Administration, is W's first choice for Secretary of Defense next year is widespread.
The Clinton Administration took care of all that wasted travel for heroin with the 1998 destruction of Serbia and Kosovo and the installation of the KLA as a regional power. That opened a direct line from Afghanistan to Western Europe and Brown and Root was right in the middle of that too. The Clinton skill at streamlining drug operations was described in detail in the May issue of FTW in a story entitled "The Democratic Party's Presidential Drug Money Pipeline." That article has since been reprinted in three countries. The essence of the drug economic lesson was that by growing opium in Colombia and by smuggling both cocaine and heroin from Colombia to New York City through the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico (a virtual straight line), traditional smuggling routes could be shortened or even eliminated. This reduced both risk and cost, increased profits and eliminated competition.
FTW suspects the hand of Medellin co‑founder Carlos Lehder in this process and it is interesting to note that Lehder, released from prison under Clinton in 1995, is now active in both the Bahamas and South America. Lehder was known during the eighties as "The genius of transportation." I can well imagine a Dick Cheney, having witnessed the complete restructuring of the global drug trade in the last eight years, going to George W and saying, "Look, I know how we can make it even better." One thing is for certain. As quoted in the CPI article, one Halliburton Vice President noted that if the Bush‑Cheney ticket was elected, "the company's government contracts would obviously go through the roof."
The Dark Past
In July of 1977 this writer, then a Los Angeles Police officer struggled to make sense of a world gone haywire. In a last ditch effort to salvage a relationship with my fiancée, Nordica Theodora D'Orsay (Teddy), a CIA contract agent, I had traveled to find her in New Orleans. On a hastily arranged vacation, secured with the blessing of my Commanding Officer, Captain Jesse Brewer of LAPD, I had gone on my own, unofficially, to avoid the scrutiny of LAPD's Organized Crime Intelligence Division (OCID).
Starting in the late spring of 1976 Teddy had wanted me to join her operations from within the ranks of LAPD. I had refused to get involved with drugs in any way and everything she mentioned seemed to involve either heroin or cocaine along with guns that she was always moving out of the country. The Director of the CIA then was George Herbert Walker Bush. Although officially on staff at the LAPD Academy at the time, I had been unofficially loaned to OCID since January when Teddy, announcing the start of a new operation planned in the fall of 1976 had suddenly disappeared. She left many people, including me, baffled and twisting in the breeze. The OCID detectives had been pressuring me hard for information about her and what I knew of her activities. It was information I could not give them. Hoping against hope that I would find some way to understand her involvement with CIA, LAPD, the royal family of Iran, the Mafia and drugs I set out alone into eight days of Dantean revelations that have determined the course of my life from that day to this.
Arriving in New Orleans in early July, 1977 I found her living in an apartment across the river in Gretna. Equipped with scrambler phones, night vision devices and working from sealed communiqués delivered by naval and air force personnel from nearby Belle Chasse Naval Air Station, Teddy was involved in something truly ugly. She was arranging for large quantities of weapons to be loaded onto ships leaving for Iran. At the same time she was working with Mafia associates of New Orleans Mafia boss Carlos Marcello to coordinate the movement of service boats that were bringing large quantities of heroin into the city. The boats arrived at Marcello controlled docks, unmolested by even the New Orleans police she introduced me to, along with divers, military men, former Green Berets and CIA personnel.
The service boats were retrieving the heroin from oil rigs in the Gulf of Mexico, oil rigs in international waters, oil rigs built and serviced by Brown and Root. The guns that Teddy monitored, apparently Vietnam era surplus AK 47s and M16s, were being loaded onto ships also owned or leased by Brown and Root. And more than once during the eight days I spent in New Orleans I met and ate at restaurants with Brown and Root employees who were boarding those ships and leaving for Iran within days. Once, while leaving a bar and apparently having asked the wrong question, I was shot at in an attempt to scare me off.
Disgusted and heart broken at witnessing my fiancée and my government smuggling drugs, I ended the relationship. Returning home to LA I made a clean breast and reported all the activity I had seen, including the connections to Brown and Root, to LAPD intelligence officers. They promptly told me that I was crazy. Forced out of LAPD under threat of death at the end of 1978, I made complaints to LAPD's Internal Affairs Division and to the LA office of the FBI under the command of FBI SAC Ted Gunderson. I and my attorney wrote to the politicians, the Department of Justice, the CIA and contacted the L.A. Times. The FBI and the LAPD said that I was crazy.
According to a 1981 two‑part news story in the "Los Angeles Herald Examiner" it was revealed that The FBI had taken Teddy into custody and then released her before classifying their investigation without further action. Former New Orleans Crime Commissioner Aaron Cohen told reporter Randall Sullivan that he found my description of events perfectly plausible after his thirty years of studying Louisiana's organized crime operations. To this day a CIA report prepared as a result of my complaint remains classified and exempt from release pursuant to Executive Order of the President in the interests of national security and because it would reveal the identities of CIA agents.
On October 26, 1981, in the basement of the West Wing of the White House, I reported on what I had seen in New Orleans to my friend and UCLA classmate Craig Fuller. Craig Fuller went on to become Chief of Staff to Vice President Bush from 1981 to 1985. In 1982, then UCLA political science professor Paul Jabber, filled in many of the pieces in my quest to understand what I had seen in New Orleans. He was qualified to do so because he had served as a CIA and State Department consultant to the Carter administration. Paul explained that, after a 1975 treaty between the Shah of Iran and Sadam Hussein the Shah had cut off all overt military support for Kurdish rebels fighting Sadam from the north of Iraq. In exchange the Shah had gained access to the Shat al‑Arab waterway so that he could multiply his oil exports and income. Not wanting to lose a long‑term valuable asset in the Kurds, the CIA had then used Brown and Root, which operated in both countries and maintained port facilities in the Persian Gulf and near Shat al‑Arab to rearm the Kurds. The whole operation had been financed with heroin. Paul was matter‑of‑fact about it.
In 1983 Paul Jabber left UCLA to become a Vice President of Banker's Trust and Chairman of the Middle East Department of the Council on Foreign Relations. If one is courageous enough to seek an "operating system" that theoretically explains what FTW has just described for you, one need look no further than a fabulous two‑part article in "Le Monde Diplomatique" in April of this year. The brilliant stories, focusing heavily on drug capital are titled "Crime, The World's Biggest Free Enterprise." The brilliant and penetrating words of authors Christian de Brie and Jean de Maillard do a better job of explaining the actual world economic and political situation than anything that I have ever read. De Brie writes, "By allowing capital to flow unchecked from one end of the world to the other, globalization and abandon of sovereignty have together fostered the explosive growth of an outlaw financial market¼
"It is a coherent system closely linked to the expansion of modern capitalism and based on an association of three partners: governments, transnational corporations and mafias. Business is business: financial crime is first and foremost a market, thriving and structured, ruled by supply and demand.
"Big business complicity and political laisser faire is the only way that large‑scale organized crime can launder and recycle the fabulous proceeds of its activities. And the transnationals need the support of governments and the neutrality of regulatory authorities in order to consolidate their positions, increase their profits, withstand and crush the competition, pull off the ‘deal of the century’ and finance their illicit operations. Politicians are directly involved and their ability to intervene depends on the backing and the funding that keep them in power. This collusion of interests is an essential part of the world economy, the oil that keeps the wheels of capitalism turning."
After confronting CIA Director John Deutch on world television on November 15, 1996 I was interviewed by the staffs of both the Senate and House Intelligence Committees. I prepared written testimony for Senate Intelligence which I submitted although I was never called to testify. In every one of those interviews and in my written testimony and in every lecture since that time I have told the story of Brown and Root. I will tell it again at the USC School of International Relations on December the 8th, 2000 ‑ regardless of who wins the election. Michael C. Ruppert www.copvcia.com Sources: The Center for Public Integrity, "Cheney Led Halliburton to Feast at Federal Trough," Knut Royce & Nathaniel Heller.
Smoking Gun
The 9/11 Evidence that May Hang George W. Bush
By Cheryl Seal, 02 June 2002
The Case Against G.W. Bush: a Preliminary "Hearing" in the Court of Common Sense: At the very least Bush allowed 9/11 to happen. But the evidence indicates his guilt involves more than just a huge intentional sin of omission; this now seems certain. So it is ulcer‑fomenting to watch him, Cheney, Condoleeza Rice and their PR army try to sell America yet another Big Lie, that they had no idea such a thing as 9/11 could happen...they could never have imagined it in their wildest dreams...they had no specific warnings...there was nothing unusual about the summer 2001 warnings, etc, etc, ad nauseam. I have compiled some material that clearly shows that the above litany is blatantly, arrogantly false. But first, let's hold a preliminary hearing in the "Court of Common sense."
To see through a wall of propaganda and determine what's really going on, one must tune out the spin completely and take a good, objective look at what has been DONE and what the parties involved have to GAIN by their actions. Let's look at the well‑documented facts:
First, when Bush, Rice and the other top Reichmeisters discarded the warning on August 6, Bush's approval ratings had sunk to just 49%, this is the red zone for a president. As any political expert or presidential historian: Hit 45%, and impeachment may soon loom on the horizon (according to a political scientist who spent eight years in the White House and a prominent professional political campaign manager based in New York).
Second, Bush's actions throughout his entire life show a clear and consistent pattern: without exception, he has always chosen the path that will benefit himself and his corporate friends the most and will do so in the face of even the most outraged criticism.
Third, the stolen election of 2000 proves that Bush was willing to participate in a very daring, very large scale crime in pursuit of power.
Fourth, Bush's father's approval ratings went from shaky to astronomical within a month of declaring war on an "evil terrorist" leader back in 1991. This lesson could hardly have been lost on Bush, Jr.: Start a war and the emotions of the public can be whipped up to a point that will push presidential approval ratings way, way up.
So, given the above facts as "evidence," what do you imagine a self‑serving man who has faced no serious opposition from Congress, the press, or the American public would be likely to do? A bookie would most certainly lay odds that Bush would stand aside and allow an event like 9/11 to happen.
Another action that must be considered in the cold hard light of day is Bush's behavior after 9/11. He seized upon national fears, worked at intensifying them, and immediately, without waiting for Congress or serious discussions with other nations, called for an attack on Afghanistan and a global war on terrorism. At the same time, he worked through John Ashcroft with stunning swiftness to dismantle civil liberties. These are not the actions of a leader who wants to keep his nation calm, reassured, and standing tall in its principles in the wake of tragedy. They are the actions of an opportunist who knows, from watching his father's presidency, that the window of opportunity for consolidating his power will be narrow: Bush Sr.'s approval rating high lasted only a few months.
Last, why would Bush admit to having been warned about 9/11 in the first place? In the corporate and political world, this admission is a strategy that has been used over and over by creeps who are guilty of huge crimes and know the heat is on. By confessing to a lesser charge, they try to draw the heat away from the main, more dangerous issue. Ken Lay, the head of Anderson, and every criminal who has ever copped or tried to cop a plea bargain have used this ploy. If Bush were innocent of any complicity in 9/11, why should he make ANY statement? It is always the guilty who feel the need to make statements: "I am not a crook!," "I never had sex with that woman!" Or how about that row of tobacco industry CEO's who all swore that none of them knew their product was harmful or addictive?
Therefore, based on the evidence, I would say we have a phony president who is as guilty as hell, who knows that someone has the goods on him and is breathing down his neck. He is gambling that by making a preemptive strike while he still has control of the media, he can spin a protective wall around himself. Thus, we have Dick Cheney appearing on 5/19 on Meet the Press, being "interviewed" about the 9/11 flap by his friend and neighbor Russert. Yep, that's right –both interviewer and interviewee live in the feudally exclusive Kalorama suburb of D.C., where houses START at around $1 million. In fact, on the same program, Russert had the arrogance to even mention how he'd seen his buddy out taking the air on his new "It" scooter. How cozy! And this is what is being served to America in the name of a free and honest press. Ya got a problem? Just pick a pal in the press corps and tell him what questions you want him/her to ask you so you can spin them in just the way you want.
Russert asked Cheney how he responded to charges that the information existed in several reports which showed that a WTC‑type attack was a possibility. Cheney responded; incredibly!that reading all those reports weren't his concern. There's just too darn many of them. Russert let this ridiculous response go totally unchallenged and unqualified.
Here are the questions that are missing –the questions a real journalist would have asked: "So then, Mr. Cheney, just what are your criteria for a report that is important enough for you to read? How do you prioritize what you read or what those under you are directed to call to your attention? What reports on this matter DID you read?"
It is insulting to America's intelligence that such questions are not being asked. It's like a grand jury that refuses to ask a murder suspect questions like "Where were you on the night of such and such? What was your relationship to the victim?" but instead says, "Well, here's what we heard from the police that someone thinks you may have killed someone. Go ahead and explain yourself. Don't worry, we won't interrupt you or ask you any uncomfortable questions. And, by the way, your good pal who lives down the block volunteered to serve as jury foreman!"
Here's one last FACT to consider. The GOP spent $40 million to pursue an ultimately merit‑less case against Clinton that involved diddling an intern and some questionable real estate deals. Since Bush took office, not one dime has been spent by Congress to investigate Cheney and his secret energy dealings, Bush's stolen election, Tom Delay's boiler room scams that have bilked doctors out of millions, the mysterious wild trading of American and United Airlines stock the week before 9/11 or any of the other crimes that were far more serious than Clinton's offenses. Meanwhile, the GOP –so eager to spend millions to investigate an office romance has worked overtime to block the initiation of any serious investigation into the biggest crime to have ever been perpetrated on American soil that claimed nearly 3,000 lives. WAKE UP AMERICA!!
"Vague Warning" or Blueprint for Disaster?
The story Bush wants the world to buy is that the warnings he received were vague, routine, too general to act upon. Condi Rice wants us to believe that no one in the administration could have dreamed the hijackers would fly into a landmark building. But, as they say in show biz, this is "lies, lies, and damn lies."
Since 1993, scores of people, collectively, in the White House, Pentagon, State Department, FBI, and CIA have know that an attack like 9/11 was not only a possibility –but an increasingly likely probability. Because I am not writing a book here, I will confine myself to summarizing the most obvious pieces of evidence that Bush and his team had to work with. However, they are enough to convict him in any court of opinion.
Terrorism 2000 Report
Don't confuse this 1993 study with the report turned out by the Bush administration in April 2001 under the same title. The 2001 release, a summary of terrorist activity in 2000, lifted the title of the original document, no doubt as a smokescreen to confuse anyone who might be seeking the 1993 document through a search engine or library archives.
In 1993, the Pentagon commissioned, via the Department of Defense's office of Special Operations and Low‑Intensity Conflict, a think tank‑style study of the ways terrorists could execute large‑scale acts of terrorism on the US. Participants in the $150,000 study consisted of a panel of 41 intelligence/security experts that included former ranking CIA, FBI, State Department and Rand Corporation officials, as well as an ex‑KGB general and Israeli intelligence agent.
One of the problems the team brainstormed over was the various ways an airplane could be used to destroy national landmarks, in fact, the WTC was most certainly on the panel's list of possible targets. One conclusion reached by the team as a future trend in terrorist activity was that extremists would seek to maximize their impact by escalating their attacks from one‑at‑a‑time truck bomb/suicide bomber events to multiple, simultaneous targeting, thereby touting their power and stretching the victim governments' ability to respond.
The possible terrorist scenarios the team outlined scared the socks off folks in the government. One high‑level official described it as "too outrageous." As a result, the team's report, Terrorism 2000 (a reference to terrorism in the new millennia) was blocked from public release. Even a toned down version that had been proposed as a way to raise public awareness and improve national preparedness was killed! A draft of the report was nonetheless passed on through the Pentagon, the Justice Department and the Federal Emergency Management Agency. There is absolutely no doubt that this information was available to everyone in the Bush Administration, including Ms. Rice. It should have been required reading –especially since many of the predictions made by the report had already come true before 9/11.
Four instances of planes used as weapons before 2001
1994: A Federal Express Flight engineer was apprehended as he tried to storm the cockpit of a DC‑10. The engineer, despondent over his impending firing, had planned to crash the plane into a Fed Ex building in Memphis.
1994: A pilot stole a Cessna and tried to crash it into the White House. He instead hit a tree on the White House grounds, not far from Clinton's bedroom.
1995: An Islamic fundamentalist group hijacked an Air France flight and loaded the plane with 27 tons of fuel in Marseilles as a way to turn it into an incendiary bomb when they crashed it into the Eiffel tower. This plan was thwarted when Special Forces stormed the craft before it could leave Marseilles.
1995: Abdul Hakim Murad confessed to planting timed explosive devices on eleven US airline flights in an attempt to create a "multiple attack" event (as outlined in the "too outrageous" Terrorism 2000 report). The same terrorist group also planned to crash on airplane into CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia, and another into the Pentagon (but Condi didn't dream anyone would ever try such a thing in 2001?). This scheme was not a wild and fevered plot. It was in the advanced planning stages, to the point where specific flights had already been selected. Murad himself was going to be the suicide pilot who hit the CIA headquarters. Where did he get his pilot training? In a US flight school.
The specifics of the "vague warning"
The most glaring lie Bush is using in his current spin is his claim that the warnings he received were too vague to act upon. However, the facts all by themselves scream "liar!"
From April, 2001 right up to the day the WTC and Pentagon were slammed, urgent warnings of impending large‑scale attacks by terrorists had been issued to the Bush administration from multiple sources. Germany, Egypt, Russia and Israel all delivered alerts that accurately foretold the scale of the attack and that it would involve a prominent landmark of some type. This would automatically put the WTC and Pentagon on the short list, especially as both landmarks had been targeted before (as mentioned above, the Pentagon attack was averted).
The German intelligence agency BND warned the US and Israel both in June that Middle Eastern terrorists were "planning to hijack commercial aircraft to use as weapons to attack important symbols of American and Israeli culture." This is hardly vague, and hardly refers to an "overseas danger" to Americans (which of our prominent landmarks is in Europe or Asia, pray tell?).
On June 13, Egypt sent an urgent warning that a plane stuffed with explosives could be used as a weapon against George Bush. It was assumed, incorrectly at that time that the target could be the G‑8 summit in Genoa, held in June 2001. Vladimir Putin was so certain of the information he received in the summer of 2001 of an impending attack that he personally instructed Russian intelligence to tell Bush "in the strongest possible terms" (his own words on September. 15, 2001) of an impending attack involving airports and government. The Russians told the CIA that 25 terrorist pilots had been specially trained to execute suicide missions. It was around the same time that the FBI was receiving tips about suspicious Arabic men in US flight schools.
In August, 2001, the Israeli intelligence agency Mossad warned the CIA and FBI that as many as 200 al Qaeda members were infiltrating the US and planning "a major assault on the US" against "a large‑scale target" in a setting where Americans would be "very vulnerable."
The NSA cracked bin Laden's encryption code by February 2001
Even before April, the Bush administration HAD TO KNOW something was up and probably had info that was even more specific than the warnings given above. According to UPI correspondent Richard Sale, by February 2001, the National Security Agency had broken Osama bin Laden's communications encryption system. We know that the encryption was broken because the Bush administration reported AFTER 9/11 that it had intercepted encrypted calls bin Laden made to his mother two days before the attack, saying "In two days, you're going to hear big news, and you're not going to hear from me for a while." If this message was intercepted before the attack, what others were intercepted as well that the Bush administration did NOT reveal? Most likely six‑months'‑worth of terrorist planning.
The CIA knew of suspicious airline stock trades by September 7
Last but not least, the CIA knew a week before the attack WHICH airlines were most likely to be hijacked. The Agency maintains an advanced program called Promis, which monitors unusual stock market activity, SPECIFICALLY as a way to anticipate potential terrorist attacks. Promis provides 24‑hour continuous real‑time data on stock market activity and the FBI and Justice Department have both admitted that Promis was up and running all through the summer and fall of 2001. So there is no doubt whatsoever that as early as September. 7, the CIA knew that something was going down and knew which airlines were being targeted. Even a third‑grader could have put this information together with the long litany of warnings above from foreign sources and come up with the conclusion that an American or United Airlines craft was going to be hijacked in the near future and most likely used to crash into a landmark, quite possibly the World Trade Center.
More smoking facts
According to the official government web site of the Military District of Washington the Pentagon ITSELF planned in detail how it would respond to just such a scenario from October 24‑26 2000. And this was no low‑level exercise, since it took place in the Office of the Secretaries of Defense conference room. This story was run in Unknown News and picked up the same day by Democrats.com which fortunately, kept a copy because within 24 hours, the story –along with the entire Military District website, was scrubbed by the White House!
The model used in this simulation and the response plan was developed by Don Abbott, who is the founder of FieldSoft, a company that makes emergency‑response software programs and systems, including FdonScene. This program, according to the FieldSoft site, "is the first, and only, fire service, software application specifically designed for incident commanders and their staff in‑the‑field. The commercial off‑the‑shelf software (COTS) product is designed to support in field operations for any type of emergency response. Basically, FDonScene is an automated COTS tool that actively facilitates control and coordination of people, procedures, events, and other resources with the touch of a finger.The application is specifically designed for fast, simple and easy use by the incident commander, as well as members of the command staff."
Bush was without doubt very familiar with FdonScene because it was first endorsed by the Texas Fire Chiefs Association while he was governor (1998). And, as the FieldSoft brochure mentions, "FieldSoft has engineered software necessary to integrate FDonScene with a consequence management system under development by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA)." So this is definitely a program well known to and used by the military.
Now, in light of this, consider this fact: By a "miracle" of coincidence, the FdonScene program had been set up and made ready to go for use by the emergency response teams at the WTC disaster just a few days before the disaster, as if in anticipation. The brochure boasts: "Over 700 victims passed through the Atlantic Highlands Ferry Port in New Jersey following the September 11, 2001 WTC attack. Two fire departments, three local police departments, as well as representatives from county, state, and federal agencies were on hand to assess and assist the victims as they embarked. Emergency units on the scene included 40 ambulances, an FD communications unit, a decontamination unit, and 10 pieces of fire apparatus. A communications unit member on scene at the Port, who had seen a ninety minute demonstration of the software a few days earlier, brought a trial copy of FDonScene on line and used it to track people, resources, and events. A second person watched how the software was being used, and took over operation of it a few hours later. Overall, the software was operated successfully for 14 hours." Nowhere can any reference to WHO the "unit member" was, or who the "second person" was.
In another FieldSoft "success story" for a different product, the same ominous vagueness is found: "The Organization of American States (OAS) planned a major meeting in a North American city. Intelligence gathering operations revealed that anarchists planned to disrupt the meeting. The local police service evaluated a number of software systems that could be used to help manage law enforcement activities from the joint operations center (JOC). PDonScene was elected 3 weeks prior to the opening ceremonies." The software was configured and in place at the JOC as delegates commenced OAS activities. PDonScene was used throughout the 4 day event to manage hundreds of local, provincial, and federal law enforcement officers. The software helped law enforcement managers successfully manage peaceful labor –and not so peaceful anarchist; demonstrations by thousands of people, at several different venues throughout the community. "We [the agency] purchased the software because operation of it looked simple," stated a JOC Staff Sergeant. That Sergeant went on to say that "we found it [PDonScene] exceptional in that it showed the situation in real time with both [officer] names and call signs".
July: Shortly after the Bay of Pigs crisis, the Kennedy administration allowed the FAA to pass a rule that permitted commercial airline pilots to be armed. The rule was passed to protect flights from possible hijacking by Cubans. Although no airline ever availed themselves of this right, it seems very strange that the rule was rescinded in July 2001, right at the HEIGHT of the most serious terrorist warnings to be issued by intelligence sources in decades. It seems, instead, that this should have been the time for the Bush administration to insist that pilots be armed! Just like the timing of everything that happened in the second half of 2001, we sniff something a lot more foul than politics
Mid‑August: A flight school in Minnesota flight reported Zacharias Missouri to the local FBI office after Missouri requested training in how to fly a jet, but not in how to land or take off. Although Moussaoui was arrested, agents did not search his computer and thus missed vital clues.
Early September: (from a letter from a reader): I was listening to "The Connection" on PBS this morning. The subject was terrorism (of course). During the show, a man called in who said his wife was a VP at an all‑girls college. Just before 9/11, a Saudi prince called up and said to cancel his daughter's registration for the fall and send him a refund. On 9/11, at 9:30, Saudi security was there to pick up 3 princesses from the school. The man said his wife called the FBI, but they didn't pay any heed to her. Hopefully, you will hear that from this link.
This incident most certainly was reported to the FBI after September 11 and most clearly indicated there could be a Saudi connection. Yet the Bush administration has refused to pursue an active investigation of Saudi ties to September 11 and instead focused entirely on Afghanistan –though NONE of those responsible for September 11 came from Afghanistan, and, as it turns out, none trained there, they all trained in Europe or the US. However, there was nothing in it for Bush to bomb Saudi Arabia –we already get their oil!
Bin Laden's hunter O'Neill was killed at WTC: Was he also a casualty of the Bush administration?
Until he resigned, in August of 2001, John O'Neill was the director of antiterrorism for the FBI's New York office. O'Neill had worked on the investigations of the first WTC bombing in 1993 and the attacks on the American embassies in Africa in 1998. He became one of the world's top experts on Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda. O'Neill believed that "All the answers, everything needed to dismantle Osama bin Laden's organization can be found in Saudi Arabia." Yet the Bush administration blocked O'Neill's efforts to investigate the Saudi ties to bin Laden. The main obstacles to investigating Islamic terrorism, asserted O'Neill, were US oil corporate interests and the role played by Saudi Arabia in it.
For example, Bush blocked an FBI investigation of the bin Laden family and kept his family's business ties to the bin Ladens as secret as possible. Among these business dealings were bin Laden investments in the Carlyle Group and connections between bin Laden and George W. Bush's first oil companies. It must have truly enraged O'Neill if he knew that Osama bin Laden had flown to Dubai for 10 days for treatment at the American hospital, where he was visited by local CIA agent Larry Mitchell on July 12.
O'Neill was very well aware of the warnings that came out in the summer of 2001. But it was obvious that he was considered more of a liability than an asset to the oil‑obsessed Bush administration. Back in 2000, O'Neill had been investigating the bombing of the SS Cole, for which he was sure bin Laden was responsible. However, the US ambassador to Yemen, one Barbara Bodine, hamstrung FBI efforts at every turn, publicly calling O'Neill a liar, refusing to allow his men to be armed with more than small handguns and, in general, crippling the investigation. Although Bodine claims she was trying to keep diplomatic relations running smoothly, her history shows otherwise:
Barbara Bodine has served primarily under rightwing old boys and in areas where their oil interests are being served. Under Reagan she served as Deputy Principle Officer in Baghdad, Iraq. Under Bush, Sr., she served as Deputy Chief of Mission in Kuwait and was there during the Gulf War. She has also worked for Bob Dole, and far more ominously, for Henry Kissinger. Now, under Bush, Jr., she is in Yemen impeding an FBI investigation that focused on the son of a Bush family business associate.
What makes Bodine's actions toward O'Neill particularly despicable is that she was said to be in part to blame for the Cole disaster. Even though she had been warned that the risk of attacks on Americans in the Yemen area were extremely high at that time, the Cole entered port under the lowest grade of security permitted in the Middle East with no warning to the destroyer. A top military analyst for the Pentagon's Defense Intelligence Agency quit in protest the day after the bombing because of Bodine and General Anthony Zinn's decision to allow the Cole to come into the port. In July, Bodine had O'Neill and the FBI barred from Yemen. About that time, O'Neill's name had been proposed by Richard Clarke as Clarke's successor as terrorism czar at the National Security Council. But a very mysterious incident that had happened nearly a year before was dredged up and used to blow that possibility out of the water. In November of 2000, at a retirement seminar in Tampa, O'Neill left his briefcase for a few moments in the convention room to go around the corner to use the phone. When he returned in a few minutes, the brief case, containing some papers considered classified, was gone. It soon turned up, but the incident was seized upon as an excuse to guarantee O'Neill would not get promoted. Was it a real theft? Or a set up to squeeze out the man who asked too many questions about Saudis and oil? O'Neill had finally had enough and quit.
Meanwhile, from February through August, the entire time that the danger from bin Laden was the greatest, Bush was focusing most of his efforts on persuading the Taliban to allow him and his oil pals put a pipeline through Afghanistan. Bush wanted to swipe the oil‑rich Caspian region from Russian control. Back when Bush thought he could cut a deal with the Taliban, he did not consider them "evil." In fact, back when he smelled an easy deal in the wind, Bush described the Taliban's repressive regime as "a source of stability in Central Asia" that would enable the construction of an oil pipeline. So, in Spring of 2001, in Texas oil wheeling‑dealing style, Bush handed $43 million in taxpayer dollars over to the Taliban to sweeten the pot. Still, however, there was no deal.
Laila Helms, the niece of former CIA director Richard Helms, worked as a public relations coordinator for the Taliban at this time. According to Helms, the Taliban offered to turn over bin Laden or provide the coordinates of his whereabouts. However, apparently under Bush's orders, the State Department refused this deal –a deal that would have removed Bush's best trump terrorist card from his stacked deck. Instead, on August 2, State Department officials met with Taliban reps in Islamabad and there delivered this ultimatum: give us what we want for the oil companies and we will "carpet your with gold." If you don't, "we will bury you beneath a carpet of bombs." The Taliban still held out.
Four days later, Bush was given the warning that could have, if acted upon, saved 3,000 American lives and the thousands of civilian lives lost in Afghanistan since October. Instead, he chose to ignore it.
In early September, O'Neill took a job at the WTC as head of security there. Right before the disaster, he told friends he felt sure an attack was imminent and that he feared that terrorists would try to finish the job they had begun in 1993 to destroy the WTC. John O'Neill was in the first tower when it was hit. He was on his way into the second tower to help evacuate people when he was killed.
O'Neill must have sensed –the best detectives have that uncanny "sixth sense"– that something very big, very horrendous might go down and that he might not survive. In June and July, 2001 he met with French intelligence analyst Jean‑Charles Brisard (in June in Paris and in July in New York City). O'Neill confided much of what he knew about the bin Laden situation and Bush to Brisard –a fellow intelligence officer, but one who was not under the Bush administration's thumb. Brisard and his associate Guillaume Dasquié, an intelligence analyst and the editor of Intelligence Online, dedicated their book "Bin Laden: the Forbidden Truth" (released in France in November 2001) to O'Neill. The book has been vigorously avoided by US publishers and everyone in the mainstream US press except Paula Zahn, who has presented excerpts of it. History will be kind to John O'Neill. It will not be kind to George W. Bush.
The Pentagon Tragedy: A Plot that Keeps on Thickening
One of the things that has bothered me since the morning of 9/11 is how little attention the Pentagon tragedy received. All you could hear screamed from the media and White House for months was WTC! WTC! WTC! Heroes of Flight 93! Heroes of Flight 93! It was an endless litany –education through repetition. In fact, 9/11 became synonymous, almost forcibly, with the WTC. Yet, over 200 people died at the Pentagon, including the ill‑fated passengers on Flight 77, right at the heart of the city. Why so little focus on this tragedy? I believe that of all the events of 9/11, the crash of Flight 77 into the Pentagon was the most telling, it was the hottest, smokiest of the smoking guns. The key to the whole mystery may well lie in this five‑sided building built by FDR's administration. First, here's a little long‑overdue background on the Pentagon.
The history of the Pentagon
When war broke out in Europe in 1939, even before the US entered the conflict, our War Department was gearing up for the possibility. However, there was no real home for the Department of Defense –it was scattered across DC in 17 different buildings. Back then, there wasn't a whole lot of red tape to cut through –when the green light was given to come up with a place to put the DOD, by God, they came up with a plan in four days! In this relative blink of an eye, Brigadier General Brehon B. Somervell developed a scheme for a three‑story humongous complex capable of housing 40,000 workers (it later grew to five floors after WWII broke out). But, Somervell's plan for a five‑sided structure was not, as one might expect, symbolic, or an effort to create a stylized giant chevron. Instead, it was the most practical idea that suggested itself: the 67‑acre site chosen (a former Deptartment of Agriculture Farm on the Potomac) was bound on five sides by five existing roads. Voila! The Pentagon. Cost estimates for the original project was $35 million –about what a couple of out buildings for storing old munitions might cost now! Believe it or not, the project was considered highly controversial. Some complained that it took up land intended for the expansion of Arlington Cemetery. Others said the DOD shouldn't be housed outside the District of Columbia, while some (we jaded 21st centurians would have to laugh at this) complained that the cost was too high.
One problem Congress wrangled over was what to do with the building once WWII was over. Although some wanted to turn it into a warehouse, most people assumed that the building would become a veterans' hospital. It is very telling that no one believed there would be a need for 40,000 defense department workers after the War. That was because no one foresaw that war was soon to become a way of life –in one form or the other– for Americans. This shift to an all‑war (ours or someone else's we supply weapons for) all the time focus can be traced to the Cold War mentality that many in high places locked into during the 1950s and never left (and has never allowed the rest of us to leave).
In any case, the classic monster of a building (over 5 million square feet!) that we call the Pentagon was begun in 1941 a few months before Pearl Harbor (the appropriations bill was signed by FDR in August 1941). Spurred to heroic efforts by the declaration of war in December, the construction crews –13,000 men at one point– completed the building in an astounding 16 months. As with all government projects, the final cost was nearly three times higher than first estimates (it came in at $83 million). Because a war was on, reinforced concrete was used instead of steel in most of the building's structure (in contrast to the WTC, which was a mass of steel beams). There were no elevators –instead, concrete ramps go between levels. The finished building consists of five nested concentric pentagons (called rings), with a 5‑acre courtyard at the heart.
The building is really a small town –with its own shopping concourse, banks, and even its own subway station. In 1993, the Clinton administration decided to upgrade the Pentagon, for many reasons, not least of which was the growing concern over terrorist attacks. In addition to new plumbing, the upgrade included putting in heavy duty fireproofing in the walls, reinforcing the walls, and improving security in general. The final reconstruction strategy called for the work to be divided into five "wedges," each wedge encompassing a corner and a rectangle of the Building. The first wedge to be tackled was the one facing west, covering 1.2 million square feet. By September 2000, work on this wedge was about 70% complete. The wedge was supposed to have been completely done by July 2001, but, as with rebuilding any old "house," more problems kept being uncovered. For example, all sorts of interesting goodies were found in the walls: a secure vault no one knew about, old whiskey bottles (hmm, wonder who went to such lengths to hide their booze!), and other items. Then of course, there were supports that needed more reinforcement, asbestos to be removed, etc. Among the improvements made to Wedge One: Blast resistant windows and brick backup walls behind the building's limestone outer facade. These inner walls contain a metal fabric mesh similar to the mesh used in vehicle air bags. This mesh was designed specifically to CONTAIN DEBRIS FRAGMENTS in the event of a blast.
The bloody morning of September 11
On the morning of September 11, 2001, about 20,000 people were at work in the Pentagon. Almost no one was in Wedge one, except workers who were moving furniture in –the last step before the wedge was reopened for business. When the news of the planes hitting the WTC came, Pentagon personnel were horrified and clustered round radios and television sets to follow the coverage. One man remembered remarking to another worker that he feared the Pentagon was vulnerable to all types of terrorist assaults. Then, at 9:43, there was a huge explosion and fire and smoke rose from wedge one. By evening, it would be known that at least 180 people had been killed, including the 64 passengers on Flight 77.
So, what is wrong with the whole Pentagon disaster picture? For starters, here are a few interesting facts: As mentioned earlier, the Bush administration had PLENTY of information that would lead them to believe the Pentagon and other major national landmarks were at high risk of a terrorist attack, especially in the summer and fall of 2001. Many warnings had come over the previous 8 years that the Pentagon could be a target of a terrorist attack, not only that but part of a multiple‑strike terrorist attack. In fact, this possibility seemed so plausible that in November 2000 a disaster response exercise was held by the Military District of DC that simulated a plane hitting the Pentagon. So, September 11 finds Bush and several other key administrators safely removed from DC –Bush, at a Florida elementary school, is strategically NOWHERE NEAR a national landmark that morning. John Ashcroft has stopped flying on commercial airliners and is in the wilds of Missouri, via private jet, fishing. Cheney is at an "undisclosed location" (his bunker, probably). Jeb Bush, from September 7, has the Florida National Guard on standby. A collection of top CEOs of companies based at the WTC are attending a charity event at Offutt Air Base in Omaha at 8:00 AM on 9/11 (rather odd time, doncha think?) –the same base to which Bush flees later in the same day. Rumsfeld is at the Pentagon –but in the wedge FURTHEST from what will be the point of impact.
So, while the Bush administration and its pals were maneuvering into the safest possible positions, the folks at the Pentagon (and the workers and "expendable" CEOs at the WTC, of course) were left to their fate, no warning given to them at all. Given the above info on the administration's awareness of the threat to the Pentagon, it seems reasonable to expect that the MINUTE the news was heard about the WTC being hit that the Pentagon should have been evacuated IMMEDIATELY as a precaution until further notice. At the very least, after the SECOND TOWER was hit! At that point, the multiple‑strike scenario should have been so hideously obvious. Yet the workers were left at their posts like sitting ducks. Was this incompetence, intent to kill, or was it something else?
Let's try applying a different hypothesis and see how the pieces fit. HYPOTHESIS: That person or persons unknown in the Bush administration were involved in planning the attack on the Pentagon. Let's examine the likely objectives of the Perpetrator(s) and their objectives according to this hypothesis compared to actual events.
A. Minimize loss of life while creating a terrorist event of frightening proportions
ACTUAL EVENTS: 1. Published reports following 9/11 say the number of passengers on all four hijacked flights was remarkably light –under half capacity. There were just 64 people on Flight 77. (Possible modus operandi: One writer has theorized that a computer hacker could have manipulated the bookings for these flights in such a way that they would appear to have been full after a reasonable number of people and thus no more passengers could be accepted.)
2. The plane struck the almost empty, but newly reinforced, fire resistant wedge. In fact, the plane underwent an elaborate maneuver to be able to line its trajectory up with Wedge One –not only that, but to strike the newly reinforced, collapse‑resistant WALL in wedge one. A suicide pilot would likely have made a beeline for the building and done a nosedive into the top, which would have caused more damage.
3. No one in the Pentagon had been put on alert –from the time of the Bush's receipt of the August 6 memo to the morning of 9/11, when, for over 40 minutes, it was known that a hijacked plane‑turned‑bomb was in the air.
CONCLUSION: In their own sick way, the perpetrators tried to keep the loss of life minimized. They kept the number of passengers on the planes to a minimum, then made sure the plane would hit Wedge One, a well‑reinforced fire‑resistant area where few people would be that day. In addition, they did not issue alerts because they assumed emergency evacuation might place workers in greater danger– many may actually have sought shelter, ironically, in the newly reinforced Wedge. (In an interesting side note, it has been pointed out by some observers that the planes that hit the WTC seemed to aim for the top 1/4 of the towers, as if to avoid destroying the towers and, again, in a bizarre, perverted way, to minimize loss of life).
B. Eliminate any trace of the plane –a challenge because of the special mesh in the new wall designed to capture any debris.
ACTUAL EVENTS: 1. Flight 77 was a Boeing 757, an aircraft that is about 60 feet long, with a wingspan of 125 feet. Yet, it appears to have left essentially not a trace of material inside the building. Brigadier General Arthur F. Diehl III, Air Force, gave this first hand account of the crash site: "No one could believe the catastrophic damage –it was horrible. A whole wedge had collapsed; the aircraft had penetrated about three of the five rings of the building. There wasn't a single piece of the jet to be seen anywhere".
2. Several accounts and filmed shots of the event suggest an explosion OUTSIDE the wedge. Construction foreman Joe Harrington, standing in parking lot near the impact point said: "It seemed like it made impact just before the wedge. It was like a Hollywood movie or something."
3. Although there was seismic activity associated with the WTC event and Flight 93, both of which involved direct impacts with a solid object, no significant seismic activity was recorded for the Pentagon explosion (lack of detected waves was confirmed by forensic seismologists with the US, Geological Survey).
CONCLUSION: The plane exploded and was essentially vaporized the split second before actual impact with the wall. What actually struck and penetrated the Wedge was not the solid body of the plane but a fireball from the explosion –moving forward with the combined momentum of the moving plane and the explosion. Because the actual explosion occurred in the air and the destruction in the building was due to the fireball and to implosive forces and not a solid‑solid impact, there was no seismic activity. You do not want this airplane intercepted or shot down, because your plot would be revealed if too much evidence becomes accessible (even in the form of plane fragments).
ACTUAL EVENTS: 1. The transponder in this plane was turned off –a move seen by investigators as a highly sophisticated action on the part of the hijackers. This renders the plane untraceable by ground control. (I believe there was another reason for this –see below).
2. Even though it was known by about 08:55 that Flight 77 had been hijacked and that the Pentagon could be a target, no defensive moves were made to protect the Pentagon. F‑16s were finally scrambled into the air, but too late. These planes, by the way, were scrambled out of Langley Airforce base. While Langley is about 130 miles southwest of the Pentagon, Bolling AFB just across the Potomac from the Pentagon, is at most 5 miles southeast while Andrews is 10 miles. The Langley F‑16 left the ground two minutes before the Pentagon was hit. In any case, I find it extremely hard to believe that the most important military command structure in the US is not defended by surface to air missiles! I mean, we are supposed to believe that there are antiaircraft weapons atop the White House but NOT deployed anywhere near the Pentagon? Give us a break!
4. You want to make absolutely sure that this is a precision hit –nothing left to chance.
ACTUAL EVENTS: 1. Eyewitness observers say that Flight 77 performed a 180‑degree "G" turn before diving for the center of the long wall of Wedge One. The plane was estimated to be rocketing at an estimated speed of 400 mph. Several experienced pilots have claimed that the final maneuver of the 757 could not have been performed by a human pilot because of the tremendous G‑forces that would have been exerted, rending even the simplest movements exceedingly difficult (picture your arms each suddenly weighing about 100 pounds and each finger about 10).
2. Eyewitnesses and the evidence of a security camera show a fiery explosion OUTSIDE the wall.
3. The transponder was OFF.
CONCLUSION: The plane was remotely controlled by a command transmitter system at least in the final minutes. There was an explosive device on board, which was detonated immediately before impact, probably remotely controlled as well. The timing, trajectory, etc, may have been generated by a software program of some sort that could work this out to the millisecond. The plane's own transponder would have had to have been turned off so that it's operation would not interfere with a second transponder placed aboard by the perpetrators –a transponder designed to pick up the signal of a command system transmitter operated somewhere in the area. Or, of course, the plane's own transponder was not actually off –it was just changed to a new setting. In any case, turning the transponder off would not have helped the hijackers to hide from the battery of sophisticated radars encircling DC, so this motivation (hiding from radars) does not make any sense. Here is a description of an advanced, "fully mobile" CTS built Systems Planning Corp, the CEO of whih is Bush's undersecretary of defense and long time Texas pal Dov Zakheim.
More Disturbing 9/11 facts
While the workers in the Pentagon who were to die on 9/11 were putting in their last week, serving their country at the nation's military nerve center, one of the co‑perpetrators of WTC was walking the same halls, escorted as the special guest of the Bush administration.
September 4: Lt. General Mahmoud Ahmad, former director of the ISI (the Pakistani version of the CIA), arrives in DC In the days leading up to 9/11. Ahmad spent time in the State Department, at CIA headquarters, and at the Pentagon. Not long before arriving in D.C., Ahmad had overseen the wiring of $100,000 to Mohammad Atta, one of the hijackers aboard one of the planes striking the WTC. This revelation was made in October, after 9/11 by Indian intelligence sources and reported in the Times of India. The news was not reported by US officials or American journalists.
What does India know?
September 9: While Ahmad was in DC, Commander Ahmad Shah Masood, leader of the Afghan Northern Alliance, was assassinated by persons connected to the ISI. The 47‑year old Masood was a wildly popular, charismatic leader known to Afghans as the "Lion of Panjsher." His biggest goal: the true freedom and independence of Afghans. Fiercely independent and anti‑interventionist, he would most certainly have opposed the Bush administration's war plans and would not have played ball with any oil pipeline scheme. The Cold War Clan (as I call the Bushes, Kissinger, Rumsfeld and the rest of the power‑hungry old fossils in charge) have never had a use for charismatic leaders –look what happened to Allende...or Kennedy, for that matter.
From all of the accumulated evidence, there is little doubt in my mind that Indian intelligence has the goods on the Bush administration. It was Indian intelligence that "discovered" the links between ISI's Mahmoud Ahmad and the WTC attacks. We suspect this connection was, of course, already known to the Bush administration, which, for all anyone knows, supplied the $100,000. But, according to several sources, Indian intelligence knows far more than this. One Dehli government source told a reporter with Agence France Press last October: "The evidence we have supplied to the US [re: the ISI‑WTC connection] is of a much wider range and depth than just one piece of paper linking a rogue general to some misplaced act of terrorism." So, if India is the potential source of Bush's downfall, then what better way to silence India than to threaten her, via our now totally dependent "ally" Pakistan (complete with its fraudulently elected president), with nuclear annihilation? Alternatively, is this latest "global world crisis" merely yet another Bush‑engineered ploy designed to divert attention away from the real danger –THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION? By inducing Musharraf to trump up a "confrontation" with India and convincing the world that nuclear war may be impending, Rumsfeld and Bush can appear to "ride" to the rescue...it also affords them a slick way to get US troops out of the area. In short, whatever this latest scenario is, you can be sure it isn't what it appears to be. Like everything else about this administration.
FINAL TIMELINE: The Events, Planes and Players of September 11. Putting It All Together
Psychologists say during the Vietnam war, soldiers were more prone to PTSD than their WWII counterparts in large part because of the way post‑action reentry was handled. Vietnam vets were shuffled from the front right back to the states ‑usually alone, and expected to jump right into life, but often in an atmosphere of tension where they were viewed with suspicion and contempt. There was no time for real healing. The nation was in turmoil; home was not a peaceful place.
I believe that since 9/11, Americans have been suffering from a case of collective PTSD. After 9/11, Bush immediately seized on America's fears ‑ instead of helping the nation to heal, to be TRULY united, he whipped up anger, fanned paranoia, created a much deeper divide while forcing people to feel they must give lip service to the new "brand" of patriotism. We were wounded casualties with nowhere to go to lick our wounds, no atmosphere of hope and security to help soothe our minds and spirits. Instead, we were under constant attack ‑ just like Vietnam vets on those endless missions in the jungle that never seemed to gain any real ground. There was one vague threat after the other; one basic right after the other stripped away leaving us to feel chronically uneasy.
Then there was the war against Afghanistan. This frenzy of revenge forced us to mobilize and to push aside any misgivings or (for some of us), to suffer sleepless nights worrying about the consequences of a war we felt was wrong. The weeks, then months, following 9/11 were, in short, a period of relentless stress for all Americans. As a result, many people now say they can't really remember what the specific events were surrounding 9/11 ‑some can't even remember seeing the time line, though timelines were run in nearly every newspaper and magazine right after the tragedy.
I think this stress‑amnesia syndrome may very well be why George Bush has had such a cakewalk until recently. He took advantage of an entire nation that was numbed by shock and grief and unable to defend itself as it might otherwise have done. In short, we couldn't see the sleight of hand through the blur of tears. Now we are coming to, shaking off the fog that has confused us and seeing the facts clearly ‑for the first time, really, it seems.
Here, presented as clearly as possible for Americans ready to look with cooler heads and drier eyes are the events, players and planes of 9/11.
Who Was Responsible for What on the Day of September 11, 2001?
The responsibility for protecting America's skies from terrorist attack falls upon the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD, also simply called the "Space Command."). Established in 1958, NORAD is a US‑Canadian command that provides warning of missile and air attack against both member nations, according to the organization's Web site. In the Eastern US, NORAD has at its disposal, several Air Force Bases from which F‑16s and F‑15s can be scrambled at a moment's notice. Among these bases are Otis AFB in Cape Cod, Mass, Hancock AFB in Syracuse, NY ‑home of the 174 Fighter Wing of F‑16's‑ Andrews AFB just outside DC, and Langley AFB in Eastern Virginia. NORAD's mission statement on its website states:
"The Northeast Air Defense Air Sector's area of responsibility covers more than one‑half million square miles of airspace including that over New York City; Washington, D.C.; Chicago and other major metropolitan areas."
The Chain of Command during A Terrorist Attack
A: The FAA reports hijackings and other threats to NORAD's First Air Force Commander, who is based in Tyndall, FLA. On Sept. 11, this was Gen. Larry K. Arnold.
B: The First Air Force Commander then relays this info to The Commander in Chief (CINC) of NORAD. On 9/11, this was Gen. Ralph "Ed" Eberhardt
C: In a grave situation where force seems warranted, the CINC reports to the Commander in Chief...George Bush. Also notified are Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and acting Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Richard B. Myers
The fact that NORAD was well aware that a major attack was a possibility is made obvious by the command's planning, well before Sept. 11, for a major exercise, slated for June 4, 2002. This is from a NORAD announcement:
"On June 4, 2002, the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) will sponsor a multi‑agency, bi‑national exercise, Amalgam Virgo 02, involving an airborne terrorism scenario over the United States and Canada. The exercise, which was planned prior to the events of Sept. 11, is designed to allow many US and Canadian agencies to test, improve and validate their coordination and operational procedures."
Regardless of what warnings Bush may have received, NORAD was well aware of the threat to American skies.
The Planes and Players of 9/11
The Planes:
F‑16: (Fighting Falcon) From USAF Fact Sheet: "The F‑16 Fighting Falcon is a compact, multi‑role fighter aircraft. It s highly maneuverable and has proven itself in air‑to‑air combat and air‑to‑surface attack his highly maneuverable aircraft." The craft can go from zero to 500 mph in about 2 minutes. It's top speed is about 1,500 mph, while its typical cruising speed is nearly 600 mph. In other words, if a plane had been scrambled from Andrews, just 10 miles away as the crow (or F‑16) flies, it would have been able to engage Flight 77 within 15 minutes from the time the call came in. To decide to scramble a plane out of Langley seems to indicate just one thing: help was intentionally delayed by 10 minutes.
F‑15 (Eagle): (from Air Force Fact Sheet): "The F‑15 Eagle is an all‑ weather, extremely maneuverable, tactical fighter designed to permit the Air Force to gain and maintain air superiority in aerial combat." This plane can reach a maximum astounding speed of 1,875 mph.
The time required from the notification to scramble to one of these planes being airborne and at top speed is about 12‑15 minutes.
The Players
The Bush administration had in place, on Sept. 11 in the top five posts relevant to the terrorist attack, men who totally support the administration's vision for a "Star Wars" style military, for the militarization of space and the merging of the military with domestic law enforcement agencies into one big "Homeland Security" entity. The five top players were: Larry K. Arnold, First Air Force Commander of NORAD, Ralph "Ed" Eberhardt, Commander‑in‑Chief of NORAD, Richard B. Myers, Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of Defense, and George W. Bush.
George W. Bush: Guess we don't need to add much here, except to say that Bush did not make it plain to the public at any time since 9/11 that HE was the person that, according to the established chain of command, called the final shots on 9/11.
Donald Rumsfeld: Of course, we know all about Mr. Rumsfeld's lust for power. He is a good pal of Ralph Eberhardt and, in fact, in May of 2001, said Eberhardt was his first choice for chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Rumsfeld is one of the architects of the military‑police complex.
Larry K. Arnold: Has, since 9/11, helped in the push toward the militarization of America. On February 20, 2002, gave a talk on "Homeland Defense" at the SpaceComm 2002 conference in Colorado that had as its topic: "Shaping Information Operations and Space Leadership" i.e. ‑the extension of the military not just into the "Homeland," but into space.
Ralph "Ed" Eberhardt: Eberhardt is a fanatical supporter of the Missile defense scheme and the militarization of space. In fact, in May, 2001, Eberhardt said in a speech that he believed control of space was America's "destiny"! Eberhardt is also an enthusiastic supporter of the merging of law enforcement and the military and making technology such as military spy satellites available to police.
Richard B. Myers: Less than three weeks after Bush received the now‑ famous memo of August 6, Myers was named by Bush to the top post in the US military: Chairman of Joints Chief of Staff. This is what a non‑American (and thus less spun) news source (Pravda) had to say about that appointment: "Gen. Myers was chosen for the job precisely because his views are shared by both of his bosses, President George W. Bush and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. He is considered an active advocate of deploying the National Missile Defense program. He told a news conference that he would be working on the materialization of the idea "relentlessly" and "with his sleeves rolled up." Right after 9/11, Myers was caught in a lie when he claimed that no orders were given re: launching aircraft until AFTER the Pentagon was hit, "We did scramble fighter aircraft, AWACs, radar aircraft and tanker aircraft to begin to establish orbits in case other aircraft showed up in the FAA system that were hijacked. That order, to the best of my knowledge, was after the Pentagon was struck." However, Marine Corps Maj. Mike Snyder of NORAD told a Boston Globe reporter that the command had been told about the hijacking 10 minutes before the first plane hit the first World Trade Center tower. Snyder said the fighters remained on the ground until after the Pentagon was hit, even though "fighters routinely intercept aircraft."
Time Line:
7:59: American airlines flight 11, a Boeing 767 takes off from Logan Airport in Boston with 92 people, headed for Los Angeles.
8:01: United Airline Flight 93, a Boeing 757, bound for San Francisco, is delayed for 40 minutes on run way, with 45 people on Board.
8:13: Boston Ground control loses contact with Flight 11 First red flag for Flight 11.
8:14: United Flight 175, a Boeing 767, takes off from Logan for Los Angeles with 65 passengers.
8:17: American Airlines Flight 77 (Boeing 757) leaves Dulles in D.C. headed for Los Angeles with 64 passengers.
8:20: Flight 11 reaches the Hudson River in NY and stops transmitting its IFF signal. Second Red flag for flight 11. Had Bush put the airlines on high alert after August 6 when he received the warning, there is no doubt at all that these warnings would have evoked at very different response...if, indeed, the hijackers had even gotten that far (under a high alert, they very well may have been apprehended at the airports).
8:24: Hijackers on Flight 11 accidentally broadcasts warning to the passengers over its radio: "Everything will be OK. If you try to make any moves, you'll endanger yourself and the airplane. Just stay quiet." Third Red Flag for flight 11.
8:25: Boston air traffic controllers notify other air traffic control centers of hijacking. Why wasn't NORAD (North American Aerospace Defense Command) notified at this time?
8:27: Flight 11 heads south toward Manhattan; flight attendant Betty Ong calls American Airlines reservations and reports that two flight attendants had been stabbed and a passenger had had his throat slashed. She identifies the seat numbers of the hijackers. Fourth red flag for flight 11 ‑ this one a BLOODY RED and wildly waving, yet it will be about 10 minutes AFTER THIS before NORAD is notified.
8:33: Last transmission from Flight 11: Hijacker is heard telling passengers not to move.
8:38: Boston Air Traffic control notifies NORAD that Flight 11 has been hijacked.
8:42: Flight 175 is hijacked. It begins to make a U‑turn over New Jersey, reading for its northward assault on Manhattan.
8:42: Flight 93 takes off from Newark International Airport, headed for San Francisco.
8:43: FAA notifies NORAD that Flight 175 has been hijacked.
8:44: Two F‑15 eagles are ordered scrambled out of Otis Air National Guard Base in Cape Cod. If NORAD had been notified (or was it??) at 8:27, when the plane was obviously hijacked and heading to NYC, an F‑16 from Otis or Griffis would have been about 10 minutes from Manhattan at this point. In addition, since the WTC was high on the list of known targets, and since some of the warnings to Bush indicated airplanes could be used as "bombs," the WTC should have been given an alert and the building evacuated. If evacuation had started at 8:30, there would have been no one in the upper floors when the first plane hit and the loss of life would have been minimized.
8:45: Flight 11 strikes WTC's north tower at the 80th floor.
8:46: Flight 175 stops transmitting beacon signal.
8:52: Two F‑15 eagles take off from Otis. If F‑15s had been scrambled from Otis at 8:27, they would now be in a position to engage the hijacked flight 175 headed for the WTC.
8:56: Flight 77's transponder is cut. If F‑15s had been scrambled from Otis at 8:27, they would now be in a position to engage the hijacked flight 175 headed for the WTC.
9:00: United Airlines learns that Flight 93 flying over western PA may be in process of being hijacked.
9:00: Flight 77 makes U turn and heads back for Washington. This is when the FAA should have notified NORAD, and NORAD should have ordered F‑16s into the air FROM ANDREWS. If they had, by 9:15, F‑16s may have been in a position to deflect Flight 77 AWAY from DC altogether.
9:02: Flight 175 strikes the WTC at the 60th floor.
9:16: FAA informs NORAD that Flight 93 may have been hijacked.
9:17: Federal Aviation Administration closes all airports.
9:24: FAA notifies NORAD that Flight 77 is hijacked.
9:24: NORAD orders three F‑16s scrambled from Langley. The timing here is absolutely diabolical. It is EXACTLY not enough time for either a jet from Langley, which will be 10 minutes too late, or one from Andrews, which would have had just about 3 minutes between reaching the airspace over D.C. and dealing with the incoming Boeing 757. That Langley was chosen indicates a FEAR that in that 3 minutes a good pilot from Andrews just might have succeeded in aborting the disaster, despite the split second time frame.
9:25: Air traffic controllers notify Secret Service as Flight 77 makes dramatic maneuver just south of the Pentagon.
9:29: Bush, at Booker Elementary school says an "apparent terrorist attack" under way. No orders are give to evacuate any buildings in D.C., or to even urge residents and workers to seek shelter.
9: 40: Three F‑16 fighting falcons take off from Langley. They reach Washington by 9:55, moving at least 550 mph. ‑ the trip takes 14 minutes. The time from Andrews to D.C.: under 2 minutes. The time from Bolling: almost instantaneous Not only is this a tragedy for the victims of the Pentagon, it was unspeakably cruel to those pilots, who, thanks to their delayed orders, have to live with the crushing feeling of having been 15 minutes too late. Here is a description of Andrews from its website: "Training for air combat and operational airlift for national defense is the 113th's primary mission. However, as part of its dual mission, the 113th provides capable and ready response forces for the District of Columbia in the event of a natural disaster or civil emergency." Yet Bush chooses Langley.
9:43: Plane crashes into Pentagon ‑ a full 40 minutes after being reported hijacked and the likelihood of its being used as a weapon of mass destruction obvious. You will notice that now, everything seems to start happening ‑ it seems as if everything were put on hold until the Pentagon was struck.
9:45: White House Evacuates.
9:57: Bush leaves Florida.
10:05: South Tower of World Trade Center collapses.
10:08: Armed agents deployed around White House.
10:10: Penn plane crashes, part of Pentagon collapses.
10:13‑10:45: federal buildings in D.C. evacuated.
10:28: WTC north tower collapses.
10:46: Colin Powell heads for D.C., from Latin America. Again, notice that Powell is in Latin America, Bush is in Florida, Ashcroft in Missouri, and Rumsfeld in the part of the Pentagon most remote from the impact point.
1:04: Bush speaks from Barksdale Air Force Base in Louisiana.
1:27: State of emergency declared in D.C.
1:44: warships from VA are deployed to protect coastline.
2:00: Bush at Offutt AFB in Omaha NE. ‑ this is not revealed until almost 4:00 pm. Also at Offutt that day from 8:00 am on, are several CEOs ‑at a "charity event" that just happens to be held at a SECURE AIR FORCE BASE? And it just happens that several of the CEOs WOULD HAVE BEEN at the WTC had they not been at Offutt.
6:54: Bush back in White House.
8:30: Bush addresses nation.
Additional Time Line Notes:
Oct. 1: Richard B. Myers Officially Becomes the Number One Man in the US Military.
April 2002: Ralph Eberhardt is proposed as "supreme commander" of Northcom, the mega‑military entity pushed for by the Bush Administration.
Putting It All Together
Putting It All Together With the hotlines that exist between these offices, the time that it would take from the moment the FAA put in its call to Arnold for Bush to respond (allowing 2 minutes tops per communication) would have been roughly 6 minutes, plus or minus as minute or two. The FAA called NORAD at 8:38 am about the first hijacking. It was 6 minutes later ‑ right within the above timing estimates made above ‑that two F‑15s were ordered ‑ by Bush ‑ to be scrambled from Otis AFB. The evidence clearly shows that Bush had decided AHEAD OF TIME how to handle Flight 77. The FAA call to NORAD that Flight 77 had been hijacked was made at 9:24 ‑it was at 9:24 that the order to scramble planes from LANGLEY was given.
This means this move had already been authorized by BUSH. How could he have pre‑authorized such a response unless he had 1) been told about the plane some minutes before when it was obvious to NORAD's radar system that the plane was headed for DC (NORAD did not require an active transponder on Flight 77 to track the plane), or 2) Bush knew before 9/11 that a plane would be hitting the Pentagon at around 9:45 am. Bush also had the authority, at all times after 8:44 (when he obviously gave his first orders re: Otis) to call for an evacuation of the WTC and, at the LATEST, by 9:24 to order federal buildings and landmarks in D.C., to be evacuated. Had he made these orders, hundreds of lives would have been saved. Even if the order to evacuate the second tower of the WTC had been made by 8:50, that precious 12 minutes would have made all the difference to hundreds of WTC workers. The Pentagon workers would have had nearly 15 minutes to evacuate if a call had come in by even 9:30.
Because he had seen the warnings throughout the summer, and the last, strongest one on August 6, he should have been completely prepared for every scenario he had been briefed on and read to take decisive, urgent action to save lives. But he didn't. Instead, as Pentagon workers sat at their desks or moved down the halls, oblivious to the impending danger, at 9:29, Bush had just finished reading the Hungry, Hungry Caterpillar and was getting ready to announce that an "apparent" terrorist attack was underway. Apparent?
But let's take a look for a moment at the bigger picture: From the first, the plan of the Bush administration has been to extend military power into space while creating a domestic police state in the name of "Homeland Security. In this scheme, the line between military and police would be blurred. Elements of the CIA, which has traditionally worked more with the military, have now been folded into the FBI, while yet more restrictions on the power of the agencies over ordinary citizens have been removed. For a grim picture of where Bush et al were trying to take America as of August, 2001, see "The Next Battlefield," by Jack Hitt. Here's an excerpt fromthat article:
"The political attention devoted to national missile defense, which is an updated version of President Reagan's Strategic Defensive Initiative, has obscured its larger purpose. According to the Strategic Master Plan, N.M.D. is but one part of a triad of technologies ‑along with improved space surveillance and anti‑satellite offensive weaponry‑ that, the Air Force hopes, will lead to total "space control." George Friedman, an intelligence consultant and the author of "The Future of War," calls the national missile defense plan a "Trojan horse" for the real issue: the coming weaponization of space. The cost of expanding our space assets is only now beginning to show itself. Many of the specific systems for space have had their budgets increased in President (G.W.) Bush's first defense‑spending."
The three major proponents of this "new military": Richard B. Myers, Ralph Eberhardt, and Donald Rumsfeld.
However, in the summer of 2001, the American public's support for the Bush administration's schemes, in general, was weak and waning fast. In August, 2001 Bush's approval rating had slumped to under 50%. However, within just a few weeks of 9/11, with virtually no opposition from Congress, Myers had been confirmed as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. By Nov. 2001, Homeland Security had been established, and the Patriot Act been passed. By April 2002 ‑ Rumsfeld, Myers and Eberhardt had announced the formation of NORTHCOM, the mega military complex that consolidated their power Here's an excerpt from an April 18, 2002 article in the Boston Globe:
"Air Force General Richard B. Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who was responsible for drafting the new command plan ‑and who calls the establishment of the new command the most significant structural change in his 37 years in uniform‑ said yesterday that the Northern Command (NORTHCOM) 'takes the various homeland security missions being performed by various combatant commanders and some agencies and puts them under one commander [to] bring unity and focus to the mission.' Air Force General Ralph E. Eberhardt is slated to head the new command, which will also include oversight of NORAD and the territorial defense missions of the JFCOM."
In short, 9/11 was used as a springboard for the pre‑9/11 Bush scheme. The steps taken in the name of Homeland security that were done in the name of 9/11 were actually already planned well before that event. It was the event that made it possible to implement them. If you want to get an idea of where this merger between the military and law enforcement is headed, how about this statement made by Ralph Eberhardt at the Space Symposium held in Colorado Springs in early 2002: "Over time we can leverage our space assets to support homeland security and law enforcement. " So, for example, does this mean the use of military satellites to spy on citizens?
Now ponder this point: Since Bush took office, he has richly rewarded every single person who helped him substantially, usually with top posts or the legislation they wanted. After 9/11, we see Myers and Eberhardt moving up into top posts of incredible power. What were they being rewarded for?
Now, back to 9/11. The simple fact is, if Bush had not ignored the August 6 (and earlier) warnings of terrorist strikes, and had instead acted decisively and responsibly, the scenario that unfolded on 9/11 would have been very different. First of all, on high alert, the airports may have screened passengers more carefully ‑ some or all of the hijackers may have failed to get aboard their target aircraft. Secondly, if they had succeeded in boarding the craft, the FAA would have been in a state of readiness for a serious event. At 8:25 AM, Boston FAA would have immediately called NORAD, who would have been in readiness, perhaps even with preauthorized orders from Bush. The WTC would have been on high alert from Aug 6 on and an evacuation could have been undertaken as early as 8:30 ‑ time enough to save countless lives.
But instead, Bush did not warn the public. When called by NORAD, he failed to respond in a way designed to save lives. In short, the trail of smoke from the smoking gun leads ultimately...and unavoidably, back to G. W. Bush.
Subject:
The Hitler Image as Perceived by Ctr.'l and E. European Intelligentsia
Date:
Thu, 29 Aug 2002 11:41:23 ‑0400
From:
"Daniel Johns" <[email protected]>
To:
"Daniel Johns" <[email protected]>
Benjamin Chapski <[email protected]>
The Hitler Image as Perceived by Ctr.'l and E. European Intelligentsia
Intro
‑ I am amazed at the world's love‑hate relationship with Herr Hitler. There
are three major elements in this realm: (1) Those of the German nation; (2)
Those of the Slavic nation; and (3) The anti‑German Jewish nation. Of course
one can advocate that there are subgroups such as those sympathetic to both
Slavs and Germans (those of European heritage). Then, one can notice those
on the sidelines who are not yet committed to any side of any premise.
Lastly, there are, of course, the soccer moms and sixpack Charlies. The last
three groups ‑overall‑ have no relevance to this study.
Before we commence our eliciting of near‑absolutes, let us make it perfectly
clear that this is not a lengthy polished scholarly dissertation. To
construct such would encompass at least a pamphlet‑sized work. A booklet, in
turn, could be construed as overwhelming to most. Contemporary people are
busy. Those on the net have info‑overload. This study is a reduced
internet‑style four (4) pager. It's for today's cyber world.
Nevertheless, this topic is needed in today's verboten world of political
correctness. It is non‑biased; done by an individual who is not hostile to
Germania. We all know about the New York Times/Newsweek/ Wash. Post/
Hollywood myths. Consequently, anything emanating from the pathologically
dishonest and manipulative‑goal‑seeking element will not be sonorously
referred to.
Be advised that the author of this paper has been in over 75 countries and
has published around the globe. The following should elicit additional
debate. This should be done without any hate syndrome and/or name calling.
The material to be shown has no purpose other than to cement better
relationship(s) and dialogue between Slavdom and Germania. The aggregated
material is from travels inside of what was a West Germany, East Germany,
Poland, White Russia, the Soviet Baltic States (Wilenszczyzna,
Grodnoszczyzna, etc.), Ukraine, Russia (Leningrad, Pskow, Moscow, etc.,
etc.). Opinions arrived at were sowed objectively. Sentiments were not from
right wingers, neo‑Nazis and/or those from any fringe world (obsessed with
protecting exacerbated holocaust propaganda). The material you will read is
simply honesty from several government Ministers, parliamentarians,
professors, European film directors, educators, actors, journalists, editors
and publishers. The reader can shout and scream. However, he cannot change
what these individuals think. Be aware that the views seen were taken over
several years and the material is not of a small sample. What you are about
to consume is fact. The research was conducted in the 1970s. This reduced
copy not only emanates from the mind of the intellegensia; it demonstrates
the power of the media; and (3) as Dr. Ray Jurjevich said, shows the fear
of a certain element. Enjoy yourself.
The Image of a Provincial Nationalist via Europe's Intelligentsia
East Germany, West Germany
‑ While in two German states I found an unrelenting hatred of all things
Jewish. There was (also) a hidden love for Adolf. It's understandable for
some. There were/are Germans, for example, who have seen their cities ‑such
as Dresden‑destroyed(beyond military necessity).Others attested to the fact
that AH didn't want his country's media, entertainment and economic systems
controlled by alien anti‑majority values.
Ethnocentrists didn't/don't appreciate the fact that Germany's contemporary
businessman has brought in millions of non‑European migrants. Scholars
indicated that it's more than comprehensible why people should be proud to
be what they are: Don't like their genetic pool altered by
internationally‑powerful CEOs. Hitler's name was nearly always part of
diatribes on alleged globalistic demeanors.
There were also those who deemed that the severely mentally handicapped
should not have been a burden upon their society. Adding to this is the
acknowledgement that Hitler eradicated unemployment, built roads, advanced
education and even sought to improve sports. The standard of living was up
due to Hitler's Military‑industrial complex. Both common folk and
intellectuals were proud of Hitler's accomplishments in creating the 1936
Olympics.
Besides all of the above, there can be no question that additional millions
‑including many non‑Germans, have been upset at numerous (obvious)
distortions pertaining to the German nation. Scholars, from all over the
globe have conceded that Hollywood's number game is set way out of
proportion to reality. Over and over again men would state that the Fuhrer's
war has taken second place to a holycause. Others have seen a correlation
to zionistic propaganda and anti‑European news. There was/is assertion that
Sharonites of Israel needed the Holocaust to justify the taking of land from
indigenous Palestinians.
The elderly reflected upon the authenticity that: (A) Hitler had them put
their lives on the line; and (B) When it was seen that Germany could not
win, Hitler could have given up his own life (so that millions of Germans
could have lived). I was told that cites were needlessly destroyed when it
was more than obvious there was no conceivable chance at negotiation,
without complete surrender. Results: Millions of German lives lost; over a
million German women impregnated by Asiatic and other elements.
I was also told that today's educated Germans don't want war. Germans
thought that war amongst Europeans was wrong. Everywhere there was
acknowledgement that had Hitler been to Amerika, there would have been no
war; that had Hitler analyzed the meanings of wealth and oil via the world
map... diplomacy would have been more pertinent. Military men said that
Hitler was a complete incompetent and that Stalingrad speaks for itself.
East Germans said that Hitler fostered ethnic pride while being responsible
for the deaths of over 50 million Europeans. I was told, that Hitler was not
completely evil, that I should look at the children of today's Germany and
their love affair with Hollywood's messaging; That German females openly and
freely have sexual contact with black American military personnel...by the
countless thousands...
E. Germans were more nationalistic and had more ethnic integrity than their
W. German counterparts. Cosmopolitanism and internationalism was an imbedded
part of the W.German character. The elderly referred to the peace, dreams,
safety and fun of the Hitler pre‑WW II era. Overall, youthful professionals
deemed the Fuhrer's behavior as stimuli for a reaction that caused Germany's
devastation and the lost of millions of European lives. Intellectuals in
both Germanys were disappointed in their potentials due to the reaction
against Hitler's policies; mainly, their inability to write and have free
thought via freedom of media.
Slavdom ‑ W. Slavs, Ctr.'l Slavs and E. Slavs.
Poland (Wroclaw, Poznan, Gdansk, Warszawa, Krakow, Lodz, Opole, Radom, etc.,
etc.)
‑ Poles hated Hitler. They spoke of population bombings; bombs falling on
buildings marked with Red Cross banners. Old timers reflected on the
destruction of ancient and historical European entities such as the
Warsavian Castle. I saw home movies of roads filled with civilians strafed
by Nazi planes... It is a fact that Polish women and children were killed
like flies due to actions of Nazi pilots.
Just about everyone mentioned how hundreds of thousands of Poles were
coerced out of their homes (where their families had lived for centuries).
Both the young and old noted that millions of Poles were forced to relocate;
that Hitler's Nazis even created a General Government reservation. It was to
resettle Poles, off ancient Polish lands. Poles compared the policy of
Berlin to that of Tel Aviv towards its Palestinian population. I was told
that the Chief of State of today's Israel, was ‑in many aspects, similar to
Adolf Hitler. This was especially true in regards to neighbors.
Women were angered when stating that Hitlerites took about half a million
blond blue‑eyed Polish children, under the age of three, to Germany.
Grandmothers had to falsify birth records of children.
Researchers and scholars displayed documents pertaining to the Nazis killing
intellectuals in various Polish cities. Pictures from the old Jagiellonian
University were frightening. Fact: The Fuhrer's Nazis shot professors
because they were intellectuals and Polish. If any German were to deny these
atrocities, one would have to feel sorry for him. It's more than apparent,
that all nations have black marks against them. You see, I was (also) shown
books such as "the Black Book of Poland." Scholars affirmed that it was full
of WW II propaganda. Here, it could be mentioned that many noted Jan Karski
was a pathological liar (a topic for later discussion).
Poles referred to their country losing almost 70,000 sq‑miles in the East;
and (2) being moved to 39,000 sq. miles in the West. I was shown documents
pertaining to a once‑800‑year‑old Polish city of Lwow and of Vilno as
centers of Polish culture. It was obvious that people were hurt and blamed
Hitler and commies. Authors, journalists, scholars noted the obvious fact
that the so called Polish Corridor was part of a 800 year pre‑partitional
Polish state (part of pre WWI Germany for about a century).
Scholars would emphasize: "Look, overall these Germans look just like us.
Why did they take us from our homes ‑move us into settlements... Why?
Because of Adolf Hitler. It is he who is responsible for the killing of
millions of Europeans..." Reiterations noted that, in many ways, Churchill
did to Dresden what Hitler did to historical Warsaw.
It hurt citizens of Polska when they referred to Hitler's systematic
looting, burning and dynamiting of Poland's historical Warsaw. Scholars said
that the weaponry Hitler utilized to level Warsaw could have been
implemented in defending German soldiers from the imminent Russian
onslaught.
Prague, Ostrava, Cesky Tesin
‑In the parlance of the Czech population there was scorn for the Hitlerite
policies towards Czechs. I was told that no man did more to kill Germany's
neighbors or destroy Germany that Adolf. On the other hand, there was
admiration for West German accomplishments. It was also emphasized, that
without Bonn's assistance, East Germany would fall into complete ruin. When
I mentioned that Soviets carted off entire factories, I was told that the
Nazis made Czech industry part of Hitler's war machine. Professors insisted
that the Marshall Plan remade both Germany and Japan; and (2) I should
compare West to East Germany.
Also, reiterations stated that Hitler changed the name of several Slavic
villages around Berlin; that whole Slavic populations were Germanized
without their consent, etc., etc. I was shown maps of an entire Slavic
region near Dresden. City after city had Slavic names. Today many German
cities still retain Slavic names. Indeed. On this matter,I have a
fastly‑read book, that was composed in the Sorbian language. It's
unfortunate that Hitler destroyed this entire nation. The smallest Slavic
nation was eradicated, culturally exterminated.
Czech scholars and journalists indicted that a post WW II E. Berlin was more
diplomatic than that of her predecessor. DDR funds were given to build
Slavic cultural centers and pay for Slavic publications. Unfortunately, at
the same time housing projects were initiated to erect edifices for the
German proletariat. Such protocol effectively assimilated the Germano‑Slavic
Sorbian nation (without firing a single shot). So much for Hitler's looting,
population transfers, burning of historical edifices... So much for the
Fuhrer's diplomatic abilities.
White Russia (Grodno, Brest, Pinsk, Lida, Minsk, several smaller towns,
villages...)
‑ The area around the large city of Grodno was an environment of Polonians
(overwhelmingly). Politicians indicated that of their nation's 10 million
population, 3 million were Polonians. Party officials reeked hate for all
things connected with the Hitler military. Here, it could be emphasized that
communism had done its job: Yesterday's Hitlerite German was a monster. Yet,
nearly all the elite loved today's German tourist.
Lastly, I was impressed by elderly males who had been returned from Hitler's
Germany. These men spoke of WW II as being the best part of their lives.
Over and over again men would speak of working on German farms and having
more sex in a year than they later had in a lifetime. Apparently, with a
shortage of men, women had to have desire(s) satisfied. Numerous men spoke
of knowing that they had fathered several German children. Professors noted
that they generally liked their German neighbors and (thus) thought Hitler
and Stalin perpetrated more evil towards Europe than any other European.
Ukraine (Lvov, Kiev...)
Many Western Ukrainians were overall pro‑German (in private). On the other
hand, those around Kiev were vivaciously anti‑German. When visiting a Polish
language school, in once‑Polish Lwow, teachers said that it was a shame that
the Polish and Ukrainian nations were unable to be more brotherly. An editor
stressed that Hitler could have used a Ukrainian army of two million men
‑but, thought Ukrainians were inferiors. I remember a fellow exclaiming, in
an historical Slavic cemetery, that Lvov was an international city ‑and,
that it's a miracle despised Hitler didn't destroy Lyczakowski's historical
European monuments.
Russia (Leningrad, Pskow, Moscow, etc., etc., etc.)
The elderly revered Stalin and despised Hitler. Imperialists noted that
Adolf's Czech and Polish conflicts would be similar to a large
nuclear‑latent America fighting Germany. Austria's Napoleon was considered a
bully. The youth of Russia could care less about anything pertaining to
Germany and/or the Fuhrer.
The country was so poor that it resembled the Third World. The major streets
saw Soviet Military personnel everywhere. Old men wore their funny‑looking
large military caps. Elderly men wore their military awards on their shirts
and defamed Hitler.
Although books upon books portrayed Hitler's Germany as an evil entity,
scholars would concede that much was communist propaganda. I was upset at
listening to scores of old men speak about raping young German women in
Dresden, Berlin, Konigsberg, etc., etc. All evil was attributed to either
Hitler, the war or zionism. Scholars and journalists had a revengeful
attitude. I was told that the Nazi men may have killed 20 million Soviets
‑but, over a million German women were knocked up... According to the
elderly, everything bad was attributed to Hitler. The young were concerned
with materialism.
Conclusion
The past half century has witnessed the publication/promotion of an
overwhelming number of studies on our selected topic. Now we have
post‑Soviet primary sources. These are adjudicated by such distinguished
scholars as Jurgen Graf, Carlo Mattogno, Prof. Nowak, etc., etc.
Unfortunately, these men never had access to such elite individuals as this
writer.
Moreover, it is alleged that the element in control of contemporary major
media would distort findings that to not adhere to their party line.
Overall, adherents to honesty must and have had to be subservient.
Otherwise, they would lose the ability to achieve their potential and their
children would be harmed. It has been called the world of realpolitik. It is
not new. It has produced the so called French Revolution. It was the creator
of the Bolshevik Revolution. It was been responsible for enslaving hundreds
of millions of Christian women and, of course, the White Bear Principle.
What you have read above is fact. It emanates from the mouths of Eastern
European elite: (A) Ministers (who ran governments); (B) Film Directors who
made movies for millions; (C) Journalists, who followed the party line; (D)
Scholars and professors, who were unable to write to their full ability
without repression; (E) Directors of Institutes who lived in the world of
emanate power. These men were superior to the present flock in La CessPool
Grande. They did all they could to help society, without being sent to
Siberia and/or physically eradicated. It has been alleged that these men and
women were more concerned with mankind then merely losing their
congressional or academic/institutional job(s). Some of them, like the late
Prof. Przeciszewski (a Christian activist), were placed in prisons. Those
such as Prof. Trzeciak and Kossecki saw incarceration/harassment... horned
diplomatic skills.
As for Hitler and the so called Jewish problem, I recall the late Moczar,
Ruler of Poland, noting in an interview: "We would have solved our Jewish
problem with Madagascar. Unlike Hitler, we would not have put them in cruel
labor camps..." Some say that Moczar apparachiks allowed Prof. Tadeusz
Walichnowski to write his book "Izrael a NRF." Apparently, according to TW,
Germans were like Hitler; scared to death of nearly every cosmopolitan (code
word for "enemies of mankind"). Prof. TW's hypothesis was that W. Germany
sought to buy peace from the nation of Israel. He deemed that zionists
evidently played nations against each other... Journalists emphatically
articulated that the Fuhrer helped and advanced Zionists.
Professor/author Andrej Lawrowski, Director of the Instytut Wspolczesnych
Badan Kapitalistycznych (The Institute of Research on Contemporary
Capitalism), would often indicate that the crimes of the Bolsheviks made
Hitler look like Mickey Mouse. His assistant director, was married to the
daughter of Ochab (alleged one time Zionist First Secretary of Poland's
Communist party). After Warsaw was freed from the Soviet military colossus,
his assistant, Pastusiak, became Speaker of Poland's Parliament.
The purpose of this paper was simply to state facts: Hitler was hated by the
vast majority of Slavdom. He was a provincial nationalist. Those who reek
with hatred towards La Cesspool Grande and the media elite, often confuse
regional nationalists with those who desire justice for all Europeans. One
of the problems with the Hitler Image has been that of exacerbation,
propaganda to advance selected goals.
This paper can point to misguided youth, skinheads and other activists who
show pictures of their Fuhrer with smiling German children. However, such
would be only a book's cover. It would be a sign of omission. For if the
book were opened, one would see hundreds of thousands of blue‑eyed Polish
children taken from their mothers, the deportation of millions of fellow
Europeans. Also, Slavic cities were bombed and, in return, German cities
were bombed. To Central and Eastern European intelligentsia Hitler was a
provincial nationalist. His homespun policies were deleterious for the
overall European community.
The bottom line‑ Without their Fuhrer, millions of German women would not
have borne children of Soviet soldiers. Moreover, millions of Slavs would
not have been deported. Lastly, over 50 million Europeans would not have
been killed. Hitler, an ignorant, semi‑educated, non‑bilingual, undiplomatic
nationalist, was a hero to a regional segment of society (especially the
Hitler Youth). The intellectual elite of the noted territory, demonstrated
what a provincial nationalist accomplished for Europe (as a whole).
Next: A) How many Zyds in E. Europe, according to unpublished hypotheses;
and B) Review of the book Polska bez Zydow (Poland without Jews)