9/11 Ten Years Hence
I saw postings on the CNN.com website today, mostly by young people who couldn't understand how we could think 9/11 was a conspiracy. These people were born in some cases when George HW Bush was President, some during the Clinton era and some during the George W. Bush presidency.
The specter of 9/11 still haunts me to this day. I feel so for the people that perished that day and for their families. I watched in horror as the events unfolded and I remembered the Alfred P. Murrah building testimony by terrorism experts and watching them intently. I remembered as the events unfolded what many terrorism experts had warned us. And I remembered what Eisenhower had said about the growing power of the military-industrial complex. I saw the events unfold but I also talked with people who had been in the DC era when the events happened. Today Dick Cheney maintains that the night of the attack he was at Camp David - what he doesn't say is that he was, for a brief time, at the Alternate Joint Communications Facility deep in a mountain very near Camp David. He doesn't say that because it might then and might still make him look weak.
Why indeed would an administration steeped in ties to war profiteers like Halliburton possibly want a 9/11 event? Why indeed would the US want to be attacked? What could we gain.
At the time - and still today - I say to my conservative friends - look at the Persian Gulf - what stands at ready in the Persian Gulf and has for more than twenty years? The Sixth Fleet. Unlike any other US military entity the Six Fleet stands as our shining tribute to greatness. The Six Fleet isn't in the Persian Gulf ready to fight for American democracy. We could park that fleet almost anywhere - it's not by chance that it stands there.
Americans are funny - it isn't all about oil - the Bush administration pledged as the war raged on. Then Americans, many conservative, smiled with pride as CAFE restrictions were relaxed and the era of bigger is better emerged. Instead of consuming less petroleum we actually increased our demand when the War was at its peak. During other wars the United States reduced its demand on petroleum because we knew strategically that we'd need that petrol if things went awry.
Halliburton purchased Kellogg, Brown and Root, KBR a bit before 9/11. KBR is no stranger to Texas Presidents - the Root brothers bankrolled Lyndon Johnson's US Senate bid and had a curiously close relationship with FDR, Johnson, Nixon, and George H. W. Bush and George W. Bush. The relationship between Cheney, Halliburton and KBR is not accidental.
The potential that 9/11 could have been a conspiracy comes from historical facts that are often lost on the young who either didn't live through the Nixon era or didn't read its history. Today Roger Ailes, head of Fox News, continues to influence the 24 hour news cycle with his conservative brand of neo-conservativism. The record has it that Ruppert Murdoch, no slouch in the trickster department, is afraid of Ailes. Ailes was an aid to Nixon - so he he grew up seeing the likes of KBR providing undue influence over our US Presidents.
Why would the US want to wage a war against a man who was admittedly a tyrant? Remember first we had "weapons of mass distraction". I paid attention to what terrorism experts said during the Murrah hearings - did you? They spoke of domestic threats - they talked extensively about agents who lied in wait, what become known as "sleeper agents" or "sleeper cells" in Germany, Eastern Europe, France and even England. The US had engaged in various contravening policies with Europe and the Middle East since at least 1900. We knew the control of oil would be important - so keeping the Arabs busy with Jews and Persians was a distinct advantage to us. So we funded puppet regime after regime with the French and English to control the oil in the Middle East. We wanted that oil because we knew that if present trends continued, as early as the 1930's, the US would run out of oil sometimes in the 1980's or 1990's. The most conservative petroleum researchers knew that we would tap out of easily extractable oil product and the Middle East was the logical next best source for us.
Our CIA knew well that Asaad, Sadaam Hussein, the then leaders of North and South Yemen, the leadership in Egypt, Algeria and Ghadaffi were all predictable terrorists that we were well aware of. We knew they were evil, we knew their administrations were harboring, educating and even bankrolling terrorism worldwide. The B'aathists were an evil element that encouraged every form of repressive, demonic treatment of human beings known to man. Our State Department knew this, our DOD knew this and most of all our CIA knew this. And why? Because we along with the British and French trained many of these despots.
So why then would we want to have planes plow into those buildings? Because telling people about terrorism led to nothing. Talking about evil empires did nothing. We had a horrible history of failing - in places like Afghanistan. George W. Bush had created a hero's war in Iraq - of course causing the leftists, the most extreme terrorists to engage in networking and stepping up their efforts because the US was the natural enemy.
The US left the middle east mostly to its own devices. In most of that part of the world the fellaha or fellaheen live in relative ignorance and poverty while their citified counterparts and the upper 2 to 3% of the population enjoy luxuries well known to the best heeled in Europe and the US. Combine relative ignorance with dogmatic education and hatred of a common enemy and you have a situation rife for terrorism. So finding those willing to take on the task of ramming planes into the largest symbols of American capitalism certainly wasn't difficult. We needed war as we always need war - to rebuild a failed economy built on principles that haven't worked well for decades and are working "less well" than ever before. Creating an artificial war to combat a common mortal enemy wasn't difficult. In the US we talk a good game, we're all about the tired, huddled masses hearing to be free - but come any economic disaster and "those people" are to blame.
We preach religious tolerance but we're not. Muslims lost loved ones on 9/11 - but because the terrorists took oaths of fealty to their dogmatic leadership - Muslims became the center of our hatred as a nation. We needed someone to hate. They were convenient - just as Jews had been convenient for the Germans. We set the stage for extra-governmental elements to engage in a cabal to start a war that would justify an invasion of Iraq and long term control of the Middle East. Our leases were nearly up there - we had renewed leases with Saudi - but only after considerable wrangling - military leases. The oil leases were also up for grabs as Arabs began to see the potential for their own freedom - for escaping the clutches of demonic leaders our government had supported - either publicly or secretly - either through the State Department or the Central Intelligence Agency. It wasn't as if the US didn't have help through the French, the Germans, the English and even the Israelis. Remember - our own Speaker of the House at the time, Nancy Pelosi, admitted freely that our long term position in the Middle East was in our best interest.
9/11 was no accident. Take a gander at photos of the Pentagon immediately after the event. Kerosene, the fuel used in commercial airliners, would cause an explosion that would ignite and engulf everything in its path. The plane did explode. Yet when one examines the photos we can clearly see computers and papers and even whole books that weren't touched? Why? Why was there a crash and no massive destruction? No one has any answers that they'll own up to.
The specter of 9/11 still haunts me to this day. I feel so for the people that perished that day and for their families. I watched in horror as the events unfolded and I remembered the Alfred P. Murrah building testimony by terrorism experts and watching them intently. I remembered as the events unfolded what many terrorism experts had warned us. And I remembered what Eisenhower had said about the growing power of the military-industrial complex. I saw the events unfold but I also talked with people who had been in the DC era when the events happened. Today Dick Cheney maintains that the night of the attack he was at Camp David - what he doesn't say is that he was, for a brief time, at the Alternate Joint Communications Facility deep in a mountain very near Camp David. He doesn't say that because it might then and might still make him look weak.
Why indeed would an administration steeped in ties to war profiteers like Halliburton possibly want a 9/11 event? Why indeed would the US want to be attacked? What could we gain.
At the time - and still today - I say to my conservative friends - look at the Persian Gulf - what stands at ready in the Persian Gulf and has for more than twenty years? The Sixth Fleet. Unlike any other US military entity the Six Fleet stands as our shining tribute to greatness. The Six Fleet isn't in the Persian Gulf ready to fight for American democracy. We could park that fleet almost anywhere - it's not by chance that it stands there.
Americans are funny - it isn't all about oil - the Bush administration pledged as the war raged on. Then Americans, many conservative, smiled with pride as CAFE restrictions were relaxed and the era of bigger is better emerged. Instead of consuming less petroleum we actually increased our demand when the War was at its peak. During other wars the United States reduced its demand on petroleum because we knew strategically that we'd need that petrol if things went awry.
Halliburton purchased Kellogg, Brown and Root, KBR a bit before 9/11. KBR is no stranger to Texas Presidents - the Root brothers bankrolled Lyndon Johnson's US Senate bid and had a curiously close relationship with FDR, Johnson, Nixon, and George H. W. Bush and George W. Bush. The relationship between Cheney, Halliburton and KBR is not accidental.
The potential that 9/11 could have been a conspiracy comes from historical facts that are often lost on the young who either didn't live through the Nixon era or didn't read its history. Today Roger Ailes, head of Fox News, continues to influence the 24 hour news cycle with his conservative brand of neo-conservativism. The record has it that Ruppert Murdoch, no slouch in the trickster department, is afraid of Ailes. Ailes was an aid to Nixon - so he he grew up seeing the likes of KBR providing undue influence over our US Presidents.
Why would the US want to wage a war against a man who was admittedly a tyrant? Remember first we had "weapons of mass distraction". I paid attention to what terrorism experts said during the Murrah hearings - did you? They spoke of domestic threats - they talked extensively about agents who lied in wait, what become known as "sleeper agents" or "sleeper cells" in Germany, Eastern Europe, France and even England. The US had engaged in various contravening policies with Europe and the Middle East since at least 1900. We knew the control of oil would be important - so keeping the Arabs busy with Jews and Persians was a distinct advantage to us. So we funded puppet regime after regime with the French and English to control the oil in the Middle East. We wanted that oil because we knew that if present trends continued, as early as the 1930's, the US would run out of oil sometimes in the 1980's or 1990's. The most conservative petroleum researchers knew that we would tap out of easily extractable oil product and the Middle East was the logical next best source for us.
Our CIA knew well that Asaad, Sadaam Hussein, the then leaders of North and South Yemen, the leadership in Egypt, Algeria and Ghadaffi were all predictable terrorists that we were well aware of. We knew they were evil, we knew their administrations were harboring, educating and even bankrolling terrorism worldwide. The B'aathists were an evil element that encouraged every form of repressive, demonic treatment of human beings known to man. Our State Department knew this, our DOD knew this and most of all our CIA knew this. And why? Because we along with the British and French trained many of these despots.
So why then would we want to have planes plow into those buildings? Because telling people about terrorism led to nothing. Talking about evil empires did nothing. We had a horrible history of failing - in places like Afghanistan. George W. Bush had created a hero's war in Iraq - of course causing the leftists, the most extreme terrorists to engage in networking and stepping up their efforts because the US was the natural enemy.
The US left the middle east mostly to its own devices. In most of that part of the world the fellaha or fellaheen live in relative ignorance and poverty while their citified counterparts and the upper 2 to 3% of the population enjoy luxuries well known to the best heeled in Europe and the US. Combine relative ignorance with dogmatic education and hatred of a common enemy and you have a situation rife for terrorism. So finding those willing to take on the task of ramming planes into the largest symbols of American capitalism certainly wasn't difficult. We needed war as we always need war - to rebuild a failed economy built on principles that haven't worked well for decades and are working "less well" than ever before. Creating an artificial war to combat a common mortal enemy wasn't difficult. In the US we talk a good game, we're all about the tired, huddled masses hearing to be free - but come any economic disaster and "those people" are to blame.
We preach religious tolerance but we're not. Muslims lost loved ones on 9/11 - but because the terrorists took oaths of fealty to their dogmatic leadership - Muslims became the center of our hatred as a nation. We needed someone to hate. They were convenient - just as Jews had been convenient for the Germans. We set the stage for extra-governmental elements to engage in a cabal to start a war that would justify an invasion of Iraq and long term control of the Middle East. Our leases were nearly up there - we had renewed leases with Saudi - but only after considerable wrangling - military leases. The oil leases were also up for grabs as Arabs began to see the potential for their own freedom - for escaping the clutches of demonic leaders our government had supported - either publicly or secretly - either through the State Department or the Central Intelligence Agency. It wasn't as if the US didn't have help through the French, the Germans, the English and even the Israelis. Remember - our own Speaker of the House at the time, Nancy Pelosi, admitted freely that our long term position in the Middle East was in our best interest.
9/11 was no accident. Take a gander at photos of the Pentagon immediately after the event. Kerosene, the fuel used in commercial airliners, would cause an explosion that would ignite and engulf everything in its path. The plane did explode. Yet when one examines the photos we can clearly see computers and papers and even whole books that weren't touched? Why? Why was there a crash and no massive destruction? No one has any answers that they'll own up to.