From The Mouths Of Terrorists: The Poisonous Truth

Two weeks ago we were talking about the most recent terror propaganda from friends of Mossad and the CIA, an "al Qaeda video" in which al Qaeda's purported number two man, Ayman al-Zawahri, spoke some uncomfortable truths about our transformative new President-elect, Barack Obama.

Zawahri [whose name often appears as Zawahiri in our bizarre western media], referred to Obama as a "house slave". It was a historical reference to pre-Civil War days when white Americans in the land of the free could legally own black Americans; those who worked in the mansions were typically more docile, and more inclined to do the bidding of their owners, than those who worked in the fields.

The video came to us via Rita Katz and the SITE Intelligence Group, which was called the SITE Institute until Katz' only partner left her holding the phony intelligence bag. It was the latest in a long line of questionable videos, some of which Katz has obtained before they appeared on the Islamist websites which SITE allegedly monitors.

Zawahri's comments about Obama were portrayed as racial insults, whereas the criticisms themselves were political in nature. Zawahri wasn't putting Obama down for being black; he was talking about Obama's agenda, his loyalties, his plans for our future -- all of which Obama has spelled out very clearly. Unfortunately, most of Obama's supporters haven't been listening very closely; otherwise Zawahri's comments would have been seen as insightful rather than insulting.

The Zawahri video was apparently intended to mark territory: now anyone who points out the various ways in which Barack Obama is doing the bidding of his owners can be branded a terrorist sympathizer, if not an outright terrorist.

Furthermore, the ties that bind Katz and SITE to the Bush administration, Israeli intelligence and the American media are becoming increasingly clear. But still -- even with all this in full view -- the propaganda is apparently having the desired effect.

Thus, shortly after the video was released, CNN reported: U.S. Muslim leaders denounce al Qaeda's slur toward Obama

Spiritual leaders of New York's African-American Muslim communities lashed out Friday at a purported al Qaeda message attacking President-elect Barack Obama and, using racist language, comparing him unfavorably to the late Malcolm X.

The imams called the recorded comments from al Qaeda second-in-command Ayman al-Zawahiri "an insult" from people who have "historically been disconnected from the African-American community generally and Muslim African-Americans in particular."

"We find it insulting when anyone speaks for our community instead of giving us the dignity and the honor of speaking for ourselves," they said in a statement read during a news conference at the Malcolm X and Dr. Betty Shabazz Memorial, Educational and Cultural Center.

The al Qaeda statement, an 11-minute, 23-second audio message in Arabic with subtitles in English, appeared on the Internet on Wednesday [November 19]. Its authenticity has not been confirmed.

Heh! That's a laugh! None of the purported al Qaeda videos have ever been confirmed -- nor can they be -- because they are all so clearly bogus.

We're routinely told that al Qaeda hides out in caves in the mountains of Pakistan, and their operational leaders apparently cannot even use cell phones without being targeted; but somehow their chief propaganda agent has regular access to high-tech production studios?

None of it makes any sense, except as a black op. And yet ... ABC's Brian Ross, who -- when he's not lying about anthrax -- leaks Katz' videos to the media, told us once that we don't need to be concerned about the authenticity of al Qaeda videos because none of them have ever been shown to be fake.

Ross was speaking about the Osama bin Laden video in which a still image of bin Laden appears for 19 of the 22 minutes.

We could laugh if it weren't so tragic. CNN continues:

The message said Obama represents the "direct opposite of honorable black Americans" like Malcolm X.

The speaker also said Obama, former and current Secretaries of State Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice and "your likes" fit Malcolm X's description of "house slaves."

The description is a bit lame, though, since Malcolm X never said anything about "house slaves" being war criminals. Obama, Rice and Powell, with their support of the war in Iraq, the war in Afghanistan, and various other aspects of the Glorious War on Terror, have done more damage to more people than all the "house slaves" combined could ever have dreamt of. CNN goes on to spin a little on the history of Malcolm X, and why not? Most of CNN's readers never knew anything about him.

Malcolm X, the fiery African-American Muslim activist from the 1950s and 1960s, was an early member and leader of the Nation of Islam. He left that group in 1963 over disillusionment with its then-leader, Elijah Muhammed, but remained a Muslim.

After months of death threats, he was assassinated in 1965 by members of the Nation of Islam, who shot him 16 times at close range. The three men who were convicted of the crime have been paroled.

As well as being a "fiery leader", Malcolm X was also an honorable man, who worked to improve the lot of others. Like many "radical leaders" of his time, Malcolm X was horrified about the role his country had chosen for itself on the world stage. Standing up against state-sponsored mass murder was seen as "radical" in those days. And some things haven't changed a bit. But CNN won't tell you that.

There is also substantial evidence implicating government agents in the murder of Malcolm X. CNN won't tell you about that, either.

On Friday, Imam Al-Hajj Talib 'Abdur-Rashid, recalling Malcolm X's legacy, said that he "stood for human rights and the principle of self defense ... international law. He would have rejected, and we who are Muslim African-Americans leaders reject, acts of political extremism."

The Council on American-Islamic Relations also condemned Zawahiri's comments in a statement issued Thursday.

"As Muslims and as Americans, we will never let terrorist groups or terror leaders falsely claim to represent us or our faith," the statement said. "We once again repudiate al Qaeda's actions, rhetoric and world view and re-state our condemnation of all forms of terrorism and religious extremism."

You can see the American Muslim leaders squirming in their boots. They can't repudiate what Zawarhi actually said without exposing themselves as "house negroes", so they attack on false premises, saying things such as "We find it insulting when anyone speaks for our community instead of giving us the dignity and the honor of speaking for ourselves" and "We will never let terrorist groups or terror leaders falsely claim to represent us or our faith".

Zawarhi wasn't speaking for any community, nor was he claiming to represent anyone. He was just telling the truth about the President-elect. But that truth is obviously poisonous.

The Nature Of The Poison

Zawahri himself (accidentally) threw a bright light on the nature of the poison, in an interview which Juan Cole quoted on September 11, 2008. [I've added emphasis and inserted comments in square brackets]:

[Q:] Do you have any advice or any words to refute the argument of the theoreticians [conspiracy theorists] who claim that 9/11 was an internal action [inside job] carried out by the Israeli Government?

Al-Zawahiri: My answer: It is enough to reply to this suspicion by saying that it is not based on any evidence. [denial]

The first side that released this suspicion was Al-Manar Television, which is affiliated with the Lebanese Hizballah. It claimed that it cited a certain website. [shoot the messenger] The objective behind this lie is clear. The objective is to deny that the Sunnis have heroes who harm America as no one has harmed it throughout its history. [sheer speculation, based on a story we know is false] This lie was then circulated by the Iranian news media and they continued to repeat it until today for the same objective. [shoot the messenger again] Perhaps, they guided Al-Manar Television to begin these lies. [more speculation] Iran's objective is clear. It is to cover its collusion with America in invading the homelands of Muslims in Afghanistan and Iraq. [another red herring]

I gave examples of this collusion in my recent interview with Al-Sahab under the title "reading in the events." This lie was then repeated by some of the psychologically defeated ones in our Islamic world, whose minds, which were distorted by Western exaggeration, refuse to believe that some Muslims can cause this harm to America. [ad hominem] These poor minds have thus far not been able to understand why America is defeated in Afghanistan and Iraq in front of the simple mujahidin [red herring], and, in fact, why America has failed to arrest Mulla Mohammad Omar and Shaykh Usama Bin Ladin, may God watch over them, after more than six years of fierce war, during which it used all means of technology, which caused us a headache about its legendary capabilities. [au contraire! The weak-minded theoreticians understand very well that the American terror warriors have no interest in acting against Mullah Omar or Osama bin Laden, who are both, after all, their allies in this massive fraud -- a fraud which would have to stop if they were somehow defeated.] Furthermore, why the power of the mujahidin is growing against it day by day despite this world war that is being launched against them?' [another red herring]

You will note that virtually none of Zawahri's statement has anything to do with the question he was asked.

About this exchange, Juan Cole wrote:

No more eloquent testament to the defeat of the original al-Qaeda could be found than the pitiful inability of Zawahiri to name any genuine accomplishments in recent times save the ability of the top leadership to elude capture!

The Bush administration over-reacted to September 11, misunderstanding it as the action of a traditional state rather than of a small asymmetrical terrorist group. [...]

No kidding? Just an over-reaction? Just a misunderstanding?

Juan Cole is no more willing than Zawahri to discuss the evidence of Israeli complicity in 9/11.

Neither is he willing to call the Bush administration's "over-reaction" what it obviously was: not a reaction at all, but an action -- one that was obviously planned well in advance of the event that "caused it".

It's no wonder Juan Cole has become such a popular and well-respected blogger.

More Poison

If you're looking for more poison, you can get some from At Largely, where on April 16, 2008, Larisa Alexandrovna quoted the Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz in a post called "Netanyahu spreading sunshine wherever he goes..."

The Ha'aretz headline reads: "Report: Netanyahu says 9/11 terror attacks good for Israel", and the article says:

"The Israeli newspaper Ma'ariv on Wednesday reported that Likud leader Benjamin Netanyahu told an audience at Bar Ilan university that the September 11, 2001 terror attacks had been beneficial for Israel.

"We are benefiting from one thing, and that is the attack on the Twin Towers and Pentagon, and the American struggle in Iraq," Ma'ariv quoted the former prime minister as saying. He reportedly added that these events "swung American public opinion in our favor."

About this rather blunt admission of Israeli priorities, Larisa wrote:

Very nice. It is bad enough that Antisemites around the world have used the tragedy of 9/11 for their own propaganda purposes to push the lie that Israel was in actuality behind the attacks of September 11. Now Netanyahu has all but underwritten these dangerous talking points with this one, single, and shocking comment. Aside from this, most obvious issue, there are two small problems with Benji's assertions:

1. That 9/11 was good for Israel
2. That US public opinion is with Israel

As I have already noted, antisemitism is on the rise the world over, which is hardly good for Jews in general or Israel in particular. But in addition to that, American Jews are pulling further and further back from Israel thanks in large part to Likud's extremism and its lock-step relationship with Dick Cheney. Joe Lieberman, for example, was a contender for VP before 9/11. Now he is a political outcast by-and-large because of his bed-sharing with Likud and Dick Cheney.

Larisa seems to have missed the larger point, which is that Israel depends on the support of the American government much more than the support of American Jews. Netanyahu can conflate the two; in fact, he must. Americans (and Israelis too) like to pride themselves on the thought that they live in a democracy, so politicians such as Netanyahu must speak of "public opinion" as if it mattered. But it doesn't. Power matters. Military might matters. Israel doesn't care what you think -- as long as you keep electing politicians who swear allegiance to the Israeli flag.

And Israel no longer needs Joe Lieberman -- in the White House, or anywhere else -- since it has benefitted from eight years of "lock-step relationship with Dick Cheney", and can now look forward to a fully pro-Israel Democratic administration, run by the likes of Obama, Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton, and Rahm Emanuel.

The missing link from this analysis is the obvious fact that 9/11 was good for the Israeli hard-liners, who until that point had been told quite regularly by their American supporters to restrain their ongoing orgy of violence against the Palestinians. As soon as 9/11 happened, the Israeli gloves came off. And they've been off ever since.

Many of Larisa's readers commented about the evidence of Israeli complicity in 9/11, beginning with Damien, who (among other things) wrote:

There are significant questions about what Israeli Intelligence knew prior to 911 (see 1 | 2 | 3).

There are various accounts of Israeli owned trucks detained on 911 in the Lincoln Tunnel with traces of explosives(1 | 2 | 3 | 4)

There appears to be at least one instance where Israeli Intelligence had previously impersonated al Qaeda operatives:

In February of 2000, Indian intelligence officials detained 11 members of what they thought was an Al Qaeda hijacking conspiracy. It was then discovered that these 11 "Muslim preachers" were all Israeli nationals.

Damien continued:

I have no idea of any Israeli awareness of or participation in 911, but I do know there are significant unanswered questions. If the topic is taboo then the public debate passes immediately into the hands of the rabid Israel haters. I think that would be a tragic outcome for everyone. We need all the answers about 911 and a full, independent inquiry.

I would go quite a bit farther than Damien, and in fact I have done so. See this post for more: Gatekeepers Bury Dancing Israeli Movers And Bogus Art Students On DN!

(See this blog for even more: Plunger Speaks.)

A Double Dose To Start

I now return you to the second week of September, 2001. On September 12, the day after the attacks, the Washington Post ran the following piece by a serial mass murderer, former Secretary of State and National Security Adviser, Henry Kissinger:

Kissinger: Destroy The Network

An attack such as yesterday's requires systematic planning, a good organization, a lot of money and a base. You cannot improvise something like this, and you cannot plan it when you're constantly on the move. Heretofore our response to attacks, and understandably so, has been to carry out some retaliatory act that was supposed to even the scales while hunting down the actual people who did it.

This, however, is an attack on the territorial United States, which is a threat to our social way of life and to our existence as a free society. It therefore has to be dealt with in a different way -- with an attack on the system that produces it.

The immediate response, of course, has to be taking care of casualties and restoring some sort of normal life. We must get back to work almost immediately, to show that our life cannot be disrupted. And we should henceforth show more sympathy for people who are daily exposed to this kind of attack, whom we keep telling to be very measured in their individual responses.

But then the government should be charged with a systematic response that, one hopes, will end the way that the attack on Pearl Harbor ended -- with the destruction of the system that is responsible for it. That system is a network of terrorist organizations sheltered in capitals of certain countries. In many cases we do not penalize those countries for sheltering the organizations; in other cases, we maintain something close to normal relations with them.

It is hard to say at this point what should be done in detail. If a week ago I had been asked whether such a coordinated attack as yesterday's was possible, I, no more than most people, would have thought so, so nothing I say is meant as a criticism. But until now we have been trying to do this as a police matter, and now it has to be done in a different way.

Of course there should be some act of retaliation, and I would certainly support it, but it cannot be the end of the process and should not even be the principal part of it. The principal part has to be to get the terrorist system on the run, and by the terrorist system I mean those parts of it that are organized on a global basis and can operate by synchronized means.

We do not yet know whether Osama bin Laden did this, although it appears to have the earmarks of a bin Laden-type operation. But any government that shelters groups capable of this kind of attack, whether or not they can be shown to have been involved in this attack, must pay an exorbitant price.

The question is not so much what kind of blow we can deliver this week or next. And the response, since our own security was threatened, cannot be made dependent on consensus, though this is an issue on which we and our allies must find a cooperative means of resistance that is not simply the lowest common denominator.

It is something we should do calmly, carefully and inexorably.

If you read this calmly and carefully, especially in light of the events which followed, you can see quite clearly the lies at the heart of our current situation, and who helped to put them there.

When Kissinger says, "any government that shelters groups capable of this kind of attack" must be made to "pay an exorbitant price", he is legitimizing the Bush Doctrine of pre-emptive war, especially with his insistence that this price must be paid "whether or not they can be shown to have been involved in this attack".

When he says, "until now we have been trying to do this as a police matter, and now it has to be done in a different way", he is laying the groundwork for the militarization of America, regardless of the facts that 9/11 was a crime, not an act of war, and that it could have been prevented with normal police actions, if the Bush administration hadn't gone to great lengths to prevent any investigation of the impending terrorist attack.

When he talks about "a network of terrorist organizations sheltered in capitals of certain countries", he knows what he's saying. America helped put those organizations in those capitals. But he wouldn't want you to know that.

It turned out that the "threat to our social way of life and to our existence as a free society" has come from our government, not from any "terrorists", and Kissinger's characterization of the attacks as a threat "to our existence as a free society" is as much exaggeration as you are likely to get ... until two sentences later, when Kissinger writes:

And we should henceforth show more sympathy for people who are daily exposed to this kind of attack, whom we keep telling to be very measured in their individual responses.

Aside from the fact that there are no people anywhere who are "daily exposed to this kind of attack", Kissinger's purpose is clear: Hands off Israel!

And it has worked! Israeli leaders came to Washington and said, "There? You see what it's like? We're on the front line of this war. We have to deal with this stuff every day!" And Bush said "We sympathize! You're on the front line of this war. You have to deal with this stuff every day. We sympathize!"

It was a remarkable performance, just what Kissinger had asked for. And rightly so. After all, when you're on a path to global domination, and it's all based on lies, you have to proceed "calmly, carefully and inexorably."

For me, there's only one surprise in the entire piece, and that's the tortured bit of syntax that runs:

If a week ago I had been asked whether such a coordinated attack as yesterday's was possible, I, no more than most people, would have thought so...

His performance on the previous day had been one of the telltale signs that everything was bogus. And then, as we can see, he couldn't even put together a coherent denial.

I always thought Kissinger was a better liar than that. But then again, with all the help he gets, he doesn't really have to be, does he?

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Inside Account To Detail Zelikow's Conflict Of Interest In 9/11 Commission

The 9/11 Whitewash Commission was so fragrant that even the pseudo-alternative media are having a bash at it, but without showing any sign of understanding what they're doing. Thus Max Holland writes:

In a revelation bound to cast a pall over the 9/11 Commission ...

Wow! Is that possible?

Philip Shenon will report in a forthcoming book that the panel’s executive director, Philip Zelikow [photo], engaged in “surreptitious” communications with presidential adviser Karl Rove and other Bush administration officials during the commission’s 20-month investigation into the 9/11 attacks.

Holy flippin' surprise, Batman! No kiddin'? Aw jeez!

In what’s termed an “investigation of the investigation,” Shenon purports to tell the story of the commission from start to finish. The book’s critical revelations, however, revolve almost entirely around the figure of Philip Zelikow, a University of Virginia professor and director of the Miller Center of Public Affairs prior to his service as the commission’s executive director. Shenon delivers a blistering account of Zelikow’s role and leadership, and an implicit criticism of the commissioners for appointing Zelikow in the first place -- and then allowing him to stay on after his myriad conflicts-of-interest were revealed under oath.

I'm in shock!! How are you? Still breathing? Conflicts of interest? Seriously?? If you're still with us, here are some of the oh-so-shocking details which have recently come to Max's attention:

Kean and Hamilton appreciated that Zelikow was a friend and former colleague of then-national security adviser Condoleeza Rice, one of the principal officials whose conduct would be scrutinized. Zelikow had served with her on the National Security Council (NSC) during the presidency of Bush’s father, and they had written a book together about German reunification. The commission co-chairmen also knew of Zelikow’s October 2001 appointment to the President’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board. According to Shenon, however, Zelikow failed to disclose several additional and egregious conflicts-of-interest, among them, the fact that he had been a member of Rice’s NSC transition team in 2000-01. In that capacity, Zelikow had been the “architect” responsible for demoting Richard Clarke and his counter-terrorism team within the NSC. As Shenon puts it, Zelikow “had laid the groundwork for much of went wrong at the White House in the weeks and months before September 11. Would he want people to know that?”

No, no, that's the wrong question, Max!

The proper question at this point is: Who would be better to lead the investigation?

From the White House point of view, Zelikow was perfect. And the sequence of events which led him to the position was Rovian.

Unindicted war criminal deluxe Henry Kissinger was the first man named to run the Whitewash. But questions were asked after Kissinger refused to divulge his list of clients; when one of the 9/11 widows asked him specifically whether he had any clients from Saudi Arabia named bin Laden, Kissinger suddenly decided to resign. And while the pro-truth, anti-conflict-of-interest crowd was congratulating one another, Zelikow slipped in the back door and steered the Whitewash safely home.

Karen Heitkotter, the commission’s executive secretary, was taken aback on June 23, 2003 when she answered the telephone for Zelikow at 4:40 PM and heard a voice intone, “This is Karl Rove. I’m looking for Philip.” Heitkotter knew that Zelikow had promised the commissioners he would cut off all contact with senior officials in the Bush administration. Nonetheless, she gave Zelikow’s cell phone number to Rove.

Well, that's one way to help them cut off all contact! Excellent work, Karen.

The next day there was another call from Rove at 11:35 AM. Subsequently, Zelikow would claim that these calls pertained to his “old job” at the University of Virginia’s Miller Center.

My heart is racing now, boys. Does Max Holland pin 'em?

The full extent of Zelikow’s involvement with the incumbent administration only became evident within the commission on October 8, 2003, almost halfway into the panel’s term. Determined to blunt the Jersey Girls’ call for his resignation or recusal, Zelikow proposed that he be questioned under oath about his activities. General counsel Daniel Marcus, who conducted the sworn interview, brought a copy of the résumé Zelikow had provided to Kean and Hamilton. None of the activities Zelikow now detailed -- his role on Rice’s transition team, his instrumental role in Clarke’s demotion, his authorship of a post-9/11 pre-emptive attack doctrine -- were mentioned in the résumé. Zelikow blandly asserted to Marcus that he did not see “any of this as a major conflict of interest.” Marcus’s conclusion was that Zelikow “should never have been hired” as executive director. But the only upshot from these shocking disclosures was that Zelikow was involuntarily recused from that part of the investigation which involved the presidential transition, and barred from participating in subsequent interviews of senior Bush administration officials.

Presumably when Max Holland says

his authorship of a post-9/11 pre-emptive attack doctrine

he's talking about "Catastrophic Terrorism: Elements of a National Policy", written in 1998 by Ashton B. Carter, John M. Deutch and Philip D. Zelikow for "Visions of Governance for the Twenty-First Century", ironically "a project of the John F. Kennedy School of Government", not so ironically at Harvard University.

Christopher Bollyn points out the mentality behind the report, as revealed in an article the three authors wrote for

Foreign Affairs, the bi-monthly publication of the Council on Foreign Relations, in which they laid out what changes would need to be made within the U.S. government in the wake of "catastrophic terrorism," which is also the title of the article.

The "Catastrophic Terrorism" article, written by Ashton B. Carter, John M. Deutch, and Philip D. Zelikow, appeared in the last issue of Foreign Affairs in 1998. It begins with the strange subtitle "Imagining the Transforming Event," as if what was actually desired by the authors was a transformation of the U.S. government and the way Americans live.

The authors of the article, like Netanyahu, do not even mention the political causes of terrorism. Understanding the causes of terrorism in an effort to prevent it does not even occur to them. No, these three architects are busy "imagining the transforming event" - and how to respond to it.

This article is clearly an architectural level document. It is meant to explain what should be done in the event of the catastrophic terror attack its authors are "imagining." For this reason, the authors deserve to be investigated to see what kind of relationship they might have to those who carried out the false flag terror attacks of 9/11.

Interesting, isn't it? The section of the "Catastrophic Terrorism" report called "Imagining the Transforming Event" begins with a few vital definitions, which can be seen in retrospect to have taken over:

We find terrorism when individuals or groups, rather than governments, seek to attain their objectives by means of the terror induced by violent attacks upon civilians. When governments openly attack others, we call it war, to be judged or dealt with according to the laws of war. When governments act in concert with private individuals or groups, the United States government may call it war, or state-sponsored terrorism, and retaliate against both the individuals and the governments.

There you go. Governments acting openly can't do "terrorism". Only groups and individuals can do that. But if they act in concert with a government, then the United States government may call it state-sponsored terrorism and retaliate against everybody! Nice stuff, Phil.

In the same section we read:

Long part of Hollywood’s and Tom Clancy’s repertory of nightmarish scenarios, catastrophic terrorism is a real possibility.

So let's see now ... is this confirmation of my thoughts on the day of the catastrophic attack?

Well, you couldn't ask for more, in my opinion.

Speaking of Tom Clancy, I heard part of an interview with him on the radio on the day of 9/11. The interviewer asked "Do you think this would have happened if Al Gore were President?"

Clancy replied, "God forbid if Al Gore were President."

But I digress. Not good during a digression. (At least I'm not regressing.)

Zelikow et. al. again:

An act of catastrophic terrorism that killed thousands or tens of thousands of people and/or disrupted the necessities of life for hundreds of thousands, or even millions, would be a watershed event in America’s history. It could involve loss of life and property unprecedented for peacetime and undermine Americans’ fundamental sense of security within their own borders in a manner akin to the 1949 Soviet atomic bomb test, or perhaps even worse. Constitutional liberties would be challenged as the United States sought to protect itself from further attacks by pressing against allowable limits in surveillance of citizens, detention of suspects, and the use of deadly force. More violence would follow, either as other terrorists seek to imitate this great "success" or as the United States strikes out at those considered responsible. Like Pearl Harbor, such an event would divide our past and future into a "before" and "after." The effort and resources we devote to averting or containing this threat now, in the "before" period, will seem woeful, even pathetic, when compared to what will happen "after." Our leaders will be judged negligent for not addressing catastrophic terrorism more urgently.

Christopher Bollyn quotes a passage (same link) from an article for Foreign Affairs, in which the same three authors wrote:

The bombings in East Africa killed hundreds. A successful attack with weapons of mass destruction could certainly take thousands, or tens of thousands, of lives. If the device that exploded in 1993 under the World Trade Center had been nuclear, or had effectively dispersed a deadly pathogen, the resulting horror and chaos would have exceeded our ability to describe it.

Such an act of catastrophic terrorism would be a watershed event in American history. It could involve loss of life and property unprecedented in peacetime and undermine America's fundamental sense of security, as did the Soviet atomic bomb test in 1949. Like Pearl Harbor, this event would divide our past and future into a before and after.

The United States might respond with draconian measures, scaling back civil liberties, allowing wider surveillance of citizens, detention of suspects, and use of deadly force. More violence could follow, either further terrorist attacks or U.S. counterattacks. Belatedly, Americans would judge their leaders negligent for not addressing terrorism more urgently.

As Bollyn points out:

With amazing prescience the authors were right about all eight things they said "might" happen as a result of an attack of "catastrophic terrorism" like Pearl Harbor.

The authors go on to recommend specifically what the U.S. government should do in the wake of such an event of "catastrophic terrorism," which they concluded is "an eminent threat."

Back to the paper, where Zelikow almost seems prescient about national policy in other ways as well:

The greatest danger may arise if the threat falls into one of the crevasses in our government’s field of overlapping jurisdictions, such as the divide between terrorism that is "foreign" or "domestic;" or terrorism that has "state" or "non-state" sponsors; or terrorism that is classified as a problem for "law enforcement" or one of "national security." The law enforcement/national security divide is especially significant, carved deeply into the topography of American government.

The divide between "law enforcement" and "national security" was carved deeply into the topography of American government for a very good reason, and only the utterly coincidental occurrence of a catastrophic attack with "state" or "non-state" sponsors (whatever that means) was required to remove that divide. Now we have "lawfare", a merger of the forces of law enforcement with the forces of warfare. America declares war on its own people. I'll have more on this in an upcoming essay -- or maybe a series of them.

Zelikow and friends are almost funny when they write:

The threat of catastrophic terrorism typifies the new sort of security problem the United States must confront in the post Cold War world. It is transnational, defying ready classification as foreign or domestic, either in origin, participants, or materials. As the World Trade Center incident demonstrated, one group can combine U.S. citizens with resident aliens and foreign nationals, operating in and out of American territory over long periods of time.

If the World Trade Center incident they refer to (the 1993 bombing) demonstrated anything, it's that we shouldn't trust our government's counter-terror units.

That bombing was an inside job, too. The FBI had "the terrorist cell" infiltrated from a very early stage. The FBI agent suggested bombing the WTC. The agent taught the "terrorists" how to build a bomb. How would they get the bomb to the WTC? The terrorists didn't know, so the agent suggested renting a van. The terrorists didn't know how to drive, so the agent gave one of them driving lessons. Then came the fatal day.

They put the bomb in the van and drove to the parking ramp under the WTC. The agent snuck around a corner and pulled out his cell phone. Calling the office, he said, "The bomb is in place. Come arrest them." But his supervisor told him, "Get out of there! The bomb has to go off!"

The agent was astonished. What? His boss told him, "We have to have an explosion to guarantee a conviction." So he ran. And the bomb exploded. And it was all the terrorists' fault.

But I digress. I'd give you a link to the 1993 info, except I heard it on the radio. I heard an interview with that agent on the radio. I'm sorry to say I forget his name. Didn't realize at the time how important it was going to be.

Man, that was some confused dude. He thought he'd been there to thwart them. At the last moment he found out his job had been to assist them! Hmmm.

What? Oh no, no parallels here, officer!

Most of the Zelikow paper is ostensibly about measures that could be taken in an attempt to prevent catastrophic terrorism; those measures are being taken even as you read this sentence.

As Zelikow wrote:

When this threat becomes clear the President must be in a position to activate extraordinary capabilities.

One way of looking at the history of false-flag attacks on the WTC is like this: the 1993 bombing didn't make the threat clear. The 2001 attacks did.

And now -- as if that were not enough -- more from Max Holland:

[When] Bob Kerrey replaced disgruntled ex-Senator Max Cleland on the panel, the former Nebraska senator became astounded once he understood Zelikow’s obvious conflicts-of-interest and his very limited recusal. Kerrey could not understand how Kean and Hamilton had ever agreed to put Zelikow in charge. “Look Tom,” Kerrey told Kean, “either he goes or I go.” But Kean persuaded Kerrey to drop his ultimatum.

And there's more: Zelikow asked his secretary not to keep a record of his incoming calls. Then he started using his cell phone for his calls to the White House. He violated the limited terms of his limited recusal.

You could read it all, and you probably should. But be prepared for some horse droppings near the end:

Shenon’s [...] account of the commission’s inner workings promises to achieve what none of the crackpot conspiracy theorists have managed to do so far: put the 9/11 Commission in disrepute.

Right. By revealing hidden details that the crackpot conspiracy theorists already know about, this hot-shot New York Times reporter will be able to do what? Will he finally reveal the hidden details that the crackpot conspiracy theorists already know about?? and put the 9/11 Commission in disrepute that way?

I'm starting to lose track of the number of places where I've seen the same pattern in post-democratic American journalism. The authors seem free to lay out any number of dots, each utterly incriminating, but they invariably leave some dots out, and they always connect the dots that they do have -- or frame them, as in this case -- with a bogus narrative.

Post-democratic American journalism at its finest, friends. Yuck.

Still ... what was Phil Zelikow doing anywhere near that Commission, let alone "serving" as executive director of it? What was he doing talking to Karl Rove? What was he doing talking to the White House? What was he doing interfering with the investigation into his role in the "transition"?

He was doing his job, that's what!

Bollyn again:

Philip David Zelikow is all over 9/11, its aftermath, and the subsequent wars in the Middle East. Three years after warning of "catastrophic terrorism," Zelikow became the Executive Director of the 9/11 Commission, the appointed government whitewash which utterly failed to address the key questions and evidence of the terror attacks of 9/11.

Zelikow, from Houston, served on President George W. Bush's transition team in 2001. After Bush took office, Zelikow was named to the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board, and served on the National Commission on Federal Election Reform, which produced the extremely flawed Help America Vote Act of 2002.

If you think all these disparate coincidences are connected somehow, you're a wacko conspiracy theorist. Welcome aboard!

Beyond The Mirror -- The 9/11 Funhouse, Part IV

In this series, I've been discussing some of the most transparently false arguments concerning 9/11 and the Global War On Terror that are still in circulation (starting here, then parts one, two and three). In this installment, a few fallacies concerning the so-called "conspiracy theorists" who say "9/11 was an inside job": more personal forms of attack, and a more personal defense.

Conspiracy Theorists Need Something To Believe In

Like all good propaganda, the most enduring lies about 9/11 are difficult to disentangle. One of the most complex is the one that says:

The people who see a conspiracy behind 9/11 are basically paranoid conspiracy theorists who see conspiracies everywhere. They can't accept the fact that the world is chaotic -- they need to believe unseen forces are at work behind everything happening around them. These people would have seen a conspiracy behind 9/11 no matter what they saw, no matter what they were told, no matter what actually happened.

This is difficult to refute because there's a grain of truth to it. There are people who see unseen forces behind everything. But I'm not one of them.

I have no need to believe unseen forces are at work, anywhere. I would be quite content to believe that everybody was playing by the same rules, just like in checkers or something, and get on with it. But I seem to be driven by a more powerful force -- a need to make sense of the world.

I'm an empiricist: I grew up reading Arthur Conan Doyle's stories about Sherlock Holmes and absorbing wisdom such as "It is a capital mistake to theorize in advance of the facts." Even now, I have no interest in simply theorizing about things; I want to see the details. I'm not the type to fix the intelligence around the policy. I want to base the policy on a coherent analysis of the intelligence.

As a kid, I spent a lot of time thinking about the famous line from Holmes that runs: "When you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth." As a student I specialized in math and science. For fun I played chess and music. Later on I taught math. Now I program computers for a living.

All these activities keep me thinking about what is true and what is false. They've taught me to eliminate the impossible and to accept the truth, no matter how improbable it might seem. And it's become a vital life-skill. In prior days, my math had to be solid or the college would have booted me out. Nowadays, my code has to be solid or my clients will go elsewhere. When the day comes that I can't separate the true from the false, I'm out of a job. I've always known that.

So in a very hand-to-mouth sense, I need to believe in the truth -- both on a low level (my code is good; this math is right; that move is solid; this note is correct) and on higher levels as well (I know my kids are lying to me if their explanation doesn't fit the facts, and the same goes for clients and students and the television and the internet and everything else).

I'm happy if a story holds together. I'm happy if something is true. And it doesn't matter to me whether the truth is expressed as Bach or The Clash, whether it's beautiful architecture or witty graffiti, whether it's the sort of chess Bobby Fischer used to play, or Capablanca before him, or Paul Morphy before either of them! ... or Gauss or Newton or my favorite math teachers, or any of the other people who see how things work and describe them in ways that make sense.

And that's why I can't believe the official story of 9/11. It's not that I'm a conspiracy theorist by nature. It's just that the official story doesn't make any sense. It didn't make any sense on the day it happened, it's made even less sense as the years have gone by, and that's why I don't believe it.

I don't expect geopolitics to make sense in the way that Bach or Morphy did. I understand that we have a multitude of players, playing under multiple sets of rules -- or not playing under any rules at all! -- moving at the same time, deliberately cutting across one another's plans, and leaving a mess in their wake. I don't expect that wake to be simple, or easily untangled.

In other words, I might buy the story if there were only one or two incredible details. I would probably be satisfied with the idea that the attack was complex and bound to leave a few "loose ends", even if those "loose ends" were absolutely bizarre ... if there were only a few "loose ends" left over.

But it's not just a few loose ends. It's massive contradictions, clear evidence of lying, conflict of interest all over the place, advance warnings ignored, investigations shut down, evidence destroyed, official stories changed -- and changed again! -- and much more besides, including magical violation of the laws of physics.

For a single example of this magic in action, consider the "collapse" of the South Tower. As shown in the photos, the top third of the building broke off and started to topple over.

Part of it extended beyond the perimeter of the building, as we can clearly see.

If it had been a gravity-driven event, with no explosives involved, we would expect at least part of this block to continue falling, since there is no tower beneath it -- nothing to crush it but thin air. It should have landed in the street, or on an adjacent building. Instead this part of the tower turned to dust before it ever hit the ground. All because of gravity? Sorry! That can't happen in real life.

In other words, there's not necessarily anything wrong with me, and there's not necessarily anything wrong with anyone who agrees with me; there's something wrong with the story we've been told.

That's why I'm a "conspiracy theorist".

And I resent the constant media push to question my sanity, and that of others like me -- from people who won't even examine the facts of the case because they're so busy attacking those who do so. Some very well-known writers have lost all my respect for this very reason (and if I were less of a gentleman I might mention names such as Alexander Cockburn, George Monbiot, and Gwynne Dyer).

Conspiracy Theorists Find Their Bizarre Theories Comforting

Just in case it's not obvious yet, I don't speak for anybody but myself. I'm not a member of any 9/11-related organization, I don't hang at any 9/11-related websites, I'm not in any formal alliance with any group or individual. I do correspond with a few people who I support in various ways, and a few other people who help me too, but I have never discussed any of this with any of them. So I don't know what they think about it. I only know what I think.

I don't find any comfort in the belief that American democracy is over. I don't find any comfort in knowing that my country is fighting multiple wars based on gigantic and deliberately-crafted lies; that it has killed and/or maimed and/or rendered homeless millions and millions of people, in "revenge" for what amounts to nothing more than a bit of political "street theater".

There are already billions of people suffering through every day of their lives, dying from easily preventable diseases, starving to death, all kinds of horrible things going on in a world that's got enough natural cruelty to last a lifetime, without my country -- the wealthiest and most powerful nation the world has ever seen -- dropping bombs on people while they sleep, kidnapping them and taking them away to be tortured, destroying their hospitals, cutting off their water and electricity, and poisoning their landscape with depleted uranium -- all to separate them from their oil.

Anyone who has a heart and a moment to think about these things can see that there is nothing even remotely comforting about any of this -- nothing whatsoever. And I am more than a little bit offended by this particular transparently false argument about 9/11.

Conspiracy Theorists Hate America

This is possibly the biggest red herring there ever was. It's also a conflation of endless very different entities into a single ball of nonsense.

I've loved most of the American people I've ever met, most of the American landscape I've ever seen, too many individuals and places and things to mention, and let's not forget the principles on which the country was founded. I hate the violence; I hate the pollution; I hate the propaganda; I hate the endless war against the rest of the world; I hate the relentless glorification of rich idiots and serial killers; I hate the marginalization of the poor and the demonization of the gentle; I hate the racism and the intolerance and the hatred; I hate the national leadership of both major parties. Does this mean I hate America? Not at all -- and what if it did?

There are plenty of things to love about America, and plenty of things to hate. The truth or falsehood of the official 9/11 story doesn't depend on any of them.

Conspiracy Theorists Blame Bush For 9/11 Because They Hate Him

This is a reversal of cause and effect. Conspiracy theorists blame Bush because they can see so many ways in which he deserves to be blamed.

His reaction to the attack was inappropriate, every step of the way. He sat in the classroom and listened to the kids read the story about the goat, even though he knew the country was under attack. What sort of commander in chief is this?

Then he declared endless limitless war against the rest of the world. What sort of a statesman would do that?

Bush resisted any official investigation for as long as possible. Then when he was forced to empower one, he assigned the monstrous war criminal Henry Kissinger to run it. Kissinger had to resign to avoid the exposure of a blatant conflict of interest. He realized this when he was asked whether he had any Saudi Arabian clients named "Bin Laden".

So then Philip Zelikow was handed the assignment. He had previously written a book with Condoleeza Rice. He had also written a treatise on catastrophic terror and the political uses to which it could be put. He's a specialist in public myth-making. Bush put him in charge of the investigation.

When his turn came, Bush refused to testify in public, or under oath, or without Dick Cheney at his side. Bush and Cheney refused to allow any records of their "testimony" to be kept. All this was designed to make us trust them?

Then we found out that before 9/11, Bush ignored counter-terrorism officials who tried to warn him about the coming attack. We found out that investigations into certain families and certain countries had been systematically shut down. We found out that members of the Bin Laden family were allowed to leave the country in the immediate wake of the attacks. We found out that the Bush family and the Bin Laden family have done business together for a long time. We found out a lot more, too, that traces directly to the president, and his father.

Conspiracy theorists hate George Bush because of all this. They didn't make all this up in order to support some baseless, irrational, pre-determined hatred of him.

This deliberate reversal of cause and effect is so transparent; it's more an assault on the fabric of reality than on the "inside job" argument.

In other words, "If you'll believe this, you'll believe anything!"

And that's exactly what they're hoping for.