Why Investigation of 9/11 is Necessary
While sharing the concern of many that terrorists not be
provided information useful to them in planning any attacks
on America, I see a serious problem that would result from
not scrutinizing the events of 9/11.
One of the things that has been mentioned many times
with regard to the tactics of bin Laden & co. is that
they look for the weakness. So we don't want them to
know when or where we are least likely to put up an
effective defense. When looking at the astonishing
record of our military response on 9/11, we can see a
remarkable and disturbing pattern. We responded only
after the attack or in ways that assured our response
would be ineffective. Why? And why are glaringly weak
excuses given passes? The Pentagon tells us that there
was no warning given to people in the Pentagon because
flight 77 was headed for the White House. Did the
Pentagon then notify White House? No. When the plane
was thirteen minutes out of Washington, could the
Pentagon see that it was headed for the White House?
Could it see that the plane was headed for the White
House when the plane was seven minutes out of
Washington? When could the Pentagon see that it was
not the target? Would there have been time then to evacuate
or warn anyone in the Pentagon? Are there surface to
air missiles in place to protect the Pentagon?Rush Limbaugh has probably made it plainer than anyone
else. The Clinton people, Limbaugh has said, have
regretted that the attack (if it had to happen) didn't
happen on their watch. Limbaugh has been quite clear
about this. There has been a clear benefit to the Bush
administration that could be predicted. But Limbaugh
is quite wrong about such a benefit to Clinton, had
the same thing happened. Clinton would have been
shouted down and out of Washington, if he had acted on
9/11 as Bush did. If Clinton had decided to wait until
his scheduled visit to a school or any other place was
finished to take on the job of commander-in-chief,
Limbaugh and Medved and all the rest would have been
howling for his head night and day. Limbaugh would
have combined the images of people throwing themselves
out of the towers and the commander-in-chief in the
classroom, not responding to the call of his country,
not acting when America was under attack. Clinton, had
he done exactly what Bush did, would have been seen as
responsible for the loss of thousands of lives and a
huge stack of economic losses. One only has to recall
how Limbaugh and friends convinced many that Clinton
had arranged the crash of the plane carrying Ron Brown
to glimpse what would have come Clinton's way. Clinton
would have been removed from office pronto by both
parties.The reason that Limbaugh and Medved et al haven't
breathed a word of disappointment over the extremely
ineffective and negligent performance of the Bush
administration and the military is simply that he is
their man. What's more, Bush is more susceptible to
pressure from the right precisely because Limbaugh &
company have the power to turn against Bush if he
doesn't please them enough.But in all this it is clear that Bush and the
military, as long as they are not scrutinized in their
9/11 roles, benefit mightily. That is all terrorists
need to know, and surely they are watching closely.
Hit America when the President needs a boost. The
President and the military will do as well as they did
on 9/11 or perhaps only a little better. The
terrorists know the game some presidents play. They can see
the Northwoods document and note that what it says is
that, if terrorism inflicted on America serves the
presidential and military purposes, the military may
welcome it. The plan in 1962 was first to provoke a
Cuban terrorist attack. That attack was needed, the
document says so clearly, to provide justification for
action against Cuba. But Cuba could not be counted on
to act so irresponsibly, so the Joint Chiefs
recommended some terrorism that American assets could
produce that would appear to have been done by Cuba.
Included in the proposed deception were attacks in Florida
and in Washington D.C.The 9/11 situation was different in some important
ways from that of 1962. Cuba was run by Castro.
Afghanistan involved more players, some of whom could
do without Afghanistan.bin Laden knew how important Afghanistan was to
Enron's future. Indeed, in hindsight it is easy to
understand what Ken Lay meant last summer. Enron
shares would be worth plenty more when, one way or
another, it had the pipeline deal in hand for the gas it
could get to India. bin Laden also knew that Enron and
a number of other corporations were very important to
Bush's future. Bush put the number two man at the
failed Enron Energy Services into the Secretary of the
Army post.And bin Laden didn't care what happened to
Afghanistan, as long as he had an escape route. Bush,
when offered a justification for throwing out the
Taliban (who wouldn't make the deal the corporations
wanted), would take a hit. Bush needed justification
for intervention in Afghanistan. He had upset even
very conservative members of Congress with his secrecy
on the energy policy process. One had even called Bush
a tyrant. So Bush couldn't act against Afghanistan on
behalf of Enron and other corporations without a
justification that the whole country could get behind.
Easy for bin Laden to see that. Impossible for bin
Laden to resist. And that is when America was attacked,
when it was most useful to America's military and corporations.Terrorists know that this president is the kind that
will play the Northwoods game. That is very valuable
to future terrorist actions, which they know will have
the greatest success when the president needs
unquestioning support for some action that the public
might not otherwise go for. This president has warned
the senate to limit its investigation of 9/11. We are too
busy fighting terrorism, he says. Yet, there is plenty
of evidence that, when it counted most, when lives
could have been saved, the president and the military
stood down, waiting for the fullness of the desired
justification. If glaring evidence of that kind is
ignored, if the events of 9/11 are not scrutinized, we
may expect more of the same.While people threw themselves out of towers in New
York, the commander-in-chief, having been told that
America was under attack, said that he was thinking of
the later response that the attack justified. There is
not a hint of a thought in what he said that he should
rush to stop any on-going actions against his country.
Two more planes were reported as hijacked while he
remained in the classroom and no one even told him
about them. Why? He is the commander-in-chief. He is
supposed to defend the country. Several times Bush
administration officials have stated that only the President
could authorize shooting down any of the hijacked
airliners. If that was the case, why wasn't the President
informed of hijackings when it was still possible to
prevent them from reaching targets?The Northwoods document is an elaborate plan to
deceive the American people and the world that America
had been attacked by Cuban terrorism. With bin Laden
and his proven past terrorism, less needed to be done
by the military to achieve the desired justification.
bin Laden was eager to attack. All the military needed
this time was a cooperative president and excuses for
not being able to stop the attack. The FAA didn't warn
them in time. They didn't have planes available that were
close to targets. But, by golly, when they were
finally told of the threat, they sent planes that flew
like a "scalded ape". How fast are those planes
capable of flying? Doesn't the expression imply at top
speed? If the planes could have flown at half again as fast
as they did, was scalded ape the expression that
adequately described the speediness of the response?Americans cannot expect a military to protect it
reliably, if its military produces plans such as
Northwoods and is not scrutinized when situations like
9/11 arise. The only way to prevent military planning
to deceive and terrorize Americans into supporting
whatever plans the military has in mind is to
scrutinize the actions of the military in situations
such as 9/11.Terrorists now know that, if the commander-in-chief
needs support for some action he sees as necessary,
terrorist attacks will not be met with a real defense.
I would like the terrorists to be doubtful of success.
The only way they will not be so certain of success is
when the American military is accountable to the
American people.Gemellus