Back in July, I had hoped to be able to spend lots of time researching 9/11 in time to write a well-researched pamphlet to distribute in the vicinity of this year’s major 9/11 anniversary events sponsored by local 9/11 Truth groups. Alas, I was then swamped with work and other things, so I did not have a chance to do the desired research. So, I’ll just have to write the pamphlet based on what I already know. Here’s my draft of the first half of the pamphlet. (I’ll post the second half later today or tomorrow.)
Why we need a new investigation of 9/11
After 9/11/2001, many people had questions about how and why the attacks were able to succeed. Why did the U.S. government do nothing to stop the attacks?
- Why did the Bush administration ignore warnings?
- Why was there no effective air defense?
- Why were some of the 9/11 hijackers, already known to be terrorists, even allowed into this country?
Bush opposed calls for an investigation into these questions. Eventually the 9/11 Families movement, led by four 9/11 widows known as the “Jersey Girls,” did succeed in pressuring Congress and Bush to create the 9/11 Commission.
But there is lots of evidence of coverups. For example:
- Thomas H. Kean and Lee H. Hamilton, the chair and vice chair of the 9/11 Commisstion, have said they were “stonewalled by the C.I.A.” (New York Times, January 2, 2008). They have voiced this complaint despite their widely perceived go-easy attitude.
- Thomas H. Kean has said that NORAD (the North American Aerospace Command) made blatantly false statements “so far from the truth” that the 9/11 Commission considered criminal charges (Washington Post, August 2, 2006).
- Senator Bob Graham (D-Fla.), on the Senate Intelligence Committee, has said that there is evidence of involvement by foreign governments – evidence that remains highly classified. Graham has alleged that the information remains classified not for any genuine national security reason, but merely to avoid embarrassing some people. (PBS interview, July 24, 2003)
Many people regard the 9/11 Commission itself as part of the coverup, for many reasons including the following:
- The 9/11 Commission Report dismisses the question of the financing of the 9/11 attacks as being “of little practical significance” (Chapter 5).
- Quite a few whistleblowers were not interviewed.
- The 9/11 Commission had subpoena power but rarely used it, preferring a gentler approach.
- The 9/11 Commission’s research staff was directed by Philip Zelikow, who had strong ties to the Bush administration (such as having co-authored a book with Condoleeza Rice). Thus the investigation was not truly independent of the Bush administration, as it should have been.
Chapters 5 and 7 of the 9/11 Commission Report, which deal with Al Qaeda and the hijackers, are based largely on CIA reports about interrogations of people who were tortured. Torture is not only a severe violation of human rights, but also results in notoriously unreliable confessions The commissioners were not allowed to interview the detainees themselves, nor were they even allowed to view direct transcripts of interrogations.
It is clear to many people that there have been coverups. But coverups of what? Among people who talk about 9/11, debate is now polarized between people who insist that “9/11 was an inside job” and people who insist that whatever might have been covered up, it couldn’t possibly be anything worse than incompetence. But there are many other possibilities between the extremes of “inside job” and “nothing worse than incompetence.” Other possibilities include criminal negligence, corruption, and treason. Due to the coverups, we simply don’t know all the facts.
Whatever the U.S. government did or didn’t do on or before 9/11, what’s important is that those responsible for its failures be held accountable — even if no one in the U.S. government was guilty of anything worse than incompetence. And it is important to know what really went wrong in terms of counter-terrorism policy, so that we can know what’s really needed to protect us from terrorism, without undue sacrifice of our privacy and civil liberties. (The “PATRIOT act” was probably overkill.) To that end, we need a new, more truly independent follow-up investigation, similar to what the 9/11 Commission was supposed to be.
New York City activist 
> it is important to know what really went wrong in terms of counter-terrorism policy
That much can be answered well enough just with Noam Chomsky. The USA is the biggest terrorist on the block, and that says it all. You really need to be more specific in terms of demanding the release of definite documents, if you mean this with some seriousness.
I know there are some anarchist types who like to make waves about “we need a new investigation” not because they seriously imagine that such is going to occur, but because they see it as a way of prodding people towards revolution. That’s pretty naive. The world doesn’t work in such a fashion that one may campaign for an “investigation” which one knows will not be done in the public eye with the expectation of initiating a broader discontent which leads to something more. To the extent that one has really general demands it’s better to formulate them as such, they way Jerry White and Bill Van Auken did when they ran a year ago as POTUS/VP candidates:
http://wsws.org/articles/2008/sep2008/meet-s26.shtml
If you don’t mean for this “new investigation” call to be just a gimmick in that sense, then you need to realize several facts clearly from the onset. Outside of revolutionary upheavals such as 1917 or 1991, it usually is the case that many decades after a historical event governments continue to sit on unreleased documents from the earlier time. There are still documents from more tham 50 years ago sealed away with people hoping they will be released before the first half-century is up. Unless one specifically has a revolutionary agenda for breaking down the doors of Washington, it may be safely assumed that many documents related to 911 will still be classified in the year 2050, or even later. But such a revolutionary agenda does not form around an issue like 911.
One of the silliest statements which is popular among 911-activists is the assertion that “911-truth ends wars!” In fact the highest percentage of troops today are usually black people, and disbelief in the orthodox story of 911 is also common in black neighorhoods. Such people are generally not volunteering for the armed forces out of some belief that they to need to fight terrorists because of 911, and it is not likely that any new revelation about 911 would suddenly lead to them leaving the army. The most important reason why people volunteer for the army is because the economy stinks, not because they are believing anything said by George W. Bush almost 8 years ago. Be careful not to fall into the illusion that all of this will suddenly be changed by a 911 investigation.
But assuming that you do not subscribe to any such illusions, then the logical staring point is to realize that the US government is a corrupt set of gangsters hired and paid by other godfathers of less public prominence, and all of that is true independently of whether one believes that 911 was an inside-job, an intelligence failure, or something else. Because the government is run by a bunch of hoodlums, the only potentially useful thing which could be accomplished by any “government investigation” is simply the release of currently sealed documents, so that other people could then investigate the event on their own. There’s really no reason for people to constantly ramble on about “Congressional investigation” outside of that. The members of Congress have no special competence as investigators, except to the extent that some classified documents may be available to them that are not open to the public. To call for the Congress to carry out some sort of “investigation” where they conduct classified hearings behind closed doors is meaningless and wouldn’t satisfy anyone. But that really is the only capacity in which there is anything special about a Congressional investigation. Insofar as information is freely available, the US Congress is one of the least dependable investigating bodies of anything, and that is true regardless of what the truth about 911 may be.
But to seek the declassification of documents one really does need to focus on specific demands. There were some videos in the area of the Pentagon. The FBI has maintained that most of the films had no information on them, but others have charged that the FBI is trying to cover up what actually hit the Pentagon. Demanding the release of specific videos is a valid enough point. But given that one expects much evidence to be classifed for 50 or more years, regardless of whether or not any hidden conspiracy actually occurred, you need to be as precise as possible when making such demands. The rebuttal which you could expect if you called for the unconditional release of all documents pertaining to 911 would be that this might place sources of information who live abroad at risk, and therefore it cannot be allowed. Just like the VENONA documents were only released after 1991.
Comment by patricksmcnally — September 7, 2009 @ 11:53 am |
Yes, I agree that a serious call for a new investigation really does need to be more specific as to who should be subpoena’d, what kinds of documents still need to be declassified, and other specific questions that still need to be investigated.
Unfortunately, I have not yet had time to do the necessary research to make such a call. I have not yet had time to dig through the material that was released from the 9/11 Commission files earlier this year. Nor have I yet dug through the Zacarias Moussaui trial evidence.
My pamphlet just aims to make the case, in terms likely to make sense to the average American citizen, as to why a new investigation is necessary, without making controversial claims.
My pamphlet is not all it could or should be, but it is being written on a hard deadline. It is intended to be distributed at events later this week. I hope it’s good enough to serve its purpose.
I agree with you that it’s naive to believe that 9/11 Truth will end all wars.
Comment by Diane — September 7, 2009 @ 1:35 pm |