Ninth Anniversary of 9-11

Nine years on and here are a few solid, indisputable facts - courtesy of Washington's Blog

9/11 Commissioners:

• The 9/11 Commission's co-chairs said that the 9/11 Commissioners knew that military officials misrepresented the facts to the Commission, and the Commission considered recommending criminal charges for such false statements (free subscription required)

• 9/11 Commission co-chair Lee Hamilton says "I don't believe for a minute we got everything right", that the Commission was set up to fail, that people should keep asking questions about 9/11, and that the 9/11 debate should continue

• 9/11 Commissioner Timothy Roemer said "We were extremely frustrated with the false statements we were getting"
  

• 9/11 Commissioner Max Cleland resigned from the Commission, stating: "It is a national scandal"; "This investigation is now compromised"; and "One of these days we will have to get the full story because the 9-11 issue is so important to America. But this White House wants to cover it up"
  

• 9/11 Commissioner Bob Kerrey said that "There are ample reasons to suspect that there may be some alternative to what we outlined in our version . . . We didn't have access . . . ." He also said that the investigation depended too heavily on the accounts of Al Qaeda detainees who were physically coerced into talking

• And the Senior Counsel to the 9/11 Commission (John Farmer) - who led the 9/11 staff's inquiry - recently said "At some level of the government, at some point in time...there was an agreement not to tell the truth about what happened". He also said "I was shocked at how different the truth was from the way it was described .... The tapes told a radically different story from what had been told to us and the public for two years.... This is not spin. This is not true." And he said: "It's almost a culture of concealment, for lack of a better word. There were interviews made at the FAA's New York center the night of 9/11 and those tapes were destroyed. The CIA tapes of the interrogations were destroyed. The story of 9/11 itself, to put it mildly, was distorted and was completely different from the way things happened"

If even the 9/11 Commissioners don't buy the official story, why do you?

Senior intelligence officers:

• Former military analyst and famed whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg said that the case of a certain 9/11 whistleblower is "far more explosive than the Pentagon Papers". He also said that the government is ordering the media to cover up her allegations about 9/11. And he said that some of the claims concerning government involvement in 9/11 are credible, that "very serious questions have been raised about what they [U.S. government officials] knew beforehand and how much involvement there might have been", that engineering 9/11 would not be humanly or psychologically beyond the scope of the current administration, and that there's enough evidence to justify a new, "hard-hitting" investigation into 9/11 with subpoenas and testimony taken under oath (see this and this)

• A 27-year CIA veteran, who chaired National Intelligence Estimates and personally delivered intelligence briefings to Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush, their Vice Presidents, Secretaries of State, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and many other senior government officials (Raymond McGovern) said “I think at simplest terms, there’s a cover-up. The 9/11 Report is a joke”

• A 29-year CIA veteran, former National Intelligence Officer (NIO) and former Director of the CIA's Office of Regional and Political Analysis (William Bill Christison) said “I now think there is persuasive evidence that the events of September did not unfold as the Bush administration and the 9/11 Commission would have us believe (and see this)

• A number of intelligence officials, including a CIA Operations Officer who co-chaired a CIA multi-agency task force coordinating intelligence efforts among many intelligence and law enforcement agencies (Lynne Larkin) sent a joint letter to Congress expressing their concerns about “serious shortcomings,” “omissions,” and “major flaws” in the 9/11 Commission Report and offering their services for a new investigation (they were ignored)

• A decorated 20-year CIA veteran, who Pulitzer-Prize winning investigative reporter Seymour Hersh called "perhaps the best on-the-ground field officer in the Middle East”, and whose astounding career formed the script for the Academy Award winning motion picture Syriana (Robert Baer) said that "the evidence points at" 9/11 having had aspects of being an inside job

• The Division Chief of the CIA’s Office of Soviet Affairs, who served as Senior Analyst from 1966 - 1990. He also served as Professor of International Security at the National War College from 1986 - 2004 (Melvin Goodman) said "The final [9/11 Commission] report is ultimately a coverup"

If even US top intelligence officers don't buy the official story, why do you?

Congressmen:

• According to the Co-Chair of the Congressional Inquiry into 9/11 and former Head of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Bob Graham, an FBI informant had hosted and rented a room to two hijackers in 2000 and that, when the Inquiry sought to interview the informant, the FBI refused outright, and then hid him in an unknown location, and that a high-level FBI official stated these blocking maneuvers were undertaken under orders from the White House (confirmed here)

• Current Democratic U.S. Senator Patrick Leahy said "The two questions that the congress will not ask . . . is why did 9/11 happen on George Bush's watch when he had clear warnings that it was going to happen? Why did they allow it to happen?"

• Current Republican Congressman Ron Paul calls for a new 9/11 investigation and states that "we see the [9/11] investigations that have been done so far as more or less cover-up and no real explanation of what went on"

• Current Democratic Congressman Dennis Kucinich hints that we aren't being told the truth about 9/11

• Current Republican Congressman Jason Chafetz says that we need to be vigilant and continue to investigate 9/11

• Former Democratic Senator Mike Gravel states that he supports a new 9/11 investigation and that we don't know the truth about 9/11

• Former Republican Senator Lincoln Chaffee endorses a new 9/11 investigation

• Former U.S. Democratic Congressman Dan Hamburg doesn't believe the official version of events

• Former U.S. Republican Congressman and senior member of the House Armed Services Committee, and who served six years as the Chairman of the Military Research and Development Subcommittee Curt Weldon has shown that the U.S. tracked hijackers before 9/11, is open to hearing information about explosives in the Twin Towers, and is open to the possibility that 9/11 was an inside job

If there is bipartisan questioning of the official story by US elected representatives, why aren't you questioning it?

Other government officials:

• U.S. General, Commanding General of U.S. European Command and Supreme Allied Commander Europe, decorated with the Bronze Star, Silver Star, and Purple Heart (General Wesley Clark) said "We've never finished the investigation of 9/11 and whether the administration actually misused the intelligence information it had. The evidence seems pretty clear to me. I've seen that for a long time"

• Former Deputy Secretary for Intelligence and Warning under Nixon, Ford, and Carter (Morton Goulder), former Deputy Director to the White House Task Force on Terrorism (Edward L. Peck), and former US Department of State Foreign Service Officer (J. Michael Springmann), as well as a who's who of liberals and independents) jointly call for a new investigation into 9/11

• Former Federal Prosecutor, Office of Special Investigations, U.S. Department of Justice under Presidents Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan; former U.S. Army Intelligence officer, and currently a widely-sought media commentator on terrorism and intelligence services (John Loftus) says "The information provided by European intelligence services prior to 9/11 was so extensive that it is no longer possible for either the CIA or FBI to assert a defense of incompetence"

• The Group Director on matters of national security in the U.S. Government Accountability Office said that President Bush did not respond to unprecedented warnings of the 9/11 disaster and conducted a massive cover-up instead of accepting responsibility

• Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense under President Ronald Reagan (Col. Ronald D. Ray) said that the official story of 9/11 is "the dog that doesn't hunt"

• The former director of the FBI (Louis Freeh) says there was a cover up by the 9/11 Commission

If top US government officials are skeptical, why aren't you?

Numerous other politicians, judges, legal scholars, and attorneys also question at least some aspects of the government's version of 9/11.

Cameron in Afghanistan - "on 911 when the twin towers were blown up"

Our shiny new PM did the first of his obligatory 'visit the troops in Afghanistan' on Friday last - 11 June.

(Pictured right in his desert warfare attire, looking suitably  grim and determined.)

All the usual cringe-inducing stuff - although at least he refrained from being pictured with a rictus grin on his face sitting awkwardly behind a machine gun in an attack helicopter, per his predecessor - but some equally crass stuff nonetheless.

Much of it was devoted to telling his audience how wonderfully heroic they are. Aangirfan has a superb skit on it here - juxtaposing his appeal for them to help him

" ....create a new atmosphere in our country, an atmosphere where we back and revere and support our military.”

and telling them

".... I want to put YOU front and centre of our national life again"

- with pictures of Adolph Hitler and his generals patronising their 'Hitler Youth' with similar hyperbole.

No doubt deeply offensive to those schooled in respect and reverence for their 'betters', but laser accurate analogies that make a telling point.

And the most deeply Freudian of Freudian slips - or should that be "Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings" ?

"... and its worth remembering why we're here why we're fighting - what this is all about. This not a war of choice, it is a war of necessity; this not a war of occupation, it's a war of obligation.

On 9/11, WHEN THE TWIN TOWERS WERE BLOWN UP

and so many BRITISH people died as well as Americans, almost every single person that took part in that attack was trained here in Afghanistan by al Qaeda ...."

Followed by more deeply patronising 'Santa Claus and the Tooth fairy' stuff about destroying their bases helping the Afghans to look after themselves before "going home with our heads held high"  etc etc.

God we're a wonderful country eh?

The brief 911 reference is on You Tube here

For those with a strong stomach, a video of the entire speech proudly adorns the Number 10 Downing Street web site here. The 911 bit is around 3 minutes in. It is an object lesson in what is required of our sock-puppet politicians - and David Cameron demonstrates just how much of a master sock-puppet he really is.

Craig Murray & 9/11

The comments sections of Craig Murray's blog often contain references to issues that Craig considers 'off-topic', to such an extent that he has taken to deleting them whenever they appear. It's his blog of course so he can do exactly as he pleases and, to give him his due, he had issued warnings it would happen.

Anyway, in deference to those who have a problem with the official narrative of the events of 9/11 (the most popular 'off-topic' subject it seems) he has posted a piece dedicated to the subject. It does NOT measure up to his usual standards. In fact, as a piece of serious analysis, it is on a par with the average 5 year old explaining to a 6-7 year old sibling just why Santa Clause and the Tooth Fairy are stories that simply MUST be believed. As in:

• I do not believe that the US government, or any of its agencies, were responsible for 9/11. It would just need too many people to be involved. Someone would have objected.

• I asked a friend in the construction industry what it would take to demolish the twin towers. He replied nine months, 80 men, and 12 miles of cabling. The notion that a small team at night could plant sufficient explosives embedded at key points, is laughable. 

(which begs an obvious question: "why bother employing 80 men for nine months and 12 miles of cabling when, on the basis of Craig's opinion, one big bang and an oxygen-starved kerosene fire will apparently do the job in a few hours from scratch? - a new demolition method has made it's debute eh? - Hit the building with a plane and/or douse it with kerosene toss a match in and it will collapse at free-fall speed into its own footprint in short order - 100% success rate to date - Craig's friend is clearly afraid for his job)

• The forces of the aircraft impacts must have been amazingly high. I have no difficulty imagining they would bring down the building. As for WTC 7, again the kinetic energy of the collapse of the twin towers must be immense. 

 - Duh - amazingly high eh?  but what about that WT7 that wasn't hit by an aeroplane? He has the answer:

• ... Unfortunately in construction it is extremely common for contractors not to fix or install properly all the expensive girders, ties and rebar that are supposed to be enclosed in the concrete. Supervising contractors and municipal inspectors can be corrupt. 

That's OK then, planes for the twin towers, corrupt builders for WT7  ... and so it goes on, with just the smigeon of a doubt about what exactly hit the Pentagon.

To give Craig his due again, he does actually conclude

"...In my view the real scandal of 9/11 was that it was blowback - the product of a malignant terrorist agency whose origins lay in CIA funding and provision." 

He's getting warm here - with his juxtaposition of 'malignant terrorist agency' and 'CIA', it even crossed my mind that he had recognised the CIA for what it is - nevertheless it is progress of sorts. Craig's problem is that, for some reason, he refuses to connect the dots. Does he really believe that CIA funding, training, arming and general manipulation of radical Muslim groups for its own purposes, stopped with the departure of the Soviets? - REALLY?

Does he not understand that the CIA and MI5  have more Muslim 'assets' in place in  (for example) Leeds and Blackburn  - ie people on whom they have extensive files and can influence through one or other of their arsenal of 'make him an offer he can't refuse' methods - than he got votes when he stood for election there?

False flag operations are far FAR more Machiavellian and far FAR less simplistic than Craig appears to suppose. In spite of our esteemed SIS's careful cultivation of that Boy's-Own James Bond (and US equivalent) image, Marquis of Queensbury rules quite simply do not apply.

If such an operation (ie a successful devastating attack - a 'New Pearl Harbour' - that could and would be instantly and credibly blamed on the required evil enemy) WERE judged necessary in order to prosecute the most momentous, pre-planned project of global militarisation, control and much ballyhooed 'Full Spectrum Dominance', in history, does Craig REALLY suppose that Deep State Agencies of the US could not or would not arrange for things to play out pretty much exactly as they appear to have done?

- a bit of agent-provocateuring here - a bit of financing there - a bit of covert obstruction of domestic intelligence/policing functions here - a bit of false trail-laying there - the occasional covert threat here - the odd assassination there - and so on -

IT IS WHAT OUR SIS's ARE THERE FOR for God's sake !!! - It's their raison d'etre - and they are both well practiced and bloody good at it.

You need only the most cursory trawl through the record of CIA involvement in South/Central America, Indonesia, The Philipines etc etc, not to mention our very own European 'Operation Gladio',  to see the depravity they will instigate, promote and foster as a matter of routine in pursuit of their mystical 'National Security Interests'.

So what of Craig's reluctance to connect the dots? I suggest it is related to the syndrome that afflicts all of us when asked to consider the possibility that our Government and its Agencies might be anything other than 'the man who wears the white hat' of those old Western films, and which cocoons us in what John McMurtry dubs the boundaries of the Ruling Group Mind. As I commented on a piece dealing with the same subject which I highly recommend on 'Nobody's' Blog:

Poor Dear Old Craig indeed. He has tasted the Establishment Good Life in the upper echelons of the British Foreign Service. Being cast adrift must be VERY hard to take and I don't envy him in his need to build an alternative career. He knows as well as anyone the price exacted by effectively challenging the REAL Western Establishment Power Structures and he's clearly not about to open a second front by going native over 911 and such - no matter what the evidence says. In a nutshell, it is near impossible to get any man to see something that his livelihood depends on his NOT seeing and Craig is clearly no exception. Or as that Old Paul Simon song has it "... still a man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest"

My guess is he will gradually acquiesce in his co-option back into The Establishment and life will thus gradually become more comfortable etc etc as he continues to respect those boundaries, his past (and present??) nuisance value notwithstanding. After all his principle issue (Government complicity in torture) is one which resonates with the public and which is therefore eminently co-optable with a bit of massaging, pious words and the passage of time. He's sending out the right signals for it and he is arguably too dangerous to be kept in the outer darkness. Silence him or co-opt him; those are the two available options. My money goes on the latter - if only because suiciding and premature deaths have been just a tad overdone this past decade or so and have to be held somewhat in reserve for sudden unforseen major threats like a Dr Kelly Mk2 or some such.

Conspiracy and the Morality of Politicians.

I've been a regular reader of Jean Michael Greer's Blog - 'The Archdruid Report' - since its inception. The guy has a handle on the implications of 'peak-oil/energy' for our globalised industrialised economic/political systems that produces regular keen insights into the way things are likely to unfold. His analyses of human societies' handling of unwelcome change is deeply thoughtful and clearly springs from extensive pondering of the issues it raises. Put all that together with with a certain gift of expression and you have a highly informative and readable blog.

So it happened that I was enjoying his latest piece when I was struck by a couple of jarring notes. They are the subject of this post.

Jean Michael is clearly a gentle man who seeks the best in people. I have no issue with that and admire him for it. But it was his repeated use of the term 'Conspiricist' and his assertion (to paraphrase) that politicians are broadly representative of the populations that they spring from - good and bad - that jarred.

Firstly the term 'Conspiracist'. Like other pejoratives, (Holocaust denier, Anti-semite, Communist, Fascist Flat-Earther etc) its use is generally intended as a debate changer by making those it is applied to appear 'beyond the pale' or 'ridiculous' and thus unworthy of a hearing. So, what is it supposed to mean? and why is it ranked right up there with those other powerful debate changers?

Jean Michael uses it to dismiss those who he sees as proposing wide-ranging or all-encompassing conspiracies as having a significant role in human affairs. Put that way it seems to me that the 'anti-conspiracists' are the ones with some explaining to do. At the most basic level of meaning, it really ought to be beyond dispute that conspiracy by constituent cliques and cabals prior to ANY type of  minuted, publicly accountable meeting or action - from the lowly local club right up to the highest reaches of government decision-making - is actually the driving force behind pretty much any and all collective human endeavour. IOW the Public Agenda is largely driven and determined by hidden, private agendas that are furthered by conspiracy. It is simply the way the world works.

So why is it that the terms 'conspiracist' and 'conspiracy theorist' have become such powerful debate-clinching pejoratives? 

Since it is invariably applied to those suggesting conspiracy and complicity by elements of the State in violence against its own people, I suggest that it has to do with peoples' overwhelming need to believe in the basic good intent of the State, its Government and Agencies. Granted they can be stupid, bungling, incompetent - even corrupt at times, but the idea that they would or could EVER act deliberately and with calculation against the interests of the general population, let alone be involved in persistent gross deception and/or deliberate acts of domestic terrorism, is simply too abhorrent and downright scary to countenance - And that in spite of overwhelming evidence that latter day Western Governments are literally up to their necks in all of those things.

Which brings me to the morality of politicians.

At the outset of a political career and discounting the allegiances that political dynasties impose, I guess the aggregate of wannabe politicians are indeed representative of the aggregate of the populations they spring from. Self-evident really and in that sense Jean Michael is quite right in his assertion. However, it is the attributes required to produces a 'successful' political career that are the nub of the matter. 'Successful' here meaning one that achieves ministerial/cabinet/Privy Council Rank in the UK or their equivalents elsewhere.

I suggest that, whatever genuinely altruistic public-service ideals may originally have motivated a politician or 'public servant', it is the progressive compromise and ultimate abandonment of any such principles that is the sine-qua-non of elevation to the high offices of State. The career progression of such an individual can be likened to the degrees of initiation bestowed by a Masonic Order. Following initial elevation by the masses, any further advancement is by invitation and appointment by superior initiates. Ability and merit may have a bearing on the matter but if so, it is ability and merit in the promotion of the official narrative of events and the State's part in them that is the crux of the matter. Such narratives effortlessly accommodate the divisions between the major political parties which boil down to little more than froth. But on their substance, no departure from orthodoxy is tolerated.

Thus, an alliance of superior, freedom-loving democracies is valiantly striving to fight the evil of terrorism and generally to do good in the world; with its heroic armed forces sacrificing their lives selflessly in multiple distant desert countries that we might avoid having to fight their malign evil in our own lands.

Take a step back and try to look at that as might a visitor from another world - or better yet as a young innocent staring at his naked Emperor. It is so self-evidently absurd as to be risible, yet it IS the basic official narrative of the early 21st century, lapped up by a fearful, insecure and gullible population. It is trotted out endlessly by mainstream political parties and media of ALL persuasions in the manner almost of a religious creed and woe-betide anyone - especially an ambitious politician - who dares question it.

It is the sordid realities behind that and other absurd 'official narratives' that the ambitious politician is gradually initiated into such that, by the time the higher degrees are reached, there is little of principle left in the initiate beyond defence  of the existing power structures at any price. My latest (somewhat seasonal) analogy for the relationship between the State and its general population is that, as a matter of rigid orthodoxy, communication is conducted around an intellectual and emotional framework not unlike that of a parent and 5 year old child but absent any altruistic/parental bond - such that the official narratives of most events of importance are massaged to a level of factual accuracy resembling those of Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy. In other words - in the interests of an over-riding imperative to maintain 'The System' and protect its corrupt, self-serving interests, we are lied to systematically as a matter of time-honoured and sanctified practice - PERIOD. In the immortal words of that venerable Irish muckraker Caud Cockburn therefore: "Never believe anything until it has been officially denied".

On the narrow subject of 'conspiracy theories' and terrorism, I personally doubt more than about 10% of all so-called terrorist outrages in the West occur without deep complicity on the part of our SIS's and their 'assets' - its called 'calibrating the level of violence and tension the better to further the policy agenda and secure compliance from a fearful population',  and anyone who thinks that an exaggeration - or more likely absurd - should first of all read up on 'Operation Gladio' as a primer before moving onto the more outrageous stuff. The information is readily available; it is just studiously ignored, other than as the occasional butt of ritualised ridicule, by the MSM.

So personally and in spite of JMG's admonitions, I'll stick with 'conspiracy theory' rather than 'coincidence theory' as a consistently superior explanation of events, with States, their Governments and especially their SI Agencies - per Spymaster extraordinaire Robert Cecil and his foolhardy dissident victim Guy Fawkes - as the model conspirators.

Torture: The Justification

"Our aim is to put you in hell so you will tell the truth. These are the orders we have from our superiors, to turn your lives into hell." --- US soldier to Abu Ghraib detainee [1]

Coming out of the woodwork ... as if from the woodcut of waterboarding in the Spanish Inquisition, stepping out, into our lives, assuming three dimensional features, taking on flesh tones, inhaling and exhaling... figures who declare with serious faces that ... torture .... Works.

They tell us:

• We will extract confessions from you.
• We know that you know what we want.
• We will tell you what we know about you and your co-conspirators and what we know that you know.
• We will tell you again and again and again and again until you tell us what we have told you so that we may know the truth. [2]
• We will pour jugs of water onto your face till you choke and struggle against your binds, to purify you.
• We will tell you that if you don't talk that you will surely die.
• We will put you in coffin-sized boxes for hours.
• We will throw you against the walls. Repeatedly.
• We will strip you naked and set dogs upon you.
• We will deny you sleep for days upon days.
• We will tell you that we will not ever stop until you have made your peace with us and confess freely and fully.
• We will slap you and beat you until you tell us what we want.
• We are, you must know, a merciful people, a kind people, a just, and a moral people.
• There are no more merciful, more kind, more just, more moral people than us.
• We are so just and moral that we can do these things to you and not be sullied by it.
• We remain moral and righteous as we beat you because our intentions are so pure. [3]
• We are protecting Americans' lives and if we have to suffocate you or beat you to death, we do so in the name of the American people, whose lives are more precious than your pitiful lying life.
• Our morality and justice is so great – Lord Be Praised - that you envy us this righteous life that we live, which is why you hate us so.
• But we are stronger and mightier than you.
• For we have God on our side.
• And you, you have nothing but superstition.
• We spit on your Quran.
• We are God's soldiers. [4]
• We will put your heads on sticks and rock your world. [5]
• We will demonstrate the superiority of our All Mighty compared to your pitiful heathen beliefs.
• We shall turn your life into a living hell.
• We shall teach you a lesson that you will not forget, nor your family, nor your neighbors, nor your mosque, nor your countrymen.
• In the Middle East, in Asia, in the world as a whole, we are the One.
• For you have no power. We have it all.

Notes

1. From Andy Worthington, 'Seven Years of Torture: Binyam Mohamed tells his story'.
2. "Understandably unable to resist the effects of the torture, Binyam proceeded to confess to whatever wild theories were put to him by his torturers. 'They had fed me enough through their questions for me to make up what they wanted to hear,' he said. 'I confessed to it all. There was the plot to build a dirty nuclear bomb, and another to blow up apartments in New York with their gas pipes.' As Rose noted, 'This - supposedly the brainchild of the 9/11 planner Khalid Sheikh Mohammed - always sounded improbable: it was never quite clear how gas pipes might become weapons.'"Binyam added, 'I said Khalid Sheikh Mohammed had given me a false passport after I was stopped the first time in Karachi and that I had met Osama bin Laden 30 times. None of it was true. The British could have stopped the torture because they knew I had tried to use the same passport at Karachi both times. That should have told them that what I was saying under torture wasn't true. But so far as I know, they did nothing.'" From Worthington, 'Seven Years of Torture'.
3. "Obama credited not Mr. Bush but the former Central Intelligence Agency director Michael V. Hayden and the former director of national intelligence Mike McConnell, who 'really had America's security interests in mind when they acted, and I think were mindful of American values and ideals.'" (From Helene Cooper and Stolberg Gay Stolberg, 'Obama Ponders Outreach to Elements of Taliban', New York Times, March 7, 2009.
4. "'You are the sovereign. Your name is holy. You are the pure spotless lamb,' a female voice cried out on the loudspeakers as the marines clapped their hands and closed their eyes, reflecting on what lay ahead for them." The scene was reported by Agence France-Presse on Nov. 6, 2004" (From Mark Crispin Miller, 'Bush and Cheney's War on the Enlightenment', in Dennis Loo and Peter Phillips (eds.), Impeach the President: the Case Against Bush and Cheney (New York: Seven Stories Press, 2006) 193. - And, "At Fallujah, the Marines used napalm and white phosphorous - weapons banned by international law - to immolate the people living there, and saw that it was good; for in King David they thought they could see themselves, Agence France-Presse observed: "'The marines drew parallels from the verse with their present situation, where they perceive themselves as warriors fighting barbaric men opposed to all that is good in the world.'" Miller, 'Bush and Cheney's War', 194.
5. "With regret," the Russian official said, "I have to say that you are going to get the hell kicked out of you [in Afghanistan]." One of the Americans responded... "We're going to kill them," the U.S. official asserted. "We're going to put their heads on sticks. We're going to rock their world." From Bob Woodward, Bush at War (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2002), 103.

Source: Dennis Loo

The American Torture Memos

These memos really are sick, sick SICK!

I've been acutely aware of the whole, undeniable, gross mistreatment of prisoners thing for years now but reading those documents is still shocking - not surprising but truly shocking. I was forcefully reminded of the NAZI's penchant for legalistic documentation of their atrocities. The US really has lost the plot when it comes to any shred of a claim to 'the moral high ground' - but, like its protege Zionist Israel, appears oblivious to its wretchedness.

There was an interview with a young black 'CIA Spokesman' on Channel 4 TV News last night. The guy was maybe 30-35 years old, handsome, clean cut, a bit like a young Sidney Poitier in appearance. His brief was clearly one of damage limitation and his performance was surreal. As usual with our MSM, he was given an easy ride by Krishnan Guru-Murthy the interviewer but in the event it made no difference. He was like a smiling automaton. I lost count of the stock phrases: 'Terrorism is worlds biggest threat'; 'to keep Americans safe from terrorism'; 'to keep Americans free from the fear of terrorism', 'Terrorism', 'Terrorism', 'Terrorists', 'Terrorists', 'Americans this', 'Americans that' - like clockwork. Substitute 'Terrorist(ism)' with 'Witch(craft)' and the meaning would have been unchanged. Inevitably - and quite unprompted - he invoked 9/11 with the words 'we lost over 3,000 lives to terrorists on 9/11 and we want to make sure that does not happen again'. Had I been that interviewer I would have shot back something like "..... but you have lost over 300,000 lives on your roads since then - that's the equivalent of over 100 9/11's !! - with maybe a further million dead and over 3 million displaced lives ruined by your military in Iraq and Afghanistan. Do you not think it high time we found some sense of proportion here?"

But of course such a question is absolutely verboten and more than any interviewers job is worth - and the interviewer knows it too (not to mention that the interviewee was clearly incapable of understanding such a question). So we are fed pap: "Americans have the right" etc etc ad-infinitum and of course, as loyal poodles we in the UK must support and assist in the enforcement of those 'rights'.

Frankly I am sick, weary and tired of hearing about 'Americans' - 'My fellow Americans' hand-on-heart, misty-eyed stares into the middle-distance to the strains of the 'By the Dawn's early light' - It's enough to make any sane human being want to puke. Patriotic nationalism - particularly of the sickly sentimental goodies -v- baddies American variety has one hell of a lot to answer for.

Gallows Humour

Hilarious, wry, black humour - US style. The general principles illustrated being equally applicable to the UK.

In the teeth of self-evidently unsustainable, fossil-fuelled, exponential economic and population growth on a finite planet, and with the real implications of 'peak-oil' becoming unsettlingly clear, this video encapsulates many of the State's instinctive responses; not to mention the true nature of its government.

I particularly liked 'Democracy at gunpoint', Celebrating uniformity of speech', 'One media - one voice', 'Fighting terrorism by creating it', 'Lest they forget - we'll remind';

and my favourite: 'Financial security through financial insolvency' which of course is the established (but teetering on the brink of collapse) first principle of Western globalised economics.

And ........ with all coins minted in depleted uranium - what else?

oh! - and watch for the 'a proportion of every Halliburton purchase is donated to.....' bye-line at the end - priceless !

"Phoney Soldiers"

The following is an extended comment from a post on a US military blogg. The post itself is by Alex, a young soldier (pictured) who has just returned from an extended 1 year tour of duty in Iraq. It is his second post dealing with Rush Limbaugh, a US MSM columnist, dubbing those in the military who voice opposition to the Iraq war as 'Phony Soldiers'. The post comment encapsulates a burgeoning domestic disillusionment with 'The American Dream'. It's description of the gross subordination and corruption of the political process to the interests of Plutocratic Globalised Corporate America and its military enforcers in a largely phony 'War on Terror' rang some loud bells with me.

Well Alex, I knew it would happen. Your last post got Americans sided off and slinging shit in the now usual polarized way, wasting the American dream with all of its great potential unrealized. We could have been a better country than this. I for one am no longer willing to argue with people who are bitterly, viscerally opposed to everything I believe and know.

All any of us have is our own reality, arrived at carefully or carelessly. Me, I'm a Democrat, lifetime. I study the Constitution and read the writings of the Founders. I think about what is required of an American citizen if our grand experiment is to survive. I read all I can from as many diverse sources as I can find to understand what's going on in the world. I arrive at my own views. I don't want them spoon-fed to me.

I didn't believe Bush even while he campaigned for the White House with his promise of a "humble" foreign policy. I knew who was behind him. I was right. When 9/11 came I was as traumatized and angry as anybody. But I also knew there was something fishy about it, and something very convenient for the neoconservatives. Apparently, by the way they responded to Bush's way of talking about it, a lot of Americans thought 9/11 was as simple as a glass of spilled milk. They still do today.

When within weeks 9/11 rage was steered onto the need to crush Iraq, I KNEW there was something fishy about it. I knew a lot about Iraq. After all, we'd been to war there ten years earlier. I was highly skeptical of the allegations coming from the White House all pressing for war. I was 100% skeptical about the flowers and chocolates and cakewalk talk, because I knew about the way the horrible Hussein had with blood and fear held together the incompatible ethnic and religious divides in that country, had been keeping the lid on what would explode into chaos without him or someone like him.

I knew Iraq and al Qaeda in league was an impossible farce. I knew it. I knew it, damn me. I knew it but I let the administration sow doubt in my mind. And then, the only way I can put it is, Americans became the victims of terror for the second time in a year. What am I referring to? I am referring to the specter of a "mushroom cloud over an American city" -- Saddam's nuclear weapons given to his partner bin Laden and blowing us up. Who could have the gall to terrify Americans, reeling from 9/11, with this if it wasn't true?

Cheney said it. Bush said it. Rice said it. Rumsfeld might have said it, I can't remember. Then Limbaugh screamed it. Hannity screamed it. O'Reilly screamed it. All of FOX TV and AM talk radio screamed it. A bunch of Paul Reveres, apparently... patriots sounding the call to arms.

And then, like 95% of Americans, I blinked. I flinched. I turned my back on everything I knew about the matter, because in my heart of hearts I did not believe any US government could lie to the American people about something like that. To do so would be an unspeakable act of cruelty and cynicism inflicted on a whole country suffering varying degrees of PTSD from watching those planes hit the skyscrapers again and again, hundreds of times, thousands of times. I fell back to the usual place we go when we surrender our freedom and sovereignty as citizens, accepting that I did not have the intelligence that the White House had, that this was something only they could know, something they would never say if it wasn't true, and doubt it as I might, I could not afford to disbelieve it, which would be tantamount to inviting the blinding sun-bright mushroom of death over my own city and my own loved ones. So when Shock and Awe came, I was all right with it.

But I was wrong and 95% of America was wrong. Bush lied. Cheney lied. Rice lied. They knew they were trick-fucking a defenseless public and they had the cold heart to go right ahead and do it. And so did their cheerleader Rush Limbaugh.

Americans want to trust their leaders. But the unspeakable has happened and we've been had. It's all out in the open now. But many still can't face the truth.

And here we arrive at the end of my little confession. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice shame on me. I will not be a child who trusts his child molester daddy. I will not be a wife who trusts her wife-beater husband.

The architects of this war, and their media mouthpieces, have committed the ultimate acts of savagery and contempt against the very people who depend on them with their lives for nobility, for courage, for selfless leadership, for the TRUTH. They have betrayed us, over and over again, day in, day out, with their lies and their fear mongering.

Look at the comments on your last post. Why are we a divided nation, as divided as we've ever been since the Civil War, divided friend against friend, father against son, family against family? Because of LIARS, cynical, heartless liars with hidden self-serving agendas that cannot stand the light of day. Liars do not heal or unite or produce happy outcomes. But they can divide. Look at us.

I don't care about Rush Limbaugh or George Bush. Just don't tread on me any more, fellas. Keep the snake oil to yourselves. I am awake again. And I'm not going back to sleep. I am committed to only one thing: trying to pick my country up from the rubble of division, confusion and fear to which it has been reduced, and to attempt CPR on the American Dream until somebody pulls me off the body politic and pulls a sheet over it. That's all there is left to do.

The rest of the blogg provides unvarnished insights into the ugly realities of the occupation. As for example in Alex's description of a relatively trivial incident consequent on revised tactics intended to get the military to interact with Iraqui civilians more:

We were one of few units to see Iraq before and after the surge. If the media got anything right, it was that the surge failed. The idea, as birthed in a bloody, mucous-y blob of counter production by General Petreaus, is quite simple on paper, impossible to execute in a meddling reality. The concept is that combat troops would move from their huge bases that housed obscene luxuries like beds, flushing toilets and running water, and into outposts within the most dangerous parts of the city. The key to it all would be 24/7 interaction with Iraqi Army and a constant presence among the Iraqi citizens, giving them confidence in the mission of coalition forces. The building we picked used to be a whiskey distillery, and we've been busy putting up concrete barriers and wire around it. A house was too close to where the wall was supposed to be, so engineers blew it to smithereens and sent the family packing. The father owned the plot for forty years and comes by every so often to collect the useful bricks left scattered a hundred yards in every direction. Before he entered once, I patted his seventy year old frame down like a common criminal.

Talk about community interaction!

Peter Tatchell and 9/11

I'm not a big fan of Peter Tatchell. Over the years, whilst acknowledging its overall validity, his 'in-your-face' style of protest about 'gay-rights' had me mildly bemused. However, it was when he started to demand that hunting be outlawed (ie that a fundamental aspect of my life be made illegal) whilst similarly demanding all manner legal safeguards, freedoms, special treatment etc for his own minority, that I was forced to conclude that he was just another hypocrite, blinded by his own particular brand of prejudice.

Having said all that, his readiness to put himself at risk for his beliefs (as when he got a beating whilst trying to 'arrest' Robert Mugabe in Brussels back in 2001 for example) remains impressive. Similarly with his latest piece on 'Comment is Free' about 9/11. He risks being branded a tin-foil-hat-wearing conspiracy nutter - which is exactly the thrust of many of the comments on the piece.

Anyway; here's my take on the matter:

The principal issue raised in his piece has nothing whatever to do with wacky conspiracy theories and everything to do with reasonable demands for a thorough, open and properly funded inquiry - free from the partisan pressure of 'The official Narrative' - into the biggest terrorist attack in history. That is EXACTLY what the authors of the existing inquiry report say did NOT happen - and it's not much to ask. To those who say 'it's obvious what happened, move on' etc etc (usually accompanied by outraged ridiculing insults), I say it is very far from obvious. It is no exaggeration to say that 9/11 has changed the course of history. 'Cui Bono?' should therefore dictate a major strand of any such inquiry. After all, from readily available public information, it's not much of a stretch to postulate that key figures in the US Administration had, at the very least, both the motive and the means to make the success of such an attack more likely.

'Perish the thought' is the standard response, but that's exactly the problem. The thought that one's own government could be complicit in such an event is so scary and abhorrent that it is immediately discounted out-of-hand. The net result is that 'Kill the messenger' is applied to anyone who raises the issue - in spades - as is amply demonstrated in the article's comments.

Those with 'both motive and means' know that such a reaction can be relied upon absolutely.

After all we're not called 'The Sheeple' for nothing you know.

Sixth Anniversary of 9/11

Expect wall-to-wall coverage of the events of September 11th 2001 on this the sixth anniversary.

But among all the reports of silences observed, loved ones mourned and bravery recognised, do not expect to hear ANY criticism or questioning of the official narrative of those events. An official narrative so riddled with inconsistencies and persistently, perversely, unanswered questions, as to render its credibility on a par with the wackiest of 'Conspiracy theories'.

And what of the resulting 'War on Terror'? And those inane, infantile sound-bites trotted out in its justification?

• They hate us for our freedom.
• We're fighting them there so they don't come over here.
• Saddam Hussein supported 9/11.
• No one could've predicted they'd use planes as missiles.
• They caught us by surprise.
• The fires caused the buildings to collapse.
• Flight 93 was taken down by hero passengers.
• George Bush made us feel secure during those days.

And many many more in similar vein?

This video sums up my feelings about latter-day America (and its British poodle) - and the narrative of the US leading an alliance of good western nations against the forces of evil in the world. The reality is that we are so self-obsessed, self-righteous and blinded by the hubris of Empire (British one lost and US one in progress) - that too many of us actually believe we have some God-given duty to require the rest of the world to see things our way - OR ELSE !!

As for questioning the official narrative of ANYTHING - forget it. After all, the State is our protector and would never do anything that was not in the best interests of its Sheeple - now would it?

( Hat-tip to Vidiot )

Oil, Smoke & Mirrors

I've been pre-occupied with 'Peak Oil' and its relationship to constant government sponsored scare-mongering about the so called (and to me clearly phony) 'war on terror' lately. Complex subjects both, but deeply intertwined and plagued with 'smoke and mirrors'.

So the title of this video caught my eye. It is a disturbingly convincing introduction to the issues.