More Than a Failing

Woke Up And America Was Gone

By Ted Lang

04/19/04 "ICH" -- Isn't it astonishing how everything that has critical relevance to the most serious threats to our precious freedom is now clouded in the newspeak of "intelligence failures," or "structural and legal impediments," or Cool Hand Luke-style "failures to communicate," or "failures to coordinate," and the like? Why not throw in "inadequate funding" as well? All are deliberate and calculated creative obstacles of wordsmith newspeak to prime the obeisant, subservient, American corporate media to assist in the Bush administration's propaganda drive to mislead the dumbed-down, unwashed masses and street rabble.

The Bush administration figured they simply had to allow the creation of the National Commission on Terrorist Activities Upon the United States, the 9-11 Commission, to stave off the agitation from the "four moms" from New Jersey, as Gail Sheehy of the New York Observer refers to them. These are the liberal enemies of our state Rush Limbaugh referred to, pointing out that they are only raising hell because they hate President George W. Bush because of all his wealth and freedom. They have become "politicized" Limbaugh and other Bush sycophants offer, and don't really care that their husbands were killed on 9-11. Limbaugh sees them only as "libs" trying to disparage his Fuehrer, Der Schmirkmeister.

America should have realized immediately that we were in trouble when Bush, after initially resisting the creation of the commission, picked Henry Kissinger to head it. Kissinger, involved in another pigpen fiasco at that time, realized that the notoriety of his chairmanship would draw attention to his on-going activities, which in all likelihood hastened his departure.

And the commission's current chair, former New Jersey Republican Governor Thomas Kean, appears to have a conflict of interest connection to the Amerada Hess/Delta Oil consortium involving him with Khalid bin Mahfouz. Mahfouz's younger sister is married to Osama bin Laden. As pointed out by Michel Chossudovsky and Tom Flocco, bin Mahfouz is suspected as having funnelled millions of dollars to al Qaeda. Isn't the commission supposed to be investigating al Qaeda?

It was obvious right from the beginning that the 9-11 investigation was yet another "Warren Commission" whitewash along the same lines as that commission's cover-up of the JFK assassination. And the long drawn out and eagerly awaited testimony of National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice was another well-orchestrated display of newspeak. 

Prior to her testimony, Rice, by her attacks on counterterrorism official Richard Clarke's testimony and comments, showed early on the thrust of her prepared testimony. She immediately went on the offensive by shifting the nation's attention from vital defence issues relevant to the 9-11 attacks to the totally irrelevant offensive planning on the part of the Bush administration against al Qaeda.

In her pre-testimony prepared speech, she laundry listed government agencies and directors, relating how each area of American government coordinated a strategy to "protect" America offensively. Already sharply contradicted, was this remark from Rice: "The threat reporting that we received in the spring and summer of 2001 was not specific as to time, nor place, nor manner of attack. Almost all of the reports focused on al Qaeda activities outside the United States, especially in the Middle East and North Africa."

She goes on, "The briefing item [Aug. 6, 2001 PDB] reviewed past intelligence reporting, mostly dating from the 1990s, regarding possible al Qaeda plans to attack inside the United States. It referred to uncorroborated reporting that from 1998 that terrorists might attempt to hijack a U.S. aircraft in an attempt to blackmail the government into releasing U.S.-held terrorists who had participated in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. This briefing item was not prompted by any specific threat information. And it did not raise the possibility that terrorists might use airplanes as missiles." Although this document has now been released, there are reports that for the one and a half "declassified" pages of the Aug. 6 PDB released to the public, there are ten other pages still missing.

But there were no "specifics" involving possible airline hijackings subsequent to the Cuban Missile Crisis either, yet American pilots carried sidearms in anticipation of such by agents of Cuba. Why weren't such simple precautions repeated for domestic hijacking threats to American domestic flights by the Bush administration? 

Wasn't the FAA up to speed as regards hijacking threats, or is it the position of the Bush administration that hijackings present no threat at all? Yet Rice offers, "The FAA issued at least five Civil Aviation Security Information Circulars to all U.S. airlines and airport security personnel, including specific warnings about the possibility of hijackings." Where was the simple follow-up to ensure airliners were secure for the safety of passengers?

And then of course, there's America's version of Hitler's Gestapo or Stalin's KGB, the FBI. Where was "our" FBI in "peace and war?" Rice again: "The FBI issued at least three nationwide warnings to Federal, State, and local law enforcement agencies, and specifically stated that, although the vast majority of the information indicated overseas targets, attacks against the homeland could not be ruled out. The FBI also tasked all 56 of its U.S. field offices to increase surveillance of known or suspected terrorists and reach out to known informants who might have information on terrorist activities."

Rice then contradicts her own testimony: "Despite the fact that the vast majority of the threat information we received was focused overseas, I was concerned about possible threats inside the United States. On July 5, chief of staff Andy Card and I met with Dick Clarke, and I asked Dick to make sure that domestic agencies were aware of the heightened threat period and were taking appropriate steps to respond, even though we did not have specific threats to the homeland."

Which is it? Was American government aware or not aware of potential domestic terrorist acts involving airliners immediately prior to 9-11? And why weren't hijackings of domestic flights considered a threat? Even The New York Times got caught up in Rice's newspeak. In their April 12th article entitled "Disclosures Put F.B.I.'s Actions Under Scrutiny," reporter Eric Lichtblau offers, "New disclosures about the warnings President Bush received before Sept. 11, 2001, are fueling a central question for the commission investigating the attacks on that date: What exactly was the F.B.I. doing that summer to deter an attack by Al Qaeda on American soil?"

Lichtblau goes on, "The answer, Mr. Bush said on Sunday, was that the Federal Bureau of Investigation was investigating known links to Osama bin Laden in the United States, with 70 active cases reported that summer. 'That's great, that's what we expect the F.B.I. to do,' he told reporters. Critics of the F.B.I., however, say the bureau missed numerous opportunities to head off the attacks. Agents that summer were tracking tantalizing leads that included a suspicious flight student in Minneapolis, an ominous warning in Phoenix and a phone call to a United States embassy in the Middle East."

The Minneapolis and Phoenix references Lichtblau cites involve the frustrating stonewalling experienced by FBI field operatives Coleen Crowley and Ken Williams. Crowley documented investigative failures at FBI headquarters on the part of supervisory personnel in the Moussauoi investigation, and Williams experienced the same problem when he saw the connection of young Arab men taking flying lessons focusing on flying instructions sans take-offs and landings.
But Lichtblau's corporate media allegiance to Washington DC evidences itself in this statement: "But investigations were stymied by miscommunication, dead ends, bureaucratic and legal obstacles, and unclear priorities, officials say." But this line of excuses doesn't square at all with the observations of former FBI interpreter Sibel Edmonds, who offers, "The field agents are wonderful, but they were terribly exasperated with the D.C. office." Gail Sheehy in her article for the New York Observer, "Whistleblower Coming in Cold From the F.B.I." on April 12th, details not only the frustrations experienced by the "wonderful field agents," but the outrageous and criminal behavior of FBI Headquarters.

Sheehy goes on: "While the news was full of reports of heaps of untranslated material languishing inside the F.B.I.'s counterterrorism unit, Ms. Edmonds has claimed that translators were told to let them pile up. She said she remembers a supervisor's instructions 'to just say no to those field agents calling us to beg for speedy translations' so that the department could use the pileup as evidence to demand more money from the Senate. Another colleague she recalls saying bitterly, 'This is our time to show those a**holes we are in charge.'" Sheehy also documents Edmonds' complaints relative to FBI internal security, and her unceasing quest to expose the corruption and incompetence of a politicized FBI.

Sheehy relates in her article, "When Ms. Edmonds wouldn't go away or keep still, F.B.I. Director [Robert] Mueller asked Attorney General John Ashcroft to assert the State Secrets Privilege in the case of Ms. Edmonds versus the Department of Justice. Mr. Ashcroft obliged." Sheehy explains the FBI's method to silence criticism: "On the morning Ms. Edmonds was terminated, she said, she was escorted from the building by an agent she remembered as saying: 'We will be watching you and listening to you. If you dare to consult an attorney who is not approved by the F.B.I., or if you take this issue outside the F.B.I. to the Senate, the next time I see you, it will be in jail.'

Shortly after her dismissal, F.B.I. agents turned up at the door of Ms. Edmonds townhouse to seize her home computer. She was then called in to be polygraphed - a test which, she found out later, she passed." Even when she finally took her story to the Senate Judiciary Committee, FBI Gestapo goons threatened her on the steps of the United States Senate Office Building.

Both President Bush and National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice acknowledged publicly that not only did FBI Headquarters know about impending domestic airlines threats immediately before 9-11, but issued directives to ALL their 56 field offices. And when the field offices provided "tantalizing leads," untranslated evidence, and other proof of imminent domestic attack by terrorists, what did FBI HQ do? NOTHING!!!

How do these now become "investigations stymied by miscommunication, dead ends, bureaucratic and legal obstacles, and unclear priorities?" I have written articles over two years ago demanding either Robert Mueller III's resignation, or more appropriately, his dismissal. Neither is appropriate any longer. Considering his threats towards field Agent Ken Williams and his complicity with Attorney General John Ashcroft to threaten and silence Senate witness Sibel Edmonds, he should be handcuffed, read his Miranda rights, taken into custody, indicted and jailed. He should be tried for treason!

How do the actions of Mueller and Ashcroft differ from what could be experienced at either the hands of the Nazis or the Soviet KGB? Will their criminal activities come up for discussion during the conduct of yet another phony, political, whitewash cover-up commission? Don't count on it!

Already the typical big brother government solutions are being offered. Since everything can be identified as resulting from a lack of funding, we need to increase funding. Since it is inappropriate to hold either Bush and Mueller or their perfumed prince appointees at the FBI accountable, especially after they've been rewarded and promoted for doing a much worse than lousy job costing US the loss of 3,000 of our fellow citizens, we need to do a complete reorganization. So along with rewarding the incompetent and promoting them, we need to expand this huge inefficient government intelligence machine, and make it even bigger and more intrusive. We need additional provisions to stifle Americans' freedoms further.

And as usual, we need more taxes to fix an already bloated, criminal, and inefficient government to make it more …what? Higher taxes, more intrusive unconstitutional snooping and spying, Stasi police state spying by citizens on each other, more SWAT teams, more machine-gun-toting patrols, more wanding, by more and more government morons. There was no communications failure! There was no intelligence failure! There were no organizational and legal impediments. There was only one failure: the administration of President George W. Bush. And now they're blaming Clinton. Sure we had terrorist acts with Clinton, but nothing like the massive failure of the Bush administration on September 11, 2001.

Theodore E. Lang <tlang1@optonline.net>

© THEODORE E. LANG 4/15/04 All rights reserved