The ravings of Alexander Cockburn / CounterPunch (among others) and the Limits of Permissable Discourse Concerning 9/11
9/11: Pathetic "Left" Disinformation
The ravings of Alexander Cockburn / CounterPunch (among others) and the Limits of Permissable Discourse Concerning 9/11
Crimes of the State
The miserable depths of inanity are upon us. Rock bottom is in view over at the "left" and "alternative" press.
Not only has September 11th been completely covered up by a White House that would not allow an independent investigation for over a year, but they then rigged the investigation staffing such that no one could honestly apply the "independent" label with a clean conscience.
That's not a "cult" secret, is it?
Is such an observation only possible by the UFO "nuts?"
Given hundreds, perhaps thousands of incriminating facts, facts that cast suspicion on the Executive Branch, these alleged opposition journals will not touch it. More than that, they actively demonize, ridicule and childishly mock the 70 million or so of us Americans who are not satisfied with the government's explanation of September 11th 2001.
Alexander Cockburn's CounterPunch calls itself "America's Best Political Newsletter", but on 9/11 issues it amounts to little more than the hysterical fits of a toddler. Here is a sampling:
"Flying Saucers and the Decline of the Left"
"They find it in the 9/11 conspiracy cult..."
"I think the nuttishness stems from despair and political infantilism."
"There's no worthwhile energy to transfer from such kookery."
Cockburn is malicious and sarcastic, yet uninformed and ignorant. He comments on the more outrageous claims and suppositions of the 9/11 crowd, such as a missile hitting the Pentagon. He does not comment on the far more verifiable and incriminating warnings received by the White House, their experiences at the Genoa G8 summit, nor the Pakistani intelligence funding connection, Able Danger, nor protected drug smuggling at the "flight school" in Venice, Florida, to say nothing of numerous FBI terrorism investigations that were "shut down" before the attacks.
Seeing how it looks like the "Pentagate" flap was deliberately designed into the plot for just that reason: to open up skeptics to ridicule, Cockburn is now actively working to promote the government's anti-conspiracy agenda and to blindly defend them. For what motive, I cannot say. I can say that he should, and probably does, know better.
More evidence of "left" duplicity is that ideas like Bush operatives carrying out the 9/11 attacks -- planting explosives and guiding missiles -- are deliberately conflated with the idea of Bush's regime simply letting it happen, not arresting the perpetrators beforehand. These two scenarios are completely different, yet these "left" journals treat them as identical. In response to these two very different scenarios:
"...Bush either masterminded it [the 9/11 attacks] or knew in advance and let it happen. " (emphasis added)
Cockburn's response is simply to dismiss either possibility as "nuttishness" and "kookery."
Here is a partial list of warnings the White House received during the summer of 2001; bear in mind that this is limited to only what was released to the public:
"Newspapers in Germany, France, Russia and London reported in the months before September 11th of a blizzard of warnings delivered to the Bush administration from all points on the compass. The German intelligence service BND warned American and Israeli agencies that terrorists were planning to hijack commercial aircraft and use them as weapons to attack important American targets. Egypt warned of a similar plane-based plot against Bush during the G-8 summit in Genoa last June, a warning taken so seriously that anti-aircraft batteries were placed around Columbus Airport in Italy."
"Last August (2001), Russian intelligence services notified the
CIA that 25 terrorist pilots had been trained for suicide missions, and Putin
himself confirmed that this warning was delivered "in the strongest possible
terms" specifically regarding threats to airports and government buildings.
In that same month, the Israeli security agency Mossad issued a warning to
both the FBI and CIA that up to 200 bin Laden followers were planning a major
assault on America, aimed at vulnerable targets. The Los Angeles Times later
confirmed via unnamed US officials that the Mossad warnings had been received."
-Newsweek, May 20, 2002
"U.S. President George W. Bush will not stay with other world leaders because of fear of terrorist attack." -G8 summit death shocks leaders, CNN, July 21, 2001
"Nevertheless, FBI information since that time indicates patterns of suspicious activity in this country consistent with preparations for hijackings or other types of attacks, including recent surveillance of federal buildings in New York. (...) CIA and the FBI are investigating a call to our embassy in the UAE in May saying that a group of Bin Ladin supporters was in the US planning attacks with explosives." -August 6, 2001, Presidents' Daily Briefing (heavily redacted unclassified version)
"His testimony followed statements in court Monday by Harry Samit, the FBI agent who arrested Moussaoui in Minnesota, that FBI superiors ignored his repeated warnings that Moussaoui might be a terrorist interested in hijacking an airliner. The bureau's failures thwarted an opportunity to prevent the attacks, he said.
Under cross-examination by defense attorney MacMahon, Samit acknowledged that he warned higher-ups and others in the government at least 70 times that Moussaoui was a terrorist, and detailed much of his information on Moussaoui in a 24-page document CBS News correspondent Jim Stewart reports." -(emphasis added), CBS News , FBI Big: Moussaoui Barely Discussed In Testimony, FBI Supervisor Says He Spent About 20 Seconds On Case, March 21, 2006
"(CBS) Two of the Sept. 11 hijackers who lived in San Diego in 2000 rented a room from a man who reportedly worked as an undercover FBI informant, highlighting the lack of cooperation by the nation's law enforcement and intelligence agencies.
Newsweek magazine reports that Khalid Almihdhar and Nawaf Alhazmi lived with a "tested" undercover "asset" who had been working closely with the FBI office in San Diego." -CBS News, Hijackers Lived With FBI Informant, Sept. 9. 2002
"... the case of Khalid al-Mihdhar and Nawaf al-Hazmi, believed to have participated in the hijacking of American Airlines Flight 77, which hit the Pentagon on 9/11. Despite being on a CIA watch list because of connections to Al Qaeda, the two lived openly in San Diego, California for a year or more." -FBI inspector general’s report: more evidence of government complicity in 9/11 attacks, Patrick Martin, 15 June 2005
"[The Phoenix Memo] was sent to the attention of six people at FBI headquarters and two more at the New York Division. The recipients included personnel and leadership of both the Usama Bin Laden Unit and the Radical Fundamentalists Unit, the latter comprising a separate group of agents assigned to investigate Islamist militants not directly affiliated to Al Qaeda.
None of the agents who received the EC took any serious action. Several did not even read it. The report attributes the inaction and inattention to the lack of resources committed to anti-terrorist activities in the summer of 2001 [in the midst of all those threat warnings!]. For instance, there was only a single research analyst assigned to the FBI’s Bin Laden Unit in 2001, and she was transferred to another unit in July 2001." FBI inspector general’s report: more evidence of government complicity in 9/11 attacks, Patrick Martin, 15 June 2005
"Hijacker Mohamed Atta is put under surveillance by the CIA while living in Germany. [Agence France-Presse, 9/22/2001; Focus (Munchen), 9/24/2001; Berliner Zeitung (Berlin), 9/24/2001]
He is “reportedly observed buying large quantities of chemicals in Frankfurt, apparently for the production of explosives [and/or] for biological warfare.” “The US agents reported to have trailed Atta are said to have failed to inform the German authorities about their investigation,” even as the Germans are investigating many of his associates.
“The disclosure that Atta was being trailed by police long before 11 September raises the question why the attacks could not have been prevented with the man’s arrest.” [Observer, 9/30/2001]
A German newspaper adds that Atta is able to get a visa into the US on May 18. (...) However, a congressional inquiry later reports that the US “intelligence community possessed no intelligence or law enforcement information linking 16 of the 19 hijackers [including Atta] to terrorism or terrorist groups.” [US Congress, 9/20/2002]
In 2005, after accounts of the Able Danger program learning Atta’s name become news, newspaper account will neglect to mention this prior report about Atta being known by US intelligence. For instance, the New York Times will report, “The account [about Able Danger] is the first assertion that Mr. Atta, an Egyptian who became the lead hijacker in the plot, was identified by any American government agency as a potential threat before the Sept. 11 attacks”(see August 9, 2005) . [New York Times, 8/9/2005] -Center for Cooperative Research
Helping to Muddy the Waters
The Defense (sic) Department deliberately released questionable evidence of the alleged "Flight 77" crash, pushing in our faces inconclusive images, and refusing to release all of the images. Arbitrarily witholding evidence is not a problem in Cockburn's view, or David Corn's (The Nation's) view, or Matthew Rothschild's (Progressive Magazine's) view, or Michael Albert's (Z-Magazine) view, or AlterNet's view, or In These Times' view, to name but a few. It's okay to withold evidence of what happened at the Pentagon on 9-11, to those editors; it's just not okay to talk about it.
See this website for a detailed discussion of "Left Gatekeeper" connections to foundation funding: ALTERNATIVE MEDIA CENSORSHIP: SPONSORED BY CIA's FORD FOUNDATION?
Enough ink has been wasted on this Pentagon crash distraction, but nearly none on the more substantial points that I referred to above. For that reason alone (highly selective and restrictive treatment of the 9/11 evidence), I do not trust the editors and institutions named herein to tell me the truth. Nor should you.
Another telling sign that some of these authors' motives are questionable is their take on the John F. Kennedy conspiracy. Cockburn would have us believe in a "magic bullet", as does Noam Chomsky and other Warren Commission defenders.
To most Americans, the Kennedy assassination is ancient history, and they believe whatever the TV told them last about it. Some of us know better, however, and have seen Kennedy's autopsy photos (grisly), seen the statements of the Dallas doctors who treated him, and have carefully watched the Zapruder film where the kill shot enters the front above Kennedy's right eyebrow and knocks the president's head backward, exiting the back of his head and killing him. We also saw the crowd of brave, honest American bystanders rushing toward the Grassy Knoll fence in pursuit of an armed assassin.
Those "progressive" authors' stands on the Kennedy killing will show pretty conclusively how independent and/or investigative they are. The Warren Commission covered up the Kennedy slaying, and served as a rough guide for the 9-11 Commission.
Senator Max Cleland, a 9-11 Commissioner himself, who resigned over the nature of the Commission, has said:
"This is the most serious independent investigation since the Warren Commission. And after watching History Channel shows on the Warren Commission last night, the Warren Commission blew it. I'm not going to be part of that. I'm not going to be part of looking at information only partially. I'm not going to be part of just coming to quick conclusions. I'm not going to be part of political pressure to do this or not do that. I'm not going to be part of that. This is serious." -Max Cleland, Interview, Salon Friday 21 November 2003
Serious yes, but apparently not to the "Left Gatekeepers." The real nagging question is WHY? Why aren't these alleged opposition forces seizing upon evidence of high crimes and treason, obstruction of justice, exposing the nation to harm? What is it with an 'opposition' that refuses to use their best weapons to fight back against obvious tyrants?
I have a feeling that it's a lot more murky in those waters than suspected.
The first, and most devastating article about the September 11th cover-up in
the "alternative press" was written by Nafeez M. Ahmed, and is called:
9/11
"Conspiracies" and the Defactualisation of Analysis
How Ideologues on the Left and Right Theorise Vacuously to Support Baseless
Supposition. If you haven't read this lenghy response to the left gatekeeper
crowd (here's looking at you, Cockburn), it is worth the time. Ahmed went on
to write other meticulously researched books
that challenge the White House's 9/11 claims and its "war on terror"
paradigm.
The CounterPunch hystrionics are that much more hypocritical considering that someone there let slip this article: September Song, A Review of "The New Pearl Harbor". That article's author Mark Estrin, writes:
"(Professor David Ray) Griffin can't put the pieces together. In this, he is honest, and calls on us to be the same. All he can do is call for more authentic investigations -- not the cover-ups currently underway -- to confront these crucial issues. And this, too, we must do."
Two years after that article, these "crucial issues" are not solved, not investigated, and not much has changed except for increased public awareness of them. The gatekeepers still refuse to investigate further (except perhaps the "Pentagate" issue, as previously mentioned), and have taken to the rudest name calling and demonization tactics.
If they were honest journalists, they would feel some responsibility to provide a better narrative. They would seek the answers that remain "classified," and beyond the reach of the public. If the stories they receive in their email are erroneous, it is encumbent upon them to provide a better story, with a more solid factual basis, that includes all of the known facts related ot the attacks.. This has not happened.
If you bring up CIA influence, they call you "paranoid." Of course the FBI's COINTELPRO never happened: I personally made it up for my extraterrestrial contact novel. Project Mockingbird may have "owned" every journalist of any significance in America, according to CIA director William Colby, but that can't mean anything to us, can it? (They suicided Colby, by the way.)
It's beyond the realm of question that these outfits, the Counterpunch, Nation Magazine, Progressive Magazine Alternet, etc. are free to investigate and to print whatever they want. It's that they just choose not to, over and again, in the face of irrefutable evidence of government conspiracy and cover-up.
In CounterPunch's case, Cockburn postures as if he's defending "the left" by attacking 9/11 truthseekers. This is, of course, absurd on its face. Having lost his credentials with the 70 million who doubt the official story, Cockburn turns to his Marxist, Trotskyite roots to carve out a base of operations. Oppose capitalism, by letting BushCo. get away with treason! How does that work, exactly?
But 9/11 was never a right vs. left issue. There are those on the right and in the center calling loudly for impeachment as a precursor to real investigations and high treason trials. This is a movement independent of, and unreliant upon, the established and self-appointed guardians of permissable debate. It is making the Cockburns irrelevant, and that, I suspect, contributes to their hostility and belligerence.
Israelis Can't Be Mentioned?
Cockburn and several other lefty pundits write in opposition to predatory Zionism on a fairly regular basis. But the fact of 5 Mossad agents arrested on September 11th, while filming the Towers' destruction -- due to too much celebrating -- prompting a call to police, are unworthy of acknowledgement somehow.
"They are said to have had been caught videotaping the disaster and
shouting in what was interpreted as cries of joy and mockery."
-5 Israelis detained for `puzzling behavior' after WTC tragedy, Yossi
Melman, Haaretz.
Add another 195 Israeli Mossad agents for a total of 200 arrested post 9/11, and we are still hearing nothing, nothing at all. It's not for lack of evidence that there is silence. It's something different.
I firmly believe that Israeli intelligence was not only involved in the attacks (which benefitted Israeli interests by aligning US foreign policy with Israeli foreign policy), but that they were required to be in order to insure the cover-up. No Democratic Party politician will go after Israel, not one. If Israel was somehow involved in the attacks, then the attacks must be covered up. It is as simple as that.
The 9/11 Truth Movement is in serious trouble though. Mocked and ridiculed in the opinion pages across the spectrum, they have unwittingly bought into unprovable theories and crafty provocations. Many can't prove half of what they say, and so it has become open-season on the movement as a whole.
It's the other half, however, the things we can prove, the things they cover-up and refuse to talk about which interest me. There are enough smoking guns still smoldering to warrant arrests, indictments, impeachments, a complete and total paradigm shift, if only the full population would have a chance to see the evidence that those at the top don't want to talk about.
The jury is still out. Awareness has increased greatly. Perhaps this film will help the movement break out with a more solid case against those who benefitted most from the crimes of September 11th, 2001. I remain hopeful that word will continue to spread, and a larger constituency will demand action.
Look into getting 9/11: Press For Truth broadcast on your local public access station. Promote it locally. Couldn't hurt, despite the shrill screeches of the "left" establishment press.
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