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Wednesday, August 10, 2005

Patsies

In Webster Griffin Tarpley's 9/11 Synthetic Terror: Made in USA, he refers to the people who actually carry out terrorist attacks, or at least are officially blamed for them, as "patsies." People like Lee Harvey Oswald, Mohammed Atta, and the guys being blamed for the 7/7 underground attacks in London. Tarpley refers to the government insiders who facilitate and possibly plan the terror attacks as "moles." Here's a paragraph from page 73 of Tarpley's book:
Despite the need to be noticed as much as possible, the patsies have to stay out of jail. If they are all in jail, the planned terror action cannot take place. This is not because the patsies are needed to carry it out, but rather because they must be on hand in order to be blamed for it, whether they are on the scene or far away. If the patsies are in jail, they cannot be scapegoated. Therefore a lawyer and bail money must be provided, or a complicit judge told to release the defendant. Immigration authorities and Customs must be told to look the other way. To keep the patsies out of jail so they can serve their vital purpose is the job of the moles, as will soon be shown.
Until yesterday, it was admitted in polite US circles that US "intelligence" was aware of only two of the alleged 9/11 hijackers, who had been connected with al Qaeda but were still allowed to live freely and openly in San Diego and travel at will. But yesterday's NY Times had the story eminating from Republican Congressman Curt Weldon that a US military intelligent unit, "Able Danger," had been aware of two additional future "hijackers" since 2000 or before. And these were big fish--the supposed ringleader Mohammed Atta and Marwan al-Shehhi, the two alleged pilots of the planes which struck the two WTC towers.

Of course, the Bushies have two likely ways out of this, which will probably work due to the general complicity of the media and stupidity of the public. They can chalk it up as just another bit of incompetence, a failure to "connect the dots," as they have done with many of the 9/11 failures. Admittedly, the government is chock full of both deviousness and incompetence, so it isn't clear that this fits squarely in the devious category (but if there's really that much incompetence, there should have been many more firings and many fewer promotions). The Bushies also have the option of blaming it on Clinton, since the first contact was apparently on his watch. There could be some truth in that--the powers that be have had Slick Willie on a tight leash for a long time, and they certainly had plenty of moles in his administration.

So, as proof of direct government complicity in 9/11, this "new" piece of information (it has been in the European press and been known for sure by the White House since right after 9/11 at the latest) leaves something to be desired. But, as the WSWS points out, it clearly demonstrates that the 9/11 Commission was a total farce:
Remarkably, Weldon reveals that he discussed Able Danger with top White House officials, including then-deputy national security adviser Stephen Hadley, in September or October 2001, just after the 9/11 attacks. The White House was thus fully aware that the US military had identified Mohammed Atta and Marwan al-Shehhi well before September 11, but it suppressed that information from all subsequent investigations, including the 9/11 commission.

The 9/11 commission staff nonetheless learned of the existence of Able Danger in October 2003, when several former military intelligence officers spoke to the staff, including executive director Philip Zelikow. According to the former military intelligence officer interviewed by the Times, they specifically mentioned Mohammed Atta by name in these discussions.

The former spokesman for the 9/11 commission, Al Felzenberg, in an interview with the Times, confirmed that the discussions about Able Danger had taken place, but claimed Atta’s name had not come up and the staff had not believed the report to be significant.

The June 19 Norristown Times-Herald article, however, gives the following account:

“Weldon said he was told specifically by commission members Tim Roemer, a former Democratic congressman from Indiana, and John Lehman, a former secretary of the Navy, that they had never been briefed on the Able Danger unit within Special Ops or on the unit’s evidence of a terrorist cell...”

The former military intelligence officer told the Times-Herald, “I personally talked with Zelikow about this. For whatever bizarre reasons, he didn’t pass on the information.”

There is no mention of Able Danger in the final commission report, and no hint that any US government agency had linked Atta to Al Qaeda before the September 11 attacks.

This demonstrates that the 9/11 commission was a fraud and a whitewash. Rather than uncover the real story of the terrorist attacks, the commission conducted a sophisticated cover-up of the real relations between US government agencies and the terrorists who killed 3,000 people. Meanwhile, Zelikow, the chief organizer of the 9/11 panel, has been rewarded for his services to the Bush administration and to the military/intelligence apparatus with an appointment as senior counselor to US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, a longtime friend and associate.
Evidence of what actually happened on 9/11 is unclear. Evidence of a massive coverup, both after and BEFORE 9/11, is crystal clear. The WSWS continues:
This new revelation only reinforces the suspicion that the tragedy of 9/11 was not the result of an “intelligence failure” or an inability to “connect the dots.” High-level officials in the state apparatus took affirmative action to protect the Al Qaeda operatives and allow them to prepare a terrorist attack. Whether they knew the full extent of what Atta and his confederates would do on September 11 can be debated, but there is no question that a terrorist outrage within the United States served the political purposes of the Bush administration.
[Update] The NY Times has a followup article this morning, featuring the wit and wisdom of Donald Rumsfeld:
At a news briefing on Tuesday, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said he could not comment on reports about Able Danger and suggested that he knew nothing about such an operation.

"I can't," Mr. Rumsfeld said. "I have no idea. I've never heard of it until this morning. I understand our folks are trying to look into it."
In other words, he's going with the incompetence ploy until his minions can come up with the Clinton link.