Wednesday, May 4, 2011

3 Senators Fell For Fake Bin Laden Photo ... "The Photo that I Saw and that a Lot of Other People Saw is Not Authentic"


Preface: This post does not speculate on whether or not Bin Laden was actually killed last week or died previously, or on what images the government may possess, but only on what actually happened and what photographs have been released to date.

The White House said that Bin Laden had a weapon and tried to hide behind his wife like a coward. Now, the White House has admitted both claims were false.

Many of the largest news outlets ran a supposed death photo ... but it was quickly proven fake (and see this).

The government now claims that it has a photo showing a dead Bin Laden ... but won't release it.

The photo was supposedly taken in a hangar in Afghanistan. As CNN notes:

Photos of OBLs body at a hangar after he was brought back to Afghanistan. This is the most recognizable with a clear picture of his face. The picture is gruesome because he has a massive open head wound across both eyes. It’s very bloody and gory.

***
The official says the challenge is that the picture that includes the most recognizable image of OBLs face – from the hangar in Afghanistan – is so gruesome and mangled its not appropriate for say the front page of the newspaper.
The fact that the photo wasn't taken right after the raid in Pakistan - but in a different country - makes it harder to confirm when the photo was taken.

Moreover, Senator Scott Brown first told Fox News that he had personally seen the gruesome death photo:

Sen. Scott Brown on Osama bin Laden; attack ads: MyFoxBOSTON.com

But he later told Fox that he - and a lot of other people - had been shown a fake:

Scott Brown tells FOX25 - "The photo that I saw and that a lot of other people saw is not authentic."
Update: CBS news notes that 2 other senators fell for the fake photo as well:

Two other Senate Republicans, Saxby Chambliss, R-GA, and Sen. Kelly Ayotte, R-NH, told CBS News Wednesday morning they had viewed post-mortem images of bin Laden. "Obviously I'm not an expert in this area, he's such a well known figure when you see the picture it clearly has his features," said Ayotte.

But Ayotte released a statement Wednesday afternoon saying that she's not sure the picture was real.

"While I was shown a photo by another senator of what appeared to be a deceased Osama bin Laden, I do not know if it was authentic," she said. "However, I do believe a photo of the dead al Qaeda leader should be released. Although some may be upset by the image of someone who has been shot in the head, releasing a photo is important to put to rest any conspiracy theories that may arise around the world and to provide for closure."

And Chambliss - the vice chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee - released an oblique statement Wednesday afternoon saying in part, "when I see the photos, I can make a judgment about the potential damage they may do."

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Rumsfeld, White House, Senate Intelligence Chair and Senator Graham Confirm Waterboarding NOT Responsible for Getting Bin Laden


Monday, I pointed out that Bin Laden's death does not justify torture.

Top republicans and democrats - who have direct knowledge of waterboarding at Guantanamo - agree.

White House deputy national security advisor John Brennann says that waterboarding did not lead to the death of Bin Laden.

Former secretary of defense Donald Rumsfeld - who had a big hand in the torture program - agrees:

“The United States Department of Defense did not do waterboarding for interrogation purposes to anyone. It is true that some information that came from normal interrogation approaches at Guantanamo did lead to information that was beneficial in this instance. But it was not harsh treatment and it was not waterboarding.”

As does Senate Intelligence Committee Chairwoman Dianne Feinstein:

Nothing has been found to indicate this came out of Guantanamo. And people were questioned, but there were no positive answers as to the identity of this number one courier.

[Asked whether she considers the Bin Laden killing any kind of “vindication” of torture, Feinstein replied] Absolutely not. I do not. I happen to know a good deal about how those interrogations were conducted, and in my view, nothing justifies the kind of procedures that were used.


And Senator Lindsey Graham - a vocal proponent of waterboarding - said:

This idea we caught bin Laden because of waterboarding I think is a misstatement. This whole concept of how we caught bin Laden is a lot of work over time by different people and putting the puzzle together. I do not believe this is a time to celebrate waterboarding, I believe this is a time to celebrate hard work.
Update: The New York Times notes:
Glenn L. Carle, a retired C.I.A. officer who oversaw the interrogation of a high-level detainee in 2002, said in a phone interview Tuesday, that coercive techniques “didn’t provide useful, meaningful, trustworthy information.” He said that while some of his colleagues defended the measures, “everyone was deeply concerned and most felt it was un-American and did not work.”

***

“The bottom line is this: If we had some kind of smoking-gun intelligence from waterboarding in 2003, we would have taken out Osama bin Laden in 2003,” said Tommy Vietor, spokesman for the National Security Council. “It took years of collection and analysis from many different sources to develop the case that enabled us to identify this compound, and reach a judgment that Bin Laden was likely to be living there.”
And Huffington Post reports:

Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.), who chairs the Senate Armed Services Committee, produced a 263-page report in 2009 on the treatment of detainees in U.S. custody in the years following 9/11. He too dismissed the idea that the interrogation techniques used at that time were efficacious. "If they had any information under the Bush administration that could have led to bin Laden it would have been terribly neglectful for them not to use it," Levin noted in an interview on the "Bill Press Show."

The confirmation of the courier's significance appears to have come in 2004, from an al Qaeda operative who was not waterboarded: Hassan Ghul.

1 comments

Tuesday, May 3, 2011

EPA Stops Daily Monitoring of Radioactivity ... When We Need It More Than Ever


Most American states are not doing their own radiation monitoring, because - they say - the EPA is monitoring the situation.

But as EPA writes today:

Due to the consistent decrease in radiation levels across the country associated with the Japanese nuclear incident, EPA will update the daily data summary page only when new data are posted.

***

After a thorough data review showing declining radiation levels related to the Japanese nuclear incident, EPA has returned to the routine RadNet sampling and analysis process for precipitation, drinking water and milk.
In fact, radiation levels are not decreasing, and top independent scientists are calling for increased monitoring.

Indeed, Marco Kaltofen - a well-known environmental engineer - stresses that more monitoring has to be done so that we can assess the risks, and take appropriate action:

Where is all that Fukushima radiation going, and why does it matter? from Fairewinds Associates on Vimeo.

Heck of a job, guys.



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Nuclear "Regulators" Are Captured By the Nuclear Industry


As I noted last month:

Just like BP captured the agencies which were supposed to regulate it, nuclear agencies have been wholly captured by the nuclear power companies

***

And the same is true of the economic crisis. As I've extensively documented, the crisis was caused by big banks and other financial players taking irresponsible and speculative gambles, committing fraud and fudging the numbers, using too much leverage, moral hazard, and other dangerous behavior. See this and this. And - just as with the nuclear and oil industries - the government "regulators" have all be captured by the big companies they are supposed to police, helped the bank robbers pull off the heist, and then helped cover it up afterwards.

This essay will focus on the capture of nuclear agencies world-wide.

Of course, Japanese nuclear regulators have been captured by the local nuclear companies. See this, this and this:

As I pointed out last month:

The Christian Science Monitor noted recently:

Just as the BP oil spill one year ago heaped scrutiny on the United State's Minerals Management Service, harshly criticized for lax drilling oversight and cozy ties with the oil industry, the nuclear crisis in Japan is shining a light on that nation's safety practices.

***

[Russian nuclear accident specialist Iouli Andreev, who as director of the Soviet Spetsatom clean-up agency helped in the efforts 25 years ago to clean up Chernobyl ] has also accused the IAEA of being too close with corporations. "This is only a fake organization because every organization which depends on the nuclear industry – and the IAEA depends on the nuclear industry – cannot perform properly."
Indeed, the entire purpose of the IAEA - according to its website - is to promote nuclear power:
The IAEA is the world's center of cooperation in the nuclear field. It was set up as the world´s "Atoms for Peace" organization in 1957 within the United Nations family. The Agency works with its Member States and multiple partners worldwide to promote safe, secure and peaceful nuclear technologies.
As I've noted:
The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission is no better.

As nuclear engineer Arnie Gundersen, Duane Peterson (president of VPIRG & coordinator for the campaign to retire Vermont Yankee nuclear plant), investigative reporter Harvey Wasserman and Paul Gallay (executive director of Riverkeeper) point out in a roundtable discussion:

  • The NRC won't even begin conducting its earthquake study for Indian Point nuclear power plant in New York until after relicensing is complete in 2013, because the NRC doesn't consider a big earthquake "a serious risk"
  • Congressman Markey has said there is a cover up. Specifically, Markey alleges that the head of the NRC told everyone not to write down risks they find from an earthquake greater than 6.0 (the plant was only built to survive a 6.0 earthquake)
  • The NRC is wholly captive to industry
  • The NRC has never turned down the request of a nuclear power plant to be relicensed in the United States. Relicensing is solely a paper process; there is no safety review.
  • The NRC's assumptions regarding a worst-case accident are ridiculous. For example, the NRC assumes only 1% of the fuel could meltdown, while 70% melted down at Fukushima. The NRC assumes no loss of containment, while there has been a major loss of containment in reactors 1-3 (especially 2) at Fukushima.
  • "If there was a free market in energy, nuclear power would be over ... immediately". Nuclear plant owners can't get insurance; they can only operate because the U.S. government provides insurance on the taxpayer dime. The government also granted a ridiculously low cap on liability
  • If we had no subsidies for nuclear, coal or oil, we'd have a clean energy economy right now
  • We have 4 reactors in California - 2 at San Onofre 2 at San Luis Obisbo - which are vulnerable to earthquakes and tsunamis.
No state or federal agency knows who would be in charge in case of an accident at Indian Point. It's like the Keystone Cops

Rolling Stone writes:

The NRC has long served as little more than a lap dog to the nuclear industry, unwilling to crack down on unsafe reactors. "The agency is a wholly owned subsidiary of the nuclear power industry," says Victor Gilinsky, who served on the commission during the Three Mile Island meltdown in 1979. Even President Obama denounced the NRC during the 2008 campaign, calling it a "moribund agency that needs to be revamped and has become captive of the industries that it regulates."

In the years ahead, nuclear experts warn, the consequences of the agency's inaction could be dire. "The NRC has consistently put industry profits above public safety," says Arnie Gundersen, a former nuclear executive turned whistle-blower. "Consequently, we have a dozen Fukushimas waiting to happen in America."

Certainly the World Health Organization is a neutral voice?

One would think so. But as physician Helen Caldicott points out:

There is widespread confusion about the roles of the World Health Organisation and the International Atomic Energy Commission. Monbiot expresses surprise that a UN-affiliated body such as WHO might be under the influence of the nuclear power industry, causing its reporting on nuclear power matters to be biased. And yet that is precisely the case.

In the early days of nuclear power, WHO issued forthright statements on radiation risks, such as its 1956 warning: ''Genetic heritage is the most precious property for human beings. It determines the lives of our progeny, health and harmonious development of future generations. As experts, we affirm that the health of future generations is threatened by increasing development of the atomic industry and sources of radiation.''

After 1959, the organisation made no more statements on health and radioactivity.

What happened?

On May 28, 1959, at the 12th World Health Assembly, WHO drew up an agreement with the International Atomic Energy Agency. A clause of this agreement says the WHO effectively grants the right of prior approval over any research it might undertake or report on to the IAEA - a group that many people, including journalists, think is a neutral watchdog, but which is, in fact, an advocate for the nuclear power industry. Its founding papers state: ''The agency shall seek to accelerate and enlarge the contribution of atomic energy to peace, health and prosperity through the world.''

The WHO's subjugation to the IAEA is widely known within the scientific radiation community, something which Monbiot chose to ignore. But it is clearly not the only matter on which he is ignorant, after his recent apparent three-day perusal of the vast body of scientific information on radiation and radioactivity. The confusion that he and other nuclear industry apologists sow about radiation risks is very similar to the way that the tobacco industry propounded misinformation and lies about the true effects of smoking.

Despite their claims, it is they, not the ''anti-nuclear movement'', who are ''misleading the world about the impacts of radiation on human health''.

Radiation expert Dr. Christopher Busby agrees:

The last thing [proponents of nuclear weapons and nuclear energy] wanted was the doctors and epidemiologists stopping their fun. The IAEA and the World Health Organisation (WHO) signed an agreement in 1959 to remove all research into the issue from the doctors of the WHO, to the atom scientists, the physicists of the IAEA: this agreement is still in force. The UN organisations do not refer to, or cite any scientific study, which shows their statements on Chernobyl to be false. There is a huge gap between the picture painted by the UN, the IAEA, the ICRP and the real world. And the real world is increasingly being studied and reports are being published in the scientific literature: but none of the authorities responsible for looking after the public take any notice of this evidence.

Similarly, the International Commission on Radiological Protection is tied to the nuclear industry. As I noted last month:

The Townsend Letter for Doctors & Patients wrote in 2002:

One of the original five ‘health physicists' to set radiation safety standards was Karl Z. Morgan. Dr. Morgan served on the International Commission on Radiological Protection (ICRP), which set up most radiation standards. He also directed the Health Physics Division at Oak Ridge from 1944 until his retirement in 1972. In recent years, Dr. Morgan has publicly criticized the ICRP for failing to protect human health. In a 1994 article for the American Journal of Industrial Medicine, Dr. Morgan wrote: "The period of atmospheric testing of nuclear weapons by the United States, the United Kingdom, France and the USSR is a sad page in the history of civilized man. Without question, it was the cause of hundreds of thousands of cancer deaths. Yet there was complete silence on the part of the ICRP. During these years (1960-1965), most members of the ICRP either worked directly with the nuclear weapons industry or indirectly received most of their funding for their research from this industry.”

The ICRP's alliance with the nuclear industry includes ties to the International Congress of Radiology. In his 1999 autobiography, The Angry Genie: One Man's Walk Through the Nuclear Age (ISBN 0-8061-3122-5), Dr. Morgan related his concern about the ICRP's refusal to address the danger of excessive X-ray exposure during diagnostic procedures and dentistry. Until the passage of the Radiation Control for Health and Safety Act of 1968, some X-ray equipment used in the 1950s and 1960s delivered 2 to 3 rem per X-ray. X-ray doses as low as 1.6 rem increase a woman's chance of developing cancer, according to a 1974 study by Baruch Modan [Lancet (Feb. 23,1974), pp 277-279]. The Act did not address the cumulative effect of multiple, routine, and often unnecessary X-rays.

The EPA and FDA are playing politics with radiation. Indeed, Forbes' blogger Jeff McMahon and Truthout writer Mike Ludwig both note that FDA radiation standards for milk and other foods are 200 times higher than EPA standards for drinking water, and are based more on commercial than safety concerns.

Indeed, governments have been covering up nuclear meltdowns for fifty years to protect the nuclear power industry.

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Reduce Exposure to Radiation from Japan By Taking Off Your Shoes ... Japanese-Style


The danger from the Japanese nuclear crisis is not over.

As nuclear engineer Arnie Gundersen notes, 7 weeks after the Japanese earthquake, Chernobyl wasn't emitting any gas or liquids, yet Fukushima still is:


The Fukushima reactors are still emitting radioactive steam, and spilling high levels of radiation into the Pacific ocean. indeed, the Japanese are nowhere close to stopping radiation release.

Gundersen also suspects that the explosion at reactor number 3 was a nuclear explosion, where the initial hydrogen explosion triggered a "prompt criticality" which spewed radiation high into the air:

Gundersen Postulates Unit 3 Explosion May Have Been Prompt Criticality in Fuel Pool from Fairewinds Associates on Vimeo.

As WSWS notes:

Arnie Gundersen of Fairewinds Associates, who has spent 39 years working in the nuclear industry and now acts as an expert witness, has suggested that the explosion in Number 3 building at Fukushima on March 14 may have been more serious than has so far been admitted.

Gundersen argues that an initial hydrogen explosion caused a prompt criticality in the spent-fuel rod pool at the top of the Number 3 reactor building. Prompt criticality is the term used in the nuclear industry for an exponential increase in the number of fission events. That is to say a runaway nuclear chain reaction may have taken place in the spent fuel rods.

Gundersen postulates that the upward vector, the upward thrust, from the explosion in Building 3 may have been sufficient to carry radioactive isotopes from the fuel rods into the atmosphere and to disperse them over many thousands of miles. He points out that uranium has been found on Hawaii, americium has been found in New England and plutonium dust has been found on the Fukushima site. These latter elements are transuranic, i.e. heavier than uranium, and indicate that nuclear fuel was volatilized at Fukushima.

As I noted in March, dust control is an important part of reducing exposure to radiation:

A leading alternative health authority - Dr. Andrew Weil, a medical doctor who runs the Center for Integrative Medicine at the University of Arizona - writes today in response to the question of how to protect ourselves against radiation:

Since radioactive particles may be carried by dust, having a HEPA filter [to vacuum up dust] in your home would also be a good idea in the event of a nuclear accident that is close enough to be of concern.

And Marco Kaltofen - a civil engineer with a master's in environmental engineering - also stresses control of dust to reduce radioactive exposure:

  • Have to prevent particles from landing, or clean them off. We've learned how to deal with toxic dust (for example, lead in dust). For example, wash your hands before preparing food. Take off your shoes when you come home, and leave your shoes at the door so you won't track dust inside your house. [Don't stack your indoor slippers with your outdoor shoes; that will spread dust inside the house.] Take off your coat and hang it in a hall closet near the front door
  • Geiger counter won't measure dusty fallout. It usually takes more expensive equipment [he's not trying to talk us out of buying and using geiger counters, but simply warning that they'll only pick up larger collections of radiation, and not necessarily small groups of particles]
  • Americium, europium, bismith, uranium and other radioactive particles from Japan are appearing on the West Coast
  • But problem will be nationwide
  • Exposure from particles can be long-term, as opposed to radiation from airplanes or x-rays
  • There is more radiation in Japan than from atmospheric (above-ground) nuclear testing
  • Could affect food grown in gardens
  • Need more monitoring

Where is all that Fukushima radiation going, and why does it matter? from Fairewinds Associates on Vimeo.

For more helping to protect yourself from radiation, see this and this.

Note: I am not a healthcare professional.
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Monday, May 2, 2011

No, Bin Laden's Death Does NOT Justify Torture


There's a new meme widely circulating today claiming that torture was okay after all, because it helped us locate and kill Bin Laden. See this, this, this and this.

As ABC News notes:

The revelation that intelligence gleaned from the CIA's so-called black sites helped kill bin Laden was seen as vindication for many intelligence officials who have been repeatedly investigated and criticized for their involvement in a program that involved the harshest interrogation methods in U.S. history.

"We got beat up for it, but those efforts led to this great day," said Marty Martin, a retired CIA officer who for years led the hunt for bin Laden.

But as ABC notes in the next paragraph:

Mohammed did not reveal the names while being subjected to the simulated drowning technique known as waterboarding, former officials said. He identified them many months later under standard interrogation, they said, leaving it once again up for debate as to whether the harsh technique was a valuable tool or an unnecessarily violent tactic.

Reuters points out:

But the possibility that detainees who at some point were subjected to physical coercion later gave up information leading to bin Laden's discovery is sparking discussion among intelligence experts as to whether he could have been found without them.

"It will reignite a debate that hasn't gone away about the morality and ethicacy of certain techniques," said Richard Haas, president of the Council on Foreign Relations.

In reality, top interrogation experts (both conservative and liberal) agree that torture is an ineffective interrogation method which leads to false, unusable information:

Moreover, the type of torture used since 9/11 was a special type of torture specifically aimed at creating false confessions:

And see this.

Moreover, as I noted yesterday, we didn't need to torture anyone to catch Bin Laden:

According to the U.S. Senate - Bin Laden was "within the grasp" of the U.S. military in Afghanistan in December 2001, but that then-secretary of defense Rumsfeld refused to provide the soldiers necessary to capture him.

This is not news: it was disclosed in 2005 by the CIA field commander for the area in Afghanistan where Bin Laden was holed up.

In addition, French soldiers allegedly say that they easily could have captured or killed Bin Laden in Afghanistan, but that the American commanders stopped them.

***

A retired Colonel and Fox News military analyst said that the U.S. could have killed Bin Laden in 2007, but didn't:

We know, with a 70 percent level of certainty — which is huge in the world of intelligence — that in August of 2007, bin Laden was in a convoy headed south from Tora Bora. We had his butt, on camera, on satellite. We were listening to his conversations. We had the world’s best hunters/killers — Seal Team 6 [Note: this is the exact same team that is credited with killing Bin Laden yesterday] — nearby. We had the world class Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) coordinating with the CIA and other agencies. We had unmanned drones overhead with missiles on their wings; we had the best Air Force on the planet, begging to drop one on the terrorist. We had him in our sights; we had done it ....Unbelievably, and in my opinion, criminally, we did not kill Usama bin Laden.
Indeed, a United States Congressman claims that the Bush administration intentionally let Bin Laden escape in order to justify the Iraq war.
Moreover, as I've previously noted, capturing Bin Laden and taking down Al Qaeda was never the real priority:
American historian, investigative journalist and policy analyst Gareth Porter writes in the Asia Times:
Three weeks after the September 11, 2001, terror attacks, former US defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld established an official military objective of not only removing the Saddam Hussein regime by force but overturning the regime in Iran, as well as in Syria and four other countries in the Middle East, according to a document quoted extensively in then-under secretary of defense for policy Douglas Feith's recently published account of the Iraq war decisions. Feith's account further indicates that this aggressive aim of remaking the map of the Middle East by military force and the threat of force was supported explicitly by the country's top military leaders.
Feith's book, War and Decision, released last month, provides excerpts of the paper Rumsfeld sent to President George W Bush on September 30, 2001, calling for the administration to focus not on taking down Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda network but on the aim of establishing "new regimes" in a series of states...
***
General Wesley Clark, who commanded the North Atlantic Treaty Organization bombing campaign in the Kosovo war, recalls in his 2003 book Winning Modern Wars being told by a friend in the Pentagon in November 2001 that the list of states that Rumsfeld and deputy secretary of defense Paul Wolfowitz wanted to take down included Iraq, Iran, Syria, Libya, Sudan and Somalia [and Lebanon].
***
When this writer asked Feith . . . which of the six regimes on the Clark list were included in the Rumsfeld paper, he replied, "All of them." [See this public speech by Clark on the genesis of the Iraq war]
***
The Defense Department guidance document made it clear that US military aims in regard to those states would go well beyond any ties to terrorism. The document said the Defense Department would also seek to isolate and weaken those states and to "disrupt, damage or destroy" their military capacities - not necessarily limited to weapons of mass destruction (WMD).

Indeed, the goal seems to have more to do with being a superpower (i.e. an empire) than stopping terrorism.

As Porter writes:

***

A senior officer on the Joint Staff told State Department counter-terrorism director Sheehan he had heard terrorist strikes characterized more than once by colleagues as a "small price to pay for being a superpower".
If we had really wanted to get Bin Laden, we would have gotten him in 2001 (indeed, the Taliban offered to turn him over), or 2007.

But we had "more important" things to do. Specifically, U.S. foreign policy was focused on regime change in Iraq, Libya and elsewhere, and in strategic interests not directly related to terrorism.

Postscript: Experts say that torture is unnecessary even to prevent "ticking time bombs" from exploding (see this, this and this). Indeed, a top expert says that torture would fail in a real 'ticking time-bomb' situation.

And, yes ... waterboarding is torture:
  • Everyone claiming waterboarding is not torture has changed their tune as soon as they were exposed to even a small dose of it themselves. See this, this and this
But it wasn't just waterboarding:
6 comments

Sunday, May 1, 2011

Bin Laden Is Dead ... But Why Didn't We Kill Him 10 Year Ago?


President Obama announced tonight that U.S. special forces killed Osama Bin Laden.

That's great ... but we could have killed him years ago.

As I noted in 2009:

According to the U.S. Senate - Bin Laden was "within the grasp" of the U.S. military in Afghanistan in December 2001, but that then-secretary of defense Rumsfeld refused to provide the soldiers necessary to capture him.

This is not news: it was disclosed in 2005 by the CIA field commander for the area in Afghanistan where Bin Laden was holed up.

In addition, French soldiers allegedly say that they easily could have captured or killed Bin Laden in Afghanistan, but that the American commanders stopped them.

***

A retired Colonel and Fox News military analyst said that the U.S. could have killed Bin Laden in 2007, but didn't:

We know, with a 70 percent level of certainty — which is huge in the world of intelligence — that in August of 2007, bin Laden was in a convoy headed south from Tora Bora. We had his butt, on camera, on satellite. We were listening to his conversations. We had the world’s best hunters/killers — Seal Team 6 [Note: this is the exact same team that is credited with killing Bin Laden yesterday] — nearby. We had the world class Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) coordinating with the CIA and other agencies. We had unmanned drones overhead with missiles on their wings; we had the best Air Force on the planet, begging to drop one on the terrorist. We had him in our sights; we had done it ....Unbelievably, and in my opinion, criminally, we did not kill Usama bin Laden.
Indeed, a United States Congressman claims that the Bush administration intentionally let Bin Laden escape in order to justify the Iraq war.
Similarly, Cenk Uygur pointed out:
The New York Times reported ... that we sent in 36 U.S. Special Forces troops to get Osama bin Laden when we knew he was in Tora Bora. By contrast, we sent nearly 150,000 soldiers to get Saddam Hussein. In case you're keeping count at home, we got Saddam and we didn't get Osama. What does that tell you about this administration’s priorities? This goes beyond incompetence. If you send only 36 soldiers to get somebody in the middle of Afghanistan, it means you don’t want to get him...

Osama had about 1,500-2,000 well-armed, well-trained men in the region. 36 guys to get 2,000? Why would we let ourselves be outgunned like that?...

There is an inescapable fact – if you put this little effort into capturing someone, it means you don’t want to capture him.

***

If people inside the administration actually held back from capturing Osama bin Laden when we had him cornered, it borders on treason.
Postscript: Of course, some people claim that Bin Laden was actually killed years ago. But as I pointed out in 2009, whether or not he was alive or dead was less important than the fact that the American government pretended that he was a supremely powerful boogeyman who justified an endless and all-consuming war on terror:
Many people claim that Bin Laden died a long time ago. According to Israeli intelligence, Pakistani intelligence, and other sources, Bin Laden is dead.

According to video experts and and top Bin Laden experts, recent Bin Laden videos are fake.

So if Bin Laden is alive, American leaders have to explain why they have repeatedly chosen not to pull the trigger.

And if he is dead, they have to explain why they are claiming that he's alive and authenticating his videos.
9 comments

What Glenn Greenwald Will Be Interested to Learn About 9/11


I am a big fan of Glenn Greenwald.

Greenwald - a former constitutional lawyer - regularly destroys the "official" narratives about war, torture, spying, anthrax and other topics. I have worked tirelessly and written hundreds of articles on these issues myself, and I regularly quote Glenn.

I have seen Greenwald time and again refute false claims, ad hominem attacks and illogical reasoning. I know that Glenn can ignore the straw men and red herrings, keep his "eyes on the prize" of truth, and get to the heart of the matter.

Given the way that Mr. Greenwald has shredded the anthrax investigation, I know that he is not afraid to speak truth to power and to courageously challenge false narratives being pushed by the government and the mainstream media.

Whistleblowers

Given the manner in which Mr. Greenwald regularly quotes high-level whistleblowers, and his brilliant criticism of the unlawful persecution of Julian Assange and Bradley Manning, I am confident that he values whistleblowers.

Starting there, Glenn might be interested in learning that Pentagon Papers whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg and the Senator who was instrumental in making those documents public (Mike Gravel) are both skeptical of the official 9/11 narrative.

For example, Ellsberg says that the case of a certain 9/11 whistleblower is "far more explosive than the Pentagon Papers". (Here's some of what that whistleblower says.) He also said that the government is ordering the media to cover up her allegations about 9/11.

And Ellsberg 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 those in office, 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).

Similarly, Air Force Colonel and key Pentagon official Karen Kwiatkowski - the primary insider blowing the whistle on the Pentagon's "Office of Special Plans" (the unit responsible for "stovepiping" false intelligence regarding Iraq's wmds to the White House) - questions 9/11, and writes:

I have been told by reporters that they will not report their own insights or contrary evaluations of the official 9/11 story, because to question the government story about 9/11 is to question the very foundations of our entire modern belief system regarding our government, our country, and our way of life. To be charged with questioning these foundations is far more serious than being labeled a disgruntled conspiracy nut or anti-government traitor, or even being sidelined or marginalized within an academic, government service, or literary career. To question the official 9/11 story is simply and fundamentally revolutionary. In this way, of course, questioning the official story is also simply and fundamentally American.
(page 26).

Many other well-known whistleblowers also challenge the official 9/11 narrative.

Lawyers

Lawyers know that "conspiracies" are alleged every day by prosecutors and by plaintiffs in civil suits. They know that - just as with allegations of trespass, or defamation, or any other claim of wrongdoing - conspiracy allegations often fall apart under investigation, but that many - even big ones - turn out to be true.

The best lawyers value the Constitution and the rule of law, are able to examine evidence and to spot cover-ups or inconsistencies in the evidence and bias in witnesses or decision-makers, and are good at weighing conflicting evidence. Starting with those assumptions, Mr. Greenwald will be interested in the fact that numerous high-level legal scholars question the government's official story about 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) questions the government's version of 9/11
  • Former Inspector General, U.S. Department of Transportation; former Professor of Aviation, Dept. of Aerospace Engineering and Aviation and Professor of Public Policy, Ohio State University (Mary Schiavo) questions the government's version of 9/11

  • Professor of International Law at the University of Illinois, Champaign; a leading practitioner and advocate of international law; responsible for drafting the Biological Weapons Anti-Terrorism Act of 1989, the American implementing legislation for the 1972 Biological Weapons Convention; served on the Board of Directors of Amnesty International (1988-1992), and represented Bosnia- Herzegovina at the World Court, with a Doctor of Law Magna Cum Laude as well as a Ph.D. in Political Science, both from Harvard University (Dr. Francis Boyle) questions the government's version of 9/11

  • Former prosecutor in the Organized Crime and Racketeering Section of the U.S. Justice Department and a key member of Attorney General Bobby Kennedy’s anti-corruption task force; former assistant U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois (J. Terrence "Terry" Brunner) questions the government's version of 9/11

  • Bessie Dutton Murray Distinguished Professor of Law Emeritus and Director, Center for Human Rights, University of Iowa; Fellow, World Academy of Art and Science.

  • Assistant Professor of Criminal Justice at Troy University; associate General Counsel, National Association of Federal Agents; Retired Agent in Charge, Internal Affairs, U.S. Customs, responsible for the internal integrity and security for areas encompassing nine states and two foreign locations; former Federal Sky Marshall; 27-year U.S. Customs career (Mark Conrad) questions the government's version of 9/11.

  • Director of Academic Programs, Institute for Policy and Economic Development, University of Texas, El Paso, specializing in executive branch secrecy policy, governmental abuse, and law and bureaucracy; former U.S. Army Signals Intelligence officer; author of several books on law and political theory (Dr. William G. Weaver) questions the government's version of 9/11

Indeed, quite a few lawyers - including Ferdinando Imposimato, Honorary President of the Supreme Court of Italy, the Former Senior Investigative Judge, Italy, who presided over several terrorism-related cases, including the kidnapping and ultimate assassination of President Aldo Moro, the attempted assassination of Pope John Paul II, other political assassinations and kidnapping cases and several cases against the Mafia, a former Senator who served on the Anti-Mafia Commission in three administrations, and served as former legal consultant to the United Nations regarding institution of laws to control drug trafficking - have signed the petition at Lawyers for 9/11 Truth.

Other Smart People Question 9/11

A lot of other smart, high-level people question at least some aspects of the government's explanation for 9/11. By way of example only:

9/11 Commissioners:

  • 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"
Senior intelligence officers:
  • 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, and who has for years been a tireless anti-war advocate and critic of imperial foreign policy (Raymond McGovern) said “I think at simplest terms, there’s a cover-up. The 9/11 Report is a joke”
  • 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
Congressmen:

  • 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
Other government officials:
  • 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"

As the above-described list shows, there is bipartisan questioning of 9/11. In addition to the folks listed above, leading progressives such as William Blum, Lewis Lapham, Michael Moore, Cindy Sheehan, Thom Hartmann, Rabbi Michael Lerner, Marc Crispin Miller, Howard Zinn, Robert McChesney, Gore Vidal, Chris Floyd, Robert Fisk, Medea Benjamin, Doris "Granny D" Haddock, Paul Hawken, David Cobb, Randy Hayes, Ernest Callenbach, Dennis Bernstein, Paul H. Ray, Michael Franti, Janeane Garafalo and Ed Asner have questioned the government's account of 9/11.

Similarly, in addition to the people listed above, leading paleo (as opposed to Neo-) conservatives such as Paul Craig Roberts, Joel M. Skousen and Karen Johnson question the government's narrative.

False Flags

While it doesn't directly indicate that any shenanigans occurred on 9/11, it is important as historical background information that governments from around the world admit they carry out false flag terror:

  • A major with the Nazi SS admitted at the Nuremberg trials that - under orders from the chief of the Gestapo - he and some other Nazi operatives faked attacks on their own people and resources which they blamed on the Poles, to justify the invasion of Poland. Nazi general Franz Halder also testified at the Nuremberg trials that Nazi leader Hermann Goering admitted to setting fire to the German parliament building, and then falsely blaming the communists for the arson
  • The CIA admits that it hired Iranians in the 1950's to pose as Communists and stage bombings in Iran in order to turn the country against its democratically-elected prime minister
  • Israel admits that an Israeli terrorist cell operating in Egypt planted bombs in several buildings, including U.S. diplomatic facilities, then left behind "evidence" implicating the Arabs as the culprits (one of the bombs detonated prematurely, allowing the Egyptians to identify the bombers, and several of the Israelis later confessed) (and see this and this)
  • As admitted by the U.S. government, recently declassified documents show that in the 1960's, the American Joint Chiefs of Staff signed off on a plan to blow up AMERICAN airplanes (using an elaborate plan involving the switching of airplanes), and also to commit terrorist acts on American soil, and then to blame it on the Cubans in order to justify an invasion of Cuba. See the following ABC news report; the official documents; and watch this interview with the former Washington Investigative Producer for ABC's World News Tonight with Peter Jennings. Official State Department documents show that - only nine months before - the head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and other high-level officials discussed blowing up a consulate in the Dominican Republic in order to justify an invasion of that country. Neither plan was carried out, but they were both discussed as serious proposals
  • The South African Truth and Reconciliation Council found that, in 1989, the Civil Cooperation Bureau (a covert branch of the South African Defense Force) approached an explosives expert and asked him "to participate in an operation aimed at discrediting the ANC [the African National Congress] by bombing the police vehicle of the investigating officer into the murder incident", thus framing the ANC for the bombing
  • An Algerian diplomat and several officers in the Algerian army admit that, in the 1990s, the Algerian army frequently massacred Algerian civilians and then blamed Islamic militants for the killings (and see this video; and Agence France-Presse, 9/27/2002, French Court Dismisses Algerian Defamation Suit Against Author)
  • According to the Washington Post, Indonesian police admit that the Indonesian military killed American teachers in Papua in 2002 and blamed the murders on a Papuan separatist group in order to get that group listed as a terrorist organization.
  • The well-respected former Indonesian president also admits that the government probably had a role in the Bali bombings
  • As reported by BBC, the New York Times, and Associated Press, Macedonian officials admit that the government murdered 7 innocent immigrants in cold blood and pretended that they were Al Qaeda soldiers attempting to assassinate Macedonian police, in order to join the "war on terror".
  • Former Department of Justice lawyer John Yoo suggested in 2005 that the US should go on the offensive against al-Qaeda, having “our intelligence agencies create a false terrorist organization. It could have its own websites, recruitment centers, training camps, and fundraising operations. It could launch fake terrorist operations and claim credit for real terrorist strikes, helping to sow confusion within al-Qaeda’s ranks, causing operatives to doubt others’ identities and to question the validity of communications.”
  • United Press International reported in June 2005:
    U.S. intelligence officers are reporting that some of the insurgents in Iraq are using recent-model Beretta 92 pistols, but the pistols seem to have had their serial numbers erased. The numbers do not appear to have been physically removed; the pistols seem to have come off a production line without any serial numbers. Analysts suggest the lack of serial numbers indicates that the weapons were intended for intelligence operations or terrorist cells with substantial government backing. Analysts speculate that these guns are probably from either Mossad or the CIA. Analysts speculate that agent provocateurs may be using the untraceable weapons even as U.S. authorities use insurgent attacks against civilians as evidence of the illegitimacy of the resistance.
  • Quebec police admitted that, in 2007, thugs carrying rocks to a peaceful protest were actually undercover Quebec police officers
  • At the G20 protests in London in 2009, a British member of parliament saw plain clothes police officers attempting to incite the crowd to violence
Indeed, the following historical quotes show that this type of hanky panky has been going on for a long time:

"This and no other is the root from which a tyrant springs; when he first appears he is a protector."
- Plato

"If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy."
- U.S. President James Madison

"Terrorism is the best political weapon for nothing drives people harder than a fear of sudden death".
- Adolph Hitler

"Why of course the people don't want war ... But after all it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy, and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship ... Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is to tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country."
- Hermann Goering, Nazi leader.

"The easiest way to gain control of a population is to carry out acts of terror. [The public] will clamor for such laws if their personal security is threatened".
- Josef Stalin

Specific Facts About 9/11

With the foregoing background, I will now quickly address some specific facts. Initially, I assume that Mr. Greenwald already knows that 9/11 was wholly and completely foreseeable. If he doesn't, he should read this.

Next, Glenn will want to learn that Dick Cheney was in charge of all counter-terrorism exercises, activities and responses on 9/11. Ssee this Department of State announcement; this CNN article; and this essay.

In fact, 5 war games were scheduled for 9/11, including games that included the insertion of false radar blips onto air traffic contollers' screens. Specifically, on the very morning of September 11th, five war games and terror drills were being conducted by several U.S. defense agencies, including one "live fly" exercise using REAL planes.

Then-Acting Head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Air Force General Richard B. Myers, admitted to 4 of the war games in congressional testimony -- see transcript here or video here (6 minutes and 12 seconds into the video).

Norad had run drills for several years of planes being used as weapons against the World Trade Center and other U.S. high-profile buildings, and "numerous types of civilian and military aircraft were used as mock hijacked aircraft". In other words, drills using REAL AIRCRAFT simulating terrorist attacks crashing jets into buildings, including the twin towers, were run. See also official military website showing 2000 military drill, using miniatures, involving a plane crashing into the Pentagon.

Indeed, a former Los Angeles police department investigator, whose newsletter is read by 45 members of congress, both the house and senate intelligence committees, and professors at more than 40 universities around the world, claims that he obtained an on-the-record confirmation from NORAD that on 9/11, NORAD and the Joint Chiefs of Staff were conducting a joint, live-fly, hijack exercise which involved government-operated aircraft posing as hijacked airliners.

On September 11th, the government also happened to be running a simulation of a plane crashing into a building.

In addition, a December 9, 2001 Toronto Star article (pay-per-view; reprinted here), stated that "Operation Northern Vigilance is called off. Any simulated information, what's known as an 'inject,' is purged from the screens". This indicates that there were false radar blips inserted onto air traffic controllers' screens as part of the war game exercises.

Moreover, there are indications that some of the major war games previously scheduled for October 2001 were moved up to September 11th by persons unknown.

Now here's where it gets interesting ... Secretary of Transportation Norman Mineta testified to the 9/11 Commission:

"During the time that the airplane was coming into the Pentagon, there was a young man who would come in and say to the Vice President … the plane is 50 miles out…the plane is 30 miles out….and when it got down to the plane is 10 miles out, the young man also said to the vice president “do the orders still stand?” And the Vice President turned and whipped his neck around and said “Of course the orders still stand, have you heard anything to the contrary!?"

(this testimony is confirmed here and here).

So even if 9/11 wasn't foreseeable before 9/11, it was foreseeable to Dick Cheney - who had been attacking democracy for nearly 40 years - as the plane was still 50 miles away from the Pentagon.

While this is not proof of wrongdoing, it shows that - as - 9/11 needs further investigation.

Scientific Evidence

Lawyers are used to retaining experts. Specifically, when there is an area which laypeople and lawyers cannot understand without expert input, experts are retained.

Many top structural engineers and fire protection experts - the two types of experts most relevant to the collapse of World Trade Center buildings 1 and 2 (the Twin Towers) and building 7 (which was never hit by a plane) - doubt the official narrative, and say that the agency addressing such issues played politics with the science, just as FBI has twisted the science to try to convict Bruce Ivins for the anthrax attacks, and the Bush administration "fixed the facts around the policy" of invading Iraq.

Indeed, 1,500 architects, engineers and other relevant experts doubt the official story.

Is It Worth Going Down the Rabbit Hole?

As this lengthy post shows, looking at September 11th with open eyes means going down the rabbit hole to some extent.

But as Mr. Greenwald has eloquently argued, we can't just "look forward" on issues like torture, lying about war, and other crimes. If we don't truly air the dirty laundry, they will happen again.

Similarly, if 9/11 was, in fact, in any way allowed to happen, then we have to truly get to the bottom of it, or the boys will use ball-dropping negligence or "false flags" again.

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