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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