[Home] [Headlines] [Latest Articles] [Latest Comments] [Post] [Sign-in] [Mail] [Setup] [Help]
Status: Not Logged In; Sign In
|
Editorial See other Editorial Articles Title: Bush Needs Torture and Terrorism, Scholar Explains Bush Needs Torture and Terrorism, Scholar Explains Emediawire (press release Madison, WI (PRWEB) February 25, 2008 -- The Bush administration has cynically used the 9/11 attacks to constrain civil liberties, increase defense spending, and launch preventative wars on Iraq and Afghanistan. Research by Scholars for 9/11 Truth, among others, has proven that the story told to the American people cannot be sustained. Bush himself has admitted that Saddam had "nothing" to do with the attacks, the Senate Intelligence Committee concluded that he was not in collusion with al Qaeda, and the FBI has acknowledged that it has "no hard evidence" connecting Osama bin Laden to the events of 9/11. "Bush made his admission during a press conference," observed James H. Fetzer, Ph.D., the founder of Scholars. "I expected 'Nothing' would be the lead in every paper across the world, and that did not happen. But it should be apparent by now that they have been lying about 9/11 from scratch." Indeed, a recent study by the Center for Public Integrity ("False Statements Preceded War", Yahoo! News, January 23, 2008), revealed that administration officials from Bush to Cheney to Rice on down the line have lied nearly 1,000 times about the reasons for attacking Iraq. "If Saddam had nothing to do with 9/11 and if Osama had nothing to do with 9/11, then it may be worthwhile to consider who benefited," Fetzer remarked. Using the traditional standards of motive, means, and opportunity, the likely suspects for having committed these atrocities are not 19 Islamic fundamentalists acting under orders from a man in a cave in Afghanistan but elements at the highest levels of the US government and their closest ally in the Middle East. "We might want to consider those who have lied to us." Before 9/11, American officials had been in discussions with the Taliban about the construction of an enormous pipeline across northern Afghanistan, assuring them that, if they allowed the pipeline to be constructed, we would bathe them in gold; and if they did not, we would bathe them in bombs. They didn't, we did. "Today that pipeline is under construction, two permanent bases are in place ideally situated to protect it, the leader of Afghanistan is a former Unocal Oil official and our Ambassador to Afghanistan is another Unocal Oil official," Fetzer said. "This is not rocket science." Remember the Taliban had promised to turn over Osama bin Laden if the United States would present evidence that he had been involved. "Condi promised to do that," he added, "but of course it was never done." Bush's first Secretary of the Treasury, Paul O'Neill, was the principal source for a book, The Price of Loyalty (2004) by Ron Suskind, in which it was revealed that the invasion of Iraq was being discussed at the first meeting of the Bush cabinet in 2001. That was many months before the 9/11 attacks, which Bush used to justify invading Afghanistan and attacking Iraq. According to Fetzer, "The underlying motives appear to have been oil, Israel, and ideology. Anyone familiar with the history of the Middle East and Bush's motives would have no problem sorting these things out." The US coveted Iraq's oil reserves, Israel wanted to reduce the influence of the most advanced and sophisticated nation in the Middle East, and the neo-cons wanted to introduce American military power into the Middle East in the expectation of projecting American influence outward from that geopolitically strategic location. "These plans are easily accessible to anyone who can read. In The Grand Chessboard (1997), Zbig Brzezinski, Jimmy Carter's National Security Advisor, outlined precisely such a plan." It was later embraced and developed by the members of Project for the New American Century, whose documents are still available on the internet. Its enthusiastic supporters included William Kristol, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Condi Rice, and many others who would hold high positions in the administration of George W. Bush. "I find it vaguely amusing that certain candidates for the office of President of the United States should be touting their 'experience' as a reason to elect them. We have seldom had an administration with more 'experience' than that of George W. Bush, and look what it has brought us. William Kristol, who served as Chief of Staff for Dan Quayle, was gushing about the great benefits of an invasion of Iraq." "What the administration appears to have needed was a rationale it could sell to convince the American people that there were good reasons to invade Afghanistan and to attack Iraq." Himmler had explained at the Nuremberg Trials that it is easy to manipulate the citizens of a nation by convincing them that they are under attack by a foreign power and that they will then gladly surrender their liberties for security. A key member of the Bush brain trust was a colleague of Condi Rice, one Philip Zelikow, who had written about the political consequences of terrorism. In an article in Foreign Affairs ("Catastrophic Terrorism," November-December 1998), Zelikow and his co-authors Ashton Carter and John Deutch, former Director of the CIA, had spelled out the consequences that would have ensued had the earlier attempt to blow-up the World Trade Center in 1993 been successful: "The resulting horror and chaos would have exceeded our ability to describe it. Such an act of catastrophic terrorism would be a watershed event in American history. It could involve loss of life and property unprecedented in peacetime and undermine America's fundamental sense of security, as did the Soviet atomic bomb test in 1949. Like Pearl Harbor, this event would divide our past and future into a before and after. The United States might respond with draconian measures, scaling back civil liberties, allowing wider surveillance of citizens, detention of suspects, and use of deadly force. More violence could follow, either further terrorist attacks or U.S. counterattacks." "What this means," Fetzer added, "is that the inside insiders of the Bush administration had a plan that would enable them to achieve their political objectives. It was one that satisfied Himmler's conception and could be used to manipulate the American people. Of course, it would need to be covered-up, where the tried and true tactic of a Presidential Commission could do the job. And who better to run the show and make sure nothing got out of hand than Zelikow himself." Indeed, a new book, Philip Shenon's The Commission: The Uncensored History of the 9/11 Investigation (2008), has just appeared and reveals that Zelikow was in communication with Karl Rove, Bush's closest advisor, during the commission's inquiry, which is a convincing indication that it was being conducted with attention to the political objectives that motivated the attacks and their implications for the administration, were they to be uncovered, Fetzer said. The plot of The 9/11 Commission Report (2004)--that 19 Islamic fundamentalists hijacked four commercial airliners, outfoxed the most sophisticated air defense system in the world, and perpetrated these crimes--can be disproven in every significant respect. "Plane crashes and kerosene-based fires could not have destroyed the Twin Towers; something other than a Boeing 757 hit the Pentagon; the events in Shanksville are shrouded in mystery," he observed. "Hani Hajour's flight instructor was dumbfounded when told that he had allegedly piloted the plane that hit the Pentagon because 'He couldn't fly at all!' Alas, too many Americans have been taken in by the elaborate hoax presented in The 9/11 Commission Report, which was carefully contrived to be convincing by an expert on 'public myths' named Philip Zelikow, who was in bed with the administration." It is common knowledge that torture is ineffectual at producing useful information (or "actionable intelligence"), because the subject will say anything to escape the torment. This fact cannot have escaped the administration, which, Fetzer believes, found it irresistible to resort to torture to extract false confessions that could support its phony rationale for the "war on terrorism." Khalid Shiekh Mohammed, for example, who is alleged to be the "mastermind" behind the 9/11 attacks, reportedly confessed to no less than 31 attacks ("Al Qaeda Chief Khalid Sheikh Mohammed Confesses to Planning Sept. 11, Gitmo Transcript Shows," March 15, 2007). "The fact that some of these occurred when he was a child and others after his capture does not seem to have impressed The New York Times. But the trail of Zacarias Moussaoui was an even more grotesque case of the abuse of judicial procedure and violations of due process. He wasn't convicted of the crime for which he was punished." Scholars published a press release about the Moussaoui trial ("Scholars Call Moussaoui Trial "A Charade", April 22, 2006), explaining that he had confessed a year before to participating in a plot to free the blind shiek who had been involved in the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center but had noting to do with 9/11. "He was equipped with a 50,000 volt 'stun belt' at the trial to determine his punishment," Fetzer said, "which I am sure made him very cooperative. But the situation is absurd. One day we have a story, 'Bush Wants Limits on Access to Evidence' (February 15, 2008), the next day a front page story, 'U.S. Struggles to Tutor Iraqis in Rule of Law' (February 16, 2008). We are suspended somewhere between 'Alice in Wonderland' and '1984'. The nation is living a lie. Bush needs torture and kangaroo courts to justify his fake 'war on terror.'" Fetzer recommends that those who want to learn more should visit 911scholars.org, read books such as The New Pearl Harbor (2004), Debunking 9/11 Debunking (2007) by David Ray Griffin, 9/11: Synthetic Terror (2005) by Webster Griffin Tarpley, and The 9/11 Conspiracy (2007) by Scholars for 9/11 Truth, and view videos such as "9/11 Mysteries", "9/11 Revisited", and "The Science and the Politics of 9/11".
Post Comment Private Reply Ignore Thread
|
||
|
[Home]
[Headlines]
[Latest Articles]
[Latest Comments]
[Post]
[Sign-in]
[Mail]
[Setup]
[Help]
|
||