IS OUR GOVERNMENT FACILITATING ANOTHER 9/11?

I have recently read three articles sent me through e-mail by Truthout, which suggest that another 9/11 is in the works and that our government is behind it. The first, "Preparing the Battlefield", but noted journalist Seymour Hersh, was re-printed from the New Yorker. It describes the preparations for war with Iran being made by the Bush Administration, including congressional approval of covert operations within that country. Although the select members of the House and Senate intelligence Committees who are alone privileged to know about these things resisted the Administration's request for full-scale covert operations, which would have involved combat, they did approve so-called "intelligence-seeking" activities within Iran, including the enlistment of dissident groups within that country, some of whom are Sunni fundamentalists who oppose the Shi'ite government of Iran. These militants are little different from Al Qaeda, and indeed, for all I know they may include Al Qaeda, whom of course the U.S. has backed before. Naturally the CIA is playing a major role in all this, and the "intelligence-seeking" activities remind me very much of the PHOENIX program in Vietnam, which tortured and killed so many innocent Vietnamese civilians. This will mean still more prisoners in secret CIA prisons, to be subjected to the sort of treatment I have previously described and shall be describing further in my next blog, which is not directed at acquiring intelligence and goes much further than simple torture, usually ending in brain damage and/or death for the victim. Ex-DCIA and current Secretary of Defense Robert Gates "warned" that "We'll create generations of jihadists, and our grandchildren will be battling our enemies here in America," (emphasis mine), but one is left wondering if this is perhaps exactly what they want (and if Gates opposes the policy, why doesn't he resign?)

A second article was written by Mark Mazzetti and David Rohde for the New York Times, and is entitled, "Amid Policy Disputes, Qaeda Growns in Pakistan." It describes how Arab extremists including Al Qaeda have, from 2001 on, been re-grouping in remote tribal areas of that country. "In many ways, the foreigners were returning to their home base. In the 1980s, Mr. bin Laden and hundreds of Arab and foreign fighters backed by the United States and Pakistan used the tribal areas as a staging area for cross-border attacks on Soviet forces in Afghanistan." The article bemoans the failure of the Pakistani government to do anything about the problem, and quotes two unnamed U.S. government officials who were "surprised and frustrated" when President Bush called the Pakistani Prime Minister and instead of demanding action, "repeatedly thanked him for his contributions to the War on Terrorism." The article blames intragovernmental and intra-agency (CIA) disputes for the failure to act against the militants, but above all the war in Iraq. "By 2006 the Iraq War had drained away most of the CIA officers with field experience in the Islamic world... these people all went to Iraq. We were huring because of Iraq." Iran's nuclear program, Iraq's chimerical weapons of mass destruction-- what do these have to do with the elimination of the threat that most Americans presume is still posed by Al Qaeda? Note that the government of Iran, which is Shi'ite, cannot possibly be planning to give nukes to the Sunni Al Qaeda militants. Why has our government consistently gotten itself involved in tangential battles while allowing the enemy which is presumed to be responsible for the attacks of 9/11 to re-group to the point where, as Pentagon consultant and terrorism expert says, "The United States faces a threat from Al Qaeda today which is comparable to what it faced on September 11, 2001"? Is this sheer stupidity on our government's part?

A third article, "Will Terrorists Rock the Vote in 2008?' written by Frank Rich for the New York Times, offers another possible explanation. It notes that Charles Black, advisor to presidential candidate John McCain, has publicly come out and said that a domestic terrorist attack "would be a big advantage" to the GOP. Then he speculates that Black is privately gaming this out further: "What would be the optimum timing, from the campaign's perpective, for this terrorist attack-- before or after the convention? Would the attack be most useful if it took place in a red state, blue state or swing state? How much would it 'help' if the next assassinated foreign leader had a higher name recognition in American households than Benazir Bhutto?" Then on to the facts: " Terrorism is the one major issue where Mr. McCain soundly vanquishes his Democratic opponent in the polls. Since 2002, it's been a Beltway axiom akin to E= mc2 that Bomb in an American city =GOP landslide." Unfortunately for the GOP, seven years of the War on Terrorism, just like the decades of the War on Communism, have left Americans "more frightened of losing jobs, homes and savings" than of a domestic attack. Even rising gas prices might not be sufficient to persuade them to support continuing war in the Middle East, although it will probably win public approval for the destruction of Alaska and the coasts of the lower 48 through off-shore oil drilling. Something dramatic is needed, something like the fictitious warnings of Soviet military advantage which helped bring Ronald Reagan to power in 1980. And the Bush Administration already knows what that something is, and how effective it can be, not only for bringing the GOP victory but for laying the groundwork of a totalitarian state in the U.S.

The United States government virtually created Al Qaeda (see Joseph Trento's Prelude to Terror for the links between the Bush family and bin Laden). It has been coddling it since the attacks of 9/11, and allowing it to regroup while it fights wars which have taken the lives of American servicemen while doing nothing to protect American civilians.Note that even if Iran gets the Bomb, it will hardly be likely to use it against the U.S., in view of our overwhelming nuclear superiority-- even the Russians, who had and still have the second largest arsenal in the world, have never dared to attack us for fear of retaliation. As a threat, Iran is hardly comparable to the Soviet Union. In fact, there is no overwhelming threat to American lives today save for terrorism, and the American government seems intent upon allowing the terrorists to regroup in order to stage another attack. But how can it persuade Muslim extremists to give up their lives in suicide attacks against the U.S.? It doesn't have to. Why not simply offer them a technology well-known through use of the CIA Predator drone, of remotely-controlled aircraft? As Webster Griffin Tarpley has said, such technology may have been secretly installed on every commercial aircraft, ready to use if the government fears a hijacking-- or simply wants the public to believe that a plane was hijacked. Al Qaeda does not have to sacrifice a single member-- all it has to do is be there to take the blame. There is good reason to believe that if Obama continues to make gains in the polls, there will be a second 9/11 before election day. And then there will be still more innocent people in mind-destroying CIA prisons-- but they will be American citizens.