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The Sins of September 11 -- By William Rivers Pitt
When Helms and Lott dismissed the Al Qaeda threat
[The following article was reprinted in the Nov. 9 issue of Granma
International. It speaks to issues I think will be important in the
2004 presidential campaign: Terrorism, how to fight it and the fakery
and failures of the Bush Administration. -- Irving Beinin ]
==========
The Sins of September 11
By William Rivers Pitt
t r u t h o u t | Perspective -- Monday 13 October 2003
http://www.truthout.org/docs_03/101303A.shtml
I am beginning to despise reading. I have lost count of the number of
times I have read some passage in a politically-oriented book, and
then been uncontrollably motivated to hurl said book against a wall or
across the room in fury. My library looks like someone took a weed-
whacker to it; all the dust-jackets have taken a fearsome beating.
The book currently on my desk has begun to retain a damaged
appearance. Sidney Blumenthal's "The Clinton Wars" is a meticulously
researched and foot-noted tour de force through the last ten years of
the brainless savagery of American politics. The retelling of the
contrived scandals clarioned by a media establishment which abandoned
any pretense of journalistic integrity, pushed by a cabal of House
members and right-wing activists whose worshipped altar was the desire
for raw power, and the sad and sorry tale of the impeachment itself,
is a difficult but necessary review of a truly pathetic time in our
history. Blumenthal manages to bring his readers back to that tar pit,
and keep them enthralled, with an excellent and deft literary touch.
Since I have read most of the other books on the scandal-gasm and
impeachment, there was not much through the middle of this book that
brought me up short, though Blumenthal does present interviews and
perspectives of players on both sides of that aisle which are not
present in the other histories (It was amusing to read Congressional
impeachment warrior James Rogan speak of being "On the wrong side of
history" regarding the trial in the Senate). No, the book began to
take its obligatory pounding when I reached page 656, and the second
part of the chapter entitled "The Twenty-First Century."
The astounding level of blunt ignorance within the American populace
about the events surrounding the attacks of September 11 cannot be
easily quantified. In a nation with thousands of newspapers, thousands
of radio stations, and a ceaseless data stream from CNN, MSNBC, CNBC,
Fox, NBC, ABC, CBS and PBS, some 70% of the population believed as
late as a month ago that Saddam Hussein was centrally involved in and
personally responsible for the attacks which destroyed the Towers and
struck the Pentagon. Beyond that, what most people know about the
single most important event in American history does not go much
beyond "evildoers" who "hate our freedom."
That is, simply, incredible. It is also not an accident. This
ignorance has a great deal to do with the stunning mediocrity of the
television news media, that empty well where most Americans go to
become informed. This ignorance also, and far more importantly, has a
great deal to do with the Clinton-era actions of a large number of
conservatives, many of whom are in positions of power today, many of
whom are now making careers out of September 11.
The two great myths that have settled across the nation, beyond the
Hussein-9/11 connection, are that Clinton did not do enough during his
tenure to stop the spread of radical terrorist organizations like al
Qaeda, and that the attacks themselves could not have been anticipated
or stopped. Blumenthal's insider perspective on these matters bursts
the myths entirely, and reveals a level of complicity regarding the
attacks within the journalistic realm and the conservative political
ranks that is infuriating and disturbing.
Starting in 1995, Clinton took actions against terrorism that were
unprecedented in American history. He poured billions and billions of
dollars into counterterrorism activities across the entire spectrum of
the intelligence community. He poured billions more into the
protection of critical infrastructure. He ordered massive federal
stockpiling of antidotes and vaccines to prepare for a possible
bioterror attack. He order a reorganization of the intelligence
community itself, ramming through reforms and new procedures to
address the demonstrable threat. Within the National Security Council,
"threat meetings" were held three times a week to assess looming
conspiracies. His National Security Advisor, Sandy Berger, prepared a
voluminous dossier on al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden, actively tracking
them across the planet. Clinton raised the issue of terrorism in
virtually every important speech he gave in the last three years of
his tenure. In 1996, Clinton delivered a major address to the United
Nations on the matter of international terrorism, calling it "The
enemy of our generation."
Behind the scenes, he leaned vigorously on the leaders of nations
within the terrorist sphere. In particular, he pushed Pakistani Prime
Minister Nawaz Sharif to assist him in dealing with the threat from
neighboring Afghanistan and its favorite guest, Osama bin Laden.
Before Sharif could be compelled to act, he was thrown out of office
by his own army. His replacement, Pervez Musharraf, pointedly refused
to do anything to assist Clinton in dealing with these threats.
Despite these and other diplomatic setbacks, terrorist cell after
terrorist cell were destroyed across the world, and bomb plots against
American embassies were thwarted. Because of security concerns, these
victories were never revealed to the American people until very
recently.
In America, few people heard anything about this. Clinton's dire
public warnings about the threat posed by terrorism, and the massive
non-secret actions taken to thwart it, went completely unreported by
the media, which was far more concerned with stained dresses and
baseless Drudge Report rumors. When the administration did act
militarily against bin Laden and his terrorist network, the actions
were dismissed by partisans within the media and Congress as
scandalous "wag the dog" tactics. The TV networks actually broadcast
clips of the movie "Wag The Dog" to accentuate the idea that
everything the administration was doing was contrived fakery.
The bombing of the Sundanese factory at al-Shifa, in particular, drew
wide condemnation from these quarters, despite the fact that the CIA
found and certified VX nerve agent precursor in the ground outside the
factory, despite the fact that the factory was owned by Osama bin
Laden's Military Industrial Corporation, and despite the fact that the
manager of the factory lived in bin Laden's villa in Khartoum. The
book "Age of Sacred Terror" quantifies the al-Shifa issue thusly: "The
dismissal of the al-Shifa attack as a scandalous blunder had serious
consequences, including the failure of the public to comprehend the
nature of the al Qaeda threat."
In Congress, Clinton was thwarted by the reactionary conservative
majority in virtually every attempt he made to pass legislation that
would attack al Qaeda and terrorism. His 1996 omnibus terror bill,
which included many of the anti-terror measures we now take for
granted after September 11, was withered almost to the point of
uselessness by attacks from the right; Jesse Helms and Trent Lott were
openly dismissive of the threats Clinton spoke of.
Clinton wanted to attack the financial underpinnings of the al-Qaeda
network by banning American companies and individuals from dealing
with foreign banks and financial institutions that al Qaeda was using
for its money-laundering operations. Texas Senator Phil Gramm,
chairman of the Banking Committee, killed Clinton's bill on this
matter and called it "totalitarian." In fact, he was compelled to kill
the bill because his most devoted patrons, the Enron Corporation and
its criminal executives in Houston, were using those same terrorist
financial networks to launder their own dirty money and rip off the
Enron stockholders.
Just before departing office, Clinton managed to make a deal with the
Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development to have some
twenty nations close tax havens used by al Qaeda. His term ended
before the deal was sealed, and the incoming Bush administration acted
immediately to destroy the agreement. According to Time magazine, in
an article entitled "Banking on Secrecy" published in October of 2001,
Bush economic advisors Larry Lindsey and R. Glenn Hubbard were urged
by think tanks like the Center for Freedom and Prosperity to opt out
of the coalition Clinton had formed. The conservative Heritage
Foundation lobbied Bush's Treasury Secretary, Paul O'Neill, to do the
same. In the end, the lobbyists got what they wanted, and the Bush
administration pulled America out of the plan. The Time article
stated, "Without the world's financial superpower, the biggest effort
in years to rid the world's financial system of dirty money was short-
circuited."
This laundry list of partisan catastrophes goes on and on. Far from
being inept on the matter of terrorism, Clinton was profoundly
activist in his attempts to address terrorism. Much of his work was
foiled by right-wing Congressional conservatives who, simply, refused
to accept the fact that he was President. These men, paid to work for
the public trust, spent eight years working diligently to paralyze any
and all Clinton policies, including anti-terror initiatives that, if
enacted, would have gone a long way towards thwarting the September 11
attacks. Beyond them lay the worthless television media, which ignored
and spun the terrorist issue as it pursued salacious leaks from Ken
Starr's office, leaving the American people drowning in a swamp of
ignorance on a matter of deadly global importance.
Over and above the theoretical questions regarding whether or not
Clinton's anti-terror policies, if passed, would have stopped
September 11 lies the very real fact that attacks very much like 9/11
were, in fact, stopped dead by the Clinton administration. The most
glaring example of this came on December 31, 1999, when the world
gathered to celebrate the passing of the millennium. On that night, al
Qaeda was gathering as well.
The terrorist network planned to simultaneously attack the national
airports in Washington DC and Los Angeles, the Amman Raddison Hotel in
Jordan, a constellation of holy sites in Israel, and the USS The
Sullivans at dock in Yemen. Each and every single one of these plots,
which ranged from one side of the planet to the other, was foiled by
the efforts of the Clinton administration. Speaking for the first time
about these millennium plots, in a speech delivered to the Coast Guard
Academy on May 17, 2000, Clinton said, "I want to tell you a story
that, unfortunately, will not be the last example you will have to
face."
Indeed.
Clinton proved that Osama bin Laden and his terror network can be
foiled, can be thwarted, can be stopped. The multifaceted and complex
nature of the international millennium plots rivals the plans laid
before September 11, and involved counter-terrorism actions within
several countries and across the entire American intelligence and
military community. All resources were brought to bear, and the
terrorists went down to defeat. The proof is in the pudding here.
September 11, like the millennium plots, could have been avoided.
Couple this with other facts about the Bush administration we now have
in hand. The administration was warned about a massive terror plot in
the months before September by the security services of several
countries, including Israel, Egypt, Germany and Russia. CIA Director
George Tenet delivered a specific briefing on the matter to the
administration on August 8, 2001. The massive compendium of data on
Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda compiled by Sandy Berger, and delivered
to Condoleezza Rice upon his departure, went completely and admittedly
unread until the attacks took place. The attacks themselves managed,
for over an hour, to pierce the most formidable air defense system in
the history of the Earth without a single fighter aircraft taking wing
until the catastrophe was concluded.
It is not fashionable these days to pine for the return of William
Jefferson Clinton. Given the facts above, and the realities we face
about the administration of George W. Bush, and the realities we
endure regarding the aftermath of September 11, the United States of
America would be, and was, well served by its previous leader. That we
do not know this, that September 11 happened at all, that it was such
a wretched shock to the American people, that we were so woefully
unprepared, can be laid at the feet of a failed news media
establishment, and at the feet of a pack of power-mad conservative
extremists who now have a great deal to atone for.
Had Clinton been heeded, the measures he espoused would have been put
in place, and a number of powerful bulwarks would have been thrown
into the paths of those commercial airplanes. Had the news media been
something other than a purveyor of masturbation fantasies from the
far-right, the American people would have know the threats we faced,
and would have compelled their Congressmen to act. Had Congress itself
been something other than an institution ruled by narrow men whose
only desire was to break a sitting President by any means necessary,
we would very probably still have a New York skyline dominated by two
soaring towers.
Had the Bush administration not continued this pattern of gross
partisan ineptitude and heeded the blitz of domestic and international
warnings, instead of trooping off to Texas for a month-long vacation,
had Bush's National Security Advisor done one hour's worth of her
homework, we probably would not be in the grotesque global mess that
currently envelops us. Never forget that many of the activists who
pushed throughout the 1990s for the annihilation of all things Clinton
are now foursquare in charge of the country today.
These are the sins of September 11. Thank you, Sidney. I'm sorry I
broke your book.
-------
William Rivers Pitt is the Managing Editor of truthout.org. He is a
New York Times and international best-selling author of three books -
"War On Iraq," available from Context Books, "The Greatest Sedition is
Silence," available from Pluto Press, and "Our Flag, Too: The Paradox
of Patriotism," available in August from Context Books.
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