The New Pearl Harbor: Disturbing Questions About the Bush Administration and 9/11 – David Ray Griffin

The New Pearl Harbor: Disturbing Questions About the Bush Administration and 9/11 – David Ray Griffin, Olive Branch Press (2004) 214pp. (OBT) ***

Most writers know their limits and work within them. But isn’t it the writer who pushes the proverbial envelope who we tend to learn the most from? Working from the margins, Griffin has attempted to do just that, to extend the consciousness of the reader. As he rightly notes, “it might seem prudent simply to ‘let sleeping dogs lie.’ If the suspicions are correct, however, these dogs are not sleeping, but are using the official story of 9/11 for various nefarious purposes, both within our country and the rest of the world.”(p. 160) Since the “official” 9/11 script seems to have already been written and archived, some might justly ask, why bother with a closer examination. Surely the American public had no role or say in the decision to make 9/11 the linchpin of U.S. foreign policy (a massive breakdown in national security if there ever was one). Just as we were unasked toward what purposes this tragedy could be manipulated, so must we demand of ourselves to seek the rigorous answers, not allowing those with ulterior motives to speak for us.
Interestingly, one area where Griffin chooses to take his investigation, is the U.S. Space Command. Rumsfeld was chairman of the commission to assess U.S. national security space management and organization, which subsequently published a report in the second week of 2001. The report, “recommended substantial changes, including the subordination of all the other armed forces and the intelligence agencies to the Space Force.”(p. 99) The report also stated the need for a “galvanizing” event like a “space Pearl Harbor.” Given this wider, trans-global/extraterrestrial agenda, one can understand why the American flag patches on the right shoulders of U.S. service personnel, would be backward. To the confused reader, this is simple, basic iconoclasm 101. Before you substitute one symbol for another, you first must make the symbol being replaced, lose all its meaning. Improper flag display is just such a method.
For his references and notation, Griffin is largely dependent upon Paul Thompson’s 9/11 timeline and Nafeez Ahmed’s War On Freedom. Notably absent from Griffin’s text is any mention of the possible hand of Israel or the Mossad in the attacks, as in the Israeli “art students” who were allegedly shadowing the 9/11 hijackers. Nor is there any mention of the anthrax letters, and while there are plenty of references to “the Big Lie,” there is no note of its originator and espouser, Leo Strauss. Altogether, these are fairly petty bones to pick over a work that overall is fairly complete. Griffin has boldly brought to light some of the undercurrents to 9/11, now it is up to you reader to connect the dots.

The 9/11 Commission Report: Final Report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States

The 9/11 Commission Report: Final Report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States – W.W. Norton & Company, Inc. (2004) 567p. (S) **
Let’s, for a moment, take a page from the Karl Rove playbook; when attacking an opponent, don’t go after his weaknesses, go after his strengths. (How else is one to explain the temerity and audacity of a candidate of George W. Bush’s caliber [i.e. a deserter of the Air National Guard] making outrageous and shameless assaults on the military record of John Kerry, a decorated, two-tour combat veteran?) These days, one doesn’t have to wait long before yet another member of the Bush administration, yet again, reveres publicly the events of 9/11/01 – the raison d’etre of the Bush foreign policy, and some might argue, the raison d’etre of the administration itself. Perversely, for whatever self-serving reasons, the Bush administration has chosen to wear the 9/11 tragedies – the worst breakdown and failure of the national security system in our nation’s history – as a badge of honor. (Why Democrats aren’t focusing more of their resources on this neo-con “strength” leaves one a bit incredulous.) What makes the 9/11 attacks especially suspicious is their highly anomalous nature. To understand exactly how much of an aberration were the attacks (i.e. nothing like it has happened before or since), consider the following statistics: on any given day in the United States, there are 80,000 flights, 60,000 of which are civilian passenger flights. That’s an awfully lot of potential variables in a system, that in order to function, must be highly tuned and regulated, making one wonder just exactly how do four flights go missing within a two hour period? If the 9/11 hijackers, including four flight school students of mediocre ability, were really able to pull off the highly sophisticated 9/11 attacks without any external assistance, then one would rationally expect airplanes to be crashing into buildings, or falling from the sky in other terrorist scenarios, occurring with much more frequency.
The most relevant and important part of this report is its first 46 pages, as they deal directly with the actual events of “Terrible Tuesday.” In these pages so many contradictions abound that it is difficult to know where to begin. To start, why did it take Boston air traffic controllers 27 minutes to determine that American Airlines flight 11 had been hijacked? (Or, perhaps a more plausible scenario, why, when Boston air traffic control got on the phone to the FAA and NORAD, a busy or dead signal is all they got?) As this, AA flight 11, was the first plane to strike its target (the WTC North Tower), one could reasonably argue that the authorities’ response hangs on how it chose to react to this first flight deviation. Instead, the commission offers this blunt statement with no explanation, “Boston Center did not follow the protocol in seeking military assistance through the prescribed chain of command.”(p.20) And again they make a similar statement: “The defense of U.S. airspace on 9/11 was not conducted in accord with pre-existing training and protocol.”(p.31) The report also claims that some NORAD personnel were less than honest in answering some of the commission’s questions. So the big follow-up question is why? In their end notation, the commission report writers give us a glimpse. “On 9/11, NORAD was scheduled to conduct a military exercise, Vigilant Guardian.”(p.458) This is where the analysis of Michael Ruppert, author of Crossing the Rubicon, begins and becomes most helpful. Ruppert asserts that it is quite possible, that within the confusion of a military exercise that strangely enough hypothesized a scenario of hijacked aircraft (one can imagine that given this preposterous coincidence that personnel would become confused, operating at the nexus of reality and the virtual reality of a war game scenario), the attacks were able to have their success. According to Ruppert, in order for this to happen, there had to be complicity and facility at the highest levels of government. This is, of course, the most frightening scenario of all, an area in which the commission, not surprisingly, dares not tread.
Amazingly, at one point it is stated, “The 9/11 plotters eventually spent somewhere between $400,000 and $500,000 to plan and conduct their attack.”(p.169) Also, there is this: “ . . . it cost al Qaeda about $30 million per year to sustain its activities before 9/11.”(p.170) Compare this to the CIA’s annual budget of $30 billion, 1,000 times that of al Qaeda’s. And Osama bin Laden is still unaccounted for? What, exactly, is wrong with this picture?
There is also the issue of semantics. “Calling this struggle [the “war on terrorism”] a war accurately describes the use of American and allied forces to find and destroy terrorist groups and their allies in the field . . . ”(p.363) This follows what on the same page the commission writes “terrorism is a tactic . . . ”(p.363) So which is it? How, exactly, does one prosecute a war against a tactic? Calling a war a “war on terrorism” makes about as much sense as declaring war on war. What is the difference between war and terror?
Then there is the laundry list of things that go completely ignored by the commission’s report. Here’s a sample: no where is Colleen Rowley (an FBI field agent in Minnesota) mentioned by name, nor is the promotion of Rowley’s superiors at FBI headquarters who obstructed and thwarted Rowley’s investigation, the collapse of WTC 7 and what might have caused it, Bush’s reaction to the news that a second plane had hit the WTC, the expedited removal of steel debris from ground zero before proper metallurgic tests could be done, the Israeli “art students” who shadowed the 9/11 hijackers, Attorney General John Ashcroft’s decision to stop using civilian aircraft in the days prior to 9/11, and the likely shootdown of United flight 93 over Pennsylvania. (Instead, the commission devotes an interesting six pages as to who has the authority to give a shootdown order.) In one case, the commission is outright erroneous when it writes that the special Saudi flights only began after the nationwide air traffic grounding order had been lifted. Many news reports have written that the flights did indeed occur while everyone else in America who was an air passenger was stranded at airports.
The final 65 pages of the report is devoted to policy recommendations (a nod to the Bush administration’s “suggestion” for the commission to be more “forward thinking”). These recommendations include more widespread use of biometrics for identification purposes and the creation of a “national intelligence director” position as well as a “national counterterrorism center.” Iran-contra convict, John Negroponte, has realized the national intelligence director position.
Since the majority of this report doesn’t focus directly on the 9/11 attacks themselves, preferring instead to use lots of filler in the background of U.S. counterterrorism policy and the history of the al Qaeda movement, and, of course, the just mentioned recommendations, one can easily envision this being a report that the administration would be well satisfied with. No wonder so many copies were rushed to print. Fortunately, there are plenty of other resources available for the curious and astute reader. Foremost there is Michael Ruppert’s Crossing the Rubicon. No one to date has dared to put into print the accusation that the Bush administration had explicit complicity in the events of 9/11 themselves. Given how the attacks were such a tremendous aberration in terms of historical events in the linear continuum, it would seem that Ruppert’s conclusion is among the most rational. Better for the reader to reward Ruppert’s beyond courageous work by buying a copy of his book, than to drop $10 on what amounts to pretty much a whitewash, even with its 100 plus pages of fine print notation.

The 9/11 Commission Report: Omissions and Distortions – David Ray Griffin

The 9/11 Commission Report: Omissions and Distortions – David Ray Griffin, Olive Branch Press (2005) 339pp. (S) ***

In his follow-up to The New Pearl Harbor, David Ray Griffin has offered a critique of the 9/11 Commission Report itself. Apart from at times being tediously redundant in the minutiae of the 9/11 timeline, it is clear that it is Griffin’s intent to be as thorough as possible when broaching so momentous and incongruous an event as 9/11. In fact, Griffin openly acknowledges and embraces his limitations, as it would be quite impossible for anyone to cover every aspect of 9/11 in a single volume. This, however, does not leave the 9/11 Commission Report off the hook.
To begin with, Griffin first makes a vital distinction about who is exactly in charge of the commission. “ . . . [T]he commission’s investigation was essentially run by [executive director, Philip] Zelikow.”(p.7) Hence, from this point on, Griffin aptly refers to the commission as the Kean-Zelikow Commission (as opposed to the Kean-Hamilton Commission). With Zelikow’s strong personal links to members of the administration, his positioning within the commission in such a strategic leadership role, is indeed no small matter.
Griffin then raises the point that whereas the passenger manifests of the four 9/11 aircraft, were never publicly released by the airlines, and that whereas six of the nineteen hijackers named, later came forward to state that indeed they were very much alive, the identities of all the hijackers, and their true number, may in fact never be truly known. The fact that fifteen of the hijackers were said to be Saudi also raises an interesting point that does not go unnoticed by Griffin. “ . . . [S]ome people may suspect that [investigative journalist, Gerald] Posner is part of a plot to prepare the American public for a possible invasion of Saudi Arabia at some time in the future. [By making the ] claim that 15 of the hijackers were Saudi nationals, the U.S. government could argue, if and when it became convenient, that it had learned that the attacks of 9/11 had been planned and funded by the Saudi government.”(p.64) This is Griffin at his best, positing a likely scenario given the neo-con’s lust for infinite war and Arab blood.
In the second half of Griffin’s book, he analyzes each flight individually. Starting with American Airlines flight 11, most of Griffin’s focus is upon inconsistencies in the timeline itself, be it between initial reports and the Commission’s final draft, or be it how alternative analyses stack up. As Griffin wonders why Flight 11 wasn’t at least intercepted by military aircraft performing CAP (combat air patrol), he writes “(Bringing down a hijacked passenger jet [AAL Flight 11] over any part of New York City would likely, of course, result in considerable death and destruction. But can anyone say that taking that risk would have been worse than letting hijackers strike their intended target?)”(p.166) Well, how about any one who isn’t looking backward through the lens of 20/20 vision? While Flight 11 was still airborne, no one knew that its “intended target” was the World Trade Center. Imagine the liability to the U.S. government had Flight 11 been actually shot down over the skies of New York City. There simply would be no end to what would’ve surely been perceived as the act of a careless, trigger happy pilot. Likely this is why the commission’s “official” line is unable to allow that United Flight 93 was indeed likely shot down.
It appears that Griffin is of the mind that the FAA unfairly “took the fall” for the many blunders made on the day of 9/11/01. Indeed, there is this in the Commission’s report: “Boston Center [air traffic control] did not follow the protocol in seeking military assistance through the prescribed chain of command.”(p.20) Yet at the same time, the commission recognizes that NORAD officials gave “incorrect” testimony regarding the response times to Flight 11. Between the two, FAA and NORAD, no one was ever reprimanded. Far from it, personnel directly involved in 9/11 negligence were actually promoted by the administration.
Finally, there is this: “Some critics of the official account of 9/11 believe that if we ever get a full account of how the attacks were able to succeed, we will see that a vital role was played by some military exercises, sometimes called ‘war games,’ that had been scheduled for that morning [on 9/11/01].”(p.268) This is exactly Mike Ruppert’s contention in Crossing the Rubicon, but strangely, Griffin opts not to cite him here. Only within the fog of “military exercises” could standard operating procedure be so grossly deviated from, neglected, and outright abandoned. Quite aptly, Griffin quotes Michael Parenti as saying “‘policymakers [sometimes] seize upon incompetence as a cover.’”(p.262) This is exactly what the 9/11 Commission Report is about. Citing failure at multiple levels of government with zero accountability is the record that the Commission leaves for baffled readers. Only until we fully understand what Operations “Vigilant Guardian” and “Vigilant Warrior” were all about, can the key to unlocking 9/11’s dark secrets be found. There are 80,000 flights a day, just within U.S. airspace alone, so that for four flights to go unaccounted for within a period of two hours, is a major anomaly in itself, one that couldn’t happen without significant assistance and complicity at the highest levels of government. This is the bigger picture that Griffin misses in his minute by minute breakdown of each flight.
Incompetence should no longer be allowed to be used as a “cover.” If someone is killed in an automobile accident that you caused, then there is a charge known as vehicular homicide. If 3,000 Americans are killed within a two hour window, then the least we should expect is a charge of negligent homicide, not, of all things, promotion of those directly responsible.

Jaded Tasks: Brass Plates, Black Ops, and Big Oil: The Blood Politics of George Bush & Co. – Wayne Madsen

Jaded Tasks: Brass Plates, Black Ops, and Big Oil: The Blood Politics of George Bush & Co. – Wayne Madsen, TrineDay (2006) 311 pp. (OBT) ***

Wayne Madsen claims to have taken the title for his book, “Jaded Tasks,” from the name of a military operation that in 2004 deposed Jean Bertrand Aristide from office as president of Haiti. “Jaded” is as good an adjective as any to describe the fortitude required to explore the depths that Madsen ponders. Whether it’s suspicious deaths that have been officially determined to have been “suicides or it’s taking a look at what is really behind U.S. foreign policy, Madsen is there with his forever skeptical eye
A few highlights from the book are as follows: on neo-con iconoclasm Madsen observes, “the destruction of longstanding national vexillogical and heraldic symbols is a major neoconservative precept.”(p.67) Is this why the American flag patch on the uniforms of U.S. service personnel is backward? It certainly makes one wonder.
Leave it to Madsen to take away the veneer and expose a politician for what he truly is. A case in point is Democratic Senator from Connecticut Joseph Lieberman who Madsen describes as “a neoconservative ally of [Paul] Wolfowitz.”(p.258) Finally the public has caught onto Lieberman’s game and now there is a serious primary challenger to his seat.
Sometimes it would seem that Madsen goes a bit overboard in his scrutiny, for example when he attempts to make a strained and contorted link between the death of Congressional intern Chandra Levy and 9/11. In other areas, like 9/11 itself, Madsen is actually short on skepticism. For the most part, he does not attempt to challenge the “official” line on 9/11, though he recognizes that “9-11 was a panacea for three countries [Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and Israel].”(p.285) But in fact, more so than any party, 9/11 was a boon to the Bush administration, which has subsequently cited the attacks as its raison d’etre in not just the foreign policy arena, but its raison d’etre in general, period. For more plausible answers, the reader here would be advised to seek out the excellent writings of Michael Ruppert, for an alternative analysis to the tried and failed official 9/11 storyline.

Crossing the Rubicon: The Decline of the American Empire at the End of the Age of Oil – Michael Ruppert

Crossing the Rubicon: The Decline of the American Empire at the End of the Age of Oil – Michael Ruppert, New Society Publishers (2004) 674pp. (OBT) *****

Wow! For those who have been waiting, this is the book that delivers. Hands down, this is one of the most important non-fiction reads of the twenty-first century. From the criminals within the Bush Jr. administration who helped to bring us the 9/11 attacks, to the massive economic and social implications of “peak oil,” to Wall Street’s laundering of international drug profits, Ruppert takes an aggressive, no nonsense approach to subjects that most dare not touch. His targets, the greatest halls of power on earth, make Ruppert’s work “beyond courageous” as one author, Chellis Glendinning has noted. Truth tellers at the vanguard of the alternative media are seldom rewarded for their early displays of intrepidity and courage. It is only months, or often years, later that they are finally vindicated, when the mainstream finally catches on.
Who is Mike Ruppert? Ruppert is a retired LAPD detective and the founder and editor of From the Wilderness, a printed newsletter and fromthewilderness.com. He is also the subject of the video The Truth and Lies of 9/11, a recorded speech that he gave at Portland State University in November of 2001. Ruppert has been sounding the alarm about “peak oil” long before the term came into vogue. He is, at present, self-exiled in Venezuela
That said, there is one small disappointment, however, regarding the title of Ruppert’s work. The initial title of Ruppert’s book was to be: America’s Descent into Fascism at the End of the Age of Oil, and is unfortunate that he does not pursue the fascism theme more. For instance, Ruppert notes that “in his [George W. Bush’s] January 2003 State of the Union speech, George W. Bush referred to the evils of the twentieth century as ‘Hitlerism, communism, and militarism.’ He could not bring himself to say fascism, because he is – by definition – a fascist.”(p.15) Particularly given events like the 2003 California recall measure, Texas gerrymandering, the advent of “touch screen” paperless ballots, and other developments designed to bring about, strengthen, secure, and expand single-party rule. (This reviewer should note, though, that given the results of the 2006 mid-term elections, it is no longer accurate to say that the Republican party has a sole lock on federal power as they did during the previous five years. This isn’t to say that the executive branch doesn’t still continue to wield power in an abusive and autocratic fashion.)
Be that as it may, this is indeed Ruppert’s masterstroke. Clearly it is a product of years of intensive and committed research. The scope of the analysis is indeed vast, but he still manages to pull things together in a coherent manner that is meticulously documented (with some forty pages of small print endnotes). For those familiar with his fromthewilderness.com website, however, some parts may appear redundant, as he quotes frequently and at length from the site. The style and train of thought is a bit choppy at times, undoubtedly yet understandably due to the tremendous time constraints Ruppert may have been under as he sought to incorporate the deluge of information, the volume of which only seems to increase exponentially, daily. 2004 being an election year must have placed upon Ruppert added demands and pressures to get his book to print prior to the November presidential election
In his opening pages, Ruppert comes out swinging. Here are two examples: “But on this larger explanatory foundation, the evidence will inexorably prove our case: that the United States government not only had complete foreknowledge of the attacks of September ll, it also needed them and deliberately facilitated them, and even helped plan and execute them using techniques long understood in the world of covert operations.”(p.15) Then there’s this: “Knowing what we all know about the deceptions used to ‘sell’ the occupation of Iraq, can we afford to not question the multitude of contradictions, lies, falsehoods, and cover-ups surrounding the events of 9/11?”(p.15) If I could beg the reader’s indulgence for a moment longer, whereas no one but Ruppert himself can best express his own ideas, I will continue with a few more extended quotations. With regards to “peak oil” – the point at which half of the world’s oil supply has been exhausted – Ruppert writes (building on the writings of former Carter National Security Adviser, Zbigniew Brzezinski in The Grand Chessboard) that “Whoever controls the oil in the Eurasian continent . . . will determine who lives and who dies, who eats and who starves.”(p.29) And then: “The United States has chosen to address the problem of peak oil in the most brutal, venal, and shortsighted way available: by using military force to commandeer what remains of the world’s rapidly vanishing fossil fuels.”(p.47) And there is also this shocker: “A great many analysts understand and have written, that one way to prolong inevitable [oil supply] decline is by the creation and management of recessions, which inevitably reduce the demand for oil.”(p.32) Also with great relevance to U.S. access to Eurasian fossil fuel supplies, Ruppert observes the economic bleeding of Russia during the 1990s. “ . . . throughout the 1990s, what was forfeited was Russia’s ability to function as a nation, to feed its people and especially to support its military . . . when the time came for the U.S. empire to militarily occupy Central Asia and surround the oil fields of the Middle East, Russia had grave economic and military problems to deal with.”(p.90) Ruppert then posits: “An urgent question is whether or not there was a correlation between decreasing reserve estimates from the Caspian Sea and increased terror activity from Al Qaeda.”(p.96-97) Also cited by Ruppert is the importance of Saudi Arabia: “One must remember that Saudi Arabia is the ultimate prize in the war for oil.”(p.139) He then contends, “ . . . that if the [Saudi] kingdom becomes unstable, having [U.S.] military resources out of the country, but close enough to launch immediate attacks, is a way of protecting them [the Saudi rulers] from sabotage or attack if the anti-American sentiment felt by most of the Saudi populace is unleashed.”(p.150) One might add that it may be the Bush administration’s intent to destabilize the Saudi monarchy (after having pulled up stakes of its bases in country), in the hopes of taking over the prized Saudi oilfields for themselves. No one seems to remember that it was ostensibly fifteen of the nineteen of the 9/11 hijackers that were Saudi (interestingly, none were Afghani, Iraqi, Iranian, Syrian, nor North Korean). So the administration may simply well be waiting to reintroduce this fact at a more opportune, strategically advantageous, time. (But here, Ruppert writes: “One of the most misleading spins perpetrated by the U.S. media was to tell the world that 15 of the 19 hijackers were from Saudi Arabia. No! Fifteen of the 19 had Saudi passports. Many were from other places all over the Middle East.”(p.577))
Even for all of Ruppert’s thoroughness, there are still a few things that go missing. Surprisingly, given the density of the work (600 pages) there is still a considerable amount left out. Ruppert graciously concedes this point in his conclusion, emphasizing that it is his intent to only include that which would be provable in a court of law and that for the sake of time and resource constraints, that he had to confine the scope of his work in some manner. What follows is a brief list of a few of the things that might have helped Ruppert to better bolster his arguments: 1) might have referenced event where a man piloted a single engine aircraft onto the White House lawn during Clinton’s tenure, 2) how altogether anomalous the attacks of 9/11/01 were (nothing like it previously, and especially nothing like it since – given a highly hostile foreign policy in the Middle East) (to give Ruppert credit, in his video, The Truth and Lies of 9/11, he does make brief mention of the anomalous nature of the attacks), 3) Air Traffic Control statistics from the National Air Traffic Controllers Association: (i.e. 80,000 flights per day in the U.S., 30,000 alone being commercial passenger aircraft), 4) Bush cousin who headed a company that was responsible for the security of the World Trade Center, 5) why Clinton didn’t initiate the “war on terror” during his two terms – possibly using the take-down of TWA flight 800 as a possible precipitating event, 6) no mention of the D.C. sniper case and the diversionary role it fulfilled during a period of a critical Congressional vote – to authorize the use of force against Iraq in October 2002, 7) no mention of the suspicious death of British scientist David Kelley, 8) the woman involved in procuring fake identifications for some of the hijackers who just happened to die en route to court, 9) possible controlled demolition of towers and how there may have been explosives present in the buildings – with ear witness accounts, 10) CEOs who had offices at the WTC got a day off from work on day of 9/11/01. These are just a few of the points that could have used further elaboration. This is not to nit-pick, but is done so only in the interest of creating a more thorough account of the 9/11 attacks. Overall, however, Mike Ruppert must be highly commended for his courageous efforts. He has put to paper what few even dare utter verbally. Crossing the Rubicon is as apt a title as there is. Writer, reader, nation, and world alike have all collectively crossed a rubicon, whether we choose to believe it or not. Once the reader is done with this heavy tome, his perception of the world we live in and share, will not be the same.

America’s “War on Terrorism" – Michel Chussudovsky

America’s “War on Terrorism” – Michel Chussudovsky, Global Research (2005) 365pp. (OBT) ***

For the already jaded reader, Michel Chussudovsky provides little relief. In America’s “War on Terrorism” nothing is at it appears on the surface. At the root of the U.S. “war on terror” is economic lust for diminishing global resources, principally gas and oil. (See also Forbidden Truth by Jean-Charles Brisard and Guillaume Dasquie.) From the picture that Chussudovsky paints, rarely is it the occasion when the CIA is not behind nefarious plots and terrorist organizations and the distinctions between the Clinton and the Bush II foreign policies are few and far between. Such broad stroked overgeneralizations are hardly helpful when the reader is attempting to attain a more nuanced and balanced perspective.
From the former Soviet Central Asian states to the Balkans, Chussudovsky sees an American hand in backing radical Islamic movements, even the Chechen rebels. The intent is to destabilize these states as a precursor to exploiting their natural resources. Chussudovsky even describes a November 2001 American airlift of al Qaeda and Taliban fighters out of the combat zone into the safety of Pakistan, the ostensible purpose being that the U.S. would need enemies for another day in order to propagate and continue its “war on terror.”
Chussudovsky also describes the psychological warfare on the homefront in the form of the department of Homeland Security’s color coded warning system and its use of elevated “code orange.” Often the peculiar timing of these elevated alerts belay political motives. Once particular incident cited by Chussudovsky is the London 7/7/05 bombing, where he recounts that for the exact time and place of the actual bombings, virtual exercises simulating just such a scenario of bombings in the London underground had been planned. The coincidence is more than uncanny.
In his final pages, Chussudovsky drops this bomb: “ . . . Bush’s National Security Doctrine is a continuation of that formulated under the Clinton administration in the mid 1990s . . . ” Funny how this reviewer does not recall a war of aggression policy (a.k.a. preemptive war) under Clinton, nor does he recall things like “extraordinary rendition,” torture a la Guantanomo Bay and Abu Ghraib, unwarranted domestic surveillance, and the like. Perhaps his memory is faulty, but having lived though the 1990s – a decade that was certainly not without its flaws with respect to U.S. foreign policy – primarily the expansion of “free trade” – he believes it safe to say unilateral war as since advanced by the United States, was not part of the picture.

The Fitrakis Files: Spooks, Nukes, & Nazis – Bob Fitrakis

The Fitrakis Files: Spooks, Nukes, & Nazis – Bob Fitrakis, Columbus Alive Publishing (2003) 246pp. (OBT) ****

In Fitrakis’ opening pages, there is this: “The happy-face fascism of our New England preppie turned faux Texan is routinely accepted by a compliant populace.”(p.2) Thusly, Fitrakis aptly describes the current administration that is reigning over the twilight of American democracy. No wonder that we find a defiant Fitrakis, poised against the grain of a soft-spined corporate news media, in championing the indignation and rights of millions who were disenfranchised during the 2004 presidential election. But that is another book.
In Spooks, Nukes, & Nazis, Fitrakis has assembled a collection of his work that roughly spans the last ten years. Though some might jump to the charge that the news subjects are fairly parochial, it is to Fitrakis’ credit that he ties what is happening locally in central Ohio, into wider considerations and contexts. Hence, we learn of a school that is built over an old military weapons facility, that had a role dating back to the Manhattan Project in the 1940s. Fitrakis also takes us into a closer examination of the neo-fascist, extreme right of groups like the Aryan Nation and World Church of the Creator and its threat to civil society and the broader implications for the country as a whole. And by uncovering the rich history of a CIA backed (and at one time, an outright CIA owned) air cargo company – Southern Air Transport, we are given a look into many of the tentacles of such an operation, from Air America to Iran-Contra.
Fitrakis’ populist approach is at its best, though, when he takes on the Bush administration directly. In Bush’s address to the U.N., he quotes Bush as having said: “‘Our principles and our security are challenged today by outlaw groups and regimes that accept no law of morality and have no limit to their violent ambitions.’”(p.132) To which Fitrakis’ astute analysis comes this: “The U.N. needs to realize that Bush’s statement is a Freudian slip – a self-confession about the real terrorist network that surrounds him in Washington, D.C.”(p.132) How many times can the reader think of, that when hearing an administration official so eloquently wax over our nefarious and ubiquitous enemies, has the idea come to the fore, that, yes there they go again, speaking of themselves? Hats off to Fitrakis for his no holds barred investigative journalism, a style that isn’t afraid to call a spade a spade. It’s an assurance to the democracy to have his voice pounding at the door of power.

The Terror Conspiracy: Deception, 9/11, and the Loss of Liberty – Jim Marrs

The Terror Conspiracy: Deception, 9/11, and the Loss of Liberty – Jim Marrs, The Disinformation Company, Ltd. (2006) 482pp. (OBT) ***

After waiting more than two and a half months for an Amazon.com book order (Inside Job by Jim Marrs), only to have the order summarily terminated for what I can best estimate as vague and irrational reasons, this reviewer has come to the conclusion that this will be his last order with Amazon.com. In the meantime, I was able to find the Terror Conspiracy at Powell’s Books, un updated version of Inside Job, with plenty of new content. Fortunately, it took only about a week or two for this order to be fully processed and delivered.
For those familiar with any other of Jim Marrs’ works, particularly Rule By Secrecy, you know that Marrs can be exceedingly conspiracy minded, though it is always interesting to read of groups as varied as Skull and Bones, The Council on Foreign Relations, the Bildebergers, The Trilateral Commission, and the Masons. Now, Marrs brings this alternative history sensibility to The Terror Conspiracy. In his opening pages, Marrs cites the peculiar coincidence of military “war games” on the morning of 9/11/01: “ . . . It appears likely that plans for staging a variety of war game exercises [on 9/11/01] were designed to be so distracting that they may well have contributed to the success of the actual strikes.”(p.13) And then there’s this: “ . . . It was no surprise that the [9/11] Commission’s report called for a number of sweeping changes in government structure and policies – all without exception aimed at gathering more power to a centralized authority armed with vastly increased budgets.”(p.168) There’s also this astute observation: “ . . . Both Bush’s neocons and Muslim terrorists operate from the same ideology – both believe the end justifies the means and that people must be frightened into accepting religion and nationalism for the greater good of morality and a stable state.”(p.260) And again: “‘This administration is the most secretive of our lifetime, even more secretive than the Nixon administration,’ said Larry Klayman, chairman of Judicial Watch . . . ‘They don’t believe the American people or Congress have any right to information.’”(p.238-39) And finally: “‘[Conservative] does not describe the Bush administration at all,’ added [Michael] Ventura, [of the Austin Chronicle]. ‘They ignore Congress almost completely on crucial issues; they feel no obligation to inform American citizens of the White House’s deliberations or even its policies, whether or not national security is at stake; they concentrate tremendous power among the very few. That is not conservative. There is only one word that adequately describes the bent and preference of George W. Bush’s White House: totalitarianism.’”(p.342-43)
With the exception of an appendix piece written by Barbara Honegger, there isn’t a lot that is terribly new in Marrs latest work. What Marrs does do well, though, is to bring together otherwise disparate pieces of information and events to form a coherent narrative. The evidence that the 9/11/01 attacks were an “inside job” now seems overwhelming. Marrs must be commended for his efforts in being among the bold and the few to raise his voice in print against an increasingly fascistic entity (a.k.a. the administration of George W. Bush).