MIDDLEEAST.ORG - Washington - 15 June: MER has never before published this story, this 'conspiracy theory' if you will. Though under much pressure over the years to do so we always held back and never published anything about this 'possibility'...until today that is. But now the fact that a ranking former Bush Administration official, in fact the man who was the top government economist in the Labor Department on 11 September 2001, has now gone public saying 9/11 may have been a historic hoax and the World Trade Towers were 'most likely' destroyed by a 'controlled demolition', causes us to reconsider. This is far too important to simply dismiss at this point. At the least we conclude this story now deserves far more attention that it has gotten in recent days with nearly the entire corporate media focused on Michael Jackson and various frivolities while this paragraph -- published this week on the UPI wire from Washington in fact -- has hardly had any attention:

A former Bush team member during his first administration is now voicing serious doubts about the collapse of the World Trade Center on 9-11. Former chief economist for the Department of Labor during President George W. Bush's first term Morgan Reynolds comments that the official story about the collapse of the WTC is "bogus" and that it is more likely that a controlled demolition destroyed the Twin Towers and adjacent Building No. 7. Reynolds, who also served as director of the Criminal Justice Center at the National Center for Policy Analysis in Dallas and is now professor emeritus at Texas A&M University said, "If demolition destroyed three steel skyscrapers at the World Trade Center on 9/11, then the case for an 'inside job' and a government attack on America would be compelling." Reynolds commented from his Texas A&M office, "It is hard to exaggerate the importance of a scientific debate over the cause of the collapse of the twin towers and building 7. If the official wisdom on the collapses is wrong, as I believe it is, then policy based on such erroneous engineering analysis is not likely to be correct either. The government's collapse theory is highly vulnerable on its own terms. Only professional demolition appears to account for the full range of facts associated with the collapse of the three buildings."

MER CALLS FOR UNPRECEDENTED
INTERNATIONAL MEDIA INVESTIGATION

We think an unprecedented international press investigation is now called for to match this unprecedented historical situation -- one totally independent of all governments, intelligence agencies, and pressure groups; and one bringing together a coalition of major international media from various political and national dispositions. What happened is a totally modern-day sui generis event with the greatest of history-changing consequences. Taking place so soon after Ariel Sharon came to power in Israel, and the Bush/Cheney Administration put so many former Israeli-Jewish lobby 'Neocons' in key power positions throughout Washington was suspicious from the start. But in the past we thought these suspicions had more to do with what the U.S. and Israeli governments really knew in advance, and what steps they were fast preparing to take whenever they had the excuse to do so regardless of the actual facts.

But now we have to add to the larger picture that there is quite a long history of major political/military deceptions and hoaxes originating both with the Israelis and from Washington. To mention just a few that history has so far unraveled includes the sinkings of the Maine and the Lusitania, the Lavon Affair, the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, the deceptions behind the 1967, 1982 and Gulf Wars, the Iraq-Kuwait-US invasion, the 'Oslo Peace Process', and most recently the 'Stealth Assassination' of Yasser Arafat after the assassinations of the senior Hamas leadership. Add to this historical brew quite a few other very suspicious developments that have come to light including the jubilant Israelis caught after photographing the WTC's collapse, all the unexplained developments in Lebanon, the blatant lies and cons surrounding the Iraq invasion including Colin Powel's testimony before the Security Council, and looking ahead at the moment the considerable preparations to take down Iran one way or another. And so we conclude that such an unprecedented situation on top of such already proven lies and deceptions dateline Washington, London, and Israel, all call for an unprecedented coalition of credible major media from many countries to come together for a White Paper investigation of 9/11 focusing on the following specific issues:

1) What really happened on 9/11 and who knew what in advance?

2) Had the U.S. government prepared in advance to exploit such an event as 9/11, whether the full story is now known or not, in order to pursue geostrategic goals decided upon in advance regardless of the actual facts of the situation?

3) What is known about the behind-the-scenes contacts and coordination between the U.S. and Israeli governments, and the crucial role played by the leading American Jewish Neocons who held key power and intelligence positions in Washington at the time of 9/11?

A report released June 9 by the FBI's Office of the Inspector General raises new questions about the role of the US government in the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. The internal FBI study provides several important revelations about how US intelligence agencies ignored and even suppressed warnings in the period leading up to the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon that killed nearly 3,000 people.

Press accounts published within hours of the report's release gave a very distorted picture of the document, which runs to more than 400 pages. No follow-up reports, based on a thorough study of the text, have yet appeared in the mass media.

The initial media commentary invariably voiced the now-standard claim that the FBI and CIA were guilty of a "failure to connect the dots," due to bureaucratic lethargy, individual incompetence, inter-agency rivalries, even poorly performing software systems. This presentation of events is utterly unserious.

The US intelligence apparatus is the most powerful instrument for spying in the world, not a group of Keystone Cops. If it ignored warnings and suppressed information, a legitimate presumption is that it did so willfully. The question must be posed: did one or more agencies or high-level officials provide protection for known Al Qaeda associates who ultimately participated in the hijack-bombings?

Comment: A better and more accurate question might be: Did one or more agencies or high-level officials invent or enable Al-Qaeda in order to assign blame for the hijack bombings for which they themselves were responsible?

Exactly who knew what, and at what level of the government, is not yet clear. But the political benefits of 9/11 for the Bush administration are undeniable. It used the terrorist attacks as a lever to swing American public opinion behind a major shift in policy, both foreign and domestic. Without 9/11, it would have been politically impossible for the government to embark on military interventions in Central Asia and the Middle East and launch an unprecedented attack on civil liberties at home.

Comment: The designs for invasion and occupation of the Middle East were drawn up years before 9/11 in the PNAC document, and all they needed was a "new Pearl Harbor" type event in order to implement their plans. Further proof that the September 11th attacks were not only "allowed" by elements within the Bush administration, but likely planned and carried out by the very same cabal...

The Phoenix memo

The FBI internal report examines the three best-known episodes in which the bureau, which is the lead agency for counterterrorist activities within the United States, missed or ignored important signals of the coming terrorist attacks. Two of the cases involved local FBI agents who voiced suspicions that were disregarded or suppressed by FBI headquarters. In the third case, the CIA deliberately kept the FBI in the dark—with the assistance of certain FBI officials.

The first instance is the electronic memo of July 10, 2001 from Kenneth Williams, an FBI agent in Phoenix, Arizona, noting the number of students with ties to radical Islamic fundamentalists enrolled at local aviation training schools, and suggesting that a nationwide canvass of these schools be carried out to determine if there was a pattern.

The second is the bureau's response to the arrest of Zaccarias Moussaoui, an Islamic fundamentalist who was detained by the Immigration and Naturalization Service after his attempts to obtain training on a Boeing 747 aroused suspicions at a Minneapolis-area flight school. Moussaoui was detained on immigration charges in early August 2001, but FBI headquarters blocked efforts by Minneapolis agents to pursue an investigation that could have identified other Al Qaeda operatives at US flight schools.

The third is 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. The CIA only notified the FBI of their presence in the US on August 27, 2001, 20 months after their arrival, and only two weeks before September 11.

Comment: All the "belief" in the world that these two men participated in the hijacking of AA flight 77 is irrelevant when one considers that all the available objective evidence clearly indicates that it was NOT a 757 that hit the Pentagon.

The chapter in the inspector general's report on the Phoenix memo (called an Electronic Communication or EC, in FBI jargon), reveals that the document 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. 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.

One agent at a field office who was sent the Phoenix EC replied that it was "no big secret" that Arab men were receiving aviation training in the United States. (Williams's concern, however, was not over "Arab men," but rather individuals affiliated with radical Islamic fundamentalists who publicly justified terrorist attacks on US targets.) The FBI's New York Field Office, which had the lead role in counterterrorism, flatly rejected Williams's proposal for a more in-depth study of the flight school issue.

In passing, the inspector general's report notes that there was already considerable information "contained in FBI files about airplanes and flight schools at the time the Phoenix EC was received at FBI HQ." It mentions four examples, implying that many more could be cited.

One of these examples is the following: "In August 1998, an intelligence agency advised the FBI's New York Division of an alleged plan by unidentified Arabs to fly an explosive laden aircraft from Libya into the World Trade Center."

This previously unreported warning directly contradicts the claims, made repeatedly by Bush administration officials, especially Condoleezza Rice, that "no one could have imagined" hijacked airplanes being used as flying bombs against US targets.

The Moussaoui case

The entire chapter on Moussaoui, 115 pages long, is redacted from the version published last week, at the order of the federal judge who has been presiding over Moussaoui's terrorism trial. Only a few references to Moussaoui survive in other parts of the report.

A fuller analysis of this episode awaits the release of the redacted chapter, after Moussaoui's sentencing. But the gist of the situation is that local Minneapolis FBI agents asked for permission to conduct further inquiries, including searching Moussaoui's computer, while supervisors at FBI headquarters cited the necessity for a warrant from a special court established under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). The supervisors refused to apply for the FISA warrant, saying the case did not meet the court's criteria.

In one passage, the inspector general's report cites a top FBI lawyer's statement that "he had never seen a supervisory special agent in Headquarters so adamant that a FISA warrant could not be obtained and at the same time a field office so adamant that it could." The report also notes that the Minneapolis field office sought an "expedited FISA," which "normally involved reports of a suspected imminent attack or other imminent danger."

While FBI supervisors were blocking action on Moussaoui, a CIA liaison officer in Minneapolis was reporting his arrest to the CIA. George Tenet, the CIA director, was briefed on the matter.

By the end of August, French intelligence officials had provided the US government with information on Moussaoui's connections to Islamic fundamentalist groups, but the FBI still took no action. Moussaoui, who was being held on immigration violations, was not even transferred from the Immigration and Naturalization Service to FBI custody until after September 11.

The San Diego hijackers

By far the most damning material in the FBI inspector general's report relates to Khalid al-Mihdhar and Nawaf al-Hazmi, two of the 9/11 hijackers who lived in the San Diego area for much of 2000 and 2001. The report details at least five instances during this period when the FBI could have or should have become aware of their presence and purpose.

The two men entered the United States on January 15, 2000, flying from Bangkok, Thailand to Los Angeles International Airport. Mihdhar was a participant at a January 5, 2000 meeting of Al Qaeda operatives in Malaysia, where he and others were photographed by an unnamed intelligence service. These photos were supplied to the CIA.

The US National Security Agency had separately identified Hazmi as an associate of Mihdhar. The two men were tracked by the CIA traveling from Malaysia to Thailand.

CIA cables contemporaneously discussed Mihdhar's travel and the fact that he had a US visa in his Saudi passport. So intensive was the surveillance that agents obtained a photocopy of the passport and visa stamp and delivered it to CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia. Two months later, the Bangkok CIA station identified Hazmi as Mihdhar's traveling companion and reported that he had traveled on from Bangkok to Los Angeles on January 15, 2000.

The most critical information about Mihdhar and Hazmi was withheld from the FBI for more than a year and a half. The FBI was informed about the Malaysia meeting as soon as it happened, and even about Mihdhar's presence at it. But there was no mention of his passport with a multiple-entry US visa, giving him easy access to American territory, where the FBI had the principal responsibility for counterterrorism. Nor did the CIA tell the FBI that Hazmi had actually entered the country, which would certainly have triggered an alert. The CIA itself did not put either man on any other security watch list.

Two weeks after their arrival in Los Angeles, Mihdhar and Hazmi moved to San Diego, apparently at the urging of a new acquaintance, Omar Bayoumi, a man once under FBI surveillance and believed to be an operative or asset of the Saudi intelligence service. He invited the two newly arrived Saudis to San Diego, where they rented an apartment in the complex where he lived. Bayoumi co-signed the lease and even wrote a check for the rent because the two had only cash.

In May 2000, the two men rented a room from another San Diego man who was an FBI informant, and who reported their arrival and their first names to his handler. The handler did not ask the last names or show any other interest.

The informant is not named in the inspector general's report, but he has been identified in previous press accounts as Abdussattar Shaikh, another Saudi immigrant. (Both Shaikh and his FBI handler, now retired, refused to speak with the FBI inspector general probing the bureau's response to 9/11, a remarkable circumstance that is recorded in the report only in a footnote, and without explanation.)

The actions of Hazmi and Mihdhar strongly suggest that they were being protected and were themselves aware of it. They conducted themselves, not as underground conspirators, trying to keep one step ahead of the most powerful spy apparatus in the world, but as men seemingly indifferent to threats to their security.

According to the FBI report: "... they did not attempt to hide their identities. Using the same names contained in their travel documents and known to at least some in the Intelligence Community, they rented an apartment, obtained driver's licenses from the state of California Department of Motor Vehicles, opened bank accounts and received bank credit cards, purchased a used vehicle and automotive insurance, took flying lessons at a local flying school, and obtained local phone service that included Hazmi's listing in the local telephone directory."

Even though this is not the first time the actions of Hazmi and Mihdhar have been detailed, one rubs one's eyes in astonishment at this passage. Hazmi could only have made himself more obvious if he had taken out an ad in the Yellow Pages under "T" for terrorist. But the CIA, which knew who he was, chose not to expose him to the FBI.

In June 2000, Mihdhar left the US, not returning until July 4, 2001, when he flew into John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York City. Hazmi lived in San Diego for several more months, then moved to Phoenix and eventually the East Coast.

Following the bombing of the USS Cole in December 2000, interest in Mihdhar and Hazmi revived. A US intelligence source identified one of the participants in the January 2000 Malaysia meeting as the ringleader of the Cole attack, and the FBI, which had lead responsibility for the investigation, began to review all those who attended that meeting.

However, in discussions in January 2001 and again in May and June 2001, CIA officials did not tell the FBI that Mihdhar, now known to be associated with the suspected organizer of the Cole bombing, had a US visa, or that Hazmi, Mihdhar's associate, had entered the United States.

Much of this material in the report is difficult to follow, partly because of bureaucratic complexities, partly because of the large amount of redaction, apparently to conceal the nationality of the intelligence agency that had monitored the Malaysia meeting (most likely the Israeli Mossad). The inspector general's report cites cooperation by Malaysian, Thai and Yemeni security services without redaction.

Comment: This little tidbit, buried deep in this story, is most telling. Here we have two known al-Qaeda terrorists monitored by an "unnamed intelligence agency" (read Mossad) at a meeting in Malaysia, who then pass on this information to the CIA. The men travel freely back and forth and within the U.S., even though they are known terrorists, and the CIA withholds this information from the FBI. This strongly suggests that elements within the CIA, with direct help from the Israeli secret service, set up and were protecting these men from being apprehended by the FBI before they were needed to be used as plausible culprits for the 9/11 attacks.

The CIA finally told the FBI what it knew about Mihdhar and Hazmi on August 27, 2001, five days after the FBI had discovered independently, on August 22, that Mihdhar might be in the US, and the agency had opened its own investigation. The New York FBI office was notified, but the job of tracking down Mihdhar was assigned to a novice agent as his first intelligence case, an indication of the low priority given to the investigation. Only perfunctory steps to locate Mihdhar and Hazmi had been taken by September 11, when the two men boarded the American Airlines jet.

Indications of a CIA cover-up

The FBI inspector general's report reveals for the first time that the CIA not only failed to inform the FBI about Mihdhar, but that CIA officials intervened to suppress a memorandum drafted by an FBI agent detailed to the CIA-run Counter-Terrorism Center (CTC), who wanted to notify the FBI about the suspected terrorist with a US visa. The blow-by-blow account of this incident in the FBI report strongly implies a CIA cover-up.

The FBI agent, dubbed "Dwight" in the inspector general's report, drafted the memorandum, a Central Intelligence Report (CIR), on January 5, 2000, only hours after the Malaysia meeting had taken place. The same day, a CIA desk officer, dubbed "Michelle," relayed instructions from her supervisor barring distribution of the CIR to the FBI.

Three hours later, "Michelle" drafted and circulated an internal CIA cable which summarized the information on Mihdhar, including his multiple-entry US visa. This cable declared that his travel documents had been copied and passed "to the FBI for further investigation." This was a lie, which was later used by the CIA to substantiate its initial claim that it had notified the FBI about Mihdhar.

This cable could not possibly be an innocent mistake, since it was sent out after its author had relayed the instructions to "Dwight" that his memo to the FBI not be sent. Under questioning from the inspector general, no one at the CIA or the FBI could corroborate the claim in the cable by "Michelle" that the CIA had notified the FBI about Mihdhar—a claim that was diametrically opposed to what the CIA was doing in practice.

The report notes that the CIA initially withheld information about the existence of the January 2000 memorandum by "Dwight" from the inspector general's office. Quoting from the report:

"In February 2004, however, while we were reviewing a list of CIA documents that had been accessed by FBI employees assigned to the CIA, we noticed the title of a document that appeared to be relevant to this review and had not been previously disclosed to us. The CIA OIG [Office of the Inspector General] had not previously obtained this document in connection with its review. We obtained this document, known as a Central Intelligence Report (CIR). This CIR was a draft document addressed to the FBI containing information about Mihdhar's travel and possession of a US visa. As a result of the discovery of this new document, a critical document that we later determined had not been sent to the FBI before the September 11 attacks (see Section III, A, 4 below), we had to re-interview several FBI and CIA employees and obtain additional documents from the CIA. The belated discovery of this CIA document delayed the completion of our review."

The aggrieved tone is unmistakable. First the CIA withheld the document from the FBI, then the CIA attempted to conceal the existence of the document from the FBI's postmortem probe.

The cover-up was followed by a curious epidemic of amnesia. No one who worked on, received or read the draft CIR from "Dwight," including "Dwight" himself, could remember anything about it. Again the report:

"When we interviewed all of the individuals involved with the CIR, they asserted that they recalled nothing about it. Dwight told the OIG that he did not recall being aware of the information about Mihdhar, did not recall drafting the CIR, did not recall whether he drafted the CIR on his own initiative or at the direction of his supervisor, and did not recall any discussions about the reason for delaying completion and dissemination of the CIR. Malcolm said he did not recall reviewing any of the cable traffic or any information regarding Hazmi and Mihdhar. Eric told the OIG that he did not recall the CIR.

"The CIA employees also stated that they did not recall the CIR. Although James, the CIA employee detailed to FBI Headquarters, declined to be interviewed by us, he told the CIA OIG that he did not recall the CIR. John (the deputy chief of the Bin Laden Unit) and Michelle, the desk officer who was following this issue, also stated that they did not recall the CIR, any discussions putting it on hold, or why it was not sent."

Again, the tone of incredulity is clear. None of these people remember anything, and one of them actually refuses to be interviewed! And this is not about a minor matter, but concerns the first report on a man who was one of the 19 hijackers on 9/11.

A politically motivated whitewash

The FBI inspector general's report is, like all previous official investigations into the events of 9/11, a cover-up for the state apparatus. These investigations share one common feature: they completely exclude, a priori, any question of government complicity in terrorist attacks. Instead, we have the familiar litany of breast-beating over mistakes, complacency, inattention and inadequate resources.

Despite the all-purpose explanation that "mistakes were made," names are never named in any of these probes. No one is ever held accountable. No one is shamed or punished.

There is a definite reason for this: the US government does not want to generate a Watergate syndrome, in which punishment meted out at a lower level leads to people implicating higher-ups and focuses attention on the role of top officials.

There can hardly remain any serious doubt that a section of the American intelligence apparatus functioned as the guardian angels for at least some of the suicide hijackers. The question is: why?

Until there is an investigation of 9/11 by a genuinely independent body—one wholly free of the US military/intelligence apparatus—it is impossible to specify precisely the role of the government in these events.

Comment: Since the Sept 11th coup was pulled over on the American people, the power of the Bush Reich has become so consolidated and entrenched that it is purely wishful thinking to believe that a genuinely independent investigation into the events of 9/11 will ever happen.

But on the basis of a political analysis alone, it is clear that 9/11 did not come as a bolt from the blue. As in the investigation of any crime, a critical question to be posed is: who benefits? For powerful sections of the US ruling elite and its state apparatus, a major terrorist attack on US soil was anticipated, desired and, most probably, facilitated in order to provide the necessary climate of fear and patriotic fervor to implement a sweeping program of political reaction, both at home and abroad.

Without 9/11, there would be no US occupation of Iraq, putting an American army squarely at the center of the world's largest pool of oil. Without 9/11, there would be no US bases across Central Asia, guarding the second largest source of oil and gas. And without 9/11, the Bush administration would have been unable to sustain itself politically, faced with a deteriorating economy and widespread opposition to its tax cuts for millionaires and social measures to appease the fundamentalist Christian Right.

The Democratic Party is deeply implicated, supporting both the war in Iraq and the cover-up of the role of the state in the 9/11 attacks. The Clinton administration sought to provoke a confrontation with Iraq in 1998, but had to back off in the face of public opposition to a new war in the Middle East—opposition that was only overcome in the wake of September 11. Moreover, the connection between US intelligence agencies and reactionary Islamic fundamentalists like bin Laden goes back nearly two decades, involving Democratic and Republican administrations alike.

Despite its tactical differences with the White House and squabbles over positions of influence, the Democratic Party accepts the basic program of the Bush administration. Should the Democrats return to power, they would not withdraw US forces from Iraq or Central Asia, nor rescind Bush's tax cuts for the wealthy, nor repeal the USA Patriot Act or attacks on democratic rights.

Are you surprised? The Morgan Reynolds story about nine eleven being an "inside job" has received nada coverage beyond the original UPI story—that is to say nada coverage in the corporate media (it was covered immediately by Conspiracy Planet and Collective Bellaciao and I'm sure other alternative news sites). Google news search results are pathetic. You'd think this would be a HUGE story—a former Bushite declaring it is distinctly possible America was attacked by its own government—but instead we get the following (posted on the KLAS TV site):

The Michael Jackson verdict is was the lead story across the world. The Jackson trial was found not just on tabloids but also more high-minded newspapers.

Since the story broke yesterday, the Jackson melodrama has returned 1,784 results on the Google News search engine.

Meanwhile, real news—news of national and international significance—is scoffed at by corporate toadies, for instance Los Angeles Times editorial page editor Michael Kinsley. "Developing a paranoid theory and promoting it to the very edge of national respectability takes ideological self-confidence," Kinsley declared sarcastically about the Downing Street Memo story two days ago. Meanwhile, Michael Getler of the Washington Post deemed people concerned about Bush and crew planning an invasion, mass murder, and occupation without good reason "wing nuts" out on the edge of respectable opinion.

"What can reading USA Today tell us about the Downing Street Memo (DSM) story? Zip. Zilch. Nothing. At least that was the case for the first 38 days after the memo was published in London's Sunday Times. USA Today published not a word about it until June 8, 2005," writes Cynthia Bogard. "The Bush Administration successfully stymied almost all mainstream coverage of the issue until Reuter reporter Steve Holland's brave question at the joint Bush-Blair news conference on June 7. They had a lot of help from the White House press corps which, despite 19 daily briefings, asked Bush spokesperson Scott McClellan exactly two questions about the memo between May 1 and USA Today's first mention of it on June 8."

"USA Today chose not to publish anything about the memo before today for several reasons, says Jim Cox, the newspaper's senior assignment editor for foreign news. 'We could not obtain the memo or a copy of it from a reliable source,' Cox says. 'There was no explicit confirmation of its authenticity from (Blair's office). And it was disclosed four days before the British elections, raising concerns about the timing,'" writes Editor & Publisher.

Does Cox think Bush's poodle was going to hand deliver the memo to his office and also provide "confirmation of its authenticity"? And the fact British elections coincided with the release of the memo is completely irrelevant. Cox was, of course, fishing for excuses. The DSM is nothing less than an embarrassment for the corporate media because it so slavishly (and transparently) served as Bush's propaganda organ for perpetuating war crimes, telling us straight-faced such absurdities as Osama and Saddam were buddies, Iraq had weapons of mass destruction when the people who destroyed Iraq's weapons said otherwise, Saddam shopped around for yellowcake, model airplanes were deadly drones, Atta met with an Iraqi secret agenda in Prague, and other whoppers, all lies and dissembling chatter.

"If there's one thing left wingers love, it's a good, old-fashioned conspiracy. Give them a small nibble of a 'claim' of wrong doing against the current White House, conservatives, or Republicans, and the left wing fringe will pounce into action. Facts? Data? Evidence? Those items are simply minor inconveniences to their 'analysis' of right wing efforts to rule the world, steal elections, plant White House reporters, or a host of other perceived dirty deeds," scribbles Bobby Eberle for GOPUSA.

Claim my foot. Anybody with two brain cells to rub together understands Bush and crew lied, fabricated "intelligence," and planned the "war" against Iraq years ago. But since it wasn't covered by the "liberal" New York Times and the one-time (still-time no doubt) CIA asset (Operation Mockingbird) the Washington Post it is little more than an "old-fashioned conspiracy" by the "left wing fringe." Facts ain't facts unless they appear in the corporate media. I once had a former New York Times stringer tell me as much.

Naturally, the Morgan Reynolds story will go nowhere because the corporate media will ignore it. Down here in the nether regions of the "left wing fringe," the story will simply be more evidence that the Bush explanation for nine eleven is hogwash and it will add fuel to the speculation that the attacks were an inside job. Morgan Reynolds' story is so damaging that the corporate media will ignore it—crossing its fingers and hoping it will die—and shills like Michael Kinsley and Michael Getler will not even make sarcastic jokes about it like they did with the DSM story. For the corporate media, silence is golden.

For the rest of us, it is another arrow in our quiver.

A few nights ago I saw a preview of Saving Jessica Lynch. It was all I could do to contain the gray matter.

I was extremely busy and without access to a computer during the "rescue." A week after Pfc. Lynch was returned to American custody, I heard incredulous stories of a heroic young soldier, Rambo-style shooting at the enemy until out of bullets, and who endured stab wounds and torture until she was dramatically rescued in perfect made-for TV fashion.

And then the BBC aired the infamous documentary, essentially labeling the Pentagon's version of events as a work of fiction. I trust the BBC over the Pentagon.

Sure enough, Pfc Lynch has selective amnesia and cannot remember the events of her capture and rescue, though that hasn't stopped her from a million dollar book deal with the NY Times most recent plagiarist du jour, Rick Bragg.

When the Department of Defense insisted on keeping up their official version of the rescue, I knew that inevitably some of Lynch's rescuers would be hushed. After all, here is a woman who endured a few broken limbs from a vehicle accident and is rewarded with a million bucks, while her rescuers continue to live without toilets and running water in a Depleted Uranium wasteland. Her Bronze Star has outraged many veterans. At some point even the threat of an untimely demise will not keep some disgruntled military folks from talking.

Eerily enough, four of Pfc. Lynch's rescuers and colleagues have met an early demise.

Petty Officer First Class David M. Tapper died of wounds received in Afghanistan. He took part in the rescue.

Lance Cpl. Sok Khak Ung was killed in a drive-by shooting. He was also part of the rescue team.

Spc Josh Daniel Speer died when his car crashed into some trees for no apparent reason. He was part of the rescue team.

Kyle Edward Williams, who worked in the same company as Lynch, died of "suicide".

"A Tucson man was shot to death outside a West Side hotel Wednesday after breaking into a vehicle and being confronted by its owner, an Army soldier, who shot him in the back and fled, police said Friday.

The soldier, Spc. Kyle Edward Williams, 21, was found dead outside San Diego on Thursday and officials believe he committed suicide with one of the seven firearms he had been carrying with him.

He left no note to explain the suicide or why he fired six shots at Noah P. Gamez, also 21, after spotting the man stealing an ice chest from his Jeep.

Williams spent seven months in the Middle East as part of the 507th Maintenance Company, the same unit as Pfc. Jessica Lynch, Army officials said.

He didn't have any disciplinary or mental health problems before he left Fort Bliss, Texas, at the end of September for 20 days of leave before moving to a new military job, the officials said."

But this statistically improbable occurrence is just a coincidence.

WASHINGTON - Advocates of rewriting the USA Patriot Act are claiming momentum after the House, despite a White House veto threat, voted to restrict investigators from using the anti-terrorism law to peek at library records and bookstore sales slips.

Wednesday's 238-187 vote came as lawmakers ramped up efforts to extend the Patriot Act, which was passed quickly in the emotional aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. When Congress passed the law, it included a sunset provision under which 15 of the its provisions are to expire at the end of this year.

Since the Patriot Act passed, liberals and libertarian-oriented conservatives have pressed for changes, citing privacy and civil liberties concerns. The administration has said weakening of the act would draw a veto from President Bush.

"No question, this is a real shot in the arm for those of us who want to make changes to the USA Patriot Act," said Rep. Bernard Sanders, I-Vt., sponsor of the provision that would curtail the government's ability to investigate the reading habits of terror suspects. He said the vote would help "rein in an administration intent on chipping away at the very civil liberties that define us as a nation."

The vote reversed a narrow loss last year by lawmakers concerned about the potential invasion of privacy of innocent library users. They narrowed the proposal this year to permit the government to continue to seek out records of Internet use at libraries.

The House is debating a $57.5 billion bill covering the departments of Commerce, Justice and State. The Senate has yet to act on the measure, and GOP leaders often drop provisions offensive to Bush during final negotiations.

The Justice Department said in a letter to lawmakers that as of March 30, federal investigators had not used the Patriot Act to obtain library or bookstore records but that the authority provides "an important tool for investigating and intercepting terrorism."

Comment: The authority to obtain library or bookstore records has supposedly never been used by the Bush administration. So basically, the Neocons' current argument goes something like this: "We absolutely must have this important tool in the war on terror because we never use it".

"It bodes well that the first vote Congress has taken on the Patriot Act this year has been in favor of liberty and freedom," said Gregory Nojeim, a lobbyist for the American Civil Liberties Union.

Supporters of rolling back the library and bookstore provision said that the law gives the FBI too much leeway to go on fishing expeditions based on what people read. Innocent people could get tagged as potential terrorists based on what they check out from a library, critics said.

"If the government suspects someone is looking up how to make atom bombs, go to a court and get a search warrant," said Rep. Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y.

Supporters of the Patriot Act countered that the rules are potentially useful and argued that the House was voting to make libraries safe havens for terrorists.

"If there are terrorists in libraries studying how to fly planes, how to put together biological weapons, how to put together chemical weapons, nuclear weapons, ... we have to have an avenue through the federal court system so that we can stop the attack before it occurs," said Rep. Tom Feeney, R-Fla.

Comment: Terrorists in libraries studying how to fly planes?! Perhaps Feeney has never actually been to a library. The last time we checked, the kind of expertise required to carry out an attack of the order of the events of 9/11 was not by any stretch of the imagination available in public libraries. No one can learn how to skillfully fly a huge airliner by reading a book or two or watching a video. It is also ridiculous to suggest that one could acquire the necessary knowledge to construct a nuclear weapon by simply spending some time at the local library.

Last year, a similar provision was derailed by a 210-210 tie after several Republicans were pressured to switch votes.

In the meantime, a number of libraries have begun disposing of patrons' records quickly so they won't be available if sought under the law.

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales told Congress in April that the government has never used the provision to obtain library, bookstore, medical or gun sale records.

But when asked whether the administration would agree to exclude library and medical records from the law, Gonzales demurred. "It should not be held against us that we have exercised restraint," he said.

Authorities have gained access to records through voluntary cooperation from librarians, Gonzales and FBI Director Robert Mueller said.

In 1996 Daniel Jonah Goldhagen published Hitler's Willing Executioners: Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust. His thesis is that the mass murder of Jews was not done on the quiet by a few Nazi fanatics. Instead, Goldhagen writes, by their complicity ordinary Germans were willing participants in the slaughter.

In other words, the German people as a people were guilty as well, because they accepted and permitted the slaughter of an ethnic group.

Goldhagen's thesis has had rough sledding. German newspapers in the Third Reich did not report on the progress of the Holocaust. Few Germans had the means or were willing to take the risks of listening to British broadcasts, which had no reporters on the German scene to investigate extermination rumors. By the time the Holocaust was underway, Hitler and the Gestapo had an iron grip on Germans and the German military. The potent German war machine had fallen victim to Nazi hubris and bitten off more of Russia than it could chew. Opposition to Hitler rose within the military. Generals hatched plots to assassinate Hitler, but every attempt failed.

If generals commanding armies could not overthrow Hitler, it is unclear what ordinary Germans could have done. They could not vote Hitler out, as the Enabling Act had made him a dictator. The Gestapo had put a stop to civil liberties, and there was no free press. And, of course, there was no Internet reporting hard facts that the toady German media covered up.

The situation in America today is quite different from wartime Germany. There is still a free press even though it is a toady corporate press without heart or courage.

Comment: Can a toady corporate press without heart or courage really be considered free?

There is an opposition party even thought it is a toady opposition.

Comment: There is an opposition party composed of a lot of Americans who who trying to fight the Bush regime. The problem is that any real efforts are undermined either by COINTELPRO operations or by the Bush government simply rewriting and/or bypassing laws in order to grow their power.

Bush is not a dictator even though a toady Congress has permitted Bush to accumulate power in the executive branch at the expense of both civil liberties and the separation of powers established by the Constitution. Americans have an abundance of hard facts available to them from a world press via the Internet. Americans have the weapons inspectors' reports, expert testimony, and now top secret British government documents leaked to the Sunday Times (London). The documents reveal that the British government regarded Bush's premeditated invasion of Iraq as illegal and had concerns that Prime Minister Blair and cabinet ministers could be brought up on war crime charges for participating in naked aggression. The documents reveal that Bush's decision to invade Iraq had nothing whatsoever to do with the reasons he gave the US Congress and the American people and that the "intelligence" he cited to justify his invasion was concocted and fabricated.

If Germans were complicit, as Goldhagen claims, how can Americans avoid the charge of complicity in Bush's crimes against Iraq when Americans are in possession of such damning facts and have the power of impeachment? Why do Americans tolerate a liar and a war criminal as their president?

Why has Congress voted still more money for an illegal war launched in deception?

Why does the US military permit its human and physical resources to be squandered in a pointless war that has no strategy for victory and no timetable for withdrawal?

How can America be so dominated by a lame-duck president that it loses all sense of itself, its honor, and its purpose?

Americans are complicit in the deaths and maiming of thousands of American soldiers for no valid purpose. Americans are complicit in the deaths of tens of thousands of Iraqi women and children as "collateral damage." No one knows how high the number is because the Bush administration does not regard Iraqi lives as worth counting.

Bush's war of deception has devastated Iraq. Cities and towns are in ruins. Infrastructure is destroyed. Half the population is unemployed. Pollution and disease are rampant.

By continuing to defend Bush's lies, right-wing talk radio, Fox "News", the Weekly Standard, National Review, the Wall St Journal editorial page, the NY Post, the NY Sun and the rest of the neocon establishment are Bush's willing executioners. The neocon media differs not at all from the Nazi propaganda machine. The neocon media fosters the same hatred and blood lust: kill the Iraqis, invade Syria, bomb the Iranians, devise "useable nukes" to subdue the Muslims, kill the American traitors who criticize our fuhrer, bend the world to our exceptional will.

How much more shame and complicity will Americans allow Bush and his neocon brownshirts to shovel onto their shoulders before Americans say "enough!" and remove from office the war criminal who has sullied America's good name?

Paul Craig Roberts has held a number of academic appointments and has contributed to numerous scholarly publications. He served as Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan administration. His graduate economics education was at the University of Virginia, the University of California at Berkeley, and Oxford University. He is coauthor of The Tyranny of Good Intentions.

A US senator has refused to apologise for comparing the actions of US soldiers at Guantanamo Bay to those of Nazis, while others have decried or defended the mandate and method used to hold prisoners there.

US Senator Dick Durbin on Wednesday refused to apologise for comments he made on the Senate floor referring to Nazis, Soviet gulags and a "mad regime" like Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge in Cambodia.

Illinois Republican Party chairman Andy McKenna had demanded he apologise.

"Senator Durbin's comments come as a great disservice to our military personnel in Guantanamo," he said. "They are also a great disservice to all US soldiers and veterans who have fought, and continue to fight, to overcome evil regimes and spread democracy around the world."

Durbin did not plan to apologise for the comments, spokesman Joe Shoemaker said.

"This administration should apologise to the American people for abandoning the Geneva Conventions and authorising torture techniques that put our troops at risk and make Americans less secure," Durbin had said in a statement on Wednesday evening.

Attack

During a speech on Tuesday, Durbin, the Senate's No. 2 Democrat, quoted from an FBI agent's report describing detainees at the naval base in Cuba as being chained to the floor without food or water in extreme temperatures.

"If I read this to you and did not tell you that it was an FBI agent describing what Americans had done to prisoners in their control, you would most certainly believe this must have been done by Nazis, Soviets in their gulags, or some mad regime - Pol Pot or others - that had no concern for human beings."

Durbin is not alone in his criticism.

Human-rights groups have long accused the administration of unjustly detaining suspects at the prison camp. Amnesty International last month called the detention centre the "gulag of our times" [...]

The U.S. federal government is prosecuting four Catholic peace activists from Ithaca, N.Y., after a state court jury refused to convict them last year for their antiwar protest at a local U.S. military recruiting station. The federal charges made against the activists include "conspiracy to impede an officer of the United States," a crime punishable by up to six years in prison and a fine of $250,000.

"The federal government is clearly trying to make an example of these people and to intimidate future nonviolent protestors by charging these folks with conspiracy," said Bill Quigley, a law professor at Loyola University, New Orleans, and an advising attorney for the activists.

On March 17, 2003, in protest of the impending U.S. invasion of Iraq, Danny Burns, Peter DeMott, and sisters Clare and Teresa Grady poured small bottles of their own blood on the walls, floor and an American Flag in the foyer of a military recruiting center in Lansing, N.Y.

Charged with criminal mischief, the activists, who have been dubbed the St. Patrick's Four, spent four days in jail and in April 2004 were tried at the Tompkins County Courthouse. During their weeklong trial, the defendants, all of whom have children, said they carried out their protest as Catholics and parents who wanted to warn members of the military and potential recruits about the illegality and immorality of the war in Iraq.

"As parents, we know the love of our children and hold deeply the belief that we are all God's children. It is never OK to kill another of God's children and it is especially grievous to send one's children, our children to another land to kill other children," said Clare Grady, a mother of two.

The jury voted 9 to 3 in favor of acquittal, leading some to conclude the case of the St. Patrick's Four was closed. But in February, a federal grand jury charged the four activists, all of whom were arrested during a previous demonstration at the Lansing recruiting station, with two counts of criminal trespass, destruction of government property and conspiring to induce "by force, intimidation and threat, officers of the United States to leave the place where their duties as officers of the United States are required to be performed."

Last month, Thomas J. McAvoy, senior U.S. district judge for northern New York, rejected the defendants' motion for dismissal and set a trial for Sept. 19 in Binghamton, N.Y. In his May 8 decision, McAvoy also ruled the defendants would not be allowed to cite international law as a justification for their actions at the recruiting station.

"This court offers no opinion on the war in Iraq as it is entirely irrelevant to this matter. Assuming an illegal war, it does not provide a justification for violating the criminal laws of the United States," he wrote.

CHICAGO -- An American Airlines jet flying from New York to Seattle was diverted to Chicago on Monday evening after a suspicious item was found on board, authorities said. It turned out to be a radio.

A passenger saw the item in one of the plane's restrooms and told a flight attendant, said Chicago Police spokesman David Banks. The police bomb and arson unit and the FBI determined it was "an older-looking, Walkman-type radio," Banks said.

"It was a big to-do over nothing," Banks said. "If it weren't so serious, it would be laughable."

The 158 passengers and six crew members were evacuated after the plane landed at 8:30 p.m., said airlines spokeswoman Mary Frances Fagan. No one was hurt. [...]

Leading black US pastors have embarrassed the administration by questioning the sincerity of its commitment to increasing aid to Africa, dealing a blow to White House efforts to boost support for Republicans in a traditionally hostile constituency.

In a letter to the White House this week, the pastors demanded that George Bush give "ardent support" to Tony Blair's proposal that the leading industrialised countries would double official aid to the world's poorest continent over just five years.

A meeting with Condoleezza Rice, the Secretary of State, in May appeared to confirm the administration's commitment to the Africa cause, but last week Mr Bush made clear he would stick to the smaller amounts specified by the so-called Millennium Challenge account, unveiled in 2002.

This ties aid to "good governance" and the embrace of market economics by recipient countries. The goal was to double core US development aid by 2005. But disbursements have been held up by bureaucracy, and pressures arising from the huge US budget deficit.

The Rev Eugene Rivers, one of the pastors, told the Los Angeles Times some of his colleagues were upset that Mr Blair, who had "stood by the President on Iraq at enormous political cost to himself ... did not appear to be receiving the same level of support when it came to Africa". In less than a month, Mr Blair hosts the Gleneagles G8 summit at which aid for Africa will be a key topic, and the President's move threatens to take some of the gloss off the recent agreement by the wealthiest industrial nations, based on a deal between Britain and the US. It forgives $40bn (£22bn) of official debt owed by 18 of the world's poorest countries, many in Africa.

The US is also at odds with most of its G8 partners for its reluctance to act on global warming, the other big theme of the summit. [...]

A rift with black religious leaders would be a political blow for Bush strategists. Republicans have fared poorly with African-American voters. But in 2004 Mr Bush significantly improved his showing compared to 2000, as he courted church communities, stressing his experience as a born-again Christian.

CARACAS, Venezuela - Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez warned soldiers on Tuesday that government adversaries were trying to provoke divisions within the military and plotting to assassinate him.

Speaking at a Caracas military base, Chavez said that a military parade held annually on June 24 was canceled this year due to intelligence reports pointing to a purported plot to kill him. [...]

Chavez said the military parade had been canceled because radical government opponents were planning an attempt on his life that day. He said the purported plot did not involve active military personnel.

"The evidence is strong, the risk is very high," said Chavez.

Opposition leaders have scoffed at the president's repeated allegations that numerous assassination plots have been hatched by radical government opponents, including ex-army officers.

Critics claim Chavez uses the allegations to draw public attention away from this South American nation's most pressing problems, including a nationwide housing shortage, widespread poverty and high crime.

Chavez purged the military of suspected opponents following a short-lived 2002 coup.

"It's not from within the armed forces that are planning an assassination," Chavez said.

Chavez did not identify specific groups opposed to his left-leaning rule that might be behind the alleged campaign aimed at dividing the military.