The Likudization of the World "....he has cast the United States in the very same role in which Israel casts itself, facing the very same threat. In this narrative, the U.S. is fighting a never ending battle for its very survival against utterly irrational forces that seek nothing less than its total extermination. "
posted on Sep 12, 2004 - View this thread

Factfilter: Sen. Bob Graham's new book shows coverup.on Saudi's behalf Bush had concluded that ''a nation-state that had aided the terrorists should not be held publicly to account,'' Graham wrote. "It was as if the president's loyalty lay more with Saudi Arabia than with America's safety.'' And there's stuff about Iraq, too. After wearing 9/11 like a tiara during the convention, will the facts finally be aired?
posted on Sep 6, 2004 - View this thread

CIA Warned of Attack 6 Years Before 9-11 Six years before the Sept. 11 attacks, the CIA warned in a classified report that Islamic extremists likely would strike on U.S. soil at landmarks in Washington or New York, or through the airline industry, according to intelligence officials.
posted on Apr 16, 2004 - View this thread

Bin Ladin Determined To Strike in US - The Presidential Daily Briefing

Kevin Drum: Aside from that, what really struck me was that the whole thing was so short — considerably shorter than your average op-ed column, in fact — and written at about a high school level. This is an intelligence briefing prepared at the request of the president of the United States and he was apparently satisfied with it? Eleven paragraphs of pabulum considerably less authoritative than an average article in Foreign Affairs ? Sheesh.
posted on Apr 10, 2004 - View this thread

Bush Was Warned of Possible Attack in U.S., Official Says "President Bush was told more than a month before the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, that supporters of Osama bin Laden planned an attack within the United States with explosives and wanted to hijack airplanes, a government official said Friday. The warning came in a secret briefing that Mr. Bush received at his ranch in Crawford, Tex., on Aug. 6, 2001. A report by a joint Congressional committee last year alluded to a "closely held intelligence report" that month about the threat of an attack by Al Qaeda, and the official confirmed an account by The Associated Press on Friday saying that the report was in fact part of the president's briefing in Crawford." Then again, he had more important things to deal with that Summer.
posted on Apr 10, 2004 - View this thread

DOJ Asked FBI Translator To Change Pre 9-11 Intercepts --- FBI translator Sibel Edmonds, was offered a substantial raise and a full time job in order to not go public that she had been asked by the Department of Justice (DOJ) to retranslate and adjust the translations of [terrorist] subject intercepts that had been received before September 11, 2001 by the FBI and CIA.  "My translations of the pre 9-11 intercepts included [terrorist] money laundering, detailed and date specific information enough to alert the American people, and other issues dating back to 1999 which I won't go into right now." Incredibly, Edmonds said "The senate Judiciary Committee, and the 911 Commission have heard me  testify for  lengthy periods of time time (3 hours) about very specific plots, dates, airplanes used as weopons, and specific idividuals and activities." Is this true? and OMFG
posted on Mar 24, 2004 - View this thread

WHO were you on September 11th? To paraphrase the political cliche, are you really different now from what you were two years ago? A collective blog project taking place in one week (of course) will try and answer that question.
posted on Sep 4, 2003 - View this thread

I've written before about the myth of the heartland--roughly speaking, the "red states," which voted for George W. Bush in the 2000 election, as opposed to the "blue states," which voted for Al Gore. The nation's interior is supposedly a place of rugged individualists, unlike the spongers and whiners along the coasts. In reality, of course, rural states are heavily subsidized by urban states. New Jersey pays about $1.50 in federal taxes for every dollar it gets in return; Montana receives about $1.75 in federal spending for every dollar it pays in taxes.

Any sensible program of spending on homeland security would at least partly redress this balance. The most natural targets for terrorism lie in or near great metropolitan areas; surely protecting those areas is the highest priority, right?

Apparently not. Even in the first months after Sept. 11, Republican lawmakers made it clear that they would not support any major effort to rebuild or even secure New York. And now that anti-urban prejudice has taken statistical form: under the formula the Department of Homeland Security has adopted for handing out money, it spends 7 times as much protecting each resident of Wyoming as it does protecting each resident of New York.

Paul Krugman, cited by Eric Alterman in regards to Jonathan Chait's The 9/10 President, a story we all seemed to have missed. Not long ago, the Washington Post carried Begging, Borrowing for Security.
Welcome to Trickle Down Homeland Security.
posted on Apr 21, 2003 - View this thread

Bush Doubted on 9/11 Panel Angry lawmakers accused the White House yesterday of secretly trying to derail creation of an independent commission to investigate the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks while professing to support the idea. The White House responded by renewing its pledge of support for the proposal and suggesting an agreement was near.
posted on Oct 15, 2002 - View this thread

Did Lenient Fire Codes Make 9/11 Worse? Tony Fitzpatrick, the designer of the London Millennium Bridge, developed computer simulations with the help of an engineering consulting firm, in order to generate new suggestions for safeguarding buildings from terrorist attack. Fitzpatrick's conclusion: In the end, ordinary fire codes might have saved the World Trade Center victims.
posted on Sep 26, 2002 - View this thread

Germany slips on its jack boots to keep in step with the USA In the wake of september 11th Most supposedly enlightened "western" countries have curtailed or outright forbidden free speech to groups suspected to be sympathetic to "terror". The question in my mind is how long until just being part of a political organization that opposes first use of violence and criticizes government policy (libertarians, Greens, CUSPA) will get you on the FBI "hit" list here at home?
posted on Sep 19, 2002 - View this thread

Rogue Statesman Congressman Dana Rohrabacher’s absolutely crazy, quite possibly illegal back-channel chats with the villains of Sept. 11 This is quite a story.
posted on Sep 6, 2002 - View this thread

It's amazing how good religion is at mobilizing people to do awful, murderous things. There is this dark side to it, and anyone who loves religious experience, including me, better begin to own there - a profound admission - in very well produced piece about 9/11 -
posted on Sep 5, 2002 - View this thread

Launching this Sept 11th (ok, the 10th, but still): the DEA Museum will open a "powerful new exhibit that traces the historic and contemporary connections between global drug trafficking and terrorism." Good idea. Tasteful timing.
posted on Aug 20, 2002 - View this thread

'20th Hijacker' Offers Guilty Plea and Cooperation
He is charged with helping plan the September 11 attack. During his third arraignment on amended charges, Zacarias Moussaoui offered to enter a guilty plea. "For the guilt phase, I'm guilty," he told the judge. "But for the death penalty, we will see." You'd think in this day and age, it'd be hard to pull off a complete surprise. Moussaoui is representing himself.
posted on Jul 18, 2002 - View this thread

Relatives of some of the Sept. 11 victims held a rally in Washington D.C. today, seeking the creation of an independent commission to investigate the terrorist attacks. Though supported by some lawmakers, the commission is opposed by President Bush. I thought the rally received surprisingly little attention from the media, having been overshadowed by the 'dirty bomber' story. The two questions on my mind are, would an independent commission really jeopardize national security as some charge? And, more cynically, was the timing of yesterday's announcement intended to obscure today's rally?
posted on Jun 11, 2002 - View this thread

More pedestrians died in traffic accidents in the US in the year 2000 than all of the people who died in the terrorist attacks on 9/11. 10 times the number of people killed in 9/11 attacks died due to motor vehicle attacks that same year. And yet some say the US government is on a course that will take away many of our civil rights in order to protect us from the boogie-monster terrorists. OF COURSE, the terrorist attacks were a horrible nightmare, and of course we want our police forces to prevent even worse attacks in the future, but before we start thinking about creating a Brave New Police State, maybe now is a good time to have a little perspective.
posted on Jun 10, 2002 - View this thread

9/11 - the CBS documentary. Okay, so we've heard of, and discussed the footage of the attacks before, and many of us know that this will be airing on CBS (in the U.S.) this Sunday (interestingly from 9-11 pm). I wonder if anyone (or everyone) will watch? Some people have tried to halt or delay the showing, but CBS is going ahead, and promising not to show 'graphic footage'. I'm really torn between curiosity and a fear of "too much too soon", and really don't know whether I'm going to watch or not.
posted on Mar 5, 2002 - View this thread

Time Magazine: OCTOBER BULLETIN SAID TERRORISTS THOUGHT TO HAVE 10 KILOTON NUCLEAR WEAPON TO BE SMUGGLED INTO NEW YORK CITY Six months after Sept. 11, America has taken the fight to al-Qaeda. But behind the scenes, The CIA and FBI have been in a desperate scramble to fix a broken system before another strike comes
posted on Mar 3, 2002 - View this thread

Why Are So Many Americans Cancelling Their Subscriptions To "The London Review of Books"? This letter from Paul Genova rings true - and touché - to this European at least. Ever since the very respectable LRB published its issue on the September 11 attacks, American readers(and some notable contributors) have been writing in droves to cancel their subscriptions and connections to the journal. Mary Beard's article(op.cit.) aroused most of the fury, though others are arguably just as outrageous. In the pages of this most lively of letter sections - graciously available online - this particular correspondence seems to demonstrate an ever-sharpening divide between American and European intellectuals. Are Paul Genova's and other readers' disgusted reactions justified? Are they specific to the WTC attacks or, more worryingly, representative of a wider separation?
posted on Feb 15, 2002 - View this thread

S-11 Redux: (Channel) Surfing the Apocalypse So, in the face of our media's shameless propaganda campaign, we have taken it upon ourselves to intuit what the intentions and goals of this war truly are. In what is surely a departure from our traditional NewsVideo format, GNN presents S-11 Redux: (Channel) Surfing the Apocalypse. Culled from over 20 hours of television footage recorded over a one month period and across 13 networks, S-11 Redux is a sound-bite blitzkrieg that challenges the messages we have been fed from our mainstream media and the government it serves. Be warned - this video moves quickly and will require at least two viewings to digest its full impact. You may never be able to look at the coverage of S-11 and its post-impact coverage the same way, ever again
posted on Dec 24, 2001 - View this thread

Father Mychal Judge was the chaplain of NYFD, killed on 9/11. Read a little about him. (via andrewsullivan)
posted on Nov 8, 2001 - View this thread

World Trade Center Massacre: Why did it happen and where was god?
posted on Oct 11, 2001 - View this thread

A lot of people have been asking for "proof." Here is your proof. And it makes for chilling reading.
posted on Oct 1, 2001 - View this thread

What Happens Next? Six options beyond war and peace. Which is best?
posted on Sep 21, 2001 - View this thread

How to combat hijackers. "If someone were to stand up,brandish something such as a plastic knife and say 'This is a hijacking' or words to that effect here is what you should do: Every one of you should stand up and immediately throw things at that person — pillows, books, magazines, eyeglasses, shoes —anything that will throw him off balance and distract his attention. If he has a confederate or two, do the same with them. Most important: get a blanket over him, then wrestle him to floor and keep him there. We'll land the plane at the nearest airport and the authorities will take it from there."
posted on Sep 21, 2001 - View this thread

We may end up not needing to attack Afghanistan at all. The Taliban seem to be doing a marvelous job of destroying themselves just worrying about what we might do.
posted on Sep 20, 2001 - View this thread

Are we blaming the victim? William Saleten argues that talk about what the USA has done to provoke terrorist attack is like a battered wife wondering what she's done to deserve a beating. It risks legitimizing these indefensible acts, and gives us a false sense of control: i.e. that we could prevent such attacks if we'd only behave.
posted on Sep 20, 2001 - View this thread

Missing, presumed dead in NYC. Dead at the Pentagon. While we talk about understanding the terrorist's reasons for the attack, please remember that each number we see scroll across tv is associated with a human being - who's only crime on September 11, 2001 was having the nerve to go to work or visit an international landmark.
posted on Sep 20, 2001 - View this thread

Interesting intelligence report points possible responsibility to terrorists other than bin Laden... Israel’s military intelligence service, Aman, suspects that Iraq is the state that sponsored the suicide attacks on the New York Trade Center and the Pentagon in Washington. Directing the mission, Aman officers believe, were two of the world’s foremost terrorist masterminds: the Lebanese Imad Mughniyeh, head of the special overseas operations for Hizbullah, and the Egyptian Dr Ayman Al Zawahiri, senior member of Al-Qaeda and possible successor of the ailing Osama Bin Laden.

Includes information about connections and previous activities... check it out...
posted on Sep 19, 2001 - View this thread

WWJD: What Would Jello (Biafra) Do? Well, he's not sure, but the former Dead Kennedy's front man and all-round cool guy has a little blurb with his take on the terrorist attacks and what the repercussions might be.
posted on Sep 18, 2001 - View this thread

A Sky Filled With Chaos, Uncertainty and True Heroism There's lots of fresh detail in this Washington Post story on flight 93, the only plane not to hit a target. "It was the hijackers' bad luck that they chose a plane with a number of large men on board. Beamer stood 6-foot-1 and weighed 200 pounds. Jeremy Glick, 31, another passenger involved in the apparent revolt, was a college rugby player and judo champion. Mark Bingham, 31, of San Francisco was a 6-foot-4 rugby player."
posted on Sep 16, 2001 - View this thread

A thoughtful and fascinating analysis of the historical backdrop to the current situation. Why did this happen, what circumstances got us into a de facto state of undeclared war with the Islamic world, and what can we realistically do to prevent those circumstances from ever recurring? --Charlie Stross
posted on Sep 15, 2001 - View this thread

Pentagon warns of sustained retaliation Sounds to me like a declaration of war.
posted on Sep 13, 2001 - View this thread

Ananova reports bodies of hijacker and stewardess found in the WTC wreckage. Does it seem that foreign news outlets are reporting stuff earlier than domestic ones to anyone else? And how could there be bodies still intact, so close to the point of impact?
posted on Sep 13, 2001 - View this thread

Cancer, and Carcinogens "This event is not an isolated instance of violence. This is not an 'act of war.' It is one symptom of a cancer that threatens to metastasize."
posted on Sep 13, 2001 - View this thread

Pretty strong stuff from the Glasgow Herald about the causes of the attacks. I'd like to point out I don't necessarily endorse anything said here.
posted on Sep 13, 2001 - View this thread

Iraq may have financed attacks... Title says it all. Go read.
posted on Sep 12, 2001 - View this thread

Bin Laden under house arrest Just read this article. I haven't seen this posted anywhere yet, so...
posted on Sep 12, 2001 - View this thread

An excellent personal account of the WTC attack.
posted on Sep 12, 2001 - View this thread

How are we really any different from them if we can suggest "selective genocide" and "complete destruction and annihilation"?
posted on Sep 12, 2001 - View this thread

One of Malaysia’s Petronas Towers Being Evacuated. Great. Is this gonna happen everywhere?
posted on Sep 11, 2001 - View this thread

Paratroopers? Or cruise missiles? What will America's military response be if the Taliban are determined to be liable? The Russians certainly didn't too well with a conventional military attack on Afghanistan.
posted on Sep 11, 2001 - View this thread

Osama Bin-Laden confederate due to be sentenced tomorrow. Saudi citizen Mohammed al'Owhali, convicted for arranging the 1998 US Embassy bombings in Africa, is due to be sentenced on September 12, 2001. From indications, that would be at the US Courthouse in Foley Square, which is about a mile from the World Trade Center. A possible reason for the timing?
posted on Sep 11, 2001 - View this thread