- All the desperate lies and spin don't change the fact
that the Bush administration had foreknowledge of the Sept. 11 attacks...
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- George W. Bush knew. And his administration knew. The
transparently dishonest denials issued by the White House do not stand
up to the slightest scrutiny. They are lying. A simple examination of existing
information, gathered from reliable, open sources proves it. Last night,
Michael C. Ruppert of From The Wilderness was scheduled to present his
case for Bush 9/11 foreknowledge before a national TV audience on Geraldo
Rivera's Fox News program. At the last minutes, this live appearance was
cancelled. Coincidence? Ruppert's appearance, which could have caused immeasurable
damage to the administration, was allegedly prompted by "breaking
news" from the White House suggesting "imminent new terrorist
attacks." "Wag the dog"? What desperate measures will this
cabal resort to in order to remain in power? How many more lives will they
take?
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- Backed into a Corner at Every Turn
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- On May 15, Press Secretary and official White House liar
Ari Fleischer nervously stuttered, "The president did not receive
information about the use of airplanes as missiles by suicide bombers.
This was a new type of attack that was not foreseen."
-
- This was followed by Condoleeza Rice, who repeated the
spin: "I don't think that anyone could have predicted that these people
would take an airplane and slam it into the World Trade Center." Bush
himself issued a statement that he had no indication beforehand that "terrorists
would hijack jets and deliberately crash them." The White House would
have us believe that not a single individual in the entire US government,
nor the entire Central Intelligence Agency, had knowledge about a method
of terrorism that has been routine for more than 20 years. And that not
a single person in the entire national security apparatus of the US had
a shred of information on training camps in Iran (a hotspot of intense
US intelligence focus for decades) devoted to this method of terrorism.
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- Yossef Bodansky is a director of the Task Force on Terrorism
and Unconventional Warfare in the US House of Representatives, and the
author of the book "Bin Laden: The Man Who Targeted America."
Bodansky is a Washington insider whose views are sought after, respected
and broadly disseminated throughout the US government.
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- In a well-publicized paper from 1993, he stated, "The
training of suicide pilots started in the Busher air base in Iran in the
early 1980s with some 90 Pilatus PC-7 aircraft purchased from Switzerland."
"According to a former trainee in Wakilibad (a base for the training
of kamikaze pilots), one of the exercises included having an Islamic Jihad
detachment seize (or hijack) a transport aircraft. Then trained air crews
from among the terrorists would crash the airliner with its passengers
into a selected objective," he wrote.
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- "The leading terrorists are known as 'Afghans,'
having been trained with the mujahadeen in Pakistan. Some fought in Afghanistan.
Muslim volunteers from several Arab and Asian countries were encouraged
to come to Pakistan and join the Afghan Jihad." (Source: Target America:
Terrorism in the US Today, 1993. "Islamic Terrorism in the United
States," National Security Caucus, 1996.)
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- The Bush administration would have us believe that a
subject that was written about in books and discussed openly throughout
Washington is "unimaginable."
-
- They would also have us believe that they, and their
intelligence operatives, have been unaware of some of the most spectacular
and horrific terrorist operations in recent history-many of them directed
at the United States.
-
- Yet:
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- On December 29, 1994, four terrorists alleged to have
ties to Osama bin Laden hijacked Air France Flight 8969, a flight from
Algiers to Paris. They loaded the plane with explosives and filled it with
extra fuel, with the intent of ramming it into the Eiffel Tower. Commandos
stormed the plane and killed the hijackers. (Source: NBC News. September
30, 2001. Chris Hansen, "The Lesson of Air France Flight 8969")
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- A full seven years before September 11, an al-Qaeda suicide
hijacking is partially executed and barely stopped by French intelligence.
The Bush administration would have us believe that no one in the CIA had
ever heard of such a thing.
-
- Another suicide hijacking plot was discovered six years
before September 11. Ramsey Youssef, the terrorist who masterminded the
1993 bombing of the World Trade Center had detailed plans to hijack and
crash commercial airliners into buildings in the US, and blow up 12 US
airliners during international flights over a two-day period. This plot,
known as Operation Bojinka, was discovered by Philippine intelligence agents
in 1995, in the hideout of Yousef and Abdul Hakim Murad, a US trained pilot
linked to bin Laden. Philippine authorities passed this information to
the FBI. This plot was disclosed again in the 1997 trial of Youssef. (Source:
Kevin Cullen, Ralph Ranalli. Boston Globe, Sept 18, 2001, "Flight
School Said FBI Trailed Suspect Prior to Hijackings")
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- Two years before 9/11, reports prepared for U.S. intelligence
warned that Osama bin Laden would hijack an airliner and fly it into government
buildings like the Pentagon. "Suicide bomber(s) belonging to al-Qaeda's
Martyrdom Battalion could crash-land an aircraft packed with high explosives
(C-4 and semtex) into the Pentagon, the headquarters of the Central Intelligence
Agency (CIA), or the White House,'' the September 1999 report said. (Source:
Associated Press, May 17, 2002).
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- In July 2001, during the G8 Summit in Genoa, Italy, Deputy
Prime Minister Gianfranco Fini revealed that Italian intelligence had uncovered
a plot to crash a hijacked commercial airliner into either Air Force One
or one of the buildings used for the summit. (Source: New York Newsday,
Sept 19, 2001) This jetliner kamikaze plot was directed at Bush himself.
Taking the Bush denial to its logical extension, the White House would
have us believe that Bush and the CIA were not only unaware of this plot,
but also not warned by the Italian government.
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- During the investigation into the 1998 US embassy bombings
in Kenya and Tanzania, intelligence officials and FBI were alerted that
two bin Laden associates had been trained as pilots. Airman Flight School
in Oklahoma became the focus of an FBI investigation. The FBI was warned
in August 2001 that Zacarias Moussauoi, the notorious "20th pilot"
who attended Airman was only interested in steering a plane-and not taking
off or landing. He also specifically asked about New York City air space.
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- In June 2001, the German BND warned the CIA and Israel
of plans by Middle Eastern terrorists to "hijack commercial aircraft
to use as weapons to attack important symbols of American and Israeli culture."
Furthermore, according to the same source, the Echelon spy network was
used to break this news, and that intelligence agents in the UK also had
advance warning. (Source: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, September 14,
2001)
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- In the summer of 2001, Russian intelligence and President
Vladimir Putin warned the CIA that 25 terrorist pilots were going to hijack
commercial aircraft for suicide missions.
-
- Attorney David Shippers, who led the impeachment case
against Bill Clinton, warned Attorney General John Ashcroft and Speaker
of the House Dennis Hastert that he had proof from a credible source (that
he has still not revealed) about a plot to use hijacked commercial airliners
to ram the White House and Capitol. (Source: Info Wars (radio program)
Oct 10 2001)
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- This list of specific warnings about suicide hijackings
is but the tip of the iceberg. The Bush administration received many more
warnings of an imminent attack from foreign governments (Israel, Germany,
Egypt, UK, Russia), FBI agents (whose investigations were obstructed) and
covert operatives who were studiously silenced (Naval Intelligence Officer
Delmart "Mike" Vreeland, for one)
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- Ari Fleischer's Lies About the CIA
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- As part of his clumsy May 15 damage control press conference,
Fleischer responded to a question about CIA foreknowledge by quoting from
an address given on April 11 at Duke University by CIA Deputy Director
James Pavitt. Fleischer quoted only selected passages from the Pavitt address
that seemed to deny 9/11 foreknowledge:
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- "What didn't we know? We never found the tactical
intelligence, never uncovered the specifics that could have stopped those
tragic strikes that we all remember so well. Against that degree of control,
that kind of compartmentation, that depth of discipline and fanaticism,
I personally doubt . . . that anything short of one of the knowledgeable
inner circle personnel or hijackers turning himself in to us would have
given us sufficient foreknowledge to have prevented the horrendous slaughter
that took place. Some of you out there may have heard bin Laden himself
speak about this on that shocking videotape."
-
- But Fleischer failed to quote portions of the same speech
in which Pavitt admitted CIA clear foreknowledge of the September 11th
attacks, deep penetration of terrorist cells throughout Central Asia and
the Middle East, and longstanding presence in the region. This speech,
which is posted at the CIA web site, has already been dissected by Online
Journal. Among the Pavitt passages that Fleischer did not read to the press:
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- "We had very, very good intelligence of the general
structure and strategies of the al Qaeda terrorist organization. We knew
and we warned that al Qaeda was planning a major strike. There need be
no question about that."
-
- "If you hear somebody say, and I have, the CIA abandoned
Afghanistan after the Soviets left and that we never paid any attention
to that place until September 11th, I would implore you to ask those people
how we were able to accomplish all we did since the Soviets departed.
How we knew who to approach on the ground, which operations, which warlord
to support, what information to collect. Quite simply, we were there well
before the 11th of September."
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- "We predicted, we told the President, that there
would be between five and 15 serious attacks against on U.S. soil. But
we did much much more than warn. With our allies and our partners around
the world, we launched immense efforts to counter those threats. Hundreds
of terrorists were arrested, multiple cells of terrorism were destroyed."
-
- Indeed, according to a September 14, 2001, report from
Reuters, "The CIA has been authorized since 1998 to use covert means
to disrupt and pre-empt terror operations allegedly planned abroad by Saudi-born
dissident Osama bin Laden." Quoting government sources, "The
CIA had used such force several times to stop armed groups before they
initiated attacks." As mentioned previously, the CIA participated
in a study that concluded that Osama bin Laden's terrorists could hijack
an airliner and fly it into government buildings. And there is more proof
of CIA foreknowledge and action.
-
- The February 2001 trial of the al-Qaeda members responsible
for the 1998 US embassy bombings was based almost entirely on intercepted
cell phone calls. During the trial, prosecutors describe how US intelligence
used Echelon, a highly secret technical intelligence gathering system used
to monitor worldwide communications. On February 13, 2001, UPI quoted multiple
agencies saying that they had broken al Queda's codes.
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- It is inconceivable that, armed with a budget of over
$30 billion, and technologies such as Echelon (which tracks nearly all
electronic communication in the world), Promis (which monitors banking
and financial transactions in real-time), Carnivore (which intercepts e-mail)
and other tools, the CIA and other US intelligence agencies would have
"no inkling."
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- This lie is further exposed by the fact that Mohammed
Atta, the lead hijacker, had been under constant CIA surveillance since
January 2000. (Source: Reuters Oct 22, 2001) According to Le Figaro (October
31, 2001), bin Laden received treatment at an American hospital in Dubai
for kidney disease in mid-July 2001-and reportedly met with a CIA official.
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- The More Important Questions They Are Not Asking
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- 1. Who really is Osama bin Laden? What is al Qaeda? What
really is "Militant Islam?" In a penetrating analysis by Professor
Michel Chossudovsky titled "Who is Osama bin Laden?" this question
is answered clearly. Osama bin Laden and the terror networks of the region
are creations of the United States and its CIA-and continue to serve the
geostrategic purposes of the United States government, which directly and
indirectly controls their operations.
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- The CIA, using Pakistan's ISI, played a key role in training
the mujahadeen. In turn, the CIA-sponsored guerrilla training was integrated
into the teachings of Islam.
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- Pakistan's ISI is a proxy of the CIA by official government
directive.
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- CIA covert operations in the region are conducted through
the ISI. Terror operations continue throughout the Middle East, the Caucasus,
the Balkans and Central Asia-which, in addition to holding coveted untapped
oil and gas reserves, produces three quarters of the world's opium.
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- The Islamic Jihad has been supported by the US and Saudi
Arabia with a significant part of the funding generated from the Golden
Crescent drug trade.
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- Motivated by nationalism and religious fervor, and kept
out of touch with upper levels of the intelligence hierarchy, Islamic warriors
are unaware of whose purposes they serve.
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- Since the Cold War, Washington has consciously supported
Osama bin Laden, while at the same time inflating his legend as the world's
foremost terrorist.
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- Why did the director of the ISI transfer money to Mohammed
Atta, and why has no one investigated this connection?
-
- 2. Why were no fighter planes scrambled on the morning
of 9/11?
-
- With the full knowledge that four planes had been simultaneously
hijacked, the National Command Authority did not scramble fighter aircraft
to intercept for 75 minutes-an unprecedented breach of standard FAA procedure
that has been followed for 25 years. The bizarre air stand-down has been
analyzed at http://emperors-clothes.com/indict/indict-1.htm.
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- 3. What accounts for Bush's behavior on 9/11? Bush was
not 'formally' informed of the hijackings for 35 minutes -an astounding
irregularity all by itself. When White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card
"whispered into his ear," Bush displayed no shock and continued
to speak to a classroom of schoolchildren. Later reports confirm that Bush
knew about the first World Trade Center crash while in the presidential
limousine on the way to the school-and he did not act. Another report quoted
Bush as saying "When I saw the first plane hit, I thought 'what a
terrible pilot.'" Putting aside the callousness of his thought, was
this another garbled quote, or did Bush see the first plane? And if so,
how did he see it? In yet another report, after both World Trade towers
were hit, Bush joked to his budget director Mitch Daniels, "I've hit
the trifecta." Is this the behavior of a president who just found
out about the horrific "first attack of US territory since the war
of 1812"? 4. If 9/11 was an unprovoked surprise terror attack, what
was the Bush administration doing provoking the Taliban and threatening
war with Afghanistan?
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- In July 2001 Pakistani Foreign Secretary Niaz Naik is
told by senior US officials that military actions against Afghanistan would
begin by October. This threat, which was triggered in part by the Taliban's
refusal to accept the Bush administration's terms for a trans-Afghan oil
pipeline, is made directly to the Taliban during a meeting in Berlin, attended
by the Taliban, officials of Russia, Iran, Pakistan and the Northern Alliance.
New memos reveal that Bush had an Afghanistan war plan on his desk on September
9.
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- 5. What did Wall Street know? And if Wall Street knew,
what wasn't known within the Bush administration? What wasn't known by
the CIA and intelligence agencies, which track stock trades on a real time
basis? The highly abnormal insider trading that occurred immediately before
the 9/11 attacks involving only companies hardest hit by the attacks-UAL,
American Airlines, Morgan Stanley, Merrill Lynch and others-and were clearly
the result of foreknowledge. Despite these trades, which Dylan Ratigan
of Bloomberg Business News described as "insider trading at the worst,
most horrific, most evil use you've ever seen . . . one of the most extraordinary
coincidences in the history of mankind if it was a coincidence." To
those who would place the blame on bin Laden, consider this: according
to an October 6 National Public Radio report, Britain's Financial Services
Authority cleared bin Laden and al Qaeda of this insider trading.
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- 6. Why have the insiders and whistleblowers been silenced
and intimidated?
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- In August 2001, a US Navy Lieutenant and Naval Intelligence
officer, Delmart "Mike" Vreeland, who was jailed in Canada on
US fraud charges, which were later proven false, repeatedly warned US and
Canadian intelligence officials about the pending suicide hijack attacks
(complete with the listing of targets), based on information he had gleaned
from documents that he had couriered from Russia before his arrest. US
and Canadian officials refused to debrief him. Vreeland, whose identity
was verified in court, was cleared of all charges and is in Canada fighting
extradition to the US. In light of increasing evidence of Bush administration
foreknowledge, Vreeland's case, and his claims to have detailed information
regarding total US intelligence penetration of al Qaeda, takes on even
greater significance. His case can be studied at www.copvcia.com.
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- For more unasked questions, and links to articles in
which the answers are fully or partially answered, www.communitycurrency.org/9-11.html.
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- Letting It Happen: A New Smoking Gun
-
- On CNN Inside Politics (May 17, 2002), Senator Dianne
Feinstein responded to Ari Fleischer's outrageous accusation that she did
not provide the White House with information about terrorist threats. Feinstein
stated that on September 10, 2001, she discussed the lack of protection
against terrorist attacks against targets within the US with the staff
of Vice President Dick Cheney and practically begged for some action from
the administration. She was told by the Cheney staffer it would have to
wait at least six months.
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- A Limited Hangout or Something More? The Mushrooming
Scandal in Context
-
- Since September 11, and until just days ago, the Bush
empire appeared to be invincible, unchallenged and marching the world towards
escalating worldwide war, and dictatorship in the United States. The Bush
oligarchy appeared dominant over a sold-out and servile Congress, and a
corporate consensus marching in lockstep to the orders of the administration's
oil/military/intelligence hierarchy.
-
- What has caused certain members of Congress to find a
voice and a spine?
-
- What has caused the major corporate American media, which
until days ago was the most aggressive supporter of the White House version
of 9/11, to turn on the Bush administration?
-
- Who gave the orders, the signal, that is was time to
go after Bush-in a way that they had not done since George W. Bush announced
his candidacy for the presidency?
-
- The answers at this early stage are not clear. But recent
events suggest that
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- 1) the rampant criminality of the administration is becoming
too obvious to cover up,
-
- 2) resistance to the brute force of Bush unilateralism
is becoming too great to ignore,
-
- 3) political and social instability throughout the world
is becoming a problem in key strategic regions where a modicum of finesses
is needed, 4) a segment of the ruling elite has grown tired of being shut
out of the deal.
-
- Consider the embarrassing failures of the Bush administration
since September 11:
-
- Despite the success of restarting the Unocal pipeline,
Afghanistan remains a hotbed of warlordism and anti-US hostility that US-installed
Hamid Karzai is having difficulty controlling.
-
- Osama bin Laden has not been found. Al Qaeda has not
been dismantled.
-
- Recent talks between the US, Russia, Iran and former
Soviet republics to forge a multilateral agreement regarding oil and gas
in the Caspian Sea region collapsed, leaving the western oil companies
in a precarious position with unrequited investments throughout the Caspian
region.
-
- Israel's American-approved and American-assisted butchery
and criminal occupation of Palestine, pushed to nightmarish extremes by
Ariel Sharon, has triggered outrage and anti-US hostility throughout the
world. Islamic outrage is worsening.
-
- The threat of oil embargos from OPEC nations and threats
of boycotts of US goods are real.
-
- Bush has failed to maintain multinational "coalitions"-the
key to continued US military and neoliberal economic primacy.
-
- A war against Iraq is impossible without a coalition.
-
- The US-orchestrated coup of Venezuela failed. Evidence
of the Bush administration's participation in this coup is clear, blatant,
and embarrassing.
-
- The US-led Plan Colombia/Andean Initiative is meeting
with continued resistance throughout Latin America.
-
- The world economy is floundering.
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- Outside of the tightly controlled US, America is hated.
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- Enron, Enron, Enron.
-
- The constitutional crisis triggered by Bush's refusal
to reveal documents relating to the energy task force has worsened.
-
- A continuing grand jury investigation of corruption in
Kazakhstan, implicating oil companies tied to the Bush administration.
-
- More FBI agents are coming forward with lawsuits exposing
Bush administration obstruction of anti-terror operations.
-
- Former President Jimmy Carter's visit to Cuba was a loud
rebuke to Bush, and a loud signal to the world that an opposing faction
of the New World Order-one which includes prominent conservative Democrats-is
a making a move. The crafty Carter, he of the Trilateral Commission and
the Council on Foreign Relations, was the consummate world diplomat -a
stark counter to the relentless unilateral militarism of the Bush faction.
-
- Clearly, Bush and his administration would not be under
pressure unless powerful people wanted it to happen. The corporate media,
which has gotten the green light to make noise, would not be engaging in
a feeding frenzy without an incentive.
-
- Is this another limited hangout? How far will this go?
Is it a palace coup? Is it a "wag the dog" fake?
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- The Lies Will Not Stand
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- In the months since September 11, the defining moment
of recent history, neither the Bush administration, nor its surrogates
and allies, have produced one shred of credible evidence supporting the
White House version of the events of that day. Instead, the Bush administration
has mass marketed a total fabrication based on accusations, fear mongering,
infantile comic book bluster, and duplicitous lies about US policies, geo-strategic
agenda, and worldwide operations. Their evidence has amounted to the weakest
conspiracy theory and, in the case of the "notorious bin Laden video"
that is trotted out at the first sign of controversy, televised conspiracy
fantasy.
-
- Meanwhile, in the past eight months, hundreds of independent
researchers, journalists and scholars have done what neither Congress nor
the White House has done: investigate. This already substantial body of
evidence is being exponentially strengthened and enhanced by new evidence
coming to light in the mushrooming scandal. The points presented in this
article are but the tip of the iceberg.
-
- The courageous Ruppert has thoroughly and dispassionately
examined the September 11 case. Read his powerful analyses:
-
- The Lie Won't Stand
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- The Case for Bush Administration Advance Knowledge of
9-11 Attacks
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- "Oh Lucy! - You Gotta Lotta 'Splainin To Do"
-
- Ruppert has dissected the events of the day, but also
the geostrategic agenda preceding and following the event. The Bush version
of events is utterly smashed to pieces.
-
- A recently published and excellent collection of investigative
journalism, Everything You Know Is Wrong, offers another thoroughly documented,
meticulously sourced examination of 9/11 titled "September 11, 2001:
No Surprise."
-
- Given the voluminous evidence (from reliable open sources)
now amassed against the Bush administration, this much is clear:
-
- the administration of George Walker Bush cannot claim
a lack of intelligence, technology or human resources capable of predicting
or preventing the attacks of September 11. Nor can it disown the criminal
activities and policies that preceded and followed the day, and the mass
slaughter that has continued to be waged around the world in its name.
-
- In fact, the Bush oligarchy had both the motive and the
means to facilitate the most spectacular atrocity in modern American history,
and open the Pandora's box of world war without end.
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- Bush knew. Now, the entire world knows.
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- It is up to the people of the world to seize this moment,
and send the Bush administration into the bowels of history.
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- Larry Chin is a freelance journalist and an Online Journal
Contributing Editor
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- http://www.onlinejournal.com/Special_Reports/Chin051902/chin051902.html
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