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May 31, 2002
The
horror of 9/11 was bad enough, but what makes it worse is the positively sinister
undertone of what we are coming to learn about the events surrounding that singular
event. In reviewing my "what's up with that?" file of 9/11
news stories, it looks like I have enough material for a whole television series:
"Unsolved Mysteries of 9/11."
9/11 WHO
DIDN'T KNOW?
To begin
with, there is the Israeli "art student"
mystery, which I have gone on about at some length in this space check
the archives for details. Essentially this story raises the possibility
that the Israelis had foreknowledge of the attacks, and didn't tell us all they
knew in order to protect their sources and methods. But if the Israelis knew
in advance, then so did practically every other intelligence agency on earth
including the Brits,
the French, the Russians,
the Egyptians, the Moroccans, and the Jordanians. I wouldn't
be at all surprised to hear that Liechtenstein is next on the list.
ROTTEN TO THE
CORE
Intelligence
agencies, however, are limited in what they can disclose to their allies. Since
allies are always spying on one another, no one wants to reveal how they
know what they know. We can't depend on our "friends," and must rely
on the FBI, the CIA, and all the other myriad intelligence bureaucracies (each
division of the military has its own, plus miscellaneous offspring) that proliferate
like maggots inside the rotten
corpse of Empire.
Yes, I said rotten.
What other word is there when the
FBI's own paid informant says he warned them, a memo written by their Phoenix
office predicted the whole thing, and the central administration of the
FBI apparently obstructed
the agency's investigation into Al Qaeda
and Hamas?
Surely the central
enigma of 9/11 is this: How did 19 hijackers manage to pull off the most spectacular
terrorist act in modern history in the face of so many warnings, and so many
US tax dollars spent combating terrorism without state support?
TERRORIST INSIDER
TRADING
This question
of who had foreknowledge apparently everyone, if we are to believe
news reports is taking on some bizarre connotations. There's the San Diego
stock analyst accused of bribing an agent of the FBI in exchange for confidential
information, and of whom a government prosecutor said in
a recent court hearing:
"Perhaps
Mr. Elgindy had preknowledge of Sept. 11, and rather than report it he attempted
to profit from it."
Say what?!
On September 10,
Amr
Ibrahim Elgindy told his stockbroker that the Dow Jones industrial average
would fall below 3000. It then stood at 9,600. Prosecutors are eager to know
why he tried to sell $300,000 in stock the day before the attacks. Elgindy and
four others, including one FBI agent and one former agent, have been charged
with using insider information gleaned from government sources to manipulate
stocks and extort targeted companies. Prosecutors contend that Jeffrey A.
Royer, an ex-agent, took $30,000 from Elgindy's firm in exchange for inside
information.
If Kenneth Breen,
an assistant United States attorney, was serious when he suggested the Egyptian-born
investment counselor a Muslim and a prominent supporter
of Kosovar Albanians may have had foreknowledge
of 9/11, then is he also saying that this is the "confidential"
information Elgindy bought from the FBI secret files for 30,000 pieces of silver?
The news that classified
information was found in the possession of Royer during a search certainly
lends credence to this scenario. Newsday reports:
"During
arguments over whether Royer should be given bail, Breen said that the former
agent posed a risk of flight, partly because of classified information about
'another subject matter' that was unearthed during the execution of a search
warrant of his possessions."
Taken in context
with the accusations of obstruction brought forth in the Rowley
memorandum, this latest unsolved mystery is rather like a particularly dark
and convoluted episode of "The
X-Files." And it gets darker
SELLING SHORT
ON 9/11
Speaking
of stock manipulation, remember that story about unusual
activity in airline stocks in the days before 9/11? The flurry
of reports in the international media characterized it as "terrorist
insider trading" but it looks like it wasn't only the terrorists
who were doing the trading. The promised
Securities and Exchange Commission investigation seems to have fallen into
a black hole. Has anyone heard from any of those German banks that
were supposed to be getting on the case? I thought not
.
Another
great unsolved mystery is what the government thinks it is doing with all these
off-the-wall terror warnings. Many believe that the answer to this ought to
be clear enough: they're trying to scare us to death. Okay, fair enough, but,
between the threat
of attack by scuba diving terrorists, and the apparent certainty shared
by high government officials that a nuclear attack is "inevitable,"
the most bizarre terrorist threat of them all seems to have gotten no notice
at all the threat from our own military! Before you start fitting me for a tin foil hat, please
check
out this story from the Savannah Morning News [May 16, 2002]:
"Jacksonville,
Fla., police arrested a Fort Stewart soldier Saturday after finding him armed,
wearing black clothes and leaving a power plant where he allegedly left an explosive.
"Spc.
Derek Lawrence Peterson, 27, is being held on a $5 million bond by the Jacksonville
Sheriff's Office Department of Corrections. He has been charged with attempting
to detonate an explosive device.
"Peterson
belongs to B Company, 1st Battalion, 64th Armor and has been stationed at Fort
Stewart since March, said Dina McCain, a Fort Stewart spokeswoman."
Oh, but here's
my favorite part:
"After
being informed of his rights, wrote arresting officer D.F. Valiante, 'the suspect
advised me that he was on the power plant property to practice recon tactics.'"
Oh, right,
dude, you were just "practicing" then what's up with that Hoffman
explosive device the cops found underneath the power lines?
This story is
so bizarre that, when I first read it, I refused to believe it: but a call to
the Jacksonville jail confirmed it. "Oh, yes, he's here," they told
us somewhat ruefully, and it didn't seem like they were about to let him go
anytime soon. Peterson's court date is June 4: meanwhile, the prisoner isn't
allowed any visitors
POISON PEN
The American
Society for Microbiology had its annual meeting over the Memorial Day weekend,
and the possibility that the
Anthrax Terrorist may have been in attendance hung over the conference like
a dark cloud of foreboding, reminding us of yet another unsolved mystery. The
anthrax letters mailed to prominent government officials, with messages crudely
designed to make it look like the work of Muslims have
definitively been proved to come from within our own scientific community.
Clearly, the pool of likely suspects can be narrowed down to the few dozen experts
capable of making high-grade "weaponized" anthrax. Indeed, as I have written, the identity
of the Anthrax Madman is obvious to anyone with access to a computer and the
skills to research the topic. Imagine what Sherlock Holmes could've done with
google.com!
But the point
is you don't have to be a super-genius on the level of Holmes to discover the
truth, or something very close to it, when it comes to the anthrax "mystery"
so why is the FBI, as Barbara
Hatch Rosenberg points out, seemingly dragging its feet, throwing far too
wide and cumbersome a net? The Rowley memorandum
clued us in to the obstructionist tactics
thrown in the path of local FBI investigators by the central office in the case
of Zacarias Moussaoui, the alleged "20th hijacker" is such obstructionism
happening in this case, too? You don't have to be a conspiracy
theorist, these days, to think it's more than likely.
GO AHEAD AND
DOSE ME
Finally,
there's this story about the "US
plan to strike enemy with Valium," as the [UK] Observer headline
writer phrased it:
"American
military chiefs are developing plans to use Valium as a potential weapon against
enemy forces and to control hostile populations, according to official documents
seen by The Observer."
Since San Francisco
certainly qualifies as the center of a "hostile population," at least
as far as the Bush administration is concerned, I guess I can look forward to
the day when, after taking a quaff of Valiumized tap water, I'll suddenly reach
a state of narcotized Nirvana. Good! We could all use a good dose of Valium,
these days, or perhaps something far stronger.
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