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Posted September 13, 2003
Justin Raimondo mentions in several articles on this subject that the Israelis had foreknowledge of 9/11, but didn't let on.
In the Guardian article by Michael Meacher the Labour MP mentions that: "at least 11 countries provided advance warning to the US of the 9/11 attacks. Two senior Mossad experts were sent to Washington in August 2001 to alert the CIA and FBI to a cell of 200 terrorists said to be preparing a big operation (Daily Telegraph, September 16 2001)."
Now I may be a bit confused here, but surely one of these statements has got to be wrong.
Justin Raimondo replies:
Every news account of these warnings by the Israelis describes them as nonspecific as to the timing, and that they indicated the attack would take place someplace overseas, not in the U.S.
I normally find Justin Raimondo very intelligent and interesting, but as to the Conspiracy Chic article I'd like to say: "And your point is?"
If you take a look at the map of the route the hijackers took, the skill with which they flew and navigated the planes, it strains credibility that all this they learned at some fly-by-night flight school. These planes were EXPERTLY flown and SKILLFULLY navigated. All this they learned on a 747 simulator? These people flew a huge plane for the very first time? I don't think so.
Indeed, there are some stupid conspiracy theories out there, like the pre-installed demolition charges in the WTC, but we need to separate the wheat from the chaff.
To think that bin Laden directed all this from some cave in Afghanistan is ludicrous. These hijackers obviously had a lot more help and training than the official version will have us believe. ...
It's a bit much when Justin jumps down the throat of Vanity Fair for questioning the fact that the Bushies allowed airlines to fly to several locations in the US (while all flights were supposedly grounded) to pick up Saudi citizens, fly them to secure locations and then fly them to the Middle East when it was politically feasible. Every reader of Antiwar.com can imagine what Justin's reaction would have been if it were Israelis that flew around the US immediately following 9/11 and taken to secure locations. ...
I point to Justin's column of Dec. 12th to show the hypocrisy of Justin bashing anyone who questions Saudi complicity in 9/11. Justin is quick to point to Israeli complicity in anything and everything when the slightest evidence is uncovered.
I was silly enough to hint to friends that Israel might have been involved in 9/11 and it was being covered up in the congressional report detailing 9/11 security failures because of Justin's column. Luckily I only hinted and didn't go overboard and say that all signs point to Israel.
Justin also dismissed Gerald Posner's reporting on Pakistan and Saudi Arabia's connection to Osama Bin Laden by blithely stating that the people Abu Zubaydah fingered are now dead and can't defend themselves. If Posner is telling the truth, the four people died within weeks of being fingered by Zubaydah. I'm sure only neocon nut jobs would be a bit skeptical that three Saudi millionaires and a Pakistani official died of a heart attack, a car crash, thirst, and a plane crash within weeks of being fingered as accomplices in the 9/11 tragedy. (I'm not intimating that Chris Floyd is a neocon; he's a bit skeptical like myself.)
I'm not apologizing for Israel or trying to smear the Saudis. I just wish Justin would taken off his blinders.
Eric Garris Replies
I
love the site, make it part of my daily reading habit, and have a
suggestion: add Robert Fisk under your columnist section. I love his work
and the Independent restricts access.
Managing Editor Eric Garris replies:
Unfortunately, we cannot get permission to reprint. The sources we are linking to are hit-and-miss, foreign sites that are re-posting his columns (I assume without permission, and out of reach of Western law). The Independent is cracking down to keep him under their premium banner.
The recent featured article "Is the Neocon Agenda for Pax Americana Losing Steam?" was from an interesting website, "The Project Against the Present Danger: Standing in Defense of International Law, International Cooperation and Multilateralism."
Huh? I realize Antiwar.com uses articles from a variety of sources, but for this to be a featured story, somebody has to call you on this and ask you to consider the source. These are their stated objectives:
* Chronicle the newly aggressive unilateralist trends in U.S. foreign policy.
* Stand in defense of the post-WWII framework of multilateralism.
* Examine the concert US assault on most forms of multilateralism, international cooperation, and international rule of law.
* Provide background analysis on the key figures in and out of government responsible for this present danger.
* Link to the analysis and campaigns of other concerned organizations and institutions.
* Help stimulate a broadly based public and policy response – spanning the left-center-conservative political sectors and uniting the common interests of business and society – in support of a new, invigorated framework of international cooperation and multilateral system of global governance.
* Work collaboratively with other projects, campaigns, think tanks, and organizations that stand in defense of international cooperation, international rule of law, and multilateralism.
These people want the United States of Earth! Am I supposed to take anything they say seriously, regardless of a common abhorrence to the US establishing an empire? I'm opposed to it because it's bad for America. They're opposed to it because it's bad for their "global governance."
Is Al Gore gonna be a guest columnist now?
Eric Garris replies:
We did consider the source. The author, Jim Lobe, writes for a variety of think-tanks and publications, and we regularly carry him. While he is a leftist, his analyses of the War Party's agenda has been excellent. We certainly are not endorsing the goals of an organization just because we link to one article published under their auspices, any more than running Paul Craig Roberts' column in the Washington Times means that we are endorsing the program of Rev. Moon, who owns the Times.
It is a shame to see an antiwar columnist following in the footsteps of the major media, by trying to decide for the public which candidates they will be able to choose from. Raimondo uses the same phrase, "major candidates" to ignore the existence of the primary peace candidate in this presidential race, Congressman Dennis Kucinich. This seems utterly ridiculous considering the fact that Kucinich is the only presidential candidate who actually voted against the war (i.e. the resolution giving Bush the authorization to invade Iraq). He is no insignificant player in this regard. He is the person who rallied the Democrats in congress to vote against the war, from an initial handful of congressman, to almost 2/3 of the Democrats in Congress. Just because the "major" news media ignored this and acts like it didn't happen doesn't mean that it didn't.
As far as whether Kucinich is a "real" candidate or not, he co-chairs the largest Democratic caucus in the congress. He has drawn the largest crowds on the campaign trail. When he speaks at Democratic forums, such as the "Take Back America" conference, he receives the most standing ovations. This obviously does not, by itself, guarantee that he will win the presidency, but it does mean that he is not just some fringe candidate either. Interestingly enough, as time goes on, some of the other candidates, including Dean, seem to be sounding more and more like him in some ways. His presence in the race seems to be moving the Democratic agenda, which a third party candidacy rarely seems to do. And running as a Democrat, he stands a much better chance of getting elected than anyone running as a third party candidate. Furthermore, in my experience, when people actually learn about him or hear him speak, they often decide to support him, or else wish that he would win, but decide that he can't. It seems that the only thing between him and the presidency is the fact that many people do not know about him.
A major problem in this country, now, as in the past, is that the media does its best to decide which candidates people should even know about, and ignores the rest. This is one of the reasons that third party candidates have so much difficulty even having an effect on the political discourse. What we need is media that will inform us about all of the candidates, so that we can make an informed choice. I would expect a "non-major" media outlet, such as Antiwar.com, to understand this.
~ Charles Hershey, Springfield, Illinois
Justin Raimondo replies:
Let me know when Kucinich breaks 1 percent in the polls.
I would like to respond to Justin's reply to Bill Rood in Backtalk. Justin mentioned Kucinich's low poll numbers as a proof of him being wrong.
Do Buchanan's low numbers make all you guys wrong?
Justin Raimondo replies:
Pat won the Reform Party nomination, and thus got on the ballot. Kucinich isn't going to make it through the primary, unless he runs as a third party candidate – like Pat did.
Regarding Justin Raimondo's 9/3 article about the fact that you all have received over 200 letters on his piece "The Dean Deception," you might want to check out a couple of interesting links on Dean's supporters below. Seems like Dean has something call the "Dean Defense Forces" which is an informal network of supporters who spam any news site that is critical of Dean. It also seems that this group has appeared on the alternative media site Indymedia as well.
Mike Ewens' reply to Sean L.'s backtalk
Mike Ewens commented on Backtalk that the ideology of Antiwar.com is libertarian. ("Overall, we are basically just a bunch of noninterventionist libertarians.")
He
suggested an essay by Murray N. Rothbard, "War,
Peace and the State" as a guide to libertarian philosophy. Reading
through the essay seems more or less a primer on the Just War Theory in
the sense of polarities between Left and Right polemics. I say this because
whether one has convictions towards pacifism or not, the basis of politics
is the legislation and coercive enforcement of laws, the domain primarily
of lawyers and judges (kings and princes?) and the justifications implemented
through the contractual agreements they address. This is why at the core
of libertarianism is the concept of private property. But what is the
contract of "private property" but a tool of legislators to
begin with? This is the source of most conflicting viewpoints between
the Left and Right, is it not? One
man's meat may be another man's poison. One man's property right may be
another man's property violation. One man's treasure may be another man's
garbage even.
Rothbard evokes the imagery of Robin Hood to augment his thesis that any form of violence against another innocent party, in defense of the so-called sacredness of property rights would be a violation of the "Just War" ideal.
Thus he categorically denies Robin Hood the right to enforce a brand of reactionary justice towards the violations of the "property rights" of some, and thus the rights of the victims of theft overall. To claim Robin Hood is "stealing", when he "takes back" what has been stolen is odd. How can one be "stealing" when they are "taking back" what has been stolen from them?
When one "deifies" property rights through the legislation of laws, whose rights are we talking about, the so-called rights of the Sheriff of Nottingham or the rights of the slaves and peons who are herded as human sheep and cattle to serve the oppressive laws of the king?
The problem is that property rights are defined through the arbitration of the contractual agreements imposed by legislators and politicians in the first place. Lawmakers who are in service to the State itself, or the interests of some Prince or King, who demand the utter most rigor in the establishment orthodoxy of what property rights are expected to function by, as defined by the State itself, or more precisely, the economic interests thereof, AKA to establish that the Greed and Power of the select rulership is "above the law".
This suggests that the so-called Just War Theory, as proposed by the Libertarian ideal, is merely a convenient prop, a type of circular reasoning. The "Just" part of the equation of non-interventionism, is conveniently mediated through the political legislation of empowering those who claim "property rights" as defined by the "arm of the law" to begin with.
I don't believe there is such a thing as a "just war" anymore than there is a "just property right". There is such a thing as war as there is such a thing as property. Rights though are ideological constructions that serve the needs of the legislators of power. There are certain inalienable, "naturally-defined" (sacred) rights that have nothing to do with government legislators, industrialists, moralists, religionists, or whoever is pushing the latest incantations of the cult of the lawmaker and the cult of justice, to serve their necessary improvisations.
I believe Libertarianism, as a political, social and economic ideology addressing the philosophy of Liberty essentially, is in error to base its quintessence entirely on formalized, economic definitions of "property rights" as the crux of the noninterventionist position. "Justice" and "War" are inherently contradictions. Is it any wonder that "Property" and "Rights" also demonstrate a similar fixation when addressed through the polemics of Left and Right, political ideology. What is needed is a way to demonstrate and define Libertarianism without the conscription of legalisms and the letter of the law that killeth. Job 24:14, "The murderer rising with the light killeth the poor and needy, and in the night is as a thief."
~ David d'Apollonia, Montreal, Canada
Backtalk editor Sam Koritz replies:
This isn't an appropriate forum for an extended debate about private property. Briefly, though, a couple of points:
Most libertarians do not believe that private property should be a tool of the state. More radical libertarians, anarcho-capitalists, believe the opposite.
Libertarians (as a rule) do not "deify" the property rights of kings over slaves or "human sheep." Self-ownership is a basic tenet of libertarianism; any attempt to own a human is considered an act of aggression.
If you'd like to debate the issues you've raised, I suggest that you read a little and then post on the Newbie /Antagonist Board of Anti-state.com, whose Editor In Chief is Antiwar.com's Assistant Managing Editor Jeremy Sapienza.
"A Wider War – Unless The Democrats Speak Out"
I came across the following statement (all caps are mine):
"The closeness of Bush’s election, the DEMOCRATS’ ATTEMPT TO STEAL FLORIDA with recounts, and the one vote margin of the US Supreme Court’s decision in Bush’s favor, made Bush vulnerable to Democrats’ charges that he was an illegitimate President."
How long will such an assertion go unchallenged? Greg Palast has done some excellent investigation on this issue, and has clearly shown that an election was stolen, but the thieves were NOT the Democrats.
Why has this gone unchallenged?
~ James Wrathall, Portland, Oregon
Justin Raimondo replies:
Paul Craig Roberts obviously doesn't agree with you. And neither do I. But it hasn't gone unchallenged – you just challenged it.
Please send the following link to Allan Weisbecker on Bush allowing bin Ladens to leave US after 9-11: "White House Approved Departure of Saudis After Sept. 11, Ex-Aide Says" (New York Times).
It was found on whatreallyhappened.com.
"Max Boot Is Out of This World"
You wrote "But [Boot] is encouraged ... by the fact that no US Marines have been killed by guerrillas in the South."
I thought the reason that no US Marines have been killed in the South was that there are very few, if any, Marines in the South. (Perhaps Boot had a bodyguard of Marines, and quite possibly they were the only Marines in the area.) The British Army are looking after that area and so taking the casualties there. Whereas the South is generally reported to quieter the British army seems to be taking pro-rata about the same casualties at least in terms deaths. (Both US and UK forces have, in broad terms, lost about one in a thousand since "mission accomplished".)
I wonder if Boot is also encouraged by the lack of US Marines being killed in Chechnya, Rwanda, Zimbabwe and Israel.
Paleoconservative Presidential Candidate
What the 2004 presidential campaign needs is a paleoconservative Republican presidential candidate to challenge George Bush in the primaries. There are many conservatives who voted for Bush in 2000 but who are not in favor of conducting preemptive wars, establishing a global empire, deceiving the American people, alienating European allies, creating huge budget deficits, expanding the federal bureaucracy, undermining civil liberties, or further limiting free speech by changing FCC ownership rules. Had Bush been candid about this agenda in 2000, we wouldn't have voted for him. Antiwar.com and Pat Buchanan's "American Conservative" magazine are proof that such paleocons exist in significant numbers. These paleoconservatives are now forced to sniff around the Democratic candidates, hoping to find the least unpalatable one who will stop the dangerous neocon adventurism.
The Republican leadership needs to understand that by adopting the neocon agenda the party is alienating a sizable core constituency. And, by allowing conservatism to be identified solely as neoconservatism, the Republicans risk a long-term identity problem that could result in future electoral quagmires.
The 2004 presidential election needs a paleoconservative Republican alternative.
"Coherent Argument, Meet Matt Welch"
This is sure to get under Matt Welch's skin, but doesn't his analysis of the "Iraqi Babies Scam" resemble his enemy Noam Chomsky's critique of anti-Cambodian propaganda? Remember when Chomsky pointed out that the massive US bombing of Cambodia 1969-1975 not only directly killed hundreds of thousands but also led to the Khmer Rouge revolution and subsequent slaughter how he was called an apologist for Pol Pot? When he cited credible sources for lower "excess deaths" in post 1975 Cambodia he was called a "holocaust denier" Since Welch's case is considerably weaker and more transparent than the "loony" Chomsky, what terms should be used to describe his curious agenda?
~ Matt Brown, Boston, Massachusetts
"Losing the War on Terror and the Prostitution of Faith"
"...If Christians seriously wonder why it is that America has lost its way, they need only look at these sanctimonious multimillionaires of the pulpit who kiss the ass of empire, day in and day out, like the whores of Babylon they are. Bush needs to purge these people, without apology and without delay. They fetishize violence and power, and bear no relation to the Christ who died for my sins. Finis."
While I quite agree with your sentiments, expecting Bush to purge these people would be like expecting Dean Martin to give up his martini. I'm not sure that Dino ever drank from that ever-present glass of his – at least on TV – but he needed it as a prop, and that's what these right-wing Christians are for Bush. This is a reliable constituency that he can hoodwink with impunity, and he won't turn his back on it.
As for the most public elements of the Christian right, these are people who years ago abandoned the rather sensible advice of Rev. Bob Jones Sr. to avoid involvement in political affairs. Rev. Jones's prescription was quite sound for the most part, save for those Christians perpetually committed to being shrewd as serpents. We can now see that the result of this change of course is that being a conservative Christian today is chiefly a statement about politics, as opposed to theology.
Alas, the lure of the political limelight has turned many Christians who are decent enough in private life into schemers and shills in the public arena – and because of their typically greater dose of credulity, not terribly good ones at that. While the Apostle Paul tells us to think on things that are true, noble, right, pure, lovely, admirable and praiseworthy, the public Christian of the right thinks mainly on the trite, the banal and the deceptive. Worse yet, success is addictive, and having a candidate perceived as a winner seems to demand allegiance at all costs. Thus, I think you can say that not only will Dino not give up his martini, but that the martini will stay in the glass. I guess they deserve each other.
I might add that in their hunger to support a winner they believe to be a Christian and the credulity they display toward his administration's public pronouncements, the leaders and footsoldiers of the Christian right blissfully ignore the sage and ironic words of Martin Luther: "I would rather be governed by a competent Turk than an incompetent Christian."
"Clinton Spurned Bin Laden Offer Because He Didn't Want to Work With Sudan, Analyst Says"
I have heard many conflicting reports about this matter and doubt that this is the way the whole thing went down.
The article puts in what amounts to a plug for author Richard Miniter's bizarre, off-the-map, off-the-wall, and down-the-hall, right-wing attack on Clinton's anti-terror record. This bilge bucket of a book, a favorite with the National Review crowd, is entitled, Losing bin Laden: How Bill Clinton's Failures Unleashed Global Terror.
I would rather refer you to Joe Conason's new book entitled, Big Lies: The Right-Wing Propaganda Machine and How It Distorts the Truth, which refutes Miniter: "Authoritative reporting in the Washington Post and in The Age of Sacred Terror, by Daniel Benjamin and Steven Simon, shows that the Sudanese offered only to 'arrest Osama bin Laden and place him in Saudi custody.'"
The piece that you inadvertently ran smells like some PR firm's effort to make Clinton look bad and Sudan look good. All in all, an odorious [?], Karl Rovian cheap shot that you shouldn't have posted without multiple, substantiating evidence.
I would appreciate it if you could provide some coverage of Conason's or Benjamin's and Simon's book to help clear the air on this issue.
Lastly, the article refers to a Texas-based research company called "Strafor", which is actually a small think tank in Austin by the name of "Stratfor." Stratfor does a lot of business with the ultra-right wing WorldNet Daily out of Sacramento.
~ Joe Gallagher, Los Angeles, California
"Imperial Eye for the Republican Guy"
Numbers like 60 billion dollars are very hard to put into context. There are just too-much-money-to-imagine-properly. I think all such comments would profit from figures for comparison. In my opinion the most illuminating figure for comparison is Iraq's prewar GDP figure of 13.3 billion dollars.
So Rumsfeld's current "burn rate" is three and a half times Iraqi GDP and they cannot even maintain law and order. Bremer's figures for restoring electricity and water supplies are about 18 months GDP.
"The Instability Myth, Free Markets and Macedonia's Future"
Mr. Deliso deserves to be commended for his objective, rational commentaries on Macedonia. His unwillingness to condone the endless string of "mega-political" solutions served up by the overflowing fountains of western knowledge and democratization is a message that needs not only to be heard: it deserves to be listened to.
Regretfully, the future of Macedonia has not been charted as much by the Macedonian people as by the designs of those who've chosen appointment to speak most vigorously on the Macedonians behalf. The wisdom of Henry Kissinger isn't required to see that ten years of external influence and foreign policy experiments have served Macedonia less than equally. From the coerced declination of EU recognition in 1991 to NATO's questionable intentions into 2001, and any number of "funded" endeavors in between; anyone who would argue that Macedonia is closer now to the goal of Westernization than it would have been otherwise is clearly a better student of self-service than of the common good.
I don't believe it's inaccurate to say that in the wake of years of international "benevolence," Macedonians feel themselves precariously close to extinction, due largely to those whose charters supposedly encourage assistance over interference; for however good their intentions, the results will unfortunately record another tragic scar on Macedonia herself, not on the powers that indulged in her.
Congratulations, Mr. Deliso!
~ J. Hill