Posted on 06/02/2002 9:40:26 PM PDT by Plummz
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….
PRACTICE MAKES PERFECT
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."
Peterson was stopped by the cops for speeding near midnight, and was wearing "all black clothing and black, plastic pads on his knees," according to the sheriff's department. A search of his truck yielded "a 12-inch knife, a six-inch knife, a 12-gauge shotgun, shotgun shells, .45-caliber bullets, four ammo magazines, a six-volt battery, duct tape, speaker wire and plastic from an explosive device."
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.
This is finally getting some coverage.
If you count antiwar.com as coverage.
So one nut in uniform qualifies as "our military"? gee thanks...
It has not been proven to come from one of our biowarfare labs; the jury is out on that. On the other hand, it must have come, directly or indirectly, from our scientific community (unless you think the terrorists got Ames-strain bacilli by going to Texas and finding a dead cow, or something of the sort).
Very difficult to work out the anthrax story. Certainly the govt isn't levelling with us.
Yes, on both counts.
They might be frozen before a WMD threat, (theory of our poster The Great Satan), probably from Iraq as a part of this 10 year war (as Okie01 and I say) or it might be the product of a long range terrorist conspiracy, and the govt is still trying to work it out (as our posters Ordinary American and Mitchell think). Hope I haven't misrepresented anyone's views.
For what it's worth, I do not wish to take sides on exactly when or how the anthrax samples were obtained; I don't believe there's really any evidence one way or the other yet on this issue (the two positions are very close to one another: you're asking whether the anthrax was obtained illegitimately as part of a nefarious plot, or whether it was obtained through ordinary research channels as part of a nefarious plot!). In the long run, I think it's going to be more interesting to find out what kind of processing was done after the spores were obtained; that tells us what we're up against.
On the other hand, I don't think it is very likely that the U.S. government is "still trying to work it out." I strongly suspect that some individuals at the highest level of government know who sent it, or, at the very least, that they know a lot more than they are saying.
I generally agree with G.S. on the general picture, and I think his entire scenario is plausible. Where I differ with him is that I do not think that it has yet been proven that Iraq is the culprit; there are other possibilities. Moreover, I think it's quite possible that we're up against a broader alliance which may have Iraq as one member. Let me hasten to add that I do not discount the possibility that it is just Iraq.
I do suspect that the situation may be more complicated than G.S. implies. The difference in symptomatology between the people infected with anthrax in Florida and those infected in the Northeast is quite curious.
But it is fair to say that the source of the anthrax is not known, and therefore one cannot say it is from an American. I find that the least likely option.
I would be very surprised if the anthrax mailings didn't turn out to have been a warning (or conceivably a test) sent by a foreign power or organization, as a military act.
They may simply have picked it for its virulence. After all, if the U.S. government picked Ames over other strains (Vollum, etc.) for the U.S. program, that's quite a recommendation. [Also, isn't the anthrax vaccine less effective against Ames than against some other strains that have been tested?]
The task at hand is to prevent more tragedies by killing the rest of the terrorists. Antiwar.com doesn't want to particpate in that.
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