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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.
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