Huh?
Launching the U.S. Terror War: the CIA, 9/11, Afghanistan, and Central Asia1
Bush’s Terror War and the Fixing of Intelligence
On September 11, 2001, within hours of the murderous 9/11 attacks, Bush, Rumsfeld, and Cheney had committed America to what they later called the “War on Terror.” It should more properly, I believe, be called the “Terror War,” one in which terror has been directed repeatedly against civilians by all participants, both states and non-state actors. It should also be seen as part of a larger, indeed global, process in which terror has been used against civilians in interrelated campaigns by all major powers, including China in Xinjiang and Russia in Chechnya, as well as the United States.2 Terror war in its global context should perhaps be seen as the latest stage of the age-long secular spread of transurban civilization into areas of mostly rural resistance — areas where conventional forms of warfare, for either geographic or cultural reasons, prove inconclusive.
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In 2011 an important book by Kevin Fenton, Disconnecting the Dots, demonstrated conclusively that the withholding was purposive, and sustained over a period of eighteen months.8 This interference and manipulation became particularly blatant and controversial in the days before 9/11; it led one FBI agent, Steve Bongardt, to predict accurately on August 29, less than two weeks before 9/11, that “someday someone will die.”9
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I am now persuaded by Fenton that Lawrence Wright’s explanation, that the CIA was protecting a covert operation, may explain the beginnings of the withholding in January 2000, but cannot explain its renewal in the days just before 9/11. Fenton analyzes a list of thirty-five different occasions where the two alleged hijackers were protected in this fashion, from January 2000 to about September 5, 2001, less than a week before the hijackings.11 We shall see that in his analysis, the incidents fall into two main groups. The motive he attributes to the earlier ones, was “to cover a CIA operation that was already in progress.”12 However after “the system was blinking red” in the summer of 2001, and the CIA expected an imminent attack, Fenton can see no other explanation than that “the purpose of withholding the information had become to allow the attacks to go forward.”13
Read lengthy article with 106 endnotes.
Peter Dale Scott, a former Canadian diplomat and English Professor at the University of California, Berkeley, is the author of Drugs Oil and War, The Road to 9/11, and The War Conspiracy: JFK, 9/11, and the Deep Politics of War. His most recent book is American War Machine: Deep Politics, the CIA Global Drug Connection and the Road to Afghanistan. His website, which contains a wealth of his writings, is here http://www.peterdalescott.net/q.html
Recommended citation: Peter Dale Scott, ‘Launching the U.S. Terror War: the CIA, 9/11, Afghanistan, and Central Asia,' The Asia-Pacific Journal, Vol 10, Issue 12, No 3, March 19, 2012.
Phi Beta Iota: The full article and all endnotes are recommended reading for anyone that cares about the US Constitution, the legitimacy of the US Government, the integrity of the secret and uniformed services, and the future of the USA. It is now known that elements of the US Government collaborated in the assassination of JFK and MLK. It took a half century to overcome the resistance of the US Government to full disclosure, using open means as a substitute for a transparent and truthful government. The truth about 9/11 will be known one day. Right now all we can say with certainty that 9/11 has not been investigated with integrity by the US Government and there is a great deal beyond all that many have done outside the US Government, that must still come to light. We the People are responsible for all that is done in our name and at our expense. Truth & Reconciliation are preferable to the wrath of vengeant punitive justice, but the truth must come forth. As a sidenote, the above article helps make the point that a tiny handful of people can do great evil that might be attributed to their larger organizations. We have lost the checks and balances that might have ensured that CIA, JSOG, and others would operate within the bounds of the Constitution. The willingness of too many to foresake their Oath to defend and support the Constitution, and instead be blindly loyal to the chain of command, is at the root of this loss of legitimacy. The ability of the few, under the cloak of deep secrecy, to do great evil in our name and at our expense, is a stake in the heart of the Republic.
See Also:
Review: No More Secrets – Open Source Information and the Reshaping of U.S. Intelligence
Review: Report of the Commission on Protecting and Reducing Government Secrecy
