Gentleman Don’t Issue Subpoenas or “Point Fingers”

[Time for change]

A major hallmark of the 9-11 Commission, led by Co-chairmen Thomas Kean and Lee Hamilton and Executive Director Philip Zelikow, in its investigation of the 9-11-01 attacks on our country, was the desire of the Co-chairmen to make the investigation appear cordial and “non-partisan”. In pursuit of this goal, the Commissioners made two decisions at the start of the investigation that defanged the Commission to such an extent that it all but guaranteed a whitewash: They decided not to issue subpoenas; and, they decided that “pointing fingers” would not be a “priority” of their investigation.

They also made a third decision, which had nothing to do with appearing cordial and non-partisan, but defanged the Commission as much as their decisions not to issue subpoenas or “point fingers”: the hiring of Philip Zelikow, who had numerous intimate connections with the Bush White House, as the Commission’s Executive Director. That decision, and how it affected the Commission’s work, is the central theme of Philip Shenon’s new book, “The Commission – The Uncensored History of the 9-11 Investigation”.

Shenon’s emphasizing of the word “Uncensored” in the subtitle of his book is significant because it serves to contrast his book with another book with a similar name: “Without Precedent – The Inside Story of the 9-11 Commission”, which was written by Kean and Hamilton themselves. That book was one of the most self-serving and self-aggrandizing books I’ve ever read. The self-aggrandizing nature of that book is evident in the prologue, as Kean relates the following:

President Bush said he would meet with us for as long as we wanted and that he would answer any questions … After the first few exchanges, I realized the magnitude of what was happening: ten independent citizens sitting in the White House and asking questions of the president and vice-president about a national catastrophe. It was without precedent…. This was precisely how democracy is supposed to work.

Without precedent? What in the hell is without precedent about an investigation into a national catastrophe? Oh, I get it. Maybe what Kean means by the phrase “without precedent” is that this is the first investigation of a national catastrophe in our country where the investigators vowed from the very beginning not to issue subpoenas and not to “point fingers” and used an Executive Director who was intimately close to the group of people who should have been the main focus of the investigation.

The way in which the 9-11 Commission’s Co-chairmen defanged their Commission from the beginning is very important for us to consider, not only because it prevented the American people from learning a lot more about the cause of the worst attack on American soil since the British invaded Washington, D.C., in 1814. Just as important as that is what this whole sad affair says about the way our leaders bow down to U.S. Presidents (and some Vice Presidents) as if they were royalty. That is not at all conducive to the maintenance of democracy in our country, and it is a major reason why we are now on the verge of losing our democracy. Americans need to think long and hard about these issues and elect representatives who don’t harbor such archaic attitudes.


An investigation where “pointing fingers” is not a priority

Kean made it clear in his opening statement at the Commission’s first hearing that “pointing fingers” would not be a priority:

We will be following paths, and we will follow those individual paths wherever they lead… We may end up holding individual agencies, people, and procedures to account. But our fundamental purpose will not be to point fingers.

That statement may sound innocent enough on the surface. But the phrase “point fingers” is really just a crude and child-like synonym for “assign blame”. By saying that “pointing fingers” was not one of their priorities they were really saying that assigning blame would not be a priority, but by disavowing their intention to “point fingers” they hoped to make themselves sound above the fray.

In their own book Hamilton and Kean were a bit more forthcoming about their intentions. Noting that many of the victims’ families were not happy about their decision not to point fingers, they explained “We would be unyielding and comprehensive in uncovering facts, but our purpose was not to assign blame to individuals for 9/11”.

That’s absurd. Catastrophes or any other untoward events fall into two general categories regarding their root causes. They can be caused by natural phenomena (such as hurricanes) or they can be caused by human activities, including malfeasance, neglect, or carelessness. Or they can be caused by combinations of events in those two categories. To the extent that a catastrophe is caused by natural phenomena over which humans have no control, there is nothing that can be done to prevent the likelihood of future occurrences, and therefore there is little to be gained by investigating it. Only when humans either had a hand in causing the catastrophe or in failing to prevent it can an investigation produce information that might be useful in preventing further catastrophes. So by deemphasizing “pointing fingers” or “assigning blame” from the very beginning, an investigator seriously reduces the likelihood that the investigation will find anything useful.

I’ve been involved in numerous investigations throughout my life. When I was in the U.S. Air Force part of my responsibilities included investigating aircraft accidents. When I worked as an epidemiologist for public health departments one of my main responsibilities was to investigate public health epidemics or emergencies. Never in my life did anyone involved with any of these investigations say that assigning blame would not be a priority. That is the major purpose of any investigation into a catastrophe. Without identifying what people did wrong or what they could have done differently to prevent the catastrophe or lessen its effects, we have no basis on which to prevent or respond better to future occurrences.


An investigation into a national catastrophe without subpoenas

The routine issuing of subpoenas should have been a no-brainer. Shenon describes the opinions of the Commission’s Democratic commissioners – with the exception of Lee Hamilton – on that issue:

To Jamie Gorelick, it was obvious: Every request made to the Bush administration for documents or other information should include a subpoena. Subpoenas did not have to be seen as threatening if they were used routinely, she argued: a subpoena was simply evidence of the commission’s determination to get what it needed. She explained there was a “nice” way of doing it… If the commission held off on subpoenas until late in the investigation, she warned, there would be no time to go to court to enforce them. The other Democrats, apart from Hamilton, agreed.

Shenon describes Kean and Hamilton’s attitude on this issue:

But Kean and Hamilton had already made up their minds on this issue, too. There would be no routine subpoenas, they decreed; subpoenas would be seen as too confrontational, perhaps choking off cooperation from the Bush administration…

In “Without Precedent”, Kean and Hamilton provide extensive rationalizations for why they objected to routine subpoenas. Their bottom line was very revealing. It was that subpoenas “would have led half the country … to question our motives”, and “We were investigating a national catastrophe, not a White House transgression” (emphasis added).

In other words – and the issue of subpoenas is very similar to the issue of “pointing fingers” – they decided before the investigation began that the Bush administration was blameless. And that explains a lot of things about their investigation.

Nevertheless, despite their great reluctance to “appear confrontational” with the Bush administration, Hamilton and Kean didn’t mind being confrontational with lesser beings, such as those who worked for the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) or the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD). In chapter 4 of their book they explain that they had to make an exception and issue subpoenas to the FAA and NORAD because those agencies provided so much false information that they could not be trusted to cooperate with the Commission without the pressure of a subpoena. How did Hamilton and Kean know that the FAA and NORAD provided false information to them? They knew that because the FAA and NORAD version of the events surrounding Flight 77 suggested purposeful failure by the Bush administration to prevent the attack on the Pentagon by Flight 77. Since Kean and Hamilton had already determined that the purpose of their Commission was not to investigate a White House transgression, the FAA and NORAD testimony didn’t fit into their preconceived version of reality, so that testimony had to be attacked.


Conflicts of interest

Philip Zelikow, as Executive Director, had a great amount of power in the running of the Commission’s activities. But his conflicts of interest were so glaring that he never should have been allowed to participate in the Commission’s activities, let alone play a major role in running them: He was very close to Condoleezza Rice, who should have been a major focus of the investigation, and he had even co-authored a book with her; as part of the Bush transition team he had shown his disinterest in terrorism by actively and successfully advocating the demotion (See page 2) of the administration’s top counterterrorism expert, Richard Clarke; and, he had been the secret author of a national security strategy paper that advocated preemptive war against Iraq and that served as a blueprint for the Bush administration’s rationale for invading Iraq. With all of that, Zelikow, if the Commission were to do its job, might very well be placed in the position of investigating himself.

The inside jacket of Shenon’s book explains the implications of Zelikow’s conflicts of interest:

The Executive Director of the Commission, Philip Zelikow, maintained a clandestine relationship with Karl Rove and took actions that were seen as shielding President Bush and Condoleezza Rice from the panel’s scrutiny. Investigative staffers at the Commission believe Zelikow repeatedly sought to minimize the administration’s intelligence failures in the months leading up to 9/11, which had the effect of helping to ensure President Bush’s re-election in 2004.

One good example of this type of activity is that Zelikow reached an agreement with the Bush administration in the first days of the investigation, that the Commission could have access to material from the Congressional inquiry into 9/11, only pending a review by the White House.

So Zelikow’s conflicts of interest were huge, and lethal to attempts to ferret out the truth. Yet, though he didn’t consider his conflicts of interest to represent a problem, like all hypocrites, when it came to other peoples’ conflicts of interest, Zelikow was very authoritarian about it. Shenon quotes what Zelikow had to say to his staff on this issue:

Prepare a confidential memo to me that describes any potential conflicts of interest that may arise with your work on the commission… In making these judgments, consider outside perception – ask yourself how it would look if this information was made public and you had not disclosed it.

The lesson we should learn from this

If it’s not clear from this brief description that the 9/11 Co-chairmen and their Executive Director, in their investigation of the 9/11 attacks on our country, treated the Bush administration as if they were above the laws of our nation, then I haven’t done a good job of explaining it. Certainly reading Shenon’s entire book would make that point clear. Hell, reading Kean’s and Hamilton’s book should make that point clear, though Kean and Hamilton certainly didn’t mean to give that impression.

Treating a country’s rulers as if they are above the law is a major step towards tyranny. In that regard, the 9/11 Commission’s investigation is just one aspect of a much larger phenomenon. George Bush’s violations of his nation’s laws and Constitution are numerous, grave, and in many cases quite obvious. Although approximately half of Americans agree that impeachment hearings against Bush (and Cheney too) should be held, and impeachment advocacy among the public would undoubtedly rise substantially once hearings got started and the average American became more knowledgeable about the many Bush crimes, still no action is taken by our elected representatives. The fact that there is not more widespread outrage over this speaks to the sorry state of our democracy.

Kean and Hamilton further demonstrate their anti-democratic attitudes by their snide comments about so-called “conspiracy theorists” throughout their book. Here’s just one example:

Many people have reasonable questions about how Lee Harvey Oswald could have acted alone in assassinating President Kennedy; a smaller subset of conspiracy theorists propagate outrageous notions: Kennedy was assassinated by the CIA or by some shadowy secret society of the rich and powerful…

September 11 has generated its own share of conspiracy theorists… We often confronted questions about one conspiracy theory or another. Then there were the more irrational theories. Did the U.S. government have foreknowledge of the attacks: Did the military issue a “stand-down” order on 9/11 to allow the attacks to take place? Did a missile hit the Pentagon instead of a plane?...

In other words, reasonable people may wonder about conspiracy theories, but it’s “outrageous” to think that the CIA or rich and powerful men might be involved in a dark conspiracy. I guess Kean and Hamilton think that assassinations of presidents are more likely to be carried out by crazy people acting alone than by the rich and powerful, and that it’s outrageous to think otherwise.

Whatever one might think about the Bush administration’s purposeful involvement in the 9/11 attacks, the 9/11 Commission shed little or no light on that issue. They never took the issue seriously, and they were determined not to investigate it, because in their mind it is unseemly and ungentlemanly to even consider the possibility that the rich and powerful might be involved in terrible crimes against their country.

[wildbilln864]

1. Thanks. nt

[seemslikeadream]

2. Philip Zelikow Executive Director

[Time for change]

5. There were many inquiries that the 9/11 Commission made of the Bush Administration for which

they received little or no cooperation. But presumably that didn't matter much to them because they never had any intention of holding the Bush administration accountable for anything.

Sometimes I wonder if there is more to the story than that -- whether some much greater pressure was applied to the Commission than what we're aware of.

[seemslikeadream]

9. They did not discuss or include this either did they?

How many people don't even realize there WAS a building 7?

[Time for change]

21. No they did not

From David Ray Griffin’s book, “The 9/11 Commission Report: Omissions and Distortions”:

The Commission avoids another embarrassing problem – explaining how WTC 7 could have collapsed, also at a virtual free-fall speed – by simply not mentioning the collapse of the building.

Griffin also has a lot more to say about the mysterious circumstances under which WTC 7 collapsed, but perhaps the most astonishing thing about it is that the Commission doesn’t even mention it.

[seemslikeadream]

22. I was reading recently about the timing of the collaspe of WT7

but can't remember where

[Time for change]

26. This is what David Ray Griffin had to say about it

"In a PBS documentary entitled 'America Rebuilds', ... Silverstein (Larry, who I believe owned the building) made the following statement about Building 7":

I remember getting a call from the, er, fire department commander, telling me they were not sure they were gonna be able to contain the fire, and I said, "We've had such a terrible loss of life, maybe the smartest thing to do is pull it". And they made that decision to pull and we watched the building collapse.

Griffin explains that "pulling" is slang for bringing something down with explosives. And he also comments on how it's interesting that building 7 went down in the same way that the other 2 buildings went down.

[seemslikeadream]

28. no it had something to do with, I think delaying it, towards evening maybe

or about it not being noticed (as much):shrug:

[Time for change]

29. Griffin says it collapsed at about 5:30 p.m. (page 30)

He also is very suspicious about the fact that all of the steel from Building 7, as well as from the other two buildings, was removed very quickly. He notes that evaluation of the steel beams could have provided important clues as to how the buildings collapsed.

[Wilms]

3. USA Military Officers Challenge Official Account of September 11

USA Military Officers Challenge Official Account of September 11

By News Report
May 29, 2008, 18:24

22 May 2008 - Twenty-five former U.S. military officers have severely criticized the official account of 9/11 and called for a new investigation. They include former commander of U.S. Army Intelligence, Major General Albert Stubblebine, former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense, Col. Ronald D. Ray, two former staff members of the Director of the National Security Agency; Lt. Col. Karen Kwiatkowski, PhD, and Major John M. Newman, PhD, and many others. They are among the rapidly growing number of military and intelligence service veterans, scientists, engineers, and architects challenging the government’s story. The officers’ statements appear below, listed alphabetically.


Lt. Col. Robert Bowman, PhD

“A lot of these pieces of information, taken together, prove that the official story, the official conspiracy theory of 9/11 is a bunch of hogwash. It’s impossible,” said Lt. Col. Robert Bowman, PhD, U.S. Air Force (ret). With doctoral degrees in Aeronautics and Nuclear Engineering, Col. Bowman served as Director of Advanced Space Programs Development under Presidents Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter.

“There’s a second group of facts having to do with the cover up,” continued Col. Bowman.

“Taken together these things prove that high levels of our government don’t want us to know what happened and who’s responsible. Who gained from 9/11? Who covered up crucial information about 9/11? And who put out the patently false stories about 9/11 in the first place? When you take those three things together, I think the case is pretty clear that it’s highly placed individuals in the administration with all roads passing through Dick Cheney.”

Regarding the failure of NORAD to intercept the four hijacked planes on 9/11, Col. Bowman said, “I'm an old interceptor pilot. I know the drill. I've done it. I know how long it takes. I know the rules. … Critics of the government story on 9/11 have said: ‘Well, they knew about this, and they did nothing’. That's not true. If our government had done nothing that day and let normal procedure be followed, those planes, wherever they were, would have been intercepted, the Twin Towers would still be standing and thousands of dead Americans would still be alive.”

more

http://axisoflogic.com/artman/publish/article_26828.shtml

[nashville_brook]

10. eggsactly.

Critics of the government story on 9/11 have said: ‘Well, they knew about this, and they did nothing’. That's not true. If our government had done nothing that day and let normal procedure be followed, those planes, wherever they were, would have been intercepted, the Twin Towers would still be standing and thousands of dead Americans would still be alive.”

[LongTomH]

14. A very good post!

That very question: Why didn't the Air Force intercept at least some of those planes, has haunted me since 9/11/2001.

[Time for change]

16. David Ray Griffin provides an excellent discussion on that issue in his book,

"The 9/11 Commission Report -- Omissions and Distortions"

I discuss what he had to say about it in detail in this post:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=125&topic_id=73406&mesg_id=73406

[Kevin Cloyd]

49. Flight 93

They did intercept Flight 93, Cheney ordered it shot down three times, and it was shot down, then the story of “the heroes of Flight 93” broke into the press and the Bush administration covered up that it had been shot down.

[Time for change]

31. There is so much to challenge about it

David Ray Griffin, in the introduction to his book, “The 9/11 Commission Report: Omissions and Distortions”, gives a very good capsule summary of the problem:

Significant issues and cases that were duly reported to the Commission were duly omitted from its final report…

It is quite thorough with regard to its recital of events surrounding 9/11 that are consistent with the official conspiracy theory (al Qaeda did it with no help from the Bush administration) promulgated by the Bush administration…. The Commission also evidently sought, implicitly, to give a thorough defense of the White House… by thoroughly omitting or explaining away any reports that could be used to suggest complicity on their part.

[Wilms]

4. Prominent Structural Engineers Say Official Version of 9/11 "Impossible"

A lot of references

Prominent Structural Engineers Say Official Version of 9/11 "Impossible"

http://www.opednews.com/maxwrite/diarypage.php?did=7524

[The Wizard]

6. just thinking

The Commission neither pointed fingers nor absolved the Administration of neglect or wrong doing, thus a door remains open for further investigation and review.

[Time for change]

38. That is true – the door is open

Unfortunately, not many of our politicians have shown much of an inclination to walk through it.

[speedoo]

7. I'm reading Shenon's book. It's just devastating.

I'm almost halfway through.

Rice should be in jail for her complete incompetence.

[riderinthestorm]

8. Really great summary. Just added Shenon's book to my book list for the summer

"In “Without Precedent”, Kean and Hamilton provide extensive rationalizations for why they objected to routine subpoenas. Their bottom line was very revealing. It was that subpoenas “would have led half the country … to question our motives”, and “We were investigating a national catastrophe, not a White House transgression” (emphasis added).

"In other words – and the issue of subpoenas is very similar to the issue of “pointing fingers” – they decided before the investigation began that the Bush administration was blameless. And that explains a lot of things about their investigation."

They decided before the investigatin began that the Bush administration was blameless. :grr: :grr: :grr: That just bears repeating over and over and over....

[Time for change]

17. Thank you – Another book that is an excellent compliment to Shenan’s book is

David Ray Griffin’s “The 9/11 Commission – Omissions and Distortions”. Griffin slams the Commission report based on the fact that it omits or distorts so many of the relevant facts (which Griffin goes into in great detail, but in a way that is reasonably easy to understand), whereas Shenon slams it based on the way that they conducted their investigation.

[noise]

11. Zelikow, Kean and Hamilton

all seem to have a bizarre sense of entitlement...they act like they should be respected regardless of the questionable manner in which they conducted the 9/11 Commission inquiry. They all are experts at playing the scapegoat card, whereby any flaws in the investigation were the fault of other officials and/or agencies. Yes it is true that CIA obstructed the investigation but the record shows that Zelikow, Kean and Hamilton didn't respond to this obstruction as one would expect from a commission acting in good faith. They were too passive, too accepting of the bizarre restrictions on their investigation. They seemed more interested in placating the officials they were supposed to be investigating.

[Time for change]

37. Yes

It is truly bizarre how bad their investigation was.

Were they merely bowing down to the power of the Presidency when they wrote their report? Or is there a still darker reason? Shenon throws a lot of light on this question, especially with regard to Zelikow. But I still don’t feel we have the answers to these basic questions.

[NuttyFluffers]

12. the willfully powerless and neutered have neither means nor desire to find truth

and yet this is the source for the Official Story. it can serve only for those equally willfully powerless and neutered.

the blind cannot see and therefore are not a valid source for explaining current sight to others who are blind. but they can spin for them the most pleasing version of the story...

tragic.

[HCE SuiGeneris]

13. As with much of this government's proceedings,

there was NO room for determining the truth.

[Wetzelbill]

15. Brilliant work

And this is not just the 9-11 commission. Look at Silberman-Robb where they investigated the WMD situation. I remember before the commission even started, John McCain made a big deal over the failure of intelligence, put on a big show about it and everything, so then he gets appointed to the commission. The first thing I remember him saying was that they were going to look into why intelligence failed in Iraq, expand it to the intelligence of other countries, and that there is no evidence the Bush administration did any manipulating and they weren't even looking into it. Well, fuck me, but why even have the comission? It wasn't so much that the intelligence was bad, yeah we need better intelligence, but we know that Cheney and the Office Of Special Plans had a hard on for Iraq and cherrypicked the intelligence. How bad was it? Just what exactly went on? How do we prevent it? We don't necessarily know, because in the name of bipartisanship the commission decided to not look into it. That makes no sense. Just like with the 9/11 commission. And this is simply accepted. Politics is so childish, it's ridiculous.

[Time for change]

18. Thank you -- Yes, it certainly is not just the 9-11 Commission

The whole culture of our country runs too much in that direction, and it's more prevalent among our elected "leaders" than it is among the average American citizen. And that, I believe, is a major reason why there has been no impeachment and removal from office of the most lawless President and Vice President in our history.

[Usrename]

19. Why we torture.

No one (that I know of) has openly argued that torture is an acceptable method to use to obtain confessions and admissions so that these can be used as evidence in official proceedings.

But that did turn out to be one of the PRIMARY reasons why we were actually torturing people. The 9/11 Commission used waterboarding to gather most of the evidence for their infamous report. Unhappy with the information that the interrogators were providing to the Commission, they wrote their own lists of questions to be furnished to the interrogators, the same interrogators that were actually waterboarding the detainees.

Some estimates say that over 200 of the footnotes in the 9/11 Commission Report contain evidence and confessions that were obtained by torture.

As far as I know, the Nuremburg priciples do not take into account whether or not the commissioners participated in torture themselves, just the fact that it was done at their request is enough to allow punishing them for war crimes.

This is the same 9/11 Commission that I'm talking about here. They are all part of the torture regime.

Supposedly, these were the most trustworthy politicians that were available for this duty and that is why they were selected.

It boggles the mind, doesn't it?

They even make some subtle admissions about this behavior in their own report, but no one was able to positively connect it all until after the CIA confirmed that they destroyed the waterboarding tapes.

I did another post on this subject a while ago, with excerpts and pictures and links and stuff:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=2841686&mesg_id=2841967

[Time for change]

20. They actually asked that information be obtained by torture?

Or did they ask for information which they knew (or believed) would require torture to obtain? Or is it possible that they thought the information would be obtained in some other way?

It's significant that they spend so much space in their book (Hamilton and Kean) justifying their approach and making a big deal of how they wanted to make sure that everyone realized that their investigation was NOT political. Yet, this was one of the most political investigations ever conducted of a national catastrophe.

[seemslikeadream]

23. Philippe Sands is the international lawyer that interview the "20th" hijacker

and that is going to lead to the indictment of georgie and cheney if not in this country, somewhere.

I find it a little weird that the "20th" hijacker might be the one that brings them down, I wonder why they HAD to torture this guys' brains out. Why was it so important they HAD to break the Geneva Convention.

[Time for change]

25. "Lawless World" by Philippe Sands

An excellent book.

I discuss it here:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=364x3052931

You really think that Sands' interview will bring Bush and Cheney down? I don't understand. The evidence for widespread torture approved by Bush is so abundant, I don't understand why one interview would bring him down.

[seemslikeadream]

27. Have you seen this video

All his work on this book started with his interview with that guy at Gitmo



http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-3072133300490125416&q=philippe+sands&ei=cYwjSO2dCou05AKRt63CAQ&hl=en

or this testimony
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=385&topic_id=130304


MORE:

Bill Moyers Journal = May 9, 2008 = http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/05092008/profile3.html

PHILLIPE SANDS
International lawyer and law professor Philippe Sands, author of TORTURE TEAM, talks about the approval of coercive interrogation by high-level American officials.

In his new book, TORTURE TEAM: RUMSFELD'S MEMO AND THE BETRAYAL OF AMERICAN VALUES, Philippe Sands draws on official documents and interviews with key players to explain how the U.S. Military went from interrogations strictly regulated by the U.S. ARMY FIELD MANUAL 34-52 to enhanced interrogations that included sleep deprivation, nudity, stress positions, and water boarding.

As Sands explains in an interview with Scott Horton in THE NEW REPUBLIC:

When the administration released the December 2002 and other memos, it told a story that essentially said this: The new interrogation techniques came from the bottom up and had nothing to do with policy decisions driven from the top. I wanted to explore the truth of that account, by trying to talk to as many of the people involved in the decision as I could.

The narrative begins December 2, 2002, the day Donald Rumsfeld signed a memo ..........

[Time for change]

30. No, I hadn't

That sounds like a very important book. I just put it on my list.

[seemslikeadream]

39. THERE'S GOING TO BE TRIALS WHEN THIS IS OVER

GORE VIDAL

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GuW_slx6i2s

[Time for change]

43. I SURE DO HOPE YOU'RE RIGHT

If there are not, it will be one more terrible blow to democracy and justice in our country.

[Usrename]

40. The way I understand it, it doesn't matter one whit why they did it.

I might be totally off base with this, but I think that the Nuremberg Principles do apply to their conduct. (See the text box at the end of this post.) This is just my opinion as a lay person.

As for what the commissioners expected would happen when the detainees were interrogated, here's what they said (from the link in my previous post):

"We submitted questions for use in the interrogations, but had no control over whether, when, or how questions of particular interest would be asked."

I don't believe that their readily admitted lack of knowledge absolves them of guilt under any scheme of law that I'm familiar with.




As is stands now, we don't know what really happened leading up to 9/11 and we don't really know who was responsible, but we do know that the 9/11 Commission Report is a complete fabrication. We KNOW that now. We also know many of the methods that they used in order to fabricate most of the evidence that they included in their report. They tortured people. That's the main basis for obtaining documentation for the story that they invented. They tortured people.

There is absolutely no doubt about that. It's a very public cover-up, all out in the open, admitted to, and everything.

So, if the 9/11 Commission's story is a complete and total fabrication, what is the real story? Who are the real culprits? We do know some things. 20 pages about the Saudi involvement was redacted from the publicly released version version of the report. There is also the glaring failure for them to even investigate the Pakistani intelligence agency (ISI) funding of Mohamed Atta just days before the attacks. And all of these under-investigated and under-reported connections seem to lead right smack into the middle of a single well-known, well-documented cabal. As a matter of fact, many of these same folks have already been convicted (and pardoned) for getting caught perpetrating other conspiracies and committing other treasons.

So you can color me one of the conspiracy theorists that run amok here at DU. There is no doubt at all that there was at least one very large conspiracy involved in the torture aspect of the coverup. It even includes the destruction of the tapes that were made of the actual torture being performed. It's a very large conspiracy, by necessity. It has to be. And it has to involve a lot of high ranking people in our own government.

The Nuremberg Principles:

Principle I
Any person who commits an act which constitutes a crime under international law is responsible therefore and liable to punishment.

Principle II
The fact that internal law does not impose a penalty for an act which constitutes a crime under international law does not relieve the person who committed the act from responsibility under international law.

Principle III
The fact that a person who committed an act which constitutes a crime under international law acted as Head of State or responsible government official does not relieve him from responsibility under international law.

Principle IV
The fact that a person acted pursuant to order of his Government or of a superior does not relieve him from responsibility under international law, provided a moral choice was in fact possible to him.

Principle V
Any person charged with a crime under international law has the right to a fair trial on the facts and law.

Principle VI
The crimes hereinafter set out are punishable as crimes under international law:

(a) Crimes against peace:

(i) Planning, preparation, initiation or waging of a war of aggression or a war in violation of international treaties, agreements or assurances;

(ii) Participation in a common plan or conspiracy for the accomplishment of any of the acts mentioned under (i).

(b) War Crimes:

Violations of the laws or customs of war which include, but are not limited to, murder, ill-treatment or deportation of slave labor or for any other purpose of the civilian population of or in occupied territory; murder or ill-treatment of prisoners of war or persons on the Seas, killing of hostages, plunder of public or private property, wanton destruction of cities, towns, or villages, or devastation not justified by military necessity.

(c) Crimes against humanity:

Murder, extermination, enslavement, deportation and other inhumane acts done against any civilian population, or persecutions on political, racial, or religious grounds, when such acts are done or such persecutions are carried on in execution of or in connection with any crime against peace or any war crime.

Principle VII
Complicity in the commission of a crime against peace, a war crime, or a crime against humanity as set forth in Principle VI is a crime under international law.

[Usrename]

47. By the way, this is an ongoing crime. A crime that is still in progress.

The UN Convention on Torture makes it clear that the act of including information gained by torture in their official report is it's own separate crime.

So maybe they didn't know anything at the time this all took place. They certainly know what happened now, and that they were complicit in crimes. What are they doing about it NOW?

Their failure to do ANYTHING regarding some kind of admission of guilt, or the retraction of their ILLEGAL report, or their refusal to call for a full and fair investigation, are each in themselves further acts of complicity in these crimes.

Their complete silence NOW is a crime it own right.

Article 4
Each State Party shall ensure that all acts of torture are offences under its criminal law. The same shall apply to an attempt to commit torture and to an act by any person which constitutes complicity or participation in torture.
Each State Party shall make these offences punishable by appropriate penalties which take into account their grave nature.


Article 12
Each State Party shall ensure that its competent authorities proceed to a prompt and impartial investigation, wherever there is reasonable ground to believe that an act of torture has been committee in any territory under its jurisdiction.


Article 15
Each State Party shall ensure that any statement which is established to have been made as a result of torture shall not be invoked as evidence in any proceedings, except against a person accused of torture as evidence that the statement was made.

http://www.hrweb.org/legal/cat.html

They don't seem to care at all about any of this stuff.

[Mnemosyne]

24. KnR from the lunatic fringe. n/t

[pjt7]

32. Thanks for the straight foward informative

post. I feel like more of us are becoming aware of facts of that tragic day & the cover-up's that have followed.

[Time for change]

36. Thank you -- I strongly feel that this is something that Americans need to understand very badly,

though most of them aren't ready to hear it, unfortunately.

[Octafish]

33. Oh well, at least they didn't pick Henry Kissinger to run the thing into the ground. Oh, wait...

Zelikow's a major turd, the guy helped hoist the idea JFK wasn't top-drawer during the Cuban Missile Crisis in his "transcriptions" of the White House tape recordings.

The 911 Commission was doomed to failure succeeded because of the appointment of UNOCAL trans-Afghan pipeline buddy Kean and the Puke's best friend Hamilton, who found nothing odd about Poppy and the October Surprise, Iraqgate or Iran-Contra.

Thank you for another outstanding post, Time for change. It is worth KBR and transmitting to all who care about democracy around the world.

[Time for change]

34. Thank you Octafish -- Yeah, it's hard to believe that

they could have done any worse even if Kissinger led the Commission instead of Kean and Hamilton.

[Octafish]

35. Lies are just what an Empire needs.

Why, if the subjects and slaves knew what was happening, they'd be liable to revolt.

[Rex]

41. Oh barf, total coverup. Another lollipop commission to subvert the truth.

[DeeDeeNY]

42. If one knew absolutely nothing about the 9/11 investigation

except for the fact that the Bush administration fought the establishment of the 9/11 commission from the beginning and then, when pressured to testify, Bush would go only as a "team" with Cheney, no sworn testimony and no transcript -- that one fact should raise suspicions everywhere. Add to that a reporter's question to Bush at the time asking why he was going WITH CHENEY to the commission hearing, and Bush said something to the effect of "So we can get at the truth" - PRETENDING TO INTERPRET THE REPORTER'S QUESTION TO MEAN WHY WAS HE GOING AT ALL RATHER THAN WHY HE COULD ONLY GO WITH CHENEY!

[Time for change]

44. "So we can get at the truth"

Maybe what Bush meant to say by that is that he had no knowledge about anything concerning 9-11, so he needed Cheney there with him. Of course that doesn't begin to explain why they had to testify together.

But you're absolutely right. If that was all anyone knew about it, that should lead us to conclude, by itself, that we are not getting the true story.

[Psyop Samurai]

45. Thanks so much. You and others who are so good at organizing the information...

...and articulating the principles involved must continue in this vein.

To summarize:

1) It is a "gentleman's game", and as such, entirely anti-democratic and overflowing with contempt for us proles (and humanity in general).

2) The 9/11 Commission and principles relating thereto, which you've cast in an appropriate and edifying light, is a microcosm of the whole bloody Beltway mess.

Actually, I think the Ministry of Truth has permanently replaced the term "non-partisan" with "bi-partisan". While we proles are to assume it means the same thing, it actually means "keep your hand on your wallet, a fraud is being perpetrated."

But golly gee, the inventor of the plausible deniability labyrinth seems to have vanished with the blueprint, and 'til he shows back up (read: when you nutty conspiracy theorist can produce the buried corpse and the murder weapon), we simply can't hold anyone accountable for anything. Can you imagine raising a child like that? No one would accept the kind of excuses from a 12-year-old that they routinely accept from their "leaders".

Fact: the cover-up makes one an accessory after the fact. One does not need to "prove" any complicity beyond that.

Fact: the exploitation of such a sickening crime (9/11), speaks to character in a way that is, um..., how shall we say?..., anything but exonerating.

Fact: we are dealing with war criminals whose universally known crimes against humanity far eclipse 9/11, rendering their complicity in the operation not only "thinkable", but in a very clear sense, redundant.

Thanks again for you efforts.

[Time for change]

50. Thank you -- You have a very illuminating way of summarizing the problem that we face

[KoKo]

46. Thanks for this...very interesting about the new book...

K&R... so it might get some views...although it's hard with the Election Frenzy going on.

[NashVegas]

48. That's Very True. But These People Aren't Gentlemen

What gentlemen do is they pull the fuck-ups aside and calmly explain to them that they're going to step down for the good of the country.

[Time for change]

51. Yes

My use of the term 'gentlemen' was facetious.

[Psyop Samurai]

52. "because in their mind it is unseemly and ungentlemanly...

...to even consider the possibility that the rich and powerful might be involved in terrible crimes against their country."

This is another aspect that really gets me. It reminds me of "good old boy", Jim Crow justice, with its very convenient blind spot to the sins of "prominent" citizens, and its all-too-eager willingness to pin anything on an convenient "underling".

I honestly find Americans' disinterest in the truth about 9/11 and these phony wars to be (in addition to everything else) profoundly racist. Yes, in the more enlightened corners, there's talk of "American exceptionalism", but the way the whole thing shakes out, with the wholesale destruction of people and cultures (conveniently "Muslim"), whilst people prattle on about things that affect them, it looks a heck of a lot like "European" exceptionalism, i.e. White.

A few years ago, this grotesque situation inspired a joke:

How many white people does it take to commit a crime?

All of them. One to do it, and the rest to look the other way.

[Time for change]

53. That's exactly right

They really do consider it unseemly and ungentlemanly to even consider a president (at least, a Republican President) having committed a serious crime.

Most Americans now readily admit that we were wrong for what we did to the Japanese during WW II, yet they're not willing to exercise their minds enough to recognize that what we're doing now is even worse. Of course, a lot of the blame can also be laid at the feet of our national news media.