Tag Archives: Bush

Andrew Cockburn swings and misses on 9/11

There is so much of failure in humanity’s quest for justice, which, in spite of an enormous trove of evidence to the contrary, I still believe exists.  If you are not inspired to true rage by the Iraq War and the mechanisms of its creation by the Bush Administration, you and I have very little in common.  Not everyone is familiar with Justice Jackson’s assertion that the crime of aggression, waging war without need or legal justification, is the worst of which man is capable, but the notion would find general acceptance everywhere.

 

To our great misfortune, however, few expect what should be the inevitable consequence of the transgression: prosecution and imprisonment.  Beyond the inaudible fringe, no one of power or voice is capable of such a suggestion.  We. the inaudible, yet strive to be heard.  Is there the slightest question that the same crime will be committed again by latter-day Bushes and Cheneys, if those two and their enablers are not called to a courtroom?

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The War in Iraq sits atop the pile of injustice, but another still-throbbing excrescence of only slightly less egregious proportion is 9/11.  Andew Cockburn writes very recently in Harper’s that some kind of justice may await those whom he considers the true authors of the crime, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.  He enlightens us with a sufficient rendering of the history of the sanctioned investigations, two by Congress, one by the 9/11 Commission.  He has interviewed former Senator Bob Graham who chaired the original Congressional investigation, and they both apparently share the bewilderment provoked by the objections raised then by today’s most holy of investigators, Robert Mueller, to the Joint Inquiry’s own investigator, Michael Jacobson, traveling to San Diego to do what would be considered the bare minimum in pursuit of truth.

 

Cockburn details what Jacobson found there, much, we assume, to the displeasure of Mueller and the Bush Administration.  Theirs, however, we also assume, was the last laugh since all that was uncovered would stay hidden for 10+ years and the suspicions fueled by the contents of the famous 28 pages remain today beyond the pale of public “respectable” inquiry.  And here we arrive at the point of this present endeavor.  How much are we allowed to suspect?  What is the extent of our permitted curiosity?

 

Those 28 pages, of which the intrepid Jacobson was the principle author, include the following information:  Two of the 19 hijackers were Saudi nationals handled by Saudi agents in San Diego in the weeks leading up to 9/11.  Their handlers were funneled $150,000 from the “wife of the Saudi ambassador in Washington.”  Hmmm, looks bad for the Kingdom.  And that is as far as our minds are permitted to wander thanks to the stewardship of the renowned and accomplished A. Cockburn.

 

With just a piece or two more of information, things could be different.  That Saudi ambassador in Washington?  He is Prince Bandar, one-time Chief of Saudi intelligence.  But the real point of importance is his relationship to the Bush clan.  In the family he is known as… Bandar Bush.  I believe that was even a joint account upon which the checks were drawn, but it is of no consequence if I am wrong.  The idea that the wife of the Saudi Ambassador would pay money, a great deal of money, in an intelligence operation without her husband’s approval, if not direction, seems ludicrous.  That’s Saudi Arabia, only just considering female drivers licenses.

 

So, without much hesitancy, we may assert that a virtual family member of the Bush clan paid the hijackers to wreak their havoc on Bush and Cheney’s watch.  Might one be so bold as to suspect that those manipulations took place as a result of an inside job conspiracy, the unsayable essence of 9/11 Truth?  I don’t know how to avoid the conclusion, but Mr. Cockburn takes care of all that with the judicious deletion of critical detail.  For more see “Conclusion of Gallop v. Cheney” at vealetruth.com.

Chris Matthews and Michael Morell

According to some commentators, Chris Matthews got former deputy director and former acting director of the CIA to admit that Cheney and Bush lied to the American people in order to go to war in Iraq.  I am not sure Matthews deserves that much credit for the moment; after all Michael Morell was on the show trying to sell a book.  Could he not have been prepared to make the disclosure; what exactly did he think Matthews was going to ask him about?

 

But let’s go ahead and give Matthews the credit.  Is there more that might have been done?  When Morell suggested it was not his job to watch TV and determine what lies the president was telling supposedly based on information he(Morell) was providing in his briefings, it would have been important to know when and how he learned that lies were in fact being told.  It would have been important to know what concerns about those lies were expressed to whom in the CIA and the rest of government.  It would have been important to learn what action or inaction took place within Morell’s knowledge.  How big a deal was the inaction, to the extent it existed?  If there were lies told, there can only have been one purpose and that was to create the necessary political conditions preparatory to an invasion, or other military action against Iraq.

 

Apparently, Bush and Cheney falsely said that Saddam Hussein was building a bomb when Morrell told them he was not.  And apparently, they falsely said there was some connection between Saddam Hussein and 9/11, when Morell had told them there was none.  It is therefore clear that there was no adequate legal or moral reason to make war against Iraq.  That means that the taking of military action under the circumstances amounted to the war crime of aggression, the most heinous of them all.

It would have been helpful to know if Morell ever considered that what he was countenancing with his silence was a war crime.  For those of us concerned with the character of our governance, Matthews had an opportunity to shed an important bit of light on what sort of people govern us and how they do it, even if it is many years too late for the people of the Middle East.  The same people who gave us the disaster that is still killing people in Iraq are apparently Jeb Bush’s current advisers.  Perhaps a little less hardball and a little more preparation and concern for the question of moral purpose would have served us better..