Gore Vidal claims 'Bush junta' complicit in 9/11
Vidal is great, as always, but I still don't agree with his "master plan" thesis. There's a piece in Salon today about how Afghanistan is sliding back towards chaos--if it was the junta's plan all along to extend the Empire there they'd be making the place safe for oil companies instead of devoting all their energy to Iraq. I agree that "Bush knew" about 9/11 but only in the sense that gross negligence can sometimes rise to the level of intent. By ignoring all the clear warnings about the al_Qaeda threat (to protect the Saudis and "bidness") he and his team practically assured 9/11 would happen. Then, true to form, they jumped in swiftly to capitalize on it. I still find it disturbing that nobody has been fired over 9/11. I'd start with the FBI person who suppressed the Colleen Rowley memo and go from there.
It still leaves the question of how the hell a hijacked plane was able to hit The Pentagon:
"At the heart of the essay are questions about the events of 9/11 itself and the two hours after the planes were hijacked. Vidal writes that 'astonished military experts cannot fathom why the government's "automatic standard order of procedure in the event of a hijacking" was not followed'.
These procedures, says Vidal, determine that fighter planes should automatically be sent aloft as soon as a plane has deviated from its flight plan. Presidential authority is not required until a plane is to be shot down. But, on 11 September, no decision to start launching planes was taken until 9.40am, eighty minutes after air controllers first knew that Flight 11 had been hijacked and fifty minutes after the first plane had struck the North Tower."
I don't have enough information to make any reasonable guess as to who knew what, but it's pretty clear that the attacks on 9-11 were the best thing to happen to the current administration and it's supporters since 11-07-00. Why stop a good thiing?
On the other hand, foiling the Pentagon attack would have been quite a feather in Bush's cowboy hat.
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- steve 10-28-2002 8:16 pm
Vidal is great, as always, but I still don't agree with his "master plan" thesis. There's a piece in Salon today about how Afghanistan is sliding back towards chaos--if it was the junta's plan all along to extend the Empire there they'd be making the place safe for oil companies instead of devoting all their energy to Iraq. I agree that "Bush knew" about 9/11 but only in the sense that gross negligence can sometimes rise to the level of intent. By ignoring all the clear warnings about the al_Qaeda threat (to protect the Saudis and "bidness") he and his team practically assured 9/11 would happen. Then, true to form, they jumped in swiftly to capitalize on it. I still find it disturbing that nobody has been fired over 9/11. I'd start with the FBI person who suppressed the Colleen Rowley memo and go from there.
- tom moody 10-29-2002 3:51 am [add a comment]
It still leaves the question of how the hell a hijacked plane was able to hit The Pentagon:
"At the heart of the essay are questions about the events of 9/11 itself and the two hours after the planes were hijacked. Vidal writes that 'astonished military experts cannot fathom why the government's "automatic standard order of procedure in the event of a hijacking" was not followed'.
These procedures, says Vidal, determine that fighter planes should automatically be sent aloft as soon as a plane has deviated from its flight plan. Presidential authority is not required until a plane is to be shot down. But, on 11 September, no decision to start launching planes was taken until 9.40am, eighty minutes after air controllers first knew that Flight 11 had been hijacked and fifty minutes after the first plane had struck the North Tower."
I don't have enough information to make any reasonable guess as to who knew what, but it's pretty clear that the attacks on 9-11 were the best thing to happen to the current administration and it's supporters since 11-07-00. Why stop a good thiing?
On the other hand, foiling the Pentagon attack would have been quite a feather in Bush's cowboy hat.
- steve 10-29-2002 4:12 am [add a comment]