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Home > The Real 9/11 Conspiracy
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The Real 9/11 Conspiracy
By Sonali Kolhatkar [1] / Truthdig [2]
May 23, 2016
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I remember watching the towers fall.
My sister called early in the morning to tell me to turn on the television.
My husband and I, who had been working closely with Afghan women organizing
against the Taliban, stared at the screen, aghast as the buildings crumbled.
Like everyone else the world over, we realized it was a moment that was
going to change history. We also realized that ordinary people, including
our friends in Afghanistan, were going to pay the price for something they
likely had nothing to do with. And sure enough, on Oct. 7, 2001, despite the
fact that 15 of the 19 hijackers were Saudi nationals, the U.S. went to war
with Afghanistan. That war, the longest in U.S. history, remains a bloody
weight on our collective conscience.
But as soon as the towers fell and Congress rushed to hand over blanket
authority to President Bush to wantonly bomb, whispers of "an inside job"
began circulating on the internet.
Those whispers snowballed as the war expanded from Afghanistan to Iraq. Many
anti-war activists, eager to undermine the flawed rationale for the Iraq
War, insisted ever more shrilly that Bush and company were likely behind the
attacks or knew ahead of time that the attacks were coming and failed to act
purposefully. Complex and convoluted arguments about the temperatures at
which the towers' beams melted were vociferously trotted out on public radio
and in Internet chat rooms. Jesse Ventura [3] jumped into the fray. Films
like "Loose Change" and "Zeitgeist" offered seductive theories for Americans
to latch onto as they became angry about our rush to war.
As a journalist, I often came under fire from the so-called "9/11 truthers"
for being a "gatekeeper" and refusing to take the conspiracy theories
seriously. I was much more interested in the devastation being wrought by
the U.S. in the name of the 9/11 attacks. And one irrefutable fact kept
arising over and over in my mind: 15 of the 19 hijackers were Saudi
nationals. It was a simple fact that everyone agreed on. It had nothing to
do with secrets, lies or thermodynamics. It was out in the open.
Here is a plausible conspiracy: The Saudi government, known for aiding and
abetting fundamentalist terrorist groups in order to legitimize its own
extremist ideology, may well have been involved with some of the 9/11
terrorists, whether or not they knew the hijackers' intentions. Once those
links were revealed, the U.S. government, which has a history of cozy
relations with the Saudis for various reasons (oil, regional influence,
weapons sales, etc.), may have wanted to overlook those embarrassing
connections and instead divert the American public to countries it had an
interest in, namely Iraq (with Afghanistan as a stepping stone).
But in 2004, the 9/11 Commission, a 10-person government panel created to
investigate the attacks, absolved the Saudi Arabian government [4] of any
involvement. (It also faulted intelligence agencies for lack of
coordination.) This was thought to be the end of the story. We were supposed
to accept as mere coincidence the fact that the majority of the hijackers
were Saudi citizens.
Now it turns out that the far more plausible 9/11 conspiracy could be true.
After years of rumors that a classified section of a 2002 congressional
report [5] held the key to a Saudi role, The Guardian newspaper recently
interviewed a member of the 9/11 Commission [6] who confirmed these
suspicions. John Lehman, a Republican and former U.S. Navy secretary under
President Reagan, asserted, "There was an awful lot of participation by
Saudi individuals in supporting the hijackers, and some of those people
worked in the Saudi government." According to The Guardian, Lehman was aware
of "five Saudi government officials who were strongly suspected of
involvement in the terrorists' support network."
Lehman, along with several members of Congress, wants the Obama
administration to declassify the so-called "28 pages" that were kept secret.
While Obama decides whether or not to release the documents, the
GOP-dominated Senate has just passed a bill [7] that would allow families of
9/11 victims to sue the Saudi government. The Saudis are predictably
outraged, and Obama will likely veto the bill to assuage the U.S. ally.
Why is any of this important, particularly given the GOP's penchant for
finding any excuse, however insignificant, to oppose Obama?
It is important because the entire premise of current U.S. foreign policy in
the Middle East is based on an assumption that no government actors were
involved in the 9/11 attacks. Rather, we were told, it was a series of
shadowy and reprehensible groups, including "al-Qaida, the Taliban and their
associated forces," in Obama's own words, that have been targeted for blame
and elimination. Just who those "associated forces" are is unknown. In
reality, the "enemy" is about as classified [8] as Saudi Arabia's role in
9/11.
The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq that began well over a decade ago unleashed
chaos and violence. They generated the gulag in Guantanamo, Cuba. They were
expanded via drone strikes in Pakistan, Libya, Yemen and Somalia. They have
killed untold numbers of innocents and inspired hatred toward the U.S. The
U.S. has undermined the Arab Spring movements for democracy in countries
like Egypt and even bolstered Saudi Arabia's brutal quashing of democracy in
Bahrain. It has partnered with the Saudis on a bloody war in Yemen and
continued its long-standing tradition of selling the wealthy Gulf monarchy
more weapons [9] than it knows what to do with.
The real 9/11 conspiracy is that, despite recent claims that "U.S.-Saudi
relations are strained [10]," close ties between the two countries are worth
far more than uncovering what really happened on Sept. 11, 2001. The real
conspiracy has been out in the open all along. We are told that we need to
trust that our government is handling the terrorists who hate us and tried
to kill us, even if many contend that the wars have made us less safe [11].
But it turns out our government is simply and amiably working along with the
nation most implicated in the 9/11 attacks.
None of this is to imply that the U.S. should have bombed Saudi Arabia
instead of Afghanistan in 2001. Our post-9/11 military incursions all point
to the singular fact that the "War on Terror" has been a "War of Terror." On
the lengthy list of reasons our modern era of warfare is immoral, misguided,
murderous, violent and in every sense wrong, the revelations of Saudi links
to the 9/11 attacks ought to be the final straw.
Sonali Kolhatkar [12] is co-director of the Afghan Women's Mission [13]. She
is also the host and producer of Uprising Radio [14], a daily morning radio
program at KPFK, Pacifica in Los Angeles.
Share on Facebook Share
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Report typos and corrections to 'corrections@xxxxxxxxxxxx'. [15]
[16]
________________________________________
Source URL: http://www.alternet.org/fear-america/real-911-conspiracy
Links:
[1] http://www.alternet.org/authors/sonali-kolhatkar
[2] http://www.truthdig.com/
[3] http://www.jesseventura.net/conspiracy-theory/s01e02-911-conspiracy/
[4] http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/3815179.stm
[5] https://fas.org/irp/congress/2002_rpt/911rept.pdf
[6]
http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/may/12/911-commission-saudi-arabia-h
ijackers
[7] http://www.reuters.com/article/us-saudi-usa-congress-idUSKCN0Y8239
[8]
https://www.propublica.org/article/who-are-we-at-war-with-thats-classified
[9]
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/despite_atrocities_us_approves_129_billi
on_deal_20151117
[10]
http://www.cnn.com/videos/world/2016/04/19/saudi-arabia-us-strainded-relatio
ns-robertson-pkg.cnn
[11]
http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2015/07/retired-general-drones-damage-good-150
716105352708.html
[12] mailto:Sonali@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
[13] http://afghanwomensmission.org/index.php
[14] http://uprisingradio.org/
[15] mailto:corrections@xxxxxxxxxxxx?Subject=Typo on The Real 9/11
Conspiracy
[16] http://www.alternet.org/
[17] http://www.alternet.org/%2Bnew_src%2B
Published on Alternet (http://www.alternet.org)
Home > The Real 9/11 Conspiracy
The Real 9/11 Conspiracy
By Sonali Kolhatkar [1] / Truthdig [2]
May 23, 2016
AddThis Sharing ButtonsShare to FacebookShare to TwitterShare to Google+More
AddThis Share optionsShare to Email
I remember watching the towers fall.
My sister called early in the morning to tell me to turn on the television.
My husband and I, who had been working closely with Afghan women organizing
against the Taliban, stared at the screen, aghast as the buildings crumbled.
Like everyone else the world over, we realized it was a moment that was
going to change history. We also realized that ordinary people, including
our friends in Afghanistan, were going to pay the price for something they
likely had nothing to do with. And sure enough, on Oct. 7, 2001, despite the
fact that 15 of the 19 hijackers were Saudi nationals, the U.S. went to war
with Afghanistan. That war, the longest in U.S. history, remains a bloody
weight on our collective conscience.
But as soon as the towers fell and Congress rushed to hand over blanket
authority to President Bush to wantonly bomb, whispers of "an inside job"
began circulating on the internet.
Those whispers snowballed as the war expanded from Afghanistan to Iraq. Many
anti-war activists, eager to undermine the flawed rationale for the Iraq
War, insisted ever more shrilly that Bush and company were likely behind the
attacks or knew ahead of time that the attacks were coming and failed to act
purposefully. Complex and convoluted arguments about the temperatures at
which the towers' beams melted were vociferously trotted out on public radio
and in Internet chat rooms. Jesse Ventura [3] jumped into the fray. Films
like "Loose Change" and "Zeitgeist" offered seductive theories for Americans
to latch onto as they became angry about our rush to war.
As a journalist, I often came under fire from the so-called "9/11 truthers"
for being a "gatekeeper" and refusing to take the conspiracy theories
seriously. I was much more interested in the devastation being wrought by
the U.S. in the name of the 9/11 attacks. And one irrefutable fact kept
arising over and over in my mind: 15 of the 19 hijackers were Saudi
nationals. It was a simple fact that everyone agreed on. It had nothing to
do with secrets, lies or thermodynamics. It was out in the open.
Here is a plausible conspiracy: The Saudi government, known for aiding and
abetting fundamentalist terrorist groups in order to legitimize its own
extremist ideology, may well have been involved with some of the 9/11
terrorists, whether or not they knew the hijackers' intentions. Once those
links were revealed, the U.S. government, which has a history of cozy
relations with the Saudis for various reasons (oil, regional influence,
weapons sales, etc.), may have wanted to overlook those embarrassing
connections and instead divert the American public to countries it had an
interest in, namely Iraq (with Afghanistan as a stepping stone).
But in 2004, the 9/11 Commission, a 10-person government panel created to
investigate the attacks, absolved the Saudi Arabian government [4] of any
involvement. (It also faulted intelligence agencies for lack of
coordination.) This was thought to be the end of the story. We were supposed
to accept as mere coincidence the fact that the majority of the hijackers
were Saudi citizens.
Now it turns out that the far more plausible 9/11 conspiracy could be true.
After years of rumors that a classified section of a 2002 congressional
report [5] held the key to a Saudi role, The Guardian newspaper recently
interviewed a member of the 9/11 Commission [6] who confirmed these
suspicions. John Lehman, a Republican and former U.S. Navy secretary under
President Reagan, asserted, "There was an awful lot of participation by
Saudi individuals in supporting the hijackers, and some of those people
worked in the Saudi government." According to The Guardian, Lehman was aware
of "five Saudi government officials who were strongly suspected of
involvement in the terrorists' support network."
Lehman, along with several members of Congress, wants the Obama
administration to declassify the so-called "28 pages" that were kept secret.
While Obama decides whether or not to release the documents, the
GOP-dominated Senate has just passed a bill [7] that would allow families of
9/11 victims to sue the Saudi government. The Saudis are predictably
outraged, and Obama will likely veto the bill to assuage the U.S. ally.
Why is any of this important, particularly given the GOP's penchant for
finding any excuse, however insignificant, to oppose Obama?
It is important because the entire premise of current U.S. foreign policy in
the Middle East is based on an assumption that no government actors were
involved in the 9/11 attacks. Rather, we were told, it was a series of
shadowy and reprehensible groups, including "al-Qaida, the Taliban and their
associated forces," in Obama's own words, that have been targeted for blame
and elimination. Just who those "associated forces" are is unknown. In
reality, the "enemy" is about as classified [8] as Saudi Arabia's role in
9/11.
The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq that began well over a decade ago unleashed
chaos and violence. They generated the gulag in Guantanamo, Cuba. They were
expanded via drone strikes in Pakistan, Libya, Yemen and Somalia. They have
killed untold numbers of innocents and inspired hatred toward the U.S. The
U.S. has undermined the Arab Spring movements for democracy in countries
like Egypt and even bolstered Saudi Arabia's brutal quashing of democracy in
Bahrain. It has partnered with the Saudis on a bloody war in Yemen and
continued its long-standing tradition of selling the wealthy Gulf monarchy
more weapons [9] than it knows what to do with.
The real 9/11 conspiracy is that, despite recent claims that "U.S.-Saudi
relations are strained [10]," close ties between the two countries are worth
far more than uncovering what really happened on Sept. 11, 2001. The real
conspiracy has been out in the open all along. We are told that we need to
trust that our government is handling the terrorists who hate us and tried
to kill us, even if many contend that the wars have made us less safe [11].
But it turns out our government is simply and amiably working along with the
nation most implicated in the 9/11 attacks.
None of this is to imply that the U.S. should have bombed Saudi Arabia
instead of Afghanistan in 2001. Our post-9/11 military incursions all point
to the singular fact that the "War on Terror" has been a "War of Terror." On
the lengthy list of reasons our modern era of warfare is immoral, misguided,
murderous, violent and in every sense wrong, the revelations of Saudi links
to the 9/11 attacks ought to be the final straw.
Sonali Kolhatkar [12] is co-director of the Afghan Women's Mission [13]. She
is also the host and producer of Uprising Radio [14], a daily morning radio
program at KPFK, Pacifica in Los Angeles.
Error! Hyperlink reference not valid.
Error! Hyperlink reference not valid.
Report typos and corrections to 'corrections@xxxxxxxxxxxx'. [15]
Error! Hyperlink reference not valid.[16]
Source URL: http://www.alternet.org/fear-america/real-911-conspiracy ;
Links:
[1] http://www.alternet.org/authors/sonali-kolhatkar
[2] http://www.truthdig.com/
[3] http://www.jesseventura.net/conspiracy-theory/s01e02-911-conspiracy/
[4] http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/3815179.stm
[5] https://fas.org/irp/congress/2002_rpt/911rept.pdf
[6]
http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/may/12/911-commission-saudi-arabia-h
ijackers
[7] http://www.reuters.com/article/us-saudi-usa-congress-idUSKCN0Y8239
[8]
https://www.propublica.org/article/who-are-we-at-war-with-thats-classified
[9]
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/despite_atrocities_us_approves_129_billi
on_deal_20151117
[10]
http://www.cnn.com/videos/world/2016/04/19/saudi-arabia-us-strainded-relatio
ns-robertson-pkg.cnn
[11]
http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2015/07/retired-general-drones-damage-good-150
716105352708.html
[12] mailto:Sonali@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
[13] http://afghanwomensmission.org/index.php
[14] http://uprisingradio.org/
[15] mailto:corrections@xxxxxxxxxxxx?Subject=Typo on The Real 9/11
Conspiracy
[16] http://www.alternet.org/
[17] http://www.alternet.org/%2Bnew_src%2B
