The Sins of September 11
By William Rivers
Pitt
t r u t h o u t | Perspective
Monday 13 October 2003
I am beginning to despise reading. I have lost count of the
number of times I have read some passage in a politically-oriented book, and
then been uncontrollably motivated to hurl said book against a wall or across
the room in fury. My library looks like someone took a weed-whacker to it; all
the dust-jackets have taken a fearsome beating.
The book currently on my desk has begun to retain a damaged
appearance. Sidney Blumenthal's "The Clinton Wars" is a meticulously researched
and foot-noted tour de force through the last ten years of the brainless
savagery of American politics. The retelling of the contrived scandals clarioned
by a media establishment which abandoned any pretense of journalistic integrity,
pushed by a cabal of House members and right-wing activists whose worshipped
altar was the desire for raw power, and the sad and sorry tale of the
impeachment itself, is a difficult but necessary review of a truly pathetic time
in our history. Blumenthal manages to bring his readers back to that tar pit,
and keep them enthralled, with an excellent and deft literary touch.
Since I have read most of the other books on the scandal-gasm and
impeachment, there was not much through the middle of this book that brought me
up short, though Blumenthal does present interviews and perspectives of players
on both sides of that aisle which are not present in the other histories (It was
amusing to read Congressional impeachment warrior James Rogan speak of being "On
the wrong side of history" regarding the trial in the Senate). No, the book
began to take its obligatory pounding when I reached page 656, and the second
part of the chapter entitled "The Twenty-First Century."
The astounding level of blunt ignorance within the American
populace about the events surrounding the attacks of September 11 cannot be
easily quantified. In a nation with thousands of newspapers, thousands of radio
stations, and a ceaseless data stream from CNN, MSNBC, CNBC, Fox, NBC, ABC, CBS
and PBS, some 70% of the population believed as late as a month ago that Saddam
Hussein was centrally involved in and personally responsible for the attacks
which destroyed the Towers and struck the Pentagon. Beyond that, what most
people know about the single most important event in American history does not
go much beyond "evildoers" who "hate our freedom."
That is, simply, incredible. It is also not an accident. This
ignorance has a great deal to do with the stunning mediocrity of the television
news media, that empty well where most Americans go to become informed. This
ignorance also, and far more importantly, has a great deal to do with the
Clinton-era actions of a large number of conservatives, many of whom are in
positions of power today, many of whom are now making careers out of September
11.
The two great myths that have settled across the nation, beyond
the Hussein-9/11 connection, are that Clinton did not do enough during his
tenure to stop the spread of radical terrorist organizations like al Qaeda, and
that the attacks themselves could not have been anticipated or stopped.
Blumenthal's insider perspective on these matters bursts the myths entirely, and
reveals a level of complicity regarding the attacks within the journalistic
realm and the conservative political ranks that is infuriating and
disturbing.
Starting in 1995, Clinton took actions against terrorism that
were unprecedented in American history. He poured billions and billions of
dollars into counterterrorism activities across the entire spectrum of the
intelligence community. He poured billions more into the protection of critical
infrastructure. He ordered massive federal stockpiling of antidotes and vaccines
to prepare for a possible bioterror attack. He order a reorganization of the
intelligence community itself, ramming through reforms and new procedures to
address the demonstrable threat. Within the National Security Council, "threat
meetings" were held three times a week to assess looming conspiracies. His
National Security Advisor, Sandy Berger, prepared a voluminous dossier on al
Qaeda and Osama bin Laden, actively tracking them across the planet. Clinton
raised the issue of terrorism in virtually every important speech he gave in the
last three years of his tenure. In 1996, Clinton delivered a major address to
the United Nations on the matter of international terrorism, calling it "The
enemy of our generation."
Behind the scenes, he leaned vigorously on the leaders of nations
within the terrorist sphere. In particular, he pushed Pakistani Prime Minister
Nawaz Sharif to assist him in dealing with the threat from neighboring
Afghanistan and its favorite guest, Osama bin Laden. Before Sharif could be
compelled to act, he was thrown out of office by his own army. His replacement,
Pervez Musharraf, pointedly refused to do anything to assist Clinton in dealing
with these threats. Despite these and other diplomatic setbacks, terrorist cell
after terrorist cell were destroyed across the world, and bomb plots against
American embassies were thwarted. Because of security concerns, these victories
were never revealed to the American people until very recently.
In America, few people heard anything about this. Clinton's dire
public warnings about the threat posed by terrorism, and the massive non-secret
actions taken to thwart it, went completely unreported by the media, which was
far more concerned with stained dresses and baseless Drudge Report rumors. When
the administration did act militarily against bin Laden and his terrorist
network, the actions were dismissed by partisans within the media and Congress
as scandalous "wag the dog" tactics. The TV networks actually broadcast clips of
the movie "Wag The Dog" to accentuate the idea that everything the
administration was doing was contrived fakery.
The bombing of the Sundanese factory at al-Shifa, in particular,
drew wide condemnation from these quarters, despite the fact that the CIA found
and certified VX nerve agent precursor in the ground outside the factory,
despite the fact that the factory was owned by Osama bin Laden's Military
Industrial Corporation, and despite the fact that the manager of the factory
lived in bin Laden's villa in Khartoum. The book "Age of Sacred Terror"
quantifies the al-Shifa issue thusly: "The dismissal of the al-Shifa attack as a
scandalous blunder had serious consequences, including the failure of the public
to comprehend the nature of the al Qaeda threat."
In Congress, Clinton was thwarted by the reactionary conservative
majority in virtually every attempt he made to pass legislation that would
attack al Qaeda and terrorism. His 1996 omnibus terror bill, which included many
of the anti-terror measures we now take for granted after September 11, was
withered almost to the point of uselessness by attacks from the right; Jesse
Helms and Trent Lott were openly dismissive of the threats Clinton spoke of.
Clinton wanted to attack the financial underpinnings of the
al-Qaeda network by banning American companies and individuals from dealing with
foreign banks and financial institutions that al Qaeda was using for its
money-laundering operations. Texas Senator Phil Gramm, chairman of the Banking
Committee, killed Clinton's bill on this matter and called it "totalitarian." In
fact, he was compelled to kill the bill because his most devoted patrons, the
Enron Corporation and its criminal executives in Houston, were using those same
terrorist financial networks to launder their own dirty money and rip off the
Enron stockholders.
Just before departing office, Clinton managed to make a deal with
the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development to have some twenty
nations close tax havens used by al Qaeda. His term ended before the deal was
sealed, and the incoming Bush administration acted immediately to destroy the
agreement. According to Time magazine, in an article entitled "Banking on
Secrecy" published in October of 2001, Bush economic advisors Larry Lindsey and
R. Glenn Hubbard were urged by think tanks like the Center for Freedom and
Prosperity to opt out of the coalition Clinton had formed. The conservative
Heritage Foundation lobbied Bush's Treasury Secretary, Paul O'Neill, to do the
same. In the end, the lobbyists got what they wanted, and the Bush
administration pulled America out of the plan. The Time article stated, "Without
the world's financial superpower, the biggest effort in years to rid the world's
financial system of dirty money was short-circuited."
This laundry list of partisan catastrophes goes on and on. Far
from being inept on the matter of terrorism, Clinton was profoundly activist in
his attempts to address terrorism. Much of his work was foiled by right-wing
Congressional conservatives who, simply, refused to accept the fact that he was
President. These men, paid to work for the public trust, spent eight years
working diligently to paralyze any and all Clinton policies, including
anti-terror initiatives that, if enacted, would have gone a long way towards
thwarting the September 11 attacks. Beyond them lay the worthless television
media, which ignored and spun the terrorist issue as it pursued salacious leaks
from Ken Starr's office, leaving the American people drowning in a swamp of
ignorance on a matter of deadly global importance.
Over and above the theoretical questions regarding whether or not
Clinton's anti-terror policies, if passed, would have stopped September 11 lies
the very real fact that attacks very much like 9/11 were, in fact, stopped dead
by the Clinton administration. The most glaring example of this came on December
31, 1999, when the world gathered to celebrate the passing of the millennium. On
that night, al Qaeda was gathering as well.
The terrorist network planned to simultaneously attack the
national airports in Washington DC and Los Angeles, the Amman Raddison Hotel in
Jordan, a constellation of holy sites in Israel, and the USS The Sullivans at
dock in Yemen. Each and every single one of these plots, which ranged from one
side of the planet to the other, was foiled by the efforts of the Clinton
administration. Speaking for the first time about these millennium plots, in a
speech delivered to the Coast Guard Academy on May 17, 2000, Clinton said, "I
want to tell you a story that, unfortunately, will not be the last example you
will have to face."
Indeed.
Clinton proved that Osama bin Laden and his terror network can be
foiled, can be thwarted, can be stopped. The multifaceted and complex nature of
the international millennium plots rivals the plans laid before September 11,
and involved counter-terrorism actions within several countries and across the
entire American intelligence and military community. All resources were brought
to bear, and the terrorists went down to defeat. The proof is in the pudding
here. September 11, like the millennium plots, could have been avoided.
Couple this with other facts about the Bush administration we now
have in hand. The administration was warned about a massive terror plot in the
months before September by the security services of several countries, including
Israel, Egypt, Germany and Russia. CIA Director George Tenet delivered a
specific briefing on the matter to the administration on August 8, 2001. The
massive compendium of data on Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda compiled by Sandy
Berger, and delivered to Condoleezza Rice upon his departure, went completely
and admittedly unread until the attacks took place. The attacks themselves
managed, for over an hour, to pierce the most formidable air defense system in
the history of the Earth without a single fighter aircraft taking wing until the
catastrophe was concluded.
It is not fashionable these days to pine for the return of
William Jefferson Clinton. Given the facts above, and the realities we face
about the administration of George W. Bush, and the realities we endure
regarding the aftermath of September 11, the United States of America would be,
and was, well served by its previous leader. That we do not know this, that
September 11 happened at all, that it was such a wretched shock to the American
people, that we were so woefully unprepared, can be laid at the feet of a failed
news media establishment, and at the feet of a pack of power-mad conservative
extremists who now have a great deal to atone for.
Had Clinton been heeded, the measures he espoused would have been
put in place, and a number of powerful bulwarks would have been thrown into the
paths of those commercial airplanes. Had the news media been something other
than a purveyor of masturbation fantasies from the far-right, the American
people would have know the threats we faced, and would have compelled their
Congressmen to act. Had Congress itself been something other than an institution
ruled by narrow men whose only desire was to break a sitting President by any
means necessary, we would very probably still have a New York skyline dominated
by two soaring towers.
Had the Bush administration not continued this pattern of gross
partisan ineptitude and heeded the blitz of domestic and international warnings,
instead of trooping off to Texas for a month-long vacation, had Bush's National
Security Advisor done one hour's worth of her homework, we probably would not be
in the grotesque global mess that currently envelops us. Never forget that many
of the activists who pushed throughout the 1990s for the annihilation of all
things Clinton are now foursquare in charge of the country today.
These are the sins of September 11. Thank you, Sidney. I'm sorry
I broke your book.
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William
Rivers Pitt is the Managing Editor of truthout.org. He is a New York Times
and international best-selling author of three books - "War On Iraq," available from Context Books, "The Greatest Sedition is Silence," available from Pluto Press,
and "Our Flag, Too: The Paradox of Patriotism," available in August
from Context Books.
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