2009 17
What if 9 11 was a freak event?
Published by MartinVarsavsky.net in General with No Comments
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Al Qaeda’s actions on 9/11 2001 changed America’s view of the world. After the terrorist attacks the Bush administration came to the conclusion that America as a whole was under attack from the Middle East and that the solution was to move that war away from home into the Muslim countries. But what if the US government, first the Bush administration and now the Obama administration, are wrong and the incredibly successful Al Qaeda attacks of 9/11 were not the beginning of a war on America or the West but a freak event?
In 2005 Safe Democracy, my foundation co- organized the largest conference ever put on the subject of terrorism. The conference was attended by many heads of state and 1300 experts from the Middle East and the rest of the world. One of the highlights of the conference was the decision of Kofi Annan to choose this event to announce the UN Principles for Nations to apply when fighting terrorism. These principles were understood by many as a warning to the US that terrorism could not be fought with more terror, a la Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib. Also around that time it become clear that the subsequent attacks that seemed to resembled 9/11, namely the bombings on March 11 in Madrid and July 7 in London were home grown efforts of a very different kind. These tragic post 9/11 terrorist bombings were found to be not so much a continued attack by Al Qaeda but the story of angry immigrants who were reacting to Spain and UK participating in the invasion of Iraq. In other words, these attacks were not originated in the Middle East but instead the consequence of our involvement in the Middle East. Terror in the form of brutal air bombings, torture on behalf of the US and EU occupying forces, led to more terror in Europe. Out of fighting Al Qaeda with methods perceived as unreasonably brutal by Muslim immigrants in Europe a new type of home grown terrorism was born. It was this realization that made Spain’s President Zapatero pull out from Iraq and since then the threat of Islamic terrorism has diminished.
So the question here is why the USA and EU continue to believe that occupation of either Iraq and Afghanistan, or only Afghanistan, is the best regional strategy. Many commentators still believe that we are safer because we occupy Afghanistan and Iraq. But lately many have been changing their views and are beginning to agree that Osama Bin Laden was a freak terrorist with a very personal agenda, who because of his own international background and skills, had his own global war to carry. We should not manage our international agenda thinking that the globally minded Osama Bin Laden is the rule but that even the most radical elements in the Muslim world are now focused in regional objectives in countries that are mostly Muslim or have large Muslim populations, such as the tragic attacks on India. Few critical observers believe that whoever is fighting Europe and the US in Afghanistan, for example, wants to actually attack Europe or the US the way Osama Bin Laden did. Instead most conflict in Afghanistan, and the Middle East in general, now is against occupying forces or Palestinian/Israeli, Sunni/Shia and moderate vs radical Islam.
Al Qaeda type attacks outside of the Middle East, like the attack in Mumbai, are serious but not the driving force of violence in the Middle East. The only way to prevent those is not for India to invade Pakistan, where a lot of radical Islam is based, but to better protect itself. By now it is clear that most of the fighters in Afghanistan just want the US and EU out of their country and will fight us like they fought the British 100 years ago and the Russians 30 years ago. But just like they did not go on attacking Great Britain after it pulled out of Afghanistan a century ago, I don’t think that even a Taliban Afghanistan will include a successor to Osama Bin Laden planning the next 9/11 out of there. I think that part of the message the Taliban got as well as Qaddafi got his when we bombed his home. And indeed, our enemies in Afghanistan want to turn the country back into the Middle Ages forcing men to wear beards, oppressing women, banning music and so on, but is it our role to turn the Middle East into Western democracies or to protect our way of life and economies in our own countries? Because if the answer is the former we could invade Saudi Arabia next, as most 9/11 attackers were Saudis and they also promote a way of life which we find that violates the rights of women, homosexuals and other groups who deserve their human dignity. But can we afford a global crusade for dignity? Would you send your child to die so the homosexuals of Iran, for example, stop getting the death penalty? Nobody seems to advocate that.
We have squandered over a trillion dollars occupying and policing Iraq and Afghanistan, trying for those countries to become something they don’t want to be. In the meantime we have been responsible for hundreds of thousands of deaths, the devastation of Iraq and Afghanistan’s fragile economies and we have given an impossible task to our military who are dying for a dubious cause in tragic ways. What we should be doing instead is focusing our precious human and financial resources in making sure that those who intend to destroy us, freaks like Osama Bin Laden, do not get hold of nuclear weapons or the infamous weapons of mass destruction and achieve their personal objectives. And I say personal because I travel the Middle East enough to conclude that most Muslims want to be like us rather than see us become like them. But to make sure that the next Osama does not show up with real weapons we need better cooperation with Russia and China who also suffer terribly from Islamic terrorism. We have to work with them not only because they are victims of the same phenomenon, their countries border the Islamic world but also if we antagonize them, they can be the reason why the next Osama Bin Laden does show up with a nuclear weapon. In short what we have to do is to make sure that 9 11 continues to be the biggest and most successful terrorist attack in history, a freak event that is never again repeated.
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gerryg on October 17, 2009 ·
A very ignorant post that ignores Al-Qaeda existed many years before 9/11, and had already bombed the world trade centre back in 93 and that Bill Clinton himself had tried to kill Bin Laden with misiles during the Lewinsky Affair. Martin you should be ashamed and apologize for this post. \otherwise, I suggest we start another post— What if the concentration camp of ausvich was a freak accident and hitler and the nazis were misunderstood???
As Obama himself said, afganistan is a war OF NECDESSITY. If the talibans win, what will happen to the women? do you care? If the Taliban win, afganistan will becomeAGAIN an alqaeda traning camp. All this has been documented, and it makes your ignorance staggering.
To be an entrepreneur you can be risky, creative and adventures, but here you are beingfrivilous and very ignorant. I suggest you emntion your wacky ideas to Bill clinton next time you see him see what he says
metoo on October 17, 2009 ·
What gerryg said. do you guys have such a short memory? (WTC in 93, USS Cole, Kenya, Tanzania, Lebanon, army barracks in Saudi). If AQ is not threatening except when attacked by us, why the terror in Turkey, Tunisia, Algeria, Egypt, India?
Francois: yeah, that would have worked fine. Invading the country where the 2 sacred sites of Islam are located.
Sameer Nadkarni on October 17, 2009 ·
your comment is either disappointingly naive or dangerously ignorant. Someone of your caliber should know better. What would you call the synchronized attacks on multiple locations in Mumbai (nov2008), the synchronized train blasts in Mumbai (jul2006), the attempt to slaughter the Sri Lanka cricket team in Pakistan (mar2009) and the numerous recent attacks (sep-oct2009) on civilian and military targets in Pakistan? All “freak” events? I suppose you believe Sri Lanka has occupied a big part of Afghanistan that the attacks were meant to get them out of there?
Do you not see the obvious quantum degree of difference in the planning, training, resources and funding involved in these attacks compared to the local attacks you mention? Obviously these are not the handiwork of a small local angry group. Obviously there is much more sophisticated funding, training and brainwashing involved to turn kids from a poverty-stricken background into professional-caliber fighters. Tune in to the court trial of the gunman captured from the Mumbai attacks to get some insight into how much of a “freak” event was the Mumbai attack and the slaughter at Chabad House, VT train station, Hilton and Taj Palace. There is also plenty of information that has come out about 9/11 that you should know whether this was a “freak” event.
Martin Varsavsky on October 17, 2009 ·
Sameer and Gerry, first there is no need to get so angry. This is my blog, it´s about friendly conversations. I think you can agree with me that neither Europe nor USA have been sucessfully attacked by Al Qaeda for the last 4 years. By freak I mean freak in how incredibly successful and lethal it was. Terrorism unfortunately is here to stay. In Spain we know it well. For decades now. But what the post is trying to argue is that spending over a trillion dollars invading countries, presiding over the death of hundreds of thousands of people in Iraq, Afghanistan, is in my view not the best way to fight Al Qaeda.
ruxpert on October 17, 2009 ·
‘war on terror’ is espionage/LIE Against America!
Heck, we still don’t even know Who Did 911?
Try to ponder more deeply how ill informed you be.
Try to better fight the War On Error, please
ruxpert on October 18, 2009 ·
‘The 9/11 Solution’?
http://brasschecktv.com/page/92.html
The Looniest Of All 911 Conspiracy Theories
http://www.rense.com/general69/statee.htm
ruxpert on October 18, 2009 ·
9/11 Truth: The 9/11 Commission Was Set Up To Fail
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tzrv-e37Es8
ruxpert on October 18, 2009 ·
“The pretext for waging war is under increasing scrutiny. The White House
blocked an investigation of 9/11 in 2002, even as Congress was fully under
way. Later, the 9/11commission admitted they were “set up to fail.” Now,
even the FBI says they have no evidence to indict bin Laden for 9/11.”
viggen on October 18, 2009 ·
To say that the US and UK are occupying powers is ignorant, just because there is no purpose to occupy but to clean those country from the subhumans who threaten our civilization. Once the job is done, everyone will go back home and the Afghans will decide their fate themselves.
Brian on October 18, 2009 ·
Those kooky, dumb America politicians. Why, I guess they just don’t understand the world as clearly as you do. Perhaps if you simply write a letter to the president and the members of congress, they will immediately realize their foolishness and withdraw all troops from the Middle East.
Or perhaps it is actually you who is naive and foolish.
The U.S. ruling elite didn’t send the military into the Middle East in an effort to end terrorism, rather it was an effort to increase terrorism of the imperialist, state-sponsored variety. There is a very good imperialist reason why the U.S. — under two different presidents and with the congress under the control of two different parties, is looking exactly like the Nazis of 70 years ago. The U.S. military attacks, kills, destroys, tortures, occupies and subsequently props up compradore leaders to sign over much of their nation’s wealth to the foreign invaders. Such has long been our history. How is it that you don’t recognize imperialist conquest when it is right in front of your eyes?
Just as it was the Nazis themselves who set the Reichstag ablaze in an effort to set in motion their own political agenda, it was the U.S. ruling class who attacked America on 9-11. All the evidence, including the writings of the PNAC, point directly at the U.S. ruling class. In spite of that reality, plenty of dupes continue to embrace the impossible, foolish claim that we were attacked by Bin Laden and Al Qaeda.
David Ray Griffin has done some of the most thorough and compelling research and writing on the 9-11 attacks. Go read his books and essays. Go watch his videos — many of which are posted on the Internet. It will be an eye opener for you. But there is also plenty of other compelling evidence that 9-11 was a U.S. government conspiracy. Yet in spite of the whitewashed investigation and the 9/11 Commission Report, there is absolutely no evidence that it was a Bin Laden/Al Qaeda conspiracy.
Here’s a sampling of some of the evidence. All you have to do is logically explain away the evidence while providing some Bin Laden/Al Qaeda evidence and we Truthers would all eagerly change our minds. We don’t want to believe that our government is a criminal, murderous entity. We believe such only because we are able to look at evidence objectively and think for ourselves.
The fact is that all three of the buildings that collapsed on 9/11 came done in the appearance of a controlled demolition. That fact was stated repeatedly on 9-11 by firemen and news media. Yet, 8 years later, one cannot state that obvious fact on the major media without immediately being dismissed as a “kooky conspiracy theorist” — even as our nation’s history is packed full of government conspiracies. Why can’t the simple fact be acknowledged? The reason is because merely acknowledging the fact that those building appear to have come down as the result of a controlled demolition implicates the state in the crime.
Following is a small sampling of the evidence.
Ex-Italian President: Intel Agencies Know 9/11 An Inside Job; Man who set up Operation Gladio tells Italy’s largest newspaper attacks were run by CIA, Mossad
Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet
Tuesday, December 4, 2007
http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/december2007/120407_common_knowledge.htm
————–
DAN RATHER ON 9-11 SAYS WTC-7 COLLAPSE LOOKS LIKE DEMOLITION.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nvx904dAw0o
————-
Here is FOX News reporting on 9-11 that there is no plane at the crash site of Flight 93
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JZekosYOmXc
———
Firemen on the scene describe the collapse as a “controlled demolition.”
Fireman on his radio talks about the fires in the WTC being small and
able to be put out with 2 lines.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SXD3bAbZCow&feature=related
————
A controlled demolition of Building 7 must have been planned weeks in
advance of 9-11-2001. Collapse of Building 7 not even mentioned in 9-11
Commission report
http://video.google.com/videosearch?q=building+7+conspiracy&hl=en&emb=0&aq=1&oq=building+7+#
——————-
Many firemen on the scene on 9-11 reported lots of explosions in the World Trade Center towers and described the collapse as a controlled
demolition.
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x1dgle_911-firemen-describe-wtc-explosions_news
—————
Where is the wreckage of the plane at the Pentagon? For a plane to have fit through the small hole in the side of the Pentagon it would have
required that the massive wing span (at the very least) would have
caused damage to the building and be seen as wreckage outside the
Pentagon. But that’s not at all what we see. Instead, we see photos
that indicate that whatever hit the Pentagon was not Flight 77. This
also begs the question, “What happened to that flight?
http://video.google.com/videosearch?q=9-11+pentagon&hl=en&emb=0&aq=f#
—————
WTC Buildings didn’t collapse. They disintegrated. Why did the 9/11 Commission Report bar 503 1st responder eyewitnesses? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IwQa5eokieY
—————-
Loose Change 2nd Edition Recut
Video
Dylan Avery, Korey Rowe, and Jason Bermas bring you the most powerful 9/11 Documentary yet. Updated!!!!
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7866929448192753501
—————
Debunking 9/11 Debunking
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xbY5_qtz83M
Paul Craig Roberts Reviews Griffin’s Debunking 9/11 Debunking
Former Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan Administration, Paul Craig Roberts, reviews David Ray Griffin’s new book, Debunking 9/11 Debunking
9/11 and the Evidence
By Paul Craig Roberts
http://www.911blogger.com/node/7262
Excerpt:
Professor David Ray Griffin is the nemesis of the official 9/11 conspiracy theory. In his latest book, Debunking 9/11 Debunking, Griffin destroys the credibility of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and Popular Mechanics reports, annihilates his critics, and proves himself to be a better scientist and engineer than the defenders of the official story.
Griffin’s book is 385 pages divided into four chapters and containing 1,209 footnotes. Without question, the book is the most thorough presentation and examination of all known facts about the 9/11 attacks. Griffin is a person who is sensitive to evidence, logic, and scientific reasoning. There is no counterpart on the official side of the story who is as fully informed on all aspects of the attacks as Griffin.
At the outset, Griffin points out that the reader’s choice is between two conspiracy theories: One is that Muslim fanatics, who were not qualified to fly airplanes, defeated the security apparatus of the US and succeeded in three out of four attacks using passenger jets as weapons. The other is that security failed across the board, not merely partially but totally, because of complicity of some part of the US government.
Griffin points out that there has been no independent investigation of 9/11. What we have are a report by a political commission headed by Bush administration factotum Philip Zelikow, a NIST report produced by the Bush administration’s Department of Commerce, and a journalistic account produced by Popular Mechanics. Various scientists who work for the federal government or are dependent on government grants have issued speculative statements in behalf of the official conspiracy theory, but have not produced meaningful evidence in its behalf.
Polls show that 36% of Americans do not believe the official story. Setting aside the 25% of the public that is so uninformed or uninvolved as to believe that Saddam Hussein was responsible for the 9/11 attack, leaves 39% of the public who believe the official story. However, this 39% is essentially relying on the mainstream media’s endorsement of the official story. Griffin believes, perhaps naively, that truth can prevail, and it is his commitment to truth that has motivated him to shoulder the enormous task.
Everyone who believes in the integrity of the US government or the Bush administration will find Griffin’s book to be disturbing. Readers will have to confront such issues as why US authorities seized the forensic evidence resulting from the destruction of the three World Trade Center buildings, the attack on the Pentagon and the crashed airliner in Pennsylvania and prevented any forensic examination of any part of the 9/11 attacks.
Despite widespread belief that Osama bin Laden was responsible for the attack, the evidence we have is a suspect video declared to be “bogus” by Bruce Lawrence, perhaps the leading American expert on bin Laden. The US government has never produced the promised report on bin Laden’s responsibility. When the Taliban offered to hand over bin Laden on presentation of evidence, the US government had no evidence to deliver; thus the invasion of Afghanistan.
The fragility of the NIST report is astonishing. The report succeeded because people accepted its assurances without examination.
Griffin shows that the Popular Mechanics report consists of special pleading, circular reasoning, appeals to the authority of the NIST report, straw men, and internal contradictions in the report itself.
There is not space in a review to present the evidence Griffin has mustered. A few highlights should suffice to alert readers to the possibility that the Bush administration has lied about more than Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction.
The two WTC towers did not collapse. They blew up and disintegrated, as did WTC 7. There is an enormous energy deficit in every account that rules out the use of explosives. Gravitational energy is insufficient to explain the pulverization of the buildings and contents and the severing of the 47 massive center core steel columns in each of the towers into convenient lengths to be picked up and loaded onto trucks; much less can gravitational energy account for the pulverization of the top floors of the towers and ejection of steel beams hundreds of feet horizontally just prior to the disintegration of the floors below.
Damage caused by airliners and short-lived limited fires cannot explain the disintegration of the buildings. The massive steel skeletons of the towers comprised a gigantic heat sink that wicked away whatever heat the limited fires produced.
NIST’s final report stated that of the steel available to it for examination, “only three columns had evidence that the steel reached temperatures above 250 degrees Celsius” (482 degrees Fahrenheit). The self-cleaning ovens in our home kitchens reach temperatures higher than this, and the ovens do not melt or deform.
Steel begins to melt at 1,500 degrees C or 2,800 degrees F. Temperatures of 250 degrees C would have no effect on the strength of steel. The explanation that the buildings collapsed because fire weakened the steel is speculative. Open air fires do not produce temperatures sufficient to deprive steel of its structural integrity. Steel framed buildings have burned 22 hours in raging infernos, and the steel skeletons remained standing. The WTC fires in the towers lasted about one hour and were limited to a few floors. Moreover, it is impossible for fire to account for the sudden, total and symmetrical disintegration of powerfully constructed buildings, much less at free fall speeds that are obtainable only with controlled demolition.
——
Griffin provides quotes from firefighters, police, and tenants, who heard and experienced a series of explosions prior to the disintegration of the towers. Such witness testimony is generally ignored by defenders of the official conspiracy theory.
Molten steel was found in underground levels of the WTC buildings weeks after the buildings’ destruction. As everyone agrees that the fires did not approach the melting point of steel, a possible explanation is high explosives used in demolitions that produce 5,000 degree temperatures. The possibility that explosives were used remains unexamined except by independent researchers.
Contradictions in the official conspiracy theory leap off the pages and hit the reader in the face. For example, the evidence that Flight 77, a Boeing 757, crashed into the Pentagon is the government’s claim to have obtained from the wreckage enough bodies and body parts to match the DNA for each person on the passenger list and flight crew. Simultaneously, the absence of passenger luggage, fuselage, wing and tail sections–indeed the absence of a 100,000 pound airliner–is attributed to the vaporization of the airplane due to the high speed crash and intense fire. The incompatibility of vaporized metal but recovered flesh and blood stood unnoticed until Griffin pointed it out.
Another striking inconsistency in the official conspiracy theory is the difference in the impact of airliners on the Pentagon and the WTC towers. In the case of the Pentagon, the emphasis is on why the airliner caused so little damage to the building. In the case of the WTC towers, the emphasis is why the airliners caused so much damage.
Perhaps it is merely a coincidence that just prior to 9/11 Cathleen P. Black, who has family connections to the CIA and Pentagon and is president of Hearst Magazines, the owner of Popular Mechanics, fired the magazine’s editor-in-chief and several senior veteran staff members and installed James B. Meigs and Benjamin Chertoff, a cousin of Bush administration factotum Michael Chertoff. It was Meigs and Benjamin Chertoff who produced the Popular Mechanics report that Griffin has eviscerated.
In his conclusion Griffin reminds us that the 9/11 attack has been used to start wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, to plan an attack on Iran, to curtail constitutional protections and civil liberties in the US, to radically expand US military budgets and the power of the executive, and to enrich entrenched vested interests. Griffin is definitely correct about this regardless of whether a believable case can ever be made for the government’s version of the 9/11 conspiracy.
ruxpert on October 18, 2009 ·
if others continued to insist to lie about Americans as excuse/rational to invade our home land and murder us by ranting Americans were/are subhumans, we might call them devious liars trying to misdirect / deflect the subhuman activities they initiated upon us hypocritically.
such a campaign to destroy America’s Core Accountability Image throughout the World, is Enemy Behavior Implemented from within; and appears, together with sabotage of American economy/dollar; together with Freedom/Rights Destruction mechanisms like The ‘Patriot’ Act, etc …; is apparently determined to cripple if not destroy America from what America has meant to be.
ruxpert on October 18, 2009 ·
Why: War in Iraq and Afghanistan
Both wars were planned long before 9/11
October 10, 2009
The New American Century
http://rainbowwarrior2005.wordpress.com/2009/10/10/why-war-in-iraq-and-afghanistan/
ruxpert on October 18, 2009 ·
The 9/11 Commission Rejects own Report as Based on Government Lies
Gordon Duff Salem-News.com
http://www.salem-news.com/articles/september112009/911_truth_9-11-09.php
gerryg on October 18, 2009 ·
Martin,
I love your blog, but buddy you’re way out of line here. The “insurrection is an insurrection of freedom fighters”- Please inform yourself a little better. Freedom for women? Freedom under the Taliban? If you read a little or just watch 60 minutes, for example, you’d see the people of afganistan say they are afraid to cooperate with the americans because they don’t have enough presence to protect them from the taliban.
You also talk about al qaeda casually like 9/11 was a random act, and you totally disregard previous attacks since 1988. Don’t you know that bill clinton had tried to kill bin laden several times, but failed?
You remind me of chamberlain, the appeaser, in world war II. If it was up to chamberlain, hitler would heve dominated europe and the jews would probably be gone. thanks to the bravery of the churchills of this world he was defeated.
Try to reread your posting again-The way you minimize the threat of al qaeda and its dangers are very upsetting.
Martin Varsavsky on October 18, 2009 ·
Freedom fighters in the sense that they want the occupation of their country to end. As far as the kind of government that the Taliban want it is against most principles that I am in favor of. But frankly so is the government of Saudi Arabia. The question is, should we invade Iran because they have the death penalty for homosexuality which they do? Or Saudi Arabia? Or should we just look at protecting ourselves as well as we can from terrorist attacks, and stand ready to invade with clear and short term military objectives. What I meant about 911 is that it was incredibly successful and lethal not that terrorism is over. Terrorism is like drug trafficking, an activity that leads to an incredible number of deaths and misery but we live with it. Do we stop driving because thousands die driving? No we don´t. Should we invade countries for 10 years because they were partly involved in a large terrorist attack or should we use those resources to have better police, better judicial systems, better intelligence, and a better military. Is it fair to the military to keep them for a decade in a foreign country doing the job of local policemen? Of course we have enemies, but we have to learn how to use our scarce resources with clear objectives. Our objective cannot be to democratize Muslim nations and turn them into Western democracies. Our job is to make sure that some people from those nations don´t come to ours to blow us up and to collaborate with those who we see most align with our objectives in the Middle East.
metoo on October 18, 2009 ·
“Freedom fighters in the sense that they want the occupation of their country to end. ”
Sorry, Martin, but you’re wrong again. If they really wanted the occupation to end, they could have succeeded like 3 or 4 years ago, simply by not blowing people. Don’t have the slightest doubt about this. The reason why the occupation is still ongoing is because safety from the bastards is needed. Plus, I object to your equation “Freedom fighters” = “Guys who want an occupation to end”, because those fighters may want to substitute the situation for a lack of freedom. I think it’s undisputable that a/ those guys are not fighting for people to be freer, in the western sense, b/ people in Iraq and Afghanistan are freer than anyone else in the middle east –excl Israel–. They’re less safe, and that’s a concern. But what they are not is less free.
ruxpert on October 18, 2009 ·
War Is Peace. Ignorance Is Strength
By John Pilger
Barack Obama, winner of the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize, is planning another war to add to his impressive record. In Afghanistan, his agents routinely extinguish wedding parties, farmers and construction workers with weapons such as the innovative Hellfire missile, which sucks the air out of your lungs.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article23737.htm
ruxpert on October 18, 2009 ·
Invisible History: Afghanistan’s Untold Story
video:
http://www.c-spanvideo.org/videoLibrary/video.php?progid=202346
http://www.c-spanarchives.org/library/index.php?main_page=product_video_info&products_id=284378-1
Paul Fitzgerald and Elizabeth Gould talked about their book Invisible
History: Afghanistan’s Untold Story (City Lights Publishers; January 1,
2009) with Back Pages Books store owner Alex Green, and they responded to
audience members’ question. Their history of Afghanistan includes their own
first-hand accounts of the U.S. government’s involvement there in the late
1970s and 1980s. Paul Fitzgerald and Elizabeth Gould, a husband and wife
team, first began reporting on Afghanistan for CBS News in 1981 and have
also covered Afghanistan for “Nightline” and the “MacNeil/Lehrer News Hour.”
They are also the producers of the PBS documentary Afghanistan: Between
Three Worlds.
Invisible History
ID: 284378-1 _ Forum
02/11/2009 – 53 minutes
Goup' on October 19, 2009 ·
Please work on the fonera and other IT stuff and forget the rest…
Elliott on October 19, 2009 ·
Martin:
Without getting into the ethics & morality issues being bandied about above, it is important to realize that these were not “freak” isolated events, but part of a pattern of terrorism that goes back a couple of decades. It is just so easy for individuals to travel around the world. One can not only look at the attacks that were successful [for the terrorists] as an indication of how widespread terrorism is in the world. Just because the USA has not experienced an attack on the level of 9/11 doesn’t mean that there haven’t been a number of failed attempts in the US and Europe that have been prevented by the enormous amount of resources utilized to prevent one. There have been numerous arrests and convictions that have been publicized and, I am sure, more that haven’t been made public as well as many more just deterred by the security systems put in place since 9/11. One cannot enter any government building without being on video and having your belongings screened as at the airport.
antoin O Lachtnain on October 19, 2009 ·
Maybe 9/11 and the military action that followed it represented the end of an era, rather than the beginning of one?
Daniel Bland on October 21, 2009 ·
Want to wake up American’s to the truth of 9/11? Here’s how……
Make it go viral! Thanks!
Daniel Bland
Desider on October 21, 2009 ·
Wow, Martin, you have a tough time with this audience, eh?
First, WTC ’93 was not Al Qaeda.
The USS Cole bombing killed 17 and injured 39. Worth changing foreign policy over?
(The Oklahoma City bombing killing 168 carried out by white US radicals didn’t seem
to promote a crackdown on white US radicals)
The USS Cole bombing would have prompted a bigger response if it hadn’t come
in the middle of an election cycle – Clinton held off as courtesy to not politicize it
less than a month before the election. Hard to imagine Bush’s team acting as responsibly.
Attacking Afghanistan over Al Qaeda seems warranted. Bogging ourselves down there
for the next 8 years after mission was accomplished seems insane. Even with Iraq I’m
slightly forgiving – sometimes in pool when shots are too few, you just have to break
up the field, lovingly called “the buckshot”, whether right or wrong. Doing that without
having any plans in place for containment is again insane. Continuing to create dragons
out of mosquitoes, especially by placing ourselves right in front of those mosquitoes,
is again insane. We neutralized Qaddafi. We neutralized Milosevic. We promoted the
Orange Revolution. We know there are less self-defeating ways to pursue tough policy
goals, but we chose to ignore these and go in for jingoist immature cowboy policy out
of some strange insecurity. Don Quixote may have tilted at windmills, but at least he
didn’t build the windmills himself.
Al Qaeda/Osama bin Laden was and is a tiny problem. A problem worth dealing with,
but still a tiny problem. Pulling out a bazooka to kill a mosquito will cause a lot of other
problems not very much related to the mosquito. More flyswatters please.
Martín Alejandro Carmona Selva on October 29, 2009 ·
One must be very naïve to believe that AlQaeda was behind the 9/11 attacks.
For sure more than 3000 people died, but this was the work of the REAL AXIS OF EVIL -Illuminatti and Co.-
I’m a too much too crazy and paranoid? Well, perhaps, but after studing the subject as much as I did, I still don’t get most of the things we’re told about this.
Do yourselves a favor and watch “The Great Illusion” and then we’ll talk again.
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Francois on October 17, 2009 ·
If a country had to be invaded post 9/11 it should have been Saudi Arabia, not Afghanistan or Irak.
It would have serve the US interests better: improve access to oil, get rid of terrorist sponsors, promote democracy, etc. And it would not have destabilize the balance between Irak, Iran, Israel, Lebanon and Syria.