Friday, September 11, 2009

The Real Lessons of 9/11

By Robert Parry
September 11, 2009

On this eighth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, it’s worth reflecting on how even a mildly competent U.S. President might have prevented the terror attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people and drove the United States into a spasm of revenge that has wasted untold blood and treasure.

Read on.
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13 comments:

Runyan Wilde said...

The 9/11 Truth movement, which Parry dismisses out of hand as "conspiracy theorists", makes no claim other than that the official story is totally unbelieveable and rife with contradictions and nonsense. These
"crackpots" include victims' families, intelligence veterans, physicists, engineers, pilots and researchers. Why should the call for an honest investigation (made more difficult by the illegal removal of evidence) be ridiculed?

Fri Sep 11, 02:23:00 PM 2009
sheldon1010101 said...

I agree that the conspiracy theorists are wrong. I'll talk about Bush below.

To stir the pot, here's my favorite issue --- why was wtc 7 taken down.

I assume that there was only one motive for the attack on the world trade center.

But 3 big buildings went down, the two towers and the wtc7.

I could possibly believe that there was some nefarious plot other than airplanes in bringing down the two towers.

I could possible believe, if it was only wtc 7, that there was a nefarious plot in bringing down wtc 7.

But there just ain't any nefarious plot (outside of airplanes) that makes sense of taking down the 2 two towers and wtc7.

And here's where ideology replaces logic. Because no planes hit wtc 7 therefore it must have been brought down by internal explosions, even though there is no logic for doing in all 3 buildings. The horror is this, if WTC 7 wasn't brought by explosives then we have an excellent example of a very large building being taken down by huge fires.

Oops.

I agree that the Bush response before 9/11 was incompetent. Much as I would like to think so, I can't see that the Bush administration was much more incompetent than any other non-Gore administration.

It was the problems of a new, unrelated administration combined with plain old bureaucratic stupidity that seems much more likely to be the case

Fri Sep 11, 09:30:00 PM 2009
Cliff Gieseke said...

I am hoping that Robert Parry will eventually tackle the flawed government conspiracy theory, since he has proven himself to be a very competent reporter with lots of integrity. ... Perhaps his skills are better applied to areas he has applied them. ... And this (U.S.) 9-11 event is terribly perplexing.

Fri Sep 11, 11:43:00 PM 2009
Anonymous said...

Why doesn't he pose the question of WHY did the FBI seniors posefully squash the urgent memos for action and investigation of the flight school students?
Isn't it plausible that they were under pressure from the Bush administration NOT to investigate for fear of disrupting an attack that they needed to happen in order to facilitate their entire platform of goals (IRAQ invasion etc)?

Sat Sep 12, 09:25:00 AM 2009
Anonymous said...

Anonymous meant to type "purposefully", oops.

Sat Sep 12, 09:26:00 AM 2009
Peter Carson said...

Based on my background as the owner of a machine shop for 3 decades, product innovator and consultant to mechanical P.Eng's, Mr Parry is completely wrong in every aspect of his "uneducated, unsupportable and inept opinions". Parry dismisses all hard evidence and scientific facts in place of the "official commission", pancake and vapourization theories. Parry has zero knowledge of metalurgy, physics or fire science to know how stupid his opinion truly is, per a short list of conflicts:

1. Where is the plane wreckage at the pentagon and Shanksville?

2. How did all high temp titanium alloys "vapourize", and human flesh survice for DNA sampling?

3. All 3 WTC's fell at a speed equal to or faster than gravity?

4. Survival of Atta's passport?

5. Where are the pictures from hundreds of CCTV camera's at the pentagon and 86 other sites?

The list of ridiculous conflicts and contradictions is endless beyond points raised.

Any lay person of reasonable intelligence will conclude Parry made an imbecile of himself by failing to do the research before opening his mouth. Do the work or remove all doubt of being an ass.
Yours, very truly.
Peter Carson
Vancouver BC CanaDUH
cansteel1978@yahoo.ca

Sat Sep 12, 02:15:00 PM 2009
Len said...

Peter, I agree with the points you raised and would like to add another perplexity:

How could a plane of such size only leave a 16 foot hole at impact point, prior to roof collapse? Add to the perplexity, no wing damage either, yet, we are supposed to believe that this giant plane and everything in it vaporized???

I have spoken to air line pilots and there was unanimous agreement that no rank amateur could have brought down a plane of this size, make a complete turn and losing just the right amount of elevation so as to skim, the parking lot, then to crash and leave only a sixteen foot hole in the only part of the Pentagon that had a decided absence of people due to construction. If these "hijackers" were that good, wonder why they didn't target Rumsfeld's office?

I read the commission's report and they didn't even mention Building 7.
Does anyone wonder why so many have questions?

Sat Sep 12, 04:02:00 PM 2009
Thomas said...

WOW..!!!! I DON'T EVEN KNOW WHERE TO BEGIN..!!

Seeing how bush behaved at the school when card told him of the second strike was enough for me to begin looking at EVERYTHING.....The man did NOT stand up..!! Engines weighing six tons going 450 mph don't break the windows. at the Pentagon..?? You are just having a little fun with us ...right...trying to see how watchful we are....is that it?? You don't really believe what they tell the bubbas right..?? & Isn't Ray a truther....I think he is.. I just watched his Nov. 24 2007 speech.... Sure dousn't sound like he is very comfortable with the offal story we have been told.... Did YOU ever hear that speech..?? Hear him talk about Sibel Edmonds "The most gaged person in American history" Talk about how he cornered Pinetta and GRILLED him about what occurred when Cheney & Pinetta were in the bunker and someone was saying...It's 50 Miles out......It's 40 miles out....but all Pinetta wanted to talk about was Pennesylvania.... Wasn't Ray after "truth" when he confronted Pinetta?? You do good work Mr. Perry... but clearly you are off key when you seem to altogether lightly dismiss those of us who don't believe their story......

Sun Sep 13, 12:19:00 AM 2009
Scott said...

Like Matt Taibbi at Rolling Stone Robert Parry seems to have opted for a compromise with the Establishment - hands off the rest of my stories and I'll go to bat for you on 9/11.

Taibbi was humiliated when he tried to actually debate the issue with David Ray Griffin, and Parry seems to be intent on following in his footsteps. Take for instance Parry's statement

"And, to a surprising degree, “the 9/11 truth movement” shared a common interest with the Bush administration – both groups needed to dismiss the evidence of Bush’s incompetence, albeit for different reasons.

It is hard to believe someone intelligent would mention such a tenuous link without outside motivation. As already implied in the comment section Parry is making his own assumptions in order to assert it was Bush's incompetence that allowed 9/11 to happen. Certainly it widely held in Washington, DC that it was Cheney who was the true power running the U.S. Government, not Bush, who according to all available evidence, was little more than a figurehead.

Accordingly the version of events as hypothesized by the 9/11 Truth Movement couldn't possibly be directly associated with the President - because it was a series of massive failures by both intelligence and military which allowed the successful attack. Yet both, because they are so crucial to the security of the nation, have failsafes to guarantee successful execution. Therefore they must have been overridden, and to many that translates into very, very senior authority.

The "Truthers" (and I count myself as one of them) believe this was a largely successful conspiracy which achieved its aims. We believe, however, that any close examination of the government's own explanation for what happened that day will find it doesn't hold water. That the most logical way to explain everthing requires the active complicity of the U.S. government (the Made It Happen On Purpose scenario)is where most of the controversy should arise. Unfortunately, by attacking the unassailable logic the Truth Movement uses to show the government's own theory is false, Parry has sullied his own reputation of impartiality in this matter.

Sun Sep 13, 02:26:00 PM 2009
RichardKanePA said...

Robert Parry, you made some extremely important points and our future will be in trouble if the American people don’t understand and internalize some of it. I also want to enclose this link relating to unsavory characters who managing to get involved in the 911 truth movement,
www.opednews.com/articles/genera_michael__071030_questioning_9_2f11_and.htm
or Google “Questioning 9/11 and the Hell with Caution”
However, you left Cheney out of your analysis. He was acting president on foreign policy matters after he chased George Tenet and Colin Powell away. How much influence did he have early on and to what extent was he pushing Richard Perle’s call for A New Pearl Harbor?,
http://www.ifamericansknew.org/us_ints/nc-pilger.html

As far as the small hole in the Pentagon, and the lack of Pentagon plane wreckage pictures goes. The first story was that few had died at the Pentagon because much of that section was empty for reconstruction purposes. However, no construction workers were hurt. Back when I grew up in Washington DC the government was paranoid with anyone even entering the shopping mall next to the Pentagon with a camera. I think the pictures of top secret construction techniques were seized by the government from the Internet. And its time for Obama and Congress to order the pictures returned or pieces of wreckage pictures with the parts showing construction secrets cut out.

Blogging this information at CapitolHillBlue,
http://www.capitolhillblue.com/node/19109

I got a response that 125 people died at the Pentagon. This is not consistent with the newspaper stories during September and October 2001.

I wish there was some way to look at the old newspapers instead of blogging. Maybe I’ll look for microfiche copies, because I think it is possible that someone is covering up the cover up with a new cover up “Why oh why did she swallow that Fly” Perhaps it is not only Bush that is out of it but that the entire world and at least our country resembles a “Three Stooges Flick”.
The back and forth argument at that site included,
http://www.capitolhillblue.com/node/19109#comment-53774
http://www.capitolhillblue.com/node/19109#comment-53844
If readers are not following me I’m trying to suggest that a lot of weird things have been happening perhaps for some very silly reasons rather than some very intricately created evil conspiracy.

If anyone has access to old newspaper from 9/11/2001 to December 2001, I would like to verify that back then it was reported that very few died at the Pentagon. People in casual conversation, not double checking with the Internet, have been agreeing with me.

Anyway I hope Robert Parry studies and reports on the 911 story with the thoroughness he covered other stories, and I wish I was able to get return emails from him.

Richard Kane
RichardKanePA.blogspot.com
http://capitolhillblue.com/blog/2419

Mon Sep 14, 07:55:00 PM 2009
Nat Parry said...

I think both the inside-job theories and the incompetence theories miss the larger point of: why do they hate us? There is a reason that so many people have been driven to such extremes and a lot of it has to do with our own foreign policy, particularly our unwavering, unconditional support of Israel. The inside-job theories completely miss this point, indeed, some of these theories are predicated on the notion that al-Qaeda doesn't even exist, that it is a CIA fabrication. The theories that focus solely on the incompetence of the Bush administration only give a tacit nod to the root causes, at best.

Tue Sep 15, 08:38:00 AM 2009
RichardKanePA said...

Nat Parry, they don't hate us nearly as much as they would hate Russia or China when they were at the forefront of stopping the most militant Muslims.

By staying in Pakistan and Afghanistan, we are stopping millions of Chinese and Afgans and Pakistanees from killing each other. Which doesn't mean I cheer the US bankrupting itself with every greater military expendatures.

Tue Sep 15, 09:16:00 AM 2009
Anonymous said...

While I am generally skeptical of conspiracy theories, I am equally skeptical of "official" commission reports. Two things jumped out at me on 09/11/09. One is an article published that day in World Architecture News explaining in well-documented technical detail why the 3 buildings in NYC could not have been brought down the way they were by hydrocarbon fires alone as the "official" version has it. The article makes no effort to conjecture about causes or motivations or participants; it simply reviews the accumulated scientific data which support reasonable doubt about the prevailing story. The second is the Tom Brokaw live braodcast during the event. As news was coming in, he reported an observation by NYC chief fire safety officer live on site that he heard several secondary explosions well after plane impacts, at least one of which he was confident was due to an explosive "device" internal to the buildings, not simply a gas line blowing. I had never heard that comment before and it left me quite receptive to the scientific review. Who and why are totally separate, if finally quite frightening, questions. Parry should re-think his dismissal of those not satisfied that the public knows the whole truth. His critique of the Bush administration is, otherwise, on target.

Tue Sep 15, 11:09:00 PM 2009

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