[Mb-civic] The 9/11 Report Misses the Point

[Michael Butler]

    The 9/11 Report Misses the Point
    By Marjorie Cohn
    t r u t h o u t | Perspective

     Saturday 24 July 2004

     After vigorously resisting the establishment of the National Commission
on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, known as the 9/11 Commission,
George W. Bush is now celebrating its findings. "Constructive," said the
commander-in-chief, who plans to study the report. Bottom line: Bush is
mightily relieved that the collective finger of the Commission doesn¹t point
too much in his direction.

     No person or agency is singled out to take serious responsibility for
the attacks that killed 3000 people on September 11, 2001. A list of missed
opportunities is carefully divided 60-40, six occurring during the Bush II
administration and four on Clinton¹s watch. The report recommends the
creation of a new intelligence czar, increased congressional oversight, and
transparency in funding for intelligence. But the Commissioners were
unanimous in refusing to conclude that 9/11 could have been prevented.

     The events of September 11 are recited in chilling detail in the
much-anticipated 500-page tome. Although the Commission concludes that the
attacks "were a shock," it says, "they should not have come as a surprise."
The report provides an itemized list of structural shortcomings, and
improvements that could better prepare us for the next terrorist attack.

     "Because of offensive actions against al Qaeda since 9/11, and defense
actions to improve homeland security," the Commissioners wrote, "we believe
we are safer today." They go on to say: "But we are not safe." The
centerpiece of Bush¹s election campaign is his mantra that the world has
become a safer place on his watch. Earlier this week, however, U.N.
Secretary-General Kofi Annan said, "I cannot say the world is safer today
than it was two, three years ago."

     Indeed, many feel Bush¹s misguided war on Iraq has actually made us
less safe. But the 9/11 report does not address Operation "Iraqi Freedom"
critically. A 23-year veteran of the CIA, identified in the Boston Phoenix
as Michael Scheuer, maintains in his soon-to-be-released book, "Imperial
Hubris: Why the West is Losing the War on Terror," that "Iraq was a gift of
epic proportions to Osama bin Laden and those who think like him."

     The former CIA agent advocates a genuine debate within the United
States about its policies in the Middle East, including its relationship
with Saudi Arabia and its unqualified support for Israel. "I think before
you draft a policy to defeat bin Laden," says Sheuer, "you have to
understand that our policies are what drives him and those who follow him."

     Scheuer is not alone in his admonition. Earlier this month, Senator
Ernest F. Hollings (D-S.C.) penned in the Charleston Post and Courier:
"Osama bin Laden hit us because of our presence in Saudi Arabia and policy
in Israel/Palestine." Hollings wrote: "Imagine 37 years¹ occupation of
Palestine Š Palestine is left with the hopeless and embittered .. But
embittered refugees from without lead with terrorism." The senator urges the
building of a Palestinian state. "It can¹t be built," however, "while homes
are bulldozed, settlements extended and walls are constructed."

     Both Hollings and Brandeis Professor Robert B. Reich, Secretary of
Labor in the Clinton administration, dismiss the notion that we are fighting
a "War on Terrorism." Hollings says, "Terrorism is not a war, but a weapon."
Reich agrees: "Terrorism is a tactic. It is not itself our enemy."

     Challenging Bush¹s claim that the terrorists hate us because of our
values, Hollings retorts: "It¹s not our values or people, but our Mideast
policy they oppose." Reich argues for restarting the Middle East peace
process, which Bush has "run away from."

     Many in the Arab and Muslim world see U.S. policies as terrorist. They
witnessed the deaths of one million innocent Iraqis as a result of Western
sanctions during the 1990s. The tens of thousands of Iraqi civilians killed
by Bush¹s "coalition" in Iraq have not escaped their notice. And they see
the photographs and hear the accounts of torture and humiliation of their
brothers emerging from the prisons in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay.

     Yet the 9/11 report glosses over the atrocities, calling them
"allegations that the United States abused prisoners in its custody." The
photographs belie this characterization as mere "allegations." And the
Commissioners have bought into Donald Rumsfeld¹s moniker of "abuse," when it
is clear that rape, murder and sodomy with foreign objects constitute
torture.

     Conspicuously absent from the report is a political analysis of why the
tragedy occurred. Missing from the report is a comprehensive strategy to
overhaul U.S. foreign policy to inoculate us from the wrath of those who
resent American imperialism.

     The report does not undertake a serious criticism of Bush¹s
misadventure in Iraq, the lies under girding it, and the tragedy it has
created in that country. It fails to analyze why this war that Bush created
has opened a Pandora¹s Box of terrorism where none existed before. Notably,
there is a categorical statement that no evidence linked Iraq with the
September 11 attacks.

     However, the report focuses on Iran, noting that some of the hijackers
easily passed through Iran in the months before 9/11. Yet it finds no
evidence that Iran knew of the impending attacks.

     Bush¹s response to the report¹s Iran reference is reminiscent of his
reaction after the September 11 attacks. When Richard Clarke caught Bush
alone in the Situation Room the next day, Bush "testily" ordered Clarke to
investigate whether Iraq was involved in the attacks. Even though Bush
admitted this week that the CIA had found "no direct connection between Iran
and the attacks of Sept. 11," he promised that "we will continue to look and
see if the Iranians were involved."

     The Likud lobby in Washington, which drives much of our foreign policy,
seeks the overthrow of the Iranian government partly because it stands in
the way of the Israeli annexation of southern Lebanon and its prized Litani
River. Bush¹s base ­ the fundamentalist Christians ­ walk in lockstep with
Ariel Sharon, driven by their determination that Jerusalem be in Jewish
hands when Christ returns.

     Whether Bush will make Iran the next test of his new illegal
"preemptive" war doctrine if elected in November remains to be seen. His
blustering about Iran may be designed to pander to his hawkish supporters as
the election approaches. At the least, we can expect Bush, if given a second
term, to covertly undermine Iran¹s government, much as we did in 1953. The
CIA led a coup to overthrow the democratically elected Mohammad Mossaddeq,
and replaced him with the tyrannical but U.S.-friendly Shah, ushering in 25
years of torture and murder against the people of Iran.

     Iran¹s membership in Bush¹s "axis of evil" was in the works two years
before its formal inauguration in his state of the union address. In its
September 2000 document, "Rebuilding America¹s Defenses, Strategy, Forces
and Resources For a New Century," the neocon¹s Project for the New American
Century identified Iran, Iraq and North Korea as strategic targets.

     We should not be surprised that countries like Iran and North Korea
seek to develop nuclear weapons. While the United States rattles its sabers
at these "rogue states," it continues to develop new and more efficient
nukes and pledges to use them "preemptively," in violation of its
commitments under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. The Bush
administration has also exempted itself from a treaty prohibiting biological
weapons to avoid being subject to international inspections.

     Short shrift is given in the 9/11 report to the reverberations from
U.S. policy in Iraq and Israel: "Right or wrong, it is simply a fact that
American policy regarding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and American
actions in Iraq are dominant staples of popular commentary across the Arab
and Muslim world." Period. No analysis of the content or consequences of
that commentary.

     The Commissioners conclude: "Across the government, there were failures
of imagination, policy, capabilities and management." The consequences of
U.S. foreign policy, which the CIA dubbed "blowback," need not be left to
the imagination of our leaders. The anger of millions people in the Middle
East does not stem from resentment at our democratic way of life. It is the
understandable result of our policies that torture and kill their brethren.

     The title of one chapter in the report quotes George Tenet: "The system
was blinking red." Indeed, we must heed the blinking red light of bitterness
against U.S. imperialism throughout the Middle East.

     Finally, the Commission writes, "we should offer an example of moral
leadership in the world." Unprovoked attacks on other countries, uncritical
support for repression against an occupied people, and the killing and
torture of prisoners are not examples of moral leadership.

     We can reorganize, restructure and revamp our institutions. But until
the American government undertakes a radical rethinking and remaking of our
role in the world, we will never be safe from terrorist attacks.

 

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