Who was behind the mass murders of 11 September 2001 in lower Manhattan?
Bin Laden dead, Obama says justice is done
“Tonight, I can report to the American people and to the world that the United States has conducted an operation that killed Osama bin Laden, the leader of Al-Qaeda, and a terrorist who’s responsible for the murder of thousands of innocent men, women and children.”
So said the Nobel Peace Prize Laureate slash War Criminal Assassin in Chief, himself definitely responsible for “for the murder of thousands of innocent men, women and children”. Note that he does not allege that Osama bin Laden was responsible for the mass murders in lower Manhattan on 11 September 2001.
It has never been demonstrated that Osama bin Laden was behind the mass murders of 9/11, and in fact he specifically disavowed “credit” for them. That may have contributed to Osama bin Laden’s assassination by the Assassin in Chief – dead men tell no tales.
Remarks by the President on Osama Bin Laden
And so shortly after taking office, I directed Leon Panetta, the director of the CIA, to make the killing or capture of bin Laden the top priority of our war against al Qaeda… And finally, last week, I determined that we had enough intelligence to take action, and authorized an operation to get Osama bin Laden and bring him to justice.
Today, at my direction, the United States launched a targeted operation against that compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan. A small team of Americans carried out the operation with extraordinary courage and capability. No Americans were harmed. They took care to avoid civilian casualties. After a firefight, they killed Osama bin Laden and took custody of his body.
So you see, ‘justice’ has been redefined as assassination by the Harvard Law School Professor of Constitutional Law slash Nobel Peace Prize Laureate slash War Criminal Assassin in Chief. Justice used to require charges, a trial, proof of wrong-doing and culpability. Now all it requires is an order for execution from the Assassin in Chief.
Noam Chomsky: There is Much More to Say (20 May)
Noam Chomsky: My Reaction to Osama bin Laden’s Death
We might ask ourselves how we would be reacting if Iraqi commandos landed at George W. Bush’s compound, assassinated him, and dumped his body in the Atlantic. Uncontroversially, his crimes vastly exceed bin Laden’s, and he is not a “suspect” but uncontroversially the “decider” who gave the orders to commit the “supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole” (quoting the Nuremberg Tribunal) for which Nazi criminals were hanged: the hundreds of thousands of deaths, millions of refugees, destruction of much of the country, the bitter sectarian conflict that has now spread to the rest of the region.
What is the difference between Bush/Cheney and Obama/Clinton/Biden?
Bush/Cheney were reviled for tearing up the US Constitution and Bill of Rights but Obama/Clinton/Biden are revered for the same thing.
The crowds went crazy…
U.S. forces were under orders to kill Bin Laden
Thousands of jubilant, flag-waving Americans thronged outside the White House and in the streets of New York after Obama’s announcement.
The antiwar movement should have been furious at Obama’s ‘betrayal’ and reinvigorated its protest activity. Instead,” says [Michael] Heaney, [of the University of Michigan, and Fabio Rojas, of Indiana University] “attendance at antiwar rallies declined precipitously and financial resources available to the movement have dissipated.” The professor concluded that, “The election of Obama appeared to be a demobilizing force on the antiwar movement, even in the face of his pro-war decisions.”
In other words, much of the anti-war movement was phony, a cynical gathering of partisan Democrats who were really never all that concerned for the victims of U.S. imperial warfare, or for the huge dislocations that the national security state places on the U.S. economy. No, they just wanted their guy, the Democrat, to win. Once Obama was safely in the White House, the anti-war movement was all but dismantled, having served its partisan political purpose. For the phony anti-warrior, imperialism with a Democratic face, is just fine.
For Obama, Big Rise in Poll Numbers After Bin Laden Raid
Support for President Obama has risen sharply following the killing of Osama bin Laden by American military forces in Pakistan… The glow of national pride seemed to rise above partisan politics, as support for the president rose significantly among both Republicans and independents.
What Has Bin Laden’s Killing Wrought?
If the Post’s neoconservative editors get their way and the U.S. military is officially transformed into a roving assassination squad – a global “Murder, Inc.” – it may turn out that future historians will view this as bin Laden’s final victory.
Interesting that Chris Hedges likened OBL’s role in AQ to Hitler’s role in Nazi Germany, as Kershaw’s ‘working towards the fuhrer’ concept is how I’ve come to view how the Thai ‘system’ operates.
Yes, I’ve noticed that you seem to be attributing more and more power and control to HM King Bhumipol. I don’t see that at all. I see all the King’s manufactured charisma being manipulated by its manufacturers, the royalists – chiefly the military, with the effective vacuum at the top filled by the high-priests of the ‘cult’ : Prem and the Privies.
I’m sure that Chris Hedges has a pretty good grasp of what was going on in Osama bin Laden’s creation, al Qaeda. What he’s said is not inconsistent with the 9/11 attack having been run by al Qaeda… or by Mossad and/or some rogue American bunch.
The level of organization and coordination involved coupled with the “benign neglect” exercised by the FBI which kept the operation from discovery and collapse leading up to the attack make me suspect that there was at least some degree of inside collusion, with perhaps a joint Mossad/American neo-con team ultimately running the operation without the knowledge of Atta and the rest. Or perhaps it was run by ‘al Qaeda’ and knowledge of it a kept secret among the Mossad/American neo-con team. I suspect a continuum of degree of involvement, with the ‘real’ position falling somewhere between the two poles, between a Mossad/American neo-con group being themselves the authors of the event and their ‘merely’ exercising ‘benign neglect” enabling its realization by others.
How to explain the multi-trillion dollar US Department of Defense failing so spectacularly in the one and only case since 1812 that it was actually called upon to defend America?
Surely Mossad knew it was coming. The American intelligence apparatus did try to bring whatever it admitted to knowing at the higher levels and what caused outright alarms at the lower levels to bear on the people in executive positions. It was seemingly purposefully ignored.
But we will never know the answers to these questions unless/until there is a full investigation by people as disinterested as can be found. Meanwhile the assassinations, indefinite (terminal) detentions, and military tribunals take their toll on the people who could provide the pieces necessary to solve the puzzle.
I wish a degree of clear-sightedness had evolved in America during the first decade of this millennium to match what has evolved in Thailand over the past five years.
I dont think Kershaw’s concept implies the leader is ‘hands on’, but almost the opposite – I interpret it as the leader provides the ideology, and the followers scramble to implement what they think he wants.
btw, how can an objective analysis come to any conclusion other than he is either weak or he’s a part of it?
(don’t really expect you to answer that:)
On 9/11: I’ve always seen it as ‘blowback’ – still do.
Yes, I agree that Kershaw is saying that ‘the leader’ was hands off… my point, sorry not very clear at all, was that the case of Hitler was that of a very charismatic leader, a driven man, after ‘irrational’ objectives, a man who very much wanted the ‘job’ and worked very hard to get it.
That is not the case in Thailand. HM King Bhumipol backed into the job, never campaigned for it, seems never to have wanted it. And King Bhumipol is not himself very charismatic. He is for the most part withdrawn and aloof. No wild Hitlerian rabble-rousing speeches from HM King Bhumipol. The charisma surrounding his reign has been carefully built-up over six decades by the royalist PR machine. So to the extent that there are ‘followers’ scrambling to deliver what is required by ‘the leader’… they are scrambling to meet someone else’s requirements, not King Bhumipol’s. Prem’s and the Privies’ or Prayuth’s, for instance.
As for the character of HM the King, I have no idea. And it is not a point that I find especially interesting, since according to my understanding the royalist regime treats him as a palladium, as the inhuman embodiment of their power, and operates for the most part without consulting him.
Ji Ungpakorn does the same thing that you are doing, according to my lights, which is to let the HM the King have it from both directions : A) he’s involved in politics and as constitutional monarch should not be, and B) he’s not involved in politics, and as extra-constitutional monarch he should be. I think that King Bhumipol has accepted his de facto status as palladium and that that was what he was lamenting in his 2005 birthday speech when he complained that people had robbed him of his humanity. But what do I know?
In any case, the King is not in charge in Thailand, as I see it. The Army is in charge, and the bureaucracy with Prem and the Privies at its apex, together with the Sino-Thai plutocrats of Bangkok. So it is all a waste of time and energy speculating about HM the King, in my humble opinion.
What needs to be concentrated upon are the Army, the bureaucracy, and the plutocrats. The Army’s Achilles’ heel is its use of “the monarchy” as its sole source of legitimacy. They’ve overplayed their hand now to such an extent, and are continuing to overplay it even further, that the terrifying sound and fury accompanying their lèse majesté persecutions and their constant refrain of “the monarchy!”, “the monarchy!”, have just about lost all effectiveness.
If people stand up behind the Repeal 112 movement they will prevail. And with “the monarchy” ripped out of its support role, the Army will shrink back to their human scale… a bunch of very human thugs with guns who’ve smashed and grabbed power. They can then be brushed aside once and for all.
People have, given the chance, to defeat the Military/Democrat front at the polls and they have to stand behind Repeal 112. There is no alternative.
I read Gile’s take on it differently – he basically says the military is the main problem, and K is weak and unprincipled, thereby allowing the monarchy to be used.
It’s pointless (& potentially dangerous) to discuss anyway, so all I’ll add is, that like the British monarchy, the Thai monarchy is very close to the military, and in the Thai case, it’s current leader seems much more comfortable with dictators than democrats.
Agree about 112 – that’s the key.
As, perhaps, you will remember… the original post was on the subject of the US’ assassination of Osama bin Laden in Pakistan.
A paleo-conservative, an editor of the WSJ editorial page and Ronald Reagan’s Undersecretary of Treasury, has an interesting deconstruction of a piece of AP stenography here, and an… “independent commentator?”… comments here.
I think I’m basically in agreement on the OBL issue, although I’m not that interested in conspiracy theories as they are never ending & not provable one way or the other.
What do you make on the revelation that OBL was not armed? (and more to the point, why would the White House disclose that?)
I heard one ‘analyst’ say OBL was a liability to AQ over the last few years because he could hardly walk and had to be carried to hiding places, so if true and if it was indeed OBL killed, then it seems not only did they extra-judicially execute an unarmed man, but also a disabled one.
Obama said that after the firefight, Obama was… executed. Then they dumped the body in the sea. It’s all ridiculous. What’s to stop speculation that it wasn’t even Osama whom they murdered? Roberts holds out the forlorn hope that maybe Obama will now declare ‘victory’ and go home… but that’s whistling past the graveyard as far as I can discern. Hillary Clinton, about as grim a terrorist as I can imagine, put the lie to that, quoted at the end of a long interview with Barbara Lee. Whether Obama admits it or not it is just one more assassination, one more provocation, one more occasion for blowback. There is no light at the end of the tunnel. The tunnel is collapsing on top of us.
I don’t know what I can do. I certainly raise my voice on these subjects. That seems an absurd and ineffective exercise. My efforts to organize radical political solutions in the USA have come to naught. I cannot realistically campaign from Thailand other than over the internet. The empire is collapsing and causing untold trouble and pain in its death throes the world around. All I can do is observe its collapse and struggle to preserve my own life and limbs?
I’m the last person to ask, but you could try asking someone like Chomsky or Blum who have had even more years at it than you.
(both seem very approachable)
All they can do is observe its collapse and struggle to preserve their own lives and limbs? I don’t see that any of us have had any effect on the course of USA over the past decade.
They are very prominent people… but it takes large numbers of people to act to change the course of any government. Prominence is irrelevant. It’s large numbers that count. And the nature of the requirement is for those large numbers of people to motivate themselves. External motivation works to create fake movements for change, like Obama’s, like the Tea Parties’, like Thaksin’s – if there is anyone that perceives his brand of politics as real change.
I need to return to my study of slime molds. There’s something about community organizing that intelligent life seems to be missing.
Morphogenesis Workshop Summary (pdf)
Substituting human individuals for cells, the area of study is the same. It is analogous, of course. Human societies are not generally regarded as biological organisms. Nothing else seems to be working so I’ll mine the analogy a bit.
Just a courtesy comment letting you know I tried a few times to respond, but ended up hitting the delete button each time as I couldn’t find anything positive to say regarding solutions (and who needs more of my negativity)
Thanks. Comments are, of course, optional.
Breathe and Wait
by Jon Taylor