Over at RedState, Nick Danger bemoans the distraction that is Cindy Sheehan and points to the real growing scandal over Able Danger, which (for my money, at least) has more to do with hiding findings than with placing blame. From “Meanwhile, Back at the News”:
It turns out that at least one of our intelligence operations was sufficiently on the ball that they identified Mohammad Atta, Marwan al-Shehhi, and two other future 9/11 hijackers as an al-Qa’eda cell operating in the United States. They did this over a year before Atta flew American Airlines Flight 11 into the World Trade Center’s north tower, and al-Shehhi hijacked United Airlines Flight 175, which struck the south tower.
As you’ll recall, there was a lot of consternation and finger-pointing over the fact that our vaunted Intelligence Agencies had not seen this attack coming in time to prevent it. We even had one of those “blue ribbon panels,” the so-called 9/11 Commission, investigate what went wrong that could have allowed such a complex plan involving so many people to come to fruition without being detected.
After huffing and puffing at us for several weeks on the television, they finally issued a big report saying it was all caused by mumble mumble and we need to knock heads and reorganize and make more bureaucracy so that it never happens again.
One of the things that it turns out they did not tell us was that “the Atta Boys” had in fact been detected; had been identified as an al-Qa’eda cell; and that the people who did this work wanted very badly to tell the FBI about it, so the FBI could go nab them, a year before the 9/11 attacks.
They didn’t tell us that part. And they didn’t tell us that the people who wanted to warn the FBI were waved off by lawyers, who said that they weren’t allowed to share such information with domestic law enforcement.
Read the rest, which goes on to discuss Jamie Gorelick’s influence on the 911 Commission panel, and the reluctance on the part of the MSM to give this story a thorough looking into.
Danger likewise notes Gregory Borse’s ChronWatch, which has a very interesting piece detailing the life of that infamous Gorelick “wall of separation” memo and it’s influence on national security and law enforcement:
As Mary Jo White wrote in her letter of protest regarding the Gorelick directive, PDD 24’s “instructions leave entirely to OIPR [Office of Intelligence and Policy Review] and the (Justice Department) Criminal Division when, if ever, to contact affected U.S. attorneys on investigations including terrorism and espionage.†And whom did Clinton appoint to head up the OIPR? An old friend of Janet Reno’s from Florida, Richard Scruggs. So, as FrontPageMag pointed out, “for the first time in the history of the Justice Department,†a political appointee was “put in charge of the Office of Intelligence and Policy Review (OIPR). OIPR is the Justice Department agency in charge of requesting wiretap and surveillance authority for criminal and intelligence investigations on behalf of investigative agencies from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) court.â€Â
It must be noted that the Gorelick directive to Freeh and White explicitly mentions the FISA court and prohibits the sharing of information gathered by its investigative agencies with US Attorneys Offices.
The upshot of PDD 24 was that all investigations into espionage activityâ€â€including efforts by the CIA, FBI, and the United States Military counter-intelligence operations (like “Able Dangerâ€Â)â€â€were to be overseen and approved (or not approved) by political appointees that answered directly to a White House that had every reason prior to the 1996 Presidential Election for keeping those agencies from sharing information with each other or with US Attorneys Offices.
Time for somebody to start digging into Sandy Berger’s trousers, I think.
Metaphorically speaking, of course.
****
update: Jim Geraghty and Captain Ed take on emerging spin, proffered by 911 Commission co-chairs Lee Hamilton and Thomas Kean and being given broad play in the MSM (see, NYT and WaPo today), that the Able Danger program was not “historically relevant”.
The World Trade Center could not be reached for comment.
Lord knows I wouldn’t want to dig there any other way.
Ouch.
Good one.
Not historically relevant? I know about 3,000 people who might disagree with that assessment.
If they weren’t, y’know, dead.
What a couple of *ssholes. They ought to be asking for our forgiveness for wasting our time and money, instead of trying to spin their way out of it.
Mark Twain said in his notebooks that a think long expected takes the form of the unexpected when at last it comes. Whatever al-Qaeda had hit us with–hijacked airliners, nukes, poison gas, sabotaged refineries–someone in the government would have already thought of it. There would have been some wargame, email, memo, congressional testimony, or think tank paper lying somewhere with a prediction close to what would have wound up actually happening. Once it did happen, all the other predictions would be dropped from consideration, and everyone would exclaim over the unheeded warning that most closely match the actual attack.
That said, I say line up the 9/11 commissioners and give them one long continuous face slap, Three Stooges style.
Turing = perform, as in Anyone can predict, but somebody’s gotta perform.
think = thing, sorry
Turing = image, as in There goes mine, once again…
The commission has the White memo. I think it should be made public. Cough it up, Jamie.
Not sure how to add to that except to hit your tipjar.
Patricia, the memo’s right here.
If buildings could talk.
thanks, Juliette, I meant the memo from White to Gorelick in response. I think the commission has not released that one.
I can understand the Democrats on the 9/11 Commission acting to hide Clinton Administration culpability for enabling the 9/11 attack to proceed. The effect on Hillary would pretty much permanently take her off the list of Presidential candidates, much as Teddy Kennedy never had a real shot at the Oval Office after Chappaquiddick.
But why the hell are the Republicans on the Commission going along with this? Have they let their commitment to keeping things nonpartisan turn them into stooges?
[blah blah towers brought down by Bush / Mossad, followed by lots of monkey noises]
[follow-up monkey noises]
Sure. And you have the “guts” to read this.
Then get back to me.
[Popular Mechanics a CIA front, real engineers and physicists have debunked it, I’m a child with a fragile belief system, I’m afraid of Truth, Joooooos blah blah eeeeeee eeeeeeeee oooooooohhhh eee eeee]
Obviously. Terrified. A child. Popular Mechanics bought off. CIA front. Fragile belief system.
Yes.
Yes. Yes. YES!
[Popular Mechanics a CIA front, real engineers and physicists have debunked it, I’m a child with a fragile belief system, I’m afraid of Truth, Joooooos blah blah eeeeeee eeeeeeeee oooooooohhhh eee eeee, cont.]
I guess it never occurred to you that you might get more people to consider your positions if you didn’t drop in unannounced and start calling them names and making wild assumptions about them.
Because doing so just makes you sound unhinged.
But then, that’s what you want, isn’t it? Special province over a TRUTH no one else is willing to see. It makes you special. It justifies your arrogance. It gives your life meaning.
Me, I’m a pragmatist. I figure if what you was being given credence by the majority of structural engineers or explosives experts, etc., this story would be given a bit more play.
You have no shortage of friends in the media. Go. SPEAK TRUTH TO POWER!
[Whole mainstream media under the control of Bush’s Amerikkka—only Jerry and a select few know the truth, the rest of us are sheep, cowards, sheep baaa baaaaaaaa baaaaaa].
Ah.
I guess you need these kinds of conveniences to make your story fly: Popular Mechanics controlled by the CIA, the media controlled by the government and made to parrot the party line, etc.
You don’t feel sorry for me. You want to say that you are sorry for me, because that makes YOU special—one of the elite few who has pierced the armor of officially santioned propoganda to see the truth beneath it.
You know how I know this for sure? You keep referring to me as representative of a type rather than as a person with my own agency.
There are thousands of media outlets. But to get around that uncomfortable reality, you just dismiss them all as puppets of the state.
Fine. But I don’t accept the premise. So we’re at an impasse.
The fireproofing was scraped off by Occam’s Razor right after it bounced off the two superfluous hijacked jetliners.
And geez Jerry
Just what DID the government do with all those people on the planes? You know, the ones with cell phones, like Barbara Olsen?
Oh! I know… ever since the 40’s and Area 51 our government has had a secret pact with space aliens (Gawd, I remember all those pictures of space aliens shaking hands with Clinton…actually saw them near the checkout counter of the supermarket!) who have given secret technology so Kark Rove sent out mind beams so everyone just THINKS those jet airliners hit the WTC and Pentagon..they just THINK all those people called and died.
The alien price was they got to keep all those people.
Yes, Jerry, demand the Government reveal its evil Space Alien/NeoCon/JewZionist connection! It’s all about how to Serve People!!
[Big link dump of TRUTH that includes a link to Counterpunch. More baiting and calls of coward and pussy. Jerry ONLY can see through the LIES, blah blah, monkey noises.]
[More links, from What Really Happened, etc. Jooooos neocon PNAC blah blah shrieking like a howler monkey, shitting in his hand, throwing it everywhere blah blah]
Your balls are the biggest of all, Jerry.
Very big. Super big. Only you are brave enough to have the truth. We couldn’t HANDLE the truth. We’re pussies and cowards. And we just won’t listen to you—no matter how many times you tell us what stupid, blind, pussy cowards we are.
Thank you for doing all the heavy lifting and trying to warn us, though.
Now stop spamming my comments with conspiratoid fantasizing.
[Separate matter, blah blah, Bush planned entire secret plot, but he can’t beat a few ragtag Iraqi freedom fighters blah blah Amerikkka sucks, monkey shrieking, Jerry wildly masturbating etc etc]
Especially a superpower who could fool all the world but you when they brought down the towers with those airliners.
All that planning to start a war, only to have it fall apart. Stunning. The conniving genius of it all followed by the rank imcompetence. Maybe the 911 planners in the Bushco headquarters should have gotten together with the dolts running the failed war. To, y’know, prevent the world from LAUGHING at Amerikkka.
Lithium, Jerry. Lots. And tinfoil. Soon.
Wait Jerry
You just got through proving to us it was a NeoCon/SpaceAlien/JewZionist conspiracy that has been is oh-so-powerful that not only bought up Popular Mechanics, but Discovery Channel too…even planted the original architects way back when the WTC was first built in the 70’s to play along with the documentaries on the 9/11 jet crash…er DEMOLITION …
but now this great conspiracy is being defeated by ragtag rebels?
Which is it, Jerrsker? A great OZ conspiracy that has the whole world, including the Islamists who rever the Martyred 19? Or a pathetic bunch of lillylivered poor kids PUSHED into the military CUZ THEY HAVE NO OTHER OPTIONS to pay the bills of their preggers girlfriends and are thus FORCED TO SUBJUGATE BROWN PEOPLE who are FIGHTING BACK and will establish a worldwide Caliphate to avenge the HUMILIATION of infidel fingers touching the HOLY KORAN!
Allah Ahkbar!
Oh…and please.. Where is Barbara Olsen?
Thanks for hosing down the comments section. It needed it.