tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-96214892024-03-14T02:33:21.500-04:00Winter PatriotWinter Patriothttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06966573231074972843noreply@blogger.comBlogger1987125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9621489.post-63603353102700410322021-11-22T02:45:00.003-05:002021-11-26T14:39:17.590-05:00Catch-9/11<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img alt="" border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjH3t34HU4Ue-kkJxsfjqxtuegU1H2FxLK9j_T64rjpAQx9fBpbKZllbqqWrpQF4_zMje7volf83g3CE9yUk4rPhH4ev39WJIt3NCe4hzy7RaW2iVQh3Mbq2ve8BJgsZ_TGtH6J-t1DCpz03jg-_Lwkfrf6HUVfC4DslwJ2Gn3JxYYfZT1sy6etUCan" /></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b> It's a Catch-9/11 </b><br /></td></tr></tbody></table>
<br /><br />
My newest "effort" is finished, and it turned out so awful that I've decided to post it elsewhere.
<br /><br />
I hope you won't look at it, but here's the link anyway:
<br /><br />
<a href="https://catch-911.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">Catch-9/11</a>
<br /><br />
Seriously:
<br /><br />
This is by far the worst thing I've ever written and that's why I'm so anxious to share it with YOU!
<br /><br />
I hope you'll HATE it! And I hope you won't share it with either of your friends because I hope they'll hate it too! Winter Patriothttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06966573231074972843noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9621489.post-60396072859273698002021-11-19T21:43:00.003-05:002021-11-22T02:38:36.384-05:00Inside the Bush Spin-and-Noise Machine: Using a Terror Threat to Unite the Party around the President<i>This is a lightly edited excerpt from a post I wrote in August, 2006.</i>
<br /><br />
~~~
<br /><br />
Let's take a ride inside the Republican Spin-And-Noise Machine,
courtesy of <b>Jim Rutenberg</b> of the <i>New York Times</i>:
<br /><br />
<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/13/washington/13bush.html">In Wake of News, a Plan: Uniting Party and President</a>
<br /><br />
<blockquote>One week ago, President Bush and his political
aides were facing the most daunting election-year
landscape of his presidency.
<br /><br />
Their party was splintered over Mr. Bush’s proposed immigration
overhaul and uncertain about the political effect of violence
in Iraq. Even with the White House working to bring Republicans
together behind the president’s agenda, several candidates
were making public shows of establishing their distance
from him and his sagging approval ratings.
<br /><br />
That picture of Republican disunity eased dramatically
this week with the defeat on Tuesday of Senator Joseph I.
Lieberman in the Democratic primary in Connecticut and
the news on Thursday that Britain had foiled a
potentially large-scale terrorist plot.
<br /><br />
The White House and Congressional Republicans used those events
to unleash a one-two punch, first portraying the Democrats
as vacillating when it came to national security, and
then using the alleged terror plot to hammer home the
continuing threat faced by the United States.
</blockquote>
Did you catch that? <i>NYT</i> said "<i>alleged</i>
terror plot". Does that tell us something important?
Is this article going to give us the truth, the whole truth,
and nothing but the truth?
<br /><br />
Well, not exactly. But watch this: If you read between
the lines, you can see the whole gory plan laid bare
-- from one end to the other.
<a name='more'></a>
<blockquote>By the time the president’s top political
strategists met at his ranch on Friday for an annual
summer fund-raiser, the events had given them an
opportunity to pull together the Republican Party as
it headed toward the home stretch of the campaign, rallying
once more around Mr. Bush’s signature issue, the fight
against terrorism.
</blockquote>
Rallying around the signature issue. Imagine that.
<br /><br />
None of it was accidental, was it? They try to spin it
as if it were just one of those fortunate coincidences
that come along every now and then, just another
"trifecta" ... But was it really?
<blockquote>The entire effort was swiftly coordinated by
the Republican National Committee and the White House,
using the same political machinery that carried
them to victory in 2004. It began in the days before the
anticipated loss of Mr. Lieberman, a staunch supporter of
the war in Iraq, to Ned Lamont, a vocal war critic whose
victory Republicans used to paint Democrats as “Defeatocrats.”
<br /><br />
That word originated in a White House memorandum by
Mr. Bush’s press secretary, Tony Snow, suggesting ways to frame
the debate, that was shared with officials, including Ken
Mehlman, the Republican chairman, and Karl Rove,
the president’s top strategist.
<br /><br />
The effort continued with the news of the British
intelligence breakthrough, with the message that the plot
had highlighted the stakes of a fight that the Democrats,
according to Republicans, were not equipped to face.
</blockquote>
If the Democrats are truly not equipped to
face this fight, does it make sense to ask: Why not? Is
it because the administration has been confining all the
top-level intelligence to a very small circle of
"insiders", while giving everyone else, especially
Democrats and the media, lie after lie after lie?
<br /><br />
Maybe even despite all that, some Democrats are starting
to wake up. Maybe they've been emboldened by
the result from Connecticut. One can only hope...
<blockquote>But Democrats, seeing a political opportunity,
began to focus on national security, making a vigorous
case this week that the Republicans were mismanaging
the war and making the country more vulnerable to attack.
<br /><br />
“If the Republican Party thinks this is a good political
issue for them, they are mistaken,” said Senator Charles
E. Schumer of New York, chairman of the Democratic
Senatorial Campaign Committee.
</blockquote>
We don't hear lines like this often enough.
<br /><br />
I think every prominent Democrat should memorize it
-- and five or six variations on the same theme.
<blockquote>And a top Republican strategist cautioned
that the party’s candidates still faced serious challenges
in states where the war and Mr. Bush
were overwhelmingly unpopular.
<br /><br />
But at the very least, news of the plot helped the White
House and the Republican Party achieve something
they have struggled to do all year: bring the party
forcefully together with the president.
</blockquote>
Think of that! Here were two events that should have
fractured the party even further: First, their
favorite faux-Democrat lap-dog was defeated by a
candidate they had done their best to smear.
Then this terror-plot spin-game, so blatantly
obvious that even a frozen blogger couldn't help
but notice it was bogus.
<br /><br />
How sick can you get? This was helpful to the party?
And what does that tell you?
<blockquote>The plan came together at the same time
that Mr. Bush and his top security aides, as well as
Vice President Dick Cheney, were being intensively briefed
on the unfolding British investigation. That led Democrats
to charge that the White House had actively used
the plot to its political advantage.
</blockquote>
It wasn't only Democrats making that charge, of course.
Plenty of other people noticed, too. The White House
wasn't the only player actively using the plot
to its political advantage, either.
<blockquote>“For people to suggest there was somehow a
larger, coordinated effort between the Lieberman loss and
the disruption of the terror plot is just absurd,”
said Brian Jones, a spokesman for the Republican Party.
</blockquote>
Well... that's what they always say. Whenever an accusation is
just too spot-on to refute, they call it "absurd".
<br /><br />
Brian Jones is a spokesman for the Republican Party
for a reason. He knows what to say when he's cornered.
<br /><br />
The so-called president knows it too but he doesn't
always get it quite right.
<br /><br />
Remember when he was confronted about his alleged
foreknowledge of 9/11? What did he say then?
<br /><br />
"That's an absurd assinuation."
<br /><br />
But I digress.
<blockquote>Administration officials said that those who had
been briefed on the plot had not expected any arrests for
several days, well after the initial political fallout of
the Lieberman campaign would have played out.
</blockquote>
What do you expect them to say? That those who were briefed
on the plot demanded arrests as soon as they needed
another smoke-screen to hide behind?
<br /><br />
And why would they say that? Why would they start telling
the truth now? They probably don't even know how to
do it anymore, if indeed they ever did.
<br /><br />
But every time they deny something, without really
refuting it, the non-refutation denial goes halfway
to confirming the assertion. And then there's the
between-the-lines thing. Read very carefully, my friends.
<blockquote>But in several interviews, the officials said
the attacks had reinforced arguments they
had devised to meet Mr. Lieberman’s expected defeat.
<br /><br />
Officials said they had identified a Lieberman loss
as a potential watershed moment that could reinforce
the Democrats’ antiwar message — and scare Republicans out
of taking White House advice to embrace the war in Iraq
and national security in general. That advice was wearing
thin as the death toll in Iraq continued to climb.
</blockquote>
No kidding. Not to mention the fact that the country
is starting to wake up to certain other inconvenient truths.
<br /><br />
<blockquote>At a Republican gathering in Minneapolis
on Aug. 4, Duf Sundheim, chairman of the California
Republican Party, said that national security had
“been a great issue for the Republican Party over
a long time, and there’s still a good choice between
the two parties. But what changes the dynamic is
the current situation in Iraq. It dissipates it.”
<br /><br />
Still, last weekend, Republican officials said, as the
Lieberman loss seemed a certainty, the Republican
National Committee and the White House began working to
bring the party together on a message that the
Democratic Party was taking a hard turn toward
the antiwar left.
</blockquote>
As I pointed out last week, they could hardly admit
that the Democratic voters of Connecticut had
made a choice, could they? Oh no, this single electoral result
had to be painted as a change of direction for the
entire Democratic Party. And why? Because they can
get away with any lie they choose to tell? Or because
they think we're all so stupid we can't tell the
difference between Connecticut and the USA?
<blockquote>The Republican talking points, reviewed by
Mr. Rove and Sara Taylor, the White House political
director, went out to state committees across the
country, with statements like “Ned Lamont’s victory over
a distinguished public servant like Joe Lieberman represents
the end of a tradition of proud Democrat leaders in
the mold of F.D.R., Harry Truman, Scoop Jackson and J.F.K.”
</blockquote>
Right. And we believe this. Even though it makes no sense
at all, and even though we know they despise all the
historical Democrats -- especially FDR and JFK -- whenever
they’re not trying to use their names to dupe current
Democrats. Sure thing, Mr. Rove. We believe you this time!
<br /><br />
And Joe Lieberman is a distinguished
public servant. Right. Gotcha, Karl.
<br /><br />
It may not be within the <i>NYT</i>'s jurisdiction to
point out how little sense these statements make. Maybe the
<i>Times</i> is content -- or compelled -- to simply lay
Republican talking points on the table without comment,
and allow you to draw your own conclusions. But in this
case the conclusion is not too difficult to draw, is it?
<blockquote>Mr. Mehlman, the Republican National Committee
chairman, led the “Defeatocrats” charge in a speech on
Wednesday in Ohio, a key swing state.</blockquote>
A key swing state? Is this 2004 again?
<br /><br />
And really, "Defeatocrats"? Are we reduced to
name-calling as a debating tactic now?
<br /><br />
They might as well just shout "Your mother wears
Army boots" and be done with it.
<br /><br />
They might as well start throwing their shoes.
<blockquote>In Crawford this week, Mr. Snow told reporters
there were two approaches to fighting terrorism: “And
in the Connecticut race, one of the approaches is to
ignore the difficulties and walk away.” He added, “Now,
when the United States walked away, in the opinion of
Osama bin Laden in 1991, bin Laden drew from that the conclusion
that Americans were weak and wouldn’t stay the course,
and that led to Sept. 11.”
</blockquote>
Of course this is more manure than you can lift with
a single pitchfork. There are more than two ways to
fight terrorism. Only one of them has been tried
in the last five years and it clearly isn't working
very well. But then again they have changed the definition
of terrorism so many times, it's hard to know what they
mean when they say "terrorism" nowadays. A partially frozen
and fully cynical mind might suggest that
this was part of the plan.
<br /><br />
Furthermore, we still have no idea what led to
Sept. 11. We don't even know what happened on the day,
much less what led up to it. Maybe if they ran a decent,
open investigation -- dropped all the state secrets
claims and rescinded all the gag orders -- maybe then
we might find out some of the history behind it.
But at the moment, we simply don't know. To pretend
we do -- and to use this pretense to smear political
opponents -- strikes me as the height of
dishonesty. But then again what else is new?
<br /><br />
Meanwhile...
<blockquote>As Republican officeholders echoed the
talking points around the nation, Mr. Cheney set
up an unusual conference call with reporters from
his vacation home in Wyoming. He said Mr. Lieberman’s
defeat had sent a signal to “al-Qaeda types,” who,
he said, “clearly are betting on the proposition
that ultimately they can break the will of the
American people in terms of our ability to stay
in the fight and complete the task.”
<br /><br />
Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the Democratic leader
in the Senate, said in a statement to supporters
that it was “disgraceful” that Mr. Cheney’s comments
had come after he had been briefed on the
British investigation.
</blockquote>
Cheney's comments were disgraceful, regardless of
when he learned about the British investigation.
But let's not dwell on that; there's plenty of spin still to come.
<blockquote>Mr. Snow said Friday: “He did not know that
there was an operation that was to take place.”
<br /><br />
Yet by Thursday afternoon Congressional Republicans
had already issued a flood of e-mail messages
hailing the breakup of the plot, and
crediting the administration’s anti-terror effort.
</blockquote>
Oh what a tangled web they weave ... and in my view,
Jim Rutenberg has done a good job of bringing
us through the tangled skein, so far.
<br /><br />
The standard denials are printed verbatim, without
comment, whether they make sense or not, whether
they reflect known realities or not. So it's not as
honest as it seems. But it's better than nothing.
And it did say "alleged".
<blockquote>Congressional officials said they were
acting on their own, not on guidance
from the White House.
</blockquote>
Sure. Right. Spin me another one. We've just been reading
about how the talking points were disseminated. Why
do they keep lying about this? Are we
really supposed to believe it?
<br /><br />
And why does the New York Times print every
lie that comes along? Are we supposed to laugh?
<br /><br />
Some of these questions are rhetorical, of course,
but others are serious. How do they decide
how many lies to include? Do they count the
paragraphs? Or do they count the
lies? Do we need X lies for every X true
assertions? Or is it X false-paragraphs
for every X true-paragraphs?
<br /><br />
Whatever they count, somebody (Rutenberg?) clearly decided
they needed another lie at this point, so now he gives us this one:
<blockquote>“We really knew instinctively what we wanted
to say,” said Ron Bonjean, a spokesman for the House
speaker, J. Dennis Hastert of Illinois.
</blockquote>
Yeah, sure you did, Ron. We believe everything that
Dennis Hastert says, and we believe everything that
he tells you to go out and say too, Ron. Really. You're
fooling all of us over here. You believe me, Ron, don't you?
<blockquote>Party officials said that they had
no plans to issue statements about the plot
until late in the day, after the Democrats
had criticized the Republicans
as mismanaging national security.
</blockquote>
Finally! Here it is: the Republican strategy in
a nutshell: Wait until the Democrats criticize
the way you've been bungling national security,
then deliberately bungle yet another national
security threat, then turn around and claim
that your opponents are soft on national security,
weak on defense, friends of al-Qaeda, yada yada yada.
<br /><br />
Do you see that? Do you understand how it works?
<br /><br />
Spin it counterclockwise for a change
and it all makes sense. Finally. Doesn't it?
<br /><br />
We will never again be fooled by
manipulations such as this one --
Never again, right?
<br /><br />
If we shake ourselves out of our artificially-induced
terror-stupor, we might just surprise a
few Republican talking-point generators.
<br /><br />
They're counting on this one working for quite a while.
<blockquote>Republicans said they expected their arguments
to carry through next week — when Mr. Bush is to meet with
counterterrorism and Homeland Security Department
officials — and Democrats are girding for more of
the same around the fifth anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks.
</blockquote>
It looks to me as if they've got it all figured out:
As long as we can keep worrying about the
"alleged bomb plot" for the next few weeks,
we won't have to worry about anything else
until early next month, when we'll be able to
start worrying about Osama bin Laden again for
a while. And eventually we won't know anything about
anything, but we'll all be worried sick.
Or standing in long lines at airports. Or not!
<br /><br />
The final paragraph shows a master spinner
at work, for sure, for sure:
<blockquote>But even Republicans acknowledged that the
climate was unpredictable. “When something like this
happens it just sort of sweeps across the political
landscape and changes things,” a senior Republican
official said. “The pendulum can swing very quickly
on it because there are events out
of your typical political control.”</blockquote>
First of all, who is this "senior Republican official"?
Could it be the master weaver himself, the spider
in the middle of the tangled web? The man
described by Larisa Alexandrovna as the
"morally bankrupt, soulless,
intellectually perverted campaign manager with the
highest security clearances, working out
of the seat of power, using government agencies
and resources at his disposal"?
Well, why not? It sure sounds like him, doesn't it?
And that may be the nicest thing anyone has
ever said about Karl Rove.
<br /><br />
Meanwhile, what does Jim Rutenberg mean when he says
"even Republicans acknowledged that
the climate was unpredictable"???
<br /><br />
To me, that final paragraph should say:
<br /><br />
"Republicans, of course, claim the climate is unpredictable.
They don't want us to notice how they manipulate
<i>everything</i>, even risking our national security in
favor of their own agenda. They don't want us to see
arrests in "alleged terror plots" as being
under their "typical political control."
But they admit these things in other contexts,
as you can see -- if you pay attention to the
true-paragraphs of this article, and if you
ignore the false-paragraphs."
<br /><br />
But the <i>New York Times</i> would <b>never</b> say that, would they?
Winter Patriothttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06966573231074972843noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9621489.post-5028827513605300402021-10-31T14:02:00.009-04:002021-11-20T21:41:44.227-05:00Echoes of Kennebunkport<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin: 1em auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_e3gDaHO8VLQ/RtjJ7CTNnEI/AAAAAAAACIE/gYhkQyZa6pk/s1600-h/kennebunkport_warning.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="" border="3" height="320" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5105052193691376706" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_e3gDaHO8VLQ/RtjJ7CTNnEI/AAAAAAAACIE/gYhkQyZa6pk/w233-h320/kennebunkport_warning.jpg" style="cursor: pointer; float: right; margin: 2pt;" width="233" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">"The Kennebunkport Warning"<br /></td></tr></tbody></table>
Welcome to the Table of Contents for my coverage of the "Kennebunkport Warning" Fiasco, which transpired in 2007.
<br /><br />
Prelude: August 13, 2007:<br />
<a href="https://winterpatriot.blogspot.com/2007/08/throw-up-and-go-to-sleep-why-there-are.html" target="_blank">Throw Up And Go To Sleep: Why There Are No Paranoid Lunatic Conspiracy Theorists</a><br /><br />
Chapter 1: August 31, 2007:<br />
<a href="https://winterpatriot.blogspot.com/2007/08/kennebunkport-warning-hoax-shreds.html" target="_blank">Kennebunkport Warning: Hoax Shreds 'Credibility' Of Hoaxers -- But Who Are The Hoaxers?</a><br /><br />
Chapter 2: September 2, 2007:<br />
<a href="https://winterpatriot.blogspot.com/2007/09/dissident-dissent-paranoid-lunatics-vs.html" target="_blank">Dissident Dissent: Paranoid Lunatics Vs. Conspiracy Theorists, Again!</a><br /><br />
Chapter 3: September 3, 2007:<br />
<a href="https://winterpatriot.blogspot.com/2007/09/cheney-doesnt-need-to-attack-in-usa.html" target="_blank">Cheney Doesn't Need To Attack In USA With WMD This Summer</a><br /><br />
Chapter 4: September 4, 2007: <br />
<a href="https://winterpatriot.blogspot.com/2007/09/kennebunkport-train-wreck-leadership.html" target="_blank">The Kennebunkport Train Wreck: Leadership? What Leadership?</a><br /><br />
Chapter 5: September 22, 2007:<br />
<a href="https://winterpatriot.blogspot.com/2007/09/anyone-who-ever-had-heart-kennebunkport.html" target="_blank">Anyone Who Ever Had A Heart: The Kennebunkport Warning Revisited</a><br /><br />
Chapter 6: September 26, 2007:<br />
<a href="https://winterpatriot.blogspot.com/2007/09/over-top-march-of-berlet-brigade.html" target="_blank">Over The Top: The March Of The Berlet Brigade</a><br /><br />
<br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin: 1em auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_e3gDaHO8VLQ/Rw-DNzi6v_I/AAAAAAAACY8/bzvA9qhekso/s1600-h/laurie_dobson_closeup.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="" border="3" height="320" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5120455574541746162" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_e3gDaHO8VLQ/Rw-DNzi6v_I/AAAAAAAACY8/bzvA9qhekso/w214-h320/laurie_dobson_closeup.jpg" style="cursor: pointer; float: right; margin: 2pt;" width="214" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Laurie Dobson<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><br />
Chapter 7: October 12, 2007:<br />
<a href="https://winterpatriot.blogspot.com/2007/10/i-like-laurie-dobson-for-senate-in.html" target="_blank">I Like Laurie: Dobson For Senate In Maine</a><br /><br />
Chapter 8: October 28, 2007:<br />
<a href="https://winterpatriot.blogspot.com/2007/10/height-of-hypocrisy-or-maybe-not-yet.html" target="_blank">The Height Of Hypocrisy? Or Maybe Not Yet??</a><br /><br />
Chapter 9: December 12, 2007:<br />
<a href="https://winterpatriot.blogspot.com/2007/12/laurie-dobson-we-must-not-shirk-our.html" target="_blank">Laurie Dobson: 'We Must Not Shirk Our Responsibility'</a><br />
<blockquote>
There is no other place or time ... It is in us and it is we who must do this and the time is now.
</blockquote>
Winter Patriothttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06966573231074972843noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9621489.post-64322659495958463012021-10-20T07:00:00.022-04:002021-10-22T20:23:52.791-04:00Some Fishin' Accomplished: Life Sentences For Three Convicted "Liquid Bombers"<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 12px; text-align: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img alt="" border="0" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-pAnNXVOAXUU/YXMk3fQuP1I/AAAAAAAAJ5Y/Pm3J6289RY4clZ_7tPs0ZB9_zeBRhVFUACLcBGAsYHQ/s16000/m_tanvir_hussain_closeup.jpg" /></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Tanvir Hussain<br /></td></tr></tbody></table>
Tanvir Hussain, Assad Sarwar and Abdulla Ahmed Ali, the three so-called "liquid bombers" whom the British criminal justice system managed to convict on September 7, 2009, were sentenced to life a week later, with no chance of parole for 32, 36 and 40 years, respectively.
<br /><br />
Only the least skeptical among us could fail to note the coincidence by which the convictions and sentences were both handed down within a few days of the eighth anniversary of the "terror attacks" that the "transatlantic airline bombing plot" was said to rival.
<br /><br />
Immediately after the convictions were announced, the tone of the story shifted in an entirely predictable and globally uniform manner. Which is to say that the convictions and sentences have moved the story of the "liquid bombers" from the realm of bizarre terrorist fiction to the nearby realm of bizarre officially sanctioned government propaganda terrorist fiction.
<br /><br />
A cynical observer could be forgiven for assuming that this long-awaited transition would be sufficient to bring this astonishingly odd story to a close. But such does not appear to be the case.
<br /><a name='more'></a><br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-nUC-jVStgb4/YXNVTLw2oMI/AAAAAAAAJ5g/BPT7Z_bk30kW7P0cxYoZtXCUazi6lat4gCLcBGAsYHQ/s0/m_assad_sarwar.jpg" style="clear: right; display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; padding: 1em 0px; text-align: center;"><img alt="" border="0" data-original-height="450" data-original-width="334" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-nUC-jVStgb4/YXNVTLw2oMI/AAAAAAAAJ5g/BPT7Z_bk30kW7P0cxYoZtXCUazi6lat4gCLcBGAsYHQ/s16000/m_assad_sarwar.jpg" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Assad Sarwar<br /></td></tr></tbody></table>British authorities are still holding some alleged plotters for a subsequent trial, at a date still to be determined. In addition, three of the alleged plotters, who have now been tried twice but still haven't been declared innocent or guilty, appear to be headed for a third trial. <br />
<br />
It is entirely possible that those who have not yet been tried are being held pending eventual and inevitable convictions which will be obtained against the others, after as many quasi-judicial attempts as necessary. <br />
<br />
The full story will never be told, properly or otherwise. Most of the relevant details are now and will always remain clouded by dispute and suspicion, if not in the officially sanctioned version then at least in the minds of those who possess critical faculties and the desire to use them in contemplation of subjects such as this. It is no doubt true that we're now talking about a very small number of people. And yet, for them -- for us! -- certain obvious and very disturbing truths remain clearly visible.<br />
<br />
For instance, the recent convictions and sentences required two trials, four juries, and liberal application of the "majority option", by which the verdict of a jury need not be unanimous. <br />
<br />
The first trial resulted in no convictions on charges of conspiring to bomb airliners, although it did result in several convictions and pleas of guilty on less serious charges. But the jury could not agree to acquit anyone except Mohammed Gulzar, the supposed terrorist facilitator, so the other suspected plotters were tried for a second time. <br />
<br />
The first trial was attended by scant media coverage and I watched it happening in real time, via my "other, other" blog, <a href="http://peroxideplotters.blogspot.com/">Peroxide Plotters</a>, which I set up for the purpose. <br />
<br />
The sidebar of <a href="http://peroxideplotters.blogspot.com/">Peroxide Plotters</a> was a set of Google Newsreels, keyed on the names of the alleged plotters who were being tried, and by visiting <a href="http://peroxideplotters.blogspot.com/">Peroxide Plotters</a> regularly, I was able to stay abreast of the reported developments in this case. And I use the phrase "reported developments" deliberately, because many of the most important developments in this case have been entirely unreported. <br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-4rRgw_rGZrc/YXNVor5zcVI/AAAAAAAAJ5o/n0X-Y4aqvc09qzSbidsTg81b6ec9di51wCLcBGAsYHQ/s0/m_abdullah_ahmed_ali.jpg" style="display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; padding: 1em 0px; text-align: center;"><img alt="" border="0" data-original-height="450" data-original-width="322" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-4rRgw_rGZrc/YXNVor5zcVI/AAAAAAAAJ5o/n0X-Y4aqvc09qzSbidsTg81b6ec9di51wCLcBGAsYHQ/s16000/m_abdullah_ahmed_ali.jpg" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Abdulla Ahmed Ali</td></tr></tbody></table>After the first trial returned no convictions on the main charges, the British were obviously determined to obtain such convictions in the second trial, which occasioned almost no media coverage at all.<br />
<br />
In particular, and very strangely for such an important case, the <a href="http://peroxideplotters.blogspot.com/">Peroxide Plotters</a> sidebar reported no news involving any of the suspects between February 18, 2009, when <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/7896942.stm">the first jury in the second trial was dismissed</a>, and September 7, six and a half months later, when the three convictions were announced. <br />
<br />
At some point during the six and a half months of this effectively secret trial, the second jury was seated and promptly dismissed, and a third jury was selected. Explanations -- not given (or at least not published) until long after the fact -- for the dismissals of multiple juries included "legal reasons" and "potential conflict of interest". The latter phrase could have been a clouded reference to one or more jurors who thought that the plot as alleged was impossible, and that this mattered. (It was, but it didn't.)<br />
<br />
There has been a tendency on the part of mainstream media coverage to treat the plot as alleged as if it were not only feasible but imminent, although there is no evidence to support either of these claims, and much to refute them. <br />
<br />
None of the plotters were found to be in possession of airline tickets, for instance, and some of them didn't have passports. Some hadn't even applied for passports, and yet we have been told consistently over the past three years that their plot was imminent, just days away from potentially killing thousands of people.<br />
<br />
Much worse, from the official point of view, the bombers didn't have any bombs, either. Jurors in the first trial (and presumably in the second trial as well) were shown a video (which was subsequently released to the media) purporting to show a "liquid bomb" of the kind that the plotters were allegedly trying to make. <br />
<br />
But the "liquid bomb" in the video was not made by the "liquid bombers". The bomb in the video was made by police, who had to use a robot to put it together (because the risk of premature detonation was too great). Even with the robot, the police had to try many (one source says 58) times before they produced a bomb that actually exploded as described.<br />
<br />
Even with some very bright guys working on the project, it took multiple attempts with some extremely sophisticated equipment to produce a single suitable explosion. And as alleged, the "liquid bombers" were plotting to produce seven such explosions simultaneously. <br />
<br />
But the "liquid bombers" had no sophisticated equipment, and -- even more crucially, in my view -- they were not very bright guys. For instance, it has been reported that the "terrorist quartermaster", Assad Sarwar, buried incriminating ingredients in a suitcase in the woods, after doing an internet search for "how to dig a hole". <br />
<br />
Are we supposed to believe that seven knuckleheads like Assad Sarwar could do -- simultaneously, in real-life conditions, with their lives on the line -- what the British security forces and their robots could only do one time in twenty, or fifty-eight? No, and Yes. <br />
<br />
No, because the law doesn't care whether or not the plot was feasible. If the plotters were plotting to kill innocent people, then they are guilty of conspiracy to murder. And, from the evidence that has been made public, they do appear to have been plotting, even if the mechanism which they planned to use was doomed to be ineffectual. <br />
<br />
It's exactly as if they were plotting to burn down the Tower of London by rubbing two sticks together -- even if they didn't have access to the Tower of London, even if they had no way to get in, and even if it would have taken hours of stick-rubbing to start a small fire, during which time they would doubtless have been spotted by Tower security and hauled away. <br />
<br />
None of this would matter, in the eyes of the law. If that's what they were plotting to do, and if they had been careless enough to leave evidence of what they were plotting, then they could be (and should be) convicted and sent to prison for a long time. <br />
<br />
But then what else should happen? Should elaborate security precautions be put in place to guard against such a plot? In this case, it's as if the authorities turned around and said, "OK, we got 'em, but anybody else could be plotting the same kind of mischief," and then they banned baseball, hockey, lacrosse, knitting, chopsticks and pencils -- not just in the Tower of London, but all over the world! <br />
<br />
Does this seem ridiculous? The bombs Ali, Sarwar and Hussain were convicted of plotting to make were described as two-stage explosives. The primary charge was to have been provided by a home-made explosive hidden in the core of a hollowed-out AA battery. Had they made any explosives? No, apparently not. Had they figured out how to hollow out AA batteries? No, apparently not. Has anyone else figured out how to do that? No, apparently not. Does any of this matter? No, and Yes. <br />
<br />
The primary charge would have detonated the secondary charge, which according to the official tale would have consisted of highly concentrated hydrogen peroxide, mixed with Tang to make it look like an orange sports drink, and injected into unopened Lucozade bottles which had been drained with a syringe. Had they concentrated any hydrogen peroxide? It's hard to tell, from the scant coverage. Had they injected any concentrated hydrogen peroxide into Lucozade bottles? No, apparently not. <br />
<br />
If they had done so, the most significant flaw in their plot would have become apparent: concentrated hydrogen peroxide is unstable. It decomposes spontaneously, producing water and oxygen -- the latter a gas at room temperature. So the pressure in the bottle would start to build up, and the bottle, built to contain not even a carbonated beverage but a sports drink, would rupture in short order. (How short? Why do you think the police used a robot?) <br />
<br />
As far as the anti-terrorism law is concerned, it doesn't matter in the slightest whether the alleged plot was viable or not. If the plotters were plotting then they're guilty. But there's another question here, and it involves the increase in airport security. Was it really necessary? Is it really necessary today? <br />
<br />
Convictions in this case were seen as vital to support the claim that the plot was imminent and dangerous and that therefore the security measures put in place have been been righteous and virtuous and in your best interests, and so on, by a collusion of national governments anxious to have you believe that they are keeping you safe rather than increasing their power to hassle you.<br />
<br />
In other words, of course there was no conflict of interest on the government side, since no British or American spokesmen had ever made any prejudicial claims about the imminence or viability or potential dangers of the alleged plot, and no inconvenient security procedures had been instituted -- at airports or elsewhere. All of these facts and even more -- including the context in which the accused were arrested -- guaranteed them absolutely fair and honest trials, as long as the jury could be kept free of potential conflicts of interest -- unless I'm kidding about all this. <br />
<br />
Aside from the obvious differences between the two trials -- a new judge and three new juries -- the second trial was far more likely than the first to produce convictions because it featured evidence that was unavailable for the first trial -- snippets of an email exchange between the plotters and their al Q'aeda contact in Pakistan, allegedly Rashid Rauf. <br />
<br />
The email released for the trial contains bizarre questions and answers, some of which are supposedly about buying and selling after-shave. These curious fragments were deemed by British authorities to be coded references to hydrogen peroxide, a key ingredient in the explosives the plotters were convicted for plotting to make. For instance, evidence introduced in the second trial showed that the plotters were sending email about buying after-shave but they were buying hydrogen peroxide. <br />
<br />
Other email fragments discussed plans to attend a rap concert. British authorities charged that these exchanges were actually about plans for trial runs, during which -- presumably -- the plotters would take transatlantic flights to evaluate the security precautions then in place.<br />
<br />
These email messages had been intercepted by the NSA and shown to British security services shortly before the plotters were arrested in August of 2006. But by the time the first trial began in the spring of 2008, Rashid Rauf had "escaped" from the Pakistani police, and vanished into the Pakistani wilderness. So the NSA was monitoring his email account, hoping he would reveal his whereabouts by accessing it. Or so the story goes. <br />
<br />
And according to that story, the NSA, not wanting to disclose that Rauf's email was being watched, refused to release the email exchange to be used in the first trial -- which resulted in no convictions on the main charges. But when the second trial began in February of 2009, Rashid Rauf was dead, having been killed by a drone-fired missile in November of 2008. So the NSA released the email for use in the second trial. <br />
<br />
However, like all the other crafty terrorists of his generation, Rashid Rauf didn't stay dead for very long after he was killed. He's now being described as al Qaeda's Commander of European operations, according to stories being leaked to the British press in the last few months, and he specializes in setting up terrorist cells in European countries, especially England and Belgium. <br />
<br />
It's been quite a transformation -- or quite a series of transformations -- for Rashid Rauf, who three years ago was being described only as a "key figure" in the alleged liquid bomb plot. Since then he's been arrested and allegedly tortured, he's had all terror-related charges against him dropped (twice!), he's escaped from the most inept police escort ever mounted, then got killed in a missile strike, and now he's not only the "mastermind" of the liquid bombers but he's the al Q'aeda connection for several other shady groups of alleged terrorists, including the 12 people who were arrested in Belgium in December of 2007 and promptly released, without any charges having been laid against any of them. The Belgian plotters were subsequently re-arrested, but no hard evidence has yet been produced against any of them. <br />
<br />
Rashid Rauf is also being called "the mastermind" of the so-called "Manchester Easter bombing plot", in which 12 Pakistani students were arrested in the North of England in April. Government spokesmen, including the Prime Minister, said the police operation, dubbed "Operation Pathway", had foiled a large terror plot, but no weapons were ever found and no charges were laid against any of these so-called "terrorists", either. <br />
<br />
Curiously, the Manchester "plotters" were also arrested on the strength of a weird exchange of emails with an al Qaeda contact in Pakistan, also allegedly Rashid Rauf. In their case, the weird emails mentioned a number of girlfriends and plans for a wedding. Authorities maintain that the emails were actually about various kinds of explosives and plans to use them. <br />
<br />
Ominous noises leaked to (and breathlessly reported by) the British press have hinted that 12 is a significant number -- a telltale sign, as it were. Rashid Rauf specializes in terror cells consisting of 12 members, or so we're told. We're even supposed to believe that his cells work in such a coordinated manner that the Belgian plot was held back in favor of the Manchester plot -- a suggestion which is entirely ludicrous in multiple ways. <br />
<br />
First and foremost, terror cells are supposed to be ignorant of and independent of one another. They're supposed to be autonomous units, incapable of compromising one another. Why would one cell wait for another one? If al Qaeda is incapable of supporting more than a dozen terrorists at a time, does that really constitute a global threat worthy of a multi-trillion dollar response? <br />
<br />
But even more ludicrously, did they decide not to do anything in Belgium so they could concentrate on not doing anything in Manchester? <br />
<br />
The liquid bomb plot is ironic verging on incredible from so many different angles it's tough to think of them all, let alone mention them. In my view, each of these angles is significant in one way or another. And I will come back and tell you more about the story when the Brits finally convict the rest of the knuckleheads, no matter how many trials it takes!
Winter Patriothttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06966573231074972843noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9621489.post-65587930881143004182021-10-17T07:58:00.008-04:002021-10-17T08:39:47.104-04:00A Hole Too DeepAs my regular readers both know, I've been reading (and commenting on)
a three-part series called "The Twenty Year Shadow of 9/11", which has
been published by <a href="https://covertactionmagazine.com/">CovertAction Magazine</a>.
<br /><br />
The series, by Ben Howard, Aaron Good and Peter Dale Scott, began with two
installments which appear to have been written by all three authors
working together, and ended with a three-part conclusion which was
certainly written by the three authors separately. And that's
why we have three different conclusions to assess.
<br /><br />
This post examines the second conclusion in
<a href="https://covertactionmagazine.com/2021/09/27/stepping-out-of-the-shadow-of-9-11-start-by-ending-the-post-9-11-states-of-emergency/">the third installment</a> of the series. It's called
"Cutting Through the Parapolitical Fog of 9/11" and
it was written by Aaron Good. CovertAction says:
<blockquote>
Aaron Good is Editor at Large for CovertAction Magazine.<br /><br />
His revised doctoral dissertation, <u><i>American Exception: Empire and the Deep State</i></u>,
is to be published by Skyhorse in the spring of 2022.<br /><br />
You can follow Aaron on Twitter: @Aaron_Good_
</blockquote>
The first conclusion, by Ben Howard,
<a href="http://winterpatriot.blogspot.com/2021/10/one-out-of-three-aint-good.html">set the bar</a>.
Will the second conclusion will reach it? or surpass it? No other result seems possible.
<br /><a name='more'></a>
<br />
When I was young, my friends and I would amuse ourselves by posing
paradoxical questions, such as: "Could God dig a hole so deep that
he couldn't get out of it?" It was always a hypothetical matter for
us, since none of us had ever seen it done. We could never have imagined
how how easy it is. But Aaron Good can do it, and here he shows us how:
<blockquote>
The evidence and analysis in Parts 1 and 2 provide reasonable
justification for seriously exploring the possibility that
9/11 was in some way facilitated by obscure elements of the
state. Sadly, the vocabulary for investigating such an
operation is lacking in the popular discourse.
</blockquote>
As you may know, if there were room for 9/11 in
"the popular discourse", and if 9/11 wasn't
what the government said it was,
the two terms used most often to describe
it would be "false flag" and "inside job".
<br /><br />
Aaron Good thinks these terms are inappropriate,
and this is why:
<blockquote>
“False flag” refers to an old naval ploy wherein a vessel flies a
different flag and attacks a target in order to inculpate the chosen party. ...
<br /><br />
Whatever the origins and ultimate controlling power of al-Qaeda was or
is, its foot soldiers would appear to be, by and large, fanatical
Islamists who are not conscious U.S. agents.
Therefore, “false flag” is an imprecise description.
</blockquote>
This may be the most transparent "straw man" attack I have ever seen. And I
used to cover domestic politics, so that's saying something.
<br /><br />
Stripped of the historical naval baggage, and particularly in the context of 9/11,
the term "false flag" refers to an action perpetrated by one "actor" and blamed on another.
<br /><br />
When people say, "9/11 was a false flag attack," they mean they don't
believe it was perpetrated by al-Qaeda.
<br /><br />
The question here is not whether "al-Qaeda foot soldiers" were "conscious U.S. agents"
but whether "al-Qaeda foot soldiers" had anything to do with the attack.
<br /><br />
There is very credible evidence in the public domain,
including some unearthed by Peter Dale Scott,
which leads some of us to wonder whether
"al-Qaeda foot soldiers" were involved in any capacity other than as scapegoats.
The fact that a third of the alleged hijackers appeared in the days following the attacks,
alive and well but wondering why their names and photos were being circulated by the major media,
is sufficient in itself to throw doubt on the claim that the attack was the work of "al-Qaeda foot soldiers."
<br /><br />
I find it very difficult to believe that anyone "with extensive knowledge about 9/11" doesn't know that.
<br /><br />
There's also a problem of methodology. In the branch of philosophy
called "logic", there is a fallacy known as "begging the question".
To "beg a question" means "to assume the question has already been
answered" and usually it also means "to use the assumption to avoid
the question".
<br /><br />
If somebody says, "I think 9/11 was a false flag attack because we've
never seen any credible evidence that the alleged hijackers
were in the airports on the day of the attacks, or that they all
died in the operation, or that their remains were ever properly
identified," and so on ...
<br /><br />
And you say, "No, it couldn't have been a false flag attack because
the hijackers were ___." No matter how you finish the sentence,
you've begged the question.
<br /><br />
I find it very difficult to believe that anyone who has
written a doctoral dissertation doesn't know that.
<br /><br />
So maybe we'd do better with the phrase "inside job". Here's Aaron Good again:
<blockquote>
An “inside job” is something like, say, a bank robbery
in which a bank employee serves as an “inside man” who
plays a role ...
<br />
... it is very improbable that there were high U.S. government officials
who were secretly al-Qaeda agents bent on waging jihad. To put it mildly,
al-Qaeda’s worldview and mission are not likely to appeal to persons with
the wherewithal and inclination to advance in the U.S. national security
bureaucracies. So again, “inside job” is not a term that can adequately
capture the 9/11 terror spectacle.
</blockquote>
Let's pretend we didn't notice Aaron Good begging another question,
and excuse me for asking, but: If "al-Qaeda’s worldview and mission
are not likely to appeal to persons with the wherewithal and inclination
to advance in the U.S. national security bureaucracies", how is it possible
that al-Qaeda was created and supported by men who had <i>already</i>
advanced to the pinnacle of "the U.S. national security bureaucracies"?
<br /><br />
We know that the "fanatical Islamic terrorists", also known as "Mujihadeen",
"freedom fighters", "the moral equivalent of the Founding Fathers",
and later "al-Qaeda", were recruited, trained, supplied, and maneuvered
on the global stage, at the direction of the men who ran "the U.S. national
security bureaucracies", as fully documented in Part 1 of the series
which Aaron Good is now trying to conclude.
<br /><br />
I believe it is fair to ask: If this happened, how improbable could it be?
<br /><br />
Or to take another tack: If investigators looking into a bank
that has been robbed find that the security system had been
disabled, they'll <i>know</i> that the robbers had some help on the
inside, because it would have been impossible for the robbers to disable
the alarm from the outside.
<br /><br />
In trying to find out who disabled the alarm, they wouldn't start by
assuming "It is very improbable that there were officials in the
bank who were secretly in league with the robbers."
<br /><br />
The fact that the alarm had been disabled would show very clearly that
somebody in the bank was secretly in league with the robbers -- no
matter how improbable it may have seemed before the disabled alarm
was discovered.
<br /><br />
We know that America's security alarm was turned off on 9/11, that air
defenses were diverted away from the Eastern Seaboard by an astonishing
set of simultaneous war games and other military exercises, and that this
circumstance explains at least partially why hijacked airplanes were
allowed to fly unmolested for more than an hour after everyone in the
country had been told that we were under attack. Whether or not
it's "probable" that the attackers had "inside help" makes no difference,
because it's clear that they did.
<br /><br />
I find it very difficult to believe that
anyone "with extensive knowledge about 9/11" doesn't know this, either.
<br /><br />
Here's Aaron Good again:
<blockquote>
This is not to say that 9/11 could not have had any aspects for which
the terms “inside job” or “false flag” might be applicable.
</blockquote>
In polite company, this is called "splitting hairs". Elsewhere it is
known by less printable but more fragrant names.
<br /><br />
If 9/11 had "aspects" of a "false flag attack" then it was a false flag attack.
It may have been a very complicated false flag attack, but
it was a false flag attack nonetheless.
<br /><br />
If 9/11 had "aspects" of an "inside job" then it was an inside job. It may
have been a very complicated inside job, but it was an inside job nonetheless.
<br /><br />
But Aaron Good says:
<blockquote>
such categorizations are oversimplified and insufficient.
</blockquote>
In my view it would have been far more accurate to use the terms "oversimplified and insufficient"
to describe the argument we've been evaluating, rather than the phrases we've been discussing.
<br /><br />
And now, surely you can see the hole.
<br /><br />
9/11 wasn't a false flag attack and it wasn't an inside job, except maybe it was,
so now we have to introduce some new terminology, because we've already trashed the
normal meanings of the words that we normally use to describe the things that
these words normally describe.
<br /><br />
In plain and simple English, 9/11 wasn't exactly what we call it,
even if that's exactly what it was.
<br /><br />
I write passages like this on purpose sometimes. I learned how to do it by reading too much
Joe Heller. I pour out <a href="http://winterpatriot.blogspot.com/2021/09/911-20-it-could-have-been-so-much-worse.html">outrageous nonsense</a>, almost as if I believed it,
but <a href="https://winterpatriot.blogspot.com/2009/06/home-improvement-post-911-part-ii.html">drenched in so much irony</a> that only my least observant readers can fail to notice <a href="https://winterpatriot.blogspot.com/2007/03/should-i-kill-my-neighbor.html">I'm pulling their legs</a> -- trying to make them laugh!
It may be a cheap and easy literary trick, but it's fun. And in my view,
the more serious the topic, the more necessary the fun.
<br /><br />
But if I leave out the irony, readers can hardly be expected to see the nonsense
as part of a literary trick. And if they don't see it as dripping with irony,
they'll see it as dripping with something else: confusion if I'm lucky, otherwise something fragrant.
<br /><br />
In any case, if I did that, the hole would be so deep that I could never dig myself out of it.
<br /><br />
And watching Aaron Good try to dig himself out of the hole he's dug is neither very
informative nor very much fun, in my opinion. So I'll spare you the gory details on
that front. The good news is: there's more to his conclusion than simply digging,
although there is a fair amount of digging.
<br /><br />
Having rejected the terms "false flag" and "inside job", Aaron Good takes us on
an extended historical journey which provides the basis for the new terminology
which we need to learn. And we need to learn this new terminology, apparently, in order to
understand excerpts from Aaron Good's doctoral thesis. And we need to read excerpts from Aaron
Good's doctoral thesis, apparently, because otherwise nobody would know enough to buy
his book which is soon to be published. At least that was my first
impression. But now I'm not so sure.
<br /><br />
The new terminology includes "dual state", "prerogative state",
"normative (or public) state", "tripartite state", "deep state",
"security state", and "democratic state". The history lesson begins with a
detailed overview of Peter Dale Scott's work, which of course is necessary
because none of us have ever heard of Peter, much less read anything he's every written.
<br /><br />
Having laid in all this crucial background, Aaron Good proceeds to introduce
the "state of exception", "exceptionism", and the idea that
"the U.S. has come to be characterized by exceptionism,
an unending “state of exception” that is institutionalized if not
acknowledged." Then there's the “Doomsday Project”, Continuity of Government (COG), and
<blockquote>
Some of what follows here is addressed later in greater detail within Peter’s
concluding sections. Since Peter and I both believe that this
material is of great significance, I think the repetition is
useful or at least acceptable.
</blockquote>
Are you with us so far? The article is already far too long, and
we still haven't had a single word from Peter, but all the repetition
is "useful or at least acceptable". It's
hard to argue with this sort of "logic".
<br /><br />
Fortunately, our history lesson is almost over. But first we must examine the
stories of James McCord, Frank Olson, and E. Howard Hunt, all of whom were
dead and buried long before 9/11. In other words, this material is extremely relevant.
<br /><br />
Finally we come to a long passage with enormous potential. I have snipped much of
the detail, so it doesn't make much sense, but that's OK because we don't
have to make sense of it. We only need to observe the pattern.
(I have added the emphasis in the following text.)
<blockquote>
one <i>cannot rule out</i> the possibility that some sort of overriding prerogative
powers were exercised through COG/Doomsday channels in such a way as to influence
events <i>before, during, and/or following</i> 9/11. ... Perhaps such<i> could
help explain</i> those episodes ... in which various legitimate state actors were
stymied ... <i>If indeed </i>COG/Doomsday networks <i>are vested</i> with the
responsibility ... the requisite prerogatives <i>could well mean</i> that such
entities are ultimately sovereign ... Democratically elected officials like Congress
or the President <i>may or may not have had</i> decisive input ... these opaque
networks <i>may have </i>considerable independence ...<i> If </i>deep political
elements <i>do prevail</i> ... such a constellation of powers <i>could have
been</i> utilized to facilitate the events of September 11, 2001 ... One grim
possibility <i>could be</i> ... CIA Director George Tenet and CIA officer Richard Blee
and others <i>could have</i> functioned as fail-safe actors ... <i>al-Qaeda could be
funded and managed covertly</i> by highly secretive elements within or above
the intelligence services of other countries ... Another similar COG/Doomsday
explanation <i>could explain</i> ... networks affiliated with the neoconservatives
<i>could have set</i> the stage for 9/11 ... provisions<i> could have been enacted</i>
which granted the administration overriding control of ... powers ...<i> may include
</i>the secret authority to manage information and conduct governance ...
<i>If</i> complicit administration figures ... activated COG/Doomsday measures ...
such <i>may have allowed</i> them to exercise various prerogative powers ...
<b><i>there is no basis </i>for the <i>a priori</i> rejection of hypotheses which
raise the possibility of <i>clandestine state complicity</i></b> in violent events of
great politico-economic significance such as 9/11.
</blockquote>
Did you catch that last bit? We don't know anything concrete about who did what,
but it could have been Miss Scarlet or Colonel Mustard or maybe somebody else;
definitely or possibly in the library if not elsewhere;
and certainly before, during and/or after lunch.
<br /><br />
But we <i>do</i> know "there is <b>no basis for the <i>a priori</i> rejection of hypotheses
which raise the possibility of clandestine state complicity</b>".
<br /><br />
You see how that works? It doesn't. We've made our way through all this new terminology
and we've pussy-footed around all this speculation, only
to conclude that we have no reason to believe there wasn't
any "clandestine state complicity".
But if there <i>was</i> "clandestine state complicity",
that means it was <i>both</i> a false flag attack <i>and</i> an inside job,
at least according to the <i>usual</i> meanings of these terms.
<br /><br />
I mentioned the bar that had been set by the first conclusion, and for
a while I thought the second conclusion had cleared it, but I was wrong.
It only seemed that way until I fell asleep twice and gave
up without having reached the end. I still don't know how it ends
but I don't care anymore.
<br /><br/>
Rather than briefly adding nothing of value to the discussion,
as Ben Howard's first conclusion did, Aaron Good's second conclusion
added nothing of value in a long drawn-out manner that left all my brain cells
behind. So I can't tell you anything about Peter Dale Scott's conclusion
until I wake up twice.
<br/><br/>
On the other hand, Aaron Good's conclusion it did give us a glimpse of
his doctoral dissertation and a preview of his soon-to-be-published book,
which I will certainly be very quick not to buy.
<br /><br />
I have no grudge against Aaron Good. Clearly I disagree with him.
But so what? I disagree with almost everybody on most things,
and I don't buy their books either.
<br /><br />
Despite our areas of disagreement, I wish him good luck with his book.
I just don't see why anybody would buy it. And I don't mean to be snarky;
I just think that most people don't know or care very much about 9/11,
so the books they're buying pertain to other subjects. And among those
who know and care a great deal about 9/11, very few are going to spend
money (or even time) on something that starts by discarding "false flag"
and "inside job" as inappropriate terminology, then works so hard to show
why these terms are entirely appropriate after all!
<br /><br />
It's reminded me of when I was teaching college math. There was a
physics prof whom none of students understood, so they all asked
for help with their physics when I was supposed to be helping
them with their math. The man teaching them physics had an
excellent reputation and several teacher-of-the-year awards,
and I couldn't figure out why they didn't understand their physics
when it was so similar to the math they did understand.
<br /><br />
One day I said, "Tell me about your physics teacher." And they all said,
more or less simultaneously, "He's a very brilliant man." So I asked,
"How do you know that?" Can you guess the answer? They said, "He says
a lot of things that nobody understands."
<br /><br />
I guess this makes good sense. Our "culture" has been going backwards
for so long that a prof can win multiple teacher-of-the-year awards by
saying a lot of things that nobody understands. But I don't think we
should be trying for teacher-of-the-year awards. I think 9/11 is much
more important than that.
<br /><br />
In my view, 9/11 was an incredibly complex event, or set of events,
and it's difficult to explain any aspect of it simply. But that's
what we need to do if we're going to make any progress on this issue.
If we insist on trying to explain it in words nobody knows, even people
who are extremely interested, such as this cold blogger,
will fall asleep before they bail out. So that's not going
to be very useful model, as far as I can tell.
<br /><br />
Of course I could be wrong. But it seems to me that we are now
two-thirds of the way through the concluding installment
of the series and still looking for a coherent explanation
of how all the puzzle pieces dumped on the table in the first
two installments can possibly be put together.
We've also fallen asleep twice, so now we need to wake up
twice before we can continue. But I can wake up twice if you can.
<br /><br />
Once or twice in the past I have been critical of writers who
fail to summarize their arguments after laying them out in
detail. If anyone cares to charge me with this offense, I am
prepared to plead guilty. But I don't want to continue
committing the same offense over and over. So let's just say:
<br /><br />
My biggest problem with Aaron Good's conclusion is that his
thesis is his thesis.
<br /><br />
Stripped of the <a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/equivocation" target="_blank">equivocation</a>:
Aaron Good's <a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/thesis" target="_blank">thesis</a> [def #2] (a statement that someone
wants to discuss or prove) is his thesis [def #1] (a long piece
of writing on a particular subject that is done to earn
a degree at a university).
Winter Patriothttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06966573231074972843noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9621489.post-71200132922619516732021-10-01T13:57:00.007-04:002021-10-01T16:41:53.774-04:00One Out Of Three Ain't Good<a href="https://covertactionmagazine.com/2021/09/27/stepping-out-of-the-shadow-of-9-11-start-by-ending-the-post-9-11-states-of-emergency/">The third installment</a> of "The Twenty Year Shadow of 9/11", a three-part series by Ben Howard, Aaron Good, and Peter Dale Scott, has been posted at <a href="https://covertactionmagazine.com/">CovertAction Magazine</a>, and it starts with a note from the editors:
<blockquote>
[Because this series has been the result of a collaboration among three writers with extensive knowledge about 9/11, U.S. hegemony, and the commonly suppressed aspects of our system of governance, our authors decided to take a different approach with Part 3. Rather than present one consensus conclusion, they present here three separate concluding sections—one from each author. We hope this format takes full advantage of the unique perspectives that each have to offer.]
</blockquote><p>
The series started out well, and <a href="http://winterpatriot.blogspot.com/2021/09/the-twenty-year-shadow-of-911.html">I praised</a> the <a href="https://covertactionmagazine.com/2021/09/11/the-twenty-year-shadow-of-9-11-u-s-complicity-in-the-terror-spectacle-and-the-urgent-need-to-end-it/">first installment</a> without any reservations. The <a href="https://covertactionmagazine.com/2021/09/13/the-twenty-year-shadow-of-9-11-part-2-why-did-key-u-s-officials-protect-the-alleged-9-11-plotters/">second installment</a> turned out to be <a href="http://winterpatriot.blogspot.com/2021/09/asked-but-not-answered-why-did-key-us.html">surprisingly dismal</a>, to be blunt, and it raised the question, "What's going on here?"
<br /><br />
Now we have the answer. <a name='more'></a>
<br /><br />
Because this series has been the result of a collaboration among three writers <i>who fundamentally disagree about the important issues in question</i>, there can be no consensus among them. So they've written three separate conclusions, and it seems to me that the only fair and practical thing we can do is treat them separately.
<br /><br />
I was planning to write one post reacting to each of the three installments, and I was expecting to cheer each installment with gusto. But things haven't worked out as I expected. Fancy that!
<br /><br />
Now, having written the first two posts in a series that was planned to include three, I find myself more or less obliged to write four additional posts, one for each of the authors' conclusions and a final post summarizing my reaction to the series as a whole: <i>my</i> conclusion, so to speak.
<br /><br />
~~~
<br /><br />
We'll start with a disclaimer: I have spent many hours reading and listening to Peter Dale Scott, and learned an enormous amount in the process. I hold him and his work in very high esteem, and it was Peter's name that attracted my attention to the series.
<br /><br />
I do not know anything about the other authors, Ben Howard and Aaron Good, other than the biographical information provided by CovertAction Magazine, and which I will quote as appropriate.
<br /><br />
My late mother, Winter Matriarch, used to tell me, "If you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all." She wouldn't have understood blogging. And she didn't understand 9/11 either. Sometimes we have to say things that are not very nice. Sorry, Mom!
<br /><br />
But, having just written <a href="http://winterpatriot.blogspot.com/2021/09/late-for-sky-in-memory-of-william-blum.html">a tribute to Bill Blum</a>, which included the words "Some of our best and smartest friends are going to disagree with us on key issues, and we need to be OK with that," I intend to abide by my sanctimonious declaration and confine my comments to the various contributions, but not the authors themselves.
<br /><br />
<b>Ben Howard</b>
<br /><br />
According to CovertAction Magazine,
</p><blockquote>
Ben Howard is an independent researcher.
<br /><br />
He lives in Massachusetts with his wife and daughter.
<br /><br />
You can follow Ben on Twitter: @housetrotter.
</blockquote>
Since Ben Howard's conclusion appears first in this installment, we will look at it first. At only five paragraphs, it is by far the shortest of the three, so I may as well quote in full.
<br /><br />
(The other two authors wrote much more, and I will only quote short excerpts from their contributions, but you'll have to wait a while for before we can talk about what they've written.)
<br /><br />
Here's Ben Howard:
<blockquote>
In reflecting on 9/11 and the preceding terror attacks, it is clear that the security services’ long-entrenched practice of withholding and compartmentalizing information has had disastrous consequences. Contrary to the sentiments expressed in the press and by members of the 9/11 Commission and Joint Intelligence Inquiry, these disastrous consequences were far from accidental. Instead, as I believe we have demonstrated in Parts 1 and 2, this practice of withholding and compartmentalization has, at key moments, been employed for the purposes of allowing terrorist attacks against Americans and American interests.
</blockquote>
Unfortunately I beg to differ. In my view, the claim that the "practice of withholding and compartmentalization has, at key moments, been employed for the purposes of allowing terrorist attacks against Americans and American interests" has <i>not</i> been "demonstrated" in this series, although something of the sort <i>has</i> been demonstrated elsewhere. It is possible that the authors <i>intended</i> to demonstrate this, but it is by no means clear that they <i>did</i> so.
<br /><br />
They've shown that the U.S. has a long history of recruiting, training, supplying, and maneuvering "radical Islamic terrorists" on the world stage, and using them as a proxy army against one country after another, most notably Afghanistan and the Soviet Union.
<br /><br />
They've also shown that some of these recruits were permitted to enter the U.S. and move around freely once they got here, even though, given their status as "radical Islamic terrorists", they should not have been allowed to do this. And they have shown that these "terrorists" were protected (i.e. from the FBI) by other "security forces" (i.e. the CIA).
<br /><br />
Whether any of this was done "for the purposes of allowing terrorist attacks against Americans and American interests" is a question which this series has never even raised, let alone answered.
<br /><br />
Another question that has not even been raised in this series concerns the role of the "radical Islamic terrorists". Were they the only "attackers" who were active that day? Were they even attackers at all? Are we sure they weren't just patsies?
<br /><br />
It's far from a moot point, and it is certainly relevant one, given the blatantly obvious disconnect between the story of the attack and the damage it was said to have caused. The fact that the evidence remaining after the attack cannot be accounted for by the attack as officially described throws enormous doubt on the claim that the "hijackers" caused all the damage all by themselves.
<br /><br />
I find it very disturbing that even though none of this has even been mentioned, we are already into the conclusions, and acting as if these unasked questions had been satisfactorily answered.
<br /><br />
Ben Howard continues:
<blockquote>
These terrorist attacks are illegal but are essential for maintaining the present political economy. As demonstrated in Parts 1 and 2, they are often crucial to achieve the political and economic goals of the ruling class. The disastrous withholding of information by intelligence agencies and other covert groups is therefore necessary so these planned attacks are not foiled before they serve their intended purposes. Deep events, carried out with secrecy and subterfuge as they are, are often so submerged that even elements of the national security state cannot fully glean their breadth and scope.
</blockquote>
Once again I disagree about what has been demonstrated in the first two parts of the series.
<br /><br />
Nowhere has it even been suggested that "terrorist attacks" are "essential for maintaining the present political economy", not to mention "crucial to achieve the political and economic goals of the ruling class".
<br /><br />
On the other hand, this is the first time I've ever seen the phrase, "terrorist attacks are illegal", and in my view this is a very insightful statement, especially compared to its neighbors.
<br /><br />Here's Ben Howard again:
<blockquote>
It is no surprise, then, that the public has a limited understanding of these events. Much of this can be attributed to the unknown but certainly large amount of highly relevant information that has been concealed through dubious means, ranging from the improper classification of documents up to destruction of evidence and perjury. However, despite this suppression of information, many important stories and facts which belie establishment myths and narratives appear in prestigious newspapers or are reported by official government inquiries. That these stories and facts are not broadly known and incorporated into our collective understanding of our system is evidence of some other, more subtle, means of suppression.
</blockquote>
This is correct, in my opinion. The public certainly has a limited understanding of these events. Concealment or destruction of evidence and perjury are certainly elements of the story. And other, more subtle, means of suppression are definitely in play. So we seem to be on the same page again.
<br /><br />
Here's Ben Howard:
<blockquote>
Indeed, while many well-educated and well-read Americans may acknowledge that the official story of a deep event like, say, 9/11 is “something of a whitewash,”[1] bourgeois norms typically prevent these people from delving too deeply into that which is being whitewashed. These deep events point to the conclusion that the world we live in is often ruled by dark and occulted forces which escape accountability thanks to state secrecy, media manipulation, and the powerful psychological forces of repression, denial, and dissociation. But to acknowledge the implications of this conclusion for our nominal democracy is to situate oneself outside of acceptable discourse. It is clear, therefore, that to develop a proper understanding of the nature of the American politico-economic system, we must transcend this “acceptable discourse.” Our present understanding of America’s history and politics, manipulated as it is by ruling class interests, cannot serve us.
</blockquote>
I agree with most of this, too. We could hardly ask for a better example of people refraining "from delving too deeply into that which is being whitewashed".
<br /><br />
And it's very clear that "we must transcend" a great deal of institutional resistance, not only to "develop a proper understanding" but simply to communicate freely with large groups of people. So that part is good.
<br /><br />There's a big red flag in the form of a reference, which we will explore soon enough.
<br /><br />
But on with the show, this is it!
<blockquote>
It is necessary, then, to develop a popular “common sense” counter-narrative which, through unflinching analysis of the role of class power and elite self-interest in our society, is able to capture and convey the true significance of these deep events. I am under no illusions that one article series, no matter how finely crafted or diligently researched, can change the course of history. That said, I am hopeful that it might contribute in a small way to the creation of a new and better understanding of history and politics we so desperately need. I remain optimistic that the great masses of people in this country and across the world, armed with more of the truth, will change the world for the better.
</blockquote>
This is where I disagree most emphatically. In my view, it would be very difficult, if not impossible, "to develop a popular common sense counter-narrative" which includes "unflinching analysis of the role of class power and elite self-interest in our society", if only because "the role of class power and elite self-interest in our society" is antithetical to "common sense" as popularly understood.
<br /><br />
And therefore, any "narrative", "common sense" or otherwise, which starts with "The people who control our country are so greedy and so intent on running the whole world that they would be happy to see you and your whole family crushed or burned to death if it might advance their agenda just an eighth of an inch," is by definition so far beyond the bounds of "acceptable discourse" that very few people will take it seriously, even if every word of it happens to be true. And I don't doubt that it is, but we probably can't prove it to anybody's satisfaction.
<br /><br />So I don't think it's necessary to develop any more narratives. Instead, I think we should try to popularize the best "common sense narrative" that we already have, which goes something like this:
<br /><br />
<b>The official story of 9/11 is blatantly false. We can demonstrate this in 10 or 100 or 1000 ways, so no matter how much evidence it might take to change your mind, we can give you more. The facts that this obviously false story has only been challenged by a few representatives of any political party, and that they have been banished immediately, shows that we cannot expect any politicians, of any political party, to raise any more questions, let alone tell us the truth. And the fact that this false story is echoed endlessly by the government and all the big media shows that we cannot trust the government or the big media to tell us the truth about 9/11 either.
Ever.</b><br /><br />
This much truth, which can easily be demonstrated, would be enough to cause severe cognitive dissonance in the people who think of themselves as Democrats <i>or</i> Republicans, and for those who watch the big media "news" broadcasts. In that sense, it's <i>already</i> "a bridge too far". Going even farther beyond the bounds of "acceptable discourse" seems very risky to me, at least when dealing with the population in general. (When talking to 9/11 researchers, of course, the risk is greatly reduced. But we don't need to convince very many of them.)
<br /><br />
Furthermore, as Ben Howard points out, we're up against "some other, more subtle, means of suppression", so even though we already have a "common sense narrative", it's a very difficult narrative to spread, especially compared to the official story, which gets endless free press everywhere. In other words, in my opinion, the problem is not that we don't have anything convincing to say. It's that we can't get our message to the people who need to hear it.
<br /><br />
In addition to trying to squeeze some information in "around the edges" of "acceptable discourse", we also need to try to move "the bounds" of that discourse when we can. At least that's my opinion. I think we need to be hammering on the gatekeepers continually. We need to make people understand that a claim such as "even <i>Noam Chomsky</i> doesn't believe <i>that</i>" does not constitute a logical argument, much less a sound one.
<br /><br />
I use Chomsky as an example because he's the Master Gatekeeper as far as I can tell. But plenty of others are jockeying for places in line, evidently hoping to assume his position when it becomes available. In my view, we should be hammering on all of them. And speaking of which, the time has come to discuss the "big red flag" I mentioned earlier.
<br /><br />
I would hardly describe myself as someone "with extensive knowledge about 9/11". I can barely imagine collaborating on a series about it with Peter Dale Scott. And I can't help asking myself, "If I were in Ben Howard's position, what would I bring to the table?"
<br /><br />
Would I be able to provide more than one reference?
<br /><br />
If I could only provide one link, would I choose a column written by Chris Hayes of MSNBC, published by "The Nation", and called "<a href="https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/911-roots-paranoia/">9/11: The Roots of Paranoia</a>"?
<br /><br />
Would I link to an article that described "<b>the so-called 9/11 Truth Movement</b>" as a "<b>rabbit hole of delusion</b>"?
<br /><br />
Would I link to an article that said:
<blockquote>
<b>Conspiracy theories that claim to explain 9/11 are wrongheaded and a terrible waste of time
</b></blockquote>
or that repeated a vicious lie told endlessly elsewhere, that
<blockquote>
<b>Popular Mechanics assembled a team of engineers, physicists, flight experts and the like to critically examine some of the Truth Movement’s most common claims. They found them almost entirely without merit
</b></blockquote>or that concluded:
<blockquote>
<b>the public must come to trust that the gatekeepers of public discourse share their skepticism about the agenda its government is pursuing
</b></blockquote>
No, No, No! <b>The public must come to trust the gatekeepers? </b>Sorry, Chris! Sorry, Ben! I'm not having a bit of this. I have never put up with any of this from anybody, and I'm not about to start now. <br /><br />
I would never link to an article that made any of these claims unless I intended to refute the claim.
<br /><br />
I would never link to an article that made all these claims unless I intended to trash the whole article.
<br /><br />
In short, I wouldn't even <i>consider</i> linking to it, except as an example of obvious disinformation. I certainly wouldn't give my readers the impression that I endorsed it, or that I found it credible. Was there no better way to document the assertion that some Americans think the 9/11 report was "a bit of a whitewash"? I'm kidding now. There are many better ways to do it, but apparently Ben Howard, despite his "extensive knowledge about 9/11", couldn't quite put his finger on any of them.<br /><br />
If I had been described as having "extensive knowledge about 9/11", but this was the best link I could provide, what then?
<br /><br />
If I were "optimistic that the great masses of people in this country and across the world, armed with more of the truth, [would] change the world for the better", would I give them something better to read than Chris Hayes?
<br /><br />
When I was reading Ben Howard for the first time, I couldn't help thinking, "Why didn't they just let Peter write the conclusion?"
<br /><br />
Now, having read the other two conclusions, I can tell you that Ben Howard's conclusion stands far apart from the others -- in length, tone, and substance.
<br /><br />
This, then, must be "the dissenting opinion", which I suppose answers my question.
<br /><br />
And I guess that constitutes grounds for hope.
<br /><br />
After all, it's highly unlikely that either of the other authors could have written anything worse than this unless they were in substantial agreement with Ben Howard.
<br /><br />
We will look at the conclusion written by Aaron Good in the next installment of this series.<p></p>Winter Patriothttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06966573231074972843noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9621489.post-49530501930205250122021-09-29T22:54:00.018-04:002021-09-30T08:53:29.209-04:00A Revolution In Stupendia In my previous post, "<a href="http://winterpatriot.blogspot.com/2021/09/the-trouble-with-stupendia.html">The Trouble With Stupendia</a>", I explained what I mean by "stupendium" (a "stupendous compendium" but with less compliment and more stupidity). But I failed to mention that its roots are Latin, so of course the plural is "stupendia".
<br /><br />
In that post I described the style of stupendium we see most often, but it's not the only style there is, so in this post I will call that style a "bare stupendium". To recap: A bare stupendium
<blockquote>
amounts to dumping all the pieces on the table and letting the reader put the puzzle together. Or drawing all the dots but never even hinting at how they should be connected. Too many details, not enough synthesis.
</blockquote>
In this post we will explore the landscape of stupendia in more detail, looking for useful ideas which may be hidden away somewhere.
<br /><br /><a name='more'></a>
Following Mom's standard recommendation, we'll take the good with the bad. In this case there are three flavors of each, and we'll start with the bad. By this I mean we'll look at the three main reasons why bare stupendia are horrible, then turn our attention to three styles of stupendium which are approximately infinitely better.
<br /><br />
The three main reasons why bare stupendia are horrible are:<br /><br />
[1] they are horribly difficult to research,<br />
[2] they are horribly difficult to write, and <br />
[3] they are horribly difficult to read.
<br /><br />
Why, then, do so many writers create so many bare stupdendia? There are several plausible explanations, and I outlined some of them in the previous post. Most of those reasons apply to writers under editorial and/or commercial pressure.
<br /><br />
I think the main reasons why so many <i>independent</i> writers create bare stupendia are (a) because they're not familiar with the alternatives, and (b) because they don't realize how much better the alternatives are. And therefore I think it will be valuable to describe the four varieties of stupendium, three of which are approximately infinitely better than the other. (The numbers reflect the relative difficulty of writing, and the relative ease of reading, stupendia in each style):
<br /><br />
[0] the bare stupendium,<br />
[1] the sandwich stupendium,<br />
[2] the switchback stupendium, and <br />
[3] the lego block stupendium.
<br /><br />
I will describe each of the four styles as concisely as possible. If I leave any questions hanging, please remind me in the comments.
<br /><br />
[0] In a bare stupendium, the writer throws all the puzzle pieces on the table and leaves the reader to figure out how they fit together. This style is largely unacceptable for the reasons described above. Exceptions are academic papers where the audience can be assumed to know almost as much as (or even more than) the author.
<br /><br />
[1] A sandwich stupendium is similar to a bare stupendium but slightly more difficult to write. The author starts by showing the reader what the puzzle will look like when it's finished. Then he dumps all the pieces on the table, and examines each piece separately. Having done that, he gives the reader another look at the picture with all the pieces in place, and this time the reader can appreciate the picture more fully because he has just seen the details on each individual piece.
<br /><br />
So the sandwich stupendium consists of three layers: a relatively vague glimpse of the big picture, followed by a barrage of intricate details, then a more detailed look at the big picture. As you can see, the middle layer is itself a bare stupendium. And of course, a sandwich stupendium is more difficult to write than a bare one, but a sandwich stupendium has a good chance of making sense even to a reader who is largely unfamiliar with the material.
<br /><br />
[2] If the picture is complicated and the details are abundant, a sandwich stupendium may be insufficient, because the bare stupendium in the middle can be too long. In those cases, we might prefer a switchback stupendium, which starts out with a small portion of the picture, fills in the details, moves to an adjacent small portion, fills in those details, and so on. By switching back and forth between a long-shot and a close-up, the author can make sure that no passage, whether of detail or overview, is too long to hold the reader's interest. People have been saying, "a change is as good as a rest" for a long time, and for a good reason.
<br /><br />
[3] The best type of stupendium is the most difficult to write and the least difficult to read, and we can call it the Lego block stupendium. The work is divided into many chapters, and each chapter is split into several sections, so all the sections are short.
<br /><br />
Each section makes sense on its own, so a casual reader can take in a page at a time and understand exactly what is being said. The sections are arranged so that each chapter makes even more sense than any of the sections it contains, and the chapters are arranged so that entire work makes more sense than any individual chapter.
<br /><br />
If it's jammed full of minute details, the work as a whole can be seen as a stupendium (literally, "a stupendous compendium"), although no smaller unit of it could be described as such.
<br /><br />
The theory behind the Lego block stupendium runs like this: <i>Watch what happens when the author puts in enough extra work to make the reader's task easy!</i>
<br /><br />
If you're starting to get a mental image of Bill Blum, there's a good reason for that. Bill wrote massive and brilliant Lego block stupendia. <a href="http://winterpatriot.blogspot.com/2021/09/late-for-sky-in-memory-of-william-blum.html">Digging through Bill's archive</a> was, for me, a Master Class in the art, or craft, or both, actually.
<br /><br />
And reading one of Bill's books is like watching a stone mason at work. Here's a new wall, and there's another new wall, and so on ... before you know it, he's built a whole castle, one block at a time. I believe this explains, at least in part,
<br /><br />
[1] why we loved him so much, and <br />
[2] why we learned so much from him so easily.
<br /><br />
We can't all write like Bill, and for many of us it would be foolish to try; the goal is so distant and the progress comes so slowly. We can't all play like Jimi or dance like Fred, either. But that's not important.
<br /><br />
What we <i>can</i> do is pay more attention to what we're writing, think more about the people we hope will be reading us, and try to make things easier for <i>them</i>.
<br /><br />
In practical terms, this means that those of us who are accustomed to writing bare stupendia might try a sandwich stupendium once in a while. And if that goes well, who knows where it might lead?
<br /><br />
None of us may ever be described as "the next William Blum", but if we take some small steps to make things easier for our readers, they will find our writing easier (and more fun) to read, they will learn much more from us, and they will remember more of what they've learned. And as far as I can tell, that's the whole point of what we're doing.
<br /><br />
This is why I am trying to foment a revolution in the art of the stupendium.
<br /><br />
May we all write <i>better</i> stupendia!
<br /><br />
May we all write <i>revolutionarily better</i> stupendia!
<br /><br />
May we all foster <i>the stupendian revoltion</i> together!
<br /><br />
And may our revolutionary stupendia lead to a revolutionary understanding of what we've been talking about for all these years!
<br /><br />
What do you say? Can you say "<i>Long Live The Revolution</i>"??
<br /><br />
Well done. I knew you could do that. Winter Patriothttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06966573231074972843noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9621489.post-80559802095784736682021-09-29T14:25:00.005-04:002021-09-29T22:18:31.400-04:00The Trouble With StupendiaIn two recent posts, I've reviewed current articles by Jeremy Kuzmarov on one hand, and Ben Howard, Aaron Good, and Peter Dale Scott on the other. Regarding the latter, "<a href="https://covertactionmagazine.com/2021/09/13/the-twenty-year-shadow-of-9-11-part-2-why-did-key-u-s-officials-protect-the-alleged-9-11-plotters/">Why Did Key U.S. Officials Protect the Alleged 9/11 Plotters?</a>" (reviewed <a href="http://winterpatriot.blogspot.com/2021/09/asked-but-not-answered-why-did-key-us.html">here</a>), I wrote:
<blockquote>
I'm sad to say I'm surprised by how shallow it is. ... the authors provide many indications that the "hijackers" were protected by members of "our" "security services" once they arrived in the U.S.
<br/><br/>
But they never give us any indication that they realize they're talking about patsies. They write as if the patsies had committed the crimes.
</blockquote>
By this I meant, among other things, that the towers didn't "collapse" because of impact by airplanes, or fires, or both. They didn't collapse in any but the molecular sense.
<br/><br/>
For the most part, they turned to toxic dust. The larger (heavier) particles covered the city, several inches deep in places, the smaller (lighter) particles drifted away on the wind, and the mid-size particles hung in the air for days and caused untold death and suffering among first responders and others.
<br/><br/>
In my view, if we are to make any sense of 9/11 at all, we must accept at least this dollop of obvious-at-the-time (but now suppressed) truth.
<br/><br/><a name='more'></a>
I continued:
<blockquote>
The article is still worth a read, as long as you read it carefully. Some of the evidence they present is extremely important, but the crucial details are easy to overlook because they're buried.
</blockquote>
Regarding the former, "<a href="https://covertactionmagazine.com/2021/09/22/the-u-s-may-have-lost-the-military-war-in-syria-but-has-won-the-propaganda-war-at-home-by-portraying-its-murderous-invasion-as-a-moral-crusade">The U.S. May Have Lost the Military War in Syria, But Has Won the Propaganda War at Home By Portraying its Murderous Invasion as a Moral Crusade</a>" (reviewed <a href="http://winterpatriot.blogspot.com/2021/09/noam-chomsky-us-foreign-policy.html">here</a>),
<a href="http://winterpatriot.blogspot.com/2021/09/noam-chomsky-us-foreign-policy.html?showComment=1632718596547#c8357902044297342486">my good friend James wrote</a>:
<blockquote>
I do not have an issue with anything in Jeremy Kuzmarov's article (except perhaps the slack he cuts Chomsky). It is not what's <i>in</i> the article but what's <i>not</i> in it. And it is an almost universal omission.
<br/><br/>
There's lots of data/facts etc. but little to no logical progression tying it all together and leading to a conclusion that identifies "who" and "why".
<br/><br/>
All these atrocities have a cause and a motivation behind them. For instance, Syria became a target, we learn, because it shared a border with Turkey.
<br/><br/>
Why was that a problem and to whom?
<br/><br/>
It's a particular bug of mine, I admit (and I'm probably guilty of it myself). It seems all journos do it, even the likes of John Pilger. In fact, he's terrible for it.
<br/><br/>
Perhaps Jeremy takes the view that it is not his prerogative to interpret the meaning of it all for us. Fair enough.
<br/><br/>
Regardless, his article introduced a lot of information I did not know and I appreciate that very much.
</blockquote>
This insightful comment stirred up some long-forgotten memories, which led to an actual clear-headed train of thought for a change, and I propose to describe some of the sights that were visible from the train, in the hope that they might be useful to you.
<br/><br/>
~~~
<br/><br/>
Many years ago, I wrote a long and very detailed article about one of the horrible events that took place in Iraq, and one of my friends described it as "a stupendous compendium". I shortened the expression, removing the complimentary aspect of it, and called it a "stupendium", only half in jest.
<br/><br/>
Later I wrote some other pieces in a similar style (but not too many, I hope!) and I read plenty of "stupendia" from other authors. So I came to recognize the "style", which more or less amounts to dumping all the pieces on the table and letting the reader try to put the puzzle together. Or drawing all the dots but never hinting at how they are connected. Too many details, not enough synthesis. The wealth of details is extremely valuable, but often readers can reach the end of a stupendium without any idea of what it all means.
<br/><br/>
I think there are many reasons why people write like this. One is editorial interference. Writers under tight control can sometimes show us <i>some</i> dots, but they can never show us <i>all</i> the dots, or tell us how the dots are connected, because that would jeapordize "national security", or "advertising revenue" (which amount to the same thing when you think about it).
<br/><br/>
Another reason is fatigue. Pulling together all the information for a stupendium is a huge job, and the information is usually so horrible that it takes an emotional toll as well as all the hours of work. Sometimes after compiling the info for a stupendium, I've barely been able to write it up, and adding another section (or several) explaining what it all meant seemed beyond me, so I just poured the pieces on the table and slept for a couple of days.
<br/><br/>
A third reason is, let's call it "fear" of negative feedback. And that depends on the audience. If you've cultivated an audience of pro-Israeli readers, for example, you're not likely to write anything about Israeli mistreatment of Palestinians, for example.
<br/><br/>
I'm sure there are other reasons, but I probably don't need to spell them all out (even if I could).
<br/><br/>
Regarding Jeremy Kuzmarov: He's the managing editor of CovertAction Magazine so I don't imagine he's under too much pressure (to toe anyone's line). He's not running the <i>whole</i> show on his own, so there's undoubtedly <i>some</i> pressure. But I don't think that's a big problem for him (from what I know, which isn't much).
<br/><br/>
And I don't think fear of negative reaction is a part of the equation for him, either. He responded directly and respectfully to my criticisms, and people who can do that are not usually afraid of reactions. His response was very admirable in my opinion, and people who are <i>not</i> admirable simply cannot do that. They can't even <i>fake</i> it.
<br/><br/>
I think it's more likely that the independent writers who commit "serial stupendia" are [1] exhausted by the effort and can hardly imagine doing even more, and/or [2] unaware that a "bare stupendium" is quite unsatisfying for most readers, who don't already know what the puzzle looks like, or how the dots are connected.
<br/><br/>
Sometimes they already know what the puzzle looks like before they even start collecting the pieces; that's why the start collecting the pieces. And along the way they fall into the common trap of forgetting that most of us don't know what they know. I do that at work, and when talking with my wife, even when I'm trying not to; so how could anyone <i>not</i> do it?
<br/><br/>
A clear recent example was part 2 of the "Twenty Year Shadow" series, in which Peter Dale Scott and his co-authors dumped all the pieces on the table and fled. Because I already had a good idea what the puzzle looks like, those pieces were valuable to me. But I were coming to it cold, so to speak, I would have had no idea what the point of it all was, or whether there was any point at all.
<br/><br/>
I don't mean to be too critical of Jeremy or Peter because I think they're two of our smartest and best friends in the world of intel analysis. On the contrary: I sympathize with them; and I understand the difficulty.
<br/><br/>
But that doesn't mean we can't encourage them to do better. So maybe we should. Winter Patriothttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06966573231074972843noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9621489.post-26733676905814651282021-09-26T15:08:00.026-04:002021-10-04T16:42:00.702-04:00Late For The Sky: In Memory Of William BlumHaving been mostly absent for the past five years, I am now learning some of the things you may already know.
Among other bad news, I've just found out that William Blum left us on December 9, 2018, at the age of 85.
<br /><br />
I was saddened but not surprised by the news.
I knew his kidneys were in trouble, and I knew what kidney trouble meant.
I lost my father and one of my grandfathers to kidney failure.
It's horrible. And I didn't want him to have to endure it.
But, as so often happens, my opinion made no difference.
<br /><br />
My belated condolences to his friends and family, to those who felt his loss, and those who feel it still.
<br /><br /><a name='more'></a>
~~~
<br /><br />
As you may know, William Blum started out, like most of us,
wallowing in propaganda (which was anti-Communist at the time) and swallowing it whole.
<br /><br />
Wanting to help rid the world of "the communist menace",
he went to work for the State Department as a computer programmer,
but became fed up with the "anti-communist crusade" in 1967
when he learned enough about what was going on in Vietnam
to realize that the story was bogus
and the operation was evil.
<br /><br />
Once he saw that, he couldn't take any further part in it.
He figured exposing it would be a better course of action.
<br /><br />
So he switched gears in the most wonderful way and became
one of the greatest dissident American historians of his generation.
Or maybe of ANY generation. Or maybe THE greatest.
I certainly wouldn't argue with anybody who called him that.
<br /><br />
I don't have much room in my "world view" for "heroes", but I can't think of anything else to call a man who spent most of his adult life
exposing America's attack on the democracies of the world.
<br /><br />
He had an exceptional way with words and an encyclopedic knowledge of his specialty,
and when he put them together he gave us passages such as this one
(from the Foreword of the British edition of "Rogue State"):
<blockquote>
If I were the president, I could stop terrorist attacks against the United States in a few days. Permanently. I would first apologize -- very publicly and very sincerely -- to all the widows and the orphans, the impoverished and the tortured, and all the many millions of other victims of American imperialism. I would then announce that America's global interventions -- including the awful bombings -- have come to an end. And I would inform Israel that it is no longer the 51st state of the union but – oddly enough – a foreign country. I would then reduce the military budget by at least 90% and use the savings to pay reparations to the victims and repair the damage from the many American bombings and invasions. There would be more than enough money. Do you know what one year of the US military budget is equal to? One year. It's equal to more than $20,000 per hour for every hour since Jesus Christ was born. That's what I'd do on my first three days in the White House. On the fourth day, I'd be assassinated.
</blockquote><p>
I've tried to write passages such as this, summarizing so much so concisely, but I've never managed to write anything as good as that!
<br /><br />
I was honored to be associated with him, even if only slightly. I'll tell you more about that in a moment.
But first I have to stop calling him "William", because he wanted me to call him "Bill".
<br /><br />
~~~
<br /><br />
Shortly after I started my own blog, I wrote <a href="https://winterpatriot.blogspot.com/2006/10/william-blum-knows-why-they-hate-us.html">a post featuring the Table of Contents</a> from Bill's book, "Killing Hope: US Military and CIA Interventions Since World War II".
<br /><br />
You don't even need to read the book: if you look at the list of countries and the way the dates overlap, you can see that the US has been waging a multi-front war on democratic institutions in more places and at more times than you ever imagined. <i>Then</i> you need to read the book.
<br /><br />
As I often do when I write nice things about somebody's work, I sent Bill an email ("Dear William") with a link in it. He wrote back, saying, "That's a great plug for my book. Thank you!"
<br /><br />
Shortly thereafter, he wrote for his newsletter, the "Anti-Empire Report", to which I was a subscriber, a piece called called "Some things you need to know before the world ends". I quoted it on my blog under the heading, "<a href="https://winterpatriot.blogspot.com/2006/10/read-this-now-and-die-smarter.html">Read This Now And Die Smarter</a>", sent him another link, and he replied again: "Thanks for making me laugh out loud. I needed that. Call me Bill."
<br /><br />
A little while later, I became involved with a now-defunct website called "Start The Revolution" (STR), which was being run from a secret server in Europe and drawing unexpectedly large audiences. The webmaster had found some of my articles and asked whether he could repost them. I said, "Sure, but perhaps I can also help by bringing in articles from <i>better</i> writers." He liked that idea, so my next move was to contact Bill.
<br /><br />
Bill liked the idea too, and I spent some amazing hours, digging through Bill's writing and finding bite-sized excerpts suitable for STR. I did the same thing for some of my other favorite authors, and the guy running STR loved all of them. It's too bad he couldn't keep the site running.
<br /><br />
Because of what was going on with STR, I was in touch with Bill on a semi-regular basis, and it was always a treat to hear from him. He was funny, humble, gracious, and so smart! And even though he was perhaps the greatest role model a dissident blogger could have, and I was writing a blog with virtually no readers, he treated me as an equal. No bootlicking was ever required or permitted. He didn't even let me call him "William".
<br /><br />
I can't tell you how much I miss Bill Blum personally.
I don't think anyone can imagine how much we miss him as a "civilization".
And I certainly can't tell you how confusing I found his understanding of 9/11.
<br /></p><p>~~~</p><p>
Considering that he wrote:
</p><blockquote>
No matter how paranoid or conspiracy-minded you are, what the government is actually doing is worse than you imagine.
</blockquote><p>
And considering that he researched and exposed so many black ops over so many years,
I figured he must have developed a keen eye for the "signature" characteristics,
the common threads that appear as if by magic
whenever the usual shady characters get up to their usual dirty tricks.
<br /><br />
And I was intrigued by the fact that he didn't see any of these same characteristics in 9/11.
<br /><br />
Like most of us, I was shocked by the events of the day and struggled to make sense of them.
Given my background, there was only one way in which I could do that.
The critical "insight" was to think of the "terrorist attacks" as a black op and the "news reporting" as the dissemination of the legend.
Once I started doing that, the picture came into focus very quickly.
I didn't appreciate the full horror of it until later, but the "logic" behind a black op of this sort
made much more sense to me than the "official story".
<br /><br />
I thought there must be plenty of people with enough background and enough insight to figure this out much faster than I had.
And I figured Bill Blum must be one of those people. So I was very surprised to find out that he wasn't!
<br /><br />
At the time, I was also reading people who were saying, "9/11 is the litmus test. It's the one sure way to find out who's on the side of truth and who is not."
And I was thinking, "No! That can't be right!" How could Bill Blum be on the wrong side? It made no sense.
<br /></p><p>~~~</p><p>
As you may recall, "Osama bin Laden" made a big splash in January of 2006 by "endorsing" Bill's book, "Rogue State: A Guide to the World's Only Superpower".
You can download that book, by the way, from the CIA's website.
It comes as <a href="https://www.cia.gov/library/abbottabad-compound/13/130AEF1531746AAD6AC03EF59F91E1A1_Killing_Hope_Blum_William.pdf">a PDF with a title page</a> that says
</p><blockquote>
A recommended book by sheikh: <br />
<b>Osama Bin Laden</b> <br />
may Allah bless him
</blockquote>
They don't miss many tricks.
<br /><br />The book is brilliant. As Norman Solomon wrote:
<blockquote>
This is a truly subversive
book because it demolishes the foundations of basic illusions about the United States of
America as a world power.
</blockquote><p>
Bill wrote about the "endorsement" and you can read his comments <a href="https://www.serendipity.li/wot/blum01.htm">here</a>.
<br /><br />
That event changed things for Bill, and not in a good way.
It marked the end of his public speaking career.
It also made him more confident than ever that official story of the 9/11 attacks was correct.
<br /><br />
I know this because I eventually found enough courage to ask him why he had never written anything critical of that story, which I've always seen as untenable.
<br /><br />
Bill's response shook me: "If Osama bin Laden didn't do 9/11, why did he do a shout-out for my book?"
<br /><br />
Shame on me: I was too shy, or maybe too sad, to tell him. But I can tell you.
<br /><br />
First of all, Osama bin Laden died in 2001. His funeral was reported by Fox News. The actors who played his role in the videos that came out in subsequent years didn't even look very much like him.
<br /><br />
So rather than asking "Why did Osama bin Laden do that?", we have to ask, "Who did that and why?"
<br /><br />
I've written elsewhere about about "Who?".
We don't usually get the names of the shady operators who make videos starring men who've been dead for years.
But we have a general idea of who they work for.
<br /><br />
As for "Why?", two reasons come to mind.
<br /><br />
The first reason was to smear Bill -- to paint him as a terrorist-sympathizer, to make sure he would never again be invited to speak in public in his own country, and to taint "Rogue State" at the same time.
<br /><br />
But the other, seemingly contradictory reason, was because "Rogue State" could be used to bolster the shaky "official story", the crazy conspiracy theory about 19 "madmen" with "boxcutters" which most of us still don't believe, even though we've heard it every day for more than 20 years now. </p><p>Among the many shaky elements was the question of motive.
The American people, most of whom are thoroughly ignorant of contemporary world history, were asking, "Why do they hate us?"
<br /><br />
George W. Bush had famously said, "They hate us for our freedoms." And that didn't make much sense to very many people. Did they really volunteer for suicide missions because of our allegedly "free press"? Or was it because we're free to grab a coffee at a 7/11 any time of the day or night?
<br /><br />
And then there was the so-called "USA Patriot Act". Did Bush think he could make us safer by taking away our freedoms, so the "terrorists" wouldn't hate us anymore? Or was there something else going on?
<br /><br />
By putting "Rogue State" in the hands of the actor playing Osama bin Laden, the shady characters could provide some credible evidence explaining why America is so hated overseas, and this would make the insane story about the hijackers a bit more believable to those who knew nothing else about it.
<br /><br />
So it was a win-win for the shady ones: demonizing a historian who could have made sense of all this, while tainting his work, and at the same time using that work to "substantiate" their lies.
<br /><br />
In my mind it was clearly a very successful psy-op. I was sad that Bill didn't see it that way, but I couldn't bring myself to tell him.
<br /><br />
Maybe that was a bad move on my part. I suspected it would have hurt him more than it would have helped. Oh well. Water under the bridge.
<br /></p><p>~~~</p><p>
After his passing, the New York Times put the capstone on the psy-op by reducing his life's work to an endorsement from Public Enemy #1. It was a bogus biography, featuring a bogus endorsement from a bogus terrorist, but who's counting?
<br /><br />
Jim Naurekas <a href="https://fair.org/home/william-blum-us-policy-critic-derided-by-nyt-dies-at-85/">had some choice words for the NYT</a> about that, by the way.
<br /><br />
It was the most bitter irony: Bill Blum spent most of his life exposing one black op after another, but he never imagined they'd run one against him -- even after they did it.
<br /><br />
I was sad that he couldn't see it, but I was much sadder about what they did to him.
Of course it's nothing compared to what they did to the rest of the world.
But now, belatedly learning of his passing has brought all this rushing back to me -- crashing against me, if truth be told.
<br /><br />
There are at least two lessons here. The shorter one goes
</p><blockquote>
There is no litmus test. Some of our best and smartest friends are going to disagree with us on key issues, and we need to be OK with that.
Nothing that Bill Blum wrote is any less true now than it was when he wrote it -- or any less heartbreaking.
</blockquote>
But the longer lesson has to come from Bill Blum himself.
<br /><br />
I will leave you with <a href="https://williamblum.org/">this link to his site</a>, where we can explore and explore, and learn and learn and learn.
<br /><br />That's what I've been doing lately. I can't think of a better way to honor his memory. And I hope you will join me in the exploration -- even if it's only a "refresher" course, but especially if all this is new to you.
<br /><br />
If, as they say, the hottest corners of Hell are reserved for the enemies of humanity, Bill Blum is chilling out, as far away from the fire as anyone can get.
Winter Patriothttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06966573231074972843noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9621489.post-39342456867654606252021-09-25T03:12:00.006-04:002021-09-29T14:27:33.341-04:00Noam Chomsky, U.S. Foreign Policy, Propaganda, Syria, International Terrorism, And Grasping At StrawsJeremy Kuzmarov, Managing Editor of <a href="https://covertactionmagazine.com/">Covert Action Magazine</a>, has recently posted a piece called
<a href="https://covertactionmagazine.com/2021/09/22/the-u-s-may-have-lost-the-military-war-in-syria-but-has-won-the-propaganda-war-at-home-by-portraying-its-murderous-invasion-as-a-moral-crusade">The U.S. May Have Lost the Military War in Syria, But Has Won the Propaganda War at Home By Portraying its Murderous Invasion as a Moral Crusade</a>,
which he opens by claiming that, in the case of Syria, the
<blockquote>
propaganda has been so good that [Noam] Chomsky himself at times was taken in by it.
</blockquote>
This is the first article I have ever read by Jeremy Kuzmarov, and I couldn't agree less! So we're off to a good start!
<br/><br/>
In my view, the propaganda regarding Syria has been so obvious and so desperate
that it's now much easier than ever to see that Noam Chomsky himself <i>plays a part in it</i>.
<br/><br/>
It's not easy for everyone, of course.
It's not even easy for Jeremy Kuzmarov, who himself has at times been taken in by Chomsky, I would say.
<br/><br/><a name='more'></a>
~~~
<br/><br/>
In my view, Noam Chomsky is now, and has been for many years, the de facto leader of the faux opposition.
<br/><br/>
How can I say this? Consider a few simple facts:
<br/><br/>
Chomsky taught for more than 40 years at MIT, the Pentagon's favorite research institution.
How could a true dissident have stayed there for so long? <a href="http://winterpatriot.blogspot.com/2021/09/politics-101-know-difference-between-we.html" target="_blank">I ran away from the whole country when I was 14</a> and never looked back.
Not that this makes me a hero. But Chomsky grew old and grey under the shadow of the big guns. How does that make him a dissident?
And if he were a serious threat, why would they have kept him around? Let alone kept paying him?
<br/><br/>
In the mid-1960s, Chomsky was attacking critics of the Warren Commission. Why would <i>anybody</i> do that?
<br/><br/>
Forty years later, he was attacking critics of the 9/11 Commission. Why would anybody do <i>that</i>?
<br/><br/>
Both of these so-called investigations were obvious whitewashes, and national disgraces, and it didn't take very much research or very much thinking to see that their final reports could not possibly be true, let alone complete. But Chomsky stood by them with a loyalty that should have been reserved for truthful causes. Why?
<br/><br/>
Watch him speak in public. Hundreds of hours of his presentations are available on YouTube.
He knows where all the bodies are buried, and who put them there,
and he makes low-key presentations in which he reveals some of what he knows,
but ever so gradually, and in the most passionless, toneless way one could possibly speak.
<br/><br/>
He puts half of his listeners to sleep while he tells the other half that it's the system's fault, and there's no one to blame, and nothing can be done about it.
<br/><br/>
I'm understating my case when I say Noam Chomsky doesn't exactly <i>inspire</i> people to <i>do things</i>.
On the contrary, he lulls them into an apathetic stupor.
Physically asleep or mentally asleep, it doesn't matter. Half of each is fine.
<br/><br/>
And this, in my view, is why Noam Chomsky is considered America's greatest living public dissident intellectual.
<br/><br/>
Furthermore, he deserves the title, since he is still, even at his advanced age, the most effective gatekeeper the evil bastards have on their side.
<br/><br/>
Who cares about this? Who connects these dots? Who asks these obvious questions? As far as I know, I am the only one. And I do not say this to congratulate myself.
<br/><br/>
But it makes me wonder: If I can see this ... you're probably far ahead of me here.
<br/><br/>
~~~
<br/><br/>
When I taught math, I marked far too many tests. And I was very generous about it, within the constraints imposed by the college where I taught.
<br/><br/>
If a student gave an incorrect answer, I would look for an opportunity to award "part-marks" for the question. A "mistake", such as error in arithmetic, or in copying an equation from one line to the next, would merit a small deduction. Our theory was that the student could have caught and corrected this mistake by double-checking everything, but probably didn't have time to do so.
<br/><br/>
But a "blunder", a different kind of error, showing that the student did not understand the material, would be more heavily punished. We saw blunders not as failures to double-check, but as failures to comprehend. And the main idea behind testing was to find out which students were learning quickly, and which needed more help. So covering up a failure to understand something was a bad idea, one that could have serious consequences.
<br/><br/>
I mention this because on first reading, I had to wonder whether Jeremy Kuzmarov made a "mistake" by trying to craft a catchy introduction to his piece, but didn't have time to check whether his catchy intro made any sense. If not, he made a "blunder", which would make the rest of the article extremely suspect.
<br/><br/>
Because I couldn't decide which it was, I read the whole article very carefully, and I kept finding bits which are obviously true and yet largely unknown to loyal, patriotic Americans, who don't believe anything critical of their country or uncritical of a foreign country.
<br/><br/>
For instance, if you say "They have good roads in Indiana," you're a patriot, but if you say, "They have good roads in India," you're a traitor. Two letters make all the difference in that example, which illustrates my point. Smart, patriotic Americans notice little things, seemingly insignificant details, and that keeps the rest of us on our toes.
<br/><br/>
It's difficult to pinpoint the smartest, least patriotic bits in Jeremy Kuzmarov's article, because he hits so many nails on their heads, so to speak. For instance:
<blockquote>
The Syrian war should not be seen in isolation but as part of a larger pattern of the U.S. allying with Islamic fundamentalists in the attempt to fulfill its foreign policy goals.
</blockquote>
But sometimes the facts seem partially masked, or excused somehow, as in this passage:
<blockquote>
The primary U.S. operation to arm Syrian insurgents was Operation Timber Sycamore, carried out by the CIA with support from British, Qatari, Saudi and Jordanian intelligence services and the Pentagon.
<br/><br/>
The program saw relatively little regulation of whom the arms went to, and lacked accountability, as weaponry very consistently ended up in the hands of UN-recognized terrorist organizations such as al-Qaeda and IS.
</blockquote>
The last sentence seems to contain "magic words". If we remove the magic, and concentrate on the main elements, we get:
<blockquote>
The primary U.S. operation to arm Syrian insurgents was ... carried out by the CIA with support from British, Qatari, Saudi and Jordanian intelligence services and the Pentagon.
... weaponry very consistently ended up in the hands of UN-recognized terrorist organizations such as al-Qaeda and IS.
</blockquote>
which gives a very different impression, raising the question: Does Jeremy Kuzmarov think the weapons ended up in the hands of terrorists because there wasn't enough <i>regulation</i> or <i>accountability</i>?
<br/><br/>
Personally I am far more inclined to believe that the weapons ended up in the hands of terrorists because that's where they were intended to go -- and that if there is any difference between "Syrian insurgents" and "terrorist organizations such as al-Qaeda and IS", the difference is one of nomenclature only.
<br/><br/>
We spell their names differently. And we pronounce them differently, too. But we're talking about the same madmen, who seem to be organized into groups of roughly platoon size, each of which appears to have a member or two of the U.S. Special Forces embedded within it. And all this looks very dodgy on the face of it. But how else would they know what to do? And how else would the supply planes know where they were, and what they needed? It's madness, but there is definitely method to it.
<br/><br/>
And at first I couldn't figure out: How much of this does Jeremy Kuzmarov understand? How much does he know that he's not willing to tell? How much pressure is he under, and from whom? The last question, of course, is critical for most writers; I don't have to think about it at all because I have so few readers. But Jeremy Kuzmarov is not as lucky as I am in that regard.
<br/><br/>
Let's have Jeremy Kuzmarov answer my questions:
<blockquote>
U.S. military personnel deployed to Syria directly included Special Forces, engineering experts and medical and psychological warfare teams who were supplied through a network of small airstrips set up on Syrian soil which received MC-130 and CV-22 transports.
<br/><br/>
Small numbers of U.S. troops embedded with rebel counterparts—including the so-called Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF)—and called in air strikes from U.S. bases in Jordan, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Qatar, and other countries.
<br/><br/>
According to [author A.B.] Abrams, the U.S. was “in effect invading Syria to seize a portion of its territory and was doing so in a much more subtle and cost-free way than prior operations in Iraq, Afghanistan, Grenada, Panama or other target states.”
</blockquote>
And on and on. The more I read, the more I think, "He gets it."
<br/><br/>
What Jeremy Kuzmarov thinks of Noam Chomsky, and my questions about what he's telling us and in what order, pale in comparison to the scope of the picture he's painting here, and the amount of detail he's putting in it.
<br/><br/>
I'll give you one more example before I urge you to read the whole piece for yourself.
<br/><br/>
I have always considered the so-called "Arab Spring" to be a U.S. effort to destabilize the Middle East, and this is because it sprung while I was in my heaviest blogging phase. Because of the topics I was researching at the time, I was reading news from all over the world every day. And the first I read of Arab Spring came from the Washington Post via sources in the State Department. It was some time later before I started reading about it from pro-democracy activists in Arab countries, and they were saying, "We're so glad the U.S. is finally on our side!"
<br/><br/>
I wrote at the time about how naive they were and how sad it made me to think of what would soon be happening to them. But I don't know anybody who shared this opinion.
<br/><br/>
My son has been reading everything he can get his hands on concerning the overthrow of Libya. New books arrive by courier every week or two. He talks about Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton and what they did and with good understanding. I'm proud of him -- he's done all this research on his own, with no prompting from me, and he's only 20 years old. Recently I asked him if he'd ever read anything hinting that the Arab Spring was a State Department operation, and he said, "No, that's a new one on me. Tell me more!" He always says "Tell me more," and that's another reason I'm proud of him. But I digress.
<br/><br/>
Here's Jeremy Kuzmarov on Arab Spring:
<blockquote>
The Obama administration laid the ground for major investments in information warfare by the State Department, forming a close public-private sector partnership with American tech giants to capitalize on their unique capabilities to manipulate public opinion globally.
<br/><br/>
As The New York Times reported in an article entitled “U.S. Groups Helped Nurture Arab Uprisings,” not only were the uprisings against the Syrian state from March 2011 closely connected to Western NGOs, where the leaders of several anti-government groups had received training, but the U.S. Congress and State Department had worked with tech giants to strengthen these operations.
<br/><br/>
The Times reported: “A number of the groups and individuals directly involved in the revolts and reforms sweeping the region … received training and financing from groups like the International Republican Institute, the National Democratic Institute and Freedom House.”
<br/><br/>
Skills provided included using social networking and mobile technologies to promote calls for political change along Western lines. Among those sponsoring the meeting were Facebook, Google, MTV, Columbia Law School, and the State Department.
</blockquote>
There's more, and it's on point:
<blockquote>
A leak of Hillary Clinton’s emails shows cooperation between Google and the State Department to undermine the Syrian government.
<br/><br/>
Google Ideas director Jared Cohen, formerly an adviser to Clinton, wanted to encourage defections among the Syrian armed forces and launched a “defection tracker,” which was designed to “encourage more people to defect and give confidence to the rebel opposition.”
<br/><br/>
Google also renamed various streets in Damascus after jihadi leaders—which was also done in Libya.
<br/><br/>
A key part of the information war was control over the media, which blamed the Syrian government for atrocities later found to have been committed by the FSA and other insurgents.
<br/><br/>
In August 2012, for example, the Western media reported that the massacre of 245 people in the Daraya suburb was carried out by “Assad’s army”; however, an investigation by British journalist Robert Fisk found that the FSA had been responsible.
</blockquote>
There's much more and it's very good:
<blockquote>
Canadian journalist Eva Bartlett reported from the front lines in Syria that the White Helmets frequently staged videos for propaganda purposes.
<br/><br/>
British reporter Vanessa Beeley showed that they had ties to private security firms and the “deep state” in both the U.S. and UK and were comprised of members of al-Qaeda-linked terror groups. Their purpose, she said was to fabricate atrocities and provide pretexts for Western military intervention.
</blockquote>
The more I read Jeremy Kuzmarov, the more I think I must have seen a mistake and thought it was a blunder.
<br/><br/>
I think you should click here: <a href="https://covertactionmagazine.com/2021/09/22/the-u-s-may-have-lost-the-military-war-in-syria-but-has-won-the-propaganda-war-at-home-by-portraying-its-murderous-invasion-as-a-moral-crusade">The U.S. May Have Lost the Military War in Syria, But Has Won the Propaganda War at Home By Portraying its Murderous Invasion as a Moral Crusade</a>, if you haven't already, and read the whole article, maybe more carefully than I've done, and tell me what you think -- if you can still think after you've read it all.
<br/><br/>
And it's OK if you disagree with me about Noam Chomsky -- nearly everybody does, and we're all still here. It's OK if you disagree with me about Syria. And the same goes for Jeremy Kuzmarov.
<br/><br/>
It's been an interesting journey for me, reminding me of the first time I saw Markus A. Nonnamus play (and sing). To open his set, he covered a few classics. And by "covered" I mean "demolished". I was with some good guitar players, and I was one myself at the time, and we all sat there stunned and embarrassed, thinking "What the ...?" Then Markus played some originals, and they were brilliant! All of a sudden we were banging on the tables, yelling "Play it again! Play it again!" It was the fastest change of group-think I've ever seen.
<br/><br/>
Like Markus, Jeremy Kuzmarov had me going at the beginning, thinking "What? Chomsky taken in by the propaganda? Haha!" But by the end I was banging on the table, saying, "Right on! This is brilliant!"
<br/><br/>
Or maybe it's more like a hustler in a pool room. You start off thinking, "I know more than this guy!" but before long you're sitting there thinking, "Oh no, I don't!"
<br/><br/>
I've bookmarked <a href="https://covertactionmagazine.com/">Covert Action Magazine</a>, and a little bit of monkey-see, monkey-do would be appropriate here, in my cold opinion.
<br/><br/>
~~~
<br/><br/>
I have long harbored a question that I can't answer, and I've put it to a few people who are far smarter and better informed than I am -- people who live in the world of intelligence analysis, and who, I presume, know far more than I do. After all, it's only a hobby to me. I have to make a living doing something else. But I've digressed again.
<br/><br/>
None of them could answer it, so I want to put the same question to you, my long-suffering readers, and I plan to present it to Jeremy Kuzmarov as well. Maybe one of us will have an idea. We could sure use one.
<br/><br/>
Here's the question: <i>Given that the USA is likely to remain the USA and continue to do what the USA does; given that the KSA is likely to remain the KSA and continue to do what the KSA does; given the same assumptions about Jordan, Qatar, and the UK (who are all equally complicit in fomenting international terrorism for political gain), AND given that we know this much about it: <b>What can we DO about it?</b></i>
<br/><br/>
Some questions are easier asked than answered, and I have no doubt that this is one of them, so I am open to all suggestions. Grasping at straws is OK at this point. After all, what other options do we have? In a situation such as we are in, one should leave no straw ungrasped. Winter Patriothttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06966573231074972843noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9621489.post-39854158517544398962021-09-24T21:22:00.005-04:002021-09-24T23:33:11.136-04:00I'm Pretty Sure The CIA Never Tried To Overthrow Any Foreign Governments, But Some People Have Other IdeasI'm humble to say that my readers and I are unflinchingly patriotic, outrageously smart, and fully aware that the United States
would never meddle in the internal affairs of any foreign country, especially a friendly one.
<br/><br/>
Otherwise, we might be deceived by a new article at <a href="https://covertactionmagazine.com/">Covert Action Magazine</a>
which does a superb job of documenting a series of outrageous, deliberate, and
mostly successful attempts by the CIA to interfere with the democratically elected governments of two Southern Hemisphere nations
which most of the world would consider "friends and allies" of the United States.
<br/><br/>
The nations to which I refer are Australia and New Zealand, both of which supported
Great Britain, the US, and their allies in both World Wars, and suffered horribly in the process.
<br/><br/>
And <a href="https://covertactionmagazine.com/2021/09/24/how-the-cia-tried-to-overthrow-new-zealands-progressive-labor-government-by-stoking-white-racial-rage-against-the-indigenous-maori-population/">the article in question</a> was written by Murray Horton, who provides more than enough links and photographs
to make his presentation utterly compelling.
<br/><br/>
In other words, it is strong enough to convince all but the unflinchingly patriotic, outrageously smart readers who come to this cold blog
seeking refuge from the "fake news" which crept in around the edges some time ago, and now has us nearly surrounded.
<br/><br/>
Murray Horton himself is introduced as "organizer of the Campaign Against Foreign Control of Aotearoa (CAFCA)",
"Aotearoa" being the indigenous (Maori) name of the country we would otherwise call "New Zealand".
In other words, he's biased!
<br/><br/>
He's also described as "an advocate of a range of progressive causes for the past four decades",
and it's not difficult to imagine that foreign intelligence services meddling in domestic politics
may have been one of those causes for most (or even all) of those decades, because the reseach represented here is exhaustive and extremely detailed.
<br/><br/>
It's just too bad for him that we're all too smart to believe any of it.
<br/><br/><a name='more'></a>
~~~
<br/><br/>
I see only one problem with this article, and it's the same problem
I've seen in every book or article I've ever read
which documents U.S. meddling in a foreign country
and was written by a foreigner:
They don't appreciate it. They don't like anything about it.
<br/><br/>
According to my expert patriotic analysis, there are two reasons for this.
First: they always write from their own point of view.
And second: they don't know <i>anything</i>.
<br/><br/>
In particular, they don't know
how many noble clandestine agents
of the world's only indispensable nation
have sacrificed their lives (and in some cases their honor),
bravely destabilizing foreign societies in a process they call "stabilization",
valiantly overthrowing democratically elected governments as a means of "spreading democracy",
and occasionally reducing large sections of major cities to rubble, in the sincerest form of "nation-building",
sometimes also called "shock and awe".
<br/><br/>
The recipients of these selfless gifts will never know how many noble clandestine agents
were involved in the giving, and of course nobody can tell them,
because the noble clandestine agents were <i>clandestine</i>.
<br/><br/>
Still, there's a powerful lesson in all that generosity.
It says to the rest of the world,
<blockquote>
There is nothing the U.S. wouldn't do to help you.<br/>
There is no moral or ethical boundary the U.S. wouldn't cross to assist you.<br/>
No action is so horrible that the U.S. would refrain from doing it to you, on your behalf.
</blockquote>
But where's the gratitude? No gratitude. Crickets.
<br/><br/>
~~~
<br/><br/>
The problem with being a democratic ally of the United States is simple to state, but difficult to solve.
Allies of the United States are expected to do whatever the United States wants them to do.
This is almost never in the interests of the domestic population,
and therefore the position is usually an unpopular one.
In a non-democracy, who cares? People who object too strongly just disappear.
But in a democracy, the popularity of a national position matters a little bit, sometimes.
<br/><br/>
Politicians, under the delusion that they represent the people who elected them,
may feel pressured to move the national posture away from
one of subservience to the United States,
and if they do so, it brings them into conflict with the basic fact of international relations:
Subservience to the United States is the one thing required of all U.S. allies.
<br/><br/>
Friends and allies who refuse to lick the proper boots -- who insist on establishing their own policies, domestic and/or foreign --
are routinely re-educated in the gentlest and subtlest of ways: think of Iraq if you will, or Chile, or Venezuela ...
or any of a hundred other former friends and allies who started to have their own ideas, and who had to be destroyed in order to save them.
<br/><br/>
In other words, it was charming and heart-warming and adorable and warm and fuzzy
with the peaceniks of New Zealand rose up and told the U.S.
<blockquote>
"We don't like nuclear warships in our harbors."
</blockquote>
But then they kept going and going and going ... and before long it was
<blockquote>
"We don't want any nuclear weapons stationed in our country!"
</blockquote>
OK, fine!
How would they like a few dropped on their cities?
Did they ever think of that?
It could have been arranged quite easily.
But cooler heads prevailed!
<br/><br/>
Instead, the gentle masters of American diplomacy
whipped up shady investment deals
to create domestic scandals
which were then amplified
by moles who had already infiltrated their society
(just in case something like this happened to happen).
<br/><br/>
When they reached "critical mass", so to speak,
these scandals were used to destabilize governments and
sow racial animostiy, and provided the platform
for the usual array of divide-and-conquer tactics
which patriotic and very bright Americans have come to love
when their shining city on the hill
uses them in defense of a friend.
<br/><br/>
What were the alternatives?
God forbid they should have to nuke Aukland!
At least not while yachts are racing in the harbor.
Rich Boats Matter, remember?
<br/><br/>
As all our great leaders will tell you
in their rare moments of honesty,
all they want to do is spread American-style democracy,
so that every nation on Earth can have
a legitimately elected democratic government
which is fully sympathetic to "American interests".
<br/><br/>
Of course this is problematic because "American interests" are vague,
and hegemonic tendencies show themselves with alarming frequency.
It's not difficult for foreign observers to suspect
that the people who define "American interests"
would like to control
both the sovereign independent democratic nations (which they call friends)
and the sovereign independent non-democratic ones (which they call enemies).
<br/><br/>
So the domestic pressure on foreign democratic governments
continues to build, and when those goverments react to the pressure
and get out of line, as they always do,
friends get shady investment deals, back-room scandals,
subtle and mysterious shifts in their political climate,
fresh injections of racism and other polarizing influences,
and possibly several thousand disappearances.
Enemies get the full force of the U.S. military.
<br/><br/>
We've seen this over and over.
The United States is indespensible because it's the only nation that can do such things for its friends, let alone its enemies.
<br/><br/>
And Murray Horton forgot to be grateful.
Oh well; he's not the only one.
They all forget to be grateful.
<br/><br/>
As I was saying, I'm grateful that you and I are both far too smart and too patriotic to believe any of this.
<br/><br/>
Nonetheless, I urge you to click the link, if you haven't already done so,
and read "<a href="https://covertactionmagazine.com/2021/09/24/how-the-cia-tried-to-overthrow-new-zealands-progressive-labor-government-by-stoking-white-racial-rage-against-the-indigenous-maori-population/">How the CIA Tried to Overthrow New Zealand’s Progressive Labor Government by Stoking White Racial Rage Against the Indigenous Māori Population</a>".
<br/><br/>
In my view, it is essential for all of us to know the history that our great nation has been trying to hide from us -- even if we're too smart to believe it!
Winter Patriothttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06966573231074972843noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9621489.post-85204324309850776192021-09-21T20:47:00.018-04:002021-09-22T12:47:49.669-04:00"The War Is Over! It's Safe To Go Home Now!" In the years following <a href="http://winterpatriot.blogspot.com/2021/09/politics-101-know-difference-between-we.html">my escape from the USA</a>
I met some other young expats
who were in the same boat as I was.
Or at least it looked that way
until January of 1973, when a wave of excitement
swept through the "young expat community",
with everyone saying:
<blockquote>
"The war is over! It's safe to go home now!"
</blockquote>
But I exaggerate.
To be honest, not everyone was saying it.
I wasn't saying anything.
<br/><br/><a name='more'></a>
As it turned out, the war was not over.
The draft had been terminated
but the war continued
in a different manner
until April of 1975.
<br/><br/>
I don't know how many of my compatriots ever knew that.
It wouldn't surprise me if none of them ever found out.
After all, they didn't know when or how the war had started.
Why should they know whether or not it had ended?
<br/><br/>
If you detect a hint of disdain in my voice, there's a reason.
The expat community "thought" just like the "anti-war movement" back home.
They were mostly worried about being drafted; they didn't mind being complicit in horrible crimes.
<br/><br/>
And if you detect an echo of Afghanistan in the air, there's a reason for that, too.
Don't believe anyone who says, "The war in Afghanistan is over."
It's not. It's just being continued in a different manner.
<br/><br/>
Also, and very important: don't believe anyone who says
"The war in Afghanistan began in October 2001, in response to the 9/11 attacks."
That's not true either.
<br/><br/>
The United States has been meddling in Afghanistan since 1979.
And when I say "meddling", I mean "trying to create hell on earth".
<br/><br/>
We all need to learn about the pre-9/11 history of the war in Afghanistan.
And Chris Floyd has written about it recently, eloquently as ever.
Although I could quibble with Chris on a few points, I can't argue with him when he says:
<blockquote>
People need to understand something about Afghanistan, and the debacle we’re witnessing there.
America’s involvement in Afghanistan didn’t begin in 2001, after the 9/11 attacks.
It began in the last years of the Carter Administration, when he and his advisor
Zbigniew Brzezinski set out to “give the Soviets their own Vietnam.”
They did this by funding and arming an international cohort of violent
fundamentalist extremists and training them in terror tactics.
(Osama bin Laden was one of those who joined this jihad army supported by the US, Saudia Arabia and Pakistan.)
<br/><br/>
At that time, there was a modern, secular regime in Afghanistan.
It wasn’t a paradise. It was ridden by internal factionalism, sometimes violent.
It was supported by the Soviet Union. It was beset by fundamentalist extremists.
It had repressive features. But it was a secular regime.
Women were emancipated; many held high positions.
Children, including girls, were educated.
Science was honored and promoted.
Religion was tolerated, albeit uneasily.
<br/><br/>
Carter and Brzezinski decided to empower the extremist militias attacking the regime,
hoping to induce so much chaos that the Soviets would intervene militarily
to help their client state.
Again, as Brzezinski himself put it, they wanted to give the USSR “its own Vietnam.”
<br/><br/>
Think about this for a moment.
What Carter and Brzezinski wanted was to subject the Afghan people
to the years of suffering and death that the Vietnamese had experienced.
They WANTED Afghanistan to suffer this fate,
and they ACTED to make sure it happened. And it did.
If you like, it was one of the great successes of US foreign policy
in the post-war period.
They deliberately plunged Afghanistan into blood-soaked chaos;
and the Soviets – after fierce debate in the Politburo – did send in troops
to try to stabilize the country.
What followed was year after year after year of horror and death.
Again, please note: this was the stated INTENTION of US policy:
mass death, terrorism and suffering.
<br/><br/>
When Carter lost in 1980, Reagan took up his policy in Afghanistan
and magnified it. More arms and money to religious extremists.
More terrorist training, with CIA manuals. The US even produced
textbooks for Afghan children lauding fundamentalist extremism and
jihad terror. (All of this was reported in the Washington Post
and other mainstream outlets.) Reagan invited the precursors of
the Taliban to the White House, where he called them the
“moral equivalent of our Founding Fathers” and “freedom fighters.”
These men were dedicated to undoing the emancipation of women,
destroying all vestiges of secular society
and imposing the most harsh and hidebound fundamentalist strictures imaginable.
<br/><br/>
These were the people who were armed, trained, funded, lauded and supported by
the United States government for years on end. The Taliban would
not exist if not for these long-running, bipartisan policies of the United States.
</blockquote>
Later in the piece, after he recounts some of the more modern history, Chris writes:
<blockquote>
In none of these policies – from Carter, Reagan, Bush I, Clinton, Bush II, Obama, Trump and Biden – has concern
for the lives and welfare of the Afghan people played the slightest part.
The good Southern Baptist Jimmy Carter WANTED to create hell on earth like Vietnam in Afghanistan.
He WANTED thousands upon thousands of innocent people to die,
so that the Soviet Union could be “bled dry” in a geopolitical game.
I know it’s hard to get one’s head around this,
that this gentle, soft-spoken old man, who lives frugally,
built houses for the poor and fought for free elections in other countries, etc.,
made the deliberate choice to inflict unimaginable grief,
pain and suffering on multitudes of innocent people.
But he did. This is what actually happened in our history.
<br/><br/>
Ronald Reagan extended this policy
(which he also practiced in Central America,
aiding the mass slaughter of tens of thousands of innocent people
by the repressive regimes he supported and armed.)
George W. Bush then plunged American forces directly into the fray,
stupidly, callously and corruptly replicating “Russia’s own Vietnam”
of endless warfare against an extremist insurgency,
while tens of thousands innocent civilians died
at the hands of all the forces involved.
</blockquote>
And I don't disagree with any of that either.
<br/><br/>
I do disagree with Chris on the role played by Osama bin Laden
(I think he was a controlled scapegoat), including when and where he died
(I think he was dead and buried months before he was allegedly chased out of Pakistan,
and many years before he was allegedly captured and killed there).
I also disagree with Chris' statement that
<blockquote>
Now this 40-year chapter of American involvement has come to an end.
</blockquote>
As I understand it, the war has been reclassfied from "infantry" to "drone".
The chapter hasn't ended; we're simply on a new page now.
<br/><br/>
Of course the public has been told the war is over,
and most of them believe it, because they don't know any better.
As far as I can tell, most of them only care about whether American soldiers are getting killed,
and hardly anybody cares about how many foreigners get killed.
Chris Floyd is definitely not one of the people I am describing here.
<br/><br/>
And it's OK if we disagree; I don't know anybody who agrees with me about everything.
<br/><br/>
If I were in the mood to quibble, I could also quibble with the title of his piece: <a href="http://www.chris-floyd.com/mobile/articles/generation-of-vipers-the-original-sin-and-continuous-crimes-of-america-s-involvement-in-afghanistan-17082021.html">Generation of Vipers: The Original Sin and Continuous Crimes of America’s Involvement in Afghanistan</a>, because it's been <i>two</i> generations, and we're still counting.
But I get that, too. He's tying it in with the verse that goes:
<blockquote>
"O generation of vipers, how can ye, being evil, speak good things?" – Matthew 12:34
</blockquote>
which, to be fair, is an insult to vipers.
<br/><br/>
Speaking of "fairness", it was probably unfair of me to put all my critical comments at the end of this piece.
I don't want to leave you with the wrong impression of how I see <a href="http://www.chris-floyd.com/">Chris Floyd</a> and his work.
<br/><br/>
He's been a huge influence and a powerful role model and a good friend over many years;
his body of work is unsurpassed as far as I know;
and I think this is more important than whether I disagree with him on a detail here or there.
And besides, he disagrees with me too sometimes.
And it's all OK!
Neither of us gets offended.
Nobody tries to silence anybody else.
Nobody feels as if his existence had been invalidated.
Maybe we're just not woke enough to be that stupid. But there's still time.
<br/><br/>
And no, I haven't forgotten: I started with two strands and I've left one hanging.
<br/><br/>
My fellow young expats thought the war was over, but I knew it wasn't over.
They also thought it was safe to go home, but I knew it wasn't safe.
<br/><br/>
I was waiting for a different kind of news, like maybe:
<blockquote>
"The government has been overthrown! It's safe to go home now!"
</blockquote>
But I didn't have any hope that it would ever happen. And it hasn't.
<br/><br/>
The clowns in the front window have been changed every now and then.
But the monsters in the back room have settled down for a long stay.
<br/><br/>
In my opinion, they've been there far too long.
And nobody can do anything about it except us -- you and me and Freddy over there.
<br/><br/>
I know what I'm doing, and why I'm doing it.
But I don't know about you. That's why I've been asking:
<a href="http://winterpatriot.blogspot.com/2021/09/roger-waters-two-911-anniversaires-war.html">What are you going to do about it?</a>
Winter Patriothttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06966573231074972843noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9621489.post-63255549747621990062021-09-21T20:00:00.002-04:002021-09-21T23:49:12.137-04:00Six Feet Of SnowMany years ago, when I had more than a few regular readers, I would occasionally post something less than dead-serious. Whenever I did that, one of them would usually make an insightful comment, asking a subtle question such as, "Why are you wasting my time with this $#!^"
<br/><br/>
I was too immature or insecure to tell them what I really thought, so they kept me in line -- their line. Looking back, I can see that I was wrong not to tell them if they didn't like what was on my blog they could go click someplace else. And that's what I'll tell them if they come back and complain again.
<br/><br/>
All of which to say I intend to post more non-serious content than I have done in the past.
<br/><br/>
I figure: the people who come here to read about serious things may need some fun once in a while. And the people who come here for fun may need something serious.
<br/><br/><a name='more'></a>
On today's agenda: I love fun songs, and songs about cold weather suit my blog very well. I also love irony, and great musicians, and I think it's wonderful and ironic to find a fun song by a great band, in a Cajun style that screams "New Orleans", about weather that never ever happens in New Orleans or anywhere close.
<br/><br/>
The band is "Little Feat", the song is "Six Feet Of Snow", and the pedal steel solo at the end, by special guest Sneaky Pete Kleinow, is one of the most enjoyable short passages I've ever heard, on any instrument, in any genre.
<br/><br/>
So I am pleased to present this cold, ironic, fun musical interlude. And the narcissists who think that every single page on the internet should be especially for them can dance along if they like. Or they can go take a hike.
<br/><br/>
<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/SMeFHAaZ_gE" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>
<blockquote>
Six feet of snow<br/>
coming through my radio<br/>
It's raining in stilettos<br/>
from here clear down to Mexico<br/>
<br/>
My hands are numb<br/>
from hanging on that steering wheel<br/>
They're frozen tight<br/>
Hope the wind don't blow me off the road tonight<br/>
<br/>
Don't you know the ice and snow is sneaking in through my windows<br/>
Don't you know how much I hate to be so cold and so alone<br/>
I'm coming home<br/>
<br/>
If it wasn't for the lines that wind side by side<br/>
I'd be lying next to her, next to her tonight<br/>
<br/>
Sweet New Orleans, that's where my girl she waits for me<br/>
Hair so long and eyes so green<br/>
She's the prettiest girl I've ever seen<br/>
<br/>
Don't you know the ice and snow<br/>
Is sneaking through this boy's window<br/>
Don't you know how much I hate to be so cold and so alone<br/>
I'm coming home<br/>
<br/>
If it wasn't for the lines that wind side by side<br/>
I'd be lying next to her, next to her tonight<br/>
</blockquote>Winter Patriothttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06966573231074972843noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9621489.post-63665077026045677932021-09-19T20:02:00.013-04:002021-09-19T21:00:45.106-04:00Regarding The "Inconceivable" Idea That Many People Have No Trouble Imagining <table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-6kfcHWSqVfc/YUfPzBlMttI/AAAAAAAAInY/BYOfQ2ONzbwIbhK0Hmzm5XFWASwfdXL9QCLcBGAsYHQ/s606/graeme-macqueen.jpg" style="clear: right; display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; padding: 1em 0px; text-align: center;"><img alt="" border="0" data-original-height="606" data-original-width="474" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-6kfcHWSqVfc/YUfPzBlMttI/AAAAAAAAInY/BYOfQ2ONzbwIbhK0Hmzm5XFWASwfdXL9QCLcBGAsYHQ/s320/graeme-macqueen.jpg" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Professor Graeme MacQueen</td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td></tr></tbody></table>When I was younger and not quite so focused, I used to listen to hockey games on the radio.
The local team's play-by-play announcer had some unique phrases which he used frequently, and which became known around town as signatures of his style.
In particular, whenever an attacking player wove his way through a maze of defenders, he would say, "He was unable to be checked."
<br /><br />
My friends and I always laughed at the way he reversed the "burden of skill", so to speak.
In our view, the attacking player had been <i>able</i> to do whatever he wanted; the defenders had been <i>unable</i> to check him.
<br /><br />
But much later, when the idea that the U.S. government had been complicit in the 9/11 attacks
was presented to Noam Chomsky and most of the other "leading dissident intellectuals",
and they used words like "inconceivable", I didn't find it very funny.
I imagine I speak for most (or even all) 9/11 researchers when I say I felt a bit "betrayed".
<br /><br />
But I shouldn't have taken it personally.
Had I remembered those hockey broadcasts, and applied the same logic I used then,
I would have realized that Chomsky wasn't saying <i>anything</i> about the idea.
He was simply confessing his inability to imagine that it could possibly be correct.
<br /><br /><a name='more'></a>
Graeme MacQueen, about whom I've been saying nice things recently, was never fooled.
Starting with the idea that the statements of the "leading dissident intellectuals"
can be taken as honest, <a href="https://www.globalresearch.ca/the-inside-job-hypothesis-of-the-911-attacks-911-and-the-american-left/5579911">he explored the question</a> of why these "leaders" are unable
to see things that are quite obvious to many of their "followers".
<br /><br />
MacQueen's exploration begins with aftermath of the JFK assassination,
when so many of the "leading lights" of the left endorsed the conclusions of the Warren Commission,
and draws important parallels with the aftermath of 9/11.
<br /><br />
Chomsky falls under MacQueen's microscope, of course, as do Chris Hedges and Alexander Cockburn,
and some allegedly credible publications and websites, such as:
<blockquote>
Monthly Review, Common Dreams, Huffington Post, Counterpunch, The Nation, The Real News, Democracy Now!, Z Magazine, The Progressive, Mother Jones, Alternet.org, and MoveOn.org
</blockquote>
Even though he refrains from knocking down some of my favorite targets (such as Christopher Hitchens, Robert Parry, and all the other popular "dissident" websites),
MacQueen's analysis is sharp, his essay is well-written and thoroughly documented, and I hope it'll be enough to make you think twice
if you're expecting help from the "intellectuals" who we mistakenly think of as "leaders".
<br /><br />
For my part, I have been exploring the question of why "leaders"
who are unable to see things that are quite obvious to their "followers"
are regarded as "intellectuals".
<br /><br />
I think that's a much easier question to answer,
especially if we start with the fact
that the man who is regarded as
America's greatest living dissident intellectual
taught at the Pentagon's favorite research institution
for more than 40 years.
<br /><br />
Can we really expect anyone
to be able to imagine
all the evil that lies behind the trough
at which he has slurped
for most of his adult life?
<br /><br />
As Graeme MacQueen shows, there's nothing wrong with the idea
that the U.S. government was complicit in the 9/11 attacks.
But there is surely something wrong with the way we choose our "leaders".
<br /><br />
If you haven't clicked through to Graeme MacQueen's "<a href="https://www.globalresearch.ca/the-inside-job-hypothesis-of-the-911-attacks-911-and-the-american-left/5579911">The “Inside Job” Hypothesis of the 9/11 Attacks: JFK, Fidel Castro and the American Left</a>", here's another chance.
Winter Patriothttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06966573231074972843noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9621489.post-57387467741308517892021-09-19T17:45:00.004-04:002021-09-19T18:28:26.724-04:00They Can't All Be SeriousAfter a failed joke attempt, Groucho Marx famously turned to the camera and said, "They can't all be funny!"
<br/><br/>
I can't argue, but surely the opposite is also true. So please enjoy this short video:
<br/><br/>
<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/LP3w-oJjH8I" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>Winter Patriothttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06966573231074972843noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9621489.post-7055915411289145342021-09-18T15:58:00.003-04:002021-09-19T09:25:55.233-04:00Roger Waters, Two 9/11 Anniversaries, The War On Terror, And What Are You Going To Do About It?In <a href="https://youtu.be/8bg8Yv_2ecc">this YouTube clip</a>, Roger Waters (of Pink Floyd), talking with Afshin Rattansi (of RT), reflects on two vital turning points in contemporary history,
both of which occurred on the 11th of September. He speaks of not only the well-known 2001 attacks in the U.S. but also (and very movingly) about the lesser-known 1973 coup in Chile,
which ushered in Augusto Pinochet and his reign of terror, to the horror of the whole world ... except of course for the American people, whose government sponsored the coup,
and who live in a bubble which news of this sort cannot penetrate.
<br/><br/>
At the end of the interview, Waters mangles one of the least consequential details of the U.S. political system (how many states?), but still <a href="https://youtu.be/8bg8Yv_2ecc?t=725">cuts to the heart of the matter</a>:
<blockquote>
We still need to hold on to the idea that we, the people, actually have the right to live in peace.
<br/><br/>
This endless war [bleep] ... is not working for any of us, except ... people invested in the military industrial complex, who are making ... trillions of dollars. It's a way of taxing ordinary people, because the money ... taken from the taxes of ordinary working people ... [is] divvied out amongst all the people who invest in defense. They protect them by spreading them out ... so every State in the Union has got a little bit of the war industry. And in consequence most of their representatives in Congress ... come under pressure from <i>their</i> little bits of the arms industry, not to cut military spending ... and in consequence a huge proportion of the tax revenue of the United States Government goes into perpetual war.
</blockquote>
<a name='more'></a>
Many thanks, of course, to YouTube for reminding us that "RT is funded in whole or in part by the Russian Government." That's the "information panel providing publisher context", in case you're not aware.
I'd be a lot happier if the "IPPPC" could also remind us which U.S. news agencies have CIA assets embedded in their editorial staffs. But that would be all of them, so why bother YouTube about it?
In any case:
<br/><br/>
Except for his reference to "all 52 states, or however many states there are now", Roger Waters is right, but there's more to the story.
<br/><br/>
The money goes to buy weapons and lives. Both are considered expendable. Using weapons means needing more weapons, and needing more weapons means buying more weapons, which means more money for the weapons manufacturers.
So the weapons are not only "expendable" but "meant to be expended", so to speak.
<br/><br/>
The lives are expendable too; there are at least another 100 million available.
The flow of lives is assured by constant barrage of propaganda and a ruined domestic economy.
Potential military recruits often see no other option, and they believe in what they're signing up for ... until it destroys them. And sometimes even afterwards!
<br/><br/>
The weapons and the lives are expended in the destruction of foreign countries, the killing and maiming and uprooting of innocent people,
and if it all seems like a senseless waste to you, that means you don't understand how it works, or why it's there, or what it's meant to do.
<br/><br/>
The value of every defense contract far exceeds the cost of fulfilling it, so the profits to the contractors are enormous, and guaranteed.
The manufacturing costs are paid by the taxpayers, and so is the cost of the lives.
The lives, of course, are supplied by the recruits, and the grief is borne by them (if they happen to live through it) and their families (whether they live or die).
But none of them can complain, because they're all "heroes", and "thank you for your service", so they suffer in silence. And they suffer horribly, but not nearly as much as the victims.
<br/><br/>
The lives of the victims, and the damage done to foriegn countries, is usually negligible, because foreign lives and cities are worthless anyway.
That's why this damage called "collateral", which means "over to the side", or in this case "of no consequence".
<br/><br/>
Or maybe the damage done to foreign countries is actually a benefit, because a potential enemy in rubble is less dangerous than a potential enemy with a functioning society.
And if all this "collateral damage" stimulates animosity toward the U.S., and especially if it fuels the rise of terrorism abroad, that's also a plus, because it fuels the cycle.
<br/><br/>
And therefore the War on Terror can be seen as a perpetual motion money machine. Every time the U.S. attacks a foreign country, it kills more innocent people, which creates more terrorists, who then have to be destroyed, which costs more money, which generates more profits, which results in more pressure on Congress, which extracts more money from the taxpayers, which buys more weapons <i>and</i> more lives, which are expended in attacking more countries, killing more innocent people, creating more terrorists, who then have to be destroyed, which costs more money, which generates more profits, and so on ...
<br/><br/>
Many people see only small parts of this cycle.
Some see "profits, profits, profits!"
Some see "terrorists, terrorists, terrorists!"
I see "innocent people, innocent people, innocent people ..."
<br/><br/>
This is the part that's usually hidden from the American people.
And this is what I mean when I say <a href="http://winterpatriot.blogspot.com/2021/09/the-academy-of-doublethink-opens-in.html">patriotism is a political weapon</a>.
<br/><br/>
Once you get past the weapon, once you see "innocent people, innocent people, innocent people,"
you cannot escape the obvious fact
that the enterprise protected by this weapon is thoroughly evil, even though it generates enormous profits.
And if you're a U.S. citizen (or only a U.S. taxpayer),
the questions you must face at one point or another include: How much complicity in this evil scheme are you willing to bear?
What proportion of your earnings are you willing to see spent in this way? and
How many of your sons and daughters are you willing to sacrifice to this mass-murderous cause?
<br/><br/>
If your answer is ZERO, <a href="http://winterpatriot.blogspot.com/2021/09/politics-101-know-difference-between-we.html">as mine was</a>, the next question is:
<br/><br/>
What are you going to do about it?
Winter Patriothttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06966573231074972843noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9621489.post-51865660501606556392021-09-17T12:21:00.007-04:002021-09-19T11:16:58.210-04:00The Academy Of Doublethink Opens In ColoradoDon't get me started on <a href="https://youtu.be/6P33iu5V4o4">a video clip from FOX News</a>, featuring two Colorado men representing a group of parents who have started a new public school. This new school, according to the video, will focus on "traditional subjects like math, science and patriotism" while promising to "keep politics out of the classroom".
<br/><br/>
I find it remarkable (and remarkably sad) that neither of these men, nor any of the hundreds of YouTube viewers who have commented on this news, seem to have any idea that patriotism is not only <i>not</i> "a traditional subject" (or even a subect at all), but also completely incompatible with the promise to "keep politics out of the classroom", because patriotism is <i>political</i>.
<br/><br/>
Patriotism is not only a political entity; it's a political weapon! And in the specific case of US patriotism, its main function is to keep the American people ignorant of what their country is, and what it has done.
<br/><br/>
So if a school's curriculum is based on patriotism (even if it's not considered a "traditional subject") that will mean the students must never be allowed to learn any real history, or to learn any foreign languages, or to read anything written outside the United States, because most of what's been written outside the US and/or in languages other than English is decidedly unpatriotic and will certainly ruin their young lives if they're exposed to it.
<br/><br/>
Furthermore, they must never be allowed to see any foreign films, or to visit any foreign (or even dissident domestic) websites, and all for the same reasons.
<br/><br/>
This counts as "education" in Colorado. May God have mercy upon us.Winter Patriothttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06966573231074972843noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9621489.post-17200079759721544612021-09-17T11:28:00.003-04:002021-09-19T11:17:46.092-04:00A Curious InsightHaving been absent from everything (including my blog) for so long,
I have little thoughts in my little mind that I didn't get to share with anyone.
And now that I'm back, I want to share some of them with you.
<br /><br />
Perhaps some of my thoughts don't exactly pertain to current events (narrowly defined). Oh well.
I do hope (and plan) to turn my attention to more current matters.
But at the moment, as I try to fit blogging into my crazy life once again,
I reflect on some of the things that I've learned while blogging, or while <i>not</i> blogging.
Today I have time to tell you about one or two of those things. And I hope they may be of some interest.
<br /><br /><a name='more'></a>
I realize that when I say "you", I am talking to only a handful of people.
It's no secret: This ain't the most popular blog on the web. We only get a few visitors here every day -- sometimes none.
And that gives me what I call "D-List Privilege".
<br /><br />
My "D-List Privilege" means that because I don't have enough readers to make a noticeable impact on the "big picture",
I can accidentally tell too much truth as often as I want, without suffering any consequences. Dissident writers who have better arrangements, and therefore wider "circulation", work under much tighter constraints.
<br /><br />
Speaking of constraints, I will tell you about mine. In order for a post to be considered fit for publication at my blog, it must reflect my current opinion (informed or otherwise), it must respect the facts of the matter (unless it's obviously satirical), and preferably most of the words should be spelled correctly. And that's it. Any extra quality in my writing is a lucky break. But some writers have it much tougher.
<br /><br />
I shouldn't name any names, but I once had a lively correspondence with a wonderful writer (and thinker)
who wrote a weekly column for national syndication.
He would often hammer on the Bush administration
about Afghanistan and Iraq on <i>moral</i> grounds; that is: rather than the usual "faux-left"
opposition ("We're not winning!") he was saying, "We shouldn't even be there!"
<br /><br />
So we got along very well. I can't say that for any of the other
nationally known "dissidents" with whom I've had contact. And I've been in contact with more of them than you might think, because I started out working behind the
scenes at a very prominent blog (no links or names, please). I hardly need to add that I became dis-associated from that blog after accidentally telling the truth too many times.
<br /><br />
Later, in the privacy of my own (D-List) blog, I wrote a piece about that experience, or inspired by it, or informed by it, or something.
It was called <a href="https://winterpatriot.blogspot.com/2007/08/throw-up-and-go-to-sleep-why-there-are.html">Throw Up And Go To Sleep: Why There Are No Paranoid Lunatic Conspiracy Theorists</a>, and it turned out to be (in my opinion) one of my best, and (by all accounts) one of my most confusing pieces.
<br /><br />
I could tell you more about that, too. But I want to tell you another weird story, so let's get back to the main line of thought, shall we? Or at least, let's get back to the previous tangent!
<br /><br />
The columnist to whom I've been referring, who wrote so many insightful columns about the post-9/11 wars
that should not have happened, never wrote anything that even hinted at whether or not he realized
the official story of 9/11 was too loopy to be believed. So one day I asked him:
<blockquote>Why don't you ever write about whether the government's story of 9/11 is credible?
</blockquote>
And he said (paraphrasing):
<blockquote>If I ever wrote something like that, it would never get published. And neither would I.
That's why guys like <i>me</i> need guys like <i>you</i>.
</blockquote><p>
It's nice to be needed, but it sure would be nice to get some help sometimes! I understand why he can't help us on this. And I think it's important for us to understand that he <i>really can't</i> do that. And, for the same reason, neither can anyone else whose name you might recognize. But this is not what I wanted to tell you.
<br /><br />
I used to have a widget on my blog that could tell me where readers had come from, and how they had found my site. I would monitor the traffic sometimes, more for entertainment than anything else. Most of my readers came from the US, and I thought that made sense, since I was often writing about US politics, US misgovernment, US war crimes, 9/11 (or is that redundant?) and so on. After I started writing about Pakistan on a regular basis, more readers started coming from Pakistan, and that made sense too. It was all pretty obvious, really.
<br /><br />
Less obvious: How had they found me? Some came from high-traffic sites that linked to my posts. <a href="https://www.whatreallyhappened.com/">What Really Happened</a> linked to far more of my writing than any other site. And even though I didn't agree with everything that Mike Rivero (of What Really Happened) stood for, I was happy that he was willing to send his readers to my site.
<br /><br />
Some came from sites where my pieces had been re-posted. <a href="https://www.infowars.com/">Info Wars</a> did more re-posting than anybody else. And I certainly didn't agree with everything that Info Wars stood for, but then again I had no choice in the matter. Oh well. I could tell you more about this, too, but most of it is boring.
<br /><br />
The interesting traffic came from search engines. And the widget showed me not only what <i>engine</i> the reader had used, but what the reader had been searching <i>for</i>.
<br /><br />
One post in particular got an especially high number of hits from search engines. It was a satirical item about Iran's quest for nuclear weapons and the hypocrisy of the people who claim that Israel should have hundreds or thousands of them while none of the neighboring countries should have any.
<br /><br />
But it was framed in terms of (and told from the point of view of) a guy in a residential neighborhood, who has all sorts of advanced weaponry, and who's trying to prevent one of his neighbors from acquiring a knife, on the grounds that this would endanger the whole neighborhood. That post was called "<a href="https://winterpatriot.blogspot.com/2007/03/should-i-kill-my-neighbor.html">Should I Kill My Neighbor?</a>"
<br /><br />It attracted mostly readers from the US, and they were searching for things like "how can I kill my neighbor?" or "how to kill my neighbor?"
<br /><br />
I kid you not. Nor would I ... except when I do! But this isn't one of those times. It's a curious insight, I tell you! Keep a close eye on your neighbors. You never know what they're typing when they're sitting alone at their keyboards in the middle of the night with nobody watching!
<br /><br />
Of course, if any of them ever did kill a neighbor, the police would seize their computer and find evidence of their web searches, and use it against them in a court of law, where they would be found guilty and sent to prison, maybe forever. So perhaps I should write a new post called "Should I Kill My Cell-Mate?" so they could visit my site again.
<br /><br />
Or maybe not. I actually prefer the readers who come here on purpose.
<br /><br />Speaking of which, I thank you for your kind attention and I will be back with more soon. Probably too soon.Winter Patriothttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06966573231074972843noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9621489.post-72335303258701958622021-09-14T14:13:00.007-04:002021-09-19T11:19:20.681-04:00Thorough Research Demolishes A Revisionist TheoryAt <a href="https://www.globalresearch.ca">Global Research dot ca</a>, Michel Chossudovsky continues his long-standing and extremely annoying habit of marking the anniversaries of important events by re-posting old news: articles pertaining to those events which have appeared previously, on his site or elsewhere.
<br/><br/>
When I say "extremely annoying", I'm looking at it from the point of view of those who don't want you to have any knowledge at all about these events, other than perhaps some vague impressions of the official narratives.
<br/><br/>
But it's anything but annoying to those of us who want to know the truth about important events, but missed these articles the first time -- or the first dozen times -- that they appeared.
<br/><br/>
Today's case in point is a fine piece of research and analysis by Graeme MacQueen, whose piece <a href="http://winterpatriot.blogspot.com/2021/09/graeme-macqueen-anthrax-attacks-had-all.html">about anthrax attacks</a> we were reading just a few days ago, and Ted Walter.
<br/><br/>
In <a href="https://www.globalresearch.ca/how-36-reporters-brought-us-twin-towers-explosive-demolition-911/5718119">9/11 News Coverage: How 36 Reporters Brought Us the Twin Towers’ Explosive Demolition on 9/11</a> the authors report on their study, in which they collected the day's news reports pertaining to the attacks on the World Trade Center, from the major networks and the local NYC stations. The looked at reporting from ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, Fox News, MSNBC, CNBC, WABC, WCBS, WNBC, and NY1, and examined the work of each individual reporter to determine how many of them reported the buildings having been brought down <i>by</i> explosives, and how many reported them having been brought down <i>without</i> explosives.
<br/><br/>
As they say:
<blockquote>The widely held belief that the Twin Towers collapsed as a result of the airplane impacts and the resulting fires is, unbeknownst to most people, a revisionist theory. Among individuals who witnessed the event firsthand, the more prevalent hypothesis was that the Twin Towers had been brought down by massive explosions.</blockquote>
Their article is full of evidence of explosions, including transcripts of on-scene reporting and embedded YouTube videos. They've even made their video archive public, so we can <a href="https://www.dropbox.com/s/zngft7s0ggg8cie/Television%20Coverage.zip?dl=0">download it and see for ourselves</a>. (The archive is 13.6 GB, so it's not to be taken lightly, nor downloaded quickly. But I want a copy, because I don't trust YouTube to leave all these clips available forever.)
<br/><br/>
All defenders of the official story deny that anything important happened to the towers except that were struck by airplanes. And they all say, "There is no evidence of explosions in the towers."
<br/><br/>
This article, and the evidence associated with it, proves beyond any doubt that the defenders of the official story are lying. And it's not as if we didn't know that already, but this is still a very valuable addition to the "discussion", even if it only helps to keep the discussion alive, and presumably that's why Michel Chossudovsky has never broken this very annoying habit.
<br/><br/>
Of course I congratulate him on this.Winter Patriothttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06966573231074972843noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9621489.post-21713292885846622902021-09-14T09:42:00.008-04:002021-10-01T16:49:59.817-04:00Asked But Not Answered: "Why Did Key U.S. Officials Protect the Alleged 9/11 Plotters?"The second part of the three-part series by Ben Howard, Aaron Good and Peter Dale Scott, "The Twenty Year Shadow of 9/11", has been posted at <a href="https://covertactionmagazine.com">CovertAction Magazine</a>, and I've been looking forward to it since I read the first part. But I'm sad to say I'm surprised by how shallow it is.
<br /><br />
In this installment, "<a href="https://covertactionmagazine.com/2021/09/13/the-twenty-year-shadow-of-9-11-part-2-why-did-key-u-s-officials-protect-the-alleged-9-11-plotters/">Why Did Key U.S. Officials Protect the Alleged 9/11 Plotters?</a>", the authors provide many indications that the "hijackers" were protected by members of "our" "security services" once they arrived in the U.S.
<br /><br />
But they never give us any indication that they realize they're talking about patsies. They write as if the patsies had committed the crimes.
<br /><br />
<a name='more'></a>
And this is problematic because we've never seen any credible evidence tying them to the attacks. All the "evidence" against them that we've ever seen has clearly been fabricated; and none of the evidence that we should have expected to see, if the official story were correct, has ever come to light.
<br /><br />
I can't help thinking there might be a problem with the authors' "methodology", which includes treating assumptions as facts.
<br /><br />
It's not even difficult to spot them doing this, because they tell us they're doing it. For instance, they write:
<blockquote>Assuming Major General al-Shami was correct [...], it is worth exploring the implications of this fact.
</blockquote>
As you can see, this is a very magical sentence, which starts by "assuming" and ends up with a "fact". I was taught as an undergrad not to do this.
<br /><br />
Unless I missed it, they didn't even try to answer the question posed in their headline: "Why did key U.S. officials protect the alleged 9/11 plotters?" So I'll have to answer that one for you.
<br /><br />
<b>The "hijackers" had to be protected until the day of the attacks so they could be blamed for the "hijackings". Clearly, had they been in custody, it would not have been possible for anyone to blame them for anything.</b>
<br /><br />
The article is still worth a read, as long as you read it carefully. Some of the evidence they present is extremely important, but the crucial details are easy to overlook because they're buried.
<br /><br />
The process by which the "hijackers" were moved into position, and the means by which they were protected once they were in place, are important parts of the story.
<br /><br />
But the story of the "hijackers" is not the whole story of 9/11. It's not even the main plotline.
<br /><br />
Oh well. I suppose half a loaf is better than none.
<br /><br />Winter Patriothttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06966573231074972843noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9621489.post-80100961621735972952021-09-12T11:20:00.138-04:002021-09-19T11:22:57.820-04:00Graeme MacQueen: The Anthrax Attacks Had All The Markings Of A False Flag OperationI wish to draw your attention to an excellent piece by Graeme MacQueen which was published by <a href="https://covertactionmagazine.com">Covert Action Magazine</a>
the day before yesterday. <br />
<br />
It's called <a href="https://covertactionmagazine.com/2021/09/10/anthrax-attacks-directed-against-public-officials-following-9-11-had-all-the-markings-of-a-false-flag-operation/">Anthrax Attacks Directed Against Public Officials Following 9/11 Had all the Markings of a False Flag Operation</a> and I hope you'll read all of it.
<br />
<br />
I've long been an admirer of Professor MacQueen, although I have spelled his name "McQueen" in the past. And I've been critical of his work, even though I'm impressed with his research, just because his presentation has been so difficult to understand at times.<br />
<br />
But since then he's found a good editor, and/or taken my words to heart (just kidding on that last one). As a result (of whatever it was), his new article is much easier to read than some of his earlier efforts.<br />
<br />
The anthrax attacks played a vital role in the "Reign of Terror" which began under the Bush Administration and continues to this day. But the story behind the anthrax attacks was very flimsy, and it fell apart even more rapidly than the slightly less flimsy story about the attacks with hijacked airplanes.<br />
<br />
Apparently realizing that the anthrax story contained (or was!) a flaw that could expose the whole sorry plot, the media let the story drop, for the most part. But Professor MacQueen has continued to research and write about it, and his contribution in this area has been profound, in my view. <br />
<br />
In this article, he analyzes a couple of the "anthrax letters" in fine detail, and deduces (correctly) that
<blockquote>its real authors, who are entirely different from its implied authors, are domestic groups within the U.S. Military-Industrial-Intelligence-Complex ... the United States was subjected to a domestically produced two-part psychological operation of overwhelming importance in the fall of 2001.
</blockquote>
Regarding the evidence indicating a False Flag operation, he concludes:
<blockquote>... the 2001 anthrax attacks remind us that a trail of monstrous breadcrumbs is effective in leading us to the perpetrators’ desired endpoint only as long as we are blockheads.
</blockquote>
"Blockheads" indeed. We are, you know. But some of us have been developing rounded corners lately. <br />
<br />
If you're willing to round off some of your corners, read the whole article, and maybe even MacQueen's book on the subject, <a href="https://www.amazon.com/2001-Anthrax-Deception-Domestic-Conspiracy/dp/0986073121">"The 2001 Anthrax Deception: The Case for a Domestic Conspiracy"</a>
Winter Patriothttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06966573231074972843noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9621489.post-89325456382462314422021-09-12T10:14:00.008-04:002021-10-01T16:47:30.474-04:00Peter Dale Scott et al.: The Twenty Year Shadow of 9/11I'm pleased to recommend an excellent article by Aaron Good, Ben Howard and Peter Dale Scott, published yesterday by <a href="https://covertactionmagazine.com">CovertAction Magazine</a>, called <a href="https://covertactionmagazine.com/2021/09/11/the-twenty-year-shadow-of-9-11-u-s-complicity-in-the-terror-spectacle-and-the-urgent-need-to-end-it/">The Twenty Year Shadow of 9/11: U.S. Complicity in the Terror Spectacle and the Urgent Need to End It</a>.<br />
<br />
It's part of
<blockquote>
a three-part re-evaluation of 9/11 in light of startling new evidence that may change many minds about the so-called “craziness” of those who have refused to accept the “official” government story of this traumatic and defining event
</blockquote>
The authors describe the plan of the work as follows:
<blockquote>
In this first installment, we examine how the U.S. for decades has utilized Islamic terrorists as assets for its own ends. In Part 2, we look at how CIA figures actively prevented other government agencies from exposing the al Qaeda presence in the U.S. prior to the attacks. In the third and final article, we explore the deep political and historical implications of the U.S. government’s “emergency” powers in order to offer some conclusions about 9/11.
</blockquote>
After an overview of the ways in which 9/11 and its aftermath have changed the U.S. and the world, the authors provide a comprehensive history lesson on those "Islamic terrorist assets", starting in the early days, when they were used as pawns of U.S. foreign policy, and working up to the day of the attacks, when they were used as pawns of U.S. foreign policy.
<br /><br />
It's a horrible story, but I can't wait for the next two installments. I urge you to <a href="https://covertactionmagazine.com/2021/09/11/the-twenty-year-shadow-of-9-11-u-s-complicity-in-the-terror-spectacle-and-the-urgent-need-to-end-it/">click this link</a> and learn this history. You simply can't make sense of anything that's going on in the world without this background.
<br /><br />
It's tough enough <i>with</i> it! Winter Patriothttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06966573231074972843noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9621489.post-32668173780380574702021-09-11T05:35:00.006-04:002021-09-19T11:21:05.427-04:00Twenty Years Of Bad Luck<i>The following post appeared in this space on September 11, 2008, under the title <a href="https://winterpatriot.blogspot.com/2008/09/seven-years-of-bad-luck.html">"Seven Years Of Bad Luck"</a>.<br />
<br />
I've updated the title to reflect the passage of 13 years -- oh look! another lucky number!<br /><br />
The lyric, of course, is by Stevie Wonder, and each line is a link to an article previously published here concerning the events of 9/11 and the Global War on Terror, as it was called at the time.<br />
<br />
If you don't want to be reminded of how we got here, please don't click <b>any</b> of these links -- certainly not <b>all</b> of them!</i>
<br />
<br />
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_e3gDaHO8VLQ/SMiORlA4PEI/AAAAAAAAEa0/c2Rc9E7-CAk/s1600-h/bush_panic.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5244598198717660226" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_e3gDaHO8VLQ/SMiORlA4PEI/AAAAAAAAEa0/c2Rc9E7-CAk/s400/bush_panic.jpg" style="cursor: pointer; display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center;" /></a>
<a href="http://winterpatriot.blogspot.com/2008/03/horrifying-obamas-brilliant-speech-of.html">Very superstitious</a> / <a href="http://winterpatriot.blogspot.com/2008/03/engineer-accused-of-coverups-on-911-and.html">writings on the wall</a><br /><br />
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_e3gDaHO8VLQ/SMiOSLyiXyI/AAAAAAAAEbU/kWQae9ekjIE/s1600-h/911_towers.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5244598209126489890" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_e3gDaHO8VLQ/SMiOSLyiXyI/AAAAAAAAEbU/kWQae9ekjIE/s400/911_towers.jpg" style="cursor: pointer; display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center;" /></a>
<a href="http://winterpatriot.blogspot.com/2007/09/tape-is-fake-but-threat-is-real-yeah.html">Very superstitious</a> / <a href="http://winterpatriot.blogspot.com/2007/09/lets-get-physical-technical-articles-on.html">ladders 'bout to fall</a><br /><br />
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_e3gDaHO8VLQ/SMiORzvEH5I/AAAAAAAAEbM/EHU500pMQ_s/s1600-h/911_south_tower_2.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5244598202669473682" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_e3gDaHO8VLQ/SMiORzvEH5I/AAAAAAAAEbM/EHU500pMQ_s/s400/911_south_tower_2.jpg" style="cursor: pointer; display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center;" /></a>
<a href="http://winterpatriot.blogspot.com/2007/10/senate-approves-another-459-billion-for.html">Thirteen month old baby</a> / <a href="http://winterpatriot.blogspot.com/2007/10/astounding-discovery-more-evidence-that.html">broke the lookin' glass</a><br /><br />
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_e3gDaHO8VLQ/SMiSYHodf6I/AAAAAAAAEck/GR6QU8g4bWw/s1600-h/bin_laden_bw_02.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5244602709136211874" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_e3gDaHO8VLQ/SMiSYHodf6I/AAAAAAAAEck/GR6QU8g4bWw/s400/bin_laden_bw_02.jpg" style="cursor: pointer; display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center;" /></a>
<a href="http://winterpatriot.blogspot.com/2007/10/speed-bump-will-mass-murder-in-nisoor.html">Seven years of bad luck</a> / <a href="http://winterpatriot.blogspot.com/2007/10/maher-arar-victim-of-immoral-practice.html">the good things in your past</a><br /><br />
<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_e3gDaHO8VLQ/SMiOR2Whb8I/AAAAAAAAEbE/4H_mDlLVQpY/s1600-h/b52h.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5244598203371843522" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_e3gDaHO8VLQ/SMiOR2Whb8I/AAAAAAAAEbE/4H_mDlLVQpY/s400/b52h.jpg" style="cursor: pointer; display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center;" /></a>
<a href="http://winterpatriot.blogspot.com/2008/01/beyond-mirror-911-funhouse-part-iii.html">When you believe in things</a> / <a href="http://winterpatriot.blogspot.com/2007/11/no-detectable-respect-for-science-false.html">that you don't understand</a> / <a href="http://winterpatriot.blogspot.com/2007/11/wtc-collapse-research-cited-in.html">then you suffer</a><br /><br />
<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_e3gDaHO8VLQ/SMiORlYyHaI/AAAAAAAAEa8/v2Ou6lukskQ/s1600-h/bush_israel.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5244598198817922466" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_e3gDaHO8VLQ/SMiORlYyHaI/AAAAAAAAEa8/v2Ou6lukskQ/s400/bush_israel.jpg" style="cursor: pointer; display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center;" /></a>
<a href="http://winterpatriot.blogspot.com/2007/12/connecting-911-dots-dead-cutouts.html">Superstition ain't the way</a><br /><br />
<a name='more'></a>
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_e3gDaHO8VLQ/SMiUmAWf2mI/AAAAAAAAEdY/tGr68YlYkQg/s1600-h/rashid_rauf_ary_one.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5244605146723244642" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_e3gDaHO8VLQ/SMiUmAWf2mI/AAAAAAAAEdY/tGr68YlYkQg/s400/rashid_rauf_ary_one.jpg" style="cursor: pointer; display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center;" /></a>
<a href="http://winterpatriot.blogspot.com/2007/12/story-of-rashid-raufs-alleged-escape.html">Very superstitious</a> / <a href="http://winterpatriot.blogspot.com/2008/03/sermon-obama-repudiated-was-one-we-all.html">wash your face and hands</a><br /><br />
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_e3gDaHO8VLQ/SMiT9E_--9I/AAAAAAAAEc8/2LwQDEtjhNU/s1600-h/torture_wires.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5244604443596356562" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_e3gDaHO8VLQ/SMiT9E_--9I/AAAAAAAAEc8/2LwQDEtjhNU/s400/torture_wires.jpg" style="cursor: pointer; display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center;" /></a>
<a href="http://winterpatriot.blogspot.com/2008/04/big-news-military-analysts-on-tv-may.html">Rid me of the problem</a> / <a href="http://winterpatriot.blogspot.com/2008/04/former-gop-senator-says-cheneys-hostile.html">do all that you can</a><br /><br />
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_e3gDaHO8VLQ/SMiPJv_dl7I/AAAAAAAAEbc/5JEZqTNe1CE/s1600-h/cheney_snarling.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5244599163737184178" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_e3gDaHO8VLQ/SMiPJv_dl7I/AAAAAAAAEbc/5JEZqTNe1CE/s400/cheney_snarling.jpg" style="cursor: pointer; display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center;" /></a>
<a href="http://winterpatriot.blogspot.com/2008/03/angels-weep.html">Keep me in a daydream</a> / <a href="http://winterpatriot.blogspot.com/2008/03/return-to-iraqi-values-fallujah-has.html">keep me goin' strong</a><br /><br />
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_e3gDaHO8VLQ/SMiT9Wttq4I/AAAAAAAAEdM/MTzaf9Acf9Q/s1600-h/white_phos_fallujah.jpeg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5244604448351562626" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_e3gDaHO8VLQ/SMiT9Wttq4I/AAAAAAAAEdM/MTzaf9Acf9Q/s400/white_phos_fallujah.jpeg" style="cursor: pointer; display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center;" /></a>
<a href="http://winterpatriot.blogspot.com/2008/06/dennis-kucinich-bush-obstructed.html">You don't wanna save me</a> / <a href="http://winterpatriot.blogspot.com/2007/02/meet-jerome-hauer-911-suspect-awaiting.html">sad is my song</a><br /><br />
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_e3gDaHO8VLQ/SMiPJ-gibqI/AAAAAAAAEbs/LzMdL3aGOQg/s1600-h/jerome_hauer.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5244599167634009762" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_e3gDaHO8VLQ/SMiPJ-gibqI/AAAAAAAAEbs/LzMdL3aGOQg/s400/jerome_hauer.jpg" style="cursor: pointer; display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center;" /></a>
<a href="http://winterpatriot.blogspot.com/2008/06/fan-mail-from-some-flounder-important.html">When you believe in things</a> / <a href="http://winterpatriot.blogspot.com/2008/06/mccains-chief-strategist-says-another.html">that you don't understand</a> / <a href="http://winterpatriot.blogspot.com/2008/06/torture-state-innocents-suffer-villains.html">then you suffer</a><br /><br />
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_e3gDaHO8VLQ/SMiT85QChaI/AAAAAAAAEc0/NjwcrCliwS8/s1600-h/try.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5244604440442471842" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_e3gDaHO8VLQ/SMiT85QChaI/AAAAAAAAEc0/NjwcrCliwS8/s400/try.jpg" style="cursor: pointer; display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center;" /></a>
<a href="http://winterpatriot.blogspot.com/2008/06/another-mission-accomplished-afghan.html">Superstition ain't the way</a><br /><br />
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_e3gDaHO8VLQ/SMiPJ1JolnI/AAAAAAAAEb0/tO9vnSS_cww/s1600-h/rudy_in_drag.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5244599165122025074" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_e3gDaHO8VLQ/SMiPJ1JolnI/AAAAAAAAEb0/tO9vnSS_cww/s400/rudy_in_drag.jpg" style="cursor: pointer; display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center;" /></a>
<a href="http://winterpatriot.blogspot.com/2008/07/why-are-we-celebrating.html">Very superstitious</a> / <a href="http://winterpatriot.blogspot.com/2008/08/suicide-and-slander-enough-lies-to.html">nothin' more to say</a><br /><br />
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_e3gDaHO8VLQ/SMiSX5WYscI/AAAAAAAAEcU/pe4Yp6RL5yY/s1600-h/heroin_poppy.JPG" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5244602705302303170" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_e3gDaHO8VLQ/SMiSX5WYscI/AAAAAAAAEcU/pe4Yp6RL5yY/s400/heroin_poppy.JPG" style="cursor: pointer; display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center;" /></a>
<a href="http://winterpatriot.blogspot.com/2008/08/federal-court-oks-treason-crimes.html">Very superstitious</a> / <a href="http://winterpatriot.blogspot.com/2008/08/you-know-were-really-screwed-when-even.html">the devil's on his way</a><br /><br />
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_e3gDaHO8VLQ/SMiPKHTnq9I/AAAAAAAAEb8/Ki3xq6qBbkk/s1600-h/gitmo_tshirt.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5244599169995746258" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_e3gDaHO8VLQ/SMiPKHTnq9I/AAAAAAAAEb8/Ki3xq6qBbkk/s400/gitmo_tshirt.jpg" style="cursor: pointer; display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center;" /></a>
<a href="http://winterpatriot.blogspot.com/2008/08/stack-of-reports-proves-it-office.html">Thirteen month old baby</a> / <a href="http://winterpatriot.blogspot.com/2008/08/collateral-women-and-children-airstrike.html">broke the lookin' glass</a><br /><br />
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_e3gDaHO8VLQ/SMiSXrrXiKI/AAAAAAAAEcE/m1eCVGUok9o/s1600-h/gitmo_reality.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5244602701632211106" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_e3gDaHO8VLQ/SMiSXrrXiKI/AAAAAAAAEcE/m1eCVGUok9o/s400/gitmo_reality.jpg" style="cursor: pointer; display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center;" /></a>
<a href="http://winterpatriot.blogspot.com/2008/08/nist-report-ends-911-truth-movement.html">Seven years of bad luck</a> / <a href="http://winterpatriot.blogspot.com/2008/08/children-killed-by-airstrike-in.html">good things in your past</a><br /><br />
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_e3gDaHO8VLQ/SMiSXv7HvmI/AAAAAAAAEcM/cbMSm21FX-s/s1600-h/ground_zero.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5244602702772026978" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_e3gDaHO8VLQ/SMiSXv7HvmI/AAAAAAAAEcM/cbMSm21FX-s/s400/ground_zero.jpg" style="cursor: pointer; display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center;" /></a>
<a href="http://winterpatriot.blogspot.com/2008/08/endless-lies-endless-war-obama-accepts.html">When you believe in things</a> / <a href="http://winterpatriot.blogspot.com/2008/08/unhinged-at-last-further-reflections-on.html">that you don't understand</a><br /><br />
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_e3gDaHO8VLQ/SMiPJjvTZ4I/AAAAAAAAEbk/4GPeiDiSNjc/s1600-h/coffins_column.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5244599160448182146" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_e3gDaHO8VLQ/SMiPJjvTZ4I/AAAAAAAAEbk/4GPeiDiSNjc/s400/coffins_column.jpg" style="cursor: pointer; display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center;" /></a>
<a href="http://winterpatriot.blogspot.com/2008/09/biggest-lie-of-all.html">then you suffer</a><br /><br />
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_e3gDaHO8VLQ/SMiT8p5D6GI/AAAAAAAAEcs/Eo_T4AXs7Ys/s1600-h/screw_2.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5244604436319561826" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_e3gDaHO8VLQ/SMiT8p5D6GI/AAAAAAAAEcs/Eo_T4AXs7Ys/s400/screw_2.jpg" style="cursor: pointer; display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center;" /></a>
<a href="http://winterpatriot.blogspot.com/2008/09/more-screwed-now-than-ever-before.html">Superstition ain't the way</a> / <a href="http://winterpatriot.blogspot.com/2004/12/911-was-hoax-how-and-when-i-knew-it.html">no, no, no, no, no</a><br /><br />
Winter Patriothttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06966573231074972843noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9621489.post-79792874692718393692021-09-09T16:02:00.012-04:002021-09-18T08:18:49.411-04:00Even After 20 Years, The Facts About 9/11 Must Be Suppressed!<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-AbhvPZCvn14/V9O4a8jprEI/AAAAAAAAIR8/WZe0il6ZuzIAY5Ssip2_AqiPfLp2uW1gwCEw/s1600/911_ordinary_thing.jpg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-AbhvPZCvn14/V9O4a8jprEI/AAAAAAAAIR8/WZe0il6ZuzIAY5Ssip2_AqiPfLp2uW1gwCEw/s320/911_ordinary_thing.jpg" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The towers didn't fall down.<br />
They blew up.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<b>Why The Facts About 9/11 Must Be Suppressed</b><br />
<br />
(1) The official story of 9/11 has been used to justify drastic military actions by the United States and its allies, actions which have brought death, destruction, and chaos to Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia, Libya, Syria, Pakistan, and many other countries. <br />
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(2) The same story has also been used to justify drastic changes in domestic policy, in the United States and in much of the world. These changes have resulted in the persecution, incarceration, torture, and death of many innocent people, not to mention the erosion of civil rights and the perversion of the democratic process in every nation that once enjoyed these things. <br />
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(3) If it were widely and clearly understood that the official story of 9/11 is not only obviously false but a carefully crafted fiction: the military actions described above would be seen as unjustified acts of mass murder, war crimes and crimes against humanity; the policy changes would be seen as acts of treason; the people responsible for these actions might be in danger of accountability; and the new policies themselves might even be in danger of reversal, in which case the people who benefit from these policies might need to find a new way to feed at the public trough. <br />
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(4) If the official story were true, the facts of 9/11 would support it, and independent research would confirm it. Therefore the facts would be widely publicized and independent researchers would be encouraged. But none of this is happening, and that's because the facts of 9/11 undermine the official story, and independent research destroys it. <br />
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(5) Therefore the facts and the independent researchers must both be suppressed. Otherwise the new policies would be in danger, the people who implemented them would be in danger, the people who profit from them would be slightly inconvenienced, and the perpetrators of 9/11 might actually be brought to justice. <a name='more'></a><br />
<br />
~~~<br />
<br />
<b>Some Facts About 9/11 That Must Be Suppressed</b><br />
<br />
The following list contains some facts about 9/11 that defenders of the official story wish you didn't know, plus questions they wish you wouldn't ask, thoughts they wish you wouldn't entertain, conclusions they wish you wouldn't draw ... and hints that you could use to talk yourself out of taking any of this seriously, which is exactly what they want you to do. <br />
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(1) It is not unthinkable, unknown, or even uncommon for a government to attack its own people, blame the attack on an enemy, and use the attack as a pretext for a war which would otherwise be considered unjustified. Such an attack is often called a "False Flag" attack, and the trick has been played again and again throughout American History. Fortunately, most Americans are well-enough educated to be virtually unaware of their nation's history, so they can't even imagine such a thing.<br />
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(2) In 2000, a think tank called the Project for a New American Century (PNAC) published a position paper called "Rebuilding America's Defenses," (RAD) which called for enormous and rapid increases in US military spending in order to secure "full spectrum dominance" over the entire world, but noted that "the process of transformation is likely to be a long one, absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event, like a new Pearl Harbor." Of course, having called for a major attack, they sat back and waited to see what would happen. <br />
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(3) A year later, following the theft of the 2000 Presidential election, several PNAC members, signatories of RAD, occupied key positions in the Bush administration, including Dick Cheney as Vice President, Donald Rumsfeld as Secretary of Defense, and Paul Wolfowitz as Assistant Secretary of Defense. These men were perfectly positioned to prevent the attacks, had they wanted to do so. They were also legally required to prevent them, whether they wanted to do so or not. But patriotic Americans are smart enough not to know anything about this. <br />
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(4) In July of 2001, the Italian city of Genoa hosted an international economic summit. The Italian government, fearing a potential terrorist attack, installed anti-aircraft batteries around the city. What could this mean? If your mind was warped, you might think that since no terrorist group has an air force, the Italians must have been worried about terrorists flying hijacked airplanes. <br />
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(5) During the Genoa summit, President Bush and the rest of the American delegation didn't sleep at the hotel with all the other delegates. They stayed on an aircraft carrier offshore, where anti-aircraft security was even better. If you've had too much to drink, you might assume the Americans were even more worried about terrorists flying hijacked airplanes than the Italians were. <br />
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(6) Less than two months later, Bush and others in his administration claimed to have been caught by surprise, and Bush said no one in his administration could have imagined terrorists using a hijacked airplane to attack a building. And you might wonder: if they were so afraid of it in July, why couldn't they imagine it in September? But that's a lunatic thought. These are busy people. How can you expect them to remember something like that for eight whole weeks?<br />
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(7) According to the official timelines, the FBI knew the names of all 19 hijackers before the FAA knew that 4 airplanes had been hijacked. You might ask yourself how the FBI knew the identity of the hijackers before the FAA knew the planes had been hijacked, but only if you were hallucinating. Loyal, patriotic Americans are grateful that the FBI knew the identity of the hijackers so early, since this allowed the investigation to proceed, even in the absence of credible evidence against them.<br />
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(8) We have never seen any credible video evidence showing any of the 19 hijackers were in any of the airports from which the hijacked flights originated on the day of the attacks. Shortly after the attacks, FBI agents were reportedly working double-shifts, scanning the airport security videos for signs of the hijackers. But later, we were told that no security videos from those airports were available, because all the recording systems had failed. If you were unreasonably suspicious, you might wonder whether no video evidence was ever released because, even after all the double-shifting, no such evidence was ever found. <br />
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(9) Shortly after the FBI identified the dead hijackers, at least six of them contacted major news agencies to say that they were still alive, that they'd had nothing to do with the attacks, and that they were surprised to see their names and faces on the news. The FBI never changed its original list, nor did it acknowledge that its list could not possibly be correct. But fixation on such minor details is a sure sign of mental illness. <br />
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(10) The World Trade Center complex consisted of seven buildings, and all seven were destroyed on 9/11, although only the Twin Towers (Buildings 1 and 2) made an impact on the news cycle that day. But it would be silly to think the other 5 buildings were deliberately ignored. <br />
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(11) The official report of the 9/11 Commission, which claims to be a complete account of the events of the day, fails to mention the destruction of Buildings 3, 4, 5, and 6, which were also never mentioned in any official reports. This is only to be expected, because these buildings were less than 100 stories tall. <br />
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(12) The 9/11 Commission also failed to mention the destruction of Building 7, which was the subject of a subsequent NIST report. The existence of the NIST report proves beyond any doubt that the 9/11 Commission did not tell us the whole story, although the Commission specifically claimed to have done so. But nobody in his right mind would be concerned about such an irrelevant detail as whether they told the whole truth.<br />
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(13) The destruction of Building 7 was reported by both BBC and CNN, more than twenty minutes before it happened. To this day we have had no credible explanation for how this could have happened. But only a crackpot would expect or require one. <br />
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(14) The jumbo jet that allegedly hit the Pentagon left a hole much smaller than itself, but immediately after the crash, no airplane parts could be seen outside the building. If you wonder why not, you are seriously deranged. <br />
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(15) We were told that the plane nearly melted on impact, flowed through the small hole in a semi-liquid state, and wound up inside the building, where none of it was found because it had vaporized. And you might wonder how the plane could have melted, when all the other planes that have ever crashed, in the entire history of aviation, have crumpled and broken apart -- but only if you were absolutely unhinged. <br />
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(16) According to the official story, the hijackers who attacked the Pentagon were identified by DNA analysis of their remains. You might be tempted to ask: What can vaporize an airplane while leaving human DNA intact? But that's a stupid question. <br />
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(17) After Flight 93 crashed at Shanksville, Pennsylvania, the first responders on the scene could find no wreckage, no luggage, and no passengers. But only a fool would ask whether an airplane had crashed there at all.<br />
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(18) Even though the plane dove so deeply into the Shanksville soil that none of it could be seen by any of the eyewitnesses, a passport and a bandana which belonged to one of the hijackers were recovered from the scene. If you were paranoid, you might wonder whether the passport and the bandana had been planted. <br />
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(19) The alleged hijacker pilots could barely fly single-engine Cessnas and had no experience in the cockpits of large airliners. And yet they are said to have flown with speed and precision that our most proficient military pilots cannot match. If you have no imagination, you might wonder how they did it. <br />
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(20) All four of the alleged flight paths are dubious, because no jumbo jet can fly at the speeds claimed by the official story (more than 500 miles per hour) except at high altitude. Such speeds are not possible at or near sea level, for planes which are not designed for it. So if you are mentally ill, you might wonder what actually hit the buildings.<br />
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(21) President Bush and Vice-President Cheney testified before the 9/11 Commission on terms that they themselves set: behind closed doors, together, and not under oath, with no notes or recordings permitted to be kept. Therefore the Commission may have conducted the only criminal investigation in history in which suspects were allowed to stipulate the conditions under which they would cooperate. But you won't allow this thought to cross your mind unless you are profoundly anti-American. <br />
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(22) The 9/11 Commission was nominally headed by Thomas Keane and Lee Hamilton, but it was actually run by Philip Zelikow, a specialist in the creation and maintenance of public myths who came to the attention of the PNAC crowd after publishing a paper about catastrophic terrorism and the political uses to which it could be put. None but the most unbalanced would see anything wrong with this. <br />
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(23) Zelikow began the investigation with a detailed outline of the final report, with chapter titles, section headings, sub-headings, and even sub-sub-headings. And he did his best to keep his outline secret from the Commission staff, some of whom thought they were engaged in a legitimate investigation. But why should he have shown it around? What good would that have done? <br />
<br />
(24) When an independent researcher asked why the FBI's Most Wanted list had an entry for Osama bin Laden but did not say that he was wanted in connection with the 9/11 attacks, an FBI spokesman revealed that the FBI had no hard evidence linking bin Laden to the attacks. But hard evidence isn't all it's cracked up to be. <br />
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(25) You may recall that Afghanistan was bombed, invaded, and occupied for allegedly harboring the mastermind behind the attacks. But you have never seen any evidence supporting the assertion that Osama bin Laden was connected to 9/11. The FBI would happily show you some, if it had any. But it doesn't, so let's not dwell on it. <br />
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(26) Former FBI translator Sibel Edmonds testified to Congress for more than 3 hours. When she was finished, her testimony was stricken from the record and she was hit with a State Secrets gag order. Years later, she defied that order and revealed facts which had been kept under wraps for too long, including that Osama bin Laden had enjoyed "an intimate relationship" with the CIA until 9/11. She's what you'd call a seriously disgruntled former employee. <br />
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(27) An extensive body of evidence indicates that explosives were used in the destruction of the World Trade Center. This evidence includes eyewitness testimony, mainstream media news reports, forensic examination of the remaining steel, and videos in which we can see and hear explosions. According to the defenders of official story, none of this evidence exists. Clearly it would be unpatriotic, and very rude, to contradict them. <br />
<br />
(28) Five of the nine 9/11 Commissioners are on record as saying they didn't get the story right, that they had been lied to, that the Commission had been set up to fail, and so on. And another would-be Commissioner resigned at the outset, calling the Commission "a national disgrace." But only a madman would expect such honest people to believe the story they've been telling. <br />
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(29) Five young men were seen dancing and celebrating as the attack on the WTC unfolded. They were found, arrested, and interrogated, but ten weeks later, after considerable political and diplomatic pressure, they were released, having failed multiple polygraph tests. If you have no moral compass, you might see something unseemly in this. <br />
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(30) It turned out that these men were Israelis and some of them were connected to the Israeli intelligence agency, Mossad. After they returned to Israel, they appeared on television and explained that they were in NYC on 9/11 because "our purpose was to document the event." You might think this indicates foreknowledge, but only if you're anti-Semitic. <br />
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(31) There were many other indications of foreknowledge, including abnormal trading in "put options" against stocks of companies which were severely affected by the attacks. (A put option is a bet that the price of a stock will go down.) The 9/11 Commission declared that what looked like "insider trading" could be disregarded because the traders who placed the put options had "no conceivable connection to al Q'aeda". Some people have suggested that it would have been more logical to cast suspicion on the people who were trying to make money off the attacks -- while they were happening! -- and interpret the claim that they had "no conceivable connection to al Q'aeda" as tantamount to saying that al Q'aeda had no conceivable connection to 9/11. It goes without saying that those people are absolutely insane.<br />
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(32) CNN reported that the battle plan for the attack against Afghanistan was on President Bush's desk, awaiting his signature, on September 10th, the day before 9/11. Members of the lunatic fringe have claimed that no plan to retaliate against Afghanistan could have been made before the provocation that necessitated it, and hinted that there must have been more going on than met the eye. It's possible, especially for lunatics with hyperactive imaginations, to think of any number of reasons why that plan should not have been on that desk on that day. But even the most hyperactive lunatics could never imagine how much flak Bush would have faced, had his administration been unprepared to retaliate immediately for the "surprise attack" that came the following day.<br />
<br />
~~~<br />
<br />
This list above is woefully incomplete, and some of the items I have omitted may be more important than any of the items I have included. <br />
<br />
There are so many missing items that I wouldn't have time to list them all, even if I tried. And you wouldn't have time to read them all, either. <br />
<br />
If I added another 20 or 50 items to the list, it would still amount to the tip of an iceberg. <br />
<br />
Furthermore, it could be argued that each item on the list is itself the tip of an iceberg. <br />
<br />
For instance, the story of the five dancing Israelis is the tip of the iceberg called "Israeli complicity." But I would have to be a raving Jew-hater to tell you more about that. <br />
<br />
I'd have to be a horrible person to tell you more about any of this, really. But you can <a href="http://www.consensus911.org/">click here to read about the most compelling reasons to doubt the official story</a>, or <a href="https://wikispooks.com/wiki/9/11:Israel_did_it">here to read about evidence implicating Israel</a>.<br />
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<i>(Portions of this essay were <a href="http://winterpatriot.blogspot.com/2016/09/the-facts-of-911-must-be-suppressed.html">pre-recorded</a>.)</i><br />
<br />Winter Patriothttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06966573231074972843noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9621489.post-2862885346190054692021-09-09T07:55:00.010-04:002021-09-19T11:21:50.300-04:00Another Glimpse Through The "Window"<p>More apologies: I hadn't planned to write anything personal so soon after <a href="http://winterpatriot.blogspot.com/2021/09/politics-101-know-difference-between-we.html">the last one</a>, but James has <a href="http://www.winterpatriot.com/node/1112#comment-24441">asked</a> for another glimpse through the "window" that I "opened" by escaping the US in time to get the bulk of my education elsewhere. It's a good question, and I think the answer requires at least one more thread. <br /><br />One of the first things I learned outside the US was that "American History" as taught <i>in </i>the US and "American History" as taught <i>outside </i>the US were two different subjects, whose names just happened to share a common spelling. </p><p>Everything I thought I knew about US history, and even the structure of the US government, was perhaps "absolutely wrong", and definitely "wrong here". So I also learned to keep my mouth shut in History class. <a name='more'></a></p><p>It must have worked, because when I was 17, and just starting my fourth year of studies outside the US, my history teacher invited me (and my friend Doug) to participate in the "Simulated UN General Assembly" which was being run by the city's University as "enrichment" for local high school students. <br /><br />Doug and I were two of roughly 40 students from about 20 area schools, who met every Thursday evening around a huge, beautiful table in the center of an amphitheater. There was seating for a few hundred spectators, and of course there were none. But it was still a very imposing setting. <br /></p><p>Our weekly meetings were moderated by two graduate students, one of whom was female and very attractive, especially to Doug. Of course the moderators were steeped in International Relations and knew far more about such things than any of us mere teenagers. <br /><br />Unfortunately it had taken a while for our teachers to get organized, and Doug and I had missed the first meeting, at which all the other students had been asked which countries they wanted to represent. <br /><br />For some reason, the moderators knew I was a US citizen before we even arrived. I found this a bit alarming, because I had been trying so hard for the past three years to fit in with the locals, never drawing attention to my citizenship. <br /><br />Understandably, none of the other students had chosen to represent the United States. The moderators, believing no UN simulation could possibly be complete without Uncle Sam, decided (less understandably, in my view) that since I was <i>from </i>the US, I should <i>represent </i>the US. <br /><br />I found this even more alarming. "American exceptionalism" indeed: every student in the room was given a choice except the American. "Nice country you got here!" I thought. But I held my tongue ... <br /><br />... until the session was brought to order, and the first speaker on the agenda was the Soviet representative, who said: </p><blockquote>The United States has no business using military force in Vietnam. </blockquote>I nodded, and the moderator said <blockquote>What do you say to that?</blockquote> I replied <blockquote>That is correct. The United States has no business using military force in Vietnam.</blockquote> The moderator stepped in again and said <blockquote>That's not right. You're supposed to defend your country's position.</blockquote> And that's where I got stuck. I didn't feel confident enough to say what I was thinking, even if I could have put my thoughts into words. Instead I said <br /><blockquote>I can't defend the position. The position is indefensible.</blockquote> And those were the only words ever spoken by "the United States" at this particular simulation of the UN General Assembly. <br /><br />We met again every week for months. Nobody ever asked me another question, and I never spoke up in that room again. Nice country you got here, indeed! <br /><br />Doug, by the way, morphed into a puppy dog, and took to following the female moderator around every week, wagging his tail and hoping for a belly-rub, until she told him she loved reading so much that she would "rather curl up with a good book than make love", which promptly cured young Douglas of his infatuation. I was grateful for this development because it meant we could get out of there as soon as the meetings were over. And I was always anxious to get out of there. But I never told anybody why. <br /><br />Since that time, I have often thought about the moment when I felt so stuck. Had I been mature enough to put my thoughts into words, and confident enough to utter those words in that place, I might have said <p></p><blockquote>Although I may not fit the technical definition, I am in a very real sense a political refugee. I left my home, my country, my family, and both of my friends, at the age of fourteen, and came to <i>your </i>country, where I didn't know a living soul, because I was determined <i>never </i>to allow <i>any </i>possibility that I might become complicit in the unspeakable crimes to which my Soviet colleague referred just a moment ago. <br /><br />I am honored to be here, a guest of this wonderful university, an institution which enshrines and enables mankind's most laudable ambitions: the quest for Knowledge and the pursuit of Truth. <br /><br />I am humbled to be taking part in a gathering representing all the world's people, coming together, talking together, trying to solve their common problems. <br /><br />But I am horrified to think that I am now expected to <i>lie</i> in defense of the <i>monsters</i> who have taken control of my country and set it on a path that can only lead to global destruction.<br /><br />How could I do such a thing? What do you take me for? A <i>diplomat</i>?? </blockquote>Winter Patriothttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06966573231074972843noreply@blogger.com