History Forum / General / General Topics / January 2007

Is this what you are replying do. Why cut it out you intentional crook.

kk

August 8, 2006
9/11 Commission Chairmen Admit to Whitewash
by Ivan Eland

As both the Bush administration and its client government in Israel,
with their invasions of Arab states in Iraq and Lebanon respectively,
make the United States ever more hated in the Islamic world, a new
book by the chairmen of the 9/11 Commission admits that the commission
whitewashed the root cause of the 9/11 attacks - that same
interventionist U.S. foreign policy.

Former Governor Tom Kean and former Congressman Lee Hamilton, chairmen
of the 9/11 Commission - the publicity hounds that they are - want to
keep the long-retired, but much-celebrated, panel in the public mind.
They have written a tell-all book about the trials and tribulations of
the panel's work. Despite the commission's disastrous recommendations
- which led to a reorganization of the U.S. intelligence community
that worsened its original defect prior to 9/11 (a severe coordination
problem caused by bureaucratic bloat) - and apparent whitewashing of
the most important single issue that it examined, the chairmen are
trying their best to write another bestseller. The book usefully
details the administration's willful misrepresentation of its
incompetent actions that day, but makes the shocking admission that
some commission members deliberately wanted to distort an even more
important issue. Apparently, unidentified commissioners wanted to
cover up the fact that U.S. support for Israel was one of the
motivating factors behind al-Qaeda's 9/11 attack. Although, to his
credit, Hamilton argued for saying that al-Qaeda committed the heinous
strike because of the U.S. military presence in the Middle East and
American support for Israel, the panel watered down that frank
conclusion to state that U.S. policy on the Israeli-Palestinian
conflict and Iraq are "dominant staples of popular commentary across
the Arab and Muslim world."

Some commissioners wanted to cover up the link between the 9/11 attack
and U.S. support for Israel because this might imply that the United
States should alter that policy and lessen its support for Israeli
actions. How right they were. The question is simple: If the vast bulk
of Americans would be safer if U.S. politicians moderated their
slavish support of Israel, designed to win the support of key pressure
groups at home, wouldn't it be a good idea to make this change in
course? Average U.S. citizens might attenuate their support for Israel
if the link between the 9/11 attacks and unquestioning U.S. favoritism
for Israeli excesses were more widely known. Similarly, if American
taxpayers knew that the expensive and unnecessary U.S. policy of
intervening in the affairs of countries all over the world - including
the U.S. military presence in the Middle East - made them less secure
from terrorist attacks at home, pressure would likely build for an
abrupt change to a more restrained U.S. foreign policy. But like the
original 9/11 Commission report, President Bush regularly obscures
this important reality by saying that America was attacked on 9/11
because of its freedoms, making no mention of U.S. interventionist
foreign policy as the root cause.

Yet numerous public opinion polls in the Islamic world repeatedly
prove the president wrong. The surveys show that people in Muslim
countries admire American political and economic freedoms, culture,
and technology. But the numbers go through the floor when Islamic
people are asked about their approval of U.S. foreign policy. Much of
this negative attitude derives from mindless U.S. backing of anything
Israel does. In addition, Osama bin Laden has repeatedly written or
stated that he attacks the United States because of its military
presence in the Persian Gulf and its support for Israel and corrupt
regimes in the Arab world.

The Bush administration has worsened the anti-U.S. hatred in Islamic
countries, which drives this blowback terrorism, by its invasion of
Iraq and its support of Israel's excessive military response in
Lebanon. Unfortunately, innocent Iraqis and Lebanese are unlikely to
be the only ones afflicted with the damage from U.S. interventionism.
Innocent Israelis and Americans have been, and will likely continue to
be, the victims of policies that have been sold by President Bush on
the basis of making the citizens of both countries safer and more
secure, while the 9/11 Commission obediently has covered the
administration's tracks.

It was called bloody good fun, dopey. Remember the sh.t Hendrix got himself
into playing the American national anthem at Woodstock. It was the same time
in history.