Another Look at 9/11: Ask Not 'What Happened?' But 'Who Did It?'

[yankeedoodle]

From Phil Giraldi:
Another Look at 9/11: Ask Not 'What Happened?' But 'Who Did It?'
https://www.unz.com/pgiraldi/another-look-at-9-11-ask-not-what-happened-but-who-did-it/

The twentieth anniversary of 9/11 last Saturday has raised many of the usual issues about what actually happened on that day. Were hijacked airliners actually crashed into the twin towers of the World Trade Center and the Pentagon or was the damage in New York City attributable to explosives or even some kind of nuclear device? These are fundamental questions and the so-called "Truthers" who raise them have been inspired by their reading of the 585 page 9/11 Report, which is most charitably described as incomplete, though many would reasonably call it a government cover-up.

I have long believed that unless one actually sees or experiences something first hand the description of any event is no better than hearsay. The closest I came to "seeing" 9/11 was the panicked evacuation of a CIA office building, where I was working at the time. Another related bit of 9/11 narrative also came from two close friends who were driving into work at the Pentagon when they each independently observed what appeared to be a large plane passing over their cars and striking the building. I consider the sources credible but was it an airplane or a missile? And I was not there to see it with my own eyes, so I am reluctant to claim that my friends actually saw something that in retrospect might have been misconstrued.

Critics of the physical and engineering aspects of the accepted narrative certainly have a great deal of expert evidence that supports their case. The way the towers fell as well as the collapse of Building 7 nearby are suggestive of something other than the impact of an airliner near the top of the structure, but I am no expert in the science of the matter and have avoided expressing a view regarding it.

Apart from what happened, I have always been more intrigued by "Who done it?" I found the 9/11 Report to be conspicuously lacking in its failure to cover possible foreign involvement, to include the Saudis, Pakistanis and the Israelis. Indeed, President Joe Biden has taken steps that have resulted in the declassification and release of 16 pages of the notorious 28-page redaction of documents relating to any possible Saudi role. The document consists of interviews with Saudi student Omar al-Bayoumi, who reportedly helped support several hijackers.

The Saudis are being sued by 9/11 survivors, but it is unlikely that anything really sensitive will ever be exposed, as explained by investigative journalist Jim Bovard. Indeed, the documents released last Saturday did not demonstrate that the Saudi government itself played any direct role in 9/11, though it is clear that wealthy Saudis and even members of the Royal Family had been supporting and funding al-Qaeda. It is also known that that Saudi Embassy and Consulate employees in the U.S. had funded the alleged hijackers.

Friends who were in CIA's Counterterrorism Center at the time of 9/11 tend to believe that the Saudis were indeed supporting their fellow citizens while in the U.S. but were likely not knowledgeable regarding any terrorist plot. They observed, however, that there was considerable evidence that Israel knew in advance about what was impending and may have even been instrumental in making sure that it succeeded.

The evidence of Israeli involvement is substantial, based on the level of the Jewish state's espionage operations in the U.S. and also its track record on so-called covert actions simulating terrorist attacks designed to influence political decision making in foreign countries. But, of course, in reporting on the 9/11 tragedy no one in the mainstream media did pick up on the connection, inhibited no doubt by the understanding that there are some things that one just does not write about Israel if one hopes to remain employed. That is true in spite of the fact that the Israeli angle to 9/11 is without a doubt a good story, consigned to the alternative media, where it can be marginalized by critics as a conspiracy theory or the product of anti-Semitism.

In the year 2001 Israel was running a massive spying operation directed against Muslims either resident or traveling in the United States. The operation included the creation of a number of cover companies in New Jersey, Florida and also on the west coast that served as spying mechanisms for Mossad officers. The effort was supported by the Mossad Station in Washington DC and included a large number of volunteers, the so-called "art students" who traveled around the U.S. selling various products at malls and outdoor markets. The FBI was aware of the numerous Israeli students who were routinely overstaying their visas but they were regarded as a minor nuisance and were normally left to the tender mercies of the inspectors at the Bureau of Customs and Immigration.

The Israelis were also running more sophisticated intelligence operations inside the United States, many of which were focused on Washington's military capabilities and intentions. Some specialized intelligence units concentrated on obtaining military and dual use technology. It was also known that Israeli spies had penetrated the phone systems of the U.S. government, to include those at the White House.

All of that came into focus on September 11, 2001, when a New Jersey housewife saw something from the window of her apartment building, which overlooked the World Trade Center. She watched as the buildings burned and crumbled but also noted something strange. Three young men were kneeling on the roof of a white transit van parked by the water's edge, making a movie in which they featured themselves high fiving and laughing in front of the catastrophic scene unfolding behind them. The woman wrote down the license plate number of the van and called the police, who responded quickly and soon both the local force and the FBI began looking for the vehicle, which was subsequently seen by other witnesses in various locations along the New Jersey waterfront, its occupants "celebrating and filming."

The license plate number revealed that the van belonged to a New Jersey registered company called Urban Moving Systems. The van was identified and pulled over. Five men between the ages of 22 and 27 years old emerged to be detained at gunpoint and handcuffed. They were all Israelis. One of them had $4,700 in cash hidden in his sock and another had two foreign passports. Bomb sniffing dogs reacted to the smell of explosives in the van.

According to the initial police report, the driver identified as Sivan Kurzberg, stated "We are Israeli. We are not your problem. Your problems are our problems. The Palestinians are the problem." The five men were detained at the Bergen County jail in New Jersey before being transferred the FBI's Foreign Counterintelligence Section, which handles allegations of spying.

After the arrest, the FBI obtained a warrant to search Urban Moving System's Weehawken, NJ, offices. Papers and computers were seized. The company owner Dominick Suter, also an Israeli, answered FBI questions but when a follow-up interview was set up a few days later it was learned that he had fled the country for Israel, putting both his business and home up for sale. It was later learned that Suter has been associated with at least fourteen businesses in the United States, mostly in New Jersey and New York but also in Florida.

The five Israelis were held in Brooklyn, initially on charges relating to visa fraud. FBI interrogators questioned them for more than two months. Several were held in solitary confinement so they could not communicate with each other and two of them were given repeated polygraph exams, which they failed when claiming that they were nothing more than students working summer jobs. The two men that the FBI focused on most intensively were believed to be Mossad staff officers and the other three were volunteers helping with surveillance. Interestingly, photo evidence demonstrated that they had been seen "casing" the area where they were seen celebrating on the day before, indicating that they had prior knowledge of the attack.

The Israelis were not exactly cooperative, but the FBI concluded from documents obtained at their office in Weehawken that they had been targeting Arabs in New York and New Jersey. The FBI concluded that there was a distinct possibility that the Israelis had actually monitored the activities of at least two of the alleged 9/11 hijackers while the cover companies and intelligence personnel often intersected with locations frequented by the Saudis.

The dots were apparently never connected by investigators. Police records in New Jersey and New York where the men were held have disappeared and FBI interrogation reports are inaccessible. Media coverage of the case also died, though the five were referred to in the press as the "dancing Israelis" and by some, more disparagingly, as the "dancing Shlomos."

Inevitably, the George W. Bush White House intervened. After 71 days in detention, the five Israelis were inexplicably released from prison, put on a plane, and deported. One should also recall that when the news of 9/11 reached Israel, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was pleased, saying that "It's very good. Well, not very good, but it will generate immediate sympathy." It will "strengthen the bond between our two peoples, because we've experienced terror over so many decades, but the United States has now experienced a massive hemorrhaging of terror." And, of course, it was conveniently attributable to Israel's enemies.

The possible role of Israel in 9/11 was first explored in book form in 2003 by Antiwar.com editorial director Justin Raimondo in his The Terror Enigma, a short book focusing on Israeli spying and inconsistencies in the narrative that bore the provocative subtitle "9/11 and the Israeli Connection."

Currently, the twentieth anniversary of 9/11 has inspired some others to take another look at the possible Israeli role. Ron Unz has recently completed an exhaustive examination of the evidence. He observes that 9/11 and its aftermath have shaped "the last two decades, greatly changing the daily lives and liberties of most ordinary Americans." He asks "What organized group would have been sufficiently powerful and daring to carry off an attack of such vast scale against the central heart of the world's sole superpower? And how were they possibly able to orchestrate such a massively effective media and political cover-up, even enlisting the participation of the U.S. government itself?"

Ron Unz answers his question, concluding that there is "a strong, perhaps even overwhelming case that the Israeli Mossad together with its American collaborators played the central role" in the attack. His argument is based on the noted inconsistencies in the standard narrative, plus an examination of the history of Israeli false flag and mass terrorism attacks. It also includes new information gleaned from Israeli journalist Ronen Bergman's recent book Rise and Kill First: the Secret History of Israel's Targeted Assassinations.

To a certain extent, Unz relies on a detailed investigative article written by French journalist Laurent Guyenot in 2018 as well as on an argument made by an ex-Marine and former instructor at the U.S. Army War College Alan Sabrosky in an article where he records how "Many years ago I read a fascinating discussion of the 'tactics of mistake.' This essentially entailed using a target's prejudices and preconceptions to mislead them as to the origin and intent of the attack, entrapping them in a tactical situation that later worked to the attacker's strategic advantage. This is what unfolded in the 9/11 attacks that led us into the matrix of wars and conflicts, present (Afghanistan and Iraq), planned (Iran and Syria) and projected (Jordan and Egypt), that benefit Israel and no other country — although I concede that many private contractors and politicians are doing very well for themselves out of the death and misery of others. I am also absolutely certain as a strategic analyst that 9/11 itself, from which all else flows, was a classic Mossad-orchestrated operation. But Mossad did not do it alone. They needed local help within America (and perhaps elsewhere) and they had it, principally from some alumni of PNAC (the misnamed Project for a New American Century) and their affiliates within and outside of the U.S. Government (USG), who in the 9/11 attacks got the 'catalytic event' they needed and craved to take the U.S. to war on Israel's behalf..."

Economist and author Paul Craig Roberts has also been motivated by the anniversary to review the evidence and concludes "Circumstantial evidence suggests that 9/11 was a scheme of George W. Bush regime neoconservative officials allied with vice president Dick Cheney and Israel to create a 'new Pearl Harbor' that would generate support on the part of the American people and Washington's European allies for a Middle Eastern 'war on terror' whose real purpose was to destroy Israel's enemies in the interest of Greater Israel... This is the most plausible explanation, but, if true, it is not one that the U.S. and Israeli governments would ever acknowledge. Consequently, we are stuck with an official explanation long championed by the presstitutes that no one believes."

Yes, an implausible explanation that no one really believes for the greatest national security disaster in America's twenty-first century. And Israel gets yet another pass.

[abduLMaria]

Senator Al Franken admits to sharing Foreknowledge of 9-11 with NYC Mayor Ed Koch.

In writing.




But the 2 privileged Jews apparently did not endeavour to warn the 2900+ Gentiles who were murdered on 9-11.

Blood Passover 9-11, a variation on the traditional Blood Passover.


https://www.hebcal.com/converter?gd=11&gm=9&gy=2001&g2h=1

Hebrew calendar converter, if you want to see what 23 Elul was in 5761.

Same as 9-11-2001.

[yankeedoodle]

More from Phil Giraldi:
How Did the Perpetrators Do 9/11?
All it takes is a government conspiracy
https://www.unz.com/pgiraldi/how-did-the-perpetrators-do-9-11/

The twentieth anniversary of 9/11 has motivated some critics of the standard narrative to explore alternative explanations for what took place on that fatal day. To be sure, there has been considerable focus through the years on exactly what happened, analyzing the technical aspects of what made the twin towers and nearby Building 7, which is where the CIA Station was located, fall while also speculating over what actually occurred at the Pentagon and at Shanksville Pennsylvania.

The narrative under attack basically derives from the 585 page 9/11 Commission Report and from both media coverage and government press releases near the time of the event and ever since. The basic government approved narrative goes like this: Nineteen Arab hijackers, mostly Saudi nationals, acting under orders of Osama bin Laden, head of the terrorist group al-Qaeda, used box cutters and other implements to seize control of four commercial airliners. Two of them were flown into the twin towers of New York City's World Trade Center, which collapsed from the damage, a third plane struck the Pentagon and a fourth plane crashed in Pennsylvania when passengers attempted to regain control from the hijackers. There was some debris from planes at the sites, but the bodies of passengers, crew and hijackers were largely consumed beyond recognition by the flames and intense heat. DNA samples collected at the various sites have, since that time, reportedly identified some of the dead. Building 7, which was not struck by a plane, caught fire from the falling debris from the nearby World Trade Center towers and the flames spread to such an extent that it had to be demolished to prevent endangering other adjacent buildings.

In support of the alternative theory that the buildings were brought down by controlled demolition type explosions is the lack of any serious forensic analysis of the fragments of masonry and steel. The debris was picked up hurriedly and dumped at sea and abroad where it could not be subjected to chemical examination. That fact alone smacks of conspiracy.

Nearly 3,000 US citizens and residents died in the multiple attacks, remembrance of which became the driving force behind a Global War On Terror (GWOT) launched by the George W. Bush Administration. Recently released FBI documents have added somewhat to the standard 9/11 tale, conceding that the Saudi government and some wealthy individuals, possibly including the royal family, helped the hijackers both directly and indirectly, but there is no evidence to suggest that there was any direct involvement by Riyadh in the conspiracy, if that is what it was. Bear in mind that "no evidence" does not mean "not guilty" and there are still a number of Saudi related documents that are classified.

The first question that should be asked relating to "whodunit?" is "Who benefits?" The Saudis would have had no motive to carry out the attack in any event as the Kingdom was very much dependent on American support to survive in its current autocratic form. Unless al-Qaeda had some desire to harm or even bring down the Saudi state, for which there is some evidence, the benefit to the group and its leadership is difficult to discern unless 9/11 is regarded as little more than a gratuitous act of violence or punishment of Washington for its misdeeds in the Middle East. Bin Laden was reportedly in a Pakistani Army hospital in Rawalpindi having dialysis on the day before the attacks and may still have been under medical care, so the timing is curious if he was indeed one of the masterminds. Also, in his first recorded comment on 9/11, bin Laden's immediate response was that he didn't have anything to do with it.

That leaves two prime beneficiaries of 9/11, the state of Israel and a possible secret cabal in the US government made up mostly of neoconservatives that may have been tied to the Israelis and which wanted to use the American military might to remake the Middle East. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu openly admitted that Israel had much to gain from the US joining his country's war against Muslim terrorism, saying that "It's very good. Well, not very good, but it will generate immediate sympathy [and] strengthen the bond between our two peoples, because we've experienced terror over so many decades, but the United States has now experienced a massive hemorrhaging of terror." And, of course, in Netanyahu's view, the attack was conveniently attributable to Israel's enemies.

There is plenty of evidence that supports possible Israeli or neocon involvement so the next question becomes "What did they do and how did they do it?" In a recent groundbreaking article former CIA Senior Analysts and Presidential Briefer Ray McGovern explains how there was plenty of warning in US government intelligence and security circles of what was coming, but somehow people at the top seemed to block any action that might have mitigated or even prevented the attack. Even high-level dire warnings from friendly intelligence services in France, Germany, Britain, Italy and Arab countries were ignored. The persistence in avoiding any follow-up or preventive measures is far beyond the point where it could have been a coincidence and one notes the presence of Vice President Dick Cheney in the chain of command at the top of the bureaucracy who was known to have favored an interventionist defense policy and may have contrived to bring it about. Cheney, of course, had close ties to the neocons in the Pentagon and on the National Security Council Staff.

Ray notes that none of the identified Administration officials who were guilty of malfeasance over 9/11 were disciplined or fired. On the contrary, many were promoted with Under Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz as a prime example of someone who wound up as head of the World Bank. The failure to punish is a sure sign of a cover-up. I would add to that the fact that Israel was not even investigated during the preparation of the 9/11 Report in spite of the fact that it had a massive spy operation targeting Arabs underway in the US. Also, known Israeli intelligence agents "working" for a bogus New Jersey trucking company that may have been involved in deliveries of explosives and detonators to the WTC buildings on weekends and late at night were seen dancing and celebrating as the buildings burned behind them.

As for the WTC buildings themselves, they had conveniently been privatized by the owner, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which may have provided after hours and weekend access to them. The decision to privatize was reportedly due to recommendations made by commissions headed by billionaire Ronald Lauder, who was also President of the World Jewish Congress. This resulted in Larry Silverstein obtaining a 99-year lease on the Twin Towers in July 2001. Silverstein, several of his children and some of his senior managers were supposed to be in the buildings on the morning of 9/11, but for various reasons did not show up. Silverstein later benefited to the tune of $4.55 billion from an insurance policy on the buildings, though he had sought $7.1 billion, claiming that the policy covered "per incident" and there had been two plane strikes.

The case for Israeli active intervention on a political level is also extremely strong, outlined in the 1982 Yinon Plan and in the "A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm", which was prepared by a group of American neocons in 1992 for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Neocons in their foundational document the Project for a New American Century (PNAC) expressed the desire that the United States should experience a "some catastrophic and catalyzing event – like a new Pearl Harbor" that would motivate the country to attain "full spectrum global dominance" by means of military force. And to implement their schemes, Israeli diplomats, the Israel Lobbyists, and neoconservative largely political appointees were never in short supply on Capitol Hill. Many of the American Jews involved in the neocon network wound up in the Pentagon working for Paul Wolfowitz or Doug Feith's Office of Special Plans. Others worked for Cheney or were on the National Security Council, all well placed to influence a crime and cover-up on a massive scale.

The final question "How did they do it?" results in a speculative response, but I would argue that if the Arab hijackers really existed, both Israel, which clearly would have known about what was coming, and the cabal in Washington, just "let it happen," making it a version of a false flag attack. If they had prior knowledge that the presumed Saudi hijackers, most of whom they likely knew by name, would be taking over the airliners and crashing them into high value targets to include the WTC and government buildings in Washington, it served their purpose to not interfere and let them do it. And Israel had plenty of "friends" in the media and government to execute the cover-up. America would be at war forever in the Middle East and Benjamin Netanyahu would be smiling as his country's enemies would be held to blame and punished severely.

My speculation might not be accurate in every detail, but I would bet it is a lot closer to reality than what has been peddled in the United States over the past twenty years.