From The Daily Kos

In The Shock Doctrine, Naomi Klein relates how nations brutalized by the Chicago School’s savage capitalism and the Dirty War juntas enforcing it have recovered and developed a healthy immunity against more eviscerating shock therapy:

Any strategy based on exploiting the window of opportunity opened by a traumatic shock relies heavily on the element of surprise… in North America, the September 11 attacks were, at first pure event, raw reality, unprocessed by story, narrative or anything that could bridge the gap between reality and understanding. Without a story, we are, as many of us were after September 11, intensely vulnerable to those people who take advantage of chaos for their own ends. As soon as we have a new narrative that offers perspective on the shocking events, we become reoriented and the world begins to make sense again.

That psychology pertains on both the individual and societal levels: a trauma that is never dealt with openly, but suppressed in the subconscious, festers, reinforcing crippling habits and sabotaging recovery. Maybe it is our reigning paradigm of dogmatic materialism that keeps us from acknowledging afflictions of the mind and spirit; imbibe a new pill to correct the faulty chemistry, or ingest an economic stimulus package to cure our destructive addiction to greed and gluttony. Consciousness, our scientists tell us, is a mere epiphenomenon of electrical brain circuits, so there can be no such thing as a collective “national psyche” capable of being wounded (socialist psychology!).

But how do we explain the shocking backsliding of Obama and his majority party: indefinite detention, torture lite continuing in Gitmo and Bagram, virtual immunity for war criminals, acceptable collateral drone carnage of civilians in Pakistan and Afghanistan, escalation of the disingenuous War on Terror, not to mention the subsidization of our piratical financial class. We are still locked in the shock of 9/11, the sole justification for this endless train of abuses, usurpations, and crimes. To forswear waterboarding would be regression to a perilous “September 10th mentality,” Elizabeth Cheney assures us.

Read more Co-Dependency

From 911 Blogger
By Daniel Sunjata

“The inert masses are mentally and spiritually ill equipped to deal with reality, so they block it out of their minds - aided of course, by the corporate media and the propaganda apparatus of the government itself. This is why fantasy is frequently substituted for reality, plutocracy is mistaken for democracy, and the majority of the people do not know the difference. Millions of good people thus refuse to allow into their psyche the suffering and misery that U.S. policies have produced and exported to the world, even as that reality is closing in upon them.” - Charles Sullivan

“They could be made to accept the most flagrant violations of reality…and were not sufficiently interested in public events to notice what was happening.” - George Orwell, 1984

“Article XXXIV OBSTRUCTION OF INVESTIGATION INTO THE ATTACKS OF SEPTEMBER 11, 2001” - From the 35 articles of impeachment introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives on 06/09/08 in H.Res. 1258 by Congressman Dennis Kucinich

The list is not a short one. It includes professors, architects, aerospace and aviation professionals, structural/mechanical/& aeronautical engineers, demolition experts, firefighters and other first responders, scientists, theologians, senior members of both the military and intelligence communities, Republican administration appointees, state department veterans, and other government officials from the United States and abroad; credible experts of impeccable pedigree with impressive track records from relevant fields of expertise, whose coolly rational intellects are not easily given to an unfounded belief in outlandish, unsubstantiated, or unverifiable claims. Individuals such as these are numbered among the ranks of skeptics and critics of the official theory of conspiracy regarding the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. Some pose questions, others draw conclusions, still others (like Congressman Kucinich) go so far as to level accusations and to substantiate them with evidence.

Read more Dishonesty

From The Raw Story
By John Byrne

Bush Administration memos released by the White House on Thursday provide new insight into claims that American agents used insects to torture the young children of alleged 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.

In the memos, released Thursday, the Bush Administration White House Office of Legal Counsel offered its endorsement of CIA torture methods that involved placing an insect in a cramped, confined box with detainees. Jay S. Bybee, then-director of the OLC, wrote that insects could be used to capitalize on detainees’ fears.

The memo was dated Aug. 1, 2002. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed’s children were captured and held in Pakistan the following month, according to a report by Human Rights Watch.

While an additional memo released Thursday claims that the torture with insects technique was never utilized by the CIA, the allegations regarding the children would have transpired when the method was authorized by the Bush Administration.

At a military tribunal in 2007, the father of a Guantanamo detainee alleged that Pakistani guards had confessed that American interrogators used ants to coerce the children of alleged 9/11 mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed into revealing their father’s whereabouts.

The statement was made by Ali Khan, the father of detainee Majid Khan, who gave a detailed account of his son’s interrogation at the hands of American guards in Pakistan. In his statement, Khan asserted that one of his sons was held at the same place as the young children of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the alleged mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks.

Read more Memos

From The Huffington Post
By Melissa Rossi

Patrick Leahy has a point when he urges President Obama to open investigations about the Bush administration. However, he’s not pointing at the issue that we need to start with. Namely, September 11th. What really happened? More than a few people know - and I am not alone in calling for those who know to start talking and fess up. Let’s not let this go the way of the JFK assassination - and whether with subpoenas or on their own volition, I demand that Dick Cheney, George W. Bush - both of whom refused to testify under oath during the 9/11 Commission proceedings — Colin Powell, Condoleezza Rice, Karl Rove, Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Armitage, Larry Wilkerson, George Tenet, Robert Mueller and the rest - as well as Bill Clinton and Al Gore (both of whom also refused to testify under oath) — start talking, and in a public arena. And I’m calling on the Obama administration to open up a probe and unravel the web of deceit.

Before we tuck the Bush administration into bed and hiss, “Nighty Night, you lying scoundrels,” before we go on to lock the door on that heinous era of American history, we do indeed need to probe what happened under their watch. But the event that most concerns me is what happened on Tuesday, September 11, 2001. Oh yeah, that’s history, old news, the 9/11 Commission figured it all out, right? Except that members of the 9/11 Commission say it was “set up to fail” and that the investigation was severely hampered. So do assorted former members of the CIA, who demand a fresh look at the events of that day.

So, President Obama - leader of a new era in the United State - serve your people: pull out that can opener and pry open that can of worms.

Read more 9/11

From George Washington’s Blog

Those goofy 9/11 truthers are trying to say that because a raging inferno in China didn’t cause the building to collapse - when it was roughly the same size as World Trade Center building 7 - that shows that building 7 was demolished. The truthers point to other raging infernos, also, where no collapse occurred.

And they point to numerous structural engineers, architects, scientists and demolition experts who believe building 7 was intentionally demolished.

But these think-they-are-smart whackos forget a basic fact . . . China is a communist country.

In fact, China has never signed any treaties binding the country to the modern laws of physics. Sure, they have adopted many Western ideas of capitalism, and they looked really modern during the Olympics, but don’t let that fool you. The Asians have only partially adopted Western ideas and theories.

While the physics principal of “thermal expansion” governs in the United States, and thermal expansion is part and parcel of the American ethos (official government press release), that particular “Western” principal has not been adopted by the communist Chinese regime.

9/11 truthers are simply naive about geopolitical realities in non-Western nations. The morans.

Read more Reality?

From The Washington Post
By Peter Finn

A U.S. military judge Wednesday suspended the trial of five detainees accused of involvement in plotting the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, acceding to a request from military prosecutors in accordance with a directive from the new Obama administration late Tuesday.

The suspension halts until late May the trial of Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the avowed mastermind of the Sept. 11 plot, and four other accused al-Qaeda members, even though Mohammed and three of the four objected to the delay.

In Washington, meanwhile, the Associated Press reported that the Obama administration is circulating a draft executive order that calls for closing the Guantanamo detention center within a year. It was not immediately known when President Obama would issue such an order.

In a hearing here, Mohammed told the judge in his case that if the proceeding went forward and all outstanding issues were resolved, including the mental competency of two of the defendants, then all five would be ready to confess to the charges together. The judge considered the government’s suspension request for an hour, then issued an order accepting it.

Read more Guantanamo

From The BBC News

US agents at Guantanamo Bay tortured a Saudi man suspected of involvement in the 11 September attacks, the official overseeing trials at the camp has said.

Susan Crawford told the Washington Post newspaper that Mohammad al-Qahtani had been left in a “life-threatening condition” after being interrogated.

The Pentagon said their methods were legal in 2002, when the interviews took place - though some were now banned.

Mr Qahtani remains at Guantanamo, but all charges against him were dropped.

He had been facing trial on counts of conspiracy, terrorism, and murder in violation of the laws of war.

‘Overly aggressive’

Although officials gave no reason for halting the prosecution in May 2008, Ms Crawford said in her interview that the decision had been taken because of the methods used by US agents.

She said Mr Qahtani had been subjected to sustained periods of cold, isolation and sleep deprivation.

Read more Torture

From True Blue Liberal
By William John Cox and Coleen Rowley

Among the wars currently being fought by the American government is one in which there can be no winners. Our prior law enforcement experiences warn us that the “war on terrorism” has spawned an internal “war on dissent” in which everyone loses.

Author William John Cox’s law enforcement career spanned 40 years, the early part of which was spent as a Los Angeles police officer and which included direct policing of both the riots and terrorist incidents in that city in the late 60’s to early 70’s. One of the first assignments given to author Coleen Rowley as a new FBI agent was to help in the processing and releasing of the numerous files improperly gathered by J. Edgar Hoover after the National Lawyer’s Guild won its FOIA lawsuits against the FBI in the early 1980’s.

The Church Committee unearthed evidence in 1976 that the Viet Nam War had provided cover for the domestic infiltration and wiretapping of civil rights and anti-war groups and resulted in legislation and regulations against the worst abuses. However, the history of government repression and spying on those who dissent against its policies and practices seems to be repeating itself.

Following 9-11, the Bush Administration erased or circumvented many of these hard-won legal restraints. Warrantless searches under the PATRIOT Act and illegal electronic surveillance swept up more than terrorist threats as the government increasingly confused dissent, which builds up a free and democratic society, with terrorism, which seeks to tear it down. Read the rest of this entry »

From The Raw Story
By David Edwards and Muriel Kane

The eight years of Dick Cheney’s memorable vice-presidency will be over and done with two weeks from now, but MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann remains determined to get in his parting shots at “Crazy Vice-President Gate.”

On Monday, Olbermann found his opportunity in Cheney’s remarks on Face the Nation when asked whether we are better off than eight years ago.

“I think we’ve done some very good things in the course of the last eight years,” Cheney replied. “Defending the country against further terrorist attacks like 9/11 I think’s a major accomplishment, for example.”

Olbermann was clearly offended by Cheney’s claim that preventing another 9/11 meant the nation was now better off than before 9/11, but it was the remarks which followed that really got him steamed.

“There’s no question about what the new administration … are going to have their hands full with,” Cheney went on to say. “The new set of problems, if you will, centered especially on the economy … just as our task when we came in was ultimately to deal with the aftermath of 9/11.”

“Listen, you fatuous, condescending lunatic,” Olbermann erupted. “Your task was not to deal with the aftermath of 9/11 — it was to prevent 9/11.”

Read more Cheney

From The BBC News

Thirty-three relatives of people killed in the 9/11 attacks on the US have denounced the Guantanamo war crimes trials as illegitimate and unfair.

In a letter posted on a civil liberties website, the relatives say the military trials are politically motivated.

Pre-trial hearings began on Monday in Guantanamo for five prisoners charged with plotting the 9/11 attacks.

Other 9/11 relatives brought to the hearings by the Pentagon praised them as giving the accused a fair trial.

“Many of us do not believe these military commissions to be fair, in accordance with American values, or capable of achieving the justice that 9/11 family members and all Americans deserve,” says the statement posted on the website of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).

“These prosecutions have been politically motivated from the start, are designed to ensure quick convictions at the expense of due process and transparency, and are structured to prevent the revelation of abusive interrogations and torture engaged in by the US government.”

Read more Tribunals