Tag Archives: 9/11

9/12: The Appeal to National Narcissism is Alive and Well

September 12, 2016 Thomas L. Knapp Leave a comment

September 11, 2001 attacks in New York City: V... — September 11, 2001 attacks in New York City: View of the World Trade Center and the Statue of Liberty. (Image: US National Park Service ) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

“The narcissist,” someone once wrote on an Internet discussion forum devoted to the topic, “learns nothing, forgets nothing, and forgives nothing.”

In conscious appeal to this tendency, the American political class flocks to shrines in New York, DC and Pennsylvania each year to once again cynically wring as much narcissistic flag-waving hoopla as possible from the anniversary of the 9/11 attacks.

I generally avoid watching these observances. This year my sole exposure to them was video of Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton collapsing as she left the New York event during a medical emergency.

9/11 will remain American political propaganda’s killer app (pun intended) for many years, I’m sure, but I consider 9/12 and the following few days far more important in the scheme of things. Call ME a national narcissist, but I find the response more compelling than the initiating event.

Fifteen years on, it is clear that America’s political class still relies on Americans having learned nothing, forgotten nothing, and forgiven nothing. That reliance seems justified.

Consider this excerpt from an op-ed I wrote on September 12, 2001:

“Our politicians have acted for years with impunity, citing only our ‘national interest,’ as if any legitimate interest could be served by the intentional killing of civilians simply because those civilians have been designated ‘the enemy’ …

“We watched as those politicians were hustled away to ‘safe houses,’ the better to immunize themselves from the consequences of their own actions of years and decades past. …

“Now, they emerge from their hiding places, and they wail and gnash their teeth, vowing revenge and demanding that we surrender even more of our freedoms in order to avoid more of what they themselves brought upon us in the first place. They regard the blood of September 11 not as a horrible payment for their past errors, but as ink with which to write new checks to the order of their power and drawn on the account of our lives and freedoms.”

Has anything changed since I wrote that column? Not that I can tell.

After 15 years of unremitting exploitation of 9/11 to justify war on our civil liberties at home, and war abroad of the very type that culminated in 9/11, American politicians still believe that all they need to gull the populace into supporting more of the same is, as Joe Biden put it of Rudy Giuliani, “a noun, a verb, and 9/11.”

They’re right. And until that changes, nothing else will.

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter: @thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

PUBLICATION/CITATION HISTORY

“9/12: The Appeal to National Narcissism is Alive and Well,” by Thomas L. Knapp, OpEdNews, 09/12/16
“9/12: The appeal to national narcissism is alive and well,” by Thomas L. Knapp, Claremont, New Hampshire Eagle Times, 09/13/16
“9/12: The Appeal to National Narcissism is Alive and Well,” by Thomas L. Knapp, Ventura County, California Citizens Journal, 09/14/16
“9/12: The appeal to national narcissism is alive and well,” by Thomas L. Knapp, Claremont, New Hampshire Eagle Times [web and print editions], 09/14/16
“9/12: The Appeal to National Narcissism is Alive and Well,” by Thomas L. Knapp, Key West: The Newspaper [Florida], 09/16/16

Op-Eds

9/11: 28 Pages Later

July 18, 2016 Thomas L. Knapp 2 Comments

In December of 2002, Congress released its report on the “Joint Inquiry into Intelligence Community Activities Before and After the Terrorist Attacks of September 11, 2001.” Part of that report, anyway: 28 pages remained classified until July 15, 2016, when they were finally presented to the public with significant redactions.

Why the long wait, and what do the 28 pages reveal?

If we’re to believe the headlines in Saudi media (e.g. Al Arabiya) and mainstream American media (e.g. Time and the Washington Times) the big news is what they don’t reveal: A “smoking gun” connecting the government of Saudi Arabia to the 9/11 attacks.

If we’re to believe the 28 pages themselves, the big news is that they do, in fact, reveal a “smoking gun” connecting the government of Saudi Arabia to the 9/11 attacks.

Here’s the opening sentence from the newly released material: “While in the United States, some of the September 11 hijackers were in contact with, and received support or assistance from, individuals who may be connected with the Saudi government.”

Among those individuals was Omar al-Bayoumi, who sported a “no-show” job at a company affiliated with the Saudi Ministry of Defense (the company reported that he visited their facilities once, thereafter collecting a continuing salary). When 9/11 hijackers Nawaf al-Hamzi and Khalid al-Midhar arrived in the United States, they stayed with al-Bayoumi until he found them an apartment and someone to help them get drivers’ licenses … and locate flight schools.

The two also appear to have received assistance from Osama Bassnan, who lived across the street from them in San Diego. According to the CIA, Bassnan received significant funds from Saudi government sources and members of the Saudi royal family. According to the FBI, Bassnan was a supporter of both Osama bin Laden and New York terror plotter Omar Abdel-Rahman.

Why are we only now finding out all this? Because four words make the whole thing problematic: “The Saudi royal family.” In particular, Prince Bandar bin-Sultan, Saudi ambassador to the US at the time, whose wife appears to have been the conduit through which money was routed to Osama Bassnan — and then, quite possibly, used to service the needs of the 9/11 plotters.

But Saudi Arabia controls much of the world’s oil supply either directly or as the dominant member of OPEC, the Saudi military buys lots of US-manufactured weaponry, and Saudi assets in the US — which the Saudi government threatened to sell off if the US changed its laws to hold them responsible for their role in the attacks — top $750 billion.

In other words, unlike Afghanistan’s Taliban regime, the Saudi regime carries considerable clout with the US government. In fact, Prince Bandar visited president George W. Bush at the White House immediately after the 9/11 attacks.

In response to those attacks, Afghanistan suffered US invasion, the overthrow of its government, and is now in its 15th straight year of war and occupation.

Saudi Arabia enjoyed not just a 13-year reprieve from the exposure of damning evidence, but seemingly better relations with the US government than ever before. Go figure.

PUBLICATION/CITATION HISTORY

“9/11: 28 Pages Later,” by Thomas L. Knapp, OpEdNews, 07/18/16
“9/11: 28 Pages Later,” by Thomas L. Knapp, CounterPunch, 07/19/16
“9/11: 28 Pages Later,” by Thomas L. Knapp, Antiwar.com, 07/19/16
“9/11: 28 Pages Later,” by Thomas L. Knapp, Ventura County, California Citizens Journal, 07/20/16
“9/11: 28 Pages Later,” by Thomas L. Knapp, Arab American News, 07/21/16
“9/11: 28 Pages Later,” by Thomas L. Knapp, Key West: The Newspaper [Florida], 07/22/16
“9/11: 28 Pages Later,” by Thomas L. Knapp, Queens Ledger [New York City] , 07/27/16
“9/11: 28 Pages Later,” by Thomas L. Knapp, Queens Examiner [New York City] , 07/27/16
“9/11: 28 Pages Later,” by Thomas L. Knapp, Long Island City/Astoria, New York Journal, 07/27/16
“9/11: 28 Pages Later,” by Thomas L. Knapp, Leader/Observer[New York City], 07/27/16
“9/11: 28 Pages Later,” by Thomas L. Knapp, Forest Hills/Rego Park, New York Times, 07/27/16
“9/11: 28 Pages Later,” by Thomas L. Knapp, Greenpoint, New York Star, 07/27/16
“9/11: 28 Pages Later,” by Thomas L. Knapp, Brooklyn, New York Downtown Star, 07/27/16
“9/11: 28 Pages Later,” by Thomas L. Knapp, Glendale, New York Register, 07/27/16

Op-Eds

From 11/22 to 9/11: Too Many Secrets

April 28, 2015 Thomas L. Knapp Leave a comment

Inquiring minds want to know: What, precisely, do 28 pages of the US Senate’s report on the 9/11 attacks say? Those particular 28 pages have remained classified since the report was issued in 2002.

Former US Senator Bob Graham (D-FL), lead author of the report, wants those pages released. He’s been somewhat forthcoming as to their content: “They point a very strong finger at Saudi Arabia as the [9/11 attackers’] principle financier.”

If you’re surprised that such information remains under wraps after nearly a decade and a half, you shouldn’t be. More than 50 years after the assassination of president John F. Kennedy on November 22, 1963, our masters in Washington still deem us unworthy to see certain documents relating to his murder.

The excuse for keeping such secrets, of course, is “national security.” It’s formally illegal for information to be classified and kept from the public for any other reason (including but not limited to concealing the crimes of, or avoiding embarrassing, politicians).

But “national security” is a malleable concept in the hands of the political class, easily shaped to serve those other ends.

If you’re Scooter Libby, you can blow the cover of a working CIA agent, be tried for lesser offenses and, when convicted, have your sentence presidentially commuted.

If you’re David Petraeus, you can hand over military secrets to your lover/biographer and avail yourself of a sweet plea bargain requiring not so much as a single inconvenient day in jail.

But if you’re Chelsea Manning or Edward Snowden and you dare expose actual government crimes to legitimate public scrutiny, just go ahead and pencil in a 35-year prison sentence, or indefinite exile in Russia, on your social calendar.

In what profession, other than politics, may the putative employee (the “public servant”) simply refuse to show his work product to the putative employer (the “public”)? None that I’m aware of.

What really happened on, and leading up to, 9/11?

What do those 28 pages have to say about it?

I don’t know. Unless you’re one of a handful of special, privileged people, you don’t either.

But we should. Even, nay, especially, if those pages establish that for nearly 14 years now, US foreign policy — both in its general outlines and more specifically the “war on terror” — has been based on falsehood.

That we don’t know makes it clear who’s really in charge: Not us.

Thomas L. Knapp is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

AUDIO VERSION

PUBLICATION/CITATION HISTORY

“From 11/22 to 9/11: Too many secrets,” by Thomas L. Knapp, Muscatine, Iowa Journal, 04/29/15
“Too Many Secrets,” by Thomas L. Knapp, Ventura County, California Citizens Journal, 04./29/15
“From 11/22 to 9/11: too many secrets,” by Thomas L. Knapp, University of New Mexico Daily Lobo, p. 4, 04/29/15