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September 11, 2001
"Flying Bombs"
Who Saw It Coming?
By Alexander Cockburn
and Jeffrey St Clair
Tuesday's onslaughts on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon are being
likened to Pearl Harbor and the comparison is just. From the point of view of
the assailants the attacks were near miracles of logistical calculation,
timing, courage in execution and devastation inflicted upon the targets.
The Pearl Harbor base containing America's naval might was thought to be
invulnerable, yet in half an hour 2000 were dead, and the cream of the fleet
destroyed. This week, within an hour on the morning of September 11, security
at three different airports was successfully breached, the crews of four
large passenger jets efficiently overpowered, the cockpits commandeered,
navigation coordinates reset.
In three of the four missions the assailants attained successes probably far
beyond the expectations of the planners. As a feat of suicidal aviation the
Pentagon kamikaze assault was particularly audacious, with eyewitness
accounts describing the Boeing 767 skimming the Potomac before driving right
through the low lying Pentagon perimeter, in a sector housing Planning and
Logistics.
The two Trade Center Buildings were struck at what structural engineers say
were the points of maximum vulnerability. The strength of the buildings
derived entirely from the steel perimeter frame, designed - so its lead
architect said only last week - to withstand the impact of a Boeing 707.
These buildings were struck full force Tuesday morning by Boeing 737s, with
fuel tanks fully loaded for the long flights to the West Coast. Within an
hour of the impacts both buildings collapsed. By evening, a third 46-story
Trade Center building had also crumbled.
Not in terms of destructive extent, but in terms of symbolic obliteration the
attack is virtually without historic parallel, a trauma at least as great as
the San Francisco earthquake or the Chicago fire.
There may be another similarity to Pearl Harbor. The possibility of a
Japanese attack in early December of 1941 was known to US Naval Intelligence
and to President Roosevelt. Last Tuesday, derision at the failure of US
intelligence was widespread. The Washington Post quoted an unnamed top
official at the National Security Council as saying, "We don't know anything
here. We're watching CNN too." Are we to believe that the $30 billion annual
intelligence budget, immense electronic eavesdropping capacity, thousands of
agents around the world, produced nothing in the way of a warning? In fact
Osama bin Laden, now prime suspect, said in an interview three weeks ago with
Abdel-Bari Atwan, the editor of the London-based al-Quds al-Arabi newspaper,
that he planned "very, very big attacks against American interests."
Here is bin-Laden, probably the most notorious Islamic foe of America on the
planet, originally trained by the CIA, planner of other successful attacks on
US installations such as the embassies in East Africa, carrying a $5 million
FBI bounty on his head proclaiming the imminence of another assault, and US
intelligence was impotent, even though the attacks must have taken months, if
not years to plan, and even though CNN has reported that bin-Laden and his
coordinating group al-Qa'ida had been using an airstrip in Afghanistan to
train pilots to fly 767s.
Back in the 1960s and 1970s, when hijacking was a preoccupation, the
possibility of air assaults on buildings such as the Trade Center were a
major concern of US security and intelligence agencies. But since the 1980s
and particularly during the Clinton-Gore years the focus shifted to more
modish fears, such as bio-chemical assault and nuclear weapons launched by
so-called rogue states. This latter threat had the allure of justifying the
$60 billion investment in Missile Defense aka Star Wars. One of the biggest
proponents of that approach was Al Gore's security advisor, Leon Fuerth, who
wailed plaintively amid Tuesday's rubble that "In effect the country's at war
but we don't have the coordinates of the enemy."
But the lust for retaliation traditionally outstrips precision in identifying
the actual assailant. By early evening on
Tuesday America's national security establishment were calling for a removal
of all impediments on the assassination of foreign leaders. Led by President
Bush, hey were endorsing the prospect of attacks not just on the perpetrators
but on those who might have harbored them. From the nuclear priesthood is
coming the demand that mini-nukes be deployed on a preemptive basis against
the enemies of America.
The targets abroad will be all the usual suspects: rogue states, (most of
which, like the Taleban or Saddam Hussein, started off as creatures of US
intelligence). The target at home will of course be the Bill of Rights. Less
than a week ago the FBI raided Infocom, the Texas-based web host for Muslim
groups such as the Council on Islamic Relations, the Islamic Society of North
America, the Islamic Association for Palestine, and the Holy Land Foundation.
Palestinians have been denied visas, and those in this country can, under the
terms of the CounterTerrorism Act of the Clinton years, be held and expelled
without due process. The explosions of Tuesday were not an hour old before
terror pundits like Anthony Cordesman, Wesley Clark, Robert Gates and
Lawrence Eagleburger were saying that these attacks had been possible
"because America is a democracy" adding that now some democratic perquisites
might have to be abandoned? What might this mean? Increased domestic snooping
by US law enforcement and intelligence agencies; ethnic profiling; another
drive for a national ID card system.
Tuesday did not offer a flattering exhibition of America's leaders. For most
of the day the only Bush who looked composed and control in Washington was
Laura, who happened to waiting to testify on Capitol Hill. Her husband gave a
timid and stilted initial reaction in Sarasota, Florida, then disappeared for
an hour before resurfacing in at a base in Barksdale, Louisiana, where he
gave another flaccid address with every appearance of bring on tranquilizers.
He was then flown to a bunker in Nebraska, before someone finally had the wit
to suggest that the best place for an American president at time of national
emergency is the Oval Office.
Other members of the cabinet were equally elusive. Secretary of State Colin
Powell, who has managed to avoid almost every site of crisis or debate was
once again absent from the scene, in Latin America. Defense Secretary Donald
Rumsfeld remained invisible most of the day, even though it would have taken
him only a few short steps to get to the Pentagon pressroom and make some
encouraging remarks. When he did finally appear the substance of his remarks
and his demeanor were even more banal and unprepossessing than those of his
commander in chief. At no point did Vice President Cheney appear in public.
The presidential contenders did expose themsleves. John McCain curdled the
air with threats against America's foes, as did John Kerry, who immediately
blamed bin-Laden and who stuck the knife firmly into CIA director George
Tenet, citing Tenet as having told him not long ago that the CIA had
neutralized an impending attack by bin-Laden.
Absent national political leadership, the burden of rallying the nation fell
as usual upon the TV anchors, all of whom seem to have resolved early on to
lower the emotional temper, though Tom Brokaw did lisp a declaration of War
against Terror. Tuesday's eyewitness reports of the collapse of the two Trade
Center buildings were not inspired, at least for those who have heard the
famous eyewitness radio reportage of the crash of the Hindenberg zeppelin in
Lakehurst, New Jersey in 1937 with the anguished cry of the reporter, "Oh the
humanity, the humanity". Radio and TV reporters these days seem incapable of
narrating an ongoing event with any sense of vivid language or dramatic
emotive power.
The commentators were similarly incapable of explaining with any depth the
likely context of the attacks; that these attacks might be the consequence of
the recent Israeli rampages in the Occupied Territories that have included
assassinations of Palestinian leaders and the slaughter of Palestinian
civilians with the use of American aircraft; that these attacks might also
stem from the sanctions against Iraq that have seen upward of a million
children die; that these attacks might in part be a response to US cruise
missile attacks on the Sudanese factories that had been loosely fingered by
US intelligence as connected to bin-Laden.
In fact September 11 was the anniversary of George W. Bush's speech to
Congress in 1990, heralding war against Iraq. It was also the anniversary of
the Camp David accords, which signaled the US buy-out of Egypt as any
countervailing force for Palestinian rights in the Middle East. One certain
beneficiary of the attacks is Israel. Polls had been showing popular dislike
here for Israel's recent tactics, which may have been the motivation for
Colin Powell's few bleats of reproof to Israel. We will be hearing no such
bleats in the weeks to come, as Israel's leaders advise America on how
exactly to deal with Muslims. The attackers probably bet on that too, as a
way of making the US's support for Israeli intransigence even more explicit,
finishing off Arafat in the process.
"Freedom," said George Bush in Sarasota in the first sentence of his first
reaction, "was attacked this morning by a faceless coward." That properly
represents the stupidity and blindness of almost all Tuesday's mainstream
political commentary. By contrast, the commentary on economic consequences
was informative and sophisticated. Worst hit: the insurance industry. Likely
outfall in the short-term: hiked energy prices, a further drop in global
stock markets. George Bush will have no trouble in raiding the famous
lock-box, using Social Security Trust Funds to give more money to the Defense
Department. That about sums it up. Three planes are successfully steered into
three of America's most conspicuous buildings and America's response will be
to put more money in missile defense as a way of bolstering the economy. CP
-----
Aloha, He'Ping,
Om, Shalom, Salaam.
Em Hotep, Peace Be,
All My Relations.
Omnia Bona Bonis,
Adieu, Adios, Aloha.
Amen.
Roads End
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