-Caveat Lector-
http://www.counterpunch.org/
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, they 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 be 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
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