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Paul Merrell

The 28 Pages and the War on Terror: Is Congress in a State of Willful Ignorance? | 28 P... - 0 views

  • Today more than ever, Americans are struggling to unravel the Gordian knot of overt and covert alliances that comprise the Middle East’s geostrategic landscape. As they do, politicians and pundits constantly remind them that reaching the correct conclusions about the region is imperative if we are to thwart the menace of terrorism and prevent the next 9/11.
  • As if a thicket of misinformation, hit-and-miss journalism and competing propaganda didn’t make the challenge daunting enough, the American people face an even more formidable barrier in their attempts to reach informed and rational conclusions about U.S. policy in the Middle East: the classification of a 28-page finding on foreign government support of the 9/11 hijackers—classification that continues over the objections of the chairman and vice-chairman of the 9/11 Commission and the former senator who co-chaired the inquiry that produced the 28 pages. Preventing a hypothetical “next 9/11″ starts with a clear understanding of what enabled the actual one—yet, even as the U.S. military prepares for the next chapter in the seemingly perpetual War on Terror, Americans continue to be denied critical knowledge about how the September 11 attacks were planned and funded. Reflecting on that disconnect, Kentucky Congressman Thomas Massie recently told Slate, “Until we know what enabled or caused 9/11, we shouldn’t be talking about starting a third war to prevent another 9/11.”
  • For everyday Americans, ignorance about what lies within the 28 pages is imposed; for apparently far too many in Congress, that ignorance is willful. You see—unlike the citizens they represent—when it comes to reading or not reading the 28 pages, legislators enjoy the luxury of a choice: After securing permission through their respective intelligence committee, representatives and senators can venture into a guarded, soundproof room at the Capitol and read the classified findings on foreign government assistance to the 9/11 hijackers in their entirety. Astonishingly—given what’s at stake for the country and for the lives of servicemembers and civilians alike—there are indications only a slim minority have bothered to do so. Rep. Walter Jones North Carolina’s Walter Jones is one congressman who did take the initiative to learn what lies in the 28 pages. Later, he said, “I was absolutely shocked by what I read. What was so surprising was that those whom we thought we could trust really disappointed me.” He added, “The information is critical to our foreign policy moving forward and should thus be available to the American people.”
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  • On January 8th of this year, by way of a “Dear Colleague” letter, Jones and Massachusetts Congressman Stephen Lynch urged every one of their fellow House representatives to read the 28 pages for themselves. Among those who heeded their call was Rep. Massie. At a March 11 press conference in which he joined Jones and Lynch in imploring peers to examine the redacted finding, Massie offered a striking description of his reaction to the revelations within the 28 pages, saying: “It was a really disturbing event for me to read those. I had to stop every two or three pages and rearrange my perception of history. And it’s that fundamental…it certainly changes your view of the Middle East.”
  • in what could well emerge as a national security scandal that engulfs much of Congress, there are indications that, when it comes to acquiring essential knowledge to shape policies that safeguard the country, a majority of legislators have thus far made a conscious decision to remain ignorant: As of this writing, 13 of the House’s 432 representatives have joined as cosponsors of a Jones-authored resolution urging the president to declassify the 28 pages. A source on the Hill who is familiar with the declassification effort is personally unaware of any representative who has read the 28 pages over the last several months who didn’t emerge from the experience as a supporter of declassification. When you overlay one of those observations on the other, the result points to a woefully low level of interest among the nation’s legislators in learning what “shocking,” “surprising” and “history-rearranging” facts are contained in the classified passage.
  • Those indications paint a bleak—albeit, tentative—portrait of Congressional diligence in overseeing national security policy. What’s needed now is a precise, name-by-name accounting of which representatives and senators have read the 28 pages and which have not. To that end, 28Pages.org urges constituents, journalists and transparency advocacy organizations to help bring accountability to this essential issue of national security job performance by contacting legislators and asking them two simple, yes-or-no questions: Have you read the 28 pages? If not, have you asked permission from your intelligence committee to do so? Shortly, 28Pages.org will announce its own contribution to this national exercise in Congressional accountability. However, a thorough accounting will only be achieved with the participation of citizens, journalists and transparency advocates. And with every House and 36 Senate seats up for election on Nov. 4, the faster the country collectively assembles a name-by-name roster of 28-pages readership on the Hill, the better position voters will be in to evaluate incumbents using this potent indicator of their attentiveness to matters of national security.
  • We provide a wealth of resources to help citizens do their part, and journalists are encouraged to contact us for insights on this issue.
Paul Merrell

MAJOR DEVELOPMENT: Rand Paul, Ron Wyden to Introduce 28 Pages Resolution in Senate | 28... - 0 views

  • The growing, nonpartisan drive to declassify a 28-page finding on foreign government support of the 9/11 hijackers is about to take an enormous step forward with the introduction of a Senate resolution urging the president to release the material to the public. Dramatically compounding the issue’s visibility, the resolution is being introduced by high-profile Republican presidential hopeful Rand Paul of Kentucky. A spokesperson for Senator Paul told 28Pages.org that Oregon Democrat Ron Wyden will cosponsor the resolution, which will serve as the upper chamber’s companion to House Resolution 14. Wyden is a member of the Senate intelligence committee.
  • ones, Lynch and Massie introduced H.Res.14 and have been championing the issue—and seeking like-minded senators to lead the cause in the upper chamber—since December 2013. Aided by Graham, who co-chaired the joint congressional 9/11 inquiry that wrote the 28 pages as one chapter in a far larger report, their success in securing the leadership of Paul and Wyden represents a critical milestone for the 28 pages movement. As Paul and Wyden seek cosponsors for the resolution, there are 11 senators whose support should—on principle, if not politics—be automatic:  Patrick Leahy (VT), Barbara Mikulski (MD), Harry Reid (NV), Barbara Boxer (CA), Patty Murray (WA), Dick Durbin (IL), Jack Reed (RI), Chuck Schumer (NY), Bill Nelson (FL), Tom Carper (DE) and Maria Cantwell (WA). 
  • What do these 11 Democrats have in common? Months after the December 2002 release of the congressional intelligence report that holds the 28 pages, each of them signed a 2003 letter to President George W. Bush protesting his decision to redact the 28 pages and urging him to release them. In part, that letter read: Unfortunately, because all but two pages of the entire section have been deemed too secret for public disclosure, the American people remain in the dark about other countries that may have facilitated the terrorist attacks. It has been widely reported in the press that the foreign sources referred to in this portion of the Joint Inquiry analysis reside primarily in Saudi Arabia. The decision to classify this information sends the wrong message to the American people about our nation’s anti-terror effort and makes it seem as if there will be no penalty for foreign abettors of the hijackers…Protecting the Saudi regime by eliminating any public penalty for the support given to terrorists from within its borders would be a mistake.
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  • Among those 11 natural candidates to join the Paul-Wyden resolution, one stands out: Schumer led the 2003 letter-writing effort. At the time, he said, “The bottom line is that keeping this material classified only strengthens the theory that some in the U.S. government are hellbent on covering up for the Saudis. If we’re going to take terrorism down, that kind of behavior has got to be nipped in the bud and shedding some light on these 28 pages would start that process.”
  • Former Senator Graham and House leaders of the 28 pages movement who’ve read the 28 pages argue that their release is vital to the ongoing struggle with terrorism. According to Graham, “the 28 pages primarily relate to who financed 9/11 and they point a very strong finger at Saudi Arabia as being the principal financier.” He has also said the U.S. government’s shielding of Saudi Arabia’s role in funding extremism helped pave the way for the rise of ISIS. The House’s Lynch made a similar point in a 2014 story written by the Boston Globe’s Bryan Bender:
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    I suspect that Mr. Obama won't be eager to make the Saudis the patsies  for what it really looks like Israel's far right government and some colaborators in high levels of U.S. government made happen on 9-11.  Heavens! The Saudis might start selling selling their oil in something other than U.S. dollars and bring down the Western banksters house of cards. 
Paul Merrell

Letters from 9/11 Family Group to Obama Go Unanswered | 28 Pages.org - 0 views

  • On three separate occasions, 9/11 Families United for Justice Against Terrorism has sent letters to President Obama, asking him to declassify the 28-page finding on foreign government support of the 9/11 hijackers. Each letter takes a slightly different approach to pleading for the release of the redacted section of a joint House/Senate intelligence study, but one thing they share in common is the response from the president and the White House: complete silence. One would think an organized group of 9/11 family members would at least merit the courtesy of a presidential reply—if only to say he had received their letter and would give due consideration to their request. Instead, Obama has opted to ignore them, despite the fact that he has reportedly twice promised 9/11 families he would declassify the 28 pages. The group sent its first letter on June 20, 2013, and never heard back. The group tried again on May 9, 2014—just ahead of the dedication of the 9/11 Museum in New York. Again, silence. Still determined, the organization sent a third letter on June 24 of this year that has likewise gone unanswered.
  • The letters remind the president of his promises to 9/11 families, and point to the large and growing number of credible experts—including former Senator Bob Graham, who co-chaired the inquiry that created the 28 pages, and both the chairman and vice-chairman of the 9/11 Commission—who say there’s no valid national security reason for the continued secrecy. Indeed, even past and present Secretaries of State in the Obama White House Hillary Clinton and John Kerry are on record urging the declassification of the 28 pages; they did so as senators in a letter to George W. Bush. You can read the group’s most recent letter here. It was delivered to the White House by North Carolina Congressman Walter Jones, who introduced and continues to champion H.Res.428, which urges the president to declassify the 28 pages.
Paul Merrell

Paul Offers NDAA Amendment to Drive Release of 28 Pages | 28Pages.org - 0 views

  • Following through on intentions he announced earlier this week, Senator Rand Paul today offered an amendment to the pending National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) that would require the president to declassify 28 pages on foreign government links to the 9/11 hijackers. The language is identical to S.1471, the bill Paul introduced on Monday with Senators Ron Wyden and Kirsten Gillibrand. In a story on Paul’s new move, The Hill’s Julian Hattem said the proposed amendment “heightens the profile of the fight and may increase the stakes for the opponents.”
  • While there are a growing number of vocal champions of the declassification of the 28 pages, those who want the 28 pages kept under wraps have worked quietly and effectively out of public view. As we wrote earlier this year, “It’s likely that among the most powerful of those unseen opponents of 9/11 transparency are two strange bedfellows: The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia—which has fueled the growth of terror, and the U.S. intelligence community—which is charged with thwarting terror.” Paul’s amendment to the must-pass NDAA could force some of those opponents—and, more specifically, their Senate allies—out of the shadows.
  • However, the language may also offer President Obama an opportunity to continue his administration’s refusal to release the 28 pages, as it says he is not required to declassify sources and methods if that release would “result in imminent lawless action or comprise presently on-going national security operations.”
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  • In 2003, Bush invoked “sources and methods” when defending his decision to classify the pages, saying “Declassification of that part of a 900-page document would reveal sources and methods that would make it harder for us to win the war on terror. … It would help the enemy if they knew our sources and methods.” Among many who have read the 28 pages, Congressman Walter Jones denies that declassification would harm national security in any way, pointing to other motives for the secrecy. “There’s nothing in it about national security. It’s about the Bush administration and its relationship with the Saudis,” Jones told The New Yorker.
Paul Merrell

GOP Platform Subcommittee Approves 28 Pages Plank | 28Pages.org - 0 views

  • The national security subcommittee of the GOP platform committee today approved a plank that calls for the declassification of 28 pages that are said to link the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia to the 9/11 hijackers. The plank was introduced by Maine state senator Eric Brakey, who contacted 28Pages.org director Brian McGlinchey last week after hearing his interview on The Tom Woods Show. McGlinchey helped Brakey draft the plank’s language.
  • Planks are official expressions of the party’s opinions on various issues. To be incorporated in the final platform, the 28 pages plank must first be approved on Tuesday by a majority of the full, 112-member platform committee. Then, along with all the other proposed planks, it must be approved by the full body of next week’s GOP convention in Cleveland. If adopted, the plank would represent an important new endorsement of the release of the 28 pages. Supporters of declassification already include more than 70 Democratic and Republican members of Congress, former members of the 9/11 Commission and the editorial boards of many of the nation’s most prominent newspapers, including The New York Times and USA Today.
  • Brakey’s 28 pages plank reads: Delivering Transparency on Foreign Government Ties to 9/11 As the nation continues to confront terrorism at home and abroad, the American people are being denied access to information that can provide vital insight into the funding of Islamic extremism: 28 classified pages from a 2002 joint congressional intelligence inquiry into the September 11 attacks. A former senator who co-chaired the inquiry says the pages “point a very strong finger at Saudi Arabia as being the principal financier” of the 9/11 attacks and that, by shielding the kingdom from consequences for its actions, the redaction has encouraged its continued sponsorship of extremism and paved the way for the rise of ISIS. President Obama twice promised 9/11 family members he would release the pages, which could be invaluable in their pursuit of justice in the courtroom. However, his administration has refused to declassify them, even in the face of bipartisan support for their release that includes former 9/11 Commission members and 73 current representatives and senators. These pages must be released. As Thomas Jefferson said, “An enlightened citizenry is indispensable for the proper functioning of a republic. Self-government is not possible unless the citizens are educated sufficiently to enable them to exercise oversight.”
Paul Merrell

Did Certain Foreign Governments Facilitate the 9/11 Attacks? by Justin Raimondo -- Anti... - 0 views

  • Some thirteen years after the event, the shadow of the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center in Manhattan and the Pentagon still darkens our world. The legacy of that terrible day has impacted not only our foreign policy, bequeathing to a new generation an apparently endless "war on terrorism," it also has led directly to what is arguably the most massive assault on our civil liberties since the Alien and Sedition Acts. Getting all the information about what happened that day – and why it happened – is key to understanding the course we have taken since. This was supposed to have been the purpose of the 9/11 Commission, whose massive report is now looked to as the primary source on the subject. Yet there is another, far more specific investigative report, the one issued by the intelligence committees of both houses of Congress, entitled "Joint Inquiry into Intelligence Community Activities Before and After the Terrorist Attacks of September 11, 2001." If you actually take the time to read the report, all goes along swimmingly (except for occasional redactions) until you get to p. 369, whereupon the text is blacked out for the next twenty-eight pages.
  • Some thirteen years after the event, the shadow of the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center in Manhattan and the Pentagon still darkens our world. The legacy of that terrible day has impacted not only our foreign policy, bequeathing to a new generation an apparently endless "war on terrorism," it also has led directly to what is arguably the most massive assault on our civil liberties since the Alien and Sedition Acts. Getting all the information about what happened that day – and why it happened – is key to understanding the course we have taken since. This was supposed to have been the purpose of the 9/11 Commission, whose massive report is now looked to as the primary source on the subject. Yet there is another, far more specific investigative report, the one issued by the intelligence committees of both houses of Congress, entitled "Joint Inquiry into Intelligence Community Activities Before and After the Terrorist Attacks of September 11, 2001." If you actually take the time to read the report, all goes along swimmingly (except for occasional redactions) until you get to p. 369, whereupon the text is blacked out for the next twenty-eight pages.
  • Do you get the impression someone has something to hide? The censored section is entitled "Finding, Discussion and Narrative Regarding Certain Sensitive National Security Matters," and the introduction – left largely intact – is instructive: "Through its investigation, the Joint Inquiry developed information suggesting specific sources of foreign support for some of the September 11 hijackers while they were in the United States. The Joint Inquiry’s review confirmed that the Intelligence Community also has information, much of which has yet to be independently verified, concerning these potential sources of support. In their testimony, neither CIA nor FBI officials were able to address definitively the extent of such support for the hijackers globally or within the United States or the extent to which such support, if it exists, is knowing or inadvertent in nature."
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  • What’s in the 28 censored pages of the Joint Inquiry into 9/11? We don’t know for sure – but if Israel is involved, then we do know why they won’t let us read those pages. Representatives Jones, Lynch, and Massie have sparked a movement to declassify the 28 pages: go here for more information. This is a fight we need to win – but we can only do it by raising a huge stink. Call or write your congressional representatives and urge them to join the three congressmen who are fighting for your right to know. And spread the word.
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    Eloquent essay on the 60 Israeli "students" swept up by the FBI right after 9/11 then as swiftly shuttled onto airliners bound for Israel. It's a plea for the declassification of the 28 pages censored from the public version of the Congressional Intelligence Committees joint report on "Intelligence Community Activities Before and After the Terrorist Attacks of September 11, 2001." The essay's theme is wrapped around the preface to the censored pages mention of plural "sources of foreign support for some of the September 11 hijackers[.]" And it uses reported information about the  60 "students" and some statements by members of Congress who have read the 28 pages to argue there is a strong whiff that Israel was one of those plural sources of support. But the essay otherwise does not address the large mound of circumstantial evidence of Israel's involvement. I've got a lot of notes and links on that issue, so may blog about that later.
Paul Merrell

What's in the Missing 28 Pages From the 9/11 Inquiry? - NBC News - 0 views

  • If members of Congress force the government to release 28 secret pages of a 14-year-old inquiry into 9/11, the missing pages may yield new tidbits about a possible role by some Saudis in aiding the hijackers — but there are thousands of other still-classified documents that would reveal far more about the terror attacks, officials tell NBC News. A renewed push is on to declassify a secret chapter of the 838-page joint inquiry report issued in December 2002 by the House and Senate intelligence committees, in part because of a lawsuit seeking to hold Saudi Arabia accountable for the attacks. That lawsuit, and explosive allegations contained in those pages, may come up during President Obama's visit to Saudi Arabia, where he arrived Wednesday morning. But many current and former officials with knowledge of the pages tell NBC News that their release would only flesh out the details of events already well known to authorities — and to members of the general public who read the exhaustive 9/11 Commission and follow-up reports.
  • The 9/11 Commission spent 17 months completing the investigation begun by the congressional inquiry. It confirmed some of the inquiry's findings about generalized assistance that various Saudis provided the 9/11 hijackers when they came to the U.S. But it also knocked down numerous other allegations, including assertions about assistance by some Saudi government officials. "The pages provide no further answers about the 9/11 attacks that are not already included in the 9/11 Commission report," says Philip Zelikow, the executive director of the 9/11 Commission, who describes the 28 pages as "unvetted investigative material." "I'm afraid they will only make the red herring glow redder," he said of the push for release of the pages, which has garnered some bipartisan support in Congress. Lost in the hubbub, according to Zelikow and others, is that there are some far more fundamental questions about the attacks that remain unanswered — or at least unknown to the public. One of the most significant: What information has 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohamed (KSM) been hiding all these years about the global al-Qaeda network that he oversaw around the world, including in the U.S., before and after the 2001 attacks?
  • And despite the furor over several Saudi operatives who assisted some of the hijackers, the most suspicious people were two Yemenis — radical cleric Anwar al-Awlaki and student Mohdar Abdullah, Zelikow said.
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  • Another is why the Iranian government "facilitated the transit of al Qaeda members through Iran on their journey to the United States," Zelikow said. Similar questions have been raised about Pakistan. Zelikow and others said the 28 pages won't answer these broader questions about 9/11. There are mountains of other investigative documents that could, but they're locked away. "There are missing puzzle pieces to the overall issue of 9/11 as to the culpability and who was behind it," one U.S. intelligence official confirmed to NBC News. "It's fair to say there are additional insights that can be gleaned from these other sources."
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    Zelikow was a main figure in the 9-11 cover-up. As chief of staff for the 9-11 Commission, his suppression of evidence and fencing Commission members out of any direct involvement in the development and drafting of the report are thoroughly documented, along with the conflict of interest that should have barred him from ever receiving the job. http://goo.gl/Vgqz5O Zelikow is also a rabid Zionist, which explains why the Commission Report never addressed the mountain of evidence that Israel played a key role in the commission of the 9/11 attacks. See e.g., Wikispooks, https://wikispooks.com/wiki/9-11/Israel_did_it
Paul Merrell

Video: CIA Veteran Ray McGovern on the 28 Pages and HRes 428 | 28Pages.org - 0 views

  • At a November 22 speaking engagement hosted by the Schiller Institute in New York City, former CIA analyst Ray McGovern endorsed House Resolution 428 and discussed the secret, 28-page finding on foreign government involvement in the 9/11 attacks. In remarks spanning more than 20 minutes, McGovern—who helped launch Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS)—puts the 28 pages in the context of the intelligence community’s advance awareness of the presence of 9/11 hijackers and its withholding of that knowledge from the FBI. He also shares interesting insights into the constraints placed on both the joint House/Senate intelligence inquiry that produced the 28 pages and the 9/11 Commission as well.
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    Ray McGovern riffs on the still-classifed 28 pages missing from the House/Senate 9-11 Report. He sees their declassification and publication as key to learning what really happened on 9-11 and preventing another such occurrence by holding those in government who failed to account.
Paul Merrell

The Missing Pages of the 9/11 Report - The Daily Beast - 0 views

  • The lead author of the Senate’s report on 9/11 says it’s time to reveal what’s in the 28 pages that were redacted from it, which he says will embarrass the Saudis.A story that might otherwise have slipped away in a morass of conspiracy theories gained new life Wednesday when former Sen. Bob Graham headlined a press conference on Capitol Hill to press for the release of 28 pages redacted from a Senate report on the 9/11 attacks. And according to Graham, the lead author of the report, the pages “point a very strong finger at Saudi Arabia as the principal financier” of the 9/11 hijackers.
  • “This may seem stale to some but it’s as current as the headlines we see today,” Graham said, referring to the terrorist attack on a satirical newspaper in Paris. The pages are being kept under wraps out of concern their disclosure would hurt U.S. national security. But as chairman of the Senate Select Committee that issued the report in 2002, Graham argues the opposite is true, and that the real “threat to national security is non-disclosure.” Graham said the redacted pages characterize the support network that allowed the 9/11 attacks to occur, and if that network goes unchallenged, it will only flourish. He said that keeping the pages classified is part of “a general pattern of coverup” that for 12 years has kept the American people in the dark. It is “highly improbable” the 19 hijackers acted alone, he said, yet the U.S. government’s position is “to protect the government most responsible for that network of support.”   The Saudis know what they did, Graham continued, and the U.S. knows what they did, and when the U.S. government takes a position of passivity, or actively shuts down inquiry, that sends a message to the Saudis. “They have continued, maybe accelerated their support for the most extreme form of Islam,” he said, arguing that both al Qaeda and ISIS are “a creation of Saudi Arabia.”
  • It all signals that the decades-long bipartisan policy of always keeping the Saudis happy, and never rocking the boat, may be coming to an end. In Sarasota, Florida, a federal judge is reviewing 80,000 pages of documents that relate to a prominent Saudi family and its extensive contacts with three of the hijackers when they attended flight school in Sarasota.
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  • When the 800-page Senate report was made public in 2002, Graham recalled that he and Republican Sen. Richard Shelby were “shocked to see an important chapter in the report has been redacted.” All but three Senate Democrats, joined by one Republican and one independent, signed a letter calling on President Bush to declassify the 28-page section detailing the role of foreign governments in bankrolling the 9/11 attackers. “Finding, Discussion and Narrative Regarding Certain Sensitive National Security Matters,” the redacted portion, begins midway through the report, on page 395. Despite the title, then-CIA Director Porter Goss and the co-chairs of the 9/11 Commission all called for it to be declassified, yet it has stayed secret for a dozen years, fueling conspiracy theories that Graham says can only be put to rest by its release.   
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    Graham went farther than before, now saying that the deleted section is about Saudi Arabia's involvement in the 9-11 attack. But is this all to reinforce the narrative of 19 Islamic hijackers -- none of whom had the necessary pilot skills, flying airliners into targets on 9-11? Why no investigation of Israeli and U.S. government participation in the attack?  
Paul Merrell

28 pages of misdirection | Truth and Shadows - 0 views

  • For years the 9/11 Truth movement has been vainly pleading with mainstream media – and the “alternative” 9/11-Truth-rejecting media (which we’ll include for our purposes as mainstream) to cover any of the endless, obvious problems with any of the Official 9/11 Conspiracy Theory (OCT) tales we’ve been told. Now, all of a sudden, these same mainstream media, echoing prestigious players like former US Senator Bob Graham, are on the rampage about a “9/11 cover-up,” and are pushing for the release of 28 redacted pages from the 2002 Joint Congressional Intelligence Committee 9/11 Inquiry’s report! So…let’s all of us 9/11 Truthers jump aboard this fast moving train with both feet, right? The Truth movement has gradually been gaining a foothold with the public; a growing number of people countenance some kind of government role in 9/11 and/or its cover-up. Suspicion has likewise grown about the role played by Bush-administration neocons and their Zionist bedfellows. After 15 years of staunch media refusal to report the flagrantly obvious holes in the various OCT stories we’ve been fed, why is this particular issue suddenly headline news? Why at this particular juncture? And how does it just happen to be spearheaded by one of the major contributors to the initial coverup? Let’s examine the question of why the Deep State might want this story heated up to a fever pitch:
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    I'm not the only one who questions why the 28--pages controversy erupts in mainstream media when all other questions about 9-11, for example the evidence of neocons and Israelis still has the MSM blackout. And why can I find no hard information on the Web about who is behind 28pages.org?
Paul Merrell

9/11 Bill Prompts Saudi Threat to Sell Off U.S. Treasury Debt | 28Pages.org - 0 views

  • Saudi Arabia has warned the Obama administration and federal legislators that it will sell off U.S. Treasury debt worth $750 billion if Congress passes a law clearing the way for 9/11 victims to sue the kingdom for its alleged role in aiding the hijackers. according to a story in today’s New York Times.
  • Appearing on Michael Smerconish’s CNN program Saturday morning, former Senator Bob Graham, a leading advocate of declassifying 28 pages that allegedly implicate Saudi Arabia in the attacks, said, “I’m outraged but not surprised.” According to the Times report, the kingdom’s caution was personally delivered last month by Saudi foreign minister Adel al-Jubeir, who reportedly told legislators that, if the bill passes, Saudi Arabia would sell up to $750 billion in Treasury debt before it could be potentially frozen by U.S. courts.
  • Though presented as a necessity for Saudi Arabia’s own financial protection, Saudi Arabia’s cautionary statement is de facto economic threat against the United States. A sell-off would prompt an increase in U.S. Treasury interest rates, raising borrowing costs for the American government, businesses and consumers and potentially triggering an economic downturn that extends beyond our own shores. The Saudi warning was triggered by the legislative progress of the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act (JASTA), which would amend the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act (FSIA). Last fall, Saudi Arabia was dropped from a lawsuit filed by 9/11 families, victims and insurers after a federal judge said the plaintiffs had failed to meet the high jurisdictional hurdles that FSIA imposes for claims against foreign governments.
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  • According to the New York Times report, the Obama administration has aggressively lobbied lawmakers against passing JASTA, telling them it could trigger moves by other countries to undermine immunity enjoyed by the U.S. government and American businesses and individuals abroad. September 11 widow Terry Strada, who has spent years lobbying for JASTA, told Smerconish, “I’m shocked with what’s going on here. Do the Saudis really have that much influence on our government? Are they really calling the shots in Washington, D.C.?”
  • Graham said that failing to hold Saudi Arabia to account for its “complicity in the murder of 3,000 Americans” gave the kingdom “a sense of impunity that they can do anything they wanted to with no sanction, and now that impunity has expanded to their trying to lobby the highest levels of the White House and the Congress” to prevent a courtroom determination of Saudi Arabia’s guilt. “I believe that there is material in the 28 pages and the volume of other documents that would indicate that there was a connection at the highest levels between the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the 19 hijackers. I believe that the plot would not have occurred but for the support and protection that the hijackers were receiving primarily from Saudi Arabia,” said Graham. Graham’s reference to the “highest levels” of the Saudi government is reminiscent of a statement former Navy secretary and 9/11 Commission member John Lehman made to 60 Minutes on Sunday. Asked if the 28 classified pages names names, he replied, “Yes. The average intelligent watcher of 60 Minutes would recognize them instantly.” Smerconish asked Graham about the kingdom’s 2003 request to the Bush administration to release the 28 pages. “I think what the Saudis had was an understanding with the United States that whatever the Saudis indicated they wanted was a sham,” said Graham, adding that Saudi Arabia likely relied on a quiet commitment by the U.S. government to keep the pages classified, freeing the kingdom to make the request solely for public consumption.
Paul Merrell

Florida Event Spotlights Signs of Foreign Support of 9/11 Plot | 28Pages.org - 0 views

  • Last month, 9/11 parents Loreen and Matt Sellitto hosted an informative event focused on one of the most important yet least-understood aspects of September 11: the extent to which the terrorists received support from foreign governments—and the extent of the government’s knowledge of that support, both before and after the attacks.
  • Held in Naples, Florida, the November 11 event was called “The Untold Story of 9/11: A Conversation with Bob Graham.” Following opening remarks from host Loreen Sellitto and from Terry Strada of 9/11 Families United for Justice Against Terrorism, the event featured three speakers: Former Senator Bob Graham, the most prominent voice outside government fighting for declassification of the 28 pages. Broward Bulldog editor Dan Christensen, who broke the story of the FBI’s discovery of a 9/11 cell in Sarasota, and who continues working to bring FBI investigation documents into the daylight. Attorney Tom Julin, who is helping the Broward Bulldog in its effort to overcome the government’s stonewalling. Here, we cover many of the highlights; a full video of the event can be found at the bottom of the page.
  • Broward Bulldog Battles Feds Over Sarasota Investigation Christensen’s quest for answers about foreign sources of support of the 9/11 hijackers began in 2011 with a tip passed to him by Anthony Summers, who, with his wife Robbyn Swan, had just completed their book, “The Eleventh Day.” Summers and Swan had learned about an FBI investigation of a Saudi family with close ties to the Saudi government that suddenly abandoned its upscale home just outside Sarasota about two weeks before 9/11. Pursuing the lead, Christensen contacted Senator Graham for his insights into the Sarasota cell. Braced for the possibility that Graham would decline comment because of classification restraints, Christensen was stunned to learn that Graham—who had been chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee and co-chaired the joint Congressional inquiry into 9/11—was unable to comment for an altogether different reason: Graham said the FBI had never told him about its Sarasota investigation.
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  • Christensen then inquired with the FBI, which confirmed there had been an investigation, but said it found no connection to 9/11. Next, seeking to learn how they reached that conclusion, he requested the FBI’s investigation documents using the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), but the FBI said there were no documents matching the request. Finding that completely implausible, in September 2012, Christensen and the Broward Bulldog filed a FOIA lawsuit. About six months later, the FBI sent Christensen 35 partially redacted pages that contained a bombshell conclusion directly contradicting the government’s earlier denials: The investigation had in fact “revealed many connections” between the Saudi family that fled their home and “individuals associated with the terrorist attacks on 9/11/2001.” (Indeed, investigations showed the home had been called and even visited by future 9/11 hijackers.)
  • In April 2014, as the Bulldog’s lawsuit progressed, Fort Lauderdale U.S. District Judge William Zloch ordered the FBI to conduct a more thorough search of its files, chiding the government for advancing “nonsensical” legal arguments in its effort to maintain secrecy. Later, he ordered the FBI to turn over more than 80,000 pages from its Tampa office so he could personally review them and reach his own conclusions about the need for secrecy. The judge’s review of that enormous cache is still underway.
  • Julin, in addition to providing an interesting elaboration on the legal battle to liberate the FBI’s Sarasota files, explained the Broward Bulldog’s attempts to secure the release of the 28-page finding on foreign government support of the 9/11 hijackers found in the 2002 report of the joint Congressional inquiry. Julin is helping Christensen, Summers and Swan push for the declassification of the 28 pages through a little-known process called Mandatory Declassification Review. Under that process, an agency’s refusal to declassify material can ultimately be appealed to a multi-agency panel that reviews the material and presents a recommendation to the president. The panel is now reviewing the 28 pages. While there’s no deadline, Julin has been told to expect the panel’s recommendation to President Obama sometime this winter.
  • Graham also explored the questions of: Why would the Saudis support Islamic terrorists operating in the United States? Why did the Bush administration shield Saudi Arabia by preventing the release of damning material? Why would the Obama administration continue the Bush administration’s “soft treatment” of Saudi Arabia? In the course of his remarks, Graham briefly discussed two of his books. The first, “Intelligence Matters: The CIA, the FBI, Saudi Arabia and the Failure of America’s War on Terror,” is a non-fiction work, which required advance clearance from the federal government that resulted in many passages being censored. That disappointing experience prompted Graham to do an end-run around government censors by publishing “Keys to the Kingdom,” a work labelled as fiction but which Graham used to write on the topic with greater freedom.
Paul Merrell

Florida congressman denied access to censored pages from Congress' 9/11 report | Browar... - 0 views

  • The U.S. House Intelligence Committee has denied a Florida congressman’s request for access to 28 classified pages from the 2002 report of Congress’ Joint Inquiry into the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Rep. Alan Grayson, D-Orlando, told BrowardBulldog.org he made his request at the suggestion of House colleagues who have read them as they consider whether to support a proposed resolution urging President Obama to open those long-censored pages to the public. “Why was I denied? I have been instrumental in publicizing the Snowden revelations regarding pervasive domestic spying by the government and this is a petty means for the spying industrial complex to lash back,” Grayson said last week, referring to National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden.
  • In a party line vote, the House Intelligence Committee voted 8-4 on Dec. 1 to deny Democrat Grayson access to the 28 pages. The same day, the committee unanimously approved requests to access classified committee documents – not necessarily the 28 pages – by 11 other House members. Grayson, an outspoken liberal and a member of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, said his denial was engineered by outgoing Chairman Mike Rogers, R-Mich. Rogers is a former FBI agent who did not seek re-election in November. “Congressman Rogers made serious misrepresentations to other committee members when he brought this up,” Grayson in a telephone interview. “When the Guardian reported on the fact that there was universal domestic surveillance regarding every single phone call, including this one, I went to the floor of the House and gave a lengthy speech decrying it.”
  • “Chairman Rogers told the committee that I had discussed classified information on the floor. He left out the most important part that I was discussing what was reported in the newspaper,” said Grayson. “He clearly misled the committee for an improper purpose: to deny a sitting member of Congress important classified information necessary for me to do my job.” Rogers did not respond to a request for comment. An aide in his Lansing, Michigan office referred callers to a spokeswoman for the House Intelligence Committee who could not be reached for comment.
Paul Merrell

As Clapper Stalls on 28 Pages, New Poll Shows Americans Want Complete 9/11 Disclosure |... - 0 views

  • Amid surging public interest in 28 classified pages said to link Saudi Arabia to 9/11, a new Rasmussen Reports poll finds 74% of Americans want the U.S. government to release everything it knows about the attacks, other than information that would imperil national security. Only a quarter of Americans believe they know the full truth about the September 11 attacks, and most Americans are cynical about the government’s motives for keeping some details under wraps: Among those who think the government hasn’t shared all it knows, 38% think it was withheld for political reasons and 29% say the secrecy is intended to protect allies. Just 21% think the lack of disclosure is meant to protect the country’s security.
Paul Merrell

Bob Graham gets call from White House and word that declassification of secret 9/11 doc... - 1 views

  • After years of pushing to gain public release of 28 secret pages of a report on the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, former U.S. Sen. Bob Graham said he got a call from the White House on Tuesday.
  • Graham told the Tampa Bay Times that Brett Holmgren, a senior policy adviser to the assistant to the president for Homeland Security, told him the declassification review of the documents withheld from a report issued by a Joint Congressional Commission in 2003 will soon be completed. Graham, who asked the president to declassify the records more than two years ago, said he asked how soon he could expect a decision and was told “one or two months.” Graham was co-chairman of a joint congressional committee that investigated the attacks. The 28 pages were classified at the request of the FBI. Graham has been pushing for release of the documents since 2011 when he learned that the FBI had failed to disclose part of its investigation that included reports that high-ranking Saudi Arabian officials provided financial aid and other help to the 19 hijackers who flew airplanes into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. He says the FBI initially denied there were such reports but has since turned over 80,000 pages in a federal lawsuit seeking the release of all reports on the investigation. Graham said he believes recent news reports on the secrecy surrounding the 28 pages, including a report Sunday on 60 Minutes, prompted the White House to react. “The decisionmakers at the White House have realized the public cares about it and there is an urgency to come to a decision,’’ Graham said.
Paul Merrell

Federal Panel Evaluating Need for Continued 28 Pages Secrecy | 28Pages.org - 0 views

  • The movement to declassify a finding on foreign government support of the 9/11 hijackers might be strengthened soon: A federal panel is reviewing the censored 28-page chapter of the report of a Congressional joint inquiry into 9/11 and is expected to make a recommendation to President Obama in the coming weeks or even days.
Paul Merrell

The American Deep State, Deep Events, and Off-the-Books Financing | Global Research - 0 views

  • It is alleged that some of the bail money that released Sturgis and the other Watergate burglars was drug money from the CIA asset turned drug trafficker, Manuel Artime, and delivered by Artime’s money-launderer, Ramón Milián Rodríguez. After the Iran-Contra scandal went public, Milián Rodríguez was investigated by a congressional committee – not for Watergate, but because, in support of the Contras, he had managed two Costa Rican seafood companies, Frigorificos and Ocean Hunter, that laundered drug money.6
  • In the 1950s Wall Street was a dominating complex. It included not just banks and other financial institutions but also the oil majors whose cartel arrangements were successfully defended against the U.S. Government by the Wall Street law firm Sullivan and Cromwell, home to the Dulles brothers. The inclusion of Wall Street conforms with Franklin Roosevelt’s observation in 1933 to his friend Col. E.M. House that “The real truth … is, as you and I know, that a financial element in the larger centers has owned the Government ever since the days of Andrew Jackson.”18 FDR’s insight is well illustrated by the efficiency with which a group of Wall Street bankers (including Nelson Rockefeller’s grandfather Nelson Aldrich) were able in a highly secret meeting in 1910 to establish the Federal Reserve System – a system which in effect reserved oversight of the nation’s currency supply and of all America’s banks in the not impartial hands of its largest.19 The political clout of the quasi-governmental Federal Reserve Board was clearly demonstrated in 2008, when Fed leadership secured instant support from two successive administrations for public money to rescue the reckless management of Wall Street banks: banks Too Big To Fail, and of course far Too Big To Jail, but not Too Big To Bail.20
  • since its outset, the CIA has always had access to large amounts of off-the books or offshore funds to support its activities. Indeed, the power of the purse has usually worked in an opposite sense, since those in control of deep state offshore funds supporting CIA activities have for decades also funded members of Congress and of the executive – not vice versa. The last six decades provide a coherent and continuous picture of historical direction being provided by this deep state power of the purse, trumping and sometimes reversing the conventional state. Let us resume some of the CIA’s sources of offshore and off-the-books funding for its activities. The CIA’s first covert operation was the use of “over $10 million in captured Axis funds to influence the [Italian] election [of 1948].”25 (The fundraising had begun at the wealthy Brook Club in New York; but Allen Dulles, then still a Wall Street lawyer, persuaded Washington, which at first had preferred a private funding campaign, to authorize the operation through the National Security Council and the CIA.)26 Dulles, together with George Kennan and James Forrestal, then found a way to provide a legal source for off-the-books CIA funding, under the cover of the Marshall Plan. The three men “helped devise a secret codicil [to the Marshall Plan] that gave the CIA the capability to conduct political warfare. It let the agency skim millions of dollars from the plan.”27
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  • The international lawyers of Wall Street did not hide from each other their shared belief that they understood better than Washington the requirements for running the world. As John Foster Dulles wrote in the 1930s to a British colleague, The word “cartel” has here assumed the stigma of a bogeyman which the politicians are constantly attacking. The fact of the matter is that most of these politicians are highly insular and nationalistic and because the political organization of the world has under such influence been so backward, business people who have had to cope realistically with international problems have had to find ways for getting through and around stupid political barriers.21
  • In the 1960s and especially the 1970s America began to import more and more oil from the Middle East. But the negative effect on the U.S. balance of payments was offset by increasing arms and aviation sales to Iran and Saudi Arabia. Contracts with companies like Northrop and especially Lockheed (the builder of the CIA’s U-2) included kickbacks to arms brokers, like Kodama Yoshio in Japan and Adnan Khashoggi in Saudi Arabia, who were also important CIA agents. Lockheed alone later admitted to the Church Committee that it had provided $106 million in commissions to Khashoggi between 1970 and 1975, more than ten times what it had paid to the next most important connection, Kodama.31 These funds were then used by Khashoggi and Kodama to purchase pro-Western influence. But Khashoggi, advised by a team of ex-CIA Americans like Miles Copeland and Edward Moss, distributed cash, and sometimes provided women, not just in Saudi Arabia but around the world – including cash to congressmen and President Nixon in the United States.32 Khashoggi in effect served as a “cutout,” or representative, in a number of operations forbidden to the CIA and the companies he worked with. Lockheed, for one, was conspicuously absent from the list of military contractors who contributed illicitly to Nixon’s 1972 election campaign. But there was no law prohibiting, and nothing else to prevent their official representative, Khashoggi, from cycling $200 million through the bank of Nixon’s friend Bebe Rebozo.33
  • The most dramatic use of off-the-books drug profits to finance foreign armies was seen in the 1960s CIA-led campaign in Laos. There the CIA supplied airstrips and planes to support a 30,000-man drug-financed Hmong army. At one point Laotian CIA station chief Theodore Shackley even called in CIA aircraft in support of a ground battle to seize a huge opium caravan on behalf of the larger Royal Laotian Army.30
  • At the time of the Marshall Plan slush fund in Europe, the CIA also took steps which resulted in drug money to support anti-communist armies in the Far East. In my book American War Machine I tell how the CIA, using former OSS operative Paul Helliwell, created two proprietary firms as infrastructure for a KMT army in Burma, an army which quickly became involved in managing and developing the opium traffic there. The two firms were SEA Supply Inc. in Bangkok and CAT Inc. (later Air America) in Taiwan. Significantly, the CIA split ownership of CAT Inc.’s plane with KMT bankers in Taiwan – this allowed the CIA to deny responsibility for the flights when CAT planes, having delivered arms from Sea Supply to the opium-growing army, then returned to Taiwan with opium for the KMT. Even after the CIA officially severed its connection to the KMT Army in 1953, its proprietary firm Sea Supply Inc. supplied arms for a CIA-led paramilitary force, PARU, that also was financed, at least in part, by the drug traffic.28 Profits from Thailand filtered back, in part through the same Paul Helliwell, as donations to members from both parties in Congress. Thai dictator Phao Sriyanon, a drug trafficker who was then alleged to be the richest man in the world, hired lawyer Paul Helliwell…as a lobbyist in addition to [former OSS chief William] Donovan [who in 1953-55 was US Ambassador to Thailand]. Donovan and Helliwell divided the Congress between them, with Donovan assuming responsibility for the Republicans and Helliwell taking the Democrats.29
  • The power exerted by Khashoggi was not limited to his access to funds and women. By the 1970s, Khashoggi and his aide Edward Moss owned the elite Safari Club in Kenya.34 The exclusive club became the first venue for another and more important Safari Club: an alliance between Saudi and other intelligence agencies that wished to compensate for the CIA’s retrenchment in the wake of President Carter’s election and Senator Church’s post-Watergate reforms.35
  • As former Saudi intelligence chief Prince Turki bin Faisal once told Georgetown University alumni, In 1976, after the Watergate matters took place here, your intelligence community was literally tied up by Congress. It could not do anything. It could not send spies, it could not write reports, and it could not pay money. In order to compensate for that, a group of countries got together in the hope of fighting Communism and established what was called the Safari Club. The Safari Club included France, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Morocco, and Iran.36 Prince Turki’s candid remarks– “your intelligence community was literally tied up by Congress. …. In order to compensate for that, a group of countries got together … and established what was called the Safari Club.” – made it clear that the Safari Club, operating at the level of the deep state, was expressly created to overcome restraints established by political decisions of the public state in Washington (decisions not only of Congress but also of President Carter).
  • Specifically Khashoggi’s activities involving corruption by sex and money, after they too were somewhat curtailed by Senator Church’s post-Watergate reforms, appear to have been taken up quickly by the Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI), a Muslim-owned bank where Khashoggi’s friend and business partner Kamal Adham, the Saudi intelligence chief and a principal Safari Club member, was a part-owner.37 In the 1980s BCCI, and its allied shipping empire owned by the Pakistani Gokal brothers, supplied financing and infrastructure for the CIA’s (and Saudi Arabia’s) biggest covert operation of the decade, support for the Afghan mujahedin. To quote from a British book excerpted in the Senate BCCI Report: “BCCI’s role in assisting the U.S. to fund the Mujaheddin guerrillas fighting the Soviet occupation is drawing increasing attention. The bank’s role began to surface in the mid-1980′s when stories appeared in the New York Times showing how American security operatives used Oman as a staging post for Arab funds. This was confirmed in the Wall Street Journal of 23 October 1991 which quotes a member of the late General Zia’s cabinet as saying ‘It was Arab money that was pouring through BCCI.’ The Bank which carried the money on from Oman to Pakistan and into Afghanistan was National Bank of Oman, where BCCI owned 29%.”38
  • In 1981 Vice-president Bush and Saudi Prince Bandar, working together, won congressional approval for massive new arms sales of AWACS (airborne warning and control system) aircraft to Saudi Arabia. In the $5.5 billion package, only ten percent covered the cost of the planes. Most of the rest was an initial installment on what was ultimately a $200 billion program for military infrastructure through Saudi Arabia.41 It also supplied a slush fund for secret ops, one administered for over a decade in Washington by Prince Bandar, after he became the Saudi Ambassador (and a close friend of the Bush family, nicknamed “Bandar Bush”). In the words of researcher Scott Armstrong, the fund was “the ultimate government-off-the-books.” Not long after the AWACS sale was approved, Prince Bandar thanked the Reagan administration for the vote by honoring a request by William Casey that he deposit $10 million in a Vatican bank to be used in a campaign against the Italian Communist Party. Implicit in the AWACS deal was a pledge by the Saudis to fund anticommunist guerrilla groups in Afghanistan, Angola, and elsewhere that were supported by the Reagan Administration.42 The Vatican contribution, “for the CIA’s long-time clients, the Christian Democratic Party,” of course continued a CIA tradition dating back to 1948.
  • The activities of the Safari Club were exposed after Iranians in 1979 seized the records of the US Embassy in Tehran. But BCCI support for covert CIA operations, including Iran-Contra, continued until BCCI’s criminality was exposed at the end of the decade. Meanwhile, with the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980, Washington resumed off-budget funding for CIA covert operations under cover of arms contracts to Saudi Arabia. But this was no longer achieved through kickbacks to CIA assets like Khashoggi, after Congress in 1977 made it illegal for American corporations to make payments to foreign officials. Instead arrangements were made for payments to be returned, through either informal agreements or secret codicils in the contracts, by the Saudi Arabian government itself. Two successive arms deals, the AWACS deal of 1981 and the al-Yamamah deal of 1985, considerably escalated the amount of available slush funds.
  • It is reported in two books that the BCCI money flow through the Bank of Oman was handled in part by the international financier Bruce Rappaport, who for a decade, like Khashoggi, kept a former CIA officer on his staff.39 Rappaport’s partner in his Inter Maritime Bank, which interlocked with BCCI, was E.P. Barry, who earlier had been a partner in the Florida money-laundering banks of Paul Helliwell.40
  • After a second proposed major U.S. arms sale met enhanced opposition in Congress in 1985 from the Israeli lobby, Saudi Arabia negotiated instead a multi-billion pound long-term contract with the United Kingdom – the so-called al-Yamamah deal. Once again overpayments for the purchased weapons were siphoned off into a huge slush fund for political payoffs, including “hundreds of millions of pounds to the ex-Saudi ambassador to the US, Prince Bandar bin Sultan.”43 According to Robert Lacey, the payments to Prince Bandar were said to total one billion pounds over more than a decade.44 The money went through a Saudi Embassy account in the Riggs Bank, Washington; according to Trento, the Embassy’s use of the Riggs Bank dated back to the mid-1970s, when, in his words, “the Saudi royal family had taken over intelligence financing for the United States.”45 More accurately, the financing was not for the United States, but for the American deep state.
  • This leads me to the most original and important thing I have to say. I believe that these secret funds from BCCI and Saudi arms deals – first Khashoggi’s from Lockheed and then Prince Bandar’s from the AWACS and al-Yamamah deals – are the common denominator in all of the major structural deep events (SDEs) that have afflicted America since the supranational Safari Club was created in l976. I am referring specifically to 1) the covert US intervention in Afghanistan (which started about 1978 as a Safari Club intervention, more than a year before the Russian invasion), 2) the 1980 October Surprise, which together with an increase in Saudi oil prices helped assure Reagan’s election and thus give us the Reagan Revolution, 3) Iran-Contra in 1984-86, 4) and – last but by no means least – 9/11. That is why I believe it is important to analyze these events at the level of the supranational deep state. Let me just cite a few details.
  • 1) the 1980 October Surprise. According to Robert Parry, Alexandre de Marenches, the principal founder of the Safari Club, arranged for William Casey (a fellow Knight of Malta) to meet with Iranian and Israeli representatives in Paris in July and October 1980, where Casey promised delivery to Iran of needed U.S. armaments, in exchange for a delay in the return of the U.S. hostages in Iran until Reagan was in power. Parry suspects a role of BCCI in both the funding of payoffs for the secret deal and the subsequent flow of Israeli armaments to Iran.46 In addition, John Cooley considers de Marenches to be “the Safari Club player who probably did most to draw the US into the Afghan adventure.”47 2) the Iran-Contra scandal (including the funding of the Contras, the illegal Iran arms sales, and support for the Afghan mujahideen There were two stages to Iran-Contra. For twelve months in 1984-85, after meeting with Casey, King Fahd of Saudi Arabia, in the spirit of the AWACS deal, supported the Nicaraguan Contras via Prince Bandar through a BCCI bank account in Miami. But in April 1985, after the second proposed arms sale fell through, McFarlane, fearing AIPAC opposition, terminated this direct Saudi role. Then Khashoggi, with the help of Miles Copeland, devised a new scheme in which Iranian arms sales involving Israel would fund the contras. The first stage of Iran-Contra was handled by Prince Bandar through a BCCI account in Miami; the second channel was handled by Khashoggi through a different BCCI account in Montecarlo. The Kerry-Brown Senate Report on BCCI also transmitted allegations from a Palestinian-American businessman, Sam Bamieh, that Khashoggi’s funds from BCCI for arms sales to Iran came ultimately from King Fahd of Saudi Arabia, who “was hoping to gain favor with Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.”48
  • 3) 9/11 When the two previously noted alleged hijackers or designated culprits, al-Mihdhar and al-Hazmi, arrived in San Diego, a Saudi named Omar al-Bayoumi both housed them and opened bank accounts for them. Soon afterwards Bayoumi’s wife began receiving monthly payments from a Riggs bank account held by Prince Bandar’s wife, Princess Haifa bint Faisal.49 In addition, Princess Haifa sent regular monthly payments of between $2,000 and $3,500 to the wife of Osama Basnan, believed by various investigators to be a spy for the Saudi government. In all, “between 1998 and 2002, up to US $73,000 in cashier cheques was funneled by Bandar’s wife Haifa … – to two Californian families known to have bankrolled al-Midhar and al-Hazmi.”50 Although these sums in themselves are not large, they may have been part of a more general pattern. Author Paul Sperry claims there was possible Saudi government contact with at least four other of the alleged hijackers in Virginia and Florida. For example, “9/11 ringleader Mohamed Atta and other hijackers visited s home owned by Esam Ghazzawi, a Saudi adviser to the nephew of King Fahd.”51
  • But it is wrong to think of Bandar’s accounts in the Riggs Bank as uniquely Saudi. Recall that Prince Bandar’s payments were said to have included “a suitcase containing more than $10 million” that went to a Vatican priest for the CIA’s long-time clients, the Christian Democratic Party.52 In 2004, the Wall Street Journal reported that the Riggs Bank, which was by then under investigation by the Justice Department for money laundering, “has had a longstanding relationship with the Central Intelligence Agency, according to people familiar with Riggs operations and U.S. government officials.”53 Meanwhile President Obiang of Equatorial Guinea “siphoned millions from his country’s treasury with the help of Riggs Bank in Washington, D.C.”54 For this a Riggs account executive, Simon Kareri, was indicted. But Obiang enjoyed State Department approval for a contract with the private U.S. military firm M.P.R.I., with an eye to defending offshore oil platforms owned by ExxonMobil, Marathon, and Hess.55 Behind the CIA relationship with the Riggs Bank was the role played by the bank’s overseas clients in protecting U.S. investments, and particularly (in the case of Saudi Arabia and Equatorial Guinea), the nation’s biggest oil companies.
  • The issue of Saudi Embassy funding of at least two (and possibly more) of the alleged 9/11 hijackers (or designated culprits) is so sensitive that, in the 800-page Joint Congressional Inquiry Report on 9/11, the entire 28-page section dealing with Saudi financing was very heavily redacted.56 A similar censorship occurred with the 9/11 Commission Report: According to Philip Shenon, several staff members felt strongly that they had demonstrated a close Saudi government connection to the hijackers, but a senior staff member purged almost all of the most serious allegations against the Saudi government, and moved the explosive supporting evidence to the report’s footnotes.57 It is probable that this cover-up was not designed for the protection of the Saudi government itself, so much as of the supranational deep state connection described in this essay, a milieu where American, Saudi, and Israeli elements all interact covertly. One sign of this is that Prince Bandar himself, sensitive to the anti-Saudi sentiment that 9/11 caused, has been among those calling for the U.S. government to make the redacted 28 pages public.58
  • This limited exposure of the nefarious use of funds generated from Saudi arms contracts has not created a desire in Washington to limit these contracts. On the contrary, in 2010, the second year of the Obama administration, The Defense Department … notified Congress that it wants to sell $60 billion worth of advanced aircraft and weapons to Saudi Arabia. The proposed sale, which includes helicopters, fighter jets, radar equipment and satellite-guided bombs, would be the largest arms deal to another country in U.S. history if the sale goes through and all purchases are made.59 The sale did go through; only a few congressmen objected.60 The deep state, it would appear, is alive and well, and impervious to exposures of it. It is clear that for some decades the bottom-upwards processes of democracy have been increasingly supplanted by the top-downwards processes of the deep state.
  • But the deeper strain in history, I would like to believe, is in the opposite direction: the ultimate diminution of violent top-down forces by the bottom-up forces of an increasingly integrated civil society.61 In the last months we have had Wikileaks, then Edward Snowden, and now the fight between the CIA and its long-time champion in Congress, Dianne Feinstein. It may be time to see a systemic correction, much as we did after Daniel Ellsberg’s release of the Pentagon Papers, which was followed by Watergate and the Church Committee reforms. I believe that to achieve this correction there must be a better understanding of deep events and of the deep state. Ultimately, however, whether we see a correction or not will depend, at least in part, on how much people care.
Paul Merrell

Increasing Attention to Allegations of 9/11 FBI Cover-Up | 28 Pages.org - 0 views

  • While much of the speculation about the contents of the 28 classified pages from a 9/11 intelligence inquiry center on the secret activities of foreign governments, there is growing scrutiny on the secret activities of our own government—specifically, its investigation of the terrorists both before and after the attacks.
  • Television station WTSP, which serves Sarasota and Tampa Bay, aired a very insightful report last week in which investigative reporter Mike Deeson talked to former Senator Bob Graham and dug deep into the FBI’s concealment of its investigation of the Sarasota 9/11 terror cell. You can watch it here.
  • Meanwhile at Counterpunch, James Ridgeway traces the FBI’s stonewalling of the joint House/Senate intelligence inquiry all the way to the White House and makes the case that the failure to cooperate with the inquiry may well amount to obstruction of justice by George Bush, Dick Cheney and FBI Director Robert Mueller: Finally in his book, Graham describes a letter from a member of the FBI’s congressional staff explaining the Bureau had been uncooperative on orders of the administration.  “We were seeing in writing what we had suspected for some time. The White House was directing the coverup.
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  • “Later, when the 911 Commission conducted its own investigation, both Bush and Cheney met with them in a private, off-the-record conversation.” This story and the new piece by Wright strongly suggest the President, Vice President and head of the FBI were engaged in obstruction of justice. If so, that would call for the convening of a federal grand jury. Would the Justice Department, which runs the FBI, do that? Probably not.
Paul Merrell

Revealed: NSA pushed 9/11 as key 'sound bite' to justify surveillance | Al Jazeera America - 0 views

  • The National Security Agency advised its officials to cite the 9/11 attacks as justification for its mass surveillance activities, according to a master list of NSA talking points. The document, obtained by Al Jazeera through a Freedom of Information Act request, contains talking points and suggested statements for NSA officials (PDF) responding to the fallout from media revelations that originated with former NSA contractor Edward Snowden. Invoking the events of 9/11 to justify the controversial NSA programs, which have caused major diplomatic fallout around the world, was the top item on the talking points that agency officials were encouraged to use. Under the subheading “Sound Bites That Resonate,” the document suggests the statement “I much prefer to be here today explaining these programs, than explaining another 9/11 event that we were not able to prevent.”
  • NSA head Gen. Keith Alexander used a slightly different version of that statement when he testified before Congress on June 18 in defense of the agency’s surveillance programs. Asked to comment on the document, NSA media representative Vanee M. Vines pointed Al Jazeera to Alexander’s congressional testimony on Tuesday, and said the agency had no further comment. In keeping with the themes listed in the talking points, the NSA head told legislators that “it is much more important for this country that we defend this nation and take the beatings than it is to give up a program that would result in this nation being attacked.” Critics have long noted the tendency of senior U.S. politicians and security officials to use the fear of attacks like the one that killed almost 3,000 Americans to justify policies ranging from increased defense spending to the invasion of Iraq.
  • Al Jazeera obtained the 27 pages of talking points from the NSA this week in response to a FOIA request filed June 13. The statements had been prepared for agency officials facing questions from Congress or the media over the revelations contained in classified documents that Snowden leaked to journalists Glenn Greenwald, Barton Gellman and others. A letter accompanying the documents notes that the talking points “are prepared and approved for a speaker to use and do not necessarily represent what the speaker actually said at the event.” The NSA has not yet turned over to Al Jazeera the documents the agency used to prepare the talking points, saying those materials require additional review before they can be released.  The attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon also appear at the top of another talking-points document titled “Media Leaks One Card,” which contains 13 bullet points to explain the rationale behind the surveillance programs. Those points include “First responsibility is to defend the nation” and “NSA and its partners must make sure we connect the dots so that the nation is never attacked again like it was on 9/11.”
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  • The master talking points list goes on to explain, under a subheading titled “We Needed to Connect the Dots,” that “post-9/11 we made several changes and added a number of capabilities to enable us to connect the dots.” Continuing revelations from the Snowden documents reveal surveillance on a scale that appears to go far beyond the scope of monitoring potential attackers, however. The agency’s “head of state collection” program, for example, reportedly included the monitoring of German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s mobile phone. The talking points document advises officials to emphasize the word “lawful” when discussing NSA surveillance programs, and to state that “our allies have benefited … just as we have.” “We believe that over 100 nations are capable of collecting signals intelligence or operating a lawful intercept capability that enable them to monitor communications,” the document continued.
  • Critics have called into question the veracity of the claim that NSA surveillance has thwarted more than 50 “potential” attacks. They claim evidence to support such assertions is lacking. NSA officials are advised to respond to questions about any potential civil liberties violations by citing talking points that say there have not been any “willful violations” and that the NSA is committed to “upholding the privacy and civil liberties of the American people.”
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    27 pages of talking points appended to the article, plus a two-page cover letter. It's the scripts for just about everything official that's been coming out of NSA and the Administration. Interesting reading; they cover some things that haven't yet come up.   
Gary Edwards

Sheriff…Time to arrest members of Congress! | Scanned Retina Blog - 0 views

  • Title 26, USC, is a private law that applies to “U.S. corporate ‘citizens’”, all employees of the corporation identified at 28 USC, section 3002.
    • Gary Edwards
       
      There is no explanation or quote to explain Title 26 and 28 USC, section 3002!  At the least we should be provided with a link here.
  • When the Sheriff seizes property from a Citizen under the non-authority of the IRS agent, the Sheriff has committed a Second Degree Felony, Conversion of Property.
  • Tyranny is defined as:
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  • Dominance through threat of punishment and violence, oppressive rule, abusive government, cruelty and injustice. What better definition than this fits the abusive IRS.
  • Title 12, USC
  • The Federal Reserve Notes in use are mere evidence of a debt.
  • The legal definition of “dollar” is “a gold or silver coin of a specific weight and with specific markings
  • The Federal Reserve Banking system is a private cartel that has usurped the authority of the Congress to coin Money.
  • Article I, section 8, we find that only Congress was given the authority “To coin money, regulate the Value thereof, and of foreign Coin, and fix the Standard of Weights and Measures”.
  • The Federal Reserve Act is a “private law” passed by four Congressmen after the Congressional session closed in December of 1913.
  • The “Killing Blow”, the coup de grace[pronounced gra] was delivered upon the American People by Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1933 by removing the Gold Standard from the American economy.  FDR assisted the FRB in heisting the gold supply from this country right out from under our noses. 
  • If you still refuse to pay, the IRS will file a document called a “Notice of Federal Tax Lien” in the local County Clerk’s office.
  • a “Notice” is not the “Lien” itself. The “Lien” is a totally separate and distinct document from the “Notice”.
  • The County Clerk, through abysmal ignorance files the “Notice of Federal Tax Lien” as if it was an actual “Lien”. These are two separate and distinct documents. The County Clerk never requests the actual “Lien” from the IRS agent.
  • The Seventh Amendment of the Bill of Rights of this Constitution for the united States of America guarantees you the Right of Trial by Jury in any controversy where the amount shall exceed twenty dollars.
  • You have never owed any money to the IRS. The IRS is simply the enforcer, the debt collector for the Federal Reserve Banking System. However, because you are using a private credit system, wherein the medium of exchange are fancy pieces of paper called Federal Reserve Notes, you owe the Federal Reserve Bank a “user fee”.
  • All the current paycheck garnishments in the entire country could be stopped by having your employer request the above mentioned documents, to wit:
  • A copy of the Driver’s License of the IRS agent A copy of the “Pocket Commission” showing the authority of the IRS agent A copy of the assessment shown on form 23C against the American Citizen A copy of the “Abstract of the Court Judgment” that verifies that you had a trial by jury.
  • As Sheriff of San Miguel County, I will provide educational classes to the County Clerk and the employers who are currently garnishing wages and paychecks to identify areas where they may have broken the law and unwittingly stolen their employees Federal Reserve Notes and thus committed “Conversion of Property”, a second degree felony. Furthermore, I will work closely with the County Clerk through education and knowledge so that the Clerk can stop breaking the law and committing financial terrorism against the Citizens of San Miguel County.
  • When the Citizens of San Miguel County elect me as their new Sheriff in town, I will ban the IRS from San Miguel County, and if I catch an IRS agent within the boundaries of the county, without my permission, I will arrest them for TRESPASSING.
  • In the 1950’s, with the stroke of the pen, the BIR was transformed into the current notorious IRS and brought onto the 50 united States.
  • The IRS is formerly the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) situated in and with authority only in the Philippine Islands (Trust Fund # 61), and moved into Puerto Rico (Trust Fund # 62).
  • Here it is in a nutshell. The IRS is a private, debt collection agency for the private banking system known as the Federal Reserve Bank. The IRS is not a government agency. I repeat, the IRS is not a government agency. Never has been, never will be.
  • This was done without any Congressional authority whatsoever.
  • the IRS is the “Private, debt collection agency for the private banking system known as the Federal Reserve Banks”.
  • Title 26, Internal Revenue Code, is the “Debt Collection Manual” for the IRS.  This manual has nothing with “Constitutitonal Rights”.
  • The IRS does not collect an “income tax”.  The IRS is simply collecting a user fee due to the Federal Reserve Banks because we, Americans, are using a private credit systeem.
  • Title 26, United States Code, is “non-positive” law, which means that no American Citizen is subject to it.  However, all “U.S. citizens” are subject to it.  In order to understand “U.S. citizen” you must go to 28 USC, section 3002.
  • Most American Citizens have voluntarily given up their Sovereignty in exchange for “immunities and privileges” of the 14th Amendment.
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    On accessing federal law, two sites to bookmark: Legal Information Institute, Cornell University, http://www.law.cornell.edu/lii/get_the_law Justia.com, http://www.justia.com/ A further resource, the Jureeka extension for Chrome and Firefox will automatically link legal citations in your brower's display to the corresponding web pages on the LII site. http://www.law.cornell.edu/jureeka/download/
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