9/11 Commission Chairmen Admit Whitewashing the Cause of the Attacks
by Ivan Eland | View comments |
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According to Tom Kean and Lee Hamilton's new book, several members of the 9/11 Commission wanted to cover up the fact that U.S. support for Israel was one of the motivating factors behind al Qaeda’s 9/11 attack.
As both the Bush administration and its client government in Israel, with their invasions of Arab states in Iraq and Lebanon, respectively, make the United States ever more hated in the Islamic world, a new book by the chairmen of the 9/11 commission admits that the commission whitewashed the root cause of the 9/11 attacks — that same interventionist U.S. foreign policy.
Former Governor Tom Kean and former Congressman Lee Hamilton, chairmen of the 9/11 Commission — publicity hounds that they are — want to keep the long-retired but much celebrated panel in the public mind. They have written a tell-all book, Without Precedent: The Inside Story of the 9/11 Commission (Knopf, Aug. 15, 2006), about the trials and tribulations of the panel’s work. Despite the commission’s disastrous recommendations — which led to a reorganization of the U.S. intelligence community that worsened its original, pre-9/11 defect (a severe coordination problem caused by bureaucratic bloat) — and apparent whitewashing of the single most important issue it examined, the chairmen are trying their best to write another best seller. The book usefully details the administration’s willful misrepresentation of its incompetent actions that day, but makes the shocking admission that some commission members deliberately wanted to distort an even more important issue. Apparently, unidentified commissioners wanted to cover up the fact that U.S. support for Israel was one of the motivating factors behind al Qaeda’s 9/11 attack. Although Hamilton, to his credit, argued for saying that the reasons al Qaeda committed the heinous strike were the U.S. military presence in the Middle East and American support for Israel, the panel watered down that frank conclusion to state that U.S. policy on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and U.S. policy on Iraq are “dominant staples of popular commentary across the Arab and Muslim world.”
Some commissioners wanted to cover up the link between the 9/11 attack and U.S. support for Israel because this might imply that the United States should alter policy and lessen its support for Israeli actions. How right they were. The question is simple: if the vast bulk of Americans would be safer if U.S. politicians moderated their slavish support of Israel, designed to win the support of key pressure groups at home, wouldn’t it be a good idea to make this change in course? Average U.S. citizens might attenuate their support for Israel if the link between the 9/11 attacks and unquestioning U.S. favoritism for Israeli excesses were more widely known. Similarly, if American taxpayers knew that the expensive and unnecessary U.S. policy of intervening in the affairs of countries all over the world — including the U.S. military presence in the Middle East — made them less secure from terrorist attacks at home, pressure would likely build for an abrupt change to a more restrained U.S. foreign policy. But like the original 9/11 Commission report, President Bush regularly obscures this important reality by saying that America was attacked on 9/11 because of its freedoms, making no mention of U.S. interventionist foreign policy as the root cause.
Yet numerous public opinion polls in the Islamic world repeatedly prove the president wrong. The surveys show that people in Islamic countries admire American political and economic freedoms, culture, and technology. But when Muslims are polled on the level of their approval of U.S. foreign policy, the numbers go through the floor. Much of this negative attitude derives from mindless U.S. backing of anything Israel does. In addition, Osama bin Laden has repeatedly written or stated that he attacks the United States because of its military presence in the Persian Gulf and its support for Israel and corrupt regimes in the Arab world.
The Bush administration has worsened the anti-U.S. hatred in Islamic countries, which drives this blowback terrorism, by its invasion of Iraq and its support of Israel’s excessive military response in Lebanon. Unfortunately, innocent Iraqis and Lebanese are unlikely to be the only ones afflicted with the damage from U.S. interventionism. Innocent Israelis and Americans have been, and likely will continue to be, the victims of policies that have been sold by President Bush on the basis of making the citizens of both countries safer and more secure, while the 9/11 Commission obediently has covered the administration’s tracks.
Without Precedent: The Inside Story of the 9/11 Commission is available on Amazon.com.
ieland@independent.org
http://www.independent.org
Read more articles by Ivan Eland
Mr. Eland,
You make too much sense! For telling the truth you will be labeled anti-semitic and an appeaser. Don't you understand that it is Americas job to police the world? I know that task is not assigned to the federal government in the constitution, but who reads that anymore? The rest of the world hasn't consented to it either. Why do they hate us again? Oh yes, I almost forgot, its because were so good and free, and they all got up on the wrong side of the bed.
Comment by David | August 30, 2006
I'm astonished that such rubbish should make it onto this website. Expansionism is a fundamental concept of the Islamic religion (thank heaven for "moderate", peaceful Muslims, but they aren't doing the duty required by their religion), and history shows that some Muslims are willing to act on this ideal by any means necessary. Hence, it is only a matter of time before they come for us in America, to convert us if they can, subject us if they can't convert us, or destroy us failing plans A and B. Letting them have their way with their current highest priority "conversion" target (Israel) may buy us a few more years of "peace", but at the cost of losing a strong ally in a strategically valuable location. The reality is that we can either take the war to them, or wait for them to take it to us. Surely you wouldn't prefer the latter?
Comment by TJ | August 30, 2006
You are so right! It's all Israel's fault! If they would have only let the Egyptians, Palestinians, Jordanians and Lebanese over run their little post WWII land tract, we'd never be in this situation. If we'd only let Hitler finish his work, we'd never have had to worry about this problem today. Shows you what interventionism gets you - now we have a democratic Jewish state in the middle east that's ruining everything. Their neighbors are very peaceful, amiable types who just want to get along, and these damn Jews just have to keep invading their countries and stealing their land away.
Get real. We're hated in a lot more places than the middle east, places where we haven't over run nations and slaughtered hordes of innocent civilians even. That's just what you get when you oppose violent totalitarian states who want to spread their doctrine through domination and intimidation. If only we'd have just left Communist Russia alone, we'd have never had to spend all that money on the arms race, and all the other Communist regimes, like Castro's Cuba for example, would have just left us alone. Because they just want to live in peace and harmony - just like us.
Comment by Patrick Mulligan | August 31, 2006
Hey Ivan, are you sure you didn't mean to post this on Democratic Underground instead? The 9/11 commission certainly did whitewash its findings. But what they swept under the rug was the refusal of the Clinton Administration to vigilantly track and investigate the suspicious activities of the terrorists. It also ignored evidence that an operation called Able Danger identified the terrorists but that assistant attorney general Jamie Gorelick (who, astoundingly was appointed to the 9/11 commision) blocked the sharing of that information with law enforcement. And, incredibly, it found the Bush Administration, in office only eight months, bore the same responsibility for preventing the attacks as the Clintonistas, who had years to uncover the plot.
Those facts aside, let's look at your assertion that if we moderated or withdrew our support for Israel, the terrorists would not have been such awful meanies. Maybe they would have attacked only one tower of the WTC or maybe they would have simply shot at workers arriving to work at the Pentagon instead of trying to obliterate them with a jetliner.
The number one reason that Islamic fascists attacked, and continue to attack us is that Jews and Americans and the majority (for the timebeing) of Europeans and Asians are not Muslims. I'm not aware that Bali, Russia, Spain, Turkey or the Philipines are ardent supporters of Israel, yet they have all been attacked by Muslim terrorists too.
Osama stated very clearly in one of his audio tapes that if Americans would simply convert to Islam, his beef with us would be over. Ivan, your flimsy plan of appeasment would fail and it would throw a loyal American ally under the bus. (Note: This comment was edited for unacceptable language)
Comment by R. B | August 31, 2006
What Osama actually said was: "We swore that America wouldn't live in security until we live it truly in Palestine. This showed the reality of America, which puts Israel's interest above its own people's interest. America won't get out of this crisis until it gets out of the Arabian Peninsula , and until it stops its support of Israel." -Osama bin Laden, October 2001
From the 9/11 Commission:
MR. HAMILTON: … But what have you found out about why these men did what they did? What motivated them to do it?
MR. FITZGERALD: I believe they feel a sense of outrage against the United States. They identify with the Palestinian problem, they identify with people who oppose repressive regimes, and I believe they tend to focus their anger on the United States as to what would motivate a young man to sacrifice his rights, to, really, go to that extraordinary next step to do that.
Comment by Tom Murphy | September 1, 2006
Please take a look at my detailed post on this: SCANDAL: 9/11 Commissioners Bowed to Pressure to Suppress Main Motive for the 9/11 Attacks.
The book, "Without Precedent: The Inside Story of the 9/11 Commission" does reveal what those studying this issue have suspected, that some commissioners on the 9/11 Commission argued against and stopped the Commission from making a recommendation about the main motive for the 9/11 attacks: US support of Israel.
Comment by Tom Murphy | September 2, 2006
It bemuses me that someone would write an entire book on the supposed suppression of the notion that al Qaida attacked us because we support Israel. It's analogous to a coroner arriving at the site of a horrific airliner crash, surrounded by dismembered bodies and lamenting the large oak tree that was crushed by the plane's descent.
There are so many valid criticisms that can and should be amplified and levied at the 9/11 commission. Its politicized membership; its equally politicized findings and recommendations, not least of which led to the creation of the bloated, moribund Dept. of Homeland Security.
More troubling than wasting good paper magnifying this minor issue, is that it subtly suggests that the U.S. could and, perhaps, should appease al Qaida by a shift in American foreign policy. The futility of such appeasement is obvious to any regular Joe who has seen Muslims frothing with murderous rage incited by mere newspaper cartoons. More evidence can be found in the case of Spain, which upon being attacked on the eve of elections, capitulated and elected a socialist government that promptly withdrew its troops from Iraq. Al Qaida praised the Spanish people for their "wisdom" then began planning another terrorist attack on Spanish soil. (Lesson: you can't negotiate with terrorists.)
Just the other day al Qaida released a video featuring a new star, Adam Gagahn, a former heavy metal music fan from California. Now he shares top billing with al-Zawahiri. His message to infidels: convert to Islam or die. Reduced to its lowest common denominator, that's what this war is all about. Unfortunately, policy wonks in government and in policy think tanks haven't yet figured that out.
Comment by R. B | September 5, 2006
NEW VIDEO!: What motivated the 9/11 hijackers to attack the US?
The video shows the 9/11 Commission Hearing where the question "What motivated them to do it?" was finally asked. See FBI Special Agent Fitzgerald explain the motive.
Comment by Tom Murphy | September 8, 2006