Tag: 9/11

The case for declassifying 9/11 records

New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani recently ordered the release of more than 170,000 pages of city records about the air quality in Lower Manhattan after the 9/11 attacks. This release, the first in a series of planned disclosures, shows how opening decades-old records, including those that expose government wrongdoing, is in the public interest. Political will to expand such efforts elsewhere is crucial.

Thousands of 9/11 survivors and victims’ families in Lower Manhattan have fought for more than two decades to hold foreign entities liable for the terrorist attacks — only to find that one of the biggest obstacles is their own government. While successive U.S. administrations have promised closure for victims, critical records remain classified 25 years after 9/11, delaying justice and accountability.

The executive order governing classification, EO 13526, mandates that most historical records must be automatically declassified at 25 years, unless they meet certain strict criteria.

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After 9/11, the ‘War on Terror’ Was a War of Terror

Three days after terrorists killed almost 3,000 people in the United States on September 11, 2001, President George W. Bush stood behind a pulpit at the Washington National Cathedral and spoke to a nation in shock. “Our responsibility to history is already clear,” he proclaimed, “to answer these attacks and rid the world of evil.” The vow was, of course, preposterous. Yet the “war on terror” that followed was scarcely more realistic.

“Terrorism is not an enemy. It cannot be defeated. It’s a tactic,” retired US Army General William Odom told C-SPAN viewers in 2002. “It’s about as sensible to say we declare war on night attacks and expect we’re going to win that war. We’re not going to win the war on terrorism.” But the American military crusade became more about persisting than winning. The ultraviolent momentum became its own reason. The destructive search for enemies created more. As years went by and the “war on terror” label faded, US warfare was so normal in so many places that it no longer needed a name or much of a rationale.

But 25 years ago, the impulse to avenge the horrors of 9/11 was instant. Fear and rage blended into high octane for war machinery. Suddenly, overwhelming public emotions were fully in sync with the psychology of a military-industrial complex set for large-scale killing.

None of the 19 hijackers were Afghan, and Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden’s ties were much tighter with Saudi Arabia, but his presence in Afghanistan put that country in the Pentagon’s gunsights. The question in US media was not about whether, but when, to attack. The answer came on October 7 when American missiles began to explode in Afghanistan. Hours later, a Gallup poll found that “90 percent of Americans approve of the United States taking such military action, while just 5 percent are opposed, and another 5 percent are unsure.”

The air war remained quite popular in the United States. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld held daily live televised briefings that catapulted him to national adulation. A pattern set in, taking for granted that American warfare was beneficent in intent and benign in meaningful impact. People dying under American bombs and less directly didn’t count for much. “The targeting capabilities, and the care that goes into targeting, to see that the precise targets are struck, and that other targets are not struck, is as impressive as anything anyone could see,” Rumsfeld asserted. And he added, “The weapons that are being used today have a degree of precision that no one ever dreamt of.”

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CIA role in 9/11 plot omitted in new revelations of Saudi role

Twenty five years on, the mainstream media’s determination to reinforce the official story of 9/11 appears to be finally cracking. Major news outlets are now reporting on an ongoing civil suit in a New York court against Omar Bayoumi, long-accused of being the Saudi intelligence handler of 9/11 hijackers Nawaf Hazmi and Khalid Mihdhar. Back in April 2023, The Grayzone exposed how Riyadh recruited then managed the two would-be hijackers on behalf of the CIA.

As Max Blumenthal detailed in his 2019 book, The Management of Savagery, the CIA had at least sought to recruit Hazmi and Mihdhar. When a 21-page declaration by lead investigator for the Office of Military Commissions Don Canestraro finally appeared in unredacted form in 2023, the darkest suspicions about the two hijackers was confirmed: they had indeed been recruited into a joint CIA-Saudi intelligence operation which may have gone awry.

This September, numerous media reported for the first time on apparently incontrovertible evidence implicating Bayoumi in the planning and commission of the 9/11 attacks. Never before seen material, including video tapes featuring Bayoumi paintballing with Al Qaeda recruiter Anwar Awlaki – himself killed in a US drone strike in September 2011 – and walking around Washington DC in 1999 apparently scoping Capitol hill security measures, and a pencil sketch of the supposedly precise “mathematical calculation” of the Pentagon attack with an accompanying crude plane diagram.

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Trump Says He Might Release More 9/11 Records

President Donald Trump said on Sept. 13 he might release records related to the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks.

“I’m going to look at it when I get back,” he told reporters in Ireland, after being asked about recent requests from families of people who perished in the attacks.

A nephew of Lisa Marie Terry, who was in the North Tower at the World Trade Center when it was struck by one of the planes hijacked by Islamic terrorists, was among those who recently called on Trump to declassify records related to the attacks on the center and the Pentagon.

“For 25 years, the deep state has hidden the truth about what happened that day 25 years ago,” he said during a reading of the names of the victims in New York City on Sept. 11. “President Trump, you are our last hope. Release the unredacted files that implicate Saudi Arabia while what’s left of the victims’ families are still alive to see it.”

Terry Strada, whose husband, Tom Strada, died in the attacks, said during the same event that past administrations have chosen “to protect the Saudis instead of standing with the 9/11 families” and urged Trump to take action.

Fifteen of the 19 hijackers came from Saudi Arabia, according to the FBI. Some of the families have sued Saudi Arabia, alleging it is liable because officials supported Al Qaeda in the time leading up to the attacks.

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CIA ‘Proxy’: Unravelling Saudi Arabia’s True 9/11 Role

In the leadup to 9/11’s silver anniversary, it was widely reported a forthcoming New York District Court civil case brought against notorious Saudi government operative Omar Bayoumi would deliver “smoking gun” proof tying Riyadh directly to the attacks. Compelling evidence Saudi Arabian intelligence not only managed several hijackers as agents, but did so as a “proxy” for the CIA, has lain unexamined in plain sight for years. Yet, the Agency’s sinister shadowplay remains eerily absent from media consideration, despite mounting recognition of Riyadh’s role.

Bayoumi has long-been accused by major news outlets and US officials of maintaining an intimate and suspicious relationship with hijackers Nawaf Hazmi and Khalid Mihdhar, immediately upon their arrival to the US in January 2000. A subsequent FBI investigation, dubbed Operation Encore, ruled there was a “50/50 chance” Bayoumi – and the House of Saud by extension – had detailed advance knowledge of the 9/11 attacks. This explosive finding was not publicly divulged until March 2022.

However, the media remained steadfastly silent a year later when a bombshell filing from the Office of Military Commissions – the legal body overseeing prosecutions of 9/11 defendants – was released. The document summarises classified government discovery disclosures, and private interviews conducted with anonymous high-ranking US intelligence officials. Its contents shed unprecedented light on how the CIA recruited at least Hazmi and Mihdhar if not others who participated in the 9/11 attacks, “via a liaison relationship” with Riyadh’s General Intelligence Directorate (GID).

The same document elucidates how the 9/11 Commission was deliberately sabotaged by its chief Philip Zelikow, who personally endeavoured “to blunt” inquiries “into Saudi involvement with the hijackers.” Concurrently, senior FBI officials tasked with investigating the attacks were prohibited from interviewing Saudi nationals, despite “many” leads pointing directly to Riyadh’s Washington DC embassy. No wonder – probing those connections would’ve amply revealed how the GID was acting as a “cutout” for the CIA, in all its clandestine dealings with the 9/11 hijackers.

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The Post 9/11 Era: 25 Years of Revisionist History and Imperial Terrorism

Around this time of year we are told to “Never Forget”. To never forget the tragedy of the over 2,977 people who lost their lives on that fateful Tuesday morning on September 11, 2001. And yet, for the astute observer, the slogan “Never Forget” rings hollow. For a quarter of a century the phrase has been used as a propaganda tool to promote constant war, excessive government overreach, and blatant racism.

We are told to never forget, while the commemoration of the attacks are used as convenient cover to purposefully obfuscate the historical record and induce a collective amnesia as to forget the most pivotal inconvenient truths.

Never forget the nearly 3000 people who died that day, but definitely make sure you forget that roughly three times that many people have died in the years since due to exposure to toxins after New York City officials deliberately lied to the public when they assured them that the air was safe to breathe.

Definitely make sure you forget the estimated 4.5 million people that have been senselessly murdered and another 38 million displaced as a result of the so called “War on Terror” (war of terror) waged in the years sense.

Pay no mind to the fact that for two and a half decades afterwards, the national security state ushered in under post 9/11 emergency powers has trampled on every civil liberty and constitutional protection we have.

Totally disregard the numerous whistleblowers that have come forward in the years since refuting the official story.

Certainly forget that over two decades of study conducted by hundreds of architects, engineers, and other reputable scientists has conclusively debunked the official narrative and determined that the World Trade Center collapsed as a result of controlled demolition.

Don’t bring up the fact that declassified internal documents prove that US officials were aware of, and covered up, the fact that several of the hijackers were aided by Saudi intelligence, or that released court documents show at least two of the hijackers were confirmed to be Saudi-managed CIA assets.

And no matter what you do, make sure to completely ignore the fact that operatives of the Israeli intelligence service Mossad were arrested shortly after the attacks and found to have had advanced knowledge of it taking place as evidenced by their admissions of being tasked with documenting the event.

In short, the real message behind the slogan is “Never Forget the tragedy, but only remember what we want you to. Always forget how and why it happened, and what occurred afterwards.”

The how, and the why, and the what came after can generally be summed up with one word. Imperialism. To truly understand 9/11 in its broader scope, how it came about, and its destructive ramifications thereafter, one has to understand the nature of US imperialism.

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9/11 is a celebration of Western elites’ power over its citizens through corrupt media

9/11 architects keep having their dirty work replicated as we still don’t learn the lesson that the ‘enemy’ that media presents to us is nearly always false.

What is it called when you hear about one of your enemies planning an attack on you and, far from blocking it, you let it happen so as to open a sluice of opportunities and leverage not only against those who carried it out but also against your own people, as you take away all their civil liberties? Some call this a false flag attack, and we’re reminded of this recently as Americans revered all those lost in the 9/11 attacks some 25 years ago. Just before the anniversary, some of our social media timelines featured reports claiming that Benjamin Netanyahu must have known about the October 7th attacks by Hamas – but let them happen so as to begin a new war against Gazans in particular, which would ethnically cleanse them from the face of Palestine. Indeed, it seems unbelievable to think that Mossad, which we are told is the best intelligence agency in the world, would not have informers who would have tipped Bibi off. And if you examine how much of Israel’s longer-term objectives were reached – a genocide which could be presented to the world as a war against Hamas – there can be little doubt that his more recent statements about being as shocked as everyone else while it was happening cannot be true. If Mossad has the resources, technical knowledge and informer base to hunt down all of the Munich 1972 bombers and murder them in cold blood in Europe, then it should have had the intelligence beforehand on October 7th.

How do 19 jihadists enter the U.S., train in flying schools and not get spotted by either the CIA or the FBI? The answer is they didn’t. But if you assert the probability that 9/11 was an inside job, the accusation of ‘conspiracy theorist’ is usually wheeled out in rapid time – just as if you question the narrative from London and Washington on the Ukraine war, you are labelled “on Putin’s payroll”. The truth about 9/11 is that it was almost certainly staged by Mossad, who had used their technical abilities to reach out and control the bombers via chat windows, letting them believe they were being recruited by Osama Bin Laden. The intelligence agencies knew about the plot and, with George W. Bush’s approval, let it happen, as the benefits to the President and his cronies were considerable – but not as great as Israel’s. The Zionist entity hit the jackpot with 9/11. For decades, the fear from people like Bibi was that Western woke values would finally whitewash Palestinians and demonise the Zionists and everything they did. Israel needed a gigantic and immediate new level of Muslim hatred from ignorant Westerners, which would transform that anger into greater support and sympathy for what Israel had in mind for its Palestinians. It wanted that hatred to be translated into global political support, but also financial help from the U.S. in particular – but what the Zionists didn’t count on was the cherry on top of the cake. The objective was always to get the U.S. military to invade the Middle East and start a war against “jihadists”, further fuelling Muslim hatred via the body bags returning home. What they hadn’t reckoned on was that, in the chaos of the Iraq war, George W. would refuse to pay the back pay of Saddam’s regular soldiers – which, in essence, became the catalyst for what is ISIS today being formed. This, the Israelis couldn’t have dreamt of in their initial 9/11 plan – as the birth of Al Qaeda and then ISIS became not only the enemy of convenience for Obama and then Trump in their “war against terror”, which worked for Israel on many levels; but oddly enough, the same groups became useful mercenaries to do America and Israel’s dirty work in the region when they were needed to hit Iran and its allies. The attacks in London and Paris by individuals there inspired by what they saw of ISIS on YouTube just kept paying dividends for Israel.

9/11 was not the first of its kind. We should never forget that Pearl Harbour was also a false flag attack, as Truman (a senator at the time) and FDR knew it was coming and didn’t do anything to block it. They had the intelligence that an attack in the Pacific was imminent, and their own people told them Pearl Harbour was a sitting duck.

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US War on Terror in 76 Countries Cost $6.5 Trillion

A US study published earlier this week revealed that the United States’ war on terrorism has cost $6.5 trillion, reported The National magazine based on report by the Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs at Brown University.

The ongoing war on terror began in October 2001, a month after the September 11 attacks in the US.

US President Donald Trump revealed in one of his tweets that his country has spent 7 trillion dollars on the Middle East alone.

Estimates predict that US loans to fund the war will result in an 8 trillion dollar debt by 2025.

The number of countries involved in the war has reached 76 or 39 percent of the countries in the world. The tally also lists regions where US forces are deployed on the ground, such as Yemen, Somalia, Libya, Iraq and Afghanistan. It also lists where American advisors are training local forces on counter-terrorism methods.

Experts said there are currently no real discussions in the United States on the cost of the war due to the nature of the conflict that lacks no stable fronts or boundaries.

A map presented by the study of the 76 countries linked to the war raised questions over the effectiveness of Washington’s approach on the conflict. They explained that the approach has turned many major cities into rubble and forced the displacement of millions of people, which has destabilized many host countries.

The map also showed the extent in which terrorist groups have spread across the world, turning the conflict against extremists into a worldwide phenomenon. The conflict stretches from as far as Southeast Asia, the Philippines, passes through the Middle East and reaches North Africa and Niger in the west of the continent.

The National said that the ongoing US war on Afghanistan is the longest in American history and it is predicted to go on even longer, especially under Trump’s administration. The current president had unveiled a national defense strategy two months ago in which he agreed to send more troops to Kabul and increase airstrikes against terrorist groups, including the Taliban.

The magazine said that the situation in Afghanistan indicates that the war will continue for a long time and it will extend beyond the country’s borders. A US Secretary of Defense report spoke of some 20 terrorist and radical groups operating in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

The National traced back the beginnings of the war on terror. It said that the US initially launched the war by attacking Afghanistan in order to eliminate Taliban, which had great control over the country. The beginning of the war seemed promising and American forces were able to make advances in Kabul. The Taliban had incurred enough defeats that its fighters had asked US troops to allow them to lay down their arms and return to their homes.

This initial success led senior officials in the administration of then President George W. Bush to raise their expectations and ambitions. Bush and his Vice President Donald Rumsfeld then believed that there was a need to extend this success in countering terrorism to 60 other countries.

At the time, Washington saw the war on terror as being restricted to one country at a time. It then began preparing for extending this war, setting Iraq as its next target.

The war led to the toppling of Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein, but the National said that the US had not only intended for his ouster, but it had also set its sights on the country’s oil wealth.

A British official, who was close to the Bush administration at the time, was quoted by the magazine as saying: “Everyone wants to go to Baghdad, but real men want to go to Tehran.”

He implied that the US invasion of Iraq was not really aimed at combating terrorism, but its real target was Iraq’s oil and Washington should have shifted its attention to Iran, which had transformed into an extremist state after the 1978 Khomeini revolution.

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The Dancing Israelis: FBI Docs Shed Light on Apparent Mossad Foreknowledge of 9/11 Attacks

For nearly two decades, one of the most overlooked and little known arrests made in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks was that of the so-called “High Fivers,” or the “Dancing Israelis.” However, new information released by the FBI on May 7 has brought fresh scrutiny to the possibility that the “Dancing Israelis,” at least two of whom were known Mossad operatives, had prior knowledge of the attacks on the World Trade Center.

Shortly after 8:46 a.m. on the day of the attacks, just minutes after the first plane struck the World Trade Center, five men — later revealed to be Israeli nationals — had positioned themselves in the parking lot of the Doric Apartment Complex in Union City, New Jersey, where they were seen taking pictures and filming the attacks while also celebrating the destruction of the towers and “high fiving” each other. At least one eyewitness interviewed by the FBI had seen the Israelis’ van in the parking lot as early as 8:00 a.m. that day, more than 40 minutes prior to the attack. The story received coverage in U.S. mainstream media at the time but has since been largely forgotten.

The men — Sivan Kurzberg, Paul Kurzberg, Oded Ellner, Yaron Shimuel and Omar Marmari — were subsequently apprehended by law enforcement and claimed to be Israeli tourists on a “working holiday” in the United States where they were employed by a moving company, Urban Moving Systems. Upon his arrest, Sivan Kurzberg told the arresting officer, “We are Israeli; we are not your problem. Your problems are our problems, The Palestinians are the problem.”

For years, the official story has been that these individuals, while they had engaged in “immature” behavior by celebrating and being “visibly happy” in their documenting of the attacks, had no prior knowledge of the attack. However, newly released FBI copies of the photos taken by the five Israelis strongly suggest that these individuals had prior knowledge of the attacks on the World Trade Center. The copies of the photos were obtained via a FOIA request made by a private citizen.

According to a former high-ranking American intelligence official who spoke to the Jewish Daily Forward in 2002, the FBI concluded in its investigation that the five Israelis arrested “were conducting a Mossad surveillance mission and that their employer, Urban Moving Systems of Weehawken, NJ, served as a front.” At least two of the men arrested were determined to have direct links to the Mossad after their names appeared in a CIA-FBI database of foreign intelligence operatives. According to one of their lawyers, one of the men, Paul Kurzberg, had previously worked for the Mossad in another country prior to arriving in the United States. Another of those arrested, Oded Ellner, subsequently stated on Israeli TV that the five Israelis had been in New York at the time “to document the event,” meaning the attack on the World Trade Center.

The FOIA release of the photos is notable because responses to prior FOIA requests to the Department of Justice, which oversees the FBI, had previously claimed that all of the photos taken by the Israeli nationals had been destroyed in January 2014. The photos themselves are heavily redacted, making it impossible to see the Israelis’ facial expressions. However, previously declassified yet heavily redacted FBI reports state that the Israelis are “visibly happy” in nearly every photo, even when the burning towers are in the background. The photos released are also not original copies and instead appear to be photocopies of photocopies of the original pictures. In addition, of the original 76 pictures developed by authorities from the camera in the Israelis’ possession, only 14 were released.

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Declassified CIA files reveal Clinton and Bush received warnings about Bin Laden plotting an ‘explosive-packed airplane’ attack on U.S. soil prior to 9/11

Marking the 25th anniversary of the September 11th attacks, the Trump administration has declassified a collection of Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) files confirming that former Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush were both made aware of potential Al Qaeda schemes to attack the U.S. using explosive-packed aircraft beforehand.

On Friday, through the newly released 71 documents, it was revealed that Clinton and Bush separately received distinct, high-level briefings during their respective terms in office regarding threats to the homeland.

In a Presidential Daily Briefing provided to President Clinton on September 10, 1998, intelligence officials reported that the Al Qaeda leader intended to strike on U.S. soil. The brief noted intelligence agencies “had received four reports from highly questionable sources suggesting Usama [sic] Bin Ladin is making plans to conduct an attack in the United States.”

“Bin Ladin late last month said his preferred option is to strike the U.S. on its own soil in Washington,” the document warned, adding that “the same group responsible for the [U.S. Embassy] bombings in Africa [Kenya and Tanzania] may fly an explosive-packed airplane into a U.S. city.”

Just months later, Clinton’s December 4, 1998 Presidential Daily Briefing included an item explicitly titled, “Bin Ladin [sic] Preparing To Hijack U.S. Aircraft.”

The report highlighted that “some members of the Bin Ladin network have received hijack training” and cautioned that “Bin Ladin could be weighing other types of operations against U.S. aircraft.”

“Bin Ladin might implement plans to hijack a U.S. aircraft before the beginning of Ramadan on 20 December and that two members of the operational team had evaded security checks during a recent trial run at an unidentified New York airport.”

By February 11, 2000, presidential intelligence aides reported that authorities had seized a manifesto outlining possible targets “such as the Statue of Liberty.”  

Similar warnings followed into the next administration. On July 25, 2001, President Bush was provided a file titled, “Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S.”

“Al-Qa’ida [sic] members-including some who are U.S. citizens—have resided in or traveled to the U.S. for years, and the group apparently maintains a support structure that could aid attacks,” the memo warned.

“After U.S. missile strikes on his base in Afghanistan in 1998, Bin Ladin told followers he wanted to retaliate in Washington,” the document stated, further noting the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) had uncovered “patterns of suspicious activity in this country consistent with preparations for hijackings or other types of attacks, including recent surveillance of federal buildings in New York.”

The documents were released by the Trump administration as part of President Donald Trump’s initiative to foster better transparency between the U.S. government and the American public. The move follows the previous release of long-awaited secret files concerning the assassinations of President John F. Kennedy, Robert F. Kennedy, and Martin Luther King Jr.

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