Tag: 9/11

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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25 Years Ago a Bunch of Important People Skipped Work for No Reason

25 years ago today a bunch of important people decided not to go to work at the World Trade Center. Because this was totally random and none of them could have possibly had any idea what was coming I think this is evidence that the Protestants were right. Prosperity gospel is real. If you have a lot of money God will protect you and will make sure you do not go to work on the day of a terrorist attack.

Here are a few stories from those God selected for predestination:

Howard Lutnick (Then CEO of Cantor Fitzgerald, current US Secretary of Commerce):

As far as I can ascertain there is only one time in the entire life of Kyle Lutnick that his father Howard drove him to school. This was on the morning of 9/11. You’d think Howard would have done it a few more times after in order to cover his tracks but I guess spending time with your child can be pretty annoying.

Howard Lutnick had an office on the 105th floor of the North Tower. He was there bright and early every day, almost without exception. During an oval office meeting earlier this year Lutnick laughed uncomfortably as President Trump recited the details of his story:

“[Howard Lutnick]’s wife insisted he finally, after years, take his child to school. So he took his child to school that one day, because normally he would have been in the building at 6 o’clock in the morning…for five years he didn’t do it.” –Donald Trump

Howard’s sister Edie Lutnick was scheduled to meet a law client at her office on the 101st floor of the North Tower. This meeting was canceled at the last minute and she also skipped work that day. Their brother Gary Lutnick attended work at Cantor Fitzgerald as normal and died in the attacks.

In 2001 the first day of kindergarten for New Yorkers in public school was Thursday, September 6th. This hasn’t stopped press accounts from repeating Howard’s claim that Tuesday, September 11th was Kyle Lutnick’s first day of Kindergarten at the private Horace Mann school. As Horace Mann hasn’t released any records we just have to go on Howard’s word. Howard also claimed to have cut contact with his neighbor Jeffrey Epstein by 2005. Subsequently a photograph emerged of him on Epstein’s island in 2012.

Larry Silverstein (Owner of Silverstein Properties and leaseholder of the WTC):

After taking over the lease of the World Trade Center in July 2001 Larry Silverstein held breakfast meetings every morning at the Windows on the World restaurant on the 106th floor of the North Tower1. Every morning except 9/11 of course. That day he had a meeting scheduled there but claims his wife insisted he go to a dermatology appointment instead.

Larry Silverstein’s son Roger and his daughter Lisa were vice-presidents at Silverstein Properties. They also attended daily morning meetings with clients at Windows on the World. Both were “running late” on 9/11 and missed work.

Larry Silverstein’s publicist for more than 30 years, Howard Rubenstein, moved a scheduled 8 AM meeting back to 9 AM and survived. Silverstein’s top aide, Geoffrey Wharton, did attend a morning meeting at Windows on the World but left it early and barely survived.

Silverstein Properties had led a group of investors in acquiring a 99 year lease on WTC buildings 1, 2, 4 and 5 for $3.2 billion. The same month that the deal closed they took out a $3.55 billion insurance policy on the buildings. Initially after the attacks Silverstein sought a $7 billion pay out, stating that the two planes counted as two separate incidents. He was eventually awarded a $4.55 billion settlement.

L. Paul Bremer (CEO of Marsh Crisis Consulting, later Administrator of the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq):

Paul Bremer was CEO of Marsh Crisis Consulting, a subsidiary of Marsh & McLennan. He had an office somewhere between the 93rd and 100th floor of the North Tower. Fortunately for him he was traveling that day. Within 4 hours of the attack he was on TV in Washington DC attributing responsibility to Osama bin Laden. He did not mention that hundreds of his colleagues and coworkers had just been murdered (the final count was 358) or really display any emotion at all. Later as leader of the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq he collapsed the Iraqi state by dissolving the Iraqi military and firing tens of thousands of bureaucrats and teachers. This does not make any sense as a governance strategy but it does make sense if the goal was to turn Iraq into a basket case that couldn’t threaten Israel.

Jerome Hauer (Managing director of the Crisis and Consequence Management Group at Kroll Associates. Formerly first director of the NYC Office of Emergency Management):

The late FBI agent John O’Neil has been called “the FBI’s foremost expert on Osama bin Laden.” By 1998 he was obsessed with Al Qaeda and believed they were planning an attack within the United States. His reward for such diligence was to have his career stalled in bureaucratic limbo and to be subjected to an internal investigation, quickly leaked to the press, for misplacing his briefcase. In August 2001 he was approached by his old friend Jerome Hauer with a proposal. Retire from the FBI and become Kroll Associates’ head of security at the World Trade Center for a $300,000 salary. He accepted and died in the attacks.

John O’Neil’s office was located on the 34th floor of the North Tower. On that fateful day where was Jerome Hauer, his boss at Kroll who had brought him over? We’re not sure but he definitely wasn’t on the 34th floor. Hauer first appears at the CBS News studios in New York at 1:11 PM to give an interview to Dan Rather. He attributes the attacks to bin Laden and dismisses the possibility of any explosives having been placed in the buildings.

Jerome Hauer had previously been the first director of the NYC Office of Emergency Management (OEM) under mayor Rudy Giuliani. It was at his direction that the OEM emergency command center was placed on the 23rd floor of World Trade Center 7. The NYPD had vigorously objected to this but plans went ahead and the site was finished in 1999.

This location was useless in the attacks and was evacuated by 9:30 AM. The only people left in the OEM command center were Barry Jennings and Michael Hess, both of whom stated that there was an explosion within the building that trapped them on the 8th floor.

Jim Pierce (Managing director at Aon Corporation, George W. Bush’s cousin):

Jim Pierce was scheduled to attend an Aon Corporation meeting on the 102nd floor of the South Tower. He says this meeting was moved to “the 4th Floor of Omni tower” which most sources identify as the Millennium hotel. Somehow a dozen people were not told about this last minute change of venue and attended the meeting on the 102nd floor. Eleven of them died. Barbara Bush offhandedly mentions this story in her memoir.

Mitt Romney (Former CEO of Bain Capital, then President of the Salt Lake City Organizing Committee for the Olympics):

On the morning of 9/11 Mitt Romney was supposed to attend a press conference in New York’s Battery Park to announce the names of the torch bearers for the upcoming 2002 Salt Lake City Olympics. Battery Park is just a few blocks south of the WTC. Everybody in the vicinity on 9/11 was covered with toxic dust when the towers collapsed. Happily for Romney the press conference was moved from September 11th at 9 AM to September 12th at 9 AM.

Sarah Ferguson (Former Duchess of York):

The ex-wife of Prince Andrew and mother of both his children had an 8:45 AM meeting scheduled on the 101st floor of the North Tower. “Heavy traffic” that morning kept her out of the building. Ferguson was a close associate of Jeffrey Epstein. The late pedophile had paid off some debts for her. Disturbingly the charity she ran out of the World Trade Center, and the reason for her early morning meeting, was called Chances for Children. She had gotten the office space from Howard Lutnick.

Jimmy Dunne III (Co-Founder and Managing Director at Sandler O’Neill and Partners):

Jimmy Dunne III should have been with his employees on the 104th floor of the South Tower that day but he decided to play golf instead. 68 of the 171 personnel at the investment bank Sandler O’Neill and Partners died in the attacks. Dunne would later go on to help broker the tentative and now defunct Saudi PGA Tour-LIV deal.

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America After 9/11: 25 Years of Fear, War, Surveillance, and Permanent Emergency

“I tell you, freedom and human rights in America are doomed. The U.S. government will lead the American people in  –  and the West in general  –  into an unbearable hell and a choking life.” – Osama bin Laden (October 2001)

“GIVE THEM NIGHTMARES.” – President Donald Trump (September 2026)

Days before the 25th anniversary of 9/11, President Trump flooded his Truth Social account with AI-generated fantasies of himself commanding armies of giant, red-eyed robots.

In one, Trump strides through a darkened Washington surrounded by robotic soldiers beneath the words, “THEY WILL NEVER SLEEP AGAIN.” Another declares, “THEY WILL DREAM OF US FOREVER.” A third depicts Trump seated on a mechanical throne, surrounded by an army of robots and the presidential seal, beneath the warning: “GIVE THEM NIGHTMARES.”

Twenty-five years after 9/11, one has to ask: has the nightmare ever really ended?

For a quarter-century, Americans have been governed by fear: fear of terrorists and foreign enemies, fear of domestic extremists and political opponents, fear of the next attack, the next crisis, the next emergency.

That fear has given us endless war, mass surveillance, militarized police, secret courts, indefinite detention, government watchlists, domestic military deployments and an imperial presidency armed with powers that would have been unthinkable before 9/11.

Now the man entrusted with the imperial powers of the modern-day presidency is publicly imagining himself enthroned over robotic armies, raining destruction on his enemies and promising nightmares.

The imagery may be unhinged from reality, but the powers of the presidency are not.

Neither are the questions raised by Trump’s increasingly unhinged public behavior about whether any president – especially one armed with the accumulated powers of the post-9/11 national-security state – is mentally and temperamentally fit to wield them.

That is where America’s two great anniversaries of 2026 collide.

On July 4, America celebrated 250 years since the Declaration of Independence, born from a revolt against King George III and a system in which too much power rested in the hands of one ruler. At its heart was the radical proposition that government derives its just powers from the consent of the people.

On September 11, we mark 25 years since the terrorist attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people, shattered the nation’s sense of security, and set in motion a massive expansion of presidential, military and national-security power.

America began by rebelling against a king.

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NYPD launching ‘two major security operations’ ahead of 9/11 memorial and Rosh Hashanah

The New York Police Department (NYPD) announced increased security measures for the city ahead of September’s Jewish Holy Days and the 25th anniversary of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.

Speaking at One Police Plaza in Manhattan on Wednesday, New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani (D-N.Y.) and NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch announced that the department will implement “heightened security measures” this weekend as Jewish New Yorkers prepare to gather at synagogues for Rosh Hashanah.

The Jewish New Year begins Friday evening, following the 25th anniversary commemoration of the September 11th attacks, when thousands of victims’ family members, former presidents and other dignitaries are expected to gather at Ground Zero in Lower Manhattan.

“As you’ve heard me say in preparation for so many events this year, we have amped up or increased our deployments for large events this year, particularly since the start of hostilities in Iran,” Tisch said at a security briefing.

“Our deployment this year at the World Trade Center for 9/11 will be larger than it has been in previous years, as will be our deployment this year for the High Holidays at shuls and yeshivas and Jewish cultural institutions, just based on the reality of the world that we live in today,” she continued.

“Even as shootings and murders have fallen to historic lows, hate crimes are moving in the wrong direction through the first eight months of this year,” Tisch stated. “Confirmed hate crimes citywide are up 16%, and antisemitic hate crimes are up 9%. And once again, more than half of all confirmed hate crimes in New York City have targeted Jewish New Yorkers, even though Jews make up only about 10% of this city’s population. Those numbers are deeply disturbing.”

During her remarks, Tisch explained that the NYPD’s Counterterrorism Bureau and heavy weapons teams will maintain a visible presence patrolling Manhattan as part of two major security operations.

The first centers on Lower Manhattan, which Mamdani warned will be largely closed to the public on Friday morning during the remembrance ceremony, with the second being the heightened security at Jewish cultural institutions across the city.

Tisch also announced that the U.S. Secret Service will install a security fence along the east side of the West Side Highway—from Liberty to Fulton Streets—as well as around the entire perimeter of the 9/11 Memorial site.

“And because of the security footprint around the site, New Yorkers should expect significant traffic and pedestrian restrictions throughout Lower Manhattan,” Tisch warned.

During the security briefing, Mamdani also emphasized that despite the sensitive time, there are currently no known threats against New York.

“As we look ahead to Friday evening, NYPD personnel will continue monitoring for any threats, both online and in person,” Mamdani said. “Let me be clear. There are no current known specific or credible threats against New York at this time. We will continue to work closely across all levels of city government, as well as with state and federal partners, to keep our city safe.”

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9/11’s Aftereffect: The Constitutional Accountability Abyss

Over the last several weeks in the lead up to the 25th anniversary of al Qaeda’s attack on the U.S., I’ve had American and foreign journalists ask me the same question: how did 9/11 change America?

My answer has generally been some version of this: 9/11 didn’t change us, we allowed it to change us, and in doing so critically damaged our very own political way of life.

We allowed our Arab American and Muslim American fellow citizens to become targets of federal surveillance and to be placed on secret government “watch lists” in the absence of any evidence they’d committed a crime.

We allowed the creation of the most sweeping and invasive surveillance dragnet in American history – first in secret via the National Security Agency’s (NSA) STELLAR WIND program and then openly through the passage of the PATRIOT Act just six weeks after the attacks.

We allowed a previous American president to lead our nation into a war against a country – Iraq – that had nothing to do with al Qaeda’s terrorist atrocities. The drama came complete with a televised presentation of “evidence” to the United Nations Security Council of the continuing threat Saddam Hussein allegedly posed to the region – evidence that turned out to be false.

We allowed those who opposed George W. Bush’s war of choice against Iraq to be targeted by the FBI with surveillance and informant penetration operations that mirrored some of the worst Cold War era tactics employed by J. Edgar Hoover and the organization he led.

We allowed our government to set up secret torture chambers around the world for captured Arab and Muslim men – the CIA’s “rendition, detention, and interrogation” (RDI) program (a.k.a., the torture program). Some, like Khalid Shaik Mohammad (KSM), were directly responsible for the attacks. Others not only had nothing to do with the attacks but no involvement with terrorism at all. And through it all, the U.S. abandoned the very principles of justice under law and due process that it had proclaimed to the world since the trials of German and Japanese war criminals after World War II. That torture program has already damaged the legal case against KSM.

And we allowed the president who authorized these things to get away with all of them and leave office legally unmolested.

I’ve used the phrase “we allowed” because we who are citizens of the Republic cannot escape our responsibility for what George W. Bush did, even if we voted for his opponents in 2000 and 2004.

Yes, there were those who went into the streets to protest the Iraq War and the creation of the Guantanamo prison and its dysfunctional, sham trial system. Those who risked police batons, tasers, and tear gas to raise their voices against unjust wars and the torture of those we captured deserve remembrance and praise. But they were too few in number to alter the course of events because too many of their fellow Americans did not join them when it mattered most.

I witnessed these events from a different angle, that of a senior House staffer working for then-New Jersey Democrat Rush Holt during the final four years of Bush’s presidency. Holt’s repeated efforts to stop runaway surveillance programs from his position on the House Intelligence Committee frequently came to naught because of the refusal of many of his colleagues to join his efforts.

Bush’s authorization of the secret STELLAR WIND mass electronic surveillance program after the 9/11 attacks was a direct violation of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) of 1978. It literally represented an impeachable offense, as was his authorization of the CIA’s torture program. And even though multiple impeachment resolutions against Bush or then-Vice President Dick Cheney were introduced, they went nowhere – even though Democrats controlled the House during Bush’s last two years in office.

The fact that not a single House GOP member signed onto any of those resolutions no doubt contributed to the failure to hold Bush accountable for his misconduct in office. It was a posture that stood in stark contrast to the seven House Judiciary Committee Republicans who joined their Democrat colleagues in voting to impeach Richard Nixon for his crimes in office over 30 years earlier.

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