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William Rivers Pitt | The Children of Aftermath
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (t r u t h o u t)
Sun Sep 11 16:21:29 2011
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t r u t h o u t | 09.11
William Rivers Pitt | The Children of Aftermath
http://www.truth-out.org/children-aftermath/1315597025
William Rivers Pitt, Truthout: "All across America, there are classrooms filled with fifth graders who only know the World Trade Center from pictures. They have achieved the final perfection of George Orwell's vision - we have always been at war with Eurasia - because they have never known a world where their country has not been at war in Iraq and Afghanistan. As with the Towers, some of these children only know a parent from pictures, because that parent was killed in those wars. They know what anthrax is, what an IED is, what WMD stands for. They know about fear, for it was fed to them, literally, with mother's milk. For them, it has always been this way."
Relics, Artifacts and Memories: A Year Spent With World Trade Center Steel
http://www.truth-out.org/relics-artifacts-and-memories-year-spent-world-trade-center-steel/1315724400
Amanda Lin Costa, Truthout: "I didn't set off to become an expert in World Trade Center (WTC) steel but recently it occurred to me I was becoming one. The thought first dawned on me about a month ago, after I spent the day filming at The National Institute for Standards and Technology (NIST) as part of a documentary I have been working on about WTC steel... It was fascinating to see the meticulous samples nestled in shallow drawers that reminded me, ironically, of the flat files used by architects to store the blueprints used to build monumental structures. These drawers contained the clues to the collapse of the world's most famous buildings."
Education: Our True Homeland Security
http://www.truth-out.org/education-our-true-homeland-security/1315582316
William J. Astore, Truthout: "How about redefining education as our true Homeland Security? A security based not on military power or intrusive surveillance but on creativity and critical thinking and informed citizenship? How about stimulating and facilitating a lifelong pursuit of fresh ideas and innovative solutions to national and global challenges? There are, of course, sound and practical reasons for such a pursuit, such as maintaining our economic competitiveness. But learning how to learn is also a critical way to arm ourselves against propaganda and manipulation, a way to build one's very own BS detector, if you will."
Border Security After 9/11: Ten Years of Waste, Immigrant Crackdowns and New Drug Wars
http://www.truth-out.org/border-security-after-911-ten-years-waste-immigrant-crackdowns-and-new-drug-wars/1315606529
Tom Barry, Truthout: "Prior to the September 11 terrorist attacks, the term 'border security' was rarely used. Today, however, it is both a fundamental goal of US domestic security and the defining paradigm for border operations. Despite the federal government's routine declarations of its commitment to securing the border, neither Congress nor the executive branch has ever clearly defined the term 'border security.'"
Many Deportees Unwittingly Waive Rights, Report Says
http://www.truth-out.org/many-deportees-unwittingly-waive-rights-report-says/1315751904
Paloma Esquivel, McClatchy Newspapers: "The US has deported more than 160,000 immigrants, the vast majority of whom had no legal representation - and signed documents they may not have understood - under a program that carries severe penalties should they re-enter the country, a report released Thursday said. According to the National Immigration Law Center and professors at Stanford Law School and Western State University College of Law, immigrants often signed the so-called stipulated removals because they believed it was the only way to avoid prolonged detention. But by agreeing to the removal order, immigrants can be barred from returning to the US and be subject to criminal prosecution for illegal re-entry."
A Year Before 9/11, Intelligence Unit Determined World Trade Center, Pentagon "Most Likely Buildings to Be Attacked"
http://www.truth-out.org/intelligence-unit-determined-world-trade-center-pentagon-most-likely-buildings-be-attacked/131571460
Jeffrey Kaye and Jason Leopold, Truthout: "The 'intelligence failures' leading up to the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon are an issue the media - and lawmakers - put to bed years ago, despite the fact that new information continues to trickle out, undercutting the integrity of the official investigations into who knew what and when. It was an exclusive story Truthout published May 23 in the wake of Bin Laden's death, focusing on a little-known intelligence unit ordered to stop tracking his movements prior to 9/11, that led Iron Man to contact Truthout to share previously undisclosed documents he recently obtained under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), which appear to cast further doubt on the official narrative and suggests high-level military and intelligence officials withheld key evidence from Congressional lawmakers probing the attacks."
EU Steps Toward Common Aid
http://www.truth-out.org/eu-steps-toward-common-aid/1315757904
Daan Bauwens, Inter Press Service: "The European Commission has decided to push for more ambitious reforms ahead of the aid effectiveness summit to be held in Busan later this year. The European Commission, the executive arm of the European Union, is looking for a common EU position that could save the EU 4 billion euros which can be spent on additional aid. But NGOs have expressed concern about the Commission's new proposal to drop several indicators of aid effectiveness."
Global Groundswell: Mad as Hell
http://www.truth-out.org/global-groundswell-mad-hell/1314378071
Eric Best, Truthout: "In Israel, a social movement aimed at income inequality and housing prices has sprung up from a youth Facebook protest.... In Japan, a woman on a farm confronts the lackadaisical government response to radiation by conducting tests of her own - to discover that some levels are as high as those surrounding Chernobyl.... In Syria, a protester observing the government's murderous crackdown on dissidents, dismisses the latest brutal violence.... These are just a few examples of grassroots reactions around the world to governments that appear out of touch with or indifferent to the lives of the people."
9/11 and the Manufacture of Consent
http://www.truth-out.org/nine-eleven-and-manufacture-consent/1315759986
Jean-Claude Paye, l'Humanite: "If, traditionally, war is a hallmark of sovereignty, so it is with war on terror, but in this case it is not an act of sovereignty abroad only, but also at home, to control populations. It is both an aggressive act and a police operation, an action against 'rogue States', with the possibility of criminalizing social movements. Indeed, statutes (written laws) make it possible to prosecute any act the objective of which is to influence governmental policy or to exert pressure on an international organization."
How the Most Dangerous Game Is Being Played
http://www.truth-out.org/how-most-dangerous-game-being-played/1314372290
Joseph Natoli, Truthout: "Today's Millennial generation is not threatened by a compulsory draft, but only by an economy that is not robust enough to give them the high-end salaries that Tom Cruise, for instance, in the film 'The Firm' was offered. A volunteer military suits a generation that prizes personal choice above everything. The US can be fighting in several countries besides Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya, but that - improbable and impossible as it is - is not threatening to those who can simply say, 'No, I don't want to join the military.' Any attachment or concern with wars ends at that point unless, of course, a loved one is not free as you are, but in the war."
Truthout's Jason Leopold: 9/11 Not an "Intelligence Failure" (Video)
http://www.truth-out.org/truthouts-jason-leopold-911-not-intelligence-failure/1315766031
Ray McGovern and Jason Leopold, The Real News: Truthout's Jason Leopold and former CIA analyst Ray McGovern say that intelligence agencies had the information; the question is why they didn't use it.
TRUTHOUT'S BUZZFLASH DAILY HEADLINES
We've wallowed too long in our victimhood.
9/11 was indeed a devastating loss of personal life. Those who died were mostly US citizens, but included people of all nations, such as the wait staff and bus boys at the sky high restaurant in the Twin Towers. It was a "shared" loss, indicative of the international inclusiveness of America.
But having never experienced a significant mainland attack since the War of 1812 - as Noam Chomsky points out in his remarkable book, "9/11: Was There an Alternative?" - we feel ourselves invulnerable as a country. Kurt Vonnegut - who survived the allied fire bombing of Dresden in an underground slaughterhouse for prisoners of war - once commented that America was distinct among Western allies, in that it never knew the devastation of cities under siege by bombers, rockets, tanks and mortar attack.
Then there is our national hubris, that American Exceptionalism itself was under attack on September 11, 2001. Like all powerful empires, we feel invulnerable and crush anyone perceived to have pierced through our bubble of "invincibility."
Chomsky and others call 9/11 a crime, which our government treated as a justification for wars that are still continuing ten years later, draining us of military lives in excess of those lost on 9/11, causing civilian deaths in the hundreds of thousands, and being a central contributing factor to the rise in the American deficit.
Europe, which endured WW II - in which some 30 million people were killed - stopped letting the nightmarish loss of life and destruction hamper its reconstruction more quickly than America has let go of 9/11, which it still clings to and wallows in.
BuzzFlash at Truthout, publishing since May of 2000, reported and broke stories on the attack on the Twin Towers (and the Pentagon) and the Bush/Cheney administration use of the tragedy to launch military conflicts of empire. At the time of 9/11, the Bush administration's poll numbers were low and dropping. All that changed on 9/11, after which the full propaganda strength of the White House and corporate mass media focused on putting US citizens in a state of fear to accomplish strategic military goals to enhance America's superpower status and extend our military footprint.
Yes, BuzzFlash at Truthout focused on verifiable fact that Bush and Rice were warned of likely Al-Qaeda hijackings and how the stenographic DC press let them off the hook on their egregious unintentional or intentional lapse in heightening airport security that might indeed have prevented 9/11.
Rice eventually defended her failed responsibility to protect us by saying something like "but we didn't receive warnings that they would fly them into buildings," which was specious because US intelligence knew for some time of just such a possibility as part of an overall Al-Qaeda strategy. Bush finally admitted, during his presidency, that they were warned of hijackings, but not of a specific target so his administration didn't take action to protect the World Trade Center. The corporate press thought those excuses made sense, except for the simple logical fact that if Bush and Rice, among others, had taken increased steps to prevent hijackings, they might have prevented the hijackings that brought down the Twin Towers and blew up part of the Pentagon.
Furthermore, in exclusive reporting by Jason Leopold and Jeff Kaye on Truthout, it is revealed that US intelligence services did indeed know of Al-Qaeda interest in targeting the Twin Towers and the Pentagon: "high-level DoD officials held discussions about DO5's intelligence activities between the summer of 2000 and June 2001 revolving around al-Qaeda's interest in striking the Pentagon, the World Trade Center (WTC), and other targets."
In other words, at least some individuals in the Bush administration were aware that the terrorist organization had set its sights on those structures prior to 9/11 and, apparently, government officials failed to act on those warnings.
And then there are all the lingering threads, still unconnected, of how the CIA and FBI were on to some of the hijackers, not to mention the quickly erased connections of the hijackers to Saudi Arabian backers. There are so many unanswered questions, even more after a 9/11 commission whitewashed the dirty laundry surrounding the attack.
But this much we know. The narrative of our government switched on a dime after 9/11, and we were cast into a state of what Chomsky calls "manufactured consent," whipped up by a bombardment of jingoistic rhetoric coming from the federal government and the airwaves. We were kept in a constant state of fear with crayon-colored alerts. We were pawns in the great game of empire.
As a result, our nation is on the verge of a double-dip recession. While nations like Germany forge ahead economically, Osama bin Laden achieved one of his major goals: crippling America economically.
We are still wallowing in our victimhood. We had our time to grieve, but we haven't moved on.
After World War II, the US helped rebuild Europe - with the visionary Marshall Plan that even turned Germany (our former Nazi adversary) - into thriving democracies and economic engines.
Since Barack Obama was elected, the Republican Party shifted the national narrative from 9/11 to the deficit, which - as noted earlier - has been a substantial contributor to our financial shortfall. But 9/11 has continued to be an albatross around the neck of national progress and the closure of grief and grievance.
That will continue to weigh upon us unnecessarily until we get on with a new narrative of innovation, a belief in the strength of democracy, and an understanding that overextended empire cannot endure indefinitely while undertaking squandered and prolonged military expeditions.
We have appropriately mourned those who died in the attack of 9/11. It is time that we honor them by advancing as a nation to write the next chapter of the great experiment in democracy known as America.
Mark Karlin
Editor, BuzzFlash at Truthout
On Eve of 9/11 Anniversary, Cantor Insists on Massive Cuts to First Responders in Exchange for Emergency Disaster Aid
Read the Article at ThinkProgress
http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2011/09/10/316237/on-eve-of-911-anniversary-cantor-insists-on-massive-cuts-to-first-responders-in-exchange-for-emergency-disaster-aid/
How the Feds Downplayed Ground Zero Health Risks
Read the Article at Mother Jones
http://motherjones.com/politics/2011/09/feds-downplayed-ground-zero-911-health-risks
Hundreds of Ideas on How the Executive Branch Can Create Jobs Without Congressional Action
Read the Article at Daily Kos
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/09/09/1015158/-Hundreds-of-ideas-on-how-the-executive-branch-can-create-jobs-without-congressional-action?via=siderecent
77 People Injured After Taliban Hits Afghan Coalition Base
Read the Article at CNN
http://www.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/asiapcf/09/11/afghanistan.base.attack/
141 Killed, 14 Million Homeless as Floods Hit Pakistan
Read the Article at Xinhuanet
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/world/2011-09/11/c_131132686.htm
Health Care Costs Rose While Insurance Coverage Fell, Report Shows
Read the Article at The Los Angeles Times
http://articles.latimes.com/2011/sep/08/business/la-fi-health-insurance-20110908
Whistleblower Fired After Revealing Wisconsin "Voter Suppression"
Read the Article at Raw Story
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/09/09/whistleblower-fired-after-revealing-wisconsin-voter-suppression/#.Tmw1BlvW8VE.facebook
Click here for more BuzzFlash headlines: http://www.buzzflash.com/
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<!-- TemplateBeginEditable name="content" --><p>Sunday 11 September 2011</p>
<p><font><strong>William Rivers Pitt | The Children of Aftermath</strong></font><br />
William Rivers Pitt, Truthout: "All across America, there are classrooms filled with fifth graders who only know the World Trade Center from pictures. They have achieved the final perfection of George Orwell's vision - we have always been at war with Eurasia - because they have never known a world where their country has not been at war in Iraq and Afghanistan. As with the Towers, some of these children only know a parent from pictures, because that parent was killed in those wars. They know what anthrax is, what an IED is, what WMD stands for. They know about fear, for it was fed to them, literally, with mother's milk. For them, it has always been this way." <br />
<a href="http://org2.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=BSz85ADUgFUSwLvZA0ZS6UnxucN3JYIj"><font color="#cc0000">Read the Article</font></a> <br />
<br />
<font><strong>Relics, Artifacts and Memories: A Year Spent With World Trade Center Steel</strong></font><br />
Amanda Lin Costa, Truthout: "I didn’t set off to become an expert in World Trade Center (WTC) steel but recently it occurred to me I was becoming one. The thought first dawned on me about a month ago, after I spent the day filming at The National Institute for Standards and Technology (NIST) as part of a documentary I have been working on about WTC steel... It was fascinating to see the meticulous samples nestled in shallow drawers that reminded me, ironically, of the flat files used by architects to store the blueprints used to build monumental structures. These drawers contained the clues to the collapse of the world’s most famous buildings." <br />
<a href="http://org2.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=LV3geyzd3FHeqpdsp0D9wUnxucN3JYIj"><font color="#cc0000">Read the Article</font></a> <br />
<br />
<font><strong>Education: Our True Homeland Security</strong></font><br />
William J. Astore, Truthout: "How about redefining education as our true Homeland Security? A security based not on military power or intrusive surveillance but on creativity and critical thinking and informed citizenship? How about stimulating and facilitating a lifelong pursuit of fresh ideas and innovative solutions to national and global challenges? There are, of course, sound and practical reasons for such a pursuit, such as maintaining our economic competitiveness. But learning how to learn is also a critical way to arm ourselves against propaganda and manipulation, a way to build one's very own BS detector, if you will." <br />
<a href="http://org2.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=OMJH9C2Z0FrtjSCF%2BUEFc0nxucN3JYIj"><font color="#cc0000">Read the Article</font></a> <br />
<br />
<font><strong>Border Security After 9/11: Ten Years of Waste, Immigrant Crackdowns and New Drug Wars</strong></font><br />
Tom Barry, Truthout: "Prior to the September 11 terrorist attacks, the term 'border security' was rarely used. Today, however, it is both a fundamental goal of US domestic security and the defining paradigm for border operations. Despite the federal government's routine declarations of its commitment to securing the border, neither Congress nor the executive branch has ever clearly defined the term 'border security.'"<br />
<a href="http://org2.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=JR4DvNlUK%2Fy1NkBvcCE%2Fs0nxucN3JYIj"><font color="#cc0000">Read the Article</font></a> <br />
<br />
<font><strong>Many Deportees Unwittingly Waive Rights, Report Says</strong></font><br />
Paloma Esquivel, McClatchy Newspapers: "The US has deported more than 160,000 immigrants, the vast majority of whom had no legal representation - and signed documents they may not have understood - under a program that carries severe penalties should they re-enter the country, a report released Thursday said. According to the National Immigration Law Center and professors at Stanford Law School and Western State University College of Law, immigrants often signed the so-called stipulated removals because they believed it was the only way to avoid prolonged detention. But by agreeing to the removal order, immigrants can be barred from returning to the US and be subject to criminal prosecution for illegal re-entry."<br />
<a href="http://org2.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=UG2TDtY3yVIjh%2FIOjGWTxknxucN3JYIj"><font color="#cc0000">Read the Article</font></a> <br />
<br />
<font><strong>A Year Before 9/11, Intelligence Unit Determined World Trade Center, Pentagon "Most Likely Buildings to Be Attacked"</strong></font><br />
Jeffrey Kaye and Jason Leopold, Truthout: "The 'intelligence failures' leading up to the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon are an issue the media - and lawmakers - put to bed years ago, despite the fact that new information continues to trickle out, undercutting the integrity of the official investigations into who knew what and when. It was an exclusive story Truthout published May 23 in the wake of Bin Laden's death, focusing on a little-known intelligence unit ordered to stop tracking his movements prior to 9/11, that led Iron Man to contact Truthout to share previously undisclosed documents he recently obtained under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), which appear to cast further doubt on the official narrative and suggests high-level military and intelligence officials withheld key evidence from Congressional lawmakers probing the attacks." <br />
<a href="http://org2.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=CpV9gE0ECstTDEF%2BbN%2BxkGW1zuc9API3"><font color="#cc0000">Read the Article</font></a> <br />
<br />
<font><strong>EU Steps Toward Common Aid</strong></font><br />
Daan Bauwens, Inter Press Service: "The European Commission has decided to push for more ambitious reforms ahead of the aid effectiveness summit to be held in Busan later this year. The European Commission, the executive arm of the European Union, is looking for a common EU position that could save the EU 4 billion euros which can be spent on additional aid. But NGOs have expressed concern about the Commission's new proposal to drop several indicators of aid effectiveness." <br />
<a href="http://org2.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=RMKw4SpKdoHQohK%2FGtfTe0nxucN3JYIj"><font color="#cc0000">Read the Article</font></a> <br />
<br />
<font><strong>Global Groundswell: Mad as Hell</strong></font><br />
Eric Best, Truthout: "In Israel, a social movement aimed at income inequality and housing prices has sprung up from a youth Facebook protest.... In Japan, a woman on a farm confronts the lackadaisical government response to radiation by conducting tests of her own - to discover that some levels are as high as those surrounding Chernobyl.... In Syria, a protester observing the government's murderous crackdown on dissidents, dismisses the latest brutal violence.... These are just a few examples of grassroots reactions around the world to governments that appear out of touch with or indifferent to the lives of the people." <br />
<a href="http://org2.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=NXzWnHr948qBRm411eOzw0nxucN3JYIj"><font color="#cc0000">Read the Article</font></a> <br />
<br />
<font><strong>9/11 and the Manufacture of Consent</strong></font><br />
Jean-Claude Paye, l'Humanite: "If, traditionally, war is a hallmark of sovereignty, so it is with war on terror, but in this case it is not an act of sovereignty abroad only, but also at home, to control populations. It is both an aggressive act and a police operation, an action against 'rogue States', with the possibility of criminalizing social movements. Indeed, statutes (written laws) make it possible to prosecute any act the objective of which is to influence governmental policy or to exert pressure on an international organization." <br />
<a href="http://org2.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=%2BOkgx1HJdl6kIbThk9F2uknxucN3JYIj"><font color="#cc0000">Read the Article</font></a> <br />
<br />
<font><strong>How the Most Dangerous Game Is Being Played</strong></font><br />
Joseph Natoli, Truthout: "Today's Millennial generation is not threatened by a compulsory draft, but only by an economy that is not robust enough to give them the high-end salaries that Tom Cruise, for instance, in the film 'The Firm' was offered. A volunteer military suits a generation that prizes personal choice above everything. The US can be fighting in several countries besides Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya, but that - improbable and impossible as it is - is not threatening to those who can simply say, 'No, I don't want to join the military.' Any attachment or concern with wars ends at that point unless, of course, a loved one is not free as you are, but in the war." <br />
<a href="http://org2.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=44cBu9d%2F0ooXAhirYYxorknxucN3JYIj"><font color="#cc0000">Read the Article</font></a> <br />
<br />
<font><strong>Truthout's Jason Leopold: 9/11 Not an "Intelligence Failure" (Video)</strong></font><br />
Ray McGovern and Jason Leopold, The Real News: Truthout's Jason Leopold and former CIA analyst Ray McGovern say that intelligence agencies had the information; the question is why they didn't use it. <br />
<a href="http://org2.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=iqyDHYUjPfAvvR1HX6z8L0nxucN3JYIj"><font color="#cc0000">Watch the Video</font></a> </p>
<p></p>
<p><a href="http://org2.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=wB2Zu84Jnz3OADNzCQPu%2FEnxucN3JYIj" target="_blank"><font color="#cc0000"><em>Click here for more Truthout articles</em></font></a></p>
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<p><i>
<p>We've wallowed too long in our victimhood.</p>
<p>9/11 was indeed a devastating loss of personal life. Those who died were mostly US citizens, but included people of all nations, such as the wait staff and bus boys at the sky high restaurant in the Twin Towers. It was a "shared" loss, indicative of the international inclusiveness of America.</p>
<p>But having never experienced a significant mainland attack since the War of 1812 - as Noam Chomsky points out in his remarkable book, <a href="http://org2.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=xv9rfHQxtd9%2BmijQZkTXLknxucN3JYIj" target="_blank"><font color="#cc0000">"9/11: Was There an Alternative?"</font></a> - we feel ourselves invulnerable as a country. Kurt Vonnegut - who survived the allied fire bombing of Dresden in an underground slaughterhouse for prisoners of war - once commented that America was distinct among Western allies, in that it never knew the devastation of cities under siege by bombers, rockets, tanks and mortar attack.</p>
<p>Then there is our national hubris, that American Exceptionalism itself was under attack on September 11, 2001. Like all powerful empires, we feel invulnerable and crush anyone perceived to have pierced through our bubble of "invincibility."</p>
<p>Chomsky and others call 9/11 a crime, which our government treated as a justification for wars that are still continuing ten years later, draining us of military lives in excess of those lost on 9/11, causing civilian deaths in the hundreds of thousands, and being a central contributing factor to the rise in the American deficit.</p>
<p>Europe, which endured WW II - in which some 30 million people were killed - stopped letting the nightmarish loss of life and destruction hamper its reconstruction more quickly than America has let go of 9/11, which it still clings to and wallows in.</p>
<p>BuzzFlash at Truthout, publishing since May of 2000, reported and broke stories on the attack on the Twin Towers (and the Pentagon) and the Bush/Cheney administration use of the tragedy to launch military conflicts of empire. At the time of 9/11, the Bush administration's poll numbers were low and dropping. All that changed on 9/11, after which the full propaganda strength of the White House and corporate mass media focused on putting US citizens in a state of fear to accomplish strategic military goals to enhance America's superpower status and extend our military footprint.</p>
<p>Yes, BuzzFlash at Truthout focused on verifiable fact that Bush and Rice were warned of likely Al-Qaeda hijackings and how the stenographic DC press let them off the hook on their egregious unintentional or intentional lapse in heightening airport security that might indeed have prevented 9/11.</p>
<p>Rice eventually defended her failed responsibility to protect us by saying something like "but we didn't receive warnings that they would fly them into buildings," which was specious because US intelligence knew for some time of just such a possibility as part of an overall Al-Qaeda strategy. Bush finally admitted, during his presidency, that they were warned of hijackings, but not of a specific target so his administration didn't take action to protect the World Trade Center. The corporate press thought those excuses made sense, except for the simple logical fact that if Bush and Rice, among others, had taken increased steps to prevent hijackings, they might have prevented the hijackings that brought down the Twin Towers and blew up part of the Pentagon.</p>
<p>Furthermore, in exclusive reporting by Jason Leopold and Jeff Kaye on Truthout, <a href="http://org2.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=bKFdDHTPQlES3rG%2FE%2F4%2Bn0nxucN3JYIj" target="_blank"><font color="#cc0000">it is revealed</font></a> that US intelligence services did indeed know of Al-Qaeda interest in targeting the Twin Towers and the Pentagon: "high-level DoD officials held discussions about DO5's intelligence activities between the summer of 2000 and June 2001 revolving around al-Qaeda's interest in striking the Pentagon, the World Trade Center (WTC), and other targets."</p>
<p>In other words, at least some individuals in the Bush administration were aware that the terrorist organization had set its sights on those structures prior to 9/11 and, apparently, government officials failed to act on those warnings.</p>
<p>And then there are all the lingering threads, still unconnected, of how the CIA and FBI were on to some of the hijackers, not to mention the quickly erased connections of the hijackers to Saudi Arabian backers. There are so many unanswered questions, even more after a 9/11 commission whitewashed the dirty laundry surrounding the attack.</p>
<p>But this much we know. The narrative of our government switched on a dime after 9/11, and we were cast into a state of what Chomsky calls "manufactured consent," whipped up by a bombardment of jingoistic rhetoric coming from the federal government and the airwaves. We were kept in a constant state of fear with crayon-colored alerts. We were pawns in the great game of empire.</p>
<p>As a result, our nation is on the verge of a double-dip recession. While nations like Germany forge ahead economically, Osama bin Laden achieved one of his major goals: crippling America economically.</p>
<p>We are still wallowing in our victimhood. We had our time to grieve, but we haven't moved on.</p>
<p>After World War II, the US helped rebuild Europe - with the visionary Marshall Plan that even turned Germany (our former Nazi adversary) - into thriving democracies and economic engines.</p>
<p>Since Barack Obama was elected, the Republican Party shifted the national narrative from 9/11 to the deficit, which - as noted earlier - has been a substantial contributor to our financial shortfall. But 9-11 has continued to be an albatross around the neck of national progress and the closure of grief and grievance.</p>
<p>That will continue to weigh upon us unnecessarily until we get on with a new narrative of innovation, a belief in the strength of democracy, and an understanding that overextended empire cannot endure indefinitely while undertaking squandered and prolonged military expeditions.</p>
<p>We have appropriately mourned those who died in the attack of 9/11. It is time that we honor them by advancing as a nation to write the next chapter of the great experiment in democracy known as America.</p>
<p>Mark Karlin<br />
Editor, BuzzFlash at Truthout</p>
</i></p>
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<p><a href="http://org2.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=oRfq74cPGQeN%2F6FPvQbwRUnxucN3JYIj"><b><font color="#cc0000"><em>Click here for more BuzzFlash headlines</em></font></b></a></p>
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