rssDoes Anyone Remember the 9/11 Commission?
Friday, May 15, 2009 at 11:14 am
- 6 Comments
Via Andrew Sullivan, Marc Ambinder gives the Obama administration’s rationale for opposing a truth commission on torture:
In the [Obama administration's] view, a commission would expose secrets without any means of determining whether they’re properly protected or not, and they’ve been warned that the nation’s spy services would simply cease to function effectively if they’re forced to surrender exacting details about their immediate past conduct. The administraiton further worries that the Commission would be carried out in the context of vengeance and would not focus the rage on lessons learned for the future. This, again, is the point of view senior administration officials; it may or may not be my own.
My emphasis. On the effectiveness point, the history of the CIA is a history of telling Congress that looking at its operations too deeply will cause the entire apparatus to shatter. If it’s true, then the nation isn’t getting what it should be getting for its $50 billion annual intelligence budget anyway. But it’s a dubious point. The CIA did not cease to function “effectively” after the Church/Pike commissions in the 70s; after the 9/11 Commission and the Silberman/Robb Commission and the Intelligence Reform Act of the 2000s. It entered periods of adjustment after its excesses were exposed. Many if not most of those excesses resulted from the magical thinking of policymakers, a point often lost in the rush to blame CIA for assorted failings.
But speaking of those commissions. The recent history of the United States proves that it’s possible to have a thoroughgoing inquiry about the most politically explosive and potentially toxic events in American history and emerge with a consensus. The 9/11 Commission was not without its flaws, but it demonstrated that a group of wise men can avoid rancor, maintain the good faith of both political parties, display independence, yield an authoritative history of an American trauma and do this all in an election year.
That commission didn’t recommend prosecutions. Indeed, it labored to avoid placing guilt, to the point of copping out. That may or may not be appropriate in this case — let an investigation determine that conclusion — and I’m don’t mean to suggest that a truth commission on torture needs to follow the 9/11 Commission to the “T.” But its example refutes the idea that a commission into torture is necessarily an instrument of persecution and vindictiveness. That’s probably why its executive director favors repeating the experience.
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6 Comments
Pingback posted May 15, 2009 @ 1:54 pm
[...] then note this by Spencer Ackerman in the Washington Independent: Via Andrew Sullivan, Marc Ambinder gives the Obama [...]
Comment posted May 15, 2009 @ 11:25 pm
Tony
And:
This was released to the public on 14 January 2009. It’s not a perfect transcript, but so it goes…
9/11 Truth: Tony Hollick told the Commission What to Investigate
Page 224
http://media.nara.gov/9-11/MFR/t-0148-911MFR-bo…
Event: Telephonic interview of Tony Hollick.
Investigation conducted by: Marco A. Cordero
“In response to a call from Tony Hollick to the commission, Commissioner staffer Marco A. Cordero contacted Tony Hollick, a British citizen, born in 1942 at telephone number 01144-117-909-8918 on June 18,2004.
Hollick advised that he contacted the 9-11 commission to advise them about two video attachments he sent via e-mail to the commission.s web-site address info@9-11commission.gov on June 16,2004. Hollick advised one of these videos would demonstrate to the commission that the collapse of the towers of the World Trade Center (WTC) was not caused by the intense heat of the jet fuel but rather by the explosion of military shaped charges which were placed behind the vertical external steel supports and the explosion of massive explosive devices at the base of the WTC.
Hollick advised that politics were involved in this plot and firmly believes Attorney General Ashcroft is the mastermind of this plot because “[Attorney-]General Ashcroft has the covert and overt units of the military and the counterintelligence and intelligence resources [of the FBI] under his control”
Hollick also advised that the second video would demonstrate that the damage to the Pentagon was not the result of a commercial airliner crashing into it, but rather the result of a missile attack which was fired by either a “Global Hawk or an F-16 prior to crashing into the building”. Hollick advised that a commercial airliner would have caused a much larger hole and caused much more damage. He also found it inconceivable for a “Boeing to completely vaporize and for the black boxes to survive the fire.
When asked what he thought happened to the hi-jacked plane, Hollick advised that the plane may have never existed, stating that it was a phantom plane or that the “FBI faked the flight”. If a plane was hi-jacked he theorized that the plane was purposely crashed into the Atlantic Ocean where it is currently sitting at the bottom.
Hollick believes the FBI was involved in this plot adding that John O’Neal [sp], former retired FBI agent who was working as the director of security for the WTC, either collaborated with the explosive experts (responsible for the placement of the military shaped charges in WTC) or turned a blind eye to the placement of these explosive charges.
Hollick asked that the commission confirm the receipt of his e-mail because he is concerned the FBI may have intercepted his e-mail.
He is convinced the FBI may have intercepted the message through FBI’s use of “frontending” which he described as an intelligence operation by which the FBI uses a company name as a front to covertly obtain/intercept information from the public.”
So, where is the email in the 9/11 Commission’s records? And the videos?
Best Wishes,
Tony Hollick
Comment posted May 16, 2009 @ 8:20 am
you are truly deluded if you believe that the 9/11 commission fulfilled any objective other than providing an apology for the bush administration's aggressively accelerated policies of conquest and imperialism.
are you familiar with the put options which the 9/11 commission concluded were “innocuous” because the investors had “no conceivable ties to al Qaeda”; and yet the commission itself failed to reveal the identity of the investors? that doesn't strike you as suspicious? no?
did you know that the majority of the narrative of the 9/11 commission report was constructed around testimony which was coerced via “enhanced interrogation techniques”? in fact, one of the main sources for the 9/11 commission report was tortured until he agreed to sign a confession that he was NOT EVEN ALLOWED TO READ. KSM in fact reported the following to the red cross: “During the harshest period of my interrogation I gave a lot of false information in order to satisfy what I believed the interrogators wished to hear in order to make the ill-treatment stop.”
did you know that the 9/11 commission only satisfied 37 percent of the questions compiled by the family steering committee and that the co-chairs of the 9/11 Commission (Thomas Keane and Lee Hamilton) now admit that the Commission largely operated based upon political considerations…
* The co-chairs also said that the CIA (and likely the White House) “obstructed our investigation”
* Indeed, they said that the 9/11 Commissioners knew that military officials misrepresented the facts to the Commission, and the Commission considered recommending criminal charges for such false statements, yet didn't bother to tell the American people.
* 9/11 Commission co-chair Lee Hamilton says “I don't believe for a minute we got everything right”, that the Commission was set up to fail, that people should keep asking questions about 9/11, that the 9/11 debate should continue, and that the 9/11 Commission report was only “the first draft” of history
* 9/11 Commissioner Bob Kerrey said that “There are ample reasons to suspect that there may be some alternative to what we outlined in our version . . . We didn't have access . . . .”
* 9/11 Commissioner Timothy Roemer said “We were extremely frustrated with the false statements we were getting”
* Former 9/11 Commissioner Max Cleland resigned from the Commission, stating: “It is a national scandal”; “This investigation is now compromised”; and “One of these days we will have to get the full story because the 9-11 issue is so important to America. But this White House wants to cover it up”
* 9/11 Commissioner John Lehman said that “We purposely put together a staff that had – in a way – conflicts of interest”
* The Senior Counsel to the 9/11 Commission (John Farmer) who led the 9/11 staff's inquiry, said “I was shocked at how different the truth was from the way it was described …. The tapes told a radically different story from what had been told to us and the public for two years…. This is not spin. This is not true.”
spencer, i can't decide if you're a complete fraud or if you're completely indoctrinated but the orwellian dogma which dominated the mediascape for the past 8 years.
and if neither of the above are true then the obvious is true: you completely FAIL at journalism. using factual information — all cited from credible sources — i have demonstrated the utter folly of your “reporting” on the 9/11 commission. you should be ashamed for pedaling such drivel and attempting to pass it off for an informed opinion.
pathetic. you're neither “punk rock” nor are you a serious journalist.
do more homework and less partying, “spence”
Comment posted May 16, 2009 @ 3:20 pm
you are truly deluded if you believe that the 9/11 commission fulfilled any objective other than providing an apology for the bush administration's aggressively accelerated policies of conquest and imperialism.
are you familiar with the put options which the 9/11 commission concluded were “innocuous” because the investors had “no conceivable ties to al Qaeda”; and yet the commission itself failed to reveal the identity of the investors? that doesn't strike you as suspicious? no?
did you know that the majority of the narrative of the 9/11 commission report was constructed around testimony which was coerced via “enhanced interrogation techniques”? in fact, one of the main sources for the 9/11 commission report was tortured until he agreed to sign a confession that he was NOT EVEN ALLOWED TO READ. KSM in fact reported the following to the red cross: “During the harshest period of my interrogation I gave a lot of false information in order to satisfy what I believed the interrogators wished to hear in order to make the ill-treatment stop.”
did you know that the 9/11 commission only satisfied 37 percent of the questions compiled by the family steering committee and that the co-chairs of the 9/11 Commission (Thomas Keane and Lee Hamilton) now admit that the Commission largely operated based upon political considerations…
* The co-chairs also said that the CIA (and likely the White House) “obstructed our investigation”
* Indeed, they said that the 9/11 Commissioners knew that military officials misrepresented the facts to the Commission, and the Commission considered recommending criminal charges for such false statements, yet didn't bother to tell the American people.
* 9/11 Commission co-chair Lee Hamilton says “I don't believe for a minute we got everything right”, that the Commission was set up to fail, that people should keep asking questions about 9/11, that the 9/11 debate should continue, and that the 9/11 Commission report was only “the first draft” of history
* 9/11 Commissioner Bob Kerrey said that “There are ample reasons to suspect that there may be some alternative to what we outlined in our version . . . We didn't have access . . . .”
* 9/11 Commissioner Timothy Roemer said “We were extremely frustrated with the false statements we were getting”
* Former 9/11 Commissioner Max Cleland resigned from the Commission, stating: “It is a national scandal”; “This investigation is now compromised”; and “One of these days we will have to get the full story because the 9-11 issue is so important to America. But this White House wants to cover it up”
* 9/11 Commissioner John Lehman said that “We purposely put together a staff that had – in a way – conflicts of interest”
* The Senior Counsel to the 9/11 Commission (John Farmer) who led the 9/11 staff's inquiry, said “I was shocked at how different the truth was from the way it was described …. The tapes told a radically different story from what had been told to us and the public for two years…. This is not spin. This is not true.”
spencer, i can't decide if you're a complete fraud or if you're completely indoctrinated but the orwellian dogma which dominated the mediascape for the past 8 years.
and if neither of the above are true then the obvious is true: you completely FAIL at journalism. using factual information — all cited from credible sources — i have demonstrated the utter folly of your “reporting” on the 9/11 commission. you should be ashamed for pedaling such drivel and attempting to pass it off for an informed opinion.
pathetic. you're neither “punk rock” nor are you a serious journalist.
do more homework and less partying, “spence”
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[...] the official account given by the 9/11 Commission. Here is a quote from 9/11 Commission co-chair Lee Hamilton, “I don’t believe for a minute we got everything right”, that the Commission was set up to [...]
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