9/11: Incompetence and Dishonesty

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At the tenth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, there will be much commentary about lessons learned. To former FBI agent Coleen Rowley, who tried to ring the alarm before the attacks, one enduring realization is the incompetence, hubris and dishonesty that pervades all levels of government.

By Coleen Rowley

Although the prior decade has seen much leak out in dribs and drabs, good questions still exist about 9/11, especially concerning the level of pre 9/11 intelligence and warnings, much of which has still been suppressed mostly by the CIA and NSA (and FBI goes along). 

The info is suppressed for different reasons but mostly these agencies are loath to admit that government incompetence on every level is massive and huge. The government officials tend to lie for the same reason that people climb mountains, because they can, they don’t need a nefarious motivation to lie.

The simplistic narrative of good guys v, bad guys that makes for wars and war agenda is undercut by public’s knowledge that most of the “turrerists” were our buddies (and many like Libya “rebels” who are Al Qaeda affiliates will become our buddies) and many, many were either used or willingly worked for the CIA at one point in various U.S. covert plots to topple unfriendly regimes or get back at the Russians (and increasingly ensure China is kept in place). 

You need to appreciate that the Machiavellians at the controls of U.S. Government, people like Henry Kissinger, Karl Rove and the neo-cons, are well aware of how easy it is to manufacture a casus belli out of whole cloth. 

As Nazi leader Hermann Goering once explained, “it is always a simple matter to drag the people along” for war, “all you have to do is to tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country.”

That includes fake “democracies” whose media and academia are almost totally corrupted and controlled.  Most incidents of violence can be used as “new Pearl Harbors” to fool the public with some good propaganda.  

I’m on record calling for a new 9/11 investigation, but I haven’t thus far seen any real evidence or likelihood of controlled demolition or any of the other wilder “conspiracies.”

Coleen Rowley, a FBI special agent for almost 24 years, was legal counsel to the FBI Field Office in Minneapolis from 1990 to 2003. She wrote a “whistleblower” memo in May 2002 and testified to the Senate Judiciary on some of the FBI’s pre 9/11 failures. She retired at the end of 2004, and now writes and speaks on ethical decision-making and balancing civil liberties with the need for effective investigation.

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