To all living under the shadow of 911 and the "War on Terror":


I am David Bosankoe of Bristol, England. A few months ago the American Department of Defence released to the World Media the five security-camera (CCTV) frames that capture the attack on the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia that occurred on September 11, 2001. These frames were broadcast across the Internet News agencies where I was able to pick them up and enlarge them, after which I joined them together in a single animation file:

 http://www.bosankoe.btinternet.co.uk/pentagon.gif - approx 160kb.

My attention was initially brought to these frames as I was searching for evidence in support of my position in an argument with Dick Eastman, an American who regularly posts his analysis, forwardings and links to uk.politics.crime and other newsgroups. We were arguing over the French web page, "Spot the Boeing,":  http://www.asile.org/citoyens/numero13/pentagone/erreurs_en.htm

Eastman was expounding his theory of an internally planted bomb and, to show him his error I went to the BBC and did a search for 'Pentagon' and found the CCTV images. That's when I made my first animation from the frames.

Shortly before, American investigator, 'Agent Fescado,' provided on the website,  http://www.humanunderground.com/11september/pent.html, his own analysis of the CCTV stills based on evidence that included his own enlargement of the first frame in the sequence with added overlays of different aircraft, using the position and size of the tail fin of the actual attack craft shown in the first frame as the reference for determining scale and position.

What he found was that the profile of the plane in the frame when compared to the fitted overlay of a Boeing 757 where the tail fin of the overlay exactly covers the visible fin of the attack aircraft, was far too short to be a Boeing 757 (a rather obvious observation which nevertheless I later proved with mathematical rigor on my web site). What Fescado also found was a tail-fin fitted overlay of an F-16 made for a very reasonable fit, as also do other small military aircraft such as S-3B Viking (a craft which has been suggested by one of Agent Fescado's sources as the true Pentagon-attack culprit.). Which small military aircraft was responsible, is a question that must not distract from the now-established finding that the Boeing 757 of Flight 77 was not the aircraft that the CCTV visually captured, an aircraft which in my estimation is less than half the length of the 757).

Afterward, I found the Internet source for the MSNBC Flash animation of the CCTV images and extracted the Flash file out of their page, allowing me to use the inbuilt zoom function in Flash which includes a pixel interpolation function so I could quickly extract smoothed pictures. I've explained how to trace my steps in all this and 'do it yourself' at:

 http://www.bosankoe.btinternet.co.uk/howto.htm

I then used a shareware version of Jasc Animation Shop to string this together in an 'animated GIF' which so many have now seen thanks to Dick Eastman.

When comparing proportions in the first frame, the height of the Pentagon's wall, 70 feet, with the 155 feet length of the Boeing 757, it becomes blatantly obvious that actual attack plane is too small. This finding led me on to the size of the hole that the plane made. When the plane first crashed into the Pentagon, it first of all it made merely a hole and only later, after fire crews had arrived on the scene, did the wall of Pentagon above this hole collapse. Fortunately, someone who was on the nearby freeway and passing the Pentagon at during the first moments of the attack had his camera with him and managed to get some really good shots of this hole (see my homepage: http://www.bosankoe.btinternet.co.uk/ ). The size of this hole is surprising. I approximate it to be between two and three meters in across. Not only was the hole too small for a Boeing 757, there was also virtually no plane wreckage. The wings were nowhere to be seen. There was no luggage, seats, or debris that one expects from this type of crash.

Later, I saw the damage report on the extent of the internal damage. That too was inconsistent with an mid-sized airliner crash.

But that is just the beginning. In the first CCTV image a white smoke trail is visible to the right following the plane. However, the problem is that jet contrails only happen at high altitudes when the water vapor from a jet's exhaust freezes into a trail of visible ice crystals. So the only explanation of this white smoke is that it is the rocket-engine emission of a small missile. This conclusion is supported by the evidence in the second image, where the initial fireball is more of a flash explosion consistent with that of a small missile warhead. So on two counts of visual evidence it can be said that a missile was launched at the Pentagon just before impact of the attacking plane.

So in conclusion, instead of knife-armed terrorists with limited flight experience hijacking a modern passenger plane and flying it in to the Pentagon at ground level, we are forced to the conclusion that a military jet with auto pilot capabilities flew into to Pentagon, firing a missile just ahead of impact.

Also remarkable is the choice of the point impact, a point only metres away from the only fire hydrant on that side of the building. This was the hydrant for the heliport, with underground tanks, in case of helicopter crashes. (Again see my homepage.) Whoever planned the attack likely was thinking of damage limitation.

So, knowing that the attack craft was not a Boeing, it is abundantly clear to me that the US Government has lied to us about Sept 11th. I can only conclude that they did the deed themselves as a propaganda operation to 'justify' to the American people (and their allies) their sought-for war against the Taliban and 'War on Terrorism.' From other people's investigations it has become clear that this was all done for oil and opium and geopolitical gain, and NOT to liberate the women of that country from restricted Islamic lifestyles (a worthy enough cause, but certainly not a decisive motive for the war.)

Let that sink in a minute.......

It certainly took me a while to get it into my head.

My own line of 911 research has been has been restricted to the Pentagon attack. However, I have added many links and articles to my web site referencing investigations parallel to my own, including, especially, questions raised by the World Trade Center attack. There are many questions that the US Government should be answering about that. Among the most notable I can recall are these:

"Why was there a big increase in insider trading just before the attack?",

"Why were CEO's from the WTC invited to a charity dinner at around 8am on the morning of Sept 11 at an air base?" and

"Why did the twin tower collapse the way they did (like a controlled demolition, falling straight down and not toppling over)"?

Dick Eastman, at my request, has provided me with his own summary points:



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I. MOTIVES:

1. getting the pipeline the Taliban had rejected;

2. control of the mineral wealth of Afganistan;

3. generating a popular and sufficient reason to attack Saddam Heussein (whom both father and son Bush have long wanted to see dead);

4. continued sustainability of the infamous "ring" of Afghan opium becoming Chinese heroin becoming laundered revenue proceeds becoming investment capital building new Chinese industry forcing the relocation of industry away from U.S. territory;

5. big money for the FBI, CIA, military industrial complex;

6. Destruction of wtc-housed evidence in the biggest-ever illegal oil swap case;

7. destruction of wtc-housed evidence in the biggest-ever gold price fixing case (illegal selling of Federal Reserve gold to elites at way below obtainable market prices);

8. Getting the FBI off white collar and bank crime (i.e. introducing total anarchy to the sphere in which the U.S. investment bankers, currency traders, derivatives makers etc. operate);

9. Having the CIA ("Capitalism's Invisible Army" as R. Buckminster Fuller called it) take over the FBI (the more legitimate and traditionally constitutional of Federal investigation and intelligence agencies) and in so doing purging the FBI of leadership symnpathetic with anti-globalist, populist, nationalist, constitutionalist, or pro-sovereignty thinking -- in fact it is the druglords taking over the constabulary; and lastest,

10. Accomplishing pre-emptive war set-up to look like retalitory self-defence, i.e., picking fights, against all "potential" terrorists by setting-up the those suspected of being capable of resorting to terror, actually conducting terror themselves so they can pin the blame on those they want to decimate, those who stand in the way of their economic and geopolitical dominance.

II. Remote-control crashes:

EgyptAir flight 10.31.99 -- clear case of remote-control takover; data captured on blackbox voice recorder and on instument recorder make it unmistakable that the plane was taken over against the will of pilot and co-pilot (a voice -- English, not Arabic, actually is heard in the voice recorder saying "control it" at the moment the controls begin to misbehave -- the efforts to refute this have only landed the government in deeper in a coverup --EgyptAir and th Egyptian government accept this view and not the obviously cooked findings of the U.S. review board.)

New York flight in Queens -- breaks up in air -- after rudder begins moving first right and left -- breaking off the tail fin -- another whitewash by U.S. aviation officials as well.

Miami Flight -- rudder goes wild on its own, then stops. This was a "test" of the remote-controlsystems.

Ron Brown's crash in Croatia -- same deal, and then, to make sure Ron Brown got a bullet in the head by the first "rescuers on the scene.

The Plane that hit the South tower. Note the Japanese video showing another aircraft streak by at the moment of impact -- presumably a guidance aircraft or a missile to do the job in case the plane missed its intended target. (very little data on this besides the video itself, so we tend to leave it alone, but it is definitely part of the big picture.

III. Pentagon "small jet"

This is the "smoking gun" that could finish the crime syndicate responsible for 911 -- unfortunately the crime syndicate knows this very well and the American people have hardly begun to get the word.

1. DoD video -- the Bosankoe evidence

2. small hole -- the French evidence and the photo from the freeway

3. witness accounts -- those who saw a horizontal approach claimthe plane was too small to be a Boeing 757 -- many military menwho did not see said they heard a jet fighter, some heard a missile.

4. Air traffic controllers claim plane behaved like a military jet.

IV. STANDDOWNS

1. Intelligence -- FBI prevented from investigating (after merger with the CIA they won't even try, btw)

2. Air interceptions -- could have, but didn't -- ordered not to -- many many sources on this; many officials (Cheney, Rumsfeld) caught in falsehoods

VI. Phony bin Laden video (Dick says: I have lots of analysis of this that are on no site that I know of -- I had forgotten this until now)

VII: Evidence of prior planning and attempts to enlist other nations in war against Afganistan pre-911 (Powell in India, most especially; but many others)



And the lesser stuff:

Bush's behavior on the day and subsequently.Rice's statements before 911.Wolfowitz lightening appraisal and conclusion that war on Afganistan is necessary.Economic links of Bush, Cheney etc. to profiteering from exactly this war.The short-sells and where they lead.



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I am at a loss as to suggest where to go next, but I will leave you with this. Enough pressure of disclosures has been brought to bear on the US Government to warrant Congressional hearings into facts surrounding the events of Sept 11th. Such hearings are already starting THIS WEEK in private sessions and later will be opened to the public/media.

The Committee chairmen will however try to limit the scope of the investigation to "intelligence failures" and will certainly attempt to overlook the overwhelming evidence of the small-plane attack of the Pentagon as well as many other pertinent pieces of information .

It is up to you, you who have checked the Pentagon-attack evidence presented here to let the US Government know that they can no longer hide from the truth and that those who continue to evade these questions will be seen as collaborators in the worst crime of this century.

David Bosankoe, BSc. (Computer Science).



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Many articles (a lot from Dick Eastman with references) can be found at:

 http://www.bosankoe.btinternet.co.uk/keynews.htm

Links to various web sites and other investigations into the US Governments complicity on September 11th can be found at:

 http://www.bosankoe.btinternet.co.uk/links.htm



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All the hyperlinks from the book "The War on Freedom - How and Why America was Attacked, September 11th, 2001" by Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed can be found at:

 http://www.bosankoe.btinternet.co.uk/war_on_freedom_links.htm

"The War on Freedom - How and Why America was Attacked, September 11th, 2001"

by Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed:

 http://www.thewaronfreedom.com

With the permission of the author, I included the concluding chapter of his book below.

In his own words: "Please do feel free to forward the concluding chapter to as many people as possible."


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The War on Freedom: How and Why America was Attacked, September 11th, 2001
www.thewaronfreedom.com

Copyright © 2002 Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed
Executive Director,

Institute for Policy Research & Development
Suite 414, 91 Western Road, Brighton,
East Sussex, BN1 2NW,
United Kingdom,

E-mail:  info@globalresearch.org
Web: www.globalresearch.org.



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Conclusions
“In examining any crime, a central question must be ‘who benefits?’The principal beneficiaries of the destruction of the World TradeCenter are in the United States: the Bush administration, thePentagon, the CIA and FBI, the weapons industry, the oil industry. It is reasonable to ask whether those who have profited to such anextent from this tragedy contributed to bringing it about.” Investigative journalist Patrick Martin

As far as the facts on record are concerned, the best explanation of them, in the opinion of this author, is one that points directly to U.S. state responsibility for the events of 11th September 2001. A detailed review of the facts points not only to Kabul, but to Riyadh, Islamabad and most principally, Washington. Furthermore, in the opinion of this author, the documentation presented in this study strongly suggests, though not necessarily conclusively, that significant elements of U.S. government, military and intelligence agencies had extensive advance warning of the 11th September attacks, and were in various ways complicit in those attacks. This is certainly not a desirable inference, but it is one that best explains the available data.

This examination has found that a specific war on Afghanistan to be launched in October 2001 had been planned for at least a year, and in general terms related to regional strategic and economic interests, had actually been rooted in at least four years of strategic planning. This planning, in turn, is the culmination of a decade of regional strategising. All that was required was a trigger for these war plans, which was amply provided by the tragic events of 11th September.

We have also discussed compelling evidence that not only did U.S. government, military and intelligence agencies anticipate what was going to happen on 11th September, no public warnings were given and no appropriate measures were taken. It is a fact that the American intelligence community received multiple authoritative warnings, both general and specific, of a terrorist attack on the U.S. using civilian airliners as bombs, targeting key buildings located in the nation’s capital and New York City, and likely to occur around early to mid-September.

It is also a recorded fact that emergency response systems suffered consistently inexplicable failures on that day, allowing the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon to continue without an effective air response. A detailed investigation of the actual chronology of events on 11thSeptember strongly suggests that this sort of massive systematic failure was possible only through wilful obstructions from key U.S. government and military officials.

It is a documented fact that the Bush administration furthermore systematically blocked investigations of terrorists involved or strongly suspected of being involved—including Osama bin Laden, his family and suspect Saudi royals who support him—prior to 11th September. Even after 11th September, the Bush administration has continued to misdirect investigations and block pertinent inquiries, with the FBI concentrating futile efforts on Germany rather than Saudi Arabia, where according to the late former FBI Deputy Director, John O’Neill, the real source of bin Laden’s network lies. In particular, it is a documented fact that the Bush administration has sealed any inquiry into the complicity of the ISI in the 11th September attacks.

Indeed, there is reason to believe that through the ISI, which has “close links” to the CIA and plays the role of a regional instrument of U.S. interests, elements of U.S. military intelligence may have been directly complicit in funding and supporting the terrorists who undertook the air attacks on 11th September. This notion is supported by the fact that the ISI chief, who siphoned $100,000 to the alleged lead hijacker Mohamed Atta, resigned quietly under U.S. pressure, thus avoiding a scandal produced by undue publicity, along with any accompanying demands for an investigation into the full extent of the ISI role in 11th September. It is a documented fact that in doing so, the Bush administration has successfully protected the ISI from any further damaging revelations on its complicity in supporting those behind the air attacks, while also protecting the ex-chief of ISI himself.

By obstructing investigations of terrorists, and by maintaining what effectively amounts to a covert financial, political and even military alliance with them, the Bush administration has effectively supported their activities. The objective of U.S. policy has, furthermore, been focused principally on securing elite strategic and economic interests abroad, while deterring public understanding at home. As shocking and horrifying as these conclusions are, they are based on an extensive analysis of events leading up to, during and after 11th September 2001.

However, it is not the intent of this author to pretend that the conclusions outlined here are final. On the contrary, in the opinion of this author, these conclusions are merely the best available inferences from the available facts that have been so far unearthed. It is up to the reader to decide whether or not to agree with this assessment. Ultimately, this study is not concerned with providing a conclusive account, but rather is intended to clarify the dire need for an in-depth investigation into the events of 11th September, by documenting the facts.

A summary of the facts on record as documented in this study is presented here:

· Both the U.S. and the USSR are responsible for the rise of religious extremism, terrorism and civil war within Afghanistan since the 1980s. The U.S., however, is directly responsible for the cultivation of a distorted ‘jihadi’ ideology that fuelled, along with U.S. arms and training, the ongoing war and acts of terrorism within the country after the withdrawal of Soviet forces.

· The U.S. approved of the rise of the Taliban, and went on to at least tacitly support the movement, despite its egregious human rights abuses against Afghan civilians, to secure regional strategic and economic interests.

· The U.S. government and military planned a war on Afghanistan prior to 11th September for at least a year, a plan rooted in broad strategic and economic considerations related to control of Eurasia, and thus the consolidation of unrivalled global U.S. hegemony.

· The U.S. government has consistently blocked investigations and inquiries of Saudi royals, Saudi businessmen, and members of the bin Laden family, implicated in supporting Osama bin Laden and terrorist operatives linked to him. This amounts in effect to protecting leading figures residing in Saudi Arabia who possess ties with Osama bin Laden.

· The U.S. government has consistently blocked attempts to indict and apprehend Osama bin Laden, thus effectively protecting him directly.

· The U.S. government has allowed suspected terrorists linked to Osama bin Laden to train at U.S. military facilities, financed by Saudi Arabia, as well as U.S. flight schools, for years.

· High-level elements of the U.S. government, military, intelligence and law enforcement agencies received numerous credible and urgent warnings of the 11th September attacks, which were of such a nature as to successively reinforce one another. Only a full-fledged inquiry would suffice to clarify in a definite manner why the American intelligence community failed to act on the warnings received. However, the nature of the multiple warnings received, along with the false claims by U.S. intelligence agencies that they had no specific warnings of what was about to occur, suggests that they indeed had extensive foreknowledge of the attacks, but are now attempting to prevent public recognition of this.

· In spite of extensive forewarnings, the U.S. Air Force emergency response systems collapsed systematically on 11th September, in violation of the clear rules that are normally and routinely followed on a strict basis. This is an event that could only conceivably occur as a result of deliberate obstructions to the following of Standard Operating Procedures for emergency response.

· To succeed, such systematic obstructions could only be set in place by key U.S. government and military officials. Both President Bush and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Myers displayed sheer indifference to the 11th September attacks as they were occurring, which further suggests their particular responsibility. Once again, a full-fledged inquiry is required into this matter.

· Independent journalists revealed that Mahmoud Ahmed, as ISI Director-General, had channeled U.S. government funding to Mohamed Atta, described as the “lead hijacker” by the FBI. The U.S. government protected him, and itself, by asking him to resign quietly after the discovery, thus blocking a further inquiry and a potential scandal.

· The events of 11th September have in fact been of crucial benefit to the Bush administration, justifying the consolidation of elite power and profit both within the U.S. and throughout the world. The tragic events that involved the murder of thousands of innocent civilians were exploited by the U.S. government to crack down on domestic freedoms, while launching a ruthless bombing campaign on the largely helpless people of Afghanistan, directly resulting in the further killing of almost double the number of civilians who died on 9-11.

There are a variety of possible scenarios regarding the role of the U.S. government that explain these facts. All of these possibilities, however, strongly suggest a significant degree of U.S. complicity in the events of 11th September. This does not imply that the U.S. was involved in orchestrating the events of 11th September from start to finish, or that the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon were ‘staged’ by the U.S, or that those responsible were on a direct U.S. payroll in receipt of direct U.S. orders.

What it does mean, is that the U.S. government, through its actions and inactions, effectively facilitated the attacks, protected those responsible, blocked attempts to prevent the attacks, and maintained close political, financial, military and intelligence ties to key figures who supported those responsible. Whether or not every stage of these policies was a result of deliberation, the role that the U.S. government has played both historically and currently in key events leading up to, and after, 11th September, strongly suggests U.S. responsibility for those events.

At the very least, this amounts to complicity through negligence or omission, for the simple reason that the U.S. government has systematically behaved with wilful recklessness, with sheer indifference as to the probable consequences in terms of loss of American lives, in the pursuit of strategic and economic interests. Furthermore, the consistent and indeed systematic manner in which these policies have been implemented, even in the aftermath of 11th September, also suggests deliberate complicity. [595]

There is, of course, a context to this complicity, which establishes that the U.S. relationship with Osama bin Laden is far more complex than conventional opinion would have us believe. The Saudi establishment appears to have been supporting bin Laden largely as a form of bribery, payment of which secures the regime from being targeted by his network. In the words of the New Yorker (22 October 2001), the regime is “so weakened and frightened that it has brokered its future by channelling hundreds of millions of dollars in what amounts to protection money to fundamentalist groups that wish to overthrow it.” As a result, it has been specifically U.S. interests, rather than those of the Saudi establishment, that have come under fire from such groups.

While the U.S. seems to have been aware for many years of the Saudi establishment’s involvement in funding Al-Qaeda, successive administrations have deliberately allowed this to continue, motivated by concern for oil profits as secured through U.S. hegemony over the Saudi regime, whose ‘stability’—meaning ongoing rule—must be preserved at any cost. It appears that this stability is worth preserving even if the cost be the lives of American soldiers and civilians, abroad and at home.

Corporate elite interests, in other words, far outweigh alleged concerns for American lives. A documented precedent for this sort of policy is Al-Qaeda’s bombing of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, which as Richard Labeviere reports, did not interrupt the Clinton administration’s indirect support of bin Laden’s network, since “they figured the U.S. would gain more from it in the long run.” The same brand of considerations seem to have motivated the continuation and promotion of U.S. ties with those responsible for supporting Al-Qaeda even in the aftermath of 11th September — namely Pakistan and Saudi Arabia.

Simultaneously, it is also clear that U.S. intelligence had anticipated Al-Qaeda’s terrorist plans for 11th September (at least to a general extent, but most probably to a highly specific degree), but continued to facilitate and support—from behind-the-scenes through its regional allies — the build-up to the implementation of those plans, while ensuring the lack of preventive measures at home, both prior to and on 11th September. The reason for this appears to be that those attacks were about to occur at a fortuitous time for the Bush administration, which was facing both a domestic and an international crisis of legitimacy, accompanied by growing cracks in world order under U.S. hegemony in the form of escalating world-wide dissent and protest.

By allowing these terrorist acts to occur, and by apparently pushing a few necessary buttons while closing a few important doors, thus ensuring their occurrence, the Bush administration effectively permitted and supported Al-Qaeda through its key allies in its 11th September assault (whether the terrorist network knew it or not), thus establishing the trigger so desperately needed to re-assert its power politics world-wide.

Indeed, the measures taken by the Bush administration in the aftermath of 11th September appear to have been specifically tailored to ensure that the increasingly fatal cracks in world order that had begun to appear both at home and abroad before 11th September, do not appear again.

The domestic crackdown on basic civil rights, combined with the demonisation of dissent, has come part and parcel with the granting of unlimited war powers—lending the Bush administration a free hand to embark on a new unlimited war against any regime that challenges U.S. interests.

The protection of a stable dictatorship within Saudi Arabia is also an integral part of this programme of hegemonic consolidation and expansion. The Bush administration apparently feels that as long as the Saudi establishment continues to pour protection money into Al-Qaeda pockets, the required modicum of regional stability will be maintained, thus protecting unimpeded U.S. access to Middle East oil reserves. Whether or not this policy is viable is another matter, although it seems to have ‘worked’ so far, which probably explains why the Bush administration believes it can continue in this manner, at least for some time further. [596]

Meanwhile, the scattered continued existence of Al-Qaeda plays a functional role within world order, at least for the next few years. The London Guardian noted this functional role played by Osama bin Laden within the matrix of U.S. foreign policy objectives in an 18 th September report:

“If Osama bin Laden did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him. For the past four years, his name has been invoked whenever a U.S. president has sought to increase the defence budget or wriggle out of arms control treaties. He has been used to justify even President Bush’s missile defence programme, though neither he nor his associates are known to possess anything approaching ballistic missile technology. Now he has become the personification of evil required to launch a crusade for good: the face behind the faceless terror... [H]is usefulness to western governments lies in his power to terrify. When billions of pounds of military spending are at stake, rogue states and terrorist warlords become assets precisely because they are liabilities.” [597]

To consolidate and expand U.S. hegemony, and to fully counter its Russian, Chinese and European rivals, a massive threat is required, to establish domestic consensus on the unrelentingly interventionist character of U.S. foreign policy in the new and unlimited “war on terror.”

The bogeyman of Osama bin Laden’s international terrorist network thus plays, in the view of the Bush administration, a functional role within the matrix of U.S. plans to increasingly subject the world order to its military, political, strategic, and economic influence. This explains the Bush administration’s systematic failure to investigate known supporters of Al-Qaeda in Saudi Arabia and Pakistan—and even Al-Qaeda cells operating within the borders of the U.S. itself. Whether or not Al-Qaeda members, including bin Laden himself, are aware of this is another matter.

Until Al-Qaeda loses this functional role within a U.S.-dominated world order, this state of affairs is likely to continue. At the least, the U.S. government has clearly adopted this array of policies on the basis of a cold, but meticulous ‘cost-benefit’ analysis, weighing up the potential gains and losses of the following possible policies:

· Taking meaningful action against Al-Qaeda, while damaging U.S. regional interests tied to allies who support bin Laden

· Allowing allies to continue their support of Al-Qaeda, and refraining from action against it, in order to protect perceived U.S. interests

The second policy appears to be the one currently adopted by the Bush administration, for the reasons discussed above. It is a policy that amounts, at the very least, to indirect complicity in the 11th September attacks, through ongoing U.S. protection of leading allies supporting those who carried out the attacks. On this basis, it is evident that in the near future, on the pretext of targeting scattered terrorist cells connected to Al-Qaeda, various countries around the world that are of strategic value to the United States will fall victim to Bush’s ‘new war’ for U.S. hegemony.

The escalating and contrived ‘clash of civilisations’ that may result from this cynical U.S. policy, and the corresponding chaos and destruction, bear ominous implications for the future of humanity.

Indeed, the new pretexts are already being conjured up. President Bush Jr. virtually declared war on any country deemed by the U.S. to be a threat, in his State of the Union address on Tuesday, 29 th January 2002. Bush warned of “thousands of dangerous killers, schooled in the methods of murder, often supported by outlaw regimes,” and openly threatened an attack on Iran, Iraq and North Korea in particular. Both the U.S. government and media have made concerted efforts to allege some sort of connection between Al-Qaeda and the countries of Iran and Iraq. “By seeking weapons of mass destruction, these regimes pose a grave and growing danger. States like these and their terrorist allies constitute an axis of evil, arming to threaten the peace of the world.” Bush added that: “The United States of America will not permit the world’s most dangerous regimes to threaten us with the world’s most destructive weapons.”

The horrid irony of these statements is clear in light of the documentation presented here concerning the Bush administration’s role in the events of 11th September, its conscious use of massive terror against the Afghan population, and the accompanying policies of imperialism at home and abroad.

The Middle East and Central Asia together hold over two-thirds of the world’s reserves of oil and natural gas. After Saudi Arabia, Iran and Iraq are respectively the second and third largest oil-producers in the region. Both Iran and Iraq, in accordance with their local interests, are fundamentally opposed to the U.S. drive to secure unimpeded access to regional resources.

Iran, for instance, has been attempting to secure its own interests in Afghanistan and Central Asia, thus coming into direct conflict with regional U.S. interests, Iraq has for a decade now been tolerated only because the U.S. has been unable to replace Saddam Hussein’s regime with a viable alternative. [598] In light of the results of the apparently successful ‘test case’ provided by the war on Afghanistan, the U.S. seems intent on attempting a replay in Iraq by eliminating Saddam, and enlisting the opposition to establish a compliant new regime. Similar plans may be in the pipeline for Iran.

As for North Korea, this country borders China, and is thus strategically located in terms of longstanding U.S. policy planning. China has long been viewed by U.S. policy planners as its principal rival in north and east Asia. The military network being installed by the United States in the wake of 11th September systematically encircles China—Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, India, the Philippines, and now Korea.

The Guardian has also commented on these developments and their military-strategic context: “Every twist in the war on terrorism seems to leave a new Pentagon outpost in the Asia-Pacific region, from the former USSR to the Philippines. One of the lasting consequences of the war could be what amounts to a military encirclement of China.” In explanation, the London daily cites the Pentagon’s Quadrennial Defense Review warning ofthe danger that “a military competitor with a formidable resource base will emerge in the region.” The journal recommended a U.S. policy that “places a premium on securing additional access and infrastructure agreements.”[599] The expansion of the misnamed ‘war on terror’ is thus specifically tailored to target regions of strategic and economic interest to the United States, and thus to consolidate unrivalled U.S. hegemony in these regions.

It is worth emphasising here that even the lowest possible level of involvement on the part of the Bush administration fails to absolve this administration of scandalous responsibility for the events of 11th September. At the very least, the facts on record demonstrate with certainty that the U.S. government is fully aware that its regional allies, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and some others, have funded and supported Al-Qaeda for years. Yet despite this, the U.S. government has permitted this support to continue, actively obstructing intelligence investigations into the matter, and funneling U.S. aid to the same allies. This policy has continued with the objective of maintaining these lucrative alliances, through which regional U.S. economic and strategic interests are secured.

At the same time, the U.S. government has long been aware of the threat posed by Al-Qaeda to U.S. national security, and in particular was certainly aware that some sort of devastating attack by Al-Qaeda on U.S. soil was imminent in the later half of 2001. Despite this, the U.S. government refused to reverse its policy of maintaining regional alliances with the principal supporters of Al-Qaeda, including the funneling of financial and military aid—and continues to do the same, even after the 11th September.

At the very least then, the facts on record demonstrate with certainty an ongoing U.S. policy of wilful and reckless indifference to American lives, motivated fundamentally by strategic and economic interests. This policy has been relentlessly pursued, regardless of the dangers to American lives, of which the U.S. policy-making establishment is fully aware. This policy therefore amounts, even at the lowest possible level of involvement, to deliberate if indirect complicity in the 11th September attacks, on the part of the Bush administration.

Although it is the opinion of this author that the documentation gathered strongly indicates the conscious complicity of the Bush administration in the 11th September attacks, it should once again be emphasised that this study does not aim to provide a conclusive or exhaustive analysis. It is primarily intended to collate the innumerable facts surrounding the events of 11th September, of which the public is largely unaware, and clarify them with extensive documentation.

These facts have simply not been addressed in an adequate fashion in the media, and the conventional version of events officially espoused by the Bush administration, and slavishly repeated by the media and academia, fails to account for or explain them. Most commentators, including supposed critics of U.S. policy, are content to arbitrarily dismiss any discussion of the role of the U.S. government in 11th September as irrelevant. But as this study demonstrates, the facts on record are far too important in their implications to be dismissed by anyone who is serious about understanding the events of 11th September.

In the final analysis, then, this study points to a host of unanswered questions and blatant anomalies that U.S. government, military and intelligence agencies must be forced to answer through a public inquiry. Such an inquiry is clearly a matter of the greatest urgency, and must be demanded as such by all sectors of society. The U.S. government’s actions should be transparent, justifiable, and reasonable. And in the event of a failure to meet these criteria, the U.S. government should be accountable to the American people. This is a public right, and an elementary aspect of democracy. Whether key U.S. figures and institutions have been guilty of complicity or sheer incompetence, the public has a right to know this is the least that could be done in memory of those who died on 11th September. Thus, a full-scale, independent public inquiry must be launched as soon as possible. Unless this occurs, the truth of what happened on 11th September – and thereafter – will remain indefinitely suppressed.

FOOTNOTES

[595] A typical objection to these conclusions, which attempts to imply that from the outset there is no point in even considering evidence of U.S. complicity in 9- 11, posits that the government’s allowing—or deliberately provoking—the destruction of the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and potentially the White House, is a priori an impossible scenario, due to the potentially uncontrollable ramifications for the world economy and the U.S. as such. This, however, is a disingenuous position based on unwarranted assumptions that the side effect of 9-11 might be uncontrollable.

Assuming that the conclusions of this study are correct: It is perfectly conceivable that the government, while anticipating an attack on the WTC, did not at all anticipate that the towers would actually collapse as a consequence. The architects and engineers who designed the Twin Towers, for instance, have stated that they had been designed to withstand nightmare scenarios, such as being hit by a plane (although hindsight proves they had not accounted for certain developments related to such scenarios).

Prior to the WTC attacks, the architects’ assurances would probably have been taken for granted. It is a fact that no top WTC executives were killed in the attacks. It is a fact that the thousands of victims who were killed in the attacks constitute a fraction of the total number of employees who work at the WTC. It is a fact that none of the Pentagon employees who died were members of the top military establishment. It is a fact that the main hub of the Pentagon can survive even a nuclear attack—the maximum damage caused, and that could have been caused, by the impacting plane was the destruction of a few walls and segments of the building’s outer structure, along with the loss of lower-level Pentagon staff who can be, and have been, easily replaced.

It is a fact that even the total destruction of the White House as a building (unlikely as a consequence of a plane crash, due to its broad and more sturdy structure) would not in reality damage the control and economic wealth of the Bush administration, the oil industry, the defence industry, and so on. It is a fact that all key high-level U.S. political officials had their own safety ensured throughout the proceedings of the attacks. It is a fact that the bombing of civilian buildings does not in itself damage the economy. It is a fact that the increasingly recessive world economy, while badly damaged and freefalling, was already in recession long before 11th September, and set to recede much further regardless of the latter.

It is a fact that the economic freefall has come to an end, largely thanks to the indirect impact of 11th September, such as the corporate bail-out, among other policies, it permitted. It is a fact that the attacks provided an opportunity for the corporate elite to escape the worst effects of this recession, and that as a consequence the recession has not had any adverse impact on Bush & Co. Finally, it is also therefore a fact that if high-level U.S. policy planners had considered allowing or provoking the occurrence of 9-11, they would have certainly taken all this into account, and projected that no fundamental damage to the interests of Bush & Co. would occur, as long as certain safeguards were taken on their behalf.

[596] Other ways of securing U.S. interests in the region in the event that the policy loses its viability, however, are no doubt being explored by U.S. policy planners. See for instance Peters, Ralph, ‘The Saudi Threat,’ Wall Street Journal, 4 Jan. 2002. Indeed, both the U.S. and Saudi governments are certainly cognisant of the dangers inherent in the current arrangement. This appears to be why they have both agreed to visibly discuss the reduction of the U.S. military presence in Saudi Arabia, with the aim of reducing pressure on the Saudi regime from groups, particularly those sympathetic to bin Laden, calling for an end to U.S. occupation there.

White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card, affirming that the Saudis are “wonderful allies in this war against terrorists,” admitted that: “Ever since the Gulf War ended, we've been working to try to minimize the amount of time and the size of the footprint that U.S. forces have in Saudi Arabia... They've been asking a long time, and we've been working with them for a long time—not just during this administration but during previous administrations—to reduce the footprint. I think it’s been a long-term interest of both countries... It will happen over time... There is a valuable reason for us to be in that region, but we are looking to reduce the footprint within Saudi Arabia, consistent with America's interests and consistent with the interests of Saudi Arabia.” (CNN, ‘Saudis ask U.S. to reduce forces, W. House admits,’ 27 Jan. 2002)

The reduction of the U.S. military presence is designed quite specifically to meet the mutual interests of both the U.S. and the Saudi regime—in terms of the latter’s internal stability and continuing rule, and in terms of thereby maintaining the former’s regional oil interests. This all ties in with the fact noted by former Saudi Oil Minister, Ahmad Zaki al-Yamani, that the “U.S. has a strategic objective, which is to control the oil of the Caspian sea and to end dependence on the oil of the Gulf.” (ArabicNews, ‘Yamani: importance of Gulf oil collapses in the interests of the Caspian Sea,’ 1 Feb. 2002, www.arabicnews.com/ansub/Daily/Day/020201/2002020118.html)

[597] Monbiot, George, ‘The need for dissent,’ The Guardian, 18 Sept. 2001.

[598] See Ahmed, Nafeez M., ‘The 1991 Gulf Massacre: The Historical and Strategic Context of Western Terrorism in the Gulf,’ Media Monitors Network, Los Angeles, CA, 2 October 2001, www.mediamonitors.net/mosaddeq14.html.

[599] The Guardian, 29th January 2002.



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