I assumed your supreme knowledge was based on first hand experience. Of course I know nothing. Ever seen one of these? By the way I dont mean the mouse.
I assumed your supreme knowledge was based on first hand experience. Of course I know nothing. Ever seen one of these? By the way I dont mean the mouse.
Atilla
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I think I've made my point clearly;
US Vetoed contracts in Iraq and established puppet regime!
Similarity with Tussle for contracts in Libya recognisable by those countries who conducted the war! (I don't necessarily disagree with this providing it is conducted sensitively without waterboarding those who may disagree. Catch my drift?)
... and your point is...
I'm off to bed to die as the suspense is killing me... zzzzzz
BeginnerJoe
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Glad to see you have the first hand experience of being told to leave other people's country. Perhaps you should.
So you support violence against immigrants then?
Atilla
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Mr Clueless, when immigrants come to this country they usually get to hand their weapons in at the check in desk.
You should get out more.
BeginnerJoe
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Since when did you immigrate to the other country that you were in ? Do you have the host country's paper that show they accepted your entry ? I like statements, paper works, and certificates, you know ? My guess is you busted-in into someone else's country.
Like an illegal immigrant you mean? So you only support violence against illegal immigrants, is that what you're saying?
BeginnerJoe
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Illegal immigrants can be sent home. Can the host country that you busted-in send you home if they wanted ?
They did, but luckily me and Dick Cheney had already stolen all their oil so that was alright.
BeginnerJoe
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Dick Cheney stole his money from the american populace. The oil was not all that relevant. But if it pays off in the long run, it would be a bonus for his offspring's offspring. As for what you got out of it, I am not sure. I had a former soldier friend who told me a lot of people join up to see what it was like to kill. I guess that could be one thing you got out of it others would pay to have. The main point is you were nothing like the poor desperate illegal immigrants who might elicit some sympathy.
Atilla
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This is so true... Anybody who thinks the US won the wars are thinking body bags and not tangible gains. Similar to the UK in the 2nd World War. Economically I think it is the same picture.
Only solution is now to inflate out of debt and that will reduce purchasing power and benefits to future generations.
In today's World we have economic powers not military. Sooner people realise the better.
Atilla
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Exclusive: National Archives sits on 9/11 Commission records
(Reuters) - Ten years after al Qaeda's attack on the United States, the vast majority of the 9/11 Commission's investigative records remain sealed at the National Archives in Washington, even though the commission had directed the archives to make most of the material public in 2009, Reuters has learned.
The National Archives' failure to release the material presents a hurdle for historians and others seeking to plumb one of the most dramatic events in modern American history.
The 575 cubic feet of records were in large part the basis for the commission's public report, issued July 22, 2004. The commission, formally known as the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, was established by Congress in late 2002 to investigate the events leading up to the 9/11 attacks, the pre-attack effectiveness of intelligence agencies and the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and the government's emergency response.
In a Reuters interview this week, Matt Fulgham, assistant director of the archives' center for legislative affairs which has oversight of the commission documents, said that more than a third of the material has been reviewed for possible release. But many of those documents have been withheld or heavily redacted, and the released material includes documents that already were in the public domain, such as press articles.
Commission items still not public include a 30-page summary of an April 29, 2004 interview by all 10 commissioners with President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney, conducted in the White House's Oval Office. This was the only time the two were formally questioned about the events surrounding the attacks. The information could shed light on public accounts the two men have given in recent weeks of their actions around the time of the attacks.
Several former commission staff members said that because there is no comprehensive effort to unseal the remaining material, portions of the records the commission had hoped would be available by now to scholars and the public instead will remain sealed indefinitely.
In 2004 Commission Chairman Thomas Kean said publicly that he was eager for most of the records to be released as quickly as possible. In a Reuters interview last week, Kean said he was not aware until told by Reuters that only a small portion of the records have since been unsealed, and he saw no justification for withholding most of the unreleased material.
Kean said the commissioners had agreed on the January 2, 2009 date for release so that the material would not come out until after the 2008 elections. "We didn't want it to become a political football," he said.
But he added: "It should all be available now... We (commissioners) all felt that there's nothing in the records that that shouldn't be available" once the election had passed.
STILL CLASSIFIED
The still-sealed documents contain source material on subjects ranging from actions by President Bush on the day of the attacks to the Clinton White House's earlier response to growing threats from al Qaeda - information that in some instances was omitted from the 2004 report because of partisan battles among the commissioners.
The sealed material also includes vast amounts of information on al Qaeda and U.S. intelligence efforts in the years preceding the attacks.
Shortly before the commission ceased to exist in August 2004, it turned over all of its records to the archives. In a letter dated August 20, 2004, the commission's chairman and vice chairman instructed the archives to make the material public "to the greatest extent possible" on January 2, 2009, "or as soon thereafter as possible."
Philip Zelikow, who was the commission's staff director, said the summary "could be declassified in full without any harm to national security." Zelikow, a historian at the University of Virginia who for a time also was a top adviser to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, said the same is true for a 7,000-word summary he helped prepare for the commission of daily presidential intelligence briefings from 1998 through the attack. He said the summary would be a boon to scholars studying the history of U.S. intelligence work.
Stephanie Kaplan, a former commission staff member who is now working on a Ph.D. dissertation at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology on al Qaeda, said she has had to rely heavily on other sources because so little of the commission data is public.
Fulgham said that in preparation for the 2009 deadline, the archives assigned additional employees for some months to help prepare disclosure of an initial batch of records. But since then the effort has ground to a halt, in part because of a shortage of personnel and the difficulty of dealing with classified material, Fulgham said.
He said another big problem is that roughly two-thirds of the commission material remains classified by the agencies that gave it to the commission.
In its 2004 letter, the commission had asked the archives to submit all classified material to the agencies that created the documents to review them for declassification. But Fulgham said the archives has not done so. He said there was little point in asking agencies such as the CIA and State Department to declassify the material because they already are swamped evaluating other, much older material for release, in part in response to a presidential order to declassify as many records as possible that are at least 25 years old.
Scholars and public-interest organizations that focus on foreign policy and national security have long complained that the government classifies far more material than necessary.
Kean said when he headed the commission, "Most of what I read that was classified shouldn't have been." He said. "Easily 60 percent of the classified documents have no reason to be classified - none."
Kristen Wilhelm, the sole archives official now assigned to review the commission documents, said in an interview that the records agency has focused on releasing material created by the commission itself, such as "memoranda for the record" in which commission staff summarized research and interviews. She said the archives decided to emphasize releasing that material because it is the only possible source for it.
Wilhelm said she now mainly just responds to individual requests for information, and in most instances refers applicants to the agencies that created the documents rather than working to unseal the material herself. She said researchers could file Freedom of Information Act requests with individual federal agencies for documents they had turned over to the commission.
Commission records held by the Archives itself are exempt from FOIA because the commission was established by Congress and the legislative branch records are exempt from FOIA.
Some of the material now public is posted on the archives website, particularly the staff-written memoranda and transcripts of some commission interviews. But Wilhelm said most of the released material can be viewed only at the archives' headquarters.
John Berger, an author who maintains a website of terrorism and 9/11-related documents, said the failure to release more material is bad for the country because scholars and journalists are often able to analyze such material in depth, producing valuable insights.
"You can point to things produced from declassified documents that help our understanding and the government's understanding of urgent problems," he said.
(Editing by Michael Williams and Claudia Parsons)
(Reuters) - Ten years after al Qaeda's attack on the United States, the vast majority of the 9/11 Commission's investigative records remain sealed at the National Archives in Washington, even though the commission had directed the archives to make most of the material public in 2009, Reuters has learned.
The National Archives' failure to release the material presents a hurdle for historians and others seeking to plumb one of the most dramatic events in modern American history.
The 575 cubic feet of records were in large part the basis for the commission's public report, issued July 22, 2004. The commission, formally known as the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, was established by Congress in late 2002 to investigate the events leading up to the 9/11 attacks, the pre-attack effectiveness of intelligence agencies and the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and the government's emergency response.
In a Reuters interview this week, Matt Fulgham, assistant director of the archives' center for legislative affairs which has oversight of the commission documents, said that more than a third of the material has been reviewed for possible release. But many of those documents have been withheld or heavily redacted, and the released material includes documents that already were in the public domain, such as press articles.
Commission items still not public include a 30-page summary of an April 29, 2004 interview by all 10 commissioners with President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney, conducted in the White House's Oval Office. This was the only time the two were formally questioned about the events surrounding the attacks. The information could shed light on public accounts the two men have given in recent weeks of their actions around the time of the attacks.
Several former commission staff members said that because there is no comprehensive effort to unseal the remaining material, portions of the records the commission had hoped would be available by now to scholars and the public instead will remain sealed indefinitely.
In 2004 Commission Chairman Thomas Kean said publicly that he was eager for most of the records to be released as quickly as possible. In a Reuters interview last week, Kean said he was not aware until told by Reuters that only a small portion of the records have since been unsealed, and he saw no justification for withholding most of the unreleased material.
Kean said the commissioners had agreed on the January 2, 2009 date for release so that the material would not come out until after the 2008 elections. "We didn't want it to become a political football," he said.
But he added: "It should all be available now... We (commissioners) all felt that there's nothing in the records that that shouldn't be available" once the election had passed.
STILL CLASSIFIED
The still-sealed documents contain source material on subjects ranging from actions by President Bush on the day of the attacks to the Clinton White House's earlier response to growing threats from al Qaeda - information that in some instances was omitted from the 2004 report because of partisan battles among the commissioners.
The sealed material also includes vast amounts of information on al Qaeda and U.S. intelligence efforts in the years preceding the attacks.
Shortly before the commission ceased to exist in August 2004, it turned over all of its records to the archives. In a letter dated August 20, 2004, the commission's chairman and vice chairman instructed the archives to make the material public "to the greatest extent possible" on January 2, 2009, "or as soon thereafter as possible."
Philip Zelikow, who was the commission's staff director, said the summary "could be declassified in full without any harm to national security." Zelikow, a historian at the University of Virginia who for a time also was a top adviser to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, said the same is true for a 7,000-word summary he helped prepare for the commission of daily presidential intelligence briefings from 1998 through the attack. He said the summary would be a boon to scholars studying the history of U.S. intelligence work.
Stephanie Kaplan, a former commission staff member who is now working on a Ph.D. dissertation at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology on al Qaeda, said she has had to rely heavily on other sources because so little of the commission data is public.
Fulgham said that in preparation for the 2009 deadline, the archives assigned additional employees for some months to help prepare disclosure of an initial batch of records. But since then the effort has ground to a halt, in part because of a shortage of personnel and the difficulty of dealing with classified material, Fulgham said.
He said another big problem is that roughly two-thirds of the commission material remains classified by the agencies that gave it to the commission.
In its 2004 letter, the commission had asked the archives to submit all classified material to the agencies that created the documents to review them for declassification. But Fulgham said the archives has not done so. He said there was little point in asking agencies such as the CIA and State Department to declassify the material because they already are swamped evaluating other, much older material for release, in part in response to a presidential order to declassify as many records as possible that are at least 25 years old.
Scholars and public-interest organizations that focus on foreign policy and national security have long complained that the government classifies far more material than necessary.
Kean said when he headed the commission, "Most of what I read that was classified shouldn't have been." He said. "Easily 60 percent of the classified documents have no reason to be classified - none."
Kristen Wilhelm, the sole archives official now assigned to review the commission documents, said in an interview that the records agency has focused on releasing material created by the commission itself, such as "memoranda for the record" in which commission staff summarized research and interviews. She said the archives decided to emphasize releasing that material because it is the only possible source for it.
Wilhelm said she now mainly just responds to individual requests for information, and in most instances refers applicants to the agencies that created the documents rather than working to unseal the material herself. She said researchers could file Freedom of Information Act requests with individual federal agencies for documents they had turned over to the commission.
Commission records held by the Archives itself are exempt from FOIA because the commission was established by Congress and the legislative branch records are exempt from FOIA.
Some of the material now public is posted on the archives website, particularly the staff-written memoranda and transcripts of some commission interviews. But Wilhelm said most of the released material can be viewed only at the archives' headquarters.
John Berger, an author who maintains a website of terrorism and 9/11-related documents, said the failure to release more material is bad for the country because scholars and journalists are often able to analyze such material in depth, producing valuable insights.
"You can point to things produced from declassified documents that help our understanding and the government's understanding of urgent problems," he said.
(Editing by Michael Williams and Claudia Parsons)
the_coumiester
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Nice post, Atilla. It's interesting how, like all the other secrecy of the American government, that Americans seem to forget that 9/11 is essentially an open court case where the fingers were quickly pointed at a population of people who hadn't even so much as thrown a rock at the USA..........
Atilla
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Yep agreed.
Heard a lot about it over the last week. May all who have died in these terrorist attacks and wars rest in peace.
I came across this lengthy article and I feel it pretty much is on the nail. Long but worth reading.
9/11's Self-inflicted wounds are the worst
I always thought Aljazeera provided a better analysis of the real news than our BBC or US media. Same today - sort of an objective look at events.
RT had a good analysis of the reflective outcomes too.
1. I've recently found out that 90% of Afghans have no idea why US troops are there.
2. Upon showing the twin towers in flames one young man in his 20s was asked if he recognised the pictures. His reply was shocking...
- Are they our buildings in Kabul???
He was guessing the Americans with their big weapons attacked some high rise building in their capital which he had never visited or seen.
The mind boggles as to what we are fighting there. Whole bunch of innocent people manipulated by a few Saudies.
In the article the following paragraph is very poignant hitting home some hard fact. Imagine what could have been instead had we chosen the justice option - treating the terrorists as the criminals they were, instead of the war option, conferring on them the unwarranted dignity of warriors. On September 25, 2001, Mary Robinson, the UN's High Commissioner for Human Rights, announced that her office had determined "that the events of the 11th of September undoubtedly constituted acts of terrorism, but they also crossed a line" into the realm of "crimes against humanity".
I was thinking is this consideration possible???
NO! Categorically NOT! Because the ferocity with which USA and UK pushed for war was unbelievably wreckless and enthusiastic.
Also could treating this a crime and launching an international investigation ever possible considering all the unanswered questions.
1. The Twin Towers
2. Building 7
3. The Pentagon
4. Flight that was brought down en-route to WhiteHouse
Nope. Certainly note. I would doubt very much to see Bush, Wolfetz, Cheney or Rumsfeld volunteering any help.
Imagine what would have happened if the United States had gone to the United Nations, embraced Robinson, and sought the creation of a special tribunal to investigate and punish those responsible, in collaboration with all the leading religious authorities in Islam. Imagine further if those authorities had issued a fatwah - a religious edict - commanding full cooperation from every Muslim as their religious duty to remove a terrible stain on Islam. Imagine if this fatwah called for every Muslim not just to passively cooperate, but to actively come forward to tell everything they knew that could possibly help in bringing those responsible to justice.
How could such a response have been resisted? Who could possibly resist the combination of religious duty commanded from within the very heart of Islam and complete, merciful restraint by the injured party, who had almost limitless power to respond with military force and violence? The answer should be clear: only a handful of the most fanatical members of al-Qaeda (not even a majority of those associated with it) could have resisted.
The trials, of course, would have taken much longer. And they would be even more devastating. Families of innocent victims - Muslims as well as Christians, Hindus, Buddhists and Jews - would take centre stage in a drama of moral condemnation recalling the Nuremberg Tribunals. Instead of appearing as the wished to be seen - as heroic, idealistic figures, battling an abstract evil against overwhelming odds - they would have appeared as they are: as the blood-drenched murders of innocents. Such trials would have utterly discredited the terrorists for generations to come - if not forever - and created a significant opening for voices of progressive reform within Islam.
It would have been a spectacular victory for the rule of law, the fellowship of faiths and America's moral superiority - foregoing vengeance for justice. It would have utterly discredited bin Laden's brand of extremism - not just the use of violence, but the underlying ideology as well. It would have protected the US from any similar attacks for at least a generation or more - plenty of time to seriously deal with the underlying grievances bin Laden had exploited, and hoped to continue exploiting until he reshaped the Islamic world to his liking. Plenty of time for a long-term justice option, encompassing social, political and economic justice for all. Plenty of time for religious Muslims to reclaim their faith from its political hijackers. And plenty of time for Christians and Jews to do the same.
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BeginnerJoe
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Fighting there to gain a base against the chinese. Afghanistan is also significant for piping out the central asian oil for dollar denomination. If that oil flows out anywhere else, the dollar is cut out. Additionally, afghanistan produces the opium that some large entities rely on as a source of money, control, and weapon against other states.
the_coumiester
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I've also heard things such as troops pulling guard at drug fields and such. It's really hard to look at America in a positive light right now. The more I dig deeper into history, I just find these things that blow complete holes in conventional wisdom. If people in the Middle East don't even know why we're there, then that would essentially make the USA the aggressor here (old news, I guess). So, how many other times have we been the aggressor while feeding ourselves a line of B.S.? I can see why the world is starting to get a smidge annoyed with the U.S.A.
stopdownlimitup
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I definatley do too. Have you ever seen Loose Change? Its very interesting
YouAreNotFree
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So religious they were drug takers and frequenters of strip clubs and prostitutes?
I guess you could make the argument that its a common trait of 'religious' people to be hypocritical though. That's certainly the case in my experience.
Ambrose Ackroyd
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So it was the Catholics then ?
BeginnerJoe
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Well Catholics are doing a lot of the invasions, if that helps you in any way.
