Quote:
Originally Posted by Quentin
When the "plot" in question is like the one in Miami that was described by the FBI as " more aspirational than operational," then I think you have a point... but who got to act like a hero after failing to stop the 1993 attacks? How about after failing to stop 9/11?
If the reason they cook up the attacks is to look like heroes, then allowing the attacks they plan to actually take place is a rather odd way to create an impression of their heroism, isn't it? |
This is where the whole question of motive arises, and the question of *whose motive*?
With all the secretariate and directorate swaps happening (Patraeus is now CIA head, Panetta is Defense, Gates held both across two administrations) and the influence of the neo-cons across all security and intelligence arms of government, it makes you wonder on whose behalf the FBI is/was acting.
The FBI isn't entrapping people to make themselves look the hero, though that would be a residual effect; however all these "small" operations keep reminding people in the form of big headlines of the "War on Terror" and the need to ramp up security and maintain suspension of Habeas Corpus and Posse Comitatus. The smaller headlines about suspects being released for lack of evidence, or found not guilty, or simply the "involvement" of FBI informants as both enablers and recruiters, are always back-page peeps and hold no sway over the initial impact of the Big News.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Quentin
I think there's plenty of legitimate criticism to be had of the FBI, CIA and the "war on terror" generally; but I also think that discussions of the wilder, more elaborate conspiracy theories tend to distract from the troublesome questions that really should be asked and answered -- like just how much the CIA really knew about Nawaf al-Hazmi and Khalid al-Mihdhar, the two hijackers they had under surveillance in Kaula Lumpur, and who they knew were in the U.S. prior to the 9/11 attacks.
|
Clarke recently griped about this; and the whole FBI/CIA separation of jurisdictions seems to have been blurred. It's as if the Reagan Doctrine has been re-awakened and "foreign" means nothing anymore. Along with the NDAA, anyone inside the borders of the US can be surveilled, tracked, enabled, recruited and set loose within the US (and shrouded behind the veil of "National Security") with the same license the CIA had outside national borders during the cold war.
While the CIA may claim occultus privilegium about al-Hazmi and al-Mihdar, it was the FBI whose knowledge of those two was first revealed as they had been close to an FBI informant who was their landlord and confidante. Clarke complained that there was no way the CIA couldn't have known, and why he wasn't informed by them for some reason, rather than the FBI revelation years later.
During the joint inquiry post-9/11, the two Bobs (Graham and Kerry) were also made aware of much "sensitive" information of the sort, particularly regarding Saudi Arabia, but they couldn't tell anyone due to state secrecy (and I believe their deputization by the FBI, which made them criminally liable if they talked about anything that was redacted in their final report).
These "chess games" being played in part in the media, or the alternative media, seem bent on making any revelation of this sort appear "fringe" and "crackpot", even when the Richard Clarkes and other "insiders" actually come out; and not to invoke another conspiracy theory but as a "for example" in the same vein as the '93 WTC bombing and precursor to the steps ultimately taken after 9/11, the consequences of the Oklahoma City bombing and the "revelations" or insufficiently disclosed FBI knowledge (National Security again) from the indications that McVeigh wasn't alone and didn't set off the only explosives that day also dredge up the question of what motives would be behind FBI facilitation (fore- and post) of the potential and eventual events that day, and who was served by keeping the "official" story alive in the foreground, even if little spikes of secondary evidence blipped up in the background?