05/16/2002 Archived Entry: "Sept 11th & the McKinney questions"

Well, now we know why Ari And The Wingnuts attacked Cynthia McKinney, saying she's stupid and loony, instead of just saying, "she's wrong." Was she right? I dunno, let's find out!

And we also now know what Ashcroft & the FBI meant by "threat assessment" last July. It will be interesting to see what else we learn.

Here's what McKinney actually asked:

What did this Administration know, and when did it know it about the events of September 11? Who else knew and why did they not warn the innocent people of New York who were needlessly murdered?

...But as you know, and I know, it wasn't the military that failed. It was a failure of people who had information to act.

We know that there were several warnings that were given prior to the events of September 11... People were calling in to the FBI and the CIA and they were giving information that was critical...

There was adequate warning. There were people who failed to act on the warning. And that's what ought to be investigated. But instead of requesting that Congress investigate what went wrong and why, we had president Bush (painful for me to say that, but) we had president Bush placing a call to Majority Leader Senator Tom Daschle asking him NOT to investigate the events of September 11, And then, hot on the heels of the president's phone call was another phone call from the vice president asking that Tom Daschle also not investigate the events that lead to September 11.

My question is, What do they have to hide? And why is it that the American people are being asked to make tremendous sacrifices now in our civil liberties. And the fact that we got this request for an unprecedented hike in -- the hike alone of 48.1 billion dollars is more than any one of our allies spend total on their defense.

And then the other issue that saddens me is the fact that the former President, president Bush's daddy, sits on the board of the Carlyle Group. And so we get this presidency, of questionable legitimacy, requesting a nearly unprecedented amount of money to go into a defense budget for defense spending that will directly benefit his father...

Where are the brakes on transparency and corruption that I see happening as a result of the fact that the president's father stands to make money off of the very requests that the president has made, on what I would call a specious argument saying that we need to increase defense spending because of Sept 11, when we now know that there was enough warning that we didn't have to even experience September 11 at all...

Don't look for retractions anytime soon from those who attacked her, like the sanctimonious Josh Marshall. It's always interesting to watch folks with grudges act and say things irrational and untrue in order to cover-up the steps they messed up on themselves. Sure, she came out over the top, but there was a kernel of truth in what Cynthia McKinney said at the time, and it was observable to those who were hearing with open minds. As I said at the time, she raises some good questions, and now perhaps we'll have an investigation. And who knows what that might find?!? McKinney doesn't, and she said so, but she wants to know, and so do I. Sounds American to me.

Hey, Carville basically asks the White House this same question that McKinney asked — via The Note — "What did the president know, when did he know about it, and what did he do about it? Did they launch a concerted effort to try to blame their predecessor to deflect attention? It was not a failure of intelligence, it was a failure to act on it."

Two other things that I'm intrigued by are the insider trading profits that occurred, I want to see the underbelly of the global shortsellers who profitied with insider knowledge exposed;

“The evidence and comments offered by traders, analysts, bankers and others in the immediate aftermath indicates there was, in fact, a carefully planned and sophisticated effort of massive profiteering from the precipitous fall of stocks that occurred when trading opened following the attack. This is expert documentation and observations based on years of experience. The implications are absolutely frightening. And all the more reason for authorities to pull out all the stops to identify and prosecute those responsible and shut down the global financial network facilitated the most heinous of crimes. Unfortunately, that's not exactly what's happened.”

The second one is strange, a bit more off beat, the microbiologists who have been showing up mysteriously dead since Sept. 11th.

Sure, there are anomalous spikes of volume that occur on a daily basis across the board, and folks within degrees are happenstance murdered, with no connection. But the facts lend suspicion, and given the events, that is more than enough to warrant an investigation.

Basically, I think the FBI/CIA/Bush Administration has been trying so hard over the past 8 months to keep their fore-knowledge of this terrorist probability under wraps, that they didn't want to start pointing fingers at others, lest it wind up being put back upon themselves. The stonewalling of the Bush administration --and their insistence that the Senate not hold hearings on this-- raised suspicion. Well, now we know they knew, and they didn't want anyone to know they knew-- but how much and when is the next question.

And just how, and why now, was this story broken?

Replies: 2 comments

Everyone is asking about the warnings that the Administration had about 9/11 (See Attached)

http://www.cnn.com/2002/US/05/16/bush.sept.11/index.html

And what does the President have to say: "Let us Pray"

http://www.cnn.com/2002/ALLPOLITICS/05/16/bush.hispanics.ap/index.html

With such incompetence, we need to pray all the time, not just in public schools.

Posted by G.C. Raj @ 05/16/2002 04:06 PM PST

"Director of Central Intelligence George J. Tenet had been “nearly frantic” with concern since June 22, according to one frequent interlocutor, and a written intelligence summary for national security adviser Condoleezza Rice said on June 28: “It is highly likely that a significant al Qaeda attack is in the near future, within several weeks.” By late summer, one senior political appointee said, Tenet had “repeated this so often that people got tired of hearing it.”"

In other words, the boy who cried wolf. These days professionals do not even put to use their first grade education!

Posted by G. C. Raj @ 05/17/2002 11:34 AM PST