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CounterPunch
October
1, 2002
The Mysteries
of 9/11
by
SCOTT LOUGHREY
The Washington Post's Style section is their arts
and entertainment section. They have stories on personalities;
movie, music, TV and theater reviews, comics and the regular
puff piece on some powerful figure. I am partial to Zippy the
Pinhead myself.
On May 18, the Washington Post ran a
story in their Style section called "A Cloak but No Dagger
(The Washington Post, 5/18/2002). It concerned Rep. Porter Goss
(R-Fla), the Chairman of the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.
At the time the article was written Goss was said to be helping
to "steer" a House-Senate investigation into the 9/11/01
attacks. The puff piece proceeds normally until deep inside,
when it reads:
"On the morning of Sept. 11, Goss
and [Bob Graham (D-Fla)] were having breakfast with a Pakistani
general named Mahmud Ahmed [sic] the soon-to-be sacked
head of Pakistan's intelligence service. Ahmed ran a spy agency
notoriously close to Osama bin Laden and the Taliban...the discussion
that morning touched on Taliban links to terrorism, but Goss
says his greatest worry was the dispute in Kashmir"
One thing that is curious about these
three sentences is apparently the Pakistani man's name is misspelled.
He's known on the internet as Mahmoud Ahmad.
Even more interesting about this breakfast
meeting is that the Times of India has reported that Gen. Ahmad
is alleged to have been the individual who had $100,000 wired
to alleged hijacker Mohammed Atta. (The Times of India, Delhi,
9 October 2001). Canadian professor Michel Chossudovsky is affiliated
with a website that mentions this unusual connection. (Visit:
http://www.GlobalResearch.ca).
Chossudovsky, writing for the Philadelphia
City Paper, quotes the Agence France-Presse as confirming that
the evidence the government of India has supplied to the U.S.
[regarding Gen. Ahmad's connection to hijacker Atta] is "of
a much wider range and depth than just one piece of paper linking
a rogue general to some misplaced act of terrorism." (the
Philadelphia
City Paper, December 20-27, 2001).
So, if Ahmad did send money to Mohammed
Atta, and Atta was indeed, the mastermind of the WTC attacks,
what was Ahmad doing talking to leaders of Congress in the weeks
before 9/11/01? And, why is the Washington Post using their Style
section to mention that this unusual breakfast meeting took place
on 9/11/01? If they were representing the interests of the general
public (who want to know as much as possible what happened on
9/11) they'd be reporting these matters more conspicuously.
Another thought-provoking commentary
which you can find at the Centre for Research on Globalization
website is an article by Patrick Martin (World
Socialist Web Site, 9/12/2002). Martin points out that a
year has passed since the 9/11/01 attacks and still the Bush
administration has not released:
- The passenger lists maintained by the
airlines;
- The information from the two data recorders
recovered from the doomed planes;
- The transcripts of communications between
the pilots and air traffic controllers on the ground;
- Any evidence that there were 19 Arab
hijackers on board, and what their real names and nationalities
were.
So, while the media and Congressional
leaders continue to investigate the "intelligence failures"
surrounding 9/11/01, neither the general public (or any Congressional
representatives) have had the opportunity to examine these artifacts
of our nation's worst day of terrorism.
Now, there has to be a reasonable explanation
as to why the Bush administration hasn't released those items.
And, certainly there can be another reasonable explanation for
why the Congressmen were meeting the Pakistani intelligence officer
on 9/11/01.
However, it is not very comforting to
note that there is not a mainstream newspaper in our country
that is calling for the Bush administration to release the hijack
clues to the public. And, it is disturbing how the Washington
Post has used its Style section to hint very quietly at
the meetings that took place between powerful officials and the
Pakistani general alleged to have been the 9/11/01 money man.
There has never been a greater time for
people to read and disseminate what's in the alternative media.
We must find ways to inform ourselves and organize a resistance
to what's taking place in our country while we still can.
Scott Loughrey
is a media critic in Baltimore.
He can be reached at: scottl44@yahoo.com
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September
21 / 22, 2002
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Tom Gorman
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