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
