The “war on terrorism”: A double fraud upon humanity

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“[W]ell, you know, the Soviet Union is gone, the Warsaw Pact is gone, you know, I'm running out of enemies.”--Colin Powell

“We have agreed that [al-Qaeda] is not a group but a notion...The fight against that all-mighty ubiquitous myth deliberately linked to Islam is of great advantage for the Americans as it targets the oil-rich Muslim regions.” --Leonid Shebarshin, ex-chief of the Soviet Foreign Intelligence Service during meeting at the Rand Corporation

By Elias Davidsson

Paper presented by the author at the XVI Congress of the International Association of Democratic Lawyers, Paris. The IADL is an NGO with Consultative Status at the ECOSOC and UNESCO.


Summary

Shortly after the mass murder 1 of 11 September 2001, the United States administration announced a global “war on terrorism” that knows no borders or time limits. Numerous states have since broadened police powers of secret surveillance, house and body searches, detention without trial and enacted new types of offences designated as “terrorist acts”. Yet the factual premises to justify such radical assault on constitutional and human rights have not been produced. The “war on terrorism” is legally dubious and factually unjustified.

Among the effects of the major scourges affecting the international community, the harmful effects of “retail terrorism”2 seem almost trivial compared to “wholesale terrorism” committed by states, child mortality, civil wars, extreme poverty, illiteracy, environmental degradation, third-world debt, lack of clean water, hunger, AIDS, drug abuse, child prostitution and common murder. A person is more likely to die from a lightning strike than from terrorism3. Drunken drivers cause 1000 times more deaths than terrorists, yet no one has claimed that these drivers threaten international peace and security.4 Terrorism only appears as a global threat because governments say so and because mass media amplify this phenomenon beyond reasonable proportions.

In this essay it will be argued that the “war on terrorism” is not only a deceptive concept – in fact an oxymoron - but represents itself a form of terror. By designating terrorism as a global conspiracy threatening to attack anywhere and at any time, whole populations are terrorized to fear the unknown and consent to increased surveillance, security measures and restrictions of liberties. The events of 9/11, as presented by mass media, provided the necessary shock to prepare the American and West European public for supporting wars against other nations and accept increased police surveillance.5 By exposing the “war on terrorism” as a fraud and the 9/11 crime as its fraudulent justification, it will be easier to mobilize public resistance against further wars and the creeping emergence of a totalitarian world order.


The genesis of the “war on terrorism”

The etymology of the word terrorism can be traced to Robespierre and his “règne de la terreur”, namely government intimidation of the People.7 Today, the term is mainly used by states to create public fear against an elusive international conspiracy.8 Yet the original meaning of the word terrorism, reflecting a state policy, is still employed by concerned scholars, such as Noam Chomsky, Ed Herman and others. The vague concept of terrorism (“one’s terrorist is another person’s freedom fighter”) has prevented the adoption of an internationally recognized definition.9 A less publicized point of contention is whether government policies intended to coerce or terrorize civilian populations by military attacks or economic sanctions (or the threat thereof) should be designated as terrorism.10 The Statute of the International Criminal Court
does not include terrorism on its list of international crimes.11

Through [U.S.] National Security Directive No. 179 of July 20, 1985, a high level U.S. “Task Force on Combatting Terrorism” was established12. The rationale for this measure at the time was that “[i]nternational terrorism poses an increasing threat to U.S. citizens and our interests. Terrorists are waging a war against, not only the United States, but all civilized society in which innocent civilians are intentional victims and our servicemen are specific targets.” Yet, according to Joanna Bourke, “just 17 people were killed by terrorists in America between 1980 and 1985.”13

Even before the events of 9/11, the annual federal budget of the United States for combating terrorism had reached sums exceeding 6 billion dollars.14 The budget of the FBI Counterterrorism program alone grew from $78.5 million in 1993 to $301.2 million in 1999,15 a year in which six (6) Americans died worldwide of terrorist acts.16

Merely hours after the aircraft crashed in the United States on September 11, 2001 (shorthand 9/11) before any evidence could be examined, “federal authorities” designated the main suspect: Osama bin Laden, the alleged head of al-Qa’ida.17 Within three days the FBI claimed to have identified the 19 “hijackers” and the links established between them and al-Qa’ida.18

The new existential enemy of “Western civilization” was now created, profitably replacing the former Soviet threat. This threat, as will be shown below, was a myth crafted carefully by intelligence services,19 nurtured since then by mass media 20 and accepted uncritically by numerous authors and scholars. As a result of the events of 9/11, as presented by the media, “al-Qa’ida” became almost overnight the subject of innumerable books, studies, articles and comments, vying to analyze and demonstrate the workings of this elusive conspiracy.21 Yet there is no credible evidence for the claim that “al-Qa’ida” was responsible for the crime of 9/11, nor is it certain that there exists, at all, an organization by the name of al-Qa’ida, 22 or whether the trademark al- Qa’ida merely refers to a CIA project of covert operations using Arab or Muslim patsies. 23

The mass murder of 9/11 permitted the U.S. administration to justify a new military doctrine of the pre-emptive use of force anywhere in the world in the name of an unlimited war against terrorism.24 Secretary of Defence Donald H. Rumsfeld expounded this new strategy before it became official U.S. policy. It was, for example, described in the New York Times of 27 September 2001 under the heading “A New Kind of War”25 and in his speech to the North Atlantic Council on 18 December 2001.26

Later, Rumsfeld hinted the “war on terrorism” would never stop:

“I think we will eventually sufficiently damage the so-called al-Qa’ida terrorist network that it will not be able to function. But there are many other terrorist networks and people will form new groups. Just as we go to school on them, they go to school on us. As they see us do certain things they change their techniques and change how they're attacking and keep looking for themes or vulnerabilities or asymmetrical ways to damage us.” 27

Asked by a member of the audience “when you look two or three years down the road, do you have a picture in your mind as to how the war on terrorism comes to an end and what the end looks like?”, Rumsfeld answered:

“On the assumption that human nature is not going to change dramatically in that period of time, one has to assume that there will be people who will be teaching the kind of thing that's being taught in too many Madrasas and too many locations around the world, that there will still be people who will be looking for ways to damage the West, the United States, and free people.

Clearly a terrorist can attack at any time, any place, using any technique, and it's physically not possible to defend it every time in every place against every technique. ... It is that cooperation across the globe that is putting pressure on terrorists. It does not mean that there will not be additional terrorist attacks that are successful. There will be. And there will be in country after country. There will be a lot fewer than there otherwise would have been.”28

He also hinted at the value of the 9/11 mass murder for U.S. global leadership:

“Citizens of more than 80 nations died that day 29. And citizens of every nation saw, in an instant, that the threat of terrorism is no longer confined by borders, in either its origin or the targets of its deadly acts. In the global war against terrorism, President Bush has assembled the largest coalition in the history of mankind. The scope of this alliance is truly breathtaking in its breadth and its depth. Some 90 nations -- nearly half of the countries on the face of the earth -- are participating in the global war on terrorism. 30

To sum up, the U.S. Secretary of Defence forecasted that there will additional, successful, terrorist attacks “in country after country” and that “people will form new [terrorist] groups”, whose primary motive will be “to damage the West, the United States, and free people”. In his Testimony, delivered before the House and Senate Armed Services Committees regarding Iraq on 18 September 2002, he emphasized this forecast: “Let there be no doubt: an attack will be attempted. The only question is when and by what technique. It could be months, a year, or several years. But it will happen. It is in our future.”31 To ensure that attacks would happen, he proposed the creation of a new organization, the Proactive, Pre-emptive Operations Group (P2OG), which would carry out secret missions to “stimulate reactions” among terrorist groups, provoke them to commit acts that could be used to justify massive attacks by the U.S. forces.32


The crime of 9/11 catalyzes public opinion

U.S. media, as exemplified by an editorial of Time magazine, compared 9/11 to the attack on Pearl Harbor and urged a similar response:

“A day cannot live in infamy without the nourishment of rage. Let’s have rage. What’s needed is a unified, unifying Pearl Harbor sort of purple American fury.”33

The report “Rebuilding America’s Defenses” issued by the Project for a New American Century (PNAC), a right-wing institution established by Donald Rumsfeld, Richard Cheney, Paul Wolfowitz, Elliot Abrams, Jeb Bush and other neo-fascists 34, suggested a year before 9/11 that"some catastrophic and catalyzing event - like a new Pearl Harbor" could speed up the
“revolutionary” process of transforming the US military into "tomorrow's dominant
force."35

The “new Pearl Harbor”, needed to speed up the “revolutionary” transformation of the U.S. defence establishment, materialized, as if by miracle, on 11 September 2001. Almost 3000 people died in this carefully planned, perfectly executed and dramatically publicized act of mass murder.36 The 9/11 events caused a threefold surge in public support for increased defence spending and “a 30 percentage point increase in the number of mothers who felt that missile defense was a good idea post- 9/11.”37 Support swelled for a “strong” Bush presidency as well as confidence in the overnment and the media.

“Four out of five Americans are ready to give up some of their freedoms in return for more security; nearly half worry about becoming victims of a terrorist attack. [Attorney General John]Ashcroft has done his work well.”38

Creating public fear permitted legislators to extend law-enforcement powers to a new category of individuals (“suspected terrorists”) who could now be lawfully monitored, searched and detained without warrant 39. The model legislation for such new police powers was the so-called USA PATRIOT Act, adopted in the United States shortly after 9/11.40 While criticized by human rights organisations, further restrictions to human rights (in the name of fighting against terrorism) were envisaged. Preventive law-enforcement, a policy that requires permanent surveillance of entire social, political or ethnical groups 41, is now increasingly applied by numerous governments under various pretexts, such as the need to fight terrorism, money laundering, child prostitution or drug smuggling.42

Colin Powell, former U.S. Secretary of State, admitted in 2004 that the due to the disappearance of the Soviet bloc, the U.S. was “running out of enemies”, thus reducing the readiness of the public to maintain a high level of expenditures on defence-related services and products.43,44 A new policy of fear-mongering was urgently needed to keep the military and the corporations happy. The events of 9/11 just happened to fulfil that role.45

In terms of foreign policy goals pursued by the neo-fascists in the U.S. administration, the events of 9/11 provided invaluable, long-sought, opportunities, such as to create U.S. client regimes in Afghanistan 46 and Iraq. Richard Clarke, former U.S. Counterterrorism Coordinator, reported how eager U.S. leaders were to use the events of 9/11 as justification for a war on Iraq, without even bothering to inquire who committed the atrocities. He reported to have returned to a conference in the White House at 2:00 AM on 12 September 2001:

“I walked into a series of discussions about Iraq. At first I was incredulous that we were talking about something other than getting Al Qaeda (sic). Then I realized with almost a sharp physical pain that Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz were going to try to take advantage of this national tragedy to promote their agenda about Iraq...On [that] morning [...][the] focus was already beginning to shift from Al Qaeda (sic)...Later in the day, Secretary Rumsfeld complained that there were no decent targets for bombing in Afghanistan and that we should consider bombing Iraq, which, he said, had better targets. At first I thought Rumsfeld was joking. But he was serious and the President did not reject out of hand the idea of attacking Iraq.”47

Paul Wolfowitz, another member of the neo-fascist cabal, urged the 9/11 Commission to lay the ground for a new “Cold War” in the spirit of George Kennan’s Long Telegram or Paul Nitze’s NSC-68. In a speech he held at the Johns Hopkins University in April 2004 in the honor of Paul Nitze he said:

When Don Rumsfeld and I had lunch with members of the 9-11 commission recently, one member asked what could they do to ensure that their report would make a real difference. What I told them, basically, was to write something similar to George Kennan’s Long Telegram or Paul Nitze’s NSC-68. I hope that we might agree that the phenomenon of terrorist fanaticism has presented itself to us with such a horrible and menacing face that we need to confront it with the same openness of mind and breadth of vision that a young Paul Nitze confronted the menace of Soviet communism with more than 50 years ago. Like 50 years ago, there is an urgency and
a need to act. As NSC-68 explained so well, the Soviet threat was not just military, but ideological. In some ways, the ideology of terrorist fanaticism is even more dangerous. With them, we face an enemy who hides among the shadows, shifting positions and methods with the wind. As they go about their ugly business, they exploit the freedom of open societies. There is one constant, however, across half a century. Theirs, too, is an ideology of evil. But today we face an enemy that not only hates freedom; it hates life itself and worships death. This is not about America imposing its values on other people. It’s about America enabling other people to enjoy the values from which we benefit so enormously.48


Was the crime of 9/11 a case of international terrorism?

On 12 September 2001 around noon, the U.N. Security Council adopted a resolution condemning the mass murder of 9/11 as an act of international terrorism. 49 The Council was not presented with any evidence proving that the attack originated from outside the United States. On 1 October 2001, the U.S. Department of State sent a confidential cable to over 30 US embassies around the world requesting the embassies “to brief senior host government officials on the information linking the Al-Qa’ida terrorist network, Usama bin Ladin, and the Taleban regime to the September 11 terrorist attack.” The addressees “should provide oral briefings only and NOT leave the document below as a non-paper.” The addressee “should ensure that the focus of the oral presentation, especially at the outset, includes the overall terrorist threat we face (drawing on the first three paragraphs below) and the President’s statement about the campaign we intend to undertake against terrorism and the States that harbor and support it.” The Department of State asks addressees to “note that the United States is not obliged in any way to make any kind of showing as a prerequisite or precondition to the exercise of its right to self-defense under Article 51 of the UN Charter, whether now or in the future.”50

On 2 October 2001, the US Ambassador at Large and Co-ordinator for Counterterrorism, Frank Taylor, gave in turn an only oral presentation to the North Atlantic Council, NATO's top decision-making body.51 On the base of this presentation the Council “determined that the individuals who carried out the attacks belonged to the world-wide terrorist network of Al-Qaida, headed by Osama bin Laden and protected by the Taleban regime in Afghanistan.”52 The evidence presented at his meeting was based on the aforementioned cable sent to the NATO Mission on the previous day. As the contents of this cable do not include hard evidence linking Al Qaeda or Afghanistan to the events of 9/11, it follows that the NATO Council based its above
determination on unsubstantiated allegations and political expediency. Recalling the lies told by U.S. administration officials and by British Premier Tony Blair regarding alleged Iraqi weapons of mass destruction,53 one is entitled to remain sceptical about the quality of the evidence presented to NATO, let alone to the world at large, about the responsibility of any person or group in Afghanistan for the attacks of 9/11.

The U.S. administration has failed to produce any evidence proving that Al Qaeda members, or even any Muslims, actually boarded the four aircraft that were allegedly flown onto the known landmarks on 9/11. Items of evidence the U.S. administration could and should have produced to prove its case, but failed to do, include, inter alia,

• the original passenger lists of the four allegedly hijacked aircraft (on which the names of the alleged hijackers would appear);54
• coupons of boarding cards (with the names of the alleged hijackers on them);
• payment records for purchased flight tickets (with names and credit card numbers
• of the alleged hijackers);
• testimonies of individuals who saw the passengers and alleged hijackers board
• the aircraft;
• hijackers’ bodily remains.

Until the year 2006, the U.S. authorities refused to release video evidence in their possession proving that flight AA77 crashed on the Pentagon. The reasoning offered for refusing to release this evidence is that it “would reasonably be expected to interfere with enforcement proceedings”55. On May 16, 2006, the Pentagon released what American media described as “the first video images of American Airlines Flight 77 crashing into” the Pentagon. It is, however, impossible to distinguish an aircraft from this video, let alone to identify it. The Pentagon still refuses to release 84 other videos it apparently possesses from that day.56

Shortly after 9/11, British and Arab media reported that at least five of the 19 individuals listed by the FBI as the “hijackers” (Abdulaziz Alomari, Wail al-Shehri, Salem al-Hamzi, Saeed al-Ghamdi and Ahmed al-Nami) were still living,57 FBI Director Robert S. Mueller admitted twice on CNN (20 and 27 September 2001) that there is “no legal proof to prove the identities of the suicidal hijackers”.58 Yet, the FBI maintains on its website the names and photographs of the “living suicide hijackers” as if its own doubts about the “hijackers’” identities were of no consequence.59 What proof is there that the alleged hijackers, if any, were at all Muslims and had any relation to al Qa’ida, if their identities are even in doubt? The 9/11 Commission established by President George W. Bush, which purported to provide “the fullest possible account of the events surrounding 9/11”,60 glossed entirely over this question.

Dismissing the need to prove U.S. allegations on the responsibility of al Qa’ida and Osama bin Laden for the mass murder of 9/11, Donald Rumsfeld contends that “in the age of weapons of mass destruction”, standards of evidence requiring to prove guilt “beyond a reasonable doubt”61 are not appropriate:

“We still do not know with certainty who was behind the 1996 bombing the Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia—an attack that killed 19 American service members. We still do not know who is responsible for last year’s anthrax attacks. The nature of terrorist attacks is that it is often very difficult to identify who is ultimately responsible. Indeed, our consistent failure over the past two decades to trace terrorist attacks to their ultimate source gives terrorist states the lesson that using terrorist networks as proxies is an effective way of attacking the U.S. with impunity.”62

One of the characteristics of terrorism is, however, the intent of the perpetrators to attain a political gain through the threat or use of violence against civilians.63 The primary aim of a terrorist is not to cause harm for its own sake, but to make a forceful, violent, political statement. In order for the message to be driven home, the terrorists must claim authorship. Violent acts, such as bombings and aircraft hijackings, which are claimed by no one (or are claimed by dubious, anonymous, groups), must be presumed to be “false flag” operations by intelligence services. Such covert operations are committed in order to destabilize enemy governments, strain relations between states, justify foreign military intervention or cast blame on an “enemy”.64

The U.S. government has not only failed to prove Osama bin Laden and al-Qa’ida’s responsibility for 9/11 but actually did not relish having the events of 9/11 investigated. Merely 24 hours after the deadliest crime on U.S. soil, Attorney General John D. Ashcroft made it clear that the priority was to “stop another attack”, not to investigate the crime committed on the previous day. Bob Woodward and Dan Balz of the Washington Post reported that at a meeting of the National Security Council, convened by President George W. Bush in the White House’s Cabinet Room in the morning of September 12, 2001,

“FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III began to describe the investigation underway to identify those responsible for hijacking the four airplanes the day before...But Attorney General John D. Ashcroft interrupted him. Let's stop the discussion right here, he said. The chief mission of U.S. law enforcement, he added, is to stop another attack and apprehend any accomplices or terrorists before they hit us again. If we can't bring them to trial, so be it.65

Yet in the same morning, Ari Fleischer, the White House’s spokesman, announced in a press conference – citing undisclosed intelligence sources - that “the perpetrators have executed their plan and, therefore, the risks are significantly reduced”66. How could the White House know already 24 hours after the events that the risks were “significantly reduced” unless it had foreknowledge of the terrorists’ plan? It appears that Ari Fleischer’s statement was too embarrassing for the White House: The transcript of this particular press conference cannot be found on the website of White House Press Briefings.67 This statement, still found on various websites,68 did neither elicit questions or further comments by media nor a retraction from the White House, as one could have expected under the circumstances.

Four weeks after 9/11, Attorney General John Ashcroft and FBI Director Robert Mueller “ordered agents to drop their investigation of the attacks or any other assignment any time they learn of a threat or lead that might suggest a future attack.”69 ''The investigative staff has to be made to understand that we're not trying to solve a crime now,'' said a law enforcement official to the New York Times, speaking on condition of anonymity.70 One year after the events there was still no official investigation into 9/11.71 While “investigations into past disasters and attacks such as Pearl Harbor, the Titanic, the assassination of President Kennedy and the Shuttle Challenger explosion were established in less than 10 days”,72 President Bush resisted for 411 days before grudgingly accepting to form a National Commission to investigate the events of 9/11.73 He did so only after having been allowed to nominate the Chairman and the Executive Director of the Commission and restrict the Commission’s mandate, subpoena powers and funding. The Commission based its conclusions, published in its Final Report, on assumptions it did not check and did not apparently seek to check, such as the true identities of the “hijackers” and summaries compiled from reports by unnamed officials who allegedly interrogated al-Qa’ida
leaders at undisclosed locations, at undisclosed dates and under unknown conditions.

The Final Report of the Commission of Inquiry may accurately been designated as an Omission Report, because its main characteristic is the omission of countless facts and items of evidence which run counter the official account on 9/11. 74

Fearing that evidence could emerge which would undermine the official account, some forensic evidence was destroyed. Steel from the collapsed World Trade towers was sold speedily as scrap metal to China and Korea before experts could examine it in order to determine the cause of the collapse.75 Evidence that could have helped explain delays in dispatching fighters to intercept the “hijacked” aircraft was also intentionally destroyed. 76

Many individuals who have been reported in mass media as sources for facts regarding the events of 9/11 (witnesses to the crashing of the aircraft and the collapses of the World Trade towers, employees of the airlines who saw passengers board the aircraft, family members and friends of crew and passengers who received phone calls from the aircraft, individuals who were acquainted with the alleged hijackers, etc), either cannot be located or have been gagged by the FBI. Some of those who can be located appear even afraid to say what they know.77 It is thus almost impossible to independently verify testimonies these people may have given to the FBI or to the media shortly after the events.78 When the U.S. authorities yielded to repeated demands by relatives of 9/11 victims’ to listen to the recording of the UA93 flight recorder (which was said to contain details on the passenger’s struggle for control over the aircraft), they were warned not to reveal the contents of what they hear. They had to sign a non-disclosure agreement and were not allowed to take notes.79 Similarly, a confidentiality agreement was demanded from fire officials and relatives in New York before they were allowed to listen to a tape of emergency radio transmissions between the fire fighters in the World Trade towers and ground personnel. 80

The Congress, by enacting the Air Transportation Safety and System Stabilization Act, established the September 11th Victim Compensation Fund of 2001. Under the terms of this Act, a claimant for compensation “waives the right to file a civil action (or to be a party to an action) in any Federal or State court for damages sustained as a result of the terrorist-related aircraft crashes of September 11, 2001.”81 The US Government paid 9/11 victims (and their next-of-kin) lavish compensations - 30 times the size of the largest previous disaster payout 82 - but secured itself thereby immunity against possible legal action by the victims, which would have compelled it to expose in court its own lies regarding the events of 9/11. Some relatives declined to accept this “shut-up money” and are struggling against heavy odds to have the truth on 9/11 revealed through court discovery procedures.83

According to the CIA, its “officers worked with foreign intelligence services to detain more than 2,900 al-Qa'ida operatives and associates in over 90 countries” in the aftermath of 9/11.84 Yet as of May 2005 not a single “al-Qa’ida operative”, or anyone else, for that matter, has yet been convicted, anywhere, for participating in the 9/11 plot.85 Two alleged top leaders of al-Qa’ida allegedly in U.S. custody, Khalid Mohammed Sheikh and Ramzi Binalshibh, who according to the 9/11 Commission, admitted to US investigators to have planned and coordinated the 9/11,86 have neither been charged for any crime nor produced in court.87 They are kept at undisclosed
locations, if they are still living.88 The alleged leader of al-Qa’ida, Osama bin Laden, designated by U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell as the person who “committed these [9/11] acts of murder,”89 has not even been charged by the U.S. authorities for his alleged part in this crime.90 President George W. Bush declared on 15 September 2001, regarding Osama bin Laden: “If he thinks he can hide from the United States and our allies he will be sorely mistaken.”91 On 28 December 2001, the tone has already changed. Bush then said, "Our objective is more than bin Laden."92 In Bush’s State of the Union speech on January 2002, he did not even mention Osama bin Laden.93 In March 2002 President Bush, asked in a press conference why nothing is heard about Osama bin Laden, answered that he’s “not that concerned about him...He’s just a person who’s now been marginalized”.94 The U.S. administration finally admitted officially that it was not interested in arresting Osama bin Laden: On 6 April 2002, the Joint Chief of Staff Richard Myers stated: "The goal has never been to get bin Laden”.95 It appears that the U.S. administration had never been really interested in catching him.96

Beyond the above facts, it is possible to mathematically prove that the official account on 9/11 cannot be true.97


Is terrorism a threat to international peace and security?

On October 19, 1999, Ambassador Richard C. Holbrooke, United States’ Representative to the United Nations, said at a meeting of the U.N. Security Council:

“International terrorism is one of the most egregious threats to international peace and security”.98

In that year exactly six (6) U.S. nationals died worldwide from terrorist acts99. Mr. Holbrooke evidently had not state-terrorism in mind when he made his statement to the Council. The events of 9/11 permitted the United States to secure the adoption of Security Council resolutions designating acts of international terrorism as threats to international peace and security, a formulation designed to open the way for U.N.-authorized use of force under Chapter VII of the UN Charter.

By resolution 1373 (2001) the Security Council determined that “any act of international terrorism, constitute[s] a threat to international peace and security.” By the provisions of this resolution, made with reference to Chapter VII of the UN Charter, the Council required all states to adopt national measures to combat terrorism. The Council also established a Counter-Terrorism Committee empowered to monitor the implementation of these measures and help states to increase their capability to combat terrorism 100.

By Security Council resolution 1456 (2003), the Council designated terrorism as “one of the most serious threats to peace and security.”101 (Emphasis added).

By designating terrorism as a “threat to international peace and security” let alone as “one of the most serious” threats, the Security Council implicitly gave member states a green light to enact measures that are normally only adopted in “states of emergency”, including derogations from human rights.

Ed Herman and David Peterson captured well the benefit of these Security Council resolutions for numerous governments:

“The ‘war against terrorism’ has given a freer hand to terrorist governments that are ‘with us,’ like Russia’s but also that of Israel...China has also joined the fight against terrorism, and is expected to ‘use the international war against terror for a new crackdown on the Turkic-speaking Uighurs,’...since September 11 ([...]UPI, October 11, 2001). The new ‘war’ has encouraged governments across the globe to ask for military support from the United States to fight their own ‘terrorists,’ and the Bush administration has already come through with aid to the Philippines and Indonesia in these local struggles.’“102

The events of 9/11 have provided oppressive governments with a justification to reconsider the use of torture. The US Department of Justice has endorsed the use of torture when interrogating “suspected terrorists” who are not U.S. citizens.103

Shipping “terror suspects” to countries known to use torture in interrogations (designated by the euphemism “extraordinary rendition”) has been revealed as a covert practice practiced by the CIA with the tacit or active help of numerous governments.104 The presumption of innocence, a cornerstone of civilized law since the Magna Carta, is being turned on its head.105

U.S. officials who long before 9/11 had advocated “the expansion of presidential powers,”106 obtained cause. Imperial rule was duly expanded in the United States in the form of Presidential Executive Orders 107. By one such Executive Order, the President gave himself power to determine who is to be treated as a “terrorist”108; by another Executive Order, the President empowered himself to “confiscate” 109 Iraqi public assets. 110 Secret dockets in the U.S. judicial system have been revealed. 111 European law-enforcement authorities are beginning to apply anti-terror legislation to peaceful protestors. 112

All these developments, which threaten fundamental liberties and democratic rights, have been justified by a contrived terrorist threat, itself resting on the 9/11 fable.


Is terrorism an existential threat to humanity?

The events of 9/11 – as officially presented – led some politicians to equate terrorism with an existential threat to humankind. US Senator Richard G. Lugar, for example, asserted that Americans were now aware that “the United States is exposed to an existential threat from terrorism”. 113 Canada’s Justice Minister Irwin Cotler, referred to terrorism as "an existential threat to the whole of the human family” in order to justify broadened police powers.114 Tony Blair, Britain’s Prime Minister, argued that the threat of terrorism “defined not by Iraq but by September 11th” is of a “different nature from anything the world has faced before” 115 (emphasis added).

The elusive nature of terrorism allows creative minds to fantasize about its threat. The scenario of Muslim terrorists getting hold of a nuclear device is widely used as a scare to justify radical law-enforcement measures against individuals and states.116 While there is no evidence that any “terrorist organization” has acquired weapons of mass destruction, or is capable to handle such weapons, it is theoretically possible that a secret terrorist group could purchase nuclear devices on the black market. Delivering such a device against a population is, however, hardly within the capabilities of clandestine, non-state groups. Such capabilities are only possessed by a handful of governments. Experts are divided regarding the ability of ordinary criminals, such as
terrorists, to endanger without State support a large number of people, let alone a whole population.

The main threat for international peace and security remains, as ever, measures pursued by powerful States, such as bombing campaigns, ethnical cleansing, economic sanctions, military occupation, the deployment of nuclear weapons and the militarization of space.


The threat of terrorism: Myth and reality

When governments and international organizations designate terrorism as a “threat to international peace and security” or as an “existential threat to civilization”, one would expect them to substantiate such claims with hard evidence, such as statistics on the number of victims from terrorism. However, an examination of the major declarations and resolutions by the United Nations, NATO, the European Union andother international organisations, reveals that none mentions any such statistics 117.

We could only identify one explanation for this absence: The number of terrorism casualties is so small, compared to that of other causes of death, that the release of such figures would expose the “war on terrorism” as a bad joke.

According to the report Patterns of International Terrorism 2003, issued by the US Department of State on April 2004, 118 exactly thirty-five (35) American citizens died from international terrorism worldwide in 2003.

They were killed in the following countries: Kuwait (1); Colombia (1); Philippines (1); Israel (10); Palestinian occupied territories (6); Saudi Arabia (9); Iraq (5); Afghanistan (2) No U.S. citizen died in 2003 as a result of international terrorism in Europe, Africa, Australia and North America. In that same year, 16,503 persons were murdered in the U.S. alone,119 apparently too few to cause international concern. The number of US casualties of international terrorism in previous years was: 1998 (12); 1999 (6); 2000 (23); 2001 (2689 – a figure based on the disputed assumption that the events of 9/11 were acts of international terrorism); 2002 (27). European casualties of international terrorism are typically a few dozens a year. 120

The above figures show that, in terms of fatal casualties, neither the U.S. nor European governments can honestly claim that non-state terrorism represents a grave threat for their own citizens. Such claim is preposterous. The fact that the yearly U.S. federal budget for the fight against terrorism exceeded already $8 billion before the events of 9/11 – when the number of American victims of terrorism could be counted on one’s fingers 121 – demonstrates that the “war on terror” was not impelled by a real threat.

According to the statistical database of the U.S. Department of State (referred to above), the number of worldwide fatal casualties of terrorism, all nationalities combined, was the following:

Year		Number of fatal casualties
2000		2,494
2001		4,379
2002		2,723 (source: http://www.tkb.org)
2003		2,385 (source: http://www.tkb.org)

To put casualty figures from terrorism into a global perspective, one should mention that about 10,500,000 children die yearly of preventable causes122 (or the equivalent of ten 9/11 tragedies every single day). This staggering number of child deaths is merely a symptom of an acute social and political pathology that nourishes threats to international peace and security. Yet this yearly Holocaust does not appear to sufficiently shock the conscience of U.N. Security Council members into undertaking enforcement measures and end this scourge. The Security Council has never designated extreme poverty, the lack of drinking water and massive child mortality as threats to international peace and security.

It should be emphasized that the above statistics only cover “retail terrorism”, namely the commission of terrorist acts by disparate, non-state groups and individuals with limited resources. Victims of “wholesale terrorism” (state terrorism) i.e. organized attacks by government forces, aimed to demoralize or coerce a population, are not counted as terrorism but as ordinary state policies, 123 even if their harmful consequences exceed by far all acts of retail terrorism. 124


Conclusions and Recommendations

We have demonstrated that the “war on terrorism” is a convenient and fraudulent cover for wars of aggression and internal repression. This fraudulent “war on terrorism” is in turn based on a second fraud, namely that the events of 9/11 were an act of “international terrorism” rather than mass murder whose perpetrators have not yet been identified and prosecuted.

A major challenge facing the world’s peoples is how to deal with a situation in which the majority of governments appear to collude in deceiving public opinion on a nonexisting threat, using this contrived threat as a means to stifle opposition and covering up one of the most egregious contemporary crimes.

Attempts to uncover the truth on the events of 9/11 through judicial means have not been successful. American courts regularly defer to government claims that it cannot disclose evidence because of security considerations. Most families of 9/11 victims have been induced by financial rewards to forfeit their right to the truth. Many others have been gagged or threatened with sanctions if they reveal what they know about the events.

No international forum has jurisdiction over the crime of 9/11 because the United States, on the soil of which this crime against humanity was committed, is not a party to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court and will certainly not cooperate with the Court in investigating the crime.

In order to strengthen international solidarity against the emergence of a new totalitarian order under U.S. leadership, the following recommendations are suggested:

1. An international, independent, inquiry commission, should be established, under the auspices of the UN General Assembly, whose task would be to provide a full, truthful and final account of the events of 9/11.

2. An international ad-hoc criminal tribunal should be established to try and punish those who instigated, planned, facilitated and committed the crime against humanity committed on 9/11, as well as those who knowingly covered up the crime and protected its perpetrators.

3. The dissemination and maintenance of terrorism scares by governments should be designated as a criminal offence under international law.


END


Notes

1 The author considers that “mass murder” is the most appropriate prima facie designation for the events of 9/11. This designation will be used herein.

2 The author is indebted to Ed Herman and David Peterson for the terms “retail” and “wholesale” terrorism. The former term refers to terrorist acts by non-state, mostly clandestine, groups. The latter refers to measures committed at the behest of and with the resources of states. See “The Threat of Global State Terrorism”, on http://zmag.org/Zmag/Articles/jan02herman.htm

3 On an average year about 82 persons die in the U.S. from lightning strikes. See: http://wonder.cdc.gov/wonder/prevguid/m0052833/m0052833.asp

4 John W. Dean, “Liberties Disappearing before our Eyes,” Los Angeles Times, 21 September 2003, at http://www.globalpolicy.org/wtc/liberties/2003/0921disappearing.htm

5 See, Richard Norton-Taylor, “Warning on spread of state surveillance,” The Guardian, 21 April 2005, at http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,3604,1464412,00.html

6 (*) Elias Davidsson lives in Iceland and can reached at edavid@simnet. is

6 See, particularly, Jean-Claude Paye, “La fin de l’État de droit: La lutte antiterroriste de l’état d’exception à la dictature”, La Dispute/SNÉDIT, Paris (2004)

7 http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=terrorism

8 According to the U.S. legislature, the “criminal offense of terrorism was a new offense created in Senate Bill 184 and was defined in terms of the commission of an existing specified offense, coupled with the intent to either 1) intimidate or coerce a civilian population, 2) influence the policy of any government by intimidation or coercion, or 3) affect the conduct of any government by the act that constitutes the offense of terrorism.” Individuals who committed the criminal offense “would be facing a penalty that is one degree higher than the most serious underlying specified offense that he or she is alleged to have committed.” At http://www.ccao.org/newsletter/cab200204.htm

9 See, for example, Brian Whitaker, “The definition of terrorism”, The Guardian, 7 May 2002, at http://www.guardian.co.uk/elsewhere/journalist/story/0,7792,487098,00.html

10 Based on the US statutory definition of international terrorism [US legal code (Title 18 § 2331)], comprehensive economic sanctions would include all the constitutive elements of this statutory crime. Such measures have shown as being (a) "dangerous to human life"; (b) "appear to be intended to coerce a civilian population"; (c) "appear to be intended to influence the policy of a government by ...coercion"; (d) "transcend national boundaries in terms of the means by which they are accomplished".

11 The Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, at http://www.un.org/law/icc/statute/romefra.htm

12 At http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB55/nsdd179.pdf

13 Cited by Linda Maher in the Sunday Business Post Online, March 13, 2005, in her review of the book “Fear, a Cultural History” by Joanna Burke http://archives.tcm.ie/businesspost/2005/03/13/story3026.asp

14 John Parachini, Center for Non-proliferation Studies, Testimony before the House Subcommittee on National Security, Veterans Affairs, and International Relations, July 26, 2000, Figure 1, p. 1, [http://cns.miis.edu]). On FY 1998 the figure was $6.5 billion, on FY 2000 $8.4 billion (source: Monterey Institute of International Studies, http://cns.miis.edu/research/cbw/terfund.htm)

15 Louis Freeh, Director FBI, Statement before the U.S. Senate Committee on Appropriations Subcommittee for the Departments of Commerce, Justice, and State, the Judiciary, and Related Agencies, February 4, 1999, page 1,

(http://www.fas.org/irp/congress/1999_hr/990204-freehct2.htm)

16 See statistics on international terrorism on the Department of State website, at

http://www.state.gov/s/ct/rls/pgtrpt/2003/33771.htm

17 Associated Press, 11 September 2001: “Today, our nation saw evil”

18 Associated Press, 14 September 2001, “19 people identified by the FBI as hijackers aboard the four planes that crashed Tuesday”

19 See, for example, Michel Chossudovsky, Fabricating an Enemy, at http://www.nadir.org/nadir/initiativ/agp/free/chossudovsky/fabricatingenemy.htm

20 As an example, the French newspaper of record, Le Monde, published 500 articles in 2003, which referred to “terrorism”. Not a single person in France died during that year from terrorism. Maureen Dowd, a regular contributor to the New York Times, wrote on 20 August 2003: "The Bush team has now created the very monster that it conjured up to alarm Americans into backing a war on Iraq.”

21 A search of the string “al Qaeda” on the website of what is presented as the World’s Largest Online Library (Questia), yielded 141 books, practically all written after 9/11. The same search yielded 4728 newspaper articles, 451 journal articles and 2637 magazine articles. at http://www.questia.com/SM.qst?act=search&keywordsSearchType=1000&keywords=%22Al%20Qaeda%22

22 Referring to his meeting with an unnamed al Qa’ida expert at the Rand Corporation Leonid Shebarshin, ex-chief of the Soviet Foreign Intelligence Service, said: “We have agreed that [al-Qaeda] is not a group but a notion...The fight against that all-mighty ubiquitous myth deliberately linked to Islam is of great advantage for the Americans as it targets the oil-rich Muslim regions.” Source: Moscow News, 23 March 2005, at http://mosnews.com/news/2005/03/21/shebarsh.shtml; see also Brendan O’Neill, “Does al- Qaeda exist?” 28 November 2003, at http://www.spikedonline. com/Articles/00000006DFED.htm. An good overview of the al Qa’ida myth is provided by Standard Schaeffer in his Interview with Historian R.T.Naylor (“Al Qaeda Itself Does Not Exist”), 21 June 2003, CounterPunch, at http://www.twf.org/News/Y2003/0622-Qaeda.html

23 See, for example, Michel Chossudovsky, Who is Osama Bin Laden? at http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/CHO109C.html

24 The National Security Strategy of the United States of America, signed by President George W. Bush on 17 September 2002, at http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article2320.htm

25 Mirrored at http://www.aldeilis.net/aldeilis/index.php?option=content&task=view&id=459&Itemid=107

26 At http://www.defenselink.mil/speeches/2001/s20011218-secdef1.html

27 At a FORTUNE Global Forum meeting, 11 November 2002, at http://www.defenselink.mil/speeches/2002/s20021111-secdef.html

28 Id.

29 According to an accurate list, merely 36 (not 80) nationalities were represented among the victims of 9/11. See Victims by Country and Citizenship, at http://www.september11victims.com/september11victims/COUNTRY_CITIZENSHIP.htm

30 Id.

31 “Rumsfeld Says Issue in Iraq is Disarmament, Not Weapons Inspections,” United States Mission to the European Union, at http://www.useu.be/Categories/GlobalAffairs/Sept1802RumsfeldIraqDisarmament.html

32 See Chris Floyd, The Pentagon Plan to Provoke Terrorist Attacks, CounterPunch, November 1, 2002, at http://www.counterpunch.org/floyd1101.html

33 Lance Morrow, “The case for Rage and Retribution”, Time, September 11, 2001 (cited in David Ray Griffin, “The New Pearl Harbor, Disturbing Questions about the Bush Administration and 9/11”, Olive Branch Press, Northampton, Mass., 2004, p. xi). The thesis that Pearl Harbor took America by surprise is now discredited. In his 1982 book 'Infamy: Pearl Harbor and Its Aftermath', Pulitzer-prize winner John Toland reveals that almost everything the Japanese were planning to do "was known to the United States" on the morning of the attack, via intercepted messages never communicated to commanders at Pearl Harbor. Cited by Heather Wokusch in Infamy: Pearl Harbor, 911 and the Coming Outrage, CommonDreams.org, September 10, 2004, at http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0910-06.htm; Robert B. Stinnett’s “Day of Deceit”, published in 2000, goes further: “After 16 painstaking years of uncovering documents through the Freedom of Information Act [FOIA], respected journalist and historian, Bob Stinnett, now charges that U.S. government leaders at the highest level not only knew that a Japanese attack was imminent, but that they had deliberately engaged in policies intended to provoke the attack...and the purpose of this plan was to draw a reluctant, peace-loving American public into the war for good or ill.” Pearl Harbor: Official Lies in an American War Tragedy? Introductory remarks by David Theroux at the Independent Institute, 24 May 2000 http://www.independent.org/events/transcript.asp?eventID=28

34 The author thinks that the term “neo-fascist” captures better the ideology of the ruling elite in the United States than the commonly used term “neo-con” (“neo-conservatives”). The “neofascist” ideology is predicated on the construction of a powerful “national security state”, a disregard for human rights, an increase of covert and mass surveillance, deliberate manipulation of the citizenry and use of the State to promote corporate interests.

35 Project for the New American Century, “Rebuilding America’s Defenses,” September 2000, p.

51, at http://www.newamericancentury.org/RebuildingAmericasDefenses.pdf

36 Exactly 2948 persons were confirmed dead according to http://www.september11victims.com/september11victims/STATISTIC.asp The manner of the attack was designed and the targets selected with the dramatic impact on ordinary people in mind. The term “mass murder “ appears prima facie the most appropriate for the events of 9/11.

37 The Impact of September 11 on Public Opinion: Increased Patriotism, Unity, Support for Bush; More Interest in News, A Brookings/Harvard Forum, 27 March 2002, at: http://www.brookings.edu/comm/transcripts/20020327.htm mirrored on www.juscogens.org

38 Dennis Jett, “The politics of fear”, Christian Science Monitor, June 17, 2002. Dennis Jett is dean of the International Center at the University of Florida.

39 A Google search on 19 May 2005 yielded 152,000 web pages on the string “suspected terrorist”.

40 The official title of the USA PATRIOT Act is: "Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act of 2001," H.R. 3162

41 The policies are initially directed at specific “risk” groups (Muslims, aliens). After being accepted by the general public, the group targeted for surveillance may be widened to what officialdom designates as “disruptive” groups (trade unions, anti-globalization and environmental movements). For a literature review on “preventive law-enforcement”, see Dean at supra note 3.

42 A representative argumentation for increased levels of surveillance can be found in the speech given by Germany’s Federal Minister of the Interior, Otto Schily, at Witten/Herdecke University on 21 February 2005, see: http://www.bmi.bund.de/cln_012/nn_332136/Internet/Content/Nachrichten/Reden/2005/02/Schily__International__Cooperation__on__Fighting__Crime__en.html

43 See, for example, Robert Higgs, “World War II and the Military-Industrial-Congressional Complex,” Freedom Daily, 1 May 1995, The Independent Institute, at http://www.independent.org/newsroom/article.asp?id=141

44 At a Press Conference of May 26, 2004, held at the Department of State, Colin Powell said: “[W]ell, you know, the Soviet Union is gone, the Warsaw Pact is gone, you know, I'm running out of enemies.” See Transcript at http://hongkong.usconsulate.gov/uscn/state/2004/052601.htm mirrored at: http://www.aldeilis.net/aldeilis/content/view/1603/130/

45 See Ruth Rosen, “Politics of Fear”, San Francisco Chronicle, 30 December 2002, at http://www.commondreams.org/views02/1230-02.htm; William Schroder, “American Imperialism and the Politics of Fear Before Iraq, there was the Philippines”, CommonDreams.org, 15 February 2005, at http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0215-22.htm; Institute of Race Relations, “The politics of fear: civil society and the security state”, June 2004, at http://www.irr.org.uk/2004/june/ak000011.html; Bill Van Auken, “Two ‘sting’ operations raise disturbing questions about US terror alert”. World Socialist Web Site, August

2004, at http://www.wsws.org/articles/2004/aug2004/stng-a11.shtml.

46 Apparently, the U.S. had already before 9/11 planned to invade Afghanistan. See, inter alia, “US ‘planned attack on Taliban’”, BBC, 18 September 2001, citing Niaz Naik, a former Pakistani Foreign Secretary, at http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/1550366.stm 47 Richard Clarke, “Against All Enemies,” Free Press/Simon & Schuster (2004), Chapter 1

48 Paul Wolfowitz, “Paul Nitze’s Legacy: For a New World,” 15 April 2004, http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0PAH/is_2004_April_15/ai_116668579/?tag=content;col1

49 SC Resolution 1368 (2001), OP 1, at http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs/2001/SC7143.doc.htm

50 Unclassified document nr. PTQ4405/170698 obtained by INTELWIRE posted on http://intelfiles.egoplex.com/2001-10-02-DOS-Qaeda-Overview.pdf.

51 Suzanne Delay, A Nation Challenged: The Evidence; NATO says U.S. Has Proof Against bin Laden Group, New York Times, 3 October 2001, mirrored at http://www.aldeilis.net/aldeilis/content/view/1493/

52 NATO Update, 3 October 2001, at http://www.nato.int/docu/update/2001/1001/e1002a.htm

53 See, for example, the Downing Street Secret Memo of 23 July 2002 (signed by Matthew Rycroft). It documents how the U.K. Government fixed facts to justify the invasion of Iraq. Posted on 1 May 2005 at the Sunday Times (London) website: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2087-1593607,00.html

54 The passenger lists from the four flights of 9/11 (AA11, AA77, UA93 and UA175) published by various media, do not contain Arab names.

55 This was the answer from the Department of Justice to a private FOIA request for such information. Both the letter of request and the answer are reproduced as facsimile posted on http://www.flight77.info/

56 See, for example, NBC Online, Video of 9/11 plane hitting Pentagon is released, May 16, 2006 http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/12818225/; see, however, Steve Watson, FBI Withholding 84 More Tapes of Pentagon on 9/11, May 17 2006 at http://www.infowars.net/articles/may2006/170506Pentagon_videos.htm

57 A collection of articles regarding the “living hijackers” is found on: http://www.aldeilis.net/aldeilis/index.php?option=content&task=category&sectionid=10&id=97&Itemid=107

58 Cited by Timothy W. Maier, “FBI Denies Mix-Up Of 9/11 Terrorists”, on Insight on the News, 11 June 2003, at http://www.realnews247.com/fbi_denies_mixup_of_911_terrorists.htm

59 Names of alleged hijackers’: http://www.fbi.gov/pressrel/pressrel01/091401hj.htm Photographs of alleged hijackers: http://www.fbi.gov/pressrel/penttbom/penttbomb.htm

60 The 9/11 Commission Report, Preface, p. xvi

61 A legal discussion of the expression “beyond reasonable doubt” can be found on http://www.jud.state.ct.us/CriminalJury/2-8.html

62 Testimony of U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld before the House and Senate Armed Services Committees regarding Iraq, September 18-19, 2002, at http://www.defenselink.mil/speeches/2002/s20020918-secdef.html

63 Proposed definition by Boaz Ganor, “Defining Terrorism: Is One Man’s Terrorist Another Man’s Freedom Fighter?” at http://www.ict.org.il/articles/define.htm

64 The most notorious cases of “false flag” operations in the 20th century are the burning of the Reichstag (Berlin, 1933); the Lavon Affair (Israel/Egypt 1954), http://www.aljazeera.com/cgi-bin/conspiracy_theory/fullstory.asp?id=193]; and Operation Northwood (USA/Cuba, 1962), which was planned but not executed [see http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/11_20_01_op_nwoods.html]. For a more comprehensive list of “false flag” operations (or synthetic terror), see: “False Flag Terrorism”, at http://www.aldeilis.net/aldeilis/content/category/24/257/141/

65 Bob Woodward and Dan Balz, “We Will Rally the World” [A review of the events of 12

September 2001] Washington Post, 28 January 2002, at http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&node=&contentId=A46879- 2002Jan27&notFound=true, mirrored at: http://www.aldeilis.net/aldeilis/content/view/1604/107/

66 White House Morning Briefing by Ari Fleischer 12 September 2001, at 9:57 AM. See http://usinfo.org/usia/usinfo.state.gov/topical/pol/terror/01091210.htm, mirrored on http://www.aldeilis.net/aldeilis/index.php?option=content&task=view&id=464&Itemid=107

67 White House. Press Briefings by Date, at http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/briefings/

68 Jim Drinkard, ”Air Force One, White House were targeted”, USA TODAY, 13 September 2001, at http://usatoday.com/news/nation/2001/09/11/worldtradecenter.htm; US Embassy in Canberra(http://canberra.usembassy.gov/hyper/2001/0912/epf305.htm); GovExec.com (http://www.govexec.com/dailyfed/0901/091201cd3.htm); and CNN (http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0305/20/bn.05.html)

69 Philip Shenon and David Johnston, “F.B.I. Shifts Focus to Try to Avert Any More Attacks,” New York Times, 9 October 2001, at http://www.nytimes.com/2001/10/09/national/09INQU.html, mirrored at http://www.aldeilis.net/aldeilis/index.php?option=content&task=view&id=346&Itemid=107

70 Ibid.

71 See i.e. Patrick Martin, “One year after the terror attacks”, 12 September 2002, Centre for Research on Globalisation, http://globalresearch.ca/articles/MAR209A.html

72 Citizens critique of flawed 9/11 Commission process, 23 July 2004, at http://www.911citizenswatch.org/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=353

73 On November 15, 2002, U.S. Congress approved legislation creating an independent commission—the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States—to “examine and report on the facts and causes relating to the September 11th terrorist attacks” and “make a full and complete accounting of the circumstances surrounding the attacks.” President Bush signed it into law on November 27, 2002.

74 For a thorough, critical discussion of the 9/11 Commission, see particularly David Ray Griffin’s book “The 9/11 Commission Report: Omissions and Distortions”, Olive Branch Press, Northampton, Mass. (2005)

75 See, for example, Christopher Bollyn, “The British Knights Who "Cleaned Up 911’”, on http://www.aldeilis.net/aldeilis/index.php?option=content&task=view&id=468&Itemid=107

76 Matthew Wald, “Destruction of FAA Tapes”, New York Times, 5/6/2004; Sara Kehaulani Goo, “FAA Managers Destroyed 9/11 Tapes”, Washington Post, 6 May 2004, mirrored on: http://portland.indymedia.org/en/2004/05/287757.shtml

77 Daniel Hopsicker, “FBI ‘harassing and intimidating’ 911 witnesses”, Rense.com, 12-11.03, at http://www.rense.com/general45/witnesses.htm; also private communications by the author with two firefighters.

78 We say “may have given to the FBI”, because in many cases media did not cite their sources or cited anonymous law-enforcement sources. It is impossible to know the exact nature of the testimonies.

79 Gail Sheehy, “9/11 Tapes Reveal Ground Personnel Muffled Attacks”, New York Observer, 20 June 2004;“Let’s Roll “, Daily Mail, 27 July 2002; Stenvenson Swanson, “Flight 93 Tape ends doubts for families”, Chicago Tribune, 19 April 2002; “Our loved Ones Died Heroes”, CBS News, 18 April 2002.

80 “Firefighers reached crash zone”, BBC 4 August 2002, at http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/world/americas/2171606.stm, also “Feds Withhold Crucial WTC Evidence“ at http://www.911dossier.co.uk/hj03.html

81 See: www.treasury.gov/offices/domestic-finance/atsb/hr2926.pdf

82 Maggie Farley, More than $38 billion paid to 9/11 victims, Los Angeles Times, November 8,

2004, at: http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-110804compensation_lat,0,44112.story?coll=la-home-headlines

83 See, Walter Gilberti, Bush administration moves to stifle discovery in 9/11 lawsuits, World Socialist Web Site, 2 August 2002, at http://www.wsws.org/articles/2002/aug2002/busha02.shtml; also: “9-11 Widow Beverly Eckert Declares, 'My Silence Cannot Be Bought'”, 27 December 2003; “9/11 Families Reject 'Bribe,' Sue U.S.”, 27 December 2003; Ellen Mariani Would 'Eat Dirt' Before Accepting Bush's 9-11 Hush Money, 12 Dec. 2003. September 11 Lawsuits. http://archive.democrats.com/preview.cfm?term=September%2011%20Lawsuits

84 George J. Tenet, Director of CIA, Testimony Before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, February 6, 2002: Support to the War on Terrorism and Homeland Security http://www.cia.gov/cia/reports/Ann_Rpt_2002/swtandhs.html

85 Only one person, Zacarias Moussaoui, has been sentenced to life imprisonment, inter alia, for his alleged foreknowledge of the 9/11 plot (not for participating in the plot). The sentence was based on his confession, which he retracted afterwards. Many observers doubt about his mental sanity. A list of court documents regarding his case is found on the website of FindLaw, at http://news.findlaw.com/legalnews/us/terrorism/cases/index.html

86 Staff Statement no. 16, 9/11 Commission, at www.9-11commission.gov/staff_statements/staff_statement_16.pdf

87 “DOJ Attorney Warns of Immediate and Irreparable Harm to National Security in Arguments Before Appeals Court, “ CACI - Proud Partner in Homeland Security, at http://www.caci.com/homeland_security/moussaoui_14.shtml

88 “Top al-Qaeda suspect in US custody”, BBC News, 16 September 2002, at http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/2261136.stm; but see also Paul Thompson, “Is there more to the capture of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed than meets the eye?”, Center for Cooperative Research, 4 March 2003, at http://www.cooperativeresearch.net/timeline/main/essayksmcapture.html

89 Interview with Colin Powell on NBC’s “Meet the Press” on 23 September 2001, posted on http://www.aldeilis.net/aldeilis/index.php?option=content&task=view&id=371&Itemid=107

90 “The Surgeon” (pseudonym): “Osama bin Laden has not been indicted for the attacks of 9/11?” http://www.aldeilis.net/aldeilis/index.php?option=content&task=view&id=312&Itemid=107

91 Christopher Newton, “Bush says bin Laden cannot hide, tells troops to prepare”, Associated Press, 15 September 2001.

92 “Terrorist Attacks Timeline”, Associated Press, 19 August 2002, at http://billstclair.com/911timeline/2002/ap081902b.html

93 President Bush State of the Union address, CNN, 29 January 2002, at http://archives.cnn.com/2002/ALLPOLITICS/01/29/bush.speech.txt/

94 See Press Conference by President Bush on 13 March 2002, at http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/03/20020313-8.html

95 Gen. Myers Interview With CNN TV, 6 April 2002, US Department of Defense Website, at http://www.defenselink.mil/transcripts/2002/t04082002_t407genm.html

96 Webster Griffin Tarpley, “9/11 Synthetic Terror Made in USA”, Progressive Press, Joshua Tree, Calif. (2005). Albright sabotages extradition of bin Laden by Sudan (pp. 141-144); FBI told by Bush to back off bin Ladens (pp. 144-5); Le Figaro: Bin Laden treated at American Hospital [in Dubai], July 2001 (pp. 149-151). Also

97 See, Elias Davidsson, “Simple math demonstrates that the official 9/11 account is a fabrication,” at http://www.aldeilis.net/aldeilis/index.php?option=content&task=view&id=440&Itemid=107

98 At http://www.un.int/usa/99_077.htm

99 See State Department terrorism statistics, at

http://www.state.gov/s/ct/rls/pgtrpt/2003/33771.htm

100 SC Resolution 1373 (2001) at http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs/2001/sc7158.doc.htm and Counter Terrorism Committee, at http://www.un.org/Docs/sc/committees/1373/

101 Security Council resolution 1456 (2003), Annex

102 Ed Herman and David Peterson, “The Threat of Global State Terrorism: Retail versus Wholesale Terrori”, at http://zmag.org/Zmag/Articles/jan02herman.htm

103 Mike Allen and Dana Priest, “Memo on Torture Draws Focus to Bush”, Washington Post, 9 June 2004, at http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A26401-2004Jun8.html

104 David Morgan, U.S. has sent up to 70 terror suspects to Egypt, Reuters, 15 May 2005, at http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/egypt_usa_torture_dc; see also Jane Mayer, “Outsourcing Torture, the secret history of America’s ‘extraordinary rendition’ program.”, The New Yorker, 14 February 2005, at http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/?050214fa_fact6; Neil Mackay, Torture Flights, Sunday Herald (Scotland), 16 October 2005, at http://www.sundayherald.com/52303

105 Seven states and 378 local or country governments in the US have adopted resolutions opposing specific parts of the USA PATRIOT Act, "that may infringe on important civil liberties . . . including presumption of innocence, due process, legal counsel and probable cause (and) protection from unreasonable searches and seizures." In “Some N.J. towns, counties are against law”, Asbury Park Press, 21 May 2005, reported by Associated Press, at http://www.911citizenswatch.org/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid= 548&mode=thread&order=0&thold=0

106 Jonathan Turley, “Naked power, arbitrary rule”, Los Angeles Times, 21 July 2003, at http://cscs.umich.edu/~crshalizi/sloth/2003-07-21.html

107 See Executive Orders Issued by President Bush, web page of the White House, http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/orders/

108 President Issues Military Order: Detention, Treatment, and Trial of Certain Non-Citizens in the War Against Terrorism, White House website, 13 November 2001, at http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2001/11/20011113-27.html

109 The term “confiscate” is merely a euphemism for an act of outright theft.

110 Executive Order: Confiscating and Vesting Certain Iraqi Property, White House web page, 20

March 2003, at http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/03/20030320-10.html

111 Ann W. O'Neill, “Secret courts, secret dockets, secret arguments, secret imprisonments,” South Florida Sun-Sentinel, 8 January 2004, at http://www.unknownnews.net/040112secrets.html; also David M. Reutter and Paul Wright, “Secret Court Docket Practice Exposed”, Prison Legal News, December 2003, at http://www.prisonlegalnews.org; and Bill Mears, “Court declines appeal on 9/11 secrecy”, CNN, 23 February 2004, at http://edition.cnn.com/2004/LAW/02/23/scotus.terror.secrecy

112 See, Giles Tremlett, “Spain tries Greenpeace five”, The Guardian, 11 May 2005; “Greenpeace charged under anti-terror laws”, 11 may 2005, at http://www.statewatch.org/news/2005/may/04greenpeace.htm

113 U.S.-NATO Missions Annual Conference, Brussels, Belgium, January 19, 2002 NATO's Role in the War on Terrorism, By Senator Richard G. Lugar

114 Ian Macleod, The Ottawa Citizen, December 11, 2004, mirrored at http://www.zerra.net/freemohamed/content.php?article.132

115 In a speech in his Sedgefield constituency. Source: The Guardian, Friday March 5, 2004 http://politics.guardian.co.uk/iraq/story/0,12956,1162991,00.html

116 Examples: “Al-Qaeda nuclear plans confirmed”, BBC, 16 November 2001, “Al Qaeda documents outline serious weapons program “, CNN, 25 January 2002; “Al-Qaeda 'was making dirty bomb'”, BBC, 31 January 2003; Bill Gertz, “Reports reveal Zarqawi nuclear threat”, Washington Times, 20 April 2005. None of these stories could be independently verified.

117 While the tangible effects of terrorism can be measured in terms of damage to material goods and direct harm to body and limb (and are objective indicator of harm) the psychological effects of terrorist acts cannot be attributed to the perpetrators. These are the result of medi coverage of such acts.

118 Webpage of the U.S. Department of State: http://www.state.gov/s/ct/rls/pgtrpt/2003/33771.htm

119 National Center for Victims of Crime Website, at http://www.ncvc.org/ncvc/main.aspx?dbName=DocumentViewer&DocumentID=38716

120 Webpage of the U.S. Department of State: http://www.state.gov/s/ct/rls/pgtrpt/2003/33771.htm

121 See, supra.

122 World Health Organization: Surviving the first five years of life, at http://www.who.int/whr/2003/chapter1/en/index2.html

123 A number of countries, though particularly the United States and Israel, oppose the inclusion of ‘state terrorism’ into a draft Comprehensive Convention on International Terrorism proposed by India. See, Siddharth Varadarajan, “UN Terror Draft to Oulaw Israeli Strikes”, Time News Network, January 2002, at http://www.globalpolicy.org/wtc/un/2002/0130treaty.htm

124 A particularly egregious case is that of the U.N. sanctions against Iraq which were intended to create hardship for the Iraqi population as a means of coercion and which caused the deaths ofover half a million children. See writings on economic sanctions and the Iraq sanctions at http://www.aldeilis.net/aldeilis/index.php?option=content&task=view&id=226&Itemid=120