Skip to content or view mobile version

Home | Mobile | Editorial | Mission | Privacy | About | Contact | Help | Security | Support

A network of individuals, independent and alternative media activists and organisations, offering grassroots, non-corporate, non-commercial coverage of important social and political issues.

9-11 Commission Report - a Significant Failure

Jacques de la Vie | 02.08.2004 18:48 | Analysis | Anti-militarism | Social Struggles | World

The 9-11 Commission Report failed to ask WHY. Why was the U.S. attacked? If it had addressed the root cause of the problem, America's foreign policy toward the Middle East would have had to be dealt with. And then it would have had to deal with its unconditional support for Zionist Israel and its rape of Palestine.

9-11 - The Commission Report - a Significant Failure

The 9-11 Commission failed to ask the question"Why. Why were WE attacked? If it had, it would have had to deal with the recent history of the United States' Foreign Policy toward the Middle East. Maybe it was not mentioned because many of the commission members are ex-congresspersons who voted over and over again for this sick foreign policy. Our foreign policy, especially our unlimited support of Israel's complete takeover of Palestine and elimination of the Palestinians, is the root cause of these attacks, not Islamic fundamentalism as the commission would have us believe. At least the report did acknowledge that some of the terrorists involved in 9-11, in particular Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, were motivated by their disagreement over American support for Israel. Repeated polls of Islamic countries report that we are not hated for our technology, culture, or freedoms but because of our foreign policy. If we continue to avoid answering the root question: WHY, we will be unable to reduce further terrorist attacks. As Edward Said so succinctly said, "What the U.S. refuses to see clearly it can hardly hope to remedy." Here is something about our foreign policy in four Middle Eastern countries.

Iran - Take the 1950’s in Iran. The U.S. spent over 200 million dollars to overthrow a popular prime minister because the British were afraid he would nationalize their oil company. Then we installed the Shah who basically put Iran at the disposal of our military and intelligence organizations so we could spy on the Soviet Union. The CIA and Israel then trained the notorious Iranian secret police, SAVAK, that enforced domestic repression and spread its tentacles all over the world to punish Iranian dissidents. Wouldn’t that get you mad if that was done to our country? It got the Iranians hella mad, and down to today they have not forgotten the U.S.’s lack of support for freedom and democracy for the Iranian people.

Saudi Arabia - How about our lack of support for the freedom of the people of Saudi Arabia and our backing for democratic rights in that country? Saudi Arabia has an absolute monarchy as its form of government. The ruling family, Al Saud, has four thousand members in its royal family living in palaces around the nation. An absolute monarchy is basically a dictatorship. The citizens do not have free speech, elections – political parties are outlawed, freedom of religion, freedom of the press, or even public theaters for entertainment. Torture by the government is common. In 1994, Humans Rights Watch said, Saudi citizens have fewer civil and political rights today than they did sixty years ago. Yet we support this government. The Arab world knows that. We want stable oil prices, a large Air Force base (Dhahran – built in 1946) under our control, a safe 900 mile coast along the Red Sea to the Suez Canal for shipping from Asia to Europe. For that we provide Saudi Arabia with protection in case it is attacked, a steady supply of modern military weapons as long as American Zionists approve of them, and allow the royal family to oppress their people however they want. Of course, our presence – especially our military presence - in this country was one of the two main reasons Osama bin Laden gave for attacking the United States. Saudi Arabia contains the most holy, Islamic city, Mecca. Osama considers our presence a defilement.

Egypt – Egypt has the largest Arab/Muslim population in the Middle East. If an Arab army were to be formed to help the Palestinians, as they have in the past, Egypt would be expected to participate. From the Camp David accords in 1978 on, the U.S. has been bribing Egypt to stop helping the Palestinians militarily, accept Israel's existence and not attack them to the tune of $2 to $3 billion dollars a year. 60% of that money goes for Egypt's military and police equipment, the rest for economic assistance, and at times some additional money to forgive debt. Since 1981 President Mubarak has ruled Egypt under non-stop emergency powers, almost dictatorial rule. Elections are a sham in Egypt as political parties are limited, the National Democratic Party always wins a comfortable majority in the legislature, the government routinely arrests opposition candidates and their supporters in the run-up to elections, outlaws public meetings, and restricts unions and strikes. Torture is widespread and systematic. Citizens by the thousands are picked up and held without charges for years on the basis of "a threat to national security and public order", laws have been passed that severely restrict professional organizations and the media 's freedoms, and trials are held in special military courts. Much of this is about eliminating and/or appeasing the Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamic movements in the country that want a theocracy, to help the Palestinians, and distance Egypt from the United States. Does this sound like freedom and democracy? Arabs again are aware that this is the type of regime we support in the Middle East in order to appease Israel and allow its systematic ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people.

Israel – Israel is the main source of the poison that is destroying the Middle East and much of the world. And it is the second main reason Osama bin Laden gave for attacking the United States. Over $10 billion of our tax money goes into subsidizing or paying protection to other countries for Israel's illegal and obscene determination to take over all of Palestine and eliminate the Palestinian people. The Jewish Zionist lobby in this country has hung unconditional support for Israel like an albatross around America's neck. And America is paying dearly for it. 9-11 was one of those paybacks. We earned it the old fashion way. In an interview Osama bin Laden gave to ABC's, John Miller, in 1998 (the full interview and a significant amount of additional information is in the website named below) Osama said: "If the people (Americans and other western peoples) have elected those governments in the latest elections, it is because they have fallen prey to the Western media which portray things contrary to what they really are. And while the slogans raised by those regimes call for humanity, justice and peace, the behavior of their governments is completely the opposite. It is not enough for their people to show pain when they see our children being killed in Israeli raids launched by American planes, nor does this serve the purpose. What they ought to do is change their governments which attack our countries. The hostility that America continues to express against the Muslim people has given rise to feelings of animosity on the part of Muslims against America and against the West in general. Those feelings of animosity have produced a change in the behavior of some crushed and subdued groups who, instead of fighting the Americans inside the Muslim countries, went on to fight inside the United states of America itself ... If their people do not wish to be harmed inside their very own countries, they should seek to elect governments that are truly representative of them and that can protect their interest." (Not act in the interest of Israel.)

(excerpted from: www.zionismexplained.org )

Jacques de la Vie

Upcoming Coverage
View and post events
Upcoming Events UK
24th October, London: 2015 London Anarchist Bookfair
2nd - 8th November: Wrexham, Wales, UK & Everywhere: Week of Action Against the North Wales Prison & the Prison Industrial Complex. Cymraeg: Wythnos o Weithredu yn Erbyn Carchar Gogledd Cymru

Ongoing UK
Every Tuesday 6pm-8pm, Yorkshire: Demo/vigil at NSA/NRO Menwith Hill US Spy Base More info: CAAB.

Every Tuesday, UK & worldwide: Counter Terror Tuesdays. Call the US Embassy nearest to you to protest Obama's Terror Tuesdays. More info here

Every day, London: Vigil for Julian Assange outside Ecuadorian Embassy

Parliament Sq Protest: see topic page
Ongoing Global
Rossport, Ireland: see topic page
Israel-Palestine: Israel Indymedia | Palestine Indymedia
Oaxaca: Chiapas Indymedia
Regions
All Regions
Birmingham
Cambridge
Liverpool
London
Oxford
Sheffield
South Coast
Wales
World
Other Local IMCs
Bristol/South West
Nottingham
Scotland
Social Media
You can follow @ukindymedia on indy.im and Twitter. We are working on a Twitter policy. We do not use Facebook, and advise you not to either.
Support Us
We need help paying the bills for hosting this site, please consider supporting us financially.
Other Media Projects
Schnews
Dissident Island Radio
Corporate Watch
Media Lens
VisionOnTV
Earth First! Action Update
Earth First! Action Reports
Topics
All Topics
Afghanistan
Analysis
Animal Liberation
Anti-Nuclear
Anti-militarism
Anti-racism
Bio-technology
Climate Chaos
Culture
Ecology
Education
Energy Crisis
Fracking
Free Spaces
Gender
Globalisation
Health
History
Indymedia
Iraq
Migration
Ocean Defence
Other Press
Palestine
Policing
Public sector cuts
Repression
Social Struggles
Technology
Terror War
Workers' Movements
Zapatista
Major Reports
NATO 2014
G8 2013
Workfare
2011 Census Resistance
Occupy Everywhere
August Riots
Dale Farm
J30 Strike
Flotilla to Gaza
Mayday 2010
Tar Sands
G20 London Summit
University Occupations for Gaza
Guantanamo
Indymedia Server Seizure
COP15 Climate Summit 2009
Carmel Agrexco
G8 Japan 2008
SHAC
Stop Sequani
Stop RWB
Climate Camp 2008
Oaxaca Uprising
Rossport Solidarity
Smash EDO
SOCPA
Past Major Reports
Encrypted Page
You are viewing this page using an encrypted connection. If you bookmark this page or send its address in an email you might want to use the un-encrypted address of this page.
If you recieved a warning about an untrusted root certificate please install the CAcert root certificate, for more information see the security page.

Global IMC Network


www.indymedia.org

Projects
print
radio
satellite tv
video

Africa

Europe
antwerpen
armenia
athens
austria
barcelona
belarus
belgium
belgrade
brussels
bulgaria
calabria
croatia
cyprus
emilia-romagna
estrecho / madiaq
galiza
germany
grenoble
hungary
ireland
istanbul
italy
la plana
liege
liguria
lille
linksunten
lombardia
madrid
malta
marseille
nantes
napoli
netherlands
northern england
nottingham imc
paris/île-de-france
patras
piemonte
poland
portugal
roma
romania
russia
sardegna
scotland
sverige
switzerland
torun
toscana
ukraine
united kingdom
valencia

Latin America
argentina
bolivia
chiapas
chile
chile sur
cmi brasil
cmi sucre
colombia
ecuador
mexico
peru
puerto rico
qollasuyu
rosario
santiago
tijuana
uruguay
valparaiso
venezuela

Oceania
aotearoa
brisbane
burma
darwin
jakarta
manila
melbourne
perth
qc
sydney

South Asia
india


United States
arizona
arkansas
asheville
atlanta
Austin
binghamton
boston
buffalo
chicago
cleveland
colorado
columbus
dc
hawaii
houston
hudson mohawk
kansas city
la
madison
maine
miami
michigan
milwaukee
minneapolis/st. paul
new hampshire
new jersey
new mexico
new orleans
north carolina
north texas
nyc
oklahoma
philadelphia
pittsburgh
portland
richmond
rochester
rogue valley
saint louis
san diego
san francisco
san francisco bay area
santa barbara
santa cruz, ca
sarasota
seattle
tampa bay
united states
urbana-champaign
vermont
western mass
worcester

West Asia
Armenia
Beirut
Israel
Palestine

Topics
biotech

Process
fbi/legal updates
mailing lists
process & imc docs
tech