Eric Margolis (Toronto Sun): Lessons from Sept. 11

[Dudley_DUright]

Two years after the Sept. 11 suicide attacks on the United States, this earthshaking event remains clouded by mystery and misunderstanding.

Was al-Qaida behind the operation? Most likely, but not for certain. Secretary of State Colin Powell promised a white paper proving al-Qaida's guilt. It never came.

A tape that surfaced in late 2001 purporting to show Osama bin Laden gleefully chortling over the attacks, was seen by many in the Arab and Muslim world as a crude fake.

The 9/11 attacks were planned in Germany and Spain, not Afghanistan, by young men, mostly Saudis, who were educated and westernized.

Afghanistan's Taliban regime, until four months before 9/11 a recipient of U.S. aid, had nothing to do with the attacks, but did provide a base for al-Qaida, which numbered only 300 members. Most of the "terrorists" in Afghanistan cited by the U.S. were actually independence fighters from neighbouring Central Asia. Taliban refused to hand bin Laden, a national hero of the 1980s anti-Soviet war, to the U.S. without proof of his guilt in 9/11, which the U.S. declined to provide.

more...

http://www.canoe.ca/Columnists/margolis_sep7.html

[glarius]

1. As usual Margolis is right on...It's a pity that most Americans will never

see this and if they do they will think it is some anti-American Canadian (we didn't go to war in Iraq, remember) shooting his mouth off...They don't know that Margolis is an American expert on the mid-east, living in Toronto....Right now Powell is on all the morning shows telling how dozens of countries are with the USA in Iraq....The man is dispicable!....He mentions Polish troops...No mention of the fact that the U.S.A is PAYING them to be there!....:puke:

[Dudley_DUright]

2. I thought this was an interesting revelation by Eric

This writer was aboard a hijacked Lufthansa A310 in 1993 when the air pirate warned the FBI he would crash the jumbo jet into New York's Wall Street.

I guess Condi's statement that no one could imagine terrorists crashing airplanes into buildings looks pretty stupid from Eric's point of view (and mine as well, though I did not have such a close encounter with fate).

[glarius]

3. I'm an optomist and I believe all their LIES (Condi, Powell, Bush etc.)

will come home to roost...They are starting to look pretty desperate!

[DavidDvorkin]

4. I wish I could be optimistic, too.

But I'm not.

I don't believe any of them will ever pay for the mass murders they've committed, the tens of thousands of innocent civilians in Afghanistan and Iraq who've died because of their lies and greed, or for the terrible damage they've done to America.

The worst that will happen to them is that they'll be out of office on January 20, 2005. After that, they'll be getting big book advances and big speaking fees and comfortable positions on boards of directors. Dubya won't do any of that, I suppose. He'll just goof off, smirking and posturing, for the rest of his life.

[Dudley_DUright]

5. Probably true

considering the deference the so called liberal media still shows to creeps like Henry Kissinger, but I would be happy just to get these clowns out of office (hopefully for a long, long time).

[Jack Rabbit]

6. That statement by Rice is ridiculous

I guess she missed Black Sunday, a bit of summer book/movie fare from about thirty years back. The story was about the Goodyear blimp being crashed into the stadium during the Super Bowl, but that's the same basic idea.

Given that the WTC had been a previous target of rightwing Islamic terrorists, the idea of flying planes into the Towers wasn't at all hard to conceive. For my part, the reaction to the news was shock only because the event was too horrible not to be shocked. But surprise? No.

[The Zanti Regent]

7. Once again, why do we have to go to the foreign press for this?

why doesn't ONE paper in the US carry Eric?

Is it because he tells the truth and won't follow the Nazi RepubliKKKan line?????

[Jack Rabbit]

8. Excellent

Bush declared a war on terrorism and dispatched U.S. armed forces to attack Muslim mischief-makers around the globe. This, however, was not a real war, but rather a police action against disparate bands of violent anti-American extremists determined to drive U.S. political and economic influence from their lands, and aid the struggle in Palestine.
Declaring "war on terrorism" made no more sense than declaring war on evil.

Margolis is correct in his assessment that the September 11 attacks were used by the junta as a pretext to initiate a policy of colonialism. It isn't important to Bush or the other PNAC thugs to capture Osama. The important thing is control of other countries' natural resources for the profit of US multinational corporations.

Bush's war on terror is a insult to the memory of the victims of September 11.