FOOD FOR THOUGHT
Number 9, Part 3
Number 9, Part 3
(NEW SERIES—2007)
(Read, Print, or Download in >PDF>> Format)
(Read, Print, or Download in >PDF>> Format)
..........·..........·..........·..........·..........·..........·
TIME IS RUNNING OUT
Part Three
Part Three
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DENIAL OF 9/11 TRUTH
SPREADS POISON
DENIAL OF 9/11 TRUTH
SPREADS POISON
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THOSE IN POWER OR
AUTHORITY ARE SUSPECT OF
COMPLICITY, TREASON
THOSE IN POWER OR
AUTHORITY ARE SUSPECT OF
COMPLICITY, TREASON
..........·..........·..........·..........·..........·..........·
RUIN GENERAL THROUGHOUT ARTS,
LETTERS, PUBLISHING
......................................................................Everywhere, on his watch, whether in Rochester, N.Y., or Baghdad, Iraq,
......................................................................there is a spreading underclass of miserable humanity being destroyed
......................................................................by pillage and theft, by a White House that steals their taxes and kills their
......................................................................children. And the pity of it all is that it doesn't have to be. Yeah, I feel bad
......................................................................for Libby's family; I feel worse, though, for millions of others, for the vic-
......................................................................tims being killed, and the victims being robbed to kill them. But that's
......................................................................how it is in the Empire of Lies.
...................................................................... ..............................—Sherwood Ross, "Bush's Crimes in Baghdad Have
....................................................................................................Parallel in U.S., U.K.," Sat, 10 Mar 2007
......................................................................Karen Kwiatkowski, then [i.e., on 9/11] an Air Force Lieutenant Colonel
......................................................................employed at the Pentagon, writes of "a strange lack of visible debris on
......................................................................the Pentagon lawn, where I stood only moments after the impact." An-
......................................................................other witness was CNN's Jamie McIntyre, who reported live from the
......................................................................Pentagon that day: "The only pieces left that you can see are small
......................................................................enough that you pick up in your hand." (How does that square with any
......................................................................photos you've ever seen of crashed airliners?)
...................................................................... ..............................—Sherwood Ross, "Did Cheney Allow or Order
....................................................................................................9/11 Plane To Strike Pentagon?" Thu, 01 Mar 2007
......................................................................The sixty years that have brought us the new America have brought us also
......................................................................a virtually perfected socio-political culture of lies and lying, a culture built
......................................................................on a foundation of lying, framed by walls of lying, covered by a roof of lying.
....................................................................................................—Eric Larsen, A Nation Gone Blind: America in an Age of
....................................................................................................Simplification and Deceit, p. 10
......................................................................Indeed, I wonder when we'll face up to what has really been going on.
....................................................................................................—National columnist in an email to Eric Larsen, Sept. 2006
..........On Monday, April 2, the lead news piece in The New York Times was headlined "New Generation of Qaeda Chiefs Is Seen on Rise." The first subhead was "Consolidation of Power," the second, "Surprise and Dismay at Perception That Group Is Rebounding," and the byline was: Mark Mazzetti.
..........And so? Well, and so this: Reading that piece makes one realize that the continued suppression of true information and the continued issuance of disinformation have become so commonplace by this point in the planned fascist takeover in the U.S. that even the nation's foremost newspaper can cook up an opener-of-the-week lead article by mixing together a bunch of disputed truths, half truths, falsehoods, and plain propaganda—lies—and the whole thing will pass unchallenged, hardly be noticed, will cause no resistance, opposition, or demands for corrections.
..........Now, I'll bet my underpants and a two dollar bill with a cherry on top that of all the phrases in that paragraph, there's one that's most likely—if any is—to cause some readers to quit reading on the spot and skip on out of this website to—well, god knows to where.
..........So, dear reader, take a minute and choose one. My own bet is that here's the one that will do the trick: "by this point in the planned fascist takeover in the U.S."
..........I could be wrong, and I hope I am. But suppose people were to quit reading at that point. If they did, it would mean that we've stumbled on another "truth test," akin to the one back in "Food for Thought Eight." That "truth test," you may remember, was the one provided so generously by BBC television when, on 9/11 itself, the on-air news staff prematurely read a certain piece of their "script" of the day's news items. That is, they read correctly from the script—announcing that WTC 7 had collapsed—but they read it twenty minutes too early. Take the BBC "9/11 truth test" again, if you like, and watch the poor lying Brits caught with their pants at their ankles and trying to cover up their error by desperately filling empty time until the thing actually did collapse the way the script said it was supposed to. (Actually, they couldn't quite make it through the whole twenty minutes and so—hilarious to watch—they "dissolved" their on-site reporter and said they'd "lost" her. You can watch it all again by going back to "Food for Thought Eight" and clicking on the large-font word "HERE").
..........One of the things most interesting to me about that BBC "9/11 truth test" was that my putting it into "Food for Thought Eight" had the effect of turning certain readers away and in fact caused them to demand being dropped immediately from my recipients' list. Needless to say, that was the opposite of what I wanted to happen, which was that readers, after seeing for themselves this vivid example of set-up, treason, and fraud, would become only the more (not the less) inclined to look further into 9/11 truth and the near-countless ways it belies the standard Bush administration version of what actually happened on that disastrous and pivotal day.
..........What does it mean, though, if people take the BBC "truth test" and then say "count me out"? It means the same thing—am I wrong?—as it would mean if people were to read the phrase "by this point in the planned fascist takeover in the U.S." and then say, also, "count me out."
..........In other words, it would mean very simply that these people choose lies and falsehood over truth. I've talked about this syndrome before, and about the reasons it might exist—not only in A Nation Gone Blind but also back in Food for Thought Eleven, Part 4, section C, for example, headlined "Ariana Huffington Tells the Truth (and Doesn't Even Know It)." That's the FFT where, among other things, I looked at a Huffington piece called "Living in Denial." It opened this way:
.............................. Let's face it: the Bush administration is sick. The fall of Ted Haggard is just the
....................latest manifestation of the central disease of President Bush and his cohorts: the path-
....................ological refusal to accept reality, and the delusion that reality can be changed by
....................rhetoric.
.........."Pathological refusal to accept reality"—those are powerful words. And, just as I did back in FFT-11.4.C, I'm going to argue again now that Huffington herself, as one who sits on 9/11 Truth, suffers from the very same illness she accuses others of suffering from. And so her piece, "Living in Denial," makes her—whether she knows it or not makes no difference whatsoever—a hypocrite. After all, she's demanding that others change their ways and stop denying truth, while she derides, eschews, or is blind to the need for any such change in herself.
..........But not everybody is a columnist, journalist, or public figure. Most people, in fact (unlike, say, Ariana Huffington, Frank Rich, Matthew Rothschild, Nicholas Lemann, Christopher Hayes, or Alexander Cockburn, just for a few random examples) don't write for their livings, or make arguments, advocate, or preach at all. Most people aren't journalists or commentators. But it's still possible that they might, even so, take one of the "9/11 tests"—that is, take a good clear look at the truth—and then still say, "Oh, no. Count me out"?
..........What's the difference? Well, these people can't be declared hypocrites like the others, since they preach nothing. These are plain people, regular people, people with no claims toward convincing anyone else of anything. So hypocrites they're not. And yet, if they're people who, when shown the truth, say "Count me out"—well, then they're still people who have "a pathological refusal to accept reality."
..........There may well enough be some sort of reasoning involved. Some people may refuse to believe the truth, possibly out of a selfishness that makes them not want to be bothered, while others may be unable to believe it, whether out of the power of fear ("that's too frightening to think about") or out of the power of habit ("our leaders have never been that evil before, and therefore they can't be that evil now").
..........But whatever the case—whether driven by fear, refusal, selfishness, or habit—these are people who choose oblivion to a truth that they've in fact themselves observed some part of, large or small.
..........These, then, are blinded Americans, and (let me quickly add) the question of whether they've been blinded by themselves or blinded by other agencies or forces is of absolutely no consideration or consequence for our purposes right here and now. The deed, either way, is done. The significance now is that these people, being blinded, are every bit as much supporters, friends, and allies of the fascists, neocons, and the corporacracy as are all those many hypocrites and media-insiders themselves whom we've been talking about, from Huffington and Rich up high to the likes of Rothschild down low. All of them, whether by speaking against 9/11 truth or whether "only" by remaining silent—like a doctor who knows of a curable disease in someone but says nothing—these, all of them, function as friends of fascism and enemies of the republic.
..........In times like the one we're living through now, a time of war against the citizenry, for even the common person to say "count me out" is a form of desertion, of aid to the enemy, and therefore traitorous. And certainly traitorous is the purposeful covering up of known truths that could bring down that oppressing enemy—the kind of purposeful covering up that we find, for example, in The New York Times.
..........We'll start with the first paragraph:
..............................As Al Qaeda rebuilds in Pakistan's tribal areas, a new generation of leaders has
....................emerged under Osama bin Laden to cement control over the network's operations,
....................according to American intelligence and counter-terrorism officials.
..........1)
..........Quiz Question One: Which group of words or phrases casts greatest doubt on the truth of this sentence's content?
..........1)
..........Quiz Answer One: "according to American intelligence and counter-terrorism officials"
..............................The new leaders rose from within the organization after the death or
....................capture of the operatives that built Al Qaeda before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks,
....................leading to surprise and dismay within United States intelligence agencies about
....................the group's ability to rebound from an American-led offensive.
..........
..........2)
..........Quiz Question Two: What infamous geographical location is alluded to, however faintly, by the phrase "after the death of capture of the operatives that built Al Qaeda"?
..........2)
..........Quiz Answer Two:Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Half credit for Bagram or Abu Ghraib.
..........
..........3)
..........Quiz Question Three: What historical fact is being ignored, not even alluded to, in the phrase "the operatives that built Al Qaeda"?
..........3)
..........Quiz Answer Three: The fact that the U.S. itself was the first creative benefactor of Al Qaeda, wanting to strengthen and use it as means to resist and end Russia's occupation of Afghanistan. See Webster Tarpley's piece, "Filibuster Al Qaeda Founder Robert Gates," including his comment that "Most damning of all is the fact that Gates was one of the founders of al Qaeda, the CIA's Arab Legion which was assembled to attack the Soviets in Afghanistan. Gates is thus part of the infrastructure that produced the patsies of 9/11. . . "
..........
..........4)
..........Quiz Question Four: Quiz Question Four: Considering the answer to Quiz Question Three, what is the most ominous two-word phrase in "the operatives that built Al Qaeda before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks"?
..........4)
..........Quiz Answer Four: The phrase "the operatives"
..........
..........5)
..........Quiz Question Five: Considering the answer to Quiz Question Four, what is the true meaning of the phrase "the operatives"? That is, who were "the operatives"?
..........5)
..........Quiz Answer Five:The "operatives" were the U.S.
..........
..........6)
..........Quiz Question Six: Quiz Question Six: Considering the answer to Quiz Question Five, explain the enormous irony that exists in the phrase "before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks" as it appears in the longer phrase, "the operatives that built Al Qaeda before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks."
..........6)
..........Quiz Answer Six: The enormous irony is that of course the U.S. "operatives that built" Al Qaeda had to do so "before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks," since otherwise Al Qaeda couldn't have been blamed for the attacks. This is, needless to say, an enormous irony that the Times editors and publishers must soberly ignore—for it could be acknowledged or brought into view only at their peril.
..........Two more passages from the Times piece before we end. Here's the fourth paragraph:
..............................American, European and Pakistani authorities have for months been piecing to-
....................gether a picture of the new leadership, based in part on evidence-gathering during terrorism
....................investigations in the past two years. Particularly important have been interrogations of sus-
....................pects and material evidence connected to a plot British and American investigators said they
....................averted last summer to destroy multiple commercial airlines after takeoff from London.
..........
..........7)
..........Quiz Question Seven: Quiz Question Seven: Considering the answer to Quiz Question Two above," what single, two-syllable word beginning with the letter "t" comes immediately to mind when one reads this phrase: "Particularly important have been interrogations of suspects"?
..........7)
..........Quiz Answer Seven: That's right: "torture." Ain't America under the Bushisctis great?
..........
..........8)
..........Quiz Question Eight: Quiz Question Eight: For a well-informed reader, what might be the most notable thing about the fact that the Times article refers to "a plot British and American investigators said they averted last summer [i.e., 2006] to destroy multiple commercial airlines after takeoff from London"?
..........8)
..........Quiz Answer Eight: Exactly. What's notable is that, pokerfaced, the Times refers to a plot that never happened, and that, though it may have passed through a mind or two, was never in any credible or realistic way achievable. Have a look at "Liquid Bomb Pakistan Link Is False Flag Smoking Gun," with its subhead, "Veracity of liquid explosives method also put under dubious doubt." Or maybe at "What Does A Terrorist Preparing To Bomb 10 Airliners Do Beforehand? Buys Cakes." Next time you have to leave your cosmetics at home, you might, first, enjoy looking at this large selection of articles that will clear up any doubt you may have that you're anything but being duped. Or you might prefer just to read one article, and, if so, this one, "Liquid Bomb Plot a 'Fiction,'" would be a good choice.
..........
..........9)
..........Quiz Question Nine: Quiz Question Nine: In all fairness to the Times, find one word in the paragraph that may suggest that the Times-or journalist Mark Mazzetti himself-knows that the "liquid bomb" plot was a thorough fraud treated by Bush/Blair et alii as authentic, real, and extraordinarily dangerous.
..........9)
..........Quiz Answer Nine: "said"
..........And now our final passage, the eighth paragraph of the Mazzetti piece:
..............................The evidence officials said was accumulating about Mr. Masri and a handful of other
....................Qaeda figures has led to a reassessment within the American intelligence community about
....................the strength of the group's core in Pakistan's tribal areas, and its role in some of the most
....................significant terrorism plots of the past two years, including the airline plot and the suicide
....................attacks in London in July 2005 that killed 56.
..........
..........10)
..........Quiz Question Ten: Quiz Question Ten: I'm sure you're getting tired, so let's have only this one last question. We'll leave all the slippery, suspicious, code-and-cover-up words alone—"evidence" "officials," "said," "accumulating," "reassessment," "American intelligence community"—and just ask this: In light of your answer to Quiz Question Eight above, what is most notable to a well-informed reader (not counting the reference to "the airline plot," already discussed) about the deadpan phrase "some of the most significant terrorism plots of the past two years, including the airline plot and the suicide attacks in London in July 2005 that killed 56"?
..........10)
..........Quiz Answer Ten: Right again: The London attacks of 7/7/05 were another "black flag op" perpetrated to raise the sagging terror-level among the populations of the U.S. and Great Britain. No point in re-creating the argument ourselves here again, but those sufficiently interested—interested, that is, in just how much we're being lied to, by whom, and why—can read "July 7th as Machiavellian State Terror?", a scholarly article by Professor David MacGregor of King's University College at the University of Western Ontario. Those interested—and how, I ask, can anyone not be interested? unless, of course, they've cast their lot with the enemy—can also take a look at this paragraph from Webster G. Tarpley's absolutely indispensable book, 9/11 Synthetic Terror. Finally, everybody can also take a look at this trim and extremely helpful "9/11 'Fact Sheet,'" first brought to my attention by Carolyn Baker—to whom my thanks—and available to all.
..........And so we close for now. Next time, I'll take a look at still some more gatekeeping, including a return glance at Amy Goodman, in an attempt to figure out what the real difference might actually be between people and institutions.
..........Is Frank Rich a person, or is he an institution? Ditto, I hardly need say, for Ariana Huffington, Matthew Rothschild, Nicholas Lemann, Christopher Hayes, Alexander Cockburn, usw. If you'd like to get a head start on this question—and it's a question, I believe, of matters having to do with nothing less than life and death—I urge you to take a look at this short video of Webster Tarpley speaking at the 9/11 Truth Conference at Irvine, California, this past March 11.
..........
..............................................................................................................—Eric Larsen
..............................................................................................................—April 12, 2007
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RUIN GENERAL THROUGHOUT ARTS,
LETTERS, PUBLISHING
..........·..........·..........·..........·..........·..........·
TRUST GONE
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TRUST GONE
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......................................................................Everywhere, on his watch, whether in Rochester, N.Y., or Baghdad, Iraq,
......................................................................there is a spreading underclass of miserable humanity being destroyed
......................................................................by pillage and theft, by a White House that steals their taxes and kills their
......................................................................children. And the pity of it all is that it doesn't have to be. Yeah, I feel bad
......................................................................for Libby's family; I feel worse, though, for millions of others, for the vic-
......................................................................tims being killed, and the victims being robbed to kill them. But that's
......................................................................how it is in the Empire of Lies.
...................................................................... ..............................—Sherwood Ross, "Bush's Crimes in Baghdad Have
....................................................................................................Parallel in U.S., U.K.," Sat, 10 Mar 2007
......................................................................Karen Kwiatkowski, then [i.e., on 9/11] an Air Force Lieutenant Colonel
......................................................................employed at the Pentagon, writes of "a strange lack of visible debris on
......................................................................the Pentagon lawn, where I stood only moments after the impact." An-
......................................................................other witness was CNN's Jamie McIntyre, who reported live from the
......................................................................Pentagon that day: "The only pieces left that you can see are small
......................................................................enough that you pick up in your hand." (How does that square with any
......................................................................photos you've ever seen of crashed airliners?)
...................................................................... ..............................—Sherwood Ross, "Did Cheney Allow or Order
....................................................................................................9/11 Plane To Strike Pentagon?" Thu, 01 Mar 2007
......................................................................The sixty years that have brought us the new America have brought us also
......................................................................a virtually perfected socio-political culture of lies and lying, a culture built
......................................................................on a foundation of lying, framed by walls of lying, covered by a roof of lying.
....................................................................................................—Eric Larsen, A Nation Gone Blind: America in an Age of
....................................................................................................Simplification and Deceit, p. 10
......................................................................Indeed, I wonder when we'll face up to what has really been going on.
....................................................................................................—National columnist in an email to Eric Larsen, Sept. 2006
POISONED NATION, POISONED TRUTH
..........On Monday, April 2, the lead news piece in The New York Times was headlined "New Generation of Qaeda Chiefs Is Seen on Rise." The first subhead was "Consolidation of Power," the second, "Surprise and Dismay at Perception That Group Is Rebounding," and the byline was: Mark Mazzetti.
..........And so? Well, and so this: Reading that piece makes one realize that the continued suppression of true information and the continued issuance of disinformation have become so commonplace by this point in the planned fascist takeover in the U.S. that even the nation's foremost newspaper can cook up an opener-of-the-week lead article by mixing together a bunch of disputed truths, half truths, falsehoods, and plain propaganda—lies—and the whole thing will pass unchallenged, hardly be noticed, will cause no resistance, opposition, or demands for corrections.
..........Now, I'll bet my underpants and a two dollar bill with a cherry on top that of all the phrases in that paragraph, there's one that's most likely—if any is—to cause some readers to quit reading on the spot and skip on out of this website to—well, god knows to where.
..........So, dear reader, take a minute and choose one. My own bet is that here's the one that will do the trick: "by this point in the planned fascist takeover in the U.S."
..........I could be wrong, and I hope I am. But suppose people were to quit reading at that point. If they did, it would mean that we've stumbled on another "truth test," akin to the one back in "Food for Thought Eight." That "truth test," you may remember, was the one provided so generously by BBC television when, on 9/11 itself, the on-air news staff prematurely read a certain piece of their "script" of the day's news items. That is, they read correctly from the script—announcing that WTC 7 had collapsed—but they read it twenty minutes too early. Take the BBC "9/11 truth test" again, if you like, and watch the poor lying Brits caught with their pants at their ankles and trying to cover up their error by desperately filling empty time until the thing actually did collapse the way the script said it was supposed to. (Actually, they couldn't quite make it through the whole twenty minutes and so—hilarious to watch—they "dissolved" their on-site reporter and said they'd "lost" her. You can watch it all again by going back to "Food for Thought Eight" and clicking on the large-font word "HERE").
..........One of the things most interesting to me about that BBC "9/11 truth test" was that my putting it into "Food for Thought Eight" had the effect of turning certain readers away and in fact caused them to demand being dropped immediately from my recipients' list. Needless to say, that was the opposite of what I wanted to happen, which was that readers, after seeing for themselves this vivid example of set-up, treason, and fraud, would become only the more (not the less) inclined to look further into 9/11 truth and the near-countless ways it belies the standard Bush administration version of what actually happened on that disastrous and pivotal day.
..........What does it mean, though, if people take the BBC "truth test" and then say "count me out"? It means the same thing—am I wrong?—as it would mean if people were to read the phrase "by this point in the planned fascist takeover in the U.S." and then say, also, "count me out."
..........In other words, it would mean very simply that these people choose lies and falsehood over truth. I've talked about this syndrome before, and about the reasons it might exist—not only in A Nation Gone Blind but also back in Food for Thought Eleven, Part 4, section C, for example, headlined "Ariana Huffington Tells the Truth (and Doesn't Even Know It)." That's the FFT where, among other things, I looked at a Huffington piece called "Living in Denial." It opened this way:
.............................. Let's face it: the Bush administration is sick. The fall of Ted Haggard is just the
....................latest manifestation of the central disease of President Bush and his cohorts: the path-
....................ological refusal to accept reality, and the delusion that reality can be changed by
....................rhetoric.
.........."Pathological refusal to accept reality"—those are powerful words. And, just as I did back in FFT-11.4.C, I'm going to argue again now that Huffington herself, as one who sits on 9/11 Truth, suffers from the very same illness she accuses others of suffering from. And so her piece, "Living in Denial," makes her—whether she knows it or not makes no difference whatsoever—a hypocrite. After all, she's demanding that others change their ways and stop denying truth, while she derides, eschews, or is blind to the need for any such change in herself.
..........But not everybody is a columnist, journalist, or public figure. Most people, in fact (unlike, say, Ariana Huffington, Frank Rich, Matthew Rothschild, Nicholas Lemann, Christopher Hayes, or Alexander Cockburn, just for a few random examples) don't write for their livings, or make arguments, advocate, or preach at all. Most people aren't journalists or commentators. But it's still possible that they might, even so, take one of the "9/11 tests"—that is, take a good clear look at the truth—and then still say, "Oh, no. Count me out"?
..........What's the difference? Well, these people can't be declared hypocrites like the others, since they preach nothing. These are plain people, regular people, people with no claims toward convincing anyone else of anything. So hypocrites they're not. And yet, if they're people who, when shown the truth, say "Count me out"—well, then they're still people who have "a pathological refusal to accept reality."
..........There may well enough be some sort of reasoning involved. Some people may refuse to believe the truth, possibly out of a selfishness that makes them not want to be bothered, while others may be unable to believe it, whether out of the power of fear ("that's too frightening to think about") or out of the power of habit ("our leaders have never been that evil before, and therefore they can't be that evil now").
..........But whatever the case—whether driven by fear, refusal, selfishness, or habit—these are people who choose oblivion to a truth that they've in fact themselves observed some part of, large or small.
..........These, then, are blinded Americans, and (let me quickly add) the question of whether they've been blinded by themselves or blinded by other agencies or forces is of absolutely no consideration or consequence for our purposes right here and now. The deed, either way, is done. The significance now is that these people, being blinded, are every bit as much supporters, friends, and allies of the fascists, neocons, and the corporacracy as are all those many hypocrites and media-insiders themselves whom we've been talking about, from Huffington and Rich up high to the likes of Rothschild down low. All of them, whether by speaking against 9/11 truth or whether "only" by remaining silent—like a doctor who knows of a curable disease in someone but says nothing—these, all of them, function as friends of fascism and enemies of the republic.
..........In times like the one we're living through now, a time of war against the citizenry, for even the common person to say "count me out" is a form of desertion, of aid to the enemy, and therefore traitorous. And certainly traitorous is the purposeful covering up of known truths that could bring down that oppressing enemy—the kind of purposeful covering up that we find, for example, in The New York Times.
..........·..........·..........·..........·..........·..........·..........·..........·..........
..........And so let's go back to April 2 and the lead article in the Times that I mentioned at the beginning. In fact, here's what: I'll quote bits of the piece and then ask quiz questions. See if you can do this: Try not to look at the answers provided by me before figuring out answers of your own...........We'll start with the first paragraph:
..............................As Al Qaeda rebuilds in Pakistan's tribal areas, a new generation of leaders has
....................emerged under Osama bin Laden to cement control over the network's operations,
....................according to American intelligence and counter-terrorism officials.
..........1)
..........Quiz Question One: Which group of words or phrases casts greatest doubt on the truth of this sentence's content?
..........1)
..........Quiz Answer One: "according to American intelligence and counter-terrorism officials"
..........·..........·..........·..........·..........·..........·..........·..........·..........
..........On to the second paragraph:..............................The new leaders rose from within the organization after the death or
....................capture of the operatives that built Al Qaeda before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks,
....................leading to surprise and dismay within United States intelligence agencies about
....................the group's ability to rebound from an American-led offensive.
..........
..........2)
..........Quiz Question Two: What infamous geographical location is alluded to, however faintly, by the phrase "after the death of capture of the operatives that built Al Qaeda"?
..........2)
..........Quiz Answer Two:Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Half credit for Bagram or Abu Ghraib.
..........
..........3)
..........Quiz Question Three: What historical fact is being ignored, not even alluded to, in the phrase "the operatives that built Al Qaeda"?
..........3)
..........Quiz Answer Three: The fact that the U.S. itself was the first creative benefactor of Al Qaeda, wanting to strengthen and use it as means to resist and end Russia's occupation of Afghanistan. See Webster Tarpley's piece, "Filibuster Al Qaeda Founder Robert Gates," including his comment that "Most damning of all is the fact that Gates was one of the founders of al Qaeda, the CIA's Arab Legion which was assembled to attack the Soviets in Afghanistan. Gates is thus part of the infrastructure that produced the patsies of 9/11. . . "
..........
..........4)
..........Quiz Question Four: Quiz Question Four: Considering the answer to Quiz Question Three, what is the most ominous two-word phrase in "the operatives that built Al Qaeda before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks"?
..........4)
..........Quiz Answer Four: The phrase "the operatives"
..........
..........5)
..........Quiz Question Five: Considering the answer to Quiz Question Four, what is the true meaning of the phrase "the operatives"? That is, who were "the operatives"?
..........5)
..........Quiz Answer Five:The "operatives" were the U.S.
..........
..........6)
..........Quiz Question Six: Quiz Question Six: Considering the answer to Quiz Question Five, explain the enormous irony that exists in the phrase "before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks" as it appears in the longer phrase, "the operatives that built Al Qaeda before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks."
..........6)
..........Quiz Answer Six: The enormous irony is that of course the U.S. "operatives that built" Al Qaeda had to do so "before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks," since otherwise Al Qaeda couldn't have been blamed for the attacks. This is, needless to say, an enormous irony that the Times editors and publishers must soberly ignore—for it could be acknowledged or brought into view only at their peril.
..........·..........·..........·..........·..........·..........·..........·..........·..........
..........Two more passages from the Times piece before we end. Here's the fourth paragraph:
..............................American, European and Pakistani authorities have for months been piecing to-
....................gether a picture of the new leadership, based in part on evidence-gathering during terrorism
....................investigations in the past two years. Particularly important have been interrogations of sus-
....................pects and material evidence connected to a plot British and American investigators said they
....................averted last summer to destroy multiple commercial airlines after takeoff from London.
..........
..........7)
..........Quiz Question Seven: Quiz Question Seven: Considering the answer to Quiz Question Two above," what single, two-syllable word beginning with the letter "t" comes immediately to mind when one reads this phrase: "Particularly important have been interrogations of suspects"?
..........7)
..........Quiz Answer Seven: That's right: "torture." Ain't America under the Bushisctis great?
..........
..........8)
..........Quiz Question Eight: Quiz Question Eight: For a well-informed reader, what might be the most notable thing about the fact that the Times article refers to "a plot British and American investigators said they averted last summer [i.e., 2006] to destroy multiple commercial airlines after takeoff from London"?
..........8)
..........Quiz Answer Eight: Exactly. What's notable is that, pokerfaced, the Times refers to a plot that never happened, and that, though it may have passed through a mind or two, was never in any credible or realistic way achievable. Have a look at "Liquid Bomb Pakistan Link Is False Flag Smoking Gun," with its subhead, "Veracity of liquid explosives method also put under dubious doubt." Or maybe at "What Does A Terrorist Preparing To Bomb 10 Airliners Do Beforehand? Buys Cakes." Next time you have to leave your cosmetics at home, you might, first, enjoy looking at this large selection of articles that will clear up any doubt you may have that you're anything but being duped. Or you might prefer just to read one article, and, if so, this one, "Liquid Bomb Plot a 'Fiction,'" would be a good choice.
..........
..........9)
..........Quiz Question Nine: Quiz Question Nine: In all fairness to the Times, find one word in the paragraph that may suggest that the Times-or journalist Mark Mazzetti himself-knows that the "liquid bomb" plot was a thorough fraud treated by Bush/Blair et alii as authentic, real, and extraordinarily dangerous.
..........9)
..........Quiz Answer Nine: "said"
..........·..........·..........·..........·..........·..........·..........·..........·..........
..........
..........And now our final passage, the eighth paragraph of the Mazzetti piece:
..............................The evidence officials said was accumulating about Mr. Masri and a handful of other
....................Qaeda figures has led to a reassessment within the American intelligence community about
....................the strength of the group's core in Pakistan's tribal areas, and its role in some of the most
....................significant terrorism plots of the past two years, including the airline plot and the suicide
....................attacks in London in July 2005 that killed 56.
..........
..........10)
..........Quiz Question Ten: Quiz Question Ten: I'm sure you're getting tired, so let's have only this one last question. We'll leave all the slippery, suspicious, code-and-cover-up words alone—"evidence" "officials," "said," "accumulating," "reassessment," "American intelligence community"—and just ask this: In light of your answer to Quiz Question Eight above, what is most notable to a well-informed reader (not counting the reference to "the airline plot," already discussed) about the deadpan phrase "some of the most significant terrorism plots of the past two years, including the airline plot and the suicide attacks in London in July 2005 that killed 56"?
..........10)
..........Quiz Answer Ten: Right again: The London attacks of 7/7/05 were another "black flag op" perpetrated to raise the sagging terror-level among the populations of the U.S. and Great Britain. No point in re-creating the argument ourselves here again, but those sufficiently interested—interested, that is, in just how much we're being lied to, by whom, and why—can read "July 7th as Machiavellian State Terror?", a scholarly article by Professor David MacGregor of King's University College at the University of Western Ontario. Those interested—and how, I ask, can anyone not be interested? unless, of course, they've cast their lot with the enemy—can also take a look at this paragraph from Webster G. Tarpley's absolutely indispensable book, 9/11 Synthetic Terror. Finally, everybody can also take a look at this trim and extremely helpful "9/11 'Fact Sheet,'" first brought to my attention by Carolyn Baker—to whom my thanks—and available to all.
..........·..........·..........·..........·..........·..........·..........·..........·..........
..........
..........And so we close for now. Next time, I'll take a look at still some more gatekeeping, including a return glance at Amy Goodman, in an attempt to figure out what the real difference might actually be between people and institutions.
..........Is Frank Rich a person, or is he an institution? Ditto, I hardly need say, for Ariana Huffington, Matthew Rothschild, Nicholas Lemann, Christopher Hayes, Alexander Cockburn, usw. If you'd like to get a head start on this question—and it's a question, I believe, of matters having to do with nothing less than life and death—I urge you to take a look at this short video of Webster Tarpley speaking at the 9/11 Truth Conference at Irvine, California, this past March 11.
..........
..............................................................................................................—Eric Larsen
..............................................................................................................—April 12, 2007
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