More on the Durham Human Rights and Bill of Rights Proclamations

Below is the Proclamation passed by the City Council on the 21st.  A similar "resolution" (the term preferred by the County Attorney) was passed by the County Commissioners on the 14th, 1-4, with Chairman Michael Page against.  Unlike in previous years, the resolution was not read aloud, and BORDC has yet to receive a copy of the official document. 

 

The Herald Sun reported on controversy at the meeting (see  http://www.heraldsun.com/pages/full_story/push?article-Bill+of+Rights+resolution+spurs+spat%20&id=5163081-Bill+of+Rights+resolution+spurs+spat&instance=homefirstleft).  According to the article, Page wanted to delay the vote until there is a resolution all parties can agree to.  Ellen Reckhow and Becky Heron said Durham is not trying to deport people, but if you run a red light in front of a police officer, you will be stopped.  I doubt the absence of racial profiling is that guaranteed, and hasa board overseeing the 287g program been established, as the program itself calls for in each participating county?  Anyone could be undocumented, but a rogue rightist police officer could harass Latinos more than other groups, in the hope of finding non-citizens as well as intimidating and driving off the rest of the immigrant community, documented or not.  At least profiling isn't the official policy in Durham, as it appears to be in some parts of the State, where law enforcement apparently has set up traffic stops around Catholic churches on Sundays.          

 

The City Council mostly agreed to the language requested by BORDC and DISC, but refused to say the Durham Police will accept Mexican Matricula Consular as identification, though apparently they already do accept it and these cards are reliable IDs.  They are issued by the Mexican government to their citizens living here and presumably in other countries.  In the fifth statement, Durham says it will not use 287g to deport people for minor things, and at the end the Proclamation says the police will use 287g "primarily" against felons, though the groups were requesting that 287g "exclusively" focus on felons. 

 

Human Rights and Bill of Rights Day Proclamation

December 21, 2009

Whereas, the City of Durham is home to a diverse population, including students, working people, and retirees, citizens and non-citizens, all of whom add to Durham's cultural richness and economic vitality; and

Whereas, the City of Durham is committed to the human rights of all of its residents, and to actions that both protect and preserve those rights; and

Whereas, the City of Durham respects and recognizes the civil rights and liberties guaranteed to all by the Bill of Rights; and

Whereas, on October 20, 2003, the City of Durham adopted both the Bill of Rights Defense Resolution and Resolution #9046: Supporting the Rights of Persons Regardless of Immigration Status; and

Whereas, the City of Durham has for the past six years endorsed a policy whereby an individual's civil immigration status shall not be inquired about unless that individual is being investigated for suspected involvement in serious criminal activity; and

Whereas, it is the policy of the Durham Police Department to endeavor to assure that an immigrant driver is no more likely to be arrested during a traffic stop than any other driver stopped for a similar cause; and

Whereas, the City of Durham recognizes the importance of maintaining a climate of acceptance and solidarity, thereby decreasing fear and promoting the cooperation of all residents with law enforcement;

Now, therefore I, William V. "Bill" Bell, the Mayor of the City of Durham, North Carolina do hereby proclaim December 22, 2009 as "Bill of Rights Day" in Durham, and hereby urge all the citizens of the City of Durham to hereby reaffirm their support of the Bill of Rights and of the civil rights and liberties it guarantees to all residents of Durham, and pledge to continue our City's policy of non-discrimination on the basis of ethnicity, race, national origin, and immigration status, and continue to pledge that Durham's 287(g) participation will continue to focus on primarily on felony investigations.

Witness my hand and the corporate seal of the City of Durham, North Carolina, the 21st day of December, 2009.

William V. "Bill" Bell

Mayor

Bill of Rights Day Proclamation at City Council Monday

The City Bill of Rights Day Proclamation will be presented at the meeting tomorrow at 7pm in City Hall.  It will be accepted by the Director of El Centro Hispano, Pilar Rocha-Goldberg, but there will be a delegation from DBORDC and DISC.  This should happen at the beginning of the meeting, as usual, instead of being delayed until the end of the meeting like the County Proclamation was this year.   

Obama's Nobel and Human Rights Day

Ironically Obama accepted the Nobel Peace Prize on Human Rights Day, the anniversary of the UN General Assembly's proclamation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (www.un.org/en/documents/udhr/), December 10, 1948.  Obama's speech (the transcript, unfortunately divided into six pages, is online at www.nytimes.com/2009/12/11/world/europe/11prexy.text.html?pagewanted=1&_r=2) uses high-flying rhetoric, but supports the domination and exploitation of the world by American imperialism, in alliance with the weaker imperialists in Europe and elsewhere, starting with the lie that war is an inevitable part of human nature. 

 

Obama said that war started with humanity, but war is political and its nature changes with different stages in the development of human society.  War was probably unknown or rare for most of human history, many tens of thousands of years, because there was nothing for wandering hunter-gatherers to fight over and the population was very dispersed.  Later most of humanity settled down and turned to agriculture and developed class systems, leading to war over resources and prestige.  War isn't caused by "evil," a concept more commonly used by Bush. Rational reasons can explain irrational violence, so there is no need for Obama to bring in religion, as he did repeatedly.  Obama also said humanity developed laws to limit war, but it seems to me that war in the 19th century was often less brutal than war now.  Under modern total war, hinted at by Sherman during the US Civil War, civilians and their property are targets and not just collateral casulties, because states can't fight without their industrial home front.  When the imperialists clash again and try to ignite World War III, they might use their nuclear weapons and kill millions.  The US, Israel, and other countries have few qualms about killing civilians in attacks on cities (Falluja and Gaza come to mind) or through sanctions (Albright said the death of Iraqi children was worthwhile), as long as they can hide it or blame their opponents.  Theories of "just war" seem like just another way to justify war, so the people will willingly fight for the interests of the elite, and against their own interests.      

 

Obama praises Woodrow Wilson, who violated his campaign promises and took the US into a war between two equally bad sets of imperialists who had nothing to do with the American people, and portrays the League of Nations and the UN as only tools for peace.  In a way the UN promotes peace, but look at the way the UN is dominated by the imperialists in the Security Council.  As a result, the UN acted as cover when the US fought to dominate Korea during the Korean War, the UN enforced sanctions that killed a million Iraqis, the UN does nothing to stop US wars of aggression, and it does nothing when Israel violates international law and the UN's own resolutions.  The UN, Marshall Plan and other international structures were tools the US and its allies used to fight the working class and national liberation struggles around the world, later in alliance with the Soviet and Chinese revisionists.  The Marshall Plan and other international economic structures have also been good at transferring wealth from other countries to the USA, so our economy can run on credit while sending real industry overseas.  

 

Early in his speech, Obama advocates the lie of American exceptionalism, saying that "Whatever mistakes we have made, the plain fact is this: The United States of America has helped underwrite global security for more than six decades with the blood of our citizens and the strength of our arms."  He refers to Germany (which the US, UK, and France divided, while the USSR was for a reunified, demilitarized, neutral, and even capitalist Germany), Korea (where the US committed atrocities against civilans and was allied with a military dictatorship until recently), and the Balkans (where NATO manipulated the just demands of various nations for self-determination to launch an imperialist war against Yugoslavia and now prevents Albanian self-determination).  It also needs to be asked, whose security the US is  really defending, and I think it it is the security of the multinationals and pro-US governments, whether elected or not.  The imperialists had to improve the economies of countries like the Republic of Korea (which not long ago faced the more developed DPRK), as bulwarks against socialism, and now those countries might be allowed to decline, just like social welfare spending is no longer necessary to make capitalism look better than socialism.   

 

Obama praises self-determination and freedom, but decries the secessionism that followed the Cold War.  Self-determination is only real if a nation has the right to independence, not that it has to decide to excerise that right.  It is only natural that nations wanted to be free from the domination of social-imperialists or other occupiers, and there are still unfree nations in the USA and Europe today.   

 

The USA and every country has the right to defend itself, but the invasion of Iraq was not self-defense, and I doubt that even the invasion of Afghanistan would count as self-defense unde international law.  The alleged 9/11 terrorists were not from Afghanistan and they trained in the USA, and it seems that they were helped by people in the US government and allied governments.  The Taliban was not the government of Afghanistan and was originally an ally of the US and Pakistan, and even offered to extradite Osama bin Laden.  According to a Pakistani official, American officials told him the plan was to attack Afghanistan in October 2001, before 9/11 provided a justification.  NATO is an aggressive alliance controlled by the US and originally aimed against the socialist bloc and the West European working class, but Obama praises it as a force for peace. 

 

Possibly going even beyond Bush in justifying imperialism, Obama endorses former British Prime Minister Tony Blair's concept of humanitarian intervention, under which the imperialists can meddle in the internal affairs of a country.  I doubt this means the US will attack Israel to liberate Palestine, or liberate the Tamils in Sri Lanka, occupy the DR of Congo to stop the civil wars, or stop using the base on Diego Garcia, which the British stole from the native inhabitants.  Obama mentions "rules of conduct," such as the prohibition on torture, but he has not ended extraordinary rendition, under which prisoners can be sent to other countries for torture and his Administration is covering up war crimes committed under Bush. 

 

He praises the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treat, under which the superpowers got to keep their weapons, and now it is being used against former victims of US meddling and nuclear blackmail, while Israel gets to have its semi-secret arsenal and India violates the NPT and gets US nuclear technology.  Obama says the nuclear weapons states would disarm, but the US and Russia still have many weapons, ready to launch, risking our extinction through a mistaken signal.  However horrifying and expensive, possessing a nuclear deterrent might be the only way to prevent the US from invading your country these days, and that still opens the way for fake color revolutions to topple a troublesome government.   

 

Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize, but implicitly threatens countries like Sudan and Myanmar with invasion or genocidal sanctions.  It is also ironic that he refers to the military dictatorship in Myanmar while abetting the military coup in Honduras.  When people use social networking to fight capitalist and theological oppression in Iran, American capitalists and their media treat them as heroes, but Americans are brutalized when they peacefully demonstrate against unequal "globalization," and people are arrested for using social networks to warn about police countermeasures.  Americans are also ignored if not actively denigrated by much of the media when they oppose a US war.   

 

That Obama received the Nobel Peace Prize just for being different from Bush, and while occupying Iraq and Afghanistan, isn't that surprising considering some of the other people who have received the Prize, and the quiet but imperialist economy of Norway.  Human nature, imperfect as it is, is not what needs to be perfected, it is the legacy of history that has put the working majority under the tyranny of the capitalist minority, and almost every country under the hegemony of one imperialist, nuclear-armed superpower.  The control of the majority by a minority due to an exploitative and irrational economic system undermines our other human rights.   

 

For a small, but real act in support of human rights, come to the Durham County Commissioner meeting Monday that 14th at 7pm to support this year's Bill of Rights Proclamation, with stronger language in support of the rights of immigrants.  The Proclamation was negotiated by the Durham Bill of Rights Defense Committee and the Durham Immigrant Solidarity Committee, and there should be a City Proclamation later in the month.  Bill of Rights Day is the 15th.   

Durham County will follow its own zoning rules only if sued

Durham County is not going to revisit the October 12th Jordan Lake watershed zoning vote, unless forced to do so by a lawsuit, so money is being collected to start a lawsuit December 11th.  The County government says it is going to argue that the landowner petition was invalid if sued, though the Planning Department has now reversed its earlier decision, too late for the petition to have mattered.  This is in addition to the developer's lawsuit claiming the County violated their "property rights," though October 12th the County did what the developer wants, but that zoning is not all they need the County to approve in order to build 751 South (which some still call 751 Assemblage).  Below is an appeal from the zoning opponents, which they say to pass along, so I assume it can be posted here.     

 

"The Durham Board of County Commissioners (BOCC) are leaving signers of the Jordan Lake boundary protest petition no recourse but to sue in order to get justice.

Durham activists have begun a fund to pay the legal fees for individual petition signers who are willing to be plaintiffs in a suit that would uphold the protest petition and stop the lake boundary change.  This decision will affect everyone who cares about Jordan Lake - for drinking water and recreation.

Please send a check (put 'Jordan Lake Protest Petition Suit' in the memo) to "Ragsdale Liggett Trust Account" and mail it to 

Ragsdale Liggett, PLLC

Post Office Box 31507

Raleigh, NC  27622

Time is of the essence. The attorney needs to start work immediately to meet the December 11 filing deadline.

Donations of $100 or more will be refunded in whole or in part if the county is required to pay our court costs. In this case, donations under $100 will be given to the Haw River Assembly for the future maintenance and protection of Jordan Lake.

Background: 

The Haw River Assembly and Southern Environmental Law Center organized a zoning protest petition that was signed by 24 landowners in the affected boundary change area near Jordan Lake.  The petition exceeded the minimum required, but was deemed invalid by the Durham Planning Department. The BOCC then voted on October 12 to approve the lake boundary change (that clears the way for a massive new development project to be built in what had been a protected watershed zone). SELC and HRA found that the Planning Department had made errors in counting properties in the petition and the  Planning Deptartment now agrees that the petition is valid. A valid protest petition means that the BOCC vote to approve the boundary change  needs a "super-majority"  4-1 vote to pass, which it did not have.  Instead of admitting this mistake and acknowledging that the boundary should not be changed, the BOCC accepted the county lawyer's advice to defend that vote and decision - telling the petition signers to take them to court if they don't like it."  

Defend human rights for immigrants in Durham, December 7th

From DISC and the Durham BORDC:

 

"Please come out to protect immigrants' rights in Durham County!

On Monday December 7, the Durham Immigrant Solidarity Committee and the
Durham Bill of Rights Defense Committee will be on the agenda of the
Durham County Commission work session. This meeting starts at 9:00 am
and is held in the County Commissioners' chambers, on the second floor
of the Old Courthouse at 200 East Main Street. Our goal is to receive a
strong statement from the Commission in this year's Human Rights Day
(Dec. 10) and Bill of Rights Day (Dec. 15) proclamation. We are asking
for support for privacy rights and family integrity for everyone, and
specifically that picture ID cards from other countries (such as the
Mexican Matricula Consular) will be accepted as valid identification at
traffic stops and at other times when identification is required by law
enforcement. This would mean that people would receive citations if
appropriate, but would _not_ be taken to jail and fingerprinted for
minor offenses, which makes them subject to immigration detention and
deportation.

We hope to have a large turnout at this meeting from the Latino and
other immigrant communities, as well as of immigrants' rights advocates
from all backgrounds and affiliations. Please come and support
protection for the rights of all people who live in Durham County!"

Is the free speech of NC newspapers guaranteed?

Apparently not for free papers.  According to a detective in the UNC or Chapel Hill Police, it is perfectly legal to maliciously remove papers.  A few months ago the General Assembly made it illegal to vandalize portable toilets, but free newspapers, inherently at risk because they are free and often have small budgets, are fair game.  Vandalizing a newspaper box or rack seems to be illegal, but it sounds like people can get away with that too, especially if there is a question of intent.    

 

The Independent Weekly says they have not had problems at UNC, but Chancellor Thorp and the UNC Police have been made aware of the vandalism campaign against Triangle Free Press.  Maybe it will even make the police briefs section of the Daily Tar Heel, though the DTH must know about the situation.    

Anniversaries of two revolutions and one sham, November 7-9

Today in 1917 the Bolsheviks drove out the Kerensky government, putting all power in the hands of the soviets and beginning the socialist stage of the Russian Revolution. That night the Second All-Russian Congress of Soviets started, and the next evening it passed decrees on peace and land, and established the Council of People's Commissars, led by Lenin and other Bolsheviks, in coalition with the Left Socialist-Revoluntionaries after the Congress of Peasant Soviets. The Decree on Peace called for a three month armistice to negotiate an end to World War I, and called for the international working class to work for peace and the end of exploitation. The Decree on Land nationalized the land, without compensation, ended rent to landlords, and freely gave more than 400 million acres seized from the monarchy, aristocracy, capitalists, and religious institutions to the peasantry. Forests, waterways, and natural resources were also nationalized. The revolution quickly triumphed in Petrograd, but it took a few more days in Moscow and it took several years to defeat all of the White forces and the imperialist intervention, including US soldiers.

Thanks to the leadership of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, and socialism, the USSR industrialized and continued to develop at a rabid pace and guarantee social welfare while the capitalist countries suffered through the Great Depression. Counterrevolutionary revisionists were exposed and Nazi collaborators were uncovered, so the USSR did not collapse when the Germans invaded, unlike the countries of Western Europe. The outcome of World War II in Europe was decided by the superior strength of the USSR, and fascist aggression gave way to revolution across Europe and Asia.

Unfortunately the fierce class struggle of the 30's did not defeat revisionism in the Soviet Union, and in fact revisionists seem to have gotten the upper hand, and when they could, persecuted people unjustly and undermined the government. After Stalin died, or was assassinated by the revisionists, in March 1953, they gained complete power and carried out a counter-revolution during the 50's and 60's, and persecuted the real communists. The USSR probably was a useful counterweight to US influence during the Cold War, but it was still led by counterrevolutionaries who staged a coup in the Greek Communist Party in exile, betrayed the Vietnamese Revolution, staged a counterrevolution in Afghanistan, and enabled the first Iraq War.

Tomorrow is the anniversary of the founding of the Communist Party of Albania in 1941, later renamed the Party of Labor of Albania. It formed through the merger of three regional communist groups and was led by Enver Hoxha (born October 16, 1908). Albania was occupied by fascist Italy in spring 1939, and the CPA began in struggle against Italy and later Germany, and their Albanian allies and revisionists, freeing the country and parts of Yugoslavia in late 1944. Then the Albanian communists had to fight British and American intervention, invasion by Greece, and prevent Albania from being swallowed by Yugoslavia and Tito's pro-capitalist Communist Party of Yugoslavia. Ironically, Albania was friendly to the UK and USA, but was rewarded with provocations and paramilitary attacks similar to the "Bay of Pigs" operation in Cuba until 1953. They thought Albania was the weak point of the Warsaw Pact, but Albania uncovered and defeated all of the attacks.

Under the PLA, the severely war damaged economy began to recover and the economy was industrialized. Foreign aid, especially from the USSR, was vital for development, but the revisionist Soviet government under Khrushchev gained power and tried to push its revisionism on Albania. Khrushchev succeeded in undermining most of the communist parties, and all of those with state power in Europe, except Albania, which openly criticized Soviet revisionism in 1960. Later Albania was a leader in the fight against Chinese revisionism. Despite Albania's small size, the Albanian communists upheld Marxism-Leninism and were a progressive, revolutionary force in the world. Revisionism still triumphed there in the late 80's, but the PLA has been rejuvenated, though there is still a lot of work to do, given the embarrassing popularity of GW Bush and Bill Clinton in Albania.

For about a month BBC radio (carried on the local NPR station every day) has been crowing about "Europe's Revolution" in 1989. The Berlin Wall fell on November 9, 1989, and ironically Stalin was probably for reunifying Germany, but was opposed by the East Germans. To a revolutionary communist, those events don't have the power the BBC thinks, because the governments that were toppled were led by revisionists, presiding over capitalistic economies. In the USSR, the leadership decided it no longer needed to pretend to be socialist, while China has kept up the sham that it is a socialist country led by a communist party. The European "Socialist Bloc" was toppled from within or fatally weakened by revisionists and the influence of Gorbachev, and to call counterrevolution a collapse is to buy the lie that capitalism, and not just any capitalism, but "free market" neoliberal capitalism, is the natural order of the world. Ironically, in many of these countries there is wide nostalgia for the past (of course decried as a result of lack of education and desire for faded glory by the UK's radio propaganda). Capitalism, bourgeois democracy, and following advice from Western imperialists has brought corruption, unemployment, poverty, and the other ills of capitalism. Thanks to Yeltsin, Russia is run by imperialist autocrats and profiteers and has declining life expectancy and is losing population, while racism is increasing.

The end of the Cold War has not frozen history, and class conflict is spontaneous and inevitable under capitalism, and won't end because the capitalist media says it has. Contrast the change in the revolutionary USSR and Albania with the fraud of Obama. The Bolsheviks got Russia out of WWI, while Obama continues all of Bush's occupations and sanctions and is widening the war in Pakistan, may attack Iran, and continues the attacks on Palestine, Cuba, and other countries, as well as Bush secrecy and cover for torture. We face an economic crisis, and Obama helps the companies that caused it to get richer, while unemployment rises and credit dries up. The Democrats' idea of health insurance reform is to help the private insurers get more customers, and their idea of fighting climate change is making carbon pollution another way to get rich without doing much about greenhouse gas emissions. The US desperately needs to find its communist party and socialist revolution, while the supposedly socialist countries that suffer under revisionism need to renew their revolutions, watering the tree of liberty with blood if necessary, not follow their Gorbachevs and Yeltsins to capitalist poverty, autocracy or virtually meaningless elections (like ours in the USA), and subservience to foreign and domestic imperialism.

What's up with the AML website? II

Alliance Marxist-Leninist's old website (www.allianceml.com) is going to be replaced. There was an inadvertent lapse in payment and so a company had the opportunity to take the domain name. The content was not lost, but a new website will have to be created for the articles to be available to the public. If you have web design and HTML skills and want to help set up the site and fix the links, let me know.

In other news, a group in the Netherlands is going to translate some AML, Communist League, Compass, and International Struggle Marxist-Leninist articles for a Dutch journal.

City elections tomorrow

Three city council seats and the mayor's office are being contested tomorrow. I think I will vote for the incumbents (Mayor Bill Bell and City Council members Cora Cole-McFadden, Howard Clement, and Mike Woodard. I can't think of anything they have done since the last election that would make it impossible to vote for them and the challengers do not seem to offer better. I will look up more about the mayoral race before voting, but I haven't heard much about the challenger, or about the person running for Woodard's seat.

I won't vote for candidates who support the way the Jordan Lake boundaries have been handled, and I have a lot of doubts about the plan for high-density 751 South. Now it appears that the Planning Department mishandled or sabotaged the landowner petition that would have required a vote 4-1 to change the map, which would have prevented the change from being made (and note that the area could have been developed without any change, just at a lower density). The County Commissioners did what the developer wanted, yet we are still being sued, and now there could be a Haw River Assembly lawsuit too, because the government is not going to revisit the October 12th vote, even if it is found to have ignored its own Unified Development Ordinance rules on petitions. We definitely need more jobs an economic growth in Durham, but I don't believe the developer's economic figures and if developments are approved based on predicted employment growth, no development will ever be turned down, because a capitalist economy is unlikely to ever provide 100% employment here. I think Durham is already too accomodating to developers and companies seeking incentives (a comprehensive survey of the Durham portion of Jordan Lake costing less than $100,000 is supposedly too expensive, yet millions are being given to one company after votes in October). Also, there is already a traffic problem because of development in Durham and Cary, and building so much at the south end of the County will only make traffic worse on 751 and nearby roads. These issues will be discussed by the City Council before 751 South can be built, so this is not just an issue for the County Commissioners. I don't know how the incumbents will vote, but they have not publicly supported what the County Commissioners are doing.

I have voted for Libertarians before, but I am opposed to economic libertarianism and don't see a reason to get rid of Clement. I generally agree with Woodard's votes and he usually replies to constitutent emails, unlike some members of the Council.

You can see the current City Council in action tonight and on the 16th at 7pm. The County Commissioners have regular 7pm meetings on the 9th and 23rd.

Final Jordan Lake vote is Monday night

The decisive public hearing and County Commissioner vote on changing the map of Jordan Lake based on private surveys is Monday, the 12th, after 7pm at 200 East Main Street (see www.co.durham.nc.us/departments/bocc/Agendas/Current_Meeting_Agen.html). It should be a dramatic meeting.

Below is an article about the hearing on April 13th, which was about how to deal with the issue. Page and Bowser wanted to move the boundary on the spot, as an administrative change, but Howerton voted with Reckhow and Heron to go through the usual process, which seems to have been the only legal option for the County government. Since April 13th many things have happened (a counter-survey, South Durham Development is sueing the County, the Haw River Assembly forced the County to let them join the lawsuit, and the County Attorney was fired). A few days ago the Haw River Assembly presented a landowner petition that would require a majority of four commissioners to approve the change. Then the Planning Department said there are not enough petitioneers. The Herald-Sun speculated that this is because the rezoning hearing involves not just landowners near New Hope Creek, but also part of RTP (around the EPA and NIEHS campuses), in the Northeast Creek basin.

The battle over where Jordan Lake ends along New Hope Creek

At the Durham Board of County Commissioners (BOCC) meeting April 13^th a far-reaching dispute over where Jordan Lake ends along New Hope Creek came to a head. The edge of the Lake's normal pool, at 216 above sea level, is at issue, because Durham limits impervious surfaces and utility connections within the critical watershed, one mile from the shore, and this effects a proposed 164 acre development. The plan includes 384 houses, 916 apartments, 600,000 square feet of stores and offices, two schools, a fire station, a police station, and a YMCA off 751 near Fayetteville Road. Cree CEO and developer of nearby Colvard Farms, Neal Hunter, originally proposed 751 Assemblage. He is now a minority partner with the Southern Durham Development Company and their plan was renamed 751 South.

Hunter asked then Planning Director Frank Duke, now planning director in Norfolk, Virginia, to move the critical and protected watershed boundaries west based on a 2005 survey by licensed surveyors Hunter hired. Duke and the Planning Department approved the change January 6, 2006, putting the property over one mile from the Lake. One argument is over whether this was an administrative "correction" or a change, which Duke could not do unilaterally under Durham's Unified Development Ordinance (UDO), which went into effect five days before his action. A correction is only allowed for a line on one property or when half-acre parcels are involved. Duke's decision impacts around 320 Durham properties. County Attorney Chuck Kitchen [since fired, possibly because of this advice] said the change is illegal, because Duke did not go through the BOCC or the State's Environmental Management Commission (EMC). In August the Division of Water Quality (DWQ) found that the County did not have the authority to change the map without approval from Federal and State regulators. Duke said he was following procedure, and that he was advised by Keith Luck, at the time the planning supervisor and now assistant planning director.

November 10th the County Commissioners voted 3-2 in closed session to accept the survey and a second Hunter commissioned in 2008 [at the time Cheek was a commisioner and now works for the developer's law firm]. Then Planning Director Steve Medlin changed the map back, incurring the wrath of then BOCC Vice Chair Michael Page. Medlin said he had to change the maps to reflect the current boundaries. In December the Chatham County BOCC passed a resolution questioning the use of a private survey and offering to help pay the $95,000 cost of a new survey.

This boundary change had to be vetted through the DWQ, which approved the change February 4^th, despite opposition from the Chatham BOCC and conservationists. Earlier, on November 26^th, Hunter wrote to DWQ saying review should not be necessary, because NC only requires the critical watershed to be half a mile from the shore and none of the State mandated boundaries had changed, and that Federal review was unnecessary. Then there was argument over whether the change had to go through the volunteer Durham Planning Commission. Earlier, in January 2008, ownership changed when Southern Durham Development, connected to the Boylan Companies in Raleigh, bought the land for about $18 million. April 13^th Company representatives said that they had thought it was no longer in the critical watershed.

In March Durham Planning Commission Chair George Brine, Haw Riverkeeper Elaine Chiosso, and south Durham activist Melissa Rooney asked the EMC to rule on the change. That decision will probably be made May 1st [the EMC declined to get involved].

In the meantime public debate was increasing. Environmentalists, the Haw River Assembly, Northeast Creek Stream Watch, and the Durham People's Alliance lobbied against using the surveys. At a BOCC working meeting March 23^rd members of the Durham Committee on the Affairs of Black People held signs opposing holding a public hearing, in favor of promised new jobs. The developer's lawyers argued that a public hearing was not necessary, but this position did not prevail and it was scheduled for April 13th. The Duke and Old West Durham neighborhoods, Durham's Inter-Neighborhood Council, the Durham People's Alliance PA), and Democratic precincts approved a resolution against using the surveys. There was also lobbying by State groups like the Southern Environmental Law Council (SELC). Friends of Durham supported the private surveys, casting calls for a new survey as a waste of money and an unfair attack on Hunter by the PA. Their letter to the BOCC said the survey mirrored Federal topographic maps and that Durham protected water quality more than Chatham. The Durham Chamber of Commerce and the Triangle Business Journal also supported the survey.

County Attorney Kitchen asked UNC School of Government professor David Owens to review the case. Owens argued that if there was "an amendment to the boundaries of a zoning district" or if a map was used, there had to be a public hearing. The developer's attorneys argued that Owens did not settle the question. The Commissioners asked planners in Buncombe, Vance, Mecklenberg, Cumberland, and New Hanover counties for advice, but only Buncombe replied by the April 13^th hearing.

The almost three-hour hearing was very full, with more than 100 people, of which 45 commented. The first comments were against the private survey. A representative of the Trinity Park Neighborhood Association in downtown Durham said his organization cared about this issue and was opposed. SELC attorney Kay Bond, the Haw River Assembly's Elaine Chiosso and others criticized the survey methodology. A silver-haired man forcefully spoke for the development, saying that he drove for hours to represent his daughter, who was undergoing surgery for cancer. He said progress had allowed him to get to Durham. Jack Steer, of the conservative Durham Citizens Council, said it was too late to reverse course. A resident of nearby Chancellor's Ridge said that hairs were being split, education was a better use of taxes, and that development would bring improvements. Melissa Rooney showed photos of many nearby commercial sites that are vacant, indicating that there is a glut. Rooney and several others wore Clean Water/Clean Government t-shirts, with a picture of fox in a henhouse. There were also clean water stickers. Some private survey opponents held signs, while supporters held Jobs for Durham signs.

Southern Durham Development officials and their lawyers spoke. Among other things, they mentioned the estimated employment and tax revenue generated, and said the development would be a high quality, national example of New Urbanism and environmentally benign. Neal Hunter said "The commissioners should put an end to this continuously moving target, and acknowledge the property rights that I have. You have no right to change the rules on taxpayers and citizens. As landowners, how can we rely on anything in the future?" The surveyors defended their qualifications and results.

Chatham County Commissioner Sally Kost was the first speaker questioned by a Commissioner, when Bowser pointedly asked whether Chatham sets the critical watershed at half a mile or one mile from the Lake. Kost then asked whether Durham mandates buffers along ephemeral streams, which it does not, while Chatham does. Lawyer Tom Miller forcefully told the Commissioners that the approval process had gone out the window and that they had to start over or would be acting illegally. Deborah Giles accused developers of frequently using promises of jobs to manipulate the public. John Kent, of New Hope Audubon, was the final speaker. He mentioned the group's monthly water testing along New Hope Creek and the over 2000 valid signatures he had presented, from an online petition started by Rooney before the DWQ decision.

Another hour of deliberations followed. Four commissioners had already staked out positions. Current Vice Chair Ellen Reckhow and Becky Heron continued to oppose using Hunter's surveys. Chair Michael Page voted for the surveys in November and newly elected Joe Bowser opposed even having the hearing. Brenda Howerton, previously a Soil & Water District Supervisor, was also newly elected, and gave no sign of her position. In response to a question from the commissioners, Medlin said he could not say if the development would reduce water quality. Reckhow said "we would be terribly remiss to not follow the advice of our County Attorney and our County Manager." At one point, Bowser asked why Reckhow and the County Manager had not stopped this problem sooner. He also said "I'm not going to do anything to destroy the water quality in Jordan Lake." Reckhow later said "We took an oath of office that we would uphold the laws of this state and the laws of this community. Now we're sitting here and we're ready to throw them out the window, and I'm not going to be a part of it." Heron said the developers were "speculators" who knowingly took a risk in buying the land.

Bowser read a motion that the surveys be accepted, as a correction. Page seconded. Predictably, the Board split. Howerton abstained in order to ask a question and state that, while Durham has too much unemployment, "Where I stand on this is that we need to follow procedure." Reckhow's alternative motion, to follow the process, was seconded by Heron, and was carried through with Howerton's vote. The crowd was getting restless and someone in the back yelled no during the vote. People in the audience on each side rallied people to clap loudly at points, despite Page's earlier admonitions.

After the vote, Durham Committee on the Affairs of Black People's Chair, Lavonia Allison said "I told ya'll [Howerton] can't be trusted." Howerton replied "You are not up here, Dr. Allison, I am." Allison said "You might not be for long" and Howerton retorted, "Well, I've got four years." Bowser alleged that the forces that had opposed Southpoint Mall were behind this, and would destroy the tax base. Page said "I talked to some homebuilders in Durham recently, and what I gathered is that we are not the most friendly folk towards development. I hope that we would change our attitude, and our perception, that when people are trying to grow our community, and grow our tax base, that we are a lot more receptive." There was even arguments over the Treyburn Industrial Park and the prospect of a Wal Mart next to Southpoint. Reckhow was going to suggest a motion, but decided to hold off and Page closed the meeting.

There will be a landowner meeting May 1^st and the boundary change could come before the Planning Commission in June. The developers have requested the comments sent to the BOCC on this issue.

Video of the meeting is available on Durham County's website.

City Council Primary Tuesday

The field of candidates will be narrowed in the election tomorrow and the final vote will be in November.  Cora Cole-McFadden and Howard Clement are facing several challengers for their seats.  I'm leaning toward voting for the incumbents, unless any of the challengers are willing to outflank them on the left.  One thing to pay attention to is a candidate's position on the Jordan Lake issue, which is currently only a County issue, but could involve the City Council soon.  The Herald-Sun asked each of the candidates about this two or three weeks ago.   

 

The current City Council can be witnessed in action tonight at their regular meeting (see www.durhamnc.gov/agendas) and next Monday is the pivotal County Commission vote on the Jordan Lake boundary, and it sounds like Brenda Howerton plans to vote with Page and Bowser to accept Hunter's survey. After all, she sided with them on firing the County Attorney, after he said the County had to go through proper procedures before it could move the boundary, resulting in a dubious lawsuit by 751 South's law firm, which employs former Commissioner Lewis Cheek.  As a result 751 South will go ahead with higher density development, though there will still be opportunities to contest the site plan and ask that streams have wooded buffers, limit mass grading, etc.     

US Government Complicity in the 9/11 Attacks, Part 4

This is the fourth and last part of the 2006 article from Alliance!, and some of the references are to the 2007 article I posted before the anniversary of 9/11. 

 

4.  Operation Northwoods and other US government actions against Americans

 

It isn't only Nazi Germany (setting the Reichstag fire, engineered to spook the Germans into authorizing laws enabling their dictatorship) that was capable of terrorism and lies to justify otherwise unpopular actions – many governments have done so and continue to do so.  Prior to 9/11 there were other convenient pretexts for US wars.  The destruction of the USS Maine in Havana was the pretext for the Spanish-American War, which marked the first major effort by the US to acquire overseas colonies (such as Puerto Rico and the Philippines).  Historians see the explosion as being either a convenient accident or deliberate provocation by the government.  The sinking of the passenger liner Lusitania in 1915 by a German U-boat (as a trigger for US entry into WWI) was engineered by disguising the ship as a military vessel and routing it, without escort, at a slow speed, where it would probably be targeted by the Germans.  Some historians believe the Roosevelt Administration allowed the Pearl Harbor attack, following severe economic sanctions on Japan and provocations (this argument is summarized in WOF and at www.allianceml.com/AllianceIssues/Alliance-44-wtc-htm).  Conveniently, the vital aircraft carriers usually stationed at Pearl Harbor left before the attack, and the damage to the Pacific Fleet was quickly repaired.  In 1964 President Johnson lied about attacks by the Democratic Republic of Vietnam against US Navy vessels in the Gulf of Tonkin to justify intensifying the Vietnam War (there were no torpedoes, possibly only phosphorescent invertebrates).  Under both Clinton and G.W. Bush, the USAF attempted to provoke responses from Iraqi defenses to justify aggression. 

 

In March 1962 the five Joint Chiefs of Staff presented a plan to President Kennedy that proposed terrorist acts in DC, Florida, Cuba, and elsewhere, to justify attacking Cuba, for "the replacement of the Castro regime with one more devoted to the interests of the Cuban people and more acceptable to the US, in such a manner to avoid any appearance of US intervention."  Among the ideas were blowing up an American ship in Guantánamo, launching a mortar attack on that base, exploding "plastic bombs" in the US, sinking an actual or fake Cuban exile ship, attacking Cuban exiles in the US non-fatally, staging an attack by a fake Cuban air force fighter on civilian aircraft or ships, faking the shooting down of a USAF fighter by Cuba, shooting down a fake airliner, attacking other Caribbean countries, and blaming Cuba if John Glenn's space launch failed.  Apparently President Eisenhower initiated the planning, and Kennedy decided not to follow one of the plans.  It was classified by the Assassination Records Review Board, but later released to the non-profit National Security Archive.  The entire memo is reproduced in Rubicon.              

 

9/11 as an "opportunity"

 

Readers of Alliance!, and even readers of bourgeois papers alone, are probably aware of numerous ways the leaders of the US benefited from 9/11.  Many even called it an opportunity.  Bush called it "a great opportunity," Rumsfeld said it offered "the kind of opportunities that World War II offered, to refashion the world," Rice told the National Security Council to "think about 'how do you capitalize on these opportunities' to fundamentally change…the shape of the world," and the Administration's National Security Strategy said "The events of September 11, 2001 opened vast, new opportunities" (all quoted in O&C). 

 

Fortune favors the prepared mind.  The neoconservative Project for a New American Century (www.newamericancentury.org), the PNAC, published Rebuilding America's Defenses in the fall of 2000, calling for massive military spending if the "American peace is to be maintained, and expanded," since it "must have a secure foundation on unquestioned U.S. military preeminence."  The authors saw this as a hard sell "absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event – like a new Pearl Harbor."  PNAC members include Richard Armitage, John Bolton, Cheney, Zalmay Khalizad, Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Richard Perle, Donald Rumsfeld, and James Woosley. Libby and Wolfowitz were among the producers of the quoted report.  On 9/11 Bush is said to have written in his diary that "The Pearl Harbor of the 21^st century took place today" and Kissinger wrote an online article calling for "a systematic response, that, one hopes, will end the way the attack on Pearl Harbor ended – with the destruction of the system that is responsible for it" (quoted in O&C). 

 

In 1997 Zbigniew Brzezinski published The Grand Chessboard:  America's Primacy and Its Geostategic Imperatives, calling for control over Central Asia as a way in to dominate Eurasia and limit Russia and China.  He said "as America becomes an increasingly multicultural society, it might find it difficult to fashion a consensus on foreign policy issues, except in the circumstance of a truly massive and widely perceived direct external threat."  Brzezinski was Carter's National Security Advisor, and admits that that Administration aided the violent opposition to the progressive, leftist government of Afghanistan, intending to provoke a Soviet intervention.  He even said this policy, which resulted in the shattering of Afghanistan and the rise of al Qaida, and the disintegration of the pro-capitalist USSR, "was an excellent idea.  The effect was to draw the Russians into the Afghan trap" (to Agence France Presse (AFP), quoted in WOF).  After the Carter years, Brzezinski was an intelligence advisor to Reagan and H.W. Bush (and co-chair of the National Security Advisory Task Force in 1988).  He was on the board of the CFR and helped found the Trilateral Commission (Carter is a member of both), and now lectures on US foreign policy at John Hopkins University.  Until 1998 Brzezinski was a consultant to BP-Amoco, one of three main developers of Central Asian oil and gas, which is the reason Afghanistan is important to US economic interests, as a pipeline route avoiding Iran and Russia.   

 

September 11^th provided a door for many of the capitalist elites' desired, but unpopular policies.  As Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed points out, the Administration was in a deepening economic and political "crisis" (WOF) prior to 9/11.  After the attacks (and the anthrax letters), the Administration was able to silence Congress and the media for years by appealing to 9/11 on issues from war to tax cuts.  The Administration was able to launch two wars and measures cutting civil liberties, such as the Patriot Act. 

 

David Ray Griffin points to the Administration's interest in "full spectrum dominance" (military superiority on land, sea, air, and in space), "missile defense," and enlarging the US Space Command.  The Space Command's Vision for 2020 report says the Command's mission is "dominating the space dimension of military operations to protect US interests and investment," since "globalization of the world economy will continue with a widening between 'haves' and 'have-nots,'" echoing the rhetoric which started the Cold War.  The goal is developing the capability "to deny others the use of space."  This is aimed against serious challengers to US power, such as China and the European Union, and more recently the military said EU global positioning satellites were potential targets if US enemies used them.  Griffin points out that key American actors in the 9/11 attacks are associated with the Space Command.  Rumsfeld called for the militarization of space, but wrote that the cost and bureaucratic changes required might only be tolerated after "a disabling attack against the country and its people – a 'Space Pearl Harbor'" (quoted in O&C).  The night of 9/11 he even asked Senator Carl Levin, then chair of the Senate Armed Services Committee, regarding missile defense and "the large increase in defense spending," "Does this sort of thing convince you that an emergency exists in this country to increase defense spending, to dip into Social Security, if necessary, to pay for defense spending - increase defense spending?"  General Richard Myers is a former leader of the Space Command and was Acting Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff on 9/11.  General Ralph E. Eberhart, a major player discussed in the future article about how the attacks were carried out, is in charge of the Command and NORAD.  According to the 9/11 Commission, between fiscal years 2001 and 2004, the military budget increased by 50%, from $345 billion to about $547 billion dollars, an unprecedented rate since the Korean War. 

 

Michael C. Ruppert points out the impending global peak in oil production, threatening the world economy and US hegemony, since oil powers society, the financial system, and is vital to agriculture and industry.  He shows that the Administration knows this is coming and Ruppert argues that the government is acting to secure oil supplies for the USA.  Ruppert and others also point out that illegal drugs help fuel the financial system, and opium poppy production has been restored in Afghanistan, after being sharply limited by the Taliban.   

 

There were also opportunities for abundant corporate welfare in military and homeland security contracts and even more wealth for members of the Administration.  Military purchases from the five largest contractors rose from $43.5 billion in 2001 to $66.4 billion dollars by 2003 (Waking Up From Our Nightmare, by Don Paul and Jim Hoffman).  Bush I profits from Bush II's wars through the Carlyle Group, which owns military contracting corporations.  Cheney was CEO and chairman of Halliburton, and still receives over $160,000 dollars a year from the corporation, which is involved in US efforts in Afghanistan, Iraq, and elsewhere (and accused of fraud and abuse of its employees).  In the five years before Cheney took office, Halliburton profited $1.2 billion dollars from government contracts, and $2.3 billion in five years of the Bush Administration.  Without 9/11, Bush would have had trouble invading Iraq, where the occupation could privatize Iraqi industry and open it to foreign ownership, impose flat taxation, and force Iraqi farmers to buy seed from multinational corporations.   

 

The Afghanistan War

 

There is evidence that an attack on Afghanistan was planned to occur in October 2001, scheduled before the 9/11 attacks were carried out.  US hostility to the Taliban seems to have come more from the Taliban's obstruction of US business interests than because of its human rights record.  During the 90's the CentGas Consortium, led by Unocal, was competing with the Argentinean Bridas Corporation to build a pipeline from the gas fields around the Caspian Sea, through Afghanistan, to the Indian Ocean.  A problem was the civil war in Afghanistan, which by the 90's was mainly an ethnic civil war between the Taliban and the Northern Alliance.  Some factions in the US might have wanted a peaceful settlement, or the victory of the Northern Alliance, but US policy agreed with Unocal's policy.  Unocal allegedly favored the Taliban, for example telling the media that the pipeline was closer to realization in September 1996, after the Taliban took the capital, Kabul.  Within hours the US said it would form diplomatic relations with the Taliban government.  According to Republican Representative Dana Rohrabacher, the US supported the Taliban by allowing Saudi Arabia and Pakistan to send most US Afghan aid to "the most anti-western non-democratic elements of the mujahideen," would not stop the Taliban from taking control of the Afghan Embassy in Washington (against the wishes of the Afghan UN delegation), hurt efforts to aid the Hazara people, under siege by the Taliban, and in spring 1998 the Clinton Administration advised the Northern Alliance to accept a ceasefire, which Rohrabacher said aided the Taliban most.  In July 1998 the Taliban took Mazar-i-Sharif, giving them control of the proposed pipeline route, and CentGas was "ready to proceed" with construction.  Unocal left the Consortium after the east African embassy bombings and the resulting US missile strikes in Afghanistan and the Clinton Administration switched to favoring a pipeline through Azerbaijan and Georgia to Turkey.  In late 2000 the US, Russia, and India began discussions of what should replace the Taliban (according to the Washington Post, December 19, 2000).  There were reports over the next months that India and Iran would support a US and Russian attack on Afghanistan. 

 

When Bush came to power, his administration approached the Taliban a final time.  $43 million dollars in unaccountable aid in food and housing was given to the Taliban, making the total funding $124 million dollars.  This is the period when a US delegation infamously told Taliban representatives "either you accept our offer of a carpet of gold, or we bury you under a carpet of bombs" (WOF).  The imperialist powers wanted an Afghan national unity government.  Included in the delegation was at least one of the same officials who had advised the Northern Alliance to accept a ceasefire in 1998. 

 

According to The Guardian (September 26, 2001), based in London, by early 2001 the Bush Administration was preparing to attack Afghanistan.  Military cooperation with the Central Asian republics bordering Afghanistan was increased, US special forces were training, and Britain was hosting UN meetings involving British, Pakistani, and anti-Taliban representatives.  In time for 9/11 two US Navy taskforces arrived in the Persian Gulf, the UK's "largest armada since the Falklands War" was on its way to Oman, later joined by 23,000 soldiers, another 23,000 US soldiers and 17,000 from NATO were on exercises in Egypt, and 12,000 NATO troops were in Turkey.  Much of this had been planned up to four years in advance (cited in WOF).  September 9, 2001, two alleged al Qaida members conveniently assassinated Ahmed Massoud Shah the popular leader of the Northern Alliance, and the likely leader of any post-Taliban government.  Naiz Naik, a former Pakistani Minister of Foreign Affairs told the BBC that in mid-July US officials told him that, if the Taliban did not extradite Osama bin Laden, there would be war against the Taliban and al Qaida by the middle of October, and it actually began on October 7th.  Naik thought it would not be stopped, even if bin Laden had been held, and, as the next installment of this article will show, the US rejected past offers of extradition.  October 10, 2001 Unocal told Pakistan that the pipeline project was back on.  It should be noted that large US bases today mark the proposed pipeline route and Afghan Prime Minister Hamid Karzai and former US special envoy to post-Taliban Afghanistan Zalmay Khalilzad (a member of the PNAC) both worked for Unocal.                  

 

Gunning for Iraq

 

It is now well-known (or, at least, it should be) that the Bush Administration, most of whom were members of PNAC, which spent the late 90's calling for war on Iraq and other Arab countries, wished to replay the Iraq War of 1991 and overthrow President Saddam Hussein.  The 9/11 Commission is willing to admit that Rumsfeld asked Myers to research Iraqi involvement in 9/11 and that Rumsfeld started the first post-attacks meeting at Camp David with a focus on Iraq.  Even if there were only 10% certainty that Iraq was involved, Wolfowitz was for attacking Iraq.  Bush tasked Richard Clarke with researching Iraqi complicity.  The Commission omits that Rumsfeld's notes from 9/11, as reported by CBS (September 4, 2002), indicated that he wanted to use 9/11 as a pretext for aggression against Iraq.  9/11 wasn't enough to justify attacking Iraq (though many people have still been 'misled' into thinking Iraq was complicit), so the Administration used further half-truths and lies to launch the war in March 2003. 

 

There will be another article, covering Pakistani and Saudi complicity, US shielding of Osama bin Laden, and physical evidence against the official story of the attacks, in a future issue of Alliance!.

 

Good Web sites to start with in learning more about 9/11 revisionist arguments are www.911truth.org, home of the 9/11 Truth Movement, www.historycommons.org, hosting the Complete 9/11 Timeline, www.fromthewilderness.com, www.911citizenswatch.org, and www.globalresearch.ca.  The Family Steering Committee for the 9/11 Independent Commission is online at www.911independentcommission.org.

 

An Alliance article skeptical of the official story and describing the evidence for Pearl Harbor complicity and US terrorism is online at www.allianceml.com/AllianceIssues/Alliance-44-wtc-htm.    

Government Complicity in the 9/11 Attacks, Part 3

Official American aid to the plotters

 

Immigration rules were broken and watch lists ignored

 

Reportedly, all of the Saudi hijackers received their visas to come to the USA at the US consulate in Jeddah.  The consulate previously funneled "terrorists" to Afghanistan to fight the Soviets and the progressive Afghan government, and still is a "pipeline," according to Michael Springmann, head of the consulate's Visa Bureau from '87 to '89, and is now a lawyer in DC (all quotes cited in WOF).  He told Newsnight on the BBC that "In Saudi Arabia I was repeatedly ordered by high level State Dept officials to issue visas to unqualified applicants.  These were, essentially, people who had no ties either to Saudi Arabia or to their own country."  Springmann pointed out in a CBC Radio One interview that reportedly all of the Saudi hijackers received their visas to enter the US from the Jeddah consulate.  He also noted that a conspirator in the February 1993 WTC bombing, Sheikh Abdurrahman, received "his visa from a CIA case officer in Sudan."  Springmann even went so far as to say the government must have been complicity in 9/11, "either through omission or through failure to act." 

 

Alleged plot leader Atta was tracked as a possible terrorist by the FBI in 2000. In January 10, 2001 he was allowed back into the USA on a tourist visa, although he had already violated his visa, and he even told immigration officials in January that he was taking pilot classes, though he had the wrong visa for this.  He entered the US three times in 2001, on an expired visa from 2000.  The NYT reported that Israel warned the US that Atta plotted terrorism, prior to the issuance of the tourist visa.           

 

Al Mihdhar and al Hazmi, mentioned above, were allowed to travel without any problems from their known connections to al Qaida terrorism.  After meeting in Malaysia with Atta and KSM, something Malaysian security found the CIA surprisingly uninterested in (though the Commission says the opposite), the pair were allowed without problems back into the USA.  By then they were listed as possible terrorists.  They were visited in San Diego by up to five of the alleged hijackers and later lived with an FBI informant.  They were on an FBI watch list and given a high priority by the CIA, but they were not stopped.  They were not undercover, and used their own social security numbers, credit cards, etc., and were in the local phone book. 

 

Sabotage by the FBI leadership

 

The FBI leadership seemingly intended to sabotage several investigations that connected to the hijacking plot. In Phoenix, FBI agent Ken Williams, began investigating a group of Middle Eastern men at a pilot school, starting in 2000.  In early 2001 he was moved to an arson case. In early July, after he had been reassigned to the flight school investigation, he wrote the now famous Phoenix Memo.  Williams suggested that the FBI begin monitoring suspicious activities at all flight schools, suspecting that al Qaida might be preparing something.  The leadership said there was a lack of resources for this, yet in 1995 there was a broad investigation following warnings that al Qaida might want to use passenger planes to attack the CIA's headquarters.  In 1994 a retiring Phoenix agent also complained about headquarters' relations with local investigations of terrorism. 

 

The Phoenix Memo was sent to Supervisory Special Agent Dave Frasca, then head of the FBI's Radical Fundamentalist Unit (RFU) and possibly controlling the connected bin Laden unit as well.  Frasca did not circulate the Memo, which hurt the Moussaoui investigation.  The official story is that Frasca was not aware of the Memo before the 11^th.  Ruppert thinks Frasca is a CIA covert operative in the FBI, considering Frasca's role in hindering several investigations related to 9/11.  The Memo became known to the public in May 2002, at which point FBI Director Mueller classified it, and tried to prevent even the Senate 9/11 panel from reading it.  Frasca held his position from 1999 to 2002, when he was promoted.      

 

In Minneapolis the FBI was warned by a flight school that a student, French and Algerian citizen Zacarias Moussaoui, might be involved in terrorism.  He was arrested on immigration charges after August 15^th.  The local FBI wanted a FISA warrant to search Moussaoui's laptop and other affects.  The FISA court almost never turns down a warrant request.  Minneapolis' request was sent to FBI headquarters, where it was stopped by the FBI Deputy General Counsel.  It was judged to be too weak a case after RFU agent Marion "Spike" Bowman removed French security information linking Moussaoui to Chechens Islamists linked to al Qaida.  The Phoenix Memo would have been helpful in supporting the local agents' request, but it had not been circulated.  Even the 9/11 Commission admits that further investigation of Moussaoui might have prevented the attacks.  In May 2002 Minneapolis Special Agent Colleen Rowley released a letter sharply criticizing the FBI leadership and came close to accusing headquarters of assisting al Qaida.  Rowley simultaneously sent her letter to Congress, so Mueller was not able to keep the letter classified.  Mueller later admitted that an agent "at a high-level meeting" wondered if Moussaoui planned to fly a hijacked airplane into the WTC (from the New York Post).  The FBI later gave Bowman an award for "exceptional performance" (O&C).

 

Also in 2002, an FBI translator, Sibel Edmonds, revealed that the FBI was shielding a possible spy and apparently threatened and then fired Edmonds because of her complaints.  First there were issues of classified material being removed from the building and supervisors telling her to work slowly so the office could request more funds.  It became very serious when Edmonds witnessed a Turkish-American co-worker, Melek Dickerson, allegedly protecting a Turkish group under investigation, of which Dickerson herself was a member.  Dickerson is married to a US Air Force (USAF) major who Edmonds contends was also involved with the Turkish organization.  Dickerson became the translator for material from the group, tried to get Edmonds to join, and threatened her.  Edmonds found that Dickerson was deleting, not translating, or defining as unimportant information regarding terrorism and spying.  Supervisor Mike Feghali aided in hiding information from an agent who requested that a document be re-translated.  In another case, an FBI informant previously in Iranian intelligence, monitoring Afghanistan, warned in the spring of 2001 that an aerial attack was being planned in months, but Special Agent in Charge of Counterterrorism Thomas Fields said agents were not to reveal the intelligence and Mueller did not act on the warning.  Reportedly Mueller was surprised that the Commission did not question him on this lead.  Dickerson and others under investigation hurriedly left the US in 2002 and there was no criminal investigation.  Feghali was promoted to be in charge of the Arabic translation groups.  Edmonds sued the FBI over a Freedom of Information Act denied and the Justice Department for wrongful firing.  Ashcroft requested a gag order, based on damage to state secrets, to limit what Edmonds could reveal, on Mueller's request.  Bush appointee Judge Reggie Walton dismissed Edmonds lawsuit challenging the gag order, after delaying the hearing four times.  Allegedly Edmonds was often tailed by government agents. 

 

In 1998 in Chicago, agent Robert Wright Jr. began investigating a wealthy Saudi immigrant suspected of giving up to $3 billion dollars to al Qaida.  Wright thought his case was uncovering more, and it was the only investigation to have seized assets (Rubicon), yet it was ended in January 2001.  In June he wrote a memo accusing the FBI leadership of "merely gathering intelligence so they would know who to arrest when a terrorist attack occurred" (UPI, May 30, 2002).  After Wright went public, with David Schippers representing him, the FBI harassed Wright and refused to allow him to discuss the contents of his unpublished memoir.  At the same time Mueller said he welcomed criticisms.  The Chicago Board Options Exchange was the source of a lot of the insider trading regarding 9/11.         

 

Earlier, in March 2000, there was another possible case of the FBI shielding al Qaida.  Emails captured with the Carnivore system regarding an al Qaida related case were deleted by the bin Laden unit and the International Terrorism Operations Center.  Allegedly a technician deleted the files because emails from innocent third parties had been collected.  This destruction of evidence would be a very serious crime, since the emails were collected under a FISA warrant, and Michael Ruppert speculates that it is ridiculous to think that the wanted emails and those accidentally intercepted would have been kept together. 

 

Despite the detention and harassment of thousands Arab and Muslim Americans by the government after 9/11, there has seemingly been less than a full attempt to identify the culprits.  A future article will show how many Saudis believed to have connections to al Qaida were allowed to leave the country within days after 9/11, with little screening.  October 10^th the FBI ended its 9/11 investigations, allegedly "the most exhaustive in its history," and one official said "we're not trying to solve a crime now" (quoted in WOT).  

 

The hijackers trained at government facilities

 

Not only were the alleged hijackers being tracked by many intelligence agencies, there is also evidence that some of them were actually trained by the US military.  According to Knight-Ridder, Atta trained at the International Officers School at Maxwell Air Force Base in Montogomery, Alabama, Abdulaziz al Omari trained at the Aerospace Medical School at Brooks Air Force Base in San Antonio, Texas, and Saeed al Ghamdi trained at the Defense Language Institute in Monterey, California.  Three hijackers trained at the Pensacola Naval Station in Florida, according to Newsweek.   

 

There might also be a government connection to one of the two private pilot schools in Venice, Florida where most of the hijackers began study.  At 2am on 9/12 the FBI was searching these two schools.  Rudi Dekkers bought the Huffman Aviation school at about the time the alleged hijackers moved to Venice.  A witness at the airport said "I've always had my suspicions about the way he breezed into town out of nowhere.  Just too many odd little things.  For example, he has absolutely no aviation background as far as anyone can tell.  And he evidently has no use for, or knowledge of, FAA rules and regs" (WOT).  Allegedly, Huffman was given a free hand by the Drug Enforcement Agency and the local Venice police were told to ignore the company.  Dekkers is from the Netherlands, where he was indicted for financial crimes.   By 9/14, the FBI had cleared Dekkers of suspicion, despite his testimony in contradiction with that of officials at other involved flight schools. 

 

There is evidence that Huffman Aviation is connected to the CIA or other agencies.  Huffman provides a hangar for Britannia Aviation, seemingly a front company.  Britannia was contracted to operate a large maintenance operation at Virginia's Lynchburg Regional Airport, over a successful local company.  It was later revealed that Britannia "is a company with virtually no assets [the company's worth was $750 dollars], employees, or corporate history" and it "did not even possess the necessary FAA license" for the maintenance it contracted to do (WOF).

 

Huffman also has a long standing relationship with Caribe Air, providing maintenance.  Caribe Air operates around the Caribbean and is allegedly a CIA front (for more about CIA aviation front companies, see the article on US torture flights in the fall 2006 issue of Alliance!). Caribe's planes in Mena, Arkansas were seized by the government over drug trafficking, using up to 20 planes to move billions of dollars in drugs, at one point.   

 

Uncertainty about the identity of the hijackers

 

It is even as yet unproven if the hijackers were the people the government has named.  Six or more of the people named are alive and well in several Arab countries.  Waleed al Shehri, allegedly on American Flight 11, is a Royal Air Maroc pilot in Casablanca, Morocco.  Ahmed al Nami was an administrative supervisor for Saudi Arabian Airlines at the time, not on United Airlines Flight 93.  Saeed al Ghamdi, also named as a hijacker on UA 93, was in Tunis for 10 months training to fly the Airbus.  According to the Saudi Embassy in DC, Salem al Hazmi (allegedly on Flight 77) is an engineer at a petrochemical facility in Yanbou, and Mohand al Shehri and Abdulaziz al Omari are also reportedly falsely accused.  The Commission did not answer these reports.  Some of the identifications are based on surprising coincidences, such as the finding of Satam al Suqami's passport in Manhattan, supposedly having fallen from AA Flight 11.   

 

There is also evidence against the alleged hijackers having been on the hijacked flights.  The passenger lists have been released and do not include anyone with an Arabic name (Loose Change II documentary).  According to Thierry Meyssan, the author of L'Effroyable Imposture (The Horrifying Fraud, titled The Big Lie in the English version, 2002), the released passenger lists indicate that there must have been fewer hijackers than the Administration says.  Reasons to doubt descriptions by passengers will be covered in the next article.     

 

Another oddity is the behavior of the alleged hijackers.  For example, it has been reported that Atta ate pork, drank, used cocaine, got lap dances, lived with a prostitute in Florida, and gambled, yet he is supposed to have been a fundamentalist suicide terrorist.  The contents of two of his bags, which were not loaded on the plane, reportedly because of a missed connecting flight, are also odd.  They include his passport, will, international driver's license, Boeing flight simulation manuals, a Koran, a religious tape, and a memo about mental preparation for the other hijackers (O&C, The Big Lie).  These and other behaviors could be explained, but they are not what one would expect of fanatical fundamentalists.   

 

Fake evidence against bin Laden

 

The US government has very easily been able to finger Osama bin Laden for the attacks, but there is actually little hard evidence.  One main piece of evidence given is a video (released December 13, 2001) allegedly of bin Laden and others meeting in Kandahar November 9^th.  The bin Laden in the video is obviously an imposter, because his facial features are different, and he writes with the wrong hand and wears a gold ring (from the documentary Loose Change II), which would not be proper to a Muslim fundamentalist.  An earlier tape was mentioned November 10^th by the Sunday Telegraph.  Meanwhile, shortly after the attacks a statement was sent to al-Jazeera, purportedly from bin Laden, disavowing involvement in the attacks.  This might be fake also, but it gives reason for doubt.   

 

As a future article will show, the USA seemingly does not want to capture bin Laden, having passed on many chances, and reportedly there have even been recent meetings between US officials and bin Laden.  Osama bin Laden is a convenient enemy, giving the US and its allies an excuse to carry out other objectives.  It is also apparently untrue that bin Laden no longer has ties to the wealthy and well-connected bin Laden family and the Saudi government (who are in turn very connected to the Bush family and others in the Administration).