Counterpunch & DemocracyNow: What did Israel Know in Advance of the 9/11 Attacks?

[HamdenRice]

DemocracyNow today interviewed Alexander Cockburn and Christopher Ketchum about the various stories that circulated after 9/11 concerning (1) the Israeli moving company in New Jersey whose employees seemed to be celebrating and photographing the 9/11 attacks, and who were later identified as Mossad agents, and (2) the Israeli "art students" who seemed to be trying to penetrate US law enforcement and intelligence offices, whose movements seemed to track the 9/11 hijackers and other Muslim extremists, and who also have been alleged to be Mossad connected.

http://www.counterpunch.org/

The article is supposed to be a comprehensive summary of the various news reports on these issues and according to the radio interview suggests that Israeli agents were tracking the hijackers and tried to warn the US of the impending attacks.

Cockburn who is beloved and often cited by OCTers for his withering attacks on the 9/11 Truth Movement as "conspiracy nuts,"

http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?ItemID=10931

has been accused of anti-Semitism because his criticism of Israeli policies sometimes seems to go beyond analysis of particular policies to a allegations that US politics is controlled by an Israeli lobby.

http://www.amazon.com/Politics-Anti-Semitism-Alexander-Cockburn/dp/1902593774

Unfortunately, the Counterpunch article is presently available only for subscribers and DemocracyNow has not yet posted its transcript. Will post the DN transcript when it is available.

[Tim Howells]

1. I don't know what to make of Cockburn

Same goes for Chomsky and Raimondo. These guys know plenty enough
to be sussed about September 11, but all three are among the most
vociferous deniers.

My current theory is that one of the most important cornerstones
of leftist punditry is the belief that the pundit is about one
million times smarter than anyone who might be considered
conservative or right-wing. September 11 and its aftermath
sure blew that theory to hell. Hence the denial and the
insistence that the "incompetent" warmongers just got lucky.

DU's own William Pitt and several others appear to be caught
in the same trap IMO.

Raimondo is a libertarian, and certainly not a leftist, but
if you just change "leftist" to "libertarian" and "right-wing"
to "statist" then it works.

Tim Howells

[HamdenRice]

2. Chomsky is a structuralist

Chomsky is so obsessed with the "structure" of economic and political power that he seems not to believe in individual evil. He frequently says that it doesn't matter whether the Democrats or Republicans are in office, because the power structure continues on its destructive path either way. I think the administration of George W. Bush should have definitively proven that the results for the world are distinctively different under the two parties.

The idea that a subset of the power structure or rogoue elements could seize power from the bigger machine and carry out attacks on Americans is something that, because of his theoretical blinders, he cannot get his mind around. For him, the "power structure" always has to be in control, and everything has to be traceable to it.

[greyl]

3. Audio here:

www.democracynow.org/streampage.pl
FF to 45 min.

[John Q. Citizen]

6. Thanks for the link.

[MervinFerd]

4. So, Israel was responsible for 911? Is that your belief?

<<"(1) the Israeli moving company in New Jersey whose employees seemed to be celebrating and photographing the 9/11 attacks, and who were later identified as Mossad agents, and (2) the Israeli "art students" who seemed to be trying to penetrate US law enforcement and intelligence offices, whose movements seemed to track the 9/11 hijackers and other Muslim extremists, and who also have been alleged to be Mossad connected.">>

I know you are summarizing an interview, but you appear to appove of the content.

"Just asking questions."

[John Q. Citizen]

5. There are 3 interviewees. Which one(s) do you suspect that Hamdan

might be approving of?

Or are you asking if he approves of a new show following up on widely reported stories?

And do you have any evidence that Hamdan approves of any one(s)or is that just an unsupported theory?

I can't see that Hamdan in his OP approves or disapproves, so could you elaborate on your suspicians?

Thanks.

[HamdenRice]

7. How on earth do you infer that?

The three interviewees confirm the stories about the moving company and the art students, but have different views on the implications.

They all suggest that it is likely that Israel's intelligence agency had prior knowledge of the attacks. But so did Russia's, Germany's, Jordan's, Saudi Arabia's and Pakistan's.

None of them accuse the Mossad of facilitating the attacks. In fact, there is a strong possibility that Israel was some sort of frustrated hero, because by following Muslim extremists here in the US they may have had the most detailed knowledge of the plot and tried to warn the Bush administration to no avail.

It does, however, put all these intel agencies in a bad light as accessories to the Bush administration after the fact, because they could have disclosed to the public that the Bush administration had detailed knowledge of the attacks and "let" them happen. If memory serves me, the French intelligence agency leaked some damaging LIHOP/MIHOP information just before the invasion of Iraq in an attempt to stop the war by shooting a shot across the Bush administration's bow.

As for Cockburn, he goes further with his usual Israel lobby schtick suppressing public knowledge of these stories.

I think the OCTers need to publicly condemn the anti-Semites, like Cockburn, who are at the core of their movement. :sarcasm:

On edit: One of the media outlets that broke one of the original stories was a Jewish newspaper, I believe the Forward, so I don't think you can claim that anyone who gives credence to these stories is an anti-Semite.

[Taxloss]

8. The "OCT" isn't a "movement". n/t

[HamdenRice]

9. There's a sarcasm smiley at the end of that sentence nt

[greyl]

14. There were 2 (two) question marks (?) at the end of his questions, and

to make sure nobody mischaracterized him, he ended by saying ""Just asking questions"".

[MervinFerd]

19. You posted claims that Israel intelligence knew the identities and whereabouts

of the hijackers prior to 911, but did not inform American officials. That would make Israel at least partially responsible, wouldn't it? If they knew the location of the hijackers and what they were planning, they could certainly have stopped the attacks--even -if- Bush officials were part of the plot.

The information is dubious and widely disseminated as part of anti-semitic conspiracy theories. The fact that you chose to post this particular information is worthy of note. If you do NOT think Israel is involved, then just state that clearly.

"Just asking questions".


FWIW: Alexander Cockburn is a nut.

[yurbud]

13. PRECEDENT: fake terror in Lavon Affair

Google it

[petgoat]

15. Was Israel responsible? Why do you guys always want to cut

to the exploding cigar?

Greyl seems to think near-freefall implies CD and therefore
there's no near-freefall.

You seem to think Dancing Israelis and Art Student Spies and
Odigo all imply 9/11 was a Mossad plot--and therefore these
verifiable stories are all false?

I would submit that the Mossad knew about 9/11 in advance just
like it knew about 7/7 in advance--because it's the best intelligence
agency in the world and it's their job to know what's going on.

The story goes that the Art Student spies had the alleged 9/11 hijackers
under surveillance in Florida. It's tempting to speculate that the
reason the FBI was able to identify the alleged hijackers so quickly
is because the Mossad gave them the list before 9/11 even happened.


Here's from cooperativeresearch:

August 23, 2001: Mossad Reportedly Gives CIA List of Terrorist Living in US; at Least Four 9/11 Hijackers Named

According to German newspapers, the Mossad gives the CIA a list of 19 terrorists living in the US and say that they appear to be planning to carry out an attack in the near future. It is unknown if these are the 19 9/11 hijackers or if the number is a coincidence. However, four names on the list are known, and these four will be 9/11 hijackers: Nawaf Alhazmi, Khalid Almihdhar, Marwan Alshehhi, and Mohamed Atta. The Mossad appears to have learned about this through its “art student spy ring.”

http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/context.jsp?item=a082301mossad

Here's Nicholas Levis's astute analysis, presumably based on his own translation
of the German articles:

http://summeroftruth.org/atta.html

[HamdenRice]

10. On second listen, Cockburn does make an incindiary suggestion

I missed it the first time. He asks (doesn't state definitively) whether the Israelis, having tracked the hijackers and having knowledge of the plot, failed to disclose to the Americans what they knew because it would be helpful to Israel.

Mark Pearlman of the Forward then disagrees with that position.

[yurbud]

11. Democracy Now! updates 9/11 Israelis cheering/tracking the hijackers

If the Democrats or disgruntled CIA or Pentagon types were serious about stopping the Iran War, one way to do it would be to take away the Bushies ability to scare us into it again. Pulling the curtain on 9/11 is a good way to do that.

Last week, I posted about Sen. Graham of Joint Congressional Inquiry into 9/11 said the hijackers had direct support from Saudi intelligence.
http://professorsmartass.blogspot.com/2007/02/probe-this-sen-bob-graham-said-two-911.html

Now Amy Goodman goes back to another aspect of what happened on 9/11 that even the mainstream media covered initially but dropped and forgot when it didn't fit what Bush wanted to do.


Transcript isn't up yet. Here's the synopsis and where transcript link will be in a couple of hours.

http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=07/02/08/1610254

Were Israeli agents tracking the 9/11 hijackers before September 11th? In 2002, ABC’s 20/20 Salon.com and The Jewish newspaper The Forward all did this story. But where’s the follow up?

Freelance journalist Christopher Ketcham has just published a comprehensive piece on this story in the newsletter Counterpunch. The article highlights various interconnected stories: The five Israeli “movers” who witnesses say were cheering after the first plane struck the World Trade Center; the so-called Israeli art students who were living in concentrated areas where hijackers were living around the United States and how two of the hijackers ended up on the Watch List weeks before 9/11.

Christopher Ketcham, the author of the article, joins us on the line from upstate New York. Alexander Cockburn also joins us on the line. He is the editor of Couterpunch where the piece is published. And with us here in the firehouse studio is Marc Perelman he is the reporter who did one of the first reports on the story for The Forward in 2002.

[question everything]

12. Cokburn will not be happy until Israel ceased to exist

and even that is doubtful.

Where else would he direct his bile? Chavez?

[Anarcho-Socialist]

16. Israel and 9/11

My guess is that whatever Israel knew it passed it on to the US authorities. I am wary of this kind of speculation because the "Joooos did it" crowd like to utilise this type of conjecture for their own nefarious purposes.

If Cockburn believes that "US politics is controlled by an Israeli lobby", then that would make him an anti-Semite in that it sounds like a rehash of the Protocols.

[greyl]

17. Have you evaluated the sources for that claim against A. Cockburn?

It's at freerepublic, and also made by someone who accuses Jimmy Carter of being anti-Semitic (Dershowitz), to name a couple. I avoided bringing that aspect up because I think it just a pre-emptive defensive noodle being thrown at the wall by the OP.

[Anarcho-Socialist]

18. Ah I see

Yes, Freeperville certainly is not a reliable source.

[Lithos]

20. Locking

Please note that the origination and emphasis of most of the Israel behind 9/11 memes were and remain extremely partisan groups such as American Free Press, Al-Manar, David Duke and other extremely "disreputable" groups who are also noted for carrying some extremely anti-Semitic and hateful memes. Until the real transcript is published, any discussion remains "spurious" at best.

Lithos
DU Moderator