The ‘uncensored’ history of the 9/11 Commission

2 Responses to “The ‘uncensored’ history of the 9/11 Commission”

1. DaveD Posted: Feb 26th, 2008 at 8:50 am

   Haven’t read the book but from what I just saw in the video clip up above, the guy’s too afraid to point fingers or place real blame on who he thinks is responsible. One of the most “Beautifully” written documents in our life time, was the term I think he used, made me want to gag… Thumbs down, off with his head! (wink) Reply | Quote selected text | Link to this

2. The 9th Posted: Feb 1st, 2009 at 9:53 pm

   Well, I did read Phil Shenon’s book about Phil Zelikow’s novel, The 9/11 Commission Report. And, as testimony to Jon Stewart’s very high utility in ferreting out (Maureen Dowd would probably use “sussing out”) useful information, Shenon did indeed pull his punches. Massively. Shenon’s work is basically a “process” story — Jon characterized it as interesting “even though some of it is bureaucratic,” which is dead on, and being polite. That is, Shenon, I suppose suffering from a full-scale case of the press pandemic JAFIFUHEDSA — Journalistic Avoidance of Facts In Favor of Unverifiable Human Emotions Disorder Syndrome Affliction — dwells mostly on what a martinet, or prick, Zelikow is, his clever use of red-faced ranting to get what he wants from “his” staff — they were actually OUR staff, inasmuch as we, the people, paid them, his extensive connections to Bush Administrations #1 and #2, his co-authorship of a German reunification book with Condi Rice, then, I think, George II’s “foreign history tutor” and later his NSC and Secy of State things, Zelikow’s abrasive role in Shrub’s takeover of the White House as a “NSC transition team” member, his drafting of an Iraq invasion plan, or something similar, even before Shrub became our first court-appointed president, his kontacts with Kaptain Karl during the 9/11 Commission investigation, AND Zelikow’s subsequent hiring by Condi Rice, elevated to Sec. State, as her (or one of her) personal aids. You can see his personal charm at work on Jim Lehrer’s PBS Newshour. Unfortunately. I say “unfortunately,” because Zelikow’s presence as a “very lightly introduced” bloviating expert probably means that Lehrer’s accrued senescence has now overrun his sense and sensibility. But surely Jeffrey, Gwen, Ray, Margaret, judy and Kwame (Gadzooks, what great audio Holman has, imho, anyway!) can rattle a bit more rigor into Jim’s carapace. Please!? Zelikow’s also been involved in some controversy over his transcriptions of some presidential tapes in his little academic hideaway,or sinecure. I put him in the league with L. Paul Bremer and other members of the “we make our own history, nyah, nyah, and you get to read about it” crowd. The “beautifully written” tag is pretty much bull product, sort of like noting that, “Sure Chris Columbus completely (that’s 100%) exterminated the maybe 500,000 Arawak Indians and their society in Hispaniola, but he did drift into the Caribbean a few hundred years — like 492 or so — after Leif Eriksson and his pals discovered New Found Land (I wonder where it got its name?) And, as Flip Wilson noted in one of his sketches, Queen Isabella did say of Chris, “He’s gonna fiiiiind Ray Charles!” But that was probably apocryphal. As to “facts,” Shenon’s book is not about facts at all. As a matter of [fact], he avoids them. In something like nine mentions, he refers to 9/11-the-event, in New York, as The World Trade Center, the Twin Towers, throughout, n e v e r mentioning WTC #7, which went down at 5:20 p.m. (with security-conscious tenants like the IRS, FBI, CIA, SEC, Justice, some bank with lots of gold ingots in its vault(s), one or more big Wall Street gambling casino companies (Salomon Smith Barney, maybe?), and the NYC Emergency Command and Control Center. Rudy the G n e v e r set foot inside that control center on 9/11, raising the question, Hey, if that’s where the emergency command center was, how come Rudy never darkened its doors? Did he know it was a really stupid, stupid, stupid location because there had just been (1993) a major bomb attack on the World Trade Center–and it took 12 hours to evacuate the buildings? That it was rigged to be “pulled,” as its lessee Larry Silverstein put it? That it was to be, with WTC #1 and #2, world holders of the only high rise steel framed/cored buildings to collapse because of fire alone–inasmuch as the towers stood after the airline impact, one can’t attribute the explosion of the towers to the aircraft, seems to me –before OR since 9/11/2001? So any mention of WTC #7 in Shenon’s work? Nope. As in almost all but alternative hypothesis (fact-based) research and analysis reports concerning 9/11, the phantom 47-story skyscraper designated WTC #7 (also the Salomon Building, after a major tenant, maybe, like Salomon Smith Barney) is not mentioned in Shenon’s opus. Is that an “oops” or something less benign? For even more interesting treatment of WTC #7, don’t go to Zelikow’s novel–it’s not mentioned. And don’t go to Kean and Hamilton’s apologia, “Without Precedent: the Inside Story of the 9/11 Commission” (which gets dangerously close to something like, “Without Precedent: The Inside Job of 9/11 Report.” They only cover the “100 minutes” between the first crash and the last explosive-controlled collapse of the two 110-story towers. 5:20 p.m. didn’t make it into the window of their so-called “broad mandate” to cover the events of the day. Oh well, maybe we can segue back to a “nation of laws, not of men” under the Obama/Biden administration. But I fear the wag who noted “Different puppets, same puppeteer” is likely closer to the truth. #9 Reply | Quote selected text | Link to this