The former director of the US Central Intelligence Agency warns the ISIL terrorist group is likely to be in a position to execute 9/11-style attacks on American soil that could result in mass casualties.

"If we don't get ISIS under control, we're going to see that kind of attack," Michael Morell told USA TODAY, referring to the attacks of September 11, 2001.

US efforts haven't been effective so far in countering ISIL’s success in recruiting hundreds of American citizens, Morell said. "And we're not effective at it because it's very hard to do."

Morell retired from the CIA in June, 2013 after serving 33 years at the spy agency, including as deputy director and as acting director twice in 2011 and from 2012 to 2013.

"They today have the ability to bring down an airliner in the United States," Morell says. "If that happened tomorrow, I would not be surprised."

He argued that the so-called US war on terror is likely to stretch for "for as far as I can see."

Elsewhere in his remarks, Morell also claimed that ISIL inspired two Americans to carry out the deadly attack on an anti-Islam exhibit depicting the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) near Dallas, Texas, last week.

A security guard was shot in the lower leg during the shooting. The two gunmen were then shot and killed by police.

Republican Senator Ron Johnson, the chairman of the Senate Homeland Security Committee, told CNN on Sunday that the United States is "certainly vulnerable" to attacks by militants linked to ISIL.

US officials have previously warned the public and law enforcement agencies across the country about young Americans wanting to join the ISIL terrorist group in Iraq and Syria.

The ISIL terrorists, many of whom were initially trained by the CIA in Jordan in 2012 to destabilize the Syrian government, now control parts of Iraq and neighboring Syria. They have engaged in crimes against humanity in areas under their control.

Morell said he thinks the NSA's mass collection of metadata on telephone calls in the United States, which was revealed by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, has been "a very important tool" against terrorism, although he acknowledged it is hard to point to a particular plot it has disrupted.

A federal appeals court last week concluded the NSA spying program was illegal, and Congress is now debating whether to revise the way it works before it expires on June 1.

AHT/HRJ

Military Commission Judge Mulls Probe of Defense Claim

By Terri Moon Cronk
American Forces Press Service

FORT MEADE, Md., April 15, 2014 – The judge in the military commission proceedings for five suspects in the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the United States called for a recess today to prepare an order allowing defense attorneys time to determine whether current or past defense team members were contacted by a government agency.

The proceedings began yesterday at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and a satellite feed here allows reporters unable to travel to Cuba to cover the case.

Court recessed today at about 11 a.m. when the judge, Army Col. James Pohl, said he will issue the order later today.

The order follows the defense team’s request this morning for an investigation after one of the defense attorneys disclosed yesterday that the FBI questioned a member of his team about the suspects.

Pohl told defense attorneys they have until 5 p.m. tomorrow to submit a request if they want the court to subpoena witnesses from agencies that have contacted past or existing defense members. Any information the defense teams find will be disclosed only to the lead defense counsel for each team, Pohl ordered.

“The lead counsel will use his or her professional judgment in bringing the issue to the judge,” explained Army Lt. Col. J. Todd Breasseale, a Defense Department spokesman.
The court order is to avoid a conflict with any nondisclosure agreement an agency might have required a member of the defense team to file, Breasseale said.

Pohl is considering a court investigation on agencies that contacted defense team members, based on requests from defense team members in today’s proceedings. Because of those requests, the judge told the defense teams to determine which witnesses they believe they need. As yet, there is no indication the judge will proceed with an investigation.

James Harrington, attorney for defendant Ramzi Binalshibh, told the court at the start of yesterday’s hearing that the FBI contacted one of his team members for information. He did not say why FBI agents recently questioned his defense team member, but said the individual handled classified evidence.... [emphasis mine]

FBI Tried to Recruit Member of 9/11 Plotters’ Legal Team, Lawyers Claim

 Massimo Calabresi 

 April 14, 2014

 The 9/11 accused confer with their defense lawyers during a break in pretrial hearings at the U.S. Navy base Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, on April 14, 2014.

The defense team for five men accused of planning and launching the Sept. 11 attacks, currently in pretrial hearings at Guantánamo Bay, alleges the FBI attempted to turn one of its lawyers into a confidential informant

At Guantánamo Bay, the wheels of justice turn not so much slowly, as seldom. Twelve and a half years after 9/11, the five men accused of planning and launching the attack are in pretrial hearings at a military tribunal there. On Monday, the tribunal held proceedings for the first time since December. Within minutes, the hearing recessed.
As the indefatigable Carol Rosenberg reports in the Miami Herald, Army Colonel James L. Pohl, who is the presiding judge on the tribunal, called the recess after lawyers for the accused terrorists said the FBI had tried to turn a member of the defense team into a confidential informant:

Defense lawyers alleged Monday that in at least one instance, two FBI agents enlisted a civilian on the defense team of accused plot deputy Ramzi bin al Shibh as a confidential informant.

The FBI declined several requests for a comment.

The development seemed to stun the chief prosecutor, Army Brig. Mark Martins, who told the judge, Army Col. James L. Pohl, that he was unaware of the FBI activity....

MUCH more here. 

 What is missing from these reports, and usually any of the reporting on these Hearings, is the effect of all this on the families of the victims lost on that terrible day in 2001. 

It is no secret to regular readers here that I am friends with Diane and Ken Fairben, parents of Keith Fairben, a Paramedic who gave his life saving lives that day (and other EMS 'peeps' who were there on 9/11.)  We talk - often.

 This latest bump on the slow road to justice has hit Diane and Ken hard. Part of Diane's response shared with me - and here with her permission:

 We were home at 11 am again 

The short version of today...one of the defense lawyers is the one who sent KSM's letters ( to his wife) and his manifesto, part 1

Nevins is his name, the LEAD attorney. So we won't see him again, as he's the one the FBI is investigating. So, Judge Pohl recessed for the day, no hearings, maybe I  have no clue as to what will happen to the trial.

 Disappointed, sad, frustrated....I don't think I will get the chance to ever tell them about Keith, and let them know what they took from us.  

The feeling of not having control of anything regarding this trial is overwhelmingly depressing.  

 Actually, since that day, we have had no control...13 years.  I'm sure it will be all over the media. 

Holder must be dancing in the streets, he's really dancing on all their graves and the families hearts. 

President Kennedy was murdered on November 22, 1963 and less than two years later American Marines entered South Vietnam beginning the US intervention that would end ten years later with the fall of Saigon and millions dead.  Less than two years after the September 11th attacks in New York and Washington, the United States began the Iraq War, which would end eight years later with the withdrawal of the coalition forces, leaving Iraq destabilized and clearly within the sphere of Iranian influence.

Apart from the similar aftermaths, both events have common elements both in their buildup, and execution as well their social ramifications.

Precision Beyond the Apparent Capacity of the Perpetrators

The Marine Corp rates shooting ability on the following scale:

Expert: a score of 220 to 250.
Sharpshooter: 210 to 219.
Marksman: 190 to 209.

Oswald was last rated in 1959 and scored 191, barely reaching the lowest level of marksmanship.  Marine Colonel Allison Folsom interpreted the results by explaining that Oswald “was not a particularly outstanding shot”.  If Oswald did in fact fire all the shots, it was a highly unlikely, even extraordinary feat.

Hani Hanjour was considered a terrible pilot and neither he, nor any other of the other two pilots who successfully guided their jets into buildings on that day had ever flown a jet before.  According to 9/11 Commission Report, “To our knowledge none of them [the hijackers] had ever flown an actual airliner before.”  Yet they were able to commandeer the aircraft, and on their first time ever in the cockpit of an actual jetliner, navigate towards their destinations and maneuver the planes under extreme conditions in terms of velocity and altitude before guiding the airliners perfectly into their targets.

One of the air traffic controllers from Dulles said the following when describing Hani Hanjour’s maneuver which  brought American Airlines flight 77 into the Pentagon, “The speed, the maneuverability, the way that he turned, we all thought in the radar room, all of us experienced air traffic controllers, that that was a military plane. You don’t fly a 757 in that manner. It’s unsafe.”

CBS News described Hanjour’s maneuver this way:

“...flying at more than 400 mph, was too fast and too high when it neared the Pentagon at 9:35. The hijacker-pilots were then forced to execute a difficult high-speed descending turn. Radar shows Flight 77 did a downward spiral, turning almost a complete circle and dropping the last 7,000 feet in two-and-a-half minutes. The steep turn was so smooth, the sources say, it’s clear there was no fight for control going on. And the complex maneuver suggests the hijackers had better flying skills than many investigators first believed. The jetliner disappeared from radar at 9:37 and less than a minute later it clipped the tops of street lights and plowed into the Pentagon at 460 mph.”

And retired Navy pilot, Ted Muga, explained it this way:

"The maneuver at the Pentagon was just a tight spiral coming down out of 7,000 feet. And a commercial aircraft, while they can in fact structurally somewhat handle that maneuver, they are very, very, very difficult. And it would take considerable training. In other words, commercial aircraft are designed for a particular purpose and that is for comfort and for passengers and it's not for military maneuvers. And while they are structurally capable of doing them, it takes some very, very talented pilots to do that... to think that you're going to get an amateur up into the cockpit and fly, much less navigate, it to a designated target, the probability is so low, that it's bordering on impossible."

Yet Hani Hanjour, one month before the attacks, was not allowed to fly a Cessna alone after a test flight with instructors.  As reported by NewsDay, his instructors stated that “they found he had trouble controlling and landing the single-engine Cessna 172.”

Oswald could have hit the President in the upper body on two out of three shots fired within 8.3 seconds, and Hani Hanjour could have made an exceptional maneuver moments before his death the first time he ever flew an airliner, but it takes a leap of faith to believe amateurs actually carried out these actions with such professional precision.  More importantly, it casts enough doubt on the official version of events for a reasonable person to have reasonable doubts about the accepted view of what happened on those fateful days.

Immediate Identification of the Villains

Two days after the 9/11 attacks Colin Powell identified Bin Laden as the key suspect in the attacks and the following day the FBI released the names of the hijackers.  Apparently, there was no need for an investigation, evidence or witnesses to tie Bin Laden to the crime.

The two most horrendous, violent, and nebulous events in American history are officially solved within hours, yet years later they continue to confound.

Silenced Suspects who are Never Tried

Bin Laden released three tapes in the days and weeks after the 9/11 attacks, in the first of which he denied responsibility for the the attacks of 9/11 and in the subsequent two he took no responsibility for them.  Then, on November 9, 2001, American forces found a tape in a house in Afghanistan.  In the video tape Osama Bin Laden supposedly takes responsibility for the attacks though many have argued about the translation.  Finally, on October 29th,  just days before the 2004 US Presidential elections al Jazeera broadcast a tape of Bin Laden explaining to the American people why he had made the attacks.  The extremely fortunate timing and discovery of the self contradicting Bin Laden tapes has created much doubt and confusion.

What would Oswald have said if he had taken the stand?  Which Bin Laden would have appeared in court, the one who claimed innocence or the one who explained how he came up with the ideas of taking down the World Trade Center?  We will never know.

On May 2, 2011 American commandos captured Bin Laden and assassinated him.  Leon Panetta, CIA Director at the time, explained that capturing him alive was not considered, as he explained, “we always assumed from the beginning that the likelihood was that he was going to be killed.”  From details of the raid it seems clear that Bin Laden was not armed when he was captured.  So why wasn't he captured, brought to the United States and tried publicly for the crime he was accused of committing?

The American people were deprived of the opportunity to test the case the government had formed within days of the attack, a case whose consequences were two wars and hundreds of thousands killed.

Anomalies

In October of 1963 someone claiming to be Lee Harvey Oswald called and went to the Soviet and Cuban embassies in Mexico City asking for a visa.  The problem was, it wasn’t the same Lee Harvey Oswald who was captured in Dallas.  Less than 24 hours after having supposedly killed the President, Lyndon Johnson had this conversation with J Edgar Hoover:

LBJ:  Have you established any more about the visit to the Soviet embassy in Mexico in September?
Hoover:  No, that’s one angle that’s very confusing, for this reason—we have up here the tape and the photograph of the man who was at the Soviet embassy, using Oswald’s name.  That picture and the tape do not correspond to this man’s voice, nor to his appearance.  In other words, it appears that there is a second person who was at the Soviet embassy down there.

And then there is this FBI report:

“The Central Intelligence Agency advised that on October 1, 1963, an extremely sensitive source had reported that an individual identified himself as Lee Oswald, who contacted the Soviet Embassy in Mexico City inquiring as to any messages.  Special Agents of this Bureau, who have conversed with Oswald in Dallas, Texas, have observed photographs of the individual referred to above and have listened to his voice.  These Special Agents are of the opinion that the above-referred-to-individual was not Lee Harvey Oswald…..”

The “extremely sensitive” source was the CIA itself as they were filming the visitors and tapping the phones of the two embassies Oswald visited. Why would the CIA want to make it appear that Oswald was colluding with the enemy a month before he kills the President?

Oswald, who had top secret clearance working for the CIA on U2 flights, defects to the Soviet Union, announces to US Embassy that he is renouncing his citizenship and going to reveal U2 secrets to the Soviets but later decides to leave the Soviet Union and  is welcomed with open arms and even given a loan to come back to the US.  Why wasn't he tried as a traitor?  He then moves to Texas where he is surrounded by people with connections to the the FBI and the CIA.

The incredible way Building 7 collapsed on 9/11, at almost free fall speed and very similar to the way buildings collapse in controlled demolition caused many to question the official version of events.  Building 7 wasn't hit by a plane and the BBC even reported it had collapsed twenty minutes before it actually did.  The lack of film footage of the attack on the Pentagon, which one can assume has extensive video surveillance, was also very surprising.

These are only a few of the outstanding quagmires embedded in these two crimes. None of this proves a conspiracy, but it does make it reasonable for a person to doubt the official  version of events.

 The Taboo of not Believing

“This cultural phenomenon goes back to 1967. At that time, in response to questions about the Warren Commission Report (which President Ford helped create), the CIA issued a memorandum calling for mainstream media sources to begin countering “conspiracy theorists.”  In the 45 years before the CIA memo came out, the phrase “conspiracy theory” appeared in the Washington Post and New York Times only 50 times, or about once per year. In the 45 years after the CIA memo, the phrase appeared 2,630 times, or about once per week.”

As a consequence, those that spoke out against the Warren Commission’s conclusions were tainted with the derogatory term of  ‘conspiracy theorist’ which implied they lacked  the psychological and intellectual capacity to the understand a complex world.  It became more mature, patriotic, and coherent to assume that a momentous crime with cataclysmic consequences was only within the purview of lone nut.  If a journalist or academic suggested that the CIA played a role in the assassination then they were considered outside the mainstream in spite of the fact that the CIA had a hand in the overthrows of Trujillo in the Dominican Republic, Mossadegh in Iran, Lumumba in the Congo, Jacob Arbenz in Guatemala, Joao Goulart in Brazil,  and Sukarno in Indonesia.  It was deemed socially and intellectually unsound to believe that such an organization would ever use its skills at home in order to move forward its agenda.

Following the the 9/11 attacks the meme repeated itself with an Orwellian flavor by calling those who doubted The 9/11 Commission Report ‘Truthers’.  No major American newspaper has an editorial writer that questions the official version of events on 9/11.  It’s a taboo topic that if breached, pushes one beyond the pale and into the margins of public  rhetoric.

Why was it so absurd to think that the CIA, which had been running Operation Mockingbird to manipulate the press in the United States from the 1950’s through the 1970’s and which, through its Project MKUltra, had tried to create ‘Manchurian Candidates’ would also stoop to violence against the American people to achieve it’s goals?

It’s perfectly acceptable in the mainstream to deny the existence of evolution, yet it is grounds for expulsion from major media if one doubts the official version of how Building 7 collapsed or if one implies that the CIA may have had a hand in the Kennedy assassination.

Kennedy himself spoke to the need for a free press to push the limits, but that same press ignored his words when they were confronted with the complexities of his death.

"Without debate, without criticism, no Administration and no country can succeed and no republic can survive. That is why the Athenian lawmaker Solon decreed it a crime for any citizen to shrink from controversy. And that is why our press was protected by the First Amendment-- the only business in America specifically protected by the Constitution--not primarily to amuse and entertain, not to emphasize the trivial and the sentimental, not to simply "give the public what it wants"--but to inform, to arouse, to reflect, to state our dangers and our opportunities, to indicate our crises and our choices, to lead, mold, educate and sometimes even anger public opinion.”

Lost and Senseless Wars: Cui Bono?

During the Cuban missile crisis the generals clamored for war, pushing their Commander and Chief to invade the island.  Curtis Lemay, Chief of Staff of the Air Force argued vehemently with the President:

"This is almost as bad as the appeasement at Munich…We don't have any choice but direct military action. I see no other solution. This blockade and political action I see leading to war."

As James Douglass eloquently argues in his book, JFK and the Unspeakable, Kennedy changed during his time in the White House from a hawk to man determined to establish peace and end the Cold War.  He had begun communicating with Khrushchev through back- channels  and had sent feelers out to do the same with Castro.  He became increasingly pessimistic about Vietnam and on Oct. 11, 1963 he signed directive NSAM-263 which called for the immediate withdrawal of 1,000 advisers from Vietnam and the removal of the remaining 15,000 by the end of 1965.  Four days after his death, his successor Lyndon Johnson signed directive NSAM 273 which overturned Kennedy’s directive and increased military involvement in Vietnam.

As Kennedy lost faith in his generals and the CIA, he moved away from military solutions and this evolution culminated in his American University speech where he laid out his plans for peaceful coexistence with the communist world- heresy to the military and the CIA.

Kennedy was killed and the generals got their war.  They used the domino theory to justify it, arguing that if Vietnam fell to the communists, the rest of South East Asia would also fall,  threatening American security.  Vietnam fell in 1975 to the communists after millions were killed,  the domino theory long discredited.

In the 1990’s the Neo-Cons pushed for the invasion of Iraq.  In 2001, in the aftermath of 9/11, they also got their war.  They had their own version of the domino theory as they argued that if Saddam Hussein was ousted, the Iraqi Shiites would rise up, creating a vibrant democracy that would empower the Iranian and Syrian youth to overthrow their respective regimes.  Instead Iran wound up controlling Iraq and Assad remains in power in Syria.  Another theory was laid to waste over the corpses of hundreds of thousands.

Conclusion

The only beneficiaries of these two violent turns were the military industrial complex.  In light of much of the transcripts and documents released from the Kennedy era, it’s clear that JFK was on a path of peace, not only in Vietnam, but with the Soviet Union and Cuba.  Similarly, it was hard to imagine in the year 2000 that the US would entangle itself in an two new wars lasting almost a decade, forgetting all the terrible lessons of Vietnam and once again descending into the hell of violence.  It was as if some dark hand swooped down in a malevolent fury, angry at the peace and prosperity the nation was enjoying.

No matter who committed these heinous crimes, what is clear is that their aftermaths were cataclysmic for the nation and the dissent of those seeing more than a lone gunman or a band of religious fanatics operating out of caves was met with fierce resistance and marginalization.  Why was this dissent shunned with such opprobrium?  Could it be that those who ventured beyond the strict confines of the mainstream of ideas might see the obvious and shout it out from the rooftops?

The most disturbing common thread in the aftermath of these two crimes was the reticence to thoroughly and openly investigate them.  Both crimes were ‘solved’ within hours, the basic outline of events decided on in days and etched in stone, never to be disturbed.  Even to  mention a doubt as to the perpetrators was to question the very essence of the nation because it seemed clear that to disbelieve the guilt of Oswald or the Bin Laden had one very dangerous consequence- the implosion of the modern myth upholding the entire state apparatus.

It’s hard not to make the comparison with a family ravaged by an abusive father, avoiding the obvious in a desperate attempt to maintain its existence as a unit.

“Those who are at present so eager to be reconciled with the world at any price must take care not to be reconciled with it under this particular aspect: as the nest of The Unspeakable. This is what too few are willing to see….

“You are not big enough to accuse the whole age effectively, but let us say you are in dissent. You are in no position to issue commands, but you can speak words of hope. Shall this be the substance of your message? Be human in this most inhuman of ages; guard the image of man for it is the image of God. You agree? Good. Then go with my blessing. But I warn you, do not expect to make many friends. As for the Unspeakable—his implacable presence will not be disturbed by a little fellow like you!”

Robert Bonomo is a blogger, novelist and esotericist.  Download his latest novel, Your Love Incomplete, for free here.