Two Guests On Democracy Now, Andrew Cockburn and Masha Gessen, Speaking On Subjects 9/11 Both Seem To Invite Listeners To Read Between The Lines: What Are They Saying Here?

Andrew Cockburn and Masha Gessen on Democracy Now

Two recent guests of Democracy Now, Andrew Cockburn on September 13th and Masha Gessen on October 5th, both seemed to be inviting viewers or listeners to the program to `read between the lines” and hear something more than what they were actually saying when they spoke on 9/11 topics.  Can one “read between the lines' with a program that one “watches” or “listens to”?  Well in any event the question is whether they intended their audience to hear something more than just what they said. . .

. . And if they did, what were they saying while not actually saying it?

Andrew Cockburn was on Democracy Now to explain a lawsuit making progress against the Saudi Arabian government based on a growing cornucopia of evidence that people in the Saudi government were clearly involved in supporting the men identified as the 9/11 hijackers.  During his interview Mr. Cockburn (or former Senator Bob Graham via an inserted clip) made a number of fascinating points.

To Wit:

    •    The Bush administration, people like Vice President Dick Cheney and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, had a “concocted story” about what actually happened on 9/11.
    •    The Bush administration did not want the public to figure out that the identified hijackers could not have done it alone, that only with support of the sort of resources supplied by a government (a nation-state) could the 9/11 plot have been carried out.
    •    The Bush administration did not want the American public to figure out the extent that Saudi Arabia was involved in the plot.
    •    The Bush administration wanted instead to pin the plot elsewhere, particularly on Iraq against which it wanted to wage war.
    •    The torturing of detainees in Guantánamo was for the purpose coercing false confessions and false information to help buttress the concocted story.
    •    Saudi Arabia has a close and symbiotic relationship that runs very, very deep with the U.S. defense industry and military-industrial complex that involves a huge amount of expensive contracted for armaments and even personal relationships.
    •    And ditto, Saudi Arabia also has such a relationship with the oil companies.
    •    A critical lead in discovering much more about what really happened was, as an investigator for the House and Senate Intelligence Committees investigating the attacks noticed, that one of the hijackers had been in contact with an FBI informant.
    •    The then-head of the FBI, Robert Mueller (now investigating allegations about Donald Trump), strenuously attempted to stop that investigator from doing what he needed to do (going to San Diego) to discover most of what we now know about the Saudi connection to 9/11.
    •    A Mr. al-Bayoumi, a Saudi agent, at least according who everyone in the FBI, was in close contact with the hijackers (who was basically “their case officer, it seemed”), found them a place to live in San Diego, opened a bank account for them, helped them, introduced them to people who helped them get flying lessons, helped them to get driver’s licenses, and more.
    •    Mr. Bayoumi himself worked for a company owned by the Saudi Ministry of Defense, but never showed up to work.
    •    There were checks from the Saudi Embassy in Washington that went in a pretty straightforward (if indirect) procedure to the hijacker, or to Mr. Bayoumi for the purposes of looking after the hijackers.

Here are the parts of the interview transcript covering the above.

Democracy Now On Lawsuit About Who Was Responsible For 9/11

FORMER SENATOR BOB GRAHAM:  They even had a concocted story . .  My feeling is that what happened is they wanted to go to war with Iraq, had wanted to, particularly people like Cheney and Rumsfeld, and it was embarrassing to find out that the information that was becoming available seemed to more point to Saudi Arabia as having been the country that aided the 9/11, rather than Iraq. And so, the response to that is, let's suppress the information about Saudi Arabia's involvement . . as we push hard to get authorization for war in Iraq.

ANDREW COCKBURN: . . . there's one thing that the Bush administration and Senator Graham agreed on, which was that the-for the hijacking, for the 9/11 operation to succeed, they had to have had the support of-the structured support of a nation-state, I mean, the elaborate-in terms of money, in terms of contacts, in terms of-you know, these were a bunch of, basically, sort of hicks, who-most of them, who arrived in this country, didn't speak English, didn't know people. And they were all taken care of and found places to live and given money and, you know, steered to flying lessons. You know, it was a very sophisticated or well-organized operation. And that had to have been-in Graham's view, and, it seems, in mine, too, had to have been done by a state. Now, the Bush administration tried to say it was Iraq. In fact, they so wanted it to be Iraq, or wanted people to believe it was Iraq, that prisoners-interrogators at Guantánamo were under instructions to torture detainees in Guantánamo into admitting, falsely, this link between Iraq and the 9/11 hijackings.

* * * *
. . . the relationship with Saudi Arabia . .  runs very, very deep . . . the huge financial benefits that flow at least to the U.S. defense industry, the U.S. military-industrial complex, in terms of arms contracts, consultancy contracts for retired general officers. You know, there's just a very close sort of symbiotic relationship between the two. The whole relationship of the oil companies to Saudi Arabia . .

* * * *

[Michael] Jacobson was an investigator on the . . .  the joint inquiry by the House and Senate Intelligence Committees . set up right after the attacks . .  noticed an odd discrepancy, an odd mention in FBI files here in Washington, that seemed to say—that said that one of the hijackers had been in contact with an FBI informant. And he thought, "This is quite interesting." And he wanted—he put in to go to San Diego. This is a hijacker, sorry, I should say, who had been living in San Diego. He pushed to go to San Diego to look into the files in the local FBI office. Interestingly, the then-head of the FBI, Mr. Mueller, Robert Mueller, now investigating the Trump—allegations about Donald Trump, pushed—moved heaven and earth to stop Jacobson going to San Diego. Nevertheless, the committee insisted he do so. And he went there and found most of what we know about the Saudi connection.

He found that in the files they had—there was plenty of information about a Saudi agent, Mr. al-Bayoumi, who everyone in the FBI, certainly, out there believed was a Saudi agent, who had been in close contact with the hijackers, who had found them a place to live in San Diego, had opened a bank account for them, had helped them—well, introduced them to people who helped them get flying lessons, helped them to get driver’s licenses—had basically been their case officer, it seemed. This was all turned up in—I mean, I could go on. You know, there’s other people. There were checks that went from the Saudi Embassy in Washington that went, more or less—I mean, indirectly, but in a pretty straightforward procedure—to the hijacker, or to Mr. Bayoumi, for looking after the hijackers. Mr. Bayoumi himself worked for a company owned by the Saudi Ministry of Defense, but never showed up to work.

Now on to the pertinent part of the other Democracy Now interview with award-winning author, journalist Masha Gessen, author of "The Future is History: How Totalitarianism Reclaimed Russia."  Ms. Gessen has gained attention telling people that in our new political landscape we all have to develop our talent for listening through a "cacophony of lies."

The overall interview was wide ranging but at one point Democracy Now’s Nermee Shaikh asked Ms. Gessen what she thought the effects of 9/11 were on the U.S. government.

Responding, Ms. Gessen made these points:

    •    That 9/11 was our “Reichstag fire.”
    •    The Reichstag fire in Germany was used by Hitler in 1933/1934 who had just been appointed chancellor as a “pretext for restricting political freedoms” while the government claiming “extraordinary power.”
    •    That in Germany this was done pursuant to what in 1934 Germany was called a “a state of exception,” and in the U.S. after 9/11 was “state of emergency that went into effect three days after September 11th has never been lifted.”
    •    That the War Powers Act passed with one dissenting vote three days after September 11th, continues to be in effect and has been used by President Obama and now by President Trump.
    •    We have a now 16-year run of an increasing concentration of power in the executive branch (including military power and surveillance) from George W. Bush, through Obama and now on to Trump.
    •    This chain of events created the possibility a politician like Trump able to get elected in this country running for “autocrat.”

When Ms. Gessen referred to the example of Gerrmany’s  “Reichstag fire” (actually 1933)  as a  “pretext” for Hitler’s government to limit personal freedoms and arrogate massively greater power to Hitler she did not directly allude to the fact that, although it is still debated, there is a general consensus that the “Reichstag fire” was quite likely an inside job, a false flag operation carried out by the Nazis themselves for the purpose of gaining the pretext they then seized upon.  (Various German courts acted to posthumously overturn the conviction of Marinus van der Lubbe the one man, a possibly mentally deficient drifter, accused and convicted and quickly executed by the Nazi's and in 2008 he was posthumously pardoned.)

Ms. Gessen did, however, refer to talk “early on in the Trump presidency” of prospective future terrorist attacks that were characterized as “inevitable” and sure to be opportunistically seized upon by the Trump administration for the pretext of consolidating power.  That talks sounds almost like, even if it is not exactly, a warning of a concern respecting a possibly false flag in nature.  Ms. Gessen allowed that she thinks this “trope has sort of faded a little bit.”  Indeed, in November right after the election, Bill Maher on his HBO program specifically referred to the notorious German Reichstag fire as a false flag operation launched by Hitler himself and asked his audience and panel “Don't you think that they would have that in their mind?” He said this while suggesting that Trump and conceivable Trump administration officials like “Christie and Guiliani” would be less constrained by the “rule of law” than Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld.  Where can one find other instances of this “trope” before it "faded"?: Not sure.

Here are the parts of the interview transcript covering the second set of bullet points above.

On Democracy Now: Journalist Masha Gessen on Effects of 9/11

From interview of award-winning author, journalist Masha Gessen, author of The Future is History: How Totalitarianism Reclaimed Russia.

NERMEEN SHAIKH:     Now, in one of your pieces, you talked about the effects-I mean, the kind of looking at the longer view-the effects of 9/11 and the concentration of power in the executive branch. Can you say what you think some of the historical-although not that long ago-reasons are that Trump was elected?

MASHA GESSEN: So, that was a piece that I wrote when I was asked to write about the looming Reichstag fire, if you remember. I think this trope has sort of faded a little bit. But early on in the Trump presidency, a lot of people were saying, "Oh, he's going to use an event to consolidate power, to create a state of exception, right? And that event is going to be like a terrorist attack. And, of course, you know, the terrorist attack is inevitable. It's just a question of how Trump is going to use it."

    My argument is basically that our Reichstag fire-and the Reichstag fire, as I'm sure you know, is, in 1934, the Reichstag, the parliament building in Berlin, burned, and Hitler, who had just recently been appointed chancellor, used it as a pretext for restricting political freedoms in really profound ways, in ways that-to create a state of exception, what his favorite legal theorist, Carl Schmitt, called a state of exception, which is when the sovereign claims extraordinary power.

    Well, I think that that has all happened in this country, and it happened in the wake of September 11th. The state of emergency that went into effect three days after September 11th has never been lifted. It was renewed by President Obama every September for seven years of his presidency, the seven Septembers that he was president. We continue to be in the state of emergency. The War Powers Act passed with one dissenting vote three days after September 11th, continues to be in effect and has been used by President Obama and now by President Trump. And there's also been a 16-year run of concentrating-increasing concentration of power in the executive branch-under George W. Bush, basically, in the interest of shoring up more military and surveillance power; under President Obama, for some of the same and some other reasons, having to do with a Congress that was intent on paralyzing him. But basically, I think that chain of events did a lot to create the possibility of Trump, to create the very possibility of a politician who could run for autocrat in this country and get elected.

The question is worth asking again: Watching these episodes of Democracy Now does it seem that things are being almost said with people not completely willing to say them?  As if saying certain things is proscribed?

And what is being said?  . . .  Well if the game is for these Democracy Now guests to beat around the bush and ultimately not say something, we are not going to ruin the game and say it for them here.