The war on the war on terror

A few terror-related stories deserve your attention.

Hooking up. The first piece comes to us from the invaluable Robert Parry, who reveals that the Ukrainian neo-Nazis have joined forces with -- well, basically, with ISIS.

Parry's piece is particularly important because there has been a renewed propaganda effort by the NYT to convince the public that the Nazis play little role in the Ukrainian war. The NYT would have you believe that anyone who says otherwise is a Putin-paid propagandist. That is a huge laugh. In recent months, the Times itself has been caught numerous times twisting and spinning and outright concocting the facts.

At times, the mainstream media’s black-out of the brown shirts was almost comical. Last February, almost a year after the coup, a New York Times article about the government’s defenders of Mariupol hailed the crucial role played by the Azov battalion but managed to avoid noting its well-documented Nazi connections.

Now, the Kiev regime has added to those “forces of civilization” — resisting the Russ-kie barbarians — Islamic militants with ties to terrorism. Last September, Marcin Mamon, a reporter for the Intercept, reached a vanguard group of these Islamic fighters in Ukraine through the help of his “contact in Turkey with the Islamic State [who] had told me his ‘brothers’ were in Ukraine, and I could trust them.”

While the U.S. advisers are under orders to keep their distance from the neo-Nazis, the Kiev regime is quite open about its approval of the central military role played by these extremists – whether neo-Nazis, white supremacists or Islamic militants. These extremists are considered very aggressive and effective in killing ethnic Russians.

The regime has shown little concern about widespread reports of “death squad” operations targeting suspected pro-Russian sympathizers in government-controlled towns. But such human rights violations should come as no surprise given the Nazi heritage of these units and the connection of the Islamic militants to hyper-violent terrorist movements in the Middle East.

But the Times treats this lethal mixture of neo-Nazis and Islamic extremists as a good thing. After all, they are targeting opponents of the “white-hatted” Kiev regime, while the ethnic Russian rebels and the Russian government wear the “black hats.”

Those unmentionable Saudis. The second story I want to bring to your attention...

(Dare I mention this? Yes. For too long, I've let bad memories prevent me from saying my say on what is supposed to be my own damned blog. But be warned: I may not publish your comment even if you observe rule #2.)

...concerns Saudi funding of 9/11. The astonishing thing about this piece is that it appears in the ultra-bland USA Today.

Do Americans have the right to learn whether a foreign government helped finance the 9/11 attacks? A growing number of congressmen and senators are demanding that a 28-page portion of a 2002 congressional report finally be declassified. The Obama administration appears to be resisting, and the stakes are huge. What is contained in those pages could radically change Americans' perspective of the War on Terror.

The congressional Joint Inquiry Into Intelligence Community Activities Before and After the Terrorist Attacks of September 11, 2001, completed its investigation in December 2002. But the Bush administration stonewalled the release of the 838-page report until mid-2003 — after its invasion of Iraq was a fait accompli — and totally suppressed a key portion. Former senator Bob Graham, D-Fla., chairman of the investigation, declared that "there is compelling evidence in the 28 pages that one or more foreign governments was involved in assisting some of the hijackers in their preparation for 9/11." Graham later indicated that the Saudis were the guilty party.

Okay, you already knew most of this. My questions: Has USA Today ever run this material before? And if not, then why are they running it now?

Members of Congress can read the still-classified pages in a special secure room on Capitol Hill if they get prior permission from the House or Senate Intelligence Committee.

Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., one of the few members to go read the report, was shocked: "I had to stop every couple of pages and just sort of absorb and try to rearrange my understanding of history for the past 13 years and the years leading up to that. It challenges you to rethink everything." Massie is one of 18 co-sponsors ofJones' resolution in the House.

Why is the Obama administration continuing to suppress a report completed more than a dozen years ago? It is not as if the White House's credibility would be damaged by revelations of Saudi bankrolling the worst attack on American soil since Pearl Harbor (15 of the 19 hijackers were Saudis).

And it is not as if the Saudis became squeaky-clean Boy Scouts after 9/11. Saudi sources are widely reported to be bankrolling Islamic State terrorists throughout the Middle East; Gen. Martin Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told a Senate committee last September that "I know major Arab allies who fund" ISIS.

Again: This article is significant not for what it says but for where it is being said. USA Today never challenges the Establishment.

Let's put the matter into perspective: Just weeks ago, the BBC was still trying to convince the world that ISIS is -- and has always been -- self-financing. Auntie Beeb created a full-length documentary about the funding of ISIS that said not one word about money from Saudi Arabia or other states.

There's no business like terror business. In our third story, Philip Giraldi argues that the war on terror has become "a witness protection program" for government crooks. In a key section, he gives us interesting new information about one of the most annoying figures on the current scene: The CIA's own Michael Morell.

(From now on, let's call him "M. Morell." If you say "M. Morell" rapidly, the result will be a rather amusing pun. Hint: Put the stress on "Mor," not "ell.")

You may have noticed that M. Morell was all over the place recently, warning the world that terrorists were going to strike during the July 4 festivities.

Morell, a former senior CIA official, is in the terror business. He had no evidence whatsoever that terrorists were planning an attack and should have realized that maneuvering the United States into constantly going on alert based on empty threats is precisely what militant groups tend to do.

When not fronting as a handsomely paid national security consultant for the CBS television network Morell is employed by Beacon Global Strategies as a Senior Counselor, presumably warning well-heeled clients to watch out for terrorists. His lifestyle and substantial emoluments depend on people being afraid of terrorism so they will turn to an expert like him and ask serious questions that he will answer in a serious way suggesting that Islamic militants could potentially bring about some kind of global apocalypse.

Morell, a torture apologist, also has a book out that he wants to sell, positing somewhat ridiculously that he and his former employer had been fighting The Great War of Our Time against Islamic terrorists, something comparable to the World Wars of the past century, hence the title. Morell needs to take some valium and relax.

Morell is one of a host of pundits who are successful in selling the military-industrial-lobbyist-congressional-intelligence community line of BS on the war on terror. Throw in the neocons as the in-your-face agents provocateurs who provide instant intellectual and media credibility for developments and you have large groups of engaged individuals with good access who are on the receiving end of the seemingly unending cash pipeline that began with 9/11. Frances Townsend, who was the Bush Homeland Security adviser and who is now a consultant with CNN, is another such creature as is Michael Chertoff, formerly Director of the Department of Homeland Security, who has successfully marketed his defective airport scanners to his former employer.

Giraldi's point is simple: Everyone who sold on us the disastrous Iraq invasion is now living high on the hog. They earn a ton of money, they hold positions of respect, they lecture often, they appear on television. Despite their record of deceit, they are considered to be the experts on terrorism.

Meanwhile, those who tried to stop the war -- those who accurately foresaw what would happen -- are still considered marginal and risible figures.

(One exception to that rule, I would argue, would be Jim Webb.)

Our first task must be to come up with some way to change the intellectual climate. If we cannot toss "the malefactors of great wars" into the pokey where they belong, we can at least start laughing in their faces.

M. Morell. I'm rather proud of myself for coming up with that one. Spread it around!