The hearings on 9/11 have degenerated into partisan politics as the Democrats seek to blame the President for the intelligence lapses that failed to prevent it. Less partisan critics have pointed quite rightly to the legal wall -- stemming from "reforms" enacted by Congress in the wake of the Church hearings of 1978 -- that prevented communication between the FBI and CIA. But what you never hear is that the real culprit is the network of America-the-enemy think tanks that were at their apex of influence in the 1970s.
If we are going to assign blame, the greatest single culprit is the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS) (Their "experts" are regulars on the BBC.) IPS had the idea for an outfit that would focus on weakening the intelligence agencies and the Center for National Security Studies became what IPS called its "social invention." (Its first director came from IPS and returned later to head it.) It was the Center for National Security Studies that, behind the scenes, shaped the "reform" of the intelligence agencies, working closely with the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence to write the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978. But while the Center for National Security Studies was viewed by the media and those on Capitol Hill as a "responsible" critic (as distinct from those who wanted to abolish the CIA and whose methods included printing the names of U.S. agents abroad) in fact there was identity of goals, interlocking personnel and agreement on methods between the Center for National Security Studies and Counterspy, the abolitionist newsletter that published long lists of alleged U.S. agents. (For an in-depth analysis of the connections, see the chapter "America the Enemy: The Utopian Think Tanks" in The Coercive Utopians by Rael Jean and Erich Isaac, Regnery Gateway, 1980.)
Several columnists (including Gregg Esterbrook and Michelle Malkin) have written of the outraged response that would have followed any preemptive action by President Bush prior to 9/11, whether to make war against Afghanistan or to round up potential Arab terrorists in this country.
Our favorite "what if" scenario comes from AFSI member Raphael Isaac: "Barbara Streisand, Alec Baldwin, Ed Asner, Rob Reiner, Susan Sarandon, Timothy Robbins, Sean Penn and the ACLU have planned a protest rally at the World Trade Center to be held Wednesday morning September 12, 2001 against Bush and 'Capitalist Global Corporate Domination.' They have selected the WTC as 'the most visible symbol of the Global Market that is destroying the earth and subjecting millions to a life of poverty' Robbins told the New York Times. Asner added that 'the two towers stand like two middle fingers pointed against Asia and Africa, the regions most exploited by corporate greed.'
"Jesse Jackson has announced 'Black or brown, we will bring Bush down!' Al Sharpton is organizing a March on the Pentagon to show black support for their 'profiled Arab brothers.' CAIR plans to join the march complaining that Arab charities are being targeted when they only help Arab students from poor countries trying to better themselves by taking engineering and flight training classes here. In token of its appreciation, CAIR has presented Sharpton with a Hamas head band.
"Not to be left out, Kofi Annan released a statement: 'It would have been better for Bush to focus on Iraq than to detain millions at airports looking for nonexistent terrorists.' He added,'the UN would like the help of the U.S. in dealing with the regime of Saddam Hussein.'"
Actually, we don't need any "what ifs" for we know what would have happened if the most basic precautions had been taken. The past president of United Airlines and the current president of American Airlines have testified that the Department of Transportation fined any airline caught having more than two people of the same ethnic persuasion in line for questioning "including and especially, two Arabs." So we know what would have happened if airline screeners had pulled out of the line four Arabs with (then legal) knives: they would have been punished for racial profiling.
Gamaliel Isaac tells us of the "termination" of Francisco Gil White by the Solomon Asch Center for the study of ethno-political conflict at the University of Pennsylvania. Apparently Professor Gil White's fatal error was to change from a critic to a public supporter of Israel in the group-think environment of that Center (led by long-time foe of Israel Ian Lustick). An alumnus, Isaac sought to mobilize a student protest, sending e-mails to the leaders of the multitude of Jewish student organizations, the ACLU and the college Republicans. Only Republican student leader Stephanie Steward replied, saying she would try to raise awareness of the issue on campus.
Outpost - 2 - May 2004