Wednesday, September 06, 2006

A Play on Nothing in Three Acts

The 9/11 Commission:
A Play on Nothing in Three Acts


A wag once famously said that Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot was a play where nothing happened . . . twice. The two former co-chairmen of the 9-11 commission report, Thomas Kean and Lee Hamilton, have released a new book, "Without Precedent: The Inside Story of the 9-11 Commission." This book goes Beckett one better – it is the third act of veneer over substance, self-aggrandizement over serious analysis, and cliché over perspicacity. It is another calculated attempt by the former commissioners to place themselves in the media spotlight, and to overcome the humiliation of their widely criticized and mostly debunked report. It is a vapid and substanceless attempt to claim moral high ground and present the co-chairmen as heroes of honesty. It would be a farce, except that it has no story line, save the aggrandizement of the authors. At least they are consistent in doing nothing and proclaiming that to be a sign of their devotion to the country and the government. Beckett once said that "habit is the ballast that chains the dog to its vomit," and by this measure the chain restraining Kean and Hamilton is a short one indeed. [...]


The Commission was created and put in place due to the relentless pressure and outcry by the 9/11 family members and their public supporters who had three objectives in mind: 1) Getting all the facts; 2) Establishing Accountability for those who failed us due to their intentional or unintentional acts; 3) Provide recommendation for real fixes and meaningful remedies.

The Commission fulfilled none of those three objectives. In their responsibility to report all the facts: They either refused to interview all relevant experts and witnesses, or, they censored the reports provided to them by those with direct and first-hand information. Both these acts were selective and intentional. Contrary to their pledge to establish accountability: They refused to hold anyone accountable and lamely justified it by saying, "We don't want to point a finger at anyone." All those responsible individuals remained in their positions or were even promoted. And as far as meaningful remedies and reforms are concerned, the commission threw in senseless, and in some cases, detrimental cosmetic and bureaucratic "solutions" that ended up making our government even more cumbersome and unable to respond to threats to national security. In the name of solutions and reforms, they forced down our throats exactly what led to the failure to protect our nation on 9/11: A highly bureaucratic, complicated, inefficient mammoth of a malfunctioning machine.

On the Fifth anniversary of the September Eleven Terror Attacks, we, the National Security Whistleblowers, want to go on record one more time to reiterate the significant issues and cases that were duly reported to the 9/11 commission by those of us from the Intelligence, Aviation, and Law Enforcement communities, but ended up being censored and omitted. The failure to address such serious and relevant issues, witnesses, and information renders the report flawed and the commissioners parties to a fraud on the nation.

The following Veteran National Security experts were turned away, ignored, or censored by the 9/11 Commission, even though they had direct and relevant information related to the Commission's investigation:



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