20th Annaversary of the fairytale of Big Lies

[Peter Lemkin]

After responding by asserting that such has not happened and is not intended to happen, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder added that a U.S. President could “authorize the military to use lethal force within the territory of the United States.”[3]

• Eric Holder [Source: pbs.org]
  
• Senator Rand Paul [Source: wikipedia.org]
  

The 9/11 Wars
Outside of the U.S., the consequences of the 2001 terror attacks were even more dramatic.
Most notably, the U.S. launched the two “9/11 Wars.” The invasions and occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq have killed over a million people, displaced tens of millions, and cost trillions of dollars—all with no discernable improvement to U.S. national security.
Destruction of Mosul, one city ravaged by the U.S. military’s rampage after 9/11. [Source: thenation.com]
Furthermore, both wars were launched on very dubious grounds.
None of the 19 alleged 9/11 hijackers were Afghan nationals; most of them were from Saudi Arabia.
Alleged 9/11 hijackers. None came from Afghanistan. [Source: pix11.com]
The invasion of Afghanistan was launched following the NATO invocation of Article 5 of the Washington Treaty, but eventually it emerged that the report presented to NATO by U.S. Ambassador Frank Taylor contained no actual forensic evidence to support the assertion that the terror attacks had been orchestrated in Afghanistan.[4]
Frank Taylor [Source: globalresearch.ca]
In mid-October of 2001, President Bush refused a Taliban offer to turn Osama bin Laden over to the moderate, Saudi-based Organization of the Islamic Conference in order to stand trial for the attacks.[5]
The deceptions that led to the Iraq War are so infamous that they need not be restated here in any detail. The Bush administration relied on tendentious, erroneous, and even fabricated[6] intelligence to argue that the Iraqi government had weapons of mass destruction and links to al-Qaeda.
George W. Bush should be indicted for war crimes. [Source: ipsnews.net]
As mentioned at the outset, it has often been asserted that 9/11 “changed everything.” Over time, even mainstream commentators eventually had to acknowledge that the U.S. overreacted to the attacks in harmful ways.
In this context, it should be noted that both of the 9/11 Wars were long in planning within the deep state—or if one prefers, within the U.S. foreign policy establishment or foreign policy blob.
Beginning in 1997, the CIA and Pentagon were working with the Uzbek security services to prepare for operations against al-Qaeda in Afghanistan.[7] Getting closer to September 2001, that year had seen a series of negotiations between the Taliban and a U.S.-led coalition regarding the creation of a new unity government in Afghanistan.
According to attendee Niaz Naik, former Pakistani Minister for Foreign Affairs, “If the Taliban had accepted this coalition, they would have immediately received international economic aid … And the pipelines from Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan would have come.”
Niaz Naik [Source: wikipedia.org]
Naik also stated that Tom Simons, a U.S. representative at the talks, told them that “‘either the Taliban behave as they ought to, or Pakistan convinces them to do so, or we will use another option.’ The words Simons used were ‘a military operation.’”[8]
Such would apparently come to pass after the negotiations broke down. On September 4, 2001, the Bush cabinet authorized the drafting of a new National Security Presidential Directive (NSPD). This document, NSDP-9, called for a sizable covert action initiative which included U.S. ground troops and Northern Alliance forces in Afghanistan.
Ahmed Shah Massoud, the leader of the Northern Alliance, was dead set against U.S. ground troops in Afghanistan but, on September 9, 2001, he was conveniently assassinated, likely with U.S. complicity on some level.[9]
Supporters of Ahmed Shah Massoud show his portrait. Massoud was against the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan but was conveniently assassinated—likely with U.S. complicity—two days before 9/11. [Source: thenationalnews.com]
The next day, on September 10, a second NSDP-9 related meeting was held, focusing on various details of the U.S. military and political plans for Afghanistan.[10]
The long-running campaign for regime change in Iraq was even more visible. In 1998, President Bill Clinton signed the Iraq Liberation Act, asserting that “It should be the policy of the United States to support efforts to remove the regime headed by Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq.”[11]
Bill Clinton signs Iraq Liberation Act (1998). [Source: timetoast.com]
While Clinton apparently bowed to neoconservative pressure in signing the Iraq Liberation Act, those forces were in the driver’s seat of the incoming George W. Bush administration. According to Bush’s Treasury Secretary, Paul O’Neill, Bush was set on invading Iraq from the earliest days of his presidency. Said O’Neill, “It was all about finding a way to do it. That was the tone of it. The president saying, ‘Go find me a way to do this.’”[12]