The Islamists after their moment of triumph were virtually destroyed within months. While the Neo-Conservatives took power in Washington. But then the Neo-Conservatives begun to reconstruct the Islamists. They created a phantom enemy. And as this nightmare fantasy began to spread, politicians realised the new power it gave them in a deeply disillusioned age. ibid.
Now the Neo-Conservatives became all powerful … A small group began to shape America’s response to the attacks: at its heart were Donald Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz, along with the vice-president Dick Cheney, and Richard Perle was a senior adviser to the Pentagon. Last time these men had been in power before was twenty years before under President Reagan. ibid.
The Neo-Conservatives distorted and exaggerated the Soviet threat. They created the image of a hidden international web of evil run from Moscow that planned to dominate the world. When in reality the Soviet Union was on its last legs, collapsing from within. ibid.
What the British and American governments had done was to disturb and exaggerate the real nature of the threat … The way the American and other governments have transformed this complex and disparate threat into a simplistic fantasy. ibid.
Dirty Bomb: and the media took the bait. They portrayed the dirty bomb as an extraordinary weapon that could kill thousands of people. ibid.
The Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act 2001 ... An Act to deter and punish terrorist acts in the United States and around the world, to enhance law enforcement investigatory tools, and for other purposes. The Patriot Act
Section 802 (5): the term ‘domestic terrorism’ means activities that (a) involve acts dangerous to human life that are a violation of the criminal laws of the United States or any state (b) appear to be intended (i) to intimidate or coerce a civilian population (ii) to influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion. ibid.
We’re Americans, give us liberty or give us death. We aren’t afraid of anything except ... terrorists ... terrorists ... TV, brain cancer, terrorists .... and terrorists. Bullshit! Penn & Teller, Bullshit! s2e2: Safety Hysteria, Showtime 2004
Pure incompetence: the law makers didn’t even read the law before they passed it. Assholes! Penn & Teller, Bullshit! s3e7: Patriot Act
In December 2003 the FBI forced Las Vegas hotels to turn in information on over three hundred thousand guests. ibid.
Government bureaucrats are keeping massive databases of information on all of us. ibid.
The entire US ruling class, ruling elite, comes to see terrorism as the preferred means, indeed the only means, to provide social cohesion, to provide an enemy image for the society to keep it together ... The entire social order ... all based on a monstrous myth. Webster Griffin Tarpley
The notion of a US War on Terrorism is simply a fraud. There is no War on Terrorism. The Anglo-Americans are backing terrorists exactly when and where it suits them. Webster G Tarpley, author 9/11 Synthetic Terror
Terrorism is now the myth of the twenty-first century. We’re told that the purpose of the United States for the entire foreseeable future is the War on Terror and nothing but. That’s no future for the United States or for the world. It is a racist and warmongering myth. And if you believe it you will share in the degradation of the ruling elite in this country. Webster Tarpley
United States of America is a threat to world peace. Because what [America] is saying is that if you are afraid of a veto in the Security Council, you can go outside and take action and violate the sovereignty of other countries. That is the message they are sending to the world. That must be condemned in the strongest terms. Nelson Mandela
The systematic brutality, the widespread atrocities, the ruthless suppression of independent thought in Stalinist Russia were well known in the West while American state crimes were merely superficially recorded, let alone documented. But you wouldn’t know it. It never happened. Nothing ever happened. Even while it was happening it wasn’t happening. It didn’t matter. It was of no interest. Harold Pinter, accepting Nobel Prize for Literature
We don’t really give a damn what anybody thinks. We rub everyone’s face in it. We’re Americans and you’re not. We’re talking the Roman Empire here. We do anything we wanna do. Anywhere we wanna do it. And you’re either with us or against us. Charles Lewis, Center for Public Integrity Washington
September 11th was the jumpstart for what is now an accelerated agenda by the ruthless elite: it was a staged war pretext no different from the sinking of the Lusitania, the provoking of Pearl Harbor and the Gulf of Tonkin lie. In fact if 9/11 wasn’t a planned war pretext, it would be the exception to the rule. It has been used to launch two unprovoked illegal wars – one against Iraq and one against Afghanistan. However, 9/11 was a pretext for another war as well: the War against You. The Patriot Act, Homeland Security, The Military Tribunals Act and other legislations are all completely and entirely designed to destroy your civil liberties and limit your ability to fight back against what is coming. Currently in the United States unannounced to most brainwashed Americans your home can be searched without a warrant without you being home, you can in turn be arrested with no charges revealed to you, detained indefinitely with no access to a lawyer, and legally tortured all under the suspicion that you might be a terrorist ... Let’s recognise how history repeats itself. Zeitgeist, 2007
The politics of fear that this administration has deployed in trying to respond to terrorism has itself in some way been much more dangerous than terrorism itself. And this administration has been responsible I think for citing the very terror that it was the terrorists’ purpose to incite in America. Benjamin Barber, author Fear’s Empire
After 9/11 a climate of fear was created in order to shut down any opposition to the Bush Administration’s new agenda. A week after 9/11 Anthrax began appearing in the mail. The letters were made to look as though they were the work of Muslim extremists, claiming Death to America and Allah is Great ... When the FBI tested the Anthrax it was highly refined and weaponised. Colin Powell would go on CNN and deny these allegations ... The Anthrax used in the attacks ... led the investigation to Fort Detrick. Fabled Enemies documentary, 2008
Genetic fingerprinting studies indicate that the Anthrax spores mailed to Capitol Hill are identical to stocks of the deadly bacteria maintained by the US Army since 1980. Those labs can trace back their samples to a single military source ... Fort Detrick in Maryland. Washington Post article
The problem with America is not that we go broading around the world imposing ourselves, the problem with America in the last ten to fifteen years since the end of the Cold War, certainly in the last six years, is that we’re too slow to get involved in conflicts. William Kristol, editor The Weekly Standard
The United States does not target civilians. I think the number of civilians you’re talking about is questionable. I don’t accept your assertion that we’ve killed thousands of innocent people. Douglas Feith, Under Secretary of Defense, interview John Pilger
The struggle between Jefferson’s and Hamilton’s vision for how America comes to terms with its wars is waged every day in the hearts and minds of these cadets. The American Future: A History by Simon Schama, BBC 2008
For a while the flag-draped coffins from Iraq and Afghanistan were hidden from the American people. ibid.
Someone forgot the fact that it’s not our government that gives us our freedoms, they are inalienable rights and they cannot be taken away. The people of the United States have simply been conditioned to give their rights away freely. The USA Patriot Act seems less of a tool to fight terrorism and more of an instrument to monitor and track and intimidate every-day law-abiding citizens in this country. One Nation Under Siege, 2006
Citizens deemed enemy combatants can be held indefinitely, with no charges against them, no right to see an attorney, no right to go before a judge. Aftermath: Unanswered Questions from 9/11
The Homeland Security Act which passed about a year later in November 2002 outlines in great detail the degree to which the government can now spy, listen in, record, get access to internet, library cards, bookstore records, medical records, school records ... ibid.
The political leadership of this country, as exemplified by the campaign positions of Bush and Kerry, has become so obsessed with our own security fears and so convinced of our own virtue that it has very little to offer in the way of positive socio-economic development initiatives. To most of the people of Latin America, Africa and Asia, the United States has largely become irrelevant to their hopes for a better future – except as a potential market for some of their goods or as a source of outsourced jobs. Sherle Schwenninger
If the US really believes that supporting terrorists makes you as guilty as the terrorists themselves, then it would have to put on trial most of its military and political leadership over the last handful of administrations, and more. Peter McLaren
The US record of war crimes has been, from the nineteenth century to the present, a largely invisible one, with no government, no political leaders, no military officials, no lower-level operatives held accountable for criminal actions ... Anyone challenging this mythology is quickly marginalized, branded a traitor or Communist or terrorist or simply a lunatic beyond the pale of reasonable discussion. Carl Boggs