The fan of 80 buck a bottle Kistler white wine, celebrity natsec expert Richard Clarke, officially joins the world of 9/11 conspiracy theory today.
Broken by The Daily Beast, Clarke granted an interview for some 9/11 tenth anniversary radio documentary, one in which he avers the CIA "intentionally withheld information from the White House and FBI in 2000 and 2001 that two Saudi-born terrorists were on U.S. soil--terrorists who went on to become suicide hijackers on 9/11."
The rationale: The CIA was trying to "recruit" the al Qaeda men living in southern California as informants.
The decision to do the alleged cover-up was made by George Tenet, it reads.
The Beast shoots itself and Clarke in the foot a bit, mentioning way down in the story that the interview in which ol' RC dropped this bomb was back in 2009.
The question arises: If this is so important why have we had to wait two years to right before the big tenth anniversary outpour on 9/11 to find out?
The answer is fairly obvious. Show business. It's not really important whether it's true. It's just important it achieve maximum impact in the media for the benefit of the radio show's producers.
Clarke became a hero -- if that's how you like to characterize it -- for his 2004 book, "Against All Enemies, [and] testimony on Capitol Hill about the Bush administration's alleged absence of diligence in the war on terrorism."
In famous television footage Clarke told the victims of 9/11 from Congress, "Your government failed you."
All of this, and 60 Minutes, made Clarke the darling of Democrats who thought, for sure, he would help bring down George W. Bush.
My brief experience with the frivolity is documented here, in a cover story at the Village Voice entitled I, Vermin from Under Rock.
It made Clarke a fortune in book contracts, magazine articles and consulting/speaking fees.
But the Democrats were thrown to the dogs in the subsequent Presidential election, anyway.
A radio documentary isn't nearly as big a deal although, if the story is repeated enough, it might become one.
Clarke's last book was on cyberwar and while it gets its mentions on that beat it's trivial business compared to the daily news of despair, national paralysis, economic collapse and mass unemployment.
But 9/11 outrage timed right for the anniversary media splurge, now that's an entirely different kettle of fish. There will be many many people who dearly want to believe in another story of cover-up and betrayal.
Wouldn't it be nice to make another pass through the rotunda again with renewed book contract?
Tin foil hat time sez one commentator at Philly News.
Hat tip to Frank at Pine View Farm who flagged me down on it.
In the latest installment of the Empire's Dog Feces, we give you this week's failure of the Falcon Hypersonic Technology Vehicle-2.
If you have a belief in a supreme deity, this US superweapon's failure over the Pacific Ocean could be seen as evidence of a sense of humor from above.
Built to be the start of a project to [respond] "to threats around the globe at speeds of Mach 20 or greater" -- like the paupers we currently bomb in in Somalia, Yemen or AfPak -- it's certainly just the thing Americans are clamoring for in their future.
This example of the empire's dog crap dates from 2003.
You can think of it as a Keynesian jobs program -- but not one for you. Just for those in the Lockheed Martins and Northrop Grummans, already flush with cash. Thank heaven for those chaps.
Number of Americans currently on food stamps: about 46 million. Or, about 1 in every 6 or 7 Americans require them.
Theme music for the new cable TV show: Picking Through the Empire's Dog Feces.
From material originally posted at Dick Destiny blog.
