bush* admin treated al Queda with benign neglect. Is this LIHOP?

[milkyway]

It has become obvious to any objective person that the bush* WH did next to nothing about al Queda prior to 9/11. They ignored them. But does this make it LIHOP, or just incompetency mixed with the smug arrogance of the privileged that think they are bulletproof?

I'm of the belief that it was probably LIHOP, and possibly either MIHOP or just criminal incompetency. I think that those that strongly disagree with LIHOP are thinking that it could not have happened because it would involve a grand conspiracy that would involve a lot of people and be impossible to keep secret. But LIHOP would not have to involve many people at all (possibly not even the idiot bush*), and it would not take even much communication between them. It would just take an unspoken understanding among a few top people of what their goals were when they took office (Iraq), and that an attack by al Queda is not something that hurts them in achieving those goals (and can even be used to their advantage). Thus, al Queda was ignored. If something happens, it happens.

My point is that LIHOP would not have required a lot of meetings involving a lot of people. They would not have to spell everything out in detail about how to let the attacks happen. Nobody needed to stand up and say: "We need to ignore those warnings from the CIA. Let's let al Queda attack us so we can use it as a pretext to invade Iraq."

A gambler that wants to fix a basketball game does not need to involve a lot of people. To turn a game that one team is favored by a few points into a loss by a few points, he only needs one player to subtly and occasionally make an almost imperceptible change in his play. There is a tipping point at which the game goes the other way. I think the bush* admin did enough to throw the game in favor of al Queda on 9/11 (and they weren't even very subtle about it).

[Bob3]

1. I'm not sure - but this version of Occam's razor comes to mind:

Never assume malice when stupidity is an adequate explanation.

That said if the 8/6 briefing paper is as detailed as the news reports suggest, they'd have to be major league stupid.

[milkyway]

2. Sometimes I think it was just massive incompetency and arrogance.

But how could people that are smart enough to take the White House be so incompetent? It's hard to believe.

[Nite Owl]

3. There are so many

'coincidences' that I lean toward LIHOP. But evidence says incompetence. It's the old proving intent thing that will leave this to be only a theory. Someone from deep inside the administration would have to reveal this. Ain't gonna happen.

[milkyway]

5. I think you're right, there will never be any evidence of LIHOP. There is

none to be found that would prove intent. There was probably never even any explicit verbal statements, just unspoken understandings.

[mouse7]

12. Wrong... the put options vs airlines stocks just prior to 9/11

$15 billion dollars worth. A 9000% spike above normal United Airlines put option activity between September 6th and 10th. A 6000% spike in American Airlines put options the same days

[starroute]

4. There are so many gradations of HOP-ness

One theory is that they were simply incompetent.

Another is that they were so obsessed with Iraq and with being the non-Clintons that they deliberately blew off important stuff -- but that they did it just out of spite and not because they actively wanted something bad to happen.

A third is that the orders were out to turn a blind eye to anything the Saudis did.

A fourth -- and this is where you get into LIHOP proper -- is that they were actively hoping for some sort of terrorist event that would give them a free hand in the Middle East, but that they were expecting something on the order of traditional hijackings.

A slightly stronger version of LIHOP incorporates Bush's curious passivity and the failure to activate air defenses. It suggests that they had some forewarning of the hijackings and were actively hoping for them to succeed.

And beyond that you get into all the variations of MIHOP, from one in which they deliberately aided the hijackers to one in which there were no "hijackers" (and may not even be an al-Qaeda) and it was all a covert US operation.

No matter which of these scenarios you favor, I don't think you should put too much weight on the argument that a large conspiracy couldn't be kept secret. Some months ago, I saw a provocative suggestion that large conspiracies are actually the easiest to keep secret, because almost no one involved needs to know more than a fraction of what is going on.

That is, you could make some people think that their bosses were ignoring their warnings because they were caught up in red tape, others that they were part of a Republican effort to get back at Clinton, still others that they were being asked to favor the Saudis for the sake of oil, and so forth. And all of them would play their parts as needed without ever suspecting they were part of a grand conspiracy. Even if called upon to testify about what had happened, they would be able to lay out the "facts" as they knew them with every appearance of honesty.

The one part of this I do see as a logical trap is trying to make too many pieces fit into a single theory. The Bushies have many things to be ashamed of, and when the spotlight is turned on them, they try to cover them all up simultaneously. But that doesn't mean they're all part of a single conspiracy. Coddling the Saudis, for example, could just be an embarrassing gaffe and not an essential part of any grand design. It makes it very hard to say "this is LIHOP" about any of them.

[scarletwoman]

7. "large conspiracies... easiest to keep secret" -- SPOKE AND WHEEL

What everyone should understand about conspiracies -- read this:

A primer on understanding conspiracies

<snip>

Over time, the law has recognized three types of conspiracies. First is the simple conspiracy that we commonly think of where, for instance, two or more get together with the intention of robbing a bank. The second is most often referred to as a "chain link" conspiracy, the best example of which is a series of drug deals, from manufacturer to the street dealer. Each group of individuals go about their function, committing illegal transaction after illegal transaction. Each link is only vicariously criminally liable for the crimes of the other links if they have known of the specific role of each link, as each link carries out its unlawful activity.

When Hillary Clinton talks of a "vast right wing conspiracy" to bring down her husband, the mainstream media calls to mind the first type; discrediting the notion that large numbers of individuals in the courts, in the press, in business, and in politics must have sat in some convention hall somewhere to devise a common plan to attack her husband, and then to have maintained the secret. But, in fact, what the former First Lady was referring to was a third type of conspiracy. Commonly called a "hub and wheel," or a "spoke and wheel" conspiracy. It is the most intricate, and the most difficult for a prosecutor to prove. It requires a minimum of people in the hub with actual knowledge of the overall plan, as long as the hub has diverse influence over the various spokes. This is the type of conspiracy that is most common in corporate crimes, such as anti-trust, free trade infringements, and SEC violations.

For a clear picture of this, imagine a wagon wheel. The hub, the portion attached to the axle, is an individual or group who devises the overall plan, represented by the rim of the wheel, the portion that meets the ground. In between, and reaching out in all directions, are the spokes. The spokes are essentially the tools, used by the hub, to transport the hub's intentions to the business end, the rim. The hub and wheel conspiracy can be as simple as a wagon wheel, or it can be as complex as the wire mesh of spokes on a Jaguar XKE where, sometimes, even the spokes seem to have spokes. But the principle is the same. Few, if any, of the spokes need act in an unlawful manner, and few, if any, need to have any knowledge of the intentions of the hub.

To base an objection to LIHOP or MIHOP on the assertion that the conspiracy "would involve too many people" simply doesn't wash. It only takes a very few actors at the "hub" manipulating actions along the "spokes". And those on the spokes would neither HAVE, nor NEED, any knowledge of the true intentions of those at the hub.

sw

[milkyway]

8. Thanks. This says in a more knowledgeable way what I was trying to say:

people think of a conspiracy as the simple conspiracy where all the parties get together and openly discuss their plan. The hub and wheel conspiracy is what I was trying to convey. And who do I think of as the hub? Dick Cheney and James Baker. Cheney let slip the truth when he said Richard Clarke was out of the loop.

[scarletwoman]

16. You're welcome.

I came across that explanation of "hub and wheel" (or "spoke and wheel") conspiracies quite some time back, and it was one of those "AHA" moments for me. Since then, I've tried to spread the word. Imho, it really helps understand how LIHOP or MIHOP could have been pulled off.

sw

[Junkdrawer]

13. In this case, though, some of the spokes are adding 2+2...

and getting 4. Will they talk is the big question.

[davekriss]

19. GWB is a spoke

It is important, also, to understand that GWB is most likely a "spoke". The neo-conservative clan schooled on Strausserian philopsophy is at the hub. I refer to PNAC and the fact that their principles are in high positions of power and influence. Look to Cheney and Rumsfeld (and Wolfowitz, Perl, Libby, Feith, Bolton, et al.), not to Bush and Contradicta Rice. The latter are the fall guys (and Rice an exercise of the "limited hang").

Voting away GWB in the Fall does not necessarilly end the problem.

[leftofthedial]

6. they have in effect, admitted to negligence

and continue hiding more information and stonewalling requests.

They have opened a few doors that strongly suggest LIHOP.

It is difficult to conceive (or believe) as pervasive and widespread a pattern of negligence and incompetence as they have already described in their own testimony. This leads many to the conclusion that they knew it was coming and let it happen because they needed their "Pearl Harbor."

[Pikku]

14. They admitted to negligence

That's a major shift for BushCo. Makes me wonder what truth is so damning that pleading ignorance is a preferable alternative.

BushCo is not known for being open and forthcoming. I assume they are not being so now.

[leftofthedial]

17. that's clearly the strategy they are left with

plead incompetence and hope no one finds out about complicity.

[meg]

9. They stopped investigations

Intercept planes didn't fly. This is more than incompetence and it will come out.

[Junkdrawer]

11. Like the FISA FBI agent Rowley requested in Minn. n/t

[Junkdrawer]

10. A kind of "Give them enough rope" LIHOP...

Although, toward the end, they seem to have know some of the details. Ashcroft refusing to fly commercial and Bush stationing Surface-To-Air missiles at his hotel on 9/10/2001 are dead giveaways.

[scarletwoman]

15. Whoa! Surface-To-Air Missiles at W's hotel!?!? I never heard THAT before!

Where did you find that bit of info? Is there a link to some documentation somewhere?

sw

[Junkdrawer]

18. The Sarasota Herald-Tribune

"Instead of a couple of people, it was an entourage," she said. "The kids were saying, 'Who are all those men in black?'"

The 150 parents, students and teachers invited to the Sept. 11 event had to attend a meeting at the school with Bush staff two days before it. They were told where to stand, what to do and what not to do.

Workers rearranged the school's library to better accommodate lighting for television cameras. A White House stage artist, not teachers or students, designed the childish decorations that were eventually put on the wall behind the president.

At the Colony, the Secret Service was getting everything secured for when the president arrived on Sept. 10. That included snipers and surface-to-air missiles on the roof and the Coast Guard patrolling just offshore.

Everything was going perfectly.


Hours before, everything was different.

More...

http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/timeline/2002/sarasotaheraldtribune091002.html

[Schroman2002]

20. The reason why we didn't act before 9-11

AN ALTERNATIVE HISTORY: washington, april 10, 2004.
A hush fell over the city as George W. Bush today became the first president of the United States ever to be removed from office by impeachment. Meeting late into the night, the Senate unanimously voted to convict Bush following a trial on his bill of impeachment from the House.

Moments after being sworn in as the 44th president, Dick Cheney said that disgraced former national security adviser Condoleezza Rice would be turned over to the Hague for trial in the International Court of Justice as a war criminal. Cheney said Washington would "firmly resist" international demands that Bush be extradited for prosecution as well.

On August 7, 2001, Bush had ordered the United States military to stage an all-out attack on alleged terrorist camps in Afghanistan. Thousands of U.S. special forces units parachuted into this neutral country, while air strikes targeted the Afghan government and its supporting military. Pentagon units seized abandoned Soviet air bases throughout Afghanistan, while establishing support bases in nearby nations such as Uzbekistan. Simultaneously, FBI agents throughout the United States staged raids in which dozens of men accused of terrorism were taken prisoner.

Reaction was swift and furious. Florida Senator Bob Graham said Bush had "brought shame to the United States with his paranoid delusions about so-called terror networks." British Prime Minister Tony Blair accused the United States of "an inexcusable act of conquest in plain violation of international law." White House chief counterterrorism advisor Richard Clarke immediately resigned in protest of "a disgusting exercise in over-kill."

When dozens of U.S. soldiers were slain in gun battles with fighters in the Afghan mountains, public opinion polls showed the nation overwhelmingly opposed to Bush's action. Political leaders of both parties called on Bush to withdraw U.S. forces from Afghanistan immediately. "We are supposed to believe that attacking people in caves in some place called Tora Bora is worth the life of even one single U.S. soldier?" former Nebraska Senator Bob Kerrey asked.

When an off-target U.S. bomb killed scores of Afghan civilians who had taken refuge in a mosque, Spanish Prime Minister Jose Aznar announced a global boycott of American products. The United Nations General Assembly voted to condemn the United States, and Washington was forced into the humiliating position of vetoing a Security Council resolution declaring America guilty of "criminal acts of aggression."

Bush justified his attack on Afghanistan, and the detention of 19 men of Arab descent who had entered the country legally, on grounds of intelligence reports suggesting an imminent, devastating attack on the United States. But no such attack ever occurred, leading to widespread ridicule of Bush's claims. Speaking before a special commission created by Congress to investigate Bush's anti-terrorism actions, former national security adviser Rice shocked and horrified listeners when she admitted, "We had no actionable warnings of any specific threat, just good reason to believe something really bad was about to happen."

The president fired Rice immediately after her admission, but this did little to quell public anger regarding the war in Afghanistan. When it was revealed that U.S. special forces were also carrying out attacks against suspected terrorist bases in Indonesia and Pakistan, fury against the United States became universal, with even Israel condemning American action as "totally unjustified."

Speaking briefly to reporters on the South Lawn of the White House before a helicopter carried him out of Washington as the first-ever president removed by impeachment, Bush seemed bitter. "I was given bad advice," he insisted. "My advisers told me that unless we took decisive action, thousands of innocent Americans might die. Obviously I should not have listened."

Announcing his candidacy for the 2004 Republican presidential nomination, Senator John McCain said today that "George W. Bush was very foolish and naïve; he didn't realize he was being pushed into this needless conflict by oil interests that wanted to seize Afghanistan to run a pipeline across it." McCain spoke at a campaign rally at the World Trade Center in New York City.

by Gregg Easterbrook

[scarletwoman]

22. What a huge stinking pile of total bullcrap!

The bushies are up to their necks in complicity with the 9/11 attacks. They protected their Saudi buddies -- INCLUDING the Bin Laden family -- by calling off FBI investigations into Saudi financing of terrorist cells. They called off investigations tracing Saudi money through international banks going to fund the terrorist training camps.

Ashcroft denied funding and manpower to FBI counterterrorism investigations. The FBI's chief counterterrorism expert, John O'Neill resigned in disgust after being blocked from investigating the Saudi connections, including being denied a visa to go to Yemen to investigate the Cole bombing.

The information coming up from FBI field agents about Saudis training in flight schools was deliberately choked off by David Frasco at headquarters. The whole thread running through the "neglect" of terrorism in the bush maladministration runs straight through the Bush family/Saudi/Carlyle connections.

And let us not forget the expedited visa program for Saudis -- a Bush favor to their beloved business partners.

The bushies have ALOT to answer for, and they ALL belong in the Hague.

sw

[davekriss]

21. It doesn't ultimately matter to me...

...whether it's Incompetence, LIHOP, or MIHOP. Note carefully that there is nothing positive on that continuum and only a fool (now) perceives any possibility outside of these. ALL are reason enough to work overtime to vote out this junta.

(In a perfect world the LIHOP/MIHOP culprits would be brought to justice, and this should be sought; but the first order of business should be to get this regime as far away from the levers of power as is possible. If we do this, I will rest easier and believe again that there is hope for my children.)

ABB! ABC! and ABPNAC!!!


(On edit: changed "possible" to "positive" in second sentence.)

[LunaC]

23. LIHOP - and here's why........

So far, nobody's been able to offer a plausible explanation for the following sequence of events:

In May 2001 the U.S. State Department met with Iran, German and Italian officials to discuss Afghanistan. It was decided that the ruling Taliban would be toppled and a "broad-based government" would control the country so a gas pipeline could be built there.

http://fpc.state.gov/documents/organization/7969.pdf.
http://www.gasandoil.com/goc/features/fex20867.htm


Even as plans were being made to remove the Taliban rulers from power, Colin Powell announced a $43 million "gift" to Afghanistan.

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/editorials/la-091701scheer.column
http://www.cato.org/dailys/08-02-02.html


Meanwhile, the U.S. Embassy in the UAE received a call that Bin Laden supporters were in the U.S. planning attacks with explosives. It was rumored that Bin Laden was interested in hijacking U.S. aircraft.

http://www.cnn.com/2004/images/04/10/whitehouse.pdf


In July 2001, the private plot formulated in May for toppling the Taliban was divulged during the G8 summit in Genoa, Italy. Immediately after the conference, American, Russian, German and Pakistani officials secretly met in Berlin to finalize the strategy for military strikes against the Taliban, scheduled to begin before mid-October 2001

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/1550366.stm
http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,3604,556254,00.html


In September 2001 the "catastrophic and catalyzing" modern-day Pearl Harbor envisioned years earlier by the PNAC came to pass when the WTC and Pentagon were attacked with U.S. aircraft. The finger of blame was pointed at Osama bin Laden, a former CIA operative with ties to Afghanistan. Suddenly, the U.S. "gift" of $43 million to the Taliban in May was cast in a new light. Coincidentally, Pakistan had participated in the plan to attack Afghanistan and the chief of Pakistan's Inter Service Intelligence agency was later linked to a 911 hijacker after wiring him $100,00 just days before the WTC fell.

http://cryptome.org/rad.htm
http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/CHO109C.html
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/cms.dll/html/uncomp/articleshow?msid=1454238160


In October 2001, with flags waving, crowds cheering, and anthems playing, the "War On Terror" and the hunt for Osama began when Afghanistan was attacked right on schedule of July's secret meeting