Howie Hawkins for Congress - Hawkins Calls for New 9/11 Investigation

Hawkins Calls for New 9/11 Investigation

Howie Hawkins for Congress
25th District, New York
www.howiehawkins.org

Media Release

For Immediate Release: Wednesday, September 10, 2008
For More Information: Howie Hawkins, 315-425-1019, hhawkins@igc.org

Terrorists Best Contained by Police Work, Not Military Occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan, Hawkins Says

Howie Hawkins, the Green Populist candidate for Congress in the 25th congressional district, said today that Congress should authorize or conduct itself a "new, truly independent" investigation of terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.

"International cooperation by police, intelligence, and special forces is the best way to bring the Al Qaeda terrorists to justice. The military occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan only serve to recruit terrorists to Al Qaeda. It is time for Congress to cut off funding for the Iraq and Afghanistan wars and instruct the President to focus on police action against Al Qaeda," Hawkins said.

"Congress should also conduct a new, independent investigation into what actually happened on 9/11 and why. Instead of police action against the criminals responsible for 9/11, Congress supported the President in using the 9/11 attacks as an excuse to launch a US military occupation of the entire Middle East and Central Asia for oil, gas, and military bases, as well as lucrative contracts for the military-industrial complex. This military aggression has been utterly counterproductive as a counterterrorism policy. It is time to bring out into the light what actually happened on 9/11 and how it was used by the political establishment to rationalize wars of aggression," Hawkins added.

Hawkins said the need for a new investigation into the 9/11 attacks had taken on added urgency due to recent developments in Pakistan. "With the resignation of US-backed President Pervez Musarraf and the political chaos in the Pakistani parliament, the US is resorting once again to its traditional policy toward Pakistan of backing a strongman willing to do US bidding. This time it is the godfather of Pakastani government corruption, Asif Ali Zardari, the widow of Benazir Bhutto and Pakistans second richest person, who was known as Mr. Ten Percent when she was in power for the kickbacks he received. As the New York Times reported, Zalmay Khalilzad, the US Ambassador to the UN, closely advised Zardani in his rise to power from well before Musharraf resigned, suggesting the US signaled Musharraf it was time to go while promoting Zardani. Supporting the corrupt and anti-democratic Zardari will only inflame Pakistani and world Muslim opinion against the US even more. A poll taken before Zardani took power showed he had an approval rating of less than 14 percent among Pakistanis. The US is already on the slippery slope of escalating military intervention to back up its chosen ruler. Already US air power and infantry are operating inside Pakistan. Cutting military aid to Pakistan, not escalating US military intervention, should be the policy. The Pakistani problem requires a democratic political solution. US military intervention only makes democracy and a political solution far more difficult for the Pakistanis," Hawkins said.

Hawkins said US needed to closely examine the role of Pakistan in supporting terrorism, including the 9/11 attacks. "The government of Pakistan was second only to Saudi Arabia in its support for Al Qaeda prior to 9/11. After 9/ll, Bush gave Musharraf a clear choice between supporting the US or Al Qaeda. Since he publicly chose to support the US, the Bush administration failed to publicly investigate the role that Pakistan had played in supporting terrorism in the Middle East, including the possibility of providing funding for the 9/11 attacks. Musharrafs resignation is an excellent opportunity to re-open these questions," stated Hawkins.

Hawkins said that the US also needed to stop suppressing democracy in countries such as Pakistan. "Pakistan is a classic example of how the US routinely backs military rulers that oppress and exploit their own people but who are willing to do what the American government wants them to do. Even when Musharraf sacked Pakistans supreme court justices the US continued to support him. Only when the popular opposition grows strong enough to overthrow our current puppet do we finally cut support and look for a new puppet," added Hawkins.

Hawkins noted that even puppets cannot be counted on to support US agendas because they have their own agendas. The US gave Musharraf $10 billion in military aid to fight Islamic fundamentalists in the northwest tribal areas, but Musharraf diverted most of that aid to strengthening military forces on the southeast border with India.

Hawkins said that one of the key problems for Musharraf at both home and abroad was that Pakistans Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency continued to have ties with fundamentalist Islamic terrorists such as Al Qaeda. The US also failed to condemn Musharraf when he pardoned Dr. Abdul Khan after the worst case of nuclear proliferation in history. Khan, who directed Pakistans countrys atomic bomb program, was responsible for exporting bomb-making materials and technology to Iran, North Korea, and Libya.

The official 9/11 Commission report stated that it was "not important" to determine who financed the 9/11 terrorist attacks since the Al Qaeda network was amply funded by the ruling family of Saudi Arabia. Because of Saudi Arabias central role in Americas foreign oil policy, no action was taken against them.

The Commission failed to explain why the head of Pakistans ISI, General Mahmud Ahmed, had apparently ordered $100,000 to be wired to Mohammed Atta, the lead 9/11 hijacker, shortly before the attack. This payment has been widely reported by the media, including CBS and CNN. It was also portrayed in the recent Angelina Jolie movie, "A Mighty Heart," about the assassination of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl. It was believed that Pearl was investigating the ISI and its connection to Al Qaeda at the time of his murder. Sheikh Omar Saeed, the person who allegedly actually wired the money from ISI to Atta has been sentenced to death by Pakistan for murdering Pearl. The US government contends that Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, who the US claims was the mastermind of 9/11, now in American custody, was the person who actually killed Pearl.

"It is widely known that the ISI, probably with CIA approval, was instrumental in helping the Taliban come to power in Afghanistan in order to have an ally against its enemy India in power in Afghanistan. The US interest in sanctioning the rise to power of the Taliban was to end the civil war among Afghan war lords in order create enough stability to enable Unocal build construct a pipeline for Caspian Basin gas through Afghanistan instead of a more economical route through US adversary Iran. Yet neither the 9/11 Commission nor Congress have examined these issues. Instead, we find ourselves mired in a deadly occupation of Afghanistan, which will require an occupation force of 400,000 troops under US counter-insurgency doctrine according for the former NATO commander in Afghanistan, US Army General Dan McNeil. That is triple the armed forces the US deployed to Iraq. Escalating the US war in Afghanistan is a train wreck waiting to happen. Every imperial power for the last 23 centuries that has tried to conquer Afghanistan has been defeated, from Alexander the Great and the Mongols to the British Empire and the former Soviet Union," noted Hawkins.

Hawkins has long-called for an independent investigation of 9/11. "It is too bad that much of the 9/11 Truth Movement has primarily focused on conspiracy theories such as alleged Bush administration involvement in blowing up the Twin Towers rather than on the obvious foreign policy issues. 9/11 unfortunately is a classic case of blowback, where American support of unsavory foreign operatives comes back to bite us years later. It was the American support of terrorists in Afghanistan, including bin Laden, that gave rise to Al Qaeda, which is as opposed to American as Soviet occupation of Muslim lands," noted Hawkins.

Hawkins pointed out that it was President Carter in July 1978 who initiated, six months before the Soviets intervened, the most massive CIA-sponsored covert war in history in support of Islamic fundamentalists and drug warlords in Afghanistan who opposed the land reform, secular public education, and womens rights initiated by the pro-Soviet Afghan government that took power in April 1978. The American government successfully drew the Soviet Union into its own Vietnam War type quagmire. The CIA eventually began funneling more of its aid through the so-called Arab-Afghans such as the Saudi, Osama bin Laden, since they were easier to control and were not caught up in the tribal rivalries that dominated the Afghan warlords.

Hawkins also noted that since the 9/11 report was issued, several major lies have been uncovered. The co-chairs of the Commission, in a recent book, admitted that they hid from the American public that the real motivation for the hijackers had been Americas unconditional support for Israels expansion into Palestinian territory. The magazine Vanity Fair also won through a Freedom of Information case the release of tapes from NORAD which showed that the American government was indeed engaged in unprecedented war games on the morning of 9/11 involving a fake scenario of hijacked airplanes. The games caused great confusion among the NORAD air controllers as they tried to sort out whether actual hijackings were taking place. The Pentagon had repeatedly publicly insisted to the Commission and the public that no such games were taking place that morning.

"More than three thousand Americans were killed on 9/11. The bipartisan response of the Bush administration and Congress to these criminal acts has led American forces into wars of occupation, resulting in the death of thousands of Americans in our armed services and millions of civilian deaths and millions more civilian refugees in Iraq and Afghanistan. The wars of occupation only increase recruitment by Islamic fundamentalist terrorists like Al Qaeda, as US intelligence community reports acknowledge. Al Qaeda is best brought to justice by international cooperation by police, intelligence, and special forces operations, as the Green Party advised right after 9/11 and the federally-funded think tank, the Rand Corporation, recommended in a report released in July," stated Hawkins.

"In addition to bringing the 9/11 terrorists to justice, we must also bring to justice those US officials who callously used this tragedy to launch aggressive wars for oil, gas, and military bases, and to benefit military contractors who are major campaign contributors, instead of focusing on effective police work to bring down the criminal Al Qaeda conspiracy. We still need a truly independent investigation of what actually happened on 9/11 and why. Congress should authorize or conduct itself that investigation because the thoroughly militarized Executive Branch obviously cannot do an independent investigation," added Hawkins.