With respect to the 9/11 tragedy, it is clear that the Bush-Cheney Gang has failed the American people. It is also beyond dispute that President George W. Bush, Jr., was caught over doing his vacation trips to Crawford, Texas, and other retreats, where he has spent, incredibly, 40 percent of his time, since taking office (“Daily Kos,” 04/10/04). I suggest there is a connection between the two. As for his warmongering VP, Dick Cheney, I urge that every time he presides over the U.S. Senate, he be forced to wear a sign around his neck that reads: “Personal Property of Halliburton.”

Like other dubious commissions in the past, the 9/11 Commission’s objective will be damage control, and not the finding of the truth. After Dec. 7, 1941, when the Japanese's attacked Pearl Harbor, then President, Franklin D. Roosevelt, wasn’t about to blame himself. So, a scapegoat had to be found. Admiral Husband Kimmel, Commander in Chief of the U.S. Pacific Fleet, out in Hawaii, was targeted by more than one national investigating commission for that sacrificial role. He was sacked from his post only ten days after the massive assault. Since then, historians have firmly established that FDR did know about the Japanese attack plans, weeks before the assault actually took place (See, Robert B. Stinnett’s riveting “Days of Deceit”).

And, then there is that Mother of All National Commissions -The Warren Commission! After JFK was assassinated in Dallas, Texas, on Nov. 22, 1963, the new president, Lyndon B. Johnson, appointed a blue ribbon panel to get to the bottom of that crime of the century. Well, we all know, it did no such thing. Insiders manipulated the Warren Commission into establishing that Lee Harvey Oswald was just a lone gunman, and that the man who killed him, the Dallas nightclub operator, Jack Ruby, was also just another lone nut case. They were wrong on both counts!

We now know that there were at least two shooters in Dealey Plaza on that fateful day and that makes it a conspiracy! And, that Jack Ruby was a mobbed-up gangster with strong ties to the national crime syndicate. In “Deep Politics and the Death of JFK,” the author Peter Dale Scott revealed that Ruby and Oswald were also both snitches for the J. Edgar Hoover-dominated FBI. This sound a lot like the M.O. of the James F. “Whitey” Bulger-FBI scandal up there in Boston (See, “Black Mass: The Irish Mob, the FBI and a Devil’s Deal,” by Dick Lehr and Gerard O’Neill), and that dark alliance between the CIA, the Contras, Ollie North, Elliott Abrams and company, which led to that dreadful crack cocaine explosion in this country back when “Daddy” Bush was Ronald Reagan’s V.P. and chief spear carrier (Check out for the sordid details, Gary Webb’s “Dark Alliance” expose’).

As for selling to the Warren Commission the outrageous notion that Oswald acted alone, well, the country can thank one Arlen Specter for that! He was the special assistant counsel to the Commission and came up with that whacky “magic bullet” theory. His reward for participating in the coverup of JFK’s murder - a seat in the U.S. Senate from Pennsylvania!

Instead of trying to ascertain who really killed JFK, author Scott asked this important and relevant question: “What were the structural defects in governance and society that allowed this huge crime to be so badly investigated (or, in other terms, to go unpunished)? In simpler words, how could American institutions harbor and protect such evil?” Scott looks carefully into that murky, mostly hidden world. It is a world where government intelligence agencies, crime syndicates, political organizations, the controlled media, and private corporate power come together, intertwine, overlap, feed and service each other, with respect to common, covert and unlawful objectives, that are undermining our society and critically eroding the values and principles of our Republic.

Scott insists that this evil system generates provocateurs, double agents and tolerated crimes that fosters endemic corruption. He defines a deep political analysis of that sinister force as embracing a study of, “All those political practices and arrangements, deliberate or not, which are usually repressed rather than acknowledged.”

Finally, like those infamous commissions of the past, the 9/11 Commission, I believe, will hear little or no testimony about how our Arab-bashing foreign policy will invite yet more reprisals from Islamic militants and that it needs to be changed, (“Why Do They Hate Us?,” John Zogby, “The Link,” Oct., 2003, ameu.org). Nor will it entertain listening to any alternate theories on how that horrific attack might have taken place (www.911review.org/). Nor will it acknowledge that every day America is viewed by more and more people on the planet as an imperial power - a bully, a global cop, that now has 725 military bases around the world (See, Chalmers Johnson’s “The Sorrows of Empire: Militarism, Secrecy, and the End of the Republic”).

The bottom line is this: Don’t expect too much from the 9/11 Commission, otherwise, you will be deeply disappointed.

© William Hughes 2004
William Hughes is the author of “Saying ‘No’ to the War Party” (Iuniverse, Inc.), which is available at Amazon.com. He can be reached at: liamhughes-AT-mindspring.com.