By the light of a burning bridge: a goodbye to the US

[Grimmlok]

"Sometimes you get your best light from a burning bridge" - Don Henley, "My Thanksgiving"

CARACAS - It was about a week before I left the United States forever that I watched Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. tell Charlie Rose something all of us already know in our hearts. "Today," he said, "the United States is hated around the world far worse than it was at the height of the Vietnam War." I remember the Vietnam War. I will never forget it.

I opposed that war, and I still remember riots on the UCLA campus in May,1970 when four students were shot dead by National Guard troops at Kent State University in Ohio. I was a college student then, and I was 2S-deferred for the draft. A year later I would be re-classified 1A as the nation shifted to a lottery system. At least someone in my country was willing to risk his life in the face of injustice. It gave me hope. That kind of risk-taking was commonplace then, from the civil rights movement to the anti-war movement, to the American Indian Movement. American blood was shed regularly on American soil to resist American tyranny; from Watts, to Detroit, to Selma, to San Francisco to Memphis to Wounded Knee. It fertilized our lives and souls as it touched the ground. The willingness to endure physical suffering, material sacrifice, and jail for the sake of justice was a singular mark of the American character that earned respect as it infected the world.

What is the United States infecting the world with today?

Now it seems the American people won't even risk their credit ratings, student loans, the next piece of ass, or a sideways glance from people who look at them like AIDS patients for daring to deviate from the corporate, media-instilled norm. We have come a long way backward. Rodney King's "Can't we all just get along" has become the modern day theme song for the surrender of America's character, and the L.A. Rebellion of 1992 was probably the last flame of will to fight injustice in American history.

This new quiescence comes at a time when US crimes are far worse and more far-reaching than they were in 1970; certainly in the eyes of the world. In 2001 the US government both facilitated and executed the attacks of 9/11 against its own people, killing thousands of its citizens as an excuse to launch a neo-imperial conquest for energy. A few Americans held small rallies, organized some ineffective groups, bought a few hundred thousand books and DVDs, listened to a few radio programs and lectures, and then quietly lined up to have their bags, emails, credit histories, minds and bodies searched. Critical mass was never achieved as Executive Orders along with the Patriot and Homeland Security Acts shredded the 1st, 4th, 5th, 6th and 8th Amendments to our Bill of Rights.

In my book Crossing the Rubicon I wrote that events that took place in the five years following those attacks would determine the course of human history for centuries to come. We now stand at the brink of that fateful anniversary.

After the 9-11 attacks the US government lied to create a war for oil in Iraq telling us that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, almost-ready atom bombs, poison gas and deadly germs. We were told that he helped execute the 9/11 attacks. It was all lies, and no one has held the US accountable for the hundreds of thousands of deaths (murders) in Iraq and Afghanistan since then. Few have tried to hold the government accountable for 2,500 Americans who have died needlessly, and those who have, have been remarkably ineffective.

US presidential elections were stolen in 2000 and 2004 through rigged electronic voting software and intimidation. Not one drop of blood was spilled anywhere, even as the US Supreme Court rendered an illegal decision supporting the overthrow of the Constitution and trampling the rights of individual states.

I never thought I would call the 60s and 70s "the good old days". I would cry tears of joy today to see just one campus overrun by a modern equivalent of the Students for a Democratic Society. I would cheer to see a general strike paralyze a city. It would be living proof that American character had not been submerged, drugged, weakened, and rendered anemic beyond revival.

My country is dead. Its people have surrendered to tyranny, and in so doing, they have become tyranny's primary support group; its base constituency; its chief defender. Every day they offer their endorsement of tyranny by banking in its banks and spending their borrowed money with the corporations that run it. The great Neocon strategy of George H.W. Bush has triumphed. Convince the American people that they can't live without the "good things", then sit back and watch as they endorse the progressively more outrageous crimes you commit as you throw them bones with ever-less meat on them. All the while, lock them into debt. Destroy the middle class, the only political base that need be feared. Make them accept, because of their own shared guilt, ever-more repressive police state measures. Do whatever you want.

No amount of mind control spin can absolve any of us from acknowledging this ugly truth about the US and its crimes today. It lurks invisibly behind every corporate news broadcast, every commercially-made television show, every infomercial, every new magazine ad, and almost every new popular song that leads Americans deeper into ever-less-satisfying consumption, self-indulgence and debt. It stands grinning behind every report on the world's rapacious financial markets and every new automobile, shampoo, or other product that promises to give the world larger and more potent sexual organs, bigger (more ridiculous) breasts, a better love life, and peace of mind.

I left my last classes that spring day in 1970 after four students had been murdered, crying from both the emotional pain and the tear gas that wafted up the Janns Steps and onto the Quad at UCLA. I went to my job as an intern at the Los Angeles Police Department. After donning my khaki uniform without gun or badge I returned to UCLA to work at LAPD's command post, ferrying dispatches and running errands for Deputy Chiefs, Commanders, and Captains as LAPD batons shed the blood of my fellow students. My life has always been full of ironies. Then, I believed that the system could be changed from the inside. Then, I believed that the United States could be changed from the inside.

Mistrusted by both sides there was no safe place for me to cry that day.

My shame today is that it took a set of circumstances where my life was in danger to make me make the right choice, a choice I would now like to say was totally a matter of conscience, but it was not. The truth is that I was prompted to do what I should have done long ago out of a well-justified desire to save my life.

In this life I have chosen not to die a martyr's death. As I am learning every day, there are more difficult and demanding ways to write the final chapters of one's life. I left the United States with one large suitcase, my laptop, and a backpack. I left behind my precious library, most of my clothing, my personal possessions, my guns, and a house full of furniture. I brought with me less than eight thousand dollars in cash and gold to start the final segment of my life.

My permanent exodus from the US was actually ordained thirty years -- to the month -- before I left for good on July 18th, 2006. It was thirty years ago that my then-fiance, a career contract agent for the CIA, disclosed to me that "her people" were interested in giving a major boost to my career with LAPD if I would become involved with her "anti-terror" operations that involved "overlooking" (i.e. protecting) large drug shipments coming in while facilitating the movement of large quantities of firearms going out. I refused to compromise my ethics as a police officer and -- as I wrote on page 6 of Crossing the Rubicon - "that has determined the course of my life ever since."

Like all humans I want to hold on to dreams for as long as possible, even long after I know they will never come true. I have tried and sacrificed with every fiber of my being to change my country, but the plain fact is that the United States of America cannot and will never be changed from within. I recall the words spoken to me by a senior FBI agent in Los Angeles in 1986: "Mike, the world doesn't want to be saved."

Stupid me. I still believe it does -- at least the parts of it that lie outside the US, Great Britain, and Israel; the real Axis of Evil.

Today the United States is the cause of ever-expanding wars (covert and overt), carnage, suffering, and political and economic exploitation -- even within its own borders against its own people -- that fill our corporate-issued headlines and TV shows. The US economy, the privately-owned Federal Reserve system, and the government which they operate like a franchise are the greatest enemies of the entire human race and especially the rapidly- deteriorating and fragile ecosystem which supports all life. U.S. citizens are slowly discovering that they are not immune because of their nationality. On our planet today, what happens to one must inevitably happen to all. Peak Oil and global warming will spare no nationality in the end.

The US economy, driven by a fiat currency, fractional reserve banking, debt-based financing -- and "doped" with the billions of dollars of drug profits laundered through its corporations and banks -- is a superheated pyramid scheme of infinite growth wherein 5% of the world's population consumes 25% of the world's energy and a totally disproportionate share of the world's diminishing resources and commodities.

In their silence and acquiescence Americans have voted -- even if by abstention -- to stand on the shoulders of all drowning peoples in the vain hope that they will somehow be saved from a paradigm which they support and empower by obeying it; by endorsing it with their silence or knowingly impotent protests; by refusing to throw themselves against the gears of the machine. In this world, a protest which is allowed and encouraged, corralled into free-speech areas, and then policed by the ruling government only to be ignored by the media is, by definition, meaningless.

The US is a nation where the "non-negotiable" and unsustainable "American" way of life is propped up by global conflict, out-of-control military spending, massive and unsustainable debt, and an increasingly-aggressive fascist police state. It is a nation where all US citizens who do not resist and disconnect from this paradigm enjoy their ever-diminishing privileges with the guilty knowledge that somewhere else, hopefully in some "other" country, others are paying the price for it.

The world is now my country.

With the passage of time, the degree of corporate oppression, the outrageousness of the cruelty, and the absurdity of the lies can only increase as dwindling resources diminish and desperation erupts. Ironically, the disappearing American middle class will still cheer at each new millionaire success story, even if they quietly understand that a hundred or a thousand of their kind had to disappear to create it. They chase illusions of hope rather than the real possibility of justice and change like lottery players with a one-in-a-billion chance of winning. They prefer that to hard work and sacrifice with much better odds where almost everybody can win something.

As the human race enters the first stages of inevitable collapse resulting from Peak Oil, it does so ass-backwards, in complete denial, and in the one way most certain to guarantee the greatest amount of suffering and death for future generations. It does so because, for a time at least, U.S. foreign, military, and economic policy holds the steering wheel of human destiny through dollar hegemony, military force, technology and globalization.

This control is inevitably weakening, and other hands in other countries are successfully struggling for an ever-increasing measure of influence. The Empire is dying from within, and like all wounded beasts, it is becoming more vicious and dangerous in the process; its lies more transparent.

A different world is possible. A better world is possible. It took the imminent threat of my own death at the hands of my government to make me fully admit to my innermost self what I have known for years. Having failed to change my country's direction after 30 years of effort, I had to stop living in the problem and start living in the solution. If I did not, my soul would have died just as surely as my body would have died after the recent burglary that savaged our offices.

I do not know where I will spend the rest of my days. Maybe in Venezuela, maybe in Mexico with the Zapatistas, maybe in Bolivia, maybe in France, Germany, or even Russia. But because Venezuela has become the singular world leader in resisting US domination under the courageous, intelligent, and inspired leadership of Hugo Chavez, I want to begin the rest of my days here.

Being freer to speak, to learn, to experience and to witness real solutions being discovered and implemented by peoples willing to take risks and who understand the challenges, I will be better able to report usefully to FTW readers and the world in future books and articles. I am currently in a country where the people have changed and are changing their government; where the elected head of state has won six elections while George W. Bush has stolen two. Is it any wonder I feel better already?

[buttmunch]

Wow, powerful stuff. Who wrote it?

[Grimmlok]

Don Henley, so it says.

A lot of what he says is spot on, until he gets to the Hugo Chavez bit.. the guy is a lil nutty.

Then again, I have to wonder if trhe current public opinion on Chavez and Venezuela, along with Cuba is a manufactured one thanks to US propaganda..

[buttmunch]

Sorry, I missed the Don Henley part. I agree with him that we yanks are way too willing to set aside doing the right thing in order to preserve the status quo. As Frank Zappa once said:

The only details left to decide are:

When to bend over
How far to bend over
When we bend, do we spread?
Who's got the Crisco?

That about sums up how many Americans are acting in the face of the current administration's destruction of this country.

[Sojiita]

He should be thrown off the Empire State Building for saying that the United States Government actually facilitated the attacks on 9/11. It may have been negligent in watching for terror attacks and have been a causal agent by meddling for decades in the affairs of middle eastern countries, but to say it actually "facilitated and executed the attacks of 9/11 against its own people, killing thousands of its citizens as an excuse to launch a neo-imperial conquest for energy." is totally asinine and should get this guy shot IMO. He is a total nutter IMO.

[Grimmlok]

^^ Why is it you simply refuse to believe the possibility?

Hello, they've had plans like this in the works for about 40 years now. Bay of Pigs. Gulf of Tonkin. Project for a New American Century.

The US gov has been, is, and will be just that evil. Why people refuse to believe it, even when it's right in front of their faces, is beyond me.

Denial can be fun, but not at the expense of reason.

[Sojiita]

Originally Posted by Grimmlok

^^ Why is it you simply refuse to believe the possibility?

Hello, they've had plans like this in the works for about 40 years now. Bay of Pigs. Gulf of Tonkin. Project for a New American Century.

The US gov has been, is, and will be just that evil. Why people refuse to believe it, even when it's right in front of their faces, is beyond me.

Denial can be fun, but not at the expense of reason.

It is not denial. I have looked at the official reports for 9/11 and many fo the conspiracy theories. While the 'official' story is not completely satisfactory, it is more complete and is more satisfactory than ANY of the conspiracy theories, which focus on problems with the offical story, but without providing an entire complete theory themselves that is not in and of itself even less believable than the offical story. Nothing to do with denial and yes I realize the US gov. is capable of evil(look at Iraq). I think if anything the Us. gov. was negligent and lazy regarding the terrorist threat, and the Bush administration then seized on an opportunity and ran with it. Has the Bush admin. taken advantage of the 9/11 attacks to bolster it's support by playing the 'terrorism card' at every opportunity? Yes. Did it twist the threat of terrorism/use of WMD's as a way to invade Iraq? Yes. Was the US gov. the one who actually DID(planned, executed, ) the 9/11 attacks? Don't think so. Nothing but crap has been proposed to explain that theory of US direct involvement IMO. Reason would suggest that one rely on valid information, facts, theories that are backed with evidence and make sense. Have seen none of that in the 9/11 conspiracy theories.


Are you saying that anyone who does not buy the 9/11 conspiracy theory of direct US government involvement/planning/execution is not reasonable or in deanial? Or are you saying those things about people who have not or will not even consider the possibility of such things? I have looked at both sides, am fairly reasonable, and am not in denial of anything.

[Grimmlok]

The 'official report' along with the 9/11 commission was a whitewashed piece of tripe that they needn't have bothered with. Nobody sworn in, most of it held behind closed doors, and most of the glaringly obvious questions went unanswered.

Saying someone should be shot or flung off a building for a perfectly plausible theory is a bit extreme.

There are 3 possibilities:

1) Bush-bot and co. staged the whole thing for the reasons mentioned above. PNAC would support this theory, as well as the multitude of people/industries connected to Bush-bot who have profited immensely from it.

2) Bush-bot and co. knew it would happen, and let it/facilitated it. Given all the kooky coincidences on that day, the big memo typed "Bin Laden determined to strike the US" that Clinton handed off which was summarily ignored, it's entirely possible.

3) and this is the most ludicrous of all... given all the info they had, and despite the ridiculous coincidental circumstances on that day and leading up to it, Bush-bot and co. were simply blindsided and had absolutely no fucking idea it was about to happen, but when it did they took advantage of it.

The last is the hardest to believe. They had advance warning. So many things had to happen for it to succeed, so many OUT OF THE ORDINARY things that just all seemed to take place that very day. I'm sure they had absolutely NO Idea Bin Laden was determined to strike the US (despite the memo) just like they had NO idea that the levees in New Orleans would collapse (despite everyone telling them so days, weeks, months and years in advance.

I mean come on. It just stretches credibility to the breaking point, what little they have.

p.s. Where *is* the phantom menace Osama? The 7 foot tall arab dude lugging a dialysis machine around the afghani terrain, suffering from acute kidney failure?

[Sojiita]

You mean the 'phantom menace' Osama who actually claimed credit for the attacks again and again and again?..right. also do you really think I meant the guy needs to be flung off a building? Please Grimm..you are above that kind of thinking.

I would believe tha 3 listed scenarios but in the opposite order that you listed. I have read the reports, the theories, especially about the WTC attacks(the NIST report and all of the criticisms of it). Just saying something is ludicrous does not make it that way btw. What are you basing your criticisms on? And the US govt. can know that many things are possible or even likely-just like a terrorist attack or the failing of the levees with Katrina-but that does not make them actively involved in the attacks or the failure of the levees. It makes them negligent. What is much more likely can simply be chalked up to government inertia. As in the case of the levees..it has been documented for years in the media that they would fail-as was shown with the fictitious 'hurricane Pam" that they did the planning for. It is much more likely for the gov't(like all entities) to simply stick it's head in the sand and do nothing.

I can tell you right now that a giant earthquake is going to devastate a portion of the Pacific coast of the US. Many entities know this..know that bridges will fail, reservoir dams will be breached, etc etc. and the appropriate thngs are not being done as they should be. When it happens the gov't will downplay it's knowledge and responsibility of course. Does that make them directly responsible for it? It is completely plausible to me that the gov't(Bush) knew that there was a great risk of an attack here(it was inevitable...international terrorism had already arrived(with the first WTC attack in 93)). And it is completely plausible that, as with Katrina, they dropped the ball and then tried to deny any knowledge of impending disaster. Knowing that an attack is immiment somewhere and doing nothing is not the same as planning, facilitating, and enacting the attack.

Sure I think the gov't was negligent as hell..much more so than they would ever admit. I just do not see the conspiracy theories as adding up. They are much less plausible IMO than the 'simply negligent due to inertia and incompetence" theory that I believe. I find it hard to believe(and have not seen any evidence or theory that hold it's water) that Bush and company knew that onb 9/11 terrorist were going to hijack planes and fly them into the WTC and the Pentagon. they may have know that there was a serious risk, but I have yet to see they had direct knowledge of any specific attack. or any complicity in said attack.

[Grimmlok]

I find it hard to believe(and have not seen any evidence or theory that hold it's water) that Bush and company knew that onb 9/11 terrorist were going to hijack planes and fly them into the WTC and the Pentagon. they may have know that there was a serious risk, but I have yet to see they had direct knowledge of any specific attack. or any complicity in said attack.

They had a memo titled "Bin Laden determined to strike US" and detailing how he was going to use airliners.

You don't get much more specific than that! lol

Condomskeeza Ricecake was on the hot-seat for that one, trying her very best to say "Well, that's not specific.. we didn't know when!"

I mean.. duh.....

[buttmunch]

Certainly no one should be shot or thrown off a building for expressing an opinion, particularly not in America, where we supposedly still have the right to speak our minds, whether we're right or not. I'm surprised, Sojitta, to hear that from you. After all, the constitution is in place to protect everyone, even the ones we don't agree with. I mean, we still have to listen to rummy say everything is ok in Iraq, Cheney say things are going swimmingly in Afghanistan and Bush say that cutting taxes and running a multi-trillion dollar war on several fronts is all ok economically. Personally, I find that a hell of alot more dangerous than some musician voicing his opinion about the state of the nation. Our so-called leaders are charged with being truthful and honest and they have broken any bond of trust that might have existed between them and a segment of the population (the rest of us, of course, saw them for what they were right from the beginning...snake oil salesmen.).

[Sojiita]

Do you really think that I actually would support throwing Don Henley off of a skyscraper? Please buttmunch that is lame! I am surprised that you would actually think I would want someone thrown off of a building for voicing an opinion...have you never heard of anyone exaggerating just to make a point about something? GEEZ people! Get a grip. I said what I said to illustrate the depth of my disgust for his opinion, not that I actually though he should be killed or something for voicing an opinion. Have you read any of the 4,000 plus posts I have to know how I think at all?-and that I would never advocate such a thing?...Jesus I guess if I try to make any point from now on I should just have a paragraph long explanation to explain it all...even to people who are long time members here I guess.

Originally Posted by Grimmlok

They had a memo titled "Bin Laden determined to strike US" and detailing how he was going to use airliners.

You don't get much more specific than that! lol

Condomskeeza Ricecake was on the hot-seat for that one, trying her very best to say "Well, that's not specific.. we didn't know when!"

I mean.. duh.....

^^could you direct me to that memo and exactly when it was sent? You are saying there was such a memo with those specifics so I would hope you could direct me to it so I can see it for myself. If there is such a memo that is that descriptive(airliner attacks on WTC with airliners) I admit I am ignorant of it and would like to peruse it.


*this entire day has been so shitty and this topic so bothersome to me that I must now be forced to eat an entire Coconut cream pie all by myself this evening!!!..*

[twitchy]

As requested:
Transcript: Bin Laden determined to strike in US

Saturday, April 10, 2004 Posted: 6:51 PM EDT (2251 GMT)

The following is a transcript of the August 6, 2001, presidential daily briefing entitled Bin Laden determined to strike in US. Parts of the original document were not made public by the White House for security reasons.
Clandestine, foreign government, and media reports indicate bin Laden since 1997 has wanted to conduct terrorist attacks in the US. Bin Laden implied in U.S. television interviews in 1997 and 1998 that his followers would follow the example of World Trade Center bomber Ramzi Yousef and "bring the fighting to America."
After U.S. missile strikes on his base in Afghanistan in 1998, bin Laden told followers he wanted to retaliate in Washington, according to a -- -- service.
An Egyptian Islamic Jihad (EIJ) operative told - - service at the same time that bin Laden was planning to exploit the operative's access to the U.S. to mount a terrorist strike.
The millennium plotting in Canada in 1999 may have been part of bin Laden's first serious attempt to implement a terrorist strike in the U.S.
Convicted plotter Ahmed Ressam has told the FBI that he conceived the idea to attack Los Angeles International Airport himself, but that in ---, Laden lieutenant Abu Zubaydah encouraged him and helped facilitate the operation. Ressam also said that in 1998 Abu Zubaydah was planning his own U.S. attack.
Ressam says bin Laden was aware of the Los Angeles operation. Although Bin Laden has not succeeded, his attacks against the U.S. Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998 demonstrate that he prepares operations years in advance and is not deterred by setbacks. Bin Laden associates surveyed our embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam as early as 1993, and some members of the Nairobi cell planning the bombings were arrested and deported in 1997.
Al Qaeda members -- including some who are U.S. citizens -- have resided in or traveled to the U.S. for years, and the group apparently maintains a support structure that could aid attacks.
Two al-Qaeda members found guilty in the conspiracy to bomb our embassies in East Africa were U.S. citizens, and a senior EIJ member lived in California in the mid-1990s.
A clandestine source said in 1998 that a bin Laden cell in New York was recruiting Muslim-American youth for attacks.
We have not been able to corroborate some of the more sensational threat reporting, such as that from a ---- service in 1998 saying that Bin Laden wanted to hijack a U.S. aircraft to gain the release of "Blind Sheikh" Omar Abdel Rahman and other U.S.-held extremists.
Nevertheless, FBI information since that time indicates patterns of suspicious activity in this country consistent with preparations for hijackings or other types of attacks, including recent surveillance of federal buildings in New York.
The FBI is conducting approximately 70 full-field investigations throughout the U.S. that it considers bin Laden-related. CIA and the FBI are investigating a call to our embassy in the UAE in May saying that a group or bin Laden supporters was in the U.S. planning attacks with explosives.
http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/04/10/august6.memo/

[Sojiita]

Originally Posted by twitchy

As requested:
Transcript: Bin Laden determined to strike in US

Saturday, April 10, 2004 Posted: 6:51 PM EDT (2251 GMT)

The following is a transcript of the August 6, 2001, presidential daily briefing entitled Bin Laden determined to strike in US. Parts of the original document were not made public by the White House for security reasons.
Clandestine, foreign government, and media reports indicate bin Laden since 1997 has wanted to conduct terrorist attacks in the US. Bin Laden implied in U.S. television interviews in 1997 and 1998 that his followers would follow the example of World Trade Center bomber Ramzi Yousef and "bring the fighting to America."
After U.S. missile strikes on his base in Afghanistan in 1998, bin Laden told followers he wanted to retaliate in Washington, according to a -- -- service.
An Egyptian Islamic Jihad (EIJ) operative told - - service at the same time that bin Laden was planning to exploit the operative's access to the U.S. to mount a terrorist strike.
The millennium plotting in Canada in 1999 may have been part of bin Laden's first serious attempt to implement a terrorist strike in the U.S.
Convicted plotter Ahmed Ressam has told the FBI that he conceived the idea to attack Los Angeles International Airport himself, but that in ---, Laden lieutenant Abu Zubaydah encouraged him and helped facilitate the operation. Ressam also said that in 1998 Abu Zubaydah was planning his own U.S. attack.
Ressam says bin Laden was aware of the Los Angeles operation. Although Bin Laden has not succeeded, his attacks against the U.S. Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998 demonstrate that he prepares operations years in advance and is not deterred by setbacks. Bin Laden associates surveyed our embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam as early as 1993, and some members of the Nairobi cell planning the bombings were arrested and deported in 1997.
Al Qaeda members -- including some who are U.S. citizens -- have resided in or traveled to the U.S. for years, and the group apparently maintains a support structure that could aid attacks.
Two al-Qaeda members found guilty in the conspiracy to bomb our embassies in East Africa were U.S. citizens, and a senior EIJ member lived in California in the mid-1990s.
A clandestine source said in 1998 that a bin Laden cell in New York was recruiting Muslim-American youth for attacks.
We have not been able to corroborate some of the more sensational threat reporting, such as that from a ---- service in 1998 saying that Bin Laden wanted to hijack a U.S. aircraft to gain the release of "Blind Sheikh" Omar Abdel Rahman and other U.S.-held extremists.
Nevertheless, FBI information since that time indicates patterns of suspicious activity in this country consistent with preparations for hijackings or other types of attacks, including recent surveillance of federal buildings in New York.
The FBI is conducting approximately 70 full-field investigations throughout the U.S. that it considers bin Laden-related. CIA and the FBI are investigating a call to our embassy in the UAE in May saying that a group or bin Laden supporters was in the U.S. planning attacks with explosives.
http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/04/10/august6.memo/

Nothing in there said anything about Bin Laden associates hijacking planes and crashing them into the WTC. there are alot of seperate things stated that have PARTS of that..but nothing with all of it together. It would require someone with some intelligence and foresight to put all of that together and see it as a direct threat against the WTC towers by hijacked planes crashing into them. There clearley was a threat of attack(possibly by planes)..but nothing specifying the specifics of what happened. Again it looks like an argument for extreme incompetence and inertia by the US gov't..not a smoking gun showing the US new that obn 9/11 hijacked airliners were going to strike the WTC towers.

*I am only going by the post as the link is NOT WORKING FOR ME.*
thanks twitchy for posting this and at least trying to post the link *

[twitchy]

Another link if this helps:
http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/0409041pdb1.html

True, there is no direct plan of attack laid out and they must have a hell of a lot of "intelligence" to wade through. Whoever put together this briefing must have felt that there was some some credibility to the threat, though. I wonder if these kinds of briefings are frequent enough that people simply become desensitized to any threats?