The Road to 9/11: Wealth, Empire, and the Future of America

Peter Dale Scott's long-in-the-works THE ROAD TO 9/11 is outstanding, powerful, sad, in a way, and quietly gripping. (It's also notable for the fact that the University of California Press only reportedly published it after they'd spent the better part of a year scrupulously fact checking and cautiously vetting it for accuracy). Glib summaries aren't likely to do it justice. There have been several books published so far that address the official story offered about 9/11 with a critical eye, all of which basically allege that the White House and US intelligence agencies have covered up their own, complicated roles in the terror attacks of 2001. Scott's new book makes some reference to and generally builds upon a number of those works, but simultaneously encompasses a far broader sweep, wields (conversely) a simpler, more direct argument, and provides a new level of hard-to-argue-with credibility to the process of naming specific names.The first lengthy section of the book features Scott's run through of recent events in US history, with an emphasis on various 'shadow government' elements of the US political system, and how these elements have moved into the foreground in recent years. (Scott uses the term `shadow government' to encompass the various avenues used by governments - not just in the US - to undertake certain activities off the books, under the radar, or illegally). Scott notes the disintegration of the Nixon presidency as being a starting-point for slowly building incidents and trends related to an active `shadow government' that have re-emerged in the disaster of 9/11 and the subsequent, seemingly comprehensive cover-up. Little known government plans from the Nixon era for militarily suppressing public dissent (via the secretive, innocuously titled `Operation Garden Plot') are discussed here. Then, following the post-Nixon rise to prominence of Cheney and Rumsfeld during the Ford presidency, Scott notes how these martial-law ambitions eventually reappeared in a different form during the Iran-Contra events via the newly politicized FEMA and Lt. Col. Oliver North's `REX 84' plan. REX 84 evoked (in the event of an unspecified future `national emergency') the widespread surveillance (and possible detention) of political dissenters, the suspension of the U.S. constitution, and the activation of a secretive, parallel government set up to run things away from the pesky oversight of Senate and Congress. It's carefully noted early on that these aims were strongly desired by both Cheney and Rumsfeld, with the two of them conducting much of the highest level planning at the time for all the above, and the accompanying process given the title of `Continuity of Government', or `COG'. (Scott jokes darkly that in the light of the sweeping measures it would, and eventually did, enable post 9/11, `Change of Government' is a much more accurate description). Cheney pushed hard to enable and lay the groundwork for COG through FEMA in the 80's - groundwork which would institute a parallel government in the event of a national crisis - and Scott eventually notes what he dryly calls an `arresting coincidence'. Once Cheney and FEMA are reunited in May 2001, the same COG planning team from the Iran-Contra era in the 1980's was put forth by George W. Bush as a terrorism task force, and then a major terrorist attack on the United States allowed those same folks to implement COG. (Though Scott finished the bulk of THE ROAD TO 9/11 in 2006, he also makes use here at one point of information just revealed in Andrew Cockburn's 2007 biography RUMSFELD: HIS RISE, FALL AND CATASTROPHIC LEGACY. Cockburn's book notes how Rumsfeld and other hard-line Republican hawks with an eye on the future had privately kept the COG / parallel government exercises alive during the 90's in training exercise / bull sessions where they would "..castigate the Clinton administration in the most extreme way", and where the prior evoked COG threat of choice, the Soviets, had been replaced by a new designated foe thought of as likely able to provoke a useful national emergency - terrorists).Dramatically, Scott (a veteran chronicler and researcher of another painful, much debated event from American political history) holds firm in refusing to water down his conclusions. During the eventual terrorist attacks of September 2001, COG boosters Cheney and Rumsfeld both described themselves (along with other members of the Bush administration) as being `out of the loop' during key moments of the crisis that could have affected the events of the day. Scott begs to differ. THE ROAD TO 9/11 can be seen as one long build-up to the most careful, detailed examination possible of just what the official record, supporting documents, pertinent testimony, and reports from the day actually suggest Cheney and Rumsfeld were up to during a specific period of time that morning. Clearly, testimony from Richard Clarke, Norman Mineta and others openly contradicts what Cheney and the 9/11 Commission Report would have us believe happened. In a gripping, methodically documented chapter, Scott breaks the relevant testimony down thoroughly, statement by statement, to examine what he believes really occurred at the Pentagon that morning. Would it be too much to ask for the mainstream media to do their job and examine why the specific pieces of evidence and testimony Scott outlines in this book were given the widest possible berth by the 9/11 Commission Report authors?Elsewhere in THE ROAD TO 9/11, the October Surprise Iran hostage scandal prior to Reagan's election is carefully dissected. Scott notes how select elements of the upper Republican Party, alongside elements of the intelligence agency community sympathetic to their aims, showed (from the available evidence) a probable willingness to commit treason and endanger American lives for the pursuit of various goals. Scott also carefully links the October Surprise scandal, and Bush Senior's documented involvement with Saudi arms-dealing, to the eventual assistance provided by Bush Jr's administration in flying various Bin Laden family members and Saudis out of the US shortly after the 9/11 attacks. Scott describes the event succinctly, noting: "People who have once collaborated secretly in an impeachable if not treasonable offence cannot dispense lightly with their co-conspirators".Midway through the book, Scott provides a very long, detailed recounting of al Qaeda's use by various covert arms of government as a tool to, among other things, acquire and use illegal drug trade funds. He follows the FBI and CIA's involvement with terrorist double agents, noting how a lack of congressional oversight has historically led to greater and greater excesses. The infamous `out of control' BCCI money-laundering operation is examined, along with the mainstream media's efforts to avoid studying the particular relationship the BCCI (and various Bush/CIA related spook groups) seemingly had in funding and utilising al Qaeda. One comment made here by Scott seems pertinent, and by itself sums up much of the content of his book. "America's out-of-control entanglements with jihadi Islamists, and particularly with the ISI, underlie the still misunderstood events of 9/11, and the ongoing instability of the U.S. bureacracy and media to report honestly either on what happened that day, or on what these events reveal about the deep structure of U.S global politics." As noted before, Scott's final chapters dissect the public record and various 'official' accounts of the events of the day, with an eye to examining Rumsfeld and, in particular, Cheney's activities. Over and over in this section, Scott convincingly shows that the public record itself, when analyzed carefully, marks Cheney as a key element of a likely cover-up, and deserving of being questioned under oath in regards to his behavior on the day. It's evident that, repeatedly, the 9/11 Commission Report really worked overtime to heave the spotlight away from dwelling on just exactly what Cheney and Rumsfeld were up to during a key period of time that morning. Scott's final chapter puts things in perspective, and offers suggestions and words of encouragement for the futureThere's much more featured, as I have just cherry picked some central points, but Scott's powerful, involving analysis of US covert policy and its relationship to the events of 9/11 is a tour-de-force. I'll also note that, though the book is heavily footnoted and carries a lengthy bibliography, I found it to be more readable and emotionally engaging than some of his earlier works. (There are some thoughtful and appropriate personal touches). It's worth finally mentioning that Scott cleverly begins each new section of the book with highly appropriate quotes pertaining to the chapter that follows. After reading this book, and thinking quietly for a while about the detailed, disquieting picture it reveals, the most resonant to me was the all-too-relevant comment from onetime US intelligence-linked al Qaeda trainer Ali Mohamed: "Americans see what they want to see, and hear what they want to hear."

There is a general impression that the event itself of 9/11 is responsible for the erosion of Constitutional rights culminated in the Patriot Act. The account in this book conclusively dispels this belief. As this book so ably demonstrates, preparations to destroy the rights in the United States Constitution began long, long ago, and once the disaster struck the pieces were already in place, ready to be implemented.This book is well-written and engaging and meticulously researched. It deals with a very complex story over a long period of time, with many participants and names belonging to cross-linked groups. At the hands of a lessor author, the story would be a muddled, confused mess, but Scott successfully ties these disparate elements into a coherent compelling narrative.This is not so much a book about 9/11, but how the national security state it engendered came to be. Scott describes with excruciating detail an alphabet soup of shadowy study groups, think tanks, government agencies (secret and not), public interest foundations, and advisory committees which have dominated domestic United States policy in the last six Presidential administrations. The members of these groups look depressingly familiar: Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Oliver North, Richard Gates. Many of the groups they belong to are familiar, but others are not and will not be familiar even to the most seasoned of news junkies. In this respect, Scott’s account will be a revelation.This is not an ordinary conspiracy book filled with cockamamy theories, nebulous links, and half-baked, unwarranted conclusions, or implausible scenarios. It is a cogent, behind-the-scenes history of the political upheavals which have taken place in the last forty years. It portrays presidential leaders moved not by consensus or electorates, but by the movers-and-shakers — what Scott calls the overworld or the deep state – in vogue at the given moment.For example, the administration of Richard Nixon was ruled by the Council of Foreign Relations and the Rockefellers. Scott explains that part of schizophrenic character of his administration was due in part to the fact that his advisors came from the two wings of that think tank — one favoring detente and the other wing a hardliner. Scott implies that Watergate was encouraged by the hardliners, tired of Nixon’s “concessions” to the left. Those hardliners took over in Ford’s administration. The Trilateral Commission ruled Carter’s administration, but his administration plagued by the conflicting camps in the Trilaterals. Once the absentee administration of Reagan was elected, the nascent neocon deep state took over. It is clear from this account he considers 9/11 Blowback from years of training and funding radical Islamic militants to battle the Soviet Union in Afghanistan and for the toppling of the Mossadegh regime in Iran, plus other covert and/or terrorist actions by United States intelligence. While this has been the accepted conclusion, Scott describes with painful detail the machinations of these intelligence agencies and the study groups and advisors leading these groups during the twenty years prior to 9/11. The long-standing covert American support of militant terrorists who ultimately could not be controlled (Benezeer Bhutto is quoted as having said that the United States created a “Frankenstein”) is the true road to 9/11.Informing these political movements is the corrupting influence of wealth. Money from oil, money from the international drug trade. Again, it has become accepted that United State foreign policy is motivated by the acquisition of foreign oil fields; Scott convincingly documents how the war on terrorism is in reality a struggle for control of the poppy fields of Afghanistan.He specifically gives no opinion on what Rumsfeld and Cheney knew about the terrorist attack, but definitely appears to create the image that they and others acquiesced by failing to heed the warning signs.This is a book that will keep you awake at night. Initially by being unable to put this book down. Then, once you have finished reading, by wondering how this Country ever got to its present state. This book — unfortunately — provides an answer.

1e 2007, paperback 2008. Written in 2004 covering the period 1969-2002. Scott has written a series of overlapping books on the theme of exposing USA's dark secrets attempting to explain the causes of the wars in Laos, Vietnam, Central America, Columbia, Kosovo, Iraq, Afghanistan and the significance of what the FBI called PENTTBOM (Pentagon and Twin Towers Bombing Investigation) on 11.9.2001 to blow up 3 World-Trade Center's towers and a computer suite in the Pentagon containing evidence of $2.1 trillion of missing government money. Note they did not think they were investigating crashing aircraft!It is assumed to be a false flag operation inline with Operation Northwoods and Operation Gladio. A secret overworld has organised to control the US government to increase the wealth of the top 1% at the expense of weaker nations and promote wars to stimulate the US arms industry, control the world's oil and narcotics industries.The narrative covers from Nixon's fights with the anti-detente side. The Nixon Doctrine was to reverse Dulles' system of anti-communist alliances to contain communism by increasing arms sales to e..g, Iran and Saudi Arabia in exchange for petrodollars by jacking up oil prices and crashing the European and Asian economies. This allowed funding of the Muslim Brotherhood to be used in civil wars against Muslim fundamentalists.Ford continued with the entente policies with the neocons trying to stop him. Carter fell under the influence of the Rockerfellers. The CIA and ISI joined to start a war in Afghanistan to fight the Soviet Union. Funding by locally grown heroin was important. The main training centre was in Pakistan for the Service Center of the Jordanian Palestinan Abdullah Azzam (MaK) and also training the future al-Qaida and Taliban combatants.Bush II with Cheney and Rumsfeld were intrically involved with the "9/11" false flag event. Flight 73 was shot down by the USAF. The pilot was court marshalled and given a long prison sentence in Homestead AFB in Florida as the nominated drone could not crash into WTC 7 which was demolished by thermite charges 5 hours later. This is alledged in Susan Lindauer's Youtube video about her book  Extreme Prejudice. Scott wrote this book too early to give this later evidence. He discusses the 9/11 commission's cover up and suppression of evidence. Cheney grounded the US air defences to allow the free flight of the high-jacked aircraft and the substitute full-sized drones operating under the cover of an air force exercise training for the exact same event as if it was all planned in advance. Extreme Prejudice.

There is a lot of talk these days about the 'deep state' but few are probably aware that the man principally responsible for this term is Canadian diplomat and English professor Peter Dale Scott. Professor Scott was one of the pre-eminent early researchers into the assassination of John Fitzgerald Kennedy whose book 'Deep Politics and the Death of JFK' is one of the indispensable works in the field. This work on 9/11 although it does not go into the question of who or what focuses instead on the why. Scott has remained agnostic about the details of what happened on that day (it is probably fair to say that he has inclined towards a LIHOP explanation) but instead has focused on the larger economic and political framework that necessitated this 'deep event'. What exactly is a deep event? It is an event contrived by the ruling elite that is presented to the public as something which is quite different to what it is in reality.Scott focuses on the dangers to civil society and the rule of law when wealth disparity reaches such an extreme that the functional cohesion of society breaks down into a state of what for want of a better phrase might be characterized as 'class war'. This is what we are seeing in France with the advent of the Gilets Jaunes (which is actually a predominantly rural movement of relatively conservative middle class people) and elsewhere in Europe as various populist and nationalist movements.The Road to 9/11 is a very insightful analysis of the dangerous consequences of unregulated monopoly capitalism to democracy and civil society.

Only the last chapter is on 9/11 itself; the rest of it traces the history of plans for 'continuity of government' in the USA i.e. emergency suspension of civilian government.Scott's specialty ( in books like 'Deep Politics an the Death of JFK', and ' Drugs, Oil, and War: The United States in Afghanistan, Colombia, and Indochina') is examining the shifting alliances and 'business' interests of current and ex intelligence service operatives. This is such a huge topic that no synopsis (by me anyway) can do it justice; but consider that it's quite common wisdom even in the MSM that 1/3 of the world's economy (largely drugs) is 'off the books' i.e. through offshore tax havens (like London), and that it's no secret that the CIA are running the world's heroin supply out of Afghanistan. Scott takes a long look at what can be known about the actual mechanisms of 'things like that', and tries to narrow down the potential 'coincidences of interest' that could have created the particular set of alliances that created 9/11.The chapter on 9/11 itself might be a bit of a disappointment to some - this is certainly not the ONLY book to read - concentrating intensely on a 20 minute period and a phone call; but this is the crux of the particular thread Scott is following, and it's worth giving a lot of thought to.