Book
Review of
The
Road to 9/11:
Wealth,
Empire, and the Future of America
By Peter
Dale Scott
University
of California Press
432 pages
I have always been fascinated
with trying to see the more subliminal/hidden aspects of our world, so long as
if they are either based in hard-nosed verified fact; or understood as
speculative vision (which may possess a metaphoric validity of its own). With The
Road to 9/11: Wealth, Empire, and the Future of America University
of California Berkeley professor emeritus Peter Dale Scott delivers the
preceding. Tightly non-speculative, meticulous and insightful, Dr. Scott shines
the know-glow on a rather extensive and sordid history of U.S. governmental
shadow activities; predominantly partial or total cover-ups. Fortunately, in
this his magnum opus, he also holds out the promise of an American redemption,
so long as the festering boil of turpitude is lanced and drained in the light.
Writing with a touch of the charm
of the poet that he is, Dr. Scott has been walking us through this
political-historical shadow land for some time now. The Road to 9/11, which
as the title indicates, provides historic origins of the terrorist strikes of
September 11th 2001, builds on and extends his prior research into
secret intelligence activities as presented in his two past UC Press books; Cocaine
Politics: Drugs, Armies, and the CIA in Central America (1993)
and Deep Politics and the Death of JFK (1996)
(among others) by speaking both about current concerns with the Bush-Cheney
administration in relations to the events on 9/11/01 and by going further
backwards Ð scrutinizing secret American governmental activities just after the
end of World War II. It vividly concentrates on Richard NixonÕs failed regime
and Tricky DickÕs early forays into threatening constitutional democracy as
revealed during the Watergate hearings. He then depicts and examines the
activities of NixonÕs successor Gerald Ford, concentrating on his (what would
later become neo-con) team of Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney. Scott pays close
attention to the Rumsfeld-Cheney collaboration under Ronald ReaganÕs regime on
what is known as the Continuity of Government (COG) strategy: a parallel
planning structure in lieu of nuclear war which includes plans for warrantless
surveillance, suspension of habeas corpus, and the arrangements for mass
detention; proposals which can also be described as plans for a potential
military-civilian coup. By now the narrative of shadow government - what Scott
calls Òdeep politicsÓ (p. 121) Ð has taken hold and the book begins to read
like an airport page-turner; scorching the eyes with tale after tale of
intrigue and deception. But the characters are real (Kissinger, Casey,
Brzezinski, Carter, Reagan, the Rockefellers, bin Laden, Clinton, et al) and
the events - which rotate around big oil, terrorism, drug trade, arms deals,
covert financing and secret security configurations are heavily documented in
the copious footnotes (which I equally read with jaw-dropping fascination).
Highlighted are the adventures of multiple intelligence agencies and their
involvement with terrorist organizations that they once backed and helped
create, including al Qaeda. At this point ScottÕs deep political analysis has a
kind of Rimbaudian poetics to it, astutely avoiding moral condemnation. He is
just letting the deviant facts speak for themselves.
Already there is material here
for numerous Hollywood blockbuster films, but 3/4th through this dark narrative
thoroughly takes off. Enter the reckless American empire of George W. Bush and
his neo-con administration. With the intelligence of a scholar and the
sensitivity of a poet, Scott's description puts forward here evidence that the
9/11 attacks were the zenith of long-standing, but secret, trends that menace
the existence of American democracy as an open society. Additionally, he
questions why the U.S. trillion dollar defense system failed to protect on
9/11. He also shows through extensive research that there has been a
substantial cover-up of the events on 9/11. Here Scott specifically zooms in on
suspicious statements and actions made by Vice President Cheney and Defense
Secretary Rumsfeld; before, during and after September 11th. He
focuses our attention specifically on the Continuity of Government plan that
was called into action that day, outlining CheneyÕs secret communications with
Rumsfeld and President Bush before or about 10 AM.
He further critically examines
Philip ZelikowÕs 9/11 Commission Report, showing specific examples of the
reportÕs systematic and concerted cover-up; partly by its omissions, but also
by itÕs cherry picking of evidence to create impressions that are
authoritatively disputed (such as the contested time of CheneyÕs arrival in the
crises bunker). Scott points out a consistent pattern to the cherry picking:
which is to minimize Dick CheneyÕs responsibility for what happened that day.
He carefully dissects CheneyÕs orders with respect to a plane approaching
Washington, as testified to by then Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta.
(pp. 199 Ð 200) As a result, Scott asks whether Cheney on 9/11 was occupied in
exploiting the attacks as a means to implement an agenda of constitutional
revision which he already had in place.
Peter Dale ScottÕs major
contribution in this book is not merely to our larger, if darker, understanding
of world and U.S. history. It is his knowledge of the contemporary importance
of the Rumsfeld-Cheney Continuity of Government plans and their relevance to
todayÕs world. Scott maintains that this understanding may be the answer to
various questions concerning Dick CheneyÕs hazy actions that morning. The
hair-raising questions explored here, I hope I need not say, are imperative, as
many see an obvious drift of the American nation towards constitutional crisis
(see Naomi WolfÕs recent book The End of America, for
example).
By examining only the verifiable
aspects of the suspicions surrounding the catastrophe of 9/11, Peter Dale Scott
shows how America's military expansion into the world under the banner of 9/11
has been the result of crucial but surreptitious arrangements made by small
cliques reactive to the agendas of privileged affluence; agendas resulting in
the disbursement of the communal democratic state. Irrefutably, this is an imposing
and scrupulous examination of how secrecy and terror is used as political
weapon when shifting public authority to an unaccountable prosperity class. As
such, I could not put it down and highly recommend it.
Joseph Nechvatal