"We dance round in a ring and suppose,
  But the Secret sits in the middle and knows."
    - Robert Frost

It has been 130 days since September 11th. We have heard many debates,
accusations, and arguments about the genesis of the attacks. Every major
news agency, and every talking head with a whisper of breath in their lungs,
has weighed in. We have been told how we should respond. We have been
told how we should feel. We have been told how we can help. In all that time,
however, something essential has been missing.

We have yet to be told how such a thing was allowed to happen in the first place.

It is a curious phenomenon. Whenever anything occurs in this country, be it a
shark attack or the disappearance of a Capitol Hill intern, the media drumbeat
has always played the same tune: Why? Why? Why did this happen? This Greek
chorus has fallen silent in the weeks since the Towers came down. Rather than
question the genesis of our woe, we have been afforded endless observations
about how we have and should react. There is no looking back. There are no answers.

Thousands of Americans died on September 11th, and thousands of Afghan
civilians have joined them in the dust in the days since. Millions, nay,
billions worldwide have been affected. American soldiers stand in peril
to defend our freedom, or so we are told. Yet we are afforded no
answers, no understanding, no succor. All we have are threads of data
flapping in the winds of battle and response. We deserve better.

The time has come to take those threads and weave them together as best we can.

It cannot be denied that the attacks of September 11th represent the
most spectacular Intelligence failure in the history of the nation. The
planning required to pull off such an audacious attack likely was years
in the making, formulated by people all across the planet. Somehow,
these people managed to locate and exploit a security loophole left by
the mighty FBI, CIA and NSA, and flew four deadly bombs laden with fuel
and humanity right through it.

There are two possible explanations for this astounding lapse.

The first is that, despite all the funding they are provided by our tax
dollars, despite all the human and technological resources at their
disposal, these agencies failed utterly to glean even a whiff of menace.
If this proves to be the case, every individual employed by these
agencies should be fired with prejudice. The buildings that house them
should be razed to the ground, and the rubble burned. The earth upon
which they sat should be salted, so nothing will ever grow there again.

If this proves to be the case, these agencies should be torn down brick
by brick and built anew for the sake of our safety. They let it happen
through negligence, ergo they should cease to exist, and a new cadre
should be brought in who can be trusted to defend the interests and
security of this country. These axioms are being applied in Afghanistan;
they should be applied right here at home.

The other possibility is far more sinister, and smacks of all the bleak
realities we have become far too familiar and comfortable with. The
other possibility is that the September 11th attacks happened because
powerful men were pursuing an agenda of self-interest, in defiance of
prudence and security, and their very presence in the equation created
the opening for the attack.

It has been widely reported that 13 of the 19 terrorists who commandeered
the aircraft on September 11th were from Saudi Arabia, and that some 80%
of all Al Qaeda recruits come from that oil-rich nation. It stands to reason,
therefore, that American Intelligence agencies would have a vested interest in
paying a great deal of attention to Saudi Arabia. Somehow, however, these
terrorists managed to elude notice until they appeared in the blue New York sky.

American security concerns overseas fall primarily within the bailiwick
of the Central Intelligence Agency. This agency was run in the 1970s by
none other than George Herbert Walker Bush, father of the sitting
Commander in Chief and a former President himself. Bush Sr. ranks among
the most venerated members of the Old Guard from the Nixon and Reagan
days, and commands the loyalty of government officials past and present.
Because of his long years in politics, Bush Sr. also enjoys a vast array
of business connections. This is common knowledge, available in any
updated high school history textbook.

Since his departure from the political scene, however, the activities of
Bush Sr. have not been paid much attention by the national media.
Supporters of the former President would be pleased to know that he has
done quite well for himself. He has, in the days since his defeat at the
hands of William Jefferson Clinton, secured a position on the advisory
board of an organization called the Carlyle Group.

The Carlyle Group is a multi-national, multi-billion dollar private
investment firm, managed by former members of the Reagan and Bush
administrations, and is involved in everything from soda bottling to
pharmaceuticals manufacture. It is here that Bush Sr., whose contacts
with Saudi Arabia have been legend since the forming of the Gulf War
coalition, comes into play. As early as January of 2000, Bush Sr. was
courting the favor of Saudi crown prince Abdullah in the name of
Carlyle, which was working with the telecommunications giant SBC to gain
control of a large share of the Saudi phone system. He has, over the
years, done similar outreach work for Carlyle's oil interests, because
the petroleum/energy business is central to the Group's financial strength.

It has long been true that the business of America is business, to the
detriment of many other important factors. Given the connections between
the former President and head of CIA, a major energy business player,
and a nation that contains oil and terrorists in equal measure,
questions about conflict of interest must be raised.

The American petroleum industry relies upon the stability of Saudi Arabia to
keep their oil flowing in the proper fashion. Because the business of America
is business, it is not too far a leap to conclude that the business of the American
Intelligence community is also business, deliberately so. Public questions about
and investigations into Saudi Arabia's hosting of terrorists like Osama bin Laden,
whose family calls that nation home, would certainly make it difficult for the
American petroleum industry to work comfortably with the Saudi regime.
Add to this the fact that the CIA, whose job it would be to investigate terrorist
connections in Saudi Arabia, claims as its former head Bush Sr., who has a vested
financial interests in healthy and unobstructed U.S.-Saudi relations.

The result of this line of inquiry is chilling. Could the CIA have been dissuaded from
fully investigating the roots of terrorism in Saudi Arabia because such investigations
would have conflicted with the interests of entities like the Carlyle Group? If this was
not the case, the explanation must be chalked up to simple incompetence. Considering
the complexity of what transpired on September 11th, the simple answer is not reliable.
Occam's Razor fails in the face of the facts.

The sins of the father may well have been visited upon the son. George
W. Bush's affinity for the energy industry is well-known, and his
personal financial involvement in a number of oil businesses before his
political career is part of the record. His administration is riddled
with dozens of high-ranking appointees who held a large amount of stock
in the now-defunct Enron corporation. Many of these people are also
former Enron employees. Enron, a giant in the energy industry,
contributed millions to Bush's political aspirations. The company was
heavily involved with Vice President Cheney, himself an energy industry
veteran from the Halliburton Petroleum Corporation, in the creation of
national energy policy behind closed, locked doors.

Enron's dazzling financial implosion on December 2nd, 2001, has led to a
number of pressing investigations into the circumstances behind the
collapse. More than a few questions about the financial and political
connections between Enron's chairman, Kenneth Lay, and George W. Bush
have been raised. The intense scrutiny has shaken loose two emails sent
by Lay to his employees in August of last year. In them, Lay waxes
optimistic about the strength and stability of his company, and exhorts
his employees to buy into the company's stock program.

Most observers view this as the gasping lies of a drowning criminal,
desperate to keep his operation from flying apart under the burden of
his and his associates' shoddy business practices. When held up against
recently revealed information, however, Mr. Lay's messages must be
considered in a different light.

A book recently published in France titled 'Osama bin Laden: The Hidden
Truth' by Jean-Charles Brisard and Guillaume Dasique has put some
serious questions on the table for consideration. In 1998, American oil
company Unocal's attempt to build a pipeline from Turkmenistan through
Afghanistan to Pakistan, in order to exploit the vast Turkmenistan
natural gas fields, was foiled by Osama bin Laden's attack on American
embassies in Africa. The Clinton administration forbade any company from
dealing with the Taliban, protectors of bin Laden, who were in control
of Afghanistan at the time.

Upon his arrival in Washington D.C. in 2000, Bush revived negotiations
with the Taliban to see this pipeline through. High-level talks between
Washington and Kabul continued through August of 2001 to this very
purpose. The Bush administration was trying to get the Taliban on board
with the pipeline idea, and believed they could depend upon the regime
to be stable enough to see it built. The rationale for these actions is
simplicity itself: Bush's campaign was funded by the energy industry,
and negotiations like this were their payoff. The business of America is
business.
 

Problems arise when one considers the fact that the chief bin Laden
hunter in America, former Deputy Director John O'Neill, quit his post in
protest some two weeks before the September 11th attacks. O'Neill had
been the lead investigator in several previous bin Laden-controlled
attacks, and was considered to be the most knowledgeable man in America
about the terrorist mastermind's activities and capabilities. He quit in
frustration, stating that his efforts at capturing bin Laden had been
thwarted by oil interests in America, and by a desire by powerful people
to protect America's relationship with Saudi Arabia. After leaving the
FBI, O'Neill took a job at head of security at the World Trade Center,
and died in the September 11th attack. The irony of this is agonizing.
 

O'Neill knew that bin Laden called Afghanistan home. Was he kept from
pursuing the terrorist there by an administration that wanted to protect
its relationship with the Taliban in order to see the pipeline through?
Did his departure create a security gap in America that allowed the
attacks to take place? Conversely, did America's dalliance with the
Taliban incite bin Laden to attack? It is well documented that his
terrorist career began with the arrival of American troops onto Saudi
soil, a land he considered sacred. Was he motivated to attack again when
his new home seemed ready to allow the Crusaders in?
 

Finally, does this pipeline deal shine a light onto the emailed optimism
of Kenneth Lay? There is no question that Enron was Bush's favorite
company. If the pipeline was to happen, it is easy to imagine that Enron
would get the contract. Lay would have known this. His last email was
sent on August 27th, about the same time as the last U.S./Taliban
meeting. If a deal was near at hand, and if he knew that his company was
about to get a plum government contract, he had every reason to be
optimistic about the future.
 

Is this why Arthur Andersen was ordered to shred documents? Did those
documents detail the preparations for the pipeline, thus demonstrating
beyond doubt that Bush was dealing with the Taliban? Were the
consequences of releasing these documents more damaging than the
consequences of destroying them because of this?

It will be a long hot season before we know the half of it. One thing,
however, is certain. Not long from today, we will stand in observance.
Before we know it, one year will have passed since the attacks of
September 11th, 2001. We will light candles, unfurl wind-tattered flags,
sing patriotic songs, and remember the dead. In that year we will have
mourned for those lost, and mourned the passing of an age of innocence
in America. The oceans that separate us, the armies that guard us, the
weapons that make others fear us, protected us not at all on September 11th.
The security we felt before that day is gone forever.

We deserve to know why.

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