How the US Government Could Have Prevented the 9/11 Attacks

Last month, I posted about the first episode of “The 9/11 Files”, Tucker Carlson’s investigative series into the events of September 11, 2001, which covered how the CIA deliberately allowed two of the alleged hijackers into the US. Digging into my own research archives, I shared additional documentation showing how incontrovertible that is.

Carlson’s full series has been available behind a paywall for some time, but I’m not a subscriber so have been awaiting each episode’s release on YouTube and Rumble. Episodes two through four have since been published, and I’ve now caught up with them.

So, here are a few comments I have, primarily about Episode 3, which argues that the 9/11 attacks could have been prevented by assassinating Osama bin Laden, the head of al-Qaeda. I have a different take, which is that the attacks could have been prevented by not engaging in criminal foreign policies and helping to create al-Qaeda in the first place.

I’ll share more comments about Episode 4, which discusses the mysterious collapse of World Trade Center Building 7 (WTC 7), in a forthcoming post.

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Episode 2: ‘The Cover-Up Commission’

I don’t have too many comments about this episode. It’s a general overview of how the 9/11 Commission Report was essentially a whitewash, getting into various aspects of the conflicts of interests involved, the transparent lack of transparency, and how the commission was—to quote its chairman, Thomas Kean—”set up to fail”.

It’s all information those of us deeply researching 9/11 at the time, decades ago, are familiar with, but it’s good to see Carlson bringing it to light for younger generations.

Watch Episode 2 here (also on Rumble):

Episode 3: ‘They Could Have Stopped It’

This episode focuses on numerous instances in which, prior to the 9/11 attacks, the US could have assassinated Osama bin Laden, the leader of the terrorist organization that recruited the alleged hijackers, al-Qaeda (meaning “The Base” in Arabic).

Watch Episode 3 here (also on Rumble):

The thrust of it is that the US could have—and should have—assassinated bin Laden. It heavily features Michael Scheuer, the former head of the CIA’s “Bin Laden Unit”, also known as Alec Station.

(I had occasional email correspondences with Scheuer back in the day and published numerous of his articles at Foreign Policy Journal, which I started in 2008 but discontinued in 2020 in large part to focus my efforts on fighting the lockdown madness and its coerced mass vaccination endgame.)

I don’t share the view that extrajudicial killing is an appropriate course of action. Certainly, the US should have used the legal means at its disposal to seek bin Laden’s international arrest and extradition for trial. This was a possibility because he had already been indicted in 1998 for the bombings of the US embassies in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, and Nairobi, Kenya.

How the US Effectively Allied with al-Qaeda

The episode unfortunately overlooks how the Taliban offered to hand over bin Laden on the condition that the US provide evidence of his responsibility for the 9/11 attacks—which offer the US refused in favor of launching the devastating twenty-year war in Afghanistan.

In Episode 4, which I’ll comment on in a forthcoming post, Carlson incidentally mentions how 9/11 was not included among the crimes for which bin Laden was wanted on the FBI’s “Most Wanted” poster—which listed only the 1998 embassy bombings. “In addition,” the poster added, “Bin Laden is a suspect in other terrorist attacks throughout the world.” (Note that, while the poster I just linked to on the FBI’s website says it was revised in November 2001, it marks bin Laden as “Deceased”. He was killed by US Navy SEALS during a raid on his compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, in May 2011.)

The Washington Post ran an article on this curiosity in 2006, remarking how it had “provided fodder for conspiracy theorists who think the U.S. government or another power was behind the Sept. 11 hijackings.” The official explanation for the omission was that, whereas bin Laden had been indicted for the embassy bombings, no formal charges had been filed against him for 9/11.

However, that explanation still raises the question of why he was never charged for the 9/11 attacks.

It speaks to my point about how, if the evidence was so strong, the US could have taken the Taliban up on its offer to hand bin Laden over but instead chose to cause further unspeakable harm to the civilian population of Afghanistan by waging a 20-year war in the country, which had already been devastated by the Soviet-Afghan War in large part because of the actions of the US government.

As I explained in my 2008 article “US ‘War on Terror’ Destabilizing Afghanistan, Pakistan“:

The Soviet-Afghan war began in 1979 when the USSR invaded Afghanistan. Six months prior to the invasion, the US began supporting the Afghan mujahedeen against the [Soviet-backed] government of Afghanistan. According to President Carter’s National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski, the purpose of the decision to provide covert aid to Islamic extremists was to prompt a Soviet intervention and give the USSR its own “Vietnam” war.

… Osama bin Laden began his al-Qaeda organization during that war to provide support to the mujahedeen. Prior to establishing al-Qaeda, he travelled to the region from Saudi Arabia to assist the mujahedeen effort, arriving in 1985 in Peshawar, where the CIA, acting through the ISI (Pakistan’s intelligence agency) as its proxy, had based many of its own operations. It’s not clear whether bin Laden received any direct aid from the US, but al-Qaeda and bin Laden’s operations must certainly have been known to and looked upon with approval by the CIA.

As I further explained a couple months later in my article “9/11 and the ‘War on Terrorism’: Facts and Myths“:

But what about Afghanistan? It’s “the good war”, after all, we’re told. Even many who opposed the invasion of Iraq were in favor of invading Afghanistan and overthrowing the Taliban. But there’s an all-too-often missing context here, too, that should be considered when ultimately judging U.S. military intervention. And that is that the Taliban – and al Qaeda – is ultimately a creation of U.S. foreign policy.

The U.S. support for the Afghan mujahedeen is well known. But in the official history the myth is propagated – regarded as conventional wisdom – that this support for the radical militants President Reagan called “freedom fighters” was a response to the Soviet invasion. In fact, covert aid began under Carter six months prior to the Soviet invasion, and according to Carter’s national security advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski himself, the purpose was to try to draw the Soviets in to a conflict – to give them “their Vietnam war”, as he put it.

So the CIA financed, armed, and trained – acting through their intermediary, Pakistan’s Inter-Service Intelligence agency (ISI) – the most radical militants they could find. One Gulbaddin Hekmatyar, for instance, was the principle recipient of U.S. aid. His name is still in the media from time to time – he is now one of the principal enemies fighting U.S. coalition forces in Afghanistan.

And, of course, the CIA’s base of operations was in Peshawar, Pakistan. Religious schools, or madrassas, were established along Pakistan’s northwest border regions, where recruits were trained and radicalized to fight the Soviets. In fact, it is from these madrassas that the movement known as the Taliban would later come – “Taliban” is the plural form of “Talib”, Pashto for “student”.

And another well known figure of the Soviet-Afghan war also set up his base of operations in Peshawar – Osama bin Laden. At the very least, the CIA was knowledgeable of and approved bin Laden’s operations. In fact, the U.S. looked the other way while branches of his organization established bases of operation within the United States, and may have even actively supported his efforts with the mindset during the “Cold War” that “the enemy of my enemy is my friend”.

Before bin Laden’s organization became known as “al Qaeda”, or “the Base”, it was known as Makhtab al-Khidamat. Either as an alias or subsidiary branch, it was also known as Al Kifah. The U.S. Department of the Treasury has this to say about it: “Makhtab al-Khidamat/Al Kifah (MK) is considered to be the pre-cursor organization to al Qaida and the basis for its infrastructure. MK was initially created by Usama bin Laden’s (UBL) mentor, Shaykh Abdullah Azzam, who was also the spiritual founder of Hamas, as an organization to fund mujahideen in the Soviet-Afghan conflict. MK has helped funnel fighters and money to the Afghan resistance in Peshawar, Pakistan, and had established recruitment centers worldwide to fight the Soviets.”

I delved further into this history in my December 2008 article “Role of Alleged CIA Asset in Mumbai Attacks Being Downplayed“:

MAK worked alongside the CIA-ISI operations to recruit Arabs to the ranks of the mujahedeen. The ISI, acting as proxy for the CIA, chose mainly to channel its support to Afghans, such as Gulbaddin Hekmatyar. The U.S. claims the CIA had no relationship with MAK, but bin Laden’s operation, which later evolved into “al-Qaeda”, must certainly have been known to, and approved by, the CIA.

But there are indications that the CIA’s relationship with MAK and al-Qaeda go well beyond having shared a common enemy and mutual interests in the Soviet-Afghan war. A number of al-Qaeda associates appear to have been protected individuals.

Branches of MAK existed elsewhere, including in the United States. The US Treasury Department lists one of MAK’s aliases as Al-Kifah. The Al-Kifah Refugee Center in Brooklyn, New York, served as a recruitment center during the 1980s, but its operations did not end after the end of the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. Al-Kifah was also a recruitment center for efforts by extremist groups in the Balkans.

Just as in Afghanistan, the US also had mutual interests with Bosnian Muslims and extremist groups acting in the Balkans. MAK had since evolved into al-Qaeda under Osama bin Laden, which had links to groups operating in Bosnia. Despite an arms embargo against such groups, they managed to obtain weapons and supply shipments in which the US at best looked the other way and at worst played an active role.

The operations to arm al-Qaeda linked groups in Bosnia were carried under the watch of then director of the US European Command Intelligence Directorate Gen. Michael V. Hayden. Hayden subsequently served as the director of the National Security Agency from 1999 to 2005 and is currently the Director of Central Intelligence, or DCI, which is the head of the CIA.

A former official at the US consular office in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, Michael Springman went public after 9/11 to explain how his office was used by the CIA to bring recruits to the US for training during the 1980s.

The Jeddah office is where most of the 9/11 hijackers obtained their visas to enter the US.

Continuing in that same article, I got into some of the aspects of 9/11 discussed in my post last month about Episode 1 of Tucker Carlson’s “9/11 Files”:

Two other of the hijackers, Nawaf al-Hazmi and Khalid al-Mihdhar, were in fact known to the CIA and were being monitored. Despite being known al-Qaeda operatives, they were allowed to enter the US under their real names and neither the FBI nor the State Department were notified.

The US explains this as the result of the CIA losing the terrorists’ trail when they travelled to Thailand after an al-Qaeda meeting in Kuala Lumpur. But this explanation does not stand up to scrutiny since it was known that they had obtained visas to enter the US. Thus, even if the CIA did in fact lose track of the terrorists, standard procedure should have dictated that the FBI and State Department be alerted.

The 9/11 Joint Inquiry and subsequent 9/11 Commission were apparently satisfied with the CIA’s explanation that it lost al-Hazmi and al-Mihdhar, and nobody was ever held accountable for the “mistake” of knowingly allowing two known al-Qaeda operatives on the terrorist watchlist to enter the United States unhindered.

Upon arriving in the US, al-Hazmi and al-Mihdhar were assisted by an individual under FBI surveillance for his possible connections to terrorist groups and, furthermore, even lived in a house rented from an FBI informant. But the FBI claims that it didn’t know anything about the men, despite them using their real names and being listed in the phone book, because the CIA hadn’t informed them the two were in the country. The Joint Inquiry report described this as perhaps the single greatest missed opportunity to break up the 9/11 operation and prevent the attacks.

Additionally, it was in fact the CIA who not once, but at least on six separate occasions, approved a visa, including from the office in Jeddah, for or the entry of Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman, a.k.a. “the Blind Sheikh”, into the US, despite his known connection to terrorist acts in Egypt, including the assassination of Anwar Sadat, and despite having been on the State Department’s terrorist watchlist. This, too, was described as a series of “mistakes” after the government was forced to admit that it had occurred – an explanation that the New York Times, which reported this information in a series of articles, seemed to find perfectly satisfactory.

Many, however, find such incompetency and coincidence theories to be simply not credible, preferring instead alternative, oftentimes much more plausible, conspiracy theories.

The Blind Sheikh had also travelled to Peshawar during the mujahedeen effort, and was good friends with Gulbaddin Hekmatyar, the CIA’s top asset during the Soviet-Afghan war. He later became the spiritual head of the terrorist group that carried out the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center, a plot which the FBI had known about in advance through two or more informants.

In sum, long before 9/11, the US had treated al-Qaeda as an effective ally in its covert operations in Afghanistan and the Balkans (which is unfortunately not touched on in Carlson’s “9/11 Files”, or at least not in the four episodes I’ve watched so far).

The US Government’s Criminal Policies in the Middle East

Instead of supporting extrajudicial killing, my own take is that the 9/11 attacks could have been prevented had the US not effectively allied with al-Qaeda and otherwise not engaged in criminal foreign policies.

This includes the US government’s longstanding support for Israel’s crimes against the Palestinians, including the ethnic cleansing by which the “Jewish state” came into existence in 1948 and the apartheid regime in place since 1967 (to which we can now add bipartisan support for the genocide in Gaza).

Osama bin Laden was explicit about this particular motivation for the attacks in his “letter to America“, published by The Observer in November 2002.

In the letter, bin Laden sought to answer Americans’ curiosity about the question, “Why are we fighting and opposing you?”

His answer was:

The answer is very simple:

(1) Because you attacked us and continue to attack us.

His first example was US support for the Zionists’ settler-colonial project and oppression of the Palestinians.

He also explained how the US supported the tyrannical governments of Arab states against their own people while engaging in the “theft” of their oil and militarily occupying their land. He undoubtedly had his own home country of Saudi Arabia at the top of his mind.

Bin Laden also mentioned the US sanctions against Iraq during the 1990s:

You have starved the Muslims of Iraq, where children die every day. It is a wonder that more than 1.5 million Iraqi children have died as a result of your sanctions, and you did not show concern.

That’s an evident error: the estimated number of excess childhood deaths resulting from US sanctions was half a million.

Bin Laden no doubt had in mind US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright’s response, during a 60 Minutes interview in May 1996, to the question “We have heard that a half million children have died. I mean, that’s more children than died in Hiroshima. And, you know, is the price worth it?”

To which Albright replied, “I think this is a very hard choice, but the price–we think the price is worth it.”

Bin Laden also explained the rationale for considering American civilians as legitimate targets:

The American people are the ones who pay the taxes which fund the planes that bomb us in Afghanistan, the tanks that strike and destroy our homes in Palestine, the armies which occupy our lands in the Arabian Gulf, and the fleets which ensure the blockade of Iraq. These tax dollars are given to Israel for it to continue to attack us and penetrate our lands. So the American people are the ones who fund the attacks against us, and they are the ones who oversee the expenditure of these monies in the way they wish, through their elected candidates.

… This is why the American people cannot be not innocent of all the crimes committed by the Americans and Jews against us.

And while I obviously do not agree that targeting civilians is ever justified, he does have a legitimate point: Americans are by and large complicit in the crimes committed by the government that claims to represent them.

It was that realization, arrived at after I started deeply researching US foreign policy in the wake of 9/11, that set me on the path to doing independent journalism.

The US government might forcibly expropriated dollars from me to commit heinous atrocities, but it does not represent me—and I have dedicated my life to awakening others to the harsh reality of just how evil this criminal organization is in Washington, DC.

Next, I’ll comment on Episode 4 of Tucker Carlson’s “The 9/11 Files”, titled “From Cover-up to Conspiracy”—including additional insights about the collapse of WTC 7.

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Update: I have now completed my series of posts commenting on “The 9/11 Files”. Read more: