A trail to anywhere

Instapundit linked to Edward Jay Epstein's new column in the Wall Street Journal today, which takes up where he left off in the 9/11 mystery--in Europe--except this time he's focusing on what Mohammed Atta was doing in Spain.

Epstein is most likely on a trail that leads somewhere but his likely destination is nowhere. As he pointed out, the 9/11 Commission final Report dismissed any state connections to the plot and portrayed the hijackers as "rootless, non-state actors". That linchpin finding was the bedrock on which the entire GWoT paradigm was constructed:

By saying that no one else was involved--not in Spain, Iran, Hezbollah, Malaysia, Iraq, the Czech Republic or Pakistan--these detainees allowed the 9/11 Commission to complete its picture of al Qaeda as a solitary entity.

In light of the Sandy Berger fiasco and the fact the Commission was stocked with political operatives like Jamie Gorelick and Philip Zelikow, why should anybody treat its conclusions as the final word?

The nutty 9/11 professors would wholeheartedly agree with the above for reasons involving their probable OneWorldBushcoPNAC world view, which says all bogeymen reside within the DC beltway. The rest of us believe the 9/11 bad guys came from the Middle East, but really, is it so fanciful to believe that attack might have been a warning shot delivered by several aligned nations using "rootless non-state actors" to carry their swords? Remember, the US Government issued the report in paperback.

In his recent summation in the Lewis Libby trial prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald announced that Americans deserve to hear the truth. Yes, but can we handle it? Back in the 90s Mr. Fitzgerald was working at the US Attorney's office for the Southern District of New York--terrorism central. TWA800 crashed in his district. Have we learned the truth on that one yet? Some think not:



Her first gaffe could have been an innocent slip-up, but the second one was rather explicit, mentioning plastic explosives and such, ironically supporting Peter Lance's theory that Ramzi Yousef managed to get a seat bomb onboard the plane. And,

In his most eye-opening revelation, Lance contends that Patrick Fitzgerald of the SDNY office permitted Mohamed to remain free even after naming him as an unindicted co-conspirator in the Day of Terror case. Lance also claims that Fitzgerald buried probative evidence of an al-Qaida cell operating in New York in 1996, the year of TWA Flight 800's destruction. If only Fitzgerald had shown the same vigilance in going after Osama as he did in going after Scooter Libby in the Valerie Plame case, this would be a much safer world.

It's certainly possible Couric's remarks can be explained by the intense events of the day, after all, it happened with John Kerry, too. I've never been real impressed with Kerry's comment because it was explainable in that he didn't say bomb and TWA 800 side by side, only that they had looked at some issues after TWA 800. However, adding Couric's remarks to the mix seems to cloud that conclusion a little more.

But, but, we have the infamous CIA zoom-climb cartoon to explain the day! Keep in mind it was designed to debunk a missile. Could this have been a clever misdirection by half, keeping everyone talking about a missile to keep them from focusing on a bomb? Can we assume all the passengers on the previous flight's manifest have been cleared? Yousef's MO would call for the bomb being planted on the flight into JFK, with a timed explosion after takeoff on the outbound leg (800).

In closing I wish Mr. Epstein good luck on his quest. If nothing else it might make a great novel one day.