Science Talk

VTR · Guest

9/11 truth groups dissect Rumsfeld's 'another attack' quip
05/19/2008 @ 1:23 pm
Filed by Muriel Kane

A newly-revealed speech delivered by former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld before an
audience of Pentagon-sponsored military analysts in December 2006 is providing ample grist for
9/11 conspiracy theorists.
Advertisement

An audio recording of the speech was one of a large number of items released by the Pentagon on
May 8 as a result of Freedom of Information requests. The New York Times had filed the requests
in the course of preparing its expose of the Pentagon's use of supposedly independent retired
military officers to present its message on network news shows.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24629509

Speaking a month after the Democratic Party had recaptured majorities in both houses of
Congress, and just following his own resignation as Secretary of Defense, Rumsfeld suggested
that a new 9/11 could be the corrective for American complacency:

"This President's pretty much a victim of success. We haven't had an attack in five years. The
perception of the threat is so low in this society that it's not surprising that the behavior
pattern reflects a low threat assessment. The same thing's in Europe, there's a low threat
perception. The correction for that, I suppose, is an attack. And when that happens, then
everyone gets energized for another [inaudible] and it's a shame we don't have the maturity to
recognize the seriousness of the threats...the lethality, the carnage, that can be imposed on
our society is so real and so present and so serious that you'd think we'd be able to
understand it."

The audio received no notice for several days, until blogger Jack Gillis discovered it in the
course of a thread at Talking Points Memo devoted to combing through the documents. Gillis then
made the full audio available at his blog, along with brief quotes from some of the more
"chilling" moments. Jason Linkins at the Huffington Post carried the story along by providing a
complete transcription of Rumsfeld's "extraordinary" remark.

At that point, awareness of the speech exploded. However, while moderate bloggers saw it merely
as Rumsfeld "blurt[ing] out the secret wet-dream fantasy of every warmongering neocon
Republican," others found it far more sinister.

Rob Kall, the executive editor of OpEd News, was one of the first to suggest the obvious
conclusion. "Call me a conspiracy theorist," he wrote on May 14. "Because this slips too easily
off Rumsfeld’s reptilian tongue. Too easily because perhaps it’s not at all a new idea. Perhaps
it is an idea that, for him, for all the propagandist sell-out generals, this is not new, that
is actually, already tried and true. One of the oft cited premises of the 9/11 Truth movement
is that the attack on the towers was the pearl harbor-like event that the neocons anticipated
would be necessary to move the US to embrace the aggressive militaristic tactics manifested in
Iraq. Here, we have Rumsfeld casually joking about it—not a smoking gun, but, perhaps, a clear
'tell' in poker parlance, indicating ready ability to think in these terms."

A few days later, PrisonPlanet.com, a website devoted to conspiracy theories, was featuring the
Rumsfeld remarks as something far more than "casually joking." Editor Paul Joseph Watson
described the tape as revealing "former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld talking with top
military analysts about how a flagging Neo-Con political agenda could be successfully restored
with the aid of another terrorist attack on America."

"Rumsfeld's admission that the correction for dwindling support of the Neo-Con imperial crusade
is another terror attack is perhaps the most startling and blatant indication that 9/11 was an
inside job," Watson continued. "How much more evidence do we need to confirm that the Neo-Con
hierarchy in control of the U.S. government are instigating and exploiting terror in the
pursuit of their own domestic and geopolitical agenda?"

Larry Chin at GlobalResearch.ca was equally emphatic, writing, "Placing the new evidence
against previously revealed 9/11-related acts on the part of Rumsfeld, his guilt is overt and
obvious. Recall that it was Rumsfeld who enthusiastically penned the 'Go Massive' memo,
gleefully declaring the Bush administration finally had the green light to kill: 'Not only UBL
(Usama bin Laden). Go massive. Sweep it all up. Things related and not.' As the Bush
administration’s war ensued in earnest, Rumsfeld gloated to the New York Times that 9/11
provided 'the kind of opportunities that World War II offered, to refashion the world.'"

In an interview with conservative commentator Rusty Humphries for a Pentagon radio talk show in
September 2006, three months before his speech to the military analysts, Rumsfeld was asked
about "this new wave of conspiracy theories on September 11th."

He replied, "I suppose there have always been people in the world who subscribe to conspiracy
theories and are -- you just almost have to suspend the idea of disbelief. I can't imagine
people saying -- writing books the way they're writing them, articles of what they're writing,
believing what they believe -- people contending that the -- September 11th was not an attack
by al Qaeda, even though when the al Qaeda take credit for it."

Humphries went on to say, "I talk to terrorists personally, and they tell me every single time,
it was the Jews that sent the planes in to start a war between us and Islam. They also told me
one time that it was the Jews that sent Monica Lewinsky in to have sex with Bill Clinton so
they could run America. You like that one?"

"My goodness," Rumsfeld replied.