The Dead, the Dollars, the Drones: 9/11 Era by the Numbers

Ever since the Twin Towers fell, the United States has been at war. The costs of that decade of conflict have been unimaginably high: trillions of dollars spent, hundreds of thousands of lives lost. The numbers are almost too big to grasp, let alone quantify.

Click to view link

The Years Since 9/11: A Lost Decade

Ten years have passed, and there is still much to grieve about September 11, 2001. There are the lives that were lost that terrifying and tragic day: the 2,977 victims in the towers and the Pentagon and on the planes; and the 415 law enforcement officers and firefighters killed, public workers who were justly celebrated at the time as heroes-an impulse we would do well to remember today, as their counterparts are pilloried as pension gluttons and public service is casually denigrated as government bloat.

If that sounds melodramatic, consider a few figures: 4,442 American soldiers dead in Iraq, 1,584 in Afghanistan. As of March, $1.25 trillion spent to destroy and then fail to rebuild and stabilize those countries, a cost that has crippled our capacity to respond to an economic crisis that has devastated the American working and middle classes and reverberated throughout the world. Weighing on our collective conscience, also, are hundreds of thousands of dead Iraqis, tens of thousands of dead Afghans, millions displaced-the overwhelming majority of whom had nothing to do with Al Qaeda's heinous crimes on 9/11. To this, add a legacy of distrust, anger and grievance against the United States that will persist for years to come.

Click to view link

Military industrial complex won the war. Not in Afgh not in Iraq. Over us.

Reply from The Daily Bell

Again, we don't agree with the long war hypothesis. The Anglosphere has regularly attacked Afghanistan in the hopes of subduing the Pashtuns and Punjabis. Without subduing this area of the world, one world government remains an impossibility.

The Anglosophere seems to have failed once again in Afghanistan. It is a huge defeat for forces of globalism. The military industrial complex that serves the great banking families of the world did NOT win the world.

U.S. Prepares to Talk to Taliban It Wanted to 'Destroy'

On the eve of the 2001 U.S. invasion of Afghanistan, Secretary of State Colin Powell instructed his ambassador in Islamabad, Wendy Chamberlin, to get a message to Omar through Pakistani intermediaries. It was neither a lengthy nor complicated communication. Nor was it an invitation to further dialogue.

'It is in your interest and in the interest of your survival to hand over all al-Qaida leaders, to close the terrorists' camps and allow the U.S. access to terrorist facilities,' reads Powell's message, prompted by suspicions of a 9/11 follow-up attack and unearthed by the National Security Archive. 'We will hold leaders of the Taliban personally responsible for any such actions. Every pillar of the Taliban regime will be destroyed.'

It didn't exactly go Powell's way. Omar didn't turn over bin Laden and company. The U.S. crushed the Taliban and ran them out into Pakistan. It took about four years for an insurgency to begin in earnest and then gather in force. The U.S. has been fighting ever since, and the violence has crested at a high point. Omar, however, has outlived even Osama bin Laden, and his political career may make a comeback.

Al Qaeda Was Never an "Existential Threat"

In 9/11's aftermath, FBI officials warned that there might be as many as 5,000 al Qaeda operatives within the United States. FBI Director Robert Mueller insisted that the group had "developed a support infrastructure" with "the ability and the intent to inflict significant casualties in the U.S. with little warning."

Yet in 2005, ABC News obtained a classified FBI report admitting that in a country supposedly honeycombed with al Qaeda operatives, they couldn't find any. "To date," the report stated, "we have not identified any true 'sleeper' agents in the U.S."

Not much has changed in the six years since that memo.

Gene Healy is a vice president at the Cato Institute and the author of The Cult of the Presidency: America's Dangerous Devotion to Executive Power.
More by Gene Healy

Last week, RAND Corp. published a study looking at homegrown jihadi terrorism. Of the 32 "plots" uncovered in the U.S. since 9/11, "only 10 developed anything resembling an operational plan that identified a specific target, developed the means of attack, and offered a sequence of steps to carry [it] out." "Of these, six were Federal Bureau of Investigation stings" involving fake bombs - "on their own, only two individuals actually attempted to build devices. One was arrested while doing so, and the other's device failed."

Click to view link

Most likely. Al Qaeda origins from inteligence community itself. If inteligence community is Al Qaeda itself, then there is just another unwinable war going on. Same as war on drugs. Fire/water rule is excluding to be both.

The Scofield Bible was published by the Oxford University Press (have to wonder who funded it), released in 1909 with commentary inserted along side the KJV which maintained that Christians should support the Israel nation. Note that this propaganda was being promoted even before the State of Israel had been established. The commentary is not supported by the original Hebrew and Greek Biblical texts , and was wholly designed to introduce the false doctrines of dispensationalism and premillienialism in order to stir up a call for establishing the State of Israel. This brought "Christians" into the dialect along with Zionists to support the Elites' plans for the middle East.

Christians have no reason nor obligation to support the "nation" of Israel. But, this propaganda has been so well accepted, without logical and analytical reasoning, that America now believes it is part of God's plan. Nothing could be further from the meaning of God's Word. The original Greek of the New Testament says nothing about the rebuilding of the temple at Jerusalem, nor a "Second" coming of Christ.

America has fallen in line with the Elite's plan for the Middle East, and should immediately cease funding all aid to Israel. We are promoting the violence and murder of innocents in the Middle East, and causing confusion in the Christian congregations.

Today "Christian Zionists" do not realize that the entire concept is a contradiction, and a denial of Christ. Anyone using the Scofield Bible should seriously study its origins, and question its commentary. See also the slide show "C.I.Scofield & Judeo-Christianity" in the left margin at We Hold These Truths, Click to view link.

Ron Paul is so right about everything that neither Washington DC nor the American people can allow their "comfort zone" to be challenged by his correctness. We never learn from the past or the present... and are running out of time for changes that can save us... abandoning Keynesian economics and global empire-building.

Even Ron Paul is afraid to tackle the "unspeakable" issue of Zionist Israel's atrocities with at-all-costs USA support, which is the Muslim Worlds primary complaint against us (so clearly outlined by ben Laden in his 2002 letter to the American people that continues to be totally ignored as though it never existed... and we all know why, don't we American Christians?) What politician could get elected, or re-elected, without the Christian vote??? God can't bring about "end times" without America's help, right?... how pathetic can we get?!!!!

Wow! I'm amazed at the comments that refocus the article from American occupation of foreign coutries to conspiracy theories regarding 9/11.

To be clear, I have seen compelling evidence that supports the theory that the twin towers were destroyed through controlled demolition, not airplanes, but that's really not the point of Ron Pauls comments. Further, if he believes that 9/11 was 'an inside job,' he would be foolish to discuss it in public if he wants any chance of being elected.

His point is that America has provoked terrorist actions, including 9/11, by occupying foreign countries with military forces. I completely agree. In 2005, it was reported the US had 737 military bases (likely inaccurately low) valued at over 127 billion dollars, located in over 130 countries around the globe, and employed more than 2.5 million troops with 200,000 overseas. And then there's the impact of the CIA! The US global presence is out of control and without any constitutional authority. (Click to view link George Washington had it right: avoid entangling foreign alliances. Be friends and trade with everyone and have military treaties with none.

If there is a credible threat to the US, Congress should declare war. We should then go to war, defeat the enemy and then get out! If we want to rebuild the country, it should be by voluntary donations from private citizens, not by establishing military bases and occupying the country.

His comments are very accurate and I am frustrated that so many Americans are so brainless that they cannot think for themselves and acknowledge what our military (actually, the politicians who abuse the military) is doing to provoke such resentment and hatred.

Read Chalmers Johnson's triology; it appears Ron Paul may have read it.

Read Chalmers Johnson's triology; it appears Ron Paul may have read it.

At the3 debate last Night Paul got booed when he was explaining why the Muslims hate us. . . Our armed forces are occupying their countries. We need to get out of our foriegn entanglements, and stop giving money to thesew countries that do not want us there. If they need help with an enemy, they can pay us, why should we do it for free, and why should the American Tax payers foot such extravagances? All in the name of peace and democracy? What a laugh.
RP is the man.
Ethical and constitutional. He talks funny, but so did Moses. . .

Does anybody have reason to believe that RP does not buy into the official explanation of 911? This editorial sure makes it seem like he buys into it--which is truly food for thought.

I know you all have been to public schools, you are parroting Gov't pablum! You can't seriously believe what you are saying here?
Our gov't is doing all possible to keep us from knowing the awful things they are doing to our societies, just to stay in power!
Benisar Bheuto died for telling the world the truth about Osama Bin Laden's death! Now barry soetoro/obama takes the credit for OBL's death! He wants us to believe he sent in the team that did the job! When in fact it was Nature!!
Now who is lying?

I guess Rumsfeld will cancel his Bell subscription now... ... ..

yeah, exactly, I am surprised too, because Ron Paul's USP is that he speaks the truth and is not there for power or prestige, so this is really a shocker to me that he is toeing the official line irrespective of all the flaws inherent.

I just hope he is doing this as a strategy and does not feel like this personally.

I know Ron Paul is trying to become President and if he starts questioning 9/11 openly he will be destroyed but what is this nonsense doing here? At the end he say it can be very uncomfortable to ask the right questions. Yep. And as regards 9/11 he isnt.