Lance vs. Fitzgerald

[noise]

CHICAGO (AP) — The top federal prosecutor in Chicago is threatening to sue publisher HarperCollins, calling a book about the war on terrorism that focuses in part on cases he handled "a deliberate lie masquerading as the truth."

If HarperCollins publishes the new edition of "Triple Cross" by Peter Lance this month "and it defames me or casts me in a false light, HarperCollins will be sued," Patrick Fitzgerald said in a letter to the New York-based company.

The book focuses on, among other things, major terrorism cases that Fitzgerald prosecuted when he was an assistant U.S. attorney in New York in the 1990s.

...

Fitzgerald threatens to sue publisher over book

I'm not sure why Fitzgerald is so upset about the new edition. The first edition basically suggests that the SDNY protected Ali Mohamed who Lance describes as triple agent working for al Qaeda.

IMO the Scarpa Jr. episode makes little sense. If I am stating it correctly (it's pretty confusing), Lance suggests Scarpa Jr. received information from Yousef and Murad which implicates them (and al Qaeda) in the Flight 800 crash. He was able to do so because Murad and Yousef were in jail cells on either side of his. But Lance claims Fitzegerald and the SDNY buried Scarpa's findings because of corrupt prosecutions involving Scarpa Jr.'s father, a notorious mob hit man. The corruption involves the conduct of FBI agent Lin Devecchio who was accused of feeding information to Scarpa Sr. in order to facilitate his job (i.e. mob hits).

1) Why would the SDNY arrange the Scarpa Jr. plan in the first place if they knew there was a conflict of interest?

2) What is with all the coincidences? Scarpa Jr. just happened to be placed in a cell between Yousef and Murad? If I remember correctly, Lance suggests that the SDNY plan was formulated after Yousef and Murad starting confiding in Scarpa Jr.

IMO Lance has formulated an incredibly complicated explanation for the SDNY's conduct in relation to evident protection of Ali Mohamed. A more simple explanation is that Ali Mohamed was a protected intel asset (black ops) and this isn't something the SDNY wants the public to know. For some reason Lance won't consider this, so instead he comes up with the triple agent/Devecchio/Scarpa Jr. explanation.

[JackRiddler]

1. Lance is a good reporter...

who knows where to draw the line. So I figure.

As a successful book writer with a following, and thus not beholden directly to corporate news media or a think tank, he's free to go in depth and investigate and emphasize important and real details that are otherwise ignored or suppressed. But there are still lines he can't cross. Outlandishly complex scenarios are acceptable, long as the pretzel logic concludes that US officials are incompetent, venal, even corrupt, and thus were hoodwinked by (US Special Forces Master Sergeant!) Ali Mohamed, the "triple agent."

Your thesis is far simpler by the standards of parsimony, has the very same evidence in favor that Lance marshals but without the added assumptions Lance needs, and would join a long line of precedents. Nevertheless, it is verboten. As soon as you present the straightforward explanation that the man declared a foreign terrorist by the United States is working for an agency of the US government, you have crossed into the heresy of "conspiracy theory," an accusation that has the advantage of associating you with any other heretical belief the accuser pleases.

If Lance raised the possibility Ali Mohamed was a US agent, he would mobilize a reflexive reaction from a public squad of self-appointed and hired guardians of the realm. They would step up and do their damndest to smear, block and defame him. He could still sell books, but he would forever after be relegated to the conspiracy niche market, and not be cited as an investigative reporter in respectable circles.

Palast is another good example of this. He's among the people who present important research supporting full skepticism about 9/11, and then later theatrically write their "I Hate Conspiracy Theorists" condemnation with all the standard off-the-menu tropes (the lizard people, the psychological bullshit, etc.). Cockburn's done it, too. To an extent, even our Paul Thompson fits the pattern, though he's simply assumed a distance to the "movement" crowd without issuing Cockburn-like denunciations. I don't blame him!

I think Lance and Palast have probably convinced themselves of what they need to believe to sustain their careers.

[BeFree]

2. Thanks, Riddler

Just as Palast and Lance have to protect their careers, in the same sense Obama must do the same.

Attaching themselves in any way to skeptics like me would be dangerous to their long held careers. I don't blame them one bit. Heck, who hasn't seen newspaper reporters shy away from issues far less dangerous?

[JackRiddler]

3. Oh, I blame them, say, two bits.

It's a fine line they walk, no doubt, but courageous investigators who don't go all the way can also serve a legitimating function. By saying they can do more by keeping their positions, they set up a slippery slope. Many examples abound.

The reason I blame them far less in this case is because the 9/11 question was hijacked from the original matter of demanding accountability, openness and justice and holding the government's feet to the evidentiary fire. Instead of focusing on the chain of command, the cover-up and the commission and advancing only a best-evidence case, you got Loose Change, Alex Jones and other practitioners of grand scenario theater (we'll leave out Nico and the later WTC no-planers as a very vocal but ultimately tiny minority). Also, the "demolitions only" approach. I fully understand why anyone would want a lot of distance there.

[BeFree]

4. Two bits

Honestly, I've never seen Loose Change, read any Alex Jones, etc. I was here in 02-03 reading and writing. Was here when we got our own Brand New Forum!!

So, I have to take your word for those 'off-the-wall' conspiracies. Doesn't matter much to me except that as you seem to say they are responsible for the misdirection.

As far as I was concerned, since the matter has been handled the way it has by Bushco, any theory carried equal weight. Recently the idea of embedded disinfo came to me in a big way. Makes perfect sense that Bushco would manipulate some things in order to make all of us 'scary'.

Might explain the harsh reactions I've recently received in this forum. To some degree, my association with alternative theories has been viewed as being aligned with some of the more 'scary' theories, I guess. Oh well.

Too, all the poor sheeple who are led around by the nose get scared really easy, so Bushco manipulating even more of the story to scare more sheeple, makes perfect sense.

Ya gotta hand it to 'em, they did know how to get their way.

[rschop]

5. re: Lance is a good reporter

From prior post:

“If Lance raised the possibility Ali Mohamed was a US agent, he would mobilize a reflexive reaction from a public squad of self-appointed and hired guardians of the realm. They would step up and do their damndest to smear, block and defame him. He could still sell books, but he would forever after be relegated to the conspiracy niche market, and not be cited as an investigative reporter in respectable circles.”

But Mohamed was a US Agent. He worked inside of the CIA, the FBI, and even the Army special forces. His first assignment at the CIA was to infiltrate a Mosque in Hamburg, Germany thought to be used by a cell of Islamic terrorists.

He also help trained Bin Laden's body guards, and was the one holding the photo of the one of the east African embassies when Bin Laden pointed at a spot on the photograph and said; "the bomb (truck bomb) should go here!"

But Lance's book on Ali Mohamed was rendered incomplete when it was clear that he had never read the DOJ IG report on 9/11.

[noise]

6. Lance is putting forth the view

that Ali Mohamed was similar to FBI mole Robert Hannsen. He fooled the CIA, FBI, SDNY and the US special forces. This doesn't ring true for two main reasons. One, Lance writes about Mohamed's brazen conduct, as Mohamed admits his extremist views on videotape. Two, we are to believe US intel are naive. As if counterintelligence wasn't even a consideration even though the CIA is well known for Cold War counterintelligence (i.e. Angleton).

A CIA asset pretending to be al Qaeda (basically an agent provocateur) is quite different from an al Qaeda mole pretending to be loyal to the US.

[JackRiddler]

8. You know something? Either way it's bound to go wrong.

It's the nature of this beast. In the end, does it really matter how many double-crosses are played, by whom? The alphabet agencies play chess in secret and perpetuate the problems they're supposed to solve.

Want to end terrorism and anti-American insurgencies? Promote self-sufficient development for all of these nations. Stop covert meddling, if you have a problem with a country say so up front. Otherwise, cancel debts, remove forces, help them set up clean water and food-first agricultural models. End the empire. Bring the forces home and invest that wealth here. Everyone wins.

But nooooo... the adult way is supposed to be childish! We're stuck in an endless game of intrigue and war, that's how it's always been and must always remain.

[JackRiddler]

7. So maybe Lance is helping cover it up?

I don't know. It's obvious Mohamed was a US agent, and he was disappeared after the embassy trial - taken either to witness protection or the "Jimmy Hoffa Place." No trial, no verdict.

Lance is the only one who's written a book about it, far as I know, and either a) he's persuaded himself of the unlikely "triple agent" scenario; b) he feels he needs to draw the line at saying Ali M. was acting on US orders; c) he's out to muddy the waters.

What we see over and over is that the supposed necessary infiltration and necessary "dealing with unsavory characters" never, ever seems to produce anything except bogus scare cases (like the FBI's latest in New York) or stings that "go wrong" and metastasize into attacks where the USG informant himself seems to have recruited the personnel, organized the logistics, and provided the bombs. After a time, not recognizing the pattern is a real feat. A certain breed of skeptics consider it "open minded" to assume any pattern you see is just "confirmation bias" or the natural tendency to spot patterns. Of course, if the pattern exonerated the government, they would have no problems acknowledging it. No, our government couldn't be running an industry, a terror-security complex! Could it?

[noise]

9. From what I know

of Lance's work (books, radio, presentations) he is accusing Fitzgerald of CYA. In order to protect mob prosecution cases in relation to Scarpa Jr. In order to protect the SDNY from embarrassment for being played by an al Qaeda mole. One would think a curious interviewer would ask him the obvious question--are you really saying US intel was fooled? That is the theory you're going with?

In case anyone hasn't seen it, Lance's MFR has been declassified by NARA: http://media.nara.gov/9-11/MFR/t-0148-911MFR-00672.pdf">Peter Lance interviewed by Dieter Snell and Marco A. Cordero

I think Lance later accused Snell of moving the 9/11 Commission's timeline forward to conceal the role of Yousef in 9/11. According to Lance Philippine Police Col. Mendoza uncovered the 9/11 plot via interrogations. Lance also wrote in one of his books that the 9/11 plot was found on Yosef's laptop. Three plots: Bojinka (small timer bombs to be placed on several airliners), Murad's plan to crash a small explosives filled plane into CIA headquarters and the 9/11 plot of hijacked planes crashed into US landmarks. Lance also raises a good question in relation to the search for KSM. In contrast to the highly publicized search for Yousef, KSM's indictment was sealed until I think '98.

[rschop]

11. re: 9/11 and what the CIA knew

After 9/11, Police Col. Mendoza revealed that he had personally given the CIA the follow on plans to the Bojinka plot. The main plan from Abdul Harkim Murad's computer indicated that al Qaeda wanted to hijack 10 large aircraft inside of the US and target the World Trade Center Towers, the Pentagon, the US Capital building and the CIA headquarters for starters.

KSM after 1998 had a FBI reward on his head for $2,000,000 US. It was noted by the FAA if he was found at any US airport he was to be arrested and his baggage prevented from being placed on any aircraft.

This makes one wonder when the 9/11 Commission report notes that on June 12, 2001 the CIA found out that KSM was behind the al Qaeda attacks they were receiving numerous warnings about, why they did not do more to stop his attack.

The warnings about KSM indicated that he had recruited a number of al Qaeda terrorists who were being sent into the US in the summer of 2001 to link up with other al Qaeda terrorist already in the US to take part in these attacks.

The CIA had already knew that KSM had help finance the original attack on the WTC Towers, with his nephew, Ramzi Yosef, and knew that KSM had also planned this major hijacking attack with Abdul Harkim Murad's and Ramzi Yousef, and even knew that Yousef had been arrested at 1995 at an al Qaeda safe house in Pakistan.

The CIA even knew that when the Cole had been bombing it was only after the al Qaeda terrorists had tried to attack the "USS the Sullivans" at the same location and failed when their boat sank from the weight of the explosives. This clearly indicated that the al Qaeda terrorists never gave up on any target that they had failed to destroy in their first attack.

The CIA even knew that Sheikh Abdel Rahman, the mastermind for the original 1993 attack on the WTC Towers was the spiritual leader of the al Qaeda terrorists

When the CIA and FBI HQ knew by April of 2001 that a huge al Qaeda attack was in the works and found out in July that it was to take place inside of the US, they already knew that KSM was behind the planning for this attack, they claimed that they just could not figure out that the terrorists were going back after the WTC towers with hijacked aircraft?

The CIA even knew that the Kuala Lumpur meeting in January 2000 had taken place less than one week after the hijacking of Air India 814, a hijacking that ended right at the Kandahar airport where Mohammed Atef, the military commander of the al Qaeda terrorists, had his headquarters. They had to know that this meeting in Kuala Lumpur had to be about the future al Qaeda plans involving what was learned in the Air India 814 hijacking.

This would indicate that the CIA knew the attack would be the hijacking of multiple aircraft, a hijacking closely based on the Air India 814 attack combined with the second phase of KSM's Bojinka plot and would target the World Trade Center Towers, the Pentagon and the Capital building as the most obvious targets, and take place in the fall of 2001.

HELLO HELLO KNOCH KNOCK IS ANYBODY HOME

YET THEY CLAIM THEY DID NOT KNOW THIS

HOW STUPID CAN YOU GET FOR THE CHRISTS SAKE!!!!

They go to the 9/11 Commission hearings and claim they were so completely stupid that they just could not put any of this together and the reason was they just did not have enough money or man power.

Failure it turns out was its own best reward. It allowed you to blame the American people for underfunding your agency and then you could ask for more money and manpower. If 20 thousands idiots could not figure out and prevent the attacks on 9/11 then just maybe 30 thousand idiots could.

But we now have incontrovertible proof that the CIA knowingly and intentionally allowed the al Qaeda terrorists to carry out the attacks on 9/11. It is clear from the Substitution of John, aka Tom Wilshire deputy chief of the Bin Laden unit that in July the CIA knew that Mihdhar and Hazmi were going to take part in an al Qaeda attack that the CIA already knew about. On August 22, 2001 both Tom Wilshire and FBI IOS HQ Agent Dina Corsi were told that Mihdhar and Hazmi were inside of the US.

Both Wilshire and Corsi knew these al Qaeda terrorists were inside of the US in order to take part in a huge al Qaeda attack that the CIA and the FBI HQ already knew about. Yet not only was this information kept secret from the FBI criminal investigators on the Cole bombing, but both Corsi and Wilshire worked to shut down this investigation, knowing that this would result in the deaths of thousands of Americans in this upcoming al Qaeda attack.

We had spent 44 billion dollars a year on our intelligence agencies and as a result 3000 innocent Americans were deliberately allowed to be killed by these same agencies. But everyone knew the people at the CIA were out and out criminals. You might say we got just what we paid for.

The fact that our own intelligence agencies intentionally allowed the al Qaeda terrorists to carry on the attacks on 9/11 now has to be an open secret in Washington DC.

[noise]

10. I don't know where journalists like Lance and Palast are coming from

IMO at some point one must simply accept uncertainty. Unresolved issues. Loose ends. Much better than playing the accusation game.

I recommend anyone seeking to know more about 9/11, US intelligence and al Qaeda should read Lance's books.

[JackRiddler]

12. Rory O'Connor on Fitzgerald's "jihad" against Lance...

Although undoubtedly a public figure, Fitzgerald has been waging a private jihad to get Lance's book killed. He has written repeatedly to HarperCollins - owned by Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. - demanding it "cease publication" and "withdraw" copies of Triple Cross, which was originally published in hard cover in 2006. His first letter to the publisher alleged that "Triple Cross makes a number of statements of fact which defame me (and others) and which are easily proven to be objectively false." He asked the publisher to stop selling all hard cover copies, not to print a new paperback edition, and to acknowledge errors. His most recent letter arrived June 2. "To put it plain and simple," Fitzgerald wrote, "if in fact you publish the book this month and it defames me or casts me in a false light, HarperCollins will be sued."

The letters -- one of which was sent via fax from the U.S. Attorney's Office -- are unusual to say the least. "We certainly find it highly offensive that a federal prosecutor would do something like this," Gregg Leslie of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press told Newsweek. But Fitzgerald is resolute, charging that Lance's claims in Triple Cross are "outrageously dishonest" and that Lance "alleged that I deliberately misled courts and the public" in ways that led to the 9/11 attacks. The book most notably accuses Fitzgerald of botching the handling of a key FBI informant who doubled as a Qaeda spy, and also suggests the prosecutor filed a false affidavit, perhaps to cover up the relationship between an FBI agent and a leading mob figure.

Lance responds by asserting that Fitzgerald is trying to "kill" his book with "baseless" allegations. "Patrick Fitzgerald accuses me of making charges in the book that I never made," he says. "At the same time, he continually fails to respond to the substantive allegations documented in 604 pages, 1,425 end notes and 32 pages of documentary appendices."

Ironically, Fitzgerald's latest and most surprising assault on the Fourth Estate may also be the best thing that ever happened to Lance and Triple Cross. "That's the ultimate irony," Lance admits. "The book wasn't reviewed by a single U.S. publication. If Fitzgerald never did anything, it would have just faded into obscurity this is the true lesson of censorship."

http://www.alternet.org/media/140613/what_is_patrick_fitzgerald_trying_to_hide_from_the_public/