New Details on F.B.I. Aid for Saudis After 9/11
by Eric Lichtblau, New York Times
Published: March 27, 2005

WASHINGTON, March 26 - The episode has been retold so many times in the last three and a half years that it has become the stuff of political legend: in the frenzied days after Sept. 11, 2001, when some flights were still grounded, dozens of well-connected Saudis, including relatives of Osama bin Laden, managed to leave the United States on specially chartered flights. Now, newly released government records show previously undisclosed flights from Las Vegas and elsewhere and point to a more active role by the Federal Bureau of Investigation in aiding some of the Saudis in their departure. The F.B.I. gave personal airport escorts to two prominent Saudi families who fled the United States, and several other Saudis were allowed to leave the country without first being interviewed, the documents show. The Saudi families, in Los Angeles and Orlando, requested the F.B.I. escorts because they said they were concerned for their safety in the wake of the attacks, and the F.B.I. - which was then beginning the biggest criminal investigation in its history - arranged to have agents escort them to their local airports, the documents show. But F.B.I. officials reacted angrily, both internally and publicly, to the suggestion that any Saudis had received preferential treatment in leaving the country.

Robyn E. Blumner. I just discovered this great 'perspective columnist'; she writes for the St. Petersburg Times and I must say, her recent article Zealotry and its Victims is a breath of fresh air in the midst of all this nonsense about the Terry Schiavo case.

BBC 17 March, 2005: "Secret US plans for Iraq's oil"

"War on Terror" is a Wolfowitz Agenda: In 1992, Paul Wolfowitz, under secretary of defense for policy, takes the lead in drafting an internal set of military guidelines, called a "Defense Planning Guidance." It said 'America should preempt the proliferation of WMD. And if America has to act alone, so be it.' The White House orders Defense Secretary Cheney to rewrite it. In the new draft there is no mention of preemption or U.S. willingness to act alone.

Information isn't a part of most people's lives. It makes their brains hurt and they resent being put into a position where they have to think. When I worked at Adobe Systems, the cubicle people felt like they were better than most people because they had to read to keep their jobs. They understood finances, the stock market, software. They even had a chestnut or two about Greek history which they were only too glad to pull out in the course of a conversation. But they weren't intellectually curious.