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Literature Discussion - Lit-Talk.com
2001 – Prelude to Mass Murder
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Why We Should Expect Another 9/11
Article #15 –
2001 – Prelude to Mass Murder
By
Chris Cobar
It was early 2001. By whatever calendar, purist or revisionist, America had successfully settled into the second Millennium. George the Second had ascended the throne on Pennsylvania Avenue, ending eight years of Democratic rule. Change was in the air. Little did we know that it would be life-changing; that the world would never again be the same.
A year or so earlier, I had assisted the Secret Service in a covert sting operation. The target was a scamster, who bilked people on upfront fees using bogus bank paper. Initially, I had run into him on a South American deal. Having determined that he was hot air, I had shut down the deal and walked away. A year or so later, he resurfaced in Southeast Asia, offering the same garbage. This time the intended victim was my Muslim Prince, which royally ticked me off. I figured that if I didn’t get him off the streets, I’d be running into him every time I turned around. I contacted the Bureau. As it turned out he had already registered on USSS radar. They had an open investigation going on the guy. I was handed off to the Service.
They turned out to be refreshingly efficient and speedy. The sting was set up in record time. I believe my technical title was ‘bait.’ Everything went swimmingly until the batteries in their US$25,000 pseudo-clock-radio/video camera died. It was a little dicey for a bit, but he was suitably nailed and was sent up the river.
This outing led to a series of introductions, one of whom was a “person of interest” to the Bureau. Apparently the Feds had previously sought his cooperation, but with no success. I was requested to ‘make nice’ to this guy who had ‘made nice’ to bin Laden. They even offered to pay my expenses – a phenomenal first for the Bureau. (I didn’t mind cooperating with the government, but I was getting tired of paying for the privilege.) Majorly surprised, I gathered this was important to them and agreed to assist.
It took a couple of months to get things set up and then I was off. I ended up having a series of get-togethers with this guy, in-between which I met with my handlers from the Bureau. It was rather interesting to try and figure out who was following me and when. At the end of the day, it worked out pretty well, though I knew that I had not been told everything that this fellow knew.
Upon returning home, I dutifully prepared my report and sent it forward. The phrase “something spectacular was going to happen soon” kept reverberating in my brain. “Spectacular” was not a word normally used by foreigners. I had pretty much assumed that most would not even know of it. It was a major red flag to me.
Since my report did not include the Twin Towers, 9/11 or 8:46AM, the Bureau did not measure it to be meaningfully meaty. As a consequence, the report was never forwarded to Headquarters; that is before the attacks.
Later, it was sent with the rest of my reports to Washington for the 9/11 Commission. Only after it had been suitably sanitized.
As has been reported elsewhere, there were red flags going up everywhere, but for whatever reasons, no one, who was in charge of driving the bus, bothered to notice. For that oversight, roughly 3,000 people paid with their lives.
I had done what little I could. It hadn’t made a difference. I guess I shouldn’t have been surprized, but I was. Somehow, I had thought this outing would have been different.
Until then.
CC
Thanks for your comments, please keep them coming –
Chris Cobar: rajamuda001@aol.com
Please visit my new blog, www.terrorlog.com
P.S. For those of you who want more than a snappy synopsis of the whys and wherefores of 9/11, I refer you to www.intelwire.com. It is managed by a good friend, John Berger. He is a certified terrorist consultant, who documents his colons and commas. If it's there, you can take it to the bank.
