Drumbeat Grows for Declassifying the 28 Pages

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A series of articles appearing over the past twenty-four hours reflects the growing drumbeat, as Rep. Walter Jones described it, to force the Obama administration to declassify the 28 pages of the Joint Congressional Inquiry report on 9/11.

A sampling:

• “The 28 Classified Pages as a 2016 Presidential Campaign Issue” is the latest posting on 28page.org, referring particularly to Michael Rubin’s piece in Commentary, which Rubin followed up by a posting on the website of the American Enterprise Institute, “Why is the 9/11 report still censored?” in which Rubin summarizes his Commentary piece, and concludes:

“As the election campaign begins and both Republicans and Democrats begin the traditional game of footsie with supporters, donors, and the press, perhaps each and every presidential aspirant should take a pledge: release the missing 28 pages of the 9/11 report on their first day in office. And if they are not willing to take that pledge, perhaps they can explain why deference to Saudi sensitivities continues to trump full transparency if not accountability for the largest and most consequential terrorist attack ever perpetrated on American soil.”

• OpEdNews on Jan. 21 published “Retired Senator Bob Graham slams the White House Over Non-Release of 28 Redacted Pages of 9-11 Report.” Author David William Pear reports in great detail that Graham is putting on a “full-court press” to get the redacted 28 pages of the 9-11 Commission report released to the public, as these “are suspected of revealing that Saudi Arabia was involved in the financing and aiding of at least some of the 9-11 hijackers.” Pear documents the stonewalling and cover-up by both the Bush and Obama administrations, and quotes extensively from Graham’s remarks at the Jan. 7 press conference in D.C. with Walter Jones and Steven Lynch, for which he provides the link, in addition to links to other interviews Graham has given.

• Huffington Post‘s “World Post” has a piece, “How Saudi Wahhabism Is the Fountainhead of Islamist Terrorism,” in which the author (from BASIC) writes:

“the fountainhead of Islamic extremism that promotes and legitimizes such violence lies with the fanatical ‘Wahhabi’ strain of Islam centered in Saudi Arabia. And if the world wants to tamp down and eliminate such violent extremism, it must confront this primary host and facilitator.”

The article provides many details on Saudi funding of madrassas, terrorists, etc., and cites former Sen. Bob Graham and the fight to release the 28 pages.

• The National Interest Jan. 21 publishes under the headline “9/11 Forever (and Ever)” a good article by retired Army Col. Daniel Davis, with the kicker:

“The specter of ‘9/11’ continues to be used as justification for a seemingly endless list of security measures, funding for a never-ending stream of weapon systems and for every military action overseas.”

And, he notes, many of these measures “have caused us to drift into darker moral territory,” citing the invasion of Iraq, drone strikes, and torture, which have actually undercut our security. Davis demands that as a nation, the U.S. must be willing to stand up and admit that these were wrong, and correct course.

“If America fails to make such corrections, we may one day discover we have accumulated more ill-will than we can handle. On that day the bill may be greater than any of us can afford to pay.”

• Bloomberg, Jan. 21 article by Eli Lake “Why Obama Can’t Say ‘Radical Islam’.” The answer is, of course, that both Obama and Bush before him sought the support of many radical Muslims in the long war against radical Islamic terrorists.

“It sounds strange. But as Emile Nakhleh, who was one of the CIA’s top experts on political Islam between 1993 and 2006, told me, there was a recognition following the 9/11 attacks inside the Bush administration that many supporters of the Wahhabi strain of Islam favored by al-Qaeda and its allies were not plotting attacks on the West. In some cases, such as the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, the purveyors of Wahhabism were longstanding American allies. ‘There was the two-ton elephant in the room, and that is Saudi Arabia,’ Nakhleh said.”

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