Lost in the halls of mirrors

Governments lie.

That's one of the first things I tell my freshmen: governments lie.  Not always, but often enough you need to always be aware of the possibility.  Paul Roberts gets into that territory when he talks about James Jesus Angleton, and stories within stories, and false trails, and 9/11.  Why was the unofficial Saudi funding connection classified?  It's not like anyone who knew anything about Al Qaeda didn't know about contacts in the royal family, including high-ranking people in the government.  It doesn't prove they ordered it.  It doesn't even prove that they knew about it.  Money is fungible.

The next interesting question, for me, is why are these documents declassified now?  Is it to remind people of Bush, and tar the Republicans?  That feels like a stretch.  Is there another connection, and this is supposed to lead us away from it?  Or to it?  Roberts claims the purpose is to reinforce the main story--highjackers, airplanes, surprise, etc.--while pointing to an irrelevant financing channel.  He seems to want us to believe 9/11 was, at least in part, an inside job.  That's a logical leap I'm unwilling to make.  While governments lie, in the long run they aren't very good at it.  There would have to be too many people involved to keep a secret this large for this long.  It's easier to imagine colossal incompetence, at several levels, followed by a lot of mutually-supporting CYA.

Will we ever have a clear picture of everything that happened on 9/11?  Probably not.  But as people grow older, and confess, and reveal their sins, we'll know more.  As copies of records are declassified, or leaked, or stolen, we'll know more.  As other countries reveal what they know, we'll know more.  Given time, we'll probably have a better picture of the mix of crime and incompetence.  It won't be perfect.  History is never perfect.  But we'll probably have a more complete picture than we have now.

And whatever is the truth, it probably won't be able to compete with the myths.  

Is the Saudi 9/11 Story Part Of The Deception? -- Paul Craig Roberts - PaulCraigRoberts.org