The Bush Doctrine & The 9/11 Commission Report: Both Authored by Philip Zelikow

By David Ray Griffin

04/10/08 "ICH " -- - Thanks to the interview of Sarah Palin by Charles Gibson of ABC News on September 11, the “Bush Doctrine” has become part of American political discourse much more fully than it was before. Thanks to that interview and the commentary that followed, Governor Palin and millions of other Americans learned of the existence and meaning of this fateful doctrine---fateful because, as New York Times reporter Philip Shenon has pointed out, it was used to “justify a preemptive strike on Iraq.”¹

Thus far, however, the commentary following that interview has not brought out the fact that the document in which the Bush Doctrine was first fully articulated---the 2002 version of The National Security Strategy of the United States of America (NSS 2002) [pdf]---was written by the same person who was primarily responsible for the 9/11 Commission’s report: its executive director, Philip Zelikow.

This fact constituted an enormous conflict of interest that should, at the very least, keep Americans from referring to the 9/11 Commission as a model to be emulated---as did John McCain this September 15 in suggesting that “a 9/11-type commission” should be set up to study the causes of the recent financial crisis. As Shenon shows in his 2008 book, The Commission: The Uncensored History of the 9/11 Investigation, Zelikow’s authorship of NSS 2002, in conjunction with his close relationship to the Bush White House that this authorship illustrated, means that when the 9/11 Commission was formed in 2003, he should never have been chosen to be its executive director.

In the first part of this essay, I discuss the Bush Doctrine as articulated in NSS 2002. In the second part, I discuss Zelikow’s authorship of this document. In the third part, I discuss how he, in spite of this authorship, became the Commission’s executive director, and why this was problematic for the credibility of The 9/11 Commission Report.

The Bush Doctrine

According to international law as reflected in the charter of the United Nations, a preemptive war is legal in only one situation: if a country has certain knowledge that an attack by another country is imminent---too imminent for the matter to be taken to the UN Security Council.

Preemptive war, thus defined, is to be distinguished from “preventive war,” in which a country, fearing that another country may some time in the future become strong enough to attack it, attacks that country in order to prevent that possibility. Such wars are illegal under international law. Preventive wars, in fact, belong under the category of unprovoked wars, which were declared at the Nuremburg trials to constitute the “supreme international crime.”²

This traditional distinction between “preventive” and “preemptive” war creates a terminological problem, because preventive war, being illegal, is worse than preemptive war, and yet to most ears “preemption” sounds worse than “prevention.” As a result, many people speak of “preemptive war” when they really mean preventive war. To avoid any confusion, I employ the term “preemptive-preventive war” for what has traditionally been known as preventive war.³

People known as neoconservatives (or simply neocons), the most powerful member of whom has been Dick Cheney, did not like the idea that America’s use of military power could be constrained by the prohibition against preemptive-preventive war. In 1992, Cheney, in his last year as secretary of defense, had Paul Wolfowitz (the undersecretary of defense for policy) and Lewis (“Scooter”) Libby write the Defense Planning Guidance of 1992, which said that the United States should use force to “preempt” and “preclude threats.”⁴ In 1997, William Kristol founded a neocon think tank called the Project for the New American Century (PNAC).⁵ In 1998, a letter signed by 18 members of PNAC---including Kristol, Wolfowitz, John Bolton, Richard Perle, Donald Rumsfeld, and James Woolsey---urged President Clinton to “undertake military action” to eliminate “the possibility that Iraq will be able to use or threaten to use weapons of mass destruction.”⁶

Only after 9/11, however, were the neocons able to turn their wish to leave international law behind into official US policy. As Stephen Sniegoski wrote, “it was only the traumatic effects of the 9/11 terrorism that enabled the agenda of the neocons to become the policy of the United States of America.”⁷ Andrew Bacevich likewise wrote: “The events of 9/11 provided the tailor-made opportunity to break free of the fetters restricting the exercise of American power.”⁸

The idea of preemptive-preventive war, which came to be known as the “Bush doctrine,” was first clearly expressed in the president’s address at West Point in June 2002, when the administration began preparing the American people for the attack on Iraq. Having stated that, in relation to “new threats,” deterrence “means nothing” and containment is “not possible,” Bush dismissed preemption as traditionally understood, saying: “If we wait for threats to fully materialize, we will have waited too long.” Then, using the language of preemption while meaning preemptive-prevention, he said that America’s security “will require all Americans . . . to be ready for preemptive action.”⁹

Having been sketched in June 2002, the Bush Doctrine was first fully laid out that September in NSS 2002. This document’s covering letter, speaking of “our enemies’ efforts to acquire dangerous technologies,” declares that America will, in self-defense, “act against such emerging threats before they are fully formed.”¹⁰ Then the document itself, saying that “our best defense is a good offense,” states:

“Given the goals of rogue states and terrorists, the United States can no longer rely on a reactive posture as we have in the past. The inability to deter a potential attacker, the immediacy of today's threats, and the magnitude of potential harm that could be caused by our adversaries' choice of weapons, do not permit that option. We cannot let our enemies strike first.”¹¹

In justifying this change of doctrine, NSS 2002 argues that the United States must “adapt” the traditional doctrine of preemption, long recognized as a right, to the new situation, thereby turning it into a right of anticipatory (preventive) preemption:

“For centuries, international law recognized that nations need not suffer an attack before they can lawfully take action to defend themselves against forces that present an imminent danger of attack. . . . We must adapt the concept of imminent threat to the capabilities and objectives of today’s adversaries. . . . The United States has long maintained the option of preemptive actions to counter a sufficient threat to our national security. The greater the threat, . . . the more compelling the case for taking anticipatory action to defend ourselves, even if uncertainty remains as to the time and place of the enemy’s attack. To forestall or prevent such hostile acts by our adversaries, the United States will, if necessary, act preemptively.”¹²

With this argument, NSS 2002 tried to suggest that, since this doctrine of preventive preemption simply involved adapting a traditionally recognized right to a new situation, it brought about no great change. But it did. According to the traditional doctrine, one needed certain evidence that an attack from the other country was imminent. According to the Bush Doctrine, by contrast, the United States can attack another country “even if uncertainty remains” and even if the United States knows that the threat from the other country is not yet “fully formed.”

The novelty here, to be sure, involves doctrine more than practice. The United States has in fact attacked several countries that presented no imminent military threat. But it always portrayed these attacks in such a way that they could appear to comport with international law---for example, by claiming, before attacking North Vietnam, that it had attacked a US ship in the Tonkin Gulf. “Never before,” however---point out Stefan Halper and Jonathan Clarke, who call themselves Reagan conservatives---“had any president set out a formal national strategy doctrine that included [preventive] preemption.”¹³

This unprecedented doctrine was, as we have seen, one that neocons had long desired. Indeed, neocon Max Boot described NSS 2002 as a “quintessentially neo-conservative document.”¹⁴ And, as we have also seen, the adoption of this doctrine was first made possible by the 9/11 attacks. Halper and Clarke themselves say, in fact, that 9/11 allowed the “preexisting ideological agenda” of the neoconservatives to be “taken off the shelf . . . and relabeled as the response to terror.”¹⁵

Zelikow and NSS 2002

The 9/11 attacks, we have seen, allowed the Bush-Cheney administration to adopt the doctrine of preemptive-preventive war, which the neocons in the administration---most prominently Cheney himself---had long desired. One would assume, therefore, that the 9/11 Commission would not have been run by someone who helped formulate this doctrine, because the Commission should have investigated, among other things, whether the Bush-Cheney administration might have had anything to gain from 9/11 attacks---whether they, in other words, might have had a motive for orchestrating or at least deliberately allowing the attacks. Amazing as it may seem, however, Philip Zelikow, who directed the 9/11 Commission and was the primary author of its final report, had also been the primary author of NSS 2002.

Lying behind Zelikow’s authorship of NSS 2002 was the fact that he was close, both personally and ideologically, to Condoleezza Rice, who as National Security Advisor to President Bush had the task of creating this document. Zelikow had worked with Rice in the National Security Council during the Bush I presidency. Then, when the Republicans were out of power during the Clinton years, Zelikow and Rice co-authored a book together. Finally, when she was appointed National Security Advisor to Bush II, she brought on Zelikow to help with the transition to the new National Security Council. Given that long relationship, Zelikow evidently came to mind when Rice found the first draft of NSS unsatisfactory.

According to James Mann in Rise of the Vulcans: The History of Bush’s War Cabinet, this first draft had been produced by Richard Haass, who was the director of policy planning under Colin Powell in the State Department.¹⁶ Although this draft by Haass is evidently not publicly available, an insight into what it contained might be provided by an address Haass had given in 2000 entitled “Imperial America.”

While Haass called on Americans to “re-conceive their global role from one of a traditional nation-state to an imperial power,” his foreign policy suggestions were very different from those of the neocons. Saying that “primacy is not to be confused with hegemony” and that “[a]n effort to assert U.S. hegemony is . . . bound to fail,” he called for acceptance of the fact that the world in coming decades “will be a world more multipolar than the present one.” Also, insisting that “[a]n imperial foreign policy is not to be confused with imperialism,” which involves exploitation, he stated that “imperial America is not to be confused with either hegemonic America or unilateral America.” In the new world order that he envisaged, “The United States would need to relinquish some freedom of action,” which would mean that it “would be more difficult to carry out preventive or preemptive strikes on suspect military facilities.” He suggested, moreover, that “[c]oercion and the use of force would normally be a last resort.” The United States would instead rely primarily on “persuasion,” “consultation,” and “global institutions,” especially the UN Security Council.¹⁷

In any case, whatever the exact nature of the draft for NSS 2002 that Haass produced, Rice, after seeing it, wanted “something bolder,” Mann reports. Deciding that the document should be “completely rewritten,” she “turned the writing over to her old colleague . . . Philip Zelikow.”¹⁸

Given the hawkish tone of the resulting NSS 2002, we might assume that Zelikow was simply taking dictation from Cheney, Rumsfeld, or Wolfowitz. According to Mann, however, “the hawks in the Pentagon and in Vice President Cheney’s office hadn’t been closely involved, even though the document incorporated many of their key ideas. They had left the details and the drafting in the hands of Rice and Zelikow, along with Rice’s deputy, Stephen Hadley.”¹⁹

It would seem, therefore, that we can take this “quintessentially neo-conservative document,” which used 9/11 to justify exempting the United States from international law, as reflecting Zelikow’s own thinking. This means that, besides being aligned with the Bush-Cheney White House personally (by virtue primarily of his friendship with Rice) and structurally (by virtue of helping her set up the new NSC), he was also closely aligned ideologically with Cheney and other neocons in the administration.

Such a person obviously should not have been put in charge of the 9/11 Commission, given the fact that one of the main questions it should have investigated was whether the Bush-Cheney administration had any responsibility for the 9/11 attacks, whether through incompetence or complicity. Pursuing the possibility of complicity in particular would have required the Commission to ask whether the administration would have had motives for wanting the attacks. Given the fact that Zelikow had authored the document that provided the doctrine of preemptive-preventive warfare desired by leading members of this administration, he would have been one of the worst possible choices to lead such an investigation.

The story of how Zelikow was, nevertheless, chosen to be the executive director has been told by Philip Shenon in The Commission.

Zelikow and the 9/11 Commission

In their preface to The 9/11 Commission Report, Thomas Kean and Lee Hamilton, the Commission’s chair and vice chair, respectively, said that the Commission “sought to be independent, impartial, thorough, and nonpartisan.” In light of the fact that the 9/11 attacks had occurred during the watch of the Bush-Cheney administration, being “independent” and “impartial” would have meant, above all, being fully independent of this administration.

With Zelikow as its executive director, the 9/11 Commission could have been independent of the Bush-Cheney administration only if the executive director’s role was merely that of a facilitator, meaning a person who did not influence either the Commission’s research or the content of its final report. Some people, in hearing Zelikow described as the 9/11 Commission’s “executive director,” may assume that he had that kind of role. As Shenon has shown, however, nothing could be further from the truth. Zelikow ran the Commission and took charge of the writing of its final report.

With regard to the work of the Commission, Zelikow sought, and largely achieved, total control. He achieved this control through several means.

First, the work of the Commission was done not by Kean, Hamilton, and the other commissioners who, by virtue of appearing on television during the Commission’s open hearings, became the public face of the Commission. The work, instead, was done by the 80-some staff members.

Second, Shenon points out, these staff members worked directly under Zelikow: “Zelikow had insisted that there be a single, nonpartisan staff.” This meant that none of the commissioners would “have a staff member of their own, typical on these sorts of independent commissions.” Zelikow thereby prevented “any of the commissioners from striking out on their own in the investigation.”²⁰

Third, none of the commissioners, including Kean and Hamilton, were given offices in the K Street office building used by the Commission’s staff. As a result, “most of the commissioners rarely visited K Street. Zelikow was in charge.”²¹

Fourth, even though the Commission would not have existed had it not been for the efforts of the families of the 9/11 victims, “the families were not allowed into the commission’s offices because they did not have security clearances.”²²

Fifth, Zelikow made it clear to the staff members that they worked for him, not for the commissioners. He even prevented direct contact between the staff and the commissioners as much as possible. “If information gathered by the staff was to be passed to the commissioners, it would have to go through Zelikow.”²³ Although the commissioners forced Zelikow to rescind his most extreme order of this nature---that the staff members were not even to return phone calls from the commissioners without his permission²⁴---he largely, Shenon reports, achieved his goal: “Zelikow’s micromanagement meant that the staff had little, if any, contact with the ten commissioners; all information was funneled through Zelikow, and he decided how it would be shared elsewhere.”²⁵ Indeed, Shenon says, Zelikow insisted “that every scrap of secret evidence gathered by the staff be shared with him before anyone else; he then controlled how and if the evidence was shared elsewhere.”²⁶

Although the fact that the 9/11 Commission was controlled by someone who was essentially a member of the Bush-Cheney White House was bad enough, even more contrary to the Commission’s alleged independence was the fact that Zelikow had determined its central conclusions in advance. In their 2006 book, Without Precedent, which is subtitled The Inside Story of the 9/11 Commission, Kean and Hamilton claimed that, unlike conspiracy theorists, they started with the relevant facts, not with a conclusion: they “were not setting out to advocate one theory or interpretation of 9/11 versus another.”²⁷ They admitted, however, that after Zelikow divided the staff into various teams and told them what to investigate, he told team 1A to “tell the story of al Qaeda’s most successful operation---the 9/11 attacks.”²⁸ So, the question that most Americans probably assume to have been one of the 9/11 Commission’s main questions---“Who was responsible for the 9/11 attacks?”---was not asked. The Bush-Cheney administration’s theory was simply presupposed from the outset.

The fact that the Commission’s conclusion had been predetermined was made even clearer by Kean and Hamilton’s admission that an outline of the final report was prepared in advance by Zelikow and his former professor Ernest May (with whom he had previously coauthored a book).²⁹

Shenon revealed more about this startling fact. Pointing out that Zelikow and May had prepared this outline secretly, Shenon wrote: “By March 2003, with the commission’s staff barely in place, the two men had already prepared a detailed outline, complete with ‘chapter headings, subheadings, and sub-subheadings.’” When Zelikow shared this document with Kean and Hamilton, they realized that the staff, if they learned about it, would know that they were doing research for a predetermined conclusion.³⁰ And so the four men agreed upon a conspiracy of silence. In Shenon’s words:

“It should be kept secret from the rest of the staff, they all decided. May said that he and Zelikow agreed that the outline should be ‘treated as if it were the most classified document the commission possessed.’ Zelikow . . . labeled it ‘Commission Sensitive,’ putting those words at the top and bottom of each page.”³¹

The work of the 9/11 Commission began, accordingly, with Kean and Hamilton conspiring with Zelikow and May to conceal from the Commission’s staff members the fact that their investigative work would largely be limited to filling in the details of conclusions that had been reached before any investigations had begun.

When the staff did finally learn about this outline a year later (in April 2004), some of them began circulating a two-page parody entitled “The Warren Commission Report--Preemptive Outline.” One of its chapter headings was: “Single Bullet: We Haven’t Seen the Evidence Yet. But Really. We’re Sure.”³² The point, of course, was that the crucial chapter of Zelikow and May’s outline could have been headed: “Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda: We Haven’t Seen the Evidence yet. But Really. We’re Sure.”

Besides controlling the Commission’s work and predetermining its conclusions, Zelikow also, Shenon says, largely “controlled what the final report would say.”³³ He could exert this control because, as Ernest May reported, although the first draft of each chapter was written by one of the investigative teams, Zelikow headed up a team in the front office that revised these drafts.³⁴ Indeed, Shenon adds, “Zelikow rewrote virtually everything that was handed to him---usually top to bottom.”³⁵

Given the control exerted by Zelikow over the investigative work of the 9/11 Commission and its final product, it is not inaccurate to think of the report of the 9/11 Commission as the Zelikow Report.

In light of the foreseeable fact that the executive director of the 9/11 Commission would be able to exert such control over its work and final product, how could Kean and Hamilton, knowing that the Commission needed to be---or at least appear to be---independent of the Bush administration, have chosen Zelikow for this position? Did they not fear that his personal, structural, and ideological closeness to the Bush-Cheney administration could easily lead him to be more interested in protecting it from blame than in discovering and publishing the truth about how the 9/11 attacks were able to succeed? That this would not have been an unreasonable fear is shown by the fact that many members of the

Commission’s staff, Shenon reports, said that Zelikow’s conflicts of interest resulted in a “pattern of partisan moves intended to protect the White House.”³⁶

At least part of the answer as to how Zelikow became the executive director, Shenon reveals, is that Zelikow, in applying for the position, concealed some of his conflicts of interest from Kean and Hamilton.

The résumé he gave them mentioned the book he had co-authored with Rice and his appointment to the White House intelligence advisory board---two conflicts of interest that Kean and Hamilton deemed “not insurmountable.”³⁷

But Zelikow’s résumé failed to mention some other problems---most crucially his authorship of NSS 2002. Given the fact that this document had been used to “justify a preemptive strike on Iraq,” as Shenon says, it would have been in Zelikow’s interest “to use the commission to try to bolster the administration’s argument for war---a war that he had helped make possible.”³⁸ And in fact, Shenon points out, Zelikow did try to use it for just this purpose, even trying to insert statements into the final report connecting al-Qaeda to Iraq (this being one of few times that Zelikow did not get his way).³⁹

Zelikow was also dishonest with the Commission in another way, Shenon reports. Although “Zelikow had promised the commissioners he would cut off all unnecessary contact with senior Bush administration officials to avoid any appearance of conflict of interest,” he had continuing contacts with both Karl Rove and Condoleezza Rice. “More than once, [the Commission’s executive secretary] had been asked to arrange a gate pass so Zelikow could enter the White House to visit the national security adviser in her offices in the West Wing.”⁴⁰ The secretary’s logs also revealed that Rove---who was the White House’s “quarterback for dealing with the Commission” (according to Republican member of the 9/11 Commission John Lehman)--- called the office “looking for Philip” four times in 2003, after which, she said, Zelikow ordered her to quit keeping logs of his contacts with the White House.⁴¹

Implications for The 9/11 Commission Report

Shenon’s revelations of Zelikow’s close and ongoing relationship with the White House, his authorship of NSS 2002, and his duplicity should make people, at the very least, suspect that The 9/11 Commission Report is less of a truth-seeking than a political document, designed to protect the Bush-Cheney administration.

However, as helpful as Shenon’s book is, it fails to mention an even more serious conflict of interest created by Zelikow’s authorship of NSS 2002: If the Bush-Cheney White House enabled the 9/11 attacks in order to reap foreseeable benefits---such as the Bush Doctrine and carte blanche to attack Iraq (with its enormous oil reserves) and Afghanistan (through which the administration wanted to enable the construction of an oil-and-gas pipeline)---it would have been in Zelikow’s interest to cover up this fact.

In my 2005 book, The 9/11 Commission Report: Omissions and Distortions, I have provided abundant evidence that this is indeed what he did. In my most recent book, The New Pearl Harbor Revisited: 9/11, the Cover-Up, and the Exposé, I have pointed out---in what must be one of the longest footnotes of all time⁴²---that Shenon, while revealing many problematic facts about Zelikow’s behavior, failed to mention any of the ways in which the Zelikow Report used dishonesty to support the Bush-Cheney administration’s implausible interpretation of 9/11, according to which the attacks were orchestrated and carried out solely by Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda.⁴³

David Ray Griffin is Professor Emeritus at Claremont School of Theology and Claremont Graduate University in California. He has published 34 books, including seven about 9/11, most recently The New Pearl Harbor Revisited: 9/11, the Cover-Up, and the Exposé (Northampton: Olive Branch, 2008), from which the present essay has been drawn.

1 Philip Shenon, The Commission: The Uncensored History of the 9/11 Investigation (New York: Twelve, 2008), 170.

2 See Steven R. Ratner, “Crimes against Peace” (http://www.crimesofwar.org/thebook/crimes-against-peace.html).

3 I previously used the term “preemptive-preventive war” in “Neocon Imperialism, 9/11, and the Attacks on Afghanistan and Iraq,” Information Clearing House, February 27, 2007 (http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article17194.htm).

4 Barton Gellman, “Keeping the U.S. First: Pentagon Would Preclude a Rival Superpower,” Washington Post, March 11, 1992 (http://www.yale.edu/strattech/92dpg.html); cited in Stefan Halper and Jonathan Clarke, America Alone: The Neo-Conservatives and the Global Order (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 141.

5 See Halper and Clark, America Alone, 26, and “Project for the New American Century,” Right Web, updated June 20, 2008 (http://rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/1535.html).

6 PNAC, Letter to President Clinton on Iraq, May 29, 1998 (http://www.newamericancentury.org/iraqclintonletter.htm).

7 Stephen J. Sniegoski, “Neoconservatives, Israel, and 9/11: The Origins of the U.S. War on Iraq.” In D. L. O’Huallachain and J. Forrest Sharpe, eds., Neoconned Again: Hypocrisy, Lawlessness, and the Rape of Iraq (Vienna, Va.: IHS Press, 2005), 81-109, at 81-82.

8 Andrew J. Bacevich, The New American Militarism: How Americans Are Seduced by War (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), 91.

9 “President Bush Delivers Graduation Speech at West Point,” June 1, 2002 (http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/06/20020601-3.html).

10 The National Security Strategy of the United States of America, September 2002 (http://www.whitehouse.gov/nsc/nss/2002/nss.pdf), cover letter; this document henceforth referred to as NSS 2002.

11 NSS 2002, 6, 15.

12 Ibid., 15.

13 Halper and Clarke, America Alone, 142.

14 Max Boot, “Think Again: Neocons,” Foreign Policy, January/February 2004 (http://www.cfr.org/publication/7592/think_again.html), 18.

15 Halper and Clarke, America Alone, 4.

16 James Mann, Rise of the Vulcans: The History of Bush’s War Cabinet (New York: Viking, 2004), 316.

17 Richard N. Haass, “Imperial America,” delivered November 11, 2000, Brookings Institution (http://www.brookings.edu/articles/1999/09diplomacy_haass.aspx).

18 Mann, Rise of the Vulcans, 316.

19 Ibid., 331.

20 Shenon, The Commission, 69, 83.

21 Ibid., 69-70, 86.

22 Ibid., 167.

23 Ibid., 83.

24 Ibid., 84-85.

25 Ibid., 317.

26 Ibid., 277.

27 Thomas H. Kean and Lee H. Hamilton (with Benjamin Rhodes), Without Precedent: The Inside Story of the 9/11 Commission (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2006), 269-70.

28 Ibid., 116.

29 Ibid., 270.

30 Shenon, The Commission, 388-89.

31 Ibid., 389.

32 Ibid.

33 Ibid., 390.

34 Ernest May, “When Government Writes History: A Memoir of the 9/11 Commission,” New Republic, May 23, 2005; cited in Bryan Sacks, ”Making History: The Compromised 9-11 Commission,” in Paul Zarembka, ed., The Hidden History of 9-11 (New York: Seven Stories, 2008), 223-60, at 258n10.

35 Shenon, The Commission, 321.

36 Ibid., 319.

37 Ibid., 59.

38 Ibid., 170.

39 Ibid., 104, 130-33, 181, 321.

40 Ibid., 106-07.

41 Ibid., 175-76, 106-07. In their 2006 book giving “the inside story of the 9/11 Commission,” Kean and Hamilton said, after reporting that the 9/11 families had protested Zelikow’s appointment as executive director because of his conflicts of interest: “But we had full confidence in Zelikow’s independence” (Without Precedent, 28-29). In light of Shenon’s revelations, we must conclude that Zelikow was not the only one who shaded the truth.

42 David Ray Griffin, The New Pearl Harbor Revisited: 9/11, the Cover-Up, and the Exposé (Northampton: Olive Branch, 2008), 333-38n70.

43 To read statements by architects, engineers, firefighters, pilots, political leaders, scholars, scientists, former CIA officials, retired military officers, and others who find the official theory of 9/11 implausible, see the Patriots Question 9/11 website (http://www.patriotsquestion911.com).

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Zelikow et le mythe fondateur du 21e siècle américain

The Neocons' Ties to the 911 Commission's Report

Zio power and Wars: from Iraq to Iran, by James Petras

THE NEW JERUSALEM : 1ST CHAPTER

1st Chapter from Michael Collins Piper's book The New Jerusalem (2005)

America’s “New Elite”
A Candid & Sympathetic Overview
of That Most Difficult Topic

. . .

On August 29, 1897 the First Zionist Congress meeting in Basel, Switzerland approved a resolution which declared simply:

. . .The aim of Zionism is to create for the Jewish people a home in Palestine . . .

. . .Much of the world looked with favor upon the theory behind this resolution, even including (perhaps most especially) anti-Jewish elements in Europe and elsewhere who saw the removal of Jewish people from the confines of their respective national borders as a solution to that age-old problem often gently referred to in literature as “The Jewish Question.” It has long been forgotten — even suppressed — that among the most vocal proponents of the founding of a Jewish state were indeed those who had come to be known as “anti-Semites.”
. . .Ultimately, in 1948, a new Zionist state known as “Israel” did come into being in Palestine, but — as we today know all too well — the circumstances surrounding the birth of that nation brought generations of tragedy and conflict to the region, problems which today, as this is written, have literally placed the entire world on the brink of nuclear conflagration.
. . .Yet, despite the founding of the Zionist state, American Zionists cling heartily to America, rather than re-locating to the State of Israel and fulfilling the Zionist dream. In fact — as the record shows, and that is the topic of this volume — America has effectively emerged as The New Jerusalem, the center of Zionist wealth and power. The State of Israel is but a distraction, a tiny geographic entity that may or may not survive. As such, we now see a new focus in the Zionist outlook. Zionism, in short, rules America and America under the Zionist thumb (or so it now seems) seeks to rule the world.
. . .Obviously, when addressing a “controversial” thesis such as this, it is appropriate to cite what are deemed “respectable” and “responsible” sources. As such, when tackling the most uncomfortable topic of Zionist power in America and its consequences, it seems most fitting to go right to the source: one of the most respected newspapers in Israel.

. . .On August 20, 2004, Israel’s Ha’aretz published a remarkable commentary by Avi Beker entitled “The Golden Age of U.S. Jewry.” Beker reflected on the then-forthcoming September celebration — very much noted — of the 350th anniversary of the founding of the Jewish community in America. The Israeli newspaper noted that historian Paul Johnson, described as “being known for his sympathy for Israel,” had suggested that “the story of the expansion and strengthening of American Jewry in the 20th century is no less important than the establishment of the State of Israel, and even more so.”
. . .Although, the establishment of Israel gave the Jewish people a sovereign homeland, Ha’aretz says that Johnson sees America as having a special place in the lore of Jewish history: “American Jewry,” says the Israeli newspaper, “has attained an unprecedented status in the power it has acquired for itself to shape the policy of the No. 1 world power.”
. . .Ha’aretz writes: “There is no precedent for such profound integration into all areas of life, and to political and political influence as great as that of American Jews. . . . It is now clear that the 350 years of Jewish exile in America mark a golden age never before experienced in Jewish history.”1
. . .So there it is . . . from the pages of one of the most influential newspapers of Israel. This is not the “ranting” of a “crazed anti-Semite.” This is a Jewish newspaper, published in Israel, hailing the ascendancy of the Jewish community in America.
. . .What then precisely does this extraordinary Jewish influence constitute? How much power does the Jewish community hold in American life? Do — as some say — “the Jews control America”? In this volume we will present a wide variety of material — largely from Jewish sources — which will provide the reader the information to judge for himself.
. . .In 1937, muckraker Ferdinand Lundberg created a stir with a book entitled America’s Sixty Families. His book was the first comprehensive look at the rising accumulation of vast wealth and influence by a small group of Americans — many of them intermarried families or otherwise connected through business relationships — who had come to dominate the American republic.
. . .Lundberg opened that volume by making an assertion that — while quite true — opened the eyes of the American reading public to a reality that perhaps few had recognized:

. . .The United States is owned and dominated today by a hierarchy of its sixty richest families, buttressed by no more than ninety families of lesser wealth.
. . .Outside this plutocratic circle there are perhaps three hundred and fifty other families, less defined in development and in wealth, but accounting for most of the incomes of $100,000 or more that do not accrue to members of the inner circle.
. . .These families are the living center of the modern industrial oligarchy which dominates the United States, functioning discreetly under a de jure democratic form of government behind which a de facto government, absolutist and plutocratic in its lineaments, has gradually taken form since the Civil War.
. . .This de facto government is actually the government of the United States — informal, invisible, shadowy. It is the government of money in a dollar democracy.
. . .Under their acquisitive fingers, and in their possession, the sixty families hold the richest nation ever fashioned in the workshop of history . . .
. . .The outstanding American proprietors of today tower historically over the proud aristocracy that surrounded Louis XIV, Czar Nicholas, Kaiser Wilhelm, and the Emperor Franz Joseph, and wield vastly greater power.2

. . .At the time Lundberg was writing, there was a solid core of substantial Jewish wealth among the “Sixty Families” listed. Among the 60 families that Lundberg ranked by wealth, the Guggenheims of smelting and copper fame were listed as 13th, following closely by the following banking families: the Lehmans at 18th, the Warburgs at 26th, Mortimer Schiff at 44th, George Blumenthal of Lazard Freres at 48th, department store tycoon Michael Friedsam came in at 50th followed by Sears & Roebuck’s Julius Rosenwald at 58th. Banker and war profiteer and behind-the-scenes political “fixer” Bernard M. Baruch came in at 59th place, just making a spot in “America’s Sixty Families” as dubbed by Lundberg.3
. . .Times did change, however, and Jewish wealth and influence was on the ascendancy, but remained largely a topic that was very much unspoken, then as today.
. . .Lundberg’s book, today, remains a valuable research work for students of American history. But be warned: Lundberg was quite naturally,and we can understand why, rather inclined to down play the significant role that Jewish interests were playing within the American plutocracy and its domination of the United States political, economic, and social affairs. Yet, his work was a landmark contribution, whatever its demerits.

. . .In 1968 Lundberg came back with a sequel to America’s Sixty Families. This new volume, The Rich and the Super-Rich, was an overview of the current state of affairs in the secret world of the superrich. In The Rich and the Super-Rich, Lundberg made the rather interesting assessment of the situation:

. . .Most Americans — citizens of the wealthiest, most powerful and most ideal-swathed country in the world — by a very wide margin own nothing more than their household goods, a few glittering gadgets such as automobiles and television sets (usually purchased on the installment plan, many at second hand) and the clothes on their backs. A horde if not a majority of Americans live in shacks, cabins, hovels, shanties, hand-me-down Victorian eyesores, rickety tenements and flaky apartment buildings. . . . At the same time, a relative handful of Americans are extravagantly endowed, like princes in the Arabian Nights tales.4

. . .Although Lundberg was quite right in his overall assessment, he fell down on one key point: Today’s elite: Princes they are — but not Arabian.
. . .The American media talks about the wealth of the Arab sheiks and of the oil riches of the Middle East, but the accumulated wealth of the American Jewish community — and the political influence that comes with it in every major city (and certainly in small cities and towns across America) dwarfs that of those Arabian princes.
. . .America’s “New Elite” today are unquestionably the wealthy and powerful Jewish families who — unlike the Rockefellers, the Morgans, the Roosevelts, the Kennedys, the Vanderbilts and the other “princes” of previous eras — have a considerably lower public profile than the Gentile elite of the past.
. . .While it is — to a certain extent—freely admitted that there is a powerful “Israeli lobby” in official Washington, sometimes even referred to by less cautious persons as the “Jewish lobby,” the public image of this lobby is one devoted exclusively to the interests of the state of Israel.

. . .Jewish newspapers freely discuss the issue of the influence of the Jewish community and its impact on U.S. foreign policy, but even so-called mainstream” newspapers and magazines themselves occasionally delve into the subject.
. . .“Yes,” they say, “the Israeli lobby is powerful, but it’s just another lobby like the gun lobby or the American Association of Retired Persons. American Jews have as much right to lobby on behalf of Israel as Greek-Americans and Arab-Americans have the right to lobby for causes around which their own communities rally.” Numerous books have been written about the power of the Israeli lobby, and for anyone to deny the clout of that lobby is political correctness run amuck.
. . .What few Americans are aware of, however — something the Jewish community would prefer to be kept under wraps — is the growing financial, cultural and social clout of the American Jewish community. While there are certainly many poor Jews, the truth is that American Jews are emerging — if they haven’t won the title already — as contenders for the title of “the American elite,” bar none. They are “America’s New Elite.”
. . .American Jews are indeed the modern-day equivalents of the princes in the tales of the Arabian Nights. And while the Jewish “princes” (and “princesses”) may not constitute a majority, per se, of the billionaires or the super-rich on the famous “Forbes 400,” their combined wealth certainly rivals (or even, most likely, surpasses) that of the non-Jewish elite.
. . .In fact, if anything, the Jewish elites are bound by their devotion to Jewish interests, as the sources cited in these pages will often confirm.
. . .It is difficult to gauge wealth or “influence” (whatever either constitutes) but the facts assembled in these pages demonstrates, beyond any question, that the American Jewish elite — America’s New Elite — have wealth and influence far beyond their numbers in many, many ways.
. . .Recognition of Jewish power — or dare we say “rejection” of Jewish power — is a bipartisan affair. A host of well-known American elected officials and other policy makers have been heard to make candid comments about Jewish power:

. . . President George Bush’s Secretary of State James Baker was reported as saying to a colleague in a confidential discussion, “Fuck the Jews. They don’t vote for us anyway.” The words wereblazoned as a headline in an Israeli newspaper which, not surprisingly, portrayed him as an anti-Semite. But Baker was unwittingly echoing others. During the AWACS debate Gerald Ford

was enlisted by the Reagan White House. In a telephone conversation with one Republican senator who had been tracked down (at dinner with Jewish leaders, though Ford did not know this), the former president asked, “Are we going to let the fucking Jews run American foreign policy?” And Ford in turn echoed President Carter, who had told some of his closest colleagues in the spring of 1980, “If I get back in, I’m going to fuck the Jews.”5

. . .In light of Carter’s remark, it is no surprise to learn that William Rubenstein, a right-wing pro-Zionist sociologist, has reported that “a very well-placed source” told him that “75 percent” of “the leaders of America’s Zionist organizations . . . supported Reagan over Carter.”6
. . .In that vein, considering the fact that liberal Democrats and conservative Republicans alike have occasionally found common ground in raising questions about Jewish power, we might also recall the comment by the famed writer H. G. Wells, who remarked: “There is room for some very serious research into the question why anti-Semitism emerges in every country the Jews reside in.”7
. . .In the meantime, the major media in America, which is, as we shall see — according to Jewish sources — largely Jewish dominated, has focused on “Asian money” in American elections. It’s become a genuine “scandal” and exciting grist for the media mill. Age-old anti-Asian stereotypes of the type that were popular during the U.S. war against Japan are once again freely coming into play.
. . .Despite this, self-styled “anti-hate” groups such as the Anti- Defamation League (ADL) have had little to say about it. Perhaps that’s precisely because the ADL likes the focus on the “Asian money.”
. . .And there’s a reason for this: Asian-Americans (both native and naturalized) are quietly saying (but the media isn’t reporting it) that the real “foreign money” scandal involves not Asian money, but the heavy-handed influence of money from the Israel-obsessed American Jewish community and American Jews living in Israel (not to mention Israelis themselves) who want to impact U.S. foreign policy toward Israel.
. . .Writing in the January 29, 1996 issue of New York magazine, writer Philip Weiss — who loudly and proudly proclaims his Jewish heritage — pointed out that discussion of the role of Jewish money in politics is perceived to be politically incorrect. Weiss put it bluntly: “When the NRA exercises political power, it’s a hot-button issue. When Jewish money plays a part, discussing it is anti-Semitic.”8

. . .There’s no question about it: This is real political clout. Jewish money and Jewish power is a very real influence in American life.
. . .But as we shall see, Jewish influence in America goes far beyond what people generally refer to as “the Israeli lobby” or “the Jewish lobby” (in discussing the impact Jewish money and lobbying has on U.S. foreign policy making). Jewish influence is much, much bigger than that — and it is the most explosive political secret in American political and cultural affairs today.
. . .The possible consequences of this immense Jewish power in America were faced head on by Jewish historian Benjamin Ginsberg in his remarkable book, The Fatal Embrace: Jews and the State, in which book Ginsberg addresses the question:
. . .“Why is it that during so many different times and in so many different places, Jews have achieved enormous status, wealth, and power only to be cast down, driven out — or worse?”9
. . .Ginsberg says that his own research convinced him that famed Jewish philosopher and writer Hannah Arendt was correct in her assertion that the historic and repeated rise and fall of the Jewish people could best be understood by viewing the traditional relationship between Jews and the nation-states in which they lived. According to Ginsberg:

. . .Jews frequently sought the protection of the state. For their own purposes, rulers often were happy to accommodate the Jews in exchange for the services that the latter could provide.
. . .Much followed from the relationship between Jews and states, and, as an outgrowth, some of the most important states in the modern world were built or strengthened.
. . .As a result of this relationship, moreover, Jews sometimes achieved great power. Their relationship with the state, however, also exposed Jews to new hatred and antagonisms. For the Jews, under some circumstances, the embrace of the state proved to be fatal. These considerations are not simply of historical interest. They are also central to understanding the past — and potential future — of Jews in America.10

. . .Thus, the title of Ginsberg’s book and that to which it refers: “the fatal embrace” of the state — the nation and its mechanisms of political power — by the Jews in the course of accumulating vast wealth.
. . .Ginsberg has summarized the quandary that both American Jews and their non-Jewish fellow Americans find themselves in as a consequence of the rising influence of Jewish power in America. His words are profound indeed. Ginsberg writes:

. . .Though Jews have learned to look, talk and dress like other Americans, they are not fully assimilated either in their own minds or in the eyes of their neighbors. . . . To make matters worse, Jews often, secretly or not so secretly, conceive themselves to be morally and intellectually superior to their neighbors.
. . . Indeed, Jews are extremely successful outsiders who sometimes have the temerity to rub it in.11

. . .Considering this, it is appropriate to take a look at the manner in which Ginsberg has summarized, for his own part, the wide-ranging aspects of Jewish power in America. His overview gives us a starting point upon which we can build and examine, in detail, the specific nature of Jewish power in America. Ginsberg writes:

. . .Since the 1960s, Jews have come to wield considerable influence in American economic, cultural, intellectual, and political life. Jews played a central role in American finance during the 1980s, and they were among the chief beneficiaries of that decade’s corporate mergers and reorganizations.
. . .Today, though barely 2% of the nation’s population is Jewish, close to half its billionaires are Jews.
. . .The chief executive officers of the three major television networks and the four largest film studios are Jews, as are the owners of the nation’s largest newspaper chain and most influential single newspaper, The New York Times.
. . .In the late 1960s, Jews already constituted 20% of the faculty of elite universities and 40% of the professors of elite lawschools; today, these percentages doubtless are higher.

. . .The role and influence of Jews in American politics is equally marked. Jews are elected to public office in disproportionate numbers.
. . .In 1993, ten members of the United States Senate and thirty-two members of the House of Representatives were Jewish, three to four times their percentage of the general population.
. . .Jews are even more prominent in political organizations and in finance. One recent study found that in twenty-seven of thirty-six campaigns for the United States Senate, one or both candidates relied upon a Jewish campaign chairman or finance director.
. . .In the realm of lobbying and litigation, Jews organized what was for many years one of Washington’s most successful political action [organizations], the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), and they play leadership roles in such important public interest groups as the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and Common Cause. Several Jews also played very important roles in the 1992 Democratic presidential campaign.
. . .After the Democrats’ victory, President Clinton appointed a number of Jews to prominent positions in his administration.
. . .Their role in American economic, social and political institutions has enabled Jews to wield considerable influence in the nation’s public life. The most obvious indicator of this influence is the $3 billion in direct military and economic aid provided to Israel by the United States each year and, for that matter, the like amount given to Egypt since it agreed to maintain peaceful relations with Israel.
. . .That fully three-fourths of America’s foreign aid budget is devoted to Israel’s security interests is a tribute in considerable measure to the lobbying prowess of AIPAC and the importance of the Jewish community in American politics. . . .
. . .As a general rule, what can and cannot be said in public reflects the distribution of political power in society. As Jews gained political power, politicians who indulged in anti-Semitic tactics were labeled extremists and exiled to the margins of American politics.
. . .Similarly, religious symbols and forms of expression that Jews find threatening have been almost completely eliminated from schools and other public institutions.

. . .Suits brought by the ACLU, an organization whose leadership and membership are predominantly Jewish, secured federal court decisions banning officially sanctioned prayers in the public schools and crèches and other religious displays in parks and public buildings.12

. . .At this juncture — considering all that we have learned thus far — it seems appropriate to discuss the very real question: “Why does it matter how much economic, political, and cultural clout that the Jewish people have accumulated in America?”
. . .The fact is that there will be some — both “Country Club Republicans” who worship at the altar of Mammon, along with self-styled “liberals” who revel in “minority achievement,” for example — who will read this slender volume and respond by saying, “Well, this is a free country. It’s a tribute to the Jewish people that, through their hard work and intellect, they have achieved this success.”
. . .In some respects, that’s a hard proposition to argue with. However, it bears pointing out that accumulation of wealth and political power does not mean that such a conglomeration gives any one ethnic group the right to dominate a nation’s political system simply because it has the means to do so. And the fact is that the Jewish elite in America now have the means to do so — and they don’t hesitate to do it.
. . .A prime (and graphic) example of how that power has been exercised is all too evident in America’s ongoing and tragic debacle in Iraq.
. . .We are not here to say that “all of the Jews in America” wanted the United States to invade Iraq in the spring of 2002. Quite the contrary, some of the most outspoken and eloquent critics of U.S. intervention in Iraq were American Jews. But the fact remains that — on the whole — the most influential and critically placed organizations and individuals promoting the war in Iraq, through public relations efforts, media spin and outright political pressure, were American Jews and American Jewish organizations acting specifically on behalf of the interests of Israel.
. . .This is a topic well beyond the scope of this book, but it was addressed in some detail in this author’s previous work, The High Priests of War. Suffice it to say that when U.S. Rep. Jim Moran (D-Virginia) stated frankly that, in his opinion, the American Jewish community was influential enough to stop the drift toward war, he was absolutely correct, despite the outraged media frenzy that came on the heels of his remarks.

. . .Beyond question, the subject of Jewish economic power is not a matter limited to examination by what we might loosely term “anti-Semites.” The truth is that even the most cursory study of Jewish history focuses extensively on Jewish wealth and influence. For example, the New York-based Schocken Books, which publishes books of Jewish interest, featured its 1975 release, Economic History of the Jews.
. . .In that extensive volume, the editor, Nahum Gross, pointed out, quite frankly, that, for example, “colonial trade in the early modern period and brokerage and banking, especially investment banking, in recent times are highly oligopolistic industries, and their history is indeed the story of a rather small number of leading firms. The delineation of family ties and alliances among them is therefore also strictly relevant; and at least the Jewish historian will be curious to know who of these leading entrepreneurs were Jews.”13
. . .So, therefore, it is not at all inappropriate to examine which Jews and Jewish families and financial interests were (or are) predominant in any given arena, charges of “anti-Semitism” notwithstanding.
. . .And in regard to that accusation of “anti-Semitism,” which often surrounds the examination of Jewish wealth, it seems appropriate to refer to Jewish historian Bernard Lazare’s classic study of that subject, and particularly his inquiry into “anti-Semitism” stimulated by what he calls “economic causes.” Lazare correctly points out that because of a variety of factors influencing anti-Semitism over many centuries, the Jews — precisely because of anti-Semitism — were forced to bond together:

. . .The Jew . . . increases his advantage by uniting with his coreligionists possessed of similar virtues, and thus augments his powers by acting in common with his brethren; the inevitable result being that they out-distance their rivals in the pursuit of any common end . . . The Jews stand united as one.
. . .This is the secret of their success. Their solidarity is all the stronger in that it goes so far back. Its very existence is denied, and yet it is undeniable. The links in the chain have been forged in the course of ages until the flight of centuries has made man unconscious of their existence.14

. . .As such, we perhaps do indeed have a better and more sympathetic understanding of the origin of Jewish clannishness — call it “togetherness” — that has enabled a relatively small group of people, under siege, to develop, working together, a powerful economic class that is bound by its religious and cultural heritage. Perhaps anti-Semitism has indeed been a driving force behind that which has resulted in the emergence in the United States (and worldwide) of a singularly influential group of people.

. . .Undoubtedly, an examination of what might be called “anti-Semitic” literature, does indeed focus on Jewish economic might. American industrialist
Henry Ford’s now-infamous series The International Jew comes to mind immediately. Ford’s work focused on the tentacles of Jewish power in a wide ranging array of various economic and cultural arenas and caused great consternation within the Jewish community. But while Ford was damned for his efforts, there were few attempts to actually refute the specific facts laid forth in his work.
. . .More recent so-called “anti-Semitic” works, such as Jewish Supremacism, by controversial Louisiana political figure David Duke, have not so much focused on Jewish power, per se, as upon Jewish ideology and religious teachings. Duke’s book relied almost exclusively on Jewish sources to outline the role that Jewish interests have played in shaping modern-day world affairs from a geopolitical strategic standpoint. He has pinpointed the preeminent Jewish role in the Bolshevik movement in Russia as well as the fine hand of Jewish influence behind social and cultural revolution in the United States and the West, often to the denigration of traditional values and understandings.
. . .What’s more, Duke has gone so far as to expand his study by taking a close look at Jewish religious teachings that have indeed bound the Jewish people more closely and, at the same time, driven wedges between them and others. In the end Duke sees the Jewish people as having sought what he calls “Jewish Supremacism.” Although the Jewish people have established a state of their own in Israel, Duke notes, they seem determined to have their influence felt worldwide, feeling themselves — and saying as much in their own writings — that they are supreme.
. . .One cannot read Duke’s book — which is carefully documented — without concluding that this is indeed precisely the ideology behind the leadership of the Jewish community in America (and worldwide) today.

. >.For whatever the cause, anti-Semitism has indeed played a major role in shaping the mindset of the Jewish people. They have been effectively forced into the position (or otherwise adopted the status) of “outsider” and have chosen largely to remain the outsider, despite their elite status in American society. As the “outsider,” the Jewish people have an overview of the “alien” society in which they function and from this vantage point have been able to see opportunities that are otherwise invisible to those who cannot, in the classic sense, “see the forest for the trees.”
. . .All of this, over the centuries, has permitted Jewish individuals — working within a Jewish network — to be in the forefront of economic and political revolution and, as a direct consequence, they have been able to play a major part in influencing the course of society.
. . .Another factor which should be kept in mind is that the Jews have generally been, almost invariably (with few exceptions), an urban people, far removed from the land and agriculture. In contrast, all European societies and peoples are hardly more than one, two or three generations removed from the farm and its rural ethic of construction and creation, of building civilization out of the wilderness.
. . .This contrast in heritage has, inevitably, led to a clash between the Jewish people and others, precisely because, by virtue of their urban tendencies, the Jews have become entrenched in the financial arena — money-lending, usury, banking, call it what you will — and as such have become, not unexpectedly, the arbiters of the rural future.
. . .The historic conflict between agriculture and finance has always been a dynamic that has been an underlying factor in anti-Semitism in whatever country: whether it be Germany or the United States, where the populist movement of the late 19th century featured anti-Semitic rhetoric quite prevalently.
. . .So, again, we see anti-Semitism as a direct consequence of non- Jewish opposition to Jewish influence which has, in itself, risen to new heights precisely because the Jewish people have formed a unique “group dynamic” that can hardly be found in such a thriving fashion in any other ethnic formation on the face of the planet. Anti-Semitism, we might say, has, in its own way, begot Jewish success and power, which, in turn, has begot even more anti-Semitism, precisely because the Jews — as a group — have established themselves in a position to shape (even destroy) non-Jews whose futures literally lie in the hands of Jewish power-brokers.
. . .In this regard, we must address the topic of “the Holocaust,” referring to the events of World War II that have been continually and, without ending, been memorialized in thousands of books, films, songs, poems, television shows, and newspaper and magazine articles, in the half century that followed the end of the world conflagration that resulted in the deaths of countless millions — far many more millions that the six million Jews we have been told were lost at the hands of a genocidal Nazi regime.
. . .Although a dedicated and growing “Holocaust Revisionist” movement has made great inroads in raising serious questions about specific facts and details of the events of that period known as “the Holocaust,”— thanks in large part due to the efforts of Willis A. Carto and the once-vibrant Institute for Historical Review (subsequently destroyed from within by agents working for Jewish interests determined to silence the institute) — most people remain convinced that the Jews were the singular victims of what is virtually hailed as “the greatest tragedy in history — bar none,” precisely because it was a tragedy that was said to have targeted “God’s Chosen People.” As such, there is a great deal of residual sympathy for the Jewish people — but it is beginning to diminish as more and more people, frankly, get “tired of hearing about the Holocaust” and become aware of the current efforts of historical Revisionist journals such as The Barnes Review, which has not feared to address the topic.
. . .The constant repetition — almost cult-like — of Holocaust lore is emerging (and some Jewish leaders have not been afraid to say so) as an almost integral part of the Jewish “group think” and, as a direct result, being incorporated, in many respects, into the Jewish religion itself.
. . .And that, alone, is another aspect of the Jewish mind-set that makes the Jewish people unique. Although dozens — perhaps hundreds — of other ethnic groups, sects and peoples have been subjected to their own unique “holocausts” throughout the course of history only the Jewish people have been so devoted to memorializing their own disasters. At the same time, the Jewish people (in organized fashion), have continued to use “the Holocaust” (and other tragedies, real and imagined) as a mechanism to place demands on the world as a whole. After all, isn’t that why the state of Israel was established — as a means of atoning for the Jewish losses during World War II?

. . .Certainly, in the end, the cause-and-effect debate over the question of anti-Semitism — or “The Jewish Problem” as it has been known throughout history — has many angles that are far beyond the purview of this volume. Some “anti-Semites” may even contend that we have been far too sympathetic to the Jewish people and not conscious enough of Jewish activities and attitudes that have created the phenomenon of anti-Semitism. But that’s a debate for another place and time.
. . .So, for our purposes here, suffice it to say, the truth is that whatever the ultimate origin of Jewish supremacy (at least in the economic, cultural and political spheres of influence in the United States), it is a fact that cannot be denied. The truth of Jewish supremacy in America is found in countless volumes and much literature by Jewish writers who can hardly be classed as “anti-Semites.”
. . .With this in mind, let us move forward and examine what Jewish academics
and authorities say about Jewish power in America. By way of a preface, however, we include the following material relevant to our study:

• An overview of the now-infamous “Enron” scandal. While the media gave great fanfare to this debacle, even the most cursory examination of Enron demonstrates hidden aspects of Zionist power in America, if only because the “Jewish connection” to Enron remains one of the great secrets of our day;
• A study of the remarkable INSLAW affair — a scandal which demonstrated the raw clout of the Zionist lobby in manipulating the U.S. Justice Department and the federal court system.
• A profile of America’s “royal family” — the Bronfmans, who are, beyond question, the most powerful and well-established of the Jewish families who reign supreme in America today. As early “colonial” satellites of the long-established Rothschild empire of Europe, the Bronfmans constitute the often ugly face of Zionist power in America.
• Next, we will explore equally sordid details surrounding two major American media empires whose wide-ranging influence personifies the vast reach of the Zionist elite who rule the Media Monopoly.
• As an interesting interlude we will take a look at the little-known story of Donald Trump, the flamboyant real estate and casino tycoon. Although not Jewish, the record reflects that Trump owes his fame and fortune to the patronage of some powerful Zionist fortunes.

• Following that is a wide-ranging overview of the names, faces and financial interests of the well-known (and not-so-well-known) Jewish families whose accumulation of wealth and power is staggering. This is the first time EVER (outside a small magazine read only in the highest circles) that these names have been published in one place together — and a revealing summary it is indeed.

Wrapping it all up, we at last reach the core of this volume, its very foundation — the cold, hard facts and figures about the reality of Zionist power in America. The details presented speak for themselves. It is not “anti-Semitic” or “anti-Jewish” to bring forth these facts, particularly since the sources of the information are (with perhaps one exception) exclusively Jewish. And — with the possible exception of Lenni Brenner — none of the quite respectable sources cited are what Zionist critics have called “self-hating” Jews, a term which has been recklessly applied to Jewish Americans who have dared to raise questions about the misdeeds of Zionist Israel, as has Brenner.
. . .There will, of course, be many people who will be most uncomfortable reading this volume, but that is only because they have fallen victim to what has been called “political correctness.”
. . .The truth is that Jewish newspapers and magazines freely and openly discuss — even brag about — Jewish power in America. Now is the opportunity for non-Jews to see precisely what it is that these Jewish sources have been bragging about.
. . .Are all of these material riches — as Jewish philosophers contend — actually an affirmation of God’s blessing upon the Jewish people?
. . .Have the Zionist elite — as the evidence assembled in this volume suggests — emerged as “Those Who Reign Supreme”? Have they finally established America as The New Jerusalem?
. . .Is this good for America? Is it good for the world? May non-Jewish people share in this wealth?
. . .Is there an alternative?
. . .The reader can—and will—make the final judgment.

. . .