Background Briefing: September 12, 2021

On By gram

 

Why Has Nobody Been Held to Account For the Failure to Prevent 9/11?

We begin with yesterday’s commemorations of the 20th anniversary of 9/11 and discuss the other missing piece along with how come none of the killers of 3,000 have been brought to trial, and that is why has nobody tasked with protecting the United States against attack who failed to act on ample evidence of a clear and present danger, have been held to account. Joining us is Philip Shenon, the bestselling author of The Commission: The Uncensored History of the 9/11 Investigation, a former reporter for The New York Times and Washington Correspondent who covered the Pentagon, Justice Department and State Department. We discuss the bi-partisan inquiry into 9/11 which deliberately did not seek to blame, but also left many questions unanswered leaving room for conspiracy theories to flourish.

 

Comparisons Between Al Qaeda and ISIS and Far-Right Domestic Terrorism

Then we will look into comparisons between Al Qaeda and ISIS terrorism and the far-right domestic terrorists in the United States who stormed the Capitol on January 6. Suzanne Schneider, Deputy Director and Core Faculty at the Brooklyn Institute for Social Research joins us to discuss the uncanny overlap between jihadist groups and far-right reactionary movements in the West which she charts in her new book, just out,The Apocalypse and the End of History: Modern Jihad and the Crisis of Liberalism. And we will also discuss her article at Foreign Policy Magazine, “Failed Governance Has Created Extremists in the United States Too: The Islamic State and the U.S. far-right share the same roots.”

 
 

El Salvador’s Increasingly Authoritarian Leader Makes Bitcoin the Nation’s Currency

Then finally we speak with Geoff Thale, the former President of the Washington Office on Latin America where he oversaw their work on Central America, focusing on human rights, citizen security, and economic opportunity in Honduras, Guatemala, Nicaragua and El Salvador. He joins us to discuss the increasingly authoritarian and popular young leader in El Salvador who has turned El Salvador into the first country to make bitcoin the national currency which will likely lead to El Salvador becoming the money-laundering capital of the world.