Ten things we learned in 2004 about 9/11

1. The World Trade Center Black Boxes were recovered, though officials perpetuate the lie that they weren't.

2. FEMA really did arrive early in New York City, for the "bioterror drill" Tripod II, and Rudi Giuliani's testimony to that effect before the 9/11 Commission is its only public testimony which remains officially untranscribed.

3. The Total Information Awareness program was ready to roll out before Sept 11, and John Poindexter's office was established in the Pentagon no later than Sept 12.

4. A recording of six air traffic controllers' same-day detailing of their communication with two hijacked planes on September 11 was purposefully destroyed by the FAA.

5. NORAD was conducting a live-fly simulation of multiple hijackings on the morning of 9/11, which effectively hamstrung a fighter response already compromised by exercises which took the bulk of interceptors far from the eastern seaboard.

6. Dick Cheney was running a separate command and control communications system on 9/11, which whistleblower Indira Singh recognized as having "the exact same functionality I was looking to utilize [for] Ptech," the high tech terrorist and intelligence cut-out that "was set up in the basement of the FAA" for two years before the attacks. (Go to this page to download video testimony of Mike Ruppert and Indira Singh on this subject.)

7. George Bush was unwilling to reluctanctly meet members of his reluctantly struck 9/11 Commission unless Cheney accompanied him, both were unsworn, their words were unrecorded and untranscribed, the meeting was private and in the White House, and the members' notebooks were confiscated afterwards.

8. That John Ashcroft made the case for Sibel Edmonds' State Secret Privilege gag order by claiming that disclosure of her testimony would "cause serious damage to the national security interests of the United States" suggests he is at least an accessory after the fact (Daniel Ellsberg believes Ashcroft deserving of jail time for his role in obstructing justice), as Edmonds has been able to say that her testimony involves "specific information implicating certain high level government and elected officials in criminal activities directly and indirectly related to terrorist money laundering, narcotics, and illegal arms sales."

9. Donald Rumsfeld confirmed what we knew all along, that Flight 93 was shot down, and the corporate media flew into damage control for the Pentagon, saying the Secretary "misspoke" and "stoked conspiracy theories."

10. As Pakistan wound down the search for Osama bin Laden and "prohibited" American forces based in Afghanistan from making cross-border incursions into the Tribal Areas, Musharraf was rewarded with the approving words that his continuing rule remains an internal matter for Pakistanis. (Afghanistan was, arguably, more cooperative in their attempt to bring bin Laden to justice, and Iraq was not a rogue nuclear state.)

We're getting there. Of course, they are there already, and have been for years. But we're catching on.

The big picture remains grim, and getting grimmer, but small pictures can still be pleasant ones. I hope yours are in 2005.