Referring to the Counterpunch article, "What Did Israel Know in Advance of the 9/11 Attacks?" in the VOL. 14, NO. 3/4 issue, Cockburn and St. Clair allude to an article from 2005 that inspired Ketcham to update his story on the mysterious Israelis.

I blogged on it last year at GNN, but I'm going to re-post the entire article by Keith Phucas (of ABLE DANGER fame) here for posterity. Below that, I'll post some bullet points from Gerald Shea's memo that remains to date the best memo detailing the various reports about the "art students". Also, I will post a link to a PDF copy of Shea's report that you can D/L from the Antiwar.com server, courtesy of Justin Raimondo.

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Sept. 11 riddles remain

By: KEITH PHUCAS, Times Herald Staff
08/29/2005

NORRISTOWN - Accusations that the 9/11 Commission ignored information about a defense intelligence operation "Able Danger" that targeted al-Qaida in 2000 has renewed criticism that the panel may have passed up other intriguing leads gathered in the months before the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

A memorandum sent to the 9/11 Commission, and Senate and House intelligence committees in September 2004, suggests that young Israelis who canvassed dozens of U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) offices in 2000 and 2001 trying to sell paintings to federal workers, may have been spying not only on the DEA, but also on Arab extremists in the United States - including the Sept. 11 hijackers who were living in Florida and New Jersey.

The sense I've gotten from this blog and others in the 9/11 Truth world (a.k.a. reality) is that Alex Cockburn at CounterPunch is against you for criticizing conspiracy theories. How dare he? How dare such an otherwise insightful opinionist reject the exposure of a lie that would strike a permanent lethal blow to the policies they have for so long criticized?

I've pondered these questions for sometime.

First I asked myself: "is Cockburn simply ignorant?" ---Not possible. CounterPunch gets it right every time (except once ;)

Second I wondered: "Maybe he's really a leftist gatekeeper?" ---Laughable. The pages of the Washington Post editorial section are reserved for those folks. Cockburn is keeping no gate.

Third I thought: "Perhaps Cockburn believes exposure of 9/11 Truth will make him, as a well-known Neocon critic, irrelevant?" ---Can't be the case. Look, we are going to miss these days - nowadays - as we walk and preach around our cities and towns feeling high and mighty --almost enlightened-- because we know that our society has accepted a grand lie. But Cockburn is simply not famous enough to care about his status.