AJ Strata contends that there were two parallel projects using Able Danger data mining technology. One, the China Project, regarding suspect technology transfers to the PRC, started unearthing the names of US citizens, including, Strata’s account says, William Cohen, Condoleeza Rice and possibly Hillary Clinton. Strata’s conclusion:

Able Danger was working to identify Al Qaeda and had struck gold with the Hamburg cell. But the same technology and group, working on a completely independent study implicates the Clinton administration so all the data, China and Al Qaeda targets, is destroyed in a moment of political panic. It is now highly possible 9-11 happened because the Clinton administration was afraid of bad PR.

Strata expands on this in his conclusory remarks of his coverage of the Able Danger hearings:

Now we can connect some dots. The China study hits Capitol Hill and obviously echoes down Pennsylvania Avenue as Democrats (and possible Reps) wonder if the town is going to be heading back into a second impeachment. My guess is it wasn’t because of sufficient number of Republican names (like Rice), but the Clintons are not taking any chances. Gorelick has roots in the Pentagon’s General Counsel Office and they devise a plan to destroy the study using the 90 day rule. This is put into effect, but somehow the Able Danger data is caught up in the mess because the two efforts share the same people and timeframes. What is required for China to disappear is necessary for Able Danger too. That includes purging data, contracts and personnel. DIA and SOCOM grudgingly end up allowing this to happen (but not without a 6 month battle) when they are allowed to open Garland.

And now, in hindsight, many are probably feeling they made a pact with the devil. If Able Danger was successful post 9-11, then its potential pre 9-11 must be eating away at some good people. So we have a battle between alarmists (needed the data purged) and pragmatists (who were convinced to let things slide) and the outraged (those who cannot live with what happened). Make no mistake - most people in DC are in the middle right now. But they apparently are being pushed towards the outraged.

Of course, if Strata is correct, this is a scandal of the highest and most serious order. But to the MSM, it isn’t worth a bucket of birdshot, compared to the dopey story they (and oddly, some of the New Media) keep yapping about. The passivity (complicity?) of the Bush administration also deserves condemnation. (HT: Doug Martin)

UPDATE

Via Jack Kelly, here’s the fetid odor a cover-up emits, revealed to us through his discussion of what happened to Tony Shaffer, whom we wrote about last summer:

When Lt. Col. Shaffer was interviewing to become an intelligence officer, he admitted that at age 13, he had taken a box of pens from the embassy where his father worked. After he went public, the Defense Intelligence Agency tried to use that, $180 in disputed travel expenses and $67 in disputed telephone charges as grounds for firing him.

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