Jon Gold
3/31/2009

I don’t know if you heard, but the United States has been threatened by someone named Baitullah Mehsud. “Soon we will launch an attack in Washington that will amaze everyone in the world.”

I’ve never heard his name before myself, but historycommons.org has. Apparently Benazir Bhutto named him as one of her possible assassins. According to two reports from Oct. 2008, he died from kidney failure (hat tip to Reprehensor). This wouldn’t be the first person to die, and come back from the grave.

I was sitting here, reading about the possible fantastic news concerning the environmental disaster that was 9/11, and it dawned on me. If we’re getting threatened now, has Obama received the equivalent to the August 6th, PDB? How about the July 10th, 2001 warning, or the June 30th, 2001 warning, or how about you just go here and read about the different types of warnings received?

Has he? Does he have a piece of paper with this person’s name on it? Is there something he could be doing to ensure that we are protected? Is there a specific target that he is aware of? If so, then NOW would be a good time to do something about it, and warn those who need to be in the know.

If this warning came from a legitimate source of course.

A word of advice for President Obama. If you’re sitting in a classroom with a room full of children, and you are told that “America is under attack,” do me a favor… tell the children politely that you have to go because there are matters you have to attend to, allow the secret service to get you to a safe location, and make sure you’ve got good communications equipment with you so you can deal with the situation.

Also, don’t let Joe “take charge.” It might not look good.

Most importantly, WHATEVER you do, don’t lie about it, use the attack for more wars, more loss of civil liberties, more bankrupting of this country, more executive power, and so on. That also wouldn’t look good.

Jon Gold
3/30/2009

On March 25th, 2009, the New York Times reported that the Taliban gets “direct support from operatives in Pakistan’s military intelligence agency” [...] ACCORDING TO AMERICAN GOVERNMENT OFFICIALS (emphasis mine).

According to President Obama, these revelations “aren’t new.” As it turns out, he’s right.

Over the years, there have been so many reports about the ISI’s connection to 9/11, and to terrorism. The U.S. Government has been confronted on this issue on more than one occasion, and yet, NOW they are miraculously discovering this connection.

Are people like Paul Thompson, the makers of 9/11: Press For Truth, and myself, just that much smarter, and better researchers than your average CIA analyst whose job it is to know these kinds of things? The answer to that question is no. And if your average CIA analyst knows of this information, then so does their boss, and their boss, and their boss, and eventually even our elected officials know this. So why then have they ignored this relationship?

In 9/11: Press For Truth, Paul Thompson asks a very pertinent question. “The question to me is, who else was involved with Al-Qaeda? Was Al-Qaeda used as a tool? Just as in the 1980’s the Mujahadeen were used by the U.S. Government?”

On April 3rd 2007, ABC News reported that “a Pakistani tribal militant group responsible for a series of deadly guerrilla raids inside Iran has been secretly encouraged and advised by American officials since 2005, U.S. and Pakistani intelligence sources tell ABC News.” [...] “Pakistani government sources say the secret campaign against Iran by Jundullah was on the agenda when Vice President Dick Cheney met with Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf in February.”

Knowing that, knowing about the allegations of bribery, knowing about Danny Pearl, knowing about the CIA’s connection to the ISI, and knowing everything else that has been reported over the years, it’s not hard to figure out why the ISI’s involvement with terrorism has been ignored. At least, it’s not hard to “theorize” about why it has been ignored.

Because the relationship between the ISI and terrorists is advantageous to elements within the U.S. Government, and to other Governments as well.

As Paul Thompson asked, I wonder if anyone took advantage of that relationship for 9/11? In my opinion, it’s certainly not out of the realm of possibilities.

I thought telling “the story” from the perspective of a single murder might help some to understand.

On March 3rd, 2009, the September Eleventh Advocates wrote an open letter to Sen. Patrick Leahy. Co-founder of Student Scholars For 9/11 Truth, Michael Jackman, is currently doing a weekly podcast entitled, “You Don’t Know Jackman” for the Keene Equinox. This week, he decided that he was going to read the September Eleventh Advocates letter for everyone to hear. Michael did a fantastic job reading this letter. Please spread this around, and let everyone hear what the family members have to say.

Audio
Click Here

From yesterday, thanks to thinkprogress.org…

Fact #12 from my article, “The Facts Speak For Themselves…”

“In the days and months following the attacks, several people within the administration and elsewhere tried to tie Iraq to 9/11. General Wesley Clark said, “there were many people, inside and outside the government, who tried to link Saddam Hussein to Sept. 11.” According to George Tenet, shortly after 9/11, Richard Perle said, “Iraq has to pay a price for what happened yesterday, they bear responsibility.” Former CIA Director James Woolsey said, “[I]ntelligence and law enforcement officials investigating the case would do well to at least consider another possibility: that the attacks-whether perpetrated by bin Laden and his associates or by others-were sponsored, supported, and perhaps even ordered by Saddam Hussein,” he writes. “As yet, there is no evidence of explicit state sponsorship of the September 11 attacks. But absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.” Dick Cheney claimed the bogus Atta-Iraqi spy meeting had been, “pretty well confirmed, that he did go to Prague and he did meet with a senior official of the Iraqi intelligence service in Czechoslovakia last April, several months before the attack.” Since that time, they have done so again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and even Hillary did it.”

“We went to war BECAUSE WE WERE ATTACKED, and we are at war today because there are still people out there who want to harm our country and hurt our citizens.” - George W. Bush

The other day I was told something by Charlie that is infuriating. His family needs help. Charlie has been a huge advocate for the 9/11 First Responders.

As a member of the FealGood Foundation, Charlie was not allowed to receive any assistance from us because obviously it would have been seen as a conflict of interest. Sadly, and appropriately, the FealGood Foundation asked Charlie to resign.

John Feal released this statement:

Today the Fealgood Foundation lost board member Charlie Giles to his financial crisis. Charlie a 9/11 responder who was seriously affected by 9/11 was told he won his workmens comp case last week and recieved an award letter in the mail. His lump sum settlement would have been $40,000 plus payments every 2 weeks. The insurence company now has appealed it, and has left this hero with an eviction notice from his apartment which he moved into after loosing his house last year. Charlie was asked to resign from the board because none of my board members can recieve charity or any monies while sitting on the FGF board. But, like the 500 plus clients and thousands we advocate for, I implore all you great Americans to please help us help Charlie, his wife and 2 daughters. The madness, the sadness and the injustice continues for brave souls who risked their own health for America 7.5 years ago.

Any nation that does not honor it’s heroes will not long endure - Abraham Lincoln

Peace & Love
John Feal

Please help me to help Charlie. All monies collected will be given directly to him, and his family.

Thanks.

It’s a shame to see how little the public knows.

The bipartisan panel that investigated the terrorist attacks was widely praised. But did its final report rely on suspect information?

Source: newsweek.com

By Philip Shenon | NEWSWEEK
Published Mar 14, 2009

Powerful Democrats on Capitol Hill are clamoring for creation of a bipartisan “9/11 style” commission to investigate the legality of the Bush administration’s antiterrorism tactics—especially its use of harsh interrogation techniques.

President Obama has been notably cool to the idea. But the case for a “truth” commission was bolstered by the disclosure this month that the CIA had destroyed 92 videotapes of the interrogations and confinement of Al Qaeda suspects. A dozen showed the use of “enhanced” techniques routinely described by human-rights groups as torture.

Lawmakers say the obvious model for such an inquiry would be the 9/11 Commission—an independent bipartisan body praised for its authoritative account of the attacks.

But as a reporter who covered the commission from start to finish and later wrote a history of its investigation, I wonder if Congress understands the deep irony of establishing a “new 9/11 Commission” on these issues. Former commission investigators have acknowledged to me over the past year that the panel had a serious blind spot on questions about torture.

The commission appears to have ignored obvious clues throughout 2003 and 2004 that its account of the 9/11 plot and Al Qaeda’s history relied heavily on information obtained from detainees who had been subjected to torture, or something not far from it.

The panel raised no public protest over the CIA’s interrogation methods, even though news reports at the time suggested how brutal those methods were. In fact, the commission demanded that the CIA carry out new rounds of interrogations in 2004 to get answers to its questions.

That has troubling implications for the credibility of the commission’s final report. In intelligence circles, testimony obtained through torture is typically discredited; research shows that people will say anything under threat of intense physical pain.

And yet it is a distinct possibility that Al Qaeda suspects who were the exclusive source of information for long passages of the commission’s report may have been subjected to “enhanced” interrogation techniques, or at least threatened with them, because of the 9/11 Commission.

While the CIA says it ended the use of waterboarding by early 2003, the agency continued to use other “enhanced” methods involving pain, sleep deprivation and extended isolation—all of which have been branded as torture. The CIA insists that its interrogation methods were legal and approved by the White House.

I wish I had known all this before my book was published in January of last year. Only a few days after publication, the CIA acknowledged publicly, for the first time, that it had carried out waterboarding on Al Qaeda detainees. It was a startling disclosure. Before 2001, the United States had routinely condemned waterboarding as torture and had prosecuted it as a war crime.

The CIA insisted that only three men had been waterboarded: Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the architect of the 9/11 attacks; Abu Zubaydah, Al Qaeda’s operations chief; and Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, ringleader of the USS Cole bombing.

Information from CIA interrogations of two of the three—KSM and Abu Zubaydah—is cited throughout two key chapters of the panel’s report focusing on the planning and execution of the attacks and on the history of Al Qaeda.

Footnotes in the panel’s report indicate when information was obtained from detainees interrogated by the CIA. An analysis by NBC News found that more than a quarter of the report’s footnotes—441 of some 1,700—referred to detainees who were subjected to the CIA’s “enhanced” interrogation program, including the trio who were waterboarded.

Commission members note that they repeatedly pressed the Bush White House and CIA for direct access to the detainees, but the administration refused. So the commission forwarded questions to the CIA, whose interrogators posed them on the panel’s behalf.

The commission’s report gave no hint that harsh interrogation methods were used in gathering information, stating that the panel had “no control” over how the CIA did its job; the authors also said they had attempted to corroborate the information “with documents and statements of others.”

But how could the commission corroborate information known only to a handful of people in a shadowy terrorist network, most of whom were either dead or still at large?

Former senator Bob Kerrey of Nebraska, a Democrat on the commission, told me last year he had long feared that the investigation depended too heavily on the accounts of Al Qaeda detainees who were physically coerced into talking. While he thought the commission’s larger narrative about the September 11 attacks held up, “there’s reason now to suspect that we may have gotten some of the details wrong” about the 9/11 plot and about Al Qaeda.

Kerrey said it might take “a permanent 9/11 commission” to end the remaining mysteries of September 11. Those now calling for more 9/11-style panels would be wise to heed his words.

Jon Gold
3/10/2009

“I was just in the hospital for 8 days with respiratory & coronary problems. Then I come out to find out that the insurance carrier decided at the last minute to appeal my award from workmans comp that was just given to me after waiting 7 1/2 years.”

This was just told to me by 9/11 First Responder Charlie Giles. Charlie was an EMT that went into the North Tower to try and help people, and got caught when the building collapsed. He was pulled out of the rubble, and has had to deal with serious medical problems ever since.

Charlie is but one of thousands with similar problems. It has almost been 8 years since that horrid day, and for the most part, the 9/11 First Responders and the people of New York living around Ground Zero have been neglected. Neglected by those who were more than willing to use their images to sell two wars, take away our civil liberties, and practically destroy this country.

It is LONG past due that these individuals receive the help they so DESPERATELY need and deserve.

On February 4th, 2009, Reps. Maloney, Nadler, King, and McMahon reintroduced the 9/11 Health and Compensation Act. Since that time, it has been sitting in limbo, just waiting to be voted on.

To our elected officials sitting in the House of Representatives. You could spend more money in Iraq or Afghanistan. You could spend more money on health care. You could spend more money bailing out the financial industry. You could do a lot of things, and in the past, you have shown us that when you want to, you can pass legislation faster than a speeding bullet.

I am asking you now to put all of those other things aside, and spend some money on what’s right, and to do it NOW. Give them the help that they need. It is long past due.

March 3, 2009

Dear Senator Leahy,

We felt compelled to write to you regarding your recent call for the formation of a “Truth Commission”. According to your press comments, this Commission is supposed to look at the following:

• the politicization of prosecution in the Justice Department
  
• the wiretapping of U.S. citizens
  
• the flawed intelligence used to justify the invasion of Iraq
  
• the use of torture at Guantanamo and so-called black sites abroad
  

These are serious allegations of criminal activity by certain members of the Bush Administration. While we applaud your initiative in looking into these matters, we feel this approach is wrong.

As the Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, you already have the responsibility and legal authority to investigate matters relating to federal criminal law without having to form a special commission. You are also bound by your oath of office to support and uphold the Constitution by ensuring that those who govern also abide by the rule of law.

Furthermore, a “Truth Commission” will not fix the real problems that our country faces, nor will it guarantee that we will get to the truth.

The 9/11 Commission, which you want to model your commission after, is a perfect example of that flawed process.

The 9/11 Commission was mandated to follow the facts surrounding the events of September 11, 2001 to wherever they might lead and make national security recommendations based upon those facts. Sadly, prior to even beginning their investigation, like you, the 9/11 Commissioners agreed amongst themselves that their role was to /fact find, not fault find/.

This decision resulted in individuals not being held accountable for their specific failures. These people were shown to be incompetent in the 9/11 Commission’s Final Report but were left in their positions, or worse, promoted. No one should be allowed to make this compromise on behalf of the American people. How can any agency be deemed fixed or reformed if the people working there are inept? How can anyone feel safer?

At the 9/11 Commission hearings, little actual evidence was ever produced. Many individuals were not sworn in, critical witnesses were either not called to testify or were permitted to dictate the parameters of their own questioning, pertinent questions were omitted and there was little follow-up. Whistleblower testimony was suppressed or avoided all together. The National Security Agency, an intelligence agency that is responsible for the collection and analysis of foreign communications and foreign intelligence, was barely investigated at all.

With the narrative of the 9/11 Commission’s final report predetermined and with the preexisting intention to never hold anyone accountable in place, the 9/11 Commission was doomed to fail as a real investigation.

The end result of the 9/11 Commission’s work was that some of the recommendations that they produced were in fact, based on distortions and omissions. Since their mandate of a complete accounting was ignored, the recommendations were incomplete at best.

There was clearly no desire on the part of Congress to force the Commission to meet its legislative mandate. Accordingly, there were no repercussions for the fact that the investigation and its recommendations were incomplete. It could be surmised that holding no one accountable was more important than uncovering and disclosing the truth. This could compromise the future safety of American citizens.

Why then would you want to model another Commission after it? Why would you want another Commission at all?

Senator Leahy, in light of the fact that the 9/11 Commission’s worst offense was not fully investigating the September 11th attacks, completing that investigation should also be included on your list of matters to be examined.

America’s founding fathers, prescient in their fears of unrestrained power, created three separate but equal branches of government. They had hoped to maintain and enforce the limits of the Executive Branch.

The Bush Administration was allowed to circumvent too many Constitutional restrictions effectively undermining America’s system of justice, our nation’s integrity and commitment to the rule of law. The Bush Administration’s seizing of power proves the adage that “absolute power corrupts absolutely”.

The days of no fault government must end; and where there is clear criminal activity, people must be prosecuted. The law must be upheld without exception before we can be assured of the safety of the nation.

These duties cannot be ignored for the sake of expediency.

Senator Leahy, our nation needs you to investigate and, if warranted, refer the cases for criminal prosecution in transparent trials. We do not need another meaningless commission resulting in no accountability at the taxpayers’ expense. Show all Americans that you have the courage to uphold the law, bring accountability to those who abuse their positions of power and prevent such abuses from happening again.

The November 2008 elections proved that Americans want the rule of law restored for those in Washington who are elected to represent us. You, Senator Leahy, are in the position to lead the way and work toward the change we were promised.

Sincerely,

September 11th Advocates

Patty Casazza
Monica Gabrielle
Mindy Kleinberg
Lorie Van Auken