So it’s been a little bit over a year since physicist Steven Jones told us “what we need to know about peer-review” while also essentially telling 9/11 “debunkers” to put up or shut up. Let’s see if they have stopped just being loud and have gotten loud and clear…
In October 2008, long time 9/11 “debunker” [...]
Citizen Investigation Team (CIT) have cited Shinki and Ed Paik’s witness accounts to support their claims that the plane said to have hit the Pentagon on 9/11 (American Airlines Flight 77), actually flew on a different flight path (‘north of Citgo’) and flew over the Pentagon. Ed Paik’s account appears in their films ‘The Pentacon’, and most recently ‘National Security Alert’ (NSA). In addition, Ed’s account has been cited repeatedly in their articles and online discussions. However, my January 2010 interviews of Ed and Shinki, as well as a 2006 interview of Ed recorded by Dylan Avery, Ed Paik’s drawings and gestures for CIT, and other related material, show that certain facts have been omitted or distorted by CIT in their attempt to make their case for the ‘north of Citgo path’.
From their apartment, Dawn Vignola and her roommate Hugh ‘Tim’ Timmerman saw American Flight 77 hit the Pentagon, September 11, 2001. Shortly afterward, they gave witness accounts to local and national TV media. In 2007, they were interviewed by Citizen Investigation Team (CIT), who attempted to discredit their testimony. I interviewed Dawn and her husband, Dan Ferrigno, January 5, 2010 at that same apartment and found them credible; they talked openly with me, their accounts have not changed since they were first offered, and I saw for myself that Dawn and Tim could have easily seen what they claimed to have seen.
My report and videos from the End US Wars Rally in Lafayette Park, Washington, D.C., Dec 12, 2009. Short interviews with Ralph Nader, Dennis Kucinich, David Swanson and Cynthia McKinney.
Dear Councilman Ulrich,
Last week, on Wednesday 3/31, I spoke with your assistant Liam about my request for you to consider opening a new investigation into what happened to World Trade Center Building 7 on 9/11/01. As a follow-up to that discussion, I promised to send more information on the evidence for explosives at the World [...]
I’m retracting the article originally posted here as it has been brought to my attention that threats prosecuted under Section 422 of the California Penal Code are sometimes referred to as “terrorist threats.”
Corrected, revised and updated March 27, 2010
March 20, 2010, thousands of people gathered across from the White House in D.C. and thousands more gathered around the U.S. to commemorate the 7th anniversary of the illegal U.S. attack on Iraq, and to protest Obama’s continuation of the violent occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan, and other abuses [...]
source: Democracy Now
AMY GOODMAN: Daniel Ellsberg, I want to thank you for being with us, Pentagon Papers whistleblower, and Glenn Greenwald.
DANIEL ELLSBERG: Yeah, one last thing. He’s in danger of more than arrest. Arrest is probably the major thing, even though it’s not clear what he would be arrested on. But he—I have to say [...]
Story by John Bursill
22nd of July, 2010
Australia’s number one talk back Radio Station 2GB, have reported on the Prof. Niels Harritt Lecture on the 17th of July, 2010 at the Sydney Mechanic’s School of Arts during their late evening show with Brian Wilshire. Sydney’s most popular late night show’s regular guest, Prof. Keith Suter who [...]
Story by John Bursill
On Saturday the 17th of July Prof. Niels Harritt of the University of Copenhagen in Denmark gave a lecture to a capacity crowd of concerned citizens called ” Did Explosives Bring Down the Towers on 9/11″. This Sydney audience was generated purely from fliers handed out by diligent activists and one radio [...]
9/11: Science and Society – Prof Steven E. Jones
Now available from www.911TV.org
This powerful two hour high quality video presentation given by Professor Emeritus Physicist Dr Steven E. Jones issues a challenge to the world scientific community; a challenge to examine the evidence he and his peers have presented at The Journal [...]
On the Saturday the 17th of July, 2010 9/11 Truth Australia will host a public lecture by Danish Professor Niels Harrit from the University of Copenhagen, titled “Did Explosives Bring Down the Towers on 9/11?”
Professor Harrit is the lead author of an expert international team that produced a peer reviewed scientific paper published early last [...]
source: 911truth.org
by John Bursill
On April 12th, 2010 ABC Radio National’s “Counterpoint” host Michael Duffy decided to weigh in on the truth of the 9/11 events. In this clearly biased and ludicrous attack on those who would question the still unexplained events of September 11, 2001, Duffy [...]
source: Wall Street Journal
via: Raw Story
by Daniel Tencer
The National Security Agency has begun work on an “expansive” spy system that will monitor critical infrastructure inside the United States for cyber-attacks, in a move that detractors say could end up violating privacy rights and expanding the NSA’s domestic spying abilities.
The Wall Street Journal cites unnamed sources [...]
source: AOL News
(June 26) – The father of a 6-year-old Ohio girl who turned up on the U.S. government’s terror watch list says the worst thing his daughter has ever done is probably been mean to her sister.
But Santhosh Thomas, a doctor from Westlake, Ohio, says he’s sure that’s not enough to land his 6-year-old [...]
source: Earth Times
Washington – Remains of victims have been discovered in the rubble of the World Trade Center nearly nine years after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, a news report said.Seventy-two bone fragments were found in about two dump trucks of debris that had yet to be sifted by forensics experts, US television’s ABC [...]
source: Raw Story
Group says even Former President Carter could be prosecuted for monitoring fair elections in Lebanon
The US Supreme Court endorsed Monday a broad reading of the law criminalizing “material support” to terrorism, a statute that critics argue targets legitimate free speech.
In a six to three vote, the highest US court sided with the government [...]
By ANDREW MIGA and DAVID B. CARUSO, Associated Press Writers Andrew Miga And David B. Caruso, Associated Press Writers
WASHINGTON – A bill that would have provided up to $7.4 billion in aid to people sickened by World Trade Center dust fell short in the House on Thursday, raising the possibility that the bulk of compensation for the ill will come from a legal settlement hammered out in the federal courts.
The bill would have provided free health care and compensation payments to 9/11 rescue and recovery workers who fell ill after working in the trade center ruins.
It failed to win the needed two-thirds majority, 255-159. The vote was largely along party lines, with 12 Republicans joining Democrats supporting the measure.
For weeks, a judge and teams of lawyers have been urging 10,000 former ground zero workers to sign on to a court-supervised settlement that would split $713 million among people who developed respiratory problems and other illnesses after inhaling trade center ash.
The court deal shares some similarities with the aid program that the federal legislation would have created, but it involves far less money. Only the most seriously ill of the thousands of police officers, firefighters and construction workers suing New York City over their exposure to the dust would be eligible for a hefty payout.
But supporters of the deal have been saying the court settlement is the only realistic option for the sick, because Congress will never act.
"Ladies and gentlemen, you can wait and wait and wait for that legislation ... it's not passing," Kenneth Feinberg, the former special master of the federal 9/11 victim compensation fund, told an audience of ground zero responders Monday in a meeting on Staten Island.
Democratic leaders opted to consider the House bill under a procedure that requires a two-thirds vote for approval rather than a simple majority. Such a move blocked potential GOP amendments to the measure.
A key backer of the bill, U.S. Rep. Peter King, a Long Island Republican, accused Democrats of staging a "charade."
King said Democrats were "petrified" about casting votes as the fall elections near on controversial amendments, possibly including one that could ban the bill from covering illegal immigrants who were sickened by trade center dust.
If Democrats brought it to the floor as a regular bill, King said, it would have passed with majority support.
GOP critics branded the bill as yet another big-government "massive new entitlement program" that would have increased taxes and possibly kill jobs.
To pay the bill's estimated $7.4 billion cost over 10 years, the legislation would have prevented foreign multinational corporations incorporated in tax haven countries from avoiding tax on income earned in the U.S.
Bill supporters said that would close a tax loophole. Republicans branded it a corporate tax increase.
New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg called the vote an "outrage." He said it was clearly a tactic designed to stall the bill.
"This is a way to avoid having to make a tough decision," Bloomberg said, adding that the nation owes more to "the people who worked down at 9/11 whose health has fallen apart because they did what America wanted them to do."
John Feal, a ground zero demolition worker who has lobbied extensively for the legislation, expressed disgust.
"They pulled the rug out from beneath our feet," Feal said. "Whatever member of Congress vote against this bill, whether Republican or Democrat, should go to jail for manslaughter."
The bill would have provided up to $3.2 billion to cover the medical treatment of people sickened by trade center dust and an additional $4.2 billion for a new fund that would have compensated them for their suffering and lost wages.
The potential promise of a substantial payout from the federal government had caused some ground zero workers to balk at participating in the proposed legal settlement, which would resolve as many as 10,000 lawsuits against the city.
Initially, the bill would have prohibited people from participating in the new federal compensation program if they had already been compensated for their injuries through a lawsuit, but a change was made in recent days eliminating that restriction.
Nevertheless, with the House rejecting the bill and no vote scheduled on a similar Senate version, it appears almost guaranteed that there will be no new federal law by Sept. 8, the date by which ground zero workers involved in the lawsuits must decide whether to accept the settlement offer.
Under the terms of the deal, 95 percent of those workers must say yes for the court settlement to take effect.
The compensation system set up by the court would make payments ranging from $3,250 for people who aren't sick but worry they could fall ill in the future to as much as $1.5 million to the families of people who have died. Nonsmokers disabled by severe asthma might get between $800,000 and $1 million.
About 25 percent of the money would go to pay legal fees. Contested claims would be heard by Feinberg, who would act as an appeals officer.
Researchers have found that thousands of New Yorkers exposed to trade center dust are now suffering from breathing difficulties similar to asthma. Many have also complained of heartburn or acid reflux, and studies have shown that firefighters who worked on the debris pile suffer from elevated levels of sarcoidosis, an inflammatory disease.
Many of the workers also fear that the dust is giving people cancer, although scientific studies have failed to find evidence of such a link.
The exact number of sick is unclear. Nearly 15,900 people received treatment last year through medical programs set up to treat Sept. 11-related illnesses, but doctors say many of those people suffered from conditions that are common in the general public.
The House bill is named for James Zadroga, a police detective who died at age 34. His supporters say he died from respiratory disease contracted at ground zero, but New York City's medical examiner said Zadroga's lung condition was caused by prescription drug abuse.
Condoleezza Rice/Aretha Franklin Concert Protested by 9/11 Truthers
Published July 28, 2010 by:
Mark Whittington
While Condoleezza Rice and Aretha Franklin made beautiful music inside the Mann Music Center at Fairmount Park in Philadelphia, two or three 9/11 truthers gathered outside to protest. The only thing I can say is, cool sound track, crazy people with too much time on their hands.
BY Michael Mcauliff
DAILY NEWS WASHINGTON BUREAU
July 28, 2010
NewYorkDailyNews.com"
WASHINGTON - The House votes Wednesday or Thursday for the first time ever on a bill to care for the heroes and victims of Sept. 11, 2001 - and it's likely to fail.
That's because Democratic House leaders decided Tuesday to push ahead with the Zadroga 9/11 Health and Compensation Act under a rule that requires two-thirds approval to pass.
Many Republicans are concerned about the $10.5 billion price tag, and many don't like the way it's paid for.
News of the scheme immediately alarmed 9/11 responders.
"Whoever votes 'No' tomorrow should go to jail for manslaughter," said John Feal, who lost half his foot at Ground Zero in the cleanup.
Response to Chip Berlet’s “Toxic to Democracy: Conspiracy Theories, Demonization, and Scapegoating”
By Peter Phillips and Mickey Huff
Media Freedom Foundation/Project Censored
In his recent essay “Toxic to Democracy,” Political Research Associates (PRA) Senior Analyst Chip Berlet uses the very same methods of demonization by association that he so strongly opposes. Berlet convolutes historical context, ideological differences, and progressives vis-à-vis extreme conservative/neo-con/libertarians in a diatribe of meaninglessness.
Berlet lumps valid academic research on State Crimes Against Democracy (SCADs) in with anti-Semitic jingoism and far right wing extremism. He suggests that any research that even implies some sort of conspiracy is dangerous and suspect, seemingly forgetting a long list of proven US and other government conspiracies (SCADs) including: Operation Mockingbird, COINTELPRO, Gulf of Tonkin “Incident,” October Surprise, CIA-Contra Dark Alliance, Iran-Contra, WMDs and Iraq Invasion, and the overthrow of governments in Iran, Guatemala, Haiti, Chile, Greece, Indonesia, Panama, and many others.
Outrageously, Berlet categorizes progressive intellectuals such as Peter Dale Scott, Michael Parenti, David Ray Griffin, Michel Chossudovsky, and by innuendo the two of us, as dangerous conspiracists. He uses a straw person technique by positing former LaRouche analyst Webster Tarpley, and the Church of God Evangelistic Association founder David J. Smith in the same category as the progressive intellectuals listed above.
At the end of his essay, Berlet attempts to distinguish between people who do power structure research such as G. William Domhoff—who served on Peter Phillips’ dissertation committee regarding the Bohemian Grove in 1994— along with Holly Sklar, former PRA associate and author of a study on the Trilateral Commission compared to those who see elite networks as potential places of planning for self serving advantages. Of course, elites conspire to maximize their power and profits whenever possible. Corporate boardrooms are rife with such activity and the resulting actions/PR manipulations—as recently evidenced by British Petroleum. That does not mean one should simply dismiss researching the lies and manipulations of the powerful because it might imply a conspiracy, especially when the lies fail to explain how a 47-story steel frame building (WTC Building 7) collapsed in its own footprint at freefall speed on September 11, 2001, or how a scientific, peer-reviewed, academic journal discovered unreacted nano-thermite in the dust from the World Trade Centers (The Open Chemical Physics Journal).
While we have solid respect for the long tradition of research into extreme right wing and racist organizations for which PRA is well known, we are most dismayed by Chip Berlet’s reactionary dismissal of academic research into conspiracies/State Crimes Against Democracy by long time progressive intellectuals.
Peter Phillips is a Professor of Sociology at Sonoma State University and President of Media Freedom Foundation/Project Censored
Mickey Huff is an Associate Professor of History at Diablo Valley College and Director of Project Censored/Media Freedom Foundation
Contained within the 2008 History Channel documentary "102 Minutes That Changed America" is video depicting what appears to be molten material within World Trade Center tower 2 on September 11, 2001, similar to other molten material filmed nearby. Molten iron is a product of thermitic reactions.
Previously recorded molten material originating from within the northeast corner of the 80th floor of WTC 2 moments before its collapse:
WASHINGTON - The House votes Wednesday or Thursday for the first time ever on a bill to care for the heroes and victims of Sept. 11, 2001 - and it's likely to fail.
That's because Democratic House leaders decided Tuesday to push ahead with the Zadroga 9/11 Health and Compensation Act under a rule that requires two-thirds approval to pass.
Many Republicans are concerned about the $10.5 billion price tag, and many don't like the way it's paid for.
News of the scheme immediately alarmed 9/11 responders.
"Whoever votes 'No' tomorrow should go to jail for manslaughter," said John Feal, who lost half his foot at Ground Zero in the cleanup.
Feal thinks House leaders should have found a way to move the bill in the regular way, needing just a simple majority.
"They'll all go home and lick their wounds after the vote, but 9/11 responders are the ones who are going to suffer without health care after nine years," Feal said.
Sources told the Daily News that Democrats feared Republicans would attach toxic changes in a simple majority vote. No such tinkering is allowed under the two-thirds rule.
New York's legislators were still holding out hope they would prevail.
"Every time we had a vote on this, we did much better than people thought," said Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-Brooklyn/Queens).
And Republicans who oppose the bill can be cast in a politically poisonous light, Democrats said, noting the measure is paid for by closing tax loopholes on subsidiaries of foreign companies.
"Either they stand to protect foreign corporations who are avoiding U.S. taxes, or they are going to stand to protect those who stood in protection of us on 9/11," said Rep. Joe Crowley (D-Queens).
"Do they want to stand up for the heroes of 9/11 or do they want to vote for tax evasion?" asked Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-Manhattan).
In a painful irony, the decision to use an odd procedure came as Congress was voting to fund the war in Afghanistan, and add it to the debt.
"What I think is tragic is that we're funding wars that came out of 9/11, yet we're not taking care of the men and women who risked their lives," said Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-Manhattan).
She and Nadler predicted if the measure fails, they will bring it back after the August recess. "We're playing to win, but if we don't we're building momentum," Maloney said.
9/11 Truth Presented at Advanced Wealth Building Conference in Jamaica
Written by Richard Gage, AIA
Tuesday, 27 July 2010 01:59
AE911Truth was flown into Jamaica earlier this month to present the evidence for the explosive destruction of the three WTC skyscrapers to their top 250 associates. Why? Wealth Masters International is a company of 20,000 associates seeking to build and maintain their wealth in the face of a declining economy and the largest wealth transfer in history.
Kip Herriage and Karl Bessey are the leaders of this unique wealth oriented company, who brought AE911Truth to this annual conference in order to give their followers very sensitive information that few other Wall Street gurus dare to understand or to provide. Their associates came together for four days to take a hard look at the light as well as dark sides of our national and world economy, and the opportunities available to savvy investors. They brought together a collection of other leaders, like Mike Maloney of GoldSilver.com, and G. Edward Griffin, author of The Creature from Jekyll Island, and a host of other leaders in the areas of investment and health.
What does all this have to do with 9/11? 9/11 changed the economic landscape. The truth about the destruction of the Towers on 9/11 (the subject of our talk) and the real perpetrators behind it (the subject of G. Edward Griffin’s talks) is seen by the company’s founders as essential to their associates “situational awareness.”
Encompassing a truly global presence, 40% of the attendees at the Wealth Masters International (WMI) m3 Private Wealth Group were comprised of international Members. Speakers focused on global economics, specifically, demonstrating the historical precedence for the financial opportunity that develops during economic lows. All WMI Members are made aware that the greatest transfer of wealth in history is taking place right now and the m3 Private Wealth Group is just one of the many opportunities Members have to learn more about what they can do to capitalize and generate extraordinary wealth during the transfer.
Before the presentation to 250 attendees, 55 believed the Official Conspiracy Theory, which believes that the planes and fires brought down the towers, and 40 were unsure. Afterwards none believed the OCT and only 7 were unsure. Thus the explosive evidence, as outlined graphically in our DVD, 9/11: Blueprint for Truth, once again speaks for itself, and appears to be quite compelling to those who have no previous awareness of alternative explanations. We sold all of the DVDs that we brought and half of the audience seemed to be in a state of shock, which was evident during the three half-hour break-out sessions which followed, and gave them a chance to ask quite a range of questions. The most common questions continue to be about the who, why, and how could they have gotten away with it. We largely let them wrestle with these questions and refer them to David Ray Griffin’s excellent books, including “The New Pearl Harbor Revisited.”
Many had stated that they would be providing donations to our 501(c)3 non-profit organization -- via the donation envelopes that we now pass out at all of our functions. We very much encourage people who really get the drastic implications of our presentation to support us financially or by volunteering. There is much more that we can accomplish toward our mission of research, education, advocacy, and justice. Our hands have been tied for lack of funding. If you have been waiting for the right time to join the family of monthly sustaining supporters then let me assure you that your wait is over. Now is the time to fully activate your relationship with AE911Truth and give us the boost we need to get the materials out to every member of congress, host our press conference and debate in Washington, DC this September, and to open our Washington, DC office. We must have a new investigation. What will be your role?
Wikileaks head honcho Julian Assange may be annoyed with the 911 Truth movement and all those conspiracy theories. But he may be appalled when he reads that one of the leading authors and researchers on imperialism and the Iraq war, Chris Floyd, has taken him to task for making much ado about nothing.
Floyd makes his case early on in the article, with maximum effect:
"Is there anything in these breathless new recitations that we did not already know? For example, the NYT offers a few short vignettes from the leaked documents concerning botched raids and errant missiles that slaughter civilians. But in almost every case, these have already been extensively reported -- in the Times itself and other mainstream venues -- in much greater detail, with quotes and evidence from the victims and local eyewitnesses, and not just the self-interested, ass-covering perspective of official occupation reports. And the "revelation" that occupation forces are killing "an amazing number of people" who have "never proven to be a threat" at checkpoints was confirmed months ago by no less than Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the erstwhile commander of the whole shebang." Chris Floyd, July 26, 27
Floyd points out that regular readers of the three media outlets that received the leaks would know much of the material presented in the maze of documents touted as news. He makes a clear distinction between the Wikileaks data dump and previous national security leaks:
"These are not the Pentagon Papers or the Downing Street Memos; they do almost nothing to alter the public image of the war, and tell almost nothing that we don't already know." Floyd
Wikileaks quotes a US embassy cable from Kabul claiming that Iran is a key player in the Afghanistan opposition. Floyd's response shows the bias of the leaked material:
"Wow, that's heavy stuff, man. An apparatchik in the US embassy says that the political opposition to America's man in Kabul is just Iranian puppetry. Obviously, those Afghan ragheads couldn't possibly put together an opposition by themselves. (It's just like that Civil Rights stuff back in the day; it was all a Communist front. You know our docile darkies would never have tried to get above their raising if the Commies hadn't stirred them up.)" Floyd
After a comprehensive summary of the not-so-newness of the material release, Floyd concludes his devastating indictment with this judgment:
"I believe they will supply plenty of ammunition to those bent on further murder and plunder." Floyd
Some questions
Question: How do we know that the Wikileaks material is the only material being used by the New York Times?
George Friedman of Stratfor made an interesting point in his analysis of the Wikileaks materials:
"The Times reports that (former Pakistani intelligence chief Lt. Gen. Hamid) Gul’s name appears all over the documents, yet very few documents have been released in the current batch, and it is very hard to imagine intelligence on Gul and his organization, the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) directorate, being classified as only secret. So, this was either low-grade material hyped by the media, or there is material reviewed by the selected newspapers but not yet made public. Still, what was released and what the Times discussed is consistent with what most thought was happening in Afghanistan." George Friedman, Stratfor Global Intelligence, July 27
Friedman's points are of real interest. Was the government so careless as to mention a critical U.S. intelligence contact, Gul, in secret, as opposed to top secret communication? If that's not the case, how did material that would presumably be classified as top secret end up in the Wikileaks documents, which were supposedly classified secret?
Is the Times inserting other material from unspecified sources in the Wikileaks commentary?
Does the Times have yet another of its political agendas embedded in the handling of the leaks?
Who is watching the leakers?
Question: Why did Wikileaks choose the New York Times, of all papers, as the news and editorial source for the U.S. audience? The Time is, after all, the newspaper that brought us Judith Miller's fantasies about weapons of mass destruction and withheld the illegal wiretapping story until well after the 2004 election. That made "the paper of record" complicit in the effort to lie us into an illegal Iraq invasion and perpetuate the Iraq occupation and war. By withholding the illegal wiretapping story until December 16, 2005, the hugely negative impact of Bush illegal wiretapping was assured to have no influence on the election. This helped Bush and Cheney to four more years to inflict their pain on the country and the world.
Question: Why did Wikileaks' Julian Assange make this gratuitous remark on July 19?
"I'm constantly annoyed that people are distracted by false conspiracies such as 9/11, when all around we provide evidence of real conspiracies, for war or mass financial fraud." Julian Assange, July 19
Isn't Assange aware that the House and Senate Intelligence Committees routinely go after 911 Truth and that the mainstream media is never far behind? Why is he piling on? Which conspiracy theories is he talking about? How does he know that any one of them is false? Has Assange read the entire body of evidence based research and theories on 9/11(or any of it)? Finally, why does Assange have such contempt for the consistently high percentage of U.S. citizens, particularly in New York City, who voice serious doubts about the truth of the 9/11 Commission and other pronouncements by the bipartisan rulers who do their best to make sure that nothing leaks out or gets investigated regarding 9/11?
Chris Floyd's analysis of the latest Wikileaks production is required reading for those interested in navigating The Matrix of modern media manipulation.
END
This article may be reproduced in part or whole with attribution of authorship and a link to this article.
by Stephen Dinan, former Board member of 911truth.org (Fall of 2004)
July 27, 2010
In early September of 2009, Van Jones contacted the current board of 911truth.org asking to be removed from the 911 Truth Statement, which was created in the Fall of 2004. Since the current members were not working with 911truth.org in 2004, former Board members researched the situation and were unable to produce electronic or written evidence that Van agreed to sign the Statement. Based on what we were able to ascertain from memories, it is plausible he was asked verbally through an intermediary without reviewing the full text, as he has stated. Because we do not have a written signature and his view is that he does not agree with the Statement, the current Board removed his signature as requested on Sept. 9, 2009, for the organization respects each persons right to have their views accurately represented.
Of the original signatories, 97 out of the 100 and all of the family members remain behind this important call for an independent investigation into unanswered questions around 9/11, a group that includes respected academics, former government officials, journalists, and political leaders. 911truth.org invites media and government officials to take this Statement from a range of notable Americans seriously while respecting that Jones should not be seen as part of this group.
There is nothing more fundamental to being American than our right to question and seek the full truth. For that call, no one should receive vilification or persecution, or we erode the foundations of our democracy. That is what distinguishes us from countries in which citizens fear to question their government or speak their conscience.
911truth.org sees this as a closed matter and will issue no further statement.
He seems to be Naval Aide Douglas Cochrane. I'll get to how he is identified in a moment. First.....
The 9-11 commission has this scenario in the PEOC, instead of the one described by N Mineta.....
"At some time between 10:10 and 10:15, a military aide told the Vice President and others that the aircraft was 80 miles out. Vice President Cheney was asked for authority to engage the aircraft. His reaction was described by Scooter Libby as quick and decisive, "in about the time it takes a batter to decide to swing." The Vice President authorized fighter aircraft to engage the inbound plane. He told us he based this authorization on his earlier conversation with the President. The military aide returned a few minutes later, probably between 10:12 and 10:18, and said the aircraft was 60 miles out. He again asked for authorization to engage. The Vice President again said yes" http://govinfo.library.unt.edu/911/report/911Report_Ch1.htm
The person telling Cheney the plane is 80 miles out...60 miles out...etc...is described as his "Military Aide". This would be the "young man" as Mineta described him. Unless there are two different people telling Cheney the plane is 80 miles out...the plane is 60 miles out....this seems extremely unlikely. So who is this military aide? I'll get to him shortly.
First,this may or may not be true, but the fact is Cheney can't prove it(the part of him getting shoot down authorization), what Cheney is doing is protecting the President, along with Sec of Def Rumsfeld, who are the only two people authorized to issue shoot down orders. Neither one did so, and conspired together not to.................
"Prior to 9/11, it was understood that an order to shoot down a commercial aircraft would have to be issued by the National Command Authority (a phrase used to describe the president and secretary of defense)." page 17/46 http://www.9-11commission.gov/report/911Report.pdf
"The President apparently spoke to Secretary Rumsfeld for the first time that morning shortly after 10:00. No one can recall the content of this conversation, but it was a brief call in which the subject of shootdown authority was not discussed." http://www.9-11commission.gov/report/911Report.pdf
I mean....it's right there. The official story is probably right, in that, the passengers having to take over 93, because no one was authorizing any shoot down order, until the attacks were over. It's a proveable fact that no shoot down orders were given until after the last plane (Flight 93) went down. They had no intention of disrupting what they needed to happen. It's not believable that a pilot would take it upon themselves to kill a plane of civilians without authorization.
Here's evidence of a stand down. If the President gave Cheney an order, and they claim it was a shoot down order they can't prove it. They should be able to do that. Instead the proof indicates the order was never given during the attacks (Flight 93 went down at 10:03 or 10:06)....
"Fleischer’s 10:20 note is the first mention of shootdown authority. See White House notes,Ari Fleischer notes, Sept. 11, 2001; see also Ari Fleischer interview (Apr. 22, 2004)." http://www.9-11commission.gov/report/911Report_Notes.pdf
"The Vice President's military aide told us he believed the Vice President spoke to the President just after entering the conference room, but he did not hear what they said. Rice, who entered the room shortly after the Vice President and sat next to him, remembered hearing him inform the President, "Sir, the CAPs are up. Sir, they're going to want to know what to do." Then she recalled hearing him say, "Yes sir." She believed this conversation occurred a few minutes, perhaps five, after they entered the conference room." http://govinfo.library.unt.edu/911/report/911Report_Ch1.htm
This is where the military aide's testimoney would be crucial, what was the order he was given? But again......even if he says it was a shoot down order, it came from Cheney, and he and Bush (who insisted on testifying together) can't prove it, Cheney is protecting Bush and Rumsfeld both, who never did issue shoot down orders.
"The Vice President was logged calling the President at 10:18 for a two-minute conversation that obtained the confirmation. On Air Force One, the President's press secretary was taking notes; Ari Fleischer recorded that at 10:20, the President told him that he had authorized a shootdown of aircraft if necessary." http://govinfo.library.unt.edu/911/report/911Report_Ch1.htm
"Fleischer’s 10:20 note is the first mention of shootdown authority. See White House notes,Ari Fleischer notes, Sept. 11, 2001; see also Ari Fleischer interview (Apr. 22, 2004)." http://www.9-11commission.gov/report/911Report_Notes.pdf
That's when Bush issued the shoot down order. 10:20, and Rumsfeld never did.
But wasn't giving shoot down authorization. How come? How many buildings does it take? How about if the pentagon gets hit, how about then? Still.....Nope.......
Pretty outrageous. Still, no intention on giving shoot down authority. If any orders were given, they were stand down orders.
The last plane went down at 10:03 to 10:06...most likely by the passengers. These passengers were in a no win situation, but surely prevented 9/11 from being even more catastrophic than it already was, the nations capital was it's target, and these traitors sure weren't going to stop it.
"Fleischer’s 10:20 note is the first mention of shootdown authority. See White House notes,Ari Fleischer notes, Sept. 11, 2001; see also Ari Fleischer interview (Apr. 22, 2004)." http://www.9-11commission.gov/report/911Report_Notes.pdf
"The President apparently spoke to Secretary Rumsfeld for the first time that morning shortly after 10:00. No one can recall the content of this conversation, but it was a brief call in which the subject of shootdown authority was not discussed." http://www.9-11commission.gov/report/911Report.pdf
Here's Condi Rice lieing to you.....
"Q At one point that morning, the President gave an order to the Combat Air Patrol pilots giving them permission to shoot down U.S. commercial airliners. How did that decision come about, and how did you take on board the gravity of that decision?
DR. RICE: The President did give the order to shoot down a civilian plane if it was not responding properly. And it was authority through channels by Secretary Rumsfeld, and the Vice President passed the request, the President said yes." http://www.scribd.com/doc/16571537/T3-B11-EOP-Produced-Documents-Vol-III...
John Farmer exposes this false statement in his book "The Ground Truth"......
"The authority was not requested through channels, when Secretary Rumsfeld joined the Air Threat Conference Call at 10:30 and was told about the shoot down order by Vice President Cheney, he was clearly unaware of it. Wether the vice president had requested prior authorization from the president is disputed, but uncorroborated by the records of the day. page 260 http://www.amazon.com/Ground-Truth-Untold-America-Attack/dp/1594488940/r...
Cheney made the order on his own (no matter what it was) The first Presidential authorization came at 10:20, according to Arie Fletcher's notes and he was taking notes for this reason, to keep track of what time things were happening for historical reasons.
"Fleischer’s 10:20 note is the first mention of shootdown authority. See White House notes,Ari Fleischer notes, Sept. 11, 2001; see also Ari Fleischer interview (Apr. 22, 2004)." http://www.9-11commission.gov/report/911Report_Notes.pdf
Remember:
"At some time between 10:10 and 10:15, a military aide told the Vice President and others that the aircraft was 80 miles out. Vice President Cheney was asked for authority to engage the aircraft. His reaction was described by Scooter Libby as quick and decisive, "in about the time it takes a batter to decide to swing." The Vice President authorized fighter aircraft to engage the inbound plane." http://govinfo.library.unt.edu/911/report/911Report_Ch1.htm
If he did authorize a shoot down order (which is debateable), he told the President later, after he did it, if he didn't issue a shoot down, he was given the authorization at this later time......
"The Vice President was logged calling the President at 10:18 for a two-minute conversation that obtained the confirmation. On Air Force One, the President's press secretary was taking notes; Ari Fleischer recorded that at 10:20, the President told him that he had authorized a shootdown of aircraft if necessary." http://govinfo.library.unt.edu/911/report/911Report_Ch1.htm
"His reaction was described by Scooter Libby as quick and decisive, "in about the time it takes a batter to decide to swing." The Vice President authorized fighter aircraft to engage the inbound plane." http://govinfo.library.unt.edu/911/report/911Report_Ch1.htm
This is not what Mineta said by a long shot. Mineta said he didn't even know it was a shootdown order, he makes it clear he that he heard what Cheney said and quotes him. (Whipped his neck around and said "of coarse the order still stands"...etc...)
Libby has already been convicted in a court of Law of lying under oath to protect Cheney. So this story seems false and contrived. This Military Aide's testimony is important. So who is he?
The person telling Cheney the plane is 80 miles out...60 miles out...etc...is described as his "Military Aide". This would be the "young man" as Mineta described him. Unless there are two different people telling Cheney the plane is 80 miles out...the plane is 60 miles out....this seems extememly unlikely. So who is this military aide?
Check the footnotes, on this scenario, and the only one that applies to Cheney and the "Military Aide" would be this Douglas Cochrane.....
"215. Douglas Cochrane meeting (Apr. 16, 2004); Condeleeza Rice meeting (Feb. 7, 2004). For Rice entering after the Vice President, see USSS report,“Executive Summary:U.S. Secret Service Timeline of Events, September 11–October 3, 2001,” Oct. 3, 2001, p. 2; Carl Truscott interview (Apr. 15, 2004)." http://www.9-11commission.gov/report/911Report_Notes.pdf
Yes, they wanted to talk with this Military Aide as seen in this released 9-11 commission memo....
"March 2, 2004
New Requests:
(2)VP Military Aide (I believe his last name is Cochrane): The person at the Vice President's side in the PEOC who should have been intimately involved in the military communications chain is his military aide." http://www.scribd.com/doc/15740811/DM-B8-Team-8-Fdr-Email-From-Hyde-to-F...
They did talk with him according to the 9-11 commission footnotes, a month and a half after that memo....
This is BS. It's 2010 and we still can't see any part of his interview? This needs to be declassified and released.
Yup, he's military....but not so young...you have to remember Mineta was around 71 at the time......
"Cochrane was selected to serve as the Naval Aide to the Vice President in November of 2000 and served Vice President Richard B. Cheney until December 2002. He was commended by President George W. Bush for distinguished service as Naval Aide and Emergency Action Officer, on and about Sept. 11, 2001." http://cache.zoominfo.com/CachedPage/?archive_id=0&page_id=1146282991&pa...
"Soon after Richard Gage, AIA, became interested in the subject of the destruction of the three World Trade Center skyscrapers on 9/11, he began debating critics who felt qualified to challenge the explosive evidence. Gage twice debated Ron Craig (International Society of Explosives Engineers), as well as Mark Roberts (tour guide), Michael Shermer (founder of Skeptic Magazine), and Dave Thomas (mathematician and physicist).
The first debate, between Richard Gage, AIA, and Ron Craig, took place on November 12, 2007, on “The Richard Syrett Show,” in Toronto. Gage argued that explosives had been used to bring down the buildings and cited several points of explosive evidence such as the discovery of thermite in the debris, witness testimony citing explosions, beams hurled six hundred feet, and the free-fall of WTC Building 7. Gage also cited the lack of 110 floors of 4” thick concrete -- each an acre in size -- at the bottom of the Twin Towers and the huge amount of pulverized concrete powder that blanketed lower Manhattan."
By Peter Phillips and Mickey Huff
July 26, 2010
Media
Freedom Foundation/ProjectCensored.org
In his recent essay "Toxic to Democracy," Political Research Associates (PRA)
Senior Analyst Chip Berlet uses the very same methods of demonization by association
that he so strongly opposes. Berlet convolutes historical context, ideological
differences, and progressives vis-à-vis extreme conservative/neo-con/libertarians
in a diatribe of meaninglessness.
Berlet lumps valid academic research on State Crimes Against Democracy (SCADs)
in with anti-Semitic jingoism and far right wing extremism. He suggests that
any research that even implies some sort of conspiracy is dangerous and suspect,
seemingly forgetting a long list of proven US and other government conspiracies
(SCADs) including: Operation Mockingbird, COINTELPRO, Gulf of Tonkin "Incident,"
October Surprise, CIA-Contra Dark Alliance, Iran-Contra, WMDs and Iraq Invasion,
and the overthrow of governments in Iran, Guatemala, Haiti, Chile, Greece, Indonesia,
Panama, and many others.
Outrageously, Berlet categorizes progressive intellectuals such as Peter Dale
Scott, Michael Parenti, David Ray Griffin, Michel Chossudovsky, and by innuendo
the two of us, as dangerous conspiracists. He uses a straw person technique
by positing former LaRouche analyst Webster Tarpley, and the Church of God Evangelistic
Association founder David J. Smith in the same category as the progressive intellectuals
listed above.
The North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) held a major training exercise in October 2000 that included the scenario of a person stealing a large jet plane, which they planned to crash into the United Nations headquarters building--a 39-story high-rise in New York, just a few miles away from the World Trade Center. Furthermore, a NORAD exercise in June that year included one scenario in which a plane was hijacked with the intention of crashing it into the White House, and another in which a transcontinental flight was hijacked with the intention of crashing the plane into the Statue of Liberty, only a short distance from where the WTC stood.
The existence of these exercise scenarios was revealed in August 2004 by General Richard Myers, at that time the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, during a hearing of the Senate Armed Services Committee. Senator Mark Dayton (D-MN) asked, "Did NORAD"-- the military organization responsible for defending U.S. airspace--"conduct exercises or develop scenarios, prior to September 11, 2001, to test a military reaction to an aircraft hijacking which appeared destined to result in a suicide crash into a high-value target?" In response, Myers outlined "five exercise hijack events" that NORAD had practiced for between November 1999 and October 2000, which all "included a suicide crash into a high-value target." [1] Yet the details of these chilling scenarios, which were like premonitions of the attacks on New York and Washington that lay ahead, failed to receive the public attention they deserved.
OCTOBER 2000 SCENARIO: STOLEN PLANE TARGETS UN BUILDING
The scenario that included an attempt to crash a plane into the UN headquarters was practiced for twice--on October 16 and October 23, 2000--as part of an exercise called Vigilant Guardian. This annual exercise was conducted by NORAD, and all of the organization, including its headquarters and its three air defense sectors in the continental United States, participated. [2]
The scenario practiced for on October 16 was that, "Due to recent arrests involving illegal drug trafficking in Maine, an individual steals a Federal Express plane and plans a suicide attack into the United Nations building in New York City." The October 23 scenario, according to Myers's summary, was almost identical. It was based around "weapons of mass destruction directed at the United Nations," and in it, "an individual steals a Federal Express aircraft and plans a suicide attack on the United Nations building in New York City." [3] (At the time of this exercise, Federal Express was flying mostly the MD-11 and the DC-10, both large jet aircraft. Presumably one of those planes was the type considered in the scenarios. [4])
The next Vigilant Guardian--for the year 2001--was actually being conducted at the time the 9/11 attacks occurred. [5] One can only imagine what NORAD personnel must have thought when the real-world events of September 11 so closely resembled a scenario they had encountered in the previous instance of that day's exercise--a suicide pilot trying to crash a large jet plane into a New York skyscraper.
JUNE 2000 SCENARIOS: HIJACKERS PLAN TO CRASH PLANES INTO WHITE HOUSE AND STATUE OF LIBERTY
On June 5, 2000, the Continental United States NORAD Region (CONR) was conducting an exercise called Falcon Indian, in which its three air defense sectors in the continental U.S. took part. [6] Two scenarios were practiced for that day in which hijackers planned to crash an aircraft into a well-known, "high-value" target in New York or Washington.
One scenario involved a Learjet being hijacked, and "maintaining tight formation with [a] Canadair airliner, loaded with explosives," according to Myers's summary. (It is unclear from that summary whether it was the Learjet or the Canadair plane that had explosives on board.) The hijackers "planned to crash" the Learjet "into the White House." In the other scenario, a "Communist Party faction" hijacked an aircraft bound from the western to the eastern United States. The hijackers had "high explosives on board," and intended "to crash into the Statue of Liberty." [7]
NOVEMBER 1999 SCENARIO: TERRORISTS PLAN TO CRASH HIJACKED PLANE INTO UN BUILDING
The fifth scenario Myers described was from an earlier Falcon Indian, held in November 1999. Again, NORAD's three air defense sectors in the continental U.S. took part in the CONR exercise. And, again, the exercise included a scenario based around the hijacking of a transcontinental aircraft flying from the western to the eastern United States. In the simulation, a China Airlines plane bound from Los Angeles to JFK International Airport in New York was "hijacked east of Colorado Springs by five terrorists." If the plane was not intercepted by the U.S. military, the hijackers intended "to crash into [the] United Nations building." [8]
OTHER PRE-9/11 PLANE-INTO-BUILDING SCENARIOS
Just a few months before Richard Myers revealed the existence of these five exercise scenarios, USA Today and CNN reported that NORAD had conducted exercises in the years before 9/11 that simulated hijackers crashing aircraft into buildings in the United States. Some of the scenarios that had been practiced for were described. It is unclear whether any of them correspond with the five later outlined by Myers, although, from what has been reported, it appears they were separate scenarios, additional to those in Myers's list.
USA Today reported that "in the two years before the September 11 attacks," NORAD conducted exercises simulating "hijacked airliners used as weapons to crash into targets and cause mass casualties." In one exercise, "One of the imagined targets was the World Trade Center." Another exercise involved fighter jets performing "a mock shootdown over the Atlantic Ocean of a jet supposedly laden with chemical poisons headed toward a target in the United States." These two scenarios were included in "regional drills, not regularly scheduled continent-wide exercises," according to NORAD, and the planes in the simulations were coming from a foreign country, rather than from within the U.S. [9]
CNN reported, "Sometime between 1991 and 2001, a regional sector of the North American Aerospace Defense Command simulated a foreign hijacked airliner crashing into a building in the United States as part of [a] training exercise scenario." That scenario involved the airliner "being hijacked as it flew into U.S. airspace from abroad." The exercise "was conducted at one regional sector, and was not conducted at the [NORAD] headquarters." The identity of the building hit by the aircraft was classified, but military officials said that it "would be recognizable if identified, but was not the World Trade Center or the Pentagon." [10]
How could it have happened that the organization responsible for defending U.S. airspace repeatedly practiced scenarios that so closely resembled the 9/11 attacks in the years leading up to those attacks? And considering that the existence of these plane-into-building training scenarios has largely gone unreported, might there have been other, similar scenarios practiced for by NORAD--or other U.S. military organizations--that we do not yet know of? A new investigation into 9/11 is clearly urgently required. And the role of these training scenarios is one of many aspects of the attacks that must be thoroughly examined.
The Pakistan connection was the top story on the BBC World News yesterday. Extraordinarily, the news presenter admitted that the US military may indeed welcome the release of this information!
The Pakistan Government is vehemently rejecting the accusations of supporting the Taliban. On the BBC the Pakistani government spokesperson said that the whole affair was an attempt to sabotage the US/Pakistan relationship. This comes at a time when the US is stepping up predator drone attacks against targets in Pakistan.
Quote:
The documents showed Pakistan actively collaborated with the Afghan insurgency, the New York Times reported.
The reports also suggest:
The Taliban has had access to portable heat-seeking missiles to shoot at aircraft.
A secret US unit of army and navy special forces has been engaged on missions to "capture or kill" top insurgents.
Many civilian casualties - caused by Taliban roadside bombs and Nato missions that went wrong - have gone unreported.
The BBC's diplomatic correspondent Bridget Kendall says that although the documents reveal no dramatic new insights, they show the difficulties of the war and the civilan death toll.
The ex-Prime Minister of Malaysia, Mahatir Mohammed, a feisty straight-talking politician, has reiterated his view that the September 11 attacks were an inside job. Mahatir, famous to Australians after being dubbed "recalcitrant" by ex-Prime Minister Paul Keating, apparently demonstrates more flexibility of mind in being open to the possibility of an inside job than Mr Keating, who to the best of my knowledge has never demonstrated what it takes to speak truth about the 911 attacks.
Everyone knows that Osama Bin Laden confessed to 9/11 on videotape.
Admittedly, German experts say (rough English translation here) that a Bin Laden tape was mistranslated. But what do the Germans know, other than how to make beer?
Sure, an American computer expert says that a Bin Laden video released in 2007 was spliced together from earlier footage, and that:
There are so many splices that I cannot help but wonder if someone spliced words and phrases together. I also cannot rule out a vocal imitator during the frozen-frame audio. The only way to prove that the audio is really bin Laden is to see him talking in the video....
But he's just a pencil-neck computer geek, so why should we listen to him?
Yeah, Swiss scientists are 95% certain that an early post-9/11 Bin Laden tape was a fake. They conclude that all of the later Bin Laden tapes are probably fakes as well. But what do the Swiss know, besides banking and milk chocolate?
Okay, one of the world's top experts on Bin Laden - Bruce Lawrence of Duke University - says that recent Bin Laden tapes are fake. He also says that the tape in which Bin Laden confessed to 9/11 is a fake, and that the top Bin Laden experts in the Department of Homeland Security agree. But he must be a communist or something.
And it is interesting that - as confirmed by the Washington Post's Spy Talk columnist - the CIA admitted to faking a Bin Laden videotape using CIA personnel:
The agency actually did make a video purporting to show Osama bin Laden and his cronies sitting around a campfire swigging bottles of liquor and savoring their conquests with boys, one of the former CIA officers recalled, chuckling at the memory. The actors were drawn from “some of us darker-skinned employees,” he said.
But that is obviously just an isolated incident which doesn't mean that any other Bin Laden tapes are fake.
Note: This essay does not have anything to do with 9/11 itself or Bin Laden's role in that brutal crime. It focuses solely on whether or not America engages in propaganda and disinformation.
TV Coverage of Remarkable Building Collapse Analyzed
The shocking collapse of the 47-story World Trade Center Building 7 on 9/11 caused great alarm, not only in the architectural and engineering community (among those who have become aware of it) but with mainstream media – right from day one. While Dan Rather’s commentary on the remarkable collapse (that it looked like it was knocked down by well placed dynamite) is more often quoted, Peter Jennings also had similar thoughts as he reflected on the shocking 47-story collapse shortly after the event.
Jennings showed the building coming down in slow motion. As he reflected on the enormity of it he said, “Well, there’s Building 7 coming down. When you think that part of the component of news coverage around the country every year is the excitement, the fun, that people get watching an old building being demolished, and they wire it very carefully for days. It’s a very careful operation in order to make sure a building comes down safely. I think the last one we saw was when they brought down one of the old casinos in Las Vegas. It’s just stunning to see these buildings come down...and now, number seven World Trade Center which is 47 stories tall.”
A valuable resource on the web is a collection of network TV broadcasts archived from the day of September 11, 2001, plus the two following days. Drawing from those records of the first evening, those time periods when the collapse of Building 7 is discussed can be categorized by the time they were aired, the length of time for the commentary, and the degree to which the commentary contains some reflection suggesting some extraordinary magnitude of force involved in the event. When viewed across all of the major networks, there appears to be a rather quick transition to the point where it isn’t mentioned at all. Some would say that this probably was because of the enormity of the other events of the day – and that a collapse of a building such as WTC 7, even as enormous as it was, did not command the news interest. Also, apparently, no lives were lost.
The following analysis suggests more reason to be suspicious. As an aid in comparing the various commentaries from the different networks, the following timeline shows three stages of transition between reflective commentary, and no commentary at all.1
Mainstream media transitioned through three stages of information quality in record time. 1: More time taken, plus some reflection other than just saying no one was in the building. 2: Short, less than 20 seconds, or with no reflective comments. 3: No mention of collapse at all.
Stage 1
DR: Dan Rather -- "For the third time today, it's reminiscent of those pictures we've all seen too much... when a building was deliberately destroyed by well-placed dynamite to knock it down." Dan Rather coverage of Building 7 collapse is here.
PJ: Peter Jennings – (see commentary earlier in this article.)
AB2 & MM: Aaron Brown & Maureen Madden -- "The whole south side of the building was engulfed in flames, at one time. They had been waiting for it to come down for the past half hour or so. At least they had some warning."
Stage 2
DS: Diane Sawyer – "As you know, within the hour, another building came down, a 47-story building."
AB1: Ashleigh Banfield – "Those people [tenants in Building 7] had all been cleared out of those buildings as soon as the first plane hit the WTC this morning. They were just waiting for that building to go down."
PH: Philip Hayton -- Shows collapse video. "Supposedly has been weakened because it was so close to the other buildings. Presumably, they were able to evacuate everyone."
ML & TN: Mike Landess & Tracey Neale – Shows Video of collapse. Landess says, "The information we have - this building was probably incredibly structurally damaged by the goings on right next door." Neale follows, "It is another building at the World Trade Center itself, number seven, World Trade Center. It had been evacuated this morning. So, structural damage probably led to this building coming down."
SP: Scott Pelley – "Thru the day, an inferno raged in Building 7, another massive office tower. Fire fighters feared it would collapse. And, a little more than 8 hours after the attack, the abandoned building fell."
DS-Int.: Diane Sawyer interviewed a volunteer from California (J.D. Halperim) reporting from near the WTC 7 collapse. "Well, at Building Seven, there was no fire there, whatsoever. There was one truck putting water on the building. But then, it collapsed completely
CG: Charlie Gipson -- One wrap-up sentence - "And then, at 5:20 PM, still another building collapses -- Seven World Trade Center."
In reflection on these widely divergent and short-lived commentaries, it is probably not unreasonable that the collapse of Building 7 quickly became a minor part of the overall day’s events. What is troubling though occurred over the months and years following, when significant findings by architects, engineers, and others, that should have raised serious and troubling questions about this event, did not break into the news. Yet, the “Stage 3” phenomena of silence on the subject of the collapse, in the face of overwhelming and explosive evidence that was amply provided to every mainstream media outlet, continued on indefinitely. The mainstream media silence is deafening.
By KIMBERLY DOZIER
The Associated Press
Sunday, July 25, 2010; 7:44 PM
WASHINGTON -- Some 90,000 leaked U.S. military records posted online Sunday amount to a blow-by-blow account of six years of the Afghanistan war, including unreported incidents of Afghan civilian killings as well as covert operations against Taliban figures.
The online whistle-blower WikiLeaks posted the documents on its website Sunday. The New York Times, London's Guardian newspaper and the German weekly Der Spiegel were given early access to the documents.
The White House condemned the document disclosure, saying it "put the lives of Americans and our partners at risk."
In a statement, White House national security adviser Gen. Jim Jones took pains to point out that the documents describe a period from January 2004 to December 2009, during the administration of President George W. Bush.
That was before "President Obama announced a new strategy with a substantial increase in resources for Afghanistan, and increased focus on al-Qaida and Taliban safe havens in Pakistan, precisely because of the grave situation that had developed over several years," Jones said.
The documents include detailed descriptions of raids carried about by a secretive U.S. special operations unit called Task Force 373 against what U.S. officials considered high-value insurgent and terrorist targets. Some of the raids resulted in unintended killings of Afghan civilians, according to the documentation.
It has been known for years that U.S. special operations forces target al-Qaida and other terrorist figures inside Afghanistan. The documents provided to WikiLeaks reveal an unusual level of detail about the classified operations.
Among those listed as being killed by the secretive unit was Shah Agha, described by the Guardian as an intelligence officer for an IED cell, who was killed with four other men in June 2009. Another was a Libyan fighter, Abu Laith al-Libi, described in the documents as a senior al-Qaida military commander. Al-Libi was said to be based across the border in Mir Ali, Pakistan, and was running al-Qaida training camps in North Waziristan, a region along the Afghan border where U.S. officials have said numerous senior al-Qaida leaders were believed to be hiding.
The operation against al-Libi, in June 2007, resulted in a death tally that one U.S. military document said include six enemy fighters and seven noncombatants - all children.
The Guardian reported that more than 2,000 senior figures from the Taliban and al-Qaida are on a "kill or capture" list, known as JPEL, the Joint Prioritized Effects List. It was from this list that Task Force 373 selected its targets.
The New York Times said the documents - including classified cables and assessments between military officers and diplomats - also describe U.S. fears that ally Pakistan's intelligence service was actually aiding the Afghan insurgency.
According to the Times, the documents suggest Pakistan "allows representatives of its spy service to meet directly with the Taliban in secret strategy sessions to organize networks of militant groups that fight against American soldiers in Afghanistan, and even hatch plots to assassinate Afghan leaders."
The Guardian, however, interpreted the documents differently, saying they "fail to provide a convincing smoking gun" for complicity between the Pakistan intelligence services and the Taliban.
Jones on Sunday lauded a deeper partnership between the U.S. and Pakistan, saying, "Counterterrorism cooperation has led to significant blows against al-Qaida's leadership." Still, he called on Pakistan to continue its "strategic shift against insurgent groups."
Der Spiegel, meanwhile, reported that the records show Afghan security officers as helpless victims of Taliban attacks.
The magazine said the documents show a growing threat in the north, where German troops are stationed.
The classified documents are largely what's called "raw intelligence" - reports from junior officers in the field that analysts use to advise policymakers, rather than any high-level government documents that state U.S. government policy.
While the documents provide a glimpse of a world the public rarely sees, the overall picture they portray is already familiar to most Americans. U.S. officials have already publicly denounced Pakistani officials' cooperation with some insurgents, like the Haqqani network in Pakistan's tribal areas.
The success of U.S. special operating forces teams at taking out Taliban targets has been publicly lauded by U.S. military and intelligence officials. And just-resigned Gen. Stanley McChrystal, who was leading the Afghan war effort, made protecting Afghan civilians one of the hallmarks of his command, complaining that too many Afghans had been accidentally killed by Western firepower.
WikiLeaks said the leaked documents "do not generally cover top-secret operations." The site also reported that it had "delayed the release of some 15,000 reports" as part of what it called "a harm minimization process demanded by our source," but said it may release the other documents after further review.
One U.S. official said the Obama administration had already told Pakistani and Afghan officials what to expect from the document release, in order to head off some of the more embarrassing revelations.
Another U.S. official said it may take days to comb through all the documents to see what they mean to the U.S. war effort and determine their potential damage to national security. That official added that the U.S. isn't certain who leaked the documents.
Both officials spoke on condition of anonymity to comment on the release of classified material.
U.S. government agencies have been bracing for the release of thousands more classified documents since the leak of a classified helicopter cockpit video of a 2007 firefight in Baghdad. That leak was blamed on a U.S. Army intelligence analyst working in Iraq.
Spc. Bradley Manning, 22, of Potomac, Md., was arrested in Iraq and charged earlier this month with multiple counts of mishandling and leaking classified data, after a former hacker turned him in. Manning had bragged to the hacker, Adrian Lamo, that he had downloaded 260,000 classified or sensitive State Department cables and transmitted them by computer to the website Wikileaks.org.
Lamo turned Manning in to U.S. authorities, saying he couldn't live with the thought that those released documents might get someone killed.
---
Associated Press writers Kirsten Grieshaber in Berlin and Robert Burns in Washington contributed to this report.
Check out my article just published on OpEdNews. I wrote it with the hope that the topic would be discussed at the national Progressive Democrats of America (PDA) conference taking place in Cleveland. I am attending the conference.
From Voters for Peace
July 22, 2010
We'll be offering live and recorded video coverage of the National Conference
to Bring the Troops Home Now! taking place at the Crowne Plaza Hotel in downtown
Albany this weekend (7/23-7/25).
The conference will bring together antiwar and social justice activists from
across the country to consider what can be done to end the U.S. wars, occupations,
bombing attacks, threats and interventions that are taking place in the Middle
East and beyond. See where the antiwar movement is today and where it is headed!
Our audio and video coverage starts Friday evening at 7 PM with the opening
panel called "Strategies and Tactics in the Struggle to End the Empire's
Wars and Occupations," featuring Medea Benjamin (CODE PINK), Glen Ford
(Black Agenda Report), Teresa Gutierrez (International Action Center), Kathy
Kelly (Creative Voices for Nonviolence), Kevin Martin (Peace Action), David
Swanson (WarIsACrime.org), Deborah Sweet (World Can't Wait) and more.
National Peace Conference Video Coverage Live on Sanctuary TV
Live Video Stream from the United National Peace Conference
(coverage begins Friday 7/23 at 7p.m.
Watch Here: http://mediasanctuary.tv/crows/
National Peace Conference logoThis weekend (July 23-25) check http://MediaSanctuary.tv for live and recorded video coverage of the National Conference to Bring the Troops Home Now! taking place at the Crowne Plaza Hotel in downtown Albany, NY.
The conference will bring together antiwar and social justice activists from across the country to consider what can be done to end the U.S. wars, occupations, bombing attacks, threats and interventions that are taking place in the Middle East and beyond. See for yourself where the antiwar movement is today and where it is headed.
Conference organizers are demanding the immediate and total withdrawal of U.S. military forces, mercenaries and contractors from Afghanistan and Iraq. They are also calling for re-direction of the trillions being used for wars and occupations to jobs, health care, education, the environment, infrastructure and other human needs, and compensation for the peoples whose countries the U.S. attacked and occupied for the loss of lives and massive destruction they suffered.
The live video stream begins on Friday night at 7 PM! Here's the complete webcast schedule:
Friday night, July 23 7:00 — 10 PM
Strategies and Tactics in the Struggle to End the Empire's Wars and Occupations
Medea Benjamin, CODE PINK
Michael Eisenscher, National Coordinator, U.S. Labor Against the War
Glen Ford, Black Agenda Report
Chris Gauvreau, Administrative Body, National Assembly to End U.S. Wars and Occupations
Teresa Gutierrez, International Action Center
Kathy Kelly, Creative Voices for Nonviolence
Nada Khader, Palestinian-American and Executive Director of the WESPAC (Westchester Peace Action Coalition) Foundation
Kevin Martin, Executive Director, Peace Action
Michael McPhearson, United for Peace and Justice Co-Chair; Veterans for Peace
Blanca Missé, Graduate Student, UC at Berkeley; played leading role in March 4 student protests
David Swanson, WarIsACrime.org (formerly AfterDowningStreet.org)
Deborah Sweet, National Director, World Can’t Wait
Saturday morning, July 24 8:30 – 10 AM
Noam Chomsky, internationally renowned political activist, author, and critic of U.S. foreign and domestic policies; MIT Professor Emeritus of Linguistics
Donna Dewitt, President, South Carolina AFL- CIO; Co-Chair, South Carolina Progressive Network
Saturday lunch, July 24 Noon
Freeing Ourselves From Fear: How Political Prisoners and Victims of Preemptive Prosecution are Used to Justify War and Repression (And What We Can Do to Break the Cycle)
Jeff Mackler, Director, The Mobilization to Free Mumia Abu-Jamal; West Coast Coordinator, Lynne Stewart Defense Committee; and Co-Coordinator, National Assembly to End US Wars and Occupations will introduce:
Suzanne Ross, New York Free Mumia Committee will read a statement from Mumia Abu Jamal. [Mumia Abu-Jamal was convicted in Philadelphia for the murder of a police officer and he has been on death row for 28 years. He has become an eloquent spokesperson for peace and justice, while his struggle against a racist justice system has touched and inspired many around the world.]
Ralph Poynter, husband of activist lawyer Lynne Stewart, will read a statement from Lynne Stewart. [Lynne Stewart represented Abdul Rahman (the “blind Sheikh”) in a 1993 terrorism trial. She was later prosecuted and convicted of material support for terrorism. Her prosecution is seen as the government’s attempt to intimidate radical lawyers from zealous representation, and silence Lynne’s voice in the struggle to reestablish the rule of law in America.]
Kathy Manley, activist lawyer and secretary of Project SALAM, will read a statement from Yassin Aref. [Yassin Aref was the imam at the Masjid As Salam mosque in Albany when he was the target of an elaborate FBI sting designed to frame him. He was convicted and is now serving a 15 year sentence at a special “Muslim prison” (CMU). While in jail he wrote a book about his life (“Son of Mountains”), and has become a poet and an eloquent spokesperson for peace and justice in the world. The government has acknowledged that Aref was not a terrorist and that their concern was whether his “ideology” might cause him to support crimes in the future.]
Shamshad Ahmad, president of the Masjid As Salam mosque. After the conviction of Yassin Aref, Shamshad wrote a book about the case (“Rounded Up”) which has become the basic guide to the government’s preemptive prosecution of Muslims.
Pardiss Kebriaei, Staff Attorney, Guantanamo Global Justice Initiative at the Center for Constitutional Rights
Saturday night, July 24 7:30 – 10:00 PM
Public program with speakers and cultural presentations
Lynda Cruz - Immigrant rights leader, Derechos Humanos, Tucscon, AZ
Noura Erakat - Palestinian-American human rights attorney and adjunct professor Georgetown
Cheri Honkala – Poor People’s Economic Human Rights Campaign; march to Social Forum
Joel Kovel - Environmentalist; author “Overcoming Zionism”
Ray Laforest - Haitian-American trade unionist and Haitian community organizer
Joe Lombardo - Bethlehem Neighbors for Peace; Administrative Body National Assembly
Ethan McCord - Iraq Vet, whistleblower re: war crimes
Blanca Misse - Berkeley student leader budget cut protests; union steward UAW
Cindy Sheehan - Gold Star Mother, antiwar leader
Fahima Vorgetts - Women for Afghan Women
Dahlia Wasfi, MD - Iraqi-American; speaker/writer on effects of occupation
Phil Wilayto - Editor, The Virginia Defender
Leila Zand - Iranian-American, Fellowship of Reconciliation
"Wanted by the CIA: Wikileaks founder Julian Assange" Belfast Telegraph, July 19, 2010
In this interview, Belfast Telegraph reporter Matthew Bell asks Wikileaks founder Julian Assange about "conspiracy theories". Assange subsequently explains his position.
His obsession with secrecy, both in others and maintaining his own, lends him the air of a conspiracy theorist. Is he one? "I believe in facts about conspiracies," he says, choosing his words slowly. "Any time people with power plan in secret, they are conducting a conspiracy. So there are conspiracies everywhere. There are also crazed conspiracy theories. It's important not to confuse these two. Generally, when there's enough facts about a conspiracy we simply call this news." What about 9/11? "I'm constantly annoyed that people are distracted by false conspiracies such as 9/11, when all around we provide evidence of real conspiracies, for war or mass financial fraud." What about the Bilderberg conference? "That is vaguely conspiratorial, in a networking sense. We have published their meeting notes."
Mr. Assange seems to have conveniently forgotten that 9/11 may be, in a very concrete sense, a 'conspiracy for war', leading directly to the wars in Afghanistan, Iraq and the permanent "War on Terror".
In November 2009, Wikileaks released "half a million US national text pager intercepts" covering a "24 hour period surrounding the September 11, 2001 attacks in New York and Washington."[1] This is all commendable. However, given Mr. Assange's rather curious disposition towards 9/11 truth, how much effort can we really expect from Wikileaks in the future?
Perhaps it should be pointed out to Mr. Assange that former senator Bob Graham, who chaired the United States Senate Select Committee on Intelligence when it performed its Joint Inquiry[2] into 9/11, gave an interview to the BBC in which Graham said the following:[3]
Bob Graham: "I can just state that within 9/11 there are too many secrets, that is information that has not been made available to the public for which there are specific tangible credible answers and that that withholding of those secrets has eroded public confidence in their government as it relates to their own security."
Narrator: "Senator Graham found that the cover-up led to the heart of the administration."
Bob Graham: "I called the White House and talked with Ms. Rice and said: "Look, we've been told we're gonna get cooperation in this inquiry and she said she'd look into it and nothing happened."
Interviewer: "Was there any sort of sense of embarrassment or apology or...?"
Bob Graham: "No. Embarrassment, apology, regret, those are not characteristics associated with the current White House."
Interviewer: "So it was a conspiracy to cover-up the fact that blunders had been made in the lead up to 9/11?"
Bob Graham: "If by conspiracy you mean, more than one person involved, yes, there was more than one person and there was some ... collaboration of efforts among agencies and the administration to keep information out of the public's hands."
The BBC then concludes their documentary with a reassuring, paternalistic commentary explaining why this isn't something we should all be furious about. Furthermore, in 2009, 9/11 commissioner Bob Kerrey said, in a candid dialogue with We Are Change LA:[4]
Bob Kerrey: "It's a problem... it's a 30-year-old conspiracy"
Jeremy Rothe-Kushel: "No.. I'm talking about 9/11"
Bob Kerrey: "That's what I'm talking about"
Many interpretations could be given as to what sort of conspiracy these two former senators are referring to. The BBC documentary "Conspiracy Files: 9-11" was an obvious hit piece against 9/11 truth, in which the BBC went out of their way to handwave all abnormalities as 'blunders', 'failures', 'mistakes' and 'cock ups'. This angle is not new, in fact, it's part of a long BBC tradition of 'limited hangouts'. Nor is it any less outrageous if it were true that these 'blunders' and 'gaffes' were deliberately covered up, as the BBC and Bob Graham allege. A criminal cover-up alone warrants criminal prosecution of the conspirators involved, and most 9/11 researchers know this is merely the tip of the iceberg. Bob Kerrey's remark could be taken to mean the covert funding and training of the Mujahideen, initiated in 1979.[5]
Nobody is asking Mr. Assange to depart from his objective role, but now that he has spoken out, he deserves a reply. In both cases, clearly the terminology used is "conspiracy" or "cover-up". Bob Graham doesn't hold back and mentions "withholding of (..) secrets", chastising the Bush administration for being unapologetic, self-serving and obstructive. So it seems that Julian Assange, as the founder and director of an organization supposedly dedicated to supporting whistleblowers who expose government wrongdoing, has his work cut out for him, unless he is determined to be part of the problem. The perception management and misguided credibility building Mr. Assange seems so concerned with conflict with the stated mission of Wikileaks:[6]
"WikiLeaks is a multi-jurisdictional public service designed to protect whistleblowers, journalists and activists who have sensitive materials to communicate to the public."
I bet whistleblowers Sibel Edmonds[7] and certainly Daniel Ellsberg[8], who is mentioned several times in the mission statement, approve. Surely, a 9/11 cover-up that "led to the heart of the administration" is worthy of Wikileaks' attention. Or is it?
Story by John Bursill
22nd of July, 2010
Australia's number one talk back Radio Station 2GB, has reported on the Prof. Niels Harritt Lecture on the 17th of July, 2010 at the Sydney Mechanics School of Arts during their late night show with Brian Wilshire. Sydney's most popular late night show's regular guest, Prof. Keith Suter, who attended the Harritt Lecture, has expressed his fascination with the issue of the World Trade Center 7 collapse on the afternoon of September 11, 2001.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qDZcRiRGRWE
Audio sourced by Hereward Fenton, Editor www.truthnews.com.au and www.911oz.com
Prof. Suter, a highly regarded Australian media personality and internationally recognised academic and expert on foreign affairs, clearly expressed his satisfaction with the event and the evidence supporting an apparent "implosion" of WTC 7. "I commend the organisers. They kept emphasizing it was a scientific gathering, although it was open to the general public... they were treating it in a scientific way. They were looking simply at the scientific aspects of 'how' the building came down not 'why' or 'who'. There were questions from the floor, naturally, sort of saying who would be behind this and the scientists they had there...(Harritt, et. al)...they kept saying no, no, no it's our job to simply identify the process by which the buildings came down". Suter, while talking to popular host Brian Wilshire who is already on the record as having many doubts about the official "9/11 conspiracy theory", went on to mention that WTC 7's collapse was missing from the 9/11 Commission Report.
Story by John Bursill
July 19, 2010
On Saturday the 17th of July Professor Niels Harrit of the University of Copenhagen
in Denmark gave a lecture called "Did Explosives Bring Down the Towers on 9/11?" to a capacity crowd of concerned citizens. This Sydney audience was generated purely from fliers handed out by diligent activists and one radio
interview.
Although a handful of independent journalists did attend and a small press
conference was held, not one Australian mainstream media outlet was represented.
It is now more clear than ever that a culture of silence surrounds the science
of 9/11 which proves beyond any reasonable doubt that the Twin Towers and Building
7 were brought down using explosives and incendiary devices.
by Elaine Brower
July 18, 2010
WorldCantWait.net
Editors Note on July 15, radical lawyer and War Criminals Watch Advisory Board member Lynne Stewart was sentenced to 10 years in prison. In February 2005, Lynne had been convicted on 7 counts of conspiracy, providing material support to terrorists, and defrauding the U.S. government.
The government had alleged that Lynne had facilitated communication between a man she was defending in court, fundamentalist Islamic cleric Omar Abdel Rahman, and people in Egypt.
The judge in Lynnes trial sentenced her to 28 months in prison. An appeal to the conviction and sentencing resulted in a different judge upholding the conviction, while ordering a re-sentencing that was not trivial, since Lynne had indicated a lack of remorse. After her sentencing, her prosecutor praised the work of the FBIs New York Joint Terrorism Task Force for its role in the persecution of Lynne Stewart, and thanked U.S. Bureau of Prisons for its assistance. ...
Then the US Attorney stood up and for 30 minutes recounted the details of the entire trial, repeating hundreds of times we were attacked on 9/11, and Ms. Stewart gave comfort to Islamic terrorists. These references were the cornerstone of the prosecutions argument, and he couldnt say it enough. In every way, he connected Lynne with the terrorist murder groups, and in reality made her the real terrorist. He said the government trusted her as a lawyer, and she shouldnt have been trusted. He referred endless times to the DVD of her press conference prior to her remand to prison in 2009, and referenced her statements that she had no remorse.
By Philip Giraldi
July 19, 2010
Campaign For Liberty
The Ministry of Truth
The Ministry of Truth was how George Orwell described the mechanism used by government to control information in his seminal novel 1984. A recent trip to Europe has convinced me that the governments of the world have been rocked by the power of the internet and are seeking to gain control of it so that they will have a virtual monopoly on information that the public is able to access. In Italy, Germany, and Britain the anonymous internet that most Americans are still familiar with is slowly being modified. If one goes into an internet café it is now legally required in most countries in the European Union to present a government issued form of identification. When I used an internet connection at a Venice hotel, my passport was demanded as a precondition and the inner page, containing all my personal information, was scanned and a copy made for the Ministry of the Interior -- which controls the police force. The copy is retained and linked to the transaction. For home computers, the IP address of the service used is similarly recorded for identification purposes. All records of each and every internet usage, to include credit information and keystrokes that register everything that is written or sent, is accessible to the government authorities on demand, not through the action of a court or an independent authority. That means that there is de facto no right to privacy and a government bureaucrat decides what can and cannot be "reviewed" by the authorities. Currently, the records are maintained for a period of six months but there is a drive to make the retention period even longer.
The excuses being given for the increasing government intervention into the internet are essentially two: first, that the anonymity of the internet has permitted criminal behavior, fraud, pornography, and libel. Second is the security argument, that managing the internet is an integral part of the "global war on terror" in that it is used by terrorists to plan their attacks requiring governments to control those who use it. The United States government takes the latter argument one step farther, claiming that the internet itself is a vulnerable "natural asset" that could be seized or damaged by terrorists and must be protected, making the case for a massive $100 billion program of cyberwarfare. Senator Joseph Lieberman (D-CT) argues that "violent Islamist extremists" rely on the internet to communicate and recruit and he has introduced a bill in the Senate that will empower the president to "kill" the internet in case of a national emergency.
But all of the arguments for intervention are essentially themselves fraudulent and are in reality being exploited by those who favor big government and state control. ...
By The Associated Press
July 19th, 2010
RawStory.com
Since the terror attacks of Sept. 11, top-secret intelligence gathering by
the government has grown so unwieldy and expensive that no one really knows
what it cost and how many people are involved, The Washington Post reported
Monday.
A two-year investigation by the newspaper uncovered what it termed a "Top
Secret America" that's mostly hidden from public view and largely lacking
in oversight.
In its first installment of a series of reports, the Post said there are now
more than 1,200 government organizations and more than 1,900 private companies
working on counterterrorism, homeland security and intelligence in some 10,000
locations across the U.S.
Some 854,000 people -- or nearly 1 1/2 times the number of people who
live in Washington -- have top-secret security clearance, the paper said.
WE ARE CHANGE - Greater NY 911 Truth Activist Groups Unite
Who? Ariana Huffinton & possibly other considering this is a high profile women's media event. What? http://www.coalitionf... Women Mean Business Luncheon- Coalition for the Homeless Where? The Pierre Hotel 5th Ave @ 61st street NYC When? Thursday, April 8th 2010 11:30am-2pm
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