Friday, July 15 2011   -   9/11 Consequences

July 14, 2011
By Robert Koehler
Published at Antiwar.com

Leon Panetta, on his first visit to Iraq as secretary of defense last weekend, reached for a Bush moment ten years too late.

"The reason you guys are here is because on 9/11 the United States got attacked," he said to the assembled troops at Camp Victory in Baghdad, according to the Washington Post. "And 3,000 Americans -- 3,000 not just Americans, 3,000 human beings, innocent human beings -- got killed because of al-Qaeda. And we've been fighting as a result of that."

Yeah, oops, gaffe, Mr. Secretary, right? That Iraq-al-Qaeda connection thingy isn't in the spin anymore, and Panetta's assistant had to mop up afterwards, making sure no one misinterpreted the boss's remarks as reopening an old "debate" by reiterating a long-abandoned lie.

In point of fact, Panetta told the embarrassing truth: 9/11, day of unspeakable tragedy, was a goldmine for the Pentagon and the corporate war interests and was quickly used to launch two wars, both of which are long past the need for justification and require, it seems, nothing more than the first law of physics to stay in motion. You guys are here because of 9/11, the tragic all-purpose justification for global hegemony and the pursuit of empire.

Of course, Panetta was trying to be inspirational. That's what's missing from the Obama game plan: the old-time patriotism the Bush administration milked till the cow dropped dead. The new secretary of defense apparently felt a need to connect with the troops and rouse their fervor, or whatever, so he reached a decade into the past and pulled up the tarnished jewel of American victimhood, blood-drenched from shock-and-awe bombing, drone warfare, cruel and arrogant occupation and the visitation of toxic genocide on the countries we liberated.

Oh, and torture -- can't forget torture, can we, Mr. Secretary? And I mean both kinds of torture, the Abu Ghraib-Gitmo variety, which we perpetrate on suspected bad guys, and the invisible, PTSD variety we bequeath to our own troops for the rest of their lives.

 

Thursday, July 14 2011   -   In the Media

by Michael Collins
July 13, 2011
The Economic Populist

There are some crimes so universally offensive that even mentioning the suspected crime has devastating effects. Senator Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) raised just such a question yesterday. In a brief press statement, the Senator said:

"The reported hacking by News Corporation newspapers against a range of individuals - including children - is offensive and a serious breach of journalistic ethics. This raises serious questions about whether the company has broken U.S. law, and I encourage the appropriate agencies to investigate to ensure that Americans have not had their privacy violated. I am concerned that the admitted phone hacking in London by the News Corp. may have extended to 9/11 victims or other Americans. If they did, the consequences will be severe." Senator John D. Rockefeller IV, July 12

Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation has used voicemail hacking and other forms of privacy intrusion in the United Kingdom as far back as 2002. The goal is to get the most intimate insider information, stay ahead of the news cycle, and beat the competition. Where better to get information than the voicemails and other electronic data belonging to those in the news. The News of the World, Murdoch's flagship paper, hacked the voicemails of a kidnapped 12 year old, the widows of fallen soldiers, and even the powerful. In 2006, the Murdoch papers invaded the private medical records of former Labour Party leader Gordon Brown.

A July 4 article by Nick Davies of the Guardian ignited the most recent focus on illegal actions by the Murdoch papers with the revelation about the hack of the 12 year old kidnap-murder victim. The outrage and subsequent revelations have laid waste to News Corporations plans for the total acquisition of a highly successful pay per view entertainment network, BSkyB.

Rockefeller's statement comes just five days after reports by London's Daily Mirror claiming that a Murdoch UK paper sought hacking services targeting the phone traffic and voicemails of 9/11 victims. David Collins of the Mirror wrote:

 

Wednesday, July 13 2011   -   Research/Evidence

Monday, July 11, 2011
Washington's Blog

It's front page news today that:

Journalists at Rupert Murdoch's now-shuttered News of the World paper tried to access the mobile phones of 9/11 victims, a former New York City police officer claimed on Monday.

It's also front page news today that the new Secretary of Defense, Leon Panetta, said that American soldiers are in Iraq because of 9/11, even though AFP notes:

That was one of the justifications for the 2003 US-led invasion, but the argument has since been widely dismissed.

(see this for details).

But a more important story - and one which might focus on a more appropriate country than Iraq - is that the co-chair of the Congressional Joint 9/11 Inquiry (Bob Graham) today alleged a cover up by the U.S. government of state assistance by Saudi Arabia to the 9/11 hijackers.

Graham is no flake. He was a member of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence for 10 years (including 18 months as chairman), member of the CIA External Advisory Board, chairman of the Commission on the Prevention of Weapons of Mass Destruction Proliferation and Terrorism, 18-year U.S. senator, two-term governor of Florida, co-chair of the national commission on the BP oil spill, and member of the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission.

 

Wednesday, July 13 2011   -   In the Media

July 11, 2011
Sydney Morning Herald

A New York police officer has claimed besieged British tabloid the News of the World attempted to hack into the voicemails of victims of the 9/11 terror attacks, as Rupert Murdoch arrived in London for emergency talks aimed at diffusing the international crisis surrounding his media empire.

Rival red-top newspaper the Mirror reported the officer was contacted by News of the World journalists who said they would pay him to retrieve the private phone records of the dead.

Now working as a private investigator, the ex-officer claimed reporters wanted the victims' phone numbers and details of the calls they had made and received in the days leading up to the atrocity.

The voicemails would likely include harrowing messages from desperate loved ones trying to make contact with their relatives caught up in the 2001 terror strikes on the World Trade Center, in which thousands perished.

A source told the newspaper: "This investigator is used by a lot of journalists in America and he recently told me that he was asked to hack into the 9/11 victims' private phone data. He said that the journalists asked him to access records showing the calls that had been made to and from the mobile phones belonging to the victims and their relatives.

"His presumption was that they wanted the information so they could hack into the relevant voicemails, just like it has been shown they have done in the UK. The PI said he had to turn the job down. He knew how insensitive such research would be, and how bad it would look.

 

Tuesday, July 12 2011   -   Resources and Materials

June 14, 2011
By Brian Truitt
USA TODAY

The Big Lie Exclusive Preview

It has been nearly 10 years since 9/11, and the tragedy is still on the minds of many Americans. One of those, writer and artist Rick Veitch, is convinced we haven't been told the complete truth about it.

The questions surrounding that fateful day power the themes and story of his new Image Comics series The Big Lie, which debuts Sept. 7 and reteams Veitch with fellow artist Gary Erskine.

Veitch structured the story similarly to the 1963 Twilight Zone episode "No Time Like the Past," in which a man uses a time machine to try to "fix" three events: warning a Hiroshima policeman about the atomic bomb, assassinating Hitler before World War II and stopping the sinking of the Lusitania.

In The Big Lie, the heroine is a woman named Sandra, who lost her husband, Carl, during the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center in New York City. A particle physicist working at the Large Hadron Collider, she figures out a practical way to travel back in time, so she ventures from present day to Manhattan an hour before the first plane hits the towers on Sept. 11, 2001.

She rushes to his office at a risk-management consulting agency, but since she has aged 10 years, Carl can't quite accept that it's her. And even though she brings evidence on her iPad, neither her spouse nor his co-workers believe her warnings.

"The meat of the story is her trying to convince these 'experts' that the terrorist attack is about to happen," Veitch says. "So it's essentially a taut emotional drama with the facts and questions surrounding 9/11 sewed into it."

 

Monday, July 11 2011   -   9/11 Consequences

By Agence France-Presse
Monday, July 11th, 2011
RawStory.com Newly appointed US Defence Secretary Leon Panetta told American troops in Baghdad on Monday that 9/11 was the reason they were in Iraq, before he was quickly corrected by his spokesman.

"The reason you guys are here is because of 9/11. The US got attacked and 3,000 human beings got killed because of Al-Qaeda," Panetta told about 150 soldiers at the Camp Victory US base.

"We've been fighting as a result of that," he said.

The administration of former US President George W. Bush had hastily linked Saddam Hussein, the ousted Iraqi dictator, to the 9/11 attacks.

That was one of the justifications for the 2003 US-led invasion, but the argument has since been widely dismissed [Ed.: by the Bush Administration itself].

Doug Wilson, Panetta's spokesman, quickly jumped in after his boss, who just took office on July 1, made the statement.

 

Monday, July 11 2011   -   Truth Movement News

by Carol Brouillet
July 11, 2011

The first Deception Dollars were printed in the autumn of 2002. They were a collaborative effort to overcome censorship of the basic facts about 9/11 that were so well concealed by the mainstream media, and to drive people to check out websites challenging the official story. Their popularity inspired many people to create better websites, as millions of Deception Dollars were passed out at anti-war rallies and marches in an attempt to prevent the unjustifiable, immoral, heartbreaking war upon Iraq. Canadian artist Blaine Machan did the artwork, maintained the Deception Dollar website and contributed greatly to the budding 9/11 Truth Movement.

Donations for Deception Dollars helped keep websites and researchers going, helped fund documentaries and film screenings and helped fund the first International Citizens' Inquiries into 9/11 in San Francisco and Toronto. The Deception Dollars evolved over time. Eventually the portrait of George W. Bush was flanked by Rove, Rumsfeld and Cheney, to be replaced by Cheney, and finally by an unknown character behind an Obama mask. Over nearly a decade, numerous websites were added and subtracted from the Deception Dollars. As new technologies have driven more people online, full-length films began to be posted online. The 9/11 Truth Movement grew and so did the problems that we faced. To raise awareness about these problems, we published Media Deception Dollars and Election Deception Dollars. As faith in government, the press and the dollar waned, in 2007 the first Conception or "Hope" Dollars were printed, pointing towards solutions and "change" that people yearned for. In 2010 we printed an evolution of the Conception Dollars, the first Perception or "Love" Dollars.

With the tenth anniversary looming on the horizon, I have been torn about where to concentrate my time and energies. It's a lot of work to publish a new edition and generally involves much collaboration between the artist and the many people who contribute their thoughts, ideas, and website suggestions, as well as dealing with the printing fund and the distribution channels. In addition, Blaine's wife, Janelle, is expecting their first child in August, which means the artwork needs to be done before the end of July. This September there will be Hearings in Toronto, One the Event, organized by Firefighters for 9/11 Truth's Erik Lawyer in Seattle, the Campaign to Remember Building 7 and air TV ads to draw people's attention to the demolition of a skyscraper that was not hit by an airplane on the afternoon of September 11th, a campaign for a ballot initiative to form a Citizens' 9/11 Commission, and multiple events in New York, Washington D.C. and in the Bay Area.

We are running out of the 11th version of the Deception Dollars. I would like to create a new version drawing attention to the deceptions behind the nuclear, oil, monetary and military industries, the most recent crises threatening all of us, that arise from the corporate quest for global dominance.

 

Thursday, July 7 2011   -   Research/Evidence

By Anthony Summers and Robbyn Swan
August 2011 issue of
Vanity Fair

Was there a foreign government behind the 9/11 attacks? A decade later, Americans still haven't been given the whole story, while a key 28-page section of Congress's Joint Inquiry report remains censored. Gathering years of leaks and leads, in an adaptation from their new book, Anthony Summers and Robbyn Swan examine the connections between Saudi Arabia and the hijackers (15 of whom were Saudi), the Bush White House's decision to ignore or bury evidence, and the frustration of lead investigators--including 9/11-commission staffers, counterterrorism officials, and senators on both sides of the aisle.


Photo: TROUBLING LINKS From left: King Abdullah, Prince Naif, Osama bin Laden, Prince Bandar, and Prince Turki--Saudis all, as were 15 of the 19 hijackers of 9/11. Large photograph by Allan Tannenbaum/Polaris; bottom, from left, by Ludovic/REA/Redux, by Li Zhen/Xinhua/Landov, from Getty Images, by Hassan Ammar/AFP/Getty Images, by Hasan Jamali/A.P. Images.

Adapted from The Eleventh Day by Anthony Summers and Robynn Swan to be published this month by Ballantine Books; copyright 2011 by the authors.

For 10 years now, a major question about 9/11 has remained unresolved. It was, as 9/11-commission chairmen Thomas Kean and Lee Hamilton recalled, "Had the hijackers received any support from foreign governments?" There was information that pointed to the answer, but the commissioners apparently deemed it too disquieting to share in full with the public.

The idea that al-Qaeda had not acted alone was there from the start. "The terrorists do not function in a vacuum," Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld told reporters the week after 9/11. "I know a lot, and what I have said, as clearly as I know how, is that states are supporting these people." Pressed to elaborate, Rumsfeld was silent for a long moment. Then, saying it was a sensitive matter, he changed the subject.

Three years later, the commission would consider whether any of three foreign countries in particular might have had a role in the attacks. Two were avowed foes of the United States: Iraq and Iran. The third had long been billed as a close friend: Saudi Arabia.

 

Wednesday, July 6 2011   -   Get Involved

July 4, 2011
by Michael Collins
The Daily Censored

The citizens of the United States have excellent judgment. They have shown it consistently over time. When that judgment shifts briefly allowing a failed policy, it is a result of the vilest forms of propaganda by a small clique of liars.

The people were right about the invasion of Iraq

We know that the plan to invade Iraq began just days after Inauguration Day, 2001. The opportunity to launch the most disastrous and costly military effort in our history came on 9/11. The destruction of the World Trade Center towers and attack on the Pentagon became the pretext for war. The manipulators launched their fraudulent storyline in earnest with confidence that they would get their war.

But in December of 2002, the public wasn't buying it. The people didn't have access to all of the information. They knew one thing for sure -- the invasion was a very bad idea unless Iraq posed an imminent threat to the country with weapons of mass destruction. An in depth Los Angeles Times public opinion poll asked this question:

 

Wednesday, July 6 2011   -   9/11 Precedents

June 20, 2011
Boilingfrogspost.com

J. Edgar Hoover's Ghost Still Lingers over the FBI

TRANSCRIPT AND SOURCES:

Welcome. This is James Corbett with your Eyeopener report from BoilingFrogsPost.com. And now for the real news.

A recent court case in Utah has uncovered yet more evidence that the FBI is hiding key documents from the public by placing them in a separate, hitherto unknown electronic storage medium known as an "S-drive." The fact that this drive was previously unknown has raised the specter that the FBI are using it as a place to hide requests for sensitive documents through the Freedom of Information Act. Now, a federal judge has given the FBI until the end of the month to explain what the S-drive is, how it is being used, and whether it contains key documents related to the case in question.

The case concerns Salt Lake City-based lawyer Jesse Trentadue, who has been investigating the death of his brother, Kenneth Trentadue, at an Oklahoma Federal Transfer facility in 1995. The government has maintained his brother's death was a suicide by hanging, despite the fact that his brutalized corpse revealed him to have been beaten to death, with cuts and bruises all over his body. Numerous irregularities in the wake of Trentadue's death were suggestive of a coverup, from the government's unprecedented offer to cremate the body before it was sent to the family at its own expense to the fact that the coroner was not allowed to examine the cell until it had been washed, to the fact that the visitor logs from the facility on the night of the death had been destroyed. Subsequent investigations uncovered leaked documents showing that the cover-up went all the way up the chain of command to Eric Holder, currently Obama's attorney general.

 

Wednesday, July 6 2011   -   Editorials

July 06, 2011
by Ron Paul
The Daily Bell

The press reports are horrifying: 95 year-old women humiliated; children molested; disabled people abused; men and women subjected to unwarranted groping and touching of their most private areas; involuntary radiation exposure. If the perpetrators were a gang of criminals, their headquarters would be raided by SWAT teams and armed federal agents. Unfortunately, in this case the perpetrators are armed federal agents. This is the sorry situation ten years after the creation of the Transportation Security Administration.

The requirement that Americans be forced to undergo this appalling treatment simply for the "privilege" of traveling in their own country reveals much about how the federal government feels about our liberties. The unfortunate fact that we put up with this does not speak well for our willingness to stand up to an abusive government.

Many Americans continue to fool themselves into accepting TSA abuse by saying "I don't mind giving up my freedoms for security." In fact, they are giving up their liberties and not receiving security in return. Last week, for example, just days after an elderly cancer victim was forced to submit to a cruel and pointless TSA search, including removal of an adult diaper, a Nigerian immigrant somehow managed to stroll through TSA security checks and board a flight from New York to LA -- with a stolen, expired boarding pass and an out-of-date student ID as his sole identification! He was detained and questioned, only to be released to do it again 5 days later! We should not be surprised to find government ineptitude and indifference at the TSA.

 

Monday, July 4 2011   -   Other Important News

by Ray McGovern
Published on Saturday, July 2, 2011 by CommonDreams.org

Yes, that was I standing before the U.S. Embassy in Athens on the eve of the July Fourth weekend holding the American flag in the distress mode -- upside down.

[Photo: Ret. US Army Colonel Ann Wright, 64, from Honolulu, chants slogans as she and other activists rally in protest outside the U.S. embassy in Athens, Greece, Friday, July 1, 2011. The activists hope to join an international flotilla and to sail to Gaza.]

Indignities experienced by me and my co-guests on "The Audacity of Hope," the American boat to Gaza, over the past ten days in Athens leave no doubt in my mind that Barack Obama's administration has forfeited the right to claim any lineage to the brave Americans who declared independence from the king of England 235 years ago.

In the Declaration of Independence, they pledged their lives, fortunes and sacred honor to a new enterprise of freedom, democracy and the human spirit. The outcome was far from assured; likely as not, the hangman's noose awaited them. They knew that all too well.

But they had a genuine audacity to hope that the majority of their countrymen and women, persuaded by Thomas Paine's Common Sense and the elegant words of Thomas Jefferson, would conclude that the goal of liberty and freedom was worth the risk, that it was worth whatever the cost.

These days we have been seduced into thinking that such principles have become "quaint" or "obsolete" -- words used by President George W. Bush's White House counsel Alberto Gonzales to make light of important international agreements like the Geneva Conventions.

As every American should know, and remember, the principles enshrined in the Declaration of Independence were based on the firm belief that ALL men are created equal, that they have UNALIENABLE rights -- among them life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

Not just "all Americans," mind you, but all people. The Declaration of Independence was meant to be a statement expressing the "self-evident" rights of all mankind. Those principles had a universality that was a beacon to the world.

 

Sunday, July 3 2011   -   First Responders/Health Effects

By ALEX KATZ
NYDailyNews.com

It took years of lobbying and partisan bickering, but the 9/11 Zadroga Act to help ailing Ground Zero responders finally took effect today.

The law provides $4.3 billion in guaranteed federal funding to cover health costs and financial compensation for emergency responders, recovery workers, volunteers, and residents who were affected by the attacks almost 10 years ago.

Advocates celebrated with a ceremonial ribbon-cutting against a backdrop of Star Spangled Banners at Mount Sinai's 9/11 health clinic this morning.

National and city pols were also on hand, including Mayor Bloomberg, U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, and U.S. Reps. Jerrold Nadler, Charlie Rangel, and Carolyn Maloney.

"This is an historic milestone, not only for the more than 36,000 Americans who lost their health as a result of 9/11 and are in the program, but also for our moral obligation to care for those who rise to the defense of our nation in a time of war," Maloney said.

The Manhattan Democrat -- who was introduced at the event as the "bulldog of the Upper East Side" -- helped write the landmark legislation along with Nadler and Rep. Peter King (R-L.I.), spearheading the fight for its approval in the House and ultimately the Senate.

The original bill's price tag was scaled back from $7.4 billion as part of a compromise with conservatives in both parties, which allowed the legislation to pass through Congress and get President Obama's signature in early January.

 

Saturday, July 2 2011   -   9/11 Consequences

By Glenn Greenwald
July 1, 2011
Salon.com

In August, 2009, Attorney General Eric Holder -- under continuous, aggressive prodding by the Obama White House -- announced that three categories of individuals responsible for Bush-era torture crimes would be fully immunized from any form of criminal investigation and prosecution: (1) Bush officials who ordered the torture (Bush, Cheney, Rice, Powell, Ashcroft, Rumsfeld); (2) Bush lawyers who legally approved it (Yoo, Bybee, Levin), and (3) those in the CIA and the military who tortured within the confines of the permission slips they were given by those officials and lawyers (i.e., "good-faith" torturers). The one exception to this sweeping immunity was that low-level CIA agents and servicemembers who went so far beyond the torture permission slips as to basically commit brutal, unauthorized murder would be subject to a "preliminary review" to determine if a full investigation was warranted -- in other words, the Abu Ghraib model of justice was being applied, where only low-ranking scapegoats would be subject to possible punishment while high-level officials would be protected.

Yesterday, it was announced that this "preliminary review" by the prosecutor assigned to conduct it, U.S. Attorney John Durham, is now complete, and -- exactly as one would expect -- even this category of criminals has been almost entirely protected, meaning a total legal whitewash for the Bush torture regime:

The Justice Department has opened full criminal investigations of the deaths in CIA custody of two detainees, including one who perished at Iraq's notorious Abu Ghraib prison, U.S. officials said Thursday.

The decision, announced by Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr., means continued legal jeopardy for several CIA operatives but at the same time closes the book on inquiries that potentially threatened many others. A federal prosecutor reviewed 101 cases in which agency officers and contractors interrogated suspected terrorists during years of military action after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks but found cause to pursue criminal cases in only two. . . .

read more

 

Wednesday, June 29 2011   -   9/11 Consequences

June 29, 2011
By Liz Goodwin
The Lookout blog at Yahoo.com

A new report out of Brown University [Ed. note: Brown University Press Release below] estimates that the U.S. wars in Afghanistan and Iraq--together with the counterinsurgency efforts in Pakistan--will, all told, cost $4 trillion and leave 225,000 dead, both civilians and soldiers.

The group of economists, anthropologists, lawyers, humanitarian personnel, and political scientists involved in the project estimated that the cost of caring for the veterans injured in the wars will reach $1 trillion in 30 or 40 years. In estimating the $4 trillion total, they did not take into account the $5.3 billion in reconstruction spending the government has promised Afghanistan, state and local contributions to veteran care, interest payments on war debt, or the costs of Medicare for veterans when they reach 65. (Continued)

From Brown University's press release (in full below): "This project's accounting is important because information is vital for the public's democratic deliberation on questions of foreign policy," said Lutz. "Knowing the actual costs of war is essential as the public, Congress and the President weigh the drawdown of troops in Afghanistan, and other areas including the deficit, security, public investments, and reconstruction."

"There are many costs and consequences of war that cannot be quantified, and the consequences of wars don't end when the fighting stops," Crawford said. "The Eisenhower study group has made a start at counting and estimating the costs in blood, treasure, and lost opportunities that are both immediately visible and those which are less visible and likely to grow even when the fighting winds down."

The Eisenhower Research Project is a new, nonpartisan, nonprofit, scholarly initiative that derives its purpose from President Eisenhower's 1961 farewell address, in which he warned of the "unwarranted influence" of the military-industrial complex and appealed for an "alert and knowledgeable citizenry" as the only force able to balance the often contrasting demands of security and liberty in the democratic state.

The Costs of War has released its findings online, at www.costsofwar.org, to spur public discussion about America at war.