Monday, July 13 2009   -   Research/Evidence

by Kevin R. Ryan
7-09-09
Distribution via the Unanswered Questions Wire
http://www.unansweredquestions.org/

Note: The author is indebted to a few particularly useful sources of information and inspiration, including Russ Baker's book "Family of Secrets", the websites nndb.com, sourcewatch.org and secinfo.com, and Richard Gage.

On occasion, the public has been asked by George W. Bush to refrain from considering certain conspiracy theories. Bush has made such requests when people were looking into crimes in which he might be culpable. For example, when in 1994 Bush's former company Harken Energy was linked to the fraudulent Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI) through several investors, Bush's spokeswoman, Karen Hughes, shut down the inquiry by telling the Associated Press -- "We have no response to silly conspiracy theories." On another occasion, Bush said in a televised speech -- "Let us never tolerate outrageous conspiracy theories concerning the attacks of September the 11th."

But paradoxically, we have also been asked to believe Bush's own outrageous conspiracy theory about 9/11, one that has proven to be false in many ways. One important way to see the false nature of Bush's conspiracy theory is to note the fact that the World Trade Center buildings could only have fallen as they did through the use of explosives. A number of independent scientific studies have pointed out this fact ^{[1, 2, 3, 4]}, but it was Bush's own scientists at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), through their inability to provide a convincing defense of the official line, who ultimately proved that explosives were necessary.^{[2, 5, 6, 7]}

This leads us to ask the obvious question -- Who could have placed explosives in the World Trade Center towers? To answer that question, we should first consider who had access to the buildings, specifically the areas of the buildings that would be relevant to a demolition operation. We should also consider the time periods of interest. Those who had access at the necessary times should be further considered in terms of their ability to obtain the necessary explosive technologies and expertise, their ability to be secretive, and the possibility that they could have benefited from the destruction of the WTC buildings or from the resulting War on Terror. But one thing is certain, unless it was done by one person acting alone, it must have been a conspiracy.

 

Monday, July 13 2009   -   Open Letters

By Peter Phillips and Mickey Huff
July 9, 2009

An international truth emergency, now in evidence, is the result of fraudulent elections, compromised 9/11 investigations, illegal preemptive wars, and continued top down corporate media propaganda across the spectrum on public issues. Glenn Beck recently was able to say on national Fox News television that 9/11 Truth people openly supported the shooting at the Holocaust Museum. Beck claimed that 9/11 truth proponents see James von Brunn as a "hero." Beck’s statement is completely without factual merit and represents a hyperrealist slamming of a group already slanderously pre-labeled by the corporate media as "conspiracy theorists."

Conspiracies tend to be actions by small groups of individuals rather than massive collective plots by entire governments. However, small groups can be dangerous, especially when the individuals have significant power in huge public and private bureaucracies. Corporate boards of directors meet in closed rooms to plan to how best to maximize profit. If they knowingly make plans that hurt others, violate laws, undermine ethics, or show favoritism to friends, they are involved in a conspiracy.

The main method of critics of unofficial investigations into 9/11, election fraud, and other controversial issues is to lump together all the questions and/or lines of inquiry as if they all have equal validity. Obviously, they do not. This, however, allows critics to dismiss fact-based, transparent inquiries into major problems with official explanations of these crucial matters by focusing on the most absurd claims only. These are fallacies of overgeneralization, straw persons, appeals to authority, and red herrings that provide distractions from actual fact-based, scientific investigations. These tactics avoid the debates about truth entirely. We the people must not be afraid to openly discuss, research, and validate these issues.

 

Sunday, July 12 2009   -   Research/Evidence

by John-Michael P. Talboo
July 10, 2009
911debunkers.blogspot.com/

Big thanks to YouTube user SmallButLethal for this compilation.

SmallButLethal
YouTube.com
July 02, 2009

A lecture given by Dr. Steven E. Jones in Sacramento, California on April 30, 2009. This talk reveals the discovery of Nano-thermite in the dust from the 9/11 catastrophe. Standard thermite is an incendiary compound invented in 1893 and is made by mixing powders of iron oxide (rust) and aluminum. Once ignited, the aluminum grabs and bonds to the oxygen from the iron oxide. This reaction releases clouds of aluminum oxide and generates very high temperatures in the elemental iron. This high temperature iron easily melts steel. Tiny spheres of iron were also discovered in the World Trade Center dust and are evidence that a thermite reaction took place on 9/11. Nano-thermite, a highly engineered energetic composite was conceived around 1990 and by 2000 it had been weaponized and was manufactured in large quantities in top secret military laboratories. This nano form of thermite does not just burn extremely hot, it is explosive. In this video, Dr. Steven Jones announces the publication of the recent paper 'Active Thermitic Material Discovered in the Dust from the 9/11 Catastrophe' published April, 2009. The implications of this peer reviewed paper are profound. Steven Jones also updates us on various facets of the quest to repudiate the 'official conspiracy theory' i.e. the Government/Mainstream media version of what happened on 9/11, and describes current efforts the create a legitimate investigation with real subpoena power.

Video and more links follow.

 

Sunday, July 12 2009   -   Research/Evidence

by Jon Gold
July 11, 2009
The YBBS A long time ago, I spent some time looking into the flights that took members of the Saudi Royals, as well as members of the Bin Laden family out of the country in the days, and weeks after 9/11. Here is what I found.

According to Richard Clarke during his testimony (yea, yea, call me lazy for linking to Michael Moore's site) at both the Senate Judiciary Committee, and the 9/11 Commission Hearings, he stated the following:

"Now, what I recall is that I asked for flight manifests of everyone on board and all of those names need to be directly and individually vetted by the FBI before they were allowed to leave the country. And I also wanted the FBI to sign off even on the concept of Saudis being allowed to leave the country. And as I recall, all of that was done. It is true that members of the Bin Laden family were among those who left. We knew that at the time. I can't say much more in open session, but it was a conscious decision with complete review at the highest levels of the State Department and the FBI and the White House." Testimony of Richard Clarke, Former Counterterrorism Chief, National Security Council, before The Senate Judiciary Committee, September 3, 2003.

read more

 

Saturday, July 11 2009   -   In the Media

July 12, 2009
By Scott Shane
New York Times

The Central Intelligence Agency withheld information about a secret counterterrorism program from Congress for eight years on direct orders from former Vice President Dick Cheney, the agency’s director, Leon E. Panetta, has told the Senate and House intelligence committees, two people with direct knowledge of the matter said Saturday.

The report that Mr. Cheney was behind the decision to conceal the still-unidentified program from Congress deepened the mystery surrounding it, suggesting that the Bush administration had put a high priority on the program and its secrecy.

Mr. Panetta, who ended the program when he first learned of its existence from subordinates on June 23, briefed the two intelligence committees about it in separate closed sessions the next day.

Efforts to reach Mr. Cheney through relatives and associates were unsuccessful.

The question of how completely the C.I.A. informed Congress about sensitive programs has been hotly disputed by Democrats and Republicans since May, when Speaker Nancy Pelosi accused the agency of failing to reveal in 2002 that it was waterboarding a terrorism suspect, a claim Mr. Panetta rejected.

... The disclosure about Mr. Cheney’s role in the unidentified C.I.A. program comes a day after an inspector general’s report underscored the central role of the former vice president’s office in restricting to a small circle of officials knowledge of the National Security Agency’s program of eavesdropping without warrants, a degree of secrecy that the report concluded had hurt the effectiveness of the counterterrorism surveillance effort.

Full story continues here: New York Times, http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/12/us/politics/12intel.html?_r=1.

 

Friday, July 10 2009   -   In the Media

by George Kenney
July 10, 2009
ElectricPolitics.com

9/11 skeptics keep strengthening their case. Most recently, in a scientific paper that analyzes material from dust collected in lower Manhattan immediately after the event. This paper establishes beyond any doubt that nano-thermite (an exotic, military compound), in very large quantities, was present in the World Trade Center buildings during their collapse. Now it's up to those who defend the establishment narrative to demonstrate how the nano-thermite could have gotten there.

The simplest explanation, of course, is that it was used to bring the buildings down.

This podcast reviews the paper with its lead author, Dr. Niels Harrit. Niels is a professor of chemistry at the University of Copenhagen, where he's been teaching for about forty years. Even if you don't agree with 9/11 skeptics, listening to Niels you'll most likely find him honest and believable.

 

Thursday, July 9 2009   -   Civil Liberties-Police State

By Graham Rayman
July 08, 2009
Village Voice

Last month, police and the FBI arrested four Newburgh men on charges that they had plotted to bomb synagogues in the Riverdale neighborhood of the Bronx and fire a missile at a military jet.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Police Commissioner Ray Kelly held press conferences at the synagogues to reassure New Yorkers about their safety. During Kelly's remarks, it was startling to hear the commissioner refer to al-Qaeda by name, if only to say that the four purported home-grown terrorists had no ties to Osama Bin Laden's organization.

As more details emerged, however, the less the four defendants sounded like men with the skills to plan a sophisticated terror plot. They were small-time crooks, felons with long criminal records whose previous activities revolved around smoking marijuana and playing video games. One defendant, Laguerre Payen, was arrested in a crack house surrounded by bottles of his own urine; his lawyer describes him as "mildly retarded."

 

Thursday, July 9 2009   -   9/11 Precedents

By Gareth Porter
July 8, 2009
RawStory.com

Official government documents reveal new side of defense secretary’s legacy

Robert S. McNamara, Secretary of Defense from 1961 to 1967, took many secrets with him when he died Monday at 93. But probably no secret was more sensitive politically than the one that would have changed fundamentally the public perception of his role in Vietnam policy had it been become widely known.

The secret was his deliberate deceit of President Lyndon B. Johnson on Aug. 4, 1964 regarding the alleged attack on US warships in the Gulf of Tonkin.

Documents which have been available for decades in the LBJ Library show clearly that McNamara failed to inform Johnson that the U.S. naval task group commander in the Tonkin Gulf, Captain John J. Herrick, had changed his mind about the alleged North Vietnamese torpedo attack on U.S. warships he had reported earlier that day.

By early afternoon Washington time, Herrick had reported to the Commander in Chief Pacific in Honolulu that “freak weather effects” on the ship’s radar had made such an attack questionable. In fact, Herrick was now saying, in a message sent at 1:27 pm Washington time, that no North Vietnamese patrol boats had actually been sighted. Herrick now proposed a “complete evaluation before any further action taken.”

 

Thursday, July 9 2009   -   Research/Evidence

Jon Gold
7/2/2009

Yesterday, something very interesting was reported on. However, before I tell you about it, I have a few things to say. Over the years, I have promoted information regarding the Pakistani ISI's connection to "Al-Qaeda" and "terrorism." I get a lot of flack for this, and am portrayed as someone who wants to see Pakistan and all Muslims killed. I am also portrayed as someone that doesn't want to expose Israel's alleged role in the 9/11 attacks. This is simply not true. Here's an article I wrote about Ray McGovern and Israel on 5/7/2006. I added an introduction to address this issue. Another article I wrote addressed the "I want all Muslims killed" argument. In that I said, "you may have seen me say on occasion that 9/11 was not a Zionist crime, not a Muslim crime, not an American crime, etc... but a crime, and should be treated as such. A horrible crime took place on 9/11. 2,973 people were brutally murdered. When it first happened, our "leaders" told us it was an "act of war." It wasn't. It was a crime. Carried out by men. Those men may have been American. They may have been Saudi Arabian. They may have been Pakistani. They may have been Israeli. They may have been Muslim. They may have been Jewish. They may have been Episcopalian. It doesn't matter. No nationality or religion committed the crimes of 9/11. Men did. Men who should be punished to the fullest extent of the law. If any of the men involved in the 9/11 attacks were apart of any nationality or religion, does that mean you should blame every single person that belongs to that nationality or religion? OF COURSE NOT!" I also think the U.S. should stop immediately with their illegal bombing of Pakistan. Ok, now that I have gotten that out of the way, yesterday's news...

 

Wednesday, July 8 2009   -   Research/Evidence

June 28, 2009 (updated July 7, 2009)
by Mark H. Gaffney, Author of The 9/11 Mystery Plane and the Vanishing of America

The evidence was crucial because it undermined the official explanation that Hani Hanjour crashed American Airlines Flight 77 into the Pentagon at high speed after executing an extremely difficult top gun maneuver. But to understand how all of this played out, let us review the case in bite-size pieces...

In August 2004 when the 9/11 Commission completed its official investigation of the September 11, 2001 attack, the commission transfered custody of its voluminous records to the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA).[1] There, the records remained under lock and key for four and a half years, until last January when NARA released a fraction of the total for public viewing. Each day, more of the released files are scanned and posted on the Internet, making them readily accessible. Although most of the newly-released documents are of little interest, the files I will discuss in this article contain important new information.

As we know, the 9/11 Commission did not begin its work until 2003–––more than a year after the fact. By this time a number of journalists had already done independent research and published articles about various facets of 9/11. Some of this work was of excellent quality. The Washington Post, for example, interviewed aviation experts who stated that the plane allegedly piloted by Hani Hanjour [AA Flight 77] had been flown “with extraordinary skill, making it highly likely that a trained pilot was at the helm.”[2] Yet, strangely, when other journalists investigated Hani Hanjour they found a trail of clues indicating he was a novice pilot, wholly incapable of executing a top gun maneuver and a successful suicide attack in a Boeing 757. By early 2003 this independent research was a matter of public record, which created a serious problem for the 9/11 Commission...

 

Wednesday, July 8 2009   -   Endorsements & Support

July 7, 2009
Dear 9/11 Truth Movement Supporters,

As authors of the recent mainstream scientific articles relating to events at the World Trade Center, we urge you to support a tremendous opportunity for getting the truth out about 9/11.

On Wednesday, June 24, 2009, the New York City Coalition for Accountability Now (NYC CAN) filed a petition containing 52,000 signatures calling for a referendum on the creation of a New York City independent commission to begin an investigation with subpoena power. Unlike the first 9/11 Commission, this one will consider all of the evidence, including evidence for the use of explosives in bringing down the buildings.

This is what many of us have been working toward for years. With a new commission, our scientific evidence can be used to achieve real results.

 

Wednesday, July 8 2009   -   In the Media

July 8, 2009
Pensacola News Journal

U.S. relations with the Saudi royal family trumped the importance of the 3,000 murders on Sept. 11, 2001. That was the opinion of the U.S. State Department during the Bush years.

The Bush administration made the path as rocky as possible for the families who sued the Saudis. The families' lawsuit showed how the Saudis financed the lunatics who pulled off a mass murder on American soil in September 2001.

Barack Obama has followed that same Bush agenda.

But it took an intellectually lightweight U.S. Supreme Court to really send the important message to the Saudi royal family. That message: "We love your oil and need your money."

So even with the Supreme Court, it was all about our love affair with the Saudis when the court ruled that the families of 9/11 victims were not permitted to sue the royal family.

 

Wednesday, July 8 2009   -   9/11 A/V Galleries

GAO: Major Security Flaws at Federal Buildings
by Ed O'Keefe
Column: Federal Eye: Keeping Tabs on the Government at Washingtonpost.com

The police agency in charge of protecting thousands of federal buildings nationwide has failed to keep bomb-making materials out of several high-security facilities in the past year, according to Congressional testimony provided by Senate aides. In the past year, investigators successfully smuggled bomb-making materials into ten high-security federal buildings, constructed bombs and walked around the buildings undetected, exposing weaknesses in security provided by the Federal Protective Service.

More than one million government employees work in 9,000 facilities guarded by FPS around the country, including at least 350,000 in the Washington region. The revelations come as the Obama administration prepares to reorganize the agency in the coming weeks.

 

Tuesday, July 7 2009   -   Other Important News

06 July 2009
LondonDailyNews.com

Editorial

On the eve of the four year anniversary of the brutal bombings that took place on 7 July 2005 taking the lives of 52 innocent Londoners, the capital is silent, its media are neutered, the radio waves are quiet. Did this atrocity even take place? Why are we not talking about the biggest attack on London's security in recent memory?

The BBC ran a documentary on the "conspiracy" behind 7/7 trying to discredit the many theories that are being advocated that the British government may have been involved in the attacks, that Mossad was aware and therefore was able to move Netanyahu and other dignitaries away to safe areas at the time in London.

What is being forgotten here is the crux of the entire build up to the terrorist attacks and the aftermath.

 

Tuesday, July 7 2009   -   Anthrax

By John Byrne
RawStory.com
July 6, 2009

British weapons inspector Dr. David Kelly was writing an expose about his work with anthrax and his warnings that Iraq possessed no weapons of mass destruction at the time of his death in July 2003, according to a report published in a British newspaper.

Kelly's death -- said to have been a suicide -- has stirred controversy, as it came on the heels of testimony to the House of Commons about a memo which purported that Britain had "sexed up" a dossier on Iraq's alleged weapons of mass destruction. A Parliamentary inquiry ruled that the death had been suicide, though it also included testimony from a former British ambassador who quotes Kelly as having said, "I will probably be found dead in the woods" if Iraq were invaded.

The new report says Kelly had spoken with an Oxford publisher several times about a book.

"He had several discussions with a publisher in Oxford and was seeking advice on how far he could go without breaking the law on secrets," the UK Daily Express alleged.

Kelly's computers were seized in the wake of his death. He was a signatory to Britain's Official Secrets Act, which allows for the prosecution of those who talk to the press about state secrets and prescribes a more stringent framework for secrecy than in the United States.