Wednesday, August 10 2011   -   9/11 A/V Galleries

Thursday, August 11, 2011, 7:00 -9:30 PM (MDT), with an encore airing immediately following at 9:30 PM - 12:00 AM (MDT).

Live Streaming: Of special interest, Colorado Public Television (CPT12) will be streaming this live event at: http://www.cpt12.org/911pressfortruth. At this link, viewers can also view program details, join the discussion, and pledge support.

9/11 Press For Truth: Based in part on Paul Thompson's exhaustively researched book The Terror Timeline, published in 2004 by HarperCollins, the documentary follows three mothers from New Jersey who lost their husbands on September 11th, then led a group of victims' relatives calling themselves the 9/11 Families Steering Committee in a heart-rending battle with the White House for answers and accountability. For more on the film, see www.911pressfortruth.com.

Appearing live in the CPT12 studios: Shari Bernson of CPT12 and Leland Rucker of Free Speech TV will interview Director Ray Nowosielski, Co-Creator John Duffy, and author Paul Thompson. The presentation will also include the premiere of some brand new video clips from the filmmakers' latest project and a discussion by them of the newsworthy revelations therein.

CPT12 is the first PBS station to air content addressing issues of government transparency and accountability with regard to the events of 9/11. Their PBS premiere broadcast of "9/11 Press For Truth" in June 2009, with special in-studio guests Director Ray Nowosielski, Producer Kyle Hence, and victim's family member Bob McIlvaine, was a successful fundraiser not without controversy. The station received many viewer responses, pro and con, nationally and internationally.

 

Monday, August 8 2011   -   Get Involved

TORONTO, August 8, 2011 -- A decade after the events of September 11, 2001, which resulted in the immediate deaths of nearly 3,000 people on American soil, countless victims from toxic dust, and hundreds of thousands of deaths in Afghanistan and Iraq, international hearings on this pivotal event will begin in Toronto in September.

The events of September 11 provided a pretext for a War on Terror that has led to military invasions and occupations, and attacks upon civil and human rights throughout the world. The credibility of the official investigation into the events of September 11, 2001, carried out by the U.S. Government between 2003 and 2005, has been questioned by millions of citizens in the United States and abroad, including victim family members, expert witnesses and international legal experts.

To date, open and transparent judicial hearings to question the official evidence provided by the U.S. Government have never taken place in the United States or abroad. Similarly, no perpetrators of the events of September 11 have ever been brought to justice on American soil.

A group of international citizens has therefore undertaken to privately fund and cause these independent hearings to take place. Because of the global ramifications of the events of 9/11, the initiators of this inquest have opted to select an international location outside of the United States for these hearings to proceed. The city of Toronto, Canada was chosen as an ideal "international" location because of its proximity to New York, Washington and Shanksville (the crime scenes).

 

Monday, August 8 2011   -   Get Involved

by Carol Brouillet
August 6, 2011

As the ten-year anniversary approaches, the Northern California 9/11 Truth Alliance is organizing its annual 9/11 Truth Film Festival to be held on Thursday, September 8, beginning at 1:00 pm at the Grand Lake Theater, 3200 Grand Ave., Oakland, and on Sunday, September 11, beginning at 1:00 pm at the Herbst Theatre, 401 Van Ness Ave., San Francisco. Speakers and filmmakers include former Senator Mike Gravel, director of Project Censored Mickey Huff, president of the Media Freedom Foundation Dr. Peter Phillips, sister of fallen firefighter David Weiss from Rescue One and founder of Unite in Peace Michele Little, author of Mounting Evidence Dr. Paul Rea, author of Earth into Property: Colonization, Decolonization, and Capitalism Prof. Anthony J. Hall, author of Waking the Global Heart: Humanity's Rites of Passage From the Love of Power to the Power of Love Anodea Judith, author of World as Love, World as Self - Courage for Global Justice and Ecological Renewal Joanna Macy, filmmakers Ken Jenkins and Brett Smith, and radio hosts Bonnie Faulkner from "Guns and Butter," Carol Brouillet from "Community Currency" and Sherry Glaser-Love from "Our House!" In addition to the films "Psywar: The Real Battlefield Is the Mind," "You, Me & the SPP: Trading Democracy for Corporate Rule," "Loose Change 9/11: An American Coup," "Hypothesis: A Documentary about Prof. Stephen E. Jones," and "9/11: Explosive Evidence -- Experts Speak Out," there will be live streaming from 9/11 events in Toronto and Seattle.

The Toronto Hearings, sponsored by the International Center for 9/11 Studies, will be held at Ryerson University for four days beginning on September 8. These hearings will examine evidence for the inadequacy of the U.S. government's investigation and will request that a full and impartial investigation be launched into the events of 9/11, which have been used to initiate military invasions and to restrict the rights of citizens. The founder of Firefighters for 9/11 Truth, Erik Lawyer, is organizing ONE: The Event - Shifting from Fear to Love, a three-day event in Seattle designed to facilitate an individual and collective shift in consciousness, encouraging the choice of " love over fear, kindness over anger, and responsibility rather than blame."

9/11 Reclaiming the Truth, Reclaiming Our Future is a benefit for the Northern California 9/11 Truth Alliance, whose purpose is to explore the truth and meaning behind the traumatic events of 9/11, to honor the dead and dying, and to share stories, insights and research about that day, the forgotten history that led up to it, and the decade that followed. Tickets are $10 ($7 for seniors, students, and low-income) at the door and are available in advance through the Grand Lake Theater website and for the Herbst event through the City Box Office.

 

Friday, August 5 2011   -   9/11 A/V Galleries

Just one of the Legacies of 9/11

August 4, 2011
by Kevin Fenton
Boilingfrogs

Two of the terrorist hijackers who flew a jet into the Pentagon, Nawaf al-Hazmi and Khalid al-Mihdhar, communicated while they were in the United States to other members of al Qaeda who were overseas. But we didn't know they were here, until it was too late.

The authorization I gave the National Security Agency after September the 11th helped address that problem in a way that is fully consistent with my constitutional responsibilities and authorities. The activities I have authorized make it more likely that killers like these 9/11 hijackers will be identified and located in time.

-President Bush, December 17, 2005

In the aftermath of 9/11, reams of newsprint were given over to discussing the CIA and FBI failures before the attacks; the agency had some of the hijackers under surveillance and allegedly lost them, the bureau was unable even to inform its own acting director of the Zacarias Moussaoui case. However, the USA's largest and most powerful intelligence agency, the National Security Agency, got a free ride. There was no outcry over its failings, no embarrassing Congressional hearings for its director. Yet, as we will see, the NSA's performance before 9/11 was shocking.

 

Tuesday, August 2 2011   -   9/11 A/V Galleries

August 2nd, 2011
by Steven Aftergood
Secrecy News from the FAS Project on Government Secrecy

The Senate Intelligence Committee rejected an amendment that would have required the Attorney General and the Director of National Intelligence to confront the problem of "secret law," by which government agencies rely on legal authorities that are unknown or misunderstood by the public.

The amendment, proposed by Sen. Ron Wyden and Sen. Mark Udall, was rejected on a voice vote, according to the new Committee report on the FY2012 Intelligence Authorization Act.

"We remain very concerned that the U.S. government's official interpretation of the Patriot Act is inconsistent with the public's understanding of the law," Senators Wyden and Udall wrote. "We believe that most members of the American public would be very surprised to learn how federal surveillance law is being interpreted in secret."

The Senators included dissenting remarks, along with the text of their rejected amendment, in the Committee report.

 

Tuesday, August 2 2011   -   Other Important News

By Nancy A. Youssef
August 1, 2011
McClatchy Newspapers

WASHINGTON -- The last-minute deal that Congress is considering to raise the federal debt limit probably will mean trillions of dollars in government spending reductions for most agencies. But one department stands to gain: the Pentagon.

Rather than cutting $400 billion in defense spending through 2023, as President Barack Obama had proposed in April, the current debt proposal trims $350 billion through 2024, effectively giving the Pentagon $50 billion more than it had been expecting over the next decade.

With the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan winding down, experts said, the overall change in defense spending practices could be minimal: Instead of cuts, the Pentagon merely could face slower growth.

"This is a good deal for defense when you probe under the numbers," said Lawrence Korb, a defense expert at the Center for American Progress, a left-leaning research center. "It's better than what the Defense Department was expecting."

 

Monday, August 1 2011   -   9/11 Consequences

By Noah Shachtman
July 28, 2011
Danger Room blog at Wired.com

ASPEN, Colorado -- Ground the U.S. drone war in Pakistan. Rethink the idea of spending billions of dollars to pursue al-Qaida. Forget chasing terrorists in Yemen and Somalia, unless the local governments are willing to join in the hunt.

Those aren't the words of some human rights activist, or some far-left Congressman. They're from retired admiral and former Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair -- the man who was, until recently, nominally in charge of the entire American effort to find, track, and take out terrorists. Now, he's calling for that campaign to be reconsidered, and possibly even junked.

Starting with the drone attacks. Yes, they take out some mid-level terrorists, Blair said. But they're not strategically effective. If the drones stopped flying tomorrow, Blair told the audience at the Aspen Security Forum, "it's not going to lower the threat to the U.S." Al-Qaida and its allies have proven "it can sustain its level of resistance to an air-only campaign," he said.

 

Monday, August 1 2011   -   Bigger Picture

Peter Dale Scott
August 1, 2011
The Asia-Pacific Journal, Vol 9, Issue 31 No 1, August 1, 2011.

Twice in the last two decades, significant cuts in U.S. and western military spending were foreseen: first after the fall of the Berlin Wall, and then in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis. But both times military spending soon increased, and among the factors contributing to the increase were America's interventions in new areas: the Balkans in the 1990s, and Libya today.¹ Hidden from public view in both cases was the extent to which al-Qaeda was a covert U.S. ally in both interventions, rather than its foe.

U.S. interventions in the Balkans and then Libya were presented by the compliant U.S. and allied mainstream media as humanitarian. Indeed, some Washington interventionists may have sincerely believed this. But deeper motivations - from oil to geostrategic priorities - were also at work in both instances.

In virtually all the wars since 1989, America and Islamist factions have been battling to determine who will control the heartlands of Eurasia in the post-Soviet era. In some countries - Somalia in 1993, Afghanistan in 2001 - the conflict has been straightforward, with each side using the other's excesses as an excuse for intervention.

But there have been other interventions in which Americans have used al-Qaeda as a resource to increase their influence, for example Azerbaijan in 1993. There a pro-Moscow president was ousted after large numbers of Arab and other foreign mujahedin veterans were secretly imported from Afghanistan, on an airline hastily organized by three former veterans of the CIA's airline Air America. (The three, all once detailed from the Pentagon to the CIA, were Richard Secord, Harry Aderholt, and Ed Dearborn.)² This was an ad hoc marriage of convenience: the mujahedin got to defend Muslims against Russian influence in the enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh, while the Americans got a new president who opened up the oilfields of Baku to western oil companies.

The pattern of U.S. collaboration with Muslim fundamentalists against more secular enemies is not new. It dates back to at least 1953, when the CIA recruited right-wing mullahs to overthrow Prime Minister Mossadeq in Iran, and also began to cooperate with the Sunni Muslim Brotherhood.³ But in Libya in 2011 we see a more complex marriage of convenience between US and al-Qaeda elements: one which repeats a pattern seen in Bosnia in 1992-95, and Kosovo in 1997-98. In those countries America responded to a local conflict in the name of a humanitarian intervention to restrain the side committing atrocities. But in all three cases both sides committed atrocities, and American intervention in fact favored the side allied with al-Qaeda.

 

Wednesday, July 27 2011   -   First Responders/Health Effects

By Jonathan Lemire
DAILY NEWS CITY HALL BUREAU
Wednesday, July 27th 2011
New York Daily News

Image: Retired Firefighter Kenneth Specht said the exclusion of cancer as a disease covered by the Zadroga health act was "absolutely unacceptable". (Photo credit: Elisa Miller for News)

They sacrificed their bodies - and in some cases, their lives - for their noble work at Ground Zero, and now they and their loved ones feel abandoned.

Scores of first responders believe they contracted cancer due to the time they spent at the toxic World Trade Center site and are outraged the disease is being excluded from the new James Zadroga 9/11 Health and Compensation Act.

"Every time we bury a New York City firefighter: Cancer. Cancer. Cancer," said retired Firefighter Kenneth Specht, who is battling thyroid cancer.

"How can that not be included? It's absolutely unacceptable."

 

Wednesday, July 27 2011   -   Editorials

July 27, 2011
by Lew Rockwell
TheDailyBell.com

The violence perpetuated by Anders Behring Breivik in Norway unleashed the usual torrent of blaming anyone who might have influenced the murderer's thought. He was first described as a right-wing Christian -- a description designed to put a certain community on notice. As more evidence rolled in, he has been more accurately described as an anti-Islamic nationalist, but the tendency to pin this violence on any non-leftist is still there.

There were footnotes in his 1,500-page manifesto to many dozens of books and articles -- including a few published by the Mises Institute. Looking at the balance of his citations, however, it's clear that his main influence had nothing to do with libertarianism. His inspiration was a point of view reminiscent of American neoconservatism. He cited articles in this tradition -- particularly on the fear and hate of Islam -- far more often than any other.

So, does this violence discredit neoconservatism, as when then-President Clinton tried to blame libertarians and the "militia" movement for the Oklahoma bombing in 1995? The point of this game is to silence the opposition, shut down debate, and fundamentally discredit the body of ideas on which the violence can be blamed.

It's pretty much been this way since the ancient world. Governments can perpetuate violence in war and against the civilian population every day, but when a private person does the same for political reasons, a struggle ensues to see which line of thinking will pay what price.

The truth is that every political point of view can be twisted into a rationale for violence. If you think that the rich should be expropriated, there are generally two ways to bring this about: you and your friends can steal from the rich directly -- maybe killing some fat cats in the process -- or you can lobby Congress to do it for you.

The second method is preferred in a democratic society. When violence against person and property operates under the cover of the law, it is rarely called out for what it truly is. It is only when the legal cover is removed that the violence shocks and alarms us. But what about the morality of it all, whether we are speaking about private violence, the redistributionist state, or the war-making imperial state? In moral substance, they amount to the same thing.

 

Wednesday, July 27 2011   -   Editorials

By Glenn Greenwald
July 23, 2011
Salon.com

(updated below - Update II)

For much of the day yesterday, the featured headline on The New York Times online front page strongly suggested that Muslims were responsible for the attacks on Oslo; that led to definitive statements on the BBC and elsewhere that Muslims were the culprits. The Washington Post's Jennifer Rubin wrote a whole column based on the assertion that Muslims were responsible, one that, as James Fallows notes, remains at the Post with no corrections or updates. The morning statement issued by President Obama -- "It's a reminder that the entire international community holds a stake in preventing this kind of terror from occurring" and "we have to work cooperatively together both on intelligence and in terms of prevention of these kinds of horrible attacks" -- appeared to assume, though (to its credit) did not overtly state, that the perpetrator was an international terrorist group.

But now it turns out that the alleged perpetrator wasn't from an international Muslim extremist group at all, but was rather a right-wing Norwegian nationalist with a history of anti-Muslim commentary and an affection for Muslim-hating blogs such as Pam Geller's Atlas Shrugged, Daniel Pipes, and Robert Spencer's Jihad Watch. Despite that, The New York Times is still working hard to pin some form of blame, even ultimate blame, on Muslim radicals (h/t sysprog):

 

Friday, July 22 2011   -   Resources and Materials

July 22, 2011
by Kevin Fenton

Introduction to Chapter 15 of Disconnecting the Dots, for publication at 911Truth.org:

In January 2000, several high-ranking al-Qaeda operatives, including alleged Flight 77 hijackers Khalid Almihdhar and Nawaf Alhazmi, held a summit in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. The meeting was monitored by the CIA and a local Malaysian service, although the agency reportedly failed to exploit this opportunity to learn what bin Laden's organization was planning. In addition, the CIA deliberately withheld information about the two men, in particular that Almihdhar had a US visa, from the FBI. The agency then allegedly suffered the misfortune of losing Almihdhar, Alhazmi and another al-Qaeda operative in Bangkok, Thailand. The surveillance of the Malaysia summit was run by Alec Station, the CIA's bin Laden unit, its chief Richard Blee and his deputy Tom Wilshire. On January 12 and 14 Blee gave his superior, Cofer Black, incorrect briefings about what was happening with the surveillance. Chapter 15 picks up the story on January 15.

Chapter 15

I know nobody read that cable

After the CIA allegedly lost Khalid Almihdhar, Nawaf Alhazmi, and Khallad bin Attash in Bangkok, it asked the Thais to watchlist the three men, meaning that Almihdhar and Alhazmi's departure from Thailand on January 15, 2000 should have been noted and passed to the local CIA station. From there it would have gone to headquarters. Since the two men were flying to the US, they could have been picked up on arrival, or any time later. As they ended up lodging with an FBI counterterrorism informant in San Diego, it could have been a straightforward matter for the Bureau to get close to them.¹

For some reason that has not yet been determined, their departure from Thailand was not reported promptly by the CIA station in Bangkok. After a few weeks went by, a CIA officer in Malaysia noticed this lack of reporting and queried Bangkok about what had happened.² According to the 9/11 Commission:

Presumably the departure information was obtained back in January, on the days that these individuals made their departures. Because the names were watchlisted by the Thai authorities we cannot yet explain the delay in reporting the news.³

The CIA station in Bangkok sat on this request for two weeks. Then it told the CIA station in Kuala Lumpur that there was a delay in responding due to difficulties in obtaining the requested information.⁴ However, it appears the station already had this information and, even if it did not, it could have simply asked the Thais, who had watchlisted the men at the CIA's request.

 

Friday, July 22 2011   -   Other Important News

One lawyer's relentless quest for information reveals fresh hints of a coverup.

By James Ridgeway
July 21, 2011
MotherJones.com

In 2007, Mother Jones was the first national media outlet to tell the full story of Jesse Trentadue and his quest for the truth, which began four months after the attack on Oklahoma City's Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building on April 19, 1995, killed 168 people. It was then that Trentadue, a Salt Lake City lawyer, learned that his brother, a construction worker and one-time bank robber, had died in a federal prison in Oklahoma City. [Photo: Timothy McVeigh is escorted from the courthouse in Perry, Oklahoma. Bob Owen/Zuma]

Prison officials said the prisoner had hanged himself. But Kenney Trentadue, who had never revealed any suicidal inclination, was shipped home for burial with bruises all over his body and lacerations on his face and throat--suggesting something more sinister. Even Oklahoma City's chief medical examiner would later say, publicly, that it was "very likely he was murdered." But the most compelling evidence in the case was altered or turned up missing. Jesse Trentadue was never able to prove what had actually happened to his brother--though he did win a $1.1 million civil suit for "emotional distress" to his family, based on the way the government had handled the aftermath of Kenney's death.

 

Friday, July 22 2011   -   In the Media

by Kristen Breitweiser, 9/11 Widow and Activist
July 16, 2011
The Huffington Post

Breathlessly, six members of Congress have requested that the FBI investigate the "outrageous" allegations that News Corp might have hacked into the cell phones of 9/11 victims and their families. Lickety split, the Justice Department has done so.

First off, does it surprise me that a corporation like News Corp. might try to hack into the information of private citizens for their own financial gain? Nope.

Much like it wouldn't surprise me if my own government hacked into the private information of its citizens for political gain or... er, I mean, "reasons of national security." Just ask Dick Cheney and Karl Rove about that.

Of course, any such "accidental netting" on their part would be immediately explained away under the protections of FISA and the Patriot Act, because clearly it would have been necessary "in the ongoing fight against terrorism."

Too bad, Congress doesn't want to investigate those types of indiscretions. Sigh.

 

Tuesday, July 19 2011   -   Other Important News

By JENNIFER EPSTEIN
July 18, 2011
Politico.com

Relatives of victims of the September 11 attacks have asked to meet with the FBI and top members of the Obama administration about allegations reporters from one of Rupert Murdoch's British papers tried to hack the cell phone accounts of victims.

In letters sent Monday to Attorney General Eric Holder, FBI Director Robert Mueller and Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.), the ranking member on the House Judiciary Committee, a lawyer representing some victims' families is asking for meetings to discuss a report that journalists from the now-defunct News of the World asked a New York-based private investigator to help them gather information from victims' phones.

The FBI has initiated an informal probe into the allegations, which were first reported by the Daily Mirror.