Following is a group of short pieces from 2007 or earlier. In some cases the date may reflect when text was last transmitted and not when it first appeared.
Waterboarding and 9/11: connecting the dots
October 31, 2007
Democratic senators are aggravated by Attorney General Michael Mukasey's refusal to declare whether he considers waterboarding to be torture and hence unconstitutional and illegal.
And, as the Washington Post and others point out, waterboarding was used by the CIA to force Khalid Sheikh Mohammed to talk. The Post properly calls Mohammed the "alleged 9/11 mastermind."
Yes, and Mohammed's "confessions" seem highly reminiscent of the Spanish Inquisition or Stalin's show trial methods. Mohammed's "confessions," as recounted by the 9/11 commission, read like a long cover story for a U.S. covert operation that occurred on 9/11.
So shouldn't lawmakers be connecting the dots here: If waterboarding is reprehensible and can be used to elicit false confessions, doesn't that mean the congressional and "independent" probes of 9/11 are resting on very thin ice? If lawmakers know that waterboarding is wrong and liable to elicit bad "intelligence," shouldn't they be demanding a thorough re-examination of the events of 9/11?
And lest we forget, several of these Democratic senators are presidential candidates who keep trying to avoid the issue of 9/11 treason.
Times confirms doubts about '9/11 mastermind'
October 4, 2007
Confessions sweated out of al Qaeda chieftain Khalid Sheikh Mohammed are exaggerated and contradictory, intelligence sources told the New York Times.
Though some operatives claimed to have obtained "good intelligence" from Mohhamed through use of torment tactics, others are doubtful, the Times reports today.
The report by Scott Shane, David Johnston and James Risen on a secret reauthorization of harsh interrogation methods, confirms a New Yorker claim that intelligence community professionals had serious reservations about the reliability of Mohammed's statements. The Aug. 13 New Yorker carried Jane Mayer's chilling report on the CIA's "black sites."
Though the Times report, in a clause, calls Mohammed the "chief planner" of the 9/11 attacks, the substance of the Times report raises doubts about such an unqualified assertion. The 9/11 commission relied on what Mohammed purportedly told the CIA about those attacks without being able to question him or listen to interrogation tapes.
NSA shocker spurs 9/11 suspicions
October 16, 2007
Powerful Democratic lawmaker John Conyers is headed for a direct clash with Bush and his security chiefs over highly questionable secret activities that seem to have been authorized well in advance of 9/11.
Conyers sent a letter to National Intelligence Director Mike McConnell and the Justice Dept. demanding details of secret eavesdropping arrangements made seven months before 9/11 that were disclosed in court documents concerning the former CEO of Qwest. Conyers said details were needed in light of Bush's desire to apply retroactive protection from lawsuits to those telecoms that cooperated with the NSA and because of suspicion that Qwest and its CEO were targeted for payback for refusing to comply with the covert demands.
A respected Georgetown University professor of constitutional law told a television audience that 9/11 was amazingly "convenient" for Bush and his associates in that the secretive domestic spying operation showed an intention to seize excessive central power, according to David Edwards and Nick Juliano at Rawstory.
Jonathan Turley told Countdown Monday: "This administration was seeking a massive expansion of presidential power and national security powers before 9/11. 9/11 was highly convenient, in that case."
Turley denied necessarily implying that Bush and his aides welcomed 9/11, "but when it happened, it was a great opportunity to seize powers that they had long wanted at the FBI."
However, a number of professors, some with science degrees, have openly challenged the truthfulness of the official U.S. narrative of the events of 9/11. Additionally, a number of professional statisticians, some of them professors, have expressed strong skepticism concerning the outcome of the 2004 presidential election.
Polls have shown that doubts about 9/11 are widespread among Americans, though the presidential candidates avoid the topic, apparently in part because the Israel lobby doesn't welcome such debate, as is evidenced by the Murdoch press, which is considered one of the biggest cannons of that lobby.
Pre-9/11 machinations of the Bush administration will be taken by many as further evidence of a conspiracy to commit perfidious treason.
Richard French, an RNN television commentator, said that if the surveillance power grab charges are true, Bush is a liar who claimed he had been motivated to authorize warrantless wiretaps by the events of 9/11.
Secret wiretap grab 7 months before 9/11
October 15, 2007
Seven months before 9/11, shortly after Bush was inaugurated for his first term, the NSA was arranging for wiretap powers that went beyond lawful authority, according to court documents obtained by the Rocky Mountain News.
It appears that Bush may have secretly seized wartime surveillance power -- as soon as he got into office!
Joseph P. Nacchio, former chief of Qwest, a telecom company, tried to use this information in his fight with the U.S. attorney over purported insider trading. He was convicted after the judge agreed to a novel interpretation of insider trading law.
Nacchio said he had been invited to NSA headquarters in February 2001 to discuss a defense contract for improving internet security. During the discussion, the NSA official proposed an arrangement that Nacchio rejected, on advice of Qwest's counsel, as illegal. NSA has suppressed details, but it is apparent that a warrantless wiretap operation was the subject.
Qwest did not get the defense contract, but Nacchio did get prosecuted after he revealed that the feds had asked Qwest to do something illegal. The court papers are the first indication that this wiretap ower was obtained by the NSA long before 9/11 or any sign of war.
Other telecom firms, which obtained contracts, apparently did go along with the NSA program. Bush is demanding that they be retroactively protected by Act of Congress from lawsuits regarding breach of duty to protect privacy.
So I'd like to know: did Cheney go over to Capitol Hill and quietly brief eight members of Congress on this clandestine program in February 2001?
Aside from the Rocky, the New York Times carried a piece on the matter on Sunday.
Israel lobby muzzles 9/11 truth
October 7, 2007
Let's face facts: the official falsehoods about 9/11 well serve the foreign policy of the hawkish Israel lobby and its counterparts in Israel. After 9/11, Ariel Sharon repeated, word for word, Bush's speech announcing a global war against terrorists. During the run-up to the Iraq war, the Israel lobby was publicly quiet while privately promoting the invasion.
Of course, treason on 9/11 doesn't necessarily point to Israeli involvement. However, it is clear that the government of Israel and its militant U.S. backers view the 9/11 attacks as a boon which they cannot turn away.
When you read Abe Foxman's reports on 9/11 conspiracy theories, you come away with the impression that anyone who suspects treason that day is out to get the Jews. The head of the Anti-Defamation League avoids the topic of serious criticism of the official claims but lets loose with both barrels at people supposedly trying to whip up anti-Semitism, including such easy targets as David Duke. Foxman also bluntly equates suspicion of Israeli intelligence with anti-Semitism. In other words, he's running interference for conspirators, whether he knows it or not.
Commentary magazine, long headed by Norman Podhoretz, has denounced the liberal Tikkun magazine for publishing an article by David Ray Griffin, who suspects radical neocon involvement in the 9/11 attacks. Podhoretz has recommended the U.S. launch an air war against Iran. Tikkun's editor, Michael Lerner, has expressed skepticism concerning the U.S. government's possible role in 9/11, but doesn't accept the idea of a Jewish conspiracy. However, he does denounce the hawkish Israel lobby for pushing America and Israel into Mideast bloodshed.
The Israel lobby's role in muting the media and terrorizing Congress has been well documented. Do you wonder why the media is so reticent about 9/11 truth? The Israel lobby doesn't see 9/11 truth as politically useful. Do you wonder why the Democratic Congress can't force a U.S. withdrawal from Iraq? The Israel lobby doesn't want it. Do you wonder why the Democrats are wishy-washy about proposed attacks on Iran and Syria? The Israel lobby has long had Mideast control on its agenda.
Yes, sure. The Israel lobby isn't operating in a vacuum. There are deals with the oil interests and with the Russians, who want a free hand against the Chechnyans and other Muslim groups.
The Armageddon cults and the Israel lobby
October 6, 2007
I enjoyed watching Bill Moyers on PBS last night probing the role of so-called Christian Zionism in the Israel lobby. The show included a thoughtful interview with Tikkun editor Rabbi Michael Lerner, a liberal who denounces the Israel lobby as a pernicious influence, and Dr. Timothy P. Weber, an evangelical skeptical of the Armageddon cults.
Now, in a sense, I am a Christian Zionist and a dispensationalist, but that doesn't mean I claim a railroad-timetable comprehension of the mysteries of biblical prophecy.
Curiously, the most extreme of these "End Times" cults, led by Pastor John Hagee who favors an attack on Iran as doing a favor to the state of Israel, is endorsed as a good friend by the Israel lobby and politicians such as Sen. Joseph Lieberman and Sen. John McCain.
Yet, most Americans are not strict literalists concerning the Bible and most Americans who consider themselves born-again Christians are not closely aligned with these cults. Moyers and his guests were wondering why these cults have such influence and seem to penetrate the consciousness of so many people.
I think they overlooked the most obvious reason: These cults seem to have inordinate access to television broadcasts. There is big money in televangelism and those preachers who take the "Israel is always right" line may well find that their path is made easier. Worth checking, I'd say.
Lerner argued that these extremist religious views, which are in harness with Israeli's hard right, are bad for America, bad for Israel and bad for the Jews.
My estimate is that the American people have little inkling of the extent to which a very tiny group of Armageddon cultists is tilting policy in favor of the Israel lobby.
Granted extremist Islam is an evil force. But extremist solutions are likely to make matters worse, as we see now in Iraq.
Winnipeg Sun vents 9/11 skepticism
April 19, 2007
The quest for a truthful international inquiry into 9/11 got a boost from a column in the Winnipeg Sun.
In a piece published April 14, 2007, John Gleeson argued that the controlled demolition theory of the collapse of the trade center towers "has won persistent support from engineers and academics from other disciplines."
In a discussion of the work of various academics who favor a "inside job" scenario, Gleeson said, "You can see why these scholars are calling for an independent, preferably international investigation."
The editor cast such academics as David Ray Griffin, the theologian turned 9/11 skeptic, in a favorable light.
Gleeson's column is found here.
Bones fiasco taints official 9/11 probes
October 22, 2006
"The exhaustive search for human remains at Ground Zero somehow missed key areas -- an oversight that may have kept scores of 9/11 families from having a true burial of their loved ones' remains," writes Greg B. Smith in Sunday's New York Daily News after more human remains were unearthed at the site of the World Trade Center disaster.
"Two whole office buildings and many underground chambers never underwent a thorough search," the newspaper reported.
A badly damaged skyscraper at 130 Cedar Street was visually searched for remains shortly after the attacks, the paper found, but the building was choked with debris and toxic dust. Later the debris was removed, but the city has no record of its removal, the News found, although the building had contained pieces of an airplane.
So not only did a number of human remains apparently vanish with no accountability, so did important forensic evidence: pieces of the attack airplane.
Though the city Fire Department had responsibility for the search for remains, it is not clear why there are no city records of the removal of 130 Cedar Street's debris and forensic evidence.
However, it is obvious that we have yet another example of important information regarding the destruction of the World Trade Center that has turned up missing.
These enormous blank spaces in the investigative trail can only cast a pall over the quality of the official investigations conducted in the aftermath of 9/11.
U.S. Communists soft on 9/11 treason
July 13, 2006
We see a lot of implied haw-haw's showing up in the media these days about 9/11 "conspiracy theorists."
Reminds me of back when the New York Times was outraged that the government would LIE like crazy -- imagine that! -- about Vietnam, as demonstrated by the Pentagon papers; but even so, the Times was ABSOLUTELY CERTAIN that the government was telling the God's-honest-truth about the JFK murder.
Yet, the Times did an extensive investigation of the murder -- supposedly in order to rebut Warren commission critics -- but, upon examining their material, decided not to publish a word of it. And no one knows what happened to all those notes.
What I notice about those in the press using the "conspiracy theory" sobriquet is that rarely, extremely rarely, have they ever moved a muscle to do any legwork on 9/11. Those news organizations that are the testiest about those who question the official theory have invested little energy in investigating 9/11 -- and that's an especial disgrace for a slew of major New York-based outfits.
Of course those who are most likely to dump on 9/11 doubters are generally those who are well-known for their strong neocon leanings, such as the New York Post and the Wall Street Journal's editorial page. Yet, the neocon group in the media could not succeed so well without a lot of help. That would be the communist conspiracy.
We pooh-pooh such a notion these days. But China is still red, no matter what some claim and the Chinese are having an increasing influence in America's corporate boardrooms. And Putin is using KGB-strongarm tactics on Russia -- which, like Israel, had a lot to gain from the 9/11 attacks.
I just checked the Communist Party USA's web sites, and, as I suspected, the party's policy has been to toss a few limp-wristed pebbles at the official line on 9/11. The People's Daily World articles mostly mimicked what could be found in mainstream media, though with appropriate leftist remarks. What little the party's Political Affairs magazine had to say was hardly enough to rev up the red rank-and-file to make an issue of the government's 9/11 pack of lies. Though the magazine noted that the Kean Commission had "failed to connect the dots," the reds published nothing that might seriously undermine the federal story.
9/11 panel clairvoyance worthy of 'X Files'
July 16, 2006 OK, what's the non-conspiracy theory for this fact: The Kean panel issued its final report a year before the NIST finished its analysis of the collapse of the twin towers. Obviously, the Kean panel was very confident the NIST would find no evidence of explosives long before the scientific analysis was done.
Additionally, the NIST probe of the collapse of WTC7, which probers have publicly called a "low probability" event, still hasn't been completed. So, if we're looking for a non-conspiracy theory, then the Kean panel has magical abilities to read the future.
Plus, assuming investigative objectivity, what if probers were to find find that explosives were the probable cause of the WTC7 collapse? Wouldn't that cast doubt on the official theory about the twin towers? Hence, we can be sure that the probers already know what they are supposed to determine.
That is, the Kean panel's bizarre psychic abilities look like a case for the "X Files."
An itty bitty conspiracy theory
August 31, 2006
Who pulled off 9/11, and why? Clearly, among those who benefited were the neocons. But, the enormity of the 9/11 power grab makes me wonder: was a big part of the plotters' considerations the fight to control information?
In the world of the power elite, knowledge is power, and the internet revolution was threatening the hidden hands on society's control levers. There was an awful lot of hassle prior to 9/11 about the right of people to communicate secretly. The NSA was strongly suspected of weakening the NIST's Data Encryption Standard to make it vulnerable to NSA surveillance. The NSA tried to force the telecommunications industry to use a Clipper chip that would give the NSA keys to any encrypted communications.
Phil Zimmerman was threatened with prosecution for making Pretty Good Privacy encryption available on the net.
And, post-9/11, we have Congress pressing to assure that all encryption systems deposit keys with the U.S. government. Clearly, the telecom companies, in the main, thought they had to comply with warrantless surveillance given the tenor of the post-9/11 times.
One of the things that was barely noticed when the SWIFT financial data surveillance came to light was that new controls had been imposed after a spook was caught peeking at data for dubious reasons. Yes, well, knowledge is power.
If you can monitor secrets but others can't, you may be protecting the nation's security or you may be part of a scam to control business in such a way that competition is kept artfully in its place.
That is, plotters may easily have seen the subversive 9/11 attack in context for their fight for global market dominance via control of information.
Joe McCarthy and 9/11
June 7, 2006
From the article titled "CIA knew where Eichmann was hiding..." in The New York Times:
The point here is that McCarthy was substantially correct about the fact of extensive Soviet penetration of our system, though he was not necessarily right about every detail. These days of course anyone who points to treason at high levels is smeared as a conspiracy theorist. Yet U.S. history shows that treason is not necessarily an occasional aberrant act but may be part of an organized covert (and semi-covert) system.
Some of McCarthy's harshest detractors were pretty shady. Take Corliss Lamont, the rich humanist atheist socialist who also was an arch apologist for the Soviet Union. And then there was Michael Straight, the editor of the New Republic who failed to tell the readers of his anti-McCarthy diatribes that he had been one of the secret State Department reds that McCarthy had been talking about.
These days we have extensive evidence of treason on 9/11 and a full complement of government shills determined to muddy the waters and confuse the public. Yet, as the McCarthy controversy shows, it's possible for the "bad guy" to be right. So if treason is possible in the fifties, why is it supposedly so very unlikely these days?
Now some accuse George Bush and Dick Cheney of McCarthyism because of their attempts to browbeat the public into conformity. But, unlike McCarthy, Bush and Cheney have done everything possible to keep the lid on the facts of treason.
Michael Redmond, a New Jersey newspaperman, commented on the above remarks:
October 31, 2007
Democratic senators are aggravated by Attorney General Michael Mukasey's refusal to declare whether he considers waterboarding to be torture and hence unconstitutional and illegal.
And, as the Washington Post and others point out, waterboarding was used by the CIA to force Khalid Sheikh Mohammed to talk. The Post properly calls Mohammed the "alleged 9/11 mastermind."
Yes, and Mohammed's "confessions" seem highly reminiscent of the Spanish Inquisition or Stalin's show trial methods. Mohammed's "confessions," as recounted by the 9/11 commission, read like a long cover story for a U.S. covert operation that occurred on 9/11.
So shouldn't lawmakers be connecting the dots here: If waterboarding is reprehensible and can be used to elicit false confessions, doesn't that mean the congressional and "independent" probes of 9/11 are resting on very thin ice? If lawmakers know that waterboarding is wrong and liable to elicit bad "intelligence," shouldn't they be demanding a thorough re-examination of the events of 9/11?
And lest we forget, several of these Democratic senators are presidential candidates who keep trying to avoid the issue of 9/11 treason.
Times confirms doubts about '9/11 mastermind'
October 4, 2007
Confessions sweated out of al Qaeda chieftain Khalid Sheikh Mohammed are exaggerated and contradictory, intelligence sources told the New York Times.
Though some operatives claimed to have obtained "good intelligence" from Mohhamed through use of torment tactics, others are doubtful, the Times reports today.
The report by Scott Shane, David Johnston and James Risen on a secret reauthorization of harsh interrogation methods, confirms a New Yorker claim that intelligence community professionals had serious reservations about the reliability of Mohammed's statements. The Aug. 13 New Yorker carried Jane Mayer's chilling report on the CIA's "black sites."
Though the Times report, in a clause, calls Mohammed the "chief planner" of the 9/11 attacks, the substance of the Times report raises doubts about such an unqualified assertion. The 9/11 commission relied on what Mohammed purportedly told the CIA about those attacks without being able to question him or listen to interrogation tapes.
NSA shocker spurs 9/11 suspicions
October 16, 2007
Powerful Democratic lawmaker John Conyers is headed for a direct clash with Bush and his security chiefs over highly questionable secret activities that seem to have been authorized well in advance of 9/11.
Conyers sent a letter to National Intelligence Director Mike McConnell and the Justice Dept. demanding details of secret eavesdropping arrangements made seven months before 9/11 that were disclosed in court documents concerning the former CEO of Qwest. Conyers said details were needed in light of Bush's desire to apply retroactive protection from lawsuits to those telecoms that cooperated with the NSA and because of suspicion that Qwest and its CEO were targeted for payback for refusing to comply with the covert demands.
A respected Georgetown University professor of constitutional law told a television audience that 9/11 was amazingly "convenient" for Bush and his associates in that the secretive domestic spying operation showed an intention to seize excessive central power, according to David Edwards and Nick Juliano at Rawstory.
Jonathan Turley told Countdown Monday: "This administration was seeking a massive expansion of presidential power and national security powers before 9/11. 9/11 was highly convenient, in that case."
Turley denied necessarily implying that Bush and his aides welcomed 9/11, "but when it happened, it was a great opportunity to seize powers that they had long wanted at the FBI."
However, a number of professors, some with science degrees, have openly challenged the truthfulness of the official U.S. narrative of the events of 9/11. Additionally, a number of professional statisticians, some of them professors, have expressed strong skepticism concerning the outcome of the 2004 presidential election.
Polls have shown that doubts about 9/11 are widespread among Americans, though the presidential candidates avoid the topic, apparently in part because the Israel lobby doesn't welcome such debate, as is evidenced by the Murdoch press, which is considered one of the biggest cannons of that lobby.
Pre-9/11 machinations of the Bush administration will be taken by many as further evidence of a conspiracy to commit perfidious treason.
Richard French, an RNN television commentator, said that if the surveillance power grab charges are true, Bush is a liar who claimed he had been motivated to authorize warrantless wiretaps by the events of 9/11.
Secret wiretap grab 7 months before 9/11
October 15, 2007
Seven months before 9/11, shortly after Bush was inaugurated for his first term, the NSA was arranging for wiretap powers that went beyond lawful authority, according to court documents obtained by the Rocky Mountain News.
It appears that Bush may have secretly seized wartime surveillance power -- as soon as he got into office!
Joseph P. Nacchio, former chief of Qwest, a telecom company, tried to use this information in his fight with the U.S. attorney over purported insider trading. He was convicted after the judge agreed to a novel interpretation of insider trading law.
Nacchio said he had been invited to NSA headquarters in February 2001 to discuss a defense contract for improving internet security. During the discussion, the NSA official proposed an arrangement that Nacchio rejected, on advice of Qwest's counsel, as illegal. NSA has suppressed details, but it is apparent that a warrantless wiretap operation was the subject.
Qwest did not get the defense contract, but Nacchio did get prosecuted after he revealed that the feds had asked Qwest to do something illegal. The court papers are the first indication that this wiretap ower was obtained by the NSA long before 9/11 or any sign of war.
Other telecom firms, which obtained contracts, apparently did go along with the NSA program. Bush is demanding that they be retroactively protected by Act of Congress from lawsuits regarding breach of duty to protect privacy.
So I'd like to know: did Cheney go over to Capitol Hill and quietly brief eight members of Congress on this clandestine program in February 2001?
Aside from the Rocky, the New York Times carried a piece on the matter on Sunday.
Israel lobby muzzles 9/11 truth
October 7, 2007
Let's face facts: the official falsehoods about 9/11 well serve the foreign policy of the hawkish Israel lobby and its counterparts in Israel. After 9/11, Ariel Sharon repeated, word for word, Bush's speech announcing a global war against terrorists. During the run-up to the Iraq war, the Israel lobby was publicly quiet while privately promoting the invasion.
Of course, treason on 9/11 doesn't necessarily point to Israeli involvement. However, it is clear that the government of Israel and its militant U.S. backers view the 9/11 attacks as a boon which they cannot turn away.
When you read Abe Foxman's reports on 9/11 conspiracy theories, you come away with the impression that anyone who suspects treason that day is out to get the Jews. The head of the Anti-Defamation League avoids the topic of serious criticism of the official claims but lets loose with both barrels at people supposedly trying to whip up anti-Semitism, including such easy targets as David Duke. Foxman also bluntly equates suspicion of Israeli intelligence with anti-Semitism. In other words, he's running interference for conspirators, whether he knows it or not.
Commentary magazine, long headed by Norman Podhoretz, has denounced the liberal Tikkun magazine for publishing an article by David Ray Griffin, who suspects radical neocon involvement in the 9/11 attacks. Podhoretz has recommended the U.S. launch an air war against Iran. Tikkun's editor, Michael Lerner, has expressed skepticism concerning the U.S. government's possible role in 9/11, but doesn't accept the idea of a Jewish conspiracy. However, he does denounce the hawkish Israel lobby for pushing America and Israel into Mideast bloodshed.
The Israel lobby's role in muting the media and terrorizing Congress has been well documented. Do you wonder why the media is so reticent about 9/11 truth? The Israel lobby doesn't see 9/11 truth as politically useful. Do you wonder why the Democratic Congress can't force a U.S. withdrawal from Iraq? The Israel lobby doesn't want it. Do you wonder why the Democrats are wishy-washy about proposed attacks on Iran and Syria? The Israel lobby has long had Mideast control on its agenda.
Yes, sure. The Israel lobby isn't operating in a vacuum. There are deals with the oil interests and with the Russians, who want a free hand against the Chechnyans and other Muslim groups.
The Armageddon cults and the Israel lobby
October 6, 2007
I enjoyed watching Bill Moyers on PBS last night probing the role of so-called Christian Zionism in the Israel lobby. The show included a thoughtful interview with Tikkun editor Rabbi Michael Lerner, a liberal who denounces the Israel lobby as a pernicious influence, and Dr. Timothy P. Weber, an evangelical skeptical of the Armageddon cults.
Now, in a sense, I am a Christian Zionist and a dispensationalist, but that doesn't mean I claim a railroad-timetable comprehension of the mysteries of biblical prophecy.
Curiously, the most extreme of these "End Times" cults, led by Pastor John Hagee who favors an attack on Iran as doing a favor to the state of Israel, is endorsed as a good friend by the Israel lobby and politicians such as Sen. Joseph Lieberman and Sen. John McCain.
Yet, most Americans are not strict literalists concerning the Bible and most Americans who consider themselves born-again Christians are not closely aligned with these cults. Moyers and his guests were wondering why these cults have such influence and seem to penetrate the consciousness of so many people.
I think they overlooked the most obvious reason: These cults seem to have inordinate access to television broadcasts. There is big money in televangelism and those preachers who take the "Israel is always right" line may well find that their path is made easier. Worth checking, I'd say.
Lerner argued that these extremist religious views, which are in harness with Israeli's hard right, are bad for America, bad for Israel and bad for the Jews.
My estimate is that the American people have little inkling of the extent to which a very tiny group of Armageddon cultists is tilting policy in favor of the Israel lobby.
Granted extremist Islam is an evil force. But extremist solutions are likely to make matters worse, as we see now in Iraq.
Winnipeg Sun vents 9/11 skepticism
April 19, 2007
The quest for a truthful international inquiry into 9/11 got a boost from a column in the Winnipeg Sun.
In a piece published April 14, 2007, John Gleeson argued that the controlled demolition theory of the collapse of the trade center towers "has won persistent support from engineers and academics from other disciplines."
In a discussion of the work of various academics who favor a "inside job" scenario, Gleeson said, "You can see why these scholars are calling for an independent, preferably international investigation."
The editor cast such academics as David Ray Griffin, the theologian turned 9/11 skeptic, in a favorable light.
Gleeson's column is found here.
Bones fiasco taints official 9/11 probes
October 22, 2006
"The exhaustive search for human remains at Ground Zero somehow missed key areas -- an oversight that may have kept scores of 9/11 families from having a true burial of their loved ones' remains," writes Greg B. Smith in Sunday's New York Daily News after more human remains were unearthed at the site of the World Trade Center disaster.
"Two whole office buildings and many underground chambers never underwent a thorough search," the newspaper reported.
A badly damaged skyscraper at 130 Cedar Street was visually searched for remains shortly after the attacks, the paper found, but the building was choked with debris and toxic dust. Later the debris was removed, but the city has no record of its removal, the News found, although the building had contained pieces of an airplane.
So not only did a number of human remains apparently vanish with no accountability, so did important forensic evidence: pieces of the attack airplane.
Though the city Fire Department had responsibility for the search for remains, it is not clear why there are no city records of the removal of 130 Cedar Street's debris and forensic evidence.
However, it is obvious that we have yet another example of important information regarding the destruction of the World Trade Center that has turned up missing.
These enormous blank spaces in the investigative trail can only cast a pall over the quality of the official investigations conducted in the aftermath of 9/11.
U.S. Communists soft on 9/11 treason
July 13, 2006
We see a lot of implied haw-haw's showing up in the media these days about 9/11 "conspiracy theorists."
Reminds me of back when the New York Times was outraged that the government would LIE like crazy -- imagine that! -- about Vietnam, as demonstrated by the Pentagon papers; but even so, the Times was ABSOLUTELY CERTAIN that the government was telling the God's-honest-truth about the JFK murder.
Yet, the Times did an extensive investigation of the murder -- supposedly in order to rebut Warren commission critics -- but, upon examining their material, decided not to publish a word of it. And no one knows what happened to all those notes.
What I notice about those in the press using the "conspiracy theory" sobriquet is that rarely, extremely rarely, have they ever moved a muscle to do any legwork on 9/11. Those news organizations that are the testiest about those who question the official theory have invested little energy in investigating 9/11 -- and that's an especial disgrace for a slew of major New York-based outfits.
Of course those who are most likely to dump on 9/11 doubters are generally those who are well-known for their strong neocon leanings, such as the New York Post and the Wall Street Journal's editorial page. Yet, the neocon group in the media could not succeed so well without a lot of help. That would be the communist conspiracy.
We pooh-pooh such a notion these days. But China is still red, no matter what some claim and the Chinese are having an increasing influence in America's corporate boardrooms. And Putin is using KGB-strongarm tactics on Russia -- which, like Israel, had a lot to gain from the 9/11 attacks.
I just checked the Communist Party USA's web sites, and, as I suspected, the party's policy has been to toss a few limp-wristed pebbles at the official line on 9/11. The People's Daily World articles mostly mimicked what could be found in mainstream media, though with appropriate leftist remarks. What little the party's Political Affairs magazine had to say was hardly enough to rev up the red rank-and-file to make an issue of the government's 9/11 pack of lies. Though the magazine noted that the Kean Commission had "failed to connect the dots," the reds published nothing that might seriously undermine the federal story.
9/11 panel clairvoyance worthy of 'X Files'
July 16, 2006 OK, what's the non-conspiracy theory for this fact: The Kean panel issued its final report a year before the NIST finished its analysis of the collapse of the twin towers. Obviously, the Kean panel was very confident the NIST would find no evidence of explosives long before the scientific analysis was done.
Additionally, the NIST probe of the collapse of WTC7, which probers have publicly called a "low probability" event, still hasn't been completed. So, if we're looking for a non-conspiracy theory, then the Kean panel has magical abilities to read the future.
Plus, assuming investigative objectivity, what if probers were to find find that explosives were the probable cause of the WTC7 collapse? Wouldn't that cast doubt on the official theory about the twin towers? Hence, we can be sure that the probers already know what they are supposed to determine.
That is, the Kean panel's bizarre psychic abilities look like a case for the "X Files."
An itty bitty conspiracy theory
August 31, 2006
Who pulled off 9/11, and why? Clearly, among those who benefited were the neocons. But, the enormity of the 9/11 power grab makes me wonder: was a big part of the plotters' considerations the fight to control information?
In the world of the power elite, knowledge is power, and the internet revolution was threatening the hidden hands on society's control levers. There was an awful lot of hassle prior to 9/11 about the right of people to communicate secretly. The NSA was strongly suspected of weakening the NIST's Data Encryption Standard to make it vulnerable to NSA surveillance. The NSA tried to force the telecommunications industry to use a Clipper chip that would give the NSA keys to any encrypted communications.
Phil Zimmerman was threatened with prosecution for making Pretty Good Privacy encryption available on the net.
And, post-9/11, we have Congress pressing to assure that all encryption systems deposit keys with the U.S. government. Clearly, the telecom companies, in the main, thought they had to comply with warrantless surveillance given the tenor of the post-9/11 times.
One of the things that was barely noticed when the SWIFT financial data surveillance came to light was that new controls had been imposed after a spook was caught peeking at data for dubious reasons. Yes, well, knowledge is power.
If you can monitor secrets but others can't, you may be protecting the nation's security or you may be part of a scam to control business in such a way that competition is kept artfully in its place.
That is, plotters may easily have seen the subversive 9/11 attack in context for their fight for global market dominance via control of information.
Joe McCarthy and 9/11
June 7, 2006
From the article titled "CIA knew where Eichmann was hiding..." in The New York Times:
Norman J. W. Goda, an Ohio University historian who reviewed the CIA material, said it showed in greater detail than previously known how the KGB aggressively targeted former Nazi intelligence officers for recruitment after the war. In particular, he said, the documents fill in the story of the "catastrophic" Soviet penetration of the Gehlen Organization, the post-war West German intelligence service sponsored by the United States Army and then the CIA.Joe McCarthy warned of extensive communist penetration of the CIA, a warning that some believe ultimately led to his downfall. the CIA had a secret unit dedicated to countering McCarthy.
Mr. Goda described the case of Heinz Felfe, a former SS officer who was bitter over the Allied firebombing of his native city, Dresden, and secretly worked for the KGB. Felfe rose in the Gehlen Organization to oversee counterintelligence — placing a Soviet agent in charge of combating Soviet espionage in West Germany.
The CIA shared much sensitive information with Felfe, who visited the agency in 1956 to lobby for West German involvement in CIA operations, Mr. Goda found. A newly released 1963 CIA damage assessment, written after Felfe was arrested as a Soviet agent in 1961, found that he had exposed "over 100 CIA staffers" and seen that many eavesdropping operations ended with "complete failure or a worthless product."
Mr. Goda described the case of Heinz Felfe, a former ss officer who was bitter over the allied firebombing of his native city, Dresden, and secretly worked for the KGB. Mr. Felfe rose in the Gehlen organization to oversee counterintelligence, a Soviet agent placed in charge of combating soviet espionage.
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Elizabeth Holtzman, a former congresswoman from New York and member of the panel, the Nazi War Crimes and Japanese Imperial Government Records Interagency Working Group, said the documents showed that the C.I.A "failed to lift a finger" to hunt Eichmann and "force us to confront not only the moral harm but the practical harm" of relying on intelligence from ex-Nazis.
The point here is that McCarthy was substantially correct about the fact of extensive Soviet penetration of our system, though he was not necessarily right about every detail. These days of course anyone who points to treason at high levels is smeared as a conspiracy theorist. Yet U.S. history shows that treason is not necessarily an occasional aberrant act but may be part of an organized covert (and semi-covert) system.
Some of McCarthy's harshest detractors were pretty shady. Take Corliss Lamont, the rich humanist atheist socialist who also was an arch apologist for the Soviet Union. And then there was Michael Straight, the editor of the New Republic who failed to tell the readers of his anti-McCarthy diatribes that he had been one of the secret State Department reds that McCarthy had been talking about.
These days we have extensive evidence of treason on 9/11 and a full complement of government shills determined to muddy the waters and confuse the public. Yet, as the McCarthy controversy shows, it's possible for the "bad guy" to be right. So if treason is possible in the fifties, why is it supposedly so very unlikely these days?
Now some accuse George Bush and Dick Cheney of McCarthyism because of their attempts to browbeat the public into conformity. But, unlike McCarthy, Bush and Cheney have done everything possible to keep the lid on the facts of treason.
Michael Redmond, a New Jersey newspaperman, commented on the above remarks:
Although he was very bad news, as you state, yes, McCarthy got some things right. He was certainly right about Alger Hiss, who was guilty as sin, the Venona papers prove. What's troubling is Whittaker Chambers' belief that there may have been a very large network of sleeper agents in place and ready to go. If Chambers was right, what then, what now?
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