Tuesday, May 26 2009   -   Accountability

May 26, 2009
Posted by Reprehensor at 911blogger.com

Intro: This story originally appeared in the Spanish Publico on May 9, 2009. Predictably, the U.S. press ignored it. Below find an English translation, and note that the translation is cross-posted at the Daily Kos, and DemocraticUnderground.com.

U.S. Lawyers point to Bush for the tortures

The lawyer of Martin Luther King’s family contributes a thorough report to the Spanish lawsuit to reinforce the charge -- The American Civil Liberties Union offers their collaboration

 

Tuesday, May 26 2009   -   9/11 A/V Galleries

Ex CIA Analyst Ray McGovern on Tell Somebody
Tuesday, May 26, 2009 - 6pm CDT
Tell Somebody, with host Tom Klammer, on KKFI 90.1 FM Kansas City Community Radio, streaming on the Net

"Why do they hate us?"

Does torture work?

Former Vice President Dick Cheney has come out of his non-disclosed location, “oozing out a slimy speech” at the American Enterprise Institute and making multiple TV appearances in defense of torture.

Ray McGovern has been listening- - to Cheney, but also to retired Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, Colin Powell’s former Chief of Staff.

 

Tuesday, May 26 2009   -   Research/Evidence

By James Ridgeway
Sun May 24, 2009
MotherJones.com

Say what you will about Dick Cheney, at least he's consistent. While he was in office, the Vice President made a practice of exploiting the fear and loss wrought by the 9/11 attacks to advance his own political agenda--and he's still doing it now. During his speech at the American Enterprise Institute on Thursday, according to Dana Milbank's calculations in the Washington Post, "Cheney used the word 'attack' 19 times, 'danger' and 'threat' six times apiece, and 9/11 an impressive 27 times."

In this putative rebuttal to Obama speech on national security, Cheney described how he spent the morning of 9/11 "in a fortified White House command post," receiving "the reports and images that so many Americans remember from that day," and then declared:

In the years since, I've heard occasional speculation that I'm a different man after 9/11. I wouldn't say that. But I'll freely admit that watching a coordinated, devastating attack on our country from an underground bunker at the White House can affect how you view your responsibilities.

Since he's evoking his experience as a rationalization for torture, this might be a good time to review exactly what it was that Cheney was doing in the bunker on that terrible day. Here again, consistency is the rule: A preponderance of evidence points to the fact that Dick Cheney spent the morning of September 11, 2001, violating the Constitution of the United States.

Continued at the source: http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2009/05/cheneys-bunker-mentality

 

Tuesday, May 26 2009   -   9/11 A/V Galleries

This episode of Visibility 9-11 welcomes back to the program Kyle Hence, founder of 9-11 Citizens Watch and producer of the excellent documentary 9-11 Press for Truth. Included is a brief discussion about the film as well as a new film Kyle is working on based on footnote #44 in Chapter 6 of the 9-11 Commission Report. A press release from the September 11th Advocates reads in part:

"In July 2004, when the 9/11 Commission released its Final Report, we read with enormous interest, Chapter 6 - "From Threat to Threat", including footnote #44. Footnote #44 details an instance where a CIA desk officer intentionally withheld vital information from the FBI about two of the 9/11 hijackers who were inside the United States. This footnote further states that the CIA desk officer covered-up the decision to withhold said vital information from the FBI. Finally, footnote #44 states that the CIA desk officer could not recall who told her to carry out such acts."

 

Monday, May 25 2009   -   9/11 A/V Galleries

By Lars Sobiraj
May 24, 2009
gulli.com

Questions to Niels Harrit concerning the study "Active Thermitic Material Discovered in Dust from the 9/11 World Trade Center Catastrophe".

Introduction:

Some time ago, gulli.com featured the news about the work of a team of independent scientists from Denmark, USA and Australia. They claim to have found a substance called Nano Thermite in the dust of the World Trade Center attacks of September 11, 2001 in New York City. Nano Thermite is an explosive, normally only used by the military, not available on the normal market. It is a relative to thermite, a substance used for welding.

On the Gulli board one of the biggest discussions ever broke loose between so called conspiracy theorists and people who trust the official version about 9/11. More than 28.000 views. More than 800 postings. We gave sceptical gulli users the chance to ask their questions directly to Dr. Niels Harrit, one of the scientists. The gulli users asked really tough questions and didn't censor anything. We gave all those questions to Mr. Harrit and were really curious how he would respond. He answered. So now, here's the promised interview. The whole interview is released under this Creative Commons license, so you can copy it and spread it everywhere at no charge and without asking. You can download the PDF here.

 

Monday, May 25 2009   -   9/11 Consequences

By Robert Dreyfuss, The Nation
May 23, 2009
Alternet.org

By the now, it's maddeningly familiar. A scary terrorist plot is announced. Then it's revealed that the suspects are a hapless bunch of ne'er-do-wells or run-of-the-mill thugs without the slightest connection to any terrorists at all, never mind to Al Qaeda. Finally, the last piece of the puzzle: the entire plot is revealed to have been cooked up by a scummy government agent-provocateur.

I've seen this movie before.

In this case, the alleged perps -- Onta Williams, James Cromitie, David Williams, and Laguerre Payen -- were losers, ex-cons, drug addicts. Al Qaeda they're not. Without the assistance of the agent who entrapped them, they would never have dreamed of committing political violence, nor would they have had the slightest idea about where to acquire plastic explosives or a Stinger missile. That didn't stop prosecutors from acting as if they'd captured Osama bin Laden himself. Noted the Los Angeles Times:

RELATED:

The Newburgh Four -- And The Goverment Mole Who Betrayed Them

By Zachary Roth - May 22, 2009

We're starting to get a rich picture of the four hapless Jihadis who were arrested Wednesday night for plotting to bomb two New York synagogues, as well as the FBI informant who deceived them. And the overall portrait that's emerging is that of a group of struggling, disaffected petty criminals, who bonded at a Newburgh, NY mosque over having spent time in prison, before being taken in by a Pakistani immigrant looking to win leniency for a crime of his own.

 

Monday, May 25 2009   -   Get Involved

World for 9/11 Truth (W9T.org), which started on May 12th, 2009, is a grassroots campaign to unify the world behind one single idea: a new independent investigation for 9/11.

Millions of people around the world doubt the official version of the Bush administration and the 9/11 Commission, and this number is growing everyday. Our goal is clear: we want all these people to sign our petition. To sign our petition… click here.

We are also calling on all 9/11 Truth Movement local groups to support this initiative. We hope to work with all of you very soon. Check this page for networking tools.

Let's all unite behind a new independent 9/11 investigation and let's show the world how big this movement really is.

 

Monday, May 25 2009   -   Other Important News

Guest Editorial by Sibel Edmonds
May 22, 2009
BradBlog.com

"In politics we presume that everyone who knows how to get votes knows how to administer a city or a state. When we are ill...we do not ask for the handsomest physician, or the most eloquent one." --- Plato

During the campaign, amid their state of elation, many disregarded Presidential Candidate Senator Barack Obama's past record and took any criticism of these past actions as partisan attacks deserving equally partisan counterattacks. Some continued their reluctant support after candidate Obama became grand finalist and prayed for the best. And a few still continue their rationalizing and defense, with illogical excuses such as 'He's been in office for only 20 days, give the man a break!' and 'He's had only 50 days in office, give him a chance!' and currently, 'be reasonable - how much can a man do in 120 days?!' I am going to give this logic, or lack of, a slight spicing of reason, then, turn it around, and present it as: If 'the man' can do this much astounding damage, whether to our civil liberties, or to our notion of democracy, or to government integrity, in 'only' 120 days, may God help us with the next [(4 X 365) - 120] days.

 

Sunday, May 24 2009   -   Resources and Materials

May 23, 2009
By Thomas C. Fletcher
Review of new book by David Ray Griffin, Osama Bin Laden: Dead or Alive?
Amazon.com

OSAMA BIN LADEN: DEAD OR ALIVE? by David Ray Griffin is a crucially important and timely examination of the whole range of evidence bearing on the question, is Osama bin Laden still alive? The importance of this question for the present comes from the fact that the United States under its new president is escalating its offensive in Afghanistan and expanding the war into Pakistan, and has claimed that the "hunt for bin Laden" is one of its principal motivations for doing so. Either explicitly or implicitly, the US government and major media outlets such as the New York Times and Washington Post continue to assert that bin Laden is alive, hiding in the tribal territories on the "AfPak" border, posing an undiminished threat to US security.

In his gripping new book, Griffin strikes at the root of this pretext for war by closely examining all the evidence that has come out since September 11, 2001, either indicating that bin Laden is still alive or that he is in fact dead. His conclusion is that bin Laden is certainly dead, and that in all likelihood he died in very late 2001. Griffin shows that many US experts in counterterrorism and counterinsurgency came to this very same conclusion long ago, but their views, which do not support the continuation of what President Obama, borrowing the term from Dick Cheney, calls "the long war," have received very little media attention. Were they to do so, one of the main props for the war regime would be undermined.

 

Friday, May 22 2009   -   Research/Evidence

May 22, 2009
Peter Dale Scott
911Truth.org

Here is an excerpt from the text of what Cheney said at the American Enterprise Institute on May 21, 2009:

"For me, one of the defining experiences was the morning of 9/11 itself. As you might recall, I was in my office in that first hour, when radar caught sight of an airliner heading toward the White House at 500 miles an hour. That was Flight 77, the one that ended up hitting the Pentagon. With the plane still inbound, Secret Service agents came into my office and said we had to leave, now. A few moments later I found myself in a fortified White House command post somewhere down below.

There in the bunker came the reports and images that so many Americans remember from that day - word of the crash in Pennsylvania, the final phone calls from hijacked planes, the final horror for those who jumped to their death to escape burning alive. In the years since, I've heard occasional speculation that I'm a different man after 9/11. I wouldn't say that. But I'll freely admit that watching a coordinated, devastating attack on our country from an underground bunker at the White House can affect how you view your responsibilities."

read more

 

Friday, May 22 2009   -   Resources and Materials

May 22, 2009

The US's political discourse and foreign policy in recent years has been based on the assumption that Osama bin Laden is still alive. George W. Bush promised as president that he would get Osama bin Laden "dead or alive" and has been widely criticized for failing to do so. The US's present military escalation in Afghanistan is said to be necessary to "get Osama bin Laden." The news media regularly announce the appearance of new "messages from bin Laden." But what if Osama bin Laden died in December 2001 -- which is the last time a message to or from him was intercepted?

In this book, David Ray Griffin examines the evidence for the claim -- made by everyone from former CIA agent Robert Baer to Oliver North -- that bin Laden is surely no longer with us. He analyzes the purported messages from bin Laden and finds that, as many have suspected, they do not provide evidence of bin Laden's existence after 2001. This leads naturally to the question: if Osama bin Laden did indeed die in 2001, how and why have dozens of "messages from bin Laden" appeared since then?

Griffin's meticulous analysis supports above all one simple and urgent conclusion: if Osama bin Laden is dead, the US should not be using its troops and treasure to hunt him down.