May 10, 2009
by Andy Worthington
AndyWorthington.co.uk

The Arabic media is ablaze with the news that Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi, the emir of an Afghan training camp -- whose claim that Saddam Hussein had been involved in training al-Qaeda operatives in the use of chemical and biological weapons was used to justify the invasion of Iraq -- has died in a Libyan jail. So far, however, the only English language report is on the Algerian website Ennahar Online, which reported that the Libyan newspaper Oea stated that al-Libi (aka Ali Abdul Hamid al-Fakheri) “was found dead of suicide in his cell,” and noted that the newspaper had reported the story “without specifying the date or method of suicide.”

This news resolves, in the grimmest way possible, questions that have long been asked about the whereabouts of Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi, perhaps the most famous of “America’s Disappeared” -- prisoners seized in the “War on Terror,” who were rendered not to Guantánamo but to secret prisons run by the CIA or to the custody of governments in third countries -- often their own -- where, it was presumed, they would never be seen or heard from again.

FIND AN ACTION OR ADD ONE: HERE

For those of you who don't usually do anything on the 11th - would you consider doing one small thing on this 11th to increase visibility for 9/11 truth? You could do it on the 9th or 10th or 12th if it makes it any easier. Every action counts and even a small action can help create great change. Putting up just ONE informational poster in a prominent place in your community could potentially affect hundreds or even thousands of people. You never know who you'll wake up! Is there any good reason for you not to join the good people from Chicago to Copenhagen who will be taking action for 9/11 truth on the Eleventh of May?

Don't forget to take a picture!

cosmos
truthaction.org
twitter.com/truthaction

Two weeks ago, Pakistan President Asif Ali Zadari suggested that Osama bin Laden might be dead, saying that U.S. and Pakistani intelligence agencies had been unable to detect any sign of the world's most wanted man since an audio recording of his voice was released in March.

Sunday morning, Zadari went further: "I don't think he's alive," the president told NBC's David Gregory. "I have a strong feeling and reason to believe that." Zadari continued: "I have asked my counterparts in the American intelligence services and they haven't heard [from] him in seven years."

The CIA has not confirmed that the voice purporting to be bin Laden in the March recording was in fact bin Laden. U.S. officials have claimed that bin Laden could be hiding in the mountainous region along the border of Afghanistan and Pakistan.

[Video follows].

by Michael Collins
May 10, 2009
SmirkingChimp.com

A strange feeling of déjà vu arises while listening to the administration sell further U.S. military intervention in Pakistan (our Predator drones are already there).

Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Michael Mullen claimed in late March that Pakistan s intelligence service has "close links with al Qaeda and the Taliban network." In fact, Mullen warned, the Pakistani intelligence service, ISI, is "offering logistical support to them (the Taliban)."

In early April, veteran foreign policy icon and special advisor to the president on Afghanistan and South Asia, Richard Holbrook, let us know what this meant. There is a fundamental difference between the Pakistan conflict and the Viet Nam war, he argued. Pakistan has nuclear weapons. Holbrook went on to say this:

"And the people who are in this area who we are fighting either pose a direct threat, having committed 9/11, having done Mumbai, having killed (Benazir) Bhutto, and they have publicly said they are going to do more of the same. That is: al Qaeda of course and their allies the Taliban." Richard Holbrooke, May 5, 2009 (Repeating April 19, 2009 statement)

On May 9, General David Petraeus supported his superiors as he announced that Pakistan was now "the world headquarters for the al Qaeda senior leadership." . . .

Perpetual 9/11

We re experiencing an example of the enduring power 9/11 as a justification for just about anything. Military adventures that kill foreigners have the potential to create what Chalmers Johnson so eloquently described as "blowback" in his trilogy on the perils of aggressive foreign policy. We re expected to believe that our violent actions in Pakistan and Afghanistan, including robot killer aircraft, will somehow produce a different result this time. We will be "safer."

Arise then...women of this day!
Arise, all women who have hearts!
Whether your baptism be of water or of tears!
Say firmly:

"We will not have questions answered by irrelevant agencies,
Our husbands will not come to us, reeking with carnage,
For caresses and applause.

Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn
All that we have been able to teach them of charity, mercy and patience.

We, the women of one country,
Will be too tender of those of another country
To allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs."

From the voice of a devastated Earth a voice goes up with
Our own. It says: "Disarm! Disarm!
The sword of murder is not the balance of justice."
Blood does not wipe our dishonor,
Nor violence indicate possession.

As men have often forsaken the plough and the anvil
At the summons of war,
Let women now leave all that may be left of home
For a great and earnest day of counsel.

Let them meet first, as women, to bewail and commemorate the dead.
Let them solemnly take counsel with each other as to the means
Whereby the great human family can live in peace...
Each bearing after his own time the sacred impress, not of Caesar,
But of God --

In the name of womanhood and humanity, I earnestly ask
That a general congress of women without limit of nationality,
May be appointed and held at someplace deemed most convenient
And the earliest period consistent with its objects,
To promote the alliance of the different nationalities,
The amicable settlement of international questions,
The great and general interests of peace.

One of the most frustrating features of observing American foreign policy is to see the gap between the encapsulated thinking of the national security bureaucracy and the sensible unfettered observations of the experts outside. In the case of Afghanistan, outside commentators have called for terminating current specific American policies and tactics – many reminiscent of the US in Vietnam.

Observers decry the use of air strikes to decapitate the Taliban and al Qaeda, usually resulting in the death of other civilians. They counsel against is the insertion of more and more US and other foreign troops, in an effort to secure the safety and allegiance of the population. And they regret the on-going interference in the fragile Afghan political process, in order to secure outcomes desired in Washington.¹

One root source for this gap between official and outside opinion will not be addressed soon – the conduct of crucial decision-making in secrecy, not by those who know the area, but by those skilled enough in bureaucratic politics to have earned the highest security clearances. However it may be more productive to criticize the mindset shared by the decision-makers, and to point out elements of the false consciousness which frames it, and which should be corrigible by common sense.

The document is explicit (PDF here). Most damningly, perhaps, is its description of a meeting held between CIA staff and then-House Intelligence Committee Chairman Porter Goss and now-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, which shows that Pelosi was briefed on the Bush Administration's torture techniques in 2002 -- even though she's publicly said she was never told about the use of waterboarding.

Equally striking, however, are the volume of the briefings that have been conducted on the CIA's interrogation practices since 2002. The document runs ten pages, with up to four briefings a page.

Pelosi was briefed on waterboarding in 2002, despite saying she wasn't: report: RawStory
ABC News' Rick Klein revealed Thursday evening that a report from the Director of National Intelligence fingered Pelosi as having been briefed in 2002, even though she denied last month ever having knowledge of the Bush administration's so-called "enhanced interrogation techniques."

Holder says he approved Clinton-era renditions: RawStory.com
Under fire from Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee Thursday, Attorney General Eric Holder revealed that he had approved of rendition -- essentially, legalized kidnapping -- apparently more than once during his tenure as President Bill Clinton's deputy attorney general.

Cautioning Holder that any potential investigation into the Bush administration's torture program could result in Democrats being roped in, "Lamar Alexander of Tennessee and Richard Shelby of Alabama pressed Holder on the CIA's 'rendition' program that moved terrorism suspects from one country to another," reported Domenico Montanaro with MSNBC.

30 April 2009
By Dennis Loo
WorldCantWait.org

If you ask most people what Obama has done about Guantanamo, most would say, "He shut it down."

Most don't know that Obama has said he might take as much as a year to shut it down.

If you ask most people what Obama has done about torture and rendition, most would say, "He's ended them."

Most don't know that Obama has declared that he will continue rendition, that he reserves the right to go beyond the Army Field Manual for interrogations, and that by not acting affirmatively to ensure otherwise, he has allowed conditions to worsen at Gitmo.

This episode of Visibility 9-11 welcomes John-Michael Talboo and Stewart Bradley of the blog Debunking the Debunkers.

John-Michael is the creator and administrator of 911debunkers.blogspot.com where he and Bradley debunk the "debunkers" of the 9/11 truth movement. He has been a 9/11 activist since late 2004, is a grassroots organizer listed on 911truth.org for the state of Indiana, a member of the Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth video team, and a founding member of the central Indiana chapter of the activist organization We Are Change.

Stewart Bradley is an artist, documentary journalist, and political activist living in Lancaster Pennsylvania who runs an independent mulit-media studio. Stewart was already investigating covert government operations before 9/11 and since 9/11 has re-dedicated himself to exposing the public misconceptions behind the attack. In 2004 he wrote and produced a 9/11 docudrama titled "The Proof" and has been actively promoting 9/11 research through his website, blogs, videos, and internet debates. More at: http://bradleyinfotainment.com

Wednesday, May 6, 2009
by George Washington
WashingtonsBlog.com

The main thing keeping us from fixing our problems is our faulty assumption that it would be impossible or take too much effort.

We bite our tongues because we don't have quick and brilliant oratory skills, not knowing that studies show that we simply have to speak our minds to make a difference.

We assume that we don't have the necessary level of barroom-brawl type testosterone, forgetting that courage actually comes from the passion to protect something we love.

The busiest project this week was the Civil Liberties Timeline, which has expanded its chapter on the PROMIS application, reportedly the granddaddy of today's government surveillance software. Claims that the software was distributed to other countries have been disputed, but a 1992 Congressional investigation found two Justice Department memos saying a version of the software was about to be passed to Israel.
Read more

. . . Finally, in the International Relations Timeline, former State Department Chief of Staff Lawrence Wilkerson claims that former Vice President Dick Cheney was manipulating the Bush administration from the outset.
Read more

May 6, 2009
by Michael Wolsey
Visibility911.com

I am very happy to announce that for the first time in our movement's history, 9/11 Press for Truth will be shown on a mainstream media television station. KBDI Channel 12 in Denver Colorado has just confirmed that they will be showing this groundbreaking film during their upcoming pledge drive on June 3, 2009.

As has been the case in the recent past, Colorado 9-11 Visibility will be there manning the phone banks and expect to get some prime time during this showing to make our plea for a new investigation into the crimes of September 11th, 2001.

. . . Congratulations to the makers of the film, and to the members of Colorado 9-11 Visibility, and BRAVO to KBDI Channel 12 in Denver for having the guts to do what no other television station in this country has done.

Intellectual Dishonesty In The Age Of Universal Deceit:
a message to the corporate media and our elected officials.

By Daniel Sunjata - May 4, 2009
www.911blogger.com

"The inert masses are mentally and spiritually ill equipped to deal with reality, so they block it out of their minds - aided of course, by the corporate media and the propaganda apparatus of the government itself. This is why fantasy is frequently substituted for reality, plutocracy is mistaken for democracy, and the majority of the people do not know the difference. Millions of good people thus refuse to allow into their psyche the suffering and misery that U.S. policies have produced and exported to the world, even as that reality is closing in upon them." - Charles Sullivan

"They could be made to accept the most flagrant violations of reality...and were not sufficiently interested in public events to notice what was happening." - George Orwell, 1984

“Article XXXIV OBSTRUCTION OF INVESTIGATION INTO THE ATTACKS OF SEPTEMBER 11, 2001” - From the 35 articles of impeachment introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives on 06/09/08 in H.Res. 1258 by Congressman Dennis Kucinich

How many times has this happened to you? You are explaining to someone some of the rational, logical reasons why the official story of 9/11 can't be true, perhaps explaining how WTC 7 fell in the exact manner of a professionally planned controlled demolition -- a job which would typically take weeks to prepare -- when out comes a 'thought stopper' phrase...

Why So Much Resistance to 9/11 Truth?

Such reactions are emotionally based. 9/11 is a very emotionally charged issue. The source of the denial and resistance is FEAR. The implications of 9/11 Truth are very scary for most people to take in. Given that a part of our government's job description is keeping its citizens safe, it's terrifying to consider that a secret rogue part of our government will do just the opposite -- mass murder those very citizens, in order to advance dark agendas -- like wars for corporate empire. To further consider that associated 'secret teams' would then put out corporate media cover-up stories, in the form of an elaborate fantasy story backed up with planted evidence, and to think that story was nearly universally accepted without question -- this is the stuff of nightmares.

Then there is the difficulty of accepting the self-image shattering realization that we were duped by such cover story lies. 9/11 Truth suggests a very uncomfortable and disturbing worldview, especially to those new to such concepts. The intensity of fear brought up by these vast implications causes defense mechanisms to take over our rational thought processes. Such denial most often overrides rationality.

Dear Friends Around the World,

We, the 9/11 Family Members, First Responders and Survivors who make up the Executive Council of the New York City Coalition for Accountability Now, would like to announce our profound dedication to establishing an independent, impartial, subpoena-powered investigation into the events of September 11, 2001. We stand together with you, our fellow citizens, to place this important referendum on the New York City ballot on November 3, 2009.

Each one of us has a different story and a different reason for becoming part of this journey, but we have united for this purpose and this purpose alone: to establish an independent, impartial, subpoena-powered investigation into the events of September 11, 2001.

As 9/11 Family Members, First Responders and Survivors of those tragic moments, our lives were irreversibly devastated. Below, we describe our pain and our quest for closure. We hope you will join us in this quest – it is of paramount importance for our personal and collective healing, and for the betterment of our world.