February 1, 2009

In reference to our FOIA request, the FBI has sent us 13 additional PENTTBOM videos. This is the second round release (not counting the CCTV Pentagon, CITGO, and Doubletree video releases). Each DVD contains 1 video from the 'menu' list. Here is a summary of what was sent:

K3074: Footage of the second plane impacting the WTC. The video also captures the collapses.
NE418: Pentagon witness saying he saw a plane land into the Pentagon, followed by another plane (C130).
(Continued...)

WHEREAS religious leaders seek to promote various universal values, including love, justice, and truth; and

WHEREAS religious leaders throughout history have spoken out on moral issues; and

WHEREAS the official account of 9/11 has been shown by scientists and professionals in relevant fields to be false beyond a reasonable doubt; and

WHEREAS the official account of 9/11 has been used as a pretext for wars that have killed and maimed millions of innocent people and caused enormous ecological damage to our planet; and . . .

Counter-terrorism experts presumably have some insight into terrorism, right?

In fact, numerous high-level counter-terrorism experts question the government's investigation of - and explanation for - 9/11.

Read more for examples of who this includes.

February 3, 2009
George Washington's Blog

Terrell (Terry) E. Arnold was the number 2 counter-terrorism official at the U.S. State Department, and is one of the world's leading experts on terror.

Arnold served as the Deputy Director, Office of Counter-Terrorism and Emergency Planning, at the U.S. State Department. He is also the former Chairman of the Department of International Studies at the National War College.

Arnold has worked as a crisis management consultant for several Federal agencies, including The State Department, the Department of Defense, the U.S. Customs Service and the Federal Emergency Management Agency. He is the author of numerous books on terror*. Arnold is a U.S. Navy veteran of World War II and the Korean war.

When the New York Times explored the political beliefs of Daniel Sunjata, an actor on the FX network's show "Rescue Me," it was under the banner of a "sinister theory."

The "sinister theory" that a group of neoconservative politicians may have colluded to allow, or bring about, the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

On Thursday's Fox and Friends, Greg Gutfield, provocative host of Fox's late night program Red Eye, called individuals like Sunjata, who question the events of 9/11, "mentally ill."

Michael D. Shear, Peter Finn and Dan Eggen
The Washington Post
Thursday, February 5, 2009; 6:23 PM

President Obama will gather tomorrow with victims and families of the 9/11 terrorist attacks and U.S.S. Cole bombing for a face-to-face meeting as his administration struggles to decide how to handle detainees at Guatanamo Bay, Cuba, several of those invited said.

The previously undisclosed meeting at the White House tomorrow afternoon will give the new president a chance to explain his decision to close the controversial prison facility where the U.S. has placed many suspected terrorists since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

Obama has been assailed by conservative critics who say the decision to close the facility within a year will lead to putting many of those terrorists back on the street. In a recent interview, former vice president Dick Cheney, an architect of the Bush administration's war on terror, criticized the decision as reckless.

By Paul Craig Roberts
February 04, 2009
Information Clearinghouse

If America were infected with terrorists, we would not need the government to tell us. We would know it from events. As there are no events, the US government substitutes warnings in order to keep alive the fear that causes the public to accept pointless wars, the infringement of civil liberty, national ID cards, and inconveniences and harrassments when they fly.

The most obvious indication that there are no terrorist cells is that not a single neocon has been assassinated.

Action needed:

Please contact your Representative immediately - Please note that this action has an associated deadline of Noon EST on Wednesday.

Please also help by forwarding this action alert everywhere, quickly.

Reps. Maloney, Nadler, King, and McMahon will likely introduce the "9/11 Health and Compensation Act" tomorrow afternoon. Below is a letter circulated by Rep. Maloney today in her effort to get other members of the House to co-sponsor this bill. This bill was introduced as HR 7174 in the last session of Congress, often referred to as "the Zadroga bill" after James Zadroga, a first responder who died as a result of his service.)

Please call your Representative, and tell them that you support this bill and want him/her to co-sponsor. If they are not familiar with the bill, or the need for it, Rep. Maloney has valuable information available at her website, http://maloney.house.gov.

February 2, 2009
by Chris Hedges
TruthDig.com

The daily bleeding of thousands of jobs will soon turn our economic crisis into a political crisis. The street protests, strikes and riots that have rattled France, Turkey, Greece, Ukraine, Russia, Latvia, Lithuania, Bulgaria and Iceland will descend on us. It is only a matter of time. And not much time. When things start to go sour, when Barack Obama is exposed as a mortal waving a sword at a tidal wave, the United States could plunge into a long period of precarious social instability.

At no period in American history has our democracy been in such peril or has the possibility of totalitarianism been as real. Our way of life is over. Our profligate consumption is finished. Our children will never have the standard of living we had. And poverty and despair will sweep across the landscape like a plague. This is the bleak future. There is nothing President Obama can do to stop it. It has been decades in the making. It cannot be undone with a trillion or two trillion dollars in bailout money. Our empire is dying. Our economy has collapsed.

By Joshua Holland
February 3, 2009
AlterNet

Explosive anger is spilling out onto the streets of Europe. The meltdown of the global economy is igniting massive social unrest in a region that has long been a symbol of political stability and social cohesion.

It's not a new trend: A wave of upheaval is spreading from the poorer countries on the periphery of the global economy to the prosperous core.

Over the past few years, a series of riots spread across what is patronizingly known as the Third World. Furious mobs have raged against skyrocketing food and energy prices, stagnating wages and unemployment in India, Senegal, Yemen, Indonesia, Morocco, Cameroon, Brazil, Panama, the Philippines, Egypt, Mexico and elsewhere.

For the most part, those living in wealthier countries took little notice. But now, with the global economy crashing down around us, people in even the wealthiest nations are mad as hell and reacting violently to what they view as an inadequate response to their tumbling economies.

A coming episode of the acclaimed FX drama "Rescue Me" will tackle what may sound like a far-fetched plot line: that the attacks of Sept. 11 were an "inside job." The actor who espouses the theories on camera, it turns out, also subscribes to them in real life.

Claims that Al Qaeda terrorists were not solely responsible for the attacks have a lively following on the Internet, including on YouTube, but the second episode of "Rescue Me's" fifth season, starting in April, may represent the first fictional presentation of 9/11 conspiracy theories by a mainstream media company (FX is operated by the News Corporation).

From Iraq to Afghanistan to Palestine, Occupation is a Crime
Jobs & Education - Not Wars & Occupation

Saturday, March 21, 2009 - Gather at 12 noon at 23rd St. & Constitution Ave. NW in Washington, D.C.!

Various coalitions, organizations, and networks are joining together in a March 21 National Coalition to bring people from all walks of life and from all cities across the United States to take part in a March on the Pentagon on the sixth anniversary of the Iraq war: Saturday, March 21.

More than 1,000 organizations and individuals have now endorsed the March 21, 2009, March on the Pentagon to say "Bring the Troops Home NOW!" on the sixth anniversary of the criminal invasion of Iraq.

The thousands who march will demand "From Iraq to Afghanistan to Palestine, Occupation is a Crime" and "We Need Jobs and Education, Not Wars and Occupation." They will insist on an end to the war threats and economic sanctions against Iran. They will say no to the illegal U.S. program of detention and torture.

The arrival of the Obama administration will not fundamentally alter the course of military expansion accelerated during the Bush era. The origins of these policies do not lie uniquely in neoconservative ideology. While the election of President Obama may offer new opportunities for progressive forces to delimit the damage, their space for movement will ultimately be constrained by deep-seated structural pressures that will attempt to exploit Obama to rehabilitate American imperial hegemony, rather than transform it.

Indeed, the radicalization of Anglo-American political ideology represented by the rise of neoconservative principles and the militarization processes of the 'War on Terror', constituted a strategic response to global systemic crises supported by the American business classes. The same classes, recognizing the extent to which the Bush era has discredited this response, have rallied around Obama. Therefore, as global crises intensify, this militarization response is likely to undergo further radicalization, rather than a meaningful change in course. The key differences will be in language and method, not substance.

Obama and National Security: “It’s the Oil, Stupid!”

WASHINGTON -- The CIA's secret prisons are being shuttered. Harsh interrogation techniques are off-limits. And Guantanamo Bay will eventually go back to being a wind-swept naval base on the southeastern corner of Cuba.

But even while dismantling these discredited programs, President Barack Obama left an equally controversial counterterrorism tool intact.

Under executive orders issued by Obama last week, the CIA still has authority to carry out what are known as renditions, or the secret abductions and transfers of prisoners to countries that cooperate with the U.S.

By Dennis Loo
January 30, 2009
WorldCantWait.net

Attorney General nominee Eric Holder in written response to a question posed to him during his Senate confirmation hearing by Sen. Jon Kyl (R-AZ) stated:

"Prosecutorial and investigative judgments must depend on the facts, and no one is above the law. But where it is clear that a government agent has acted in 'reasonable and good-faith reliance on Justice Department legal opinions' authoritatively permitting his conduct, I would find it difficult to justify commencing a full-blown criminal investigation, let alone a prosecution."

Newsweek described this written statement as "carefully vetted by Obama's White House lawyers." In other words, Holder's statement fairly reflects Obama's and Holder's intentions in this regard.