|
The Paradise Perspective: Commentary from a Free and Compassionate Alternate Reality Volume 1, Number 33 Top Ten Reasons for a New 9/11 Investigation by Glen Allport Exclusive to STR Preface
for 2009 It
has been two years since this column was first published, and despite a
new Democratic administration and further scientific evidence
debunking the Official Conspiracy Theory, the situation is largely
unchanged. The United States is still occupying the nations of Iraq and
Afghanistan, causing an appalling number of civilian
deaths, creating resentment and hatred of the U.S. among the local
populations, making
the world a more dangerous place (according to three former CIA
agents) and further bankrupting Americans in the process. Domestically,
assaults continue on the rights and freedoms that America was once famous
for. The mainstream media (and many on the Internet) continue to
characterize those who sensibly disbelieve the Official Conspiracy Theory
as "conspiracy theorists" and "nutjobs"; the
ever-growing body of evidence against that official version of events
continues to be ignored, downplayed, and misrepresented. The "Big
Lie" theory espoused by Hitler has thus once again been proven
correct. Few Americans are willing to put up with the discomfort of seeing
things as they really are in this situation. Of
the "further scientific evidence" mentioned above, I will
highlight only one item: the finding, by an international team of
scientists, that a huge amount of high-tech nano-thermite was used in the
demolition of the World Trade Center buildings. The PDF of the study
published in The Open Chemical Physics Journal may be read here
(25 pages) and is highly recommended. Beyond the higher numbers of casualties for both U.S. troops and locals in the occupied areas, little in the column below would merit change. If you have not yet been willing to face the unpleasant truth of this situation, I encourage you to to do so. September 11, 2007 Introduction -
1 - Epic
Disaster and Failure All Around Six
years ago, on This
disaster should have been prevented, but was not. The people and
organizations charged with detecting and thwarting such an attack failed.
Warnings were in fact given, but as is typical of government action, even
the sincere efforts of dedicated individuals were not enough to prevent
the organization as a whole from failing, in this case with horrific
consequences. -
2 - Accountability Imagine
that a group of private firms had been in charge of defending Businesswoman
Martha Stewart
went to prison for five months merely
for lying to investigators about a stock trade. Any corporation, small
business, or other non-government organization responsible for the death
of even a single person through negligence
or failure of their product or service might well be taken to court,
and those at the top charged with negligent
homicide or other serious crime in regards the death. What on Earth
would we have done to people responsible for the incredible failures of
September 11 – if those
people had not been highly placed in our own government? Not
only have those responsible for this massive and deadly failure not been
held accountable, they have been allowed to use their own failure as a
blank check for staggering new police-state powers and for waging
aggressive war against Afghanistan and Iraq – two nations which had
neither attacked us nor even threatened to attack us, and which were in
fact incapable of realistically threatening the most powerful nation on
Earth. -
3 - Using
Grenades to Kill a Fly at a Dinner Party The
9/11 attacks were not an act of war by any nation's military, but instead
criminal acts committed (so the Official
Story goes) by a relatively small group of people headed by Osama bin
Laden. War was an entirely
inappropriate response to such attacks, and according to many authorities,
was illegal
under international law; see also here.
The wars (and the occupations in the aftermath of the wars) in It
bears repeating: In the process of hunting down a small band of attackers,
we have been responsible for nearly a million deaths and a staggering
number of wounded. Men, women and children have been torn apart by bullets
and bombs, burned alive, buried under rubble from their own homes or other
buildings, and killed in dozens of other ways. Over 1.5 million human
beings will bear the scars of these wars for life, and that isn't even
counting the cost in pain and emotional damage, which will impact future
generations as well. We
have also destroyed much of the infrastructure in two nations, doused wide
areas with thousands of tons of poisonous and radioactive depleted
uranium, and generally wreaked havoc and violence. No wonder millions
of Iraqis have already fled their homes and their nation. The London
Independent reports that perhaps 50,000 of these refugees, including
many who are "alarmingly young," have been forced into
prostitution in In
light of all that, one cannot be surprised that America's
standing in the world has suffered dramatically, with polls finding
that large majorities in most nations now believe It
seems almost petty to consider financial costs in light of so much death
and pain, but these wars will be a financial millstone around Despite
all that, we have failed to achieve our objectives. Indeed, we have made
our original problem worse. Osama bin Laden has not been captured and our
own intelligence agencies reported last September that the terror
threat has INCREASED because of our efforts. A
recent New
York Times/CBS News poll
found that a majority of Americans believe we "made a mistake getting
involved in the war in -
4 - Was
a Better Response Available? Our
Constitution, our history, and international law all suggest that our
response to the 9/11 attacks has been wrong and, once again, outright
criminal – even aside from our systematic violations of the Geneva
Conventions regarding torture. Furthermore, there exists a remedy that
would have likely succeeded at capturing, killing, or otherwise
neutralizing our enemies without causing all the needless death, destruction, and other
negative effects of our "Preemptive
War" approach. That
remedy, listed by name in Section
8 of the U.S. Constitution, is the use of letters of marque and
reprisal. Congressman (and now presidential candidate) Ron
Paul introduced the Marque
and Reprisal Act of 2001 to deal with the problem of the 9/11 attacks
by specifically targeting only
the people responsible, rather than going to war with nations that had not
attacked us. Early administrations in -
5 - About
the List, and an Omission I
have limited the list below to items I find personally compelling. I have
also put aside several well-known reasons for concern about the official
9/11 story because of widespread and heated disagreement over their
meaning. That does not mean the listed items are uncontroversial; nearly everything related to September 11 is controversial. The
most obvious omission is the collapse of the three buildings at Ground
Zero in Amazingly,
the idea that all three of these buildings – one of which was not
hit by a plane – would collapse in precisely this way without
demolition charges or other covert assistance is controversial. That does
not mean the matter is settled; it is not
settled, and the fact and manner of these building collapses remain
important reasons to suspect foul play on the part of some person or
persons in addition to the hijackers. But given that expert opinion is
divided on the topic and that the WTC building collapses are already the
subject of more discussion than perhaps any other element of the 9/11
story, I have left this very large concern off my list. Still,
the collapse of those towers is worth a moment's reflection. Note that the
first steel-framed skyscraper dates to 1885, so we have 122
years of real-world data to draw upon. How
many other steel-framed buildings (skyscrapers, not utility buildings or
smaller structures without protective insulation around the steel) have
collapsed from fire in those 122 years? Once
again: none that I know of. Certainly not the Empire
State Building, which was hit by a B-25 bomber in 1945 – and which
sustained a substantial fire as a result. The building still stands today. In
No
collapse, though. In
2004, a
high-rise in Caracas burned, suffering severe damage to the top 22
stories. Here again, no collapse. The
only near-example I could find was of the Windsor
Building in 2005, which was steel-reinforced concrete rather than
steel-framed, and which collapsed only in part and in stages (see also here).
What happened was nothing like the near freefall collapse of all three WTC
buildings on 9/11. Those
who insist the three buildings at ground zero collapsed because of fire
may be right, but so much suggests otherwise that a careful, independent,
and unbiased investigation seems an obvious necessity. Unfortunately, much
of the relevant evidence was quickly destroyed – but I am getting ahead
of myself. (For a level-headed recap of major concerns about the WTC
events, consider Why
Did the Trade Center Skyscrapers Collapse? by Morgan Reynolds; for a
reminder that the WTC buildings may indeed have collapsed from the fires,
click here
for a recent story about a Berkeley professor's study which supports that
position, although few details are yet available). -
- - - - The
List Top
Ten Reasons for a New Investigation of 9/11 10)
The Project for a New American Century
This
group of neo-cons, including several in the Bush Administration, made it
clear years before 9/11 that "a
new Pearl Harbor" would be necessary to rally public opinion
around their violent plans for taking over the When
those who benefit from a crime have expressed a desire and claimed a
"need" for that crime beforehand, it is natural and realistic to
consider them as possible suspects in the crime. This is surely one reason
that, according to a Scripps
Howard/Ohio University poll last year, "Thirty-six percent of
respondents overall said it is 'very likely' or 'somewhat likely' that
federal officials either participated in the attacks on the World Trade
Center and the Pentagon or took no action to stop them 'because they
wanted the United States to go to war in the Middle East.'" Other
polls (see here,
here,
and here) have
found much higher percentages (as much as 90%) who believe the 9/11
attacks were orchestrated or covered up in some fashion by the U.S.
government – an opinion shared by many overseas, by the majority of New
Yorkers, by many NY police and firefighters, and by numerous scientists
and academics. 9)
$2.3 Trillion went MISSING from the Pentagon before The
day before the terror attacks of 9/11/2001, Donald Rumsfeld said the
Pentagon could not track how 25% of its entire budget is spent; at the
time, he said the Defense Department was missing
$2.3 trillion dollars (link is to a CBS "Eye on America"
report by Vince Gonzalez; highly recommended). A
trillion is a thousand billion, and a billion is a thousand million. Can
that much money actually be misplaced? Even if $100 billion was lost and
another $100 billion stolen, that leaves $2.1 trillion to account for – plus
whatever is unaccounted for since 2001. One can be certain those trillions
were spent on something, by
somebody – officially accounted for or not. And yes: it does seem
suspicious that the Pentagon "lost" such an ocean of money in
the few years leading up to the 9/11 events. At the very least, those
trillions could have bought a more effective defense for 8)
Our defense system – the most expensive on Earth – was useless, yet
those responsible were not held accountable Have
those responsible for the failure to detect, prevent, or even respond
appropriately at the time to the attacks been fired, hauled into court,
charged with anything, fined, or otherwise inconvenienced? No. The entire
defense and intelligence community has a single legitimate function: to
protect the people of this nation from attack. The
system failed, thousands died, and yet no one has been held accountable. The
government running this protection racket has shown no interest in getting
to the bottom of why such a failure happened and in punishing or at least
replacing those responsible for the failure. Bush
actually opposed an investigation into the intelligence failures
leading to events of 9/11 (as
did others in the administration). Why? 7)
Foreknowledge: Relevant intelligence was ignored and insiders were warned There
are many reasons for believing that hard-won intelligence and outright
warnings were ignored; see here,
here, and here
for examples. Again, the question is: why? Alleged
insider trading and other stock market action
prior to 9/11 is another reason to suspect foreknowledge of the attacks.
This topic was reported in the major media briefly and then fell off the
mainstream radar. Still another reason for suspicion is that many among
the power elite were apparently warned
shortly before 9/11 not to fly on that date. 6)
President Bush continued reading The Pet Goat to children instead
of being whisked to safety or doing his job Here
is the Wikipedia
article on the topic, including links to video of the President's
reaction to the news that There
are at least two issues here: first, Bush was at a publicly-scheduled
event and thus attackers could easily have known his location. One would
have expected the Secret Service to have immediately removed the President
to safety upon learning that the nation was under attack. We have all seen
the Secret Service spring into action to protect a President (when Reagan
was shot, for example), and while Bush was not near the hostile actions
occurring in the north, there was
no way to know what other hostile actions might have been planned
or in progress. Besides, one would hope the President would have more
important things to attend to after learning that Americans were dying in
unprecedented attacks on their home soil. But
if the attacks were expected, then everything changes. In that case, Bush
and his Secret Service detail would have known he was in no danger and
that he had nothing important to be doing right then. This isn't
courtroom-level proof of anything; as I said above, these 10 points are
ones I find personally compelling. It could just be that everyone was in
shock and not thinking clearly. The
second reason for listing this point is subjective. Watch the video of
Bush in the minutes after he is told that an attack is in progress (here's
a copy, hosted at The Memory Hole website), and, well – see what you
see. 5)
Passports fluttering down from the WTC You've
seen video (and may have seen live coverage at the time) of the airliners
slamming into the towers of the And
you were right! Almost nothing else
survived the crash and fire (in any of the four airliner tragedies that
day) – massive steel-framed skyscrapers were brought down by the fire,
we are told – but one thing did survive: a
passport from one of the hijackers. In fact, not
one but TWO passports, both in fine condition, were recovered near the
scene, and – proving that miracles do happen – both
were from evildoers. All
by itself, this is enough to prove – beyond anything I would consider
reasonable doubt – that we are not getting an honest and accurate
accounting of the day's events. This seemingly minor detail is a mistake
of such magnitude that it calls the entire Official Story into doubt. 4)
Huge airliner vanishes at Pentagon; no bodies, no debris to speak of –
no plane! Take
a look for yourself:
see an airliner? For
that matter, can you spot the plane at the Flight
93 crash site? Me neither. See also here.
Some
experts say this is to be expected; for example, flight 93 just sort of
embedded itself in the ground, which "liquefied"
when hit. As
soon as excavation is started and both the plane and the passenger bodies
are found under the ground, I'll consider such an explanation at least
slightly plausible. In
the meantime, it is worth knowing that several on-the-scene observers saw
the same thing YOU see in the photos and video: basically, nothing – no
airliner or any suggestion that an airliner had been there. You can read
Dr. Karen Kwiatkowski's report of her experience at the Pentagon right
after the impact, here,
along with 9/11-related reports and comments from many other military
people, active and retired (and on other pages at the site, from people in
other fields). The site, http://www.patriotsquestion911.com/,
offers commentary from a claimed: 110+
Senior Military, Intelligence Service, Law Enforcement, and Government
Officials 200+
Engineers and Architects
50+
Pilots and Aviation Professionals
150+
Professors Question 9/11
190+
9/11 Survivors and Family Members
90+
Entertainment and Media Professionals This
is an excellent resource. I
urge you to visit http://www.patriotsquestion911.com/;
you will find enough material to keep you busy for days. The Official
Story about 9/11 does not stand up well to the observations and commentary
presented by the hundreds of very credible people at this site. 3)
FBI immediately confiscated video of Pentagon event Why
on Earth was video from a gas station across from the Pentagon taken
into custody and kept from the pubic, and for that matter how did the
FBI manage to get to the gas station "within minutes" after the
impact? This
point not only goes with #4 above: I list it because there is clearly no
legitimate "national security" reason for keeping this video
from the public for even a single day. We have all seen airliners; nothing
top-secret is involved. Unless
we are being lied to, of course. 2)
Obstruction of justice and tampering with evidence If
there is one thing even a child knows about crime scenes, it is that you
don't mess with the evidence. This point is constantly hammered home
in television shows and movies, and in fact tampering
with evidence is a serious crime [use menu box at link and scroll down
to "tampering"]. Evidence tampering is a felony that you, as a
mere citizen, might actually go to prison for. Yet
most of the steel in the collapsed Darn.
Wouldn't it be nice to have the actual steel handy for testing? The
steel beams from the WTC towers are only the most well-known examples of
9/11 evidence being destroyed or tampered with. 1)
Use of 9/11 to enable tyranny Covert
attacks on one's homeland or on one's military abroad – blamed on
foreigners or other enemies – have been used repeatedly in history to
rally citizen support for war and tyranny. These are called false
flag attacks. Hitler
used the Reichstag
fire to create the dictatorial Nazi state, beginning with the Reichstag
Fire Decree and then the Enabling
Act. Many believe that the Nazis set the fire themselves for this
purpose, but the tactic works even when an actual enemy makes the attack.
Perhaps the Communists really did set the fire as the Nazis claimed;
either way, Hitler was able to use the fire to gather dictatorial powers,
eliminating basic rights for German citizens – who were told, naturally,
that this was all for their own protection. Eventually, Hitler's National
Socialist regime murdered millions of Germans and millions of foreigners,
and caused the indirect death of millions more. Giving up freedom for
protection did not work well for the Germans. It never does. It
is known that in 1962, the Was
9/11 a set of false flag attacks, designed to help the Bush administration
gain police-state powers and to create support for aggressive war in the That
is certainly possible. Bush was planning to attack both
Afghanistan
and Iraq
before 9/11, and he attacked Either
way, the 9/11 attacks have been used, very successfully, as cover for
tyranny and aggressive war. Consider the passage of blatantly
unconstitutional laws including the Patriot
Act and the Military
Commissions Act of 2006, both of which illegally strip Americans of
rights enshrined in the Constitution and in common law (although the
second of those Acts is aimed primarily at non-citizens, Americans
are also jeopardized by the Act directly, as almost
any citizen can be declared an “enemy
combatant”). Consider the widely-discussed and illegal use of torture
by the This
has all been incredibly profitable for the military-industrial complex and
for many in the power elite. None of it would have been possible without
an enabling event – a "new 9/11
was that event. Whether
the 9/11 attacks were actually instigated, financed, and planned by a
small group of distant Arabs living in caves, or whether some other
explanation is nearer the truth, one thing cannot be disputed and must not
be missed: Americans have allowed
those attacks to be used against themselves. Our rights are gone, our
money is gone, our respect among other nations is gone, many of our sons
and daughters are dead, and things look even bleaker for the next
generation, which is inheriting quagmires that we cannot manage or pay for
even today, but may be with us for decades. The likely response by future
administrations to public unrest over these matters will be to clamp down
even more, which the Bush administration's enabling legislation will
greatly facilitate. The
9/11 attacks have been used to destroy And
that is the number one reason
for a new, independent, unbiased investigation into the events of Glen Allport co-authored The User's Guide to OS/2 and is the author of The Paradise Paradigm: On Creating A World of Compassion, Freedom, and Prosperity. He maintains paradise-paradigm.net.
|
